Showing posts with label Neoconservatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neoconservatives. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Since When, America?
From a friend's Facebook post today:
* that is as inclusive as possible
* that works effectively for all its members
* that provides opportunity equally regardless of accidents of birth
* that places the rights of people above the rights of corporations.
* that protects its resources for future generations
* that treats its citizens equally before the law
* that protects its most vulnerable members
* that cooperates in preference to dominating
* that values education and wisdom
become a "radical" idea?
Thanks, Doug.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
On Donald Trump, Our National Politics and All of Us
Just the average statements and opinions of Donald Trump alone show it all to be an indictment, not just of his ignorance and crudeness but yes, of our political system and so many of us, honestly, who would support this man for the highest leadership position of the nation.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
The Way Republicans Used to Think and Be
Long, long ago, they used to be for the nation, as a whole, not just for the advancement of their own political party.
It would be nice if we---they---could get back to this.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
An Open Letter from Republicans to the American Voter
From Facebook, yesterday:
Dear Americans....
We would like to ask you to please consider voting for the GOP in 2016.
We very seriously believe that our party is best suited for helping all Americans because we are all about honesty, sincerity, and intelligence. And to prove it, we'd like you to meet some of our top leaders....
Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Ben Carson, and the dude from Duck Dynasty.
Respectfully,
The Republicans
Monday, January 5, 2015
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Monday, May 6, 2013
A Right Wing dream come true
A new movie coming to a theater near you.
It must surely have the Right Wingers, Conservatives and a lot of Republicans wetting themselves.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
I don't think this is healthy for the country
I just saw this movie trailer for the latest version of "Red Dawn" that came out this weekend:
This concerns me that this feeds the worst of us and it feeds the worst in us.
For every gun-toting, Right Wing, already-paranoid person in the country that thinks and assumes our nation is "going to hell", especially because women and Hispanics and black Americans are gaining in political power and because we have the worst economy in the last 80 years, since the Great Depression, this movie only feeds their paranoia, I think, and their desire to take gun or guns in hand and "fight back."
The fact is, our enemies aren't nearly as likely to attack us from without, as shown in this movie as we ourselves have been to do our country harm by not working together, all of us, as Americans, and solving our problems together.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Conservative, Right Wing, Republican Bill Kristol on this President--and Mitt Romney
"I think the biggest disaster for America in the 21st century was fighting two wars on a credit card. We could suck up several thousand killed in a terrorist attack (no offense to those who lost a loved one) but the economic damage of kicking multi-trillion dollar wars into Barack Obama's lap (and then blaming him for the deficits!) is profound and will resound for many more years. Do we want to put the geniuses responsible for this economic crime back in power?" --Brian Rock (friend)
Links: http://www.salon.com/2012/09/24/kristol_obama_did_pretty_well_with_financial_meltdown/
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Great updated question for Missouri
I saw this last evening:
What's the Matter With Missouri?
State Republicans have used divisive social issues legislation to strengthen the conservative coalition and push out progressives.
"...therein lay the problem for Missouri, a former bellwether state which is now so conservative that a guy who believes women who are raped can "shut that whole thing down" to prevent pregnancy is polling even with a centrist incumbent U.S. senator."
Great question.
The sad state of Missouri.
And the United States.
Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/whats-the-matter-with-missouri/261496/#.UDwBcl9B5UI.facebook
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Let's hope he's wrong about war with Iran (guest post)
May 29, 2010
The Coming Iran War
It's happening again.
The same forces -- with a few new additions and minus a few smart defectors -- who pushed the United States into a needless and deadly war with Iraq are now organizing for the next war.
This time the target is Iran, which, just like Iraq, is said to be on the verge of creating weapons of mass destruction.
Also, just like Iraq, its president is a supposed madman determined to destroy Israel.
In fact, in the case of Iraq, that president, Saddam Hussein, not only threatened to "incinerate half of Israel," he actually launched 39 SCUD missiles against Israel during the 1991 Gulf war.
That war finished off Saddam as a power.
But that was not good enough for Vice President Dick Cheney and his war profiteering buddies. Ten years later, with Cheney in the vice presidency and 9/11 as the pretense, the Cheney crowd led America into a war to depose Saddam. The goal: to turn Iraq into an American protectorate in order to make tens of billions of dollars for themselves and their corporate allies. So far, 4,400 Americans, 318 allied forces, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died to advance that agenda.
But Cheney also enlisted a gang of war cheerleaders who had no interest in making money off the conflict. Those were the neocons who pushed for war out of the belief that eliminating Saddam Hussein would be good for Israel.
The Cheney gang consisted of people like Doug Feith, Joe Lieberman, John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer, Scooter Libby, Bill Kristol, Elliot Abrams and their various allies in government and media. The Israel lobby is also a member of that gang -- although it operated with nothing like the vigor that it now dedicates to the anti-Iran effort. (The pressure exerted by the lobby is a big part of the reason so many Democrats supported a war they knew was wrong.)
Of course, Iraq did not have WMDs and the Bush administration almost surely knew it. (If Iraq had them, we would no more have attacked Iraq than we now attack North Korea. In fact, the evidence that a country does not have WMDs is our willingness to consider bombing it.)
But, no matter, the gang of war profiteers and neocon ideologues were hell bent on war anyway. The supposed WMDs were just a pretense.
This would all be for the history books (and the grieving widows, parents, grandparents, children, partners, sisters and brothers of the fallen Americans) if the same scenario was not being played out today.
Earlier in May, Turkey and Brazil -- after months of intense negotiations -- persuaded the Iranian regime to accept a deal that would have vastly reduced its ability to produce a nuclear weapon. The Turkish-Brazilian deal was almost identical to the one President Obama and our allies pushed the Iranians to accept back in October.
Only this time, it wasn't good enough. The Obama administration ignored the Turkish-Brazilian breakthrough, saying its goal was crippling sanctions and that it was close to achieving them. Of course, few believe sanctions will have any significant effect other than to punish ordinary Iranians, people who are suffering quite enough under a monstrous regime.
But the administration seems to have been sold a bill of goods that leaves the U.S. with only two choices: sanctions or war. The diplomatic option seems to be off the table, pushed off by pressure from various warhawks, neocons, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies in Congress. (Obama originally favored open-ended diplomacy with no deadline; Netanyahu somehow convinced him that a deadline on diplomacy made sense. It doesn't.)
Even some of the more progressive voices are falling for this false choice largely because the lobby -- although clearly struggling as J Street moves into clear ascendancy among young and middle-aged Jews -- still manages to intimidate.
The other day, an Op-Ed appeared in the Jewish newspaper, Forward, by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Reform Jewish movement in America and a progressive, that read like something out of 2002.
Yoffie's piece is a cris de couer, urging all Jews to support a hard line on Iran. "Now is the time," he writes, "to pressure our government to move more emphatically to counter the Iranian threat.
Yoffie's piece is significant on two counts. The first is that he does not push the ridiculous line that a nuclear Iran would happily commit suicide in order to destroy Israel. The rabbi clearly knows enough about international relations and human behavior to understand that there are limits to what nations will do to make a political point and that national suicide is not one of them.
No, his description of the threat to Israel is both more subtle and more honest.
He writes, "Even if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons and never use them, the danger to Israel would still be intolerable. Israel cannot live in the shadow of a nuclear Iran. In the minds of its own citizens and of the world community, Israel would cease to be a safe place to live."
There is truth in that. The thought of a nuclear Iran so close to Israel is upsetting. But then so was the Cold War. And so is the fact that North Korea, Pakistan, India, and Russia all have nuclear weapons -- not to mention all those missing nukes which could end up, God forbid, in the hands of terrorists. And such is life these days in New York City, Washington, London and -- especially -- Seoul, where, just under the surface, is the fear that a catastrophe could happen at any time.
It also should be noted that for most of the world, the idea that Israel has 200-plus nuclear weapons and, unlike Iran, has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is itself deeply troubling. In fact, much of the world believes that Israel is so vehement about Iranian nukes because it wants to remain the only nuclear power in the Middle East, leaving it free to do what it wants, whenever it wants to. It enjoys its hegemony. That is what Yoffie is hinting at.
Nonetheless, I agree with him that the world, and not just Israel, would be better off if Iran never develops nuclear weapons.
But my idea of how to prevent a nuclear Iran is rather different than the rabbi's.
Here is Yoffie: "There is no conceivable solution to the threat of a nuclear Iran that will not require American leadership. All of the options -- whether economic sanctions or military action -- are impossible without American support."
Funny, Yoffie refers to "all" of the options when he only names two -- sanctions or war. It is as if he intended to include the one option that makes sense, diplomacy, and changed his mind at the last minute. The "all" is a remnant of a thought he would not permit himself, either because he honestly opposes diplomacy or because he doesn't want to cross AIPAC.
Yoffie's alternatives are no alternatives at all. Sanctions won't work (except to punish ordinary Iranians and enrich those who defy the sanctions) and "military action" will produce nothing except more dead -- including Americans -- and, quite possibly, a regional war. War would also eliminate any chance that Israel will ever have peace with the Muslim world and would destroy America's standing in a critical region.
What is Yoffie thinking when he rules out diplomacy but rules in a third Middle East war? Is the preemptive slaughter of innocents really a legitimate option for civilized people in 2010? Well, it isn't for me or for the Reform Jews who look to Yoffie for leadership. (Jews are mostly doves and Reform Jews, to their credit, are the most dovish of all.)
It is war, not diplomacy, that belongs off the table. I'm sure Rabbi Yoffie knows that. That is what he should have written.
MJ Rosenberg.Senior Foreign Policy Fellow, Media Matters Action Network
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjmediamatters
The Coming Iran War
It's happening again.
The same forces -- with a few new additions and minus a few smart defectors -- who pushed the United States into a needless and deadly war with Iraq are now organizing for the next war.
This time the target is Iran, which, just like Iraq, is said to be on the verge of creating weapons of mass destruction.
Also, just like Iraq, its president is a supposed madman determined to destroy Israel.
In fact, in the case of Iraq, that president, Saddam Hussein, not only threatened to "incinerate half of Israel," he actually launched 39 SCUD missiles against Israel during the 1991 Gulf war.
That war finished off Saddam as a power.
But that was not good enough for Vice President Dick Cheney and his war profiteering buddies. Ten years later, with Cheney in the vice presidency and 9/11 as the pretense, the Cheney crowd led America into a war to depose Saddam. The goal: to turn Iraq into an American protectorate in order to make tens of billions of dollars for themselves and their corporate allies. So far, 4,400 Americans, 318 allied forces, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died to advance that agenda.
But Cheney also enlisted a gang of war cheerleaders who had no interest in making money off the conflict. Those were the neocons who pushed for war out of the belief that eliminating Saddam Hussein would be good for Israel.
The Cheney gang consisted of people like Doug Feith, Joe Lieberman, John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer, Scooter Libby, Bill Kristol, Elliot Abrams and their various allies in government and media. The Israel lobby is also a member of that gang -- although it operated with nothing like the vigor that it now dedicates to the anti-Iran effort. (The pressure exerted by the lobby is a big part of the reason so many Democrats supported a war they knew was wrong.)
Of course, Iraq did not have WMDs and the Bush administration almost surely knew it. (If Iraq had them, we would no more have attacked Iraq than we now attack North Korea. In fact, the evidence that a country does not have WMDs is our willingness to consider bombing it.)
But, no matter, the gang of war profiteers and neocon ideologues were hell bent on war anyway. The supposed WMDs were just a pretense.
This would all be for the history books (and the grieving widows, parents, grandparents, children, partners, sisters and brothers of the fallen Americans) if the same scenario was not being played out today.
Earlier in May, Turkey and Brazil -- after months of intense negotiations -- persuaded the Iranian regime to accept a deal that would have vastly reduced its ability to produce a nuclear weapon. The Turkish-Brazilian deal was almost identical to the one President Obama and our allies pushed the Iranians to accept back in October.
Only this time, it wasn't good enough. The Obama administration ignored the Turkish-Brazilian breakthrough, saying its goal was crippling sanctions and that it was close to achieving them. Of course, few believe sanctions will have any significant effect other than to punish ordinary Iranians, people who are suffering quite enough under a monstrous regime.
But the administration seems to have been sold a bill of goods that leaves the U.S. with only two choices: sanctions or war. The diplomatic option seems to be off the table, pushed off by pressure from various warhawks, neocons, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies in Congress. (Obama originally favored open-ended diplomacy with no deadline; Netanyahu somehow convinced him that a deadline on diplomacy made sense. It doesn't.)
Even some of the more progressive voices are falling for this false choice largely because the lobby -- although clearly struggling as J Street moves into clear ascendancy among young and middle-aged Jews -- still manages to intimidate.
The other day, an Op-Ed appeared in the Jewish newspaper, Forward, by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Reform Jewish movement in America and a progressive, that read like something out of 2002.
Yoffie's piece is a cris de couer, urging all Jews to support a hard line on Iran. "Now is the time," he writes, "to pressure our government to move more emphatically to counter the Iranian threat.
Yoffie's piece is significant on two counts. The first is that he does not push the ridiculous line that a nuclear Iran would happily commit suicide in order to destroy Israel. The rabbi clearly knows enough about international relations and human behavior to understand that there are limits to what nations will do to make a political point and that national suicide is not one of them.
No, his description of the threat to Israel is both more subtle and more honest.
He writes, "Even if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons and never use them, the danger to Israel would still be intolerable. Israel cannot live in the shadow of a nuclear Iran. In the minds of its own citizens and of the world community, Israel would cease to be a safe place to live."
There is truth in that. The thought of a nuclear Iran so close to Israel is upsetting. But then so was the Cold War. And so is the fact that North Korea, Pakistan, India, and Russia all have nuclear weapons -- not to mention all those missing nukes which could end up, God forbid, in the hands of terrorists. And such is life these days in New York City, Washington, London and -- especially -- Seoul, where, just under the surface, is the fear that a catastrophe could happen at any time.
It also should be noted that for most of the world, the idea that Israel has 200-plus nuclear weapons and, unlike Iran, has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is itself deeply troubling. In fact, much of the world believes that Israel is so vehement about Iranian nukes because it wants to remain the only nuclear power in the Middle East, leaving it free to do what it wants, whenever it wants to. It enjoys its hegemony. That is what Yoffie is hinting at.
Nonetheless, I agree with him that the world, and not just Israel, would be better off if Iran never develops nuclear weapons.
But my idea of how to prevent a nuclear Iran is rather different than the rabbi's.
Here is Yoffie: "There is no conceivable solution to the threat of a nuclear Iran that will not require American leadership. All of the options -- whether economic sanctions or military action -- are impossible without American support."
Funny, Yoffie refers to "all" of the options when he only names two -- sanctions or war. It is as if he intended to include the one option that makes sense, diplomacy, and changed his mind at the last minute. The "all" is a remnant of a thought he would not permit himself, either because he honestly opposes diplomacy or because he doesn't want to cross AIPAC.
Yoffie's alternatives are no alternatives at all. Sanctions won't work (except to punish ordinary Iranians and enrich those who defy the sanctions) and "military action" will produce nothing except more dead -- including Americans -- and, quite possibly, a regional war. War would also eliminate any chance that Israel will ever have peace with the Muslim world and would destroy America's standing in a critical region.
What is Yoffie thinking when he rules out diplomacy but rules in a third Middle East war? Is the preemptive slaughter of innocents really a legitimate option for civilized people in 2010? Well, it isn't for me or for the Reform Jews who look to Yoffie for leadership. (Jews are mostly doves and Reform Jews, to their credit, are the most dovish of all.)
It is war, not diplomacy, that belongs off the table. I'm sure Rabbi Yoffie knows that. That is what he should have written.
MJ Rosenberg.Senior Foreign Policy Fellow, Media Matters Action Network
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjmediamatters
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