I apologize for this, and may even delete this post, but as more people read here than there, it is sometimes good to get facts out so more people will know who they are actually dealing with.
Just look how this "progressive" speaks about others:
volleyboy1 June 23, 2013 at 2:23 PMApparently, the place I call "home" is this web site. It is far from perfect here, but it contains far more diversity of opinion and respect than seen by the comment above, and far less hateful comments, from the "headmaster" no less, who creates an environment of intolerance absent agreement, in the name of "tolerance" no less.
This is for oldschool and his last comment:
"The Headmaster" - shut up, you worthless bigoted piece of shit.
Go take a fucking hike oldschool - You. Are. DELETED
Go back to that shithole that you call home.
You see, I called him the "headmaster" of his site! How terrible! I said I believed the "headmaster" was quick to label ALL conservatives as members of the "Far Right" and to use other pejoratives to question the sanity and good faith of people that differed from his perspective of politics. As seen by his behavior, here an exercise of pure venom, the perspective adopts a bias and skewed, Organizing for Action, take no prisoners approach, the bane for people who actually want to serve democracy and the public interest, no matter who the actor happens to be.
My original comments to fizziks' post were censored, of course. I suspect in the name of "progressivism." But it is progressivism, authoritarian style, with a dose of cowardice included, by a thin-skinned pretender. It's a scary thought to imagine if a person like this actually had authority.
And to fizziks: How would you define my comments to you? How would you define the comment above and the behavior attached? Do you believe the censorship is justified in this case? More importantly, why are you, a self-defined liberal, hanging with someone who acts like an intolerant, demeaning, petty dictator whenever it suits him? Is this how you define being liberal? Or is it closer to that fringe element you mentioned when it comes to the manner of discourse and hate toward others?
I suggest you are posting in the wrong place.
I was quite sure that, when you wrote "headmaster," it was as another way of saying "blogmaster" or "webmaster." Talk about walking on eggshells.
ReplyDeleteI posted on just one thread on PZ and it went fairly well. The main reason it went OK, though, is because I exercised great restraint. When Volleyboy said in that thread (archived to my local storage, per my usual custom):
"There is a big difference in the Arabs living in Arab villages in Israel or the West Bank AND Israeli settlers living in the West Bank. Those Arab villagers (or City Dwellers) were in Israel / The West Bank with full authority to be there from the people that had official recognition. They had lived on that land for generations upon generations."
I thought I'd be going postal in that thread and it would all be over. It took everything I got to restrain myself over that statement taken whole from the Arab narrative. After that, I decided that thread would be the only one on PZ I'd participate in; I decided to follow that discussion to its conclusion and then never come back. Walking on eggshells is something I just can't stand.
PZ isn't a particularly comfortable venue to post on, not even from the point of view of the ones in charge. Like I said, they're Zionists, but they're up against a Progressive camp whose hostility to Zionism is increasing by the day. If I were in that position I'd be bitter and edgy too. Oh well, let VB keep on castigating Israel Thrives while the Progressive camp is filled with General Choomins. Yeah, that'll help things.
No. I meant it more as one who has unilateral power to act arbitrarily to protect himself.
DeleteThe truth is that not one of my comments there has ever exceeded the bounds of reasonable discourse, not a one.
There is a pattern of censorship, however.
And the hate speech is also just an example.
I don't tip toe anywhere I go, but I never write a comment that deserves to be stricken.
This is an Emperor without clothes.
One more thing I noticed.
DeleteThis "progressive" in his comment says I am "DELETED."
He has previously called me lower than a cockroach.
Thoughts like this do not enter my mind.
We are clearly in a transitional period within diaspora Jewish politics (if not Israeli Jewish politics) and this is causing some people to dig in their heals concerning the political changes around them.
ReplyDeleteThe post-Oslo period is seeing the sloughing off of a relatively small, but growing, percentage of Jews from the progressive and Democratic party consensus.
I am, obviously, one such person. The problem is that because we have exceedingly good reasons to be highly critical of the progressive movement and the Obama administration, the True Believers conceive of us as the enemy.
But we aren't.
Quite accurate. Engaging in censorship and hatred as above, is intolerable, and deserves to be brought to light.
DeleteThis is behavior and speech that violates the very principles of human rights ostensibly cared about.
In some regards it, sadly, grows more out of the domestic politics approach under Obama to call opponents deranged and insinuate they are evil in intent.
I'll never understand why you, in particular, receive the treatment you get there, School, but I suppose it just is what it is.
ReplyDeleteWhat Zion said -
"Oh well, let VB keep on castigating Israel Thrives while the Progressive camp is filled with General Choomins. Yeah, that'll help things."
Or an even better example would be this insidious idiot, whose humanitarian racism is once again on glorious and blatant display for all to see. Only the Jews have something to 'prove,' in the mind of people like him. Oh, and this progressive still actually insists that he's pro-Israel, and outside of a handful of people like us nobody else even questions it. He blends right in with their rhetoric.
Ah, but I sense I'm getting off track a little here. I never saw your comment, so I can't speak on that. But I'm quite sure it shouldn't have justified that amount of hate.
I tell ya. The internet, man...
The comment was harmless and the hate was spontaneous.
DeleteThe censorship reveals a complete disrespect and intolerance for the right expression, perhaps the most important human right.
I get the treatment because I challenge his positions, his power and his actions, especially the way he treats others and abuses his authority.
Mike,
ReplyDelete"We are clearly in a transitional period within diaspora Jewish politics (if not Israeli Jewish politics)..."
The sad thing is that Jewish Progressives don't need to abandon any Progressive positions except anti-Zionism in order to be considered Zionists even by the rightmost of right-wing Zionists, yet they do, increasingly, have to renounce just that one tenet—Zionism—if they don't want to be ostracized by their fellow Progressives.
Every time Volleyboy makes a post against BDS or the ProgLeft's support of Hamas, I actually cheer those posts and say kudos on them. The PZ blog is clearly no Daily Kos, let alone Mound o' Scheiss. But there's still a lack of awareness of what's going on in the Progressive camp. I can get it when they post something about Republicans or conservatives—I may not agree, but that's a matter of American politics, so it's not my place to slight those posts. But when they think this is still the 1960s with the Far Right being the source and fount of Jew-hatred, they're showing themselves as out of date. Yes, I know all about Far Right Jew-hatred and anti-Zionism, the kind found on Stormfront and Ron Paul's deranged followers (two groups that often overlap, by the way); but the impetus for polite-society Jew-hatred as anti-Zionism today comes mainly from those humanitarian racists who justify violence against Israeli Jews as "come-uppance for stealing and occupying land." Although there are Far Right sickos that make those arguments—I should know, I post on Frontpage Mag, where they troll relentlessly—their arguments are copied bodily from Far Leftist sources.
Jay,
Ah, he cross-posted it to the latest DKos diary.
"Oh, and this progressive still actually insists that he's pro-Israel,..."
It's called concern-trolling, and Zionists are supposed to appreciate it. And yet, Troubadour is just an amateur compared to our phriend Phil Weiss. Weiss has taken the the anti-Zionist concern-troll template ("It's because I love the Jews so much that I'm an anti-Zionist, trying to save the Jews from Zionism, their worst enemy") and made it into a long-running website. Now that's professionalism for you!
And the internet adds a whole other level of bombast, as well. In some (progressive) quarters, it's almost as if there's a quota that one must meet in calling a certain number of people 'racist,' 'Islamophobic,' etc etc, each month, in order to maintain good standing amongst one's fellows these days.
DeleteSam Harris, Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, anybody to the right of Judith Butler at one time or another... everybody's a 'bigot' to somebody these days, apparently.
I suppose the idea is to strike first in launching dirt bombs and mud pies, so that perhaps you can remain 'cleaner' for just a little bit longer.
It's a game that you'd hope folks would stop playing once they outgrow places like Daily Kos, but unfortunately not all do.
Internet or not, I wonder what has taught these people to show so much hatred toward others, and how they can believe it represents being liberal or tolerant.
DeleteI'll tell you one thing, I've been hearing a lot more chatter about the death of the two-state solution than I have ever heard before.
ReplyDeleteThis is fast becoming the major question that counts.
According to this opinion piece by Ron Jager of Arutz Sheva there are three possible options:
1) Annexation of the entirety of Judea and Samaria.
2) Full withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.
3) Maintaining the status quo.
There is, however, a fourth possibility.
Israel need not annex the entirety of Judea and Samaria.
Israel need not conduct a full withdrawal, either.
Nor must Israel maintain the status quo.
Martin Sherman wrote an exceedingly intelligent piece concerning why unilateral withdrawal is a bad idea. But what I fail to understand is either why unilateral withdrawal must conform to the boundaries of Area C, as Naftali Bennett called for and that Sherman excoriated?
Perhaps Ziontruth, or any Israeli reader, can tell me why Israel cannot annex as much of Judea and Samaria as necessary to maintain security, including the major Jewish towns, without necessarily conforming to the precise boundaries of Area C?
Isn't that the fourth option?
Declare borders.
Remove IDF to behind those borders.
Toss keys over shoulder.
I like to think that I am open to alternative possibilities, but that is where I am at this moment, until convinced otherwise.
I think if Israel drew boundaries and split, recognizing the new state of Palestine in the process, while committing to a procedure for full compensation of claims, it would be like a valve releasing pressure.
DeletePerhaps the world is impatient for any resolution, and with the Palestinians and their antics (like paying killers with aid money), and would see no reason to treat them any different than others.
In a world where people are truly in need, why do Palestinians suck up so many resources and expend so little effort to help themselves? Israel helps Palestinians more.
If there was a declared, de facto, and internationally recognized Palestinian homeland and state, it and its leaders would also be subject to international law applicable to states. Violations would open ignorant Western eyes once obsessed by Israeli "mistreatment" to better see the Arab intent that Israel itself is Palestine.
At least that is the theory on paper.
Mike,
DeleteI can't say for sure what's the reason for being boxed in the options you listed, but I think Israel's current leadership is too afraid to try something out of the mold. Your list very much summarizes the confines of their thinking.
Netanyahu has been a big disappointment. Israeli Jews of all political persuasions believe the situation (some call it "the peace process," but I won't so insult readers' intelligence) is stalled, hence the emphasis in the past few elections on voting the socio-economic issues, the part of politics where the people believe their votes might actually change things.
By the way, if fizziks would like to participate here, he is more than welcome.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I would request is that he avoid the tendency toward character assassination.
He won't. Too bad. That place is toxic. It is ruled much like a tyranny. Indeed, more censorship today, so I had this to say:
Deleteunder the rules that I have established for my site
Sounds just like what an authoritarian would say. Where are these rules? Do they cover your abusive behavior? Or are you above these rules?
The fact is that not one comment I have EVER written here deserved to be censored. NOT ONE! EVER! And you know it. Many of yours were so deserving.
Apparently, you are just too afraid to withstand criticism, or to be challenged on YOUR site. Perhaps because people will come here and see the disconnect in the way you behave with the "progressive" ideal you claim to represent.
I am glad that the ONLY power you have is over YOUR site, which you run so capriciously that no one besides me even has the gumption to speak up when you show your ugly, intolerant side and demean others in such an abusive way.
My comment that you just censored WAS substantive, but you do did not like one small part and chose the illiberal path to quash any expression that you do not approve of.
Let it go, life's too short for blog wars. I find a lot of blogs worth reading but so few worth my time commenting on.
ReplyDeleteI hear you. I am just creating a record in the event it will serve a purpose.
DeleteI am not as bent as I may seem. Plus, I get a kick standing up to abusers that come off as defenders against abuse. There is also a value in exposing the unadulterated hate speech involved.
I was most disappointed because, though this abuser calls on others to denounce vile remarks, there was not a peep made that the words were indecent and repugnant for anyone that cares for human dignity, even as some there post elsewhere under a double standard.
I would probably not have even brought it up because it's not my pattern to engage in "blog wars." I made an exception because of the gratuitous comment directed at this site, which I imagined might interest some.
I appreciate the comment, however, and concur about the speed that life passes by.