A few days ago I flipped out a bit when someone wrote:
Is there a human heart beating in there, or just a Jewish heart?
And
I called that person, who is actually a good poster here, anti-Semitic. In defense of another Kossack whom I did not agree with. I was triangulating, I suppose, although also speaking my mind. But with intolerance of my own perhaps...
And last night someone said of me:
you just think that if your little brain can pin someone as dirty, poor, and generally not all that civilized as per Western values... that if that person wants to defend their way of life, then that makes them a terrorist.
your new direction is 100% backwards. and your little racist mind obviously makes people sick.
Wow, 100%! And I'm having an impact. Heck, I'll make lemonade....
I've chosen not to engage in gratuitous retaliatory slurs against the poster, since I happen to believe we need new people here. But it is notable that the poster has only posted for maybe 48 hours and is among the last hundred or so people to join. But hey: I had to hear it from somebody. I am a small-minded racist, and moreover am going to be forced to eat an Atlanta Braves hat should I ever run into this person. And heck, why not? Why not me? I live in Queens, New York, in a row house: Why not become Archie Bunker? I'll get straight to work on that.
...
I spawned this all with a comment that is not sterling PC. Are you sick yet? The very thought! Brrr.
I wrote it in response to insistence "terrorists will always exist" and that the "u.s. and israel give up A LOT," "substantial rational concessions," because "that is the only way to believe that israel will be relatively safe, in a land surrounded by individuals that hate them." And even then, "israel will never be safe from individual terrorists, just like the u.s. won't." To this, I wrote:
Actually
Not to nitpick, but...
terrorists will always exist
I bet many decades ago, there were people saying that scalp hunting braves would always exist. That Vikings would always exist.
There can be real peace.
So the truth is out. As I was informed there, the white settlers were the terrorists and everything the native americans did was justified. Interestingly, I don't think any of the defenders of scalp-taking have mailed their own to the grave of Geronimo with apologies, but that's beside the point. So far as I know Geronimo took no interest in scalps and my supposition that he might appreciate it, is no doubt lost on those who defend violence where they choose to romanticize it. The point I was making in referring to Vikings and Native Americans Who Sometimes
Took Scalps is that conflicts do end. Terrorism is no more a symptom of sharing the world with Arabs than
blood-eagles are a symptom of sharing the world with Scandinavians, or scalping (or general soldier-on-civilian atrocities that act was intended to stand for). Examples like these seen through the soft filter of antiquity and even personal affinity, are useful I think, in removing the starkly lop-sided judgments of conflicts.
So, consider me a small-minded racist. Heck, I think I like small-minded racists better than large-minded liberal political correctors, who counsel conceding to terror and accepting that terror will nevertheless last forever.
But as long as I'm being a small-minded racist, I want to talk about something specific this poster mentioned:
trail of tears is a shitty ancestry
Now this was sort of randomly tossed in there under the promise to relax "when i make you eat an atlanta braves hat." But it did get me thinking.
As you know, the Trail of Tears was what Andrew Jackson (whom Howard Dean called the Father of the Democratic Party) did to the Cherokee people over the objections of the Supreme Court, whom he proved powerless to enforce their law. The Cherokee were favored for quite some time prior. They were supposedly held by many founding fathers to possibly be the Lost Tribes of Israel.
There is an interesting little parable in that. I don't know my Cherokee history all that well... But I do wonder how they reacted to what was happening to other, less favored Native tribes while they were being Christianized, taught English, and lauded by some as the lost scions of Israel. Were they speaking on the behalf of all their kind or did they think themselves sufficiently separate, in the manner of Pastor Niemöller?
Long story short? If, in yet another small-mindedly racist analogy...
"Semitic" were to equal Native American...
Cherokees were equal to modern Israel...
And all other Semites (Arabs are Semites) were the other tribes without favor...
Then, the moral of the story would be: Don't trust people who screw other people while liking you for reasons that are not your own. Don't imagine that just because you see yourself as truly distinct from your neighbors that your powerful ally will too, ultimately.
Now all that said, I don't believe Anti-Semitism (against Jews as opposed to against Arabs and other Muslims) will ever make a real comeback, let alone take unprecedented strides, in the U.S. For the sake of the Jewish and Jewish-descended members of my family I certainly hope not, and would fight to prevent that.
But modern Israel might be in for some sort of Trail of Tears if support from the U.S. dried up. Moreover, the status quo needs to be recognized as a Trail of Tears for Israel. A journey through a wilderness of violence coming and going. As scary as the thought of a withdrawal of U.S. support may be (despite a denial on that score here that I've yet to read through), I don't see why the status quo should be attractive. But compared to a withdrawal of support, it seems it is...
I think that U.S. exhaustion in the region makes a partial extrication somewhat more likely, although still improbable. But more important than military exhaustion is ideological exhaustion. A sense of sameness between the sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which I happen to think is absurd, is nevertheless palpably mounting. But that sense of equivalence while hugely forced, could serve...
My oversimplifying analogy points to the idea that Israel ought to take a greater interest in the fate of the other "tribes" in the region. You can tell your friends by who stands up for you. You can make friends by standing up for people when they never expected you to.
What if Israel saw the sovereignty, security, and prosperity of all the people in the region as tied to her own fate? What if the truly long view were taken of hundreds of years to come. What if Israel wanted to expand her settled territory? Wouldn't being an accepted member of the region and tight alliance, or indeed some sort of governmental uniformity with Palestine be good for that understandable aim?
I invite anyone who might contribute to the Israeli outlook, to consider this anew. I don't presume it is a new supposition. It's likelier the mainline moderate Israeli perspective. But it's also probably an idea that is floundering out of the water at the moment. Consider, if you will, the effect that playing "Good Cop" in the region might have? What if Israel were seen not as siccing the U.S. on other nations in the region, but rather holding the U.S. at bay in the interest of peace and brotherhood?
The Bush Administration, bless their souls, is already doing their part. A backroom discussion could even make Israel triangulating off of extreme U.S. threats, civil and controllable, between the two allies.
That's all I have to add on that score, but what do you expect from Archie Bunker? On other matters, maybe we should all realize that the definition of "Not Racist" in this society is as much "Kossack" as it is anything. And also... Let's not seize on perceived racism right now in these discussion. Moratorium on political correctness. We need to, as Armando once said, talk more about race.
You can't talk about something if you are following an elaborate protocol that seems for all the world to exist to prevent people from talking about controversial things. The goal of political correctness is laudable but in reality it supplants matters of form for actual concerns. Slights of language are conflated with real slights, and so spastically and viciously that conversation dies. When the conversation dies so does the progress.