The more we examine the disaster that is the Bush administration’s Middle East policy, the more apparent becomes the corrosive influence of Israel, or more accurately, of those U.S. officials acting on what they construe as Israel’s best interests. Yet Congress is oddly unwilling to bring any investigative focus on the role of Israel’s fervent supporters in instigating this deepening… return to article
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Reader Comments (66)Page 1 of 1 pagesYou ask where are the progressive Democrats. Where they’ve always been--in the pockets of the powerful Jewish lobby. Any move to change this pattern will result in charges of anti-Semitism and angry, hateful, vengeful movements to oust them, and they know it. Even Obama is careful to repeat the party line when it comes to Israel.
Posted by thetopofherhead on Mar 13, 2007 at 3:21 PM Anyone who doubts the power of the hard-right Israeli lobby (whose tentacles reach deeply into BOTH parties) should witness what happened in Congress today.
“Who Killed the Iran Provision?”
“...We worked so hard to get one provision in a bill that says that President Bush must get Congressional approval before he launches an attack against Iran. And they killed it in secret—within the Democratic caucus!
The provision didn’t say we could never attack Iran. Or that we would be taking that option off the table in negotiations. It said the president must get congressional approval. You know, like it says in the constitution...”
For the entire article, see:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6042
It amazes me that a group (like AIPAC) can so openly advocate the interests of a foreign power (often to the detriment of our national interests) and not be monitored more closely and/or exposed for what it really is, especially as their machinations in the Iraq debacle are coming to light. And in light of today’s congressional action, an Iran debacle is on the way (you just know that Bush will take this act as congressional authorization for war with Iran).
“Where are the progressive Democrats,” indeed.
Imran
Posted by Imran on Mar 13, 2007 at 4:13 PM I was in the process of writing off In These Times, when this article jumped out at me.
Not enough is said about the exaggerated influence that the Israeli lobby has in this country, on our congress, on our white house. Foreign powers should not be allowed to hijack our political processes. And we need to stop funding Israeli military aggression and war crimes. Stop the “aid.” Period.
My latest article about Israeli spying connected to September 11th will probably ruffle a few, for those who are intersted:
The Limits of Ketcham’s / Counterpunch’s Israeli Hangout
http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/
Posted by johndoraemi on Mar 14, 2007 at 12:55 AM One big part of the problem here is the engrained political habit of permitting someone else to draw the line in the rhetorical sand to force a false dichotomy, such that anyone who makes a pointed criticism of Israel can be unjustly tagged as a racist when they’re most likely nothing of the sort. The same kind of thing can be observed in discussions of illegal immigration, affirmative action, etc. The instant these and other issues arise, unsubstantiated charges of “Racism!” are tossed about with really chilling frequency, whether they’re well-founded (rarely) or not.
The point of doing so, of course, is to produce exactly that kind of chill, the kind that stifles substantive debate and forces people in the public eye to become mealy-mouthed in order to avoid the poisoned moniker.
It means that anyone with an ambition for public office has to tread so lightly when addressing some very complex national and foreign policy issues, they end up saying next to nothing, or simply endorsing the status quo because it represents safer political ground. Maybe the only safe political ground, for now.
The fear of being slandered with the name “racist” ends up hobbling those who may have innovative and worthwhile ideas about how to deal with these and other contentious issues. We don’t hear enough of their ideas because they’re silenced by their very real concern over the power of hostile pundits to make them look bad. The real shame is how quickly we accept the charge of racism, so unquestioningly, so mindlessly. We judge a man or woman to be the ideological equivalent of an ignorant, hating slob simply because someone called them a bad name. We should be smarter than that, more discerning!
It probably will cost the political careers of some aspirants to office who actually do have the courage to try to confront this situation, to demystify Israel and its place among the priorities of the American government. That will be unfortunate, but it is predictable. However, a certain number of such instances, brought to light especially when well-qualified, high-potential candidates go down in flames because their stated agendas vis a vis Israel are not “politically correct” enough (to recast that term), might enable a future candidate to break the pattern of trepidation and lack of candor, if he or she has the guts to throw down with their detractors. It means that those slandered as racists have to be ready to fight back, and show in no uncertain terms that they are not, and that they’ve been the victim of a politically calculated smear job.
In the meantime, it shouldn’t be too hard for anyone, aspirant or not, to demonstrate that they are not anti-Jewish, even if they take Israel to task when they judge its policies to be unacceptable. Their broader pattern of statements, attitudes, and actions really tell the story, not their skepticism of the exalted specialness of what, after all, is just another nation-state, albeit an ally (friend? hmm...).
People (potential candidates or not) ought to be able to face down those who try to control them with slanderous insults, which are really just techniques used to control whatever debate happens to be in hand, which in this case is the disproportional influence of Israeli interests upon the American government.
People who glibly cast aspersions like that generally have a single issue that drives them, and that they feel compelled to have their way in, therefore their underhanded tactics.
Posted by Kuya on Mar 14, 2007 at 2:52 AM Kuya, again thanks for your most thoughtful comments, as usual. And I thank the other contributors here too. Israel is the sacred cow of sacred cows and it is an uphill battle to talk fearlessly on the subject due to the noxious ‘anti-semite” and/or “self-hating Jew” labels spread by its partisans. Glad ITT is dealing with this now. They have in the past but it’s been sporadic. I originally called Jim Weinstein to buy 50 copies of an ITT issue in Fall 1984 which frontcovered Norman Finkelstein’s debunking of the Joan Peters Zionist fraud book From Time Immemorial. Occasionally ITT published letters from me on this and other subject. There’s really too much to say here but I’m weary of dealing with the subject so I’m glad others are pursuing it.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 14, 2007 at 10:21 AM I am not a racist in any sense but I feel we are being constantly silenced the minute we try to oppose unjustified attacks on other countries by calling us names which vary from “anti-semitic”, “leftist” or “marxist” to “terrorism supporters”. All this is of course a deliberate tactic to avoid any kind of healthy discussion. The main problem is both Israel and the USA adopt similar positions with regard to being the chosen ones to determine who is to live and who to die., who are to be trusted to have atomic weapons or not .The Bible, which is being one of the tools used by people who call themselves evangelics who are spreading “the word” at an ever increasing pace, specially in Latin America, starts by telling you that only the hebrews were chosen by God as worthy of being addressed by Him so if you don’t have any ancestor belonging to any of the Israel tribes you are simply part of a humanity unworthy of inheriting any promised land. I think the Bible is simply being used to discourage any attempt of discussing the possibility of “a world for all”. The combination of this with oil-greed, governments being mere representatives of corporations and their interests, produces a dangerous world for the future generations with no room for a different view, which makes one wonder how dare they use the word “democracy”.
Posted by Maria on Mar 14, 2007 at 7:18 PM Yes Maria, I’m particularly disgusted when, for example, a person who is not at all anti-American but who energetically disagrees with a government’s policies, risks being called a supporter of terrorism just because they avoid the bandwagon. This is exactly the kind of false dichotomy I’m referring to in my post above.
I’ve mentioned many times on these threads that I considered the division of our fighting forces in 2003 in order to invade Iraq to be tactically and strategically foolish, more likely to delay or negate accomplishing the prior mission in Afghanistan and very likely also to earn us enemies rather than friends all over the world.
Beyond the fact that I was right (so far; we’ll have to see whether, as I have predicted, the anti-American jihad movement will expand in the coming generation due directly to the Iraqi misadventure), I’ve found it deeply galling when I’ve been called naive, or insufficiently loyal, unpatriotic, etc etc. I’ve never been directly called a terrorist sympathizer, but of course that sort of manipulative rhetoric is all around out there, as a way to shut down criticism of the policy. It’s for the same reasons you mention, to control the debate and make “healthy discussion” virtually impossible because of the polarizing effects of “with us or against us” choices. False choices!
Fortunately, I can see the point of those tactics, so they have less power over me. But it would be a different story if I was running for office. It would be much harder to ignore those kind of manipulations, because too many of those out in the “American street” are willing to accept such slander uncritically. For me, that’s really the ugliest part of this whole picture.
Posted by Kuya on Mar 15, 2007 at 1:42 AM One doesn’t need a conspiracy theory to account for the many sins of commission and omission by the Bush administration. Salim Muwakkil’s “For Israel’s Sake” strings together a number of unoriginal, off-the-mark and over-the-top observations.
To start with, Israel does not have a “right-wing government.” It has a broad (overly broad) and relatively young centrist coalition that is paralyzed and beset by a host of scandals, legal investigations, internal divisions and plummeting public support.
Mr. Muwakkil rounds up the usual suspects, a bunch of diabolical Jewish “neocons”—none of whom named are even in government anymore—cleverly manipulating their entirely non-Jewish higher-ups in the Bush administration to do Israel’s bidding. Muwakkil even refers to the infamous “A Clean Break” paper submitted to Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, soon after he was elected as prime minister. Netanyahu completely ignored this document—one that was not “written for him” but rather came to him gratis as a byproduct of a conference. You would never know from Muwakkil that Likud is currently a much reduced parliamentary force that leads the right-wing opposition.
Ralph Seliger, VP of Meretz USA and editor, ISRAEL HORIZONS magazine and of www.MeretzUSA.blogspot.com
Posted by rseliger on Mar 15, 2007 at 11:32 AM Get real, the government headed by Ol is a rightwing extremist government. No one was fooled by Sharon’s thin veneer of centrism and in fact the divide from the zionist left to the zionist right is very small.
Both are anti-Arab racists to the core. Nor have the neocons, headed by
Cheney, lost influence in the Administration, they are still pushing for an attack on Iran. Bibi NEVER disavowed that 1996 document, he was not able to implement it. Salim is not original, your only valid point, but he’s right. Take your left zionist apologetics out of here.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 15, 2007 at 1:14 PM I didn’t realize the Arabs were a “race”, so how does being “anti-Arab” suddenly become racist? Perhaps anti-Arabic sentiments could be construed as anti-Semitism, with Israeli bigots characterized as “self-hating Semites”. It’s very confusing.
It’s strange that you would admit the existence of racism in Haifa but deny its existence in Oakland.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 15, 2007 at 4:19 PM They are semites. I never denied racism in Oakland, 99% of it comes from Blacks. All Arabs are semites, many European descended Jews are not. Jews consider themselves a race as my wife tells me. Many more blacks in Oakland are racists than whites. It may be different in the deep south.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 15, 2007 at 6:56 PM It may be different in the deep South? You think? A rare admission from someone who blames the victims of American racism for the racism they must constantly endure. How did you determine that many more blacks than whites in Oakland are racists?
So now according to your American anthropologist, Carlton Coon, and your wife, there currently exist four races: Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and the Jews. The problem with subdividing the human race into fictitious subsets is that it becomes impossible to stop. In fact, it’s difficult to justify racism without the pseudo-scientific conceptual framework of “races”.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 15, 2007 at 8:47 PM Blacks are NOT victims of American racism, they are AT LEAST as racist as anyone else and in northern & western urban areas they are MORE racist than most others. Jews are mostly Caucasian but THE GREAT MAJORITY OF JEWS CONSIDER THEMSELVES AS EITHER
A RACE OR A SEPARATE ETHNIC GROUP. Most I know are atheists and not believers in Judaism. If you think the separate category of Jews is fictitious then your quarrel is with most Jews and objective reality. By the way, how can there be “racism” without race, like “sexism” without sex, oh, maybe separate sexes don’t exist either. You probably still call Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay.
As for determining more black than white racists in Oakland & Berkeley, I go on 30 years of living here and my own judgment after observing empirical realities. You know a better way ?
Posted by blondemike on Mar 16, 2007 at 11:15 AM But that’s the point, isn’t it. You can’t justify racism without the “authoritative” citation of racists who arbitrarilly define the limits of “race”, any more than you can justify sexism without the authoritative citation of sexists who arbitrarilly define the roles and limitations of gender.
The great majority of any ethnic group will usually regard themselves as a separate ethnic group. How did you determine that the majority of Jews regard themselves as a separate race?
I suppose you rely upon the authority of your Jewish wife for that astounding conclusion, just as you seem to rely upon your own considerable authority to conclude that the victims of racism are themselves counter-racists and therefore deserve the discrimination which apparently, according to you, they invoke and provoke against themselves.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 16, 2007 at 6:19 PM So what authorities do you rely on in helping to make up your mind ? As far as black racists being the victims of racism I have to disagree. They are racists in their own right, a proposition you have no trouble with when it comes to white racists or more precisely the people whom you label white racists. As far as Jews go I’m going on what the great majority have told me, of course they could be wrong but that seems to be a predominant view among Jews as a whole. Sexists don’t define gender roles, SEX does, nature does. Your quarrel as usual is with objective reality. I am not aware of any discrimination against black racists but I agree with you that they certainly SHOULD be discriminated against. One final note----many Jews could also mean separate ethnic group too. It’s just my widespread experience that they most often refer to themselves as a race. I’ll let you tell them what they really are.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 16, 2007 at 6:35 PM If you believe that the “great majority” of Jews regard themselves as a separate race then you obviously don’t know too many Jews. Every ethnic group that ever existed considers itself the “chosen people”. So what? Racism, by definition, is the belief that some defined group of people is superior to all other groups, and the motivating factor is the justifying definition of race.
Sexists do define gender roles, just as racists define racial roles. The dominant group will always attempt to define the cultural values ("objective reality") of the dominated.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 17, 2007 at 8:37 AM Yes, neocons have given advice to both Israeli and American politicians. But the conclusions Salim Muwakkil draws from that are unjustifiable.
The advice neocons gave Bibi Netanyahu was every bit as partisan, in terms of Israeli politics, as the advice they gave George Bush was in terms of American politics. The Israeli security establishment believed that maintenance of a balance of power between Iraq and Iran was very much in Israel’s interest. The neocons urged Israel to promote an American invasion of Iraq, whose easily foreseeable effect was to destroy that balance and whose underlying aim was an assertion of American unilateralism.
A better case could be made for the “corrosive influence” on Israeli foreign policy of those acting on “what they construe as the best interests of the United States” than the other way around.
Posted by neoconwatcher on Mar 17, 2007 at 9:56 AM The author points out that the US neo-con officials he talks about are linked to the ultra-rightist Likud Party and no one else in Israel. These officials typify not so much Israeli politics or the views of most Jews or Israelis but a narrow group of rightist fanatics whose political party was recently split to form a centrist party. This was done by ultra hardliner Ariel Sharon. Likud is continually marginalized gleaning an unprecedentedly small one fifth of the vote in the 2006 election. The Israelis want peace and a viable land for peace deal. There is a political crisis brewing in Israel the mainstream media ignores thus empowering the far right.
There is a practical difference between Labor and the Right in Israel. The Liberal Democrats in the US are not tied to the Likud. The Likud is linked to Bush and the fanatical Christian Right. Liberal Democrats like Carter and Clinton worked tirelessly to achieve peace agreements. Clinton’s efforts were especially brave because it involved dealing with Arafat. The risk involved was great. BOTH parties trashed the peace agreement though Israel bears ultimate responsibility. More pressure could have been placed on Israel to reach an agreement. I lived in Israel from July 1992 to September 1995, and recall many suicide bombings. This contributed to Netanyahu’s election in May 1996.
Bush has distinguished himself as the only American president to make no effort to encourage bilateral peace negotiations. In fact Bush is hostile to the idea. During the debates with Kerry he said, “...we have always said that there should be two states. I just don’t want to deal with Yassir Arafat. He let down the last Administration and I think he’d let us down too” Well now that Arafat has been gone for over a year why no effort? The answer is contained in ex-Sharon aide Dov Weissglass’s famous depiction of the Gaza disengagement as less an opening move in the peace process than one which would actually “suspend it in phemaldehyde” whereby there would be no active peace process with the Palestinians. Bush has taken this as the cornerstone of his policy. He encourages Israeli aggression. Israel, in the Bush conception, is a US military ally on the western flank of the Gulf and its oil fields.
It is unfair to lump Liberal Democrats with Bush on Middle East policy, especially those like Jimmy Carter. Democrats like Obama and Clinton want to restart the peace process. It is unreasonable to blame the Israel Lobby for the US or Democratic Party refusal to radically change its policies toward a long standing ally especially when the US has never done this before. The disregard the US has for the Palestinians is perfectly consistent with the disregard it has shown toward a number of other oppressed peoples who often live under regimes the US not only funds and arms but probably put in power in the first place. Does the US really need Jewish pressure to pursue policies it is historically inclined to pursue anyhow and that are consistent with its general foreign policy pattern?
The authors criticism was directed at the Likud not the Democrats. The Democrats support Israel. Israel is a fact of life. No one wants Israel eliminated from the face of the earth. Doing so wouldn’t eliminate the problems there but merely shift them around. Even Hamas has agreed to enter peace negotiations if Israel returned all land taken in 1967 including Jerusalem, allowed back many refugees from 1948, and gave more civil rights to the Palestinian minority inside pre-1967 Israel. The ball is now in Israel’s court. A Democratic US president and a new government in Israel could make a difference.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 18, 2007 at 2:32 AM There is very little distinction between the Likudniks and Labourites as regards the Palestinians. The settlements were started by Labour and it was the racist Golda Meir who stated “There are no Palestinians” ! This goes far beyond Hitler who never the existence of Jews. Actually most people in the Middle East and an increasing number in the West would like to replace Israel with a secular nonracial state. See Tony Judt’s essay in a fall 2003 number of The New York Review of Books.
AIPAC controls the Dems even more than the Repubs, their control is so total that it makes the Czarist invented Protocols look like small potatoes. Pelosi, Clinton, Obama, Biden, et al, have been absolutely terrible and indistinguisable from Lieberman or Romney or McCain or Giuliani on this issue. Israel can’t last because you can’t have a “Jewish State” with 25% of its population as non-Jews and as a racist anti-Arab force in the heart of the Arab world. Israel is colonialist creation and will go but the question is when. It might last another generation causing untold misery throughout the world until the holohoax gets debunked and people get sick of this Nazi like Chosen People premise. What our cabbie neglects to mention is that every major Democrat has repudiated Carter’s mildly critical book of Israel. Chicago NEVER mentions the reasons for the increase in suicide bombings was that the Palestinians condition HAS GOTTEN MUCH WORSE SINCE OSLO. Finally that centrist split-off from Likud is largely hardcore rightists, they are about as centrist on Israel/Palestine issue as Joe Lieberman. The good news is that The New Republic is on the skids along with Commentary. Chicago Cabbie is just a thin veneer “left” apologist for Israel and as Alex Cockburn notes, we have to clean them out of the left.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 18, 2007 at 12:23 PM Major, the bottom line is that ARE different races and two different sexes. It is a fact of Objective Reality.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 18, 2007 at 12:28 PM No, Mike, there’s only one human race, period. Anything more than that is just another racist, sexist attempt to re-establish a dominant “scientific” authority to justify the domination of the dominated.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 18, 2007 at 10:54 PM It is true that Kadima (forward in Hebrew) is Likud lite. That is hardly the point. In the first place Likud only has 12 Knesset seats as of the 2006 Israeli elections. This translates into an unprecedentedly low 10% of the total parlaimentary seats and is an indication of their lost political relevance in Israeli society. They are on their way to oblivion. They no longer have any meaningful contribution to make to Israeli politics.
The real key, however, is the crisis brewing at the bottom of Israeli society amongst the hyper-exploited working class, and the endangered reservists who are tiring of the occupation by the day. Israel’s survival cannot continue along with the occupation. What racists like Blonde Mike, a open Nazi sympathizer by his own admission, don’t get is that this is not a Jewish or Arab issue but one about equality and democracy which he has shown utter contempt for in his posts. Israeli society is daily undermining itself with the inhumanity is shows both Arab and Jew alike. Zionism isn’t only about Israel. It is about the class system that has oppressed both Jew and Arab in a way that separates them from each other and makes it hard for either of them to see their common victimization not so much at each others hands but at the hands of a system built on class inequality, imperialism, and capitalist exploitation. That is exactly why the elite in both camps push for war. It is to control their respective populations in the preservation of class privelage.
Liberal Democrats, however flawed, are no friends of the Likud. They have always prefered Labor. Liberal Democrats have always seen the Jews and Israel as a progressive cause and identified with them. This distinguishes them from the Republicans whose political cultural orientation before Reagan was extremely anti-Jewish. Such a political cultural was filled with adherents that were always quite distrustful of modern Jewish culture as overly cosmopolitan and decadent. Liberal Democrats believed in the Jews and their state but not the occupation. It was in 1967 that Jews abandoned their long history of adherence to the principles of liberal tolerance and democracy. The Democrats would like to cultivate the progressive element within the Jews and achieve peace and democracy in that part of the world as well. Then the far right can be marginalized.Both Carter and Clinton had wretched times with the likes of Begin and Netanyahu. Their extremism created great embarassment and frustration for the US negotiating teams. The Dems and the Likud don’t mix. The Likud does, however, mix well with the Christian Zionists and far right Republican Bush team. This is the obvious problem whose dire consequences we are seeing today.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 18, 2007 at 11:52 PM Wrong, Major, within the species of human animal there are three major recognized races, Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negroid. The term human race is an abtraction but signifies a species, not a race. Races aee different and I have listed the major ones above.
Shitcago Moron, if I dispute the six million figure it doesn’t mean that I want to see six million Jews killed. Even a fucking imbecile like you should be able to grasp that basic distinction. I am not a National Socialist, you are. I’m a libertarian. As Chomsky has long noted there is very little difference between the Dems and Reps in the US on the Palestine/Israel issue and very little difference between Likud and Labor as regards the Palestinians. The Jews or ancient Hebrews had no history of democracy and nonaggression as the whole world saw in 1947-48. Before the French Revolution the Jews lived in utter squalor and dictatorship under the Rabbinate, it was all Orthodox, the French Revolution liberated the Jews in western Europe, it was the greatest event in Jewish history though a disaster otherwise. Every poll in Israel has shown that at least 40% of the population is on the far right as regards the Palestinian at least. I’ve charitably skipped the genocidal history of the ancient Hebes and their extermination of the Canaanites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, etc. So don’t even TRY to give the BS version of the peaceful Jewish underdog, it won’t wash. The Arabs have been victimized by racist Zionism much as the SA blacks by apartheid, not capitalism. I hope that for a change your right about Likud, Bibi stlll has a huge following. He’d be the worst one.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 19, 2007 at 1:50 PM Libertarian? Empirical objectivist? Anarcho-capitalist? Hell, Mike, you can call yourself the Queen of England if you want. Your adolescent references to “hebes, coons and beaners”, along with your racist defense of race, tell me all I need to know about your apparent infatuation with fascism. The only significant question is the following: are you in fact a fascist, or do you just play the role on the internet?
Posted by Major Major on Mar 19, 2007 at 3:26 PM Major, you are a black racist with no sense of humor. Who cares what you think about anything ?
Posted by blondemike on Mar 19, 2007 at 5:53 PM BM,
Your post proves that you are a racist. First of all at NO time in history did Jews ever live in “squalor” as they have a religious code that insists on cleanliness. Jews and Muslims in medieval Europe survived plagues that Christians didn’t because of their unique hygiene codes. In the second place you say that the emancipation of the Jews was a disaster for everyone but the Jews themselves. How Racist!! Even you acknowledge that Jews have made many of the most important contributions to Western Civilization ever made.Any look at modern Jewish achievements finds them to numerous to ponder in a reasonable amount of time. The Jews are brilliant!! No culture that hosted tthem ever failed to benefit.
My understanding is that Israel is a product of European persecution of the Jews. Your take on the Hebrew aggression against the ancient Canaanites is also wrong. The Old Testiment story of Joshua leading the Hebrews from the desert into Canaan has been refuted by non-Jewish archaeologists who, interestingly, were attempting to debunk the Zionist case with regard to the Hebrew conquest and occupation of Palestine. It is far more likely, according to the ancient evidence, that the Hebrews gradually integrated into the new land over several generations assimilating the indigenous people to their culture while adopting as many of their ways as permissable by the Jewish faith’s laws. The ancient Hebrews thus became a mixture of many semitic grouips existing in the area. This is anthropologically realistic. It is probably the truth of what occured.
The Likud Party has probably consigned itself to political irrelevance long ago. The questions of that society will be decided by an electorate that is sick of war and poverty. The 40% figure that allegedly supports the far right is disproven by the 2996 election statistics. Fewer than one third actually support or vote for far right parties including the Likud. This is a remarkable fact given that these are people who are engaged in an ongoing war right in their very midst. More than three quarters of the Israeli electorate want to give the Palestinians their own land in a sustainable peace deal. This is a fact. There is a huge conscientious objection movement in the IDF that opposes the occupation and the compulsion to serve in the occupied territories.
BM, your anti-semitism is well known. Your Holocaust denial is only one expression of it. Your insults at Jews are another. Your racism toward just about everyone is astounding. It is all over the web. Much of the Libertarian movement appeals to racists, elitists, fascists, anti-labor reactionaries, and rightists of various stripes. It is a philosophy that is in practical terms at odds with most reasonable conceptions of democracy. It is no suprise that you have taken their part in political discourse. Libertarianism is a misnomer. No liberty can exist under the type of society they advocate. Repression would be needed to enforce and secure its existance.. In effect, it is a major political con. The fact that you and so many others who profess to be Libertarian also see Hitler as less of a threat to human freedom than the US Democratic Party is highly instructive.It yields great insight into the real meaning of your thought. You hate true liberty. You hate democracy. You hate social equality. In the end, you hate the vast bulk of humanity!!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 19, 2007 at 6:44 PM Jews lived in utter squalor through most of their history. By squalor I mean deepseated poverty which has nothing to do with personal hygiene, you moron. Unless we are talking about certain Orthodox sects and some ARE rather stinky, as Thomas Dines, head of AIPAC, noted many years ago. Christianity is a Jewish Cult, obviously a great many Christians DID survive the plague along with Jews and Muslims, otherwise they would not still be around in much greater numbers than
Jews and at least equal to Muslims. I didn’t write that the emancipation of Jews was a disaster for everyone else, I wrote that the Frencgh Revolution was largely a disaster for OTHER reasons and that one of its few positive benefits was the emancipation of western European Jewry from the backward, totalitarian Orthodox Rabbinate who had life or death over them. As Chomsky wrote me it was not Fiddler On The Roof. “Jews are brilliant” what a stupid racist generalization ! One could just as easily say “Jews are morons” the racist principle would be the same. If they are so brilliant, what happened to you ? Some very few Jews are brilliant, the great majority are mediocre like everyone else. Since Jews have expelled en masse from every culture that hosted them, including the UK, but only excepting the US to date, I guess the hosts didn’t appreciate their “contributions.” You know if you go to a Jewish shrink and say that you have been persecuted forever and that it is all the fault of the other guy, they label you as a lunatic. If you do it on a group basis you become a professor of holohoax studies. By the way, I’m not a “denier” that is a loaded religious term, like calling an atheist a “Christ denier” I’m a REVISIONIST. I question the commonly believed gullible bullshit and I’m sorry if that so upsets a scared little man like Chicago Cabbie who lets his shiksa excrete in his cab. Disgusting ! Do not try to whitewash the vicious genocidal ancient Hebrew tribes who did slaughter en masse all the competing tribes, the Holy Bible verifies all this in the Old Testament. Nor did the Hebrews intermarry. One of the principal claims made by Jews for the alleged higher IQ is that they DIDN"T intermarry and kept within their own group or race or tribe, however you define it. I will grant that the Jewish IQ is higher on average that of blacks, Latinos, most turdworlders as Michael Weiner Savage calls them and low income whites. But most Jews are not in the excellent or brilliant category, we have tons of statist-collectivist mediocrities in the Jewish group as any wide open look at our culture will confirm. There has been very little Jewish contribution to western civilization QUA Jewish contribution. There have been individual Jews from Ayn Rand to Spinoza to Chomsky and in every case their Judaism was nonexistent and their attachment to Jewish culture nonexistent. The least important thing about almost all brilliant Jews has been their Jewishness. That on the other hand is THE most important thing to utter mediocrities like yourself, Chicago Cabbie. As regards the the Likud there was no 2996 election but polls regularly taken in Israel show 40% or more favoring ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs. The Zionist project started in the 1880s before Hitler was born and always aimed at the expulsion of the native Arabs. Many of the Jewish dominated industries from Hollywood to pornography to abortion services to supplying
Uzis to the ghetto are not considered brilliant contributions by many of us, though I believe they all
should be legal. Something can be legal but in awful taste. IF the vast bulk of humanity was like you
your last sentence would be true but hopefully they are not. I don’t hate social equality anymore than
I hate leprechans, it doesn’t exist in both cases. The opposition in the IDF IS A VERY SMALL MINORITY OF OBJECTORS. It is not “huge” a typical lie of yours. The stats in Israel bear this out.
The term “racist” is as untenable as the “anti-communism” smear of the 50s and it is not the last
refuge of the scoundrel but the first.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 20, 2007 at 10:41 AM I meant the 2006 election in which the Likud polled an insignficant percentage of the total votes.
Most Jews are brilliant though I may not be. Jews are disproportionately brilliant which accounts for their disproportionate prominance in society and success in most endeavors. This is not a natural or organic phenomenon but one brought about by pushy parents who insist on constant education from at least age five on up and who stress strict discipline, education, free debate and thought, and high culture. Others could catch up and surpass the Jews with similar values and concerns. No money is not that much of a determinant since the Jews have been stressing these things before the time when they began to enter top income strata in any given society as a social group. Good luck everybody!!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 20, 2007 at 3:00 PM Be assured MOST Jews are NOT brilliant, so you have plenty of company. They tend to hire and logroll and promote each just like homosexuals and other groups do, not an uncommon practice in society as a whole. Most Jews are like most other people, an overwhelming percentage of hypercritical, loudmouthed mediocrities. Very few Einsteins or Rothbards or Rands but a good many woody Allens and Alan Dirtbagowitzes. Prior to the French Revolution the only books in Jewish homes were religious ones. The ancient Hebes were ferocious, distinctly unintellectual, bareassed savages as Madalyn Murray O’Hare once noted. The Chosen People myth is where Hitler got the Aryan nonsense from. A friend of mine, a distinguished professor at San Francisco State, once sat next to Marty Peretz at dinner. After my friend told him how far downhill he had taken The New Republic, Peretz blurted out that he was an anti-semite. My friend replied he normally didn’t consider himself as such but he’d be happy to make an exception in Peretz’s case. I feel the same way about you, Chicago Cabbie. The only free debate your parents allowed was the freedom to agree with them 100%. But you could have resisted instead of becoming a mirror image of their irrationality. I am ashamed of you !
Posted by blondemike on Mar 20, 2007 at 5:36 PM “Most Jews are like most other people...”
This is true, Mike. Most people of any ethnic or “racial” group are like most other people, despite your insistent efforts to categorize them as “hebes, coons and beaners”.
“...an overwhelming percentage of hypercritical, loudmouthed mediocrities.”
And you’re the loudest hypocritical mediocrity of them all.
Prior to the French Revolution, the only book in most European homes was the Bible. The ancient Hebrews were no more or less barbaric than their barbarian neighbors, including the Greeks and the Romans. The “chosen people myth” is a universal attribute of all distinct social cultures, including your own.
Your expressions of shame are shamefully misdirected.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 21, 2007 at 10:54 AM WRONG, Major. The ancient Hebes were much more barbaric than the Greeks, in fact the whole of western philosophy and western history has been a battle between the rationalism of Athens versus the mysticism of Jerusalem, Rome was an untenable, unstable combination of both.
The Chosen People myth IS A SPECIFICALLY JEWISH MYTH DATING BACK TO THE ANCIENT GENOCIDAL HEBREW TRIBES.
Most people are NOT like most other people. Most whites are NOT like most blacks, there are vast cultural and intellectual between the average mean of both groups. There are welcome exceptions, unfortunately you are not one of them. Blacks commit MUCH more crime and are lower in average IQ. Read The Bell Curve. Blacks and Jews and Latins have their own terms for whites and gentiles, most of it is very funny as are the playful terms you listed above. What we don’t need is uptight Communist-Socialist-"Progressive"-Liberal assholes like Major trying to make a federal out of everything. In Baltimore 75% of all black males between 14 and 45 are in prison, jail, parole, probation, awaiting trial or awaiting sentencing, try working on your group in your city to reverse those horrible stats and spare us your low IQ, low forehead Stalinophile pseudo-moralizing. Personally I do not have the time to drive down that Bipolar Expressway with you.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 21, 2007 at 12:59 PM In fact the ancient Hebrews adopted much of the Hellenistic culture or at least the upper classes did. The Greeks had lasting cultural impact on the Jews and of course, it is absurd to charactorize Western Cultural history as a Hebrew/Hellenistic struggle. The Jews and their culture were marginalized for many centuries anyhow. You don’t know anything about either the Jews or the ancient Greek.
Go see 300 and fantasize.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 21, 2007 at 3:48 PM Sorry, Mike, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. The Greeks were as irrational as any other tribe of the time. The Pythagorians tried to assassanite anyone who revealed the existence of what turned out to be irrational numbers, rather than admit that their “rational” universe was a fraud. The Greek military was more vicious and blood-thirsty than their opponents, which was why they ruled the “civilized” world until the Romans, even more barbaric than the Greeks, defeated them. Your half-assed dialectic between “rationalism and mysticism” is just another figment of Nietsche’s nihilist imagination which the Nazis exploited to justify their racist delusions of superiority. Most people are exactly the same as most other people. The Dutch, English, Scots, Irish, Italian, German, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Hungarian immigrants to this country were just as uneducated and criminally-prone as their darker-skinned counter-parts, but after several generations of residence they were much more easilly assimilated into the general “white” American culture. Your claim to intelligence is as fraudulent as your revisionist attempts to whitewash your racist convictions.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 21, 2007 at 4:06 PM That simply isn’t true, see The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton or Aristotle by John Herman Randall, Jr. or a dozen other books on ancient Greece including the Durants’ The Life Of Greece. There were different cults and tendencies but the Athenian polis around Aristotle was far more rational than either previous Greek tribes or the subsequent Jewish cult of Christianity. Athens was very different from Sparta, which was more like the Soviet Union or Israel or Fascist Italy. The Romans weren’t arbaric but they were a step down from the Greeks, only Cicero remains as a major Roman thinker-philosopher, ok forgot Marcus Aurelius but still not much compared to the Greeks.
The other ethnic groups you list had a bad press and were very much discriminated against but they overcame it and their crime rates went way down, but they were never at African American levels and the more honest African Americans like John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, Juan Williams, et al, recognize this. As far as IQ goes I was tested very young and it read 148, so eat your heart out, Major. Most people are not the same, they have as many differences as they do similarities. We all know this is true on an individual scale, individuals differ enormously and since groups are solely composed of individuals they differ enormously too. There are even diseases common to different groups as well as to what they share with other groups. I have never said that race and genes are the be all and end all but they play a role and idiot egalitarians like you need to come to grips with your denial here. You have never had any intelligent arguments against historical revisionism or the reality of race based differences, all you can do is shout “Nazi.”
Nietzsche had nothing in common with national socialism as Walter Kauffman of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem demonstrated in several books.
Chicago, I know a lot about both the Hellenics and the Hebes, much more of the actual history of each than you do. Of course the Hebes were influenced by the Hellenics, when did I say otherwise ? But their basic culture and philosophy were radically different AND TO THE EXTENT THAT THE HEBES WERE HELLENIZED THAT IS THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY BECAME CIVILIZED. The Jews MARGINALIZED THEMSELVES FOR CENTURIES BY SELF-SEGREGATING INTO LEGAL GHETTOES WHERE THE ORTHODOX RABBINATE HAD LIFE AND DEATH POWERS OVER EVERY JEW. As Chomsky reminded me it was not fiddler on the roof. Since until recently the Jews didn’t intermarry on a large scale which anthropologists believe may be a prime factor in their higher IQ’s, you being a conspicuous exception. Of course, if this thesis about Jewish general intellectual superiority is true, it totally validates all of the much maligned “racists.” And again refutes the total leftist nonsense of people like the Major, who spout this untermenschen equals ubermenschen bullshit. Either way, a little Commie like you is down the shitter. Please do not address me any further because I prefer to deal with only three digit IQ people. I know some holocaust revisionists in Evanston, can I give them your locate ?
Posted by blondemike on Mar 21, 2007 at 5:11 PM The Jews influenced other as much as they were influenced by the great civilizations. The Jews were always highly intelligent. Jewish success and achievments existed well before the current high intermarriage rates which are confined pretty much to the North American Jewish communities. Any historian who does real research knows that the Jews were not segrated voluntarily but were forced into ghettos. The first modern Jewish Ghetto was the one in Venice in the 1500s. Ghetto is an Italian word as you might notice. The Spaniards made laws against the Jews in a number of areas and finally expelled tham in 1492 along with the moors. The Jews were excluded from residence outside the Pale of Settlement in the Western Borderlands of the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great after the very last Partition of Poland in the 1790s. You don’t know much about the history of Jewish persecution before the twentieth century. You won’t learn much about it either by restricting yourself to anti-Jewish sources like the Noontide Press titles.
By the way intelligence isn’t inherited so inter-marriage didn’t effect anything anymore than intra-marriage. The high achievment rate of the Jews comes from education and early discipline.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 21, 2007 at 5:41 PM Jewish scholars like Nathaniel Weyl and C.P. Snow disgree with you about genetics and the intermarriage factor. Education and early discipline are not nearly as ingrained in blacks or Latins as Jews ? Are you saying that’s all nurture and nature has nothing to do with it ? I don’t believe it and neither does any other serious student of history. I never restricted myself to Noontide but I HAVE learned a great from several of their books, some of them I disagree with and others are very worthwhile. Frankly, why would you think I’d require a recommendation from you as to my reading habits ? Maybe the famed Jewish narcissism is reaching a new psychotic peak in your case, eh ? The Jews as a group were NOT always highly intelligent, it is as Chomsky and other have noted, a much more recent development, two centuries ago the mass of Jews in eastern Europe were as backwards and unclean and superstitious as the average Somali today or the more backward parts of the Arab world. Intelligence on a group level never existed among the great mass of ancient Hebes, they were bareassed backward tribal buffoons like all the others. Jewish Nazis like yourself have invented this Jewish Superioirity crap and to the limited extent it is true, it is a development solely dating from the French Revolution. There were Jewish scholars but they were a very tiny percentage of the overall Jewish population in either Europe or Asia before 1800. The Jews were segregated at the request of the Jewish Rabbinate as the Durants’ and others have shown. I know that this conflicts with your We Jews Are Eternal Victims but the fact is that Jews have been victimizers as much as victims throughout history. Time to face the music, Shitcago ! If the Jews are so intelligerent qua Jews as you Jewish racists claim, how come the vast majority are total mediocrities or worse ? Look in the mirror for starters but then at your family and most Jews that you know. They are anything but brilliant. The ones that are like Rand and Rothbard have nothing to do with the rest of the tribe. You are untermenschen through and through.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 21, 2007 at 6:22 PM I’m an ardent Zionist, meaning that I very much want a Jewish state, a safe place for Jews to live. I don’t think current US policy leads in that direction, and I’m not even sure that present Israeli policy leads in that direction. Certainly US policy is creating terrorists in Palestine, as it is in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is further reducing any chance for peace between Israel and Palestine. I don’t know what the sufficient conditions for peace in that area are, but some conditions are certainly necessary. One is a robust Palestinian economy, so that people can go to work and to school in the morning. Why is the Bush administration doing everything it can to prevent that?
It is possible that the Armageddon-promoters that Bush listens to have found voices in Israel to agree with them, as a way to get more US military support for Israel. But this is not the way to peace, and is not supported by most Israelis.
Jews, like Muslims and Christians, have a certain percentage of extremists. Bush is doing his best to bring out the worst of all of them, since making people fearful is his best way of preserving power.
The American press reports too little on the moderates of all stripes, the people who genuinely want peace. Israel has often had, and will have again, governments that would be happy to live peacefully within agreed boundaries, The Palestinians need the same thing, a peaceful and prosperous independent state. Bush is doing everything he can to prevent that, and encouraging the extremists in Israel by his actions.
Edward Ordman
//www.ordman.net
Posted by Edward Ordman on Mar 21, 2007 at 9:49 PM One thing Bush neglects is the Peace Process. It needs to restart and soon. The extremists need to be marginalized on both sides. Peace is possible. The current government is allowed to unilaterally determine the entire final status process without engaging the PA and Abbas. The 2006 Hamas PLC electoral victory makes things quite difficult. They still don’t recognize Israel.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 22, 2007 at 7:12 AM Chicago, the Jews as a collective were and are NOTHING. Same as every other group. SOME Jews were influential and you will find among the most brilliant Jews from across the spectrum, Rand & Rothbard & Mises to Chomsky at the other end, their Jewishness was the least important thing about them both in a cultural and religious sense. I hate to tell you this but your juvenile reassertions of your disputed premises do not add up to truth. Of course Jews have influenced others, who would deny that ? At the end of the day it is individual Jews. NOT the group labelled “Jews” as such. Edward, you can’t have a Jewish state with 20-25% nonJews. It’s like declaring the US a Christian or Gentile State. It’s wrong in principle. If you are really a Zionist get your ass over to Occupied Palestine and get ready for another Massada. Chicago, 99% of the Palestinians are WORSE off since Oslo began, as your fellow leftist Chomsky has documented in copious detail. See his revised 2000 edition of The Fateful Triangle. AIPAC, an extremist group, totally controls the Congress, they can get 400 Reps and 96 Senators to sign fool thing for Israel any day of the week. You sound like a NancyPants, HillarySniffing Demo Party hack. Zionism is an extremist and racist doctrine and always has been.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 22, 2007 at 9:55 AM You seem to have come around to my precise original position. I have been arguing people are individuals more than members of ethnic groups for a long time.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 22, 2007 at 9:14 PM 1) This has always been my position.
2) Your position has always been that Jews are a superior race.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 23, 2007 at 10:20 AM I never said that!! I am against racism. What I said after months of your anti-Jewish generalizations was that the many Jews who are in charge are there by virtue of their brilliance which was not inherent in their race but in a culture that does in fact stress discipline, higher education, hard work, and an appreciation for high culture. Why is this racist. The very same opportunities are availble to all if they only seek it. This is the secret of the Jews success. Not the pursuit of conspiricy and corrupt manipulation of the system.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 23, 2007 at 11:40 AM I never made any anti-Jewish statements, generalizations or otherwise. You are the twisted little fuck who decided that if you believe 4-5 million European Jews previously considered killed were not that that makes you a Nazi. It’s interesting that a hardcore egalitarian fuck like yourself claims that the opportunities available to one of the more affluent groups is available to all, an obvious lie and one which your fellow leftists will be much more enraged about than I am. I NEVER mentionedthe term “conspiracy” but Jews are as guilty of corrupt manipulation of the system as anyone else. Your self-serving whitewash of your tribe doesn’t fly, YOU ARE A JEWISH RACIST AND JEWISH SUPREMACIST. PERIOD. My wife tells me that you are the epitome of the hysterical, demented, emotionalistic Jewish male stereotype and like all stereotypes it contains some truth. It’s not 100% but let’s be frank here, Jews whom I have referred your demented Stalinist rantings to tell me that people like you are the cause of the ugly term “kike.” I rest my case. If I thought that you were typical of all Jews, I’d be anti-Jewish. But fortunately you aren’t and I’m not. Now take your colostomy bag and excrementa producing taxi shiksa and get the fuck out of my life.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 23, 2007 at 12:46 PM What in the hell have Palestinians done for me? Not a fucking thing. Fuck Hamas. Cut off the money. Build the walls. Pave the Gaza strip and turn it into a parking lot. My advice to Israel. Crank up the tanks and head east until you see Chinese faces. That should ensure peace for a few generations.
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 23, 2007 at 11:58 PM Now he’s got his Jewish “wife” and Jewish “friends” calling Jews “kikes”. What’s next? His latino and colored “friends” are waiting in the wings, ready to transubstantiate his racist beliefs into objective facts.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 24, 2007 at 6:10 PM BeanerBoy, the only thing the Israelis have done for you is to steal a quarter of a TRILLION (250 Billion) dollars from you since 1948, 99% of it since 1967. Even the Israelis ignore Me Hi Can trash like you and your mama puta. Chicago, don’t say anything, shut the fuck up. Major, all my black firends and there are many do refer to you as a “nigger asshole.” I’ve shared your rantings here.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 26, 2007 at 10:47 AM Mikey
Imaginary people don’t count as friends.
Posted by texasindependent on Mar 26, 2007 at 11:59 AM The use of the N-word should be sufficient cause to be expelled from this website. We’ll see what happens.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 26, 2007 at 2:06 PM I put it in quotes but that is exactly the reaction of many blacks here to Major Jackoff. Just like everyone who meets you immediately thinks of the K word.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 26, 2007 at 2:13 PM It is very difficult for me to imagine you having many Black friends. The medical personel and orderlies involuntarily forced to deal with you at the psychiatric hospital don’t really count.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 26, 2007 at 2:39 PM Most blacks don’t think like you so your very limited imagination doesn’t matter. Notice your continued advocacy of Soviet psychiatric torture.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 26, 2007 at 4:11 PM I don’t advocate Soviet Psychiatric torture. I live with a serious manic-depressive who just checked himself in to a psychiatric hospital after a long manic episode that was an onus on himself, me, and his social workers. What makes psychiatric care “Soviet” when almost every country including ours provides mental health care?
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 26, 2007 at 4:48 PM The whole concept of mental illness is bogus as are the subdivisions of manic depressive, schizophrenia, etc. I don’t have time nor do we have the space to go out into the reasoning here. You need to read Thomas S. Szasz, MD, The Myth Of Mental Illness and Insanity. The compulsory nature of mental treatment is what makes it Soviet style, these mental hospitals are prisons. PERIOD.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 26, 2007 at 5:16 PM BM,
I have dealt with seriously mentally ill people my whole adult life mostly on a personal level. I dated to seriously mentally ill women one for three months and one for six months. Both were seriously bi-polar and took medication. I also lived with a three other roomates in house in Madison that included a seriously bi-polar man. He was more depressed than anything else and ultimately committed suicide. I knew another bi-polar man in Madison who drove cab in the same coop with me. He stayed up for over 72 hours straight buzzing around the city and posed a serious threat to himself and others before he was hospitalized. My current roomate was hospitalized this weekend after a protracted two week manic episode.
Mental illness isn’t pleasant. It really exists and needs to be treated. This is not an opinion. Medical Science has established this as true. French thinker Michal Foucault disbelieved in the idea of Mental Illness preferring to regard it as a mere construct of 17th century discourse which emerged in response to the new obsession with “reason” and rationality to which this illness now stood in stark contrast. It is precisely this philosophical reasoning that you would reject as historicist and subjectivist. As you might acknowledge now in light of our new, more philosophically informed perspective, mental illness is an objective reality.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 26, 2007 at 5:57 PM You are wrong but rather than trade anecdotes based on totally questionable premises it would be better for you to read Szasz directly, a prominent psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who came to challenge the fundamental premises of his profession, he also a website as well as probably 25 or more scholarly books, just referenced two to keep it simple. Mental illness is not an objective reality but a much bigger hoax than the “holocaust” at least that has a patina of truth to it because of the Nazis persecution of the Jews. But mental illness is based on premises that simply medically and scientifically wrong though a part of the common conventional wisdom which itself is more often wrong than right. Whatever problems in living these people had what they didn’t have was a brain disease which would be physical or a mental disease which doesn’t exist. They were depressed and became highly irrational from your description but they never had an illness. This erroneous concept is like witchcraft in the middle dark ages, it serves as an all purpose bullshit explanation that pretends to give us knowledge which we simply don’t have and locking people up because they might harm themselves is obscene and the same principle of self-ownership in abortion applies here. If they have broken a law they need to be prosecuted for criminal offenses not for having some imaginary disease. Medical science has never established any such thing as mental illness nor will you see in a pathology textbook nor does anyone worrying about catching it or getting it as we DO worry about real diseases like AIDS or Cancer or Alzheimers, etc. Your anecdotes do NOT prove anything that validates the erroneous concept of a mental illness. If there was a physical cause it would be a physical illness but no such cause has ever been found. See Peter Breggin, MD’s Toxic Psychiatry, another dissident shrink. You need to hang around more rational people, of course being around YOU would drive anyone “nuts.” Foucault was right here, for a change but read Szasz.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 26, 2007 at 6:17 PM In the first place, no one ever said mental illness is contagious. Like many diseases, Mental illness is a condition which can be treated but perhaps not cured. Medical Science has established different mental illnesses as having different organic causes. Terrets syndrome is linked to excessive dopamine in the brain. Depression is now believed to be caused by Seratonin reuptake at the synapse of the neurons in the brain. That is why Prozac and other anti-depressants work to lift depression. They are seratonin reuptake inhibitors. There are also MAO inhibitors for schizophrenia and major depression to address the excessive release in the brain of Monoamine oxidase, which is an enzyme that destoys basic neurotransmitters like norepinephrine, dopamine, and seratonim, and allow restoration of chemical balance.
The shrinks are MDs. They treat the organic roots of these mental illnesses.Scientifically they are real. They are not mere ideological constructs that support alternative concepts of social and political order.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 26, 2007 at 6:42 PM I was making an analogy which went right over your head and as far as the different brains in alleged schizoprenics that is entirely attributable to the dangerous psych drugs themselves, see Toxic Psychiatry by Breggin. Medical science has never established ANY organic causes to a so-called mental disease, if they did it would not be a mental disease but a physical one, READ SZASZ AND READ BREGGIN. Prozac has killed many people and is extremely harrmful, I can recommend another book of Breggin’s just on prozac and at least three other books by doctors that expose prozac. Which was rushed through by the FDA. The UK has now ordered suicide warnings on prozac among other approved drugs and MD shrinks have become nothing but dope peddlers, the pharmaceutical industry now underwrites the APA and the whole of psychiatry. The shrinks are MDs in the sense that avbortion mill providers are MDs but they are NOT practicing medicine or even dubious therapy anymore, they are drug dealers. Every bullshit psychiatry argument I have a comeback for, been researching this for 45 years plus.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 26, 2007 at 6:55 PM You claim that if there is a physical or organic basis for a mental disease than it is a physical and not a mental disorder. Ergo, there can be no such thing as a mental disorder since all their sources are deemed by medical science to be physical. This is quite a tautology. It is, in addition, quite circular reasoning. Physical and Mental disorders BOTH have physical or organic/chemical roots. The mind is regulated by neurotransmitters as well as enzymes active in the nervous system. Human beings are basically cell tissue and chemistry. It is known that the disruption of certain neurotransmitters have a psychological effect which can be corrected by medication.
I was on Prozac for a couple of years and experienced an unpleasant depressive episode that lasted three months.It was corrected with a drug called serazone which has since been removed from the market. Drug therapy for mental illness is a tricky business. That doesn’t mean it is a myth. We must keep trying to find successful treatments.Progressives believe in progress. The right is skeptical.
Mind and body seem to be linked. Mental illness and its organic roots seem to be convincing proof of this point.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 27, 2007 at 12:02 AM It’s not a tautology, moron, it is a medical fact. But when it comes to a fundamental disagreement on basic premises, anecdotes won’t cut it. You need to read Szasz if you want to find out why people dispute the idea of “mental illness.” Maybe you are too frightened to have your paradigm challenged as is the case with what is mislabeled the “holocaust.” Yoour standard tactic of venomous namecalling followed by dismissal out of hand of contrary sources followed by more assertions sometimes with refs as if I’m supposed to give your refs any serious consideration after you trash mine...........well, the pattern is clear. Human beings are much more than cell tissue and chemistry. Your tautological repetition of so-called mental illnesses as being like real physical illnesses doesn’t make it so. Medication can cause all sorts of disruption and effects, pro and con, it hardly proves there is such a thing as “mental illness.” So either read Szasz and Breggin or shove it up your behind, makes no difference personally to me.
Posted by blondemike on Mar 27, 2007 at 11:37 AM He denies the existence of racism (unless it’s the racism of blacks for whites), he denies the existence of anti-Semitism (unless it’s the anti-Semitism of Jews for the Palestinians), he denies the existence of god (unless it’s the god of nature and libertarian free trade, which he worships), and now he denies the existence of mental illness (unless it’s the mental illness of the people who disagree with him).
Posted by Major Major on Mar 30, 2007 at 9:42 PM Major, Major, now that was really profound......did you think of this all by yourself in that tiny pin head of yours...................
Posted by blondemike on Apr 2, 2007 at 10:25 AM In his post above, Edward Ordman vilifies President George Bush’s policies repeatedly stating that they, in essence, work against the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Interestingly, Ordman presents no evidence to support his allegations, most likely because his position is not supportable by facts.
His assertion that U.S. and Israeli policy do not lead toward peace and, in fact, increases terrorism andmaintains poor living conditions for Palestinians flies in the face of common sense and reason Ordman’s assertion that Bush’s motives are driven by a desire to cement his power and suggests paranoia in his thought processes.
Put simply, peace in Palestine and Israel would benefit the U.S., Israel and Palestine. President Bush is doing the best he can do, under the conditions he has to work with, to bring about the best possible solution for all parties to the problem.
ole meph
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