Created on October 11th, 2016
Edited on October 15th and 19th, 2016
Published on October 12th, 2016
Edited on October 15th and 19th, 2016
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Letter to the Editor of the Daily Herald on Illinois's 10th District U.S. House Race
Originally Written on October 6th, 2016
Edited on October 11th, 2016
Dear Editor,
After following the race for U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10th
District for a full year, I am still not convinced that either candidate is
preferable to the other, nor that either candidate shares a majority of my
views.
While I share many of Congressman Dold's positions on trade, and many of Mr.
Schneider's positions on marriage, their similarity regarding most other issues
is troubling. Both candidates' voting records have contributed to increased
taxes and spending, and to the growth of the size and scope of the federal
government. There is no reason to expect that either one of them will not
continue these patterns if elected.
Both candidates support the same
disastrous foreign policy towards the Middle East, domestic surveillance,
restrictions on the right to bear arms, the failed A.C.A. health law, continued
federal funding for organizations providing abortions, and inappropriate executive
rather than congressional action on immigration; and both candidates oppose
personalizing Social Security and are ambivalent on decriminalizing marijuana.
Most importantly, in this “year of the outsider” election, neither candidate
has stuck his neck out to support new proposals to help solve problems that
have persisted in our country for decades. Neither has said anything original
or refreshing about labor policy; nor has either of them demonstrated a unique
way of understanding the relationship between taxation, economic productivity,
and ecology.
Moreover, they do not seem to subscribe to the notion that our freedoms and
rights (including the freedoms to marry, travel, work, buy and sell, drink,
smoke, vote, and defend oneself) are natural, fundamental, and inalienable;
that they cannot be voted away by legislatures, nor turned into privileges to
be sold or revoked at the whim of government.
The 10th District needs another choice in this election.
- Joseph W. Kopsick
Lake Bluff,
Illinois
Write-In Candidate for U.S. House (IL-10)
Write-In Candidate for U.S. House (IL-10)
Monday, October 10, 2016
Twenty-One Questions for Bob Dold and Brad Schneider
Written Between
October 1st and 16th, 2016
Published on October 10th, 2016
Edited and Expanded on October 20th, 2016
Published on October 10th, 2016
Edited and Expanded on October 20th, 2016
One of some eight or nine debates between Illinois's 10th District
U.S. congressional candidates Bob Dold and Brad Schneider took place at Lake
Forest High School in Lake Forest, Illinois, at 1:30 on the afternoon of
Sunday, October 16th, 2016. The debate, hosted by the Lake County
League of Women Voters, was free and open to the public.
Audience
members were invited to submit questions at the debate by writing them on
notecards. Since, as a write-in candidate, my name is not technically on the
ballot, I was not invited to the debate; however, I was there to submit
questions. Since audience members were only permitted to ask several questions
each, below I have listed twenty-one questions that I would like to
hear the candidates answer.
Ninth Amendment
I
believe that the freedoms to marry, travel, work, go on strike, buy and sell,
drink, smoke, vote, and defend oneself, are natural, fundamental, and
inalienable rights; that they cannot be voted away by legislatures. Do you
agree, or do you believe that our rights are mere privileges, which are sold or
revoked at government's whim, and that we need to pay taxes on - and pay for
applications, permits, and licenses for - everything we do?Ninth Amendment
Is there a single, unifying reason why self-defense, marriage, voting, working in an occupation, buying and selling, and traveling, should not be considered natural rights or freedoms, but rather as privileges which can be sold or denied by government, which has the exclusive authority to profit from the sale of license and permit fees?
Government's
Role in Society
What is your preferred vision of the kind of society that
government has a responsibility to help create; a compulsory society, or a
voluntary society? Would you prefer a compulsory society in which there is a
military draft, and nearly everything we do is taxed, and may not be done
without applying for a permit or license, and paying fees therefor? Or do you
prefer an all-volunteer military; low barriers of entry into the professions;
and a tax base relying only on voluntary contributions, user fees, and fees
punishing waste?Private Property
What are you doing to make it easier to own a car with full exclusionary rights and access to the vehicle's Statement of Origin? What have you done to make it easier to fully own a home without being subject to neighborhood association guidelines and property taxes that disincentivize construction, growth, and useful production thereupon? What would you do to make it easier to owning landed property in full allodial title?
Separation of Powers
How can you defend the constitutionality of federal involvement in health and education, without resorting to making excuses for the same kind of inappropriate delegation of congressional powers to the president; the kind that brought us the expansion of domestic surveillance and the size of the executive branch, in addition to the expansion of presidential war powers which led to the second invasion of Iraq?
Elections
Which
of the following is the biggest problem pertaining to campaign finance?: 1)
lack of transparency in donation disclosures; 2) unlimited donations; or 3) the
influence of lobbyists on expanding government, with its favors and privileges
for donors and favored industries, in a way that makes such large donations
typical? Also, would you support limiting your own office to four consecutive
terms at a time?
Amending the Constitution
Is
there any amendment that you would like to see repealed or heavily amended;
such as the 14th, 16th, or 17th Amendments?
Would you support a new amendment to the Constitution? Would you support voting
reform, term limits, an Equal Rights Amendment, or a Balanced Budget Amendment?
Taxes and Productivity
Do you suspect that taxing any behaviors at lower rates
might yield greater revenues? Do you think that keeping tax rates too high
might risk inadvertently disincentivizing the behaviors being taxed (namely
earning money, buying and selling goods and services, making investments,
importing goods, giving gifts, and bequeathing inheritances)? Would it be less
harmful to base all government revenue on voluntary contributions; user fees;
fees for mineral resource extraction; and fees penalizing waste, blight, and
pollution?
Taxes and Poverty
How
is poverty best addressed? Would you support: 1) extending the Earned Income
Tax Credit; 2) applying homesteading tax credits to low-cost housing; 3)
establishing a citizens' dividend or sovereign wealth fund; or 4) the Negative
Income Tax, giving tax payments to those below the poverty level?Unions
First, were things better for workers when unions engaged in strikes without the permission of a government labor relations board? Second, would it benefit workers to amend the law so that wildcat strikes, sympathy strikes, and wide-scale boycotts are legal, effective, and possible? Third and last, would you amend the Wagner Act so that unions are no longer required to represent all workers in a workplace, including those who do not consent to paying dues and do not want the benefits of representation?
Wages, Treasury, and the Budget
Would it still be necessary to raise the minimum wage for private-sector jobs, if we had a balanced budget, a more sound currency, a greater purchasing power, and consumers' costs could be relieved directly by eliminating duties, imposts, tariffs, and sales taxes?
Taxation of Business
When it comes to enterprise, which types of behaviors by companies should be taxed; 1) malinvestments; 2) personal income, executive bonuses, sales and profits, imports, capital gains, investments, and retirement and health accounts; or 3) pollution, waste, abuse and disuse of land, and extraction of natural resources?
Corporate Privilege
Would you agree that it is not possible to effectively boycott companies, unless and until several types of government-granted, taxpayer-funded corporate and small business privileges and supports are either revoked or more strictly limited? Also, should multinational businesses be free to sue governments for loss of potential future profits, if those governments don't agree to do business with those companies?
Banking and Bailouts
How
is the public best insulated from the risks of Wall Street speculation, the
excesses of commercial banking, and the risk of bailouts? Should Glass-Steagall
be restored, should the amount of money that the F.D.I.C. can insure be
lowered, is it the credit and bond rating systems that need reform, or should
something else be done?
Abortion
Should partial-birth abortion be legal, should it be
publicly funded, and is it abortion or infanticide? Also, what in the
Constitution gives any agent or agency of the federal government authority on
matters of abortion, except when it comes to whether health insurance should
cover the reproductive health needs of federal workers? Lastly, does anything
about either the 9th or the 14th Amendment agree or
conflict with your position on abortion?Guns and the Draft
Should the Second Amendment be modified as to recognize the natural right to refuse service in the militia; and the right to claim a moral philosophical, or religious conscientious objection to being required to render military service in person, whether as part of a draft or mandatory civil emergency preparedness service? Should women be required to register for the draft; or should mandatory draft registration end altogether, and the draft be repealed via a constitutional amendment?
Foreign Aid to Israel
The
federal government sends $3.8 billion to the State of Israel each year.
Considering that an IRmep/Google poll revealed last month that more than 80% of
American adult internet users surveyed, thought that aid to Israel would better
be spent on something else, would you consider reducing or revoking aid until
the Israelis agree to end their draft, withdraw from illegally occupied
territories, admit their possession of nuclear weapons, and sign the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty?
Israel and Iran
What would you say to a voter who
opposes foreign aid to both the State
of Israel and its majority-Muslim
neighbor states, for the same reasons; women's rights violations, denial of
religious freedoms, disregard of civil liberties in policing and military
recruitment, and non-transparent nuclear military ambitions? Could Israel take
a more merciful role in the peace process? Lastly, do you support the Iran
deal, and why or why not?
Schneider's Foreign Policy
Schneider's Foreign Policy
Mr.
Schneider, what should be done about U.S. presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Pakistan? Should we stay in Iraq to fight I.S.I.S., or work with the Russians
to achieve peace in Syria? Would you support the Iraq partition plan, or
time-tables for withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan? Finally, should the U.S. Army
be guarding Pakistan's border with India instead of its border with
Afghanistan?
Dold's Inconsistencies
Congressman
Dold, what would you tell a conservative or Republican voter who feels that you
have flip-flopped on repealing Obamacare, and sees your commercials where you promote
gun control and continuing funding for Planned Parenthood, and wonder whether
there are any key issues on which you are in total agreement with conservative
voters?
Rahm Emanuel
Have
you met Rahm Emanuel, do you think he is a good leader, and do you think he has
done anything unethical in any of his roles in government or business - such as
his time as a Clinton fundraiser and adviser, on the board of Freddie Mac, in
his role in the 2008 restructuring, as President Obama's Chief of Staff, or as
the Mayor of Chicago - that should disqualify him from seeking higher offices?
Friday, October 7, 2016
Letter to the Editors of the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times on Illinois's 10th District U.S. House Race
Written on
October 6th,
2016
Published
on October 7th,
2016
Dear Editor,
After following the race for U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10th District for a full year, I am still not convinced that either candidate is preferable to the other, nor that either candidate shares a majority of my views.
After following the race for U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10th District for a full year, I am still not convinced that either candidate is preferable to the other, nor that either candidate shares a majority of my views.
While I share many of
Congressman Dold's positions on trade, and many of Mr. Schneider's
positions on marriage, their similarity regarding most other issues
is troubling. Both candidates' voting records have contributed to
increased taxes and spending, and to the growth of the size and scope
of the federal government. There is no reason to expect that either
one of them will not continue these patterns if elected.
Both candidates support
the same disastrous foreign policy towards the Middle East which has
weakened our credibility and leadership abroad over the last several
decades. Both support expansions of domestic surveillance which
undermine due process and which are destructive of privacy. Both
candidates have supported measures that interfere with the right to
keep and bear arms; measures which diminish our abilities to defend
ourselves from violent crime.
On health, both
candidates have opposed efforts to defund and repeal Obamacare, the
bailout of the health insurance industry which has increased health
spending, while subjecting the medical sector to unnecessary new
taxes and regulations. Both support continued federal funding for
organizations that provide abortions, an extremely contentious policy
which in no way promotes the general welfare.
On immigration, both
have praised the executive-penned DREAM Act, which would contravene
congressional authority on naturalization policy. Both candidates
have voted to oppose the personalization of Social Security, and have
been reticent about taking steps toward a reasonable drug policy.
Most importantly, in
this “year of the outsider” election, neither candidate has stuck
his neck out to support new proposals to help solve problems that
have persisted in our country for decades. Neither has said anything
original or refreshing about labor policy; nor has either of them
demonstrated a unique way of understanding the relationship between
taxation, economic productivity, and ecology.
Moreover, they do not
seem to subscribe to the notion that our freedoms and rights
(including the freedoms to marry, travel, work, buy and sell, drink,
smoke, vote, and defend oneself) are natural, fundamental, and
inalienable; that they cannot be voted away by legislatures, nor
turned into privileges to be sold or revoked at the whim of
government.
The 10th
District needs another choice in this election.
- Joseph W. Kopsick
Lake Bluff,
Illinois
Write-In Candidate for U.S. House (IL-10)
Write-In Candidate for U.S. House (IL-10)
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Notes on the Conflict in Syria
Written on July 18th, 2012
Mainstream
media sources are saying the Assad regime could be toppled within
days. Last year, Webster Tarpley reported that the events in Syria do
not resemble a civil war, and that he had spoken to people who claim
that death squads are sniping at civilians only for the purpose of
destabilizing the country.
Tarpley
says the squads are backed by American, British, French, and Israeli
intelligence agencies; funded by the Saudis, the U.A.E., and Qatar;
and managed by former Syrian foreign minister Abdul Halim Khaddam,
who Tarpley described as “groomed by N.A.T.O. as a new dictator”,
and who has been described as having been a loyalist of Bashar
al-Assad’s father Hafez. Even Fox News has reported that the U.S.
is secretly funding the opposition in Syria in order to topple the
Assad regime.
Tarpley
says Syria is “the most tolerant society in the Middle East”.
Haaretz describes Assad as “an outspoken critic of Israel”,
reporting that he attributes his regime’s strength to its
opposition to that country. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.
recently said, “We do see a possible ouster of Mr. Assad as
affording an opportunity to us”.
YouTube
reporter Rys2sense says that last year, there was a $10 billion deal
for an Iran-Syria oil pipeline, that rival pipelines cannot be built
if there are ongoing conflicts, that the goal is a complete cut-off
of the flow of oil, and that Turkish mercenaries are also helping to
destabilize Syria.
This
month, Syria, Iran, China, and Russia are coordinating a 90,000-troop
military exercise in Syria; it is the largest joint exercise in
Middle East history. In September, U.S. naval forces will be
conducting mine-sweeping activities in the Persian Gulf (some media
figures have conjectured that the U.S. may send a decommissioned
aircraft carrier to the Gulf to be destroyed in a false-flag attack
to be blamed on Iran).
Russia
has warned the N.A.T.O. countries not to attack Iran, and accused the
Western powers of stirring up trouble in Syria; China and Russia have
shown support of Syria in the U.N.; and China and Pakistan have said
that they would consider an attack on Iran as an attack on
themselves, and have suggested that they would retaliate as such.
China and Russia have nearly twice as many nukes combined as the
U.S..
Iran
recently confirmed that its plan to close the Strait of Hormuz is
ready to be put into action. This could triple – or even quadruple
– crude oil and gas prices. Some reports claim that Obama and / or
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu want to attack Iran's nuclear
facilities in early October, around the beginning of the U.S.
presidential debates.
In
my opinion, the world is closer to an international nuclear exchange
and / or World War III than any other time since the Cuban Missile
Crisis, and I expect this threat to ratchet-up exponentially over the
next 3 ½ months.
For
more entries on military, national defense, and foreign policy,
please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/foreign-occupation-and-declaration-of.html
For
more entries on Judaism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Arab
conflict, please visit:
Barack Obama, the Universal Sycophant
Written on December 16th, 2011
Barack
Obama is a sycophant on the behalf of all the peoples of the world.
He
backs interventionist land wars in the Middle East so that the West
can get their oil before it reaches the ports where China can buy it
up, while his father undermined Sino-Soviet influence in Africa as a
C.I.A. "goat-herder". Yet Obama (as well as Huntsman)
appears to be soft on China, having welcomed Jintao grandly, and
copying China by manipulating currency (choosing inflation rather
than deflation), oligopolistic nationalized sovietization, and arming
a handful of American rivals in the Middle East.
Obama
supported funding Mubarak of Egypt and Qadhafi of Libya, while
committing troops to assist al-Qaeda's toppling of Qadhafi. He called
for reaching out to leaders of countries whom we have isolated, but
he has not yet spoken with Ahmadinejad of Iran. He refused to destroy
the drone which Iran captured because he felt that such an action
could be construed as an act of war, yet it seems likely that he will
use the capture of the drone as one of many pretexts for invading
Iran.
Obama
made a speech in Cairo ingratiating himself to the Muslim world,
while standing idly by when Egypt's Mubarak used Israeli-made
tear-gas canisters to disperse protesters, and while Egypt and Israel
continued to partner in order to isolate Gaza. He has been derided as
the most anti-Israel president we've ever had, and yet he has not
taken a stance opposing that country's dependence on our foreign aid
money ($3 B a year) in favor of a fiscal independence which Netanyahu
stated he would prefer. While repeatedly described as a secret Muslim
and the like, Obama refuses to take a stance supporting Palestinian
U.N. membership.
And
so, Obama remains the pro-China, anti-China, pro-Muslim, anti-Muslim,
pro-Palestinian, anti-Palestinian, pro-Israel, anti-Israel,
pro-al-Qaeda, anti-al-Qaeda president.
He
is a symbol of, and an example to and for, every politician who has
ever said whatever they felt was necessary to take and maintain
power.
For
more entries on military, national defense, and foreign policy,
please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/foreign-occupation-and-declaration-of.html
For
more entries on Judaism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Arab
conflict, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/us-withdrawal-from-united-nations.html
For
more entries on high-profile corruption and conspiracy theories,
please visit:
Criticism of Glenn Beck's Libya Coverage
Written on March 24th, 2011
Edited in April 2014
On
March 24th, 2011, Glenn Beck did a show about Libya, Israel, and oil.
For
those who would rather not watch the videos, the main thrust of the
episode was:
1.
Cass Sunstein (who holds a position which, for the sake of brevity,
can be dubbed the "Regulation Czar") wants to limit
American oil drilling in order to make the U.S. more dependent on
Middle Eastern oil sources, helping justify intervention in Libya.
2.
George Soros, the nation of Turkey, and Cass Sunstein's wife (Obama
foreign policy adviser and genocide scholar Samantha Power) want to
compel the United Nations to invade Israel in order to stop its
genocide against the Palestinians.
The
following is my criticism of the ideas presented in that episode.
I
disagree with Beck's claim that Egypt’s Mubarak is “pro-Israel”;
I think Mubarak is only pro-Israel to the extent to which America
paid him to pretend that the Egyptian people don’t desire that the
State of Israel disappear. Beck also failed to mention that Mubarak’s
Egypt and Netanyahu’s Israel have colluded to cut the Gaza Strip
off from the rest of the world. Beck appears to have no interest in
expressing concern for the welfare of the Gazan people, and does not
seem to want to take the time to point out that not all Muslim
peoples share the same political or religious ideology.
Even
though Beck admits that George Soros doesn’t actually like Qadhafi,
I think Beck is trying to make connections between Islamosocialism
and Western democratic socialism where they don’t necessarily
exist. He has been repeating for at least several weeks that they are
uniting against Israel and capitalism, and to undermine stability.
First
off, socialism and opposition to Israel do not always go
hand-in-hand. In fact, I’ve shown that - in my piece "A
Jewish and Democratic State" (http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/07/jewish-and-democratic-state.html) - Zionism itself, the establishment
of the State of Israel, and the subsequent half-century of Israeli
policy, were profoundly influenced by the socialism of Theodor Herzl
and David ben-Gurion, as well as by Leninism, Trotskyism, and, to a
lesser extent, Stalinism. This is not to ignore, however, the role
which capitalism played in Israel’s development; for example,
Jabotinsky, Weizmann, and Netanyahu are examples of Zionist figures
whom have not completely opposed right-wing economics.
But
I would be shocked if any American Democrat turned out to be an
anti-Zionist, rather than simply, at worst, a harsh critic of Israeli
policy. I would also be surprised if any Democrat, even one who
describes himself as a socialist, actually technically qualified as a
Marxist or even as a person who completely opposes free-market
capitalism.
I
feel like Beck is trying to characterize all Muslims as socialist,
anti-Israel, and pro-Caliphate. I’m not claiming that Beck
explicitly said that, but I feel like he is trying to imply it.
First
of all, not all Middle Eastern regimes oppose capitalism; Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain, and the U.A.E. come to mind. Second, not all Muslims
are anti-Israel, such as the Muslims who are members of the Israeli
parliament. Third, not all Muslims are pro-Caliphate; Qadhafi is a
Muslim (albeit not a traditional Muslim by any stretch of the
imagination), and as far as I know, he has never expressed interest
in bringing about a Caliphate. Qadhafi claims that supporters of
al-Qaeda and bin Laden are among his opponents, and they would be
more likely to want to bring about a Caliphate than would Qadhafi,
whom has expressed interest in being the leader of an African Union.
I
resent that Beck called a group of Palestinians who murdered an
Israeli family “terrorists”. They did not blow themselves up in a
crowded public Israeli area, nor did they launch missiles towards
Israelis. Thus, they are murderers, not “terrorists”. I also
resent Beck’s characterization that Samantha Power (whose last name
he didn’t even get right once) desires that the U.N. protect
Palestinians “against Israel”, rather than “from Israel”.
Beck also failed to mention that Cass Sunstein himself is Jewish.
Beck
rejected the idea that Israel’s policy against the Palestinians has
been one of ethnic cleansing which could lead to a holocaust, but
throughout the history of Israel, the rate of Arab-to-Jew deaths has
been about 2 1/2 - to - 1. In the most recent major conflict, the
strike on Gaza in early 2009, the ratio was at least 100-to-1.
Furthermore, there is rampant housing discrimination against Muslims
in Jerusalem, the West Bank has become an archipelago of communities
isolated from one another and from natural resources, and the Gaza
Strip has been repeatedly referred to as a concentration camp by
scholars worldwide.
If
what has been slowly happening in Israel throughout the last 65 years
can be rightfully labeled “ethnic cleansing”, this “atrocity”
is currently nowhere near as deadly as it has been at any time
throughout the last two years. I don’t think Turkey has enough
international clout to get the U.N. to invade Israel, and I don’t
think an America, whether run by Democrats or Republicans, would ever
consent to, or participate in, a U.N. “invasion” of Israel in
order to stop this “genocide”.
Additionally,
Beck said that Turkey has been arming Gaza, which I wouldn't doubt is
true, but he did not mention the role which Turkey has played in
negotiating a limited truce between Gazans and Israelis. Admittedly,
that happened just today, but I would be surprised if Beck mentions
it in his shows next week, because it doesn’t support his argument.
For
more entries on military, national defense, and foreign policy,
please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-sovereignty-restoration-act-of.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/foreign-occupation-and-declaration-of.html
For
more entries on Judaism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Arab
conflict, please visit:
Thursday, February 27, 2014
The Syria Debate in Congress
Created in September 2013,
Originally published 2-27-2014
For
more entries on military, national defense, and foreign policy,
please
visit:
For
more entries on Judaism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Arab
conflict, please visit:
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