Mommy, Why Do We Support Israel?

The Billy Blog recently wrote a blog that referred to President Obama's speech on Israel prior to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming to the states. In his blog, the head Billy Blogger wrote "Barack Obama really screwed over Israel." I'd say that's probably true from Israel's point of view, but that's just because for the last 60-70 years we have been pretty much friends with benefits with Israel, and we've been buying the condoms. The Arab world has noticed this, since they've been trying to get in our pants, but they're like the other guy we work with who we always laugh at his jokes, but let's face it, he's not getting anywhere near us outside the office. Anyone who wants to understand a lot of what President Obama says needs to read Pat Buchanan's book "Where the Right Went Wrong" in which he talks about George W. Bush's lack of realization that other countries listen to what the President of the United States says.

President Obama mentioned "land swaps" at the end of the call for the borders to return to pre-67 standards and called for a "demilitarized" Palestinian state. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he's actually trying to get these newly democratic Arab countries to think the number one international issue their governments have told them about for the past 60 years is being resolved amicably while building a buffer zone around the majority of Israel to spot whenever armies are being moved in to attack.

I can't stress enough how much the "Zionist" plays into the psyche of even the most liberal and educated Arab. I had an Iraqi once tell me, in English, that he was raised to believe the Jew was the source of all the world's evil, but he knew that was wrong. "It is the Zionist." We train Lebanese officers in America who will tell you all about David Ben-Gurion in a way that you would describe Hitler. If we really want the Arab states to police themselves democratically we have to do it in a way that allows for peace. Eliminating what they feel is the illegitimate occupation of the Palestinians is a huge step in that direction.

What is probably most interesting is that the Billy Blog referenced a story about the falsely predicted date of the rapture, and it has more to do with America's support for Israel than most Americans realize. Here's a video by someone I find pretty annoying that actually shows you what's going on with the Christian support of Israel:



The eschatology of Pre-Tribulation Rapture theology demands that Israel own the post-67 border area and the Jewish people tear down the Al Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple. Essentially the right wing Christian movement supports Israel in an attempt to bring about the end of the world. No joke.

So next time you hear someone explaining why we should support Israel perhaps you should think about the satirical story that the Onion recently ran entitled "Government Official Who Makes Perfectly Valid, Well-Reasoned Point Against Israel Forced To Resign" and ask why. If you believe in Pre-Tribulation Rapture theology then by all means vote to bring about the end of the world, but if you don't think about what that relationship really gives us. So far it's been a lot of heartache and woe trying to keep it going with our booty call, Israel, and the guy we have to do business with for the oil, all the Arab states.

Weighing In On Newt

As many of you know one of the Ragin' Man's favorite politicians, Newt Gingrich, has decided to run for the presidency. "Wow, Ragin' Man, you're a huge lib, there's no way you would actually like a Republican" you'd say if you were someone at The Billy Blog. "Not so fast" I'd say to the random Billy Blogger. "My biggest reason for liking Newt is he actually is an idea guy who pioneered media usage on a local level to be extremely successful as a Congressional leader. Also, being more liberal than you means I'm part of a dying breed, the moderate Republican." Newt, after all, was one of the first people to endorse the idea that became the basis for the Affordable Healthcare Act or "Obamacare", along with such right wing organizations as the Heritage Foundation. He somehow managed to quietly work with President Clinton and Senator Dole to start paying down the deficit.

All that being said, one of my favorite shows to watch is Meet the Press on NBC. I have a ritual of getting it on podcast and listening to it on my iPod when I bicycle to and from work on Monday morning. I love the show so much that when I sat next to a United States Senator on a plane ride from Washington DC to Atlanta, Georgia on the 13th of May I asked how much preparation goes into an appearance on Meet the Press. The answer was, to paraphrase, "You generally know what they're going to talk about. Sometimes they blindside you with a question, so you have to be ready to answer anything, but it's not that difficult." After I asked a follow up I was told that you can generally gauge what the majority of the conversation is going to be based on what the news is reporting on. Based on the fact that the Senator read every single newspaper from his home state while we were in the air along with the Washington Post I can imagine he would understand what the issues of the day were.

I should also mention that I also watch or podcast all 4 major networks' Sunday shows and the McLaughlin group, so I have some context to view it. It was certainly fortuitous that I had this conversation only DAYS before Newt Gingrich appeared on MTP. You can imagine my surprise at the fallout from this interview:

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Did you watch it? Good. It seemed pretty straight forward, and if anything a major coup for the former Speaker of the House because he got 20 plus minutes of unadulterated face time on the number one Sunday show. The only question I could remotely see as "gotcha" would be the question about calling President Obama a food stamp President, which Gingrich used to explain in a way that made it a very good talking point for his campaign. I don't think David Gregory was explicitly calling Newt a racist when he asked the question, but I understand that any mention of racist language is a pretty severe question. I will also say that Meet the Press is on NBC, so, much like FOX News Sunday, they are forced to ask questions that are based on the rants and raves of their "opinion guys", in this case Ed Schultz. The question was not followed up by any other question than "Well what did you mean?" and then they moved on.

The fallout from this interview shows something I haven't heard anyone talking about intelligently, except for the Daily Show. I know, a comedy show is the best commentary you can get. The real issue was not the racist question, but has been Gingrich's depiction of Paul Ryan's revamp of Medicare as "right wing social engineering" and Newt equated the Ryan Plan with the Affordable Healthcare Act. Newt even came out in support of the most controversial part of the Affordable Healthcare Act, mandatory coverage.

Newt responded on Greta Van Susteren's program days later:



That's right! Nothing Newt said on arguably the most prestigious news show can be used in a campaign ad! "Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood." This could start a whole new era of editing! You can go back and retroactively declare that your verifiable quotes are not your own!

My thoughts on all this:
Newt comes from a different time. In a 1991 interview on Meet the Press Newt talked about a break between pre-Reagan and post-Reagan Republicans in describing a fight he was having with Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) over tax cuts. I think this shows there is definitely a pre-W. Bush and post-W. Bush Republican party.

The pre-W. Bush Republicans had things like ideas and positions. The post-W. Bush Republican party has turned into an "issue du jour" party. Whatever issue the party takes up at that moment is your stance as well! Newt did what pre-W. Bush Republicans had often done, he broke with the party based on ideas and took questionable positions based on those ideas and his understanding of the facts. Need I remind anyone that in 1996 Colin Powell, the most popular man in politics, gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention in which he voiced his support for both Bob Dole and Affirmative Action. In early 2001 Senator John McCain (R-AZ) voted against the Bush tax cuts and stated "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief." I can already hear right wingers talking about class warfare and socialism.

Clearly these Republicans would not fare well in the face of the Tea Party's targeting of Republicans who don't toe the line. John McCain was even forced to drastically reinvent himself only 2 years after being the Republican nominee for President, for which he was forced to slightly alter his stances. The once ardent supporter of amnesty as a part of immigration reform faced a challenge stiff enough to get the Straight Talk Express's bus to hook up it's tow cables to the Tea Party Express's bus. "Complete the dang fence" was the new campaign slogan, and McCain barely escaped a challenge from the far right. To complete his turn to the dark side Senator McCain voted to reauthorize all the Bush tax cuts he originally opposed.

Colin Powell endorsed then Senator Obama in 2008, and went the way of Pat Buchanan. He is not a Republican, but definitely not a Democrat. Now Newt is finding that the politics of the Republican Party require a hard right look at the world to win the primary, even if the rhetoric of the primary assures a victory for the Democrats, as in Delaware.

I guess to find out what is really going on we can go back to the subject of this blog. Newt was very astute when he pointed out to David Gregory in that very same interview that Reagan ruled from the center right. Sure the guy talked a good game about lowering taxes, and he did, but he also raised them 11 times too! His rhetoric talked about the evils of government, but it only grew under his watch. Essentially Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the current Republican Party, talked a good game but walked a middle path all while running up a deficit so large Vice President Cheney would state that the lesson of Reagan's presidency was that "deficits don't matter." Try telling that to anyone at a Tea Party Express Rally!

What is going on now in the Republican Party is they don't want a Reagan. Someone to talk the narrative talk and walk the centrist walk won't do. They want a guy who is a living breathing right wing narrative. No taxes + No spending= Utopia. No questions asked.

Newt is just now learning this, but he's already started his campaign so he's got a pretty big learning curve. I'm not sure I will be able to listen to the new Newt. The old one was far more interesting. He seemed like his own person, not just one face telling me the same old thing with his latest wife by his side.

Ruining My Childhood

You may not know this, but the Ragin' Man had trouble reading as a child. My little brother, the head Billy Blogger, was apparently reading the New York Times every morning with a cup of coffee and a cigarette while I was busy scrawling rudimentary drawings on the wall that depicted me as a stick man and drooling on myself. "Never fear!" said my kindergarten teacher (all quotes are approximated) "Little Ragin' Man will want to read sometime, and when he does, you need to surround him with whatever he wants to read!"

Well, a few years passed and the Ragin' Family took a long trip to the Ragin' Homeland, also known as our grandparent's farm, for a couple weeks. We got to go to the local drug store and buy it out for this trip so we would have something to occupy ourselves with when the adults did adult things like watch the news and tell us to be quiet. In those days every convenience store had a spinner rack full of comics. I bought a couple, and I loved them.

My mother noticed I liked comics so she got subscriptions to every kind of Archie comics, which are good, but were more her fare as a child than they were mine. When I went to the store I would ask to buy all the Marvel Comics I liked on the spinner rack. My favorite, bar none, were Marvel's mutant titles, specifically Uncanny X-Men. Don't get me wrong, I loved most all the Marvel titles, but a new X-Men issue was like Christmas and Wrestlemania happening for the 15 minutes or so it took me to read through the latest issue.


I loved everything about them. I've heard it said that every prepubescent boy can relate to a group of people who are outcasts just because of their birth. I guess I can identify with that, but I thought the personal struggles of the characters was what I particularly identified with. It seemed like every X-Man was committed to making the world a safer better place in spite of their own proclivities, and sometimes in the face of the powers they were both gifted and cursed with. I guess I identified with that a little more than I did "with great power comes great responsibility." Besides, by the time I was a kid Spidey had already married his super model girlfriend, Mary Jane, had 4 different comic books all about him, and guest starred in all the other books at least once a year. Not much self identifying for me.

Well, needless to say my mom took my teacher's advice and fed me as many comics as I could bring her, and they were always around a dollar an issue, and at most I'd get 5 from the spinner rack. Five bucks to teach your kid to read? Who could argue with that? Plus my mom actually loved me, so she thought she was helping me succeed, when in actuality she was making me a life long comic geek who believes in justice.

Well fast-forward to the year 2000 and I see X-Men is being made into a movie. I was stoked! It wasn't even up for debate with my friends what we were doing Friday night. I was going opening night, and they could come and have fun or spend the night crying in sadness. It was awesome. A good Wolverine based story with a good back up cast that played up the differences in the messages of Magneto and Professor X.

The next film was good, and the third not so much. I really couldn't complain though. Now I know a lot of the fans complain with what will now be known as "the first set" or something like that because things happened like Rogue and Iceman are children compared to the other X-Men. Let's face it, if you want the comics, read the comics. If you want to see a condensed story that hits all the main character points, watch the movie. The characters are all largely portrayed in a way that makes them true to what is interesting about them. If it was a serialized tv show I'd expect a little more adherence to the original comic simply to make it last long enough.

Then came Wolverine: Origins. A horrible movie with some good action. Wolverine and Sabertooth became brothers, Gambit has powers that basically allow him to do anything, and you know Deadpool talked a lot because everyone talked about it. You never got to know any character but Wolverine, who you already knew.

Now there's a new X-Men movie coming out. X-Men: First Class. This movie has a lot of the important X-Men who have not been shown, and those that have risen to prominence in the comics since the first movie was made. The only fanboy gripe I have is that I don't really like the way Havok's power looks and is portrayed in the new trailer. He is probably my favorite X-Man, and I identify with him in numerous ways, most of all because he feels as though he is living in the shadow of his father, Corsair, and his older brother, Cyclops, and Havok compares himself to them in all that he does, and more often all that he feels he failed to do. It makes sense too because his brother is a legend among mutants as the leader of the X-Men, and his father is famous throughout the universe as the leader of the Starjammers. He can't just be a manager at McDonald's after that. A lot of X-Factor plot lines focused on him always second guessing what he did, and wanting to turn down the mantle of leadership because he felt he only got it due to his last name, when it's actually due to his just being an awesome leader. Havok often chose fields of work that had nothing to do with the fight between good and evil. Havok is hard to write, but the X-Factor comics of my youth were fun and not overbearing. Here's hoping they figure out that character and don't ruin him.

No, the character that seems to be ruined is Beast. Check him out in the movie trailer below.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Now this Beast is a little nerd with amazing agility and monkey feet who takes a serum of his own creation that turns him blue and furry. The comics Beast is a hulking brute who is really smart and nerdy that takes a serum of his own creation that turns him blue and furry. That was part of the charm of Beast. He was a football star in high school, but you couldn't just judge him as a beast of burden due to his size, you also had to take into account that he is extremely smart, something that also appealed to a young Ragin' Man. Without his size and speed prior to the transformation he does not celebrate the dichotomy that is found in the best Marvel characters of Stan Lee/Jack Kirby era, and is instead just a walking stereotype who happens to be walking on big ass monkey feet. This is one of those times when I think they failed to look at the spirit of the character, and instead used him for the visual affect/plot devices he will allow in the movie.

I have to say that I am excited to see how they use characters that were previously unused, and almost wish they had just rebooted the series with less emphasis on Wolverine. This remake seems like an attempt to keep in standing with the previous movies while getting the most out of all the characters, especially Emma Frost, the White Queen, as she is a central character in almost every X-Men comic now. I am excited to see Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, the Black King though, and really hope they don't make the mistake of messing up the characters by making them unrecognizable motivationally.

Now I'm off to see Thor in 3-D. Let's see if Marvel can manage to pull this one off as well as they did Iron Man. Here's a cover from my favorite Thor run. It was the early 90's, so they did a new costume, and in this case made it a whole new person imbued with the powers of Thor. As was the case with most comics as well, in the mid 90's they later went through and retconned it, which was an under reported reason everyone stopped buying comics, as they got way too convoluted.

Well, until next time, to all the true believers: Make Mine Marvel! Excelsior!

I love me some Donald Trump! Reply

I was reading my favorite Non-Ragin' Man blog, The Billy Blog, and saw that the Billy Blog Team had written a blog about the Donald. I have to admit that The Billy Blog Squad got me back for my 2nd Amendment blog. I am jealous because I had a blog kicking around in my head about Donald Trump, and my blog was a little more on the political side. The Billy Blog's team took a more fun look at the Donald. I didn't quite agree with their fun assessment, and I do have a problem with one issue about the President the Billy Blog brought up.

First, the issue about the President. The fine people at the Billy Blog wrote "You see, most people who appear as possible candidates for president are career politicians, afraid of “rocking the boat,” and so not only will they not dare to say anything controversial, but they may avoid any campaign specifics, or even any legislative votes on tough issues that could be brought up later! (See: Obama, Barack)" While I know that President Obama ducked some votes as Senator so as to preserve his status as never having voted for or against things that could come back to haunt him, the non-partisan group Politifact has an Obameter that tracks all the promises he made in the campaign. They track 506 promises. To me that's a lot of promises, but the people at the Billy Blog apparently demand promises somewhere around every hour on the hour. My personal opinion on the Donald's "promises" are that he promises to get tough and curse at people, which isn't really much of a promise, and if it was truly a Presidential trait to curse at things you don't like the American people could have elected my father many years ago. As with all things ragin' in Cajun land, you can decide for yourself.

I will say a Republican narrative about President Obama shows him as someone who lies and someone who never makes a promise. It's a very weird narrative to me, but one that has gained traction. As with all narratives I look to factual analysis to determine the truth of the matter.

As for the Donald this is where the Ragin' Man's blog becomes less fact based than he usually sticks to. Let me say that unlike the Billy Blog's Political Team, the best team named Billy, I do believe that Donald Trump is deadly serious about running for the Presidency and his more than usual showboating is a big part of his plan.

When I first heard about Donald Trump calling for the President's birth certificate and making claims of shouting down China and every government in the Middle East I was amused. I thought, like the Billy Blog's Institute for Campaign Excellence team, that "the Donald" was using this all as a vehicle to become more famous at a minimum, and hype his new Apprentice show at most.

I'll be honest with you at one point my brother, the head Billy Blogger over at Billy Blog Towers, had made a comment about those who opposed the President being called a racist as a default setting. I didn't agree with him because anyone who I had heard say that was very careful to point out that they begrudged no one their right to speak out on the policy issues. I was watching Ed Schulz go on and on about Trump's racism in asking about the President's birth certificate, and I reminded myself to write my brother from the exact same mother an e-mail indicating my flip-flop on the position. I thought Ed was being extremely cruel in his determination that Donald Trump was only going after the President because of his skin for political gain. After all Chester A. Arthur had his citizenship questioned because of his father, and the original birther lawsuit also was brought to eliminate Senator John McCain from Presidential contention because he was born in Panama. While it was fairly apparent to me that the President was born in the United States I did not begrudge a guy who didn't know how the right to privacy and abortion go hand in hand not understanding that the reason President Obama had not released his long form birth certificate was because the Hawaii Department of Health has only released "computerized abstracts" of vital records since May 15, 2001. That Donald Trump claimed to have sent investigators who somehow made him think the President's birth certificate was missing instead of just looking at any fact checking website seemed more grandstanding than anything.

As a result of these claims the President was forced to face a group that was once a fringe movement and had now taken a majority of the opposition party, and was showing no sign of stopping growth. He ended up sending a letter and counsel to Hawaii to do whatever was necessary to get the birth certificate published.

Little did I know the morning after I had resolved to tell my brother he was right President Obama released his birth certificate. I then watched something that would make me completely reverse my position AGAIN! Rather than say "Hey, I'm happy he was born in Hawaii like he claimed, now it's time to get to the issues" the Donald doubled down on worthless issues. It is important to note that he didn't even look at the President's birth certificate at the time he made the announcement, as the Daily Show showed as their "Moment of Zen" for the next two days.


No, in his press conference Trump asked to see the President's college transcripts. In his speech claiming victory by his action alone he talks about the President's possible bad grades as an undergrad and points out the President "gets to Harvard. … How do you get into Harvard if you're not a good student?"

This is where the light went on for me. I thought back to the time I read Bill Clinton's book "My Life" in which he talks about Ronald Reagan saying "I believe in states' rights." in Philadelphia, Mississippi to kick off his 1980 campaign. Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas and understood the implication of "states' rights" in the south of 1980 to mean a tacit endorsement of any racial policies the state enacts.

Now whether that was the case or not, even the scrum of writers at the Billy Blog can agree that the Ragin' Man was raised in a very conservative/Republican household. From that viewpoint I understand that Donald Trump is making the implication that the President of the United States only got into Harvard Law School because he is black. All he really needed to do to seal the deal is utter the words "affirmative action", a highly polarizing term I honestly haven't heard in national politics for about 8 years. Subsequent Republican operatives, including Andrew Breitbart, have brought up the issues of "what classes he took" being the reason for the transcript request. Trump has stated numerous times grades leading to his admission to increasingly prestigious institutions are his sole concern.

Let me say that I am nothing but non-partisan in my analysis for my blogs. I understand that Democrats are accused of starting class warfare. I don't know about warfare, but Democrats clearly promote class consciousness. That is to say, Democrats want you to realize what class you are really in and vote for your class' best interest, believing they will win when most Americans realize they aren't wealthy.

If what Trump is doing is not racist, it is at the very least promoting "racial consciousness." As with class consciousness Trump is trying to get people to realize their race and vote for him, believing he is looking out for the majority's interest. Why shouldn't he? The Republican Party is whiter than almost any other group in America outside of the KKK, so he's wooing the clear majority for the primary. Am I writing something inflammatory? Possibly if you don't analyze things when you watch them, but the real issue is what do we as Americans expect from our politicians?

I'll be honest with you in my assessment of this issue. Let me say that I'm not a huge fan of the President. He has done some things I think are really good, including raising his rhetorical response to terrorism and the Muslim world. Those things help the cause of America in our current conflicts. There are a lot of things he's done that I don't like when it comes to the PATRIOT Act and his refusal to pay for the wars we are currently fighting.



There were scandals about President George W. Bush's admission to Harvard graduate school and how much his father's position played into him being a member of the Air National Guard during Vietnam. Sarah Palin was even the victim of a conspiracy regarding whether her son Trig is hers or not. I don't worry about those issues, and I don't trust any conspiracies. I don't think anyone would turn down the use of their father's prestige to get into a very good school, just like I don't think anyone would turn down the color of their skin being the impetus for admission. As a very conservative teacher I had in high school said "if you don't use it, someone else will." The fact that they are now being nominated to the country's highest office on a major party ticket means they used their opportunities to better themselves more than most everyone I know.

What Trump is doing is trying to create a narrative around the President of affirmative action hire, and hang it around his neck for the duration of the campaign. I'm not sure that's an issue affecting the current state of our country, and I'm not sure I want a candidate who appeals to the color of your skin as the reason you should vote for him. For those reasons I am forced to disagree with the Billy Blog's outstanding crew and state that Trump and his many bankruptcies he never talks about when discussing how he can rebuild the economy should rebuild his combover before they should rebuild the Republican Party.

Donald Trump, YOU'RE FIRED!