Posts by Che Tibby
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david, nah, it's more about placing blame for anti-western sentiment on liberals. liberals are on the same side, but conservatives are finger pointing to absolve themselves of responsibility.
iraq is bad? "those damn liberals won't let us win"
israel the #1 cause of disillusionment with in the ME? "those damn pagan liberals want the palestinians to win. don't they remember the holocaust"
american economic colonialism raising hackles? "those damn liberals are too chicken shit to fight for a strategic resource"
ad nauseum.when i equated 'creedal wave' with fundamentalists, i meant there's not too much difference between christianity and islam in that respect. you know how right wingers constantly equate national socialism with "the left". in years to come we'll see that, like totalitarianism, all fundamentalisms and scriptural literalisms are as bad as each other.
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david, no one is apologising for radical islam, or fundamentalist christianity for that matter.
amis just demonstrated the exact ignorance we're so concerned about. blaming internal allies for conservative folly. particularly blind support for israel in insane actions like bombing a neighbouring democracy, or the 'accelerate armageddon' POV.
the policies and actions that are radicalising islam.
and like stephen points out, what is this creedal wave? i would automatically assume rabid, crusader christianity.
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yeah, mark the "fundamentally flawed" religion meme is not only wrong, it's *deliberately* wrong.
the tenets of islam are *wild* and *radical* ideas like charity, the battle to self-improve ("jihad"), and community.
the bloke in Australia is a wanker, plain and simple. although, if you've ever witnessed ozzy persecution of minorities, you'd not think him so out of order.
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stephen. i think so.
pity that none of us are defending islam, but instead trying to point out the hypocrisy of accusations that *it* is orthodox and one-eyed, when christianity is as bad.
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piers. indeed. orthodoxy has us believe that christ was a blue-eyed carpenter for example.
modern scholarship argues fairly strongly he was a galilean jew, probably looked more akin to the average arab, and was occupied as a 'teacher' in the same mode as modern rabbi.
the only certainty is that his teachings and actions were as big a perceived threat to the establishment of the day (pro-roman jewish clergy) as OBL is to the USA.
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piers, not so sure that Islam is as static as you have been lead to believe. or at least no more orthodox than say, the catholic church.
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if indeed osama does use the term 'liberal' (or Arabic equivalent), do you suppose that he's using it much like western conservatives use 'PC'?
a catch-all for anything your listeners don't quite get, but are 'agin'?
and can someone explain the origin of the 'osama's plan was to bankrupt the USA by drawing them into afghanistan' mythology? doesn't that tie into his grand scheme?
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jeremy. LOL. and on the same vein i was intending to refer to.
perhaps the circumstantial evidence will further our concern with the feminist conspiracy. they do not suffer such amputation, after all.
"they're trying to keep us men under control"
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sounds like the m.ward gig in wellingtown was much more civilised. there was some seating for the majority 30+ crowd, not too packed in etc.
we had seats at a leaner just behind the sound-stage. couldn't see the guitar on account of the unnaturally tall audience, but figured "hey, this isn't about the light-show".
best gig for years though would have to be the Mint Chicks and the Kings Arms with RB and Mr. Slack. speakers spontaneouly combusting are v.rare indeed.
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ben and mark, i'll have to agree about the irrelevance of the constitutional/territorial models for nzl. i dismissed the sth african and canadian models pretty early in the thesis because they tend to associate 'culture' or 'nationality' too strongly with place.
homelands, reservations, 'marae-as-place-to-be-maori' and the like act to conserve minority groups. minorities continue to exist, but only within their menagerie. what they also allow for is detractors of minority rights to say is "you can be as different as you want in private [i.e. on the marae], but out here in public you'll tow the majority like'. which we'll recognise as the "brash/bassett" position.
it's also the position taken in relation to aboriginal people in australia. one that continues to fail them miserably.
my favoured liberal authors instead argue that the basis of any minority-majority interrelationship is a recognition that both groups require a public space in which to conduct their own politics. that's what the territorial models are trying to do in a roundabout, 19th century kind of way and failing at.
the unique thing about nzl is that we have both maori and mainstream conducting its politics in the same public space, or 'public sphere' to use a jargonism. nzl civil society does or should allow both cultures to be practised in public, politically and non, and this ensures the perpetuation of both cultures.
what i'm driving at, in plain english, is that giving effect to the treaty requires the acceptance that maori voices have to continue to be heard right up close to mainstream voices. they'll often be in the same room, in the same political debates, and will often irk people who don't understand them.
and if you don't understand them? well, just don't get paranoid. they're probably not even talking about you anyhow!