Posts by Neil Morrison
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Simon, Ahmadinejad did not deny the allegations, to quote from the article you linked to:
The Iranian president refused to address directly the United States accusation that the weapon made by Iran have killed Americans but said the Americans were trying to find a scapegoat.
Pace did not make the statement twice - you’ve just read 2 different accounts of the same press conference. He's not necessarily out of the loop, he's just saying that at present he can't make that claim. It will be interesting to see how his views develop.
I'm not necessarily convinced that this comes from high up in the Iranian govt., I'll wait for further evidence, but we do know reasonably sophisticated Iranian weaponry is getting into Iraq. Either no one in the Iranian govt. knows about this or someone does. I find it hard to believe that no one does.
Che, I disagree with your view on democracy but using it as a starting point - do you think that Iran's meddling is aimed at creating one of those other, better, forms of governance you talk of? (What's killing ordinary people in Iraq now are ethnic militias whose primary purpose is to prevent democracy from happening).
-
Well Ahmadinejad didn't deny the allegation, fairly significant since he's not known for subtlty, and Pace is just refering to his own knowledge - he's not denying that there could be a connection to elements in the Iranian govt. He might very well change his mind.
And whatever the past, evidence of possible Iranian spoiling in Iraq should be looked at seriuosly by everyone no matter their view point on the war. If Iran is meddling in this fashion then it sure isn't aimed at promoting democracy.
-
Does anyone know of reputable studies that analyse bigotry in relation to gender?
Well funnily enough yes -
blue-eyed men find blue-eyed women more attractive than brown-eyed women
Although there's more clearly a correlation between testosterone and gang violence.
I had recently that the physical differences between races cannot be completely explained by adaptation to different environments and that people mating with people who look similar may have played a large role. Another mixed blessing from the in-group out-group mechanism.
-
Why unlikely?
I think the problem is not that Oz doesn't have a treaty but that guys have testicles.
-
Russell, I don't know what or where the "cringe" is, I'm just stating my opinion that we in NZ don't experience the level of gang based ethnic conflict as in Oz because we have a smaller population - there's less critical mass for skin heads to lead riots. Another reason, a difference in kind, is that Oz has far more large ethnic groups than NZ from which this sort of thing can arise.
I might be wrong but I can't see how these views are all that controversial.
Mikaere, I agree that there are major differences in how NZ and Oz have dealt with the legacy of colonisation, and NZ has done better, but that's a different issue to the urban ethnic gangs at the BDO. Maybe your reasoning is that had Oz dealt with its colonial history better then there would not be the rival gangs but I think that's unlikely.
-
Terence, the evolutionary explanation for the phenomena of racism is by far the most convincing I've read. Matt Ridley's books are great. Our species has an extraordinary ability to create in-group out-group conflicts.
Are you familiar with Peter Singer's book - A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation?
Left wing thought on why things are lot worse than we would like them stagnated after the failure of socialism, people like Singer are offering a new and more productive approach.
-
We simply do not endure the same kind of social conflict. We don't have warring racial gangs staging riots and mob beatings...
But we do have warring racial gangs; it's just that it's on a smaller scale. I'm pretty sure if we had the same population and as OZ we would see much the same occurring. I don't think we in NZ should be taking too much credit for what is a fluke of demographics.
I think there's something in Australians being brash and NZers being reserved that does influence the way racism is expressed in both countries. I've seen the subtle but nevertheless chilling racism in some of the older members of my family. Scottish Presbyterian reserve vs. Irish passion.
-
It's a very different country to ours.
I don't believe Australians are on average any more racist than NZers or anyone else. So the differences as far as I can see are its higher population - therefore a greater pool of young males from which can come fuckwits, and the far different immigration pattern. There just are more large numbers of ethnic groups from which to again draw aggressive, tribal, territorial males. NZ gets this as well but to a smaller extent because of our smaller population.
It's interesting to note that this sort of behavior is common in some European sports (Paris Saint-Germain comes to mind). Since BDO is a regular event it gives people the opportunity to organise and for traditions, good and bad, to grow.
-
I find Manakura's views oddly similar to those of D'Souza's. Both believe that the problems within the Muslim world are caused by the West. Which I've always thought has a racist quality - those people are incapable of causing their own problems, it reduces them to some sort of infantile passivity.
I didn't come up with any direct quotes from bin Ladeb railing against liberal values but his support for the anti-liberal Taliban is good enough evidence for me.
Terence, yes my argument was a liitle wayward but bin Ladeb considers East Timor and Kosovo as part of the caliphate so his beef with the West is not just with US troops in Saudi Arabia.
-
Paul, I'll try and find some quotes but other evidence is that his second in command is Ayman al-Zawahiri - who attempted to ferment an Islamic revolution in Egypt. Bin Ladenwants to replace current Arab governments with fundamentalist regimes - they will most certainly be hostile to liberal values. The Taliban regime is not irrelevant as it's an example of the sort of thing bin Laden stands for.
But D'Souz's argument is about Islamic extremism in general, not just bin Laden -
...the cultural left has fostered a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world, that are being overwhelmed with this culture. In addition, the left is waging an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures. This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault.