I don’t believe that what we see before our eyes is the reality. In politics that means, We don’t know the half of it. If you think that what’s taking place in the councils of the president is represented directly in the press, you’re deluded. Great crises pass with little more than a groan from the president. This would seem to be the lesson of all those conferences that Kennedy-era policymakers have on the Cuban missile crisis, when they disclose new and horrifying details about how close the world came to war. It is the lesson of the last presidential race, which from a foreign-policy standpoint was all about Israel/Palestine/Iran, and the words were never mentioned by the mainstream media.
This is the only basis on which I might halfway-forgive Obama, and along with him the new progressive Israel Lobby, their silence on the Gaza massacre and Israel’s relentless expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Here is my fantasy. Some day there is a conference at Harvard about the Obama presidency. Thirty years from now– god willing I am still watching CSpan over my lunch of leftovers, and there is one democratic state called Israstein. Or Pasreal. Old bald Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are talking about how close the world came to coming off the rails in 2009. And they finally tell us about Obama’s meetings with Netanyahu. Netanyahu was belligerent and out of control. He lost his temper and talked to Obama like a student. He spoke about it being 1938 all over again, he spoke about using nuclear weapons against Iran. They left the meeting shaken and wondering what he might do, to bathe the Middle East in fire, and wondering what power we had to prevent it.
That’s the only way I can understand the complete collapse on Goldstone, Gaza, human rights, and the demolition of Palestinian homes. They are actually afraid of Netanyahu. They are trying to dial everything down to stave off a world war. And keep some factions of the Is-lob with them.
A blogger in the audience asks, "Why didn’t you say anything about this at the time? Didn’t the public have a right to know? Might that have given the U.S. more power in dealing with a government that was tyrannizing its minority population and the Israel lobby in the U.S.?"
Axelrod and Emanuel look at one another goofily. "We never thought about that."
Just a theory, anyway. And no, I don’t really forgive them.
Related posts:
- Netanyahu thinks he’s pinned Obama on settlements
- Obama seems upset, as he calls for Palestinian ‘hopes’ to come before Netanyahu’s fears
- Is Obama going wobbly on settlements?
- Why isn’t Obama dickering with Abbas on settlements? (Cherchez la puissance)
- Netanyahu: meeting was all about Iran, and Obama’s committed
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This is what I’d call “self-deluded.”
But I understand the temptation. Hope is so insidious. Like a parasite, it worms its way past the thickest armor of cynicism and lays a tiny egg. Which is invariably crushed by the weight of reality.
Try not to put too much of a silver lining on that cloud, Potsherd. ;)
Here you go, Chaos. Hope on this: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1129433.html
From Amira Haass
Now, say the occupation brings in their bulldozers and demolishes the stadium that FIFA promoted. How much can you hope that FIFA will respond by banning Israel from all international competition? This is BDS that would definitely have an impact on the Israeli street, including the racists who made the captain of a Jerusalem team apologize for saying he’d like to see an Arab on the team. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3808080,00.html
You don’t know how Obama will respond to Netanyahu’s recent insults. Maybe Netanyahu will slight him so much, that Obama will respond in public anger and really blow things up.
But, maybe your whole thesis is wrong, that the last election was for the exact priorities articulated, which are clearly daunting and very very difficult to control.
True, but we do know how he’s responded so far, both in changing his prior tune during the primaries, and during the main election campaign he stepped it up, babbled in his
cautious way total Hasbara–never again did you hear what he once expressed, that is, that the ones suffering the most from the status quo were the Palestinians–he changed that from empathy with the Palestinians to “for the record” empathy with Israelis–to the extent he imagined for public (Jewish) consumption that his little girls
were Israelis, trying to sleep all tucked in their beds while Pal rockets fell down on their dear heads. Obama’s Cairo speech has been left in the dust, as has even Hillary’s “it’s not helpful.” You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the trajectory. Obama’s afraid of Axelrod and Emanuel and their network–he needed them to have any sort of chance of being in the titular driver’s seat; he’s looking after his own immediate family and fellow blacks in the USA–any price is OK–he wants his second term. Everything’s geared toward having 8 years in Obama’s mind–the interest of “we, the American people” as a whole–is clearly secondary;
and the Palestinians? They don’t really count either. He’s much like Shrub in his basic motivations.
The difference is “only skin deep.”
Or it could be provocation.
Let Netanyahu and the Israelis hang themselves. Which they seem to be doing, given that the UK has shifted discernably in the last six months since Operation Cast Lead.
When the Israelis push outrage far enough, that’s the time for a forced settlement.
But yes, it would be interesting to know what’s going on behind-the-scenes.
Witty? We have a pretty good educated guess. Obama is going to fold. He did it on Iraq, he did it on Gitmo, he did it on health care and he’s going to keep doing it on peace and justice. If a friggin’ constitutional scholar can’t be bothered to care about the Constitution, I don’t think Netanyahu pissing on him is going to change many trends.
“You don’t know how Obama will respond to Netanyahu’s recent insults”
Yes we do. He’ll respond the same way he responded to the previous isults. He’ll pull down his pants, bend over and grab his ankles.
What we need to ponder is what they have over Obama. No one plays rougher and meaner than israel. They use honey-traps, extortion, blackmail, bribery, really all manner of tactics to gain compliance from those they target and they target them early. They only play hardball, so we have to wonder what do they have on Obama and others in his administration that made them capitulate so early on? Or, again giving into that tease Hope, he is sly like a fox and biding his time until he is ready to lay down a marker he will not budge from.
Why do we have to assume the fault is in the lobby? Maybe Obama was just as phony as Witty. That’s my theory.
Have you forgotten what the Lobby did following Obama’s Cairo speech between June and the end of last August to members of Congress?
When it should be obvious that Israel/AIPAC will stop at nothing to get it’s way, what they have over Obama is a Congress that has already shown itself to be overwhelmingly on Israel’s side and the fact that the Democratic Party is addicted to Jewish money. This has been a problem for the Democrats from the days of the lobby’s relative infancy. That is why the only two presidents who have gone before the voters, Eisenhower and Bush Sr., to tell the people the truth (and were instantly rewarded with high poll numbers) were Republicans.
Today, the Democrats are so infested with Zionists, much as the foundation of a house being eaten away by termites, that it is functionally usesless as even the health care debate has proven, and the Republicans infested with neofascists and bird-brains, yet it is more likely that a change in US policy towards Israel will come under a Republican administration than under a Democrat.
I agree.
I think Lieberman’s overt public defiance of Obama was part of the AIPAC victory lap. After it looked like his political future was doomed, following the election, Lieberman was allowed to keep his position in return for promising not to make trouble. Since then, that slezy piece of work has decided to violate the agreement – in true Zionist fashion.
Liberman’s threat to fillbuster is his way of reminding Obama who really won.
of course it’s interesting to know what’s going on behind the scenes, but let’s remember that there’s only one real way to judge what a politician’s true intentions are: by what they do. when bush threw palestinians under the bus time and again nobody wondered what his “true intentions” were. let’s face reality and judge obama by his actions. he has as much if not more palestinian blood on his hands as president bush or any other president before him, aside from his father let’s say.
Maybe Obama just doesn’t agree with you Phil. Maybe you’ve projected onto him your own neurosis. So don’t forgive him– whiny left wing bloggers in their fifties is a demographic with nowhere else to go.
Speaking of going nowhere, still looking for those WMDs in Iraq?
Look no further:
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-wmd-secreted-in-syria-sada-says/26514/
I know its a load of BS, but MRW hasn’t posted any conspiracy theories lately and I was longing for nonsense.
Try some fresh nonsense – that one is stale, flat and unprofitable.
Yes, because the first thing any tyrannical dictator is going to do with his secret nuclear weapons stockpile is to turn it over to a competing neighbor. I’m sure that’s what the US would do, turn their weapons over to Canada if China ever invaded the US.
I am beginning to fear that the trouble with Obama is that he doesn’t understand that true conflicts of interests exist and he doesn’t know how to use power. Obama believes that everyone’s interests are ultimately the same (that’s the religious Christian thing after all), and that if people can only be made to see where their long term real interests lie – by the power of his brilliant arguments and rhetoric – they will come around to his way of thinking. Its the hubris of being the smartest guy in the room – and a university professor to boot.
In the real world, people don’t often give a shit about long term or deep interests. And when words fail – as they usually do – you need to promise and/or threaten, and have the wherewithal and the balls to follow up.
But that would be too impolite and crass for a Harvard man.
stop the mental gymnastics to understand why obama does what he does. who cares? it’s irrelevant. he has stated on numerous occasions how he supports israel no matter what, etc. why don’t you take the administration at their word on this, and deduct through the US’s actions that they don’t care about Palestinians at all. Their job is to provide diplomatic cover of a “peace process” while Israel continues colonizing and seizing Palestine. Again: judge a man’s intentions by his actions, nothing more nothing less.
He was interviewed a few days ago on Fox, and, inter alia, was directly questioned about his stance on the settlements and Israel’s rejection of it. He said (1) Israel’s security is the top priority, and (2) Israel needs to realize that Israel’ s security is best gained by freezing the settlements for starters. He didn’t even mention the Palestinians.
We’ll see before long.
RE: “Here is my fantasy.” – Phil(l)ip
PHIL(L): Are you certain this is just a fantasy and not one of your trademark dreams? “Enquiring minds want to know.”
P.S. Do you realize that Philip “Phil” Spector (of ‘Wall of Sound’ fame) spells his first name with just one ‘L’. That might be worth thinking about, Phil.
Philip is the correct spelling, etymology-wise. Phillip is called a ‘variant’. In fact, it started from immigrants misspelling the name.
I certainly did not mean to imply that Phil Weiss is destined to become a homicidal maniac with a penchant for wearing freaky toupees just because he spells his name correctly (etymology-wise) instead of being a “variant”!
RE: “Phillip is called a ‘variant’. In fact, it started from immigrants misspelling the name.”
CONSIDER: Dickson, Dixon, Dickinson, Dickerson, etc.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: Philip
Philip is a given name, derived from the Greek Philippos (Φίλιππος), meaning “lover of horses” or “friend of horses”. From φίλος (philos) “lover” and ίππος (hippos) “horse”.[1][2][3][4] While the literal translation, in Ancient Greece, the ownership of horses was available only to those rich enough to afford them. Since beauty, wealth, and nobility were all synonymous, “lover of horses” can also be translated as “noble”. Philip has alternative spellings: Phillip, Philippe, Philipp, Felip, Felipe, Filip, Filippo, Filippu, Filipe, Filype, Phillep, Pilib, Fülöp, Fulup, and has the diminutive Phil…
P.S. It’s intended as a ‘running gag’. Making fun of the notion that individuals’ names can have a tremendous impact upon their lives. But then, there’s Marilyn Manson!
I wish I had an alliterative name.
My grandfather sometimes used the “diminutive” Jno. What the hell was that about?
FROM WIKIPEDIA: Running gag
A running gag is a literary device which often takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling.
Running gags can begin with an instance of unintentional humor that is repeated in variations as the joke grows familiar and audiences anticipate reappearances of the gag. The humor in a running gag may derive entirely from how often it is repeated, the (in)appropriateness of the situation in which the gag occurs, or setting up the audience to expect an occurrence of the joke and then substituting something else (bait and switch). Running gags are found mostly in sitcoms, but also appear in other places, such as video games, films, books, and comic strips.
A running gag can be verbal or visual and may “convey social values by echoing belligerent speakers with a barrage of caricatured threats.”[1] (e.g. – A character may present others with a proposition that is so ridiculous or outrageous it is likely to be self-mocking to the point where the original request has little or no chance of actually being carried out and results in a humorous effect.[1])
SOURCE – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_gag
P.S. Before anyone “bites”, I am well aware that ‘Marilyn Manson’ is not the dude’s “real” (given/Christian) name. So it couldn’t have made him ‘the way he is’; could it have? See, that’s part (and parcel) of the ‘running gag’. Anytime I explain a joke, I always include a new joke* in the explanation of the older joke. Just for the ‘living hell’ of it!
* Q – Excepting this time? A – “Whatever You Desire”
HINT: Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson (born January 5, 1969 as Brian Hugh Warner), is an American musician and artist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band. His stage name was formed from the names of actress Marilyn Monroe and convicted murderer[1] Charles Manson.[2][3] … Marilyn Manson was born as Brian Hugh Warner in Canton, Ohio, the only child of Barb Wyer and Hugh Jack Warner. His father was a Roman Catholic and his mother was an Episcopalian. According to his autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Manson is of German and Polish descent on his father’s side. He was raised [and/or razed - JLD] in his mother’s religion.[5] Warner attended Heritage Christian School from first grade to tenth grade. He later transferred to Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida…
RE: “Anytime I explain a joke, I always include a new joke* in the explanation of the older joke. Just for the ‘living hell’ of it!”
FURTHER ELABORATION: I also do this out of deference to entropy and perhaps enthalpy. I fear what might happen to our Universe if I do not make a new joke whilst explaining an older one. Perhaps a horrific implosion? The ‘Big Bust’? I certainly don’t want to be remembered for something like that.
Can we climb this mountain
I don’t know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let’s take it easy
Easy now
Watch it go
We’re burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane
That started turning
When you were young
When you were young…
“When You Were Young” Lyrics (excerpted)
Artist(Band): The Killers
‘OFFICIAL” MUSIC VIDEO – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxdrHbp6FzA
LIVE (Glastonbury 2007) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tdk60viEzA
A ‘DIFFERENT TAKE’ (by The Noisettes) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD_F0E4CXJ4
What always amazes me is how many people just look at the current situation as “reality,” America is truly the dream land of every aspiring dictator. How do you get people to take all of this without much more than a whimper? It reminds me of a lecture that John Pilger gave once, speaking of individuals in the Soviet Union and their amazement -
WHATS THE SECRET?
I think the fact that CNN feels the need to have a seperate version of it’s new Channel for US consumption, tells us all we need to know about the US and the ignorance of the population in general.
It’s much like the frog in boiling water.
The Obama fetish has been the worst part about this blog.
From the very start, the whole phenomenon was so calculated, so manipulative, and so shallow, but what do you expect from a society infatuated with celebrity, hypnotized by narrative, and generally oblivious to history?
All signs pointed to capitulation. The most courageous moment on Obama’s resume was an ineffectual vote against the Iraq invasion.
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