Michael Lumish
I am currently engaged in an on-line conversation with a real world friend who is a self-described communist.
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| UC Berkeley, 2017 |
A communist, for chrissake.
But, in truth, I love people with the gonads to stand up against the crowd. I mean, even in the San Francisco Bay Area it's not so easy to come out as a communist. Although, to be fair, this guy would also term himself a "democratic socialist."
He's a Bernie guy.
I am hoping to engage this person, for whose intelligence I have respect, on the question of political Islam. On his FB page I put it like this:
...do you consider the rise of political Islam (or "radical Islam" or "Islamism" or whatever you want to call it) to be a serious political problem? Do you think that the Left, in general, does?What we are seeing at this moment, I am becoming increasingly convinced, is the erosion of liberalism within the left, which is why I also told him this:
For myself - speaking as a member of a minority group long targeted for genocide by this movement - I do.
However, I do not see much interest on the Left in even discussing the matter, in part because it is ethnically sensitive; in part because it is associated with those horrific alleged sub-humans on the Right; in part, because it pushes against Clinton-Merkal style globalism; and in part because the sense on the Left is that rise of political Islam is a justified response to western imperialism.
It's all about the willingness to fairly engage ideas. One of my primary criticisms of the left is that it is shedding its liberalism... by which I mean, yes, Enlightenment liberalism. The very foundation of the liberal political viewpoint is the willingness to interrogate ideas. This is the dividing line between liberalism and totalitarianism and this is precisely why freedom of speech is integral.
Yet, at Berkeley we get this:
"Fuck free speech, bitches."
Excercising free speech to exorcise free speech. Monkeys.
ReplyDeleteI've met several communists in Berkeley who weren't at all shy about it. None were what you would call pro-Zionist.
ReplyDeleteLong live the gulags!
ReplyDeleteHow a pro-Palestinian American reporter
ReplyDeletechanged his views on Israel and the conflict:
by Hunter Stuart, 2017 February 15
www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/A-view-from-the-frontlines-480829
How many people do you believe are even capable of serious thoughtful dialog? How many people do you believe know what they're talking about? Universal suffrage was never posited as a method to get 'better' results but results that were more equitable, more fair. Maybe those outcomes suck. But they're flatter, more even. Everyone can get a vote and maybe if they don't know WTF they're doing, that's the cost of fairness. Maybe running around throwing trash and banging something like the apes at the beginning of 2001 is the best they can do and the best can expect of them. It's not a sin to be retarded. It's not sin to be proud of being retarded. They get a vote, they get to be 'heard' such as it is. We get to laugh at them or ignore them.
ReplyDelete"It's not sin to be proud of being retarded."
DeleteMaybe not, but it is retarded.
When I was 18, I used to work with the mentally retarded. The only thing they were allowed to vote for was maybe applesauce.
Maxine Waters is crazy. I've always thought so. So has my wife, even when we were the staunchest of Democrats.
ReplyDeleteJesus.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add "racist," to that mix. Silly ol' me.
ReplyDeleteThe one from The Big Lebowski?:0)
ReplyDeleteToday, the New York Times printed another article about formerly-religious young Jews that have gone OTD (Off-the-Derech).
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times does not repeatedly print articles about how Muslims are quitting Islam; they only print articles about how Jews are quitting Orthodox Judaism.
Once again, the Jew-hating New York Times has expressed its relentless bias against everything which is authentically Jewish, including Orthodox Judaism, which it has attacked many times before, in addition to its relentless attacks against Israel.
New York Times Erases Israel from Map:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-nyt-erases-israel-from-map.html
How to Convict the New York Times
of Unfair Bias Against Israel:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-how-to-convict-new-york-times.html
The worst part of their relentless bias against everything which is authentically Jewish, is that millions of stupid ignorant disloyal Liberal Jews continue to buy it 365 days a year, and consider it to be their Tanach [Bible], even more than the actual Tanach.
btw, I removed the title from this one because the words were making me sick
ReplyDeletebut this is an essential thesis
the left is bleeding enlightenment liberalism
they're throwing mlk jr into the gutter
and pissing on freedom of speech
but the ability to interrogate ideas requires freedom of speech
it's the line between liberalism and totalitarianism
I noticed that you ditched the title. I wondered about that.
DeleteI've doing a bit of research into the SADF-CCB, (South African Defense Force Civilian Cooperation Bureau) looking for a path forward against a multidimensional assault on Israel. I'm not convinced yet that everything they did was terrible, in the sense they were branded with the name 'right wing death squad'. That's not entirely right in that they formed a multi axis counterforce by actively pursuing non violent even quiet negotiations at the same time they pursued a campaign of anti terrorist/counter terrorist 'kinetic' actions in country. I'm not entirely convinced yet but I think there's a great deal of material there we could learn from in term of fighting domestic groups. The point here is that none of what you see is spontaneous or organic. It's funded and organized. It has a plan, an agenda, a list of milestones. And they are actively prosecuting them. We need to recognize what war 'is' now and adjust our modalities accordingly or we will find ourselves living under some awful fascist regime bent on doing terrible things.
ReplyDelete