The Way it Used To Be

The old man sold cigarettes on the corner of Elm Street, today he was slightly whiskered, he wore a blue denim cap and jacket, and his piercing blue eyes caught my attention as I pulled my battered Lincoln to the curb.
In this part of town, intelligent conversation was all that some people had.
His name was Gary, I considered him a friend, even though he'd threatened me with physical violence a time or two when he felt I'd gone to far in defending modern ideas, or as he called it, "the secular progressive agenda."
I called him the "Russ Limbaugh of the Ghetto," except Gary was pretty sharp, intellectually stimulating,generally sober and usually pleasant.
I walked over and bought a pack of Camels, tax free.
The way of the future, I mused.
You could buy anything downtown.
It was a whole other world.
It was abandoned by society.
There were regular Police patrols, of course, but as long as the poor people kept a low profile they weren't hassled.
A pretty Indian girl walked by and smiled.
Like I said, you can buy anything downtown.
"so, Mike." Said Gary.
"Here we go." I thought, dryly.
"How's your man Obama today?"
I smiled, "You tell me, Gary."
Gary shoved his case of cigarettes to the other side of the cement table and spread out the paper.
"Do you know Obama's stand on the death penalty?"
I lit a cigarette, "Yes, Gary, he favors it in the most extreme cases. The most heinous crimes.
Basically he sides with the Court on the issue."
We bantered about a few more issues, Gary pointed out that he felt Obama's positions changed, I countered that that's the nature of the political beast, if one wants to be elected, one has to capture the center.
During our conversation bums,. drifters, hookers and street people came and went, doing their tobacco purchases with the wise man of Elm Street, he bartered and sold, made change, thanked the customers smoothly, not breaking the focus of his attention on me and our little debate.
A rag-tag group of welfare mothers and their kids, pensioners and assorted poor people were forming a line down the street, it was time for breakfast.
A schizophrenic passed by, muttering excitedly.
Gary leaned back and took a drag from his non-filtered smoke.
“Mike, I'm voting for McCain.
I am sick of the way this country is going.
You liberals are going to finish it off.
Obama wants to surrender to the Arabs.”
I pointed out that Obama's position was a phased withdrawal if it could be done while protecting our strategic position globally.
He grimaced, “Look how immoral this damn country has become.
When I was young, if your wife got outta line you could slap her around a little bit, and she'd get back into line. That was the way it was when we had the power, when America was a decent place.
Blacks, who we called niggers back then, knew their place, too.
And “Gays”, who we called Queers, kept their mouths shut.
If we found out someone was a Queer, we'd beat the Hell out of them.
If someone came out with some utopian idea about rich people paying taxes, we'd call them communists and that would be the end of them, Brother.
Everyone looked the same and acted the same, and women stayed in the kitchen, pregnant, and out of the man's world.
If your kids irritated you or sassed off, you could back hand them.
If you got some trollop pregnant, that was her problem, she was stuck with it, and everyone called her what she was, a Whore.
If the politicians wanted to kick some gook countries ass, you had to go, and die if the politicians needed it.
That's the way it was when America was decent.”
I smiled, “Well, Gary, I doubt many conservatives would disagree with you, that is the way it was.
But I don't think those days are coming back.
You see, now, women, blacks, conservatives and even communists can vote.
The times are changing again, Gary.
Hang on, it's going to be a wild, but I believe, a rewarding ride.
America, and the world will be better for it.”

To Know Others is Power, To Know One's self is Virtue

Ruch Limbaugh, Bill O, and Sean Hannity seem like clowns to me.
Limbaugh is on drugs, O'Reilly is an oppressive pervert, and Hannity, I think, means well, but he is not very bright.
I get most of my news from summaries, on line.
I read what is interesting, and I decide on the veracity of the stories based on my own knowledge of world events and history.
If I'm uncertain, I double check, I come at the story from different angles and read opposing views.
There are some sources that I just don't find credible, and we've discussed three of them. Have you seen the O'Reilly meltdown on youtube?
The guy is a bum, I suggest readers view the clip and see what he is like when he doesn't know the cameras are rolling.
He has ruthlessly, sexually harassed female underlings.
He is not a nice man, and he is not very honest at all.
The appeal of all three of these “gentlemen “ is that they say what their viewers want to hear.
It is difficult to seek out the truth, it is not for everyone, it leads to frustration and uncertainty, but for my personal well-being it is a must. I believe that for me to feel that I am a moral person it behooves me to learn what is right and what is not.
Thats just my feeling, for me, I don't necessarily ask others to follow that path.
And yet, throughout history, people, countries, have don't horrible things because they believed propaganda that would have been easy to see for what it is if they had opened their minds and listened to opposing views.
I do not believe that America needs to fear an Arab invasion in the near future.
Israel does.
Israel is being attacked as we speak and yet Bush is demanding a Palestinian terrorist state, a new one, which he has promised to subsidize.
In an article Professor Barry Rubin pointed out that

President George Bush recently stated that a Fatah-ruled Palestinian state
should be quickly developed since, "It will serve as an alternative vision to
what is happening in Gaza." This is rubbish. No matter how much money the West
pumps in, the nationalists are not going to offer an attractive regime. Fatah's
lower level of still-considerable repression is counterbalanced by the
corruption and anarchy included in the package. Jawad Tibi, a former Fatah
cabinet minister, explained, "Hamas is Fatah with beards."

The American people are being manipulated into believing that a rag tag group of Arabs will be fighting in our streets, an yet told to provide money for criminals that bomb Israel daily.
That we are doing nothing to protect Israel, and spending billions to turn Iraq into a more powerful Shiite terrorist enclave is ridiculous and maddening.
For people to continually repeat the Bush mantras is close to a kind of insanity.

And to view the “pundits” we've discussed here is like going to meditate with the Maharishi , it may feel good, but the bottom line is the only real benefit is to the Maharishi.

Fear and Loathing In America

Do you want to know about fear?
Listen to C-Span in the morning.
The call in show.
Caller after caller chimes in, the supporters of the left and the supporters on the right repeat, almost verbatim, the talking points of the political candidates.
No one seems to have an original or illuminating thought.
I was watching Michael Reagan on Larry King last recently and I thought, how unlike President Reagan he is.
Well, he's not a blood relation, he is adopted, but he is making a good living trading on the popularity of his adopted father, and spouting his views of his father's views.
Ron Reagan Jr., on the other hand, reminds me of his father, his biological father.
He is charming and intelligent.
Like his father, (until he swung to the right) Ron Reagan is a liberal.
Michael Reagan seems like a not terribly bright man, rather typical of commentators on the right, and Ron Reagan seems bright and intellectually gifted.
There are good arguments to be made on both sides of many of the issues in the political contest for the White house, the major problem is the doctrinaire adhesion to political dogma.
And some of the choices being offered to voters are bad anyway one looks at them.
Take the issue of Israel, for example.
The right wishes to push through a Palestinian State, although it seems that they have empathy for Israel.
The left's sympathy is with the Palestinians.
The left is so far from the truth on this issue, that it is hard for many to take them seriously on the issues that they are correctly addressing.
The right has good issues, but they can't seem to attract anyone with personality and intellect to get their random good ideas across.
Their message seems to be fear, fear of women having equality, gays not being repressed and government losing power over the poor.
Many of the fears of the right are completely irrational, such as their fear of an army of Arabs invading and conquering America.
The left has the personalities, and they are generally right on the issues.
They have the brain-power and educational endowments that the right lacks.
However, at least on the issue of Israel, and the middle-east in general, they fall back on beliefs that once were true, in general terms, and extrapolate them to any “minority”, such as the Palestinians.
The Palestinians are not being oppressed by Israel, and the Arab culture is the most backward culture on the planet in terms of human rights, particularly in regards to women.
Until the left understands reality vis a vis the Islamic sub-culture, the generally irrational and confused politics of fear and hate which is the staple of the right will continue to be a thorn in the side of civilization.

Don't be Fooled by Good Reviews

Barry Rubin


June 16, 2008
Golda Meir once said that a bad press was better than a good epitaph. In other words, pragmatic considerations must take precedence over public relations.
Sometimes it seems as if contemporary Israeli governments have forgotten that concept. Yet in general, especially where it counts, this principle continues to prevail in Israel.
Not so in the Arab world. There, maintaining a rhetoric of war, militancy, and refusal to compromise--as proof of the regime's impeccable Arab nationalist and Islamic credentials--has always been a powerful factor in governance. This method has great benefits by mobilizing popular support for dictators and a high cost because it blocks their making peace and leads them into costly foreign adventures.
For rulers, the good news is that they remain perpetually behind the steering wheel; the bad news, at least for their citizens, is that the vehicle never gets anywhere good. But this is not to say that the masses are mere dupes in this process. Tempting as it is to say, dictators bad; people good, the fact is that even if the masses don't (in the words of George Orwell's classic on modern dictatorship, 1984) love the ruling Big Brother, they at least like what Big Brother says.
What Big Brother, and all his helping little brothers, says, however, has changed internationally if not locally. The old script, still used in Arabic, was very macho: We'll fight forever, spill oceans of blood, and win completely in the end.
The new script, available only in English, is: we're poor victims who want peace and. In tune with current world thinking, this generates much sympathy.
But the resulting public relations' victories avail them not.
First, let's ask: what, in material terms, has the shift in Western opinion and media coverage actually cost Israel? It's easy to say Israel has been restrained from triumphs by Western pressure as a result of this change. Yet that situation dates back to the early 1970s, before the public relations' blitz, and has more to do with geopolitics than public opinion.
One can argue that there have been some costs to Israel (beneficial advantages from the European Union) and some benefits to the other side (more money to the Palestinian Authority). There's been a lot of personal discomfiture for Israelis treated as pariahs and Jews abroad dismayed by waves of hatred and misunderstanding.
Yet this has amounted to relatively little material disadvantage for Israel and not much real benefit for its adversaries. After all, there's still no Palestinian state, Palestinians are more divided than ever, Hamas is isolated, there's not much pressure on Israel for concessions, the Israeli presence on the Golan Heights remains, Israel's economy thrives, Israel's relations with the major European countries are good, the international campaign against Iran's nuclear drive is as strong as can be expected, and so on.
In short, the radical Arab nationalists, Islamists, Arab regimes, and Palestinian movement have squandered their public relations' victories in the West. The main reason for this is their extremist goals. They are like a bettor who wins at the gambling table but never cashes in his chips since defeat makes him more determined and success makes him over-confident.
If, for example, Palestinian leaders had wanted a deal to get an independent state or Syria had preferred to get back the Golan Heights in exchange for full peace they would have succeeded. A good press and favorable Western opinion, reflected through government policies, would have helped them make a better deal. As it is, however, they are merely enabled to continue their endless struggle with a smile on their faces.
A second way they have lost is by failing to be constructive. Aid given Palestinians was thrown away rather than used to build a productive stable society. The same principle applies to many Arab countries, with a partial exception for high-income, low-population Gulf Arab oil-producing states. Fickle fortune doesn't favor one forever. If you don't grab an advantage it flies away. The moving finger writes and having writ moves on, as Omar Khayyam put it. And sometimes, within a very short time, the very same finger that once praised you gives you, so to speak, the finger.
Third, specific actions undermine temporary popularity. Such events as September 11, the London subway bombings, the Islamist specter, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's demagoguery turn off the Western audience.
Finally, what Arab nationalists and Islamists often cite as their strongest card that time is on their side--because of high birth rates, which also mean lower living standards, or due to Israel's impending miraculous collapse--is among their worst mistakes. You could call it the vulture strategy, wait around in hope your adversary will die. They go on fighting and suffering--postponing peace, progress, and prosperity--while Israel, despite costs, prospers and its people live much better lives.
Rather than being used as part of an integrated strategy to obtain the best possible deal, public relations' successes act as morale builders to keep fighters going in the belief that victory is inevitable. In short, the more sympathetic stories about suffering victim Palestinians, the stronger the impetus to continue policies ensuring Palestinians continue in that status.
One reason for this malady is that most Arabs and Muslims are misled by a history often characterized by the cycle famously described by the historian Ibn Khaldoun. City-centered civilizations grown rich and decadent were destroyed by warlike tribes who reveled in battle. Sheep-like peasants were preyed on by nomadic warriors who raided them like wolves, killing and pillaging.
This was before, however, developed societies built technology, organization, discipline, and identity which gave them real military superiority beyond the strong right arm of individual hero warriors who courted death in battle. Now would-be conquerors sacrifice all for a future that'll never come. A strategy based on loving death and hating life reaps the commensurate result.
Jews know well from history that it is wrong to say "sticks and stones" are physically damaging while "words will never hurt me." Experience has shown that one day, blood libel; next day, pogrom. Yet Golda Meir was in fact right: progress trumps propaganda; quality triumphs over quantity; building beats destroying; and pragmatism is superior to ideologically-based wishful thinking.
Having a nice scrapbook of press clippings doesn't equal victory. Indeed, it can spell defeat.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). Prof. Rubin's columns can be read online.