I want to see the United States draw back from militarism and adopt policies that match the rhetoric from times past, before every country we did not like or that had something we wanted had weapons of mass destruction or were oppressing their own people. Mostly, I want us to stop making allies of murderous regimes and training people we will later have to kill. At the same time bring the military's use of money into accountability.
@Lash,
Lash wrote:Accusations of antisemitism for speaking out against murder are unacceptable.
Not when the "speaking out" is falsely accusing Jews of imaginary murders.
@blatham,
blatham wrote:Lash gets this right.
No she doesn't. It is in no way acceptable to falsely accuse Jews of imaginary murders.
blatham wrote:Skipping right past the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla ordered by the IDF
Stop lying Adolf. The IDF ordered no such massacres.
blatham wrote:and the matter of Palestinian youth getting bullets in the head for throwing rocks, etc,
You may not like it that Jews have the same right to defend themselves that everyone else has, but they do.
blatham wrote:there's this...
It really bothers you that so few Jews were killed doesn't it?
@georgeob1,
go back and look at the linked posts. Finn deemed the post from Lash merely an instance of a baseless moral objection. Here's what Lash wrote:
Quote:Accusations of antisemitism for speaking out against murder are unacceptable.
and your point "favorable trends over time" is irrelevant to the question at hand.
@blatham,
False accusations that Jews are murdering people are certainly baseless.
But antisemitic hate speech is much much worse than a mere baseless accusation.
@edgarblythe,
Don't we all. Well, except for the big weapons-producing (and related) businesses making billions every year selling their products and services around the world. Peace is not in interests of these folks.
Krupp began producing and marketing cannons when the railroad building boom went into decline (rails now in place, boxcars built). They needed new markets for steel. Money was the thing. As it is now.
@blatham,
No. We don't all want to see the US disarm and see freedom and democracy destroyed throughout the planet.
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:I want to see the United States draw back from militarism
The day we do that is the day we are all massacred by the bad guys.
No thanks.
edgarblythe wrote:and adopt policies that match the rhetoric from times past, before every country we did not like or that had something we wanted had weapons of mass destruction or were oppressing their own people. Mostly, I want us to stop making allies of murderous regimes and training people we will later have to kill.
We are already doing this. We implemented those very policy changes the moment the Soviet Union collapsed.
edgarblythe wrote:At the same time bring the military's use of money into accountability.
The military has always been accountable.
People such as oralloy see backing off from murderous, self destructive, even, militarism as total capitulation, much the way he/she sees gun control as taking away every single weapon from the public. Moderation is not in the dictionary he/she reads.
@blatham,
blatham wrote:Krupp began producing and marketing cannons when the railroad building boom went into decline (rails now in place, boxcars built).
When the Krupp steelworks made the first cannon of cast steel in 1847, we just had some dozens of kilometres of steel railway tracks. And 1847 marks the year, when the railway system reached the - later called - Ruhr district.
Krupp produced railway tracks [Bessemer processed] from 1862 onward.
It is indisputable that the Democratic Party, under the mainstream leadership, has lost ground so consistently to the right wing that it seems they just might prefer it like that. Before Trump came along, the fix already was in place. I can recognize that Nixon successfully stilled the momentum of the surging left wing (as in antiwar protests and huge on campus demonstrations), making Reagan's task easier with his personal popularity and voodoo economics. But the Democrats became a party of weakness in the face of the Republican onslaught. They act weak even when in the driver's seat. Bill Clinton seemed to reverse some of that, except that on closer inspection, he was being hailed a political genius for doing Republican things before the Republicans could do them. Obama, with control of the congress, sat on his hands, mostly, and much of his presidency was a continuation of Bush's presidency. The result: There barely exists social spending, and it gets consistently reduced. I don't have time to write more just now, but the more astute among you don't really need more to see where my conclusion was leading.
@edgarblythe,
I will send you a copy of Jane Mayer's Dark Money if you'll promise to actually read it. I'm in a Robin Hood mood.
Edit: actually take this exciting option instead. Much better for those with limited time and it gets to the key points of what Mayer's book is about.
Lewis Lapham's "The Tentacles of Rage" published in Harpers
Please read it. Please please please please please
@blatham,
I know about dark money, how it pushes the forces that subvert the country and what they want. What I am protesting are the willing dupes.
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:People such as oralloy see backing off from murderous, self destructive, even, militarism as total capitulation,
Not defending ourselves from the bad guys does indeed mean allowing them to massacre us.
edgarblythe wrote:much the way he/she sees gun control as taking away every single weapon from the public.
Outlawing assault weapons does indeed mean taking them away from people.
edgarblythe wrote:Moderation is not in the dictionary he/she reads.
I simply prefer facts.
@edgarblythe,
I said "please" you unmannered bastard.
Seriously, unless one has studied the specifics of this story, one misses probably the most important cause of what you are objecting to. It is not self-evident.
Quote:The Democrats have an Israel problem — and it’s not Ilhan Omar
...The bigger trouble for Democrats is embodied in the man who has dominated Israeli politics for the past decade — and who is favored in upcoming national elections. Benjamin Netanyahu has doggedly and successfully worked to thwart the goal pursued by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and still embraced by most Democrats: a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He relentlessly campaigned against Obama’s nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, an initiative most Democrats still support.
Along the way, he has openly wedded Israel’s government to the Republican Party and helped to divide U.S. opinion on Israel along partisan lines. That bond has intensified during the Trump administration: Netanyahu has embraced, defended and even imitated a president who is regarded unfavorably by a solid majority of Americans and passionately despised by
most Democrats.
WP
And this recorded conversation with Netanyahu speaks to his efforts to destroy the peace process (along with other disagreeable statements)
Quote:Netanyahu: 'America is a thing you can move very easily'
The United States and Israel have made a huge effort this month to patch up the sometimes difficult relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But a newly released video of Netanyahu, speaking in an unvarnished manner in 2001 about relations with the United States and the peace process, may cause some heartburn at the White House.
"I know what America is," Netanyahu told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way."
Netanyahu also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration. "They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]," he said. "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue."
WP
@blatham,
I didn't see the edit before. I have to admit I herd the way a cat herds. The link you posted is very similar to, but more detailed than, a few articles I myself have posted in the past. My simplistic style of writing may be confusing to some, but I know of the forces behind the scenes. But that's why we have to be resolute to stand now, not in some future, after the slide hits rock bottom. Republicans never negotiate unless their backs are to the wall and even then they only give in once they figure a way they can further chip away at the future. While establishment Dems fight for status quo, only, they disappoint and fail to inspire the voters they need because they do not advance their fortunes. Dupes who play the game as laid out for them will never win.
@edgarblythe,
You and I agree on far more than those few places where we bump heads. But my nearly singular immediate concern for the US is the defeat of Trump, the capture of the Senate by Dems, and the expansion of gains made at the state level last november. For this we need Dem and independent voters to come out in very large numbers. If these goals fail, we're all fucked.
The second (and very important) goal is to move the Dem party further to the left and towards the solidarity of purpose and action and the moral vision that you and I share.
I swear to god that I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you until there's gunfire and then I'm gone. I talk a great game but I'm scared of girls even smaller than myself.
@blatham,
When Trump's National Emergency gets bogged down in legalities, he won't have a wall to piss against. That, the tax refund debacle and continuing erosion of workers well being - It would be easy to declare him as un-electable. But we know facts can't faze the true believer. That's why Democrats should allow progressives an equal sitting at the table. So we actually can work together.
