CNN Breaking News — Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas retires after controversial remarks about Jews, her agency says.
CNN Breaking News — Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas retires after controversial remarks about Jews, her agency says.
But she will never retire from my sexual fantasies …
Now Joe, that’s simply over the line. Some of us are trying to hold down our lunches!
What a travesty, that a veteran of the white house press corps is forced to retire in her prime because someone asks for her opinion and she gives it. She thinks the jews should get out of the middle east, so what, it’s her damn opinion. Nobody is going to die because of her opinion, misguided or not. If she said the Palestinians should get out of the region, there would be no story. It’s amazing that you express a negative (maybe) opinion of Israel and you lose your job the next day, even after a 80 year career. I can’t believe it.
I don’t disagree with Sandy. Though I’d like to think that at least some people in the States would make a stink about someone saying the Palestinians should leave the region it occurs to me that that is likely wishful thinking.
Reminds me of an article in New York Magazine from a while back. http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65356/
There are a lot of things that I find a bit striking, but the most striking is the level of prejudice, hate, and religious intolerance being shown by a community that really should know better. And it is a play of cynical profiteering from an out group at the same time you are,at least ostensibly, trying to get them to go away…
Both sides need to grow up and get over themselves. But I simply cannot support the side that is blatantly and ridiculously attacking the freedoms of others.
Much to the annoyance of some who read this blog, religion truly is either the root of, or propaganda for, all evil. The root of war, injustice, hate, and prejudice. However, I will include within that any dogma that attempts to make any comment whatsoever on the theistic. *theism is not the solution it is the problem.
Religion itself is a fascinating topic. But don’t ask me whether or not god exists or not because it simply doesn’t matter. Doing what is right should not require invoking the will of god to justify it. If it does, what you are doing is probably wrong.
dcl – just a few quick questions …
Which “theism” was Stalin practising ?
Which “theism” did Chairman Mao follow ?
Which “theism” did Reichsfuhrer Hitler follow ?
Condemning Palestinians is the American narrative of the story. The Palestinians are the bad guys because they blow themselves up and all that jazz. You have to hear both sides of the story, which almost never happens, just to find out that Palestinians die 3-1 vs. Israelies in the conflict. That’s not even close.
“Both sides need to grow up and get over themselves. But I simply cannot support the side that is blatantly and ridiculously attacking the freedoms of others.”
The two sides are actually indistinguishable. The Palestinians blow people up with bombs, and the Israeli military machine guns and bulldozes people. I understand that Israelies do that because they are getting blown up, but also understand that Palestinians are doing that because they are getting machine gunned and bulldozed. So it’s a vicious circle jerk of inhumane behavior by both sides. And neither side can say, “Well we tried to be peaceful, but…” because that has never happened.
Sandy – the Israelis have tried the peace route several times, and the result has consistently been *more* violence against Israel/Israelis …
You can go all the way back to when Israel took in the hundreds of thousands of Jews thrown out of Muslim countries while those same Muslim countries refused to accept those who fled Israel on the orders of the surrounding Arab countries …
The last time Israel tried “the peace route” was around 2002. The US press billed it as “relative calm” in the middle east that only included 70 Palestinians murdered. The “relative calm” was ended when the Palestinians blew somebody up. It’s easy to have “peace” when one side gets a free pass to murder the other side, until the other side finally says, ‘hey, this isn’t very peaceful peace’.
http://www.oppression.org/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?category=10&id=1033420540
To answer your 3 (non)questions:
Mao and Stalin were atheists, but:
According to biographer John Toland, Hitler was still “a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God—so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty.”[12]
Cherry-picking atheist brutal leaders from world history doesn’t change the fact that Religions are used overwhelmingly to get people and nations to engage in murder, oppression, destruction and war above any other cause.
Mama & Trojan: LOL!! 🙂
dcl, re that NYMag piece: in the context of American (and for that matter World) Jewry, the Satmars (albeit the most Numerous of the Chasidim) are Atypical — not least as regards their fierce theistic anti-Zionism.
Sandy U: R U kidding me? if some prominent U.S. journalist, or other such celebrity, declared that the Palestinian People should just collectively Go Away there’d be a HUGE uproar, here & Everywhere. It’d make HelenThomasgate look like a wee kerfuffle by contrast. You WAAAY underestimate the American People’s knowledge of, and Sympathy for, the Palestinians’ plight — and our support for their right (like the Jews’ right) to Be There.
But speaking of dear Helen: “What a travesty, that a veteran of the white house press corps is forced to retire in her prime…” Do we Know that she was Forced? And, um, as to her Prime…now look, I enjoyed as much as the Next guy but this seems a bit beyond the Beyonds, here…(see Mama & Trojan, above ;)…and I’m No spring Chicken meself, remember… :>
“…She thinks the jews should get out of the middle east, so what, it’s her damn opinion. Nobody is going to die because of her opinion…”
Actually, Sandy, just as you correctly suggest in #6 above, many on both sides Have died because of that very Opinion. Not because it is Helen Thomas’s; but because it is Shared & Acted Upon by too many who would Force it to fruition.
Alasdair, memorialize this day. We Agree. 🙂
BLOODY damn HTML. Bah. Bloody hell. BRENDAN, PUT A DAMN PREVIEW THINGIE ON THIS THING. Harrumph./ Here (fingers crossed) —
…now look, I enjoyed The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as much as the Next guy but this seems a bit beyond the Beyonds, here…(see Mama & Trojan, above ;)…and I’m No spring Chicken meself, remember… :>
“…She thinks the jews should get out of the middle east, so what, it’s her damn opinion. Nobody is going to die because of her opinion…”
Actually, Sandy, just as you correctly suggest in #6 above, many on both sides Have died because of that very Opinion. Not because it is Helen Thomas’s; but because it is Shared & Acted Upon by too many who would Force it to fruition.
Alasdair, memorialize this day. We Agree. 🙂
You have to hear both sides of the story, which almost never happens, just to find out that Palestinians die 3-1 vs. Israelies in the conflict. That’s not even close.
So what? Or are you saying the Israelis are the bad guys because they kill more of their enemy than their enemy kills of them?
You also miss the basic point…the Palestinians are dying because they are attacking Israel with rockets and suicide bombers. The is a real easy way to prevent those Palestinian deaths…stop attacking Israel.
hat only included 70 Palestinians murdered.
Murdered?
Nope..no bias here……
And lest I be accused of bias……
I bet I’m the only person who posts here who has ever been to a PLO Consulate and discussed the Middle East with the Representative.
There is a good chance that I am the only person who was a member of the Palestinian Cultural Club, wrote an article for a pro-Palestinian magazine, and was a given a book on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by a Saudi prince.
I actually solved the Palestinian-Israeli problem my senior year at a Model United Nations in London as the ambassador from Jordan. (It was a very convoluted and esoteric plan and never would have worked..which made it perfect for the UN)
(That was a fun MUN by the way..lots of interesting goings on…)
So, I am in no way a Zionist.
“Much to the annoyance of some who read this blog, religion truly is either the root of, or propaganda for, all evil. The root of war, injustice, hate, and prejudice. ”
This is going to be one of thsoe rare occasions where I agree 100% with Alasdair because the above statement is complete and utter bullshit that doesn’t even stand up to a cursory examination of the facts. In addition to the list Charles has given, how about Genghis Khan the most brutal (and prolific) conqueror in history. He wasn’t on some religious crusade, he wanted power. Power, greed, hatred, fear, these are all causes of attrocities. Religion CAN be abused to forment some of these, but they exist outside of religion just as easily. People kill because they want your land, or your women, or your money. People hate because you are different. Sometimes that difference is religion, sometimes its skin color, sometimes its language, sometimes its whether you were born on one side of a river or another.
So long as people like you keep trying to blame religion for all societies ills you are part of the problem not the solution. While you are buys condemning Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims, hundreds millions of adherents (actually billions) to those and other faiths are leading peacful lives. Many of them are doing things like helping the poor, the sick, the troubled.
Blaming all of religion for the ills of the world AND ignoring all the good it has done is the eact kind of myopic idiocy that causes problems in the first place. That type of thinking would lead me to believe my Muslim co-workers are secretly plotting to kill me because i’m a Christian, when in fact I’m willing to bet my money that if I were in trouble they would step up and help me alongside my Hnidu, agnostic, Buddhist, and other co-workers and friends.
Pardon me, but your ignorance is showing.
Were it not for the pesky historical facts (and theologically-related connections) that the current area around Israel was where the Jews originated as a coherent (using the term loosely) people, a simple solution to the whole Paletinian Problem could be as follows …
1) Take ALL the various Foreign Aid donations to all the countries in that area – group ’em together …
2) Use a small amount of 1) to buy out all ownership of the Baja California peninsula (similar climate to Israel), offering those living there the option to sell out or remain …
3) Build a number of nuclear power plants and desalination plants along the peninsula
4) Build replacement Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, etc in the peninsula …
5) Get it blessed/sanctified/{whatever the relevant term would be} as a replacement-Israel … (probably the hardest step) …
6) Move the Israelis to their new Israel in the peninsula …
7) Restore the lands within the current Israel to their conditions *before* the Jews bought ’em and improved ’em … restore the ecologies in the area back to the swamps and deserts that the Jews bought …
8) Let the surrounding Muslim countries have the land – jsut without the improvements, and without the Foreign Aid …
We would soon see who or what had been the problem …
And North America would gain a significant and prosperous new trading partner within easy reach …
Absent the theological problems, it would be a remarkably clean solution …
Venerable Loy #9 and #10 – we often agree … (especially about the length of your teeth) … (grin) … it’s often just much more fun to pretend not to !
As I commented on another blog :-
Helen Thomas is an anagram of Shame on the L …
I believe the original plan by the British was to give Madagascar to the Jewish people……….
gahrie, I believe the British wanted ’em to go Anywhere but to (a) the British Mandate or (b) Britain.
Alasdair, the better to (Grin) at you with. :> Now as to your creative Thoughtexperimental solution (aka, The Fourteen Points Less Six 😉 to the Palestinian Problem (aka the Jewish Question), it’s bloody Brilliant.
Well. Except for that little Theistic detail about the Promised Land, as you indicated. / And for the fact that it makes gahrie’s “…very convoluted and esoteric plan [which] never would have worked..which made it perfect for the UN” (#13 above) sound elegantly simple by comparison. / And for the trouble & expense of reprinting all the innumerable texts of the Haggadah of Pesach & the Yom Kippur service to incorporate the updated vow, “Next year in Ensenada. (Rather an Odd ring to it, eh wot? 🙂 / And, of course, for the inescapable analogy to the proposition that Lloyd George should’ve resolved the Irish Question by simply redirecting the expenditures for the sillyarse Great War to the Purchase of Boston and Passage thereto for the Hibernians en masse. (Granted, around the same time we bought it Ourselves annyway but that jus’ Goes t’ Show yez. As we say in the gaelic, Que sera, sera. 🙂
Know at least that your Plan is not without Literary antecedent:
Ah, would that it Could have been so. By now Sarah Palin could’ve seen the faux-Temple Mount from her House. ;}
[About to click Submit, with 20 Fingers&Toes crossed re the Linkage bloody’ell HTML. / Brendan, put in a Preview. ;]
Well, I didn’t close the Italics after the link within “Next year in Ensenada”; and the Buying Boston link should’ve gone to the Top of the
Mornin’Page, not the Scrolldown; but all in All, I’ve Dunn worse. (Brendan: Preview Function. Damn the Cost. Bill it to Lloyd George. / Or to Steve Jobs. / Or to BP; I don’t care. Just don’t bill it to Mee or to the AARP. / Now get Off my Lawn. 🙂http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Michael_Curley
OK, I give Up. :> No more Errata. Fie. 🙂
But … but … but …
(enough sounding like a two-stroke)
Venerable Loy #9 and #19 are just nicely chock full of errata ! (grin) We cannot wait for #29 !
VL #18 – at the time of the Balfour Declaration, Israel was to be the half of the Palestinian Mandate which wasn’t Jordan … then the Labour Party came to power and established how much Labour could be trusted in Foreign Policy when they reneged upon the Balfour Declaration …
The Labour Party were the British ‘Party of Oil’ who much preferred the Arabs to the Jews …
Hmmmm … seems like Obama has taken after Curley in his appointments to public offices ! (grin)
Alasdair, I’m glad you enjoy my html Erratica. ;> Wish I could say the same. I do not share our country’s national passion for Outrage but by God when I see my irretrievably-posted Commentary despoiled by paragraph piled upon Paragraph of uninterrupted Bluetype linktext and/or black Boldface and/or squigglyarsed Italics, I wax Wroth. (And no, Wroth doesn’t like it much either. Apologies to Groucho. 🙂 Some say it’s my Venerable Eyes which no longer Proofread as well as once they did. Others may cite my fondness for innumerable Emphases & Linkages as the Underlying cause, though I do try not to Underlie, preferring to lie Just Enough. (Good job They don’t make you use HTML for Capitalizations. 🙂 But as for Me, I blame BP. ;>
“The Labour Party were the British ‘Party of Oil’ who much preferred the Arabs to the Jews …”
So then, may we infer that the Tories were the British Party of Oy? 🙂
“Hmmmm … seems like Obama has taken after Curley in his appointments to public offices ! (grin)”
That may be but unlike Hizzoner James Michael the Rascal King, our Kenyan president hasn’t yet experienced a Welcome by a cheering crowd of thousands & a brass band playing “Hail to the Chief” upon his Return to his official Duties immediately following his stint in the Slammer. “Ireland! Ireland! / Together, standing tall! / Shoulder – to shoulder! / We’ll answer Ireland’s call!” (longtoothy grin 🙂
“So what? Or are you saying the Israelis are the bad guys because they kill more of their enemy than their enemy kills of them?”
Neither one are good guys or bad guys, I’m pointing out the bias that people like yourself present that the Israelies are the innocent victims of attack when the facts are they are the one’s with the massive cache of weapons who shoot unarmed palestinians in the streets and in their homes and bulldoze unarmed Americans and Palestinians who try to stop them from bulldozing people’s homes, yet Israel never seems to get much negative coverage as a result.
“You also miss the basic point…the Palestinians are dying because they are attacking Israel with rockets and suicide bombers. The is a real easy way to prevent those Palestinian deaths…stop attacking Israel.”
No, you are missing the point. During the most recent attempt at peace, in 2002, there was a truce to stop violence immediately, there were NO SUICIDE BOMBERS or attacks on Israel during a 6 month period, yet 70 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers (I guess that’s not murder to you). If 70 Palestinians killed at the hands of Israeli soldiers is a time of peace, then those calling it a time of peace, don’t understand the concept.
yet 70 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers (I guess that’s not murder to you).
So your position is that murderous Israeli military thugs are roaming Gaza and the West Bank, killing innocent Palestinians?
What were those 70 Palestinians doing? Maybe there were NO SUICIDE BOMBERS or attacks on Israel during a 6 month period, because the Israelis killed all 70 who tried?
I’m pointing out the bias that people like yourself present that the Israelies are the innocent victims of attack
Did you miss the post where I pointed out all my previous ties and sympathies with the Palestinian cause? I believe in the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland. I just can no longer justify the constant attacks on Israel. There is no justification for suicide bombing a pizzeria, or firing rockets at civilian neighborhoods. We in the United States would not tolerate such attacks either.
Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people from the Earth, many of the Palestinian people are trying to wipe Israel and the Jews from the Earth.
Since I’m the one trying to upset the collective apple cart here I probably shouldn’t have wandered off… To make up for it I present way too long of a comment.
Hitler repeatedly referred to Germany as being a “Christian Nation”. Make of that what you will, I’m sure Glen Beck would find some way that that it means that the Republicans in Texas that babble about the US be a “Christian Nation” are not Nazis… but some how Democrats that argue we are a secular nation are Nazis… But Glen is a moron… It would be funny if not for the fact that people believe his bullshit. I certainly wouldn’t argue that that correlation means Republicans anything, though it does suggest a lot of Republicans can’t f*n’ read.
Mao and Stalin both professed and pushed atheism. But I picked my words carefully before, as a general rule I try to (despite being prone to rather atrocious spelling). Atheism is a form of theism, at least in my view. (David, I’m sure, is now suffering from shock). Especially in the manner used by Stalin. It seems to me Mao was actually more traditional–basically going the deified emperor route, I could be wrong, cult of the emperor as an archetype really does look like what he did though.
Be that as it may, atheism is certainly a position based on a theistic stance, and when you push that particular view and use it as propaganda, you are still using religion and religious based propaganda to push your position. Doing so is equally bad as using any other theistic tradition to push your position on others; to wit, in the case of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Khan, the Caesars, Pericles, Darius, etc. Religion is used to create an identifiable in group and an out group. And the out group must be subsumed, destroyed, enslaved, or assimilated depending on who you happen to be talking about. And that is the issue with religion–it is the perfect wedge issue because it goes to the very core of most peoples’ identity.
Even the “good” David talks about religion doing is based on a “mission”. The point of a mission is conversion. Those “good works” and “missions” at the macro level are about getting more adherents for whatever religion is sponsoring them–at a minimum it helps re-enforce their hold on the “masses”. It is there to build up and re-enforce the wedge that is used to make “us” different from “them” and at it’s core it includes a strict adherence to the articles of faith of that religion (this by definition of course), even in cases where that goes against the best interests of the people you are ostensibly attempting to help. To wit, is anything sacred? http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/ No, not really. Once something stops being a philosophy and becomes a Religion there is an ulterior motive. Sorry to be a cynic.
So to reiterate, theistic belief structures are inherently problematic; I don’t think it’s really a stretch to call them evil.
Nobody should be forcing anyone to believe anything in particular when it comes to theistic belief structures. Further, nobody should be forced to support, or not support for that matter, any particular structure of beliefs. That is, of course, the whole point of the establishment clause. To be completely and utterly neutral on the issue of theism. And to endure as a country of many vastly differing religious beliefs and vastly different people (all of whom have their own beliefs some elements of which look completely bat shit crazy to a non-beliver) we must, at the Governmental level, adhere to that neutrality; if we do not the results will be most unpleasant.
Like I said before the argument “God wills it” is a pretty sure sign that you shouldn’t be doing whatever “it” is. Likewise he is a believer in X and must Y because of it… well you shouldn’t go carrying out Y.
Atheism is just as problematic as any other religion or theistic belief structure. As soon as you start using arguments based on things theological to justify actions towards others you’ve started down a very dangerous path. Because you shouldn’t be killing or vilifying people over something nobody knows and nobody can know.
As to my own, basically irrelevant, opinion: everyone is wrong, the truth is utterly ineffable. And really it’s so much better that way. Philosophy would be boring if that weren’t the case. But again, you shouldn’t go around doing harm to others on the grounds of that which is ineffable and by definition unknowable and undefinable.
(As a minor tangent, it’s kind of sad that a lot of religious practitioners these days are favoring literalism over the ineffable. The ineffable is so much more interesting, so much more meaningful and so much less fraught with confrontation. Fundamentalism and literalism can never find common ground. Accepting the ineffable, accepting the mysterious and unknowable really does make understanding other people easier.)
I don’t care what you believe, as long as you aren’t forcing other people to believe it too or trying to kill people who believe something different, or using your religious beliefs as the reason people of a different belief must or must not do something. Grow up and get over yourself.
The philosophies of religion are a different and deeply fascinating issue and can be approached from so many different angles. And there are lessons to be learned from all of them. But that’s not this debate. This debate is about the historical fact that peoples’ theological beliefs are routinely abused to do a great amount of evil in this world. This is incontrovertible. Every religion (including atheism for those that are wondering) represent’s, to varying degrees, a bastardization and abuse of the philosophy upon which it was founded, and historically that abuse has quite frequently been used to do great evil.
Does that satisfy your questions, David and Alasdair?
So to reiterate, theistic belief structures are inherently problematic; I don’t think it’s really a stretch to call them evil.
Interesting point of view.
I myself am a Deist. I simply cannot believe that our existence is due to pure chance.
However, I think religion (or theistic belief structures) has played a central role in mankind’s history. In brief, I think civilization is impossible without religion. Most people need some extrinsic rein on their behavior. The only way man could live in large groups and build cities is to have a set a rules to manage their behavior. This was arguably more true in mankind’s ignorant youth, but it is still true today. The laws that govern our modern, secular society in the United States are based at heart on the Ten Commandments.
Anything may be turned to good or evil by the person wielding it. I believe that the good that religion has done far outweighs the evil.
What could have replaced religion’s role in shaping civilization?
gahrie, that’s a fair response and a fair question.
The short answer is I’m not really sure. I don’t know if a religion is a requirement for society or not. I think, at this point, we’ve mostly transcended the need for religion and are left with a lot of the ills that it causes. I’m just talking about the man made structures around belief here. Individual beliefs aren’t, per se, operative on the need or lack thereof for religion–as a man made construct. I think it would be very hard to argue that religion is not man made regardless of the existence of god(s).
But it is a very basic philosophical question, I suppose: at the most basic level is the creation of in groups and out groups required for the creation and function of society despite all of the problems associated with creating those groups?