tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post6182438390508621471..comments2024-01-02T02:18:30.960-08:00Comments on Israel Thrives: Introduction to the Greece–Hellas ConflictMike L.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-52995199338546110702013-05-09T15:33:37.772-07:002013-05-09T15:33:37.772-07:00Page views!
The numbers do not include my own.
B...Page views!<br /><br />The numbers do not include my own.<br /><br />But we have a readership.<br /><br />Sure, it's small and ill-tempered, but they're out there.Mike L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-2783911268542869972013-05-09T12:58:02.045-07:002013-05-09T12:58:02.045-07:00What?! People actually read that longwinded academ...What?! People actually read that longwinded academic rambling article? :) Oh, you said "page views." Alright then. ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-12578806114171842892013-05-09T12:42:10.067-07:002013-05-09T12:42:10.067-07:00btw, you should know that your piece, "Anti-Z...btw, you should know that your piece, "Anti-Zionism: A Racist Ideology," leads the pack over the course of the last week with 186 page views.<br /><br />FYI and congrats.Mike L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-62924679250412291622013-05-09T12:33:14.271-07:002013-05-09T12:33:14.271-07:00Done. I decided to add a short notice at the top, ...Done. I decided to add a short notice at the top, leaving the last two paragraphs as a more expansive version of it—didn't manage to see how I could rewrite it seamlessly, so...<br /><br />It's true, it's not wise to use deadpan humor or satire if there's a serious point you want conveyed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-83614888490733665012013-05-09T11:05:15.161-07:002013-05-09T11:05:15.161-07:00You could do that, I suppose, but really it's ...You could do that, I suppose, but really it's just a matter of a few lines of introduction to orient the reader toward what you are up to.<br /><br />Excellent piece, nonetheless.Mike L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-36301780106546315442013-05-09T10:00:56.299-07:002013-05-09T10:00:56.299-07:00"This piece is largely satirical and will fly..."This piece is largely satirical and will fly over the heads of most who read it"<br /><br />What say I move the last two paragraphs (those after the horizontal line) to the head of the article? Although it would be somewhat of a spoiler, I think you're right that making the actual message of the article clear to the reader is a more important consideration.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-45671143411293580162013-05-09T00:03:22.928-07:002013-05-09T00:03:22.928-07:00I do not know what to say.
This piece is largely ...I do not know what to say.<br /><br />This piece is largely satirical and will fly over the heads of most who read it... but I am glad that you wrote it.<br /><br />I will do my best to stand with you because I believe we understand one another very well.Mike L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06450806807610560873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-26560572507959808712013-05-08T13:23:15.548-07:002013-05-08T13:23:15.548-07:00Much food for thought here, Zion. Particularly ta...Much food for thought here, Zion. Particularly taking down the playground analogy. This really is helping. Thanks...JayinPhiladelphiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556212008313470286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-72998386300008112132013-05-08T13:15:26.268-07:002013-05-08T13:15:26.268-07:00Despite my tendency to impatience, Jay, I'm ra...Despite my tendency to impatience, Jay, I'm rather calm on this one. Belated or not, I don't care, I think that if the ball gets rolled again, it'll work. I'm not worried about the credibility of a rollback, either; it hasn't held the Arabs back that they've repudiated their own former position. They used to talk about "the Arab nation against the Zionists" until the 1960s or 70s, now they talk of "the Palestinian nation against the Zionists" instead; nobody batted an eyelid even when that change was recent. It's all a matter of maintaining a firm hand at the taps of information.<br /><br />This reminds me of something I read on another forum after Netanyahu's apology to Erdoggone. When the deal got worse, the poster on the forum said, "Can't do anything now, it'd look immature if Bibi retracted the apology." Having read this, I thought, "Immature?! Excuse me?! What is this, a kid's playground?" The faulty analogy of nations to people is at work here again. Bibi should have retracted his cowardly apology, no matter how "immature" it would have looked—that small price would more than have compensated for the big humiliation, as well as the real money to be paid, that Israel now has to endure.<br /><br />What's gone by is gone by. No use whining about it or trying to apportion blame. I'm not impatient to see the reversal of the situation accomplished, I'm impatient to see the effort at reversal being begun in the first place. As soon I see a beginning, I'll be cautiously yet tangibly optimistic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-72375838015532803372013-05-08T12:06:37.746-07:002013-05-08T12:06:37.746-07:00Agreed on all points, really, but the only problem...Agreed on all points, really, but the only problem would seem to be getting that horse back into the barn, as a rural Oregonian friend of mine would say.<br /><br />This lie has had decades to make its way around the world, while the truth seems to have spent that same period of time hitting the snooze button dozens of times, let alone putting its shoes on.<br /><br />I guess people like me are also partly to blame for that. How the hell do we realistically undertake the task of reversing it quickly, though, is the problem?JayinPhiladelphiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556212008313470286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-61781989554373106552013-05-08T11:14:30.476-07:002013-05-08T11:14:30.476-07:00The way I see it, Jay, it all boils down to "...The way I see it, Jay, it all boils down to "The freedom to lift your finger ends at the tip of my nose." I may not think that the various tribes amalgamated in the Congo region have enough cohesion to be considered a real, single nation, but I don't care much about it, because it's no skin off my nose, and in fact it's no skin off anyone's nose as far as I'm aware. Most of the decolonial new "nation" creations are legacies of the neat, straight lines the European powers drew over Africa and Asia, long ago. It's sad, but there's no malicious intent involved when those groups regard themselves as nations.<br /><br />In contrast, Jewish national rights are up against a purposely calculated narrative with the very goal of denying those rights. It's the question of "What do they want? State or antistate?", hat tip to Geoffff for that latter term. As long as I believed they wanted a state of their own alongside the Jewish one, I could even grudgingly accept their nation-creating narrative, but as soon as I realized their only desire is to appropriate everything that's ours, I could no longer concede ground on it. That realization also made it clear to me that their very choice of the term "Palestinian," instead of "Southern Syrian" as they'd been up until 1920 (when Britain and France split Greater Syria between themselves), is on the same order as the Turks calling themselves "Greeks." Denial of our rights, that's all it comes to.<br /><br />"The main obstacle, as I see it, is that this rhetorical part of the conflict should have been waged and more fully engaged like 40 years ago."<br /><br />It wasn't completely ignored; for example, there's a famous quote by Golda Meir where she counters the faux-Palestinian fiction head-on. But in the course of time the defenders of Israel dropped the ball and decided to adopt the strategy of showing how good and beneficial Israel is. Big mistake. The world isn't interested in that. "OK, you've built great things here," say the detractors, "but you've built it all on stolen land." Justice, that's where it's at. Nor can the emphasis on Arab/Islamic terrorism be effective in defending our rights, as there are many who think it's justified as "resistance." It all goes back to the core narrative, then.<br /><br />I could say that my obsession over this issue stems mainly from the fact that I see no other effective way to uphold the rightfulness of Zionism. I may be missing some way, of course; but my experience tells me this is the best way, the best defense, because it's also a good offense that shows the anti-Zionists to be exactly that which they accuse pro-Israel people of being: Supporters of imperialist, colonialist injustice against the self-determination of the indigenous people of a particular land. I can in no way resist such delicious irony.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6579213173749170024.post-90627860717450555652013-05-08T10:12:58.601-07:002013-05-08T10:12:58.601-07:00Brilliant piece, Zion.
I'm rethinking certain...Brilliant piece, Zion.<br /><br />I'm rethinking certain things these days, but I'm not quite sure I can put those thoughts into anything resembling a sensical summary at the moment. Probably because I'm still trying to sort it out myself.<br /><br />The main thing I'm trying to reconcile is my belief in granting a people the right to define their own identity, with the obvious fact that one particular group in the world today is doing such a thing for nefarious purposes, and taking advantage of tendencies and sensibilities such as my own.<br /><br />The main obstacle, as I see it, is that this rhetorical part of the conflict should have been waged and more fully engaged like 40 years ago.JayinPhiladelphiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556212008313470286noreply@blogger.com