"If you're looking for some two-dimensional answer, I can't help you."Glenn Greenwald

That's the part, Gator 90, that you seem incapable of recognizing. Your last post where you quoted that from Glenn and then replied makes your inability to converse on anything but a two-dimensional level rather than using anecdotes as if those anecdotes cover everything in the world from A to Z abundantly clear.

Why don't you just write the responses yourself, Gator?

How about sound-bite Proust. Aren't there some things we all can agree on?

It's kind of hard to note that you're pretty much stuck on write-only; that Glenn's question about how you would adjudge response to an invasion of your country and wholesale killing of your fellow citizens is one you do not deign worthy of response.

Or are Palestinian civilians the only ones whom it is at least somewhat OK to murder?

Glenn: "In the moral calculus, the nature of Palestinian attacks against Israel change if Israel is occupying their land and if they're not. If they're not, then such attacks are without any justification whatsoever. That isn't the case if there is an occupation. That doesn't mean it's "justified," but it's also not without any justification whatsoever. If you're looking for some two-dimensional answer, I can't help you."

So according to you, Glenn, for Palestinians to murder Israeli civilians is at least somewhat justified. (Like the time a few years back when a Palestinian entered a Jewish home on the West Bank and emptied a machine gun into a sleeping six year old girl. At least partly justified, because she didn't belong there, right? She kindasorta deserved it, yes?)

Let me make sure I have this straight. Following your logic and your Iraq/Palestine analogy, if an Iraqi man came to the U.S. and grenaded a church service or blew up an elementary school, you wouldn't call that unjustified, because the U.S. has brutally and unlawfully occupied Iraq. The moral calculus would be too complex for you to unreservedly condemn his action. Right?

Or are Israeli civilians the only ones whom it is at least somewhat OK to murder?

Good. As a general rule, in matters of conflict and aggression between people (any) I think it's incumbant upon the stronger party (in this case, obviously Israel), as a simple matter of fairness and justice, to always maintain the option of peace. Else, the diversity of our species would be permanantly diminished.

It is paradoxial to me that the age in which we live holds so much promise, on the one hand, while the other clings stubbornly to such self-same patterns of destructive behavior.

Indeed, '...so much have aggression and conflict come to characterize our social, economic and religious systems, that many have succumbed to the view that such behavior is intrinsic to human nature and therefore ineradicble.' Indeed, in the case of the Israeli/Palistine conflict this view seems entrenched.

Thus...'on the one hand, people of all nations proclaim not only their readiness but their longing for peace and harmony... On the other, uncritical assent is given to the proposition that human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive and thus incapable of erecting a social system at once progressive and peaceful, dynamic and harmonious, a system giving free play to individual creativity and initiative but based on co-operation and reciprocity.

As the need for peace becomes more urgent, this fundamental contradiction, which hinders its realization, demands a reassessment of the assumptions upon which the commonly held view of mankind's historical predicatment is based. Dispassionately examined, the evidence reveals that such conduct, far from expressing man's true self, represents a distortion of the human spirit. Satisfaction on this point will enable all people to set in motion constructive social forces which, because they are consistent with human nature, will encourage harmony and co-operation instead of war and conflict.

To choose such a course is not to deny humanity's past but to understand it. '

Ot bop's goodcelery; ...we must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss. As time goes by... *i love that singsong

a fond ado,

bah.

ps. In a few days, I will part the clouds and start the heavenly choirs for Barack's next magic act. :@) *tongue still in cheek... but ready to strike at a moments notice, William.

Absolutely spot-on, Glenn, two days in a row. Your linkage of the establishment's refusal to recognize and discuss the will of Israelis themselves to the willful refusal of our Members of Congress to even acknowledge, never mind to act upon, the will of the Iraqi people, is exceedingly apt.

President George Washington spelled it out brilliantly in his farewell message to the nation in 1796, as stumblingly read aloud in the Senate just this past Monday - in accordance with a long Senate tradition - by Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Senator Pryor's actions in our federal legislature (as with those of so many of his colleagues), in line with his obvious incomprehension of the wise words he was reciting, demonstrate utter tone deafness and ignorance about the dangers of certain biased alliances between nations that are clearly demonstrated, in particular of late, by America's relationship with Israel:

...In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachment for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity, or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation's subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty of nations, has been the victim.

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So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducements or justifications. It leads also to concessions, to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained and by exciting jealously, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity gilding with the appearances of virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealously to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike for another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

[snip]

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

[snip]

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish--that they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good, that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism--this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated... - President George Washington, 9/17/1796

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S1096&position=all