That was the gist of the complaint that “elections don’t work for us anymore”. Over the last 30 years, 8 election cycles, one faction only won the popular vote, a mandate from “we the people”, once. Two other “wins” were statistical flukes, not the “consent of the governed” as the Declaration calls for.
One faction ruled the Michigan legislature for 40 years. Offices that were filled state-wide: Gov, Secretary of State, AG, Senator, flipped from party to party, but the same crowd ruled the legislature throughout that period. “We The People” passed an amendment to the state Constitution taking districting, which a court had ruled “gerrymandered to a historic degree”, out of the hands of the legislature and delegated to an independent board. The legislature immediately flipped to the crowd that had been locked out for 40 years. Elections “no longer work” for the old crowd.
Our system depends on voters making good choices. Gerrymandered districts give them few choices. People don’t vote straight party tickets like they used to. More make choices. They can fight the system when they want to.
Its not a perfect system. We hope voters learn to make goid choices.
By the by, “The Young Turks” relayed a report that Egyptian Intelligence warned the Israelis, and “Bibi” personally, that Hamas was working on something big. “Bibi” brushed off questions about the report with “fake news”.
Somewhat reminiscent of 9/11, when the FBI was reporting on sketchy characters and a threat to commercial airlines, with enough force for the AG to start flying private, but not enough to warn the airline rent-a-cops.
Remember PNAC? The plan said, enabling their agenda, would require a “Pearl Harbor” scale event.
Israel never accept the Oslo Peace Accords. Israel thought it is OK to occupy treat Gaza and West Bank as prisons for Arabs. No people want to live in these conditions with foreign soldiers pointing guns and tanks at them for over 60 years with no freedom, no dignity amid continual Israeli incursions on their lands, stealing their lands and killing them.
The Israelis who advocated for this idiotic occupation and imprisonment of Arabs are responsible for the creation of hate groups like Hamas.
Overall, 65% said the U.S. should support Israel publicly. That was true of big majorities of both parties — 77% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats. Notably, independents were less likely to believe this — 54%…
But there are huge age and racial gaps — 78% of those 45 and older think the U.S. should take a publicly pro-Israel stance, but just 48% of those under 45 said so…
Along racial lines, just 51% of nonwhites said the U.S. should take such a public stance supporting Israel, while 72% of whites thought it should.
Would that correlate with their treatment by white people in the US, causing them to be more sympathetic to the Pals?
However, there is a significant subset of the more conservative faction that is also in the “no foreign aid” faction, and questions spending anything on Israel.
One “freeedom” person has already voiced opposition to funding Israel on this go around. Two years ago, he was joined by 8 from the other side of the aisle, in voting against Israeli funding.
With the current Speaker drama, there is little room for dissent in the caucus, giving the most radical an outsized voice. Stranger things have happened.
I can name Vietnam and Cambodia. I can name Afghanistan three times over including the Afghan’s hands as well.
I can look back before WW II to the British Empire. I can look twice at Germany.
I see the Arab nations as peace-loving compared to the Europeans. I just see the Europeans so sick of war after WW II that we got all righteous.
I also see the US and EU as smart enough to maintain the peace to build prosperity. The ME is missing some of that.
Russia is so crazy to want any wars at all. It costs money. Building the arms makes money. Using the arms in your neighborhood is a mistake economically. Russia has lost a major part of its workforce.
Superb and rare appearance of Noah Harari speaking on the crisis in Israel on two scores
The attack of Hamas and how deeply it transforms Israeli psychology
Netanyahu’s disastrous divisive hatefeeding policies over the last decade
Amanpour and Harari are worth listening to even if you often find yourself in disagreement with them (flyerboys raises his hand) as they actually speak with real knowledge and seek to argue rationally.
There is more to Palestinian politics than Israel or Hamas. I’d like to hear that side of it. For me right now that is worrisome.
I appreciate Harari. He is the liberal voice of Israel that the world respects. I have been troubled by Bibi for the last 16 years.
In the rush of blood, I have thought of a complete shut-off of conflict by moving the Palestinians out. If only to stop the cost to Palestinians. The numbers and demands are not possible for Israel. Which is why Bibi plays the game he does.
Harari did not address the numbers and demands. His argument in that light would be more meaningful. If he can resolve that for the viewers then the liberal standards would apply.
Just to work more words on the liberal side and have an accord with the Palestinians will leave them with an unsolved set of problems. The group can not stay just settled in the Gaza Strip. It is an open-air prison. Let them out.
If at root the Palestinians are a Greater Syrian force, then there is no intake that Israel could possibly live with let alone afford.
The Arab world is from Northern Africa on the Atlantic to the Gulf of Arabia. There is a huge scattering often with little choice of all human beings. Now is a time for scattering and learning to prosper. If you are in prison as the Palestinians definitely are their intentions and needs will change with freedom. Freedom from Hamas alone would be a major benefit.
I found a deeper interview of Harari by informed intelligent people in London. They go quite a bitdeeper than Amanpour could afford with her shorter attention span audience, both as to the emotions at play but also in terms of rebalancing the possibility of peace and growth returning to the world and how that question hinges on counteracting the Bibis Orbans TOOWNMNBS*** and Putins.
Deeply moving, and also profoundly more informative than any other coverage I have seen in the news or online as to things (investments, looking after dear.friends) that change and help inform my thinking.
david fb
***TOOWNMNBS: The Other One Whose Name Must Not Be Said
The end of this destroying the world order. China no longer has the water to keep its arrangements with the west in the global order. It has fallen out form being. The industrial base that is.
The US slowed its policies of spending in practical terms based on a return in foreign affairs.
This really turns a corner next year. The US will be gathering the new world order. The financing of that began in 2022 in the US.
The commentator Rory was very good.
What I note is how Harari avoided the logical outcome of Palestinians exiting the Gaza Strip. That was purposeful. That also clearly is Netanyahu’s endgame. He can not empower Bibi and work to change Israel. Fortunately, most in Israel never want to empower Bibi again.
Stop the mass murder. The Jews in Israel are making a big blunder by this illegal action to indiscriminately bomb Gaza; to cut off water, food, electricity, fuel, medicine; and to tell Palestinian civilians to get out of the Northern half of Gaza because of their land invasion. These actions will result in the death of more than 200,00 civilians in the next 3 weeks and the horrible suffering of 2 million Palestinians. And then what? Another 2 months of killing and dying of 200,00 civilians.
The Jews in Israel are digging a hole for themselves that most of the world will never forgive. The Jews in Israel will never be safe again if they cause this mass murder of Palestinian civilians.
The IDF said Ali Qadhi, a company commander in the so-called Nukhba commando unit who led one of the assaults on October 7, was killed in a drone strike following intelligence efforts by the Shin Bet security agency and Military Intelligence Directorate…
The IDF also said it killed the head of Hamas’s aerial array, Murad Abu Murad, in an overnight airstrike on a terror target in the Gaza Strip. The IDF said Abu Murad “took a significant part in directing terrorists during the massacre” last weekend, which included attackers who entered Israel from the air on hang gliders.
