Palin-Gibson Interview: Four Screens of Ignorance
I am going to give my initial impressions of the Gibson-Palin interview before I read any of the blogger response, because I don’t want to be influenced by anyone else. Here goes:
“A Flamethrower in a Fireworks Factory”
That’s what a John McCain presidency would be, according to Glasgow Herald political correspondent Iain MacWhirter:
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
I wasn’t able to absorb too much of the Georgia-Russia debacle, because it happened during My Week From Hell — but I have gathered from glancing at some of the coverage on right-wing blogs that The Cold War Is Back!, and the air in neocon quarters is so thick with excitement you could cut it with a knife.
You know things are bad when Pat Buchanan is a voice of sanity:
Eight years ago I would not have believed that I would ever think Pat Buchanan could be a voice of sanity. But as neocons like Robert Kagan can hardly contain their enthusiasm when they see an opportunity to fire up the cold war again it is Buchanan who comes across as sane. Now the neocons never did like the “War on Terror”. Their attempts to turn it into a “real” war have for the most part been dismal failures. Over at LewRockwell.com Pat Buchanan describes how hypocritical the neocon’s outrage over Russia’s response to Saakashvili’s blunder really is.
I read Kagan’s piece in its turgid, pedantic, ahistorical entirety (do I get a gold star?). Rarely have I seen a neocon use the word “liberal” as a term of praise as many times as Kagan does in this piece: “liberal forces,” “liberal era,” “liberal democracies,” “liberal democratic international order” — although, in truth, the United States is the most conservative of all Western democracies, as this chart at The Political Compass rather stunningly shows.
“We are at the edge of losing an historic opportunity”
Steve Clemons and Mustafa Barghouti analyze Barack Obama’s recent trip to Israel and speech in Berlin and the implications both present regarding his Middle East policy as president.
John McCain, the Bush Administration, and Iraq
Interesting developments going on over the past few days vis à vis plans and agreements for Iraq’s future. On Monday, Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, announced that he wanted to work out a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops:
American Privilege
Part of the privilege that comes with being an American living in the United States is selective awareness. Nowhere is this more true than in Iraq, where media pundits and right-wing bloggers supportive of Bush’s war policies blithely superimpose their own template on that country with never a need to see Iraq through anyone’s eyes but their own.
58 Bases But Nothing’s Going On
Not to worry; nothing to see here:
“Look, there is going to be no occupation,” said U.S. spokesman Adam Ereli. “Now it’s perfectly understandable that there are those that are following this closely in Iraq who have concerns about what this means for Iraqi sovereignty and independence. We understand that and we appreciate that and that’s why nothing is going to be rammed down anybody’s throat.
“It’s kind of like a forced marriage. It just doesn’t work. They either want you or they don’t want you. You can’t use coercion to get them to like you,” he added.
On Peace and Cognitive Dissonance
Reading an article in today’s NY Times about the prospects for the progression of peace talks with Israelis and Palestinians, I’m struck by two things. One unmentioned, the other came at the end of the article.
Read’ems on the Food Crisis
I was going to write about the food crisis that’s causing riots around the world, since this is one story we need to know about yet there’s not enough room for it to share the frontpage with the BS non-story of the day (really, has anything new been said at the latest Petraeus/Crocker hearings?). But after doing some research, I’ve found a few perfectly good stories that should be read. And since I’m feeling like a lazy blogger lately, I’ll just post the links:
“Rice races to record high” - The Independent, 4/8/08
“How Countries Worsen the Food Price Crisis” - U.S. News and World Report, 4/9/08
“Crop switch worsens the global food crisis“, - People and the Planet, 4/7/08
I consider all three articles as must reads, but if you want a summary of the points… Food producing nations are cutting exports; production of biofuels is taking food away from the global market; grains needed to feed to growing meat eating populations of China and India is also taking food off the market; foods like rice have become prized commodities because their increasing costs mean that sellers are sitting on the goods, waiting for prices to go up; and global warming may be leading to bad harvests, but either way violent storms around the world have increased and it’s effected production.
Even though this doesn’t strike the rich, meat eating countries as hard as it does the third world, at some point we’ll have to address this. Unless we like seeing global wars and famines.
I’m wondering if any presidential candidates have even mentioned it yet…
Motivating Factors Behind Anti-Immigration Sentiments
After taking a couple of weeks off from blogging, my buddy, Mark of Publius Endures, has come back into the swing of things in grand fashion. In one post in particular, he proves that he hasn’t dulled any during his absence, going to the heart of the illegal immigration debate in this country.
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