Conspiracy theories are widespread and exceedingly popular. They appeal to the all-too-human need to make order out of chaos, and to assign blame to a convenient and/or strategic scapegoat. They arise spontaneously, or they can be manipulated for political and propaganda reasons.
I’ve noted that, in my lifetime, the beginning of the extreme popularity of conspiracy theories seems to have been the JFK assassination, in which a charismatic and powerful President was blown away before our very eyes by what appeared to have been a protagonist too lowly and insignificant to have been worthy of the deed (I’ve written at greater length on this topic here).
But conspiracy theories have a long and illustrious history. One only has to look at the antiquity of anti-Semitism, just to give one example, to understand that. The blood libel, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion–there’s no dearth of illustrations on that score. And, to be equal-opportunity about it, conspiracy theories exist on both sides. I was appalled, for example, by the “Clinton killed Vince Foster” garbage from segments of the right not so very long ago.
No, unfortunately, conspiracy theories are not the sole province of one side or another; they appeal to something deep within human nature. However, that fact shouldn’t keep us from attempting, as best we can, to evaluate the truth or falsehood of conspiracy claims–because, just as not all conspiracy claims are automatically true, not all claims are automatically false, either. The situation resembles the old saying, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
How does this all relate to the deaths on the Gaza beach, and the way they are being reported?
In evaluating such incidents, sorting out fact from fiction, and then coming to conclusions, we must rely on Arab reports vs. Israeli reports. In the present case, initial claims from the Arab side are that the deaths were a result of Israeli shells. However, the evidence from an IDF report analyzing, among other things, the content of the scrapnel, indicates non-Israeli origins for the blast.
If the IDF reports are true, this will never convince the unconvinced. Because the power of propaganda is almost immeasurably large, and (in the words of Churchill) a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.
In this case–as in all cases of investigations–one has to believe in the veracity of those issuing the report to be convinced of anything by it. If a person believes that Israel is a Nazilike state bent on the conspiratorial, racist, and evil destruction of the Palestinians, then how could an IDF report convince that person otherwise? Not possible. Even though the initial reports blaming Israel were pretty much nothing more than rumors, and the IDF report used forensics and science–which should ordinarily trump rumors–accepting the report still depends on believing that the IDF and Israel itself are not engaged in bending the truth for their own purposes.
So there’s an intrinsic problem in a report from any investigation (whether it be the Warren Commission, the OJ Simpson police, or anyone else) if it comes up with a finding that goes against the conspiracy grain in which so many believe. And that fact is relied on by anyone who wishes to spread a rumor for strategic reasons.
So, is Hamas trying to exploit some tragic deaths that may indeed have been caused by Palestinian mines, in order to stir up more anti-Israel feeling, both internally and around the world? To believe this would, of course, be to believe in still another conspiracy–this one on the part of the Palestinians (or, to be more exact, on the part of some Palestinians). But the evidence that has emerged so far from the competing Arab and Israeli “narratives”–as opposed to the rumors–points in that direction. And in evaluating that evidence one must take into account previous false propaganda campaigns on the part of the Palestinians that have been effectively proven as such: the initial inflated reports on Jenin, and Mohammad al-Durah’s staged footage (for an in-depth discussion of the latter, please take some time to peruse the detailed information at Second Draft).
For many years now, it’s been clear that the Palestinian authorities and press are among the world’s best purveyors of propaganda, and that we–and the Israelis–are quite poor at responding to it (I am not using the word “propaganda” in a solely pejorative sense here, by the way; I’m using it as I’ve defined it in a previous post: “information spread to influence a populace towards a certain opinion”).
I’m going to quote the post of mine further on the topic of propaganda:
Propaganda, by its very nature, is of course not a reasoned and leisurely debate in which both sides are given equal time and equal measure. Neither is it an academic exercise in politically correct fairness, nor a well-intentioned effort in being kind to the other side. It is most-decidedly one-sided. But the best propaganda is truthful, especially in this day of internet fact-checking. The best propaganda understands the arguments of the other side and counters them effectively. But all propaganda does have one thing in common: a conviction that it is acceptable to use it.
By definition, an IDF report about scrapnel and shells cannot possibly have the propaganda power of photos and video of grieving children and bodies on a beach. That is a simple fact, one the Palestinians have learned to exploit, most especially with al Durah. In that affair, Israel initially claimed possible responsibility, before a number of reports (including those from German and even French media) exonerated them and indicated that the al Durah footage was suspect–and that the most likely possibility was, if the boy was killed at all, that it was at the hands of Palestinians.
That in and of itself, however, smacks of a conspiracy theory, and an especially horrific one at that. Such a chain of events seems so much more far-fetched than the idea that Israel might have killed the boy, either purposely or accidentally (and yes, there’s no doubt that Israel sometimes does cause the death of innocent children as collateral damage–which is quite different from purposely targeting them).
And yet it is my contention that any fair-minded person who takes a good look at the evidence can only conclude that this far-fetched chain of events–false claims in the Durah case, and even the possibility of deliberate staging–is true. And that means that the fair-minded person comes to the conclusion that the al Durah incident did represent a conspiracy of sorts. Does that mean that the Gaza incident is the same? Not at all. But it means that, until further notice, it must be taken with a grain of salt and an open mind.
The al Durah affair, which was especially influential in Europe, could not have been effective as propaganda without the cooperation of some in the French press, in particular reporter Charles Enderlin, who was not present at the shooting but who edited the footage shot by a Palestinian stringer and who did the voiceover blaming the Israelis. This is what Enderlin had to say in his own defense about his rush to judgment, after so much criticism was mounted against him:
He insisted that he stated that the bullets were fired by the Israelis for a number of reasons: First, that he trusted the cameraman (Abu Rhama) who, he said, had made the initial claim during the broadcast, and had worked for France 2 for 17 years, and later had it confirmed by other journalists and sources, and the initial Israeli statements. He also stated that the IDF never asked his team to collaborate on an inquiry, even though they had written to the IDF spokesman proposing they do so. Second, that the idea of the IDF shooting al-Durrah corresponded with what Enderlin saw as “the reality of the situation not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank”…
Another French journalist, La Conte, responded as follows: “I find this, from a journalistic point of view, worrying.” It smacks, among other things, of the somewhat Ratherian claim that the truth or falsehood of certain facts is not as important as the point of view they express. That this is not what journalism is about ought to go without saying. But perhaps it needs saying, once again.
The IDF appears to have learned from the al Durah incident. This time they’ve been much quicker to launch an investigation, rather than to assume that initial reports from the scene were correct and to shoulder the blame. Time and the preponderance of evidence will reveal the truth or the falsehood of the Israeli vs. the Palestinian claims on the matter.
And what has the press learned? That remains to be seen.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Thus, while you don’t obviously subscribe to the belief, disbelief, or witholding of belief concerning whether Iraq the Model is a propaganda project, your actions lean heavily towards the disbelief line.
Correction time, it’d be “the belief line”. Got switched around.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I’ll rephrase that then. You believe it is a propaganda project, even if you hedged your bets in saying whether it was or was not.
The reasoning is thus. While there are 3 different paths to disbelief, belief, and refusal to believe until more information is forthcoming, you don’t subscribe to any one of them concerning what you said about Iraq the Model.
You obviously don’t believe it, and you use the propaganda line as a reason to disbelieve it. Yet your further comments show that you also believe that you can’t determine whether it is propaganda or not, because it is ‘unverifiable’. You might have used a different wording however, but the meaning would be the same.
So, if you don’t believe it, and you don’t disbelieve it, and you aren’t waiting for more information since you admit you expect no more information, then the only reason why you would bring up the propaganda point is to discount the credibility of Iraq the Model as a justification for why I’m right, and you’re wrong.
Thus, while you don’t obviously subscribe to the belief, disbelief, or witholding of belief concerning whether Iraq the Model is a propaganda project, your actions lean heavily towards the disbelief line.
So when I say that you said Iraq the Model is a propaganda project, I didn’t mean it in the literal sense.
I specifically said that one has no way of knowing if Iraqi blogs critical of the occupation, purported to be written by ordinary Iraqis, are being put up by the insurgents.
That was one of the reasons why I said you disbelieved it, because you said there is no way to know. If there is no way to know, then obviously you don’t subscribe to the trilinear options of intellectual honesty. So I choose the most likely and consistent course of behavior and belief.
I believe Iraq the Model is the real deal and I’ve already considered that it is a CIA/Bush propaganda project. As I’ve said, the justifications were lacking in quantity as well as quality for this line of argument.
In the end, saying it is “possible” that Iraq the Model is a propaganda project without being able to prove it or even believe that it is provable, is a useless justification for why you were right about Iraqi opinions and why I was wrong to quote an Iraqi opinion.
As for the Hamas propaganda, I’ve already detailed the reasons and justifications for why Hamas is conducting a propaganda project with the beach incident. If you don’t have any way to know one way or the other, that doesn’t mean I’m stuck in the same rut.
If you want to straddle the fence, Charles, go ahead. But you might as well call for Hamas legitimizing their own investigations as calling for Israel to conduct a “more legitimate” trial ny judge.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymarsakar wrote:
For someone that says Iraq the Model is a CIA propaganda project and therefore he does not believe it, you don’t seem to recognize the actual potentials and capabilities of Palestinian propaganda, Charles.
You’re setting up a strawman here, Ymarsakar. Can you show me where I said that “Iraq the Model” was a propaganda project? I never said so. What I said was that, since it has been reported and acknowledged by the US military itself that the US pays Iraqi media to write and place positive-sounding stories, it cannot be ruled out that the blog in question is one such piece of work, and that this fact should be kept in mind. In other words, I made sufficiently clear that I neither believe nor disbelieve the Iraqi blog you mentioned.
The opposite of “believing” something is not necessarily “disbelieving” it, Ymarsakar. Often, the opposite of either of this two is simply “withholding or reserving judgment”. Only the naive go through the world constantly making such black/white, binary choices, such as “If you don’t believe it, that means you must disbelieve it!” Or, to take another one, “If you aren’t not with me, you must be against me.”
As I said, only the naive go through the world in such a simplistic way.
Incidentally, I also said I look at Iraqi blogs critical of the occupation (such as the one maintained by the Iraqi woman called “Riverbend”) with the exact same degree of “reserving of judgment”. I specifically said that one has no way of knowing if Iraqi blogs critical of the occupation, purported to be written by ordinary Iraqis, are being put up by the insurgents.
In short, I am, and I made it amply clear that I am, what one might call an “equal-opportunity skeptic”.
Furthermore, nowhere did I say that, in this particular incident, I believe the Palestinians’ version of the incident, either. I merely pointed out that the same report in the Jerusalem Post that Sally posted an excerpt from, also states:
“HRW however disputes this claim and basing itself on Palestinian hospital documentation, claims that the explosion actually took place right around the time of the IDF artillery fire.”
It is to be noted that I precisely did not add, in my posting, any editorial comment of my own about belief or disbelief, whether my own or other people’s.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Charle: But Sally forgot to mention….
No, I didn’t.
I didn’t quote the entire story, true, since it was easily available from the link. But I did take some pains to note that the IDF and HRW continue to differ over a number of details. One of them concerns the timing of the explosion — but note that even in the part of the article in which these details are brought up, Garlasco, the HRW investigator, is reported as saying ‘Klifi’s team did a “competent job” to rule out the possibility that the blast was caused by artillery fire’.
In contrast to that, do we have any reports of any investigation by any side or any NGO of the death, injury and destruction caused by Hamas’ rockets deliberately fired into Israeli civilian population centers, including schools? No. We don’t. They don’t exist. No NGO is interested.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
and basing itself on Palestinian hospital documentation, claims that the explosion actually took place right around the time of the IDF artillery fire.”
For someone that says Iraq the Model is a CIA propaganda project and therefore he does not believe it, you don’t seem to recognize the actual potentials and capabilities of Palestinian propaganda, Charles.
It is rather easy, and Hamas has done this before, to bribe doctors and secretaries to forge documentation to corroborate the Story Arc, especially if this is planned ahead of time. And I believe it is.
Hamas knows HRW down to its tail bones, and it also knows the Palestinian doctors, nurses, and whomevers.
While HRW investigates the check and balances of Israel’s investigation, HRW and you are quite obviously ignoring the lack of check and balances in Palestinian hospitals and how prone they are to factual manipulation and mis-data representation.
Iraq saw this in fallujah as well, where hospitals in Fallujah started reporting civilian casualties, which did not exist in reality. Or if it did, the terroists were shooting people and threatening the doctors to say that it was by Americans, or the doctors would disappear.
Palestinian Princess, who lives in Palestine, supports my arguments, specifically about how Hamas are a bunch of goons, mafia types, and we all know the mafia loves threatening people to do what they wantvia extortion.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
But Sally forgot to mention that the same article in the Jerusalem post whose link she posted also says:
“While Klifi’s team did a “competent job” to rule out the possibility that the blast was caused by artillery fire, there were still, Garlasco said, a number of pieces of evidence that the IDF commission did not take into consideration.
“The main argument between Klifi and HRW surrounded the timeline of the blast, which the IDF said took between 16:57 and 15:10, at least 10 minutes after artillery fire in the area had stopped. HRW however disputes this claim and basing itself on Palestinian hospital documentation, claims that the explosion actually took place right around the time of the IDF artillery fire.”
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
PS: Garlasco now says that he thinks the explosion “was most likely caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance left laying on the beach”. (same source)
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Before this post disappears into the archives, I thought it would be good to note a follow-up on that “independent” investigation of the Gaza explosion:
Garlasco [Human Rights Watch investigator] told Klifi [head of the IDF inquiry] during the meeting that he was impressed with the IDF’s system of checks and balances concerning its artillery fire in the Gaza Strip and unlike Hamas which specifically targeted civilians in its rocket attacks, the Israelis, he said, invested a great amount of resources and efforts not to harm innocent civilians.
“We do not believe the Israelis were targeting civilians.” Garlasco said. “We just want to know if it was an Israeli shell that killed the Palestinians.”
Lucy Mair - head of the HRW’s Jerusalem office - said Klifi’s team had conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the incident and made “a good assessment” when ruling out the possibility that an errant IDF shell had killed the seven Palestinians on the Gaza beach.
‘We differ when it comes to other pieces of information from other sources that don’t relate to the military strike such as the timing and the type of injuries,” Mair explained. “While they [the IDF] made a very good presentation, we still think there are enough unanswered questions that have not been examined by Klifi’s team…and that is why we believe there should be an independent investigation.”
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Oh ya, for the sake of convenience and thread shortening, I copied my reply to my blog.
Link goes direct to comments
So you can use this link to post a comment there.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I prefer to avoid the NK Iran question, since that is too much to tackle along with the other subjects.
However I will say that the problems arise because of inconsistency. If Bush stopped using multilateral strategies in NK, then this would solve the problem of NK, perhaps permanently. This would also remove the pretext Iran has for pursuing nuclear weapons, because NK would have been the example that having nukes don’t mean you are protected from the US.
The mixture of unilateral and multilateral actions, best depicted by Iraq, is a harmful hybrid titration that is not a good idea to pursue.
The detriments of the multilateral strategy with NK producing an arms race in Iran, is not I say again it is not an indication that the unilateral or enforcement policies of the USA is in itself flawed.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Please re-read carefully what I had written in my original post. I had written (notice the italicized part):
So cut out the portion that had the dictators. The main gist of the sentence was whether you believed that the humans in the UN would look out for the interests of the citizens of the member nations, without the check and balances in the US system.
The mention of many of the member nations in the UN being dictators is to further prove the point that the UN does not look out for the interests of the citizens of member nations, it was not an indication that you believed the UN was only full of democratic nations. The reverse logic, if you include what I said, is that even if we assume for the sake of argument that Indians are represented by the UN, the same cannot be said for dictatorship countries.
This is a layered argument, which takes one argument at one level, then makes another argument on another. It is about the same subject, but rather than staying on one logic track, it branches out to other possibilities.
Bureaucrats do not set policies.
The UN bureacrats did not set the policy of which nations were able to deal with Saddam under the Oil for Food program, which companies had the right to make deals with an internationally sanctioned regime? It is quite apparent given the evidence, logic, and reasoning that bureacrats do set the application of policies. Unless you are suggesting of course that the representatives of France and Russia worked to set policies that would enable them to exploit Saddam and the Iraqis for their own gain, in return for being exploited by Saddam.
Those who control the details of a plan, control that plan. It matters not who set the policy into existence in the beginning, if that policy is used against the spirit of the founders. This is a false argument about metaphysics. By quoting the causality chain of who set the policy first, you are not making one dint on whether bureacrats unlawfully corrupt the spirit and purpose of those policies.
Again, India has 1.1 billion people, and yet they do not have a veto on whether someone becomes the UN Secretary-General or not. You remark on the representation India gets at the UN, but the obvious differences in representation by population belays that claim. When you talk about a vote, I do remind you that the basis of liberal democracies is one man, one vote, one time. India canvote how many times they want for a leader, but the nations with vetos can override them all the time, therefore their vote does not matter. We’re not talking about the future, btw, so any reforms you seek to implace is not relevant to whether Indians and other nation-peoples get representation NOW or Before.
Nevertheless, as I said before, the UN is a good start.
A undemocratic start is not a good start. The American Revolution which acquired independence but did not remove slavery, that was a good start cause obviously we look at the current events and we understand that it was a success. The UN which disenfranchises the billion or so people in India and other countries like Japan, which pay the UN proportionally most of their funding, is not a good start. Why? Simply because, not only does the UN tax nations like Germany and Japan (the more wealthier nations) without representation, but they don’t represent the great majority of the people in this world. Any redeem values people remark about the UN are figments of their imagination, hopes and desires that might exist sometime in the future, but in the current affairs what we have is things like Peacekeeping for Sex in the Congo, Blood for Oil in Iraq, and various other boondogles that instead of being investigated, are actually being covered up and ignored, delayed and rope a doped. Things are a good start when people have reasonable justifications that it will end well, or if they have confirmation through history that it did end well. Some starts were bad, and then ended up being successful like Washington’s entire life perhaps, but that is not quite relevant to “good starts” as you mean it.
Too much idealism is not useful, and therefore not a good start.
What I said was that, compared to a scenario in which the USA effectively functions as a world government
But the US doesn’t function as a world government even today. It can only be described as an enforcement agency that enforces specific standards upon as many people as it can reach and influence. A government requires taxation, the US taxes nobody. In point of fact, our military protection is extended to many nations via “status of forces acts” with no revenue being returned, in Germany for example our bases are actually revitalizing the local economy there. I have never heard of a government that provided benefits to citizens and paying them a reward, without that government deriving taxes from those citizens. Well, I actually I have, and it is called socialized welfare. So if you mean the US is the socialized welfare nanny of the world, then yes it is. BUt if you mean world gov as in “collects taxes and administers laws”, then no.
The UN you refer to as representative is in the future, right now it is not representing anyone except the interests of the power lobbyists and the bureacrats. The US you refer to as a world government, is no such world government in today’s world.
It’s time to start talking about what exists today, rather than the ideas of the future.
Why? Because an Indian citizen has at least some say in policy decisions at UN (through the representative sent to the General Assembly by the Indian government which the Indian citizen democratically elected) whereas the Indian citizen has absolutely no say in policy decisions made by the US government.
Again, I repeat the argument I made before that nullies this claim of yours. Indians elect their government, and their government makes 1 to 1 individual deals with the USA. This allows the recognition of India, by America, of their economic potential and population. Which the UN does not do at this moment. Your argument that an Indian citizen at the lowest base, has more say in the policy decisions of the UN, then the policy decisions of US-Indian relations, deals, and economic evaluations is not true. If the Indian government goes into a deal with the US, it will be honored. It will not be vetoed by some guy the Indians did not elect. If the USA agrees and India agrees, then it exists. However, if India agrees with everyone in the UN except a veto holder, then India gets nothing regardless of what they vote for. I am not refering to a perfect, nominal, ideal, futuristic UN. I am talking about the UN as it exists at this moment, which is relevant to the context of this discussion as much as the current existence of the US system at this moment in time, is.
As I said, you’re making the “might is right” argument here.
Again, you’re free to replace the might is right argument with another version to your liking, but that is how it exists right now, at this time, in this state of reality. If you have another state of reality you’d like to push, go ahead. There is nothing inherently wrong with might is right, because no nation has been right without also being victorious. No nation, no person, nobody in the HISTORY of the human race has failed and then said “oh, I got it right so who cares”. Getting it right and failing is not mutually inclusive. It is not might that matters, it is victory, might simply facilitates victory. So in essence, victory makes right, to the victor goes the spoils.
If you want to deny and characterize the world we have \ today as some other type of system, a utopia perhaps, you’re free to do so. But you should refrain from advocating your arguments ad nauseam because they don’t become more efficacious as timely repetitions go on.
By the same logic, then, in the USA, the wealthy (who pay a higher share of the total taxes collected by the government) should have veto power over legislation in the US Congress and the US Senate?
Again,my argument is not to argue whether the USA should or should not have a veto. My argument is that if you seek to replace the system as it exists today, you need to shell out some serious money. This is true of the US as well, if the Democrats want to win and change the way things are done, they will have to committ a SERIOUS amount of money to defense and other things. You miss the point if you try to transplant the UN veto to the American system. Like I stated, the US system has check and balances the UN does not have, obviously it would be stupid to transplant the UN’s faulty and bug ridden system to one that actually works, in the USA.
So no, it is not by my logic, but rather by yours in the context of transplanting the UN’s faulty veto system to the US. The President has a veto, because all citizens elect him through direct population and proportional representation. This has little or nothing to do with the UN.
Thanks for making your viewpoint about democracy quite clear.
Thanks for making a straw man out of my arguments, but you should stop doing that if you wish to continue to use logic. You do understand what logic is, correct, and what a straw man is? Just to clarify, but a straw man is something you create by using your logic, and call it as having originated from my argument, then having dashed this straw man creation of yours, you then state that you now claim victory over my argument. But in the end, my argument still stands, regardless of the illusionary sleight of handle performed.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymarsakar wrote:
> You’re saying the humans in the
> UN are going to naturally look
> out for the interests of the people,
> when they work for the leader of
> that nation, a lot of times which
> holds absolute totalitarian power
> over the people, eh?
Please re-read carefully what I had written in my original post. I had written (notice the italicized part):
“Likewise, the citizens of every country (at least, countries that democratically elect their governments, such as India or France or the USA) have some say in UN decisions.”
> No UN Bureacrat ever lost a job
> because his policies hurt the
> people of Congo, India, or any
> other citizen of a UN body member.
Bureaucrats do not set policies. Bureaucrats execute or implement policies. Policy decisions at the UN are made not by the bureaucracy, but are made by the UN Secretary-General, who is elected, or voted on (through resolutions) by bodies within the UN such as the General Assembly, which consists of representatives of member countries.
The UN, of course, is greatly undemocratic because certain powerful countries have veto power, and can thus thwart the general will of the memeber countries. Obviously, it can be made much more democratic. Nevertheless, as I said before, the UN is a good start.
> Why would Indians believe the
> UN would function appropriately
> as a world government?
I never said that the UN is perfect. What I said was that, compared to a scenario in which the USA effectively functions as a world government, a scenario in which the UN functions as a world government is much more democratic for, say, a citizen of India. Why? Because an Indian citizen has at least some say in policy decisions at UN (through the representative sent to the General Assembly by the Indian government which the Indian citizen democratically elected) whereas the Indian citizen has absolutely no say in policy decisions made by the US government. This should be obvious.
>I don’t say whether it should
> or should not, I only state
> that this is the system that
> exists at the moment. Take it
> or go to another planet. You
> can input another IRS system
> and another IRS head if you
> can prove you’re as powerful,
> as broad reaching, as effective
> in terms of enforcement, as
> the former IRS agency.
As I said, you’re making the “might is right” argument here.
> Obviously you can have America’s
> veto in the UN, if you pay for
> America’s dues with your own
> money. We pay around 30 to 40%
> of the total UN budget. In a
> company, that is a hefty
> percentage of the interests.
By the same logic, then, in the USA, the wealthy (who pay a higher share of the total taxes collected by the government) should have veto power over legislation in the US Congress and the US Senate? After all, the wealthy in the US pay for a large share of the US budget, through their taxes. Thanks for making your viewpoint about democracy quite clear.
The point is that national or international policy-making bodies are not companies, and should not be run like ones.
> Not enough to be controlling,
> but then again, the UN is
> controlled by nobody, except
> perhaps the bureacrats like Kofi
> Annan and his “appointees”.
The UN Secretary General is not a “bureaucrat” for the same reason that George W. Bush is not a “bureaucrat” — they are elected. The Secretary-General’s position is an elected one.
> The US can and could destroy every
> nation’s ability to trade simply
> by authorizing Full Unrestricted
> Submarine Warfare. So if you believe
> our land forces have put a stretch
> upon the power, and that this is
> the reason the US is restricted from
> toppling governments, then I have
> to say you’re not seeing the full
> picture. We can argue about whether
> the ground grunts of the US are
> stretched, but obviously the US
> Navy and carriers and air force are
> not stretched, so if the US is
> creatign such anarchy and
> destruction as you envision, then
> we have to ask why there is no
> such destruction from UScarriers
> and submarines.
The US navy did in fact mine Nicaragua’s harbors (in direct violation of international law) during the eighties, when Nicaragua was ruled by the Sandinistas. For this the USA was condemned by the World Court at the Hague, and the US simply ignored the ruling of the World Court:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE2DA1F38F935A25756C0A962948260&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fI%2fInternational%20Court%20of%20Justice
The New York Times
May 16, 1984
Jurists Criticize U.S.
REUTERS
The International Commission of Jurists today condemned the decision by the United States not to recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice on matters relating to Latin America. The United States move was announced April 6, before a ruling by the World Court last Friday that the United States should stop attempts to blockade or mine Nicaraguan ports.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE2DA1F38F935A25756C0A962948260&sec=&pagewanted=print
> The instability and anarchy you
> speak of, does not exist in this
> world
I would argue that Iran’s deciding to pursue the nuclear option (a destabilizing factor) is itself an example of the instability being unleashed on the world as a result of US policies. How so? The US had two countries it was very hostile towards — Iraq and North Korea. Of these, N. Korea had nuclear weapons while Iraq did not have them. The US went unilaterally after Iraq but not after N. Korea. Obviously, this made Iran (another “enemy” of the USA) believe that, if it can acquire nuclear weapons, it is less likely that the US wouldn’t attack it. So, it is now going for nuclear weapons. If, instead of behaving unilaterally, the US had acted multilaterally and in accordance with international law, this instability would have been much less likely to have arisen.
> In conclusion, the alternative
> I see is the world as it is
> currently. Now it could be
> better, but it is not the
> pre-apocalypse state of affairs
> that you described, however.
Not right now, but it is likely to happen in a few years’ time. Time will tell.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
An Indian citizen doesn’t (obviously) vote in US elections.
However, (s)he votes in Indian elections, and the elected Indian government sends an Indian representative to the UN. Thus, an Indian citizen has some say in UN decisions (or at least, in the General Assembly’s decisions, because the Security Council, of course, is made up of an exclusive club of only five or six countries).
Without checks and balances, this doesn’t matter. No UN Bureacrat ever lost a job because his policies hurt the people of Congo, India, or any other citizen of a UN body member. You’re saying the humans in the UN are going to naturally look out for the interests of the people, when they work for the leader of that nation, a lot of times which holds absolute totalitarian power over the people, eh? Where’s the check and balances that the US system has to ensure that elected representatives don’t use their power to screw the system? Where’s the check and balances in nations like Syria, North Korea, and Egypt that says the citizen’s interests are protected in the UN? There are no guarantees, what is more important to note, is that the UN doesn’t even pretend to offer a guarantee that it will look out for the interests of the constituency of their member bodies.
Now, for an Indian citizen, it is obviously desirable that the UN, rather than the US, be the “world’s IRS and enforcer”, as you call it;
That is neither obvious nor desirable. You lack justification for this belief, let alone saying this is a belief held honestly and justifiably by Indians. Why would Indians believe the UN would function appropriately as a world government?
and in fact US policy is (theoretically) not accountable to anyone but US citizens who elect the US government, there is absolutely no logic for the US to take on this role.
Here we have the differences spelled out between government by decree and secret police, which is the UN, compared to the US system which is of free trade and individuals being empowered to make deals.
While the UN governmental-bureacracy makes deals for the people of the world without checks upon their power, without being voted in, and without many other liberal democratic traditions like I don’t know, one nation one vote or one people one vote. China and India has like 2/5ths of the world population, if not more combined. Yet China has a veto and India does not. This means the UN represents Indians, eh? No, I believe not.
As for the US system, it is about individual transactions and deals. Two nations, two people, talk to each other and agree amicably on a deal. The government stays out of these deals, usually.
That is why India gets more representation and fairness by dealing one on one with the US< rather than having the UN represent them. Simply because the US recognizes India's power and population and legitimacy, while the UN recognizes India as just another 3rd world country without a veto power.
So your argument should be reversed. India should deal with the US 1 to 1 because the US can represent India’s interests in true proportion to India’s needs and rights, than the UN has and could.
Again, Indians have a say in their government. Their government determines the agreement, whether status of forces or another kind, that is existent between the government and people of India and the government and people of the United States.
It is infinitely more democratic for the UN to perform this role, because every country in the world has a say in the UN’s policies
It is not more democratic when 500,000,000 people have 5 votes compared to the 50 votes 50,000,000 people have. One person, one vote, one time. That is the basis of democracy, regardless of what kind or variation. Describing the UN as democratic redefines democracy, which is not justified by the reasoning or lack of it. Again check and balances, no taxation without representation. If you have 5 representatives to their 50, and your pop is greater than theirs, then it isn’t fair to say that you have “real representation”.
it should (unilaterally) act as the global policeman and enforcer,
I don’t say whether it should or should not, I only state that this is the system that exists at the moment. Take it or go to another planet. You can input another IRS system and another IRS head if you can prove you’re as powerful, as broad reaching, as effective in terms of enforcement, as the former IRS agency. Obviously you can have America’s veto in the UN, if you pay for America’s dues with your own money. We pay around 30 to 40% of the total UN budget. In a company, that is a hefty percentage of the interests. Not enough to be controlling, but then again, the UN is controlled by nobody, except perhaps the bureacrats like Kofi Annan and his “appointees”.
If you don’t want the US Navy patrolling the seas and preventing piracy from taking 50% of your sea borne transport, then you can pay for your own Navy of course. As you know, when the US Navy is not allowed in Chinese and Indonesian waters, Somali and Indonesian pirates have a great and bountiful harvest.
The problem is that (apart from being profoundly undemocratic for the reasons pointed out, because US foreign policy is obviously not accountable to the rest of the world’s citizens), such a policy leads to sheer anarchy and total breakdown of world order.
The world order looks pretty good from the perspective of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and North Korea. Iran after all violated international law by going onto the sovereign territory of the United States and taking our embassy staff hostage, and then doing nothing to ensure their release. The instability and anarchy you speak of, does not exist in this world, because the enemies of the United States who have committed crimes against the US, have rebuffed US interests and deals like Turkey, are still relatively unharmed. The US can and could destroy every nation’s ability to trade simply by authorizing Full Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. So if you believe our land forces have put a stretch upon the power, and that this is the reason the US is restricted from toppling governments, then I have to say you’re not seeing the full picture. We can argue about whether the ground grunts of the US are stretched, but obviously the US Navy and carriers and air force are not stretched, so if the US is creatign such anarchy and destruction as you envision, then we have to ask why there is no such destruction from UScarriers and submarines.
it leads to a state of affairs in which every nation can take it upon itself to act unilaterally (just like you advocate the US as doing)
Again, if they want the capacity to project power and be able to tell people what to do, then they are welcome to spend 500 billion on defense like the US does. You get what you pay for after all. Americans are tired of subsidizing the world’s defense, so yes we’d prefer someone else spend their blood and treasure (like China) ensuring peace and stability in the world, free of economic and military corruption.
The US finds it far more advantageous to deal with people and nations honestly, rather than telling them what to do. It takes too much resources to Empire build, we’d rather spend those resources on a mobile army rather than occupationary stationary garrison force.
So, there’s going to be nothing to stop, say, India from unilaterally bombing Pakistan (which it may see as a legitimate security threat) or for Pakistan to do the same to India.
So why didn’t they exchange nukes because of Kashmir? Did the UN stop them? Did the US? So what made them stop, if what you say is true that nothing is stopping them from launching bombs and nukes?
Pursued to its logical end, such a state of affairs also sets off uncontrolled arms races throughout the planet.
Like I said, anyone can spend money on defense, but they won’t and they aren’t. So your theory of a world wide arms race, doesn’t cut it. France could be spending mroe on defense to match the US, since they wanted a EU balancing force to the US and NATO, but they aren’t. So your theory isn’t accurate even in predicting current events.
The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
In conclusion, the alternative I see is the world as it is currently. Now it could be better, but it is not the pre-apocalypse state of affairs that you described, however.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Charlemagne,
you are absolutely going to be branded a troll if you continue to use facts, logic and suggesting solutions that don’t involve explosives.
As I’ve been reminded on several occasions it is neo’s blog and she has deemed such things inappropriate and worse, psychologically unsound. Challenging the party line is for the insane only.
Now, get a grip.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I wrote:
>> However, notice that no one country
>> has any right, under international
>> law, to unilaterally take upon itself
>> that role: that role properly belongs
>> to the UN.
Ymarskar replied:
> We can argue about what belongs to
> whom, but the UN ain’t one of the land
> owners here, they don’t get a vote
> because I don’t get to vote in my reps
> in there.
Think of it from the point of view of a country like, say, India.
An Indian citizen doesn’t (obviously) vote in US elections.
However, (s)he votes in Indian elections, and the elected Indian government sends an Indian representative to the UN. Thus, an Indian citizen has some say in UN decisions (or at least, in the General Assembly’s decisions, because the Security Council, of course, is made up of an exclusive club of only five or six countries). Likewise, the citizens of every country (at least, countries that democratically elect their governments, such as India or France or the USA) have some say in UN decisions.
Now, for an Indian citizen, it is obviously desirable that the UN, rather than the US, be the “world’s IRS and enforcer”, as you call it; since the Indian citizen has no say in US policy, and in fact US policy is (theoretically) not accountable to anyone but US citizens who elect the US government, there is absolutely no logic for the US to take on this role.
It is infinitely more democratic for the UN to perform this role, because every country in the world has a say in the UN’s policies, and citizens of every country which democratically elects its government (such as India, France and USA) have some say in US policy.
What you’re advocating is a “might is right” policy: just because the US has a powerful military, it should (unilaterally) act as the global policeman and enforcer, unilaterally deciding which country to attack and when, violate international law at will, etc, etc.
The problem is that (apart from being profoundly undemocratic for the reasons pointed out, because US foreign policy is obviously not accountable to the rest of the world’s citizens), such a policy leads to sheer anarchy and total breakdown of world order. Pursued to its logical conclusion, it leads to a state of affairs in which every nation can take it upon itself to act unilaterally (just like you advocate the US as doing) to protect what it sees as its own interests. So, there’s going to be nothing to stop, say, India from unilaterally bombing Pakistan (which it may see as a legitimate security threat) or for Pakistan to do the same to India. Pursued to its logical end, such a state of affairs also sets off uncontrolled arms races throughout the planet. In short, you end up with utter chaos. Unless, of course, you have a Pax Americana, a global superpower subjugating every other country by sheer military might.
So, this scenario ultimately either leads to utter global chaos and breakdown, or to a global dictatorship in which the US rules all other countries by force. The former scenario is undesirable for obvious reasons. I would argue that the latter situation, too, is undesirable for patriotic, freedom-loving, US citizens, because a government that gets used to ruling by force externally, always sooner or later turns that force internally to repress its own citizens.
So, in the interest not only of non-US citizens but also in the interest of US citizens, I would argue, multilateralism via international institutions is the only civilized alternative. The UN is not an ideal body (in fact too often it is forced to go along with the US and its allies), but it is better than nothing. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
neoneoconned said…
swept? and confud, I have asked you before; please do not feed the trolls. I know he is very hungry but resist the temptation. Arguing with those who oppose is bad for you…ask neo.
1:06 AM, June 19, 2006
Yeah sorry about that. OCD probably. Or it could be the weather. Better ask Sally, she’s the resident shrink isn’t she?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymarsakar wrote:
>> Other countries where positive views [of
>> the US] dropped significantly include
>> India (56 percent, down from 71 percent).
> The NYT doesn’t give you the link to
> Pew’s results on India, the new results.
Here’s the link to the new (2006) Pew Global Opinion Project report, from where the New York Times gets the above information.
http://pewresearch.org/reports/?ReportID=27
From the report:
Pew Global Attitudes Project Report
America’s Image Slips
June 13, 2006
The United States’ global image has slipped again, even as Americans and publics of U.S. allies express common concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and the Hamas Party’s victory in Palestinian elections. The war in Iraq is a continuing drag on opinions of the U.S., not only in predominantly Muslim countries but in Europe and Asia as well. And despite growing worries over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, America’s presence in Iraq is cited at least as often as Iran - and in many countries much more often - as a danger to world peace.
The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted among nearly 17,000 people in the United States and 14 other nations from March 31-May 14, finds:
* Positive views of the United States have declined sharply in Spain (from 41% to 23%), India (71% to 56%), and Turkey (23% to 12%). Even in Indonesia, where U.S. tsunami aid helped lift America’s image in 2005, favorable opinions of the U.S. have fallen (from 38% to 30%).
* Support for the U.S.-led war on terror, with few exceptions, is either flat or has declined; confidence in President Bush has fallen ever lower in Europe; and majorities in most countries believe that the U.S. will not achieve its objectives in Iraq.
[..]
Read the full report here.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymar,
NB France 25
Indonesia 96
India 71
China 59
http://ww1.transparency.org/pressreleases_archive/2002/2002.08.28.cpi.en.html
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
swept? and confud, I have asked you before; please do not feed the trolls. I know he is very hungry but resist the temptation. Arguing with those who oppose is bad for you…ask neo.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymar,
are you seriously suggesting that Indonesia, China and India are less corrupt than France?
Jeeeeezusswept.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Yme
I don’t recall casting a vote for my representative in the UN. Do You? Does anyone? Since when did “rights” come from dictators, bureacrats, and elitist aristocrats anyway? The UN is a kind of retro-liberal function of 20th century nuclear annihilation. Or the possibility of thus. It is not representative of anyone, it has no legitimacy in terms of personal liberties, and it sure as heck ain’t got a right to wipe their own arse without the funding of the nations they are parasitic upon.
Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have read his post. Oh well.
Ymar you voted for your president and congress didn’t you? If yes, then you have entrusted them to nominate your representatives at the UN. If not, you have no right to complain at all, about a body of which your country is a constituent part.
If you want the UN reformed then perhaps you need to start asking your own government and politicians why they’ve been blocking meaningful reform for decades.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I know that impending doom is what people feel whenever they hear the IRS knocking on their doors.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I see the latest results now though, through the pdfl ink. I wonder what they changed about the collection policy. They only did India first in 2005.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
The IRS functions as an anti-corruption sword of damocles,
yrmdwnkr you probably dont realise how funny this comment is. Especially as you say the USA is some big international policeman.
however wikipedia is there to help you
“The Sword of Damocles is a frequently used allusion to this tale, epitomizing the insecurity of those with great power due to the possibility of that power being taken away suddenly, or, more generally, any feeling of impending doom.”
as ever your ill informed buffoonery is most welcome.
p.s. is there anything that you do actually know about?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
However, notice that no one country has any right, under international law, to unilaterally take upon itself that role: that role properly belongs to the UN
I don’t recall casting a vote for my representative in the UN. Do You? Does anyone? Since when did “rights” come from dictators, bureacrats, and elitist aristocrats anyway? The UN is a kind of retro-liberal function of 20th century nuclear annihilation. Or the possibility of thus. It is not representative of anyone, it has no legitimacy in terms of personal liberties, and it sure as heck ain’t got a right to wipe their own arse without the funding of the nations they are parasitic upon.
We can argue about what belongs to whom, but the UN ain’t one of the land owners here, they don’t get a vote because I don’t get to vote in my reps in there.
Your theory that it’s the “IRS”-like behavior of the US which is causing this decline in its image cannot, therefore, be accurate, because the US has been behaving this way for a very long time now.
Any organization run by humans is not going to act the “same” every few decades. Therefore Carter let the pro-American and progressive Shah to be overthrown in Iran, because that was Carter’s IRS auditing powers of bankruptcy. A lot of things like this happen, because the humans in the bureacracy change, so the breaucratic policies change as well. But over all, the goal of the IRS and the US has not changed fundamentally that much.
It makes little sense for people to like America less now that the IRS is punishing the rich dictators and tyrants instead of in the past when America punished babies and women through starving them through Oil and Food, while Saddam still gets the oil money through kickbacks. Little logic there.
In essence, people are afraid of the US because now they understand the US is no paper tiger. No one is safe now from the IRS, so their dread and fear and need to destroy and corrupt the IRS now becomes more prioritized than say when the IRS was sleeping at the wheel. When the US reaches its arms across half the world and smites two so called “sovereign nations”, then everyone else has to start wondering “why can’t we do the same thing just as effortlessly, why do we have to struggle to just maintain 15,000 fighting forces?”. That is what they ask, and their answer becomes “they can’t do it because they are weak, like a red belt vs a ninth level black belt, it just ain’t fair”. This is why they are less “favorable” towards the US, which is sort of like another way of asking “do you think the US can and will kick your nation’s arse and take away your toys”. Of course they’re going to fill in “unfavorable” after seeing the might of the dragon unleashed, the furious tiger and the whatever nature symbols are available to be used. People in the US are “unfavorable” towards Congress and government because they are confiscating people’s home without breaking a sweat. Does this mean people were against confiscating other people’s private property through Emminent Domain before, just because they weren’t worried about the government doing so? No, by all means, not. They weren’t worried because the Constitution prevented the government from confiscating people’s homes, so people were favorable and not in fear of their homes being taken away. However, once the government acquires this power and does it so effortlessly, then people are not in favor of such things. This illustrates the basic philosophy.
The US is not confiscating people’s property, we are in fact auditing their property and determining what is fair and what is illegal. The US is not a world government, the US is just an enforcement agency and bureacracy, like the IRS. We are not voted in, but then neither is the UN. People don’t like this because… well, because.
Other countries where positive views [of the US] dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent).
The NYT doesn’t give you the link to Pew’s results on India, the new results.
What Pew says is this.
III: Opinions of U.S. Policies
A continuing source of resentment toward the U.S. is the view that America pays little if any attention to the interests of other countries in making international policy decisions. Americans, as might be expected, do not subscribe to this view. Two-thirds of the U.S. public says the United States pays either a great deal (28%) or a fair amount (39%) of attention to the interests of other nations.
Majorities in only three other countries now share that opinion; India, where 63% say the U.S. pays a great deal or a fair amount of attention to their country’s interests, Indonesia (59%), and China (53%). In line with the general upsurge of positive feelings toward the U.S. in both India and Indonesia, these percentages are up sharply from past Pew Global Attitudes surveys.
So basically, if countries don’t practice corruption and exploitation, they see the IRS as a necessary enforcement agency. So they tend to see no problems with the US’s policy. France, on the other hand, has boat loads of corruption and huge percentage of people who believe US policy does not consider French immunity. China is weird in that they do exploit people, so they must consider the US a weak little step-child that actually considers other weaker nation’s concerns.
An interesting stat is what people in different countries believe most influences American policy. Go to Influences on U.S. Policy “the graph”
France says 70 to 23 that Saddam’s removal did not make the world safer. Obviously that is true, for the French, since Saddam’s removal cut France’s asset production down, which made it unsafe for Paris given the riots.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymarsakar wrote:
The reason why people don’t like America isn’t because of people like me, it is because America acts like the IRS and nobody likes the IRS, not even the IRS.
There’s a flaw in your reasoning. The USA has been acting (assuming your perspective and using your vocabulary for the moment) as the “IRS” at least since the 1950s. However, notice that no one country has any right, under international law, to unilaterally take upon itself that role: that role properly belongs to the UN, which is why military intervention in another country is legal only when sanctioned by the UN). But be that as it may, the US has in fact been acting unilaterally like a self-appointed “IRS” for a long time now. Now the point is, the sharp decline in the USA’s image in other countries is, however, something very recent. Your theory that it’s the “IRS”-like behavior of the US which is causing this decline in its image cannot, therefore, be accurate, because the US has been behaving this way for a very long time now. Why the sudden, recent decline (see below)?
The New York Times reports:
June 14, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/14pew.html
Global Image of the U.S. Is Worsening, Survey Finds
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
WASHINGTON, June 13 — [T]he global image of America has slipped further, even among people in some countries closely allied with the United States, a new opinion poll has found.
Favorable views of the United States dropped sharply over the past year in Spain, where only 23 percent said they had a positive opinion, down from 41 percent last year, according to the survey. It was done in 15 nations, including the United States, this spring by the Washington-based Pew Research Center.
Other countries where positive views [of the US] dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent).
[..]
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/14pew.html
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Can we kill them tomorrow? If we can kill them tomorrow, don’t tell me we’re being weak by not killing them today.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, ends our special report from the planet Xeta.
Now it’s back to the central commentary position. Richie?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
France’s corruption is institutionalized for a degree of reasons. Their Oil for Food and selling Saddam weapons were engineered by Chirac, over a period of decades, solely for personal profit.
They needed this personal profit, for yes personal reasons, but also primarily because their social welfare system was going into the red. They even went so far as to try to cut down on the benefits, and got the student riots in Paris recently, that was how bad their financial situation became after we destroyed their assets in the oil for Food scheme.
Link
There’s polls, and then there are polls. Look up the above one.
The reason why people don’t like America isn’t because of people like me, it is because America acts like the IRS and nobody likes the IRS, not even the IRS. The IRS functions as an anti-corruption sword of damocles, no one is immune. Not France, not the UN, not tyrants, not terroists, not pirates nor criminals. The US is enemy to all those who would seek to oppress and cheat and disobey the laws of humanity, and because the US is impartial in applying this standard, we make no friends amongst our targets. If the US just subjugated our enemies to our standards of honesty, decency, and transparency, then our friends would hail us as an ally and impartial witness, simply because they are benefiting. However, the United States tends to get into everyone’s business on an equal audit basis, and this means not even the friends of the IRS are immune from being audited and put in jail if they try to cheat out of their taxes and obligations.
Our allies don’t like us because they’d prefer to be in control, our enemies don’t like us because we’re too powerful for them to put their boot on and oppress us with terror tactics, and neutral people don’t like us because everyone else, ally or foe, has told them that America is not good.
This doesn’t mean you’re going to get rid of the IRS, however. And it doesn’t mean that America will give nations like France or anyone else a pass if they practice corruption, exploitation, or anything else the US finds deplorable. Now there are priorities, like all bureacracies, and that means some criminals have some time of freedom while other criminals are caught in the act.
You seem to be setting up an equation between Hamas and Israel then –
Hamas is the government now, before I might not have said something like that. But th way to fight an asymmetrical war is to bring it into symmetry.
that Israel should behave in the same way that Hamas does.
Since, according to you, Hamas presumably protects criminals, then, it follows from your argument, Israel should also do likewise.
It doesn’t matter what I favor, since like I said, Hamas should do what Israel does. If they both do different things, that means asymmetry becomes in existence. I did not say that Israel should behave as Hamas does, I said that Hamas should act as Israel has, and then Israel will be able to give you what you personally demand. If you want legitimacy, then force Hamas to give that legitimacy by fair trial and judges.
By admitting that Hamas does not use judges and is in itself a criminal organization, you have just rendered the equation in a manner that says, Israel acts correctly because their opposition are criminals.
There’s two ways of looking at it. Either Israel does it themselves, and decides trial by judge or trial by military judgement. Or, Israel and Hamas does it themselves, through dual judgements using independent analysis techniques. People who want legitimacy should favor the dual process. People who just want Israel to do things, because they believe Hamas is a criminal organization, would focus on Israel because as we all know, Israel is just special and different.
Israel does not target civilians, Hamas does. Israel obeys the rules of war, the government of Hamas does not. Israel has no interest in having their people killed to produce propaganda, Hamas does.
This is asymmetrical warfare, charles, and it is the basis for any arguments i make. The basis for your arguments is that you believe that Israel caused the deaths of civilians on purpose and then covered it up by blaming the Palestinians.
Your position has no legitimacy, therefore you are reduced to demanding legitimacy from the one source that can provide it, the Israelis themselves. The Hamas cannot provide it to you, because they don’t do trials by jury or judges, they do executions on demand and fatwah.
Your argument is not the same as mine, therefore when I talk about your argument, I am undermining your argument, not mine.
As for America, a last conclusive note. Nobody likes peacekeepers. And this is what the IRS does, they take no sides, which means everyone is their enemy more or less. Every side is a peacekeeper’s enemy, more or less.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
ymarskar wrote:
We know the French are corrupt and will backstab anyone for money and fame. It don’t even matter if the French does it any other way, it will still be the same Francophile result.
All of Americans who don’t like French culture, by the way, are racists. Why?
After the Abramoff, Enron and countless other corruption scandals recently in the USA, not to speak of the fact that so many senators and congressmen are in the pockets of special interest money, for an American (I presume you are one) to self-righteously say “we know the French are corrupt” is more than a little odd. (Note: I’m not generalizing this to all Americans, most of whom I’m sure are good and decent people; I’m just referring to our troll friend ymarsakar here.)
It is because of attitudes like yours, ymarsakar, that the US’s image is declining so rapidly internationally.
I quote from the Pew Global Attitudes Project report from 2005:
“When the publics of the 16 nations covered by the survey were asked to give favorability ratings of five major leading nations — the United States, Germany, China, Japan, and France — the U.S. fared the worst of the group. In just six of the 16 countries surveyed does the United States attract a favorability rating of 50% or above. (By contrast, China receives that level of favorability rating from 11 countries, while Japan, Germany and France each receive that high of a mark from 13 countries.)”
— Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=801
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I had written:
For better credibility, the investigation should have been done by an independent entity, such as a judge. Presumably, Israel has an independent judiciary. A judge could have been entrusted with the investigation.
ymarsakar replied to the above:
I’m sure Israel would do that, when Hamas puts on trial terroists with their “independent judiciary”.
That’s an interesting reply, ymarsakar. You seem to be setting up an equation between Hamas and Israel then — that Israel should behave in the same way that Hamas does.
Since, according to you, Hamas presumably protects criminals, then, it follows from your argument, Israel should also do likewise.
In which case, if the explosion was really caused by Israel, it follows from your argument, then, that you would think that Israel ought to protect those who launched the bomb/missile. Which would, of course, lead to the IDF denying that it was launched by the IDF, had the IDF really done so.
Thanks for undermining your own position so effectively!
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Dean just took some people to the woodshack. Read to find out which.
Woodshacked
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
If you don’t want to argue with trolls, then stop. What’s so difficult about exerting enough will to stop?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
…sally if you read what i wrote and think carefully you will see that this
Thus, they claim that such and such a group can no more help their behavioral or cultural characteristics than anybody can help their genetic characteristics, which of course implicitly condemns groups with cultural features that are harmful to themselves and/or others, in exactly the same hopeless and vicious way that actual racists condemned what they thought of as racial groups.
is nonsense. I am saying that neo is a racist because she condems all members of a cultural group - in this case the palestinians. In fact i argue she does something a little more sophisticated than that but I can’t be arsed to go through it again as you cannot get it together to respond with anything better than
This also stands, yet again, as a good illustration of why it’s pointless to argue with trolls as though you really expected to find even a minimally honest opponent. Thus, his apparent concession regarding the problems of cultural relativism in point 4 — which is immediately contradicted and withdrawn (trolls have no concern with logic or consistency after all)
iwas pointing out the problem and suggesting a router out. I was dealing with complexity. try it
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Sally,
do you ever actually argue a point? 99% of what you post on here is demonizing the opposition by invention and invective. I don’t recall you ever actually responding to a substantive argument with anything but your very dull “indecent left” routine.
If you want to be thought of as a lightweight like wasp or goesh or brad, keep going. In the end though hyperbole without any substance is counterproductive.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
And another thing….
You know, the more you contemplate this, the more it becomes apparent that the attempt on the part of segments of the left to conflate race, ethnicity, and culture is in itself a real form of racism, since it tries to say that ethnic or cultural characteristics have the same sort of depersonalized immutability that racial characteristics were supposed to have. Thus, they claim that such and such a group can no more help their behavioral or cultural characteristics than anybody can help their genetic characteristics, which of course implicitly condemns groups with cultural features that are harmful to themselves and/or others, in exactly the same hopeless and vicious way that actual racists condemned what they thought of as racial groups. But since they can’t bring themselves to make that ugly implication of their own folly explicit, they can only hope that scattering the label “racism” about will block any further thought.
What’s both ironic and dangerous about that is an unconsidered and unintended consequence of such loose usage: some people, it’s true, will be frightened away by the “racist” label, and think of other things — but some will see that the practices and behaviors hiding behind that label remain no less real and no less objectionable, and will learn to simply shrug at the accusation of “racist”. Like so much of the indecent left’s attempts to manipulate minds by manipulating language, this too ends up backfiring on them.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
It is either fight to the death on enemy chosen territory, enveloped by enemy stratagems, or retreat.
Such are the tactics of aggression based expansionist powers.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
oh and yrmdwnkr
We know the French are corrupt and will backstab anyone for money and fame
is as dumb as your comment about the germans…and as ill informed.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
oh sally give up banging on about “trolls” and either argue or admit defeat
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
For better credibility, the investigation should have been done by an independent entity, such as a judge. Presumably, Israel has an independent judiciary. A judge could have been entrusted with the investigation.
I’m sure Israel would do that, when Hamas puts on trial terroists with their “independent judiciary”.
It would be absurd to give criminals protection when criminals do not obey the law, but it seems in the Arab Jewish wars, absurdity is a norm.
We know the French are corrupt and will backstab anyone for money and fame. It don’t even matter if the French does it any other way, it will still be the same Francophile result.
All of Americans who don’t like French culture, by the way, are racists. Why?
So when we come across things such as female circumcision or the death penalty life gets philosophically complex. Conned
Because it is a good solution for people who feel that things are getting too philosophically complex.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
And one bit I forgot:
Notice that while conned does see that the differences at issue here are cultural not racial (while bizarrely implying that it’s someone else [who?] who’s missing that), he’s still trying to avoid the implications of that distinction, and hence the deliberate falsity of trying to burden any critique of culture with the sordid history of racism. I’ve said already what those implications are, and so I’ll leave re-stating them again as an exercise. Or test.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Btw, Bookworm has already written about what ethics should be about.
Link
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
the evidence from an IDF report analyzing, among other things, the content of the scrapnel, indicates non-Israeli origins for the blast.
The point is that the IDF itself analyzing whether the IDF was the source of the blast, makes the IDF both defendant and judge — which is quite absurd.
For better credibility, the investigation should have been done by an independent entity, such as a judge. Presumably, Israel has an independent judiciary. A judge could have been entrusted with the investigation.
A few years ago, some French troops were accused of having committed atrocities in the country of Ivory Coast where they were stationed. The matter was investigated by a French judge, not by the French military (even though the army wanted to investigate it internally). That is how these things ought to be handled, if they are to have any credibility.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
you are an ill informed buffoon
That’s what they called George Washington when he went out to war for glory.
Watching Conned trying to argue that culturalism is racism and culture is race and race is culture, is sort of like watching two retarded mud wrestlers trying to win without getting dirty.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Good point about the spelling, and my bad.
But that’s conned’s last good point, or even honest one. In particular, his point 3 — “Neo argues that whatever evil befalls the Palestinians is a result of them being Palestinian”, or that she sees Palestinians as “sexually dangerous”, et-wacko-cetera — is so ridiculously false and over the top that it’s not even a simple lie any more, it’s the “Big Lie”, in which the liar hopes that at least the more naive and credulous among his audience will be unable to believe that anyone would just make anything so preposterous. But of course, that technique is just the ordinary bread and butter of trolls anyway — and because of which, it’s wearing thin.
This also stands, yet again, as a good illustration of why it’s pointless to argue with trolls as though you really expected to find even a minimally honest opponent. Thus, his apparent concession regarding the problems of cultural relativism in point 4 — which is immediately contradicted and withdrawn (trolls have no concern with logic or consistency after all) — is held out as merely a lure or bait. Trying to enlighten him regarding his final “question” would be as hopeless as trying to rub the black off coal or the white off chalk.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
oh sorry one bit I forgot.
How would you objectively give a description of what is a “good” society as against a “bad” one and avoid the whole relativist accusation?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
ok then sally
1. It is spelled RACISM
2. As you yourself say race is an inherently flawed concept and what we ae discussing are CULTURAL differences. For example religion, language etc. I draw your attention to the genetic similarity fo “Israelis” and “Palestinians”. So why the big fuss about one or the other - depending on perspective. It is the culture. People like you despise the Palestinian culture and blame anything that becomes of them as a result of this, flawed, culture. Even when that might be an Israeli attack.
3. To borrow from the history of racism we can see that a large part of the process is to demonize a particular group. These usually follow predictable patterns. They are all
violent and aggressive
stupid
evil
sexually dangerous
plotting against the rest of us
unloved by god
etboringcetera
This is exactly what neo is doing in her treatment of the Palestinians. Her racist kneejerk reaction to all events around Israel is to laud the Israelis and demonize the Palestinians - hence i accuse her of being a racist.
Neo argues that whatever evil befalls the Palestinians is a result of them being Palestinian.
Read the list of points of accusation I made of neo and see if you can defend her. I am willing to be proved wrong - but given the nature of much of her writing i think you will find it difficult.
4. As for cultural relativism I am afraid I am forced to admit the left has a real problem here.
On the one hand we are arguing for such things as a doctrine of Internationl Human Rights. Universal laws on freedom of thought and action, economic liberty etc.
On the other we argue for toleration of all cultures.
So when we come across things such as female circumcision or the death penalty life gets philosophically complex.
However this is in the end relative. It is a matter of compromise because, and I don’t think you are going to like this bit, objective definitions of good and bad human behaviour are culturally specific. For example the possession of hand guns is seen as normal by many Americans but as extremely deviant in European society. The use of pornographic images in mainstream media is seen as normal in many western societies but as highly offensive in many muslim societies.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I argue she [neo] is racist because she interprets the behaviour of the Palestinians as being in some way inferior.
Mildly humorous, no? You have to give the writer some credit for the amazingly dogged determination to avoid facing the implications of the distinction betweeen the concept of “race” (an inherently flawed concept, but one that pertains to genetically based differentiation of any sort of characterisitcs) and “culture” (which is a perfectly valid and useful concept pertaining to learned differentiation of characteristics).
As the above quote makes clear, leftists would like to be able to say that any criticism of certain cultures as such is not simply “like” rascism or “as bad as” rascism — it just is rascism. (Though it’s hardly necessary to add that this doesn’t apply to any attempt to criticize American culture, for example, or Texan culture, or Israeli culture.) And they like this because it simply borrows the long-discredited history of actual rascism to make their case for them — they can simply paste the label “rascist” over any attempt to criticize the culture of the favored groups, and be done with the difficulty of further argument. This despite the fact that such criticism is often enough levelled by people within those very cultures, and is often seen as a welcome source of cultural change.
The downside of this intellectual laziness, however, is that they’re stuck with a frequently awkward cultural relativism, which forbids them from making any sort of objective appraisal of any sort of behavior, practice, belief or tradition as long as it can be labelled “cultural”. And which itself then becomes just another sad, historical nail in the coffin of the left.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ariel - a few notes on racism…
I still maintain that neo is a racist and do so even though this is the one accusation neo-cons dismiss as meaningless and an easy ‘leftist’ comment.
So how can i sustain this?
Firstly Racism is a cultural thing. The physical and genetic differences between human beings are extremly minor. There is a strong case to argue that human beings have a common ancestor as recently as 70 000 years ago. What physical differences that do exist are interpreted in cultural terms as being very important e.g. skin colour. There are differences, there is variation. And as you rightly said about the weight lifting stuff;
“He commented that there was a larger pool of the right skeletal characteristic (wide hips) in white males than black males. You know what he was called don’t you?”
yup i do know because you hear this casual use of racism a lot. However does it really matter that one group are better at weightlifting? Not really. And, a complex but related issue, has the existence of clearly distinct populations in which all members have a clear advantage over another group been shown? no.
So we come to neo and the Palestinians. Interesting this as the Palestinians are genetically very similair to the Israelis. Try this argument for a bit of background Also the two groups are so vague as to make claims about two clearly separate people on biological grounds pretty difficult. So we are looking at cultural differences. Many in teh US perceive Israelis as culturally similair and Palestinians as very different.
So. to neo. I argue she is racist because she interprets the behaviour of the Palestinians as being in some way inferior. That they are merely a violent bunch with a high degree of nihilism. Any violence that occurs to them has to be their own fault. To the extent that attacks upon them, such as the one on the beach in Gaza have to be seen as the fault of the Palestinians.
Neo can only interpret the behaviour of the Palestinians as the actions of an inferior group with lower standards and morals.
Yes she is not Hitler. But racism is a continuum from mild bigotry to the kind of nonsense that drove apartheid. It is also worth saying that you can find racism among many groups including muslims. You only have to read the ravings of AQ supporters to come across anti-semitic crap that Himler would have been proud of.
But it is worth considering the following
1. Does she consider that all muslims are basically the same and likely to support violence?
2. Does she consider Arab/Palestinian culture as inferior to American?
3. Does she believe in the existence of a global muslim plot to control the world which many muslims at least tacitly support?
4. Is she willing to blame anything bad that happens to Arabs-Muslims-Palestinians as being a consequence of their own propensity to violence?
I would argue that she does. Neo does not do debate because these are arguments she would simply dismiss as leftist accusations, straw men, trolling etc. But they do reflect the attitude underlying her posts.
As for many of the people who write on this blog, well they simply view muslims as demons to be destryed yet receive no criticism from neo. In fact she is exceedingly tolerant of racist comments even the ones inciting the use of violence.
Why does this matter?
Beause increaasingly in neo-con debate we can see the rehabilitation of simplistic and racist assumptions about non-USA nations and ethnic groups. The assumption of USA = good everybody else = weak or bad is dumb and flows through many neo-con idseas about the world.
…and finally congrats to the USA team for a brave and determined performance against the Italians and an incompetent referee. Might have only drawn when they deserved to win but v impressive.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Germany is a broken nation and a broken people. No threat to the US, but also not a very useful comrade in arms either.
you are an ill informed buffoon
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Germany had a great military system, but their political diplomacy left a lot to be desired. They actually tried to get an alliance with Britain by arming up their naval fleet, because they believed this would convince the British that a strong ally like Germany would be beneficial. Instead, the British declared war on Germany in WWI, when they allied with the French instead of with the Germans. Bismarck’s careful political strategy was totally messed up by the monarchs and the Junkers.
If Germany had allied with the US, and prevented the US-Britain alliance or made an Axis of US-Britain-Germany, then a lot of things would have changed, and I believe for the better. Instead of having to fight Stalin with the French and the Brits, we would have fought Stalin with the German war machine on our side. France would have surrendered just as easily, instead of engaging in two world wars, one hot and one cold, we would have ended things in WWII, the threat of fascism and communism. All the leading spiritual leaders of Nazism, would hve had to flee Germany or be executed, because with the help of the United States in WWI, Germany’s economy would be going full steam ahead by 1935.
The Communist party was strong in France, so France was more of a natural ally to Stalin and the Soviets than Germany.
German culture has a lot of order in it, discipline, being punctual, and other virtues. The socialist government of the West and the communist populace of the East, somehow combined to make a total that was less than the sum of its parts.
Germany is a broken nation and a broken people. No threat to the US, but also not a very useful comrade in arms either.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
The ‘German as largest ethnic contingent in America’ was posted by HMS Conqueror in the ‘more things change…’ thread.
You know, before WWI there were many towns in the Eastern US where German was spoken more than English.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1703245,00.html
The US state department’s annual human rights report - not a document known for being hostile to Israel - concluded that there is “institutionalised legal and societal discrimination against Israel’s Christian, Muslim and Druze citizens”. “The government,” it says, “does not provide Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20% of the population, with the same quality of education, housing, employment and social services as Jews.”
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
http://www.guardian.co.uk/southafrica/story/0,,1704038,00.html
Sharon recruited into his government men who openly called for wholesale ethnic cleansing that would more than match apartheid’s forced removals. Among them was the tourism minister, Rehavam Ze’evi, who advocated the “transfer” of Arabs out of Israel and the occupied territories. Even the Israeli press called him a racist. Ze’evi was shot dead in 2001 by Palestinians who said his policies made him a legitimate target.
But Ze’evi’s views did not die with him. An influential member of the Likud central committee, Uzi Cohen, said Israel and its western allies should demand that a part of Jordan be carved off as a Palestinian state and that Arabs in the occupied territories should be given 20 years to “leave voluntarily”. “In case they don’t leave, plans would have to be drawn up to expel them by force,” Cohen told Israel radio. “Many people support the idea but few are willing to speak about it publicly.” Cohen is among 70 Israeli MPs who have backed a bill to establish a national memorial day for Ze’evi and an institute to perpetuate his ideas.
In 2001, Sharon appointed Uzi Landau as his security minister, a position from which he openly advocated that Palestinians should be forced to move to Jordan because they were in the way of Israeli expansion in the West Bank. “For many of us, it’s as though they [the Palestinians] are encroaching on our very right to be there [in the occupied territories],” he said.
Sharon rarely objected to the expression of such views, and when he did it was not because they were racist or immoral. The prime minister told Likud party members who pressed him to expel Palestinians that he could not do so because the “international situation wouldn’t be conducive”.
“We’ve always had the fanatics talking of greater Israel,” says Krausz, the Holocaust survivor in Johannesburg. “There are blokes who say it says in the Bible this land is ours, God gave it to us. It’s fascism.”
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Could be stumb or doug. There’s always mary. Or was sally. The regulars. At the speed I read the comments these days because of the intersecting people posting, I don’t even read the names most times.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymar,
Nope, home ethernet cable network. I’m just sloppy on the touchpad, as well as a very slow writer.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Hey, who was it that said German was the largest “ethnic” group in the US?
Bravo, US 2000 census reported German as the largest ancestry group in America. At 15% it overwhelmed all other groups, the next was Irish at 11%, then African and English at 9%.
No comments regarding WWII, please.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
You’re not using your mobile to write comments here are you? Cause I got a mobile that can hook up to my wireless router, but using that to write is way too slow using touchpad/mini keyboard.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Ymar,
You have added an additional characteristic for “trolls”. Cycle of logical violence.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
I should turn off the touchpad “click” function. Insert “reading back in the 70’s” after “I remember”. Should make more sense.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
People can just use my first syllable of my name. Ymar, instead of Ymar+***
I didn’t see it as ambiguous Ariel, since you said it did (come from conned) in your first place.
I do have to remind people, that people with bad logic trying to tell you that their logic is good by using their bad logic, is in a cycle of logical violence.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
As an illustration of the use of racism as ideology.
Taxonimists break down mankind into anywhere from 15 to 35 different groups, if I remember correctly. They use skeletal characteristics, muscle type and insertion points, skull shape, hair, blood types, etc. Besides the Hottentot and Sanid unusual genetalia, I remember that statistically the European groups males had wider hips than the Central African males.
Many years later, a kinesiologist responded to a question regarding the preponderance of white males versus blacks in upper level powerlifting. He commented that there was a larger pool of the right skeletal characteristic (wide hips) in white males than black males. You know what he was called don’t you?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Please insert “were denied admission even though” after “Asian-Americans” in the 4th paragraph. I must have had the cursor in the wrong spot during editing.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Essentially you’ve reduced all observations regarding differences with regard to race, ethnic group, nationality, or culture as racism. You are right, it is very subtle.
I would agree with the pejoratives regarding basic human characteristics, although you confused the “Mexicans are lazy” with nationality. It is applied to a specific ethnic group, the mestizo, the group that largely comprises illegal immigrants in the US. Mexican soap operas seem to mirror this racism, or mirror the racism in Mexico itself.
The ICERD uses the following definition: “Any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise, on equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, or any other field of public life”.
Obviously, the operant phrase is “the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing”. This definiton, interestingly, allows positive distinctions unless used to restrict as did the California racial quota system in college admissions where Asian-Americans, as a group, out excelled all other groups, even though they suffer as much or more racism and economic restrictions as any other group. Perhaps there is a cultural reason?
Jews, at the turn of the 20th Century, for example, seldom entered the sports arena, where as Italians and Irish did. All three groups suffered intense racism, although the Irish were suffering less by the time the Italians and slavic Jews arrived (1910s-1920s)Perhaps there was a cultural reason?
The defintion above does allow for making distinctions, negative or positive, if the purpose or effect does not meet “the nullifying or impairing”. The problem is of course did that particular distinction have that “effect”. “Purpose”, on an idividual basis, is of course mind -reading and left to the bias of the observer of the one making the distinction,
Essentially, you called her observation racist because it didn’t fit your bias. It would be better to show that it was not a qualifiable characteristic of that culture. A quantifiable test could be devised, but in today’s climate of making any “distinction equals racism”, I doubt that any academic is doing it.
(Interestingly, alcoholism is actually a statistical racial characteristic, predominately European but obviously not limited to Europeans. As my poor Native Americans can attest. Shame. Genetic studies are so interesting.)
By that definition, remarks made here regarding Americans could be construed as racist depending on purpose or effect. I’ll keep my bias to myself.
Also, neglecting cultural differences for strictly economic is highly eurocentric. Specific cultures are not intrinsic characteristics of any people and are highly modifiable. I would be careful extending “racism” to the process of making distinctions.
Personally, I would prefer more terminology used so that racism would more strictly follow Webster’s as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”. The Brittanica adds “culture” to the above also.Notice that in this definition “race makes culture” is racist. Neo’s comments would not fall under this defiition either.
The inclusion of national origin in the first definition is a remnant of 18th and 19th century racial thought ( the British race, the Italian race, etc.) and really should be dropped from racism. New terminology should be developed to account for this. Notice, also, that culture was not included in this definition if it can be distiguished from ethnic.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Oh, and that linking to a leftist British newspaper’s account of an “investigation” under the controlled auspices of the Palestinians, conducted by an agent for a Soros-funded NGO with a history of anti-Israeli positions and statements is, to say the least, no more convincing than linking to Israeli and IDF spokespeople.
So….now HRW is a leftist antiIsraeli organization. This is way beyond a joke now. Mind you, coming from a country where a Republican vice presidential candidate called football a “socialist game’ it shouldn’t be surprizing.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Let’s see if we can try to be clear rather than confused or conned:
Is there a difference between “culture” and “race”? Hmm?
If we’re speaking of culture, not race, is it possible to speak of general cultural characteristics that the preponderance (as opposed to all) of the people within that culture display? How about American culture? How about Texan culture? Hmm?
If we’re speaking of general cultural characteristics, is it possible that some are better than others? And that it’s therefore possible that some cultures are better than others?
Or can we do no better than a general cultural relativism, so that any cultural beliefs, practices and characteristics have the same value as any other? Would that also apply to any American cultural characteristics? Any Texan? Hmm?
What then is wrong with generalizations about “ethnicities”, such as “all Mexicans are lazy” or “all Irish are stupid” (or “all Americans are arrogant” or “all Texans are swaggerers”)? These are wrong precisely because they wrongly treat culture or ethnicity as though they were essential characteristics, in the same way that race is genetic. But culture is NOT essential, it’s imprinted — an individual can overcome the limitations imposed by culture, and culture itself can change, in a way that essentialist characteristics such as a genetic code cannot (discounting Darwinian adaptation over generations). In fact, it’s just this possibility of change that inspires cultural critiques, including self-critiques, arab and others.
And all of this escapes the simple-minded categories and “concepts” of the left, which can only save themselves from permanent, essentialist, race-like cultural stereotypes by floundering in a hopeless cultural relativism. No wonder they can only think to chant “rascist” at anyone who points out their dilemma.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
hmmmmm well no. I am saying that you can logically infer racism from statements made by neo-con. Read through the whole thing.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
Errr… you’re saying racism is a subset of inductive reasoning? Did I catch your explanation correctly, conned?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
oh and i am sure this evidence of IDF guilt will be ignored as this really is a left wing paper - unlike The Independent - any sensible critique of it?
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
i can see how you are trying to argue that the logic is wrong but if you read neo’s original post you can see the following
until I realized that so many of them were celebrating and advocating the death of Americans, Israelis, Jews, and other westerners, and that there is something about the culture that seems to foster and support this sort of thing. It is simply an empirical fact, and if we ignore it or cover it up, we do so, quite literally, at our own peril.
neo is saying that arab culture has a flaw which makes it more violent.
hmmm “dont confuse fact with opinion”
interesting point that maybe you should address to neo as she is the one claiming that nihilism is over represented in arab culture and uses this to expalin the situation of the palestinians.
neo makes great play of claiming to deal with fact but is interesting to see which “facts” she grasps at.
The IDF didn’t kill people on Gaza beach
Arabs are more likely to be nihilists
…as for your other point is it not possible the reason that black people are over-represented in sports is that traditional routes of success in commerce, corporations, education, military etc. have been limited for black people so a culture of ambition through sport has emerged. racism can be subtle and produce strange effects.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:56 am
“but its basic explanation is that palestinians are in some way different/inferior.”
What we call in logic a “false syllogism”.
The statement,