From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri 22 Nov 2002 - 18:32:25 GMT
>
> Hi, Scott,
> By 'anti-Semitic' I mean bigoted against any or all Semitic races,
> including Arabs. Islam, being a religion, would not be included,
> though of course many Muslims are Arabs and vice versa. My experience
> of bigots is that their bigotry can swing around at anytime to attack
> anyone who is 'different,' so it should not bring much comfort to Jews
> - or anyone else - that Joe has so far focused his anti-Semitism on
> Arabs and Muslims.
>
Here is another blatant example of Lawrence's bullus shittus. I am
critical of a violent, virulent, cannibalistic memeset known as Radical
Islam, which may contain members of any ethnicity. Lawrence merely
parades his own bigotrous prejudices when he cluelessly equates a
memeset with a particular ethnicity.
>
>{Someday, when we have nothing else to talk about,
> we can explore whether the support of US Christian fundamentalists for
> Israel's territorial aggrandizement is _support_ for Israel, or an
> odd and powerful form of anti-Jewish anti-Semitism. Not that would be
> an interesting discussion!)
>
That would indeed be an interesting discussion.
>
> One of the insights of the US civil rights
> movement is that until there is tolerance for all, there can be
> tolerance for none, and in Joe we see the quintessential bigot: a
> raging anger against things and people he cannot understand; a
> recourse to binary, simplistic 'me-good, you-bad' thinking; and a
> biased selection of 'facts' for obsessive repetition; and, a pervasive
> paranoia - 'they are out to get me.'
>
Actually, it is not paranoia when they are really out to get you, or
anyone who is not clones of them, to convert or die, as the Radical
Islamicists vociferously maintain. Those who are not concerned by
such a phenomenon have not truly understood it. It is paradoxical, yet
nevertheless true, that the one thing that tolerant people cannot tolerate
is the intolerance of others, when that intolerance veers beyond
dissociation into conquest. Lawrence's abject inability to grasp this
simple principle reveals him to be quintissentially uncomprehending.
>
>It is sad, really, for a couple
> of reasons: Joe is not stupid, so there is in principle a waste of
> intellectual capability going on, and it occupies time and space on
> our list.
>
Actually, umm, no. I am interested in how strategies can be contrived to
defang this most noxious of memesets.
>
>Joe will never understand that we are here to study memes as
> objects, because instead he gets caught up inside them.
>
It is Lawrence who is caught up in a memeset; he attacke any remark
critical of the voracious nature of the radical Islamic memeplex. It
makes me wonder if that is his chosen faith.
>
> And Joe's
> raging bigotry is toxic; to the extent that anyone buys into it, it
> impedes the ability of the US to form intelligent and effective views
> of the world, and so to find our way to effective international
> policies.
>
I would argue that Lawrence's call to blissfully ignore devastating and
catastrophic events driven by such a voracious memeplex is itself a call
for cultural suicide; like telling one dog to roll over and expose its belly
in submission, even though the other dog will eagerly rip out its entrails.
>
> The consequence is that the US alienates itself from a world
> in which we need all the friends possible. It is ironic, too. Joe
> makes President Bush look like a model of insight, understanding,
> tolerance and leadership.
>
And now Bush is criticized for going the multilateralist route, and getting
not only the okay of the US congress and the vote of the US populace
in midterm elections, but also a unanimous UN security council
resolution and the support of NATO. I did not vote for Dubya, and do
not support his domestic or environmental agendas. However, that fact
does not mutate into an unreasoning hatred of the things he has done
right. The Bush-haters have insisted that Dubya do exactly as he has
done. First, they said, get the Congress to okay it. then they said, let's
see what the American people think. After that, they said the UN needs
to be consulted, and then they said that NATO should be consulted,
also. Every time he has met their demands, they have raised the bar,
only to be appalled when he in turn pole-vaulted the new demand.
>
> Joe lines up with the Falwells and Pat
> Robertsons of our country, and only make the job of the President
> harder.
>
Now, there are two people who closely resemble the very Radical
Muslims who concern me. They attack ALL Muslims, which I do not do,
just as Radical Muslims attack ALL Christians, and indeed anyone who
is not Muslim.
>
> Joe will rush to say that he is anti-religion, but his
> bigotry is on a par and with and of the same nature as Falwell's and
> Robertson's.
>
And I have just explained why this is another Lawry lie. Still working the
character-impugning ad hominem line, ayy, Lawry, when you cannot
context points on their merits?
>
> Having said all of that, I will also say that Joe's
> presence here on this list is interesting and not without value: it
> gives us our own case study of memetic warfare, and reveals a dark
> side of the American soul, a dark side that harks back to the
> foundations of our country - the dispossession of native peoples by
> Europeans colonialists, slavery, anti-black prejudice, religious
> fundamentalism, and now, international bullying in the form of
> power-based relationships.
>
Ahh - here we get a glimpse into the foundations of Lawry's own
memeset, the one to which he is in thrall, the one that motivates his
talibanic attacks. America is forever, for this clueless one, a
personification of the Heart of Darkness, which is why he probably
PREFERS an active Al Quaeda and a Nuke-toting Saddam. Anyone to
wield the sword of righteousness against the infidels. This is why
criticisms of Radical Muslims and Tin-Horn despots so deeply dismay
Lawry; they share the same hates, thus the enemy of Lawry's enemy
must become his friend, and must be defended in his inimitable US-
bashing way.
>
> I know that not everyone here is interested
> in this memetic battle, and sympathize. As with the battles that
> attended these other dark issues, we can't always choose our case
> studies. Sometimes they choose us <smile> Best regards, Lawry
>
You do make a good case study in why so much of the euro-trashing
that goes on (as a complement to the US-bashing) is so richly
deserved. It is because there are as many Euros like you as there are
Muslims who are Al Quaeda sympathizers.
>
> Scott:
> In what way are you using the label "anti-Semitism"? The term has a
> specific application AFAICT, meaning "hostility toward or
> discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group"
> [from MWCD10]. Is your application broader than this (ie- hostility
> etc. against Arabs or Muslims) or has Joe posted diatribes against
> Jews? I realize that Semites include the groups of Arabs and Jews but
> thought anti-Semitism had a more specific application.
>
Bingo. Lawry is inadvertently engaging in a psychological projection of
his own prejudices.
>
> Joe may be posting stuff that goes a little far in negative attitide
> towards Islam, but he could see himself as countering apologetics
> seen in the attitudes of others.
>
Lawry forgets that Jews are Semitic; for Lawry, I'm guessing that he
would prefer that Jews not exist at all. This European antisemitism has
dark and well-known roots, and a horrible history, and it would not
surprise me at all if Lawry shared it. For the enemy of his enemies is
his friend; thus the enemy of his new friend must be his enemy, also.
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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