Letters to the Editor
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Sorry GC
Didn't mean to tweak your stalk. ;-> Just expressing concern.
Thanks for the Thoreau, and thanks to Jkalos for expanding on it.
Sorry to be further OT, but I just posted a followup to the last thread, and want to post part of it here so it will be seen:
Many thanks for the host of responses and concern
Not sure if this will be seen, but wanted to let others know that I read everything and appreciated the responses I got after I succumbed to exhaustion last night. Yesterday was not a good day, the anniversary of the horror I shared, so my posts were definitely more testy than needed. So, apologies where warranted.
There's a bit more over there if anyone wants specifics.
I learn a lot from reading Glenn, and even more from those who post here. It is all appreciated. Now back to lurking and learning on the topic at hand...
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TO move forward, we must lose these labels
Asking a war-cheerleader to put down the word "terrorist" is like asking an NRA mmeber to put down his rifle.
It's their most potent weapon.
It won't be happening anytime soon.
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The price of democracy
It's interesting to note that the Bush administration did not anticipate that the ability to vote would make Palestinians democratically elect Hamas. I think Condi was on the treadmill one morning when she found that one out. Guess the Bushies can't get to work early or to bed late with that election in the Mideast happening, must have been another slam dunk.
One cannot promote democracy and remain credible when the election does not spit out the result you anticipated. Evenhanded diplomacy is difficult since one's ideological needs are not always fulfilled in the real world. Are some leaders more democratically elected than others, to paraphrase Orwell?
It's like the "rule of law" sloganeering that happens when it's illegal immigrants qualifying for possible amnesty, but that's simply forgotten when it's corporations who donate. We support elections when we approve of the winners.
Israelis know they need to make a deal, and that the less the finger can be pointed at them, the better. Practical people know that draining the swamp of terrorism means getting a functioning economy and state working for these people, who've lived for decades in refugee camps and should finally be able to have leaders pressured to produce viable societal solutions instead of this Jew-hating nonsense. The real way to pressure Hamas is to let them lead their new nation somewhere without being able to point the finger at Israel as the reason for the problems in their territories.
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Yeah, Paul Dirks,
And your assertion that all people are basically the same? That's true. But some of us are the chosen people.
Back atcha
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At the end of the day the British negotiated with the Israelis
That is to say the Irgun, the Stern Gang and the rest. Begin, Shamir etc. were terrorists -- one of their party tricks was to murder a British seargeant, a veteran of the war against Hitler, hang his body in an orchard, having eviserated it (not clear if this was before he was dead) and pack the body cavity with explosives, so as to kill the people who cut it down -- nice huh! And yet the British negotiated with them, and later they were elected Prime Minister. And later yet, Binyamin Netanyahu unveiled a plaque commemorating in glorious terms the bombing of the King David Hotel, for many years the most lethal act of terrorism in history. I could cite example after example, but remember the point, the Israeli Labour Party and especially the Irgun grew out of a particularly nasty bunch of terrorists -- and several Israeli Prime Ministers were wholly unrepentant terrorists, and still the victims, the UK and the US negotiated with them.
For that matter the UK also negotiated with Michael Collins, Liam Cosgrave and Eamon de Valera -- all of whom could easily be called terrorists. Hell the UK negotiated with the American Rebels, and many of their tactics don't stand up to close scrutiny.
Not negotiating with Hamas is just plain silly. The reasons given are hypocritical -- especially from an AIPAC which thinks Netanyahu is a great guy, and though the same of Shamir and Begin. More to the point, not negotiating feeds the ideological belief in Israels destruction, since if Israel won't ever negotiate with the elected leaders of the Palestinians, what else is there to do but destroy Israel. If negotiation improves the lot of the Palestinians and is seen to do so in substantial and ongoing ways, the argument that Israel must be destroyed becomes pointless.
The problem those who oppose negotiation miss (and I am sure I will be attacked for using this line) is that there can be no "final solution to the [Palestinian] problem." The Palestinians are not going to go away, vanish, be exterminated -- the Israeli people will not tolerate that. the world learned its lesson in 1945 and won't put up with it either. So the problem of the Palestinians cannot be wished away except by negotiation.
As a lawyer, when a case needs to be settled, I do not get to dictate who the other side's counsel will be -- I deal with who they chose. (The only lawyer I knew to try that is a Harvard grad, and was a lousy representative of his client.) That is the way it works, the Palestinians have chosen their representatives, the world needs to deal with that fact, not kvetch and moan about it, or sit there fingers in ears going nyah nyah.
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Some things said here....
.... Some kind words here make me imagine we have new-friends on a sandy beach.
We are seen putting tanning lotion on wood-limbs, shoulders, plumb bellies, and bare backs.
No. Not on the YKW!
Other comments (anonymous @ 9:49, and yes @ 9:58 bystander) etc.,
Wow, I'd love to talk to Mona, bethincary, and many other singsong voices.... someday.
Oh wow. I'd tip a conical hat or wear a African traditional garb if I was the kitchen help.
I'd go barefoot and be a dishwasher in the new non-Hate-era of The White House... for free.
Now I am ready for some grilled cheese. Who cares if the waitress has hairy knuckles if they are nice?
I'd tip a dime.
Glenn is no well dressed haberdasher wearing a pin-striped three-piece suit? Who cares?
Jkalos? Seersucker.
Seersucker is clothes.
Mona. jockey shorts?
The Wa/Po said: Sale!
A post George W. Sale!
You all make me cheese-smile.
I was outside laying some rocks,
on a pathway to the herb greenhouse.
Jkalos? We need a all expense paid ocean boat cruise?
I Hope you don't wear a blonde hairpiece and snooze.
You know I'm trying real hard to not embarrass anybody?
Glenn needs to write a book for pre-schoolers? John McCain did?
I guess the sequel next book will be how to bomb children as the sleep?
IntelVet may get upset when football centers pass gas when they hike a football?
I don't know? Let's hope he's not the football center who was a homophobe refusing to play center? I tease. I'm not making 'jest' of gender, temperament, or those who like to watch seagulls.
Hate makes me nauseated.
If a visit to the Moose Club,
for a triple decker bacon helps a Rabbi?
Gads. No hate. To get rid of stress? Juggle pork-chops? Bean Sprout? Sauerkraut? Swallow Gold tropical fish? No bury heads in the sand? Or, if you do, take a shower with whoever you wish. Scrub a GWB's back? Glenn? I nominate him because he is a lawyer who defends truth.