Jostein Gaarder's profoundly confused attack on Israel contains an Orwellian lie that is breathtaking in its audacity but dismayingly common.

the state of Israel, with its unscrupulous art of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its own legitimacy.

This assertion makes no sense unless there is something particularly repellent about the way Israel practices war that should single it out from all the other bloody handed states in the world - the states that should remain legitimate. The obvious question is why the US and the UK remain legitimate states in light of their current adventure in Iraq. And while there are many criticisms of the US in Europe, it's Israel that is "illigitimate" even though there is absolutely not one single atrocity committed by Israel in the last 50 years that has any advantage in either originality or scale over the common practice of the European nations and their colonies over the last 300 years or more. (Please note, I'm attacking European ideologies, not defending Israeli atrocities - even in Haaretz you can see too much.)

What accounts for this singling out of Israel is Europe's legacy racism and denial. Gaarder's lie is part and parcel of the anti-semitic constructs of his essay but it cuts to the heart of the colonial past and present and the way Europe and its settler states have refused to come to terms with how they came to the top of the heap on this planet.

Malevolent Design

Duncan Hunter slithers out of the night
Jerry Falwell basks in the warm TV light
George Bush smirks behind his cold gaze
Cheney fangs show he's waiting for prey
Tom Delay coils and shudders in fear
The Nest may devour him some hungry year
James Dobson hisses, we're no spawn of Ape
We're Children of Serpent, descent from the Snake
come closer little mouse.

I was furious about the election theft in 2000.
I was angry about the WMD lies and the war.
I was angry and horrified by Abu Ghraib and the coverup of Bushlag Archipelago.
I was angry about a 5 year war on our environment.
I'm still boiling about Katrina.

Wiretaps seem like nothing. These guys said that habeus corpus was a suggestion, that the Geneva convention was "quaint", that unless it caused major organ damage torture wasn't torture - a few fingernails and a blowtorch are just persuasion. Who is surprised to hear that they spy without a judge's consent? Do people think that you can advocate waterboarding and have qualms about a fucking warrant? That you can applaud a heckuva job when armed to the teeth cops pen citizens in a bowl of sewage and still worry about privacy? I don't get the outrage now.

 

Those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be president of the United States," John Kerry, 12/16/2003

I feel safer
you better feel that way too
show some godamn judgement
better get a clue
Oh that credibility
Makes us rage and swoon
don't ever think we're anti-war
a second too soon.
A careful position, a nuanced debate
a pallid apology
years too late.

The Democrats in Washington who now complain they were fooled had better access to intelligence than did  Scott Ritter and the UN Weapons Inspectors. They had better access than the writers for the Nation Magazine and the authors on Kos and than Atrios and the hundreds of thousands who marched against the war. So their late protestations don't do much for me. But the people who voted for Bush - AGAIN - who donated to his campaign, who shouted down the dissenters and who wanted their tax deductions, who thought "anti-abortion" was only meant to interfere with the right of poor people, who thought Bush was a nice guy you could have a beer with, who wanted to believe that a New England prep-school drunk aristrocrat screw up was a strong and capable Cowboy, who felt tough when children were turned into hamburger by sturm und drang, who sneered at the bleeding-hearts, who sacrificed basic morality for wacky ideas about embryos - all those peope can shove it too.

All right. I feel better now. Welcome to reality fellow citizens.

 

The most concise description of the Republican government was given by a  radical hippie named Isaiah (note the lack of a last name) who said something like:

Your leaders are traitors, and companions of thieves; every one loves bribes, and follows after rewards; they won't protect orphans, and the cause of the widow doesn't matter to them

You can find Isaiah's words in the Bible, which the conservatives consider to be  just like the US Constitution - a source of rules to violated and principles to betray.

So when Sam Alito had the chance to champion the cause of a widow, he predictably rose to moment by supporting the powerful who were stealing from her and at the same time lining his own pockets and violating an oath. Alito had made a written commitment not to judge in cases involving Vanguard funds - since he had a lot of money in the funds. He broke his word, shamed the office he held, and ruled in favor of Vanguard against a widow whose money had been seized.  No wonder he is a conservative favorite.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/03/plaintiff_alleges_alito_conflict/