It's bigger than Egypt and Israel...it seems to me that some Israelis feel their own form of exceptionalism.
Given that Israel has all around it countries still technically at war with them, and with leaders who want to see all Jews dead, and that they've fought several wars because of those things, I can understand them feeling "their own form of exceptionalism".
It's one of those things where one wishes for a time machine, to go back and tell the Arabs, "Accept the two-party state, because if you don't, your children and grandchildren are going to grow up poor, treated like cattle, and many of them will never grow up, and many who do won't be whole, but be cripples for life".
I watched the entire thing. Brilliant! Thank you very much for posting the link, boogalee.
Max Blumenthal is a true journalist, and has the story of the rise of the radical right down exactly. The Republican party ignored Eisenhower's warning of the radical religious right when they started infiltrating during Reagan's administration. All JUBBERS who are right wing Republicans should watch this so you can find out why you are the way you are. He says it so much better than I could and it's exactly what I've always believed.
Blumenthal is good, though he's not as good a speaker as I expected.
If the Republicans had remained Eisenhower-type folks.... <shurg>
You're very welcome Bob..glad you enjoyed it. I've been making noise about these hard right wing cults and their theocratic designs on our nation for some time now. Another place to keep track of what's going down is at talk2action.com...that's where I first heard about them 'colonizing' the military, and the Air Force Academy specifically. Nasty people...
The Air Force Academy took me by surprise. A lot of what he had to say was no news to me; some of it I observed from inside the Christian Right before I had that demon cast out of me
. I know that Campus Crusade for Christ has strong ties to the Academy, and so does the Institute for Basic Youth Conflicts, but I didn't realize just how deep the infiltration by Dobson's minions was.
Thinking of Dobson, ever since one summer at a gathering called "Jesus Northwest", he's given me the creeps. They played tapes of him in one of the booths, and I remember standing staring at one of the TV screens practically holding my jaw in my hand, because he was flat out lying about things any decently educated person should know better. I forget which of his books I bought to check out, but I remember thinking, before more than two chapters in, "This guy is deranged -- he's pulling crap from Greek philosophy and mythology, wrapping Bible verses around it, and telling people it's the truth!" I guess I was naive, but having considered claims on my own and come to Christ, I really believed that leaders in such high positions would be honest and trustworthy.
When the GOP became the party of the religious right in 1970's is when I left the party. It is now God's Only Party with the prophets of late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and rest of the money grabbing tv preachers.
I didn't leave it quite so soon; the party as I knew it was still pretty much the party of Eisenhower and Goldwater.
Then came Reagan, whom I liked, and all the propaganda extolling him as almost an anointed leader, and the sludge shoveled out by the Republican National Committee -- on which I bought a seat (only fifty bucks) just to get the inside stuff. Before Reagan was gone, I couldn't take any more, and told them where to shove it (but not before I;d collected a whole pile of postage-paid reply envelopes, which I filled with remnants of applications for the Publishers' Clearing House sweepstakes and sent in...).
When I was at OSU, a grad student did research on how the Religious Blight took over the GOP, and it was scary. He didn't trace it back as far as Rushdoonie, as Blumenthal did, but he did track down actual strategy plans for a step-by-step seizure of power from the bottom up. One of their models was how the more radical left elements in the 60s got so much influence and accomplished so much!
I just thought of a bumper sticker that would be fun:
God said it. I believe it.
Now I don't have to think -- yay!
