Brian Smith with the wicked Dig!!!
Nicely done
B.
antiliberal. it’s wes clark’s idea. you should probably write him a letter before he becomes president.
Not that I agree with Howard Stern (I don’t even listen to him) but his opinions on this issue are actually the POLAR opposite of Danh’s. In fact, according to the charges Danh has made, Stern would accuse him of antisemitism. Check this out (a transcription from an Aryan race website–thanks, guys, now go kill yourselves):
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/temp/articles_illustrated/Stern/stern.
As for Jonathan Alter’s feelings on the matter, he does in fact think that the term antisemite gets thrown around too quickly, but believes in many cases, criticism of Israel IS antisemitism, most often “in effect if not intent”:
"In the case of Israel, the movement suffers from a careless use of analogy and a poor reading of the Middle East. The analogy used by signers of the divestment petitions is, of course, South Africa. You can understand why Jews might resent the comparison. The apartheid regime was a pariah state recognized by almost no one. Israel ? lest we forget ? was recognized even by the Palestinians in 1998. South Africa was the source of moral evil in the region; the good guys and bad guys weren’t hard to sort out. In the Middle East, blame is more evenly shared, and more recently attributable to the Palestinians, who have rejected the homeland offered them two years ago at Camp David and repeatedly send suicide bombers to kill the innocent and provoke Sharon. Divestment directed against Israel when it was so clearly wrong in invading Lebanon in the 1980s might have made sense. Today it’s just strange, and suspicious.
Some argue that the blindness to Palestinian blame is merely misplaced romanticism, not anti-Semitism. The students and professors on campus with a weakness for this kind of politics also champion other oppressed peoples fighting entrenched power, and overlook their abuses. But at a certain point, persistent double standards start to smell of something more malignant. Funny how campus activists never seem to mention, say, Syrian occupation of Lebanon. They bemoan capital punishment in the United States but say nothing when the Palestinians routinely execute suspected collaborators, including the mothers of young children. They single out Israeli human-rights abuses that pale next to those of their Arab neighbors, which we know less about because of press restrictions. Anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism–until it reaches a certain pitch."
oh antiliberal, wes clark actually suggested nato troops (if that makes any difference to you), other people have ammended the ‘or UN’ part to the idea.
i don’t think having an international force is a bad idea. granted yugoslavia was completely different situation but we have come to appreciate the results. ideally, we could see similar results in the middle east.
oh and i think no US soldiers died.
what the fuck is your problem?!
i don’t give a crap if howard stern has political opinions different from mine. i’m just glad he’d rather talk about lesbians than the rightousness of an israeli state.
am i gonna dump my gf because she disagrees with me on who the best dem. pres. candidate is? no!
who the hell says that you have to agree 100 percent with someone to like that person?
you fools have major problems incorporating unrelated things into a discussion (this is not a freaking debate man).
howard stern is cool guy. period.
just shut the fuck up already.
Hey, Danh, are you saying you would still love your girlfriend if he thought you were an antisemite?
Glute,
I didn’t realize that you had asked me a question. What is it? I’ll try to take a look. As for my question-answering, fucking Brian throws out so many questions that I cannot answer all of them without spending hours in front of my computer, which I’d never do, of course. Then, when I do answer as much I care to, he whines for greater detail, documentation, or just asks several relatively unimportant or leading questions just to waste my time so he can try (unsuccessfully, of course) to win a damn online debate.
However, except for this idiot, I’ll be glad to take the time to answer questions from anyone who’s interested enough in my opinion to ask me a question.
As for that question I asked you, which post did you think ‘attacked’ Israel?
danh,
I’m with you. Stern rules. So fucking what if he doesn’t agree with you and me on a political question. Only Brian would makes this type of thing personal. He probably literally hates anyone who disagrees with him on anything.
danh,
Those Website URLs you put up were funny. As you say, anyone who opposes Likud policies is, by definition, anti-Semitic (at least to these folks).
So, Brian has to insult people now. What’s up with his post to danh, where he says “Hey, Danh, are you saying you would still love your girlfriend if he thought you were an antisemite?” And, of course, Brian’s also throwing out the tired anti-Semite insult again. Give it a rest Brian. No one here gives a fuck about your desire to debate. In fact, it’s sad that you’re trying so hard to draw people in with your clearly provocative posts.
brian, my gf is not a guy! shut the fuck up.
you know… judging from the way you hammer and hammer your ‘divine’ opinions on this thread, i wouldn’t be surprised if you acted the same way in real life, i.e. never knowing when to shut up.
your life probably consists of a long series of failed personal relationships all the result of your unwillingness to be flexible on the most basic of things.
if you have to have someone tell you three times that they’re sick and tired of you, then you have some serious issues with attention.
let me be clear the only reason i’m still here is to discuss ideas with other lifters such as the deployment of nato troops with antiliberal. i’m not here to entertain your lonely ass.
I for one am shocked that a discussion about Isreal has deteriorated into name-calling and insult-slinging.
Shocked.
“In a world filled with hate, prejudice, and protest, I find that I too am filled with hate, prejudice, and protest”
~ Bob Gibson
It’s funny, Brian just counters your (MarkR, danh) statements or asks you to back up your assertions and you guys can’t, and even offer up insults. He finally insults you back and you guys come unglued and criticise him for debating you? Uh, if online forums aren’t for ‘discussions’ or ‘debates’ then what are they for? Just places to spew your thoughts on something and expect no response? I won’t mention what side of the debate I am in support of because I wouldn’t want to make any unfounded statements based on my insufficient knowledge of the subject, but I wanted to applaud Brian’s efforts on this thread. Thanks Brian very thought provoking and informative, keep up the good work.
forrester,
this discussion started in another thread and ended up here.
i said that we need leadership change across the board (all sides) and brian is convinced that i am anti-semitic because that includes israel (even though i’m part jewish!)
for a while i just thought i could support my opinion with some evidence but it happens that all my evidence is anti-semitic by his standards. it’s interesting that any points i made to him that happened to go against israel were inherently flawed to him.
i’ve decided there is no point in debating him. discussion is the exchange of ideas, not the force feeding of them.
Thank you, Forrester. It’s good to know that someone is reading my posts for content. I do try to put some in there. And Cupcake, that was funny.
As to whether the argument has gone too ad hominem, come on, gentlemen. I wasn’t the guy who made impartiality the issue. I wasn’t the guy who made intelligence the issue, or social skills! I wasn’t the guy who made anti-Semitism-as-red-herring an issue. Your own issues are staring back at you.
In the meantime, I DO support Israel. But as I’ve said, that does not mean I don’t have criticisms of certain Israeli policies or actions. It does, however, mean that I’m not going to sit down to tea and discuss, among other things in the Middle East, what’s in Israel’s best interest with these two guys who’ve done such a great job at showing me how impartial they are. What I wanted Mark and Danh to read was Jonathan Alter’s comments on the issue of Israel and accusations of antiemitism. I thought they were perceptive words, and relevant in that they touch on arguments Mark and Danh have both actually made.
Honestly, I read Mark R.’s statements about how he’s just an impartial, altruistic observer and accusations that I’m just trying anything to win a debate and I have to ask, “Is this guy for real?” His posts are a litany of claims against Israel and Israelis, and excusals of (or conspicuous silences on) the most monstruous behavior by Palestinians, or their leaders. But now, a disturbing answer is taking shape: “No, he’s not for real. He’s a figment of his own imagination.” Whatever story starts to put him in a bad light, Mark R. thinks he can just turn the story around and walk away.
Mark R., since you say you carefully read what I put up, read the quote from Jonathan Alter again, after all you’ve voiced your disproval of his character being assassinated for criticizing Israel. Then go look in the mirror. You’re probably not going to see anything special, just the guy who accused Israel of “apartheid,” is soft on suicide killings, indicts Israel for human rights violations while maintaining silence on those of the Palestinians (or of the Arab world) and reflexively denied what occurred at the peace table, all the while speaking endlessly about his impartiality—only the complete reflection of the person Alter talked about in his editorial to underscore that there are occasions when anti-Zionism equals antisemitism. If this disturbs you, Mark, you can write to Mr. Alter to argue your impartiality and protest how smart you are because you’re a systems engineer and because you slapdash big words like “ethnic cleansing” over other people’s attempts to engage your serious accusations, and you can narrate to him, as you’ve frequently done to us, how you’re “winning” and how lame your opposition is, both in argument and communications skills. Then tell us whether Mr. Alter writes back and wastes as much time as we wasted on you.
this is so hilarious i just needed to share it:
check out the other article this guy wrote:
i cant believe people like this get DOD clearances!
leadership change begins:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/30/uk.tory.leadership/
Forrester,
I can understand how you’d arrive at your conclusion about Brian, as you’ve probably read only this thread. Check out the WWIII thread (the one alluded to by danh, which is where this all started (this is “The Other Side” of that thread). We posted tons of information, but this guy was just being a dick with his name calling and annoying arguing. I engaged him in this discussion for a long time, as did danh, but people do have breaking points. If you are interested in this topic, check out that thread – we had a very interesting conversation going, and a lot of good data was exchanged.
Ok, thanks Mark I’ll check out the other thread. This subject is of great interest to me and it’s good to hear other peoples points of view and get references to good sources of info on the subject. By the way, your Fat poem made me laugh even though it was “not very nice”(quick somebody call the Waaaaaaammmbulance).
Well, there is something we agree on. The WW3 thread evidences quite a bit about our personalities and how they may affect our POVs on the Middle East.
If you’d like to know more about the people who chimed in on this thread, please read the WW3 thread. It’s most illuminating.