The Ron Paul situation also illustrates how lame and uptight Americans have gotten. I guess it's partly television's fault, the merciless, unblinking camera eye that forces everything to be commercial and homogenous (e.g., everybody beautiful, rich, eloquent), and diminishes wildness and weirdness. Maybe it's a reflection of broader cultural decline, and people have gotten afraid of risk.

But the range of acceptable opinion has narrowed dramatically. So, if somebody says the Drug War is a sham and a waste of money, people (even those who might agree) squirm in their seats, think "He's not a serious candidate." Or if somebody doesn't reduce a political idea to a 30-second debate reply, they're thought of as long-winded or slow-witted.

Like it or not, the depth and breadth of problems we face in 21st Century America will require imagination and inspiration and getting Americans out of their shoebox comfort zones. Even among progressives, I see this is so often the case -- people are so busy trying to appear smart, they end up not going out on a limb to avoid looking dumb, just in case they make a mistake.

We need more colorful and interesting candidates, and the "they can't win" line is reflective of the weakness of our system, not its strength. One way of getting at this is public financing of elections -- the risk-aversion inherent in American candidacies is a corporate mindset. Just seeing Rudy and Mitt as the leading lights of the GOP's stable of sterling mediocracies, with their multimillion-dollar war chests says everything. Investors don't like undue risk, and the political shareholders (the "one dollar, one vote" guys) who dominate campaign financing ensure that politicians by and large pursue a safe and manageable agenda, and encourage people to stay the course that brings them the biggest returns. Those are the candidates who get the lion's share of the money, under the current financing scheme.

The trouble we're in these days is that the problems we have can't be solved by "stay the course," and require broader minds and bolder hearts. Sure, Ron Paul's got some wacky ideas, but he's also got some good ones -- ideas that would not have gotten voiced by any of the "acceptable" candidates; we need to change the financing of elections to bring more freethinking and colorful candidates into the game, so we can escape the domination of the monied, media darling mannekins that get foisted on us: the equivalent of dry white toast versus dry wheat toast being presented as the only "choices."

I don't think this is particularly surprising; Israel's always had a tech advantage relative to its Arab neighbors, and after 1967's victory, got to the front of the American foreign/military aid line, where it's comfortably been for a very long time (although it finally appears to be slightly displaced, it's still surely in the top five, maybe $3-4 billion a year?)

The timing of increased US interest in and support for Israel is interesting, paralleling our increased thirst for foreign oil -- and for controlling those oil resources.

I suppose having a client state like Israel in the region to draw fire for us keeps the region less unified and more favorable to our kind of support (in terms of Arab countries that recognize Israel's right to exist, versus ones who don't; ones that are Islamist and ones that are nationalist/fascist -- with American aid flowing to the ones who play ball, while us boycotting, embargoing, and/or invadings the ones who don't -- that seems natural on the face of it, but the ones playing ball are pursuing policies that create the fabled instability in the region, turning it into a powderkeg, and feed the Islamist movement, and make us "The Great Satan").

Israel's illegal, undeclared nukes and the double standard we have toward them in international law doesn't suit our national interest -- and, in truth, doesn't suit Israel's long-term interests, either; it makes them too dependent on our aid as we continue to stir the pot in the region; there's a price to be paid for being on our payroll.

Our whole Middle East policy is a disaster, and will likely remain in place until every drop of oil has been wrung from the region; then we'll move on, and leave Israel twisting in the wind.

I don't think our assorted aid to the region helps make it a more peaceful place; I think our aid makes it a more violent, dangerous place.