Recent Comments

1. about 2 hours ago on Ted Rall

   “I seem to recall insurgencies being quite successful against well equipped modern armies, Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s comes to mind.”

   I have to repeatedly remind would be New American Revolutionaries that a successful insurgency requires 3 things:

   Popular support

   Competent leadership

   Access to weapons & material sufficient to defeat the opponent – every successful insurgency in recent history has received a lot of this from an outside power. France for the American Colonies, Russia & China for the Vietnamese.

   “They do not see this as an “existential fight” "

   Every public opinion poll out of Israel contradicts this.

   “Most Israelis favor the two state solution.”

   Every public opinion poll out of Israel contradicts this.

   “The entire premise of re-establishing Israel was by British and American Evangelists pushing to fill Biblical prophecy.”

   Premillennial Christian thought played a role in the development of early Zionism, but so did anti-semitic desires to get Jews out of Europe & “back where they belong”. The Zionist project was organized & funded almost entirely by Jews.

   “We will witness the Second Coming before Israel cuts ties with the U.S. "

   I think it’s unlikely, but not impossible. The US refused to sell weapons to Israel early on, so they bought them from the Czechs with Stalin’s blessing. If the far left or the far right had their way, they would cut ties with Israel. It seems quite likely that Israel & most of the Gulf States would pivot towards China if the US walks away from the region.

2. about 2 hours ago on Ted Rall

   GWB campaigned on not doing any “nation building”. He changed his mind. Maybe your memory needs a little refreshing:

   “President Discusses the Future of Iraq” from the White House Archives, February 2003

   The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq.

   Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime’s torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them.

   Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before — in the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety, in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home.

3. about 3 hours ago on Al Goodwyn Editorial Cartoons

   “BTW, I think Gates is one of the most dangerous people on the planet.”

   Lol, of course you do. I included him because a billionaire’s politics don’t impact my opinion on how much their wealth was “vision” or luck. Gates mother was on the board of United Way, along with the CEO of IBM. When IBM was developing the PC, she arranged a meeting. Gates was a good programmer, but Operating Systems weren’t his forte. He bought DOS from Tim Paterson & showed it to IBM. IBM believed personal computers were going to be a niche product, so rather than buy the rights to the OS, they made the licensing deal that turned Microsoft into one of the biggest companies on the planet. That’s a series of fortunate events.

   Therein lies the difference between starting a business & retiring with $30 million versus $100 billion. The ones who get all the way to the top aren’t the inventors, they’re the strategic thinkers who figure out how to protect their position through buyouts & squashing potential competitors before they get too big. I’m not saying they aren’t smart or work hard to make companies successful, but Gates wasn’t getting filthy rich from selling copies of BASIC to hobbyists.

4. about 3 hours ago on Al Goodwyn Editorial Cartoons

   Musk bought Twitter & claimed he wanted it to be “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.”

   Charging admission to the town square in order to speak makes me think he isn’t sincere about his “free speech warrior” act. If he said his vision for Twitter is “a mall food court, where you can sit & people watch for free, but if you want to talk to anyone, you just need to buy a pretzel or an Orange Julius”, I’d respect the honesty.

5. about 18 hours ago on Michael Ramirez

   “In 1922, “6% of the land was owned by Jews, 47% by Muslims”

   Your source for that is propaganda. About 75% of what is now Israel, Gaza & the West Bank was uncultivated land when the Brits took over. If you were familiar with Ottoman land law, you might argue that the portion used by Arab farmers would push it a bit lower, but most of the land was unpopulated & Berber pastoralists were the only ones making any use of it.

   By 1945, 13.5% of land was owned by Jews, 42.5% was owned by Arabs & the rest was uncultivated, unclaimed state land. Arabs could have kept pretty much all of their cultivated land, along with control over most water rights, if they’d accepted negotiation in 1947.

6. about 18 hours ago on Al Goodwyn Editorial Cartoons

   “One question; do you feel the same way as Steve Jobs?”

   He’s dead. What are you implying?

   Maybe you meant about Steve Jobs. Jobs was born on the economic equivalent of 2nd base, where he connected with a bunch of smart people in what became Silicon Valley. He was lucky enough to befriend Wozniak, who was the actual inventor behind Apple’s early success. Jobs was a canny & ruthless businessman. I’m tech agnostic & use every major OS on devices as appropriate, or preferred. A lot of Apple’s early success with Macs & later success with iPhones was based on Jobs’ ability to project a vibe. (Throws hammer at 1984 face)

   You want me to cover Bill “My mom has a friend on the Board at IBM” Gates, next?

7. about 19 hours ago on Al Goodwyn Editorial Cartoons

   “You really don’t know anything about Musk, do you?”

   I don’t follow the details of his opinions on matters unrelated to his companies & I try very hard to ignore his very messed up personal life. I do know plenty about his tech career & how he became a billionaire off of a couple of very lucky bets on existing efforts to build electric cars & rockets. Absent a Yahtzee roll of 10 or 15 dice, Musk is the weird old guy at the bar who wants to tell you about his thoughts regarding “cranial measurements of sub-Saharan Africans versus northern Europeans”.

   I also don’t confuse 1st Amendment protections with the actions of private entities to decide what opinions they want to boost. Twitter/X is a private company & Musk is free to drive it into the ground. I do think a guy who calls something a “public town square”, then proceeds to demand $11 from anyone who wants to be heard is not really interested in “Free Speech”. Maybe you even like the Griftenstein… errr, Krassenstein Brothers, now that they’ve become Elon fanboys, lol.

8. about 19 hours ago on Al Goodwyn Editorial Cartoons

   “She’s an artist, not an inventor.”

   Did Taylor Swift create things that changed peoples’ lives that made her a billionaire? Obviously, yes.

   I gotta agree with Al here. We should all start hanging on her every utterance about politics & social issues, because she’s clearly smarter than us. /s

9. about 19 hours ago on Al Goodwyn Editorial Cartoons

   “Taylor Swift”

   Haha, good response! I don’t think that’s the sort of invention you were going for originally.

10. about 19 hours ago on Ted Rall

    We occupied Iraq & Afghanistan longer than Germany or Japan. I think we may have spent more money rebuilding the first two, than the second. Germany & Japan were advanced economies before war. They had the know-how to rebuild, they just needed material. The threat of the Bad Uncle Joe Stalin helped convince anyone opposed to Uncle Sam to join in.

    Israel poured economic investment into Gaza & the West Bank after 1967 with the idea to moderate Palestinians’ thinking. It went well for a couple decades. Palestinian incomes & standard of living improved much more rapidly than it did under Egyptian/Jordanian rule.

    The settler schmucks undermined the effort by making Palestinians think they were ultimately going to be forced off their lands.

    There is no “defeating” Iran through military means. If things are going to change, it will be the choice of the Iranian people.