The ADL Smear Campaign Against Me I Will Not Resign, I Will Not Apologize by AMIRI BARAKA
The recent dishonest, consciously distorted and insulting non-interpretation of my poem, "Somebody Blew Up America" by the "Anti-Defamation" League, is fundamentally an attempt to defame me. And with that, an attempt to repress and stigmatize independent thinkers everywhere.
This trashy propaganda is characteristic of right-wing zealots who are interested only in slander and character assassination of those whose views or philosophies differ from or are in contradiction to theirs.
First, the poem underlying theme focuses on how Black Americans have suffered from domestic terrorism since being kidnapped into US chattel slavery, e.g., by Slave Owners, US & State Laws, Klan, Skin Heads, Domestic Nazis, Lynching, denial of rights, national oppression, racism, character assassination, historically, and at this very minute throughout the US. The relevance of this to Bush call for a "War on Terrorism", is that Black people feel we have always been victims of terror, governmental and general, so we cannot get as frenzied and hysterical as the people who while asking us to dismiss our history and contemporary reality to join them, in the name of a shallow "patriotism" in attacking the majority of people in the world, especially people of color and in the third world.
This is said to us, even as this counterfeit president has legalized the Confederate Flag in Mississippi. Could the victims of European Fascism be as frantically loyal to a regime that would fly a Nazi Swastika over their homes? So we cannot, in good conscience, celebrate what seems to us an international crusade to set up a military dictatorship over the world, legitimatized at base, by white supremacy, carried out, no matter the crude lies, as the most terrifying form of Imperialism and its attendant national oppression. All of it designed to drain super profits bluntly from the colored peoples of the world, but as well, from the majority of the peoples in the world. For all the frantic condemnations of Terror by Bush &c, as the single International Super Power, they are the most dangerous terrorists in the world!
Actually, in my focus on various forces of terror Afro Americans and other oppressed people of the world have suffered, slavery, colonialism, Imperialism, Neo neo-colonialism, National Oppression, the ADL disingenuously makes no mention of my probing into the creators of the holocaust, e.g., "who put the Jews in ovens, / and who helped them do it, / Who said "America First"/ and Ok'd the yellow stars", which of course is a reference to America's domestic fascists just before World War @ and the Nazi Holocaust.
Nor do these ADL purveyors of falsehood mention the poem's listing of some of the Jews across the world, oppressed, imprisoned, murdered by actual Anti- Semitic forces, open or disguised. The poem asks "Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebnecht/Who murdered the Rosenbergs/ And all the good people iced, tortured, assassinate, vanished".
The ADL apparently is not outraged by McCarthy era frame-up and execution of the Rosenbergs, nor the assassination of German Jewish Communist leaders like Liebnecht, Luxembourg. The ADL leaves these things out to try to make their lies more believable, and also because these victims of imperialism were on the Left
Happily the Star Ledger published the entire poem, though including in a box, supposedly identifying the offending phrases, my question, "Who Blew Up The Reichstag?" as if the ADL had also claimed that the poem was inferring that Jews did it. When it was Hitler's destruction of the Reichstag, that provided the pretext for the general imprisonment of Jews, after incarcerating Communists, Social Democrats and Trade Unionists. Why this was done one can only speculate, but this is the kind of sloppy or intentionally slanderous journalism one can often find in the media. It also reflects the kind of unprincipled attack that characterizes ADL press release.
The Reichstag fire, parallels the 911 Attack, in that after that "mysterious act of terrorism", which Hitler blamed on Jews and Communists, the Nazis passed a law The Reichstag Enablement Act, that gave the Nazis much the same carte blanche as the Bush administration used the 911 tragedy to pass the wholly undemocratic Patriot Bill and begin rounding up suspects, even without identifying them. Of course the actual arsonists of the Reichstag terror were never found, though most scholars are certain it was the Nazis themselves.
Of the other lines of the poem, which the ADL termed an example of the Hitlerian "Big Lie", and the poet's "spewing Anti-Semitic venom". The lines, "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get/bombed?" Well now, certainly, even the Democratic Party has affirmed that the Bush Administration knew. I agree with this, and it is everywhere on the Internet that not only was the US warned repeatedly by Germany, France, Russia, England but also Israel. Michael Ruppert of the Green Party has issued a video stating clearly, "Israeli security issued urgent warnings to the CIA of large-scale terror attacks. ...And that the Israeli Mossad knew that the attacks were going to take place...they knew that the World Trade Center were the targets. This is from British newspaper the "Telegraph". (Copies of these documents available with this statement.)
In addition there are articles in all forms of media and of course the Internet confirming or suggesting that the entire Imperialist world knew and had warned the US CIA in advance, but no action was taken. WHY. They say they "couldn't connect the dots". The FBI agents in Minnesota and Arizona who sd that FBI received a report in 1998 that a terrorist organization ...planned to bring people to the US to enroll in flight schools. Zacharias Moussoui, now charged with conspiring in the Sept 11 attacks, was arrested by the Minnesota agents of the FBI in August 2001 but FBI HQ denied agents request to seek a warrant even to search his computer. And in a prepared statement by a Minnesota FBI agent, he blamed legal restrictions but principally FBI headquarters for impeding a more aggressive investigation of this man. As for the other agent's attempt to warn the FBI HQ of these attacks, he was rebuffed when he made the report, but now FBI HQ says it has not record of such warning. (See <Truthout.org/docs>)
There are other incredible dots on the media, for instance the stockholders of American Airlines and United, which were the carriers highjacked to commit the terror began withdrawing stock from these companies in August before the attacks.
The most offensive phrase in the poem to my various attackers is, "Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / to stay home that day/ Why did Sharon stay away?" To infer that I am accusing Israel of committing the atrocity is disingenuous slander and character assassination. But I do believe, as I stated about England, Germany, France, Russia, that the Israeli government, certainly it's security force, SHABAK knew about the attack in advance.
My sources were, "Ha'aretz" and "Yadiot Ahranot" (two Israeli newspapers) "Al Watan" (a Jordanian newspaper), "Manar" -TV and the website of the Israeli security force SHABAK. There are myriad references to this in Reuters, Der Spiegel.
The Israeli newspaper Yadiot Ahranot lst revealed that SHABAK had canceled Sharon's appearance in New York City that day, Sept 11, where he was supposed to speak at an "Israel Day" celebration. This was also mentioned in the Star Ledger, to the effect that Sharon was supposed to visit the US, but no dates were mentioned.
It is the Green Party's Ruppert who makes the most effective case for the 4000 Israeli workers (Not Jewish Workers!) but Israeli nationals. He says in his video, "if what I am showing you is know overtly although the media, how much more does our thirty billion dollar intelligence community know"/
He goes on, and this seems true to me, It is "Nonsense" to say the Israelis did it They were warning the U.S. hand over fist..." Ruppert speculates further 1. The US did not listen 2. They needed the attacks" which I leave to time, as Malcolm X sd, Time will tell.
But the most stunning revelation is this, again Ruppert, "We reviewed the list of former tenants of the World Trade Center at the on-line Wall St Journal site. And there's the website. It is an alphabetical list of tenants. Scroll to the very bottom and notice the moving date for the office of Zim American-Israeli Shipping to Norfolk Virginia. They were in the World Trade Center. They must have had Mossad" (or Shabak- AB) input because they vacated one week before September and they broke their lease. The Israelis didn't pull the attack, but they were smart enough to get their people out of the way. How come our government didn't do the same thing for us." (Statement & Quote by George DeCarlo, Coordinator of Union County Greens, Co Founder of the NJ Lavender Greens- included in media pkg.)
The poem was never saying anything else, i.e., why didn't the other slaughtered Americans know? I WAS NOT SAYING ISRAEL WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ATTACK, BUT THAT THEY KNEW AND OUR OWN COUNTERFEIT PRESIDENT DID TOO!
There is other disturbing facts surround the hideous 911 attacks, which my family and I could see from the third floor bathroom window of our homes! And certainly one day all this will be thoroughly investigated. The poem says "Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion/ And cracking they sides at the notion." I got this story from The Star Ledger, where it appeared twice, and The New York Times.
The reference to "cracking they sides" or laughing uproariously while filming the 911 attack, apparently on the top of a truck from the Jersey side is a direct paraphrase of the Ledger articles. In fact, the State Police, who arrested them, stated that that is one of the reasons they did arrest them, because they were laughing.
Again, these were Israeli Nationals, persons holding Israeli passports. The Times article even reported on what their lives were like in Jail. And implied they would be deported. So this reference is not more of the ADL's "Anti-Semitic venom" but arrived at merely from studying the US media.
Why those five Israelis were there filming and laughing I do not claim know. That's why the poem here and throughout continuously chants the question WHO WHO WHO? That is, who is responsible for this horrible crime and WHY? It is a poem that aims to probe and disturb, but there is not the slightest evidence of Anti-Semitism, as anyone who reads it without some insidious bias would have to agree.
Why the ADL would do this, I can only speculate.
I wish they and other concerned pundits would speculate on how an Airplane flying in America, where the pilot has to file a flight plan before taking off, how can such a plane or two or three of them file such a route in which they would travel, and in the case of the planes leaving Boston make 45 degree turns south and fly 54 minutes to the World Trade Center and 90 minutes to the Pentagon and not be challenged by US Air Defense Fighters, or brought down by ground to air missiles?
Having been in the Air Force I know those ADC fighters would normally confront such "rogue" aircraft within a few minutes! Why was this not done? Let the ADL and the media investigating me, investigate that!
We should know that Bush and his Right Wing crew want War against all the forces of their so called "Axis of Evil" What a not so wild coincidence that the path of this Axis parallels the route of the proposed US oil corporations- pipe line from Saudi to the far east, apparently to oppose the spiraling economic growth and influence of China. They scream "Bin Laden" and "Taliban" and destroy Afghanistan, install a puppet president and a shadow occupation force.
Next in the Axis is Iraq, we should have known that. With no real proof at all again the people of the US outraged and frightened by the Reichstag of 911 are hyped with chants of "Regime Change" and "Saddam Hussein". No longer is the madness of crowds being aroused by the "Anti -Terrorist" campaign and Bin Laden as the Devil figure used to rouse the people to a patriotic frenzy, now it is Saddam Hussein. So forget last month's war and get ready for this month's.
Bush says he wants "regime change" in Palestine, he wants to oust Arafat, now in Iraq, and he wants to oust Saddam. The Axis projects Iran next and then North Korea. What is this an updated version of 1984 or an American version of Hitler's and Bush 1's) New World Order?
Regime Change, why? Because these regimes are anti democratic or terrorists or in the case of Saddam, they have "weapons of mass destruction".
Well if being anti democratic were a good rationalization for foreign invasions of countries then the United States better watch out because the Florida coup, which tricked the American people into accepting Bush as President is anything but democratic. Should we let foreign countries invade us to get rid of Bush? What would be the American People's reaction to such Third Reich replay?
And as for Saddam having "weapons of mass destruction" (or mass diversion as some critics say) The US has these weapons. So do Israel, South Africa, Germany, France, Italy, England, Russia, and now China, India, Pakistan. How is it the US and its allies (except the Chinese) can have such weapons, but no one else can. The answer to that, of course, is White Supremacy and Imperialism. And what should be the growing understanding by the American people and the democratic people of the world, is what the far right Bush coven wants is a military dictatorship of the world.
The ADL, by attacking me by distorting what my poem is saying, is doing its usual ugly, as a well known running dog of imperialism, particularly by attacking anyone who takes an independent position or is critical of Israeli Imperialism and its attendant ideology political Zionism. As they are attempting with me the ADL slanders anyone who is not happy with Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians
As Anti Semitic, when lst of all Israel and its guiding philosophy have nothing to do, as categories, with Jews. (See "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators", Brenner
But this is the trick such demagogues as the ADL use to hide the crimes of Imperialist Israel. When we criticize US imperialism does that make us enemies of Christianity, maybe only to Jerry Falwell and such Right wing Christian Zealots, perhaps Asscraft But neither Israel nor Zionism is the same as Judaism. (Op cit Brenner; also "The Dilemma of the Modern Jew, Prinz".) But this is the trick the Israeli's and their sympathizers use to hide behind Judaism. Israel (and it's political Zionism) has as much to do with Judaism, as the US has to do with Christianity.
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