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~Truth~
~Justice~
~Peace~
TJP
Aug-19-2012 21:00
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The Week that Will Be and a Week that Was
Eileen Fleming Salem-News.com"People have to rise up but Americans have become so passive and power overwhelmingly abusive." - Helen Thomas
 The photo of me with Ms. Helen Thomas sporting her Palestinian flag bracelet and another of the saints, was shot in D.C. on 20 May 2011: |
(CLERMONT, FLA) - Next week, this reporter will be in the streets of Tampa during the Republican National Convention and I begin next Sunday, at the Sun Dome for the Ron Paul Rally.
Less than 80 days remain before Election Day. Twenty-five million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Over thirteen million homeowners are at risk of foreclosure. Every single minute We The People of this homeland are taxed $2.2 MILLION for so called Defense and Florida has the 3rd largest homeless population in this nation.
A YouTube posting by the Tampa Bay Action Committee promises lots of anarchists will come to Tampa. Their video says, "Black Bloc and Anon Bloc tactics are being encouraged because some say liberal protests get nothing done … If you hope to 'peacefully' protest your rights, you will be respected by radicals. If you are into social warfare, look for a group of people dressed in black." I will be wearing a USS LIBERTY cap.
I also understand the best expression of Anarchy is Rebellion against UNJUST laws.
The Yang/male force of anarchy resists authority and causes disorder and is socially and politically incorrect by the norms of the status quo for it seeks the higher ground of justice.
The Yin/feminine force of anarchy births a new order out of the chaos and chaos is creativity in action.
The group Doctors for America wants to "to make sure politicians and the public get our message. We need a system where everyone can get healthcare when they need it and where patients and health-care providers are leading the way."
March on the RNC say’s "No to the Republican agenda; money for human needs, not for corporate greed. We have had enough of the endless attacks on the rights of working people and our standard of living. We will defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security."
The Florida Consumer Action Network speaks about healthcare to voting rights and is staging a march against voter suppression.
Fight Back Florida is affiliated with March on the RNC and plans to stage a demonstration "to peacefully protest the Republican agenda and to demand jobs, healthcare, education, equality and peace."
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign has affiliations with the Occupy movement and recently set up a tent town near downtown called "Romneyville."
The group plans a "March for the Poor, Homeless and Unemployed" at the RNC on Monday, August 27. Demonstrators will call for stopping all foreclosure actions, criminalization of the poor and homeless. "Housing and food are human rights. We are not affiliated with any political party…Both parties are intricately tied to corporate rule, war, economic injustice and profess freedom and democracy but crack down on dissent.
The entire system in which we're currently living is rooted in greed and power, and keeps us from realizing our full potential. The pursuit of wealth has taken over our entire way of life and has done so at the expense of humanity and the earth."
Coptic Christians Against Persecution will rally against persecution of Christians, particularly in the Middle East.
Pray Tampa Bay has issued the call to the faithful to pray nonstop during the RNC and the DNC in Charlotte, N.C., "It is as if the Lord is bringing the nation's leaders to these cities so that we may build a house of prayer over them. Our nation and its leaders are in need of God's wisdom and guidance."
My PRESS Pass is a prayer and it is also my campaign poster as a candidate of conscience for US HOUSE.
When I heard the call to “Move Over AIPAC: Building a New US Middle East Policy” I immediately became one of over 100 organizations to endorse it; but I didn’t commit to attend the event until I learned that journalist Helen Thomas was to be the keynote speaker.
By the time I booked my flight, Ms. Thomas had been “disinvited” because of the pressure from a few particular people who had still not gotten over her flaming honesty expressed on 27 May 2010, in a courtyard at the White House.
As “life is what happens while you are making other plans” [John Lennon] their shortsightedness led to one of the highlights of my life and only because of my friend and author, Richard Forer, was I even invited to dinner with Helen Thomas.
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Ms. Thomas had recently reviewed Rich’s book, “Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion – A New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict.”
Ms. Thomas wrote, "People need to be informed so we can make good decisions regarding our involvement in the Middle East, and ultimately support the right governments. Forer offers a viewpoint that is not available in the mainstream…I admire Forer’s courage to not being silent. He openly shares his personal transformation, and encourages the reader to be willing to 'assess one's beliefs with honesty and to follow wherever the facts lead'. The truth cannot be silenced." [1]
During Jewish Heritage Month in 2010, in a courtyard at the White House, blogger and Long Island Rabbi David Nesenoff approached Ms. Thomas and introduced her to two young boys with him who were interested in a career in journalism.
Nesenoff asked, "So what do you think of Israel? Got any advice? Go for it" as he pointed his camera at Ms. Thomas like a "jackknife" and she readily replied, "They should get the hell out of Palestine."
In an interview with Playboy, Ms. Thomas elaborated, "I knew I’d hit the third rail. You cannot say anything about Israel in this country. But I’ve lived with this cause for many years. Everybody knows my feelings that the Palestinians have been shortchanged in every way. Sure, the Israelis have a right to exist—but where they were born, not to come and take someone else’s home. I’ve had it up to here with the violations against the Palestinians. Why shouldn’t I say it?"
Ms. Thomas also got in trouble when she asked her first and last question to President Obama regarding who has nuclear weapons in the Middle East; Obama didn’t want to "speculate" but "we know he knows":
I asked Ms. Thomas "how did it feel when your peers remained mute although the State Department has reams of documentation about Israel’s WMD?"
Ms. Thomas replied, "They have no conscience."
I also claim their lack of integrity borders on treason!
I was not a reporter when I met Israel's Nuclear whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu for the first time in June 2005, but I knew I had to become one when he told me:
"Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, 'The nuclear reactor is only for peace.'
"Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection.
"The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground.
"In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
"When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.
"Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year."
I also filled Ms. Thomas in on my distress over Amy Goodman’s failure to follow up on her 2004 interview with Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower, which resulted in 78 days back in solitary confinement in 2010, just because Vanunu dared to speak to foreign media after he was released from 18 years in a windowless, tomb sized cell for telling the truth and providing the photographic proof of Israel’s WMD Program.
In April 2007, I had lunch with Amy Goodman-not because we have ever been friends, but only because I had once been a generous donor to Democracy NOW!
I accepted the invitation only so I could fill Amy in on the fact that her 2004 interview with Vanunu was major testimony against him in his FREEDOM of SPEECH trial-which began the same day Hamas was democratically elected on 25 January 2006- and I asked her to follow up.
Amy acted interested and jotted down notes in her Blackberry, but she didn’t bother to call Vanunu until July 2007 after he was sentenced to 6 more months in jail essentially for speaking to foreign media in 2004!
Vanunu refused to speak to Amy because she –like all THE MEDIA-hadn’t done anything to raise awareness about Israel’s continuing persecution of him and to this day Vanunu is still waiting for the right to leave Israel.
In regards to Ms. Goodman, Ms. Thomas commented, "She used to be better."
I asked Ms. Thomas what she would advise anyone who wanted to go into the field of journalism and she advised:
"Go for it! It’s the greatest profession in the world because you are always learning and you are aware of the world, so you just might be able to affect change.
"You cannot have a democracy without an informed people.
"Information is everything; it enlarges your intellect and that guides you.
"The job is to follow the truth and report where it leads you!
"Right and wrong is not relative. Empathy is fine but kindness and sympathy do not change the facts and conscience is everything!
"Leaders are suppose to do the right thing and we should back up the president when he does the right thing; but drop him when he doesn’t.
"The WHY is the most important question-not that something happened- but WHY did it happen?
"Somewhere along the way America lost its soul.
"People have to rise up but Americans have become so passive and power overwhelmingly abusive."
I asked, "So how do we fix this situation?"
Ms. Thomas responded, "It’s being done!"
And then I asked Ms. Thomas if she had always wanted to be a journalist and her persistent smile broadened and the gleam in her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she replied, "When my first article was published in the high school paper and I saw my byline, I was hooked!"
I shot back, "I had a similar but opposite experience!"
I explained that when I was a child, my dream was to grow up and become Brenda Starr, the red headed, ace investigative journalist and star reporter for the metropolitan daily, The Flash. The fictional Brenda traveled the world solving mysteries and unearthing scoops and she intuitively knew when somebody was not telling the truth.
But when my first assignment for the high school newspaper was edited beyond my recognition but my name was attached, my Irish temper erupted and I immediately confronted the faculty member on the paper and inquired, "Why did you publish an article with my name but with words I did NOT write?"
I was told that it was just standard procedure for the faculty to edit all of the student’s work and I replied, "Not mine you don’t! I quit!"
Ms. Thomas pointed her finger at me and said, "That’s ethics!"
And that comment is the second highest compliment I have ever been paid in my life!
The first remains the one Mordechai Vanunu graced me with when he said, I was always good to remind him of JC/Jesus Christ.
JC was never a Christian, but a social justice radical revolutionary nonviolent Palestinian devout Jew who rose up against a corrupt Temple and taught the people there was no need to pay the high priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already loved just as they were.
What got JC crucified was agitating the status quo of the Roman Occupying forces, for Rome’s method of capitol punishment was to crucify all dissidents, rebels and agitators.
Two thousand years ago the Cross had NO symbolic religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry.
When Jesus said: "Pick up your cross and follow me," everyone back then understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads in Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces.
I am Eileen Fleming for US HOUSE and I approve of all of my messages.
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