Institute for Public Accuracy
5 September 2008

“You Can’t Win an Occupation”

(Adam) Kokesh held up a sign — “You Can’t Win an Occupation” on one side and “McCain Votes Against Vets” on the other — at the beginning of McCain’s speech at the Republican convention last night.

Video is at:
Adam Kokesh Protests McCain At RNC 09/04/2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOaz7WhkFuo

A member of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Kokesh said today: “It’s shameful McCain is running as a veteran considering how bad he’s been on veterans’ issues. He’s repeatedly voted against adequate Veterans Administration funding and he voted against the new GI bill.

“McCain’s rhetoric about winning or losing in Iraq makes no sense — he’s simply failing to admit that it’s an occupation. The only way ‘victory’ makes sense is to end it as soon as possible and to rapidly bring the troops home.

“I found it amusing that most of the delegates — acting like ‘dittoheads’ — tried to drown me out with chants of ‘U-S-A!’ Just two days before, I’d spoken at Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty and had the crowd there chanting ‘U-S-A!’ … I’ve found — after being sent to fight in Fallujah — that the biggest enemies of the Constitution are right here at home.”

Kokesh’s “Revolutionary Patriot” blog — which includes video of his speech — is at: http://kokesh.blogspot.com

Related: The photograph under review in the following reports appears behind McCain as the crowd is shouting down Kokesh. A school official has confirmed it is Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California.

Mystery Solved!
Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 5 September 2008

Late Update: I’m surprised this hadn’t occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that’s ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they’re quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has ‘Walter Reed’ in its name, I’m really not sure you can discount this possibility.

(ed.note: Special bonus snark: That’s not stock photo keyword searching we can believe in.)

[Read the report]

By Leo W. Gerard
International President

When presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his intended vice presidential running mate, those of us in the lower 48 learned that her husband, Todd Palin, not only was a champion snowmobiler and commercial fisherman but also a steelworker.

At the press conference, Palin trotted him out, stressing his steelworker credentials. Here’s a good union man, she emphasized.

But his United Steelworker card doesn’t include an automatic auxiliary membership for her. Or her running mate at the top of the Republican ticket, McCain, whose record on labor issues would require some serious penance before he could ever earn a union card.

John McCain opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, which would enable workers to collectively bargain and secure contracts with corporations more easily, like the employment contracts CEOs demand to have with corporations. McCain has jeopardized retirement by championing Bush’s privatization scheme for social security. McCain has voted for every American-job-killing free trade deal, without regard to human rights or environmental standards. And he has proposed, instead of providing health insurance for all Americans, a plan to tax the insurance of those lucky enough to still have employer-provided coveraage.

[Read the article]

RELEASES / ADVISORIES | September 03, 2008

Pittsburgh – The United Steelworkers (USW) Women of Steel today sent a open letter to Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain expressing disappointment in his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The letter praises McCain for again putting a woman on the presidential ticket. Geraldine Ferraro was the Democrat nominee for vice president in 1984.

“You chose a female as your running mate, and we applaud your contribution to the progress this represents,” the letter states. “Unfortunately, you chose the wrong woman for the wrong job. Governor Palin is a working mother whose achievements should be respected – but due respect for a budding political career doesn’t mean she is ready to be vice president – a heart beat away from the presidency. Nor does it change the fact that she’s not the best candidate to improve the lives of women and working families in this country.

The letter points out that Palin does little to change McCain’s anti-worker, anti-woman agenda that, among other things, opposes giving workers the right to join a union and bargain collectively; erodes the ability of working families to secure quality health care by taxing their employer -provided coverage for both active and retired workers, and does nothing to protect or expand family leave or make it paid.

Click here (.pdf) to view the letter in its entirety.

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Jeff Halper, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 1 September 2008

“I now am a Palestinian in every sense of the word: On Monday I received my Palestinian citizenship, on Tuesday I was already in an Israeli jail.” – Jeff Halper

Now, a few days after my release from jail in the wake of my trip to Gaza, I’m posting a few notes to sum things up.

First, the mission of the Free Gaza Movement to break the Israeli siege proved a success beyond all expectations. Our reaching Gaza and leaving has created a free and regular channel between Gaza and the outside world. It has done so because it has forced the Israeli government to make a clear policy declaration: that it is not occupying Gaza and therefore will not prevent the free movement of Palestinians in and out (at least by sea). (Israel’s security concerns can easily be accommodated by instituting a technical system of checks similar to those of other ports.) Any attempt on the part of Israel to backtrack on this – by preventing ships in the future from entering or leaving Gaza with goods and passengers, including Palestinians – may be immediately interpreted as an assertion of control, and therefore of Occupation, opening Israel to accountability for war crimes before international law, something Israel tries to avoid at all costs. Gone is the obfuscation that has allowed Israel to maintain its control of the Occupied Territories without assuming any responsibility: from now on, Israel is either an Occupying Power accountable for its actions and policies, or Palestinians have every right to enjoy their human right of travelling freely in and out of their country. Israel can no longer have it both ways. Not only did our two little boats force the Israel military and government to give way, then, they also changed fundamentally the status of Israel’s control of Gaza.

When we finally arrived in Gaza after a day and a half sail, the welcome we received from 40,000 joyous Gazans was overwhelming and moving. People sought me out in particular, eager it seemed to speak Hebrew with an Israeli after years of closure. The message I received by people of all factions during my three days there was the same: How do we (“we” in the sense of all of us living in their country, not just Palestinians or Israelis) get out of this mess? Where are WE going? The discourse was not even political: what is the solution; one-state, two-state, etc etc. It was just common sense and straightforward, based on the assumption that we will all continue living in the same country and this stupid conflict, with its walls and siege and violence, is bad for everybody. Don’t Israelis see that? people would ask me.

(The answer, unfortunately, is “no.” To be honest, we Israeli Jews are the problem. The Palestinian years ago accepted our existence in the country as a people and are willing to accept ANY solution — two states, one state, no state, whatever. It is us who want exclusivity over the “Land of Israel” who cannot conceive of a single country, who cannot accept the national presence of Palestinians (we talk about “Arabs” in our country), and who have eliminated by our settlements even the possibility of the two-state solution in which we take 80% of the land. So it’s sad, truly sad, that our “enemies” want peace and co-existence (and tell me that in HEBREW) and we don’t. Yeah, we Israeli Jews want “peace,” but in the meantime what we have — almost no attacks, a feeling of security, a “disappeared” Palestinian people, a booming economy, tourism and ever-improving international status — seems just fine. If “peace” means giving up settlements, land and control, why do it? What’s wrong with the status quo? If its not broken, don’t fix it.)

[Read the article]

Osama Dawoud, Deseret News, 3 September 2008

This article was originally published by the Deseret News and is republished with the author’s permission.

Not many people in the Gaza Strip spend their time thinking about Utah’s Great Salt Lake. I have been dreaming of it for months. This year, I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Utah to study in the department of civil and environmental engineering. Palestinians in Gaza suffer from critical water and environmental contamination problems. I planned to focus my Utah education on water resources and environmental engineering so that I could return home and help to alleviate these problems. But I will not be attending this fall. On the basis of secret evidence conveyed by the Israeli government, my American visa was canceled.

I am a scientist dedicated to advancing the well-being of the Palestinian people. Yet despite playing by the educational rules and excelling in the academic arena, I am being hurt by an Israeli government that has bottled Palestinians up in Gaza rather than allowing them to pursue opportunities abroad. Hundreds of students in Gaza have been accepted to foreign universities but are nonetheless prevented from attending by Israel.

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