> > I'm not entirely sure what, in concrete terms, the antecedent of
> > 'it' is here.
>
> Eric's reference to "the anti-Lobby focus," which I quoted, but you
> didn't.
Right. But that seemed an awfully vague reference in itself. Whose anti-Israel-lobby focus? What exactly does "focus" mean, above and beyond "topic of the present conversation"?
> > It's hardly controversial to observe that the imperial elites aren't
> > a monolith.
>
> But on Israel, at least until recently, they pretty much have been.
> That consensus is obviously cracking, but it's only been in the last
> few years.
Actually, that isn't quite accurate. There's been a public consensus in the sense that very few people have been willing to stick their necks out publicly on the subject, since the lobby has historically been very good at hounding dissidents to distraction.
But for one example, if you've known many career Foreign Service types -- who tend to come from fairly posh backgrounds -- you will have heard plenty of sub-rosa discontent.
> > As for the "anti-Semitism" canard -- it's long past time that
> > anybody who brings that one up was laughed out of the room.
> > That dog just won't hunt anymore.
>
> Secret monied cabal manipulating policy? It's straight out of the
> Protocols, man.
What's secret about it? The lobby operates very much in the open. And monied cabals manipulating policy are what American politics is all *about*.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org