Daily Archives: July 13, 2014


An Occupier’s Peace or a Just Peace – Shir Hever on Reality Asserts Itself (4/4)

The Real News Network has the final segment of the interview with Sher Hever, An Occupier’s Peace or a Just Peace – Shir Hever on Reality Asserts Itself (4/4).

HEVER: Exactly. Yeah. It cannot be a Jewish state. It’s going to be–I mean, even if there will be a separate Palestinian state according to what we call the two-state solution, then the battle will continue. The struggle for equal rights in Israel will continue, because Israel cannot be a Jewish state; it has to be a state for all its citizens, one way or another. And the way that this defeat comes, it comes very suddenly. And, of course, the model is South Africa, where one week before apartheid collapsed, 90 percent of white people in South Africa supported apartheid. One week after apartheid collapsed, they all say we were always against it. And the Israeli minister of justice, Tzipi Livni, just said a couple of weeks ago, in response to the BDS movement, she said, I went to South Africa and spoke to some Jewish people there about their experiences from this era of the fall of apartheid, and the main thing they told me is it came unexpectedly, it came suddenly. There is a moment in which you lose courage, you lose your faith that you can continue to repress other people forever. And that moment may not be as far as we believe. I’m hopeful.

JAY: I think you would–personally, you’d have to see some pretty serious revolutions in the Arab world, which is not out of the question. But if Israel was then looking at revolutionary progressive governments actually willing to do more than lip service in support of the Palestinians, that might change the equation. But right now I can’t see it. With the current Arab regimes, Israel does not have much to fear


This interview is very valuable to watch, so I don’t want my following comments to dissuade you from watching it. I make these comments only because I think that The Real News Network has the opportunity to do a much better job than it is doing with these kinds of interviews.

Once again, we have an interviewee desperately trying to answer the deeper question, but Paul Jay seems to be more interested in convincing the interviewee of Paul Jay’s point. Paul should get himself interviewed so he can make the points he wants to make. Then, when an interviewee is about to make some profound statement Paul won’t have to try to switch the topic back to what he wants said in the interview.

There were so many times when Paul could have asked follow up questions on Sher’s train of thought that might have led to some profound insights for Paul, but more importantly, for the rest of us. It is such a shame that he missed giving us those opportunities.

I hope that people at The Real News Network will review this last segment to see all the missed opportunities that I saw. If the people there cannot see the missed opportunities, they need to keep looking for someone who is able to see what I saw.


Summer Rerun: Why Is the Left Slice of the Democrats Getting Crushed?

Naked Capitalism has the article Summer Rerun: Why Is the Left Slice of the Democrats Getting Crushed?

Up until the election, all public polling had shown Sheyman leading by double digits, and Sheyman had outraised and out-enthused Schneider.  Sheyman had as his platform breaking up the banks, ending various wars, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and marriage equality.  He had worked at Moveon, and he proudly called himself a progressive, while attacking Schneider as a closet Republican who had given money to the GOP and voted in Republican primaries.  All of the talking points developed in the course of seven or eight years of internet Democratic politics – “bold progressive”, “people-power”, and “progressive” were on display.  He lost badly.

Some good questions, perhaps.  I am not sure about the answers, though.  It could be that the public is just not ready yet.  Maybe we are still in the building phase.

There is no candidate in Massachusetts right now that has stirred me to action as much as Elizabeth Warren did.  She is on the leading edge of the building phase. Maura Healy is the closest one that I can think of, but the office of Attorney General is just not as stirring as the office of US Senator.

It is tough for a politician to make the case that she or he will make a difference.  Elizabeth Warren got over that threshold.

Otherwise, I am out of ideas on how to explain it or what to do.