Thursday, November 25, 2004

America’s Crisis

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  1. Fantastic satire! If only, though ...

    Posted by reza from  on  11/26  at  06:29 AM

  2. I actually believed it.  Its not unlike what the Toronto Star regularly writes, it seems measured....

    There was great analysis of the great power manipulation in the Ukraine at http://www.wsws.org

    Posted by j cummings from  on  11/26  at  11:29 AM

  3. I watched a little of the news coverage of the events unfolding in the Ukraine last night,and the first thought I had was WHY aren’t Americans doing the same thing,en masse?As the editorial so seemlessly shows,what’s there and what’s here are not different at all.And yet,the citizens of the Ukraine are demanding,not quietly,not by getting permits and permission,not humbly,but LOUDLY and persistantly saying “NO,this is WRONG and we will not accept it!”.

    Have Americans grown so lazy,spoiled and self indulgent that we actually can not see clearly at all anymore?Are we cowards on that deep of a level?Do we really not even value the basic rights we have as a people?

    This is so frustrating to me as an American.Across the globe in the Ukraine,the people were not about to let fear,laziness or anything else stop them from forcing the powers that be to wake up and pay attention.People supposedly(from a narrow American view)less wealthy,less educated,less endowed with “stuff"than we found their collective courage,and it seems to me that they did it pretty quickly.What’s wrong with us that we can not do the same?

    I find it really ironic that a place in the world,once part of the Soviet Union,where those “rotten communists” were our sworn enemy are now giving US a lesson in democracy.Will we heed that lesson?I don’t hold out much hope at all for that anymore.

    Posted by Tammy from Metro Atlanta  on  11/26  at  12:24 PM

  4. The difference is, we don’t have the biggest two powers in the world co-ordinating and sending experts to help our marches.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  11/26  at  01:44 PM

  5. Now, the state-owned media of that country has decided to stop being pawns for the state also:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4044791.stm

    Boy, can we learn some lessons from our Ukranian heroes, eh?

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/26  at  07:56 PM

  6. Thank You...if only some of the other news media would show your courage...America is about its people..not its government...we need all to stand up and be counted, to keep our country free and perserve our democracy..we are proving the election was a fraud...we do believe in the law...justice is blind...and impartial...we must have true justice...and the voice of the people to drown out the voice of corporate big money and government paybacks…

    Posted by Susan Nelsen from Spokane, WA  on  11/27  at  03:57 PM

  7. I admit I now have access to TeeVee (this lowers my reputation even further, alas). But I saw a bit on CNN last night where a TIME mag. reporter (Mr. Ware) who had spent two years embedded in Iraq reported that the situation there was militarily hopeless for the US. He stated this clearly and unequivocally (but with some obligatory praise for the “bravery and honor” of the US troops as they commit one hideous war crime after another). But it was a bright moment of truth in an otherwise idiotic deluge of pseudo-pop culture and shoddily manufactured news. As soon as the report finished CNN moved on to other imbecilic matters and the strong words were forgotten, left to founder in that vast flowing stream of nitrogen rich detritus known as the US media.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/27  at  06:49 PM

  8. He also appeared on Chris Matthews’ Hardball and stated his case just as forcefully and with no holds barred.  I was really impressed with Mr. Ware’s candor.

    It kinda caught CM off guard at the end, as CM uncomfortably sequed into the next frivilous piece of journalistic entertainment.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/27  at  07:06 PM

  9. The reason Americans are not in the streets protesting en masse is that they actually voted for Bush.  Whatever his shortcomings, Bush was actually, fairly, openly elected.  The masses in the US are HAPPY that Bush is in the White House.  That means that you and I have FAILED.

    I don’t like Bush, but he’s our President, and there’s no sense making up fantasies about throwing him out.  The real task is to convince people to think and vote differently in the future, something this web page does very poorly. 

    I say it does it very poorly because the authors are mostly arrogant, insulting and highly condescending.  They prefer mockery to persuasion.  They tend to think that people who disagree with them are evil, stupid, racist, bigoted or some combination.  I see Mr. Oxman urging actual concrete action on a regular basis.  My suggestion for the first positive step would be to completely change the tone of this web page, which does much more harm than good to causes I support.

    You could start with an end to bashing of Christians and Jews (especially Orthodox Jews).  Instead of insulting people, this page could do more outreach.  It never seems to dawn on the people who write here that the majority of Jews are extremely liberal, as are a large swathe of so-called Christian fundamentalists.  But when they see idiots like you bashing their stongly held (and often very well though out) Christian beliefs, it’s only natural for them to go elsewhere. 

    So my suggestion as a positive first step toward advancing progressive causes would be to have the (hopefully) well intentioned people who contribute to this web page to take a long look at what they write and tone down on the condescension and mockery.

    Posted by Respectfully Yours from here  on  11/28  at  05:00 PM

  10. Nothing against Orthodox Jews (despite the teachings of the Talmud to hate Christians, which I realize most Jews do not take seriously), just wish the US would stop giving Isreal 3 or four billion dollars a year to carry out their barbaric genocide against Palestinians. As for your other points, you paint with a wide brush (how about some supporting data for some of the assertions?). All points of view are welcome of course. What is your suggestions for moving the world forward beside changing our tone?

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/28  at  06:01 PM

  11. The deeper societal bifurcation that I personally subscribe to, is the one that Granny D alludes to in the following article:

    http://www.alternet.org/story/14506

    As she says, “If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not conservative versus liberal. The two camps are the politically awake and the hypnotized.”

    If this is the case, then our challenge, therefore, becomes to do what it takes to de-hypnotize the hypnotized.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/28  at  06:49 PM

  12. Again, the problem with this web page is that it has nothing to offer but smug, offensive criticism.  Nothing positive.  Lots of sarcasm.  No outreach.  No message.

    Now Mr. Rhino Rick is Jew bashing.  He says he isn’t, but he’s doing it anyway.  EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE that the Talmud says to hate Christians, there’s no reason to mention it here. 

    Progressives need to do outreach, not sit on their smug, sarcastic tails.  As I just explained, the vast majority of Jews are extremely liberal, a big potential source of support for progressive causes.  But when people like you start saying “I have nothing against Jews even though the Talmud is full of hatred” it does NOTHING to convince the potential audience to share your views. 

    What are you trying to accomplish by airing such bile?  Incidentally, where did you hear such noxious stuff, or did you make it up?  Can you give an ACTUAL CITATION?

    Posted by Respectfully Yours from here  on  12/01  at  02:51 AM

  13. To Self Righteously Yours,

    citation: Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (Verso, 2000). Shahak notes that the most popular versions of the Talmud used in Israel include numerous degradations against non Jews. If most Jews are “liberal” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), why do they overwhelmingly support military aid to Isreal in order to carry out its daily atrocities?

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  12/01  at  06:52 AM

  14. All due respect..Rick is misinterpreting Shahak.  Now I could cite Islamic secularists who say the same about the Koran but since I’m not a Muslim I know people will take it the wrong way.  Rhino Rick is not at all a Jew basher, but he should know better than to cite Shahak’s guide to the behaviour of Zealots not secular jews in North America. According ot the Jewish Forward as well as Lenni Brenner, less than 20 percent of North American Jews are Zionists.  All that being said, even if what Rick was saying was the case, he shold be more sensitive.  The simple answer to his question about liberal Jews who support Israel (like me - which is why I’m anti-zionist...but seriously..) is fear.  He isn’t helping that here.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  12/01  at  09:20 AM

  15. Jordy, I certainly agree that most Jews, probably most Israelis as well --where the reactionary versions of the Talmud are in use-- would not take seriously all of the derogatory teachings of the Talmud toward non Jews. However, I don’t see how I misinterpreted. You can say that it is strategically unwise or insensitive to raise this topic, or even hypocritical because I am not also devoting time to analyzing the New Testiment and the history it has wrought, but Shahak makes a very clear case in his book about the intent of the writers of the Talmud through the ages.

    Of course most Jews are “liberals” on a number of issues, but according to Blankfort 86 percent of American Jews support “aid” to Israel (maybe you dispute this stat). Could you clarify what you mean, why liberal Jews who are not Zionists support it out of “fear”? Thanks for your comments, most appreciated.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  12/01  at  05:52 PM

  16. The stragy is what I found unwise.  Shahak aims to add the vast corpus of anti-theistic literature.  So you’re not so much wrong as speaking from lack of cultural experience, I assume.  This isn’t to say that your information may or may nor be valid, but it is a “nationalist” case to begin with to look at another nation-hood’s nationalism.  I think that Shahak’s book is great alongside Paine’s work on Christianity, for example.  But I think that it is highly offensive - and htis is what I don’t like about Blankfort to use nationalist critique selectively, yet in favor of another national movement.  Truth be told, 90 percent of Jews have never cracked the Talmud, and the founding Zionists were staunch atheists who had contempt for religion - too much in fact.  Shahak’s focus is on the “Elective Affinity” to use Weber’s phrase between Zionism and Talmudic Judaism, not to suggest a direct correlation.  To extend the nationalist vs nationalist argument, as opposed to backing Palestinians because I am anti-nationalist, and see the Palestinian struggle as the focal point for a coming internationalism is one thing, but to simply criticize people for their false conciousness as oposed to who feeds tehm that conciousness (Alterman et. al) is simply put, not Judeophobic, but to reify and objectify Jewish people.

    To use his example, while not looking at others, and also to use that to analyze Jewish behaviour (when you yourself I presume are not Jewish) is a stretch.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  12/02  at  10:14 PM
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