The article is by Ali Abunimah on Electronic Intifada from last year....http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml

Abunimah, a well known Arab-American activist actually met and spoke with Obama at Arab-American sponsored events. I think he makes the points that I have been trying to make on Obama far more eloquently (and rationally) please read:

"Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict....

"...But Obama's gradual shift into the AIPAC camp had begun as early as 2002 as he planned his move from small time Illinois politics to the national scene. In 2003, Forward reported on how he had "been courting the pro-Israel constituency." He co-sponsored an amendment to the Illinois Pension Code allowing the state of Illinois to lend money to the Israeli government. Among his early backers was Penny Pritzker -- now his national campaign finance chair -- scion of the liberal but staunchly Zionist family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain. (The Hyatt Regency hotel on Mount Scopus was built on land forcibly expropriated from Palestinian owners after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967). He has also appointed several prominent pro-Israel advisors.

"If disappointing, given his historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans, Obama's about-face is not surprising. He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power. Palestinian-Americans are in the same position as civil libertarians who watched with dismay as Obama voted to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, or immigrant rights advocates who were horrified as he voted in favor of a Republican bill to authorize the construction of a 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico....

"...Only if enough people know what Obama and his competitors stand for, and organize to compel them to pay attention to their concerns can there be any hope of altering the disastrous course of US policy in the Middle East."

There's going to be a lot of reactionary crap being aired here today, but please, intelligent Greenwald readers, stick to the substantives, not the crap and drivvel.

"But he's a fringe, loser freak who can't be heard from. Our geniuses instead are Tim Russert, Charles Krauthammer and Brian Williams. What else does one need to know?"

When you put it that way, it does sound pretty crazy.

If I remember correctly, in the movie "Manufacturing Consent", Chomsky talks about why he eventually stopped agreeing to appear on mainstream media programs. Something along the lines of real analysis of the issues being impossible to fit into the sound bite structure. He would always sound like he was from Mars, he said.

In a way, he did it to himself. But obviously, he's right--in a tv world where most pundits don't even know that the US supported the dictatorial Shah in Iran just twenty odd years ago, Chomsky would indeed sound like a lunatic.

But you're mistaken about Ariel Sharon being the driving force around settlement building during Oslo. Sharon never held a position as a minister in a Labor government during Oslo, he was housing minister during Yitzahk Shamir's tenure. I would also add that the settler movement was nurtured by one Yitzhak Rabin in the early seventies, and that during Rabin's tenure as Prime Minister, his housing secretary was Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a labor hawk. During the nineties, both Likud and Labor slowed the physical construction of settlements with the goal of increasing the population in existing settlements.

In a sense you're correct, it is true that Likud was in power in Israel from 1996 to 1999, under Netanyahu, but the growth of settlements remained constant in the nineties.

Chomsky really is exceptional, but there are other thinkers and writers who are just as excluded from the mainstream media. Try getting Howard Zinn on the History Channel, for instance.

I think one reason is that talk tv definitely became partisan in the nineties, and this worsened in the 00's. I can't sometimes can't believe how normal it is for me to see tag lines like "democratic strategist" or whatever nonsense. Who the hell are these people? Certainly, if they had any credentials, they would be more important than the fact that they are strategists.

Another reason is that folks like Chomsky just don't have the kind of television skills that are necessary for today's televsion. I think everyone agreed at a certain point that news-tv would be about entertainment at a certain point, and so being able to present yourself and your idea in pleasing ways became more important than having an idea.

As for Chomsky's choice. The dude is a recluse, and is definitely not a fan of mainstream culture from what I've seen. He even panned Manufacturing Consent,the doc, for sensationalizing him. I imagine he's repulsed by the entire circus.

My point is that settlement growth hasn't varied from Likud to Labor administrations and that the Oslo Accord for Labor was contingent on rapid settlement growth.