ouch.
leftwing antisemites?
perhaps it is due to the Left not being particularly fond of any special interest group gaming the political system to the detriment of the general masses, and sometimes it is Zionists doing it.
and make no doubt, and that Harvard study/essay bernie cited showed, the pro-israeli US lobby has shown more muscle than its mere numbers would expect.
btw, the counterpunch essay on the difference between antisemite and antizionist was interesting to read.
kuvasz wrote:ouch.
leftwing antisemites?
perhaps it is due to the Left not being particularly fond of any special interest group gaming the political system to the detriment of the general masses, and sometimes it is Zionists doing it.
and make no doubt, and that Harvard study/essay bernie cited showed, the pro-israeli US lobby has shown more muscle than its mere numbers would expect.
btw, the counterpunch essay on the difference between antisemite and antizionist was interesting to read.
"The Left is not particularly fond of any special interest group..."
Yeah, right!
[Recently deceased Rabbi Arthur] Hertzberg ran guns to Palestine in 1946, already a rabbi, an aspiring historian and vice president of the Philadelphia Zionist Region. He published an indispensable intellectual history of the Zionist ideal in 1959 and celebrated Israel's victory in 1967 but called for a Palestinian state decades before respectable Jewish opinion allowed such talk. He held fast to this position despite serving not only as the rabbi at important Conservative synagogues but also as president of the American Jewish Congress (1972-78) and vice president of the World Jewish Congress (1975-91). In addition Hertzberg condemned the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Israeli beatings of Palestinians in 1988 and Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in 2004. He even called on America to deduct from its aid to Israel every nickel the Jewish state devoted to its illegal settlements. Israel aside, Hertzberg was large; he contained multitudes. Imagine a rabbi in Englewood, New Jersey, telling his Conservative congregation in 1967, "A vote for the Republican Party...is a vote for racism, and I forbid it as an immoral act!" Add to this a dozen scholarly books and who knows how many articles and, well... I have to stop.
Rabbi Arthur] Hertzberg ? Is he a true Jew? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=677531&contrassID=2
News
Groups to Bush: Drop Iran-Israel Linkage
By Ori Nir
May 12, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jewish community leaders have urged the White House to refrain from publicly pledging to defend Israel against possible Iranian hostilities, senior Jewish activists told the Forward.
Messages were passed to the White House through several channels, Jewish activists said. And it seems to have worked: Speaking before the annual conference of the American Jewish Committee in Washington last week ' his most recent address before a Jewish audience ' President Bush talked about America's commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and about his administration's commitment to Israeli security, but he did not link the two, as he has several times in recent months.
"We are basically telling the president: We appreciate it, we welcome it. But, hey, because there is this debate on Iraq, where people are trying to put the blame on us, maybe you shouldn't say it that often or that loud," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "Within the Jewish community there is a real sense of 'thank you but no thank you.'"
Communal leaders say that although they deeply appreciate the president's repeated promises to come to Israel's defense, public declarations to that effect do more harm than good. Such statements, they say, create an impression that the United States is considering a military option against Iran for the sake of Israel ' and could lead to American Jews being blamed for any negative consequences of an American strike against Iran.
Jewish activists are concerned that "there would be [a scenario] just like with Iraq: the idea that somehow the Jewish community and the neoconservatives have dragged the United States into a conflict with Iran," said Martin Raffel, associate executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a policy coordinating organization that brings together 13 national Jewish agencies and 123 local Jewish communities. "And if things go badly and our people are killed, then who is to blame?"
In early February, during an interview with Reuters, the president was asked about America's reaction to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's threats against Israel. Bush replied: "We will rise to Israel's defense, if need be. So this kind of menacing talk is disturbing. It's not only disturbing to the United States, it's disturbing for other countries in the world, as well." Asked whether he meant that the United States would militarily defend Israel, Bush said: "You bet we'll defend Israel."
The White House's public liaison office has been ending its e-mails to the Jewish community with the following Bush quote from a March 20 appearance: "I made it clear. I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel." At the time, Bush was speaking about the threat posed by Iran.
Most Jewish communal leaders, despite their unease, say that the president talks about defending Israel from Iran out of a deep, personal commitment to the Jewish state.
"This comes from the heart," Foxman said.
Some, however, say that other factors may be at work, specifically the president's poor approval ratings, even among members of his political base. Two recent opinion polls show Bush's support among conservatives dropping, including among evangelicals, who consistently cite their support of Israel as a key political priority.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the White House is playing politics here," said an activist with a major Jewish group, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Jewish objections to the president's rhetoric have increased in recent weeks, as the storm created by a recent paper by two academics criticizing the influence of the "Israel Lobby" continues to grow. The study, co-authored by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, has been attracting support in national media outlets with its thesis that Israel, with the help of powerful supporters in Washington, has all but hijacked America's policy in the Middle East.
In one such article, Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large at United Press International, wrote April 24 that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the lobbying powerhouse known as Aipac, "has maneuvered to make Israel the third rail of American foreign policy." In addition, more than 1,000 Americans, most of them university professors, have signed an online petition challenging the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella body of 52 groups that serves as Jewish community's main united voice on Middle East issues, to "condemn" the "smearing" of Mearsheimer and Walt by several fellow scholars and pundits as "antisemites."
The executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, Malcolm Hoenlein, said that none of the Jewish organizations in the umbrella group had accused the two scholars of being antisemitic. But Juan Cole, the University of Michigan professor who initiated the petition, pointed out that the Anti-Defamation League has. In a comment on the study posted on its Web site in March, the ADL expressed the hope that "mainstream individuals and institutions will see it for what it is ññ a classical conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control."
Even with the buzz surrounding Walt and Mearsheimer's paper, not everyone agrees that the president's statements are potentially damaging for the Jewish community. One senior official with a major Jewish group, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "So what do [Jewish communal leaders] want? They want the president of Iran to be threatening Israel with nuclear destruction and the United States will say nothing? If that happens they would be complaining: 'Why aren't you committing yourselves to protecting Israel?'"
Robert Freedman, a professor of political science at Baltimore Hebrew University and an expert on Iran, calls the concerns about the president's statements "nonsense" and "foolish." First, he said, the case for tough action against Iran is stronger than the case was for action against Iraq ' the intelligence this time is solid, the Iranian president says he wants to destroy Israel and Iran's possession of nuclear weapons poses a much greater danger to the region than Saddam Hussein's regime ever did. Second, according to Freedman, the risk of an entanglement in Iran is much smaller. A military campaign against Iran would most likely not involve a ground invasion, but an air bombing campaign. Third, he said, Israel is not in as good a position to carry out such a bombing campaign as the United States is.
"So," Freedman said, "if the president of the United States says, 'I am going to support Israel and we will not let Israel be destroyed,' that should be taken as a given and as a good given."
http://www.forward.com/articles/7764
dlowan wrote:Finn d'Abuzz wrote:dlowan wrote:snood wrote:"In the United States, we do not have full-throated, full-throttle debate about Israel," she wrote. "In Israel, they have it as a matter of course, but the truth is that the accusation of anti-Semitism is far too often raised in this country against anyone who criticizes the government of Israel. ... I don't know that I've ever felt intimidated by the knee-jerk 'you're anti-Semitic' charge leveled at anyone who criticizes Israel, but I do know I have certainly heard it often enough to become tired of it. And I wonder if that doesn't produce the same result: giving up on the discussion."
-Molly Ivins
That actually strikes me as being, currently, the most pressing danger the conspiracy/anti semite people pose....that it becomes easy for the pro Israel, (no matter what it does and how badly it behaves), people to smear those delivering a rational critique and proposing a different US policy towards Israel and the Middle East as antisemitic, and thus to hinder proper debate.
Poor Liberals...smeared with a broad brush of prejudice. Imagine that?
So, are you suggesting that no conservative questions American policy towards Israel, or Israel's policies and actions?
Not at all. What I am suggesting, however, is that unlike their Liberal counterparts, those Conservative who criticize Israel are not casting themselves as victims, and don't have the temerity to utter an incredibly ridculous statement like the "most pressing danger" posed by actual anti-semites is that they make it tough for honest critics of Israel.
It is amazing that this tripe wasn't set upon by all posters as it would have been had it read: The most pressing danger of the Ku Klux Klan is that it makes it difficult to for people to criticize Jesse jackson and Al Sharpton without being called a racist.
Poor conservatives......always assuming that anyone talking about anything is speaking in terms of the narrow American drama between "liberals" and conservatives.
Shouldn't that read "Poor American conservatives..." Presumably there are conservatives and liberals in Australia as there are in other parts of the world. It is not understood by "conservatives," that one means "American conservatives," and yet you default to the broader term. I, of course, could be wrong but this suggests to me that you yourself are well entrenched in the narrow American drama of which you write, and only take a lofty international perspective when it suits your argument.
This is not a "liberal"/conservative issue as far as I am concerned....is it actually so in the US?
Is it actually so in the US?
Anti-semitism is not.
Victim status for critics of Israel is.
I am also not implying that the effect I mention is the only possible serious consequence....we have seen too many instances of the awful effects of anti-Semitism in the past not to worry about it for the future.
No, you didn't imply it was the only possible serious consequence of ant-semitism. You expressed that is was the most pressing danger of such behavior. Nice try at a recovery dlowan, but too little too late.
Finn:
"Not at all. What I am suggesting, however, is that unlike their Liberal counterparts, those Conservative who criticize Israel are not casting themselves as victims"
dlowan:
Huh? What nonsense is this? YOU dreamed up a claim of victimhood from god knows where in your psyche, and now use your own silly claim as mine.
Where did I say anything about "liberals" as victims?
What I actually DO consider to be a victim of the hysterical and disgusting antisemitism of the far right, and, it appears, elements of the far left as well, is rational and reasoned debate about a situation in the Middle East, between Israel and the Palestinians and other Arab neighbours, which causes daily death and misery.
You may consider me to be wrong about this, but do not tell stupid lies about claims of victimhood and then act as though your lies are real.
I made NO claim that the left is more a target when it criticises Israel than conservatives are.
As for your Ku Klux Klan thing...are you suggesting that the loony ranters about whom Setanta opened this thread are a current danger to Jews? Are they killing them? Are they mounting pogroms? Are they denying them civil rights? Your raising of this nonsense is an example of exactly what I speak of...you have immediately turned a simple discussion point into an hysterical implied accusation.
I am well aware of loony right wing people who harass Jews and others....we have a pathetic little Nazi party right here, who occasionally write nasty letters to Jews, or mount some holocaust denying march or display. I am personally active in taking counteraction when they attempt to publicise their nonsense, but I am not currently aware of such actions by the loony elelements of the left.
Long term, history suggests that such lunatics may well present a danger, and their hate filled nonsense should be countered, as Set is attempting to do here, but I am not aware of their having power to act against Jews at present, as opposed to ongoing terror and violence amid a failure to succeed in making a sane settlement between Israel and Palestinians.
Finn:
Shouldn't that read "Poor American conservatives..." Presumably there are conservatives and liberals in Australia as there are in other parts of the world. It is not understood by "conservatives," that one means "American conservatives," and yet you default to the broader term. I, of course, could be wrong but this suggests to me that you yourself are well entrenched in the narrow American drama of which you write, and only take a lofty international perspective when it suits your argument.[/color]"
dlowan:
Yes, we have left and right in Australian politics.
What has that to do with your narrow and wrong assumption that I was discussing anything to do with conservative/"liberal" struggles?
Conservative, unlike "liberal" is a frequently used term everywhere. "Liberal" for left is, I think, peculiarly American.
Finn:
No, you didn't imply it was the only possible serious consequence of ant-semitism. You expressed that is was the most pressing danger of such behavior. Nice try at a recovery dlowan, but too little too late."
dlowan:
Expectation that someone such as you would beautifully illustrate my point that reasoned debate about this topic was strangled by the likelihood that criticism of Israel would result in innuendo about anti Semitism was what led me to clarify.
Later in your post, you actually somewhat correct your lie, and discuss "victim status for critics of Israel" as though I had claimed THAT, also.
Once again, I am not claiming "victim" status for anything except reasoned debate about solving a pressing and difficult problem, which is bringing daily suffering to bot Israelis and Palestinians, and is also helping to feed much larger problems.
ouch.
leftwing antisemites?
perhaps it is due to the Left not being particularly fond of any special interest group gaming the political system to the detriment of the general masses, and sometimes it is Zionists doing it.
and make no doubt, and that Harvard study/essay bernie cited showed, the pro-israeli US lobby has shown more muscle than its mere numbers would expect.
btw, the counterpunch essay on the difference between antisemite and antizionist was interesting to read.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:kuvasz wrote:ouch.
leftwing antisemites?
perhaps it is due to the Left not being particularly fond of any special interest group gaming the political system to the detriment of the general masses, and sometimes it is Zionists doing it.
and make no doubt, and that Harvard study/essay bernie cited showed, the pro-israeli US lobby has shown more muscle than its mere numbers would expect.
btw, the counterpunch essay on the difference between antisemite and antizionist was interesting to read.
"The Left is not particularly fond of any special interest group..."
Yeah, right!
Aw shucks. Lookee Lookee here! My cute little bete noire awakens and slithers from his musty cave!
You agree? Great! Its the very first post you ever wrote that actually made sense.
But in case you don't agree, try the complete, the entire sentence I wrote, not simply the introductory clause you misquoted, and explain with examples how it is generally not true in relation to how much the American - Israeli lobby impacts US foreign policies and how the magnitude of the affect is perceived by the Left as being out of proportion to the number of actively Zionist Jews in the US population.
I am willing to discuss and support my remarks. You should expect to be called upon to defend your own. If you can, and I know it will difficult for you, but try to restrict yourself from using gay marriage, prayer in public schools or Bill Clinton's magical penis in your response.
Finn:
"Not at all. What I am suggesting, however, is that unlike their Liberal counterparts, those Conservative who criticize Israel are not casting themselves as victims"
dlowan:
Huh? What nonsense is this? YOU dreamed up a claim of victimhood from god knows where in your psyche, and now use your own silly claim as mine.
Where did I say anything about "liberals" as victims?
What I actually DO consider to be a victim of the hysterical and disgusting antisemitism of the far right, and, it appears, elements of the far left as well, is rational and reasoned debate about a situation in the Middle East, between Israel and the Palestinians and other Arab neighbours, which causes daily death and misery.
You may consider me to be wrong about this, but do not tell stupid lies about claims of victimhood and then act as though your lies are real.
I made NO claim that the left is more a target when it criticises Israel than conservatives are.
As for your Ku Klux Klan thing...are you suggesting that the loony ranters about whom Setanta opened this thread are a current danger to Jews? Are they killing them? Are they mounting pogroms? Are they denying them civil rights? Your raising of this nonsense is an example of exactly what I speak of...you have immediately turned a simple discussion point into an hysterical implied accusation.
I am well aware of loony right wing people who harass Jews and others....we have a pathetic little Nazi party right here, who occasionally write nasty letters to Jews, or mount some holocaust denying march or display. I am personally active in taking counteraction when they attempt to publicise their nonsense, but I am not currently aware of such actions by the loony elelements of the left.
Long term, history suggests that such lunatics may well present a danger, and their hate filled nonsense should be countered, as Set is attempting to do here, but I am not aware of their having power to act against Jews at present, as opposed to ongoing terror and violence amid a failure to succeed in making a sane settlement between Israel and Palestinians.
Finn:
Shouldn't that read "Poor American conservatives..." Presumably there are conservatives and liberals in Australia as there are in other parts of the world. It is not understood by "conservatives," that one means "American conservatives," and yet you default to the broader term. I, of course, could be wrong but this suggests to me that you yourself are well entrenched in the narrow American drama of which you write, and only take a lofty international perspective when it suits your argument.[/color]"
dlowan:
Yes, we have left and right in Australian politics.
What has that to do with your narrow and wrong assumption that I was discussing anything to do with conservative/"liberal" struggles?
Conservative, unlike "liberal" is a frequently used term everywhere. "Liberal" for left is, I think, peculiarly American.
Finn:
No, you didn't imply it was the only possible serious consequence of ant-semitism. You expressed that is was the most pressing danger of such behavior. Nice try at a recovery dlowan, but too little too late."
dlowan:
Expectation that someone such as you would beautifully illustrate my point that reasoned debate about this topic was strangled by the likelihood that criticism of Israel would result in innuendo about anti Semitism was what led me to clarify.
Later in your post, you actually somewhat correct your lie, and discuss "victim status for critics of Israel" as though I had claimed THAT, also.
Once again, I am not claiming "victim" status for anything except reasoned debate about solving a pressing and difficult problem, which is bringing daily suffering to bot Israelis and Palestinians, and is also helping to feed much larger problems.
kuvasz wrote:Finn d'Abuzz wrote:kuvasz wrote:ouch.
leftwing antisemites?
perhaps it is due to the Left not being particularly fond of any special interest group gaming the political system to the detriment of the general masses, and sometimes it is Zionists doing it.
and make no doubt, and that Harvard study/essay bernie cited showed, the pro-israeli US lobby has shown more muscle than its mere numbers would expect.
btw, the counterpunch essay on the difference between antisemite and antizionist was interesting to read.
"The Left is not particularly fond of any special interest group..."
Yeah, right!
Aw shucks. Lookee Lookee here! My cute little bete noire awakens and slithers from his musty cave!
You agree? Great! Its the very first post you ever wrote that actually made sense.
But in case you don't agree, try the complete, the entire sentence I wrote, not simply the introductory clause you misquoted, and explain with examples how it is generally not true in relation to how much the American - Israeli lobby impacts US foreign policies and how the magnitude of the affect is perceived by the Left as being out of proportion to the number of actively Zionist Jews in the US population.
I am willing to discuss and support my remarks. You should expect to be called upon to defend your own. If you can, and I know it will difficult for you, but try to restrict yourself from using gay marriage, prayer in public schools or Bill Clinton's magical penis in your response.
Here is what you wrote
"perhaps it is due to the Left not being particularly fond of any special interest group gaming the political system to the detriment of the general masses, (and sometimes it is Zionists doing it).
Here is my misquote: "The Left is not particularly fond of any special interest group..."
What a distortion!
Tut tut, there my "terrible beast." You are playing fast and loose as is your bent. The distortion was your truncating my complete sentence and attacking the initial clause. It is like claiming victory in a baseball ball game in the first inning because your team is at the plate and mine is still in the field. It is both spurious and intellectually dishonest.
Let's put aside all of the vitriolic drivel you feel compelled to invest in your postings (...slithers from his musty cave.), and attempt to find a kernel of sense in all of this chafe.
Look up the meaning of bete noire and whence it was derived, and you might gain a clue to the cave reference.
Still searching...yes, that would be your dictionary
Wait a minute, still looking...
Nope, can't find it. ..look under "bete noire," "B" follows "A
You have contended that the Left has no use for special interest groups deceiving the American public. You have also asserted that you are more than willing to defend your contentions.
No, as usual you are completing lying about what I actually said, and I challenge you to produce a quote from me on this thread where I said that the "Left has no use for special interest groups deceiving the American public. Once again, you are beating up your own straw argument and are being purposely deceitful in your remark.
Your response to me, however, (minus all of the silly insults) is not that I should prove that your contention is wrong, but that I should prove that this rambling statement is false: "American - Israeli lobby impacts US foreign policies and how the magnitude of the affect is perceived by the Left as being out of proportion to the number of actively Zionist Jews in the US population."
I might consider such a proof if I could possibly understand the statement.
Still I try:
And once again, you fail. But a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
So I will explain it to you in terms you can understand. The pro-Israeli lobby in the US has donated a lot of money to American politicians, both democrats and republicans. The Israeli-American lobby in the US is the most influential foreign policy special interest group in the country. As a result this has ben perceived to have affected the foreign policies of the US vis-a-vis Israel far greater than what would be expected from the influence other hyphenated-American lobbies have upon the US policies towards their own homelands, viz., how Irish-American, Italian-American, Greek-American, Armenian- American Indian-American (dots, not feathers) lobbies affect US foreign policies towards Ireland, Italy, Greece, Armenia, and India.
The Left perceives that the influence of the Pro-Israel Lobby in Washington is disproportionately powerful to the number of "Zionist Jews" in the US population.
No kidding. Am I supposed to disprove this paranoia?
Here is where you show that either you are actually a low brow with a pc or so infected with bile towards me that you can't think straight. . You fail even to contemplate that I can make an objective observation about the Left, and not hold it true to my own heart. I did not say that "I" believed these things to be true, but that the "Left" of Setanta's original post held them. So, I want to help you out here in this little discussion on why Israel gets so much money,
Okay?
Israel is America's most trusted and reliable ally in the Middle East, the only state in the Middle East that publicly declares support for the U.S. -- despite the fact that Israel bore the brunt of Saddam's weapons when the 1991 American offensive began.
Israel is on the frontline in the battle against Islamic terrorists, and provides the U.S. with key intelligence information and frontline military operations. In 1981 Israel destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor, setting back Saddam Hussein's quest for nuclear weapons. How much money and how many lives did this end up saving America?
Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East, a region dominated by authoritarian and military regimes. Israel upholds Western ideals of freedom of expression, a free market economy, equal opportunity, women's rights, judicial review, and minority representation in elected offices. The U.S. spends untold billions spreading the ideals of democracy around the world; in Israel, it comes for free.
Okay?
Objective enough for you?
I'm not particularly fond of investing words with specific political power, but reality often overrides my preferences. "Zionist" has become a anti-Israeli term.
Neither are you comfortable vesting words with much means either, because there are many Jews, especially secular ones living in Israel who would be considered anti-Zionist because they do not support the West Bank settlements or Palestinian refugee camps
The President of Iran refers to Israel as "The Zionist Entity."
And David ben Gurion would likely agree, being an ardent Zionist and Israel's first president.
Whether or not anti-Israeli sentiment is the equivalent of anti-semitic notions is, I suppose, debateable. However there are few nations, if any, on earth in which the State is more closely identified with the specificity of the People, than Israel.
Had you read the Counterpunch link, perhaps you would have more informed and less pedestrian perspective, but at least they tried to inform.
That there is a minority of Israelis who might agree with Pro-Palestinian Westerners is immaterial. There is a minority of Americans who passionately endorse policy that is detrimental to the interests of their country. That they exist, doesn't ratify their cock-eyed notions.
You castigate those Israelis who are demand equality under their own laws as not looking out for their own country, just as you do those Americans who are critical of Bush as undermining the "war-effort" in Iraq and America in general. and in each case are unwilling to examine the claims of those o you dismiss.. So who is cock-eyed here? Those who lead examined lives or those like you who do not?
It is ironic, to say the least, that politically correct Liberals who would mince words ad infinitum rather than offend, have no problem with the possibility that they might piss of Jews.
No, it is not "ironic," you are misusing the word and projecting the right-wing's race-baiting tactics on to the Left.
In the defense of America I don't care if I piss off Jesus Christ Almighty ( well, actually, he was, after all a Jew, but only on his mother's side) and I think Jonathon Pollard ought to die in jail of old age.
And don't even get me started on the USS Liberty incident..
Israel is as ripe for criticism as any nation.
First damn smart words in the hundreds you typed.
Israel's critics, however, are not above criticism.
But you have failed to dissect why their criticism is not valid, and I had to do it for you above.
I really don't believe that all Leftist critics of Israel do so because they hate Jews. However, hating Jews has been such a cultural norm for centuries that it's pretty difficult to assume it has no place in today's world.
Actually, the word "Jew" has been attached as a prefix and suffix for demeaning phrases used by Nativists, and right wing fascists to define the Left for nearly century in the US. So your point is dulled to a nub.
More than likely the Left's disappointment with Israel emminates with their fundamental dislike of any entity (Nation, Organization, or Person) who is able to exercise power.
So the Left "hates" the personal or social structural avatars of a "Will to Power?"
Yes, as I said, if such power or persons collide with as Madison might say, efforts "to promote the common welfare."
And more likely many on the Left do not like to see a nation born of the pain of the Holocaust hold their own citizens in modern day equivalents of Warsaw Ghetto camps.
And yet they were soft on the very powerful Soviet Union.
Sweet Jesus on the cross are you so poisoned that you are calling the "Left" "soft" on the Soviet Union? What "Left" are you referring to? Gus Hall of the US Communist Party, Martin Luther King Jr? How about Jews, those young Jews who were murdered in Mississippi working for the civil rights of all Americans, like Goodman, Cheney and Shwimer? Or another Jew like old Max Schactman who was a translator of Leon Trotsky in the 1930's and saw the evils of a state controlled economic bureaucracy and fought it and who supported the US war in Vietnam as a way to defeat communism yet remained a devoted worker's right advocate and socialist.
So, define what "Left' it is to which you refer as "soft on the soviet union.
With that last remark You are now out there where the buses don't run with this ridiculous argument.
Playing your game, your hero George Bush is soft on Red China
Thus I am not, at all, sure that I can explain the inconsistencies of the Liberal mind. Why do they object vociferously to the power of Israel, but not that of China?
China? Are you blind. You are just blowing right wing bull$hit rhetoric out of you're a$$ now. I'm the alleged "leftist" you tangle with the most on site, and the most anti-Sino A2Ker on this board. But I make a distinction between the Chinese people and that ******* blight on humanity of a Red Chinese government.
And I feel the same way about Israel. I grew up in a Jewish-Italian neighborhood, my best friends are to this day are Jewish, I went to a dozen bar mitzvahs, and read Talmud with the father of one of my best friends, BUT, the methods of the current Israeli government in dealing with the captive Muslim population inside their borders is unsound and bound to fail..
I'd like to thing that there is more intellectual substance involved than an affinity for anything that smacks of The Left, and an aversion to anything that might be considered part of The Right, but I'm having trouble here.
And now we return to Kuvy...
Kuvy, I am entirely appreciative of a skillfully delivered insult. Often you have been capable of same and as a result you have risen to Nemesis status. This time, however, I'm afraid you've lost mucho points: "awakens and slithers from his musty cave."
Please.
Oh goody, I get all tingly inside when you beg . But don't think I give a $hit about being your nemesis. All I hope from you, or anyone else in this world is compassion towards god's creations, intellectual honesty and perhaps a glimmer that you might be able to grow as a human being, because the world depends upon it for us both and our children.
We have some members here who retail a new version of the Protocols of Zion. These are leftwingnuts who rant about the current administration being controlled by Jews. Personally, i think our foreign policy is and has been for fifty years hobbled by our support for Israel. However, these jokers take it many steps further down the road to anti-semitism. They contend that Jews control the government, and that all foreign policy decisions are filtered through a Zionist plot of some sort. (Excuse me for not having all the details of their conspiracy paranoia--it's not something i am interested in reading up on.)
What the ? ! ? ! ?
What ya think goys and birls--are they looney, or not?
If there is an antagonism toward christianity, it can likely be chalked up to the unfettered lunacy of people like Pat Robertson, and attempts to push religious doctrins such as "intelligent design" down the throats of the public. When there was a big flap over the Judge in Alabama who had the "ten commandments" posted in a court building, many right-wing christians were not even aware that there are several different versions of the "ten commandments." Many fundamentalists have been alienating the public for years. What you call antangonism toward christianity might be better described as resentment toward conservative, pushing christians.
