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=--Medical School Entrance Exam
When I was young I wanted to go to medical school.One of the questions on the entrance exam was "Rearrange the lettersP N E S I to spell out an important part of human body that is more useful when erect."
Those who spelled SPINE became Doctors... The rest ended up in Congress.
This from a friend, fellow memo reader and also a Conference attendee.
Troy was GW's White House liason with America's Jewish Community
Below is an article written by Gil Troy, one of the 375 speakers. He shares his thoughts about being at his first AIPAC Policy Conference.
The time spent at AIPAC these past few days, meeting other pro-Israel activists, watching touching videos (this one is about being an Israeli child living under rocket fire) and hearing from captivating speakers.
Best,
SM
Feeling The Love At AIPAC
By Gil Troy
Despite being repeatedly accused of belonging to the IZC—the International Zionist Conspiracy—I have never attended “Policy Conference,” the AIPAC convention currently taking place in Washington. As an academic, I am not an organization man. This year, as part of my “Moynihan’s Moment” book tour, I spoke at the convention—and discovered an American Israel Public Affairs Committee which is more American-Israel love fest than all-powerful PAC. What most struck me was the sweetness of AIPAC.
Before attending the conference, I had heard it all. One friend warned I would walk away from such a vulgar display of Jewish power “anti-Semitic.” Another coached me in the conferences’ subtleties, wherein participants are defined by the “lanyard” color around their neck, signifying their giving level. A third expected me to return with the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’s Secret Decoder Ring.
But what impressed me was the AIPACers’ earnestness, intensity, and warmth. Jew and non-Jew, African-American and Latino, left and right, old and young, they conveyed far more innocent love than manipulative anger. One woman speaker rose in the opening plenary and proclaimed, “I love Israel,” explaining this love as a gift from her parents and a core component of her Jewish identity. A man featured in a convention video talked about the heritage of Israel commitment his Israeli parents transmitted but how the trauma of losing his mother-in-law in 9/11 was triggered his activism. He, too, spoke more in sweet sadness than edgy anger. This is a movement fueled by love not hate.
Moreover, on the two panels I participated on (so far) and in the big convention scenes I witnessed, the commitment to a two-state solution—which includes a Palestinian state—was taken as a given. Even the discussion about the Turkish prime minister’s ugly words last week calling Zionism a “crime against humanity,” often reflected more anguish than anger. (And allow me to add that his words challenge all of Israel’s critics: are you ready to denounce his poison and acknowledge that without the persistence scrutiny of U.N. Watch his words probably would have been overlooked?) The convention had a bit of a Sally Field strain, a sense, when leading politicians appeared, of the audience channeling the actress’s classic 1985 needy Academy Award acceptance “this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”
Most AIPACers are not naïve—they understand the conflicts’ complexities and the Palestinians’ pain. But most cannot comprehend the disproportionate obsession with Israel, especially when Syria’s Assad slaughters 70,000, to name just one of many greater and simpler human rights challenges. And it was interesting how many of them use Israel to build a core Jewish identity and a platform to express their democratic ideals. There was tremendous excitement around the thousands of young attendees—with one young man on one of AIPAC’s well-produced videos talking about AIPAC as his entrée into American politics, stirring his desire to become “the first Jewish President.”
So, after day one, I walk away inspired—although a bit exhausted by what I see as the wave of hatred that emanates constantly from so many of Israel’s critics. I was thrilled by the hug I received from a Latino union organizer in San Francisco, who told me that after returning home from a Sabbath dinner my family and I hosted for him in Jerusalem shortly after the Gaza conflagration this fall he told his friends “we have to help make peace for that family and others, so they don’t have to fight."
And I was thrilled by another embrace I received from one of the policy conference’s rock stars, Canada’s foreign minister, John Baird. Baird gave a passionate, eloquent endorsement of Israel—again fueled more by love than by hate—but with some edge as he vowed to resist the diplomatic pressure to pile on against Israel. “We won’t go along to get along,” he said—echoing Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s line about refusing to “tone down” as a diplomat: “What is this word toning down; when you are faced with an out-right lie about the United States and we go in and say this is not true. Now, how do you tone that down? Do you say it is only half untrue?” Moynihan asked.
At a reception for Canadians last night, I gave the Foreign Minister my book, and he gave me a big hug—my first official ministerial embrace. “I love Moynihan,” he exclaimed. Moynihan, also, wasn’t a hater. He was a fighter who understood, as Baird and so many of the AIPACers understand, that fighting for constructive core ideals is more effective than lashing out fueled by destructive, vindictive emotions. If Israel’s enemies learned that lesson too, we could achieve peace.
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Education remains the soft underbelly of any free society. That is why the far left focuses on academia and academics are generally drawn to campus life. Competing in a capitalistic society is tough and they can suck blood out of the corporate world as they write papers booksand get known while buildling tenure and leading a cushy life style.
Now the radical left has discovered West Point!
(See 1 below.)
(See 1 below.)
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Bye bye American Pie. (See 2 below.)
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Norwegians get the truth from one of their trusted reporters and are beginning to learn they have been defrauded. The question is will they do anything about it or will they keep their heads in the North Sea and continue to remain in denial. (See 3 below.)
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Israel and the seuqester impact. (See 4 below.)
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Israel and the seuqester impact. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)
The Truth: The report was written on January 15, 2013 and can be found on the West Point Combating Terrorism Center website.
News of this report went viral on the Internet after a January 21, 2013 Washington Times article that said this report outraged critics of federalism and labeled conservatives as violent. The article also said that the report belittled "conservatives in general, saying they live in the past while liberals are future-oriented."
The article in the forwarded email originated from the American Free Press, which was posted on their website on February 13, 2013.
updated 02/18/13
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A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet: |
West Point Cadets Taught Patriots Are Terrorists
• Influential study published by an Israeli academic at America’s top military school seeks to brainwash future military leaders into believing those who advocate small government, individual sovereignty, freedom and liberty are the enemy
By Victor Thorn
At West Point where cadets are groomed into officers, a new 148-page report released on January 15 is urging enlisted men and women to be on alert for “terrorists” in the form of those who consider themselves patriots.
This study, released by the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, is entitled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.” Its author, Professor Arie Perliger, the Director of Terrorism Studies at the Combating Terrorism Center and Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences at West Point, holds membership in the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as well as being a former instructor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Considering his background, Perliger warns that growing legions of conservative-minded citizens across the U.S. pose a serious threat to our nation’s safety. Yet, whom precisely does Perliger deem as being affiliated with what he labels the “violent far right?”
In his own words, Perliger placed a bulls-eye on those who “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal
government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights.”
Even more specifically, Perliger asserted that other so-called extremists fall into the categories of anti-federalists, fundamentalist Christians, survivalists, gun-rights advocates, libertarians, pro-lifers, and those who oppose high taxation.
Not content with simply fingering these broad-reaching factions, Perliger zeroed in on another favorite globalist target. “Some groups are driven by a strong conviction that the American political system and its proxies were hijacked by external forces interested in promoting a New World Order.”
This umbrella characterization includes constitutionalists, those wary of a growing police state, and political activists such as some tea partiers. Thus, by using manipulative, emotionally-charged language intended to divide-and-conquer, Perliger equates those interested in preserving their individual freedoms with skinheads, neo-Nazis and militia members. Or, even more condescendingly, he smears conservatives as being backward, archaic and living in an era that has passed them by. In contrast, Perliger applauds liberals as future-oriented and progressive in their views.
Dr. Herbert W. Titus, a constitutional law professor and former dean of the Regent University School of Law “says it’s an attempt to link conservative thought with violence.”
Titus told WorldNetDaily: “Professor Perliger has adopted the strategy of many left-wing members of the professoriate, concentrating on the behavior of a few in order to discredit many who hold similar views but who do not engage in any form of violence.”
“His theory is that of the iceberg, that which as seen may be small, but it hides what is a much larger threat just below the surface. Obviously, the professor disagrees with those who favor small government, cutting back of federal government encroachments upon the powers of the state and to discredit this movement focuses on a few gun-toting militia,” Titus said.
“Like so many in the Obama administration, Perliger does not want to engage in any dialogue on the issues, but just discredit an entire political movement by ad hominem charged words,” Titus said. “Perliger is not a serious scholar, but a propagandist for the existing regime.”
West Point Urged to Fire Nutty Professor
• Citizens up in arms over professor’s attempt to demonize true American conservatives
The president of a popular conservative advocacy group is calling on West Point to fire the author of a controversial report that paints conservatives as terrorists. In a January 29 interview with AMERICAN FREE PRESS, Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited Government expanded on these thoughts.
“I’m sending a letter to the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee insisting that all funds be withheld from their Combating Terrorism Center until this guy [Perliger] is fired and his report withdrawn,” he told AFP.
When asked what most incensed him, Wilson replied, “Perliger’s report isn’t an isolated incident. We’ve seen this type of demonizing ever since Obama took office. The left is going for the kill by using raw partisan political propaganda. The author of this report wants people to look those of us with traditional conservative values who support limited government as dangerous and suspect. He’s saying: this is somebody you don’t want to be. Instead, Perliger favors those who always submit to collectivism and the group. But this type of mindset is what doomed the former Soviet Union.”
Wilson added, “The military implications are really dangerous because Perliger wants to breed a whole generation of officers that may not respect sovereignty and autonomy.”
In a January 28 article, Wilson expanded on this notion. “[We] are being taught to view freedom-loving Americans as violent racist terrorists-in-waiting as part of the federal government’s ongoing jihad against common-sense fiscal conservatism and constitutionally limited government.”
AFP inquired about what forces were behind Perliger’s work. “In 2009 the Department of Homeland Security offered a course curriculum prepared by the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] that was meant to cast suspicions on returning vets because they might harbor right-wing affiliations,” he said. “The SPLC is a sleazy left-wing group.”
But he didn’t stop there in terms of culprits. “The mainstream media is owned by a handful of corporations that are completely compliant in their worldview that government is always best and correct, and those who don’t support it are wrong,” he said. “Real journalism doesn’t exist in the mainstream media any more.”
The conversation then turned to another subject that contradicted Perliger’s conclusions. “The hard left,” Wilson stated, “is far more violence prone that anyone on the right. Groups like the Earth Liberation Front and animal rights advocates will sabotage train tracks, spike trees, and have threatened to destroy the Keystone Pipeline.”
Wilson emphasized that an unmitigated assault is being waged against the citizens of this country. “Every day the First Amendment is being shutdown, and now Obama is trying to kill the Second Amendment. Why shouldn’t everyone be suspicious of what they’re doing? The left is waging an incredible assault on our Bill of Rights by undercutting and taking away this contract between the American people and the states.”
In closing, Wilson pointed out a more subtle aspect of Perliger’s smear tactics. “In the past, we didn’t let politics get involved in the military,” said Wilson. “But Perliger gave the officer
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2)Millions Are Kissing the Middle Class Goodbye
The recession is officially over, but so is middle-class status for many Americans, according to CNNMoney.
The nation’s median household income has actually declined by more than $4,000 since 2000, and the “typical trappings of middle-class life are slipping out of financial reach for many families,” CNNMoney said. Economists are attributing the blame to two factors: jobs and wages. According to the National Employment Law Project, mid-wage work, such as that for office managers and truck drivers, added up to 60 percent of the job losses during the recession, but only 22 percent of the gains during the recovery. Meanwhile, low-wage jobs have soared 58 percent. The mortgage crisis “hollowed out” the middle class, Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and research at Demos, a public policy research group, told CNNMoney. Home prices are still 29 percent below their mid-2006 high. Economists expect little improvement for the middle class for the time being. “The middle class was always synonymous with economic security and stability,” Draut said. “Now it’s synonymous with economic anxiety.” A Rutgers University survey showed many Americans share the bleak view of economists. More than 40 percent of those polled said they were “very concerned” about job security, only about one-third thought the economy would get better in 2014 and only 19 percent believed work opportunities would be better for the next generation. Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, had more bad news for the middle class this week, according to MarketWatch. “Putting the debt on a sustainable path will ultimately require increases in taxes or cuts in government benefits or services for people who consider themselves to be in the middle class,” Elmendorf told the National Association for Business Economics. According to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, just four low-wage sectors now make up nearly 12 percent of the workforce as of 2011: retail sales, cashiers, office clerks, and food preparation and service workers, The Washington Post reported. “These occupations are crucial to the support and growth of major industries across the country, but many of these workers do not earn enough to adequately support their families, even at a subsistence level,” the Fed study concluded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3)Norway’s second thoughts on Palestinian aid
BY FRIDA GHITIS
f]
A debate about aid to Palestinians has erupted in Norway, one of the group’s strongest supporters in Europe. Suddenly, an urgent level of scrutiny is bringing into question whether Oslo’s aid might be making peace less likely, rather than more.
Norway has opened its wallet to the Palestinian Authority, contributing more than $50 million a year since 2008. The money has gone into the PA’s budget, with some funds helping to pay for Palestinian Television. Norwegians recently got a taste of PA-TV programming and its impact and the experience was shocking. This has sparked a political battle and a wave of soul-searching with potentially major ramifications.
The Israeli group Palestinian Media Watch monitors and translates Palestinian television, and it has long argued that its programming is poisoning the well, demonizing Israel and the Jews to their own people, even as Palestinian leaders speak of peace and reconciliation to international audiences.
Perhaps because PMW is Israeli, European critics of Israel are quick to dismiss it. But a respected reporter for Norway’s top news organization, NRK’s Tormod Strand, decided to investigate. Because he is an impartial observer, what he discovered should make everyone, not just Norwegians, sit up and take notice.
NRK broadcast Strand’s documentary, shocking many Norwegians and triggering intense parliamentary debates. The NRK investigation, showed not only the material PA-TV is broadcasting, but the troubling views it generates among its viewers.
Norwegian viewers heard PA-TV tell its audience that, “The Prophet says: ‘You shall fight the Jews and kill them.’ ” They saw Palestinian children on PA-TV chanting “Our enemy, Zion, is Satan with a tail.” They saw Palestinian “documentaries” perpetuating pernicious stereotypes, blaming the Jews for the worst moments in European history. explaining over grainy black and white historical footage, how “Faced with the Jews’ schemes, Europe could not bear their character traits, corruption. . . ”
Strand spoke with Palestinians in the streets of Ramallah. Their views, he discovered, aligned neatly with the messages from PA-TV. His report showed Palestinians completely convinced that the old Russian anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” is real, unquestioningly believing it provides proof that “Jews are planning to control the world.”
Norwegians see themselves as champions of the downtrodden, and would like to believe their generous aid advances the creation of a Palestinian state and the chances for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
What they saw is their money funding a message machine that accomplishes precisely the opposite.
Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide says Norway’s money is crucial to bring about a two-state solution. He says Norwegian officials contacted PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who promised to pursue the matter. But Palestinians blamed the report on Israeli “incitement” against them.
Norwegian members of parliament are not dropping the subject. A spokesman for the Progress Party, second largest in the legislature, called for Norway to withdraw funding “unless the PA takes immediate actions to stop this type of hate message.” Other opposition parties, including the Christian Democrats and Conservatives, agreed.
New scrutiny has also brought attention to the Palestinian Authority’s practice of paying salaries, sometimes large salaries, to Palestinian prisoners, including those sentenced for multiple murders of Israelis. Member of Parliament Peter Gitmark told NRK-TV that Norway is indirectly contributing to terrorism by helping fund the salaries of convicted killers. “This is very serious,” he warned, noting that the payments to prisoners grow larger with the length of the sentence, which means perpetrators of the worst acts receive more of what the NRK interviewer pointed out is “Norwegian tax money.”
Gitmark called on the parliament’s Scrutiny Committee to investigate the matter.
Norway’s extraordinary moment of introspection deserves close attention from other donors. The PA receives hundreds of millions from the U.S., the European Union, the U.K., France and others.
The answer is not to cut off the Palestinian Authority from all aid. The appropriate response is to make the aid contingent on behavior that promotes reconciliation.
The PA, which governs the West Bank, is the only current alternative to Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that rules Gaza and rejects Israel’s existence. The PA should be supported and strengthened, but only if it will reject the ideology of hatred. Any other response from donors, as Norway is discovering, amounts to sending money to fight against peace.
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4)Sequester Cuts Military Aid to Israel by Small Amount Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu
The United States told Israel the sequester axe fell lightly on Israel and that the cut in military aid will amount to $144 million or 5 percent, instead of the originally planned 8 percent of the $3.1 billion aid program.
Finance Ministry sources told the Globes business newspaper that “reliable sources” notified Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz of the decision.
The ministry said that despite the reaction, Israel actually will receive more in this year than it 2012. Much of the aid is funneled back to the United States for American equipment and technology.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told visiting Defense Minister Ehud Barak last week that the sequester cut would not affect the Arrow and David’s Sling anti-missile programs.
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.
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