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NPR also interviewed Peck.
INSKEEP: Were you concerned at all, about the people you were involved with, because as I’m sure you’ve learned from reading the papers since your release, Israel has suggested that the organizers had links to Hamas and links to al-Qaida.
Ambassador PECK: I think I’d be very surprised if they didn’t make that charge. Even if it had been a boatload of clergy, you know, that’s what they have to do, that defends and explains what they’ve done, that these people were linked to Hamas and all the rest of it. It’s entirely possible that that’s the case, but that certainly was not the intent of the group.
Clearly, a classic anti-Semite.
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Very nice piece of footage showing that what Israel called an attack was actually defense against attacking Israeli soldiers, on the flotilla.
Dontcha know Gaza is a highly armed (may even have nukes) that is an existential threat to Israel. /s
Until last night, I hadn’t realized that anti Semitic Hippies also came in the staid, old conservative Republican variety.
Israel is having serious social adjustment problems. As a nation, it could use some serious counseling. Any ideas for giving the nation therapy?
Well, now, the murders of the unarmed people on the flotilla should keep all those other criminal interferers in Israel’s business away. /s
Jail time.
In case you missed it, BP’s CEO Tony Hayward would like his life back.
You can’t make this stuff up.
I don’t think anybody missed that one.
O is waging the anti-spill battle ‘every minute of every day.’ Well, between meeting with bb teams and jammin’ with musicians, anyhow.
As for naming SCOTUS members, isn’t that where Jimmy Stewart is these days?
O is the new W.
Why do seemingly intelligent, progressive people like Eliot Spitzer and Arianna Huffington automatically defend Israel no matter what atrocity it commits? It reminds me of the near-universal reaction of black Americans to the O.J. Simpson verdict. Black people were so convinced that a corrupt police force framed O.J. that they couldn’t believe he was just another guy killing his wife. So many American Jews seem to share this same blind sense of victimhood. Thank you to Ambassador Peck and Glenn Greenwald for their bravery, moral clarity, and outspoken honesty.
I think you “learned” a few things about anti-semitism yesterday morning also. And, too. Sheesh. That was one for the books.
Hope all is well today.
Figured that out awhile ago. What I didn’t quite see is that O was studying YouTube clips of W to make sure he got the routine down pat before taking the oath.
no, but if i did i’d suggest them to my own country too.
Note the internal inconsistency in Israel’s story: if the people on the flotilla were really covert terrorists, Israel would not have let them go. Israel would not let a bunch of “terrorists” go. Unless they’ve suddenly turned suicidal.
I’m assuming you saw Jon Stewart’s take on that.
Priorities of the Morning Joe crew, in order of importance, for the morning of 6-3-2010:
1) Have Pres. Obama make Donny Deutsch feel good about himself
2) Have Pres. Obama go to Gulf Coast again and act like he is angry
3) Say something cool about Starbucks
4) Have Pres. Obama cap the oil leak
5) Have Pres. Obama clean up the coastline
Ha, Hamas officials in Gaza rejected the aid, reports from the territory said.
Clearly the organizers don’t have links to Hamas, they don’t even want the aid.
nah, he has a completely different set of social signifiers.
not that that actually means much of anything substantively.
What everyone forgets!
Israel crazy actions put American Service Men in the middle east in more danger.
The USA has a lot of troops on the ground in the middle east, yes the Arabs hate us, but they really, really, hate Israel, and when Israel does stupid stuff US soldiers some times have to pay the price.
Israel does not have soldiers on the groun in Iraq, Turkey, Afghan, Pakistan, etc. etc. Yes Turkey hates Israel.
Israel attack a ship in International waters! Period
Like Ambassador Peck said the people carrying aid to Gaza did not attack Israel.
Why are Israel troops attacking a Ferry full of non soldiers at MIDNIGHT?
Israel F UP!
How many nations in the world now call Iran the biggest evil in the middle east? not many! Israel just ruin Obama, Hillary, plans to make Iran the evil empire of the middle east.
(Last week the USA military was saying that the Taliban was getting arms from Iran, the Taliban was being train in Iran, all of that CIA work is now gone down the toilet)
The media needs to ask some American soldiers does Israel actions make your life better in the middle east?
What a crazy world we now live in!
I learned that when it comes to defending Israel, channeling Glenn Beck is apparently common.
Think everyone here is completely alert to that.
Can Obama sign an executive order to have another star sown on the flag to acknowledge Israel as the 51st state?
What an eloquent illustration of why I avoid Morning Joe. Seriously, does anybody watch that drivel? Mika’s own father called them both “astonishingly shallow”.
More realistically, can the U.S. get on its hands & knees & beg Israel for a tea-insy voting right in Israel? Since the U.S. is the puppet state, ya know.
Surely a snark but aimed at who?
Semite
Most of the sides of this conflict are Semitic except some of those of European descent and the possibly the Turks.
and today he meets the Republican governor of Arizona. Probably an interview for a future cabinet position.
SRBS, for sure.
Yeah, I have to second that. I’m quite aware of how Israeli policies affect US service members. I still have friends in the service that I served with and I have a niece and two nephews currently deployed.
jmo, but i think the first question we should be asking is if american soldiers (marines, etc) should even be there. the number of people killed by americans in the middle east far far out numbers the number killed by israelis.
Are you suggesting that Israel sow 50 additional stars on their flag?
Seeing occasional comments about what ludicrous is going on on Moanin’Jo is quite close enuff for me.
hoping for their safety.
Yep. And from otherwise very reasonable people for the most part. It’s like the mere mention of Israel sends people running to the kitchen to make foil hats.
Thanks. Me too.
Don’t those with dual citizenship have the right to vote in the elections? Surely, we must be getting some representation from that.
Or maybe all 50 of ours should be the Star Of David.
Well, it’s tricky. Israel can’t allow the puppet too much power. So certainly no proportional representation. I’m thinking something like sewing a O puppet with strings onto the Israeli flag.
I don’t know the rules on that. But if true, that surely ought to be plenty of say for the U.S.
Aha! Where is our local photoshop expert?
Well, there you have it, it’s gotten to the point where the straight forward truth is so hard to find, that it’s shocking when you finally hear it.
If you actively resist the evil fuckers, you can expect to be attcked, maybe even shot, if you don’t resist you can expect to drown in an ocean of the most boring lies imaginable.
Actually it appears generally that not resisting leads to the same result as resisting but without cameras.
That and pulling out their high LSAT scores for creds.
Mornin’, BT, pups
Instead of providing fodder for Zionist trolls I’ll go with a good story. Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary
There was a brown pelican that lived at the sanctuary for 37 years. Injured as a juvenile and unable to fly she would vocalize to calm other pelicans brought in for treatment.
Sometimes too close. I lost any vestige of respect for his opinion during the Terri Schiavo tragedy/fiasco, when he was leading the right wing media charge to “save” her. Even after her death and her brain was confirmed to have been liquified all along, he never admitted he was wrong.
You are correct
Eloquent straight forward truth.
Back to the O is the new W. Do you remember when Christy had the name the GW biography contest. My runner-up winning answer was With Strings Attached. Or something like that.
What a cool story! Thanks SD. :-)
I don’t remember that, but good on you.
OT…..
ecahn, how are your bees? all kinds of blossoming happening here, but not many bees :(
After Schiavo, at least all resemblance to sanity was lost for the wingnuts.
Well, I’ve thought about that one long enough and my answer is no, we should absolutely not be there and if Reagan hadn’t set about dismantling all of Carter’s alternative energy initiatives with extreme prejudice, chances are we would not be. This is all about that poisonous back sh*t that we are addicted to and I don’t mean heroin, (though that harvest has increased every year we’ve been screwing around in Afghanistan) Think how much health care that trillion could have bought, with money left over to increase alternative energy research and development over 100 fold.
My bees a bloomin’. You haven’t bee-n around, but mine swarmed twice, and my beekeeper captured the second swarm, so I now have two hives. There’s the best pic of me evah, holding a branch of a small tree with 12,000-18,000 bees on it. But it’s still in my beekeeper’s camera. It’s been such a good season, he’s working 16 hours/day, uprighting hives attacked by bears and capturing swarms.
I haven’t said good morning to Selise in a very long time. So, Good Morning, Ms. S!
Suggested edit.
I agree. I think that was the moment that they let go their already tenuous grasp on moderation and the appearance of reality based behavior and moved whole hog into batsh*t insanity. It’s like they collectively decided that even the appearance of sanity was something only a librul, hippie would do.
I’m looking forward to seeing that photo. The only one I’ve seen of you was when you had drinks with, was it Scarecrow? It’s been a while. See? The steel trap has a few holes.
Would you say that the honeybee population is bouncing back?
good morning to you too, demi. very nice to “see” all of you.
Mornin’, selise.
Still haven’t seen my wild bees. Afraid the freezes may have done them in.
fabulous!
i did see one comment from you about the swarming (and left you a reply comment, but very late in epu-land) and hadn’t seen anything since (probably missed it as i haven’t been around that much but i did try to keep my eyes peeled for bee news from you).
thanks for the happy update. am hoping to see that pic some day. wow!
It’s the commercial bees that are carted around the country in tractor-trailer trucks that are the ones in danger. The organic ones (don’t know the stats, but perhaps 1% of total?) do OK, depending on weather & verroa mites.
amen to all you wrote. though it doesn’t change my hopes for the safety of all.
Speaking of bees, do they even have knees?
and a very good morning to you too SD.
i’m going to go look outside to see if any bees have shown up here yet. seems like even less than last year so far (and last spring was wet and cold while this one has been, for the most part, warm and sunny).
When my beekeeper was here on Sat giving his lecture, he related the story about going to Vieques this spring to deal with a house infected with Africanized bees. He finished the story by saying that he would no longer buy a queen bee from any of the southern U.S. states, for fear of getting a cross bred one.
Okay. Made myself look it up.
Two years of drought have done in the bees around here I think. Though it’s raining this year, I haven’t seen a wild bee this year, not one. Plenty of ants and wasps but no bees that I’ve seen. Of course most of the wild bees around here became Africanized long ago. I’ve spent this Spring on a one woman crusade to get people to mow their grass and fields no more than once a month between February and May to give the bee populations some time to recover but I’m not greeted enthusiastically.
One of my ex’s favourite expressions.
Speaking of the ex, she sent me scans of my 2 favourite pix.
Nine O’Clock, happiest kitteh in the world. All 25 pounds.
Dat’s a lot o’ fur.
I totally agree with you
Glenn Greenwald and Ambassador Peck have spoke truth
Israel continues to ignore the big fact that they attack an aid ship in Internation waters.
Bees Knees (Gin, honey, lemon)
Yep and central Texas has been the region with the longest and deepest exposure to africanized bees. That and Kudzu are such perfect illustrations of why the importation of invasive alien species for any purpose is STUPID, yet it still goes on. At least in Austin there is a nursery that only sells native plants. It should be a law IMO.
Wow! Some cat!
it is sick that everyone israel kills becomes al qaeda after they are dead.
it is sick that anyone not babysitting israel is called something like “Clearly, a classic anti-Semite.”
the whole planet would be a lot more peaceful if israel was gone. this makes me “Clearly, a classic anti-Semite.”
Big kitteh. Had the camera in my hand walking from the living room to the back of the house and there was 9 sitting on the rug. Couldn’t resist the chance. I have a framed 8×10 of it.
Wow! that cat looks just like Nemo. I miss him. :-(
Nothing new. Every Vietnamese we killed was Viet Cong.
Peck interviewed by Amy Goodman yesterday essentially called the Israeli story what’s found in cow pastures. Actually a better interview.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/2/israels_explanation_for_deadly_gaza_aid
Barenjager
Talk about missing. Dis is the original Tiye. Best kitteh evah.
I have a liquor with a honey base that my relative insisted I carry back from Poland in 2001. I tried to finish it off, but I find it gag-producing.
Agreed.
How did he taste?
She.
Glenn Greenwald nailed Spitzer on the Dylan Ratigan show for being an Israeli apologists.
He was Ready For His Close Up. Drama Kitty.
New post up top…
Do you remember what it was called?
It’s a little early, but, that sounds good. Would be good on a hot day.
No. I must have thrown it out because the bottle is no longer in my liquor cabinet.
Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.
US KIA Irak: 4,401
US KIA Afghanistan: 1,089
Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M
US MBS 2010: 18,972 and counting
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.
Namaste
Heh.
What a lovely thread. Makes up for yesterday. *g*
I’m not for Israel “being gone”, anymore than I’m for any of their adversaries “being gone”. Because none of them are going anywhere. I’m for them learning to behave themselves. Here is the way I see the Middle East and some people probably aren’t going to like it because it’s not at all PC: We are addicted to oil. The only easy oil left in the world is in the Middle East. The problem is that up until the oil companies arrived, that culture was socially at least, a few hundred years behind the rest of the world. Suddenly they are wealthy and worldly and have access to money, influence and technology far beyond where they still languish socially. Throw in Israel which has decided that a more than two thousand year old work of fiction has granted them “special” or “chosen” status, (not to mention land occupied inconveniently by people who have been there for thousands of years), and a staunch ally, (paid for by lobby dollars and perpetuated by posturing for political gain), and you have a bloody mess. There was a time when Israel was justifiably paranoid but the paranoia there and here has become an industry, with a whole lot of people getting very rich by stoking that paranoia and peddling the illusion of safety and security. So, you’ve got a combination of a formerly oppressed and very ill used people who have decided that they are divinely entitled, cast among a group of people who are socially somewhere around the 15th century but have 21st century influence and technology and a brainless, reactive, money driven superpower who is more interested in short term unsustainable gain, be it monetary or political, than peace and prosperity for all. It’s nothing short of an ongoing, decades long train wreck.
Damn it! I filled out a job application yesterday and now I’m getting unsolicited calls about continuing education and “offers” for resume writing software and so forth.
Now that’s a contented looking kitteh!
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. You never cease to amaze me. Astute overview. Nothing un PC there. Did you ever consider being a teacher? History?
(And, how’s that book coming along? You have such a great Voice.)
She was a jewel among jewels. Too bad the colour is a little washed out from the scan.
Damn. Right on.
Thanks demi. I would have loved to teach but most parents don’t want freaks like me around their children. I’m the social Quasimodo.
Hey, Israel get your hand out of the US’s pocket! Go screw up your own country, we don’t need to go down with you. Stop lobbying our politicians to protect your crappy country. How about you stand on your own? Any and all of your trolls seem to declare what a strong and mighty state you are, prove it! PLEASE! Stop sucking at the teet of the United States economy. We’re decimated enough without you continuing to bleed us for billions each and every year.
This is a good thing, no?
Reports: Young U.S. Citizen Killed By IDF In Gaza Flotilla Raid
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/reports_young_us_citizen_killed_by_idf_in_gaza_flo.php?ref=fpb
No! They’ve been calling non stop since I filled out the application. It was a front, not a real job offer in the classifieds. A ploy to get my contact information to try to sell me crap that i don’t want or need. I have a firm rule: I don’t need or want anything that I’m not looking for on my own. If somebody contacts me to sell me something I wasn’t already looking for, I don’t need it.
Sweetheart, I happen to love freaks. Been called one myself. I was thinking college level. Inquiring minds shouldn’t mind a little deviation here or there.
I once had a Sociology class taught by a pretty freaky teacher. His aim was to “widen our acceptance of tolerable behaviour”. Threw some extreme stuff at us. Very trippy.
Sorry. I misunderstood. Gotcha now.
Non prob. I was unclear. I should have pointed out that the whole “job” ad was a fraud.
I’ll take that question. In fact, it’s all too easy. Hint: There’s more to being human than is found in reductive psychology and machine politics.
Ask any rabbi, what’s the traditional method of correcting Israel’s waywardness? Anyone? Oh c’mon, it’s plain as day. It’s the mythology!
According to the myth, their god uses the “other” nations as a scourge, to punish, reprimand, and rectify his “chosen people.” So it’s up to us, not Lloyd Blankfein, to do “god’s work,” right? Time for tough love, not unthinking fealty to the mythical keepers of the keys to heaven.
Isn’t it bizarre, how Christian Zionists only love Israel as a way to get their own sorry souls into their idea of heaven? They’re eager to bring about Armageddon, looking forward to it like the ultimate Fourth of July party. “Friends” like these are sending Israel straight to hell–on earth, that is, and taking the rest of us with them.
selise @15 Good point, selise, same goes for us, “his” second favorite nation, as ranked according to our own myth: American Exceptionalism.
I’m not liking scams. Being another person who has spent way too much time looking at job ads, I’ve learned which ones are BS, self righteous or not. Ha. There are some wherein they want you to do a bunch of online work as a “test” of your skills, when all they really want is unpaid labor. Fuck that.
Enhanced Tiye
Wow, that’s damn near perfect. Thanks.
twolf1! Got some time on your hands? You can come to my house and help me play in the garden. *g*
OW!
Bravo for you, Margaret. It takes courage to voice an opinion with a little nuance after what happened here yesterday. And, of course, that touch of nuance brings you much closer to the truth than the vast bulk of the commentary that prevailed on the previous posts on this issue. I agree completely with what you said here, and, in truth, all I was seeking yesterday was a similar acknowledgement from others that there are in fact some major complexities in the situation. But some here have committed themselves to one-sided “analysis” for reasons I cannot fathom, and I must say that I lost respect for many whom I previously held in high regard, and that respect will not be restored easily. I hope that you do not get attacked as I did for acknowledging the need for some nuance in these discussions, and would guesstimate that the risk is somewhat greater than that entailed by the carelessly written “contrary” comment you got attacked for yesterday. I think you are an honest broker, as I try to be as well.
It’s not a crime if the
PresidentIsrael does it.Who runs this
countryworld anyway?Rule of law. Diplomacy. What CRAZY concepts.
Excellent synopsis and analysis!
Great Post!
My dear sister, your thesis sounds so reasonable, but it’s just scapegoating that bears little resemblance to actual history.
Brave Sir Razorbrain’s first point @118 is well made, though: it takes great courage to run with the bull here at the Lake. You got game, I’ll say that. Now, if you only knew WTF you’re talking about….
As if the centuries of Crusades never happened! As if western Europe’s brutal bogus holy wars had no influence! Try this on for size: until the slavers got to Africa,… (insert the rest of your bogus account of history here).
As if! That’s the height of cultural arrogance, to think that “up until the oil companies arrived,” the people there were naturally backwards. That’s a perfect example of the power of myth, to shape the world we believe we’re acting in prior to our acting in it.
Decades?! Yes, it’s been over 6 decades since the US and Britain myth-jacked the Palestinians of their land, the latest battle in what might be the world’s longest running holy war.
It’s a centuries-, even millenia-long Crusade, updated and upgraded for the nuclear age, but it’s the same old idea of a political master of a mechanical universe. The fight is over who’s going to be king of the world, seated at the right hand of god. The weapon of choice is fear. The method: torture by isolation, to the point of collapsing our psyches into quantum singularities of egocentric pain.
As I like to put it: we are organic beings, selves cellf-imprisoned in cellves of our own mistaken making.
Western Science and Christendom are two branches of the same myth: the cosmos as construct, as an artifact, the creation of a political master who rules by fiat and kinetic force. When science supposedly gave up the idea of a creator, they nevertheless kept the idea of the cosmos as a machine.
Watch Morgan Freeman on the Daily Show just last night. He suggests dark matter and energy, “whatever science doesn’t know,” could be god. Well duh, Morgan! Almost all of us believe the cosmos is either god’s own, or no one’s own, justice-dispensing, bogus holy war-fighting, perpetual motion cash machine.
Nowadays, we think that our science, economy, and military are the acme of human achievement. The phrase, Masters of the Universe, MOTU, is perfectly apt. Everyday, in almost every speech, our politicians invoke that god’s blessing, and assert the need for us to “reclaim” our role as first among equals. We act like we’re that god’s gift to the planet, but it’s not based on merit, it’s based on the age-old “fear of god,” as operationalized by our military and now, financial terrorism.
We mistake our way of being in the world: as the private property of the great cosmic engineer-tyrant, or just god-forsaken dirt, with which we may do as we please, it’s all just a machine anyway; as the only possible ways of being human in the world. I’m here to tell you there are plenty of other ways, other, much older ways, that experience life as a dance between Father and Mother Nature, not a war.
As Christianists, Zionists, or weirder still, Christian Zionists; or as secular Scientists, we are led to believe in ourselves and our leaders as the natural-born rulers of the world. And that’s no exaggeration: “full-spectrum dominance” is our official “defense” posture. We’ve ruled the world with a degenerate interpretation of the bible and billions and billions of bullets.
As you may know, depleted uranium already is increasing pathologies in the populations we’ve used it on. I suppose, in this truly sociopathic way of thinking, in a few decades, the resultant costs to their society, and ours, will be seen as all their fault for living in land we polluted, but its believers won’t acknowledge how we’ve sown our seeds deceitfully (one of the root meanings of “to pollute”).
BTW, where do you think Western Europe got so much of its science and art? Imported it from those “backwards” people, that’s where.
people like you make me feel even better know Israel stays strong and steadfast in their defense of their country. Your response is clearly made from ignorance and antisemitism.
[modnote: comments that are not in support of Israel do not make the commenter anti-semite.]
Margaret does an exceptional job at explaining the general situation wrt to the general conflict in Gaza. So the key to “behaving” is to have some evenly applied rules and a governing body to enforce those rules. How about we start with one that states one country cannot intentionally starve the population of another. Here’s another one, the military of one country cannot forceably board an unarmed vessel in international waters and start murdering people who have no idea what the intent of the attacking vessel is and have every reason to suspect it is to kill, detain, and otherwise harrass the people on board and prevent them from delivering aid to people in need.
How about we start with, “Stop attacking?” And move forward from there. That’s the rule I would apply to EVERY conflict situation.
OK. Stop attacking. I’ll agree with that. Can we agree we could START giving, you know, like food, cement, pharmaceuticals… stuff like that?
Can’t “start” with both. It’s easier to feed those who are not attacking, I think. I certainly hope you don’t think I would ever be in favor of starving people.
Don’t you think it’s even a little bit funny the games people play with the time factor?
There you go, telling me what can’t be done. Let’s stay positive. People need to eat and have general necessities of life. Let’s begin there. We CAN.
I did not say anything can’t be done. I just said that the most basic starting point, from both a logical and a human perspective, is for EVERYONE to stop attacking. I’ll stand by that.
Sure. In the fifteenth century and prior where the culture has been stuck since. Or do you think that they are so very culturally forward by treating women like chattel? As for the rest of your comment *shrug* Somebody is bound to disagree with anything and everything written by somebody else. You’re reflexes are apparently intact.
And while we’re talking history and time scales and all of that, was it the Versailles treaty itself that precipitated the frustration of Germany or could a British blockade and subsequent starving of children and women have had a little to do with it?
Good on you. Some people, however, have become frustrated by the oppression of some other people and have decided to help them. They’ve been attacked. You’ve been looking for excuses for that attack. Call them “nuances” if you will.
“Our” myths are killing others, literally, and our selves and consciences, millimeter, by willy-nilly, millimeter.
But, knowbuddhau, we are all god’s chillun, made-up though that god, as you know, may be without a doubt (as doubt gets in the way of pristine belief, just as belief gets in the way of certain other, unnamed things …).
In a time of deliberately contrived confusion, crisis and catastrophe, when shock and rude violence are the currency of those who may … do as they damn please, when the prolific waste of both time and goodwill is neither frowned upon, nor even noticed, such as point out this truth will not be much appreciated.
So, here is mine.
(Likewise offered to all who choose to understand.)
DW
Tthe blockade itself was in response to Israel being attacked hundreds of times. This game is like a dog chasing it’s tail. The only honest thing one can say is that everybody should stop attacking right now. Only that can set the stage for the participants to start treating each other as human being instead of threatening enemies. Justifying or excusing attacks by either side against the other just perpetuates the conflict. SA big part of the problem mis that people in the Middle East are most famous for holding onto grudges forever. As are some who comment here.
Hamas not calling for the extinction of Israel would help.
I have a tendency to view with great skepticism any comment/opinion about the US-Israel/Palestine conflict that begins by putting forth an “Israel is acting in self defense” caveat.
Netanyahu et al preface any statement with the self defense caveat. What follows is bs propaganda.
10,000 rockets fired into Israel after they give the Gaza strip back to the Palestinians. HMMM. Self defense sounds like a good idea.
No, SD, that’s NOT what I’m doing. If you look more carefully at the context, the back and forth with hotdog, what I’m saying is that BOTH sides there could endlessly cite past attacks and wrongs as justification for present ones (“dog chasing its tail”), and that it’s a losing proposition if restoring some reason and humanity to the present situation is the goal. The only sane way to deal with the present is to stop doing violence right now.
EVERYBODY!!!!
And please, please, please, don’t ever mention me and Netanyahu in the same comment again. I despise the man as a heartless extremist, after watching him closely for many years.
And America could do well, by way of example, to state its intent to begin that process of stopping gratuitous (what other kind is there?) violence, by forswearing violence … and then actually doing so. Stooping its own violence, THAT would be courageous, humane, just and proper.
It would be the wisest thing America ever did.
Good day to you, razorbrain.
DW
FUCK ISRAEL!
I might think it was proper to investigate the fleet if they were in Israel’s waters, but to attack them in International waters in piracy. They need some International sanctions put to them just like Iran and North Korea since they are acting the same way. Just to make it clear how I feel.
FUCK ISRAEL!
Do you feel the same way about Hamas?
Our hearts and minds are certainly together on that, my friend. Haven’t seen you around much lately. Missed ya. Doin’ OK?
I reject that. All I’ve called for, check back to what I actually wrote, as opposed to what OTHERS have chosen to supply, and you will see that all I’ve said is that there are facts on both sides that should be considered, and that judgments should not be made on facts that are not settled. I have never said anyone was RIGHT in this conflict.
I am an analyzer, that’s what my whole life has been about, and that’s how I analyze EVERYTHING, as you would know if you’ve read anything I’ve written here in the last six years.
This issue apparently carries so much emotion that it causes people to lose their minds and attack their friends.
this attack had NOTHING to do with hammas. even under the archaic, gentile, rules of “blockade” that isrealis are appealing to, the attack on a humanitarian vessel in international waters was illegal. isreal is apparenly commited to national self destruction and it wont help to keep saying over and over again, “what would hammas do”? so be it.
10,000 bottle rockets for how many killed? How many Palestinians has Israel killed over the years? Wow. You can only hide behind that for so long. Poor Israel, poor poor Israel. How about you stand on your own and stop taking money from the United States?
How would you feel about having those 10,000 “bottle rockets” fired at your house with bad intent? I think that’s a fair question. Care to answer it?
Brave Sir Razorbrain, @ 128 ad infinitum, WTF are you talking about? I took much time to make my many points. Can you not address a single one?
Margaret @131 How convenient that your thesis is coterminous with a truncated reading of history. What of human history for the preceding half million years or so? What of the historical roots of the cultural arrogance you display so fervently? Did nothing happen in human history prior to 1399?
Lastly, DW: WTF do I care how my poetics are received? WTF does that have to do, other than tailoring, with the body of my thesis?
Of course I know this won’t be well received. In my own family, for anyone not to fall in line, however ridiculous and self-injurious that line may be, with the unquestioning fervor of a fanatic, is to suggest allegiance with the original Great Satan. My own father is a retired master chief (USN! USN! just kidding). I’ve been chewed out by tougher critics all my life. (Which may explain, at least in part, why I’m only now, in my mid fourtries, brave enough to speak my mind as I know it myself from the inside.)
I’d rather be condemned to a hell of my own making, for speaking what I experience as the closest verifiable account of the truth I can muster, than party forever with fakes. Wouldn’t you agree, my eloquent friend?
Honestly, I appreciate your contribution to this discussion and generally find you to be an intelligent, reasonable person. The cultural bias and historical revisionism you’ve displayed here, however, ranges somewhere from comical to incendiary.
Yes, ‘they’ (Who are they? All middle easterners? Just middle eastern muslims? All muslims? Who?) treat their women like chattel. Whereas we have created a modern paradise where only the working class is treated like chattel and we reward women for appearing sexually desireable and available more than anything else-clearly the one right way things are meant to be. We live, here in the west of which I suppose the U.S. is a part, in a state that practices torture and uses self-important sophistry to defend and continue it. The mainstream of our culture rejects intellect or being informed as a value. We are better at producing weapons than anything else, have exposed a huge swath of the world to a colonial nightmare and now we determine that what defines and typifies us is the essence of modernity, progressivism, restraint and benevolence.
Summing up: your blanket characterization of five centuries history of the ‘middle east’ (a concept in itself imposed from the west’s ivory towers) as one long stagnation in every area in which they fell ‘behind’ us enlightened westerners has no basis in historical analysis. None.
Razorbrain-your “people who hold my position are the serious adults and everyone else is just emoting all over the place” meme is wearing very thin. “Just stop attacking”-great advice, always…too bad it’s inappropriate for your position here, defending the actions of a rogue state’s attack on an aid convoy.
I can tell you how I wouldn’t respond: by feeling justified in assaulting aid workers who are trying to deliver basic necessities to a group of people, yes including those who fired the rockets, because my government has denied them access to such necessities…
Actually, the Israeli response was non-violent, the blockade, and then outsiders decided to stick their noses in to undermine that non-violent solution. That’s what precipitated the violence. And indications are that the outsiders welcomed the violence. See NYT, front page, yesterday, quoting an organizer of the flotilla.
It’s always easy (and FREE) to say you’d act like a saint if someone attacked you, much harder to act like a saint after you’ve already been attacked and wounded. But judging is such fun.
Didn’t mean to ignore you, thought you’d get it on your own. It’s not just you I was referring to with the “time factor games” reference.
I meant it’s funny how folks here arbitrarily decide which historical facts control the relevancy of the conversation. Yesterday, I was viciously attacked by many who felt the American Indian and Jewish Holocausts were too remote to mention, but on other occasions even older events are cited as foundation. I could provide many examples, and you would probably laugh with me at the arbitrariness, but I have to go cook dinner.
Peace.
I’d appreciate you refrainig from putting words in my mouth. If being careful about the facts is a “meme” that’s growing thin for you, maybe you should not read my comments.
The “meme” of people who like to judge other people who actually have skin in the game, without being careful about the facts, is getting awfully damn thin for me.
Razorbrain, I apologize for my tone recently. I respect your tenacity to a position that I’m sure you sincerely hold. It’s your reasons, and the problems that seem to me to flow from your position that have been severely frustrating me. None of us is perfect and some of the inconsistencies in your comments that I’ve jumped on have been less than fair. Again, I apologize for that. The Lake is a civil place and I regret having failed to live up to that standard. I hope you’ll consider engaging the following, but given my tone recently I would understand it if you choose not to.
So. Just three things really:
- I truly don’t understand what harm you seek to avoid by delaying, denying, or preventing such judgement (as in @153). Could you state that concisely please, if that’s possible?
- I also don’t understand what you propose as a standard of proof for facts. It’s been a very long discussion over several days and I realize absolute consistency would be too much to ask for, but the criteria for what you’ve been willing to treat as a fact vs. what you’ve not been willing to entertain has not been obvious to me. Again, can you try for a concise statement here?
- Lastly, I haven’t been able to understand how to square the idea of adopting your position with my responsibilities as citizen. It seems it’s to be forbidden to me to form my own timely judgements on important international events because I must always wait for a fully settled version of the facts to materialize (and again, who decides the facts if not the citizen?), or because I’m not permitted to form judgements on any conflict that I’m not directly involved in. Could you help me see how your view reconciles these rules with my duty to monitor the world and form opinions about its events?
Again, if you choose not to reply I will understand and accept that.
Well, that’s the most beautiful and welcome thing I’ve seen in days. Thank you so much. I cannot do anything but embrace you for your obvious sincerity.
Truth is, these days have been extremely painful for me. I am well liked here on most other issues, I think, and have made this my home site and my community for six years. So being attacked by so many with whom I am usually in full comradely agreement has felt like taking a physical beating. I normally avoid Israel issues entirely, because it is not a big interest of mine, and because I am usually very disappointed with the tone that prevails on all these Israel threads. I read all the denials, but it does not seem to jibe with the flavor of the comments themselves. Anyway, I won’t say anymore on that subject, but I think you can infer what I mean.
I am cursed with a love of and dedication to truth. So, when this incident occurred, and I saw all the wild and ugly speculations and slurs being thrown about, with nobody arguing the other side, I felt compelled to speak up. I did so with great reluctance, because I knew I would be pilloried for it. But I never would have guessed the degree to which people would take it. I’ve actually considered leaving the site for good over this episode.
Cont. below
But I stuck it out because I felt someone had to do it, and virtually nobody else was.
Initially, all I argued was that we should wait until we knew what actually happened. I just think that’s basic for any fair person to do that. You saw what happened with that.
Then I tried to correct some of the obvious factual and logical misstatements I was seeing, and you saw what happened with that.
Now, today, we have the first facts from sources that cannot be seen as having any bias in favor of Israel, the actual passengers on the boats, and particularly theonly boat where the violence occurred,and lo and behold, they paint a very different factset than what has prevailed here until today. That is why I urged waiting for facts in the first place. No commando blitzkrieg, rather a peaceful boarding that only turned violent after the passengers iniaitated the violence.
But, as you can see, most were not moved at all by actual information.
Cont. below
So, to answer your first question, that was the harm I sought to avoid by waiting. And also, nobody here understands all the complex legal issues involved in blockades, ocean boardings, and such. Many think they do, but they are just going from the gut. I prefer to do the work and try to get it right. I think it’s a terrible thing to judge others harshly when you don’t understand the facts, or the applicable law, and have not ever been in their situation or made an honest effort to imagine yourself in their situation. Signing onto an injustice like that is something I was determined to avoid myself, and I also hoped to help some of my friends avoid doing so.
So you are preaching patience and wit to those who would jump to unwarranted accusation?
You are making certain that historical context is applied fairly?
You are asserting that the people who were killed and injured need only have obeyed the commands from the IDF forces, and all lives could have been spared?
And any contentions that Israel officially or unofficially, acted precipitously or over-aggressively are incorrect, and because some people here did so so vociferously and relentlessly and savagely, you are an injured party?
And your search is for the truth, regardless of how long it takes and how hard the slog?
Re your second question, standard of proof, that’s very complex, and I’m sure you understand that. Beyond reasonable doubt is the standard in criminal law. More than 50% sure is the standard in civil law. As a moral issue, i think we have to strive for the highest standard we can reasonably hope to be capable of. In this instance, the standard applied by most was clearly at the lowest end of the scale, pure speculation, ugly motive projection, outright Jew-hatred by the worst. It was easy for me to make the determination that that standard was unfair and inadequate. I don’t know quite how far I can push in the better direction, but I will push as hard and far as I can toward certainty about the key facts and legal factors, until I feel reasonable satisfied. At some point, I’ll have to say enough, in deference to the shortness of life and the need to do some productive work for survival purposes. When I think I have enough info, I’ll sit back and analyze the hell out of it, from every angle, and then settle on an overall conclusion. I think each of us has to make his own determination as to when enough is enough, but I think it is a moral issue to do a very good job generally, and particularly when judging others who have actual skin in the game. Remember, for us outsidders, it’s just sport, intellectual stimulation. For them, it’s survival or death at stake. But the quick re-shaping of the picture in just a few hours makes clear that most here have been happy to jump to wrong conclusions that suit their pre-existing viewpoints. That standard of proof is completely unacceptable to me, and I am proud to standup in protest and fight against it.
Last question, and you’re keepong me up past my bedtime lol.
This is one of the big questions of life, isn’t it? I’m not really qualified to answer it for you, because my own position in life is so unusual. For the twenty years since I practiced law, Ii’ve been a devoted student of the financial markets, studying, predicting, and trading them, very edgy, short-term, high-leverage trading. Information and fast information processing is my lifeblood, I can’t survive without them. So, I spend many hours each ady taking in information of all kinds that can affect markets, which includes politics and world events, and FDL is a major resource for me, but I read papers and even Drudge every day to ensure that I am exposed to different facts and perspectives.
It would be crazy for anyone to do that if it was not an integral part of their work. But, as you plainly agree, we must be as well-informed as possible to be responsible citizens and decent, effective human beings. So, I think you find three or four good trusted sources, and you read them when you can. if you make that a regular practice, you start to sense that there is a cycle, an ebb and flow, to information on any given event. You come to see that the earlliest info is usually incmplete or even inaccurate, and you modify day by day your views as your get newer and better info. Again, it’s an individual decsion as to when you have enough to make decisions or judgments, but with good habits and good faith, you can easily do a better job of it than the vasy majority of people out there. I would agree with you that you must make those decisions with relative speed, but that just means don’t wait a year, it doesn’t mean you have to do it the first day. It’s an art, like all the other tings in life, and practice improves your skill level. none of us gets perfection, but perfection isn’t necessary very good is.
Hope this was of some use to you. I owed you this long response because your conciliatory comment was very important to me and came just when i really needed it.
Looking forward to more pleasant interactions with you in the future.
Peace and prosperity to you.
I would just add, and this may well be the most important thing, that if you have a narrative formed in your head, and you encounter reliable information that contradicts your narrative in a material way, you MUST be prepared and willing to abandon your narrative and construct a new one or modify the old one so that it is in harmony with the facts you know and trust. You can’t fight the facts, and should never try. That is not a defeat, as many here do not seem to understand, but rather a victory for the part of you that is dedicated to good faith and accuracy.
G’night.
I think I’ve wasted enough time responding to you. Get back to me when you have your lists of international law violations and the effective responsive enforcement measures, then maybe we’ll have something to talk about. Until then, I just see you as someone who does not care about the truth. Sorry.
Right, the “Why can’t we violate international law, cause everyone else does it?” trope is all good, but you now concede that Israel did in fact violate international law by boarding.
Nonetheless:
Razorbrain has asked that other commenters not put words in his mouth, and I agree, if that is what had been happening. His own will do fine.
•••But on the 24th of May, he or she wrote the following, about what I can only presume•••:
Gawd Bless the googles.
Your ‘reasonable person’ standards leave something to be desired. It is tiresome. And worse.
So I have a question: What is it, or was it, that you wanted to pen that would have so upset the moderators?
Thanks razorbrain for deciding to engage, and especially in such depth.
If I may be so bold, a few reply comments, and a bit of advice:
@155 – Loving the truth is excellent. Truth is established from consideration of evidence. Asserting that one’s interpretation of the available evidence is the only valid one is not excellent. Attempting to force others to accept one’s interpretation is a bad idea.
“Arguing for the other side,” however, is about balance between two sides; this is a different model from finding the truth through evidence and while biased evidence should be guarded against, the balance model can blind us. Think of typical MSM interviews with corporate shills and investigators given equal time on panels — if it happens to be a case of one-sided wrongdoing, the ‘balance’ model causes that truth to be masked, not revealed.
@156 – Yes, it did get a bit ugly there. Part of that was because some of the facts you were asserting were legitimately questioned by others, yet you insisted your facts were more facty. Now, with my lapses I’m scarecely one to criticize on this point, but iIt’s not clear to me that the sources on which you decided to rely were so much more unimpeachable than their sources as to justify the nasty and sometimes personal tone that started to come from you. Frankly you seemed surprised and angry at having been challenged for your behavior that itself came across as attacking.
And there is at least one firsthand report from the boat today that pretty totally conflicts with the picture you paint about the character of the army landing on the boat (link).
@157 – Thanks for answering my question. But I don’t understand what harm there is even if someone initially jumps to a harsh judgement of something, even if the judgement is based on bad information. You seem to worry about injustice, but harsh judgement per se is not some sort of irreversible, permanent, death-sentence-sized punishment — the world is not going to drop the big one on any country just because some DFH blog commenters are angry. We humans collect information all the time and constantly adjust our judgements as a result. If exculpatory information came out right now, most peoples’ early harsh judgements would be reversed. And they might feel a little dumb or angry for a little while for being duped, but that’s certainly no serious harm. So unfortunately I still don’t understand what actual harm you seek to avoid by delaying judgement. If you feel like explaining more, I’m still interested in understanding you here.
@159 – I agree with you there were some with very offensive blatant racial axes being ground, and sometimes a lot of aggression comes from those commenters, but we just have to do our best to disregard idiots like that. I think it’s fine for you to set your own standard of proof wherever you see fit. Harder though to go along with denigrating other people for putting the bar at a somewhat different level, even if their choice is unconscious. In short, we get to tell others what we think, we don’t get to direct them what or how to think. I think a lot of the negative replies you got were because it seemed to them that you had crossed that line.
@160 – I think what this comes down to again is that you think you’re doing this right, and you think others are fucking it up, and so you’re telling them how they should be doing it. If you were in a position of authority over them then that might stand a chance of flying, but for good or ill, you have a peer relationship to the other commenters here. So while this may not be your intention, you are perceived as looking down on people who do not regard you as a superior, and this results in personal resentment that greatly decreases the likelihood that the content of your message will successfully get through.
@161 – I know you feel this is your central message, but frankly your tone destroys your message here once again. In fact, your statement as written is inaccurate: I “must” do nothing you say, sir. If you have pearls of wisdom to offer, then offer them with kindness and maybe people will pick them up. Force them in this manner, and they’re sure to be rejected.
Here’s the advice part: When there is disagreement with your philosophy, try to distinguish that from attacks. Especially since you have had, to be frank as I would be with a friend, a tendency to be quite sharp yourself in condemning folks for processing information differently than you do. It appears to me that a goodly share of the heat you’ve taken is only your own aggression reflected back at you. Telling people they don’t have a right to their sincere opinion, even if you believe it to be mistakenly arrived at, is never going to be popular. And people have every right to take offense at it, because in the end, people get to make their own minds up for themselves, in whatever manner they best see fit. Sincerity is the best we can hope or ask for. I understand you feel your persistence is a matter of consistent commitment to your principles, but keep in mind that it produces an impression of badgering which is not helping you, either.
I accept that we’re trying to do this in good faith.
You have interpreted my remarks to you very differently than what the actual intended meaning was. I can only suggest that you re-read what I wrote to you.
The obligation to be accurate is internally generated. Being popular with a mob that is being inaccurate is a position I would never desire to find myself in. Competent analysis is a skill, and incompetent aanalysis is easily shown by those who have the skill. Unfortunately, it takes a great deal of work to develop and hone thatt skill, and most simply don’t bother.
I said MUST not as an expression of authority, rather as a way of coaching you in ahieving what you said you wanted to achieve-accuarcy. In a general sense, I think we differ in that you are more interested in being aligned with the crowd than I wouold ever be. The crowd is so often wrong in life, I prefer to be on the side of accuracy. I don’t know what else i can say on that.
As to the feelings involved, I think you are asking me to be gentle with a mob that is being rough with me. Why should I? Reciprocity is my guide when dealing with people.
As to the statement you cited, and the other on a later thread this morning, there is no confllict. Neither directly addressses the initial booarding. But that initial boarding was the key moment, and, frankly, I’m comfortable relying on the professional observations of the al-jazeera reporters.
Try re-reading what I wrote as if it was not a debate–I think you’ll take a different meaning away from it.
Queen Latifah was a big fan of Reciprocity in the film Chicago.
Razorbrain, I don’t expect to change your mind, but I am sincerely trying to be honest with you, as I would with a good friend, to help you understand your situation. When you call the other commenters at the Lake a mob, even those mwith good faith differences of opinion, and restate the superiority of your own way, you only reinforce the strongly negative impression that a superior attitude inevitably generates. In short, saying you’re superior insults the community. To state a disagreement clearly and with great passion, agree to disagree, and then go on, is what happens in most civil society. But when one sets oneself as a superior, disregards individual opinions and treats everyone as a single thing, and with repetition to extreme degree, then one disrespects the community in important ways. I hope you’ll mull that as I think it goes a long way towards explaining the widespread rejection of many of your recent comments. In society, attitude is at least as important as logic, often much more so.
That you seem to expect your ideas to eventually be accepted as superior to anyone else’s while at the same time you create the appearance of disrespecting the community to this degree is puzzling to me. A reasonable person might ask: If you’ve concluded it’s a mob, then why stay here, why care what the mob thinks? If it’s because you seek to eventually persuade, then why the attack posture which practically guarantees alienating others? Because whether or not you intend to speak with authoritative voice, I hope you’ll try to appreciate that that is the mode of expression you do frequently use, and that using that mode carries consequences. If I may be so bold, as an experiment, try taking into account the possibility of a gap between your intention and your wording, because all anyone else has to go on is your wording.
Really precise expression is hard, especially in text, especially with emotionally charged and complex subjects like this one. And everyone has blind spots (me included of course). It seems to me there is some possibility that you might have a bit of a blind spot about the fact that your words, like anyone else’s (…and like items of evidence…) are inherently ambiguous and legitimately subject to interpretations other than what you intended. You have frequently overreacted when others have had different interpretations than you, both with regard to your words and with regard to items of evidence (for example, we have different interpretations of the Zoabi statement; I”m happy to let you keep your interpretation even though I think it’s flawed). I don’t know whether you consciously choose not to try to view yourself as others see you, but you do seem less than willing to do it. If that turns out to be a persistent trait, then I would like to gently suggest that would be to your detriment as far as spreading your ideals. And that would be a great shame too. And that’s something that can be improved if you feel a desire for that.
If you want to be understood as a person not engaging in debate, then you’re going to have to ratchet down your authoritarian language choices a bit, overreact less, and increase your tolerance for different interpretations of evidence that comes with more ambiguity than you seem willing to acknowledge. Quit telling people what to do and think, at least at such length, and you’re likely to be misunderstood less. Simply modeling what one believes to be good/right/best — your style of analysis in this case — generally works better than haranguing.
I hope you’ll be able to see these observations and suggestions as constructive, that is, intended as raw materials to help increase your effectiveness at communicating your values and ideals in a way more likely to result in uptake by others, rather than the painful rejection we’ve seen of late.
Well, I’ve done all I can for you. Maybe you should go to law school and get some actual training in evaluating evidence and conducting argument, and then we can talk again. I refuse to feel guilty for having actually taken the trouble to do that work myself.
BTW, you’ll notice that not a single lawyer here has taken issue with any of my fact analyses.
All you want to be about is emotion. Your choice.
Court-of-law rules are the correct standard for courts of law, but they are not a relevant criterion for real life opinion formation. Excessive fidelity to the legal standard of evidence in the citizenship sphere is misplaced, it’s a category error. Nobody suggests you feel guilty for your JD efforts, only that you consider not pronouncing yourself superior in your capacity as a citizen to the vast majority of humans who have not completed a JD. Put differently, consider not holding others to an inappropriately selected standard that also happens to favor yourself.
And with that, I have done all I can for you.
So courts have to be careful to get it right, but public opinion needs have no such concern.
If you’re satisfied with that, go forth secure in the knowledge that every lynch mob that ever existed would welcome you into their midst.
As to the rest, try going into an operating room and telling the surgeon you “feel” he should let you do the surgery.