Opinion: Two Americas

[mtmynd]

From The Daily Times by Uri Avnery, Israel Peace Activist :

My friend Afif Safieh, now the chief PLO representative in the US, argues that there are two Americas: the America which exterminated the Native Americans and enslaved the blacks, the America of Hiroshima and McCarthy, and the other America, the America of the Declaration of Independence, of Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt.

For more on this : http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2008_pg3_5

[gypsyjoker]

if there is an after life
and I make it to heaven'
I will kick back and have a spot of tea with churchill, h*tler and woodrow wilson

I don't even want to read the article,
the guy is obviously clueless about american history

how narrow minded is that
I remember talking head on sunday morning tv saying of Bush's state of the union message a in 2007 I think
he gave it high praise
Called it Wilsonian.

what do you know about old woody wilson cec?
i think the guy misplaced him in the wrong america
Wilson made the world safe for the wall street bankers.

[Arcadia]

sorry, I have enough problems...!!!!!!!

[gypsyjoker]

nothing personal
just my opinion
and you probably
know what
they say
about opinions

[bohonato]

I agree about Wilson. I consider him to be one of the worst presidents ever. Seriously, I would go so far as to say he is worst than Bush. No one ever believes me though.

I haven't got a chance to read the article, but I won't brush it off due to his inclusion of Wilson.

[gypsyjoker]

I am going to read the article too.
Sorry Cecil, I would not get any exercise at all if it was not for jumping to conclusions

[mtmynd]

dammit! read Uri Avnery's article. fuck a bunch of Wilson. he was then we are now.

[jimboloco]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2008_pg3_5
Pakistan newspaper

OPINION: Two Americas —Uri Avnery

I am longing for an American president who will have the courage and the honesty to tell Israeli leaders: Dear friends, you are drunk with power! You are speeding along a highway that leads to an abyss!

The US is now the only super-power on earth. It will remain so for quite some time to come. The decisions of the President of the United States affect every human being on this planet.

Unfortunately, the citizens of the world have no part in these elections. But they may, at least, voice an opinion.

Availing myself of this right I say: I am for Barack Obama.

My friend Afif Safieh, now the chief PLO representative in the US, argues that there are two Americas: the America which exterminated the Native Americans and enslaved the blacks, the America of Hiroshima and McCarthy, and the other America, the America of the Declaration of Independence, of Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt.

In these terms, George Bush belongs to the first. Obama, his opposite in almost every respect, represents the second.

One can arrive at Obama by a process of elimination.

John McCain is a continuation of Bush. More attractive, probably more intelligent (which doesn’t mean much). But he is more of the same. The same policy — a dangerous mix of intoxication with power and simple-mindedness. The same world of the Wild West myth, of Good Guys (Americans and their stooges) and Bad Guys (everybody else). A macho world of sham masculinity, where everything is seen through the sights of a gun.

McCain will go on with the wars, and may start new ones. His economic agenda is the same “swinish capitalism” (Shimon Peres’ phrase), which has now brought disaster on the economy of the US, and the economy of all of us.

Eight years of Bush are enough for us. Thank you.

Hillary? True, there is something very positive in the fact that a woman is a potential candidate for the leadership of the most powerful country in the world. As the old Jewish blessing has it: Blessed art thou, the Lord, our God, who let us live to see this day. I believe that the feminist revolution was by far the most important one of the 20th Century, since it overturns the social patterns of thousands of years, and perhaps also the biological patterns of million of years. This revolution is still going on, and the election of a woman president would be a milestone.

But it is not enough that it be a woman. It is also important which woman it is.

I spent some years struggling against Golda Meir, the worst Prime Minister Israel ever had. Almost all recent female leaders of countries have started wars: Margaret Thatcher started the Falklands War, Golda Meir bears the responsibility for the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, Indira Gandhi made war on Pakistan, the current presidents of the Philippines and Sri Lanka are conducting internal wars.

The usual explanation is that in order to prevail in a man’s world, a woman politician has to prove that she is at least as tough as the men are. When she comes to power, she wants to show that she, too, can make war and command armies. Hillary has already acted tough by voting for the disastrous Iraq war.

I don’t know how much she was a partner to her husband’s decisions in the White House. The President’s wife may be closest to his ear — and the President’s husband will probably be closest to her ear. Anyhow, in the eight years of Bill Clinton nothing good for Israeli-Palestinian peace happened. In his “peace team” there were a lot of American Jews, but not a single American Arab. He was totally subservient to the Israel lobby, and on his watch the number of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories more than doubled.

Israel doesn’t really need another term of Billary.

Hillary is a run of the mill politician. If McCain is a continuation of Bush, Hillary is an extension of the entire present American political system, the present policy and the present routine. But the world needs another America.

The name of another America is Obama. Full name: Barack Hussein Obama.

The very fact that this person can be a serious contender for the presidency at all restores my faith in the possibilities inherent in America. After the excesses of Senator Joe McCarthy there was President John Kennedy. After Bush there can be Obama. Only in America.

The great message of Obama is Obama himself. A person who has roots in three continents (and another half: Hawaii). A person whose education spans the wide world. A person who can see reality from the viewpoints of America, Africa and Asia. A person who is both black and white. A new kind of American, an American of the 21st Century.

I am not as naïve as I sound. I realise that in his speeches there is more enthusiasm than content. We can’t know what he will do once elected president. President Obama may disappoint us. But I prefer to take a risk with a man like this than to know in advance what the two routine politicians, his competitors, will do.

I am not overly impressed by election speeches. I have conducted four election campaigns myself and I know that there are things one has to say and things one must not say. It’s all with limited liability. But beyond all the speechifying, one fact is more important than a million words: Obama opposed the Iraq invasion from the start, when this took integrity and a lot of courage. Hillary voted for the war and changed her position only when public opinion had changed. McCain supports the war even now.

We in Israel know the huge difference between opposing a war in its first, decisive hour, and opposing it after a month, a year or five years.

America needs a complete overhaul. Not just a wash, not just a wax job, not just a new coat of paint. It needs a new motor, a change of the entire leadership, a reappraisal of its position in the world, a change of values.

Can Obama do this? I hope so. I am not sure. But I am quite sure that the other two will not.

Here a Jew will pop the classic question: is it good for the Jews?

The people who claim to speak for the American Jews, the “leaders” who were not elected by anyone, the chiefs of the fetid “organisations”, are conducting a dirty campaign of defamation and sly hints against him. If his middle name is Hussein and he is black, he must be an “Arab-lover”. Also, he did not distance himself enough from the anti-Semite Louis Farakhan.

The same “leaders” are in bed with the most loathsome racists in the US, obscurantist fundamentalists and blood-stained neo-cons. But most American Jews know that their place is not there. The unholy alliance with those types will inevitably come home to roost. The Jews have to be where they have always been: in the progressive camp, striving for equality and the separation between state and religion.

It must be asked: Is it good for Israel?

All three candidates have grovelled at the feet of AIPAC. The fawning of all three before the Israeli leadership is disgusting. They all show a lack of integrity. But I know that they have no choice. That’s how it is in the USA.

In spite of this, Obama succeeded in getting out one courageous sentence. Speaking before a mainly Jewish audience in Cleveland, he said: “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

I hope that the American Barack (blessed, in Arabic), if elected, will not turn into a replica of the Israeli Barak (lightning, in Hebrew).

Real friendship means: when you see that your friend is drunk, you don’t encourage him to drive. You offer to take him home. I am longing for an American president who will have the courage and the honesty to tell our leaders: Dear friends, you are drunk with power! You are speeding along a highway that leads to an abyss!

Perhaps Barack Obama will be such a friend. This would be a blessing for us, too.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli peace activist who has advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He served three terms in the Israeli parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc)

Cool, they are saying that the latest riff, a Hamas letter published in Obama's home church newsletter, will turn the American Jewish community against Obama, but I do not think so. He must continue to challenge and open up the debate out of this intransigence. Shalom Uri.

(I just saw something jumping, what was that?)

[mtmynd]

thx, jimbo! i should've done that in the first place.

[hester_prynne]

Amen!!!!
H

[e_dog]

theys all part of the same 'merica.

one with colonialists slaughtering natives, with tommy j and woody wil on the one side, and the other america sitting on deaf rowe and doin' acid like mumia and tim leery, respect-ivly.

still tru' calls it.

for get about history.

.

[stilltrucking]

"Those who remember the past are doomed to repeat it"
One of my favorite quotations from Bugs Bunny I think

The guy's ignorance of American history is astounding.
From what jimbo has posted they seem to be sincere, well intentioned people.

If I was casting a movie about World war one I would have Boris Karloff playing wilson, Bela Lagosi would be Clemenceau, and Lloyd George would be Porky pig.

This gets back to the thing about taking things out of there historical context. Does it help to understand the past? Does it matter?

If not for Wilson dragging us into the war to make the world safe for J P Morgan and company would those blood sucking colonial empires bled themselves white in that war. Would there have been a H*tler with out the treaty of Versailles (spelling)
Would there have been a need for a modern state of Israel?

I agree
there has only ever been one america

nostalgia for the good old days
when Palestinians and Negroes
were four fifths of a man.

Strange
comment about the jewish community
who needs the jewish vote?
they are less than two percent
of the population
six million people out of three hundred million
how many of the six million vote?



Oh wait I forgot
The jews controll everything
Lots of dough ray me
Me and Baron Rothschild were discussing that just the other day.


What ever happened to the America of Adlai Stevenson, Norman Thomas, Eugene Debs, W.E.B. Dubois, Henry Wallace, et al. ?

What the hell happened to the America of Dwight Eisenhower for that matter.

"Israel and barium make quite a combination.” — Eisenhower's remark while in the hospital for a checkup after warning Ben-Gurion not to go to war in 1956
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... ikeq2.html

[stilltrucking]

Sorry Cecil
I never read the article, I never could open the link, but I think I got the gist of it from jimbo's quote.
jesus h christ Cecil
this is the america of Woodrow Wilson
he just don't get it.