With friends like this Romney doesn't need enemies:
It's enough to make an atheist want to believe in god so we can call on him to save us from them, but as they tell us, and so fervently believe, he is on their side, their vengeful hateful god.
President Obama understands what I wrote three and a half years ago, that ending the Israeli Palestinian conflict depends on recognizing that "the solution essentially comes down to understanding the most and least that each side can accept".
We could argue forever whether the State of Israel should have been created the way it was but, as most Palestinians have come to accept, that is a historical fact that is simply not going to change. It has been a huge and difficult step for the Palestinians to accept that, after all it was their land that was stolen from them. But come to accept it they have. That is the most they can be expected to accept. The least they can be expected to accept is to have their own Palestinian State and have Israel give back the land they stole since the creation of the State of Israel with no exceptions. The original boundaries must be restored, including the status of Jerusalem at the time Israel was created.Hard line Israelis, and their even harder line supporters in the United States, may not want to accept anything other than a solution dictated by Israel but the rest of the world knows, and President Obama understands, that Middle East Peace will require compromise, and while the hard liners may not want peace the rest of the world does.
The least that Israel can be expected to accept is to have their right to exist accepted by the international community, including Palestinians and Arab states. The most they can be expected to give up is all the land they stole after the creation of the state of Israel, a not unreasonable expectation.
Let us be clear the President of the United States is not a stupid man who speaks without thinking and when he speaks of "we", unless he makes it clear he is talking about some specific group like the Democratic Party or his family, he is speaking of the American people. So when he says
"The idea that we would burn the sacred texts of someone else's religion is contrary to what this country stands for,...It's contrary to what this nation was founded on, and my hope is that this individual prays on it and refrains from doing it."he is clearly stating that Islam is "someone else's religion", not the religion of Americans and thus that Muslims are not real Americans. Indeed he is accepting the religious right's assertion that, despite what the Constitution of the United States says and what the founding fathers intended, the United States is a Christian country and Americans are Christians.
Was anyone not surprised by the selection of United States President Obama as this year's Nobel Peace Prize recipient. While many, I am sure, saw him as a potential future winner, most saw the newly elected President as not having been in office long enough to have the accomplishments necessary to win the prize.
The Nobel Committee obviously saw it differently and I think that speaks to a number of things.
The Norwegian Nobel committee said the president was selected "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between people."The committee seems to have put a lot of emphasis on the hope created by Obama's election. In a way they have given him the prize, not for specific accomplishments, but for setting the stage for future accomplishments.
The committee attached special importance to Obama's vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons in the prize citation, which was read in Oslo on Friday.
"The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations," the citation said.
...
Norwegian Nobel committee chair Thorbjorn Jagland told CNN that the five-member committee had unanimously voted to select Obama as the Nobel laureate.
Jagland told CBC News the committee expected criticism about the selection. But the prize is meant to help "strengthen his role and his policy," he said.
Though Obama has been president for less than a year it has been "enough time to inspire the world," Jagland said.
The Nobel committee said Obama has created a new climate in international politics that has focused on multilateral diplomacy and an emphasis on the role of the United Nations and other international institutions.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the citation said.
The Fifth Columnist has just gone through migraine hell, spending two weeks with an almost continuous migraine. Thus blogging was sporadic over the last couple of weeks. After a visit to emergency, and a CT scan determined my brain was normal and a visit to the doctor put me on new medication, I am actually feeling quite optimistic that my migraines may now become much fewer.
Unfortunately a lot was happening and I was thinking about blogging about things but was not able to – like how pissed off Stevie must have been when Michaëlle shared the front page photo of the Ottawa Citizen with Barack, rather than him, especially as he tried so hard to hide her from the press, but she and they would have none of it.
The other thing I contemplated was other “controversial” ads that OC Transpo could ban from their buses, like:
The Earth is Not Flat, Stop Worrying You Won't Fall Off The Edge
Gravity Keeps You Down – Don't Worry If You Run Out of Crazy Glue
The Climate is Changing and it's Our Fault – Don't Worry, Do Something About It
The interesting thing that all these slogans have in common with “there’s probably no god”, is that they have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with science. It is a sad day for Canada when scientific facts become too “controversial” for the side of a bus.
What's the difference between these two statements.
"I am not a racist it's just that I can't hire black staff because most of my customers are racist."
"I am not a racist it's just that we can't pick a black candidate because most of the voters are racists."
Very early in the United States presidential election primary process it became very obvious that there were two clear Democratic Party front runners, both with their own unique appeal to the electorate and both representing a radical change from what until then was seen as inevitable - that the president be a white man. Both leading candidates were highly qualified with good reputations.
What if at that time the leading candidates had seen the opportunity for a Democratic Party Dream Ticket, and decided that whoever came in second would be the vice presidential candidate. This agreement could have been kept private or made public. This agreement would inevitably have required a commitment from the candidates to run clean and positive campaigns, and not only not attack their opponents, but praise them for their qualifications as the best person to replace them as president if the need ever occurred.
It would have changed the whole dynamic of the election process, united and revitalized the Democratic Party and possibly ensured a Democratic presidential victory.
What we have now is more of a Democratic Party Nightmare with the leading Democratic candidates attacking their fellow Democrats with the zeal that is usually reserved for the Republican presidential candidate. Whichever candidate wins is going to face the Republican candidate with his or her reputation tarnished, not by attacks from the Republicans, but by attacks from within his or her own party.
That’s some way to run an election campaign.
Though some will think this question is in poor taste I think it is an interesting one.
Many were very surprised when the two leading contenders for the United States Democratic Party nomination for President turned out to be a white woman and a black man. Until then conventional wisdom was that the United States was not ready for a black, or a female, President.
Hilary Clinton’s case is unique, as the wife of a former President, but of course there are other factors at play there as well.
In the case of Obama, while racism may not be as rampant in the United States as it once was, presidential elections can be won by very narrow margins and it would only take a small percentage of voters who would never vote for a black candidate to defeat him. Yet, he may become the Democratic nominee.
Part of the reason for that may be that the racism dynamic in the United States appears to be changing. Racism, though expressed in hate, is based on fear. Traditional racism in the United States was born with the end of slavery as white men began to fear free black men - afraid they would seek revenge for slavery, defile their women and take their jobs. It may have been irrational but it was used by many to their own personal and political advantage and justified by religion.
With 911, or more precisely, the response of the United States government to 911, the racism dynamic was changed. It is no longer white vs black but Christianity vs Islam. It may be just as irrational but it is just as real.
Indeed those using racism to attack Obama are not doing it on the basis of his blackness but are trying to label him as a Muslim. They put undue emphasis on his middle name, “Hussein”, which is of Arab origin and by inference Muslim. As well they refer to his alleged “Muslim father”, although Biography.com states “His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.”
But the Muslim labeling appears not to be having any significant effect on voters and his blackness appears to be seen as an asset rather than a liability.
If Barack Obama is elected President it will be on his own merits and his ability to reach the minds and souls of the American people with his message of change, but it may very well have been made possible by the changing dynamic of racism in the United States
John Edwards departure from the Democratic Party race means that Americans will have to make history and elect the first black man or the first white woman as President if a Democrat is to become President. Are they ready for that.
The other question is whether the front runners, now even more focussed on each other, are going to fight the Republican Party's campaign for them. Certainly if I was running the Republican election machine I would already be preparing to use the losing Democrat's words against the winning one. I foresee a whole series of Republican Party ads featuring Clinton or Obama telling the American people why the other Democrat is not fit to be President.
It's the American system and after studying Political Science and working for the House of Commons for over thirty years I still do not really understand it, though I do enjoy watching it from a distance.
