Tim Dunlop sums up my thoughts about the US Presidential election and likely future prospects far better than I could have done myself. But read John Quiggin as well for more detail on the economic dimension.
Tim Dunlop sums up my thoughts about the US Presidential election and likely future prospects far better than I could have done myself. But read John Quiggin as well for more detail on the economic dimension.
Both links point to the same article.
Thanks Jacques. Fixed.
Hi Ken, a nicely ‘executed’ piece by Tim no doubt. I visited Michael Moore’s site last night, some terrible stories about how difficult it was to vote or get absentee ballots sent to you – many emails. I remain unconvinced that a lefty such as myself has got it so entirely wrong or that I am in some irrelevant minority.
Link, it’s that grim, you are irrelevant. I say that in the nicest possible way, being irrelevant myself.
I don’t quite understand the way people like TD acknowledge how streched the US is in iraq, only to pass over the fact and continue fretting about more military adventurism in this term.
Another commentator on the 7:30 report tonight had the same concerns, but he invoked the image of Israeli war planes bombing Iran (with US support). Can anyone hazard a guess at the possibility of this? What’s Israel’s military capacity like?
It wouldn’t bode well for the palestinian conflict, that’s for sure.
Red Peter, fear not. Most seem to experience this sort of difficulty when it comes to understanding how others can think differently. If you try to do it, it’s sometimes equally difficult to understand the the thinking of many who agree with us on an issue, although we don’t tend to worry too much about this.
One, admittedly unpopular, course of action is to try to get into the habit of analysing the arguments of all sides in a dispute. It’s time consuming. It’s often painful, not to mention damaging to our own prejudices. But it is, as I see it anyway, sometimes more productive than simply expressing regret that they don’t understand me, or I don’t understand them.
What’s Israel’s military capacity like?
Scary. Fully. That’d be my guess and coitenly bigger than Iran’s, but I suppose we’re getting into overkill territory. Iran only needs to nuke Tel Aviv once,
One of the scariest situations occurs when people believe that the only acceptable alternatives are either victory, or total annhialation of all. This was espoused in the latte 40s and right through the 50s, by a frightenly large proportion of Australians — and from what I gathered speaking to friends, other Westerners too. I sometimes wondered whether I’d ever know what it was like to see my children grow up. Thoughts of grandchildren never arose. That was a bridge too far.
What made it especially worrying to me, was the fact that most of those who actually spoke about this were well above average in ability, and often had spent far more time being educated than their peers. As is the case now, time in education sometimes did far more for confidence and self esteem than anything else.
By the 70s, “Better Dead than Red” had lost much of its appeal, but some young Jewish Australians were feeling that if Israel was in danger of ending, it didn’t matter if the whole world went up in nuclear flames trying to save it. A worrying aspect of this was that they were much younger than your standard “Dead’s Better than Red” advocate, and very much better educated.
I no longer move in circles where either of these views are expressed openly, and I’m inclined to feel there’s no longer much support for either stand here in Australia. Nevertheless, the Palestine/Israel issue is a time bomb which shows no sign of going away, so although I no longrt discuss it with my acquaintances, I feel it remains one of our truly “scary” problems, not merely for itself, but also [and perhaps even more so?] bnecause of its implications throughout the entire Middle East, and much of Asia.