Roger Waters on Palestine

Here is a video of Roger Waters (of 'Pink Floyd' and 'The Wall' fame) addressing the UN General Assembly on the day of the vote for Palestine's 'observer status' at the UN.
I found it at Richard Edmonson's excellent blog, Leftwing-Christian

From Richard's post-
"A very powerful speech given by Roger Waters before the UN General Assembly last Thursday, on the day the statehood vote took place. The speech touches on a number of issues—the death of Rachel Corrie, the repeated violations of UN resolutions by Israel, the ongoing denial of the Palestinian people's inalienable rights and the shameful failure by the UN and its member nations to act to stop it. Perhaps most importantly of all, he calls for democratization of the UN. Roger Waters is truly an artist with a conscience. His speech was given on behalf of the Russel Tribunal.

Comments

a musician with heart and brain

Roger Waters played bass in Pink Floyd, and, to be honest, he was not an outstanding bass player, especially by prog-rock standards. But it didn't matter, because his main contributions to the band's success had nothing to do with the bass.

Among other things, Roger brought intelligence, intensity, an enraged conscience, the courage to say what he thought, and an unerring ability to choose the right words. This was far more important than his bass playing, and it all comes through in this speech.

Thanks for posting it.

meant to be ironic

The (former) title of my previous comment was not meant to be disrespectful, only ironic. (But I have changed it in any case, to avoid confusion.)

I used to listen to some fabulous musicians who seemed at the time to have big hearts and sharp brains -- and where are they now? Who else is speaking up in such a way? Very few of them. They've made tons of money; they can certainly say whatever they want. And their silence is ... well ... whatever.

Kudos to Roger Waters for this, and for much else.

kudos

yes kudos to Roger. Where is Bono and his sunday bloody sunday now? Faulting Palestine for their inability to produce a Ghandi...
and kudos to you too WP.
cheers

thanks very much

and cheers to you too!

I hope you are doing well

god bless roger waters. think

god bless roger waters.

think his contribution to music was/is his writing.

yes! yes!

I agree 100% on both points.

hey guess what?!

This post is being DDOS attacked, now who would want to go and do something like that?
142.4.98.210
142.0.133.92
142.4.117.89
192.74.240.68
192.74.230.82
142.4.116.58
192.74.240.141
192.74.230.99
-njt

OK, I'll guess

would want to go and do something like that?

Anti-Semites?

I know!

Self-hating gentiles.

McJ's picture

:)

laughing out loud Good one.

newjesustimes's picture

i just wonder

why they even bother, our readership is so small, are we having that big of an impact?
seems like they are getting frustrated,
192.74.236.165
193.105.210.161
27.159.218.55
27.153.149.156
although I'd have guessed they'd do all this by automated means, judging by the reactions, perhaps not. Or maybe they are entirely unrelated automated hack / spam attempts...

A Candle

They may be looking at the 'guest' numbers, Joe, which are often quite high.
Even so, a candle is anathema to those who love darkness.

they came back today and hit

they came back today and hit harder than before, we actually went offline for a little while here...
216.152.252.45
117.21.225.42
91.235.128.235
91.236.74.249
192.74.239.114
80.93.213.247
91.121.85.87
37.59.151.193
5.167.67.49
96.47.225.170
110.85.125.90

persistent buggers!

No rest

No rest for the wicked!

newjesustimes's picture

whodathunk it

an interesting article in the opinion section of the nyt
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/on-questioning-the-jewis...

Reality and the NYT

Good find NJT.
The author's main point is that if a state is fashioned according to the wants of a particular group in a society, then the resulting state is going to be undemocratic because it structurally discriminates against another group or groups. This is the state of affairs in Israel today, he rightly claims. No argument there from me.

But it seems to me that the author is really complaining about being criticised for being “anti-semitic” for questioning anything to do with the State of Israel. It's personal. "So what is this “right” that many uphold as so basic that to question it reflects anti-Semitism and yet is one that I claim ought to be questioned?"

In the course of his argument, he cleverly paints the Jewish 'people' as an ethnic group which it clearly is not by most peoples understanding of that term. One of the main purposes of the use of the term 'anti-semitism' is to advance the idea that jews are a racial or ethnic group. This notion of ethnicity or race is necessary to lend credence to the zionists' land claims in Palestine (which is the fundamental cause of all the consequent violence there).

The fact is that the vast majority of Jews are not semites and the only common denominator amongst them worldwide is a belief, via their religious writings, in their 'choseness' by God and the resulting chauvinistic attitude towards all other people on earth. It would be like claiming that the Irish, Italians and French are an ethnic group because of their common catholicism and their once common belief that they are the only ones who will gain entrance to heaven.

Similarly, it would be like the Irish, Italians and French claiming land rights in Palestine because of this supposed 'ethnicity' which is based on nothing but an adherence to an idea and the 'birthplace' of that idea was likewise in Palestine.

The author states, “This fundamental point exposes the fallacy behind the common analogy, drawn by defenders of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, between Israel’s right to be Jewish and France’s right to be French. The appropriate analogy would instead be between France’s right to be French (in the civic sense) and Israel’s right to be Israeli.”

In fact, the far more appropriate analogy is between Israel's right to exist as a jewish state and France's right to be a catholic state (and similarly discriminate against non-catholic citizens because God has ordained it so).

So, on the one hand, the author seems to be advancing the indigenous Palestinians' right to be included in the israeli state, but on the other hand, seems to be reinforcing the immigrant Jews' claimed right to be there in the first place.

I think this accounts for the article being published in the NYT.

brilliant analysis

Spot-on, James. Thank you very much.

The NYT has always done a good job of being one thing (pro-war, pro-empire, pro-business, etc.) while appearing to be (and being portrayed as) something very different (the flagship of the "liberal" media).

The US and Israeli governments use the same approach, of course, in different contexts, so it's no wonder that they and the NYT should be allies.

And it's no big surprise that we always get multiple layers of spin and deceit, always in combinations that (just happen to) support the same aggressors, at the expense of the same victims.

But the multiple layers of lies and spin can sometimes be very difficult to disentangle. You've done a masterful job of it here.

Thanks again and best wishes. You too, NJT.

Thanks Winter

Thanks Winter smiling
Aside from the appalling subject matter, I get a perverse pleasure in picking this sort of nonsense apart.

I hope you are improving again. Take care

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