My OperaAnti- semitism in a nutshell
Wednesday, July 2, 2008 10:09:06 PM
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2008/2291957.htm
Anne Bayefsky, engaged human rights activist and intellectual, explains what "anti- semitism" is, and how it has become the distraction (along with "world wide islamophobia") for looking at the real issues - such as avoiding the destruction of the free world, and restoring the UN to it's former glory.
She then goes on to explain that discussing and arguing the issues is not the way of free nations - and that the only way to fight this anti- semittic scourge is to avoid giving the insitutions fronting it legitimacy if it does not serve the right purpose.
I've had a few fights with people like this. They mourn the UN's death now, after the supreme human rights activist George Bush and his poodle Tony Blair destroyed it out of sheer human compassion for the Iraqi people (both arguing that ignoring the UN was the right thing to do based on a humanitarian concerns). Because now the UN does not have the independent power of the allies any more to do what they please, and work things out behind the scenes - instead, the UN has become a "debate club" for "dictatorships", as John Bolton (and several others) put it.
Because there's no value in this, it appears. And the connected, humanitarian leaders do not want a resolution to conflicts - they want settlements and action. And the concerned human rights activists do not want to see diplomacy or peace talks, they want fixes and handshakes for the cameras.
And in that world - of course the very words that are said in public are more important than what is done. Or more to the point - maintaining the pre- conceived assumptions, and the correct narrative, is a central element in anything that is done.
Anne Bayefsky, engaged human rights activist and intellectual, explains what "anti- semitism" is, and how it has become the distraction (along with "world wide islamophobia") for looking at the real issues - such as avoiding the destruction of the free world, and restoring the UN to it's former glory.
She then goes on to explain that discussing and arguing the issues is not the way of free nations - and that the only way to fight this anti- semittic scourge is to avoid giving the insitutions fronting it legitimacy if it does not serve the right purpose.
I've had a few fights with people like this. They mourn the UN's death now, after the supreme human rights activist George Bush and his poodle Tony Blair destroyed it out of sheer human compassion for the Iraqi people (both arguing that ignoring the UN was the right thing to do based on a humanitarian concerns). Because now the UN does not have the independent power of the allies any more to do what they please, and work things out behind the scenes - instead, the UN has become a "debate club" for "dictatorships", as John Bolton (and several others) put it.
Because there's no value in this, it appears. And the connected, humanitarian leaders do not want a resolution to conflicts - they want settlements and action. And the concerned human rights activists do not want to see diplomacy or peace talks, they want fixes and handshakes for the cameras.
And in that world - of course the very words that are said in public are more important than what is done. Or more to the point - maintaining the pre- conceived assumptions, and the correct narrative, is a central element in anything that is done.
