Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Maureen Dowd's Dynasties

Maureen Dowd - '...Americans still have enough British in their genes to be drawn to dynasties...' After Bush-Clinton-Bush and then almost Clinton again and the Caroline Kennedy she is supporting for a Senate seat, Dowd seems to be suggesting that we're the dynasty freaks. In fact, liberal democracy in Britain has produced far fewer dynasties than it has in the US. But, like many Americans, I guess Dowd thinks we still wander the fields touching our forelocks at the sight of the young master, who is, of course, wearing his best suit of armour and wielding a broad sword with which he periodically slays uppity yokels crying, 'A pox on you, scurvy knave!' Or perhaps that's just Norfolk.

11 comments:

  1. Might one mention a few names, Dench, Redgrave, Dimbleby, Fox, Snow, Cotton, Briers, Grade, Wedgwood, sorry Benn. I could go on but then the Yanks might get the wrong impression.

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  2. I think the Benn's are giving it a good go with John, William, Tony, Hilary, and now Emily. Not to mention Melissa on the Guardian.

    Good then that this famous family (like the Americans) don't believe in hereditary dynasties.

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  3. I think you are missing one very obvious dynasty - the Windsors. Brits remain the Queen's subjects.

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  4. I think Bryan's talking politics. The Churchill and Benn dynasties, which are the only ones I can think of at the mo, are feeble in the extreme.

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  5. I think that Dowd is saying that, yes, Caroline is part of a dynasty and is trading on her family name but that we could do worse than other famous **cough**Bush**cough** families.

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  6. Two trees, in Norfolk, is a good wish.

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  7. Caroline Kennedy has a good mind. And she always studied in law school! I can attest to this because when my Columbia friends and I were goofing off at gossiping about our professors at Anna Belle's (I think that was the name of the cafe) on 116th and Amsterdam, Caroline was always sitting in the corner at a table covered with books and papers...Studying!

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  8. I didn't realize that there were people so stupid as to read anything written by Maureen Dowd.

    In any case, Caroline Kennedy has even less credentials than Sarah Palin. Plus Kennedy hasn't even bothered to vote in half the elections in the last 15 years.

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  9. Israel is occupying Palestinian lands, and instead of conforming to the security council's resolution and retreat from Palestinian occupied lands, it brings settlers, women and children, and build settlements on the occupied lands to impose new reality defying the international law. Hamas is rocketing Israelis occupying the occupied lands, which is a legitimate resistance according to the international law. Israel, instead of stopping building settlements in occupied lands, and retreating from the occupied lands, they make a massacre to erase Gaza from the map. After all this, Hamas is considered terrorists! and Israel is defending itself. Hamas is hiding among civilians and Israel is protecting its citizens! What kind of logic is this? Hamas is not hiding among anybody, hamas are the natives, they belong to Gaza, its their land, they are the dwellers, the owners, if they leave Gaza, where do they go? well I know if settlers leave Gaza where will they go, they will be conforming to UN resolution. So who is hiding among civilians here? who is occupying the other? is it Palestinians who are occupying Israel or Israel is occupying Palestine? Is there any justice in this world?
    Levni says “we don’t have any problems with Palestinians our problem is with hamas”, in other words, “we want to occupy Palestinian lands and siege Palestinians, if they accept then we don’t have any problem with them, we only have problems with those who refuse to be occupied or to be in siege”
    I hope you are enjoying the inevitable bloodshed of children.
    If this coward operation weakens hamas it is going to weaken them in favour of al-qaeda.
    Let me explain more, among the alleged “terrorist” groups, Hamas and Hizbollah are considered moderate, or even retreating, because they are concerned with national liberation, that is: liberating only my country from the occupier. As Nassrallah said: freeing Palestine is the Palestinian business, we support them with moral solidarity, but we are Lebanese, freeing Lebanese territories is our only business.
    That is what is called national liberation movement.
    While al-qaeda members believe in international liberation, that is to say: we are not going to be able to free our territories unless we destroy the imperialist system. We belong to the world and we have to liberate the world from such a system. (you know they are closer to Bush’s pattern of thinking – democratizing the world or freeing the world)
    So when Israel commits such a massacre for babies and children and women, and the “civilized” world find excuses for Israel, and blame the victim instead of blaming the aggressor, the new generation will grow to believe that it is really not a problem of Israeli occupation, it is a problem of international imperialist system which backs Israel. By now, I know some youth who started to say: it seems that bin Laden was right, our battle is not on our lands, we are not allowed to free our lands because of the accomplice of the world.
    Again, when people are occupied what usually they do? What did French do when they were occupied by the Nazi? What did George Washington do when he was leading the independence war? What did Churchill do when he was facing Germany? What usually people do to liberate their occupied lands?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkZ-gCPbRYM&feature=channel_page

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  10. Jeb Bush is also being discussed as a possible future president: Entitlement of America's political families.

    But, the argument for Caroline follows:

    1. If Obama, who also "has even less credentials than Sarah Palin,"

    2. then why the heck not Caroline? Hey!

    She'll probably save the world's economy and bring such a sense of brotherhood throughout, that a true peace will finally result.

    Yours,
    Rus

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