This is my last comment for the year as we are off to spend Hogmanay as the guests of an Ambassador in Paris. Out of deference to my family, who have had the brunt of it these last few days, I am definitely not taking the laptop, so I will no longer be able to take part in the popular new bloodsport of proving your loyalty to the SNP by being nasty to Craig Murray.
My parting thought is that, as every year of my entire life, it has been a disastrous one for the Palestinians. Yet more land occupied, settlements built, homes destroyed, olive trees uprooted, shipping vessels sunk and yet another murderous onslaught on Gaza.
I warmly recommend this rare public appearance by Col. Larry Wilkerson, ex-Chief of Staff to Colin Powell and a fellow recipient of the Sam Adams Award for Integrity. His brief musings here on Israel and Syria come from a deep store of knowledge and a razor-sharp intellect.
Do have a wonderful celebration. The future will be good. We are closer to a transformational change in society than you may realise.
Jemand, 12:06 am:
This is what I’ve asked you about, over and over. What measures? What is it you want people to DO?
But yep, we’ve been here before, and sadly, Jemand, you never seem to take on board the reality. Have you some kind of axe to grind? Is someone else pulling your chains? Why else are you posting silly links to someone who asserts that all Muslims are dangerous extremists? Why are you trying to reinforce that belief by posting example of some people, who called themselves Muslim, doing terrible things? Why else would you compare Islam to the Nazi party – and willfully ignore the extreme difference between those two ideologies?
Why indeed. And so ‘quantititive easing’ (even harder to type than say) goes right off the radar. They have stolen our post office! They are ransacking our public services! They are dissing our disabled! They have beaten up our students! They are taking billions from our poorest and most vulnerable, and transferring it to a few people who don’t need it anyway! And they call this theft ‘quantititive easing’ and they’re doing it in public. What?
Technicolor @ 8.11 pm – “Campus Extremism “ caught my eye, as well as the THES – see http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/academics-label-proposed-counter-terrorism-and-security-bill-censorship/2017351.article
Your comments are exactly what we need to share with and communicate to our “representatives” in Parliament. Many say that “extremist” cannot be defined. Rubbish. Without its terms being defined legislation leaves the door unlocked for thieves and drunkards. Here’s my initial attempt: “ “Extremists” are those who actively plan to kill people who have not come in person before a criminal court in any country; or those who have supported, shielded or defended such people.” Lawyers – it’s their profession – can improve that wording (which is poor).
More insights welcome: I hope you will write to your MP
go take your damn pills jemand
TVs Clark, means all the material, non-spiritual effects that fill the voids of our lives where the rest is consumed with religion. I really thought you weren’t so dumb you couldn’t understand that. So the religous stuff stays the same and everything else moves with the times. Islam doesn’t change. Get it?
Re Exponential function, you wouldn’t understand. Only someone who appreciates how a dripping tap can fill a swimming pool will.
. . . .
Nevermind, shut up. Most Germans weren’t Nazis and look how that turned out, you dope.
And most Japanese were also not war mongering maniacs. So?
Not all Catholic priests molest children. Support the oath of celibacy, do you?
Not all men are rapists. So you’d leave your kid with a strange male?
You idiots should be ashamed of yourselves, at least for your dimwittedness if not for your moral failure, hypocrisy and cowardice.
“Unfortunately for you, you cannot make TonyM’s Hitch quote mean other than it means by reference to other works by Hitchens.”
I was referring to the same work by Hitchens, in which that quote appears in context. You honestly should try reading the links you’re supplying; it helps, if you’re trying to make stuff up. What a shame we’ve got the internet and can check it, eh?
Jemand, of course Islam changes; there couldn’t be various branches of it if it didn’t. That’s a logical QED, so concede.
How on Earth ws I supposed to know that “TVs” meant all that? RPQvSTS? Or are you thick or something?
Clark, ok I have to spell it out.
Stop immigration of muslims into your country. Stop the construction of places of religious worship and religious schools. Stop accomodating Sharia councils. Stop protecting preachers from prosecution in relation to the UK Racial/Religious vilification act.
Is it possible to effectively outlaw a religion? It is in the muslim world. Is it desirable? No. But it’s better than a civil war in 40 years time.
It’s so easy for you smug twats to dismiss me as a crank. Do you dismiss Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins so arrogantly?
How many versions of Islam are there, Clark? Effectively two. Sunni majority, Shia minority.
And the Shia will be lucky to survive if Israel’s assistance to Saudi Arabia is any guide.
I also think that the legislation relating to stifling free speech and organising on campus is taken out of Orwell’s handbook, Ian, its hideous and its to be seen whether students even pick up on it when the alcohol level has dropped.
What is considered terrorism? speaking out against the system? stopping traffic for proportional representation? stopping a university from functioning?
The police has already used violence against students, breaking up a demonstration with tasers, so what will this bill do if they organise themselves, off phone/offline and off the record? are they then terrorists?
Who would want to redirect the discussion here? away from free speech at universities and the wholesale criminalisation of people who travel to certain countries, of arbitrary ways of ceasing passports of anyone they choose, rubber legislation?
jemand’s gone off to buy the sun, so lets start talking about this proposed paranoia special law, shutting up universities and forcing student debate and education underground? Is Britain politicising its communities by sinister means?
its past my bedtime, so please yourself, debate a worthwhile debate, I had too much screen today, shall catch up tomorrow afternoon.
That’s right, Jemand, never trust anyone.
Don’t be silly, hey. Just remember
that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the ‘Milky Way’.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it’s just three thousand light years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go ’round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth
PS there is only one Quran for all muslims – FACT. So don’t bullshit us with “many islams” nonsense.
Naomi predicts the future.
Like from way back in 2007.
Talks about her granny back in pre-Nazi Germany and her reflections on where we’re going.
“they did this in Germany”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f0sBA61L0Y
Updated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJSp1skVIkA
Nevermind, of course, a distraction from what’s closest to hand – which is study of that Bill.
I’ll happily volunteer to take on a section, if needed – and if you could kindly keep coordinating this, Iain?
For those who think video is infantile.
“Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations.”
“It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.
Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html
Come on, you’ve just been arguing that Chris Hitchens agreed with Holocaust Denial/Revisionism. When in fact he called it out as toxic and entirely discredited. Why are you now posting Naomi Wolf?
Iain Orr, I forwarded your e-mail about Moazzam Begg to my MP while I was in Scotland. Here’s what came back:
Jemand
But aren’t the sufis like really cool and drink and take drugs and stuff and really much more palatable for Western liberals like Technicolour, hence the silly Rumi quote you always get thrown into these discussions?
And by the way well done, Jemand. You’ve torn them to shreds tonight.
Tech, I can’t help you with your very obvious comprehension problems nor can I help you with your tribalism.
You own no history, and you own no people.
He didn’t call alternative positions “toxic”. Far from it. He’s interested in exploring the arguments, as should we all be.
He talks about “the toxicity of the argument” at the beginning of page 2. But here he obviously means something much closer to complexity than the rather negative connotation you’ve inferred.
Hitch’s full piece is below. It’s a review of two books.
It’s a fair assessment of the various positions, which was his objective.
If you’ve a problem with questioning received ideas, then that will I’m afraid have to remain your problem.
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/may/20/books/bk-144
Hitch wrote an earlier piece for Vanity Fair in 1993, entitled, “Whose History Is It?” addressing similar issues.
It was very controversial amongst those who don’t like questions against orthodoxy.
Can’t find it now on the web.
I wonder why.
Jemand:
“Is it possible to effectively outlaw a religion? It is in the muslim world. Is it desirable? No. But it’s better than a civil war in 40 years time.”
Hitchens on the Nazis:
“By means of oppressive legislation, they began to make all of Germany Judenrein, or “Jew-free.” Jewish businesses were first boycotted and then confiscated. Jewish places of worship were first vandalized and then closed.”
That’s right, Herbie, you keep repeating information that’s been utterly discredited. It won’t work: there’s a record here. (It won’t work as a distraction, either, btw)
“Of course you should feel free to continue to mispell Hannah Arendt’s name – perhaps you could add “Annah” or “Hanna” to the “Arrendt” next time?”
“mispell” – ? Hmm, perhaps we shouldn’t be overly petty in criticisms about typos, and let minor points slide once in a while.
*
Mods: A tip of the hat to you.
Again, fascinating insights: off to bed, thanks all.
There is nothing discredited about Hitch’s assessment of the competing arguments.
That’s just your assertion.
You don’t like what he saying so you misrepresent him. But that’s your problem
Here it is again. Everyone can read it for themselves and see that you categorically misrepresent him.
I suspect that’s why you didn’t provide a link in your original post.
He’s simply assessing the competing arguments:
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/may/20/books/bk-144
Jemand, it wouldn’t matter if there were only two branches of Islam, it still proves that Islam can and does change. But even if Islam were monolithic, people and societies change. Israel and Saudi Arabia are going to have real trouble wiping out everything but Sunni Islam seeing as there are various types of Muslims in nearly every country in the world.
So the list that follows doesn’t really matter, but here it is anyway:
1 Sunni Islam
–
1.1 Schools of Sunni jurisprudence
1.2 Schools of theology
1.3 Movements
–
2 Shia Islam
–
2.1 Twelver
2.2 Ismā’īlīsm
2.3 Zaidiyyah
–
3 Sufi Orders
–
3.1 Bektashi
3.2 Chishti
3.3 Kubrawiya
3.4 Mawlawiyya
3.5 Muridiyya
3.6 Naqshbandi
3.7 Nimatullahi
3.8 Nurbakshi
3.9 Oveyssi (Uwaiysi)
3.10 Qadiri
3.11 Senussi
3.12 Shadiliyya
3.13 Suhrawardiyya
3.14 Tijaniyya
–
4 Ahmadiyya Islam
–
4.1 Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
4.2 Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement
–
5 Kharijite Islam
–
5.1 Ibadi
6 Nondenominational Muslim
7 Other Sects
–
7.1 Quranism
7.2 Moorish Science
7.3 Nation of Islam
7.4 Mahdavism
7.5 Messiah Foundation International
7.6 Zikri
7.7 Five Percenter
7.8 Zahiliyyah
–
8 Related concepts
–
8.1 Islamism
8.2 Liberal Islam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_Islam
And yes, Jemand, you DO need to spell it out; nods and winks are underhand and unacceptable. Of your measures I have to say this; faith schools should be stopped entirely. Religion-based legal systems should be subjugated under national law (which they already are in the UK).
There probably will be widespread war, civil and otherwise, within forty years, and sides may well group along religious lines, but the impetus will come from depletion of resources such as energy and contraction of viable human habitats due to global warming etc; even if you could engineer a retrovirus that purges Islam from people’s minds, such wars will still occur. Islam has existed for many centuries, but it did not start WWI or WWII. It did not destroy Dresden or Hiroshima, and it didn’t make US/UK invade Iraq.
You need to find the real source of your fear; blaming Islam simply isn’t good enough.
Stop, Herbie, trying to co-opt someone who precisely disagrees with you. Have you asked yourself why you’re having to do this?
“When the first news of the Nazi camps was published in 1945, there were those who thought the facts might be exaggerated either by Allied war propaganda or by the human tendency to relish “atrocity stories.” In his column in the London magazine Tribune, George Orwell wrote that though this might be so, the speculation was not exactly occurring in a vacuum. If you remember what the Nazis did to the Jews before the war, he said, it isn’t that difficult to imagine what they might do to them during one.
In one sense, the argument over “Holocaust denial” ends right there. The National Socialist Party seized power in 1933, proclaiming as its theoretical and organizing principle the proposition that the Jews were responsible for all the world’s ills, from capitalist profiteering to subversive Bolshevism. By means of oppressive legislation, they began to make all of Germany Judenrein, or “Jew-free.” Jewish businesses were first boycotted and then confiscated. Jewish places of worship were first vandalized and then closed. Wherever Nazi power could be extended–to the Rhineland, to Austria and to Sudeten Czechoslovakia–this pattern of cruelty and bigotry was repeated. (And, noticed by few, the state killing of the mentally and physically “unfit,” whether Jewish or “Aryan,” was tentatively inaugurated.) After the war broke out, Hitler was able to install puppet governments or occupation regimes in numerous countries, each of which was compelled to pass its own version of the anti-Semitic “Nuremberg Laws.” Most ominous of all–and this in plain sight and on camera, and in full view of the neighbors–Jewish populations as distant as Salonika were rounded up and put on trains, to be deported to the eastern provinces of conquered Poland.”
Followed by:
“Irving has long been notorious for his view that Hitler never gave any order for the Final Solution and that there is no irrefutable document authorizing it. In court, he was unpardonably flippant on this point, saying airily that perhaps, like some of Richard Nixon’s subordinates, a few of the rougher types imagined they knew what would please the boss. This argument has always struck me as absurd on its face in both cases, but Evans simply reduces it to powder.”
Carry on, Herbie, but you’re becoming very visible.
These included ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister, and other world leaders’, the court papers say.’
Wonder who the ‘well known Prime Minister and other world leaders’ were.
To Mary and any other ‘wonderers’ out there, the PM referred to in the court documents, is most probably Ehud Barak, and not a current or previous UK holder of that office-
http://news.yahoo.com/jeffrey-epsteins-society-friends-close-ranks-20110401-192956-548.html;_ylt=A7x9UnhdRKdUAV4Adzh3Bwx.;_ylu=X3oDMTByam1ucWFtBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNwRjb2xvA2lyMgR2dGlkAw–
I’m quite sure Naomi would be happy with Hitch’s evaluation of the competing arguments.
I’m quite sure as well that she’d be as confused about your comprehension problems as am I.
You misrepresented TonyM’s post.
I corrected that.
It really is that simple.
The later it gets the less sense you make. Go to bed.
Alas, again, repeating lies does not make them true, no matter how often you try to do it.
Wiki: “Holocaust denial, the denial of the systematic genocidal killing of millions of European Ethnic minorities (including Jews) by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, is illegal in a number of European countries.[1] Many countries also have broader laws that criminalize genocide denial. Of the countries that ban Holocaust denial, a number (Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Romania) were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and many of these also ban other elements associated with Nazism, such as Nazi symbols.