Several hundred people attended the Third Annual International Al-Awda Convention at UCLA this weekend. It was a working convention, fleshing out plans for the coming year, and the attendees were hard core organizers from across the US and the world.

Many of course were Palestinian. Some still live there. Others spent years in jail for their organizing. Currently in Israel, if a fifteen year old throws a rock at a tank, he may well get 1-2 years in prison. However, Israel needs no proof or trial to jail someone. It’s called Administrative Detention, and last for six months. You aren’t charged with anything, and at the end of the six months, they can and often do keep you for six more months. Does this sound like a democracy to you?

Right of Return means Palestinians have the right to return to the land and villages that were taken from them and to have damages paid. Jews of course have a complete right of return to Israel. If their mother was Jewish, they can immigrate to Israel and be granted full citizenship. But Palestinians, many of whom have been in refugee camps for years if not decades after being forced off their land are granted nothing.

One lawyer, born in Palestine and now a full US citizen, described how US customs agents recently demanded she turn over information to them or face prison, then said they hoped her health didn’t take a turn for the worse. Sieg Heil.

Opposing the extremist policies of George Bush does not make one anti-Christian. In the same way, opposing Zionism does not make one anti-Semitic. There were quite a few Jews in attendance and at least one “Jews against the Occupation” t-shirt. It’s not about religion. It’s about the imperial policies of the US which need Israel as their foothold in the Middle East. However Palestinians are blocking that. They aren’t going away, and just in the past few years opinion, even in the US, has been shifting their way. Their struggle has been heroic and inspirational.

I podcasted American Indian Movement spokesperson Vernon Bellecourt’s speech to the convention. Don’t miss it. “We Indians know all about biological warfare. They gave us smallpox blankets.”

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Helen Thomas misses the boat: Blogging and journalism

Helen Thomas, in her latest column, tells bloggers they aren’t journalists. I’ve had my say on that subject recently, and I won’t repeat myself. What I will take on is Thomas’ misconceptions about what journalism itself is. Here are some excerpts from her column:

“‘A journalist tries to get the facts right’ and tries to get close to a ‘verifiable truth,’ not to take sides but ‘to inspire public discussion,’ [Tom Rosenstiel, head of the Project for Excellence in Journalism] said.

“This isn’t a requirement for bloggers with axes to grind.

“Professional reporters and editors are trained to understand the need for neutrality in straight news stories. They also have been trained in the ethics that distinguish their profession.

“Fortunately, most newspapers in this country are still devoted to delivering impartial news stories. The editors and publishers see it as an indispensable public service.”

Without disagreeing with the first paragraph (getting the facts right and getting close to a verifiable truth), the rest of this is just rank illusion in the press. No journalist, and certainly no newspaper as a whole, is “neutral” or “impartial”.

Want an example? Wait until there’s a threatened transit strike in the nearest big city, and watch how all the TV channels and papers give people advice on how best to get to work (i.e., how best to help break the strike). On a larger scale, go through every paper in America, and monitor its coverage on every labor dispute in history, and see in what percentage of cases the paper has reported management’s side of the story more favorably than labor’s.

The press is “neutral” and that’s the defining characteristic of journalism? Don’t believe it for a minute, even from the mouth of Helen Thomas.

FoxNews sure isn’t ‘objective’, and doesn’t pretend to be neutral. Neither does the excellent Guardian. Both have points of views that come across in the stories they choose and the slants they give the stories.

However, what passes for neutral in the mainstream US press is, as pointed out, decidedly business-friendly, anti-union, and opposed to social agitation and change, a stance that is so pervasive that it ends up being accepted as normal and ‘unbiased.’ When of course, it isn’t unbiased at all.

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From Dave Winer’s influential Scripting News

We don’t get no respect from Google, we don’t get no respect from the EFF, but we do get respect, tons of it, from Rupert Murdoch. Now who do you think gets it, the tech industry, or…? Heh. My bet is, I hope, clear. The techies have an inflated sense of self-importance.

The information system of the WORLD is changing, Murdoch sees that, and sees himself as an immigrant (all of us who were reared in the centralized information system of the 20th century are), and because of that, understands that he has much to learn. The young minds of the tech industry aren’t young enough to be rooted in the transition, or old enough to get that a transition is taking place, and that they are building on a foundation that’s eroding.

If they were aware, Google would be pushing RSS instead of resisting it, and the EFF would be protecting the integrity of our work, instead of helping Google undermine it.

Specifically, EFF has not spoken out, and indeed seems to support, the noxious Google AutoLink, which rewrites webpages, sticks advertisements on them, and doesn’t pay the webmaster a dime. An odd  stance for an organization devoted to freedom on the Net. 

We have a chance for a revolution, it’s just a chance, Murdoch gets this, so the barriers are probably going up, as we speak. We, the little people, need to work together, now, like we really mean it. 

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