BigMitch @ 26

Ed*ard Teller has brought up the canard that Israel intentionally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty 60 years ago, although that claim has been thoroughly debunked. There is a reason why this libel has some currency, namely, the embrace of it by Ray McGovern, an apologist for the latest anti-Israel screed, The Israel Lobby.

Here’s a link to the Navy Times summary of the U.S.S. Liberty issue. …

OT

Pot, meet kettle…

looseheadprop @ 36

Be back soon, yes?

Briefly back inside to thaw a salmon fillet. It got down to 25 degrees last night, and will get at least that cold every night in the upcoming forecast. I’ve got about 4 or 5 bushels of carrots still in the ground, and our canoe and skiff will be stranded in the ice soon, if we don’t heft them up onshore. Today is probably the last day we can use a hose to wash and rinse stuff we’re putting away for winter.

Two weeks ago, I might have welcomed Mitchell up here to help, and for dinner afterward, and to work things out over tea, but I’ve become convinced he’s trapped in having to defend the quasi-fascist modality of militant Zionist expansionism. Having been unfairly categorized over the past three years, five months and 17 days as an anti-Semite, I am appalled whenever I see that term used carelessly – or even casually, especially by a person I once regarded as a friend, even if he was inebriated when he spewed it out.

The I/P issue is such a delicate topic (and I know I may not always be successful at being sensitive to the history of Oppression and violence that Jews have suffered) but I try.

Mitch I hope you really try to understand that the criticism of Israel’s expansionist policies and unwillingness to play fair is not a criticism of the fact that “ISRAEL EXIST”. It is the boundary issue (UN resolution 242), expansion of illegal settlements, Israel’s massive stockpiles of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons that go unchecked, water rights, the Golan Heights etc etc. These are the issues.

PRO PALESTINE PRO ISRAEL…PRO PEACE

Ed*ard Teller has brought up the canard that Israel intentionally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty 60 years ago, although that claim has been thoroughly debunked. There is a reason why this libel has some currency, namely, the embrace of it by Ray McGovern, an apologist for the latest anti-Israel screed, The Israel Lobby.

Here’s a link to the Navy Times summary of the U.S.S. Liberty issue. …

OT

The amount of comments on this blog is an indicator as to how important this is to folks here.

You can sign petitions send money here.

http://www.freethejena6.org/

“outside agitators” is a new and fairly ironic trick for bobby jindal, a first-generation American of East Indian descent. he lost the gov race against Blanco because he could not secure the white republican vote, largely in north louisiana, because of his race. he has been focused on making strides with this group, and i guess this is one way to try.

Ironically, under Louisiana’s old segregation laws, largely eliminated because of the interest of “outside agitators” in the civil rights issues of the South, Jindal wouldn’t be allowed to vote or hold office.

Maybe “Bubba” Jindal wasn’t around during this period, and unfamiliar with why he is allowed to even be in the LA Statehouse?

He should also have it pointed out to him that “Hindoos” were often lynched for cavorting with white women. And that East Asians were subject to the same racial hatred that is on display in Jena.

And perhaps Jindal’s East Asian supporters should ask him if his craven comments about “outside agitators” means that he really doesn’t believe that the Federal government and others outside a state should help protect minority “equality under law”?

http://www.bellinghamherald.co…..70095.html

mark c. @ 35

Bobby Jindal, LA rep and gov candidate, calls Jena 6 marchers “Outside Agitators”, a phrase directly out of the civil rights opposition of the 60’s.

http://righthandthief.blogspot…..tside.html

rethug I assume?

“outside agitators”… you’d think these old dogs would’ve learned at least some new tricks over the last half century

Well at least he didn’t call them “black agitators”. But it’s funny how some of these guys think that civil rights are a “State” function and that the Constitution need not apply across the borders of the Southern States.

Guess Rep. “Bubba” Jindal thinks that hanging nooses from a segregated “White Tree” as a signal to “uppity black kids” is perfectly okay. Maybe he’s in favor of beating Cajun kids who use a few words of French, like back in the good ol’ days?

BTW Can anyone tell me why these black kids attacked that particular white kid. Was he involved in the “noose hanging”? Or did he do something else to provoke them.

Ed*ard Teller has brought up the canard that Israel intentionally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty 60 years ago, although that claim has been thoroughly debunked. There is a reason why this libel has some currency, namely, the embrace of it by Ray McGovern, an apologist for the latest anti-Israel screed, The Israel Lobby.
…It is, to say the least, ironic, that everyone at FDL is tolerant of “false flag” theories regarding the World Trade Center, but if Israel makes a mistake – a justified mistake, as we have seen – about a false flag theory, they are accused of the most heinous and stupid war crimes. Note: I am not accepting that the Israelis attacked the ship on the theory that it was flying a false flag.

But you are the only only that has ever suggested such a “theory” on FDL ASFAIK. So I don’t comprehend why you would suggest it, and then say you aren’t supporting it? And Israel has never suggested that the Liberty was flying a “false flag”…or had been placed in the zone to instigate an attack from Israel.

If you want speculation, here’s a bit for you: if anything the U.S. spy ship was supplying intelligence to the Israelis. Sound reasonable to you? It does to me. But for Israel to shoot the source of its intelligence for no apparent reason, well, not so much reasonable.

And you just answered why it isn’t “reasonable”…and why the gunboats that went out to shoot the survivors? Why the “no survivors” approach to things?

The other night, I got drunk and went onto a thread that had been quiet for two hours. On it I said, “I outlasted the fucking anti-Semites.” Drunkeness has a well documented capability of interfering with someone’s ability to judge his own funniness. Be that as it may, I have been effectively barred from political debate on the Lake.

Apparently not. I’ve seen several posts from you since, often…like this one…on topical branches that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of Israel. And these are not the standard “Free For All” Late Night Topics. And many of these are copies of posts that you made on another topic, cut-and-pasted to raise the topic again on yet another branch.

It is okay to call Israel and her supporters Nazis.

The aspersion is frequently used when people ACT LIKE NAZIS. If Bush and his cronies can call those who opposed the Iraq invasion “Appeasers” and draw comparisons to Neville Chamberlain…and Saddam to Hitler…then I find the sensitivity to the use of the term has gone way down. In addition it’s being selective when comparisons are allowed for others that act like Nazis…but the IDF and the Israeli Government are exempt when they behave in a similar manner.

If that “small part of the agenda” is racist, yes! But ET points out thgat he “shockingly” agrees with something that Pat Buchanan says (like his continued opposition to the Iraq invasion) he becomes an anti-Semite, because Buchanan is????

I recall that ET’s comments were made as part of the cnversation regarding whether American Jews actually “support the war” in Iraq. Statistics were offered that showed that Jewish American levels of support were actually quite low, both before the invasion and afterwards…and ET offered up Buchanan’s comments about low recruitment levels in the military. It was NOT in my reading suggesting that American Jews are “less patriotic”…unless one holds that support for this war is mandatory to be patriotic.

It is just fine to use expressions like “Israel-uber-alles” and heaven protect anyone who would dare to draw attention to some of Reverend Tutu’s most controversial statements. (Of course, it is just fine to attack religion in general, using the most condescending, inaccurate, and disdainful tones, but Desmond Tutu, is revered as a saint, in no small part because he is an Archbishop.)

If you don’t point out that Bishop Tutu’s “controversial” quotes were directed at the Israeli GOVERNMENT policies towards Palestinians…things like closing off whole cities for weeks (a la the Warsaw Ghetto), the bulldozing of Palestinian homes and businesses as retribution for suicide bombings, and the control of Palestinian areas while giving them no opportunity to participate in the actual government that controls those areas for over 40 years (apartheid)…but imply that they were anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, and even anti-Israel…you’ll be engaged in heated debate on that subject.

And when you imply that it’s alright that Bishop Tutu should not be allowed to speak at a University to offer those views, and support the removal of the Chair of the Peace and Justice Institute for her advocacy of Bishop Tutu’s opportunity to speak…well then you will be challenged on that, too.

And, ironically, Tutu was just as likely to speak about Darfur and Myanmar than Israel at that Conference. Tutu is not averse to speaking about human rights abuses whoever commits them…Black, White, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian. He realizes that such evils are not limited by race or creed…and are, in fact, anathema to the religions of those who perpetrate them. Seems you need to read some of Tutu’s speeches and writings in context, rather than those snippets of “controversial statements”. And did you ever wonder who supplied them to you? Who funds THEM?

All I want to know is when is it okay to call a spade a fucking shovel.

Well…I’d point out that your adage essentially says…”when can I exagerrate and distort one thing into another” and do it using bombastic (”fucking”) language. I don’t think you are being asked to do anything other than to “tone down the personal attacks” by the moderators.

And if I may connect to the work Glenn Greenwald is doing this week, calling out the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for their lack of action concerning Bill O’Reilly’s and others’ use of Nazis, Hitler, Holocaust comparisons to DKOS, Moveon, Jane Hamsher and FDL.

These comparisons are disgusting.
The Anti-Defamation League is not doing what its very name says it does.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is silent.

Our institutions are not OURS. They have become THEIRS.

And recall the pervasive attack of feminists with the phrase “feminazis”. And the use of the Nazi comparisons when it came to Saddam Hussein. Bush has felt not a bit of heat for his use of the utterly inappropriate term “Islamofacism” from those who freak out when it is applied in other circumstances. The use of the pejorative comparisons of Neville Chamberlain and “appeasers” to those who called on inspections…or more cautious approaches to Iraq and Iran. There seems to be no indignation at making THESE comparisons which devalue the greatest planned mass extermination of humans in the 20th century.