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Gaius Gracchus Flees From The Wealthy Elite

In my previous post, I included a chapter from Farewell America which gave a broad overview of the "American Psyche." It is crucial to understand the forces at play here in order to understand why John Kennedy was murdered, and why, when he died, the death knell of the American Republic - as well as its people - began sounding.

As I have written before, most Americans are woefully ignorant of their true history, and by design.

It is true that the early settlers who came to America were, by and large, oppressed and desperate individuals; outcasts in a despotic feudal system. Yes, many of them were persecuted for their religious beliefs, but one needs to understand why they adopted those beliefs: it generally because they were oppressed and desperate! In general, they had little money to undertake such a venture and so most of them were funded by various European business interests who hoped to establish centers of trade so that they could benefit from the vast natural resources of the new land. The fact that America was already occupied by "uncivilized savages" didn't count for much; it never has.

In the end, the colonists were brutally exploited and woefully unprepared for their ventures. The experiences of the early settlers soon taught them that mutual support and interdependence as well as industry and moderation were the keys to success. They worked long and hard and improved their lot individually and collectively. Many of them cooperated with the Native Americans rather than seeing them as enemies to be destroyed.

Hot on their heels, however, were European business interests which sent their agents across the sea to set up shop on the graves of those they had used to pave the way. Greedy opportunists and upper class land grantees followed and few found their dreams of riches or simple prosperity thwarted. And certainly, John Calvin's philosophies were useful to keep everyone working hard and suffering nobly.

After a bit, it became apparent that the competition and greed of the business world of Europe was going to interfere with the new wealthy elite of the New World, and a hue and cry was raised which has echoed over two-hundred years.

As it happened, the philosophies being expounded in the European scientific and literary circles at the time, came in handy as idealistic and inspirational extrapolations with which to underpin a spreading revolutionary spirit. And, for a single hour it seemed that the common people and the elite were united in their efforts to overcome despotism and oppression -- the American Revolution.

Naturally, the common man was just the pawn in this war game, but history taught in American schools doesn't say much about that. Instead, they invoke the glorious image of "Democracy!" as the be-all and end-all of the Revolution, and what a great achievement it was. And, most often, "Democracy" is equated with Capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Contrary to popular conceptions and teachings, the American Revolution did not create the American nation as we know it today. The Articles of Confederation actually bound thirteen new nations, each theoretically sovereign in its own right, into a loose confederacy. The Continental Congress could legislate but not enforce. However, the effects of the Revolution had been financially disastrous to everyone. The national and state debts went unpaid (monies owed to the wealthy elite who had financed the war - and for those who wonder, yes, some were Jews and some were not, so don't go off on the Jews on this one!), trade declined and credit collapsed.

Left to their own devices, the New Americans would have eventually sorted these problems out based upon emerging priorities and systems involving barter and mutually satisfying personal agreements. A real Democracy might have flourished, though it wouldn't have been necessarily Capitalistic.

Tradition teaches us that a group of "noble patriots" called a Constitutional Convention to "further the principles of democracy", as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. Again, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Constitution actually checked the development of democracy.

In some of the states, a moratorium on debt was enacted to relieve the farmers who had fought in the war. But, in the largest and wealthiest states, the planters of Virginia, the manor lords of New York, and the merchants of Massachusetts and Connecticut, refused to give an inch. Massachusetts went so far as to prohibit barter and mutual support schemes to which the impoverished returning soldiers had been forced to resort. Daniel Shay, a Revolutionary captain who had been cited for bravery at Bunker Hill, had come out of the war, as had many others, with nothing. (General Lafayette had presented him with a sword which he was soon forced to sell.) Seeing so many others like himself, he was filled with the injustice of the actions of the wealthy elite. He organized a force of 800 farmers and attempted to prevent the sitting of the courts which were foreclosing the properties of the returning soldiers. Shay's army was dispersed by the state militia but his action thoroughly frightened the upper classes. Samuel Adams begged Congress for federal aid to protect "property rights" and Congress authorized a force designed to prevent any further rebellion. General Henry Knox wrote:

"The people who are the insurgents have never paid any, or but very little taxes -- But they see the weakness of government'... They feel at once their own poverty, compared with the opulent, and their own force, and they are determined to make use of the latter, in order to remedy the former. Their creed is 'That the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscations of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. And he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice, and ought to be swept from the face of the earth.' In a word they are determined to annihilate all debts public and private and have agrarian laws, which are easily effected by means of unfunded paper money which shall be a tender in all cases whatsoever."

Now notice what the good general was saying: he tells us that the PEOPLE of the new land wanted - demanded - that the property of the United States be "the common property of all."

That sounds a bit "Socialistic," doesn't it. Can you believe it? Our forefathers demanded a Socialist government! I don't know about you, but I have half a dozen Revolutionary War soldiers (or more) in my family tree, and it surprised me to learn that my ancestors were demanding Socialism, especially when we all know - or have been told - that Socialism is that evil first step toward Communism; and we all know how evil Communism is, right? Well, we'll come back to this. For now, let me just comment that the "insurgents" may have paid very little taxes, but they paid much blood. (It is also interesting to note that Knox referred to the New Americans as "insurgents." Isn't this word being used pejoratively against those Iraqis who are opposing the US invasion of their country at the present time? My, my!

Nevertheless, seized with fear that a democracy would actually be enacted, the wealthy classes murmured for a government by "the rich, well-born, and capable." (John Adams) Ezra Stiles and Noah Webster were vocal opponents of democracy. Webster claimed that:

"The very principle of admitting everybody to the right of suffrage prostrates the wealth of individuals to the rapaciousness of a merciless gang."

They were well and truly indoctrinated by Calvin, weren't they? And being such good "Christians," it is surprising that they never noted (or at least didn't want to notice) that funny little remark in the New Testament about the "Jesus People" sharing one with another and that they owned "everything in common."

In any event, taking advantage of the situation, Alexander Hamilton induced Congress to call a convention in 1787 to ostensibly revise the Articles of Confederation. Hamilton made no bones about his views that only the wealthy and educated were fit to rule.

"It is usually stated that Hamilton's great achievement was to bring the men of wealth to the support of the new nation, but it could equally well be stated that he brought the new nation to the support of the men of wealth. Indeed it might be said that the new nation was created largely for that very purpose." [M. L. Wilson]

Those who met for the Constitutional Convention were, and knew they were, the elite -- wealthy, educated and intellectual. They believed that others like them must continue to rule for their own protection. The public good was a secondary issue (if it was an issue at all). They meant to create a system in which this could be perpetuated, constitutionally, legally, and peacefully.

Adopting strictest rules of secrecy, they proceeded to create the American Constitution. M.L. Wilson wrote in Democracy Has Roots, that the Constitution was "a remarkable achievement in the avoidance of majority rule." It is not surprising that the ratification of this Constitution was popularly opposed. The conventioners promised to amend it at the first regular session of Congress. These promised amendments came to be known as the "Bill of Rights" and it is in these first ten amendments that Americans have their supposed "Constitutional Rights." A sobering thought when one considers that amendments have been repealed in the past.

But for the "Bill of Rights," hundreds of years of blood-letting for personal liberty would have been tossed on the trash heap by the new American Federal Government. This new "Constitutional" government, rapidly propagated the ideals of materialism and capitalism. And, in a process of unadulterated propaganda, these ideals have been inextricably linked with "democracy" as though the two were identical. The result of this has been a vast chasm between the "haves" and the "have-nots" which grows wider and deeper every day, while the former continue to dupe the latter into believing in and sacrificing their lives for that which does not exist and never did.

John Kennedy knew all of this. He was intelligent, well-educated, well-traveled, observant and, most of all, he had a heart; conscience. Let's take another look at a passage from Farewell America that recounts what happens to Empires that start on the path that was taken the day John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. On one, bright sunny day in Dallas Texas, 43 years ago, America was on the path to the top of the mountain and in less than a minute, everything changed; now, it is doomed to the abyss of despair.

Empires have always succumbed to the same disease. With each new conquest, Rome thrust forward her frontiers and retreated from her principles. The first Romans were simple people, wholly devoted to their land and their gods, But the pilgrims, the settlers and the' sages were succeeded by a promiscuous mob that capitalized on the victories. The growing number of slaves and the afflux of the poor swelled the population. The patricians found their chances for survival considerably reduced as hordes of former slaves, freed and newly wealthy, fought over their estates.

For the Romans, all things reflected their greatness -- the victories of Marius, Pompey, and Caesar, but also the Empire, history, and the future of the Roman people. But there was neither justice in the courts nor honesty in the elections. Only one standard decided the merit of a candidate or the innocence of a defendant: gold.

The spectacles at the Circus served to distract the populace. The free wheat and olives distributed to the needy at the Forum served as a subterfuge for social reforms. The aristocracy purchased seats in the Senate. The magistracy of the empire and the spoils of victory went to the senators, the consuls, the praetors, the quaestors, the censors and their wives. Rome had become a corporation.

The government was in the hands of a few opulent families of the world of finance, supported by the military junta. These families knew how to protect their interests: they disguised them as national necessities. The preservation of Rome was identified with that of the ruling families. "The Roman people consisted of a small oligarchy of landowners, bankers, speculators, merchants, artisans, adventurers, and tatterdemalions, avid for pleasure, excitement, and sudden gain, proud, turbulent, corrupted by the life of the city, and placing their own interests ahead of even the most salutary reform . . ."(1)

The national honor of the Roman Empire was nothing more than the caprices or the indignation of the rulers of the moment, its political institutions no more than the cupidity of its dignitaries and the indolence of its masses, its history nothing more than a series of petty larcenies and more important crimes.

And then the Gracchus brothers*, nephews of Scipion the African, appeared on the scene. The elder brother, Tiberius (160-133 BC), the son of a consul and born a patrician, had been raised by Greek philosophers. He was a veteran of the Spanish campaign. He was elected a tribune. His fortitude, his temperance, his humanity, his passion for justice and his natural eloquence elicited the admiration of Cicero. It was evident that he would make his mark in politics.

Tiberius was as calm, as sober, and as moderate as his brother Gaius was vehement, impassioned, and impetuous. He worked for Italy, for the people, and for liberty. He would not be stopped by either threats or clamor.

On Rogation Day,(2) he addressed the people massed around the tribune. A fragment of this speech, in which he evoked the misery and the helplessness of the people, the depopulation of Italy and the rapacity of the wealthy, has been preserved.

"The landowners in mourning dress appeared on the Forum in the most wretched and humble condition in order to move the people whom they despoiled so mercilessly to pity. But they had little confidence in this demonstration, and they hired assassins to kill Tiberius . . ."(3)

Tiberius, nevertheless, proceeded with his reforms. One of his laws authorized the people to circulate freely on the roads and highways. Another stipulated that the treasure of Attala, who had made the Roman people his heir, would be distributed among the citizens. Other laws distributed lands, subsidized the cost of the first planting, decreased the length of military service, and reorganized the judiciary. Henceforth, no Roman citizen could own more than 750 acres of public land for himself and 375 for each of his sons. This law threatened the owners of the largest herds.

In his speeches Tiberius declared that the will of the people was the supreme authority of the state. This was too much. On the day of his re-election to the tribunate, which would have enabled Tiberius to complete his reforms, Scipion Nasicaa, one of the richest of the landowners, assembled all of the wealthy Romans. Followed by an army of slaves and clients, they climbed to the Capitol. One of Tiberius' colleagues, a tribune, dealt him the first blow. Other assassins finished the job. His body was profaned and thrown into the Tiber.

Rome, which had found senators to assassinate him, found no historian to stigmatize his assassins. After centuries of law and order, the Empire watched with stupefaction as the violence of a faction that had taken the law into its own hands not only went unpunished, but was admired.

Gaius (152-121 BC), eight years younger than his brother, appeared to accept his death and to be unaware of the identities of his assassins. He was appointed quaestor of Sardinia and, against the wishes of the Senate, he did not disappear from view. He lived the life of his soldiers and looked after their interests. He liked long marches and took long, lonely swims in the sea, and he remained chaste.

"The fate of his brother and his reforms had proved that it was vain to attempt to remedy the ills of Rome without first having destroyed, or at least humiliated, the large landowners and the usurpers of the public domain; that the idea of transforming the poor people of Rome into a landowning class was too simple and, in reality, not very effective.

"But once the terror had disappeared, the little people of Rome began to seek a protector, and the victim's brother, who was known for his virtues and was already suspect to the wealthy, appeared to be just the person they needed.

"The persistent hatred of the nobility precipitated him into the fray, although he had no intention of taking up his brother's reforms. Boldly, Gaius ran for the office of tribune and was elected. He immediately proved that he was no ordinary man. He denounced his brother's assassins and punished them. He promulgated the laws that Tiberius would have wanted. He cited Tiberius incessantly in his speeches. He was re-elected a tribune. He reduced the authority of the Senate. He controlled everything, organized everything, imparting his prodigious activity and his indefatigable energy to everyone.

"He was craftier than his brother. He had learned from him, and he had had time to meditate his revenge without beclouding his mind. For a long while, he retained the support of the wealthy by proposing laws that pleased the rich and others that suited the poor. But eventually he voiced the idea that he had so long meditated in silence: that all Italians should be given the rights of citizens."

Rome would be the capital of a vast Italic nation. No longer would the Empire be founded on a municipal oligarchy allied with the corrupt merchants, but on rival classes working in partnership. The former centers of civilization and commerce, now destroyed or declined, would be restored, and the wealth and the multitudes that poured into Rome, threatening to choke the nerve-center of the Empire, would be distributed evenly throughout the different lands.

It was the historic task of Rome that Gaius had in mind, but he thought he could accomplish alone what it was to take six generations to achieve. His grandiose ideas were too premature. His plan to accord the rights of a Roman citizen to all Italians pleased neither the nobility nor the little people.

The Senate decided that things had gone far enough. The Consul Lucien Opimius led the conspiracy. Pursued and about to be taken, Gaius killed himself in a wood dedicated to the Furies. Septimuleius cut off his head. Gaius in his turn was thrown into the Tiber, along with 3,000 of his followers. The year of Gaius' death, the grape harvest was exceptionally good. The nobles, the wealthy, the big and the small landowners bought up all the slaves on the market.

The Gracchus brothers were the last true aristocrats of Rome. Licentiousness robbed the aristocracy of its traditional energy and its virtues. Most of their laws were abolished. The robber barons rid the Roman Empire of all the leaders who had dreamed of being generous, or simply of being just. Balbinus, Emilian, Valerian, Aurelius, and Maximus were assassinated in their turn. Probus lasted six years, Tacitus ten months, and Pertinax 97 days.

Sixteen centuries later, Machiavelli wrote that "men forget the death of their father more easily than the loss of their patrimony, and they hesitate less to harm a man who is loved than another who is feared."

Later, after Honorius, the frontiers of the Empire were overrun by the barbarians. The Empire, invaded, was split asunder, and Rome faded into oblivion. The Gracchus brothers were not forgotten by the Roman people. Statues were erected in their memory, and a cult was founded in their honor.

NOTES

1. Guglielmo Ferrero.

2. The day the laws were proposed to the people.

3. Leon Jouberti.

*The Gracchi were a noble plebeian family of ancient Rome.

The most notable members were:

• The elder Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who was consul in 177 BC and married Cornelia Africana, the daughter of Scipio Africanus Major, who was the archetype of the ideal Roman matron
• His son, the younger Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, tribune in 133 BC
• The younger son of the consul, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, also tribune in 123 and 122 BC

The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, went down in history as martyrs to the cause of social reform. Tiberius was killed by members of the Senate for attempting to make the system more friendly to the lower classes of Rome. They tried to limit the size of the large farms that the patricians (upper class) owned to keep the plebeians (lower class) able to compete with their smaller farms. Gaius and many of his followers were killed in 121 BC owing to the Senate being made up of patricians who owned large farms.

The Gracchi were connected through marriage to the Scipiones, Cornelii, Claudii, and Aemilii.

Fictional Gracchi also appear in many epic films, such as Spartacus (1960) and Gladiator (2000).

So now, how about all of you taking a little time off and re-watching these last mentioned movies: Spartacus and Gladiator. It might give you some food for thought and a deeper understanding of the man, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and what America has lost.
Comment on this Editorial

Into the infancy of the 21st century has humanity somehow managed to reach, despite our insatiable addiction for violence and suffering that has for millennia been both endemic and devastating, in spite of the continued tribalism, now called the nation state, that fosters competition, ignorance, fear, hatred and war among the peoples of the world, even with the hierarchical need among peoples to perpetually follow corrupt, immoral and warmongering leadership that continues to lay ruin the vast potential within us and notwithstanding the locust-like hunger of six billion primates whose consumptions and needs for resources are raping and pillaging Earth at unsustainable levels, thus accelerating our inevitable implosion.

Into the early years of the 21st century does humanity find itself in, in the present seeing our past, in our future seeing the present, refusing to learn from the sands of time and the chronicles of those who have come before, knocking on the heavy iron doors of progressive modernity yet hearing only the echoing thuds of regressive primitiveness, desperately seeking the keys that will allow us to finally escape the pestilence of times past and malignant cancers of the present.

Yet in turbulent times do we once more find ourselves living in, surrounded by war, destruction and death, gnawed at by suffering and misery, living among the ignorant, fearful and easily led, taken hostage by fundamentalists, zealots and extremists, refusing to eradicate from our condition the plague called violence and the warmongering, greed-infected leaders who birth it.

Inside the scourge of humanity called capitalism and the devastating system of control it has unleashed onto billions of human energies do we find ourselves trapped in, becoming six billion cogs in an engine, oiled by exploiters and oppressors, that runs voraciously on the fumes of conditioned consumerism and programmed parasitic production. It is capitalism, presently inebriated in its most damaging stage, that has best succeeded in tapping the animalistic selfishness and instinctual individualism of the human mind. It is this form of economic governance that has enveloped our animal urges, needs, wants, passions and emotions into an intertwined cocktail of unparalleled self-damage resulting in the virtual enslavement of billions living off the scraps and bones of the Establishment.

Forgotten by the hypnotizing aura of greed and the Almighty Dollar is the inevitable necessity of the common good and the survival of the commons for the benefit of all. Humanism and communalism has been replaced by manipulated materialism and a systemically programmed love of individual self, our animal instincts easily dominated by a system thriving off the human condition and the nature of who and what we are.

For it is easy to manipulate our instincts, creating a system that thrives off our insecurities, fears, emotions, needs and desires, feeding itself from the heavy pressures on us of society, groups and family, draining our energies through the abuse of the inherent human need for survival and manufacturing a fictional world of fantasy and perfection that penetrates our psychology and attacks our behaviors. Capitalism as we know it has been a parasite, using our own weaknesses to exterminate our strengths, becoming the perfect form of economic dependence from which to exploit, enslave and subjugate billions of human beings.

Its primitiveness lies in its strengths, namely its ability to control and manipulate our animalistic behaviors and passions, masquerading as an evolved form of human interaction. Yet evolution is advancement, a progress away from our animal selves and towards the greater manifestations of human understanding. Evolution of economic governance would be a system willing to take humanity away from its animal instincts and towards those mechanisms distinguishing us beyond the confines of what we presently inhabit.

Progress is fighting our urges, our fears, our insecurities and our human nature. Evolution is doing away with our animalistic individuality and selfishness, our mammalian instinct for competition, our lust for hierarchy and territory, our pursuit of power and sexual conquest, our primitive thoughts and beliefs, and of the unyielding control over our lives of both the tribe and archaic theology, both of which prey on our animal instincts for power and survival. In order to be human the animal inside us must be controlled, dominated and understood.

Only by understanding ourselves and the parameters of our existence can a better humanity arise. Only through deep introspections of history past and humanity present can resistance commence and renaissance be born. We must mold who and what we are into a higher being, forming from the clays of Earth a better, more evolved human species, learning from our mistakes, advancing through our triumphs, understanding ourselves and those unknown, joining our strengths and eliminating our weaknesses, in the end working in concert towards the betterment of six billion, not simply 300 million.

The animal inside us must be exorcised from our conscious, its thirst for violence and war finally exterminated, its lust for oppression and addiction to selfishness vanquished, its divisions and fear based on ignorance and reliance on unscrupulous leadership made to disappear. Antiquated notions such as the nation state - nothing more than a tribe on steroids - and reliance on the archaic beliefs of ancient brains living in primitive times must give way to the coming together of the world entire, for the benefit of all, as well as a new understanding of humanity, encompassing progressive pragmatism, educated modernity, communal spirituality, scientific reality and the thought-processes of 21st century man, not those of 8,000 year old primeval primates trying to make sense of an existence both harsh and frightening through now extinct myths and fables that helped explain a once-mysterious world. Only when we put a stop to a condition that has followed us since we left the jungles of the Great Rift Valley will we be allowed to evolve forward, no longer continuing on our slow and painful stagnation towards self-destruction and no longer held back by the control mechanisms of those who have for too long quashed human potential and our inevitable push forward.

To follow in the footsteps of our animal urges and passions is easy to do, it being a simple continuation of all we have ever known and experienced. After all, we have never deviated from this self-defeating understanding of humanity. It is changing direction, however, in such obvious deficit of present-day society and civilization, that truly makes us human. It is when we go against our own instincts, fighting the symptoms of our disease, struggling for the benefit of the many, in an enlightened stage of understanding, that humanity can finally claim victory in escaping its animal self. To continue our ways is easy, for it is what we are; to change course in spite of ourselves is much more difficult, yet what will allow us to claim humanness away from our primate/mammal selves.

When the day finally arrives when we grasp the reality of who we are and discard the fiction of what we portend to be humanity will cease to ride the rollercoaster of our history, so full of violence, exploitation and suffering, instead launching itself to the highest zenith of civilization. It will be when we deviate away from the ceaseless damage we have done onto ourselves and the planet that we can claim resistance and renaissance.

When genocide stops, when ethnic cleansing vanishes, when war becomes nonexistent and the perpetual cycle of violence is washed away from the realm of human existence we can claim Revolution. Resistance will begin when the many begin the healing of civilization and the planet, when a massive movement commences to purge warmongering leadership from our midst, when a tidal wave of humanity floods the concrete jungles and steel canyons we live in, marching to the drumbeats of peace, non-violence and universal harmony. That is Revolution at the dawn of the 21st century; that is the evolution of humankind and our triumph over the primitive conditions of our being that still riddle our existence.

We must put aside ego, forever eliminating the fallacy of our perceived ascendancy and the conditioned greatness of our species, in unity fighting and curing the symptoms of our disease and the conditioned, systemic exploitation of our lives. We must forever banish the exploitation and subjugation advanced by capitalism, where billions are forever condemned to servitude, raped of opportunity, robbed of talent, sucked of energy and perpetually chained to the bondage of a caste system from where few ever escape.

Only when the many, the indigent, the desolate are freed from the meager wages they earn in dehumanizing and torturous working conditions, all for the benefit of the rich nations, corporations and consumers of the north will we be able to claim enlightenment. Only when the lands and peoples of the poor south stop hemorrhaging from the ceaseless rape of their lands and devastation of their environments by the forces of neo-liberalism, market colonialism and globalization will our world become more secure. Only when the peoples of the rich north unite in solidarity and fraternity with their brothers and sisters of the exploited south can we as a species advance towards greatness. Only then will we have resistance. Only then will the many have revolution.

To continue what has transpired and will continue to be is to remain tied to our animals selves, refusing to resist the urges, the fears, the demons and the disease itself, refusing to evolve as a civilization, ensnarled by the clutches of a primitiveness that has yet to let us go. Remaining stagnant, refusing to leave the comfort of the tormented and arduous reality of the only road we have ever known, when we have yet to change or mend our ways, when history's books are littered with the effects of our disease, when sands and dirt reveal the shattered and ruined remains of the human condition, will inevitably lead to our self-annihilation.

Indeed, for as long as we have existed we have followed a most ominous path, one of constant war, competition, violence, killing, suffering and destruction. From the beginning humanity has marched toward an inevitability, now closer than ever, that we have yet to deviate away from, that unless altered will leave our ruins to the cockroaches and scorpions, free to roam the plains of Earth, the destroyed cities, its deserted streets and once magnificent monuments of a once troubled civilization. Rather, stubbornly we maintain our self-defeating ways, refusing to evolve away from a system that has been broken, even diseased, for millennia. We refuse to fix or alter what has not worked, what continues to devastate the vast proportion of human beings, a poison that lingers without antidote, gaining strength from our indifference, becoming a historical plague subsisting from our weaknesses, forever cementing into our condition the parameters of war and violence, disease and indigence, pervasive exploitation and incessant oppression.

What road six billion people choose to take in the next few years will in the end decide the collective fates of those alive today and those born tomorrow.


Resistance begins with Ourselves


Understanding ourselves in body and mind will lead to the next leap forward for humanity, and with it the liberation of the embedded greatness inside us, released from the dungeons of human weakness, that will spawn a new awakening in the way we see and treat ourselves. Consciously deciding to step forward instead of facing backwards, the enlightenment of resistance must be massive, a giant movement born of synergy, a symbiotic unity of human energy crashing head first into a system for too long eroding the very fabric of humanity, finally awakening billions to a most troubled history. For only in harmony, knitted together from the toughest elements, can a most beautiful orchestra come alive, trumpeting a rebirth of humanity unparalleled in history and unsurpassed in power. The beginning stages will be called Resistance; its finality, Revolution.

The Enlightenment of Resistance commences with the self, in understanding the destructive forces unleashed by our own actions. The Resistance to the system and the corporatists in power begins by fighting the conditioned consumerism, ingrained into us from birth, that envelopes our daily existence. The evils spawned by capitalism, those mechanisms that manipulate our fragile psyches and mammalian needs in order to garner the most profit, must be seen for the exploitation of human minds that they are. Fictions that cannot possibly exist, whether in advertisements, cartoons, television or movies, where perfection is all-encompassing, fantasy is made attainable in the realm of human life and beauty seen as absolute, must be exposed for the psychological fallacy they espouse, existing to manipulate the human mind into returning every working wage we earn to our corporate masters through the purchase of those products that we are made to believe will somehow improve our "miserable" lives.

Thus, resistance begins with understanding that television shows are designed to hook us, like a fish in a lake, for the purpose of cooking our minds in the grill of perpetual revenue and profit. Television exists for one purpose, and that is to blitzkrieg us in a shock and awe bombardment of product placements and advertisements, employed in psychologically manipulative fantasies, designed to consciously and subconsciously compel us to purchase a vast array of products, thus transferring our living wages into the pockets of corporations. Television shows are like an orgasmic drug, addicting us to fictions and hooking us to characters and stories that will hypnotize us through the glare of the screen, acting as magnets that attach us to our couches, all methodically done for the real purpose behind television, namely the huge assortment of advertisements, product placement, and incessant brainwashing that is designed to make parasitic consumers of us all.

Television is thus a conduit by which the corporate world uses us, abusing our psychology and emotions, pitting our rational selves against our animal instincts, carefully selecting marketable formulas that will propel forward the most consumers and invariably, the most profit as well. We are being harvested for our earnings, our psychology is being meddled with. From cradle to grave corporate brainwashing transforms us into robot-like producers and gluttonous consumers of its products, all for profit, all for wealth, and all for love of the Almighty Dollar.

Resistance of self is awakening to a reality that everything you see on television is placed there for the benefit of the corporate world and the government it owns. Television is an instrument of control, of making lifelong consumers and catatonic citizens of us, a means to profit and power, a mechanism of distraction away from those events negatively affecting our lives and a successful formula for brainwashing our mind to the dictates it wants furthered in society.

The best way to punish corporations and the Establishment that owns them, then, is to put a stop to addictions to materialism that are prevalent throughout American society. We must stop our gluttonous consumption patterns and the plague-like appetite for material wealth that lingers in our nation. The corporation does not bleed red, but it does bleed heavily with the loss of revenue and profit. This is our weapon against the system, and if enough of us orchestrate a movement, then in time, one by one, corporations will fall, too anemic to continue ruling over our lives, slowly hemorrhage to death through the accumulated blows of the many. We must hit them where they will suffer most, where we can inflict the greatest pain, nailing individual corporations in their most vulnerable weak spot. It is revenue and profit that grants them life, infecting executives and Board members with greed, lining the pockets of investors and shareholders, making them blind to the damage done to man and land. It is here where we will drive them to the ground. This is the Enlightenment of Resistance.

We must seek happiness over material wealth, knowing that our species cannot possibly sustain its exorbitant lifestyle. We must trade our SUV's for fuel-efficient cars, our lavish standards of living for a more modest existence. Material wealth must give way to sacrifice and discipline, for the gluttony of the north contributes to the enslavement and exploitation of the south. Boycotts of energy conglomerates and the auto industry must commence, forcing these backward barbarians to expedite the extinction of the internal combustion engine and quickly giving rise to more fuel-efficient modes of transportation. We must push forward the development of solar and wind energy, as well as other forms of alternative energy that are renewable and environmentally friendly.

If we are modern man, then the machines of the past must quickly be phased out, yet in order to maintain profit, wealth, power and control those industries enriched by and dependent on oil refuse to evolve forward, instead condemning the planet to certain global warming and future catastrophe. The technology for renewable energies presently exists, yet it remains hidden, a dark secret in the corporate world's closet, gathering dust until it is convenient for them to inject it into civilization. Yet as long as the last drop of oil remains below the surface of the only home we know, those in control will continue destroying our environment, helping to set us back decades with each year the devil's excrement remains in existence. Yet when greed controls and the Almighty Dollar reigns supreme, when immoral scoundrels run the nation's corporate machine, the oceans of Earth will have to submerge us and devastating climate change will have to decimate us before they realize the destiny their grease-stained hands and fume infested minds have placed humanity in.

Slowly but surely we are killing the planet, and with it ourselves. This, the Resistance needs to remedy. This Beast we need to destroy.


On all Fronts, Resistance


On all fronts the Enlightenment of Resistance must be strong, yet it is in the area of self-education that it matters most. Resistance to the corporatist takeover of America begins with self-enlightenment, in seeing clearly with open eyes and unfiltered minds. It is going back to our childhood and deprogramming ourselves from years of government propaganda and corporate manipulation. It is rewiring our brains so that truth and reality are once more seen over the horizon, turning our backs on skies of pitch dark nothingness where even the brightest stars have been extinguished.

Resistance means reading books of truth, no matter how alien or difficult to bear they are. The truth of what America has been and continues to be must be known. It is the only way to know our enemy. ( I highly recommend Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States) The pages of history must be studied so that we are not condemned to repeat the errors of times past. The teachings of our forefathers must be inculcated, their wisdom understood, their words heeded. The beliefs of those now exterminated should be resurrected for in their philosophies of life, nature and spirituality modern man can learn valuable lessons. We must study how we came to be, how we evolved and how we behave, studying the sciences and ourselves, learning the pragmatism of today and finally letting go the fantasy of yesterday.

Brainwash education must be made extinct, as should curriculum teaching young adults to be thieves and murderers, exploiters and oppressors. New dogmas favoring the pursuit of sustainable development, humanity, peace, love, respect for Earth and unity of humankind should be introduced, replacing those espousing love of individual interest, pursuit of material wealth, indoctrination of mass consumption, generator of waste and formation of automaton-like producers. Jobs for the benefit of humanity should be promoted and encouraged over those promising individual glory and wealth. Selflessness must be preached, as should empathy for our fellow humans. The altar of greed must be exterminated, the temple of the Almighty Dollar bulldozed and burned, and all ideology advocating profit over people forever vanquished.

Human rights must stand for all, not just the warmongers, greed mongers and profiteers. The philosophies of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King should be taught instead of those of Adam Smith, Machiavelli and American Christian fundamentalism. Morality should not belong to the murderers and war criminals who make of it what they wish, manufacturing lies and deceptions to justify their monstrous thirst for blood and indifference to human life. Never again should we allow those without scruples or love of humanity to falsely condition us to accept unspeakable horrors and devastating suffering befalling onto innocent individuals. Never again should we allow $650 billion a year worth of instruments of death, maiming, suffering and destruction to rain down like a violent hailstorm onto an entire populace, giving birth to the nadir of human hell and condemning millions to a terrorism bordering on the Apocalypse.

The Resistance should do all in its power to deny the military-industrial-complex from pilfering our treasure for its sinister purposes and making monsters of our loved ones, transforming na�ve and undereducated citadels of caste warfare into Frankenstein-like creatures robbed of mind, soul and heart, sent to foreign lands to devastate and destroy their fellow brothers of economic circumstance. The Resistance must fight so that $650 billion a year in our treasure does not end up in the bank accounts of murderers and criminals who care not an ounce leaving our children behind and our elderly and sick without medicines or healthcare.

We must strive to live in a world where a nation's strength is not military might but rather its humanist resources. We should want to live in a world where the military industry is relegated to the margins of society and where the education of our children becomes of paramount importance. Our new world should endeavor for the elimination of the military-industrial complex because as long as it exists, and as long as capitalism persists, war will be ceaseless, it will be devastating, and it will be profitable. Capitalism's evils include war, for through destruction and murder the corporate world thrives and wealth is accumulated. As long as greed lives war will linger, killing and maiming, destroying and inflicting untold levels of misery.

The military-industrial complex is in the business of death and violence, with access to a military budget that supercedes that of all industrialized nations' combined. It exists because it kills, and because there are so many people to continue killing. Its power grows because we refuse to act, because of our unwillingness and indifference to control a most malicious beast. Its continued flourishing endangers all of humanity, for it will continue to grow, becoming still more powerful, seeking new blood to spill, new flesh to burn and new bodies to tear open. Each new year its budget swells, each new year its addictions fuse with its ability to declare war, whenever it wants, wherever it wants, easily manipulating the populace and its mercenary armies. Until it is stopped, until our war culture is changed, until missiles and bombs and tanks and artillery and depleted uranium and bullets are no longer manufactured and spat out like warm bread out of the assembly lines of American factories we will not be rid of the pestilence that has forever attacked our existence, pitting poor versus poor and young versus young for the entertainment, accumulated wealth and growing power of the Establishment.


The Greatest Story Ever Told?


The birth of a new humanity and a new America is possible. We simply have to wish it so, acting on our own behalf, claiming for ourselves a better way of life and a better mechanism for human interaction. Resistance is a massive movement pushing forward principles of humanity and morality, born of discontent and protest, outrage and a belief that a better world is possible. A system that exploits billions of people cannot be allowed to continue. A system that in essence enslaves billions, robbing them of opportunity and talent, a future and a life worth living cannot be allowed to fester. For the sake of billions living today and billions to be born tomorrow the Resistance must commence, our outrage and anger channeled positively, uniting in force and commonality to rid the world, once and for all, of the scourge that has lived with us from time immemorial, hiding and evolving, preventing us from flourishing and entering new dimensions of human understanding. The scourge must be brought down by the will of the People, millions united in cause, fists in the air, boots marching together, seeking the beginning of the end for the animal inside us and the wickedness infecting our society.

More and more, America is becoming a fascist dictatorship, combining the power of the state with that of the corporate world. We are in danger, democracy has ceased to exist, the corporatist power grows. The Enlightenment of Resistance must be born, sacrificing our conformity and indifference for the sake of those that have yet to come. This is the calling of our lives, as we stand selected by the energies of the universe to jump humanity beyond the stratosphere of our own weaknesses and limitations, flying high into new rebirths and enlightenments, seeing across the marvels of Earth a humanity changed for the common good, where what is good for one is good for all and where what affects one similarly affects us all.

The Enlightenment of Resistance is going beyond our animal selves, evolving past our instincts and acquired emotions. It is resisting without violence, in the full spectrum of peace and love and kindness and compassion. Non-violence gives us the moral high ground, it gives us what the corporatists can never attain inside the empty cavity that is their heart. It gives us Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King; it gives us goodness, positive energy and humanity. If they strike, turn the other cheek, if they curse, forgive them. If they hate, then love them back. If they fight, give them a warm embrace. We are no match for their ignorance or their callousness or their wickedness or their guns. Our only weapons lie within us, the great virtues of humankind, our love, our sympathy, our goodness and morals.

The Enlightenment of Resistance stands before us, seeking to exorcise our primate and mammalian urges and fears from our consciousness, seeking to liberate us from our perpetuating history, wanting desperately to grant us the freedoms and responsibilities of the next leap forward. Do we evolve towards greatness or remain static in primitiveness? Do we act today for a better tomorrow or do we once again give in to a system that has maintained us on our knees for millennia? The story of humankind keeps repeating itself, over and over, thanks to the inaction of our ancestors and the continued power of the Establishment. Will we be another sad chapter in this disease-riddled story or will we write our own new book, beginning with page one of the greatest story ever told?

We can continue what has never worked, billions rotting and enslaved, gutted and dominated, full of war, destruction, violence and exploitation, or we can resist, knowing that perhaps a better future awaits and a better humanity can be born. It is time to evolve, it is time for change. Humanity has wasted at the bowels of its condition long enough. The time to see how far forward we can go is upon us, for if not now, then when? Let history record this time as an era where bravery and courage awoke to reclaim a sinking ship from a giant iceberg.

Let it be written by the sands of time that it was the men and women of the early stages of the 21st century that defied all obstacles and enemies of man, transforming human civilization into a catalyst for greatness, instigating a paradigm shift whereby a new dimension of human existence commenced.

Original
Comment on this Editorial

[Republicans deal with protesters at a 2004 Bush rally in Colmar, Pa.]

Pay attention, kids: The problem with eliminationist rhetoric isn't just the viciousness of the people speaking it. The real problem is the people listening.

The mistaken war and botched aftermath have created such a mess that the only credible course change must be predicated on this painful question: Is there an achievable goal that makes the further sacrifice of American lives worthwhile? With each passing day, that is looking less and less likely. ... What, exactly, is the goal that U.S. forces are fighting and dying for?

Is it to referee a civil war in Iraq? At the press conference Bush said:

Our job is to prevent the full—full-scale civil war from happening in the first place. It is one of the missions, is to work with the Maliki government to make sure that there is a political way forward that says to the people of Iraq, It's not worth it. Civil war is not worth the effort—by them...And so we will work to prevent that from happening.

Is that it? Or is it, as the president let slip, to prevent "terrorists or extremists in Iraq [from gaining] access to vast oil reserves" in Iraq and denying them to the U.S. How often were we told that oil had "nothing to do with it!"?
 
The president did say that too many children "won't ever see their mom and dad again," and that he owes it "to them and to the families who still have loved ones in harm's way to ensure that their sacrifices are not in vain."
 
He owes to people like the family of Jeremy Shank. In a small town in Missouri last month, Rev. Carter Frey eulogized young Shank, who was killed while on patrol in Iraq. Frey stressed that Shank was one of those who "put themselves in harm's way and paid the ultimate sacrifice so that you and I can have freedom to live in this country."

Really? Many patrols like the one Shank was on appear to be aimed at stopping Shia and Sunni from killing each other—stopping what the president calls "full-scale civil war." Two months ago Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley told the press, "It's no longer about insurgency, but sectarian warfare." Is that what Jeremy Shank and other young men and women are paying the ultimate sacrifice—or the penultimate one of living the rest of their lives without arms or legs?
 
What else could be their purpose? To continue the pursuit of evidence of weapons of mass destruction or ties between Iraq and al-Qaida? Or is it really, as the Bush administration suggests, to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and the wider Middle East? Really? How long will we let our young soldiers be mocked and used? How long will we allow President Bush to treat them as disposable soldiers—like toys a rich kid gets for Christmas?
 
Time To Bring Them Home
 
There are basically two choices: (1) "stay the course" (or the same concept with a more felicitous label); or (2) withdraw. Let's look at them both:
 
(1) Those of us who have "been there, done that" know what is meant by "stay the course"—or whatever updated formulation the Bush administration uses that implies action short of withdrawal. Its name is Vietnam. It means more violence month by month—as we have witnessed recently—until there are 50,000 more of our young troops, and a million more Iraqis, dead. From the president's own words we know his intention is to keep our troops in Iraq until the end of his term. A year or two later, our helicopters will be lifting the remainder of the American presence in Iraq off the rooftops of the billion-dollar embassy we are now building in the Green Zone. The name is Vietnam. It is a no-brainer for anyone who knows the first thing about "insurgency"—or, more properly, resistance to foreign occupation. More and more violence—guaranteed.
 
(2) Withdrawal: It is more difficult to predict what will happen if we withdraw our troops from Iraq over the next year or so. A lot depends on how we go about it. The steps outlined below, the result of brainstorming with my colleagues with Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and others, would in my view hold the promise of much less violence and killing:

(a) Show a modicum of respect for the opinions of the Iraqi people, two-thirds of whom want U.S. forces out of Iraq immediately, according to a recent poll commissioned by our Department of State. It seems the height of hubris and incongruity for U.S. officials to pretend, as they do, that they know far better what would be best for the Iraqis. Another poll had 60 percent of the Iraqi people saying they would shoot an American on sight, if they had the opportunity.
 
(b) Publicly disavow any intention of having permanent—or as the Pentagon now prefers to say "enduring"—military bases in Iraq.
 
(c) Publicly disavow any intention of having special rights over the oil under the sands of Iraq. (These last two steps will be difficult for the Bush administration, since those aims formed the bulk of the motivation for attacking and occupying Iraq.)
 
(d) TALK. Yes, talk. It is bizarre that the Bush administration does not let the State Department talk with "evil" forces—like North Korea, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and (perish the thought) "insurgents" in Iraq. If Ronald Reagan could talk with the Evil Empire, and conclude very important arms control and other agreements, surely the George W. Bush administration can engage resistance forces in Iraq. The Arab League states have shown themselves eager to facilitate such discussions. Indeed, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak did precisely that in October 2005, when he invited all interested states and factions to a meeting in Cairo. The U.S. boycotted those talks, and made it difficult for its clients in Baghdad to attend.

Following these four steps would attenuate the violence and damage that can be expected, however well-planned our withdrawal. Most importantly, then—and only then—we can expect the Arab League countries, the United Nations, the Western Europeans, Indians, Pakistanis and others to do what they can to facilitate our withdrawal with as much grace as can be mustered at that point. Why? Because they like us? No; we have frittered away the strong support rendered us in the wake of 9/11. They will help because most of them have even more interest than we in a more stable Iraq—and just as much interest as we in the oil there.
 
Bottom line: It seems virtually certain that there will be more violence in "staying the course." That being the case, it can no longer be a moral decision to say, in effect: Let's let those kids from the inner cities and the farms stay the course for us; who knows, maybe they'll be lucky!
 
I cannot resist the temptation to recall that all of this was entirely predictable—and predicted. Almost exactly a year ago we took strong issue with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's insistence that the war in Iraq was "winnable." We noted at the time that "most of those with a modicum of experience in guerrilla warfare and the Middle East are persuaded that the war is NOT winnable and that the only thing in doubt is the timing of the U.S. departure."
 
When will they ever learn; when will they ever learn?

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from the administrations of John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. He now works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C.

This article was first published at TomPaine.com

Starting from the oldest:

1. On October 29, 1948, when Israeli brigades captured the village of Safsaf. The known details of the massacre come to us via several contemporary second-hand Zionist reports and via Arab oral history. Yosef Nachmani, a senior officer in the Haganah (and later the director of the Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee), recorded in his diary what he was told by Immanuel Friedman, a representative of the Minority Affairs ministry:

In Safsaf, after … the inhabitants had raised a white flag, the [soldiers] collected and separated the men and women, tied the hands of fifty-sixty fellahin [peasants] and shot and killed them and buried them in a pit. Also, they raped several women… (quoted in Zertal, 2005, p. 171; see also Morris, 2005, p. 500).

Moshe Erem reported on the massacre to a meeting of the Mapam Political Committee but his words were censored from the minutes. According to the notes taken by another person present, Erem spoke of:

Safsaf 52 men tied together with a rope. Pushed down a well and shot. 10 killed. Women pleaded for mercy. 3 cases of rape . . . . A girl of 14 raped. Another four killed (Morris, 2004, p. 500).

These accounts in broad detail are supported by Palestinian witnesses who told their stories to historians.

2. On October 29, 1948 (same day and year of above massacre), the Arab town al-Dawayima was conquered by Israeli terrorist groups known as Irgun and Lehi.

An unnamed Israeli soldier told this version: “The first wave of conquerors killed about 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. The children they killed by breaking their heads with sticks. There was not a house without dead.”

Meron Benvenisti writes:

Atrocities and acts of brutality characterised this period: summary executions, rape, blowing up houses along with their occupants, looting and plundering, and leaving hundreds of villages to their own devices in the fields, without food or water. The most serious atrocities were committed in the village of Al-Dawayima on the western slopes of the Hebron Highlands. This large village, with a population of some 3,500 was taken on 29 October, 1948. The occupying forces indiscriminately killed between 80 and 100 males villagers, blew up houses together with their occupants, murdered women and children, and committed rape. According to eyewitness testimony, these acts were committed “not in the heat of battle and inflamed passions, but out of a system of expulsion and destruction. The fewer Arabs remained — the better.”

3. On October 29, 1956, during the Suez Crisis, Israeli Border Police started at 4 pm what they called a tour in Kafr Qasim town (also known as Kafr Qassem, Kufur Kassem and Kafar Kassem). They told the Mukhtars (Aldermen) of the town that the curfew from that day onwards was to start from 5 pm until 6 am next morning. They reached Kafr Qasem around 4:45 pm and informed the Mukhtar who protested that there are about 400 villagers working outside the town and there is no enough time to inform them of the curfew timings. An officer assured him that they will be taken care of.

The guards waited at the entrance to the town. 43 Kafr Qasem inhabitants were massacred in cold blood by the army as they returned from work. Their crime was violating a curfew they did not know about. On the northern entrance of the town 3 were killed and 2 were killed inside of the town. Amongst the dead were men, women, and children. Lutanat Danhan was touring the area in his jeep reporting the massacre, on his wireless he said “minus 15 Arabs” after a while his message on the radio to his H.Q. was “it is difficult to count.”

Interestingly enough, on Nov. 11, 1956, Prime Minister Ben Gurion told the cabinet about the Kfar Qasim massacre. He said:

“We have a wonderful army, but it appears that sometimes there are incidents and circumstances that make people lose their minds.”

On March 28, 2001, Ha’aretz published some excerpts from this cabinet meeting.

Ha'aretz March 28, 2001
Excerpts from the State Archives, Jerusalem.

The Kfar Kassem massacre took place on October 29, 1956, but it reverberates through Israeli political culture to this day. The following transcripts, from the state archives, depict David Ben-Gurion’s government as shocked, contrite - and worried about how the news of the event will reflect on Israel overseas. At one point, Ben-Gurion regrets that Israel “gave up the death penalty too soon.” At one point, he indicated that he was inclined to accept the idea of the two sergeants in the case being hanged in the village square of Kfar Kassem.(Please note that the initials G.M. that occasionally appear in this text refer to Guy Ma’ayan, a historian. His review of “Kfar Kassem: Events and Myths,” by Rubik Rosenthal, appears in today’s Hebrew Book Review.)

Protocols of the government session, 7 Heshvan, 5757, (November 11, 1956).

Source: State Archives, Jerusalem.

Participants: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Mapai), Finance Minister Levi Eshkol (Mapai), Foreign Minister Golda Meir (Mapai), Interior Minister Yisrael Bar-Yehuda (Ahdut Avoda), Health Minister Yisrael Barzilai (Mapam), Police Minister Bechor Shalom-Sheetrit (Mapai), Housing Minister Mordechai Bentov (Mapam), Welfare Minister Peretz Naftali (Mapai). Central District IDF Commander Zvi Tzur.

Ben-Gurion: I now must report on a uniquely horrible and regrettable incident, the scandal that took place in three villages in the Triangle: Kfar Kassem, Jeljoulya, and Taibe. On October 29, the central command issued an order to place a curfew on the villages in that area. The order itself was proper. The villagers (who knew of the curfew - G.M.) obeyed the order. There was a curfew from five in the afternoon until six in the morning. But there were villagers who were outside the villages and they returned in the morning, after the curfew went into effect - they were shot and killed. There were children and women. I first heard about this on November 1.

Barzilai: What’s the overall number?

Ben-Gurion: Forty-seven. Seventeen were women and children. I immediately decided to order an inquiry. I immediately asked the Supreme Court President to name a judge. He advised me to take Binyamin Zohar, whom I named as chairman and added attorney Hoter-Yishai and Abba Hushi. I asked them to quickly investigate: a) the circumstances of the events in the villages on October 29; b) the degree of responsibility of the Border Patrolmen, officers, sergeants and troops, and if they should be charged and tried. I received word that everything done was the responsibility of the Border Patrol, but that’s not true, because the Border Patrol at the time was under the command of the army; c) The compensation the government must pay to the families that suffered as a result of the Border Patrolmen’s behavior.

The committee delivered a report. According to the report, Brigade 17 commander (Col. Yashka Shedmi - G.M.) gave the order (to kill the curfew breakers - G.M.). He denies he gave such an order, since the order was given in private to regimental commander 2 (sic) Shmuel Melinki. The order said apply the curfew from five in the evening to six in the morning - and notify everyone in the village. But the bus showed up and it knew nothing about the matter. When the passengers alighted, they were shot and killed. According to the inquiry, one thing remains in doubt. The committee have given the brigade commander the benefit of the doubt, because the brigadier denies he gave such an order to the regiment commander. But they decided the regimental commander is responsible for the order to shoot. They also found that those who followed the orders are responsible for obeying an illegal order. All of them were court martialed. I am sorry there are also Druze among the accused. In my view, they are not guilty. They got an order. It’s impossible to demand of a Druze that he decide if the order is legal or illegal.

Bentov: How many people were put on trial?

Ben-Gurion: The regimental commander, his deputy (Gavriel Dahan - G.M.), sergeants and troops. Those who gave the order and those who obeyed. Since I asked the committee to prepare the report quickly, they did not accomplish one request, concerning who should get compensation. They suggest the immediate appointment of another committee to look into the matter, but that meanwhile a base sum of IL 1,000 be paid to every family that suffered in this matter, and that the IL 1,000 later be discounted from the overall compensation.

I want to commend the police minister, who immediately went to the village and spoke with the village leaders expressing the government’s sorrow, telling them that an inquiry had been appointed, informing them that the people would be tried, and severely punished, and the families would get compensation. Now I suggest the treasury make ready the entire amount. There will certainly be a need of IL 50,000 or IL 60,000, and that every family be paid immediately. It may turn out that the new committee decides on more money. I suggest the justice minister appoint the compensation committee.

Meir: Is the court martial over?

Ben-Gurion: Not yet.

Bentov: Will their be an announcement about this?

Ben-Gurion: We have to take counsel on this. I doubt whether it is possible to hide such an affair, even though it is so shameful. How can people from among us do such a thing? It is horrifying.

Eshkol: What did the regimental commander say?

Ben-Gurion: He said the brigadier gave him an order in the following manner: He asked what to do if the curfew is violated. The brigadier said, I don’t want sentimentalism. The regimental commander wasn’t satisfied. He asked, but what if? The regimental commander says the brigadier brushed him off with the Arabic phrase, may Allah be merciful. The regimental commander understood that to mean to do what he thought necessary. The brigadier denies this. Since there is doubt, the committee decided to accept the brigadier’s version. We have a wonderful army, but apparently there are incidents and circumstances in which people lose their minds. How can an order be given to shoot children.

[…]

Enough of this crap… can’t take anymore… read the rest here…

“How can an order be given to shoot children?” B-G is wondering! I don’t know if I should laugh or cry here.

The Israeli ELECTED TERRORISTS (for steve eyes) are wondering for ages now, but they are still giving orders to shoot children, women, infants, not even a handicapped didn’t escape their terror massacres. And they still wonder!!