Don’t kid yourselves. The Adelsons got plenty for their money. They forced Obama rightward and to pledge even more fealty to Israel in order to insure that all those retirees in Florida did not abandon him for Romney in the election.
If anybody thinks that Obama is now going to do the right thing, they are absolutely naive. He is now even more beholden to the Israel Lobby (if that is possible.) He is not about be able to to jettison all those additional supporters of Israel who he was forced to take on in advisory roles in his campaign and will now form much of the core of his administration.
The tip off about his true intentions will come when we see if Obama starts supporting the UK in its increasing belligerence towards Syria.
The Episcopal Church lost all moral authority years ago. It has simply been bought and paid for.
A few years ago the late Ed Miller MD, a strong supporter of Palestinian rights told me a curious story.
Ed had managed to get Episcopal bishop Swing of California to sign a relatively mild petition supporting Palestinian rights. Then the bishop called Ed to tell him that he would have to withdraw his name from the petition. When Ed asked why he was told by Swing that “he (swing) wouldn’t get the funds necessary to repair the roof on San Francisco’s large and very impressive Grace Cathedral. Apparently these funds were coming from Jewish sources.
There are Jewish philanthropies like the Koret Foundation that use their funding of Prtoestant and Catholic groups specifically to silence these groups as regard Israel. These christian groups to this day don’t realize that there of specific strings attached to any funds they receive from these Jewish charities.
Years ago, probably the biggest single benefactor of the University of San Francisco (USF) , a Jesuit school, was the very wealthy hotel owner Ben Swig, an ardent supporter of both Israel and the Anti-Defamation League. He eventually became head of the school’s board of trustees. Professors were specifically told by school administrators told not to anger Swig by ever negatively mentioning Israel. By the time Swig died virtually all pro Palestinian voices at USF had been purged (if they didn’t have tenure) or silenced.
This sort of control didn’t end with Swig’s death. It continues through funding received from Jewish charities like the Koret Foundation and Bernard Osher Foundation that is given to church connected schools all over the USA.
The only professor that seems to be allowed to voice criticism of Israel at USF is Stephen Zunes, who is Jewish and therefore apparently kosher.
RE: “But you’re right that the stimulus got us out of the recession.”
The common refrain that invariably comes out of the left during economic downturns is that the unfeeling Republicans are against stimulus programs to revive the economy because they are cruel and unfeeling.
Are you kidding! What do you think defense spending is? The defense budget is undoubtedly the biggest ongoing government stimulus program of all is is widely supported by virtually all the supposedly free market Republican politicians and many Democrats. Unlike many pure welfare programs, it continues in times of both prosperity and economic downturn. The Republicans support this funding because it directly benefits their own middle class constituents. Cut out this defense spending your will see places like Seattle, Houston, and Los Angeles, all of which all have sizable aerospace industries, going on like support. A place like Fort Hood, Texas will have its residents foraging for aluminum cans overnight if significant defense cuts are made.
The cries for more taxes on the upper middle class and the rich are also problematical because these people are easily able to vote with their feet and move. I recently read that the high tax rate in California has resulted in the departure of one third (50 out of 150) of its highest tax payers. These people are moving to places like Texas and Florida that don’t have state income taxes. They could just as easily move out of the US and renounce their citizenship if they felt that the government was unduly picking on them. This is apparently what a growing number are thinking of doing. These people aren’t just socialite, coupon cutters living on inheritances. In many or most cases they are the entrepreneurs that set up companies that hired thousands of employees. When they leave, jobs leave also.
Many on the left have a short memory of the effects of high taxation. The last time a country truly went after its highest income makers was in the UK starting post World War Two and ending in the 1970s. This was true income redistribution, not the fake sort like in the USA (or like that in the rest of Europe) where high marginal tax rates were mitigated by numerous deductions, tax shelters, or outright cheating which governments chose to overlook.
The result of the high tax rates in the UK was the so called “brain drain” that occurred during this period. Huge numbers of technologically skilled high earners (medical doctors, engineers, etc) simply fled the country for places like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, a loss that crippled the UK for decades to come. (It ended up with the UK government totally corrupting both its tax system and the accounting systems of its private corporations by allowing tax free “perks” to be used in lieu of regular income in order to stop its most talented workers from fleeing. It wasn’t uncommon to see tuition at Eton College, gourmet lunches, free use of company owned villas in mainland Europe, or even prostitutes being doled out as tax free “perks” to favored employees.
The ultra wealthiest UK citizens simply moved to places like Switzerland where the income they made outside the UK wasn’t taxed. When these mega earners moved they often ended up bringing defacto their company headquarters along with them. (Google the current residences of the founders of mammoth, privately held companies like IKEA and ALDI (owners of, among other things, the Trader Joe’s chain of stores). None live in their native countries because of high taxes. When they left jobs invariably followed them.)
What people are seeing now is an economic debacle that resulted directly from an unfettered Federal Reserve Banking system that has promoted deficit spending for all sorts of government funding, both for defense and welfare, for decades. The Republicans always have made made great, faux, wailing sounds about this deficit spending but made no attempt to really control the (privately owned) Fed, its ultimate source, simply because they, like their Democratic brethren, are absolutely dependent on this unfunded spending for re-election. Ethanol anyone!
Israel has never been particularly eager to get in a war where there is even a remote chance of substantial Israeli causalities. It will however be more than happy to goad Obama into attacking Iran while at the same time promising their usual faux pledges of assistance right up to the day of the presidential election. After that day their leverage over Obama runs out.
Someone has already mentioned the Kurds. What is happening in the Kurdish area of Iraq gives us a blueprint for what is meant to happen in Iran after it is defeated. The oil rich Kurdish area of Iraq is now fully independent and has an Israeli proxy government firmly in place. Scores of Israeli mercenaries or IDF members control the area’s military and governmental affairs. (These mercenaries and IDF members often speak excellent American English and try to give the impression to visitors that that they are actually working work for the American government when they are not. Even the representatives of the US government there don’t know which team they are actually on.)
The Israelis will not be above using terror to frighten out the few remaining Americans who try to stay in the Kurdish area. The Israelis already know that the US like the UK before them, will quickly run away if exposed to the sort of false flag operations the Israelis are so proficient in committing. Then the Israelis will the Kurdish oil to themselves.
The road to Iran runs through Syria. After looking at a map of Iran oil reserves I have come to the conclusion that Israel plans to split the oil rich areas there off from the rest of the country and control these regions using the same mix of IDF troops and Israeli paid mercenaries with air support. This can easily be done if Israel’s new colony also controls part of the Iranian coast from which to ship the newly acquired petroleum and to which to receive essential supplies. Along with the sanctions against her, this denial of oil revenue will result in Iran becoming impoverished and no longer any sort of threat to Israel.
The US has proved to be the loser in the Iraq war. It will also prove to be the patsy in any war with Iran. Israel fully intends to end up with all that oil.
I notice from his comments that the only one that tokyobk feels is unworthy of an invitation to one of his little love fests is Gilad Atzmon.
Gilad Atzmon should feel complimented. Apparently tokyobk and his cohorts are at VERY aware of Atzmon’s new book “The Wandering Who”. The majority of them have probably been under orders not to read it but are VERY aware of its purported contents and consider it a truly existential threat of what appears to be almost Spinoza like proportions.
I have heard Atzmon speak on two occasions. Both occasions were picketed by both Zionists and, interestingly enough, by supposed anti-Zionists.The first time he spoke the audience was full of people like tokyobk who attempted to take and embarrass Atzmon on and in the question section that followed his speech. Atzmon’s replies to both their questions simply rendered them, for probably the first time in their lives, speechless. They ended up simply sitting there, mouths agape and fuming. Having their hypocrisy made so apparent, for probably the first time, by the absolutely fearless Atzmon was too much for them. I was struck by their sudden, strange, and very uncharacteristic silence.
They were nowhere to be seen, except for picketing outside, during the second Atzmon speech I attended a year or so later. As usual they had tried to get his speech canceled but to no avail. Their lack of attendance at the speech itself showed that they weren’t into being hardily spanked twice.