It's Still The Occupation, Stupid

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Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, swept into the White House in 1992 on the back of their campaign strategist, James Carville (above), a wise-cracking political operative from Louisiana.

"It's the economy, stupid" was Carville's greatest contribution to the first Clinton campaign victory. It is classic bumper sticker wisdom that cuts through inauthentic campaign rhetorical paragraphs.

"It's still the occupation, stupid," is a perfect way to begin all discussion within the Democratic Platform Committee relative to Israel's obvious, illegal and immoral occupation.

Flaunting the obvious and playing to her Zionist-honed instincts, Hillary Clinton has instructed her platform writing team to keep the word "occupation" out of the party platform.

Out, out, damn spot, as in not there in any form or shape.

Sorry, Hillary, the only word that fits "occupation" is "occupation."

You can say a thousand times a day that there is no occupation, but it doesn't take even a single day among imprisoned Palestinians to see the walls, check points, Israeli military forces, and children running to school through gunfire, to experience the occupation for what it is, an occupation.

Bernie Sanders' forces within the Platform Committee are demanding that the party's platform state the obvious. The obfuscation and language game to deny a reality are understood everywhere but in "occupied" Washington, D.C.

The citizens of Israel know it is an occupation, but most of them prefer to look the other way and stay within their "borders." Those who do venture into occupied territory for a quick, superior-tasting falafel, do so on Israeli-only highways.

The occupation is what it is, the tight control over an imprisoned people, a control that has prompted a giant hasbara (propaganda) government agency to police language and attitudes to deny the reality that any casual visitor knows to be a lie.

U.S. Christian church bodies have held, or will soon hold, national assemblies to do the church's business. This year the pro-Israel forces within those assemblies appear to adopt a new tactic: Keep social justice debates to a bare minimum by filling the daily agendas with conflict on church procedures.

You have to wonder where that idea came from. Strange that different denominations, who rarely speak to one another except to plan annual ecumenical dinners, came up with the same tactics in the same summer.

Have we heard much news from the denominational assemblies, specifically the those of the United Methodists and Presbyterians? Of course you have not because church procedures are not news for the non-religious

Meanwhile, the outreach of the church media is not what it was in earlier times, before national church budgets were shifted toward internal divine matters.

Nevertheless, American voters of all religious and secular stripes, will have to endure two national nominating conventions to confirm the Clinton-Trump upcoming election November 7.