0 flutes this week, I have to buy Xmas presents for other people than myself…
Maybe next month… What about you?
Only waiting for a couple this week ! No, its three ! Two old French, one locally manufactured.
I became Jewish when I discovered Christmas.
I do sometimes give people bottles of wine, then hang around until they open them !
A simple penknife will do, if your cave is not too dark. Much cheaper.
Remember in the fourties of the last century in the cave traditionally the burial place of Joshua a set of stone ritual cicumcission knives were found confirming the Old Testament stories.
Thaught it might inspire you !
I was once part of a minion for a circumcision.
As the rabbi did the deed, a piece of gauze
soaked in wine from Israel was squeezed into
the baby’s mouth, as an anaesthetic.
It was then that I realized why there are so
few male Jewish alcoholics.
Jim, I feel you are making a mistake in confounding " America Bashing " with my complaining of large scale war crimes by members of your administration and military leadership.
I cannot see that it will be in the interests of the people of the USA that the reputation of your country continues to sink in the world, giving rise to so many of the problems we have seen in recent years with the perpetration of illegal acts against civilians which will be remembered and resented for generations.
I put both Bush & Blair in the dock here.
Something else disturbs me a bit.
A lot is made of the numbers lost in the twin tower attacks. While not in any way excusing the organisers of the attack it is likely that the outcome was as much of a surprise to them as to the New York Authorities who, one imagines,would not have sent so many people into the danger zone if they had anticipated collapse of the towers.
As so much has been made of the numbers involved in making spurious reactions and so forth it is as well to look at what facts are available.
Apologies if I misunderstood you.
A lot of the Americans on this board are at least
as opposed to what you consider war crimes,
and the whole war, as you are. Perhaps
‘Preaching to the Choir’ is more apt than
‘America Bashing.’ Think you are tough
on Bush? You should listen to these
people!
More memories:
In 72 I hated the Vietnam war so bad that
I had two choices: start throwing bombs or leave.
So I left. As I traveled to Asia and into India I didn’t meet
another American tourist for six months. Canadians,
Brits, Germans, Australians, Italians…
I would be talking happily with these people and
somewher along the way they would realize I was an
American.
The response was always the same:
Dead silence and a look of
profound moral horror.
I found a remedy, finally. I would stand there
in the silence for awhile, then look them
squarely in the eye and say, sternly:
‘Americans Eat Babies!’
Broke the ice.
Good story Jim! I think most people from other countries know inside that not all of us support genocide or imperialism. It’s probably a knee-jerk reaction that can be overcome by conversation. I think it’s human nature to instantly judge someone on the surface because of something done by their country or culture. It’s not a good thing, but it’s an age old pattern that we seem to be stuck in. An example would be all of those people who instantly condemned Muslims or people of Middle Eastern extraction post-911. Or how Japanese-Americans were treated during WWII. No one group seems to be immune to it.
I get the impression that if I had been born earlier I would have been accused of Germany bashing if I had criticised Mr Hitler and his mates for their war crimes.
As it is we have Bush and Blair to call to account for their illegal goings on. Starting perhaps with the murder of civilians in the Serbian television offices.
Andrew, I don’t think anyone would accuse you of “Germany bashing” re-Hitler and his ilk. I think it’s an issue of govt’s and the people that are supporting their questionable activities vs the people in those countries that don’t support it. I guess what I mean, is that sometimes people from outside that country have a natural tendancy that there ARE people in those countries that feel just as strongly about the issue. Unfortunately since even most “democracies” aren’t truly democratic, they can only do so much to fight it. But it doesn’t mean that everyone in that country wishes to be viewed in the same way. I’m not suggesting that’s what you’re doing or anything, just that there is a tendancy for that to happen, which isn’t really fair to us dissenters.
It makes it worse from the outside when we are forever hearing that your media ignore or suppress a great deal of the horror done in your name.
The impression has been given worldwide since the New York problems that the majority of your population has simply swallowed the lies fed to them by your leaders, the neoconmen.That they choose to believe the propaganda, for example that Iraq and Al-Quaida were somehow mixed up together rather than enemies.
In fact the impression has been given repeatedly that the majority of the population are gullible uninformed fools.
Unfortunately the election result has not helped to correct that impression,though there was hardly a credible opposition.
I think the (mainstream) media does what it does because because they are large corporations that have decided it’s in their best interest (making lots of money) to report things the way they do. Fortunately we do have other sources of information. Of course, they’re threatened constantly because not being large for-profit corporations, they rely on public funding which is provided by the very government that they report objectivley on. But you’re right, the picture painted in the media here has done a lot to shape public opinion. Many (but not all) people here are jsut fine with that too. I think that’s because subconsciously, they DON’T WANT to know certain things. Then they’d actually have to live outside their bubble/comfort zone and face up to certain realities in the world and life in general. I don’t just mean international issues either, our own house is certainly not in order and there are a great many people who don’t seem to interested in really doing anything to change that, or at least taking the radical steps necessary.
Meemtp You should never put off till tomorrow what you can put off till the day after tomorrow.
Yes, I’ve honed procrastination to a fine art. Except when it comes to playing music that is.
The informed and uninformed of the US are probably in fairly equal part to those of your own nation, Andrew. Just about everyone I discuss such things with (in the 3D) agree that the reality is that we have become prisoners of our own government.
I flouted afore I whistled… howsomever… I don’t know if I can keep track ot two volatile threads!!!
You are right, Nanohedron, in suggesting that the masses are pretty dumb here in many ways ( putting up with what the government tells them ). No way do they believe,though, as 70% + of the American population is reported to, that Iraq had WMD or supported Bin Laden.That is just swallowing the propaganda of those who are making money by purveying such lies,knowing that your masses will believe anything they are told.
Do your masses know that a town of 300,000 non combatants has just been flattened ,and 6000 of them murdered ? Innocent people, mind you !
What would all these people, who seem to look no further than the next big Mac ( Ugh ! ) think if an invader came along and destroyed an American town of 300,000 citizens ? Would they not think it a bit off ?
Then when they hear Powell observing in the far east that he has never known such destruction would they not be tempted to ask him " what about Falluja which you have just deliberately destroyed , making 300,000 deliberately homeless ?
One of the biggest puzzles is that Jim, one of the best of fellows , seems to be in doubt that all these attacks on non- combatants are war crimes. I wish he could explain to me and the rest of the world, who simply do not understand.
He sees my position as pacifism, rather than the rejection of international lawlessness pursued for the basest of reasons.
Indeed we do (or let me specify that this information was not hidden from us), and I for one am left with yet more horror to heap upon the pile of it already before me. I’m of the growing suspicion that certain powers are hoping that, as the public are faced with more of this sort of thing day in and day out, numbness will evolve into apathy born of helplesness. If any are unaware, like as not it’s because it hurts to much to watch the news any more. And the process continues.
The particularly sick part is that this gigantic piece of mass murder /war crime was directed at a relatively few “insurgents” most of whom left the city in a defensive manoeuver to fight again another day, to leave the few citizens who had not been able to leave ( like the young boys forced back into the city )to face the bombing.
One again gets the impression from the latest "guided "bomb attack on the wrong house, killing 14 innocent men, women and children that the US airforce is utterly incompetent, or simply doesen’t care what it bombs.
Indeed the world watching all the brutality of the forces in Iraq must come to the conclusion that the US forces regard the ordinary Iraqi civilian as the enemy.
The low point of the invasion will no doubt be the recordings of the US airman who reported people standing on a street corner in Falluja and asked for, and was given, permission to "take them out ".
I trust that that pilot will be given to the Iraqis to try.
I am shocked, Nanohedron, to see a report that 65% of British citizens under 35 know nothing about the nazi extermination camps, so you may be right about the ignorance of the masses here.
However a swastica on the cover of a UK or American magazine increases the sales. It can result in a three year term of imprisonment in Germany !
I suspect that those who do care a bit just have to grind onagainst evil empires. Stalin. Pol Pot, Hitler, Bush, et al.
Noteworthy is Prince Harry’s wearing of a Nazi uniform to a costume party.
Bill
I wonder if it is anything to do with his German ancestry ?
Or inbreeding ?
Probably just the ignorance I was commenting on. He doesn’t seem a bad lad apart from this and the odd other idiocy.
He just isn’t too bright but seems, generally, to mean well.
Perhaps he can be encouraged to devote his life to farming, or butterfly conservation, or long distance underwater swimming.