The famed educational establishment is getting all sorts of heat since they're inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at their campus. Seems he had a hole in his schedule since he wasn't going to be visiting Ground Zero. (No word yet on whether he'll be permitted to go to Disneyland. And if you have to ask why I brought that up, you're too young for me to explain it.)
Naturally the University is being hammered by people who want to see the invitation revoked, because they're incensed that they're being forced to come and listen to him express his viewpoints over...
Oh. Wait. That's right. No one is forcing them to do so, any more than people who are repulsed by certain TV programs or radio shows have had the "off" buttons removed from their TVs and radios.
No, it seems that they are revolted by the very IDEA of the Iranian thug getting up on a stage at Columbia and denying the Holocaust ever existed.
Except...this is America. And at the core of what makes this country great is that, if we find an idea repulsive, we're supposed to respond to it with more ideas, not the smothering of those ideas. He wants to claim the Holocaust didn't happen? Fantastic. Have him do so, and then confront him with survivors of concentration camps, or soldiers who were there when the camps were liberated. Let him call each and every individual a liar to their face, if he can.
But who knows what the long-term result could be? There's no such thing as an instant life-transforming epiphany. Even when it seems that's what's happened, odds are that the groundwork was laid for it over the course of years. Someone like the Iranian president (which is easier to type than his name) isn't going to instantly realize he's wrong, but perhaps the seeds of doubt can be planted, in him or in other deniers. It's worth a shot. The dissemination of ideas is ALWAYS worth a shot.
In point of fact, he probably should have been allowed to lay a wreath at Ground Zero. And he should have been met there by an assemblage of family members of victims, standing there with photos of their loved ones staring accusingly, putting a human face on the terrorism that he purportedly supports.
Perhaps he won't care. Chances are he won't. But again, you never know. The man, for all his bluster, for all his vituperation, for all his wrongheadedness, clearly has a fascination with this country, almost as if he's seeking our approval and has absolutely no comprehension how to go about it.
We speak wistfully of world peace. Of everyone getting along. But many people are reluctant to fully get behind the first step to such a goal, which is to understand the views of those in opposition to them. I'm not saying "agree with" or "condone." I'm saying "understand." Understanding why people believe what they believe, and--if you disagree with them--doing your damnedest to make them understand YOUR point of view. Understanding one's enemy on human terms is the only real path to peace, which should be self-evident since thus far dehumanizing the enemy or trying to bomb him into oblivion hasn't gotten the job done.
The song says, "Give peace a chance." Won't ever happen if speech is smothered.
PAD
Posted by Peter David at September 21, 2007 07:25 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingI've never understood the mentality that equates understanding or explaining a behavior with excusing it. Surely if you're against something, you'd want some idea of how to stop or prevent it, wouldn't you?
After the Virginia Tech shootings, there was a rather snotty online editorial posted by a local paper, all about the awful attempts to come to the root of the killer's problems rather than condemn him for being pure evil. That attitude seems hugely counterproductive to me, designed to let people feel morally superior that they aren't mass murderers rather than showing any concern that it might happen again or trying to stop it.
In the specific case of state-sponsored terrorism, it strikes me that it would be useful to know whether the leader in question supports it through genuine belief, is trying to appeal to supporters who have genuine belief, or is using it to achieve geopolitical goals without any concern for the ideology behind it. Knowing that would give you some idea of whether and how you can deal with them.
I'm for letting him speak and wish they had let him go to ground zero as well. It would make it that much easier for a sniper to take out the trash.
It would make it that much easier for a sniper to take out the trash.
Right. And then all of our problems would be over. No consequences at all.
Well said, Peter. And well said, Doug. For the past several years at least, it seems like a lot of Americans have readily accepted the explanation that the only reason people do things that strike us as reprehensible is "they're evil." So, they reason, what's there to discuss? I like to think that we're moving beyond such simple-mindedness...
No word yet on whether he'll be permitted to go to Disneyland.
But will he bang his shoe on the table while he's at the U.N.?
I'm suspecting the refusal of his being able to visit ground zero is a concern of security. I think the chance of a huge, emotional crowd on site would be large...
And while we already have Americans risking their lives to protect him (Secret Service Agents) at what point is it too much risk to those Americans?
And I agree with letting him speak. I don't think anything has ever been gained by silencing speach. My only question is, at what point does a University having someone give a speach become a sort of implied approval or endorsment of that speaker? Should our institutions give a platform for every nut who wants to speak? Or is there a limit?
"My only question is, at what point does a University having someone give a speach become a sort of implied approval or endorsment of that speaker? Should our institutions give a platform for every nut who wants to speak? Or is there a limit?"
Well, that's three "only question(s)." Taking them in order:
1) I don't think it ever becomes an implied approval or endorsement, especially when the university endeavors to have different points of view represented. It's not fear to read the booking of a speaker with an endorsement unless the University authorities explicitly say, "We agree with everything he says." In this instance, my understanding is that they're embarking on a lengthy study of Iran. That being the case, who better to speak than the country's current president?
2) They shouldn't be compelled to, no. But they shouldn't be compelled not to.
3)There may be, but no one should be entitled to set that limit other than the people who are given the responsibility for making those decisions. The limits should not be imposed courtesy of the heckler's veto.
PAD
I think it worth mentioning that Iran publically denounced the 9/11 attacks when they happened. I am unaware of anything that the Iranian President has personally said about them one way or the other.
Admitting that ignorance on my part Mr. David, your post implies that he, at least, has made some sort of statement of support about the attacks. I am reminded of the whole conflating of Saddam Hussein and 9/11 that went on before the invasion of Iraq. Has the Iranian President or his government changed their tune regarding 9/11 in the interim?
Oh, and regarding the speech at Columbia: it is my understanding there will also be a question-and-answer session. That may be the only opportunity we EVER have to subject the guy to actual tough questions regarding Holocaust-denial, women's rights, nuclear prolifiration, etc.
PAD, I have to disagree with you. Ahmadinejad is not coming to Columbia to seek common ground, he's coming for propaganda purposes. Why should Columbia allow him to use their (rapidly diminishing) prestige to spew his venom? Why should the NYPD spend money on overtime for the officers protecting him during a photo op at Ground Zero?
But let's say you're right, we should give him a platform. Well, Yizkor's tomorrow, would you give a platform at your Synagogue in place of your Rabbi's sermon? There's a precedent for that, since in the Middle Ages European Jews were haraunged every Shabbos by Christian clergy, told they were going to Hell for not converting.
This is not a war of ideas, such as between competing political parties. It is an apocalyptic struggle for him, as he views Israel's rebirth as a sign that his Mahdi is coming. He will do anything to hasten the Mahdi's coming, including turning Tel Aviv and Haifa into smoldering craters if he could. I happen to have relatives living in both cities, so you might understand how I object to that.
Let me end with a story. About twelve years ago I read an issue of the Incredible Hulk that you wrote, in which the Hulk goes to Israel to stop Achilles of the Pantheon from killing the next Hitler. Sabra gets into a brawl with the Hulk, which trashes Jerusalem, and ends with the Hulk about to punch her into the Kosel. Sabra's thought baloon said something about how her superior's would kill her if the Hulk smashed the Kosel. And I was sittting there rapt, until it hit me: the Hulk can't smash the Kosel. He could bang on it for hours, get madder and madder, stronger and stronger, but I felt while sitting there reading that comic that if HaShem did not want Titus to destroy the kosel, or the Jordanian Arab Legion, he wouldn't let the Hulk do so either. (You had the Hulk, whose throat had been paralyzed by Sabra's stinger whisper that he just wanted to talk, and then he lowered his fist.) However Judaism has a clear motto: we don't sit around and wait for miracles to happen. If the Hulk is about to hit the Kosel, you try to stop him from doing so. (And if you can't at least distract the Hulk you're the worst super-soldier in the world. Seriously, why hasn't Ms. Bat-Seraph been fired yet?) If we don't want Ahmadinejad to realize his apocalyptic fantasies, then we have to take action. We should be organizing a boycott of Iran. We should be pulling our troops out of Iraq, so he can't hold them hostage if he launches an attack on any of allies in the Middle East. We should be developing allies to isolate Iran. But we should not invite Ahmadinejad to tea and hope he changes his behavior. I believe the British and French tried that with a dictator who claimed to only want the Sudetenland. How did that turn out?
Anyway, have a G'mar Chasima Tova PAD.
Leor Blumenthal
It would make it that much easier for a sniper to take out the trash.
Yes, let's take out the president of the largest Arab/Muslim democracy. We can quit pretending we believe we can make all this democracy-bs work. Who are we kidding? Then we can work our way up to taking out all of these socialist nations where all the money spent on taking care of people should be spent preparing to kill them. They don't realize the chief virtue of the human race is intolerance. It's all so clear now.
My only question is, at what point does a University having someone give a speach become a sort of implied approval or endorsment of that speaker?
At what point does discussing racism increase its invulnerability?
I'm sure there's an answer, but the taboo against the discussion of race and racism nurtures the denial of racism, and the denial of racism is racism's most reliable shelter, so taboos and censorship aren't the answer.
At what point does discussing racism increase its invulnerability? I'm sure there's an answer...
Now that I consider it further, the examples I was thinking of were examples of lop-sided discussions. Solving a problem rooted in closed access with additional closed access will only work in a fantasy world.
That rings painfully close to home. Canada-Japan culture group I headed until recently has monthly dinners at which a guest speaker/presenter gets to talk about/demonstrate some aspect of Japanese life/culture. This month's was supposed to be the Canadian head of a Japanese religious group which is expanding abroad. Unfortunately, the new Board running things (mostly relative newcomers who decided they wanted a kick at the can last elections so why not?) saw the word 'religion' and went into panic mode. "It's a small group, like a cult, not mainstream, what if someone objects, what if we're seen as endorsing, what if...?" My response to that was "tell them to GET A LIFE already" but fear carried the day and the new executive cancelled the speaker and brought in someone else. This seriously pissed off a founding member who is involved in that group, and cost the board the services of the guy who has been organizing those dinners for over ten years now and who resigned in anger over the Board's action. Yet the new executive still can't see they were wrong here.
As for Columbia, for S'Net's sake, have the guy speak. As Mr. David rightly points out, that's one of the cornerstones of the American Way and it doesn't count if you get free speech but the other side doesn't. With luck, Holocaust survivor groups would get together and have the auditorium packed. Then, one after the other they'd stand, quietly state "I was there" and then walk out. Hard to beat as damning messages go.
Um, what's wrong with just saying Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev was denied permission to visit Disneyland in 1959? I was born in 1978 but I've heard the anecdote. Guess it would have ruined the rhythm of the joke, you're the professional writer around here...
(No word yet on whether he'll be permitted to go to Disneyland. And if you have to ask why I brought that up, you're too young for me to explain it.)
It cuts both ways. People saying the university shouldn't invite him are exercising their free speech, and I've yet to hear anyone demand the gov't step in and force the uni to do it.
People have a right to speak. They don't have a right to be provided someone else's microphone. If people dislike that Columbia is giving out their microphone, they have a right to say so and Columbia has a right to weigh people's outrage in their decisions. That, too, is called liberty.
Should have been allowed to go to Ground Zero. Public place and all. Peaceful Assembly. He's not a citizen, but foreign leaders and diplomats should be extended similar courtesies when they are in the country. If we're going to allow the KKK to march peacefully in a town square (and we do, and should) I don't see why we can't let a Holocaust denier speak too. Equally repulsive.
Columbia is a private university and should be selective in who they invite to speak on campus. But the explanation that they are beginning an educational series on Iran is sufficient explanation for me. The President of Iran is the ideal speaker for such a circumstance.
If the synagogue I am a member of could actually get the President of Iran to speak to us, I'd attend. It would be inappropriate during a High Holy Day service, but on a different day, sure! (Columbia's Speaker Series is a Speaker Series, so inviting a guest to Speak is kind of expected.)
Calling Iran a "democracy" is an abuse of the term. Being able to cast a vote alone does not a democracy make. Elections must be free and fair, and the government must protect certain basic liberties and human rights.
Iran's presidential candidates are vetted by a "Council of Guardians" who ensure that the candidates are loyal to the "ideals" of the "Islamic Revolution." Shi'a Islam is the state-sponsored religion. The Iranian goverment employs torture on a scale that makes Guantanamo look tichy by comparison. Iranian women are brutally oppressed, as sanctioned and in some cases even required by Iranian law.
In any event, however, I agree with Peter: let Ahmadinejad speak at Columbia University. Let him see what it's like to speak on a more level playing field, where people aren't prohibited by threat of force from pointing out how intellectually and morally bankrupt his rhetoric is.
I admit our nation isn't perfect when it comes to the ideal of truly free speech. But we're leaps and bounds ahead of Iran and are the better for it. Let's show that off! I'd rather tell the world we've nothing to fear from a vapid little man like Ahmadinejad, than to send a signal that we're so frightened of him that we must put a muzzle on him.
Dave: "People saying the university shouldn't invite him are exercising their free speech..."
That's irrelevant. The issue isn't whether or not opponents of Ahmadinejad being able to speak at Columbia University are within their rights. They have the right to openly disagree with the University. But that doesn't mean they are right to do so.
Whether or not someone is within their rights is an entirely separate issue from whether or not one feels their intellectual position is the correct one.
I do think it was a mistake on Columbia's part to invite the iranian president. When a prestigious university invites a speaker, it does confer a certain academic legitimacy on that person's opinions. It is a little like inviting a creationist to speak at the biology department or an astrologer in the astronomy department. Even if what you have in mind is the real scientists refuting him (or in this case survivors and historians), he will still be able to go home saying that creationism or holocaust denial was seriously discussed and considered in an academic setting. In Achenidajad's case this actually playing right into his hands, since 'all he wants is an open discussion about the holocaust.' Furthermore, I doubt people who are invited to lecture, and especially world leaders, are brought on stage to be humilated. On the contrary, they are treated very diplomatically. Also, the image of an audience full of dignified holocaust survivors is not going to happen either. What will happen is that at one point a crazy histerical jew or more, probably not even a survivor, will start yelling and foaming in the mouth. This will score Achmedinajad some extra points, and after words he wil tell how the jews who control america tried to silence him. I also don't believe such a lecture is that beneficial on the educational level. It's not like info on Iran, as well as Achemedinajad's own words are not available to western audiences without actually inviting him to speak in one of the world's most prestigeous universities.
That said, since they made the decision to invite him, it must be tolerated. any attempt to bully them to recind the invitation at this stage would be wrong and harmful.
"Yes, let's take out the president of the largest Arab/Muslim democracy."
a. Iran is not an Arab country. The majority are Persians. There are other minority ethinic groups, including arabs, I think.
b.Iran is not the largest muslim anything. Indonesia is the most populous muslim nation, and I also believe it's a democracy at present. I think Kazakhstan is the largest muslim nation geographically.
c. Iran is not a democracy by western standards. I think Inxdonesia is, so it might be intersting to hear from its leader; Malaysia maybe, I'm not sure; and Turkey's new democratically elected Islamic but democratic president.
"It would make it that much easier for a sniper to take out the trash."
A country that is hosting a world leader under diplomatic auspices should not kill him, nor would doing so accomplish anything positive.
Last time I was in NY I saw a small demonstration by american Iranians against Achmenidajad near the library. I think he was visting then too.
The Iranian-Canadian blogger Kamangir can provide some insight about Iran, but he is an opponent of the current government. You can google him.
I myself would love to here him spurt his idiotic ideas on the holocast, but in my fantasy world he would then have to listen to my ideas on how the crusades were a myth...Thus proving his relegions distrust and antichristian motivations are based on the drunken ramblings of a sailor in istanbul in the 10th century.
So at the end of the evening we part ways thinking each other are just misguided idiots. Actualy now that I think about it thats the way most of my dates end up....
Isn't there still a warrant for his arrest active for his participation in the Iran Hostage Crisis? And if so, can we arrest him when he steps off the plane?
" People saying the university shouldn't invite him are exercising their free speech"
I've seen this kind of thinking made before, and I don't think it's actually correct. People saying the university are not really excercising free speech...they're in fact excercising censorship. Free speech protects them from govnerment regulation of what they say, but don't mistake their actions for free speech. It's an act of censorship.
An excercise of free speech in this case would be to set up a debate, or a presentation able to present ideas opposed to those presented by the Iranian President.
Yes, let's take out the president of the largest Arab/Muslim democracy. We can quit pretending we believe we can make all this democracy-bs work. Who are we kidding? Then we can work our way up to taking out all of these socialist nations where all the money spent on taking care of people should be spent preparing to kill them. They don't realize the chief virtue of the human race is intolerance. It's all so clear now.a. Iran is not an Arab country. The majority are Persians. There are other minority ethinic groups, including arabs, I think.
b.Iran is not the largest muslim anything. Indonesia is the most populous muslim nation, and I also believe it's a democracy at present. I think Kazakhstan is the largest muslim nation geographically.
I have no reservation against rephrasing for accuracy what I first present casually. Iran is considered part of the Middle East, is it not? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the president of the largest Middle-Eastern Muslim democracy which is a source of a substantial amount of the world's oil.
Calling Iran a "democracy" is an abuse of the term. Being able to cast a vote alone does not a democracy make. Elections must be free and fair, and the government must protect certain basic liberties and human rights.Iran's presidential candidates are vetted by a "Council of Guardians" who ensure that the candidates are loyal to the "ideals" of the "Islamic Revolution." Shi'a Islam is the state-sponsored religion. The Iranian goverment employs torture on a scale that makes Guantanamo look tichy by comparison. Iranian women are brutally oppressed, as sanctioned and in some cases even required by Iranian law.
c. Iran is not a democracy by western standards. I think Inxdonesia is, so it might be intersting to hear from its leader; Malaysia maybe, I'm not sure; and Turkey's new democratically elected Islamic but democratic president.
Calling Iran a democracy is no more an abuse of the term than referring to the US as a democracy for its first century and a half or so. Garrison Keillor pointed out that the virtue of the prohibition of alcohol was not that blue-nosed puritans wanted to oppress fun, but that men were privileged at the time to get drunk then go home and beat the crap out of their wives (www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/179016.php). If you want to paint democracy as more virtuous that it really is, that isn't the problem of anyone observing the literal definitions of the word.
"government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"
Neither is true of Iran. In Iran supreme power is vested in the supreme council and in Islamic law.
Furthermore, modern democracy is also usually associated with the existence of certain individual rights that do not exist in Iran.
The analogy to prohibition is irrelevant to this discussion. Prohibition may have been motivated by religious reasons, but was implemented by democratic tools. In Iran religious law is forced on the people and exercised by undemocratic means.
The largest middle easten muslim democracy is still Turkey.
"Admitting that ignorance on my part Mr. David, your post implies that he, at least, has made some sort of statement of support about the attacks. I am reminded of the whole conflating of Saddam Hussein and 9/11 that went on before the invasion of Iraq. Has the Iranian President or his government changed their tune regarding 9/11 in the interim?"
Iran supports terrorists organizations, but it has not supported, to the best of my knowledge, 9/11.
"Posted by: bobb alfred at September 21, 2007 02:25 PM
" People saying the university shouldn't invite him are exercising their free speech"
I've seen this kind of thinking made before, and I don't think it's actually correct. People saying the university are not really excercising free speech...they're in fact excercising censorship. Free speech protects them from govnerment regulation of what they say, but don't mistake their actions for free speech. It's an act of censorship."
Would you say that the position I posted above -- that Colombia was wrong to invite the Iranian president -- is in fact an act of censorship?
Doesn't he get enough free speech time in his own country?
Columbia will let a man speak, that has declared capital punishment on anyone who is homosexual, but won't let the ROTC be on campus because of it's don't ask don't tell policy.
Micha,
Thanx for the reply to the Iran/911 question. As you're someone who lives in Israel, I'll go on the assumption that you would have likely heard of most of the more obnoxious statements that flow out of Iran.
democracy ...government by the people; especially : rule of the majority a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free electionsNeither is true of Iran. In Iran supreme power is vested in the supreme council and in Islamic law.
If you're referring to the council of guardians, they are accountable to the supreme leader, who is accountable to the assembly of experts, who are answerable to elections. If you're referring to the council of ministers, they are accountable to the Iranian president, who is answerable to elections. Democracy.
[Bill Meyers] Iran's presidential candidates are vetted by a "Council of Guardians" who ensure that the candidates are loyal to the "ideals" of the "Islamic Revolution." Shi'a Islam is the state-sponsored religion. The Iranian goverment employs torture on a scale that makes Guantanamo look tichy by comparison. Iranian women are brutally oppressed, as sanctioned and in some cases even required by Iranian law.
Calling Iran a democracy is no more an abuse of the term than referring to the US as a democracy for its first century and a half or so. Garrison Keillor pointed out that the virtue of the prohibition of alcohol was not that blue-nosed puritans wanted to oppress fun, but that men were privileged at the time to get drunk then go home and beat the crap out of their wives (www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/179016.php). If you want to paint democracy as more virtuous that it really is, that isn't the problem of anyone observing the literal definitions of the word.The analogy to prohibition is irrelevant to this discussion.
It's relevant to misogyny, which I cited in demonstrating misogyny's irrelevance in disqualifying democracy.
Without further analyzing, I will say this short thing:
If Gene Ray gave a guest lecture at MIT, then it doesn't seem so impossible for the Prez of Iran to give a speach at Columbia and have everyone realize "Hey, maybe it's to bring about a better concept of HIS ideas so we can understand how MUCH we disagree?"
(And, actully you'll note, that Gene Ray is similarly anti-semetic... he's just not in charge of a country)
To me, the overriding factor is that he's the president of a country. The president of any country is a huge deal. When we refuse to consider the possibility of communicating with him, we hinder ourselves.
Whether he's spewing venom in a Columbia speech or not, I don't see anyone absorbing that venom and coming away from that speech believing in the guy. I don't think anyone in America would be at all closer to being one of his followers after the speech than they were before. So I don't think he's capable of doing any harm while being here. I don't even think he'd deliver a speech in America that remotely resembles a speech he'd deliver in Iran.
But in letting him speak, he gets a chance to see Americans as real people, not just statistics around the world. The Bush administration has taken the policy of not talking to countries it doesn't like, and that has made things so much worse with Iran and Korea. You can't solve things diplomatically if you refuse communication at all. Having him speak at a college university isn't a major act of diplomacy, but it's the same principle. Communication is better than silent mistrust.
It's not purely because of Ahmadinejad. The invitation to him did not happen in a vacuum. At the same time, Lawrence Summers -- the former president of Harvard -- was invited and then disinvited to speak at UC-Stanford. This was because a couple of years ago, when discussing why more men than women seem to be drawn towards mathematics and physics, he wondered -- WONDERED -- if there was some biological difference in the brains of the sexes. That sin cost him his job at Harvard.
The principle you discuss, PAD, is admirable in theory, but it seems it's never put into practice. Extremists from the Left and anti-American people from abroad are granted that privilege, but their ideological counterparts are shouted down, threatened, assaulted, and driven away.
For example: Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, and several others have been openly assaulted when giving speeches. The Minuteman Project people were driven off a stage by a mob. Bush and his cabinet members were offered honorary doctorates to come and give commencement addresses, then the offers were withdrawn under considerable fire from faculty and staff. And don't even get me started on Daniel Pipes or military recruiters.
If academia was anywhere near consistent in following this principle, then they'd have a modicum of respect from me -- and others of my bent. But we hear the lofty ideals that never seem to apply to "our" kind of people, only to those that tend to reinforce the dominant dogma of colleges, and our bullshit detectors nearly explode.
The day that Benjamin Netanyahu is accorded the same kind of treatment as Mr Ahmadinejad on a college campus, then I will respect the colleges. But I don't see that happening any time soon.
J.
Jason M. Bryant said, "The president of any country is a huge deal. When we refuse to consider the possibility of communicating with him, we hinder ourselves."
That reminds me of the Babylon 5 episode "The Coming of Shadows" in which the Narn ambassador G'Kar protests the upcoming arrival of the Centauri emperor. Captain Sheridan tries to point out that G'Kar would have the opportunity to speak directly with the head of the Centuari Republic, but G'Kar refuses to listen.
Now granted the Iranian president's visit to Columbia isn't the same type of thing (a visit to the UN would be more comparable), but as others have said, the visit gives people who attend the event the opportunity to question his statements, either those made at the event or those already on record.
That presupposes, of course, that there will be a set aside time for questions (which he'd take part in) and that he won't just be interrupted by hecklers during his speech.
Rick
If your bullshit detector is telling you Lawrence Summers's, Ann Coulter's, Pat Buchanan's, Rush Limbaugh's, Karl Rove's, or George Bush's access to the American public does not exceed the president of Iran's, it may be time to trade it in for one with the upgraded accuracy.
Mike, I'm not talking about their general access to the American public, I'm talking about their reception and access on college campuses.
Anyone think that the president of Iran might get nailed with a cream pie while at the podium? Greeted with loud, rowdy mobs that try to shout him down?
I thought not.
J.
I'm part of a reasonably prestigious speaker series at work. On the one hand, we don't pay honoraria, so the issue of whether we support someone's ideas/actions by paying them to speak doesn't come up. And we have had controversial people in, and do occasionally make the point that having someone speak doesn't necessarily mean either the company or the people doing the speakers series agree with 'em.
Still, we do have self-imposed limits. The example I like to use is that it's very unlikely we'd ever have Ann Coulter speak. 'Cause as far as we can tell, she has no particularly original or interesting ideas or concepts, but merely preaches hate, and holds no inherently important or interesting position.
We would probably have, say, Billy Graham, William Buckley, Karl Rove, etc. (i.e. any number or religious and/or conservative figures) speak who either actually have ideas and positions to defend and discuss or whom are of significance as to their ideas due o the position they hold/held. But a fair number of these better be ready to defend their views from some very smart people during the Q&A period. We encourage politeness with the questions, but that doesn't stop very pointed ones (nor do we wish to stop such, but we want the questions focused on ideas, not personal invective).
Anyone think that the president of Iran might get nailed with a cream pie while at the podium?
Well, of course not. He'd have massive, highly trained security, and there aren't many people willing to risk throwing their lives away for such a trivial reason. His odds would be much higher of being shot.
Anyone think that the president of Iran might get nailed with a cream pie while at the podium?
Portraying the pie-in-the-face as a denial of access sounds like a step away from comparing Ann Coulter to Rosa Parks insisting on her right to sit at the front of the bus. It's a denial of privilege that's all kinds of wrong.
Greeted with loud, rowdy mobs that try to shout him down?
To paraphrase CS Lewis, why resort to murder to get what you want when cards will do it for you? If he simply can't be put in his place during the q&a, the shortcoming is ours, not his.
Talk radio host Glenn Beck suggests surrounding the Iranian President with Jews while he's here: Jews for his secret service agents, limo driver, etc.
Personally? Let the guy visit ground zero. However, I don't think any level of security would keep him safe. He might walk in, but walking out could be problematic. He might get carried out...
But that wouldn't solve anything either. In fact, it would probably just elevate the problem. Create a martyr of this monster. Propaganda for other of his ilk to use against those "infidels."
I wonder if President Bush went to Iran... just how safe would he be there?
RLR
"Posted by: David Hunt at September 21, 2007 03:24 PM
"As you're someone who lives in Israel, I'll go on the assumption that you would have likely heard of most of the more obnoxious statements that flow out of Iran."
I can't really claim to know much more than you do. Maybe a little more by virtue of our media giving Iran a little more focus than yours.
By the way, have you read Ahmadinajad's letter to Bush?
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Posted by: Jason M. Bryant at September 21, 2007 04:25 PM
"Whether he's spewing venom in a Columbia speech or not, I don't see anyone absorbing that venom and coming away from that speech believing in the guy. I don't think anyone in America would be at all closer to being one of his followers after the speech than they were before. So I don't think he's capable of doing any harm while being here. I don't even think he'd deliver a speech in America that remotely resembles a speech he'd deliver in Iran."
Do not underestimate the power of ideals, even bad ones, to filter into people minds and affect them. Ideas are very powerful: they multiply themselves by word of mouth, print and internet. And once they come into the world they never go away completely. Ideas are very dangerous. But this is a risk we're willing to take in order for their to be a free exchange of ideas -- so the good ideas make it through.
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Mike:
"The analogy to prohibition is irrelevant to this discussion.
It's relevant to misogyny, which I cited in demonstrating misogyny's irrelevance in disqualifying democracy."
I have no idea how you got from prohibition to mysogyny, or how mysoguny in the context of the US has anything to do with realities in Iran now.
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Mike:
"If you're referring to the council of guardians, they are accountable to the supreme leader, who is accountable to the assembly of experts, who are answerable to elections. If you're referring to the council of ministers, they are accountable to the Iranian president, who is answerable to elections. Democracy."
I don't have the time or the inclination the embark on this kind of Mike-discussion that seems to be starting here. Does Iran constitute a democracy? I'll leave it to the people on this thread to decide on their own. The information about the structure of Iran's government (very complicated) and about how politics work in Iran, human rights etc. are both readily available in Wikipedia or elsewhere. It is quite interesting.
I think the chance of a huge, emotional crowd on site would be large...
Yeah, who knows? A bunch of students might kidnap him and hold him hostage for 444 days...
(of course that wouldn't happen! And pointing that out would be fun! Another lost opportunity for some politically useful snark)
Jay hits the nail on the head--many of the people complaining about this are mad that Columbia and other Universities are very very particular about when they will support free speech. The juxtaposition of this with the Larry Summers debacle, the Chemerinsky hiring-firing-rehiring, the fact that Columbia won't let the ROTC on campus because of their discrimination against gays...but invites the leader of s country that proudly executes gays and isn't the least bit squeamish about anyone knowing it...
Bust you know what? Hypocrisy on campus is no surprise to anyone who has ever gone to college. The politically correct mindset, with its perfect storm of tyranny, cowardice and smug self indulgence, simply attracts hypocrisy like flies to shit. Yet it seems stupid to me to complain about that. What's wrong isn't the hypocrisy, it's the policy. Discriminating against all political groups equally is not the answer, it's not discriminating at all.
Trying to get Columbia to be even less committed to the free exchange of ideas is just excusing their earlier bad behavior.
CU, you are the icon of bigotry. I doubt most highly you would permit Billy Graham or another of his caliber speak at your university or other of the Christian faith, and probably not even of the Jewish faith. Yet you permit this monument of hatred, anti-emitism, and terrorism have free speech at your podium. How much federal funds flow through your school? Perhaps it is time those funds dried up and only those who supported your bend mentality supported your school.
[Bill Meyers] Iran's presidential candidates are vetted by a "Council of Guardians" who ensure that the candidates are loyal to the "ideals" of the "Islamic Revolution." Shi'a Islam is the state-sponsored religion. The Iranian goverment employs torture on a scale that makes Guantanamo look tichy by comparison. Iranian women are brutally oppressed, as sanctioned and in some cases even required by Iranian law.
Calling Iran a democracy is no more an abuse of the term than referring to the US as a democracy for its first century and a half or so. Garrison Keillor pointed out that the virtue of the prohibition of alcohol was not that blue-nosed puritans wanted to oppress fun, but that men were privileged at the time to get drunk then go home and beat the crap out of their wives (www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/179016.php). If you want to paint democracy as more virtuous that it really is, that isn't the problem of anyone observing the literal definitions of the word.The analogy to prohibition is irrelevant to this discussion.
It's relevant to misogyny, which I cited in demonstrating misogyny's irrelevance in disqualifying democracy.I have no idea how you got from prohibition to mysogyny, or how mysoguny in the context of the US has anything to do with realities in Iran now.
The reason you have no idea Bill Meyers literally tried to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy is because you are in the habit of denying what literally takes place in the same threads you make your denials.
democracy ...government by the people; especially : rule of the majority a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free electionsNeither is true of Iran. In Iran supreme power is vested in the supreme council and in Islamic law.
If you're referring to the council of guardians, they are accountable to the supreme leader, who is accountable to the assembly of experts, who are answerable to elections. If you're referring to the council of ministers, they are accountable to the Iranian president, who is answerable to elections. Democracy.The information about the structure of Iran's government (very complicated) and about how politics work in Iran, human rights etc. are both readily available in Wikipedia or elsewhere
Thank you for validating Wikipedia as a source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Council
Guardian Council
The council has 12 members: six clerics, conscious of the present needs and the issues of the day, appointed by the supreme leader and six jurists, specializing in different areas of law, to be elected by the Majlis from among the Muslim jurists nominated by the Head of the Judicial Power (who, in turn, is also appointed by the supreme leader).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_Experts
Assembly of Experts
The Assembly of Experts... is a congressional body of 86 Mujtahids which elects the Supreme Leader and supervises his activities. Members of the assembly are elected from a government-screened list of candidates by direct public vote to eight year terms.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_Government_of_Iran#Executive_branch
Executive branch
The President is elected by universal suffrage, by those 15 years old and older[1], for a term of four years. Presidential candidates must be approved by the Council of Guardians prior to running. The President is responsible for the implementation of the Constitution and for the exercise of executive powers, except for matters directly related to the Supreme Leader. The President appoints and supervises the Council of Ministers, coordinates government decisions, and selects government policies to be placed before the legislature. Currently, 10 Vice-Presidents serve under the President, as well as a cabinet of 21 ministers, who must all be approved by the legislature. Unlike many other states, the executive branch in Iran does not control the armed forces. Although the President appoints the Ministers of Intelligence and Defense, it is customary for the President to obtain explicit approval from the Supreme Leader for these two ministers before presenting them to the legislature for a vote of confidence.
Democracy.
The juxtaposition of this with the Larry Summers debacle, the Chemerinsky hiring-firing-rehiring, the fact that Columbia won't let the ROTC on campus because of their discrimination against gays...but invites the leader of s country that proudly executes gays and isn't the least bit squeamish about anyone knowing it...
Unless I'm missing something:
...
The politically correct mindset, with its perfect storm of tyranny, cowardice and smug self indulgence, simply attracts hypocrisy like flies to shit.
Who gets held to their tyranny, cowardice and smug self-indulgence? Totalitarian dictators and the politically correct. It's funny how it takes so little privilege for the beneficiaries of political correctness to develop vices not even, say, the chivalrous knights who proudly fought to preserve slavery developed.
"fear carried the day"
Those four words best express the whole situation.
"It would make it that much easier for a sniper to take out the trash."
Hate is hate, people. Why is it okay for us to take out a foreign leader in an unprovoked attack, when we would be insensed if someone did that to us (well, in most cases)? Would we then turn the sniper over to Iran for punishment, as we would demand of them? It is hate that has gotten us where we are, and as a nation that desperately needs to improve our worldly image, we should be doing all we can to appear courteous, friendly, and open to intelligent negotiation. I'm not saying roll out the red carpet and hand over the keys to the city, but treat people as you would want to be treated, no matter what you think of them personally. That is the basis of civility.
Forgive my dorkitude, but to paraphrase Gandalf the Grey, "There are those that live who deserve to die. There are those who die who deserve life. Can you give it to them?"
In other words, it is not up to us to play God. Unless we live in Iran, and know the President personally, we are all victims of the media, and do not know all the facts. Do I hate the man? No. I have no reason to. Do I trust him? Not on your life. But that's no reason to be discourteous. Listen to him in person, without the media's interpretation, and THEN judge for yourself.
"Thank you for validating Wikipedia as a source:"
Mike, I am offering wikipedia as a source, not your interpretation of the information which wikipedia offers provides . This is why I refered people straight to the source.
"The reason you have no idea Bill Meyers literally tried to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy is because you are in the habit of denying what literally takes place in the same threads you make your denials."
I'm not exactly clear how you got from prohibition to mysogyny. You have made no meaningful comparison between the phenomena of mysogyny in the US -- of which you have not actually said anything of substance -- and the present phenomena of how the Iranian government and law treats women. Nor have you addressed the quite interesting issue of how all this relates to democracy. As usuall you prefered to spin words and have imaginary conversations with yourself rather than actually deal with the issues at hand in a way that would require you to learn and understand real phenomena rather than simple play around with words. What a shame.
Bill of course has not "literally tried to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy." That's only the inability of your binary mind to process the information.
I must say that I am saddened but not surprised that you apparently find Achadinajad and Bin Laden appealing to the point of becoming an apologist for them. You are not the first to be drawn to these kind of leaders.
Jay, I'm willing to bet you right now that there will be an angry mob at Columbia trying to shout him down. Pie throwing? Probably not, given that his security will likely not let anyone close enough to him to throw a pie. But there will be people trying to shout him down.
Bill Mulligan, I agree with you on this one. Yes, colleges are not always consistent in their positions on free speech, but the answer isn't to validate their inconsistencies by pressuring them to be more restictive. It's to pressure them to be more open. So, let I'm-a-dinner-jacket give his talk and face a little q-and-a. Maybe he'll see that not all Americans are out to destroy Islam after all.
Hell, let Anne Coulter debate him. If nothing else it would be entertaining.
Unless I'm missing something:
enough people Summers worked with simply felt free to publicly say they didn't like him -- there was no other coercion
Yes. You are missing something. As there is no benefit in engaging in conversation with you other than the ignoble feeling of amusement at toying with the obtuse, I feel no great desire to help you out here.
Oh heck, just google "larry Summers" at google news. Rather surprised you missed this; it's been mentioned quite a bit lately.
As far as the principal of free speech is concerns you are all completely correct in supporting free speech and opposing attempts to curtail it in this case.
However your expectations from this actual event are not very realistic. This will not be a debate, a discussion, a learning experience, q & a, understanding. These terms have little to do with what is going to happen in Columbia. What is going to happen is that Achmadinajad will score a few propaganda points -- maybe more maybe less -- and then he'll go home and the world will keep on turning.
Maybe he'll see that not all Americans are out to destroy Islam after all.
I think he knows that, Den. My gut feeling is that he's not as crazy as he acts, as opposed to, say, Hugo Chavez, who is just a whack job.
I don't know that he'll be shouted down though. Tickets are hard to come by and were reserved. The reaction may well be determined by how they were allocated. Having gone to Columbia to visit my mom often back in the day when she was getting her PhD (and I came terrifyingly close to becoming an alumni myself--there's a bad fit!) I can assure you that there are enough hardcore Jew-haters there to make a good showing.
Hopefully the saner members of the school will show up (actually it would be great if he was greeted by an empty auditorium but that's not going to happen) and give him their respectful silence, ask intelligent hardball questions, and let his answers do their own damage.
But it's good to let him talk. Hey! maybe he'll go batshit insane and start blabbing about how, at his speech to the UN, he was surrounded by light and nobody blinked for 27 minutes. Funny, funny man.
Micha, I get what you're saying, but he'd also score propaganda points if we stop him from speaking. At least this way there's always the chance something good will come out of it.
This event and your blog reminds me of some thing that happened on one of the old talk shows back in the 80’s (Donahue, I think). They had a various young racist from areas around the country that didn’t have much chance for interaction with the people they hated, fly to NY city for the show. While they were on the show they spewed their hate speech to a divers audience that gave them hell for it. Six months later they flew most of them back to NY for a fallow up show. Turned out that on their first trip to NY they got to see some thing that they never had a chance to witness first hand. People of different races, religions, and ethnicities living, working, and having fun together. On the follow up show most of them no longer held the their racist and separatist opinions.
the fact that Columbia won't let the ROTC on campus because of their discrimination against gays...but invites the leader of s country that proudly executes gays and isn't the least bit squeamish about anyone knowing it...
I think that's apples and oranges, though. The Iranian president isn't being invited to set up a permanent branch on campus and recruit people to his ideals.
I doubt most highly you would permit Billy Graham or another of his caliber speak at your university or other of the Christian faith, and probably not even of the Jewish faith.
Yes, I'm sure they have never, ever had a Christian or Jew speak at their university. Ever. (You do get that this is a political leader, not a religious figure, right?)
Yes, Ahmadinejad has said more than a few reprehensible things. Refuse to let him speak, he wins his point. Drown him out, and you are no better than the paid crowds who chant Death to America in Tehran.
Let him speak, let him make his vitriol obvious.
I think that's apples and oranges, though. The Iranian president isn't being invited to set up a permanent branch on campus and recruit people to his ideals.
If there isn't a pro-Iranian organization on campus, one that recruits people to its ideals...I can state with absolute assurance that there was one. We had some of the members over for dinner.
Mike, I am offering wikipedia as a source, not your interpretation of the information which wikipedia offers provides.
My interpretation of the information is a literal interpretation: the power structure in Iran you seem to be referring to is indirectly accountable to elections, and literally qualifies for a definition of democracy you say it doesn't qualify for.
[Bill Myers] Calling Iran a "democracy" is an abuse of the term. Being able to cast a vote alone does not a democracy make. Elections must be free and fair, and the government must protect certain basic liberties and human rights.
Iran's presidential candidates are vetted by a "Council of Guardians" who ensure that the candidates are loyal to the "ideals" of the "Islamic Revolution." Shi'a Islam is the state-sponsored religion. The Iranian goverment employs torture on a scale that makes Guantanamo look tichy by comparison. Iranian women are brutally oppressed, as sanctioned and in some cases even required by Iranian law.
Calling Iran a democracy is no more an abuse of the term than referring to the US as a democracy for its first century and a half or so. Garrison Keillor pointed out that the virtue of the prohibition of alcohol was not that blue-nosed puritans wanted to oppress fun, but that men were privileged at the time to get drunk then go home and beat the crap out of their wives (www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/179016.php). If you want to paint democracy as more virtuous that it really is, that isn't the problem of anyone observing the literal definitions of the word.The analogy to prohibition is irrelevant to this discussion.
It's relevant to misogyny, which I cited [prohibition, that is] in demonstrating misogyny's irrelevance in disqualifying democracy.I have no idea how you got from prohibition to mysogyny, or how mysoguny in the context of the US has anything to do with realities in Iran now.
The reason you have no idea Bill Meyers literally tried to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy is because you are in the habit of denying what literally takes place in the same threads you make your denials.I'm not exactly clear how you got from prohibition to mysogyny. You have made no meaningful comparison between the phenomena of mysogyny in the US -- of which you have not actually said anything of substance -- and the present phenomena of how the Iranian government and law treats women.
I can only continue to cite the text I bold. An interpretation of the bolded text other than what seems to be the obvious reading needs to be provided -- to nurture your denial of what sems to be its obvious interpretation.
If you haven't just denied that wife-beating as a privilege is rooted in misogyny, I am totally open to hearing an alternate interpretation -- or to accepting even a simple rephrasing -- of what you've said.
Bill of course has not "literally tried to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy." That's only the inability of your binary mind to process the information.
If Bill wants to deny "Iranian women are brutally oppressed" was part of a list of facts to demonstrate "Calling Iran a 'democracy' is an abuse of the term," that suits me fine. Otherwise, yes, employing the former text to demonstrate the validity of the latter text is "literally [trying] to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy."
Unless I'm missing something:
enough people Summers worked with simply felt free to publicly say they didn't like him -- there was no other coercion
Yes. You are missing something. As there is no benefit in engaging in conversation with you other than the ignoble feeling of amusement at toying with the obtuse, I feel no great desire to help you out here.
You've just closed access to what you were referring to to not just me, but to anyone whose understanding of what happened to Larry Summers is completely compatible to what I've said, so whatever.
Oh heck, just google "larry Summers" at google news. Rather surprised you missed this; it's been mentioned quite a bit lately.
If you're referring to the canceled invitation to speak at UC-Davis, none of the google results says what subject he was invited to speak as an expert on. If he, and his replacement the governor's chief-of-staff, were invited to speak on why there are so few women on the Harvard science faculty, yes, their invitations should be f.n. canceled -- they simply aren't qualified to speak as experts on areas outside their expertise, just as you would protest a real estate lawyer who authored the executive justification to violate the Geneva Convention from becoming attorney general.
Posted by Mike
To paraphrase CS Lewis, why resort to murder to get what you want when cards will do it for you?
Or, to quote the Great Red Dragon "Why play an ace when a two will do?"
Or to quote Vizzinni "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"
"Micha, I get what you're saying, but he'd also score propaganda points if we stop him from speaking. At least this way there's always the chance something good will come out of it."
Yes. That's why I said that once the invitation was made recinding it would have done only more harm. However, making the offer in the first place accomplishes nothing but giving him the chance to score some propaganda points. It is unlikely that anything good will come of this.
Mike:
"My interpretation of the information is a literal interpretation"
Reading text literaly is enough of a mistake already. Texts are never written and should never be read literaly. However, never in your career on this board have you ever read text literaly. You read bits anmd pieces of the text which serve your interpretation over literaly. Which is why I reciommend again to anybody and everybody to go and read the original text -- in this case Wikipedia's entries on Iranian government and policy.
"I can only continue to cite the text I bold."
You can, but it won't make what you say anymore sensible or convincing. Thev brutal oppression of women by the Iranian government and the phenomenon of individual women being abused by individual men in America (which for some reason you felt necessary to connect to prohibition) are two unrelated phenomena.
Of course he should be allowed to speak.
I think that part of the reason that Northern Ireland has become so entrenched is because the parties don't really listen to one another; they make speeches for the benefit of their own hangers-on, who cheer and reinforce their self-belief. One gets a mob mentality, where the simplest, most reactionary view gets the plaudits, because it resonates with the anger that people feel.
Both sides have been wronged. You can get hung up on that, fold your arms and refuse to talk; but where does that get you? How is the conflict possibly going to end, unless one the parties ceases to exist? Are those the options; generations of pain and strife, or another holocaust?
I have to hope not. The fact that people have, by and large, stopped shooting each other in Northern Ireland, gives me grounds for that hope. I never honestly thought I'd see that day.
"There's no such thing as an instant life-transforming epiphany"
Yes there are.
They're slightly rarer than rocking-horse droppings, but they do occur.
Been there, done that.
Cheers.
Damn... dropped by for one simple comment, then saw:-
Gabh quoth:
"Both sides have been wronged. You can get hung up on that, fold your arms and refuse to talk; but where does that get you? How is the conflict possibly going to end, unless one the parties ceases to exist? Are those the options; generations of pain and strife, or another holocaust?
I have to hope not. The fact that people have, by and large, stopped shooting each other in Northern Ireland, gives me grounds for that hope. I never honestly thought I'd see that day."
Northern Ireland is one that will never sit easy with me.
Two of the guys I was at school with died there, serving as 'peace keepers' when no one over there wanted any peace kept.
The Northern Ireland peace accord, from one perspective was a total sell out with some stomach turning grovelling to a bunch of murdering thugs who should stay banged up until 5 minutes after the apocalypse.
But we do now have a peace, of sorts.
And people are no longer dying there.
So that is a good thing, and I do have to swallow something that I really don't enjoy swallowing...
Gabh is right. At some point, we do all have to grit our teeth and 'get over it', however emotionally impossible that may seem for some of the 'it' things that people have done to one another.
Cheers.
If you're referring to the canceled invitation to speak at UC-Davis, none of the google results says what subject he was invited to speak as an expert on. If he, and his replacement the governor's chief-of-staff, were invited to speak on why there are so few women on the Harvard science faculty, yes, their invitations should be f.n. canceled -- they simply aren't qualified to speak as experts on areas outside their expertise, just as you would protest a real estate lawyer who authored the executive justification to violate the Geneva Convention from becoming attorney general.
Blah blah blah...for anyone interested in the, ahem, facts, and not more speculation from the alternate reality that Mike exists in:
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6956997?nclick_check=1
Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers - whose invitation was rescinded last week after pressure by female faculty and staff - was going to tackle the subject of UC competitiveness.
"He had reached out to me and said, as an educator, he was concerned about the ability of UC to compete with private universities such as Harvard and Stanford," said regents chair Richard Blum at a press briefing in Davis on Wednesday.
The truth of the matter is that for those who cower behind political correctness, Larry Summers should never be given any forum to speak. Not because they genuinely fear what he might say, though that would be sad enough, but because they want to send a message to anyone else who might think to cross their orthodoxy. Message being: Hey kid, if the president of Harvard can be brought down and made into a pariah for suggesting that research should be done on biological differences between the sexes and how this could impact the success of women in certain fields, what do you suppose will happen t a mere student who doesn't toe the line?
I also like the quote from one of the people who insisted that Summers be banned, saying that she hoped the whole controversy would just go away now. Of course. It makes it hard to maintain the facade of open minded commitment to freedom of speech when the facts that say otherwise keep sticking around.
The thing I find weirdest is that the neo-cons and the talk radio bums don't realize that Reagan and Nixon would have let him place the wreth at ground zero. Cleary the man is awful, but he's trying to reach out a hand for peace to save his people with honor. Even at the height of the cold war and WWII we were talking to our enemies. If Bush is such a student of history, he would have known that. If people don't want to hear him, don't come, but if he wants to take a higher ground than Bush and Co. he should meet holocaust survivors and solders who were there and hear their stories.
I don't know that he'll be shouted down though. Tickets are hard to come by and were reserved. The reaction may well be determined by how they were allocated.
If they don't get in, I'm sure there will be hundreds of people outside protesting as loudly as they can. This is NYC we're talking about and it does have a very substantial Jewish population.
As for what he really believes, who knows? But, I wouldn't associate having extreme views with being "crazy". He and Chavez would not be able to hold their positions if they we not able to distinguish fantasy from reality.
Reading text literaly is enough of a mistake already. Texts are never written and should never be read literaly.
If you can't be taken at your word, what are you doing here?
However, never in your career on this board have you ever read text literaly. You read bits anmd pieces of the text which serve your interpretation over literaly.
When have I left out text that makes the bits and pieces I refer to incompatible to my interpretation of them?
You can, but it won't make what you say anymore sensible or convincing. Thev brutal oppression of women by the Iranian government and the phenomenon of individual women being abused by individual men in America (which for some reason you felt necessary to connect to prohibition) are two unrelated phenomena.
You all heard it hear: "brutal oppression of women by the Iranian government" and the "women being abused by individual men in America" the American temperence movement was formed to counter do not have misogyny in common. Whaaateeeveeer.
If you're referring to the canceled invitation to speak at UC-Davis, none of the google results says what subject he was invited to speak as an expert on. If he, and his replacement the governor's chief-of-staff, were invited to speak on why there are so few women on the Harvard science faculty, yes, their invitations should be f.n. canceled -- they simply aren't qualified to speak as experts on areas outside their expertise, just as you would protest a real estate lawyer who authored the executive justification to violate the Geneva Convention from becoming attorney general."Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers - whose invitation was rescinded last week after pressure by female faculty and staff - was going to tackle the subject of UC competitiveness."
The truth of the matter is that for those who cower behind political correctness, Larry Summers should never be given any forum to speak. Not because they genuinely fear what he might say, though that would be sad enough, but because they want to send a message to anyone else who might think to cross their orthodoxy. Message being: Hey kid, if the president of Harvard can be brought down and made into a pariah for suggesting that research should be done on biological differences between the sexes and how this could impact the success of women in certain fields, what do you suppose will happen t a mere student who doesn't toe the line?
So he was given his own discretion in speaking on a topic of his own choosing, and that discretion was withdrawn. That isn't the same as being denied "any forum to speak."
I once had a teacher who dismissed questions of how he graded students by saying that if he liked y'face you got an A, and if he didn't like y'face -- you didn't get an A. Summers's invitation seems to be founded on someone at UC Davis liking his face, and the faculty informed the inviter that Summers's face was in fact severely disliked by them.
You indulge in a lot of hot-winded-wrongness for someone who responds to posts with "blah, blah blah."
I also like the quote from one of the people who insisted that Summers be banned, saying that she hoped the whole controversy would just go away now. Of course. It makes it hard to maintain the facade of open minded commitment to freedom of speech when the facts that say otherwise keep sticking around.
"Banned." Like you and I aren't also "banned" from speaking at UC Davis. Riiight.
"The thing I find weirdest is that the neo-cons and the talk radio bums don't realize that Reagan and Nixon would have let him place the wreth at ground zero. Cleary the man is awful, but he's trying to reach out a hand for peace to save his people with honor. Even at the height of the cold war and WWII we were talking to our enemies."
I find this to be a strange post.
In the first part it refers to the kind of political realism that characterized Nixon, who pretty much put emotion aside and establlished relations with China. Why? Because he thought that the realistic political interests of the US are better served that way, even if he didn't like China's communist government.
But then in the second sentence: "Cleary the man is awful, but he's trying to reach out a hand for peace to save his people with honor." This does not sound very realistic to me.
The third sentence: "Even at the height of the cold war and WWII we were talking to our enemies," seems to return to the realistic point of view. During the cold war communication between the enemies was used as an effective political tool even as the cold war was going on. Bush has acted very foolishly by reducing the tools at his disposal in world politics by neglecting diplomacy. But in order to use diplomacy effectively you have to approach it with a realistic state of mind.
It should also be pointed out that what we have here is not communication between the US and Iran, or negotiations of any sort. What we're talking about is a lecture by the Iranian president in a private university, that's all. From the realistic political point of view it gives Achmadinajad a convenient chance to appear like a great leader and, more importantly, to pass his political/ideological message or messages to two groups of audiences: the first, his home crowds, Iranians, Muslims, other groups who might consider him a leader of the opposition to US imperialism; the second are groups in the west who might be influenced in some way by what he has to say -- this hopefully affecting western policies. In short, the game here is preception or propaganda (which is the same thing but with a negative connotation).
It is also possibly serving the interests of groups in Iran who did not feel that the policy of appearing outright hostile to the US was serving their (mostly economic) interests. Although I'm not sure that's the case.
The last sentence: "if he wants to take a higher ground than Bush and Co. he should meet holocaust survivors and solders who were there and hear their stories," again seems to me to move away from realism.
Achmadinajad may try to steer away from holocaust denial, so when asked about it, he will probably say something like: "all I want is an open historical debate about the holocaust, you are academics and should be willing to accept legitimate criticisms of your history. We (Iran) are of course against any killing of innocent civilians no matter how many..." And if he feels more bold he will add: "...even if only a few hundred thousands Jews were killed in the war, mostly from disease, like everybody else. What we are opposing is the attempts of the Jews to impose their version of history and to use it to extort the Germans."
In doing this he will not gain higher ground the way you expect. He will gain higher ground sincde he will place himself and his cersion of history, his government, his policies, on an equal footing with the US, which is exactly what he is trying to accomplish.
---------------
"Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers - whose invitation was rescinded last week after pressure by female faculty and staff - was going to tackle the subject of UC competitiveness."
I haven't been folllowing this. It seems to suggest that Columbia does make moral considerations when deciding who the invite to speak. Which means they consider achmadinajad to be acceptable. This might her their PR a little bit. But they'll recover. People who accuse college campuses of being too left leaning usually end up looking like idiots.
"If you can't be taken at your word, what are you doing here?"
It is not my fault you like the basic skill necessary in order to read even the simplest text. You seem to be the only one with this problem on this board.
"When have I left out text that makes the bits and pieces I refer to incompatible to my interpretation of them?"
Too often to count.
"You all heard it hear: "brutal oppression of women by the Iranian government" and the "women being abused by individual men in America" the American temperence movement was formed to counter do not have misogyny in common."
They have mysogyny in common, and not only that. Both happened in the modern era, by human beings on planet earth. Yet they are in fact significantly different phenomena that are not comparable in a way that is relevant to the subject at hand.
Again it is not my fault that you lack the abiliity to comprehend something so simple. Your deabilitating lack of comprehension is not something I can solve. You'll have to take care of it yourself or you'll keep being the guy who doesn't understand what everybody else is saying. Then again, maybe misunderstanding what people say serves some purpose for you. if so, knock yourself out.
P.S.
'Knock yourself out' is an expression in the Engllish language which means, do whatever you want. I of course do not literaly suggest that you knock yourself out. If you already did, than take an ice pack or a steak from the freezer and apply it to the bump on your head.
However, never in your career on this board have you ever read text literaly. You read bits anmd pieces of the text which serve your interpretation over literaly.
When have I left out text that makes the bits and pieces I refer to incompatible to my interpretation of them?Too often to count.
You can always make it a first and cite one example.
If Bill wants to deny "Iranian women are brutally oppressed" was part of a list of facts to demonstrate "Calling Iran a 'democracy' is an abuse of the term," that suits me fine. Otherwise, yes, employing the former text to demonstrate the validity of the latter text is "literally [trying] to make misogyny relevant to disqualifying iran as a democracy."You can [continue to refer to what's been said here], but it won't make what you say anymore sensible or convincing. Thev brutal oppression of women by the Iranian government and the phenomenon of individual women being abused by individual men in America (which for some reason you felt necessary to connect to prohibition) are two unrelated phenomena....
You all heard it hear: "brutal oppression of women by the Iranian government" and the "women being abused by individual men in America" the American [temperance] movement was formed to counter do not have misogyny in common. Whaaateeeveeer.[With no sense of irony]
It is not my fault you like the basic skill necessary in order to read even the simplest text. You seem to be the only one with this problem on this board....
They have mysogyny in common...
Our disagreement is settled. Thank you.
You're welcome.
I am happpy to help you understand things you lack the capacity to understand on your own.
Never be too shy to ask for help.
And you keep feeling free to ignore any sense that would stop you from challenging anything you can't disqualify.
No. I'm sorry. I don't have the time to point out to you every time when you say something wrong. I just had some downtime, but I hope you don't expect me to correct you on a regular basis. No, you'll have to improve your comprehension abilities yourself.
Bye.
So he was given his own discretion in speaking on a topic of his own choosing, and that discretion was withdrawn. That isn't the same as being denied "any forum to speak."
"Banned." Like you and I aren't also "banned" from speaking at UC Davis. Riiight.
So for those keeping track--Mike displayed his ignorance of recent news once by incorrectly assuming it was a years old event. When this was pointed out he displayed his ignorance of the actual current event by coming up with a pretend scenario where he might still be right. When this was proven incorrect he came up with...the above.
It seems clear to pretty much anyone that as far as Larry Summers is concerned, if you raise a taboo subject, apologize and lose your job over it, you might as well forget about ever being allowed to give a speech on any non-related subjects whatsoever at the University of California.
But it's ok because, hey, Mike never gets invited to do it either! Come to think of it, Mike never got asked to write the screenplay to Spartacus either, so I don't know where this idea of a so-called Hollywood Blacklist ever came from!
I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. the worst part about discussing things with Mike..besides the whole, you know, discussing things with Mike part...is the slight possibility that one might end up being the first person to lose an argument to him. THAT would be mildly embarrassing.
Just to clarify, the actual quote from Maureen Stanton, who led the petition drive to disinvite Summers, was "Frankly, we'd like to see the story just die at this point." Well, of course you would! With even some of Summers former opponents at Harvard criticizing her actions it should come as no surprise that she was unavailable for further comment.
While it would be preferable if despicable people would just be less despicable, there's at least some comfort in having them display a bit of shame at their own rotten nature.
Wow.
I go away for a few days, come back to see a thread header for what could be a ripping good debate and find the beginnings of a Mike Hijacking. The dependability of some things in this universe are amazing.
It is somewhat fascinating to see how quickly Mike's issues with his borderline fear, revulsion and/or hatred of the opposite sex and his projection issues have manifested themselves this go round. It's also equally funny and sad to see how, in Mike's alternate reality, several complex political issues all boil down to abusing women. Having a bad month, Mike? Been permanently banned from yet another 1-900 number?
I know that several of you hold out hope that Mike will one day be able to engage in an entire debate here without once displaying his base nature, but you seem to have forgotten his one and only relevant, and possibly only honest, post ever made here. From that post:
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun.
Troll Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor, but he'll never outgrow the defining characteristics of who he is. It's pointless to go down the Mad Mikey Troll Hole in search of adult or intellectually fulfilling debate. What's the point other then self flagellation or using him as research for a book on the effects of advanced syphilitic mental disorders?
Unless I'm missing something: 1. enough people Summers worked with simply felt free to publicly say they didn't like him -- there was no other coercion [in his firing]So for those keeping track--Mike displayed his ignorance of recent news once by incorrectly assuming it was a years old event. When this was pointed out he displayed his ignorance of the actual current event by coming up with a pretend scenario where he might still be right.
¡Nurse Ratched, no lo dice a mi madre, por favor!
If you're referring to the canceled invitation to speak at UC-Davis, none of the google results says what subject he was invited to speak as an expert on. If he, and his replacement the governor's chief-of-staff, were invited to speak on why there are so few women on the Harvard science faculty, yes, their invitations should be f.n. canceled -- they simply aren't qualified to speak as experts on areas outside their expertise, just as you would protest a real estate lawyer who authored the executive justification to violate the Geneva Convention from becoming attorney general."Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers - whose invitation was rescinded last week after pressure by female faculty and staff - was going to tackle the subject of UC competitiveness."
The truth of the matter is that for those who cower behind political correctness, Larry Summers should never be given any forum to speak. Not because they genuinely fear what he might say, though that would be sad enough, but because they want to send a message to anyone else who might think to cross their orthodoxy. Message being: Hey kid, if the president of Harvard can be brought down and made into a pariah for suggesting that research should be done on biological differences between the sexes and how this could impact the success of women in certain fields, what do you suppose will happen t a mere student who doesn't toe the line?
So he was given his own discretion in speaking on a topic of his own choosing, and that discretion was withdrawn. That isn't the same as being denied "any forum to speak."
I once had a teacher who dismissed questions of how he graded students by saying that if he liked y'face you got an A, and if he didn't like y'face -- you didn't get an A. Summers's invitation seems to be founded on someone at UC Davis liking his face, and the faculty informed the inviter that Summers's face was in fact severely disliked by them.
You indulge in a lot of hot-winded-wrongness for someone who responds to posts with "blah, blah blah."
When this was proven incorrect he came up with...the above.
Thank you for not disqualifying what I've said.
It seems clear to pretty much anyone that as far as Larry Summers is concerned, if you raise a taboo subject, apologize and lose your job over it, you might as well forget about ever being allowed to give a speech on any non-related subjects whatsoever at the University of California.
But it's ok because, hey, Mike never gets invited to do it either! Come to think of it, Mike never got asked to write the screenplay to Spartacus either, so I don't know where this idea of a so-called Hollywood Blacklist ever came from!
I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. the worst part about discussing things with Mike..besides the whole, you know, discussing things with Mike part...is the slight possibility that one might end up being the first person to lose an argument to him. THAT would be mildly embarrassing.
Has anything in the advent of political correctness been so audacious as to refer to an example of a bias not acted on as evidence of a bias was acted on where outcomes were the same? For the sake of Bill avoiding qualifying as tyrannical, cowardly and smugly self-indulgent, I hope not.
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun.
Troll Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor, but he'll never outgrow the defining characteristics of who he is. It's pointless to go down the Mad Mikey Troll Hole in search of adult or intellectually fulfilling debate. What's the point other then self flagellation or using him as research for a book on the effects of advanced syphilitic mental disorders?
I can only thank you for not including in your indulgent display of disgust (fed by a 28-month-old post, glad you aren't letting that stop you) a disqualification of anything I say.
"Troll Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor."
Yes, that's it. A little depressing weekend wasted. Not in the mood to do anything constructive. Needed a little bit of cheap humor. But I wouldn't calll Mike a punching bag. He's not a passive victim in this thread. He makes his own choices, repeatedly. And somebody has to stand up to his bullying.
Anyway, there's also a serious discussion going on in this thread. I think part of our problem is that most of the people participating in discussions here are reasonably sensible and civil, and also have a pretty similar outlook on most issues. so Mike sticks out like a sore thumb.
"I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. the worst part about discussing things with Mike..besides the whole, you know, discussing things with Mike part...is the slight possibility that one might end up being the first person to lose an argument to him. THAT would be mildly embarrassing."
The chances are so slim, it's virtually impossible. He lost every argument so far. But it doesn't really matter. In his mind he won all the arguments anyway.
And you keep feeling free to ignore any sense that would stop you from challenging anything you can't disqualify.No. I'm sorry. I don't have the time to point out to you every time when you say something wrong.
Thank you for not denying you can't disqualify what I say.
Quite interesting. I posted about Mike's nature as a troll, his projection issues, his fear, revulsion and/or hatred of women, his probable status as permanently unredeemable and his syphilis induced mental disorder. Mike responded without so much as disqualifying one thing that I asserted. Thus, Mike has tacitly admitted that each assertion is in fact true.
From this we can surmise that Mike is:
A) A troll
B) Making statements that are constantly confused and clouded by his projection issues
C) An unreliable source of honest information about women.
D) Will never attempt to change
and
E) Couldn't change even if he wanted to due to his advanced state of syphilis induced mental degradation
Mike, thank you for not bother to disqualify any of the assertions I've or others have presented about you.
Now, looking at facts A - E, we can then reasonably deduce that nothing that Mike says is of any value. We can also reasonably deduce that Mike cannot say anything that can be taken at face value or safely believed.
Well, Mike, if you can't be taken at your word, what are you doing here? Well, besides being a time wasting little troll who seems addicted to having his intellectual @$$ handed to him on a regular basis?
As to the worthwhile subject...
Most of the points I would make have already been made. Let the nut job speak. Actually seeing the ignorance and hatred that this man embodies live and in the speaking flesh might actually help to sway some of the people who are neutral about him into the camp of believing him to being a nut job.
I know a lot of people who are far to the left of me on the spectrum of ideology. When it comes to our government's villain of the moment, they tend to get skeptical about the press and the press's presentation of that individual. They're always willing to go the extra mile or thirty to give villain of the moment the benefit of the doubt. They can't be/aren't really that bad. That's just the good ol' American Government Propaganda machine revving up to steamroll over some poor third world leader.
Nothing wakes those guys up faster then seeing an actual live speech that's not filtered through the American press. Sometimes that's in the form of a foreign news feed and sometimes it's in the form of seeing the guy live while he visits the U.S. That could happen here. And I doubt that you'll get people who will be swayed to his side so you've only got something to gain here.
I guess I have less faith in people and more people in Ahmadinejad's ability to adapt the message to the audience.
Here is a sample.
Ahmadinejad’s Must Read Claims
Posted by Kamangir on September 17th, 2007
Ahmadinejad is going to New York, for attending a UN meeting. Before the trip, he answered to a handful of questions in the state-run television channel Jam-e Jam [Persian], which targets outside Iran. These are some of his sentences,
1- I have never been involved in a fight…I am not either a dictator or a violent person.
2- In Iran, there is no chance of dictatorship, because everything belongs to the people and people decide about everything….Americans have killed many people in Latin America, Africa and Iraq and must be tried for that.
3- It is sad when an Iraqi or a [American] soldier is killed in Iraq. Many of these soldiers don’t know where they are. They are poor and have become a soldier for its money. The 15 Birtish soldiers we captured a while ago didn’t know which part of the world they were in. [American] occupiers [of Iraq] send us letters. They think I am the president of Iraq. Many of them don’t even know where they are.
5- American students send me letters. They don’t have enough information and some of them think I am a Palestinian. When I was in New York, whenever the car slowed down, American youth would fist their hands [to show their support].
6- Europeans are outraged because of their governments’ support for Israel. They must hold referendums to decide about the Zionist regime.
7- We should give students scarfs with the peaceful nuclear energy symbol on them, for them to wear at school.
8- Americans always talk about human rights. They have no idea what human rights is. Wiretapping happens everyday in the US. A couple cannot speak together there. Do we do these things in Iran?
Well, Mike, if you can't be taken at your word, what are you doing here?
What am I insisting anyone take my word on, authority figure who arbitrarily trumps other peoples' accounts of their own experiences with his own? Don't strawman me, bro.
What am I insisting anyone take my word on, authority figure who arbitrarily trumps other peoples' accounts of their own experiences with his own? Don't strawman me, bro.
Yes.
Thank you for, yet again, not bothering to disqualify or deny any of the assertions I or others have presented about you here or on other threads. Thank you for admitting that you are a woman hating/fearing, mentally degraded Troll Boy who makes worthless comments that can't be taken as of value.
Have a nice life. Oh, I'm sorry... Too late.
Well, Mike, if you can't be taken at your word, what are you doing here?
What am I insisting anyone take my word on, authority figure who arbitrarily trumps other peoples' accounts of their own experiences with his own? Don't strawman me, bro.Yes.
Thank you for, yet again, not bothering to disqualify or deny any of the assertions I or others have presented about you here or on other threads. Thank you for admitting that you are a woman hating/fearing, mentally degraded Troll Boy who makes worthless comments that can't be taken as of value.
Have a nice life. Oh, I'm sorry... Too late.
I made no such admissions.
Thank you for conveniently going back on your word to not strawman me in the same post you agreed to not strawman me. You're so willing to indulge in what I simply observe you doing, it's a wonder anything I say antagonizes you. Maybe something about being the violin on which I play makes you all hot and bothered.
Mike,
Thank you for not denying that you confirmed to deny your earlier denial of the conformation of your admissions while continuing to fail to confirm your denial to deny what you so obviously failed to deny to begin with.
Pathetic.
Oh, and thank you for not denying I'm not asking anyone to take my word on anything.
Newsarama called. They want their political slap fight back! ;-)
Posted by: Jerry Chandler at September 22, 2007 09:41 PM
"Mike,
Thank you for not denying that you confirmed to deny your earlier denial of the conformation of your admissions while continuing to fail to confirm your denial to deny what you so obviously failed to deny to begin with."
Posted by: Mike at September 22, 2007 09:43 PM
"Oh, and thank you for not denying I'm not asking anyone to take my word on anything."
Well, so long as we all agree. (undeniably)
Peter, the point became moot back in the 90s with the Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas case, when the fiscal Left finally conceded the Free Speech argument to the social Right and instead of arguing against censorship argued for their OWN categories of censorship.
In arguing against "hate speech" they were arguing against speech. Once that train left the station the consequences were inevitable and predictable.
Look how many people signed up to be on "No Call" lists because the effort of hanging up on telemarketers, or simply skipping calls that ID telemarketers on Caller ID was too "inconvenient".
Mere speech offends so your speech must be squelched, at work, at school, on tv, on film, in music, in video games, in print--including comic books.
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. Too bad there isn't some ... code ... everyone could agree to.
And we pause for a moment of silence to remember Marcel Marceau...
Mike,
Thank you for not denying that you confirmed to deny your earlier denial of the conformation of your admissions while continuing to fail to confirm your denial to deny what you so obviously failed to deny to begin with.
Pathetic.
Oh, and thank you for not denying I'm not asking anyone to take my word on anything.
Well, so long as we all agree. (undeniably)
Well, if you're going to agree I'm not asking anyone to take my word on anything, what then is there to get snippy at me about? Jerry's inability to cite anything here that invited his disgust qualifies it as simple projection (re: 6.b.).
From an AP article this morning:
""The United States is a big and important country with a population of 300 million. Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions," Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying."
I can only laugh.
Hmmm... rummage, rummage... ah! Issue 23, Supergirl. Steel. Not Very Nice Fellow speaking at Stanhope University. Lotsa debate about whether he should be allowed to speak or not...
thought this seemed familiar...
I say let him speak, however I would also encourage anyone thinking of going to hear his drivel to stay home instead. While free speech is a noble idea, there is nothing noble about wasting one's time listening to drivel that is as coherent as the ramblings of a lunatic on a street corner with a sign saying "the end is nigh." I think it would be a victory for western civilization were the president of Columbia to introduce Ahmadinejad to an empty lecture hall and then walk out leaving the president of Iran completely alone: the ultimate snub for any demagogue.
What frightens me is the thought that Columbia might be letting him speak, not from the desire to allow someone the freedom to express unpopular ideas, but rather because the management of the university is so out of touch with reality that it believes those ideas have merit in and of themselves.
"there is nothing noble about wasting one's time listening to drivel that is as coherent as the ramblings of a lunatic on a street corner with a sign saying "the end is nigh."
No.
He will not sound like a lunatic, and what he says is both coherent (as much as it is wrong) and will be taylored to fit his audience. It's possible that because he is not really familiar with America and because he is so certain of his own ideaas, that he will overshoot and say things that will not have the desired effect on his audience.(back in August 1990 Saddam started to talk about Indians in an interview to ABC).
Should you listen to it? Certainly, but critically. I assume most of you (except one) are capable of listening to his material with a critical ear. Unfortunatly his words will haver traction with some audiences in the west as they always do. But that's the price of freedom of speech.
Whenever I hear the phrase "price of freedom of speech" I always think of the exchange from the pilot episode of "West Wing," when a religious lobbyist confronts President Bartlett.
"Mr. President, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Don't you think that a child being able to buy pornography on a street corner for five dollars is too high a price to pay for freedom of speech?"
"No."
"Really?"
"I do, however, think that five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography."
PAD
"encourage anyone thinking of going to hear his drivel to stay home instead"
While I can see where this line of thinking comes from, this guy has been painted as Nutjob Number 3 in Current Events:The Movie. You know, "axis of evil," and all that. Now, I'm not saying he isn't completely coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, but if he's willing to present himself, I think it's a mistake to NOT hear him out. Best condition coming out of it--maybe some base to build a diplomatic relationship. Worst--yeah, he really is a history-rearranging nutjob with too many vowels in his name. But then at least we'd know, for a fact, not just because it's what we're told. My six year old is already at the inquisitive, why-is-it-like-this stage. He wants to know why. Seems a lot of people grew out of that and are willing to just take whatever they're given without getting more information.
He will not sound like a lunatic, and what he says is both coherent (as much as it is wrong) and will be taylored to fit his audience. It's possible that because he is not really familiar with America and because he is so certain of his own ideaas, that he will overshoot and say things that will not have the desired effect on his audience....
Unfortunatly his words will haver traction with some audiences in the west as they always do. But that's the price of freedom of speech.
For his agenda of bolstering anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial in the US, sure. But bolstering anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial in the US, and simply bolstering the resolve to dedicate one's self to anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial, are not interchangeable agendas.
If you're going to measure truth by consensus, by treating those two agendas as interchangeable for example, then you are giving Iran your consent to believe whatever their majority agrees is the truth. Consenting to the individual's or Iran's devotion to anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial is not a "price of freedom of speech." Instead, obstructing his influence is a goal that cannot be accomplished without the freedom of speech.
Sean, it is important that you do not think of him as a nutjob. I hope you reject his opinions, but they are not his alone, and they should be taken seriously.
I doubt diplomatic relationship can be the result of his visit to Columbia University -- unless it declares independence. He is also visiting the UN, which is a place of diplomacy.
I should qualify what I said by adding that the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO started as meetings between private academics. But then again, these accords ended in failure, so maybe it is not a good idea to let academics play in diplomacy no matter how well meaning they are.
----------------------
Mike, I sincerely have no idea what you're talking about.
"If you're going to measure truth by consensus"
The nature of truth was not tthe subject of my post in any way.
"you are giving Iran your consent to believe whatever their majority agrees is the truth"
Iran is a sovereign nation, what they believe has little to do with my consent. All I can do as a Jew, as an Israeli and as a human being is to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust endures, and that the Jewish people endure.
"Consenting to the individual's or Iran's devotion to anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial is not a "price of freedom of speech."
The price of freedom of speech is that I must tolerate Columbia's decision to give Ahmedinajad a podium from which to promote his message. It is a price I believe it is right to pay.
"Instead, obstructing his influence is a goal that cannot be accomplished without the freedom of speech."
Not so. Countries like Iran use restritions on freedom of speech to obstruct undesirable influences. However most western countries are unwilling to use these methods. Rightly so, I believe.
It should also be pointed out that Holocaust denial is only a small aspect of Ahmedinajad's message or agenda. He only adopted it because he believes that by unndermining the memory of the holocaust he can undermine Israel (and possibly also the power he believe Jews have in the US, but I'm not certain of that), and because it increased his personal prestige. It is likely that he will seek to avoid this subject when addressing an American audience, unless his miscalculates and assumes that you will be receptive to holocaust denial, as he did when he suggested it in a letter to the German chancellor. He thoought that she would be happy to entertain the idea that the holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy.
Similarly, in his letter to Bush he adapted his message because he knew that Bush was a religious conservative, although I think he overshot here too:
"Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point -- that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: “Do you not want to join them?”
Mr. President,
Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the
Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.
Vasalam Ala Man Ataba’al hoda
[Meaning: And peace to those who obey the guidance]
Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Source: - www.president.ir/eng/ahmadinejad/cronicnews/1385/02/19/index-e.htm#b3"
I haven't been able to see the actual speech yet but if this transcript of the president of Columbia accurately describes his opening remarks, he deserves many kudos:
Mr. Bollinger asked Mr. Ahmadinejad: "Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator, and so I ask you, and so I ask you, why have women members of the Bahai faith, homosexuals and so many of our academic colleagues become targets of persecution in your country?"
He asked whether Mr. Ahmadinejad was using a nuclear confrontation with the West to distract from his incompetent leadership at home. He also asked to be allowed to lead a delegation of scholars to Iran to speak freely, as Mr. Ahmadinejad can do today.
He confronted Mr. Ahmadinejad over his description of the Holocaust as "a fabricated legend," calling him either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." He called Columbia a world center of Jewish studies that since the 1930s has provided a home for Jewish refugees. He called the Holocaust "the most documented event in human history."
"Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Mr. Bollinger told Mr. Ahmadinejad. "I only wish I could do better."
That took balls. Good show, sir.
Look how many people signed up to be on "No Call" lists because the effort of hanging up on telemarketers, or simply skipping calls that ID telemarketers on Caller ID was too "inconvenient".
This is quite possible the stupidest fucking thing anyone has ever written on this site.
Two factual points:
1)Saudi Arabia is considerably less democratic than Iran, and just as repressive towards women (possibly more so).
2)No matter how much the right-wingers whine that Summers was persecuted for a "suggestion" his speech is quite clear that he believes (not just wonders) that women are genetically less qualified for science than men (ergo, hiring more women would be a Bad Thing). It was, moreover, neither a scientifically or logically sound speech: For one thing, even if most women were genetically less qualified, that wouldn't prove discrimination doesn't exist (women who break into male disciplines are often greeted with sexism, not respect for surpassing their DNA).
If I were on the Harvard faculty, I'm not sure I'd be that keen on him passing judgment on female professors either.
Oh, and as far as the poor, poor oppressed conservatives go, Pat Buchanan, let us remember, is the guy who claims white women need to breed more to keep European whites the dominant race in this country (he's apparently unaware that Hispanics come from Spanish ancestry and are therefore quite European). He's also asserted that Holocaust survivors are living "a fantasy of denial." And he's still out there making TV appearances and being taken as a serious commentator.
If someone advocated African Americans having larger families so they could replace white people as the dominant race, he wouldn't be appearing anywhere.
Oh, and as far as the poor, poor oppressed conservatives go, Pat Buchanan, let us remember, is the guy who claims white women need to breed more to keep European whites the dominant race in this country (he's apparently unaware that Hispanics come from Spanish ancestry and are therefore quite European). He's also asserted that Holocaust survivors are living "a fantasy of denial." And he's still out there making TV appearances and being taken as a serious commentator.
If someone advocated African Americans having larger families so they could replace white people as the dominant race, he wouldn't be appearing anywhere (though that wouldn't stop conservatives reacting as if the Democrats had made him party head).
1)Saudi Arabia is considerably less democratic than Iran, and just as repressive towards women (possibly more so).
True. Irrelevant, but true. As far as I know, they are not in any danger of getting the bomb any time soon, but I will not shed a tear if the day comes when every Saudi "prince" finds himself lined up against the wall and summarily shot.
No matter how much the right-wingers whine that Summers was persecuted for a "suggestion" his speech is quite clear that he believes (not just wonders) that women are genetically less qualified for science than men (ergo, hiring more women would be a Bad Thing). It was, moreover, neither a scientifically or logically sound speech: For one thing, even if most women were genetically less qualified, that wouldn't prove discrimination doesn't exist (women who break into male disciplines are often greeted with sexism, not respect for surpassing their DNA).
If I were on the Harvard faculty, I'm not sure I'd be that keen on him passing judgment on female professors either.
Not all of Summer's supporters are right wingers. Neither is he (or he never would have gotten the job in the first place.
I notice you don't actually link to his remarks or provide an example. Guess we'll have to take your word for it.
Or look it up.
(keep in mind that "The organizer of the conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research said Summers was asked to be provocative, and that he was invited as a top economist, not as a Harvard official.")
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/
(On the other hand, just because someone asks you to be provocative, you ought to be smart enough to know that they might not really mean it and it's not THEIR ass that is on the line, after all. I put that in the same category as when your boss says "I appreciate candor.")
But anyway, here's the speech, at http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html
Feel free to make up your own mind, don't just take the word of those who have their own agenda.
Personally, while I don't find his statements altogether convincing, I'd have a lot less trouble having him teach one of my daughters than, say, the MIT professor who walked out of the speech and said that if she hadn't left, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."
Oh, and as far as the poor, poor oppressed conservatives go, Pat Buchanan, let us remember, is the guy who claims white women need to breed more to keep European whites the dominant race in this country (he's apparently unaware that Hispanics come from Spanish ancestry and are therefore quite European). He's also asserted that Holocaust survivors are living "a fantasy of denial." And he's still out there making TV appearances and being taken as a serious commentator.
Pat Buchanan is an idiot and doesn't even have much support among conservatives, though his recent books blaming most of our ills on Jewish neo-conservatives might jut make him a hero of the left before it's all said and done.
If someone advocated African Americans having larger families so they could replace white people as the dominant race, he wouldn't be appearing anywhere (though that wouldn't stop conservatives reacting as if the Democrats had made him party head).
Louis ""White people are potential humans — they haven't evolved yet" Farrakhan? He appeared plenty of places, at least until his health went south. There was also Black studies professor Leonard Jeffries at CCNY who continues to spew racist and anti-semitic bilge. One doesn't have to look hard to find minority equals to Buchanan's stupidity. So far as I know, nobody has claimed them to be heads of the Democratic party but I suppose someone might have...whatever that would prove.
''
Anyone think that the president of Iran might [be]...greeted with loud, rowdy mobs that try to shout him down?
(So it doesn't look like I'm trying to misrepresent this comment, all I did was remove the bit about the pie.)
Now that we have the AP's article on the event, let's see what they have to say: (I'm leaving out some of the bits Bill quoted earlier)
Ahmadinejad smiled at first but appeared increasingly agitated, decrying the "insults" and "unfriendly treatment." Columbia President Lee Bollinger and audience members took him to task over Iran's human-rights record and foreign policy, as well as Ahmadinejad's statements denying the Holocaust and calling for the disappearance of Israel.
Referring to his statement on homosexuals: With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."
Bollinger was strongly criticized for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia, and had promised tough questions in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's talk. But the strident and personal nature of his attack on the president of Iran was startling.
Thousands of people jammed two blocks of 47th Street across from the United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad's visit to New York. Organizers claimed a turnout of tens of thousands. Police did not immediately have a crowd estimate.
Protesters also assembled at Columbia. Dozens stood near the lecture hall where Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak, linking arms and singing traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood, while nearby a two-person band played "You Are My Sunshine."
Signs in the crowd displayed a range of messages, including one that read "We refuse to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and American imperialism."
So, yeah, clearly he was treated with so much more open, uncritical, warm acceptance than Ann Coulter or Pat Buchanan would have been. Still want to see Benjamin Netanyahu get the same treatment?
"Pat Buchanan is an idiot and doesn't even have much support among conservatives, though his recent books blaming most of our ills on Jewish neo-conservatives might jut make him a hero of the left before it's all said and done."
Uhhh..... Yeah.
I'll chalk that one up to the stress of all those fresh but manic faces coming back into your life this month.
I should have said "hero of the insane left".
Doug--it sounds to me that the problem Ahmadinejad had with his reception was that they dared to ask him uncomfortable questions and laughed at some of the answers. That's a far cry from being physically threatened or shouted down. Sounds to me like he was treated fairly enough--not our fault if he hadn't the wit to make himself look good. In all fairness, that's not easy when you're batshit crazy.
I should have said "hero of the insane left".
Ok.
--not our fault if he hadn't the wit to make himself look good. In all fairness, that's not easy when you're batshit crazy.
Yeah, I watched the thing while getting ready for work and laughed my tail off. He got creamed in the thing.
I've got my XM on now so that I can listen to the cable news shows. After all of the talk about how the libs at Columbia University were going to embrace him as one of their own, I can't wait to hear how Bill'o and Hannity will try to spin this tonight. Should be almost as funny as the event itself.
Oh yeah, Bollinger has some mad street cred now. Even some of the crew at National review are having to admit they misjudged him. A few of the Kos kids are pissed at him but you can't please everyone.
Well, the Fox News spin so for, right up through O'Reilly, has been that Bollinger was backtracking and acting tough because knew how much trouble he was in or to just blunt the blows of his critics.
Ans as I typed that, that's how Hannity opened his bit on it as well. Any bets on how many of those clowns will be claiming that it was specifically their reporting on this that caused the tough questions and treatment by Bollinger?
Doug--it sounds to me that the problem Ahmadinejad had with his reception was that they dared to ask him uncomfortable questions and laughed at some of the answers. That's a far cry from being physically threatened or shouted down. Sounds to me like he was treated fairly enough--not our fault if he hadn't the wit to make himself look good. In all fairness, that's not easy when you're batshit crazy.
Yeah--sometimes all it takes to make someone look bad is to let them be themselves. Mostly I wanted to counter the implications from earlier that allowing him to speak meant he would be treated nicely (that's why I pulled out the quote about the audience laughing derisively at him). If Coulter or Buchanan were up there they might not be well-received by the audience, but I doubt the president of the university would express such naked contempt for them, either.
I can't wait to hear how Bill'o and Hannity will try to spin this tonight.
Oh, some already spun this before the visit even occurred.
I've seen mention that Ahmadinejad is "team(ing) up with the radical anti-war left" or that he's using 'liberal talking points'.
The insinuation being, of course, that liberals support Ahmadinejad.
Man, I can't wait to see what some conservatives come up with next!
Anyone wanting to read Kooky McCombover's remarks for themselves should head over to http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/pp.asp?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=672581
Dreary stuff for the most part, though the no gays in Iran bit is worth a chuckle. Wonder if he believes that or if it's something he's working toward.
All in all, it would seem that supporting free speech did much more good than harm here.
Craig,
Yeah, I knew what the early spin was. I was just wondering how they would spin the fact that Ahmadinejad wasn't embraced by the U and its students as they predicted would happen. Bill’O was almost funny, but Hannity was just repulsive. He played clips of the applause (applause for Bollinger or his remarks that were time delayed due to the translation process) and billed it as the students applauding Ahmadinejad. I actually saw the thing, so I know he was fabricating his scummy little @$$ off and overplaying any of the positive responses that Ahmadinejad received from some in the audience. He even, despite the Fox News breaks completely contradicting him, claimed that Ahmadinejad was claiming that he was embraced by America and its University. I wonder how many members of his regular TV and radio audience watched the speech themselves VS taking his word for how events played out?
He will not sound like a lunatic, and what he says is both coherent (as much as it is wrong) and will be taylored to fit his audience. It's possible that because he is not really familiar with America and because he is so certain of his own ideaas, that he will overshoot and say things that will not have the desired effect on his audience....
Unfortunatly his words will haver traction with some audiences in the west as they always do. But that's the price of freedom of speech.
For his agenda of bolstering anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial in the US, sure. But bolstering anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial in the US, and simply bolstering the resolve to dedicate one's self to anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial, are not interchangeable agendas.
If you're going to measure truth by consensus, by treating those two agendas as interchangeable for example...
Mike, I sincerely have no idea what you're talking about.
I'm not going to make your complaints you can't understand fragments of my sentences as whole and complete statements my problem.
The nature of truth was not tthe subject of my post in any way.
I didn't said it was.
...then you are giving Iran your consent to believe whatever their majority agrees is the truth.Iran is a sovereign nation, what they believe has little to do with my consent. All I can do as a Jew, as an Israeli and as a human being is to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust endures, and that the Jewish people endure.
Again, you haven't denied what I've said.
Consenting to the individual's or Iran's devotion to anti-Judiasm/holocaust-denial is not a "price of freedom of speech."The price of freedom of speech is that I must tolerate Columbia's decision to give Ahmedinajad a podium from which to promote his message. It is a price I believe it is right to pay.
So upholding the standard of opening access to even adversarial viewpoints isn't good work on the part of Columbia, but is instead their indulgence for you to tolerate?
Instead, obstructing his influence is a goal that cannot be accomplished without the freedom of speech.Not so. Countries like Iran use restritions on freedom of speech to obstruct undesirable influences. However most western countries are unwilling to use these methods. Rightly so, I believe.
You're trying to disprove what I say with a completely compatible statement again, Micha. That isn't how it's done.
(keep in mind that "The organizer of the conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research said Summers was asked to be provocative, and that he was invited as a top economist, not as a Harvard official.")
He didn't have to take the slack he was given to demonstrate he wasn't qualified to lead the Harvard faculty. You'd think no one's career ever suffered from some fool thing they did at the office Christmas party, and only poor old Larry was singled out. I hear "she asked for it" would have been OJ's excuse if he killed his wife.
Personally, while I don't find his statements altogether convincing, I'd have a lot less trouble having him teach one of my daughters than, say, the MIT professor who walked out of the speech and said that if she hadn't left, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."
Personally, I think walking out during Summers's speech, off of the stage he was speaking from if I'm remembering the reports correctly, qualifies her as a true stud. Like she was supposed to take his speech and say, "That guy who keeps bragging to the audience he knows nothing about what I go through at work? I want him to evaluate my work." Was the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert not available when they hired Summers?
The transcript of President Ahmadinejad's talk is fascinating. I believe the questions he was asked were actually tougher than some of the US Presidential debates I've seen.
What's really amazing is how much he talks about the freedom of the Iranian people. He'll say that the Iranian people are the most free in the world, but then he'll talk about legal restrictions that we would consider massive. It really seems as if he believes that the way to achieve freedom for a people is to impose incredibly strict rules upon them.
"Posted by: Jerry Chandler at September 24, 2007 09:07 PM
Well, the Fox News spin so for, right up through O'Reilly, has been that Bollinger was backtracking and acting tough because knew how much trouble he was in or to just blunt the blows of his critics.
Ans as I typed that, that's how Hannity opened his bit on it as well. Any bets on how many of those clowns will be claiming that it was specifically their reporting on this that caused the tough questions and treatment by Bollinger?"
I saw a guy on CNN, possibly Iranian, apparently sumpathetic to Ahmadinejad, who also said that Bollinger caved in to the preassure - that he preemptively struck (his words).
"I'm not going to make your complaints you can't understand fragments of my sentences as whole and complete statements my problem."
I can't understand most of your sentences in this post and don't have the time to unravel your tortured sentences. If I can't comprehend what you're sayinng, I can't really offer a response. But them, you never were interested in conversation, only to score points in the imaginary game you play with yourself. so no harm done.
Mike: "If you're going to measure truth by consensus""
Micha: "The nature of truth was not tthe subject of my post in any way."
Mike: "I didn't said it was."
"Again, you haven't denied what I've said."
I'm not exactly sure what you were trying to say, or how it was related to what I said initially, so I responded with words that I felt was pertinent to this discussion and which would benefit the other readers here.
But then, you are not really interested in communication, only to stroke your own ego by claiming (truthfully or not) that your ramblings were not denied. If it makes you feel good then knock yourself out.
p.s.
knock yourself out is an expression in the english language...
"So upholding the standard of opening access to even adversarial viewpoints isn't good work on the part of Columbia, but is instead their indulgence for you to tolerate?"
Again, very tortured sentence. Not exactly clear how it relates to what I said. Again, for your benefit: ther decision to invite Ahmadinejad is Columbia's unalienable right. Howevver I didn't think it was right of them to do so. I still don't.
"You're trying to disprove what I say with a completely compatible statement again"
a. I aam not trying to disprove what you say. Your deseased ego only perceives it that way.
b. What I said is different from what you said in a significant way. If it is unclear to you I'll explain it. But then, mutual comprehension is not your agenda. In fact you delight in misreading what people say.
-----------------------
I haven't seen Ahmadinejad's performance, but from what I read it seems to me that he used the same material I'm already familiar with. No new material. As I expected he seems to have been prepared for most things, except the ambush by Bollinger and the question about homosexuals. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't see that one coming. He was really caught in a bind. In all the other cases he could answer that Iran loves human rights, Jews, women, American, and cute puppies, but he couldn't get around homosexuals. He should have prepared better so he could say something that was sufficiently conservative but palatable to Americans, but he just couldn't.
I can't understand most of your sentences in this post and don't have the time to unravel your tortured sentences. If I can't comprehend what you're sayinng, I can't really offer a response. But them, you never were interested in conversation, only to score points in the imaginary game you play with yourself. so no harm done....
I'm not exactly sure what you were trying to say, or how it was related to what I said initially...
Then why didn't you hold me accountable to a sentence you can't parse, rather than holding me to a sentence with a whole prepositional phrase you removed from its middle? An instance of the first is easier than an instance of the second.
So upholding the standard of opening access to even adversarial viewpoints isn't good work on the part of Columbia, but is instead their indulgence for you to tolerate?"Again, very tortured sentence. Not exactly clear how it relates to what I said. Again, for your benefit: ther decision to invite Ahmadinejad is Columbia's unalienable right. Howevver I didn't think it was right of them to do so. I still don't.
Are there any other rights reserved that can be wrong, or have we found the only one?
Not so....
I aam not trying to disprove what you say. Your deseased ego only perceives it that way.
Thank you for following up your complaints you can't comprehend sentences you haven't specified or edited with a contradiction. That isn't self-serving at all.
"Are there any other rights reserved that can be wrong, or have we found the only one?"
Exercising a human or civil right can be measured to be the correct or the incorrect thing to do at any givven moment depending on the circumstances. People might differ as to whether it was correct or incorrect to exercise a right, while not denying that the right to do so exists.
For example, you have the right to behave like a troll here. It is my opinion that you should not do so, that it is wrong. But it is your right to decide whether to continue behaving like a troll or not. I do not dispute your right to behave like a troll, only the wisdom in doing so.
Pat Buchanan is an idiot and doesn't even have much support among conservatives, though his recent books blaming most of our ills on Jewish neo-conservatives might jut make him a hero of the left before it's all said and done.>>
Ah, the "lefties who criticize neo-cons hate jews" line of illogic.
Yes, looking down on idiots who've contributed to getting 3,000-plus Americans killed in a useless war, lie about how brilliantly it's going and in some cases can't wait for us to go on and attack Iran as well couldn't possibly be for their politics and stupidity, could it?
But since the left has been right about the war and the pro-war supporters wrong, wrong, wrong, I don't blame the pro-war supporters for playing the victim card (conservatives have mastered the art, even as they whine about how everyone else does it>
If someone advocated African Americans having larger families so they could replace white people as the dominant race, he wouldn't be appearing anywhere (though that wouldn't stop conservatives reacting as if the Democrats had made him party head).
Louis ""White people are potential humans — they haven't evolved yet" Farrakhan? He appeared plenty of places, at least until his health went south. There was also Black studies professor Leonard Jeffries at CCNY who continues to spew racist and anti-semitic bilge. One doesn't have to look hard to find minority equals to Buchanan's stupidity. So far as I know, nobody has claimed them to be heads of the Democratic party but I suppose someone might have...whatever that would prove.>>
I didn't say nobody on the left was as dumb as Buchanan--my point was that where Buchanan, much as you may squirm at the thought, remains a mainstream right-wing figure, you have to go to some college professor of no other note to find a comparison.
It's the same logic by which Ward Churchill's (or was it Wade)'s comments on 9/11 were taken by many conservatives as proof of fundamental Democratic/liberal attitudes that America Deserved It, as if he were a major spokesman for the left. No such criticism was heaped on Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell for saying America deserved it, even though they're far more prominent on the right than Churchill is on the left.
Fraser, obviously nothing I could say will dissuade you from your bias but if you are going to go off on grand generalizations you have to expect a little blowback.
I didn't say nobody on the left was as dumb as Buchanan--my point was that where Buchanan, much as you may squirm at the thought, remains a mainstream right-wing figure, you have to go to some college professor of no other note to find a comparison.
I don't see him as a "mainstream right-wing figure", though I suppose it's hard to say just how one quantifies those things. Certainly, many on the left would like to think he is a typical conservative. Given his sorry showing in his last election attempt (a brutal 0.4%...Gus Hall numbers), puny circulation of his magazine (Paid circulation in 2004, was 12,600), and the near total lack of respect he gets from the Republican Party, current administration, truly mainstream conservatives (like the National Review crew)...I'd say calling him a mainstream right-wing figure is incorrect. You may disagree and even have reasons to do so, though you may find simple ad hominem replies easier and more satisfying.
And for the life of me, I can't understand why you think the fact that I disagree with Pat Buchanan on so many issues would make me squirm. I mean, worst case scenario, Pat Buchanan really does speak for the vast majority of conservatives and I am alone in my beliefs. Oh well. Guess I wouldn't be in the mainstream...boy, that'll really shock all who know me!
No such criticism was heaped on Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell for saying America deserved it, even though they're far more prominent on the right than Churchill is on the left.
Sorry, but that's just wrong. Just perusing the National review site, you have the columnists there calling Robertson "insane", "I'd consider him an embarrassment if I somehow felt associated with him", "What an offense that this man was a serious candidate for the presidency. He was our Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton." etc, etc.
In fact, I'm hard pressed at the moment to think of any mainstream conservatives who take Robertson seriously. I'm sure some exist. But the idea that his dopey comments escape criticism from conservatives indicates you don't read much from conservatives. Well, there's only so much time...but you might be more circumspect in making overreaching statements about such things.b
From Andrew Sullivan's blog comes the kind of hard to believe reaction from the Columbia Queer Alliance. What do you do when your knee-jerk multiculturalism collides with genuine concern for people who are being killed for the "crime" of loving the wrong gender? Well...
"We condemn the human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian government under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We admonish the policies that make same-sex practices punishable by torture and death, as well as those that restrict the freedoms and self-determination of women.
"We stand in solidarity with our peers in Iran, but we do not presume to speak for them. We cannot possibly claim to understand the multiple and diverse experiences of living with same-sex desires in Iran. Our cultural values and experiences are distinct, but the stakes are one and the same: the essential human right to express our desires freely. Moreover, we would like to strongly caution media and campus organizations against the use of such words as "gay", "lesbian", or "homosexual" to describe people in Iran who engage in same-sex practices and feel same-sex desire. The construction of sexual orientation as a social and political identity and all of the vocabulary therein is a Western cultural idiom. As such, scholars of sexuality in the Middle East generally use the terms "same-sex practices" and "same-sex desire" in recognition of the inadequacy of Western terminology. President Ahmadinejad's presence on campus has provided an impetus for us all to examine a number of issues, but most relevant to our concerns are the complexities of how sexual identity is constructed and understood in different parts of the world."
As Sullivan points out, this legitimizes Ahmadinejad's dopey comments about there being no gays in Iraq. Gads. I hope oppressed middle eastern homosexuals are not looking for rescue by the Columbia Queer Alliance.
I'd point out, regarding Larry Summers, that everyone here seems to have digested the pop media account in which he was voted out by faculty over his remarks and little else. The truth of the matter -- and a side trip to Wikipedia will help bear this out -- is that Summers managed to spend most of his tenure at Harvard stepping on people's toes.
He was generally described by faculty there as autocratic, managed a grotesque slip when he wrote an ironic memo defending the "impeccable" economic logic of paying underdeveloped countries money in exchange for toxic waste dumping from developed nations, and drove out the big-name (and likely profitable) Cornel West early on. Whatever you think of some of those items, they're not the sort of thing that leads to a lasting term as a university president.
No, he'd been working hard at building ill will from the start; I suspect that his remarks were interpreted as uncharitably as they were because of that history of ticking off Harvard's professors. In short, he wasn't doing so great a job balancing the obligations of a university president, particularly the obligation to build decent working relationships with the faculty. The fact that his remark and the reaction to it were the first things the media decided to pay attention to doesn't make their reductive "cause and effect" scenario the truth.
As to the nasty leftward tilt of the university...ever stepped into an Econ department? A political science department? You're apt to find more libertarians and conservatives than liberals and leftists outside the humanities at most universities, and at some schools -- the University of Chicago with its Committee on Social Thought -- you'll find them even there. And when you consider who tends to have the most financial (and thus, internicene political) sway at univerisites, it's generally the sciences. Most of those folks don't believe that the humanities need funding in the first place, and they're quite happy with such illiberal policies as working R and D for major corporations, accepting Defense Department grants, and so forth.
As wth Summers, don't let the fact that David Horowitz writes books blind you to the absurdly selective use of evidence or the overblown conclusions from that small pool of selected evidence stand in for, you know, a detailed and wide-ranging look at a complex issue.
From Andrew Sullivan's blog comes the kind of hard to believe reaction from the Columbia Queer Alliance.
This is hardly "knee-jerk multiculturalism," as even a cursory understanding of the historical use of terms like "homosexual" would demonstrate.
There are indeed innumerable example sof other eras and other cultures rejecting the fairly recent, modern, and distinctly Eruopean and American idea of three stable and determinate sexual orientations. African-American men who have male-male sex don't identify themselves as homosexual; the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't distinguish homosexuality from heterosexuality; hell, there are plenty of people in America today who effectively believe that homosexuality isn't real and that it instead represents a willful refusal of or a psychologically impaired expression of baseline, universally natural human heterosexuality.
Shouting, "But yer gay!" at someone who really doesn't think of themselves as gay is not likely to help them...or you, really. It's a good way to shout past other people, though.
So upholding the standard of opening access to even adversarial viewpoints isn't good work on the part of Columbia, but is instead their indulgence for you to tolerate?Again, very tortured sentence. Not exactly clear how it relates to what I said. Again, for your benefit: ther decision to invite Ahmadinejad is Columbia's unalienable right. Howevver I didn't think it was right of them to do so. I still don't.
Are there any other rights reserved that can be wrong, or have we found the only one?For example, you have the right to behave like a troll here. It is my opinion that you should not do so, that it is wrong.
Wrong. A public internet forum is no more a right at this address than it is anywhere -- it's a privilege Peter extends to everyone. And he isn't entitled to extend that privilege, he has to purchase it. It isn't in any constitution, and if it were our right, Peter would be responsible for making sure it stays open like a hospital taking in a dying patient.
So, again, are there any rights other than Columbia inviting the Iranian president it's wrong to exercise?
"Wrong. A public internet forum is no more a right at this address than it is anywhere -- it's a privilege Peter extends to everyone. And he isn't entitled to extend that privilege, he has to purchase it. It isn't in any constitution, and if it were our right, Peter would be responsible for making sure it stays open like a hospital taking in a dying patient."
You are either missing the point or being deliberatly obtuse, or maybe both.
It is hard to believe that you did not understand what I said and how it relates to this discussion.
Should I answer you the kind of answer you would give or a serious one?
The Mike answer is: I did not say that you have a right to be a troll on this blog, only that you have the alienable right to be a troll. The blog is PAD's private property, so the decision whether to allow you to be a troll here belongs to him. However he can't deny you thte right to be a troll beyond the boundries of his blog. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion afford you the right to be a troll both in public and in private if you choose. I would find that choice stupid wherever you practice it.
[good answer but not Mike-ish enough, I think]
The more serious answer (not that there's much point it offering it to you) is that the invitation Columbia extended to Ahmadinejad is a specific exercise of their right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and probably one or two others I can't think of right now because it's late. I believe that in this specific instance Columbia made a mistake in choosing to exercise that right, but I do not dispute their right to make that choice in this instance or in any other.
---------
You know what's the sad thing Mike? This thread has at least three very serious and very interesting subjects that are worth discussing, but you are not really interested in any of them.
I'd point out, regarding Larry Summers, that everyone here seems to have digested the pop media account in which he was voted out by faculty over his remarks and little else. The truth of the matter -- and a side trip to Wikipedia will help bear this out -- is that Summers managed to spend most of his tenure at Harvard stepping on people's toes.
Harvard can hire or fire people for any reason, as far as I'm concerned--if they do so for bad reasons they will ultimately pay the price by not being able to attract quality people. The market corrects itself.
No, what I object to is the idea that Summers--or even Ward Connelly, to use a sad example someone else brought up--should be invited to speak and then rejected simply because of pressure tactics. Some people can make a big show of their outrage over supposed repression--the ones who keep showing up on TV in front of millions to complain about how their voices have been silenced--but if the voice being silenced is one they disagree with, well, hey, that's an entirely different matter, don't you know.
But it's actually been a good thing, since even some of Summer's Harvard opponents have condemned what the University of CA did. Actually, it hasn't been too easy to find folks who supported it. As I mentioned before, even the person who organized the attacks hoped that "Frankly, we'd like to see the story just die at this point." Hardly the position of someone who knows they are on the right side, don't you think?
There are indeed innumerable example sof other eras and other cultures rejecting the fairly recent, modern, and distinctly Eruopean and American idea of three stable and determinate sexual orientations. African-American men who have male-male sex don't identify themselves as homosexual; the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't distinguish homosexuality from heterosexuality; hell, there are plenty of people in America today who effectively believe that homosexuality isn't real and that it instead represents a willful refusal of or a psychologically impaired expression of baseline, universally natural human heterosexuality.
Shouting, "But yer gay!" at someone who really doesn't think of themselves as gay is not likely to help them...or you, really. It's a good way to shout past other people, though.
yes, I'm sure that the biggest concern facing gays...homosexu...people of the same gender having sex with each other in Iran. Call me crazy, but I'm just thinking that "the complexities of how sexual identity is constructed and understood in different parts of the world." is not quite the issue that should be "most relevant to our concerns" when we are talking about a country where gays are executed. The Columbia Queer Alliance may not be able to "possibly claim to understand the multiple and diverse experiences of living with same-sex desires in Iran" but I think we can all understand what it's like to be slowly garroted for no damn good reason. But that just my Eurocentric western bias toward murder--who among us can truly know what those odd people in other countries are feeling?
For example, you have the right to behave like a troll here....
I did not say that you have a right to be a troll on this blog, only that you have the alienable right to be a troll....
[good answer but not Mike-ish enough, I think]
You contradict yourself yet again.
So, again, are there any rights other than Columbia inviting the Iranian president it's wrong to exercise?The more serious answer (not that there's much point it offering it to you) is that the invitation Columbia extended to Ahmadinejad is a specific exercise of their right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and probably one or two others I can't think of right now because it's late. I believe that in this specific instance Columbia made a mistake in choosing to exercise that right, but I do not dispute their right to make that choice in this instance or in any other.
You didn't answer my question. Your obvious options are to:
Instead you insist on portraying your failure to answer my question as succeeding in answering it. Why? What virtue is there in your flimsy, contradictory denials other than to shelter the wounds of your dysfunction? How can you stand yourself?
No, what I object to is the idea that Summers--or even Ward Connelly, to use a sad example someone else brought up--should be invited to speak and then rejected simply because of pressure tactics.
If they invite Carrot Top to speak, and then someone forms a petition to dump him after reviewing 5 minutes of his work, I don't see the hardship in allowing the right to choose instead someone whose quality can be justified.
Well, Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is moving to cut all federal funding to Columbia U.
I guess freedom of speech does a have a price if you aren't towing the GOP-approved line.
I guess freedom of speech does a have a price if you aren't towing the GOP-approved line.
It makes you wonder what would happen if, say, President Musharraf, of Pakistan, were invited to speak at Columbia University.
I think their heads would explode.
Pervez is our "friend", of course so we don't want to piss him off or Pakistan might do something like harbor bin Laden or share nuclear secrets with Iran and North Korea.
Which is ironic, considering it was he who, after supporting the Taliban, decided to side us with in ousting it from Afghanistan after 9/11 because, according to Musharaff, Pakistan's interests had changed, and so he didn't want to piss us off. Funny how things have changed so much since then that the U.S. is now the one in the position of not wanting to piss off another country that formerly supported the Taliban.
Mike, your trick is well known. Instead of engaging in a sensible and reasoned discussion you try to impose on it your dishonest, snarky, and illogical parameters. and then you declare victory based on terms mobody but yourself accepts. I do not recognize the term you try to impose on us. Nobody else on this thread recognizes your insane parameters or has any respect for what you say. Our host himself doesn't recognize them or has any respect for you. So continue talking to yourself and winning every argument,, you have litttle use for me. I've enjoyed for a few days the kind of comedy only an idiot of your caliber can provide, and I'm ready to move on. I'm confident that every other person but yourself (the sane ones) got the point of my words a long time ago. And you never will, because for some strange reason you have wrapped your whole self esteem in holding on to absurd claims no matter what. So again, if this is the only way for you find joy in this world, knock yourself out.
PS
'knock yourself out' is...
Mike, your trick is well known. Instead of engaging in a sensible and reasoned discussion you try to impose on it your dishonest, snarky, and illogical parameters. and then you declare victory based on terms mobody but yourself accepts.
All of which you say without citing anything I've said as an example. As far as you can't, I am free to dismiss your accusations as arbitrary.
I haven't implied any dominance over you -- I asked a simple question. If you feel dominated simply by being asked a question, it sucks to be you.
"I am free to dismiss your accusations as arbitrary"
You have the right to do so, but it won't make it any more true. It is your choice whether to exercise that right, but I don't thing it is the correct thing to do. When every person you talk to thinks you're a troll and an idiot it is time to reexamine the way you conduct yourself. But you have the right not to.
"I asked a simple question"
Not once since the time you came on this board did you ask a simple question. Both your questions and the way you treat the answers are motivated by your bizarre agenda, which, as far as I can tell, is to validate a certain delusional image of reality and of yourself in it.
The day you actually ask a simple question and treat the answer's you receive with the sensibility they deserve will be a day for celebration. But I'm not holding my breath.
PS.
'Holding your breath' is an expression...
PPS.
Mike, I live next door to Ahmadinejad. Do you really think your antics have any effect on the quality of my life?
I am tremendously impressed with Micha's ability to parse Mike's statements, remain calm and respond intelligently. I confess to being at a disadvantage here: Most of the time, I have no idea what Mike is talking about; To mitigate that, I suspect Mike doesn't know either. The best slant I can put on his posts is that he is exercising some sort of meta-language which has a deep coding: Words do not mean what appears in the dictionary, but some arbitrary (and unspecified) substituted value. If we accept that Mike has the substitution key, it is possible that some of his posts are logically sound - but very few of them are responsive to the issues addressed in the thread. I would have to compare Mike's posts to some kind of verbal autoeroticism - I won't ask or tell, but I would prefer that he keep it behind closed doors rather than flinging it at passers by.
...homina-hanh?
Mike, your trick is well known. Instead of engaging in a sensible and reasoned discussion you try to impose on it your dishonest, snarky, and illogical parameters. and then you declare victory based on terms mobody but yourself accepts.
All of which you say without citing anything I've said as an example. As far as you can't, I am free to dismiss your accusations as arbitrary.
I haven't implied any dominance over you -- I asked a simple question. If you feel dominated simply by being asked a question, it sucks to be you.
You have the right to do so, but it won't make it any more true. It is your choice whether to exercise that right, but I don't thing it is the correct thing to do. When every person you talk to thinks you're a troll and an idiot it is time to reexamine the way you conduct yourself. But you have the right not to.
Dismissing your accusations as arbitrary is appropriate because you seem incapable of citing examples. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
ther decision to invite Ahmadinejad is Columbia's unalienable right. Howevver I didn't think it was right of them to do so. I still don't.
Are there any other rights reserved that can be wrong, or have we found the only one?For example, you have the right to behave like a troll here. It is my opinion that you should not do so, that it is wrong.
Wrong. A public internet forum is no more a right at this address than it is anywhere...
So, again, are there any rights other than Columbia inviting the Iranian president it's wrong to exercise?
Not once since the time you came on this board did you ask a simple question.
Considering the trail of your contradiction and inaccuracy established here, it's probably past time to ask this: are you not well?
The more serious answer (not that there's much point it offering it to you) is that the invitation Columbia extended to Ahmadinejad is a specific exercise of their right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and probably one or two others I can't think of right now because it's late. I believe that in this specific instance Columbia made a mistake in choosing to exercise that right, but I do not dispute their right to make that choice in this instance or in any other....
Both your questions and the way you treat the answers are motivated by your bizarre agenda, which, as far as I can tell, is to validate a certain delusional image of reality and of yourself in it.
The day you actually ask a simple question and treat the answer's you receive with the sensibility they deserve will be a day for celebration. But I'm not holding my breath.
If my question was so abominable, why did you twice try to take credit for answering it?
Mike, I live next door to Ahmadinejad.
Considering your record of ineptitude, good for him and his hold on power.
Putting this into simple language (which might make it unintelligible to Mike, Oh Dear), Micha's statement that "Mike, I live next door to Ahmadinejad" is not any kind of a challenge or a statement of grand power. If one looks at a map, keeping the words "Iran" and "Israel" in mind, it is a statement of fact which Mike would be hard-pressed to disprove - kind of like me saying that I live next door to Pennsylvania: I do, because I live in Maryland. How provocative is that?
Micha: "I live next door to Ahmadinejad."
That has all the earmarks of a Comedy Central sitcom. I'll have my people call your people and we'll put together a pitch over lunch.
"Putting this into simple language (which might make it unintelligible to Mike, Oh Dear),
Jeffrey, that may be the most beautiful thing other than my wife that I've seen today. And, seeeing as how I live in Pennsylvania, neighbor, I'll try to keep the dog off your lawn. I'll just have to get a dog....
Bill, just make sure your, ahem, people don't insist on megalomaniac cats in the neighborhood again, all right? We would've sold that last one except fo that.
"Posted by: Bill Myers at September 26, 2007 03:43 PM
Micha: "I live next door to Ahmadinejad."
That has all the earmarks of a Comedy Central sitcom. I'll have my people call your people and we'll put together a pitch over lunch."
Yes. People tend to overlook the comedic and general entertainment potential of the middle east. We are now considering a reality TV show. We are going to put several mililon Jews and several million Palestinians in a small country and see how they interact. Every week audiences around the world will vote on who they thing are makes the most sympathetic victims, and the losers will get killed.
Jeffrey, concerning Mike's post. I guess he is a guy who would wish death on a person he has an internet disagreement with.
Bill, sorry for the dark humor. It is not directed at you of course. I hope it didn't come off that way.
jeffrey, so you live in Maryland... I hope you're safe. I watch the Wire.
[Micha]
All I can do as a Jew, as an Israeli and as a human being is to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust endures, and that the Jewish people endure....
I live next door to Ahmadinejad.
Considering your record of ineptitude, good for him and his hold on power.[Jeffrey]
Putting this into simple language (which might make it unintelligible to Mike, Oh Dear), Micha's statement that "Mike, I live next door to Ahmadinejad" is not any kind of a challenge or a statement of grand power. If one looks at a map, keeping the words "Iran" and "Israel" in mind, it is a statement of fact which Mike would be hard-pressed to disprove - kind of like me saying that I live next door to Pennsylvania: I do, because I live in Maryland. How provocative is that?
[Sean]
Jeffrey, that may be the most beautiful thing other than my wife that I've seen today. And, seeeing as how I live in Pennsylvania, neighbor, I'll try to keep the dog off your lawn. I'll just have to get a dog....
I was referring to the dedication to his culture Micha likes to take credit for. I never get an answer when I ask this, but your need to be asked always returns: Are you folks not well?
Jeffrey, concerning Mike's post. I guess he is a guy who would wish death on a person he has an internet disagreement with.
I didn't say your vulnerability was good for me. Do you need instruction in distinguishing first-person from third-person perspective?
Micha: "Bill, sorry for the dark humor. It is not directed at you of course. I hope it didn't come off that way."
I don't know why you're apologizing. I got a big laugh out of it, and I needed that today.
To be honest, if not for Mike, more people here would remember how much of a rectum they think I am, so he does serve a valuable purpose.
Micha: This is not the first time you have apologized for minor or nonexistent affront: Given the usual standards here, perhaps you're in the wrong room. Tact and good manners have their place, but I don't know whether this is it.
Jeffrey, Micha's way is his way. Frankly, it's what so many of us like about him.
Tact and good manners should always have a place. If someone is being a dick, I've no problem calling them on it. But I also try to meet civility with civility. There's no reason not to.
Actually, most of the time people on this board have been pretty civil toward each other. In fact, some have been quite friendly. We have only one establlished troll (although a very persistent one), but most others usually come from outside and leave pretty quickly.
In any case, I was in a pretty gloomy mood for a variety of reasons and I wasn't sure if I wasn't venting on people who didn't deserve it. I was also wasn't sure how this kind of dark humor would pass what little cultural differences exist between your culture and mine.
As for Mike, I think I've had enough of him. His response to my Ahmadinejad comment -- which didn't really require any response -- annoyed me slightly more than his usual antics. It crossed a certain line, even he pretends otherwise. Maybe in his mind it didn't? Oh well, what was I expecting?
Mike has shown an inability to empathize with other human beings, Micha. Whether it's willful or indicative of a deficiency over which he has no control, I don't know. Frankly, I've realized that he is entirely irrelevant and I no longer bother to address him directly.
Bill Myers: I presume you understood I was joking with Micha about his excellent forebearance and good manners. I do not at all mean that he doesn't belong here, but rather that he has maintained a standard very few are even able to recognize. Of course he belongs here: It would be a worse site without him.
It's refreshing that an Israeli is offering some of the most clear-headed commentary on the Iranian President. I have serious misgivings about some aspects of Israeli internal policy, but Micha makes me hopeful good sense will prevail.
Jeffrey, I very much like and admire Micha as well. But I take issue with the statement that he has "maintained a standard very few are even able to recongize." The trolls here make an inordinate amount of noise but are very much in the minority. The vast majority of posters here are quite civil and a pleasure to interact with.
OK, enough. I try to be polite. I'm happy my efforts are appreciated. i certainly appreciate the politeness and friendliness of others. We're all good.
"I have serious misgivings about some aspects of Israeli internal policy"
I have many serious misgivings about Israeli policies, and I don't object to israel being criticized. It is good for it in some cases. I assume you also are critical of aspects of your government's policies, and of your society and of your history, as much as I am of mine, so long as the criticism doesn't go overboard to a kind of mindless bashing. It's like the difference between demonstrating against the war in Vietnam and burning the american flag and owning a copy of Mao's Little Red Book.
I think there's a beatles song about this difference.
Micha: "OK, enough."
No, let's go further. Let's form a Micha Fan Club. We'll call it the Micha-Mouse Club. We'll all wear Micha-Mouse ears and sing the Micha-Mouse song.
Mike has shown an inability to empathize with other human beings, Micha. Whether it's willful or indicative of a deficiency over which he has no control, I don't know. Frankly, I've realized that he is entirely irrelevant and I no longer bother to address him directly.
You've all more-or-less demonstrated you don't know what a koan is:
a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment
What all the enduring religions have in common is the notion that reason cannot be all things to anyone, cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual. In the Old Testament, God acknowledges Job's grievance against Him, but responds by giving a nonsensical account of His accomplishments, to which Job ultimately bows rather than take his wife's advice to curse God.
According to Joseph Campbell, in Islam Satan didn't fall from heaven because he considered himself too good to bow to man, as God ordered him to do, but because he was single-mindedly devoted to God and he refused to bow to man because he tried to make that devotion all things to him. Hell is hell to Satan because of the absence of the object of his devotion, God, in his banishment.
Even in the grail myth there is a criticism of the sterile rationalizations of the grail-king, which is the foundation of his wounded state.
This notion that reason cannot cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual is formally institutionalized in Buddhism in the practice of the koan. The koan most commonly referred to in the west are the most curt ones, asking the sound of one hand clapping, asking the the sound of a falling if there is no listener, etc.
One famous koan-like incident that comes to mind is of an intruder interrupting a Zen master holding court with his students. He says that the Zen master is a fraud and that he can't manipulate the intruder.
The Zen master tells him to listen and he can demonstrate how he can make the intruder obey his will. The Zen master tells the intruder to approach him, then tells him to stop. Then he tells the intruder to move to his right and when to stop. Then he tells the intruder he's moved too far and to move back a little to the left. Then he says, "Thank you, you've obeyed my will perfectly. Now sit down and shut up."
If you don't understand what all this has to do with anything, simply consider this:
When referring to posterity, my critics here on occasion have portrayed academia in high esteem in judging me. The three items above are what must be overcome for that judgment to be harsh. You might want to consider getting as comfortable as you can with the prospect those notions will endure indefinitely.
Wow. Like, heavy, man. Deep.
You've officially become a cartoon caricature of a real person.
Another really intersting subject debased by Mike in service of his megalomania.
His example speaks for itself. If budhism had a dark side, Mike would have been its practitioner.
By denying without invalidating anything I said, you demonstrate you can't handle the real deal.
I've made my peace with Mike's presence here. He's unlikely to leave any time soon and there's nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, at the end of the day I still get to be me and he still has to be Mike. I come out way, way, waaaayyyy ahead. So what's to be upset about?
Mike: "...you demonstrate you can't handle the real deal."
If you were truly confident that you're the "real deal," you wouldn't feel the need to tell us.
Frankly, if I were you, I'd be insecure as well.
Take care.
Bill, you're right.
Mike,
1) I didn't deny what you said. For all I know you actually believe it.
2) If you really cared about enlightenment -- of yourself or of others -- instead of your own ego you wouldn't be so concerned about people denying, disproving, disqualifying, invalidating, etc. everything you say, nor would you react rudely to people who challenged your statements (especially if they were koans which exists in order to challenge the mind).
So what's to be upset about?
I myself have said, with so many of you willing to indulge in what I simply observe you doing, it's a wonder anything I say antagonizes anyone.
Zen Wisdom:
My students, gather around and contemplate the simple sponge. The sponge when placed in clean water will absorb clean water into itself. When removed from the clean water, the sponge can then be drained of its contents with the mildest squeeze.
This attribute can be used to do something as simple as cleaning a floor or as vital as carrying water to a fevered man. The sponge does not change, but its value does.
Likewise, if you place a sponge into a tainted pool of water, it will fill itself with the vile liquid. It will not refuse to absorb this content anymore then it will refuse to release it when squeezed. The sponge does not change, but its value does.
This is the nature of the sponge. It merely absorbs and then releases with no true mind of its own.
The danger comes when the sponge absorbs bad waters as well as good waters. The bad waters will taint the good waters in the body of the sponge. Sometimes, this can be so thorough as to completely destroy all quality of the good water. The sponge cannot keep these waters from mixing within itself. Thus, when the tainted sponge is squeezed, the waters it releases are no longer of any value. They are as of much use to a man as the tainted waters themselves. That is to say... None.
But the sponge itself does not realize this. The sponge sees no difference in the pure waters or the tainted waters. To its existence, they are both the same and treated thusly. The sponge will take into itself the good and the bad and then release its contents unaware of the tainted nature of it.
You ask yourselves, my students, how this applies to you. Simple. Knowledge is very much like water. If you absorb pure water, clean water, then you will also release that when and where you need to. If you absorb tainted water, it can destroy the clean water as well.
But men are not sponges. You have the ability to separate the tainted water from the clean water inside of you. You can find the ability to discern good knowledge from bad. You can stop yourselves from simply releasing unaware onto others the tainted waste that a sponge would mindlessly release while believing it to all be equally good in the end.
This ability, my students, is what makes you all men and women of rational learning.
This inability is what make Mike a sponge.
Now, see if you can take the novelty dice from my hand, Grasshoppers.
What I'd like to hear is whether or not Columbia got what it expected from all this, how useful it was to those in the Iranian studies program, and whether or not all the coverage, both media and political, was an asset or a detriment to them.
Micha, just so you know, when I eventually get us into a house, you're on the party guest list. Now if it wasn't for that needing-money-to-get-a-house thing and that pesky Atlantic Ocean, it'd be next week. I'd make a joke about Mike staying in Egypt because he's so fond of DeNile, but I'm too darn tired to waste the effort. But of course, now I'm going to have the Micha Mouse song going through the vaccuum of my skull for at least a week.
Sean, I'll be happy to come to your party. Just give me enough of a notice. Every once in a while I cross the seas to the US. In fact, my parents are going for a brief sabatical in Atlanta starting next week. but I'm not going to visit them this time.
Micha Mouse?
MikeSponge Squarepants?
This is heading somewhere.
Great parable Jerry. Or do you prefer Master Jerry?
If you were truly confident that you're the "real deal," you wouldn't feel the need to tell us.
As opposed to venting your disgust that I'm a troll?
By providing examples, I am simply parsing reason as far as I am able. You don't provide examples -- what's your excuse?
Another really intersting subject debased by Mike in service of his megalomania.
By denying without invalidating anything I said, you demonstrate you can't handle the real deal.I didn't deny what you said. For all I know you actually believe it.
Unless you are attributing to me an admission of debasement, yes you are.
koan: a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment
If you don't understand what all this has to do with anything, simply consider this:
- as far as I can tell, everything I say that has antagonized people here qualifies as a koan,
- all koans must be sincere to qualify as koans, and
- as far as posterity is concerned, all the accusations against me that I'm a troll will only carry weight with those who don't know what a koan is (the whole of Peter's readership, apparently), and are too disinterested to research it to learn what it is.
When referring to posterity, my critics here on occasion have portrayed academia in high esteem in judging me. The three items above are what must be overcome for that judgment to be harsh. You might want to consider getting as comfortable as you can with the prospect those notions will endure indefinitely.
If you really cared about enlightenment -- of yourself or of others -- instead of your own ego you wouldn't be so concerned about people denying, disproving, disqualifying, invalidating, etc. everything you say, nor would you react rudely to people who challenged your statements (especially if they were koans which exists in order to challenge the mind).
Another koan-like anecdote: A student visits a Zen master and asks him how he can remove himself of suffering. The Zen master replies that his suffering is rooted in desire.
Years later the student returns to the Zen master and tells him he has divested himself of desire. He gave away all of his property, he meditates all day and all night, he had himself buried up to his neck for 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days. The Zen master then asks him if, in divesting himself of desire, has he not acted on a desire.
Your denial is arbitrary.
Simple. Knowledge is very much like water. If you absorb pure water, clean water, then you will also release that when and where you need to.
Dude, your "good knowledge" sounds a lot like diabetes.
Bill Myers: You may be right about the percentages here. I am probably more suspicious of motives than you, but you might be more on top of this than I am.
Micha: Yes, I am very critical of many aspects of American life (huge surprise there). It would be needlessly confrontational to go very far into my complaints about the Israeli government, but they are very similar in philosophy to those I have with the U.S.: The state is presented to the world as the accomplishment of a very high ideal - the U.S. as the culmination of freedom and democracy, and Israel as a counter to authoritarian and racist ideology - so each failing is in bold relief. The U.S. is too interventionist and unequal to be a perfect image of liberty, and Israel's settlement and citizenship policies are too inequitable to be a perfect image of a non-racist, non-authoritarian state.
Dude, your "good knowledge" sounds a lot like diabetes.
Thus proving the parable.
Great parable Jerry. Or do you prefer Master Jerry?
Hmmm.. Not sure about being called Master Jerry. Now I have shown that I can be a master at baiting Mike (so easy to do) these days, so maybe Master Ba.....
Uhm....
Master Jerry is just fine my Mus musculus like friend.
Simple. Knowledge is very much like water. If you absorb pure water, clean water, then you will also release that when and where you need to.
Dude, your "good knowledge" sounds a lot like diabetes.
Thus proving the parable.
That you're discriminating in whose bodily-waste you imbibe? Don't drink my urine, bro.
See, this is why Mike Posts™ have become such a fascinating thing.
One of the ladies at work is studying to be a psychologist. I've actually shown her Mike Posts™ before and they've scared the hell out of her. She's absolutely convinced that a mind that works as his does will be the next week long news story when he finally snaps. Seriously, she's actually concerned that Mike, if he is really anything like what he portrays here, is an unstable time-bomb just waiting for an event.
She's even printed out the odd few posts in a conversation and pointed out this stuff in a class or two. Some of her classmates think that, if Mike Posts™ are really what Mike's mind is like, there's one hell of a book in documenting his treatments.
Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for "sloppy seconds"
Any woman who isn't a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on...
Now we have an analogy about how a sponge can be like the failings in human intelligence that Mike has warped into his own weird little world yet again. Water being the metaphor for knowledge becomes actual water. The actions of a sponge somehow, in mike's mad little world, become diabetes in the human body.
Ok.
But then we move on to Mike's master stroke! Mike infuses the conversation with his fetish fantasies about urine consumption.
Oooooookayy...
Again, just so we're all sure about this, in Mike's world..
Parables where the human mind = a sponge and knowledge = water actually mean that people want to drink pee.
Yow.
Mike, you're projecting again and, trust me on this, telling us way more about your ideas of a fun Friday night then we really want to know. Get help very, very soon.
I can't wait to see what her psych class does with this example of Mikeness.
Knowledge is very much like water. If you absorb pure water, clean water, then you will also release that when and where you need to.
You're a bladder man than I am, Gunga Din.
I've actually shown her Mike Posts™ before and they've scared the hell out of her.
Someone who posts here with some frequency please tell me you pass my posts along to co-workers, so I won't think Jerry keeps a bag pack for when he decides he wants to move in with me.
Jerry, I won't tell him what you keep the bag packed WITH.
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?
For people who are not familiar with he usual pattern of Mike-discussion, this is the part where I start to worry that after Mike snaps I'm going to be held responsible for the suicide/homocide/homocide-suicide/headshaving that follows.
"I can't wait to see what her psych class does with this example of Mikeness."
Yes, me too.
Although I think this calls for a team of psychiatric experts from around the world who will be taken to a top secret government installation and devote all their time to Mike.
"Someone who posts here with some frequency please tell me you pass my posts along to co-workers"
I tell family members about your antics. They all appreciate good comedy.
Koens? I know them, they live next door where the Levis used to live.
"What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?"
About what?
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?
Huh? About What? I mean, even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Mike once found his ass with both hands and a flashlight but that's not the way to bet.
I've actually shown her Mike Posts™ before and they've scared the hell out of her....
I can't wait to see what her psych class does with this example of Mikeness.
Yes, me too.
So how does that work, Jerry? Are you:
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?
Then Elie Wiesel can't be taken at his word. Who you gonna believe, Ahmadinajad or your lying Elies?
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?
One of the interesting things about accounts of the holocaust was the reluctance of witnesses to speak of it for decades, if it's even done now. Vonnegut had an analogy to writing of holding a conversation in a restaurant: you speak to hold the attention of the people at your table, but do so clearly enough so that anyone listening in at least understands the appeal of what's being said. In the public presentation of anything, you have to manage the balance of intimate and epic elements. The challenge in providing an account of the holocaust is that it's almost all epic agenda: the naked struggle for survival of a modern people.
That's what made Art Spiegelman's Maus perhaps the single most-brilliant act of genius in the history of cartooning, counter-balancing the all-epic story of his parents' survival by portraying the survivors with mouse faces.
Finding it difficult to find other posters willing to have social intercourse, Mike now answers himself - three times (a very admirable stamina, I admit).
I think he completely misunderstands the issue of the Holocaust. Many internees did speak on the issue many decades ago. Their testimony led to convictions for the sort of thing for which they hanged Class A War Criminals - building, administering and using death camps which killed many millions (even beyond the six million Jews, there were several million others, so the numbers are rather large...). I am not sure of what issue there may be that Ahmadinejad could be right about: He denies the Holocaust, which was lovingly detailed by its perpetrators; He denies that there are homosexuals in Iran, which is statistically and anecdotally unbelievable; He calls for a worldwide Shiite Caliphate, which the six billion non-Shiites would prefer not to have happen; and He (sometimes) calls for the extermination of Israel, which sounds indistinguishable from genocide. The only possible issue remaining is that he disapproves of Israeli internal and foreign policy. Oh boy! There's a substantial bloc in the Knesset who would agree with him, without those troubling aspects of religious fanaticism, fascism, expansionism and messianic delusion.
Jeffrey,
1) About the Holocaust, many survivors found it difficult to handle and recount their experiences, some did recount them, others only years later, some never did. Much of the discussion, and the willingness to tell or listen, only occured a decade or two later.
2) See above my post crticizing the focus on the problems with Iran related to Jews and Israel. It is very important. I will not be addressing issues related to Israel or Jews below.
3) Propagandists for any cause -- like Ahmadinejad -- use segments of truth in order to strengthen their claims. He would say, for example, that invading Iraq was a mistake, or that the US backed the tyrannical Shah, or that Iran has the right to develop scientifically, all of which are accepted by american audiences. These truths resonate with the audience and then help obscure the larger picture, and leave opening for outright lies.
When asked about homosexuals Ahmadinejad answered that Iran, like the US, does not tolerate srug dealers who corrupt the youth, which is true. He did not say outright that he believes that homosexuality likewise is a corruption of youth that should be prevented. I'm not even sure if we can infer that from his words. Only later did he slip and say the statement that there are no homosexuals in Iran.
When asked about Women's rights he replied that in Iran women are highly respected, which I'm certain is also true. The nature of the interview made it impossible to have a serious conversation about what respecting women constitutes in american and Iranian culture.
a different example of the same method was applied by Bush to get support for the Iraqi war. Bush repeated truths accepted by most of us: that democracy is good, that the people of Iraq deserve democracy, that Saddam was bad, that he attacked his neighbors in the past, and so forth. But he neglected to present a realistic account of the consequences of invading Iraq.
So Ahmadinajad said things that are right, but you have to keep an eye on the complete picture. From my experience people usually don't when it comes to political issues -- and you can see it both in the right and the left.
Sorry, guys, I wasn't clear. (I also wasn't all the way concious.) I also forgot that you can't read my mind. (Even if you could, you wouldn't WANT to...) When I asked if he was right, I wasn't talking about the Holocaust, first off. No, what I was wondering was if maybe they really AREN'T creating weapons at their nuclear plants and if the international community stopping(well, trying to) their progress is hurting the Iranian people. I wouldn't want some poor child in Iran to be hurt or not have power because the rest of the world is making assumptions. Or, what if we really are the bad guys? Now, mind you, I don't think he's right about any of it, but I also don't KNOW. And, since I'm not going to be in Iran any time soon, and even if I did, I doubt they'd let someone like me know all their secrets. I can see it now. "Hey, come on in, we loved your video, wanna see something really cool? You just can't tell anyone or we'll cut your head off!"
So how does that work, Jerry? Are you:
1) Bring up a thread on her computer and she reads it at her leisure.
2) Email her a thread link and she reads them at her leisure.
It's not like it's rocket science. But I can understand how the normal interaction between friends on a daily bases can seem so confusing, alien and downright incomprehensible to you.
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?
Sean,
To some degree, it's really a six of one half a dozen of the other type of thing. I'm sure that he's telling the truth in some ways. I'm sure that Iran is looking at some of the civilian applications of nuclear power as well as the military applications. I'm completely sure that the sanctions that we place on just about any country hurt the population as much or more then the dictator.
Iraq was a prime example of that. The more that the sanctions were tightened to squeeze Saddam, the more Saddam played the system to divert whatever was there away from the people and toward himself.
But what are you going to do? Reasoned negotiations aren't all that useful with a ideologue or a fanatic, compromise only works if both parties intend to actually follow through in an honorable fashion and simply ignoring a problem works less well in this day and age then it did when the most sophisticated weapon mankind could build was a ballista and the fastest mode of transportation still took weeks or months to travel across countries and waterways.
So what options do you have after that? Sanctions that are never 100% effective in their use or 100% accurate in who they actually target or, as Bush and his cronies will happily tell you, going to war with "the bad guys" of the world. Which is the lesser evil for a sane mind to choose? Which will do more damage and hurt more innocents in the long run?
And even then, no matter which answer you give, the other choice is equally right sometimes. Hell, Cuba has been made worse the wear for some of the U.S. sanctions on it (even if the rest of the world could care less about trading with them) while Castro has been sitting pretty throughout his entire career as El Presidente. If you could change history, would you have invaded Cuba/helped others overthrow Castro/assassinated the bastard? Those that say no condemn the people of Cuba to what thy have suffered. Those who say yes role the dice with no guarantee of success and no guarantee that whoever replaced Castro wouldn't have been worse.
So we're back to sanctions and the random suffering and death that they cause amongst the innocent. We're back to an almost always mostly useless tool that is little more then a better option to full out war. Three cheers for politics.
But at least you have the humanity and the decency to ask such a question. I know a whole lot of people who wouldn't. I know a lot of people who are still mired in the line of thought that places the people of any given country on the same level of evil as whatever dictator or groups of dictators rules over them. I just wish I had a real answer for you rather then just a rambling post. If I did, it's a pretty good bet that I'd be doing something a whole lot different with my life then I am now.
Finding it difficult to find other posters willing to have social intercourse, Mike now answers himself - three times (a very admirable stamina, I admit).
None of those posts were responding to posts by me. You seem to be having difficulty insulting me based on anything I've done.
So how does that work, Jerry? Are you... 2. giving her links to [posts] where I point out you arbitrarily trump other peoples' accounts of their own experiences with your own account of what they're going through and you never disagree with me...1) Bring up a thread on her computer and she reads it at her leisure. 2) Email her a thread link and she reads them at her leisure.
It's not like it's rocket science. But I can understand how the normal interaction between friends on a daily bases can seem so confusing, alien and downright incomprehensible to you.
You took my option 2. You also seem to be having difficulty insulting me based on anything I've done. Thank you for answering my question.
Read over this thread again, and I realized something. Whoever thought they could actually get an answer to any of this from someone, like the people that gave that question to that girl from South Carolina, is either Optimus Pollyana or just likes seeing people squirm when they can't come up with the quick answer.
Bill, on that voyage of self discovery, what'd he hold the flashlight with? Not a good visual, man!
And, embarassing as it is, the only thing I can contribute to the other thing going on in this thread is Open Micha Night. Not to be confused, of course, with either the guy with the Trans Am or the one who keeps making movies that people erroneously(in my opinion, anyway) think are surprising at the end.
Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for "sloppy seconds"
Any woman who isn't a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on...
And dude, you haven't shown anyone any posts by me that matched any of those descriptions. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "conservative," "abuse," and "women" or synonyms of them. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "last man" and "sloppy seconds" or their synonyms. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me saying all non-virgins are easy. You aren't not only a member of the "Links Such Strange Things Together" Club for Men, you're also the president.
You displayed a disgust at the prospect of having sex with easy women -- so much so I inferred you found the prospect of having sex with someone who hasn't been intimate with anyone else especially exciting. Boo-f.n.-hoo. That isn't the same thing as saying all non-virgins are easy. And you could have simply given your own account as either a "yes" or a "no."
I don't even know why that would even piss you off. You could have been so sweet a guy that love, whose reach extends further than reason, is all things to you -- and that you held out for someone whom your love could have fulfilled as completely as hers did you. Instead your hostility to being portrayed as something so sweet demonstrates you are challenged in experiencing simple pleasures.
Mike once found his ass with both hands and a flashlight but that's not the way to bet.
When you cash in your right to speak at the University of California, boy will I be in for it.
When you cash in your right to speak at the University of California, boy will I be in for it.
Oh, am I going to be speaking to the members of the psychology department?
But that's Our Mike: imagines that he is so important a part of our lives that we think of him at all times.
On the other hand, I'd love to see you, Mike, get a chance to speak to our tolerant friends at the U of C. 5 minutes into it and they would all be there with their mouths hanging open like a scene for The Producers, until Maureen Stanton shouts out "For the love of God, bring back Larry Summers!"
What we need is the psychiatric equivalent of Dr. House.
--------
Sean, surely i'm not the only one on this board who can be turned into a cartoon character. Golly.
----------
We can't know for certain that Iran will use it's nuclear technology to develop weapons. There may be intelligence we are not aware of, but we are all familiar with the failings of intelligence agencies. You can look at the arguments and counter-arguments that are not secret (see wikipedia for example) -- but these are not very certain either. You can go on conjecture and assume that a country like Iran is unlikely to develop nuclear technology and not develop nuclear weapons. But this is just an assumption. Still, you can't ignore completely a potential risk just because you're not 100% certain. But what to do? Jerry already talked about the inherent problems of economic sanctions, but they are not useless either.
It is not easy to make these decisions. There's a lot of balancing to do. The US won the cold war against the USSR. This was a good thing. But there wre a lot of bad decisions made along the way.
In general I don't recommend thinking of anybody as good guys or bad guys. Focus on intentions, actions and consequences.
Yeah, but turning ME into a cartoon character(Or a character from Of Mice and Men) isn't all that hard, funny, or entertaining for most people. And Meyers started it. Whimper.
Unfortunately, sanctions are sometimes like pedaling on an airplane. Sure, you're working yourself really hard, but unless by some miracle Lockheed and Boeing have abandoned jet fuel in favor of people power, your feet are moving in circles with the only affect being the interior of the cabin sounds like a mutant hamster convention. Lots of noise, little affect. Until, of course, someone in power realizes that the people are being hurt. Most times, I don't get the impression that the people in charge in these situations are that concerned about their people. At least, not until the leaders become affected.
"Sean, surely i'm not the only one on this board who can be turned into a cartoon character. Golly."
You're not alone and you're not even the first mouse. Bill & Bill Cat Foods Unlimited turned me into an unwilling mascot, a cartoon mouse being victimized by cartoon cats, some years ago now in order to shill their crappy product. Fortunately, I managed to successfully sue to get my face off their product (they wouldn't pay me) before it was discovered that Bill (Myers) was importing Chinese wheat gluten from questionable sources and Bill (Mulligan) was using used mortician's wax from his films to "add body" to the product.
I am just sooooo happy that I wasn't around for that lawsuit.
Man, did that psychologist post of mine touch a nerve in ol' Mad Mikey or what?
~8?O
Micha, don't worry about our dear Mr. Chandler. He's just happy there's nobody named Tom around here that we can get to chase him. That's why he still talks about the cat food thing, even though part of his settlement was to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Every chance he gets though, mouthing off about the cat food--I'd say it's an obsession. Calvin Klein's gonna be mad.
Jerry Chandler: "Bill & Bill Cat Foods Unlimited turned me into an unwilling mascot, a cartoon mouse being victimized by cartoon cats, some years ago now in order to shill their crappy product."
Crappy? CRAPPY? How DARE you, sir? How DARE you?
I'll have you know that our cat food was made with the finest industrial waste, grade-A animal vomit byproducts, and top-of-the-line recycled cow dung!
Now that I think about it, those are the same ingredients that go into Mike's posts.
"I'll have you know that our cat food was made with the finest industrial waste"
I thought it was imitation industrial waste.
"Now that I think about it, those are the same ingredients that go into Mike's posts."
Don't forget sugar and spice and everything nice.
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he's right?Mike once found his ass with both hands and a flashlight but that's not the way to bet.
When you cash in your right to speak at the University of California, boy will I be in for it.But that's Our Mike: imagines that he is so important a part of our lives that we think of him at all times.
No, only when you think about booty.
Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for "sloppy seconds"
Any woman who isn't a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on...
And dude, you haven't shown anyone any posts by me that matched any of those descriptions. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "conservative," "abuse," and "women" or synonyms of them. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "last man" and "sloppy seconds" or their synonyms. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me saying all non-virgins are easy. You aren't not only a member of the "Links Such Strange Things Together" Club for Men, you're also the president.
You displayed a disgust at the prospect of having sex with easy women -- so much so I inferred you found the prospect of having sex with someone who hasn't been intimate with anyone else especially exciting. Boo-f.n.-hoo. That isn't the same thing as saying all non-virgins are easy. And you could have simply given your own account as either a "yes" or a "no."
I don't even know why that would even piss you off. You could have been so sweet a guy that love, whose reach extends further than reason, is all things to you -- and that you held out for someone whom your love could have fulfilled as completely as hers did you. Instead your hostility to being portrayed as something so sweet demonstrates you are challenged in experiencing simple pleasures.
Man, did that psychologist post of mine touch a nerve in ol' Mad Mikey or what?
I simply wondered -- since you have fabricate things for me to have said to outrage you -- what I did say to antagonized you. Your not providing your own account of your experience -- or even a denial of my account -- leaves mine the only plausible explanation. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
No, Micha, the sugar and all that goes into the PERFUME, not the cat food. It's easy to get the two confused, I know, seeing as how they're the same consistency. Easy way to remember, though, they put a hint of pink dye into the perfume. Well, they do when it doesn't dissolve before it gets in there.
Yes, of course. But does the sugar and spice go into Mike's posts?
But that's Our Mike: imagines that he is so important a part of our lives that we think of him at all times.[Bill] I'll have you know that our cat food was made with the finest industrial waste, grade-A animal vomit byproducts, and top-of-the-line recycled cow dung!... Now that I think about it, those are the same ingredients that go into Mike's posts.
[Micha] Don't forget sugar and spice and everything nice.
No, Micha, the sugar and all that goes into the PERFUME, not the cat food. It's easy to get the two confused, I know, seeing as how they're the same consistency.[Sean] Yes, of course. But does the sugar and spice go into Mike's posts?
As "we" deny, "we" demonstrate.
Typo.
Frankly, I've realized that [Mike] is entirely irrelevant...
I've made my peace with Mike's presence here. He's unlikely to leave any time soon and there's nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, at the end of the day I still get to be me and he still has to be Mike. I come out way, way, waaaayyyy ahead. So what's to be upset about?...
Take care.
Nice relapse, Bill.
Just can't take the man at his word, can we?
Posted by Mike at February 26, 2007 12:25 AM
I have good news for the "Victims of Mike Club." I've gotten what I've been looking for here, paradigms for the motives of the people here that have been baffling me. The price for these paradigms has been my time and, as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all.
How does that last bit go again?
... as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all.
That was such a wonderful post. It filled so many with hope and joy. And yet, as of September 29, 2007 09:58 PM, he's still here. And he's actually here quite a bit. Obviously the man's a chronic and habitual fabricator as well as more then a little mentally unbalanced.
And we all know that you can't take the word of a chronic and habitual fabricator or a mentally unhinged individual.
That being the case...
Mike, if you can't be taken at your word, what are you doing here?
Oh, I remember.
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun. However, if you just throw out a big hunk of text and people don't understand you -- you may as well have kept your point to yourself.
Trolling.
But here's a net oriented question in the vein of trying to figure out real world threats VS real world overblown hype.
At this point, can Mike truly be called a troll? Or is Mike simply being called a troll when he is in fact so much less even then that?
He has no power to sway opinions.
He cannot effectively irritate or infuriate others here as we have all learned that the limitations of Mad Mikey are many in number and colossal in scale.
He can easily be baited and poked rather then being the one who baits and pokes others. Oh, he may fancy himself as the master, the "real deal" as he likes to praise himself, of the games here, but he's far from it. He's become the site's penny store wind-up toy. Any time someone is feeling a little bored, they can easily twist Mad Mikey's key and then sit back and watch him as he, as reliably as the sun coming up, runs repeatedly face first into the wall. And you can do it as many times as you want. He's powerless.
No, he may fancy himself a master troll and believe himself "the real deal" of internet trolls, but he's fallen, as he's likely done with so much else in his life, terribly short of his tiny little goals and dreams. Troll is a name that no longer fits our Mad Mikey. Hell, Troll might even be too good, by several steps up, for him. He needs a new title here.
Dung Beetle? He crawls around, at least metaphorically, in his own crap and believes it something wondrous. Seems an almost perfect fit.
I don't know. And it's late and I want to go to bed. Maybe someone else can come up with something more accurate and we can all vote on it later.
I have good news for the "Victims of Mike Club." I've gotten what I've been looking for here, paradigms for the motives of the people here that have been baffling me. The price for these paradigms has been my time and, as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all.That was such a wonderful post. It filled so many with hope and joy. And yet, as of September 29, 2007 09:58 PM, he's still here.
Jerry, do you require instruction on the use of prepositional phrases? I was simply addressing the "Victim of Mike's" theme.
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun.
Troll Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor, but he'll never outgrow the defining characteristics of who he is. It's pointless to go down the Mad Mikey Troll Hole in search of adult or intellectually fulfilling debate. What's the point other then self flagellation or using him as research for a book on the effects of advanced syphilitic mental disorders?
I can only thank you for not including in your indulgent display of disgust (fed by a 28-month-old post, glad you aren't letting that stop you) a disqualification of anything I say.Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for "sloppy seconds"
Any woman who isn't a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on...
And dude, you haven't shown anyone any posts by me that matched any of those descriptions. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "conservative," "abuse," and "women" or synonyms of them. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "last man" and "sloppy seconds" or their synonyms. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me saying all non-virgins are easy. [You're] not only a member of the "Links Such Strange Things Together" Club for Men, you're also the president.
You displayed a disgust at the prospect of having sex with easy women -- so much so I inferred you found the prospect of having sex with someone who hasn't been intimate with anyone else especially exciting. Boo-f.n.-hoo. That isn't the same thing as saying all non-virgins are easy. And you could have simply given your own account as either a "yes" or a "no."
I don't even know why that would even piss you off. You could have been so sweet a guy that love, whose reach extends further than reason, is all things to you -- and that you held out for someone whom your love could have fulfilled as completely as hers did you. Instead your hostility to being portrayed as something so sweet demonstrates you are challenged in experiencing simple pleasures.
Man, did that psychologist post of mine touch a nerve in ol' Mad Mikey or what?
I simply wondered -- since you have [to] fabricate things for me to have said to outrage you -- what I did say to antagonize you. Your not providing your own account of your experience -- or even a denial of my account -- leaves mine the only plausible explanation. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
[As cited by jerry again]
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun.
Trolling....
The relevence of my 28-month-old post seems to be... your post-traumatic stress disorder. That isn't my problem.
No, only when you think about booty.
So you really think that when we think of the word "ass" you immediately come to mind? Well...I literally cannot disqualify that statement.
my 28-month-old post
You say that as though the age means something. Do you now wish to disavow your previous statement? Do you now believe that being a troll is not great fun?
Jerry,
You have obviously not been paying attention--Mike is no longer playing the "I've gotten what I've been looking for here, paradigms..." card. Now he's claiming to be a koan head, filling the blog with his art, the sophistication of which we are simply unable to appreciate. But historians of the future will, of that there is no doubt!
When someone claims their idiocy is some kind of performance art you know that the well is running dry.
Mike once found his ass with both hands and a flashlight but that's not the way to bet....
So you really think that when we think of the word "ass" you immediately come to mind? Well...I literally cannot disqualify that statement.
Do you want to tell me what you're wearing, Bill?
The relevence of my 28-month-old post seems to be... your post-traumatic stress disorder. That isn't my problem.You say that as though the age means something.
He's using that post as his justification for making this his first post here:
Wow.
I go away for a few days, come back to see a thread header for what could be a ripping good debate and find the beginnings of a Mike Hijacking. The dependability of some things in this universe are amazing.
It is somewhat fascinating to see how quickly Mike's issues with his borderline fear, revulsion and/or hatred of the opposite sex and his projection issues have manifested themselves this go round. It's also equally funny and sad to see how, in Mike's alternate reality, several complex political issues all boil down to abusing women. Having a bad month, Mike? Been permanently banned from yet another 1-900 number?
I know that several of you hold out hope that Mike will one day be able to engage in an entire debate here without once displaying his base nature, but you seem to have forgotten his one and only relevant, and possibly only honest, post ever made here.
...without referring to anything I said in the last 28 months. Yes, Jerry's arbitrariness means something.
Do you now wish to disavow your previous statement? Do you now believe that being a troll is not great fun?
Why should I regret a 28-month-old comment posted under the privilege Peter provides for everyone, when it hasn't been demonstrated it has any relevance to this thread other than Jerry using it to vent his disgust on me?
Now he's claiming to be a koan head, filling the blog with his art, the sophistication of which we are simply unable to appreciate. But historians of the future will, of that there is no doubt!
So Buddhists are "koan heads?" Koans are a reason for you to ridicule and discredit a faith? What do you call Christians other than "Sir?"
"Why should I regret a 28-month-old comment"
So you are not denying that you're a troll, and that your agenda in this board is to be a troll?
Do you want to tell me what you're wearing, Bill?
Never occurred to me. Medical scrubs, if that gives you any kind of thrill.
So Buddhists are "koan heads?" Koans are a reason for you to ridicule and discredit a faith? What do you call Christians other than "Sir?"
No, Mike, the "koan head" reference was, as even the dullest reader would have doped out, strictly directed at little old you. (Note- It's an expression: you are not literally "little" nor "old". You are still, unfortunately, you.) The fact that you would portray yourself as the living embodiment of Buddhists is so telling. If one wanted to be a bigot and insult Buddhists there could scarcely be a more loathsome libel than to use you as a representative of their religion. Hiding your contemptible posts behind the laughable claim that they are Buddhist koans...really, Mike, is there no depth to which you won't stoop?
[Bill Myers] Mike has shown an inability to empathize with other human beings, Micha. Whether it's willful or indicative of a deficiency over which he has no control, I don't know. Frankly, I've realized that he is entirely irrelevant and I no longer bother to address him directly.
You've all more-or-less demonstrated you don't know what a koan is:
a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenmentWhat all the enduring religions have in common is the notion that reason cannot be all things to anyone, cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual.... This notion that reason... cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual is [specifically nurtured] in Buddhism in the practice of the koan....
If you don't understand what all this has to do with anything, simply consider this:
- as far as I can tell, everything I say that has antagonized people here qualifies as a koan,
- all koans must be sincere to qualify as koans, and
- as far as posterity is concerned, all the accusations against me that I'm a troll will only carry weight with those who don't know what a koan is (the whole of Peter's readership, apparently), and are too disinterested to research it to learn what it is.
When referring to posterity, my critics here on occasion have portrayed academia in high esteem in judging me. The three items above are what must be overcome for that judgment to be harsh. You might want to consider getting as comfortable as you can with the prospect those notions will endure indefinitely.
[Jerry]
Wow.
I go away for a few days, come back to see a thread header for what could be a ripping good debate and find the beginnings of a Mike Hijacking. The dependability of some things in this universe are amazing.
It is somewhat fascinating to see how quickly Mike's issues with his borderline fear, revulsion and/or hatred of the opposite sex and his projection issues have manifested themselves this go round. It's also equally funny and sad to see how, in Mike's alternate reality, several complex political issues all boil down to abusing women. Having a bad month, Mike? Been permanently banned from yet another 1-900 number?
I know that several of you hold out hope that Mike will one day be able to engage in an entire debate here without once displaying his base nature, but you seem to have forgotten his one and only relevant, and possibly only honest, post ever made here. From that post:
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun.
Troll Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor, but he'll never outgrow the defining characteristics of who he is. It's pointless to go down the Mad Mikey Troll Hole in search of adult or intellectually fulfilling debate. What's the point other then self flagellation or using him as research for a book on the effects of advanced syphilitic mental disorders?
Posted by Mike at February 26, 2007 12:25 AM
I have good news for the "Victims of Mike Club." I've gotten what I've been looking for here, paradigms for the motives of the people here that have been baffling me. The price for these paradigms has been my time and, as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all.
That was such a wonderful post. It filled so many with hope and joy. And yet, as of September 29, 2007 09:58 PM, he's still here.
Jerry, do you require instruction on the use of prepositional phrases? I was simply addressing the "Victim of Mike's" theme....
[Jerry]'s using that [May 2005] post as his justification for making... his first post here... without referring to anything I said in the last 28 months....
Why should I regret a 28-month-old comment posted under the privilege Peter provides for everyone, when it hasn't been demonstrated it has any relevance to this thread other than Jerry using it to vent his disgust on me?
So you are not denying that you're a troll, and that your agenda in this board is to be a troll?
I'm not going to deny anyone's account of their own experience, but I've formally demonstrated in this thread my intent is wholely untrollish, without any denial of that account referring to anything I've said. That was the case, from perhaps from 28 months ago, until Peter shut down the thread last Thanksgiving weekend because you, the Bills, et al, decided to punish me for trying to get a cop who was venting disgust on me to rule out he was going to post my personal contact info. I formally declared an end to my curiosity as to the motives of the Thanksgiving disgust-fest on 26 Feb.
Now he's claiming to be a koan head, filling the blog with his art, the sophistication of which we are simply unable to appreciate. But historians of the future will, of that there is no doubt!
So Buddhists are "koan heads?" Koans are a reason for you to ridicule and discredit a faith? What do you call Christians other than "Sir?"No, Mike, the "koan head" reference was, as even the dullest reader would have doped out, strictly directed at little old you.
You didn't call me a "koan head." Instead you demonstrated you were looking for grounds to dismiss my "claim."
(Note- It's an expression: you are not literally "little" nor "old". You are still, unfortunately, you.)
And how are the diminutive and the aged supposed to take there status relative to the general population employed as ridicule? You go Bill. Tell that asshole he's like me.
The fact that you would portray yourself as the living embodiment of Buddhists is so telling.
Since we're suddenly demonstrating a fidelity to Fact,™ you appear to need to be informed of the Fact™ that Buddhism has no messiah, I am the living embodiment of Buddhism, and so are you.
"I've formally demonstrated in this thread my intent is wholely untrollish"
No you haven't.
Your actions speak for themselves.
"That was the case, from perhaps from 28 months ago"
So 28 months ago you were trying to be a troll?
"you, the Bills, et al, decided to punish me"
we were not punishing you, since we don't have the ability to do so, only PAD has. We did voice our disgust with you because you have taken a very serious subject and treated it like garbage to serve no purpose but your own desire to endulge in trolling and vanity. We did allow ourselves to be overcome by our disgust, a fact which we truely regret.
"I formally declared an end to my curiosity as to the motives of the Thanksgiving disgust-fest on 26 Feb."
You also declared your intention to reduce your appearances om this board. This is evidently untrue.
"You've all more-or-less demonstrated you don't know what a koan is:
a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment"
can you truely claim that your posts on this or any thread has caused either you or anybody else to achieve 'intuitive enlightenment'?
How does to goal abandoning 'ultimate dependence on reason' not contradict your own claim to be distilling reason to purity?
Or are you admiting that your posts on this blog are contrary to reason if taken at face value? Are they only valuable if they are read not literaly but in order to reveal a hidden philosophal truth that goes beyond their literary meaning?
If so, what is that truth, and can you actually claim you have revealed it to us or to yourself?
If you haven't, than what is the purpose of your posts, other than trolling?
"And how are the diminutive and the aged supposed to take there status relative to the general population employed as ridicule?"
It should be noted that when we call you:
Short of understanding,
of little consequence,
a mental midget,
an intellectual dwarf,
a cerebral hobbit,
with a gigantic ego,
an inflated sense of self,
whose posts are tall tales
and fat lies
thin with actual content
and in general the work of a mad man,
and that your increasingly becoming old and tired
we have no intention to offend short people, tall people, fat people, thin people, the mentally ill, the old, and the chonically fatigued.
I must also say that as a diabetic I am offended by your posts on the subject.
Yeah, we definitely need a new title for ol' Mad Mikey. He's gone so far beyond and below what a troll is.
E-Putz?
Bizarro Boy?
Bill O'Reilly? (Believe it or not, he's become Bill-O's clone on just about everything other then political POV and I can't really think of anything lower then Bill O'Reilly without heading into Coulter territory. And Mike ain't quite that psychotically nuts yet.)
In Dragonlance they had Gully Dwarves, if I remember the name correctly. They were silly, often mean people living in filth and having an inflated sense of self.
You didn't call me a "koan head." Instead you demonstrated you were looking for grounds to dismiss my "claim."
Nope. I called you a "koan head". A play on cone head ie pin head ie . If I deserve criticisms it's in bringing microcephalics into your realm of strangeness since they, unlike you, have no choice.
Trying to make it an insult to Buddhists is typical of your cowardice but unlikely to impress anyone here or those future historians you think you will impress. (Though you will impress them, Mikey Boy, though not for the reasons you imagine.)
And how are the diminutive and the aged supposed to take there status relative to the general population employed as ridicule? You go Bill. Tell that asshole he's like me.
He would have to be one hell of an asshole.
Actually, the phrase "little old" has no ridicule usage when employed that way--it's a fairly common expression. Why I even seem to recall Bugs Bunny using it. See, Mike, when someone says "little old you" or "little old me" they are not mocking the aged or diminutive. And only someone with a serious chip on their shoulder and/or serious mental problems...or both...like you...would think otherwise. And only a real assclown would dare print that foolishness for all to see.
I am the living embodiment of Buddhism, and so are you.
I see. So your attacks on me are attacks on Buddhism? Well, I'm not going to stand here and listen to some bigot attack one of the worlds great religions! Good day to you sir! Good day I say!
[Bill Myers] Mike has shown an inability to empathize with other human beings, Micha. Whether it's willful or indicative of a deficiency over which he has no control, I don't know. Frankly, I've realized that he is entirely irrelevant and I no longer bother to address him directly.
You've all more-or-less demonstrated you don't know what a koan is:
a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenmentWhat all the enduring religions have in common is the notion that reason cannot be all things to anyone, cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual.... This notion that reason... cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual is [specifically nurtured] in Buddhism in the practice of the koan....
If you don't understand what all this has to do with anything, simply consider this:
- as far as I can tell, everything I say that has antagonized people here qualifies as a koan,
- all koans must be sincere to qualify as koans, and
- as far as posterity is concerned, all the accusations against me that I'm a troll will only carry weight with those who don't know what a koan is (the whole of Peter's readership, apparently), and are too disinterested to research it to learn what it is.
When referring to posterity, my critics here on occasion have portrayed academia in high esteem in judging me. The three items above are what must be overcome for that judgment to be harsh. You might want to consider getting as comfortable as you can with the prospect those notions will endure indefinitely.
[Jerry]
Wow.
I go away for a few days, come back to see a thread header for what could be a ripping good debate and find the beginnings of a Mike Hijacking. The dependability of some things in this universe are amazing.
It is somewhat fascinating to see how quickly Mike's issues with his borderline fear, revulsion and/or hatred of the opposite sex and his projection issues have manifested themselves this go round. It's also equally funny and sad to see how, in Mike's alternate reality, several complex political issues all boil down to abusing women. Having a bad month, Mike? Been permanently banned from yet another 1-900 number?
I know that several of you hold out hope that Mike will one day be able to engage in an entire debate here without once displaying his base nature, but you seem to have forgotten his one and only relevant, and possibly only honest, post ever made here. From that post:
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to be a troll, you have to do it well, like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know it can be great fun.
Troll Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor, but he'll never outgrow the defining characteristics of who he is. It's pointless to go down the Mad Mikey Troll Hole in search of adult or intellectually fulfilling debate. What's the point other then self flagellation or using him as research for a book on the effects of advanced syphilitic mental disorders?
Posted by Mike at February 26, 2007 12:25 AM
I have good news for the "Victims of Mike Club." I've gotten what I've been looking for here, paradigms for the motives of the people here that have been baffling me. The price for these paradigms has been my time and, as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all.
That was such a wonderful post. It filled so many with hope and joy. And yet, as of September 29, 2007 09:58 PM, he's still here.
Jerry, do you require instruction on the use of prepositional phrases? I was simply addressing the "Victim of Mike's" theme....
[Jerry]'s using that [May 2005] post as his justification for making... his first post here... without referring to anything I said in the last 28 months....
Why should I regret a 28-month-old comment posted under the privilege Peter provides for everyone, when it hasn't been demonstrated it has any relevance to this thread other than Jerry using it to vent his disgust on me?
[Micha] So you are not denying that you're a troll, and that your agenda in this board is to be a troll?
I'm not going to deny anyone's account of their own experience, but I've formally demonstrated in this thread my intent is wholely untrollish, without any denial of that account referring to anything I've said.No you haven't.
Your actions speak for themselves.
Which you've demonstrated you can't find an example of.
That was the case, from perhaps from 28 months ago...So 28 months ago you were trying to be a troll?
No, but "perhaps" allows others' account of their own experience to the contrary.
...until Peter shut down the thread last Thanksgiving weekend because you, the Bills, et al, decided to punish me for trying to get a cop who was venting disgust on me to rule out he was going to post my personal contact info.we were not punishing you, since we don't have the ability to do so, only PAD has. We did voice our disgust...
Thank you for contradicting your denial by confirming my observation.
...with you because you have taken a very serious subject and treated it like garbage to serve no purpose but your own desire to endulge in trolling and vanity. We did allow ourselves to be overcome by our disgust, a fact which we truely regret.
That isn't what you were saying when that thread that was shut down. You all were venting disgust on me for attempting to do the right thing when someone venting disgust on you refuses to rule out posting your contact info -- you counter-threaten to open access to his threat to isolate you, like shouting "fire" to draw attention to someone menacing you on the street.
You also declared your intention to reduce your appearances om this board. This is evidently untrue.
Do you also require instruction on the use of prepositional phrases?
can you truely claim that your posts on this or any thread has caused either you or anybody else to achieve 'intuitive enlightenment'?
As far as your venting of disgust does not erode my enjoyment in participating this thread: me. Its virtue is in how I shelter the enjoyment of simple pleasure Jerry hasn't denied he is challenged in enjoying.
How does to goal abandoning 'ultimate dependence on reason' not contradict your own claim to be distilling reason to purity?
Or are you admiting that your posts on this blog are contrary to reason if taken at face value? Are they only valuable if they are read not literaly but in order to reveal a hidden philosophal truth that goes beyond their literary meaning?
I never claimed the reason I was distilling could be all things to anyone.
If so, what is that truth, and can you actually claim you have revealed it to us or to yourself?
If you haven't, than what is the purpose of your posts, other than trolling?
If by "truth" you are referring to the reason I was distilling here, as I said before: As far as your venting of disgust does not erode my enjoyment in participating this thread: me. Its virtue is in how I shelter the enjoyment of simple pleasure Jerry hasn't denied he is challenged in enjoying.
[Bill] Now he's claiming to be a koan head, filling the blog with his art, the sophistication of which we are simply unable to appreciate. But historians of the future will, of that there is no doubt!
So Buddhists are "koan heads?" Koans are a reason for you to ridicule and discredit a faith? What do you call Christians other than "Sir?"No, Mike, the "koan head" reference was, as even the dullest reader would have doped out, strictly directed at little old you.
You didn't call me a "koan head." Instead you demonstrated you were looking for grounds to dismiss my "claim."(Note- It's an expression: you are not literally "little" nor "old". You are still, unfortunately, you.)
And how are the diminutive and the aged supposed to take there status relative to the general population employed as ridicule? You go Bill. Tell that asshole he's like me.[Micha]
It should be noted that when we call you:
Short of understanding,
of little consequence,
a mental midget,
an intellectual dwarf,
a cerebral hobbit,
with a gigantic ego,
an inflated sense of self,
whose posts are tall tales
and fat lies
thin with actual content
and in general the work of a mad man,
and that your increasingly becoming old and tiredwe have no intention to offend short people, tall people, fat people, thin people, the mentally ill, the old, and the chonically fatigued.
So if you don't intent something, it can't happen?
Knowledge is very much like water. If you absorb pure water, clean water, then you will also release that when and where you need to.
Dude, your "good knowledge" sounds a lot like diabetes.Thus proving the parable.
That you're descriminating in whose urine you drink? Don't drink my urine, bro....
You're a bladder man than I am, Gunga Din.
I must also say that as a diabetic I am offended by your posts on the subject.
If your offense is based on denying mention of diabetes's symptoms, I don't care.
Why do you guys bother with Mike? I mean, honest to God...why? Half the time I don't know what he's talking about, and the other half the time it's not worth investing the effort to reply.
You must know the old saying: Never wrestle with pigs, because you just wind up dirty and the pig enjoys it.
It just seems a pointless way to spend one's time, is all I'm saying.
PAD
Now he's claiming to be a koan head, filling the blog with his art, the sophistication of which we are simply unable to appreciate. But historians of the future will, of that there is no doubt!
So Buddhists are "koan heads?" Koans are a reason for you to ridicule and discredit a faith? What do you call Christians other than "Sir?"No, Mike, the "koan head" reference was, as even the dullest reader would have doped out, strictly directed at little old you.
You didn't call me a "koan head." Instead you demonstrated you were looking for grounds to dismiss my "claim."Nope. I called you a "koan head". A play on cone head ie pin head ie . If I deserve criticisms it's in bringing microcephalics into your realm of strangeness since they, unlike you, have no choice.
Trying to make it an insult to Buddhists is typical of your cowardice but unlikely to impress anyone here or those future historians you think you will impress. (Though you will impress them, Mikey Boy, though not for the reasons you imagine.)
Saying I'm claiming to be a "koan head" isn't calling me one any more than saying Al Gore claimed to have won the 2000 election is admitting he won it. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
(Note- It's an expression: you are not literally "little" nor "old". You are still, unfortunately, you.)
And how are the diminutive and the aged supposed to take there status relative to the general population employed as ridicule? You go Bill. Tell that asshole he's like me.He would have to be one hell of an asshole.
Others portraying our distinguishing characteristics as ridicule is more acceptable the more severe the offense intended? Spoken like someone soft on his own privilege.
Never wrestle with pigs, because you just wind up dirty and the pig enjoys it.
...he says without referring to anything I've said.
Reading this thread, I've realized that something happened to this blog when Mike returned. It has increasingly become a blog about Mike. And that we have reached -- or are reaching -- a crescendo of Mike-centric blather.
When I first began posting in this blog, it was a great place not only to express my thoughts but also to have my thinking provoked in new and novel ways. The discussions were spirited, sometimes heated, but they were largely civil and always worthwhile. In fact, in some cases they moved me to vote differently, to actively fight for a cause, or to try and change myself in some way.
Now it seems like we spend an ever-increasing amount of time and energy discussing Mike. Mike this and Mike that and MikeMikeMikeMikeMike. And what are we accomplishing? I mean, anyone with half a brain can see that Mike is a total shit! We don't have to carry that torch -- Mike does a great job of making himself look bad. And we're certainly not going to shame Mike. He has demonstrated that he has absolutely no shame whatsoever.
The only thing -- the ONLY thing -- we are accomplishing is to give Mike what he wants: attention. He's manipulating some of us like a puppeteer manipulating a marionette! Look at what this thread has become! It started as an interesting thread about the aftermath of Ahmadinejad's speech at CU, but has degenerated into another discussion about Mike. You'd think Mike was the most interesting thing in the world to us, the way we spend so much time and energy on him.
If I can't appeal to your own sense of dignity, perhaps I can appeal to your sense of social responsibility. The more we talk to or about Mike, the more he posts. And the more he posts, the less interesting, informative, and worthwhile these discussions become.
This is Peter David's blog, but he gives us wide latitude to say virtually anything we want. I mean, my God, if you don't insult his family or commit libel then just about anything goes! That means that largely we're responsible for the quality of the conversations here. And I think it's high time we began reclaiming what we had before Mike came along.
You'll note of late that I have largely avoided addressing Mike directly. The last time I responded to one of his posts I simply corrected a misstatement he made, but I did so without engaging him in conversation.
I'm urging the rest of you to adopt a similar "policy" towards Mike. Because frankly, I'm finding that the conversations here are becoming less and less worthwhile. It's getting to a point where I've questioned whether it's worth my time to participate anymore. And yes, I'm aware that if I "pick up my ball and go home," this blog will go on without me as it did long before I came here. Shit, some of you may celebrate my departure. But I also doubt I'm alone in feeling this way about what all of this Mike-centered nonsense is doing to the blog. And it would be a real shame if we allowed Mike to ruin what has been a gem in a vast ocean of Internet nonsense.
To paraphrase Alan Moore: when you step in shit, you don't jump up and down on it to punish it. You step out of it, clean up your shoes, and go on with your day.
Final word on the subject: I don't consider the possibility of me withdrawing my participation to be any kind of a threat. As I said, the blog got along just fine without me before I found it, and would get along just fine without me if I left. My choices are my choices, and yours are yours. But I felt compelled to at least let you know my thoughts. Do with them -- or not -- as you wish.
So...
"The price for these paradigms has been my time and, as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all."
... equals...
"I formally declared an end to my curiosity as to the motives of the Thanksgiving disgust-fest on 26 Feb."
... in Mike speak? Saying that you'll visit upon a group of people your bizzaroness less and less or not at all is actually saying that you've decided that you will no longer discuss your curiosity on just one specific point. Yet more proof that no one can understand whatever bizarre points you're always trying to make because you have absolutely no grasp of/understanding of/command of the English language or how to structure a proper point. Or it's just more proof that when confronted with a Mike Lied Post™, you just switch gears and lie about your original intent.
Yeah, that's much better.
Gully Dwarf.
+
Looking at The Mad One's post from 12:24 PM today, you just know that one day The Mad One is just going to copy and paste an entire thread for one of his posts and the weight of it all combined with the added weight of the odiferous Mikeness that he will add will cause the entire blog to implode in upon itself. All that will be left is a tiny internet black hole that absorbs all logic and common sense, crushes it under the incredible weight of its own sense of self importance and then randomly flushes the mangled and twisted remains of now total incoherence back out into the world to plague whatever blog it fixates on at the time. Kinda like The Mad One himself, just on a larger scale and without his desperate need to have attention focused on him in any sort of way.
"To paraphrase Alan Moore: when you step in shit, you don't jump up and down on it to punish it. You step out of it, clean up your shoes, and go on with your day."
Ok, fine. We can always cut back on the whack a Gully Dwarf sessions. Still, I think this stems more from a lack of new thread topics then it does from Mike's level of interestingness. The discussion of Ahmadinejad's speech at CU had kind of run its course once the discussion moved to the inevitable point of realizing that there are no easy answers to dealing with him or the situation as a whole. Mulligan has failed to throw out any references to the final days filming on Fist Full of Brains, no bad shows on TV to rubbish, etc.
Still, What about O'Reilly's latest blunder?
"You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he's made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia's, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.
And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that's really what this society's all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference. There's no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment -- people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you're gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody's skin."
"That's right. That's right. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, "M-Fer, I want more iced tea."
You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."
"You know, and I went to the concert by Anita Baker at Radio City Music Hall, and the crowd was 50/50, black/white, and the blacks were well-dressed. And she came out -- Anita Baker came out on the stage and said, "Look, this is a show for the family. We're not gonna have any profanity here. We're not gonna do any rapping here." The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes, and this is what white America doesn't know, particularly people who don't have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg."
Racist? Not Racist? Unintentionally racist by the fact that O'Reilly is so utterly clueless that he can't figure out that saying that he can't get over the fact that blacks can be civil, upscale and well behaved is insulting as it assumes that he, and by his words, others, simply assume that all blacks are crass, misbehaving, foul mouthed scumbags?
Will this have an Imus level of impact on his career? Just a little? None at all?
What about the silence from Capitol Hill and the Republicans, after losing their tiny little minds at Moveon.org's add without actually addressing a single point it raised, towards ol' Oxycontin Boy saying that any soldier who was for withdrawal, i.e. any soldier who disagrees with Bush, is a phony soldier?
"
LIMBAUGH: Another Mike, this one in Olympia, Washington. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER 2: Hi Rush, thanks for taking my call.
LIMBAUGH: You bet.
CALLER 2: I have a retort to Mike in Chicago, because I am a serving American military, in the Army. I've been serving for 14 years, very proudly.
LIMBAUGH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER 2: And, you know, I'm one of the few that joined the Army to serve my country, I'm proud to say, not for the money or anything like that. What I would like to retort to is that, if we pull -- what these people don't understand is if we pull out of Iraq right now, which is about impossible because of all the stuff that's over there, it'd take us at least a year to pull everything back out of Iraq, then Iraq itself would collapse, and we'd have to go right back over there within a year or so. And --
LIMBAUGH: There's a lot more than that that they don't understand. They can't even -- if -- the next guy that calls here, I'm gonna ask him: Why should we pull -- what is the imperative for pulling out? What's in it for the United States to pull out? They can't -- I don't think they have an answer for that other than, "Well, we just gotta bring the troops home."
CALLER 2: Yeah, and, you know what --
LIMBAUGH: "Save the -- keep the troops safe" or whatever. I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.
CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.
LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.
CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country."
So, all the soldiers who have come back and said it's a wasted effort, all the Generals who have disagreed with Bush and been brushed aside, all the military experts who once served themselves who feel that this is a failing effort... They're all fake soldiers. But a man who ducked the draft and has given multiple lies about why he didn't serve before settling on a final story who supports a madman who also ducked military service... They're great Americans.
Or how about...
Anybody rented Flight of the Living Dead yet? I've heard that it's actually not as bad as it looks and actually better then the film it was meant to cash in on (Snakes on a Plane) was by a long shot. Just wondering. I'm horribly short on cash this week (unexpected baby bills ~8?(` and all the usual 1st of the month stuff) and really have to eye my 99cent rentals with a little more scrutiny. The $3.00 ones even more so.
I never claimed the reason I was distilling could be all things to anyone.
No but you did claim to be distilling them to a heretofore unknown purity. When challenged though, you never did come up with an example of said reason. We've been chuckling about that one ever since you said it.
So if you don't intent something, it can't happen?
Before you go off instructing people on the use of prepositional phrases you might just look up the difference s between intent and intend
Why do you guys bother with Mike? I mean, honest to God...why? Half the time I don't know what he's talking about, and the other half the time it's not worth investing the effort to reply.
You must know the old saying: Never wrestle with pigs, because you just wind up dirty and the pig enjoys it.
It just seems a pointless way to spend one's time, is all I'm saying.
I know, I know. Your the better man, PAD. But look...some people drink, Some smoke. Some gamble. Some are unfaithful to our wives. Whacking a stick against the cages that surrounds Mike's mind and watching him growl impotently, especially at the end of the month when his prescriptions run out (seriously, anyone who wants to do a good stats project could create a graph of craziness vs days of the month, just to examine his cycles) is in no way shape or form anything to be proud of. But it's a relatively harmless vice. If I thought his feelings would be hurt or that he actually is in any danger of showing up at a daycare with an AK 47 I'd stop. But he's just a bully. A sadly ineffectual one, but we can't be in high school forever. Some of them grow up to be abusive husbands and fathers. Some actually grow up and are genuinely sorry about what thugs they were as kids. Some...become Mikes.
BUT, that said...
In my new role as the living embodiment of Buddhism I feel a new sense of responsibility, nay, a duty to become a better person and to help others do the same. As Mike performs no function save to make any topic about himself and we encourage his obsession with his sense of self, we are preventing Mike from grasping the Buddhist teaching of anatta. So long as he remains in his current state he will never be free of suffering and will, as we have seen, attempt to bring suffering to others. We cannot be certain that he is not in fact doing so; his inability to be effective in this forum may not extend to more vulnerable people in his daily life.
So I think that Bill Myers has expressed it correctly. While Mike alone is responsible for being the person that he is, I take full responsibility for being one of the people most to blame for making him into what he has become here on the blog.
This leaves me with a bit of a conundrum. Obviously, I can simply promise to ignore everything and anything Mike says...but Mike being Mike, he would probably take that as a challenge. Since he either has no idea how decent people think or he does and deliberately uses that for his own weird goals, you can bet that he would try everything in the book to get me to break that promise --just when you think he's reached bottom he pulls out a shovel. It's also not in my nature to ignore bullies and it's just a matter of time--minutes, most likely--before Mike goes after someone entirely undeserving of his nuttiness.
So...it seems to me that Bill Myers has the best idea. There's no point is engaging Mike personally, except as an exercise in insulting someone without the wit to respond in a way that doesn't make him look even worse. I'll correct his errors of fact, assuming there's any chance someone might not realize that every word he says needs to be fact checked. If a newby wonders why we let some particular craziness go by without comment I may just let them know that previous experience has led us to consider him not worth responding to.
Other than that, I consider Mike a closed subject. That last word goes to you, Mike. You could play it smart and say nothing, looking like a better person than you really are...ah, but I just ruined that chance, didn't I? Now you HAVE to reply. My parting gift, for all you've done.
Bill, it is important to note that Mike has no effect whatsoever on the quality of the discussions on this blog (not for lack of trying).
Every thread that involved a serious and interesting subject, be it Imus or Ahmadinajad or Iraq or anything else, usually included an engaging and spirited discussion by intersting people presenting interesting points of view despite Mike's posts. Mike's posts only start to dominate a thread when its original subject has already been covered, and nobody has anything new to add but before a new subject has presented itself. At times like this the focus of a thread often shifts to general, often humorous, chit chat(zomibies anybody), or to a Mike-discussion, while we wait for the next thing to come along.
Is it pointless? Sure. We could go to other blogs, read a good book, watch TV or whatever. We could also try to move this thread to another subject (like Jerry is trying now) and hope that it catches on. But what's wrong with some pointless entertainment so long as you know it is pointless? Mike is not going anywhere. The quality of the discussion is not affected, since the real discussion has already concluded. The only harm that comes to us of the exchange is that we're doing something silly and pointless rather than productive -- which is often the case regardless of Mike. and again, what's wrong with a little pointlessness? Honestly, I enjoy the break from Ahmadinijad and other serious subjects. It does not prevent us from continuing on other both serious and humorous tracks the minute they present themselves. In fact, I'm certain that Mike will be forgotten the minute such a subject presents itself. So why worry?
Mulligan has failed to throw out any references to the final days filming on Fist Full of Brains
Final days??? We've only just begun! Our films are of such high quality that literally an entire year goes into shooting them! THAT'S how dedicated we are to presenting you, the viewer, with the very best in quality zombie entertainment!
Also, we can only shoot on weekends. Mostly Saturdays. Mostly Saturday nights. Mostly Saturday nights that aren't in October, June, July and August.
But the greater point is: you can't rush quality!!!
(And I offer the open opportunity to anyone who has ever wanted to act in a horror movie and/or do makeup for a horror movie--please come and act and/or do makeup in our movie. Thank you. I promise you a very messy kill that will make you the envy of all your friends and family. "That's some pretty f***ed up sh*t right there." Grandma will say.)
Speaking of politics--forget Bill O'Rielly's backhanded compliments. How about John Edwards saying that “We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two.”
So...John Edwards thinks that all young black men are either A- criminals that would be in jail if there were enough space to hold them all or B- victims, possibly of A. Wow. They really need to let Elizabeth do all the talking.
Unless he was going for the racist vote, in which case that may have been a campaign promise.
Frankly, I've realized that [Mike] is entirely irrelevant...
I've made my peace with Mike's presence here. He's unlikely to leave any time soon and there's nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, at the end of the day I still get to be me and he still has to be Mike. I come out way, way, waaaayyyy ahead. So what's to be upset about?...
Take care....
I mean, anyone with half a brain can see that Mike is a total shit! We don't have to carry that torch -- Mike does a great job of making himself look bad.
Can you cite anything I've said that justifies you calling anyone a shit?
[Bill Myers] Mike has shown an inability to empathize with other human beings, Micha. Whether it's willful or indicative of a deficiency over which he has no control, I don't know. Frankly, I've realized that he is entirely irrelevant and I no longer bother to address him directly.
You've all more-or-less demonstrated you don't know what a koan is:
a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenmentWhat all the enduring religions have in common is the notion that reason cannot be all things to anyone, cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual.... This notion that reason... cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual is [specifically nurtured] in Buddhism in the practice of the koan....
If you don't understand what all this has to do with anything, simply consider this:
- as far as I can tell, everything I say that has antagonized people here qualifies as a koan,
- all koans must be sincere to qualify as koans, and
- as far as posterity is concerned, all the accusations against me that I'm a troll will only carry weight with those who don't know what a koan is (the whole of Peter's readership, apparently), and are too disinterested to research it to learn what it is.
[Jerry]
Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for "sloppy seconds"
Any woman who isn't a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on...
And dude, you haven't shown anyone any posts by me that matched any of those descriptions. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "conservative," "abuse," and "women" or synonyms of them. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "last man" and "sloppy seconds" or their synonyms. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me saying all non-virgins are easy. [You're] not only a member of the "Links Such Strange Things Together" Club for Men, you're also the president.
You displayed a disgust at the prospect of having sex with easy women -- so much so I inferred you found the prospect of having sex with someone who hasn't been intimate with anyone else especially exciting. Boo-f.n.-hoo. That isn't the same thing as saying all non-virgins are easy. And you could have simply given your own account as either a "yes" or a "no."
I don't even know why that would even piss you off. You could have been so sweet a guy that love, whose reach extends further than reason, is all things to you -- and that you held out for someone whom your love could have fulfilled as completely as hers did you. Instead your hostility to being portrayed as something so sweet demonstrates you are challenged in experiencing simple pleasures.
[Micha] If you haven't, than what is the purpose of your posts, other than trolling?
If by "truth" you are referring to the reason I was distilling here, as I said before: As far as your venting of disgust does not erode my enjoyment in participating this thread: me. Its virtue is in how I shelter the enjoyment of simple pleasure Jerry hasn't denied he is challenged in enjoying.[Bill] The only thing -- the ONLY thing -- we are accomplishing is to give Mike what he wants: attention.
Can you cite anything I've said that renders my own acount of my motives implausible?
Or are you admiting that your posts on this blog are contrary to reason if taken at face value? Are they only valuable if they are read not literaly but in order to reveal a hidden philosophal truth that goes beyond their literary meaning?
I never claimed the reason I was distilling could be all things to anyone.No but you did claim to be distilling them to a heretofore unknown purity. When challenged though, you never did come up with an example of said reason. We've been chuckling about that one ever since you said it.
I was asked
so I answered the first and disregarded what I took as a question depending on my failure to reply to the first.
If you're issuing such a challenge as you describe, I'll defend anything in this thread I've said you care to justify the venting of disgust on me. No one can cite such a quote by me, so you'll have to pick one.
So if you don't intent something, it can't happen?Before you go off instructing people on the use of prepositional phrases you might just look up the difference s between intent and intend
Before you give instruction on hypocrisy, you might want to consider the difference between catching a typo where no typo was criticized, and establishing your own hypocrisy simply by presenting "s between" as English.
As Mike performs no function save to make any topic about himself and we encourage his obsession with his sense of self...
Consider the prospect of the disgust dumped on me issued in the service of the Tyranny, Cowardice, and Smug Self-Indulgence™ of political correct (you will have to let me know whether the disgust vented on me here exceeds that of political correctness, or if you can demonstrate how your own disgust dilutes the disgust of political correctness you refer to):
Wow.
I go away for a few days, come back to see a thread header for what could be a ripping good debate and find the beginnings of a Mike Hijacking. The dependability of some things in this universe are amazing.
It is somewhat fascinating to see how quickly Mike's issues with his borderline fear, revulsion and/or hatred of the opposite sex and his projection issues have manifested themselves this go round. It's also equally funny and sad to see how, in Mike's alternate reality, several complex political issues all boil down to abusing women. Having a bad month, Mike? Been permanently banned from yet another 1-900 number?
I know that several of you hold out hope that Mike will one day be able to engage in an entire debate here without once displaying his base nature, but you seem to have forgotten his one and only relevant, and possibly only honest, post ever made here. From that post:
Posted by: Mike at May 19, 2005 10:02 PM
But if you're going to [pick up girls as a teen], you have to do [be responsible], like I said in the other thread. Deny it if you want, but there's no kidding anyone we both know [your arousal in your teens can be quite powerful].
[Pervert] Boy may be loads of fun to use as a metaphorical punching bag when you're just that bored or in need of a quick dose of cheap humor, but he'll never outgrow the defining characteristics of who he is. It's pointless to go down the [Molestin'] Mikey Troll Hole in search of adult or intellectually fulfilling debate. What's the point other then self flagellation or using him as research for a book on the effects of advanced syphilitic mental disorders?
I can only thank you for not including in your indulgent display of disgust (fed by a 28-month-old post, glad you aren't letting that stop you) a disqualification of anything I say.
Mike, your trick is well known. Instead of engaging in a sensible and reasoned discussion you try to impose on it your [predatory sexual agenda]. and then you declare victory based on terms mobody but yourself accepts.All of which you say without citing anything I've said as an example. As far as you can't, I am free to dismiss your accusations as arbitrary.
I haven't implied any dominance over you -- I asked a simple question. If you feel dominated simply by being asked a question, it sucks to be you.
You have the right to [dismiss accusations of being a sexual predator], but it won't make it any more true. It is your choice whether to exercise that right, but I don't thing it is the correct thing to do. When every person you talk to thinks you're a troll and an idiot it is time to reexamine the way you conduct yourself. But you have the right not to.Dismissing your accusations as arbitrary is appropriate because you seem incapable of citing examples. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
I've made my peace with Mike's [predatory sexual agenda] here. He's unlikely to leave any time soon and there's nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, at the end of the day I still get to be me and he still has to be Mike. I come out way, way, waaaayyyy ahead. So what's to be upset about?I myself have said, with so many of you willing to indulge in what I simply observe you doing, it's a wonder anything I say antagonizes anyone.
Man, did that psychologist post of mine touch a nerve in ol' [Molestin'] Mikey or what?I simply wondered -- since you have [to] fabricate things for me to have said to outrage you -- what I did say to antagonized you. Your not providing your own account of your experience -- or even a denial of my account -- leaves mine the only plausible explanation.
So you are not denying that you're a [sexual predator], and that your agenda in this board is to be a [sexual predator]?I'm not going to deny anyone's account of their own experience, but I've formally demonstrated in this thread my intent is wholely [unpredatory], without any denial of that account referring to anything I've said.
What replies could you provide to shelter your enjoyment of simple pleasure against the disgust of a political correctness you portray as tyrannical, cowardly, and smugly self-indulgent better than mine here? (Again, you'll have to let me know whether the disgust vented on me here exceeds that of political correctness, or demonstrate how employing your own disgust dilutes the disgust of political correctness you refer to.)
Yow.
John Edwards is so screwed if they can make that statement a point in public debate.
Sheesh.
I think John Edwards demonstrated he's lost hope himself a couple of weeks ago when he endorsed Hillary's healthcare plan as a copy of his own. He'll try to distinguish himself by the lobbying dollars she's taken, but the Clintons do have a history of selectively disregarding their supporters -- so her resolve to carry out her plan will be nurtured by her desire to win 2 terms. Karl Rove could recover the primary in Edwards's situation, but he ain't making himself available to fix that.
I think I've figured out a way to make Mike a positive force for goo--for every really nutty post from Mike Leung I'll post a review of a zombie movie!
It has to be a good post though--not just a cut 'n paste job or one sentence snark.
(of course, if you dislike both Mike's posts AND zombie movies you are pretty much SOL)
And we start with the letter A. A is for...
Anthropophagus!
Yeah, that's mouthful. It's better known to USA audiences as THE GRIM REAPER, a waste of a good title on a reallllllly bad movie. You can protest that this is not a true zombie movie and I'll agree but add that it's not a true movie either, in the usual sense of the word.
Directed Joe D'Amato aka Sarah Asproon / Donna Aubert / Steven Benson / Anna Bergman / John Bird / Jim Black / Alexandre Borski / Alexandre Borsky / James Burke / Lee Castle / Lynn Clark / O.J. Clarke / Hugo Clevers / Joe Damato / Joe De Mato / Raf De Palma / Michael Di Caprio / Paolo Dominici / Dario Donati / Raf Donato / Romano Gastaldi / John Gelardi / Richard Haller / David Hills / Igor Horwess / George Hudson / Gerry Lively / Kevin Mancuso / A. Massaccesi / Aristice Massaccesi / Aristide Massaccesi / Aristide Massaccessi / Aristede Massacesi / Arizona Massachuset / Andrea Massai / J. Metheus / Peter Newton / Una Pierre / Zak Roberts / Joan Russel / Tom Salima / John Shadow / Fred Sloniscko Jr. / Federico Slonisco / Frederick Slonisco / Fédérico Slonisco / Federico Slonisko Jr. / Frederico Slonisko Jr. / Dan Slonisko / Federico Slonisko / Federiko Slonisko / Frederico Slonisko / Frederic Slonisko / Frederiko Slonisko / Fred Slonisko / Chana Lee Sun / Chang Lee Sun / Michael Wotruba / Robert Yip...this guy had more aliases than Fletch at a gay bar, probably because if you're seen one of his movies you might seriously consider avoiding anything else with his name on it.
Anyhoo, Anthropophagus. It means "cannibalism" which would be a lot easier to spell. Tisa Farrow , Mia's sister (also in ZOMBIE, after which she quit the biz) and her friends go to a semi-deserted island and nothing much happens between the scenes where George Eastman, as a pasty faced zombie killer, kills and eats them.
Now, I don't think he is actually a zombie but he does seem to have a supernatural ability to be wherever he needs to be and he can seem to stay underwater for inordinate lengths of time and the movie was reissued as The Zombie's Rage so...
The film is famous for two scenes which were enough to get it banned under the "video nasty" campaign in Great Britain. One involves a pregnant woman and is exactly what you imagine it to be. The other is at the end and while I am usually reluctant to reveal endings, this one is the freaking cover of the DVD, so I guess you will not be shocked when the cannibal is left on the island eating his own intestines!!! Yeah! THAT'S dedication, man! That's walking the walk!
This film is so marginal it slips between the margin of most marginal films, yet it has been given a loving 2 disk release by Shriek Show. 2 disks! El cid still doesn't have a decent dvd release and Anthropophagus get a 2 disk set!!!
For completists only. Avoid The Grim Reaper version at all costs since it edits the gore out, leaving you with no reason whatsoever to watch.
I'm glad to know I'm not inherently a positive force for goo.
"It just seems a pointless way to spend one's time, is all I'm saying."
Amen. PAD is wise. I've gone to ignoring most posts that have "Mike" at the top. I think they were trying to make another sequel to Speed and they told him if he doesn't type a certain number of letters per day his head will explode. Now, granted, occasionally, I still look, but it's not even fun anymore.
"Still, What about O'Reilly's latest blunder?"
I saw that segment. The only thing, as far as I can see, that O' Reilly was guilty of was not knowing when to shut up. I'm almost sure he would've done if his TD wasn't in his earpiece saying "The segments short, we don't want to have to run another llama spot, just keep trying to make your point so we don't look like you have nothing to say."
Micha, before I address any of your specific points, it is probably worth mentioning that every time I consider not participating in these conversations I am drawn back like a moth drawn to a light bulb.
Micha: "Mike's posts only start to dominate a thread when its original subject has already been covered, and nobody has anything new to add but before a new subject has presented itself."
I disagree. I believe Mike's posts, and the conflict surrounding them, have actually killed many good discussions that otherwise would've continued unabated.
Micha: "Is it pointless? Sure. We could go to other blogs, read a good book, watch TV or whatever."
Actually, my concern isn't so much for you as it is for me and others who may feel as I do. And it's not merely a philosophical problem. It is a practical one. When Mike inserts himself into the fray, and others (myself included) give into our baser impulses and start pointing out how stupid he is, the truly interesting posts get buried amongst these interminably long garbage-posts from Mike. It makes the threads hell to read. Either I've got to wade through Mike's nonsense, or else skip it and find myself wondering what other posters are talking about until I realize, "Oh, they're dealing with Mad Mike." And as I've said before, I believe many of these threads would've continued on a far more interesting track if we weren't ruining them by feeding Mike's need for attention.
Micha: "...why worry?"
I can't answer that, because I'm not worried. If I say I don't like something, it's not indicative of worry. When I say I don't like the Mike-fests, it's not dissimilar from me reacting to a bad plate of spaghetti by saying, "Gee, this spaghetti tastes like shit and I don't like it." I'm not worried about the Mike-fests. I just don't like them.
That said, it seems that every time I've tried to suggest that we not elevate Mike to an undeserved status (and whether that's been our intention or not, it's the net effect of what we've done), someone gets upset with me. So y'know what? I'm going to remember that old adage about having the strength to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two.
I'm sorry I brought it up. And frankly, it's the last time I'm going to address it. My life has become exponentially more busy over the last several weeks and I'd like to spend the small amount of time I can devote to conversing here by participating in worthwhile exchanges. In other words, Mike, and any exchanges involving Mike, are off my radar. Those of you who enjoy poking fun at Mike may rest assured that you can continue to do so going forward without any further comment from me.
Geez, Bill, I TOLD you I was sorry about the damn spaghetti! I thought they washed the tomatoes before they put them in the sauce, what can I say, man?
Sean, it appears you were making spaghetti the same way Bill Mulligan & I were making our cat food.
Mike, you're clearly a man with a chip on his shoulder. In fairness, however, I haven't lived your life. Perhaps if I had your experiences I too would be full of hate like you.
Regardless, we can't change our pasts. We are who we are, here and now. And you can't defeat one kind of hate with another. You are blinded by your own brand of hate, which is directed not at a specific ethnicity but at any individual you find personally threatening. And for whatever reason, you find just about everyone else threatening. As a result, when you interact with others you see not the individuals but instead projections of your own feelings.
That's just as pernicious as racially based hatred, which works by the same mechanism: rather than seeing the individual, racists see a construct of their own creation born of their own prejudice. Your own hatred is in no way more virtuous.
What comment by me are you referring to as hateful?[Not referring to any post in the thread he accused me]
I am referring to your hostile attitude towards anyone with whom you disagree. Your past responses to people whose point-of-view differs from yours have included:
"What's your problem?"
"Finger, meet nerve; nerve, meet finger."
"Why write a check with your mouth that your butt can't cash?"
And today:
I mean, anyone with half a brain can see that Mike is a total shit!
Can you cite anything I've said that justifies you calling [the poster] a shit?[Bill refuses to reply]
Perhaps if I had your experiences I too would be full of hate like you.
"I'd like to spend the small amount of time I can devote to conversing here by participating in worthwhile exchanges"
I can promise you that any subject you might choose to bring up or add too will get more attention from me than any of that other stuff. I certainly prefer an interesting discussion to a silly one, even if I am not as adverse to the silly ones.
In any case, I'll be off the the Smallville thread as soon as I watch it.
and it's my birthday, but not yet in your part of the world.
Oh, I just wanted to add something about Ahmadinejad.
When the Iranian president had his Holocaust denial convention my parents were at a vacation in Tunis (a small Arab country in North Africa and filming site of the Planet of Tatooine). They enjoyed themselves,but at one point this woman asks my Mom: why are you against research into the Holocaust?
The point of this story: propaganda of the style Ahmadinajad provides has clients, many clients, even if you find him to be ridiculous.
This should not really affect your opinion concerning Columbia, but it should help you understand the reality you're dealing with. Ahmadinajad is not a guy with a funny name, who reveals himself to be a fool the minute he steps on stage. He is a skilled propagandist whose propaganda is accepted truth to tens of millions around the world, in Iran, in the Muslim world, and also for some in the west.
I'm gay, so to me, Ahmadinajad's words about homosexuals in Iran were too chilling to be humorous.
I shudder to think, a country where you need to stay in the closet every second of your life, or risk bodily harm or worse.
It's enough for me to thank God everyday that I was not born in a Islamic country.
For a few minutes there, it made me want to try for American citzenship, enlist in the US Army and push for invasion, but it took me less than two minutes to remember that the US Army don't accept openly gay people, and that Iraq actually became MORE religious and socially conservative once Saddam was removed.
It's a depressing world we live in.
Yeah, what Bill said, Happy Birthday, Micha!
They enjoyed themselves,but at one point this woman asks my Mom: why are you against research into the Holocaust?
They should ask if it would be equally ok to research the life of Mohamed.
Actually, no they shouldn't. It might get them killed. Which kind of makes the point.
The price for these paradigms has been my time and, as far as my attraction to the returns for my time here have diminished, you will hear less from me, if at all.... equals...
I formally declared an end to my curiosity as to the motives of the Thanksgiving disgust-fest on 26 Feb.... in Mike speak? Saying that you'll visit upon a group of people your bizzaroness less and less or not at all is actually saying that you've decided that you will no longer discuss your curiosity on just one specific point. Yet more proof that no one can understand whatever bizarre points you're always trying to make because you have absolutely no grasp of/understanding of/command of the English language or how to structure a proper point. Or it's just more proof that when confronted with a Mike Lied Post™
It's only a lie if the 2 comments you cite contradict each other. With no example, thank you for ruling out that I'm a liar.
I hear that Snoop Doggy Dog grew up rooting for Cobra, and is now dating the Bizzaroness.
Oh yeah--happy birthday, Micha!
here's a present link--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVjkTEIoJc
Star Trek and Monty Python, you can't miss
"The point of this story: propaganda of the style Ahmadinajad provides has clients, many clients, even if you find him to be ridiculous."
Ahhhh... But, Micha, the question is...
Would the person have held that view without his influence on them? Were they looking for something to help form their prejudices or to confirm them?
"That said, it seems that every time I've tried to suggest that we not elevate Mike to an undeserved status (and whether that's been our intention or not, it's the net effect of what we've done), someone gets upset with me. So y'know what? I'm going to remember that old adage about having the strength to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two."
Bill, I'm pretty sure that no one here got upset with you over stating your opinion. It was a valid one and presented without malice or intent to inflame others. Even my starting our phone conversation earlier in the manner I did and the following email was done entirely in jest.
Mike can be an interesting issue. Besides, it's very easy to slide on the slime back into the mad little world of Mike. Sometimes it's actually needed for someone to point out when you've gotten too far into the pit.
And then there's the phone conversation that we had. I mentioned something that I had touched on here as well. Mike had become a laughable diversion. Stress at work and a baby at home who lives to keep his parents awake? No problem! Twist the key in Mad Mikey, sit back and watch him slam face first into walls again and again and again. It was kind of fun, but it was mostly blowing off stress. Thing is, as we talked and for a little while after that, I gave some thought to what I had actually said as I had never quite worded it the way I did.
You're right that Mike isn't worth the attention and you're right that he tends to drag others down with him. You were just off the mark in how he drags us down. We play whack-a-troll on Mike because he's a pain in the butt and a completely obtuse twit. But the manner in which we do so sometimes boarder on the same level of his actions. Mike may be mental, he may a troll or he may simply be the most obtuse idiot to ever own a computer. He may also be none of those things. But one thing that he unquestionably is is something that none here should want to emulate or aspire to.
In playing whack-a-troll for the reasons and in the manner that I have, I at least have let my actions somewhat equal, while not all together mirroring, Mike's. Mike may be a troll, but if he's not, who am I abusing? Am I insulting and tormenting someone who is mentally stunted? Am I teasing someone who really is just that socially and mentally obtuse and immature and thus can't help that they come off trollish and brick stupid? If I, or others here, take joy or amusement in subjecting Mike to rounds of whack-a-troll and Mike is not 100% guaranteed to be a willful and idiotic troll, are we taking on the rolls of the high school bully?
I said something some time ago about not wishing to be like the Anne Coulters of the world in the matter of wishing ill on and taking joy from the death of someone who was merely politically or ideologically opposed to me. You can not engage in that behavior yourself and then express outrage at others for it. On some level, even if Mike is an absolute 100% guaranteed troll and the worlds biggest ass, taking potshots at Mike just to wind him up or to set him off is the equivalent of what the bullies in my school used to do to others. I defended people from it then, but am I in some way engaging in it now?
No, I won't defend Mike from any others who want to take a whack at him and I am not passing judgment on the actions of others as they may have different motivations then I for turning Mikey's key. But I can't, in light of the conversation that I had with Bill and the thought process he started, in good conscience continue to do so myself.
I've promised to stay on the wagon and fallen off before, but it's a bit different this time. I've never thought of it as anything other then ignoring Mike until he goes away. This is an entirely different mindset.
Like I said. I'm not judging others here, but it might be worth reflecting on the why behind your involvement with Mike threads and the reevaluation of what you are doing and if it is a part of who you want to be. If your reasons aren't as base as mine, fine. If they are, think about it for a bit.
Good-bye, Mike. In future, I may address you only to correct any number of the huge factual errors you routinely post here, but our days of whack a troll are over. If there's one thing I know for certain, it's that I'm a better person then you and I know I can show that fact here.
And, at the risk of it going to your head, I should also thank you for helping me to grow I suppose. It was far and away greatly more Myers doing then yours, but, to borrow from Alan Moore's analogy, had you not been the pile of shit here for me to step into to begin with...
Thanks everybody.
"They should ask if it would be equally ok to research the life of Mohamed.
Actually, no they shouldn't. It might get them killed. Which kind of makes the point."
"It's a depressing world we live in."
Of course it is a little more complicated than that. We live in a glass half-empty glass-half full world, and the glass looks more empty than full right now, believe me.
But my parents were Israelis visiting an Arab country. Which is a reason for encouragement. My mother -- who is researching the life of Mohammad (or rather different story versions of it) had an Arab student, who, like Ahmadinejad, denied that they have homosexuality in their community. But she also had an Arab student who was Lesbian. Apparently one of the most popular shows on Iranian TV right now is about an Iranian diplomat who saved Jews in the holocaust. But the show is also full of anti-Israeli propaganda (http://gnblog.com/?p=263). That's life -- depressing, but not all the time.
Homophobia cannot be beated out of the middle east by force, any more than in the other parts of the world where it existed and still does. But things will change, as they have in other places. Jerusalem had people rioting against a gay pride parade. But the parade did occur despite everything.
"the US Army don't accept openly gay people"
They still don't?
Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for "sloppy seconds"
Any woman who isn't a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on...
And dude, you haven't shown anyone any posts by me that matched any of those descriptions. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "conservative," "abuse," and "women" or synonyms of them. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me including the words "last man" and "sloppy seconds" or their synonyms. You haven't shown anyone any posts by me saying all non-virgins are easy. [You're] not only a member of the "Links Such Strange Things Together" Club for Men, you're also the president.
You displayed a disgust at the prospect of having sex with easy women -- so much so I inferred you found the prospect of having sex with someone who hasn't been intimate with anyone else especially exciting. Boo-f.n.-hoo. That isn't the same thing as saying all non-virgins are easy. And you could have simply given your own account as either a "yes" or a "no."
I don't even know why that would even piss you off. You could have been so sweet a guy that love, whose reach extends further than reason, is all things to you -- and that you held out for someone whom your love could have fulfilled as completely as hers did you. Instead your hostility to being portrayed as something so sweet demonstrates you are challenged in experiencing simple pleasures.
Man, did that psychologist post of mine touch a nerve in ol' Mad Mikey or what?
I simply wondered -- since you have [to] fabricate things for me to have said to outrage you -- what I did say to antagonize you. Your not providing your own account of your experience -- or even a denial of my account -- leaves mine the only plausible explanation. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
If I, or others here, take joy or amusement in subjecting Mike to rounds of whack-a-troll and Mike is not 100% guaranteed to be a willful and idiotic troll, are we taking on the rolls of the high school bully?
I said something some time ago about not wishing to be like the Anne Coulters of the world in the matter of wishing ill on and taking joy from the death of someone who was merely politically or ideologically opposed to me. You can not engage in that behavior yourself and then express outrage at others for it.
Thank you for dropping your obtuseness over your own hypocrisy.
...had you not been the pile of shit here for me to step into to begin with...
...however long before you relapse.
In future, I may address you only to correct any number of the huge factual errors you routinely post here...
You can always Make It A First™ and cite an inaccuracy by me.
"They still don't?"
And likely won't for a decade or more even though everybody knows that they're there and serving admirably now. It's still one of the dumbest hot-button issues in our society.
"Ahhhh... But, Micha, the question is...
Would the person have held that view without his influence on them? Were they looking for something to help form their prejudices or to confirm them?"
The formation of prejudice is a self sustaining process. Ahmadinejad is not the beginning or end of holocaust denial. He is the product of previos propaganda, and he's helping perpetuate it and strengthen it. Unfortunatly, he appears to be very good at this job. His propaganda succeeds when it falls on fertile soil that is willing to accept it. but this does not mean that he's not contributing to the problem. Propaganda is very powerful.
Hillary has said she would repeal the "Don't ask don't tell" policy, which is only appropriate since her husband was the one who came up with it.
Rudy and McCain seem to be saying they wouldn't change it during a time of war which gives them some wiggle room but neither seems particularly eager to make a big deal out of it.
If you think changing the policy is wise, as I think it would be, Hillary is your best bet, even with the caveat that there is no reason to believe that she will spend any political capital on gay rights once she gets in.
Watching the Bin Laden episode of South Park just now makes me hope that they'll have a take on Ahmadinejad. Maybe he'll end up inside Mr Slave's butt along with Paris Hilton. And Lemmingworth.
Happy birthday, Micha! :)
The US Army still has that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" thing, as far as I know.
I always thought it was pretty bizarre how the policy neatly parallels how many of us gays deal with our families: they doesn't ask many questions about our romantic lives and relationships, and we don't tell them anything that directly implicates that we're gay, but usually everyone in the family knows what is going on.
To a certain degree I suspect that it is also true of Muslim countries. Some gays are persecuted. But others get to slide by so long as they don't draw attention to themselves and they have the right connections.
Propaganda is very powerful, Micha, but it is sometimes only as powerful as the desire to be propagandized. Look at the growth of racial acceptance in the U.S. as an example.
Most of the whites who were marching alongside the blacks for desegregation and equal justice were raised around and in a culture that was full of propaganda that said that blacks were stupid, lazy, worthless, sub-human or just plain old inferior to whites in all ways. They chose not to believe that garbage and learned for themselves what the truth was.
The Birth of a Nation was a despicable film. It's available on DVD and I suggest you seek it out and view it. The contradictory nature of those two sentences aside, it's worth looking at to see where we were and where we went while surrounded by garbage like that. That was a popular film for its time. It made heroic figures of the KKK in its story and presented blacks as something far less then human. It was great propaganda, but it only propagandized those who wanted to hate.
Likewise, I've posted before about some of my early school years being a white student in a majority black school district. I could have met the racial hate I was the victim of with hate of my own. I chose not to. I've met people who hate blacks because they were mugged once by a black person and now claim that all blacks are thugs or just waiting for the excuse to be one. Of course, that's utter bullshit. They don't hate because they were mugged once (even if they were) by a black man, they hate because they already did and they were looking for an excuse to validate or excuse their race hate.
I mentioned once (and sparked a really weird mini-debate) that I was Christian but my wife was Catholic. It was a slip of the tongue (so to speak) by habit. My wife and I (and, thankfully our families) don't separate the two as strictly as some, but were both raised in areas that viewed those two things as almost completely and totally separate religions. I was raised around people who hated Catholics and viewed them as the branch of Christianity that "basically destroyed" the faith. She was raised around some Catholics who were almost as strict and unmovable about the idea of allowing their son or daughter to marry outside of the faith as the most fanatical orthodox Jews or Muslims that you could think of. For the life of me, I can't and could never see the sense in their point of view. They hated because they wanted to and it gave them a reason/excuse to hate somebody. Religion was the tool for enabling that and they propagandized the hell out of it to excuse their own base natures.
I think it's almost human nature to hate. We have our family and our tribe. They are the ones we like and belong to. Everyone else is the other. There's no real reason to mistrust or hate the other, but we'll find reasons even if we have to make up the most pathetic and half assed reasons to do it. They're black, yellow or red. The look funny, eat strange foods, talk funny or whatever other excuse.
We can learn though. It's just that not everybody wants to. Take the gays in the military topic that's running in the thread now for a strange little story with a point.
Here's something that aught to strike some of you as funny (and explain some of my posts from the past.) I didn't grow up wanting to be a cop or a soldier like everybody else in my family tree. I wanted to be a chef. Well, that or Ric Flair. Anywho... My best friend, who I've known since just before we started the second grade (or, as my wife like to put it to make us feel old, longer then she's even been alive,) wanted nothing more then to be a Marine and later go into police work. Now he's a chef.
Thing is, he went on a journey that created a whole lot more and bigger changes then I did. Part of what made him want to be a Marine was that it was a family thing. Well, a somewhat bigoted nature towards Asians and an absolute hatred of gays went right along with that. He disliked Asians and made fun of the way the talked, smelt, looked and the foods they ate. His hatred didn't even always make sense. He often made the nastiest comment about the Japanese because of what they did to us at Pearl Harbor in WWII. This was from a guy who studied German and could tell you tons of favorable things about the Germans. He did differentiate between the Germans and the Nazi party however.
But gays? Ohhhh, he hated gays (but oddly, loved lesbians) to the point of stating that they should be beaten to death. Oh, and Pat Buchanan made more sense then any politician who ever lived.
We sorted drifted apart as we grew apart over such issues. I nor my parents had no problem with Asians and had gay family members. A few years before high school graduation, we pretty much stopped talking to each other.
A little over ten years later, we ran into each other again. We talked a bit and the changes were shocking. He left home, became a chef, moved to a different state altogether and started learning about people. Seems there are a whole hell of a lot of gays and quite a few Asians in the professional catering and restauranting businesses. He met people that he had to work with in real close quarters, opened his mind a little and learned that there wasn't a whole hell of a lot there to hate. Hell, he's probably one of the most liberal people I know these days.
He was told to hate from a young age. He was hit with the propaganda from family and friends and taught to hate. Life experiences, and his own willingness to learn better, changed him. No amount of new propaganda will change that and all the propaganda that he was raised with and grew up with couldn't stop it.
He changed. Some people don't want to. Some people can't. Those that don't want to and those that can't are going to be swayed by Ahmadinejad to hate anymore then you or I could persuade them not to hate. They want to have their hatred validated. If not by Ahmadinejad or some Klan guy, then they'll point to the most minor act of violence, lawbreaking or cultural difference to justify it. They got mugged, so all blacks are thugs. Jews killed Jesus, so all Jews are evil. They worship an Elephant, they must be retarded.
Ahmadinejad is nothing. Humanity is the disease. Ahmadinejad is simply a symptom. But the good news is that we do seem to be growing up a bit. Hell, if we're lucky, humanity will actually be able to reach adulthood before it exterminates itself. hey, we can always hope.
Micha: "The point of this story: propaganda of the style Ahmadinajad provides has clients, many clients, even if you find him to be ridiculous."
Yes, but I think there is nevertheless value in poking fun at dictators like Ahmadinejad. Michael Palin once observed that it's difficult to have power over people if they're laughing at you.
That should read...
Those that don't want to and those that can't aren't going to be swayed by Ahmadinejad to hate anymore then you or I could persuade them not to hate.
"Yes, but I think there is nevertheless value in poking fun at dictators like Ahmadinejad. Michael Palin once observed that it's difficult to have power over people if they're laughing at you."
Well, unless, you know, you're talking about Billy Connolly, Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard or Jeff Dunham. They want to make you laugh and there's nothing NOTHING you could do to stop them from making you laugh. All the power in the world over you and, hey, for humor of that level, I'd do whatever they told me to do.
The Birth of a Nation was a despicable film. It's available on DVD and I suggest you seek it out and view it. The contradictory nature of those two sentences aside, it's worth looking at to see where we were and where we went while surrounded by garbage like that. That was a popular film for its time. It made heroic figures of the KKK in its story and presented blacks as something far less then human. It was great propaganda, but it only propagandized those who wanted to hate.
What's funny is that DW Griffith, the director, was absolutely amazed and shocked that people found it racist. Hard to believe but there you are.
I think it's almost human nature to hate. We have our family and our tribe. They are the ones we like and belong to. Everyone else is the other. There's no real reason to mistrust or hate the other, but we'll find reasons even if we have to make up the most pathetic and half assed reasons to do it. They're black, yellow or red. The look funny, eat strange foods, talk funny or whatever other excuse.
I'm going to slightly disagree; I think it may be human nature to discriminate, an attribute that once had a tremendous upside but has now (as it relates to other humans) caused nothing but trouble. Hate though, that's a lot of work and not likely to be fruitful. Even the most warlike of cultures usually settled down and became farmers when given the chance.
I didn't grow up wanting to be a cop or a soldier like everybody else in my family tree. I wanted to be a chef. Well, that or Ric Flair.
The Wrestling Chef. That could work..."I eat danger! I dine on death! Road Warriors! Revenge is a dish best served cold--preferably with an almond encrusted side dish and mandarin orange glaze!"
Well, unless, you know, you're talking about Billy Connolly
You do know about FIDO, right? Billy Connolly as a boy's zombie pet in a post zombie apocalypse society? (All conversations come around to zombies. Mulligan's Rule.)
(Actually, it's more of a guideline than a rule.)
(And our first full length movie THE FOREVER DEAD just won Best Narrative Feature at the Ava Gardner Film Festival. Booyah! They were expecting The Barefoot Contessa and they got us...)
I either read somewhere or heard somewhere or got this idea somewhere that propaganda works best in a society with deep needs. One of the reasons the Nazi party came to power so quickly was Germany was falling apart. Tell people whose world is collapsing around them you'll make it better, they'll listen. Follow that up with a few successes, they'll believe. The problem comes when people, a bunch of individuals, get comfortable. If there is no Great Enemy To All We Hold Dear That Must Be Eradicated Or Else Bobby Brown Will Be On Every Channel, people go back to being comfy. If people are comfortable, it's hard to get them to move or go where you want them to. If people are on edge, they'll move on their own, jumping at the least little noise and pounding it into submission with a large Roger Rabbit mallet. When was the last time someone in a zombie movie put their feet up with a Manhattan in a glass watching as the world fell down around them? (Bill--that could be a cool scene, actually, if someone thought they had control over the zombies and was using them to eat all his or her enemies.) So I don't think propaganda so much relies on hate as fear. Granted, the arguement could be made that hate is just fear with a stick and some 'tude. Leaders rely on propaganda because they have to lead, or they won't be leaders. People rely on propaganda because it makes them feel like their leaders are doing something.
Congrats, Bill. I have to get that DVD. Remind me to do that.
I think it may be human nature to discriminate, an attribute that once had a tremendous upside but has now (as it relates to other humans) caused nothing but trouble. Hate though, that's a lot of work and not likely to be fruitful.
I think the bear whose food you approach is likely to disagree on the absolute uselessness of aggression. The only difference between the bear and people is that the bear doesn't have the capacity to think of such an encounter afterwards.
Even the most warlike of cultures usually settled down and became farmers when given the chance.
That doesn't sound very different than claiming that because we allow them to extinguish, we don't need fire.
The capacity to hate also indicates the subject's capacity to love. As Joseph Campbell pointed out in the Muslim version of the fall from heaven, Satan didn't rebel against bowing to man because he was too good to, but because he didn't want to split his single-minded devotion to God.
If we make repression the first solution to the authentic reactions to our environment we don't like, we only allow them to fester out of sight of the very reason whose influence we are trying to extend. This goes back to the fallacy of trying to fulfill all the needs of the individual by reason alone -- it's much like the danger of propaganda that contradicts reality.
And given no indication that we aren't speaking literally, the fact that we make a discrimination every second of everyday belies the idea of that it causes nothing but trouble.
If we choose a vanilla ice cream over a chocolate ice cream, we've made a discrimination. If we change our mind that we should have chosen chocolate, we've made a discrimination. If we don't change our mind, we confirm our original discrimination. What are our lives if not the sum of all our discriminations?
Jerry, in principal I don't have an argument with you. Things did change for the better in some instances of prejudice and hatred, in the past and I would like to believe that over time the same thing will happen with the problems of the present. I am not completely pessimistic althoughat present I'm not very optimistic either.
But, the change from a more prejudiced to a less prejudiced society is not simply an act of will, or of seperating those who want to hate from those who don't. It is a uphill battle, a conflict of ideas, and often more, in which propaganda is one of the tools. In a way this justifies free speech and listening to Ahmadinejad so that we can combat his bad ideas with good ones. I have no argument here. I'm just saying that we must recognize that propaganda is a tool, a weapon in fact, in this process of society change, and an effectuve weapon at that.
Also we must recognize that there is no guarentee that the changes will always go in the direction we want. When you look at the past it seems that society moved unerringly to a more tolerant present. But how did it seem for the people who were going through the process? How much hard work it took to get there? How many setbacks? Since Ahmadinajad is part of our stage in the history, we must recognize and understand how he works in order to push history in a direction we wish to avoid, and to figure out how we can counter his effect. By the way, Bush and the Neo-Cons were wrong when they thought they can bring the change they desired by invading Iraq. Figuring the next step in this very difficult game is not easy, to say the least.
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"Yes, but I think there is nevertheless value in poking fun at dictators like Ahmadinejad. Michael Palin once observed that it's difficult to have power over people if they're laughing at you."
I agree. During the first gulf war Israel had some really good comedy -- although mostly focused on us. I'm les atuned to Israeli comedy at present, so I'm not as aware of its role in society today.
I'm afraid I'm guilty of prejudice because I've allowed my self to think that american jokes about Ahmadinajad 9and his name) reflect ignorance or lack of awareness of the situation. This might be true in some cases, but certainly not in all of them. And Israeli humor can certainly reflect ignorance, lack of awareness and prejudice at times too.
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Sean, I don't know what causes propaganda to work, or what causes people to be more or less prejudiced. It feeds on human nature as well as on actual problems. Both the Indians and the American immigrants had good reasons to fear each other. They also carried with them a natural inclination to be prejudiced, to fear the other, to suppport their own people. This mixture fed on itself to spin more prejudice more fear more violence and so on. It appears that we have been able to eventually overcome that, but only after many problematic events occured.
Boy, is this a depressing subject. So what about them zombies?
"I'm going to slightly disagree; I think it may be human nature to discriminate, an attribute that once had a tremendous upside but has now (as it relates to other humans) caused nothing but trouble. Hate though, that's a lot of work and not likely to be fruitful. Even the most warlike of cultures usually settled down and became farmers when given the chance."
Yeah, I may have over stated that a bit. I'll agree on the thing beingt more the nature to discriminate rather then hate. Hate just comes when reason is lacking from the nature to discriminate or when emotion is added in to strange a way.
"The Wrestling Chef. That could work..."
Hey, why not. We've had a plumber, garbage man, repo man, teacher, cop, convict, dentist, golfer, baseball player, rock & roll player, race car driver and lumberjack to name a few. And, to be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure we haven't had a promotion use that idea as well.
Congrats on the movie, Bill.
Micha,
I agree. It's a crapshoot as to which way a society is going to go, but I think that the overall progress of mankind tends to show things going in the right direction. It may take 1000 years, but we seem to start acting like we may actually think about looking into going to the starting line to go in the right direction one day at some point or another. We may get there. We might not. But we have to accept that there are things we don't like in freedom as well as all the good things. I think that is one of the things that gives us the strength to nudge stuff in the right direction.
"I'm afraid I'm guilty of prejudice because I've allowed my self to think that american jokes about Ahmadinajad 9and his name) reflect ignorance or lack of awareness of the situation"
Sometimes it is. At other times, it's a way of dealing with the size and scope of the situation.
No less then one month after 9/11, our local morning DJ did a skit to rip on the poor service at a local super market. He put out an FBI warning to be on the lookout for several terrorist subjects spotted in the Richmond area. They were:
Bin Loafin
Bin Slackin
Bin Sleepin
Bin Shirkin
Not seen in the area was their brother, Bin Workin.
They then gave the name of the place were these "terrorist" were last seen.
Obviously, they were making fun of... what was that guy's name... You know.... wanted dead or alive until I stopped thinking about him all that much....
Anyhow... They knew the nature of the threat and what we had just been through, but their humor kept them, and some of us, sane. I think it's the same with IJustDidARod's name. We know what he is, but that name just begs for comedy usage.
When was the last time someone in a zombie movie put their feet up with a Manhattan in a glass watching as the world fell down around them? (Bill--that could be a cool scene, actually, if someone thought they had control over the zombies and was using them to eat all his or her enemies.)
A scene very much like that appears in the sequel, if we ever make it...which would be more likely if I ever finish writing it...anyway, you're on the list to be among the first to get the script once finished. I expect brutally honest criticism not at all mitigated by the fact that I will jump off a water tower if the reviews are bad.
Congrats on the movie, Bill.
Thanks. In all honesty, I'm not sure the competition had very many viewers, while, once again, we proved that zombies = box office, which no doubt boosted the votes.
I think it's the same with IJustDidARod's name.
I seem to remember an Iranian official from the time of the hostages named Ghotbzadeh (pronounced goats by day). had some fun with that, yessiree:
THE AMAZING CARNAC: "Goats by Day."
ED: "Goats by Day!"
CARNAC: "Yes, that's what Carnac said."
ED: "WAW haw haw! And what is the QUESTION, O Mighty All-knowing One?"
(Carnac slits envelope...blows open...removes Question...unfolds...)
CARNAC: "What does Ayatollah Khomeini do when he gets no Women at Night?"