Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Bannon sees himself as a revolutionary in the mould of Lenin, who is going to overturn the existing system. Anyone not on board with the revolutionary program, including mainstream Republicans, is an enemy. The man clearly has delusions of grandeur. The idea of negotiating a compromise solution is anathema to such people. I think he saw his role as being essentially an ideological commissar.
What emerges from various reports since his departure is that Bannon was widely disliked because of his aggressive style, and that nobody knew what he actually did.

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"What emerges from various reports since his departure is that Bannon was widely disliked because of his aggressive style, and that nobody knew what he actually did"

-Says it all. People with no practical experience of public office, entering it without knowing how it works. I think both Bannon and his boss thought they could rule by decree, issue Executive Orders and change everything that way. Now he says he is taking on the people who were part of the same team he was in, because they are now the 'enemy' -it might be entertaining to read about it, but as for government, this does suggest the Presidency serves no real function, not even a ceremonial one as participants dropped out of the Kennedy Centre Arts awards and the President decided to follow their example, or did so to avoid the embarrassment of not knowing most of the people receiving awards.

i wonder why the science envoy for the state department took so long to resign considering he was working for a president that believes global warming is a chinese hoax. also, i like how he snuck in "impeach" in his letter.

very ted kaczynski of him

Attachment 1025301

https://twitter.com/dan_kammen/statu...60794231013376

New analysis suggests that the Democrats could win 54% in the next House of Reps election but only win 47% of the seats https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...dering-problem

Presumably they would need to win more than 57% of the votes to gain a majority. Perhaps the reason the US is withdrawing from promoting democracy abroad is that they no longer have one at home?

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Originally Posted by filghy2

New analysis suggests that the Democrats could win 54% in the next House of Reps election but only win 47% of the seats https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...dering-problem

Presumably they would need to win more than 57% of the votes to gain a majority. Perhaps the reason the US is withdrawing from promoting democracy abroad is that they no longer have one at home?

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as much as i love vox, imo, that's too much theory and not enough practice. or should i say, these guys are reaching.

the bottom line is you've got a country that doesn't give a shit about stats like that because nobody likes anyone that doesn't confirm what they believe (or want to believe), and you've also got another part of the country that's just pissed.

so yeah, we can write (or post) all the wonderful "think pieces" and "facts" and "theories" and questions we want, but tomorrow another moron decides to either run someone over or shoot someone and it's time for new "think pieces" and "theories" and so-called facts to write. it's almost like jerking off.

this is what you have currently in amerikkka: roger fucking stone types ready to go to civil war. of course, this cuck probably couldn't even hold a rifle correctly when shit hits the fan, but the fact is, nobody is listening to all these "facts" or theories.

people are ready for something- but i don't think they're sure what they're really ready for, or at the very least, i don't think they're aware of the meaning of being ready.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hFRLbFaJEw

So what exactly are you proposing? That the role of the media should be something other than finding out and disseminating the truth? That instead of trying to combat Trump and his supporters through reasoned fact-based argument we should do what? Engage in Trump-like ranting? Take to the streets and overthrow the government?

The dice may be loaded in relation to democratic politics, but it's still the only feasible way to defeat Trump and his like. The right owns the great majority of weapons in private hands, so the dice would be even more loaded in relation to any other approach.

Your assertion that nobody takes any notice of facts or changes their mind is too pessimistic. Although it is happening at a frustratingly slow pace, all of the evidence we have from polls etc is that Trump's support is steadily eroding.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

So what exactly are you proposing? That the role of the media should be something other than finding out and disseminating the truth? That instead of trying to combat Trump and his supporters through reasoned fact-based argument we should do what? Engage in Trump-like ranting? Take to the streets and overthrow the government?

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i'm not proposing anything. i'm saying there is no conversation. the right doesn't trust the mainstream media and we love the mainstream media (and we love to quote them too) so exactly what are we achieving? every fact the media posts about trump reassures the right that it's fake. so in essence, i only see more miscommunication- in an age when we have the internet which was made for communication.

i obviously welcome the idea that my theory is wrong. in fact, i hope i am. but then i see more crap happening and more theories and someone posting another "look what trump did. gee, this guy sure is an asshole". yeah no shit. but guess what, there are still people that support him like this guy: https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/s...97236338819072

so unless we're talking to him and seeing where this is all coming from, i see us only stuck in a mobius strip where we keep repeating this bullshit forever (including the bullshit posts)

thanks president trump

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...42677461229569

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Originally Posted by bluesoul

so unless we're talking to him and seeing where this is all coming from, i see us only stuck in a mobius strip where we keep repeating this bullshit forever (including the bullshit posts)

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Politics is always about trying to convince the few per cent of people who are open to changing their minds. There has always been a large percentage of people whose views and prejudices are so strongly entrenched that nothing will change them. By and large, the people holding forth on twitter etc are in the second category, not the first. Examples of people like Woods don't necessarily prove anything. This is what really matters https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...roval-ratings/

Even preaching to the converted is not a waste, because it's important to keep people fired up, especially when voting is optional. Why do you think the right has invested so much in its own propaganda outlets? Your kind of fatalistic pessimism is exactly what the Trumpistas want to see.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Your kind of fatalistic pessimism is exactly what the Trumpistas want to see.

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huh?

i'm not getting you. i like your optimism - but there is still something that feels incorrect about what what you said. maybe you are right... but i feel you are not. i cannot explain it. just a feeling.

now read this: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...42677461229569

btw: i like you. you're civil and polite.

Some of you may have seen the newspaper accounts of an investigation into Corporation Tax, which is going to be an interesting topic when the President sends his proposals for tax reform to Congress.
The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has analysed corporation tax and come to the conclusion there is no evidence that reducing corporation tax stimulates job growth, by releasing funds that corporations can use to grow, creating jobs. Indeed, the evidence is that whatever the headline figure of corporation tax is, most companies negotiate their way through loopholes to pay significantly less, in some cases, almost nothing.

Sukumvitboy (to whom many thanks) recently recommended a 2012 book by Joseph Stiglitz -The Price of Inequality. And there it is, on page 73, where he writes of corporation tax:

Loopholes and special provisions have eviscerated the tax to such a degree that it has gone from providing 30 per cent of federal revenues in the mid-1950s to less than 9 per cent today.

Stiglitz also argues that the tax could be amended to reward firms that create jobs with a tax reduction, and impose higher taxes on those that do not.

The report is discussed here (there is also an article on it in the New York Times)
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ns-debt-report

I have heard the idea that it is time to 'drain the swamp' with regard to tax code and truly reform the tax system with a flat tax which would abolish all the corporate loop holes and raise unprecedented tax revenue , coming from the "one percenters" and corporations that have benefited most from the current tax system.
But I certainly don't see it ever happening in a Trump or a Republican administration !

They have already ruled out the border-adjustment tax that Paul Ryan had favoured, which was a proposal along those lines. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...727-story.html That suggests they are unlikely to do anything that would disadvantage existing business interests too much.

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Originally Posted by sukumvit boy

I have heard the idea that it is time to 'drain the swamp' with regard to tax code and truly reform the tax system with a flat tax which would abolish all the corporate loop holes and raise unprecedented tax revenue , coming from the "one percenters" and corporations that have benefited most from the current tax system.
But I certainly don't see it ever happening in a Trump or a Republican administration !

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I will have to assume this is sarcasm as the Flat Tax would be a disaster for the US, as it would be for the UK where it almost became UKIP policy in the last election. A Flat Tax would not eliminate loopholes or other measures designed to recognise the diversity of work and income, which is why there is a progressive tax system. There may be more efficient ways of calculating tax on the basis of production and income but the idea that a billionaire should pay the same basic tax rate as a bus driver is insulting, not least because the billionaire already pays less tax than a bus driver, and under a flat tax, the bus driver would be better off out of work, if he doesn't lose his job anyway when the economy tanks and the national debt rises by a trillion $ a year.

Sorry , I must be using the wrong word for the tax system I was thinking of , that certainly isn't what I had in mind . It wasn't the 'border adjusted tax ' that flighty2 linked to either. I'll have to go back and check where I read / heard about it . If I'm not mistaken Bernie Sanders was an advocate .

Sorry , I found it. It's from Richard D Wolff's books "Capitalism's Crisis Deepens" and "Democracy at Work:A Cure for Capitalism".
http://www.rdwolff.com/

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Wh..._Government-17

That article has disappeared, but it seems Wolff wants to go back to a far more progressive tax system, as applied in the past. https://www.opednews.com/articles/Wh...70331-490.html He's pretty vague on how this would be achieved, however - I don't think he is a tax expert.

It may be possible, even desirable, for a government to simplify its tax codes, but I don't think the codes can ever be simple. Tax in general is either opposed on moral grounds, or accepted as part of the social contract where citizen's surrender some of their rights to the State to be protected, to be given opportunities that they would not have if there were no government at all. I think most people who accept they are going to be taxed, believe taxes should be fair, and that the money raised from taxation should be used for the common good. Thus resentment with taxes tends to be based on the view that some are paying more than others and that most often the richer you are the less tax you pay. A triumph of the new Conservatism that was ushered in by Thatcher, Reagan and Kohl was based on the fiction that lower taxes provides commercial enterprise and individuals with more incentive to grow, leading to jobs and prosperity, whereas the developments taking place in capitalism at the time proved otherwise. Low taxation was also supposed to be morally valid as it took power away from government and returned it to 'the people', yet here we are so many years later, Government is a major employer -in some countries, like the USA, the largest single source of employment- and the State subsidizes everything from food and fishes, to industry, wages, housing, health, education....the list goes on.

If there was more clarity about what taxation is for, how it can work for the benefit of all and not just reward the few, the public would agree to increasing taxes on a lot of activities, with reductions on others: as Stiglitz has argued in the book cited above, Corporations could pay less tax if they create jobs, but more if they don't. In the end it is all about being fair and reasonable, which is what most people, most of the time are.

so- according to former head of state steve bannon (the loose cannon), the catholic church defends DACA because it needs illegal aliens to fill it's churches. exactly how does that work again? just let people enter the country illegally and they flood into catholic churches automatically? is that actually something that happens?

also, i don't understand why charlie ross didn't ask him about the mooch's accusations that he can suck his own cock. would've been cool to finally get to the bottom of that story but oh well-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUVHEeho2I

in other news: rush (why?) limbaugh claims that hurricane irma is part of a conspiracy created by the media to make it look like "the oceans are having an exorcism" so they can "get rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff"

weird coming from a guy that lives in palm beach florida. but i think at this point, it's a matter of the left (or the media) said it so IT MUST BE WRONG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.92aa48050c79

Was wondering if anyone has been following Hillary's actions of late, including her book What Happened and Verrit? I don't know enough about either her book or the media outlet Peter Daou is starting but I question her instincts. She says she wrote the book because she is too careful in public and this was a chance for her to let her guard down. While I am sympathetic to the fact that her caution is the result of her facing many unfair attacks, her "cautious" persona made her look too calculating and inauthentic. She never seemed like she was expressing her view of anything.

I suppose what I am saying is that I respect that she has the right to vent or to keep herself in the public eye, but I'm just not really sure what the point of all of this is now except that she gets to tell her side of things...

Maybe those of us who are cringing aren't being fair...there is a sense the party wants her to go away, that she had her shot and didn't come through and that everybody neesd to move forward, but she does have a right to do what she wants. The media outlet she endorsed (verrit) looks like a disaster though.

Hillary Clinton has strengths and weaknesses, and I have also seen advance snippets of her book in the UK press which is part of the marketing campaign that such books engage in to create an interest to boost sales. She was, quite simply, an establishment candidate at a time when enough people wanted someone different, the bitter irony being that the man who won the Presidency, realising early on he was incapable of doing the job, has staffed almost his entire staff with establishment figures, so the 'change' the people voted for has been expressed mostly in the juvenile tone of the President's tweets and speeches, and a sequence of executive orders shaped by revenge rather than reason.

Hillary Clinton spent years in the Governor's Mansion, the White House and the Senate, and I don't think she ever had 'the common touch', and became used to the routine privileges that come with high office. I don't think she ever had it, in the manner in which, for example, Joe Biden appears to have it. Clinton is like Gordon Brown, who has a brilliant mind, but was clearly uncomfortable campaigning on the doorstep, but I don't think she would have been a bad President and would have chosen some smart people to key roles in government. But I do think she had her chance, and lost, and it is time to withdraw from public life and allow the Democrats to re-define their mission and move into a new era. Clinton in reality was on 'the right' of the Democrats and could at one time have been on 'the left' of the Republican Party, but those days are gone.

One interesting and sour note is her criticism of Bernie Sanders, who she points out was not -and is not- a Democrat. It really is time for the parties in the US to create rules that make it impossible for anyone to run as their candidate in a Presidential election if they have no direct links to the party, or, as with Sanders, have been elected on a different ticket. Had Sanders not run, who else might have run against Mrs Clinton for the party nomination?

Ted Cruz didn't know that when you like something on twitter it goes under your account likes. He liked a very graphic porn video and people retweeted it for about an hour until either a social media manager told him people could see what he was choking the chicken to, or his wife yelled at him, or he searched his own name and found everyone laughing at him. That's my thought;;;

The thought of Ted Cruz choking the chicken just put me off breakfast thank you. :hide-1:

Hi Trish, save this for after dinner:). This is the final installment of Punishing Percy.;

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...8951?cid=bitly

And I guess just so I can claim this is a real political issue, Ted Cruz once argued that there was no substantive due process right for a person to "stimulate their genitals." He literally argued that the state could make the sale of sex toys illegal if it wanted to. Beyond that, the way his team has mangled the story about what happened makes it clear this was Ted and not a staffer, because they have about three different excuses already. So there is some political hypocrisy as there usually is with these cases when a Republican is caught doing something sex-related as they are the party that wants to police consensual sexual activities between adults.

I was lucky to have been browsing Twitter when that went down. Guess it's a bonus with working late. The hilarity was phenomenal, and couldn't be replicated later on in the day. Some folks though people were porn-shaming; we were actually trolling him due to the above stated hypocrisy he has exhibited.

Fun times though...probably a little better than covfefe.

This (satire) from the Borowitz Report:
Porn Industry Irrevocably Damaged by Association with Ted Cruz

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/boro...-with-ted-cruz

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Was wondering if anyone has been following Hillary's actions of late, including her book What Happened and Verrit? I don't know enough about either her book or the media outlet Peter Daou is starting but I question her instincts. She says she wrote the book because she is too careful in public and this was a chance for her to let her guard down. While I am sympathetic to the fact that her caution is the result of her facing many unfair attacks, her "cautious" persona made her look too calculating and inauthentic. She never seemed like she was expressing her view of anything.

I suppose what I am saying is that I respect that she has the right to vent or to keep herself in the public eye, but I'm just not really sure what the point of all of this is now except that she gets to tell her side of things...

Maybe those of us who are cringing aren't being fair...there is a sense the party wants her to go away, that she had her shot and didn't come through and that everybody neesd to move forward, but she does have a right to do what she wants. The media outlet she endorsed (verrit) looks like a disaster though.

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She is basically going through the seven stages of grief and feels the need to share that with the public. I also think she is doing it as a response to the book, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign. I saw an interview with the authors awhile back and from what I can tell it does a better job at explaining why she lost the election. Instead of putting the blame on other people like Hillary seems to be doing.

Does she have the right to vent and keep herself in the public eye? Yes. But is it the right thing for the Democratic party? No. I think it would had been better if she faded into the shadows for awhile, like other people who have lost a Presidential election did. Then she could figured out the best way for her, as a private citizen, to be a champion for causes she's passionate about. Because as you said, she had her shot and its time for the party and the country to move on.

Yes Stavros, in the recent 2 hour long exclusive interview that Charlie Rose had with Steve Bannon ( a fragment of which bluesoul posted in #418 above ) Bannon stated repeatedly that the focus of his strategy was "Quite simply" positioning Trump as the anti establishment candidate. He understood that the electorate was ripe for something different.
I have also heard snippets of the Hillary Clinton book promotion interviews. Although somewhat interesting , I came away with the impression that she was still too close to the events to accurately assess the roots of the problems hampering the Democratic Party.

Events in Washington DC in the last 10 days make one wonder what policy making is for the 45th President. Elected on a platform to enact policies on health care, immigration and tax reform, to name just three, the health care policy has failed and is in some sort of reform limbo; the tax policy goes to Congress in the next month but nobody knows what it consists of, and last night it appears the President has a dual position on illegal immigrants - the so-called 'Dreamers'- which will protect them and deport them at the same time. According to the New York Times, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi

said in a joint statement that they had a “very productive” dinner meeting with the president at the White House that focused on the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. “We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,”

Jeff Flake, the Republican from Arizona tweeted
“Kudos to @POTUS for pursuing agreement that will protect #Dreamers from deportation.”

But the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, as the New York Times puts it: has declared DACA unconstitutional and an overreach of authority.

I was going to add that Republicans are furious that 'their President' has turned to Democrats. A Republican Representative from Iowa, Steve King, tweeted: “Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair. No promise is credible.”

It could be pragmatism, or something closer to the truth: the President has no grasp of policy. None at all. A policy is a headline in a newspaper, an announcement on tv. Perhaps this is the new definition:

Mr. Trump’s zigzagging statements on the program, and his drift back toward preserving it, came after days of deeply negative news media coverage over his decision to end the program. Mr. Trump, who pays close attention to the headlines, told advisers he was bothered by the seemingly endless bad press over DACA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/u...T.nav=top-news

Politicians should be allowed to change their minds, and policy with it, a pity we can't do that in the UK. But at least we have politicians who know what policy is.

Steve Bannon Charlie Rose "60 Minutes" interview, "three shirts to the wind".Not even the NBC makeup team could hide those bloodshot eyes.
But really , what's with all those shirts ?
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/3444...ollywood-tape/
Attachment 1029094Attachment 1029095

I don't want to be pedantic so I'll try to keep this short. One of the most common misconceptions among activists in the U.S. is that hate speech is not protected by the first amendment. In order to argue this they will often bring up the "fighting words" doctrine, discussed in Chaplinsky, to support the proposition that racist speech is or can be prohibited.

While I sympathize with the argument, the fighting words doctrine is far narrower than hate speech prohibitions outlined in the law of some European countries. Fighting words refers to words that are "so profane or injurious that by their very utterance incite an immediate breach of the peace." Since Chaplinsky, the Supreme Court has limited its application to abusive words spoken in a face to face confrontation.

An additional problem with the argument is that just because something is unprotected speech does not automatically make it illegal. Unprotected means it can be made illegal by a duly passed law. For instance, obscene material that fails the Miller test is also unprotected. It's likely some pornography would fail the Miller test, but some pornography that would fail the Miller test is not illegal because there is no law making it so. Likewise, "fighting words" must be proscribed by the legislature to be illegal which is difficult for two reasons.

In order for a law to avoid violating the first amendment it must be content-neutral. The legislature is not supposed to be deciding the content of what people say, only regulating the time/place/manner of the speech. Therefore, the fighting words law would have to be fairly general to be content-neutral. But if it's general, it might be void for vagueness under due process, because a law must be specific enough to let the potential offender know what kinds of acts could subject him to punishment.

I'm sure some of you have spoken to Americans who say "hate speech is not protected by the first amendment." But the answer is that most is and that which isn't usually is not illegal. Hate speech and fighting words are not the same.

If anyone is interested in giving a view by all means. In some European countries, someone posting on his computer "group x are subhuman" has violated a law. In the U.S. it would not violate a law and we cannot even pass a law that would proscribe it. The only things that can be made illegal are actions that in some way elicit an immediate violent response, without getting into the technical differences between true threat, incitement to violence, and fighting words.

Sorry to generalize European laws, it's that I've heard of prosecutions that could not happen here. But who is right?

If nobody wants to comment I understand...I didn't think it warranted an entire thread (sorry if I abused the purpose of Martin's thread though nobody has to respond), but this becomes more relevant when we see Nazis on the street, bc some countries legally discourage many of their activities. Is it easy enough to parse that which might be relevant discussion from that which is just hate-filled bile that increases the threat to minorities?

Eh I'm gonna copy and paste this to its own thread.

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/america...americas-wars/

Today Valerie Plame, former CIA agent and leftist posted an article called America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars. In the article, it said Jews are an extremely wealthy group who run the media and entertainment industry. If the article made any argument about Israel I would feel obligated to at least make an argument but as it is it is an abomination.

Most people have rightly condemned the article but there have been some very stubborn leftists who have argued the article is really about Israel, or who have not argued that but just changed the subject to pretend Israel really is the topic. It is extraordinarily dismaying that people who claim support anti-racism movements can engage in such bald stereotyping of an ethno-religious group.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/america...americas-wars/

Today Valerie Plame, former CIA agent and leftist posted an article called America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars. In the article, it said Jews are an extremely wealthy group who run the media and entertainment industry. If the article made any argument about Israel I would feel obligated to at least make an argument but as it is it is an abomination.

Most people have rightly condemned the article but there have been some very stubborn leftists who have argued the article is really about Israel, or who have not argued that but just changed the subject to pretend Israel really is the topic. It is extraordinarily dismaying that people who claim support anti-racism movements can engage in such bald stereotyping of an ethno-religious group.

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For all the tolerance, diversity, and asking people to have an open mind that the left talks about, they can also be as equally as close minded, intolerant, bigoted, and ignorant as they accuse some on the right as being.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Today Valerie Plame, former CIA agent and leftist posted an article called America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars. In the article, it said Jews are an extremely wealthy group who run the media and entertainment industry. If the article made any argument about Israel I would feel obligated to at least make an argument but as it is it is an abomination.
Most people have rightly condemned the article but there have been some very stubborn leftists who have argued the article is really about Israel, or who have not argued that but just changed the subject to pretend Israel really is the topic. It is extraordinarily dismaying that people who claim support anti-racism movements can engage in such bald stereotyping of an ethno-religious group.

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I have read Giraldi's article and I am puzzled that he would argue

Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again

It is particularly odd because one of the most -if not the most- influential media barons since the Reagan era has been Rupert Murdoch, who is not Jewish. There is some truth in the claim that Jews were instrumental in the creation of Hollywood -Mike Davis deals with this in outstanding book City of Quartz, Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (1990) but they became just a part as the industry grew -one of its most successful producers, Walt Disney was a notorious anti-Semite, so all that stuff about the Jews Hollywood and the Media is long past its sell-by date.

However, consider this
we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu?

and ask yourself how many American critics there are of Benjamin Netanyahu given that his invites to speak at Congress have come mostly from 'Christian Zionists' who cling to the belief that Jesus is coming back and will return to his 'home' giving Jews an opportunity to admit they have been wrong for 2,000 years because he really was the Messiah, and so on. Religious drivel aside, why isn't Netanyahu recognised for the crook that he is, not just multiple allegations of bribery in Israel, but his utterly disgraceful rejection of the Oslo Peace Accords, and the rally he attended where Jewish extremists paraded cartoons of assassinated Yitzhak Rabin dressed in an SS Uniform? Nobody expected a villain like Ariel Sharon to support the peace process, but Netanyahu has done everything he can to smash it, while fanning the flames of hysterical claims of an impending apocalypse if Iran 'gets the bomb', carefully denying Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists, and Netanyahu himself has threatened to attack Iran since 1994, as if that was no motivation in itself for Iran to acquire the same deterrent Israel has, though as far as we know Iran has abided by the agreement not to develop nuclear weapons.

The blind spot many Americans have toward Israel, is no different from the Europeans on the left who always defended the USSR because of the Russian Revolution while rejecting Stalin and Stalinism, as utterly unable to defend the Central Planning system as Israel's friends are in defending Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The irony has always been that Israeli Jews have been the most savage critics of their own country, from Maxim Ghilan's How Israel Lost its Soul (1974) to Ahron Bregman's Cursed Victory (2014) which goes some way to illuminating the shameless bias the Clinton administration showed to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Again and again the history of Israel is simply swept away in denial by those for whom it is 'the only democracy in the Middle East' -because yes it is, in Israel, but in the Occupied Territories it is a brutal military dictatorship that just this summer, as it has done before, cut off the water supply to Arab homes.

Where is the recognition that Israel was founded as a socialist state? Where does Ben-Gurion and the Labour Party fit with the historic mission of the new state to be a beacon to humanity, and the present day when government policy is made by religious fanatics who have burned down Christian churches and mosques, attacked Jews -whom they don't consider Jews anyway- and have attitudes toward women that are little different from what was found in Daesh in Raqqa or Mosul?

What happened to the Israel of Judah Magnes and Martin Buber? Crucially, how can it be anti-semitic to condemn a worthless bigot like Naftali Bennet and his genocidal plea to 'Kill all Arabs' when Bennett is just one among others in government or the Knesset who would never have been elected in years gone by because of their odious views? Likud and its leaders, from Menachem Begin through Ariel Sharon to Netanyahu have taken Israel into places that no sane person would want to go. The environmental destruction they have caused on the West Bank makes a mockery of those thousands of pamphlets Zionists wrote from the First Aliyah to 1949 glorifying Israel as the restoration of the land itself, with the intention that Israel be a socialist and agricultural country based around the Moshav and the Kibbutz.

Is it not ironic that the left built Israel? But all that has gone, the left has deleted Israel from the list of revolutionary projects and substituted the Palestinian 'struggle' in its place, oblivious to the corruption at the heart of Palestinian politics.

At some point we need an honest debate about Israel, and whether it is a strategic ally or liability for the USA. As for the costs of the alliance, nobody really knows anymore but start at $10 billion a year and keep counting. As for Israel's strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia, is there no shame? They have been at it before, when the USA sent arms to Saudi Arabia through Israel when the Kingdom was fighting Egypt for control over the Yemen, just as the two of them are at it again but fighting - or so they claim- Iran's influence in the Yemen, another unwinnable war that is decimating human lives and destroying homes and businesses. If Israel does have any humanity left, why would it be keen to assist an unelected dictatorship it should be condemning?

There is a lot to admire about Israel, but nothing to admire in its politicians, and its illegal and hopeless occupation of Palestinian territory.

I read this in The Guardian this morning:
Donald Trump launched a sensational attack on NFL players who have kneeled in protest of the national anthem during a speech in Alabama on Friday night, challenging the league’s owners to release anyone who engages in the movement started last year by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...nthem-protests

-Surely the solution is not to play the National Anthem before every football game, because it is just a football game. We don't do it in the UK, they don't do it on the continent, so why do it in the USA? If it is an international match fair enough, but not for every domestic game. As for free speech, who cares what people think about the anthem or a flag? Neither are of any importance. As for the President calling other Americans 'sons of bitches', that is pretty standard sewer crap from a man who seems to know a lot about both.

Donald Trump's use of twitter is destructive. It's a conduit for him to make outrageous statements that impact foreign and domestic policy in ways that threaten real harm. It's fairly obvious that he has violated their terms of service and that the only reason they have not banned him from the service, something which would be consistent with their policies and a public good, is because it would cause a right wing backlash that would harm their business. It might seem that if they banned him he would find another outlet, but it would take a while to develop a network or outlet as influential as twitter where he can express himself so poorly & with such ease.

Trump does not realize that every time he opens his mouth about the protesting NFL players he reinforces the impression (in my view fact) that he's a racist. He did not have to agree with Kaepernick's protest, but by recommending punitive action against him he has justified widespread protests. His actions as President, not an ordinary citizen, are beyond creepy and threaten the first amendment without clearly violating it bc he is using the power of his office to put undue pressure on private organizations. His promotion of Nascar as an alternative to the NFL is bizarre, as people at nascar events wave the confederate flag, a much more significant insult to patriotism than a peaceful protest. I will let people fill in the blanks of why he objects to the actions of NFL players but is a first amendment absolutist when it comes to waving flags of treason.

Oh yeah, he also implicitly threatened an apocalyptic war with North Korea on twitter. I get the eerie and frightening sense that he wants to provoke a conflict with North Korea. There's no way I see that happening without catastrophic loss of human life.

Even without Trump's meddling there are already punitive consequences. Kaepernick's protest is the likely the primary reason he wasn't picked up this season or the most recent off-season. But thanks to Trump, we're now seeing players, fans and even some owners joining Kaepernick in solidarity.

What's particularly puzzling is the interpretating of the bent knee as a sign of disrespect. One kneels before people and things that you recognize are higher than you. It is a demonstration of the ultimate respect. Kaepernick's action can only be recognized as a protest because his pose is unique; i.e. not standing like everyone else. It is neither snide, nor arrogant, nor flippant, nor haughty nor anything other than a respectful protest.

I don't want to reference myself, but to me there is a clear issue here: why is the national anthem played before domestic games? It doesn't make sense, and I am waiting for someone to explain it to me. Stop playing it, and solve the knee problem!!

Stavros throws down the gauntlet .:iagree:
OK sports fans , 'splain me too ,'cause I haven't the faintest idea.