So what you’re saying is that it’s too hard to be informed about the world around you? Poor baby. How the hell do you think the rest of us learn this shit? By being involved in things before they happen. Stop being a lazy-ass and study.
Me, my knowledge of Africa and China’s investment therein is poor. I know some of the tribal history, but there are huge spots. But I recognize this and am working on improving it.
And I’m working on learning this stuff before it blows up. How do you think I was able to report on Libya before Al-Jazeera was? (Admittedly, one of the rumors was wrong, but it was strong enough the British Foreign Minister reported it… about six hours after I did.)
If you think facts and logic point to only one answer, and people tell you that you might be wrong because they know a bit more than you… maybe you’re wrong. God knows it won’t be the first time. Remember everyone panicking about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? They were wrong. Because of about fifty details that people who knew more cared to point out.
Or do you think that you’re always right based on the obvious? Why don’t you go drop a lead pound weight and an aluminum pound weight off a pillar. Clearly, the lead weight will hit first, facts and logic lead you to only one conclusion.
World ain’t as simple as it seems. But sometimes it’s way more interesting than it looks.
So, like, ya know what? :wally: those smilies back at you.
Well you can click and see posts if you want but more importantly, other people quote him.
When someone makes an absolute statement a single source is enough to refute. I wouldn’t make an assertion based on that sort of cite but I can refute a categorical statement with taht sort of cite can’t I?
yeah I end up clumping my posts together. Its fucking anoying I know but I rarely have free time to sit in front of a computer.
Perhaps I am being oversensitive but it always sounds like this is the motivation that Finn Again is talking about when he does the “Gee I wonder why you only pick on Israel, gee I wonder why that is” act.
Then he accuses me of having some sort of agenda. What sort of agenda do you think he might be talking about?
I don’t think that either. I don’t think Finn gives a shit about being bitch slapped, he just marches on. He doesn’t go after you because you don’t really go after Israel.
So according to your theory, I couldn’t possibly object to apartheid unless I was fimilar with Nelson Mandela because without this knowledge I don’t really have the information necessary to know whether apartheid is objectionable or not?
Get the fuck outta here.
Whoosh is the sound something makes as it goes over your head. I was being sarcastic. read my original post in that light and it all makes more sense rather than sounding like a non sequitor. I believe the argument at the time was with Magellan who has a hardon for muslims because he thinks they are the root of all terrorism. I sarcastically pointed out that Arafat and Hussein were radical Islamists.
I never thought that Saddam hussein was some sort of ululating Islamic Radical, same for Arafat. See how I took the time to explain shit to you rather than tell you to go read a stack of books.
I’m trying to remember why arabists are even relevant in this discussion of why Finn Again is an asswipe except to argue some conceit of yours that only those who have devoted their life to the studdy of the middle east have the right to holld an opinion about Israel.
Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelová (Czech pronunciation: [ˈmarɪjɛ ˈjana ˈkorbɛlovaː]) in the Smíchov district of Prague, Czechoslovakia. At the time of her birth, Czechoslovakia had been independent for less than twenty years, having gained independence from Austria after World War I. Her father, Josef Korbel, was a Jewish Czech diplomat and supporter of the early Czech democrats, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš.[5] She was his first child with his Jewish wife, Anna (née Spieglová), who later also had another daughter Katherine (a schoolteacher) and son John (an economist)…
…Prior to their flight, Albright’s parents had converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism…
…Albright was raised Catholic, but converted to Episcopalianism at the time of her marriage in 1959. Albright did not learn until late in life that her parents were Jewish and that many of her Jewish relatives in Czechoslovakia perished in The Holocaust, including three of her grandparents.
When you get up on a horse that fucking high about how important level of knowledge is and then bash wikipedia, you set a standard of accuracy for yourself that makes it really easy to poke fun at you. Didn’t you know that Albright was Jewish by birth? Geez if you didn’t even know THAT then how can we take anything you say seriously?
Of course not. Jews who value justice over their allegience to an oppressive Zionist state are frequently pro-palestinian. I was responding to the allegation that the State department is institutionally anti-Israel or something like that.
You act as if there is a switch, you either know everything about teh situation or you know nothing. I have said before I have a wikipedia level of knowledge and I think thats good enough.
Ignorance does not mean any level of knowledge less than yours.
I know enough and I don’t mean to insult the Palestinians.
cite?
Its easy to be critical of some of Israel’s indefensible actions and even Finn doesn’t spend a lot of energy trying to defend the indefensible.
This is true, I only post on great debates and the pit (and from time to time the game room).
Here’s the thing, I butt heads with a LOT of people in GD on a lot of issues. Heck, on a lot of other topics than Israel, Finn Again’s views lines up with mine pretty well but even there he comes off like an asswipe because of how he debates.
For example I butt heads with people on abortion a lot because i am mildly pro-life. I don’t think any of the people who cal me names on those threads are asswipes but Finn Again comes across as an asswipe even when he agrees with my position.
I don’t particularly like some of the posters but there are plenty of other posters that I disagree with on many more issues than Finn and yet Finn is the only one to ever make my ignore list.
Sure it might just be me but I bet his attitude puts him on a lot of people’s shit list.
To be fair, Ibnn is far more guilty of this attitude than E-Sabbath. I suspect that E-Sabbath has just assumed that because Ibn says I am ignorant that I am indeed ignorant.
Half his cites are all linked from a handful of pro-zionist cites. A google vomit proves that there is more than one point of view especially when you don’t have to dig deep to find that multiplicity of views.
My point was that if you cared about South Africa and Apartheid you wouldn’t need someone to explain to you who Nelson Mandela is.
Obviously there are comparable analogies regarding the Palestinians and their cause.
That’s a question you need to ask Finn. I can’t speak to your motivations, but if you genuinely cared about the Palestinians other than having some vague, undefined hatred of Zionism then you wouldn’t need to be educated on such basic facts.
Ok, that’s complete bullshit. There’s no evidence that you were being sarcastic. In fact, you didn’t even mention Arafat and Saddam Hussein at first.
Here’s the exchange:
Sorry, no sign you were being sarcastic. Just that, by you own admission, you didn’t understand what the term “Islamist” referred to.
Umm… yes I was well aware that Albright was of Jewish descent. I specifically said she were here when referring to Albright and Kissinger.
You also quoted that. However, she was not raised as a Jew but instead as a Catholic, doesn’t consider herself Jewish, and didn’t even learn her parents were of Jewish descent until decades later. She also wouldn’t even qualify for Israeli citizenship because she’s a practicing Christian.
Ok, this part is bizarre. You’re insisting that Albright is Jewish even though she doesn’t consider herself one, and is a practicing Christian because her parents were Jewish.
I guess if you want to use Adolph Hitler’s belief that the children of Jews even if they’re practicing Christians, but no one else would agree with that.
By your standards I guess Obama is a Muslim because his father was.
That’s weird, because I’ve never alleged that.
You’re asking me to provide a “cite” to prove that Finn hasn’t accused me of being an anti-Semite?
Show me where he has.
He hasn’t and I’ve been very critical of Israel.
No, he probably thinks that because you proudly claim you’ve learned everything you need to know from wikipedia and say that if it’s something to be proud of.
Slight correction: Wikipedia and cocktail party chit chat.
The thing is, I still can’t tell if Damuri knows that his accusation is fictional or if he’s paranoid enough to believe it. Damuri wants to believe that “whenever [he criticizes] Israel” I accuse him of having an agenda. To put it mildly, this doesn’t have even a passing familiarity with reality. IIRC I once pointed out that his style of ‘debate’ was disingenuous and ignorant. That was after a series of factual refutations left his argument precisely unchanged. As he’s gone on record admitting that he instinctively takes all new information and automatically finds ways to fit it into an anti-Israel narrative (for which he takes no responsibility and claims that I control his thoughts), I’m not sure what his disagreement even consists of.
Be that as it may, as he used to claim that I’d ever called him an anti-Semite (and once even claimed that I “shouted him down” by calling him an anti-Semite) but now admits that no such thing ever happened and has retreated to the claim that I’m hinting at him being an anti-Semite (how do you shout someone down by coyly hinting?)…
Well, I’d suggest that any of his claims about anything I’ve done/said/think/of do be held in abeyance until he provides a cite that actually confirms his claims.
As near as I can tell, it’s about as true as I “shouted him down” with cries of “anti-Semitism”. His distortion is, I think, based onthis thread. I think that this may have been the first post to set him off. In it, I pointed out that by talking about the Right of Return allowing Palestinians to “reclaim” land was something of a non sequitor since private ownership of land was not the majority condition and that his view that the UN “created” Israel was wrong, since the UN never took actions of any sort, at all.
In this postI again tried to explain to him exactly what I found objectionable about his style of ‘debate’"
(It didn’t work).
Now, that’s an annoying amount of links and quotes, but unfortunately it’s necessary to set the record straight since Damuri feels very comfortable up on the cross. I didn’t make a sly accusation of anti-Semitism, merely that he had a narrative that he was trying to fit facts into. I’d hope that when anybody reading along sees one of Damuri’s accusations about anything I’ve said/done/thought, that they check whether or not he’s actually cited the alleged incident.
For the record, I think he’s a willfully, deliberately ignorant dilettante who, as he has admitted, instinctively takes any new information and fits it into an anti-Israel narrative that he takes no responsibility for and blames on external forces that control his mind. I don’t hold any belief that he’s a racist, however.
It’s funny… at least he doesn’t lack for self confidence.
Meanwhile, I have a dragon-repelling rock.
I wonder if I can persuade him to purchase it and put it next to his Finn-anti-Semitism-accusation-avoiding device.
Can you tell us what those views are? Because from where I sit, I only see the two of you going at it WRT Israel. What views has FinnAgain expressed outside of the Israel issue that you agree with? He pretty much sticks to that issue, I could be wrong, but I don’t see Finn posting much outside of anything that isn’t directly or tangentially related to Israel, the Jews, or the Middle East.
Well, I have posted on a number of other subjects (I remember a knock-down, drag-out brawl with Scylla over the number of prisoners the US had tortured to death, for instance.)
The thing of it is that I generally don’t post on a subject with any great conviction unless I’ve already researched it and know the arguments, and the counter-arguments. I happen to have an acceptable level of knowledge about Middle Eastern affairs, so I tend to post more about that than other subjects.
Folks like Tamerlane are certainly much more knowledgeable than I am on the history of the Middle East, but he’s one of a kind for our board and most folks wouldn’t know the difference between Haniya and Hanna Barbara.
