Perhaps it is not that the Democratic Party is naive about AIPAC's complete entwining with the GOP. Many of us on the left are disturbed by the level of influence AIPAC has over American foreign policy; the relationship with many in the Democratic Party reflects skepticism among progressives that any one country's supporters should have such influence, often in diametric opposition to the best interests of the U.S.

Perhaps the real naivete is that members and supporters of AIPAC do not see themselves as partisan -- when they clearly act that way, and when they lean solidly towards one party in the U.S. and one party in Israel. The "non-partisan" label isn't AIPAC policy, in other words, merely a convention that allows them special tax status with the IRS -- and we're fully aware of it.

And perhaps another facet of naivete is that AIPAC believes they can continue to work as they have without notice by a critical mass of the American public, that their monied supporters can buy whatever they need of the U.S. (as in Joe Lieberman's seat) without any consideration for the larger needs of the American public, without any consideration for real, measurable results by American standards (like effective long-term cease fires and effective economic development in Palestine). We are already being bankrupted by ineffective military initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan; why should we support equally ineffective efforts by a foreign nation, while bankrupt?

At some point rational adults are going to have to step up and speak out clearly in the best interests of both the U.S. and Israel, demanding responsibility and accountability; business as usual is not working. But like dealing with too-long spoiled children, we're going to have to expect and deal with full-blown tantrums when discipline is demanded and applied. Maybe that's the ultimate bit of naivete on the part of both AIPAC and GOP alike -- they don't realize they have been holding this country and Israel hostage to their bratty demands.

Should have used a condom sooner.

Posted at June 28, 2007 7:02 AM in response to Aid for Israel: Put a Condom on it

Jeebus. You really need to get out more often.

Howard Dean as DNC chair? That was netroots Deaniacs, in direct contravention to Democratic tradition.

50-State Strategy? That successful strategy was propagated through netroots -- internet-mediated political initiative launched from the top and applied widely across the bottom.

You have NO clue what the Democratic Party is any longer; it's not your daddy's party, and from the sounds of it, not yours either. Eli Pariser said it best in late 2004: We bought it, we own it, and we're taking it back. Wake the hell up, Rip van Winkle.

Granted, we still have a lot of incumbents that are sticky, clinging desperately to a stale worldview, but unlike the Repugs we are already working to clean the dead wood and refresh. If you haven't noticed that, you are dead wood, too. Those incumbents are already aware of our efforts even if you're not.

Oh, and what is that crap in item 6? What a clincher that you haven't a clue about the nature and identity of the netroots, just as Chait didn't. We no longer need mediators and talking heads to make our case; we no longer have to tolerate the dilution of our opinions and positions. We have our own printing press and can represent ourselves. We don't need pseudo-intellectuals telling us what we think or are; we have access to progressive intellectuals at the click of the mouse, as well as those anti-intellectuals you think are the activists in the trenches beating on the doors. What a shock it must be to you to discover the canvassers at your doorstep are both a professor and a labor representative working side-by-side having cooperative and collaboratively organized their efforts as "notroots" you believe don't exist and disdain if they do.

Posted at May 11, 2007 2:00 PM in response to NOTROOTS

Might want to add this bit under the Nuclear Proliferation category: Russia begins a re-armament program, scheduled for production in 2007.

Fortunately, their latest Bulava missiles have consistently failed...I suppose BushII would take credit for that if he could.

Posted at December 28, 2006 7:19 AM in response to That Was Then ...

If I hadn't seen other press suggesting that Turkey is very unhappy right now, I might be inclined to agree.

But there are other frictions not being reported in western media, like this:

US Opposes to Unilateral Turkish Action in North Iraq While Iran Supports Turks [sic]

Maybe there are potential benefits to Israel, but they don't appear to be helping matters between the U.S. and their long-time ally Turkey. What's bad for the U.S. is going to be bad for Israel, ultimately.

Posted at August 21, 2006 2:23 PM in response to Good for Israel?

I don't know that you could try to be any more inflammatory.

First, any citation referring to Laura Schlessinger is surely a tip-off that you are not in the mood to be anything but insulting. Why not refer to Piaget or Graves instead of a celebri-doc? But these and other relevant resources would not achieve your ends.

Second, you are clearly of the belief that however a man does it -- with the least amount of hassle possible, meaning the least amount of discussion -- is the best way to do it. There is no attempt on your part to understand the motivation or need behind the discussion.

By now you've already rolled your eyes back into your head and moved on to ESPN.com.

But for the rest of the readers who may actually want understanding, there are reasons for this kind of blind spot. The reason is bound in both biology and culture. I point to Prof. J. Wade's (SUNY) text, Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of Human Consciousness; having assembled the predominant theories of consciousness and human emergence, Wade points to a pattern a critical mass of humans tend to follow, realizing either "affiliative" or "achievement" states of consciousness as adults.

One might actually accept this bias more readily as the underlying principle behind celebri-doc John Grey's "Venus-Mars" dichotomy. There is a bias towards one state of consciousness or the other along gender lines, although these states are fluid and can be accessed by humans from one to the other state, or regress or emerge to higher or lower states from these.

In simple terms, if consciousness is one's experience of reality, there is a bias that differentiates the human experience along gender lines. YOU, Steve R., may simply not SEE a woman's reality because you are in another state. YOU are literally blind, in terms of consciousness.

Ditto Lawrence Summers. I pity his daughters.

Perhaps leaving the "achievement" state where you are is more challenging for you (and for Summers). There maybe few incentives for you to access the "affiliative" state in which a critical mass of adult women live.

That's where culture comes in, reinforcing these two predominate states of adult human consciousness. Men are expected to compete on virtually everything, even down to getting their damned oil changed faster than anybody else. (Discussion be damned, it'd just slow things down.) Other men reinforce that; just listen into any watercooler conversation between men and it's all about who did what faster-better. Who achieved what -- that's the frame, and it's lock-step for men in this particular western society. Pity the men who cannot achieve; they are invisible, like women.

Women prefer context and relationships. Not just relationships between people, but understanding the why behind any deliberate action, and how it connects to everything else. Hence the need for conversation. Because this cannot be measured, is not seen as achievement in a world where men are overwhelmingly owners, managers, the authors of curriculum, the elected and appointed officials who set the standards by which everything is measured, women are simply not up to snuff -- in their experience of reality.

Being in a different state of consciousness, however, is not the same as having a different intellect. It means a different application of similar intellect. Excluding different ranges of experience, whether in terms of work or educational history or in terms of consciousness, means that problems may not be resolved effectively. Where problems can only be communicated in simplistic black-or-white terms required by achievement consciousness (i.e., is this a win? is this a loss? Yes or No?), problems that are really varying shades of gray may not be solved.

The loss to our society when women are removed by this blindness in awareness is enormous; consider, for example, any product that fails regularly and yet our society tolerates the failures as a normal part of the product (ex. software and cars, for starters). Were the engineers focused on achievement alone? Did they focus on doing it under budget, or on time, or within some competitive parameter?

Were there an insufficiency of women on the team who may have asked more questions about the quality of the design and how it impacted the users? (For that matter, were there a plurality of women involved in discussions in the run-up to the Iraq War? We already know the answer to that; did the White House and its sycophants treat this like an oil change, discussion-be-damned-let's-go-to-war-now?) The costs to our society are enormous for this lack of diversity in awareness; it costs money, it costs us opportunity, it costs lives.

But our society doesn't discuss these important questions, and not just because much of the opportunity for discussion is owned by (and shut down by) men. At the earliest ages it conditions our youngsters to fall into their assigned states of awareness. I have both a daughter and a son, and I can see them both being pushed by culture into things that don't fit them; my daughter is in the top handful of students in her Class A school in math and science, yet she's pressured socially for several years that being a geek is not cool for a girl. My son is belittled by other boys for being too chatty and having too many female friends, even though this is where his natural gifts shine, in observations about relationships and storytelling (perhaps a journalist in the making).

And then adults like Lawrence Summers and Steve R. push them even further away from where they are inclined to be, because of their blindness of consciousness, borne of biological and cultural influences.

And as for the absolute bullsh*t strawman argument about women's magazines:
1) I'm an IT professional. I read IT and other industry magazines for IT or industry content, women's magazines for content about women's issues. I do not want a magazine that does it all, I'd rather have a magazine that did its one thing well. Frankly, that's a business issueand a market response; perhaps women are indicating they would rather compartmentalize their content and magazines that do it all are simply not selling.
2) Maxxim. Men's Health. Back at ya' -- tell me any self-respecting male in IT would expect to find the best and most current IT content in these kinds of magazines. I can tell you right now that my male counterparts do not.
3) Ham radio. Ick. In this day and age, when SMS and VoIP are so much more intimate and specific, why? Did it ever occur to you that women always thought that ham radio was an ineffective medium not worth their time -- especially when women still carry the bulk of household work? Have you ever really considered the percentages of women who use other forms of telecommunications in other countries where they have leapfrogged over American POTS (figure that out, tech boy). Yet another lame and blind argument; why don't you defend tinkering with the telegraph while you're at it? I don't think you'll find many women hobbyists in that field, either.

And it's not always men's fault; it's a problem that faces our entire society. Men's place in this is to be more open to understanding diversity in consciousness. If you made it this far, it's a start. Now try understanding that it's not "harder" for women -- it's an entirely different reality.

Posted at July 15, 2006 6:22 PM in response to Tiresias speaks: it's harder for women

Not persuaded here. Reporters? You mean ask reporters like Solomon who completely distorted the story on Sen. Reid and the tickets?

Or anybody else working for the corporate media owned by Republican supporters?

Communities can communicate for themselves directly and not through the mouthpieces of the RNC. That is one of the emerging policies the netroots/grassroots are developing and propelling; they want greatere disintermediation, not the dilution of their will through representatives who are working on behalf of corporate donors rather than the people.

Progressive communities can develop their own policies; an energy policy will be presented this month (although open to further development), generated by an open source "think tank" of every day folks.

Frankly, the traditional corporate media is one of the barriers to the Dems making traction. Do you honestly believe the corporate media will cover a story about grassroots/netroots Dems wanting to return to the Fairness Doctrine or revisit media diversity through divestiture?

Posted at May 31, 2006 5:54 AM in response to Treasury Secretary Paulson

Ditto that.

Not only do Dems need to get their game on, they need to realize that Republicans will poach any work they do and claim it as their own. Have seen it happen here in my own state, watched the Repugs do a 180 degree reversal on their position when it was clear there was a simple majority that would support the Dem position. The Repug majority buried a Dem-written and sponsored bill when petition counts supported the bill, re-wrote and submitted an extremely similar bill under Repug authors/sponsors, pass it and claim victory.

Lazy, pandering sad sacks...these kinds of dirty tricks will not stop at trolling in blogs.

Not only do Dems need get out the A-game, they also need to act pre-emptively. This nomination of Paulson comes at a critical time; U.S. currency is highly troubled and the Chinese are in a position to cause serious trouble economically. Add to this mix the possible merger of NYSE with EuroNext and we have a highly volatile situation. There are suggestions that depending on how NYSE/EuroNext merger is handled, the Deutsche Bourse might initiate a hostile takeover. Is this what we want to have happen to our nation's largest exchange?

Here's the preemptive bit that Dems need to address: does the NYSE/EuroNext merger qualify for CIFA review?

Or are we looking at another Ports deal with no review and a wave by? Remember that John Snow was a beneficiary of the Ports deal (and just where is the status of that deal anyhow?)...will the next TreasurySec also have a vested interest in the NYSE/EuroNext merger, and possibly the conjectured Bourse buy-out?

Fax already enroute to my Senate Dems on this, BTW.

Posted at May 30, 2006 6:18 PM in response to Treasury Secretary Paulson

There's a bit more here that borders on the preposterous, like the lack of information.

-- Was this the first time this particular boy has done this kind of thing?  Would a three-day suspension be in order for a child who has been doing this all semester?

-- Was this a seasoned school administrator, or a newbie?  Has this administrator ever doled out similar suspensions on first-time offenses?

-- What's the school's policy; is the punishment similar for other first-time offenses, or are there biases for perceived boy-against-girl behavior or is it gender neutral?

The most disturbing part of this is that there may well have been a history of problems with this child, and that other extenuating circumstances may have promoted this behavior.  Would it be reported as news or would the school system investigate this further with the parents to ensure there were no problems at home?

I ask these things as the mother of a school-aged daughter.  A male classmate during first grade repeatedly grabbed my daughter's behind and made inappropriate comments of a sexual nature.  This boy learned this behavior at home, not at school, the child did not understood what the implications were of what he was doing; obviously something was wrong at home.  We worked with the teacher to have the kids kept apart and the boy coached on inappropriate behavior ("keep your hands to yourself; we don't touch other people's bottoms"), but to this day I wonder whether this was the best thing for the boy's long-term best interests, whether other intervention would have been appropriate.  I had to coach my daughter at far too young an age that she must set boundaries with others, but I don't know whether the other parents did that for their son.  They left the school system within the year, unrelated to what happened in the classroom.  Did his behavior change?  Did his parents clue in?  Would it have helped anyone at all for this to have been publicized and turned into a political punching bag?  Not hardly. 

Posted at February 10, 2006 3:10 PM in response to Here Come the Anti-Feminists

"Reasonableness" is their talking point.  Both Hayden and Gonzales have used this argument nearly verbatim, word-for-word.  You will see others use this same frame within the next 48 hours if you continue to let them use it.

STOP IT.  Push them on "probable cause".  They don't have it, never did.  And that's the entire crux of the matter. 

They can't even get around the reasonable 72-hour window of FISA because they never had probable cause. 

What everyone is scratching their heads about is a common symptom in abusive relationships.  The victim wonders what the heck that was about, tries to dissect the situation to make some sort of sense of it.  They feel compelled to fit this into the framework of  reality, of rationality, <i>because failing to do so means the abuse was irrational</i>.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  This is what it is, right on the face of it.  IRRATIONAL AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR THAT DOES NOT FIT IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY.

The administration's argument for reasonableness is their way to try and argue for rationality.  DON'T RATIONALIZE THIS -- it's just plain irrational and unreasonable and ILLEGAL.

I'd go so far as to say that NO progressive should even use the word "reasonable" discussing this issue.  Stay on the utter and complete lack of probable cause.  They'll sputter and spout and rail and cavil about it -- but they're irrational about this anyhow, why expect anything else?  If they were rational they'd come up with a better response.

Posted at January 24, 2006 6:38 AM in response to Reasonable Boundaries

I'm a parent of a gifted and a borderline gifted child, the latter also has a slight case of ADD.  They both attend a public school which is a magnet for gifted students while also providing traditional education for average and educationally disabled students.  I sympathize with my kids because I was gifted, too, understand that bright kids can become troublemakers or mentally drop out when not challenged or bored (been there, done that, hoo-boy).

What completely pisses me off about NCLB is that my kids are now spending nearly an entire month every year on mandatory NCLB test preparation.  These bright kids need more education -- whether gifted track or not -- not more down time, not more rote and repetition.  NCLB as it exists today basically decreased the amount every state has to fund actual education by demanding allocations of manhours on test preparation and documentation and reporting.  It also decreases the amount of actual education every single child gets out of the public system, regardless of whether they are gifted, challenged, average, period.

If my kids are spending one month a year on NCLB, they are going to lose ONE ENTIRE YEAR of education during their K-12 years to nothing but testing.

How will ANY of our children be able to compete with their counterparts globally if the emphasis of their entire education is also geared not to creativity or innovation or independent thought or skill development, but on TESTING???

Every one of my kids' teachers also confirms they are pressured into producing the same educational experience for every single child, so that they get exactly the same results.  How does this prepare our children for a diversity of challenges in the post-school working world?  How does this does this encourage the kind of diversity we need to produce high-quality products?  It takes a technical aptitude to make a working product, a creative aptitude to envision the product to begin with, math-financial aptitude to make a cost-effective and profitable product...how do we get all these different skillsets developed from a widget production mentality forced upon our children's educational system?

The worst part of this is seeing my children's frustration with weeks of mind-numbing test prep, knowing not only that they've lost a month of real learning, but that some child who is average -to-challenged could not have the benefit of the resources spent on testing my kids so that they could actually improve.  Very, very sad, and completely counterproductive approach to public education.

Unless, of course, the actual plan is Norquistian: drive people out of public schools until everyone homeschools and noone pays taxes for public schools.  I refuse to give in to Norquist's bathtub-drowning approach, though.  My kids will stay in public schools and I'll fill in the gap with extra material until we can be rid of this administration and its abortion called NCLB.

Posted at December 28, 2005 1:47 PM in response to Gifted Children Left Behind?