[Peter Noone]Second verse, same as the first[/Peter Noone]
A “snatch team” in Amsterdam…now there’s a thought.
I propose an excercise of democratic dissent, that is we promise not to open december’s next thread. If that doesn’t make him think before posting we can them proceed to hunt him down and give him a beating and walk him out of town 
Er, uh, you seem to have lost something in the translation.
Up North, in the US, we say “ride him out of town on a rail.” Sometimes, we “tar and feather” him before putting him on the rail.
“Walking him out of town” is for wussies. I thought you guys in Argentina knew how to deal with malcontents. :eek:
In the Midwest we just run ‘em out of town, no rail, no tar and feathers.
As far a our friend December is concerned, I want to say something before this becomes a general pile-on preliminary to a running out of town with or without tar, feather and/or rail.
When some one consistantly posts idelogical balderdash inspired by some commercial publication or a windbag media pundant there is a tendency to think that you are dealing with either a fool or a scoundrel. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. When, however, the object of your ire consistantly throws out easily verifiable out-of-context excerpts that misrepresent or misstate the source you must conclude that there is no cunning or gile in the man. In other words, you must conclude that he is not a scoundrel–or at least a bush league scoundrel. What does that leave us?
[ooh! ooh!] Mr. Cotta. Call on me.
I have always assumed that the Honest Reporting organisation (which supposedly complains about anti-Israel media bias) is in fact an organisation which complains about any lack of pro-Israeli bias.
Thanks, December for putting it beyond all doubt that my assumptions need be assumptions no longer.
Dumb question here from an Aussie who has come into this thread REALLY late in it’s existence… but I’ve noticed that “december” hasn’t responded in this thread - ANWHERE!
Is that his usual modus operandi? As in… he’ll say something really controversial which gets a truckload of people to go into a tizz like a bunch of blue-arsed flies, and then, never returns?
Because if that is his usual modus operandi, I’d say the guy’s laughing his head off at ya. I’d say he does it just to be a shit stirrer and you guys keep taking the bait.
I’m open to standing corrected if I’m wrong of course. But it’s food for thought, isn’t it?
No, he often does respond, but not to the points that destroy his claims or question his ‘evidence’. The second post is often another biased snippet (or unbiased but taken out of context) intended to provide support for his initial premise.
Great post casdave
As for the OP.
::sigh::
Eve I am not saying I understand suicide bombers or anything about war personally. I am an American who grew up privileged. I have nothing in common with some poor kid growing up in Gaza.
I don’t understand, but at least I know I don’t understand. That is better than feeling superior to desperate people with horrible lives. I don’t have an answer to your question. I do know that people have sacrificed their lives throughout history for causes they believed in. OTOH, I read a news story recently which indicated that some Palestinians, especially parents, are turning away from suicide bombing.
I want nothing to do with taking sides on this issue, by the way. I wish somehow peace would break out. I do not see this happening any time soon. Stating, or implying that, the Palestinians are subhuman is not likely to speed up the process.
casdave, round of applause.
december, booing and hissing from the gallery. Your OP is a lie.
Eve, can you understand the difference between being pro palistine and Anti Israeli?
Eve – Your question hasn’t been answered so I’ll have a stab.
This is not one of december’s arguments though, IMHO, it tends to illustrate the general point about many of his OP’s.
There is no child suicide bomber (unless we count the adult suicide bombers with parents) and there hasn’t been a child suicide bomber. The inference is that there is/has been such a child because of the “…no parent would allow…” comment by the mayor.
So, the statement has no constructive value and invites readers to make to sympathetic, emotionally-driven misjudgements. In addition – and this is a classic december tactic – the debate that ensues doesn’t address the substantive issues concerning the region and, in fact, fuels both the polarisation and dehumanisation.
That’s what many posters object to in december’s posts: IMHO, it doesn’t follow that posters are “anti” or “pro” Israel or the Palestinians that they object to his misinformation and misrepresentations – anti-misinformation, pro-debate of the substantive issues based on facts, but not necessarily partisanship.
One might argue that conducting a constructive discourse on a message board does little, but it does have the redeeming qualities of allowing us to believe hope exists and that rationalality will, eventually prevail - december’s OP’s often invite readers to be dragged into the partisan mire. And, IMHO, there’s enough of that going on already.
Ref:
Adding to what was said previously in response to Eve.
Exactly what you wrote here is the negative (and IMHO unacceptable) effect of december’s modus operandi. I do not scroll to another forum, and I read almost every thread on Israel/Palestinian issues, I sometimes participate in the debate. As far as I know there is only one outspoken anti-Israel member. There are a few, very few that verge on anti-Israel, yet another very few are more pro-Palestine than pro-Israel. As far as I can judge the sum total of these three ‘vaguely opposed or opposed to Israel’ positions have a total of around five outspoken supporters.
There is a huge swath of neutral members. Actually the large majority of the members participating in the Israel/Palestinian debates are neutral, or moderate if you like. For the purpose of understanding that position I should say what it entails. Neutral in this case equals unquestioning support for the right of Israel as a nation to lead an unthreatened existence and unquestioning support for the right of Israelis and Palestinians to achieve the rights laid down in the Universal Declarations of Human Rights and the condemnation of all acts on both sides that threaten this. Some of us support the creation of a Palestinian state, while others do not. I am one of the members who subscribes to the moderate quadrant.
Through the means of lies, divertive information, disingenuous attacks on imagined anti-Israel groups (EU being his pet target) and de-humanizing bigotry against Muslims, december forces us to take a position in opposition to his, simply because it is not tenable and contains truly offensive and inflammatory falsehoods. Thus he makes it appear like we are anti-Israel. In my case he has stopped openly accusing me of being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic only after I have smashed my position into his thick skull in about 5 different Pit threads. For someone reading a GD thread, without knowledge of my position or previous reading of my multiple clarifications it might still appear as I am anti-Israel simply by the fact that I oppose december.
He thereby creates a false sense of opposition and inflames the debate, diverting it from the real line of questioning. There are a few extremely pro-Israel members that do not do this and there have been moments when I wished I could side with them on details, but found myself unable to since it would force me to also agree with december.
His basic thesis is that that there is a huge amount of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments in the Western world and that we as moderates are actually giving our tacit support to this and hence might as well be chucked into that group. He has also tacitly admitted that he believes that a complete destruction of the Palestinian culture is a necessity for Israel’s continued existence. He attempts to prove his views by baiting and luring us into opposition to his OPs. He forwards his thesis by building one strawman after the other and asking us to tear it down only to find yet another strawman at its foundation.
I used to think he did it just to inflame the debate. I let myself be convinced that he was genuine and only very extreme in his views. I have lately returned to a position close to my initial belief that he is only bating us, with the caveat that his irrational behavior of late has me genuinely worried for his present mental health.
Cases in point:
If you oppose the corrupt bigotry of Arab tyrants, why support their positions?
How can we tell whether the European Union is corrupt?
My attempt at explaining december’s fallacies in debating:
What EXACTLY did you mean december?
Sparc
december you are the very definition of a tiresome one trick pony.
Even when we support the same basic propositions, your debating “style” makes any logical discourse impossible. Plus your “post and scurry under your rock” posting style reminds me of another annoying poster. You don’t happen to live in West Virginia do you december ?
That’s a joke? And its relevance?
Sorry Doug, call me a grumpy humorless fuck if you like, but in the present context I didn’t think that was very funny.
Thanks to this careless and/or deliberately misleading post, december, more people will now think that the Guardian is really a reasonable, balanced publication being unfairly assaulted by pro-Israeli zealots. Is this the result you had in mind? Are you really a stealth operative for the Palestinian Authority?
If you want to avoid damaging your own presumed cause further, stick to items like the one mentioned in the Sunday N.Y. Times op-ed piece of a couple weeks ago, in which the Guardian was cited as editorializing that the Jenin (non)-massacre was “every bit as repellent” as the 9/11 attacks. Now that is a sickening piece of bias.