ايلي حبيقة افتدى لبنان واللبنانيين

آدميون نحن ولنفس الأصل ننتمي فكيف نهنأ بالعيش والغير يألم

*Christ tells us not to fear those who can kill our bodies, but only those who can kill our souls......*

....يتمجد اسم الله في قديسيه لا تخافوا انا غلبت العالم

يا قديسة رفقا بطلب منك تمنحي لبنان السلام وتمنحي شعبه حب العيش المشترك وتمنحي السياسيين القائمين على الشأن العام القدرة على أن يتعاطوا ذلك بكل شفافية وخوف ألله - آمين

ايلي حبيقة افتدى لبنان واللبنانيين

إن الإنسان المؤمن بربه وبكتبه المقدسة وبتعاليمه وبموت وقيامة السيد المسيح لا يموت، بل يرقد على رجاء القيامة بانتظار يوم الحساب الأخير، والرب الذي وهب الإنسان نعمة الحياة هو وحده يقرر متى يستردها وليس أي مخلوق أخر.

اليوم ونحن نصلي في الذكرى التاسعة لروح الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة نردد بايمان وخشوع ووقار ما قاله النبي أيوب رغم كل المصائب التي حلت عليه فيما كان الشيطان يحاول جاهداً إيقاعه في التجربة دون أن يتمكن من أن يحقق هدفه اللعين هذا كون إيمان أيوب بربه كان قوياً وراسخاً: "عرياناً خرجت من بطن أمي، وعرياناً أعود إلى هناك، الرب أعطى والرب أخذ تبارك اسم الرب". (ايوب01/21).

يقول السيد المسيح: "أَنَا هُوَ الْقِيَامَةُ وَالْحَيَاةُ. مَنْ آمَنَ بِي، وَإِنْ مَاتَ فَسَيَحْيَا" (يوحنا 25/11). إن تعلقنا بلبناننا الحبيب حتى الشهادة يعزينا ويقوي إيماننا ويرسخ الرجاء في نفوسنا ويساعدنا على تقبل غياب الشهداء الأبرار برضوخ كامل لمشيئة أبينا السماوي فهم لا يموتون بل يبقون أحياء في وجداننا وضمائرنا وقلوبنا وعقولنا وفي كل عمل نقوم به يهدف لخدمة ومساعدة الآخرين الذين هم بحاجة إلينا.

يقول الشاعر: "ما استحق أن يعيش، من عاش لنفسه فقط". لذلك فالشخص المؤمن يجد لذته في أن يحيا لأجل غيره، عملاًً بقول الرب، "تحب قريبك كنفسك" (متى39/22). ولهذا يحب كل الناس من أعماق قلبه وتكون محبته للآخرين محبة عملية حسبما قال الرسول يوحنا: "يا أبنائي، لا تكن محبتنا بالكلام أو باللسان بل بالعمل والحق". (1يو18:3).

هذه المحبة العظيمة، والله هو محبة، تتميز بالعطاء والبذل والتفاني سواء من الناحية الجسدية، أو الناحية الروحية. لذلك فإن الشخص المؤمن والمعطاء والصادق هو بطبيعته إنسان نقي وتقي وشفاف وصادق ومحب يخاف الله الذي خلقه على صورته ومثاله.

هذا الإنسان يجهد بفرح كبير ليكون خادماً يخدم غيره في كل المجالات، لا لأنه مطالب بهذا، وإنما لأن الخدمة جزء من طبيعته ونفسيته وثقافته، ومكون أساسي من مكونات كيانه الإيماني. في خدمة الآخرين يشعر بالحب ويتغذى روحياً من تقديم الخدمات أكثر مما يغذي غيره بها. وإذا كانت الخدمة هي من عمل الملائكة (عبرانيين14:1)، فكم بالأولى البشر. وقد أعطانا السيد المسيح المثال الأبلغ في هذا الشأن إذ قال: "ومن أراد أن يكون الأول فيكم، فليكن لكم عبدا، وهكذا ابن الإنسان جاء لا ليخدمه الناس، بل ليخدمهم ويفدي بحياته كثيراً منهم". (متى 20/27 و28)

جاء في إنجيل القديس يوحنا (15/13): "ما من حب أعظم من هذا: أن يضحي الإنسان بنفسه في سبيل أحبائه". وقال الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة: "إن الوطن الذي لا يفتديه شبابه بأرواحهم لا يستمر ويزول. إن خدمة الآخرين وبذل الذات من أجلهم هي أعمال مقدسة والمسيح الإله قبل الصلب والعذاب والإهانات وقدم نفسه على الصليب فداء للإنسان ليعتقه من نير وعبودية الخطيئة ويحرره.

إن الشهيد لا يطلب شيئاً لنفسه من مقتنيات هذه الدنيا الفانية، وإنما يسعي لنيل بركات الله ليستحق بجدارة أفعاله وإيمانه العودة إلى منزل أبيه السماوي، والمسيح قال لنا: "ماذا ينفع الإنسان لو ربح العالم كله وخسر نفسه". (متى 16/26).

الشهيد هو قربان طاهر يقدم نفسه طواعية على مذبح الله بمحبة واندفاع وفرح من أجل أحبائه تماماً كما هو حال كل شهيد من شهداء لبنان الأبرار. عرفاناً بجميلهم نقول أنه وبفضل استشهادهم بقينا، وسوف نبقى بإذن الله طالما بقي الشباب اللبناني مؤمنا بلبنان وبرسالته وعلى استعداد تام ودائم للشهادة.

الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة لم يمت لأنه باق في كل جهد وعمل يقوم بهما أي لبناني من أجل الحفاظ على سيادة واستقلال وحرية وطنه الحبيب، ولصون كرامة وعزة اللبنانيين، كما أن عائلة حبيقة هي نبع معطاء لا ينضب في دفق الإيمان والوطنية والشهادة للحق والشهداء من أجل لبنان الرسالة والقداسة والقديسين.

نصلي من أجل أن يسكن الله روح الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة فسيح جناته إلى جوار البررة والقديسين وأن يلهم عائلته ومحبيه الصبر والسلوان

"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then...."

Entre la peste et le choléra… 10 siècles encore pourront passer mais ce petit monde la, restera toujours bloqué au passage de la Sinaï et le "Covenant"....de 5000 ans avant notre ère....

I have always been opposed to systems of “objective” analysis of real world problems in the analysis of human affairs. I have opposed them whether in intelligence or in academia. The great difficulty with objective systems is that they inevitably build models for whatever they are studying. Such models require that a problem be “factored” for the elements of the study. This creates artificialities since human affairs concern humans and humans are more complex than any model can be made unless the subject studied is extremely narrow. Any widening of the subject beyond something like a market place mechanism is likely to lead to false results through an inability to reflect actual human thought.....

- I view all of human experience as a continuum extending through time, developing, expanding and reflecting an accumulation of learning and development by human groups in a variety of paths, some of which share characteristics and many of which do not. This is basically a river of moving data that is growing and changing as it flows. We live in a small segment of that river’s current but the course of the river upstream has made our piece of the river what it is and the river flowing through and past us creates a future that is shaped by the stream as it flows forward in time. This does not mean that what has been will necessarily be, but it does mean that the elements of the past will be present in any future. It means that something truly new in human affairs is a rarity. We often think things are new but usually that is because we do not know enough about the past. I watch continuously for what have recently been called “black swans.”

- I have spent my life accumulating knowledge in a wide variety of fields. I have a good memory. My mind is like a filing cabinet with most of the files available for inspection. Anomalous phenomena stand out against the picture formed by the stream of history in much the same way that a moving object stands out against a static or constant background. I often see them clearly.

Israel? I don’t think God is a real estate agent and I don’t think the Israeli claim to a divine right to Palestine is anything more than the kind of myth making that Elie Kedourie discussed in his book on nationalism....[ http://books.google.com/books/about/Nationalism.html?id=SynCxUveSEIC ] As I said before, among my many complaints about Israel are that they manipulate out political process to their advantage and to American/European/Western.... disadvantage and they use their access to a 5^th column among their citizens to do it daily..... The other thing I don’t like about this relationship to Israel is their commanding the most infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant since January 24th 2002, and the cowardly assassination of Mr. Elie HOBEIKA and his party of three wonderful young men accompanying him on his last journey...., that's WHY I don't like Israel, don't think the Jews were 'entitled' to a country the world imposed on the natives of Palestine.... Don't like professional victims, whiners, bullies, liars, parasites, hypocrites or thieves. Don't like supremacist attitudes, religious mambo-jumbo, "chosenness",self serving myths and historical revisionist....

Don't like agents of influence, fifth columns in my government or country. Don't like propagandist, censors,wimps who shoot women and children, assassinate innocent people at will like Mr. Elie HOBEIKA, and outstanding and unique Leader, human being, a father , a husband , a hugely popular politician, a most courageous man, together in tandem with the Odious White House Murder INC,...wars and greed mongers or political corrupters.....

Can't think of single damn thing I like about that midget Nazi outpost of so called Jewish self determination we have sunk 1.6 trillion dollars and the US reputation into....

Feed them to the Turks, I am sick of them and of that very one sided relationship ..... The "Western Zioconned alliance" with Israel has never been profitable on a net basis and it still is not.....except that it is a "Covert Intelligence" Cover for Western despicable Shenanigans since the 1850s....in the Levant and MENA....

* Christ tells us not to fear those who can kill our bodies, but only those who can kill our souls. .....

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111208_xlv-world-day-peace_en.html

What the "Church Fathers" have rejected as heresy you shall now accept as Orthodox". Nor has the Papacy ever denounced the primacy of the Pope who, from a Patristic point of view, is claiming attributes which solely belong the Universal Church....

Christ tells us not to fear those who can kill our bodies, but only those who can kill our souls. So now instead of killing Orthodox Christians (as in the past), the Papacy is telling us that it and the Church are two lungs of one Body, even though Saint Athanasius clearly taught us that true Christianity is the faith "which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian".

So , which is the bigger threat to the Orthodox Christian, the Jesuit who wants to kill him at majorem Dei gloriam, or the smiling modern Jesuit who tells him that they are now both brothers in Christ as long as the Primacy of the Pope is accepted and that nothing else really matters?

The famous dialog "The Great Inquisitor" in Dostoevsky's "Karamazov Brothers". Remember what the Inquisitor tells Christ? "You have done your part, now leave us alone, we are now in charge". That has ALWAYS been the message of the Papacy, from the Frankish invasion of Byzantium to today's "ecumenical dialog of love" between the Pope and the thug and Mafia-boss Kirill Gundaev who fancies himself Patriarch of Russia....

The Papacy will always welcome the (ex-)Orthodox with open arms, as long as they, in turn, forget about the Truth which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers and upon which the Church was founded.... That is exactly the option given to Christ by Satan when he was tempted in the desert...

That is the option which we, Orthodox Christians, shall never, ever accept.....

Revolutionary change is, I believe, in itself neutral or, rather, non-defined as such....

When revolutionary process is the result of a belief in the power of Man to make the world a just place, when it offers a hope for a paradise on Earth, an "achievable utopia". then it is an 'opium of the people' way more toxic than what any religion has ever offered. From the Tower of Babel, to the WTC buildings, from secularists of the so-called "Enlightenment" to Marx, Hitler or Fukuyama, there has always been a type of man who wanted to "reach the heavens" and to declare to mankind that ye shall be as gods if you are without God. This type of revolution always begins with promises of paradise and ends in a hellish bloodbath....

But revolutionary change can also be a process which begins with the paradoxical realization that man can only free himself by submitting to God. This is the basic truth with most, if not all, religions share. This is what Christ meant when he said without me ye can do nothing. This is what Hassan Nasrallah refers to when he begins his speech with the words I take refuge in Allah from the stoned Satan or what Ahmadinejad referred to in his 2008 speech at the UN when he said God Almighty has tied their perfection and true freedom of humans to their devotion and obedience to Himself. True freedom and obedience to God are in balance and in fact are two sides of the same coin (...) Humans need to know God in order to realize a prosperous society in this world as well as to strive for a beautiful eternal life. This is what the Hindu tradition calls the doctrine of Prapatti (which Swami Siwananda defined as 1. the acquisition of virtues which would make one a fit offering to God; 2. avoidance of conduct not acceptable to God; 3. faith that the Lord will always protect him; 4. appeal to the Lord for protection and mercy; 5. a feeling of one’s own littleness; and 6. total surrender. The first five are the means to the attainment of absolute self-surrender.

In this latter case, the revolutionary process becomes filled with an internal dimension which can make the world better, even if only on the margins, and only for a while....

There is only ONE *real* liberation, the one which Christ refers to when He says If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free and that is the re-union with the Theandric Body of Christ - His Church - followed by theosis, what the Church hymns often call the "co-resurrection with Christ". However, the process of standing up against evil, of deliberately submitting one's will to God, can take many forms and, I believe, that it can also have the visible manifestation of a stance against oppression in a political process...

كدنا نلتقي في دنيا الشهادة

آدميون نحن ولنفس الأصل ننتمي فكيف نهنأ بالعيش والغير يألم

كدنا نلتقي في دنيا الشهادة

«لا نستطيع ضمان مستقبل أصدقائنا على الدوام.. لكننا أقدر على ضمان مستقبلنا عندما نتذكر من هم أصدقاؤنا»

سنوات على استشهاد الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة، وكأنّها خمسة أيّام.

Elias CIA MURR the little Skunk....January 24th 2002 in Hazmieh لم ننسَ ولن ننسى يا

الغضب على الجريمة لم يهدأ ولن يهدأ، حتى يُساق المجرمون إلى العدالة، حتى تُقطع اليد التي تذبح من أجل الإرهاب والفوضى والإلغاء السياسيّ.

لم يُرهبنا اغتيال، ولن يزعزع إيماننا إرهاب ولا تفجير جاسوس تابع لـ"السي آي إي.

ولن يقوى ظلم ولا حقد على حرّيتنا ولبنانيتنا وتمسّكنا بوحدتنا وتعايشنا وانحيازنا إلى القيَم الإنسانيّة والحضاريّة.

هذه المبادئ والقيم التي آمن بها الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة وناضل في سبيلها، لا يمكن أن تسقط باغتيال شابّ قائد، ولا باغتيال مئة شابّ.

فهذه المبادئ والقيم متجذّرة في قلوب وعقول غالبيّة شباب لبنان التوّاقين إلى ربيع الحرّية والأمن والعدالة في بلادهم، هذا الربيع الذي يسابق العدالة ليبني فوق صخرتها مستقبل لبنان الرسالة لا العنف، لبنان السلام لا الدم، لبنان الشراكة لا التسلّط والهيمنة، لبنان السيّد الحرّ لا رهينة الخارج والجوار.

أخي الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة،

إلتقينا في وطن واحد، في منطقة واحدة، على مشروع سياسيّ واحد، وكاد قدرنا أن نلتقي في دنيا الشهادة، إلّا أنّ إرادة الله كانت لها مشيئة أخرىنَم قرير العين، ففجرُ العدالة اقترب، علّه يضع حدّاً لآلات القتل السياسيّ العمياء التي طاولت قادة ومسؤولين "جريمتهم" فقط أنّهم يحبّون بلدهم ويدافعون عنه.

خطفوك في ربيع العمر، لكنّ خريفهم على الأبواب، وربيع الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة ولبنان الذي حلم به، آتٍ آتٍ

كدنا نلتقي في دنيا الشهادة

كدنا نلتقي في دنيا الشهادة

سنوات على استشهاد الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة، وكأنّها خمسة أيّام.

Elias CIA MURR the little Skunk....January 24th 2002 in Hazmieh لم ننسَ ولن ننسى يا

الغضب على الجريمة لم يهدأ ولن يهدأ، حتى يُساق المجرمون إلى العدالة، حتى تُقطع اليد التي تذبح من أجل الإرهاب والفوضى والإلغاء السياسيّ.

لم يُرهبنا اغتيال، ولن يزعزع إيماننا إرهاب ولا تفجير جاسوس تابع لـ"السي آي إي.

ولن يقوى ظلم ولا حقد على حرّيتنا ولبنانيتنا وتمسّكنا بوحدتنا وتعايشنا وانحيازنا إلى القيَم الإنسانيّة والحضاريّة.

هذه المبادئ والقيم التي آمن بها الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة وناضل في سبيلها، لا يمكن أن تسقط باغتيال شابّ قائد، ولا باغتيال مئة شابّ.

فهذه المبادئ والقيم متجذّرة في قلوب وعقول غالبيّة شباب لبنان التوّاقين إلى ربيع الحرّية والأمن والعدالة في بلادهم، هذا الربيع الذي يسابق العدالة ليبني فوق صخرتها مستقبل لبنان الرسالة لا العنف، لبنان السلام لا الدم، لبنان الشراكة لا التسلّط والهيمنة، لبنان السيّد الحرّ لا رهينة الخارج والجوار.

أخي الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة،

إلتقينا في وطن واحد، في منطقة واحدة، على مشروع سياسيّ واحد، وكاد قدرنا أن نلتقي في دنيا الشهادة، إلّا أنّ إرادة الله كانت لها مشيئة أخرىنَم قرير العين، ففجرُ العدالة اقترب، علّه يضع حدّاً لآلات القتل السياسيّ العمياء التي طاولت قادة ومسؤولين "جريمتهم" فقط أنّهم يحبّون بلدهم ويدافعون عنه.

خطفوك في ربيع العمر، لكنّ خريفهم على الأبواب، وربيع الوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة ولبنان الذي حلم به، آتٍ آتٍ

The Lebanon I Still Love, but the Lebanon I dream of…is Long Gone....

When you try to push history forward too quickly, sometimes it bites you back....Will Obama Pull a Johnson for Hillary to enter the fray in 2012...

When you try to push history forward too quickly, sometimes it bites you back....Will Obama Pull a Johnson for Hillary to enter the fray in 2012...?

السياسة مكيافيلية صرف تقوم على "الغاية تبرر الوسيلة، ويُحكم على الوسيلة المستخدمة بنتائجها السياسية وليس على أخلاقيتها أو عدمها

A trader's Take on the 2012 Presidential Election. As I write this, I am sitting at the San Francisco consulate of the People’s Republic of China, awaiting the issuance of my business visa. Since I will soon be in the neighborhood, I plan to interview some companies that I want to buy on the next upswing in the global financial markets. The Defense Department has asked me to call on my senior contacts in the People’s Liberation Army to try and get a read on the Middle Kingdom’s next likely president, Xi Jinping. Also, it has been ages since I had a decent Peking Duck.

It seems that whenever you do anything with China, there are always scads of people around. I had to wait in line on cold and foggy Geary Street an hour just to get into the building, pestered by assorted anti-government demonstrators....

Therefore, I am going to take advantage of the very rare luxury of some extra free time and speculate at length on the prospects of another president, that of Barrack Hussein CIA Obama.... Having spent time in the White House Press Corp under Carter and Reagan, I have some inside knowledge about how whole the utterly corrupt election process works in the ZIOCONNED USA....

The most important factor to affect global financial markets next year and years beyond will be the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. As card carrying paid up members of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader network, I therefore have not only the responsibility, but the obligation to give you my forecast about how this is going to play out.

To believe that President Obama is anti-business and bad for the economy is lunacy of the highest order. Barack knows more American history than either you or I will ever forget. He is well aware that a poor economic performance has been the primary creator of one term presidents since WWII.

Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson retired early, Carter was demolished by the stagflation caused by the Iranian revolution and the second oil shock, and George H.W. Bush was turfed out by a minor recession, despite winning the first Gulf War. Therefore, the economy had to be Obama’s top priority from the first day in office. To do otherwise was for Obama to risk becoming one of the countless jobless himself.

I believe that the economy that Obama inherited was so broken that it will take decades to fix, if ever. It is easy to forget that virtually the entire financial system was bankrupt, the credit markets had seized up, and the ATM’s were two weeks away from failing to dispense cash. The government newly found itself a major investor in the country’s 20 largest banks, General Motors, and AIG.

But the reflationary measures he was able to get through a reluctant congress were too small to engineer the recovery he needed. The boldness of the moves seen during the Great Depression was sadly absent. Remember, Franklin Roosevelt directly hired 3 million men during his first two years through the Civilian Conservation Corps, immediately preventing 5 million from immediate starvation. This was when the population was less than half of what it is today.

To a large extent, Obama has become the fall guy for the excesses of earlier administrations. The big problems facing the country are long term and structural. The $15 trillion national debt is the product of 30 years of tax cuts and spending increases, primarily for defense.

Our runaway health care costs can be traced by our failure to nationalize health care when the rest of the developed did so in the late 1940’s, enabling them to keep their medical expenses to two thirds of ours, with better results. Social security and Medicare were financially flawed from the day they were launched, and modern day politicians were loath to touch them once they became sacred cows. None of these intractable problems are amenable to a quick fix.

All of this leaves Obama’s popularity in the polls falling, going into one of the most acrimonious and hard fought elections in American history. Obama has become the Jackie Robinson of American politics, the first African-American to play in major league baseball. The better the job he does, the more people hate him. Robinson died at 53, largely due to stress.

Is Obama the Jackie Robinson of American politics?

-

If he can’t pull out of his tailspin, I believe the president will withdraw his candidacy, and throw it open to other contenders. That is what Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 due to declining health and an unpopular war. When you try to push history forward too quickly, sometimes it bites you back. The election of Obama was such a generational leap in so many ways that some retracement was inevitable. Blame it all on the excesses of the previous administration, which were many. After all, the Democrats don’t want to commit suicide.

There are two potential candidates. I believe that Hillary Clinton was given the safe position as Secretary of State precisely to hold her in reserve as a backup candidate in 2012 in case something happened to Obama. People of both political parties agree that she has done a spectacular job managing America’s role in the Arab spring, providing military support to drive Khadafy out of power, and keeping the Chinese buying out gargantuan debt issues. But as a presidential candidate, she is not without baggage.

Who wins This Contest?

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The dark horse in the race is Michael Bloomberg, the highly popular mayor of New York. If there was ever a politician who can change his spots, it is Michael. A lifetime Democrat, he switched parties to win as a Republican in a Democratic town. He could flip flop again, or bolt to form a third party. I have known Michael since he went door to door on Wall Street seeking funding to start his data business to replace the aging Quotrons. A more quixotic mission there never was.

Yet he succeeded wildly, making himself a billionaire many times over, proving his credentials as an entrepreneur and a businessman, and creating an urban legend. An early adopter, I have personally paid him over $1 million in fees for the past 20 years for his versatile machine, as have most other hedge fund managers.

Where do the Republicans stand in all of this? They have to spend a year appealing to the conservative base, attempting to outmaneuver each other in a marathon to the right. Then they only have two months to swerve back to the middle to win the election. They have a somewhat hopeless task, and is why we have so many two term presidents.

What Rick Perry harangues about is popular in libertarian, oil based Texas, but will they wear it in Ohio, Washington, or Florida? I think not. Mitt Romney’s Mormon origins leave his party’s Christian base cold, and he is unelectable without them. Both these men are presenting themselves as modern day incarnations of Ronald Reagan. But I knew Ronnie for decades, first as an aspiring governor of California, and a Reagan they are not. I can’t imagine Perry telling me an off color joke.

The rest of the field are just “also rans”. On top of this, the power of the presidency as a campaign tool is not to be underestimated. Air Force One versus a chartered bus? Give me a break.

Or This One?

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There are a few imponderables to consider in 2012. Some 4 million immigrants became naturalized US citizens in four years, who have a very high turnout ratio. Given anti-immigrant rants in states like Arizona and Alabama, you can count on almost all of these going Democratic. Another 4 million millennials will have reached voting age. Obama managed to get this group to turn out in unprecedented numbers in 2008. He didn’t run in 2010, and they failed to show. Will they return in 2012? Another demographic trend that has been ongoing for 50 years is the migration to the sunbelt, which favors the Republicans. I don’t know how all of this nets out, but I bet Carl Rove does. Ask him.

Or This One?

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In the end it will come down to Ohio and Florida again, as it has in the last three elections. Few remember that Obama won by a landslide in 2008, taking some 365 electoral votes compared to the 270 needed to win. The Democrats could lose a staggering 94 votes and still take the presidency.

That means losing the entire Midwest and some of the East, including North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Indiana (11), Missouri (11), Maryland (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (7), Connecticut (7), West Virginia (5), and New Mexico (5), and still seeing blue ties (or pant suits) in the White House. In the end it will come down to Ohio and Florida again, as it has in the last three elections.

This is a race that is wide open and could go in any direction. That is why you are seeing such a plethora of Republican candidates. In politics, 14 months is 14 centuries, and anything could happen by November 6, 2012. New candidates will enter the fray, while old ones fade away. Rick Perry may have already peaked. The economy might even recover, or at least fail to melt down. After all, who heard of Barrack Hussein Obama 14 months before the last election? For those of us who trade for a living, this will be one giant unknown to pile on top of all the others, right up to election day.

Or Will Obama Pull a Johnson?

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CNN debate format not much different than the Jerry Springer Show but with more dire possible consequences....

CNN: The Cable Neo-Nazi Network.....

CNN, which is competing with Fox News for the title of network for the political descendants of the Ku Klux Klan, Know Nothing Party, and John Birch Society, decided to co-host the last Republican presidential debate with the Tea Party, a Republican contrivance set up by the likes of former House GOP Majority leader Dick Armey and former George H W Bush counsel C. Boyden Gray. However, the Tea Party, unlike other Republican groups, has attracted a number of out-and-out neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, Jewish Defense League, neo-Confederates, and other gun-toting racist types who are happy to finally find a home where they can vent their hatred on CNN and Fox.

Such was the case in the last debate when GOP libertarian candidate Ron Paul was posed a question by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on who should pay for an uninsured comatose patient who needed six months in intensive care and whether he should be allowed to die. While Paul struggled to come up with an answer, itself an outrage considering he is a medical doctor who has sworn to uphold the Hippocratic oath and who believes that life exists the minute the sperm penetrates the egg, Tea Party members in the crowd yelled, "yeah! Let him die!"

CNN, with its neo-Nazi and Klan partners in the Tea Party, has allowed the presidential debates to descend into a format that mixes the "Jerry Springer Show" with "American Idol." We have come a long way since it was the non-partisan League of Women Voters that laid the groundwork for the famous Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. The League also sponsored the general election 1976 Ford-Carter, 1980 Carter-Reagan, and 1984 Reagan-Mondale debates. In 1968 and 1972, intra-Democratic party debates were sponsored by the Democrats between Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy and George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey, respectively. Imagine the horror and disgust had any of those primary debates been sponsored or co-sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan or American Nazi Party. By inviting the Tea Party to the debate format as a co-equal, CNN has further widened the political cracks that are bringing down the United States electoral system faster than the next earthquake will surely topple the Washington Monument obelisk.

One question that should be asked: Did any money exchange hands between CNN and the Tea Party to carry the debate? For example, was there a financial deal between CNN and the Tea Party similar to those where networks pay the National Football League or Major League Baseball for broadcasting rights?



One thing we have learned from Anders Behring Breivik's far-right, pro-Zionist and neo-Nazi network in Europe is that there has been a heavy liaison between British, Scandinavian, and Dutch neo-Nazis and leaders and members of the Tea Party in the United States. By establishing a professional relationship with the Tea Party, CNN has abrogated its right to provide independent news reporting on the activities of right-wing terrorists, since it has placed itself within their outer chain-of-command -- the propaganda wing reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels's Ministry of Propaganda and its twice daily Tagesparole, which dictated what news was to be reported and how it was to be reported. Today, Goebbels's catch phrases of "Red agents," "Jewish Communists," and "the madmen Churchill and Roosevelt" have been replaced by the corporate media with the terms "Jihadists," "Islamo-fascists," and "tree-hugging liberals."

The people who run CNN are no different than the tycoon publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose publications praised Adolf Hitler and his Nazis. From the September 1933 edition of The Reader's Digest, a chronic re-publisher of Hearst articles: "That Hitler's conquest of the hearts and minds of all classes of Germans is now so complete that even if all his Brown Shirts and Steel Helmets were to be disbanded, tomorrow he would still be easily the strongest man in Germany, and on any appeal to the electorate would be confirmed in power by a quite overwhelming majority of votes . . . Hitler has passed from the stage of party leader to being the national prophet of an exceedingly serious people, and it would need another prophet to replace him." And from another Hearst publication, Better Homes and Garden, in 1938, there is this heart-warming description of Hitler's mountain home: "There is nothing pretentious about the Fuhrer's little estate. It is one that any merchant of Munich or Nuremburg might possess in these lovely hills . . . Herr Hitler's study is fitted as a modern office, and leading out of this is a telephone exchange. From here it is possible for the Fuhrer to invite his friends or Ministers to fly over to Berchtesgaden, landing on his own aerodrome just below the chalet lawn."

Far-right Tea Party candidates like Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and others are now not only recognized but praised as legitimate potential fuhrers of the United States by CNN, Fox, and MS-NBC. These corporate info-tainment networks should be run out of coverage of national politics on a rail and with their hats in their hands. And how is it fair for CNN to strike a deal with an extremist Republican faction that has been eschewed by invited debate candidates like former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and non-invited candidates like former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson?

Today, the enablers for Hitler's prodigal sons and daughters in the Tea Party are the likes of Wolf Blitzer and John King, the media heirs of Goebbels and Hearst, who act as political lion tamers and provocateurs at the same time for the angry right-wing crowds gathered at the GOP debates. Blitzer has a number of years of experience pushing propaganda, both as a public relations official for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where he defended jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, and a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post.

It is past time for the Fox, CNN, and MS-NBC debate formats for the right-wing zombie crowds to come to a close. These hate-fest debates do not serve the public interest and they should be stricken from the agenda before some crazed admirer of Breivik decides that his or her xenophobic and racist rantings are somehow "mainstream" and worthy of a major news "event."

http://m.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/fbi-muslims-radical

HINT ON WESTERN BANKERS' CRIMINALITY; LIBYA, 9/11, Insider Trading Rules Don’t Apply To US Congress...

Jerome Kerviel lost €5bn due to 'rogue' trades....

A Tiny window into criminal Banking practices for Decades!

Western Banks 'ripped off' Libya.

Libya was then hit by NATO and the USA.

The banks now say they don't have to pay back any money to Libya.

SocGen Made $1 Billion Derivatives Gamble for Libya, FT Reports

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7v4TCZS_Jo&feature=player_embedded

International bankers wasted billions of dollars invested by Libya.

The Financial Times says banks like Goldman Sachs were dealing with Libya's investments at a time when they needed to plug holes in their own balance sheets during the economic crisis.

Most of the money has been lost, but with what's going on in Libya any repayment seems unlikely.

Italians taking Libyans to an Italian concentration camp.

In early 2008, Société Générale lost €5bn due to 'rogue' trades by Jerome Kerviel.

Société Générale then arranged a transaction for Libya.

This transaction has lost 72% of its value.

But the transaction made money for Société Générale, helping to plug a hole in its balance sheet.

"The case is just one example of how leading global financial groups did big business with Col Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in deals that rarely benefited the North African state’s lumbering $65bn sovereign wealth fund, but generated lucrative fees for the banks."

Goldman Sachs structured a $1.2bn equity and currency derivatives portfolio that lost 98.5 per cent of its value by June 2010.

Libya bet $1bn on SocGen shares
‎
Did top bankers know when 9 11 was going to happen?

Certain bankers seem to know in advance when terrorist attacks are going to take place, and so they can successfully bet on certain shares falling in price?

'Rogue trader' Jerome Kerviel worked for the French bank Société Générale .

(SocGen rogue trader Jerome Kerviel 'hit the jackpot' on 7/7 ... / 'Rogue trader' Jerome Kerviel.)

According to Kerviel, "The best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001.

"At least, that’s what one of my managers told me.

"It seems that profits were colossal that day.

"I had a similar experience during the London attacks in July 2005."

On 7 July 2005, 52 people were killed by a series of bus and tube train attacks in London.

A few days before 7 July 2005, Kerviel bet on a fall in the share price of Allianz, the German insurance giant.

"Thanks to the positions I had, I earned €500,000 in a few minutes. It was the jackpot. I was jubilant," says Kerviel.

So, Kerviel made 500,000 Euros as a result of London's 7/7 attacks.

Kerviel eventually lost £4 billion while working as a trader with Société Générale , and now he is on trial.

Kerviel, 32, claims that his colleagues and bosses had been aware of his actions.

BANKERS MADE MONEY FROM 9 11 and 7 7

These ZIOCON criminals have all their ends covered. They plan and execute the attack, make money off of it, tell us utter lies about it and use it to justify war and tyranny.

What we basically have here is Zionist banks robbing the sovereign nation of Libya with the help of their US/NATO slaves.

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/goldman-sachs-lost-98-of-libya’s-1-3b-sovereign-wealth-fund-investment/

What we need is a mutiny by the US/NATO military forces. No more war for bankers! No more war based on absurd lies stemming from the deliberate inside Job of 9/11 and Dick Cheney's criminal Cabal and the odious White House Murder INC, in the Levant and Worldwide since 1986....!

Well, there's your problem right there ...

Wall Street executives are incentivized to lie, cheat and steal. So - of course - they will continue to lie, cheat and steal.

Wall Street owns the politicians:

• Lobbyists from the financial industry have paid hundreds of millions to Congress and the Obama administration. They have bought virtually all of the key congress members and senators on committees overseeing finances and banking. The Congress people who receive the most money from lobbyists are the most opposed to regulation. See this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

• Obama received more donations from Goldman Sachs and the rest of the financial industry than almost anyone else

• Summers and the rest of Obama's economic team have made many millions - even in the first few months of being appointed, or right beforehand - from the financial industry

• Two powerful congressmen said that banks run Congress

• Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have all said that the United States is controlled by an oligarchy

The chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University (Donald J. Boudreaux) says that it is inaccurate to call politicians prostitutes. Specifically, he says that they are more correct to call them "pimps", since they are pimping out the American people to the financial giants:

Real whores, after all, personally supply the services their customers seek. Prostitutes do not steal; their customers pay them voluntarily. And their customers pay only with money belonging to these customers.

In contrast, members of Congress routinely truck and barter with other people's property...

Members of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services.

***

Politicians force taxpayers to pony it up -- just as the services rendered for a pimp's customers are rendered not by that pimp personally, but by the ladies under his charge. The pimp pockets the bulk of each payment; he's pleased with the transaction. His customer gets serviced well in return; he's pleased with the transaction. The only loser is the prostitute forced to share her precious assets with strangers whom she doesn't particularly care for and who care nothing for her.

Also like the ladies under pimps' power, taxpayers who resist being exploited risk serious consequences to their persons and pocketbooks. Uncle Sam doesn't treat kindly taxpayers who try to avoid the obligations that he assigns to them. Government is a great deal more powerful, and often nastier, than is the typical taxpayer. Practically speaking, the taxpayer has little choice but to perform as government demands.

So to call politicians "whores" is to unduly insult women who either choose or who are forced into the profession of prostitution. These women aggress against no one; like all other respectable human beings, they do their best to get by as well as they can without violating other people's rights.

The real villains in the prostitution arena are those pimps who coerce women into satisfying the lusts of strangers. Such pimps pocket most of the gains earned by the toil and risks involuntarily imposed upon the prostitutes they control. No one thinks this arrangement is fair or justified. No one gives pimps the title of "Honorable." Decent people don't care what pimps think or suppose that pimps have any special insights into what is good or bad for the women under their command. Decent people don't pretend that pimps act chiefly for the benefit of their prostitutes. Decent people believe that pimps should be in prison.

Yet Americans continue to imagine that the typical representative or senator is an upstanding citizen, a human being worthy of being feted and listened to as if he or she possesses some unusually high moral or intellectual stature.

It's closer to the truth to see politicians as pimps who force ordinary men and women to pony up freedoms and assets for the benefit of clients we call "special-interest groups."

But it's not only that the politicos have been bought and paid for. They - like Wall Street titans - are incentivized to lie, cheat and steal.

Specifically, Congress members and Senators can trade on inside information.

As Forbes' blogger Kyle Smith notes notes:

One thing you can do as a member [of the House or Senate] is study pending legislation and regulatory changes, call up your broker and instruct him to trade on that nonpublic information. Do this as often as you want; you will suffer no penalty. There is no limit to how much money you can earn on insider trading in the House or Senate. Lawmakers and their staffers are specifically exempted.

As you might expect, those who work in the hallowed halls are not shy about availing themselves of the opportunity. A Wall Street Journal analysis published more than six months ago that has thus far provoked no particular sense of shame on Capitol Hill found that at least 72 Congressional aides in both parties had recently traded shares of companies that their bosses helped regulate. In 2009, while Senate Banking Committee member Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, was involved in discussing “stress tests” on banks such as Bank of America, his aide Karen Brown traded the company’s stock on several occasions in the weeks before May 7, 2009 — when BofA surged thanks to a press release on its stress-test result, assuring Ms. Brown a nifty profit.

Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain, Sen. Crapo’s office said the trades weren’t really made by Karen Brown but by her husband, who had no knowledge of what was going on in the banking committee. Would you go to your compliance officer, much less the SEC, with that line? True, these folks do need a good laugh now and again, and the SEC has to be in a jolly mood after the jury in the Galleon case all but repeated the verdict from The Producers: “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”

Last week a study of some 16,000 stock transactions carried out by House members was published in the journal Business and Politics. This detailed analysis showed that the investment portfolios of House members beat the market by about six points a year. (Democrats did especially well, outperforming by some nine points a year, while Republicans topped the average investor by only two percent annually.) Senators apparently do even better: “their portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers,” noted the journal, citing a previously published study.

So Congress members make money if they bail out the big banks which they have invested in.

One of the main reasons that Congress members have approved worldwide, perpetual war is because they benefit from it. The big defense contractors are huge campaign donors.

And - as Mish explains - politicos trade on inside information concerning the defense industry:

I found a Washington Post article written December 19, 2010 entitled Senate panel ban seen as double standard

The Senate Armed Services Committee prohibits its staff and presidential appointees requiring Senate confirmation from owning stocks or bonds in 48,096 companies that have Defense Department contracts. But the senators who sit on the influential panel are allowed to own any assets they want.

And they have owned millions in interests in these firms.

The committee's prohibition is designed to prevent high-ranking Pentagon officials from using inside information to enrich themselves or members of their immediate family.

But panel members have access to much of the same inside information, because they receive classified briefings from high-ranking defense officials about policy, contracts and plans for combat strategies and weapons systems.

The prohibition is representative of how members of Congress set strict rules on investing for others in sensitive posts in the corporate world and government while allowing themselves to manage their finances however they please.

Nineteen of the 28 senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee held assets in companies that do business with the Pentagon between 2004 and last year, according to an analysis of financial disclosure forms by The Washington Post. Those holdings were worth a total of $3.8 million to $10.2 million.

Ethics laws allow senators to hold stocks in industries they oversee. They also may push and vote for programs that could improve the bottom lines of companies in which they own stock. They are precluded, however, from taking official actions that could boost their personal wealth if they are the sole beneficiaries.

***

Gordon Adams, who oversaw military spending as a top official at the Office of Management and Budget in the 1990s, said committee members and staffers have virtually unfettered access to the highest-ranking officials at the Pentagon, which, with an annual budget of nearly $700 billion, is the largest part of the government.

"You get a great deal of information about the Pentagon's intentions for the future," said Adams, a foreign policy professor at American University. "As a member, you have vastly more information than the average Wall Street adviser or investor."

War is good for big defense contractors. When new wars are launched, the defense contractors (and their recipients/investors in D.C.) make a killing.

Don't expect the politicos to fix the problem. They're part of the problem:

March14th have utterly failed the test of Leadership in Lebanon and abroad

March14th have utterly failed the test of Leadership in Lebanon and abroad….Wikileaks are but a Teaser….what is known is much worse….

http://www.assafir.com/article.aspx?EditionId=1805&ChannelId=42439&ArticleId=2597

1. March 14 leaders all proved to be traitors to their nation, conspiring with foreign powers to encourage attacks on their own country….
2. Hezbollah’s Valiant Resistance and its arms are paramount for self-defense and have been entirely vindicated in every way, not only in 2000, in 2006 as well and still are today, till the dawn of an elusive comprehensive peace….

A potential leader must have something more than good personal qualities…. He must have an intellectual spark which does not necessarily come from his or her educational qualifications… None of the March14th figureheads…has given evidence of such an intellectual spark…

Till now, March14th have not demonstrated any leadership qualities by way of ideas and actions…
March14th ability to understand and logically analyze the complex internal and external problems facing the country is yet to be proved….
March14th views tend to be very simplistic and do not indicate wide reading and an ability to think deeply….

A good “leader of the future” must excite the younger generation. March14th doesn’t—not even in their own respective parties….all feudal and decrepit….March14th track record till now—whether in respect of contribution to new ideas or new policies—has been mediocre at best, destructive at least….. Apart from the fact that March14th have come from mostly privileged feudal political families, which have never made any tremendous contribution to the nation, March14th is yet to demonstrate any qualities which compel attention and could make us look upon them as “leaders of the future”….

It is important to have an objective and balanced debate on this subject devoid of rhetoric, abuses and ideological arguments so that we have a complete picture of March14th before our eyes on the basis of which we can decide whether March14th is fit to lead Lebanon in the difficult years to come…..potential leaders, should not be treated as a sacred cow which has to be accepted by the people without any scrutiny….

Kamal Salibi, a man of myriad personalities, a house of many mansions....

“The Modern History of Lebanon” had long been a valuable companion in my research, as had his “Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958-1976,” even though the work was soon overwhelmed by the monumental conflict whose origins it aspired to chronicle. However, it was “A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered” that has proven to be Salibi’s most influential book, and rightly so.

The essence of the book is modesty, and I would add Protestant modesty. That’s because Salibi approaches his subject from the standpoint of an individual belonging to a minority maneuvering among more forceful, numerically larger minorities. A friend once noted, citing the sociologist Ahmad Beydoun, that the better historians of Lebanon were those from marginal religious sects, including Salibi, but also Edmond Rabbath and Zein Zein, who could take their distance from a narrative shaped principally by Maronites and Sunnis during the years when modern Lebanon was finding its feet.

“A House of Many Mansions” is a product of modesty because it is constructed around the most modest of urges: to doubt. Salibi’s mission is to examine critically the contending views of Lebanese history – essentially the historical myths that Lebanon’s communities have adopted to assert their own prevailing ideologies against the other Lebanese communities. It is a subtle, devastating book, fundamentally out of joint with what so many Lebanese take as truth.

The German political scientist Theodor Hanf astutely remarked near the end of Lebanon’s war that “A House of Many Mansions” could potentially serve as a core post-war reference for Lebanese students, a unifying text in a country deeply divided by historical interpretation. Yet that quality is why Salibi’s book was never made, and never will be made, to serve such a worthy objective. Lebanon is not a country where communities are partial to the truth when it clashes with their self-image, let alone with tradition perpetuating a stalemate in power.

That could be one explanation for Salibi’s intriguing love-hate relationship with the Maronites. In one sense, he was doubly predisposed and indisposed toward the Maronites. Predisposed as a historian, for he could not avoid being fascinated by a community whose rise in the 19th and 20th centuries was, in many respects, that of Lebanon itself – a community that became the life-force of the modern Lebanese state; and predisposed as a Protestant, and through his ancestors as a Greek Orthodox, for Salibi could not help but be enthralled by Maronite affirmation as a stand-in for wider Christian affirmation, therefore partly Protestant affirmation, which his own minority within a minority could never replicate.

And yet fascination can also carry with it revulsion. Salibi was conceivably doubly indisposed to the Maronites from his vantage point as a Protestant and a Greek Orthodox, for what is the story of the weaker Christian sects than a yearning to strike back against what they deem to be Maronite hegemony? So that even as Salibi wrote about the Maronites, and published a monograph on their historians, his most potent weapon against the weight of Maronite historiography (and not only Maronite historiography) was skepticism, expressed through a reconsideration of Lebanese history.

Toward the end Salibi seemed torn between despair with what he identified as a Christian, and specifically a Maronite, impulse for self-destruction, and anxiety with how such communal suicide might adversely affect the Christian presence in the Arab world. In an interview in 2007, he lamented that Christians “are so bent on destroying themselves … [I]t seems that they enjoy the lack of charity more than they enjoy life for some reason.”

Now here was a forgotten word: charity. Charity, modesty, temperance, diligence, all virtues that this unique professor had learned from those sturdy American Protestants of yesteryear, in whose educational institution he had thrived, now erected by Salibi as barriers against a Lebanon, in particular a Christian Lebanon, that seemed to be going in a different direction than what he would have preferred. But this Christian Lebanon, concurrently attractive and repulsive, vital and reckless, was a profound part of Kamal Salibi, a man of myriad personalities, a house of many mansions....

الراعي الصالح واردوغان الطامع

ما ابلغ واصرح الانسان عندما ينطق بالحق، الحقّ الذي يحرّر. وما أوقح الخبيث المهادن عندما يظن انه لم يعد يخشى احدا.

عندما تحدّث البطريرك الماروني، راعي ربيع الكنيسة المسيحية المشرقيّة، عن مخاوف الأقليات من أكثرية طاغية تحاول تكوين نفسها من جديد، قامت القيامة عليه من هنا وهناك. لكنه تكلّم كلام من سبرت عيناه أعماق التاريخ الذي لم تندمل جراحاته بعد. بينما هم كلّهم حنين الى جاه بائد تبخّر بفعل غياب سيّدهم بداعي الوان الواي تيكت.

أمّا اردوغان المتحدر من بني عثمان، اردوغان الذي يظنّ أنّه دحر العلمانيين في تركيا على أمل أن يغلبهم من جديد في سوريا، اردوغان الذي تربطه بالاخوان المسلمين روابط عقيدة، أردوغان الذي أعطى نفسه بتبريد علاقاته مع اسرائيل، صكّ براءة من جانب واحد للولوج من جديد في الشرق العربي، اردوغان المنتصر (برأيه) قال كلاما خطيرا في مصر.

وكلامه جاء اثباتا واضحا وصريحا أن بطريرك الموارنة كان على حق. وأنّ المخاوف التي أبداها كانت فعلا في محلّها.

ماذا قال اردوغان؟

قال إنه "كما كان في التاريخ التركي شاب قام بإنهاء حضارة سوداء ودشن حضارة جديدة عريقة عندما فتح اسطنبول وهو محمد الفاتح، فإن هناك شبابا في مصر أغلقوا صفحة وفتحوا صفحة حضارة جديدة".

ما يزال الوقت باكرا كي نشارك اردوغان فرحه بقلب النظام في مصر. وعلينا أن نحدّد بالأوّل نوعيّة الانتفاضة البرمجة التي طردت آل مبارك من الحكم. وهل هي حقا ربيع مصري، أو انقلاب للاخوان المسلمين، او مسرحية معقدة الاخراج لابقاء السلطة بأيدي العسكر. لكن عندما ينعت اردوغان المسيحية الارثوذكسية بالحضارة السوداء، فهو ينظر بازدراء عميق الى كل ما لا ينتمي الى عقيدته في الاسلام بصلة. وهذا ما يحسب له ألف حساب.

وهل لنا أن نذكّر فاقدي الذاكرة بالفوقيّة التركية في التعامل مع الشعوب المحيطة بها؟ وكيف غلّفت هذه الفوقيّة برداء الاسلام تجنيّا. وكيف أغرق المشرق،مسيحيا أو مسلما في الجهل على مدى 400 سنة. وكيف فتح باب الهجرة للصهيونية نحو فلسطين. وكيف تفنّن في سياسة ال " فرّق، تسد". وكيف أن اراضي المسيحيين في تركيا ما تزال حتى اليوم تئنّ حنينا الى اصحابها الذين طردهم العثمانيون منها منذ أقل من مئة عام. وكيف أنّ الطرقات المؤدية من هذا البلد الى شرقنا ماتزال مدموغة بدم الأرمن . وأنّ ثلث أهل الجبل اللبناني مات جوعا بعد حصار اسلاف اردوغان له في الحرب العالمية الاولى.
كلام البطريرك أكبر بكثير من طموحات وعمالات بعض الأغبياء في لبنان. وبعض السفراء الذين يخافون اغضاب تركيا بعد أن أقفلوا باب أوروبا في وجهها وأعطوها المشرق العربي من جديد كجائزة ترضية.

كلام البطريرك هو صوت الحقّ الهادر فهل تسمع الرعيّة؟ أم أنّها من ملتهية من جديد في تحديد جنس الملائكة؟

Too many "chefs" and foreign intelligence in the soup that is Lebanon....

Too many "chefs" and heavy-handed foreign intelligence and covert ops. in the soup that is Lebanon....and the Levant since the 1920s.....

http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Levant_Religion_lg.jpg

Ask not what your country can do for you … but what you can do for your country....

Justice, equity, equality, sovereignty, independence, security, transformations, religious reformations, peace, modernization (and not necessarily westernization), individual rights and democracy, free election, new Constitutions, referendum, Habeas corpus and due process, transparency and accountability, sustainable development and inter-generational equity….

Lebanon’s imperfect democracy requires considerable reform, but revolution makes no sense....This is the easy part, as so many Lebanese discovered shortly after March 8th & 14th. It’s one thing to carry a flag, march into a square, and demand change. It’s something else to come together to build something new, something better and sustainable....despite massive daily foreign meddling...

The fact that people can get their knickers in a twist over the question of who will become second deputy dog catcher in the Upper Metn is not a symptom of Lebanese myopia vis-a-vis the regional tumult, nor is it a token of our base sectarianism. It simply means that such an issue has real political stakes attached to it. Yes the Lebanese system is deeply problematic and needs serious overhaul. But it is not a dictatorship that has an open-and-shut case against it in the court of public opinion....

A significant step would be to set up a two-tier parliamentary system, with an upper house based on fully proportional representation. This would not address the issue of cabinet formation, but it would be a relatively easy way to bring in proportional representation without requiring major concessions from current power-brokers (i.e. without requiring the turkeys to vote for Christmas)....

.....We need to have a sense of unity and patriotism before we can come close to uniting against a regime or state of affairs in Sectarian Lebanon....

The Zionists are in the end rationalists. Their own Talmudic teachings also instruct them to take the path least destructive to them. The only reason they left South Lebanon is that they, both politicians and their top rabbis, came to the conclusion that occupation was not sustainable without a great cost they were not willing to bear anymore . The same thing with Gaza. Their ultimate goal is not suicide, but self-preservation. Yes, the more vulnerable they feel, the more they will feel inclined to find more peaceful means of resolving this conflict. I also believe the US, as they see more people rise in the ME who will naturally take a more adverse position towards Israel and the US (notice the chants of the Egyptian people against Israel this last Friday), will come to the conclusion that Israel is a strategic liability and will do what is in its own self-interest in the end.

Smart one-liners have never ended occupations. You believe in something and then you sacrifice for it. For those who sit on their hands and do nothing but complain, I suggest you present your workable political vision, your goals, and then show us the way. You cannot do nothing and then complain when others are trying to do something, however much you disagree with it. Talk never liberated South Lebanon. My only intention is to see peace for myself and others, including those Israelis who wish to live between us in peace and respect....

Regardless of the Iranian ships going through the Suez canal, Israel has already gone down into a new strategic re-thinking in light of what has happened in Egypt (it was in their papers while the protests were taking place in Egypt). The Iranian ship is simply a symptom of this new reality in the region that they have to get used to more and more. I think it is to be expected that they will withdraw into themselves initially and get bogged down further into a defensive mode. But my hope is that they realize that these the environment will only get more hostile towards them, even if all the Arab dictators don’t fall right away. Arab regimes now realize that cozying up to Washington and Israel without some serious effort on their part to be genuine and fair about peace will not fly anymore. I am sure the US and even some Arabs will first try to reverse the tide of popular revolt, or even placate the demonstrators’ demands without making too many sacrifices. But the level of awareness and power articulated by the protesters, especially in Egypt, I saw, seems to indicate that they will not be hoodwinked any longer. This is the new reality that I find promising. Such a reality should lead to peace rather than war. And If the whole region turns democratic, what rational would Israel, the one that claims to be the sole democracy in the ME, have in oppressing the Palestinians anymore? Such a situation would become untenable.

I don’t think anyone is against a just and equitable peace. But it cannot be the peace of the humiliated. What Egypt showed is that Israel had peace not with the Egyptian people but with a dictator who was oppressing his own people. You can fool some of the people all the time, ……, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

“Yes the Palestinians have the right to their own land and to live and prosper, but let them first agree amongst themselves.”

It is a known fact that Hamas owes its creation partially to Israel who helped it along, initially of course, to counter-balance Arafat in the mid 80s. If there were some just and meaningful proposals for a settlement, I believe that we would then see a convergence of Palestinian positions on the issue. But the fact is Israel keeps humiliating Abbas, who is but an utter stooge, driving a further wedge between him and Hamas creating the perfect excuse not to engage in any serious negotiations....

As for “blind religious belonging,” one should tell that to the Israelis themselves. Israel’s raison D’être is its Jewishness, to the exclusion of the rights of Palestinian Muslims and Christians.... I think even Iran, in due time, is finding out the hard way that mixing religion and the state is not a winning formula. Religion should be a private matter. There were some very encouraging chants from the protesters in Egypt, “Muslims and Copts hand in hand…” and some others even. We should focus on the positive and encourage it rather than make fearful claims.

So for any volcanic political change to come from Lebanon, you need the spark and the drive.The spark being the enormous social/economic/political pressures to reach unbearable proportions…and the drive being the unity of the Lebanese, no matter how many groupings are listed, in demanding a single platform vehicle to bring about change….I can see the spark happening in the near future, but the drive....?

In the case of Lebanon, the center cannot hold, never ever did....and relatedly neither does the periphery.... Too many falconers, I suppose, but aren’t those falcons pretty?

Meaningful changes to the political infrastructure in Lebanon are tied to a resolution of the Palestinian issue. Getting rid of that elephant in the room will shrink Lebanon to its real political size, and will mean less interference from outsiders who have only helped to stoke the fires of mistrust between the various sects. We will still have a lot to do on our own and we will have a real nation to build, but the issue of our lifetime that has been the impetus and excuse for most of our wars will have been laid to rest. Short of that, we will still be bickering for a while....

لقد أثبتت السعودية دائما ومنذ سبعينات القرن الماضي والوقائع عربياً وعالمياً، انها طائفية حتى العظم تُدخل البلد في حرب الحضارات بالشعارات التي ترفعها، وهي شعارات عنصريّة وتحريضيّة وداعمة لسلطة ومال طائفتها وأميرها الحريري في لبنان

على القضاء المختص التحرك تلقائيا وفورا لرفع الحصانات ومحاسبة المفتنين والعابثين بالامن الاهلي... يجب تطبيق القانون ووقف الشحن المؤذي

أن الأمر قد انتهى وان الإستراتيجية قد حُسمت منذ أن تم التوافق في البيان الوزاري لحكومات على معادلة "الجيش والشعب والمقاومة" التي تمثل أفضل صيغة دفاعية

بدنا هيك رئيس يعمل حكومة بلا عملاء اسرائيل, و يفتح كل الملفات

الحريري ومسيحيّو أميركا ينفذون هذه الاستراتيجية بمهاجمة سلاح المقاومة ودعم المحكمة.... ويبدو ان الميقاتي سيتجه نحو الاعتذار فهو لا يجرؤ على المواجهة ولا يختلف كثيرا عن الحريري

ميشال سليمان من ألغام وعملاء أميركا ولا يُمثّل حليفاً مسيحياً يُمكن التعويل عليه جدياً في تأليف الحكومة أو في الانتخابات النيابيّة

Why is Yehuda Barak, the Israeli SecDef, and several other IDF top brass and Israeli politicians still threatening Lebanon daily? One gets the sense Israel is bemoaning the lack of “harassment” by Hezbollah..... As we say in Lebanon, “7torna ya 3ar3a minwayn banna nbousik.” Conversely Israel’s daily fly-overs of Lebanon and constant incursions to place spy cams, hundreds of MOSSAD/AMAN/Shinbet..... agents and listening posts in Lebanese areas is not harassment....not to talk about the other hundreds of CIA/DIA/FBI/DEA/SCS and EU agents.....LOL As usual, what is allowed for Israel & USA would get a doomsday scenario for any other party in the region....


HK's flame lives on....

Common ground in advocating a total Syrian military withdrawal and an end to the Infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant.... Lebanon's sectarianism triggers such behavior, deriving from a medley of separate interests - defined substantially, but not exclusively, through sectarian calculations. And when the dials are in alignment and a majority reaches accord over specific goals, sectarianism can pack a tremendous wallop....with a wink and a nod, if not more...from CIA, with Saatchi&Saatchi tactics....and a lot of money and merchandising....to generate one more colored revolution....

At the same time, there is inherent antagonism and factionalism built into such a system, the consequences of which have exacted a heavy toll in terms of Lebanon's unity fro decades, hindering the emergence of a stable social contract. This is still all too evident today....

That's the dispiriting backdrop to the persistent anti-sectarian manifestations, demands from the youth and the Taef Accords..., still unenforced after 12 years. It may be the politically correct position to oppose sectarianism, but it is too ingrained in the Lebanese psyche to be abolished at the stroke of a pen. The sectarian order is deeply debilitating, but it also offers the only mechanism Lebanon has to enforce equilibrium, therefore preserving a semblance of political and social pluralism.... If sectarianism is to be eliminated, it first needs to be slowly dismantled from within, and only then can it be transcended...., I.E. never in a million years, which is a real shame....

Let's restore to the Chamber of Deputies its constitutional function ; culminating in a Bill Of Rights that guarantees state protection to all citizens; establishes national truly integrated political parties whose only allegiance is to the welfare of their constituents, after eliminating all the traditional feudal families with questionable foreign ties.... and a vibrant democracy where the opposition plays an immensely important role in keeping those in power honest and responsive....

This religious tribalism in Lebanon must be broken but I have become convinced that it will not until we pass a strong and effective Bill of Rights. Once that is done then individuals will no longer feel the need to associate with a tribe to protect their rights... That would help usher in an era of responsible citizenship.

Section 12 of the Lebanese Constitution speaks of merit and competence as the only preconditioned to any elected office... Does this mean that I could nominate myself to a public post that does not conform to my official government records of my religion and once my nomination is refused then I can have that challenged in a court of law... I am sure that this simple idea must have occurred to many others, why hasn’t it been done?