So what about the new French military base in Abu Dhabi? To protect the Arabs from themselves?

MarthaA—There is a neo-liberal plan that is almost identical…The so-called Campaign for America’s Future

http://www.ourfuture.org/

I saw a panel they had on c-span a couple weeks ago—just a smiley version of neo-cons. Oh, they also, “feel your pain”

There are some videos at the site. Most are still very excited over Obama and they like to talk about faith-based initiatives alot…they talk about economic justice, but most are terrified to criticize Obama’s bailout plans.

There are some good people involved (lke Barbara Lee and Naomi Klein) but they are still just Democrats.

The issue is the controlled demolition of WTC.

“These are not opinions to be debate, but facts to be dealt with.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuASoVK8f9c

It doesn’t look like the Obama administration is going to investigate the questions revolving around thermite residues or Newtonian physics. It seems that the establishment wants this buried. So much for “change you can believe in”.

DANIEL ELLSBERG

@ Thomas Mc, June 7 at 11:52 am #
> We might as well have voted for McCain.

Voting for McCain would have definitely been a disaster. This way you get to ‘pick a card’. And a breathing space. It’s up to us to use both.

Daniel Ellsberg, in the climate of fear that was the Cheney junta era—just one year ago—seeing a very worried questioner told the story of his army instructor. The same Daniel Ellsberg who successfully faced down Nixon and 115 years in jail.

At a talk in June 2009 Daniel Ellsberg took one look at his worried questioner, asking about his coup warning, and asked, “Do you know the story of Chicken Little?” And proceeded to tell it. “Why was Chicken Little lying on his back kicking his legs in the air, they asked? Because that’s all I can do, said Chicken Little.”

Then he said, “Did you ever learn to shoot a .45? I was in the military and our instructor said that you hold it so, and squeeze the trigger gently, so that you don’t even know that it has fired. It was at the time of Korea, so we asked “But what if there are hundreds of enemy?” The instructor looked at us calmly. “You still squeeze the trigger gently,” he said, “but you do it more rapidly.” Daniel Ellsberg doesn’t flap. Not even a little bit.

Daniel Ellsberg faced down Nixon and his crooks and didn’t blink. He released the Pentagon Papers, showing that every president had lied about Vietnam. He risked 115 years in jail for it and took that risk deliberately because it was the right thing to do. A very brave man.

And courage is infectious. Very.

MAHOUT

Pfaff takes Obama’s words at face value. This is either a refreshing new idea. Or a disastrous simplification.

As a highly intelligent commentator, Pfaff is undoubtedly completely aware of the theory of groups within the elite are engaged in a permanent, ferocious (and ‘highly destructive and profoundly irrational’), battle for control of US government policy.

Another view is that the US President is the mahout sitting on the head of the behemoth that is the US state. A behemoth, that may, if incorrectly handled or just by nature activating its musk glands, go rogue and turn into a rampaging homicidal beast intent on only one thing—killing its handler—and then on destroying everything around it.  US presidents then are men who, if they judge the groups making up the behemoth wrong, will be gored to death. Men like Lincon, JFK, and Reagan with John Hinkley - who if the lone gunmen (OOPS, gunman) had succeeded, would have made George Bush 1 president sixty nine days after Reagan became President. By coincidence, his brother Scott Hinckley had been due to have dinner with Bush’s son Neal the next evening. He was found not to be carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye. Mel Gibson version -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUybiuyOvg

Obama is a President who appears to be as serene as a swan in public. But how hard are his legs are paddling when in private? Is he riding the very fine line between control and being destroyed?

Or is the US policy in the Middle East securely in the control of one or more its lobbies? The AIPAC lobby, the Saudi lobby, the Big Oil lobby, the Wall Street lobby, the southern money crowd, the Neocons; the Vulcans versus the Traders?

In this case are Obama’s words a lie? A pretty fantasy that the US government has no intention of seeing implemented? Preferring to continue its four decades old policy of ensuring that there be no solution in the Middle East and that the open wound that is the suffering of the Palestinian people continue to go untreated, allowing the Empire—the US—to control the region and its ‘stupendous source of world control’ - oil.

CLUES
Obama had to swear fealty to AIPAC and to abase himself before them in a disgustingly servile way in order to be elected President. His chief of staff is an Israeli dual-citizen with intelligence connections—is he an agent of Israel? The US representative to the US is Dennis Ross - a PNAC zionist.

With that little lot, it is not looking good for the ‘independent mahout’ theory.

Peter Dale Scott - ‘Deep Politics’, ‘groups within the elite in a ferocious battle for control’ -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDZR72PPUO0

I want Obama to follow his own star instead of following the DLC-PPI’s Project for the New American Century Plan, which has caused all the problems the United States and the world is in today.  Read the letters:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Elliot Abrams in at the bottom of the PNAC letters; these same people have fastened to Obama, which means more of the same, under a new name, if Obama doesn’t pull away from them.

Tommorrow is USS Liberty day

http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2009/06/road-from-israeli-attack-on-uss-liberty.html

Relevant then as it is now.

A speech calling for religous extremism..no, wait, against religious extremism…no wait…

I haven’t seen any evidence that Obama will actually ever stand up to AIPAC, he certainly didn’t stand up to the health insurance industry. His plan is exactly what that industry wanted. The same with his Wall Street bailouts. We might as well have voted for McCain.

Interesting footage from Israel; a must see by everyone, including Obama!

http://ww3zionism.blogspot.com/2009/06/jews-respond -to-obama-speaking-to-arabs.html

AFTER they have destroyed Israel, don’t think it stops their, they wanth world domination.

All discusion are a one way talk, they are rolling on.

Reed the Times Mag. from this week, in Bosniê, Kosovo, Albania, their is a whole new thinking, rule the world you brother MoslimS.

Salutations

Inherit, Ardee, Ed, I don’t think it’s possible to say at this point how many states there should be and how arranged.  It depends on historizl events and the seequence in which they occur, which we have no way of knowing. 

The surprise free projectiions are that the US will continue to lose world power and that the Muslims will overthrow the puppets imposed on them by Western imperalism.  but this could come in any sequence.  for example, if the Jordanians overthrew their king and ruling class and created a Palestinian state-three quarters of the people are Palesitinian- than the ethnic cleansing of the Israeli right wing -of moving the Palestinians to Jordan- might be short circutied and a Palestinian state include Hordan and the West Bank, as was traditional until the 20th century.

Is this likely?  No future scenario is likely but one of them will occur.  If this one occurred than a common market, that Inherit advocates, would be natural between the two states of Israel and Palestine, if not Israeli dominance that Inherit implicitly advocates.

Or their could emerge the kind of bi-national state that Chomsky adovocates, he being a bi-national Zionist in his youth when that was a viable possibility.  Or two nations some other way. It is obvious that nations are becoming incrreasinly less important with globalization, but if that is what the Israeli want, provided it is not oppressive as presently, that is one solution to the wretched country.

How history will develop just isn’t possible to predict.  As Inherit points out, who would have thought that the europeans would unite voluntarily after two fraticidal wars largely destroyed their world power.  the only thing to do now is to support Hamas politically and militarily until Israel is forced into a humane solution.

Ed, I can’t follow Leabanese politics.  It makes my brain hurt.

Re: SINGLE PAYER

Your comment: “Starve the beast.

I agree, although I surmise this to be one among many considerations.  It appears best to go “full throttle”, and illuminate each, every, and ALL premises that allow sanity to be reinvigorated.

Resist. Resist. Resist…. each as their capacity allows.  History may attempt to be rewritten…. yet even here, it doesn’t seem to be “battin’ a thousand”.

The People Know,.... the People Know.  This is problematic for the disingenuous.  Use it.

re: By Folktruther, June 6 at 10:30 pm:

FT: A good site that follows the maddening intricacies of Lebanese politics is angryarab.com, by professor As’ad AbuKhalil. Good God, what a hall of mirrors!

ardee, June 6 at 10:48 pm #

As to the single state solution; I am of the opinion that it would be the best for both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, in the long run. However, after sixty years of hatred and enough atrocities on both sides, one might begin with the two state variety and , in the fullness of time, after Israel gives up military means to expansion and both peoples begin to heal the wounds, the benefits of the single state might overcome the emotionalism that prevents it today.

*********************************************

That is, of course, the essence of the European Integration movement that began after WWI in the writings of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi.  Today the European Union is continuing in its slow, but inevitable progress toward that goal.  It’s taken 90 years, a world war and a cold war but it’s STILL making progress.  The idea of Germany, France and Britain at war with each other finally seems buried and their need for each other outweighs all that.

I have proposed a similar economic union for the most liberal states in the Middle East, including Israel, the new Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and, possibly Iraq and Turkey (since Turkey isn’t going to get in the EU).

The first step to a “one-state” is a cease-fire, followed by a peace agreement.  Then economic connections need to be made, and given enough time, the results will be inevitable.

Of course this is anathema to the Torah orthodox, and to the Sharia-for-everyone crowds, but sooner or later the people on both sides will say “ENOUGH! Let’s make peace so we can raise our children sanely.”

However the fanatics and the outsiders, like “The Contingent” will oppose it seeking instead armed conflict to destroy one entity.  They must be neutralized and I think our President Obama has taken the first steps.

I agree: He must back it up with concrete action, and he must get the Arab League, and especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia to back him.

Just another pretty speech, the latest in an increasingly long list of them. If all those pretty words are not backed up by threats of curtailing the 8 billion/yr in military aid to Israel then they are just words devoid of backbone.

As to the single state solution; I am of the opinion that it would be the best for both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, in the long run. However, after sixty years of hatred and enough atrocities on both sides, one might begin with the two state variety and , in the fullness of time, after Israel gives up military means to expansion and both peoples begin to heal the wounds, the benefits of the single state might overcome the emotionalism that prevents it today.

Thanks for the piece by Franklyn Lamb on the Bekaa Valley, Fadel.  I can’t comment on it because I have to say that the politics are the most complicated, bewildering and unfamiliar I have ever encountered.  It’s like they are on another planet, or that we are.  How can they hire guards that don’t support the political group that they are guarding?  Everyone is obviously extremely sophisticaded politically; how can they like what Obama has said?

The power and personal relations are so complex that I can’t begin to understand them.  Is all Mideastern politics like that?

Oh, I see it’s that version of the Folktruther that makes up all kinds of invented bullshit about me…what happened, FT? Got into the liquor cabinet and started posting whatever backwashed diarrhea floods your brain?

Just tell the truth about me and live up to your name, and let other people judge. I’m happy to be questioned and judged on what I’ve said, but not on the crap you regularly make up about me.  Better sober up soon!

EH:  You’ve presented a scenario that sounds wonderful except for a couple of details. 
1) nobody on EITHER side has sufficient popular support to back it—i.e. EQUAL rights for all and nobody forced to lived under Torah Orthodoxy or Sharia.
2) The Israeli government is like all governments: they don’t commit suicide (ie dissolve their government) unless forced to by the people or a conqueror.
3) The Palestinians want to rule themselves not be ruled by Israelis.
4) the Israeli people don’t want to be ruled by the Palestinians
5) The US doesn’t want to commit a major force to serve as targets (like the British were) for the next 50 to 100 years.
6) It’s really easy to volunteer to serve when you’re an old guy and there’s no way in hell they’d take you.
7) The US is not going to commit to occupy

Nice idea, but not going to happen because NOBODY realistically believes in it except a bunch of outsiders like you and TW (where IS he anyway?).

By Fadel Abdallah, June 6 at 4:22 pm #

Here are three links to three good articles analyzing Obama’s speech in Cairo. To my own surprise not all of them are negative. But there is also a good article on the Holocaust, always a topic related to Israel and artificially linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Certainly, these articles are enlightening for those who seek enlightenment!
==============
America’s Violent Extremism
By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts060609.htm

“After the euphoric attention to idealistic rhetoric dies down, Obama will be criticized for extravagant words that create unrealizable expectations. But were the extravagant words other than a premier act of schmoozing Muslims designed to quiet the Muslim Brotherhood in our Egyptian puppet state and to get Muslims to accept US aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? ...”

Obama‘s Reception In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley
By Franklin Lamb

http://www.countercurrents.org/lamb060609.htm

“The Bekaa Valley seems to like Obama, are hopeful that American will finally stop enabling Zionist colonialism in their part of the World, and will be a friend and ally for Lebanon…”

A Critique Of President Obama’s Speech In Cairo
By Mirza A. Beg

http://www.countercurrents.org/beg060609.htm

“If he does not follow up with concrete policies, these lofty words and ideas, the critics would have been proven right, but one needs to give him some time…”

President Obama’s Vision For The World
By Tomichan Matheikal

http://www.countercurrents.org/matheikal060609.htm

“Both the content and the tone of President Obama’s speech at the Cairo University differ distinctively from his predecessor’s similar exercises says Tomichan Matheikal…”

Holocaust Denial And Uncomfortable Truths
By Robin Davis

http://www.countercurrents.org/davis060609.htm

Throughout history Jews, like many other minorities, have indeed been persecuted, but the modern state of Israel never was the victim. Since its inception it has been the coloniser, aggressor, tormentor and oppressor. Exploiting the memory of Hitler’s victims to perpetuate the myth of “victim Israel” is cynical. To do so while attacking its neighbours and inflicting Nazi-style state terrorism, apartheid and genocide on the Palestinians is cynical in the extreme…”

ITW writes, concerning the one-state solution:

If your dream happens and my worst fears follow, will YOU advocate the United States engaging in an armed invasion to stop it, as we did in Yugoslavia?  Or will you rationalize and make excuses yet again?

ITW, it always amazes me how sincerely you do not understand me (unlike Sepharad, who is a disingenuous, manipulative creep). I’m sure that it would surprise you to learn the following: if the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to a one-state solution, with true equality for all the citizens of Israel/Palestine, or whatever it would be called, I would be in favor of sending in a large, well- armed US (or US/UN) force as part of the implementation of the plan itself, to prevent (and if necessary stop) any of the things you fear from happening, and to remain there for as long as necessary. In fact, I might volunteer for the force, if they’d have me.

Ed, Inherit can’t be taken seriously.  He routinely makes assertions that we want to kill all Israelis, hate all Jews, the whole world is anti-Semetic, that you want to set about a Caliphat ( remember, I called the Caliph), and similar Likud absurities.  These are routine by Aipac and the Zionist lemmings and are just the intellectual gibberish that tries to diguise and divert attention from the ethnic cleansing and brutality of Zionist power.

Inherit belongs to a tradition that includes the Zionist censroship of Aipac, the McCarthyism of Horriwitz censoring university professors, the leagalization of torture by Deshiwitz, all of which he consciously, and I believe, sincerely thinks he opposes.  But like Sepharad, he has never once opposed a Zionist lemming on TD, and supports them as much as possible.  The problem is that if you believe in power committing atrocities, you must state absurdities.  Zionists CAN’T tell the truth because it revulses decent people in the whole world.

So truth on the lips of a Zionist is like love on the lips of a whore.  It simple is the random raving of people like Inherit, who identifies with the corruption of the Zionist truth consnsus.

Except for professionals like Sepharad, where the raving is not random.

Ed Harges, June 6 at 9:13 am #

You really put the ITW in nitwit, honey. The one-state solution does not mean “driving every Jew out of Israel”. The end of apartheid in South Africa did not drive every white South African out of South Africa, nor did it result in a massacre of whites, even though whites were vastly outnumbered. But you’re so deeply attached to your Exalted Victim privileges that you can’t imagine having to accept mere personhood.
***************************************

Apparently nit-wittery isn’t confined to me.  The South African anti-Apartheid movement was completely and totally different.  The ANC leaders openly avowed that they wanted and needed the Whites as part of the society.  The movement was, on the ANC’s part, a peaceful movement. They didn’t advocate the destruction of South Africa, simply an unfair legal system.

Contrast this with the one-staters like Hamas or other Palestinian “intellectuals”: Have they ONCE said they want an integrated society? That they realize they NEED the Jewish entrepreneurs, scientists and industrialists? Have they guaranteed the safety and freedom of Israeli civilians?  Have they renounced violence and attacks on civilians?  Have they renounced their demand for the destruction of Israel?

Has the actions and reactions of the Palestinians to the Israelis in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM followed those of the ANC in conquering Apartheid?  The answer is, of course, no.

The logical conclusion is that the leaders of the Palestinians do not advocate or intend to follow the path that the ANC took in South Africa.  Instead, a better African model is the actions the Hutus took against the Tutsis when THEY took power in Rwanda—they instituted genocide.  The Hutu model is far closer to the Palestinian leadership than the ANC is.

Who the fuck are you to roll the dice with 5 million lives?  If your dream happens and my worst fears follow, will YOU advocate the United States engaging in an armed invasion to stop it, as we did in Yugoslavia?  Or will you rationalize and make excuses yet again?

Why do I not admire the Great Speech?

Well, here’s just one reason:

Some people are prepared to give Obama a pass for all this because he is at last talking tough on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In Cairo, he said: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

These carefully chosen words focus only on continued construction, not on the existence of the settlements themselves; they are entirely compatible with the peace process industry consensus that existing settlements will remain where they are for ever….

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/04/barack-obama-middleeast]

re: By Inherit The Wind, June 5 at 10:59 pm:

You really put the ITW in nitwit, honey. The one-state solution does not mean “driving every Jew out of Israel”. The end of apartheid in South Africa did not drive every white South African out of South Africa, nor did it result in a massacre of whites, even though whites were vastly outnumbered. But you’re so deeply attached to your Exalted Victim privileges that you can’t imagine having to accept mere personhood.

“Obama’s newsworthy statement was his adamant reiteration of his conviction that Israeli settlement expansion must be halted, in conformance with the commitment made by Israel in the road map agreement, and that an independent Palestinian state must come into being. This uncompromising declaration is a blow” - to anyone committed to a sovereign, contiguous Palestinian state since a state that is merely independent need not be either. And in fact if Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and their puppet president are vaguely re-asserting the Bush/Blair so-called ‘Roadmap’ then that’s not newsworthy that’s just maintining a very dire status quo. Preventing regress is not the same as making progress. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made continued illegal expansion into Palestinian lands the policy of his government”; which does not so much threatens a fully sovereign Palestinian state - one which controls its own borders and foreign policy - which was never in the cards to begin with (or in Obama’s foolish speech) - as it does the ‘Roadmap’. This sham peace process that’s being used to try and arrange a rump Palestinian state with a Vichy-stle government presided over by some quisling like Abbas. For anyone besides the starry-eyed Pfaff who missed it, even Israel’s new fascist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has sworn alleigance to the murky Roadmap. Despite having initially opposed the Roadmap when it was first mooted in ‘03, he now endorses it. In an “eloquent” speech of his own last month, which strangely echoed some of Obama’s same themes, Lieberman iterated the Roadmap was “a binding resolution” and “the only document approved by the cabinet and by the Security Council.” He also saluted Egypt as “a stabilizing factor in the regional system and perhaps even beyond that”. Interestingly, Obama too, in a BBC interview this week referred to Mubarak as a force for “stability and good”. So apparently the “eloquent” Hussein Obama has decided to take Liberman’s side in this house spat and not the even more extreme Netanhyahu’s. Once again we’re presented with the unpalatable choice of Right or farther Right, not so much a policy choice but a tactical one. Can fork-tongued Barack save Netanyahu and his cowboy cohorts from themselves, and deliver the ‘peace process’ to the more cunning Lieberman and the hapless Abbas? What comes after that, is the more significant part, apparently where Obama’s alleged “eloquence” failed him. But since Obama and his handlers seem to be in such close conformity with Israel’s new foreign secretary on other points, perhaps we can get some hint as to what to expect from them from further comments in Lieberman’s inauguration speech, where he asserts: “I will never agree to our waiving all the clauses - I believe there are 48 of them - and going directly to the last clause, negotiations on a permanent settlement. No. These concessions do not achieve anything. We will adhere to it to the letter, exactly as written. Clauses one, two, three, four - dismantling terrorist organizations, establishing an effective government, making a profound constitutional change in the Palestinian Authority. We will proceed exactly according to the clauses. We are also obligated to implement what is required of us in each clause, but so is the other side. They must implement the document in full.” And further, “We are also losing ground every day in public opinion. Does anyone think that concessions, and constantly saying ‘I am prepared to concede,’ and using the word ‘peace’ will lead to anything? No, that will just invite pressure, and more and more wars. Si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war, be strong”. Now that’s “speaking as an adult to adults.” We can only shudder at what comes next.

tropicgirl,

You’d better hope that it’s not too late for a two-state solution, becasue the alternative is a one state solution, in which case you can kiss goodbye to a Jewish majority.

Never read so much hair-splitting of trivia when all hell is busting loose about unemployment and economic diaster.

I read the first-class passengers on the Titantic were having cocktails and the orchestra was playing until it hit the iceberg.

Such prattle and nonsense.

It’s the economy, stupid? Starve the beast.

Deepak Chopra says

“Yet there is a glaring problem that the speech didn’t confront directly, which is the inability of “good” Muslims to stand up for change. “Good” is equated with devout, and that’s a huge obstacle to reform. The Muslim world has not liberated its core values from the dogmas of religion. In the name of devotion to God, women are denied even basic rights; terrorists march under the banner of faith; mullahs control credulous masses of believers; education for the average citizen is totally centered on the Koran. All of these are backward trends. They run counter to the modern world. In fact, the overwhelming dominance of dictators and royal families in the Arab states doesn’t begin to be consistent with democratic values that are two hundred years old in the West. Human rights are more or less non-existent. This is an appalling state of affairs, and no amount of tolerance from America’s side alters that fact.”

Yet for me the fact we witnessed a US President of color named Barack Hussein Obama deliver words to a Muslim world on our behalf was profoundly moving and historic.

As I said, Bill, “TC” will castigate you.  You’re not allowed to say anything but that a just peace means driving every Jew out of Israel.  According to “TC”, anything else is fascism.

So much for intellectual discussion.

REF: FIREFLY

My goodness, I certainly hope you are correct about Obama, regarding AIPAC.

Your observation is worth repeating: Obama is far more attuned to global sentiment than many blinkered and blind-sighted Americans think. Although he is treading a dangerous path by not kowtowing and conforming to the incredibly powerful AIPAC lobby’s propaganda (which has been extremely successful for a long time in suppressing honest debate inside America about Israel, by labelling any investigation as anti-Semitic). Hopefully, the fact that Obama has publicly and globally addressed the imperial expansionist strategy of Israel and the genuinely undemocratic idea of a exclusive Jewish state in the Middle East, will make it difficult for the lobbyist to continue to perpetuate a one-sided version of the whole story.

Re: By Fadel Abdallah, June 5 at 8:14 am:

Right you are, Fadel. Obama is perpetuating the fatuous myth that the Israeli “doves” have been wonderful pursuers of peace, foiled in their efforts only by Arab rejectionism. As Fadel points out,

“Most of the illegal settlements were initiated, constructed and supported by the so-called Doves, (i.e. Labor-dominated governments) and lately by a Kadima government. And most of Israeli wars of terror and aggression were carried under non-Likud governments. The latest war in Gaza is still alive in the memory of the World ...”