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The Tragedy of Robert McNamara Does Not End With Vietnam
Posted by Will Bunch, Huffington Post on July 6, 2009 at 9:51 AM.

Robert McNamara died today at age 93. As Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and more notably Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s, it was McNamara who oversaw America's tragic military buildup in Vietnam. That made McNamara -- right up until today's news -- a vivid anti-icon to those Baby Boomers who opposed the war -- and I think you can make the case that his death is that of the most historical significance of the slew of recent "celebrity" passings, no matter how many millions of people are gathering outside the Staples Center to remember the Gloved One.

Bob McNamara was not a great man. He was a man with great intelligence that didn't prevent him from executing a plan that led to the unnecessary slaughter -- for reasons that remain hard to fully comprehend -- of tens of thousands of Americans and many more Vietnamese. He spent next four decades trying to come to terms with the banality of evil, with the horror of what he and those around him had done, but even his unusually candid apologies never seemed to go far enough:

The secretary of defense was a key figure in decisions to escalate the war between 1961 and 1965, and he readily concedes that the assumptions upon which he and his colleagues acted were badly flawed. They approached Vietnam, he recalls, with "sparse knowledge, scant experience and simplistic assumptions." Victims of their own "innocence and confidence," they foolishly viewed communism as monolithic, knew nothing about Indochina, and were "simple-minded" regarding the historical relationship between China and Vietnam. They badly misjudged Ho Chi Minh's nationalism and consistently overestimated South Vietnam's ability to survive. Regarding the key decisions of 1965, he admits he should have anticipated that bombing North Vietnam would lead to requests for ground troops. He concedes there should have been a public debate on the July 1965 decision for war. Over and over he acknowledges that he should have examined the unexamined assumptions, asked the unasked questions, and explored the readily dismissed alternatives.

The life of Robert McNamara was a personal tragedy, but it was also an American tragedy, our tragedy -- because even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam, our policy-makers knew nothing or cared little about the long history and convoluted ethnic and religious politics of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no plan for the proper military follow-up to a period of "shock and awe" bombing. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we totally misjudged the "nationalism" of the people who lived there and how they would react to a long American occupation. And perhaps most importantly, In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no real "public debate" as we marched headlong and foolishly into 2003 -- with way too many "unexamined assumptions," "unasked questions," and "readily dismissed alternatives."

I actually spoke, very briefly, on the phone with McNamara in early 2003 in an effort to interview him for the Philadelphia Daily News, where I am a reporter. Like a few other journalists in that critical hour, I was hoping some of his tragically acquired wisdom might infuse the tepid pre-war discussions, and like all other reporters in those pre-war months, he told me he was holding off on commenting (as noted in the link above, he had a lot to say in 2006...when it was too late). That was a damned shame -- even though I can't imagine it would have tipped the rigged scales.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Tragedy of Robert McNamara Does Not End With Vietnam
Posted by Will Bunch, Huffington Post on July 6, 2009 at 9:51 AM.

Robert McNamara died today at age 93. As Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and more notably Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s, it was McNamara who oversaw America's tragic military buildup in Vietnam. That made McNamara -- right up until today's news -- a vivid anti-icon to those Baby Boomers who opposed the war -- and I think you can make the case that his death is that of the most historical significance of the slew of recent "celebrity" passings, no matter how many millions of people are gathering outside the Staples Center to remember the Gloved One.

Bob McNamara was not a great man. He was a man with great intelligence that didn't prevent him from executing a plan that led to the unnecessary slaughter -- for reasons that remain hard to fully comprehend -- of tens of thousands of Americans and many more Vietnamese. He spent next four decades trying to come to terms with the banality of evil, with the horror of what he and those around him had done, but even his unusually candid apologies never seemed to go far enough:

The secretary of defense was a key figure in decisions to escalate the war between 1961 and 1965, and he readily concedes that the assumptions upon which he and his colleagues acted were badly flawed. They approached Vietnam, he recalls, with "sparse knowledge, scant experience and simplistic assumptions." Victims of their own "innocence and confidence," they foolishly viewed communism as monolithic, knew nothing about Indochina, and were "simple-minded" regarding the historical relationship between China and Vietnam. They badly misjudged Ho Chi Minh's nationalism and consistently overestimated South Vietnam's ability to survive. Regarding the key decisions of 1965, he admits he should have anticipated that bombing North Vietnam would lead to requests for ground troops. He concedes there should have been a public debate on the July 1965 decision for war. Over and over he acknowledges that he should have examined the unexamined assumptions, asked the unasked questions, and explored the readily dismissed alternatives.

The life of Robert McNamara was a personal tragedy, but it was also an American tragedy, our tragedy -- because even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam, our policy-makers knew nothing or cared little about the long history and convoluted ethnic and religious politics of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no plan for the proper military follow-up to a period of "shock and awe" bombing. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we totally misjudged the "nationalism" of the people who lived there and how they would react to a long American occupation. And perhaps most importantly, In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no real "public debate" as we marched headlong and foolishly into 2003 -- with way too many "unexamined assumptions," "unasked questions," and "readily dismissed alternatives."

I actually spoke, very briefly, on the phone with McNamara in early 2003 in an effort to interview him for the Philadelphia Daily News, where I am a reporter. Like a few other journalists in that critical hour, I was hoping some of his tragically acquired wisdom might infuse the tepid pre-war discussions, and like all other reporters in those pre-war months, he told me he was holding off on commenting (as noted in the link above, he had a lot to say in 2006...when it was too late). That was a damned shame -- even though I can't imagine it would have tipped the rigged scales.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Biden: It is Israel's 'Sovereign Right' to Decide Whether to Attack Iran
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on July 6, 2009 at 8:15 AM.

Is it just me or were Joe Biden's comments on Stephanpoulos [Sunday] somewhat ... uhm ... startling?

Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC's "This Week," "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

"Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview taped in Baghdad at the end of a visit there.

The remarks went beyond at least the spirit of any public utterances by President Barack Obama, who has said that diplomatic efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program should be given to the end of the year. But the president has also said that he is "not reconciled" to the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon -- a goal Tehran denies.

Mr. Biden's comments came at a particularly sensitive time, amid the continuing tumult over the disputed Iranian elections, and seemed to risk handing a besieged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a new tool with which to fan nationalist sentiments in Iran.

What was not immediately clear was whether Mr. Biden, who has a long-standing reputation for speaking volubly -- and sometimes going too far in the heat of the moment -- was sending an officially sanctioned message.

I haven't heard any outcry about this so far, so perhaps I'm just not up to speed on the latest thinking. Does this seem like a good idea to anyone at this particular moment? The biggest headline on the front page of the NY Times today was

"Leading Clerics Defy Ayatollah on Disputed Iran Election"

Does this strike you as a good moment for the U.S. to be talking about Israel bombing the place?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Biden: It is Israel's 'Sovereign Right' to Decide Whether to Attack Iran
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on July 6, 2009 at 8:15 AM.

Is it just me or were Joe Biden's comments on Stephanpoulos [Sunday] somewhat ... uhm ... startling?

Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC's "This Week," "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

"Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said, in an interview taped in Baghdad at the end of a visit there.

The remarks went beyond at least the spirit of any public utterances by President Barack Obama, who has said that diplomatic efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program should be given to the end of the year. But the president has also said that he is "not reconciled" to the possibility of Iran possessing a nuclear weapon -- a goal Tehran denies.

Mr. Biden's comments came at a particularly sensitive time, amid the continuing tumult over the disputed Iranian elections, and seemed to risk handing a besieged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a new tool with which to fan nationalist sentiments in Iran.

What was not immediately clear was whether Mr. Biden, who has a long-standing reputation for speaking volubly -- and sometimes going too far in the heat of the moment -- was sending an officially sanctioned message.

I haven't heard any outcry about this so far, so perhaps I'm just not up to speed on the latest thinking. Does this seem like a good idea to anyone at this particular moment? The biggest headline on the front page of the NY Times today was

"Leading Clerics Defy Ayatollah on Disputed Iran Election"

Does this strike you as a good moment for the U.S. to be talking about Israel bombing the place?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Sarah Palin Threatens to Sue HuffPo Blogger Shannyn Moore for 'Defamation'; Moore Says 'Bring it On'
Posted by AKMuckraker, Huffington Post on July 6, 2009 at 7:00 AM.

There is an old expression which says, "In a crisis, do nothing." Wise words indeed, which means that soon-to-be-ex-governor Sarah Palin no doubt would never heed them. She's sort of adopted another philosophy. It's more like, "In a crisis, fly off the handle, be reactionary and threaten to sue someone for defamation in the hopes of intimidating the entire blogosphere and all national print and televised media into not talking about something." I'm not an oddsmaker, but this strategy seems destined to become a crumpled up tin can on the refuse pile of epic failure.

There's no doubt that the week has been a bad one for the governor. It started with an unflattering Vanity Fair article. This was followed by a CBS piece detailing several leaked emails in which she asked the McCain campaign to lie about Todd Palin's 7-year membership in a secessionist party. McCain strategist Steve Schmidt responded to her request saying that Todd was a member, and it was a secessionist party and he wasn't going to create an issue in the media if it didn't exist already, nor would he lie for her.

The statement you are suggesting be released would be inaccurate. The inaccuracy would bring greater media attention to this matter and be a distraction. According to your staff there have been no media inquiries into this and you received no questions about it during your interviews. If you are asked about it you should smile and say many Alaskans who love their country join the party because it speaks to a tradition of political independence. Todd loves his country.

We will not put out a statement and inflame this and create a situation where john has to adress this."

Palin's week culminated, of course, in a strange, twitchy, impulsive announcement from her home on the shore of Lake Lucille, that she would be stepping down from office, and resigning. The last time Alaskans were this gobsmacked by the governor was when she said 'yes' to John McCain when he popped the question back in August.

Her reason for resigning? Here's where it got really strange. The media was unfair. People were filing ethics complaints against her. Bloggers were making silly photoshops. She didn't want to be a lame duck. The state would be better off without her. We kept waiting to hear the real reason, the reason that would explain it all. We waited for the reason that would come at the end, after all the silly stuff. But it never came. That was it.

We were left scratching our heads. A woman who was the Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, and who has been deemed in some circles to be a plausible contender for her party's presidential nominee in 2012, is quitting her job as governor, 17 months before the end of her first term, because people are picking on her? This just didn't compute. Even in the wildest contortionist spin of her most ardent supporters, this was not going to improve her chances in 2012.

What this means is that now, the line on her resume right underneath "Almost-one-term governor" reads "Mayor of a small Alaskan town with a population of 7000 people." This is not the way to be taken seriously. Yes, she draws crowds, but so does Britney Spears, and I sure wouldn't vote for her to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Shame On WaPo For Selling Access to Lobbyists, But Who Was Playing Ball on the White House Side?
Posted by Christopher Hayes, TheNation.com on July 6, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

The corrupting influence of monied interests is so established by now, such a dog-bites-man story that it can be hard to find novel and compelling ways to retell it. But luckily for us chroniclers of same the sheer depth, breath and audacity of the corruption continues to grow at such a pace that tracking its outer edges makes for good (but depressing) copy.

The latest installment, which has the internet a twitter is the revelation that the Washington Post has set itself up a kind of influence broker for corporate lobbyists, arranging off-the-record dinners with key White House policy makers which lobbyists can attend for the low low price of $25,000. Mike Allen of Politico has the (very good) scoop:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" -- Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Powell Hits Back at Limbaugh: Calling Sotomayor a 'Reverse Racist' Is 'Nonsense'
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on July 6, 2009 at 6:02 AM.

Last May, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh called Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, a “reverse racist,” referring to Sotomayor’s past comment that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Today on CNN, former Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized such comments. Saying that Sotomayor is a “gifted” and an “accomplished woman” with “a judicial record that seems to be balanced and tries to follow the law,” Powell added that calling her a “reverse racist” is “nonsense”:

POWELL: What we can’t continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor…called a “racist,” or a “reverse racist” and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we’re mad at her. Fortunately the senators who will sit on this hearing in the Judiciary Committee after a few days of this kind of nonsense said, “Let’s slow down. Let’s examine her qualifications and the way we’re supposed to at a confirmation hearing.”

When host John King asked about the GOP’s “sensitivity” toward minorities, Powell took aim at Limbaugh directly, firing back at his claim that Powell only supported Obama’s candidacy for president because he is black:

POWELL: And when you have non-elected officials such as we have in our party who immediately shout racism or somebody who is quite prominent in the media says the only basis upon which I could possibly have supported Obama was because he was black and I was black even though I laid out my judgment on the candidates, then we still have a problem.

King later noted that Limbaugh has also said that Powell is no longer a Republican. “Mr. Limbaugh of course is entitled to his opinion but he’s not on any membership committee,” Powell replied, adding, “He doesn’t decide who I am or what I am no more than I decide who he is or what he is.” Watch it:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Obama and Medvedev to Work Towards New Strategic Nuclear Arms Reduction
Posted by Plutonium Page, Daily Kos on July 6, 2009 at 5:01 AM.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Oh No! The Dictionary Has a Liberal Bias!
Posted by Roy Edroso, Alicublog on July 5, 2009 at 5:27 AM.

I, and you, have Harry Hutton to thank for this Jonah Goldberg jackpot that had escaped my notice, in which a reader complains to the author of Liberal Fascism of "the creeping leftism of something as supposedly benign as a thesaurus." Yes, the correspondent looked up the entries for "liberal" and "progressive" in Roget's and found them too positive. Goldberg can't leave mad enough alone:

While annoying, none of this surprises me. I can't tell you how many people have told me that my book is idiotic on its face because the dictionary says so.

I must pause here to revisit a previous Goldberg entry:

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank quoted me as saying Harriet Miers fits the dictionary definition of "crony," as if it was a stinging rebuke of the White House. In reality, it was merely a factual statement. According to the dictionary, a crony is a longtime close friend or companion. Historically it didn't have a negative connotation. It derives from the Greek chronos (time)...

This happily spares me the effort of making up an instance of Goldberg doing something like it -- for example, "The dictionary defines 'ass' as 'any wild species of the genus Equus,' so you're really calling me a mustang which is a compliment actually."

He goes on:

By the way, my dad wrote about the deep-seated bias of dictionaries for the Wall Street Journal a few years ago.

Oh no, you think, it can't be -- but it is:

This is not the only instance of labeling-hesitation in Webster's New World--at least when the "leader" in question belongs to the "revolutionary" left. The dictionary can call Hitler the "Nazi dictator of Germany" but Stalin merely the "Soviet premier, general secretary of the Communist party of the U.S.S.R." Mussolini is an "Italian dictator," but Tito is "Yugoslav Communist Party leader, prime minister and president of Yugoslavia." Franco is "dictator of Spain" and Salazar "prime minister and dictator of Portugal," but Mao Tse-tung is "Chinese Communist leader, chairman of the People's Republic of China and of its Communist Party"...

 

Reference works carry with them, inherently, an air of authority, as if their contents are handed down from the heights of scholarship and learned precision. No one can feel right about error and tendentiousness slipping into the culture under such a guise.

So it's congenital!

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Oh No! The Dictionary Has a Liberal Bias!
Posted by Roy Edroso, Alicublog on July 5, 2009 at 5:27 AM.

I, and you, have Harry Hutton to thank for this Jonah Goldberg jackpot that had escaped my notice, in which a reader complains to the author of Liberal Fascism of "the creeping leftism of something as supposedly benign as a thesaurus." Yes, the correspondent looked up the entries for "liberal" and "progressive" in Roget's and found them too positive. Goldberg can't leave mad enough alone:

While annoying, none of this surprises me. I can't tell you how many people have told me that my book is idiotic on its face because the dictionary says so.

I must pause here to revisit a previous Goldberg entry:

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank quoted me as saying Harriet Miers fits the dictionary definition of "crony," as if it was a stinging rebuke of the White House. In reality, it was merely a factual statement. According to the dictionary, a crony is a longtime close friend or companion. Historically it didn't have a negative connotation. It derives from the Greek chronos (time)...

This happily spares me the effort of making up an instance of Goldberg doing something like it -- for example, "The dictionary defines 'ass' as 'any wild species of the genus Equus,' so you're really calling me a mustang which is a compliment actually."

He goes on:

By the way, my dad wrote about the deep-seated bias of dictionaries for the Wall Street Journal a few years ago.

Oh no, you think, it can't be -- but it is:

This is not the only instance of labeling-hesitation in Webster's New World--at least when the "leader" in question belongs to the "revolutionary" left. The dictionary can call Hitler the "Nazi dictator of Germany" but Stalin merely the "Soviet premier, general secretary of the Communist party of the U.S.S.R." Mussolini is an "Italian dictator," but Tito is "Yugoslav Communist Party leader, prime minister and president of Yugoslavia." Franco is "dictator of Spain" and Salazar "prime minister and dictator of Portugal," but Mao Tse-tung is "Chinese Communist leader, chairman of the People's Republic of China and of its Communist Party"...

 

Reference works carry with them, inherently, an air of authority, as if their contents are handed down from the heights of scholarship and learned precision. No one can feel right about error and tendentiousness slipping into the culture under such a guise.

So it's congenital!

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Amid 2012 Hopefuls' Career Implosions, Future Looks Bleak for GOP
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on July 5, 2009 at 3:18 AM.

Two things have happened recently to drive home the point that the Republican Party is in massive decline. The Democratic Caucus in the U.S. Senate reached sixty members and we saw three potential 2012 GOP presidential careers' unexpectedly implode. Where are they going from here?

The GOP might regain some momentum by winning the governor's races this November in either/both New Jersey and Virginia, but their prospects of picking up seats in the 2010 Senate elections look exceedingly bleak. The Democrats have very strong candidates running in Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, and New Hampshire in what should all be open seats. The Republicans will have to stage upset victories in all four of those seats and find a way to win elections in Delaware, Colorado, or Connecticut to gain any ground. And most of the emerging races are on Republican ground. Texas could become a competitive seat once Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns to run for governor. It remains to be seen if Charlie Crist will prevail in Florida's closed GOP primary. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina is polling terribly and could become vulnerable if the Democrats find a strong challenger. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana could have difficulty weathering his diaper-wearing visits to the Cat House if Rep. Charlie Melanchon gets in the race.

The Dems have a little housecleaning to do. They will have contentious primaries in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. But they should be favored to win all of those races. My best guess is that the Democrats will pick up a net of four to six seats, giving them 64-66 senate seats for the 112th Congress.

The House is another matter.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Amid 2012 Hopefuls' Career Implosions, Future Looks Bleak for GOP
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on July 5, 2009 at 3:18 AM.

Two things have happened recently to drive home the point that the Republican Party is in massive decline. The Democratic Caucus in the U.S. Senate reached sixty members and we saw three potential 2012 GOP presidential careers' unexpectedly implode. Where are they going from here?

The GOP might regain some momentum by winning the governor's races this November in either/both New Jersey and Virginia, but their prospects of picking up seats in the 2010 Senate elections look exceedingly bleak. The Democrats have very strong candidates running in Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, and New Hampshire in what should all be open seats. The Republicans will have to stage upset victories in all four of those seats and find a way to win elections in Delaware, Colorado, or Connecticut to gain any ground. And most of the emerging races are on Republican ground. Texas could become a competitive seat once Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns to run for governor. It remains to be seen if Charlie Crist will prevail in Florida's closed GOP primary. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina is polling terribly and could become vulnerable if the Democrats find a strong challenger. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana could have difficulty weathering his diaper-wearing visits to the Cat House if Rep. Charlie Melanchon gets in the race.

The Dems have a little housecleaning to do. They will have contentious primaries in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. But they should be favored to win all of those races. My best guess is that the Democrats will pick up a net of four to six seats, giving them 64-66 senate seats for the 112th Congress.

The House is another matter.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Yes Men Say No to Jerusalem Film Festival
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on July 4, 2009 at 6:51 PM.

Editor's note: this is cross-posted from Tikkun Magazine's blog.

Dear Friends at the Jerusalem Film Festival,

We regret to say that we have taken the hard decision to withdraw our film, "The Yes Men Fix the World," from the Jerusalem Film Festival in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (http://www.bdsmovement.net/).

This decision does not come easily, as we realize that the festival opposes the policies of the State of Israel, and we have no wish to punish progressives who deplore the state-sponsored violence committed in their name.

This decision does not come easily, as we feel a strong affinity with many people in Israel, sharing with them our Jewish roots, as well as the trauma of the Holocaust, in which both our grandfathers died. Andy lived in Jerusalem for a year long ago, can still get by in Hebrew, and counts several friends there. And Mike has always wanted to connect with the roots of his culture.

But despite all our feelings, we cannot abandon our mission as activists.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Yes Men Say No to Jerusalem Film Festival
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on July 4, 2009 at 6:51 PM.

Editor's note: this is cross-posted from Tikkun Magazine's blog.

Dear Friends at the Jerusalem Film Festival,

We regret to say that we have taken the hard decision to withdraw our film, "The Yes Men Fix the World," from the Jerusalem Film Festival in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (http://www.bdsmovement.net/).

This decision does not come easily, as we realize that the festival opposes the policies of the State of Israel, and we have no wish to punish progressives who deplore the state-sponsored violence committed in their name.

This decision does not come easily, as we feel a strong affinity with many people in Israel, sharing with them our Jewish roots, as well as the trauma of the Holocaust, in which both our grandfathers died. Andy lived in Jerusalem for a year long ago, can still get by in Hebrew, and counts several friends there. And Mike has always wanted to connect with the roots of his culture.

But despite all our feelings, we cannot abandon our mission as activists.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Yes Men Say No to Jerusalem Film Festival
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on July 4, 2009 at 6:51 PM.

Editor's note: this is cross-posted from Tikkun Magazine's blog.

Dear Friends at the Jerusalem Film Festival,

We regret to say that we have taken the hard decision to withdraw our film, "The Yes Men Fix the World," from the Jerusalem Film Festival in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (http://www.bdsmovement.net/).

This decision does not come easily, as we realize that the festival opposes the policies of the State of Israel, and we have no wish to punish progressives who deplore the state-sponsored violence committed in their name.

This decision does not come easily, as we feel a strong affinity with many people in Israel, sharing with them our Jewish roots, as well as the trauma of the Holocaust, in which both our grandfathers died. Andy lived in Jerusalem for a year long ago, can still get by in Hebrew, and counts several friends there. And Mike has always wanted to connect with the roots of his culture.

But despite all our feelings, we cannot abandon our mission as activists.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »