Slipping in the polls ahead of France's presidential vote on Sunday, Socialist Segolene Royal launched a last-minute broadside against right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, warning his election would unleash violence across the country. In her most outspoken attack yet on Sarkozy's "dangerous candidacy", Royal said she had a "responsibility to issue an alert over the risks ... regarding the violence and brutalities that will be triggered across the country. Everyone knows it but no-one says it. It is a kind of taboo." Her comments Friday on RTL radio were taken as a direct warning to voters that a Sarkozy victory on Sunday could set off riots in the high-immigration suburbs similar to ones in November 2005.you mean the great car-be-que that, umm, never stopped? hundred cars a night baby. every night.
Speaking in the city of Lorient, she launched another personal attack on Sarkozy, saying "there is something indecent in this campaign." Sarkozy "is a candidate who has never stopped paying court to all that is dark in human nature, who has never stopped whetting every kind of fear and vengeance." Instead the French should "turn towards the light. Reject the spirit of vengeance, refuse the lies and the hate," she said.way to call out the politics of fear.
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22% Believe Bush Knew About 9/11 Attacks in Advance
Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure. Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.this of course begs the question: how many of those polled are truthers?
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Christian-Muslim wounds still "very deep": Khatami
Former Iranian president met Pope Benedict on Friday and said the wounds between Christians and Muslims were still "very deep," including those caused by a controversial papal speech last September.definitely deeper than the wounds inflicted on christians that were killed in the ensuing riots. yep, no doubt.
almost as deep as the wounds against jews that khatami has decried so strongly. oh wait, I got mixed up. the jews are supposed to be nuked, that's right. or was that just nuance?
At Friday morning's conference, Khatami, speaking through a translator, said that Christianity and Islam needed to rediscover their common roots as monotheistic religions in order to improve relations. "If Christian and Islamic societies could only rely on love and justice and get back to these founding principles and if together we fought against violence and extremism ... then we can lay the foundations to heal any wound," he said.
against violence and extremism, eh? right up there with palestinian demonstrations against violence.
unless it's violence against americans or jews.
it's worth noting that the man in the picture above is another iranian advocate against violence. minus certain incidents involving embassies in, say, 1979, and mild threats of 'wiping' some random meaningless nation 'off the map.'
but again, smart people will tell you that such foolishness is just media manipulated rhetoric and that the man is actually quite kind. in fact, he never said that israel should be annihilated. that's why he defended those media manipulated comments you see.
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Syrians bolstered by 'good American' Pelosi
Many Damascus residents say her private visit with Mr. Assad and senior ministers shattered Washington's attempt to isolate the regime. "She was enormously popular here, a hero," said one such resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This is the best thing that has happened here, if it proves [Mr. Assad] was right not to give concessions." Along with recent visits by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and officials from the European Union, the resident added, Mrs. Pelosi's trip "bolsters the regime with the Syrian people, and it shows that isolating Syria won't work."oh goody. what's next, a card of congradulations for offing hariri?
maybe she should take kim jong il out for coffee. I'm sure we can exhume hitler and prop up his body at the table for precedent. after all, dialogue is the key to conflict resolution.
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in contrast:
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.”
"I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy."
"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast."
- William Tecumseh Sherman
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and this is much of the modern west: sufficiently diseased and perverse that we eagerly seek our own self-destruction. well, to be fair, not *our own* self-destruction, just that of all the whores who don't feel super-duper-guilty for the west's culturally imperialistic past, because they deserve it.
reductionist fools that know too much information but long ago took leave of their capacity to think. but then again, a priori reasoning makes understanding the world very easy. you get to voice sophisticated arguments that ultimately are dressed-up statements of the initial presumption; arguments maintained by those too self-absorbed to realize that they've done nothing more than state their preference.
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'for it is written,
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,1 corinthians 1:19
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."'
'and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper..'
- romans 1:28
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diseased thinking is a demonstration of God's wrath.
1 comment:
Wow, that’s a lot of vitriolic there. I’m not clear, however, just what it is that you are proposing as the “correct” action of the West. An all-out war between the Christian and Muslim worlds? To pursue such a plan is wholly impractical and would certainly lead to the self-destruction you fear, and moreover is fundamentally immoral and un-Christian.
Or are you saying that we should isolate ourselves entirely from that world? This also is a disastrous notion. This would do nothing to reduce the horrible threat that the current Iranian regime poses, but would only increase it by eliminating opportunity for cooperation.
You say sarcastically that “dialogue is the key to conflict resolution.” Indeed, it is! I’m sure that you would agree that every obligation, both morally and rationally, to seek diplomatic resolutions to avoid a situation that will result in more death and destruction. A diplomatic negotiation does not necessarily mean you are ignoring the wrongs of your interlocutor or legitimizing oppressive regimes, simply that you are seeking the best outcome for all people. As your quote of Sherman alludes, war is a very bad thing. I’m not suggesting that our leaders necessarily have or will do this well, but you seem to reject the notion of negotiation a priori on the idea that it amounts to “appeasement.”
“Maybe she should take Kim Jong Il out for coffee.” Absolutely! Here is a perfect example. Has isolating the North Korean regime maybe anyone safer? No. Has it improved the lives of the North Korean people one bit? No. It has only strengthened Kim’s power in his own country, making life harsher for the people and increasing the threat to the whole region. It doesn’t mean that having talks will magically solve everything, but clearly what they are doing now isn’t solving the problem.
In fact, it is the continued polemicizing the West vs. East that is the path of self-destruction. There is no future in an us vs. them world. It is easy to imagine that our enemy’s hatred of us is irrational, while our hatred of them is rational. Both sides in any conflict believe this. In fact, it is all irrational. The only hope for either side is mutual cooperation. Hatred breeds hatred, violence breeds violence. We are interconnected and there is no defeating of “them” that will make “us” secure. There is no us vs. them, only us vs. us. Good and evil runs through all people. We are all made in the image of God, and we are all fallen and depraved in our nature.
Your quote from Romans illustrates this point well. Paul in Romans 1 is not merely condemning the pagans for their sinfulness, but when you read on to chapter two you see that he is using this as a hook to show his Jewish readers their hypocrisy for thinking themselves more righteous. His goes on to say that “no one is righteous, not even one; there is no one with understanding” [3:10-11] and that “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known” [3:15-17]. He concludes that all our under the same God [3:29]. We cannot pretend to be more righteous than others. We are all in the same boat, and we need to stop shooting holes in it.
I’m not sure why you included why you included Sherman’s crack about murdering reporters. Surely you don’t actually support this course of action, but as a joke it is hateful and not funny.
As to the Sherman’s main point, that the hellaciousness of war removes any need for morality or justice in the pursuit thereof, is simply a justification for atrocity. The fact that things are bad doesn’t mean we can’t make them more or less bad, so morality and justice be damned! This is classic moral relativism.
I do not know why you resort to the sexist title of your post. I know you are better than that.
--NJL
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