A discussion thread at DU. It was started by a poster named "BenDavid" who uses a Star of David as his avatar (seems to be self-identifying with a particular ethnic and religious/cultural affiliation, ya think?), and he asks:
What is the goal of the Democratic Party? If it is to nominate a Black man then we should vote for obama. BUT, What if our goal is to win the White House?
He then goes on to deploy one of the standard Hillary arguments: she does better in swing states, yadda yadda yadda. He finishes with:
I thought you obama folks have been saying for months on end that we weren't supposed to notice if voters were Black, white or purple. Maybe you are looking in the wrong damn place to brand us HRC supporters bigots and racist.
One poster responds with:
You are going to get flamed big time.
. . . which is like predicting that it'll get dark tonight. There's a scattering of the usual "RACIST!" allegations, and then this curious gem from a poster calling him/her/itself "Independent-Voter":
Ahhh, our jewish friend throwing the race card! No surprises here.
That's what I find interesting. "Independent-Voter" is only the ninth person to respond--posting about ten minutes after the thread got started--and he responds to a comment he doesn't like, made by a person clearly self-identifying as Jewish, with a fat scoop of anti-Semitism. This, in a forum at the very center of the heart of the party of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion.
As of this writing, the DU thread is about a half hour old. It might be an interesting sociological experiment to come back later and see if (1) there are more overtly anti-Semitic replies, and (2) if anyone calls out "Independent-Voter" on his/her/its anti-Semitism.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/09/2008 13:27 ||
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The thread got locked by a Mod for being "racist" by post #37.
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There was one reply to "Independent-Voter" before the thread got locked down:
I am a jew. This cat don't speak for me. (shudder)
Posted by: Mike ||
05/09/2008 15:27 Comments ||
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CNN > BLITZER'S BEST POLITICAL TEAM > are all gener asking the question how does Hillary benefit by staying in the race, as BLITZER > her SUPERDELEGATE LEAD IS NOW DOWN TO FOUR AHEAD OF OBAMA.
On one of my first trips beyond the wire here in Afghanistan I went into the Zhari and Panjway districts of Kandahar province. At one of our strong points, six young Afghan boys approached the concertina wire to speak with the soldiers. Through a series of gestures, I finally understood what they wantednot candy, toys, or money, but rather pens and paper. As I searched through my pockets and ripped my combat note pad up, I learned a lessondont leave Kandahar Air Field (KAF) without extra pens and papers.
A public school system was enshrined in the Afghan constitution of 1964. Thirty years of war and conflict however interrupted the focus and resources for education and meant a generation of Afghanis has grown up without formal education. As the Government of Afghanistan rebuilds the education system from scratch, sending children to school is still a life and death risk for children, parents, and especially for teachers. Ironically, the root word of Taliban is talib which means learner or student. The insurgents war on the education system is in essence a war on the tools for critical thinking and broader knowledge. It is an attempt to prove to the civilian population the government cannot protect them. The Talibans perception is the current education system in the country, and especially the education of girls, is un-Islamic.
My heart has been captured by the Afghan community in the Kandahar Airfield base. Here, the families of the Afghan National Army (ANA) live, while their men are being trained by NATO forces to secure their country from the insurgence. In old apartment blocks, which are remnants of the Soviet Occupation, a school flourishes with 600 students (male and female), and a staff of 19 teachers. Chalk boards are still the norm as there are few other teaching tools or supplies, but there is no doubt of the passion the principal has for obtaining resources. I have listened to his hopes and fears. He speaks of educating children not so they may have a good job with upward mobility, a generous salary, or great benefits. He says with his gentle constrained passion, that unless their children can become doctors, lawyers, teachers, mechanic, and technicians Afghanistan will never have a future and will be plunged into the dark ages.
In 2008 more Afghans now attend school and receive education than at any other point in its history. Yet, there is still so far to go when so many more are illiterate. In this country, the journey of a thousand miles really begins with the first step. Driving through this country I have seen more graveyards than I have ever seen in my life. Painted white stones piled on bodies, which lay on hard, hard ground. Colored flags hang on tattered bamboo poles. When I asked our interpreter what the flags meant he said they marked the graves of those who were shaheed martyrs or witnesses who have died for their faith. I wonder how many of those graves are the graves of teachers.
Rev. Jim Short is Team Leader for the Roto 5 Chaplains for the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan
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want to see a lot of graveyards? go to south vietnam, they are everywhere and they are full of charlie because all the graveyards with any touch of RVN have been obliterated.
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"Will never have a future and be plunged [back] into the Dark Ages" > OR WORSE, WHICH SHOULD REMIND MAINSTREAM AMER THAT WOT > BOTH ISLAM AND RADIC ISLAMISM = WAR FOR SURVIVAL + WAR TO THE DEATH.
Dwight Eisenhower once observed, History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. The danger of weakness in prosecuting the War on Terror brings to mind the wisdom of Eisenhowers prescient observation.
Consider the recent decision by the Department of Defense to award a $35 billion contract to build Americas fleet of refueling tankers to the French-owned European Aerospace Defense and Space Company (EADS). In one of the most colossal blunders of the struggle against the terrorists, we have handed over the future of a vital tool in the projection of U.S. power over to bureaucrats and politicians in Russia and France.
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According to a New York Times report just last October, a French financial regulator turned over evidence of insider trading by senior EADS executives to prosecutors. The executives failed to inform the public about production delays in the A-380 jumbo jet while they quietly dumped their own stock. When the delays became public, unwitting shareholders watched their holdings plummet in value. The co-CEO and co-chairman of EADS resigned under pressure, and now some EADS executives may face indictments.
Even more worrisome is the power grab by Vladimir Putin, who is buying up the depressed shares of EADS like a corporate raider. The prospect of the authoritarian Russian leader, whose political opponents are harassed and jailed while prying journalists turn up missing or murdered, having a heavy hand in EADS affairs is deeply troubling. Russia opposed the invasion of Iraq and has sought to undermine U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The most troubling aspect of the tanker contract is the danger it poses to U.S. national security. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, EADS has been a leading proliferator of weapons and technology to some of the most hostile regimes in the world, including Iran and Venezuela. When the U.S. formally objected to EADS selling cargo and patrol planes to Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez, EADS tried to circumvent U.S. law by stripping American-built components from the aircraft.
Chavez is now building an oil refinery in Cuba to keep Castros failed Communist state afloat, funding terrorists seeking the violent overthrow of Colombias government, and recently meddled in the presidential election in Argentina with secretly smuggled cash contributions. If EADS had its way, Chavez would now be advancing his anti-American designs in the Western hemisphere with U.S. technology and components.
EADS entanglements with Venezuela make the Pentagons decision to waive the Berry Amendment, which prohibits the export of technology that might be developed during the building of the tanker to third parties, indefensible.
Given the sophisticated radar and anti-missile capabilities of military tankers, this is no small matter. Such technology falling into the hands of state sponsor of terrorism would devastate our war fighters.
There's lots more at the site! Including sales to Iran of military and possibly, some nuclear stuff. Scary stuff
#2
A late posting @ seattlepi.com features this story:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/362552_tanker10.html
Short version: Senators from several states are calling BS on the new EADS claim of creating 48k new jobs to assemble the tanker. originally they claimed 25k. These new numbers are, i think, in response to the serial ad campaign by Boeing "It doesn't add up."
The full-court press to force Hillary from the presidential race ain't working. She will win the West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico primaries. . . .
Hillary's only hope is that the super delegates will come to their senses and realize that Barack Obama's relationships with the corrupt Tony Rezko, the racist-wife stealing Jeremiah Wright, and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers will provide the Republicans with ammunition they have never had at hand to use against the Democrats' candidate. This is particularly true of that flag stomper, Bill Ayers.
Think not? Just read what the execrable Bob Novak wrote today:
The test of Obama's strategy may be his friendship with and support from William Ayers, an unrepentant member of the Weathermen terrorist underground of the 1960s and '70s. Instead of totally disavowing Ayers as he belatedly did his former pastor, Obama potentially deepened his problem by referring to Ayers as just a college professor -- "a guy who lives in my neighborhood." He then compared their relationship to his friendship with conservative Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, just as he compared Wright's racism to his white grandmother's.
Democrats abhor bringing up what Obama calls Ayers's "detestable acts 40 years ago," but they will be brought into the public arena even if that is not McCain's style of politics. A photo of Ayers stomping on the American flag in 2001 has been all over the Internet this week. That was the year Obama accepted a $200 political contribution from Ayers and the year in which the former Weatherman said: "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."
While McCain will not demand a response from Obama, others will. How the prospective nominee handles this will help define whether he is seen as flawed or fantastic in the long campaign ahead.
We may now understand why Barack does not wear a flag lapel pin. He's afraid that Bill Ayers will stomp on him. Ouch!
Posted by: Mike ||
05/09/2008 10:03 ||
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Hillary will not win the nomination. Reading the news in the last week, it is clear that it is over. However, it is absolutely wonderful to see that the Hillary campaign is NOT giving up and that they plan to fight against the new Democratic nominee to the bitter end.
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One thing to remember -- the author is Larry (who wrote in July 2001 that the threat of international terrorism is being exaggerated) Johnson, who's an @ssclown.
Posted by: tibor ||
05/09/2008 15:28 Comments ||
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Libor: yes, he's an @ssclown, but:
1. It's the Democratic Party and the Huffasnuffaluffagus Post we're talking about here, so @ssclownism is nothing unusual.
2. You gotta admit, those last two sentences are a lovely bit of snark.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/09/2008 16:05 Comments ||
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How did the Reverend Wright earn the appellation "wife stealing"?
#1
McCain's handlers are telling him to raise the flag on occasion, while sitting by as Billary and Obewan go at it tooth and nails. Why on earth would the GOP make all their political promises, before the convention?
#2
True 'nuff, but still, you'd like to see the man doing the smart things right now. Obama has it about in the bag, so now's the time for McCain to step it up some. Getting in a good visit to Michigan, good local press, hitting issues that the Mitten State cares about, would be smart.
What he did was dumb. Aarrgh.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/09/2008 14:43 Comments ||
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Something that Republicans should be ready to deal with is the possibility that McCain could drop dead at any moment. Nothing nefarious, mind you, just from age and poor health.
And then what would happen? To say that it would be the most interesting national convention ever would be an understatement. Ironically, the winning candidate would be the one who appealed to the conservative base that are most of the delegates. The country club set and special interests would be almost blocked out.
Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans have no superdelegates, so one vote is worth one vote. It would truly be the most representative nomination ever.
The 60th anniversary of Israel's founding has understandably focused much of the attention of Middle Eastern analysts on this old and familiar problem. But if they think this remains the prime security issue for the region, they may be looking in the wrong direction.
India this week successfully completed the testing program of its nuclear-capable Agni-3 missile, designed and developed by the state-owned Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
The third test launch took place May 7, and flew 3,000 kilometers to its targeted impact site in the Indian Ocean south of the equator from the Dhamra base in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. The full range is 3,500 kilometers, which would bring Shanghai most of southern China into its range.
Welcome to the new security landscape of Asia, with China and India now capable of repeating what in the bad old days of the Cold war used to be called "the balance of terror" between nuclear superpowers.
Since India and China are each dependent on Middle Eastern oil exports which pass through the Indian Ocean, good relations between these two Asian giants is of prime importance to all Middle Eastern countries. And having less than comfortable memories of living under a similar state of nuclear deterrence between two superpowers during the Cold War, the Middle East is going to have to get used to it all over again.
Of course, the relationship between India and China is far more open and friendly than that between the United States and the old Soviet Union. And there are further nuclear complications in the region involving Israel and Pakistan and the possible nuclear ambitions of Iran.
India has already brought into operational deployment the 700-kilometer-range Agni-1 missile, which is presumably targeted on Pakistan, and the 2,000-kilometer-range Agni-2 missile, which can reach Iran and much of the Gulf. Even before its expected "stretch" to a 5,000 kilometer range, the new Agni-3 missile is capable of hitting targets across the entire Middle East, as well as deep inside China.
Like the nuclear weapon the Agni-3 is intended to carry, the missile is a product of home-grown Indian technology. By contrast, Pakistan's shorter-range missiles depend on Chinese and North Korean technology. Indeed, the Indians are frustrated at the lack of any progress on the vaunted American promise of technological cooperation on space and rocketry. And the U.S. still bans any country from using an Indian launch vehicle to launch a satellite that contains even a single U.S.-made component.
Despite American foot-dragging, India is a nuclear power with the missile capabilities to exert wide regional influence. It also deploys the most formidable navy in the region, which will be even more capable once the fleet of new French-built Scorpene submarines take to sea. The Middle East is going to have to learn to live with another democratic superpower flexing muscles in its back yard.
Posted by: john frum ||
05/09/2008 18:22 ||
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Like the nuclear weapon the Agni-3 is intended to carry, the missile is a product of home-grown Indian technology
Well, maybe the engineers were born in India. I'll bet a lot of the technology was lifted from American programs. But wherever it came from, it's probably for the better.
. . . I feel compelled to talk about some things, but on the other hand, Ive nothing to add. Israels 60th anniversary, for example: Im glad. Hearty congrats, and good luck. I did hear an interview about the subject on the Prager show, and he noted this tiny country the size of New Jersey had more members of the international media than most nations, and wondered why. Seems obvious: no one who wants to report on the other actors in the neighborhood wants to be there. Whod want to live in Syria? A posting like that would be like scraping your teeth on a concrete wall all day.
Unfortunately, I suspect its easier to regard everyone in the area as morally equal actors if youre reporting from a nice place with good beaches and lively bars and women who do crazy things like drive cars and wear bikinis; like the rest of the West, you begin to think that everyone wants the same thing, more or less, like cars and ice in their drinks and a day at the beach, but that only goes so far and its also not entirely relevant when the other societies in the neighborhood arent free. And so you have stories that report The Israeli Position, which is the result of free elections imperfectly filtered through the fractious nature of democracy, and The Syrian Position, which is the result of Assad the Minor nodding yes, of course when Iran calls on the phone.
Speaking of which: always one with the quick quip, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labeled the Zionist regime as a stinking corpse and said those who think they can revive the corpse of this fabricated and usurper regime are in mistaken."
If you think he was taken out of context, well, thats from the Iranian news agency. Its enough just to point out the quote and let it sit there and stink. File that one away with the others. The future should never come as a surprise to anyone whos been paying attention. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
05/09/2008 09:16 ||
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Ever since the Trojans welcomed the Wooden Horse, full of armed Greeks, into their city, rulers and regimes have unintentionally defeated themselves.
But as the last month has made obvious, with the rule of Hamas in Gaza we have something else entirely: not folly, but a strategy designed to inflict self-harm.
The clearest, but by no means the only example of this is the fuel crisis that has brought transportation in Gaza to a virtual standstill. Even as it harshly condemned the Israeli "siege" of the Gaza Strip, Hamas acted to exacerbate the problem by repeatedly confiscating fuel trucks and carrying out attacks on border crossings.
On April 9, it launched an assault on the fuel terminal at Nahal Oz, which provides gas and fuel to the residents of the Strip. Last week, Hamas militiamen attacked trucks heading toward the Nahal Oz crossing that carried fuel intended for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and hospitals in the Gaza Strip. And the IDF was forced on Sunday to halt deliveries through the Karni crossing after vehicles came under Palestinian mortar fire while attempting to deliver food and fuel to Gazans.
Hamas, of course, does not have a monopoly on such self-harm; in one form or another, the tactic is shared by all terrorist movements, including the intifadas that brought such ruin to the Palestinian population.
How then are we to understand such self-defeating behavior? There are two ways, as political scientist James Q. Wilson has said, of thinking about terrorism. One is to see terrorism as an extreme expression of underlying injustices, and to assume that if the root problem is solved, the symptom will disappear.
The second, and more realistic, is to understand that whatever the underlying injustice, there are terrorists who by their very nature oppose solutions that would remedy that injustice. Any reform or amelioration, short of destroying the state, threatens their raison d'etre.
THIS LESSON must guide Israel's response to Hamas's offer of a truce. Khaled Mashaal, the group's Damascus-based leader, said Monday that his movement would offer Israel a 10-year hudna if it withdrew from all areas it captured in 1967. Gaza-based Hamas representatives Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam have been in Cairo as part of Egyptian mediation efforts toward a cease-fire.
The problem with such offers is not merely that Hamas would use a truce to rearm and regroup. Mashaal himself, after all, has proclaimed as much. "It is a tactic in conducting the struggle; it is normal for any resistance that operates in its people's interest... to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit," he said in a recent interview with Al-Jazeera television. Nor is it merely that the offer is accompanied by further threats of violence. Hamas has warned of an "unprecedented escalation" against Israel if it does not agree soon to the cease-fire offer, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday. It is also an offer that exploits both Israel's justified fear of further terrorist attacks and our sense of concern vis-à-vis Gaza's growing humanitarian crisis.
The real problem, however, is that here too, Hamas's aim is not to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict, but precisely to exacerbate it - to weaken the Israeli adversary and foster the illusion that the next set of concessions will be the last. "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill," Sun Tzu said in the 4th century BCE.
IN INTERNATIONAL relations, as in other dimensions of life, the good intentions of others alone cannot aid those who refuse to help themselves. As the US is now learning in Iraq, for instance, democracy cannot be imposed on Arab societies from without. Much as Israel may wish for progressive reforms in Palestinian Arab society and for the concomitant relief of Palestinian suffering, such salvation need come from within.
Civilized nations are in an unenviable position when confronting regimes dedicated to the tragic ethos of self-harm. In the case of Hamas, the best approach remains continued adherence to the Quartet's policy of no contact with Hamas until it accepts the international community's three conditions for engagement: recognizing Israel's right to exist, renouncing terrorism and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2008 00:00 ||
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The unability of the supposed pundits to grasp the simple fact that Arabs, and to a lesser extent all Muslims, live in a Zero Sum games Universe never ceases to amaze me. It's like talking planetary orbits with pre-Keplerian astronomers.
Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.
Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."
To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.
If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.
"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."
The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.
The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.
"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."
#1
Modern liberals are professional grievance mongers.
When the world is not sufficiently unfair to justify their worldview, these cultural Marxists manufacture an oppressor class and an oppressed class - a sure formula for a permanently embittered existence.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
On one of my first trips beyond the wire here in Afghanistan I went into the Zhari and Panjway districts of Kandahar province. At one of our strong points, six young Afghan boys approached the concertina wire to speak with the soldiers. Through a series of gestures, I finally understood what they wantednot candy, toys, or money, but rather pens and paper. As I searched through my pockets and ripped my combat note pad up, I learned a lessondont leave Kandahar Air Field (KAF) without extra pens and papers.
Larry C. Johnson, Huffasnuffaluffagus Post
