Really Spitzer? Egypt is a form of a Democracy?!? Iraq under Saddam technically held “elections.” they technically hold elections in Myanmar. They called themselves a form of democracy.

I have two words for the AIPAC wing of the Democratic Party: Marcy Winograd.

Wow, Barney Frank’s standing up against the AIPAC crowd? Good for him.

One thing that anyone hit with the “Hamas/Egypt/Iran/Syria/etc. wants to destroy Israel” gambit should do is mention that Israel has had no problems dealing with nations who are its nominal enemies. Back in the 1980s they sold Iran $500 billion worth of weapons a year, and was a key player in Ollie North’s Iran-Contra scheme. Hell, they even tried to get nukes for Pik Botha’s apartheid regime in South Africa in 1975 — back when they were still denying to the world that they had nukes in the first place!

Heck, technically Myanmar is a democracy, and Iran.
I wonder how much money it takes to buy TV hosts and newspaper reporters these days.

Glenn Greenwald has it right. Spitzer has less reason than Frank to stand up to AIPAC, which makes Frank look better to me than he has in quite a long time. Once again Spitzer disappoints.

North Korea has elections every five years. There’s a ridiculous notion that elections are the same as democracy.

What’s it cost to buy a newspaper organization? Very little if you inherit it, not much if you wait until they are financially challenged.

Really need to revisit media ownership restrictions.

Gee, I hought elections have consequences. What are the predictable consequences of deliberately electing a terrorist govt that avows its intent to destroy Israel? Teddy bears, of course. /s

So observers have noted in the United States as well.

Spitzer needs to stick to hookers.

Thank you Glenn.

Israeli tactics continue to approach those used in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Spitzer is the whore at this point. Turns out his previous affairs were actually OJT!

What makes you think he can’t do both at the same time? Pretty unlikely the FBI much cares about his extra-ciricular activities anymore.

What is he fishing for with them there Hookers??

I have a feeling Glenn won’t be invited back to that program any time soon. :^) Good for him!!

The Israeli responses all across the board are ludicrous. It is incredible that the chutzpah has actual chutzpah. This PR response is got to be the biggest freaking snow job ever, except maybe that glamor shot of Kagan I saw on ‘Democracy Now’ website. I mean she actually looks ‘do-able’ in that photo without have had drank a case of Natural Ice!

Israel has finally and indefensibly crossed the line. And I am watching with baited breath as they have to contend with the stream of aid ships that are likely to come into the PALESTINIAN’S territorial waters. Get’cher beer and pizza and tune in, cause this is gonna get ugly.

You know what’s really frustrating? The leadership of U.S. and Israel do not understand the concept of “winning hearts and minds” at all.

Nope, just keep doing the same militaristic bullshit over and over again and expect different results — the very definition of insanity.

Maybe it’s time for a new Berlin airlift.

It is Time that Israel pays the piper for all the War Crimes they have committed since they attacked the US ship in the eighties!! Just because you have been abused in the past gives NO Right to abuse Others! Totally immoral.

Speaking of the flotilla – Hamas stops flotilla aid delivered by israel:

Palestinian sources said trucks that arrived from Israel at the Rafah terminal at the Israel-Gaza border were barred from delivering the aid over protests that members of the flotilla were not delivering the materials … Israel had 20 trucks of aid found on the ships, such as expired medications, clothing, blankets, some medical equipment and toys … Under Israeli policy, humanitarian aid must come through Israel and be checked by Israeli authorities who are looking to intercept smuggled weapons bound for militants aiming to attack Israel.

No need for an airlift, Gaza is not totally surrounded by hostile territory, like Berlin was.

Gaza has significant shoreline (although I do not know about harbors), so ship-based aid is certainly the most efficient.

Sadly,

[the] Yasser Arafat International Airport [was] opened in 1998, but it closed in 2001 after being severely damaged by Israeli military forces.

Watched Rachel Maddow last night implicitly support Israeli force by stating the flotilla “flouted” the blockade of Gaza by Egypt and Israel. Her intimation, same as Gwen Ifill on the News Hours Monday, was the legitimacy of the blockage, it’s Israel for god sake, and protesters should take what they get. Gwen of course went further asking a loaded question on the protesters carrying weapons in anticipation of and hope for an armed confrontation with the IDF.

I am on Israel’s side in the sense that I am on the side of the Israeli people, just as I am on the side of the Palestinian people. I am on the side of people.

However, it cannot be argued that Israeli government representatives and advocates have for decades tried to have a hypocritical position where Israel can do no wrong and they are justified in any action and in covering it up afterwards because they somehow occupy an irrevocable moral high ground. Well, guess what? You don’t. I reject my government’s extremist support of the Israeli government’s illegal settlements and acts of war. For shame.

LSTs don’t need a harbor. Run that sucker right up on the beach.

I don’t know Tiger man, after his shameful performance yesterday, I’d say the motherfucker has a fine career ahead of him in the circus !

I agree, and because of their approach, we’ll face never ending incursions in Muslim areas. After all, there’s profits to be made, and war and it’s destabilizing effects are more profitable than bootstrapping Muslim communities with food, water, health care and education.

Looks like Spitzer has discovered a previously unknown form of democracy. According to The Economist’s Democracy Index, it’s called the Authoritarian regime. Egypt scores a perky 119th place out of 167 countries.
Oh, and the Authoritarian regime is the worst out of 4 categories on the democracy scale, which means that, according to Spitzer, every country in the world is now a form of democracy. Who knew …

LOL Works for me.

Listening to live debate between Israeli Consul from Miami and Ahmed Beder, former head of CAIR on WMNF.

This is troubling on a lot of levels. The Israeli government’s actions have been troubling for years. The response of a small minority of Palestinian extremists has also been troubling. The fact that peace-loving people on both sides are completely ignored or marginalized by nearly all media is extremely troubling.

And now this incident threatens to snowball into something truly troubling. And if the snowball keeps rolling down hill until it’s out of control, I’m extremely troubled by the thought of which side of things my own government is likely to be on.

Glenn has done enough of these cable TV spots now that you’d think someone like Spitzer would know he should do his homework before inviting Glenn on. Glenn delivered a beating to Spitzer like he hasn’t seen since Ashley Dupree. If Spitzer is going to continue playing cable TV host, particularly in Dylan Ratigan’s spot, he’s going to actually have to research the news before he starts his gladiator black vs. white theater. Just like when he did real work way back when as a prosecutor.

God I wish we could clone Glenn. He represents progressives by articulating truth every single day. Wannabe TV journalists would do well to read his blog every day and learn how truth is accurately represented, and make an attempt to raise their profession from the gutter.

The apologists for the Nazis running Israel sicken me. There is no other word to describe the filthy beasts whose inhuman and inhumane policies cause the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Palestinians annually. Just because a government tried to commit genocide against anyone who was Jewish (along with anyone of Slavic descent, gays, Blacks, Russians, communists, Gypsies, the mentally ill, and so on) does not give Israel the right to become like that government and do to another people what the Nazis tried to do to them. This is a war crime and its perpetrators must be tried on the evidence and, if found guilty, punished to the fullest extent allowed by law.

Set up UN troops to be the checkers for weapons.

Put a neutral third party in there to check for smuggled weapons.

Israel is not the victim.

Jane, thank you for posting.

I too was shocked at Ifill’s hard-line questioning of the representative of the flotilla, and at the soft-ball questions and sympathetic demeanor toward Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the US.

Some of your comment sounds as if you are describing our situation here. Ignored, marginalized by the media. Sound familiar?

Set up UN troops to be the checkers for weapons.

Really good idea. But, I’ll wager the Israelis would never agree to it.

The moustache weighs in:

http://www.salon.com/news/israel/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/06/02/friedman_terrible

Nothing PBS does along these lines shocks me any longer. They’re a full-fledged honorary member of the US corporate media.

and bombed again this past weekend.

Jane – thank you for posting and the transcript. It was sadly thrilling to see Glenn speak the truth – such an unusual occurrence in our media.

courtesy firedog Hugh

Tomlinson, Kenneth

If the shoe fits…

Of course the oligarchs know no national boundaries so you’ll see the same patterns across the globe. Peace stands in the way of profit – as does truth.

I remember that brouhaha. Tomlinson’s a real scumbag.

I think the main problem is thinking that this is our government.

Tomlinson is at the 14-foot-three-inches mark on Hugh’s Scroll.

Siun, just curious: Have the Palestinians attempted to repair and reactivate the airport or are the Israelis just “making sure”?

Good point.

Blue Texan’s regularly scheduled post is ready: CNN’s Erick Erickson Giddily Anticipates Military “Going to War” with Obama over DADT

Really Spitzer? The US is a form of a Democracy?!? The US holds “elections.” The US calls itself a of democracy, yet the elections are paid for by Corporations and the Ric. The elected pay lip service to representing the electorate. How democratic is that?

It was a great response by Glenn Greenwald, but you have to look at the overall dynamics. On cable, most of the presenters use a lot of biased terms emphasizing “pro-Palestinian” over “humanitarian”. Or as we saw with Spitzer ignoring the blockade which has been in effect I think 3 years now. They also tend to have on many more Israel apologists than critics. It is pretty obvious that they are dying to flog the Israeli line. And of course it isn’t just cable but the MSM in this country generally. Look at the NYT. They have been spouting Israeli talking points so long that even in when they are confronted by an egregious episode like this one, they can’t help but try to mix in some pro-Israel spin.

The problem is that the international reaction has been so stark that the MSM can’t be so gung-ho pro-Israel as usual. I think it is that they don’t want to lose whatever shred of integrity they think they still have in the eyes of the their international colleagues. Perhaps too they suspect ordinary Americans, despite their best efforts, aren’t buying it this time.

lol

The NYT, having a much more high-minded audience for Israeli propaganda, attempts a more subtle muddying of the essential facts:

But what is missing so far from the flotilla clips on both sides is context: it is difficult to establish the sequence of events or, more simply, to determine who attacked first. The videos have made it all the more murky.

It’s not murky whether the Israelis forcibly boarded the boat in international waters.

Jesus, I thought that Spitzer was smarter than this. Lord.

Has anyone point out that the plan of the Israelis is genocide? US has to stand up to AIPAC, Israel and stop sending money to Israel and support a two state solution, or the chickens will keep coming home to roost, as we saw with 9/11.

Anyone want to take a guess why the Muslim world hates us so much??? Every tax paying American is responsible for the unwarranted death of the Palestinian people. We all have blood on our hands.

People, you need to read the comments people wrote in about Frank’s perspective; that’s if you can fight depression.

As was said on DemocracyNow yesterday,”Why is this? So that the Israeli narrative can get a long head start. This is all about the Israeli propaganda strategy to give the Israeli propagandists, like Mark Regev, a free run. They’ve had more than twenty-four hours. And, Amy, it’s working in the mainstream media, because they’re only reporting, you know, the atrocious reporting on National Public Radio and on the BBC, which is taking mostly the Israeli version.”

And it IS working; just think for a second how many commenters -not here of course- are stating that the blockade of Gaza is ‘legal’. How many commenters are saying the commando’s operated in ‘self defense’. And so on and so on.

This persons questions are well needed.

The problem is that the international reaction has been so stark that the MSM can’t be so gung-ho pro-Israel as usual.

Oh yes they can. The mask dropped a long time ago. Jenin, Lebanon, Gaza 2009…they outdo themselves each time.

Yep, the folks on the boat saw the helos and, waving deck chairs, bits of pipe, kitchen knives and pieces of wood, taunted the commandos, double dog daring them to board the craft.

I have a feeling you’re right.

Hell, the AIPAC brigade’s probably wondering why they can’t shove this under the rug just like the USS Liberty was shoved under the rug back in ’67.

Has anyone point out that the plan of the Israelis is genocide?

I think many of us here have understood Israel’s intentions for quite a while.

Once again a demonstration of the fact that:
Domestic politics drives foreign policy.

One of the irritating — as opposed to outrageous — aspects of this propaganda assault is the attitude of ostensibly liberal outlets to

1. provide an Israeli-centric analysis of these events, no matter how critical these Israelis might be

2. Stress the tactical errors of the Israelis, as opposed to the moral monstrosity of a massacre.

Josh Marshall had the quintessential response on the first day, rolling out that cliched epigram, “It was worse than a crime. It was an error.”, i.e., a too-clever-by-half way of avoiding calling Israel’s actions by their right name: a crime.

It’s amazing some people want to portray the IDF commandos who attacked the flotilla as the victims. What if Somali pirates had done the same thing, and unarmed Americans had desperately fought back with improvised weapons?

We’d be calling them courageous, comforting the wounded and mourning the dead.

I think Josh jumped the shark the night Obama won.

Maddow is an establishment corporate propogandist. The sooner people stop holding her up as some paragon of journalism the better. She is a propogandist pure and simple. Her miniscule wikileaks coverage was also pure filth.

Kudos for pointing out yet more of her propogandizing slime.

I’ve noticed that as well in many places.

Along the lines of “the Iraq war was just poorly executed.”

I think that assertion is provocative to the point of trollery.

Their intention is to take all the land the Palestinians inhabit, that is, to perpetrate a very patient ethnic cleansing.

Which brings me to another thing that irritates me about some ostensible liberals: the hand-wringing concern that Israeli ethnic cleansing is not in Israel’s “best interests”. I could give a fuck what’s in their best interests at this point. And anyway, count me skeptical: time will tell; we’ll see in a generation who’s right. I think with Israel nine miles wide at its neck, and having successfully put down multiple intifadas having been put down, Netanyahu and his gang are calculating quite rationally, if criminally.

Superb.

When Josh says …

“It was worse than a crime. It was an error.”

I find this really depraved. AS IF, as long as it was a crime, but NOT an error, it would be the better scenario. So, he’s actually saying crimes are just fine. As long as there is no error.

Are all these people absolutely crazy???? Or just possessed by evil?

It’s a poison.

As I noted at Siun’s diary on the MV Corrie earlier today:

The Israelis were fully capable of disabling the vessels without boarding them. They could have waited until morning to do this, as the recorded tracks of the vessels, as monitored on the internet at the time, showed them slowly getting further away from the coast. I know – I watched it on google maps as it happened.

The skippers of the flotilla who were in contact with the IDF announced their intention to not approach the coast until daylight. I know, because people on the vessels tweeted about it in the last hour before the Israelis opened fire.

All of this stuff is on the web and time tagged. Please note that the IDF videos that have been released have had their time tags removed – at least all those I’ve seen so far.

Anyone who, in light of these known facts, chooses to then cite various laws meant to apply to actual war in defense of this, is also, in my opinion, defending what many Israeli military experts are quietly and not-so-quietly calling “stupidity.”

Time tags.

They are already out there, along with the Al Jazeera footage that the IDF failed to jam through electronic warfare. Nothing the IDF has yet released has been offered up fairly, with comparable time tags. The vessels’ logs should be returned, along with other devices that recorded events in real time.

However, the Obama administration, by forcing the UN into letting the Israelis handle the investigation, have given them license to keep every fucking camera, cell phone, laptop and whatever they have seized, for their “investigation.”

Ask Craig and Cindy Corrie how that hopie-changie-investigation-by-Israelis thing is working for them.

Ask Joe Meadors how that hopie-changie-investigation-by-Israelis thing worked out for him and his crew mates.

Heckuva job, Barack!

Yup. And wasn’t Josh one of the original Iraq hawk bloggers? Like the Likudnik neocons, he apparently fell for Ahmad Chalabi’s spiel that invading and occupying Iraq would somehow make Israel safer when in fact the exact opposite’s occurred.

It’s the USS Liberty all over again. Except that even with confiscating the cameras and computers, the message is still getting out there.

Rachel Maddow is totally in the tank with the right wing on foreign policy. She’s a DLC talking-points-talking-head. And Glenn Greenwald is so courageous for intelligently taking this on, right after his good work on the Kagan nomination. He is doing absolutely excellent work breaking through the fog of sellout politics at home and imperial aggression abroad and trying to get some sane views an airing here in the USA.

In all fairness to Marshall, it is a quote used with irony, uttered by someone he obviously knows to have been depraved: the head of Napoleon’s secret police, Fouche.

I take your point but I am trying to describe a certain defensiveness in how the MSM is trying to spin for Israel. They are still spinning but usually they don’t have even that little bit of defensiveness about it I’m seeing.

Are you gleefully anticipating more death? Say it ain’t so!

Yeah. When will all that retribution get around to us and our criminal acts?

My take on this dueling video narrative from the get-go was that this was the kind of big event that requires a big lie. I don’t get a chance to view a lot of video (thanks for the transcript, Jane Hamsher) so it’s just unfounded suspicion, but it seems the kind of event where they might make shit up outright. Who knows if these soldiers in gurneys are even wounded?

Excellent post, Jane, and thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Dear Mr. Spitzer, have you lost your mind? Your credibility is now completely, utterly destroyed.

Thank you, Glenn, for appearing and laying waste to every inch of this propaganda campaign.

Why on earth is the US giving 3 billion US dollar$ to Israel in military aid (http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/52183) when we be giving aid to Americans sick on the Gulf Coast as a result of the BP Gusher?

“God I wish we could clone Glenn.”
Rat own! If half the legislature, judges, and media thought as clearly as Glenn we turn this shipwreck around.

I find this kind of naive. Israel’s a lot safer in terms of victims of terrorist attacks since they snuffed out the intifadas. And they’ve got an American army camped in Iraq. And they are patiently and inexorably preparing our political class for the attack on their next enemy, Iran. The Israelis find some loss of their own citizens’ blood, and the complete loss of whatever “reputation” they had, as an acceptible price to pay for hegemony.

Who says he’s interested in “credibility”? He’s certainly advanced his political rehabilitation by engaging in such, ah, naked propaganda.

What are the predictable consequences of deliberately electing a terrorist govt

Gee, I thought you were going to speak about the consequences of electing Bush or Netanyahu.

That defensiveness will be short lived. The U.S. government would have greater difficulty supporting Israel’s bellicosity if not for the complicity of U.S. media who treat the American public like mushrooms… they feed us bullshit and keep us in the dark.

He’s his own worst enemy, or to repeat the expression we used to use back in the ’70′s: “Whenever things start to go well for the guy, he steps on his own d*ck”.

Thanks Jane

Nice job Glen

I’d watched this yesterday online and was going to use it on a blog, but after watching Elliot Spitzer spin and propagandize the massacre and slaughter of those nineteen people – there was no way I could do it

Pathetic job Spitzer

I love that split-screen tactic they use. A picture is a worth a thousand words, after all.

NYT vs FDL, no contest or measured in friedman flat earth units what are we up to ? Have we won whatever yet Tommy?

Jane, thanks for being on top of a volcano of events.

Thanks for the clarification, brendan!

So, perhaps Josh is “off the hook” on this one. The statement -whoever says it- is still depraved.

I don’t know why anyone should be surprised by the reaction of the US media. You can’t say anything negative about Israel. It is a major taboo here because of the power of the Israeli lobby. Of course, the US also sees Israel as a “democratic” bulwark in the Middle East against the Arabs. As someone pointed out above, this is mostly why radical Islam exists. If you are Arab, wouldn’t you be against Israel and the US? We provide no reason for them to take our side. And hence we get all this blowback from the Muslim extremists (who are like it or supported by most Arabs).

Bottom line: the US is its own worst enemy, as is Israel.

Josh routinely contorts himself as much as necessary to support Obama and other Dems, who will continue to sanction and provide cover for IDF atrocities. One does not require a crystal ball to predict where TPM will land on this.

No, she’s not. She’s excellent, with a notable lacuna in that excellence: she covers for Israel. Kind of like Spitzer. I’ll take either one of them; it’s not like they’re the only ones covering for Israel.

I highly recommend erstwhile TNR warmonger Peter Beinart’s NYRB piece, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment”.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

I suspect it caused him pain, but he draws a damning portrait of Israeli fascism and shows the dismal demographic inevitability of a worsening of that fascism.

Oh, yes, Barney is “Ashamed to be a Jew!” Why the hell was he a vote to condemn the Goldstone Report? Words mean nada.

For that matter, who knows if the flotilla activists are even dead? Not knowing the facts ain’t slowing anybody down today. Pretty sad.

It is Time that Israel pays the piper for all the War Crimes they have committed since they attacked the US ship in the eighties!! Just because you have been abused in the past gives NO Right to abuse Others! Totally immoral.

I’m pretty sure this statement is not internally coherent.

Sooner than anyone expects.

That too. i’m a big believer in everybody being responsible for the consequnces of their own choices.

Justice for all. I’m down with that.

“We have met the enemy and it is us” -1970; 40 years on and nothing learned.

You know what makes me SICK

thanks to israeli intelligence we have no idea how many were murdered, who they are and where they are from.

I guess they weren’t the ” chosen” and really weren’t people who count, to israel.

You probably don’t even realize how offensive it is to use “chosen” in that matter. (Not that you’re the only one who’s done it here.)

Maybe you should read up on what that term actually means to practitioners of Judaism. It’s pretty much the opposite of what you seem to think.

Oh, yes, Barney is “Ashamed to be a Jew!” Why the hell was he a vote to condemn the Goldstone Report? Words mean nada.

Precisely.

I wrote something similar in the earlier thread about the MV Rachel Corrie:

…

“Frank, in a wide-ranging interview with the Herald, went on to say that “as a Jew,” Israeli treatment of Arabs around some of the West Bank settlements “makes me ashamed that there would be Jews that would engage in that kind of victimization of a minority.”

Barney Frank. Feh.

He mouths a few sound-bite worthy platitudes which are later used as cover for supporting the status quo.

Note that even in this one interview he then goes on to compare an attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla in international waters with the sinking of a warship in a combat zone:

Frank added there are people “howling for Israel to pay a price that don’t seem disturbed that North Koreans killed 46 South Koreans by torpedoing a South Korean boat. I think we have a right to ask for some consistency.”

Yeah Barney – how about moral consistency in comparisons, for starters.

Lastly, if Frank were truly serious about doing anything to change things (as opposed to being deadly serious about doing everything to maintain things), he’d point out that America’s $3B annual aid to Israel is completely illegal (under the Symington Amendment), and stop it.

After watching Frank for years I’ve come to the lamentable if unsurprising conclusion that Frank simply says what’s good for Frank and his supporters.

What a fantastic read that was, thanks for sharing it.

Maddow is an establishment corporate propogandist. The sooner people stop holding her up as some paragon of journalism the better. She is a propogandist pure and simple. Her miniscule wikileaks coverage was also pure filth.

Oooh, criticizing The Empress! Be careful though – some here might get upset and not let you in “the clique.”

Good to see someone else not letting her propaganda go unchallenged.

This is why I can’t get much more enthused about the economic progressive wing of the democrats as the conservative one. Pelosi, and Alan Grayson are right wingers on foreign policy too! Then you have people who are liberal on foreign policy but neolib on economic policy. I think it part of the rotating villain scheme. I am just voting green and left independent. The dems just don’t represent me at all.

Great post Mz. Hamsher and bless Glen Greenwald for every word.

Spitzer continues to disappoint, as does all the MSM, including yes, Maddow, Olberman, et al.

Barney Frank? It’s all said above, strictly self serving even in his interview as captured.

FDL and it’s contributors, authors and those who comment alike, continues to inspire and aspire to revealing the truth.

Well done.

By the way, Howard Schweber wrote a very good piece on Israel and Gaza back in January of 2009, one whose main arguments are applicable today. Synopsis: He takes the four most commonly used excuses for Israel’s treatment of Gaza and calmly, effectively demolishes them.

The system is rancid and against nature and the natural order. We need a new system based on anti-authoritarian principles. Real democracy, where we choose our own destiny, not a tiny elite group of rich people who decide for us.

That may offend you as the lack of acknowledgment of the humanity of the MURDERED offends me so give me the link, please # of dead & who they were.

And how do you know how I think and frankly i don’t care if you don’t share my revulsion.

Pretty cute comment, but when the Israelis admit to killing nine we know that they killed…at least nine. And when they try to seize all documentary evidence of what happened, that’s not “pretty sad”, it’s another crime on top of the original crime.

Sorry to repeat myself, but Spitzer is trying to rehabilitate himself politically after a fall to the bottom, and that rehabilitation starts for him with some of the worst possible shit work, shoveling this sewage on tv. Maybe he’s a zealous advocate for Israel, maybe his heart’s not in it. I couldn’t begin to guess. I’d still like him back prosecuting Wall Street.

Absolutely not. The Israeli government are acting like maniacs and they kill or cause to be killed dozens of Palestinians each and every day. I’m looking forward to them caving to world pressure. Unfortunately they will probably kill more people before it is over. So indeed it will probably get ugly. But every time they do they box themselves more and more in a corner. Freedom isn’t free as they say.

Can you think of anything to fault the other side for?

I’ve made a choice that if a politician is on one wrong side of my issues, they do not get my support.

Period.

I refuse to compromise, anymore.

I think our past 30 years are proof of what compromising has yielded.

I agree, Spitzer’s trying to rehab his reputation . . . for what, I don’t know. But I won’t support him for anything.

I agree they will not agree to it. I just want the UN to offer the solution. It is a perfect solution.

Then, I want the world to listen as Israel says, “No.”

There will be no questions about what happened on the flotilla then. And, I want to watch US media try and spin that, “No.” It cannot be done without looking totally as a player with Israel.

I wouldn’t waste my time debating razorbrain. We had a lengthy dialogue yesterday and when he found himself committed to the absurd claim that living Americans are hypocritical to criticize the way that their government supports the Israeli death machine because their long dead ancestors committed atrocities against Native Americans, he ended the dialogue with a joke. Correct me razorbrain if I have your “principled” position wrong.

[modnote - please don't make it personal.]

Can you think of anything to fault the other side for?

This tactic is an echo of Spitzer’s:

“OK, can we…let’s step back for one second. Let’s see if we can agree on one thing. Is Hamas, in your view, a terrorist organization?”

The Israelis tried to seize boats with humanitarian relief supplies, fucked up, and ended up massacring the people on board. Once we’re done investigating the Israelis’ crimes here (something that, conveniently for you, will never happen) I suppose I could spend time maligning the victims, but, not being an apologist for people who perpetrate massacres, I’ll decline. That’s a gently sarcastic way of saying you’re a moral idiot sophomorically trying to change the subject. Get a job in the press; you’ll go far.

[modnote - please don't make it personal.]

You skipped comment 110 go back and provide the links to the number ,from where and who israel wantonly MURDERED, human beings for providing humanitarian relief.

Stand up for israeli intelligence.

Yeah, I’ll correct you. My argument rested on the fact that the present day survivors still actively enjoy the fruits of the crime. That’s what gives rise to the hypocrisy. No joke.

[edited by mods]

To me, moral (and analytical) idiocy is pretending that all parties to a transaction or relationship don’t bear some part of the responsibility for what happens in that transaction or relationship. That’s pretty basic stuff.

CNN had Mike Pence (R – Indiana) on earlier saying: “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

Wow. Has he ever been to Gaza? Those terrible Gazans sure are mean, intentionally starving themselves just to make trouble for Israel!

(And the Bonus Round: The CNN anchor just called Robert Reich a criminal Venezualan socialist for suggesting the government take over the untrustworthy, lying, shareholder-beholden, and inept BP operation temporarily in order to address the Gulf emergency, and besides “it would take too much time.”)

Dear mod, I don’t think it is making it personal to point out that a person drops a dialogue when their position becomes untenable. I didn’t call anybody names. And implying that I am making it personal marginalizes what I am saying. It is no fun to debate someone for hours to have them simply drop the debate when it becomes too difficult. SO, I was warning a fellow commenter.

let’s say i murder someone you know.

what can you think of now to fault the dead person for? let’s do that as an exercise instead of noticing that i murdered the person you know.

Your point is unclear, but my point was that we have many facts that have not yet been ascertained with certainty. Some are happy to ASSUME that everything supportive of the Israelis must be a lie. But not vice versa. It’s hard to have an honest discussion under those conditions.

Wow, Brendanx, great post. Spot on, man. The idiot US media are all moral cretins…how fucking true! But how many of us are hip to their propaganda, and even when I point out the lies to people I know they roll their eyes. People are unwilling to open their eyes, even when truth is staring them in the face. The Israel apologists are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole constellation of bullshit artists in this country doing major misdirections on the body politic. Look at this insane campaign by the fat cat elites to strip of us our Soc Sec benefits. They want us to eat shit and enjoy it!

I don’t mind the personal, but your response to my argument on principle was just to say, “That’s glib.” So, who was really copping out, eblair? That’s why you got a joke in response, because that’s what you deserved.

Plus, it’s amusing to me how you cite the Mod’s judgments as the final authority when they work for you, but protest them when they work against you. Just sayin’ . . .

But it’s not about individuaals, it’s about the overall dynamic between large groups with a long and bitter history of hostility toward each other. And the side you are supporting openly declares its desire to exterminnate the side you are criticizing.

My response was hundreds of words longer than that.

Do you think that we are hypocrites to criticize Israel because our ancestors committed atrocities?

Do you think that we are hypocrites to criticize Israel because our ancestors committed atrocities?

eblair, that is sooo yesterday. *g*

Yesterday, you said that since we “enjoy the fruits” of our ancestors’ deeds, we are hypocrites to criticize Israel. Should I pull out the quote? Ah heck, here it is: “we are in no position to judge Israel the way we do when we are enjoying the fruits of even worse behaviors.”

Oops, sorry, I mistook greenwarrior for razorbrain. My bad. Anyway, you guys get the point.

I wasn’t criticizing you. Just trying to make a joke. In the midst of all the comments from some other people who have become more than annoying.

I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but it occurred to me the other day while watching some history documentaries of the Revolutionary War that a lot of the animosity that was later meted out to the Indians might have formed it’s nucleus when most of the Native American tribes decided to side with the British. And as is typical of Americans they made no distinction between one tribe of Injun and another. So when they got in the way they were treated much like the Israelis are treating the Palestinians. Stuck on a reservation and given rancid meat.

Why they chose the British over the colonial Americans could have something to do with the barbaric treatment of the various Massachusetts tribes by the colonials after they were firmly established (notably the tribe in the Massapequa the interaction in which we get the legend of Thanksgiving), but that isn’t clear from the documentary and is more of a guess on my part.

No problem. My bad.

You’re not sure if there are dead or don’t care who they are.
Unclear my ass i asked a simple question and you refused to provide the name and number of the dead . And they are still dead and debate requires engagement which you refuse to do . i know when to stop.

the big problem with your analogy is that for it to work the US in the 1780′s would have had to have been the size of conneticut and 1/2 of massachusetts, and surrounded by large “injun” countries. also, the world of the 1780′s was mostly ambivalent to the young US. Isreal is estranging itself from the entire world. a more appropriate colonial analogy would be south africa

Israel is a rogue nation.

Yep, the folks on the boat saw the helos and, waving deck chairs, bits of pipe, kitchen knives and pieces of wood…

LOL, you just reminded me of that photo of a Sentinelese tribesman aiming his bow and arrow at… a helicopter. :o)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6786476/

heh That bow looks like it would give the English longbow of old a run for its money.

Short and sweet.

You’re kidding yourself. Blue Texan and 3/4ths the people on this site are all infatuated with Rachel Maddow. They post her video, they quote her in their stories. They’re in love with her. They ignore when she follows the corporate media line. Like you, I wish they’d stop quoting her like she was a leading progressive voice. That Rachel is gone. She’s corporate Maddow now and in a few minutes she’ll have Kent Jones on to show what a likable person she truly is. *sigh*

Glenn’s was a voice of conscience on the Ratigan/Spitzer show yesterday. His disinterested passion for the powerless overcame the lousy audio, distorting shadows, and the cold-blooded, self-serving rhetoric of the comfortable and powerful that was so manipulatively served-up by General Electric’s cable media subsidiary.

In the final analysis, a voice of conscience is all that any of us can be, having been robbed of the power to effectively hold to account our lawless and unaccountable Party-controlled Congress, and thereby our Executive Branch/military chain of command.

Where are the people who were kidnapped on those chartered ships more than 48 hours ago? There are more than 600 of them – do their family members know that they were not among the victims yet??

“Geneva Conventions”? “Habeas corpus“? Wouldn’t it be kinder to have no such formal law or limit on government authority, than to so-openly prove that there is no operative enforcement mechanism to make those vaunted protections and rights real…in Guantanamo or Bagram, equally as in and off the Gaza Strip…?

The members of the American national media, busy emotionally-manipulating their audience for the financial reward of their employers’ corporate bottom lines, wouldn’t recognize good citizenship or disinterested public service if it hit them in the face.

Without people of integrity and independence in Congress, with the moral courage to act on that integrity and independence – a situation that unarguably pertains when even one of the better of a bad lot of legislators {Jerry Nadler) self-servingly sheds his Constitutional duty to this country to shill for the lawless, inhumane acts of a foreign sovereign state – the stick of public exposure by the media is all that’s left us by way of meaningful consequence for those who abuse the power they hold in the name of the people of this nation. But, as we all know too well, that stick, too, has been purchased by the corporations, in our everything-has-a-price society, and is now wielded on their behalf alone, with predictable results:

But instead of calling Israel on its savagery, the U.S. is virtually alone in the world in its embarrassingly mild rebuke. The politicians cave so shamelessly because they know that media will be obsequiously tolerant of such immoral equivocation.

- Robert Scheer, 6/2/2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/treat-palestinians-like-j_b_597195.html

Thank you, Glenn, and Jane, for continuing to speak unwelcome truth to brutal power on behalf of those who cannot, or will not, do it for themselves.

Amen.

…a lot of the animosity that was later meted out to the Indians might have formed it’s nucleus when most of the Native American tribes decided to side with the British.

You have cause and effect backwards, it was because of white American animosity to the Indians that King George earned Native American loyalty with his Proclamation of 1763.

…colonial governments and authorities in London generally tried to prevent settler intrusion onto Indian land before it had been purchased. This policy culminated in the Proclamation of 1763, which declared the entire continent west of the Appalachian mountains off-limits to white settlers. Of course, settlers ignored the Proclamation, as did land speculators like George Washington, who instructed his agents to buy as much Indian land in the west as possible while keeping ‘this whole matter a profound secret’ because of its illegality.
http://www.ericfoner.com/reviews/020906lrb.html

If Glenn is going to keep continuing being the progressive voice for the country, he is going to need to upgrade his Internet connection. I realize he and his partner are in Brazil or Argentina, and that’s cool and all, but he has a habit of breaking up on the air. Be it his own program/podcasts he used to do or his stints on Democracy Now!

At any rate, kudos to Glenn! I wish we could hear from him on a more regular consistent basis.

Just noticed that? ;-) Well, regardless welcome to the real world.

Greenwald is a great example of not seeing the forest for the trees.

He never responded to the fact, indisputable as far as I know, that Hamas advocates and has firm policy to destroy Israel.

That is a very basic, basic fact. As far as the people supporting them, the people of Germany generally supported Hitler, too.

The people elected George Bush (2004), so did that make it mandatory on everyone in the world to go along with him or defer to him??

There is no question that were the blockade lifted that Gaza would become an Iranian military base. And, that would be a disaster for Gaza. Why? It would for certain lead to a large scale blow up in which new deaths would make all the deaths up to this point a drop in the bucket.

In some ways, this really is inevitable. Obama’s weakness has given Hamas a broad ray of hope that their goal CAN be attained. So, they are not in any mood to negotiate. Israel will never, ever give up their existence.

Eventually, there will be a big fight. It is like the slow moving accident you just can’t prevent.

You can argue that the founding of Israel was illegitimate all you want, you can have all the facts in your corner. You can have every expert in the world agree with you, but you will never get Israel to give up it’s existence. And, yeah, that determination comes from WWII.

Like it or not, that is how it is.

A solution could EASILY be formed if the Palestinians, Fatah and Hamas agreed to recognize Israel as a state in the form it is in now (meaning as of 1948, not post 1967).

They won’t do it. They have all their reasons. They are just as determined. pre 1967 is not what they want.

The basic is Israel is determined to exist and Hamas and other leaders are determined that they get their land, as they see it, back. Both can’t happen.

Therefore, the previously mentioned explosion.

Greenwald makes the mistake that the other side only wants pre-1967 conditions. He doesn’t want to look at the real goal, and that every action of Hamas is dedicated to that, including bringing in more advanced weapons once any blockade were rescinded.

Shortly after Israel started this mess, didn’t the Turkish government say there would be more flotillas and that the next one would have a Turkish Navy escort?

If that is indeed the case, wouldn’t that mean if Israel boarded them, it would be an act of war against NATO? As such, the US would have to intervene on the side of Turkey?

If so, that’d be awesome! I would love to see that. Either that, or it shows how truly worthless NATO has become.

Or maybe the US could stop backing Israel and watch it fall? After all, the only thing propping it up is US aid. The Israelis are far too much trouble for the absolute _nothing_ they offer.

I find it funny that you are shocked that Hamas would be a bit upset. So after starving their population for a couple years now, you just expect them to turn the other cheek? If I was in Gaza and the Israelis killed my son, I would make my life’s mission to do harm onto them. It is only natural.

This is why I find it funny that we are so perplexed on why the US’s efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t being met with open arms. How many civilians need to die before you turn the population as a whole against you?

If Israel has no interest in pursuing peace and is just going to choke the people in Gaza until their dead. Get it over with and live with the consequences of your actions. Stop putting a pretty face on it.

Jim White is upstairs!
Crist Fires Latest Salvo in War on Health Care in Florida: $9.7 Million Veto for Uninsured Care

“bits of pipe”?

You try to make it sound so innocent. Those pipes looked about three feet long. How many seconds of beating with pipes like that do you think YOU could survive?

I doubt YOU would agree to let someone beat you with a pipe like those pictured.

But, really, the big lie is put to this whole thing is that the other five boats had no incidents. That is likely because they cooperated as nearly every boat that is boarded for inspection by government forces–high seas or low–cooperates.

You need some facts.

The goal of getting rid of Israel began in 1948. Long before of the incitements you mention began. And each of those incitements were only taken in response to attacks from Jordon, Egypt, etc.

Wall built in response to suicide bombings, etc. etc.

You might say that had all lived in peace after 1948, none of this would have happened. But, that presumes the Pals would go for the establishment of Israel in 1948 and would have sat back.

You are dreaming that Israel would fail if the US quit backing them. You have zero understanding of their determination to survive. That is a myth you believe.

Wow, Israels boarding sounds a whole lot like piracy. Boarding in international waters on their way to Gaza. Once again, God forbid people defend themselves from an aggressor. After all, they should just roll over and let them do whatever they want. Armed and trained thugs (Israelis) vs. humanitarians and relief workers. Go figure, who is going to win? Poor Israeli victims.

I hope Turkey does sent the next flotilla with Turkish escort. Should be awesome fun.

Lol, please encourage the Israelis to prove me wrong. Please tell them to stop telling their paid consultants in the US to stop strong arming American politicians to support them if you really believe they could stand on their own. PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG! PLEASE DO! It would be nice to get rid of the leech Israel has become on the economic corpse of the United States.

You are dreaming that Israel would fail if the US quit backing them.

Please tell us you speak for the Israeli government.
That would be wonderful.

To Whom it may concern:

With any friend like–fill in the blank–Who needs trolls

That’s an interesting point. Which reminds me that the Arab nations sided with the Nazis in WWII, which is why they had to endure having their whole territory re-made by the victors afterwards.

But of course, most here think the Arabs don’t deserve to lose anything when they lose a war.

Or is that too far in the past to count? /s Being a few years earlier than the creation of Israel, as a home for the Jews who the Arabs wanted to help Hitler exterminate.

What’s your point. There are some dead from the flotilla. I see conflicting numbers. Does it prove something if I know their NAMES????

If so, what are the NAMES of the injured Israelis?

How foolish.

Read 160 and 161, pups, and ask yourselves if there is a productive exchange to be had here…

Actually, Spitzer is trying to get back in the game of politics. Sooooo, AIPAC will be a big help and will really be grateful when the time comes.

Used to be a time when the MOD would warn against indulging in fantasy violence.

Like yesterday, and earlier today.

Got that list of instances of effective enforcement of international law yet?

razorbrain, your razor needs to be honed. It is dulling your brain big time! Now, let’s hear your chant, “we suffered, we suffered, we suffered.” So, you “suffered” and now you’re making us suffer with your dullbrained, myopic, and prejudiced approach to this latest in a whole strong of Israeli inhumane and aggressive acts. Netanyahu has created his own Krystal Nacht and the world is rightly condemning him and his actions. Quick, get a glass, try to hone that razor before the damage is irreversible.

~~~ModNote: We can do this without the smarm. Stick to issues, please.~~~

David Dayen is upstairs!
Blockading Gaza Central to International Anger at Israel

People, LISTEN TO GREENWALD, READ THE TRANSCRIPT. Not once did Spitzer deny what Greenwald was saying. Not once did he answer Greenwald’s question(s). Not once did Spitzer say that the “arms” statement was not “…an absolute, after-the-fact lie and the entire world knows it”. There was not a single Greenwald statement that Spitzer was able to refute; all Spitzer could do was say, “let’s GET agreement where we can” but he was unable to succeed even there. Spitzer was left with egg on his face, looking the fool trying to push the Israeli PR lies and he had nothing with which to defend himself–for every attempt at pushing “terrorism”, Greenwald was able to cite equal Israeli terrorism; for every “democracy” Spitzer tried to promote, Greenwald was able to cite the same democracy for Gaza. Spitzer has proven himself an AIPAC butt-kissing fool. HOOOORAY for Glenn Greenwald! Promote him and his words wherever and whenever we can. Get his argument to the American people everywhere and stop this disgraceful AIPAC PR push and media takeover. Israel was wrong, big time. Israel needs to back off, ASAP. American elections can still be won WITHOUT AIPAC and its rather small following. The United States needs to stop supporting, monetarily and politically, every horrible thing Israel is doing in the middle east, in general, and to the Palestinians, in particular, today!

I love it when history reveals a truth that’s often gone unpublished in school texts.

*G*

Might sound a whole lot like pirates, but it isn’t. The Turkish navy boarded an Iranian bound ship out side of territorial waters I think last year. The passengers did not start attacking the boarders.

Most ships understand that for various reasons either police or naval forces can stop and board ships suspected of illicit arms shipments (or that potentially could). They cooperate.

You are not so unintelligent to think that the passengers thought they were getting a visit from Somali pirate types. NO, they knew they were being boarded by members of the Israel armed forces who were not going to hold them for ransom, etc.

Let me have some of what you are smoking.

In other words, you don’t care if Israel continues to exist and continues to occupy the West Bank. You are only concerned that the US not support them?

Be truthful at least. You want the US to stop supporting them because you feel it will make them fail. It is possible you may have some mistaken idea that the Pals want pre-1967 borders. In which case, you hope a lack of US support would cause Israel to negotiate some pre-1967 deal.

The Israel leaders are not as gullible as you. They know pre-1967 is not what the Pals want. So, it would not matter US support or not, they would not allow the Pals to be in a position to put their existence in jeopardy.

I certainly don’t think the US should lend support to an organization which advocates the destruction of another country. And, a withdrawal of support would be support for that destruction. If the action makes it more vulnerable to the destruction, then the policy would support that destruction–even if the determination of the Israel’s would overcome that lack of support.

Yes, let’s get rid of those pesky Jews who cause so much trouble in this world.

From what I’ve read today the Turks will not be providing naval support for the MV Rachel Corrie.

That boat is doomed without military backup.

Unless the IDF and Likud decide to do a 180 . . . and so far, they show NO proclivity for doing so.

I expect them to fully escalate the effort on the RCorrie.

Course, perhaps the rising tide of international disgust with their terrorist tactics will force them to disable a rudder, and tubboat the RC in . . . something someone mentioned could have been done with the flotilla.

We’ll see, but it’s grim and looking grimmer to me, despite the international condemnation.

Josh Nelson is upstairs!
Quinnipiac Poll Shows Extent to Which Question Wording Influences Outcomes

You take at face value the vids shown and distributed by the IDF?

Heh. That ends MY reason for commenting further.

Just to set the record straight . . .

I have lived 59 years without having any particular curiousity or concern for Israel I have no religious affiliation, and am concerned only with my country, which is America. None of you have ever seen any contrary indication from me. In fact, before this week, you’ve only seen me comment on Israeli posts once or twice, total. Basically, my attitude has always been that the Middle East has always been a horrible place where people do horrible things to each other, and that there are no good guys there to support, only complexities which would give anyone a headache.

The only reason I am having such a high profile the last couple of days is the same reason I would interven to stop fifty schoolkids from beating upon one. The one-sidedness, and the refusal to even acknowledge any facts that fall outside the preferred group narrative, are shocking to me. So, rather than say I know all the answers, I’ve attempted to point out some of the ambiguities which should at least give rise to more nuanced judgments. And for that,, I’ve been attacked as though I were Hitler himself.

I say there is something very wrong with a group that projects such hate and rage about a situation that, frankly, is not their direct business. It’s one thing to have a general hatred of oppression, which I certainly share, but there is a history here, and no posts garner this kind of response except the ones about Israel. Y’all need to take a good long look in the mirror. You’re looking pretty ugly today.

I am always amazed when they talk to each other, argue, call each other names . . . just to confuse the dialogue and fake out the regular FDL bloggers and readers.

N then switch back to individual attacks on the regulars.

And then pretend to argue with each other, and so on, and so on.

Hell, a well paid troll could set up multiple accounts from varying IP sources, and assume ALL the wierd identities we have seen . . . one single person, with money, and intent.

Arguing with itself and others, ad infinitum . . .

I’ve actually seen this done in the past . . . on KPIG forums in the early ’00′s.

One person, with multiple identities, arguing with itself, and others, and so on.

Destroyed some folks at times, but in the end, these things now become laughable.

I’m really not impressed with any efforts I’ve seen here at FDL over the past year.

It’s not only pedantic, but too obvious . . . I mean, NO one of any prog ilk or decent education that’s well informed would take the stances these critters have taken, ergo they HAVE to be paid. Anyone else who BELIEVES Rovian Talking Points is just too stupid to contest at FDL.

They out themselves just by being here.

And think they have an impact when we reply to them.

Hilarious.

FDL, the last vestige on the internet bloggies (for the most part) where people are paid to attack it’s progressivism.

I’m Proud of Mz. Hamsher, her staff, contributors and readers and Pups.

*G*

While we are dealing with the record, let’s include the following:
Last night, you suggested international law was ‘aspirational’ and therefore not applicable because of a lack of even enforceability. And that you are a lawyer.

Today you brought the specter of ovens and death camps, and thousands of years of oppression.

Just so we are clear about this record. Some mirror.

There is no dialog possible with those convinced of their invincibility.

And I am not convinced that there is a pay scale.

Wow. Just wow. Putting extremist words in someone’s mouth makes it much easier to argue a side. I guess this is ok at FDL?

Fugly. And important.

And you STILL haven’t refuted my argument about international law. Because you can’t.

And I am not convinced that there is a pay scale.

Good lord, that leaves only sad, lonely people that society has discarded for one reason or another but can still afford the cost of the internet . . . . . I wonder if they live in basements in their parents or siblings dwelling and wear pajama’s too?

I prefer the paid neocon theory . . . . the other is just too cruel of a world to contemplate.

All that loneliness, all that rejection, all that piled up frustration at not being taken seriously.

I sigh for them.
;-)

Yes, I have given the argument that international law is ‘aspirational’, from a lawyer, all the attention it is due.

Ya fed it, and the others, for a lifetime, hoss.

*G*

This thread’s played out, gonna go see what’s up elsewhere.

Way to wade in, though, HOSS! *G*

There are in this world disillusioned lawyers who’ve given up on justice, fallen back into a survival mode of servicing power, and are unable to cope with the fact that there are those who have not yet given up.

Charles Davis is upstairs!
Dear Israel: Better Propaganda, Please

“I think, to a certain extent, you assume your conclusion when you say there are only humanitarian materials…only humanitarian materials are on those ships. That is precisely what the Israeli government said it wanted to verify.”

This whole discussion, not just here but pretty much everywhere, has gone completely off track. This a morass, and nothing ever gets established because it keep getting dragged into the morass. If you let that happen, you’ll discover that it’s really all about the Native Americans. Okay.

The point RIGHT NOW is that, irregardless of whether or not Israel has a right to inspect the cargo, Israel just killed 9 civilians from other sovereign nations, against which no “war” is declared.

I don’t see how maintaining “their right” to inspect, becomes their right to kill 9 people, and no one has the right to challenge it.

The reason it’s not about the Native Americans, is that RIGHT NOW the entire mideast is highly unstable–as is much of the world because of the economic crisis– and Israel really doesn’t have “the right” to inflict a global conflict on everyone else by destabilizing it further.

“Watched Rachel Maddow last night implicitly support Israeli force by stating the flotilla “flouted” the blockade of Gaza by Egypt and Israel. Her intimation, same as Gwen Ifill on the News Hours Monday, was the legitimacy of the blockage, it’s Israel for god sake, and protesters should take what they get.”

No, non-violent protestors DO NOT “have to take what they get.”

Even so-called “liberals” promulgate this nonsense, even as they have opportunistically appropriated the US civil rights movement as a thing that belongs to them (it does not) in order to promote themselves socially, politically and economically.

ENOUGH.

Well, I was referring more to the 1870′s as America spread like wildfire across the midwest and prairies. I thought the ‘rancid meat’ thing might have tipped you off to that.

I was trying to convey that once the hatred got started there was no stopping it even though the native tribes that sided with the British in the 1770′s were about as similar to the tribes out west as Pakistanis, Iranians, and Indians (you know the ones that have their own subcontinent) are similar.

But you know, hell their all brown/red/yellow people so who gives a shit if we feed them rancid meat? Wait, we didn’t care much for Irish, Italians, and Germans and Slavs when they immigrated here either in the past. And look what we did to the Japanese in WW2. So I guess we got over our prejudice of the Italian and German immigrants (not to mention Hungarian, Slavic, and Romanian) by that time lucky for them.

Yes we can be a very spiteful people too. Or is it that people in general are just spiteful?

What’s that part of the body called that exists in the region between the genitals and the anus? I forget, but someone on her caller her that and I had to look it up. It begins with a P.

Wa Hoo! Big Time slap down by the G-man. See being right and strong does prevail over bullpucky and manipulation.

Conrad C. Elledge

While it is true that Hamas came to power in Gaza through a democratic election, it hardly means that they are democratic and NOW represent the free will of Gaza. Your claim is like saying that since Hitler came to power in a democratic process, that Nazi Germany was not a dictatorship. I simply refer you to the fact that Hamas has established a FAR bloodier dictatorship than anything that Egypt has. Egypt lets it opponents LIVE and they can speak out. There is NO such right in Gaza. So YES Egypt while not what I would like to see, is FAR better than the Hamas regime.

It is beyond question that the flotilla had as its MAIN task the breaking of the blockade of Gaza,NOT the delivery of aid to Gaza since they had the option of putting in at Egypt. So what the defenders of the Hamas are saying is that Israel should not interfere with Hamas importing more weapons to blow up Israelis and kill more with better rockets. The only thing I can see that motivates such a thing, is outright anti-Semitism.