The world's largest prison.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip.”
- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, 1 January 2009.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Friday, January 09, 2009
The Big Lie
The world's largest prison.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip.”
- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, 1 January 2009.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Gaza Bombed and Invaded
The conflict is constantly portrayed as too complex to understand or on the other hand one that is simple to understand: terrorists vs. democrats.
Here's a look at the root cause of the conflict.
A question to ask: if the conflict cannot be solved militarily, as is admitted by even the most reactionary supporter of Israel, then why the bombings and invasion?
Throughout the last week Israeli government spokesmen and its supporters have said to the effect, Hamas and the Palestinians need to be taught a lesson, they need to learn there is a cost for small rocket fire, etc.. In effect then Israeli policy is collective punishment.
Benjamin Boring
A long film examining a long life. A film packed with promise both conceptually and visually but an impossible feat given its leading actor and its empty character. Could it have been good?
Matt Cale's take.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
A Kettle of Hawks
By JEREMY SCAHILL
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy.
But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential
for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill
Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out
goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between
Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in
US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.
When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go
around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to
believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House.
But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth
is that he liked what he saw.
The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is
a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq
war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a
worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from
George HW Bush's time in office to the present.
Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees
bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for
change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me.
That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and
to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the
president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that
their records do matter.
We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the
premiere foreign policy issue of our day – the Iraq war. "Six years
ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically
risky to do so," Obama said in his September debate against John
McCain. "Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different
judgment." What does it say that, with 130 members of the House and 23
in the Senate who voted against the war, Obama chooses to hire
Democrats who made the same judgement as Bush and McCain?
On Iraq, the issue that the Obama campaign described as "the most critical
foreign policy judgment of our generation", Biden and Clinton not only
supported the invasion, but pushed the Bush administration's propaganda
and lies about Iraqi WMDs and fictitious connections to al-Qaida.
Clinton and Obama's hawkish, pro-Israel chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,
still refuse to renounce their votes in favour of the war. Rice, who
claims she opposed the Iraq war, didn't hold elected office and was not
confronted with voting for or against it. But she did publicly promote
the myth of Iraq's possession of WMDs, saying in the lead up to the war
that the "major threat" must "be dealt with forcefully". Rice has also
been hawkish on Darfur, calling for "strik[ing] Sudanese airfields,
aircraft and other military assets".
It is also deeply telling that, of his own free will, Obama selected
President Bush's choice for defence secretary, a man with a very
disturbing and lengthy history at the CIA during the cold war, as his
own. While General James Jones, Obama's nominee for national security
adviser, reportedly opposed the Iraq invasion and is said to have stood
up to the neocons in Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he did not do so
publicly when it would have carried weight. Time magazine described him
as "the man who led the Marines during the run-up to the war – and
failed to publicly criticise the operation's flawed planning".
Moreover, Jones, who is a friend of McCain's, has said a timetable for
Iraq withdrawal, "would be against our national interest".
But the problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad
vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their
unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden
hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to
defend the America First doctrine.
Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his
cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling
elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain",
called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is
disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign
staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these
appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a
President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the
retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month
timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with
dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama
campaign."
Boot added that Hillary Clinton will be a "powerful" voice "for
'neoliberalism' which is not so different in many respects from
'neoconservativism.'" Boot's buddy, Michael Goldfarb, wrote in The
Weekly Standard, the official organ of the neoconservative movement,
that he sees "certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how
Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to
continue the course set by Bush in his second term."
There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the
Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not
going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo
Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are
gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also
disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal.
Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of
change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much
in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on
the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan
to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force
in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will
always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our
security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there
are no alternatives to confrontation."
Jeremy Scahill
pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he
was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the
author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy.
But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential
for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill
Clinton's network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out
goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between
Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in
US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.
When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go
around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to
believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House.
But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth
is that he liked what he saw.
The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is
a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq
war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a
worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from
George HW Bush's time in office to the present.
Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees
bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for
change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me.
That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and
to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the
president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that
their records do matter.
We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the
premiere foreign policy issue of our day – the Iraq war. "Six years
ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically
risky to do so," Obama said in his September debate against John
McCain. "Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different
judgment." What does it say that, with 130 members of the House and 23
in the Senate who voted against the war, Obama chooses to hire
Democrats who made the same judgement as Bush and McCain?
On Iraq, the issue that the Obama campaign described as "the most critical
foreign policy judgment of our generation", Biden and Clinton not only
supported the invasion, but pushed the Bush administration's propaganda
and lies about Iraqi WMDs and fictitious connections to al-Qaida.
Clinton and Obama's hawkish, pro-Israel chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,
still refuse to renounce their votes in favour of the war. Rice, who
claims she opposed the Iraq war, didn't hold elected office and was not
confronted with voting for or against it. But she did publicly promote
the myth of Iraq's possession of WMDs, saying in the lead up to the war
that the "major threat" must "be dealt with forcefully". Rice has also
been hawkish on Darfur, calling for "strik[ing] Sudanese airfields,
aircraft and other military assets".
It is also deeply telling that, of his own free will, Obama selected
President Bush's choice for defence secretary, a man with a very
disturbing and lengthy history at the CIA during the cold war, as his
own. While General James Jones, Obama's nominee for national security
adviser, reportedly opposed the Iraq invasion and is said to have stood
up to the neocons in Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, he did not do so
publicly when it would have carried weight. Time magazine described him
as "the man who led the Marines during the run-up to the war – and
failed to publicly criticise the operation's flawed planning".
Moreover, Jones, who is a friend of McCain's, has said a timetable for
Iraq withdrawal, "would be against our national interest".
But the problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad
vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their
unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden
hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to
defend the America First doctrine.
Obama's starry-eyed defenders have tried to downplay the importance of his
cabinet selections, saying Obama will call the shots, but the ruling
elite in this country see it for what it is. Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain",
called Obama's cabinet selections, "reassuring", which itself is
disconcerting, but neoconservative leader and former McCain campaign
staffer Max Boot summed it up best. "I am gobsmacked by these
appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a
President McCain," Boot wrote. The appointment of General Jones and the
retention of Gates at defence "all but puts an end to the 16-month
timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with
dictators and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama
campaign."
Boot added that Hillary Clinton will be a "powerful" voice "for
'neoliberalism' which is not so different in many respects from
'neoconservativism.'" Boot's buddy, Michael Goldfarb, wrote in The
Weekly Standard, the official organ of the neoconservative movement,
that he sees "certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how
Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to
continue the course set by Bush in his second term."
There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the
Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not
going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo
Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are
gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also
disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal.
Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of
change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much
in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on
the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan
to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force
in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will
always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our
security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there
are no alternatives to confrontation."
Jeremy Scahill
pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he
was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the
author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Finance Capital
The enormous growth of the financial sector is one of the wonders of our age. In the 1960s the business of banking, broking and insuring accounted for just 10 per cent of total corporate profits in most developed economies. By 2005, this proportion had swelled to nearly 35 per cent in the US and roughly the same in Britain—the two countries that host the world's largest financial centres. Last year a staggering one in five Britons earned their living in finance.
Liberals at Prospect Magazine are nervous about the monster they helped create.
How finance will remain in charge if Obama picks Lawrence Summers.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Fidel Gets Religion
And a lousy one at that: Russian Orthodox!
From Fidel:
"The Church [i]s a spiritual force. It played a major role at critical times in the history of Russia. At the onset of the Great Russian War, after the treacherous Nazi attack, Stalin turned to her for support to the workers and peasants that the October Revolution had changed into the owners of factories and the land."
Read the entire dreadful article here.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Did Palin Do Her Job?
What is a running mate's job?
Jazz the base.
Win a region or state.
Attract swing voters.
Don't do harm.
Attract women this cycle.
Palin did none of these.
Core Republican turnout declined 1.3 percent compared to four years ago, the Republican share of the electorate dropped five points from 2004 — and the depression of conservative voters was amplified in key states such as Ohio, where Obama won despite earning almost the same number of votes as John F. Kerry. The difference is that 300,000 people who showed up for Bush/Cheney decided to stay home for McCain/Palin.
Read the entire article here.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Big City
From fivethirtyeight.com on the big city vote.
Big City Barack
One nugget from Pew Research that I'd missed earlier: Barack Obama performed 9 points better than John Kerry among urban whites. This was not by any means the most important factor in his election, but it helps to explain the large improvements that the Democratic ticket made in states like Colorado and Nevada, where a great deal of the population is concentrated in Denver and Las Vegas, respectively, and why Republicans were at best able to tread water by targeting the rural areas of Pennsylvania, while Obama waltzed his way to winning large majorities of white and black voters in Philadelphia.
This also attests, of course, to the stupidity of bashing big cities. Roughly 82 million Americans live in cities of 100,000 persons or more, including 40 million in cities of 500,000 persons or more. This does not count smaller cities or suburban areas, which account for another 150 million Americans or so. (Don't neglect the fact, also, that many Americans who do have their residence in big cities may nevertheless work or play in them, and therefore think well of them). By contrast, only about 60 million Americans live in rural areas.
The Bush-Rove team of 2000 and 2004 understood the importance of appealing to suburban voters ... that is a viable strategy. Pitching your appeal to rural voters, on the other hand, probably will not work. They're outnumbered by the city dwellers in the first place, and if your attacks are strident enough that the suburbanites start to side with the urbanites, you've given yourself a big problem.
Big City Barack
One nugget from Pew Research that I'd missed earlier: Barack Obama performed 9 points better than John Kerry among urban whites. This was not by any means the most important factor in his election, but it helps to explain the large improvements that the Democratic ticket made in states like Colorado and Nevada, where a great deal of the population is concentrated in Denver and Las Vegas, respectively, and why Republicans were at best able to tread water by targeting the rural areas of Pennsylvania, while Obama waltzed his way to winning large majorities of white and black voters in Philadelphia.
This also attests, of course, to the stupidity of bashing big cities. Roughly 82 million Americans live in cities of 100,000 persons or more, including 40 million in cities of 500,000 persons or more. This does not count smaller cities or suburban areas, which account for another 150 million Americans or so. (Don't neglect the fact, also, that many Americans who do have their residence in big cities may nevertheless work or play in them, and therefore think well of them). By contrast, only about 60 million Americans live in rural areas.
The Bush-Rove team of 2000 and 2004 understood the importance of appealing to suburban voters ... that is a viable strategy. Pitching your appeal to rural voters, on the other hand, probably will not work. They're outnumbered by the city dwellers in the first place, and if your attacks are strident enough that the suburbanites start to side with the urbanites, you've given yourself a big problem.
Friday, November 07, 2008
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