Later, we’ll discuss the Obama administration in its infancy.
Each move, a further lurch — no not so much to the right, as towards a sort of New Incoherency.
Consider: Afghanistan and TARP.
…he smiles, because you are guilty…..
We’ll also discuss Obama as place holder for the dull wet dreams of liberals.
But for now, I direct your attention to this site which will appall and shock.
[a topic first covered by this space here]
According to this NY Times article, which exhibits that subtle combination of ‘here are the facts’ reporting with unquestioned (and unquestionable, in polite society) assertions so typical of contemporary media, Hamas has “sworn to the destruction of Israel.”
Well that being the case, surely we can all agree with Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni who told her “Fox News Sunday” hosts that Israel’s aggression is necessary “…to change the realities on the ground, and to give peace and quiet to the citizens in southern Israel.”
Case closed. Let the bombs fall! And since they’re being dropped by the world’s ‘most humane military’ it’s a sure bet that all casualties are ‘bad guys’. Except for those which aren’t. Those deaths make our heavily armed humanitarians and their enablers in Washington and other capitals weep for what the monsters made us do.
But is Hamas what it’s made out to be?
Here’s Lenin’s Tomb on the “Myth of Hamas Rejectionism” –
Israel’s opponents are always rejectionist, refusing to acknowledge the Jewish state’s repeated olive branches and fanatically insisting on a maximalist programme. Thus, the late Yasser Arafat could never be Israel’s much sought after ‘partner in peace’. This image was never accurate. The PLO spent the 1990s engaged in a drastic reduction of its aims and aspirations, eventually coming close to negotiating a two-state settlement at Taba, before Ehud Barak called off the discussions. Former Clinton aide Robert Malley pointed out that far from Arafat rejecting a ‘generous offer’ from Israel (as has been alleged), “it could be said that Israel rejected the unprecedented two-state solution put to them by the Palestinians, including the following provisions: a state of Israel incorporating some land captured in 1967 and including a very large majority of its settlers; the largest Jewish Jerusalem in the city’s history [and] security guaranteed by a US-led international presence”.
Still, the myths persisted throughout the assaults on Jenin and Rafah, throughout the bulldozings and massacres, until Arafat died under seige. Mahmoud Abbas is so craven that it is difficult to depict him as a sinister rejectionist. Instead, Sharon insisted that Abbas use the scant resources of the Palestinian Authority to pursue a war against Hamas, even as the settlement building continued and the wall was erected, with Palestinian farmland being destroyed and the economy crushed. This was itself one of the causes of the surge in support for Hamas which, contrary to prevalent misconceptions, was far more pragmatic in its ability to work with other forces, such as the PFLP (despite the latter’s occasional sectarianism).
[...]
Grim. But at least we can look forward to President Obama changing US-Palestinian relations and putting the brakes on Israeli violence.
Oh wait, cancel that:
…David Axelrod, appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, did reaffirm Obama’s commitment to the “special relationship between the United States and Israel” in a way that suggested general sympathy for the Jewish state’s actions.
Speaking a day after Israeli airstrikes, targeting and destroying Hamas facilities in Gaza, killed more than 275, Axelrod said the president-elect, from on-the-ground experience, understood the urge for retaliatory action.
Last July, Obama visited Sderot, a southern Israel town on the border of the Gaza Strip that has taken the brunt of Hamas attacks, Axelrod reminded host Chip Reid. “He said then that when bombs are raining down on your citizens, there is an urge to respond and act to try to put an end to that. That’s what he said then. I think that’s what he believes.”
[...]
Oh liberals, is there no humanitarian murder you won’t eagerly condone?
American society, I’ve found, is ambivalent about the fact of immigration.
This isn’t a new observation but when you’re alert to the two main, and conflicting, immigration stories told in the US – at one moment, a story of triumph over terrible odds to build a new life of unprecedented freedom and prosperity and at the next, a blood curdling tale of barbarians hording our limited resources, altering our sainted culture and increasing our crime rates – often told by the same person, you’re startled by the cognitive duality into seeing the thing anew.
It seems to come down to this: when my family arrived, it was a good thing because we (fill in the standard list of accomplishments). These new arrivals however, lack the (fill in the list of standard virtues) my family displayed in super abundance.
When immigration comes up in American discourse, it’s not very long before words such as “responsibility”, “rewards”, “punishments” and “obedience” are tossed into the circle. The language of immigration debate in the US is, in many cases, the language of child rearing; which is very revealing.
In the US, there is a simulated immigration position – which speaks of open vistas and blue skies – and there is a real position which is, we can say, more complex and contorted.
The center of current concern is Sen Frist’s bill, S.2454, which has the thought engineering name of the Securing America’s Borders Act.
Of the two bills on offer (the other being sponsored in the House by Kennedy and McCain which is built upon the idea of “guest workers”), it is, by all accounts (unsurprisingly) the more draconian creating new types of criminal activity around being, and perhaps aiding, undocumented immigrants.
The response to this bill’s announcement has been swift and quite large.
Washington Post reports…
Frist Immigration Bill Would Target Bosses
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press
Friday, March 17, 2006
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist sidesteps President Bush’s call for giving illegal immigrants temporary work permits in an election-year immigration bill the Tennessee Republican unveiled Friday.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., faulted Frist’s bill for not addressing what to do with illegal immigrants already in the U.S. “Countless businesses rely heavily on their labor and it’s long past time to provide legal avenues to bring this underground economy out of the shadow,” he said.
Frist’s bill would:
_Require all employers to verify the identity and immigration status of their employees through an electronic system.
_Assess civil penalties of between $500 and $20,000 against employers for each illegal immigrant they hire and criminal penalties of up to $20,000 per illegal immigrant hired and up to six months in jail for engaging in a pattern of employing illegal workers.
_Add 4,400 Border Patrol agents over six years to the 10,000 Congress provided for in the intelligence reform law passed in 2004, and 1,000 more immigrant smuggling investigators over the next five years.
_More than double the number of employment-based green cards, from 140,000 to 290,000, and make more employment based visas available to unskilled workers. It also would free up other visas by exempting immediate relatives of U.S. citizens from being counted in the annual pool of 480,000 visas, and increase country-by-country ceilings on family sponsored and employment-based immigrants.
[...]
full at the Washinton Post
School Walkouts Protest Immigration Proposals
By Anna Gorman and Michelle Keller, Times Staff Writers
March 24, 2006
A day before organizers planned to rally downtown against U.S. border restrictions, hundreds of students walked out of four high schools in Los Angeles this morning to march for immigrant rights.
The atmosphere was festive as 500 Huntington Park High School students waved Mexican flags, held balloons colored green, white and red, and periodically broke into cheers of “Mexico! Mexico!”
Without immigrants, this country wouldn’t be anything,” said Anna Benitez, 15, a ninth-grade student who moved to Los Angeles at age 5 with her mother from Mexico. “We’re people. We’re human beings. We’re not criminals. We’re in this country to work.”
In a separate demonstration, another 1,500 students converged on Evergreen Park in Boyle Heights after walking out of classes at Garfield High School, Montebello High School and Roosevelt High School, according to Rafael Escobar, a Los Angeles Unified School District official.
[...]
full at the LA Times
The LA Times reports…
500,000 Pack Streets to Protest Immigration Bills
The rally, part of a massive mobilization of immigrants and their supporters, may be the largest L.A. has seen.
By Teresa Watanabe and Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writers
March 26, 2006
A crowd estimated by police at more than 500,000 boisterously marched in Los Angeles on Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall along the U.S.’ southern border.
Spirited but peaceful marchers — ordinary immigrants alongside labor, religious and civil rights groups — stretched more than 20 blocks along Spring Street, Broadway and Main Street to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting, “Sí se puede!” (Yes we can!).
Attendance at the demonstration far surpassed the number of people who protested against the Vietnam War and Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that sought to deny public benefits to undocumented migrants but was struck down by the courts. Police said there were no arrests or injuries except for a few cases of exhaustion.
At a time when Congress prepares to crack down further on illegal immigration and self-appointed militias patrol the U.S. border to stem the flow, Saturday’s rally represented a massive response, part of what immigration advocates are calling an unprecedented effort to mobilize immigrants and their supporters
[...]
full at the LA Times