The State of a Sinking Feeling

President Obama gave his second State of the Union Address to the nation tonight. After 65 minutes, the sum and substance of all that needs to be noted is that we've sunk from "Hope is on the way" to "Dare to Dream."

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UK Guardian Puts the Lie to the Lies

The Palestinian Papers have been published. For those into diplomatic porn, the accounts of Israeli thrusts into ever more craven PLO deep butt will prove an irresistable read. But is any of this really news?

Did anyone think that a U.S. leashed to AIPAC was a "fair broker" in the peace process? Did any one think that Israel entertained any intent to use the process as anything but war by other means? Did anyone remotely imagine that the PLO was anything but a bunch of sorry assed Quislings who -- as Quislings always do -- were selling their people out (and turning them in) for retirement cushions deposited in Swiss bank accounts? If anyone did, he was living on a moon.

Does anyone doubt the news-to-come? The "oh-shit" looks on the faces of Mubarak and the King of Jordan? The outrage among ordinary Palestinians? The now absolutely unimpeachable credibility of Hezbollah and Hamas? And does anyone doubt that the United States has absolutely none?

The duck and weasel mavens at the Ministry of Hasbara will be spinning sophistries in high gear overtime, but the plain truth is out and perhaps ... only perhaps... this truth will make the Palestinians free.

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Blame the Goy

In our posted news-link, Mya Guarnieri, an Israeli journalist notes the rise of xenophic violence and ethno-religious discrimination in Israel. She concludes by writing that "that Israel offers the Western world a reflection of itself."

Absolutely not. Israel is a reflection of Israel, and it is an old game to blame the goy.

Guarnieri goes on to write that the Israeli reflection " is a picture of nationalism gone wrong. It is a picture of what can happen when a state believes that its very survival depends on maintaining a certain demographic balance." Indeed; but that is the very essence of Zionism, which is precisely why Zionism is criticised.

The premise of Zionism -- aptly and correctly embodied by Israel's present government -- is that Jews needed living room for a Jewish state; and by "jewish" they meant a 'people', a demos. They wanted a state where the demographic balance was 100% jewish and 0% anything else. And every Zionist, revisionist or otherwise, has -- when being candid -- confessed that fact. It was precisely for the sake of this "demographic" raison d'etre that the Zionists fought tooth and nail to have the Allies list Jews as a separate and distinct category of victim of Nazi genocide.

Of course, the "returning" Jews were not able to get a whole loaf in 1947 and so they had to compromise and accomodate their summum bonum. But these strategic adjustments have nothing to do with the essential nature and ultimate purpose of the creed.

One ought not to minimize the "existential dilemma" posed to by Nazism nor the existential catastrophe that resulted to European Jews. But imitating the very same principle of racial exclusivity was not the answer. Blaming the "Western world" for a choice Jews made is not the solution.

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Health Care for the Entre Nous

Congresswoman Gifford's Medical Transport

We wish the congresswoman a speedy recovery. But the notion that she needs UltraMax Security at this point is hysterical. Once again we are left to behold the wealth that is poured out for the HinWis and the EntreNous while the nation as a whole seeks deeper and deeper into poverty and desperation.

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Who's Who Entre Nous

Under cover of New Year’s and minutes before he left office, Governor Arnold (“Terminator”) Schwarzenegger, commuted the sentence of Estaban Nuñez, son of State Assembly Speaker, Fabian Nuñez.

Nuñez fis, 21, was sentenced to 16 years prison for the manslaughter stabbing Luis Dos Santos during a frat-spat at San Diego State University in 2008. In commuting the sentence to seven years (not including good-time behavior credits), Schwarzenneger said that “given Nuñez’s limited role in Santos’ death and considering ...[he]..had no criminal record..., I belive Nuñez’s sentence is excessive.”

Awwwww. Surely it must warm the cockles of all our hearts. We all know that Arnie takes a stack of sentence reports to bed at night and pours over them looking for “excessive” sentences. Our Arnie, the same Pump King that vetoed the People’s initiative that corrected the Three Strikes Law so it would not wreak such outrages as life sentences for pizza stealing.

So, some wrecked, over-the-hill ex-con, is found passed out at 5 a.m., in a parking lot. Because he has some meth and a syringe, a felony, he is sentenced to 25 years to life, at a warehousing cost to the taxpayer of $35,000 per year. (People v. Lee A085239.) In contrast, young Nuñez participates in the homicide of just-as-young Dos Santos, and Arnie feels that 16 years (excluding half time credits) is too much.

In commuting the sentence, Arnie noted that Nuñez was not the actual stabber of Dos Santos. No...no... He only stabbed another guy who managed not to die. But according to Terminator, Nuñez only played a “limited” role in the actual homicide.

To those familiar with California’s aiding and abetting laws, the excuse is nauseating. Virtually all states punish aiders and abettors as if they themselves actually did the shooting, stabbing, robbing or whatever. The issue hangs on the aider’s knowledge and intent. Under California’s extremely sloppy application of the rule, if you were present when the crime was done, you can kiss your sweet self goodbye. Nuñez pled guilty to a reduced crime of manslaughter because, his well paid, high powered attorneys knew that there was no way he could avoid conviction as a principal.

Nuñez had not just been present. He and his cohorts, pissed at being turned away from a party, went out, got knives and came back looking to settle scores. They then came upon an unarmed group that included Santos.

The only “mitigating” factor in this case is that Nuñez pere now works with Adam Mendelsohn, Governor Schwarzenegger’s former communications director. It’s an entre-nous kinda thingie.

As entre-nous as Blue Cross Girlie Boy's veto of California's single payer bill, so that he and his dearests could enjoy all-expenses taxpayer paid health care while the actual people of the State groan under unsustainable premiums or are given to choose between bankruptcy or death.

As entre-nous as Lloyd Blankfein’s grinning attendance at the swankie pankie for Premier Hu at the White House.

If there is a surveyor’s target for disastrous Great Recession and for a culture of callous anti-social corruption that makes Attila look like a social worker, Blankfein and the Goldman Sachs he heads is it. Worse than a common criminal, Blankfein is the primum mobile behind the destruction of entire sectors of the global economy. But Obama doesn’t just begrudge him is ill-gotten billions. No! No! Obama works with him on destroying social security; and to betoken their collaboration invites him to a dinner designed to show off Who’s Who Entre Nous.

Jaded cynics will smirk that “entre nous” is hardly news; and that is indeed a fact. But the acceptability of corrupt back-scratching is assessed in relation to the welfare of the rest of us slobs.

Let it be premised that all human government is more or less corrupt. When the corrupt government provides well for the people corruption can be passed off as the “price” of doing business. But when corruption becomes the business and when government at the same time fails to provide for the common welfare, then, as in pre revolutionary aristocratic France, it is time for a cleaning out of the Augean Pig Sty.

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