Don't You Miss When This Was Just CT Paranoia?

[brainpanhandler]

You won't see that kind of juvenile sect-schism wackiness on the right with their guns and god and flag.

None,

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Guns are just industrialized swords with little blades that move out from the front of them too tiny and fast to see.

Jesus was and is anti-gun.

Ask him yourself.

The ever fragmenting left almost seems ineffectual by design.

[IanEye]

You won't see that kind of juvenile sect-schism wackiness on the right with their guns and god and flag.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/when-wingnuts-attack-each-other-zieg

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/21/bachmann-nonprofreedomagenda-dole-frist/

The ever fragmenting left almost seems ineffectual by design.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/21/lamont-hill-google-alert/

[url=http://tinyurl.com/yjk389s]

'the times are changin' back'[/url]

[AlicetheKurious]

The fact you and Hugh do not believe there was any Muslim involvement at all in 9/11, even in a dupe patsy role I find as ironic as the mainstream who thinks 9/11 was ALL the work of Muslim extremists.

Viktor Bout is about to be released, and Im sure he knows all too well how real the Islamic extremist groups are...afterall, he's been used by shadow factions to keep them and African genocide militias well armed for wider globalist agendas.

Why are there so many people that think Israel runs everything?

I recommend the new animated documentary Waltz With Bashir, which shows how it wasn't just Israel involved in the massacres in 1982.
These events serve MULTI purposes than simply some "Zionist" centered strategy. Israel, like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, America, England China, and the rest of the corrupt governments out there are all seemingly cogs in a much larger insidious machine.

First, you really shouldn't ever try to articulate my point of view, since you seem to be utterly incapable of understanding it. It's very frustrating for me, given the amount of time and effort I've made repeatedly in the past, to make it clear.

For the record, here is how I see it:

Saudi Arabia was invented by the British to serve imperial interests in the Middle East; for many decades, until they were allowed to collect some of Saudi oil money for their personal use, Saudi rulers actually drew a monthly salary from the British. From its founding until today, the regime in power there has depended 100% on the support and protection of first the British, then the Americans. In no sense is Saudi Arabia an independent country, neither can its rulers make any significant decisions that are not first approved in Washington.

During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, a wave of secular, Leftist Arab nationalism swept the region, endangering Western imperialist interests including, incidentally the puppet monarchies set up and run by the Western powers. In response, the U.S. came up with a plan (it was Eisenhower who first thought of it) to elevate the Saudi stooges from mere political rulers to the "Islamic" alternative to genuine grassroots Arab nationalist leaders. A complementary plan was executed to deliberately cultivate religious fanaticism among Arab populations, financed almost totally by Saudi petro-dollars after 1973, in order to inoculate populations against atheist Communism and Socialism.

In the late 1970s, "Al Qaeda" and other cat's paws were created by the CIA to engage in false-flag operations, first mainly against the Soviets in regions such as Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East during the Cold War, then to execute attacks against other elements unfriendly to Western interests. Eventually, their primary role became that of agents provocateurs to justify bombing, invading and/or occupying sovereign states when the Americans needed an excuse.

The Saudis and the propped-up rulers of other artificially-created statelets in the oil-rich Persian Gulf were assigned to finance "Al Qaeda". They were glad to do it, though, not only because their thrones and even their lives literally depended on following orders, but also because "Al Qaeda" was an effective way to cull dissafected and potentially rebellious elements from their populations and send them far away to fight and die in foreign wars. By the early 1990's, the brilliant idea of using agents provocateurs to create "mini-Al Qaeda's" in order to justify brutal domestic repression had caught on in a number of countries, such as Egypt and Algeria.

So far so good? This is all well documented, and explains "Saudi financing of 'Al Qaeda'".

Now we come to the Israeli role. The zionists, and their agents embedded at every level throughout the American and other Western governments, viewed with great interest the formation and manipulation of this global network of Islamic fanatic warriors. Obviously, their use to attack and destroy Arab nationalist leaders and thinkers was in the zionists' interest. More importantly, the use of 'al Qaeda' to replace the Arab struggle for national liberation, which resonated with other national liberation movements around the world, with a movement of sectarian religious fanatics, was "very good for Israel". Thus in the early 1980s was Israel inspired to follow the blueprint with its own contribution, by transforming Hamas from an obscure religious charity into a well-armed, well-financed and well-organized force to attack the then-dominant Left and secular nationalist elements within the Palestine liberation movement.

At first, they weren't very successful, for various reasons, then, ironically, when the Israeli plan did succeed, it backfired. We can discuss all that another time. Later on, in the 90s, Ariel Sharon tried to start his own "al Qaeda" cell from scratch in Gaza, but it was exposed in time and turned out to be quite an embarrassing failure for the Israelis.

Meanwhile, a network of high-level zionist agents in the United States closely connected to Ariel Sharon and Israel's right-wing Likud, were becoming increasingly anxious about a number of developments that they viewed as highly threatening. First, with the end of the Cold War, pressure was mounting to reduce America's obscenely swollen military budget, which was a huge cash cow for most of them. Also, Israel's own military being parasitically dependent on that of the U.S., it was crucial to them that America continue to invest heavily in military research and development so that the new technology thus developed could be stolen by Israeli spies and transferred to Israel for its own use.

Second, the Oslo Agreements appeared to pave the way for a comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reducing the need for massive military financial and military transfers from the U.S. to Israel, even threatening to divert some of that money into economic aid to the Palestinians.

America was also beginning to reap the public relations rewards of brokering the "peace" between Israel and the Palestinians. To a lesser degree, in the aftermath of Bush I's attack on Iraq, in which the U.S. had forgiven tens of billions of dollars in debts to countries that participated in the coalition, the U.S.' popularity among ordinary (deluded) people was the highest it had been since the 1950s. This translated into lucrative contracts for all kinds of American firms in Arab countries. In such an environment, it would be very ill-advised for Israel to try to implement its expansionist agenda into the territories of its neighbors, which would be very difficult to justify.

In this context, in the mid-90s, two working papers were issued by right-wing zionist think-tanks, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, written for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and a Report by the Project for a New American Century, written by most of the same individuals and addressed to U.S. President Bill Clinton. The former is essentially a plan to "cauldronize" the Middle East, with Israel benefiting from the resulting chaos.

The latter advocates the further expansion of the U.S.' military budget and arsenal and using its power to dominate the entire globe militarily and economically (full spectrum dominance) "for decades to come". They specifically propose that the U.S. work to shape the global security system according to what these Likudniks claim is the American national interest.

Recognizing that such ambitions were unrealistic for the moment, given the current public mood in the U.S. and the global environment, the authors wrote:

"...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor"

Thus can one, very important motive for the 9/11 attacks be ascribed to an identifiable group of high-level, very, very well-connected zionist fanatics.

Is there a comparable motive for the Saudis to have driven them to carry out the 9/11 attacks? The opposite is true: as I said before, the Saudi rulers utterly depend on the continuous support and protection of the U.S. for their very survival. Unlike the zionists, however, they have no cadres of committed agents embedded at the highest levels within the American media, Congress, the White House, Pentagon and other powerful institutions to ensure an unquestioning, passionate attachment of the U.S. towards Saudi Arabia regardless of what it does. The Saudis know very well that American support is purely a function of their usefulness, and their continued willingness to do what they're told.

Second, but by no means secondary, there is an immense profit motive that points to the complicity of a number of specific, very well-placed zionist/Israeli agents in the 9/11 attacks. Unlike the Arab/Muslim patsies, and Arab/Muslim countries who have suffered catastrophic losses as the direct result of the attacks, these zionist/Israeli individuals, and their zionist entity, were pre-positioned to make out like bandits, and they did. I outlined some of this in my post on this page and elsewhere.

This brings us to our third important motive: the administration of a massive trauma to the public in Western countries as a means to impose the "us" and "them" paradigm that zionists so relentlessly peddle, with "us" being the civilized, rational, human Whites and "them" being the savage, crazy, inhuman Darkies, the two sides locked in an epic struggle between Good and Evil, against whom all means, no matter how cruel, even sadistic, are justified.

The "New Pearl Harbor" made it possible for an unprecedented escalation of the propaganda that has brainwashed even 'good' people in the West to become like "good" Israelis: to accept, even cheer, horrors beyond belief, crimes against humanity inflicted by their governments against helpless people that pose no danger to them. It has paved the way for the ongoing dismantling of human and civil rights legislation that took humanity centuries to develop. Moreover, the "New Pearl Harbor" has opened up opportunities for corruption, pillage and robbery on a scale never before seen, in broad daylight. And it has made dissent immeasurably more dangerous, even in the "freedom-loving countries of the West", all made possible by the War on Terror.

For each of these developments, there has been a remarkable correlation between those individuals and organizations who advocate and justify such terrible crimes, and the degree to which those individuals or organizations are committed to zionism and the state of Israel. It's kinda hard to miss, unless one is determined to miss it.

Finally, because this is way too long already, in addition to motive, suspects move higher or lower on the list depending on whether they also had the means to carry out the crime, and the opportunity. Is anyone seriously arguing that the Saudis [who had NO motive, unlike the powerful motive(s) of the Israelis], were better equipped and positioned to carry out the attacks than the Likudniks and their American agents?

Contrary to the official story, the 9/11 attacks were primarily a very high-tech crime comprising four levels:

1) the execution of the attacks themselves, which involved making two planes hit the WTC causing three buildings to collapse, one plane hit the Pentagon, hitting precisely where the Pentagon stored financial records about investigations into trillions of missing funds and other sensitive documents, etc.;

2) framing Arab/Muslim patsies, suppression of any investigations pre-9/11 that could have derailed the plan and confiscating, destroying and/or discrediting any information that exposes the many holes in the narrative (strong evidence of doubles, stolen passports, puzzling lack of any concrete evidence at all that any hijackers were even on the planes, the silly box-cutters story, records that show some of the patsies had received American military training -- these records could have been used to steal their identities; evidence that some were already dead at the time of the attacks and that others were alive after the attacks);

3) the deep infiltration and subversion of extremely sensitive and well-guarded security systems, at the airports, NORAD, WTC security and the Pentagon, all of which are accessible to Israeli firms;

4) reaping billions and billions of dollars, covering up the theft of trillions before that, not only via high-tech computer crimes and precisely-timed financial transactions, but through billions more in massive insurance pay-offs or "security contracts" related to the subsequent "War on Terror".

There's so much more, but I'll stop here.

Motive, means, opportunity. The idea that the Saudis collaborated with the Israelis to pull off this zionist fantasy bonanza that has caused them nothing but trouble, with no benefits at all, is laughable and not worthy of consideration. The belief that the Saudis carried out the attacks, whether alone or in collusion with the U.S. government, is a red herring useful for diverting those who see evidence of an inside job.

In contrast, mountains of well-documented evidence clearly point to certain specific individuals, linked to the Likud, Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, who had ample motive, means and opportunity to plan and carry out the attacks, to ensure they were blamed on Arab/Muslims, to cover up or suppress any serious investigations, and to profit massively from them.

That's how I see it.

[JackRiddler]

.

Based on the above, "the left" is a blank screen for projecting the peeves of people who themselves would have once made J. Edgar Hoover's commie subversives list, but nowadays don't want to be associated with imaginary latte sippers. Sneering at "the left" comes for free, as no actual person, movement or theory need be mentioned. That's an American tradition. As empirical research, it suffices to have been present a couple of weeks ago, when a handful of usernames from Progressive Independent briefly brought a minor flamewar to RI. For a deeper treatment, consult the analysis of leftism in the Unabomber Manifesto. For laughs, finally, one might cite the performer who formerly mimed the role of a "liberal" as slain by Sean Hannity every night on FOXNEWS - a much-appreciated touch from bph.

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[JackRiddler]

Alice's capsule history of Saudi Arabia is interesting. The rest is the predictable fruit of her monocausal focus on Israel as world puppetmaster, a reduction of the global US empire to an incidental function of Jewish perfidy. Plus classic cherrypicking among the many details of 9/11 research to, inevitably, Find the Jew.

Example: The presence of an Israeli-owned security contractor at the 9/11 airports. Presumably meaning the ID systems provider ICTS, a favorite of the "What Really Happened" crowd, who never see a need to determine its exact function at those airports or even speculate about contract details before insinuating that its mere presence already equals a closed case for "infiltration" and abetment of the 9/11 attack. As though no other entity on Earth could possibly achieve such an "infiltration," which would be a simple task for elements within most state intel or security agencies, especially if they're part of the US government. Guess what, the U.S. Customs and Immigration agencies and presumably the FBI and Treasury were also present and performing central security tasks at all of the 9/11 airports. Would anyone cite their presence as sufficient for an indictment, absent any other indicators? (Note: McDonald's had access to restricted zones at all of the airports! Literally hundreds of contractors have access to sensitive areas at every airport.)

As a more general response, I like what Danse (from Truth Action) had to say about "Zionism" as a bogeyman. Rereading it now makes me want to bold most every sentence.

"ZIHOP as Limited Hangout"

In 1982, the Israeli strategic planner Oded Yinon penned a policy report calling for the balkanization of the entire middle east. He wrote:

"Iraq is first. Rich in oil, and internally torn, it is guaranteed as the
initial target. Its dissolution is even more important than of Syria. Egypt will then be torn apart, like a second Lebanon. ...The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural for dissolution. The matter is inevitable, especially in Saudi Arabia."

A few years earlier, an American strategic planner named Miles Ignotuis detailed the "rapid deployment and strike force" prepared to seize "Saudi oil fields, installations and airports." He argued that a “real boogeyman” was necessary to frighten the American populace before such a scheme could be put into practice.

“The London Sunday Times confirmed:

"The National Security Council compiled a detailed review of a top secret Department of Defense plan to invade Saudi oil fields. The plan code, named Dharan Option Four, has been drawn up by the Pentagon and provides for a U.S. attack on oil fields that contain 40 percent of the world’s known reserves."

“Intelligence and military analyst Robert Tucker addressed the feasibility of seizing Arab oil fields by direct military intervention in Commentary in January 1975, in his article entitled "Oil: The Issue of American Intervention": "Without intervention," he concluded, "there is a distinct possibility of an economic and political disaster bearing more than a superficial resemblance to the disaster of the 1930s."

He described secret U.S. plans of long standing for "intervention in an area which, if effectively controlled, would contain a sufficient portion of present world oil production and proven reserves to break the present price structure by breaking the core of the cartel, politically and economically.

"The Arab shoreline of the Gulf," he concluded breathlessly, "is a new El Dorado waiting for its conquistadors." (Schoenman)

We can go back indefinitely, but let’s stop at 1958 for the time being:

“In 1958, the Eisenhower administration identified the three leading challenges to the US as the ME, North Africa, and Indonesia -- all oil producers, all Islamic. North Africa was taken care of by Algerian (formal) independence. Indonesia and the were taken care of by Suharto's murderous slaughter (1965) and Israel's destruction of Arab secular nationalism (Nasser, 1967). In the ME, that established the close US-Israeli alliance and confirmed the judgment of US intelligence in 1958 that a "logical corollary" of opposition to "radical nationalism" (meaning, secular independent nationalism) is "support for Israel" as the one reliable US base in the region (along with Turkey, which entered into close relations with Israel in the same year).” (Chomsky)

The American state does not require “Zionist infiltration” to engage in imperialism. If a particular state reaches a critical quantity of power in relation to other states it will attempt to expand that power. As Napoleon famously said, “Ambition is never content, even on the summit of greatness”.

This thesis is confirmed by the entire history of civilization. Indeed, of the eight recently developed primary states, six were created by conquest.

The Military Industrial Complex did not arise from some flaw in the American character, nor indeed from Zionism. It arose, simply put, because capital requires more capital, power more power still. Powerful states act out. “Small states are virtuous only because of their weakness.” (Bakunin).

Israel did not create this juggernaut; she is indeed an essential partner and participant in the war on terror myth and obviously benefits from it to no end, but the MIC will keep on humming along regardless. Israel’s goals, or at least the goals of the hardcore Jewish supremacists who formulate Israeli policy, gel neatly with that of the American power elite at present. There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that American policy in the middle east (with the exception of Palestine) would be drastically different in the absence of a Zionist state. This is crucial to understand. If we concentrate all of our attention on Zionism we will ignore the roots of the problem.

There was an interesting controversy in Leftist circles (especially amongst Leftist Jews) in the wake of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's essay "The Israel Lobby". Having struggled for so long to bring light to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, usually to no avail, the majority of leftists welcomed the paper as a ray of sunshine. A few voices, however, attempted to put things in a broader perspective. Joseph Massad wrote:

“While many of the studies of the pro-Israel lobby are sound and full of awe-inspiring well- documented details about the formidable power commanded by groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its allies, the problem with most of them is what remains unarticulated. For example, when and in what context has the United States government ever supported national liberation in the Third World? The record of the United States is one of being the implacable enemy of all Third World national liberation groups, including European ones, from Greece to Latin America to Africa and Asia, except in the celebrated cases of the Afghan fundamentalists' war against the USSR and supporting apartheid South Africa's main terrorist allies in Angola and Mozambique (UNITA and RENAMO) against their respective anti-colonial national governments. Why then would the US support national liberation in the Arab world absent the pro-Israel lobby is something these studies never explain.

Why would the US and its repressive agencies stop invading Arab countries, or stop supporting the repressive police forces of dictatorial Arab regimes and why would the US stop setting up shadow governments inside its embassies in Arab capitals to run these countries' affairs (in some cases the US shadow government runs the Arab country in question down to the smallest detail with the Arab government in question reduced to executing orders) if the pro-Israel lobby did not exist is never broached by these studies let alone explained.

What then would have been different in US policy in the Middle East absent Israel and its powerful lobby? The answer in short is: the details and intensity but not the direction, content, or impact of such policies. Is the pro- Israel lobby extremely powerful in the United States? As someone who has been facing the full brunt of their power for the last three years through their formidable influence on my own university and their attempts to get me fired, I answer with a resounding yes. Are they primarily responsible for US policies towards the Palestinians and the Arab world? Absolutely not.”

Finkelstein more or less agreed, arguing that it was not a question of either/or. (this “either/or” thing seems to be a major problem – some truthers seem incapable of entertaining to ideas in their heads simultaneously, even when the two ideas compliment each other).

The "either-or" framework -- the Lobby or U.S. strategic interests -- isn't, in my opinion, very useful:

(1) Apart from the Israel-Palestine conflict, fundamental U.S. policy in the Middle East hasn't been affected by the Lobby. If for different reasons, both U.S. and Israeli elites have always believed that the Arabs need to be kept subordinate. However, once the U.S. solidified its alliance with Israel after June 1967, it began to look at Israelis -- and Israelis projected themselves as -- experts on the"Arab mind." Accordingly the alliance with Israel has abetted the most truculent U.S. policies, Israelis believing that "Arabs only understand the language of force" and every few years (months?) this or that Arab country needs to be banged up. The spectrum of U.S. policy differences might be narrow but in terms of impact on the real lives of real people in the Arab world these differences are probably meaningful, the Israeli influence making things worse.”

The Israeli influence making things worse. There is certainly no doubt about that. Israel does not have a “right to exist” in its present form any more than a serial killer has the “right” to enter my home, steal all of my possessions and kill my family. I do not believe in a “two-state” solution. I believe in a directly democratic “state” in “Israel” and “Palestine” where religion and race have no bearing on individual and collective rights. The same applies to my home country.

Ultimately, however, the Mearsheimer/Walt piece is actually an excellent example of the sort of elitist, backward nationalism that characterizes Israeli policy itself. It does not concern me whether Israel is a liability for the US “national interest”. The “national interest” has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of 90% of the population. In the case of Israel, I’m far more interested in the rights of Palestinians than whether American support for Israel negatively affects her image on the world stage. If soft-imperialist critiques from the establishment help end US support for Israel – more power to them. Brzezinski warning of a potential false flag attack on Iran was a welcome development even though we all know he’s human slime.

What is often missing in similar soft-imperialist critiques of Israel is the same sense of perspective. Any perspective at all.,

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that I’ll be viewed as an Israeli apologist for writing this thread. But you’d be wrong to think I’m trying to shield Israel from the wrath of the 911 truth movement. Quite the contrary, those familiar with my posts know that I have long tried to highlight the Israeli role in 911, both in my writing and my video work. The problem I see is that the pendulum appears to be swinging so far in the other direction that the arguments are no longer rational. Atta’s pork chops – meet the wandering Jew. If you don’t agree with the premise that Israel and alleged “dual-loyalty” Jewish people are responsible for nine-tenths of the world’s ills you’re a “disinfo shill”.

In many ways I’m reminded of Eric Hufschmid and Wing TV, though I won’t stoop to labeling people “disinfo agents” simply because I disagree with their tactics or ideologies.

“ZIHOP” – our “outside job” by Mossad in conjunction with “dual loyalty Jews” and (perhaps) some otherwise decent upstandin’ Murikan folk in the upper echelons caught with their pants down thence blackmailed by Jews – is an absurd premise. It’s cartoon stuff.

I’m supposed to forget about the countless non-Zionist false flag operations prior to 911? I’m supposed to think Andrew Marshall is cowering in fear of Binny Netanyahu, wringing his hands over his failure to stop the attacks? I’m supposed to think Mossad would go up against her sugar daddy’s 14 plus alphabet agencies without a green light? All those strategists itching for conquest and ongoing Keynesian support in the wake of Glasnost needed Zionists to yank their chain? Really? Is Dick Cheney a crypto-Jew? He’s not interested in oil or geopolitics or suppressing dissent in the homeland but glorious Zion?

Not. Bloody. Likely.

Zionism is quickly becoming every bit the boogeyman as Al-Qaeda and the “NWO”. Instead of turbans and all-seeing-eyes we have skull-caps and menorahs. They hate our freedoms. I think that’s the allure – blaming an “alien” or “other” allows one to keep faith in one’s own governing institutions. It’s comforting, just like the official myth. When you’ve become this ugly anything is better than looking in the mirror.

Zihop is a limited hangout.

[AlicetheKurious]

I wrote a long reply to your post, Jack, outlining the rather obvious differences between an empire and an empire that's been hijacked, but it disappeared without a trace. I got really upset, but then realized maybe that's just the Universe telling me I'm spending too much time here.

Maybe later.

For now, I'll leave you with one well-known account of a no doubt unique incident, to help bolster your argument that zionists are merely tools of the American empire. (I won't embed the long link as I normally would, since that appears to disturb you):

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?d ... 36&cpage=1

and this:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-20763400.html

[American Dream]

If the two articles above are intended to lay a foundation for the case that "the Zionists" run the United States and/or the World, then I think that a bit more institutional analysis is in order.

Both articles are weak in this sense. The first article does suggest that Israeli lobbyists are active inside the United States, but we all know that are a lot of other kinds of lobbyists active in Washington. The second article seems to rely on unsupported assertions by Gordon Thomas, who does sometimes come up with interesting material but is so deeply in bed with so many different spooks that it's really, really hard to trust him at all...

.

[JackRiddler]

I wrote a long reply to your post, Jack, outlining the rather obvious differences between an empire and an empire that's been hijacked, but it disappeared without a trace. I got really upset, but then realized maybe that's just the Universe telling me I'm spending too much time here.

We both are.

For now, I'll leave you with one well-known account of a no doubt unique incident, to help bolster your argument that zionists are merely tools of the American empire.

That is your patently false characterization of my argument. People can read.

The empire is well served by your obsessive diversion of reducing every crime it generates to a game of "Find the Jew."

(I won't embed the long link as I normally would, since that appears to disturb you):

Not at all. When you cut and paste long passages but leave out the byline and it turns out to be something by Christopher Bollyn (or in this case, the fact that your second link sources Gordon Thomas), I will call you on the deceptive practice.

As for the Harman story, which I should hope everyone here knows or will follow the link to learn:

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?d ... 36&cpage=1

Isn't it interesting that after promising service to the Israeli lobby and probably being blackmailed by the Gonzalez Justice Dept. to secure her wiretap vote, Harman was kept out of the intelligence committee chairmanship, which she was supposed to get based on seniority once the Democrats came to power? You'd think the all-powerful AIPAC could make that arrangement.

Did I ever say good things about AIPAC, or its supporters? Did I ever say most US Congress members are not bought and sold?

It's your canard that refusing to accept your cherrypicking constructs purporting to show sole Israeli authorship of 9/11 and the US invasion of Iraq as planned and executed by Cheney and Rumsfeld equates with a defense of Israel. On the contrary, creating all this fantasy is an assist to the anti-Defamation types who get to claim that opposition to the actual Israeli crimes in Palestine is "anti-Semitism."

Otherwise I direct back to the article above by Danse. He says it better.

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PS - Empires by definition are hijacks. They are means by which one class or group forces its will on others.

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[barracuda]

I wrote a long reply to your post, Jack, outlining the rather obvious differences between an empire and an empire that's been hijacked, but it disappeared without a trace. I got really upset, but then realized maybe that's just the Universe telling me I'm spending too much time here.

We both are.

Vehemently disagree.

[JackRiddler]

I wrote a long reply to your post, Jack, outlining the rather obvious differences between an empire and an empire that's been hijacked, but it disappeared without a trace. I got really upset, but then realized maybe that's just the Universe telling me I'm spending too much time here.

We both are.

Vehemently disagree.

Subtle.

[MacCruiskeen]

I happen to be personally acquainted with the Universe, so I PM'd her.

No, neither Jack nor Alice are spending too much time here.

HTH.

[exojuridik]

Based on the above, "the left" is a blank screen for projecting the peeves of people who themselves would have once made J. Edgar Hoover's commie subversives list, but nowadays don't want to be associated with imaginary latte sippers. Sneering at "the left" comes for free, as no actual person, movement or theory need be mentioned. That's an American tradition. As empirical research, it suffices to have been present a couple of weeks ago, when a handful of usernames from Progressive Independent briefly brought a minor flamewar to RI. For a deeper treatment, consult the analysis of leftism in the Unabomber Manifesto. For laughs, finally, one might cite the performer who formerly mimed the role of a "liberal" as slain by Sean Hannity every night on FOXNEWS - a much-appreciated touch from bph.

Taking a piss on looser liberal-douchebags - hell yes, its an american past-time. There ain't anyone else left you can mock like that.

but no, you are totally correct in your overall assertion. Although, let me say that my ill-opinion is based on having worked professionally as a progressive and I have had more than enough experience working with liberal student groups and other idealistic covens to know how nasty they can be toward each other.

I love the movement but just can't stand the scene.

My hunch is that the left as individuals mistakenly try to embody the virtue of their particular ideological school. As a consequence, a single ill-considered word can create a huff. Also, the refusal to acknowledge the primate organizational dynamics of a group can turn turf-battles into shrill ideological schisms. In contrast, the right seems to view politics as a sport or allout war and really don't take their positions to heart in the same way the left does. Outside of a few media created activists, most conservatives I've met are just privileged white guys who know it their heart that the left doesn't have their best interests in mind. The rest is just spectacle for them which they can sit back and enjoy because they have the status, power, money and weapons on their side.

The right also have their own form of initiations to forge group identity - often sports or hard-labor in their dad's company. This initiation beats the wuss out of them and teaches them who their daddy really is. The beatings allow the conservative to later feel, as rich and miserly businessmen, that they too had to put in their time and why are all these minorities and liberals all whiny.

In short, the conservatives understand the mojo driving america and most on the left do not. And until they get that they will continue to be the boxing clown for the right. After all it makes for good TV.

[elfismiles]

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PS - Empires by definition are hijacks. They are means by which one class or group forces its will on others.

.

Politically, hegemony is the predominance of one political unit over others. Examples include a province within a federation (Prussia in the German Empire); one person among a committee (Napoleon Bonaparte in the Consulate); or one state in a confederation (France in the EU).[2]

Since the nineteenth century, especially in historical writing, hegemony describes one state's predominance over other states (e.g. Napoleonic France's European hegemony). By extension, hegemonism denotes the policies the great powers practice in seeking predominance, leading, then, to a definition of imperialism.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony

The term empire derives from the Latin imperium. Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples (ethnic groups) united and ruled either by a monarch (emperor, empress) or an oligarchy. Geopolitically, the term empire has denoted very different, territorially-extreme states — at the strong end, the extensive Spanish Empire (16th c.) and the British Empire (19th c.), at the weak end, the Holy Roman Empire (8th c.–19th c.), in its Medieval and early-modern forms, and the Byzantine Empire (15th c.), that was a direct continuation of the Roman Empire, that, in its final century of existence, was more a city-state than a territorial empire.

Etymologically, the political usage of “empire” denotes a strong, centrally-controlled nation-state, but, in the looser, quotidian, vernacular usage, it denotes a large-scale business enterprise (i.e. a transnational corporation) and a political organisation of either national-, regional-, or city scale, controlled either by a person (a political boss) or a group authority (political bosses).[1]

An imperial political structure is established and maintained two ways: (i) as a territorial empire of direct conquest and control with force (direct, physical action to compel the emperor’s goals), and (ii) as a coercive, hegemonic empire of indirect conquest and control with power (the perception that the emperor can physically enforce his desired goals). The former provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet limits further expansion, because it absorbs military forces to fixed garrisons. The latter provides less tribute and indirect control, but avails military forces for further expansion.[2] Territorial empires (e.g. the Mongol Empire, the Median Empire) tended to be contiguous areas. The term on occasion has been applied to maritime empires or thalassocracies, (e.g. the Athenian , the British Empire) with looser structures and more scattered territories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire

[JackRiddler]

Taking a piss on looser liberal-douchebags - hell yes, its an american past-time. There ain't anyone else left you can mock like that.

Beg to differ. America's a target-rich environment.

but no, you are totally correct in your overall assertion. Although, let me say that my ill-opinion is based on having worked professionally as a progressive and I have had more than enough experience working with liberal student groups and other idealistic covens to know how nasty they can be toward each other.

I love the movement but just can't stand the scene.

My hunch is that the left as individuals mistakenly try to embody the virtue of their particular ideological school. As a consequence, a single ill-considered word can create a huff. Also, the refusal to acknowledge the primate organizational dynamics of a group can turn turf-battles into shrill ideological schisms. In contrast, the right seems to view politics as a sport or allout war and really don't take their positions to heart in the same way the left do. Outside of a few media created activists, most conservatives I've met are just privileged white guys who know it their heart that the left doesn't have their best interests in mind. The rest is just spectacle for them which they can sit back and enjoy because they have the status, power, money and weapons on their side.

The right also have their own form of initiations to forge group identity - often sports or hard-labor in their dad's company. This initiation beats the wuss out of them and teaches them who their daddy really is. The beatings allow the conservative to later feel, as rich and miserly businessmen, that they too had to put in their time and why are all these minorities and liberals all whiny.

In short, the conservatives understand the mojo driving america and most on the left do not. And until they get that they will continue to be the boxing clown for the right. After all it makes for good TV.

For a start fair enough & quotable.

Can we agree that useful distinctions often can be made between left and liberal?

[exojuridik]

Can we agree that useful distinctions often can be made between left and liberal?

Most certainly - in my mind liberals are the educated elite who are too smart and cosmopolitan to to be republicans but too dumb and naive to realize that they are under the same boot as the rest of us.

The left at least realizes that we are in the middle of a class war. What bothers me is that the left has lacked the discipline and focus of purpose that the foot-soldiers on the right have been able to cultivate. Class war isn't just some life-phase for disaffected middle-class college students. Though to be fair, the left has been thoroughly boogey-manned, marginalized and conintelpro-ed pretty by the empire for the last couple generations.

Hopefully now that all pretense of humane capitalism has been stripped from the beast, people will begin to understand their political self-interest better.

Or maybe they' just develop a taste for that Xtreme Soylent Greenz Now H1N1-Free[/i]