Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania by 10 points, enough to keep her increasingly destructive campaign alive.
What’s making me really angry is this sort of thing:
Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be. And I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that, because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society, because at whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel we would be able to totally obliterate them.
In her attempt to “muscle up” and prove her “experience” compared to Obama’s, she’s strayed very far into the bellicose posture usually found among the further reaches of GOP wingnut-dom or the Neocon thinktank and noise machine empire. Forget the fact that she’s still attempting to make some contrasts on domestic policy (ie healthcare), all the attacks she’s launching on Obama are the mirror image of what the Republicans would be firing off if he was already the anointed Democratic candidate. Getting tough appears to mean highly irresponsible speculation about hypotheticals, and shifting the terrain of debate to the GOP’s frames.
As for the argument that Hillary backers in some of the key states will come back to the party, I’m not so sure.
Regardless of the passions of the moment, history shows us that just because voters prefer one candidate in the primary, it doesn’t mean they won’t vote for her Democratic opponent in a general election when the other choice is a Republican.
The big difference, as Michael Murphy said on Lateline last night, is that some of these folks just won’t vote for a black man. And all this macho shite in appealling to “Reagan Democrats” is just compounding that. I’m still depressed about the whole thing.
This is b*llsh*t of the highest order. If Iran nuked Israel I would hope and expect the fskers to be obliterated for good.
And Michael Murphy did say ‘that some of these folks just won’t vote for a black man’. What he didn’t say was that Obama gets something over 80% of the (democratic?) ‘black vote’. Now thats real racism.
Hilary does pretty well amongst women also. Sexism anyone?
I’ve said before that the politics of identity are poisonous in the USA, and you’re proving my point.
As to the absurd scenario about Iran. They don’t have nuclear weapons at this point. The attempt to address their nuclear program diplomatically is hardly assisted by engaging in speculation at the wider limits of bellicose fantasy. She’s not proving anything about her foreign policy credentials, that’s for sure. Just making a brazenly political point to make some sort of contrast with Obama.
A Dem Drover’s Dog would win in California and NY. Obama doesn’t have to worry about those states and neither do the Dems if Obama becomes the Dem candidate. Obama will win Illinois. He may win Florida. He is less likely to win Ohio and Pennsylvania. He won’t win Texas, but neither will Hillary.
However, Obama is likely to pick up a raft of small GOP-leaning swing states that Hillary is likely to lose.
Obama is the percentage choice for the Dems.
As for Clinton’s statement. Her comments were conditional on an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. She is stating nothing more than an almost unthinkable hypothetical.
As such her statement represents a significant retreat from the bellicosity of Bush toward Iran.
Do you really think so, Katz?
She didn’t have to answer the question, or in those terms.
True enough. On the other hand, these attacks are being fired off in April, with the election still more than six months away and plenty of time for the US public to forget about them or become bored with them, and for Obama to finesse his responses to them, rather than in September/October when they would have the added sting of freshness and surprise.
This is not a plea in mitigation of Hillary’s behaviour, simply a suggestion that she may be inadvertantly doing Obama a favour in spite of her own ill intent.
I seriously dislike that woman.
Yes, Kim, Clinton chose to use those words. She didn’t have to use them.
They serve to appeal to Hawks, but they also serve to establish Clinton as less bellicose than Bush.
These words also serve to wedge Obama. That’s politics.
If Obama were asked the same question about the actions of the Obama-led US in response to an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel, my bet is that he’d say the same as Hillary. He’d be stupid not to say it, always hoping that he is talking about an extremely remote possibility.
That’s where you lose me, Katz. Why?
Kim said:
Hardly absurd. The Iranian leadership is on record of hoping for just that. Of course the standard lefty response is that they were misinterpreted.
Also, I’m glad ‘they don’t have nuclear weapons at this point’. Most lefties deny they are even trying.
Hillary’s comment raised her in my estimation. Pity she’s a chronic liar.
Because Bush’s threat is that if Iran looks like developing nuclear weapons he has reserved the right of the US to intervene, if need be with nukes, to prevent it.
Clinton’s formulation implies that the US could live with a nuclear-armed Iran as long as they don’t use them against Israel.
Perhaps Clinton may think something different from that, but that is the meaning of her words.
A good interviewer would have gone on to ask her:
“Does this imply that you would not attack a nuclear-armed Iran until after they used their nuclear arsenal?”
But perhaps that is expecting too much of an interviewer who only makes his living doing interviews.
Peter: they clearly are trying to get nukes - or, more precisely, the ability to make bomb-grade uranium, which is 99% of the job. If you can do that, the task of making a primitive nuke is a few months work for a decent machine shop and a couple of engineers.
But, frankly, Iran wanting a nuke is a perfectly rational response on their part. In case anyone didn’t notice, the US (assisted by Australia, in case anyone needs reminding) invaded Iran’s next-door neighbour, which at the time wasn’t a threat to anyone, for no good reason. And the USA shows every sign of wanting to maintain a mass of their military in that neighbour indefinitely. Not to mention making bellicose threats towards Iran on a regular basis.
If the West is serious about talking Iran out of having nukes (which is the only way to stop them eventually obtaining them short of an invasion, or pre-emptively turning the place into a radioactive dustbowl), it might pay to ratchet down the threats, get the hell out of Iraq so they don’t feel quite so (quite rationally) threatened, and work on convincing the Iranian leadership that while we might not like them much, we’re not going to try and get rid of them by force.
Robert - the US has military bases all over the place, including lots in the ME. Most sensible people realize they are no threat at all and indeed help keep the peace. Only tyrants ( and their enablers in the west ) need be afraid. I for one am glad that the US intends to stay for ‘100 years’ in Iraq (apparently). Should help calm the place down.
“Only tyrants ( and their enablers in the west ) need be afraid.”
Man, that’s champagne comedy. Need Saudi tyrants and their enablers in the West be afraid? Kuwaiti ones?
“Should help calm the place down.”
Working a treat so far.
One step at a time FDB, one step at a time.
Indeed it is.
Pity the same threatening rhetoric was not used against Israel, which has an estimated 200 nukes, and a history of attacking its neighbors - I mean, has Iran actually attacked anyone ? Ever ?
As usual, it seems that the Zionist state is to be (unconditionally) supported in its racism and bellicosity, at the expense of any notions of justice, or even-handedness in dealing with the mess that has been created by the colonial powers in the ME.
The notion that US bases are “no threat at all and indeed help keep the peace”, is certainly novel, although I dare say that there are considerable numbers of people who actually live in such areas who may venture to disagree with such a ludicrous statement - particularly several million Iraquis.
“One step at a time FDB, one step at a time.”
Precisely. Countries ruled by tyrants without US backing can, one at a time, be turned into countries ruled by tyrants with US backing.
“Pity the same threatening rhetoric was not used against Israel”
But wasn’t it the Iranian leadership who said they wanted to erase Israel from the face of the world - or words to that effect?
I thought it was smart politics from Clinton. How can you go wrong making threats against an evil regime - plays well to the masses.
The War Nerd’s theory - which I support - is that Dick Cheney just has to be an Iranian mole. There’s simply no other explanation for the sort of stupidity associated with Middle East policy under Bush, creating a client Shi’a dominated state, sucking the life force out of any actual military threat to Iran, unifying an otherwise restive Iranian youth against the US. Brilliant!
Great to Hillary on board with the ‘talking tough inane bullshit’ team.
I now openly want her to LOSE LOSE LOSE.
Even Rumsfeld didn’t figure on American boots on the ground in the ME for 100 years.
His was the “Wizard of Oz” scenario: go in, kill the Wicked Witch of the West, let the Munchkins take over, float out in a balloon.
So, according to Peter, a quaint imperialist who seems to believe that the US is following policies coincident with his messianic fantasies, some time between the day that Rumsfeld was sent packing in disgrace and today the US has changed its policy toward the Middle East?
Can this possibly be true?
And if so, how, when, and why?
If not, how will Peter live with his disappointment?
For some time now I’ve had a really bad feeling that if Hillary Clinton ends up US President, something really bad will happen in the world during her Presidency.(And I don’t mean that some-one will try to bump her off - its definitely not that.)
Trouble is, these bad feelings of mine frequently - not always - come true. I’d much prefer either Obama or McCain, but not her. She’ll take the world to hell in a handbasket.You read it here first.
Pterosaur said:
Pterosaur - there are hundreds of bases. They indeed do help keep the peace - Japan, Germany, Korea and the Philippines to name just a few. The perception that the US goofed in Iraq is just short sighted. After the US liberated the Iraqis (and the world) from an acknowledged tyrant its a shame that much the rest of the civilized world didn’t come to help stabilize the place - to many vested interests no doubt. The fact that Iraqis responded to this once in a lifetime opportunity by killing each other is a pretty poor reflection on them - not the US. It’s like if Australia was ruled by a tyrant and the US toppled him would you respond by killing your neighbor? Or would you cheer? Maybe you would object the US interference - after all he’s ‘our’ tyrant, and the US is only after our resources - but most sensible people wouldn’t.
Here’s the War Nerd himself on Iran. If you dont know him, its hilarious reading. Never dull, and full of gags. My kind of analyst.
[link]
FDB said:
This plain silly. The cold war meant that the US often had to choose between bad and worse. It’s interesting that the left always forgets the cold war - no doubt because many were (and still are) on the other side (judging from my uni days).
“its a shame that much the rest of the civilized world didn’t come to help stabilize the place - to many vested interests no doubt.”
The champagne keeps flowing!
Peter, your analysis is piddlingly shallow and wilfully blind.
The other side? Are we to fear a fifth column of crypto-Persians?
Exquisite trolling BTW—if I still had a hat it’d be off to you.
Carl says:
She can be pretty awful, can’t she. Stupid woman. Her attitude stands in stark contrast with Obama who believes inclusive dialogue with Iran’s racist and bigoted leadership can play a positive role in the Middle East.
Mind you, I suppose Hillary is just stating the obvious - nuking Israel would almost certainly entail the immediate destruction of Iran, if not by the USA then almost certainly by Israel itself.
Two things should be noted:
• many and perhaps even most Iranians wish their ignorant Predident Ahmadinejad would just go down in a massive heart attack somewhere most likely, Allah willing.
• nuking Israel would basically mean nuking Jerusalem, and I doubt even the two-faced creep Ahmadinejad would want that. But who can tell?
I somethimes think Hillary has been put up by the GOP to ensure a McCain victory.
So who was bad and who was worse between:
* The apartheid regime versus the African National Congress;
* The Shah versus Mossadegh in Iran;
* Allende versus Pinochet;
* Sukarno versus Suharto;
* An independent East Timor versus Indonesian invasion and occupation;
* Somosa versus the Sandinistas in Nicaragua;
* 3 million war dead in Vietnam versus Ho Chi Minh winning the reunification election in 1956;
* the Khmer Rouge versus Vietnam between 1979 and 1993?
As a person who was old enough to be politically active during the last decade of the Cold War, I:
* supported the ANC against the apartheid regime;
* supported Polish Solidarity against the Polish and Soviet governments;
* opposed the Indonesian invasion of East Timor;
* opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan;
* supported the non-government peace and environmental movements in both the capitalist countries and the communist bloc against the policies of governments in both blocs;
* accepted the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia as a lesser evil than the continuation of the Pol Pot regime (which was at odds with US and Australian government policy at the time);
* protested in the streets of Queensland against the corrupt and authoritarian National Party government;
* protested, in the same places and at roughly the same time, against the Chinese government’s suppression of the Tienanmen Square protests.
So which side was I on?
Nasser vs British and French in 1956.
Samosa vs Sandanistas.
Various dictators in Haiti.
Pakistan vs India.
Marcos vs various democratic alternatives.
Various Argentine dictators vs various democratic alternatives.
Various Nigerian dictators vs various democratic opponents.
United Fruit vs Abenz.
Various Central Asian tyrants vs a diversity of opposition groups.
“The cold war meant that the US often had to choose between bad and worse.”
So what’s their excuse now, wise one?
They think its 1095?
“But wasn’t it the Iranian leadership who said they wanted to erase Israel from the face of the world - or words to that effect?”
No.
“I’d much prefer either Obama or McCain,”
During the 2000 presidential primaries the neocons supported McCain ahead of Bush. Just try and imagine what kind of a president a neocon would prefer over George Bush.
Kim,
I wouldn’t get too upset about Clinton’s comments. One of the key successes of American foriegn policy is that it looks much less belligerent than it actually is. If you’re surprised by what Clinton is saying then it just means you’re being taken in by that facade. Clinton words above simply reflect thinking in Washington. From an international perspective they are irresponsibly belligerent, but for US politics they are not unusual. McCain’s position is pretty much identical and the only reason he has not said it is because he has not needed to. Even a president Obama might end up being pretty similar. To implement a more rational foriegn policy he would have to fight against the Senate and House and pay a high political cost. He is very likely to leave foriegn policy in “semi-crazy” mode in order to acheive a domestic agenda.
Paul Norton says:
I’m pretty sure the US-backed Lon Nol regime in Cambodia was definitely better than the Pol Pot regime, despite what Noam Chomsky thinks.
I’m fairly sure Spain under Franco was better than Spain as a proxy of Stalin. I mean, basically the Spain we have today is the final dispensation of the Francoist victory over the reds.
Germany under the US occupation was a lot better than (a) Germany before the US occupation and (b) Germany under Soviet occupation.
I’m not aware the USA supported Apartheid - but then I’m not so sure South Africa today is much better off than before the ANC took over.
Zimbabwe. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…. Though Rhodesia was a British, not American colony.
I think Hawaii is shit loads better off under the USA than under either the British or Japanese.
Puerto Rico is better off under the USA than under Spain. Ditto Florida. California. Texas. New Mexico, etc.
There’s a growing body of evidence that Cuba was better of under Batista than the wretched Castro Brothers.
Actually, I’m not so sure South Vietnam is any better off under Nike than under Nixon.
What I’d like to know is what Hillary would do if Israel launched a nuclear attack on Iran. Based on Israel’s current nuclear arsenal and neighbourly track record, this is the more likely scenario.
Pangur Ban says:
Well, if that’s more likely, you might ask why it hasn’t happened?
Huh?
ER is more likely to die from a heart attack than being conked on the head by a stray meteorite.
An event being more likely does not necessitate its prior occurrence.
Katz says:
Exactly. See Pangur Ban @ 35
FDB said:
On the contrary FDB it is you who are wilfully blind. Many of us saw much the Islamic world cheer on 9.11 and realised that maybe it wasn’t the end of history after all. Iraq was the perfect place to begin cleaning up. A great success it has been too:
Libya’s nuke program dismantled
Saddam and Sons gone.
Iran surrounded.
Al qaeda drawn into a fight and routed
Much of the Islamic world in turmoil and turning on itself
Khans nuclear shenanigans exposed and contained
North Koreas nuclear program under notice
Liam - thanks!
Eliot Ramsey
‘Well, if that’s more likely, you might ask why it hasn’t happened?’
I suppose … for much the same reason that I haven’t had my next birthday yet.
I’d prefer to ask why Clinton, or any other US politician, would not be asked for a hypothetical response to a scenario of Israel nuking Iran.
Folks if this is the same Peter I think it is, just be aware his brain has been registered with the police as a lethal weapon. Efforts by others to engage in rational discourse will inevitably prove fatal.
Ken - thats a bit rich from someone who runs surfdom - a place where tin foil hats are a dime a dozen and people think housing is a commodity, 9.11 was an inside job, peak oil is upon us, the US is the root of all evil and its population the dumbest of all etc. etc. etc. Oh wait.. which site am I on?
From an international perspective they are irresponsibly belligerent, but for US politics they are not unusual. McCain’s position is pretty much identical and the only reason he has not said it is because he has not needed to. Even a president Obama might end up being pretty similar. To implement a more rational foriegn policy he would have to fight against the Senate and House and pay a high political cost. He is very likely to leave foriegn policy in “semi-crazy” mode in order to acheive a domestic agenda.
On the bright side, the U.S. could get cheap energy out of it. Stick the corpse of Teddy Roosevelt in a solenoid, wrap a few magnets around him, and let him spin in his grave. Probably enough angular velocity there to power a small state. “Speak loudly and carry a broken stick” isn’t quite what he intended.
The country will need the energy too. One thing that Peter left outside his list of “successes” was crude at $120 per barrel and a whooping current account deficit for the US. Not that we’re much better, but at least we have natural gas and have stuff to export.
Eliot at 34, the Spanish Republicans were not supported by Stalin and did not start that particular war. They responded militarily to a fascist attempt at a military coup against the popularly elected left-wing government. It is well known that Stalin did not want the Republicans to win, and ultimately thwarted their military endeavours, keeping them going just long enough to abscond with their gold reserves. I don’t think your history is particularly accurate there, but if you want to sell every fascist coup against a democratically elected government as a war against Stalin, who am I to stop you?
I just think in the interests of consistency you should also support Hitler. After all, the two largest democratically elected opposition parties were far left Social Democrat and Communist - imagine where Germany would have gone if it weren’t for Hitler’s little coup?
Down and Out said:
This has nothing to do with Iraq and everything to do with the worlds economies powering along - particularly India and China. In other words increased demand. Supply is also at record levels but lack of investment over the last 30 years or so (helped by the usual suspects) will mean prices will stay high for quite a while.
Besides - I would have thought most here would welcome the higher price. I certainly do. It will help cut demand and encourage more efficiency and a shift to alternatives.
Ah, those were the days. The decades of peace and stability that the prospect of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) could bring to a troubled world. [link]
Not that Beltway Brutusina is a warmonger or anything like that.
I think you have to de-conflate Clinton vs. Obama (which is the same old same old) and Clinton on Israel/Iran (which is international strategy). If Iran attacked Israel, a US ally, with nukes, the response Clinton foreshadows would have to be an obligation for the US (depending, I guess, on whether Israel’s own retaliatory strike capacity remained intact). I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable or even controversial about that.
If I understand him right, I’m with Katz on this.
I reckon this guy makes alot of sense.
“What I’d like to know is what Hillary would do if Israel launched a nuclear attack on Iran. Based on Israel’s current nuclear arsenal and neighbourly track record, this is the more likely scenario.”
This is what will happen. Israel will not wait for the US to act, nor should they be expected to.
do they have the ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ principles in the US, or can we assume Hillary will do exactly this if elected or, Obama will bring about ‘Change’?
Put ‘em away fellas, no one’s nuking anyone.
This has nothing to do with Iraq…
You think Iraq is irrelevant? What nonsense. The price has quadrupled since the invasion in 2003. Why? Perhaps because Iraqi production degraded from 3 million barrels/day to 1 by 2004-5. It’s not the only cause - conflicts in Lebanon and Nigeria played their part - but the war seems to be the catalyst for further price increases. Even if production has been restored to pre-war levels, it’s too late to turn the prices down.
I reckon this guy makes alot of sense.
Why? It starts with one outright lie - “9.38%” is not a double-digit win, unless you count both the 9 and the 3. When you actually look at the all-important delegate count (84 to 74), calling it a “stumble” for Obama is just another falsehood. Finally, the author still believes in the discredited “big state strategy”, a system designed for political “consultants” - not candidates. By concentrating in a few states, and ignoring the others, the consultants don’t have to work that hard. As long as they get a few safe wins in the big states, it doesn’t matter if the candidate loses; they still get paid while keeping face.
Of course, it’s a stupid strategy. It could work in a winner-takes-all system, but that’s not how primaries are played this year. If you are going to cede the small states to the opposition (as Clinton has been doing), then you’ve gotta really trump them in the big states to equalise.
Peter - Kool-Aid is not good for you.
Hillary’s “Things to Obliterate” List:
*Iran
*Bill
*Obama
*Osama
*Monica
*That damn Bosnian girl
*The patience of the Superdelegates
*And anybody who calls the White House at 3am better have a damn good reason, too.
SG says:
Anthony Beevor’s stunning book “The Battle for Spain”, drawing on Soviet archives, utterly demolishes the remaining Leftist myths about the “heroic” Republican Spanish cause, confirming what George Orwell’s eye-witness testimony years ago already noted - Stalin was running the war and essentially directing the politics of the Left in Spain under the Republic.
That’s why Orwell became an pariah on the Left amongst the sandal and fruit-juice brigade long before he wrote Animal Farm - his awkward tendency to tell the truth about Spain made him hated amongst the un-intelligentsia mythologising it.
“Those still harbouring illusions about the war will find that Anthony Beevor’s ‘Battle for Spain’ is a hard book to read. His clear and dispassionate writing unmasks the brutal facts that were deliberately obscured both by apologists for the Communists and supporters of Franco at the other end of the political spectrum. The picture that emerges from this book is far murkier, more depressing and less amenable to simple-minded mythologising.”
Stalin’s evil treachery in Spain was exceeded only by the gormless, ideologically-blinkered incompetence of the marxist Republicans doing his dirty work for him.
The only reason the Left has been able to hold on to its cherished lies about the Spanish Republic for so long is because contrary to to the common assumption, losers can and often do write the history of wars. In this case, backed to the hilt by the USSR.
Down and Out of Sài Gòn says:
It’s got nothing to do with Iraq. On the demand side, the faster economic growth of the developing countries, particularly China and India, is driving demand for all commodities.
On the supply side, no new oil is coming on stream.
The acceleration in global economic growth has been led by growth rates of 10 to 12 per cent a year in China and 8 to 9 per cent in India. Garnaut says evidence is accumulating that these high rates aren’t temporary. “In China, there are reasonable prospects for growth rates in the vicinity of 10 per cent per annum - higher still for a while - to continue for some time, and for high growth to continue until average Chinese productivity levels and living standards are approaching the range of developed countries in the late 2020s,” he says.
“In India, the new, higher growth trajectory is soundly based and has strong momentum.”
[link]
Eliot, I have read Antony Beevor’s book on The Spanish Civil War, and his depiction of the events is pretty much in contradiction to your suggestion that the Republicans were supported by Stalin. It was from his book that I got the tale about Stalin fleecing the Republicans of their gold reserves. Beevor also supports the view that the Republicans were the legitimately elected government of Spain, against whom Franco launched a military coup. Orwell too argues that Stalin didn’t support the Republicans, since he believed that Spain had to develop more before it was ready for communism (yes I have read “Homage to Catalonia”). Naturally after the war started Stalin sided with the left, but he kept them dangling and never gave them the support they wanted, seeing them primarily as a way to maintain his international credentials while fleecing them of much-needed foreign currency reserves.
The Republicans were also not “Marxist” as you claim, but mostly Social Democrat, Socialist, or Anarchist. There were also straight-out republicans amongst them (surprise!) and their politics differed very much by region. In fact, Antony Beevor opens the very first chapter of his book with a brief essay on how the Spanish Civil War was as much a war between regions and religions as it was between classes and political parties. Perhaps you should spend less time reading book reviews and more time reading the books about which they are written?
So, having established that you support military coups against elected left-wing governments, can I ask you why you aren’t openly supporting Hitler? His main purpose was protecting Germany from “Marxists”, after all.
So, are we talking nuking Iran or not?
If you want to talk cold war, talk about Brzezinski/Carter policy towards Iran.
My fav Brzez quote, and relevant to the topic in that it’s illustrative of US attitudes to the region:
So stuff the Mozzies, we’ve got bigger things to think about and they just aren’t powerful enough to be a serious threat like the Ruskies are, or so sayeth the B-man at least.
Frankly the US vs. Iran rhetoric is pretty silly IMO. Neither really wants a war and they both have excellent reasons not to (to piss off AQ if nothing else).
Hey, there’s a thought: if the US was genuinely serious about their “War on Terror” and defeating AQ they would be befriending Iran and being bestest buddies with them. Like Saddam’s Iraq, AQ hates the Iranian regime. They even get into propaganda wars over the 9/11 mythologies out there. A smart US president would exploit that, not seek to further exacerbate the situation like Hillary has.
SG says:
The suggestion that Social Democrats and Socialists in the first half of the twentieth century weren’t primarily Marxist is going to come as a great shock to Many of them. I think you’ve confused ‘Marxist’ with ‘Communist’.
Also, I heartily encourage anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War to read Beevor’s excellent book (the revised edition shown here at Beevor’s website) and form your own conclusions as to whether Stalin’s Communists weren’t behind the scenes playing the directing role!
Read it yourself! In the meantime, this succinct review from London Book Review might whet your appetite:
That lefties are still down-playing this fact over 70 year’s later is indicative of how central is self-deluding myth making to perpetuating the marxisant tendency to learn nothing from its own history and go on repeating more or less for ever its implacable tendency to failure.
Please, do read it.
Hillary’s difficulty is that she’s operating in a very macho political culture. Which, apart from searing ambition, is why she won’t give up in the primaries. She has ro prove she’s tougher than the blokes. Or, as I put it on another thread, she has to prove she’s got more balls than the blokes.
Now I’ve met a few women in my time who either think they’ve got more balls than the blokes, or in fact do have more balls than most blokes. I’ve seen them do the following:
Chase a bloke down the street with an iron bar.
Punch a copper to the ground.
Pick fights in pubs with blokes and other women and win, leaving their opponent a bloodied mess.
Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I wouldn’t think the world was very safe in the hands of a US President like that.
Mind you, with the possible exzception of Obama, the alternative isn’t much chop either.
Eliot, as you would well know if you had read Beevor’s book, the quote you give refers to the situation after Franco staged his coup. Stalin had no interest in the Republican government and the democratically elected government was no Stalinist puppet. This was your original assertion in defence of Franco, and it isn’t true.
But let us grant you your fantastic claim for a moment, and assume that all that stood between Spain and Stalinist domination by a democratically-elected Social Democrat/Communist government was a fascist military coup, which you support. Can you explain why you don’t support Hitler’s coup, which occurred in exactly the same parliamentary circumstances a mere handful of years earlier in Germany?
“Eliot, as you would well know if you had read Beevor’s book, the quote you give refers to the situation after Franco staged his coup.”
The “situation after Franco staged his coup” was the Civil War, for heaven’s sake. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
And not only have I read the book, I had the privelege and honour of talking about it with Mr Beevor at the Sydney Writers Festival last year. The only possible explanation for your peculiar “understanding” of The Battle for Spain is that you have confused it with Beevor’s earlier book on Spain from the 1980s.
The Battle for Spain was written after the collapse of the USSR, Beevor then gaiing unprecedented access to Soviet archives, resulting in him writing an entirely new book on the topic, the book resently under discussion.
Really, I encourage all students of history to read the 2006 edition.
The role of the Communists in the civil war doesn’t stand up to a lot of scrutiny - and certainly not from the point of view of the anarchists and other democratic forces on the Republican side.
But, as always, the equation of the contemporary left with Stalin is an exercise in total idiocy. There is simply no useful point to be made in alleging that anyone in contemporary Australia has any meaningful affiliation with Stalinism.
Memo to ER:
The Communist Party of Australia was dissolved in 1991.
The closest thing we have to a Stalinist movement in Australia today appears to be that odd little coterie surrounding the Last Superpower, who seem to have adopted the Popular Frontist rhetoric of Stalinism.
Oddly, the Last Superpower are in favour of Bush’s Frolic in Iraq.
Therefore, following your logic, all supporters of Bush’s Fiasco are Stalinists!
See how silly you can be when you embrace the tu quoque fallacy?
Well, Katz, to be fair - the former Socialist Party of Australia reinvented itself as the CPA (revived) after the CPA’s dissolution. Though it’s not exactly a particularly strong vanguard:
[link](revived)
It’s interesting to observe, though, the Hayek/Popper argument about the alleged tendency of any progressive movement to approach totalitarianism descend into nitpicking and hyperbolic farce as it degenerates on its travels through the blogosphere.
Stupid Wikipedia. Try this link.
The corporate media have been promoting the Hillary Clinton campaign claim that she won the Pennsylvania primary by “double digits.” The final figures are that Clinton won 1,258,245 votes out of 2,300,542 cast, compared to 1,042,297 for Barack Obama. That works out to 54.71 percent for Clinton and 45.31 percent for Obama. If you calculate the difference, it works out to 9.40 percent, a number closer to 9 than to 10. That is not a “double-digit” win. It’s a single-digit win.
Sure, silkworm, but it’s bigger than the margin suggested by the polls going into the vote. All this is just spin from the two campaigns and commentators - the fact is that Hillary is going to keep going. Like Kim in the post, I wish she wouldn’t, but arguments over who’s got the better spin are the problem, not the solution.
Eliot, your comment at 34 makes it clear you think that the legitimate winners of the election in Spain were Stalinist proxies. To back this up, you give as evidence the behaviour of Stalinist elements in the civil war, which occurred after the election.
But as I offered to do, let’s grant your original point - all those Social Democrats were Stalinist proxies, and Franco’s coup was a good thing that saved the Spanish from 50 years of Terror and state-subsidized olive oil. So, by your logic, Hitler was a great guy and we all should have supported him. Right?
Eliot, I have read Beevor’s new The Battle for Spain (and very good it is too). He makes it clear that Stalin didn’t get his hooks into the Republican government until after Franco’s attempted coup in July 1936: Communists weren’t included in the government until September (p. 146). Moscow’s influence grew only because nobody else would help against against the German- and Italian-backed Nationalists (or ‘insurgents’, as the Times called them, in an oddly-modern phrase). So if the Republicans had won in 1937 or 1938 and turned the country soviet, Franco only would have had himself to blame.
I can’t find if Beevor makes a clear statement on whether Franco was justified in launching the coup or not, but on p. xxvii, he writes
So, a plague on both their houses.
I hope Down and Out took notice of Comments 66 and 67 and retracts his accusation of this guy being a liar.
If he bothered to look he would also find that the price of oil started rising rapidly about 1999 with a big dip in 2001 - right about the time our Islamic mates decided to reveal themselves to the world. The price has since risen steadily with nary a glitch in 2003 when Iraqs oil production fell to essentially zero for a short while.
Iraqi oil production was around 2.5 mbd prewar, it’s now hovering around the 2mbd mark. This difference is piffling in global terms, and the main factors in the soaring oil price have been continuing Middle East tensions, Katrina aftershocks and MEND in Nigeria but they all run secondary to soaring demand in India and China. Had there been no Iraq war prices would still be pushing US$100.
Not to mention of course the USD has fallen ~25% over the last 5 years or so (against the Euro at least), so the real price is more like $80
Peter:
I hope Down and Out took notice of Comments 66 and 67 and retracts his accusation of this guy being a liar.
Why? In the second sentence:
She was vastly outspent by Obama in Pennsylvania, but she still got her double-digit win.
While silkwork@66 says:
That works out to 54.71 percent for Clinton and 45.31 percent for Obama. If you calculate the difference, it works out to 9.40 percent, a number closer to 9 than to 10. That is not a “double-digit” win. It’s a single-digit win.
Why should I retract the assertion that he’s a liar?
The guy may have exagerated very slightly but to call him a liar is well, not very nice. You sound pretty sore about it.
Hell even the Democratic Underground and Talk Left are calling it 10 points.
Sorry link to DU is Here
Um no it isn’t. LP doesn’t seem to like long links and the original from tinyUrl didn’t work either.
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You sound pretty sore about it.
Not as sore as you, it appears. I was willing to drop the subject, but there you are… 5 posts in and still going about that illusory double-digit win. I’m bored.
No - I’m enjoying the show. It’s likely neither will win in the end.
Talk Left is one of the few big D sites solidly for Clinton, so they would call it 10%
Peter said: thats a bit rich from someone who runs surfdom - a place where tin foil hats are a dime a dozen
MAAATE, are you referring to the same site that backed the Rudd/Gillard horse? And like this & other sites revealed Howie’s gross intentions?…in all its naked ambition? Must be hard speaking from under the floorboards these days eh?…now your lot don’t own & weave propaganda from the “bully pulpit”. Oh, but I forgot the ENABLERS…false idols whose edifices are already crumbling as facades disintegrate under the LIGHT of scrutiny.
It’s a shame about Obama losing Kim…soon he’ll be the “underdog”. The possibilities are endless…;)
SG says:
blockquote>Eliot, your comment at 34 makes it clear you think that the legitimate winners of the election in Spain were Stalinist proxies.
Yeah, that must be what I think, because you say so. Anyway, back to “So who was bad and who was worse”.
Wait, I know one: North Korea and South Korea. That’s one’s always funny.
Down and Out…
Yes. Repeatedly.
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But for some reason this is a really touchy subject on the political Left, like the Spanish Civil War and so much ese, and they keep trying to bury it.
Oddly enough, though, al-Jazeera has no problem reporting it…
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… but ‘enlightened’ and ‘progressive’ opinion would rather it not be mentioned. Beats me why. Of course, if Israel threatened to wipe Iran off the map, we could talk about that, I am so sure…
SG says:
Yeah, that must be what I think, because you say so. Anyway, back to “So who was bad and who was worse”.
Wait, I know one: North Korea and South Korea. That’s one’s always funny.