75% of Iraq's doctors and nurses have left and child mortality rates are soaring. But that's okay. Since our U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that Iraqis aren't people, we can just open up some new veterinary schools. Since Iraqis aren't people according to the U.S. Supreme Court, then clearly they need veterinarians, not doctors, right?
And then there is this fine uplifting story from Israel, where women are forced to sit in the back of the bus (hmm, where have I heard THAT before? Hmm...) and are harassed if they're not wearing bhurkas. No, not by the Taliban. By the ultra-orthodox ("Black Hat") Jews. And the difference between these guys and the Taliban is, uhm...
WARNING! INCOMING! ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE WARRIORS AT THE DOOR CATAPULTING ALLEGATIONS OF ANTI-SEMITISM FOR STATING ONE OF THOSE SILLY "FACT" THINGIES! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES, FOLKS!
Err, okay. Sorry about that interruption. Luckily the doors were recently reinforced and held up against the ADL's catapulted reeking corpses of dead livestock. Anyhow, a pox on all their houses. The black hats and Hamas/Hezballah deserve each other. For the few remaining sane Israelis, I suggest we give them U.S. and/or Canadian citizenship, open our doors to them, and be done with it. For the ones not sane enough to leave that God-forsaken desert behind... let the insane fanatics fight it out without our help. I see no reason to help religious fanatics of any sort, whether Christian, Jewish, or Islamic. Stupidity is stupidity regardless of the hat it wears... and religious fanaticism is stupidity always.
-- Badtux the "Facts are anti-semitic?" Penguin
I hate birds, but I think I am in love with you....
ReplyDeleteWhy would a Penguin care about this?
ReplyDeleteWhy would Angry Ballerina love you?
Because she thinks that you would love her unconditionally just as she is?
Ha, ha, ha. Go ahead, give it a shot.
Ah, Mr. Badtux, you hurt me.
ReplyDeleteI've grown up in this fucking desert. Or, rather, in the couple of towns we managed to salvage from it. I've been on the side of the democratic forces ever since I've got my sense back and abandoned Jewish Orthodoxy.
Do you know what is the main argument of the Orthodox (which most Jews here are, at least to the extent that over 90% see any other brand of Judaism as heresy)? "You democrats don't belong here. Democracy is American. Human rights are European. Leave your homeland, abandon your friends, stop speaking your native tongue and go to America or Europe".
It hurts to hear the same argument from an American democrat.
Aye, it is the frustration speaking, of course. It just seems that there is a strain of religious fanaticism about, whether Islamic, Christian, or Jewish, which simply is immune to notions of tolerance and civility. The temptation to just say "fugghet, throw them all into the lousiest piece of real estate on the planet and let them kill each other and let us civilized people get on with living" (and you must admit the land occupied by Israel is not exactly prime real estate) is almost overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteNow, you may say this does not sound very tolerant of me. But I see no reason to be tolerant of intolerance, of intellectual rigidity which is capable of nothing but diminishing and demeaning other people. I am a creator, one who adds to the world. The intolerant are destroyers, people who remove peace and beauty from the world. Creators cannot abide destroyers irregardless of cries for "tolerance". The vandals of intellectual life, those who would take us all back to a medieval mindset, are no more than common thugs in the end and it is difficult to accord them more dignity than that which would be accorded someone who threw rocks through windows for fun or otherwise engaged in acts of destruction.
In any event, please do not read more into frustration than is there. I do realize the complexities of the issues involved in the creation and perpetuation of the State of Israel and realize that simplistic solutions will not suffice. The temptation to offer said simplistic solutions half in jest, however, is almost irresistable when you see general stupidity on this level...
-BT
Oh, and as for "facts are anti-Semitic?" - this might be of interest: http://ygurvitz.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/how-i-became-an-enemy-of-the-race/
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I did read that article on your Wordpress site after I saw your name on my music post. I do not know if I myself would go so far. The "facts are anti-semitic" statement, however, is based on earlier experiences of myself, such as my observation that the roots of the Palestinian "problem" lay in the act of ethnic cleansing which made the modern state of Israel possible. Note that I did not state that Israel was evil or should be abolished, I stated a simple historical fact (that the foundation of the modern state of Israel was preceded and accompanied by a deliberate and massive ethnic cleansing operation) which has been verified by declassified Israel government documents. For that heresy I was accused of "anti-semitism". Because, apparently, facts are anti-semitic.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the notion that anti-semitism is virtually extinct in the United States receives similarly vitriolic hyperbole. It is as if there is something in the mindset of certain Jews which requires them to be the perpetual victim. Nevermind that Jews are the most affluent and best-educated group in America, disproportionately represented in the top ranks of academia, industry, and government. Any sane and rational person would look at those facts and realize that an oppressed people do not achieve such heights -- look at, say, the experience of America's blacks, who were brought here in chains and treated as property, for a comparison. Even today blacks average less than 1/4th the lifetime income of whites in America. Claims that blacks are still discriminated against in America thus have a clear dollar and cents veracity to them. Claims that Jews are discriminated against in America... the average American, if you asked him the question, would just look at you puzzled. Unlike, say, the 1940's where American racism against Jews was directly responsible for the formation of the modern state of Israel, the question simply never comes up today because it is obviously absurd.
Ah, but there I go with those fact things again. Sigh.
_BT
The facts are indeed anti-semitic. Which does not imply that the facts say that Jews should be harmed, hurt, killed, or destroyed - just that it is indeed reasonable to criticize those portions of the Zionist practice (or the Jewish practice) that do not meet with one's approval.
ReplyDeleteIt is not anti-semitic to apply critique to Judaism. It is not anti-semitic to apply critique to Zionism. And what's most important is - those are two entirely different critiques.