On Being Angry and Dangerous 892


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.


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892 thoughts on “On Being Angry and Dangerous

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  • nuid

    “With regards to shoplifting, are we expected to feel sympathy for those who end up in jail for this offence?”

    Possibly. Shoplifting is often done by addicts, who sell the goods to get money for their drug. Since services for the treatment of addicts are rarely adequate in any given area, yes, I could feel sympathy, depending on the case.

  • technicolour

    Nuid: briefly nodding at funny, settling on tragic but true: it’s the Onion again –

    TAMPA, FL—According to numerous sociologists and political experts, things that should never under any circumstance be spoken aloud in modern society will be said no fewer than 1,400 times this week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL.

    “As the convention kicks off Tuesday with speeches from the likes of Rick Santorum and Nikki Haley, we should prepare ourselves to hear a more-or-less unending stream of ideas that should never even enter one’s mind, let alone be verbalized, in this day and age,” said Elizabeth Unger, a political scientist at Georgetown University. “It’s difficult to comprehend, but dozens of comments on such topics as human relationships and the physical world itself—which will seem as if they were crafted by some primitive unthinking civilization that existed centuries ago—will actually be emphasized, repeated, and used to punctuate key points in every single speech.”

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/things-that-shouldnt-be-said-in-modern-society-to,29336/

  • nuid

    “which will seem as if they were crafted by some primitive unthinking civilization that existed centuries ago” – the Onion

    Yep. I read them quite often, here
    http://angrywhitedude.com/

    just so I know what we’re dealing with …

  • JimmyGiro

    Technicolour reported:

    “63% of women are in prison for non-violent
    offences, compared with 45% of men.”

    It just goes to show the appalling low conviction rates of violent women.

  • Passerby

    Jon

    We can either use the language of justice, and attract people to the cause of peace,

    Does this mean that the theocratic regime in tel aviv is to be compelled to;
    – at once shoulder its responsibility as an occupying power, and thereafter begins to treat the Palestinian populations in the lands under occupation as human beings?
    – not to annex any of the lands under its occupation, and return to the 1948 borders as designated by the UN, at its cessation of hostilities?
    – to hand over its nuclear and thermonuclear arsenal and renounce violence and war as its raison d’être?
    -the international community ie the US, and Western sponsors of this hideous regime are to cut military aid and stop the flood of military hardware to the said regime to put an end to any further bloodshed?

    Clearly not. None of the above are applicable, the rhetorical question was meant to lay the ground for the following;

    or we can use angry/unyielding language that alienates everyone other than a small band of supporters.

    Disqualifying legitimate anger, and dissent at the protracted and current genocidal policies practiced by the ziofuckwit supremacists thugs, and mercenaries, and relegation of the dissenters into “small band of supporters” (of anti such dastardly policies). That is followed by further classifying the dissenters as unyielding, and unreasonable, and finally rounding up to include all those dissidents engaged/entrapped in the ghastly fall out of the project of; “people without land” as ziofuckwits. Alas, this could be misconstrued as mischievousness by lesser mortals.

    if we fight with more anger/racism/violence, we’ll not build the movement that ultimately shames Israel to the negotiating table.

    At the outset we all can safely assume that there does not exist a race of “fuckwits”, further “zio” does not in any way point to a racial grouping either, regardless of the efforts of the ziofuckwits.

    Furthermore, the tautologies of “not all Russians were communists”, and “not all Germans were Nazi”, does not apply. The alienation of the small pockets of dissent in the shitty piece of land is highlighted, and assumed to be alienated by such angry and unyielding stance of outsiders. Forgotten is the fillip that any would be dissenter would gain from knowing/realising that the wider world is no longer hoodwinked by the artificial and huge guilt complex and can see the ugly face of the ziofuckwits regardless of the layers of make-up applied by the various public relations companies employed.

    Let us face it, the illegitimate statelet sprung on a bunch of unfortunate Palestinians has no future. The fact that this artificial statelet is still trying to establish its “legitimacy” by proxy and references to Bible, whilst using it as a record of land registery. Is a further clarifier; even the most ardent ziofuckwits doubts the future existence of this statelet.

    This is further compounded by the abysmal record of its aggressive conduct for the duration of the last seventy years, that has witnessed the most evil and one sided carnage of Palestinians. There can be no future for this failed project and those intent on perpetuating the cycle of war and plunder to extend this bastard statelet ought to understand that, the area is used to hundred years of wars, and regardless of the few battles won the war is lost and the sooner those ziofuckwits are left as to no doubt about this defeat the sooner life can get back to the tranquil existence of differing tribes side by side and the arrested progress of human kind in the area can cease to hinder that progress towards modernity, justice, equity and above all equality.

  • nuid

    “It just goes to show the appalling low conviction rates of violent women.”

    JimmyGiro,
    Can you quote stats please?
    Complaints made –> charges brought –> convictions?

  • Zoologist

    @Nuid
    Glad you managed to download it eventually. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

  • CE

    Viva,

    I had presumed the tribunal was a direct offshoot of the ICC. Apologies and happy to stand corrected if this is not the case.

  • nuid

    @Zoologist

    No, not disappointed at all. Very interesting!

    Adds more background to the way https://twitter.com/israelmfa
    came after me on Twitter the night of the attack on the Mavi Marmara. I could have blocked them but I preferred to fight with them instead. 😉

  • nuid

    “Sure thing Nuid, as soon as the feminists show me with their rape stats.”

    IOW, you don’t have any. So “It just goes to show the appalling low conviction rates of violent women” is just more of your loose talk, Jimmy. Seen it here before.

  • nuid

    Preparing For A Post Israel Middle East, [is] an 82 page analysis that concludes that the American national interest in fundamentally at odds with that of Zionist Israel. The authors conclude[s] that Israel is currently the greatest threat to US national interests because its nature and actions prevent normal US relations with Arab and Muslim countries and, to a growing degree, the wider international community.

    The study was commissioned by the US Intelligence Community comprising 16 American intelligence agencies with an annual budget in excess of $ 70 billion. The IC includes the Departments of the Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Defense Intelligence Agency, Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State, Treasury, Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency commissioned the study.

    Among the many findings that Ros-Lehtenin and Kristol and other unregistered agents of Israel will likely try to exploit politically between now and November 6, by using them to attack the Obama Administration. A sampling of the findings includes the following:

    Here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32304.htm

  • technicolour

    “Seen it here before”

    Oh yes.

    Poor Angry White Dude. He likes Ronald Reagan!

  • ron blessington

    Now you seem to be talking about women in chains. There is some iswaili perv called CE, bet he knows 50 Shades of Grey off by heart. Yuk. Shoplifting is good because it gives my ex-con mates employment as security guards. Have you noticed how all tory female MPs resemble Moaning Minna the rubber love doll from Copenhagen? Big gobs and all. Buy your own female tory MP down Ann Summers and
    chain her up! BTW Craig what is this about anti-semitic rants? Don’t forget that to the Eslers and zionazis and CIF Girlyman YOU are an anti-semitic ranter. Ooh please be nice to me Mr Rusbonkers. Won’t do Craig. No appeasement. Grow a pair [c] Jeremy Kyle.

  • nuid

    “Poor Angry White Dude. He likes Ronald Reagan!” — Tech

    He likes his Glock too. ‘Concealed carry’, as he keeps telling everyone. But he loathes gays, while he refers to his girlfriend/partner/whatever as “the lil’ filly”.

    It’s more his commenters that worry me. Mad as a cut snake, many of them.

  • Harriet

    “63% of women are in prison for non-violent offences, compared with 45% of men.”

    Anyone notice what’s wrong with those statistics?

  • Jon

    @Passerby,

    I am not de-legitimising your anger. Indeed, I am angry too. You’ve made a fresh list of IDF cruelty and Israeli militarisation, but there’s no need – I know about it already, and yes, it is all wrong.

    Two points, so we get down to brass tacks:

    * In referring to “The alienation of the small pockets of dissent in the shitty piece of land” you are making the sweeping generalisation that all Israelis/Jews are as bad as each other. I suspect this is an unresolvable point of our disagreement – I think B’Tselem and thousands of tiny other human rights groups are great, and deserve moral/financial support. In theory, would you pick one and give them a few quid/euros/dollars a month?

    * Theoretically, if your undiplomatic approach could be shown to reduce the chances of Palestinian peace and security, would you change it?

    Ta.

  • Jon

    @Nuid, thanks for the link. I wonder what they meant in the last para: soon to be published daft report.

    😉

  • technicolour

    Harriet: I think one can take it to mean that 63 percent of women who are in prison are in prison for…

  • Harriet

    @ Technicolour

    Harriet: I think one can take it to mean that 63 percent of women who are in prison are in prison for …

    Er…yes…I was making a joke!!

  • Mary

    In Israel

    IPS: Is it true that pregnant women are shackled during childbirth?

    FF: It is true. Pregnant women are shackled while giving birth, and soon after. There is a total lack of medical care, particularly during childbirth. Women lament that infants born to them are taken away after two years. In Israeli prisons, the rights of Palestinian women prisoners is recognized, but not respected.
    http://electronicintifada.net/content/interview-palestinian-women-prisoners-shackled-during-childbirth/9822

    In the US

    Putting an end to the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women during childbirth is a cause that has gained steam in recent years. “In the first part of the [past] decade, only three states had ever taken action on this issue. There wasn’t really a national movement recognizing this as a human rights issue,” explains Amy Fettig of the ACLU Prison Project. “That’s really changed in the last three years.”

    Four states (Idaho, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Nevada) passed laws this legislative year banning the practice, bringing the total number of states with bans on the books to only 14. In addition, only five state corrections departments (including the District of Columbia) have written policies that stipulate no restraints should be used during labor and birth, according to The Rebecca Project for Human Rights.
    http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/10/shackling_women_in_prison_during_childbirth.html

    In the UK

    Secretly filmed footage, broadcast on Channel 4 last week, showed a Holloway prisoner, named only as Annette, shackled to warders only an hour after giving birth. Witnesses said she had been restrained when she was having contractions.

    Ms Widdecombe said it was not policy to restrain women during labour and claimed that in Annette’s case, once full labour had been established, she had not been shackled.

    “The Prison Service has a duty of care to the mother, but this must be balanced against the needs of the service to keep all prisoners, including pregnant women prisoners, in secure custody,” she said.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chaining-women-backed-1323238.html

    The more that CE says, the more of his/her prejudices are revealed.

  • technicolour

    Jon, Nuid, the one thing that stood out from that for me was:

    • That the United States government no longer has *the financial resources* or public support to continue funding Israel

    My emphasis. Otherwise it smacked of blatant hypocrisy. If the US wanted to ‘normalise’ relations with the Middle East it might stop supporting the Saudis and threatening Iran, and fiddling in Syria and supporting Egyptian spy chiefs and make reparations in Iraq. Seems by ‘normalising’ they mean supporting any feudal despot/crackpot who allows them access to oil. Israel is just no longer a useful base/weapons tester.

    Sorry, makes me furious, because of the terrible truths it contains – the horror of people across the world and in Israel at the slow genocide of the Palestinians included. Perhaps I’m being too cynical to ascribe it to financial and geopolitical and hegemonic motives, rather than a desire for fairness. Perhaps it will even make the desperate murderers in power in Israel think again. But I fear it will entrench them.

  • technicolour

    “The more that CE says, the more of his/her prejudices are revealed.”

    Generally true of all of us, but I was pleased that he/she corrected a (widely-held) misapprehension about Widdecombe’s statement, since I’d held it myself. Otherwise, will be interested to see response to Nuid’s comment, for one.

  • Mary

    ICAHD The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) is a human rights and peace organization established in 1997 to end Israel’s Occupation over the Palestinians. ICAHD takes as its main focus, as its vehicle for resistance, Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and within Israel proper. ICAHD was awarded UN Economic and Social Council Special Consultative Status in 2010.

    http://www.icahd.org/node/419

    The Rachel Corrie Verdict: Justice Denied
    […]
    ‘Sending IDF American-made Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza or anywhere in the Occupied Territories is a war crime, especially since, in the case of the Nasrallah family home that Rachel was protecting, the army itself admits they were merely innocent civilians who should have been protected rather than attacked. To what degree Israel ignored, violates and distorts international law was particularly evident in the testimony of Pinhas “Pinky” Zuaretz, the Brigade Commander who supervised the illegal “clearing” of Palestinian homes from that area of Gaza. “There are no civilians in military conflicts,” he testified, directly contradicting one of the most fundamental principles of international law, the duty to protect non-combatants.
    […]
    Until such a time that international law, human rights and justice are genuinely incorporated into national legal systems, in Israel and internationally, the rights and lives of all of us, “normative” citizens as well as the oppressed, are in jeopardy. This is what Rachel and her family have shown us so clearly. This is their genuine contribution, even if justice has been denied them. It is up to all of us to join with the Corries to carry on Rachel’s struggle for a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis – and for a world based on human rights and international law.’

    ICAHD has a branch in this country as well as Australia, Finland and Norway. Jeff Halper is a good bloke and stands up for justice.

  • Jay

    This Russian Philosopher proposes a fourth political theory.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4QrnJKf-hhE

    Not sure, I am very interested in the concept of nurture.

    I can envisage our being wholly to nurture our young and together our environment equally.

    This said would increase our awareness of life and give competiveness to ourselves for the greater good of all.

    Nurture is our basic uniqueness that we all share seemingly presently it is corresponding with our times.

  • nuid

    “Perhaps I’m being too cynical to ascribe it to financial and geopolitical and hegemonic motives, rather than a desire for fairness.” – Tech

    No, you’re right. But it’s written from the perspective of US national interest, and I wouldn’t expect anything very different. What surprises me (somewhat) is that it’s due to be published “soon” (?). Although if it’s a combined report from 16 intelligence agencies I don’t really see how the Zionist lobby can blame it on Obama. Unless I’m missing something?

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