Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

I'm reluctant to respond because I think you covered the subject very well but my sense is that it less likely to be extremist Muslims than those adopting the "radical chic" position you've described. A couple of years ago I said that I thought many terrorist acts in Europe that targeted Jews were carried out by religious extremists. But the attacks have been at least carried out by people who had extreme views about violence in general and are rare. The over the top comments that seem oblivious to distinctions between Israel's government, Israeli's citizens, and Jews in general have mostly come from people who have been politically active and tend to support some fringe positions.
I think that while the basis for supporting revolutionary movements and opposing imperialists is strong in many cases, the formula sometimes suffers from a lack of rigor. Even when applied to other conflicts it often invokes bogeymen and unseen forces thwarting the national objectives of indigenous people. While this undoubtedly happens and may apply to Israel it is too easy to be vague about what those forces are, where they originate, and what the motives are of people who don't subscribe to this ideology. It's possible to be radical chic and not be antisemitic, but it's easy to not be aware that the themes about groups of people who represent moneyed interests and constitute a state within a state can echo some of the ways antisemitism has manifested.
I don't know what one can do given that unfortunately there are people on the right who will exploit any opportunity to say those on the left do not have the moral high ground. I think the best anyone can do is be very disciplined and objective about what they see, both when antisemitism is charged and it is a false charge, and when it exists but some find it politically inconvenient to admit.

I think we are dealing with parallel lines. On one line are people like most of us on this board who can think and analyse a situation and make a judgement based on facts as well as our opinions. On the other line there are people who have set views which no amount of persuasion of argument will change, and in many cases it may not matter, but I wonder what proportion of people on both lines are liable to be swayed by argument and change places when the time is ripe. People who voted Labour all their life voted for Mrs Thatcher in 1979 because they felt the country needed the kind of radical change she proposed -and they got what they voted for, even if in the long term they were not better off. Zionists who believed they were creating a secular, democratic and socialist Israel in 1948 now find the government dominated by intolerant, anti-Arab nationalists and religious extremists who barely existed in 1948 (and it doesn't mean the Orthodox Jews who perished in the Holocaust would have been 'natural' religious extremists had they survived to live in Israel or the Occupied Territories, these days some of the most extreme were born in the USA). At some point between 1948 and 1977 Israelis became disenchanted with the Labour Zionism of Ben-Gurion and his generation and turned toward the nationalism of Menachem Begin. We are still living with the consequences of that. But just as there are bigots in Israel, as Blackchubby pointed out in an earlier post, there are plenty of obnoxious people on the left who don't sound like they are going to change their views any time soon, we just have to live with extremists and hope they get tired and go away and do maybe mellow over the years.

But what has happened in Israel has happened elsewhere as people feel the 'system' they were born into no longer works to provide them with the financial security and opportunity they believe they or their parents had (even when this is not true), and believe the alternatives they are being offered will produce the goods. But it is a depressing thought that anyone in 2017 would question the reality of the Holocaust, it means that each generation must maintain the arguments it has to prevent them from decaying and becoming subject to criticism and abuse.

It is thus ironic that anyone who views history as a continuous stream of progress, would have to explain how something as phenomenal, and positive as the internet has become a global vehicle of hatred and lies. On the one hand it suggests that the gains that we have made since the 1960s are still being challenged, but it raises the question did 'we' ever manage to change 'their' minds on issues of race and gender to name just two issues relevant to HA? This apparent division in society, as evident in the UK as it is in the US, suggests that a core group of people will cling to their concept of the nation, their sense of belonging, and that at times of economic distress, blame others for their predicament without offering a sensible solution to the problem that does not refer the matter back to the State itself. Here, what we have seen since the end of the Cold War is that far from releasing formerly oppressed people into a new world of liberty, opposition to democracy and liberty has remained strong and actually grown in places where they were not supposed to, Russia and Turkey being two good examples, while the process that unravelled the Communist states has only briefly touched the state in the Middle East where democracy and liberty are still subject to the owners of the State.

The lowest point so far has not just been the blatant lies that were told in the UK during the EU Referendum campaign, but the ease with which elements in the US have revived a form of politics thought redundant, using a language that is crude and provocative, to take ownership of a space in the public discourse which most of us thought had been left behind, precisely because being crude and provocative does not tend to lead to sensible policy-making or, crucially, produce the end-result which is an improved standard of living for all, and a more hopeful vision of their future. What is supposed to be political change, threatens to become political destruction, or translates political change into a bonfire out of whose ashes a new phoenix will arise, which is great unless you are one of the people turned to ash in the process. A grim lexicon to use when one thinks of the time when people really were turned to ash so that others could build their brave new world. It would be easy to slip into despair but the challenge is to maintain the kind of politics 'we' want with the language it deserves and not become redundant and expand the spaces used by those who promise everything and deliver nothing.

[Stavros]

More on the NFL story gives it a sadly all-too-believable edge, the grudge match of a man who never forgets, and plots his revenge years and years after the event:

Donald Trump’s ‘take a knee’ fight with the NFL may have its origins in a grudge he has held against the league since the 1980s, according to a writer who has spent years researching American football.

Author Jeff Pearlman said the US President’s current outbursts may stem from enduring resentment at how, more than 30 years ago, the National Football League refused to let him join its “ridiculously exclusive club” because he was viewed as a “scumbag huckster”.

Full article here-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7972281.html

[broncofan]

http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know...-and-tillerson

This made me smile a bit. In response to Tillerson calling him a moron, Trump said they can compare iq scores and mensa has offered to host a test. I don't believe in the validity of iq testing, but it does measure a set of skills and raw abilities Trump probably doesn't have in great supply. Would be hilarious.

[Stavros]

This made me smile a bit. In response to Tillerson calling him a moron, Trump said they can compare iq scores and mensa has offered to host a test. I don't believe in the validity of iq testing, but it does measure a set of skills and raw abilities Trump probably doesn't have in great supply. Would be hilarious.

Prepare to read the tweet in which it is claimed the result was faked and Mensa over-run by politically correct Democrats. Apparently Tillerson's 'moron' also seems to believe he is responsible for using the word Fake in its current vogue. But I guess Tillerson will be gone soon anyway.

[sukumvit boy]

All the good people are abandoning the ship , all that's left is the former Eagle Scouts and the Generals.
The unraveling of the Trump presidency.
http://charlierose.com/videos/31051?autoplay=true

[Stavros]

I have raised this before, but I am still amazed that in the US it can be legal for an 11-year old and a 16 year old to be married, in this programme in Florida and Idaho. One wonders what legislators think they are protecting when they protect child marriage rights, or why this has not become a national scandal. The link is from the BBC so might not be available in all countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-u...y-child-brides

[Jericho]

I have raised this before, but I am still amazed that in the US it can be legal for an 11-year old and a 16 year old to be married, in this programme in Florida and Idaho. One wonders what legislators think they are protecting when they protect child marriage rights, or why this has not become a national scandal. The link is from the BBC so might not be available in all countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-u...y-child-brides

What in the fucking macfuckery!

[trish]

[filghy2]

I have raised this before, but I am still amazed that in the US it can be legal for an 11-year old and a 16 year old to be married, in this programme in Florida and Idaho. One wonders what legislators think they are protecting when they protect child marriage rights, or why this has not become a national scandal. The link is from the BBC so might not be available in all countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-u...y-child-brides

It seems to be linked to freedom of religion claims. http://religionnews.com/2017/05/12/c...ting-religion/ Apparently, anything is okay in some quarters if it's done in the name of religion.

[Stavros]

It seems to be linked to freedom of religion claims. http://religionnews.com/2017/05/12/c...ting-religion/ Apparently, anything is okay in some quarters if it's done in the name of religion.

The claim that child marriage takes place in the context of religious freedom cannot be verified. Between 2000 and 2010 there were 167,000 such marriages in 38 states, and since 2010 the figure has exceeded 200,000, how can you know which of those marriages were instructed for religious purposes, which for monetary gain, to absolve the girl (because it always the girl) of shame? And, given the cases where the girl, as the BBC link in my earlier post confirmed, was raped at the age of 11, which religion condones rape in itself, or rape as the cause of marriage? Does love ever enter the decision, and how does an 11-year make informed consent on marriage at any time, let alone after being repeatedly raped by the same man she is then forced to marry? What we see here, is an absence of religion, and thus not even a fig-leaf of respect for 'religious freedom', it is simply this: a man can do anything he wants, and claim religious freedom as cited in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution as the basis of his right. In any other situation, rape is a crime, when it leads to marriage, it is an endorsement of religious freedom -as clear a mockery of both the Constitution and the Law as you will ever find.

But do enough Americans care? Trish responded to the argument with a flippant, cynical dismissal of human rights with a trivial pop song intended to blame the victim, not the perpetrator of crime who is often neither a teenager nor in love. Says it all really.

At least there are some Americans trying to do something about it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...=.21ccdbce35ae