Lebanon is now officially a Hezbollah state

Lebanon now officially run by Hezbollah - Hezbollah-Backed Leader to Form Government in Lebanon.

See Michael Totten on this latest development: Lebanon heats up

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Unbearable Whiteness of Pro-Lifers

Another beautiful post from Ta-Nehisi at the Atlantic: The Unbearable Whiteness of Pro-Lifers and Pundits.

Just read it. I've learned so much from reading his blog - I am a fan.

Jared Loughner is NOT Jewish

One of the search queries that has recently gotten people to my blog is "is Jared Loughner Jewish." Now I have an answer to this question. Ron Kampeas, who writes a blog for the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), researched this question, and the answer is "No." For those interested in the research, see his blog, Capitol J: Lougner's Jewish Mother? Not so much.

I hope those who have found their way to this blog through this query enjoy reading the rest of the blog.

Pat Buchanan on blood libels

Pat Buchanan, our favorite anti-Semite in public life, who is still inexplicably viewed kindly by most of the mainstream media, came out with an aggressive defense of Sarah Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel" to refer to what she believes is slander against her by those calling her out for her use of violent language and imagery: Sarah Palin's Use Of Blood Libel Was 'Excellent'.

His words:

Pat Buchanan said Wednesday that Sarah Palin has been a victim of the media in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and she was right to use the phrase "blood libel" in defending herself from charges that her language had anything to do with the mass shooting.

"Frankly I thought it was an excellent statement with regard to the phrase 'blood libel'," Buchanan said. "That of course refers to the libel that was used in the Middle Ages, charges against Jews that were utterly unsupportable slanders and I think she's using it in that context."

So apparently someone has accused Sarah Palin of killing young children and using their blood for strange rituals? Odd, I hadn't heard that charge lately.

P.S. Alan Dershowitz has defended the legitimacy of Palin using the phrase "blood libel," while the ADL has condemned it. Dershowitz notes:

The term “blood libel” has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish People, its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of using this widely used term.

Far be it from me to disagree with the distinguished Professor Dershowitz, but the fact that he used it in the case of his criticism of the Goldstone Report hardly validates the use of the term outside of the proper historical context. At various times when I've been living in Israel I've heard Israeli politicians use the phrase to protest against other people's (usually correct) criticisms of their (often corrupt) behavior. This metaphorical use has always struck me as an absurdly exaggerated attempt to play on the sympathies of the audience.

I would prefer to use the phrase "blood libel" to refer to actual blood libels.

The first recorded blood libel was the accusation in 1144 that 12-year-old William of Norwich had been murdered by Jews for ritual purposes before Passover. The Medieval Sourcebook has published the first written account, from 1173, by Thomas of Monmouth, of the supposed torture and death of William at the hands of local Jews. [Warning: not for the faint of heart]. Accusations of ritual murder by Jews for religious purposes have been made since then, including up to the present in the Arab world.

Not a phrase to use lightly.

Michael Totten - Israeli Way of War

Michael Totten has just published a really interesting article on The Israeli Way of War. It covers a number of things, including his interview with an official in the Judge Advocate General's office in Tel Aviv. (JAGs prosecute crimes committed by soldiers).

The JAG office spoke about how they gain information about possible crimes committed during war by soldiers.

Totten asked her:

“What do you think about all these NGOs that criticize Israel and the army?” I said.

“I actually appreciate the work of the NGOs,” she said. “They help me make sure our violent operational activity is conducted appropriately. I want to live in a country where there is an address for these kinds of complaints. We’re in constant dialogue with them, and they help me. They do seem to appreciate the thorough work we do. They probably don’t agree with all my decisions, but they know I take what they say seriously.

An impressive testimony about the value of Israeli human rights groups. If the Israeli army doesn't consider them traitors, I don't understand why blowhards on the Israeli right do.

Who is Jared Loughner?

An interesting analysis of Jared Loughner by Mark Potok of Southern Poverty Law Center.

At one point, Loughner refers disparagingly to “currency that’s not backed by gold or silver.” The idea that silver and gold are the only “constitutional” money is widespread in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement that produced so much violence in the 1990s. It’s linked to the core Patriot theory that the Federal Reserve is actually a private corporation run for the benefit of unnamed international bankers. So-called Patriots say paper money — what they refer to with a sneer as “Federal Reserve notes” — is not lawful.

At another, Loughner makes extraordinarily obscure comments about language and grammar, suggesting that the government engages in “mind control on the people by controlling grammar.” That’s not the kind of idea that’s very common out there, even on the Internet. In fact, I think it’s pretty clear that Loughner is taking ideas from Patriot conspiracy theorist David Wynn Miller of Milwaukee. Miller claims that the government uses grammar to “enslave” Americans and offers up his truly weird “Truth-language” as an antidote. For example, he says that if you add colons and hyphens to your name in a certain way, you are no longer taxable. Miller may be mad as a hatter, but he has a real following on the right.

Loughner talks about how you “can’t trust the government” and someone burns a U.S. flag in one of his videos. Although certain right-wing websites are already using that (and his listing of The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books) to claim that Loughner was a “left-winger,” that does not strike me as true. The main enemy of the Patriot movement is certainly the federal government. And so-called Patriots have certainly engaged in acts like burning the flag.

See also several interesting articles on the Talk2Action site by Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson.

Thoughts about Gabrielle Giffords

I wrote a post last night about the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The post expressed a great deal of anger and pointed to the use of violent imagery in the last election as possibly providing a motivation for the person who did the shooting. Upon further thought, I don't feel comfortable leaving the post up, because there isn't enough evidence at this point to say for certain that the shooter's motivation was political. I still decry the violent political language used in the last election, and the attacks upon candidates (for example, Giffords' campaign office was vandalized), but at this point a direct connection with the actions of the shooter has not been proven. If evidence comes forth that is more definite, then I'll return to this topic.

I'm still very disturbed, of course, by the attack yesterday. Six people were killed, including a federal judge and a nine-year old girl, and twelve others were injured. If Giffords hadn't been the target of the attack (and if a federal judge hadn't been killed), then this attack would probably have mostly been noticed by people in Arizona and those close to the victims, and by the rest of us as one of the many mass shootings that have occurred in the United States. In that case, the main question I would take from the killing would be - why is it so easy for people to get guns in this country? The Supreme Court may have decided that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms, so it is constitutional - but is it wise? Doesn't the easy availability of guns make both mass killings like this one and attacks with fewer victims so much easier to commit?

The other thing I was thinking about this morning was the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, during the middle of the 1968 presidential election. He was killed on June 5 by Sirhan Sirhan. For anyone who was alive at the time, the political context is clear. I was twelve years old, and I remember the very unsettled political atmosphere, continuing threats of violence (earlier in the year Martin Luther King had been assassinated, and after his death there were riots across the country), and mass protests against the Vietnam War. But it wasn't Kennedy's stance on Vietnam that provided the motivation for the man who killed him. During Sirhan's trial he talked about Kennedy's support for Israel - Kennedy had promised, if he were elected, to support selling U.S. fighter jets to Israel. Sirhan was a Christian Palestinian - his family was from Musrara, in Jerusalem, and after the 1948 war moved to the Jordanian part of Jerusalem. The family emigrated to the U.S. a few years before the assassination. While Sirhan may also have been mentally ill, there also seems to have a political motivation - but not one that related to Vietnam or the Civil Rights movement, which were certainly the most salient political issues in the U.S. at that time. But Kennedy's death certainly had an effect upon subsequent American politics - at the time of his assassination, he was second behind Hubert Humphrey in the number of delegates to the upcoming Democratic Convention. His death meant that it was far easier for Humphrey to gain the nomination. And who knows, if he had been nominated, he might have been a much stronger candidate against Richard Nixon than Humphrey was. Kennedy's death came to be understood in the context of the unsettled atmosphere of the U.S. in 1968 and the conflict over the Vietnam War, not in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Some interesting articles:

David Kurtz from TPM:

What people on the Hill have trouble understanding is, why now?

Beginning in August 2009, when the tea party movement began disrupting congressional town halls in districts across the country, Democratic Members suddenly faced a general vitriol -- but also a series of specific violent threats -- that none of them had encountered before. Despite Republican claims that Democrats were milking the threats and exaggerating them for political gain, the threats were deeply troubling to Democrats privately. They were forced to rethink holding town halls and to recalibrate the risks associated with being a public official.

But things had calmed down for the most part since the passage of health care in the first part of 2010. As the 2010 midterm campaigns heated up, the political tenor grew sharply more volatile again, although not to the extent it had been (unless, perhaps, you were Muslim). If an attack on a Member, especially a Democratic Member, had happened during the heat of the health care reform debate or the run up to the elections, no one would have been shocked. But the heat of the moment seemed to have dissipated.

Steve Benen from Washington Monthly:

Which leads us to the second point. The shooter may have been politically motivated, in the sense that the assailant targeted a political figure, but Giffords probably wasn't shot because her attacker disapproved of the individual mandate in the new health care law. Loughner appears to be "conservative" only in a loose sense -- he hates abortion rights, is paranoid about government power, and obsesses over states' rights -- but given his madness, he doesn't necessarily fall along the traditional left-right spectrum. The truly crazy rarely do.

But my fear is the latter observation will somehow mitigate the former. We may come to a point fairly soon at which the investigation of yesterday's massacre is complete, and we learn that the shooting was "just" the result of psychotic madman. "Oh," some might say, "then the political climate is irrelevant; violent rhetoric in the mainstream is inconsequential; and everything's fine."

No matter what the outcome of the Tucson investigation, everything isn't fine.

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend gives a list of all those who were killed yesterday, as well as photo of the other man who is suspected of somehow being involved in the attack.