As supporters continue to celebrate his historic election, President-elect Barack Obama has quickly turned to the task of assembling his administration, and preparing for the job ahead.
Today, Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden are scheduled to begin receiving highly-classified security briefings.
This as speculation is growing over just who Obama will pick to fill key cabinet positions.
Democratic officials tell the Associated Press that Obama has already tapped Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, but there’s no word yet on whether Emanuel has accepted. Emanuel served in the White House under former President Bill Clinton.
There are also reports that Senator John Kerry is vying for the position of secretary of state, though a spokesperson for Kerry has denied it.
There is also speculation that Robert Gates may be asked to stay on as defense secretary.
A number of New Yorkers are also being floated as potential members of Obama’s White House inner circle.
Two men with local ties are believed to be in the running for treasury secretary. Timothy Geithner, the head of New York’s Federal Reserve Bank, and Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve chair in the Carter and Reagan administrations, are both said to be vying for the spot.
Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being considered for head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Kennedy Jr. backed Obama over New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the primaries, as did his cousin Caroline Kennedy, who’s reportedly being talked about as ambassador to the United Nations.
(Source: NY1)
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48 Responses
G-d save the country!
Let us pray we won’t have a mole in the White House…
Cant wait for the annointed one to hear what actually is going on, so that he can begin to understand Bushes unpopular politically but correct decisions
#3, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Then maybe the world will realize that it aint so easy after all.
(I think it’s the same with Israeli politics. Each person blames the PM but when the new tough- talking PM is voted in, he eventually caves in to the same pressures as guys before him.)
1. You’re just a sore loser Joseph – There’s chochma to political predictions too, Old Boy, and based on American voting history going back to 1948 it was a no-brainer back in September that economics would probably swing the election to the Democrats. But you’d probably dismiss the study of Political Science and Law as just so much self-hating, liberal, secular education shtuss, right?
2. I pray we don’;t have you in the White House;
3. Then Obama would at last know what’s really going on . . . just like you, right Oh Cherryhillbilly The All Knowing?
Rahm Emanuel?
I read somewhere that his father is an unabashed ex-“freedom fighter” from the Middle East, and that he himself belongs to the fundamentalist wing of a minority religion.
Also, it’s clear that he doesn’t have enough respect for the US to shed his ethnic name and take on a Real American name.
We’re in trouble.
#5, In 1933 the Germans were sore losers.
When are we going to lunch?
#5: no, none of us knows and neither did Obama until he got his first round of highly classified briefings. Now he is probably beginning to see that things aren’t so “black and white.” And I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to see him change his views and promises.
Joseph – contact YWN – I authorized them to give you my email
thats a great post#6
Yonason – I sent you an e-mail.
#5 – Among what we do know:
1. By invading Iraq and toppling Hussein we removed the one regional check on Iran; this has imperiled us, the Israelis and the entire Middle East – Bush policies have directly created the rise of Iran and Shia Islam;
2. The justifications asserted for invading Iraq were based on result-oriented intelligence analysis that purposefully excluded any contrary information,and in some cases raise legitimate questions whether deliberate falsehoods were involved;
3. Bush’s refusal to negotiate with “enemy” states has proven destructively counter productive (even Bush now admits this, having recently sent emissaries to Teheran), and flies in the face of history; during the Vietnam War Nixon negotiated with the North Vietnamese – during the height of the Cold War we negotiated with both the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. To say that negotiations with an enemy is appeasement is just jibberish;
4. Bush’s cowboy, Rambo go-it-alone diplomacy might make hotheads “feel good” – but in the real world we need the support of our NATO allies; and no President before him has done so much to damage our diplomatic relationships;
5. No President before Bush has either asserted absolute Executive authority to the extent he has, or has had so many policies declared unconstitutional by the Courts (even conservative Courts);
6. No President before Bush has sought to eliminated the right of Habeas Corpus for an entire class of detainees (Corts stopped him);
7. The denigration of both civil liberties and Separation of Powers vis a vis the Congress under the Bush administration have been unprecedented and frightenly stunning;
8. Whether it is an invasion of Iraq botched with too few troops and decisions such as disbanding the Iraqi Army, and the unintended consequence of elevating the Iranians (unintended – though predicted in 2002 and 2003 by many Middle East experts), or the mishandling of Katrina . . . if any of us performed our jobs with a comparable level of competancy we’d be fired.
These are among the reasons why many serious and intelligent people have reasoned and though-out opinions that nominate Bush for the title of the worst President ever.
Yosi – I responded
It seems McCain is back to the non-republican (certainly not conservative) McCain. He is working on a quite liberal immigration plan and is not interfering with his campaign staff who are mercilessly and shamelessly slandering Sarah Palin.
A very nice man who sacrificed and suffered unbelievably, but we did not need another privileged underachiever at the helm. They truly just dont get it.
No 6- Fyi Rahm Emanuel is JEWISH and somewhat Orthodox-His kids go to some type of Hebrew day School . I have a friend that went to College with him and knows him personally. Good Shabbos, Good Yom Tov!
Hey Yonason:
you say “Bush policies have directly created the rise of Iran and Shia Islam”
Apparantly you never heard of Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is 100% personally responsible for the rise of Iran and much of the problems in the middle east today.
Bush might go down as one of the most ineffective presidents ever, but certainly not the worst. Jimmy Carter is by far the worst president and ex-president the US has ever had.
I can’t wait to see how Obama handles the major crises that Bush had to make such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and of course middle-east diplomacy (an oxymoron if I ever heard one)
Pashuteh Yid #17 – Your level betuchan v’ emunah must be much higher than mine – and your military expertise greater as well. Poor Lil Ole Faithless Me is of the opinion that militarily what you propose is laughable, unless you rely absolutely on miraculous divene intervention. The way I see it, and the way the Pentagon sees it as well, absent a draft and general mobilization we could not successfully invade just Iran. And . . . as one whose parents (both) served in Europe in the Army during WWII, who himself served at sea during the Vietnam years, and who has close family who served in the U.S. Army post 9/11 . . I urge you to enlist and put your own skin on the line.
yobwej – I beg to differ with you on one very fundemental point
You say “…Carter is 100% personally responsible for the rise of Iran and much of the problems in the middle east today…” Carter was an ineffective President, and is an overtly pro-Arab anti-Israeli Expetive Deleted . . but don’t give him credit where he doesn’t deserve it.
You ask me if I ever heard of Carter. Have you ever heard if the Iran-Iraq War?
In the 80s those two countries bled themselves silly; Iranians and Iraquis killed each other by the hundreds of thousands – each a check on the other’s ability to aggress elsewhere.
Before 2005 Shia Islam was soley the province of the Iranians, in terms of any real political power base – but since then you have essentially a Shia government in Iraq too.
The result today . . instead of those two pariah states perpetually posed to fight each other, we now have a defacto growing alliance between the major ethnic/political faction in Iraq and the Iranians – – Thanks to the Iraq war and Bush.
Yonason, I agree with your points about the Iran-Iraq wars. As longs as the two countries were fighting each other, they were less likely to threaten others in the region (I’m not sure I remember this right, but wasn’t that Reagan’s rationalization for secretly funding Iran?).
The war in Iraq destroyed the Iraqi military & removed this important check on Iran. More importantly, though, is that it left the US military spread so thin that Iran now knows that the US is highly unlikely to threaten it militarily, since it doesn’t have the resources to do so. Basically, by attacking Iraq, which had no real connection to 9/11, no WMD, and no nuclear capabilities, the US indirectly strengthened Iran, which is much closer to developing nuclear weapons.
Pashuteh Yid, 9/11 wasn’t really a reason to invade Iraq, since Iraq had no real connection to 9/11. Obviously it made sense to go after Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Afghanistan; maybe if we’d been able to adequately staff that effort, instead of sending troops to Iraq, we might even have captured him. Even though Osama bin Laden & most of the 9/11 highjackers were from Saudi Arabia, attacking that country was never an option.
Yonason, I’m interested in your opinion on what should be done in Iraq now. Would you care to share it?
#20 – What to do in Iraq now? If I had a good answer to that question my pay grade would go up considerably.
Though it angers me that Bush and the ideologue Neocons went in in the first place, doing so despite the weight of expertise that predicted this mess, I don’t believe we can exit precipitously – it
could be a self-fulfilling prophecy with repect to a terrorist takeover.
And “training the Iraqis” as a “strategy” reminds me too much of “Vietimization.”
I think we are in a situation most akin to the Balkans, historically antagonistic “tribes” artificially held together by a strongman – Like Hussein likeTito – absent a strongman I’m not sure what you have.
And this brings us to the check the Turks have on the Kurds in the north . . . the oil concentrated in the South of Iraq – and the Sunni insistance on lopsided power/oil revenue sharing – so there goes the three state solution.
I do think Obama may have greater success in securing international cooperation than did Bush after all his cowboy antics.
A lot of bla bla bla when maybe all I should have said is that I don’t know.
So you all admit you don’t know what to do about it now, but are such great chachomim and know that we shouldn’t have gone in, in 2003. (Using 2003 intelligence, not 2008 [or 2005] knowledge.)
Perhaps the best available intelligence at the time indicated Iraq may be in possession of WMD. (What we know NOW, or anytime after the war began, is irrelevant.) And even if the intelligence wasn’t certain, WMD is not an issue we can risk Iraq possessing. So if the bad options were 1) Go in, and possibly find out you were mistaken and there was no WMD or 2) Don’t go in and possibly find later (when it is too late to do anything) there was WMD, then option 1 is clearly the far lesser of the 2 evils.
And given that Iraq through out the UN nuclear inspectors, there was strong suspicion to believe Hussein was hiding WMD. But this last point is a (strong) side-point, and the point remains regardless.
Only we do now know, Yosi, that the “best” intelligence in fact was mixed, and that material information throwing doubt on the invasion scenario was simply discounted – and we know that great reliance was placed by the Administration on dissident exile sources, such as Shalabi, despite intelligence information that their info was suspect.
My hunch is that Bush believed in what he was doing, but he was so closed minded and biased that in essence he cooked the books.
Yonason, Those are allegations leveled by enemies of the Administration. But even if we accept it (which I don’t) for the sake of argument, the fact that there was a reasonable possibility WMD existed [and the fact Hussein threw out the inspectors and actually used WMD against his own people in the 80’s — so we KNOW with certainty he had WMD at one point, and was working to acquire nuclear WMD i.e. Israel’s bombing of his nuclear reactor] in Iraq, and at that point option 1 (from my previous comment) is a far superior option, than G-d forbid option 2.
No one, not even enemies of the Administration, have alleged that the U.S. was confident that Iraq lacked WMD. Without that confidence, no one can reasonably dismiss the necessity to eliminate that threat with armed action — certainly not someone without intimate intelligence information from that time.
(P.S. Now I understand where you replied to me, that you mentioned.)
Yonasan, as a religious Jew, you should know better then swallowing what the corrupt, biased media has to say. History will show President Bush to be a principled and courageous leader in the mold of Harry Truman. But since you’ve swallowed the media talking points hook, line and sinker, I’ll spend some time to correct the record. Not that I’ll necessarily convince you , as you are speaking from emotion and not from reason, but at least other readers will see that Frum Jews owe hakaros hatov to the best president we’ve ever had.
Let me address what you wrote point by point.
1. “By invading Iraq and toppling Hussein we removed the one regional check on Iran; this has imperiled us, the Israelis and the entire Middle East – Bush policies have directly created the rise of Iran and Shia Islam;”
A well known media meme which has been thoroughly discredited. Iran and Iraq stopped fighting in 1988. They did not “check” each other at all since. Did Iran stop Saddam in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? Did Iraq stop Iran’s involvement in terror, which runs back to the beginning of the current regime? On the contrary, were Saddam still around facing a nuclear-seeking Iran, he would have gone all out to get one himself. So instead of one rouge nation seeking nukes, we’d have two. What would we do then, invade both? There is no evidence at all that Saddam’s removal helped Iran in any way. If you have any, please share it. On the contrary, Iran must be even more careful, as we have a much greater interest in their neighborhood than just Israel, we are now invested in a secure Iraq.
Bottom line, Iran has been working toward this goal for decades now. A Saddam regime still in existence would mean a Middle East on the brink of nuclear war at worst, or a nuclear arms race at best, as you can be sure Egypt, Syria, and Jordan would be clamoring to join the party.
2. “The justifications asserted for invading Iraq were based on result-oriented intelligence analysis that purposefully excluded any contrary information,and in some cases raise legitimate questions whether deliberate falsehoods were involved.”
Okay so Clinton (who in 1998 said exactly the same things about Iraq that Bush did in 2003) lied, every world leader lied, 70% of Congress who voted for the war lied.
Here are the facts. In 2003 NOBODY who mattered was claiming that Saddam didn’t have WMD, even those opposed to the war only said that we should continue with the sanctions. The overwhelming majority of people, expert and layman alike, agreed with Bush that Saddam had to go. The war had 90% approval rating. So all the Monday morning quarterbacks who turned their backs on the war the minute something began to go wrong are nothing more than spineless, self-serving cowards.
As far as intelligence goes, it is always an imprecise science, but this was the general consensus in the intelligence community way before Bush arrived. So if someone was deliberately lying, it wasn’t Bush.
Any reasonable person can see for himself that Bush had no selfish reason to go into Iraq. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose. He was riding high at 70%+ approval, the dreamed up narishkiet that Bush went in for oil or to avenge his father or because of some neocon (read: Jewish) conspiracy is ridiculous, mindless and ignorant of history. He went into Iraq, because he felt, as did Clinton before him, that Iraq was a threat to the US and the world, much like Iran is now. He might have been wrong in hindsight, but he did the right thing at the time and if you didn’t oppose him then you have no right to complain now.
3. “Bush’s refusal to negotiate with “enemy” states has proven destructively counter productive (even Bush now admits this, having recently sent emissaries to Teheran), and flies in the face of history; during the Vietnam War Nixon negotiated with the North Vietnamese – during the height of the Cold War we negotiated with both the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. To say that negotiations with an enemy is appeasement is just jibberish;”
The gibberish here is your ignorant claims. Bush never refused to negotiate with anybody. He negotiated with Iraq, gave Saddam ultimatum after ultimatum and only went to war when it was clear, even according to the UN, that diplomacy was going nowhere. He negotiated with North Korea together with other countries for many years, he just refused bilateral talks, which were just an attempt by NK to score some international legitimacy. He has supported negotiations with Iran through the UN for years. He just doesn’t believe that negotiation solves everything, which as Jews we should agree with wholeheartedly.
4. “Bush’s cowboy, Rambo go-it-alone diplomacy might make hotheads “feel good” – but in the real world we need the support of our NATO allies;”
Hold it, you just said Bush refused to negotiate, now you say he insisted on hogging all the negotiation for himself? Make up your mind! Besides, we’ve had the support of our NATO allies in both Afghanistan and even Iraq, where had support from 36 countries and a UN resolution.
“and no President before him has done so much to damage our diplomatic relationships;”
Nonsense. Another Media Known Fact ™. If that were so why did both France and Germany install pro-American, Pro-Bush leaders in Sarkozy and Merkel? Besides as a Jew, do you really want the US to kowtow to Palestinian-loving EU bureaucrats? Were the US to do that, Israel would not be long for existence, chas veshalom. The world is full of anti-Semitic, pro-Arab selfish socialists who are jealous of America and only like America when it is being beaten down. I could care less for our “diplomatic relationships”.
5. “No President before Bush has either asserted absolute Executive authority to the extent he has, or has had so many policies declared unconstitutional by the Courts (even conservative Courts);”
Absolute Executive Authority? Do you even know what that means, or are you just parroting what you read on Daily Kos? Can you offer any examples? As far as the courts, Bush has won as many court battles as he’s lost, get your facts straight. Every president wins some and loses some.
6. “No President before Bush has sought to eliminated the right of Habeas Corpus for an entire class of detainees (Corts stopped him); ”
No president had 3,000 innocent people killed on US territory, an attack which could have been prevented had Bush policies been in effect before 9/11 instead of the Clinton “wall of separation”. We had Mousouii and we could have gotten the rest had the agencies involved been allowed to talk to one another.
Oh and btw, one other president had his nation attacked. His name? FDR. His response? Internment for US CITIZENS of Japanese descent, unlike Bush who went after non-citizens who violated the Geneva conventions by not wearing uniforms and therefore have NO rights, not US nor international. They are child-murdering animals and you’re worried about their rights? Tell that to David Chatuel. Shame on you.
7. “The denigration of both civil liberties and Separation of Powers vis a vis the Congress under the Bush administration have been unprecedented and frightenly stunning”
Parrot, meet cracker. Care to elaborate or cite any examples? Do you know of anybody, anybody at all who has been hurt by Bush’s alleged “denigration of civil liberties” or is this just theoretical garbage. How did Bush encroach on the SOP vis-à-vis Congress? By claiming executive privilege? I have news for you, that’s in the Constitution.
8. “Whether it is an invasion of Iraq botched with too few troops and decisions such as disbanding the Iraqi Army, and the unintended consequence of elevating the Iranians ”
The invasion was not botched, it was flawless. The aftermath was mishandled, but if you think this is something new, then you are even more ignorant than I thought. Do you know how many millions of soldiers have died in wars throughout history because of mistaken decisions? In WWII, I could cite for you half a dozen examples of boneheaded strategies that cost more lives in ONE DAY then have been killed in Iraq in total. So yes mistakes were made, but these are inevitable. The administration tried to do it’s best, until it came up with the surge, which has worked, and we are WINNING in Iraq today.
“(unintended – though predicted in 2002 and 2003 by many Middle East experts),”
Not true. The majority, by far, felt that we would be a greater check on Iran being next door. Revisionist history at it’s best.
” or the mishandling of Katrina . . .”
Do you really want to go there? To blame Katrina on Bush while ignoring Nagin, Blanco and the rest of the corrupt and incompetent officials in Louisiana is beneath contempt. Disaster relief begins at the local level and works its way up. While Katrina was no shining moment for the federal gov’t, to put the lion’s share of the blame on Bush is nothing more than partisan politics. Who left 500 buses in a parking lot instead of using them to evacuate people? Nagin. Who refused to mobilize and evacuate after receiving a phone call warning from Bush? Nagin. So go ahead, blame Bush if it makes you feel better, but it’s a lie.
“if any of us performed our jobs with a comparable level of competancy we’d be fired. ”
The only thing incompetent about Bush is his PR office. They should all be fired for allowing the media to tar and feather a good and principled man for no reason at all.
“These are among the reasons why many serious and intelligent people have reasoned and though-out opinions that nominate Bush for the title of the worst President ever. ”
Those “serious and intelligent people” (gag) are all lefty’s who hate Israel, hate Jewish values, want to see this country reduced to some socialist European basket case.
Bush was dealt some real bad situations, not of his own making, and did very well considering. He will be remembered as another Truman: honest, principled, doing what’s right even against popular opinion. His term was free of personal scandal, he had the courage never to allow Arafat into the White House based on principle alone, he has kept America safe while terror has struck England, Spain, and many other countries. For most of his term the economy was very solid and growing, the current mess is a result of Democratic policies he tried to curtail. I could go on, but I’ll finish with this. Any frum Jew with eyes not blinded by the media that hates us, can see that we owe President George W. Bush a debt of gratitude. He is the best president frum Jews and Jews in general have had in the White House ever. Whether we are smart enough to recognize it at this time or not.
I am in complete concurrence with all the points made by Yechiele. You put it extremely well (albeit in strong language.)
Joseph, the strong language comes from my utter disgust and dismay with Yidden taking positions which they should know better, much better. The average person in American doesn’t get hurt much personally by elections, at most his taxes go up. Our brothers in Israel however, get killed Chas Veshalom when American pressure force the Israeli government to pursue reckless and dangerous policies. Which is why it is incumbent on us to do out utmost to have Ohavei Yisroel in positions of power in America. it is literally a matter of saving lives.
Yechiele – I’m having lunch with Yonason on Tuesday. Why don’t you join, so we can set him straight? Are you in the 5 boros?
Ask the editor for my e-mail and drop me a note.
Sorry Joseph, I’m from out of town, but thanks for the offer and good luck!
shoots. where do you live? i’d like to know which town is blessed with such smart fellows.
# 25 – Yechiele (you too Yosi) – First, I will ignore your comment “Yonasan, as a religious Jew, you should know better then swallowing what the corrupt, biased media has to say…” That is a non-substantive ad hominum attack..
I am going to address here the civil liberties issue, as I think it is potentially the most serious one in the long term.
President Bush may not be the only president to sign off on torture, warrantless surveillance, illegal monitoring of opposition groups, ethnic and religious profiling, mass arrest and detention of perceived “foreign radicals” – but he has taken it far enough beyond the usual threshold, and that is why he has attracted criticism from so many decent and thoughtful people
And it continues – Just last month, in what may be an attempt to nail down his security wish list before January 20th, the administration issued new guidelines for the FBI that permit agents to use unprecedented (fact not hyperbole)and, to me chillingly, intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans . . . even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.
FBI agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and then lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends.
This is unprecedented in the United States – The changes also give the FBI, which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others (Are old enough to remember the revelations about J. Edgar Hoover?), expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background.
The administration shows further disdain for Americans’ privacy rights and for Congress’s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security.
That law requires the department’s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans’ privacy — and it clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House. Notwithstanding the clear language of the statute, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law “does not prohibit” officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. This is the same Office of Legal Counsel whose memos on the legality of water-boarding and torture were later exposed and retracted as much legal nonsense.
You also say “Do you know how many millions of soldiers have died in wars throughout history because of mistaken decisions? In WWII, I could cite for you half a dozen examples of boneheaded strategies that cost more lives in ONE DAY then have been killed in Iraq in total. So yes mistakes were made, but these are inevitable”
Cute – but you be hard pressed site another case where a very senior military commander publicly called for measures that the government ignored, and which turrned out to be
In February of 2003 Gen. Eric Shinseki, then Army Chief of Staff, said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with “ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems” . .
In response to questioning by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, Shinseki said he couldn’t give specific numbers of the size of an occupation force but would rely on the recommendations of commanders in the region. Then . . and read this carefully my right wing friends:
“How about a range?” said Levin.
“I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers,” the general said. “Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful.”
As a result of this testimony, Shenseki was forced to resign, as the comments were contrary to the Bush Rumsfeld mantra – – but Shinseki was right, and according to my son, who was a soldier from 2002 – 2007, getting out as a Seargent, to this day Shinseki is a hero among the troops.
You also comment “Those “serious and intelligent people” (gag) are all lefty’s who hate Israel, hate Jewish values, want to see this country reduced to some socialist European basket case.”
By saying such a thing you seem to be of the view that seriously committed Jews who are reasonable people cannot possibly differ with you. That deserves no further comment.
No more time – Shabbos is coming and I have to go to work
# 31 Pashuteh Yid – As to your comment “when you start a war, you don’t come crying about disproportionate force, or that you don’t enjoy this or that bomb. If you don’t like disproportionate force and loss of civilians, then don’t start a war against our civilians”
You may be right . . . but the international Law of War, the Geneva Convention, the post-WWII Nuremburg Trials, and NATO and US military doctrine all disagree with you.
Dear Joseph, Pashuteh Yid and Yechiele:
Food for Thought.
In an article that was emailed to me some time ago entitled “Fascism Anyone?”, Laurence Britt compared the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet, and he identified 14 characteristics common to those dictatorships.
Here are identifying the 14 characteristics:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
6. Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
#33, theres no such “international law.” Does Hiroshima and Nagasaki remind you of anything?
Yonason/#32, Nice, but absolutely not a shred of relevance to this discussion.
My last comment was addressed to #34 (not 32).
#35, “theres no such “international law.” Does Hiroshima and Nagasaki remind you of anything?”
Very interesting – I will pass this on to a friend who studied the subject at West Point.
By the way, the issue of how proportionality applies to strategic bombing was much debated after WWII – If the Hiroshima/Nagasaki raids were on balance deemed reasonably necessary and appropriate to save lives, i.e to avoid an invasion of Japan with attendant Okinawa scale losses, it would be “proportional.”
Hey Yosi – re your #36 “Nice, but absolutely not a shred of relevance to this discussion.”
There are reasonably intelligent people, people who are moral, frum, good parents,loving spouses and loyal citizens who believe that while it would be dangerous and silly leftist nonsense to call Bush a “fascist” – that in fact, there were unprecedented and dangerous tendancies towards:
1. Vilification of opponents;
2. Questioning the patriotism of opponents;
3. Manipulation of the press;
4. Disdain for education;
5. Claims by a secular authority that religion (Christianity) required loyalty to partisan positions;
6. Abrogation of civil liberties previously believed to be inviolate;
7. Attempts to expand executive authority at the expense of the legislative branch;
8. Demonization of organized labor;
9. A cozy and secretive relationship with industrial lkeadership, at the expense of regulatory oversight.
Save this list – we can discuss specific examples over lunch.
Yonason, thanks for your posts.
In quoting “Fascism Anyone” are you implying that you see these characteristics in the Bush administration? I do agree that many of these exist (#1, #3, partly #5, #7, and definitely #11) but I don’t see it as fascism. And many of these are characteristic of many other types of governments.
Another question: what do you think would have been an appropriate military response to 9/11?
And bonus question: who do you think would have been the best presidential candidate?
Yonason, with all due respect, these talking points come from Daily Kos or Huff Post, and are often mimicked in the leftist mainstream media.
Additionally, “international law” is used as a catch-all phrase to mean whatever the socialist/leftist/Europeans want it to mean, at any particular time.
anon: (sorry for crashing)
“what do you think would have been an appropriate military response to 9/11?”
More or less what President Bush has done. The proof is in the pudding. There have been no more fatal terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.
“who do you think would have been the best presidential candidate?”
G-d forbid should have Al Gore won and been in charge on 9/11.
Actually, I meant the best presidential candidate in 2008. And I’d really like to also see Yonason’s opinions when he gets the chance to post.
# 39 anon for this – In response to “In quoting “Fascism Anyone” are you implying that you see these characteristics in the Bush administration? I do agree that many of these exist (#1, #3, partly #5, #7, and definitely #11) but I don’t see it as fascism.”
As I said in #39, I think it would be dangerous and silly leftist nonsense to call Bush “fascist” – but I do see “characteristics”.
What would I have done post-9/11. Taking into this disclaimer . . . I was a deck seaman and have been a serious student of airpower projection – I claim no expertise in land war issues . . . I believe we should have gone all out with American troops in Afghanistan – It seems to have been a major an error to rely on Afghanistan’s “tribal leaders” to go after the Taliban ann Bin Laden on the ground – Tora Bora turned out to be a disaster; I think we have let the entire Afghanistan situation go down the crapper.
Anon for this – who do I think would have been the best presidential candidate? Harry Truman.
Seriously, I’m not sure. At the risk of making Joseph puke, and of inciting calls to have me thrown off the site (one fellow in September claimed I am “…not appropriate…” for a frum site). . . I am optimistic that Obama will do well. As only a Nixon could “get away with” a rapproachment with China, I think Obama will have a much better chance of dealing with Russia, the Syrians, Iran, etc.
By the way, have you seen today’s news about the report of “independent military observers” – to the effect that Georgia’s claim of South Ossetian aggression appears to have been fabricated by the Georgians . . . and that this summer’s war in fact appears to have been started by Georgia’s indiscriminate shelling and rocketing of Tshhinvali? Interesting, no?
Joseph – I have never seen either the “Daily Kos or Huff Post” – have heard of the latter – haven’t a clue what the former is.
Yonason,
I never trusted that nationalist meshugana president of Georgia. Russia was clearly in the right in that conflict, and Georgia got what was coming to them.
Additionally, the West has no “taaina” against Russia for recognizing the independence of the 2 former Georgia territories, after the despicable behavior the West displayed in Yugoslavia/Serbia/Kosovo, beginning back from 1994 through 2008. The Serbs, allies of the West and Jews back in WWII, are not allowed there own independent state from Muslim Bosina, yet Bosnia and Kosovo are granted recognition from Yugoslavia/Serbia. A true outrage.
Believe it or not Joseph, I am a bit hawkish on foreign policy, and I believe that the concept of spheres of influence still applies post-Cold War. I think we have no more business messing too much with states on Russia’s border, than would the Russians have messing with Mexico.
Ciao
Yonason, I agree with that (47).
Yonasan, I’ve basically made the case the President Bush has been a very good president especially for Jews. Your response has been to glom on to irrelevant, potential “civil liberties” issues, which have ZERO practical effect on American’s lives and which are put into place to prevent innocent people from being slaughtered. Great discussion fodder for Ivy league university’s, irrelevant to regular people.
Let me address your points once again.
“I am going to address here the civil liberties issue, as I think it is potentially the most serious one in the long term.
President Bush may not be the only president to sign off on torture, warrantless surveillance, illegal monitoring of opposition groups, ethnic and religious profiling, mass arrest and detention of perceived “foreign radicals” – but he has taken it far enough beyond the usual threshold, and that is why he has attracted criticism from so many decent and thoughtful people”
Most of what you say is NOT TRUE. You cite no sources and keep on relying on nameless, faceless “decent and thoughtful people”. Bush has NOT signed off on torture, there were two instances of waterboarding done on TERRORISTS with knowledge of ongoing plots against America. I FULLY support such efforts. This is known as the Ticking Time Bomb theory, which nobody disputes. If a terrorist has knowledge that can save lives, we should get that information by any means necessary. Do you disagree? Would you not agree if your family was under threat?
There is no “illegal monitoring of opposition groups, ethnic and religious profiling, mass arrest and detention of perceived “foreign radicals “happening. Period. Nor does Bush support this Can you cite any sources for this?
“And it continues – Just last month, in what may be an attempt to nail down his security wish list before January 20th, the administration issued new guidelines for the FBI that permit agents to use unprecedented (fact not hyperbole)and, to me chillingly, intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans . . . even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.”
As usual hyperbole at it’s best. Sure the FBI can do whatever they want to whomever they want for no reason at all. Please.
”FBI agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and then lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. “
The FBI has ALWAYS infiltrated groups that attempt to cause trouble and have used the techniques you mention for eons. They lie about their identities so that the suspect doesn’t wisen up that the FBI is after him. My how orginal, what is every undercover operation if not lying about their identity? It is a very dangerous world out there and if you think that it can be fought with a Boy Scout’s honor code, you are naive to the point of absurdity. People who have similar views have enacted policies that have led to untold amounts of pain and suffering to innocent people. We are in a war against terror and we must fight it with all means at out disposal and win.
“This is unprecedented in the United States – The changes also give the FBI, which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others (Are old enough to remember the revelations about J. Edgar Hoover?), expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background. “
First you say it’s unprecedented then you say they have a “long history”? Once again, all over the place. As for racial profiling, I am 100% for it. If Chasidic Jews with beards were bombing churches, I’d have no problem with being stopped more then others. It’s common sense and saves lives, just ask the Israelis who have been doing it for years.
“The administration shows further disdain for Americans’ privacy rights and for Congress’s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security.
That law requires the department’s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans’ privacy — and it clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House. Notwithstanding the clear language of the statute, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law “does not prohibit” officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. This is the same Office of Legal Counsel whose memos on the legality of water-boarding and torture were later exposed and retracted as much legal nonsense. “
Wow, your life must be going great if what itches you is such irrelevant minutiae. These are the normal DC turf battles which happen every day.
“You also say “Do you know how many millions of soldiers have died in wars throughout history because of mistaken decisions? In WWII, I could cite for you half a dozen examples of boneheaded strategies that cost more lives in ONE DAY then have been killed in Iraq in total. So yes mistakes were made, but these are inevitable”
“Cute – but you be hard pressed site another case where a very senior military commander publicly called for measures that the government ignored, and which turrned out to be “
You clearly are not too well versed in history. “Very senior military commanders” are ignored EVERY DAY. There are many of them with many varying opinions on many issues. There is no way to satisfy them all. Just to enlighten you, let me cite an example. General Schwarzkopf among many others, wanted to go in and finish Saddam during the first Gulf War. They were ignored. The result? The second Gulf War. This has happened literally thousand of times throughout history. That you think otherwise is frankly amazing.
“In February of 2003 Gen. Eric Shinseki, then Army Chief of Staff, said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with “ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems” . .
In response to questioning by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, Shinseki said he couldn’t give specific numbers of the size of an occupation force but would rely on the recommendations of commanders in the region. Then . . and read this carefully my right wing friends:
“How about a range?” said Levin.
“I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers,” the general said. “Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful.”
As a result of this testimony, Shenseki was forced to resign, as the comments were contrary to the Bush Rumsfeld mantra – – but Shinseki was right, and according to my son, who was a soldier from 2002 – 2007, getting out as a Seargent, to this day Shinseki is a hero among the troops.”
So General Shinseki was right, so what? There were many more Generals, more senior than him, who disagreed, his was a lone view. Why should his view carry the day? Oh right, hindsight, gee how original.
You also comment “Those “serious and intelligent people” (gag) are all lefty’s who hate Israel, hate Jewish values, want to see this country reduced to some socialist European basket case.”
“By saying such a thing you seem to be of the view that seriously committed Jews who are reasonable people cannot possibly differ with you. That deserves no further comment.”
Once again, duck and cover. I’ve said nothing about serious and committed Jews, I asked you to provide some names, which you haven’t. (Friends in shul don’t count, I mean well known experts) The positions you’ve taken are the positions of the far left, which make no sense on their own, especially from a frum Jewish viewpoint. The far left hates us and everything we stand for and must be fought and pushed back. Our supporters on the right and in the Republican party must know that frum Jews appreciate their strong support and commitment to Israel, Jewish values and economic policies that are the best for our community.
“No more time – Shabbos is coming and I have to go to work .”
On this we can agree. Good Shabbos
Yechiele — I’d like to get to know you better.