And so it begins…
Via MSNBC, Dan Gillerman, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, tells Rita Cosby, “We will not occupy Lebanon,” but he notes nevertheless that Israel will do everything in its power to break the backs of Hezbollah.
See also, Youssef Ibrahim in USA Today, “Finally, it seems, Iran has overplayed its hand”:
The attempt by Hezbollah and Hamas to drag the whole Arab world into their war with Israel in the past two weeks has drawn flak in the form of Arab public opinion that neither militant jihadist organizations anticipated.
Speaking in an unusually blunt tone, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain openly rejected what they described as unilateral “adventurism,” telling both groups that they are on their own vis-à-vis Israel. More important, indications are surfacing that a long-silent Arab majority has had enough of being hijacked by extremists in its midst.
In a meeting of its 22 foreign ministers Saturday in Cairo, the League of Arab States did not mince words. “Behavior undertaken by some groups in apparent safeguarding of Arab interests does in fact harm those interests, allowing Israel and other parties from outside the Arab world (read Iran) to wreak havoc with the security and safety of all Arab countries.”
Three questions spring immediately to mind: 1) does Israel have the will to fight this war to win? 2) will the international community give them the cover they need to fight to win? (ironically, the Arab States seem to be doing so, while a member of the French Parliament wants France to war with Israel—a suggestion of just how much some western European elites, brainwashed by years of cultural relativism and self-loathing, have lost their moral bearings); and 3) just how far has Iran’s nuclear program progressed, and is it possible that Israel is being lured into a scenario where the potential annihilation of Hezbollah is used as provocation to launch a nuclear strike on Israel? (and a corollary to this, for the conspiracy theorists, would be, is the tacit approval Israel is receiving from the Arab States part of the lure?)
Worth revisiting are these thoughts from Wretchard a few days back:
[…] the rulers of the Middle East are hoping that this thing can be pulled back from the brink and the fires focused on Hezbollah, then possibly on a narrow coterie in Teheran. But if that way forward fails, a large part of the blame will historically fall on those who forced the West to fight the war against terrorists with politically correct half-measures. Who created the dinky rules which made it impossible to excise abominations like Hezbollah and Hamas. Or even to question them. And perhaps made it even necessary to fund them. Their good intentions or fecklessness have made the terrible alternative that stares us in the face likely. Let us only hope that they have not made it inevitable.
As regular readers of this site know, I believe the inevitability of what Wretchard term “fecklessness” has been shaped by (incoherent) linguistic assumptions that end up informing social and philosophical worldviews. Out of these worldviews has grown both strong and boutique multiculturalism, as well as a cultural relativism that has had the practical effect of militating against doing the difficult work of judging.
I hope that such convenient and intellectually lazy faux-sophistication doesn’t wind up manifesting itself globally in massive casualties, and perhaps even a set of superheated craters in the Levant and Persia.
****
update: The Israeli cross border incursions described as limited. More here.
Ireland Online: “Israel not invading Lebanon, says Peres.”
UN ambassador Bolton at a morning presser: “How do you declare a cease fire with a terrorist organization?” Paraphrasing: Thinking you can declare a cease fire and expect that declaration will somehow magically end the fighting and solve the problem is “simplistic”.
Most impressive, though? While Bolton was smacking around members of the media, his mustache, Regis, was busy making time with a cute little Lebanese reporter, convincing her to meet him for “a late lunch and drinks and whatnot” at a suite it keeps at the Hyatt.
Cheers to that, buddy.
Because the lazy, faux-intellectualism behind superheated craters always manifests itself better in Persia alone.
Answer 1) Better to ask if a fat kid has the will to eat a quart tub of triple chocolate ice cream in one sitting. The answer to both is “You expect something different?”
Answer 2) With the Arab League essentially sitting on their hands for this one, I’d have to say that the only parts of the international community that actually matter in this instance will either support Israel (USA and whoever is sucking up to us at the time, which should be the Ukraine, South Korea, and at least one Eastern European nation, plus the usual host of South Pacific one-horse islands) or be effectively neutral (AL, UK, India, and all of Scandinavia and Latin America, if I’m reading the signs right).
Answer 3) If Iran does not have the bomb right this very moment in time and they were looking to press the button on a hot war so that they could give a live-fire nuclear test without tipping their hand in advance, then Tehran has made a serious strategic error. Only a fool (or a religious fanatic) would let loose a tactical plan that required a weapon not currently in their possession. And as the estimates of Iranian nuclear-weapon progress range from 2 years (worst-case) to 5 years (probable range), I’ll lay 150-1 odds that they have a working prototype right now.
And to quote the old-school Dennis Miller: That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Could this be the Iranian equivelent of Hitler’s invasion of Russia?
Other way around.
Yeah, except Israel’s not as vast, and the winters aren’t as cold, and the Iranians don’t have to go to the Black Sea to get their oil.
I don’t know, Bill. I mean, the kosmos is coherent by definition. How then does it reach around to f*ck over language? I don’t see poo-flinging monkeys pulling moral equivalency, and . . . oh, wait. I guess you might be right.
I can see the Israeli targeting center now: “Let me see, where did I put that map of France?”
Phone rings: “Uh, this is France, we give up!”
Israel, “Oh, OK, but you’ll have to take that big missile launcher in the middle of Paris down.”
“But, but – d’accord (Sacre bleu!)”
I think I’m with Bill. Look at what’s been done with the terms “torture” and “WMD”. They used to mean very specific things. Now poor service is torture and mustard gas is not WMD while white phosphorus is. That didn’t come from the language.
I have the same problem with the argument that “dehumanizing, eliminationist, violent rhetoric” drives everything from internment to Hadji Girl to Rethuglicans in the White House. Yet it isn’t why Hamasnicks splodeydope. That’s because of oppression. And it isn’t why al-Q blows up Shiites. That’s because of occupation.
I think it begins with the worldview and ends with the bullshit. It’s easy to be a moral beacon when nothing means anything, and everything is equivalent. But first you’ve got to jam your head in the sand, then you have to rationalize it. That’s when the wordsmithing comes in.
“Which came first the delusions or the bullshit?”
But Pablo–how does one have a “worldview” prior to language? Language, the language that we approve and utilize, largely structures our perception of the world. It’s not a one-way street, certainly. It’s a feedback loop. When language is perverted, so are our perceptions. When our perceptions are perverted, so is our language.
There was a large (7000 I believe the number) protest here in Detroit yesterday. I wish I’d known. Anyway, on the news, the talking heads said they were marching for Peace, yet all the signs I could see were “Free Palestine” and “Jews= Death” sort of thing.
shouldn’t it be, that as we *progress* as a whole*, the distance to offense should increase. doesn’t multiculturalism/relativism heighten awareness of differences, rather than ease our minds of them? you know, so we can all actually get along.
respectfully,
*whatever the ef that means, pshah.
I actually read this passage differently:
I find it hard to believe that these guys would see Iran as a non-Arab nation; especially given the opportunity to throw a little poo at the US. It just seems kind of like a no-brainer to me, and I’m not sure how the USA Today interpreted ‘nations from outside the Arab world’ to mean anyone other than the US; especially in the context of Israel and war. In all honesty, I really don’t expect the Arab league to start taking a stance on Islamofascism either, I’d have to see it to believe it.
CNN’s Dupe of the Hour is interviewing a Lebanese woman who is speaking out against Hizbollah and in favor of the Israeli response. Dupe’s questions so far:
Wasn’t Hizbollah freely and fairly elected to seats in the Lebanese government?
Can’t the non-armed parts of Hizbollah be salvaged?
Don’t your countrymen call you a traitor?
Have you received death threats?
Always nice to see CNN’s Dhimmi’s execute their instructions.
Animals manage it. Once there’s a social structure, there’s good and bad, there’s us and them, there are threats and protectors, and there’s an “Other”. And all without a word being spoken.
Language doesn’t create misinformation. It can be used to disseminate it, but it’s still just a tool. Perhaps a corollary to the gun lobby argument is in order: “Words don’t bullshit people, people bullshit people.”
Prof. Juan Cole sums up the situation north of the Sicaric Republic of Phariseestan:
“The death toll late Tuesday stood at 235 people killed in Lebanon and 25 in Israeli. About half of the Israeli deaths were military personnel. Only a handful of the Lebanese deaths have been military, and only a fraction of those have been Hizbullah fighters. In fact, have even ten Hizbullah guerrillas been killed by the Israelis since this fight began? They say it is a fight with Hizbullah. But then they bomb Greek Orthodox churches and milk factories far from Shiite areas. Hmmmm”
Mulk factories, it’s always the milk fctories with the left. Didn’t this particular trope die with Arnett’s career?
Speaking of delusions and BS here is Doctor Vic.
So, Hizbullah is Lebanese military? Thanks for the tip, Vic, Juan.
Milk factories, again? Always with the milk factories. I always thought that meant cows.
So, what’s Hizbollah shooting at these days?
tw: Bad No doubt.
I don’t, insofar as Iran is most definitely not an Arab nation (a fact of which the Arabs are well aware).
It’s the language that shapes the worldview. Or that’s what I understood JG to say. There are a few rational actors who deliberately twist the language, but the worldview is weak without support–which you acquire through these twisted words.
Put another way, nobody wants to be the guy who supports genocide. So that which you hate you call genocide, and now you’ve got an army.
I doubt the reigns are that tightly held by either Syria or Iran. They made these guys in Hizbullah proactive independent contractors. Can they reasonably expect to control them? Especially when under pressure?
The Levant? Persia?
You’re going to get email for that, for sure.
TW: Ask me about my trip to Rhodesia.
Language expresses thought and knowledge. When both, or either, are incoherent so to is language. I’m in the language is an indicator, not a precursor, camp.
Personally I blame the sixties. When classical liberalism met socialist selfindulgence.
When all behavior is relative then any behavior becomes permissable.
It isn’t the language, but the deed.
Howzaboutthemcubbies?
I suspect, Jeff, that before all is said and done, that’s exactly what will occur. It’s just a matter of time before one of these barbarians gets hold of some type of WMD. They are murderous and suicidal enough to use it.
After that, all bets are off.
The left, of course, will blame Bush.
TW: French… French? Are you kidding me? Too many possibilities with that word.
What intelligence resources does the old Perfessor have on the ground over there? And how exactly do you tell a terrorist from a civilian once they are dead?
And how can we even be sure Juan Cole himself said these things? Perhaps that thing on his head has gained the ability to speak.
I’m with Bald Eagle. I think the mad mullahs will strike Israel with a nuke and a great many targets in the Arab world will become flat expanses of melted sand decorated with stumps of buildings.
No craters. I’m sure the Israelis will opt for air bursts.
Anyone here who doesn’t believe the IDF already has those targets dialed in?
Jim
This phenomenom begins with kids. All the time I hear, “It’s not right to judge people” or sometimes the variation, “It’s not right to judge people by the way they look.”
I love the look on their faces when I say, “Of course it’s right to judge people. That’s how mankind survives. It’s wrong to judge people on factors beyond their control, such as skin color or disability, but in matters of choice, they choice speaks of their character, and you’re stupid not to take that into consideration.”
TW: I perform a public service as a teacher.
“Is it the cries of brown children with flies in their eyes” says British blogger-poet P. Iscariot.
For Tex-Aviv couture house this season brown is the new black.
It’s clearly a dirty color, the color of feces, Mohammedans and Hispanics.
The color of Arabian olive oil and Spanish grease.
Brown is also the color of terrorism: just look at the post-mortem pictures of Che Guevara and Zarqawi, and the fetid corpses of Shiite children littering south Lebanon’s valley of death…
Bushmert’s phosphorus bombs will bleach their oily skin and purify their dark souls.
I can’t be certain, but I think we’ve finally brought Dr Vic around to our side.
Not that that’s a good thing. He’s clearly a liability to whichever side he’s on.
Victorino is buzzing the air strip. Fire at will.
What’s that sound?…
Oh, it’s just Dr. Vic talkin’ out his ass again. Never mind.
Lebanon is free to surrender at any time. That’s the traditional way to stop a war, if you’re an arab.
This time of year, I’m browner than both of ‘em, bitch.
GET OFF MY MELANIN, JEW HATER!
Pablo, Bill, John —
Not the other way around. Note that I said linguistic assumptions—what we think we are able to do through language (eg., meaning becomes decentered because intent is marginalized and the receiver privileged) creates the philosophy (or describes and is described by the philosophy), and the philosophy is used as a frame through which to view the world. And not only view the world—but to engage it, through legislation, social programs, etc.
It is no accident that PC culture has sprung up as a result of the “Death of the Author” I don’t think—nor is it surprising that a misapprehension of the lessons of the linguistic turn have led us to a place where we embrace relativism and call that embrace tolerance.
I’m going for a walk. Argue amongst yourselves.
Dr. Vic. That (07/19 at 09:00 AM) was inspired.
I mean, you usually post complete bullshit, but that one… man, that was inspired *and* complete bullshit all at the same time.
I bow before a master.
WTF????
When did we start making bombs out of smoke generators?
C’mon, you’re kidding, right?
Nobody could be that ignorant.
tw: by george
Frankly, I think the origins of the language issue is a chicken and egg thing; it’s a matter of opinion.
What’s happening now, though, is definitely a case of the left trying to shape the language to its own political purposes. The ‘feisty; issue, for example. Since when did that venerable word lose it’s neutrality and become a slur against women? Since the Thought Police decided to make it so. Fuck them, and fuck them hard.
I want the English language, and all the expressive freedom it includes, back. Good for Jeff for fighting these mindless zombies.
Is that anything like a Quiky-Mart?
jdm: I think Vic’s been at the lighter fluid again. I’ll have to try it some time.
For Tex-Aviv couture house this season brown is the new black.
I just want to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Vic for dropping by and reminding me why I don’t bother to pay any attention to the Left anymore.
This is boiler plate nonsense, served up hot, but most certainly not fresh. You’ve got your “milk factory”, your phony “racism” charge, what’s next? Smart money says some bullshit about how “Bu$h is a fundamentalist nutjob, enabled only by red state, JesusLand snake handling evangelicals who think they’re going to trigger the Rapture”. Or something. Who knows? What’s certain is that you will have already heard it before and that it will be completely fact and reason free.
Practice.
Personally, I’m sick to death of the “You hate Brown people” meme. STFU. Nonsensical, stupid ass race-baiting, BS.
T/w; I need to go hit something. Perhaps some of those brown people I keep locked in my basement.
At the very least, it’s impossible to prove one way or the other.
Yep. It doen’t matter why they’re doing it, nor how. Only that they’re doing it and that it must be stopped.
I don’t see any particular lack of judging irom the left these days, or any difficulty in delivering it.
Unless you meant judging more in the empirical, rational sense of the word, as in judgment.
In which case, yes. I agree.
TW: days, as in the linguistic tortuations [sic] of the statement “The situation is grave, Admiral. We won’t have main power for six “days”. Auxiliary power has temporarily failed. Restoration may be possible, in two “days”. By the book, Admiral.”
BTW, “Tex-Aviv” sounds like a kibbutz that just opened up in the Hill Country. Which would be a really good idea.
It’s hard to say exactly, of course, but I think what “shapes the battlefield” is peace and prosperity and comfort. Those are good things! But most of us have never experienced the hardships of a Great Depression or a World War II, where every single able-bodied man was draft material and almost half a million of them died– and that colors our conception of regular life.
There have been “peace” movements in every war, but most people then fought back once they felt threatened. So many more people embrace the evil of pacificsm today because it is impossible for them to admit how precarious their comfortable lives really are.
The propagandists step in and finish the job. Look at the beginning of every movie about the holocaust: it begins with nice people saying, it can’t happen here, we are so civilized!
Screw that, fire at Victorino.
Only if it has lots of those hot Sabrah girls.
Is it a little like Tex-Mex I wonder. I love what the Jewish people can do with pickles….perhaps they can replicate that with jalepenos too…
Brown is the new black, but green is the new blue and chartreuse is the new ultra-violet. All of which clearly indicates that the Pharisaic neocons have adopted the hegemonic delusions of the latter-day Knights Templar who have been salting the historical record with evidence of a divine destiny that never existed except in the fevered minds of the…
Um, what were we talking about again?
ahem: don’t do it, man… that shit melts your brain.
It also causes a Great Love for Little Brown People. Especially those that don’t live near you and can be used in political statements proving how evil Republicans are.
Heh.
There are structures of perception, obviously, among animals. They don’t amount to a “worldview,” which is a linguistic construct. If you ask a 3 year old what his worldview is, you’re not liable to get much. To say that the social organizations of animals and the discriminations that they make on those bases constitutes a worldview is like writing an article on the “lifestyles” of mountain gorillas.
Honestly, though, I don’t believe that we disagree as much as it seems.
Dr. Vic, another graduate of Upstairs College of Philosophy and Non-Sequitors.
Back to the chicken and egg thing.
Are those eggs the ones with the C-BS eye logo?
”…It is no accident that PC culture has sprung up as a result of the “Death of the Author ”
– Yes well, I say what I mean and mean what I say, and if the Progressive I’m talking too tries to “capture the narative”, then popping his face inside out is a great way to show him you were serious. Hard to argue the point when yor nose feels like you walked into the patio glass door. Besides I don’t think it’s a chicken or egg argument. The Left has an enherent “Worldview the way I wish it was”, and just use any and all “tools”, to twist and conflate, obfuscate, and frustrate, to control the narative. They know exactly what is ment when the world says things. If they didn’t they would’nt be able to so completely skew the meaning’s. Its that idiotarian “completeness” that gives away the game.
– OAT – While Hezbullah is supposidly in charge of the moral high ground, what with Israel targeting “discriminately”, they need to improve their own targeting a bit. This morning a few missles hit Nazareth, killing two children. Two more little soldiers they won’t have to face, with their deadly water pistols, and teddy bear weapons. I aggree with Bolton, and his mustache. Fuke ‘em. Let them die as martyr’s if that will make the bastards happy. I hope Condi takes at least a month to find her way to the negotiating table.
TW: Turing “thing” is my friend.
Definitions: F’uKe’ – To fuck over the enemy with a big ass nuke.
I think that most of the human brain is visual, not auditory. Words, external, vocal words and internal, subjective words merely describe the world as it appears to us.
So I see a rose. I love a woman. In my luv poetry, “Roses are red, Violets are blue, take off your panties, I’m coming for you.” [What? ed.] Roses symbolize luv.
But is love to me beautiful as I find a rose? Does it smell so sweet?
Or is love wrapped with thorns and last only a season, before I must pick another bouquette?
In all of that, visualization and perception of the world rules thought and speech. But not completely, they impart back to perception and deep structure.
Do not forget the eyes, the mind’s or otherwise.
Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have one. It’s a small one, as a 3 year olds world is small. And he may not have the linguistic capacity to define it. But what is a worldview if not one’s perception of what the world is composed of and how it all works? Everyone has one.
It’s really just semantical at this point. You bastard!
But has ”…PC sprung up as a result of the Death of the Author?” Not in full.
Fjordman’s essay, Political Correctness–The Revenge of Marxism is one of the best appreciations I’ve read in a while. Long-ish but worth it.
Dr. Vic: When leftie nutjobs try to attack.
Verc,
Have you been trolling the highschools for prom dates again?
GED centers, actually. Abortion clinics are cool too; the chicks put out. What was the question?
That could be the people selling them missles in exchange for hostages and funding for central american terrorists.
Let me see. We are feckless because of PC, which inhibits us, and PC inhibits us because because there are certain words we aren’t supposed to say, and, furthermore, whether or not we can actually use a word is going to be determined by our audience.
Is this like, Groucho?
Verc,
Don’t forget to check out Iowahawk’s Hoosgow Honies.
Well. Your Night Vision Devices are never going ot work right.
Thank God for good old fashioned conservative objective reality.
Its important to know where the line is between Lebanon and Hezbollah. The more that Hezbollah is like lebanon, the more targets in lebanon are legitimate. And Vice versa. Cedar Girls or not.
Didn’t Starsky have a Victorino? A loud red one?
steve, speech is the metric of freedom of a people.
If you restrict it, you curb liberty. No threats, no conspiracy, no espionage, no incitement to violence, and no ‘fire’ in theatres. That is fine.
But PC is political and social speech. Restrict that and you restict political and social freedom.
It is straight up and straight down. PC is illiberal. PC is totalitarian. PC impinges on our freedoms as a free people.
That is something we value in itself as for teleological purposes.
It’s also important to actually be meaningful when you’re endeavor to be meaningful, actyrd. If that’s what that was.
But about catching sidelong glances from the inmates as you prance down to visit the sisters in D block, you’re the undisputed champion.
Neil Young has been known to be right on occasion.
Keep a couple of boxes of the Mac and Cheese with the actual sauce packs in ‘em, and you can be Valentino at the Benefits office. At least between the 15th and the 1st.
I’m pretty sure that in some alternate universe this is a sequitor…
As far as I know it might help if people have meaning when they’re saying something. Like Rumsfeld. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
jdm, that would be the starsystem Kos. Home to a dwarf star.
Referring to the species of resident troll, Pablo suggested:
Houston, I believe we’ve identified the problem.
You really don’t understand the concept? The more that the lebanese government is actually like hezbollah, the more lebanese targets are legitimate. Likewise, the more that lebanese are not like hezbollah, the more that lebanese targets are not legitimate. This is because Israel is legitimate in attacking hezbollah and affiliated entities, but not in attacking lebanese targets that are not hezbollah.
So CNN was asking that woman who was lebanese and against hezbollah questions which would let us know more about the line between what is lebanon and what is hezbollah. And these are important facts for people to know when they decide about the bombing of lebanon.
Urp.
When’s the vote?
Kind of like Fantasy Island.
twolanflash had a brilliant insight. Picture crushing actus’ comments with the mouse wheel as you scroll over them.
I’ve never felt better. My teeth are whiter. My credit score went through the roof. I opened the door and the local Catholic school cheerleader squad burst through and started doing unspeakable things to themselves and a goat, which I lovingly call She-Rah.
Just saying is all. IGNORE ACTUS.
Vote for what?
Verc: I agree with you about the limits on speech. They are unnecessary and have a bad consequence.
However, realistically, we don’t have that problem in the US. You can, in fact, say pretty much whatever you want and not go to jail.
Europe is another matter. But I think I understand what’s going on there. The impact of the world wars was much, much more intense than it as for us. So there are certain things that are just off the table for public discussion.
In the same way, Nazi racism showed everyone what the consequences of racism could be, so the Euros are very, very touchy about any expression of group disdain.
Now let’s look at the elephant in the room: Islam, and Muslims in Europe. Suppose we start a campaign, “Allah Bites!”, and put posters up. You know, and I know, that there will be violence. So, in Europe, we will get arrested and thrown in jail. The Euros just don’t want the violence.
Subtext to all this is the (conspiratorial) idea that a ruling class or clique of some kind finds it in their interest to flood Europe with extremely different Others (say, Muslims in Europe), and that this kind of non-assimilative influx lays the groundwork for serious competition and violence in the future, but, you can’t talk about it, because it’s against the law to talk about it, etc.
Bottom line, the Euros just want peace and quiet, and if policing speech provides a temporary fix, they will go that way. On the other hand, we in the US do have freedom of speech. If we are intimidated by PC, then it’s a function of offending our customers or clients in our society.
I still don’t see (yet) how this affects the conduct of the WOT.
Verc,
Something you should know…or something you should have learned…..ALL females put out….it’s hereditary…their mothers did!!
The more that the lebanese government is actually like hezbollah, the more lebanese targets are legitimate.
Actually, the less the Leb govt takes out their own trash, the more crap for the neighbors to clean up.
If your Little Johnny, the drug-addled 300-lb serial killer, starts lobbing mortars at my house for recreation, I’m gonna come talk to YOU.
Because, y’know, that bastard’s crazy.
I know, I know – ignore.
Limitations on the WOT:
Again, I think the racism of Nazi Germany was paradigmatic in the sense that it opened a lot of eyes as to how horrific the consequences of it can be. I don’t think it’s an accident that the British Empire collapsed, along with long-held anti-Jewish prejudice, shortly thereafter, and that the American civil rights movement followed in train. In the late sixties, the notion of minority that deserves a break was then applied to gays and women. Now it is being applied to radically different Other Muslims and and different, but not hugely different Other Hispanics. I see it as a progression.
Syria’s trash, or so I’m told.
Don’t mind me, I’m just here for the softcore porn / dungeons and dragons…
Wait isn’t that a little like finding one needle in a bunch of needles?
If thats what the cedar revolution was. But I don’t think thats accurate.
Man you live in a rough neighborhood!
Steve: You have no idea what you’re talking about. Nevertheless, you persist. Read the article at the link I posted above. It’s in English. It explains a lot of things that are confusing your mind.
That’s just intellectual laziness. If you have a point to make, make it.
I read the article a while ago. I thought it was incoherent BS.
RC: Ya got that right. If you analyze actus’ writing, you’ll notice that his logical repertoire consists almost exclusively in strewing the path with red herrings.
I disagree. Almost completely.
It only opened Euro eyes to how horrific are the PR consequences if a group that wants to actually kill Jews is permitted to get gov’t control.
Not one mind was changed by the Holocaust w/ regards to Jew hate. It is still alive & well in Europe.
Steve: Try reading it with your glasses on.
For the same reason that the Marines have our hands tied in any and all battles, steve. For the same reason that the Kevin Sites’ footage of a Marine in Fallujah killing a wounded terrorist took that Marine out of battle; an administrative casualty.
For the same reason that we have to be perfect, everywhere and always, or we are no good. For the same reason that we have to go through hours of premission planning, analyzing wind angles, and the structural pattersn of buildings before we drop them, to minimize collateral damage.
For the same reason that we afford persons rights that they forfeited by their own disgusting actions in jeopardizing civilian lives and in fact targeting them.
For the same reason that the media covers our manuevers in al Anbar and our campaigns to pacify Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, on the high seas, in the Philippines, Central Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the homeland as a ticker of a bodycount, not as fire-and-manuever, clear-and-hold.
For the same reason that the networks refuse to show the Mohammed cartoons, but reveal effective government secrets. For the same reason that the media refuse to show people dropping from the WTC and gin up ducious incidents of Islamophobia.
For the same reason that the Tarheel terrorist, or John Mohammed, or the KYU suicide bomber, and any number of terrorists such as Padilla are minimalized, but infinitessmal and hardly credible (single- and anonymous source) infractions are trumpeted.
For the same reason that our soldiers are called rapists and murderers, but no one offers a moment of just plain human silence to contemplate our Medal of Honor, Silver Star, and other laureates, the guys that get shot three or four times and have to drag themselves across the ground to get into a fighting position to buy some time, to kill an enemy or to save a friend or subordinate’s life.
It is cultural sensitivity, all wrapped into a huge stinking parcel that says this life is supposed to be this way and if you don’t conform, you are evil or stupid or wrong.
And meanwhile the world burns the way it has always. Passion boils, honor commands, and blood drains into the same tides of history that always were there.
PC is toxic to see the world as it is. It is toxic to a rational view of the world because it limits knowledge to sustain itself.
And it has certainly killed our Marines, steve, when we cannot bomb that minaret housing a sniper. And it has made a virtue of stabbing Marines in the back when they get home. PC elevates false courage at the expense of solidarity, and so is a danger without bounds, one that could cost us this war and our civilization too.
And the empirical basis for this statement is?
It surely had an effect in rolling back anti-Jewish attitudes in the US. It was the subject of much literature and film. (Gentlemen’s Agreement, Kingsblood Royale, and a number of other films the names of which escape me.)
Yeah. What he said.
Evidently, I was chatting with my Glorious Member, codenamed Amarillo “The Wanderer” Slim, and he pulled up the BS flag and popped a crisp salute.
Cuz all females don’t put out to HIM.
But I got to check out the hoosgow girlies as Dan Collins offered.