In selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain suggests that women are commodities for political exchange.
John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running “mate” was both profound and perverse. By selecting a woman who is both unknown and unqualified to serve in national office, John McCain is not asking us to view his choice in terms of her own personal merits or any pre-existing attitudes we may have towards her known accomplishments. McCain’s “message” is that knowledge, experience, even temperament are not necessary qualifications for Presidential office.…
Article comments
76 - Jordan Richardson
So the question really is, what is an "innocent person" to most of these Muslim groups?
These "Muslim groups" have telephone numbers and email addresses. Why don't you ask them, Franco?
what's with Jordan Richardson taking on the official spokemanship for Muslims
what the hell is he doing speaking FOR them
I've studied Islam for a number of years, I have many Muslim friends, and my best friend is a professor of World Religions. It tends to be a subject I am in touch with quite often, so when I see such bold and unapologetic ignorance, I tend to speak up.
As for speaking FOR them, I haven't done that. I'm merely answering the ludicrous charges laid by an obviously ignorant individual. I refuse to join America's culture of hate as predicated by mindless and gutless individuals like David Black and those like him.
What is with these liberals Baritone and Jordan Richardson?
I'm getting really tired of being branded. I believe in fairness, justice, and compassion for. If that makes me a liberal under your bizarre but seemingly necessary world of labels, so be it. Under those rules you (Franco) have, I guess it's a terrible thing to be a conservative and I'm glad I'm not one. Whatever you say, cowboy.
"Liberals and liberalism beg to be ridiculed".
Everything deserves to be ridiculed.
77 - Cannonshop
Bliffle, I'm ONLY speculating, because the guy's too nuts, in my opinion, to be real. Ideas of Eugenics of the sort he's basing his arguments on were proven not to work more than fifty years ago. Social Darwinism doesn't mesh with a functioning society, it's like Lassaiz'-faire capitalism-a utopian idea that has a very, very, limited lifespan in the light of reality for anyone with two eyes and a half a brain or more.
78 - Lisa Solod Warren
See this, for those uninterested in facts:)
79 - Baritone
Clav,
No, you didn't say "feminists support muslim mistreatment of women..," but that was the logical inference.
I don't believe I announced that I was an "official" anything. You all appear to have taken on that mantle yourselves. Do you presume that voicing your opinions is okeedookee, but voicing opposing views is not?
I wish some women would in fact speak up, but this is largely a man's club. That none of the few women who post here have chosen to take on this matter is unfortunate.
BTW - If all you guys are so outraged, why the fuck don't YOU speak up? Oh, that's right - it's a "girly" thing. Real men don't stand up and fight a woman's fight.
B
80 - Cannonshop
Good challenge, Baritone. Where do I sign up?
81 - cuervodeluna
Since everybody jumped on the I'm older than you bandwagon, please be advised that I will be 64 (if I make it) at the end of November.
I do not believe that the word "liberal" or its asinine abbreviation "lib" has any meaning whatsoever.
I have travelled a fair chunk of this planet, and the most racist folks I have seen or met are gringos.
Now, how about those commies in the White House?
82 - Baritone
Cannon,
Isn't it obvious? Just walk in to your nearest "Feminazi" chapter and volunteer.
B
83 - Clavos
No, you didn't say "feminists support muslim mistreatment of women..," but that was the logical inference.
No it isn't. Lack of protest doesn't imply active support.
I don't believe I announced that I was an "official" anything.
And I didn't say (or imply) you did. Kindly don't mix me up with other commenters.
BTW - If all you guys are so outraged, why the fuck don't YOU speak up?
I didn't express outrage, merely observed that there appeared to be a lack of outrage on the part of american feminists, who presumably DO care.
You're getting a bit testy lately, B-tone.
84 - Baritone
Clav,
I took what you wrote to infer as I described. Apparently the inference is up for grabs.
I do apologize in that I meant to redirect my other comments toward others commenting on this thread, but in my haste, forgot.
Yeah, I suppose I am a bit testy. After allowing myself to be dragged into Black's particular hell pit, I guess I'm just trying to shake off the slime.:-/
B
85 - Clavos
It's OK, B-tone. Obviously, I can't control what you infer from what I wrote, but I assure you I was not implying that American feminists support muslim mistreatment.
I'll still respect you in the morning. :>)
86 - David Black
Dear Libs:
I prefer my own "hell pit" to yours made of phony altruism that's only offered to make yourselves "feel" good and look good in front of your lib pals. Libs are biggest phonies alive.
As long as you "feel" good about yourselves, that's all that matters, right? Your self-esteem is paramount, right, you mopey and spoiled children of Dr. Spock?
You sit on your thumbs and verbally denounce REAL injustices from the comfort of your own unthreatened lives. You only attack targets that don't bite back. You talk talk talk and are afraid to take any action that doesn't harbor that bilious shade of gray you so desperately adore. Meanwhile Islamo-fascists kill more people while you hand wring and prevaricate over the "nature of evil" and why those po' Muslim extremists hate us so!
87 - David Black
"Stop spreading hate!"
So Jordan Richardson, tell me how verbally denouncing terrorism is going to stop the medieval savages perpetrating it?
88 - David Black
"See this, for those uninterested in facts:)"
What's the difference, Lisa, you Martin Luther Kennedy groupies still love a guy who has a pastor who hates white people and is friends with a confessed domestic terrorist.
But that hate is justified, right, Lisa, because libs love to wallow in guilt for things they had nothing to do with.
89 - Jordan Richardson
So Jordan Richardson, tell me how verbally denouncing terrorism is going to stop the medieval savages perpetrating it?
Maybe a Religious Cleansing is in order, then? Seriously. What are your solutions, "sir?"
And I think the net you cast in terms of "medieval savages" ought to spread to those whose ideologies match the Dark Ages as accurately as, if not more accurately than, the "Muslims" you so deftly characterize.
While you're here posturing and criticizing with the angered vehemence of an impotent old toad, how do you purport to lead individuals to action? Your entire #86, breathlessly dedicated to "libs" as though you haven't yet stopped your internal ideological War of Terms and grown the hell up like the rest of us, is as hollow as humanly possible.
You sit on your thumbs and verbally denounce REAL injustices from the comfort of your own unthreatened lives.
And what do you do?
You only attack targets that don't bite back.
And what do you do?
You talk talk talk and are afraid to take any action that doesn't harbor that bilious shade of gray you so desperately adore.
And what do you do?
Seriously, Mr. Black. What do you do? Perhaps when you tell us what it is you do, we can have you locked up from the sensible people and get on with the business of actually working together to repair the damage done by those who exist in intellectual wastelands of hate such as yourself.
90 - Dave Nalle
The idea that several individual groups have, countless mullahs and leading Islamic scholars, and the fact that Islamic governments (the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers comes to mind, with the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on International Terrorism) denounced the 9/11 attacks and subsequent terror attacks ought to remind us that the Islamic world cannot and should not be simply and ignorantly equated with terrorism.
You're wrong, Jordan. And I say this as someone who grew up among muslims and is generally as pro-muslim as one can reasonably be. The truth is that no matter how much you want to pretend that everyone shares the same values deep down inside, Islam and especially Arab culture are fundamentally different. The Koran, their laws, their culture and their traditions are accepting of the ideas of slavery, mistreatment of women and holy war. If you actually sit down and have a chat with one of those laudable moderate muslim scholars, ask him flat out whether honor killings, slavery and jihad are acceptable under muslim law. Don't let him weasel out by saying that he doesn't believe in those things or that many moderate muslims don't practice such barbarities, ask him if the law, which has as great a standing in Islam as in any society on earth, countenances them. You won't like the answer.
Baritone, a Liberal Prof at the local community college once told me that "Silence implies consent" (this was in relation to a discussion about the anti-war movement, which at the time was opposing the action in Afghanistan). American Feminists aren't ignorant (or at least, they claim not to be), yet they are silent. Applying said prof's standard, then, what am I to infer? What's Clavos to infer? If it's not active support, then it's apathy, isn't it?
All that it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to stand by and do nothing.
So the real question might be whether that Apathy is driven by bigotry-in-disguise. After all, apparently it's okay for Muhammed Jihadi to get his little girl's genitals mutilated ("Female Circumcision", and it's fucking horrible), or kill her if she's raped (Honor Killings), but it's not okay to make the doctors tell little susie christian's parents that she's getting an abortion, right?
I find it mindboggling that the freedom-loving west, of which the US is in many ways the most liberated nation, cannot just apply the same standard across the board. We should be just as outraged about the intolerance of Christian fundamentalists as we are about the intolerance of Islamic mullahs. We should be just as angry at those who force women to live in seclusion as we are at those who underpay women for the same jobs men do. We should be just as unaccpting of those who bomb abortion clinics as we are of those who bomb busses in Israel.
There's no justification for the kind of double standard which is practiced by both the left and the right in America.
Dave
91 - Jordan Richardson
Dave, you're wrong, actually. I have chatted and learned from Muslim scholars and teachers, read the Qur'an (and do frequently), and have studied both "liberal" and "conservative" Islamic scholarship.
The Koran, their laws, their culture and their traditions are accepting of the ideas of slavery, mistreatment of women and holy war.
Slavery was cultural at the time. The Bible is "accepting of slavery" in the same respect, yet Qur'anic and Biblical teachings bring up principles for slaves and advocate fair treatment, where as the cultural backdrop of the times did not.
Also, the Qur'an advocated the ability for a Muslim woman to get a divorce and to properly claim her inheritance, among other rights. The Arabic culture in the time before the Qur'an simply didn't advocate these rights for women.
In terms of holy war, I can say that there are a few verses in the Qur'an that advocate defending Islamic property and standing up for those who oppress Muslims and Islamic belief. In a time of great oppression, slavery, and the like, the type of literature contained in the Qur'an was not uncommon amongst the oppressed people.
Modern Islamic scholars typically recognize the context of the teachings of the Qur'an, whereas you fail to do so. You may have "grown up around Muslims," (seems this is Personal Anecdote Day around here) but your scholarship could use a little work as usual.
92 - bliffle
This whole anti-muslim thread is a smokescreen by Dave and his weeping buddies to try to cover the fact that their Great Titanic Ship Unfettered Capitalism has gone on the rocks and all aboard are feared loss.
Abandon Ship!
93 - cuervodeluna
bliffle is right.
Besides, I am the only person posting here who has spent a fair amount of time in the Middle East recently and I believe that most of the terrorists are the gringos and israelis.
They are, after all, terrorists with nuclear weapons--and the US has used them.
94 - Franco
#71 -- Christopher Rose
"Franco, your attempts to play an honest broker whilst actually being incredibly ideologically loaded are entirely unpersuasive."
Christopher, your attempts to play an honest broker (void of ideology) is not only a pretense of virtue, it is in and of itself an incredibly selfish ideology. Just because I have found the opposite of yours, and live it, and you try and deny yours exists, and live it, does not constitute mine as unpersuasive. In fact, it's the other way around.
"Ganging up with someone as aggressive and hateful (by their own admission, not my interpretation) as David Black pretty much removes any semblance of credibility from your words."
"Ganging upup with someone as aggressive and hateful!" How is that statement void of a precept in loaded ideology?. And let's get the facts straight here. I never ganged up at all with Dave Black, nor have I agreed with what Dave Black said about anything other then his one statement about liberals and I used it in that singular conctes alone.
You know full well in what context I sighted it, and apparently it struck a nerve to the point that you felt the need to try and (1) ad hominem attack me with the fallacy of quilt by association, and (2) it wasn't even addressed to you. Talk about over plying a bad hand of ideology denial. How is it that your lame attempt at defending the two others whose ideologies are involved dose not speaks volumes of your own.
"You appear to be one of these people who is bogged down in some odd little "we are right, you are wrong" argument rather than actually looking for inclusive solutions to real problems."
Well Christopher, if that was true then you would have to explain my following post to Baronius #88 -- September 22, 2008 @ 04:17AM -- Franco in The Politics of "Why"
Which you might want to check out seeing as I make referance to you in that post. And as long as we are on the subject of your trying to pigeonhole me into "some odd little "we are right, you are worng" critique , why don't you also explain your posts to Baronius in that same thread when you pull this exact stunt.
Case in point
#68 -- September 20, 2008 @ 19:17PM -- Baronius
Christopher - I'm not here to prove that I'm right. See above article.
#70 -- September 20, 2008 @ 20:22PM -- Christopher Rose
B, what's the point of being wrong though?
Seems like hypocrisy runs deep in your posts from thread to thread Mr Rose.
If you aren't a hypocrite, and thus serious in what you say about "actually looking for inclusive solutions to real problems", then prove it by engaging me and coming to the table without (1) your denial of your own landed ideology, and (2) void out your hypocritical ad hominem attacks like the one you have so clearly illustrated here, and substitute them and with itellectually honest dissucion/debate. Otherwise, kiss off.
Personally I don't think you can do it, but I still hope for you to prove otherwise.
Have a nice day.
95 - Christopher Rose
Franco, it isn't actually very easy to respond to your remarks as they don't really make that much sense, but I'll do my best.
Ignoring your incomprehensible first paragraph, let's see what can be made of the rest.
By your own admission, you did sing along with the words of Mr Black in the thread we were discussing, so my observation that you did just that is entirely accurate. Furthermore, observing that he is pretty hateful is simply that, an observation, there's no ideology to it.
See, we're already half way through your comment and so far you've either made no sense or been factually wrong. It's not going well is it?
Moving along, for it's way past my bedtime, there was therefore no ad hominem attack at all. I've no idea why you try to assert there was but maybe you're one of those people that loves to criticise but can't stand being criticised...
I love your charming phrase "quilt by association" though - does it mean you think I stitched you up?
I don't really have anything to say to the rest of your remark as it is pretty much devoid of any content as far as I can see.
I think that you, rather like your new hero Bastiat, are so blinded by the largely illusory perfection of your own thinking as to fail to see its inherent weaknesses.
Personally, I don't necessarily have a coherent solution to our contemporary issues but I can recognise when people are speaking from an ideological rather than pragmatic perspective. You are clearly one of those people and, to my way of thinking, the limitations of such an approach are plain to see, as you so eloquently - albeit carelessly - display.
Rather than railing against the hypocrisy or lack of intellectual honesty you see in my words, why don't you turn your beady analytical eye upon your own many issues in that regard?
Finally, please refrain from continually bolding the links you are posting, it isn't necessary to make your points so heavy handedly.
96 - Franco
#76 " Jordan Richardson
((So the question really is, what is an "innocent person" to most of these Muslim groups?))
These "Muslim groups" have telephone numbers and email addresses. Why don't you ask them, Franco?
Well first I would say your own words right back to you from your origanl post. “There is no "top banana" for Muslims; no one group is going to deliver a statement against the fatwahs and the terror attacks because there is no one group."
Second, Muslim leaders in the Middle East have clearly made the distinction who the “innocent people” are in the world. Only Muslims, and there isn't a Muslim in the world whe dose not believe that!
"I've studied Islam for a number of years, I have many Muslim friends, and my best friend is a professor of World Religions. It tends to be a subject I am in touch with quite often, so when I see such bold and unapologetic ignorance, I tend to speak up."
Jordan I too have studied Islam for many years in world religion courses and study groups as well. But to the point, I can understand your desire to speak up to David Black, but I am not David Black, and I have raised a completely separate and valid point of concern that you are dismissing by stating I can make a telephone call to Muslims when you yourself state that "there are no "top banana" for Muslims."
Allow me to give you the latest example of what I am saying.
The latest suicide truck bombing that destroyed the packed Marriott Hotel in the city of Islamabad, Pakistan, last Saturday night was addressed by a statement from the Muslims President of Pakistan Mr. Asif Ali Zardari
"In the holy month of Ramadan, no Muslim can act in this way. These people are not Muslims," he said.
What does that mean when he says that no Muslims can act in this way (the suicide terrorist attract on the Marriott Hotel) in the holy month of Ramadan if they are true Muslims. Dose he mean that every other month other then the month of Ramadan that they can and still be true Muslims? His words clearly are not excluding all other months. Why is he even making the distinctions? It is not a clear and irrefutable refutation.
I see these kinds of statements coming out of Muslim leaders all over the world concerning when attacks are or are not justified, and also with regards to their (Muslim) perception as to who “innocent people” are. And they are not clear statements of full and uncomprmising refutiations.
And yet in doing so, they still remain faithful to there faith on both distictions and are not lying to us in their eyes.
My concern is not not out of hate, it is instead a logical observation of these distinctions that most all Muslims leaders clearly subscribe to and I find it disturbing.
Add to this the fact that the debates that rage on at the UN with Muslim leaders via (the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers comes to mind, with the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on International Terrorism) that you sight, in preventing the UN from establishing a definition of terrorism in any conection refering to any act of violence by any Muslim as an act of terrorism, and it adds more weight to my concerns.
You don’t have to accept my concerns Jordan, but clearly you have not refuted them either.
The fact that I see this distinction that I raise as a concern and you do not, does not constitute that I am full of hate. If it constitutes anything it is your denial of this distinction.
You and I don’t have to talk about it together anymore it you don’t want to. But that doesn’t mean that it goes away.
"I'm getting really tired of being branded."
I have read many of your posts here on BC about your logic on capitalism, free markets, and how you generalize all of them into an oracle of hate and disgust with one swell swoop. I read your pointed at liberal socalist alternatives and in almost every thing you write you scream for slavery under unjust law.
"Everything deserves to be ridiculed."
Yes they do, but liberals as a group seem to beg for it more then any other.
97 - David Black
"Besides, I am the only person posting here who has spent a fair amount of time in the Middle East recently and I believe that most of the terrorists are the gringos and israelis."
Well, cuervo, I lived in Israel during the Israeli-Egyptian War and I personally witnessed Islamo-fascist miscreants slaughter innocent Israelis for one reason and one reason only.
They were Jews.
If I could have helped to kill more islamo-fascists I would have.
You see, libs, that's the kind of action this one motivated Jew took in his life. I didn't sit on my ass all my life pecking away at a computer and listening to PhD pinheads and agreeing with their pro-Pally anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric.
98 - David Black
"Furthermore, observing that he is pretty hateful is simply that, an observation, there's no ideology to it."
So by your logic, Christopher Rose, I should instead love the very people who have pledged to kill MY people.
is that what you are suggesting?
If so, you've got be joking.
I'm sure you libs would be more incensed if they were only targeting homosexuals.
I know you people could give a damn about Israel and her ability to survive. That's why you love Pallys so much.
99 - David Black
Dear Christopher Rose:
The "
religion of peace" at work.
You people really make me ill how you can ignore the obvious!
"Religion of peace" my ass! Let's start being honest and not so politically correct, libs.
You have no problem ripping to shreds your own countrymen.
Why not instead rip to shreds the very people who are KILLING them?
Can you spell C-O-W-A-R-D-S ??
100 - david Black
Let's ask Christpher Rose if he's ready to embrace the new future city of Londonstan?
Let's ask him if he's ready to listen to the blaring of 24/7 prayers over PA systems from mosques in his neighborhood?
101 - Cindy D
# 69 Cannonshop: Baritone, a Liberal Prof at the local community college once told me that "Silence implies consent" (this was in relation to a discussion about the anti-war movement, which at the time was opposing the action in Afghanistan). American Feminists aren't ignorant (or at least, they claim not to be), yet they are silent. Applying said prof's standard, then, what am I to infer? What's Clavos to infer? If it's not active support, then it's apathy, isn't it?
So the real question might be whether that Apathy is driven by bigotry-in-disguise.
I'm not sure, do you feel you're a bigot because you've failed to act on behalf of women who have been abused in Muslim countries?
Why not look into your soul. Let us know whether you are merely apathetic or an active bigot for your inaction.
102 - Cindy D
RE #99
People's varying belief in their own delusions (otherwise called faith in some God) has been responsible for some of the the most evil and inhuman treatment of other people I have ever witnessed.
It's not a pretty site to see so many people (of so many faiths) twisted by hate in the name of something they imagine should inspire worship.
103 - jamminsue
#101 - Cindy D:
You said: American Feminists aren't ignorant (or at least, they claim not to be), yet they are silent. Applying said prof's standard, then, what am I to infer? What's Clavos to infer? If it's not active support, then it's apathy, isn't it?
I believe I qualify as an American Feminist and I sure am talking! I see and hear Feminists being upset by the current situation often.
Um, are you under Maxwell Smart's "Cone of Silence" or something?
104 - Baritone
Jamm,
Cindy was quoting Cannonshop from #69. That is not her view. Read the remainder of her comment in that light.
B
105 - Christopher Rose
David, all Muslims are terrorists, all Jews are profiteering, all White people are racists, all Latinos are lazy. Is this your lovely little one dimensional world?
You don't actually know anything except the inside of your own head and the hate and anger you are keeping there. I really hope you don't own any weapons...
106 - Christopher Rose
As for honesty, that requires accepting all the information, not just cherry picking those parts that suit your already chosen perspective.
You wouldn't know honesty if you fell over it, David. Like all dogmatics, you just want to prove you're right, which is a type of behaviour I can't and won't accept.
I don't believe that the future of London is Londonistan. I believe that as humanity grows up and evolves, the fairy stories, myths and legends that we know as religion will become less important.
That's what has happened in the West and we can already see it happening in the Muslim world too.
Intelligence, education and the gradual reduction of global poverty are more powerful forces than these faithist delusions, whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic in origin.
As for you, maybe you should consider some kind of counselling to help you come to terms with that unreasoning rage before you do something I can only hope you would live to regret...
107 - Cannonshop
#101
Cindy, I don't (unlike American Feminist Groups) claim to speak for Anybody. In spite of giving blood at the red cross, and contributing to DVA and USO, I'm not exactly a "Humanitarian Activist".
However, when someone claims to be Humanitarian Activists, I tend to expect them to...well...BE humanitarian activists-especially if they have a lot of political power and can use that power to control the elected representatives whose paycheque my taxes provide.
When a group SAYS it is for Women's Rights, I tend to expect said group to be for the rights of ALL women, not just the ones that can vote for their picked candidate and send donations.
IOW, I oppose the action, by supporting the troops that are putting down two regimes where that shit was not only legal, but endorsed. I oppose it by sending money to Israeli causes because it's not Israel that wants to impose Shari'a law, I oppose "islamic" apologists here at home because they front for people that think that shit (Honor killings, etc.) is okay.
(I also differentiate "Islam", which as practiced by the folks in Bosnia isn't crazy or evil, with "Wahhabism", which is the brand that most often supports suicide bombing, homicide bombing, random shooting of civilians, "honor" killings and other abuses of women, etc. etc. Wahhabism Delenda Est.)
Before you go on a tear about me linking the war with women's rights, ask yourself (or google) how many women had the right to vote in Afghanistan before American soldiers entered that country?
They can vote now. A vote is a powerful thing if the election's clean.
And while you're at it, the Surge... cleaned out Fallujah and Sadr City. Ugly, right? If it hadn't, how many gals in Sadr City would be able to hold jobs or cast a vote? (answer is none.) Before vile practices can be eliminated, the victims must be empowered, and in most cultures, this means either the use of force themselves, or access to the most powerful user of force (that'd be the Law, or Government). The first step is ALWAYS the vote. Here in the West, we have domestic Violence laws, shelters, courts, and agencies to protect ALL women from the kinds of abuses I discussed earlier...
IF she knows she can press charges. IF she is confident in having somewhere to run, and someone who will protect her. These're BIG "if" issues for immigrant women living in arabic speaking enclaves, and as for enforcement, every so often scanning the paper, there's some gal who had a court-order gets killed because her ex knew where to find her, and that she wouldn't be protected. HOw do you suppose THAT plays with a gal from, say, Egypt or Pakistan, who only knows a handfull of people and has been culturally conditioned not to talk to strange men? (even men in police uniforms). I know for damned and sure she wouldn't talk to Me, I'm a man, but she MIGHT talk to a gal who speaks her language, she might trust that gal to grant/take her to a safe haven...if such exists.
there's not a hell of a lot I can do.
108 - Ruvy
Hmmm....
The minute you guys throw the Middle East into the equation, the arguments start to get awful interesting. Marthe (cuervodeluna), please. You consult here when you get the opportunity. I live here. Every time some Arab gets pissed off because some (Arab) piece of ass won't spread her legs for him, he feels he has to go and kill - Jews. That's what happened last night in the Old City. Yet another prick from Jebel Mukabr started trying to kill Jews for no damned reason (except that we are Jews) using the BMW his daddy gave him as a gift!
So much for terrorism caused by desperation.
No, dear lady, we are not the terrorists here. You have your lines crossed severely - you have your sympathies drawn all wrong. The Arabs are not some aborigine people being deprived of their land. They didn't show up 30,000 years ago to be stricken with the white man's genocide. WE'RE ALL WHITE FOLKS HERE, NO MATTER HOW "DARK" OUR SKIN IS! My genes run back to this nation for the last 100 generations or more, since we conquered it from the Canannites.
No.
We've suffered genocide based on what we believed and the fact that we dared to feel that we were entitled to an independent nation (the Roman/Christian genocide of 2,000 years ago. And we've come home. Our Moslem neighbors know that their own Qur'an gives us eternal possession of this land.
The Arabs are Walids-come-lately, nd they all know it. They are the fathers of the desert, and their land use practices ruined this land. But greed, hatred and arrogance consumes them.
And a lot of us are no better. Greed, arrogance and hatred of G-d consumes too many of our people as well.
So a terrible price is being paid for this. And the price will get higher.
Now let's look at the original allegation by Robert Blechman - that women are nothing but commodities in politics, and that Sarah Palin is an example of this.
The cold fact of the matter is that, for the most part, women are commodities all over the world. In Israel, a Russian mafia trades in them in Tel Aviv as though they were nothing but whores. The Arabs murder them off if they dare 'shame' the family. The Moslems and Africans mutilate their vulvae and clitorises so they cannot enjoy an orgasm to turn them into property more thoroughly. Hindus push widows into the funeral pyres of the husbands and routinely sexually harass them, calling it "eve teasing". Thais, Indonesians and Filipinos sell their daughters off as prostitutes. Chinese and Inidans routinely abort girl fetuses so as to have only sons.
The blessing in the morning prayers "I thank G-d for not creaing me a woman" is not sexist at all when you look at how women are treated in the world.
And it sucks.
109 - Lisa Solod Warren
But Cannonshop, please don't try and convince me or Cindy or anyone else that the US went into Iraq or Afghanistan to "liberate" its women and give them the right to vote and the right to press charges against their oppressors. Many many women around the world live in horrible conditions and I doubt the US is going to go in and stop female circumcision, for exmaple, by military force, or allow Saudi women to drive by using gun power.
And the truth to power is that American feminists are not a monolith in this country, either, no matter what men, epecially conservative men, try to tell the world. There are various factions within the "movement" and even feminists against abortion rights. There has even been quite a backlash against the use of the word "feminst" (see parallel to the use of the world "liberal"). America is a funny place. Monolithic thought, if it ever once existed, doesn't seem to any more, which is why extreme conservatives who insist on lumping people into one big heap come out looking like fools so much of the time.
110 - Cannonshop
Nah, I wouldn't try to convince either of you of that-it would be a lie-but the outcome of it I will point out, if only to stir the pot a bit-rights for women is one of those "Cultural Imperialism" things the American Left's louder elements seem so deeply opposed to.
111 - David Black
"Christopher Rose wrote: I don't believe that the future of London is Londonistan. I believe that as humanity grows up and evolves, the fairy stories, myths and legends that we know as religion will become less important.
Intelligence, education and the gradual reduction of global poverty are more powerful forces than these faithist delusions, whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic in origin."
Wow, when I read such touching examples of cloying lib idealism I feel all warm and runny inside.
"As for you, maybe you should consider some kind of counselling to help you come to terms with that unreasoning rage before you do something I can only hope you would live to regret..."
Perhaps you should get some counseling for your complete inability to see the world for what it is. It's called wearing rose colored glasses. Libs are very good at that.
112 - Christopher Rose
Mr Black, I suspect it is quite a long time since you felt warm inside at all. I really feel sorry for you.
I see the world for what it is quite clearly, thank you. It's not a perfect place by any means, but it is better than it used to be (and getting better over time, despite the many practical problems and damaged people like you) and for that progress we can all be thankful.
There is no real difference between your weak attempts to slam libs and those other discriminations that attack people on racial or cultural grounds. It's all based on anger and hate and it is all wrong, always.
113 - Lisa Solod Warren
Cannon, try using periods. It makes comments easier to read. I really have no idea what you just said. OTOH it might not make any sense with periods, either.
You might try rephrasing, if you wish a response. As opposed, say, to just spouting off:)
114 - Cannonshop
okay, from the top...
"But Cannonshop, please don't try and convince me or Cindy or anyone else that the US went into Iraq or Afghanistan to "liberate" its women and give them the right to vote and the right to press charges against their oppressors."
I wouldn't, because it isn't true-but what IS true, is that one of the side-effects of that military action (possibly one that was unintended) is exactly that-because (in part) it's what happens when Americans go "Nation Building". It's also part of that "Cultural Imperialism" that has so many ivory-tower talking heads so upset.
"Many many women around the world live in horrible conditions and I doubt the US is going to go in and stop female circumcision, for exmaple, by military force, or allow Saudi women to drive by using gun power."
In both cases, probably the only way those practices CAN be stopped, is with gunpowder and blood. Whether it's American, or Chinese, or someone as-yet-to-be-determined, the practices won't change just because we asked them nicely.
115 - Cindy D
Cannonshop:
So, you took what your liberal prof said then to mean:
"Silence of feminists or humanitarian activists implies consent, everyone else may stand by and do nothing without reproach."
You say, you are "not exactly a humanitarian activist." Why not then? Clearly you claim to see a need. You have described a terrible evil. Yet seem satisfied to abdicate any responsibility to do anything about it yourself.
Instead, your choice is to twist some ideas about what your tax money is going to support into some condemnation for humanitarians or feminists.
You are certain that no feminists or humanitarians speak out or take action against atrocities.
"Cindy, I don't (unlike American Feminist Groups) claim to speak for Anybody."
Why not?
But you see, I believe you do speak for someone. You speak for those who sit on the sidelines in judgment, believing they have the right to determine who "should" be responsible, as long as it is not them, making assessments about what THEY expect from other people and holding themselves as not accountable for human suffering.
Don't you actually believe what your liberal prof. said? Because if you are using it simply to construct a club with which to bash humanitarians and feminists then why go to the trouble of pretending that you seriously believe your perceived lack of action on their part could be construed as racism.
You may not a member of a feminist group or a humanitarian activist, but are you a member of the human race?