Thursday, July 29, 2004

Empty Platform, Empty Town: Live (Sort of) from Boston

By Daniel Patrick Welch

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Posted 07/29 | Add a Comment

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  1. People had better get smart re the line of thought outlined by Edwards last night.  War...unending...is on the agenda of the Dems.  Like Jimmy Breslin says...they’re simply making “nice.” Best, Ox

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  07/29  at  12:37 PM

  2. Perhaps groups like PDA will put pressure on Kerry, but I’d be shocked if they exist if Kerry becomes prez. The people involved will be too busy defending Kerry from rightist attacks, some of which will have merit and some of which won’t.

    Posted by micah holmquist from  on  07/29  at  04:31 PM

  3. As I type this, Kerry family members are addressing the convention. The swill they are spewing is predictable...but when the camera pans the arena, the reality sets in. Thousands are nodding in approval, roaring in approval, believing it all...filled with loyalty and trust for John Kerry. Across America, millions more do the same.

    Next month, millions of others will respond in a simliar manner during the Republican convention.

    Somewhere, Goebbels is sighing in admiration.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  07/29  at  08:45 PM

  4. As an aside, Jeff Blankfort informed his readers recently of a new bridge in Boston that was named after some Zionist in the ADL-- the ADL being the nation’s largest private spy organization. Of course, the Dems are the zios favorite party.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  07/30  at  02:19 AM

  5. Isn’t it a little bit of a stretch to think that the bridge was named for the guy because he was a “Zio” as opposed to some form of bourgeois philanthropist?  I find that Blankfort exxagerates or seems to believe in there being more Zionist power (as opposed to rich folks who happen to be Zionists) then there is.  One thing about rich Jews is that = for reasons of idolatry - they don’t like things named after them, so I’d find this whole thing surprising…

    It is not that I disbelieve in “Zionist Power” (capitalist power) but I think that it seems like a stretch..

    Posted by j cummings from  on  07/30  at  08:06 AM

  6. The person in question here is Leonard Zakim and he was not a ‘bourgeois philanthropist’ but yes head of the ADL in Boston but more known for his community activism and civil rights work. He died at a fairly young age of bone cancer a couple years ago, which is why there was push to name the new ‘cable-stay’ bridge over Boston’s Charles River after him.

    Incidently a major row erupted over the naming of the bridge between the political establisment, and the relatively conservative (Zakim had had a long association with ‘liberal’ causes) ‘old boston’ charlestown residents who wanted the bridge named after the Bunker Hill war dead.

    Somewhat hilariously the bridge ended up being named the “Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Freedom Bridge”

    Posted by RzG from  on  07/30  at  09:49 AM

  7. Is there a toll to go over this bridge dedicated to freedom?

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  07/30  at  11:09 AM

  8. Nope, no tolls...incidently to go along with the bridge we now have the brand new “Liberty Tunnel” - name courtesy of our lovely mormon governor Mitt (Mr. Salt-lake Olympics) Romney.

    Posted by RzG from  on  07/30  at  11:45 AM

  9. Here is Jeffrey Blankfort’s commentary, verbatim, regarding an article in the San Francisco Gate, “Boston digs out in time to party”, July 4, 04:

    “Boston is obviously another Israeli Occupied Territory and so it is fitting that the Democratic Party, one of the Israel lobby’s major corporate enterprises, should have its convention in that city, not to mention the policies of its presumptive (and what appears to be consumptive) candidate.

    Leonard Zakim was the author of the ADL’s nationwide “blacklist” of what that spy organization considered to be pro-Palestinian professors and intellectuals which was distributed to its members, to Jewish organizations, and to the media. That he has been honored by having a major bridge named after him--one that also contains the name of one of the American revolution’s most famous battles-- is a travesty beyond words, but it is symptomatic of the malaise that affects every sector of our body politic.”

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  07/30  at  06:36 PM

  10. Lost at the bottom of the deck where noone will read this…

    Another reply to Jordy who thinks that Blankfort overstates the power of the Jewish/Israeli lobby in the US. Israeli journalist Shraga Elam writing at Israel Shamir’s provocative and insightful newsletter notes that:

    “There can be no doubt that pro-Israel lobbies belong to the mightiest in the world. E.g. one of them, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), is proud of the fact that according to Fortune magazine it is for years one of [the] most influential power groups in the US. One can read it on AIPAC’s website and not just in some obscure publication of Jew haters.”

    Elam offers a very complex and subtle critique on the topic and warrants a close reading.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  08/06  at  02:00 AM

  11. I think the Israeli lobby is powerful, but only insofar as it is serves capital.  See Gilbert Achar’s recent work.  It is simply shoddy analysis to claim that the Israel lobby is as powerful as capital itself.  To claim as well that it is the “jewish lobby” is like saying that the Anti-Castro Cuban lobby is the Latino lobby.  It is stretching a small group that is well financed to represent a whole community.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/06  at  07:35 AM

  12. For clarification and to avoid the unresolvable, am I to understand that both the likes of Rhino and Jordy are --in some form-- pushing for the U.S. to reduce its financial support to Israel’s war machine by at least half in 2005?  Inquiring, ROX

    Posted by ROX from  on  08/06  at  03:35 PM

  13. I think that for the US to stop supporting Israel by 2005 would be a wonderful idea.  Do I belieive it will happen?  No.  I think, funly enough, that Israel will change before America ever believes it can push it hard enough.  Israel has a growing peace movement that America ignores.  That peace movement can plausibly, with European help, achieve state power in some form.  I can see that happening - and pushing for that to take place, as equally, if not more important than to ask for America to stop funding Israel.  Peripheral countries, like Canada and New Zealand are currently getting very angry at Israel for using them as passport factories.  I think the only country that will be willing to do this sort of thing with Israel is France, as well as perhaps India. 

    Whatever the case may be the peace movement in Israel will achieve state power.  I am sure of that - though it may tae place within the context of civil war.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/08  at  01:54 PM

  14. When would that civil war take place?  Why should we think countries that might make it possible to address the genocide...would be effective now...when they haven’t been effective until now? Regarding Canada being on the periphery: As per a recent interview on Counterpunch in which Charles Boylan talks with Jean St. “something or other”...Canada’s been complicit --not on the periphery either-- regarding atrocities in Haiti.  Ditto for what’s been happening in Israel too, no?  Why this hope respecting The Western Powers?  That’s my main question.  Respectfully, Richard

    Posted by Richard from  on  08/08  at  04:07 PM

  15. Straw man: Jordy, where did I (or someone) ever say the Israeli lobby is as powerful as the nebulous and seemingly omnipotent phenomenon of capital itself?

    According to Blankfort, over 80 percent of American Jews support US “aid” to Israel. That would contradict the idea that the Israeli/Jewish lobby is merely an elitist, unrepresentative group. I would certainly agree though that they are manipulating the sentiments of their supporters.

    To Richard, it’s not just a question of pushing the US to stop it’s military aid to Israel, but as Nader and Sharon (not two birds of a feather) have noted, it’s the Isreali government that gives the orders to its puppets in Washington.  Nader is also a supporter of the Israeli peace movement but naively supports the idea of a two state solution.

    By the way, what ever happened to the proposed debate between Blankfort and Chomsky’s even more conservative disciple, Stephen Zunes? I suppose that will never happen because SZ has everything to lose and nothing to gain.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  08/08  at  08:17 PM

  16. I don’t feel like arguing about the power of an ethnic lobby on a left wing website.  It doesn’t seem appropriate.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/09  at  10:37 AM

  17. My hope (to Ox) has to do with neccessiy radical goals. I believe that the world economy depends on peace there.  As Said pointed out in his last essay, it wasn’t just at the World Social Forum that Palestine was discussed.  It was also Davos.

    The so-called “Israel lobby” itself is fractured between people who don’t want to lose their Israeli investments: Bronfman et. al who wrote letters, financially support the anti-wall movement, centrists like Soros, and right wingers who have hijacked it (i.e. when the head of AIPAC complained about Oslo)....

    So if a two state solution is naive, what is Blankfort’s pragmatic suggestion?

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/09  at  10:43 AM

  18. I meant peripheral in that Israel isn’t gonna use France, Australia or the States for their passport mills, it will use Belgium, New Zealand and Canada.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/09  at  10:47 AM

  19. It seems like regardless of what “solution” one might advocate for the region...and irrespective of who wields how much power on this and that...the U.S. should significantly reduce its financial support of Israel’s military for much of the same reason that it should reduce its own military spending...and for other reasons.  This, whether or not arguments respecting resultant vulnerability are waged.  That the “movement” for Peace in the world demands that we stop being sidetracked by the notion that one has to have a Grand Plan in order to do the right thing with regard to Arms and the Man.  Not saluting, Ox

    Posted by Not saluting Ox from  on  08/10  at  09:23 AM
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