It appears likely that an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip is imminent and Richard Silverstein is apoplectic. He is of the opinion that Israel will seek to remove up to 100,000 Gazans from their homes (by giving them warning and time to move) before invading areas from which rocket fire is emanating.
Where will these 100,000 Gaza refugees go? Will Israel provide them shelters or refuge? This is a humanitarian crisis in the making. There is no provision under international law for doing so under any circumstance.
Such a mass expulsion is a form of Nakba writ small. A reminder of the expulsion of 1-million Palestinians from their homeland in 1948. Now Israel can add a new moral stain to its human rights record.
Meanwhile, the State Department is unambiguously blaming Hamas for this conflict, which is too simplistic to say the least.
Yet, however this mess got started, with Hamas carrying out rocket barrages on Tel Aviv tonight, the IDF has no real choice but to escalate.
The question is, are they going to take over the whole strip and occupy and administer it?
That appears to be under serious consideration.
What does the US expect when Israel indiscriminately bombs a home for disabled people, among other things? Is Israel using DIME weapons?
http://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-testing-ground-experimental-weapons/7969
And the rockets that are reaching Tel Aviv. What damage have they caused? I still have yet to hear of one Israeli casualty.
Did ya here they also bombed a mosque. I don’t believe they know what they are doing.
Oh yes they do.
It’s terrorism, plain and simple.
Military terrorism.
Bet on it.
AG
Here I am agreeing with you again, Arthur. That’s like twice in two weeks. It’s sickening to me, as a Jew, that these crimes are being committed in the name of a supposedly Jewish state. I say supposedly Jewish because there’s nothing religious about killing innocent people. Abortion clinic bombers are in no sense Christian and the 9/11 bombers were in no sense Muslim. These people are hypocrites, lunatics and fucking assholes.
As you know Jewish is a religion, an ethnicity, and to a very limited degree, a genetic race. (I say “to a very limited degree” because most European and American Jews are genetically much more closely tied to central Europeans than they are to the middle eastern Jews their ethnicity descended from 2000 or so years ago.)
These crimes being committed in the name of a Jewish religion are sadly no different than similar crimes committed in the name of Christianity or Islam. All three religions have both a peaceful strain and a strain that preaches brutal offensive war, and you can find verses in their religious documents to support both strains.
I have much more trouble with the crimes being committed in the name of the Jewish ethnicity – as the vast majority of Jews outside of Israel do not support these at all. In the eyes of most of the world Jews are no different than militaristic Americans, or Apartheid South Africans, or any of a variety of dictators over the years.
They know exactly what they are doing. They have talked about the necessity of ‘mowing the lawn’ of Palestinians in Gaza for years now. And the very state of Israel was born in terroristic violence. And before the state of Israel was born, the need for ethnic cleansing was foreseen by the early Zionist planners. It’s because of the ‘demographic threat’ of too many Palestinians. When they hit the police chief’s house and also took out the Mosque during prayer time (killing 18), the IDF rejoices and calls it a ‘twofer’.
It would be great, imo, if we could give the violent authoritarians their due. Sociopaths make no mistake about what they are doing, they just lie about it, if needed, and the sheeple, being so innocent and propagandized, haven’t a clue.
Since we are accepting refugees from central american gang violence we are surely ready to accept thousands of refugees from Gaza. Please send the Marines to evacuate them to Texas.
If orange is the new black, and 60 is the new 40, does this make Israel the new 1930s Gemany?
It’s so hard to compare Israel to 1930s Germany because, even to the degree that there are some similarities, just bringing up the comparison invokes Godwin and stops logical thought processes.
But what Israel has been doing is really bad, on the order of the some of the worst atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are similarities to Apartheid and the Jim Crow south during the lynching era. But there are also similarities, with Gaza, to the Warsaw Ghetto and with the West Bank to some of the forced resettlements under Stalin.
In all of these cases the perpetrators of the evil regime can truthfully point to crimes committed by those they are oppressing, and use those crimes as justification – although the “crimes” can also be seen as acts of resistance. Ultimately the ruling power sets the terms of engagement and those oppressed have to live within those.
When attempts at “peace” are made, you can always be sure that the oppressed group will have people who don’t want peace, who want to keep fighting until they are completely victorious. If the ruling power really wants peace they will be ready for this and not let the acts of the extremists derail the peace process (example: the Troubles in Northern Ireland post-1998). But if the ruling power is merely pretending to engage in peace talks for PR purposes you can be sure that they will tacitly encourage the extremists of the oppressed people and use the slightly act of violence as a reason to hit back even harder than before. The story of Israel is the latter story.
I’m at a party in DC and an attendee used to be a speech writer for the Israeli embassy. Let’s just say that I had to bite my tongue.
Maybe the best scenario for a good long-term outcome is for Israel to take over the strip and fail miserably somehow.
This seems to be the first stage of the end game of ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Next will be the campaign to secure Israel to the Jordan River. Eretz Israel will be complete within Bibi’s term, thanks to using the ISIS crisis as cover.
And so will one of the most monstrous human rights betrayals of US policy.
Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and any other nations willing to take Palestinian refugees face a huge challenge of accommodating refugees of pretty much the total Palestinian population, who will not be taciturn about how the rest of the world betrayed them.
$10 per person for every US man, woman, and child underwrites this arrogance every year, as it has for over four decades.
Now tell me why we can’t fund adequate VA services.
How are those countries going to absorb another four million plus refugees when there are already serious humanitarian crises in existing refugee camps?
Does the rest of the world sit back and say,”Go for it Bibi?” Does Israel also expel the 1.2 million Palestinians living in Israel?
Wonder what percentage of those Vets asking/demanding for better VA services support IDF aggression against the Palestinians? My guess is that it’s high, but would like to be wrong on this.
I began a reply, Tarheel. It grew. Now a standalone post.
Israel: Controlled By Its Need To Control
Later…
AG
Your Peace President in action.
And y’all wonder why his presidency is failing?
Please.
With every foreign policy move he creates another bloc of U.S. haters.
Will it ever end?
I wonder.
AG
Arabs overwhelmingly like Obama. Israelis not so much.
Please do not confuse AG with any silly facts.
“Arabs overwhelmingly like Obama?” Who sez? The same sort of polling companies that predicted Romney’s win? And it ain’t “Arabs,” Parallax. It’s “Muslims.” “Arabs” are a minority in the Muslim world. I have been in the Middle East and in other Muslim countries. Muslims do not “overwhelmingly like” Americans. Bet on it. On the street, they see us as thieves and enemies. And those who have felt the real force of American World Copdom? Pakistanis, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians etc? “Hate” would be a better word.
Do you know the Muslim population figures, Parallax? About 2 billion and growing rapidly. How many Americans? in the 300 million range. How many in the Nato nations combined? Only 900 million. UH oh!!!
AG
P.P.S. “Israelis not so much?” Again…who sez? You mean you have read that in the American media? Brainwashing is real. Bet on it. I can walk down the street in Israel wearing a Yankees baseball cap…as could Obama, bet on it…in no particular danger because I am an American. Go ahead and try that in most of the Muslim world. I dare ya.
blah blah blah.
blah blah blah.
Ummm nobody was talking about whether anybody in the middle east give a too fart about you or not.
As for the President of the United States strolling around anywhere on the planet, massive protection detail, I know I have been inside a few.
Typical AG projection with NO factual backup.
I’m not a fan of the guy, but once again you use right wing talking points. “And you wonder why his presidency is failing”. Who around here said we agreed with the premise, let alone are wondering about its cause.
Hey, seabe, don’t you know this is Obama’s Katrina? or something else is?
http://www.stonekettle.com/
I have seen the “Obama’s Katrina” a lot lately on Fox chryon’s when traveling.
Ironically, you might think that this means at some level the right wing realizes that Bush in fact was a major fuck up and that Katrina was the event that caused the muddled middle to finally figure that out. But no, while they throw around the term “Obama’s Katrina” whenever they can, if you ask them about Katrina they’ll tell you about how it was all the fault of the blahs.
More particularly:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/07/mother-of-exiles.html
Do yourself a favor, if you haven’t already made the acquaintance of Jim Wright, and read this. Then go explore his archives.
yes, that’s what I wanted to link –
he’s really something, started reading him after you mentioned his writing some months back
This is not a “right wing talking point,” seabe. It’s just a fact. His administration is failing left and right. The American people are fed up with his act, and I cannot blame them. When an administration is seen as being worse that G.W. Bush’s, that’s going some. That’s “failure,” bet on it. Is this all because of Republican intransigence? I dunno. Is the rapidly metastasizing security state cancer a “Republican” thing? Is the free pass the Obama administration has given to given to the economic and war criminals of the previous 35 years years or so a “Republican” thing? Is the collapse of the industrial heartland a “”Republican” thing?” Seems to me it was bipartisan…or to be more precise, Unipartisan.
The RatPubs are using what has happened for their own ends. That’s what power does. But just because they are using it…and using it quite effectively, I might add…doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.
This is now a failed presidency. Obama’s a good talker, but there comes a time…a level of failure…where talking no longer does much good. We are at that point now.
End of story; beginning of the next story.
We shall see.
Soon enough.
Bet on that as well.
AG
Amazing that someone so dismissive of data collected from polls would try to use some of it when it suits his purposes. If AG were to look at partisan breakdowns of the numbers of the poll which he cites, he’d find out that all it really tells us is that Republicans really hate Obama and Democrats really hate GWB. The same poll also reveals that Republicans still have a thing for Reagan, but that Democrats tend (characteristically enough) to be divided in terms of whom they prefer among recent Presidents.
You write:
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”-Bob Dylan
You don’t need a poll to tell you which way the electorate is leaning, either. All you have to is talk to…and listen to, as well…some “uncommitteds.” And while you are at it, pay some serious attention to the news media that most affect them….the “centrist” group. Youknow…CNN, the networks etc.?
“Unflattering” would be a polite way of describing what is going on regarding Obama in those media.
I pay no attention whatsoever to “polls.” I pay a great deal of attention to images and image-making, to how a national figure is being portrayed by the centrist media. Obama’s not doing so well. On merit. Neither is HRC. The worm turns as the oncoming
screw fixes itself in. Errr, ahhh…I mean as the oncoming fix screws itself in.Watch.
AG
Seems a bit disingenuous, after stating:
However you are going about consuming poll data, you are clearly consuming poll data on those occasions when it suits you. This is hardly the first time. How very PermaGov of you.
You call me a liar.
As you must.
I’ll say it again.
I am my own “pollster.”
I pay no attention to “polls” except insofar as they control the voters.
I wander the internet, sampling the various lies of its various media.
I wander the streets of NYC, its bars, its buses and subways, its diners.
I wander the U.S. as a traveling musician, in and out of roadside eateries and airport waiting rooms.
I actually talk to people, D.D. And I listen to them, too. Not just the “round up the usual suspects” approach of pollsters; I talk to…and listen to…everyone.
Doormen, illegal immigrants, college kids, cops and firemen, mothers with their kids on the subway. Every fucking body. And this is what I am hearing.
Obama is now bad news.
It used to be, here in NYC…”Oh wow!!! Obama’s coming to visit!!!”
Now?
“Ahhh hell. He’s here again. More traffic jams and more jumpy, overamped/over-armed cop types.”
Same same almost everywhere.
Nobody really wants him.
Nobody’s even listening to him anymore. Too many empty promises, too many staged “State of the Union”-type speeches. People are worse off than they were when he came in promising “Hope.” They are worse off in terms of security, too. Now people feel as if they are being treated as the enemy. You can smell it strong on airport security lines, and it’s not just the funky feet with no shoes. People are scared. They are scared when a cop pays attention to them, too. Not just minority people…no one trusts a cop now. Everybody feels as if they are guilty until proven ionnocent. This is new, D.D. New to working and middle class people of Western European descent, anyway. People also feel as if their hard-earned money has been wasted in reckless and badly run wars, stolen by a favored economic elite.
Obama?
Hope?
Nope.
Not anymore it isn’t.
Now it’s:
Bush II had his Katrina moment.
He came up short.
Very short.
So has Obama.
The Medicaid rollout/Snowden affair was his trial by storm.
He got blown away.
Everything else…the VA disaster, Syria/ISIS, the Ukraine joke. etc.? All aftershocks.
Next in line?
In the words of William Burroughs:
I repeat: “The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident. Inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.”
The hoi polloi eventually catch on to this incompetence. Not in time to stave off another well branded turkey, of course, but they do wise up towards the end of a PermaGov run.
So it goes.
Next?
We shall soon see.
Won’t we.
Later…
AG
And yet you seem to have this uncanny capacity to paraphrase (if not outright parrot) results from highly publicized polls when it suits you. Absolutely fascinating. You either are boycotting the media or regularly paying attention to at least CNN and other outlets, depending again on what suits your purposes in any given conversation. Those are the sorts of inconsistencies that get noticed after a while. Yet you contend to be your own pollster now that you have been challenged. If that is indeed the case, then I shall paraphrase someone else: a man who is his own pollster has a fool for client.
You write:
Only if you disagree with him. In this case, you do. That makes me a fool? fool? In your world, maybe. In my world? Anyone who uses an eentsy, teensy little hammer and sickle as a logo after the various disasters of Communism as it was practiced under that hammer and sickle insignia…all the while busying himself with defenses of a corrupt and failed administration…is both a fool and a coward.
You want to be a Communist?
Stand the fuck up.
Resist, damn it!!!
AG
Oddly enough, I don’t have to say a word in defense of Obama (or any other presidential administration) to observe that you have been consistently using right-wing talking points in your posts for quite some time, and have used your time at the Frog Pond to extol the alleged virtues of Ron and Rand Paul. Not liking a president’s policies does not in and of itself make said administration corrupt or failed. To make the case for corruption, you need evidence – and not the cooked up “scandals” that the Tea Party-led House of Reps sell FauxNews. As of now, this administration is strikingly clean.
To make the case for this being a failed administration, some definitions for what would count as success would be required. Favorability ratings, in and of themselves, say very little other than that people eventually get tired of a President after six or so years. It is the rare President in this country who manages to watch their polling numbers improve over the course of two terms. Same thing should be said about the content of casual conversations. What we would want to look at instead are the objectives laid out by the administration and the outcomes within whatever limitations were placed based upon the makeup of Congress, the Supreme Court, etc. The office is powerful, but not of limitless power.
As for the rest: if by “resist” you mean take up arms, I would call that a fool’s errand at this point. The last major left-wing armed resistance in the US (the Weathermen, etc.) did nothing to really change things for the better, and instead only alienated people who might have otherwise been sympathetic to their ideas and concerns. I’m a reformist tactically, given our nation’s current conditions (a relatively stable, albeit bleh economy and relatively stable democratic institutions). It makes more sense to work with those who want tangible reforms to address various social injustices at this point in time, and probably for the foreseeable future. If this makes me a coward in your eyes, so be it. I’ve been called worse by better. If by “resist” you mean carrying pictures of Rand Paul, well you can forget it.
The many definitions of “corruption.” (From Google Dictionary, emphases mine):
The denial of NSA wrongdoing. That is enough right there. Add to that the refusal to prosecute what was quite plainly war and economic criminality during the Bush II regime while simultaneously professing “honesty” and “good government.” And the beat goes on and on and on and on.
Involving the American people in many plots to prop up fraudulent, murderous governments worldwide. We are now all guilty of war crimes in the eyes of most of the world. We are the poster child for the word “depraved.”
War is peace.
Obedience is liberty.
Theft is business as usual
If one claims to be a peaceful man; if one accepts a “Peace Prize” while simultaneously waging vicious overt and covert wars all over the globe, that is failure enough as far as I am concerned. The only people that Obama has not failed are those who bought him into office.
That was not my meaning. I meant resist the PermaGov every way possible. You assist it by posting approving words regarding this administration and resisting those who call Obama’s act foully criminal.
Relatively stable democratic institutions!!!??? In which America do you live, D.D? Glitz America? The shallow shopping mall/gentrification America? Where is the democracy when each of us is considered guilty until proven innocent? Where was it when Bush II was twice lied into office? Where is it when anyone offering the real possibility of successful opposition to the criminality of which I speak is non-personed out of contention so that the PermaGov fix is firmly in place on both sides of the discussion?
Yes indeed. It would “make more sense” if the people who profess to want those tangible reforms actually managed to do something other than gum up the oprks with half-assed action and woof ticket words. But they do not. When does enough become enough? When?
I believe that statement to be true. I’ll bet you have. Coward or fool, the result is the same. Defeat.
We’ll see.
Soon enough.
What I cannot forget…nor forgive…is the vast criminal conspiracy that has ruled the U.S. and by extension large parts of the world since the JFK assassination.
Murder will out eventually.
It always does.
And we…you., me, our friends and loved ones, the country as a whole…are eventually going to be forced to pay for those crimes. This process is already under way in our ruined inner cities, in the abandoned industrial rust belt and the poorer rural areas. It’s just going to get worse if we accede to the (
s)election of another neo-whatever. Neocon or neoliberal. NeoTweedledee or NeoTweedledum. The same criminality thrives no matter on what side of the aisle the latest crooked cop may live.WTFU.
AG
Here’s the thing: my focus has been on calling bullshit on right-wing critiques. Your own focus has been on right-wing politicians criticizing Obama (and you have a long enough history that we know you also had a thing for right-wing critiques of GWB). Your extolling the “resistance” of Cliven Bundy left a bad taste in a lot of mouths here. Your fascination with arguably anti-Semites (Gilad Atzmon among others), your fascination with conspiracy theorists connected to the right, your apparent willingness to endorse right-wing sentiments regarding desegregation, not to mention the periodic offensively sexist image that you manage to post (much akin to the imagery that led to the “pie fights” on Big Orange nearly a decade ago) – all this adds up. I don’t have to say a word of approval regarding anything this President or his predecessors have done in order to recognize poison when I see it, and to suggest to others to avoid said poison. Ironically, you have probably managed to do more damage to your cause than good. It would be wonderful if you would get a feel for your audience and look for ways to make your point without the right-wing talking points and the campaigning for the Pauls. My bet is that you won’t do that and will instead double down. I’m guessing the endgame is that you’ll be troll rated out of here eventually. In the meantime, I suppose you will prey on the good graces of a a strikingly tolerant blogging community here. It is a shame, really. There is need for people – especially those who are genuinely progressive and genuinely leftist – to offer informed critiques of what our government and our corporations do, and to offer alternatives to the status quo in a way that entices others to take action. Thankfully, I do think there are a few folks here who do so quite admirably. They know who they are, and they deserve to be heeded.
troll rated out?
The loss will be the site’s, D.DS.
Once again…I am neither a leftist nor a rightist. Not a centrist, either. Your two-dimensional take on my three dimensional view is…one dimensional. Shallow. You don’t even have a line. Just a single, unmoving point. I opposed everything about Bush II. Everything. I had high hopes for Obama after he beat HRC. I waited. Patiently. I wait no longer. You cannot tar and feather me away. You kneejerk at all the MSNBC talking points, then self-righteously…and wrongly…accuse me of following right wing, Fox-style talking points. Fox and MSNBC. Two sides of the same PermaGov scam. WTFU.
AG
I used to hear very similar things, often stated quite earnestly, by anarchists back when the old US hardcore scene was still pretending to have some relevance. Seemed nice, except for one little problem: these folks would get sucked into something nasty. Among them would be individuals who would publish rather nasty treatises against the gay/lesbian rights movement of the time (it was “unrevolutionary”), advocate for the NRA, and attempt to explain to me years later that the Branch Davidians and the various militia movements were just misunderstood. I doubt the term PermaGov would have ever been mentioned (I’ll gladly give you the credit for coining that term), but some very similar concept was being uttered. Flash forward to the present. I would be a bit more impressed with the whole “neither left nor right ethos” if it actually seemed to lead to some novel alternative, rather than some rehash of the sort of rubbish the John Birchers considered acceptable discourse and action. If the best that the “neither left nor right” ethos can achieve is advocacy for Rand Paul and explanations that Cliven Bundy was just misunderstood, then color me unimpressed. What I am into may not be fashionable in the US (arguably it has never been in my lifetime), but it makes sense to me, it has a sort of coherence to it, and it occasionally has some compatibility with the concerns of individuals adhering to other left-leaning ideological persuasions (at least within the realm of social justice issues). So it goes, I guess.
You cannot pin me, D.D. I am not an anarchist either. “Multiarchist” or maybe “nonarchist” would be better fits. Every form of government has its proper place and time, including perhaps even the new technofascist system that is now in the process of being imposed on most of the so-called developed world. We shall see. I predict that it will fail, because it distances itself too far from the three-brained humans that it seeks to control. For a government to have any success whatsoever it must function regarding its subjects on all three levels…the physical,. the emotional (or spiritual if the word does not frighten you) and the mental. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a positive functioning…the threat of physical force is one example as is the (emotional) fear engendered by such threats, both of which having been long-sustaining forces in many regimes…but ideally (at least in the higher areas of human evolution) it should primarily be a benevolent set of forces at work.
This technofascism of which I speak contains almost no traces of real human contact. It is so far removed from its subjects that its only real emotionas it engenders are those of terror. “It doesn’t care whether we live or die!!!” say the citizens who begin to understand what’s up as they squint into the sky to see if the IRS/CIA/FBI/ICE drones are coming for them this time. It offers no real intellectual contact either, just pre-programmed talking points which are presented as truth when in point of fact they are just advertising slogans for one or the other side of the PermaHustle. All it offers is “I am correct. Obey or die.” Even the most heinous monarchies, dictatorships and theocracies of human history made at least an attempt at sugarcoating things.
Not this system as it is forming now. It lies blatantly…as blatantly as the advertising media after which it has patterned its control system…and counts on a sort of media-induced trance to keep people in line.
Like dat.
Reagan cubed.
Bet on it.
I don’t think it’s going to work much longer.
I could be wrong, though.
If so, Merry Christmas to all of us.
We’re all gonna need one.
Soon!!!
AG
Right-wing talking points describes his writing to the letter. Old AG’s done it repeatedly to the point to where it amounts to little more than trolling.
But… but… but look how equally passionate he is in denouncing all the GOP inanity, insanity and oppositional defiance that has
Oh, wait.
Never mind.
“Yet, however this mess got started, with Hamas carrying out rocket barrages on Tel Aviv tonight, the IDF has no real choice but to escalate.”
The hell you say.
They can just keep doing what they are already doing, indefinitely.
Hamas sends a rocket that kills no one, Israel sends air strikes that kill dozens.
Yeah, they could just keep doing that.
“Yeah, they could just keep doing that.”
Yup.
Just like “they” have been doing for about 55 years.
Through thick and thin.
The question is…who are “they?”
This has been done through Democratic presidencies and Republican presidencies, through Democratic majorities and Republican majorities. The single most consistent action that has been taken by the U.S. on any level over that period of time…domestically or in terms of foreign policy…is support of Israel, at the cost of untold trillions of dollars. It would have been cheaper to airlift the entire population country over to West Virginia or some other woebegone state, give them generous startup money and let them do the kind of fine economic, societal and infrastuctural work that they have done so well in Israel in spite of massive opposition on all borders.
But NOOOOoooo…what good would that have done for U.S. Blood For Oil interests?
Not a chance.
Instead it’s been “Stay over there, folks. Keep the Middle East in turmoil. We need ya there, babies!!!”
The truth of the matter?
The people who really rule this country didn’t want any more Jews here. Too much competition. Bet on it.
What a load of shit we have been handed.
What a load of shit Israel has been handed!
No way out now but down.
Watch.
Somebody’s gonna light off a nuke before it’s over.
Watch.
AG