Dr. Cornel West & Michael Lerner: Unfair Tilt toward Israel

[La_Serpiente]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24513-2003Nov10.html
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Unfair Tilt Toward Israel

By Michael Lerner and Cornel West
Tuesday, November 11, 2003; Page A25

In mid-September, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Democratic Rep. Howard Berman of Los Angeles and several dozen other congressional Democrats in an extraordinary attempt to stop debate in the presidential primaries about America's approach to Middle East conflict. In a letter to candidate Howard Dean, the liberal Democrats criticized Dean's statement that if the United States wanted to play a positive role in bringing Israel and Palestine to peace, it would have to take a more neutral stance.

Pelosi and others insisted that these words were a violation of America's traditional tilt toward Israel, and that they could be interpreted as abandoning the U.S. commitment to Israel's survival. Of course Dean had neither intended nor implied any such thing. In fact, Dean has not been particularly courageous on Middle East peace issues, so the public hand-slap sent a powerful message: Democrats can be against the war in Iraq, but they dare not question America's almost blind support for Ariel Sharon's government.

[CWebster]

1. Yupper

Right Kerry?

Anytime you want to step in here, Funkenstein, and address the way it is...

[Tinoire]

8. Call my cynical but I would LOVE to be a politician

I would have staffers on sites like DU all day long to help me adjust my message as necessary.

What we call waffling and flip-flopping is just that- adjusting messages.

Politics is machiavellic. Do you really believe these adjustments?

I don't. I used to analyze these things for a living... people's opinions and how best to come up with a message that kept the majority hooked.

I tremble for the Democratic Party when I see how easy it is to run rings around us- a bunch of basically good-hearted, well-intentioned, sincere people but oh the lengths those in power will go to to keep that power- have you no doubts?

We are no smarter than the freepers when you get down to it.

NEVER EVER trust a politician's second version of things. NEVER EVER judge a politician by anything but his ACTIONS.

Are we so desperate to believe any old thing they tell us because we are so desperate for change?

My heart is totally breaking right now.

I will right now bet YOU $500, and only you, that if Dean wins the Presidency you will NOT see any fairness to the Palestinians. You will NOT see an independent, contiguous, sovereign state. I will give you 3 years to collect my money. What say you?

If this question concerns you, beware of all the candidates who rushed to AIPAC to present their credentials.

Dean will certainly be better than Bush but when it comes to one of my most important Litmus tests, I am with Dr Funkelstein- Dean has failed this one. Did you see the articles about his glowing admiration of the apartheid wall Sharon has built? Where I part with Dr. Funkelstein is that I don't think Kerry would be much better but he does on paper have a better plan. I watched this issue like a hawk when the campaigning first started. Dean was so bad on the Middle East that the page devoted to it on his web-site was suddenly yanked off and left blank for several weeks. I can point you to numerous posts on this and other web-sites discussing this. I can point you to posts on Dean's web-site where people stopped supporting him early in the campaign because of statements he made. I can point you to the petition to Dean from Dean supporters to please change his stance.

Say anything politicians. Crucify me now but that is how I see Dean. Different but really no better than the Washington insiders.

I apolologize to all my Dean-supporting friends but this is how I see it and Clark is no better- if anything Clark is even worse on this issue.

[pruner]

2. Cornel West was in the Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions

:bounce:

[Isome]

4. Cornel West...

Is a respected activist & intellectual. He has had small parts in two films.

[pruner]

5. I know who he is…

he also put out a spoken word/rap album.

[DrFunkenstein]

6. I Did Part Of My Dissertation On Cornel West

I elaborated upon his notion of "jazz identity" in my discussion of "The Ethics of Funkiness." I got alot of flak from my program (who had no idea who George Clinton even was!), which is why I've never properly finished my doctorate. It is more complicated than that, of course...

But now you know the secret origin of my DU identity.

Maybe someday I'll pump out a book on the subject. It was a pretty fun topic - where else would I get the chance to discuss Richard Pryor in the context of Michel Foucault's late-period writings?

[pruner]

7. sounds interesting…

what type of doctorate were/are you seeking?

[DrFunkenstein]

9. English, but...

I did mostly film and pop culture. I love Shakespeare and Kafka, but I grew up on pop culture, and it always seemed silly to do the great works of literature when I could write about what came naturally to me.

So I would always end up, for a typical example, taking a course on Marx and end up writing my seminar paper on Willy Wonka. I delivered a conference paper on Boogie Nights and one time I wrote a paper just on theater and film reviews of Hamlet (well, that was just to piss off my professor).

If I couldn't get a decent giggle out of what I was writing, I didn't think it was worth writing. Academia is just so full of sh*t. Or at least for English. I can't speak for everyone.

But I saw Cornel West speak a couple of times, and I thought he was pretty cool. His writing is so-so, but the man can talk. A small passage of his from Race Matters worked very well with a theory I had been developing between ethics, Freudian psychology (not the dumb kind), and semiotics.

I busted my ass on that theory, living like a monk for a full year, and it killed me when the Committee was completely clueless about my central thesis: what is funkiness. Sure they know Derrida and Baudrillard, but they wouldn't know a Parliament song if it bit them in the ass. That's priorities all out of whack!

[beanball]

3. Campaign finance reform

will remove a noose from our necks,why should six millions people decide the fate of a nation,money and the love of money causes many of america's problems,in order to have a more just nation we need to rid ourselves of the money hungry politicians,hate and greed will one day destroy america if we don't change course.