When people like Omar complain about drone strikes, I think of the thought experiment Sam Harris posed years ago. Imagine there existed a “perfect weapon”. It would be something like the anime DeathNote: you specify which people you want to die and the manner of death, and it will magically happen. Now think: what would Obama do with such a weapon? What would the targets of those drone strikes do with such a weapon? :dubious:
Obama would kill just the terrorists, giving them a quick painless death and sparing the women, children, and other innocents around him; the targets of the drone strikes would, in the main, spin the dial to “all Americans”, “all Westerners”, or maybe even “all non-Muslims”, and probably choose something really painful as well
And what would Slackerinc do with the weapon? Probably kill all the Muslim immigrants in the USA but he’s a Democrat so he’d choose the “painless” option.
So the shit what? I EXPECT our president to be better than a terrorist. I mean, come on.
That’s not a policy point, that’s a super ridiculous non sequitur that succeeds at the nearly impossible, i.e., exaggerating the evil of terrorists.
And for the record, I’m not especially upset over drone strikes, emphasis on “especially”. The US has conducted violent warfare against other nations for many decades, and I don’t think drone strikes are much of an escalation. If anything they may be a de-escalation. I still think our violent overseas adventures are terrible, but I think the focus on drone strikes is misplaced. That doesn’t mean Ima pledge to defeat anyone who disagrees with me though, ferchrissakes.
Isn’t it something that after all the various stumbles from the Congresswoman, it is “going after Obama” that is the deal-breaker. OTOH I can absolutely see that from the political-electoral perspective, from the DNC viewpoint they can ill afford to piss off a whole bunch of mainstream African-American voters by having young firebrands seem to say the past leadership was part of the problem not the solution. OTOH isn’t that one of the things you *expect *of young firebrands in a movement?
But really… Obama can’t win. From one side he’s an alien Muslim socialist atheist overturning traditional values and imposing his extreme policies, from the other side he’s a conventional compromising nice face on the same old power politics who couldn’t get real change done. One side is on him for being a subversive of all America is about, the other is on him for failing to bring about the revolution.
I find it disconcerting that it still seems to be the Jewish stuff that is the main focus of controversy, when this is newer and IMO more damning. It would certainly be less awkward to take a stand against her on this, because the optics of going after her on the other point risks seeming like Jews vs. African Americans, something that has a long and tendentious history (Google Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” comment and any number of Louis Farrakhan’s statements if you’re not familiar with said history). In this case, it’s in defense of a beloved black leader, so that awkwardness doesn’t come into play.
To my mind that’s because the Obama criticism, while apparently worded for maximum headline-making, is at least defensible as a political position. ‘Obama authorized drone strikes and I feel that was reprehensible and therefore will call him a murderer and if you don’t like that, too bad’ is a position that is, perhaps, unfair to Obama—but it does NOT make any generalizations about (say) black people.
Omar’s other headline-grabbers were generalizations about an entire group. Ugly ones, as it happens.
For me, that’s why Omar’s Obama comments are less egregious than her “it’s all about the Benjamins, baby” tweet and “allegiance to a foreign country” comment:
And then there’s this, with which I agree:
Omar seems to feel that in the current climate, she can make ugly generalizations about a group, and that group will just suck it up, and others will shrug.
Not admirable.
But maybe that’s the end of her bomb-throwing. Hope so.
It’s a pretty sweet deal for AIPAC. How many lobby groups are shielded from accusations of using money or cunning to influence Congress? Their whole purpose is to generate pro-Israel legislation but don’t you dare accuse them of dual loyalty.
I can understand American Jews being offended by the “allegiance to a foreign country” bit if there were no truth to it. But when you have high-placed people saying that criticizing Israel is inherently anti-Semitic, and many other signs that they really do seem to prize Israel above all the others, isn’t it at least an arguable claim? Seems to me there’s a bunch of people who want to place Israel on a kind of pedestal, but don’t like to be called on it.
ETA: I only saw CarnalK’s post after I wrote mine.
Most of them are, n fact most people dont know who the big lobbys even are: https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/318177-lobbyings-top-50-whos-spending-big
*The five biggest spenders in lobbying last year, in descending order, were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the American Hospital Association and the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America.
Rounding out the top 10 were the American Medical Association, Boeing, the National Association of Broadcasters, AT&T and Business Roundtable.
*
Note that neither AIPAC nor the NRA (usually less than a million)are in the top 50, but Big Tobacco is, Altria Group, with Philip Morris International coming in at $6,230,000, just off the bottom.
The NRA comes in around #500. AIPAC spends around $3M, putting it down around #100 or so? So Big Tobacco spends 6 or 7 times what AIPAC does, and Big Tobacco kills 500,000 Americans a year.
Big Health is the #1 spender and Big Tobacco #2, if you consolidate. That’s why we dont have UHC, of course.
Clearly showing that Omar doesn’t know shit about lobbyists or is prevaricating. AIPAC is not that big of a spender.
You dont think they are political? :dubious:Blue shield? Why doesnt America have UHC?= Blue Shield. Who wants us to buy more bombers* and use them*? (and sell them to other nations so* they* can start wars)= Boeing.
So let’s begin with establishing that the discussion here is arguing that she had nothing to apologize for. Credit where credit is due. People here are not trying to claim that that statement is an actual expression of her acknowledging that she, even without conscious intent, used anti-Semitic tropes.The discussion instead morphs into that she had nothing to apologize for, thereby justifying the not an apology made…
Moving along.
I’m no fan of AIPAC but the point of the above is that AIPAC is not a hugely powerful lobbying group in terms of the money it throws around, which on the scale of the big lobbying groups is not so huge. AIPAC may, to my mind, be very wrongheaded in some of the policies they support, but they are no puppet masters pulling the strings of elected officials.
Moving further, yes **SlackerInc ** you have definitely heard people claim that any criticism of Israel is squelched as anti-Semitic but in fact there is lots of criticism of Israel made that is not so labelled. Most of it in fact.
And it is also true that there are a large number of anti-Semites out there. In the ranks of those who believe that in a region dominated by states with entrenched Islamic characters it is the concept of having one small state with a Jewish character that is an affront to humanity lie a disproportionate number of them. They tend to be the ones who use the classic anti-Semitic tropes and they are not the people who are merely critical of specific Israeli policies. They are against Israel’s very existence as a concept and traffic in the canards of Jewish control. Being against Israel existentially and a belief in “ZOG” all too frequently overlap.
One would have to be very naive to think that those people do not exist. And one has to have a very short historical memory to not appreciate what sort of harm anti-Semitism can cause.
Moving further, the simple fact is that Israel does exist and will continue to do so. Simple facts also include that while the Democratic tent should be big enough to include those who believe that Israel has no right to exist trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes is not something there should be space for. One can likely find a fairly sizable if not broad support, including among many American Zionists, that unqualified support of any and all Israeli policies is a mistake and that justice demands a better shake for Palestinians (even as one may disagree on how one got to this place). Hard to have that conversation when it starts with what is at best disrespect.
Lastly - Israel should not be a major plank or subject in this election cycle. And if ones biggest concern is improving conditions for Palestinians and reducing what is felt by some to be blanket approval of anything an Israeli administration does, then getting Trump out of office is what one must focus on. Obama, as a fairly centrist D, was much more concerned with reining in Israeli administration behaviors thanTrump is, and the most moderate candidate running on the D side would be as well.
I bet they’re one of the biggest lobby groups that deals exclusively with foreign policy.
And the fact remains that they do spend money and charisma trying to influence policy. When people talk about blaming the private prison lobby for incarceration rates, has it ever occurred to you to rebut with “they aren’t in the top 50 lobby groups”?
Y’know I actually very rarely hear too much about the private prison lobby but when I do it is in context of how much they spend in direct campaign contributions and allegations of actual quid pro quo kickback schemes.
Payoffs to judges to for increases in prison sentencing is a bit of a different beast than lobbying.
What is your bet as to how much AIPAC spends directly contributing to campaigns and working on behalf of specific candidates? Spoiler - it’s zero. On payments for specific votes? Also zero.
Yes, AIPAC spends money trying to win lawmakers and others to their POVs on issues that they feel are important. A fraction of what Dow Chemical, or Lockheed, or Boeing, or Alphabet, or Amazon, or Facebook, or Altria, or even CocaCola spend trying to win people over to their POVs but yes they are effective lobbyists and do likely have some impact. Organizing into groups to press for particular policy positions is part of the American political process. Sometimes politicians get convinced by lobbyists’ pitches and sometimes not. But while groups making their cases with lobbyists has its definite problems it is not controlling how officials vote with money; it is not pulling puppets’ strings.
Thing is you don’t hear about Dow controlling American government policy as they spend that many dollars in their free speech expression trying to make the case for positions of interest to them or hear that “dual loyalty” phrase applied to them … *phrases that resonate with old anti-Semitic tropes get used where they hit on the old stereotypes. *Oh those “cunning” and “disloyal” Lockheed executives trying to influence policy … huh don’t hear those words. And the people who use them are likely unaware of the implicit beliefs they hold that get them using those specific phrases and concepts.
But yeah it’s okay because the people who use them are sorry you are offended.
Disagree with what AIPAC advocates for and argue against it - I do. But be a bit careful that the way you disagree does not traffic in hateful concepts, and let’s try to avoid fracturing ourselves at this point in history.