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Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby Miki » Wed 30 Aug 2006, 07:00:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nwildmand', 't')hanks pms for showing her how to do it the right way.


Re-read Nwildman. I was the first one who requested that we try to find the original speech, precisely because I admit that isolated quotes can be misinterpreted.

PMS:

I admire your effort in pursuing the truth and your willingness to see things from different perspectives before making up your mind. I really do. It shows that you're an educated and open-minded person.

I would like to be more open to hear whatever evidence you have to support the views you have that oppose my own views. I do try to do that, and I promise I'll try even more from now on.

However, I am starting to think that some of the discrepancies I have with some of the people in this forum (including you) have more to do with a matter of values than with the reality of things. My views are moderately socialist. I don't favor abolishing private poverty or even free markets/trade, but I do believe a government's priority should be the well-being of society and the defense of human rights. I oppose every single policy that favors money/power over the social well-being or the rights of any group of people (no matter their number or nationality).

Right-wingers (even moderate ones) often have the opposite set of values. It is my impression that our differences are greatly due to that. We lefties may look like utopian unpractical lunatics to you guys, and you righties may look like unscrupulous power-hungry people to us. I imagine we have something in common: most of us want the greatest good for the greatest number of people---or so I hope.

The ironic thing is that human reality is extremely limited, and our perception of that reality is even more limited. We only know what we think we know of what we can know.
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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby PenultimateManStanding » Wed 30 Aug 2006, 12:11:52

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Miki', '
') I am starting to think that some of the discrepancies I have with some of the people in this forum (including you) have more to do with a matter of values than with the reality of things. My views are moderately socialist. I don't favor abolishing private poverty or even free markets/trade, but I do believe a government's priority should be the well-being of society and the defense of human rights. I oppose every single policy that favors money/power over the social well-being or the rights of any group of people (no matter their number or nationality).
Who can oppose human rights and social well being? Left/right matters often boil down, though, to very practical matters. Take a situation here in California: the Democratic Party (which is generally the party of the left) is beholden to government employee unions which are politically very powerful. It turns out that senior California Highway Patrol officers are gaming the disability insurance system and this widespread fraud is damaging the State's fiscal health. Bills to stop this are being killed by Democrats because they are in the pockets of the aforesaid unions. In many ways, the ideological division between "left" and "right" is window dressing. Special interests rule politics. There are corporate special interests, union special interests, and a variety of others. They form coalitions and attempt to influence public policy. When it comes down to it, I can't profess to be anything but confused by it all, certainly the ideological compass is spinning and its hard to know what's what.

Regarding Israel, I think rrwwf presented the "realist" case very well. A couple of observations though: the article in the Asia Times website that I linked to at the top of this thread makes the point that terrorism is just the use of terror against populations as a tactic to influence those populations. The use of suicide bombers is just that: terrorism. Let's be honest and call things what they are. I have no problem seeing Palestinian terrorism as part of a resistance to Israel. The problem is that it isn't working. Decade after decade of terrorism has not furthered the Palestian cause. Israel is still there and is not going away. Maybe it is time for a new approach. Maybe they should put away the weapons and try something else for a change. If the killing stopped, for many years so it can be seen by all that violence has been abandoned permanently, maybe then something good could finally happen. I'm not a polyanna though. Peak Oil is a nasty reality which is likely to make everything worse.
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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby nwildmand » Wed 30 Aug 2006, 13:13:47

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Miki', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nwildmand', 't')hanks pms for showing her how to do it the right way.


Re-read Nwildman. I was the first one who requested that we try to find the original speech, precisely because I admit that isolated quotes can be misinterpreted.


you only did that well after the fact and may have done it in one of your two edits to that post.
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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby Miki » Wed 30 Aug 2006, 17:33:07

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nwildmand', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Miki', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nwildmand', 't')hanks pms for showing her how to do it the right way.


Re-read Nwildman. I was the first one who requested that we try to find the original speech, precisely because I admit that isolated quotes can be misinterpreted.


you only did that well after the fact and may have done it in one of your two edits to that post.


Nope. I did that when PMS pointed out that the quote might have been manipulated for propaganda. It was just not necessary to do it before that, especially considering that a 1948 speech by an Israeli PM is not precisely easy to find...

As for the edits, almost all my post have 1 or 2 edits---the reason being that I'm pretty obsessive about grammar/wording. I only leave typos when I'm too lazy to correct, but more often than not pickiness gets the best of me :).
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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby PenultimateManStanding » Wed 30 Aug 2006, 18:25:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Miki', '
') a 1948 speech by an Israeli PM is not precisely easy to find...
1938 speeches are even harder to find. It took me about 45 minutes to find even the expansion that I did find. Interesting that it turned out that both sides misrepresented the original speech, Pretty typical, wouldn't you say?
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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby Miki » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 08:00:42

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', 'T')haks for your replies Miki. I'm sorry that I might not sound to coherent at times. I sometimes use this board to gather my own thoughts on matters. It is good to have a sparring partner in that process to flip ideas back and forth.


We're all gathering our ideas here Smiley, but most of us are too arrogant to admit it :).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') lived in Ireland for a while and do have some experience with terrorism. When I lived there people were still blown up by car bombs. But over the past 10 years I've seen the influence of IRA slowly fade.

What has changed is that the Irish economy has turned for the better. People have hope on a better future, they have jobs stability etc. Former IRA members are now running around in suit and tie, fretting about ther next promotion at their software company. Suddenly 300 years of oppression, the great famine, the exodus, black sunday, all seem forgotten.

That made me wonder. Why is the "cure" so different from the "cause". What was the real problem in the first place?


That's a very interesting observation Smiley. Definitely worth some thought. I observed the same phenomenon in Spain with ETA (I follow the Spanish news very closely). Those people had been slaughtering civilians for years, and then one day they just decided to lay their arms and pursue their aims politically. One can't help but to think why they killed so many people if a political solution was possible!

However, when looking for the root of the problem, we need to keep in mind that there are many possible options, and that just because one event preceded/happens around the same time than the other, it does not necessarily mean that the previous event is the cause of the most recent one. In other words, just because the Irish economy turned out for the better right around the same time that the IRA laid its arms, it doesn't necessarily mean that economic oppression was the root of the IRA's existence. It may as well be that the improvement in the economy was caused by the end of the IRA's violence.

Looking at both the IRA and ETA, it is my impression that many factors come into play. Here is a very likely hypothesis IMO:

1-Changes in leadership of the terrorist groups: after years of futile slaughter that have only led to decreased popularity and a slow loss of followers, new leaders tend to be more open to negotiations and political solutions to their goals.

2-New governments more willing to compromise and negotiate with the terrorist groups. This can comprise political concessions, guarantees that the terrorists won't be automatically put in jail. etc
These measures will probably be controversial, but they're definitely a better option than to perpetuate the violence forever.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd could it be something similar for the those countries that are generating Islamic terrorists today?


In the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I'm inclined to say that the above hypothesis very much applies.

In the case of Al Qaeda et al, political solutions and compromise (ie, changes in American policies in the ME) might not end the existence of islamic terrorism, but they will definitely erode their power much more than any preemptive war ever will. Just look at Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. One can say that the US had a relative success in neutralizing OBL and his basic terrorist militias. But did that end Islamic terrorism? Far from that! Terrorist acts have multiplied in recent years.

If it's not Al Qaeda, it will be other people that share their ideology all over the Muslim world. And the more Americans kill them, the more anger they generate, and the more followers they recruit for them.

Do you think it is a coincidence that terrorist acts have increased since the war in Irak, and the atacks on Lebanon? If it's oppression that triggers this or hate for the West or Muslim culture or the desire for a world caliphate, then why is the violence manifesting since 9/11 and why has it increased since Afghanistan/Irak?

To be fair, it would be too simplistic to say that there is only one factor explaining Islamic terrorism, but the root of the problem is the source of political power of the terrorist groups, and there is no doubt that their main source of power is the hate that US policies have created in the Muslim world.
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Re: Threadbear: I Agree With You, To A Point

Postby Doly » Thu 31 Aug 2006, 08:53:45

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Miki', 'I') observed the same phenomenon in Spain with ETA (I follow the Spanish news very closely). Those people had been slaughtering civilians for years, and then one day they just decided to lay their arms and pursue their aims politically. One can't help but to think why they killed so many people if a political solution was possible!


There are many people in Spain that think what destroyed ETA was the attack by Al Quaida. That was done on a much bigger scale than anything ETA ever attempted. And it put them on an impossible position. They didn't want to escalate to that level of violence, and anything smaller started to look like too small to change anything.

There is also the fact that Zapatero is famous for being a very good negotiator. At the end, problems always get resolved by negotiation.
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