just a taste of how that Israel love fest would have gone if vice presidential candidates rosa clemente and matt gonazalez had been included. here is what they have to say about palestine (yes! they actually are able to say that word and speak about it in an informed and moral way! imagine!). and there are many reasons why i love clemente: her position on the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, queer rights, the environment. you can watch the entire debate or read the transcript at democracy now!
MATT GONZALEZ: Well, I think, you know, both of these candidates pay lip service to the notion that we need a two-state solution. They don’t tell you any specifics around that. Do they support 1967 borders, for instance? Joe Biden did not repudiate Barack Obama’s earlier remark about Jerusalem belonging to Israel.
And I think their sort of over-the-top repeating of how much they love Israel—I think, in that, they lose an opportunity to support peace movements in and outside of Israel, joined by many Jews, both in this country and in Israel, that want to see an end to the violence in the region, that don’t believe, for instance, the way Palestinians are being treated is fair.
And I think when Joe Biden starts repudiating elections in the West Bank and elsewhere, you see that these guys are pretty much in step with the current administration. You know, they either—you either have to be a supporter of democracy and deal with the right of people to self-determine, or you repudiate that. And if you repudiate it, you’re going to go down a path that can be very dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: Rosa Clemente?
ROSA CLEMENTE: Well, I mean, I think it’s not even a question of fairness. The Israeli government, every day, kills Palestinian people in their own homeland. I think it is about the right to self-determination, but it’s also—I think it’s more than a two-state solution. Many Palestinian groups are calling for a one-state solution, and that’s how it should be.
And the United States, we need to stop sending any type of military aid to Israel. I think what’s going on in—what’s been happening in Palestine, you know, is an indication of forty years of complete terror amongst another group of people, aided by American tax dollars, you know.
And I think younger people, particularly through hip-hop, it’s been interesting that we can have cultural exchanges and actually have people in Palestine, like the hip-hop group DAM, that let us know what’s happening every day right there on the ground and that the issue for a lot of Palestinian people would be that they deserve their homeland back and that the right of return is fundamental to them as a people.
body on the line 
DAM is awesome. And I would have loved to have seen Palin and Biden go up against Clemente and Gonzalez. Maybe those two can run together, sometime in the future. I would vote for a Clemente/Gonzalez ticket or a Gonzalez/Clemente ticket.