Harry’s Place

Well, its true that, in practical policy terms, there are few differences between the Democrats and Republicans.

There are big rhetorical differences, but you cannot expect big differences in policy as these two parties act as a cartel and have similar sources of funding.

In fact, some type of anti-trust legislation should be applied to US politics, just as it applies to the commercial sphere.

In that case, you’ll find huge areas of anti-competitive behaviour right across the board, from redistricting to the electoral system and financing.

I don’t think anti-americanism is particularly rife in the UK; of course, you do get some people, particularly Murdoch men like Aaronovitch, labeling all criticism of the US as “anti-Americanism’, which is nonsense.

I wish US progressive traditions were stronger in the US itself and the world. However, when you find US contractors helping build the biggest surveillance state in the world - China - you realise Tom Paine is long since dead and forgotten.

I saw this and it was upsetting.

You know that piece reads as if it were written by Harry, whatever happened to him?

“anti-Americanism”

State policies can be distinguished from the nations themselves. Why do you fling around that word “Anti-American” to describe those who criticize presidents and politicians of a country. Aaronovitch is convinced that at some point Obama is going to be responsible for bombing the wrong people and has decided to make a pre-emptive accusation to the whole world of “Anti-Americanism”. He doesn’t stop to think that maybe bombing the wrong people might deserve criticism. Instead he’s thrown all of his toys out of the pram in anticipation.

Yes it was a beautiful piece by Aaronovitch.

He was on top form on Newsnight review last Friday as well, which I watched from my sick bed with a temperature of about 120.

Pilger is one of the few clever ones who did an article a month or two ago completely trashing Obama, getting it out the way early. If they were intelligent, more people on the extreme left should do that now.

In the years to come, when Obama sends troops to some peace keeping operation in a country in, say, Africa, saving thousands of lives, Pilger can say he warned us all years ago of his warmongering tendencies, like the great sage he is, just like he did with Blair in the Balkans.

I’d argue that British anti-Americanism is also British nationalism finding an outlet in an acceptable fashion

Well north of North America’s 49th parallel (and perhaps future vacation homefront for Susan Sarandon), there is little doubt in my mind (after spending far too much time in Simon Fraser Uni’s Canadian Studies department), that Canadian nationalism is defined, perhaps not entirely, but to a very significant degree, by opposition to the US. And embarrassingly when it does, it sometimes ranges into delusional and lampoonable, frothing anti-Americanism. Some, but certainly not all of the most rabid anti-American hyperbole I’ve encountered emanates from the mouths of American expats.

I didn’t read the articles but I follow the election on US Radio and probably know more about Obama’s skeletons than most posters here. Obama is a fake. He’s Forrest Gump. There isn’t a policy he spouted when getting the nomination that he hasn’t altered in the run up to the election.

He won’t admit that the surge has worked and sticks by his previous statement (at least he hasn’t flip/flopped).

He won’t do live interviews with any conservative media person, The questions from journalists in Iraq were off-audio so you only heard his answers. One commentator in the USA has stated that the press conferences were faked anyway, His people removed two muslim women in hijab from a podium so as not to convey his Muslim upbringing. His advisers have asked journos not to wear green on his trip to Israel because that is the colour of Hamas and Islam.

He wont do Town Hall meetings with McCain or face any hostile questions about his association with a terrorist bomber or explain how inb 20 years he never heard Rev Wright’s views on ‘Whitey”.

The list is so long it would bore you.

Here is an acid test for Obama in Israel. Will his people allow Obama to be asked to clarify his position on Jerusalem at the risk of exposing his lie in front of AIPAC when he said “undivided Jerusalem” - then his people stated he just meant no barbed wire.

Obama is a liar!

Dear Palestinian Terrorists. Here is Obama’s itinerary:-

WEDNESDAY:
8 A.M. Breakfast at the King David Hotel with Defense Minister Ehud Barak

8:45 A.M. Meeting at the hotel with opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu

9:45 A.M.  Visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, wreath-laying at Hall of Remembrance

11 A.M.  Meeting with President Shimon Peres

1:30 P.M.  Meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Muqata, in Ramallah

2:45 P.M.  Meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni

4:15 P.M.  Visit to Sderot with Livni and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter

5:10 P.M.  Press conference at Sderot police station

8:30 P.M.  Dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

10:10 P.M.  Visit to the Western Wall

THURSDAY:
6:40 A.M.  Obama leaves for Europe

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1004747.html

Helpfully provided by Ha’aretz! DOH!!!

What will be interesting to see, is the reaction to the huge wave of racism that Obama is likely to encounter. Specifically, I expect that he will be depicted in cartoons in the arab press as a negro slave, probably doing the bidding of evil hook nosed jews. This is the sort of imagery that was used in relation to Condi Rice.

We’ve seen that Obama doesn’t react well to stereotyping cartoons.

However, I wonder what the reaction from progressives will be. I’d expect it will be horror in some parts. In others, there will be an attempt to deny that racism. In a final part, there will be those who suggest that the cartoons are fair comment, or accurate: and that Obama is a ‘house negro’ for his Jewish overlords.

This will also be the message that neo-Nazis will peddle.

I also think that in some quarters, we’ll hear it being argued that Obama is an apostate. We know that this is a flimsy and trivial charge, and so it has had little play in the West. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were picked up by some Islamist politicians.

CiF ran a short Lance Price piece yesterday about Obama snubbing the New Yorker. Immediate response from the usual ranters: OMG he’s a newspaper-banning FASCIST. So yeah, some are getting there early…

His people removed two muslim women in hijab from a podium so as not to convey his Muslim upbringing.

His people removed two women in hijabs presumabty to avoid nutjobs like you suggesting two American citizens who happen to be Muslim sitting behind Obama has some deep significance.

I believe that the two women who were removed turned out to have been linked to pretty radical MB front organisations.

Oh dear.

But that aside, you can imagine how that photo would have been spun, even if they had not been radicals.

There’s also the factor that American presidents always get derailed by events, dear boy, events and their administrations never quite develop in the way they had expected - remember that Dubya really wasn’t interested in foreign affairs and adopted a policy towards the Middle East and al-Qaida of hoping they would just go away? There’s also the prospect of having everything changed by something unexpected or at least unforseen (eg Clinton, his sex life and Hillary’s incompetence, sorry experience, in dealing with healthcare; Bush Snr the end of the Cold War; Reagan, sorry I can’t quite remember what that was).

Both of these will happen to Obama, and will fuel the cries of betrayal. (And it would happen to McCain too, probably ensuring he’d only be a one-term president as he’s short of real supporters already). In many ways the choice of a president is such an act of faith in that no one really knows what they’ll be like in office.

There are guides like policy, of course, (and despite Benjamin’s oh so predictable glib, superficial and ill-informed jibes there’s plenty to distinguish the two) but who you think the president would handle these unexpected events is probably the key: and then we get into such things as character, competence, experience and leadership.

All of these guides, incidentally, should have been enough to tip of British HPers that Brown would be a dud, and I rather fear that McCain is showing similar warning signs. Obama’s got so many intangibles and unknowns, but there are grounds for cautious optimism in terms of character and leadership. (I suspect he’ll be a Blair rather than a Truman, but there you go).

In fact, some type of anti-trust legislation should be applied to US politics, just as it applies to the commercial sphere.

Really, Benajamin? Good heavens. The State should break up political parties, disperse their assets, and forbid their members from consulting one another?

you find US contractors helping build the biggest surveillance state in the world - China

Not like true fighters for Chinese democracy like yourself…

Ass

The accusation is as predictable as late trains. You are arguing in a pub, or addressing a smaller audience on the wee-small-hours show on Radio 5. The chat may be about economics or multinationals or the entertainment industry or foreign policy or the corruption of politics - the subject is increasingly and revealingly irrelevant. Just when you are flattering yourself that you have got to the very nub of the issue, your opponent breaks in with a voice somewhere between a sneer and bray and announces that “your problem is that you’re anti-American”.

‘T]here isn’t an American president since Eisenhower who hasn’t ended up, at some point or other, being depicted by the world’s cartoonists as a cowboy astride a phallic missile.’

I’d take that further back to Truman’s time - the man from Missouri got a lot of stick from the European left over Korea and McCarthyism (even though his own administration was one of Tail-Gunner Joe’s main targets).

Was Condi actually depicted as a black slave in Arab media?

Americans doing the bidding of evil hooked nose Jews is standard fare in Arab media, in Islamic media, and to a lesser degree in East European, South American and Asian media and given scant attention - as reporting on education and law in Arab and Muslim states and territories are given scant attention - in most of the rest of the world’s media.

Western European and North American media should be credited with the innovation of making the helpless and hapless Americans doing not the bidding of hook nosed Jews, but rather being subdued by Stars of David. Evidently Western European and North American media know their audiences, just as Arab and Islamic state and territory media know their own.

So if you’re asking how progressives will react, my take is that, as hook nosed Jews will continue to make their appearance in Arab and Muslim media, if and when Barack Obama is depicted as a slave doing the bidding of hooked nose Jews in various Arab and Muslim media outlets, the story will not make news in Western Europe, North America, etc. and so progressives, for the most part, will neither know or need to react.

Specialty interest progressives however who do react will be divided between the Juan Cole/Brian Whitaker schoolyard which holds that ADL, MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch reports of hooked nose Jews appearances in Arab and Muslim media are suspect and/or credulous; the resistor/Khalid Amareyah/Ilan Pappe schoolyard which holds that Israeli and Zionist media is far more racist in its depiction of Palestinians; and the Deborah Fink/Uri Avnery schoolyard that holds that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are weaker than the IDF and Shin Bet ipso facto depictions of hooked nose Jews in Arab and Muslim media are unfortunate but perfectly understandable given the circumstances; and finally anti-antisemite progressives who hold that depictions of hooked nose Jews in Arab and Muslim media is warmongering propaganda and against their values.

Was Jimmy Carter pictured with a phallic missile

Well, its true that, in practical policy terms, there are few differences between the Democrats and Republicans.

Well, there are likely to be appointments to be made to the Supreme Courts in the next four years. McCain has long stressed the need for more conservative appointments. Would you be happy with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade?

But that doesn’t really matter to you. You don’t have a vote.

Would you be happy with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade?

I would be in a state of bliss. Tell me, what would be the the effect of such a decision?

I would say that Obama does take Islamist terrorism seriously and he has promised to increase US military operations in Afghanisatn and Pakistan. Indeed his main criticism of the Iraq war was that it cost us in the fight against Al Qaeda. Also the situation in Iraq is moving so quickly that the US may weel be able to withdraw troops quicker than even he suggested.

Was Jimmy Carter pictured with a phallic missile

Quite often by the Iranians during the hostage crisis.

I would be in a state of bliss. Tell me, what would be the the effect of such a decision?

To return to the status quo ante, viz that government and state authorities could legislate against women choosing to have abortions, whether the foetus is viable or not, and for whatever reason including rape or danger to the life of the mother.

To return to the status quo ante, viz that government and state authorities could legislate against women choosing to have abortions, whether the foetus is viable or not, and for whatever reason including rape or danger to the life of the mother.

We used to call that “democracy.”

Since there is virtually no constituancy for denying abortion to women whose lives are endangered, I don’t see how it would happen. Most Americans are like me, essentially pro-choice. Some states, like South Dakota would be more restrictive than I would like, others would be more libertarian. Politicians who pander to extremists on both sides would find themselves suddenly responisible for their rhetoric and promises (always a happy result.)

‘Was Condi actually depicted as a black slave in Arab media?’

LBNAZ, I haven’t seen anything like that, but she’s certainly had a bad press, with one cartoon (see below) showing her pregnant with a baby monkey armed with grenades:

http://africanamericanpoliticalpundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/racism-politics-palestinians-and.html

And as the thread on Darfur shows, Arab racism against Africans isn’t exactly a fringe phenomenon.

‘Was Jimmy Carter pictured with a phallic missile’

His administration was the one tarnished with the ‘neutron bomb’ scare of the late 1970s.

His people removed two women in hijabs presumabty to avoid nutjobs like you suggesting two American citizens who happen to be Muslim sitting behind Obama has some deep significance

Actually they never asked my opinion. They removed the women to avoid any association between Obama and Islam because he refuses to acknowledge his Islamic upbringing. People don’t bring this up to try and smear Obama with it. They bring it up because he refuses to ever mention it publicly. So it is Obama who is being disrespectful to Islam by assuming that if he associates with it then it has a negative implication for him.

Obama was born a Muslim and was rasied as a Muslim. He attended a Madrassa and studied the Koran. That is all true. He converted to Christianity and so rejected Islam. Shouldn’t Obama be criticised by CAIR for rejecting Islam? How about a price on his head for being an Apostate?

I don’t think for one moment he secretly has an affionity for Islam or will establish a Caliphate if elected. Obama is the one with aproblem about Islam - not the commentators.

Obama was born a Muslim and was rasied as a Muslim. He attended a Madrassa and studied the Koran. That is all true.

If by true you mean misleading, dishonest and hysterical propaganda (maybe he did study the Koran in the school he attended in Indonesia) then you have a good point. He has “a problem” with Islam because his father came from a Muslim background, he lived in a Muslim country as a child and some people twist these facts quite viciously for political purposes.

Sami Ramadani is described as a ’stopper’ for opposing a war which has devastated his country. Ramadani was an opponent of Saddam when Harry’s hero Donald Rumsfeld was selling him chemical and biological weapons.

Most Americans are like me, essentially pro-choice

Polls indicate both sides are about even, with most pro-lifers making an exception for mother’s health or extreme deformity. The pro-life percentage has actually been increasing over the last few years - attributed to ultra-sound technology.

Your suggestion that there are few policy differences between the Republicans and the Democrats indicates that you have been hiding in a deep hole for some years with your hands over your ears, your head wrapped in a blanket, singing “la la la la la.”

reisistor.
Didn’t Ramadani also want to stop military action in Afghanista & Kosovo?

Well here we go David T & Sackcloth.
Obama is in the hooked nosed Jew’s pocket or in his underwear, or he’s an Uncle Tom waiter serving a hooked nose Jew

Can’t say I’m surprised.

David T
23 July 2008, 8:08 am

What will be interesting to see, is the reaction to the huge wave of racism that Obama is likely to encounter. Specifically, I expect that he will be depicted in cartoons in the arab press as a negro slave, probably doing the bidding of evil hook nosed jews. This is the sort of imagery that was used in relation to Condi Rice.

No waiting required as far as the Arab media is concerned. Courtesy of Elder of Ziyon blogsite:

http://www.adl.org/main_Arab_World/as_cartoons_candidates.htm

Interesting to note that Bahrain recently appointed a female Jewish Bahraini as its ambassador to the US. Bahrain has a Jewish population of about 50, I understand.