In last night's verbal savagery in Brooklyn there were several striking moments.
Hillary Clinton's pandering to the supposed "toughness" of the denizens of New York City was pathetic in its demonstration of her universal appeals to any group that might ever have thought itself wronged. Well, pilgrims, I suppose we expect that of her now.
But the very "best" was the moment frozen in time for me in which Sanders, in the sure knowledge that this would hurt him politically, told the audience that the 10,000 Palestinians wounded and 1500 Palestinian dead at Gaza in 2014 was a "disproportionate response" to the garage built rockets fired into Israel from Gaza.
A voice in the crowd then cried out "We are proud of that!" The voice seemed to be that of a woman. My wife thinks it was a woman.
She is proud of that? I can understand that one might think this butchery was necessary, but how can a human, any human, be proud of something like that?
Is there anything that could be done to the Palestinians that the voice in the crowd would not be proud of? Please tell me that we did not understand what she said. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict
All,
It is difficult for a ‘Brit’ to make sense of how these matters ‘work out’ in the United States, because the elements that are similar can disguise profound differences.
But what I see in Sanders is a tension which is all too apparent to me in old Jewish friends here: between a commitment to Israel which is very difficult to shed, and a horror at what that country has been becoming.
What I have difficulty in grasping, however, is how any kind of coherent strategy can underpin the ‘we are proud of that’ response.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, we accept that Netanyahu is right.
So, Iran is Amalek, prepared to accept any risk, including its own annihilation, in order to destroy ‘the Jews’. Let us further suppose that he is right about the Palestinians. So, according to Netanyahu’s version, Hitler was really only a kind of garden-variety ‘ethnic cleanser’, until he met the Grand Mufti.
One then has to confront the crucial fact that there are two theoretically quite distinct – if in practice commonly overlapping – justifications for Zionism.
On the one hand, there is the ethno-nationalist and religious strand: the eternal bonds of the ‘Jewish people’ to their ‘ancestral homeland’; on the other, there is the notion of a necessary refuge of Jews from the threat of persecution by the ‘goyim’.
If indeed one believes in the fanatical determination of all Muslims to annihilate Jews, how can one possibly suggest that these can have a safe refuge in the Middle East? So Netanyahu’s version of Zionism is, patently, moronic.
And then to compound the felony one has that sleazy little man Jeffrey Goldberg, producing an article entitled ‘Is it Time for the Jews to Jews to Leave Europe?’
(See http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/ .)
Where, one has to ask, does he expect our Jewish friends to go? Perhaps they should ‘make aliyah’ to Israel, among all those genocidal Muslims. But none of our Jewish friends display the least desire to do so – and not simply, or indeed primarily, because of the risks.
It would seem then that for Goldberg their only alternative is to join him in the United States.
But then, although it may be difficult for Goldberg to understand, not all Jews go through life furtively looking around in expectation that the ‘goyim’ will recover their inner Nazi and send them off to concentration camps.
And not all British Jews would be happy to live in the United States. Some, oddly enough, have their homes here.
Colonel,
You have remarked many times on SST that the great majority ofcombat soldiers will do what is necessary, but do not glory in killing. Your story about the rabbit and the bird(?) colonel who was planning on gassing it as a demonstration has always been a favorite of mine.
Some civilians, on the other hand (along with some REMFs, seem to lack such restraint and decency. Some of the worst of these have been women. Here is a joke as narrated by Uri Avnery:
“…the Jewish mother in Russia taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. “Don’t overexert yourself’” she implores him, “Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…”
“But mother,” the son interrupts, “What if the Turk kills me?”
“You?” exclaims the mother, “But why? What have you done to him?”
The current izzies are much, much worse than this old woman. To them Arabs are sub-human. They will learn otherwise some day.
Ishmael Zechariah
Colonel:
I did not see this, but thank you for calling attention to this. I will definitely go back and check this out for myself.
The level of casual insanity and cruelty people are willing to indulge themselves in just boggles the mind.
Colonel,
We have come to a point where Palestinians = Muslims and as such they should be destroyed:
a good example that the woman in the crowd would be proud of:
https://mobile.twitter.com/basemn63/status/720893873241739264/photo/1
Those NYers must be the followers of the like of Pamela Geller
Plus look at what the “mob” can demand:
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/14/bernie-sanders-suspends-jewish-outreach-coordinator-after-reports-of-her-criticisms-of-israel/
[A chorus of Jewish figures, including Abe Foxman, the president emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League, had joined Mr. Hoenlein in calling for Ms. Zimmerman’s firing. The final straw was a report on Wednesday in the Washington Free Beacon, which found a Facebook post in which she used a vulgarity and described Mr. Netanyahu as “arrogant, deceptive, cynical” and “manipulative.” She then used more aggressive language and continued that he had “sanctioned the murder of over 2,000 people this summer.”]
Was this Hillary last night?
https://twitter.com/IraqiSecurity/status/720812830379929600
Colonel,
Sorry to say, but you both probably clearly understood what the woman said. I am on travel overseas and didn’t see this, but it comports what so many Israelis feel about the Paletinians. There have been a spate of articles in Haaretz and other publications on how Jewish Israelis harbor such racist attiudes toward Arab and Palestinian Israelis. A prominent member of parliament objected to his wife giving birth to their child in a ward with Palestinians. His wife didn’t even want Palestiniaan or Arab hospital workers around hers.
Here is the Haaretz article that notes Sanders’ comments but doesn’t menton the woman’s shouting. Unless serious attitude changes are made, this won’t end well.
http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.714602
The number of primary votes that Sanders gets from NY Jewish voters would be the best measure of how many Jews are so not-proud-of-that as to vote for Sanders. It would be worth seeing what the numbers are.
I will speculate that “Proud of That” Woman means something like “we were weak and helpless and now we are strong and self-defensible”. And she isn’t looking/feeling any deeper than that.
An interesting project for an investigative journalist would be to find that particular woman and ask her in detail just exactly “what” it is about “that” which makes her the most proud.
I personally have a rather modest proposal; given the Love-Hate relationship among Men.
I think it will be a good idea to allocate 0.01 percent of the Earth’s gross product to the development of all that is necessary to colonize the Earth-like planets of the galaxy (those with moons like the Earth’s Moon).
In this manner, all nations, ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious people of Earth can leave the Earth – hopefully forever – where they can colonize
There would be a semi-arid, desert planet, for Arab tribes in which they can live in their tents and fight with one another for eternity.
There could be a planet for Sikhs, several planets for Kurds, etc.
Of course, people like Jains will likely go extinct without the labor of untouchables and low-cast Hindus.
There can even be a series of planets for the United States; with each federal state occupying an entire planet.
And so on and so forth.
And of course, let us not forget Freedonia I for doper-heads, Freedonia II for Homosexuals, Hedonism I and Hyper-Hedonia.
And the coordinates of each settled planet will be kept from others; the Iran Planet would not wish its location to be known to US, UK, and other agents of the Great Satan.
And Germans can have 2 or 3 planets to occupy and live their lives in order and in peace.
And the Shoah Cultists and their fellow travelers could remain here on Earth – free of the “Goyim”.
But, and here is the piece of human nature that is often overlooked – what would all these people do in various planets if there is nobody around them against whom they could feel superior?
I think this is a very sensible proposal.
I’d also contest that the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza was a “response” to rocket fire. It was a premeditated attack under the “mowing the lawn” doctrine.
sanders has been pretty consistent wrt to the comments re the palestinians that is resulting in efforts to destroy his support among jews, esp in nyc.
just yesterday his campaign suspended a young staffer for a year old facebook comment critical of netanyahu. several jewish orgs criticized him for that and demanded action. if they’re going thru facebook postings of staffers, you can be sure sanders is being targeted.
http://gawker.com/bernie-sanders-suspends-staffer-for-criticizing-israeli-1771110775
this is a pretty decent column on just what is developing:
http://gothamist.com/2016/04/15/bernie_sanders_jewish_politics.php
Seamus
I would agree with that. The chain of events that summer led to a Jewish desire for revenge and they took it. pl
“But the very “best” was the moment frozen in time for me in which Sanders, in the sure knowledge that this would hurt him politically, told the audience that the 10,000 Palestinians wounded and 1500 Palestinian dead at Gaza in 2014 was a “disproportionate response” to the garage built rockets fired into Israel from Gaza.”
Sanders has substance and soul under-grid by courage, real courage and not the True Believer intractability of a Ted Cruz. A rare politician indeed. A litmus test for the nation. Pass this one by and there may be no going back. We shall see.
Many of the Plains Indians measured their greatness by the greatness of their enemies. It is interesting to see that many entrenched, very powerful interests and Borgist media have gone from ignoring him, to ridiculing him to now outright attacking him and the ideas he represents. Will he be defeated? We shall see.
Ah, to be Palestinian is to granted a front-row seat to humanity’s dark heart. The settlements are illegal and the Occupation unjust, yet:
1. If you resist Israel’s violent occupation, you are a terrorist.
2. If you resist the Occupation at the UN, you are irresponsible and guilty of “diplomatic terrorism.”
3. If you attempt to organize a consumer boycott of Israel, you can be criminally charged in France, dubbed an anti-Semite in America, and jailed by the Israelis.
Oh, and Hillary Clinton has promised AIPAC to use her power as President to defeat your consumer boycott. That’s right. An American candidate wants to punish Americans because they don’t want to engage a foreign state. Lovely.
And if that isn’t enough, Hamas runs the Gaza prison and the Abbas’s 4-year term is apparently counted using the length of Pluto’s orbit.
“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency … At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
These days the question is raised to many, too many people & peoples. Sadly, they respond “No, I want more, much more!”
> There can even be a series of planets for the United States; with each federal state occupying an entire planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Planet_for_Texans
https://archive.org/stream/lonestarplanet20121gut/pg20121.txt
David
“If indeed one believes in the fanatical determination of all Muslims to annihilate Jews, how can one possibly suggest that these can have a safe refuge in the Middle East? So Netanyahu’s version of Zionism is, patently, moronic.”
Unless, of course, an unspoken tenet of Netanyahu’s version of Zionism is a Middle East devoid of (or “cleansed of” if you will) all those peoples who would present an existential threat to Jews in their homeland.
A hypothetical: if one proposed such a concept to the general public in Israel (couched in softer terms not explicitly suggestive of another certain “cleansing”), a startling proportion might consider it for a moment, nod in approval, and say “I suppose that would be nice, wouldn’t it?” The irony is truly heartbreaking…
Sir
We have an interesting election season. The 2 candidates with any enthusiastic support among voters are being dismissed as being crazy and unrealistic by the “serious” people. Half of all negative advertising spent has been directed against Trump. It shows the degree of concern among the political and financial elite that they would pull out all the stops to discredit Sanders and Trump. In my Democrat dominated state the bumper sticker indicator of enthusiasm is running 20:1 in favor of Sanders. The few Hillary voters I have met only plan to vote for her since she can win. I think that is her big selling point and the fact that many want the status quo.
If the Borg queen wins in November as is desired by the big money elites and ziocons then we’ll continue to be in the morass of failed foreign interventions, off-shoring of middle class jobs and erosion of rule of law.
I don’t know how the under 29s and white working class who will not doubt feel disenfranchised will react to the brazen corruption and more wars in the next 4 years.
jack
IMO if the Borg Queen wins she will be easily seduced into foreign interventions. The admirals will stroke her a bit, blow on her to fluff up her fur and we will then have a confrontation with China. Alternatively, she will send American soldiers to search central Africa for “the girls.” pl
I’m afraid it takes a periodical “children’s crusade” to sustain civilization: as we grow older, particularly those of us insulated from real hardship, we frequently lose our human perspective, moral creativity tempered from deep empathy.
You see this loss constantly in the Borg, hopes for Russian deaths, hopes for others “quagmires” etc.
Not one of our better traits as a species, but we must learn this hate and resentment, and occasionally our children don’t.
Sir
I’m convinced you are correct. This is my personal nightmare as my young boy in his youthful idealism is gung-ho to enlist. I don’t want to lose him on some distant shore to satisfy the bloodlust of the Borg Queen. Her “we came; we saw; he died” callous laughter displays a cold-hearted venality that is unprecedented in recent times.
I wish some one would tell me, in this day and age, why in this country we would need to have delegates to represent the us the voters. I believe in one man one vote and direct vote. This curent system was set for time, when there was no instant communication from and by the voters, in old days, some times voting time was as long as a month long today you one the results even before any vote is cast. Like any other functioning service, democracy also needs a functioning, modern, up to date infrastructure, ours is too outdated and needs to be changed, is time to upgrade this democracy’ infrastructue, IMO it’s time for direct vote and runoffs. If it was one man one vote and direct vote, and no super delegates, Sander was not that behind or Trump wouldn’t be threten to loose the second ballet at the convention. It will be a very difficult battle with a lot of demonstrations, riots, civil disobideance, if ever, this nation can put a fork in the eye of the Borg.
Colonel, I love it, you have a new original the “Borg queen” I really think there is no better discription for the former First Lady of Arkansas, US, Santor from NY, Secretary of State, twice candidate for presidency of this United States,my ou name it there is no high profile national positio. that this lady didn’t wish for and didn’t get. She truly is the queen of the Borg.
Thank you for this perfect said discription
I don’t know much about him, Sanders, if he ever gets the chance to get elected, I just hope he is not another empty suite like this curent president.
Perhaps it *is* me. But I do not understand why Zionist participation in The Holocaust is so ignored.
The leaders of the Jewish community in Hungary were Zionists – the *trusted* leaders.
In full knowledge of their fate these leaders sent those that trusted them onto the trains to Auschwitz. Hundreds of thousands got on the trains believing what their leaders were telling them, that they were going to a place of safety. Yet the leaders knew otherwise.
The Zionist leaders were working for the Nazis. Their reward was a different train for them and their chosen few to begin their passage to Palestine.
Later these same treacherous Zionists became leaders in the new state of Israel.
When their deeds were exposed the government, of which they were a part, used the full force of it’s judicial system to protect and exonerate them.
What am I missing? Why is this piece of history ignored? Is it’s importance and relevance nothing? …so puzzling…
Col., delete this if you see fit. (I know you would anyways, that is your prerogative and I will try to understand if you do) But before you do, please Google this: Rudolf Kasztner: The verdict of Judge Benjamin Halevi)
I won’t post about this bit of history again if you believe it is out of line.
Are some Palestinians Christian? If so, why is this not brought up? Are settlements being built on land taken from Christians?
Absolutely Seamus! Creepy Mark Regev admitted as much in an interview by Jon Snow on Channel 4 – check out the video on youtube.
There is one factor in the equation of a conjectured Hillary presidency that could militate against an overly aggressive use of military force. oddly, it is Bill. In my reading, he is a coward – like Obama, although the psychology is quite different. Were not Obama a coward, we might well have had interventions in Syria and against Iran. In Bill’s case, the man obviously has been salivating for 8 years to get back into the White House where he visualizes himself romping freely as Hillary’s eminence grise and social super-star. All of that would be disrupted by grave matters like a war and ensuing international crisis. He wants fun and status – not another chance to prove himself as a statesman. Conclusion: he will try to tone down her bellicosity and insulate her somewhat from the pressures emanating from various hawkish elements. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Israel is a terrorist state, and has been since the very beginning (see the Irgun, the King David Hotel bombing, the ethnic cleansing of entire Arab villages in 1948, etc ad nauseum). The Izzies are now, always have been, and always will be terrorists.
Most of the world is now applauding the approaching destruction of a similar terrorist state, the “Caliphate” of Daesh, and hoping that all of the “ISIS rats” will be exterminated along with their “nation.”
The wheel of history turns slowly, but usually what goes around comes around. I am impatiently awaiting the day that the Izzies receive their just deserts for their many crimes against humanity, and fervently hoping that none of those rats escape their fate, either.
It is not well known that Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution and natural selection, evidently spent the last parts of his life studying the evolutionary adaptation in humans of empathy. I heard that he thought very highly of this human function called empathy, that it has been very critical in our survival and progression as a species. When empathy breaks down, our species breaks down. I observe a pretty direct correlation between the absence of empathy for others, and violence and war. I believe that since empathy is genetically encoded in us and is naturally occurring until we are triggered into the “fight or flight” response whereby the amygdala high-jacks the brain. The woman who shouted “we are proud of that” probably is/was a nice, rational, reasonable lady until she hears the word “Palestine” or “Palestinians” which her amygdala interprets as an acute threat to the survival of herself or her culture or her people….she goes into “fight or flight” , loses all empathy, care, concern, reasonableness. So, one piece of the puzzle is for us humans to stay out of “fight or flight” so that we can maintain the empathy that we need to cooperate, get along, and find solutions to our conflicts.
The interesting question for me would be what happens once allopatric speciation takes hold over a period of millennia. Different founding populations, different survival pressures, both natural and cultural, different reproductive priorities, and an absolute barrier to reproduction. Populations would diverge. What you end up with on each planet would be interesting to see.
A British Jew who did make his home in the US, Oliver Sacks, in “Uncle Tungsten “, a memoir, described the unpleasant behaviour of Zionists in his parents’ home. The attempt to conflate Jewishness with Zionism may yet founder on the Sanders campaign.
Rest easy…
\
The last 3 times Netanyahu has gone to the polls he has started a war first to drive up his numbers in a rally around the troops moment. One of those instances was when he droned the guy that was enforcing the cease fire on the Palestinian side.
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-killed-its-subcontractor-in-gaza.premium-1.477886
Colonel, you paint an intriguing picture of the Borg Queen and her courtiers. Not pretty but intriguing.
I fully concur on “The Gatekeepers” a truly amazing piece of film making. It was available on Netflix last time I looked. It never fails to amaze me how intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate the modern heads of the Mossad, Shinbet and military are while all the Israeli politicians have been acting like Trump since long before he thought of running for office. It is easy to see where he gets his shtick from.
Bernie Gives..Hillary Takes…
walter
Interesting but I do not recognize many soldiers I have known in your description. pl
SAC Brat
Yes and yes. pl
I watched an interview with Micah White who was one of the founders of Occupy Wall Street. He has been doing some navel gazing about why occupy and Black Lives Matter have failed while similar movements in Europe for example have much greater success. In a nut shell it boils down to timing. A large movement in normal times can be pushed aside and easily forgotten.
On the other hand in Europe they save their largest protests for the election season when the candidates have to respond to them because they get bombarded with questions from the media.
I mention this because this is election season in the US and if Americans want to make a splash and possibly help change your destiny, now is the time. In 6 months it will be to late. The video of the interview is here.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/micah-white-on-why-occupy-failed-and-his-book-the-end-of-protest-1.3527846
kooshy
We do not trust government. We do not want government to be too strong because we do not want to be ruled by a king or dictator. For this reason we have limited the powers of every office in the federal government. That is why the president is limited to two terms. Our system of government is designed to be inefficient. We want a messy, complicated system. the last thing we want is a unitary state. . pl
If the Zionists were taking land from the Christians and Congress found out certainly they would put a stop to it right? After all there are far more Christians in the US than Jews.
“Jerusalem, Israel, Feb 18, 2015 / 03:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Palestinian Christians, a monastery, a convent and a Catholic school near Bethlehem are all at risk from the Israeli government’s planned security barrier in the West Bank’s Cremisan Valley, the U.S. bishops have told members of Congress.
“The proposed routes of the separation barrier would effectively confiscate the Palestinian agricultural and recreational lands of over 50 Christian families. This threatens the livelihoods of the remaining Christian community of Bethlehem, pressuring even more to leave the Holy Land,” Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces told leaders of Congress in a Feb. 11 letter on behalf of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace.”
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/near-bethlehem-israeli-barrier-threatens-christians-future-77541/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/catholic-church-files-complaint-against-extreme-right-group-leader/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/vatican-anti-christian-violence-crosses-red-line-in-israel/
Kooshy,
The political parties are not part of our Government. They are really just private groups banding together to push their agendas and present candidates for public election. How they pick these candidates is up to the parties. They could hold sudden death mud wrestling tournaments if they wanted to do so. The parties are nothing but smoke filled rooms crowded with good old boys picking the candidates for themselves. All the primary voting, delegate selection and conventions are just theater to make us feel involved and to convince us that the parties are legitimate and caring. What we need are a better class of good old boys in those smoke filled rooms.
Kooshy,
OTOH, it could be a lot worse. Look what happens when Borg vermin pore $5 billion into a rabble of sad sack losers in another country. You end up with Svoboda and Pravy Sektor, national political parties turning Ukraine into a new circle of Hell.
TTG- yes ,I share both your comments, but is frustrating
Could have been Madeline going gaga on group feeling again: there is a special place in hell …. etc.
Probably not.
More likely the shouter was counting coup – an anecdote to be shared again and again and again and again and again with her colleagues on the condo/homeowner association board.
counting coup (in this case à la pissante): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_coup
Jag Pop, Ben Hecht’s book PERFIDY is about Rudolph Kastner’s trial in Jerusalem. I haven’t read it yet but have heard about it and plan to read some day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfidy_%28book%29
kooshy
That’s all right. I find YOU frustrating. We do not wish to live in a tyranny so that you can have a simple system. pl
This statement by pl puzzles me: IMO if the Borg Queen wins she will be easily seduced into foreign interventions. The admirals will stroke her a bit, blow on her to fluff up her fur and we will then have a confrontation with China
Why admirals? You know more about the services than I do, but why not generals? I always thought that Admiral Fallon was one of our more sensible commanders. He seemed to have derailed the neocons efforts to lead us to war against Iran when he led centcom.
Me too.
It’s a riveting book. But someone is buying up the used copies as libraries are dumping them, ostensibly because no one has read them for a while. (!)
The founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was a Palestinian Christian. Forget his name, but it’s Arabic. Before Yasser Arafat.
And absolutely settlements are being built on land taken from Christians. Many retain their land ownership papers to this day. This is documented with official documents on sites that deal with the real history.
Neither do I. But then Walter was assuming the loftier assumption that it is “The People” who inform their representatives, who are then responsible for crafting public policy according to the people’s will. So if you fix “The People,” you can fix the world. Idealistic to be sure. But he happens to be right, and the latest brain research into neuroplasticity only possible in the last 15 yrs confirms it. All this is documented in Dr. Norman Doidge’s NYT bestseller, The Brain That Changes Itself, http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1259
Here’s another interesting take on the Clinton/Sanders debate:
Democratic Debate: Clinton Dangerously Trumpets Obama’s Record
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/04/democratic-debate-clinton-dangerously-trumpets-obamas-record/
I think she will go ‘big time’, and pick a fight in Eastern Europe.
Babak, I liked your modest proposal.* Not least since it seems to grasp something essential or the paradox of Zionism.
On what special features have other ethnicities, national, religious, have a “save heaven” nowadays in times of troubles or economic distress?
* I am very, very glad you consider three planets for us Germans?
As far as “refugees” are concerned, by the way, in my times in Berlin I stumbled across some type of political graffiti. It read: People from the Rhinelands out foreigners in.
Matthew
And we need to remember that the Zionist in Israel stole and or were given our nuclear weapons technology .
I once received a personal mail from an Israeli academic asking me and then relating own experience: Did I ever have to spend time in a hospital room with an Arab bed neighbor?
********************
You should look into academic wisdom concerning “the Arab Mind”. It no doubt is an interested Western academic perspective. But who could be more “Western” in the region then Israelis? If we leave out intermediary steps for a while, or ‘the Jew underneath the Arab’s mask’, historically.
More generally in times of troubles, its helpful to individually or collectively know whose fault it may be after all.
Paradigm: it cannot ever be ours.
Ethnic item in case: “Oriental Jews” versus “Israeli Arabs”.
Jonst,
I believe that Lavrov as the Russian FM will have the upper hand on the Borg Queen and her ilks like Victoria ( yep she will be around) and Jeffrey Feltman. Plus what Dr Brenner said about the “royalty” at the WH.
My post seems to still be here. I cannot know how many responses to my post are in the queue waiting to appear.
I will continue, on how treachery from WWII relates to the original post idea, the toughness and pride and protection that Zionism offers Jews.
“Israel is where Jews assure protection for themselves.”
This is a core principle.
Raised up from the trampled of WWII to a place of strength, self-reliance and thus safety.
Or is it a cliche rendered empty by pride, belligerence and self-interest?
When the people of Israel themselves, as witnessed by the Palestinians, are belligerent, self-absorbed and raised to arrogance how can they expect their leaders to be any different?
It was self-interest smathered in pride that motivated the treacherous Zionist leaders of WWII infamy.
Would a present day Zionist leader sacrifice Israeli lives to further their own personal goals?
They have already done it.
Have the sheep invited wolves to watch over them? Or have the sheep become wolves themselves?
jag pop
I have posted all materials related to you. pl
I read that figuratively based on limited knowledge: The top of the military hierarchy.
But here goes: The Navy and thus its leaders may have been traditionally the top of the military hierarchy. At least if I trust information I picked up in conspiracy circles.
“The Zionist leaders were working for the Nazis. Their reward was a different train for them and their chosen few to begin their passage to Palestine.”
You may be mixing up matters. In this case the respective leaders of the Jewish community and the Zionists. Some no doubt were both, but not all of them.
The leading expert on Zionism under the Nazis is Francis Nicosia:
http://tinyurl.com/Francis-Nicosia
******
you also need to know a bit about the Nazi state, like “Gleichschaltung”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung
Thus yes, without doubt under the Nazis the Zionist got stronger and used their respective influence as long as they could. But not all Jewish leaders that under the system were forced to do what the “masters” commanded where Zionists. They hardly were informed by them either. But yes, no doubt the Nazis used them, and one or the other realized what happened and saved family and friends.
TTG
Washington believed that political parties were poison in the system. I agree. pl
One should become especially alert when one encounters the phrase: “the leading expert on…”
Come on, LeaNder…
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority
Alas, I could not click on your tinyurl link. I have an aversion to clicking on blind links. So I Googled Francis Nicosia myself.
Before I get to Francis let me say something. I am well familiar with how pro-Zionists and their paid actors have worked to create spin on this sad episode in history – Nazi/Zionist cooperation. Some have made careers out it. So when you offered me “an expert” I had certain expectations.
Now, I did not by any means make a comprehensive study of Francis Nicosia, in fact only a few minutes. In those few minutes I find he **appears** to fit into the category I mentioned in my previous paragraph.
Perhaps I will read more of and about him at a later date. I don’t know.
Let me offer my own link that I found through Google:
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-francis-nicosia-and-zionist.html
It begins:
“Last summer whilst on holiday I took a copy of Francis Nicosia’s Zionism & anti-semitism in Nazi Germany for light reading! An appalling apologia for the collaboration of the Zionist movement in Germany with the new Nazi government, I said that I would do a review of that book and its predecessor, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question. ”
It is in the Quran: “…have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another…”
That is, each tribe and each nation – each cultural way in the language of ethnography – manifests a different and varied way of being human and a source of knowledge.
Do you mean George Habash? Also, Arafat’s wife was Christian.
The argument that my Chinese fried made against World Government was that it could become another “Middle Kingdom” and thus stifle innovation, development, change and progress for ever and ever.
There is also the Fox argument:
Fox was running away like mad. When asked why he replied:
– “Have you not heard? The King has ordered all camels to be arrested and taken to the castle.”
– “But Mr. Fox, you are not a camel, you are a fox.”
– “I know that and you know that, but what if I were to be arrested mistakenly. By the time I have established that I am not camel but a fox – even if I be given to argue it – it could be too for me. Indeed, if I were you, I would run away too.”
And so he kept on fleeing and it was a long time before anyone saw the Fox again.
World Government would only be advisable if there are other planets that one can go.
LeaNder,
That type of bigotry is alive and well and not exclusively directed at Muslims.
https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/11/racism-medical-education/
The author has a masters degree in “Narrative medicine” from Columbia. I asked one of my (now former) friends why the doctor’s narrative is correct and patients was not (i.e. learn something before judging – anthropology 101) since the judgement appeared to be based solely on clothing choices. Asking such a question was so troubling that getting blocked on that medium was the immediate response.
Beaver,
Have the Russian’s even started to leak any of the documents they should have been able to obtain from the Borg Queen’s private email server communications? It couldn’t have been that hard to penetrate
TTG,
Having previously been active in one party’s politics your description is pretty accurate. Trump, if nothing else this election cycle, is acting like global warming – just by running e’s making the precision snowflakes (and sacred cows, or at least smoke and mirrors) vanish. I think that the general public, who normally never get active in a primary election are finally seeing what the candidate sausage factory really looks like. There are allot of local ballot issues and candidates for other offices that get voted on at the same time btw so it behoves voters to show up so they don’t get a local surprise.
I wonder who’ll do the seducing, but seducing is likely whoever does it.
Do you think the Admirals as professional soldiers really want this confrontation with China, or is it the “public intellectual” armchair warriors and other chest beaters?
“Sanders has substance and soul under-grid by courage, real courage and not the True Believer intractability of a Ted Cruz.”
I was very impressed by Sanders’ reasoned humanity that was underlined by the tenor of his voice and the look in his eyes. He was not condemning Israel or saying that they did not have a right to respond, only pondering if the response was disproportionate. I couldn’t help but see the glaring contrast between the look on his face versus that of the likes of both Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz. Both Hillary and Ted have that dead fish stare when they just just deliver their next hit. Hillary when she is playing the race or sexism card knowing that she is playing fast and loose with the facts, and Ted Cruz robotically defending Israel as if it is the only nation on earth capable of doing no wrong.
AK,
They might well think it ‘nice’, but ironically that takes us to the heart of the problem.
A key fact about the ‘suicide pact’ between the United States and Israel is that it works both ways.
The situation of settler cultures is very different, in different times and places. In North America, including Canada, and Australasia, the indigenous populations could be marginalised. Elsewhere – for example, to quote three very different cases, southern Africa, Latin America, and Ireland – this was not possible.
I have long thought that, whatever it does, the long-term prospects for a Jewish settler state in the Middle East have to be acutely problematic. None of their options are very promising – the question is what is the least worst.
A view of the indigenous population which seems to overlay Anglo-Saxon attitudes to ‘red Indians’ with the mixture of contempt and fear with which many – very far from all – East European Jews regarded Slav peasants, and an overlay of images of Nazi Germany, does not, I think, help.
A Pols
I like the US Navy. My family has deep connections with the navy but there are a lot of admirals who are infected with the Koolaid of the Mahanian view of the world. pl
already in progress.
Colonel, you are right the system is designed to be weak, inefficient and messy, and ready for easily manupolation specially by special interest groups, which has and will happen all the time if not corrected in meaningful way.
kooshy
The US governmental system is NOT WEAK. It attempts toprotects the rights of the citizens AGAINST government at all e\levels. the US system was built to limit the intrinsically unlimited nature of governmental power. Countries do not have purposes for existing. they are merely accidents of history. The delusion and mythology of national purpose leads to the rule of tyrants who sell people the idea that they and their ideas are the answer to life’s problems. you must have loved the shah. He was a strong man who believed he was the answer. I increasingly see you as an ancient regime exile. Am I correct? pl
@TTG…”What we need are a better class of good old boys in those smoke filled rooms.”
that line has been discontinued. unprofitable. too artisanal.
I am aware, Fred: About bigotry being well and alive including my own. I am also aware of aspects behind Pat’s (ad-hoc linguistic choice?) “any group that might ever have thought itself wronged” that may complicate matters.
But, apart from the fact that you may have lost a friend due to political difference, if I understand correctly, I am not sure what you want to tell me here:
“The author has a masters degree in “Narrative medicine” from Columbia. I asked one of my (now former) friends why the doctor’s narrative is correct and patients was not (i.e. learn something before judging – anthropology 101) since the judgement appeared to be based solely on clothing choices.”
LeaNder
What is an “ad-hoc linguistic choice?” Is it anything you don’t agree with? What is it that you mean when you tell Fred that he may have lost a friend? Incomprehensible. pl
Babak Makkinejad,
I must confess to having had a related fantasy. It comes out of being something of an ideological mongrel – the English Civil War is a conflict in which I cannot avoid being on both sides.
One of the things that a certain kind of traditional ‘Tory’ most disliked about the Parliamentarians – and also the ‘Mayflower people’ – was their unshakable conviction that they represented the forces of ‘good’ fighting those of ‘evil’.
Not uncommonly, old-style Tories were cynical people – but their cynicism applied not only to other people, but to themselves.
Very frequently, they saw it as distasteful – if not indeed rather vulgar – to go through life expecting that everybody else should be expected to believe in the excellence of their intentions. And they also thought it imprudent, asking for trouble, in fact.
(I vividly remember hearing the maverick Tory politician Enoch Powell holding forth, explaining that the description ‘Perfidious Albion’ was absolutely appropriate: it was our nature, shaped by our geographical location and history, to be untrustworthy people, who would ditch an ally at the drop of a hat.)
Unfortunately, for reasons I do not quite understand, the ‘Mayflower people’ won out. People like Blair and Cameron really believe that they are God’s gift to humanity, and that for anyone to doubt the benevolence of their intentions is a kind of insult.
Increasingly, it has seemed to me that as the contemporary inhabitants of the United States, and Britain, have come to believe that more and more people really represent the forces of evil and darkness, it is not clear that they ought to remain on such a benighted planet.
What we need is to find some other place in our solar system – or indeed beyond – which is suitable fertile, and either uninhabited, or inhabited by beings, who like the ‘Red Indians’, can be easily relegated to insignificance. In short, we need a new ‘New World’.
David Habakkuk
I can’t account for the triumph of the “Mayflower people” in Britain, but in the US, (in spite of the current mythic narrative about slavery)I would maintain that the “Mayflower people” triumphed on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg and many other stricken fields. This triumph was IMO rammed home and cemented in the recurring waves of reconstruction, including the present one. pl
LeaNder
The US Navy rules the roost in the US armed forces? you have been talking to an excessive number of sailors. As for Toivo’s remark abt Fallon you did notice that he was fired did you not? pl
I have troubles to understand that:
“I have an aversion to clicking on blind links.”
Blind links? No otherwise net-safety-net-in-place by now? Seems somewhat unlikely at this point in time. But there you go.
In any case this was the link. Keeping it transparent: Google Books, Nicosia: Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Chapter: Zionism in Nazi Jewish policy 1934-1938:
https://books.google.de/books?id=JTtGXWzfD10C&pg=PA106&dq=Zionism+And+the+Nazis&hl=desa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPxbvRmpPMAhXHESwKHeuzD9MQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=Zionism%20And%20the%20Nazis&f=false
Did I waste time and energy?
Concerning your “appeal to authority”, yes, as reader maybe, although it would be more complicated to define who I accept as “authority”. Who whom I throw against the wall, dead or alive as author.
But yes, as general nutshell, sometimes I prefer the less emotionalized “academic” narrative compared to whatever well advertised products targeting the larger market. If you had that in mind: Caught, or guilty as charged, if you like.
Concerning Rudolf Kasztner, in extreme times I would assume you find this type of tales on any side. To a certain extend it is human. And notice, this is no “appeal to authority” but simply the assumption that people are people after all.
Could I be sure that Malchiel Gruenwald
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malchiel_Gruenwald
got matters completely right on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Kastner
You tell me.
“It is in the Quran: “…have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another…”
that’s odd. Or put alternatively, an interesting choice, since I initially wanted to quote this passage:
“And the coordinates of each settled planet will be kept from others; the Iran Planet would not wish its location to be known to US, UK, and other agents of the Great Satan.”
I’ll drop further comments, simply assuming for now (only!), we understand ‘one another’. 😉
Thanks.
I read that there had been 2 great migrations out of Africa; one 100,000 years ago and another 35,000 years ago. And yet the racial very different inhabitants of Eurasia can make with Africans and produce viable off-spring.
Furthermore, by some estimates, the Aborigines of Australia had been there in almost complete isolation for 60,000 years. And the English men could mate with their females and produce children who were themselves capable of producing off spring.
So the speciation in human, I should think, would take much longer than 100,000 years – if even possible. Humans might be a stable species – in some sense, I speculate – and not prone to change.
Much more likely, would be cultural and material degeneration, in my opinion. Some ethno-linguistic groups or ethno-religious minorities that currently cannot bear to be around their “oppressors” – with out a doubt – become extinct if the ideas of Makkinejad Proposal are ever realized.
Some others, will degenerate from a whatever state of material civilization they currently enjoy to barbarism and even perhaps lower stages of savagery.
One only needs to look at Congo to observe the process of degeneration and decay at work over the last 50 years.
Colonel, when I came to US I was only eighteen some 44 years ago, I had no political liking or disliking pro or anti shah, and never did, my first political experience was watching how young KU students freely demonstrated against the VN war and thier goverment’ policy. Incedently my first political participation was three years later in Calpoly campaigning for Tom Hayden running in primery for democratic US Senate Ca. Seat against I don’t remember who now, he lost.
The train was to Switzerland and not to Palestine – I read about it.
Yes, they kept the Jews quite and served the NAZIs – no doubt about it.
1. Many Palestinians are Christian.
2. Doesn’t fit the narrative.
3. Yes – Har Homa, Gilo, Har Gilo, Betar Ilit, Giva’ot, to name but a few. As a rule of thumb if it’s a settlement in or around Bethlehem it’s on land taken from Christians, especially if it’s expanded recently.
Ah, she advocated a final solution. Ok.
kooshy
What is the source of your income in the US? you live in the Santa Monica mountains so you must be well off. pl
505thPIR,
IF! . . . the Sanders supporters can organize themselves into a broad and deep long-term more-than-just-Sanders movement; that will be an initial introductory victory right there.
IF! . . . they become such a broad, deep and multiply-layered cross-connected groupload of people bound by a set of common interests and a commonly held vision and set of goals; then they may well study how the Christian Conservatives spent several decades slowly conquering the Republican Party by many small slow steps and finally bending it to their will. If they think the same methods can be used over several decades to invade, conquer and decontaminate the Democratic Party and turn it into a Modernized Newer Deal Revival party; they may well try to do that.
“The letter undersigned by 394 House Republicans and Democrats — more than 90 percent of the 435 representatives — was sent to Obama Thursday amid reports that the Palestinian Authority might revive a draft resolution against Israel’s policies in the West Bank, similar to the one vetoed in 2011 at the Security Council by the United States. ”
Nothing unites American politicians like hatred of Muslims. Isn’t it time for the US to come clean and admit that they are never ever going to allow the Palestinians to have a state? That they will never allow the Palestinians to have equal rights in greater Israel because Israel has nuclear weapons and Muslims again out number Jews in greater Israel. That it is US policy that Jews are created superior to all other people and that Muslims are born mass murders. That the true policy of the US is that the Palestinians because they are the wrong religion will forever have to live as a slave class in a greater Israel because Americans have been taught to hate Muslims? Isn’t it time to finally be honest?
http://www.timesofisrael.com/most-us-lawmakers-pen-letter-to-obama-opposing-un-action-against-israel/
Where did these christian conservatives get the capital and the technology for massive construction projects and media operations?
Rule of thumb is ~1 million years of isolation before enough mutations accumulate that separate groups cannot interbreed. In humans, rate of change if i recall correctly is 6 mutations per generation.
Our homosapien ancestors reproduced with neanderthals and denisovans after a separation of four to five hundred thousand years.
The numbers i have given are ballpark and they are changing every other day these days due to some major movement that is happening in decoding archaic dna.
One more thing to keep in mind is that humanity is at the cusp of controlling the genetic makeup by methods like CRISPR CAS9. Any movement in space and colonization of other planets will require mastery of such methods to modify human biology and make it resilient for different environments. Once such methods are available, even on planet earth this type of technology can result in convergence and divergence based on what choices people make.
LeaNder,
I lost no friend, events simply pointed out the person and I did not share much in the way of actual values. The comment about the author is simply another indication of the political ‘dog whistle’ becoming more prevalent n politics and closed mindedness in current academic instruction.
Indeed, where would we all be without the Perfidious Albion and the inhabitants thereof; a world without Bacon, Newton, Hook, Herschel, Watt, Maxwell, Rutherford, Dirac, Fleming, Watson-Watt, Crick, Watson, and countless many others.
One can also well imagine a planet solely inhabited by Tibetans; likely they would still be practicing slavery and wallow in a variegated Buddhist superstition – under the tyranny of their clergy – living in marginal, parochial existence with nary ever the hope of anything better.
And as Tibet goes, so would the Dinka, the Fulani, the Xosa, the Zulu, and many many others…
Almost without a doubt, the Jain planet would become uninhabited fairly quickly since Jain are forbidden to kill anything – unless they smuggle a few Hindus or Muslims or Christians or others to their killing for them – lest they lose their Karma.
But then that small minority, solely imported & tolerated to do the dirty job of Karmic Salvation, would become, overtime, resentful and seek its own planet – or at the very least, continent.
And the story repeats itself.
Santa Monica has become so gentrified over the last few years that middle class resident have to sell their houses and move out.
A modest rancher is now going for $ 1.5.
Sociologically it is an interesting phenomenon since it is manifesting the emergence of cities that are not just mono-racial but also that they are separated by a concentration of wealth as well as IQ.
Another such city is Boulder, Colorado.
A person whose father buys him/her a BMW for high-school graduation can neither understand nor be friends with a person whose worked to pay for his first car during high-school.
They might cross paths in college but I doubt much would come out of that.
The ability to produce viable, fertile offspring is not that good a test for speciation. There’s evidence of humans interbreeding with Neanderthals, who are accepted as a separate species. Wolves, coyotes, and domestic dogs can all produce viable fertile hybrids. Simmilarly polar and grizzly bears are hybridizing. Accepting that the groups on the various planets may not form species so different that hybrids are biochemically impossible, the different groups would still diverge.
I have a friend who argues that humans accidentally domesticated themselves in the same manner we domesticated other animals. Killed the ones that showed uncontrollable fear and aggression, bred the ones that were most capable of working with other of humans. Your proposal would create a wonderful natural experiment to study if there is a strong feedback loop between culture and evolution, and if so, how and why it expresses itself.
Thank you for your comments.
I do not believe that CRISPR CAS9 will do much for human beings. It likely would create inferior beings and various kinds of monsters that would have to be destroyed.
There are multiple considerations here; one is the Metaphysical Principle that an active agent cannot give rise or create that which could surpass it.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens cannot overcome itself.
A more concrete application of this principle is this: the “design space” of a Human Being consists of very many parameters. And like in any engineering design activity, one cannot optimize for all parameters; some parameters will have to be degraded. Say, you can make humans live for a millennia but with an IQ of 95.
Or you can make them smarter but then they would lose their ability to have sex.
All of this begs the question of a Constructivist Science of Biology – a science of biology that enables one to design backwards from a set of requirements – something that is commonly done in hard engineering and in software.
Now the existence of such a science can be inferred; “I am going to create a creature that can play chess and Go, tie knots, and reason about animals and plants. However, I do not want this creature to be able to fathom my intentions and purposes.
So, I am going to give him these many neurons, which require him to have this metabolic rate, and in order to keep him agile on a small planet I have to create cells that can process ready-made food.
But to feed those cells, I know have to create an entire order of creatures that could make their own food from my own immanence in the created world – the electromagnetic field.
….”
I think you see where I am going with this…
I remain skeptical of the promises of gene manipulations – which are only a sophisticated version of the practices of animal breeders; in my opinion.
You asked, “did I waste time and energy?”
Hard to say, some people enjoy watching beads of sweat upon a bottle of wine gather the light of dusk (loosely borrowed from Hemingway).
Perhaps you got something out of it. Who knows, someone else might click the link. I am not going to, at least not now. I found a review of the book earlier and above I had provided a link to it. It is a long review and references much other material.
You provide links to wikipedia which I am curious about, if only to see if they are in line with my expectations. As you know, there is a long standing wrestling match to see if Zionists can succeed in revising history to their liking.
But, as *you* link to the wikipedia articles, we know whose fingerprints we will find.
Of all the material out there on this subject that which may be the least tainted are the court records. That is what I prefer, and why from the top I recommended Googling: Rudolf Kasztner: The verdict of Judge Benjamin Halevi
Wow Babak! You went full creationist on me. I could talk about genetic architecture of IQ and various traits and how it is nothing like how you described it and traits do not necessarily come at expense others, but it is going to be all lost on your true believer metaphysical mind.
You earlier talked about fantasy of different planets. My version involves leaving behind all the “true believers” and the rest can go create a better civilization in space 😀
Just liked “Life”, there is no commonly agreed definition of “species”.
Man and Chimp are different species.
I stick to the ability to produce viable off-spring that are fertile as the demarcation criterion for species.
$ 1.5 million.
Ma’am,
did you ever watch “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (2002) ? Now they have second version out too.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3760922/
Colonel, my sources of income is printing and real estate, and no I am not poor, my reason for complaining about the system is not my Iranian background or if I may be too rich or too poor. The reason for my complain is that I think in this modern age and the Internet on the go generation, the system is insufficient, inefficient and corrupt, and is making a lot of people, young people disenfranchised. IMO a messy and inefficient goverment because we like it thus way is not going to fit the Internet era multi tasking efficiency required to survive generation.
kooshy
I cannot decide if you are a troll or the ghost of Donald Trump’s grandfather, the immigrant businessman. In either case I don’t want to waste any more time on you. pl
Oh yes, I know all about that; the collection of active attributes that formerly used to conceived of under the word “God” are now referred to as “Evolution”. “The Evolutionary Process” etc.
Naming the same thing differently is not indicative of the furtherance of human understanding and knowledge.
The point I was trying to make, however feebly, still seems to stand – that a Constructivist Science of Biology does not exist and without it any rational and systematic possibility of designing a better human.
In the article:
C.A. Hutchison III et al., “Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome,” Science, 351: 1414, 2016.
the authors admit that this minimum microbe – containing 525 genes – that they created from existing building blocks contains 149 genes without which the organism is not viable.
And they are clueless as to what those 149 genes do; almost a quarter of genome!
One is clearly contemplating a design which one does not understand; an artifact of the “Blind Evolutionary Processes” – a.k.a. God – that clearly must serve a purpose in a very precise manner; else the organism is not viable.
The self-indulgent idiot Zimmerman should have been suspended – for sabotage.
Evolution doesn’t preclude concept of God or Prime mover as you like to cloak it 😉 . It simply refutes the occasionalism of irreducible complexity that creationists tried and failed to win with. It is very predictable of you to beat that same dead horse by misrepresenting what Craig Venter’s team is trying to do. They have been stripping as many genes as possible off e.colli to see how far they can go and still have a viable e.colli. They still don’t know what 149 genes do because it is an ongoing project and it does not even remotely means that there is no way to find out what these genes do. It is simply an admission that no one has had a chance to investigate these genes before. Genetic research has only very recently entered this era of very vibrant gene expression research because only very recently dna sequencing has become very cheap.
Additionally, this e.colli experiment was not meant to convey that 517 is the minimal number of genes required to have a viable organism. Even in nature there is a viable organism with just 121 coding genes.
I am afraid i’ll end up writing a long post trying to unpack the rest of it and it will be for naught too given your inclinations. Instead i’d rather do some creative Babaki thought experiment.(By the way what are your thoughts about Babak Khurumzad?)
Lets take the fantasy of kicking out the unworthy doubters off of this rock and lets imagine that only the true believers inherit the earth. Triumph of occasionalism and utter defeat of casualty. Just like this or that religious book/saint/sufi/prophet predicted. Purged of the evil of rational thought the children of ghazali get to work creating their firdos-e-barein. Perhaps earth itself would renamed to something more appropriate faithland? believeland?
First order of the business will be to purge the evil remnants of all and every rationality. Perhaps, a start with schools so the younger minds wouldn’t even know the evil of scientific investigation. Quran comes to the rescue when describing the shape of the earth to yunguns. The earth created by almighty, spread like a carpet with mountains erected on it like columns. Flat earth it should be then. And the quakes are of course due to the movement of restless bull on his horns this carpet rests.
What about the age of earth , one wonders? hmm perhaps the young earth Christian brethren will pitch in and remove that bit of doubt from human understanding. After all removing any and all doubt is the foremost pious pursuit lest some of lesser faith question the deity.
What about the need for modern medicine so the pious ones can have healthy lives, multiply like rabbits and fill the whole faithland with chants and hymns? Isn’t it the merciful and kindest creator who gives shifa? No one needs no stinkin modern medicine when Prophet(PBUH) clearly told every ailment could be fixed by honey, burning or by drawing blood. All these hospitals and clinics could be refashioned as places of worship.
Perhaps all the children of Abraham, in order to prove their moral and spiritual superiority to those doubtful souls in distant space, will set aside their utter hate for each other and create elaborate ceremonial contests in which few chosen ones from each side will kill each other like Roman gladiatorial combat. That would certainly be an improvement over current genocidal tendencies.
As the infrastructure decays and all human knowledge is lost and food becomes scarce, there would be need for more piety and sacrifice. Perhaps Abraham’s example will be revived and first borns will again be offered to almighty. Over hundreds of thousands of years, who knows faithfuls will have evolved into a species whose first borns resemble sheep instead of human. As these first borns will be taken to alter, there will be chants of halal halal, there will be hymns to praise the lord and pertinent readings from talmud for this qorbanot.
However, before all traces of evil scientific words and ideas are completely erased that could raise doubts and questions in the minds of pious ones, a priestly class will be instituted. These priests will be the ones who had drunk from the waters of science and yet kept the fires of blind faith alive in their hearts. The very best ones. Who in the darkest of times created language to defend faith when rationality and science ruled the roost. These priests equipped with ideas like prime mover and irreducible complexity will have what it takes to corral in any wayward sheep that could not be subdued by appealing to emotions. The most respected among them, a certain Babak will be a role model for generations of this priestly class.
But then over time all will be perfected. The memories of doubts gone. Safety of certainty and intimacy with the One who matters will be everywhere.
Some believer crossing a then completely deserted Algeria will come across a then forgotten device. On pressing a button by mistake music will start flowing through it. Some very alien lyrics yet studded with familiar religious phrases. Satirical nature of this musical work completely lost on the pious and perfect generation of faithland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj9L5XZ4GYk
The evil influence of such people extends much further. Here’s an article by Scottish ex-ambassador Craig Murray who fell out with his government over torture in Uzbekistan. He shows the Israeli ambassador to Britain with the head of the UK Diplomatic Service.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/two-smooth-faces-of-evil/
‘Israel’s new Ambassador to London and of course was the Israeli government spokesman who justified the massacre of more than 600 women and children in Gaza, and the murder of peace activists aboard the Mavi Marmara….
Simon McDonald was the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s Private Secretary at the time of the implementation of the British government’s extraordinary rendition and intelligence from torture programmes. When I became the only member of the UK’s senior civil service to make formal objection to these programmes, it was Simon McDonald who managed Jack Straw’s response in continuing to use torture.’
LOL, alas, alas, alas, it is a total waste of time to argue with “true believers”, they KNOW that God exists because they feel it.
I had an argument with The Saker about two years ago which I soon cut short in despair.
The “feeling” can be elicited at will with a simple trick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzz96zKA0
“Naming the same thing differently is not indicative of the furtherance of human understanding and knowledge.”
I was fascinated by your response above Babak, admittedly.
But even more, maybe, that evocatively before you mentioned it biology and a book surfaced on my mind, a friend once suggested I should read. It was written by someone not quite accepted inside academic biology circles. In a nutshell it concentrated on the multiple ways animals have to adopt to a changing environment in one animal generation and centrally maybe the abilities to heal themselves.
“One only needs to look at Congo to observe the process of degeneration and decay at work over the last 50 years.”
I haven’t paid enough attention to the multiple directions in which your ‘modest proposal’ triggered responses. Put alternatively, this specific thread made me realize why some people may want to help to make the exchanges slightly more easy to read after, by adding time and author of comment they respond to versus–as I do here–a quote. 😉
The Congo was always beyond hope since it had no cultural evolutionary history to offer? Or simply since it was outside your two central cultural spheres anyway?
Farooq,
did I ever watch “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”?
No, I did not. Would it have taught me something essential about nature and biology? Mine? Or simply that I should research my own family history, maybe especially under the Nazis? Considering my comments here on this tread and topics to the extend I recall them.
Would you please give me a hint as babbling SST member (maybe I should add distracter?) not logged into typepad and thus not able to guess at the context of your comment here?
Who is Babak Khurumzad, by the way?
The issue that I was trying to highlight somewhat obliquely and without going to a lot of detail was the absolute and incontrovertible absence of any plausible physic-chemical mechanisms that could, even in principle, account for the emergence of Life, the structures of cells, and lastly speciation.
What the dominant biologists are selling – both to their students s well as to the hoi polloi – are just words: “Evolutionary Process”, “Punctuated Equilibrium” etc. – in my opinion.
One does not have to be a Deist or otherwise religious to see the logical holes in this construction that goes by the name of evolutionary biology and the sciences of life.
One can look at the structure called Cilia and ask oneself how such an intricate structure could emerge from blind processes of chemical physics?
It is mathematically impossible.
Or per your point, how does one account for the relative stability of many species – say sea turtles or the ants over so many aeons – where their environment was changing.
The evolution of man, itself, required multiple, simultaneous, and beneficial mutations across multiple & variegated collections of genes; almost like a Phase Transition in Physic where a substance qualitatively changes its behavior.
Current biology cannot explain any of this and that is fine.
What I was stating was that instead of admitting their ignorance, they concoct fantasies and feed it to the public as well as their own students. I suppose they are afraid that if they admit ignorance they would be opening a space for God – which is a No-No for many of them, if not all of them.
What I had enumerated for you are simple issues. There are deeper problems with the entire biological weltanschauung: it cannot, even in principle, account for the origin of “Emotions” in human and non-human animal species.
For example, “Love”, “Justice”, “Lust” and “Loyalty” are experienced by many animals, including man.
How does one account for them if the world is solely made of electrons, protons, etc.? Do you get emotions by putting so many atoms together?
Or does it require so many neurons?
And just what is it in that collection of neurons that causes a dog to be able to experience “Loyalty”? Where is “Loyalty” located?
Or that chimp that after careful observations decides to destroy your favorite object – where did its viciousness to hurt you come from?
I wish these scientist were more modest in their claims to have a full rational explanation of the world….
I respect Tony Greenstein, there were times when I had to correct him, though. Do you have knowledge that my corrective advice was wrong? He seemed to accept it at the time.
Not a bad review by the way. If we leave out its “ideological perspective”* for a while. If you do not want to follow my link, maybe you read it carefully again?
* There is a–from my point of view–comparatively loaded ideological debate concerning the fact that the Allies didn’t bomb the tracks to the camps earlier. I may no doubt be misguided in associating these two areas of debate.
*****
More generally: I never expect a book to tell me all I need to know. And yes, I do know all the literature he cites.
In Congo, the structrures that Begian had left, decayed over many decades and died.
It is reverting back to what European colonialists used to refer to as “The Bush”.
The process of decay of institutions bequeathed by European colonialists to the Arabs is evident in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia.
In Somalia, that process is now complete – like the Congo.
We would be witnessing them next in Central Asia….
Not really. Should I go back and try to understand:
“Hillary Clinton’s pandering to the supposed “toughness” of the denizens of New York City was pathetic in its demonstration of her universal appeals to any group that might ever have thought itself wronged. Well, pilgrims, I suppose we expect that of her now.”
My I answer what the larger context triggered as association? Including male and female ones? 😉
Quite possibly you may be trying to confront the reader with a paradox, Clinton paying lip service to “wronged groups” while serving the establishment.
To not descend into my one of my own experiences with a–by the way–male seemingly self-appointed Hasbara, as you call it, that at one point advised one of my then favorite bloggers on the fact that American Jews were only well and driving due to Israel. In other words American antisemitism without Israel would return American Jews to earlier states of existence.
http://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-American-Antisemitism/dp/0742543137
“the origin of “Emotions” in human and non-human animal species.”
I don’t really recall how I ended up being interested in emotions. It may well have been triggered by one of Edward Albee’s plays. Seascape?
In any case, I realized at that point in time, I needed support outside my departments. Unfortunately the psychology prof that was quite interested to offer his help didn’t return from the semester break. Apparently he had a fatal accident in the Alps. The first of such peculiar experiences completely outside rational means to understand.
LeaNder
“”Hillary Clinton’s pandering to the supposed “toughness” of the denizens of New York City was pathetic in its demonstration of her universal appeals to any group that might ever have thought itself wronged. Well, pilgrims, I suppose we expect that of her now.” My I answer what the larger context triggered as association? Including male and female ones? ;)” “Including male and female ones?” What does that mean? In plain language try to explain your objection to what I wrote. pl
BraveNewWorld,
It is interesting to hear what he thinks. Thanks. However I would suggest he absorb the zen…and think again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI
We had a short exchange a while ago in which i mentioned that movie and you had commented that you will surely watch it. I had mentioned that the female lead character’s father’s musings about origin of everything in Greece strikingly resembled a lot of our very own Babak’s musings. That was the context of my question to you.
Babak Khurumzad is a historical figure who rebelled against Abbasid Caliphate. He met a gruesome end in the end. At least some Iranians treat him as hero who stood up against Arab imperialism. But reading about him through Crone’s excellent book, i came to see a more nuanced picture:
http://goo.gl/13z1Mi
If you can’t get the book, then do watch this lecture. She died last year.
https://goo.gl/j3kjkt
At least the Russians encourage serious note-taking. See https://twitter.com/lrozen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
They won’t help the Palestinians, but at least they don’t lecture them about Israel.
I think you are right, TTG, but I also think that the perception that primary system is responsive to the will of the electorate is so strong that defying the voters is going to create some real problems for the parties. I also notice that Trump has been saying almost from day one of his campaign that the “game is rigged”; if he is denying the nomination for opaque procedural reasons it is not going to go over well with his supporters.
Here’s a powerful article by James Petras about the excessive influence of the creators of the Borg.
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2076
‘Don’t the deaths and maiming of millions of Iraqis, Palestinians, Syrians and, Libyans and the tens of millions of desperate refugees, resulting from their foreign policies, warrant a pause in their continued hold on power and prestige, if not outright condemnation for crimes against humanity?’
Here’s another of their outrageous and disgusting lies which they are still imposing on the world, although people are starting to see through it now.
http://birthofanewearth.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-holocaust-was-faked.html