OK, not all lobbying, and not all of Congress, just a handful of congressmen and women who are horrified that the Council on American-Islamic Relations has plans to lobby Congress and try to get its people on board as Congressional interns.
When big business does it, it’s fine; when Muslims do it, it hands over America to al-Qaida!
Glenn Greenwald has the story.
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Archive for the 'Politics' Category
NOW Congress thinks lobbying is bad
October 16th, 2009, 3:28 pm by fshermanRonald Reagan and Ron Hart
October 14th, 2009, 9:35 am by fshermanRon Hart, in his latest column: “Ronald Reagan, who only ended the Cold War and brought down the Berlin Wall, did not win a Nobel Peace Prize.”
Now certainly ending the Cold War was an impressive accomplishment—and at a time when conservatives decried Reagan as a naive twit indulging in “appeasement” for not seeing this was a Soviet scam—and he probably deserved it as much as Gorbachev did. But Reagan’s record was hardly that of a peacemaker.
•In El Salvador he supported a dictatorship that murdered priests and nuns for teaching peasants to read (Reagan reported to Congress that the country was doing a great job preserving human rights).
•He greenlighted Saddam’s use of poison gas on Iranian soldiers. Our only reservation was that it might make it harder to condemn the use of chemical weapons when employed by sociopaths who weren’t working for us.
•He sold weapons to Iran. Funny, Hart was blasting Obama in the previous column for being naive about trusting the Iranians would make peace; apparently if Obama were selling them weapons, that would be A-OK. Well, actually not: Obama’s a Democrat, Reagan’s a Republican saint, so they can hardly be judged by the same standard.
•He funded the Afghanistanian mujahedeen as proxy soldiers against the Soviets. The people who later turned into Taliban and gave shelter to al-Qaida.
•He directed the CIA to lie to Congress about Pakistan having a nuclear program because that would have resulted in sanctions and Pakistan was our chief supply route to the mujahedeen. So now we have a nuclear-armed nation in an unstable part of the world, with government ties to Islamic extremists.
All in all, Reagan’s support for peace, democracy and freedom was non-existent any time they weren’t convenient for us.
Ron Hart’s parallel universe
October 12th, 2009, 1:56 pm by fshermanFrom Hart’s Saturday column: “Negotiating missile treaties with naiveté jeopardizes our security. The belief that if the United States lays down its arms, those militant countries that hate us will do the same, is folly.”
And when has Obama suggested otherwise? Heck, we’re discussing increasing the troop strength in Afghanistan; that’s hardly beating swords into plowshares.
It’s a little vague what Hart is referring to, but if he means yanking the anti-missile system from Eastern Europe, that was a good move, and hardly naive. If he means negotiating with Iran, I don’t recall anything in that about laying down our arms.
I’m not sure if he has a point he wasn’t clear about or if, as usual, he’s regurgitating Republican themes—Obama is weak! Diplomacy is bad! Nuke Iran!—without saying anything definite enough to argue with.
From the Daily News letters page
October 12th, 2009, 1:51 pm by fsherman1)G.M. Ross of Navarrre: “How did a socialist Republican-in-name-only like Gov. Charlie Crist ever get embraced by and elected into office?”
Crist is not a socialist. Period.
Man, until Obama got into office, I’d forgotten the automatic tendency of some right-wingers to label everyone they don’t like a socialist (or a communist). Since they were screaming it during the campaign with no results, I’d naively assumed they’d give up on that tactic. After all, there are people eligible to vote who don’t even remember when the USSR existed, let alone remember the Cold War; it’s the kind of rallying cry that works best on very old, very conservative people.
But then again, we have so many of those around here.
Then we have FWB’s April Bryant who opens with a long rant about how mean left-wingers were to people under Bush (no suggestion that those cries of “traitor” might be comparably divisive) and adds “as long as you agree with the left you’re free to speak. Otherwise, you are intolerant or extreme. What hypocrites!”
I’m sorry if poor Mr. Masick’s feelings were hurt by his side being criticized, but being told you’re intolerant or extreme doesn’t deny him or anyone else their freedom to speak. It just means that if they say something other people object to, they can expect to be called on it.
Next: “Why is it OK for a black person to disagree with a white president, but when a white person disagrees with President Obama, it’s racism … It is what it is—a disagreement about policy and ideology, not skin color.”
Certainly a lot of times—most I suspect—it is a disagreement about policy.
A lot of times, however, it’s also a disagreement about skin color. The sign mentioned in my previous post can hardly be seen as a racism-free discussion of the merits of health care. Nor can those campaign buttons about “If Obama wins, can we call it the White House?” or Jonah Goldberg claiming that whites are just voting for Obama out of a fear of race riots if he loses.
Likewise, a lot of the reaction over Obama’s Islamic roots, Christianity and his alleged softness toward Islam relate not to policy differences about dealing with Islamic terrorism but to religious bigotry: The tone often comes down to Obama not hating or wanting to wage war on Islam. And part of that, I suspect, is also racist, the whole thing about a lot of Muslims being so dark-skinned.
Hurray for Russ Feingold
October 9th, 2009, 2:46 pm by fshermanThe Wisconsin senator was a staunch defender of civil liberties under Bush, and he isn’t softening under Obama. His criticism of the Patriot Act reauthorization bill is here.
I particularly like his comment about the duties of the Judiciary Committee to be about justice, not just law enforcement: “It’s not the prosecutors’ committee, it’s the Judiciary Committee.”
Oh, joy
October 9th, 2009, 2:39 pm by fshermanDemocratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse: “The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize …put[ting] politics above patriotism.”
Now BOTH political parties are playing the Everyone Who Disagrees With Us Is A Terrorist card. Absolutely wonderful. Not.
Word games
October 9th, 2009, 2:29 pm by fshermanWalter Williams’ column today: “There’s little or no distinction between Nazism and socialism. Even the word ‘Nazi’ is short for the National Socialist German Workers Party.”
By this logic, everyone who writes in to the daily news and announces “America is a republic, not a democracy” must be some sort of Stalinist—after all, the USSR stood for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
And no, the Nazis were not socialists, despite the name. They crushed the socialist parties and actively solicited support on the right. And despite Williams’ effort to suggest that leftist=Nazi-in-training, the fascists in America are all solidly on the right; David Duke, for instance, ran as a Republican, not a Democrat.
No, that’s not equating Republicans and Nazis. But the Republicans have been playing the Southern strategy (cater to racists without being open about it) for forty years, it’s not surprising the far right embraces themm.
More amusingly, Williams grumbles that leftists “are willing to abandon constitutional principles and rule of law so that the nation’s elite, who believe they are morally and intellectually superior to the rest of us, can have the tools to implement “social justice.”"
Of course, it’s the right wing that spent the first eight years of this century pushing centralized government in the form of the Patriot Act, “enemy combatant” laws and the unitary president theories. Apparently that was fine—I don’t recall Williams saying one word of objection—but like a number of Repubs, the horror of government providing medical care? THAT’S stalinist!
Daily News letters
October 9th, 2009, 2:20 pm by fshermanFrom Wednesday, we have Mark Burch of FWB, who grumbles that Obama “only eight months into his on-the-job training, has wasted no opportunity to apologize for past American greatness and exceptionalism to any socialist, tyrant or Muslim who can fog a mirror.”
So, Mr. Burch, should I assume that you think being Muslim is as bad as being a socialist or a tyrant? And that it wouldn’t be so bad if Obama apologized to Christians?
And why do I have the feeling that if McCain were eight months in, nobody would accuse him of being untrained?
And let’s see, America’s greatness over the past eight years has involved waging a war on a nation that didn’t attack us and wasn’t a threat, locking up countless people who hadn’t committed any crimes, openly discussing the possibility of war on more nations … We’ve done some great things, but “exceptionalism” is a delusion, and an excuse to pretend that when we do bad things, it doesn’t count.
Burch again: “President Obama once again made it known the United States has no intention of exerting its influence on other nations …The primary flaw in Obama’s campaign of contrition is that, to succeed, America must be diminished.”
It’s not a bad thing not to influence other nations, since our main way of doing it is to threaten force. Maybe we should try it for a while.
Instead, of course, Obama is still hinting about sanctions on Iran, waging war in Afghanistan, etc. We’re hardly folding up our tent and going home.
Burch also complains that the one nation we are exerting influence on is Israel. Given the amount of money and arms we support Israel with, that seems reasonable to me.
Miscellanea from the Daily News letter pages
October 5th, 2009, 3:09 pm by fsherman•Randy Henning, Mossy Head, on the Santa Rosa County school prayer controversy: “The Bill of Rights is a restriction on the federal government, not local or state.”
The Supreme Court has ruled that both the First and Fourth amendments are binding on the states (others too, I believe). And this is a good thing, because without the First Amendment, schools really could shut out prayer if they wanted to: No students allowed to say grace, or hold Bible study groups on school property, etc
•Allan Stearns, FWB: “I seriously doubt race is playing a part among those disappointed with the current administration … Race is not the issue. Can’t we agree to disagree without having to resort to the race card?”
Certainly not everyone who’s displeased with Obama is upset about race, but yes, race is definitely an issue: Just look at the racial imagery during the campaign, (Obama Waffles!), Limbaugh’s statement that liberals should find racism as acceptable as homosexuality or the whole birther mess. Sure, they’d have found some crazy rationale why Obama wasn’t a REAL president, just as they did with Clinton and Gore*, but if he’d been as white as McCain, I can’t see “Maybe he’s not a natural-born American!” being the issue.
*Remember when the letters page was always telling us that Clinton wasn’t elected with a majority of all American voters? Or pundits who’d explain that geographically, Bush won a much larger region of the country than Gore, or he won the votes of Real Americans instead of those evil liberals in the big cities (whose votes, the subtext seemed to be, shouldn’t have counted).
•Joe Les Fishback, of Crestview: “The number liberals keep tossing out there, 48 million without healthcare is ridiculous … 20 million people choose big-screen TVs, cell-phones, expensive cars, etc., instead of health care.”
I know this is a standard Republican theme—everyone who wants a government service is a lazy bum—but as I’ve noted in previous posts, a lot of people can’t afford health care and don’t have any of these things either. And trust me, going without cell-phone service isn’t going to bring in enough money to cover your premiums.
•Fishback again: “Racism is a two way street. There is just as much black acism as there is white racism. Liberals just choose to ignore it.”
Ooooh, poor discriminated-against Mr. Fishback. Let’s compare, shall we? White racism against blacks had led to slavery (OK, slavery was as much a cause of racism as a result, but I’m putting it in here), Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, the murder of Civil Rights workers, sundown towns and black people trying to walk out of New Orleans before Katrina getting turned back at gunpoint.
Racism of blacks against whites has generated what horrible consequences exactly?
•Harold Medlin, FWB, on the prayer issue: “If Christians and all God-loving people dont’ draw a line in the sand somewhere, the morals of our country will worsen.”
Yes, because prayer in schools was such a wonderful deterrent to Jim Crow, to treating rape victims like prostitutes, to the beatings and persecutions of gays … Such fine moral times.
I also wonder how many of these pro-prayer people would be screaming if the prayers were, say, to Allah, or to the Blessed Virgin.
And the right-wing fringe gets more alarming still
September 30th, 2009, 10:28 am by fshermanPundit John Perry on Newsmax:
” There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.
America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.
[...]
Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.”
Boy, the right wing sure got over it’s conviction that even criticizing the president during wartime is a bad thing, didn’t it?
And no, there’s no such thing as a ‘civilized’ military coup–unless by civilized you mean everyone’s too terrified of being killed to speak out. And history shows that promises to overthrow an elected leader to restore some nation’s Constitution are lies.
Fortunately, I find the prospect of America’s military betraying their oath to their country and the whole civilian-command concept much less likely than Perry does.
