Good Morning America, how are you ...

[Pilgrim]

I kind of figure that the best check on the Koreans is China.  They're right next door, and they have good reason not to let the idiot dictator in Korea run amok....because they're the first that will get hurt.  If Korea gets too extreme, I expect China to be the one to pick up a big stick and tell them to cool it.

[eb2]

I agree the Jerusalem development was a blunder.  But in another way of thinking, this was just yet another example of foreign governments not taking the administration seriously.  The Israeli announcement also came from another government agency, and there has been some discussion that this was a dig at Benny too. Or he ordered announced then to dig at the Obama dictates that Biden was there to deliver.  And that this all could have been a snub of Hillary to some degree.  Time will tell of course.  It is complex for sure.  Lots of intrigue here to dive into.  But clearly not being handled too well.

I dunno on the North Koreans.  They clearly don't make the Chinese happy, but they don't piss them off as much as most people would like.  Their dance is far too complicated.  It is reminiscent of the way Hanoi would deny involvement with the Viet Cong.  But, the Chinese do want Taiwan back.  And they have managed to siphon off most of our basic manufacturing jobs (and yes, I know most people here don't want them) along with advanced technology provided by US manufacturing reps (what was that Lenin said about rope?).  Realistically, we have no real alternative but to deal with them.  They can slide into a somewhat bellicose mode with the US.  Those missiles didn't get fired without Beijing's say so, and the waves of calculated hacking that the CIA has been having fits with came from the same place.

[uwe]

I think China was probably aghast at what the North Koreans did. South Korea's economic might as a trading partner is of far greater importance to them than ideological allegiance to that nutcase in a barren landscape. The Chinese have been communist for perhaps 70 years, but they have been traders for a couple of thousand years longer.

China will bend over backwards to spy out western technology, but as long as they do that I'm reasonably confident they won't bomb us! Asian views in regard of intellectual property can at best be called callous, to them imitation as the sincerest form of flattery is not an insult. 

And democracy in China is a question of time. Once it arrives it will probably be closer to Russian style "guided democracy" than to our democratic standards, but it will still be a change for the better.  Freeing the market without freeing the people has been attempted by kings and queens, South American generalissimos and communist heads of states. It never works in the long run. It's like allowing people to learn to read and write as the Catholic Church learned in the middle ages the hard way.

[lowend1]

(if history was just, Israel should now be situated somewhere in Germany)

Except that Moses didn't come down from Zugspitze with the Ten Commandments.

[uwe]

True, but the trouble with that type of argument is that it would send you guys packing too!  Imagine Native American settlements in Washington, D.C., and the gradual eviction of non-Native American populace from parts of the city. And compared to the loss of Jerusalem by the jews in Roman times, the loss of what is today the US is comparatively recent to the Native Americans.

I'm all for Israel. And it may keep its nuclear bomb if it makes everyone there sleep better. But as regards Jerusalem's Arab part, the Golan Heights, the Gaza strip and the West Bank it's high time for a thinking out of the box solution without citations of Biblical texts. It drives me mad that there is no real progress there.

[eb2]

Imagine Native American settlements in Washington, D.C., and the gradual eviction of non-Native American populace from parts of the city
With the casino money, that may happen!

the loss of what is today the US is comparatively recent to the Native Americans.
I grew up with a lot of Greeks.  What is that country north of Iraq, and below Russia, just east of Cyprus?  Constintinople is in it.  Hmm...Oh, yes.  That is..GREECE, DAMN IT!

[OldManC]

Israel and the U.S. are two completely different circumstances when it comes to land use. I don't mean to sound brutal or cold hearted, but world history is replete with stories of what happens when one people can't hold the land they occupy. Even throughout Europe, for thousands of years one group regularly clobbered another and took any spoils they wanted.

As righteous as the 'Native' populations in the U.S. are seen now (and even they were immigrants to the land if you go back far enough), another group came along that better equipped to harness the land and make better use of it. The Indians got royally screwed of course, but that's yet another reason why some of us in the U.S. don't trust the federal government. That part of government's 'personality' never changes.

As for Israel, whether you're a Bible thumper or not it's pretty well established that the Jewish nation was established in the region long before there even was a Muhammad. I know Hagar and Ishmael might have a problem with that but come on, a family feud going in 3000 years? Time to give it a rest! Whether we believe the Biblical account of that land having been given to the house of Judah by G_d, they certainly do and have faced daunting odds for thousands of years to stay there, even returning time and time again when others kicked them out. The question of settlements in Jerusalem wouldn't even be one if those pesky Arab nations hadn't tried to wipe Israel off the map all those times between 1948 and 1973... And as an aside, the settlements in questions do not violate any agreement the U.S. had with Israel or the Palestinians. This was a new, manufactured outrage. The timing of the announcement may have been bone-headed, but it didn't break any agreements.

If Israel should give up land that was legitimately won in a war they didn't start then the U.S. is going to be losing its left half even sooner than immigration and birth rates would seem to indicate.

[Dave W]

Let's let this thread rest if no one has anything to add about health care. We're a long way off that track and treading in deep water. No way to discuss middle east politics and still keep this neutral.

[OldManC]

I'm good with that, Dave.

[Chaser001]

I know this thread is ending.  Actually, that's probably a good thing.  I just wanted to say, though, that although I do tend to be critical of a lot that goes on in my own country, that doesn't mean that I'm not loyal to the country itself.  There are Americans out there who do go to extremes in criticizing their country, and I don't want to be considered part of that group.  People like to label other people and I've been labeled many things that I'm not through the years.  Certainly, I've been called a liberal by conservatives and a conservative by liberals more times than I care to remember.  But in real life not everything can be confined to an ideology.  Also, I might add that because of neck problems I doubt if I'll even be online much at all for months.  So, I thought I'd go ahead and post this will I could. 

[Freuds_Cat]

I've been called a liberal by conservatives and a conservative by liberals more times than I care to remember. 

The irony here is that the Liberal party are the Conservatives.

[OldManC]

And many of the Conservatives are (Classical) Liberals... 

[Chaser001]

I am aware of how the meaning of liberalism and conservatism has changed through the years.  I have a master's in political science.  Nevertheless, it is something I decided to take in college for various reasons; it is not a consuming passion and I really don't consider myself that much of an expert.  Of course I do know something about it.  I think my dislike of political polarization developed when I was writing my master's thesis on a South American coup.  I pretty much came to the conclusion that I disliked both the leftist government which was overthrow and the conservative regime which replaced it.  This wasn't analogous to the U.S. exactly, because there actually was a valid centrist party also somewhat involved, but more as a bystander.  Certainly, there are no easy solutions to political polarization, not even the creation of a valid third party as I mentioned in a previous post.  But what I was referring to earlier is that there is a tendency for conservatives to label you a liberal if you don't agree with them and for liberals to label you a conservative if you don't agree with them.  I guess what I found the most amusing is that I have probably been labeled a liberal more than anything, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, I may actually be right of center.  On my thesis committee even, one of the liberal professors thought my thesis sounded a little too conservative and the conservative professor thought it was a little bit too liberal.  The third professor, and the most important one, thought the thesis was balanced. 

[Freuds_Cat]

No I mean here in Oz the Liberal party ACTUALLY ARE the conservative party. The Australian equivalent of the American democrats is called the Labor Party. Different terminology from country to country shows how twisted things can get.

To really screw things up even more the Labor party govt of my state South Australia are actually more conservative than the Liberal party. Although this is a bit of an anomaly. Bloody annoying though. While attempting to stay impartial I make the observation that if you wish to vote for the left you should actually be able to and visa versa. In our recent election you could vote Labor (conservative) or Liberal (conservative). The only party offering genuine left ideologies was the Green party. As you can imagine the swing to the Green party was massive.

[Chaser001]

No I mean here in Oz the Liberal party ACTUALLY ARE the conservative party. The Australian equivalent of the American democrats is called the Labor Party. Different terminology from country to country shows how twisted things can get.

To really screw things up even more the Labor party govt of my state South Australia are actually more conservative than the Liberal party. Although this is a bit of an anomaly. Bloody annoying though. While attempting to stay impartial I make the observation that if you wish to vote for the left you should actually be able to and visa versa. In our recent election you could vote Labor (conservative) or Liberal (conservative). The only party offering genuine left ideologies was the Green party. As you can imagine the swing to the Green party was massive.

Yes, terminology can get very confusing.  For example, in Latin America the terms socialism and communism can end up meaning quite different things than you would expect.  In some of the cases I researched, for instance, the socialists were much more radical than you would normally expect to find.  You can't assume that socialism in a particular Latin American country is going to be the same as what you might find in Europe.