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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
GG wants to be your Ann Coulter and he's well on his way.
You certainly spend a good amount of time reading here and participating.
For the people who show up here constantly to say how awful and irrelevant what's written here is, I believe your actions speak a lot louder than your words.
Whoa, that was frightening. What can we do to make sure those people don't get a nuclear weapon? Oh, wait.
The problem is that this pressure is not "heard." And it's not "heard", in large measure, because the people and organizations who are applying this pressure are not "inside the Palace," whereas AIPAC most definitely is
Ché:
This is exactly what Professor Cole was saying. He did let his frustrations with people who only are interested in street protest get the better of him in the original post, but if you look at his next one, you'll see where he speaks in a more balanced way about the positive outcomes of street protest.
I don't think anyone really feels that there's not any role for marches as part of a balanced, holistic strategy for changing U.S. policy. The idea of a "Peace PAC," which is what Prof. Cole was advocating, really is a relatively novel approach, and I hope it's pursued without being prejudiced by Cole's perhaps-intemperate remarks about people in the streets carrying signs.
By the way, Ché, you keep mentioning that "things may change" in the years you insist it would take to establish this PAC as an effective counterbalance to AIPAC and the other war lobbies. I submit to you that the likelihood is quite slim of the US really changing its support for wars around the globe... but I'd be well-please if that turned out to be the case, and I'm sure people would be glad to disband the "Peace PAC" in that happy eventuality.
...is because we don't need outage. The politics of this country have moved ratchet-like rightward for a reason: Whenever the Democrats lose, they start over. When they win, they bring along everything they were fighting for, unchanged, when they were interrupted. When the Republicans lose, they move into the think tanks and startups. They continue to work on their agenda, correct their mistakes. When the next election comes, they're ready with strong arguments and updated agendas.
We need the outrage because we need to permanent-ize the push to rewrite the center. Otherwise, the political dynamic in this country is that the Democrats move to the current center on election, and the Republicans shift the center on election. If you don't have a bottomless well of outrage for all the issues that need addressing, it's because your outrage isn't in good health. It needs to work out every day and get massaged, oiled, and meditated on weekends. In some cases it may need rolfing.
But fear not, crisis is looming. If we don't work to shore up the institutions that bind humans to act like human beings, when the world's water supplies start to run out, you'll see plenty to get outraged about. If there isn't so much of it you go numb.
But it clearly shows how our policy and Isreals are joined at the hip:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090112/pl_afp/mideastconflictgazaolmertusrice_newsmlmmd
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.
"She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.
Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.
The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.
"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.
"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.
"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."
Then this quote from a bush crime family official
"Mr. Olmert is wrong," the official said.
Even if everything had gone according to plan, "she would have abstained. That was the plan," said the official. "The government of Israel does not make US policy."
I don't have a lot of hope that Obama will prosecute, at least not early in his first term. Having said that, if I were going to do so, I wouldn't tell anyone until Bush no longer has the power to pardon.
You know, carving commandments into stone tablets 'n' stuff.
Do you know if he got to talk to the Burning Bush? ;-}
Until the American government ends the practice of kidnapping potentially innocent people, the problem of their detention will also not end.
"Well, to because I don't have any proof that he's heading towards a pole. Also, because I don't have a bottomless well of outrage to apply to every word, phrase or funny look that may result in trouble later on.
. . . But I am willing to give Obama the ebenfit of the doubt. Others may not, but that's where I fall. "
I'm one of those who's not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt thanks, in large part, to his FISA turnabout.
We can debate his intent and parse language word by word, but the fact is he represented himself quite clearly as against telecom immunity, and then, when push came to shove, he wasn't against telecom immunity. So that suggests to me, based on experience of his words/actions, that he does not always follow through on what he appears to promise. Thus, a phrase like wanting to close Gitmo "ASAP" is a red flag for me. It allows this very bright man to default to the linguistic gamesmanship he's relied on before.
And no -- I don't have a bottomless well of outrage; I find outrage debilitating and futile. Please don't continue to dismiss all those who aren't inclined to "give him the benefit of the doubt" on that basis.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
