Miscellany

RCP watch
Sense on science? (via Graeme).

"Realism" watch: Israel
Socialism of Fools on the conservative re-alignment against Israel and its omnipotent "lobby". Closely related, here's Roland on the year Ron Paul went mainstream.

"Realism watch": the Balkans and beyond
Nick Cohen has published a large extract from his What's Left at Standpoint, a section dealing mainly with the Tory and Stalinist opposition to intervention in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the part Noam Chomsky played in that. (H/t Flesh.) John Major is one of the villains of this piece. On Major's dismissal of regime change, Peter says "I can think of some people who may disagree."

Atzmon watch
David "Hasbara" Aaronovitch on the conspiracy theorists who infect the mainstream liberal media.

Who started it?
Flesh is Grass has responded at length and elegantly to the Keith Kahn-Harris-ness I posted here, on how Jews comport themselves in debates about Israel. I think Noga would like it. I need to think some more.

Labourism/Thatcherism
It is one of my new year's resolutions to spend more time on this blog doing a small amount to get the Conservatives not elected. I'm not going to go as far as Darren and re-join. The comment thread on Terry's post about John Mann is interesting in this regard (specifically Peter, who argues that Mann is good on some things (anti-Zionism) and bad on others (socialism)). And, to keep in mind what we've got to deal with, Nick Cohen's reader's guide to Thatcherism.

Odd news item of the week
Jesse Walker on Beyoncé Knowles playing privately for Hannibal Gaddafi (son of Muammar Gaddafi). Conclusion: "You can read that story and damn Beyoncé for entertaining the thuggish son of a tyrant, or you can take it as another sign that liberatory vulgar culture is infiltrating the Muslim world. Or maybe you'll just marvel at the news that Jon Bon Jovi was on Qaddafi's guest list. Hell, you can do all three."

Chomskyism/Decent watch
And if you haven't read the whole of this long, involved and obsessive comment thread on Noam Chomsky (and Cambodia, anarchism, liberalism, popular frontism, anti-fascism, lesser evilism, decentism and much more). Related to some of those topics, as well as the Keith articles and the Bosnia stuff above, is Martin Bright's piece "Am I a neocon or an appeaser?" which starts with the question "How does the political editor of the Jewish Chronicle write about Gaza?", a propos of the great Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza. (Also read: Martin Bright on Tzipi Livni and the Guardian, clarifies both some issues about both Decentism and Guardianism.) Update: Andy has a long and well-researched response on my comments about Chomsky and Cambodia here, and I forgot to link to Ignoblus' post on Berube here, and he has a follow-up here.

Leftovers
I added a couple of leftovers, Fisk on China and Cohen on anti-green convervatism, to this post, on Friday afternoon. Update: I'm still going through my leftovers, and here are two more from Adloyada: on the UCL Islamic Society and the Christmas Day bomb plot, and on Oliver Miles and the Arab Lobby.

Comments

ModernityBlog said…
Thanks Bob,

Good set of links, I missed most of those when they came around originally.

Didn't know that about Oliver Miles but it fits.

I wonder if anyone has ever done any investigation on the oil/opec lobby relating to these topics?
Peter Risdon said…
Hope you don't mind me linking to my own post, but Wade Watts was one hell of a man. I think you'll be interested if you haven't come across the clip before.

Sorry I didn't see you tag me with a meme last year. I pretty much stopped blogging and only saw you had when I did some catching up recently.
bob said…
On the "Arab lobby" and the oil lobby - I would like to see more on this. The right-wing Discover the Networks site has a page on the Arab lobby http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catId=178&type=group
and I recall some interesting discussion of a thinktank at CiFWatch, but I can't find it now.

Peter, thanks for the great link, and please do fulfil your meme duties when you have a chance!
TNC said…
A few “Arab Lobby” - “Oil Lobby” links:

Entry from the Jewish Virtual Library
http://tinyurl.com/yetxdzj

“The Vast Power of the Saudi Lobby” by John MacArthur, Harpers
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/04/jrm-pubnote-20070417

“Discover the Arab Lobby “Network” by John Perazzo, Front Page Magazine
http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=670

“The Effects of the Pro-Arab Lobby on American Foreign Policy in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Khalil H. Marrar, Dept. of Political Science, De Paul University
http://tinyurl.com/y9b6c4j

by the same author “Lobbying Public Opinion: The Pro-Arab Lobby and the Two-State Solution”
http://tinyurl.com/y8oapec

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