I learn the interesting news that David Aaronovitch tweeted to Joan Smith and Jenny Jones that I am:
“an angry and dangerous man who could as easily be on the far right as the far left”.
I had no idea I was on the far left, though I suppose it is a matter of perspective, and from where Mr Aaronovitch stands I, and a great many others, look awfully far away to the left. I don’t believe you should bomb people for their own good, I don’t believe the people of Palestine should be crushed, I don’t believe the profit motive should dominate the NHS, I think utilities and railways were better in public ownership, I think education should be free. I guess that makes me Joseph Stalin.
But actually I am very flattered. Apparently I am not just angry – since the invasion of Iraq and the banker bailouts everybody should be angry – but “dangerous”. If I can be a danger to the interests represented by a Rupert Murdoch employee like Aaronovitch, I must have done something right in my life. I fear he sadly overrates me; but it does make me feel a little bit warmer, and hold my head that little bit higher.
@Suhayl
The Talmud defines non-Jews as non-human animals. Since the Jewish religion defines Jews by descent, there is no question of the religion’s attitude to non-Jews being anything other than racist – essentially and fundamentally racist. Of course there are racists among the followers of many other religions. What are you arguing from that? Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism are not essentially and fundamentally racist.
Great, we’ve had the anti-immigration Front and now it’s the anti-Jewish League. Boring.
Jonangus Mackay,
A quick glide across IDF Rabbi’s 9,000+ followers reveals a sullen Galapagos of Armageddon-beckoning exotics. Potential rich field data, I’d say, for some digital Darwin seeking to investigate further—perhaps even explain—the multifarious fringe life-forms seemingly eager, one way or another, to bring evolution to an end..
You made me laugh, thanks for that. I am nicking this paragraph, I hope it is open source!
“those of us who resort to the elegant use of vernacular …”
Is that what you call it?
@Grain
The Talmud was written 1800+ years ago. Only fundamentalists define non-Jews as non-human in enlightened 2012. The Christian bible was (is) used to justify White supremacism down the ages. Would you say Christianity is fundamentally racist? I think you would agree only fundamentalists would support the crusades these days.
Bush the Younger used the word Crusade.
Even so,
Most Americans did not vote for Bush.
Most Brits did not vote for Blair
Most Israelis did not vote for Netanyahu
Most people are not sociopathic.
You know the Queen of England claims direct patrilineal descent from King David and King Solomon don’t you. Most of the British aristocracy is “Jewish” by bloodline. They used to teach that England is the lost tribe of Ephraim and America that of Manasseh.
England spawned America and Israel and all three work as one for shared interests.
Religion is the tool by which the blue bloods divide and rule.
Works every time.
One might argue that certain aspect of Hindusim – the caste system based largely originally and to some extent still – on skin colour – in which ‘Untouchables’ are, well, untouchable, is racist against the earlier, darker inhabitants of India. One might argue that aspects of Islam and Christianity are misogynist, intolerant of all others (‘kafirs’, ‘the damned’ and so on). There are many good things about Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Look at Saudi Arabia, or the Papal Inquisition, or the Right-wing Fundamentalist Christians in the USA (say). The potential – and the textual basis – for supremacism exists in all religions. It’s the same with Judaism – good things and bad things. Supremacist stuff and egalitarian stuff. There are Ethiopian Jews – they do get a hard time in Israel, granted, but that’s more due to social/cultural racism among white (eg. Russian, etc.) and Arab Jews than the religion itself. There are African-American Jews and of course there are many Arab Jews, some of whom are darker than me.
Christianity and Islam are large, global faiths, they aim to get converts. Judaism survived 1,000 years of persecution partly by remaining small but concentrated, tribal even. There were/are converts, of course, as we know, large tribes, individuals, etc. from all ethnic groups, including in Africa. To call it “100 racist” is simply inaccurate.
The issue of whether religion (as a whole) itself is or is it worthwhile is another discussion altogether. But to pick out one religion and say it is “100% racist” is both inaccurate and suggest that the person has it in for that particular religion (and no other).
If the indigenous population of Gaza is forced to leave, that will presumably mean that Israel will have uncontested possession of the gas fields which lie offshore of Gaza.
The Israeli Defence Forces said the houses it targeted with bulldozers and shells were harbouring militants or weapons or being used to conceal arms-smuggling tunnels under the border. Human rights groups said the demolitions were collective punishment. From 2000-04 the Israeli military demolished around 1,700 homes in Rafah, leaving about 17,000 people homeless, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/28/rachel-corrie-verdict-accident-judge?newsfeed=true
Quite a lot of activity going on in the woodwork here today as the holes appear.
The problem is not the religion, but rather the intolerant racist policies of the so called Jewish State of Israel. I get tired of critiscism of Israel as being called anti Semitic when most of the Semites on this planet are anything but Jewish and would not be permitted to live there either.
here’s more proof of their disregard for even their own law.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/28/us-israel-justice-whitewash-state-crimes?newsfeed=true
Had this judge and court been operating at the Nuremberg trials then most of Hitlers henchmen would have received absolute discharges.
O/T
Has everyone seen the award winning film on anti-semitism by Israeli film-maker Yoav Shamir?
Defamation – http://www.defamation-thefilm.com/html/director.html
It can be found on youtube. Highly recommended.
Explains the fear of the Israeli people and how it is used for political purposes.
Worth watching- if only to hear the wisdom of his Jewish granny who is is a superstar.
Here’s an interesting site,. I see whistleblower, Annie Machon contributes to it.
http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/
Was going to watch ‘Defamation’ with my dinner, but all I can get on YouTube is this:
“This video contains content from NMC United Entertainment and Channel 4, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”
Nuid – drat! It’s enough to give one indigestion! Enjoy your dinner.
@Nuid
Try here ..
http://rhizom.blogsport.eu/2010/02/23/defamation-2009-by-yoav-shamir/
Seems to work from the UK.
I learned a lot..
This orthodox Jewish billionaire has invited Bliar to Sandton, South Africa. Wonder what Bliar’s fee is? Tutu has pulled out. Not like him to miss a gathering. Gore’s companies are called Discovery Life and Discovery Invest Marketing.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/89/africa-billionaires-11_Adrian-Gore_A7T1.html
There is talk of an attempt to make a citizen’s arrest during the visit. Let’s hope so.
Separately the SA government have advised South Africans not to visit Israel and thus to deny them support. Some of the very many SA Jews support this advice –
But a group of prominent Jews, including Shereen Usdin, Alan Horwitz and Robert Freeman, distanced themselves from the statement and added that, “in fact, we strongly support the progressive position our [South African] government has taken”.
“Trips organised by the Israeli lobby present a biased picture of Israel and seek to whitewash Israeli human rights abuses.
“As the South African government has already proposed, visits should only be undertaken if they are to genuinely pursue the peace process,” they said in a statement.
The SA Board of Deputies have condemned the government’s advice.
See (http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1346166118.html} for the reports and links.
The logic is as twisted as it’s author. He killed, they killed. Therefore I killed. So pompous too. The grand paralysis of the insane?
Statement from The Office of Tony Blair on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to pull out of the Discovery Leadership Summit
Tuesday, Aug 28, 2012 in Office of Tony Blair
Following Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s decision to pull out of this week’s Discovery Leadership Summit in Johannesburg, the Office of Tony Blair released the following statement:
“Obviously Tony Blair is sorry that the Archbishop has decided to pull out now from an event that has been fixed for months and where he and the Archbishop were never actually sharing a platform.
“As far as Iraq is concerned they have always disagreed about removing Saddam by force – such disagreement is part of a healthy democracy.
“As for the morality of that decision we have recently had both the memorial of the Halabja massacre where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam’s use of chemical weapons; and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.
“So these decisions are never easy morally or politically”.
CE
“At Venezuela News and Views, Daniel Duquenal is daring to predict Chavez’s defeat in the October 7 presidential election (presuming a reasonably fair election). This despite his government’s efforts to depict his social democratic opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski, as a gay Zionist agent.”
Herique Capriles Radonski is not a social democrat both he and his party Primero Justica are right wing and both implicated in the short-lived coup in 2002 that deposed Chavez.
Thanks Suhayl, thanks Zoologist
@Suhayl You are just stating that my contention that the Jewish religion is 100% racist (and I have said why) is mistaken. This is not a comparison with other religions. No-one is denying that there are racists who follow other religions. Please address the point that according to the Jewish religion, non-Jewish people are non-human animals. I would recommend that you read Israel Shahak on ‘Jewish History: Jewish Religion’. You might think I am conning myself, and that am really coming from some kind of racism, but I am not. If you found out some more about the Jewish religion, and its horrendous attitude towards non-Jews, you might be shocked.
Intolerance lies at the core of evil.
Not the intolerance that results
from any threat or danger.
But intolerance of another being who dares to exist.
Intolerance without cause. It is so deep within us,
because every human being secretly desires
the entire universe to himself.
Our only way out is to learn
compassion without cause. To care for each other
simple because that ‘other’ exists.
– Rabbi Menachem Mendle
Thankfully Grain, Jews have integrated themselves and their religion into many countries, and in most cases live harmoniously with the other religions.
Think you’ll find that Jews were the persecuted rather than the persecutors.
The problem is the intolerance and attitude of a small % of Israeli’s in the name of Jewishness.The Zionist mindset.
Intolerant literature abounds in all religions and cultures. Xenophobia used to be the norm.
Spite suites the violent, they foment it.
@mAry quoting The Blair
““As for the morality of that decision we have recently had both the memorial of the Halabja massacre where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam’s use of chemical weapons; and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons. ”
Bit of a blindpsot of Blair’s that the chemical weapons Saddam used, came courtesy of the UK, both the precursor materials and the industrial plant for CW manufacture, even more discomfiting for Blair and many of us is that under the Export Credit Guarantee scheme for financing dictators, Saddam’s chemical arsenal tab was met unwitting by UK taxpayers.
A quote from Far and Wide (1951):
“A. Simons (who was Superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Petrograd from 1907 to 1918) said that of 388 members of the Bolshevist Government 371 were Jews, and 265 of these Jews from the Lower East Side of New York. ”
The accepted history of the 20th Century is still very much in flux.
By heck, there’s some anti Jewish crap going on in this thread. Personally, I couldn’t give a toss which partuclar sky-fairy anyone chooses to beleive in, so long as they don’t insist I beleive in it or insist I should alter my behaviour or words becasue they beleieve in it.
As for whether any particular set of sky-fairy believers are more or less guilty of oppressing others, there’s not a lot to choose between them. All of them, at heart (at least the monotheistic ones) are exclusive as opposed to inclusive. That is their fundamental stregth.
And also their terror.
ALL of them.
Thatcrab “Spite suites the violent, they foment it”
just wanted to post that again.
@Cryptonym
Have you read Douglas Reed – Controversy of Zion?
His version of the 20th century is worth reading. An alternative history.
@Suhayl
“But that’s a lot different from saying that a particular religion is “100% racist”.”
‘Moderation in all things, including moderation’, as a friend used to say, opening the third bottle. Don’t be too moderate in your judgement of religions.
Religions are in origin and by definition ‘100% racist’. It’s quite impossible to understand them otherwise. This used to be functional (tribal solidarity conferred evolutionary advantage) but it is a panda’s thumb now. The moral pressures of a secular society have suppressed the worst excesses of (for example) Christianity, which in the UK can seem almost house-trained nowadays. But secular influences are still weak in many societies, where fundamentalist whateverism is usually an instrument of a ruling elite which does not wish to be challenged. Indeed not every religious person is a bigot, but religion is bigotry by design.
I tell my children: never trust men in frocks and funny hats.
Vronsky: “Religions are in origin and by definition ’100% racist’” – well, no. The early Christians were not racist: they were classist. Quakerism is not racist. Anyone of any race can convert to Judaism and Islam. Those are just the things I know.
“religion is bigotry by design” – apart from all the love thy neighbour stuff which occurs in every religion.
“never trust men in frocks and funny hats
I *like* bagpipers…
@Vronsky
Yep
Agree with all of this.
Vronsky: the Liberation of Mankind (Hendrik van Loon) is very amusing about the origins of Christianity.