A group of three Japanese businessmen go to one of the U.S. Military bases and ask to speak with a Jewish chaplain. They meet with him and tell him that they are interested in converting to Judaism. The chaplain is thrilled and sets up a weekly meeting with the men and tells them that it will take two years of study. They are some of his best student ever. Every week they study hard, learning Hebrew and about Jewish culture. Finally after a year and a half, one of the students timidly approaches the chaplain.
“Excuse me, Rabbi,” he says, “we have been enjoying the classes very much but we have one question.”
“Why should you be afraid to ask me anything? You’ve all worked so hard and I’m very proud of you.”
“Well, we were wondering,” said the businessman, “when do we get to learn the part about being good in business?”
Well, if you’re referring to O-Ren’s mother, I’d point out that O-Ren’s father is also murdered (on-screen, though also in anime) and we don’t know what the deal with him is.
You’re hiding half the truth! You’re part of the conspiracy!
Apparently Gregg Easterbrook has just been fired from ESPN. I’m Jewish, and don’t think he should have been. His apology seemed honest and sincere, and though I was a little surprised at the seeming implications of what he was saying, I think the “greedy Jews” impression is more a product of poor word choice than anything else. I don’t like Gentiles (or even Jews for that matter, but to less of an extent) telling Jews how they should think because of the history of the Jewish people, but he realized what he said was wrong and apologized for it. He’s not exactly Michael Savage.
This being a pit thread, I feel entirely justified in saying: fuck you.
Besides, revealing the circumstances of one, or even two deaths in Kill Bill is like telling someone who hasn’t seen Matrix: “By the way, some scenes have special effects.”
You may be right, but how difficult is it to show a little consideration and put specifics in a spoiler box? It doesn’t detract from your own participation in the thread, and it helps out those who have not yet seen the film and who want to know as few details as possible.
You went to the second page of a thread that had as a subject the violent content of a particular film, and which had a reasonable chance of someone discussing that particular content. If this was a film you intended to see but had not yet done so, that’s your problem.
By the way, the Bride dies at the end, asshole.
[sub]Just kidding about the Bride. You remain, however, an asshole[/sub]
I know that you’re not really that much of a moron. Please, please read the thread title. You will see that it is making fun of the whole Jews and the media thing. There is not a single thing in the subject about the movie. In fact, no one mentioned specific plot points until you did, you turd. Since much of the thread was about comments made by the PM of Malaysia, a place where I have spent a great deal of time, I was following it.
Look, you fucked up. Twice now you tried to defend yourself and both times were bullshit (once saying that you didn’t give away specifics and the other where you wrote utter crap about the subject.) Care for strike three? Like maybe you can claim that the post itself doesn’t really exist or something.
To make matters worse, I don’t even get to see the movie tonight because my wife is stuck in the office late and won’t be home on time. Now I can’t blame you for that but it makes me even more cranky.
Get a fucking clue, dude. Even a monkey can post a spoiler warning.
…which wasn’t what he said at all. He said it wouldn’t alleviate the perception that that was the case. This implies that he doesn’t believe it to be true.
While we’re discussing this, why do you think Chirac blocked that resolution anyway?
According to the same URL, This is the reason Chirac blocked the resolution: **A spokeswoman for the French president has stressed that Mr Chirac also condemned the speech but felt it was more proper for an EU spokesman to make the condemnation than for it to be included in a summit declaration. **
[Not going to roll eyes again. It’s giving me a headache] *
While the world is distracted by this Jewish cabal nonsense, Bill Clinton, the Walton Family, Billy Bob Thornton, Dolly Parton and I can continue unmolested with plans for our secret Hillbilly empire…
Yeah, he attacked the Jews as ruling the world. Yeah, it was extraordinarily stupid. But he did it en route to admonishing terrorism and suicide bombings. He asked for the Islamic world to start using brains instead of bullets. No speech which makes these points is all bad.
In defense of Gregg Easterbrook,
That paragraph was extraordinarily stupid. The one line especially raised a two-thousand year old stereotype. But I think his apology was sincere, and he wasn’t bullshitting that he had written that paragraph poorly. He wanted to say that glorification of violence should not be used to make money. That Jews, above everyone, should know about the glorification of violence. His mistake was putting the two phrases “worship money” and “Jewish executives” in the same sentence but intending the focus to be between “Jewish executives” and “adultation of violence.” Obviously there is no right way to stick “worship of money” and “Jew” in the same sentence nowadays. The glorification of money bit as I read it applied to Hollywood in general. It was stupid but I don’t think he meant it. And Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN is usually a pretty good (but too long) column. Anyway, you gotta give props to a guy who is a liberal independent thinker, employed by the Brookings Institute, has written incredibly insightful pieces on things as diverse as the Middle East, to military tactics in Iraq, to the space shuttle, and still writes a weekly column about American football for ESPN.
Disclaimers. Saw Kill Bill, liked it. I went into it dreading that the violence would be as gruesome and sadistic as Reservoir Dogs. Left thinking that the violence was more cartoonish than Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, raised Jewish.
That’s like saying Hitler was sort of okay because he stood up for the rights of ordinary Germans. It’s also indicative of the problems with the Muslim world right now that he had to preface his calls against violence with quite a few anti-Semitic remarks first.
Amethyst Autmn
Difference. He may believe that the Jews rule the world, but he admonished Muslims to stop killing them. Whatever powers he imagines for the worldwide Jewish population, he is against the slaughter of the innocents.
I’m just looking for a silver lining here. Jews, Israelis in particular, would welcome economic and intellectual warfare, especially if it displaces the violent uprising. The whole world would welcome an intellectualization of the madrassas and a move away from violent Islamic fundamentalism. Perhaps if more rulers of Muslim countries believed this, we would be a lot more secure.
I look at it like this. Work on change in one area at a time. Two problems with the Islamic world are illustrated here: anti-Semitism and a fundamentalist focus on violence to acheive their goals. Mahatir wants to change the more serious of these – the focus on violence. It is a way to step back gracefully from Wahabbism and fixation on violent jihad and towards focus on real education and progress in the Islamic world. It is less like Hitler and more like the push for math and science education in the 1950s and 60s in the USA, exemplified by the space program. We fought the Soviets on an intellectual battleground rather than a military one.
Disclaimers. I do not wish to compare anti-Communism to anti-Semitism. The Jews do not equal the despots who ruled the Soviet Union. I still think the anti-Semitism propogated throughout the Islamic world is despicable, and I wish more people would see through it instead of falling in line behind it (for example the Durban Conference on Racism of last year).
So it’s fine to say that Jews rule the world, are arrogant, get others to fight for them, just as long as you don’t kill them? Would you substitute blacks or Muslims for Jews in that speech and still find it okay?
I see no silver lining in the Malaysian Moron’s promotion of anti-Semitism. The goals you write about are all very nice ideas but you can’t do that unless you stop demonizing other people. Part of the huge problem in the Muslim world right now is the blame the Jews mentality that prevails there. Mahathir’s speech is an illustration of the Madrassa mentality, not a move away from it.
First you work on the anti-Semitism (and the anti-Christian garbage as well) and then you can get back to me with the rest. If you don’t deal with the anti-Semitic shit I’m not interested in a single thing you have to say otherwise. No rational person would say to someone “Hey I know you think I’m arrogant, run the world, and too cowardly to fight my own battles but what else have you got to say?” Targeting a small group of people as the source of your problems is an illustration of Wahabbism not a step back from it.
I agree with your last comment. But I think Mahathir’s speech was a continuation of Durban rather than a refutation of it. It certainly fits the crap promoted there.
*Originally posted by hajario * Actually, it’s Malaysian Moron…
Mrmrmrm. Good point, but I think Jews are a special case. Jews have always made these compromises: they survived under barely-tolerated dhimmi status for hundreds of years under Muslim rule. They made deals with leaders who needed their money lending skills throughout the Middle Ages. They were forced into ghettos and made them the center of education and the arts in the city. They made deals with the local officials under the Tsars in Russia to avoid being suffocated under a mountain of anti-Jewish regulations.
Jews have always made some compromises to be barely tolerated. Under those compromises, they have survived. Not always comfortably, but they have. Of course these periods of relative tranquility were punctuated by random acts of violence and brutal uprisings, and of course failures of negotiations which have led to mass expulsions and murder.
But, the Jews have survived. For two thousands years, we have understood that any bad negotiations are made better once we get our foot in the door. That’s kind of what Mahatir is saying now: yeah, they rule the world and fight wars by proxy, but it isn’t OK to murder them. It sounds a lot like something that the something one of the “Jew-tolerant” leaders of Enlightenment Europe may have said: we despise this low race who manipulates everything, but we owe it to them not to kill them.
At least we have come out of the 7th century Arabia into the Enlightenment. I don’t set my goals very high, but any mark of progress is worth noting.
I compare it to something like this:
Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, 1756 (Lifted from Paul Johnson’s The History of the Jews)
The only thing I praise here is the move away from violence. I have no firsthand knowledge of what they teach in the Madrassas, but by what the US press bandies about, I think a bunch of them are preaching violent jihad. The aspect of his speech concerning economic and intellectual engagement certainly isn’t coming out of a madrassa.
Obviously I would like to see anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism disappear from the Muslim world. I believe the only way to do this, though, is through education of the populace. An educated and economically motivated populace will engage the West, and in turn will be engaged by the West. They will absorb Western concepts and hopefully move away from despotism, religious fundamentalism, and hate speech and towards more open and accepting societies. Call me naieve, but I can’t think of any other way to get rid of anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism. This is what I am praising about Mahatir’s speech. Not the anti-Semitism: I see that as the only way he can sell a revolution in thinking. Even though it may not be his intention, I think his intellectual revolution will be the only thing that will liberalize and open the Islamic world.