Suchergebnisse

The campus protests over the Israel-Gaza war and similar demonstrations throughout the United States are ongoing, with questions about free speech, law enforcement overreach, anti-semitism, and individual university responses dominating the headlines.While there have been some pro-Israel "counter-protesters," the overwhelming energy right now is in sympathy for the Palestinians and the thousands of innocent civilians whose lives were lost due to Israel bombardments and tank fire, not to mention the second hand effects of the siege and lack of healthcare. They demand that the U.S. government stop fueling the war with American weapons, and for a ceasefire to end the suffering. But at this point has the media — and therefore the American public — been more focused on the protests rather than the life and death issues the demonstrators ostensibly want raised? This seems particularly apparent given that most of the coverage tends to treat the civilians' plight and apparent Israeli atrocities — what students are actually protesting — as a kind of side point, if those topics are mentioned at all.In the midst of the protests last week, the United Nations revealed, "Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday."The story continued: "The development follows the recovery of hundreds of bodies 'buried deep in the ground and covered with waste' over the weekend at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north. A total of 283 bodies were recovered at Nasser Hospital, of which 42 were identified."Then the gruesome description from the U.N.: "Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes." This news of the mass graves is known to some. Most major news outlets carried it, but below the proverbial fold. It was not a major topic of discussion, on cable news panels or at the top of any headlines in the United States. Meanwhile, children continued to be killed by airstrikes throughout Gaza, and in a grim turn of events, a premature infant who had been taken alive from the womb of her dead mother after a bombing died in the incubator last week.Ironically, a major media focus on stories like these in the first months of the war since Oct. 7 led in part to the protest movements, which have exploded in recent days on college campuses. So how does this bode for American public opinion today, when most of the news coverage is about campus protests and not on the ongoing airstrikes, the lack of food, clean water, healthcare or the pending Rafah invasion? The conditions on the ground have not changed, but media interest has, apparently.After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently announced that he intended to push his country's forces into the westernmost provision of Rafah, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) asked the Biden administration on Tuesday about the potential for civilian casualties. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin responded that Israel's offensive has claimed "far too many civilian deaths already." "We certainly would want to see things done in a much different way" than operations across the rest of Gaza, Austin said.How many Americans saw this exchange in their social media feeds, as opposed to the saturation of protest footage and accompanying vitriol between both sides over the students' rights – or not – to be overtaking buildings, constructing tent cities, shutting down classes, and more? The media should have the ability to cover more than one story at a time, but so often, they refuse to. So, somewhat ironically, the protests have even been a distraction from the actual war in the Middle East. ABC News even acknowledged it, reporting Wednesday, "After weeks of nonstop coverage of destruction and death in the Gaza Strip, media across the wider Middle East have latched onto the demonstrations roiling American university campuses over the Israel-Hamas war."It is much easier for the protests to overshadow the actual misery in Gaza and that is clearly what is happening. While many protesters' intentions might be noble, is there a better distraction right now for Israel to do as it pleases?This is not an argument for or against the protests. Just an observation that probably deserves at least a minimum moment of thought by anyone genuinely concerned about the current plight of the Palestinians.

Over 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died fighting Russia since the invasion, according to President Volodmyr Zelensky last month.Never mind if that's the actual number or not. For Lindsey Graham, it's not enough.Despite no evidence of victory on the horizon, the Republican senator is urging Ukrainian lawmakers to pass a mobilization bill that would force more Ukrainian citizens to be drafted into the military. Currently, men under 27 are exempted from the draft. Graham has a problem with that.The Washington Post reports, "Ukraine's new mobilization law, which has been under debate for months as the country faces a severe shortage of battle-ready troops, proposes lowering the country's draft age to 25. Although citizens can voluntarily join the military starting at age 18, and men between 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country under martial law, the draft has until now protected younger men — many of whom are students — from being forcibly mobilized."Graham told reporters, "I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can't believe it's at 27. You're in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.""We need more people in the line," he said.How brave of Graham.The New York Times reported in late January, "(A)fter nearly two years of bloody fighting, and with Ukraine once again in need of fresh troops to fend off a new Russian push, military leaders can no longer rely solely on enthusiasm. More men are avoiding military service, while calls to demobilize exhausted frontline soldiers have grown.""The change in mood has been particularly evident in the heated debates over a new mobilization bill that could lead to drafting up to 500,000 troops," the Times noted. "The bill was introduced in Parliament last month — only to be quickly withdrawn for revision."It's as if some Ukranians don't want this bill. It's almost as if many see no point in continuing to fight this war. But don't tell Graham that. "No matter what we do, you should be fighting," the Republican, who has zero skin in the game, insisted. "No matter what we do, you're fighting for you." The Times continued, "The bill has catalyzed discontent in Ukrainian society about the army recruitment process, which has been denounced as riddled with corruption and increasingly aggressive. Many lawmakers have said that some of its provisions, like barring draft dodgers from buying real estate, could violate human rights."Graham didn't address any of that. Paying attention to human rights violations is not exactly at the top of his to-do list. For the hawkish senator this is all about politics and ideology, which usually come first before all else.So it shouldn't be surprising that despite encouraging Ukraine's young men to fight in a war many of them don't believe in and don't want to die in, Graham actually voted against the last Ukraine aid package because it did not include funding for U.S. border security.So he was comfortable withholding money for a war over politics — a war he proclaims to believe in deeply — while urging citizens of a foreign country to march into oblivion.When Graham was calling for U.S. military strikes on Iran in 2019, something Donald Trump refused to do at the time, the president rebuked the senator by telling reporters, "Ask Lindsey how did going into the Middle East, how did that work out? And how did going into Iraq work out?"These are questions Graham would never ask. They are anathema to who he is and what he stands for. Risk assessment would just cloud the agenda. For Graham, engaging in all wars to achieve ideological and political goals is always the right decision despite the results, reality or tragic cost of the conflict.Especially for the citizens of other countries.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Mitch McConnell would be stepping down in November as Republican Senate Minority leader.Two points in the reports were highly irritating as they peddle common misrepresentations in mainstream journalism of Ronald Reagan and his legacy, particularly on foreign policy.
AP's Michael Tackett wrote, "(McConnell's) decision punctuates a powerful ideological transition underway in the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan's brand of traditional conservatism and strong international alliances, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of former President Donald Trump."
He's establishing that there are two sides on the Right regarding foreign policy: The "strong international alliances" of Reagan and McConnell, and the "isolationist populism" of Trump.
No space in between.
The AP re-upped this view again later in the report: "McConnell endorsed Reagan's view of America's role in the world and the senator has persisted in face of opposition, including from Trump, that Congress should include a foreign assistance package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine."
How simple.
Let's talk about "Reagan's view of America's role in the world."
Since at least the 1990s, neoconservatives have tried to claim Reagan's legacy as being indistinctive from their own world view when it simply is not true, however much mainstream outlets simply accept their narrative.
There's more than mere nuance or even contrast. There are areas — big ones — where Reagan and the neocons are exactly opposite.Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan's 1996 essay, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," targeted the "neoisolationism of Patrick Buchanan" and even "some version of the conservative 'realism' of Henry Kissinger and his disciples."
For Kristol and Kagan, even realism wasn't realistic.
The neocon duo wrote of the 40th president: "Reagan called for an end to complacency in the face of the Soviet threat, large increases in defense spending, resistance to communist advances in the Third World, and greater moral clarity and purpose in U.S. foreign policy."
They are correct to imply that how Reagan handled the Soviets is a great and admirable legacy.But how Reagan went about it, on the most significant part anyway, made him a pariah to the neoconservatives and Republican hawks of his day. How Reagan handled it was not like McConnell likely would have either, based on the senator's Ukraine positions alone.Let's review.
Newt Gingrich called Reagan's 1985 meeting with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev "the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich." Obviously hawks haven't developed any new material since.
In 1985, a conservative lobbying group ran a full page ad in U.S. newspapers comparing Reagan with Neville Chamberlain and Gorbachev with Adolph Hitler. The Munich gimmick was as tired then as it is today — and in retrospect, so laughably wrong.Gingrich would also go on to say, "Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire's challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail. . . . President Reagan is clearly failing."
Today, most Americans — and especially most conservatives — see Reagan's negotiations with the Soviets as an historic success that also avoided war.
Long before Reagan's negotiations with Gorbachev, in 1982 Norman Podhoretz was complaining about "The Neo-Conservative Anguish Over Reagan's Foreign Policy." As Jim Antle noted at The National Interest, four years later Podhoretz "would accuse Reagan of having 'shamed himself and the country' with his 'craven eagerness' to give away America's nuclear advantage."
Shameful, that Reagan. Luckily, America survived. As seen with Ukraine today, hawks are often resistant to talks or negotiations because they might lead to peace, which is seemingly not their goal, something they are increasingly saying out loud.
McConnell wants to give Ukraine billions more of U.S. dollars that will inevitably prolong their conflict with Russia. He's not pushing for Ukraine's president to sit down with Russia's no matter how dismal conditions there become. McConnell has been critical of Donald Trump's occasional warmness to Putin, presumably a precursor to him possibly talking with Russia's president, something Trump openly says he will do.Besides Reagan's willingness to talk to America's enemies, he didn't want U.S. soldiers to be sitting ducks abroad needlessly. As American troops continue to be targeted today in places like Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, many Americans wonder why they were even there to begin with.
When a Marines barrack was attacked in Lebanon in 1982, taking 241 lives, Reagan immediately withdrew troops — what hawks today or at any other time might call "cut and run."
Former American Conservative Union President head David Keene once said, "Reagan resorted to military force far less often than many of those who came before him or who have since occupied the Oval Office… After the [1983] assault on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, it was questioning the wisdom of U.S. involvement that led Reagan to withdraw our troops rather than dig in. He found no good strategic reason to give our regional enemies inviting U.S. targets."
"Can one imagine one of today's neoconservative absolutists backing away from any fight anywhere?" Keene asked.
No. I can't. Not a single one. Certainly not McConnell. And yet neoconservatives continue to claim Reagan wholesale and the mainstream press regurgitates this myth each chance they get.
Antle wrote in 2014, "Many conservatives today reduce Reagan to comments like 'evil empire', 'tear down this wall', or 'we win they, lose' as well as policies like the defense buildup, Star Wars and Pershing missiles."
"While all of those things, in addition to Reagan's moral clarity about communism, were important, they are not the whole story — as contemporary criticism of Reagan makes clear at the time," he added.

UPDATE, 1/16: Trump won the Iowa caucuses early-on Monday night, with 51% of the vote totals, followed by Ron DeSantis at 21%, Nikki Haley at 19%, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who later suspended his campaign, at 8%. In exit polling, 12% voters said that foreign policy was their most important issue going into the caucuses, behind the economy (38%) and immigration (34%).On the eve of the Iowa Caucus, a Donald Trump caucus captain said that Nikki Haley was a "warmonger" and a shill for the Deep State, and that Ron DeSantis was pretty much the same.Welcome to the beginning of the 2024 Republican primary contests where foreign policy is very much a part of the conversation.While Trump is still far ahead of his primary competitors, the battle for a distant second is in play. A Des Moines Register/NBC News poll last week showed Trump with 48 percent in Iowa, Haley at 20 percent and DeSantis at 16 percent. Vivek Ramaswamy trails in fourth with 8 percent. The Iowa caucuses begin tonight at 8 p.m. EST.Just as noteworthy, an Associated Press poll released in early January revealed that, "Foreign policy has gained importance among respondents from both parties. Some 46% of Republicans named it, up from 23% last year. And 34% of Democrats list foreign policy as a focal point, compared with 16% a year ago.""It also shows that the Israeli-Hamas war is feeding public anxiety," AP noted, reporting that double the amount of Americans are bringing up foreign policy now as compared to last year's polling on the same subject. The data also showed concerns about U.S. involvement with the Ukraine conflict were about where they were a year ago.But via their positions on both the Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine conflicts, this is a diverse GOP presidential field when it comes to foreign policy.Donald TrumpThe current Republican frontrunner boasted in the spring that he would settle the Ukraine-Russia war in 24 hours. "The key is the war has to stop now because Ukraine is being obliterated," Trump said in March.Meanwhile, he has issued intermittent and mixed messages on Israel-Gaza, though often seems to imply it was a problem of those entities and not necessarily the U.S."So you have a war that's going on, and you're probably going to have to let this play out," Trump told Univision in November. "You're probably going to have to let it play out because a lot of people are dying."Trump appeared to acknowledge that as far as grievances, there were two sides regarding Palestine and the Jewish state. "There is no hatred like the Palestinian hatred of Israel and Jewish people. And probably the other way around also, I don't know," the former president said. "You know, it's not as obvious, but probably that's it too. So sometimes you have to let things play out and you have to see where it ends." Trump has called what was taking place in Gaza "unbelievable."Nikki HaleyIf Trump's inclination on both Ukraine and Gaza is somewhere between diplomacy and letting things play out, there are not two sides in these conflicts for Nikki Haley. For the former United Nations ambassador, there is the impenetrable righteousness of Ukraine and Israel, and the undebatable evil of Russia and Palestine.And she wants the U.S. fully backing the good guys of both. If you liked George W. Bush kicking off the Global War on Terror by declaring, "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," then Haley is your candidate.For Republicans, particularly in leadership and the donor class, for whom Bush-Cheney still represents the fundamental approach to Republican foreign policy — trying desperately to ignore that attitudes in the Trump-era base have changed — Haley is unquestionably their candidate.Not surprisingly, neoconservative lodestar Bill Kristol is a big Haley fan, and on the flipside, antiwar Republican Sen. Rand Paul recently launched a 'Never Nikki' campaign.Ron DeSantisBut if some Trump supporters revel in calling Haley a "warmonger," Ron DeSantis, who began his campaign promoting himself as a more responsible or viable version of Trump, now often gets lumped in with Haley.After calling Ukraine-Russia a "territorial dispute" in March 2023, the Florida governor seemed quick to walk back his remark, calling Russian head Vladimir Putin a "war criminal."In contrast, Trump has been urged to call Putin a war criminal but has refused to do so, while also admitting Russia "made a mistake" in invading Ukraine. "If you say he's a war criminal it's going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to get this thing stopped," Trump said in May.Haley has said she thinks President Biden isn't being aggressive enough with Russia.DeSantis has said it is far more important to support Israel than Ukraine, and that he would not try to stop Israel's war in Gaza, going so far as to say in the last Republican debate that he would support "mass removal" of the Palestinians.Vivek RamaswamyThe clearest '"America First" foreign policy message in 2024 to date on these two conflicts has not come from Trump, but entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who doesn't want the U.S. involved in the Russia-Ukraine war and says a negotiated peace with Ukraine giving up some territory is the only solution. "I don't think it is preferable for Russia to be able to invade a sovereign country that is its neighbor, but I think the job of the U.S. president is to look after American interests," Ramaswamy said in June. Haley has said Putin is "salivating" over a Ramswamy presidency — a neocon tactic used in the past on anti-war Republican candidates like Ron Paul, who was constantly accused of siding with America's enemies.Ramaswamy has said Israel had the right to defend itself after the October 7 terrorist attacks, but opposes U.S. intervention and aid, but also says that aid should be contingent on what actions Israel's government takes in Gaza."Israel is barreling toward a potentially catastrophic ground invasion of Gaza without clear objectives," Ramaswamy said in late October. "'Destroy Hamas' is not on its own a viable or coherent strategy."The fight for the foreign policy mantleTwo decades after the Global War on Terror, some candidates still run to carry on the legacy of George W. Bush, but others — even frontrunners — appear to reject that kind of foreign policy.The same goes for some Republican voters, though they appear split on the Ukraine and Israel issues. While a growing number oppose more aid to Ukraine for example, a plurality say the U.S. is not doing enough to support Israel in its war on Gaza and are more likely than Democrats to support Israel's bombardment and siege of the Palestinian territory. There is some hope, with restrainers on the conservative side quite vocally questioning not only the strategic thinking behind Biden's recent strikes against the Houthis, but their constitutionality.What does a Republican foreign policy look like in 2024? We won't know for some time, but it's arguably more of a question than an answer right now than at any time in modern party history.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has an A+ rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Last year, the Republican introduced a 15-week federal abortion ban in the Senate. Graham has said of his pro-life efforts, "America is at her best when she's standing up for the least among us."According to the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, more than 10,000 people have now been killed in Israel's continued strikes. More than 4,000 of them are said to be children — many of them, no doubt, very young, infants even. The Washington Post reported of a man in Gaza, whose "three daughters — Malak, 11, Yasmin, 6, and Nour, 3 — and his only son, 10-year-old Malik, were lost beneath the rubble." There are countless similar stories of the death and despair reining down on Palestine's youngest. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said that "Gaza has become a graveyard for children." Surely these children, many of whom can't comprehend or understand the politics of why their world is collapsing all around them, count as "the least among us."Not if you're Lindsey Graham."Level the place!" the senator said of Gaza in a Fox News interview in mid-October. He appeared to say it was okay to attack the entire population. Graham justified his apparent preference for total war by adding, "We're in a religious war here. I am with Israel. Do whatever you have to do to defend yourself."That was no one-off. "One thing I want to say for sure," Graham declared on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, "is Israel's not engaged in genocide."Graham then proceeded to make justifications that were at least somewhere in the orbit of genocide."Another thing we need to deal with is the whitewashing of the status of people in Gaza," Graham said. "I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love to be free of Hamas, but the most radicalized people on the planet live in the Gaza Strip.""They've been taught since birth to kill people and hate the Jews," the senator continued, seeming to think that even the youngest in Gaza shared a collective guilt that he appears to believe deserves collective punishment.When asked by the host, "But no pause? No humanitarian pause?" Graham basically said that he was for aid if Israel could offer it, yet added, "After World War II did anybody ask us these questions?" He was about to assure viewers that he had no qualms about mass bombing civilians."You've got to realize the United States dropped two atomic bombs on cities in Japan to end the war," Graham said. "I think this is total war between Israel and Hamas."It's worth noting here that Hamas thinks this too, a total war, that by definition includes civilians, as terrorists demonstrated in Israel in October.This is not the first time Graham has made the World War II comparison. Earlier this month, the senator told CNN, "If somebody asked us after World War II 'is there a limit to what you would do to make sure Japan and Germany don't conquer the world?' Is there any limit to what Israel should do to the people who are trying to slaughter the Jews?" "The answer is no," Graham said, responding to his own question, and seeming to give an enthusiastic green light for Israel to kill as many civilians as it sees fit.Earlier in the interview, CNN's Abby Phillip asked Graham, "Is there a threshold for you, and do you think there should be one for the United States government in which the U.S. would say let's hold off for a second in terms of civilian casualties?""No," Graham replied with zero hesitation.Close to the day Graham gave this interview, international NGO Defense for Children International Palestine estimated that 40 percent of the casualties in Gaza at the time were children.Those are many, many innocent lives lost — certainly the least among us or at least among the Palestinians and Israelis. It's one thing to acknowledge that there will be unfortunate casualties in any war, it's quite another to dismiss them or worse — lust for them.I am pro-life, and my desire to protect it extends well beyond birth, to all children, everywhere, and logically, even beyond youth. It would seem not only absurd but cruel to support the former position but not the latter.Lindsey Graham may be anti-abortion. But he is not pro-life.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Mapping the Territory -- Folklore: Tradition and Experience -- Folklore and Place -- Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- Folklore and Tourism -- Why Do People Take Part in Folklore Tourism? -- Problems with Folklore and Tourism -- Folklore-Centric Tourism and Environmental Education -- This Book -- Part I: Re-making and Re-shaping the Past -- Part II: Folklore and Indigenous Landscapes -- Part III: Reimagining Folklore in a Globalised World: Tourism, Placemaking, and Re-Enchantment -- Note -- References -- Part I: Re-making and Re-shaping the Past -- Chapter 1: Rebuilding the Sacred Union with Basque Fountains and Springs -- Introduction -- The Evolution of Tourism in Euskal Herria -- Water and Aquatic Spirits in Basque Cosmovision -- Traditions, Rituals, and Customs around Watercourses -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 2: Bedecked in Ribbons and Bows: Dressed Trees as Markers of Heritage, Hope, and Faith in Southern England -- Introduction -- Dressed Trees: Defining a Concept -- Dressed Trees as Markers of Heritage -- Dressed Trees as Memorial Spaces -- Dressed Trees as Spaces for Prayer -- Dressed Trees as Spaces for Play -- Institutional Promotion -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3: "Unite and Unite, and Let Us All Unite": The Social Role of the Calendar Custom in English Communities -- Introduction -- The Castleton Garland Ceremony -- The Saddleworth Rushcart -- The Marsden Imbolc Fire Festival -- Conclusion: "The fun, the freedom, the families, the fame" ( Shuel, 1985, p. 11) -- References -- Chapter 4: "The Spik O the Place": Dialect and Its Place in the Folkloric Cultures and Traditions of North-East Scotland -- Dialect as Folklore.