Mavi Marmara Incident: more questions than answers

The evidence emerging from autopsies conducted in Turkey is making it more difficult to maintain a balanced perspective on this week's Gaza aid boat incident. CNN reports that the autopsy results reveal five of the nine shooting victims on the Mavi Marmara died with bullet wounds to the head. One casualty had bullet wounds to the head and multiple bullets throughout his body. Another appeared to be shot in the head at a range of two to fourteen cm.

The story also gives details concerning the Humanitarian Relief Foundation's side of the story, one which is at least partially and indirectly confirmed by Israel, concerning the treatment of captured Israeli soldiers on the boat.

In remarks to the press, [IHH chair Bulent] Yildirim said his colleagues fought Israeli troops in self-defense aboard the Mavi Marmara. He added that in the early stages of the clashes, his activists captured several Israel commandoes, as well as their weapons, and took them below decks. The Israeli troops were given water, Yildirim said. He insisted none of the activists fired the captured Israeli guns.

Now, Israel legitimately responds with video evidence of an IDF commando being beaten with a chair, and evidence the ship contained small weapons; the former argument is more convincing than the latter; it can be argued that even if the objects in question were fully intended to be weapons, they were weak defensive weapons at best, and if the craft was truly a terrorist transport, wouldn't Israel have found guns on board?

In fact, some of the participating activists made no qualms about the crew and passengers being prepared to defend the ship.

"The defense of the boat was quite well organized," said Espen Goffeng, a 38-year-old activist from Norway who sailed aboard the Mavi Marmara. "There was a plan to keep soldiers off the boat." Goffeng said passengers aboard the lead ship Mavi Marmara at first successfully repelled Israeli troops on boats. Then, he said, soldiers began their helicopters assault on the vessel. "They started off with some kind of paintball bullets with glass in them that left terrible soft tissue wounds. And then rubber bullets. And then live ammunition afterwards. And that's when things started to get really dangerous," Goffeng added.

So, if you're still trying to be objective and fair like I am (and therefore willing to incur the wrath of folks on both sides form whom the issue is always already cut-and-dried), the questions that remain are: 1. What did international law require of the Mavi Marmara? Is there an expectation or requirement that a vessel carrying humanitarian aid through a blockade passively allow itself to be boarded?  2. Why the heavy-handedness of the IDF? There were choices made at every juncture that were unduly aggressive rather than practicing a rationality and willingness to use force tempered by calculated restraint. Why the shots to the head? Conceding the possibility that Turkish Medical Examiner Haluk Ince is deliberately describing his evidence to sound like the IDF executed nine men, why did the IDF make it relatively easy for him to do so? 3. How much does Israel get to defend its actions in the first place if the blockade itself is morally dubious and illegal under international law? This is a question whose answers are likely to rapidly degenerate into each side's remaining in their respective trenches. But sometimes it's possible to learn things from listening carefully to what each side says from within those trenches.

Other news, courtesy of Al Jazeera: Israel is releasing the remaining activists detained from the Mavi Mamara by the IDF. Why? Aren't they terrorists?  Also, a Greek activist said that he saw Israeli troops using laser-guided weapons to shoot people aboard the Mavi Marmara.

Haretz reports that PM Netanyahu is "prepared to consider" easing the naval blockade. The same article reports Israel's assertion that "International law permits defensive operations on the high seas" (a partially accurate and partially question-begging position), and this interesting argument:

...the use of force was reasonable and proportionate. Had the soldiers not been attacked by the Mavi Marmara's passengers, no casualties would have occurred ¬ just as none occurred on the other five ships.

The use of sticks and rocks by the Mavi crew and passengers may have justified their detention and some shooting. I am not convinced it justified the things revealed in the autopsy. The argument that the other ships' passivity demonstrates that the use of force against the Mavi was reasonable and proportionate is fallacious; at best it demonstrates that the other ships were being prudent (I concede that) while the Mavi was acting belligerently. That doesn't establish justification for the actions of the IDF.

Finally, the U.S. ruling class and intelligentsia is clearly irritated by the blockade and this week's events, and is pressuring Israel to make concessions.

Anthony Cordesman, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, suggested that Israel could now be a "strategic liability" for the US. Officials in the Obama administration stressed that they had called for Israel to exercise "restraint" before the raid on the flotilla. The aftermath has complicated the US drive to secure approval from the UN Security Council for new sanctions on Iran.

Those interested in the right-wing Israeli take on this should read Jonathan Spyer's scathing attack on the IHH in the Jerusalem Post:

IHH is openly and unambiguously opposed to the existence of Israel, and is keen to assist Islamist organizations seeking to destroy it. IHH has read the zeitgeist of the early 21st century well. It seeks to combine a superficial commitment to “human rights” and the mantle of victimhood, with support for Islamist militancy against the West. These aspects, and the contradiction between them, have been very much in evidence this week.

I particularly noted Spyer's observation about the relationship between "hardcore" Turkish "militants" and naive Western activists. The latter, Spyer reports, were "afraid and depressed" by the presence of people openly committed to violence against Israel. At the very least, I have to concede that those are some pretty unlikely and unwilling bedfellows, and this entire episode highlights the fact that "peace" is not necessarily a shared goal, particularly when the leaders of militant anti-Israeli groups have the same power-based stake as the Israeli right, and international arms merchants, in perpetuating the conflict.

18 U.S.C. § 600 : US Code - Section 600: Promise of employment or other benefit for political activity

18 U.S.C. § 600 : US Code - Section 600: Promise of employment or other benefit for political activity:
"Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment,
position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit,
provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of
Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such
benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any
political activity or for the support of or opposition to any
candidate or any political party in connection with any general or
special election to any political office, or in connection with any
primary election or political convention or caucus held to select
candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

Is this what the Obama administration did to Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanov? Should he be impeached? Should Obama apologists argue that because Bush wasn't tried for war crimes or numerous other instances of breaking the law, Obama should not be targeted? What then, of the ability to deploy the rule of law as a tool to fight imperial executives?

They say the darndest things...

Tennessee Guerilla Women has this Hillary Rodham Clinton quote:

This is my opinion; I’m not speaking for the Administration. . The rich are
not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment
issues [America currently does] — whether it's individual, corporate or whatever
[kind of] taxation. . Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western
Hemisphere and guess what — they're growing like crazy. And the rich are getting
richer, but they're pulling people out of poverty. There is a certain formula
there that used to work for us until we abandoned it, to our regret in my
opinion.

Green Presidential candidate in second place, runoff in Columbia election

This is great news for Greens and progressives in general--all over the world. 

A recent poll found that "If a second round was to be held, 50% of those interviewed would vote [Green candidate Antanis] Mockus and 43% would vote [Juan Manuel] Santos."

The runoff is June 20th.  This will be very interesting to watch, to say the least.  Nice t-shirt too, Mr. Mockus.  Good luck!!!

happy birthday, mr. whitman

A friend reminded me that tomorrow is Walt Whitman's birthday. 

The Base of All Metaphysics

by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

And now gentlemen,

A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,

As base and finale too for all metaphysics.

(So to the students the old professor,

At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,

Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having
studied long,



I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.

Because it's time to come clean

If you thought Beck's attack on Malia Obama was over the top...

The skeletons in Glenn Beck's closet Media Matters for America has some historical context. No wonder Beck and his disciples consider his cute little racialist jokes about an 11 year-old girl unobjectionable by comparison:

The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and
Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' for
Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local
reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight
outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest
bits in the history of morning radio. 'A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry,
had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a
miscarriage,' ' remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel
programmer. 'When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce
[Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a
baby.'

did grumbling management doom Deepwater Horizon?

Some grim details have emerged on the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster, which suggest that workers were aware of the risks and dangers of Horizon specifically, had gone forward with those complaints, and were brushed off by management.  AP reporters, citing testimony from witnesses and participants on and around Horizon, describe workers waiting too long for approval from management to initiate shut-down procedures, as well as workers' safety and equipment concerns not being taken seriously.  The article describes

...Doug Brown, chief rig mechanic aboard the platform, testified that the trouble began at a meeting hours before the blowout, with a "skirmish" between a BP official and rig workers who did not want to replace heavy drilling fluid in the well with saltwater.

The switch presumably would have allowed the company to remove the fluid and use it for another project, but the seawater would have provided less weight to counteract the surging pressure from the ocean depths.
Brown said the BP official, whom he identified only as the "company man," overruled the drillers, declaring, "This is how it's going to be." Brown said the top Transocean official on the rig grumbled, "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for," which he took to be a reference to devices on the blowout preventer, the five-story piece of equipment that can slam a well shut in an emergency.

And worse:

In a handwritten statement to the Coast Guard obtained by the AP, Transocean rig worker Truitt Crawford said: "I overheard upper management talking saying that BP was taking shortcuts by displacing the well with saltwater instead of mud without sealing the well with cement plugs, this is why it blew out." 

Pressure problems were discovered at least 20 minutes prior to the fire. No one tried to shut off the well until after the fire started, which makes about as much sense as it sounds. 

Some testifying workers displayed a sense of long-term causation that eludes executives and upper management. 

"They gambled with our lives," laborer Stephen Stone told the House Judiciary Committee. He said the accident was "set in motion years ago by these companies needlessly rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners to save money."

From the classic labor song "We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years"--

There is never a mine blown skyward now

But we're buried alive for you
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God we have paid it in...

Reply to a Sectarian

Over on the Shared Sacrifice fan page, someone coming from the anti-capitalist left is asking some pointed questions about why we're interviewing insurgent Democrat Claudia Wright this Saturday, why we welcome Democrats at all.  I think the writer is confused about the purpose of the Shared Sacrifice Media Collective--precisely that it is based on difference, that it attempts to be a gathering place for people from many different progressive, left, socialist, anarchist, and reformist tendencies who are often at odds and so have had no space in which to both debate and celebrate what we're debating about.  So he quoted from something I'd written before--

Whether someone must overtly oppose capitalism to be 'on the left' is one of the many discussions we have on this site, and within the Shared Sacrifice social media collective. We are admittedly a _pluralist_ left organization. We don't have an ideological purity test. We are a gathering place for... socialists, anarchists, Greens, and others who consider themselves left of center. This includes supporters of [Claudia] Wright.

He asked:

So does your "pluralist left organization" include supporters of Barack Obama? Is he "left of center" by your definition? Was Bill Clinton?

I didn't answer the question of whether Obama or Clinton are left of center by my definition, because the answer to that question is obvious to anyone who's read what I've written or talked politics with me.  But I did say this--

I've thought a lot about these conversations so this may sound a little more obnoxious than I'm comfortable with.


It's not "mine" per se. But I think yes, it does. I didn't vote for Obama and I disagree with those who did. But I'd rather have them hanging out here than wandering rightward or having nowhere to go. There is a difference between a dialogue with Obama Democrats and a dialogue with GOP loyalists--even if the Democrats and Republicans represent different factions of the ruling class. There is a difference between the policy agenda of different Democratic political candidates. Leftists who don't see this difference or the necessity of engagement with liberals are welcome to explain why engagement is a waste of time or counterproductive. So far, you have only asked brief questions. You owe us more.

I've done sectarianism. It's bleak, lonely, and induces groupthink. Cults of personality form. The purity of the gateway becomes an abstract ideological system, and a psychological crutch. Instead I have chosen to engage with anyone whose political orientation is community-oriented, other-oriented, willing to put human needs before profits.

My challenge to each and every small organization or party with the name socialist in it is to come together and form a LARGE socialist party--at least with 10,000 + members. I don't need to apologize to anyone for supporting a pluralist progressive organization until all those sectarians put aside their differences and form a movement that can genuinely get something done.

On our podcast, we've interviewed the presidential candidates of the SEP and the SP, interviewed DSA members, and have twice interviewed Richard Wolff, one of the best Marxist economists living. Most people even slightly left of center have a lot of respect for the socialist tradition even if they have misgivings about going revolutionary. That's no reason why we all shouldn't get together and talk--and that's what we do here.

I respect what you bring to this conversation. I know you're committed to a world beyond capital. You have a unique opportunity on a page with nearly 1000 members who are hungry for conversation about how to free humanity from the grip of corporations and their priestly lackeys. Engage us.

the crying apocalyptic gold swindler

Thanks to progressive Democrat Anthony Weiner, we can add "crook" to the other colorful terms we've been using to describe apocalyptic Skousenite crybaby Glenn Beck.

Here's how the scam works: Beck and others devote entire segments of their shows to arguing that the U.S. money supply is destined for hyperinflation, incl. promoting gold as the only safe investment alternative for consumers. Then a commercial from Goldline comes on. And Goldline sells at 90% above melt value, meaning the price of gold would have to double to pay off.

Beck has also featured Goldline's CEO on as an "expert" guest without disclosing the sponsorship.

Fox News ostensibly prohibits on-air personalities from making paid product endorsements.

Beck's response, and I'm serious: "So I shouldn't make money?" Others have made some pretty shallow, uncontextual and argumentatively weak defenses--that there's nothing wrong with someone endorsing something they buy themselves, and so what if they spin elaborate scenarios on air time that embellish this product--which sounds like apologia from someone who spent half an hour in an Ethics class and then smoked weed in their apartment for the rest of the semester.

Further evidence, in this blogger's opinion, that fearmongering, us-vs-them conservative politics, apocalyptic rhetoric, and clash-of-civilizations arguments are, among other things, an elaborate and shady racket.

thought for the day, hardly an original one...

Capital, that is companies, or corporations, can move freely across borders. Laws not only allow that, they actually encourage it. But labor, or workers, cannot move freely across borders. So immigration law is intrinsically a subordination of labor to capital, combined with a subordination of human beings to arbitrary geographic demarcations.

Muslim-to-Christian Convert and Liberty University Leader is Full of Lies

Ergun Caner has the perfect story for fundies and professional haters of Islam.  Problem is, his story has holes...lots of them.  He grew up in Ohio...no Turkey...no Ohio...Oturkio?  He was taught militant jihad...no he wasn't...yes he was...?  He has debated other scholars...except he hasn't... He doesn't even appear to be honest about his middle name, which is "Michael" on official documents, but "Mehment" on his self-promoting literature. 

Now Liberty is investigating him. In a nutshell:

Despite his claims about having lived in Turkey, it now appears that Caner was born in Sweden and moved to Ohio when he was 4 years old. His father was a Muslim, but his mother was Lutheran. The couple divorced, and Caner’s mother retained custody. He became an evangelical Christian as a teen; it’s unlike he was ever recruited by jihadists.

There's a sucker born every minute, and more often in Lynchburg and the Islamophobe racket.

yes please

A fan on Contessa Brewer's FB page urges her to "report [on] the Tea Party fairly" and avoid "MSNBC bias."

Should Contessa report on the Tea Partiers in Maine who vandalized and stole from a public school? Should she report on the Tea Partier who made fun of Roger Ebert's cancer? Should she report on the Tea Partier/GOP candidate Ron Kirkland who publicly longed for the days in which homosexuals "were taken care of in ways I can't describe?" The Tea Partiers who threatened gun violence as a response to the passage of Obama's watered-down health care reform?  The re-branded KKK Tea Partiers?  The spitters?  The Tea-Party-backed Republican candidate who publicly expressed a desire to shoot liberals? 

Or should she report on the true sources of funding for the Tea Party movement: Billionaire oil giants the Koch family? Don Blankenship of Massey Energy? Freedomworks? Americans for Prosperity?

How about the foundational fact, ignored by both the Tea Partiers and the mainstream media, that the historical foundation of the name "Tea Party" is inaccurate, in the sense that the original Boston Tea Party stood for the exact opposite of what the 'Baggers are standing for now? (As an anonymous commenter said recently, this would be like the original Boston rebels defending the East India Trading Company.) 

By all means, Contessa, be fair!

quote of the day

From Michael Kinsley's article on the Tea Party movement, "My Country 'Tis of Me:"

The government’s main function these days is writing checks to old people. These checks allow people to retire and pursue avocations such as going to Tea Party rallies. This basic fact about the government is no great secret ... If the Tea Party Patriots ever developed a coherent platform or agenda, they would lose half their supporters.

allowing it to work

In Chicago, the Jewish-Muslim Community Building Initiative's Discussions over Coffee event "brings together Jews and Muslims to converse about religion and traditions."
Deliberative dialogue works when it's allowed to work: when a context is provided and good will extended. 

There is no set structure but the audience dictates the conversation through questions and reflections. A clerical representative of each religion presents a portion of scripture or religious text then the group breaks up into smaller groups to discuss. Coming back together as a large group, audience members can present insights gained and ask additional questions.