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Comments

  • #92
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Glenn Greenwald seems a little obsessed. As the saying goes never let an opportunity go to waste, especially if you can shoe horn your own pet issue in there as well for maximum publicity.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/09/glenn-greenwald-pro-israel-sentiment-in-the-u-s-is-at-least-as-bad-for-freedom-of-speech-as-islamist-terrorists-murdering-cartoonists/
    That [criticizing Israel] is a real taboo – a repressed idea – as powerful and absolute as any in the United States, so much so that Brooks won’t even acknowledge its existence. It’s certainly more of a taboo in the U.S. than criticizing Muslims and Islams, which is in mainstream circlesincluding the U.S. Congress – that one barely notices it any more. This underscores the key point: there are all sorts of ways ideas and viewpoints are suppressed in the west. When those demanding publication of these anti-Islam cartoons start demanding the affirmative publication ofthose ideas as well, I’ll believe the sincerity of their very selective application of free speech principles. One can defend free speech without having to publish, let alone embrace, the offensive ideas being targeted. But if that’s not the case, let’s have equal application of this new principle.


  • #93
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    jank wrote: »
    As the saying goes never let an opportunity go to waste, especially if you can shoe horn your own pet issue in there as well for maximum publicity.
    :rolleyes:


  • #94
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    robindch wrote: »
    :rolleyes:

    Great contribution.


  • #95
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    jank wrote: »
    Great contribution.
    Just trying to keep the thread standard where it is :)


  • #96
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    robindch wrote: »
    Just trying to keep the thread forum standard where it is :)

    FYP ;)


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  • #97
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    jank wrote: »
    Then on Charlie Hedbo, well they published hateful racist material (was it hateful and racsit only when they mocked Islam, or was mocking Catholics and Jews was OK?).

    Actually that's something that I've wondered about for a while. What is it with the lefts obsession about Islam? Especially when some of the primary tenets of Islam and how it is practiced in large parts of the world directly contradicts other core things that the left says it stands for.


  • #98
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    BlaasForRafa wrote: »
    Actually that's something that I've wondered about for a while. What is it with the lefts obsession about Islam? Especially when some of the primary tenets of Islam and how it is practiced in large parts of the world directly contradicts other core things that the left says it stands for.

    First of all it is not an obsession of the left, it is an obsession of some people on the left, just like the obsession with funding Al-Qaeda and other such groups which ended on Sept. 11 2001 was not an obsession with the right as a whole but with those on the right who thought that giving money and guns to mad mullahs to defeat the USSR was a good idea (you can see how not an obsession of the right that was in Syria when politicians on all sides decided it was a good idea to flood the country with weapons after the Arab Spring, not caring who got them).

    Secondly, the left as a movement is very much anti inequality and the subjugation of women in the islamic world. Just because the left as a movement is in favour of allowing islam to do its on thing, provided that its own thing isn't harmful to others, doesn't mean it is for the evils of islam. Most of the "left being soft on the eevul muslims" is generated by the likes of Fox News and Der Sturmer's intellectual heir the Daily Mail (still hasn't repudiated its support for Nazism) whose only relation to news is that they blacken the meaning of that word by trying to associate their vile lying propoganda with it.

    And, finally, not too long ago (and even now, it is right-wing regimes in the west who prop up the likes of Saudi-Arabia or the UAE which are the worst anti-human rights regimes in the muslim world) the same accusation could have been thrown at the right, and probably with more justification, because the values of islam are the same as those within many branches of the right.

    But, in general, I have to ask what is the point of this thread? At least with the right-winger bashing thread there are substantial and scary issues being brought up. This thread seems to have been created simply because jank was pussing over the exposure his beloved beliefs were getting in that one. It would be nice to discuss the real and substantive issues the modern left has (for example how it is slavishly following the right into neo-fasicsm) but this thread is too infantile for serious debate.


  • #99
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    But, in general, I have to ask what is the point of this thread?
    The thread was opened by jank to balance what he/she perceives as a left-wing bias here in A+A by posting news about self-described left-wingers behaving as incoherently as the clowns in the fools' parade that is the right wing fruitcake thread. The dearth of any substantial developments in this area in the last six weeks, even from jank himself/herself beyond ranty opinion pieces in right-wing publications, does suggest, in the most public possible fashion, that this alleged "bias" is basically an illusion.

    Which is not to suggest that people who self-describe as "left-wing" or "liberal" can't be guilty of hypocrisy, as they most certainly can - to take one controversial example, consider the (small number of) self-described liberals or left-wingers who campaign for, or support, abortion but against prostitution, somewhat at variance with the general "liberal" belief that people should "control their own bodies". Same with the (again, small number of) left-wingers who support Putin and detest the USA, despite the reality of both countries. I think there's an interesting discussion right there on those two topics and this thread would be the place to have it.


  • #100
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    ...
    It would be nice to discuss the real and substantive issues the modern left has (for example how it is slavishly following the right into neo-fasicsm)...
    Ya that's actually a good example of where 'the left' have fallen - by and large, the dominant portion of the left in most countries, has adapted the neoclassical synthesis view of economics shared by 'the right', which is mainly just a bastardization of Keyne's views, mixed with obsolete classical microeconomics.

    The classical-economics-leftovers in this synthesis, create a lot of flaws in this economic framework (which most modern dominant economic schools branch out of), which shift all of economic thinking based upon it, to the right.


    'The left' has largely been co-opted by these economic views, and these views seem to have become a central prerequisite for gaining any kind of serious political power - such that if you don't follow these views, if you deviate from them, you are 'unserious' and are unlikely to gain much political power.

    So, that also leads to the impression that 'the left' have become corrupted by power over the years, and are actively a part in trying to bolster these economic views, no matter how damaging they turn out to be - it's simply a requirement for having any kind of political power, and it's extremely effective at bolstering against any challenge to that set of political/economic views.

    This is partly why all political parties, everywhere, seem pretty much the same: They almost all base their economic views upon the same framework.
    This is also why 'There Is No Alternative' is a popular economic view in response to the crisis (despite ample alternatives being available), and why 'the left' appear to have failed to come up with any alternative: They haven't lost any power - much of the left, everywhere, are still in power - and they don't care, now it's a bi-partisan (left and right) effort towards protecting power and gaining more power, using economic policy as a weapon (otherwise, you'd see 'the left' taking a serious look at the available alternatives - this does not happen).


    There's a big difference between the principles people consider as 'left wing', and the actions of the parties that people consider left-wing; the parties in general, when it comes to economics, aren't really left-wing at all.


  • #101
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    BlaasForRafa wrote: »
    Actually that's something that I've wondered about for a while. What is it with the lefts obsession about Islam? Especially when some of the primary tenets of Islam and how it is practiced in large parts of the world directly contradicts other core things that the left says it stands for.

    Muslims are seen in the West as a minority so the left deem that they should be protected at all costs, even when a minority of Muslims seek to harm western liberal principles that were hard won. Muslims are generally non-white and most of them stem from countries that are seen as traditional enemies of Israel and the United States, therefore we get the knee Jerk reaction like the SWP above and other leftist groups. Muslims are always seen as victims while the west are bullies. There is huge retrospective analysis and commentraty on how the west treats Muslims and so on, yet very little analsyis on what life is like in places like Iran where over 3,000 have been put to death for the crime of being gay. Didn't the president of Iran say that there are no gay people in Iran?

    The NYT and the Guardian are classic proponents of this hypocracsy. Case in point...

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/01/dean-baquet-addresses-nyts-republication-of-antisemitic-200788.html
    http://www.tpnn.com/2015/01/15/new-york-times-editor-depicting-muhammad-is-more-offensive-than-anti-semitic-or-anti-christian-cartoons/

    A clear double standard. Can't offend Muslims with a cartoon, but anti-Semitic images by a Holocaust denier is 'art'...
    Once the door is opened with images that offended the religious, you cannot then chose which groups you can and cannot offend.
    In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, both America’s paper of record (The New York Times) and its network of record (CNN) have declined to show Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad on the grounds that they might offend Muslims. The decision to forgo publication of these highly relevant news images has sparked a robust debate about free speech, religion and media ethics. One question that seems to have been glossed over is whether or not the media have any obligations to the preferences of a religious group, or any group of people, in the first place.

    As previously noted, the Times has a history of publishing artwork and cartoons that have offended both Jews and Christians. See its coverage of Chris Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” in 1999, which very much offended the Catholic League; an Iranian exhibition of “anti-Jewish art” in 2006; and an Iranian cartoonist’s “anti-Jewish caricatures” in 2010. So, at least up until Dean Baquet’s tenure as executive editor, which began last year, the Times’ policy against “gratuitous insult” did not preclude offensive religious images.

    Then of course we have had cases of crazy political correctness which has basically shut down almost all critical analysis of Muslim integration in the west, especially in Europe and the UK. It seemed that the fear of offending or being outed as a racist is punishment enough for most people to shut up and let wrong doings go unpunished, e.g. Rotherham


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  • #102
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    because the values of islam are the same as those within many branches of the right.

    Which values would this be? If the right as you say 'rules the west' then how come minorities, women and gays are much freer here than in countries with Sharia law?

    Also, are you ever going to answer my question I put to you a few months ago where you claimed that Hitler was a practicing Catholic up until he died and that Stalin on his death bed renounced Atheism and turned religious....


  • #103
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    robindch wrote: »
    The thread was opened by jank ....

    It was opened with the blessing of the mods.


  • #104
    Turtwig
    Registered Users Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    jank wrote:
    even when a minority of Muslims seek to harm western liberal principles that were hard won

    That's the most app summation ever: a minority. So, we should defend and accommodate the majority. Nothing hypocritical about that.
    Muslims are always seen as victims while the west are bullies.
    Which is sometimes true. And sometimes the reverse is true. The world isn't black and white.


  • #105
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Turtwig wrote: »
    That's the most app summation ever: a minority. So, we should defend and accommodate the majority. Nothing hypocritical about that.

    The Majority are happy to live side by side and embrace western liberal principles and the opportunity that arise from this. The majority are already accommodated and we should defend people who are religious but are happy to embrace Hellenic principles.
    Turtwig wrote: »
    Which is sometimes true. And sometimes the reverse is true. The world isn't black and white.

    Totally agree but try telling that to the Socialist Workers Party who blames the Western ruling class for the Charlie Hedbo murders. Muslims are always victims in their eyes. You proved my and their point.


  • #106
    Brian?
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 20,748 Mod ✭✭✭✭Brian?


    jank wrote: »
    It seems that young university types who would think themselves as liberal are actually quite conservative. Banning the Sun newspaper, pop songs and books that does not fit their moral compass or outlook. It sounds like the 1950's only with extra bandwidth.

    I would certainly be against mandatory sensitivity training brain washing as portrayed here.

    So you describe them as "left wing" and then quite quickly point out they're conservative in their work view? Just so you can take a cheap shot at "liberals/lefties", I assume.

    Anyone who believes as they do is not left wing, which you already know, so why not simply criticise them for their actions instead of tagging on a broad criticism of the left.

    FWIW, I agree with the training, if it saves one person from being rapped it's worked. Banning songs I don't agree with, unless it's One Direction.

    they/them/theirs


    And so on, and so on …. - Slavoj Žižek




  • #107
    BuilderPlumber
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,378 ✭✭✭BuilderPlumber


    It always amazes me how the left and right extremists often support each other. For example, many leftwingers support rightwing fascist 'Islamic' fundamentalists who are actually neo-Nazis hiding behind warped versions of 'Islam'. Alois Brunner, an ex Nazi, went to Syria after WW2 and he is probably at least partly responsible for Islamic fascism.

    The same with the rightwingers. They publically hate Muslims in their own countries like France and the UK. Yet, extremists like Nick Griffin (an Irishman in charge of a British nationalist party) had cosy relations with 'Islamic' fascist regimes in the 1980s.

    All politicians are slimy jellyfish with no principles anyway. Extremists are worse and their only goal really is the path to absolute power and the way to get there does not matter.


  • #108
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users Posts: 16,109 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    BuilderPlumber wrote: »
    All politicians are slimy jellyfish with no principles anyway.

    You've met them all? Colour me impressed!


  • #109
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    BuilderPlumber wrote: »
    It always amazes me how the left and right extremists often support each other.
    By the time that people have moved as far left or right as they can, they've frequently met their opponents coming in the other direction.

    That's one of the reasons why I dislike the facile terms "left" and "right" - they describe very poorly the basic functioning of people's political tendencies, despite the peculiar belief amongst some people that they do it amazingly well.


  • #110
    BuilderPlumber
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,378 ✭✭✭BuilderPlumber


    robindch wrote: »
    By the time that people have moved as far left or right as they can, they've frequently met their opponents coming in the other direction.

    That's one of the reasons why I dislike the facile terms "left" and "right" - they describe very poorly the basic functioning of people's political tendencies, despite the peculiar belief amongst some people that they do it amazingly well.

    Very true. The proof is a look at Pol Pot's Cambodia v Taliban Afghanistan. One an officially leftwing regime, the other a very rightwing one but BOTH were essentially the same. North Korea and Ceaucescu's Romania acted like royalty and were kingdoms in all but name. Stalin v Hitler is another example.

    I prefer to categorise politicians as moderate v extremist/radical. The most dangerous individuals are those who have a dream (no matter how well intentioned or not) who will stop at nothing to achieve it (inclusive of killing people). Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, the Taliban, ISIS, al Qaeda, the Kim regime, Enver Hoxha, Mao, GW Bush, etc. are all examples of this type of person/regime. Ideology driven more than pragmatic.


  • #111
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Brian? wrote: »
    So you describe them as "left wing" and then quite quickly point out they're conservative in their work view? Just so you can take a cheap shot at "liberals/lefties", I assume.

    Anyone who believes as they do is not left wing, which you already know, so why not simply criticise them for their actions instead of tagging on a broad criticism of the left.

    FWIW, I agree with the training, if it saves one person from being rapped it's worked. Banning songs I don't agree with, unless it's One Direction.

    Blast from the past...

    You miss the point, they identify themselves and see themselves as left wing. One can be left wing and also conservative which this demonstrates.

    One just has to look at the groups behind banning newspapers, pop songs and books. Banning things and censorship is normally seen as authoritarian which has usually been an attribute of the right but alas, the left now a days are going full circle so to speak. As I mentioned in my post when George Carlin and Chris Rock mentioned that they noticed this doing gigs a number of years ago. Causing offense carries the same social taboo as committing an actual crime in a lot of circles and this is an extension on this.

    Regarding the mandatory 'training' and courses you have no problem with ( I wonder if you would be so keen if this was religious 'training' of old ;)), where 'a lot of men' are described as 'pre-rapists', the line, 'well if it saves one person its worth it' is a cop out as it gives no credence or leverage to the holistic nature of this type of re-education, the damage to critical thinking and to men's self esteem over the longer term, especially where men are seen as criminals that have to be cured, cleansed and molded into some sort of acceptable version of themselves according to left wing University bureaucrat.

    Would you agree therefore that we should specifically re-educate Muslim men who enter the UK in the same fashion in an effort to prevent another Rotherham incident? If it saves on rape eh ? ;)


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  • #112
    MrPudding
    Registered Users Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    robindch wrote: »
    By the time that people have moved as far left or right as they can, they've frequently met their opponents coming in the other direction.

    That's one of the reasons why I dislike the facile terms "left" and "right" - they describe very poorly the basic functioning of people's political tendencies, despite the peculiar belief amongst some people that they do it amazingly well.
    One of my favourite phrases, 'go far enough to the left and you will meet someone coming round from the right.'

    MrP


  • #113
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #114
    jank
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Calling someone Mr. and Ms. is banned at New York University.

    http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/21034/
    City University of New York’s Graduate Center tells faculty to ‘eliminate use of gendered salutations and references’

    Professors and other employees at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center have been forbidden from addressing students and prospective students with the title “Mr.” and “Ms.” because, campus leaders say, the terms may be offensive.

    “Effective Spring 2015, the (graduate center’s) policy is to eliminate the use of gendered salutations and references in correspondence to students, prospective students, and third parties,” Louise Lennihan, interim provost, states to employees in a recent memo. “Accordingly, Mr. and Ms. should be omitted from salutations.”

    Lennihan instructs staffers to interpret the new policy “as broadly as possible,” that it applies to “all types of correspondence, such as: all parts of any letter including address and salutation, mailing labels, bills or invoices, and any other forms or reports,” states the memo, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix by school spokeswoman Tanya Domi.

    Rather than using “Mr.” or “Ms.,” staff are instructed to refer to students by his or her full name. The policy will “ensure a respectful, welcoming, and gender-inclusive learning environment … [and] accommodate properly the diverse population of current and prospective students,” Lennihan states in the memo.

    Sure why not go the whole hog and address people by a number, nobody can be offended by that I presume. Anthem, here we come!


  • #115
    swampgas
    Registered Users Posts: 3,535 ✭✭✭swampgas


    jank wrote: »
    Calling someone Mr. and Ms. is banned at New York University.

    http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/21034/


    Sure why not go the whole hog and address people by a number, nobody can be offended by that I presume. Anthem, here we come!

    Sure, 10178, why not?

    best wishes // 151701


  • #116
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    jank wrote: »
    Anthem, here we come!
    It's been discussed elsewhere, even on this forum, but Anthem is a serious contender for the lamest piece of writing ever produced in the English language.


  • #117
    Bristolscale7
    Registered Users Posts: 541 ✭✭✭Bristolscale7


    Slight correction, that's not NYU it's CUNY http://www.cuny.edu/index.html


  • #118
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users Posts: 11,841 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    Bristolscale7 wrote: »
    Slight correction, that's not NYU it's CUNY http://www.cuny.edu/index.html

    Don't let that get in the way of a rant.


  • #119
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #120
    Turtwig
    Registered Users Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Done.

    Who else should we ban today?


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  • #121
    MrPudding
    Registered Users Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Turtwig wrote: »
    Done.

    Who else should we ban today?
    I would like to request that Permabear gets banned. If you spell his name backward, and then split it up it become clear his name is actually 'raeba Mr eP' and that makes me feel bad. I feel his ban should be longer, as his case is aggravated by the fact he tried to conceal it.

    MrP


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