In These Times

Latest Comments view all 20

• • 23 Feb 09
  • 9:12 am

  Personally, I think that Hamas, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the rest are fascists who want to turn back the clock to the Dark Ages--to a past that never was. I don't think of them as liberation movements in the progressive sense, no more than the fascists who took over Iran after the 1979 revolution. Nor can I ever imagine them being sane and rational negotiating partners, or even able to understand the concepts of negotiation and compromise at all. That said, I have always agreed that the Palestinian Arabs have a moral right to their own country, while recognizing that …

  Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left

• • 23 Feb 09
  • 9:16 am

  PS I consider myself part of the social democratic left, broadly speaking, but have zero interest in following any party line or joining any particular clique or faction. I do my own reading and thinking, and can only advise everyone else to do the same. I'm also just not all that sociable by nature....

  Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left

• • 26 Feb 09
  • 11:06 am

  This has been a toxic issue for decades. I remember when I was in college 30 years ago, and the same arguments over the same toxic issues were going on--interminably. If there is a better answer than the two-state solution, I haven't heard it yet, and the partition proposals go back to the 1920s and 1930s. None has ever succeeded. Not one, and so this toxic issue never ends. As you might guess that I'm thoroughly sick of hearing about it, and I am by no means alone in this. My main problem if that I don't believe that Hamas and …

  Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left

• • 27 Feb 09
  • 8:43 am

  I've heard all the arguments on here a million times. All I'm interested in any more is: where is the end to this? When does it end? Where is the solution that will finally result in two states? I've yet to see any answers to these questions. Essentially, I think it ends with a Palestinian state, not controlled by Hamas, that is economically and politically viable. It should be linked more to its Arab neighbors than to Israel, although I have long thought that the US should increase its aid to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. Since we are no longer strong …

  Posted to Israel, Gaza and the Left

• • 23 Feb 09
  • 8:52 am

  Personally, I never thought there was much of a possibility of revolution in America. I mean, if we didn't have one in 1932, for example, then just when would the conditions be right for one? Even today, with capitalism in a global meltdown, I don't see any sign of revolution in America. Certainly, there is plenty of discontent, anger, alienation, and all that, but it's not really new. In the late-1960s, when middle class was much larger, and the welfare state and organized labor still existed, revolution in America was a truly delusional proposition--just the well-known youthful radical chic of Baby …

  Posted to You Say You Want a Revolution