What wage growth? Sure, median full-time wages are up 6% since the depths of the Great Recession, but that’s after having taken quite a hit. (They’re up 1.4% - total, not annually - since the Bush-era peak, and up 4.5% (again, total, not annually) since 1979.)
Let’s hope they make some money one of these days. Wage gains have been so minimal during this recovery that too many people have had little chance to save anything up. When the next recession finally arrives, I’d say there will be a shitload of bankruptcies, except that the 2005 Bankruptcy Deform Act made it difficult to even declare bankruptcy.
Seriously, the next recession, no matter how mild, is going to be a nightmare for millions of people.
Not correct. Israel stated that the closing of the Straits of Tiran would be a casus belli. Nasser said he’d do it anyway. If you say something is a casus belli you have to follow through. Just like in 1939.
Anyway, from what I’ve been seeing on Twitter, the beef seems to be over AOC’s use of the word ‘occupation’ to describe what Israel is doing in the West Bank.
Yes, that is in fact the correct term, which accurately describes the situation and is generally used by everyone in the world other than Zionist extremists.
No, I think you’re wrong. There’s a lot of blame to be shared by the current despicable government of Israel but the Palestinians are hardly saints either.
Corey Robin posted on* Crooked Timber* that he was disappointed in Ocasio speaking of a “two-state solution,” because he wants the Left in general to call for a one-state solution. So apparently AOC is getting crap from left and from right.
My take on it is that it was one person from way outside Israel/Palestine trying to “gotcha” another outsider on Israel. And Yanks prioritizing opinions about Israel (not a USA territory) while Puerto Rico (a USA territory) rots, in a conversation with a Nuyorican, is a sign of the degeneracy of USA politics.
Puerto Rico needs help. The Bronx needs help. The USA needs help. Whatever help Israel & Palestine need, and whatever swift kicks in the butt, don’t blame us for not having good answers about it. I’m more angry when our media would rather talk about a war a world away than our own nation’s social disarray, if not decay.
I completely agree with your assessment that both sides deserve a lot of blame for the situation, but that doesn’t change the fact that pretty much everyone (including Israeli moderates and liberals) except extreme pro-Israel folks commonly use the word “occupation” to describe said situation. What tern do you think would be more appropriate?
Well, damn! You learn something new every day, and that was so easy to find out.
And to think that just two years ago, politicians spent $6.5 billion on the 2016 federal election, apparently for nothing!
$6.5 billion is a staggering sum. With that much money you could fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for 15 years, fix the Flint, Mich., lead pipe problem 30 times over or give every public school teacher a $2,000 raise.
Instead, Americans used that money to fuel a 596-day political contest that most of us were ‘disgusted’ by well before it was over.
Lesson learned! I guess this year and in 2020 nobody will spend anything.
How about the 4th Geneva Convention, which prohibits settlement of territories occupied in war, not to mention the deportations therefrom. This has been supported by numerous international legal scholars, and reaffirmed by UN resolutions 446, 452, 465, 471, and 476. Whether Israel was attacked is irrelevant.
Doesn’t anyone in America occasionally wonder why the hell Israel is so important to us? There’s no other country on earth where the central question is, “Does it have a right to exist?” Why is that? Why would anyone question a country’s right to exist?
I don’t see what Ocasio Cortez even has to answer that question.
There have been, and will be, many never ending debates about Israel, its existential threats, how to spread the blame around, the status of Palestinians in the OT, and conflicting mythologies. We haven’t settled them yet and won’t in this thread.
The question here is whether or not a newbie congresscritter wannabe of a progressive stripe can answer a question about the subject with an answer similar to Bernie Sanders’ position on the subject without being pilloried by all sides.
FWIW Sanders is clearly NOT for the BDS movement, is very much for Israel’s right to exist, appreciates the blame that Hamas and others on the Palestinian side deserve, AND is able to condemn the settlement of the OTs by Israel as well as call out the Netanyahu government for actions and policies that are violent, excessive, and disgraceful as well. Are his progressive bona fides also in question?
Is it a good or bad thing for a newbie to acknowledge that there are areas of which they need to learn more?
Steering the conversation back to this hemisphere…
So apparently Crowley won the nomination of something called the Working Families Party (NY has several of these weird little parties that typically “nominate” one or the other of the major party candidates, so candidates often appear on NY ballots as representing multiple parties), hence has the option of continuing to campaign in the general election against O-C if he wants. He is saying he won’t, but isn’t taking steps to get his name off the ballot, which may be him keeping his options open, or not, depending on who you ask. Details here.
Hereis noted asshole Joe Lieberman on the WSJ editorial page today encouraging Crowley to follow his example and ignore the will of his party’s voters.
[del]Can we deport Joe Lieberman to Israel?[/del] [sorry, bad joke]
Why would Lieberman want to split the left-of-center vote like that?
ETA: I can understand Crowley keeping his options open until November, but no, he should not be campaigning against AOC if there is no problem with her.
Joe Lieberman is a representative example of how the Israel lobby has an insidious impact on American politics. For years pretending to be a defender of working class Americans, but splits with Democrats and joins Republicans in sending Americans from the heartland to their deaths, not for the sake of America, but for Zionism.
I disagree. I think the issue is, how can a new progressive movement form without the entrapment of having to kowtow to Holocaust guilt, which consumes discussions of American foreign policy.
Really? That is the issue in regards to a newbie congressional candidate? If a candidate does not submit to your anti-Israel litmus then they are not a pure enough “progressive” for you? She’s no good. Sanders is not good. Warren is certainly out.
With the current state of the world and the country purity on your anti-Israel position is the thing that matters?
Okay, sure a new progressive movement could form that thought of Israel as the Death Star and Palestinians as the Rebel Alliance and otherwise characterized the issue as you do. It would just not have many of the more prominent current elected officials who identify as progressive as members. And a pure position would drive away many who otherwise would be supportive from such support.