New Labour chief: My parents' escape from Nazis made me love U.K.
In first speech as leader of Britain's Labour Party, Ed Miliband says
parents' legacy taught him importance of standing up for the weak and
dispossessed.
By Danna Harman
Haaretz: September 30, 2010
LONDON - In his first speech as leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband
spoke movingly on Tuesday about how both his parents had to escape the Nazis
in 1940 and created new lives in Britain. Their legacy taught him the
importance of standing up for the weak and the dispossessed, and how hope
can carry on in desperate times, he said.
His late father Ralph fled the Nazis, leaving Belgium with his own father on
one of the last boats out, Miliband told the Labour party conference in
Manchester.
"They had to make a heartbreaking decision - to leave behind my grandmother
and my father's sister. They spent the war in hiding, in a village,
sheltered by a brave local farmer. Month after month, year upon year, they
lived in fear of the knock at the door.
"At the same time, on the other side of Europe, my mother, aged 5, had seen
Hitler's army march into Poland," Miliband said. "She spent the war on the
run, sheltering in a convent and then with a Catholic family that took her
in. Her sister, her mother and her.
"My love for this country comes from this story. Two young people fled the
darkness that had engulfed the Jews across Europe, and in Britain they found
the light of liberty," said Miliband. "They arrived with nothing. This
country gave them everything."
Miliband, 40, was named Labour leader on Saturday, beating his older brother
David by just 1 percent.
During his hour-long speech, Miliband commented on the Middle East, offering
his positions for the first time as the official party head.
"There can be no solution to the conflicts of the Middle East without
international action, providing support where it is needed, and pressure
where it is right to do so," he said, before turning his attention to
specifics, such as the recent end of the settlement moratorium, and the Gaza
flotilla and blockade.
"As Israel ends the moratorium on settlement building, I will always defend
the right of Israel to exist in peace and security," said Miliband, who has
described himself as a "critical friend of Israel." "But Israel must accept
and recognize in its actions the Palestinian right to statehood."
The new leader condemned Israel's halting of the Gaza-bound flotilla, and
said the blockade "must be lifted, and we must strain every sinew to work to
make that happen."
***
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/3327-dwight-was-right
Dwight Was Right
By Michael Moore,
RSN: 30 September 2010
So ... it turns out President Eisenhower wasn't making up all that stuff
about the military-industrial complex
<http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=90>
.
That's what you'll conclude if you read Bob Woodward's new book, *Obama's
War*. (You can read excerpts of it
here<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092603766.html>,
here<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/27/AR2010092704850.html>and
here<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092805092.html>.)
You thought you voted for change when you cast a ballot for Barack Obama?
Um, not when it comes to America occupying countries that don't begin with a
"U" and an "S."
In fact, after you read Woodward's book, you'll split a gut every time you
hear a politician or a government teacher talk about "civilian control over
the military." The only people really making the decisions about America's
wars are across the river from Washington in the Pentagon. They wear
uniforms. They have lots of weapons they bought from the corporations they
will work for when they retire.
For everyone who supported Obama in 2008, it's reassuring to find out he
understands we have to get out of Afghanistan. But for everyone who's
worried about Obama in 2010, it's scary to find out that what he thinks
should be done may not actually matter. And that's because he's not willing
to stand up to the people who actually run this country.
And here's the part I don't even want to write - and none of you really want
to consider:
It matters not whom we elect. The Pentagon and the military contractors call
the shots. The title "Commander in Chief" is ceremonial, like "Employee of
the Month" at your local Burger King.
Everything you need to know can be found in just two paragraphs from
'Obama's War'.
Here's the scene: Obama is meeting with his National Security Council
staff on the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year. He's getting ready to
give a big speech announcing his new strategy for Afghanistan. Except ...
the strategy isn't set yet. The military has presented him with just one
option: escalation. But at the last minute, Obama tells everyone, hold up -
the door to a plan for withdrawal isn't closed.
The brass isn't having it:
"Mr. President," [Army Col. John Tien] said, "I don't see how you can defy
your military chain here. We kind of are where we are. Because if you tell
General McChrystal, 'I got your assessment, got your resource constructs,
but I've chosen to do something else,' you're going to probably have to
replace him. You can't tell him, 'Just do it my way, thanks for your hard
work.' And then where does that stop?"
The colonel did not have to elaborate. His implication was that not only
McChrystal but the entire military high command might go in an unprecedented
toppling - Gates; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff; and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command.
Perhaps no president could weather that, especially a 48-year-old with four
years in the U.S. Senate and 10 months as commander in chief.
And, well, the rest is history. Three days later Obama announced
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan>the
escalation at West Point. And he became our newest war president
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/open-letter-president-obama-michael-moore>
.
But here's the question Woodward doesn't answer: Why, exactly, can't a
president weather ending a war, even if he has to fire all his generals to
do it? It's right there in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution: The
President's in charge of the military. And so is Congress: the army can't
just march over to the Treasury Department and steal the money for wars.
Article I, Section 9 says Congress has to appropriate it.
In the real world, though, the Constitution's just a piece of paper. In the
real world, a President who fired his top military in order to stop a war
would be ruined before you could say "bloodless coup." The Washington Post
(filled with ads from Boeing and Northrop Grumman) would scream about how he
was the reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain. Fox and CNN (filled with
"experts" who work for think tanks funded by Raytheon and General Dynamics)
would say he was a girly-man who had to be impeached. And Congress (which
experienced its own escalation
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/21/top-defense-contractors-s_n_431542.html>in
lobbying from defense contractors just as the Afghanistan escalation
was being decided) might well do it. (By the way, if you want to listen to
Lyndon Johnson talk in 1964 about how he might be impeached if he didn't
follow the military-industrial complex's orders and escalate the war in
Vietnam, just go here<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/watch.html>
.
So here's your assignment for tonight: Watch Eisenhower's famous farewell
speech.
And then start thinking about how we can tame this beast. The Soviet Union
had its own military-industrial complex, which is one reason they got into
Afghanistan ... which is one reason there's no more Soviet Union. It
happened to them.
Don't think it can happen to us?
***
FREE FORUM with TERRENCE McNALLY
Sunday September 26th
Noon-1pm PT (3-4pm ET)
THOMAS GEOGHEGAN
author, WERE YOU BORN ON THE WRONG CONTINENT?
How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life
and recent Nation cover story:
Ten Things Dems Could Do To Win
KPFK, 90.7fm in LA, 98.7fm in Santa Barbara
streaming globally on the web at http://www.kpfk.org
-----------------------------------------------------
Learn more at tomgeoghagen.com
-----------------------------------------------------
We hear about the trouble Europe is in. The debt crisis in Greece and
Ireland, perhaps Spain and Portugal, is threatening the whole continent. But
while the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, what does
not made headlines is the good news of a quiet revolution that has been
taking place in Europe.
In his new book, WERE YOU BORN ON THE WRONG CONTINENT?, today's guest,
THOMAS GEOGHEGAN, makes a strong case that European social democracies -
particularly Germany - have some lessons and models that might make life a
lot more livable. Not only that, they could help us keep our jobs.
In comparison to the U.S., the Germans have six weeks of federally mandated
vacation, free university tuition, nursing care, and childcare. But you've
heard the arguments for years about how those wussy Europeans can't compete
in a global economy. You've heard that so many times, you might believe it.
But like so many things, the media repeats endlessly, it's just not true.
According to Geoghagen, "Since 2003, it's not China but Germany, that
colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export
sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall
more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors-China foremost among
them-Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy
without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or
any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States,
they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They're beating us
with one hand tied behind their back."
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