GLOBAL WARMING

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

I do believe enough good scientists have confirmed a warming trend, but the question for society is whether it is induced by human behavior.

This certainly doesn’t mean warming everywhere. It indeed means greater variability in many places.

We certainly know that climate has changed many times just in the Common Era.

Tacitus called North Africa the granary of Rome. Today it is a desert.

The Norsemen who established settlement in Newfoundland long before Columbus was born were likely extinguished by climate change.

Mini ice ages had rivers in Northern Europe frozen over about three centuries ago.
Britains grew grapes once, then didn’t, and are now starting to do so again.

Society will have to adapt to the changes underway. I doubt very much we can avoid them by changes in behavior.

There will be massive migrations coming as the basic climate of some places makes them uneconomic. There will be flooding of coastal places. Parts of the world that today are semi-deserts, like the American Southwest, will likely become true deserts.

I think measures that advance our technology and the flexibility of our economies are well worthwhile, but not because they will alter our climatic fate. Change is always a spur to human ingenuity.

WHY IS MRS THATCHER STILL ADMIRED BY SO MANY?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

You don't have to think Thatcher was a wonderful prime minister to have some admiration for her qualities.

The woman is intelligent and has always had the refreshing quality of saying thoughtful things. She speaks her mind, and her mind is no shabby thing.

And she has dignity, no mean quality.

How rare this is, you only have to consider other, recent politicians.

Bush, of course, doesn't even have a mind, and we all know before any tell-all memoirs, he is an almost psychopathic liar and a war criminal.

Blair and mate Cherie are the most ridiculous figures in modern British history.

Is there anyone who ever did not believe Tony was a liar, almost as bad as Bush?

And of course he, too, is a war criminal.

He and his mate are simply squalid. He runs around collecting sinecures to pay for his Mayfair digs and doing lunatic things like starting a "religious foundation."

A war criminal as founder of a religious foundation?

His bizarre mate, she of yawning-in-the-Queen's-presence fame, without so much as ever covering her mouth, now writes memoirs trying to sell her insanity as tough individualism.

Hillary Clinton? She's proved in public now that her wires are fried.

Sarkozy? Enough said.

THE PROPOSAL TO TEAR DOWN PART OF TORONTO'S ELEVATED GARDINER EXPRESSWAY

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Just do it and quit talking about it.

This idea must be thirty or forty years old.

Its merits seem obvious.

But I must ask, what waterfront? You mean the wall of condos?

The idea of a great waterfront has also been around for thirty or forty years.

Nothing has happened yet.

PRIME MINISTER HARPER SAYS NO SECRETS WERE COMPROMISED BY ANTICS OF FOREIGN MINISTER BERNIER

SERIES OF POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

How would Harper even know this?

He has been saying for days that it was all a private affair he took no interest in.

Bernier quits, and Steve suddenly knows exactly what he did or did not do? Hardly seems probable.

So, now is he telling us he was lying about being unconcerned and took no interest?

Why can't Steve answer simple questions like whether this risky-background individual was ever vetted?

Harper looks like an idiot in all this

____________________________

Not only can Harper not possibly know what he is reported to have said here, this series of events raises an immense number of new questions.

This is serious stuff, not just political points. How were the documents reportedly left at her house able to be missing for five weeks?

The lady in question claimed her consultant found evidence of a bug. Who planted this?

It is not good intelligence procedure to put a bug in a mattress where there is too much noise, so who else could it be?

What is the story of this woman setting her eye on Bernier in the first place? She set her cap for him, and got him. Elements of the whole business smell of classic 'honey trap' techniques in espionage.

The biker gang with which she was involved certainly has an interest in the shape of things in narco-states like Afghanistan.

If the documents Bernier left at his mistress's were indeed NATO documents, they would have a very high security clearance and they would be checked in and out. How could they go missing for five weeks without follow-up?

If they were NATO documents, this is not just a Canadian security matter, it is international, and there will be consequences amongst our allies. America especially has no patience for this kind of stuff.

Harper's promised little internal Foreign Affairs investigation is utterly inadequate to the importance of these matters. These are matters for CSIS or the RCMP.

______________________________

I almost cannot believe the responses of obvious conservatives here.

Surely they are the ones who would be screaming about national security if the shoe were on the other foot.

This is not politics, it is the biggest security issue in Canada for decades, although of course it has political consequences.

Harper has completely blown it so far, insisting that these events are a personal matter. They are not.

This woman should have been thoroughly vetted. I know that at even the middle level of the armed forces, wives are vetted for a number of circumstances.

How much more should it have been done here with a minister whose security clearance is almost as high as it gets and a woman who is only his short-term mistress, one with a shady background?

This is almost a black joke. We really do look like a banana republic here. And if those documents were indeed NATO stuff, we are going to hear about it for a while to come.

THE IDEA OF COMPETITION IN HEALTHCARE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

While you can inject elements of competition into healthcare here and there, you cannot have a "competitive system." It's an oxymoron. Why?

Because most of the key parts of the system are monopolies or quasi-monopolies.

Being a medical doctor means you join a group against which no one else can compete. You can play around the edges with nurse practitioners and "American-style "medics," but at this time you cannot change the reality.

Again, in pharmaceuticals, we have in many cases effective monopolies.

Hospitals, too. You don't build a competitive hospital across the street the way you build another hamburger joint.

Technology, too. Many specialized machines do not have competition and are very costly.

In fact, in the States, specialized facilities like MRIs in many places are already quite underutilized, raising costs.

U.S. per capita expenditures in healthcare are tremendously high by the standards of Canada and are rising rapidly, yet their average outcomes don't reflect it at all.

ALL FRANKEN AND SEX WITH MACHINES AND REPUBLICAN TROGLODYTES

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Franken is not original in this.

There's a British academic who has written a thesis on this very idea, and it is a serious thesis, not a joke, in which he traces the progress towards this ultimate reality.

Human sex with robots cannot be far away. In fifty years or less, there will be robots that behave remarkably human.

Can anyone doubt they'll be selling models as live-in companions to lonely people?

But if it worries you, relax. In a few hundred years, robots will certainly displace us completely, the ultimate outcome of millions of years of evolution. The end of the Planet of Apes.

They will be smarter than we are, not have faulty memories, and will be tireless. They are far better suited to traveling to the stars.

I could add this last note for ridiculous Republicans who make a big deal of Franken. What group in semi-public life has more often been discovered doing hidden sexual acts? The Religious Right of course. There's a minister almost every week discovered doing the opposite of what he preaches. And the only group worse than them is politicians.

LEGACIES AND POLITICIANS AND IS HILLARY CLINTON'S TO SHOW A WOMAN CAN DO IT?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

I don't know why the press always speaks in terms of "legacy" for politicians.

They are not royalty. They are people trying for a job, they succeed or fail, and that is all.

Of course, she has shown it is possible for a woman to do this.

Had she a better character and temperament, she might well have succeeded. I have little doubt another capable woman (for Hillary is capable, but very nasty) will come along.

The U.S. already has had some fairly remarkable female politicians. Ann Richards of Texas was very much so. Christine Whitman was a very capable politician. In the world, there have been many capable woman leaders, whether you agree with their particular points of view or not, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, and Benizer Bhutto were exceptional people.

A man of color and a woman as serious candidates tells us something of a milestone has been passed.

There's still loads of prejudice in the U.S. - and Hillary has appealed to it more than once - but most people appear open to either possibility.

It's just a matter of talents and qualities, and in this case, Obama has them, hands down.

If Hillary has a legacy, it is a tragic one of enduring years of abuse and then showing she's abusive too.







There does appear to be a common theme in these three posters

DON'T BE SURE THE FLORIDA RECOUNT FIASCO WON'T BE REPEATED IN 2008

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

I'm not sure I agree on this, Clive.

Voting procedures in Florida were still questionable in 2004, and there is every evidence they are still not sound.

There are so many gimmicks that are used, including the one of timing the closing of polls so that voting is difficult in working-class districts, leaving long lines of black citizens unable to cast the ballot they waited for.

But, for those unfamiliar with some of the nitty-gritty of American politics, vote fraud, to paraphrase H. Rapp Brown, is as American as cherry pie.

Kennedy was only elected due to fraud in Chicago, which swung Illinois, and in Johnson's Texas.

The ballots in Chicago weren't reported until dawn when they could be sure the "Downstate" (largely Republican) ballots had been reported. This enabled them to generate the required number of nullifying votes.

Texas was rife with vote fraud. Johnson himself started his career with vote fraud (reference: Robert Caro's biography) in first running for Congress.

I grew up in Chicago, and the stories of vote fraud were legend, part of growing up.

The local political machine used to register the names of the dead from graveyards.

They also used to use the trick of keeping a slug of pencil lead under a fingernail to mark paper ballots surreptitiously and thus invalidate them.

When voting machines came in, there were lights-out, after-hours sessions with the levers being thrown countless times to assure the proper outcome. Or sometimes, known persons were allowed to vote multiple times.

The current Diebold voting computers being used in a number of American jurisdictions have been shown time and again to be seriously flawed.

The fraud exists on both sides. In most national elections, the fraud either cancels out or isn't sufficient to swing the national vote.

But whenever the vote is close - as with Kennedy in 1960 or Bush in 2000 - fraud in the right place swings it.

Of course, another important element here is the antique, anti-democratic electoral-college provision of the Constitution. It effectively means that even one vote in a state more - honest or not - gives the whole state to the candidate getting it.

A simple national count of votes would clean up a lot. America has had a string of minority presidents for this reason, let alone fraudulent ones.

Another problem with American national elections is the individual states control voting. They decide on the form of the ballots. They decide on the hours. They count the ballots. Clearly this opens the opportunity for local fraud much more than if federal authorities governed balloting.

Don't get too optimistic about a clean election this time. Obama is a red flag for a number of communities and political interests. They will not be sitting idle.

He will win if his vote is overwhelming, something I believe he is capable of achieving with Old Man McCain as his opponent.

HUCKABEE WON'T BE MCCAIN'S VP CANDIDATE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

Daniel, I agree with your analysis.

But I take exception to the following (unqualified) statement:

"Mike Huckabee is a natural pol, with great ability."

He is a natural pol, so long as you are talking about a body politic the size and nature of Arkansas.

But at the national level, he has little ability, much less great ability.

He has about the same appeal (and effective intelligence) as Pat Robertson.

His whole way of speaking, his retarded ideas, and his hypocritical religiosity have zero appeal outside of America's band of Appalachian Throwback states.

True, McCain, an unreligious man much disliked by the Religious Right, needs these votes.

But if he were to try to get them with this cretin, he would automatically lose votes and a great deal of confidence in other, more important places.

JIMMY CARTER REVEALS ISRAEL HAS 150 NUCLEAR WEAPONS

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

Thank you, Jimmy Carter, for a truth the world needed to be confirmed.

We all knew it - thanks to that poor honest soul, Mordechai Vanunu, whom Israel kidnapped and threw into prison for years, yet today keeping him threatened and limited - but confirmation is important in such matters.

The world needs to pressure Israel in this deadly matter. Their arsenal is precisely the reasons other (Arab) nations have wanted nuclear weapons.

Israel has been full of the worst, most destructive hypocrisy in this matter, always screaming about the need to stop others from arming, at almost any cost.

I think there is little doubt that Israel uses these weapons in private to intimidate others and to hijack American policy.

We had a report recently out of the U.S. about Israeli spies stealing American nuclear material in the early days of their weapons program.

We also know now that when President Kennedy learned from the CIA that Israel was developing nuclear weapons in the early 1960s, he was very angry and was committed to halting the program as introducing international instability.

Not too long later, as we know, Kennedy was assassinated.

ISRAEL'S POST-AMERICAN FUTURE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DOMINQUE MOIST IN THE GUARDIAN

You have some good points here, although you don't offer much basis for your assumption of a coming change of era.

But there are many signs it is coming, and certainly not just the emerging multi-polar world.

Americans are finally starting to show some independence in thinking on the matter of Israel. There are many signs, with important, thoughtful people questioning aspects of the relationship in public, and I don't just mean Carter whom many Israelis have excoriated just for a few honest sentences.

I do think the many abuses America has suffered in the name of supporting Israel play a role here: the idiotic invasion of Iraq (Israel's position was the main reason, no matter what some blubber about oil); the many spy scandals, including one of the most compromising in American history, that of Jonathon Pollard; the endless ignoring of Security Council resolutions and other matters requiring the U.S. to often cast the only, unhappy vote supporting Israel's excesses; the many surreptitious and open acts against American policy, as the expansion of settlements; and horrible black-ops events like Israel's vicious attack on the USS Liberty.

It also gets a little tiresome handing over a $3 billion subsidy every year.

The sense of things in the Middle East having moved grossly out of balance, particularly under the pathetic Bush who appears to apply Religious Right Theology to foreign policy, comes into play also. The Arab world is important. Not only are there many tens of millions of people, but there is movement towards modernity. Iraq had almost reached the stage when it would have naturally become a democratic state of some prosperity. The Arab world's interests must be better recognized and more fairly treated. The idiocy of Iraq has actually set this all back, and the U.S. will have to work hard to regain some trust and honor among Arabs.

Israel needs to be to stand on its own. It really cannot be called a nation otherwise. Its status today is a kind of quasi-dependency of the United States. Of course, standing on its own means making genuine peace with the people who have been abused and scorned for so long. The current garrison-state situation just cannot continue indefinitely.

As to your reference to Israel’s "nimble" economy, I just wonder where you got that idea. The history of Israel's economy is anything but "nimble." Despite immense subsidies, its economy has often been stagnant and inflationary, burdened as it is with many policies that only apply to a kind of theocracy and burdened with a military almost nightmarishly out of proportion to its size.

ABORIGINAL CANADIANS AND CHILD ABUSE AND THE DEBILITATING INSTITUTION OF THE RESERVES

RESPONSE TO A CBC RADIO BROADCAST

One of the most distressing set of interviews you have ever broadcast was that around aboriginal child abuse.

The statistics on the incidence of child sexual abuse among aboriginal children were frightful (measured at over 50% with other evidence pointing to something closer to 100%), although for various reasons, they were not completely surprising.

I say this because it does appear that a disproportionate number of aboriginal women are involved in prostitution, especially in Western Canada, and we know to a certainty that in most cases, the careers of prostitutes start with sexual abuse in childhood. Almost every time we read of the horrible murders of prostitutes by psychopaths, a disproportionate number of victims are aboriginal.

Of course, the high incidence of young people on the reserves ruining their lives gulping drugs or glue or gasoline or other noxious substances likely reflects the same ugly fact. These are acts of slow self-destruction.

It was almost breathtaking when an aboriginal spokesman came on the same program and claimed the study results reflected residential schools. His explanation may be summed up as claiming the residential schools created an army of aboriginal zombies who returned to their reserves to inflict this pain.

This is an absurd claim. He not only had not a shred of evidence for his claim, but just the sheer numbers involved in these events tell us he is wrong.

Most children in residential schools were not sexually or otherwise abused. The people trying to help them join twentieth century society were mostly well-intentioned.

The program was a mistake, but it very much recognized something we have lost sight of today, something crucially important.

The reserves are debilitating and obsolete concepts. Maybe, just maybe, in the late 19th century, they had some relevance, but today for certain they do not.

How possibly can remote reserves, of say 2000 people, supply the needs of young people today? How possibly can any of the reserves even provide high schools which equip young people to go on with their educations to become qualified members of a globalized world. They cannot.

We saw in the big wave of news with bad water at some remote reserves how inadequate the reserve system is, even for so basic a need as decent water. In much of the cheap coverage, that without any investigation and just repeating the same generalities over and over (something in which CBC Radio sadly participated), of those events, the government was blamed either by direct claim or implication.

But to anyone digging a little deeper, it became pretty clear the reserves themselves were responsible. There are expensive training programs the government gives for learning how to run these water systems, but the aboriginals taking them often drop out or fail or barely qualify.

Their educational experience absolutely does not equip people to run even the safe supply of their own water, let alone be competitive to train for professions and well-paid trades.

The reserves are a complete dead-end. The actual number of aboriginals earning a living with hunting and trapping is relatively small. What then of all the young people growing up in an environment suitable for little else?

And the aboriginal birthrate is high. The reserves are becoming more crowded with young people with almost no prospects of any kind.

I think it time we started being honest about the reserve system, stopping sentimental broadcasting as though it were still relevant to learn only hunting seals and picking berries. Both education and opportunities for meaningful work demand that most young people leave this system behind. Perhaps we need a strong temporary incentive system.

There really is no other solution to the multiplicity of terrible events plaguing this obsolete institution.

BUSH'S IGNORANT REMARKS IN ISRAEL AND CHAMBERLAIN, CHURCHILL AND HITLER - THE IDEA THAT BUSH IS MORE LIKE CHAMBERLAIN THAN CHURCHILL

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MATTHEW DUSS IN THE GUARDIAN

There seems to be something close to complete misunderstanding on all sides, including yours, concerning Neville Chamberlain and Hitler.

This entire business of Bush's utterly ignorant remarks and many nearly as ignorant responses to them is sad for what it reveals about current general understanding of so colossal and not very distant an event as the First World War.

Chamberlain was a thoroughly decent and intelligent man, one who well knew the horrors of the First World War with foul trenches and muddy piles of corpses and plagues of rats and hovering clouds of poison gas - about 20 million dead souls in all.

Britain had given some of her best young men, the class of people who would never be caught volunteering and dying in America's modern colonial wars, the "Senator's son," the poets, and others. It was a monumental tragedy that achieved little but setting the stage for the Second World War.

Chamberlain did everything he could to avoid a repeat of that pointless mass slaughter, tirelessly and franticly trying, but once he was convinced that Hitler was madly determined on war, he stopped his efforts and bravely prepared for war.

The first important preparations for fighting Hitler were not taken by "showboat" Churchill, but by Chamberlain, and his efforts were based on knowledge, not bluster.

No intelligent person with a knowledge of history can ever fault people who engage and talk to their opponents. It is always and everywhere the first and proper thing to do.

The extended circumstances of Chamberlain’s allowing Hitler the takeover of places like the Sudetenland were based on the fact that these places were peopled by populations mainly German in origin – Hitler used this, as we know in hindsight, as a rationalization to get things rolling. It was also based on an understanding of how harsh in economic and other terms the Versailles Treaty had been on Germany, being itself a partial explanation for the rise of Hitler.

The term “appeasement” was not a proper name for what occurred, it was a campaign slogan used by a belligerent Churchill that, in many ways, parallels John Kennedy’s (false) claim in 1960 that Eisenhower had allowed a “missile gap” vis-à-vis the Russians to occur.

It is easy to be an admirer of Churchill, eloquent, personally brave, and always ready to act in one way or another, but we forget at our peril that Churchill made many bad calls in his career, many, costly in lives and fortunes. He was not uniquely gifted in his prescience, and the British people dumped him after the war.

The decent Chamberlain lives on in history as a kind of cartoon character, a parody of what he really was, the historical embodiment of a cheap campaign slogan.

As for the historical figure Bush most resembles, it really is none of these. He is a kind of watered-down, less intelligent version of Hitler, if he is anything more than an empty-shirt. Even that is a somewhat false analogy, because the genuine arbiter of American policy for the last eight years has been Dick Cheney, Bush being a bumbling, shallow, ignorant “front man,” the first known symbolic president, if you will.

As for Cheney, he is a genuinely vicious, ruthless man, he and Rumsfeld having many genuine parallels to Hitler.

CHERIE BLAIR'S MEMOIR AND AN INTERVIEW

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

Cherie is simply an idiot.

She was so embarrassing as the wife of the Prime Minister, they paid a small platoon of "minders" to try keeping her from making a fool of herself in public (this is not a sarcasm - it happened), but they were never successful.

Now the woman is even more embarrassing outside Number 10.

Her recorded behavior over ten years makes her seem very much like a cross between Liza Doolittle (whose voice Cherie's closely resembles) and Leona Helmsley.

There are pictures of her sitting near the Queen yawning with her mouth wide open and her husband giving her a quiet glare.

She started getting hair-dos that cost about 4000 pounds, paid for by others.

She started doing cheesy speeches on the blue-hair rubber chicken circuit in the United States in the early stages of the war in Iraq because with American chest-thumping patriotism, service clubs would pay her huge fees to blubber the kind of banalities they liked hearing.

Finally, she was stopped from that activity, viewed by most as beneath the dignity of her position.

On her parting day from Downing, she screeched at reporters across the street in her best Liza Doolittle voice. One of her first days at Downing was marked by her answering the front door in a crumpled nightgown.

She blubbers about being a socialist, but pushed for a Mayfair Mansion that only a landed Earl or a movie star could afford, hence Tony's constant efforts to collect well-paid sinecures.

There's more, but I think that sums this pathetic creature up. Her posture as a big actor for women's rights is absurd. She's a mindless greed machine.

Of course, she married an appropriate spouse, the hypocrite and war criminal, Tony Blair.

PARLIAMENTARY BEHAVIOR AND HARPER'S ROLE IN ITS DECLINE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

What is truly happening here is Harper's introduction of Republican Right Wing tactics and attitudes. His is not the traditional decent conservatism of Canada.

Our parliamentary institutions and traditions are not equipped well enough to deal with this ugly new (to Canada) politics.

We've always had clashes and intensities in our parliament, but Harper has brought schoolyard bully behavior to every aspect of parliamentary activity.

Because he is such a natural tyrant-type at heart, he keeps his party's every word and motion in line with his personal intentions.

Everything from Question Period to Committee activity to private meetings with his caucus (known for his cold-blooded anger at times) has taken on the tone he promotes.

Look at his tolerance for Peter MacKay's ugly behavior towards Belinda Stronach, not even demanding an apology for his insulting a woman in parliament and lying about what so many clearly know he said.

Look at his ugly, needlessly provocative words about Israel. No one is fairer minded in the Middle East than Canadians have been, but Harper seems determined to generate the "love it or leave it" ugliness of American politics on these matters.

Look at his endless personal taunting of a decent man like Dion. These aren’t over issues, these are raw personal attacks by a natural bully.

When in our history has a prime minister insulted Canadians for their views of another state's activity? His comments were beneath contempt.

He is, quite simply, Americanizing our parliament and politics, and by "Americanize," I mean the worst aspects of American politics. The Bush shabby, lowlife words in Israel. The insane name-calling and threats of Clinton. The constant nasty-mouthing of a Newt Gingrich. The dark ugliness of a Tom Delay.

A natural bully, Harper taunts the Liberal leader with personal insults regularly. He suppresses meaningful activity on a number of matters, paralyzing committee activity with walk-out-the-door tactics, while pretending to openness and democratic values.

Harper has managed to shut-up the Christian extremists in his party, this gives the public an impression of his being a moderate. But what he has introduced instead is a hundred times more damaging to our democracy than the occasional goofy remark from odd people.

HUCKABEE'S INSANE JOKE ABOUT OBAMA DUCKING A GUN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

From his retarded comments on evolution and his bringing the Bible to political debates to declare he believed it was the absolute word of God, I have long regarded Huckabee as merely a man missing at least one full lobe of his brain.

But this is different.

This shows a sadistic idea of humor and is definitely tinged with threat. He strikes me as a potentially dangerous man.

It is moreover, since he is talking about a leading presidential candidate, a possibly criminal remark.

If you or I made this kind of comment in public about the president, the Secret Service would knocking on the door shortly after with all kinds of intrusive questions and opening a file, as they should.

Of course, previously we had another brain-dead member of America's Religious Right doing something similar.

Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a national leader. He should have been regarded as a terrorist under America's oppressive anti-terror laws, but he got away with it with no consequences.

America simply has the most bizarre national politics this side of Zimbabwe. Where else would a man of such low quality be considered as a potential presidential candidate by anyone other than his mother?

And, of course, this Appalachian Throwback is on McCain's list of possible VPs.

ISRAEL A SUCCESS AT SIXTY?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY BENNY MORRIS IN THE GUARDIAN

Despite the cultural achievements mentioned, I don't know that you can make the argument, at all, that Israel is a success. At best, it is very much premature.

First, it a subsidized state, heavily so. It receives more assistance from the United States than any other place on earth, no matter how needy. It is a virtual flood of assistance - taking the form of money, credits, shared technology, access to the top officials, and many other forms.

Remember, Israel is a country with a population the size of Ecuador, or roughly the population of Greater Chicago, and it is not a third-world land, yet its assistance outweighs vastly that received by countries like India (over 140 times the population of Israel) or Nigeria (nearly thirty times the population).

Second, Israel has been immensely more subsidized than the American government assistance alone indicates. Germany has paid many billions in reparations - I'm not questioning the rightness of this for a moment, only pointing out its role in Israel's present state and that it is not something that continues indefinitely.

Private interests in America and other Western nations send a continuous flow of donations and assistance of many kinds to Israel. I have no idea how large this is, but I know from childhood experiences of growing up in Chicago that it is very large.

For countries like Mexico or the Philippines, amounts sent by family members working abroad are very important economic factors. Considering the average economic success of Jews in America and Europe and their religious as well as nationalistic ties to Israel, one suspects this is a pretty remarkable amount.

Third, Israel has received many special privileges from the United States and others, privileges which are very important to the economy, privileges of which other, developing nations must be envious. These involve degrees of free trade, technology sharing, the free movement back and forth of dual citizens, and indeed the granting of and recognizing dual citizenship in the first place.

Fourth, Israel remains sixty years after its birth a garrison state. The size of its armed forces and the large amounts of late-model equipment and institutions like The Wall and the immense labyrinth of security checks plus a nuclear arsenal make Israel unlike almost any state on earth. This is not a long-term sustainable situation.

Fifth, in the ethical sphere, Israel truly must be said to set one of the lowest standards on the planet. It keeps an entire people effectively enslaved. It launches invasions and assaults against virtually all its neighbors. It imprisons thousands illegally. It assassinates and tortures on a large scale.

The argument is so often made that Israel is the Mideast's only democracy, but what kind of democracy is it? Remember, The American Confederacy and Apartheid South Africa were democracies in much the same sense Israel is.

Israel does not have a Bill or Charter of Rights, nor is it likely it ever will have one. There are so many specialized laws in Israel, privileging some and greatly disadvantaging others, that such a document would be impossible to construct. The entire purpose of such a document is to protect various minorities - whether in religion, ideas, or origins - from the tyranny of a majority. Israel, as constituted, can only continue as a tyranny of the majority.

Longer term, there are many fundamental problems. Perhaps the greatest of these is the differential in birth rates between most Israelis and their Arab neighbors. Arab populations at current rates are doubling every 24 years or so. Israel, like most advanced Western countries, can't even replace its own population. It has depended entirely on migration.

But Israel is actually starting to experience significant out-migration flows. People who have a choice now sometimes choose to go where long-term prospects for prosperity and peace are superior, even to Germany, a country which goes out of its way now to welcome back Jews.

If one looks at the prospects for places like America or Britain or Canada or France or Scandinavia, places where millions of Jews live in peace and prosperity, Israel, with its perpetual state of war and its natural limits and its complex social and ethnic difficulties, does not look glowing.

BUSH'S ABSURDLY IGNORANT WORDS ABOUT NAZIS AND OTHER GROUPS AND TALKING FOR PEACE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

This is ignorant beyond words, but what else would you expect from a moron like Bush?

There is no comparison between Hitler and some of the groups to which Bush refers. None.

Hamas (in Palestine) and Hezbollah (in Lebanon) have never threatened to conquer anyone. Although they use some nasty language towards Israel - and why not in view of Israel's ugly behavior and Israel’s constant use of ugly language? - they are not serious threats to Israel.

Hezbollah owes its origins to Israel's aggression in Lebanon. It exists to keep Israel out of Lebanese affairs. It really is that simple. Has Bush never heard that Israel occupied Southern Lebanon for 18 years? That it, Israel, has invaded Lebanon twice, killing thousands of innocents who were no serious threat to it?

Israel hates these groups because they oppose its efforts to gradually take-over the entire region and they want peace on a basis of equality, something Israel very much does not desire.

And they [the British and others] very much did talk to Hitler, talked a very great deal, and it was a good thing that they tried. But Hitler was mad with the ambition for conquest, and the talks produced nothing.

Hitler understood the strength of the United States as based on its many conquests across a continent, and in this he was right.

The conquests provided immense resources, attracted land-hungry migrants, and in the end gave America immense economies of scale.

The only distinction between America's land-grabbing history and Germany's is one of Germany’s being surrounded by heavily populated lands. But the U.S. had no qualms about attacking the Spanish, attacking the Mexicans, attacking many Indian tribes, attacking the Hawaiians, and still others.

I think few Americans appreciate how rapacious their own history has been. As late as the end of the 19th century, greedy conquest was the rule.

The entire Hawaiian people signed a petition asking the U.S. to withdraw from its take-over of the islands. They sent a delegation to Washington, and Congress would not even meet with them. If that wasn't like Germany's conquests, I don't know what is, the only difference being how comparatively weak the Hawaiian people were.

By the way, Hamas was elected in an election far cleaner than the one that put Bush in office. How can you say you want peace when you refuse to recognize them, illegally arrest elected government members (Israel has them in prison today), publicly threatens the elected government leader with assassination, try to starve the people of Gaza out, and kill hundreds of them in reprisals? Just who is it acting the most similar to Hitler?

HAMAS AND ANTI-SEMITISM: YET MORE GROSS MISUSE OF THIS INCREASINGLY MEANINGLESS EPITHET

RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY ALAN JOHNSON IN THE GUARDIAN

Alan Johnson,

One gets very tired of reading the expression "Jew-hatred," its use always intended to create a special category of prejudice. One level above, as it were, the now grossly over-used “anti-Semitism,” which has till now itself been treated as a unique category of prejudice, as though prejudice isn’t just prejudice.

Jimmy Carter, the most decent man to be president of the U.S. in the twentieth century, has been vilified in Israel. I saw a cartoon - just like something from the gutter literature of 1936 Germany - showing him stupidly smiling with a bunch of Palestinians (drawn to look like "dirty terrorists") and the words "Jew-hating" like the words to a song over their heads.

Simply disgusting, and something responsible Jews everywhere should speak against.

An Israeli ambassador, only a short time ago, called Carter, the only man who has made a large and genuine contribution to peace in Israel, a "bigot." This was stupid beyond words, and every clear-thinking person in the world knows it. These are fascist tactics.

Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is just plain ugly. Bush wouldn’t dare even to go see it on his trip to Israel. Every responsible witness says it is horrible and unacceptable. Bishop Tutu, again a man who speaks with real moral authority, calls it what it is, apartheid. There is no ethical or legitimate security reason for this behavior.

And there is plenty of hatred mouthed in Israel every day. Despite Israeli efforts to suppress or prevent such language being heard abroad for fear of angering supporters, prominent Israelis - including rabbis - speak of the Palestinians as roaches and vermin.

More than one conservative rabbi has said they should be exterminated, words that seem impossibly stupid from a Jewish point of view.

Only recently the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel suggested they all be rounded up and dumped in the Negev Desert. That would be their "homeland."

Real hatred, though, is expressed through acts, not just words. Just consider Israel's ugly behavior.

A clean new government is elected by the Palestinians, representing a genuine new opportunity for peace as anyone with an unbiased brain can readily understand, and what does Israel do?

It calls them terrorists - they are not - and it illegally arrests a major part of their elected government. It threatens the elected head of government with assassination. It makes every effort to starve out 1.4 million people in Gaza. Finally it kills hundreds.

It “negotiates” with the pitiful Abbas, a man who is a complete failure in running a clean and proper government, reportedly offering him recently 65% of the West Bank, the Palestinians’ own land.

Even the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens (about 19% of the population) – descendants of those brave enough not to run from their homes under the wave of terror that marked Israel’s foundation, a terror intended to make people run, which included murder and rape and bombings by Israeli gangs – are treated with contempt.

How would you behave, Mr. Johnson, if you lived somewhere and a gang of armed settlers took over and treated you and your family like this in perpetuity?

EINSTEIN AND FAITH

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY ANDREW BROWN IN THE GUARDIAN

Einstein was not religious in the least. He did not attend temple and he did not pray. His references to a Supreme Being are vague and almost of the nature of childish parables, as when an indulgent parent speaks to a young child.

No one, none of his best biographers, understands just what Einstein believed or did not believe.

Einstein does not seem to have been an atheist, at least in the sense we usually understand that term, but it is equally clear that religious matters were utterly unimportant to him.

Einstein never explained himself definitively in this matter. It wasn't important enough to him to think hard about.

We have a clue in his views of quantum theory.

Einstein, despite being, through his work on light and black-body radiation, one of the founders of quantum theory, could never give up the idea of causality required of quantum mechanics as it developed more fully.

He just instinctively accepted causality in physics, often remarking that it was just our limited knowledge that kept causality hidden in modern theories.

One has to assume he just had a vague inkling of extending causality through to the beginning, but these were not issues that worked on his mind.

As to admiring Freud, Einstein was actually rather dismissive of the theories of psycho-analysis.

There is a certain ambiguity about Einstein on all matters not having to do with physics. His pacifism. His Zionism. His concepts of nationality. His work on all these was confusing to others. He tried working with organizations on these, but he hated such work and was ineffective. Others, such as the ardent Zionists, used his name for credibility and contributions.

He embraced pacifism and found nationalism annoying, and one has the feeling that these views had to do with his need for quiet and privacy to just think.

I think of him as a de facto atheist. The only matter that truly mattered to Einstein was his physics.

ON HAMAS CONDEMNING THE HOLOCAUST

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY BASSEM NAEEM IN THE GUARDIAN

Israel does not oppose Hamas because it is a terrorist organization - it is not - or because it denies facts of history like The Holocaust.

Israel opposes Hamas because it is a well-organized, fairly disciplined, and relatively not-corrupt organization, and it is not prepared to accept Israel's unfair, self-serving concepts of peace.

It wants genuine peace, fair and with full consideration for the needs of both sides. It doesn't even pretend the two sides have to be friends to have peace. They do not.

The corrupt old Fatah was mostly ineffective, it wasn't democratic, and many regarded it as a bad joke. Yet this is the group Israel insists on dealing with, or at least what's left of it.

The frustration at the irrationality and unfairness of all this must be horrible at times for Palestinians.

MCCAIN'S JUDICIAL CONFUSION

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DYLAN LOEWE IN THE GUARDIAN

I wish it were so.

First, I wonder how the U.S. Supreme Court could be more conservative than it is? Would they appoint only people with fur on their knuckles?

The concept of "strict construction" seems pretty close to entrenched in America, even though it is the legal equivalent of judges counting angels on the head of a pin.

The Constitution itself is outdated and anti-democratic in many of its provisions, yet it is regarded as though it were Holy Scripture in the American Civic Religion. Judges counting angels seems almost suitable.

In general, this is a technical issue not appreciated by large parts of the population. It certainly isn't a "barn burner" for the broad public, although of course it is very important.

MCCAIN DEDICATED TO A PRINCIPLED CAMPAIGN AHEAD?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

I dearly wish this proves to be the case.

But McCain’s record is one of stating principles he later backs off from or ignores.
Time and again we see that pattern of behavior: the Keating Five Scandal; campaign finance reform; and criticism of the Religious Right’s manipulations in politics are just a few examples.

The trouble is that even if McCain does “take the high road,” his party is full of pug-uglies who never do anything but the opposite. The numbers are in the hundreds but include Hastert, Gramm, Delay, Gingrich, Rove, Cheney, Lott, and many others.
They are expert at character assassination.

And there is always tons of Republican money to carry off such operations, as when they virtually subsidized a woman - including providing her plastic surgery - who had accusations against Bill Clinton. The spectacle they provided against the poor Cuban boy Elian being reunited with his father was awesome. Remember the “Swiftboaters” in Kerry’s campaign?

Of course, the likely route is to have both these things happening at the same time, parallel political universes. Having your cake and eating it too.

AMERICA IS STILL AN INSPIRATION TO THE WORLD?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY WILL HUTTON IN THE OBSERVER

Your paean to America does seem to have overlooked a few matters, Mr. Hutton.

Inspiration for just what, exactly, Mr. Hutton?

Inspiration for the most wars started and governments overthrown in the last half century?

Inspiration for ignoring every genuine genocide of the Twentieth Century? Indeed, for not only ignoring the three in our lifetimes – Indonesia, Cambodia, and Rwanda – but for using its immense power against so many weak peoples to satisfy its own economic and policy goals?

Inspiration for leaving three million dead in Vietnam ands a sea of land mines and horrid Agent Orange?

Inspiration for watching thousands of prisoners in Afghanistan driven off into the desert in vans to be suffocated?

Inspiration for running a secret International Torture Gulag?

Inspiration for setting aside the Geneva Accords?

Inspiration for shooting a fifteen-year old boy twice in the back in Afghanistan and then throwing him into Guantanamo to be tortured for almost six years, and falsely accusing him of ridiculous undefined crimes?

Inspiration for the highest murder rate of all advanced countries?

Inspiration for the highest proportion of its own citizens in prison of all countries on earth?

Inspiration for a ghastly annual expenditure on the military, an expenditure equal to that of the rest of the globe's nations combined?

Inspiration as a country out of step on almost every important international issue from global warming to birth control?

Inspiration for the use of hideous weapons like cluster bombs and white phosphorus in Iraq, and in the not-so-distant past, napalm?

Inspiration as the only country to ever actually use nuclear weapons? Twice, on civilians?

Inspiration for ignoring the rest of the world on so very many important international institutions, including the International War Crimes Court, the Treaty Banning Land Mines, efforts to ban cluster bombs, Kyoto, and many others including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty?

Yes, America’s economy is strong despite set-backs, but then America took the hog’s share of choice lands in its relentless march of conquest across a continent. Had those places been as populated as Europe, it would be impossible to distinguish America’s record against everyone from the Spanish to the Hawaiians from Germany’s efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

And it peopled those lands with skilled migrants lured from all over the world who were desperate for some land and often, ironically, with people seeking to avoid military service and wars in other places like Europe.

HILLARY DROPPING-OUT SPECULATION AND A NAIVE COMMENT ON THE PURPOSE OF PRIMARIES

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

"People seem to forget that this race is about picking the BEST candidate for a run at the PRESIDENCY."

This is an unbelievably naïve comment.

American national politics are about successfully putting together the strongest coalition of private interests.

And they are about money, lots of it. If anyone "good" happens to make it through the process, it is sheer luck.

"Best" isn't even a consideration if you examine the list of American presidents, mostly mediocrities and political hacks and thugs (Nixon, Ford, Bush, Clinton, Coolidge, Arthur, Harding, Taft, Cleveland, and more), with only a few outstanding people (FDR) along the way.

Now in that sense of best - the best political thug - Hillary would qualify head and shoulders above all comers.

INDIA AND POPULATION GROWTH AND DUMB COMMENTS ABOUT HAVING TOO MANY CHILDREN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

Dakota K,

Yours is an ignorant comment, not worth making really.

First, all third-world people have high birth rates. Why?

Since historically about half of all children die in such places (as they did in North America in the 19th century), higher birth rates assure survivors.

Since poor places have no pensions or security nets, surviving children are your security in old age.

Population only explodes when historically high death rates are reduced through science advances such as immunization. Birth rates do not immediately respond to new, lower death rates. People need to be sure things have really changed.

The problem - a temporary population explosion - can only realistically be helped (before its ultimate self-adjustment) through economic and birth-control assistance from abroad. When people's income rises, they have fewer children.

As far as birth-control assistance, the greatest stumbling blocks in the world are American foreign-assistance policy (influenced by the Religious Right) and the backward Catholic Church.

IS THE MONSTER FRITZL FIT TO PLEAD?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DAVID WILSON IN THE GUARDIAN

The question of madness is endlessly complicated.

This man clearly is some kind of psychopath as well as a pedophile.

These are both conditions which appear to come naturally to some percent of every population.

But are they forms of madness?

You might as well ask is alcoholism madness.

In the end, he did hideous things which society is repulsed by, and he is well aware of this, and he should be treated as every other person who has done such things is treated.

MAKING SENSE OF THE MONSTER FRITZL

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY YVONNE ROBERTS IN THE GUARDIAN

Ms Roberts misses the point, almost entirely.

Yes, many people are capable of hideous acts, but they are only capable under extraordinary circumstances such as vicious war.

But even in war, many refuse to revert to beasts.

Fritzl clearly is a form of psychopath, a condition that affects perhaps one-percent of any population.

I say this, not just because he sexually assaulted his daughter (and reports now say also his grandchild), a behavior that is far more common than many imagine, but because of his comfortable ability to reduce her to a thing under his complete 24-hour-a-day control, having no other purpose in her existence but to satisfy his demands.

Arguments which treat all people as though they are the same are false, much as the view of Christianity that all people are the same and equally require God's grace.

People are not the same. They vary in thousands of ways from having mental illnesses and intelligence to feeling pain and seeing colors differently.

We are a species after all on which nature conducts endless experiments, constantly producing new varieties which may or may not survive and contribute dominant traits.

CLINTON AND THE END OF THE LINE AFTER INDIANA?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL TOMASKY IN THE GUARDIAN

Clinton has run the most despicable campaign in memory.

After her massive assault, casting aside every ethical and intellectual consideration, it does seem unlikely she will quit until the bitter end.

And it will be a bitter end. She has already contributed heavily to piling the fine man who certainly will be the candidate with filth and innuendo.

I once was one of those sympathetic to her under the ugly treatment she received from Republicans in the White House, but her campaign has erased every trace of that sympathy.

Hillary is a nightmare, and, as anyone who has had a bad one knows, part of their frightening nature is that nightmares seem like they will never stop.

A STRANGE IDEA THAT THE ARAB WORLD CAN DEPEND ON ISRAEL AS A LINK TO THE WEST

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY PETRA MARQUARDT-BIGMAN IN THE GUARDIAN

Ms. Marquardt-Bigman,

This is a genuinely offensive article.

First, it smacks very much of "white man's burden" talk to say the Arab World needs Israel as some kind of link to the West. That is called prejudice.

And how your foolish notion betrays ignorance of history.

The Arabs in Spain eight centuries ago hardly needed Israel to form connections.

And the fact that we teach algebra (an Arab word) in schools and use the zero in our mathematics and praise Arabic horses are just a few proofs of ancient connections between the Arab world and the West.

"The aspiration to contribute to a Middle East in which equitable development would benefit a just society was originally an integral part of the Zionist vision..."

This is just factually wrong.

Yes, some Zionists had such a view, but they were not the ones whose views became Israel's policy. These were people like Einstein whose name was exploited to raise funds but whose views were virtually ignored.

As you must surely know, Jobotinsky's concept of the "Iron Wall" has characterized Israel's policy from the beginning.

How does one learn anything from an iron wall?

And if you do not know this history, why are you writing such articles?

If this is the best defenders of Israel's bloody excesses can do, I'd say the propaganda shell-game played by them is just about over.

HAS ISRAEL AT SIXTY DECIDED THAT IT DOES NOT NEED PEACE?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JONATHON FREEDLAND IN THE GUARDIAN

"This nation was forged in refuge, not imperialism."

So it seemed to most in, say, the 1950s, but that view may need serious reconsideration after 60 years of history.

I think Einstein had it right in his view of Zionism. He advocated Jews settling in the Mideast, but did not want to see a formal Jewish state with war-making capacity. And his reason for having this view he, in typical Einstein fashion, bluntly stated as certain characteristics of the Jewish people.

But Einstein's view clearly did not prevail.

What we see instead is an almost constant form of aggressive war by Israel, whether it is taking water rights or orchards or destroying homes or bombing all of its neighbors.

Of course, there is always a superficial rationalization for such savage acts as the attacks on Lebanon, but doesn't George Bush offer superficial rationalizations for his dreadful acts? Doesn't every aggressor, from Stalin to Hitler?

Democracies are just as capable of brutality as any other form of government. America's history with its black population proves that conclusively. Apartheid South Africa is another example. So is Israel.

Power is power, no matter how conferred, and if a people are motivated by such passions as hate or greed or fear, they will act horribly despite otherwise having fair institutions.

The U.S. had its much-vaunted Bill of Rights utterly ignored for centuries. Of course, the very purpose of a Bill of Rights is to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. Israel doesn't even have such a document.

Israel has a slow-moving, never-announced process of ethnic-cleansing underway. The land seized by its Berlin Wall, the houses regularly destroyed, the new settlements constantly built, the destruction of Palestinian commerce and normal life, and a thousand other measures.

I think the future is clear to anyone who views the situation objectively. Through patient, endless pressure exerted while ignoring the rest of the world, Israel will one day become the Greater Israel many Zionists have always advocated.

As to the Palestinians, they have been kept under the most miserable conditions for decades, so why would it bother Israel to continue this brutal behavior until they virtually go away?

Even when Israel has made the least effort to agree to a Palestinian state - as under Rabin, who paid with his life even for doing comparatively little or under Barak, whose concept of a Palestinian state was a permanent nightmare with the same unspoken end in view of slow ethnic-cleansing - the efforts are feeble.

Peace has never been possible without the United States exerting itself for fairness, and it is clear that the United States cannot summon the psychological force to do so.

The United States has tolerated, bit by bit, Israel's worst policies, and there is no reason to think this will change.

OBAMA AND THE FLAG-PIN NONSENSE, AGAIN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL TOMASKY IN THE GUARDIAN

Michael Tomasky,

This is such an idiotic, parochial issue, it well deserves to die a natural death.

So why revive it?

Only in America, or in a place like Germany in the 1930s, would flag pins count for anything.

America's chief Republicans - Bush, Cheney - in fact do wear them, but what else would you expect of those commit war crimes?

The American flag is not just a national emblem.

It literally has become an imperial totem, a form of war paint, a symbol of party correctness a la 1984, full of unpleasant associations for many, many in the world.

I don't think most Americans even understand this.

Obama's independence of mind in this is just one more demonstration of the man's ethical and intellectual superiority. He's head and shoulders above every major figure in Washington, and that's just why the world needs him.

Of course, Hillary doesn't wear one - although it is a mainly male phenomenon in America, only pointing to its war-like connotations - but she makes up for it by talking and behaving like an Appalachian Throwback.

CLINTON VERSUS OBAMA ON A BREAK FOR GASOLINE PRICES

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Clinton is pandering to all those pick-up truck drivers with shotgun racks in the rear window and plastic Jesus on the dashboard.

She is a shameful piece of work.

These fuel prices are going to bring a revolution to our economies: The downsizing of the vehicle fleet, the beginning of the end of urban sprawl out into the cornfields.

These are good things, long-term, and far greener in their implications than silly demonstration projects for non-conventional energy.

On this issue alone, you can see the clear superiority of Obama, both in thought and ethics.

FURTHER THOUGHTS YET ON REV WRIGHT AND AMERICA'S RELIGIOUS RIGHT

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

A further thought.

Why is it that Wright's words so bother some Americans?

America has so many, many other examples of "ministers" who've done nothing but spew hate and ignorance.

Consider the fried-brain Pat Robertson, who, apart from a host of idiotic remarks, a few years ago called for the assassination of a foreign leader (Chavez).

Why wasn't he branded a terrorist?

Why wasn't he arrested under America's dark anti-terror laws?

Consider the late Jerry Falwell, the Jabba the Hutt of the Religious Right.

Falwell claimed homosexuals caused 9/11.

Falwell said once that the Anti-Christ (reference the Book of Revelations) was alive today, and he took the form of a male Jew.

Falwell sold tapes from the pulpit that suggested the Clintons murdered Vince Foster.

The man was a raving lunatic, but I guess so long as he did not touch the sacred name of America and things that it may have done wrong, he was okay. More than okay, he thrived and got lots of publicity.

Consider the "Rev" Jimmy Swaggert who said from the pulpit that he would kill a homosexual who made a pass at him.

The list is very long, and today includes a "minister" associated with John McCain, who made idiotic remarks getting little publicity.

Then there's a former minister of the Clintons who is on trial for child molestation.

Good God, what a lunatic asylum.

MORE ON REV WRIGHT AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND SELECTIVE ATTENTION

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE BROOKS IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

George Hanshaw, your first comment is a set of very, very tired clichés.

First, the media never do their jobs, particularly in the United States. Anyone who thinks otherwise just doesn't know what he/she is talking about. The best papers in America beat the drum for going to Iraq, that utter bloody disaster, rather than doing one speck of serious investigation.

Second, the good publicity over Obama early on was precisely because he is a remarkable and attractive figure. He simply towers over the others running in both parties. Intelligent, educated, sympathetic, graceful, articulate - you name the fine characteristic, this man has it in spades.

Bringing in the Rev Wright is pure political sleaze. First, who wants to be judged by the views of another, one you may have spent an hour a week with in the mere formality of going to church? For most politicians in America, going to church is a mere formality.

There are so many ridiculous religious freaks out there with dashboard Jesus figures and superstitious nonsense filling their heads, no politician can afford not to be seen crossing a church threshold occasionally.

You don't seriously believe either of the Clintons is genuinely religious, do you? They are both consumingly ambitious and worldly, to say the least. Or that swearing, drinking, skirt-chasing man, McCain, who doesn't even sleep with his wealthy wife?

You condemn your own judgment in saying that is what should be done. Wright is an ego-maniac, but then so are all of the American televangelists and leaders of super-churches. You name the man - Falwell, Swaggert, Hinn, Roberts, Robertson, Graham, Bakker, Schuller - they are all ego-maniacs and about as genuinely Christian as Wall Street swindlers.

I also think, although I do not like the form it is presented in, that Wright does have some truths buried in his rhetoric. Crazy-sounding stuff like government manufacturing AIDS to attack blacks may be understood as parables and symbolic ways of talking about bitter underlying truths. God knows, America's blacks have truly suffered inordinate burdens and great injustice for more than two centuries.

Wright's more extreme expressions rank right up there with Falwell saying the Anti-Christ exists and that "he is in the form of a Jewish male." Or suggesting that the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered. Or blaming 9/11 on homosexuals. Or any of scores of other vicious, stupid words.

Moron Franklin Graham, right after 9/11, called for America's enemies to be attacked with nuclear weapons. When this exemplary Christian was younger, one of his favorite fun things to do, other than drinking and driving, was to use a machine gun on trees. His favorite gift to friends on birthdays or other occasions is an automatic pistol.

How about Pat Robertson publicly calling for the assassination of a foreign leader? He wasn't treated as a terrorist, as he very much should have been under America's ugly anti-terror laws.

The greatest underlying truth over the ego-maniac Wright is that America’s reaction to him is so extremely unbalanced.