Palestinians : Look Forward, not Backward
...Palestine, in peace, can offer the region far more than as a constant antagonist. Of course, that means the activists need to stop exploiting Palestinian suffering for their own needs, too. But mainly, Palestinians need to stop listening to the no-future activists who promise only confrontation...
Commentary by walford
The Palestinians ARE looking forward -- to destroying Israel.
In word and deed, it is clear and consistent that the vast majority of Muslims will accept negotiating Israel's [gradual or accelerated] demise if the Jewish State is not violently destroyed, but however it is accomplished, this objective is sacrosanct in the Islamic world. Therefore exacerbating and exploiting the Palestinians' suffering will continue. The suicide bombings and indiscriminate rocket attacks will continue.
It makes no difference what concessions Israel makes.
The withdrawal from Gaza has shown how the Palestinians and their benefactors in Iran, Syria and the rest of the Arab world will respond to further land concessions. Israel could dismantle every checkpoint, completely withdraw from the West Bank and open every border around Gaza. The Israelis could do nothing when suicide bombers detonate themselves in markets, nightclubs and transit buses. The same goes for mortar and rocket attacks launched into civilian areas.
Everyone knows what the result would be if Israel went belly-up and it would not be peace. And Westerners who hope that once the Jewish State is gone, that they will be safe as the Muslims are satiated are dangerously naive.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Appeasement and Apocalypse
In answer to a post about how Barack Obama is today's Neville Chamberlain:
Retain Mike of FR said: ...The massive deaths sought through jihad provide these Islamic fundamentalists both the means and objectives to usher in the Twelfth Imam, while destroying Israel. Their acceptance of violent death dominates allegiances to family, tribe, or country. They see no imperative for retaining a viable economic remnant. Therefore, the deterrent quality of force (mutually assured destruction) becomes useless...
Commentary by walford
This is a point that few Western diplomats can conceive. They continually and naively judge Iran and other Islamists by Western standards, expecting them to seek their own well-being as we do. The mullahs and their followers see the primary purpose of the finite life is to secure one's place in the infinite afterlife. Therefore, life is cheap to them -- theirs and ours.
Their aims of genocide far eclipse any that the NAZIs would have dared to dream of. These are people who are willing to wipe out the majority of the world's population and send all humanity politically, economically, technologically and socially back a thousand years in order to attain their expansionist aims as they actively seek to purge the entire planet of the Infidel. That being done, they will then happily turn on each other as the remainder of humanity tears itself to pieces in a final, apocalyptic bloodbath.
I suppose if you're a hard-core Green and consider homo sapiens to essentially be a vermin on this Earth, you could consider encouraging Islamist aims; after all, our species may not survive its successful global implementation.
Fighting Islamism is much like fighting a biker on PCP; you actually have to physically disable them from being capable of violence to arrest their relentless attacks. You have to break their legs to stop them from chasing you. And even then, they will try to keep coming.
They cannot be reasoned with or appeased. No one would be happier than me to be proven wrong about this, but the evidence in word and deed is far too overwhelming. Merely wishing that it were otherwise -- or worse, behaving as if it were otherwise -- is suicide, plain and simple.
Retain Mike of FR said: ...The massive deaths sought through jihad provide these Islamic fundamentalists both the means and objectives to usher in the Twelfth Imam, while destroying Israel. Their acceptance of violent death dominates allegiances to family, tribe, or country. They see no imperative for retaining a viable economic remnant. Therefore, the deterrent quality of force (mutually assured destruction) becomes useless...
Commentary by walford
This is a point that few Western diplomats can conceive. They continually and naively judge Iran and other Islamists by Western standards, expecting them to seek their own well-being as we do. The mullahs and their followers see the primary purpose of the finite life is to secure one's place in the infinite afterlife. Therefore, life is cheap to them -- theirs and ours.
Their aims of genocide far eclipse any that the NAZIs would have dared to dream of. These are people who are willing to wipe out the majority of the world's population and send all humanity politically, economically, technologically and socially back a thousand years in order to attain their expansionist aims as they actively seek to purge the entire planet of the Infidel. That being done, they will then happily turn on each other as the remainder of humanity tears itself to pieces in a final, apocalyptic bloodbath.
I suppose if you're a hard-core Green and consider homo sapiens to essentially be a vermin on this Earth, you could consider encouraging Islamist aims; after all, our species may not survive its successful global implementation.
Fighting Islamism is much like fighting a biker on PCP; you actually have to physically disable them from being capable of violence to arrest their relentless attacks. You have to break their legs to stop them from chasing you. And even then, they will try to keep coming.
They cannot be reasoned with or appeased. No one would be happier than me to be proven wrong about this, but the evidence in word and deed is far too overwhelming. Merely wishing that it were otherwise -- or worse, behaving as if it were otherwise -- is suicide, plain and simple.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Our Place Among Other Living Things: A Theological Perspective
Commentary by walford
There is a significant cadre who hold that all other living things have been expressly put here to be exploited by homo sapiens.
This is justified by saying that it has been so decreed by the Almighty, citing scrawlings on paper written by men and subsequently edited by others as Divine evidence. It is further justified with the notion that animals are ‘lesser’ while we are Chosen.
Similar rationale is used to justify practioners of one man-made religion raping, pillaging and murdering members of other human tribes wholesale. All because they, as finite beings, do not share our views of the Infinite
This certainly confers a significant political advantage and permits a great deal of atrocity at others’ expense.
Remember this as some of you look down your noses at others you characterize as religious extremists. If you hold religious views similar to those cited above, what distinguishes you from them?
Time, space — and most importantly the Almighty’s Divine Will — are too vast for us to presume that we’re Chosen to be anything but a tenuous experiment in its early stages on a small planet in a non-descript sector of a galaxy like so many others.
If we fail, life will go on as it did many millenia before we arrived — quite nicely, thank you very much.
Those of us who lack the humility to remember that will contribute to our demise if it comes to that.
There is a significant cadre who hold that all other living things have been expressly put here to be exploited by homo sapiens.
This is justified by saying that it has been so decreed by the Almighty, citing scrawlings on paper written by men and subsequently edited by others as Divine evidence. It is further justified with the notion that animals are ‘lesser’ while we are Chosen.
Similar rationale is used to justify practioners of one man-made religion raping, pillaging and murdering members of other human tribes wholesale. All because they, as finite beings, do not share our views of the Infinite
This certainly confers a significant political advantage and permits a great deal of atrocity at others’ expense.
Remember this as some of you look down your noses at others you characterize as religious extremists. If you hold religious views similar to those cited above, what distinguishes you from them?
Time, space — and most importantly the Almighty’s Divine Will — are too vast for us to presume that we’re Chosen to be anything but a tenuous experiment in its early stages on a small planet in a non-descript sector of a galaxy like so many others.
If we fail, life will go on as it did many millenia before we arrived — quite nicely, thank you very much.
Those of us who lack the humility to remember that will contribute to our demise if it comes to that.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Immigrant, Alien or Invader?
Commentary by walford
Some important definitions that are all too often avoided in polite conversation when we consider what to do about those who continue to enter the United States illegally. These different terminologies matter a great deal when discussing this very important subject -
Immigrant: Person who legally enters the host country and demonstrates a sincere desire to join the socieity, contributing to and assimilating from cultural aspects thereof, including language, political morality [viz. embracing freedom], music, food, clothing, religion, family traditions, sex roles, etc.
Such persons are invested in the host country's future. They are thusly resolved to adapt and further enrich it.
Alien: Person who legally or illegally enters another country while holding allegiance to the original homeland, completely eschewing all aspects of the host country's cultural and social aspects, preferring to live as if they were still in his/her native land.
Such persons form enclaves in the host country where citizens therefrom are not welcome.
Invader: Alien who violates the borders of another country with the explicit intent to completely supplant the host country's society -- demographically, politically, economically and culturally.
Such persons expect the host country's citizenry to adapt to them or be engulfed if not wiped out.
Amongst the majority of those currently here illegally -- and those who keep coming -- who belong to which categories? Let us not delude ourselves when we consider this question as we formulate a response.
Tolerating the last two groups erodes the host country politically, culturally and economically. It is also perpetuates corruption and stagnation in the country of origin. It is the exact opposite of compassion.
Some important definitions that are all too often avoided in polite conversation when we consider what to do about those who continue to enter the United States illegally. These different terminologies matter a great deal when discussing this very important subject -
Immigrant: Person who legally enters the host country and demonstrates a sincere desire to join the socieity, contributing to and assimilating from cultural aspects thereof, including language, political morality [viz. embracing freedom], music, food, clothing, religion, family traditions, sex roles, etc.
Such persons are invested in the host country's future. They are thusly resolved to adapt and further enrich it.
Alien: Person who legally or illegally enters another country while holding allegiance to the original homeland, completely eschewing all aspects of the host country's cultural and social aspects, preferring to live as if they were still in his/her native land.
Such persons form enclaves in the host country where citizens therefrom are not welcome.
Invader: Alien who violates the borders of another country with the explicit intent to completely supplant the host country's society -- demographically, politically, economically and culturally.
Such persons expect the host country's citizenry to adapt to them or be engulfed if not wiped out.
Amongst the majority of those currently here illegally -- and those who keep coming -- who belong to which categories? Let us not delude ourselves when we consider this question as we formulate a response.
Tolerating the last two groups erodes the host country politically, culturally and economically. It is also perpetuates corruption and stagnation in the country of origin. It is the exact opposite of compassion.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
SATC2: Entertainment Industry Life for Middle Eastern Women
Why Didn't Samantha Sleep With an Arab Man?
...For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, European leisure travelers made endless romantic speculations about the “secrets of the harems,” writes Judy Mabor in Veiled Half-Truths. They filled their fantasies with erotic scenes of dark-eyed women, but kept their distance; even as they fantasized, they pitied the poor, backwards Arab women, Mabor writes. In later years, however, Westerners began to feel guilty about these one-sided Orientalist fantasies. In Muriel Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate, Hideous Kinky, and Sheltering Sky, the Western woman sleeps with an Arab man. The experience turns the tables on the usual fantasy. Now it’s the Western woman who becomes the other, exotic and dangerous. She gets humbled as she is forced, temporarily, to live by Muslim mores. For a while, she leaves her smug cocoon of Western superiority.
In Sex and the City 2, Samantha could easily have slept with an Arab man; she sleeps with everyone else, after all. This might have helped her understand the sex appeal of the veil, and the allure of a world in which sex is not always immediately there for the taking (just as she once experienced this on the show with her tantric yoga instructor lover). But nothing like that happens. The Arab men on the show are all tea-pourers or personal shoppers or camel herders. The cute butlers who are assigned to the women at their posh hotel are off-limits because one is sweetly in love with his wife, and the other is gay. The rest of Arab mankind is a sweaty, hairy, angry mob even Samantha wouldn’t touch...
Commentary by walford
SATC2 demonstrates that elites in the Western entertainment industry cannot deal with how it really is for women in Arab/Muslim culture, so when a major movie is set in that part of the world, they settle for shallow, banal stereotypes that completely ignore the suffering of their sisters behind the veils.
Western Feminists have totally abandoned the millions of women who suffer daily in the Middle East in favor of cultural relativism and Leftist ideology to the point of not even bothering to tell their horrific stories.
...For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, European leisure travelers made endless romantic speculations about the “secrets of the harems,” writes Judy Mabor in Veiled Half-Truths. They filled their fantasies with erotic scenes of dark-eyed women, but kept their distance; even as they fantasized, they pitied the poor, backwards Arab women, Mabor writes. In later years, however, Westerners began to feel guilty about these one-sided Orientalist fantasies. In Muriel Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate, Hideous Kinky, and Sheltering Sky, the Western woman sleeps with an Arab man. The experience turns the tables on the usual fantasy. Now it’s the Western woman who becomes the other, exotic and dangerous. She gets humbled as she is forced, temporarily, to live by Muslim mores. For a while, she leaves her smug cocoon of Western superiority.
In Sex and the City 2, Samantha could easily have slept with an Arab man; she sleeps with everyone else, after all. This might have helped her understand the sex appeal of the veil, and the allure of a world in which sex is not always immediately there for the taking (just as she once experienced this on the show with her tantric yoga instructor lover). But nothing like that happens. The Arab men on the show are all tea-pourers or personal shoppers or camel herders. The cute butlers who are assigned to the women at their posh hotel are off-limits because one is sweetly in love with his wife, and the other is gay. The rest of Arab mankind is a sweaty, hairy, angry mob even Samantha wouldn’t touch...
Commentary by walford
SATC2 demonstrates that elites in the Western entertainment industry cannot deal with how it really is for women in Arab/Muslim culture, so when a major movie is set in that part of the world, they settle for shallow, banal stereotypes that completely ignore the suffering of their sisters behind the veils.
Western Feminists have totally abandoned the millions of women who suffer daily in the Middle East in favor of cultural relativism and Leftist ideology to the point of not even bothering to tell their horrific stories.
Fallout from Gaza-Bound Flotilla Violence Continues
Turkish PM Calls Israel's Reaction to Aid Ships 'Bloody Massacre'
Commentary by walford
Israel offered to facilitate overland transport of these materials and this was repeatedly rejected.
The "peace activists" object was to punish Israel for the fact that she will not permit materials to be delivered to territory controlled by HAMAS -- an organization that is avowed to destroy the Jewish State -- without being inspected first.
The activists knew that if the situation turned violent, they would not be held accountable and that the result would be further alienation for Israel.
Knowing the Western elites' craven and shallow mindset with respect to Israel, this blatantly orchestrated provocation was an easy political calculation that was all but guaranteed success.
Commentary by walford
Israel offered to facilitate overland transport of these materials and this was repeatedly rejected.
The "peace activists" object was to punish Israel for the fact that she will not permit materials to be delivered to territory controlled by HAMAS -- an organization that is avowed to destroy the Jewish State -- without being inspected first.
The activists knew that if the situation turned violent, they would not be held accountable and that the result would be further alienation for Israel.
Knowing the Western elites' craven and shallow mindset with respect to Israel, this blatantly orchestrated provocation was an easy political calculation that was all but guaranteed success.
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