I don't want anyone, including you, to think that I support violence against Israelis. That's not what I mean. It is disturbing that Obama signals, however so cleverly, that he'll support the status quo when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. For sure, there are absolute nut-case, insane, Arabs, who think nothing of massacring innocent Israelis, but the point I try to make is that any US president has to force the issue. To me, cutting off military support (about $4 billion??) to Israel would be a start unless they make some more concrete concessions to improve the lot of the Palestinians. There are many, many Israelis who agree, but they are in the minority.

I don't support "wiping off Israel off the map" like that fucking kook who is the nominal head of Iran.

My cousin is a Zionist, or at least he claims to be one. I've seen his literature, and the books he reads. He wants to push Arab Israelis, and Palestinians, into the Mediterranean. He believes in a Greater Israel, that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Tigris and Euphrates. He celebrates when Arabs die at the hands of Israeli soldiers. He is absolutely insane, and I can't believe I'm related to him. (He's Jewish on one side, his father, oddly enough, but not his mother).

So, he tells me these things, and I politely disagree with him (I really don't like to cause too many waves in the family). What about a secular state where everyone is equal? How about full citizenship, the right of return, etc., and some economic assistance for Palestinians? He wouldn't hear of it. To me, that's what Zionism is, a return to Israel, having to displace people already there. Wasn't it all aided and abetted by the British, and now the Americans? That's the way I see it, and it is really fucking ugly and disgusting. It's not much different than any other colonial settler state: Canada, US, Australia, South Africa. Isn't it?

Is there some other branch of Zionism I'm not aware of? I really am not trying to be inflammatory, but I don't want to be dishonest about the way I view it. I think it stinks.

Oh and for what it's worth I think all of the health-care proposals on the table are shitty half-measures that cede too much to the insurance companies. We need single payer universal health-care, like yesterday. I don't think anyone is in the position to do that right now though so shitty half-measures is what we're stuck with for the time being.

AMEN! I highly respect Robert Reich, who was Clinton's labor secretary, I believe, and he said on the radio that Obama's health care measures stand more of a chance of passing than Hillary's. I don't really know; I do know that Hillary's insistence of mandating coverage, or at least having everyone covered, makes total sense to me, so I was thinking that her proposals were superior to Obama's.

But, really, the insurance companies are an abomination. They need to be completely axed out of the equation and a single payer system installed.

is a moron. Voters need to do research.

do not allow soldiers or other contractors/guests into their country without being held to their laws.

A different "tone"? A different "rhetoric"? How about a different policy?

May he burn in Hell.

That the Obama camp, or even the Clinton camp if she had won, feels it necessary to choose a VP candidate with military credentials. Why? Because the office of the president and vice president is a civilian position, not a military one. We live in such a hyper-militarized society it feels like we have to pay due to the military. A person who didn't serve in the military (and remember Bush DID NOT serve, he was AWOL) can lead the military, no experience is required, nor should it be. The civilian sector controls the armed forces, not the other way around. That's why there are generals and other officers to advise the president.

Bush mocked convicted killer and death-row inmate Karla Faye Tucker. Such cold-heartedness is evil. Evil is as evil does. Bush is guilty.

Well, I guess Muslims are the new scum in Fascist America? As Americans drool with their mouths slack-jawed, at the mind-numbing idiocy of the cable "news" shows, they are being brainwashed to reflexively hate Muslims. I'm not surprised that the Obama campaign would play it safe. This ultimately diminishes us all!

I always wanted Hillary to say, in response to the question "Do you believe Obama is a Muslim?", "So what if he is? How does THAT diminish his candidacy?" I would have switched in a heartbeat. But she didn't.

For an advanced country (supposedly), one would think that people would not be so stupid, but, lo and behold, they are.