idrankwhat

I thought it was an excellent speech, Lawrocket pretty much nailed my sentiments in his first post. I had to sit on it and re-visit the speech this morning because I thought that my views might have been tainted by the stark oratory contrast between Obama and Bush. He needed to clarify some (non) issues that were dominating the media and I thought he did so courageously, eloquently and thoroughly. Unfortunately the content of the speech will likely be reduced to sound bites and the national discourse will follow the lowest common denominator instead of debating the issues that Obama raised.

But can you buy one here in the US? My dad has an 8 year old Prius and has been quite happy with it. I wonder if Audi will re-release the A2. And if they did, I wonder if the powers that be would finally let us buy one.

The "new" method of political campaigning that I dread is the "ad infinitum campaign". How long after the election this fall do you think it will be before the next campaign starts?

Well I can be rather sarcastic and cynical and admittedly I did mean it as you thought I meant it. It just wasn't intended to be a blanket statement. I had just finished watching something about the right wing noise machine. The graphics are a bit over the top but if you just pay attention to the clips and dates it does a good job of showing how character assassinating non issues can be cultivated on FOX and are picked up as the theme du jour by the rest of the brain dead sell-a-thon that is the rest of the media. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjvNSpsPu1k It all boils down to what sells airtime. Market driven news is one of the biggest problems this country faces in my opinion.

Not true. I have no problem with people who think for themselves. They make for interesting conversation. I already know what I think so having it repeated to me is pretty boring.

I'm not sure if you were replying to me or if I was just the "chosen one" for your post. The only "lying" that I referred to was McCain's break with reality in Iraq. Thanks for posting the quote. I think Obama's dealt with the issue pretty well. His detractors will no doubt carve a fractured sentence or two and beat it to crap in an effort to make him look like a baby eating America hater. I'll tune in to Hannity in a few hours to see what people will be "thinking" tomorrow.

Good point. But that one person has to be able to raise at least a quarter of a billion dollars to even ante up to the game. It's a flawed system that's not that far removed from monarchical inbreeding.

Nice post, I fully agree with most of it. Given the limited choices that we have I'll answer your question with one of your statements. I'm checking out Obama's voting record. http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490

That just about sums up my problem with the coverage of the conflict.

I forgot, I wanted to show you what an "outright liar" sounds like but I don't want to steal the thread. Sorry about the lefty link but they put it together nicely. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/27/ware-mccain-iraq/ Seems that McCain learned a thing or two from Bush; if you don't like the news, make it up.

Just curious. Are you equally outraged by McCain's acceptance of John Hagee's endorsement? Are you equally outraged that McCain isn't planning on releasing his tax records? Or is this simply "(R)age"?

The Palestinians have as much historical claim to the land as the Israelis do. And without going through the last 60-80 years of history, let's just look at the current state and why the Palestinians aren't happy. According to article 49 of the 4th Geneva convention "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies." Israel is obviously in blatant violation of this as evidenced as recently as the call last week for 700 new building permits. Israel has also basically broken up the West Bank into six different regions. Palestinian travel within and without of those regions is completely at the discretion or at times "whim" of the occupying forces. There are "Israeli only" roads which even prohibit a Palestinian from crossing from one side to the other, thereby making a contiguous Palestinian territory impossible. Thousands of Palestinian homes and thousand year old orchards have been destroyed for what the IDF calls "security" considerations or "permit violations". Thousands of Palestinian homes have been occupied by Israeli settlers as part of an often very violent "Palestinian transfer" operation. Hebron is probably the ugliest example of that right now. Israel as the occupying force has a responsibility to protect the safety of the entire civilian population yet the IDF often turns a blind eye to settler violence and in some cases enables it. This is getting longer winded than I wanted it to be (and I haven't even mentioned Gaza yet) but check out the videos on the website and you'll get a better picture of what conditions the Palestinians are living under. I want to get to one of my biggest issues. The part that annoys the crap out of me, and probably much of the rest of the world, is the double standard. The US publicly insists that Israel's actions are in violation of international law and that we don't approve of much of their activity. However not only do we NOT put any pressure on them to stop but we continue to support them with about $3 billion in aid per year, our UN veto power on most resolutions against Israel and even go so far as sending them (likely illegal) shipments of cluster bombs during the conflict with Lebanon. We've made a lot of enemies through this double standard. If we'd hold Israel accountable for their internationally illegal and inhumane treatment in the occupied territories we'd go a long way towards settling our problems with our adversaries in the Middle East. That doesn't mean we should let Israel be left to fend for itself but it does mean that we should use our economic power to force them to quit with their westward expansion and oppression and to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This policy of beating until morale improves isn't going to work. It may result in a larger Israel and Palestinians either exterminated or on reservations but it will only make problems worse as the rest of the world tries to hold us accountable for our complicity.

I understand your frustration. I felt the same way when I started reading more, realized that I was poorly informed and paying to help support an oppressive regime. But to answer your question, I can't show you where an Israeli soldier ran into a classroom and shot a Palestinian child but I can show you where a couple were picked off while looking out of a window or a child was used as a human shield. And to be fair, I also cannot show you where a Palestinian launched an air raid. If you want a more specific list of fatalities the check out this link. You can't get much more specific, but you do have to read. http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp

There are plenty of direct accounts. But you rarely hear about them through the major channels. ra·tion·al·ize (past and past participle ra·tion·al·ized, present participle ra·tion·al·iz·ing, 3rd person present singular ra·tion·al·iz·es) verb Definition: 1. transitive and intransitive verb offer reasonable explanation for something: to attempt to justify behavior normally considered irrational or unacceptable by offering an apparently reasonable explanation

That's what I'd like to know. They're not. They're farming on their own land but Israel has built a fence/wall outside of the Israeli border, cutting people off from their own property. Sometimes the IDF will let the farmers go work their land, sometimes not. Here's an example: http://www.btselem.org/English/Video/20060130_Separation_Barrier_Testimony_of_Abd_a_Latif_Odeh.asp Because the IDF controls the flow of goods and people in the West Bank. They decide what the Palestinians can and cannot do and it changes from day to day. Sometimes the aid is distributed. Sometimes it isn't. That's up to Israel as well. That's simply not true. Sure, there would be few who want to be rid of Israel completely and won't stop until they are dead. But there also many Israelis who won't be satisfied until the Palestinians have been driven completely from the West Bank because they believe that it is theirs to take. But the majority of the Palestinians just want to be allowed to determine the course of their own lives. Here's a link to lots of videos on various issues. http://www.btselem.org/English/Video/Index.asp

That was a good post. It helps me understand some of your shorter, more pointed responses a lot better. I agree that Hamas' current refusal to recognize Israel and the rocket attacks, which are indeed war crimes, are counter productive to say the least. Where I think we went wrong was when Hamas was elected. We immediately began to isolate them and allowed Israel to target or kidnap a democratically elected leadership. In 2006 Hamas did state that they were willing to recognize Israel in a peace deal under certain conditions, mostly dealing with the 1967 border. That was a (tiny) window of opportunity that was closed rather quickly but it was an indicator that there was room to negotiate. The US and Israel maintained a hard line against Hamas and continue to treat Abbas government as if it was the legitimate leadership. When Hamas took over Gaza much of it had to do with Hamas' view that the Abbas government was corrupt and living a lavish lifestyle while the Palestinians in Gaza suffered due to the blockade. Israel has turned Gaza into a concentration camp. It controls what comes in, what goes out, whether or not people can fish, how much (or little) electricity they get, it bars family members living in Israel from visiting their relatives in Gaza, and Israel maintains a "death zone" around the Gaza perimeter fence that has resulted in at least 284 deaths since 2000, some of which were children as far away as 800 meters. And this is the very short list of issues. And it doesn't help much when Israeli leaders publicly threaten a "holocaust" in Gaza like one did last week. So what it comes down to for me is that Hamas is guilty of war crimes and is a hindrance to peace but I can also understand why a population under extreme stress might regard them as freedom fighters.

They do. But it's hard to eek out an existence when Israeli roadblocks or "security" fences keep you from getting to your field. And it's hard to reap the rewards of your work when the Israeli government forces you to sell your produce to Israel and then may or may not pay you, and if they do it will likely be only a fraction of the previously agreed upon price. Or when you try to bring your food to market the IDF stops your truck at a checkpoint for a week until your food rots. Most of the Palestinians are trying to do you what you're asking of them but they're not being allowed to.

Sure, that's an example of oversight. The problem is that the Congress issued 1054 subpoenas to the Clinton administration. When you behave like that it looks like a witch hunt and detracts from any valid issues that may need to be addressed.

The Whitewater investigation had nothing to do with the Presidency, I wouldn't call that "oversight". Equally, I don't think that Congress needs to investigate George's Texas Ranger deal or Laura's dead boyfriend either.

I've done that, numerous times in the past and with quite a bit of written and video information. I've accepted that this is an issue that some people refuse to look at with any degree of balance or objectivity.

Fixed. Nope. Israel will suddenly remember where its border is and allow international troops to come in and help secure it. Then Israel will welcome the negotiation of a viable two state solution. But apparently the Israeli government is more afraid of losing a radical wing than it is interested in negotiating for peace. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7286264.stm

No they haven't. They've turned Gaza into a concentration camp and they're still stealing land and continuing their apartheid policies in the West Bank.

Withdraw the $3 billion/yr that we send to Israel. Do that and I guarantee that real, honest negotiation will start.

Ohhh, you SO deserve to have Hillary in the White House. It would almost be worth it.

I think you and Butters need to combine your threads. I read yours, then his. I could have sworn that I clicked on a link to Bush's press conference