• kelly said on Jul 29, 2007....

  These people are truly serious, aren't they?  Man, oh man....
  
  
  Well, if I'm going to hell that's fine since all those freaks will be "elsewhere."

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 29, 2007....

  Scary shit ain't it.  And the Christians wonder why we spend so much time talking about something we don't believe in.

• lioneljay said on Jul 29, 2007....

  What a way to start a Sunday, by reading that our President buys into the rapture-based political beliefs of the American Taliban. It used to be that Christians were known for being mild and forgiving people. No longer. While there are millions of good Christians, they have almost no public voice and have next to no influence in politics. It's these extremists that have cornered the market on getting their chosen few elected to high office. And that feels a bit like the end times to me.

• kelly said on Jul 29, 2007....

  jdfields:  It helps to add a link. 
  
  

  With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right in America

  
  

  Have you seen it?

• silverwhisper said on Jul 30, 2007....

  i've heard of these guys and am increasingly discomfitted by their seemingly close ties to the oval office.
  
  ed

• BlueHotRage said on Jul 30, 2007....

  Pastor Hagee and all of the other self-righteous, spiritual brown-nosers who were interviewed for that piece are prime examples of why I generally don't trust evangelicals.
   
  Those bastards would rather kick-start the end of the world--they would rather see the world destroyed--than try to live comfortably in the world, or try to get along with other people who share the world with them, or even try to maturely deal with people who disagree with their views.
   
  Furthermore, as a member of the so-called "Jewish race" (because Judaism is a faith and there is only one race--the human one), all of the other Jews who attended that conference or otherwise encouraged those brown-nosers are the biggest examples of schmucks I've seen lately.
   
  They almost make me ashamed to be Jewish.
   
  The whole reason there are problems in Israel in the first place is because France, England and America preferred to send German-Jewish refugees to a frickin' desert than grant them amnesty from the Nazis!

• kelly said on Jul 30, 2007....

  BHR: Right on, man.  It's like they can't wait for the end of the world so they can say, "See?  I told you so!"
  
  
  Even if it could happen those people would most likely be shocked and stunned as they watched the rest of us ascend....
  
  
  And you've got nothing to be even almost ashamed about.  :-)
  
  
  Silver: Yes.  The question is, just what do we do when they get even closer ties?I'm hoping for a Democratic win in 2008, not especially because of the candidates but more to get those freaks away from the power centers of our country.

• kelly said on Jul 30, 2007....

  jdfields: I haven't seen the movie.  I was wondering what you thought of it.

• silverwhisper said on Jul 31, 2007....

  what we should do is tell our local congresscritters that we have a problem with this, IMHO.
  
  ed

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 31, 2007....

  And it will help how?  Hey mister Congresscritter, I want you to know that I don't like it when religion is used as form of guidance for my country.
   
  Congresscritter: Our nation is founded on Christian ideals and blessed by God, and more than that I believe that if this region of the world finds peace it means the end of the world.
   
  D'oh!

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 31, 2007....

  And it will help how?  Hey mister Congresscritter, I want you to know that I don't like it when religion is used as form of guidance for my country.
   
  Congresscritter: Our nation is founded on Christian ideals and blessed by God, and more than that I believe that if this region of the world finds peace it means the end of the world.
   
  D'oh!

• cotteralladams3 said on Jul 31, 2007....

  I am tired of having to choose sides, even if I understand the ten-year guarantee on military aid for Israel.  It is time to create a Palestinian homeland, starting with the West Bank.  It is time for the Israeli government to begin talks with Mahmoud Abbas.  They should insist point-blank on dropping the right of return for Palestinian refugees.  The West can reintegrate them into Arab countries and offer financial aid and the building of houses.  It is not Israel's problem. 
  
  Israel should admit that the settlements were a mistake on the part of their government's questionable housing and security departments.  They should remove what they can and offer a land swap with either the building of houses for displaced Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip or financial compensation so that they can keep the block of settlements between the '49 border and the '67 border.  Any other land should be returned and the 100,000 illegal settlements in Palestine past the '67 border should be cleared out and destroyed, unless Palestinians want to live in them, but it is safer to just demolish them so that the settlers don't try to return.

  Jerusalem will have to be shared without any partition and Jewish neighborhoods will need heightened security.  I favour a ban on Palestinians living in Jewish-majority neighborhoods and permits to enter would have to be granted after a clearance check.  East Jerusalem will become the capital of a Palestinian homeland.  West Jerusalem will remain under Israeli control.  East Jerusalem Arabs should choose where they want to live and if they want to move.  They should have a choice of citizenship on an individual and family basis.  Some are loyal to Israel, others prefer their Jordanian citizenship and some would prefer Palestinian citizenship.

• bloc said on Jul 31, 2007....

  @cot
  sounds like a reasonable plan which is a rare thing on this subject.

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 31, 2007....

  I doubt that a city split in half would work on any kind of long term.  Though I suppose it couldn't hurt to try.

• BlueHotRage said on Aug 01, 2007....

  Kelly:  Thanks.  : )

• silverwhisper said on Aug 02, 2007....

  sean: and if you stay silent, your congresscritter will never know that another perspective exists. write early, write often. you're an opinionated sort, sean: i'd think that you'd love an opportunity to vent your opinion. :D
  
  cotterall: i don't think that the palestinians are capable of dropping "right of return", based on my recollection of previous discussions.
  
  ed

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  I would, thing is I don't think that the congress critters will care.  You need to stop the ALIENateds of the world from voting for G.W.  As long as they keep voting he's going to ignore sane people, why wouldn't he?

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  well, the alienated's of hte world are what, 25% of americans these days. The only ones that still support Bush. I wouldn't worry much about that.
  
  
  Influencing the rational middle is what sways elections.

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  Probably just slightly more than that, but still 25% is a pretty solid vote when they are completely unmoved by fact.  
   
  Besides it's not like the 25% on the far side is any friend of mine.

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  yah, but there's a group on the other side that will never vote for a republican so they balance each other out a bit.

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  Fair enough.

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  The first Clinton's strategy was to assume the base would vote for him and to sway the middle to him. It worked for him, but not for Gore or Kerry. 
  
  
  Rove's strat is to motivate the base to vote in large numbers and to use fear to get enough of the middle. 

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  Well Gore went up against Bush, never underestimate the power of Brand name.  Combine that with residual Clinton Scandal and I'm amazed it came as close as it did.  People are a good bit smarter than I teen to give them credit for.
   
  Kerry I fully expected to win.  Even in hindsight I'm not sure what happened.  I know that I will never go back to Ohio despite being born there.  :-(  Probably won't hit up Florida soon either. 
   
   

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  The kerry campaign is weird to me. So many people said that kerry had to be the nominee because Dean wasn't "electable". I think the truth was the opposite and they knew it. But Kerry also went up against all the gay bigotry campaigns that brought the wingnut base out in droves. 

• one_wired_kitty said on Aug 02, 2007....

  I am a Christian. I am not perfect. I have used language in my blog that is rather foul. I'm not proud of it - but it happened. What I DON'T appreciate is being lumped in with the self-important, self-righteous, hypocritical blowhards that are seen on TV. If you don't want to hear about what I believe, that's fine.

  No, I don't agree with the gay lifestyle. I believe it's a choice. I believe they are NOT denied the right to marry as they have the right to marry someone of the opposite gender of their choosing (assuming the laws are observed, of course).

  I'm going to keep the rest of my opinions to myself for right now as I have probably opened up a huge can of worms already.

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  I"m not sure who your talking to. Maybe the demons in your head ;)
  
  
  I never lumped you, or all christians, with the people in the video. 
  
  
  "I believe they are NOT denied the right to marry as they have the right to marry someone of the opposite gender of their choosing"
  
  This simply isn't true

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  I lumped.  If you didn't want to be lumped with Christians you wouldn't call yourself one.  That is a choice.  :-)  That said not all of them are that crazy, very few are.  Very few who came to power with the support of the vast majority.  I have a hard time calling a President who won with 50% of a vote a lunatic fringe, I'm sorry I'm not THAT forgiving.
   
  bloc, she's right.  Gays do have the right to marry.  They just have to marry the same way as everybody else, intergender.  There is no law saying you can't marry a fag, there is a law saying a man can't marry a man.  That was wont OWK was saying.

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  "Gays do have the right to marry. They just have to marry the same way as everybody else, intergender. "
  
  
  LOL, and blacks are not discriminated against. They just have to alter their dna to become white ;)

• one_wired_kitty said on Aug 02, 2007....

  Didn't intend to ruffle so many feathers. I started off intending to say one thing and then went off on a totally different tangent. My apologies for not even coming close to staying on topic.

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  We ramble all the time, its no big.  :-P

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  Holy crap what happened? 
   
  Also your stance presupposes that being gay is genetic rather than a choice.  I'm not sure where I stand on that but you can't even pretend to not be black (Micheal Jackson aside.)

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  The idea that a gay person can not treat their partner in the same legal terms is absurd to me. These people are family for each other and the idea that we should deny them access if one is in the hospital, or deny them the same financial status as hetrosexuals is nonsense. I don't give a crap if we call it marriage or not, but these legal problems should not exist.

• SeanRenaud said on Aug 02, 2007....

  And I'm behind you 100%.  Hell if anything the fact that this is even a debate in this country is proof that church and state have failed to remain separate.  For me this goes beyond just gay marriage, what about brothers or other people who are cohabitating?  Don't they deserve identical financial status at the very least?

• bloc said on Aug 02, 2007....

  @owk
  you didn't ruffle any feathers. This place is here for us to express our opinions back and forth :)

• cotteralladams3 said on Aug 02, 2007....

  Personally, I don't have this impression of Americans being a bunch of fanatical conversatives. It seems that right-wing lobby groups are powerful in Washington, not that I've ever been there, but it is all I hear about--A.E.I, NRA, oil companies, Ford, evangelical Christians, the Moral Majority, etc..

• cotteralladams3 said on Aug 02, 2007....

  The reasons why there are problems in Israel are because acceptance of Israel is contingent on negotiating peace with the Arab world but there are huge differences in views on the viability of Israel.  In the perspective of most Arab institutions, including the Arab League and the P.L.O., Israel can only be accepted as a legitimate country after it agrees to one of the plans created by King Abdullah or the Arab League, which invariably contain the demand for the right of return for Palestinian refugees into Israel.  If you look on the Fateh web site, you can scroll down to the part about refugees.  In there it states that 'the right of return is the winning hand in the destruction of Israel as a Zionist entity'.  So the Arab leadership is deceiving them into believing their plan will create peace when they know it will destroy their officially Jewish majority state. Palestinians have always misunderstood Zionism and what peace with Israel means.  It is not have your cake and eat it, too.

  The view of the Israeli left is that peace with Palestine is the only way to maintain the viability and legitimacy of Israel because as long as they do not make peace, they will be threatened by Palestinian militancy and apparently, this will end the threat to the country.   The view of the Israeli right is that they cannot make peace without giving up a part of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which means abandoning settlements and threatening the lives of people and their security because they think the settlements are a good form of security.  The extreme right believes in the concept of the Greater Israel into Jordan.

  The middle believe that peace is necessary to prevent an Arab-majority state in Israel but feel that the peace process cannot go ahead with the right of return.  The Left thinks it can wing it and still maintain a Jewish-majority state with the right of return.  All of it is quite muddled.  The U.N. voted in the creation of the country which was legal but some left-wing activists insist that Palestine was a country and that Israel was created illegally which is hard to put forth as a perspective considering it was voted in by the U.N. and Palestine has never been a country.

  As for the U.S., the government itself usually falls in line with the Israeli government's view which is to somehow maintain an occupation while negotiating for peace but if they abandon it, they run the risk of damage to their own people so their view is more military and strategic and less political and religious.  Who decides the Israeli government's view?  Depends on who is in office but that doesn't mean it reflects on the society.

  
  T

• silverwhisper said on Aug 03, 2007....

  as i said: right of return, which is a non-starter in any serious discussion with israel, will almost certainly never be dropped by any arab participants in such a discussion.
  
  ed

• cotteralladams3 said on Aug 16, 2007....

  The only alternative is unilateral disengagement. It is highly unlikely that Abbas will give up the right of return. Maybe in some way they want to start a civil war, which takes us back to '48. One of the most hilarious claims by the Left (Noam Chomsky, Leila Khaled, Jimmy Baker, Uri Avnery, Queen Noor) is that Palestine was an invaded country of 'indigenous' people who were forced illegally into a partition when they rejected their own country and decided to attack and threaten another country illegally without reason of self-defense and there were threats against this country, to throw them into the sea, suggesting the threat of ethnic cleansing. It is no wonder the Israelis did what they did to defend themselves after WWII and the White paper in addition to thirty years of Palestinian harassment. Historical revisionism is popular. Amazing how quickly some people can forgive. The two-state solution according to one journalist has failed. To keep up the occupation is to risk an Arab-majority state with Palestinians as second-class citizens, not an appealing option. It is hard to say what will happen. Partitioning with the U.N. administering to the West Bank and Gaza and a buffer zone controlled by Israeli-NATO troops may be the only answer in the forseeable future but it won't be a country for Palestine. I don't know if I think that's what they deserve and no more, if it is tragic, or if it could have been prevented by American intervention.

• sheltercrow said on Nov 02, 2007....

  http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/

  Just for the record here is a little bit of a diversion to let the reader understand that the state of Israel was created by the efforts of an actual "zionist" movement dating back to 1896.. 

  I quote Rabbi Baruch Kaplan

  Zionism is a movement founded by Theodor Herzl in 1896 whose goal is the return of Jews to Eretz Yisrael, or Zion, the Jewish synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
  
  The name of "Zionism" comes from the hill Zion, the hill on which the Temple of Jerusalem was situated.
  
  Supporters of this movement are called "Zionists".

  Traditional Jews Are Not Zionists

  Although there are those who refuse to accept the teachings of our Rabbis and will continue to support the Zionist state, there are also many who are totally unaware of the history of Zionism and its contradiction to the beliefs of Torah-True Jews.

  Today’s wicked Zionists are just like their predecessors, who were responsible for causing terrible suffering in Palestine with their wars with the Arabs, may G-d have mercy. At that time in 1929, the Zionists had a slogan arguing that the Western Wall in Jerusalem was a Jewish “national symbol.” Of course, the Arabs disagreed with this idea, considering that they had control of the location for over 1,100 years. However, the Zionist mobs were yelling that “The Wall is ours!” It’s hard to understand why they felt that way considering they have no connection to the Jewish holy places whatsoever. An argument erupted in the Jewish newspapers about establishing a permanent prayer area for Jews at the Wall. This provoked the Arabs, and the rabbi of Jerusalem at the time, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld begged them to stop and to be appreciative to the Arabs for allowing Jews to pray at the Wall for so many centuries undisturbed. However, the Zionists wanted a permanent setup under their control.

• cotteralladams3 said on Nov 02, 2007....

  The vast majority of people I have met, read and heard speaking on Zionism support Israel's right to exist and defend itself. I don't see how anyone can call for the destruction of a legally-mandated country and possibly believe that this will lead to peace and stability. To be honest, look at the history of the U.S. and Canada and how Natives were treated and nobody calls for the destruction of our country. That is tantamount to treason.

  It would create a civil war and anarchy. This mentality of the radical Left is dangerous and loony. It is pathological. To me, social democracy is simply the fine line between absurdity and communism, so it doesn't appeal to me. I am close to being a libertarian, really. I can't imagine anyone selling that perspective.

  Can you see any journalist at Jerusalem Post or Haaretz taking this seriously? "Yes, let's destroy our own country by denying ourselves the right to exist. We have only maintained an occupation for forty years out of self-defense because we want to invite the radicals back in. Yes, we deserve this. We have no right to exist. Let's apologize spending sixty years in an 'illegal' country. We need a binational state'. Perhaps if leftists would spend less time smoking (whatever the hell it is they smoke now, back then it was pot) and drinking and more time actually travelling through some of these countries, reading up on their culture, attending college and watching the news, they'd be informed.

• sheltercrow said on Nov 03, 2007....

  A few interesting facts...

  Zionism represents itself as a political movement concerned principally with the establishment of a state in Palestine to be controlled by and for Jews. It began in the late 19th Century and attained its stated objective with the creation in 1948 of the state of Israel by the United Nations (at the insistence of the United States and without the agreement of existing Middle Eastern states). Subsequently Israel doubled the amount of territory it controlled by means of its illegal occupation of the West Bank in the 1967 and 1973 wars.

  The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.'...Menahem Begin had the following remarks to make: 'In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.

  "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68

  "Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.

  And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997

  "The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan; one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today. But the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them." David Ben-Gurion, in 1936.

  "The main danger which Israel, as a 'Jewish state', poses to its own people, to other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of territorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this aim...No Zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli policies must be based (within the limits of practical considerations) on the restoration of Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state." Israeli professor, Israel Shahak, "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3000 Years."

  The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.'...Menahem Begin had the following remarks to make: 'In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.

  "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68

  "Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.

  And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997

• sheltercrow said on Nov 03, 2007....

   A few more interesting facts...

  In Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharatt's personal diaries, there is an excerpt from May of 1955 in which he quotes Moshe Dayan as follows: "[Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no - it must - invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge...And above all - let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." Quoted in Livia Rokach, "Israel's Sacred Terrorism."

  "Senator [J.William Fulbright] proposed in 1970 that America should guarantee Israel's security in a formal treaty, protecting her with armed forces if necessary. In return, Israel would retire to the borders of 1967. The UN Security Council would guarantee this arrangement, and thereby bring the Soviet Union - then a supplier of arms and political aid to the Arabs - into compliance. As Israeli troops were withdrawn from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they would be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force. Israel would agree to accept a certain number of Palestinians and the rest would be settled in a Palestinian state outside Israel.

  "The plan drew favorable editorial support in the United States. The proposal, however, was flatly rejected by Israel. 'The whole affair disgusted Fulbright,' writes [his biographer Randall] Woods. 'The Israelis were not even willing to act in their own self-interest.'" Allan Brownfield in "Issues of the American Council for Judaism." Fall 1997.

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