When Isolationism hides itself as anti-Americanism

There is a debate around the spreading wave of Isolationism which is manifested in an unholy alliance between the Hard Left (which ultimately seeks to end the United States) to the Hard Right (which ultimately seeks to create "Fortress America"). Both of these groups have joined forces to strike against those interests which would weaken their "end game" wishes (for the Left, a world where the U.S. if it exists at all, is hobbled and severely weakened and for the Right, where the U.S. exists alone as an island amidst the chaos of an ever confusing and dangerous world).

Being a blog about Zionism and Progressive / Liberal / Centrist politics, we see this in the Israeli - Palestinian conflict where the Hard Left, those that want to destroy Israel out of some misguided sense of ending "Western Colonialism" and who see Israel as a "White nation" (though it is far from that) in the midst of the Third world, has joined with the Hard Right and those who want to simply annihilate the Jewish people out of their own twisted hatred. And so we see these groups come together in coalition that promotes the anti-Semitic BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement in an effort to deny the Jewish people their legitimate rights to self determination as it is manifested in the Nation of Israel.

However, this desire goes far beyond advocacy in the Israel / Palestine conflict where both the Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East are pieces in a world wide bid for influence, control of resources, and supremacy. This growing wave of Isolationist thinking threatens not only the very fabric and health of the United States but the fabric of the entire world.

We hear that the world is getting to be a "much smaller place". This is very true. Now, people can talk face to face with those on the other side of the globe from the comfort of their living rooms. Ideas can be transmitted throughout the internet, and data can be shared no matter where we are. We can physically see one another and one anothers environs in a way that has never been possible before.

Because of this, the world is more interconnected than ever before. Things that happen thousands of miles away do affect us. Just look at the rate of environmental damage caused by over use of resources and the concurrent problems that this causes. We are no longer able to isolate ourselves from anyone and we have to come up with global solutions to poverty, the environment, and a host of other problems IF we are too maintain both reasonable standards of living and reasonable National goals.

I do think that National interests can survive and thrive in an ever increasingly globalized world (in fact I think it is imperative that they do). Though that seems counter intuitive to the theory that we need one world government. We don't. While the world needs to act in a more coordinated fashion regarding some of our issues (the environment, poverty, and so forth) there is no way right now that people in individual nations would be able to pull this off in any meaningful day to day manner. We are simply too different and have too many different ways of approaching and solving problems.

To people in al-Qaeda their vision is that of a warlord filled vicious theocratic world, where only those who adhere to their particular form of Islam would wield power and where everyone else would exist to serve them as individuals and their crazed interpretation of Islam in general. To those in corporate America who endorse "Randian Capitalism" the world would be a strict plutocracy where the rich would live in cantons and the rest of the world would be their "resource pool". And with all the iterations in between there is simply no way that humanity could come to any sort of peace agreement on how to run day to day government.

So what prompts this piece? It is due to the fact that I see many people both on the Hard Left (as evidenced by most of the folks - not all but most) at leftist blogsites doing their utmost to spread disinformation regarding the U.S. and demanding that it live up to standards that they would hardly ask of other nations. And when it even comes to discussing other nations, it seems that as long as those nations are anti-U.S. anything they do is ok with the Hard Left. They will excuse all of the things they say they stand for in the name of supporting a nation that stands against the U.S. And by doing so are willing to team up with the most vile elements of the polity to support their cause (example the BDS movement).

I also see the isolationist wing of the Republican party doing the same thing. Unable to think beyond (to them) what seems like the most simple or quick solution they simply say, "let's build a corporate state in the U.S. reminiscent of the Gilded Age and screw everyone else". They simply cannot think out their own little boxes, not realizing that while they are building "Fortress America", forces that are hardly sympathetic to America and our interests gain power. These Rightists think only about the immediacy of an issue and simply don't think about the ramifications of said issue. There is no serious thought that goes into "problem solving".. So we see with the "Repeal Obamacare" folks. All they care about is defeating the President, they care nothing for the long term damage they are causing this nation.

The problem is that both extreme's arguments contain half truths throughout. For the Leftists and their complaints about the NSA, they are generally right. The NSA SHOULD NOT be spying to the extent that it is on American citizens. I get that they want to find out what is happening in the world, and that they are protecting Americans from terror. However, I also get that these powers can easily be misused to create what they like to call "the surveillance state". That said, the NSA and CIA have a responsibility towards protecting American citizens so... this is a problematic issue. However, to compare the U.S. unfavorably to groups like Al-Qaeda and to lionize those who would leak our secrets to foreign nations (Edward Snowden) is far from helpful.

On the Right side, the "Libertarian crew" is right about the fact that we can cut the Defense budget by reducing foreign ventures and use those resources to pay private business at home for development projects. Of course at the same time they need to realize that while we can do that to a degree, we cannot afford to cut ourselves off from the world in a meaningful way and still have a say in our own future due to the fact mentioned previously, that the world is indeed more interconnected and that foreign affairs really do have an impact on our daily lives at macro level.

In the end, one thing that is truly dangerous to the U.S. and the well being of the "free world" is this growing strain of neo-Isolationist thinking. Hamstringing our intelligence sectors will only create a world where America and it's allies (and interests) are threatened. Honestly, the Russians or Chinese certainly have no compunctions regarding the use of any and all tactics to achieve their goals. For the Hard Leftists this is just fine to allow them to thoroughly weaken the U.S. While the Isolationist Hard Right simply doesn't care what other nations do because (and this is sheer idiocy) they think the U.S. can simply "wall itself off" and let the rest of the world burn.

It is important that we do have civilian oversight of our intelligence gathering particularly as it relates to American citizens. Don't take this article as indictment of that. We are a "free nation" because our government has been restrained in its ability to gather information / data on our everyday lives. It is also important that we recognize that "overzealous" gathering of personal data can and often does lead to problematic issue with regards to a "surveillance state". I do not want to live in a nation that monitors my computer usage or my phone records without any kind of just cause.

So.. it is important that we balance our need for privacy with our need for the protections our intelligence sectors provide. What we need here is an honest discussion about how we can best balance the two needs. What we don't need is constant vilification of our nation hidden with rhetoric designed to weaken our nation and its ability to protect its citizens. We don't need those who would propose solutions in a vacuum either supporting or without understanding the nature of our national enemies.

Though these movements currently operate on the fringe, as the Hard Left is no real part of the Democratic Party and the Isolationist Hard Right is only a portion of the Republican Polity, still they represent possible growing threats (as they appeal mainly to the young and idealistic for various reasons), it is important that we understand and expose them for who they are. Of course here in the U.S. they should not be restricted from discussing their viewpoints, but those viewpoints should be exposed for what they really are, an effort to weaken the United States, both at home and/or abroad.

Erdogan's Saturday Night Massacre

In a growing scandal that now threatens the stability of the government Erdogan seems to have pulled a maneuver reminiscent of our own imperial president who also attempted to avoid an investigation by firing the prosecutor overseeing the inquiry.  Erdogan is apparently feeling the heat after having family members of his prominent Economy Minster Zafer Caglayan, Interior Minister Muammer Guler and Environment and Urbanization Minister Erdogan Bayraktar arrested for bid rigging and bribery.

In what appears to be an unrelenting march toward authoritarianism the Turkish regime of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now unilaterally fired the prosecutor that filed charges of corruption and graft against three family members of sitting ministers of the increasingly dictatorial administration. This latest effort to shield himself from potential criminal charges comes after Erdogan has already fired in the last week the Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin, the head of the organized crime unit Nazmi Ardic and hundreds of other police officers involved in investigating the allegations.

It certainly seems Erdogan may have some degree of culpability as he resorts to mass firings of "gangs" within the police department investigating the charges.  His taking up such questionable activities clearly demonstrates his fear of being charged.  And why may he feel this way? Perhaps he knows the same information as his former Environment and Urbanization Minister Bayraktar:

saying that a majority of the construction plans involved in the corruption investigation had been approved by the prime minister, Turkish news reports said.

"I believe that the prime minister should step down as well in order to relieve the Turkish public," Bayraktar said, according to the newspaper Today's Zaman.

Fearing the consequences of firing the prosecutor less than the results of the prosecution Erdogan has demonstrated to me his own guilt as he now attempts to crush legal proceedings much like he did journalists (the regime has jailed the largest number of correspondents in theworld) as well as the earlier street demonstrations.

Boycott by ASA is "intellectually dishonest and morally obtuse"

In a scathing opinion piece from Monday's edition of the LA Times the president of Weleyan University slams the American Studies Association's recent resolution against Israeli academic institutions as "a repugnant boycott".

But the boycott is a repugnant attack on academic freedom, declaring academic institutions off-limits because of their national affiliation.

The ASA has not gone on record against universities in any other country: not against those that enforce laws against homosexuality, not against those that have rejected freedom of speech, not against those that systematically restrict access to higher education by race, religion or gender. No, the ASA listens to civil society only when it speaks against Israel. As its scholarly president declared, "One has to start somewhere." Not in North Korea, not in Russia or Zimbabwe or China — one has to start with Israel. Really?

The effort to boycott by a fringe group of academics has led the much larger American Association of University Professors to issue their own statement condemning the action.

"Since its founding in 1915, the AAUP has been committed to preserving and advancing the free exchange of ideas among academics irrespective of governmental policies and however unpalatable those policies may be viewed. We reject proposals that curtail the freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues, and we reaffirm the paramount importance of the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas."

This effort at boycott will likely only produce harm rather than any good and I agree with Wesleyen professor emeritus Richard Slotkin when he states it "is wrong in principle, politically impotent, intellectually dishonest and morally obtuse."

The Antisemitic Comment

The other day I was talking to my mom on the phone and she mentioned that she overheard an antisemitic comment a few days before.  I asked her what it was.

And at that point I braced myself.

Having been immersed in internet discussions for several years now, my mind turned to the myriad possibilities for what sort of antisemitic comment my mom overheard.  Which of the disgusting, dangerous, hateful, paranoid, and insane memes that are ubiquitous in Yahoo comments, Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Youtube comments, and all the rest of the trash out there, would she say she heard?

Would it be that Jews harvest organs from Arabs?

Would it be that Israel is like the Nazis? (which is often accompanied by the odd simultaneous claim that the Nazis weren't really that wrong.)

Would it be that Jews control the US government?

Would it be that Jews use blood to make matzoh?

Would it be that Jews are responsible for most or all wars, as articulated by the Hamas Charter and a favorite of internet commenters?

Would it be that Jews are part of a Rothschild / Illuminati conspiracy to enslave mankind?

Would it be that Jews are part of the alien lizard conspiracy to enslave mankind?  (This one was endorsed by Alice Walker, who is nonetheless a hero of supposed liberals such as David Harris Gershon.)

Would it be the nonsense about Jews celebrating 9/11 (it was really Palestinian Arabs) or Jews or Israel being responsible for 9/11?

Would it be the slander that Jews are responsible for pornography or interracial marriage?  (not that there is anything wrong with those things but some people think there is and 'blame' Jews)

Would it be one of the myriad fake quote circulating around the internet supposedly recording something that a Jew said about enslaving gentiles or Arabs?

Would it be another deliberate misunderstanding of the concept of the "chosen people" in Judaism?

Would it be the strange claim currently making the rounds that America had no enemies in the Middle East before our alliance with Israel?  (this one is especially stupid considering that the very first war the US ever fought was against a Middle Eastern power.)

Would it be some false equivalence between horrible ongoing contemporary violence and something like the King David Hotel bombing 70 years ago?

Would it be the USS Liberty hoax that some people can't let go of?

Would it be some glowing endorsement of a world figure who has said genocidal things about Jews, such as Daily Kos did?

I braced myself for what my mom was going to say....

And here's what it was:

He had gotten a cheap gift and said it was because it was from a Jewish person

(stunned)

THAT'S IT????  Jews are cheap????

No baking matzoh with blood, or harvesting organs, or lizard people???  No insane obsession about a boat that sunk 40 years ago???  No libels about buying the government, or pushing pornography???

It hit really me that with all of the genocidal, murderous, absolutely nonsensical trash that I constantly see, the most common negative comment against Jews absolutely does not register with me anymore.  You know what?  Call me cheap all you want!

You Can Fight Back Against the ASA Boycott

By now many of us are aware that the American Studies Association (ASA) has voted to boycott Israeli academic institutions.  We are also aware of how shameful and ludicrous this proposed boycott is.  To briefly recap:

1) Boycotting Israeli institutions while proposing to do no such thing with the worst human rights violators such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Myanmar, Sudan, China, and others is simply antisemitic.

2) Academic boycotts are an assault on the idea of free inquiry, and punish and disable the very people who are essential for working toward a resolution of the conflict.

3) Boycotts of Israel are sponsored by the BDS movement which opposes a two-state solution to the conflict.

4) In spite of their name, the ASA is no longer a mainstream organization and most serious scholars left it in the 1980s and 1990s.

5) The proposed boycott was only approved by 1/4 of ASA's membership, yet the leadership persisted in endorsing it.

Fortunately, there IS something that well meaning individuals can do to fight back against this misuse and abuse of scholarship.

As discussed at the Legal Insurrection blog, the ASA relies on the support and implied credibility of its  83 "institutional members" which are a diverse array of universities and colleges.  As proposed by former Harvard University President Larry Summers, and already carried out by two institutions, Penn State University Harrisburg and Brandeis University, universities can resign their membership in the ASA and forbid the use of university funds for attending ASA meetings.

Such a move by many or all of the ASA's institutional members would effectively disable the organization and send a very powerful message that American higher education does not support a boycott of Israeli institutions or the BDS regime.

So, I urge anyone who is an alumnus of, or currently affiliated with, any of the 83 member institutions to contact their institution and encourage them to resign from the ASA and prohibit funds from being used to support it.

I will provide the list of institutions below so you can see if one of your alma maters or current institution is on it.  If it is, I suggest sending a message to the President, the President's Chief of Staff or similar, and the Director of Alumni Relations or similar.  Keep it polite and positive, and let them know how much the institution means to you.  Here is the message I sent to my undergrad alma mater, which is one of those on the list (feel free to copy relevant parts):

Dear President Sexton, Chief of Staff Baum, and Vice President Perillo,

I am contacting you as a proud NYU Alumnus (degree, school, year, major), booster, and donor.  I am concerned about the recent move by the American Studies Association (ASA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and would like to learn about NYU’s reaction and any response going forward, given that NYU is an institutional member of the ASA.

As I am sure you are aware, such boycotts are the antithesis of free academic inquiry, and also unfairly place blame solely on Israel for a complex regional conflict. 

It is a source of pride for me that NYU has a very active partnership with Israel via NYU Tel Aviv.  I assume that the NYU leadership is entirely opposed to this boycott move.  I would like to know if the University’s has formulated a strategy to counter it. 

I suggest a move that would be very appropriate and send a powerful message, which is to 1) withdraw NYU’s institutional membership in the ASA and 2) forbid the use of University funds to attend ASA events or to publish in ASA fora.  This is a strategy already undertaken by another ASA institutional member, Penn State University Harrisburg, and has been proposed by former Harvard University President Larry Summers. 

As I embark on my own academic career, my thoughts naturally turn to my alma mater NYU and its role as a leading global university in this context.  Please let me know the University’s opinions on this issue.

Sincerely,

name (school, year)

The institutional members of the ASA, as listed in the ASA's materials, are:

Alberta Institute for American Studies
Bard Graduate Center
Boston College
Boston University
Brandeis University
Brigham Young University
Brown University
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Long Beach
Carnegie-Mellon University
Centre for the Study of the United States
College of Staten Island, CUNY
College of William and Mary
Cornell University
Crystal Bridge Museum of American Art
CUNY Graduate Center, American Studies Certificate Program
DePaul University
Dickinson College
Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library
Emory University
Fordham University
Franklin College of Indiana
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
Indiana University
Kennesaw State University
Kenyon College
Lehigh University
The Long Island Museum
Michigan State University, English Department
Middlebury College
New York University
Northwestern University
Penn State University, Harrisburg
Princeton University
Ramapo College
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Rider University
Roger Williams University
Rowan College of New Jersey
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Saint John Fisher College
Saint Louis University
Saint Olaf College
Skidmore College
Smith College
Sophia University
St. Francis College
Stanford University, American Studies Program
Stanford University, Green Library
Stetson University
Students At The Center
Temple University
Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
Tufts University
University of Alabama
University of California, San Diego
University of Delaware
University of Hawaii
University of Iowa
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
University of Minnesota
University of Mississippi
University of New Mexico
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Oklahoma Honors College
University of Southern California
University of Southern Mississippi
University of Texas, Austin
University of Texas, Dallas
University of Utah
University of Western Ontario
University of Wyoming
Vanderbilt University
Vassar
Washington State University
Washington University, St. Louis
Western Connecticut State University
Willamette University
Winterthur Program in Early American Culture Youngstown State University

If one of your alma maters or current institution is on the list, you can take a stand for academic freedom and reasonably discourse about the Middle East.  Even if your institution is not an institutional member, you can still contact them to encourage the prohibition on university resources being used for ASA events.  If we encourage our institutions to push back, we can strike a decisive blow against academic boycotts of Israel. 

It Must be a Day Ending in "Y"

So one might say “The BDS Movement is lying yet again – so what’s so new about that? It must be a day ending in the Letter y”. And of course they would be right. Still, despite its overall monumental series of failures, occasionally this movement wins a small battle. Its last little win was when the ASA (American Studies Association) voted overwhelmingly for a boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions in support of this movement.

And how has the ASA supported their decision to boycott Israel when there are far worse abusers of Human Rights in the World Israel?(including the U.S.), Well… as Alan Dershowitz writes:

When the President of the American Studies Association, Curtis Marez, an associate professor of ethnic studies at The University of California, was advised that many nations, including all of Israel’s neighbors, behave far worse than Israel, he responded, “One has to start somewhere.”

Okie-Dokie then… “one has to start somewhere”? Really? No starting with academic institutions in Russia where politicians jail, openly beat, or suggest that members of the LGBT community be tossed into ovens? No starting with academic institutions in the Arab World where dissidents are “disappeared”, journalists are jailed and women are kept as second class citizens? How about no starting with China which brutally suppresses ALL dissent, uses slave labor in it’s prison system, and occupies and has systematically and brutally oppressed the Tibetan people (amongst others)?  Perhaps no starting with institutions in Africa where actual Genocide IS taking place? But somehow they picked Israel out of all of this. And then they picked supporting the BDS (or Only Boycott Israeli Jews) Movement. Gee… I wonder why?

Well, no I don’t. Not really… But in any case I digress.

In response to this, Pro – BDS bloggers throughout the “blogosphere” have been rallying to make the ASA’s symbolic gesture into a major victory for their case. And here is where this article comes in. In the comments section of an article at Daily Kos, two bloggers engage in a discussion of BDS and discuss whether or not BDS implicitly supports a Palestinian “One State Solution” based on “equal rights for all” (something the Palestinian polity overwhelmingly opposes).  But when presented with the fact that indeed the BDS Movement does support the destruction of Israel as the National Homeland and State of the Jewish People this is the response a BDS proponent offers:

“BDS doesn’t advocate for a political solution (one state or two state). It’s rights-based. It advocates for Palestinian rights.”

We see asked but not answered: “Doesn’t BDS also advocate for the complete restoration of Palestinian refugees to their original places in Israel and if so, wouldn’t that in effect end the existence of Israel, which was created to be the National Homeland and State of the Jewish People?”

Why is the above question never answered? Well, because advocates of BDS know fully well that such “return” (which is not really an appropriate word here) would effectively end a Jewish Majority in Israel and in effect would create a Palestinian run state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. Of course when pressed on this point, proponents of BDS simply don’t answer despite repeated attempts to get them to state their opinion on the matter. They deflect, they equivocate, but they never, ever, ever, ever answer the question of whether they simply support a One State Solution.

Of course, truthfully answering this question would mean that those who are open advocates for BDS would truly have to declare one way or another whether they are advocating for the destruction of Israel. They keep trying to “have their cake and eat it too” (as the saying goes). Asking that question makes them uncomfortable because it makes them declare a position and by declaring a position it “boxes” them in. Just look at the willful disinformation of the quoted comment. No mention of the fact that for all intent that complete Palestinian “Right of Return” would end Israel. Why? Because that is BDS’ true intent, but they feel that by actually articulating that position, the movement would lose support from many who they have lied to regarding their goals and once they would hear the truth they may not be in agreement with those goals.

Thus, you will never see true BDS advocates actually addressing the problems with BDS or it’s end goals. You just get a a lot of distraction. Allow me to present another perfect example of how these people will not be honest, note this exchange between three people in this thread

A commenter wrote:

Peter Beinart gives a good explanation for the need to oppose this hideous boycott:

The Association’s boycott resolution doesn’t denounce “the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.” It denounces “the Israeli occupation of Palestine” and “the systematic discrimination against Palestinians,” while making no distinction whatsoever between Israeli control of the West Bank, where Palestinians lack citizenship, the right to vote and the right to due process, and Israel proper, where Palestinians, although discriminated against, enjoy all three. That’s in keeping with the “boycotts, divestments, and sanctions” movement more generally. BDS proponents note that the movement takes no position on whether there should be one state or two between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. But it clearly opposes the existence of a Jewish state within any borders. The BDS movement’s call for “respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties” denies Israel’s right to set its own immigration policy. So does the movement’s call for “recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality”, which presumably denies Israel’s right to maintain the preferential immigration policy that makes it a refuge for Jews. Indeed, because the BDS movement’s statement of principles makes no reference to Jewish rights and Jewish connection to the land, it’s entirely possible to read it as giving Palestinians’ rights to national symbols and a preferential immigration policy while denying the same to Jews.

To which the commenter gets the response:

Please explain under what basis you and 

Peter Beinart feel that the right of refugees under international law to return to their homes does not apply in the case of Palestinians. Israel’s immigration plocy is completely irrelevant. We’re not talking about immigration here.

And a third commenter after a short discussion chimes in with:

Interesting that no one has addressed

the actual content of Beinart’s statement.

As one can see… the last commenter has a point. No one there in that conversation or any other conversation around BDS will actually ever address the problems in the attempted deception by the BDS movement. Certainly we will never see an attempt to discuss the content of Beinart’s comment that while BDS claims to support human rights, that when they mean “human” they mean they are not talking about Jews.

So.. What can we do about it? Well we can continue to ask those questions in pro-BDS forums. We should continuously confront BDS activists and get them to state the reality of their position in a clear manner. We should NOT let them off the hook for answers that will allow them to continue their campaign of deception.

The question we should really be asking is “WHY, don’t BDS advocates have full faith in their own position that they are un-willing to articulate what they really want?” That too me is the “telling” question.

Nowadays It's Right Wingers That Serve As Useful Idiots for Moscow

During the Cold War, there was unfortunately a small segment of the American Left who served as Useful Idiots for the totalitarian Soviet regime, as well as some other regimes such as Cuba.  In their zeal to support anything that opposed what they didn't like about America, they ended up embracing regimes who actually had values diametrically opposed to theirs.  But today, to the extent that the hard core left has a tendency to serve as Useful Idiots, they have largely moved away from Communism and instead toward Islamists and nationalist thugs.

Ironically, it is now a segment of the American Right which has pimped themselves out as Useful Idiots of a totalitarian in Moscow, this time in the guise of Vladimir Putin.  The totalitarian is no longer a Communist, but a nationalist kleptocrat.  So what has made some denizens of the Tea Party and Paulbots profess their love for this former KGB agent?  It pretty much boils down to the way he doesn't like gay people.

Writing in townhall.com, notorious paleocon Pat Buchannan comes right out and says it with an article entitled "Is Putin One of Us?"  To be clear, Vladimir Putin murders his political opponents with radiation poisoning, sees himself as a rival to, rather than an ally of, the West, and presides over a country where tens of millions of people live in abject poverty and squalor.

But he hates gay people so maybe American conservatives should love him!

Buchannan says things like

While his stance as a defender of traditional values has drawn the mockery of Western media and cultural elites, Putin is not wrong in saying that he can speak for much of mankind. 

and 

Putin says his mother had him secretly baptized as a baby and professes to be a Christian. And what he is talking about here is ambitious, even audacious.
He is seeking to redefine the "Us vs. Them" world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives, traditionalists and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent west. 

The comments posted in response to Buchannan's sloppy kiss of the KGB man are somewhat divided but there is clearly a contingent that is ready to declare their allegiance to one of America's principle geopolitical enemies:

I'm siding with Putin at this point in time. We here in American can thank tv, hollywood and the media for forcing this gay life style down our throughs for the last thirty years a little at a time to make it seem normal.

and 

It is a strange new world when the leader of Russia states our values better than our President does. 

Refreshingly, some people really pushed back.  I hate to say it, but this proposed Putin love apparently is getting more push-back from paleocons than Islamist-love gets in many left wing forums:

To answer the question "Who is writing Putin's stuff", someone who understands that they have the potential of a new cadre of useful idiots in the US. Instead of courting the left, they can court the right. Oh, joy. 

and

I'm not siding with Putin. The gay marriage movement is not Nazism. The occasion does not fit Churchill's proclamation that if Hitler were to invade Hell, he, Churchill, would at least make favorable mention of the devil. 

Putin is no Stalin, but he's a lot closer to Stalin than the American Left is to Hitler. Putin may share this one position with the American Right, but we have nothing else in common. Most particularly, we are not fond of secret police, be they Gestapo or KGB. And Putin? That's who he is. That's the organization he got his start in. The same people who stick dissidents with ricin capsules or poison them with polonium.

If Putin were to go to singing hymns and praising Reagan, we still could not be friends with him.

and of course someone who assures his fellows that he hates gay people as much as they do, but perhaps this shouldn't be the only test of character:

Robert Mugabe and Hassan Rouhani are also against homosexuality and gay marriage. Doesn't make them good guys. 

 Lastly, no blog would be complete without a comment exhibiting schizoid paranoid conspiratorial word salad from a Ron Paulbot:

I hope more people start to listen to pope francis, since he is pointing his finger at the people of the world who are following the purveyors of greed and the rest of the decay of the whole social system of the world, the Rothschild world central banking cabal, the rules the world thru the temptation, intimidation, and manipulation of the governments of the world. Ron Paul is right in wanting get our banking system out of foreigners hands! Putin is speaking the same message, hopefully it is from the same God.

A bit of an odd choice to be a favorite of gay bashers

AND NOW FOR THE ULTIMATE BDS FAIL.... MAHMOUD ABBAS REJECTS THE BDS MOVEMENT

Even while the American Studies Association (ASA) now endorses the hateful and anti-Semitic Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement (as seen in the story below), a movement which is aimed at ending the existence of Israel, still the BDS movement faces "pushback" from none other than the President of the P.A. Mahmoud Abbas.

In a statement by Abbas last week:

While in South Africa this week for the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stunned reporters and Palestinian activists alike when he stated that the Palestinians do not support a boycott of Israel.

Abbas did advocate boycotting Israeli products made in the West Bank, on territory that the Palestinians envision as part of their future state.

“No, we do not support the boycott of Israel,” the Palestinian leader told a group of South African reporters on Monday. ”But we ask everyone to boycott the products of the settlements. Because the settlements are in our territories. It is illegal.

“And the Israelis should first of all stop building in our territories, should stop everything in our territories,” he stated, according to South African media outlet The Star..“But we do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself,” he reiterated. “We have relations with Israel, we have mutual recognition of Israel.”

Now proponents of the anti-Semitic and hateful BDS Movement will raise a number of objections... All of which clearly demonstrate the absolute moral bankruptcy of their position, but let's go through those arguments one by one.

1. In speaking out against Abbas we have University of Tel-Aviv Student Omar Barghouti make the following statement, (I will let the irony of this stand):

“There is no Palestinian political party, trade union, NGO network or mass organization that does not strongly support BDS. Any Palestinian official who lacks a democratic mandate and any real public support, therefore, cannot claim to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people when it comes to deciding our strategies of resistance to Israel’s regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid,” Barghouti said.

This might actually be one of the most ironic statements that could possibly made by any actor in this "theater". I mean here is Omar Barghouti a student at an Israeli Institution of Higher Learning saying that Abbas... because he seemingly does not have a "democratic mandate" from the Palestinian People cannot speak for them in dealing with the Israelis (forget that Abbas is the President of the Palestinian Authority). Well then.. .exactly where is Omar Barghouti''s democratic mandate from the Palestinian people. In poll after poll he does not show up on the radar of the Palestinian Polity  so honestly who gives him a mandate to speak for the Palestinian people.

2. But speaking of a mandate from the actual Palestinian people. it seems that activists like Barghouti and others in the "Palestinian resistance" are certainly NOT the ones who have a "democratic mandate" and that Mahmoud Abbas actually has far more of a "mandate" than Barghouti and the BDS crowd.

Don't take my word for it though, just ask the Palestinians themselves. In looking at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) latest poll from Sept. 2013. We find that 60% of Palestinians oppose disbanding the Palestinian Authority and that PA President Abbas 50.8% of respondents say they would vote for Abbas in the next election and that his approval rating was at 49.3% amongst respondents with Abbas winning over 54 % of the vote in the West Bank. So... so much for the "mandate" question. Unless by the word "mandate" Barghouti means "only a solid minority of voters". 

3. Also, let's not forget that the BDS movement claims to represent the Palestinian People (though as we see above they don't) but remember, the BDS movement told the world that it's end goal was to see a One-State Democratic solution where Jews and Palestinians live together in total equality. Unfortunately for them here too they fall a bit short in their desire for this with Palestinian Public Opinion. If one looks at this question: 

"Would you support Abandon the two state solution and demand the establishment of one state for

Palestinians and Israelis" (note that this question was asked before and worded "Would you support a state where Jews and Arabs live in full equality". 

The Answer: only 28.6% of respondents support that. SO.. I guess when the BDS movement says that they represent a majority of Palestinians, they really mean that their goals are actually supported by a solid Minority.  

 

If one were to ask the Palestinian people according to the latest PCPO Poll what is their favored methods of "resistance" here is what you get:

 

49.1% FAVOR more rockets from Gaza while 45.2% oppose that action.

 

So in all honesty. It seems that the BDS movement while a majority of the Palestinian people (according tho the polls) DO support the end goal of the BDS Movement.. .that being the annihilation of Israel, they

certainly do not support the goals that the BDS Movement presents to the gain supporters amongst useful idiots in the West. And in that respect it is hard to see where supporters of the BDS Movement can legitimately claim to speak for anyone outside of their own small group. 

Given all that, just why did Mahmoud Abbas reject the BDS Movement? My guess is that he first of all sees their calls for a Single Democratic State as antithetical to his attempts to run the Palestinian Polity for the rest of his life. 

 

I also think that while he sees the hateful anti-Semites duping not so bright Westerners (who want to also legitimize their hatred of Jews), he understands that the U.S. and E.U. sees through their facade, (the facade of BDS)  and that their efforts to end the Jewish people's presence in the Middle East is a step too far for these powers. 

He understands that without the backing of the U.S. and relatively secular Arab Governments (Jordan, Egypt) that his government would cease to exist. SO.. of course he will adopt a policy stance similar to what the European Community is asking for (which is complete withdrawal from the Territories and division of J'slem) and not leave himself open to any hardships that a Western Boycott of Palestinian radicalize would generate. 

In the end no matter how Western Useful Idiots and their supporters want to spin this, Abbas' denunciation of the BDS movement is far more powerful than a bunch of bigoted professors and academics and their pronouncements regarding Social justice

 

 

Venn Diagram of Antisemitism

In honor of the ASA being the latest organization to seal its own irrelevance by buying into the hateful BDS movement.

PZ IS BACK

Hi All...

Well after a Six Month Hiatus I have decided to bring PZ "back" on-line.

I took it off line because I felt that there really wasn't much interest. We were averaging about 6-7,000 page views per month, and that was all nice and fine. However, It didn't really seem that anyone outside of one RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Job) really cared whether we were here or not. So I figured, "No problem", I will just pull it down and that will be that.

HOWEVER, in the end I realize that blogging is a fairly cathartic exercise and whether One person or 7,000 people look at my blog really doesn't matter to me.

SO, I am going to write here with a few of my friends and anyone wishing to comment is certainly welcome to as long as they stay on the topic of the post. Just stick to that and all will be fine. Go against that and your comment will go away. Pretty simple really.

Anyway, I think as we head to 2014 I am going to focus more on the American Senate and House Races than I am on the Middle East. That doesn't mean I am not interested in the Middle East, I am. It's just that as an American I feel that my priority should be on my own country. I still will be blogging about Israel of course and my first article will focus on the monumental fail that is the BDS movement.

That said, please check out the article from my friend fizziks below as he explores the silliness of FOX News' latest debacle regarding the racial identity of Jesus (who was Middle Eastern NOT The Northern European Jesus) and the Mythical character Santa Claus.

So to whoever reads this... Have fun and participate how you like.

Shalom.

Depths of Ignorance Revealed in Stupidest Debate Ever

Being subjected this week literally the most ignorant debate I have ever witnessed, I have been forced to come out of blogging hiatus and post something here while we still own the domain name.

The ruckus over the "race" of Santa Claus and Jesus is making my soul hurt and causing me to believe that Idiocracy has arrived several hundred years earlier than predicted.  Conservative knee-jerkers are insisting on the literal truth of images created by Coca-Cola in the 1920s, and, amazingly, Liberal knee-jerkers have outdone them this time by making even bigger leaps of nonsense.

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The most trivially obvious fact that is being overlooked here in peoples' rush to infest literally everything with partisan ideology is that Santa Claus does not have a skin color because he does not exist.  Really, that should be the end of it.  The other absolutely crucial fact to know about Santa Claus is that he is not St. Nicholas.  St. Nicholas lived and died in the 4th century in Anatolia.  Santa Claus is a mythical being who supposedly lives at the North Pole, spies on all of the children of the world, and has magic flying reindeer and elf slaves.

 

Santa Claus.

Not Santa Claus.  Also not a Turk.

Going a level down into the idiotic claims I have been seeing, no, St. Nicholas, although from a region which many centuries later would become part of Turkey, was not "Turkish."  How do I know that?  Because I have a grasp of very basic world history and know that Turks did not migrate from Central Asia to Anatolia until after the battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD.  And stepping even deeper into low neuron land, many people, even the venerable Jon Stewart, are claiming that Turks and/or Greeks aren't Caucasians.  This claim will be instantly falsified by anyone who has ever met a Greek or Turk, and certainly ought to be distressing news to, for example, the Golden Dawn party.

I just want to say that for every second you spend constructing elaborate and historically inane arguments about the skin color of a mythical entity, a kitten dies.

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Moving on to Jesus.  Jesus' skin color has been a point of contention among people who have nothing important to think about for decades.  With Jesus we have someone who is claimed by many people to have been born to a virgin, walked on water, healed sick people just by touching them, and was resurrected from the dead.  And yet in spite of all of these very supernatural events, we are being regaled from all sides with the notion that Jesus' skin color must be determined by his ethnic identification.  That's right, for some reason the path from genes to melanin expression must be absolutely materially deterministic.

Both Conservative knee-jerkers and Liberal knee-jerkers have been on the 'let's reconstruct Jesus' appearance' bandwagon.  And both of them seem to have settled onto the notion that Jesus' ethnicity is "Semitic."  Thus we are treated to people spouting to one of the most prevalent and least accurate myths on the internet, that there is a Semitic ethnicity or race.

So I'll say it for the thousandth time:  "Semitic" is not an ethnicity or race.  Semitic is only a language family, spoken by a very diverse group of people, and includes Hebrew, Arabic, Maltese, and the highland Ethiopian languages.  I hope you can take one look at that varied group of people and agree that they do not have a common ethnicity or race.  Jesus was not Semitic because nobody is Semitic.

Jewish, on the other hand, is an ethnicity, or at least a nation.  If we absolutely insist on assigning an ethnic identity to Jesus, he was either a) Jewish, if you do not believe in the New Testament, or b) half Jewish and half divine if you do believe in the New Testament.  If it was b), we cannot possibly know what a half-Jewish-half-divine person looks like.  If it was a) we also cannot possibly know what any given individual Jewish person who lived 2000 years looked like.  Therefore I submit that anyone who proposes to tell us what Jesus looked like is dumb.  Real dumb.

If selfies were around 2000 years ago we would know what Jesus looked like and people could then misapply modern particularly American racial notions to their hearts' content.  But we don't have those selfies, or even polaroids, so please choose someone else to misapply modern particularly American racial notions to.

Either a) Jewish or b) supernatural.  Either way, there are no photographs and you can not possibly claim to know what he looked like.

More On That Far-Left and Far-Right Merger

I have been saying for a while that the Far Left and Far Right fringes of American politics are on their way to merging.  The Far Left has abandoned almost all of its ties to actual Liberalism, and the Far-Right is well on its way to becoming less enamored of Christianity and Capitalism.

The latest episode indicative of this trend happened at Nancy Pelosi's appearance at the Netroots Nation convention, where the Minority Leader was booed for daring to criticize Edward Snowden.

In addition to the booing, there was also apparently an extended heckling by a Netroots activist named Marc Perkel:

As she spoke about the need to "balance" privacy and security, Marc Perkel, a 57-year-old California blogger who's called for Obama's impeachment over the NSA revelations yelled out: "It’s not a balance! It’s not constitutional! No secret laws!" Perkel continued to decry "secret courts," and staffers began to escort him from the room.
As security guards were dragging Perkel away. "Leave him alone!" shouted others in the audience. "No secret courts!" yelled Perkel as he moved out of the room. "No secret laws!"

If you are guessing that I looked at this Perkel character and immediately found some insane, incoherent, conspiracy-laiden, basically far-right-wing views, then you have been paying attention to what has been happening to the Far Left end of American politics in recent years.

Perkel has two blogs where his views are out there for anyone to see.  And, surprise surprise... well here's a sampling:

He's against gay marriage because it could lead to people marrying their pet.

He thinks that, on balance, American black people should be thankful for slavery.

And of course, where the Far Left and Far Right meet, such as in the deranged mind of Perkel, you find insane anti-Israel hatred. 

So we basically have someone who spouts positions identical to the right-wing fringe of American political discourse being lauded by people on the left-wing fringe, after an outburst at a mainstream liberal.  +1 for my merger thesis.

Pelosi: That's What You Get for Going to Netroots Nation

I must say I was shocked, absolutely shocked, to read this on CNN today:

Calling Snowden a Criminal, Pelosi Booed by Progressives

Apparently Nancy Pelosi, a liberal member of Congress and America's first female Speaker of the House, was booed at Netroots Nation, a gathering sponsored by Daily Kos. 

In case you couldn't tell, my surprise at this was sarcasm.

Those who have not been following developments on the Left end of American politics might find it surprising that one of the most liberal members of Congress and a pioneering woman in American politics might be booed by a gathering of people supposedly aligned with the Democratic party. 

Nancy Pelosi seems to be among those who have not been following these developments, if she thought she could criticize Edward Snowden for supposedly caring about government snooping and then going to settle in China, Russia or Cuba, to a group sponsored by Daily Kos.  Actually, she has not been following developments if she thought she could show her face there at all and not get booed. 

But for those of us who have been paying attention over the past few years, our only question is why would Pelosi or any other politician who aspires to be part of mainstream American politics and reasonable political discourse be seen anywhere near Netroots Nation?

Daily Kos is the place where Judith Butler, a person who stated that Hamas is part of the Progressive Movement, is considered to be a sage.  It is the place where 18 year olds statutory raping 14 year olds is considered good enough to merit a petition in favor, as long as they are the correct gender.  And of course it is the place where no matter how insane someone is, their ramblings will be embraced and promoted by the management as long as they are sufficiently anti-American, up to and including if they literally believe that Obama is really a shape-shifting space alien. 

Last year's Netroots Nation, the same convention to which Pelosi spoke this year, was going to have a panel on the Israeli-Arab conflict.  The debate was effectively going to be between one side which advocates for the destruction of Israel but wants to allow safe passage for the 7 million Jews to settle somewhere else, and the opposing side which advocates for the destruction of Israel and more of a genocide of its inhabitants.  Thankfully the panel never happened, but that shows where the full range of Daily Kos and Netroots opinions lie on the political spectrum.

Given all of that, it should be obvious that Nancy Pelosi would be booed.  Daily Kos and Netroots Nation are now outlets of the Far Left, a political movement that, as I have discussed previously, is completely opposed to everything that actual liberals stand for.  The Far Left now has more in common with the Far Right than it does with liberals. 

I really like Pelosi and I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't know what the Left blogosphere has become.  Hopefully she has learned her lesson and will not associate with Netroots Nation any further.