Trying to define attitudes in the West towards attitudes in the Middle East is an immensely complicated task. And right now as we try to sift our way through the controversies over the Danish cartoons and the Dubai ports deal, there are accusations of racism flying around from all sides. But ‘racism’ is too often a cop-out. It becomes short hand for something different. On the left, the principles of free expression, freedom of inquiry, freedom from dogma, separation of church and state, and even cultural pride come into conflict with the principles of religious tolerance and cultural sensitivity. On the right, issues of free trade and free markets come into conflict with issues of sovereignty. Religious absolutism come into conflict with a competing
absolutist monotheistic tradition. And fear of the ‘other’ and outright racism have their part across the board.
Take a look at Stirling Newberry’s piece today. Maybe we can discuss these issues from his perspective. And while we’re at it, someone explain to me why Stirling we was banned [see UPDATE] from Daily Kos. I still don’t know.
Update [2006-2-28 15:9:36 by BooMan]: This explains Stirling’s departure.
must be some ghost in the machine, like what went on here the past few days….
Sterling? You? Susan? All of us?
yes “we was banned” means who?
we should have been he.
I’m having all kinds of trouble adjusting to this new keyboard. It keeps skipping letters and I seem to have developed some tic that makes me transpose letters. It’s aggravating.
that’s oldtimers disease, not the keyboard…
Young whippersnapper!
IIRC, Stirling wasn’t banned…he quit writing there, but I don’t remember why.
Just read Stirling’s piece — what is it that you percieve his perspective to be?
I’d rather see what other people make of it.
oh, ok — I was just reponding to the “maybe we can discuss these issues from his persepctive” part — with all of the misunderstadnings running about, I thought I’d ask first. No big deal.
I thought it was dead on and it explains the dynamics of what I was facing here a few weeks ago or so. I didn’t have the reasoning that he gave but it fits in retrospect. I am a nail. I don’t mind being hammered with an opposite or conflicting opinion as long as it inspires a challenge to the thinking of the individual/hive. This isn’t the same as a troll which has a destructive intent. Interestingly, the opposing opinion at times, or the ‘hive preservation’ person can behave with qualities closer to trollish behavior to negate the nail. I appreciate the value of mutual congratulatory conversations/diaries but I don’t have an internal demand to be included.
Stirling’s post expressed the dynamics of what I wanted to inspire, why and also why it didn’t work. I tried to change the dynamic by forcing an outward pressure of forcing cross communication between blogs and establishing an upward chain of command (of sorts) to focus the blogs’ messages and deliver it to the politicians/media. It won’t work because the blogs are already established in the haves/have-nots and threats to that dynamic won’t be allowed.
Just to clrify the previous comment, it was not about the port deal or racism.
that perhaps the concern over the Dubai Ports deal is not just “port security”, but the overinvolvement of the Administration with Middle East oil cartels. For all the big talk Bush is doing about alternative energy sources, he’s an oilman at heart…he’s not going to back anything that’s going to take money out of the pockets of his friends here or abroad. Are our future energy policies going to come from the entrepreneurs or from the entrenched monied interests?
Just a thought…
I for one, read Stirling, with a jaundiced eye. It’s a fine line between pointing out economic error, and promoting it’s downfall. Wish for it hard enough, and it comes true, sort of reasoning.
As for the article, it is right that the globalists use the very same arguments for something they want, as did those that opposed their agendas. In my day, it was called co-opting the message.
The wealth of the oil countries is directly shared with the wealthy of this one, i.e. carlyle.
As far as the religious aspect, I like yourself booman, am agnostic. I believe those of the religious mind, are adverse to logical compromise. You could no sooner get a compromise from a christian that jesus did not rise from the dead, as could you convince someone from another religion any tenet of theirs.bUt that being said, it is known that the royals of the oil countries only use religion in a manipulative way, supporting those that continue their reign….pretty much like here, huh…
maybe Sterling called DHinMi by his real first name, it worked for me. My apology obviously didn’t.
who knows why things happen at the big orange blog. i assume the modus operandi there is: if you can’t beat it, ban it.
Feral chicken?
maybe he called him a Republican trojan horse: that one worked for me (truth stings).
For making fun of the fact that DHinMi conferred the title of “emereti” upon himself and a few others at DailyKos.
I regret nothing!
blog suggesting that you, Duke1676 and I should hold a sort of verbosity Olympics, and suggested that you had better costumes for such a venture.
This individual was obviously unaware that I own a pair of reindeer fur boots.
I don’t know if Duke has been by the blog to see if he wishes to take up the gauntlet, he may hesitate, as he has come up against my formidable brevity impairment on previous occasions, but I await velvet boxes from you both, at your convenience.
more like Illuminati, but whatever gets his little pin-dick hard and makes him feel important in his black little misogynist soul …
When I asked if he and the emereti wore black robes and pronounced judgment in solemn tones.
Oh, and I also sang The Stonecutters’ Theme Song from “The Simpsons”, which didn’t endear me to his thuggish heart.
Really, DHinMi made Steve Guttenberg a star.
I believe those of the religious mind, are adverse to logical compromise. You could no sooner get a compromise from a christian that jesus did not rise from the dead, as could you convince someone from another religion any tenet of theirs.
Having lurked through the past few painful days here at BT, I cannot sit by and let this go without commenting. I had assumed (wrongly), that after everything all of you have been through you had reached a point of common understanding and compassion. Obviously not.
Frankly, meagert, that statement is bullshit and it only serves to continue fostering the ugly divide that has afflicted this community. How dare you make a sweeping generalization about the ability of those who are religious to not be able to reach logical conclusions or compromises.
So you don’t think you can convince a Christian that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Fine. Maybe not. And who cares, anyway? But as a Buddhist, you sure can’t tell me that it’s impossible for me not to reach a logical compromise about the tenets of my religion. In fact, we Buddhists are extremely logical. That’s what the religion/philosophy is about. When we get new facts, we integrate them into our beliefs.
I use myself and my religion as an example because I’m sick and tired of people lumping together stereotypes of people of any stripe by race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or whatever. It’s harmful and it’s damaging.
Have we learned nothing after all of this controversy? You tell me.
You have a right to believe anything you want to, but I have a responsibility to point out beliefs that are wrong. And yours is. Ther>n í no doubt about that.
and am back for the discussion. I was born boston irish catholic…I spent 16 years in Catholic education, studying religion through my college years….ergo, my agnosticism.
I live in the bible belt now, and have a lot of conversations with the fundamentalists here…there is NO compromise on any tenet, any value, not only that, but they don’t just agree to disagree, they drop all connections…cooties, I guess.
What your religious beliefs are…I don’t care, not in a snarky way, just don’t care. In my adult life, I just never found religion to be anything but divisive, as shown here on booman as of late.
I have lived in other countries, among muslims, and found them to be loving, and hard working people…that’s all I need to know.
For Organized religion…i could care less…sorry for that opinion…but that is my opinion.
NOBODY on any of these threads had malice in any of their comments to anybody. We just all live in some kind of parallell universe. I don’t think bad of any one on any side of this issue, and hope when the winds die down, the same will be felt for me.
Sounds as if it’s a difference of experiences. Maybe you tend to run into only the rigid Christians, for instance, while I tend to run into the open-minded ones. I’ve met “your” kind, so I know how infuriating they can be. I hope you get a chance to meet some of “my” kind, because they’re some of the best people you’d ever want to know, people who actually practice what Jesus wanted them to do.
Just for the sake of conversation–I actually do care what people’s religious beliefs are. I like to know what they believe and I like to know why. As someone who has struggled all her life to figure things out, I have been endlessly curious about other people’s answers, and nothing fascinates me more than religion and spirituality.
But I can also recall a time in my life when I would have strung garlic around my neck to avoid such things.
good points, all.
Yes I have met many of “those other kinds” too…all my life…but the argument seems to be over the “lumping” together. Shhh..every human lumps somebody into something. It’s a means of processing, sometimes it’s bad processing, sometimes, it just reflects one moment in time, sometimes, it’s even self-preservation.
The inadequacies of comment writing, as opposed to phone calls, or face to face, tends to further breakdown comity between folks. The words can never be typed fast enough, nor strung together enough to reveal all the feelings, or all the issues, thus the disparities. You could type until the cows come home, and this issue will not be resolved on this site, or any other.
The resolution is simple: mindfulness of our differences and respect for each other.
now where is the tolerance for my opinion of religion as divisive
now where is the tolerance for my opinion of religion as divisive
If you can explain to me how religion – on its own – is divisive as opposed to the attitudes of the people that adhere to any specific religion according to their interpretation as being the real problem, then I’ll consider your argument.
You’ll note also that I said we need to respect our differences not just “tolerate” them. For me, tolerance ends where abuse begins. So, where was the abuse in your original comment?
1) in the fact that your argument about logical consequences as applied to religious people itself was a logical fallacy :
If some Christians won’t logically compromise on the belief that Jesus rose from the dead, then religious people are unable to logically compromise.
(form: weak analogy)
The abuse is in the fact that your argument is logically unsound, therefore I am not required to tolerate it.
2) if you had posed an argument that I simply disagreed with but was logically true, I would respect our differences and would tolerate your belief.
What your religious beliefs are…I don’t care, not in a snarky way, just don’t care. In my adult life, I just never found religion to be anything but divisive, as shown here on booman as of late.
It isn’t religion that has caused diviseness here. It the attitudes towards religion. There’s a huge difference. And if you don’t care what anyone’s religious beliefs are, why bring them up in the first place?
until I relent to your opinion.
Apparently you have made a judgement upon me…with very little to make that judgement upon, except for a few words you chose to oppose quite strongly. Fine.
I made my judgement of you a long time ago, with your writings of issues that matter to me.
I made a judgement based on what you wrote, just as you have with me in the past. I apologize for coming out fighting. I’ve just seen so many people in pain who are close to me lately that I felt I had to respond forcefully. That’s not a judgement of you as a person – just your opinion. I’m sorry if it came across badly.
I appreciate your compliment.
I’m an atheist who dabbles in agnotisim and I find your argument about those who are religious baffling.
Some are religious. Some are not. Some believe in Santa. Some the Easter bunny. Some in L. Ron Hubbard. Whatever. I may totally not understand where they are coming from and they may not understand my beliefs, but that most certainly does not mean we can’t logically compromise or agree to disagree. That’s what respecting others cultures and beliefs is all about. About building bridges with humanity.
If all you have is disdain for the other perspective how are you ever going to open your heart and mind enough to wisdom, experiences and all that we each have to learn from each other?
I have no disdain in my heart for any human being…A bold statement, I know, but almost completely true ( a few republicans lower the standard)
Do I make judgements as to what I consider important…yes.
Do I consider a person’s religious beliefs, when deciding this person is someone I like…No.
Do I hold a personal belief as to organized religious mindsets..Yes. I believe religious culture to be divisive. As a cultural aspect, it is fascinating, and a stripe in the rainbow of a people. As a political issue, or in a politically correct discussion, nothing but divisive.
Well, actually you could get a compromise from a lot of Christians about ideas such as Jesus rising from the dead. There are an awfully lot of Christians I know, including my 89-year-old mom, who would be more than happy to have a conversation about the possibility that it was a metaphor instead of a physical event. The compromise you might reach is their willingness to consider that nobody really knows. Of course, that presupposes that you would be willing to agree to a compromise, too.
The problem is that you’d have a hard time starting that conversation or reaching that compromise if you began it by accusing them of being illogical. But since it would be illogical of you to do such a thing, I’m sure you never would.
The lack of that compromise caused me to lose quite a lot in life. I’m a nontraditional Christian based open-minded acceptor of others’ beliefs. That caused me to be to alienated from the Evangelical church that also dealt the death blow to a marriage. The idea that others might be right too is enough to be considered a denial of the core inerrancy of the Bible.
Glad to hear you have a cool mom.
đŸ˜‰
“nontraditional Christian.”
I know more of those than of any other kind, which would probably amaze people who jump to conclusions about Kansas. It’s those non-traditional ones like you that I see at the war protests and even standing out in front of a church with posters encouraging freedom of choice. Maybe it’s the weather around here. đŸ™‚ It changes all the time and so do we. Those Christians look pretty damned logical to me.
I think the point (that you’re making, too, just by being you) is that even Christians can be individuals, and deserve not to be “lumped.” The non-traditional kind is probably the prevalent kind at blogs like this one, I’d think.
.
By James J. Zogby — The Huffington Post 23-02-2006
During the past week, we witnessed a virtual frenzy with senators, congressmen, and then governors jumping over each other to take the lead in bashing the “Dubai port deal”, the United Arab Emirates or the Bush administration.
It’s all being done, critics say, in the name of national security. In reality, however, what is taking place here is nothing more than crass political posturing and an irresponsible and ill-informed attack on an Arab country that has been a strong ally of the United States.
At its essence, there are three factors that are driving this ruckus: it’s an election year, the public has a continued concern about national security, and there’s an Arab country involved. Elected officials are preying off of the public’s fear by exploiting an Arab “bogeyman”.
The language they’ve used is shameful, irresponsible, and downright false. But in election year politics, it doesn’t matter.
Because it involves an Arab country, members of Congress assume that they won’t be called to account for a falsehood. Smearing all things Arab remains the last acceptable form of ethnic bigotry in America. As a result of this mindset, the UAE, one of America’s closest Mideast allies in the war on terror — a country that has sent troops to fight alongside ours in Afghanistan, complied with all our antiterrorism initiatives, and provides the largest base port for American military ships — is being called a “rogue government”, an “Islamic fascist” state, and “home of terrorists” …
Also published in Jordan Times and Middle East Online.
Very worthwhile are the comments added to this article authored by
James J. Zogby :: Comments @ The Huffington Post
● My Mother: A Lebanese American Woman’s Life
Over How DP World’s Proposed Purchase
of P&O Could Affect U.S. Port Security
(FindLaw) Released February 27 — The undated, unclassified U.S. Coast Guard intelligence assessment on U.S. port security, released by Senator Susan M. Collins (R.-Maine), Chairmain of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The Coast Guard expressed serious concern about the Dubai-based DP World’s (DPW) proposed takeover of security operations for a number of U.S. ports if it buys U.K.-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), the company currently responsible for significant U.S. port security operations.
The Coast Guard assessment concluded that “there are many intelligence gaps, concerning the potential for DPW or P&O assets to support terrorist operations, that precludes an overall threat assessment of the potential DWP and P&O ports merger. The breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities.”
● Exclusive: Dubai Ports World (DPW) Enforces Israel Boycott
Hat tip to OkieByAccident!
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Without having read the Newberry article yet, (I will when I get back home) my first reaction to seeing you put up this diary, Boo, was "Good, he’s taking the high road, rising up over the personalities involved, toward discussion of the issues themselves." I hope that’s the way this discussion evolves.
In addition to objecting to the selling off of America, the poor human rights record of an authoritarian foreign government, and any other reasons one might espouse, I fear the worst in this deal.
I think the bidding was probably rigged, that the ties of bushco are preeminent in the deal, and the necessarily trusted status of the purchaser will be used for nefarious purposes. There is not an ounce of racism in my fears, only fear of the global bushco juggernaut.
As such, I am willing to embrace almost any argument against the port deal.
the bidding was not rigged. There were two major players and the underdog won. But it was a normal bidding process approved by the P&O shareholders and absolutely nothing to do with the Bush Crime Family.
The problem was related to the nature of some of P&O’s assets, to wit, their lucrative contracts to do port management in America, Australia and elsewhere.
The transfer of government contracts requires administrative review. And that had to be approved before the shareholders of the respective corporations could agree on a price for shares in the takeover.
So if any phony baloney went on it was not in the takeover but in greasing the review process.
The main competitor was from Singapore and would have known to grease skids too.
I’m still not totally convinced, though. I mean, really, it does seem very convenient for possible nefarious purposes.
Suppose, (and I am supposing, rampantly đŸ˜‰ ) that one wanted to acquire such access to a given port. Then, one would know that in order to do so, one would have to buy out the company that held those contracts. Given the massive interconnectedness of corporations (I have the link to a site, somewhere in my thousands of bookmarks, that will trace who sits on what corporate boards, and allow one to find degrees of ‘separation’ between Boards of companies: I could do the work to link up the various Corporations involved, but it’s more fun to speculate) it might not be too difficult to start the buyout/merging process of one major corp. of another. To-be-bought-out shareholders only need be placated with a higher share price in order to acquiesce, and cash to sweeten the pot could certainly be found.
Now, I am not one who normally sees conspiracies around every corner, but they keep popping up everywhere these days(i.e. Abramoff,Scooter, etc.) and I believe some of them are true. Whether or not this particular case is one that a sane person would consider, I’m not sure, but it is awful scary.
Anyway, perhaps I should have thought about it a bit more before I threw out a tinfoil/scaremongering post. I’m not usually one who posts quickly and I guess the above is one example of why…. đŸ˜‰
nothing to see here…move along.
check out this article I wrote: link.
Thanks for the link and for the article. It further confirms that I know very little about the whole deal, and that this particular conspiracy theory is even less probable than most.
I’ve considered asking to have my handle changed to “ultracrepidarian” to illuminate my tendencies. đŸ™‚
All in all, though, I would still prefer dada’s Klingon Security Corps.
There are too many oddities that can’t be reconciled. I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy but the DPW has certainly shifted the normal order of things. The way some on the left are attacking anyone who questions the deal is too much like the neocon way of thinking. Something just isn’t right.
yea, I keep smelling a faint whiff of something rotten somewhere, I just don’t know enough to figure out where the smell is coming from. It may just be the general stench in the air these days, but I’m still wondering…………
The issues of real concern are still well below the radar. Maybe it’s that the usual voice of reason is now in attack mode and obscuring the legitimate concerns of normal allies.
For instance, why the special provision to allow DPW to not keep records on American soil and limited access to their records? Is their datamining-security-surveillance wing of the corporation responsible for that decision to protect programs like wiretapping?
Yes. That is the one item that stinks to high heaven, and you have re-identified the source of my initial skepticism for me. I forgot that point, which is what they want us all to do. Such records should be kept at the individual port or at an archive site in the U.S. If records are kept overseas, they unavailable to our normal legal system for subpoena or seizure.
Now why would they want that to be the case?……
making too much sense.
He is right about the scene from the Singh story, and he is right that the UAE emirs are as big a pile of poo as all the other client state piles of poo. Americans can rest safe in their beds knowing that everything these client state despots know about being a pile of poo, they learned from America itself, so there is no need to fear.
What do you think Lou and Jack would have said if the ports were to be run by the Red Chinee?
Societies make choices, and choices have consequences.
US society over the years has made quite a lot of choices, about everything from medical treatment as a commerical product, to maintaining client states, to whether US should have companies capable of running US ports.
The uproar over the ports issue compared to the whispers over a long laundry list of other things, would not be possible without decades of indoctrination of racism, specifically in this case, anti-Arab “sentiment,” such a sweet word for it, too, “sentiment.”
DWP has promised the politicians that no filthy Arab hands will defile Amrika’s precious ports. They are hiring extra rich white men to do that.
.
Comparisons are always flawed, but he makes a nice analysis.
My concern was the freedom to write without being abusive, and yet being banned. Follow strict blog doctrine or be excommunicated? Hmmm.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
What a split between the elite and the rest of us this sentence of Sterling’s shows: “This has noting to do with racism, and everything to do with a conflict between rent and capital.” On the street and in the voting booth, the ports deal has everything to do with racism for a lot of people. And it has everything to do with fear for a lot of other people. And nobody knows nothin’ about a conflict between rent and capital.
understood by a lot of people. Some of us understand it even though we have paid rent with very little capital and the elite understands it because they were born collecting rent to buy the Capital. I think you are right Kansas that for many people it is all about racism and for many all about fear.
I agree but we have to add that a whole damn lotta people are voicing reasonable, legitimate concerns. They aren’t driven by racism or fear but simply using common sense based on everything they’ve been told the past 5 years.
I’m sorry if I was painting in “you racists” light. The Media and Condi and Rummy and Bush and Cheney have Al Qaeda’d the people to death for their own purposes. I think you are completely correct that the average American working 40 hours a week with no access to anything but MSM coverage and no time to search for anything else out there is making a rational decision based on the information they have been given!
ha!…I wasn’t even considering what you might think of me…;)
I’m talking about the 90% or so of C-Span callers and average folk who are questioning the very premise of the deal without consideration of race. Another good detail is that the same phrases that have been used by the fearmongers are now being called ‘over the top’.
Yeah, but it’s weird, because it’s as if there are now two different kinds of common sense. There’s the kind that’s based on a suspicion of anything this administration does, but there’s also another kind that’s based on believing lies this administration has been telling.
So if you have the first kind of common sense, you might suspect the deal because this administration made it. Common sense would tell you they can’t be trusted to do anything for the long or short term good of this or any other country, but only for themselves.
If you have the second kind, you might suspect this deal because it’s with a mideastern country and you have been entrained to be afraid of them. Common sense would tell you they can’t be trusted.
Both kinds of people could claim to be using common sense to reach the same conclusion, but there wouldn’t be anything IN common about that sense.
FWIW.
Right, but let’s take a look at one thing in particular
…but there’s also another kind that’s based on believing lies this administration has been telling.
If you have the second kind, you might suspect this deal because it’s with a mideastern country and you have been entrained to be afraid of them. Common sense would tell you they can’t be trusted.
There’s an inherent common sense that questions the quick reversal of the position and rhetoric we’ve all heard for the past 5 years. It doesn’t apply to me because I didn’t believe it but for those who did, this is cold water in the face.
Good point, and judging from the lastest poll numbers, that water was really cold. To which I can only say, Good, and sock ’em again.
Absolutely. The curtain has been raised.
After the intial shock of selling control to a ME govt controlled co, the next logical outrage is found when they’re told that ALL of the ports have been outsourced. This leads to the realization that the threat is not so great as we’ve been told, evidently, or the facts wouldn’t be what they are. That’s a feeling of being duped, used, gullibalized….Punk’d and that really pisses people off.
Here’s a good example of that double standard with this admin and the ‘terrorthreat’, Israel, Muslims, and common sense about racism, persecution, terror prosecution with the main evidence being a remote association to Hamas….
Having read Newberry’s entire article I found several things disturbing and confirming of my own thoughts.
(1) The issue of racism is just one aspect of the ports deal. The security is a separate issue, but the bigger deal is the bypassing of the rules by this administration and keeping things in the dark as usual.
(2) His comments on blog leadership being lacking is probably the most accurate of the points that he makes. There has been a recurring request among blog readers that the owners step forward as leaders. There has been a similar recurring theme that bloggers just provide the site not the leadership.
(3) I’m not sure that the blogosphere ‘mob’ attitude sank the Alito filibuster…because I think the mob attitude from the neo-conservatives was probably stronger.
(4) Corporate America – well I represent corporate America from a senior management perspective. In my role, and others like me, we have to make hard decisions and operate within our own code of ethics. Ethics that are not taught in business school.
A little perspective
I have worked as a ‘hired gun’ finance officer in multiple corporate actions. These are circumstances when companies were failing and on the verge of bankruptcy. My job was to go in and ‘restructure’ so that the business survived. This meant eliminating the unproductive staff, re-structuring the workload so that it wasn’t oppressive, and reporting the results to those further up in management. There are ethical and humane ways to handle restructuring and ruthless ways.
The bottom line is change had to occur. Change was needed or everyone would lose out…change had to occur or financial ruin would set in.
– – –
Change is not easy but in the case of the blogosphere, or the Democratic party, or religious tolerance, or business…it must occur. The status quo (except for the extremely rich) is destructive to all that are living it currently.
When there are solid, ethical leaders then everyone wins. When there is no leadership the most cutthroat win because they undermine everyone else.
– – –
Stirling Newberry had a lot of solid and profound concepts in his post. He also had way too much in a single diary. He is correct that there is a swarm that occurs on the blogs. What isn’t pointed out is that those that disagree, those that are in the background as organizers, regularly move on. Maybe to smaller locations and local politics. He is correct in that things will change. Now it is up to us to choose how that change occurs and whether we have leaders to guide us ethically.
– – –
Sorry about the detail – I was trying to answer the question based on what was in Stirling’s diary.
I think it’s pretty clear that the initial reaction to the DPW deal was pure racism on the right, and pure pandering to racism by leftist opinion leaders cynically seizing a rare opportunity to hoist Bush by his own petard. Much of what has followed on the left — including the entirely newfound concern for human rights in the UAE — is an attempt to lay a thin veneer of moralism over the ugly cynicism at work.
Frankly, I don’t care what the right thinks. I’m not even sure I’d dignify it by calling it thinking. But seeing the left torn like this is depressing. “Holy shit, we can fuck Bush, but we have to lynch someone to do it.” Perhaps it’s unrealistic to expect much hesitation, but it is disappointing to see so little.
As DuctapeFatwa can attest, I’m not prone to giving much thought to Islamic sensitivities. On the cartoon issue, my thinking ran thus: It was in poor taste, but once the streets filled up with radicals crying for blood, I think it should have been published everywhere. Freedom of speech is sacred, and religion is superstitious horseshit. Courtesy is nice, but it can’t be mandated.
That said, I haven’t seen any substantial argument against the port deal that holds up under close inspection. Security and the vast majority of port labor would remain in US hands. Most of our ports are already managed by foreign companies, including the ones up for the DPW grab. The company that had been running them was UK-based, and the UK as we know has been cheerfully helping out with human rights violations in Iraq far larger and uglier than anything happening in the tinpot emirate of Dubai. And no one conveniently decrying the foreign ownership of US ports seems to be advancing any proposals for nationalizing all of the other ports. They just want to flog the shrinking Bush base with nightmare visions of wild-eyed Ay-rab terrorists packing suitcase nukes into shipping containers full of bamboo papasans for Pier 1.
It’s cynical, it’s ugly, and it will assuredly come back to bite someone in the ass. Most likely not the American left, any more than the annexation of Dixiecrat racism hurt the American right — it will hurt innocent people, both American Muslims and those seething masses of brown people abroad who, further dehumanized in the name of political expediency, will no doubt be further bombed with impunity next time an American president needs a boost in the polls.
I hope I get some credit for figuring that out within a day and not flogging any of that bullshit here. But again, I don’t wanna act like Joe Lieberman and step on the message. So, I’m keeping it quiet.
Nationalize the ports or shut the fuck up.
Well, of course. But then, you generally do a pretty good job of producing temperate responses to events.
thank you. and your analysis is what i was waiting for. I didn’t want to lead anyone in that direction.
I had absolutely no idea that these ports were run by any type of foreign entity. THAT is the part that shocked me, not that the new company is owned by the UAE government. I think the whole notion of having non-US interestes running our ports is absolute crack.
If we can’t even run our own ports, then we have serious, serious problems.
You do get credit for figuring this out, and Kos gets demerits for not figuring it out.
What this flap exposes, and it is something that our favorite blog operators should think about very carefully, is that our so-called “leftist” blogs do not really reflect the left. They are populist, as one might expect when anybody can join in, and demonstrate the very worst of populist “thought.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism
There is a huge disconnect between the blogosphere and real politics–on both the right and the left. Notice how many elected officials participate here? Practically none. Notice what happens when they do? They get blasted. The problem, and the blatant racism expressed in the UAE port issue by bloggers on both the right and the left is a perfect example, is that instead of careful, well-thought-out, reasoned and practical positions and strategies, what we discuss here are knee-jerk reactions to TV news, short-term tactics driven by the everything-Bush-does-is-wrong meme, plus name-calling, conspiracy theorizing, and the demonization of everybody we don’t agree with.
We’ve got exactly the sort of mob going on that burns witches and books, and this mob activity is extremely damaging to the democratic political process as a whole and both organized parties in particular.
In my opinion, ten years from now we will be looking back at these forums and asking ourselves how we could possibly be so dumb as to think that they were helping anything. DailyKos, in particular, because of its huge popularity and the unmoderated populism expressed by most of its front-pagers, is, in my opinion, an unmitigated disaster for the Democratic party.
Exactly. Blogs are too focused on outrage and not focused enough on getting things done.
What we need to realize is that the outrage simply doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. It won’t change anything. No scandal is going to make the American people wake up, realize they’ve been lied to, and magically start electing progressives. Even if we did somehow manage to get a Democratic government in 2006, with the current crop of establishment candidates nothing would change. Nothing at all. Oh, we might get some token investigations, but nothing would come of them. Many of the candidates the party’s pushing agree with Bush. Kerry did. Casey does.
If we want to win, what we need to do is start working from the local on up. Start running for municipal and state office. Start changing our cities and states for the better. Ignore DC. Don’t give votes, time, or money to non-progressive Democrats, because they aren’t going to help, though there’s no harm in helping genuine progressives. Then slowly work our way up and start electing progressives.
But that’s not as “sexy” as subpoena power and doesn’t pull as much money as seats in DC. So it’s of no interest to those addicted to outrage, or those (like kos) that want to become Movers and Shakers.
I’m guessing that pretty well nails it. I also have to wonder why with this flap going on no-ones asking the question about how lax port security is to begin with. That to me seems more the big pink elephant in the room.
A fair number of people have brought it up, both in Congress and in the mainstream media, as well as the blogs. Unfortunately, it’s been drowned out by all of the froth.
Port security, border security, and first responder readiness are all in terrible shape, with no discernable improvement since 9/11. Instead, all we get are semi-random shoe inspections in airports which consisted, the last time I travelled through Newark, of an airport security guard banging the heel of my shoe on the floor and sagely noting, “No bomb there.”
The bizarre thing is that there is popular support for tightened security and plenty of security companies with a history of making contributions to the GOP. You almost have to want a repeat of 9/11 to do things this way… oh wait, never mind.
so hard I had to call my husband at work and order him to bring home beer! My heart is laying on the floor right now because I read on Stirlings blog that emailed certain members of Kos about people within the Senate wanting to join heads with them on the Alito Filibuster and crickets chirped as nobody replied back. FUCKING CRICKETS CHIRPED….THE FUCKING CRICKETS WERE FUCKING CHIRPING?!?! People here worked so hard on that……I can’t fucking believe this. Stirling, don’t read a few other Kos style blogs out there man? Couldn’t ya have emailed Manny, or BostonJoe, or Booman, or Cedwyn, or Tampopo? AHHHHHHHH GOD, everybody was so bummed here and fucking crickets were chirping! I can’t fucking believe it……I still can’t fucking believe it! I think I’m going to have to get drunk tonight over this one! If we would have had a few voices within to work with to build support within the system and outside the system (have this friend who repeats this to me daily) Oh My God what we could have done! See, this is why all these quick swift nuggets of gray matter around here must stop fighting with each other! We show up you guys! We show up to D.C. and we show up to Crawford and we show up to local Democratic gatherings and protests! We are the grassroots that Stirling was trying to email. We are the grassroots that the Senate was attempting to reach and utilize on the net! This is worse than getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick! I feel like my eye got completely poked out! God this sucks! We are more than just blowing our own hot air around here and enjoying the heat of it……but right now I just wanna cry! What a waste and what a rip off and it explains so much to me now!!!
I give you a hug?
((Militarytracy))
If only I could record the voice that I hear in my head whenever I read your comments, woo lawdy.
I had the same reaction…“WTF???!!!…Crickets…Goddamn!“
Peace
Grrrrrrr!
Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.
Or as Yoda would say, “up, never give.”
You know you are fully human when the tension you feel between what should be and what is, is about to rip your head off.
How do we share and authenticate all of our different experiences so that we can protect our heads and our keyboards?
Never give up.
It is, however, perfectly okay to drink several beers (or suitable equivalent) either before or after introducing said head to said keyboard. For me, it would be before.
But don’t drink so many beers that you forget…….
Never Give Up.
Back when I was on DKOS, I was alternatively fascinated and repulsed by Stirling Newberry’s schtick. Then, late one night, he posted an incredibly toxic, foam at the mouth, probably drunk, diatribe against his cousin Jim Newberry, who was running for Congress. I criticized him, and had quite the mutual flame-war going for awhile. I think he’s an unstable flake. I don’t care what he thinks.
Because we disagree with people who look different than we do, who believe different things, or who do things we don’t agree with doesn’t make us racist.
Race is a European invention from the late 1400’s used to create first Indians and then Negroes so that they could kill them and enslave them with a good conscience. The whole way of thinking in the Western world which makes race a determinant of what we think, say or do is itself racist; that was the whole original point to the creation of the idea of race. When we now give up the ability or even the intellectually honest necessity of making judgements about actions and words because we think it will be racist, we’re still in the shitty world view created by 15th century Europe.
Having criteria with which to judge decisions and actions is fundamental: how we arrive at those criteria is at the heart of our humanity.