Us & Them in Israel & Palestine

Americans seem to have an affinity for Israel because so many of them used to Americans and frankly because World War II and the Holocaust made most of us embarrassed about our own anti-Semitism and rightly embrace the Jews among us as us.

Arabs and Muslims seem a little more foreign--our religious and cultural traditions are not as obviously shaped by them as they are by Jews and Judaism, and we haven't had a Holocaust-like collective realization that we have wrongly scapegoated and excluded them, but some of us have met enough of them to feel like they are part of us and no longer a "them." Some people with better imaginations than me might have felt that all along.

When I look at the stuff going on in Gaza and the West Bank, I don't see my brother defending himself from the monstrous other.

I see my brother killing my other brother to take the little he has left after previously taking most of his stuff.

Our government should be dealing with Israel and Palestine on that basis, but seeing both not as brothers but as sons, especially since the one doing the killing couldn't do it without his allowance and gifts from us.

Should the downing of this airliner have any long term effect on our relationship with Russia?

I can't see any advantage for Russia or the Ukrainian rebels (or for Ukraine for that matter) in intentionally downing that airliner.

Russia in particular knows that the NATO and the US are already in high dudgeon and waiting for an excuse to isolate them further, and I refuse to believe that Putin is a retarded action movie villain, who is on a suicide mission to earn an invasion or assassination by the West as the right convinced us Saddam Hussein was.

Like the case for the Iraq War, I fear that the right questions aren't being asked and the deck is being stacked toward escalation.

Should this incident be a cause for escalating hostility toward Russia as the right wingers and neocons seem to want?

This poll is NOT necessarily a criticism of Obama's handling of this since he has shown some restraint and discretion so far.

CONGRESSMAN: public needs to see classified pages of 9/11 report before we do more in Middle East

REPUBLICAN: public needs to see classified pages of 9/11 report before we do more in Middle East

Two Republicans and a Democratic representative in Congress got to see the classified section of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 report. I remember reading an earlier article on this, and the Republican said he was "shaken" by what he saw.

I emphasize the Republican involvement in this because you would expect them to be rah-rah for war and knee-jerk support whatever Bush did, especially in the "War on Terror."

It's hard to disagree with what this guy says: Americans need to know this crucial missing piece of what happened on 9/11 or we can't give informed consent to our government's foreign policy in the Middle East or anywhere else.

Letter to Think Progress on Education Reform

I appreciate your website's coverage of many progressive issues though I'm curious why you leave out the on-going corporate take over of public education, which has a handful of foundations, hedge fund managers, and for-profit corporations dictating our nation's education policy in a way that increases their profit and often hurts kids (like the mass school closings in Chicago, spending scarce funds on schoolwide iPads required for new standardized testing, or giving taxpayer money to charter schools that are less accountable than regular public schools).

Shouldn't education policy be determined by teachers, education academics, and parents whose kids actually go to public schools rather than wealthy people looking to divert our tax dollars into their pockets?

A lot of people care about this topic, and it would certainly bring more readers to your site.

I look forward to your response.

PIC: two friends in Austin, Texas on Israel

Privatizing Public K-12 steals from the poor and gives to the rich (Part 147)

I know some Democratic Party operatives scan this site.

Corporate backed education reform is a cruel scam that is sucking desperately needed tax dollars from our schools and giving them to Wall Street sociopaths.

Party activists know it, and parents of kids in public schools are increasingly realizing that someone is calling the shots who doesn't give a rat's ass about their kids and will eventually connect the dots back from repetitive standardized testing, school closing, and charter schools that promise a lot and deliver little to the politicians who took a pile of money from hedge fund managers and right wing foundations in exchange for screwing our kids.

If elected Democrats care at all about staying in office instead of moving prematurely to K Street, they should change course on this RIGHT NOW.

Kennedy admitted he made a mistake by believing the the CIA about the Bay of Pigs and his popularity went up. Obama and Democrats in Congress could confess that they made a mistake by listening to the rich when they said they could educate our kids better (if we just give them a little skim from the money we budget for education).

If the DLC/New Democrat/Sensible Centrists don't drop this they will find themselves without a base to deceive and abuse in pretty short order.

"The hidden hand of the free market never picks up the check"

I just heard that on the radio as I was driving to work.

I'll find the source as soon as I can.

That's bumper sticker that might even make some righties say amen.

What will it take to break DLC/New Dem/"Centrist" "lesser of two evils" trick on voters?

Ted Rall's recent piece on Progressives' need to break up with the Democratic Party put what is likely to happen with another president from the corporate wing of the party, which will essentially be a rerun of Bill Clinton and Obama betrayals: some progressive policies and incremental changes around the edges, but the big policies like trade, war, foreign policy in general, taxes, and even social spending will be dictated by banks, Wall Street, and the largest corporations.

The same could be said of centrist Dems in Congress, and even many seeming progressives become less so when the party is in a position to get anything done.

At a minimum, Democrats rarely go to the mat to advance progressive policies and at best defend existing programs like Social Security and Medicare when there's such overwhelming public support for them that they can't afford to act like doormats and still be taken seriously as an opposition party.

What will it take to break this death grip of two parties, one corporate and another corporater?

A mass exodus of voters to a new third party?

The death or at least shriveling of the GOP to a no longer credible obstacle to progressive policies?

Will campaign finance reform or even a constitutional amendment to turn back Citizens United really be enough?

Will it take a massive, massive display of screwing average Americans like another Wall Street bailout while the rest of us get austerity or starting an unnecessary world war?

What will break this false choice we have now of essentially gay-bashing versus gay-hugging corporatists?

Why haven't any "open carry" activists been shot by cops like blacks waving wallets?

or a Latino kid walking around with a bb gun that looks like an assault rifle?

Blacks and Latinos WITHOUT real weapons are shot and killed on the suspicion that they MIGHT have them.

If I was a cop and I saw a bunch of guys walking into a business with assault rifles slung over their shoulders, I might reasonable assume they were going to rob it or go postal since you don't need an AR-15 to pick up items at Target or shovel food into your mouth at a restaurant.

I do not wish those idiots any harm. But if the cops take down one or several of them even once, they hardly have room to complain since it is a regular occurrence for non-whites SUSPECTED of having a gun.