Rabbi Dovid Weiss on the Zionist Oppression of the Palestinians

Rabbi Dovid Weiss on why Judaism Rejects Zionism

The White Poppy Tradition for Peace, Not Glorifying Dying in Battle!

Remember the War Dead by the Peace Pledge—Wear a White Poppy!

This year—as unfortunately with the last few—Britain’s annual remembrance day will be held as war rages overseas. As civilians and troops are to be killed on a daily basis in Afghanistan, many ordinary people are becoming uncomfortable with the military hijacking the event to gain more support for the war and future wars, and are choosing to wear white poppies instead of the traditional red ones in protest.

“Stop the War Coalition” convenor, Lindsey German, points to the red poppy being more associated with supporting the military and the continuing wars than remembering the dead. She says:

I think we have had an amazing onslaught by the military this year with bands and service people at train stations putting pressure on people to buy a red poppy. But the red poppy has become associated with supporting the troops and the wars that we are in. And the way the poppy appeal is run now is not like it was in the ’50s when people knew what war meant.

The wearing of white poppies first dates back to the 1920s. The idea of de-coupling Armistice Day, the red poppy and later Remembrance Day from their military culture dates back to 1926, just a few years after the British Legion was persuaded to use the red poppy as to raise funds in Britain. In the 1930s they were sold by the Co-operative Women’s Guild and a secular pacifist organisation, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), took part in their distribution from 1934. White poppy wreaths were laid from 1937 as a pledge to peace that war must not happen again.

A member of the “No More War Movement” suggested that the British Legion should be asked to imprint “No More War” in the centre of the red poppies instead of “Earl Haig Fund”, and, failing this, pacifists should make their own flowers.

In 1933, the first white poppies appeared on Armistice Day—after WWII called Remembrance Day. The following year the newly founded Peace Pledge Union began widespread distribution of the poppies, and their annual promotion. The Peace Pledge Union noted that the white poppy was not at all meant to insult those who died in WWI. Many of the white poppy supporters had lost family and friends in it. It was meant to ensure their deaths were not in vain by challenging to the continuing drive to war. Peace Pledge Union spokesman, Albert Beal, explained that the wearing of a white poppy…

…shows the concern for the suffering of war but rejects the idea of war. War can, and must, be avoided, and wearing a white poppy shows concerns about anybody killed in war.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn adds:

I welcome the white poppy. It was first produced before the the second world war and it’s a pledge not to start wars in the future.

White poppies can be bought at: http://www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/index.html.

Original article from:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Morning-Star-Readers-Supporters-Group/168413956519025?ref=stream

Hey You British: Why Not Join The Union?

Len McCluskey of the UK Unite union says:

We need to raise people’s consciousness. They have been battered for the last three to four years by the media who, combined with the political leaders of all three main parties, have been telling them the cuts are essential to prevent economic collapse.

He believes austerity is not working and the government should change direction, and that the public is increasingly angry about tax avoidance by the rich. Having millions of people out of work, including over a million young people, is not a price worth paying. We need an investment bank to invest in green industries and to put hundreds of thousands of unemployed building workers back to work constructing thousands of new homes for sale and rent.

Unite has introduced community membership, costing 50 pence a week, giving anyone not in work a chance to join the union. McCluskey says it’s intended to “to ensure we look after people from cradle to grave and make sure we are the big society”.

Why not join the union? It’s 50p a week payable by direct debit.

London Living Wage Pleases Workers, Employers and Government

580,000 workers, one in five in London, get less than the poverty wage (£8.30) of the “London Living Wage” (LLW). Though the national minimum wage is £6.19 per hour, in London it is too little to live on. The LLW is defined as the basic living wage in the capital.

The government could save almost £1bn per year if all workers in London were paid at least the LL Wage, because of the higher tax revenue, and a reduction in welfare spending. Professor Jana Wills who steered the work observed:

Poverty levels among people who are in work have grown, making the campaign for a living wage more important than ever. It's clear that the LL Wage can benefit everybody concerned—employees and employers as well as the tax-paying public. Businesses that have introduced the wage have seen a 25 per cent fall in the number of staff who leave, better workplace relationships develop as a result and better psychological health amongst those employed in living wage workplaces.

Companies interviewed for the study suggest that the reputational benefits of paying the LL Wage have helped them attract new business. Employers also reported that demonstrating corporate social responsibility by paying the LL Wage has proven hugely beneficial in attracting high calibre graduate recruits. While wage costs increase for businesses, the impact can be minimised through adjusting working practices to increase efficiency.

A workplace survey found that half of employees (54 per cent) felt more positive about their workplace once the LL Wage was introduced, with 52 per cent feeling more loyal to their employers. Almost one third (32 per cent) of the London workers surveyed felt the higher wage benefitted their family. One in four began to be able to save a little or buy occasional special items. A two person household could earn up to an extra £5,000 per year.

How Zionists Control the British Parliament: Channel 4 Despatches

Peter Oborne on Channel 4's "Dispatches" programme shows the baneful and sinister effects of the Zionist lobby right inside the British Parliament. Essential viewing and sharing for understanding the troubles connected with the Zionist state of Israel in the center of the Moslem Middle east.

The Second Amendment and US Gun Obsession

Of the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US ranks fifth in homicides, just behind Brazil (highest), Mexico, Russia, and Estonia. Our nation also holds the dubious honor of being responsible for half of the worst mass shootings in the last 30 years. How can we explain why the United States has nearly three times more murders per capita than neighboring Canada and 10 times more than Japan? What makes the land of the free such a dangerous place to live?

Eric Michael Johnson, Huff Post Science

Ryan Hurl, professor of political science at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, helps Canadians understand the US attitude to the second amendment to the American constitution.

The US Second Amendment to the American constitution states:

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

What does that mean? The is not entirely clear and it’s subject to contrasting and even conflicting interpretations. The meaning of the second part of the amendment—the right of the people to keep and bear arms is plain. People can keep and bear arms. But the implication of the first part is that they can do so so that they are able to make up a militia. That is what much of the disagreement is about. For Americans at the time of the revolution, a permanent army was regarded as a threat to freedom, yet all states had a standing army. Alexander Hamilton saw the need for the USA to have a professional army. So, the argument is about the dangers of a standing army, and a military establishment. When the constitution was being debated, people argued that a national professional army would be setting up an home grown equivalent of the British army—a threat to the autonomy of the individual states. The second amendment was to legitimize the legality of the states to have their own militias, to limit the power of the federal government to regulate firearms.

For the first century of America’s existence, the second amendment was not a question. In the few cases where the Supreme Court dealt with the second amendment, they have said it doesn’t make sense to understand it as an individual right in the same way as freedom of speech, but citizens have persistently interpreted it that way. There is a pretty strongly developed individual rights interpretation of the second amendment that has bipartisan support. But the Bill of Rights was itself considered a limit on the power of national government rather than an absolute expression of individual rights. This original understanding of the Bill of Rights started to change toward the end of the 19th century, if not later.

Some people make the point that we have weapons now that the founding fathers couldn’t have imagined, things like semiautomatic rifles. Should this change the discussion? Maybe it should change the discussion, but people will have different views about how the discussion should change! Part of their concern here is that people should be able to resist government. Governments can be controlled by tyrants. It is good that people can resist the government if necessary. In the 1960s, Democrats like John F Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey made claims like this. So some people would say we need to own semi-automatic rifles in case we need to resist government. Suspicion of government is something that crosses the political spectrum in the United States.

Is there room for gun control to coexist with an individual rights interpretation of the second amendment? Yes, but there are limits to what can be done. To simply say the second amendment is an anachronism that should be thrown in the dustbin of history is not going to work in the United States today. Even if we accept the notion that rights should be living, that rights should change over time, people are going to disagree about what time or history is telling them. You can’t go to history as if it was a sage on a mountaintop. You have to have a pretty enthusiastic interpretation of the philosophical capacities of judges and lawyers if you think they’re going to be able to commune with history and reach the right answer. They’ll reach an answer that might very well be plausible. You argue about these things in the public arena and ultimately it’s put to the test of voters. That’s why we have democracy.

The trouble is Professor Hurl, that we have no democracy without a democratic press, and the press in the US is extremely right wing, but it has convinced many that it is left wing, so change can only be further to the right and not to the center and left as it ought to be. No argument can therefore be balanced in the USA. Americans live in a political monoculture.