I just read an article about Obama's speech to AIPAC and he, at least, said that Israel has to rein in its settlements. He didn't get booed, but that remark apparently fell pretty flat.

Now it looks like Clinton supporters are starting an actual write-in campaign for her. Great.

No I do understand that he has to address AIPAC, but sentences like (and I'm paraphrasing, because I'm not sure of the exact quote): "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided" is just cunt's talk.

I'm deeply deeply disappointed by this speech. I am not terribky surprised since Democrats are even worse than Republicans on Israel/Palestine, but I had really begun to entertain the hope that Obama might be slightly different. But no, yet another US politician sets his stall out to be inhuman to the Palestinians, and support Israel in doing whatever the fuck it wants in its murderous campaign of oppression.

I think you're responding too soon. I know this is an issue you are passioantely committed to, and you are likely to be disappointed by any US president.

Given the audience and what people have been saying about him on pro-Israeli websites he had a great deal of bridgebuilding to do. The remark about Jerusalem comes in a context.

QUOTE:
The United States and the international community must stand by Palestinians who are committed to cracking down on terror and carrying the burden of peacemaking. I will strongly urge Arab governments to take steps to normalize relations with Israel, and to fulfill their responsibility to pressure extremists and provide real support for President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad. Egypt must cut off the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Israel can also advance the cause of peace by taking appropriate steps - consistent with its security - to ease the freedom of movement for Palestinians, improve economic conditions in the West Bank, and to refrain from building new settlements - as it agreed to with the Bush Administration at Annapolis.

Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper - but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.

I have no illusions that this will be easy. It will require difficult decisions on both sides. But Israel is strong enough to achieve peace, if it has partners who are committed to the goal. Most Israelis and Palestinians want peace, and we must strengthen their hand. The United States must be a strong and consistent partner in this process - not to force concessions, but to help committed partners avoid stalemate and the kind of vacuums that are filled by violence. That's what I commit to do as President of the United States.

The full speech ishere

In its historical context and to that audience it could almost be called progressive.

It's all this poor little victim Israel shit that pisses me off the most:

QUOTE:
Flying in an IDF helicopter, I saw a narrow and beautiful strip of land nestled against the Mediterranean. On the ground, I met a family who saw their house destroyed by a Katyusha Rocket. I spoke to Israeli troops who faced daily threats as they maintained security near the blue line. I talked to people who wanted nothing more simple, or elusive, than a secure future for their children.

What about the Palestinians who are killed daily from that very fucking helicopter you're flying in, arsehole?

It's a great piece of rhetoric. It gives the potentially extremely hostile audience a good feeling, and commits him to absolutely nothing.

It's not so much the expected bias, as the blatant inaccuracy and deceit that's so despairing about all this stuff.

But then we are talking about an issue on which the New York Times is to the aggressive right of the most rabid anti-Palestinian Tory papers here.

Though perhaps we shouldn't make this a cornerstone issue - because it could be argued that by doing so we're buying into the myth that the US can be a 'solution' to the conflict whe it has always been a contributor to the problem. Not least by the simple fact of it heavily arming and bankrolling one of the combatants.

QUOTE:
a massive star of the Senate opposition.

D'oh. Of course, he isn't a Senator.

Listening to the Hilary speech now. She is absolutely 100% fucking delusional.

Cut him some slack, Obama is going to make alot of these speeches as he has to give racist white Americans no reason not to vote for him.

BBC and Sky were touring the streets of USA asking white people if they would vote for him, most said no giving lame excuses, when asked if his colour was an issue, the look on their faces was a picture.

Obama will not win, and they don't even have to assasinate him, the bigots will see to that.

Charlie Woolfe was on Sky too. I would love to bump into that cunt one day, hopefully with no witnesses around.

The end? I'll believe it when I see it, but at least it's a hopeful sign that it will be over soon. Of course, she's burying it on a Friday after defiantly gloating in Obama's spotlight last night, but I'll take the end of her campaign (almost) any way I can get it.

As far as I can see, no-one's yet linked to John Pilger's article on Obama.

This bit, on Bobby Kennedy, made me laugh:

QUOTE:
Using the memory of his martyred brother, Kennedy assiduously exploited the electoral power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them, not the rich.

"These people love you," I said to him as we left Calexico, California, where the immigrant population lived in abject poverty and people came like a great wave and swept him out of his car, his hands fastened to their lips.

"Yes, yes, sure they love me," he replied. "I love them!" I asked him how exactly he would lift them out of poverty: just what was his political philosophy?

"Philosophy? Well, it's based on a faith in this country and I believe that many Americans have lost this faith and I want to give it back to them, because we are the last and the best hope of the world, as Thomas Jefferson said."

"That's what you say in your speech. Surely the question is: How?"

"How? By charting a new direction for America."

TT,

I just skimmed the article (girlfriend's on the way over and I need to clean up and get food ready), but the sense I get is that he is saying that there's little real difference between Obama and McCain.

If I have that right, then I'd kindly ask him to fuck right off. This is what people said about 2000 and 2004, and I think the last 8 years have shown that to be demonstrably false (granted, it's hard to prove a counterfactual, but I'm going to just assert that for now). As someone who actually has to live in the US, the fact that there is a demonstrable difference between the two is mind-shatteringly obvious.

Will one of them bring on a fascist or socialist utopia? No. Will one of them bring the world into a new millennium of untested peace? No. But an insistence in viewing large differences in degree as a similarity in kind (and therefore worthless) is to dream of a world that isn't and is likely not to be, and lets the current world descend further into chaos unimpeded.

With that bit of my rather hotheaded and nonsensical rhetoric, I'm off to cook some pasta sauce.

I agree.

Your girlfriend should take care. These are some very impressive storms rolling through.

Gyuri - you would think that would be obvious to any sane person.

But believe me, it somehow seems to have entirely escaped TonTon. And beyond that, I am not fucking touching this topic again.

People, people.

This is John Pilger we're talking about. Why on earth would you get upset about anything he writes?