Come Meet Meg Daly Heap
Candidate for District Attorney
Thursday, August 2 5:30-7:30
Azalea Room-The Plantation Club at the Landings
Meg Heap, former Chief Assistant DA with 18 year of prosecutorial experience.
Hosted by:
Leanne Aldridge, Catherine Bowman, Byron Colley, Tres & Libby Cook, Mill Fleming, Richard & Janet Geriner, Doug Giorgio III, Brad & Kristin Goodman, Wade Herring, Eric Johnson, Hon. Shawn Kachmar, Dennis Keene, Lowell & Hillary Kronowitz, Scott & Louise Lauretti, Jerry Loupee, Herb McKenzie, Pat O'Connor, Russ Peterson, Bob Schivera, John & Sherri Spellman, Rex & Dee Ann Templeton
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Where
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Azalea Room, Plantation Club @ The Landings
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When
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Thursday, August 2, 2012 5:30-7:30
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RSVP
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RSVP 912-598-1834
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Cost
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Suggested (but not required) Contribution - $100.00
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An article about my father from a very dear friend. (See 1 below.)
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This from a very dear friend and fellow memo reader.
More green dollars down the drain. Enough to clog them by now? You decide. (See 2 below.)
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This from another very dear friend and fellow memo reader. (See 3 below.)
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A little humor never hurts: "Two guys are drinking in a bar.
One says, "Did you know that Lions have sex 10 to 15 times a night?"
"BUGGER !" says his friend.
"And I just joined Rotary....."
And then,You may remember Steve Bridges as the guy who imitated George
Bush so well on the Jay Leno Show. He has now started imitating
Obama and REALLY does it really well. The Administration has tried
to put a stop to Bridges' act, because Obama has made it known
that he is deeply offended. Yes, he's that good.......
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Can the left continue to scare Jews into voting for them?
(See 4 below.)
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Dick
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Coalition: Combination or alliance, especially a temporary one between persons, factions, states, etc., for joint action or to achieve a common purpose.
 Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made, wrote Kant. The jagged history of coalitions in Birmingham bears out the truth of this observation. It also speaks to the city’s history of difficulties and triumphs.
Its reputation as a bastion of hardline segregation notwithstanding, Birmingham’s social and political atmosphere was complex. Segregationists dominated, but reform efforts surged periodically.
These efforts were driven by a series of coalitions that formed and re-formed over the years, with memberships that shifted depending on the issue at hand. Collectively, they rejected the Ku Klux Klan and promoted substantive interracial initiatives, civil service reforms, and reapportionment of the Alabama Legislature.
Even at times when progressives seemed to be getting a foothold, however, the specter of racism loomed. In fact, it seemed to be ingrained in Birmingham’s civic DNA.
Less than 80 years old in 1948, Birmingham had no traditions. When it was founded nearly seven years after the Civil War ended, all of its citizens were immigrants, arriving from various areas of the nation and world and from all walks of life. They came to work in the quarries, mines, mills and foundries — dangerous, hot and dirty work — and also to buy and sell goods and services. There were northerners, southerners and freed slaves. There were Italians and Greeks, Lebanese and Irish. There were Catholics and Protestants and Jews. Some came with money; most came without. Informal but strict lines of social relations were established.
In the late 1940s, the Klan seemingly was free to act at will, intimidation and violence their methods of choice. Life magazine photo from 1946.
Birmingham’s black citizens were the object of societal restrictions and justice unevenly administered. Many found themselves newly enslaved by the system of convict leasing that kept the price of labor low. A frequent ploy was to arrest blacks for vagrancy. This provided a steady flow of prisoners, available for lease by towns and counties to, among others, mining companies, iron mills and farms. It was an important source of municipal revenue; as Alabama’s prison inspector, W.H. Oates, wrote in 1922, “Our jails are money making machines.”
The year after Oates penned his glowing assessment of the profitability of Alabama’s prison system, a coalition formed to oppose convict leasing. From its headquarters in Birmingham’s Hillman Hotel, the Statewide Campaign Committee for the Abolition of the Convict Contract System adopted the slogan, “A matter of mercy — not a mercenary matter,” and published a 15-page pamphlet that offered “facts, figures [and] possible remedies” under the title, Let’s Get Rid of Alabama’s Shame. It would not be until 1928, however, that Alabama outlawed the practice — the last state in the Union to do so.
The Great Depression and World War II required different kinds of coalitions, devoted to surviving economic catastrophe and thwarting the threat to democracy around the globe. Of course, that did not mean that blacks in Birmingham— as well as Jews and other ethnic groups — did not continue to be subjected to discrimination, official and otherwise.
Birmingham was laid as low by the Depression as any city in the country, but World War II rejuvenated its economy. With its factories retooled for wartime production, Birmingham was one of the nation’s leading producers of airplanes, ordnance and other military goods. Unfortunately, with the opportunity for economic expansion and social progress in hand, the leaders of the city dug in their heels against change, especially where race relations were concerned.
If depression and war moved Jim Crow and segregation into the background, it didn’t take long once the war was over to reappear. With them came a renewed need for ad hoc coalitions to work toward equality and justice.
At Camp Fletcher: “White robes and pointed hoods…”
One of those coalitions, seldom noted in histories of the era, was Citizens Against Mobism (CAM), founded in 1949 to directly challenge the postwar resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.
In the years leading up to that, the KKK had been responsible for a random series of attacks against unionized miners and black citizens, including some who were veterans of the recent war.
Prior to its Camp Fletcher raid, the Klan seemed unopposed, but it was apparent these “gallant knights” — as a local cartoonist labeled them sarcastically — had overreached.
CAM was formed both as a response to such events in general and as the result of a particular occurrence that took place in June 1948, when Klan members terrorized a bi-racial group of counselors at a Girl Scout camp in western Jefferson County.
Located near Bessemer, the camp bore the name of Pauline Bray Fletcher (1898-1970), the first black registered nurse in Alabama. Fletcher — who is memorialized by a marker located at the southwest corner of Kelly Ingram Park in downtown Birmingham — founded the camp in the 1920s as a convalescent retreat for black women and children (today, it is operated by the Central Alabama Council of Camp Fire USA).
The night raid on the camp came about when the Klan got word that two white counselors from Memphis were at Camp Fletcher conducting training for several volunteer leaders of the local black Girl Scout chapter. The local chapter had recently been founded by Mildred Johnson, whose husband, R.C. Johnson, was the longtime principal of Birmingham’s A.H. Parker High School, and whose daughter, Alma, would later become the wife of a young Army officer named Colin Powell. Mrs. Johnson was one of the counselors confronted by Klansmen.
[The women] were awakened in their tent by a group of white-robed, hooded men entering the tent, read a report of the incident prepared by Katrine Nickel, a Girl Scout staff member who was present at the camp during the incident. Six or eight of the men entered the tent while others, at least four, remained immediately outside. All were dressed in uniforms consisting of white robes and pointed hoods which fell to their shoulders forming a complete mask…
The spokesman for the group, a large, probable middle-aged man wearing glasses and speaking in gruff tones demanded that the two white instructors leave the camp within twenty-four hours. He shouted, “White women have no business living in a Negro camp. We don’t like it and the people around here don’t like it. We mean to see that our orders are carried out. Do you understand?”
Twelve days after the incident, the Klan issued its own report, detailing the circumstances that prompted their raid. It was written by William Hugh Morris, who later became a point of contact within the Klan for Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor. As Morris described the situation,
…first three and later two white women were living within the confines of said camp on equal basis with Negro women, eating at the same table with and at the same time that the Negro women ate. Using the same toilet facilities with and at the same time the Negro women did. Visiting the white merchants of the locality to make purchases and telephone calls arm in arm with Negro women, calling them by their first names and in turn being called by their first names; and in other ways and physical embraces and contacts becoming the said Negro women’s social equals…
We feel that this report would be incomplete without the following observation….Having been actively engaged in a movement dedicated to the active maintenance of white supremacy, the preservation of the customs and traditions of our southern way of life, we have found with the exception of a very small minority of radical communists and a very few theorizing intellectuals, a vast majority of the responsible people actively opposed to any and all attempts to bridge the chasm that has separated the races since the beginning of time.
A coalition emerges
The year 1948 was ripe for strife. President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the U.S. military. He also expanded his civil rights agenda to include housing, employment and public accommodations.
 Breaking with Truman and the national Democratic Party, Southern politicians and “states’ rights” activists formed the Dixiecrat Party. Meeting that July — a month after the Camp Fletcher incident — at Birmingham’s Municipal (now Boutwell) Auditorium, the breakaway party nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond for President.
A host of prominent Alabama business and political leaders — many with names familiar to students of Alabama and Birmingham history; Comer, Graves, Smyer, Samford — jumped on the states’ rights bandwagon, railing publicly and privately against Truman’s progressive platform.
Meanwhile, the Klan seemingly was free to act at will, intimidation and violence their methods of choice. Law enforcement, rife itself with officers who also were Klansmen, had little interest in interfering with them.
The front page of the Birmingham Post on Tuesday, June 15, 1948, was a harbinger of struggles to come in Birmingham. A quartet of headlines: “Negroes Ask ‘Protection Against Klan.” “Inquiry into Hooded Raid Demanded.” “Bolters Say They’ll Press Truman Fight.” “Girl Scout Camp to Reopen July 5.”
Prior to its raid on Camp Fletcher, the Klan had been riding unopposed. But it would soon become apparent that these “gallant knights” — as a local newspaper cartoonist labeled them sarcastically — had overreached.
Public reaction against the KKK was swift, led by a pointed and demanding letter written by attorney Abe Berkowitz and published in the Birmingham News. In the letter, Berkowitz demanded that Alabama Attorney General Albert A. Carmichael take steps to revoke the Klan’s state charter. He also offered his legal services free of charge to “the young ladies who were so threatened, maltreated and abused,” stated the opinion that any member of the Birmingham Bar Association would do the same, and said that he was “further confident that any member of the Bar will, on request, gladly render to any citizen of this community, Negro or white, Jew, Protestant or Catholic, his services as an attorney and his aid as a private citizen in connection with any threat or intimidation of him by the Klan or any group…”
I do not propose to rest with this simple letter, Berkowitz advised. I intend to keep on writing these letters so long and as often as you will receive and print them.
Berkowitz also submitted to the Birmingham City Commission eight proposed ordinances designed to rein in the Klan, centered on an “anti-masking” measure. The response of City Attorney James Willis was predictable, as he refused to draw a distinction between the terroristic activities of the Klan and revelers at Mardi Gras or trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
[S]ince hooding and masking, in and of itself, is not evil or wrongful, wrote Willis, the City Commission might deem it to be improper, if not tyrannical, to adopt any of the proposed measures.
Others saw it differently. At its regular meeting on the Monday after Berkowitz’s letter appeared in the News, the Young Men’s Business Club adopted a statement on the Camp Fletcher raid. The YMBC membership “feels that the episode is not only a blow to interracial relations, but a challenge to all the forces of law and order in Jefferson County which must be met squarely and vigorously,” the statement read.
Within weeks, other professional, civic, social and religious organizations picked up the banner. The corporate community and labor unions lagged, but also ultimately joined the effort. Methodist and Baptist ministers’ associations. Women’s organizations. The Birmingham Roundtable of Christians and Jews. The board of the Community Chest (the forerunner of today’s Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham). The Jefferson County Coordinating Council of Social Forces, which branded the incident at Camp Fletcher “a brazen act of bigotry.”
Thus was born the coalition that would become Citizens Against Mobism. The coalition might not have held together, however, without the persistence of the Girl Scout organization, both locally and nationally. The Community Chest, for example, had initially rebuffed the Girl Scouts’ demands for action, saying it was “a Girl Scout problem, a disappointment.” With local law enforcement offering no recourse, the Birmingham office of the FBI declined to investigate the incident, saying that no federal law had been violated.
In the face of such demurrals, the Girl Scouts persevered. The director of Girl Scouts of the USA wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark, asking that he order the FBI to investigate “on the grounds of unlawful entry and search,” and that, “if possible, members of the masked and white robed group be identified and brought to justice.” Keeping the pressure on, the Girl Scouts released subsequent statements over the following weeks and months.
Meanwhile, news of the incident resounded in headlines across the country. From the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, “Klansmen Threaten Girl Scout Camp.” From the hometown newspaper of the two white counselors at Camp Fletcher, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, “Memphian tells of night raid on Negro Camp by Hooded Men.” From the Milwaukee Journal, “Alabama at its Worst.”
In Birmingham all of the major papers — the News, the Post, the Age-Herald and the black-owned World — continued to follow the story and publish editorials denouncing the Klan. Their coverage kept the events fresh in the local mind and helped raise awareness and support of the emerging coalition.
A new understanding — and a step forward
As CAM formally began working for anti-masking legislation and other measures, it was aided by the American Legion, which took the lead organizing veterans’ groups against the Klan.
Alabama Gov. James "Big Jim" Folsom, who had advocated the passage of a state anti-masking law, signed the bill into law in June 1949..
The General Gorgas Post #1 in Birmingham — then chaired by insurance executive Marvin Warner, later appointed as U.S. ambassador to Switzerland by President Jimmy Carter — worked diligently to lobby for governmental action on the state and federal levels. The Legion also posted a $3,000 reward for the information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of the Camp Fletcher raid.
Help also came from private citizens. A petition signed by more than 300 people, protesting “an outbreak of mob violence in our community” was submitted to Birmingham Mayor Cooper Green by business leader Frank Yielding.
Outcry or not, in the absence of law enforcement, the Klan saw no reason not to continue its activities. But the wheels had been set in motion by their raid on the Girl Scout camp. Especially after the Dixiecrats failed to prevent Truman’s re-election in the fall of 1948, the prominent Alabamians who had supported the splinter party and turned a blind eye to the terrorism of the Klan came to a new understanding. The KKK was not only a threat to its victims, but its continued campaign of violence and intimidation would likely invite the active intervention of the federal government in local affairs.
Prodding Alabama further was the United States Government, responding to continued pressure from the Girl Scouts organization and other groups. Rep. William Byrne (D-NY) chaired a House subcommittee that opened an inquiry into Klan violence in Alabama, despite a call from Alabama Congressman to “leave Alabama alone.” Attorney General Clark ordered the FBI to begin investigating the KKK as well.
Paralleling the movement of the federal government, State Senator Henry Holman Mize of Tuscaloosa introduced an anti-masking bill in the 1949 session of the Alabama Legislature. Mize told the state’s newspapers that he was prompted to sponsor the legislation by the “attack made on Girl Scouts” in Jefferson County. The bill passed overwhelmingly, making it a misdemeanor to appear in public wearing a mask, punishable by a $500 fine or a year in jail (with exemptions for Halloween, Mardi Gras and other such festive occasions). Governor James E. Folsom, who also had advocated its passage, signed it into law in June 1949.
The aftermath: Missed opportunities
Days after the anti-masking law was enacted, Jefferson County Judge Robert J. Wheeler ordered a grand jury investigation of “a wave of lawlessness” that included the incident at Camp Fletcher. The grand jury would issue indictments of 17 suspected Klansmen; none would be convicted of any crime. The names of several of those indicted in 1949 would resurface in the Civil Rights violence of the 1960s, including William Hugh Morris, who wrote the Klan “report” on the raid of the Girl Scouts, and Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss, who would be convicted in 1977 of the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church.
The same week as Wheeler’s order to the grand jury, the Birmingham News published a story under the headline, “People Speak: Violence, Flogging, Terrorism must be wiped out.” In the article, local citizens expressed their outrage at the Klan violence and the damage it did to the national image of Birmingham. Some of these names would resurface in the 1960s as well, as targets of both threats from the Klan and other segregationist groups and boycotts by Civil Rights groups. The irony of these and other moderate-to-progressive citizens being “caught in the middle” of the Civil Rights struggle should not escape historical examination.
The impulse for racial reform in Birmingham — and the coalition that had driven the successful push for anti-Klan laws in Alabama — soon became submerged in the tide of Southern resistance to integration. That tide rose largely in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision in 1954, as Southern politicians and the state’s “Big Mule” business leaders continued to fear federal intervention in Alabama’s affairs.
Another wave of progressivism in Birmingham had crested. It would not be until the early 1960s that a new coalition formed to help bring about changes in government and race relations in Birmingham. The opportunities that had been lost in the intervening years were — and remain — incalculable.
Solomon P. Kimerling is a businessman, philanthropist, historian and proud native of Birmingham. He and Pamela Sterne King authored the Weld series “No More Bull: Birmingham’s Revolution at the Ballot Box," which will be published in monthly installments. The series will be alternately authored by Kimerling and UAB historian Pamela Sterne King.
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2) Here's the result of the government using our tax dollars to choose winners
and losers....rather than allowing the marketplace to do its job.......and a
list of 11 additional projects that have failed:
C----
> Strike 12...another FAILED Green Energy Program
>
>
>
> Today as noted in the Washington Times newpaper, the Green Energy company
>
> NEVADA GEOTHERMAL Power Co. had shut its door & declared bankruptcy.
>
>
>
> This after it was subsidized with $98 Million in Obama Stimulus money
>
> supporting "green projects".
>
>
>
> This is number 12.
>
>
>
> Here's the other 11 if you're interested:
>
> (NOT LISTED IN $$$)
>
>
>
> 11. as reported on CNSnews.com <http://cnsnews.com/> - SOLAR & WIND Co.
>
> $98 Million - bankrupt.
>
>
>
> 10. Abound Solar Inc. $400 Million - bankrupt.
>
>
>
> 9. Lean Green Fuels Co. $9.2 Million - bankrupt.
>
>
>
> 8. 123Energy Co. $250 Million - bankrupt.
>
>
>
> 7. Solar Trust of America 2.1 TRILLION (yes TRILLION). Filed for
> bankruptcy
>
> in May 2012.
>
>
>
> 6. First Solar $17.3 Million. GET THIS...their first & only
>
> customer.....FIRST SOLAR. Bankrupt!
>
>
>
> 5. GM Chevy Volt. Production stopped due to lack of sales. Unknown how
>
> much GM recieved. ($15 Billion loss so far, if all the stock the US has in
> GM was sold today ANOTHER $16 Billion loss would be recognized.)
>
>
>
> 4. Evergreen Technologies. $328 Million. Bankrupt.
>
>
>
> 3. Fisker Technologies. $1.28 Trillion. Took money to Sweden to develop
>
> product. Car failed...Fisker decided NOT to bring
>
> jobs & technology (didn't exist) back to U.S.
>
>
>
> 2. NexGen Co. $380 Million. Bankrupt.
>
>
>
> & #1 Solyndra $580M. Bankrupt.
>
>
>
> THIS IS ALL TAXPAYER FUNDED. WHEN WILL THIS FRAUD STOP.
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3)Israel's Oil Weapon
By Gene Schwimmer
Seemingly out of nowhere, geopolitics have been all but turned upside
down in the Middle East, thanks to the discovery of massive energy
resources in Israeli territory. As a nascent Oil Power, the Jewish
State is only beginning to contemplate the new dynamics of influence
available to it.
The world knows Vladimir Putin as President of Russia; however, to
Putin's official title, allow me to suggest a second appellation,
unofficial, but no less descriptive: Israel's New Best Friend. Until
recently, one could characterize Russia's position vis-à-vis Israel
as, at best ambivalent: cordial relations with Jerusalem on the one
hand, while supplying weapons, nuclear technology and other assistance
to her enemies on the other.
But Putin's late June visit to Israel signaled, and was meant to
signal, a sea-change in Russia-Israel relations -- "sea" as in
Mediterranean sea, where in 2009, 50 miles off the Israeli coast,
geologists discovered "an estimated 8.3 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of
highest-quality natural gas," to be surpassed just a year later with
the discovery of a second field, named Leviathan, of an additional 16
tcf, "making it the world's biggest deep-water gas find in a decade"
and causing Israel to go from "a gas famine to feast in a matter of
months." Other estimates put the Leviathan reserves as high as 20 tcf.
Needless to say, these discoveries could not be more timely, coming at
about the same time as the Muslim Brotherhood's ascension to power and
acts of sabotage in Egypt jeopardize the reliability of natural gas
supplies to Israel from that country. Who says that God does not
retain a special place in his heart for His Chosen People?
But of more earthly, and material, concern than the Almighty's
mysterious affection for an ancient tribe of itinerant sheepherders,
is Russian energy giant Gazprom's love of lucrative gas extraction
contracts with the Jewish state. After all, oil and gas discoveries of
such magnitude are about as rare as the sight of Vladimir Putin,
praying at the Western, wall in a yarmulke. Or taking the
Palestinians' side against the Israelis' as energetically in the
future as he has in the past. For, as Jerusalem Post columnist Isi
Leibler notes, while Putin "heads a country which has ties and
provides weapons to some of [Israel's] greatest enemies including Iran
and Syria" and "tends to support the Palestinian position, both as a
member of the Quartet and at the UN",
[Putin's] visit to Israel unquestionably sends clear signals. Even
recognizing major divergence of policies in relation to Iran and
Syria, and that Putin's tensions with the United States and interests
in the Arab world preclude [Israel] from considering him a partner, it
sends a message to the Arabs that Russia is not an enthusiastic ally
in their efforts to undermine the Jewish state.
Or at least not while the rubles are flowing into Gazprom's coffers,
anyway. But it's not just the Benjamins (Netanyahu or $100 bills, take
your pick). Both countries share ambivalent and sometimes strained
relations with Turkey; concerns about the dark side of the Arab
Spring, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic fundamentalism;
and concerns about events in Syria.
Some of Israel's European critics might also want to rethink their
anti-Israel stances and the barely disguised anti-Semitism that
inspires them, or at least tone it down a bit should they want, at
some future time, a piece of the Israeli oil-pie. As Victor Davis
Hansen asks, "Will Europe still snub Israel when it has as much oil,
gas, and money as an OPEC member in the Persian Gulf?" Well, I'm
pretty sure they'll want to, but as De Gaulle famously said, "France
has no friends, only interests." I suppose we'll find out soon enough
whether France has no enemies, either. In the meantime, Walter Russell
Mead simply states the obvious when he says that "regardless of the
simple economic impact, in different ways and different degrees the
Gulf countries and Russia are going to lose a lot of the political
advantages that their energy wealth now gives them. They will have
less ability to restrict supply and to manipulate prices than they
have had in the past. Oil and gas are going to be less special when
supplies are more abundant and more broadly distributed. To which this
writer would only add: especially when a major source of these "more
abundant and broadly distributed" supplies is a stable, democratic
friend and ally.
And finally there is America. For Russia, it's the traditional
East-West rivalry. But for Israel, it is not so much America the
country as it is her current, and hapless, president, Barack Obama and
the Israel-hostile fellow travelers who populate his administration.
For the first time since, perhaps, the Eisenhower administration,
Israel has good reason, at least while Obama is in power, to question
our reliability as an ally. And Putin has an obvious incentive to
exploit Jerusalem's doubts by moving closer to Israel in the hope of
creating a concomitant distance between Israel and the U.S. Indeed, he
may already be doing so (emphases below mine):
Putin's arrival in the region must be viewed in contrast to President
Obama, who has yet to visit Israel.... President Putin's visit was
clearly calculated to be the mirror image of Obama's last visit to the
region. In a similar manner, while Obama chose to talk to Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his first overseas telephone call
as president, Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke on the
phone immediately after Putin's return to the presidency in May. [...]
What's more, not only did Putin begin his tour of the Middle East in
Israel, he also made a point in visiting holy Christian and Jewish
sites, while entirely skipping the Muslim shrines. He met with
Christian and Jewish religious leaders but avoided meeting any Muslim
clergy. Even when visiting the Palestinian Authority, Putin chose to
come to Bethlehem -- a Christian site -- rather than Ramallah. Whereas
Obama chose to reach out to Islam and the Palestinians during his
famous 2009 speech in Cairo, Putin chose to appear as the defender of
Christianity in the Middle East, outreaching to Judaism and playing
down the Palestinian case. [...]
Indeed, when [Putin] insisted on negotiations instead of unilateral
steps as the right path towards the resolution of the
[Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, he practically endorsed Israel's
stance on the matter.
I mention the above as a cautionary note. Israel has a lot more than
oil to offer Russia -- and China, and India -- than oil. She also has
brainpower and all the technological prowess that goes along with it,
and here I mean, especially, military technology, which, I think we
all can agree, our competitors and enemies would very much like to
have. What Israel does not have a lot of, is money. But Russia, India
and, especially, China, have oodles of the stuff, much of it formerly
ours. And I would not count the Israelis themselves out, either: as
more and more Israeli energy exporting infrastructure comes online,
and the revenues start flowing in, Israel might, one day, have
substantial funds of her own to put in the pot. Yes, Israel loves us
-- but do they love us enough to commit national suicide for us?
Israel is a tiny country, surrounded by enemies both potential and
real, and like any country in such a situation, relies on alliances
and partnerships with larger ones. Which country, or countries, one
allies with, however, is of considerably lesser importance when
survival is the issue and let's be brutally honest, here. If you were
Benjamin Netanyahu, and Barack Obama were your ally, would you want to
put all of your alliance eggs in one basket?
So as he continues to lambaste Israel on the one hand, while
schmoozing Israel's rivals and enemies on the other, and assuming that
an Israeli-designed anti-missile missile could shoot down an American
missile as well as it can an Arab -- or Chinese, or Russian -- one,
President Obama might wish to ponder the geopolitical implications of
the day, if it ever comes, that the Israelis decide that they don't
need us anymore.
But we were talking about oil, about how the new Israeli discoveries
make Israel, for the first time in her history, both
energy-independent and an increasingly desirable ally and partner for
any number of rich, powerful and above all, energy-hungry, countries.
So let's look at the military implications of Israel's emergence as an
"energy superpower" and how her energy independence can benefit not
just her, but us, too.
Many of us older folks remember well the Arab oil embargo of 1973,
Sheik Yamani, a sweater-clad Jimmy Carter turning down the thermostat
in the White House and, above all, the breathless anticipation with
which the world would await the result of each price-setting meeting
of the then-all powerful (or at least so it seemed) Arab oil cartel.
Fortunately, we haven't heard from the cartel in a while and with an
oil-rich Israel more than happy to help her Western friends -- and
hurt her Arab (and Venezuelan) enemies -- by ramping up her own
production to offset any lost production from production reductions
elsewhere, we may never hear from them again.
But of course, any introduction of new supply will push oil prices
down everywhere and reduce revenues for everyone. Including, of
course, Iran. So if you're Israel, with an enemy as implacable -- and
oil-revenue dependent -- as Iran, why wait for an embargo? Why not
flood the world with as much oil, as fast, and as cheaply, you can?
Need oil, mister? Oy, have I got a deal for you....
And finally, regarding Iran, there is the military application: Iran's
nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground, but her oilfields are
not. Most, if not all, of Iran's oil production infrastructure is
above ground, vulnerable to attack and, oh, by the way, oil is
extremely flammable. By impairing Iran's oilfields, which the Israeli
air force probably could do, Israel could bring the Iranian economy,
and the Mullahs who rule it, to its and their knees. Indeed, one can
only assume that the only reason the Israelis haven't already done so
is the predicted effect on oil prices and the predictable cries of
outrage from the "international community" guaranteed to arise
therefrom. But with Israel ready, willing and able to replace any lost
Iranian oil in quantities sufficient to keep world oil prices stable
or even lower...?
Since the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586
B.C., through centuries of conquest, revolt and exile, Jews have
dreamed of -- and fought for, and died for -- the day when a restored,
militarily strong, truly independent Israel would rise and resume her
rightful place among the nations of the world.
With Israel's newfound energy supplies, and the will and wisdom to
exploit those supplies to her advantage, that day may not be far off.
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4)Lawrence Solomon: Losing
the anti-Semite card
The left can’t scare Jews into supporting it any more. Fourth in a series.
Earlier this week at a Pennsylvania rally sponsored by Jewish Americans for Obama and headlined by Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the 1,000 Jews in attendance in a synagogue auditorium heard one speaker portray the Republican Party as theocratic anti-Semites who didn’t believe in the separation of church and state; another Democrat described his experiences with anti-Semites in Arizona.
The message — that Republicans and their ilk are anti-Semites — is a familiar one. Jews have long believed that right-wingers tend to be anti-Semites, whether they identify as Nazis, members of the Ku Klux Klan, John Birchers, conservatives, evangelicals, or Republicans. At the height of the Tea Party movement, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi characterized the protesters as Nazis, saying “You be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” On an earlier Bill Maher show, New York’s Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer joked that most anti-Semites vote Republican.
But today, many Jews are no longer laughing along. The anti-Semite card that Democrats have played so deftly over the years — the single-biggest reason Jews provide Democrats with more than 50% of their campaign funding — looks phony to many Jews. When Schultz got up to speak in praise of Obama, the normally sedate Jewish audience heckled her, leaving her visibly rattled.
The upset many Jews feel today is mostly directed toward Obama, whom they see as tolerant of anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan, tolerant of anti-Semitic organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and intolerant, even hostile, to Israel. But Democrats on the whole need beware — more than a presidential election is at stake.
When Jews began to perceive Canada’s Liberal Party as being tolerant of anti-Semitism and unfair to Israel — such as through Liberal participation in the UN Durban conference and the accusation that Israel had committed a war crime — the rock-solid support that the Liberals had long enjoyed from Jews evaporated. Over the last decade, Jewish voters and Jewish money steadily moved toward the Conservatives, helping first to give them minority governments and then, in an election last year, swinging massively, helping to give the Conservatives a majority government. The Liberal Party, which had governed Canada for most of the last century and was considered “Canada’s natural governing party,” became relegated to third-party status. Bereft of Jewish votes and, much more importantly, much of the Jewish funding that in the past had helped sustain it, the Liberal Party, some predict, may disappear.
America’s Jews, who for more than a century were prominent in the union movement and the civil rights movement, traditionally found their home in the Democratic Party, particularly since country club Republicans didn’t consider Jews acceptable company. The left-leaning Jewish community especially took to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a left-leaner himself who appointed numerous Jews to top positions and stood by them, despite intense criticism of his Jewish ties and his New Deal (also known as the “Jew Deal”). FDR also won Jewish loyalty for his decision to fight the Nazis in the Second World War, despite fierce opposition from the America First Committee, whose flamboyant spokesman, Charles Lindbergh, blamed pressure to enter the war on Jews and their “large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.” Anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli views by leading Republicans and by evangelicals in the following decades reinforced the view that Jews weren’t welcome in the Republican Party.
But today the politics is realigning. Anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli venom is on the rise, and it is coming mostly from the left. Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses is a “serious problem,” concluded the 2006 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “There is more sympathy for Hamas [on U.S. campuses] than there is in Ramallah,” wrote award-winning Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, who found during a 2009 speaking tour of the U.S. that it “is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state.”
Surveys by Jewish organizations confirm that anti-Semitism is on the rise, as does a 2009 survey by researchers at Stanford and Columbia University, designed to find explicit prejudice toward Jews as a result of the financial meltdown. To the researchers’ surprise, they found that “Democrats were especially prone to blaming Jews: while 32% of Democrats accorded at least moderate blame, only 18.4% of Republicans did so,” a difference that jars “given the presumed higher degree of racial tolerance among liberals and the fact that Jews are a central part of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition.” Warning that “we must take heed of prejudice and bigotry that have already started to sink roots in the United States,” the authors noted that “Crises often have the potential to stoke fears and resentment, and the current economic collapse is likely no exception.”
Almost as if on cue, the Occupy Wall Street movement arose, with Jews often crudely singled out for blame, and with prominent Democrats, Obama and Pelosi among them, stoking the anti-1% sentiment. Anti-Semitism is coming close to home for many of America’s Jews, who see themselves in the 1% and who see their children — students at American campuses — too intimidated to speak out against the anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli activities that confront them.
As Jews are reassessing their support for Obama and other Democratic candidates, they are also beginning to warm to Republicans. Much of the credit here belongs to Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, who made it unacceptable for evangelicals to be anti-Semitic. Evangelicals and the American right are now unabashedly in the Jewish and Israeli corner, leading many Jews to end their reflexive opposition to anything labelled right-wing.
In Canada, Jewish alarm at Liberal tolerance of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli policies, coupled with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s unequivocal stance against terrorism — “[There’s no] moral equivalence between a pyromaniac and a firefighter” — persuaded Jewish captains of industry who were also Liberal funders and fundraisers to tear up their Liberal membership cards and throw their support behind the Conservatives. In the U.S., where the Democrats are losing their ability to play the anti-Semite card, a similar phenomenon could be underway.
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