Saturday, September 23, 2006
A touch of Berkeley in Bismarck
We should stop the name-calling and the demonizing immediately. No more "axis of evil," "Islamo-fascists," "evil-doers" and "you're either with us or against us," or Nazi Germany analogies. We need to regard our adversaries as adult human beings who see the world in a way that is radically different from the way we make sense of it. We need to sit down with them and listen to their demands and try to take seriously their critique of our policies and our culture. We don't ever have to condone their methods, but we need to try to discern their message through the noise and rhetoric.
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This is one ofthe most lucid quotes i've read on this board. Context please?
Pepe. Just click on the title, "A touch of Berkeley in Bismarck," and, if blogger.com is working correctly, it'll take you to the link.
As far as context goes: the excerpt was from an article by Clay Jenkinson, a scholar and writer from the upper Plains. The Bismarck Tribune run Clay's weekly opines. Unlike the Berkeley dems, 9/10s of the time Clay often makes a whole lot of sense.
Interesting - incidentally dialogue is the way Britain got largely rid of its Irish terror problem. One thing for sure, it wouldn't work worse than the current approach.
Pepe, I'd agree with you in that, in our Western tradition, dialog is the way to go. There are many moderate Muslims who are keen on this type of logic, but there are also many other Muslims who are not big fans of the Baconian (Islam was never big on pork) method of inductive reason. "Evidence?," they shout. "HA! The Qu'ran provides all the evidence we need to draw conclusions about how the Great Satan is the root of all evil!" (there's that goddamned word again: evil).
From what a Belfast friend tells me, the Hibernians still have a problem with IRA terrorists.
About dialogue and all those fine words, I have read that ETA is refusing to disarm just six months after they said armed struggle is over completely.
Bring back Aznar.
The context is "The Taking of Pepe 1 2 3". As Lucid as Latour courting Madeline Albright.
As for the Irish Terror Problem, it would take a le Pew to conveniently forget/ignore that, just perhaps, the collapse of Red Terror's great sponsor, Pepe's beloved Sovietskiania, may just have had something to do with it.
now that's a new theory - am i reading correctly that the demise of the IRA has been the result of the collapse of the soviet union ? how do you figure ?
I have read that ETA is refusing to disarm just six months after they said armed struggle is over completely
whereas aq is capitulating for good in thanks to the occupation of iraq ?
Fair enough. The fallacy is called post hoc ergo propter hoc. Still, you ain't gonna get those boys to be nice by being nice to them all the time. That's been proven. Your wanting to 'understand their point of view' makes no sense to me because the terrorists (even if they are but a small fraction of a moderate populace) are not interested in reason. If they were, they'd at least go after combatants.
Your wanting to 'understand their point of view' makes no sense to me because the terrorists (even if they are but a small fraction of a moderate populace) are not interested in reason. If they were, they'd at least go after combatants.
But we certainly won't know for sure until we hear them out, will we ? I say understand your enemy.
Pepe's Boozy Delusion: ...we certainly won't know for sure until we hear them out, will we? I say understand your enemy.
1st, Pepe, I don't regard all Arabs as my enemy. Do you? Your above quote sure suggests it.
2nd, at the very least, the Pepe Party Line is predictable.
Now here's how your scenario plays out: Al queda finally gets a listening audience from the West; the West convenes and Al Queda Imam takes the professorial podium. The said Imam demands that his (note: it's never a woman) Western listening audience convert and join Islam and their jihad cause. Naturally, the thru-and-thru Berkeley Grads ascent to this request, but the majority of the Western listening audience informs the Imam that they understand his religious ideology compells him to say these things, but in the Intellectual Tradition of Western Civilization, ideas of all types are allowed to move freely. The Imam responds by issuing a fatwa, and al queda goons are sent out to kill the Western Listening audience.
Yes: at least the Western Listening audience could say they understood, fully, why al queda wanted to kill them just before they were slaughtered.
Let me know how it goes.
1st, Pepe, I don't regard all Arabs as my enemy. Do you? Your above quote sure suggests it.
How does it? we're talking about aq & its variants, not all arabs.
2With the kind of logic where you make up both the questions and the answers, there is indeed never any need for dialogue.
You said you wanted to "hear them out" so to "understand your enemy." Hear who out? Al Queda? Arabs in general? Fundamentalist Muslims?
Pepe, please construct how your own scenario might play out if you invited AQ to a public forum to chat. Seriously, there has to be a vision or ideal you've worked out in your head as to how it might go. Let me know what you believe would happen.
Please be specific. How else are we going to get to the bottom of anything if we continue speaking in such obtuse terms?
mft - i thought it is pretty clear who the enemy is - obviously not the arab world in general, but the fundamentalist fringe of islam.
It is unfortunate that the only analysis of the wackos' intent we are hearing is the bone-headed "they hate our fraydom" version of the administration. These people are blowing themselves up left and right - it is safe to assume that there is a rationale there. I personally would have to be pretty pissed off and convinced of the clarity of my logic to go ahead with this form of protest. Whatever the case may be, I can't think of a single reason not to make an attempt at clarifying the issues - it doesn't appear that the "war on terror" will ever be won with bombs.
Notice also that the logic that resists dialogue is very much hollow-macho bullshit of the "we don't deal with terrorists" variety. You've seen what good that rhetoric is doing with Iran & NK. With the intelligence report in the background, it is time the neocons take the measure of their failure, grow up and go to the pow-wow table.
Scenario: this is the role of journalism. It is obviously risky as the example of Daniel Pearl has shown but journalists are in war zones all the time and it is unfortunately as much part of the job as it is for the military. I am not aware of anyone trying though. Osama on NPR's Morning Edition - that would make an interesting show, wouldn't you say?
It's undisputed that Dubya is a horrible orator. Absolutely horrid -- it does, however, provide a source of comedy.
Here's two more questions:
1.) Back to seriousness: when snippets of Dubya are looped by media outlets, his horrific methods (if we could call it that) of public speaking are taken out of context, and then amplified. When your buddy Dubya says "they hate our freedom," do you think he might be using "they" in the similar Royal We fashion that you used to reference "them" (eg, fringe Islam rather than the entire Arab world)?
2.) Alas: the problem is so complex because fundamentalist militants are willing to act, kill, torture, chop and blow-up based off of snippets of information that are never contextualized (even the anthropologist Clifford Geertz says context is the name of the game; so few are willing to do it, and it's never certain that it'll be properly contextualized); nor do militant fundamentalists have a desire to contextualize the fragments of information that they get from the Western media: besides, they already have their marching orders outlined in their Qu'ran. How do you get a Fundamentalist Muslim to contextualize snippets of Western Civilization (from Istanbul to Charlamagne to Portland, Oregon)?
Of course, it's quite difficult as the Militant Fundamentalist's perception of reality is more often than not fueled by ignorance, and fear to question themselves, to question who they regard as "authorities," (whether "God" or an Imam) and so on.
It's undisputed that Dubya is a horrible orator. Absolutely horrid -- it does, however, provide a source of comedy.
I really have more difficulty with the content than the form of dubbyah's rhetoric.
When your buddy Dubya says "they hate our freedom," do you think he might be using "they" in the similar Royal We fashion that you used to reference "them" (eg, fringe Islam rather than the entire Arab world)?
I think he is just displaying his utter misunderstanding of what the aq/wacko crowd is after. I do not think for one minute that the muslim fundamentalists give 2 shits about what gringos are doing in america.
How do you get a Fundamentalist Muslim to contextualize snippets of Western Civilization (from Istanbul to Charlamagne to Portland, Oregon)?
The same way you get an evangelist like w & his cronies to conceptualize snippets of islam: you maybe right that it can't happen but we really don't know.
the Militant Fundamentalist's perception of reality is more often than not fueled by ignorance, and fear to question themselves, to question who they regard as "authorities," (whether "God" or an Imam) and so on.
yup - and what better way to disturb ignorance than with dialog ?
But we certainly won't know for sure until we hear them out, will we ? I say understand your enemy.
What's to understand about someone like Zarky? May as well chew the fat with the Klingons or something. You either drop a 500lb smart bomb on his head, or he chops yours. Is this a zeugma, or what?
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