Saturday, September 24, 2011

Open Thread and Relaunch





I've been giving this blog some thought and I have decided that I want to make a few changes. This should not effect the way anyone participates here, really, but I've decided that I want to post less and what I do post to be more contemplative and less reactionary.

The way I did before was simply to post brief, daily pieces based mainly on what I was seeing within Daily Kos I-P, as well as I-P news events, more generally.

My thesis, which I stand by, is that the progressive-left as a movement, as well as the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic party, has betrayed their Jewish friends through welcoming an anti-Zionist and Israel hating contingent within Democratic party ranks.  Therefore Jews should leave both that movement and that political party so as not to be taken for granted.

This is very much still my position, because it strikes me as undeniable... unaddressed, but undeniable. It is undeniable that the Democratic party has an anti-Zionist element as part of its constituency.

The reason that I was constantly linking back to Daily Kos was because I was providing evidence for the cornerstone of my argument. The Democratic party does contain an anti-Zionist Israel hating element and, here, look at what this guy has to say. That was the point. The point was to show the amazing hatred and pure nonsense that gets spouted about the Jewish state on a daily basis within progressive-left circles.

What continues to surprise me, however, is how unwilling anyone is to really refute my very simple and very obvious argument. No one is really telling me that I am wrong on my central claim, they just refuse to accept the obvious conclusion and they generally do not want to discuss it. They are evading the obvious, but one cannot evade the obvious forever.

Reality will not allow.

It is obvious that the progressive-left has an anti-Zionist constituency and it is therefore also obvious that this is unhealthy for Jewish people and their children. This is just basic common sense.  It therefore follows that Jews should leave the progressive-left. Or, at the very least, this is one perfectly reasonable conclusion to be drawn.

It is certainly the conclusion that I have drawn, so that we may not be taken for granted, and no one has refuted that conclusion. I wonder why? There are, after all, arguments to be made for reform and I would expect someone who cares about the Democratic party to make that argument and yet no one ever did.

How odd.

In any case, going forward I intend to operate on the principle that sometimes less is more. I will therefore limit my own writings to one or two pieces a week, which I hope to be a tad more contemplative than simply informing you that this person, or that person, is essentially a Nazi in sheep's clothing.

Part of the reason that I have pulled back a little is because once you start screaming from the mountainsides about Nazis then there is no place to go but down... unless, of course, you are Pamela Geller.  Whatever anyone might want to say about Geller, she has certainly built quite a career from mountainside screaming.

Good for her.

Also, my regular readership will notice that I deleted about a gazillion blog posts and readers' comments along with it. I hope that this has not put anyone's nose out of joint, but I very much feel like I want to start fresh. It's actually kind of funny. Yesterday as I began the process of dismantling this joint I got an email from a friend of mine who says, "Hey, Karma, your blog is melting!"

:O)

Yes, it most certainly was.

And with that we launch Israel Thrives Part Deux and I very much hope you guys will drop in and give us your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Karam

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By the way, tomorrow morning, bright and early, Laurie and I are on Lake Chabot, just south of Oakland, on the hunt for catfish.  They say it may rain, which should be good for the fishing.

Although, I must say that there are few things in this world more ridiculous than standing on the shore of a lake during a complete downpour with a fishing rod in your hand... and, yet!

12 comments:

  1. A video on the binding legal rights granted, by international law, to the Jewish people in the Middle East and to the Arab people in the Middle East. (The video is by the European Coalition for Israel (www.givepeaceachance.info).)

    Give Peace A Chance
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVsjNzXojCM

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  2. And Dan drops by first!

    Heya mister, I hope you do not mind, but I deleted two of your posts because you were doing that thing wherein you write a comment and then write an additional two comments correcting the grammar or something on the original.

    It's your obsessive compulsiveness, no doubt.

    Peace to you, please, good sir.

    Cheers!

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  3. Welcome back my friend.

    S.

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  4. Hi, Karma. :)

    "It's your obsessive compulsiveness, no doubt."

    Yes, that's what, in large part, it was.

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  5. I'll just say that it's not really the point to refute your argument. Of course there are those you describe. They do not see it in themselves, but there is a lot they do not see.

    As I have indicated on many occasions, in one way or another, I think there is a difference between Democrats and these leftists pretending to be liberals. These latter have no real effect on Democrats, as Obama and many others ignore them as ranting theorists with revolutionary dreams and a troubling authoritarianism to stridently impose their way.

    I have come to see that side more clearly. I agree that they should be confronted, but in the end they repudiate themselves due to the inconsistencies of their words and deeds. Not to mention that those they enable to abuse human rights will create further shame.

    Here's a good article I read at Shepard's blog of a most persuasive way to confront the enabled.

    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/464/islamism_s_war_against_women

    That's how I see. It's good not to obsess about the simple-minded Daily Kos. I suggest following what happens in Europe because at least in America there there are plenty of voices to support the general pro-Israel consensus, and most people can see with their own eyes what is happening and why.

    Welcome back to where you never left.

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  6. (I posted this also on cifwatch (on the post titled "Antisemitism: the real issue in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that dare not speak its name", which is a repost of an article by Greg Sheridan which was originally published in the foreign editor of The Australian).)

    This that is done in the following video is what the leaders of the government of Israel should be doing: telling the truth. Told the truth is what the leaders of the government of Israel should have done decades ago. Tell the truth is what the leaders of the government of Israel must do.

    The following video is narrated by Bill Whittle.

    Debunking the Palestine Lie
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U

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  7. But the history and nature of Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority must be communicated.

    The following facts must be communicated.

    The 'Palestinian movement' is a racist genocidally anti-Jewish political movement which was founded by a co-architect of the Nazi 'Final Solution', Amin al-Husseini. Amin al-Husseini was the most prominent, most influential, Muslim leader in the Muslim world from the 1920's until the late 1940's. Beginning in 1920, Amin al-Husseini led murderous anti-Jewish riots and massacres in the British Mandate of Palestine (including the Hebron Massacre of 1929). In 1928, he joined the authoritative-orthodox-Islam-based, "Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion"-malicious-conspiracy-theory-ideology-about-the-Jewish-people-based, Nazi-inspired, Nazi-affiliated, racist genocidally anti-Jewish political organization the Muslim Brotherhood. From 1941 to 1945, Amin al-Husseini resided in Germany and was an adjoined official of the Nazi regime of Germany, and was a co-architect of the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe by the Nazi regime of Germany, and, from 1941 to 1945, broadcasted, from the most powerful radio station that existed in Germany at that time, Radio Zeesen, authoritative-orthodox-Islam-based, "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"-malicious-conspiracy-theory-ideology-about-the-Jewish-people-based, genocidally anti-Jewish, and anti-American, and (turning on his former patrons) anti-British, and anti-democracy, pro-Nazi, radio programs in Arabic and Turkish and Farsi (the Persian language) to all of the countries in the Middle East. Those radio programs were popular in Muslim societies in the Middle East, and were radio programs of which Ruhollah Khomeini, the then-future-founder of the Shia branch of the modern Islamic supremacist political movement, was, as a young man in Iran, a dedicated, and regular, listener. In 1948, Amin al-Husseini, as the head of the Arab Higher Committee, coordinated the self-proclaimedly intendedly genocidal 1948 Muslim Arab attack on Israel by the armies of several Arab states. Amin al-Husseini was the mentor of, and an uncle of, Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat (Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini). In 1954, in Egypt, Yasser Arafat and other Muslim Arab university students / Muslim Arab Nazi terrorist commandos, under the guidance of Amin al-Husseini, founded Fatah. In 1964, in Egypt, then-President of then-Soviet-supported Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and members of the Soviet KGB, founded the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). During between the years 1969 and 1970, Yasser Arafat, as the head of Fatah, took the position of head of the PLO.

    (continued)

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  8. Karma, as an Israeli for most of my life, I may be displaying ignorance (or just not being up-to-date), but I think the problem Jews have with American politics is it's a package deal.

    You know about the Israeli Jews' rightward shift. When the J14 demonstrations broke out in Israel, in protest of privatization that left many people without the means to afford even rent, observers outside Israel from the Left and Right alike were puzzled: If Israel has shifted right, said the American right-wingers, how is it hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews are demonstrating for the continuation of the socialist welfare state? Conversely, the American left-wingers asked, if Israeli Jews are overwhelmingly left-wing, as the J14 demonstrations show, how is it they're so hawkish on their relations with the Arabs?

    As an insider, the answer is obvious: "Left" and "Right" in Israel aren't package deals; the massive rightward shift among Israeli Jews in the 2000s was only about the Jewish–Arab conflict, not economics. So you easily get a hybrid left-on-ecomonics, right-on-foreign-policy Israeli Jewish public.

    But in America it looks like a package deal. "Right-winger" means the whole shebang of hawkish foreign policy, fiscal conservatism and (though less so ever since 2008) social conservatism; "left-winger" means socialism, blame-America-first and increasingly anti-Zionism all integrated into one big box.

    So there's an American Jew who realizes, like you've done, that the "Progressive" Left is getting to be antithetical to Jewish well-being, but he still believes in the welfare state. If he were an Israeli Jew, he'd have no problem: Defect to the Right in foreign policy matters, keep going to pro-socialist demonstrations on the economy. But an American Jew is in a bind: Hybrid politics, it seems to me, aren't appreciated in the U.S. of A.

    Just my 2 agorot.

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  9. Mike:

    the question is whether to essentially give up the fight for whatever might be considered the soul of the Democratic Party, or to fight and take our party back from the so-called Progressive Democrats of America and their anti-Israel, pro-BDS agenda. I would suggest that, given the number of Democrats who came to AIPAC to hear Netanyahu at AIPAC, and the number of strong pro-Israel Democrats (Jewish and non Jewish) in the Democratic Party, if we just retreat in the face of a small pool of radical extremists, we are ceding real political territory.

    Even in the Bay Area, while we have Democrats such as Barbara Lee, Pete Stark and George Miller, we also have Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Mark Leno, and Dianne Feinstein. Nationally, we have had nutbags such as Cynthia McKinney, but we also have Democrats such as Jesse Jackson Jr (check out what he said in a J Post column last month: "the path of hate, terrorism, rockets, missiles and even throwing rocks in hatred is not the path to a lasting peace or greater justice, or the path to statehood in the relatively near future.

    Recognizing Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, renouncing violence and pursuing a path of nonviolent active resistance will gain Palestinians world-wide support and – sooner rather than later – a positive vote for statehood at the UN."

    http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=234091).

    This is still my party, and until the point at which the party is dominated by anti-Israel activists and candidates and adopts anti-Israel positions, I'm going to fight for it. And while I will not give to the DCCC (which funds Congressional candidates across the board, because those dollars do go to Barbara Lee as well as Jesse Jackson Jr), I do give to individual candidates. Because if Israel becomes just another partisan issue between Republicans and Democrats, then we all lose.

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  10. But everyone likes the meta.

    I wonder what weasel's up to these days.

    bwhahahahahahaha!

    =the weasel killer

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  11. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT VIDEO

    (The website on which this video was originally hosted was seriously hacked shortly after this video was posted there.)

    Renowned Islamic Ideologue Defines Iran's Foreign Policy
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNu_07OQspk

    Web page of another instance of the video clip:
    http://www.mrctv.org/videos/renowned-islamic-ideologue-defines-iran’s-foreign-policy

    The speech is by Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution in Iran.

    Translated by Laleh Gillani

    PLEASE BE AWARE: I think that visiting the hacked original site which hosted the video, the site lenziran.com, may compromise any computer that visits it, or may, at least, record, and provide to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRIGC), the ip address of, any computer that visits it.

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  12. Change is good!

    More proof of your thesis is the way the usual suspects are throwing Obama under the bus for his recent UN truisms. The general thrust of the narrative is that Obama has succumbed to the Zionists to get re-elected even if it is against all he holds dear. You know, the tail has wagged the dog again. Interestingly, leading the charge are "Asajews."

    Here's Assaf

    " Unfortunately, as of Sep. 2011, Obama et al.... (8+ / 0-)
    Recommended by:
    Lefty Coaster, capelza, devtob, S F Hippie, opinionated, Fire bad tree pretty, Terra Mystica, Euroliberal
    ...are not providing a clear enough contrast to these creeps on Israel-Palestine.

    Obama's UN speech was his most anti-Palestinian statement ever. And everybody with >=minimal knowledge, also knows that he was not expressing his own true opinions on the matter."

    He quotes Uri Avnery

    "A WONDERFUL SPEECH. A beautiful speech.

    The language expressive and elegant. The arguments clear and convincing. The delivery flawless.
    A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a lie. A blatant lie: the speaker knew it was a lie, and so did the audience.
    It was Obama at his best, Obama at his worst.
    Being a moral person, he must have felt the urge to vomit. Being a pragmatic person, he knew that he had to do it, if he wanted to be re-elected.......Obama gave full service. A lady who provides this kind of service generally gets paid in advance"

    http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1020016/43417322#c26?mode=alone;showrate=1#c26

    So, the best and brightest (ie the unbanned and not likely to ever be banned as they represent the major acceptable opinion on Progressive dKos) figure Obama is a cheap whore for the Zog gov't. Nice. You have a heck of a job ahead of you DrMike.(although kudos if you all can win that fight.)

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