drsmooth wrote:Surprised there's no conspiracy theory to the effect that the stupid remarks are just Mitt's way of intentionally pooping in the Republican party pool in retribution for its tepid support for his candidacy

I like to look at it as him unwinding in a cathartic way after not being able to talk freely for 6 months. Like this:

TenuredVulture wrote:The South African experience is instructive. First, most people believe that the ultimate outcome would be a horrific civil war. That didn't happen, largely because Mandala and DeKlerk understood what they had to do with their domestic constituencies in order to reach a peaceful settlement. Ian Shapiro is a political scientist who has done some outstanding work on comparing these three situations.

The South African experience is far from settled; corruption is rampant & straitened economic times are provoking labor turmoil. I would not be surprised to see spasmodic flareups of violence there in coming months.

drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:The South African experience is instructive. First, most people believe that the ultimate outcome would be a horrific civil war. That didn't happen, largely because Mandala and DeKlerk understood what they had to do with their domestic constituencies in order to reach a peaceful settlement. Ian Shapiro is a political scientist who has done some outstanding work on comparing these three situations.

The South African experience is far from settled; corruption is rampant & straitened economic times are provoking labor turmoil. I would not be surprised to see spasmodic flareups of violence there in coming months.

I'm not claiming otherwise. However, given the conditions there in the 80s, the mostly political rather than violent resolution there is a remarkable, and should be at least a small encouragement that peace in the Middle East is possible.

Dave Wasserman ‏@Redistrict
The only 6 House GOPers left in Dem-leaning seats: #CA31 Miller, #IL13 Davis, #NJ02 LoBiondo, #NY19 Gibson, #PA07 Meehan, #PA08 Fitzpatrick

Three of the six House Republicans representing seats that are more Democratic than the nation as a whole by Cook PVI are in the Philly metro area. And that there are only six of these folks left underlines just how hard it will be for Democrats to win a House majority this decade.

in our group meeting today it came up that 70% of american corporations are holding cash flow through 2013

Nothing delights me more than to see two old cranky Republican white dudes calling the future Secretary of State, who just happens to be a black woman, dumb and untrustworthy.

TenuredVulture wrote:...given the conditions there in the 80s, the mostly political rather than violent resolution there is a remarkable, and should be at least a small encouragement that peace in the Middle East is possible.

we agree

On Israel/Palestine: I used to be a knee-jerk defender of Israel. I've come to see the conflict in more morally ambiguous terms. I think, if you analyze it from the Palestinian side, you have to understand that the "strategy" that they've been employing (if indeed you can call the Palestinian response to Israel over the last 30 years or so 'strategic' in any monolithich sense) is not without merit. How did the American revolutionaries beat the United Kingdom? They certainly were at a heavy military disadvantage; the UK could take and hold any American city at will. But what they couldn't do was go fighting every little skirmish in the hinterlands of a mostly untamed country, on and on, to the end of time. The American Revolution was, in many senses, about running out the clock. Eventually, the people living back in the UK were going to become tired of the conflict, tired of the money it cost, tired of losing soldiers, etc. That point finally came, and that's how America "won."

More recently, the North Vietnamese tried a similar strategy, to great effect. They were no match for the US in any kind of serious military conflict. But the USA took an only-halfway-committed approach to the war, and the Vietnamese took advantage; not so much by normal military victory (again, the US could take and hold any location it really set its mind on taking and holding), but by dragging the conflict out, refusing to stand and fight decisive battles, and waiting out the patience and the pocketbooks of the people of their enemy. And that's how they "won."

So, if you are running a little group of people, people who believe (not without merit) that they were wronged, that land was wrongfully stolen from them, you could do worse than patterning an insurrection after these models. You know you can't beat the Israelis (or their backers, the US) in a straightforward military conflict, but you can perhaps drag out a longer series of small tragedies that will, over time, erode the will of your enemy and lead them to want to sue for peace under conditions favorable to your side.

However, there are two basic problems with the way the Palestinians have apparently pursued this kind of conflict, one strategic, the other tactical:

1. Strategically, you don't really have the right set of circumstances for it. The Americans won independence from the British, and the North Vietnamese unity for Vietnam under their government, in part because they were combatting enemies whose mainlands were far from the theater of conflict, and whose people therefore did not feel a particular sense of urgency. It was easier to "tire out" the British or the Americans for the Americans and the North Vietnamese, respectively, than it would be for the Palestinians to tire out the Israelis. The conflict is happening where the Israelis live, just as much as it is happening where the Palestinians live. More, the relatively small amount of land over which this fighting is taking place further dictates that Palestinian fighters have nowhere to run to, no room to manuever - certainly this was not the case during the American Revolution, and even in Vietnam the dense jungles provided plenty of cover for fighting flash battles and then retreating to fight again someplace else. The terrain in Israel/Palestine does not allow this.

2. Tactically, if you are going to try to win something from your opponent by basically running out the clock, you need to give that opponent as many reasons as possible to want to end the conflict sooner rather than later, under any terms at all. Instead, the Palestinians have done the worst possible thing they could do if their goal is to win this sort of victory: by publicly denying Israel's right to exist, they have made this not some far-off conflict that is more tiresome and expensive than it is threatening (and, as I discussed above, it's not far-off at all, which is part of the problem), but rather an existential battle for the rights of Israel. Mistake.

Palestinians need to adapt their tactics and strategy to fit the situation in which they find themselves. While I don't necessarily "blame" them for looking at successful "run out the clock" type conflicts and thinking they could replicate them (since the basic feature of those conflicts is the same - big, rich power versus small, poor group), the reality is that there are key difference between their position and those who have succeeded in running those sorts of conflicts. The Palestinians' best option is a political one; they might look to Ghandi for a model (I'm serious). Making the Israelis appear to be nothing but bullies against a peaceful people will get them a lot further than their current strategy.

Many Jews here, and I'm sure in Israel as well, simply don't credit that the Arabs will be okay long-term with a two-state solution. They hear not only radicals but alleged moderates talking about driving the zionists into the sea, and perceive their choices not as oppression and war or mercy and peace, but as eternal vigilance or eventual extinction.

Much as I deplore the Netanyahu government and think the IDF is often too quick and too excessive in its use of force, I can't say I'm certain they're wrong. The genius of a Gandhian approach would be not just in the PR, but because I think it would be almost impossible in a cognitive sense to go back from that to "stamp out the Zionist filth."

Sooo close at Camp David in 2000. Barak conceded all of the Gaza strip, almost all of the West Bank, and E Jerusalem as capital of the new Palestinian state, and almost everything else the Palestinians wanted except the right of return and Arafat said pfttt. Arafat didn't want a "final" agreement. Or perhaps he was upset that Clinton kept calling him Ringo.

But although McCain had time to speak on the Senate floor and on television about the lack of information provided to Congress about the attack, he didn’t attend the classified briefing for senators Wednesday given to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which he is a member.

McCain got pissed at a CNN reporter when they asked him why he didn't attend.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), another Homeland Security committee member who was on television complaining about the lack of Benghazi information, also did not show up for the Wednesday hearing. Paul did a CNN interview from the Capitol building Wednesday in which said he had questions about the anti-Islam video, the lack of Marines in Libya, and diplomatic security. At one point he says, "I don't know enough of the details."

jamiethekiller wrote:in our group meeting today it came up that 70% of american corporations are holding cash flow through 2013

what does "holding cash flow" even mean

no expansion. no hiring. most places are laying off. we were put on extremely strict travel arrangements(not new, but never this extreme). said that it was mostly because companies were unsure about the tax rates

pussies

dajafi wrote:The genius of a Gandhian approach would be not just in the PR, but because I think it would be almost impossible in a cognitive sense to go back from that to "stamp out the Zionist filth."

This would require them to act rationally.

BBC cameraman Jihad Misharawi's 11 month old son was killed. yeesh.

To the best of our knowledge, the United States has carried out no drone strikes since his fall.

Read more: David Petraeus Scandal - CIA Drone Attacks - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/p ... z2CL6LlFSB