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the curious thing in the nyt article really is that it provides very little sense of how to situate the positions it outlines in the context of the broader spectrum of conservative groups/interests/populations that scuttles about beneath the rubric of the republican party's populist coalition.
in the end, this is a recurrent problem with articles of this kind that refer to rather than analyze the role of protestant evangelicals in the right's coalition.
this evangelical unconditional support of the most reactionary vision of israel---one that coincides with ultra-right wing settler dominated small parties in israel---is not new. i remember running into it when i was in high school, during my little passage through an evangelical group, by way of the writings of that famous far right nutcase hal lindsey....and it has been consistent for some 30 years. probably longer.
i suppose that an implicit cross-over point would be speculations as the personal religious convictions of george w. bush--but i think bush is the main speaks in ways that are very tightly calibrated to reference various elements that comprise the right coalition--to such an extent that i do not know what he actually believes himself and so tend to treat explicit or implicit recourse to him as a way to tying evangelical politics into american state policy and such logic as it has as speculative. it doesn't do the analysis. it transposes a non-analysis to a different register.
so far, then, i basically an running parallel with seaver.
where i diverge from his position--and more sharply than i can say--is on the characterization of the situation israel finds itself in--that israel is the victim of unprovoked actions when the simple fact of the matter is that israel is a colonial presence and has been carrying out a brutal occupation of gaza and a colonial style annexation in the west bank. going any further would no doubt entail a threadjack so i'll leave it at that. suffice it to say that israeli civilians have been killed NOT because the state of israeli is some kind of victim, but as a direct function of israeli state policies. viewing it in this way seems to me a simple acknowledgement of the historical facts of the matter and need not extend into any cheerleading at the level of tactics.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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