Zoroaster
08-24-2004, 01:36 PM
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20040812065225709
Israel Shamir: Ode to Cynthia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, August 12 2004 @ 06:52 AM EDT
"I wanted to be free to vote according to my conscience, but I had been told that if I didn’t sign a pledge supporting the military superiority of Israel, no support would come my way.."
By Israel Shamir
Things must be bad indeed if a woman steps forward to the line of fire. Nature arranged that a woman does not court danger unless her land and her folks are in real trouble. But when she does, she teaches men a lesson of manly behavior.
When France was fading away, a shepherd girl Jeanne d’Arc took a heavy sword and led the flower of French nobles to assault the walls of Orleans. When cities of Republican Spain was strafed by the Nazi Luftwaffe, it was a woman, Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria, who said to her people: It is better to die tall, than to live on your knees. In 1990, when Mikhail Gorbachev led his country to disaster and disintegration, a year before the wealth of Russia was embezzled in privatization spree, only one person has dared to raise her voice against the dictator in the Parliament. She was the indomitable Sashie Umalatov, an MP from the Chechen Mountains.
Now it is the turn of the US to feel the chilly wind of eternity on its face. It came from unexpected direction. People of America became hostage in the hands of a few men with too many dollars in their pockets and endless greed in their hearts. For millennia, the difference of income, education, and standard of living was not so vast in one land. The wealth of the nation could provide every American with a superb education, perfect medical care, happy childhood, secure old age, guaranteed home, and free time to open one’s mind to new thoughts and old friends. America could be on its way to the Golden Age of universal happiness and wisdom.
Instead of it, a small group of men squeezes the nation in order to add another billion to their coffers. They would surely destroy the US by their limitless greed. The devotees of Mammon, they are totally devoid of compassion to the people they live amongst. They do not see the local people as ‘their own kind’. If they want to show compassion, they send money to Israel. Out of five dollars American taxpayer gives for aid, two dollars land in the coffers of the Jewish state. They appear unstoppable, as the politicians are scared of them and docilely raise their hands and sign the pledge promising to send more money to Israeli generals. Support of Israel is not a foreign policy. It is the covenant of the Mammonites, and you sign it with blood. With Palestinian blood.
But one woman refused to sign the pledge. One woman, Cynthia McKinney, a member for Georgia, dared to refuse. Four hundred congressmen signed it; they preferred their own personal advancement to the good of the country. Ancestors of Cynthia were slaves in her native Georgia. But she is one of a very few free persons in the US Congress. As we Israelis were used to say about our Golda Meir, she is the only man over there. She is a black woman, but she is the whitest man of them all, they would say before the Politically Correct era. She knew the billions of Israeli aid are needed for the poor people of the United States, for her own Afro-American community. She wanted to uphold the sovereignty of the people and Congress of the United States, in face of encroaching servility to the Jewish Lobby.
She is not alone. Another wonderful Afro-American congresswoman, Barbara Lee, cast the only vote against the slaughter in Afghanistan; John Conyers, Jessie Jackson Jr, and Maxine Waters supported the cause of Palestine on different occasions. Ron Paul of Texas voted against all-house resolution sending obsequious greeting to Gen. Sharon. Nick Rahall, John Sununu, David Bonior did not bend.
Cynthia was just more outspoken in seeing the evil. She said, “There are many Members of Congress who want to be free. I am one of them. I wanted to be free to vote according to my conscience, but I had been told that if I didn’t sign a pledge supporting the military superiority of Israel, no support would come my way. And sure enough, I didn’t sign the pledge and no support came my way. I suffered silently year in and year out, because I refused to sign that pledge. And then, like a slave that found a way to buy his freedom... I went to work ... I wanted to be free ... Free to cast the votes in the United States Congress as I saw fit and not as I was dictated to”.
Now she stands for re-election, and her chances are dim, as the frightful AIPAC, the spearhead of the organized Jewish community, targeted her. They do not want to see independent and free congressmen on the Capitol Hill.
Their huge financial might, network of connections in the media and universities are used to smother every free voice. They succeeded to unseat Earl Hilliard, another Black Congressman, who did not bow to Sharon, and now plan to do Cynthia in. If they succeed, the cause of freedom will suffer a huge setback. If she succeeds, the myth of Jewish omnipotence will evaporate, and America will look toward better days, as support or rejection of segregated Israel speaks volumes about true agenda of a candidate.
Cynthia is not ‘against Jews’, as there are many very good folks of Jewish origin. While the organized Jewish community implements quite a disgusting policy, in domestic and foreign affairs alike, there are wonderful outsiders, ‘the remnant of Israel’. Rejected by the community and rejecting it, they stand for integration in Palestine and in the US. Some of them have supported Cynthia’s campaign; another outsider manages her campaign. Through them, “you will be blessed by all people,” the Lord’s promise to Abraham is made true.
Cynthia’s is not a divisive voice of Blacks vs. Whites, nor Democrats vs. Republicans, neither Left against Right. She speaks for the people of the US against foreign interests. She is the congresswoman who dared to remind of the USS Liberty seamen, butchered by Israeli heavy machine guns and missiles. She reminded her audience of the last stand of Faris Ode, the brave Palestinian kid who faced the Israeli tank with a stone and was murdered. She stands against corporate greed. She stands for the nature deemed expendable by the Greedies.
This woman with a name from the love lyrics of Propertius, the delicate Greek poet, who called himself ‘a pale knight in thrall of my angry Cynthia’, is an all-American figure, brought forth by the spirit of America. The great country does not want to die. In such moments, the land calls for its sons and daughters to step forward to the line of fire. Cynthia heard the call. Support of Cynthia is the ultimate test of love to America, of belief in America’s future in the family of nations, as an equal and friendly nation, not as an enforcer for creed of Greed.
It is paramount to rally around her, as the French nobles rallied to Jeanne d’Arc. Whether you are a descendant of African slaves or Muslim immigrants, a son of Confederacy or a Daughter of American Revolution, a freedom-loving Jew or a born-again Christian — it is the time to unite for Cynthia and for America.
****
After her defeat, I wrote:
Cynthia was ambushed in the Democratic Party primaries, when her enemies brought in thousands of Republican voters to vote against Cynthia. Have the Republicans seen the light? Alexander Cockburn of the Counterpoint had another explanation, “Torrents of American Jewish money showered her opponent. Buckets of sewage were poured over McKinney’s head in the (Jewish-owned and edited) Washington Post and the Atlanta Constitution”.
“Cynthia was not the first Afro-American victim of the Jewish Lobby”: Earl Hilliard, first elected black congressperson in Alabama since Reconstruction, was defeated by “a torrent of money from out-of-state American Jewish organizations”, writes Cockburn, for “calling for some even-handedness in the Middle East”.
Brilliant Edward Herman connected Cynthia’s defeat with that of Hilliard, another Black congressman who dared to oppose the Jewish Lobby. “The unique factor in both elections was the (Jewish) anger at these blacks for daring to oppose (their) policy. (Jewish Lobby’s) intrusions into the Alabama and Georgia elections and successful removal of Hilliard and McKinney are arguably a form of disenfranchisement of black voters, by money power rather than legal tricks or coercion, and should be strenuously opposed.”
Let us hope this time she will win!
-The article about Cynthia can be found in my book Flowers of Galilee.)
--Israel Shamir is a leading Russian-Israeli intellectual, writer, translator and journalist. Shamir (50) lives in Jaffa.
Israel Shamir: Ode to Cynthia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, August 12 2004 @ 06:52 AM EDT
"I wanted to be free to vote according to my conscience, but I had been told that if I didn’t sign a pledge supporting the military superiority of Israel, no support would come my way.."
By Israel Shamir
Things must be bad indeed if a woman steps forward to the line of fire. Nature arranged that a woman does not court danger unless her land and her folks are in real trouble. But when she does, she teaches men a lesson of manly behavior.
When France was fading away, a shepherd girl Jeanne d’Arc took a heavy sword and led the flower of French nobles to assault the walls of Orleans. When cities of Republican Spain was strafed by the Nazi Luftwaffe, it was a woman, Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria, who said to her people: It is better to die tall, than to live on your knees. In 1990, when Mikhail Gorbachev led his country to disaster and disintegration, a year before the wealth of Russia was embezzled in privatization spree, only one person has dared to raise her voice against the dictator in the Parliament. She was the indomitable Sashie Umalatov, an MP from the Chechen Mountains.
Now it is the turn of the US to feel the chilly wind of eternity on its face. It came from unexpected direction. People of America became hostage in the hands of a few men with too many dollars in their pockets and endless greed in their hearts. For millennia, the difference of income, education, and standard of living was not so vast in one land. The wealth of the nation could provide every American with a superb education, perfect medical care, happy childhood, secure old age, guaranteed home, and free time to open one’s mind to new thoughts and old friends. America could be on its way to the Golden Age of universal happiness and wisdom.
Instead of it, a small group of men squeezes the nation in order to add another billion to their coffers. They would surely destroy the US by their limitless greed. The devotees of Mammon, they are totally devoid of compassion to the people they live amongst. They do not see the local people as ‘their own kind’. If they want to show compassion, they send money to Israel. Out of five dollars American taxpayer gives for aid, two dollars land in the coffers of the Jewish state. They appear unstoppable, as the politicians are scared of them and docilely raise their hands and sign the pledge promising to send more money to Israeli generals. Support of Israel is not a foreign policy. It is the covenant of the Mammonites, and you sign it with blood. With Palestinian blood.
But one woman refused to sign the pledge. One woman, Cynthia McKinney, a member for Georgia, dared to refuse. Four hundred congressmen signed it; they preferred their own personal advancement to the good of the country. Ancestors of Cynthia were slaves in her native Georgia. But she is one of a very few free persons in the US Congress. As we Israelis were used to say about our Golda Meir, she is the only man over there. She is a black woman, but she is the whitest man of them all, they would say before the Politically Correct era. She knew the billions of Israeli aid are needed for the poor people of the United States, for her own Afro-American community. She wanted to uphold the sovereignty of the people and Congress of the United States, in face of encroaching servility to the Jewish Lobby.
She is not alone. Another wonderful Afro-American congresswoman, Barbara Lee, cast the only vote against the slaughter in Afghanistan; John Conyers, Jessie Jackson Jr, and Maxine Waters supported the cause of Palestine on different occasions. Ron Paul of Texas voted against all-house resolution sending obsequious greeting to Gen. Sharon. Nick Rahall, John Sununu, David Bonior did not bend.
Cynthia was just more outspoken in seeing the evil. She said, “There are many Members of Congress who want to be free. I am one of them. I wanted to be free to vote according to my conscience, but I had been told that if I didn’t sign a pledge supporting the military superiority of Israel, no support would come my way. And sure enough, I didn’t sign the pledge and no support came my way. I suffered silently year in and year out, because I refused to sign that pledge. And then, like a slave that found a way to buy his freedom... I went to work ... I wanted to be free ... Free to cast the votes in the United States Congress as I saw fit and not as I was dictated to”.
Now she stands for re-election, and her chances are dim, as the frightful AIPAC, the spearhead of the organized Jewish community, targeted her. They do not want to see independent and free congressmen on the Capitol Hill.
Their huge financial might, network of connections in the media and universities are used to smother every free voice. They succeeded to unseat Earl Hilliard, another Black Congressman, who did not bow to Sharon, and now plan to do Cynthia in. If they succeed, the cause of freedom will suffer a huge setback. If she succeeds, the myth of Jewish omnipotence will evaporate, and America will look toward better days, as support or rejection of segregated Israel speaks volumes about true agenda of a candidate.
Cynthia is not ‘against Jews’, as there are many very good folks of Jewish origin. While the organized Jewish community implements quite a disgusting policy, in domestic and foreign affairs alike, there are wonderful outsiders, ‘the remnant of Israel’. Rejected by the community and rejecting it, they stand for integration in Palestine and in the US. Some of them have supported Cynthia’s campaign; another outsider manages her campaign. Through them, “you will be blessed by all people,” the Lord’s promise to Abraham is made true.
Cynthia’s is not a divisive voice of Blacks vs. Whites, nor Democrats vs. Republicans, neither Left against Right. She speaks for the people of the US against foreign interests. She is the congresswoman who dared to remind of the USS Liberty seamen, butchered by Israeli heavy machine guns and missiles. She reminded her audience of the last stand of Faris Ode, the brave Palestinian kid who faced the Israeli tank with a stone and was murdered. She stands against corporate greed. She stands for the nature deemed expendable by the Greedies.
This woman with a name from the love lyrics of Propertius, the delicate Greek poet, who called himself ‘a pale knight in thrall of my angry Cynthia’, is an all-American figure, brought forth by the spirit of America. The great country does not want to die. In such moments, the land calls for its sons and daughters to step forward to the line of fire. Cynthia heard the call. Support of Cynthia is the ultimate test of love to America, of belief in America’s future in the family of nations, as an equal and friendly nation, not as an enforcer for creed of Greed.
It is paramount to rally around her, as the French nobles rallied to Jeanne d’Arc. Whether you are a descendant of African slaves or Muslim immigrants, a son of Confederacy or a Daughter of American Revolution, a freedom-loving Jew or a born-again Christian — it is the time to unite for Cynthia and for America.
****
After her defeat, I wrote:
Cynthia was ambushed in the Democratic Party primaries, when her enemies brought in thousands of Republican voters to vote against Cynthia. Have the Republicans seen the light? Alexander Cockburn of the Counterpoint had another explanation, “Torrents of American Jewish money showered her opponent. Buckets of sewage were poured over McKinney’s head in the (Jewish-owned and edited) Washington Post and the Atlanta Constitution”.
“Cynthia was not the first Afro-American victim of the Jewish Lobby”: Earl Hilliard, first elected black congressperson in Alabama since Reconstruction, was defeated by “a torrent of money from out-of-state American Jewish organizations”, writes Cockburn, for “calling for some even-handedness in the Middle East”.
Brilliant Edward Herman connected Cynthia’s defeat with that of Hilliard, another Black congressman who dared to oppose the Jewish Lobby. “The unique factor in both elections was the (Jewish) anger at these blacks for daring to oppose (their) policy. (Jewish Lobby’s) intrusions into the Alabama and Georgia elections and successful removal of Hilliard and McKinney are arguably a form of disenfranchisement of black voters, by money power rather than legal tricks or coercion, and should be strenuously opposed.”
Let us hope this time she will win!
-The article about Cynthia can be found in my book Flowers of Galilee.)
--Israel Shamir is a leading Russian-Israeli intellectual, writer, translator and journalist. Shamir (50) lives in Jaffa.