Greetings!
I crossed back into Saskatchewan last night very late, and have another travel day ahead and some catching up to do before blogging is back to normal speed. I’ve already been told our guest writers have outdone themselves, and if the last few days are any indication, I concur.
Before I get back to work however, there is one recent post I’d like to respond to – Kathy Shaidle’s commentary on He Who Shall Not Be Linked.
While I may find much of what he writes to be repulsive and the remainder of it uniformed, I agree with Peter Rempel and Kathy Shaidle. When members of the blogosphere – particularly those of us who write under our real identities – find themselves the target of campaigns orchestrated by self-rightous speech herders, it’s the responsibility of bloggers to set aside personal differences and partisanship to defend our individual freedom to offend.
It is the role of the marketplace, not baby lawyers or party activists or grudgemongers to determine which opinions have merit and who deserves to remain unread in the blogosphere proper. The blogosphere evolved because these people have their grubby fingers wrapped around the neck of free speech for so long that we have forgotten what it sounds like.
As we have witnessed through the relentless march of political correctness, yesterday’s unvarnished criticism is today’s “fringe”, and tomorrow’s “hate speech” with all the extra-legal “human rights” implications those words carry. If the blogosphere is to retain its role as a venue for the unedited voices of ordinary citizens, then we need to remember our role is to push back – not applaud – those who would castrate this medium to further their broader political agendas.
In Peter’s words; “‘Cause you may not be an anti-semite, but the Liberal Party still thinks you are a racist anti-immigration anti-indian neo-nazi white supremacist separatist sack of shit. You can become as boring, as bland, and as uninteresting as you like. It won’t matter: Jason hates you more than he could ever hate an ND.”
Amen.
Speaking of free speech… are there limits in a blog? Some conservatives say “no” here but say “yes” over here:
http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2007/03/07/vagina-now-suspend-me
Put me in the “marketplace of ideas” camp. The web does not need to be regulated, but Cherniak calling for a denunciation is not censoring. That’s a great thing about dialog on the web: no one can shut you down except you.
Ted
Funny, K & K: No examples, just assertion.
But seriously, I do know how the game is played. If you’re opposed to Israel killing 1800 Lebanese civilians because a couple of soldiers were captured after the IDF captured two militants deep inside Gaza–you’re an anti-Semite.
If you note that Israel used cluster munitions throughout the war–you’re an anti-Semite. (Just stick to condemning the two home-mades from Hezbollah that fell on Haifa.)
If you point out that fleeing civilian vehicles, and Red Cross vehicles, were strafed by the IDF–you’re an anti-Semite.
If you criticze Israel as you would criticize any other nation-state in the world–you’re an anti-Semite.
Meanwhile, you people are coming out with this crap, and a h/t to Robert McClelland for exposing this on the very thread that led to his undoing:
Now more than ever, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” These are the terms of warfare today, as organized world Jewry, through ADL and also the Democratic party, is in a final offensive to end free speech and, with it, all opposition to its worldwide control. It is throwing all its weapons against traditional Christian civilization: filthy movies and TV, promotion of homosexuality and pornography, attack on the symbols, values, and beliefs of Christianity, encouragement of unrestrained immigration, and, not least, exhaustion of America in Mideast wars that benefit only Israel. More boldly than ever, Jewish activists introduce incredibly perverse and restrictive legislative attacks on freedom. Their goal is world control – soon.
Here’s more on that ally of yours:
http://www.truthtellers.org/tedpikebiography.html
The fierce denunciations of anti-Semitism from you people will no doubt be coming soon. In the meantime:
*crickets*
God, I despise hypocrisy.
And good ol’ McLelland, trying to prove a point perhaps about free speech himself and that he won’t be policed, pipes in on the same said monologs in his usual “style”: http://myblahg.com/?p=1950
Damn, you got me so pissed that I forgot the link:
http://www.outlawjournalism.com/news/?p=4253
Good one Dawg, but you need to select better evidence of Israel’s perfidity otherwise some might misunderstand you and conclude that you are perhaps overly rigorous in your objective critiques. As an example, “… Israel killing 1800 Lebanese civilians because a couple of soldiers were captured after the IDF captured two militants deep inside Gaza …” is a tad finely drawn.
Cheers
Gosh. What did I say that was inaccurate? Two IDF soldiers were “kidnapped” (captured); a bloody war ensued; 1800 Lebanese civilians died, a huge percentage of the population was made homeless, Lebanese infrastucture was reduced to rubble–and Harper called all this a “measured response.”
Did I miss something?
“stephen – the problem with Jason’s actions was not that he had an opinion that McClelland should be ‘run out of town’. It was that rather than, on McClelland’s blog and/or on his own – arguing against what was going on at McClelland’s blog, Jason went to an official system, the NDP party, asking them to ‘sanction’ McClelland. That’s censorship of free speech.”
I disagree. McClelland and the BD’s have no official association with the NDP and, as such, the NDP holds no power over either McClelland or the BD’s… There was no censorship involved unless you count the progbloggers pulling his links and banning him from posting but that’s not censorship either. They chose to not associate with him. They didn’t tell him that he couldn’t speak, just that he couldn’t do it on their site.
If I remember correctly, Robert has been extremely quick to extend that same courtesy to commenters (who’s opinions he doesn’t like) on his own blog…
Hey, Dawg – you have a point, but the “hypocrites and brood of vipers” condemnation of a certain group of Jews was done by a better man than you a couple thousand years ago.
McClelland’s “sin” was in failing to differentiate, and you fail yourself to make this clear. Yes, there are people (not necessarily Jews) for whom the slightest criticism of anything related to Jewry causes apoplectic cries of anti-Semitism. Such people are indeed snakes. But not all claims of anti-Semitism are false. The most insidious, of which you are guilty, is holding Israel to a higher standard (like the US is held to a higher standard).
As for this Pike fellow, nuts come in all flavours.
Did I miss something?
Yes, Dawg, you did – the other straws on the camel’s back.
No, my failing is that I hold Israel to the same standard. Not to link-farm, but these are my arguments:
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2006/08/case-for-israel.html
I might only add that it is fair to hold nations to the standards that they themselves claim to uphold.
So, Dawg can’t understand why the camel (Israel) would get its back broken over one little straw (2 kidnapped soldiers), eh?
No, no hint of anti-semitism at all. /sarc
I wonder where those poor Israeli soldiers are tonight.
I think Dawg is involved in extreme reductionism. Two soldiers kidnapped
Yeah, well Dawg, if I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say that criticizing Israel is not anti-semitic, I’d be…rolling nickels. Something that’s less commonly heard, despite being far, far more true, is that every anti-semite criticizes Israel.
Which really does explain the extent of things. To determine who among Israel’s critics is anti-semitic, and who’s not, you don’t have to look at the prurient detailing of instances, all you have to do is look at whether criticisms of human rights abuses are applied equally, across the globe, to that category of action. Critics of Israel, for some reason, are single-minded, like a pig on a truffle.
Obsessive focus on one offense, to the exclusion of all others, is surely a sign of something. Denying the visible-ness of such an approach doesn’t work for the deniers. I mean, Saudi Arabia forbids a race of people — Jews — to even step foot on their land. Have you ever written a single sentence of outraged condemnation over that outrageous apartheid, Dawg? Could you provide a link, perhaps?
Palestinian preschoolers are taught that Jews are apes and pigs who must be killed; has this most egregious racism, which outstrips that of white Alabaman’s in the 50’s by a factor of ten, been a real issue for you, Dawg?
An educational docudrama widely shown across the ME on Memri TV during Ramada shows a hook-nose Jew slitting a child’s throat and draining his blood into a shallow pan to make matzo; there are many such examples. Alert us to your previously posted outraged expressions against such continued, brutalizing, inciteful propaganda, Dawg.
Forget the ME, how about the Islamists in Thailand who murder and maim and bomb Thai civilizians — you know, hyper-inflated lungs, deafness, skin torn off of heads by the pressure waves, that kind of stuff. Women and children. Have you ever repeated posted OT outrage about that on blogs? Did I miss that thread?
Realistically, there’s only one thing these various groups of people have in common that they might escape the round, obsessive focus you place on Israel: They’re not Jews.
I can’t think of anything else. If there’s some other explanation, if there’s some particular reason why the actions of Jews have such a special, prurient, reiterative place in your pantheon of crimes against humanity, fill us in.
You can criticize Israel without being anti-semitic.
Boy, that’s something that really needs to be said. A lot, apparently. And then, once it’s been said, it needs to be said again and again. Wonder why it doesn’t stick? Is it because of the Jews?
As I understand it, under the Geneva Convention, when a military force uses civilians as cover, in any fashion, civilian casualties are to be counted as though they were killed (in this case) by Hezbollah.
Was just digging through the Geneva Convention to try to find a reference – couldn’t find one exactly. Anybody know if I’m right on this one?
Shane O,
Think your wrong. I don’t think the Geneva Conventions were set up to keep score. Besides terrorists are not a “military force”.
EBD raises, on the surface, a very interesting point, although on closer examination it has no substance. Why don’t I spend an equal amount of time, he asks, condemning Iran, say, for hanging gay teenagers, or Taliban militants for killing schoolgirls, or Saudi religious police throwing kids back into a burning school for not wearing headscarves, or….
Well, I’ll make EBD, and the others here who throw around that “anti-Semite” label a little too freely, this solemn promise:
I shall condemn any and all of these outrages with equal heat just as soon as people in the media, government and the blogosphere start defending them. As they do for every excess, every outrage, every brutal act of the Israeli state.
Deal?
dawg – it’s you who defines all actions of Israel as ‘excess, outrage, brutal act’.
Again, you are engaged in reductionism. You ignore the context.
I, for example, completely condemn the Israeli occupation, the illegal settlements, the Israeli refusal to recognize a Palestinian state, the insistence of many Israelis and Jews that there is not such thing as Palestine, assertsions that the land was empty in 1948, that Palestinians are ‘really Jordanians’ and should go back there (Jordan refuses). By now, after a generation of experiencing an untenable situation (the occupation and settlements) – both sides are trapped within hatred. I condemn the anti-arabism in Israel, and the hostile and often militant actions of settlers to Palestinians is well documented.
I think that Israel didn’t want a Palestinian state, erroneously thinking that the Palestinians would be ‘absorbed’ by Jordan etc; Israel wanted the full land base.
And there is a very important issue that we are ignoring. I think that the other Arab states also don’t want a Palestinian state, for it would be a democracy and one thing that these tribal Arab states don’t want – is an arab democracy in their midst.
Then, on top of this situation, the recent years have added a second level of Islamic fascism, where the Islamic fascists have used the Palestinian fight against the occupation as a means to advance their fascist control in the area. That’s a different agenda than the two-state agenda, and Iran is heavily involved in this fascist agenda, because it wants to control the ME.
So, the issue is far more complex than your simplistic reductionism.
The Iranian and Saudi internal actions are readily condemned because they are simple – a medieval tribal mindset versus a modern mindset.
But the Israeli-Palestinian situation is complex. I think this complexity needs to be articulated and examined. Automatic anti-or pro-semitism doesn’t do that job.
Great debate, folks.
I certainly support Robbys’ freedom to vent. In fact, we should consider such rants as a valuable education.
Years ago, I worked HVAC and maintenance at a federal high-security mental “hospital”. Being exposed on a daily basis to everything from serial killers, baby-diddlers, down to temper-control cases was nauseating. After awhile, though, I realised I was getting a priceless education most people living in civil society never get.
We may not like the venemous snakes in the zoo’s reptile cage…but they are, nonetheless, educational! In the same way, creatures like Robby Mc. should be viewed; but not interacted with…
😉
ET:
I was asked why I am more openly critical of Israel than those other countries I mentioned (and I could have mentioned still more). It is, as I said, precisely because of the defence, the free ride if you like, that Israel so often gets. All of those things that you condemn about the Israeli state are strongly supported in numerous other quarters, as you well know. But no one credible supports stonings, beheadings, hangings of gays, etc., so there is hardly a need to join the nearly universal chorus of condemnation.
That was my point, in response to the charge that I have a double standard with respect to Israel, which I assuredly do not. To then accuse me of “reductionism” because I didn’t open up the discussion to the entire ME situation, is a bit disingenuous.
If you want to discuss that ME situation, in all of its undoubted complexity, that’s another thread. Let me note at this point that I am pleased that the “Abdullah proposal” appears to be getting a fresh look.
No, dawg, I’ll maintain my critique of your comments as reductionist.
You are the one who set up the data comparison of 2 soldiers vs 1,800 civilians, without a word about the reality of this situation and the Hamas/Hezbollah missiles and their use of civilians as cover. You set up the ‘reduced to rubble’ without a word about the Iranian arming of Hezbollah and Hamas. So, I’ll stand by my comment.
Whatever.
So you don’t condemn non-Israeli offenses because the media and the government doesn’t defend those offenses? Your vaunted moral outrage over Israeli actions isn’t determined by your own moral barometer, but by the media?
So…if you ever see the media defending Palestinian tactics and their murderous attitude and language against the Jews, you’ll start condemning the Palestinians?
I don’t think so. Substantial elements of the media already do defend, tacitly or otherwise, the Palestinian cause — ever read the Star, or watch CBC (Nalah Ayad, say) or BBC?
I have just enough respect for you to not take your stated reason for your singling out of Israel seriously.
“Whatever.”
Well thought out response.
…Mommy’s almost home!!!
Yeaaaaaaa
😉
EBD:
I and other observers haven’t “singled out Israel.” It’s others who do that, by placing that nation on some kind of moral pedestal, by excusing what would never be excused if any other country acted like that.
When people like myself react, we’re the ones accused of focusing, for no doubt malign motives, on one country. My point, perhaps poorly made, was that we are reacting to the special status accorded to Israel by politicians, the media and not a few commentators in the blogosphere, not creating a special status of our own.
So…if you ever see the media defending Palestinian tactics and their murderous attitude and language against the Jews, you’ll start condemning the Palestinians?
I haven’t seen anything in the Star defending suicide bombings of pizzerias recently. Perhaps you could supply me with a reference. In the meantime, I shall keep reacting to the “Israel’s measured response” kind of hype, and be accused of “singling Israel out.” Tant pis.