Focused on issues or trivia, US media giants continue to revel in election politics. Three US senators have been busily campaigning for nominations for the US presidency.
Whether it's Hillary Clinton trying to be more macho than her male opponents, or John McCain attempting to display more chutzpah than G W Bush, or Barak Obama disowning the mentor he should be praising, the whole process is a sideshow on demand.
The "on demand" part of the sideshow comes from the American public. If the republicans wanted brains at the helm rather than a Bush clone, they would have nominated Ron Paul, a candidate whose foreign policy would keep America from pre-emptive and presumptive wars.
Paul wouldn't be spending his time in Florida trying to convince voters there, as McCain has, that the democratic candidates would jeopardize Israel's security and that the US should bomb Iran.
If the democrats didn’t believe that change can only be made by electing either a woman or a black American, they might have nominated Dennis Kucinich, the only candidate with the brains and the integrity to bring about real change. Kucinich wouldn't be threatening, as Hillary Clinton has, to "totally obliterate" Iran.
To his credit, Obama had enough sense to reject that sort of saber-rattling when he told Tim Russert of MSNBC it's "important that we use language that sends a signal to the world community that we're shifting from the sort of cowboy diplomacy, or lack of diplomacy, that we've seen out of George Bush. And this kind of language is not helpful."
In the early debates, Kucinich revealed that he wouldn't run from the
truth even when it hurt. Unfortunately, he couldn't convince the voters
that the most patriotic citizens often criticize and accept deserved
criticism of their own country.
Obama ran from the truth of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons and
turned on his pastor. In his most famous sermon, Wright told the truth:
We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the
Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took
Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them
enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed
innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black
civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed
teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We
bombed Khadafy’s home and killed his child. 'Blessed are they who bash
your children's head against a rock!'
We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We
bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. We
killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left
home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home.
We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the
thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye!
Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after
school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by
day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and
Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we
have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards!
America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence.
Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism.
Obama should have praised his pastor’s integrity and wisdom. Ron Paul
would have. Dennis Kucinich would have. But they lost. The real losers:
the American public and the Middle East.
Don't give up on Ron Paul just yet. Even the mainstream media is starting to pay attention. He's gotten over 1 million votes and his new book hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. More than 1/2 of the GOP is not thrilled that John McCain is the PRESUMPTIVE nominee. Watch out for a big suprise in St. Paul. Nothing is over yet!
1
May 17, 2008
UberPatriot: ...
Obama had to sever ties with Rev. Wright even though Wright was just telling the unvarnished truth. It was a cowardly thing to do on Obama's part but his campaign would have been over if he had not. That's politics.
I blame the American people for being so stupid en masse to not understand what Reverand Wright was saying. It's very simple but Americans seem incapable of tolerating self criticism even when the criticism is not aimed at the American people but American foreign policy. In America there is this pervasive and bizarre mindset of superficial uber-patriotism that overrides all appeals to reason.
2
May 17, 2008
Duke: US Citizen living abroad
It is always good to read text like this from US people that can think and are not fooled by the press. I have been very saddened to see that more and more the biggest priority for anyone running for office is for them to show that Israel's interests are more important than that of the US. As mentioned by many world leaders, including those in Israel, that the real superpower (in influence)is Israel, not the US.
3
May 17, 2008
Anna: None
I am saddened that so much of my entire life has been usurped by Israel's control of our sell-out Congress. I wish that we could have back all of the dollars that we gave in support of that country since its inception and that all of the Congress people who took money from AIPAC as a bribe to give that money to Israel would have to repay the money they took from AIPAC to us in the U.S. One would think, from all of the money that we have paid, that we were the ones committing the holocaust instead of the ones liberating Germany and inheriting, by default as the world's new leader, Britain's Balfour Declaration. Who dictated that we would stand in Britain's place on this issue? I would really like to know...
4
May 17, 2008
Gregor: The big surprise in St. Paul
The big surprise in St. Paul won't be a surprise at all. Just the city's finest beating the hell out of the antiwar protesters.
5
May 17, 2008
Jayne: Israel
Yes, what a shame, Anna, that the U.S. wasted one dime on Israel, as authorized by the AIPAC Congress which, as you know, has been ruled by AIPAC since this country was founded by--- oh, right --- a group of other folks who committed genocide against "Indians." It's not too late to repair the damage, though. There may be one or two gas chambers left in Auschwitz, whaddya think, so we can get rid not just of the Israelis, but those pesky Jews altogether.
It astonishes me how many people, both here and abroad, try to pass themselves off as Leftists---isn't that what the NAZI party tried to do, too?
Shame on those who blame AIPAC, Israel, and Jews for the world's problems---you are the problem, not the solution. Fact is, the only one high-minded enough to recognize the need to unite, and stop the plague of hate, and race-bashing, is Barack Obama. But, we wouldn't want anyone capable of seeing two sides of the issue? We want a "progressive" version of George W. Bush whose jihad isn't against Radical Islam, or "Islamofascists," but AIPAC instead.
Wake up, and do the math-----Jews comprise 2.5% of the world's population. Anyone who thinks Israel, or Jews, are that powerful needs to go back and take Basic Math 101.
Time to expose, and stop, the kind of hate that led, in the early days of the Weimar Republic, to branding numbers on the arms of citizens. Time to expose, and stop, the posturing that tries to pass itself off as "progressive" as a way to mask an attempt to continue the Final Solution of the Third Reich.
6
May 17, 2008
Anna: None
Hi, Jayne,
Thanks for your comments; I am not a hater of Jews; I just think that it is ridiculous that Israel is our No. 1 recipient of foreign aid each year; not to mention the transfers of military hardware and technology which are compiled on top of that "aid". Israel is not a "developing nation"--third world country, if you will. The per capita income there approaches that of countries in the E.U. (and surpasses that of the newly admitted former Eastern Bloc countries). Why are we continuing this absurd foreign policy? I can assure you that there are many, many countries in the world that could use the $3,000,000,000 we give Israel per year to save their populations from starvation.
I spent the first 40 years of my life supporting Israel unequivocally; that I introduced a little balance by questioning our lack of balance in our approach to Israeli-Palestinian problems is a result of seeing the world from outside the "bubble" that we are subjected to in the U.S. Even Israelis (those Israelis living in Israel, of course--not those with dual nationality living in the U.S.) think that our media and our system prevents us from having the openness that they have within Israel.
Noam Chomsky and Norman G. Finkelstein question our policies. I question them, too...
You can be sarcastic about AIPAC's influence. It exists and your sarcasm can't erase the influence. Obama high-minded on the issue? I doubt it. The only candidate that has not deviated from his principles, even to the point of willingly losing the election, is Ron Paul.
7
May 19, 2008
Anna: None
U.S. aid to Israel since 1973, according to Thomas R. Stauffer, who taught at Georgetown University and Harvard, 1.7 trillion dollars and another 1.8 trillion dollars in preferential contracts and aid buried in other accounts. His economic research was published in the June 2003 issue of "The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs". Other hidden costs to Americans: the loss of 275,000 jobs per year. According to Stauffer, this is nothing compared to what the global community paid in the same period, between 6 and 12 trillion dollars! Obviously, he couldn't access economic information for all of the transfers from all of the countries of the world. Norman Finkelstein's "Holocaust Industry" didn't delve into this realm of things. However, his book was published before these facts were published...
8
May 19, 2008
Anna: None
I didn't research enough; I found that the GDP per capita of Israelis is almost the same as the GDP per capita for residents of Alabama and Kentucky, never mind the GDP of Slovenia, a former East-Bloc country. I was hoping to say that of the residents of Louisiana, but we have managed to jump up the totem pole of GDP per capita. I can't believe we beat Kentucky in GDP per capita!
9
May 19, 2008
Eric: Excellent research Anna
I am impressed with your research. I suggest everyone read The Isreal Lobby by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. An excellent book, written from the Jewish perspective of AIPAC and other associated groups. Well worth the $17 on Amazon.
10
May 19, 2008
Anna: None
Thanks, Eric,
I have read Mearsheimer. I have read the articles posted by Torah Jews against Zionism. It seems to me that we cannot question the practices of Zionism without being called anti-semites because we are non-Jews. As a friend told me, (he is Jewish and very unhappy with the Israeli treatment of Palestinians) that if non-Jews don't question the status quo, nothing will ever change. I resisted because I didn't want to be known as an "anti-semite", but I learned later that Arabs are semites, too. So the entire semite/anti-semite question is null and void because Palestininians are semites, too. Go figure. ..semites verus semites.
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May 19, 2008
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