I aim to please. Glad you approve.
See, the thing you guys don’t get is that the suasion isn’t aimed at you. It is named at the countless unnamed others who read along, or who might one day find this thread.
No one expects you to say “I see your point, I should attack political positions instead of using language that would make the 3rd Reigh Propaganda proud, as I can still accomplish my goals that way”
You would think that would make sense to a normal human being.
We do.
You on the other hand try to substitute glib apologetics for at best failure to understand, and at worst failure to care.
Either way, your positions are abhorrent, and you haven’t as a group made any effort to show that you agree that using anti-Semitic tropes for a non-anti-Semitic position is anything to be worried about.
And that is alarming, and people reading along will understand that.
Most, if they hadn’t really considered that issue before, will refrain from writing in an anti-Semitic style, having learned that some subtle forms of rhetoric are trickily hiding anti-Semitism and hence avoided.
Pretty sure the opposite will never happen, no matter how glib you are, or how often you pat each other on the back. No one will use those tropes having learned about them, unless they are in fact meaning to make an anti-Semitic point.
And those are both good things. Your complaints about walls of text only reveal your own unwillingness or inability or both to confront your unnecessarily ugly writing.
But it will never persuade anyone to adopt your style, and that also is a good thing.
See, every time you add to the thread, you just make our point stronger, with or without a “wall of text”.
You can be glib if
I don’t.
But don’t bring any more shit about “wall of text” - that is one sentence and you don’t even understand it.
You whoosh easy.
TTFN
I think Alice should carry a glossy card with HOLOCAUST! printed on it that he can throw down when anyone in real life disagrees with him.
Waiter: I’m sorry, we’re out of ranch dressing.
Not_Alice: [Throws down HOLOCAUST!™ Card]HOW DARE YOU!!! SIX MILLION!!!1one
I’ve done a quick mock-up.
I’m SICK of your Nipponophobic Photoshopping!
I’m lucky, no one calls me an anti-Semite when they find out I don’t like juice.
Nah, there’s many more than one thing that they don’t get.
But talking to Clowny is pretty much a lost cause. He isn’t an utter moron, but he plays one on the Dope for lulz.
Like I pointed out, on the subject of lobbying pressure on the US government, he’s either totally uninformed but deciding to pick a fight anyways, or knows he’s full of shit but, well, you know…
Laughing to himself over just how awesome his giant oversized red shoes are, he’s actually claiming that the 1973 Oil Crisis, explicitly started by OPEC in response to the US giving Israel aid during the Yom Kippur war, has nothing to do with lobbying pressure put on the US to not support Israel. To say nothing of the Saudis influence (tiny, insignificant nation that they are) or ARAMCO’s lobbying in the US.
Predictably, being caught out on being wrong about the facts, he’s trying, and failing, to resort to his Shecky McClown routine as some sort of defensive strategy. Much like his earlier yucktserism about how accusing people of treachery, if and only if there was the sort of evidence that convicted Julius Rosenberg, was somehow beyond the pale.
The whining about “walls of text” is just an admission that someone’s cognitive capabilities are insufficient to anything that goes beyond a soundbyte or two, and their brains just shut off once it looks like there’s an actual fully formed argument that they may have to deal with.
Ah well.
It doesn’t indicate genius, of course, but it is reassuring to see that all the dunces are in a confederacy on this issue.
(And I was so very much hoping for newcomer to grow a pair and actually elaborate on his innuendo about how Mossad was connected with 9/11, such is life.)
Seriously,** Finn**, you are starting to worry me. OPEC? Thirty eight years ago!? That’s all you got? Hell, Finn, you can beat a dead horse, even saddle it, but you can’t ride!
I don’t think people are suggesting that we test anyone’s loyalty BEFORE they show what they consider to be evidence of dual loyalty.
I think they are highlighting the sentiment that some of the neocons seemed to have an Israel fetish. This was evident to people within the administration (see Condoleeza Rice: Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we’ll invite the ambassador). Some neocons seemed to be driven at least in part by Israeli interests and I don’t know that its inappropriate to point that out.
BTW, what makes you think the Israeli lobby is mythical?
I don’t think they believe in profiling if thats what you are getting at.
I think the focus here is on Israel because the neocons were pushing a pro-Israeli agenda that led us into war. I’m not saying that Israel wanted us to invade Iraq but the neocons did and their pro-Israel stance was part of the reason why.
Well, first of all, I think America in 2011 is different than America in 1940, I don’t remember rounding up the muslims after 9/11 so I would suspect that we wouldn’t round up the Jews either, someone only has to say Hitler once and the round up pretty much stops. But more importantly, I don’t think this is a case of ethnic profiling. I think this is a case where there is an Israeli lobby that pushes America to pursue policies that may not be in America’s best interests.
I thought that was what 'luc was proposing. I missed the post where anyone proposed questioning people’s loyalty before the fact but there are some posts I may not have read.
The neo-cons present a plausible case, which just goes to show how plausible something can be and still be horribly, horribly wrong. Part of that case considers the security of Israel as essentially identical to the security of the US. If they truly believe this, and I have no reason to doubt it, then they cannot be, by their own lights, disloyal to America by advancing Israel.
As I said up thread, disloyalty or betrayal need not enter into the question. At most, we might consider influence upon judgment. But even then we cannot pre-judge someone’s loyalty, that is contrary to our principles. When Kennedy said being Catholic had no bearing on his duty, we believed him, we took him at his word that he was an American first and a Catholic second. We are duty bound to apply the same lack of scrutiny to all, Jews, Muslims, atheists, snake-handling Pentecostals, you name it.
Except Scientologists. Even I have limits.
And Damuri provides an excellent example of the conspiratorial nonsense that tries to substitute innuendo for facts.
Some ideological cousins of the PNAC, rather famously, advised Israel toact on its own, to forgo US aid and specifically to act without US military support so as to form a relationship based on independence and self-reliance. They specifically went on to state that “Israel can make a clean break from the past and establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity and mutuality — not one focused narrowly on territorial disputes. Israel’s new strategy — based on a shared philosophy of peace through strength — reflects continuity with Western values by stressing that Israel is self-reliant, does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to defend it”
To claim that, then, they turned around and decided to use US military force due to their “pro-Israel stance” is a curious leap in logic. To say nothing of the fact that Damuri thinks that anybody who doesn’t share his bias against Israel is an Israeli “apologist”. Also interesting, as always, that we’re not looking into all those “Pro-Europe” stances when people advocate supporting NATO. Funny, that.
When the PNAC did first advise the US to attack Iraq, part of their reasoning was that Sadaam would be a regional threat to Israel as well as our moderate-state allies in the region. Funny, of course, that it wasn’t due to their “pro-moderate Arab state” stance, too.
Of course, that letter was authorized/supported by such folks as Rumsfeld, Armitage, Khalilzad, Rodman, Kagan, Fukuyama, etc…
But obviously it was a “pro-Israel stance” that made them support removing Sadaam from power. Just like when we supported NATO during the cold war, it was really only due to some anglophile stances among our government, naturally.
In September of 2001 when the PNAC again advised the US to attack Sadaam, the only mention of Israel was that they wanted the PA to stop supporting terrorism as a prerequisite to gaining US aid. Their actual argument on why to remove Sadaam had absolutely nothing to do with Israel, it was that "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. "
Likewise, that letter was signed by folks like Sokolski, Wittmann, Solarz, Gerecht, Weber, Gaffney, etc…
But that was probably only because of their “pro-Israel” stances, one must assume.
Mind if we call you “Stretch”? True, that is the only explicit mention of Israel, but its a major point, as evidenced by its “bullet point” status and its numeration. Another such bullet point-major point has to do with Hezbollah. Not hard to see any connection to Israel there, even if the actual word “Israel” does not appear.
Anyway, what point did you fail to make? Did you fail to prove that the security of Israel had *nothing whatever *to do with neo-con thinking? But of course it does, your own cite underscores it! You purport to believe that support for moderate Arab states is the only real point, but, in that case, why even mention Israel? Not enough words?
Ah, I missed this bit of stupidity earlier.
Naturally, Clowny is doing his best to be a general nuisance (Why object to racism? Really?) but this bit is stupid even for someone like Damuri who can’t figure out how to use the multiquote function.
The nonsense that “anybody who disagrees” with me is accused of anti-Semitism is a bit of bullshit that Damuri seems to enjoy. He’s claimed, several times, that I’ve called him an anti-Semite ever. Of course it’s not true which is why there’s never been any cite provided. But he’s picked up the anti-Israel tactic fairly readily, and he’s prepared to hop up on the cross and declare martyrdom and that he’s being “shouted down as an anti-Semite” even if nobody actually calls him one.
And sure Damuri is happily ensconced in the flyweight-circuit of the intellectual realm, but I’m having trouble believing that even he’s this retarded. The stupidity is amazing. As if, the reason someone objects to racism is so that they can then claim that everybody who disagrees with them is, likewise, a racist. I can’t help but wonder how much of this stupidity is willful in order to serve as political rhetoric.
Would there really be the same deliberate idiocy if, instead of naming people with Jewish-sounding names in the US government and accusing them of treachery because they have Jewish names, it was someone naming black people are potential watermelon thieves? “You’re just objecting to someone accusing random black people of stealing watermelons so that you can say that anybody who disagrees with you is a racist!”
Naturally, of course, as our little confederacy of dunces is in pileon mode and the intellectual prostitutes among them don’t have much love for integrity, Damuri’s nonsense goes mostly unremarked. Just like Sevastopol’s ranting about Jews and Judaism and keeping the ‘wrong’ sort out of American politics. Just like newcomer’s 9/11-and-the-Mossad nuttery. Ah well.
I wish this shit was surprising by this point.
To be fair, you did accuse him of claiming that Mossad was “behind the attack.” Now, your later comments about “innuendo” and being “connected” were a bit more accurate and the rest of his paragraph in which the Mossad claim is stated is pretty much a bad mixture of crazy and dumb, but he has not actually posted that Mossad was behind the attack and that was your first accusation.
Genius is pain.
Tom: well, that is the claim he was making, he was just making it via insinuation rather than having the guts to come out and state it. He made it with traditional Just Asking Questions rhetoric. Else, why mention the Mossad at all in a laundry list in the service of defending Fisk’s 9/11 Trutherism and suggesting that people who accept the ‘official story’ have a shortage of common sense?
I suppose I could have been excessively detailed and pointed out that it was the thrust of newcomer’s innuendo, but when dealing with Truthers who are JAQing off, if you have to wait for them to reveal what they’re actually hinting about, you can grow old waiting. I suppose there can be some legitimate disagreement over whether newcomer was claiming that the Mossad was behind 9/11, or merely part of the conspiracy behind it, but that seems to be a distinction without a difference.
Your disagreement is pretty much that you accept that’s what newcomer was coyly hinting at, but that he didn’t come right out and say it. Yes?
I definitely agree that it would be inaccurate and pernicious to speak of any so-called “Israel lobby” as being “all-powerful” or literally “in control” of the media or the government.
But Mearsheimer and Walt in fact don’t speak of it that way. They define their terms in the introduction of their book as follows:
I still don’t see what’s supposed to be so bad about saying something like that, or how it’s supposed to be “dramatizing” or “targeting” or “demonizing” any group as a “specter of manipulative power”. I don’t understand what you find so objectionable in it.
Political and academic commentary routinely refers to other “politico-ethnic” interest groups in similar ways, such as the “Latino lobby” and the “Cuban lobby”. ISTM that ultimately, the only reason the term “Israel lobby” as a similarly matter-of-fact designation for a pro-Israel political interest group is so strongly condemned is because of the historical echoes of malevolent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
I understand why the horrors of past bigotry impel people to stress the unpleasantness of those historical echoes, and I fully support the complete rejection of malevolent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. But I can’t agree that all attempts whatsoever to define or discuss the concept of “a pro-Israel interest group in American politics whose cohesion depends partly on a shared sense of Jewish identity among many of its members” automatically deserve to be assigned to the same category as malevolent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and consequently declared unfit for decent debate.
And that seems to be where you’re drawing the line in the sand. AFAICT, according to you it’s okay to criticize the political goals or tactics of AIPAC as a specific organization, or to criticize the political goals or tactics of the Israel Project as a specific organization, or to criticize the political goals or tactics of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations as a specific organization, and so forth. But any attempt to consider such organizations as part of a larger, less well-defined but significant entity such as “lobby” or “interest group”, with some common political goals and tactics, is automatically rejected as a priori impermissible and anti-Semitic.
As much as I want to avoid giving offense and smooth the conversational path towards polite and non-hurtful discussion, that seems to me to be erring a bit too far on the side of political correctness.
By God, Kimstu, you are ruthlessly reasonable, and pitilessly polite.
Shhh, you’re gonna get me banned from the Pit.