B3 Award for December 10 - 16, 2005
Published 12.19.2005 by ~mattg
I have to apologize for the delay in this post, but I don’t think there was ever any doubt as to last week’s winner….
They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets,…
The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets, (It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet.
~Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (quoted from CNN)
Regardless of you views on the subject, which I hope bring a degree of rational thought into the equation, it takes balls to stand up as the president of a country and call the Holocaust a “myth.” Without looking any further than eyewitness “testimony” of what happened in the camps, the reality of the death and devastation is hardly a myth. Now, how it ties in to the political arena of 2005 is somewhat lost on my feeble, unpolitical mind.
Filed under News
You say: “Now, how it ties in to the political arena of 2005 is somewhat lost on my feeble, unpolitical mind.”
I shall guide you through what may seem like a labyrinth. But I’ll have to take liberties for the sake of time and space here.
Bush wants us to kill the terrorists who rule the Middle East. While it’s true that it’s not easy to compromise with maniacs, Bush doesn’t seem to realize that a lot of the people in these countries share the opinion of their maniac leaders. So if we kill the leaders, new ones will take their place. What do we do then? Kill them all?
Maybe.
But that doesn’t seem to make us that much better than the terrorists themselves, does it? Perhaps we could find some nuanced way of making ourselves look better (think of what our now-current Attorney General Gonzalez did to Geneva Conventions regarding torture). In the end, though, is that the sort of maneuvering we really want to put up with? I think not.
What the war on terror is is the same thing as the culture wars here at home, and it’s the same thing that produces nightmares like the Iranian President. Thomas Friedman has dangerously called the problem in the Iraq a war of ideas between the competing for power. It is very much what we see occurring around us: a war of ideas.
Yet to refer to it as a war undermines everything. War suggests not only violence and death, but that because of the reality of actually becoming the loser each side resorts to the ugliest aspects of our nature to survive. The high ideals trumpeted by our leaders in the call for war are quickly thrown aside. Talk of virtue and glory is just that, and nothing more.
A sufficient condition for war is a refusal to no longer get along, to abandon tolerance, to demand the end of others different from what you are comfortable with. Whether we speak of a war on terror or a war against ideas or even the disgusting, morally abhorrent “war” on Christmas, we breed hatred and needless, senseless suffering.
With all that said, keep in mind that Iran is gambling that the US is so weak now militarily due to our fuck-ups in Iraq and Afghanistan that we won’t be able to stop them from seeking Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Europeans are trying to do something, but with the Iranian president behaving like he is, it’s hard to say that everything’s just fine.
The Iranians know that the Euro-Americans will do anything to protect Israel. The Europeans mostly for feelings of guilt; Americans because we’re a Christian nation and need the Jews to rebuild the Second Temple so Christ Jesus returns.
Insulting all of us with such blatant lies is just a way for the Iranian president to stick his thumb in our eye as we come down upon him and his country with every intention of raping them. Whether that’s just the Iranian perception, our intention, or the actual truth, I know not. I just hope they’re not wearing Rapex—for all our sakes.
Anyway, I feel like I really haven’t articulated all the interconnections. I think it’s due to the combination that it’s really really really complicated, that I don’t know everything I really should know, and that I’m braindead. That said, I direct you to Nicholas Kristof’s column from this past Sunday (yesterday), where he tears Bill O’Reilly a new one. In “A Challenge to Bill O’Reilly”, Kristof nails it all on the head so very—frightfully—well:
So either sit-back and be entertained while the world—from the environment to civilization—collapses all around and within you, or stand-up against the hatred that results from the (intentional) ignorance of blowhards—I ought to go further in my choice of words, but this is not my blog, so I’ll be polite— like O’Reilly and the Iranian President. The damage they do, the damage we tolerate far too much, the source of much if not all the world’s suffering is the greatest problem we globally face today.
Why’d you have to bring up Rapex… My only comment on that device is “What if she forgets to take it out before going home to her husband?” Ouch.
I can’t stand Bill O’Reilly or anyone else on the so called “news” channels. Anyone who has the balls to stand up and talk about morality while settling a lawsuit for sexual harassment. The word of the day is “hypocrite.”
But I digress. Your point is well formed and I agree completely. You really do need a blog of your own, you realize that. My hosting offer is still on the table.
Ha!
The more I think about it the clearer it becomes to me that having my own blog may not do me well in the long run. Regardless of the amount of time I’d end up spending on it, there are, shall we say, evil forces in the dark world of academic philosophy looking for any reason to scalp somebody. So once again, I must politely and appreciatively decline your hosting offer, for my own selfish reasons.
Anyway, I hope you and the family have a wonderful Christmas.