SoAMadDeathWish

Can somebody remind me how the ignore function works again?

So, every Israeli act since 1949 justifies their evil intentions, correct?

Is it now considered evil to defend yourself from an aggressor, or are you just going to pretend that Israel's numerous violations of ceasefire agreements never happened?

Here is a new concept for you, you answer my question.

Then you can ask me questions.

Your question is a loaded question.

To see why Hamas would reject a cease-fire from Israel, all you have to do is look at the history.

Would you give us a time frame for this particular slice of history that you refer too?

1949-2014

So, every Israeli act since 1949 justifies their evil intentions, correct?

Is it now considered evil to defend yourself from an aggressor, or are you just going to pretend that Israel's numerous violations of ceasefire agreements never happened?

To see why Hamas would reject a cease-fire from Israel, all you have to do is look at the history.

Would you give us a time frame for this particular slice of history that you refer too?

1949-2014

Michael, I wonder if the fact Hamas (its 'military wing', anyway) has thus far rejected a truce offering, will change any perceptions about its real purpose to those of progressivist bent? I don't expect so. Perhaps to some who've been wavering in between.

Hamas would countenance further deaths of its citizens, for what? false pride, a publicity stunt for its 'cause'. This should forever put the matter to rest about who are the murderers here.

Certainly not the people who broke the previous cease fire agreement and inflicted 100% of the casualties in their pursuit of collective punishment for the Palestinians' imagined crimes.

To see why Hamas would reject a cease-fire from Israel, all you have to do is look at the history.

1. Israel breaks ceasefire agreement and due to its superior military force accomplishes its goals quickly

2. Palestinians retaliate

3. Israel calls for ceasefire before Palestinians have a chance to defend themselves or regain lost territory or whatever.

4. Palestinians obviously reject ceasefire

It's like somebody punches you in the face, takes your money, and then when you start to fight back says "Hey, you know,... this fighting and violence is pointless. Let's all just live in peace and harmony."

Such a good little mouthpiece.

...apartheid regime...

Define apartheid...here is the wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa

Apartheid (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ɐˈpartɦɛit]; an Afrikaans^[1] word meaning "the state of being apart", literally "apart-hood")^[2][3] was a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) governments, the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights, associations and movements of the majority black inhabitants were curtailed and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained. Apartheid was developed after World War II by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party and Broederbond organisations and was practiced also in South West Africa, which was administered by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate (revoked in 1966 via United Nations Resolution 2145),^[4] until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990.^[5] By extension, the term is nowadays currently used for every kind of segregation, established by the state authority in a country, against the social and civil rights of a minority of citizens, due to ethnic prejudices.^{[citation needed]}

Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under Dutch rule.^[6] Apartheid as an officially structured policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. Legislation classified inhabitants into four racial groups, "black", "white", "coloured", and "Indian", with Indian and coloured divided into several sub-classifications,^[7] and residential areas were segregated. From 1960 to 1983, 3.5 million non-white South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in one of the largest mass removals in modern history.^[8] Non-white political representation was abolished in 1970, and starting in that year black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white people.^[9]

Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence, and a long arms and trade embargo against South Africa.^[10]Since the 1950s, a series of popular uprisings and protests was met with the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders. As unrest spread and became more effective and militarised, state organisations responded with repression and violence. Along with the sanctions placed on South Africa by the international community, this made it increasingly difficult for the government to maintain the regime. The role of Britain in the emerging of apartheid is often ignored.^{[citation needed]} However it was a British man who played a key role in taking away the rights of black and coloured people. It was not

Hendrik Verwoerd, but Cecil Rhodes who constructed the first segregation law.^[11] Apartheid reforms in the 1980s failed to quell the mounting opposition, and in 1990 President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid,^[12] culminating in multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela. The vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and society. De Klerk began the process of dismantling apartheid with the release of Mandela's mentor and several other political prisoners in October 1989.^[13] Although the official abolition of apartheid occurred in 1991 with repeal of the last of the remaining apartheid laws, nonwhites were not allowed to vote until 1993 and the end of apartheid is widely regarded as arising from the 1994 democratic general elections.

Just trying to help you Tinkerbell...all we have to do is what?

A...

All you have to do is change some names around and you have the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict right there.

Was unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza in 2005 a "round-about" way of, to use your words, clearing "the way for new infrastructure projects to support the settlers?" Are you at least willing to withdraw the term "genocide" from your quiver in this discussion? There really is no harm in admiting to a mistake in judgment, even here on OL.

Yes. Israel withdrew only because maintaining the settlements in Gaza was costly while Gaza held essentially no economic resources.

Are you at least willing to withdraw the term "genocide" from your quiver in this discussion?

No, because I'm right, and you haven't really presented any arguments to the contrary. The genocide is at the stage of herding the undersirables into ghettos. They're just one step away from concentration camps.

You know, there are actually morally complex treatments of the issues that pertain to the Jews and the Arabs, and even the very issues you are trying to project knowledge about.** As one example, you could read Michael Oren's Six Days of War in less than a week if you really are interested in this issue. Sure, it's a harder slog than paraphrasing a website, and getting your hand on it is more effort than a google search, but I assure you it's worth it.

You have appear to have a full life ahead of you. I say this based on snippets I have read of yours that seem to indicate you are a college sophomore, or some such age. You also seem to have intellectual curiosity, one of the great pleasures in life. I can assure you that your life will be much better if you learn to think independently, for yourself--not by sacrificing your mind to a mental image of seeming intellectual superiority. What you gain in temporary satisfaction from seeming intellectual superiority over your "lessers" is a vapor. But thinking independently does require recalibration, and even the occasional admission of error.

The funny thing about admitting to error is that you then become even more intellectually curious about what life has to offer. Momentum then begets momentum.

Try to think for yourself. Such behavior truly is its own reward.

---------------

**For what it's worth, I am not Jewish, and have no paricular dog in this fight on that particular front.

That's nice.

So, since you called me out for calling you out: how does one go about "genocide"** in a "round-about" way?

**And please-- in anticipation of your knee jerk response-- don't insult your audience by going squishy on what the word "genocide" means. Words do have meaning, and "genocide" is one of the big ones, so to speak, especially when it comes to discussing the topic at hand.

You do that by making conditions for the persecuted population completely unlivable and dependent for their basic sustenance on you. Israel has slowly conquered Palestinian water reserves and farmable land, bit by bit over the years. They continue to dispossess Palestinians of their homes and lands and then hand them over to Israeli settlers. They refuse to recognize Palestine as a state in order to deprive it of many of the protections of the UN and Geneva conventions. They impose embargoes on the Palestinian territories, so they can't trade what they produce on the world market and face serious food shortages and nutritional deficits. They divide up Palestinian territory with Israeli only highways and dividing walls which separates many Palestinians from their families, jobs, lands, and basic utilities such as hospitals, power, and water. They impose an apartheid regime where only Israelis have access to civil courts, but where Palestinians are tried in military tribunals where they face arbitrary arrest, where they may be detained for long periods of time without being charged, where they face steeper punishments for the same crimes, where they often don't have access to legal representation, and where obtaining permits to build their homes is next to impossible. And finally, they deliberately target civilians in military strikes, under the pretext of their hiding supposed missiles and weapons, in order to clear the way for new infrastructure projects to support the settlers.

Most of the info above can be found here points 39 and on:

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/FFM/FFMSettlements.pdf

Wow... brilliant.

Why am I so incapable of coming up with such brilliant refutation...

I will now slink into the caverns of logical thought supported by evidence...or, at least an attempt at it,

A...

Because the facts obviously contradict your position. If they didn't, you would have presented your evidence that Hamas seeks to eradicate all Jews. But of course, you don't actually have any so you resort to personal attacks instead.

Here is a "fact" about HAMAS:

...Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, deputy chairman of Hamas political bureau, said in 2014 that "Hamas will not recognize Israel", adding "this is a red line that cannot be crossed".^[27]

Here twit:

Charter

Main article: Hamas Charter

The Hamas Charter (or Covenant), issued in 1988, outlined the organization's position on many issues at the time. It identifies Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors". The charter states "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,^[45] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.^[78][79] The Charter also asserts that through shrewd manipulation of imperial countries and secret societies, Zionists were behind a wide range of events and disasters going as far back in history as the French Revolution. Among the charter's controversial statements is the following: "The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews [and kill them]; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!"^[44] The document also quotes Islamic religious texts to provide justification for fighting against and killing the Jews of Israel,^[80] presenting the Arab–Israeli conflict as an inherently irreconcilable struggle between Jews and Muslims, and Judaism and Islam,^[44] adding that the only way to engage in this struggle between "truth and falsehood" is through Islam and by means of jihad, until victory or martyrdom.^[44] The Charter adds that "renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion" of Islam.^[81] The charter states that Hamas is humanistic, and tolerant of other religions as long as they do not block Hamas's efforts.^[82]

A...

You forgot to mention the part where they never actually adopted that charter.

Current status of the Charter

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal indicated to Robert Pastor, senior adviser to the Carter Center, that the Charter is "a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons".^[83] Hamas do not use the Charter on their website and prefer to use their election manifesto to put forth their agenda.^[84][85] Pastor states that those who quote the charter rather than more recent Hamas statements may be using the Charter as an excuse to ignore Hamas.^[83]

British diplomat and former British ambassador to the United Nations Sir Jeremy Greenstock stated in early 2009 that the Hamas charter was "drawn up by a Hamas-linked imam some [twenty] years ago and has never been adopted since Hamas was elected as the Palestinian government in 2006".^[86] Mohammed Nimer of American University comments on the Charter, "It's a tract meant to mobilize support and it should be amended.... It projects anger, not vision."^[87]Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, has questioned the use of the charter by Israel and its supporters to brand Hamas as a fundamentalist, terrorist, racist, anti-Semitic organization and claims that they have taken parts of the charter out of context for propaganda purposes. He claims that they dwell on the charter and ignore that Hamas has changed its views with time.^[88]

Wow... brilliant.

Why am I so incapable of coming up with such brilliant refutation...

I will now slink into the caverns of logical thought supported by evidence...or, at least an attempt at it,

A...

Because the facts obviously contradict your position. If they didn't, you would have presented your evidence that Hamas seeks to eradicate all Jews. But of course, you don't actually have any so you resort to personal attacks instead.

Ummm... no. Genocide is the systematic killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or geographic location. So when you see a systematic killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or geographic location and then call it genocide, that's not a circular argument, that's a fact.

You are so pitifully ignorant.

Thanks though.

Therefore, since HAMAS has recently merged with the PLO and HAMAS's declared policy position is to eradicate all Jews and Israel, that is not a declared genocidal position?

OK

A...

This is simply false.

Other than you being a complete imbecile with this modified argument concerning your unsupported charge that...let's see shall we?

Yes, we shall.

Your infantile brain stated that:

I stand by what I said in that post. Israel's policies toward the Palestinians are nothing short of genocide*. Anybody with eyes can see that, and, as I've come to learn, anybody who disagrees is usually ignorant of the topic, and when they're not, they've bought into the "Four legs good. Two legs bad." theory of history.

Now I am going to give you another chance to be intelligent. I know the various definitions for your use of the phrase "'Four legs good. Two legs bad'" theory of history.

You're not making any sense. I can't even figure out what your charge is here.

So define your use of that term:

Anybody with eyes can see that, and, as I've come to learn, anybody who disagrees is usually ignorant of the topic, and when they're not, they've bought into the "Four legs good. Two legs bad." theory of history.

It's the idea that in any conflict one side is the "good guys" and the other the "bad guys". This is usually followed by rationalization of the facts to fit this view.

Your primary "face/facade" is, upon my information and belief, replete with "question begging"**

*does that mean that THE JEWS" gas the Palestinians until a consensus of their lungs collapse and a consensus of the states scientists support the supposition that they are, in fact, dead?

** Begging the question: a statement that says the same thing in the conclusion as in the premise. Such an argument is called circular.Example: We can believe what it says in the college catalogue because the catalogue itself says that it is the official publication of the college.

A special kind of circular or question-begging argument uses a question-begging definition, one in which the conclusion of an argument is true by definition rather than by evidence. Example: By my definition, `unbreakable' means `requiring an unusual degree of force to break'; therefore, these dishes are unbreakable.

There are your two (2) assignments.

Ummm... no. Genocide is the systematic killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or geographic location. So when you see a systematic killing of a group of people based on their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or geographic location and then call it genocide, that's not a circular argument, that's a fact.

Good to know. Please describe how you compare the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel to the treatment of the Jews in WWII by the Germans.

There's not much to compare, they're pretty much the same.

I would also like to have references, how was your view of Israel and the middle east formed?

Mostly from debates with other people and the sources they referred me to.

If I were to build your worldview in my own mind give me the tools. My experience with people from all over the world, including the middle east and Israel and my understanding of history conflicts with yours. Help me to repair my misguided prehensions.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Machiavellians-Defenders-James-Burnham/dp/0895267853

Mostly, all it takes is looking at what people do instead of taking whatever they say at face value.

No doubt the death worshiper also regards the Holocaust as a myth. A moments research will yield ample evidence of what real genocide looks like. Even the best production of the Pallywood type pales in comparison to the real thing.

No I don't.

"...nothing short of genocide".

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Nothing, facts- or morality- gets through to this person. It cannot occur to such brainwashees that everything those goddam Zionists have ever done, is an attempt to avoid (or in the last resort, limit) any and all deaths.

The Israeli state must be truly blessed to be run by angels.

A question for the death worshipper...

Can we both agree with the Aristotelian truism that if one has the "will" and the "power," the deed/action is done?

If so, do you then agree that Israel has the "power" to exterminate every single Palestinian within the borders of modern day Palestine?

If you do agree, then why are there any left from your projected genocide?

A...

Israel has never gassed a single Palestinian. Not one. If Israel were determined to wipe out Palestinians altogether they would have done it 30 or 40 years ago. Genocide is not government policy in Israel. G-D forbid that it should be.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That's a simple but very interesting question. One thing before we go, Israel's motive is not the blind extermination of Palestinians for its own sake. Israel is interested in the land and resources that the Palestinians occupy, and they don't care what they have to do to get it, even if it means they have to take it by force.

Israel relies heavily on the support of the US and the UN. If they just went in and straight up started slaughtering Palestinians, their leaders would face all sorts of opposition from the rest of the world. Everything from trade embargoes to being tried for war crimes. Obviously they want to avoid those scenarios, so they have to resort to a "round-about" way of achieving their goals.

Might as well call it "Operation Final Solution to the Palestinian Question" and get it over with.

I'll believe Israel is only defending itself when they end their policy of lebensraum in Palestinian territories.

MSK can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there is any statutory requirement on OL that you comment on topics you seem to know little about. The certainty of your pronouncements seems, routinely, to be inversely proportional to the array of facts that might support them.

Your use of the term "Final Solution", in this context, is assinine--hoaxed letter, or not. Your use of the term "lebensraum", which you probably think is clever, is gratuitous bullshit.

I have learned that the adage that "youth is wasted on the young" has some resonance, especially for those both young and smart, which you appear to be.

No offense, but I am often reminded of this adage when I read your posts.

Yeah... no... see, I think you're pulling this judgment out of your ass, since I'm quite certain that I've never been uncertain about something I know a lot about. But even then you don't have the slightest clue about how much I know about the topic anyway.

I stand by what I said in that post. Israel's policies toward the Palestinians are nothing short of genocide. Anybody with eyes can see that, and, as I've come to learn, anybody who disagrees is usually ignorant of the topic, and when they're not, they've bought into the "Four legs good. Two legs bad." theory of history.

Might as well call it "Operation Final Solution to the Palestinian Question" and get it over with.

I'll believe Israel is only defending itself when they end their policy of lebensraum in Palestinian territories.

I just don't understand this obsession with every little thing that the President does.

You don't understand something, that's for sure. I actually expect that kind of superficiality from you. (It's like MM who thinks this is about supporting or bashing Sarah Palin, who he can't stand on a visceral archetypical level, and that's all he thinks about it.)

I'm seeing this from the standpoint of COBS. For a man who deployed that capability and did it well, Obama is falling into some elementary errors. I find it fascinating how vanity and being goaded pushes a human being to commit such basic mistakes, so much so he might just get impeached instead of engineering consent.

But like I said, I don't expect you to understand this perspective or fascination. You still think according to the political-cultural dichotomy game they serve up in the mainstream media while pretending to yourself (and to others) you are so very above it.

I have faith in you, though. One day you might begin to see this stuff--and that where you are at right now is posture, not substance. What's worse, it's posture that has been programmed into you, not posture you freely chose with that beautiful mind of yours.

I want to say unshackle thine eyes and your mind will do the rest, but the worst kind of blind person is the one who wants to see without opening them. It takes time...

Michael

In your OP, you said the error he made was showing vulnerability by acknowledging his critics and their calls for impeachment. But really, I think it's the opposite. To quote him, "I don’t have to run for office anymore, so I can just let it rip." If you look at the facts, there never was, and there likely never will be, any serious impeachment case brought up against Obama. That there is, is just wishful thinking. Really what he's doing is saying:

precisely because he knows that no one can touch him.

Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

So clever.

Do you ever think about what is best for the individual citizen of this country?

Plus, as you indicted about your disability, your sense of humor sucks...now here we are in agreement.

A...

Of course, being an individual citizen of this country, I'm always thinking about what is best for me.

Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

Does this mean anything--anything at all?

Just a smidgin of something?

He'll be gone forever in less than two years, and then it will be as if he never even existed.

I just don't understand this obsession with every little thing that the President does. It's not as if which hand he holds it with when he takes a piss is gonna be at all relevant in the long-run of things.

(I'm reminded of my liberal friends' obsession with Bush. If he so much as chewed his food a bit too loudly, you'd bet I would be hearing all about it and how its destroying our freedoms).

Wow.... at this rate, there's no way he'll win in 2016.

You hear that? Don't nobody raise kids.

How did you get that from the video? The two points she actually made:

1. That young people are generally not responsible or prepared enough to raise children.

2. That virtually nobody can raise 12 children and do a good job of it.

are perfectly sensible and uncontroversial.

Pointless thread is pointless.

This post is hidden because you have chosen to ignore posts by Everyone.

Without Hegel, Marxism would have taken an entirely different shape. Hegel aimed his dialectic toward pantheism. Marx merely took the Hegelian structure and oriented it toward atheistic, "scientific" materialism. Marx's structure was lifted largely from the Hegelian Ludwig Feuerbach, (The Essence of Christianity,1843). So if Hegel is all about "spirit," Marx is all about immutable "history." We can choose to ignore the essential Hegelian thread in Marx's thought, but it's there all the same.

Yes, and therefore turns it into a completely different idea. Hegel's dialectic is an almost supernatural mechanism by which the "Idea" acts on reality, whereas Marx's dialectical materialism is exactly opposite, and it says that material forces shape human ideas.

Your argument could just as easily be applied to Rand and Plato and "prove" that Objectivists are dominated by Platonism because they turn the primacy of consciousness over existence on its head.

Consider the following passage from Hegel's Philosophy of History and argue, if you will, that it had no influence on the Marxian argument:

As to the political condition of North

America, the general object of the existence of this State is not

yet fixed and determined, and the necessity for a firm

combination does not yet exist; for a real State and a real

Government arise only after a distinction of classes has arisen,

when wealth and poverty become extreme, and when such a

condition of things presents itself that a large portion of the

people can no longer satisfy its necessities in the way in which

it has been accustomed so to do. But America is hitherto exempt

from this pressure, for it has the outlet of colonization constantly

and widely open, and multitudes are continually streaming into

the plains of the Mississippi. By this means the chief source of

discontent is removed, and the continuation of the existing civil

condition is guaranteed. (p, 103)

Just because two people might agree on some point doesn't prove that one "dominates" the thinking of the other.

The great irony of Rand's literary theory is that the real world Romantics (the ones who existed outside Rand's imagination) were with few exceptions extremely hostile to reason, capitalism, civilization, even reality itself. For example, Keats criticized Newton's optics for "unweaving the rainbow." Hegelianism dominated the early Romantics and Marx.

It also doesn't help Rand's case that "Naturalists" Crane, Wharton and Wright were better novelists than Hugo.

Not Marx. Marx rejected Hegel's dialectic, and only referred to it to contrast it with his own dialectic.

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the Idea’, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea’. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. (Capital, Afterword, Second German Ed., Moscow, 1970, vol. 1, p. 29).