Month: June 2010

Hat tip: thisisfyf.

The most penetrating political interviews on television these days are on Comedy Central. Stephen Colbert's grilling of Michael Oren last night was a classic. Deftly using comedy, Colbert got Oren to essentially admit that the blockade of Gaza is not just about the legitimate issue of restricting weapons getting through to Hamas. It's about collectively punishing the people of Gaza for using a democratic election to back Hamas. It's about turning the 1.5 million people there into helpless dependents on Israeli industry and the impoverishment of any private sector in that beleaguered de facto refugee camp. What, after all, does restricting snack-food, soda and shaving cream have to do with Israel's security interests? Money quote from Bronner's latest:

“I can’t get cocoa powder, I can’t get malt, I can’t get shortening or syrup or wrapping material or boxes,” lamented Mohammed Telbani, the head of Al Awda, a cookie and ice cream factory in the central town of Deir el Balah. “I don’t like Hamas and I don’t like Fatah. All I want is to make food.”

Of course this crude policy of trying to reduce support for Hamas by persecuting the entire Gaza population has failed. Well, duh. And the obvious achievement of the flotilla has been to expose this fact more clearly. McClatchy has also unearthed Israeli government documents that prove that this is not only a matter of security so much as an act of "economic warfare":

"A country has the right to decide that it chooses not to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it wishes to operate using 'economic warfare,'" the government said. McClatchy obtained the government's written statement from Gisha, the Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, which sued the government for information about the blockade. The Israeli high court upheld the suit, and the government delivered its statement earlier this year… The Israeli government took an additional step Wednesday and said the economic warfare is intended to achieve a political goal. A government spokesman, who couldn't be named as a matter of policy, told McClatchy that authorities will continue to ease the blockade but "could not lift the embargo altogether as long as Hamas remains in control" of Gaza.

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

Copyranter finds another WTF:

Just wanted to follow up on the tasteless slimy bloody newborn woman ad (nsfw) I posted last week for Magali's Workout System. The male version wasn't yet online. Now it is. Let's see: the always elusive third ad of the campaign should be maybe a whole aerobics class full of fully grown writhing fetuses?

Joel Wing finds that Iraq's top politicians make about 200 times what the average Iraqi earns:

Iraq’s politicians have made themselves the new elite of the country. There are no laws that regulate the salaries of Iraq’s top politicians, and parliament gets to vote on their own pay and benefits. Almost all of the information is also kept secret from the public, and only comes out when something is leaked to the media. Given that environment it’s no wonder that Iraq’s political class lives in such luxury compared to the rest of the country. The lack of accountability and transparency allows them to give themselves a plush life out of the country’s sight, while many Iraqis struggle. 

And the leading candidate to run the country is now bragging of the need for a "strong man." Yes, young Americans died for this.

I'm on the wagon for the summer since Provincetown bars chains like Starbucks. But I pass along this recipe for those, unlike me, who cook things. It's a gluten-free recipe for same.

"If Israel is a normal state then it just can’t behave this way and be our favorite ally. I think that the present moment may be propitious because the fact that it was Turkey—once Israel’s closest friend in the region, a NATO partner, a Western-oriented Islamic state which is also democratic and one with huge and growing influence in the region—that was affected, offended, and insulted meant that even the White House could not ignore what happened," – Tony Judt, to Marc Tracy.

His op-ed today felt mangled to me, coerced into a structure that made little sense. He's more coherent when not in the NYT.

River Falls, Wisconsin, 1.45 pm

"Her work is her life is her work," – Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor, on Elena Kagan, a woman with no romantic life since college, no pets, no retreat and apparently a private life devoted solely to the elites.

The profile today is almost a parody of Washington careerist insularity – with everyone in power in cahoots with, or related to, everyone else, and everyone just loving one another to death. The idea that Kagan represents real experience of the real world is, quite simply, ludicrous. She is the polar opposite of Clarence Thomas – as bright as he is dim, as protected by liberal elites as he is brutally exposed by them.

From CBS's new poll. It confirms what we already knew – that ending the closet is the key to equality. By far the best way to do this is as an act of positive affirmation. Those gay people who prefer careerism and safety over integrity and courage have every right to do so. But I also have every right to note that they are the key obstacles to their own progress – and no closeted person has any moral standing to complain about his or her inequality. He daily constructs the architecture of his own marginalization.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the generation gap:

Eight-four percent of Americans under 30 know someone who is gay or lesbian. Older Americans are less likely to know someone who is gay or lesbian: Just 66 percent of those over 65 say they do.

Gay equality is being pioneered among the younger, braver generation. They get it. And those who stood by must live with the knowledge of their own cowardice.