Jeffrey Blankfort says I'm dreaming when I predict a fall for the lobby:
I envy your optimism but you are headed for big disappointments. The Cuban Lobby couldn't hold a candle to that of the
Zionists,
even when it was at its zenith. It has never had much outreach beyond
Florida and parts of New Jersey and beyond a handful of Miami-based
organizations it needed the support of the most right wing elements in
Congress who based their support on their anti-communist bias, not on
political contributions or AIPAC-like intimidation (as well as the
unofficial backing of The Lobby). The Gonzales case proved it. So go
easy on the Kool-Aid. If the Scahill piece wasn't convincing, here's
the most succinct analysis of what we have just seen. It comes from an
old friend from the 60s, John Ross, who became a chronicler of the
Zapatistas, was a
human shield in
Iraq and the
West Bank. In the
Anderson Valley Advertiser, a Mendocino Co. paper with some national circulation (Alex Cockburn writes for it) he wrote on Nov.26, linked
at Counterpunch:
"He [Obama] ran a duplicitous,multi-million dollar campaign that masqueraded as a social movement
annd because it was a gimmick and a shuck, will thwart and demoralize
the recreation of a real social movement for years to come."
I hope John is wrong but the odds that he is right increase with every new day.
Response: I don't have to be the alienated left forever, do I? Temperamentally I'm too positive, also I would like to get another paycheck or two sometime. I want to have a little faith, even if I'm not Michael Lerner. While not arguing with any of the facts in what you say, I believe Obama is a good man. If he hornswoggles the social movement that actually supported him, we're still here and we're in the American house. We will play our part. I'm going to distinguish in my life between politicians and friends. I expect more from my friends. As to the fall of the Israel lobby, of course they're much stronger than the Cubans. But the dog will have its day. New stuff comes along. A friend wrote me recently:
Back in the late 1970s or early 1980s, a libertarian defense analyst
named Earl Ravenal (from CATO) wrote that there were two things you
could not question if you wanted to remain a member of the "serious" foreign policy establishment: 1) the need for a robust nuclear deterrent, and 2) the U.S. commitment to NATO. Today the sacred cow has another name.
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
I still have a little faith, but not as much as I did. What I have less of every day is confidence.
Be hopeful.
As real activists assert, the hope is in humanity in the very MANY tangible and sentimental forms that shows, not in a specific leader.
Obama represents a SHIFT. At least from ideology to thought and consideration, with an eye to kindness.
Blankfort and his friends are flattering themselves if they think they're so important that Obama had to "masquerade his campaign as a social movement" or whatever. I live in Flatbush, where you can see visibly in the streets a frankly fascist-style devotion to the man – what does he need you people for?
You can only be disappointed if you believed in the anti-Obama rhetorics. He was painted almost as a left devil with terrorist sympathies.
Any realist perspective will tell you that there obviously is enormous systemic pressure. His space to move will be limited. He choose his vice when his poll rates sank. … I seriously doubt that a left administration is possible in the States, it would be much too big a move against the "american dream". What is possible are slight adjustments to the REAL (Lacanian sense). A move away from ideologies.
We had an documentary over here with a portrait of Obama. I missed the start. I found it interesting that when he became editor of the Havard law magazine everybody expected him to distribute many jobs to black people. He didn't. He had always had good relations with conservatives and some of them got a job. Shouldn't the decision ultimately be knowledge and not color?
Every person is more complex than we admit in everyday life. But what was absolutely important from my point of view was his resistance against the Iraq war.
Let's wait and see. He faces much higher problems than anyone before him it seems.
I live in Flatbush, where you can see visibly in the streets a frankly fascist-style devotion to the man – what does he need you people for?
What do you mean by "facist-style devotion", Jack?
Cult of personality, I imagine, LeaNder.
It's hard to believe Obama doesn't hold close to his heart his anti-Iraq war speech of 2002.
excerpt: "I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.
He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."
And he did hire General Jones, who took a "lions for lambs" POV
on that War; he didn't like sacrificing young Marines for an ill-considered war. We know too that Jones delivered a scathing report on the current situation in both Iraq and Israel, the latter
not publicized or even officially accepted by the Bush Administration.
Cult of personality, I imagine, LeaNder.
Thanks, MM. Is was a bit of a rhetorical question.;) Admittedly. Yes, it connotes the secularized image of the Messiah propaganda minus ethics. Or more precisely imagery of crowds celebrating Hitler or Stalin, or Mussolini or Franco. A bit far off at this point, isn't it?
How does he judge the people around him? Isn't joy that "your president" got elected understandable? So what did he experience that led him to this harsh statement? I am assuming he voted for Obama himself, so what is his precise problem? That they still hope against hope? Or that they are happy a brown president like them got elected? Or that they are all basically stupid? …
But now we know were to locate , Phil's guru, Jack Ross.
I agree with LeaNder. How much room does Obama have to move? How would even the most informed outsiders know the answer to that?
His journey has been, and continues to be one incredibly long and treacherous rollercoaster ride upon which his real political ideology must surely take a back seat.
The same probably applies to his cabinet appointees. Hillary voted to go to war in Iraq which may indicate a political attitude or fear of being flung from the same rollercoaster.
I think we need to wait and see.
I like President-Elect Obama's choice of General Jones for National Security Adviser. It has been too many years since we have had an ANSA possessing both superb competence, i.e. not Condoleezza Rice, and unquestioned loyalty to the United States, i.e. not Stephen Hadley. General Jones' record is exemplary, and I have the utmost confidence that on his watch there will be no neo-communist shenanigans subverting pathways into the President's 'information bubble'. His appointment speaks volumes about President-Elect Obama's own political acumen and competence.
I agree with Colin Murray. He is the one hire that tells me Obama
might actually make the buck stop with him a la Truman (not that
I don't think Truman was a dupe on certain major issues, though in fairness, like Obama Truman knew he couldn't do anything unless he was elected.
Of course that's the old problem in a nutshell. There's been no opportunity since Ike for an American president in the full sense of the term. Kennedy tried it, and got killed for his efforts, as did his brother.
Cuba's been under siege longer than Gaza.
Condign terrorists walk the streets of Miami openly with scarcely a mention in the MSM or even furthest Blogistan.
The embargo on info from Cuba is much greater than that from the Mideast whatever the quarter. Even if you know Spanish.
Cuba is not under siege. It is under embargo by the United States. It still trades with the entire rest of the world, although we make a halfhearted effort to discourage it, and it has purchased grain from US farmers by special dispensation in the past.
The equivalent treatment of Cuba would be if we patrolled all of their coastline and prevented any ships from docking that were not cleared by us in advance, and whose cargo we verified down to the last bean and liter of fuel. We would tax what we did allow in, of course. Also, NO aircraft would be permitted to land at the airport, which we have bombed already anyway. The quantity of imports of food, fuel, spare parts and medicine would be limited to the absolute minimal level necessary to prevent mass mortality, but create widespread suffering. We would bomb half their power generation capability, attempt to assassinate any leaders that might emerge and organize an embryonic state, carry out periodic punitive raids to remind them who is boss, and prevent most Cubans from leaving the island, especially students. We would actively try to villanize Cubans before the eyes of the world, portraying them as intrinsically violent semi-humans who must be kept down, or they will destroy Western civilization. This will justify our barbarism: we have no other choice.
A similar situation in Cuba would require a vastly greater Cuban population, the equivalent would be 469 million. Gazans are packed in like sardines, and 10 of 14 are refugees or descendants of refugees of Israeli ethnic cleansing. The vastly increased population would of course spread the available natural resources, arable land, wood, petroleum, etc, so that imports were absolutely vital to the maintenance of a post-medieval quality of life. Are you getting a clue now why so many in the Arab world are angry with us for blindly supporting Israel ethnic cleansing? Oh wait, I forgot, they hate our freedoms.
population densities
Cuba 102 people / km^2
Gaza 4270 people / km^2
I'm cooperatin' here…
OK, mebbe siege wasn't the right word, but I'm standing by the others.
Til somebody else comes along to smack 'em down too.