Posted: Saturday, May 03, 2008 6:26 PM with 122 comment(s)
I am a staunch opponent of Barack Obama's candidacy but I am one with Mr. Peretz on this. Daniel Pipes is a provocateur and needs to be taken down for spreading his calumny. A number of weeks back, I had to explain to an untutored friend that Obama is not a secret Muslim. The Internet is a wonderful resource but it is also a plague upon us in the form of slanderous and paranoid emails and rampant file - sharing.
Can we - Clinton and Obama supporters alike - agree to agree on this matter? Anyone for joining UAP - United Against Pipes?
"Was Barack Obama a Muslim?"
Probably not.
I don't support Obama but his being a Muslims is a spurious issue.
I too like Pipes work on Muslim extremism but sometimes he misapplies is insights into Islamic fanaticism.
If Obama was a Muslim it was only in the sense that any Jewish person born of a Jewish mother is a Jew, which is to say in a formal and formalistic way. There is no evidence that he ever practiced that religion. There is a lot of evidence that he is a sincere Christian.
"Can we - Clinton and Obama supporters alike - agree to agree on this matter? Anyone for joining UAP - United Against Pipes?"
No, we can't.
Pipes has done some very good work. Just because I disagree with someone on an issue doesn't mean that I have to ostracize them. (The only exceptions are people who are bigots or antisemites or dare I say it, terrorists.) For someone who calls him or herself a “liberal” you sure an intolerant jerk. Must be the reformer in you; like teetotalers there is a streak of intolerance in every reformer.
I am a Clinton supporter and I wouldn't join any club of which you are a member.
I wonder who this LR is?
He or she just started posting and whether this poster will turn out to be a long time poster in disguise or a troll only time will tell.
Freud's concept of projection is tailored to you like a cheap suit, Jacksondyer. Who is it that is intolerant when you won't join a club of which I am a member but I would belong to a club that you are a member of? Think hard, Jd, I think that even you will eventually be able to answer this one. Given that I am also a supporter of Clinton, we are already members of the same club. Welcome aboard, my good man.
Further, your reading skills need burnishing. I said nothing about ostracizing Daniel Pipes. I merely agreed with M.P. and tongue - in - cheek, proposed UAP. You are such a literalist; t's a shame that the Soviet Union closed down 17 years ago - you would have made a great Soviet censor.
well done Marty, you have finally put down the lie that you are inherently anti-Muslim (and are simply anti-radical...Muslim, or Christian, or what have you, which is absolutely fair)
I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood where even the presence of Lutherans was regarded with a little bit of suspicion. (at least among the children of the neighborhood, most of us being Parochial school students)
I found this interesting, I was not aware Obama attended a Catholic school.
Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia, despite being listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school, Strada Asisia, where he attended 1st through 3rd grades. At the time, the school most likely registered children based on the religion of their fathers, said [Israella Pareira] Darmawan, Obama's former [1st-grade] teacher. Because Soetoro was a Muslim, Obama was listed as a Muslim, she said.
The enrollment form from the Catholic school, which has been cited as evidence that Obama was a Muslim in Indonesia [including by the Los Angeles Times], also was rife with errors. It listed Obama as an Indonesian, listed his previous school incorrectly and failed to list his mother, Ann, at all.
It is a pity he didn't become a Catholic then and we would have been spared all of this Wright nonsense. I daresay no one would have dared go after him for his Catholicism, regardless of what any of his priests said or did.
"liberal reformer" is kind of a lame handle, n'est-ce pas? I mean, I'm just saying.
No offense.
ironyroad, how can a person change their handle? I was thinking of "reforming Liberal" whadya think?
Dunno, blackton, but that capital L is cool.
Ironyroad: I am sorry that you don't care for my moniker. I picked something functional and something that describes my political philosophy and temperment. I wasn't making a failed effort to be clever, I wasn't striving for self - referential postmodern chic. You could comfortably be shoehorned into a David Lodge novel, Nice Work, say.
As for you, Jacksondyer, I have read the print version of TNR for some thirty years. I remember when M. Kinsley was the editor, twice actually, in the 1980's (he wrote me a nice note in response to a letter I wrote him). I recall when Wolf Blitzer wrote for the magazine. And Ken Bode, Morton Kondracke, Fred Barnes and Timothy Noah, and many more.. So unfortunately, I revel in continuity. As regards the troll department, I will let you don the eccentric hat and sleep under bridges.
Yes, Irony, “lame handle” is right.
So is his comment pretty lame:
"Think hard, Jd, I think that even you will eventually be able to answer this one. Given that I am also a supporter of Clinton, we are already members of the same club. Welcome aboard, my good man." LR
Just because too people stand in line to see the same movie, get on the same bus, or eat in the same restaurant doesn't make them "members of the same club" my good man.
Modern life is full of serial associations (to borrow a Sartrean term) which do not constitute either a Gemeinschaft or Gesellschaft.
"As for you, Jacksondyer, I have read the print version of TNR for some thirty years. I remember when M. Kinsley was the editor, twice actually, in the 1980's (he wrote me a nice note in response to a letter I wrote him). I recall when Wolf Blitzer wrote for the magazine. And Ken Bode, Morton Kondracke, Fred Barnes and Timothy Noah, and many more.."
Am I supposed to be impressed by this? Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
" So unfortunately, I revel in continuity.
If you revel in continuity why not stay with the print verson.
"As regards the troll department, I will let you don the eccentric hat and sleep under bridges."
Thanks, but bridges aren't what they used to be. You the state of the infrastructure.
Show me a Roman bridge in a warm climate and I'll gladly repose under it for a few hours.
Ironyroad: I am sorry that you don't like my moniker. I chose something functional and something that describes my political philosophy and temperment. I was not making a failed effort to be clever, I was not striving for postmodern self - referential chic. You could be shoehorned into a David Lodge novel, Nice Work, say.
As for you, Jacksondyer, I have read the print version of TNR for some thirty years. I remember when M. Kinsley was editor, twice actually, in the 1980's. I recall when Wolf Blitzer wrote for the magazine , as well as Ken Bode, Morton Kondracke, Fred Barnes, Timothy Noah and many more. So unfortunately, I value continuity. As regards the troll department, I shall defer to you and let you don the eccentric hat and sleep under bridges.
Something solid in the way of a name would offend you, Jacksondyer, would it not? When I said that we belong to the same club because both of us support Hillary Clinton, I was being ironic. Ask Ironyroad; he will see this because at least he is intelligent. As I said, the former Soviet Union could have used you - you would have jailed metaphors. Plus ca change.
I still religiously read the print version of TNR and so should you, instead of merely dwelling on this (mainly) sound bite website. It just might improve your prose.
So true. I often murmur that to myself looking out my window, as I'm doing now, at the Appalachian darkness: "Well, at least I'm intelligent."
Actually, it's longtime poster aeromonas here. Just wanted to demonstrate that since the CanWest "website reformers" worked their baleful magic on TNRD anyone can change his handle any time he likes, and of course he and change it to SOME ELSE'S if he likes as well.
blackton's handle's not safe
nor is irony's
nor jackson's
Not even Marty's. Though were he inclined to intervene in one of these threads--he never is--his words at least would be set off against a panel of gray.
Thanks ironyroad, you speak for me too, ironically of course.
I don't think LR knows what the meaning of irony is anymore than he understands the logic he thinks he knows.
"Actually, it's longtime poster aeromonas here. Just wanted to demonstrate that since the CanWest "website reformers" worked their baleful magic on TNRD anyone can change his handle any time he likes, and of course he and change it to SOME ELSE'S if he likes as well."
I am not worried since the number of regular posters is very small here and if you post long enough you get known by your style of composition. I did have a hunch that LR was either some old poster under a new name or as I said a posting troll.
So what did your little experiment prove?
Well, the Bobbsey Twins are stilI up, I see. Jacksondyer: When I use an ironic locution, by definition I know what irony means. When my irony is taken as literal, this is akin to mentality of the old Soviet censors. Why do I bother? You think like Red Ken, only inside out.
Jacksondyer: I really detest it when some pygmy challenges my truthfulness. I am about as straightforward as they come. I have a disability and I just recently acquired a computer. It has been difficult for me to sit for long at a computer but through sheer will I am able to do so for longer stretches now. I am so new to all this that my girl friend has to guide me through every step. She is wonderful and I have learned much in a short time. Of course I realize that none of this matters to the Scourge of the Palestinians. Just to set the record straight, though.
“When I use an ironic locution, by definition I know what irony means.”
Yes, humpty dumpty.
Problem is that nothing you said or say is ironic. It is combative, but it isn’t irony. Like some right wing nut when caught being nutty, you say “I was only joking.”
“When my irony is taken as literal, this is akin to mentality of the old Soviet censors. Why do I bother?”
Excuse me, but you were the one trying to censor people. Oh I know, you ‘was’ only joking.
Reformer, reform thyself. Now, go find yourself a nice little bridge and lay yourself down to slumbers.
Liberal reformer, liberal deformer; liberal informer, liberal misinformer; it all spells: "Illiberal”
Jacksondyer: It is uncanny. Every pedestrian mind that I have come across says the same thing - you only said you were joking after the fact. Now here is simply the latest incarnation. As with my moniker and how long I have been blogging, I have been totally truthful, a concept that seems to be foreign to Jd.
Anyone who knows me (and thankfully that does not include Jd) knows that I joke all the time and constantly use ironic expressions. You missed your calling. Mikhail Suslov, chief of ideology in later Soviet times would have been proud of you.
good post peretz. Even a cursory glance at my chiascuro youth would show that yes, I was a Catholic but decidedly backsliding even then, I ran the streets, I beat up kids, I saw horrors like dogfights and rat fights, my compadres and I would, after school. take a long walk to the nearest golf course and hide in the bushes until some old white dude hit a great shot that landed on the green near the cup, and then we would run out, pick up the ball and throw it into the lake, then hightail outta then, closely followed by 4 plaid wearing old white dudes who, if they caught us, would have gleefully clubbed us like baby seals.
In other words, people do a lot of crazy s--t in their youth, especially working class folks, and then you grow up and become so respectable and successful that it can actually hurt.
"Just wanted to demonstrate that since the CanWest 'website reformers' worked their baleful magic on TNRD anyone can change his handle any time he likes, and of course he and change it to SOME ELSE'S if he likes as well."
aeromonas, you sketch the apocalypse!
aeromonas - CanWest's QA team are hip to your tricks. Jig's up on that one, I'm afraid (rats!)
jaunty/cookie - we're all waiting for the novel. Tell us when the galleys are ready for review.
" Jacksondyer: It is uncanny. Every pedestrian mind that I have come across says the same thing - you only said you were joking after the fact. Now here is simply the latest incarnation. As with my moniker and how long I have been blogging, I have been totally truthful, a concept that seems to be foreign to Jd."
Yes, we know LR is the gold standard of TRUTH. Or so he thinks. LR is actually a truthteller who lies all the time.
"Anyone who knows me (and thankfully that does not include Jd) knows that I joke all the time and constantly use ironic expressions."
Too bad his jokes are humorless and his irony is lost on anyone but himself.
I am thankful that I don't know this asshole.
Self declared truthful jokesters, are ....well, a joke.
"Jacksondyer: It is uncanny. Every pedestrian mind that I have come across says the same thing -"
For someone who repeats himself all the time this is pretty funny.
I have come to realize that I am dealing with a pathological persona in Jacksondyer. I have been entirely truthful in all that I have said and he has no evidence to the contrary and yet he still hurls his calumnies. It is sad that on the website of an elegant and influential magazine that publishes such lovely things as the lyrical meditations of Leon Wieseltier and the trenchant commentary of Marty Peretz, people of the mentality of Jacksondyer advertise their immaturity, engage in ad hominen attacks and induldge in the tu quoque fallacy. The eloquence and the heart of this magazine surely has not penetrated the cerebral cortex of Jacksondyer.
Here he comes again the L Deformer posting twice.
He thinks that if he posts a message twice it will automatically make it true.
Speaking of pathological personalities, my goodness.
And this is a man who thinks he is "joking" all the time.
"The eloquence and the heart of this magazine surely has not penetrated the cerebral cortex of Jacksondyer."
Of course you double posts are a sign of your eloquence.
Go fuck yourself Illiberal Deformer. How is this for eloquence?
Pipes is an extremist. I thought that was well-established? So why lend any credence whatsoever to his wacky views on anything by airing them? And your headline is inflammatory. Why is this question even being pondered by somebody on the staff of this magazine? You give legitimacy to nutty stuff like this when you consider it, especially when you don't sound so sure yourself that Barack Obama actually isn't a Muslim. He went to school for four years in a Muslim country. He had a Muslim father. He was raised by an athiest and didn't come to G-d until he was an adult. Does everything have to be black and white? Isn't a magazine like this supposed to be too sophisticated to see the world in terms of black and white?
I grew up overseas. I understand full well where Barack Obama is coming from in almost every way. The world is a much more complex place for him than it seems to be for most Americans. And his worldview is precisely why he both appreciates this country in spite of its flaws and why he is able to see all the points of view of Americans on all sides of the spectrum, why he wants to bring this country together around common ideals. As somebody from two cultures and who has lived in more than one, he learned at a young age to see the world from diverse perspectives and to get along with people from all walks of life. This is his strength as a community organizer, as the leader of a presidential campaign, as a senator, and ultimately as a presidential leader. However, it also is proving to be his political achilles heel. It is his political achilles heel because his complex unique background seems to be political fodder for his opponents (which is fed by the media through blogs and headlines such as the one above), but it is also his achilles heel because it makes him more nuanced in his approach to asserting his positions, which is something the American electorate can't seem to grasp.
ps- I do understand that you're criticizing Pipes, and after re-reading my post above, it seems as though I didn't get that. My point is to ask why even bring this subject up again? It only extends the controversy when you do this.
Jacksondyer: When I saw that my comments were double - posted, I wondered if you would be fatuous enough to think that I thought so much of my comments that I dispatched them twice. Sure enough, the idiocy manifested itself in black print in the form of your last post. Fairly frequently messages will be double - posted or even - in the case of one of my comments - three time, totally unintentionally. And who is new to this site?
I am going to terminate these exchanges. Someone has to muster some dignity and clearly it will not be you. You have now descended even further in your use of an obscenity. I have long thought that people such as you are the perfect refutation of God's existence.
liberal reformer: Just press the submit button ONCE. I can take a few minutes for a post to appear. This, I believe, the genius of CanWest.
LR, you can potentially avoid the double-posting by not clicking "submit" twice even if your post appears not to go through the first time.
Ironyroad: Thank you for the tip, though I could have sworn that there are times when I have only clicked on submit once and yet my comments appeared twice.
I went to 4 years of Catholic school but I'm not a Catholic.
“Which leaves us with this proposition: If Barack Obama was really a Muslim and has become a Christian, he is really an apostate. Or rather, as the Muslims name it, a murtaad. And in Islam a murtaad is fair game. He awaits the beheading. Pipes is playing with fire: he is dealing in provocation and incitement. This is serious business.”
True enough, it is serious business, Marty.
However, it isn’t all Pipes’ doing.
He is wrong to say that Obama is a Muslim, but surely whether he is not wrong to call attention to the fact that other Muslims, at least some of them, may regard him as one.
In the second case Pipes is not responsible for the actions and reactions of the Islamicist world. You of all people should know that.
It may be that his candidacy could well become a teaching moment for us all about the true nature of Islam. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
cthulhu "I went to 4 years of Catholic school but I'm not a Catholic."
The question, though, is do other Catholics regard you as one? Different religions different rules.
The closest analogy to Obama’s situation I know, though not exact, was that of Madame Albright who was born of Jewish parents who converted to Catholicism. She too had some Jewish relatives and under Jewish law since her mother was Jewish could have been regarded as Jew. However, since she herself didn’t and doesn’t think of herself as a Jew most Jews don’t regard her as one.
Muslims are of course a lot stricter about such matters than Jews and tend not to let people of so easy. From what I understand the recent Italian Muslim convert to Catholicism elicited death threats and a fatwa or two.
www.breitbart.com/print.php
So...getting back to the post: I haven't read all 3 of Pipes' articles on this, and don't have time to catch up right now. But from the 2 I read, his main concern is not Obama himself, but -- and this is important, folks -- how the Muslim world will perceive him. He's the son of a Muslim father, and that at least in the eyes of many Muslims, makes him a Muslim and/or an apostate. Pipes' point is really a question: how will different Muslim leaders, of countries and of non-state groups, perceive him as a result? Will this make a difference in the conduct of foreign relations/diplomace/whatever? Is this something to be concerned about? It's a reasonable point to raise, and nothing to get your knickers in a twist about.
And Pipes is no extremist. He provides information that is almost always accurate, and raises reasonable questions that are uncomfortable for naive widdle American and European wiberals. Too bad if they can't cope with the resulting discomfort.
"I am going to terminate these exchanges." Illiberal Deformer
It's about time. Try positng on the topic being discussed instead of attacking me.
" But from the 2 I read, his main concern is not Obama himself, but -- and this is important, folks -- how the Muslim world will perceive him." Lisah
Exactly, that was my point, above.
"Pipes is playing with fire: he is dealing in provocation and incitement. This is serious business."
And to Peretz --- surprised at you. It's not Pipes who's playing with fire. It's the Muslim fanatics who are playing with fire, and they'd be doing it whether or not Pipes or anyone else raises the question.
You're so besotted with Obama that you're headed round the twist....
Yes, JD -- but given the CanWest talent for software, your post wasn't up yet...In any case, it's really sad that this obvious point isn't obvious to so many people, along with so much else about the Mideast, the Arab world, etc...and.it would be nice if this (and other examples) could be teaching moments....
Sigh....
peretz is full of surprises. That he would contradict Pipes - I have always assumed that peretz and he were simpatico - is one more sign that peretz is not habituated in his politics and that guys like me can be wrong and peretz is capable of changing his course. I would have never imagined that. I was wrong...and peretz is disappointing his usual crew and finding himself over here with me, hysterical and reflexive, as he once called me. Ain't that a kick...
I am violating my auto - injunction just once here. When you are up against a cretin like Jacksondyer, it leaves you incredulous. You all know the kind from your schoolyard days. Unfortunately, maturity isn't universal and a few like Jacksondyer slip through the cracks. Here is someone who attacked me first on this blog, who descended to the level of wielding an obscenity against me, who engaged in ad hominen attacks, who liberally indulged in tu quoque, and now he wants me to stop attacking him and comment at the topic at hand. It is hilarious; it reminds me of that splendid passage in Alan Schom's wonderful book on Napoleon which I read exactly ten years ago this summer in which he describes Napoleon, after the Battle of Waterloo, hunkering down in western France, planning his next move and feeling sorry for himself and opining that there is so much injustice in the world.
To lisah, radical Islamists and the non - Islamic Barack Obama have nothing to do with each other, so Mr. Peretz is entirely correct in calling out the hysterfical Daniel Pipes on his incendiary remarks. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable over at Commentary's website. You still could get James Kirchick there, too.
LISAH "Yes, JD -- but given the CanWest talent for software, your post wasn't up yet...In any case, it's really sad that this obvious point isn't obvious to so many people, along with so much else about the Mideast, the Arab world, etc...and.it would be nice if this (and other examples) could be teaching moments....
Sigh...."
I agree, sigh and all.
"I am violating my auto - injunction just once here." Illiberal Deformer
Who cares. I am have no interest in replying ot an asshole like you.
Go ahead and fire off some more self serving insults, Cretin!
LISAH writes: "He provides information that is almost always accurate, and raises reasonable questions that are uncomfortable for naive widdle American and European wiberals. Too bad if they can't cope with the resulting discomfort."
This is entirely subjective, but I regard myself as a liberal with a strong social democrat/social justice tinge, and I'm conscious of a whole history of liberals (in many parts of the world, in fact, not just here) facing reasonable and indeed unreasonable questions, and putting up with the accompanying discomfort. Just FYI.
I think we have to award the bout between JacksonDyer and LIberal Reformer to LR. Jackson wound up with a great deal of force, but kept missing. LR connected time and again.
If I were Jackson, I would reconsider my debate tactics.
Kudos LR. I will buy you a brew next time you are up north.
So what if Obama was a Muslim? He probably was, but why should that disqualify him? As for Peretz's posting, it's as ridiculous as ever.
The US president could just as well be Muslim. As long as he goes after Islamism, the Nazism or Communism of our time, that's all it matters.
Obama should be more concerned with who he associates, the KKK-style racist Jeremiah Wright or Zbigniew Brzezinski - not whether he was a Muslim as a kid.
“I think we have to award the bout between JacksonDyer and LIberal Reformer to LR.”
If we have to pick a winner I’d go with JD. Liberal Reformer was on the defensive much of the time and in the end threw in the towel.
Thank you very much for your observations, tembrach. Clearly, you are far more astute than poor shriberl. I was only on the defensive in the sense that I was ducking the boulders hurled by jacksondyer, after which I sallied forth. Further, it is difficult to focus on the topic at hand when a juvenile mind is constantly hurling invective and proliferating false charges based on no evidence. Then too, he was repeatedly throwing my characterizations of him back at me. Only someone with an IQ well beneath the bell curve would think that tu quoque and obscenities were clever ripostes. Either that or shriberl too is a schoolyard bully or an admirerer thereof, or is jacksondyer under another name, or is jd's drag queen. That exhausts all possibilities.
I live up north myself, tembrach, in the Pacific Northwest, to be precise and I should be honored to buy you a brew for your kind words.
shirber1: a rhinoceros in heat would retreat before JD in full frontal attack, which is pretty much 24/7.
But I have to say that as a sociological and anthropological phenomenon, not to mention as the subject of a psychiatric textbook, JD and his comments are pure gold. He is, for example, the only poster who routinely tells other posters to "fuck yourself". Given his temperament, I can only assume that that is the only kind of fucking he himself has ever experienced; hence his intimate knowledge of how painful and insulting it could be. Still, though amusing to read, JD's posts would put a stampeding Hun army to flight, so that LR threw in the towel is no black mark against him ...
Look at the good souls fretting here, the kings of cliche - schoolyard bully, juvenile and other rubbish typical of the TV-addicted. Calling someone juvenile means you're out of arguments.
Yo icarusr are you a board-certified psychiatrist? If you're not, why should your opinion not be worthless? For some reason everyone has specialist opinions these days.
Sleepy, are you a board-certified human being? If you're not, why should your opinion not be worthless? Etc. ...
See, it's too easy to make these kinds of clichéd attacks. Of course I am not a "board-certified psychiatrist", nor a sociologist or an anthropologist, even if I have spent the biggest part of the last twenty years, reading and researching all of the above. It does not take a specialist to observe that someone's assinine comments would work well in a psychiatry textbook: if you've read one, you know the type. So please, if you are trying to be clever, avoid the "are you a specialist" cliché.
Anyway, sleepy, anyone who compares Wright to the KKK is quite evidently prone to exaggeration, mischaracterisation and loopy judgement. Any attack from you is mere affirmation that the attacked person is sane and sober.
What a hilarious post, icarusr. I think that is the only kind of sex jacksondyer has experienced. My girlfriend suggested that he needs some tail. One slight cavil: I did not throw in the towel, I rose out of the muck. I am extremely tenacious but I can certainly better employ my time. Trying to rein in a jackal is not my notion of time well spent.
Sleepyavl: You wield the demotic "yo" and you accuse me of using cliches? If someone mimics juvenile behavior then denominating him as such is not a cliche. I weary of endeavoring to enlighten undereducated TNR bloggers. Lest anyone accuse me of snooty elitism, I hasten to say that I feel inferior to, inter alia, bloggers aeromonas, virginiacentrist, and telepluhkin2you.
Lastly, though it seemed to escape you, sleepyavl, icarusr did not attempt to diagnose jacksondyer in any clinical sense nor did he cite the DSM - IV in an attempt to impersonate a psychiatrist. So no one who is not board - certified can offer a psychological opinion, sleepyavl, not even yourself?
icarusr: I certainly defend my comparison of Wright to the KKK. The statute o his church is a racist document. Substitute the word back with white and you have an Aryan nation document, or a KKK one. This is not an accident: the man Wright honored was none other than Louis Farrakhan, the black counterpart of David Duke.
And keep your "anyone" argument for yourself or go on The Nation website with it, Noam Chomsky uses it all the time. "Anyone" means you are out of factual arguments - as you often are. That's when incidentally, you start with those ridiculous psychiatric diagnoses. You are clearly say pretty stupid things. I never said I was board-certified, but I did not offer psychiatric advice - YOU did.
liberal reformer: Indeed, psychiatric advice is misplaced if you don't know what you are talking about. This fellow clearly knows nothing about psichiatry yet offers opinions with abandon. He even defends his right to be ignorant. Here's no surprise - that's how this posts generally are: fact-free and besides the point.
As for the Yo addressed to you, it was certainly a cliche: it was a mirror I tendered deliberately to you. Do you like cliches? Have some yourself, see how nice they taste and how good they look.
Otherwise, I do enjoy the posts of teplukhin2you too, just as you do.
Methinks you have a 15 - second attention span, sleepyavl. That "yo" of yours was actually directed to icarusr but subsequently you blog that it was mirror - imaged to me. When you hastily confect an ex post facto rationalization, it is supposed to be linked to the person in question
Daniel Pipes is no less an embarrassment to the Jewish people that Noam Chomsky. When they die I hope they go to a hell where they have to spend eternity in a room with one another.
Psychiatric diagnosis? When did I offer "diagnosis" of any kind? In any event, I think you need to get a grip, take your valium or prozac or whatever it is you take to get you through the day, and read what I wrote, C A R E F U L L Y. A post that begins with "rhinoceros in heat" should not be read L I T E R A L L Y. So even if I had said, JD obviously suffers from Tourette's Symdrom, you should not take it as a "diagnosis", however accurate it might be.
""Anyone" means you are out of factual arguments?" How about "Anyone who advocates the genocide of Jews is an anti-Semite"? Is that "out of factual argument"? "Anyone who fucks a child is a child molester?" "Anyone who kills with no justification, provocation or mental illness is a murderer?" Do you even read the crap you write, or is this some sort of verbal diarrhea: you feel the urge to write, so you run to the keyboard and splash your spleen all over the place?
Finally, whenever Wright started setting corsses on fire in Scarsdale and started lynching honkey then you can compare him to the KKK. Until then, your bleatings are like the "Nazi" spithets JD spews at all and sundry: the rantings of an unhinged and unimaginative person, who's only variation consists in changing the insult, rather than the argument or the evidence.
LR: Thanks - and I was merely referring to the earlier post re your having thrown out the towel. In any event, as Sting memorably put it, a gentleman walks, but never runs.
Me, I'm walking. Each time I come to the Spleen my spleen ends up overacting ... I've had my fill for the month.
Stuart Wild: brilliant. With Charles Gibson as moderator.
Icarusr, in that hypothetical psychiatric manual of yours there is a diagnosis for every one. Looked at closely you can find yourself there too. Of course Illiberal Deformer is there too for his obsession in general (see his repeated duplicate postings) and with me I particular and his dishonesty not to mention bad faiths shown in his idle pledges not to address me anymore which like a typical abuser keeps breaking.
In any case, IcarusrI am honored to be included in your psychiatric manual because of my use of “fuck you.” First chance I get I will hurl it at you once again, given your propensity to self righteous argumentation often with fallacious facts and bad logic as well as your meddling in other people’s quarrels.
icarusr said: "Psychiatric diagnosis? When did I offer "diagnosis" of any kind?" May 5, 2008 9:42 AM
icarusr: "But I have to say that as a sociological and anthropological phenomenon, not to mention as the subject of a psychiatric textbook, JD and his comments are pure gold. He is, for example, the only poster who routinely tells other posters to "fuck yourself"."
Let's add compulsive mendacity to the list of Icarus' mental disorders.
I love the empathy and uplift of people. Stuart Wild, why not imagine a utopia where the likes of Pipes and Chomsky enter a fruitful dialogue, banish their blind spots (which all of us have) and march off into the sunset together? It is continually dispiriting to witness in humankind the recourse to punitive as against empathic habits of the heart.
Noam Chomsky is an extremely bright person. He revolutionized linguistics, beginning with his Syntatic Structures (1957). But politically, he is an awful Manichean. The U.S. can do no right in his Weltanschuung and he takes at face value the good words of the leaders of Hamas. He seems to have no awareness of the unintended consequences that often occur when social programs are initiated. When he talks of "the needs of the populace", it is as if he regards the U.S. approximately the way one would view Bolivia, not as a largely middle - class country where conflicts of economics, politics, and interests in general sometimes occur among "the populace".
Daniel Pipes is a neoconservative hedgehog who could do with some leavening in the fox direction. One might wish to sentence him to six months of Isaiah Berlin, though often good sense and eloquence do not readily penetrate the cerebral cortexes of those who have installed narrow algorithmic programs in their minds with which they then scan and interpret most everything.
JD:
1. "subject of a psychiatric textbook" and "psychiatric diagnosis" are different things. If you don't know the difference, don't accuse ME of having a "mental disorder".
2. I also compared you to a rhinoceros in heat, it does not mean I am a zoologist. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes, it stands in for something else. A balanced, nuanced mind would grasp the difference between a literal "diagnosis" and a turn of phrase offered for effect. But then, someone who delights in hurling "fuck yous" at all and sundry is neither balanced nor nuanced ...
3. "meddling in other people's quarrel"? When you - I mean you personally, not the generic you - verbally abuse your wife or your child in the privacy of your home, you might argue that this is "other people's quarrel". When you dispense with insults on a public talkback board, it is everyone's business.
icarusr, save it for people like LR and others who have time to waste.
Got no time for you.
This, btw, is a thread about Daniel Pipes if you have anything to say about him do so, otherwise, screw!
Here is one reason why people like mackenzie hate Daniel Pipes: he shows the irrationality of his friends.
Here is a sample:
“Hamas MP Salem Salamah: PEPSI Stands for "Pay Every Pence to Save Israel"”
www.memritv.org/.../1760.htm
Perhaps mackenzie uses pence, most red blooded americanos I know haven’t used a pence in ages.
Icarusr, I can only commend your energy for talking on jacksondyer. I quit because after all, there is no reasoning with Mugabe - like life - forms. He speaks of me wasting time even as he hurls obscenities and bouquets of tu quoques. The man is a self - parody.
liberal reformer and ironyroad....you are exactly the naive widdle wiberals I described. You both did a good job or proving it, and proving your deliberate ignorance of current fanaticism.
Icarus, liberal, I've worked extensively with special needs children, and have had ample opportunity to observe all kinds or disorders in action. Not to mention that some of this stuff runs in my family.
My best guess is that JD has Asperger's Syndrome co-morbid with bipolar disease. The Asperger side of him: He's very literal-minded, i.e. doesn't get jokes or metaphors; doesn't pick up on social cues and has trouble in social situations; obsessive, usually about one or two subjects. I mean, what could better describe the man?
The bipolar side: easily angered and agitated; goes into rages; has major graphomania, fevered thinking.
Also probably some narcissism. If you disagree with him on certain subjects, he goes ape--his thought becomes disorganized, disintegrated. It's like he can't hold himself together if you attack his ideas or just disagree with him. His going on the offense is just a way to keep himself and his thinking organized.
When Jackson's not on a tear, he makes great sense. Don't always agree with him. He can also be pretty witty. He's forbidden me from directly addressing him, which is a shame, really, because I often enjoyed his insights and criticisms.
Am I guilty of diagnosing him without a degree in psychiatry? Yeah, but who gives a shit.
Icarusr, what do you suppose causes the arrested development of people like LISAH who employ baby - talk? Further, she knows nothing of my views. I have been declaiming against Islamist radicalism for years and have been critical of the left and of precincts of liberalism for being either blithely unaware of or insufficiently alarmed by such currents. As for fanaticism, well, LISAH should talk.
Any actual evidence of that from my posts, LISAH? Or do you just kinda make stuff up at your terminal when the boss is gone to lunch?
What an extremely acute post, Mollysimon. When I first encountered jacksondyer, I thought that here is an intelligent, informed blogger. It is only when he set upon me and others on this blog (I am new) that I began to see and experience the pathology. I hadn't scoped it out to the extent you have but what you write makes great sense. He has some mental tic, to be sure. An overactive limbic system or OCD, something.
LisaH: But don't you see the continued development of settlements in the West Bank--and I'm talking deep in the West Bank--as somewhat antagonistic? A thumb in the eye? The moderate Palestinians--if any are left--deserve this concession. It also gives Israel a moral leg to stand on. And you know I write this as a Zionist.
lib and irony -- my comments are based on the ways you commented on this thread, generally and to me, (n.b., e.g., [!!!], below)....
Irony: Pipes is accurate on Islamic views on this question -- it's not subjective. And it's "liberals with a strong social conscience" who don't get the key point -- they feel sympathy for those they see as victims of those they consider powerful. That's where they tend to lose track of objectivty and of the simple point that those they perceive as weak are not necessarily weak, whatever their behavior, and those they perceive as powerful are not necessarily wrong.
liberal reformer: You're continuing to prove my point. Pipes is not "hysterical." He's accurate. Nor is he talking about all Muslims -- he's making the point that some Muslims, including perhaps some state and non-state actors, will perceive Obama to be a Muslim or an apostate -- and he's asking if this could be an issue, given the sensitivty overall in current foreign policy and in the wake of the Bush/Cheney disaster, for an Obama presidency. It's not a question of Obama having anything to do with Islam -- it's a matter of perception on the part of potentially dangerous -- in this case, Muslim -- state and/or non-state actors. Your problem for not doing the research to learn something here. And for your information -- yeah -- I read and listen to lotsa stuff, Commentary, The Nation, Dissent...even --gasp!! C-Span -- when I have the time. Sorry if my presence here offends you. But too bad.
For reference:
"This is entirely subjective, but I regard myself as a liberal with a strong social democrat/social justice tinge, and I'm conscious of a whole history of liberals (in many parts of the world, in fact, not just here) facing reasonable and indeed unreasonable questions, and putting up with the accompanying discomfort. Just FYI." -- ironyroad
"To lisah, radical Islamists and the non - Islamic Barack Obama have nothing to do with each other, so Mr. Peretz is entirely correct in calling out the hysterfical Daniel Pipes on his incendiary remarks. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable over at Commentary's website. You still could get James Kirchick there, too." -- liberal reformer
mollysimon -- what difference, really, do the settlements make? All the "palestinian" groups -- Hamas, Fatah, et.al., continue to make clear their goal is to destroy Israel -- all of it, sellements or no settlements. Look back -- what have concessions ever achieved? The level on intra-pal violence makes it near-impossible for any moderate "palestinians" to dare take action -- the consequeces have all too often proven really really dangerous....
molly...ouch! But I think you're spot on..
Until I can be sure of his true identity, I will hold to the belief that jackson is very close to the magazine, in some way. Related to one of the senior editors or a very close friend or former student.
I have often wondered if tnr had a confab, I might find him, my ears vibrating from the sound of teeth grinding, hunkered in a corner spot, hunched over the laptop, merryment and fun surrounding him, while he is totally focused on a spat with mackenzie and pecking out "go F yourself". Being a gracious person, I would extend a paw, and if he took it, it would be with head down, averted eyes, and then stand totally, completely still, like a hunted rabbit, hoping that El Lobo will not notice him if he doesn't move a muscle, hoping to blend into background, damning that impulse that insanely led him to leave his lair and venture out to meet real people, especially someone who he once, in the safety of his padded room, told to go F himself...
I sometimes rock myself to sleep with such visions...
...and ironyroad: I'm the boss of my little office-dom. More than willing to discuss with you which one of us is out to lunch on this issue....
LISAH: what have concessions ever achieved? I don't know, peace with Egypt and Jordan? Of course, the corner solution to your attitude is that because concessions do not achieve peace, therefore Israel should simply grab and annex and dispossess and settle at will. I mean, if that is what you are offering as a solution in the region, sure - but let's be honest and up-front about.
Molly: Meh, he's not sick, I just think he's an asshole. Having spent far too much of my life reading psych books (mostly on criminals), for what it's worth I am less than convinced about all this syndrom business, makes it look as if behavious is determined, rather than controlled. And whatever one can say about JD, it is clear he is in control. Kinda like Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther series ...
Jaunty: I think JD is Marty's MoreEvil Twin, or a sort of a "Maxi-Me" to Kirchick's Mini. But, hey, whatever rocks your boat, mate ;-). Any way, he's got a new one now - not just "Fuck you" but "screw". And, of course, I always take such advice very seriously ;-) ...
Marty Peretz, you probably have walked away from this post, if you ever read the comments (I won't blame you if you don't, considering the invective often hurled your way). So I say this without fear of hurting your feelings. To say that "For the last month or so [Obama's antagonists] have been trying to persuade us that he is a follower of extreme black Christian liberation theology" is, to put it charitably, disingenuous. Of course Obama's critics have NOT said that he is a follower of "extreme black Christian liberation theology," although I find it inexcusable that Obama sat before a pastor who preached it for 20 years without objecting or walking out -- and what's worse, to leting his children be exposed to it. (Might as well send them to a madrasah.)
Read this excellent piece by Glenn Beck on CNN: www.cnn.com/.../index.html
What disgusts me is not so much Obama himself who, like all candidates, has some explaining to do about one thing or another, but his fans -- the Obamaphiles -- who perform all sorts of ridiculous and dishonest contortions to keep their boy the Immaculate Conception of politics.
Was Obama a Muslim?
A Methodist, as a teenager I attended Catholic Mass regularly, at summer camp and boarding school, partly because of the adventure -- Catholics got to go into town -- partly because my stepmother was Catholic, and I thought all the ritual, mystery and paraphernalia were cool. Well, like Obama, I ended up not much of either. Was I a Catholic as a teenager? In the sense that I wasn't confirmed, no, I wasn't a Catholic. In a "spiritual" sense? I think so, for, blasphemous as it was, I was sincere in making confession and taking communion.
If Obama ever competently said, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohamed is his prophet," then he is a Muslim, no confirmation necessary. By "competent" I mean not as a child, by rote, but knowing what he was saying. Let's see, Christians and Jews say 12 or 13 is when you confirm or "join" your religion. How old was Obama when he was exposed to Islam, and if he recited the Muslim profession of faith, then how old was he?
These questions have not been answered. Are they important? Not to me, because I don't think Obama is much of anything. If he can sit in a church for 20 years and let the rantings of Wright blow right past him, then obviously Obama isn't serious about his religion. That's OK. But his putative religion, as espoused by his pastor, has caught him, and Obama is understandably trying to wriggle off the hook. That's OK, too.
But again, the problem isn't so much Obama as his fans. To be constantly bombarded with their chest thumping and defensiveness is most tiresome. To be subjected to their hypocrisy is nauseating. Hillary is raked over the coals as having "played the race card," because a close associate, her husband, mentions Jesse Jackson in the South Carolina primary. But when a close associate of Obama exposes himself, with his mean-spirited invective, over many years, as a race-baiting demagogue, watch the Obamaphiles circle the wagons.
The Wright connection raises legitimate questions about what kind of politics and culture Obama has been embracing for his adult life. The Muslim connection is not, as Obamaphile Peretz tries to make it, some kind of nefarious distraction. Both Obama's fathers are Muslim, Obama lived in a Muslim society for part of his formative years. He has long attended a church ministered by the likes of a friend-of-Farrakhan, quasi-Muslim preacher, whose own views are informed by black liberation theologian James Cone. It is thus quite proper to question the values which truly inform his thinking. It is possible that Obama has not embraced any of Wright's or Farrakhan's or Cone's militant views, but because of his affintity to Wright and others like him, the burden is on him to explain why he's only now repudiating them. The Philadelphia Speech, as much as Obamaphiles like to equate it with the Gettysburg Address, does not provide the explanation.
Americans will not elect someone named Hussein, Muslim or not, president. This is not a fault but a facticity. Sorry that the Obamaphiles are indignant about it and stomp their feet, but one delusion, that George W. Bush is a president, is bad enough without the Democratic party's being saddled with another. Alas, this appears to be happening, and once again the party, out of childish narcissism, has blown a golden chance to protect the nation from the depredations of Republicans.
I'm happy to hear it, LISAH -- and I imagine you're busy, and therefore perhaps you need to read things more carefully. For the record, I didn't comment on Pipes at all, I certainly didn't say anything about his subjectivity or lack of it, and I don't necessarily disagree with you that weak/strong doesn't always match up with right/wrong (although I think there's a very substantial Hellenic-Judaic-Christian moral philosophy that says that power demands responsibility and isn't an automatic good in itself).
But more broadly I'm at a loss to understand how my comment -- the one you copied above -- is evidence of "deliberate ignorance of current fanatcism." I've posted a bit here and there about current fanaticism (assuming you mean the radical Islamist variety) and I'd be very interested how you deduce deliberate ignorance. All I was saying above (in response to what I thought was a blanket accusation) was that I think there is a strong liberal history of facing reasonable and sometimes unreasonable questions and putting up with the discomfort (examples: the New Deal, the need for international organizations after WW2, racial segregation, Social Democracy vs. Communism in Europe, how to balance markets and regulation, how to balance artistic freedom and social constraint, science and belief, national security and civil rights etc etc, none of which was or is a simple matter of checking ideological boxes).
So, while I'm happy to argue with you, I can't say much about stuff I never said!
Funny, Jaunty, for a long time I thought you were MP's sock puppet. Really!
You're right, Molly, you've spent far too much of your life reading psych books. And you may be more right than you think about JD as Inspector Dreyfus, who's driven to distraction by blithering idiots.
Jauntyboulevardier: It is very strange that you posted your comment today on your hunch that jacksondyer is close to the magazine because this morning that same sentiment stole over me before I