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Random Political Thoughts

Started by MV/Liberace!, February 08, 2012, 10:50:42 AM


Quote from: Ben Shockley on November 16, 2013, 08:17:13 PM
...  I've addressed this before in here as pertains to "conservatives" generally, but comprehensively speaking, they fear losing that which makes them "superior;" something that they perceive themselves as having more of than others.  By definition, you must have something, or at least believe that you do, in order to rationally want to "conserve" it.  Of course, that makes sense when you really have something; but when you just pathetically believe that you do, that's what Karl Marx called "false consciousness."

Exactly what things people want to keep varies, but, according to Conflict Sociology, it boils down to wealth (material stuff), power (the ability to control others), and prestige (other people's subjective perception of you --which to dramatically simplify, amounts to judgements of "the rightness / correctness" of both you and your public lifestyle).
"Conservatives," then, might be interested in any or all of:
1) holding onto their "material stuff"
2) retaining their structural positions of control 
3) dissuading acceptance of "types of persons," or lifestyles, other than those the Conservatives seem to be, or display

Threats to those interests are most often met with emotions of fear, hatred, and resentment.   Those emotions seem to be common threads in the garments the righties in here wear.   Mix and match, a little bit.




...  That "Southern strategy" thing was a beauty to behold, right boys?... About "the Southern strategy," I recall noting how NONE of the usual rightie suspects around here demonstrated any  understanding of what it had been: a deliberate Republican strategy to garner in perpetuity the votes of previously-Democratic-voting racist Southern Whites...

This is significant.  When we get into specific discussions of events and strategies from history, you'll find these righties in here always carefully distancing themselves from the more noxious stuff.  In this they demonstrate at least some acknowledgement of the fact that most Americans think that things like "racism," "sexism," "homophobia," "environmental destruction," "genocide," "war" -- that all those are "bad things."  But they just can't bring themselves to admit that the modern American policies they support, and the living, breathing demagogues they so admire and vote for, have ANY relation to things like that.

Mind you, I don't doubt that a lot of these righties have any compunction about actually effecting policies like those, personally nor nationally, but they are JUST HIP ENOUGH to know that you're not supposed to admit it.  And in trying to deflect blame for those "bad things" from any political philosophy or party that they would ever belong to, they tie themselves into senseless rhetorical- and logical pretzels...



Quote from: Quick Karl on November 17, 2013, 07:09:22 PM
"The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane." Mark Twain



I'm not so sure the far Left wing mentality is insanity, or that 'Liberalism is a mental disease' as Michael Savage claims.  Both look more like a religion.  As Christianity came from Judaism, and Buddhism came from Hinduism, so Liberalism came from Marxism.  2 separate, but related political/economic based religions. 

In each, to the believers their beliefs can't be wrong or even disputed.  The teachings shouldn't be examined too closely - and are left to the high priests to interpret.  When confronted with the choice of believing what they have been told or believing provable facts, they choose their beliefs.  You either have faith or you don't.  The feeling of belonging is strong, perhaps overpowering.  They have their high priests, their sacred texts, their rituals, their hymns.


For the Hard Left, look at the portions of Perfesser Ben's latest missive I've included above.  All their revealed scriptures from Marx to Alinsky have insisted on hatred for the middle class, and for our elimination.  Why?  They claim we are 'greedy' and 'racist'.  They know better, but it's such an alluring tactic for them to use. 

Look how much Ben has included about racism and greed - and I didn't even copy all of it.  Go back over his earlier posts and see how ingrained these are into this psyche.  As if that is the only possible reason anyone could oppose his religion.  The 'greed' and 'racism' of the middle class is a main pillar of the theology - it is meant to smear, to keep their enemy on defense, to end the debate - they know the good people they are attacking don't want to be called names like these and will often withdraw instead. 

People like Ben know they can't win an honest debate, they know they can't show examples of their religion improving society when it's been implemented, so they are left with smearing the rest of us.

I've mentioned several times how much the Left hates us, hates the United States, our history, our culture, our political and economic systems, how they lie and smear.  They certainly attack Christianity any chance they get.  I've even mentioned their reliance on insisting we are 'greedy' and 'racist'.  And every so often, along comes Ben to provide more evidence of these same old tactics.

Ben Shockley

I realize that people's monitors display things differently, so what a person creates is not always visually rendered for others in the way the creator intended.
There seems to be some confusion here: can someone explain for me what P*B may be looking at from my post he quoted that is rendering on his screen as the words "middle class" or "greed?"

I did type the word "racism" but it was in the context of an example --along with several other examples-- of things that I thought most Americans would agree were "bad."  P*B's panicky squawking on the matter seems to vindicate me in my admission that    I don't doubt that a lot of these righties have any compunction about ...policies like those, personally... but they are JUST HIP ENOUGH to know that you're not supposed to admit it. [emphasis changed]
And/or in P*B's case, squeal like a stuck piggy if anyone ever mentions "bad things" -- apparently, his guilty, guilty conscience senses a (valid personal) accusation when none was made.   That he considers association with a "bad thing" (even when none was made) as an accusation suggests that he agrees that the thing in question is "bad."
But he's not smart enough to leave it there.   Instead, he must pick out and rail against one particular  example of "a consensus bad thing," and argue that I'm unbalanced for even including it in a list.   This strongly suggests that he's desperately hiding something-- but only from himself, because he's beyond convincing anybody else at this point.



If, long ago, P*B could have fought his inner knee-jerk anti-intellectualism, and, instead of attacking me on the basis of the names of some Sociological theorists I once included in a post (and, showing what a grownup he is by even ridiculing the names), would have actually looked up the theorists I mentioned and had someone explain their seminal ideas to him, he would be way ahead of where he is now.   He has literally no idea where I'm coming from theoretically, to the apparent extent of hallucinating words that I don't write, in order to make my posts fit better with his imagination; thus he has no idea how to attack me.   I say "attack" because I have no hope that P*B would ever attempt to gain knowledge for pure understanding and intellectual growth, only to facilitate warfare.  So consider this my helpful hint to him for his OPFOR research.   And until P*B does a little of that, then, for anyone other than a sympathetic ignorant ideologue reading his attempts at "refuting" me --such as his bizarrely claiming that I am attacking the "middle class" or even suggesting that I am "debating" anybody here --he's making a bigger fool out of himself.

Yorkshire pud

A little history lesson:

Quote from: Paper*Boy on November 17, 2013, 08:25:42 PM


I'm not so sure the far Left wing mentality is insanity, or that 'Liberalism is a mental disease' as Michael Savage claims.  Both look more like a religion.  As Christianity came from Judaism, and Buddhism came from Hinduism, so Liberalism came from Marxism.  2 separate, but related political/economic based religions. 


Erm no. Marxism isn't related to being liberal. In the UK we had a well known Liberal who in later life would in fact detach from the Liberal party and join the Conservatives; but in many ways (not all) he held fast to his liberal principles.  He'd later be in the triumvirate that was the precursor to the cold war. Notably one of his worst ideas was to attempt to bring newspapers he didn't agree with into censorship, although he came to his senses and pushed that to one side. That man was arguably one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, his mother was American, and he had served in the army in WW1..His name was Winston Churchill.
The liberal party was very much the also ran in every general election ever. But the race to the centre ground is an ongoing thing with all three major parties. Ever since Tony Bliar decided that was where the votes were. Although he should be held as a war criminal, he's a brilliant political tactician, and knew how to surround himself with like minded acolytes. Or as they were known; Blairites. Blair is also a great admirer of Thatcher. None of the above can remotely be related to being Marxists.

Quote
In each, to the believers their beliefs can't be wrong or even disputed.  The teachings shouldn't be examined too closely - and are left to the high priests to interpret.  When confronted with the choice of believing what they have been told or believing provable facts, they choose their beliefs.  You either have faith or you don't.  The feeling of belonging is strong, perhaps overpowering.  They have their high priests, their sacred texts, their rituals, their hymns.

I don't understand that bollox, I'll pass on that.

Quote
For the Hard Left, look at the portions of Perfesser Ben's latest missive I've included above.  All their revealed scriptures from Marx to Alinsky have insisted on hatred for the middle class, and for our elimination.  Why?  They claim we are 'greedy' and 'racist'.  They know better, but it's such an alluring tactic for them to use. 

Look how much Ben has included about racism and greed - and I didn't even copy all of it.  Go back over his earlier posts and see how ingrained these are into this psyche.  As if that is the only possible reason anyone could oppose his religion.  The 'greed' and 'racism' of the middle class is a main pillar of the theology - it is meant to smear, to keep their enemy on defense, to end the debate - they know the good people they are attacking don't want to be called names like these and will often withdraw instead. 

People like Ben know they can't win an honest debate, they know they can't show examples of their religion improving society when it's been implemented, so they are left with smearing the rest of us.

Oh I dunno, I wouldn't like to get into a debate with him knowing I'd lose it. I think he's quite measured, concise and pretty much bent you over, but hey..

Quote
I've mentioned several times how much the Left hates us, hates the United States, our history, our culture, our political and economic systems, how they lie and smear.  They certainly attack Christianity any chance they get.  I've even mentioned their reliance on insisting we are 'greedy' and 'racist'.  And every so often, along comes Ben to provide more evidence of these same old tactics.

Yes you've mentioned it, but it doesn't make you right. You don't even know what the fucking left is.

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on November 18, 2013, 12:39:08 PM
... Erm no. Marxism isn't related to being liberal..


Here in the US, the people who call themselves 'Liberals' - from post-JFK on - their ideas are best described as Socialism-lite.

And as I've said many times over, just because these same people label themselves as 'Liberals' does not mean we run to the dictionary, look up Liberal, read the description, and say 'oh, that's what they believe'.  It doesn't work that way - they misrepresent the word, hoping to fool us into thinking they are something they are not.  I can't believe I have to explain this to you again

Yorkshire pud

Quote from: Paper*Boy on November 18, 2013, 01:57:52 PM

Here in the US, the people who call themselves 'Liberals' - from post-JFK on - their ideas are best described as Socialism-lite.

And as I've said many times over, just because these same people label themselves as 'Liberals' does not mean we run to the dictionary, look up Liberal, read the description, and say 'oh, that's what they believe'.  It doesn't work that way - they misrepresent the word, hoping to fool us into thinking they are something they are not.  I can't believe I have to explain this to you again.



Separated by a common language. That you or 'them' misrepresent the word isn't my problem. It's yours.

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on November 18, 2013, 02:02:16 PM


Separated by a common language. That you or 'them' misrepresent the word isn't my problem. It's yours.


I'm only talking about Liberalism here as I've experienced it.  I don't follow the ins and outs of politics in the UK or Europe, sorry.  All those countries with all those parties.  New parties all the time, shifts in alliances.  The EU activity on top of that.  Funny names like Christian Democrats, and Tories.  We had Tories here 200-some years ago.  Are there still any Whigs around?

It's too much to follow, and doesn't affect me anyway.

Quote from: Ben Shockley on November 18, 2013, 10:22:57 AM
I realize that people's monitors display things differently, so what a person creates is not always visually rendered for others in the way the creator intended.
There seems to be some confusion here: can someone explain for me what P*B may be looking at from my post he quoted that is rendering on his screen as the words "middle class" or "greed?"

I did type the word "racism"...


...  his bizarrely claiming that I am attacking the "middle class" or even suggesting that I am "debating" anybody here --he's making a bigger fool out of himself.



Oh Ben.  We know good and well the Left hates the middle class.  You guys have told us this unteen times for over a century now.  You've told us why - because we're 'greedy ' and 'racist'.  Don't try to be coy, don't run from you beliefs.

The comments I copied and pasted from your post dripped with it.  No, you didn't use the term 'middle-class'.  No you didn't use the term 'greed'.  I guess you read some of my recent posts and were to clever for that. 


When you were going on about people all worried someone was going to take something from them - to the point of 'paranoia' - and implying that is wrong of them, what did you mean by that if it is not just a case of them being 'greedy'.

The following is from your post: 


Quote from: Ben Shockley on November 16, 2013, 08:17:13 PM
... Someone that he thinks is going to take something from him.  "Take what?"  I've addressed this before in here as pertains to "conservatives" generally...

... Exactly what things people want to keep varies, but, according to Conflict Sociology, it boils down to wealth (material stuff), power (the ability to control others), and prestige (other people's subjective perception of you --which to dramatically simplify, amounts to judgements of "the rightness / correctness" of both you and your public lifestyle).
"Conservatives," then, might be interested in any or all of:
1) holding onto their "material stuff"
2) retaining their structural positions of control 
3) dissuading acceptance of "types of persons," or lifestyles, other than those the Conservatives seem to be, or display


Of course you are talking about 'greed'.  How dare these people want or expect to keep the fruits of their labor.  You go further and claim they want to retain their status in society, which includes the 'ability to control others'.  Where does that come from? - it's the Left who want to build ever larger government with the goal of more control.  What most of the rest of us  want is to be left alone - but you already know that.

Clearly you are talking about the middle class.  Except for this post you've changed out 'middle class for 'Conservative'.  Wouldn't want to spook the Libs, would you?  Nope, for this you've narrowed it, changed the terminology up a little to target just the Conservatives this time.  And applied it to a poster or two here.  But we both know what you meant.

Attacking just the Conservatives this time, it's the old Alinsky move:  ''Pick the target, freeze the target, personalize it, polarize it".

All these attacks because some posters here support a smaller government, lower taxes, getting control of our runaway debt, and pointing out what Obama is really up to.



I could go on dissecting the rest of your posts, but it would be mostly more of the same.

What you might want to do is print them out and show them to your therapist.  They may turn out to be useful.

Ben Shockley

WOW!  Folks, I don't know what to say.   P*B is truly hallucinating into my posts.  And dig his "logic:" the fact that I DIDN'T write certain phrases is PROOF POSITIVE that those are really what I mean!  And that the reason I didn't use the words I "really mean" --that HE KNOWS I really mean-- is that HIS vigilance has scared me out of it!
Sort of like P*B's claim, back before the last general election, that the fact that Obama had NOT seized total dictatorship during his first term (as predicted by P*B's ilk) was PROOF that he WOULD in his second.  In other words, by his "logic:"  absence of proof is proof of everything!

So my describing in general sociological terms the resources that social groups compete over is labeling somebody as "greedy?" --which P*B then arrogates as a personal insult?   His manufactured personal injury aside:
  -- Am I to understand that P*B is denying that people compete over resources; and, more particularly here,  denying that groups with certain resources will try to retain them?
                     Is he really denying that those are true?

If he can make the step to accepting what I thought was an absolute social truism, then he should see that all I was doing in the portion he pasted was enumerating and generally describing what Sociology holds to be the 3 basic resources over which social conflict occurs, including --yes-- efforts by people (including political action) to keep those resources.  Period.  If he cannot accept a truism like "people compete for things; people with things want to keep them" then he is truly out to lunch, and beyond even reaching.   As if that wasn't already obvious.

Plus -- the reflexive way that dude perceives some accusation and/or insult in EVERYTHING is bizarre.  No wonder he objects to the use of the word "paranoia." 

I would invite anyone seeing my posts "quoted" by P*B to go back and read the original, if you haven't already.  Whether or not you agree with me, I can guarantee that relying on P*B's filtering will produce only and at best a bastardized misunderstanding of what I wrote.  The guy apparently comes in here with a bee in his bonnet about whatever and just randomly selects a post to "quote" to springboard onto his personal grievances, pretending and fabricating to make it seem that the chosen post has something to do with whatever P*B wanted to bitch about at the moment.
Frankly, I don't like having to post something 3 times: once, as clearly as I can write something in the original; then covering the same ground twice more for people too dumb or unwilling to "get it" the first time.
And I'm done with having to explain or refute things I didn't write.

Ben Shockley

--and another thing...

If, as P*B suggests, I am so conscious of guilt for my evil, evil associations and intentions, and I am aware that my subversive communiques are eternally under P*B's steely-eyed scrutiny, such that I feel that I must communicate with my fellow filthy Libs via coded message -- a code that P*B, with his special Gift of Discernment has nevertheless broken -- why would I be writing my knowingly-naughty missives in a forum not only "public," but filled with awake, vigilant patriots like P*B?

Like I said, folks: no rhyme or reason.  Like I said earlier: a touch of crazy is a hallmark of a "great American."  Looks like *Boy is going for superlative American.

stevesh

The current infatuation with antisemitism on the part of the American Left has to be the strangest cultural twist in my lifetime.

Can you explain in more detail, SteveSh?  Are you saying that the left is infatuated with antisemitism in that they are either themselves being antisemitic, or do you mean that they are concerned about antisemitism?  I really have not been following world or national politics as much of late -- too much going on in my personal life and a growing awareness that the whole damn thing is a big dog and pony show anyway has reduced my interest.

stevesh

Yes, I should have said 'the recent adoption of antisemitism by the American Left', mostly as anti-Israel rhetoric.

Oh... hasn't Netanyahu and others been suggesting as much since Obama took office? 

stevesh

If we're going to run around amending the Constiturtion so that people who weren't born in the United States can run for US president, let's forget Schwarzenegger. Here's one vote for Netanyahu in 2016.

NowhereInTime

Quote from: stevesh on November 25, 2013, 09:06:57 AM
If we're going to run around amending the Constiturtion so that people who weren't born in the United States can run for US president, let's forget Schwarzenegger. Here's one vote for Netanyahu in 2016.
Netanyahu is an impediment to peace.  His mad rush to build on the west bank purposely precludes any true peace with the Palestinians and his rhetorical attempt to derail the Iran negotiation was disappointing.  Israel will never truly be secure until it creates rapport with its most vicious enemies.  Before you say it cannot be done, the one success of the Carter Presidency was the end of hostilities between Israel and its ancient enemy Egypt.  I was just a little one but I remember being awed by the sight of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat shaking hands.

stevesh

Quote from: NowhereInTime on November 25, 2013, 09:45:50 AM
Netanyahu is an impediment to peace.  His mad rush to build on the west bank purposely precludes any true peace with the Palestinians and his rhetorical attempt to derail the Iran negotiation was disappointing.  Israel will never truly be secure until it creates rapport with its most vicious enemies.  Before you say it cannot be done, the one success of the Carter Presidency was the end of hostilities between Israel and its ancient enemy Egypt.  I was just a little one but I remember being awed by the sight of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat shaking hands.

You may be right. I'm not much of a student of the Middle East, though I find the Palestinians so completely steeped in victimhood that it's hard to work up much sympathy for them. Dirt-poor, for the most part, yet their beloved 'leader' Yassar Arafat died a billionare. I'm not sure your Israel/Egypt analogy holds, since there isn't really any 'Palestine'.

Anyway, my reference to Netanyahu was mostly because he seems to be the kind of man I think we need running the US Adminstration. We ended our problems with our 'Palestinians' nearly two centuries ago, so we wouldn't have to worry about his failings there.

Well, here I go, yammering on about something I feel whoafully under-educated about, but here goes.  Israel was created in 1948 to give Jewish people a homeland, correct?  Existing Palestine was pretty much destroyed.  Think what it would feel like if after WWII the League of Nations (or was it the United Nations at that point?) decided to give the west coast of America to the Jewish people.  Can you imagine quite an outcry?  Now I know that Jews had been on that land for thousands of years -- as had Palestinians as well, yes?

  So taking a chunk of land and cavalierly renaming it, pushing certain people aside, heaping multiple religions into the mix (Jewish, Islam, Christian), as well as decades, nay, centuries of politics, cuture, etc., and hoping it all just works out -- well, that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Is it a reasonable analogy to compare Palestinians to Native Americans being shuffled off to a reservation?

Man, I have no answer.  It seems pretty clear that all of the involved groups have needs and rights.  I don't think it's reasonable to expect Israel to return the Golan Heights from which they were shelled in '67.  I don't think it's reasonable to expect Palestians to live in the Gaza Strip on scraps.  It is all so insane... Isn't there a spot of land upon which an ancient Jewish temple stood?  Isn't that same exact spot of land of tremendous religious importance to Muslims?  How does an outside agency (the U.S. or U.N.) possibly find a workable solution?  Ugly, ugly, ugly....

Yorkshire pud

Quote from: stevesh on November 25, 2013, 11:55:55 AM
Netanyahu was mostly because he seems to be the kind of man I think we need running the US Adminstration.


Really? A man who has willfully disregarded many (has have his predecessors) UN resolutions, clawed back land illegally and built illegal walls, and basically given the finger to anyone who takes them to task about it? You want that sort to be in charge of the US?

Quick Karl

Here's a question for all you PhD's...

What the fuck was Palestine before it was Palestine?

The Jewish people have been living on that land since the beginning of written history - since before the Babylonian exile!!!! They returned to the land of Judah after Cyrus the Great freed them from Babylonian imprisonment, and they built their SECOND Temple in Jerusalem - +/- 500 years before Jesus of Nazareth was born.

The religion of death, rape, sodomy, incest, pedophilia, and destruction (Islam) did not exist until 800-years AFTER Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.

Fuck the Palestinians - they are the dirt of the Middle East that no Arab country wants anything to do with, and they had that status LONG before the UN re-established the land of Israel.

If the people of the world weren't such idiot dick-sucking anally-obsessed ASSHOLES, and would start investigating history for themselves, they wouldn't be so easy to manipulate like faggity puppets on a string that overreact emotionally to every issue that is packaged for them by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSLSD, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc... ad infinitum.

Arafat and Sharpton are the same bags of shit that would never exist but for crying liberals that are Arafat and Sharpton's tools.

Marc.Knight

Quote from: Quick Karl on November 25, 2013, 03:33:33 PM
they are the dirt of the Middle East


Their little babies are sweet and innocent and for the most part face short lives of poverty and hunger.  I'm not going to criticize your post for going off the rails, but I do want to point out that denigration of any people only leads to racism, hate and war.

Quick Karl

Quote from: Philosopher on November 25, 2013, 03:43:15 PM

Their little babies are sweet and innocent and for the most part face short lives of poverty and hunger.  I'm not going to criticize your post for going off the rails, but I do want to point out that denigration of any people only leads to racism, hate and war.

But when you do it to the Jews its ok.

Damnit, Philosopher!  Nuance is not allowed on these threads!  It's a black and white world, and problems are solved by brute force!  What part of Muslims/blacks/gays/liberals are less-than-human and must be "dealt with" do you not understand?

Marc.Knight

Quote from: Quick Karl on November 25, 2013, 03:44:40 PM
But when you do it to the Jews its ok.

It is never ok.  We need less hate and tribalism, not more.  Israel is in a terrible situation regarding its national security.  It is too complicated to treat all the issues involved satisfactorily here.

I'll add a bit of nuance (or confusion) to my observation...  Actually, despite how many times I've heard Islam described as "a religion of peace", there sure is not much evidence getting play in the media to demonstrate that point.  If my post seemed to suggest no sympathy for the Jewish people, that was certainly not my intention.

Islam seems to have been largely hijacked by troglodyte fundamentalists.  I'd love to see its leaders do more to promote genuine peace, tolerance, understanding.  I am sure that some of them ARE doing so, but, again, the media is not reporting as much.  It seems a wildly paternalistic religion in the eyes of some of its practitioners -- women should not be able to vote, drive, be educated, enjoy any sort of freedom in the outside world...  in response some fundamentalist practitioners will claim that women are elevated, that men do not want women to become corrupted by the horrible western world...  That sounds like a load of rationalization to me.

Easy answers are there none....

Marc.Knight

Quote from: West of the Rockies on November 25, 2013, 03:47:18 PM
Damnit, Philosopher!  Nuance is not allowed on these threads!  It's a black and white world, and problems are solved by brute force!  What part of Muslims/blacks/gays/liberals are less-than-human and must be "dealt with" do you not understand?

I think the author of the post can find a way toward equanimity in the midst of a very emotional situation.  If one says relational principles of goodness and understanding should be applied to one group (the Jewish people) then those same principles should be applied to Muslims/blacks/gays/liberals or any other group that might not easily fit in one's world view.  Evil should be met by the force of good, not by more evil.  Suffering is suffering - I'd rather not see Jew nor Palestinian experience it.

Juan

The history is not quite correct.  The area had been a British protectorate under the League of Nations following WWI (say what you might about that).  Jews had been buying land in present day Israel since the mid-1850s.  After WWII, under the UN,  the protectorate was divided in two - Israel for the Jewish nation and Trans-Jordon for the Palestinians.  For some reason, King Hussein, a Hassemite - not a Palestinian - was put in control of Trans-Jordon.  Trans-Jordan consisted of present day Jordon and the area known as the West Bank, same being the west bank of the Jordon River.  So (ha) originally, there was the two-state solution - Israel for the Jews and Jordon for the Palestinians.  In 1948, the surrounding Arab states invaded Israel and were defeated.  Same in 1956, 1967 and 1972 with Israel seizing the West Bank by conquest.  The Arabs have tended to use the Palestinians as excuse - at the same time using actual individual Palestinians as servants.  Look at Kuwait before the invasion by Iraq.

Of course, both sides were manipulated during the Cold War.

As for Eqypt, since Sadat was murdered by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian military has been anxious to control Islamic fervor within the country.  They seem to recognize that they don't need an enemy with Israel's might on their border, and that a peace agreement between the two countries has merit for maintaining their domestic power.

Things are always a complicated mess there.

Marc.Knight

Quote from: West of the Rockies on November 25, 2013, 03:56:33 PM
I'll add a bit of nuance (or confusion) to my observation...  Actually, despite how many times I've heard Islam described as "a religion of peace", there sure is not much evidence getting play in the media to demonstrate that point.  If my post seemed to suggest no sympathy for the Jewish people, that was certainly not my intention.

Islam seems to have been largely hijacked by troglodyte fundamentalists.  I'd love to see its leaders do more to promote genuine peace, tolerance, understanding.  I am sure that some of them ARE doing so, but, again, the media is not reporting as much.  It seems a wildly paternalistic religion in the eyes of some of its practitioners -- women should not be able to vote, drive, be educated, enjoy any sort of freedom in the outside world...  in response some fundamentalist practitioners will claim that women are elevated, that men do not want women to become corrupted by the horrible western world...  That sounds like a load of rationalization to me.

Easy answers are there none....


In my limited experience with Islam I have discovered that localized culture has a lot to do with how Islam is interpreted and lived by local practitioners.  Logically, we should separate cultural influences from doctrine when applying analysis to Islam as a religion.  The hate generated by some Islamic governments and organizations against the innocent people of Israel and (the world) is something to be countered and corrected at every peaceful opportunity.  However, any type of "us - them" vitriol should be equally condemned as anti-humanity, and against the tenets of life and love.

Thanks for the clarifications/corrections, Juan...  I did not know a lot of what you reported (I will assume your reporting is accurate).  I'm not Jewish; I'm not Muslim; I'm not from that part of the world -- I don't have a dog in that race as they say.  Islam, like pretty much all religions, is clearly internally wildly divided, creating much of the tension in the region.  Arabs also are broken into so many tribes and such.  Bottom line, TANEA (there are no easy answers).  I think the world will remain more or less on DEFCON 3.5 until a genuinely workable solution is found.

stevesh

Quote from: Yorkshire pud on November 25, 2013, 03:01:00 PM

Really? A man who has willfully disregarded many (has have his predecessors) UN resolutions, clawed back land illegally and built illegal walls, and basically given the finger to anyone who takes them to task about it? You want that sort to be in charge of the US?

As opposed to a thin-skinned incompetent narcissist who rolls over for the likes of Iran ? You bet.

Marc.Knight

Quote from: West of the Rockies on November 25, 2013, 04:14:45 PM
Thanks for the clarifications/corrections, Juan...  I did not know a lot of what you reported (I will assume your reporting is accurate).  I'm not Jewish; I'm not Muslim; I'm not from that part of the world -- I don't have a dog in that race as they say.  Islam, like pretty much all religions, is clearly internally wildly divided, creating much of the tension in the region.  Arabs also are broken into so many tribes and such.  Bottom line, TANEA (there are no easy answers).  I think the world will remain more or less on DEFCON 3.5 until a genuinely workable solution is found.


You kinda identified the issue.  Human psychology needs to catch up to the evolution of weapons and the will to use them.  The innate desire for peace and love needs to effectively transcend false barriers placed in their way by those motivated by hate.  We as a species are still driven by primitive dualistic determinations.  Us, them - right, wrong, - our very bodies and minds reflect our dualistic projections on the world - right hand, left hand - right brain, left brain - man, woman...  None of this will fix itself by itself, and won't be where it should be for many lifetimes.

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