Random Thoughts, Anniversary Edition (c)

by **Houshphandzadeh** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:29:58

Why would they attack South Africa?

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:30:47

jerseyhoya wrote:
mozartpc27 wrote:No surprise, then, that radical groups that form within them turn their ire not toward their domestic governments - ire that could get those who participate in radical politics quickly and painfully tortured and executed - but rather to the United States, who, rightly or wrongly, is all too often perceived by the disenfranchised in these countries as the puppet master which, in a de facto way, underwrites the conditions of their economic oppression, and is thus responsible.

This "sentence" contains 8 commas and a clause that you set off with hyphens

This is why I hate hippie liberals. Also the content.

Also, you picked a curious sentence to criticize, as all I am asserting is that the people who committed 9/11 BELIEVED - and I qualified that with "rightly or wrongly" - that the United States was a de facto underwriter of the economic conditions in their country. I doubt if we could dig them up and ask them if they would deny this.

by **SK790** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:31:11

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Why would they attack South Africa?

vuvuzelas

I'm with you moz. But then again, I'm a "hippie liberal". I think it's pretty ironic how the people who claim they want to protect freedoms were the same ones behind the Patriot act, which reduced freedoms.

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:35:08

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Why would they attack South Africa?

jerseyhoya wrote:They don't attack South Africa cause South Africa ain't ballin like we are

That's kind of my point. The reason they would attack America, and not South Africa, or Germany, or Brazil, is NOT because our people enjoy more freedoms than they think are prudent, or are women are allowed to show their faces in public, etc. Because this is equally true in those countries. Yet this is the narrative we are constantly being given: we have to get those A-Rab towelheads, and we have to keep fighting them, because they HATE OUR FREEDOMS AND OUR WAY OF LIFE!

Indeed, they probably do - but the hatred for our way of life follows the hatred for our PRESENCE in their countries, in their space, and not the other way around. The religious rhetoric is used to get people fired up emotionally. It's what the leaders of the Al Qaeda movement use to rally up the teenager troops they recruit who have no idea about geopolitical realities. But the reason the United States was TARGETED in the first place - instead of any one of many other liberal democracies - is because of our economic and political involvement, and thus visibility, in the Middle East region. Indeed, I would expect the same people who respond to the "they hate our freedoms" line so enthusiastically would also be equally hateful toward another government's, that is to say, a foreign goverment's, pervasive presence and influence in the affairs of the United States. Hatred and suspiscion of the outsider is as old and as reliable a human reaction to the world as there is.

So when politicians here start with the "THEY HATE US AND OUR FREEDOMS" crap, they are engaing in the EXACT SAME TACTIC as Al Qaeda leaders who scream at their recruits that all our women are whores and all our men are infidels. They are using rhetoric based in emotional belief systems to mask the underlying realities.

That is what I have a big problem with.

by **PrattRules** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:36:32

I'm looking forward to September 12th.

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:37:10

jerseyhoya wrote:It's just googoo drivel, like the majority of your post

I think you are going to hate grad school, but that's alright, because I htink the majority of your profs won't be too fond of you either.

by **CalvinBall** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:40:30

Didnt bin laden say he attacked us bc oh how we support Israel and how he saw those towers in lebanon fall or whatever. i dont think it has anything to do with freedoms or some non tangible bs.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:43:14

I don't think it really has anything to do with why bin Laden attacked us either.

by **jeff2sf** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:44:15

I got the impression that Rutgers would be less liberal than some of the places Jerz could have pursued his studies. If not though, I'm sure this is something Jerseyhoya may have considered at some point during the whole process.

Further, it was a fair bit of drivel from you, moz. You know when this speech would be better? Any day BUT september 11th.

And the other reason you were criticized is for that weak sentence was the rightly or wrongly. OBVIOUSLY they believed it, but the whole "rightly or wrongly". I mean really.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:45:35

I'm pretty sure I know more about the poli sci program at Rutgers than Moz, and jh will be fine there.

by **CalvinBall** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:45:42

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't think it really has anything to do with why bin Laden attacked us either.

Osama binLaden wrote:"Allah knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed – when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."

by **jerseyhoya** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:46:24

Thank you jeff

I'm enjoying my classes so far, and the readings. And the people are overwhelmingly liberal, but I really don't give a crap. My research is going to be on issues that aren't ideological, so it doesn't matter as much.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:48:36

Bin Laden can say whatever he wants. I still don't think he really gives a shit about the plight of the Palestinians.

Not to go all neo con here, and I surely don't want to bring politics into the random thoughts thread, but the attack was one on liberalism (in the JS Mill sense of the term) and cosmopolitanism as much as anything else.

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:51:05

jeff2sf wrote:I got the impression that Rutgers would be less liberal than some of the places Jerz could have pursued his studies. If not though, I'm sure this is something Jerseyhoya may have considered at some point during the whole process.

Further, it was a fair bit of drivel from you, moz. You know when this speech would be better? Any day BUT september 11th.

And the other reason you were criticized is for that weak sentence was the rightly or wrongly. OBVIOUSLY they believed it, but the whole "rightly or wrongly". I mean really.

Everyone is asserting its drivel.

Which part exactly? It ain't drivel, friends, it's truth.

And what I was referring to was not jh's politics but his dismissive reference toward academicky-type writing as "googoo drivel" without offering any evidence for such a claim, or even a counter-argument. Just dismissive.

by **jerseyhoya** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:54:11

BECAUSE IT"S 9/11 AND THIS IS THE RANDOM THOUGHTS THREAD AND THE PHILLIES ARE ON AND IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL TO POST MORE THAN TWO OR THREE SENTENCES I DID NOT LAY OUT A WELL FOUNDED ARGUMENT DISMANTLING YOUR GOOGOO DRIVEL

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:54:36

TenuredVulture wrote:Bin Laden can say whatever he wants. I still don't think he really gives a $#@! about the plight of the Palestinians.

Not to go all neo con here, and I surely don't want to bring politics into the random thoughts thread, but the attack was one on liberalism (in the JS Mill sense of the term) and cosmopolitanism as much as anything else.

It's important to note here that I am not saying this had nothing to do with it or wasn't a contributing factor - obviously, bin Laden wasn't going to mastermind an attack on Afghanistan, for example. I am saying that the United States was selected, among all the Western liberal democracies, not because of its freedoms, however, but because of its particular relationship to the Middle East/Arab world, and that that Western dominance over the Middle East was also a big contributing factor in this motivation.

So when the pols scream, "They hate our freedoms," they are grossly oversimplifying the matter. They may hate Germany's freedoms, or South Africa's freedoms, or Brazil's freedoms too - but then again, none of those places were targeted. Or probably ever will be, at least by terrorist networks operating from outside those countries.

by **CalvinBall** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:56:03

TenuredVulture wrote:Bin Laden can say whatever he wants. I still don't think he really gives a $#@! about the plight of the Palestinians.

Not to go all neo con here, and I surely don't want to bring politics into the random thoughts thread, but the attack was one on liberalism (in the JS Mill sense of the term) and cosmopolitanism as much as anything else.

Idk. I think it is a lot more complicated than he just hates the American way of life or whatever. I had this prof in college or was a middle eastern historian. I hated his classes but when he talked about these ideas he seemed to have a lot of evidence for a case against what you are saying.

He may have been anti-semitic too though despite being Jewish himself.

by **Houshphandzadeh** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:58:55

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 16:59:24

jerseyhoya wrote:BECAUSE IT"S 9/11

Worst possible reason you could have given. Really.

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Sep 11, 2010 17:57:31

mozartpc27 wrote:
jeff2sf wrote:I got the impression that Rutgers would be less liberal than some of the places Jerz could have pursued his studies. If not though, I'm sure this is something Jerseyhoya may have considered at some point during the whole process.

Further, it was a fair bit of drivel from you, moz. You know when this speech would be better? Any day BUT september 11th.

And the other reason you were criticized is for that weak sentence was the rightly or wrongly. OBVIOUSLY they believed it, but the whole "rightly or wrongly". I mean really.

Everyone is asserting its drivel.

Which part exactly? It ain't drivel, friends, it's truth.

And what I was referring to was not jh's politics but his dismissive reference toward academicky-type writing as "googoo drivel" without offering any evidence for such a claim, or even a counter-argument. Just dismissive.

Academics should stop writing that way. It's either pretentious or a way to hide the fact that what they're saying signifies nothing.

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Random Thoughts, Anniversary Edition (c)