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But it's all because they haven't been out raking the forests Stavros, like they do in Finland. https://www.vox.com/world/2018/11/19...p-raking-woodsQuote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
If this man was not President, would anyone regard him as anything other than a cranky, delusional, selfish old man?
I doubt even of a few years of Psychology classes could fully explain Trump, after all is said and done, he pulled off being elected President, the first public office he ever applied for. I think he's figured out the expiration date on his office is coming two years early, the smell of sulfur and rotting eggs is coming cum January. No more tax breaks for Corporations, no more rallies, no more Nunes. Even Fox News is looking to put a bit of distance between them and Donny Boy. One thing for sure, none of my predictions ever pan out with this guy, he's playing by a different rule book. The one where Saudi Princes give Jared Kushner millions of dollars, I reckon, but I could be wrong.
Go compare your politicians, be they of 1939 vintage or 2018. Here, on the 80th Anniversary of the Kindertransport, at a time when refugees are being turned away, is the example of one man who at the time, and since, has represented decency in politics.
(Full article in the link).
"Clement Attlee, the Labour prime minister whose government founded the welfare state, looked after a child refugee who escaped from the Nazis in the months leading up to the second world war, it can be revealed.
The then leader of the opposition sponsored a Jewish mother and her two children, giving them the confidence and authorisation to leave Germany in 1939 and move to the UK.
After their escape, Attlee invited one of the children into their home in Stanmore, north-west London, testimony and letters show. He neither publicised nor sought to make political capital from his visitor.
Paul Willer, the former child refugee who is now 90 and living in Gloucestershire, was 10 when he stayed with the Attlees for four months until the beginning of the war.
He has arranged to meet Attlee’s granddaughter for the first time on Wednesday at the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport scheme, which saved thousands of mainly Jewish children from Nazi Germany."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...led-nazis-1939
"Thought for the day"
This site is kinda boring.
Be back in two years, if they let me out, take care Starvos.
Maybe things are finally opening up. Real Jailtime for Cohen and Manafort.
Niagara Falls!
slowly they turned...
inch by inch...
step by step....
The ACA has been overturned by a federal Judge in Texas. The original case to test its constitutionality (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius) hinged mostly on the individual mandate, which requires people to get health insurance or pay a penalty. The idea was that if the law was going to remove pre-existing conditions from the list of things actuaries could consider then there would be an adverse selection problem. To avoid this, people who would otherwise opt out of the market because they're healthy had to be forced to purchase insurance.
This became a Constitutional issue because Congress needs an explicit grant of power from our Constitution to legislate. For this sort of scheme, the usual grant comes from the Commerce Clause. Republicans argued that the Commerce Clause can only be used to regulate commerce, not to force people to engage in it. Therefore, the individual mandate could not be justified as an appropriate use of commerce clause power. Judge Roberts ended up upholding the individual mandate as an appropriate use of Congress' ability to tax. The penalty, he argued, was an appropriate use of the government's ability to tax, and they can regulate using taxes as they often do in order to incentivize or dis-incentivize behaviors in addition to raising revenue.
Fast-forward to more recent times. In their tax bill, Republicans reduced the penalty for the individual mandate to $0. The Texas Judge who overturned the ACA in its entirety reasoned that if the penalty is zero, then it is not a tax and there is no Constitutional authority to pass the individual mandate. Since the mandate justified the pre-existing conditions protection, or at least made it financially more feasible, then the law as a whole must fall. In his argument, the mandate is the linchpin of the law, and is not severable from the other provisions.
There are a lot of problems with his argument. First, the only part of the law that was passed under taxing power authority was the mandate. When the penalty is zero there is no longer authority for that provision but it is also essentially a nullity. When Congress decided to reduce the penalty to zero they no longer needed authority to force people to get insurance because they ARE NOT forcing people to get insurance. Without the ability to declare any portion of the ACA unconstitutional the Judge certainly cannot then strike down the entire law as not being coherent with one provision excised. Congress decided to remove the penalty that enforced the mandate and so the law is exactly as they intended. Does it work better with the mandate? Yes it makes more sense. But Congress decided to essentially remove it. If they decided to remove it, then the Judge is not striking it down as unconstitutional, along with the rest of the law.
I don't really understand the logic of the Texas Judge's opinion very well because most provisions of the ACA don't depend on the mandate anyway, so the argument that the rest of the law is not severable from it also doesn't make sense. I believe even with our new Supreme Court Justices this opinion will be overturned but it will be a very good test of the integrity of our new Justices and a portent of things to come given that their tenure is measured in decades.
In the USA health care is a business in which a few lucky people make a lot of money from other people's suffering. Until you replace profit with public service, until you create a single-payer service that offers all Americans a standard of health care that applies to them regardless of their economic circumstances, a service which as the name suggests has moral depth rather than commercial width, the USA will be regarded as one of the worst places in the developed world to fall ill or sustain an accident.
But you have a President, and a Party who regard the environment as something to pollute, with coal slurry, chemicals, any old shit as long as it is pumped into your rivers and streams to kill the fish, turn the water yellow and above all, make people hate their land.
You have an immigration policy that is based on hate, that denies the most basic human rights to people in need, that stands idly by when children are torn from their parents and die, because the President and his party wants it that way, they want people to hate America so much they will turn away from it.
You have an apartheid education policy because the President and his party have so deep and abiding a loathing of Black Americans they can't stand the thought that Oliver and Clare will be sitting next to G-Ray and Shaniqua, it is an education policy designed to retard the opportunities that Americans are promised in the Constitution. They hate education when it gives equal opportunities to Black people. What else is the bus for?
You have a foreign policy that is designed to increase the hatred and the venom that people feel for the USA, a policy that supports vicious dictatorships, that applauds illegality and the war on democracy, that provides the Materiel with which men, women and children are bombed to death where they live, their homes, their businesses, their schools and hospitals destroyed. And this carnage, this American Carnage is the promise of a so-called man, in reality a despicable traitor, who invites the world to abuse his country.
For years this person was the butt of ridicule in New York and New Jersey, a grubby loud-mouth with proven links to the New York Mafia and the Russian Mafia, a man who has invented scam after scam after scam to rob people of their money, who for more than 40 years has insulted and abused anyone and everyone who exposes the venal nature of his crooked business affairs. He knew it, and he hated you, as he now sits in the Oval Office determined to shit on your breakfast every day, because he can. He calls an American woman a 'dog', American men are 'sons of bitches' and he knows its crude, and he knows it upsets people because that is his entire intention, to take revenge on the America that recognised from day one that he is a worthless liar, a fraud, a racist, a misogyist, a product of the slime of Queens who, when he discovered the Russians were attacking the USA, had the opportunity to defend America, but chose to join their campaign against the American running for the Presidency in 2016, and he even publicly announced -twice in one day- that he was an A-Grade traitor, knowing his America would do nothing about it.
He hates you, he hates you with an incendiary loathing that is determined to make a Paradise of all your towns and cities and villages because you will not worship him.
Health care? Who cares?
I think even the hard-core grits are catching on that Trump is a Comic Book President, like Alfred E Newman. The real threat to the US and the Western World is the 20 trillion dollar deficit, a problem nobody wants to tackle. `
Did you see Pence with Chuck and Nancy? Nick Mulvaney????? The rats are leaving the ship.
Not being from the USA myself. Is Donald Trump doing a good job, bad job, or an ok job? I know he's a businessman and does that help with his presidency? I see him on the news here in UK but don't know how he's doing. I would be interested to hear from anyone who lives there.
look at the stock market...not to good ...he is a CON MAN
I looked at a brokerage account that has my savings in it. I am not so happy about it. This makes sense given that the market is down about 10% and at least some of my investments are equities.
I get annoyed that people seem to think that short-term gains in the stock market are somehow a useful indicator of either the President's performance or even economic strength. In the short-term the value of stocks can fluctuate wildly based on expectations, the opportunity cost of stocks relative to other securities, and people's tolerance for risk. In fact, the price of stocks can deviate wildly from underlying fundamentals for fairly long periods of time.
As a result, it may be too early to decide that the dip represents anything other than short-term volatility, though if anyone needed their money immediately it would represent a real loss and probably represents that anyway, because if one were not in the market they could purchase now with assets that have a greater value. One thing the market does not like in the short-term is instability. I am not sure what effect shutting down the government has on people's expectations about the future value of American companies, but it might not be good. I am not sure what effect our former Secretary of Defense saying the President is basically a moron who is destroying old alliances and soft on our adversaries has, but it doesn't bode well for stability. Or the recent reports that the President is obstructing Justice even more flagrantly. Or the President's daily tweets about some Kafka-esque design for a wall with steel slats. Or any of it. Maybe it's the fed.
But is this conman going to claim credit for the upside and lay blame on everyone else for the dip? Of course.
When I say Kafka-esque I'm think of In the Penal Colony about the commandante with his excessive pride in some high tech device meant to punish the prisoners and provide enlightenment to them at the same time. I haven't been following the steel slat conversation but I saw the picture of the proposed design. It looks like steel bars with spikes at the end of them. Someone on twitter made a joke about Vlad the Impaler, but I haven't heard any In the Penal Colony references but maybe because that's a stretch. In addition to being creepy and sadistic sounding, the entire thing makes it seem like he's completely lost what's left of his marbles.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
If you want to know what a mess your President is making of your economy and watch the value of your stock continue to decline, the article by Robert Reich in The Guardian a few days before Christmas will help. I just hope the UK avoids dealing with this debt-addicted con man who wants the UK taxpayer to service the US debt. US based payday loan companies are entering the country for that very purpose, they should be banned from doing business in the U.K.
As for funding the border wall to end the shutdown, who is going to blink first? Surely this is one battle the President must lose?
In a couple weeks Democrats get their teeth back. There are lots of New York Real Estate Tycoons who belong behind bars, but only one of them has a multi-million dollar investigation hanging over his head, run by the best in the business. This Country will be fucked by Trump, but Trump will be fucked in the end in the end. That's kinda how we roll over here.
My investment advisor is a Marxist. He's trying to abolish the system of private capital starting with my brokerage account. He's purchased shares for me in some strange international equity fund that he's assured me is uncorrelated with the market. The problem is it achieves this by going down no matter what the market is doing. It's a hedge against profit making.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I'm not sure what I'm getting at here except that I'm gonna take a flight to safety. The market is all over the place and I don't have the stomach for it....the President is literally moving the market with his tweets. He misspells a word and the Dow drops a hundred points.
This is not a bourgeois thing either. People's pensions are also getting hit. You don't need a lot in the way of savings to want to have some equity exposure. Like Buttslinger I too am excited for the Democrats to control the House Intelligence Investigation. That really is something to look for because it takes place in full view of the public.
I think if Daniel Boone stepped off a Time Machine he'd love the Safeways and Home Depots, but the constant hum of continuous advertising would make him quite ill. Everywhere you look somebody's trying to get your money through some scheme. The Land o' the Free is deceptive advertising.
I'm going to try to focus on what's important: the NFL playoffs, maybe Mueller will Sing in February. The Republican's unexpected windfall will come to an end. Republicans-sell. Democrats-buy. The good, the bad, the ugly, you can get it all right here in the USA, ….Cash, Check, Visa, I have friends who live just to buy stuff.
Here is a thought for today:
If the Federal Government compels Federal officers and employees to work without pay, is this not the restoration of slavery?
And if Slavery has been abolished in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, does this not mean that the President has violated the oath of office he took to protect and preserve that Constitution?
And have the Republican Senators who support the restoration of slavery through their support for the shutdown also violated their oath of office to protect the Constitution?
If so these are surely clear grounds for the impeachment of the President and all and any Senators and Congressional Representatives who support the shutdown and in doing so the restoration of slavery, and has the time not come to begin immediate proceedings to remove them from office?
Impeachment in the past has been cited in allegations of corruption, or in the multiple cases of Senators who supported the Confederate States that attacked the United States of America in 1865-
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory...on_Censure.htm
Or it could just be that the Republican Party and their boy in the Oval Office approve of slavery, or at the very least, really don't care if people are forced to work without pay, can't pay their bills, have their homes re-possessed, commit suicide -whatever. It makes for a leaner government and a lower payroll bill.
I think you could impeach Trump for watching TV if you wanted to, and had 60 votes in the senate.
You still have Republicans voting for Russian Oligarchs. Unbelievable.
The Mueller Report is going to blow minds.
The Mueller Report, if it is ever published may indeed change things as they are. What may also be happening is on one level the dream of every Libertarian -of the 800,000 Federal workers enslaved in a 'work without pay' relationship some may decide to stop working for the Federal government and take their employment elsewhere. The question then is can the Government function without them? If so, the shutdown has in effect been a job shredding exercise that would have caused outrage had the Govt decided to sack 800,000 workers.
On another level it is not just the clerks, the cleaners and transport security staff who might leave, it is also the scientists, the researchers, the translators -so that the Federal Government would be losing the unskilled staff it needs to clean toilets and polish floors as well as professionals who provide the Government with reasonable advice based on years of experience and research. We know Tillerson shredded jobs at the State Department and that the US is now increasingly poor in resources such as foreign languages, country analysis and experienced diplomacy though we also know the President and his son-in-law appear to regard foreign relations as their personal briefs, presumably because there is so much money to be made and because they don' want experts with years of experience telling them what let alone how to 'do' foreign affairs.
The irony is that as the US appears to be preparing to intervene in Venezuela, one wonders if there is anyone in the administration who speaks Spanish and can find Venezuela on the map. Dare one say there are quite a few on the southern border who do, and maybe even know more about Venezuela than Hare Kushner? They can't all be rapists and drug mules.
So let me get my head round this: has the President encouraged Pecker to publish photos of Jeff Bezos's pecker? And if Pecker has photos of one man's pecker, does he have photos of the President's pecker, and is this why Pecker is a publisher with the power to penetrate the egos of powerful men? Who gains from watching boys comparing their peckers, and does it mean size matters?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47166938
Wait a minute,...uh, yeah here it is, chapter 9, page 265 from Mueller's report......PUTIN has the pics of Preze"s pecker, Peckar has the pics of Cruze"s Dad shooting Kennedy. FAKE NEWS FAKE NEWS!!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Seriously, I hope the Democrat's one wish is Wisdom, because we're going to have the Mother of all messes when this is over.
It certainly does to Trump. https://www.thecut.com/2016/03/donal...s-moments.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
According to Stormy Daniels, it is smaller than average and shaped like a toadstool. If there are pictures, I really hope I never see them. It's bad enough to be constantly seeing that weird hair and orange face.
I find myself without political company. Ilhan Omar, a Congresswoman, recently said "it's all about the benjamins (meaning money)" in response to a tweet about the basis for U.S. Congressional support for Israel.
It has been widely portrayed as anti-semitic and I don't think it is. She clarified her statement to say that she was speaking about AIPAC and its lobbying activities on behalf of the Israeli government.
This has long been a hot button issue because it is very easy to talk about lobbies, particularly AIPAC, in ways that could raise the most resonant anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. If you think about what a foreign lobby does, you have the seeds of many of the accusations that have been directed at Jews for centuries. Money for favors? Check. Lobbyists pay money and they buy influence, and though I think AIPAC doesn't directly contribute to campaigns, they spend money in the hopes of obtaining favorable legislation for Israel. In discussing an Israeli lobby, a person could, if they didn't limit their argument to actual lobbyists, portray Jewish people as being perfidious, sneaky, and powerful beyond rational explanation.
The problem with saying Omar's comment is anti-Semitic is that she didn't actually do those things. Would I have preferred seriousness of purpose to a glib statement about money? Sure. After all, the best antidote to the accusation that you're engaged in conspiratorial stereotyping is to be specific and clear about the parameters of what you're talking about.
For instance, if one looks at the ways one could talk about the Israeli lobby in anti-Semitic ways, it makes Omar's comment look benign. One could accuse any Jewish person they disagree with of being in "the lobby" and basically portray it as an amorphous agglomeration of Jews. But all she did was say that Congress' disposition is influenced by the money of AIPAC. I'm sure it is.
The reason I said I find it strange is that people have portrayed this as similar to some of the Labour crises. That seems bizarre and ill-informed to me.
Can you imagine a U.S. Congressman circulating a petition on behalf of Gilad Atzmon? Look him up. An MP did that and pretended he didn't know who he was when I, an American, first heard of the guy a decade ago. I feel the U.S. is far too restrictive of this conversation and allows fair comment to be portrayed as bigotry, whereas elsewhere fairly clear hatred is portrayed as fair comment. Also, many of the things that I saw in Labour didn't have anything to do with Israel, like when Damien Enticott said that "Talmud Jews need executing". It's hard to draw fair comment from a statement like that, but some people were able to infer that we weren't objecting out of genuine concern but rather out of an illicit motive to harm the party that spoke for Palestinian rights. Go figure. What a mess. I fully support the Democratic party and only wish more people had stood up for Omar, who raised a hot button issue, one that needs to be spoken about sensitively, but was not anti-Semitic.
I wonder if the criticism of her would be so vehement if she was not a Muslim. I agree than accusations of anti-semitism are too often used to dismiss criticism of Israeli government policies and other countries' support for them.
Ironically, the Israeli government has been establishing closer relationships with right-wing nationalist governments in Europe who have a history of anti-semitism but are prepared to support Israel's own nationalist policies.
It depends who the criticism is from. Some of the "criticism" of her was openly Islamophobic (see Lee Zeldin). The reaction of the Republican party is hypocritical and ridiculous. Other people had concerns that she first referred to money and seemed to indicate it completely accounted for their support of Israel. It's unprovable either way, but we speculate about other lobbies in exactly the same way. Who has not said that the NRA's activities buy legislation? It's not provable either.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
I think other parts of the Jewish community are concerned about the way lobbying activity can so easily turn to conspiracy talk. But, you have to deal with that when you get there. I haven't much enjoyed being asked who my Zionist paymaster is by idiots because I disagree with some harebrained thing they've said, but some topics will be a lightning rod for those people. You can't blame the person just for raising a legitimate topic of discussion.
A good example: David Duke is offering support for Omar. Is that damning for her? Of course not. Everyone with a brain knows that yes, a Neo-Nazi will try to mainstream anything that will make some segments of the Jewish community a bit uncomfortable. But it does have an emotional effect that is hard to avoid.
I definitely think her being Muslim plays a role but the discussion of concerted behavior by any segment of the Jewish community is hot button.
The famous or notorious power of the 'Israel Lobby' in Washington begs the question: is it really as influential as people say it is, compared to, say the 'fossil fuels lobby' or 'Big Pharma'? One way of answering the question would be another question: would the Middle East policy of the USA be different if the 'Israel Lobby'did not exist? I am inclined to the view that it would not.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Consider the recognition of Israel in 1948. It may be the case that supporters of the Zionist project -not all of them Jewish- lobbied Washington even before the full extent of the Holocaust was revealed. And it is the case that President Truman was sympathetic to Zionism as a humanitarian project. However, when he suggested to Prime Minister Attlee that the British allow Jewish immigration into Palestine, and Attlee responded by suggesting the US share the governance of Palestine, Truman stepped back. Similarly, Truman through his Secretary of State, George Marshall, was aware that Arab opinion was opposed to the creation of Israel and that Marshall himself was too, indeed at one time Marshall threatened to resign over the issue. But when on the 14th of May the US offered Israel de facto recognition, Truman remarked they had got in there before the USSR, which gave de jure recognition three days later -the US not giving Israel de jure recognition until 1949.
https://historylessons.net/trumans-c...cognize-israel
If the US was thus acting as much in a context of Cold War as sympathy for Zionism, would the absence of a Zionist lobby have made any difference to that decision? Now consider the USA's first military intervention in the Middle East, Operation Blue Bat in Lebanon 1958. The Christian government of Camille Chamoun had been harassed by Lebanese Muslims acting in solidarity with Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, who formed the 'United Arab Republic' in 1958 with Syria which was accused by Chamoun of infiltrating weapons into Lebanon that would be used to attack his government. The point is that when the US intervened, it was justified by the 'Truman Doctrine' to 'intervene to protect regimes it considered threatened by international communism' (the USSR began selling arms to Egypt in 1948, increasing their support in 1955 two years after the Revolution). And thus one could add that the moment when the USA formally took sides in the Middle East in 1967, for Israel and against the Arabs, it was either overt support for Zionism, or the Cold War view that the Arabs -principally Egypt- had become clients of the USSR and logic thus dictated that Israel require protection from Communism -or a mix of both. The irony here is that Israel in 1948 declared itself a Socialist state, which -even if only nominally- it remained under Labour rule until the Likud election victory of 1977, but that the US either did not regard Israel as a Socialist state, and its relations with the USSR by 1967 had deteriorated, or took those factors into account. Given the strange incident of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 War, one wonders if the Johnson administration took a longer term view and just accepted that the incident was a regrettable mistake.
But, and this is the point, did the Israel lobby influence Johnson's decision, or was the USA's alliance with Israel shaped entirely by the Cold War? I suspect it was, as the Chinese might put it, 70% Cold War, 30% Zionism. Even before the 1967 War the USA had persuaded Israel to allow weapons it was sending to the Yemen to pass through Israel and across the Giulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia, at the time fighting a proxy war with Egypt, thus presenting the case of the Communist-backed Egypt against the American backed Saudi Arabians. It was not noted at the time that the best judgement one could make of both armies was that 'they were not very good on the battlefield', while the incendiary rhetoric of Nasser insisted Egypt was about to inflict a savage defeat on Israel. And yet, Indar Rikhye once remarked that for all the propaganda, the blunt reality was that the Egyptians had taken possession of Soviet MIG fighter jets, but when the 1967 war broke out the only pilot who knew how to fly them was an Indian.
If the Cold War shaped US policy in the Middle East, the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt did not bring this to an end, for while Anwar el-Sadat broke off Egypt's relations with the USSR, the latter simply reinforced their support for Syria, and in various loops with Iraq so that the 'Russian threat' in the Middle East did not diminish in 1979, while the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan eventually led the 'war on terror' to replace the Cold War.
In all this, there is no doubt that the Israel Lobby has promoted Israel among legislators in Congress, but so too have the 'Evangelical Christians' with their apocalyptic vision which to me often sounds overtly anti-Jewish, while at various times the 'Fossil Fuel' lobby has got stuck in with the result that Israel and Saudi Arabia are de facto allies, the most salient losers in all this being the Palestinians, whose lobbying efforts if they even exist, are feeble to the point of being without purpose. One wonders if the new generation of Congressional Representatives will make any difference, given that the House by tradition at least does not formulate foreign policy.
It may be that the Israel Lobby is more successful in reverse, that is, through its campaigns with its supporters that tell them this or that Senator or Congressional Representative is 'bad for Israel' or 'good for Israel' but I don't know if any conclusive research can prove that bad publicity has cost a sitting representative their seat.
Ultimately, the questions must focus on the aims of US policy in the Middle East, what it actually achieves, and the longer term impact. The region remains volatile, partly due to chronic interventions that cause more problems than they solve, and we have yet to know if Netanyahu will be defeated in the elections this year and Israel take a new direction, particularly with regard to the illegal occupation of the West Bank, illegal settlemens, and Palestinian rights. The Lobby has a voice, and at the moment a sympathetic ear in the White House in the case of Jared Kushner (one doubts his father-in-law cares about the Middle East other than the flow of 'lovely dollars' from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf into his bulging pockets), but so far too Kushner's policy making has been inept and counter-productive to peace in the region. One can only hope this will end in 2020, though I don't expect radical changes to US policy in the region.
The history you present makes sense up to a point in time but if the cold war is not still raging then some would say that basis for support has expired and yet Congress still mostly supports Israel. Evangelical Christians support Israel for theological reasons that some might call anti-Semitic but which Israelis and other Jews aren't concerned about because they don't believe the theology.
I think the reason a lobby could be very effective despite not spending as much money as people think is that it's NOT an issue that many people think about in the voting booth. The number of people who vote based on foreign entanglements is probably a small percentage of the population and so if there's a lobbying interest, that provides Congressmen an incentive not to adjust to changing attitudes. As a result, one hears a lot of clichés, almost reflexive support, and very little specific policy analysis.
After reading your post, I think the Cold War history is most relevant to explaining the origin of the alliance, but inertia and a whole confluence of factors might explain continued support ranging from: the belief that Israel is Western (maybe a carryover from the Cold War), Evangelical support, lobbying, and the fact that it doesn't play a lot at the polls.
When people discuss lobbies, the tendency is to overplay a lobby's influence, purely because a lobby is only effective if it causes legislators to act in ways that don't reflect the public's views. We say the NRA completely accounts for support of guns in this country but the anti-democratic effect is probably more subtle than that. We have a culture where guns play a disproportionate role in people's lives. Many of the legislators who take money from the NRA are probably already positively inclined towards the militarization of civilian life in ways that don't make sense to many people around the world myself included. But maybe without the NRA they would consider all sorts of gun safety proposals that don't interfere with their general pro-gun view.
I think you're right that AIPAC does not explain the U.S.' alliance with Israel or even explain the endurance of it but I think it does prevent Congressmen from modifying their positions based on actions Israel takes that are counter-productive or violate international law. A lobby is probably best at creating inertia, and subtly decreasing the sensitivity of legislators to changing attitudes.
https://twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1098560476630446080
I think this tweet highlights an interesting trend that is occurring in Britain largely from sympathizers of the Labour party: the leveraging of the Palestinian cause to harass Jews and impinge on Jewish life in the UK. Apparently this school requires the ratification of a society for it to become an official group. There is a student association for nearly every minority group, but the Jewish group has been voted against by over 200 students and might fail because of Zionism or something like that. The school assures people in a lukewarm tone that though there were concerns, it will probably pass. But it's amazing how loose the link can be to the idea of Jewish statehood before people will find an excuse to single out their Jewish students.
https://www.jta.org/2018/11/05/globa...nagogue-attack
This was another thing that I had seen. Can you imagine voting down a motion to condemn a murderous attack on a place of worship? I would vote for that motion if the attack occurred in the most remote region of Earth against the congregation of a religious community I'd never heard of. Apparently the most common objection was that there was too much focus on anti-Semitism this, anti-Semitism that. As though the idea of the motion was really a group seeking special treatment. The British Labour party should discourage its membership from behaving in ways that are so laced with irrational hostility and resentment if they want people to stop talking about it. It gets a disproportionate amount of attention because their facebook pages and twitter accounts look like nothing I've ever seen from anti-racists.
I've actually written a bar mitzvah speech for any Corbynite fortunate enough to be invited. It's short but I think it gets right to the point: "out of my deepest respect for the Jewish tradition and this rite of passage into manhood, I now hold you legally and morally responsible for the human rights violations of Israel. Congratulations on becoming an adult."
And while I was asked to separate this topic and have flirted with the idea of a thread, I would like to collect the evidence. I guess my question is what is going on and how many times do I have to watch the Al Jazeera documentary the Lobby with Joan Ryan and the Israeli in the bar to understand how a deadly synagogue attack in Pittsburgh really has to do with Israel, and a Jewish society in a school, and according to Derek Hatton any Jew who doesn't say what he wants when he wants it.
Your link in the second example to the JTA does them no favours. Here is the second paragraph:Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Steve Cooke, secretary of the Norton West branch in the Stockton North constituency of about 67,000 people near Scotland, submitted the motion for a vote following the Oct. 27 shooting attack.
-Stockton-on-Tees is as close to Scotland as New York is to Canada.
-Stockton North might have 67,000 constituents, but Norton West branch does not, in the council elections in 2015 on a turnout of 72.5%, the total number of votes cast was 6,613. I doubt the Norton West Branch has more than a few hundred members if that, and the active members they do have will be known to the General Management Committee of the CLP, so who knows what else is going on there? A comment that does not depart from the resolution itself, which was valid and could easily have been passed without causing a fuss. They have made themselves look foolish in the way it has been handled.
On the Baddiel tweet, there has been a long and sorry history with regard to Jewish Societies in English universities. I was in a university in 1986 or thereabouts when the National Union of Students submitted a resolution to all its members which called for the denial of Jewish Societies the right to affiliate to the NUS. I am not sure, but I think the resolution originated in the Socialist Workers Party and was proposed by their members, and passed at an executive meeiting of the NUS which meant it had to be rolled out across the country. The resolution when it came up for discussion produced the largest gathering of students we had seen at an NUS meeting, and was moved, not by any NUS members in the University by by two representatives of the NUS, one of whom was Palestinian in origin. If I tell you that when I saw it I was staggered to see it had 40 clauses you may understand that student politics may not always need to be taken seriously even when it causes such hurt, indeed, insult. The Resolution was not passed by the students and the debate such as it was produced some memorable moments -one member of the SWP Students section, known affectionately as Swizz (short for Swindled rather than Swiss) ended the meeting screaming 'I want to change the structure of society!' though he may have been drunk at the time. One of his comrades, whom I knew because he married a student I knew quite well, is now a foghorn in Momentum.
I tend to see these issues as the kind of student issues that you can trace back for years and which never seem to change, and are often found at the beginning of the academic year when first years 'get involved' and before they get lumbered with essays and course work. In those days you could guarantee that between late September and the end of October angry students would be staging a protest outside the nearest supermarket to campus selling South African produce calling for boycotts, and mostly ignored by shoppers who, if they were like me, did not buy South African oranges anyway.
But yes, the sentiments behind this sort of thing are intolerant and based on ignorance and prejudice, but rarely produce their desired outcome, it is gesture politics of the worst kind.
One afterthought -in another university I was involved in, the Islamic Society came close to being prosecuted. Because of my interest in the Middle East and some work I was doing with students from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the Yemen, I was aware of the arguments they were having with each other and browsed the Islamic Society pages, only to discover to my horror that there were large sections that offered advice, not on 'how to shop in the UK' or 'how to claim housing benefit' but advice on how to be a good Muslim. When I read the pages on women, the page on 'Women working' said that 'capitalism is a Jewish plot to destroy the family' -for women's work is family work, an odd thing to say to a student whose intention might be to be a doctor- I cut and paste it into a search engine to find it was a direct quote from Sayed al-Qutb's Signposts, a text much admired by Osama bin Laden, and extremists sympathetic to his cause (though at the time he was in Afghanistan fighting the Russians and unknown to us) -I guess this shows that students tend to be 'radicals' because Qutb has never been anything other than an extremists. I don't know what happened next but the Islamic Society's web-pages were suddenly locked behind a password entry system, and that lack of transparency which might have spared them prosecution nevertheless seemed to me to be a basic violation of student politics. Publish and be damned.
One final thought: Israel has spent $100 million on the successful launch into space of a rocket headed to the Moon. What a criminal waste of money! Two or so years ago there was a huge demonsration in Tel-Aviv by young people who can't buy an apartment because affordable housing in the urban areas between Tel-Aviv and Haifa has been disappearing as 'property inflation' puts it beyond most Israelis -why spend $100m on the Moon when people want somewhere to live? Better still, how about spending $100m providing Palestinians on the West Bank with a decent and reliable water supply?
What did Bette Davis say in Dark Voyager? Oh Jerry, let's not ask for the moon. We have the stars...'
Legislators in Georgia's House of Representatives have passed a bill that could ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The bill aims to outlaw terminations carried out after a foetal heartbeat is detected and is similar to restrictions under consideration in Mississippi, Florida, Kentucky, Ohio and South Carolina.
Mr Setzler claimed that the bill sought "to recognise that the child in the womb, that is living distinct from their mother, has a right to life that is worthy of legal protection."https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8813416.html
This is an abuse of the English language- how can a foetus be described as 'living distinct from their mother' when by definition a foetus is utterly dependent on the mother for life? It doesn't make sense to attempt to qualify what pregnancy is in order to ban abortions. So much law to protect the unborn child, so little respect for it after it is born.
For my part, I would never believe people who supported Trump could be sincere in their concern about any form of ethnic or religious bigotry. Everyone wants to find someone who will champion their cause, but I'd rather make common cause with his targets than be alienated from groups he vilifies. In that sense, the worst part of this week's spectacle was having to see Trump tweet about anti-Semitism or the Republican party putting forward a motion condemning anti-Semitism but not the other forms of bigotry they've bathed in. It was hypocritical, it felt like a slap in the face to other minority communities, and was deeply embarrassing for those Jews who felt ambivalent about the whole thing.
And I say this as someone who thinks that someone should only say another individual or group of individuals has allegiance to another country if they are making an accusation. Probably not everyone agrees with me and I am not looking to argue this point though obviously you're welcome. I don't think Ilhan Omar was acting in bad faith, and I wish her well. Maybe she can convince some members of Congress to support policies that benefit the Palestinians. I hope she does.
As I understand it, US law does not allow or prohibit dual nationality, whereas I believe that if a US citizen wishes to live and work in Canada they are obliged to give up one for the other. It is not illegal in the UK, Conservative MP Boris Johnson, for example, who was born in Manhattan, has dual British and American citizenship, and it is possible to be a citizen of the UK and Israel, or Pakistan and so on -the free movement of people, guaranteed under the Single Market Act of the European Union does not affect citizenship, so we have had over a million Polish citizens who have lived and married here but have not taken British citizenship whereas their children can have both.
The assumption has been that if you have dual nationality your loyalty is in question, but what is the test of loyalty, indeed, is there one? Is someone who burned their draft card rather than to go Vietnam, anti-American, disloyal? They swore allegiance to the flag every day in school, what happened? I suspect that those who question the loyalty of American Jews who, in whatever way support Israel -or those Arab Americans who support the Palestinian cause- and have their loyalty questioned, may be victims of a prejudice that smuggles its hate into a political argument without actually engaging the political issues.
Two quick questions:
1) Is it true that it is illegal in the USA to turn your phone to silent if taking a photograph?
2) Elizabeth Warren wants to abolish the Electoral College -a) can this be done? b) is it a good idea?
1) Is it true that it is illegal in the USA to turn your phone to silent if taking a photograph?
Of course it is, privacy laws.
2) Elizabeth Warren wants to abolish the Electoral College -a) can this be done? b) is it a good idea?
a) The move would require a constitutional amendment, which is rather tough to pass. To do so, two-thirds of both the Senate and House of Representatives would need to support the change, as would 38 of the 50 states.
b) It's a great idea unless you're a Republican.
I've never heard about the phone thing, I think they want perverts to have a camera click sound when they're shooting "upskirts" in the mall.
ALL the voting laws are nuts, the reason we vote on Tuesday is so everyone's horse and buggy can get to the Polls on time. The IRS code is just as bad. The rich are guilty and the poor are innocent.
PS you brits hang in there, I have absolutely no advice to give....
Another possible way to achieve this without changing the constitution is a compact between the states to award their electoral college votes to whichever candidate gains a majority. That's unlikely to work for the same reason that the red states are unlikely to go along. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...obably-doomed/Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Ironically, the founding fathers devised the electoral college as a way to prevent a clearly unsuitable candidate from winning the presidency by manipulating the voters. https://www.historycentral.com/elect...collgewhy.html
I googled the phone thing and got nothing, so it sounds like a myth.
The protests against the Sackler Foundation have led to museums and galleries withdrawing their appeal for funding, and led to a confused debate on the origins of arts and education funding. A key reason for the protests at the Guggeneheim in New York has been the Sackler family business and the creation of powerful opioids that are at the centre of a health care crisis in the US. The problem for me, is that the Sackler family cannot be responsible for the drugs doctors prescribe for their patients, and there is evidence that US doctors prescribe opioids at far highe levels than in other countries. Heroin and Morphine are powerful drugs that have medicinal uses, as does cocaine, and it is clear that in some cases the production and distribution of these drugs is not medicinal but recreational and can lead to severe and indeed, fatal addictions. I don't see how the medical profession can be blamed for drug addiction which mostly is social and individual in origin, and where the medical profession has developed therapes to deal with addiction.
What strikes me about this, is that fossil fuels companies blamed for climate change are targeted by people who drive cars, use public transport -in other words, use the very fuels that they are complaining abou, while goverrnment funding of the arts and education is not condemend even when the government is not only legally and morally respnsible for wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and other places, but is involved in the destruction of life and property right now. If the Sackler Foundation, why not the Rockefeller Foundation, or the US Government, or the British Government?
And, if the money dries up, where will the arts get its funding from? The search for a perfect donor is a wasted trip. And how much of the world's great examples of art and architecture were created using slave labour? In some case there might be an argument to resist funding -say, from the 9/11 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but the Sackler Foundation is not run as part of the family's pharmaceutical business, so I don't see the connection between it, and an opiod crisis that can be solved in the US if the medical services in the US want to -there are a plethora of pain killers on the market, it is up to doctors to make the right choices.
There's a famous quote from Harry Lime/Orson Wells in the Third Man along similar lines:Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
The Third Man, a cynical dismissal of life itself, with a soundtrack guaranteed to drive any music lover mad. How many times does that damn zither insert its spikes into the brain? As for Lime, what his quote does is expose his pathetic ingorance of Switzerland as a country, and its achievements. Funding the arts is not the same as creating them.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
My daughter told me a couple months back she identified as pan sexual, that she didn't base attractedness to another person based on their gender. I didn't know how to react. I admit, I had been narrow minded (mainly based out of my own fear) but in a gesture finding common ground to discuss things, I read a book she was reading called "Beyond Magenta." What stuck with me was in the author's note which states: "...once we get to know individuals who may be different from ourselves, it is less likely we will be wary of them. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn a little more about ourselves."
Individuals who decide to express themselves and embrace who they are, despite backlash, are courageous. And in the end, 'everyone wants love in their own way.' I think, ultimately the enemy here is fear. People fear what they don't understand and it's easier to play the hate card than actually taking the time to try to understand the other person as an individual who deserves respect and acceptance.
To the extent that people are afraid of something they don't know, you are right. Some people like the unknown, the challenge of an opposite, not being comfortable where for others security is everything -knowing when they get to a foreign country there will be a hotel, the food will be edible, the people honest. With sexuality there may be a fear that difference is also unhappiness, but if parents truly love their children they must surely allow them to be who they are, but the fear that alternative sexualities to the simple binary choices is eroding the fabric of society is nonsense. There just aren't enough homosexuals, transexuals, any 'sexuals' to disrupt the balance that exists. If there is a 'threat' it is infertility and the decline of population growth, the curve expected to rise to 2050 and decline thereafter, a decline already evident in parts of Asia. Set against this and the wider problems of climate change, economic opportunity and political stability/instability, why get so stressed by something that for the person concerned is simply normal?