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I’m not a fan of Bill Maher. His movie Religulous, left out how the nuttiness of some practitioners of one major religion, influence the politics of Israel, for instance. His reputation for being a mild misogynist is pretty firmly established. He’s somewhat of an Obamabot.
Back in 2010, he confronted Oliver Stone, when the latter was defending Palestinian rights under Israeli occupation:
Maher’s argument in the above case was effectively countered by Stone, who brings up AIPAC. Rachel Maddow sat on her thumbs throughout the whole exchange on Israel-Palestine. Maher’s problem in the exchange, like that of so many, is to obfuscate when it comes to individual Palestinian rights per se.
Yesterday on his show, Maher, defending Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, seemed upset about undue influence by people and organizations supporting Israel over U.S. policy making. The GOP being the case:
The two segments show possible signs of evolution by Maher in respect to the conventional narrative about that pesky little country.
What do you think?
43 Comments
I. Really. Don’t. Care. About Maher or whatever personal evolution or revelation the little millionaire is going through.
He’s in at least the top 5%, dude. He doesn’t give a damn about the likes of me. Or you, although you’re no doubt better off financially than I, that just means you have more to lose to Maher’s predatory class than I do.
Don’t trust these psychopaths, sociopaths, and just plain lucky because the system still works for them people(hickism intended), Edward. For myself, I’d rather know what YOU think. Not about what others think about what Maher thinks. Truly, I don’t think what Maher thinks is any more important, or accurate, than what you think, Mr Teller.
Just to be clear; that’s intended as a compliment. Sarcasm button is off, and that’s a rarity from me.
Maher is just dancing for a script. The American PTB really don’t know what they even think they should want to see happen in the Middle East. A lot of very important parts of that region are in the middle of a revolution. Nobody really knows what kind of government Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and maybe even Jordan will have five years from now. There are lots of guesses, but they are only that: guesses.
Naturally, our PTB are testing the domestic political waters to know which way which faction of the ruling class can gain the most from which American foreign policy is applied to the Middle East. Bets are placed and fortunes made, and fortunes lost.
But hey! If there’s still a fortune in the banks after an unfortunate bet, who cares? It is all a game to them, and by them I include Bill Maher.
I do not include you. Please correct me if I am mistaken. That does happen, from time to time. Ugh. My wife told me I’d better say it happens a LOT!
IOW, Bill Maher is no more important than you, Edward Teller. He’s just a talking head, and most Americans have never heard of him. Most Americans have never heard of you, either. Don’t give people like Maher any more power or importance than they actually have.
They don’t deserve it.
that’s a lot of words if you don’t care.
I think a storm is brewing. The lobby is publicly back on the anti-Hagel bandwagon.
The losers are engendering a lot of disgust with Americans. http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=303528
Also, concerning Ben Zygier, the mossad spy who ended up dead in secret Israeli prison, at teh time of his arrest was under pressure by the ASIO to get him to talk about the Passport thieves. He might have talked because they kill people and do espionage with stolen id’s which put the real people at risk- and some of them are jews from Australia.
Zygier’s father Geoffrey is the executive director for the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ie the Australian ADL).
Do you think that Abe Foxman would quietly let his son die for an Israel assassination program and theft ring?
The amount of words is somehow indicative of the amount of caring?
I assure you, that’s not true. All you have to do is watch C-Span for half an hour anytime in the last 20 years to know that.
Bill Maher will do anything to keep his TV show. Anything. Including cheer on all of our various slaughter of Muslims efforts. Gosh, its a hard thing but we just have to drone ‘em everywhere. Never mentions those little girls we blew up while they were collecting dung for cooking fires, or the little boy ex-sheepherders, now bugsplat, nor the baby blown up as part of a funeral group, etc. hard decision pall, after all, that baby could have grown up to be a Muslim raghead (he did call them that on a show not too long ago).
Maher knows cheering for Israel and our military is the way to keep his show and he does it shamelessly, just like Rachael Maddow and other members of the we-love-Israel-and-take-its-positions. Plus, he does not ever talk down the military.
His actual views? Who knows? He is signed up as an establishment Democrat and will always mirror their current positions – Obama – good, Republicans – bad, killing Muslims good, phoney universal health/////no, make that forced insurance, good, etc.
A mostly worthless fake designed to keep the younger Dem leaning crowd on board. His purpose, his money, his ambition.
I am, and not as usual, but on this one totally with Ohio Barbarian. Maher is predictable. Sure, he noticed that Congress is totally in the pocket with the Israel lobby .. or is that with their lips stuck to the butt of the lobby? Whatever.
yes.
– to me, Maher is sort of creepy. I’ve watched the program live twice in its entire existence. I just visited his web site for the first time ever, so I could see what network carries him. Found out that he’s on a different network than he was when I watched him live last.
His laugh line on the GOP being slavish about Israel didn’t mention AIPAC directly, or get into any detail, so I think he’s opportunistically throwing one out there, possibly testing the waters for more.
Why did I bring it up? As I concluded an earlier diary, on the SNL Hagel skit that didn’t air:
Maher didn’t address Israeli apartheid, and probably won’t, but he poked at the narrative that supports it.
Precisely. The fact that Dershowitz et al feel the need to bestir themselves is telling. Ten years ago, they wouldn’t have felt such a need.
I feel much the same way about him. His importance is mainly as a bellwether.
Does Mr. Bill have IDS? Oh noooooo!!!
You might consider seeing your doctor about changing those meds, Randall.
Isn’t it funny how Randall never shows up with any sort of germane, factual commentary?
That’s because no factual commentary is ever on display to begin with.
Got yer meds right here, Eddie baby.
I have had friends, who over the years, before, during, and after, holding elective and appointive offices, have traveled to Israel–on the lobby’s dime. Afterwards, I have asked them the “What” and “Why of what they’ve learned, and the usual answer, is “not much” and which speaks volumes. Pretty much a waste of money.
However, the and what I call the “back door hammer” is found in the evangelical/culture battle that continues to support Israel, and from this perspective, having a culture battle within the GOP that is willing to take on Maher, Maddow and others, is yet to arrive onto our front door step, but it will occur in due time.
And yet again, who “listens” to Maher et.al.?
Jaango
And now, as a follow-on to Ohio Barbarian@1
Like Ohio, I much prefer to see, hear and read Edward Teller to what he has to say!
As for me, I don’t believe that a Native American or Chicano while wearing our nation’s uniform should fight and die on Israeli soil for Israel’s second-rate democracy. That said, the “lobby” is far behind the times, according to my view of Demographics.
Take, for example, I won’t be surprised that during the next half dozen presidencies, the Pentagon will be rolled-into the current umbrella that is Homeland Security. Thus, conservatives–Republican and Democratic, alike, knowing that demographics don’t favor them, will continue to preach their Fear. To wit, the political battle will be between the “nationalists” on the Right and the “nationalists” that reside within America’s “racial and ethnics.” Consequently, the “authoritarianism” will fall to the political forces that preach “empowering the Individual.” And from this “empowering” the military draft will be reconstituted and the Right will lose even more given that the neo-liberals will return to the political attic from whence they came, i.e., in the mid 1970′s, and the draft ceased.
Jaango
“As for me, I don’t believe that a Native American or Chicano while wearing our nation’s uniform should fight and die on Israeli soil for Israel’s second-rate democracy.” I don’t remember any Israeli asking America to send in troops to help them in their 65 yr. old War with their neighbors. As for Israel having second-rate democracy if were going to use that as a standard then ours is a third rate or even fourth rate one.
seaglass,
“Military-Civil Relations” do matter, indeed, as do Joint Military Exercises matter, as well.
Jaango
Well, this did lead to this, which did lead to this.
Personally, I think that Bill’s knowledge of world affairs is evolving. He has believed the party line for too long.
AIPAC is incredibly powerful (or at least the politicians think so). I remember when Jim Baker during Congressional testimony gave out the white house phone number and said that when Israel is serious about peace, they can pick up the phone and call the white house. Huge uproar.
The Israeli government alternates between their version of the neocons and religious nutcases. The last time Israel had a decent forward looking leader, a religious nut killed him. The curious thing is that there is an equivalent movement to OWS in Israel and it hates being under the warmongering leaders.
The Palestinians are like the Native Americans in the US, or the Gypsies in Europe. The PTB want them to either die or disappear. I had a Palestinian friend who lived and worked in Saudi Arabia as an engineer. As a Palestinian, he was treated like shit. His family applied and got Bolivian citizenship (Bolivia at the time permitted foreign nationals to buy their citizenship). As a Bolivian, he had more rights and fewer restrictions on travel than any other Palestinian.
Bull. Their population grows just about every year.
I am not referring to you and me, but the PTB, want them to either die or disappear.
The Israelis are such fascist creeps, and will get away with their slomo ethnic cleansing of Palistinians until they have control of West Bank, does it matter if some U.S. Zionists are changing their minds at a glacial pace.
Interesting story about the Bolivian papers.
A lot of these media and entertainment figures/celebrities like Maher have young people on staff, coming up with ideas. The young people, most of them more web savvy than their bosses, pass on how much the image of Israel is turning to dirt worldwide. Hasbara sounds a bit more like North Korean groupthink every week.
Didn’t think this diary would be front-paged. Just pulled my first fairly successful loaf of homemade sourdough bread out of the oven. Fourth try. One of my new year’s resolutions is to become a good bread baker.
I think it does, and I hope it will end up doing something for the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank’s shrinking enclaves.
What diff do you think it will make, iow flesh out that thought. For example, will Maher change the rhetoric on his program, will that influence public opinion, will that affect USG policy, what is the time horizon. Not asking you to predict the future, just asking what pathway do you envision that gives you hope.
if Maher is saying it’s the last couple years the R’s are mouthing pro-Israel memes then he’s not been paying attention. If it’s a new-found turn of direction for Mr BM, fed by his writers, cleared by the bosses or whatever, good for them. We’ll see if and what he does with it. But this is also temporally in-line with the hubris/Iraq war special on msn tonite, and other things out there (like Stones series on US History, etc.) I’m curious to see what the left makes of that rachelmaddow. and the coveted ‘silent moderates’ out there, too. because if there is any chance that any move toward justice w/r/t Iraq, torture, teh war on terror or gov acountability and now our orwellian-info-doublespeak/surveillance-drone-war-occlusion has any chance of being repealed… or just effing looked at
then it will take a mass movement of lots of informed sectors across the country pushing more strenuously than even in recent memory…
to get it done.
good on you for the sourdough! You use a mix or grow your own culture? :)
and oh yeah, I was originally gonna just say,
“… to everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn…” hahhahaha
I made my own, using this starter method that is based on pineapple juice. Ms. ET and I just cut open the new loaf, and buttered up a couple of slices. Victory! The first two tries ended up like bricks; the third try showed faint hope. Maybe I’ll do a fdl food sunday on this.
pineapple juice? that’s crazy! in Alaska, for sourdough!
I wanna know how that tastes, some of the pictures over there are pretty loaves
I read the material on why to use pineapple juice, and it makes sense. We can buy pineapples up here. I’ve tried using yoghurt as the kicker in the past, with unfortunate results.
Comedians are just that. Bill is really a social libertarian ( sex, drugs, rock’n'roll )with a somewhat liberal bent. He’s refreshing because he’s well off enough to be able to say what others are sometimes thinking. And, that’s a good thing.
How does that fits in your narrative timeline?
OT – Victory! on the sourdough bread front.
Thanks, Edward Teller.
It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I am not sure why you seem to be asking us to read Bill Maher’s mind. Do we think he is affecting the foreign policy of our country? Or that he affects public opinion and public opinion affects foreign policy?
By the way, not that it matters to his current position on Israel/Palestine, but I disagree that he is only a little misogynistic.
Also not relevant to his position Israel, but what the hell: I am not sure whether he is an Obamabot or an “Anybody but Republicans” bot who recognizes that he has a respectably large megaphone. We probably won’t be able to tell until we see another Democratic President in office while Maher still has a show.
Finally, in direct answer to your question, he does seem to have moved some, which is surprising.
Thanks.
I would have used Blueberries. I know that would have been last August. Glad you got a good loaf.
Israel exists, courtesy of the late British Empire, and the recent and continuing American Empire, to establish a front line in the foremost oil rich region of the Earth.
No more, no less.
Your post is off topic, but I’ll call and raise you this: Fake satellite images, a $4.5 billion bill to the Saudis and they let us build a base on Arabian holy land which pissed OBL off.
Maher is the word “smug” in a pair of shoes. What can you do with a guy who touts himself as a champion of reason but who instantly showers contempt on anybody who has done the homework to know that we have nothing even close to a scientific account of what happened on 9/11? (I distinguish “scientific account” from “conspiracy theory”—the latter is what we got from the government, and it doesn’t add up to shit.) Maher rolls his eyes and and so blinks the country past its most staggering contradiction—all we have done and given up “because of 9/11″ without even caring to understand what happened and why.
Thanks, Edward. You put structure into the places that Maher makes me wince and roll my eyes. Been an interesting discussion.
Just want to point to how much Oliver Stone in that clip outclassed all those TV clowns, since I didn’t see it mentioned. My apology to anyone who did. Don’t people watch Maher, Maddow, et al, just for what they are–moderators for Entertainment?
if you take maher serious you are a fool.
if you take maddow serious you are a fool.
fact is every progressive voice REAL progressives and NOT the bill press or fill in the name commercial yappers type, ALL agree that israel and their lobbies like aipac ARE THE PROBLEM.
where does their power over elected officials come from?
first off…most 90%, of congress are totally corrupt.
so..replacing one with some other corrupt fool is simple because most importantly the voters dont care and are stupid.
so using the media which are friends of the aipacs they can manipulate races and using their money defeat incumbents.
its not very hard to do when you have the media the money and corrupt people doing your bidding.
That was a surprising admission by Maher in the second clip. I wonder if he would have made it if Hagel had been nominated by a Republican president and Democratic politicians were making a stink about it.
As for the first clip, if Quebec were suffering the kind of occupation and mistreatment that the Palestinians are subjected to, then we should expect some sort of retaliation. We wouldn’t nuke them because we would have enclaves of American squatters there and would not want to radiate the area that we hoped to eventually be an expansion of our country (not to mention that the fallout would wipe out our own people in our own country).
Maher may still have a long way to go. Perhaps he is no longer morally blind on the issue, but everything is still blurry and distorted.
P.S. to my post #41: If Israel wanted peace, then Israel would focus on building trust rather than constantly provoking violence.
What do you think?
I think that every American citizen should question, investigate and put aside religion. Religion has nothing to do with what is going on, or how the US is influenced into backing all the corporations and wars. Start with AIPAC and go from there with dual citizenship, etc.