Last night Keith Olbermann said "Grand slam" as soon as Hillary's speech was over. It's pure politics on his part, Fox News is his role model.
I didn't think it was that great a speech, nothing like her absolutely fabulous speech in Unity, N.H., in June, when she endorsed Barack. That was to insiders, of course, this is to General Americans. And so a show is being put on for Average Americans, an ad campaign, and all of us who are nauseated by that, or who don't care, have to appraise it purely as we would an ad. That is the media's function here, to appraise the sloganeering, and never question the terms. They're patronizing Americans. They can't apply their own intelligent take on things and say, Boy is Hillary canned and tinny. And Bill Clinton is the greatest actor of our time, mouthing "I love you" when the cameras are on him. "The bestlooking man money can buy." That was Will Rogers's definition of politician; I read it on a wood plaque on the wall of a diner in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They would know.
And the media talk down to Americans. Of course, it works. When I worked at the Daily News in Philly, Kitty Capparella, who I adored, told me, Phil you're too Harvard, you have to write at a 7th-grade level. Well sometimes you have to talk up to Americans, to lead them. Barack Obama knows that. I had a dream about him last night. I was in his hotel room. He had gray hair and was studying. God preserve him and allow him to grow into a grayhaired man! Let the haters melt away.
I've been arguing with my wife about whether oil was a motivator for the Iraq War. She says, "Why are you ruling anything out? It's many reasons." I have to post Saif Ammous's analysis of the oil agenda, I'll get to that. But I'd point out that last night Ed Rendell goes on and on about the oil men and the oil companies, and yes I know, they're bad, they're way baaaaadd, while we're good for buying all their oil at higher and higher prices when the supply is vanishing by the day and doing nothing to conserve, but Jimmy Carter isn't even allowed to speak on that stage. He might mention the Middle East, or the human rights violations in Palestine. Wife, what do you make of that censorship?
The "war for oil" canard has been disseminated in order to deflect attention from the Israel-firsters. Anyone who doubts this should read James Petras, who is
certainly no friend of Big Oil.
I think it is fair to say that oil companies are perhaps the most honest and ethical companies out there. (That said, all corporation are pretty slimy).
They provide a product, gasoline, that is perhaps the most useful product known to humankind. They are not responsible for our abuse of that product– they provide a product and we use it in the most wasteful way possible.
I assume your wife refuses to drive, or buy plastic products, or heat her house with natural gas or oil, or fly in an airplane, or use a motorboat, etc etc etc.
"I had a dream about him last night. I was in his hotel room. He had gray hair and was studying. God preserve him and allow him to grow into a grayhaired man! Let the haters melt away."
It that an attempt at being less Harvard?
I have no idea who Kitty Caparella is, but your honesty is a good thing. Too often media types seem to believe that presentation equals merit when it comes to ideas and vice versa–and that's not touching outright dishonesty or code speech.
How stupid do you think the average American adult is, and why?
Your wife is right. Tell her I said so.
The "Israel-first" story is a sideshow and barely that.
You're swimming in this so damn much.
On other questions, how do you get reality checks that you are seeing things in proportion?
How would you review your weighting of this issue to test it?
I'm sure that one reason that Carter was not invited to speak was his contreversial promotion of the apartheid book, independant of its merits or demerits.
But also that his administration was not remembered kindly by right or left.
Sincerely Phil. You should research how Carter was regarded by the left in 1979-80. Many LOVED his energy conservation efforts, but hated his advocacy for nuclear power. Your revision of the character of Brezhinski does not mirror the left of the time, Brezhinski was hated by the left.
Read archives of the Nation, or In These Times.
Zionism and oil were both factors. Oil however was "on the record" (Wolfowitz, etc), and zionism, or more precisely the interests of the expansionist ethnic cleansing regime, were, as Joe Klein put it recently, "off the record."
We can argue which was a bigger factor, as China lands the biggest infrastructure contract after all the U.S.'s no-bid shenanigans have been rejected by the Iraqi government. If the oil companies were stupid enough to think this would work is doubtful, to me. Whether they might however be enticed by the short-term profits that would result from instability-fueled speculation, that is questionable.
And what about expansionist ethnic cleansing? Did it increase at all since Saddam Hussein's regime was overturned?
What about zionist and imperialist-fuelled militarism, did it gain anything? Did Israel need to re-up on cluster bombs after Lebanon '06? Have any millions or billions gone missing entirely in Iraq to the probable boon of violent militia groups?
And what about the physical resource of oil? The U.S. consumes more energy than any country on Earth, by an order of magnitude over the mean. So oil's pretty important.
So what's better for securing oil?
Occupying Babylon
or
Dollar hegemony
Because the first is costing the U.S. empire the second.
The content wasn't horrible on the whole (especially considering what one can expect from a convention anyway) but her mannerisms annoy me.
She comes across as someone working to get a high grade from the Public Speaking professor rather that someone with a true passion and commitment for the words she is saying. That's just my take though it may just be sour grapes as I am an atrocious public speaker.
~
If the Democratic party were not the whore of petroleum-fueled interventionism abroad and chemical dependence at home (big ag, big pharma, detroit), Jimmy Carter would be a fucking legend in the party.
Instead we're supposed to worship Camelot. Apparently Phil does, a little.
Seriousy can any of you imagine Barack Obama putting solar panels on the White House? I can't.
Recently it was reported that there's a scientist at MIT who has discovered a catalyst for solar-to-fuel cell technology, making it more efficient and possibly feasible soon, changing how we produce electricity forever.
Will Obama buck the petroleum dealers and go full throttle into this the way heavily medicated George W. Bush crashed full throttle into Afghanistan and Iraq? I doubt it.
If I cared enough to cast a ballot this fall, I'd write in Jimmy Carter. There's not a doubt in my mind he's more able, competent, and aware than anyone in the race.
Or if I needed to fantasize about a real black president, I'd vote for Cynthia McKinney.
Of course the concerns about Israel were articulated publicly.
And representatively.
The claims of the weight of "Israel-first" as even comparable in the minds of executive branch and of the Congress that approved the legislation, are ludicrous.
When a president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security advisor, were responsible for the initiation of war efforts, and 600+ members of Congress were responsible for ratification of it, to claim that a behind-the-scenes cabal orchestrated the war in any conclusive way, is a science fiction movie.
The problem was a FAILURE of governance, an acceptance of oil as primary government objective, and not some arcane conspiracy.
It should be an embarrassment to you to continue this thin reasoning.
You should research how Carter was regarded by the left in 1979-80. Many LOVED his energy conservation efforts, but hated his advocacy for nuclear power.
Ridiculous.
Nuclear power is the only READILY-AVAILABLE technology that could replace the current dependence on coal and natural gas for supplying the domestic electric grid. The only.
If trillions were to be invested in a Manhattan Project for solar-to-fuel cell technology, or some way of capturing and reusing solar energy, the U.S. might be able to continue current absurd levels of over-consumption without fossil fuels or nuclear power. Big question mark, but it may be possible.
The U.S. service and finance-based economy needs cheap energy to continue being viable, if it even still is viable.
But why invest so much in a possible solution, when there are without a doubt trillions in profits to be made with the current regime of fossil fuel-based infrastructure and expensive military-enforced dollar hegemony abroad?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
So let's concentrate on what's important: Islamic radicalism.
If embarrassment were a prohibitive concern here Witty, I'd think you would've stopped posting here long, long ago, no?
You have a blind spot about as big and fetid as the polluted Gaza aquifer.
Answer my question: quantitatively, as the "settler" (your ridiculous word) movement INCREASED since the fall of Saddam, or decreased?
Did or did not the IDF get to bomb Lebanon back a few decades, as they said, to assert its prerogative re: Shebaa Farms and the Litany River, which it controlled for a long time, without any risk of an Iraqi scud landing Tel Aviv?
You are either intellectually dishonest or a complete buffoon. Neither bodes well for your hopes and dreams of getting Phil to ixnay on the oojays.
Seriously, what are you going to tell me about embarrassment? I'm proud as hell to tell the truth without any ulterior motive. And unlike you, I occasionally entertain people. (Someone's gotta spice things up here after so much of your bland mush.)
they wanted to permantly win the jewish vote. the same way they wanted the elderly vote with the medicare bill. that is why there was an iraq war
Nothing "arcane" about the depiction of the Lobby and as re Iraq in Mearsheimer and Walt's expose.'