“SC nears the Abyss”

South Carolinian Wayne Clark wrote up a timely rant on Governor Sanford’s unblinking adherence to an ideology of inhuman subservience to the Free Market:

The heart of the problem – theirs and ours – is not that our political leaders are conservatives, but rather that they are inflexible ideologues wedded to a failed economic system. They are generals fighting not the last war but the one before that. Ronald Reagan has fallen off his horse. The invisible hand of Adam Smith has slapped us down. The free market first ran amuck then ran aground. Government is now regarded as the solution, not the problem, and this sticks in their craws like day-old cornbread.

Not an analysis, but precient.

Read it on Counterpunch here: http://www.counterpunch.org/clark02202009.html

Israeli Knesset Election Quiz

==Note: As of at least November 18, 2009, the link to the Israeli election subsite is no longer working. The Kieskompas site is still worth visiting for the other elections still on line.==

Elections to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament are today.

This Dutch site has an English-language quiz that lines you up with an Israeli political party. Israel has many many parties, because only 2% of the national vote is needed to secure representation in the Knesset. That said, most of the Israeli parties are quite right wing.

Electoral Compass: http://kieskompas.nl/
Former URL of Israel Election Compass: http://kieskompas.nl/news/israel/en/content.html [inactive on 11/18/2009]

Taking a quiz likes this will make it apparent how little we outside the Middle East know about the internal debates of Israeli politics.

The quiz posits statements encapsulating Israeli political positions. You agree or disagree more or less strongly to the political statements as a way of gauging your position on Israeli political spectrum.

The boilerplate presupposes certain position for the test taker.

For example, the first question posed is “Under no circumstances should settlements be removed from Judea and Samaria.” Judea and Samaria is a term often used in Israel for the Occupied Territories, especially by supporters of the occupation and Jewish settlement.

Other statements like “The government should see to it that public life is conducted according to Jewish religious tradition” reflect disagreement between secular and observant Israeli Jews.

“The High Court of Justice should be able to rule on any action brought before it, even political ones.” is probably a reference to the recent tendency of the Knesset’s right-wing to outlaw largely Israeli Arab political parties just prior to elections. The High Court of Justice has reversed these political decisions before the two most recent elections.

While it may be that I’m posting the link to this quiz a little late for this election, the taking the quiz will be a good way of getting familiar with what you don’t know when the election results are determined.

Israeli News Resources, in English:

ynet: http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3082,00.html

Haaretz Daily Newspaper:

http://haaretz.com/

Arabic News Resources, in English:

http://english.aljazeera.net/

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_legislative_election,_2009