From: Dace (edace@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun 15 Jun 2003 - 19:49:33 GMT
> From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
>
> This is addressed to the host of this list:
>
> Are Joe Dees and others not enjoined from posting anti-Islamic diatribes
> from this list, and was Joe not suspended already once from this list for
> doing so?
>
> Will you enforce your rule, or are we again, on this list, to be subjected
> to this nonsense?
Lawry,
Joe's nonsense may be offensive, but it does prove a point I was making.
Here's what I wrote:
> The principled anti-Isreali stance is a result of human intelligence, not
> memetic struggle. The unprincipled anti-Israeli stance results from
> the success of the anti-Jew meme. Another unprincipled stance, which
> is pro-Isreali, depends on the success of the meme that equates all
> criticism of Israel with "anti-Semitism" (the irony being that Arabs
> are themselves Semitic).
Here's Joe's comment on my criticism of Israeli persecution of Palestinians:
> I simply refuse to allow Dace's blatant antijewish hate-propagandizing
> to go unanswered.
Except for the substition of "anti-Semitic" with the more accurate term,
"antijewish," Joe illustrated my point perfectly. He responded to my
criticism of Israeli state policy by accusing me of bigotry. His thinking
on this issue is warped by memetic interference. The same is true, as I
pointed out, of people infected by the antijewish meme. Joe's long post
containing interviews between Arabs-- many (though not all) of whom exhibit
antijewish hatred-- nicely illustrates this point. The intractability of
the Israel debate is due in large part on the fact that both sides are
inflexibly memified. However, both sides are also capable of overcoming
their prejudice.
> From: joedees@bellsouth.net
> Subject: Re: Joe's anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic attacks
>
> From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
>
> > This is addressed to the host of this list:
> >
> > Are Joe Dees and others not enjoined from posting anti-Islamic
> > diatribes from this list, and was Joe not suspended already once from
> > this list for doing so?
> >
> > Will you enforce your rule, or are we again, on this list, to be
> > subjected to this nonsense?
> >
> I simply could not, in all good conscience, allow Dace's gratuitous and
> unsolicited antijewish hate-propaganda diatribes to go unanswered
> onlist. Of course, Lawry would NEVER complain about the original
> rabidly Jew-hating screeds that provoked my responses, now WOULD
> he?
The reason Lawry didn't complain about my post was that it utilized the
Israel-Palestine crisis as an example of the way virulent memes warp our
thinking. I made sure to demonstrate that this applies on *both* sides of
the issue under discussion. Then you came back with a couple more posts
about those evil Arabs, as usual totally devoid of memetic analysis.
> > > > What you're missing is the human dimension. For example, plenty of
> > > > people have recognized that the state policies of Israel toward its
> > > > Palestinian minority are criminal. To be anti-Israel, in this
limited
> > > > sense, results from subjecting beliefs to our innate capacity for
> > > > reason. But some people criticize Israel, not out of reason, but
out
> > > > of a racist hatred of Jews. These are people who equate all Jews
with
> > > > Israel, though many Jews, even Israeli citizens, are appalled at the
> > > > brutality of their government and their fellow citizens.
> > >
> > > The bias is not on the basis of race so much as religion; all members
of
> > > non-Islamic religions are to be converted, enslaved (dhimmitude) or
> > > killed. This is the stance that medieval Christians also took, but
the
> > > Enlightenment, which the Islamists have either rejected or never
> > > experienced, grew them out of it.
> >
> >Unlike Christians, Muslims always accepted and revered Jews and lived at
> >peace with them.
> >
> > > As to who is and is not a criminal in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, I
> > > wish to quote James Lileks for you:
> > >
> > > I havenTt written much about the oRoadmap to PeaceĀ for the same
> >
> > > reason I wouldnTt write much about attempts to crossbreed a llama
> > > with a vacuum cleaner: I donTt think itTs going to work. I never
thought
> > > it would work. The only question is how many dead Israelis it will
take
> > > before the point is made, for the 3,234th time.
> > > The top-of-the-hour radio news played today's news just as youTd
> > > expect - everything shoved through the tit-for-tat template. Israel
> > > attempts to take out a terror leader; Hamas orespondsĀ with a
> >
> > > bombing. As if theyTre equal. As if targeting the car that ferries
around
> > > some murderous SOB is the same as sending a blissed-out teenager to
> > > blow nails and screws through the flesh of afternoon commuters so he
> > > can bury himself in the heaving bosom of the heavenly whorehouse.
> > > Cycle of violence, don't you know.
> > >
> > > They donTt have helicopters, we're told, so they use suicide bombers.
> > > If they had helicopters, they would have strafed the bus and everyone
> > > waiting at the corner. Give them a nation where Hamas runs
> > > unchecked, and theyTll have helicopters. They won't be Apaches. The
> > > bill of sale will be calculated in Euros and the manual written in
> > > French. By then the excuse for the terror won't be oppression; it'll
be
> > > "the legacy of oppression." Sometimes I swear the mainstream media
> > > won't take a look at the Palestinian's horrid death-cult subculture
until
> > > we learn that a suicide bomber played "Doom" at an Internet cafe for
> > > five minutes. And then they'll blame Intel.
> >
> >This guy is letting his memes do his thinking for him. Both sides in
this
> >conflict are committing terrible acts of violence against each other. At
> >first glance, it would seem that both sides are equally guilty. But when
> >you cancel out the violence of each side, what's left is asymmetrical
> >oppression. Israel is oppressing Palestine, while Palestine is not
> >oppressing Israel. Israel has all the power, while Palestine has none.
> >Israel illegally occupies Palestinian land, while Palestine occupies no
> >Israeli land. Israel restricts water to Palestinians, preventing
economic
> >development, restricts Palestinian movement with numerous check points
> >(which has effectively shut down all higher education), prevents
> >Palestinians from using highways that criss-cross their territory,
bulldozes
> >their houses, pulls up their crops and fruit trees, and exploits them for
> >low-end labor. The relationship is much like that of rapist to raped.
To
> >claim that Israel is somehow the victim in all this is much like claiming
> >the rapist is the victim simply because, in the course of the attack, the
> >victim managed to bite his ear. Clearly, we're dealing with a highly
> >successful, pathological meme.
> >
> >We may trace the genealogy of this meme to Adolf Hitler and Naziism. The
> >insane persecution of the Jews left them with an enduring sense of
> >victimization. Even now, as they victimize Palestinians, they
> >narcissistically view themselves as morally pure, while their enemies are
> >pure evil. The narcissism generated through oppression has remained in
> >place, even as they've become cruel oppressor. The Zion meme is a
reverse
> >image of the Nazi meme. It's the same except that Jew is victimizer
instead
> >of victim. One might say the Zion meme to the Nazi meme is what the
> >vertebrate body-plan is to the insect body-plan-- a simple inversion.
They
> >may look strikingly different, but below the surface Nazi and Zionist
bear
> >the same colors, which they elaborate on according to their cultural
norms.
> >
> >Just as Nazis projected their own criminality onto Jews, so Zionists
project
> >their criminality onto their victims. The face of Palestine presented in
> >the US media is really just a mirror image of the true face of Israel.
The
> >Jews made an epochal mistake when they abandoned their Semitic brothers
and
> >trusted the very ones who had persecuted them. While Jews lived in peace
> >with Arabs for centuries from Iraq to Iberia, Europeans bullied them and
> >ultimately traumatized them. Yet the Jews left their ancient homes in
the
> >Arab world to live in a nation established for them by these same
European
> >powers. What would Saadiah Gaon, tenth century Exilarch (secular head of
> >Mesopotamian Jewry), have made of Israel's support for the bombing of
> >Baghdad, Gaon's beloved home of many years? He would have figured the
Jews
> >had lost their minds, and he would have been absolutely right. Zionist
Jews
> >have lost their power of reason to an insidious, malignant meme.
> >
> >Ted
> Just make sure it's enforced on Ted Dace, and I will not bring it up.
> After all, he initiated the discussion with his antiJewish diatribe.
There was no antijewish diatribe, rather an analysis of Israel's criminal
persecution of Palestinians. Instead of responding to it rationally, you
proved my point that Israel-defenders tend to thoughtlessly equate criticism
of Israel with antijewish prejudice. That it's a culturally-shared,
knee-jerk response indicates a memetic basis.
Ted
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