Points all well taken.
But you know why the Wall Stream media doesn't cover such atrocities. Maybe
Frank is right after all that Isreal has more control over our government
and media than we can even imagine.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 5:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Unfair Attacks Upon John Kerry's Family
There are a lot of unfair things being said and done in American politics.
But I have to say that all of this stuff, the attacks, the slurs, the
Republican debates, the war between the Democrats and the Republicans are,
as far as I am concerned, beside the point, unimportant, and distractions
from what is truly important. What is truly important is the wars, our
military and financial support for countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and
Israel, the desperate plight of all of the refugees, the horrors that
continue in Gaza and in Israel's West Bank, the incredible racism here in
America, (I just came across it again today, in people with whom I
asociate). To me, the fact that some rich Americans are being insulted is
unfortunate, but meaningless if you look at what is happening in the world
today. It's a terible thing to have one's reputation smeared by a bunch of
right wing web sites. But what about all of the Muslims whose lives have
been ruined by Americans' hate and prejudice, encouraged by those websites.
The mosques burned down, the people spied on and subjected to sting
operations by the FBI, the people put on no fly lists because their names
looked like the names of suspecgted terrorists. What about all those people
in indefinite detension in Guantanamo and God knows where else, who haven't
ever been found guilty of a crime, or who have actually been cleared to
leave, but who haven't been released. Why aren't there editorials about all
of the common folk who are being destroyed daily? It is ironic that
everytime a new novel regarding the nazi attacks on Jews comes out, people
flock to read it and go on and on about why didn't the German people rise up
and rebel when such atrocities were taking place. But we are watching our
government fund atrocities on a daily basis without a murmur of descent.
Maybe instead of reading the compliant news media, you should read
Shell-Shocked by Mohammed Omar. It's a collection of news stories about what
went on daily during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last year.We funded
it. Obama justified it on the basis that Israel needed to defend itself
against rockets. A lot of folks on this list believed all the nonsense about
those rockets. So I'm sorry if Kerry's son-in-law is being attacked. I
would have liked Kerry to be as brave and truthful about Israel's attack on
Gaza as he was about the Vietnam war.
Miriam
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Hachey
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 4:42 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Unfair Attacks Upon John Kerry's Family
Hi all,
The editorial pasted below my name comes from the Boston Globe.
Long time members of this list know that Im no big fan of Secretary of
State John Kerry. I see him as a guy who loves his privileged life and who
is generally bought and paid for by the corporate ruling class.
But now, it looks like some right-wing bloggers are attacking his family
members in a most despicable way. So far as Im concerned, when attacking
public figures, most things are fair game when it comes to attacking the
invidual. But attacking family members is a low blow that should not be
tolerated.
Finally, please know that I was equally perturbed when Trump the chump made
classless remarks about Jeb Bushs wife.
Bob Hachey
KEVIN CULLEN
A very inconvenient truth . Once upon a time, political partisans and
gangsters used to adhere to a certain code of conduct: all's fair when it
came to your rivals, but their families were off limits. But that was a long
time ago. There are no men of honor left in criminal societies, and it is
increasingly harder to find them among those who truck in today's
hyperpartisan politics. Consider the Iranian nuclear deal. Republicans are
uniformly against it. Some believe it is an unnecessary capitulation to an
untrustworthy regime that still traffics in terrorism. That's certainly a
legitimate argument to make. But some opponents of the deal who harbor a
visceral dislike of anything associated with President Obama have gone, as
Sean O'Casey might have put it, beyond the beyonds. A constellation of
right-wing websites has propagated a conspiracy theory ostensibly aimed at
Secretary of State John Kerry, who was the United States' chief negotiator
with Iran. But the real victims of this smear are Kerry's daughter and her
husband, Brian Nahed, who are physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The story went like this: John Kerry is in the tank with Iran because his
son-in-law is Iranian. Not only that, but the best man at the 2009 Boston
wedding of Nahed and Vanessa Kerry was the son of Mohammad Javad Zarif, the
Iranian foreign minister who negotiated the deal with Kerry. Kerry sold out
his country for his in-laws. It was a great story - except none of it is
true. 'My husband is a private citizen. His being asked about this is a
weekly if not daily occurrence. It became painful to watch this affect my
husband. Vanessa Kerry Brian Nahed was born in New York to Iranian parents
who left Iran in 1975. He's never set foot in Iran. He doesn't know Zarif's
son. He doesn't know Zarif. Nahed is a brilliant neurosurgeon, but he
doesn't follow politics. He married into a very prominent American political
family, but that doesn't give anyone the right to use him as a crash dummy
in a hamfisted attempt to smear his father-in-law. Vanessa Kerry told me she
and her husband initially ignored the conspiracy theory. But that
laissez-faire approach didn't work. Getting its biggest bump on the popular
website of Allen West, a one-term congressman and prominent conservative
pundit, the lie metastasized on websites and conservative talk shows.
Zarif's son morphed into Nahed's college roommate. Except he wasn't. "Like
most people," Nahed told me, "we thought it was so outlandish that no one
would believe it. The couple became alarmed when they read some of the
menacing comments attached to the unsubstantiated claims. If those sinister
comments could be dismissed as the idle threats of anonymous trolls, the
theoretical became real when Nahed's patients and prospective patients
started asking him about the claims. Not surprisingly, many people plug
their doctor's name into a search engine. When they plugged in Nahed's name,
his impressive résumé at MGH came up. But so did a bunch of websites
peddling the phony story, including The Daily Caller and The Blaze, which
have more mainstream conservative followers. Vanessa Kerry is used to the
drill. She has seen her father vilified by political opponents his entire
public life. As hard as it was for her to shrug it off, it was harder for
her husband. "My husband is a private citizen," she said. "His being asked
about this is a weekly if not daily occurrence. It became painful to watch
this affect my husband. Rather than ignore it, Vanessa Kerry and her husband
began contacting websites directly. They pointed out the lies, and most
sites, including West's, took the postings down. But others have not.
Vanessa Kerry and Brian Nahed said the website of Kenneth Timmerman, a
conservative author and activist, flatly refused. Timmerman's account,
headlined "John Kerry is Compromised on Iran," is still displayed
prominently on his homepage. A pair of physicians who take care of sick
people in Boston don't deserve to be collateral damage in a national
political debate, no matter how important that debate. People are entitled
to their opinions, but as Vanessa Kerry put it: "Opinions are one thing.
Lies are another. Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
cullen@xxxxxxxxx . Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen
