I'm underemployed, recurringly housebound with insanely painful now-sporadic (when I have meds) gout, an enlarged heart, and other health problems, particularly including lifelong recurring severe clinical depression. See here for a major crisis. I'm also sometimes available to some degree as a paid writer or researcher. This is a previous update on my situation & this -- and this from December 19th, 2005 update.
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Sanely free of McCarthyite calling anyone a "traitor" since 2001!
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"The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include With ease, and you beside"
-- Emily Dickinson
"We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport."
-- Barbara Jordan
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule --
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
"The only completely consistent people are the dead."
-- Aldous Huxley
"I have had my solutions for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
-- Karl F. Gauss
"Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire,
the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind;
and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise
the improvements of social life."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."
-- Edward Gibbon
"There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify
the evils, of the present times."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority.
They show disrespect for elders and they
love to chatter instead of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize
their teachers."
-- Socrates
"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments."
-- Sidney Hook
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect
disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest
and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
"Faced with the choice of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the
land, we chose a Jewish state without all the land."
-- David Ben-Gurion
"...the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him
an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing,
with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess
and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such
temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the
opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction;
that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their
ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,
because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of
judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square
with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil
government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts
against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if
left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has
nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her
natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is
permitted freely to contradict them.
-- Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson
"We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices,
intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to
improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation;
a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most
tiresome arguments against ideas is that their "tendency" is to some dire condition --
to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all."
-- Louis Menand
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
-- Dante Alighieri
"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
-- Henry B. Adams
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
-- Anatole France
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke
"Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business or mining or botany or journalism or epistemology;
it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual, and esthetic inheritance of the race we have come to
understand and control ourselves as well as the external world; that we have chosen the best as our associates both in spirit
and the flesh; that we have learned to add courtesy to culture, wisdom to knowledge, and forgiveness to understanding."
-- Will Durant
"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is
but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest
winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
-- Herman Melville
"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon,
but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without
being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept."
-- Will Durant
"When you write, you’re trying to transpose what you’re thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music."
-- Louis Menand
"Sex is a continuum."
-- Gore Vidal
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802.
"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible,
and in many things leave one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity in many matters, and
man suffers from this almost congenital disease that he will not give in when once a controversy is started, and
after he is heated he regards as absolutely true that which he began to sponsor quite casually...."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
"Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve?"
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814
"We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort,
are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true,
the 'objectively' line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore 'Trotskyism is Fascism'. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated.
This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions."
-- George Orwell, "As I Please," Tribune, 8 December 1944
"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?"
-- "Aaron Altman," Broadcast News
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
-- Lewis Thomas
"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?"
-- Cicero
"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
"Remember, Robin: evil is a pretty bad thing."
-- Batman
"Being evil is not a full-time job."
-- James Lileks
Gary Farber is now a licensed Double Super-Secret Master Pundit.
He does not always refer to himself in the third person.
Did he mention he was presently single?
The lutefisk is dead. Donate via the donation button on the top left
or I'll shoot this gefilte fish.
No, really, I seriously need the help at present. And I hate asking.
Current Total # of Donations Since Blog Began: 587
Subscribers to date at $5/month: 29 sign-ups; 15 cancellations; Total= 14
Supporter subscribers to date at $25/month: 6 sign-ups; 2 cancellation; Total= 4
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And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
Farber's First Fundamental of Blogging:
If your idea of making an insightful point is to make fun of people's
names, or refer to them by rilly clever labels such as "The Big Me" or "The Shrub,"
chances are high that I'm not reading your blog. The same applies if you refer
to a group of people by disparaging terms such as "the Donks" or "the pals." (Note: I have to say I don't give that much of a damn any more.)
Farber's Second Fundamental of Blogging:
The more interested you are in scoring a "point" for a political "team," a "side," than in exploring the validity or value of an idea, the less interested I am in what you're saying.
(Note: Partially suspended for the Duration.)
Farber's Third Fundamental of Blogging:
If you see a link on another blog, and use it, credit the blog.
Some places I go:
[weblogs, sites, and columns]
People I've known and still miss include Isaac Asimov, rich brown, Charles Burbee, F. M. "Buzz" Busby, Terry Carr, A. Vincent Clarke, George Alec Effinger,
Bill & Sherry Fesselmeyer, George Flynn, John Milo "Mike" Ford. John Foyster, Jay Haldeman, Chuch Harris, Mike Hinge, Lee Hoffman, Terry Hughes, Damon Knight, Ross Pavlac, Bruce Pelz, Elmer Perdue, Tom Perry,
Larry Propp, Bill Rotsler, Art Saha, Bob Shaw, Martin Smith, Harry Stubbs, Bob Tucker, Reed Waller, Harry Warner, Jr., Jack Williamson, Walter A. Willis, Susan Wood, Kate Worley, and Roger Zelazny.
It's just a start.
And She of whom I must write someday.
You Like Me, You Really Like Me
...Darn: I saw that Gary had commented on this thread, and thought: oh. my. god. Perfect storm. Unstoppable cannonball, immovable object.
-- Hilzoy
Where would the blogosphere be without the Guardian? Guardian fish-barreling is now a venerable tradition. Yet even within this tradition, I don't believe there has ever been a more extensive and thorough essay than this one, from Gary Farber's fine blog. Gary appears to have examined every single thing that Guardian/Observer columnist Mary Ridell has ever written. He ties it all together, reaches inevitable conclusion. An archive can be a weapon.
-- Dr. Frank
Isn't Gary a cracking blogger, apropos of nothing in particular?
-- Alison Scott
I usually read you and Patrick several times a day, and I always get something from them. You've got great links, intellectually honest commentary, and a sense of humor. What's not to like?
-- Ted Barlow
...writer[s] I find myself checking out repeatedly when I'm in the mood to play follow-the-links. They're not all people I agree with all the time, or even most of the time, but I've found them all to be thoughtful writers, and that's the important thing, or should be.
-- Tom Tomorrow
Amygdala - So much stuff it reminds Unqualified Offerings that UO sometimes thinks of Gary Farber as "the liberal Instapundit." -- Jim Henley
I look at it almost every day. I can't follow all the links, but I read most of your pieces. The blog format really seems to suit you. It also suits me; I am not a news junkie, so having smart people like you ferret out the interesting stuff and leave it where I can find it is wonderful.
-- Lydia Nickerson
Gary is certainly a non-idiotarian 'liberal'...
-- Perry deHaviland
...the thoughtful and highly intelligent Gary Farber... My first reaction was that I definitely need to appease Gary Farber of Amygdala, one of the geniuses of our age.
-- Brad deLong
My friend Gary Farber at Amygdala is the sort of liberal for whom I happily give three cheers. [...] Damned incisive blogging....
-- Midwest Conservative Journal
If I ever start a paper, Clueless writes the foreign affairs column, Layne handles the city beat, Welch has the roving-reporter job, Tom Tomorrow runs the comic section (which carries Treacher, of course). MediaMinded runs the slots - that's the type of editor I want as the last line of defense. InstantMan runs the edit page - and you can forget about your Ivins and Wills and Friedmans and Teepens on the edit page - it's all Blair, VodkaP, C. Johnson, Aspara, Farber, Galt, and a dozen other worthies, with Justin 'I am smoking in such a provocative fashion' Raimondo tossed in for balance and comic relief.
Who wouldn't buy that paper? Who wouldn't want to read it? Who wouldn't climb over their mother to be in it?
-- James Lileks
Gary is a perceptive, intelligent, nice guy. Some of the stuff he comes up with is insightful, witty, and stimulating. And sometimes he manages to make me groan.
-- Charlie Stross
One of my issues with many poli-blogs is the dickhead tone so many bloggers affect to express their sense of righteous indignation. Gary Farber's thoughtful leftie takes on the world stand in sharp contrast with the usual rhetorical bullying. Plus, he likes "Pogo," which clearly attests to his unassaultable good taste.
-- oakhaus.com
Gary Farber is a principled liberal....
-- Bill Quick, The Daily Pundit
I read Amygdala...with regularity, as do all sensible websurfers.
-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Okay, he is annoying, but he still posts a lot of good stuff.
-- Avedon Carol, The Sideshow
The only trouble with reading Amygdala is that it makes me feel like such a slacker. That Man Farber's a linking, posting, commenting machine, I tell you!
-- John Robinson, Sore Eyes
Jaysus. I saw him do something like this before, on a thread about Israel. It was pretty brutal. It's like watching one of those old WWF wrestlers grab an opponent's
face and grind away until the guy starts crying. I mean that in a nice & admiring way, you know.
-- Fontana Labs, Unfogged
We read you Gary Farber! We read you all the time! Its just that we are lazy with our blogroll. We are so very very lazy. We are always the last ones to the party but we always have snazzy bow ties.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber you are a genius of mad scientist proportions. I will bet there are like huge brains growin in jars all over your house.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber is the hardest working man in show blog business. He's like a young Gene Hackman blogging with his hair on fire, or something.
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
I bow before the shrillitudinousness of Gary Farber, who has been blogging like a fiend.
-- Ted Barlow, Crooked Timber
Gary Farber only has two blogging modes: not at all, and 20 billion interesting posts a day [...] someone on the interweb whose opinions I can trust....
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Gary Farber! Jeez, the guy is practically a blogging legend, and I'm always surprised at the breadth of what he writes about.
-- PZ Meyers, Pharyngula
Gary Farber takes me to task, in a way befitting the gentleman he is.
-- Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
NATO'S BIG PROBLEM is what Tom Friedman's latest acute column is about.
"There is only one air force in the world that can operate so effectively in the pitch dark this way, using night-vision equipment: the U.S. Air Force."
Europe, having had so many wars fought on its territory, long ago noticed that War Is Bad. So the modern solution was conceived: spend little money for war-fighting, and war won't happen, and thus a blow is struck towards stamping out evil. Domestic politics continued to provide evidence of the correctness, via votes, of the idea that since war is bad, money spent towards the military is bad, and, logically, if little money is spent towards war-fighting, the chance of war will be lessened, and thus evil will be lessened, and good strengthened.
Impeccable logic, eh? One result is that Europe spends a lot of energy complaining about how the US fights war, or, alternatively, doesn't. Well, let them get their own war, I say. And then they can time-travel into the past, after paying for a time machine, and do the right thing in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda,. I'd prefer to live in that timeline, myself. I'm all for the EU creating that 50,000-strong force that will be mobile around the world. Maybe we can take them seriously, then. (Cue Stalin on the Pope, here.) Meanwhile, they have an awful lot of airplanes to buy, to start.
"It is the great question, still waiting to be answered:
A hole is blown in the heart of downtown Manhattan. One hundred thousand workers and thousands of residents are abruptly displaced. Tourism founders, recession settles in. Which businesses survive? Which move away or close for good? And what takes root in their place?"
[...]
"Business was so slow for months, Ms. Luongo remembers going next door to the barber shop and saying: 'I'm not getting a haircut today. So, unless you want chocolate, we should all just pack up and go home for the day.' (They did.)"
[...]
"And, all in all, there are tens of thousands fewer people in Lower Manhattan every day than there were before Sept. 11.
'It's depressing to be down here,' said Mary Pisarkiewicz, managing director of Pisarkiewicz Mazur & Company, a marketing communications firm. 'It's sad, it's very sad. Yes, I think the area will definitely come back. But I think it's going to be a long time.'"
[...]
"But patterns are apparent. And though it is not necessarily insurmountable, the problem of proximity to ground zero is, for many businesses, the biggest hurdle."
There are business where approximately 100% of their prior clientele are now dead. There are other businesses now thriving because their main competitor is dead.
"'If anybody asks me specifically what I need, I don't think they really want to hear the answer,' Mr. Anzalone of St. Charlie's said the other day. 'I need the 50,000 to 100,000 people that are gone from that area back. And I know that nobody can give me that.'"
PLEASE KILL THESE PEOPLE: I'm working on what I want to say about people who profit from September 11th. I don't think kindly of them, is the short and immediate version.
I'd like them to at least walk through and breath what they could when the towers fell, is the next thought.
I'd probably be arrested if I posted further thoughts.
"Marketing" and "September 11th" are not words that go together well for me.
"On display [at the Smithsonian] are pictures of detainees, cooped up behind chain-link wire fencing. But these are not al-Qaida nor Taliban: they are people of Japanese extraction who were rounded up under the presidential order of Theodore Roosevelt. It was a knee-jerk response to Pearl Harbour."
The minor detail, of course, is that it's not bloody named "Pearl Harbour." But, yeah, that's right, it was Teddy Roosevelt. Y'know, he personally captured all the Japanese-Cubans he found on top of San Juan Hill, after the Japanese blew up the Maine.
"Remember the Alamo? Commissions were employed in the war with Mexico in 1847."
And those two facts have what to do with each other? Apparently Martin Thomas, Lord Thomas of Gresford, thinks the battle of the Alamo in 1836 between Mexico and the rebellious Republic of Texas was part of the Mexican-American War in 1847. Which makes about as much sense as referring to the Boer War as part of WWI.
"...after the second world war the US military suffered a rush of conscience about the fairness of those rules in courts martial. As a result, Congress passed the Unified Code of Military Justice...."
Whereas in our universe, the Uniform Code of Military Justice was created in 1950, but only because prior to that the Army and Navy had separate disciplinary codes, not to mention that the Air Force had recently been created. It had nothing, bupkis, to do with a "rush of conscience" about military tribunals.
[...]
"What can be done? The British government could request the return of British detainees, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere, to this country for open trial at the Old Bailey or other convenient criminal court. Through our 36 years' experience of terrorism, we have both the legislation and the procedures ready to deal with them fairly and justly."
My attitude? When the US is finished questioning them, if you want them, you got them.
[Note: I originally accidentally linked elsewhere than the article; this is now fixed.]
BIN LADEN'S LATEST TAPE is described by CNN. Interestingly, this interview was conducted by Al-Jazeera on October 21, who decided not to air it. Thought it made him look bad? CNN decided to air it, which I think is correct.
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden said as the U.S. war on terrorism raged in Afghanistan. "The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
[...]
"Once that videotape was in our possession, we felt we had to report on it, and show it because it is extremely newsworthy," said Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive. "And we really were dumbfounded as to why Al-Jazeera would decide not to air or even acknowledge the existence of the videotape."
Thursday, Al-Jazeera said it was severing its relationship with CNN and taking "the necessary action to punish the organizations and individuals who stole this video and distributed it illegally."
"Al-Jazeera does not feel it is obligated to explain its position and its reasoning of why it chose not to air the interview," it said in a statement.
PALESTINIAN POLL, PT.III: Looking very closely at the actual results, I see such discouragement as:
Is lasting peace possible between Israelis and Palestinians? 2.1% definitely possible; 25.5% possible; 41% impossible; 27.8% definitely impossible; 3.7% don't know/no opinon.
Only 15.3% "strongly agree" that the destruction of the WTC was a terrorist act.
Only 14.2% "strongly agree" that the destruction of Pam Am 109 over Lockerbie was a terrorist act.
17.8% believe that "In the long run [...] the effect of the September 11 Twin Towers destruction in New York [...] will be to speed up a peace agreement."
"If Palestinians would use chemical or biological weapons against Israel, would you consider it to be an act of terror?" 48.5% say "no" and 20.9% "definitely no."
"How many airplanes were hijacked and crushed on US targets by people suspected to be from Bin Laden's organization on Sept. 11?" 13.6% say "two planes"; 27.5% say "three planes"; 33.7% say "four planes"; 7.6% say "five planes"; 17.6% no opinion/don't care.
"How many times a week do you watch news on Palestinian or your local TV stations?" 50.1% almost every day.
"How many times a week do you watch news on Al-Jazeera satellite channel?" 65.4% almost every day.
"Which of the following forms of government do you want to have for the Palestinian state after the state is established?" 41.6% want "A system as in Arab countries like Egypt, Syria, or Jordan"; 18.9% want "A system as in the US, Europe or Israel"; 17.2% want "A system as in Iran"; 3.6% want "a democratic system."
PALESTINIAN POLL, PT. II: Looking over the poll results more thoroughly, I do see some positive signs, but also yet other negatives ones that Thomas Nephew didn't comment upon. Which to look at first? On the positive side:
A majority of 60% supports an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire as declared by president Arafat, and 71% support an immediate return to negotiations.
Almost three quarters (73%) would support reconciliation between the two peoples after reaching a peace agreement leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state recognized by Israel.
36% would support taking legal measures against incitement in the state of Palestine.
37% would invite an Israeli colleague to visit at home and 35% would visit an Israeli colleague at his home.
46% believe that reconciliation is possible, and 41% believe that it is not possible.
74% believe that corruption exists in PA institutions, and 60% believe that it will increase or remain the same in the future.
Positive evaluation of Palestinian democracy stands at 23% and 49% believe that people can not criticize the PA without fear.
36% willing to support legal measures against incitement is pretty large, in present context, and therefore seems quite buildable upon in a more positive envirornment. Ditto these other figures. The last two demonstrate self-awareness.
On the negative side:
A majority of 61% believes that armed confrontations have helped achieve Palestinian national rights in ways that negotiations could not.
An overwhelming majority, ranging between 91%-98%, views all Israeli violent acts against Palestinians as acts of terror.
An overwhelming majority, ranging between 81%-87%, does not view Palestinian violent acts against Israelis as acts of terrorism.
41% view the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 11 September as acts of terrorism; 46% view as terrorism the bombing of a Pan Am plan over Lockerbie, Scotland; and 63% view the distribution of Anthrax envelopes in the US as an act of terrorism.
While 94% would view as an act of terrorism a future use by Israel of chemical and biological weapons against Palestinians, only 26% would view the same act as terrorism if carried out by Palestinians against Israelis.
An overwhelming majority, ranging between 81%-87%, does NOT view the following Palestinian violent acts as acts of terrorism: the assassination of the Israeli Minister Ze'evi by armed PFLP men, the shooting at Gilo in Jerusalem by armed Palestinians, the killing of 21 Israeli youths at the Dolphinarium club in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian suicide bomber, and the killing of 3 Israelis in Nahari in Israel at the hands of an Israeli Arab suicide bomber.
Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority (ranging between 81%-87%) does not view Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians or politicians as terrorism, 37% does agree that there are circumstances under which use of terrorism to achieve political goals would be justified. It is noticeable that while the majority of Palestinians does not agree that Palestinian attacks on Israelis are terrorist acts, an even larger majority (91%-98%) does agree that Israeli attacks on Palestinians are acts of terror. For example, while 98% view the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre against Palestinians as terrorism, 82% does not agree that the killing of 21 Israeli youths by a Palestinians in a Tel Aviv night club was an act of terror.
Cheery attitude towards terrorism, eh? 59% think September 11th wasn't an act of terrorism. The survey didn't ask, apparently, what they thought it was, exactly, but presumably they feel it was a legitimate act of war. So much for the alleged general sympathy of Palestinians regarding September 11th, I'm sorry to say.
Meanwhile, other results of the survey indicate that the drop in support for Arafat and Fatah seems to have leveled off, though this leaves Fatah at 28% and the Islamists at 25%, whereas only a year ago, Fatah was at 41%, and Arafat in the ~70% level. Meanwhile, Marwan Barghouti's popularity has jumped up to 11%, from nothing.
DANIEL PEARL, kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter, has reportedly been killed, according to e-mail claiming to come from the kidnappers, received by CNN, FoxNews, and others.
"Pakistani authorities have said Pearl was most likely being held by a radical Muslim faction -- Harkat ul-Mujahedeen -- linked to al-Qaida."
Don't Islamic groups usually make references to Islam in their communiques? Do they really have as a top priority the obtainment of F-16s by the Pakistani government?
CNN reports:
"U.S. officials said Friday there are reasons to be skeptical about both the e-mail that claims kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl has been killed and a telephone call reportedly demanding a ransom for his life.
The e-mail message is unlike previous ones sent by those claiming to hold Pearl, U.S. officials said, suggesting it may have come from a different source. The message sent Friday, for example, did not include photographs, had better spelling and differed in other ways than previous e-mails, according to officials."
LATEST PALESTINIAN POLL: is something the eminently sane Thomas Nephew points to. The poll was conduted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, questioning 1357 Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; margin of error +/- 3%. Among the most telling results:
92% support attacks against settlers, 58% support attacks against civilians inside Israel.
In the event of a peace agreement, 66% would support joint Palestinian-Israeli economic institutions and ventures -- but only 6% would support adopting school curriculum that recognizes Israel and teaches children not to demand return of all Palestine to Palestinians.
94% oppose the US campaign against Bin Laden; only 16% believe that Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Only 17% would support a political system "as in Iran" for the future Palestinian state. 42% said they would prefer a system "as in other Arab countries, like in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria;" and 19% said they would prefer a system "as in the US, Europe and Israel."
Thomas adds:
"It's hard to pick the most depressing item above, but I'd pick number 2; it tells me Israel's right to exist is not really acknowledged at all by 94% of Palestinians, that any settlement is just a preliminary truce before the next round of bombings. But maybe I'm missing something."
Nothing so important as I'd like, I think. I do note that polls are just snapshots, and people's opinions are immensely malleable, and change in response to events. Given the right circumstances, these numbers can surely change for the better. But I find only a little more comfort in them -- specifically, that 66% supporting joint institutions and businesses -- than Thomas does.
2/01/2002 07:20:00 PM |permanent link| | Main Page |
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BIZARRO WORLD ANN COULTER is writing to Ted Barlow:
"Did you hear about what the tax-and-spend Democrats are up to now? They want to spend $100 million dollars of your money to pay welfare queens to get married! Why do liberals think that poor people won’t fall in love unless Nanny Big Government acts as a matchmaker?"
RULES FOR SPACE TOURISTS: The major partners in the International Space Station -- the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe -- have set them. You can plunk down $20 million and go, but not if you are "drug abusers, alcoholics or guilty of 'notoriously disgraceful conduct.'"
I don't know about you, but I'm willing to give all that up for the sake of my trip. Now the trivial matter of making my first $20 million. I know, my blog donations will cover it! Please help! Act now! Click on the button! Click without thinking!
READ MACHIAVELLI urges reader Mark Brittingham, responding to my comments on "the axis of evil" by suggesting that
"Yes, of course it occurred to them. Of course they have to 'deny' that they really meant to compare these countries to countries who were beaten bloody in WWII and ultimately visited by nuclear weapons."
Mark asks and answers:
"Is it always better to avoid 'misunderstanding'? Or is it sometimes better to piss people off, get in their face, scare the bejezus out of them and then say 'oh, you MUST have misunderstood.' Diplomacy sometimes proceeds by the art of stating a position that is implied, then denied."
As a general point, he's spot-on, of course, and naturally this kind of coding is sine qua non for diplomatic intercourse. Whether he's correct that this was the calculated intent behind "the axis of evil," I can't say; I'd certainly prefer to believe it. I've read my Machiavelli, not to mention tons of diplomatic history. I expect Karl Rove has, as well as Powell and Cheney, amongst many others in the Administration. It's possible they were willing to balance confusing the world with an attempt to send a signal in choosing this usage, but if so, it doesn't strike me as the clearest signal, either. The rest of the words regarding Iraq, Iran, and North Korea weren't ambiguous or insufficient. The diplomatic world has had the bejeezus scared out of them by those alone; confusing them by the apparent linkage of using "axis" doesn't strike me as clearly adding value. But thanks for contributing the observation, Mark, which is a worthy one, and may be correct.
1/31/2002 03:12:00 PM |permanent link| | Main Page |
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THE PEARL KIDNAPPING: the latest story from the Times with the latest e-mail message. It contains this English-language paragraph:
"Some of our brothers in the pakstani government have assured us that they will do their best to ensure the rights of all pakstanis in custody the world over. May God enable them to fulfil their promise. If they break their promise then rest assured that there are many pakstanis who are ready to take steps for their wrongfully suffering brothers. and many amreekans who are sitting ducks."
The Pakistani government, from the mouth of Musharaff's top spokesman, no less, declared
"there is an establishment of an Indian linkage into this kidnapping."
EUROPE DOESN'T GET IT: That's a considerable over-generalization. But it's certainly true, so far as I can tell, for most of the usual suspects, such as the Grauniad. Today's leader is a point in evidence:
"George Bush's delusion"
"Tragedy does not give America a free hand"
"A tendency among politicians to exploit the September 11 tragedy has been apparent from the very first. In Israel, Russia and China, governments were quick to use America's agony to justify the unjustifiable in Palestine, Chechnya and in Xinjiang. Pakistan's ostracised regime found in September 11 a return route to international acceptance. Its arch rival India, in its turn, used one crisis to dramatise another, in Kashmir. From Tehran to Khartoum to Harare, political leaders climbed aboard the anti-terrorism bandwagon with a view to domestic advantage as well as Washington's aid and approbation. Even Tony Blair's post-September 11 empathy offensive was not totally devoid of similar calculations.
Such is the inevitable way, perhaps, of a hard-hearted, cynical world. But when George Bush, president of the very nation that was targeted, follows suit and begins to exploit and manipulate the September 11 tragedy for political advantage, alarm bells must ring out loud."
Absolutely. This is a classic motif at work: all the world can do this bad thing: it's the inevitable way of a hard-hearted, cynical world. Tsk, tsk, cluck, cluck. But when America and George Bush do it, then alarm bells must ring out loud.
Because America must be treated by a double-standard from the rest of the world.
And George W. Bush, well, say no more, say no more, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.
"All US policy, both international and domestic, is now framed in terms of last autumn's emergency; all measures, however partisan and divisive, are justified in the name of patriotic unity and solidarity; all misgiving and dissent must be overridden for the sake of America's 'just cause.' This is a premise fortified by falsehoods and underpinned by a delusion. The principal falsehood is that the policies Mr Bush now advocates are dictated by an ongoing terrorist menace. They are not. Primarily they are the products of conservative Republicanism, set dangerously loose in September 11's aftermath."
This is what they don't get: this is largely untrue. Yes, it has some truth regarding domestic policy. I've pointed that out, and will go on pointing it out. But what they completely lack understanding of is that September 11th changed everything.
I'm not a Bush supporter. I'm a political eclectic, but I have a lot of left in my background, some in my foreground, and I've had no problem identifying at least partially as a liberal all my life. I don't regard Bush as legitimately elected, and I expect it's likely I'll work for the Democratic nominee in 2004. I oppose many of the Administration's domestic policies. I overwhelmingly support Democrats over Republicans, as a rule.
But post-September 11th, much of what goes on isn't partisan for me.
I'm a New Yorker, born and bred. Brooklyn, specifically, though I've also lived in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. I've lived the overwhelming majority of my life in NYC, with time-outs for eight years in Seattle, a year in Boston, some months in East Lansing, Michigan, and a few other months here and there; I've only just found myself in Boulder, Colorado. I'm a New Yorker.
Most Europeans don't get, despite all they saw, what it meant to New Yorkers, and to many Americans, to see a sizable chunk of New York City reduced to a smoking ruin of incinerated bodies, leaving thousands of children and their elders weeping, looking for their lost ones.
Doing our best to prevent similar occurences ever happening again became, that day, the prime motivation in life for many people, and the prime driver of what government policy should be.
That's not a partisan idea.
It's not a falsehood that this is now the driving idea in American foreign policy. It's not a manipulation. It's not a trick. It's not a cover. It's not conservative Republicanism in the slightest. It's real. It's non-partisan. It's what most Americans, Democrats and Republicans, libertarians, sensible leftists, and independents, want. It doesn't mean we'll close our eyes to partisan issues, but neither will we confuse non-partisan issues with the partisan, for the most part. It's American.
"September 11 undoubtedly bound the American nation. But it did not blind it. Sooner or later, Mr Bush, self-styled universal soldier for truth, will have to stop pretending that tragedy gave him a free hand to remake America and the world to fit his simplistic, narrow vision - or risk having voters and US allies end the pretence for him. For this is the delusion under which he labours. And a very dangerous delusion it is too."
OPERATION MUMMIFIED SCULPURAL GENITALIA: John Aschroft announces:
ATTORNEY GENERAL: "AMERICA MUST CEASE TO BE A LURID STATUARY OF DEVIANT SEX"
Press Briefing by the Attorney General
[...]
"Beginning today, over four hundred (400) federal agents will begin fanning out across America, where they will storm the perverted ramparts of any and all public buildings, parks, and museums which harbor objectionable 'art.' While most offending works will be shrouded in draperies or clad in over-sized Brooks Brothers suits, some (most notably the Statue of Liberty) will undergo extensive artistic revisions, while yet others will find their repulsive intercourse muscles wrapped snugly and permanently in cocoons of industrial strength duct tape."
