From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri 22 Nov 2002 - 18:50:48 GMT
>From: joedees@bellsouth.net
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: RE: Islam and Europe and Joe
>Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 12:32:25 -0600
>
> >
> > 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.
>
>
Whoah there, calm down. I realize that Lawry may have ticked you off with
some of his pinpricks, but that's no reason to go off the deep end and
characterize him in such a way.
BTW I share some of Lawry's critical attitude towards Israeli policies and
some of the history behind the creation of the Israeli state (eg- the
Palestinian nakba).
I wish he'd apply his font of wisdom to being more critical of Islamist
tendencies too.
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