ave Hagen – writer/director of an upcoming documentary about far too much money in American politics – believes the American people haven’t yet experienced the feeling that they “don’t want this situation to continue”. Because U.S. citizens haven’t reached a tipping point in that regard, large numbers have become apathetic politically, with the 2014 mid-term elections registering the lowest voter turnout in decades. In the meantime, the upcoming 2016 election cycle will probably become the election where more money becomes spent than ever before in history.
As a guest on “Buzz Saw” with Sean Stone, Dave Hagen talks about his film “Under the Influen$e” about money’s immense presence in elections, so he and the film’s participants are doing something to get money out of the political system, end apathy, and transform conditions which have led to corporations (literally) running the United States House of Representatives and Senate. Hundreds of organizations in America, and thousands around the Earth, are making similar efforts to reverse the global trend toward increasing centralization of political and financial power, and the time is right for men and women concerned about restoring democracy to renew focus on wiser organized campaigns aiming at necessary changes, entrance into races at all levels of elective office, and other plausible, effective forms of political action – with simultaneous intensification of efforts.
More than enough men and women in America and around the Earth have become aware of what is wrong in societies and nations in the year 2015; the “tipping point”/critical mass was met some time ago . The problems haven’t been mentioned/covered nearly enough, if at all, by the corporate news media, but millions who get their news from the internet have become reminded of major problems needing serious address again and again. In other words, everybody knows what the critical problems are; all too well, like the back of one’s hands. For serious and concerned men and women the time for endless repetition in describing and re-acknowledging the problems humanity faces is best perceived as over. How many more times must people use valuable time and effort continuing to rehash/cover facts that nearly everyone paying attention is already clearly aware of?
The cases have been more than sufficiently made. Now is the time for turning the page and getting to real solutions. Now is the time for graduated, next-level, powerful global action.
ournalist and author Alison Weir traveled for the first time to Iran recently and sat down for an interview on Press TV’s “Face to Face”. Most men and women who come this way know who Ms. Weir is and the focus of her writings and talks. Back in the year 2000, she was a journalist at a small midwest American newspaper when she started researching the Israel-Palestine conflict and its history. Before starting that research she admits to having no knowledge of the political philosophy called Zionism, the decades-old power of the Israeli lobby over American politicians, and that American policy in the Middle East is driven primarily by Israel interests – at the expense of an independent US foreign policy.
Her impression of life in Iran is one of normal people enjoying time with their families with interesting cultural differences – as opposed to media-suggested visions of people living under oppressive, sad, and miserable conditions due, as the false narrative goes, to the authoritarian government there. Ms. Weir has found that American corporate media has for decades portrayed nations in the Middle East differently depending on the nation’s good or bad relations with Israel. She names CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, who has close personal ties with Israeli institutions, as an example of how media bias toward Israel enters the homes of unsuspecting Americans. She recently called out political commentator David Brooks, a regular on National Public Radio, for failing to disclose to listeners and readers that his son served in the Israel Defense Force.
So, the corporate American media has historically, and remains, heavily biased toward Israel, where any man or woman broadcasting/journalism professional who speaks out critically against Israeli policy – especially the apartheid conditions Palestinians have suffered under for over 60 years, or Israeli violations of international law and war crimes – most certainly faces termination. Corporate media’s tremendous Israel bias is surely something Americans have only recently begun to learn about, due in no small part to the internet and alternative media, but Alison Weir sees it as positive that awareness is increasing.
Media Israel-bias is a disturbing reality given the large percentage of Americans who remain unaware of the power to manipulate public opinion – especially with regard to United States military actions in the Middle East. Perhaps even more disturbing is the power and influence on the American political system wielded for decades by Israel lobbies such as AIPAC – the largest Israel lobby of them all. What Alison Weir has discovered through her years of intense independent research is that elected representatives in Congress, “even knowing their votes are against American interests”, know that if they vote otherwise that Israel lobbies will direct huge sums of money to opposition candidates in the next election – virtually guaranteeing their defeat and exit from office.
The points at which she became most shocked were when she learned the degree to which a foreign country is determining US policy, the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty – and the attack’s coverup, and the history of the Israel-US “special relationship”. Political Zionism has influenced US government policies since the late 1800’s until today, and has caused great damage to the reputation of the United States as well as tragedies for the world – namely wars of aggression in the Middle East. Ms. Weir notes that most Americans are anti-interventionist and against wars of aggression but have succumbed, unfortunately, to manipulations of their perceptions by 1) making people fearful, under the pretense of “self-defense”, and 2) selling war through messaging altruistic concepts such as “we are helping these people… making their lives better”, and so on.
Toward the end of the interview, Alison Weir said:
“I expect and want this change to occur in my lifetime, and I’m not young. But… it might not. I think in the end, basically, often the struggle is the force of good against the forces of evil – good people opposing people that are not good, and I think in the end many of us believe that good will win. It might take a long time, but that’s a more powerful part of the world and the universe, and that will win.”
“But I think it, you know, I think America is very changeable. We’ve seen change in bad ways but we’ve also seen a change in good ways in the course of my lifetime. There’ve been many changes in our society, and I think this change will come. It might come sooner than people think, you never know if it might, suddenly, something might seem like a sudden change. It won’t be a sudden change because many people have been working toward it for a long time, but it may seem sudden.”
“I’m optimistic. I think we’re going to see America go back in many ways to its best nature, and I think we’re going to see the policies of supporting Israel and of these aggressive wars in the Middle East stop. I don’t know how soon, but I think that’s going to happen.”
Alison Weir’s book “Against Our Better Judgment” is available on Amazon. Besides using the “Look Inside” feature for reading a sample of the book, there have been hundreds of reviews and comments at the page which provide an education in itself. It was interesting to find that one commenter, critical of the book, was found in virtually every review comment section – repeatedly. Many know this activity of going online to manipulate public perceptions as trolling – in the case of Israel the term is hasbara.
Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms.. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
This blog is devoted to legal, historical and human rights matters, in which issues of general concern are addressed freely and spontaneously. It is intended to further an informal exchange of views in the democratic spirit of freedom of opinion and respect for the opinions of others, in an effort to understand rather than condemn, to propose constructive solutions rather than grandstand. The perspective is both from inside and outside the box and the added value lies more in the questions than in the answers.
ave Hagen – writer/director of an upcoming documentary about far too much money in American politics – believes the American people haven’t yet experienced the feeling that they “don’t want this situation to continue”. Because U.S. citizens haven’t reached a tipping point in that regard, large numbers have become apathetic politically, with the 2014 mid-term elections registering the lowest voter turnout in decades. In the meantime, the upcoming 2016 election cycle will probably become the election where more money becomes spent than ever before in history.
THE ONENESS of HUMANITY 