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https://mondoweiss.net/2018/11/orourkes-presidential-progressives/
Admittedly, I don't know a lot about his positions - I only hoped that more candidates would have the courage to stand for progressive policy and saw a little of that in the way he talked about criminal justice reform, impeaching Trump, and ending the tax cut for the wealthy. But AIPAC?? Unacceptable. I know there are no perfect candidates, but this is a deal breaker should he do anything nationally. Of course, most of the charge of socialism was actually coming from Ted Cruz in that very old tactic of using communism and socialism to conjure the Cold War and McCarthyism of the good ole days when that was enough to scare people into voting for you
"The group was formed to spin positive PR after Israeli atrocities."
He says "both sides" a lot and readily acknowledges and sympathizes with Israeli fears of rockets. So far he has zero regard for context or history or for engaging with any Palestinians in any capacity that would bear out an actual care for "both sides," objectivity, or equal treatment, such as meeting with a pro-Palestinian or BDS lobby group (not J Street) equivalent to AIPAC and traveling to Palestine to hear Palestinian objections to being called a demographic threat or concerns about starvation, home and infrastructure demolition, checkpoints destroying lives, and indiscriminate and disproportionate violence for decades. "Both sides^" has nothing to do with Palestinians, though. It is a sorry attempt to dodge criticism that comes with taking an actual moral stand and in so doing, as the expression goes, he takes the side of the oppressor. Actually, that was DEsmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
^Interesting discussion of false objectivity HERE.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2012/10/25/objectivity-does-not-mean-neutrality-danger-false-equivalency-media
"The truth does not always lie in the center. In fact, it rarely does."
I don't know his thoughts on Black Lives Matter*, but Palestine is in their platform if I remember correctly. It seems like an accessible "in" for Americans coming to terms with police brutality. If you can understand racism and oppose it, then you should oppose oppression everywhere. Was it the Black Panthers who took that seriously and said that opposition to oppression anywhere advances your own struggle at home? Or maybe this is a Marxist idea. I can't recall, but it's one I agree with.
*Allegedly, Beto stood up for BLM, here, at least in the NFL kneeling controversy.
*Open letter by the Houston BLM to O-Rourke on Facebook
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