The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (revisited)

On September 27, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were invited to the University of Chicago to speak about their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. On October 8 they were invited to deliver the same speech at Columbia University. Both lectures were recorded and published in the University Channel Podcast. (Chicago. Columbia) The talk is the same, obviously the questions by the end are different, but I cannot vouch for those in the second lecture as I couldn't sit through the same lecture twice especially since the second time round sound quality dropped dramatically. I will repost the review I wrote on the first appearance:

The University Channel Podcast published the audio of a lecture by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, about The Israel Lobby in the US, after their book about the same subject. This is a very vivid lecture with a good question round in the end. The authors get to make their point that there is a very effective Israel Lobby. The Lobby is not a lobby of the Jews, neither of the State of Israel, but rather an American interest group, backed by Jews and also Evangelical Christians. They claim that the lobby has a great influence on the US foreign policy and that this influence at times turns out to be neither beneficial to the US nor to Israel.

The Israel Lobby neither reflects the opinion of the vast majority of American Jews, nor, so it seems to me, represent the opinion of the Israeli government or even the majority of Israeli's. The lecture confirms my impression that those who are actively lobbying for Israel in Washington - or claim to do so - tend more to the hawkish, nationalistic side of the spectrum. This goes as well for the Jews involved as well as the Christians. It means for me, as an Israeli in favor of a peaceful Middle-East policy a lose-lose situation. Either one has this hawkish lobby or there is no lobby at all and in both cases my interests are not served. It calls for a lobby inside the lobby.

My stomach turns especially when I hear Mearsheimer and Walt claim that the Lobby was not particularly in favor of the Oslo agreements. They say that the Lobby 'grudgingly' went along. I would expect that an movement that grudgingly goes along with a certain development, will jump of the train at any moment. Was that what happened when Rabin was murdered? How bad was the grudge of the Lobby for the peace process at that turn of events and in how far could it have saved the process afterwards and maybe chose not do so? I would have loved to ask THAT question.

Authentic living - Eric May-Sell

Your Purpose Centered Life diligently goes on teaching lessons in what is called Authentic Living. The unctuous speaker is Eric Maisel accompanied with squeamish sound-effects. I had my misgivings about this podcast and I still agree with much of the content, but the presentational style is too sweet, too evangelic, too much of Jesus speaks to you. Hark hark hark.

And now that I am spilling my gall (is that an expression, or have I been literally translating Dutch again? EDIT: yes it is. RvdB helped me: venting one's spleen), let's talk about Eric Maisel. Who is he anyway?

you may know me from one of my books, shows, or public appearances. My special interests are creativity and creativity coaching, mindfulness and mindfulness training, the art of making personal meaning, existentialism and freethinking, and the psychology of the creative person.
[...]
I offer many trainings and workshops and there are special ebooks and MP3 audios available only at this site that may interest you.

So, this is philosopher, psychologist, prophet Maisel, who is mainly in the business selling you his work? My hackles are getting up some more.

By the way, my German language lobe pronounced Maisel not as Maisel proposes on the podcast. Not Meizl, but May Sell, French interpretation. Well whatever Eric may say in the podcast and whatever interesting thoughts he may provoke, it is between the lines mostly about what Eric may sell. Because that is what this is: a promotional podcast. And also if you like what is being promoted, good for you, but promotional it is.

Maternal bonding

Tony Madrid relates an experience of his, that sounds like a near miracle. He was treating a patient with hypnosis in order to add a vision of a pleasant birth, to the memories of the actual birth of her daughter that was wrought with stress, bad circumstances and an eventual long separation from the baby. Madrid speaks on the podcast Shrinkrapradio with Dr. David van Nuys on the subject of repairing maternal relations to their kids. In the related story, the hypnotic treatment had an immediate result. Not only did the mom open up to loving her child, the little girl's asthma, disappeared over night. This experience caused Madrid to study Maternal bonding and the effect on the kids.

He rushes to point out the mother is not 'guilty' of whatever adverse health they have (notably asthma). It is his opinion, the occurrences around the birth, have caused the bond to be problematic and this is more an accident than anything else. His findings repeat the reported story: hypnosis can insert a pleasant memory to the birth, thus altering the problematic bonding to the child and consequently affect the child's health in a positive way.

In addition to hypnosis, Madrid has proposed EMDR to work. EMDR is short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a therapeutic approach that is an attempt to allow for proper processing of ugly memories. He is very evocative: This is the most important invention to hit mental health in 50 years. Just when you are getting a little bit itchy. Luckily Dr. Dave comes to the rescue and closes the interview off with a well-balanced perspective.

Materialism and its dragging feet

On issue #118 of Shrinkrapradio David van Nuys interviews Tim Kasser who has done a lot of research on well being for people. His findings are that materialism, exterior life goals he calls them, do not contribute to happiness. In addition, materialism seems to go hand in hand with a less social attitude and with less ecological awareness and readiness to engage in ecologically sound conduct. People who strive for money, stuff, status and power are less emphatic, more polluting, more consuming, more destructive to the environment and after all they are less happy and more prone to depression and anxiety.

The way Kasser sees it, materialism drags people down into striving for what they cannot acquire, or if they can, will not satisfy and in the process, they are less attentive to others. They care less, have fewer long time relationships, more divorce, are competitive and ready to make decisions at the expense of others. Eventually they are less prone to cramp down on their spendings, their pollution and the way their life style affects the environment. They feel worse in comparison to people who do attend to interior goals and who are more social and more ecologically aware.

What is another profound dragging factor of materialism is that people intuitively feel they should care more, spend less, attend to their more personal goals and think of the environment. But they do not know how. The materialist life style seems the only correct one. There is no alternative. At least no genuine one, if you rule out turning Amish or soviet-communist, so to say. Van Nuys gets Kasser to discuss his ideas of alternatives. His thoughts are very interesting.

OVT - Monarchen, Duitsland, revolutie en ballingschap

OVT had op 18 november een keur aan onderwerpen die het allemaal verdienen voor het voetlicht gehaald te worden. Er was de Salon in Europa, waarbij naar aanleiding van het jaartal 1906, gesproken werd over de monarchieen van Europa, waarbij mijn aandacht, zoals gebruikelijk, vooral uitging naar Duitsland, maar waarbij Engeland en natuurlijk het oude Oostenrijk niet vergeten worden. Een charmante column van Cox Habbema, sluit aan bij het monarchenonderwerp.

Daarna gaat het over het Pannerdensch Kanaal, de economische, ecologische en militaire betekenis; over De Bontekoe, van historie, tot jongensboek, tot publieksfilm en ten slotte het tweede deel waarin Francisca Fangiday vertelt over haar leven (deel een was vorige week). Dit is het persoonlijk verhaal van een eenzame vrouw, verscheurd en heen en weer geslingerd in imperialisme, dekolonisatie, koude oorlog, culturele revolutie, asielzoeken en de problematiek van Derde Wereld autocratie. In een notedop.

Internet gevaren - De ochtenden aan tafel

Misschien als je vandaag een abonnement op de podcast neemt, dat hij niet meer 'Interview op Vrijdag' heet. De rubriek van het radioprogramma De Ochtenden dat de VPRO als 'Interview op Vrijdag' in podcastvorm aanbiedt, wordt nu aangekondigd als 'Aan tafel' en dat verklaart dat het niet zozeer een interview is, als wel een gesprek aan tafel over een aantal onderwerpen, met meerdere gasten. Elke gast met zijn eigen onderwerp, maar met de gelegenheid om over het onderwerp van de ander mee te praten.

Aan tafel, afgelopen vrijdag, zaten onder meer Karin Spaink en Kitty Nooij, met hun aan elkaar gewaagde onderwerpen en uitgangspunten. Spaink krijgt de gelegenheid om ons te waarschuwen voor de afkalving van onze burgerrechten met de komst van het internet. (En misschien, al wordt dat niet met name gezegd, niet alleen met de komst van het internet, maar ook de terrorisme-angst.) Ze komt met data om aan te geven hoe gemakkelijk we electronisch te volgen zijn en hoeveel meer en meer zowel overheid als bedrijven deze gegevens opslaan, raadplegen en koppelen.

De andere kant van het verhaal komt van Kitty Nooij die als officier van justitie deze gegevens nodig heeft en meen dat ze het goed met de burgers privacy voorheeft (ze klinkt zo paternalistisch als ik het nu opschrijf). Haar invalshoek is de strijd tegen de kinderporno. De vraag komt aan de orde of virtuele kinderporno ook als zodaig aangemerkt moet worden en strafbaar gesteld. Spaink zet vraagtekens en Nooij wacht op een eerste rechterlijke uitspraak in een aanhangig proefproces.