Tag Archives: Netanyahu

Political Rants

Week that was.

A lot of campaign noise this week. The various cable networks are completely possessed by the elections at this point. So…. I’ll try to talk about something other than the presidential race this week, just to give you a break. Let’s see how far I get.

To bomb or not to bomb. This week an old acquaintance posted an image on Facebook of Benjamin Netanyahu holding up that cartoon-like image of a bomb with a lit fuse, with the hilarious comment, “Apparently Iran is run by Boris Badinoff”. What’s not funny is that we’re still talking about this, without considering the consequences, once again. Netanyahu is channeling Bush/Cheney 2003, talking about the most dangerous regimes gaining possession of the most destructive weapons. We have seen this movie before, folks. If Bibi wants war, let him be at the head of the line. Another volunteer for the front!

Boston Klan rally. I’m sure some of you saw that group of senate staffers from Scott Brown’s office, parading around with Elizabeth Warren signs, doing cartoon Indian war hoops and chopping the air smirkingly. When you watch this video, just remember: these people are on the federal payroll. This is your tax dollars at work. And remember something else … this is the logical outcome of Scott Brown making race an issue in this campaign. By what he says, he obviously thinks Native American ancestry is something you can recognize by sight. Unsurprisingly superficial coming from this refugee from a designer shirt ad.  I hope Warren kicks his sorry ass this November.

Sacrifice. Sat in line at a medical office this morning with a guy who served in Vietnam when he was 19. He was drafted. One of the ladies who draws blood at this clinic has a son who’s been to Afghanistan, I don’t know, three times, four times. Lost count. He’s got constant headaches from concussion, has to start getting shots in his neck. How long are we going to ask these people to be the only ones in the country paying a price for our bankrupt foreign policy? If we had had a draft like the one that guy at the clinic faced, Afghanistan and Iraq probably would never have happened.

A child could see that this is unfair. So … why do we keep doing it?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Stuff and nonsense.

Just a few short takes this week. I’ve got a splitter of a headache – one of those neck and shoulder jobs. So my concentration is a bit compromised, but here goes.

Again-and-againistan. That Rolling Stone reporter who wrote the recent article on Gen. McChrystal has drawn a lot of criticism from various mainstream corporate press mavens. No surprise there. They are so obsessed with covering the ball-game stories – the ins and outs of policy making, careers, and personalities – that they neglect to examine these stupid wars that have been dragging on year after year. How closely have any of them scrutinized the rationale behind this policy?

Why the hell are we in Afghanistan? Our leaders say it’s to disrupt and destroy Al Qaeda so that they cannot plan new attacks on us. But to the extent that people like Osama Bin Laden are involved in operational planning for global terror attacks, all he and his pals need is a room (or a cave, but I suspect a room) big enough for a white board. Can anyone claim that we have denied him that in nearly nine years of war? Did our drones stop the Times Square bomber? (Fact is, they helped push him over the edge.) Where’s the story on that, kids?

No settlement. Despite Netanyahu’s fence-mending visit to the White House, there is no light at the end of the Israel/Palestine tunnel. His government is still strangling Gaza, still encroaching on more and more of the West Bank (in spite of the so-called settlement “freeze”, which is so conditional as to be meaningless). Old Bibi, like so many Israeli leaders, is beholden to the Frankenstein-like settlement movement that is a political lynchpin of his ruling coalition. Even if he wanted to close the settlements, he couldn’t (and trust me, he doesn’t want to). So the suffering goes on, and we keep underwriting it.

Gusher that keeps on giving. It’s been more than 70 days since BP blew a hole in the Earth, and the hemorrhaging continues. Do you sense a pattern here? Crises that never seem to end. This is a bad one. And yet, we shouldn’t pretend as though all of this oil, gas, and dispersant is spewing into a pristine Gulf ecosystem. According to the Coast Guard, millions of gallons of oil routinely spill into the Gulf every year – something like an Exxon Valdez size spill every three or four years for the past decade. Big as this blowout is, our problem is bigger than that. Let’s make the solution bigger, too. 

That’s all I’ve got. Bed time.

luv u,

jp