Blair thinks the Islamists’ ideas are absurd, but Blair’s ideas (invade Iraq and turn it into a stable, prosperous, western-style democracy?) are also absurd.
invade Iraq and turn it into a stable, prosperous, western-style democracy is absurd..
Agreed, Putin had no such “democracy and freedom” illusions in Chechnya and acted accordingly.
After the Chechen War Putin installed his strongman [a 28 years old former boxer, Karimov, and his 18000 strong militia plus 50000 russian troops]– to rule the country by force and crack down mercilessly on the al-qaeda islamists.
Saddam’s sons would have been perfect for this job in Iraq but, alas, Bush was out of touch with the Middle East culture and political mentalities.
Extract from an article by Ed Husain, author of *The Islamist*, in today’s (July 2)London Evening Standard:
Appeasement is not an answer to the bombs.
The threat of radical Islam is as great as ever – and those, like the Mayor, who seek to gloss over the danger, should heed this warning.
Ed Husain
Once again, London is plunged into fear and confusion. Perhaps we had been lulled by a series of successful convictions of bomb plotters. But all along, the jihadists were at work, building their cells, arming themselves, recruiting, making plans. And it is only by a miracle that London escaped carnage far, far worse than that wreaked on 7 July 2005. Police seem to have a good chance of rounding up this particular cell. But either way, radical Islam is back with a vengeance. In fact, it never left.
So I listen to the Mayor of our great city and I wonder, what will it take for him to wake up? More bombs in central London? Another attack on the Tube? As someone who was seduced by Islamists such as Omar Bakri, I know how charismatic these firebrands can be. But at the time, I was an impressionable teenager. What’s Ken’s excuse?
Don’t get me wrong. Being a big tent liberal is laudable; but to fail to discern the difference between Islam, the religious tradition, and Islamism, the extremist political ideology hell bent on destroying the West, is a disaster for us all. By confusing regular religious Muslims with fanatical ideologues, Ken blurs the lines between right and wrong, and allows radicalism to flourish within sections of London’s Muslim communities.
On Radio 4 this weekend, Ken and I took part in a debate about terrorism. Despite my repeatedly asking Ken to condemn Islamism, he refused to do so. He correctly lambasted Saudi Wahhabis for their role in promoting an intolerant and violent creed. Yet what we call al-Qaeda is an illegitimate child of Islamism and Wahhabism combined.
While living in Saudi Arabia two years ago, I remember watching in horror television images of Ken walking around with Yusuf al Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric based in Qatar, whose publicly stated attitude is that suicide bombers are martyrs. Yet it was Ken who said that “of all the Muslim thinkers in the world today, al Qaradawl is the most positive force for change”. By promoting these extremists, and their supporters, Ken gives them legitimacy He helps set in motion the conveyor belt to terrorism.
Ken’s track record in office contradicts even his condemnation of Wahhabism. Many of the so called “Muslim organisations” he’s funded are in fact Wahhabists as well as Islamists. In a high profile visit last year to the East London Mosque and its extension, the London Muslim Centre, both fronts for Islamism, he praised the two institutions. But from my in depth involvement with the East London Mosque, I believe it to be a centre of intolerance, unwilling even to entertain mainstream Muslim events such as the celebration of the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday or Shabe barat, an annual Muslim religious festival.
The East London Mosque is managed by Islamists with proven links to the Jamat e Islami in Bangladesh, an extremist group who oppose secularists and left wingers. Their imam, Abdul Qayyum, was trained in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and rejects the moderate Islam of neighbouring mosques. Sadly, today, the East London Mosque is the mosque of choice for young Muslims in Tower Hamlets and beyond, thanks to the legitimacy that Ken and others bestow on it.
The East London Mosque espouses the teachings of Qutb, the man who advocated Jihad against governments rejecting Islamist ideology, and an acknowledged inspiration for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeder. Qutb was hung by the Egyptian government in the Sixties, yet his books are currently on sale at the East London Mosque where he is promoted like a figurehead, and where they hold weekly meetings to disseminate his vile teachings. It beggars belief that the Mayor stands on public podiums praising their work as “mainstream Muslim”.
Ken frequently cites social deprivation as a cause for extremism. But the most deprived community in Britain is the white working class. And yet they are not producing suicide bombers. Why? Because they are not exposed to an ideology that venerates murderers as martyrs. […]
>Ken frequently cites social deprivation as a cause for extremism. >
“Red Ken” spouts the typical marxist nonsense of ‘economical determinism’.
But this just the cover story. In fact, his (just as with many of the indoctrinated into far-left) hatred for the western culture and civilization is so deep that he is enthusiastically willing to give support to anything and anyone bent on destroying it : the Middle Ages Islamists, Multiculturalism, or anything else useful for this purpose.
>Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari criticized psychoanalysis as both
theory and practice, emphasizing the ideological roots of psychoanalysis in bourgeois capitalism.<
My experience of trying to read the writings of Deleuze and Guattari is that it is like attempting to swim in treacle. I freely admit that I gave up on *Anti-Oedipus* as pretty meaningless ramblings after a limited perusal, so don’t ask me to specify any particular items.
Fortunately Sokal and Bricmont (*Intellectual Impostors*) have a whole chapter on Deleuze and Guattari, so I’ll just quote their view of the their writings:
>The main characteristic of the texts quoted in this chapter is their lack of clarity. Of course, defenders of Deleuze and Guattari could retort that these texts are profound and that we have failed to understand them properly. However, on closer examination, one sees that there is a great concentration of scientific terms, employed out of context and without any apparent logic, at least if one attributes to these terms their usual scientific meanings. To be sure, Deleuze and Guattari are free to use these terms in other senses: science has no monopoly on the use of words like ‘chaos’, ‘limit’ or ‘energy’. But, as we shall show, their writings are crammed also with highly technical terms that are not used outside of specialized scientific discourses, and for which they provide no alternative definition.<
The authors provide numerous examples, following one of which they comment:
>This passage contains at least a dozen scientific terms used without rhyme or reason, and the discourse oscillates between nonsense…and truisms…<
They quote the continuation of the passage, on which they comment that “one can detect in this paragraph a few meaningful phrases, but the discourse in which they are immersed is utterly meaningless.”
On the other hand, of course, their writings may simply be too d-e-e-p for me to grasp.
>Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari criticized psychoanalysis as both
theory and practice, emphasizing the ideological roots of psychoanalysis in bourgeois capitalism.>
Well, indeed Freud declared once (in an interview) that in ethics/politics he was a classical liberal (free-market economics).
This as opposed to a mind shaped by readings in Marxist ideology and who, after a period of readings, begins seeing “bourgeois consciousness” (i.e., class distorted thinking) in everyone who thinks otherwise (i.e., who does not sees the truth of Marx and thinks he is dead wrong).
>”Capitalism and Schizophrenia” is an attack against Freudian
psychoanalysis. >
Postmodernism in general is an attack against reason, it pains the mind to read such authors.
They try so hard to be deep that they become more incomprehensible than the mysteries they purportedly explain.
Castration implies the existence of a single sex. An
opposition is drawn between the West and the rest (the West as
hegemonic, centre of society; the rest as marginal, unimportant).
Hegemony is the Freudian representation of empirialism, colonization is
the Oedipal story. There is an extension of psychoanalysis from the
realm of the individual to the domain of large human groups (nations,
When I was captured…I told them not to kill me, I am on your side.” (Alan Johnston, in an interview)
Johnston has been a terrible reporter from Gaza, and he shows every sign of continuing to refuse to comprehend, or even to recognize, the evil that is in front of his face. He was a tool, a tool when a free reporter, a tool when captured, a tool now that he has been freed — a tool of Fatah, and then a tool of a particular local clan, and finally, a tool of Hamas, attempting to burnish its image.
And the entire BBC effort to “free Alan Johnston” was blatantly based on an appeal to the “Palestinians” to free him not because he should never have been taken in the first place, not because he was a journalist, but because he was so “friendly” to the Arab cause, so intent on “telling their story,” so firmly in their camp. Excutive after executive trumpeted Alan Johnson’s “value” to the “Palestinians” as their propagandist (“telling their story to the world”). In other words, the BBC admitted publicly, but only because it had to, it felt, in order to free him, to the very things which others have charged the BBC with, as part of its systematic anti-Israel and pro-Arab, pro-Muslim bias. Had Alan Johnston never been taken hostage, the BBC would not only never have admitted to these things, but would have stoutly, even indignantly, denied them.
Might the BBC somehow be taken to task by members of Parliament?
Canada better wise up and curb the flow of immigration from the middle east and other Muslim hotbeds.
The desire of Canadian Muslim leaders to try and move Sharia Law forward – at any level – is clearly disturbing. So much for coming to Canada to start a new life.
It is to bad because I am quite sure many Muslims in Canada do not want Sharia Law – but would be socially pressured into it – by the loud/influential voices of their community leadership.
Here is a right wing scary concept – fast forward 50 years into the future – after continued immigration and procreation – perhaps Muslims could become a majority. Then they could create Sharia Law nationwide – effectively taken over the country without having fired a shot. The large majority of Canadians are “asleep” to this trend. Year 2057 – Become Muslim or Die – I’d choose death. Welcome to Armageddon.
>It is to bad because I am quite sure many Muslims in Canada do not want Sharia Law – but would be socially pressured into it – by the loud/influential voices of their community leadership.>
It sure is tiresome to hear how Islam consists of a vast majority of peaceful people being held captive by a tiny minority of psychos and dummies who simply don’t understand Islam. This “hostage crisis” has lasted 1400 years with no end in sight.
>It sure is tiresome to hear how Islam consists of a vast majority of peaceful people being held captive by a tiny minority of psychos and dummies who simply don’t understand Islam. This “hostage crisis” has lasted 1400 years with no end in sight.<
Agreed – when you put it that way – it almost seems intentional – like we are being played. Must be that the Muslim masses are actually playing there silent “captive” part and waiting for the right time to do their thing.
Take the head of the snake off – not easy to do – social political – lots of issues – some think George Bush is crazy – maybe he is just very obvious – still needs to be done though – if not the US – then who. Power to ’em.
it’s truly remarkable how ignorant and deficient in conceptual ability most of the “critical thinkers” on this page are. While there are some incisive contributors to this web site, it is driven by a smugness and sound bite mentality every bit as propagandistic and shallow as its targets. The very notion of dismissing “fashionable nonsense” with a wave of the hand, sans the ability to analyze it as well as the reality it falsifies, betrays a fundamental deficiency in the critical repertoire of both the creators of the site and most of the commenters.
Re GK’s comments on Ralphellectual, aka Ralph Dumain [HT: Google]:
I second GK’s request for specific examples of the alleged ignorance and deficiency in conceptual ability that Ralph finds on B&W.
Incidentally, we presumably get a fair idea of what Ralph regards as examples of high level conceptual ability from his compilation “Marx and Marxism Webguide” at:
This includes the link “From Marx to Mao”, which has been honoured by being “A recepient [sic] of the Order of Lenin in the first annual May Day Awards presented by the Academy of Socialism on the Internet, May 1, 1998.”
Here is an example of a selected quotation on this webpage, from Chairman Mao:
“In the struggle to defend the legacy of Leninism… [Stalin] proved himself to be an outstanding Marxist-Leninist fighter… Stalin’s works should, as before, be seriously studied… [to] see what is correct and what is not.”
Seeing that he links to this webpage, it would be of interest to know if Ralph regards this as an insightful view of Stalin. And just what is the legacy of Lenin that is worthy of defence? Is it the legacy revealed by Dmitri Volkonov in his biography *Lenin: A New Biography*, much of which is based what the author was able to examine in the previously secret Soviet Archives?
>Starting from their critique of traditional psychoanalysis, the authors resort to ‘schizo-analysis.’ >
Haha..laughing with tears here..
There are many fools and folies but when balloney is uttered ex-cathedra and with all the academic pretentiousness and pomposity it has an irrestibile comic effect.
This book is at the border between psychoanalysis and marxism, philosophy and economy.
Deleuze and Guattari refer to Melanie Klein, Reich, Lacan, Foucault, to the surrealists and Artaud. These ‘desiring machines’ are like M. Klein’s ‘partial objects.’
Starting from their critique of traditional psychoanalysis, the authors resort to ‘schizo-analysis.’ They are looking for appropriate tools to study the fragmented, the partial, the separated, in order to understand the functioning of ‘desiring machines.’
(found out by reading from Catherine Wieder, “Elements de psychanalyse pour le texte litteraire,” Bordas, Paris, 1988)
Well, I dont know when this article was published may be iam late in reading this. But I want to ask one simple question..
Where is Hindu Nationalism in India??
We have given reservations to all minorities.We have given them more religious freedom than any other country. We have more population of Muslims in India than in Pakistan.Every one around the world remember the Godhra riots but no one see what caused the riots.Can’t you find out how many people were burnt alive in the train in which the Hindu piligrims were going!!
Realx and, in the future, try not taking Deleuze, ‘schizo-analysis’, “critical theory”- postmodernism in general– that seriously. It is a French parlor game and if you forget this you may end up unable to distinguish the meanigful from the meaningless. That would be a serious condition indeed.
Chomsky, for instance, had it well about Lacan : ” an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan”.
I’m not saying that Deleuze & Guattari hold the absolute truth in what they write. But this is an interesting book that generated a certain reaction in France when it appeared.
Allen Esterson’s little piece of character assassination ups assinity to a new level.
My Marxism web guide has an easily understandable purpose, one which might fit into any number of orientations and projects geared to compiling information of use to the public. It’s a guide to resources on Marxism on the web, not advocacy of the links contained therein. My sole interest in the Marx 2 Mao site is not its political orientation, but its archive of primary source materials.
Other people’s questions about my specific criticism of Butterflies & Wheels will take more time to address. In the meantime, see my blog:
Interesting comments from Ralph Dumain. He tells us that most of the ‘critical thinkers’ [his scare quotes] on B&W are “ignorant and deficient in conceptual ability” and that it is “driven by a smugness and sound bite mentality every bit as propagandistic and shallow as its targets”. I responded by seconding a request for some specific examples to illustrate his contention, and then directed attention to a webpage of his that provides an indication of the kind of ideas of which he evidently approves. I then cited one of the links on his webpage and asked him his views on a quotation from Mao highlighted there. I would have thought that this was pretty mild stuff compared to *his* comments about the bulk of contributors to B&W, but he accuses *me* of “character assassination”!
Instead of throwing around more choice epithets, it would be refreshing if Ralph would actually reply to questions asked of him in direct response to his posting. So please enlighten us as to your view of Mao’s opinion of Stalin as expressed in the quotation I reproduced.
A. ‘berrida’: Too tired to argue [uselessly] with you…I’m not saying that Deleuze & Guattari hold the absolute truth in what they write. But this is an interesting book that generated a certain reaction in France when it appeared.
I am sure it did. ‘Schizo-analysis’ of the ‘desiring machines’ is interesting thing indeed, one never gets tired of it.
The French love their intellectualy sounding chatter, their endless spinning of empty words.
Vocabulary and style, not ideas and clear thinking, is their killing time game. Ennui.
> Support for bombings fell in seven of eight Muslim countries surveyed — the headline at B&W
This survey means nothing, except insofar as it has the ability to mislead and console the unwary.
Why? Suicide bombings are now taking place not against the Americans — who mostly suffer casualties from I.E.D.’s, but against other Muslims, in both Iraq and Pakistan, where they are directed against the government. And there have been other cases in Lebanon and in Saudi Arabia. And it may have spread to the Maghreb. Muslims are well aware of this. They are well aware that suicide bombings may be a threat to them, to their own wellbeing, as they walk down the streets of Cairo or Damascus or Beirut or Algiers or Riyadh.
“Support for bombings fell in seven of eight Muslim countries surveyed — the headline at B&W”
That wasn’t the headline at B&W. The headline at B&W was “Muslim Support for Suicide Bombing Falls”; the teaser was “Pew Survey reports fall in support since 2002, but in Palestine support is still at 70%.”
Regarding that article on Tony Blair:
Blair thinks the Islamists’ ideas are absurd, but Blair’s ideas (invade Iraq and turn it into a stable, prosperous, western-style democracy?) are also absurd.
invade Iraq and turn it into a stable, prosperous, western-style democracy is absurd..
Agreed, Putin had no such “democracy and freedom” illusions in Chechnya and acted accordingly.
After the Chechen War Putin installed his strongman [a 28 years old former boxer, Karimov, and his 18000 strong militia plus 50000 russian troops]– to rule the country by force and crack down mercilessly on the al-qaeda islamists.
Saddam’s sons would have been perfect for this job in Iraq but, alas, Bush was out of touch with the Middle East culture and political mentalities.
Islamic Anarchism
Is it actually possible to be a muslim and anarchist without sacrificing one for the other?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Islam
Extract from an article by Ed Husain, author of *The Islamist*, in today’s (July 2)London Evening Standard:
Appeasement is not an answer to the bombs.
The threat of radical Islam is as great as ever – and those, like the Mayor, who seek to gloss over the danger, should heed this warning.
Ed Husain
Once again, London is plunged into fear and confusion. Perhaps we had been lulled by a series of successful convictions of bomb plotters. But all along, the jihadists were at work, building their cells, arming themselves, recruiting, making plans. And it is only by a miracle that London escaped carnage far, far worse than that wreaked on 7 July 2005. Police seem to have a good chance of rounding up this particular cell. But either way, radical Islam is back with a vengeance. In fact, it never left.
So I listen to the Mayor of our great city and I wonder, what will it take for him to wake up? More bombs in central London? Another attack on the Tube? As someone who was seduced by Islamists such as Omar Bakri, I know how charismatic these firebrands can be. But at the time, I was an impressionable teenager. What’s Ken’s excuse?
Don’t get me wrong. Being a big tent liberal is laudable; but to fail to discern the difference between Islam, the religious tradition, and Islamism, the extremist political ideology hell bent on destroying the West, is a disaster for us all. By confusing regular religious Muslims with fanatical ideologues, Ken blurs the lines between right and wrong, and allows radicalism to flourish within sections of London’s Muslim communities.
On Radio 4 this weekend, Ken and I took part in a debate about terrorism. Despite my repeatedly asking Ken to condemn Islamism, he refused to do so. He correctly lambasted Saudi Wahhabis for their role in promoting an intolerant and violent creed. Yet what we call al-Qaeda is an illegitimate child of Islamism and Wahhabism combined.
While living in Saudi Arabia two years ago, I remember watching in horror television images of Ken walking around with Yusuf al Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric based in Qatar, whose publicly stated attitude is that suicide bombers are martyrs. Yet it was Ken who said that “of all the Muslim thinkers in the world today, al Qaradawl is the most positive force for change”. By promoting these extremists, and their supporters, Ken gives them legitimacy He helps set in motion the conveyor belt to terrorism.
Ken’s track record in office contradicts even his condemnation of Wahhabism. Many of the so called “Muslim organisations” he’s funded are in fact Wahhabists as well as Islamists. In a high profile visit last year to the East London Mosque and its extension, the London Muslim Centre, both fronts for Islamism, he praised the two institutions. But from my in depth involvement with the East London Mosque, I believe it to be a centre of intolerance, unwilling even to entertain mainstream Muslim events such as the celebration of the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday or Shabe barat, an annual Muslim religious festival.
The East London Mosque is managed by Islamists with proven links to the Jamat e Islami in Bangladesh, an extremist group who oppose secularists and left wingers. Their imam, Abdul Qayyum, was trained in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and rejects the moderate Islam of neighbouring mosques. Sadly, today, the East London Mosque is the mosque of choice for young Muslims in Tower Hamlets and beyond, thanks to the legitimacy that Ken and others bestow on it.
The East London Mosque espouses the teachings of Qutb, the man who advocated Jihad against governments rejecting Islamist ideology, and an acknowledged inspiration for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeder. Qutb was hung by the Egyptian government in the Sixties, yet his books are currently on sale at the East London Mosque where he is promoted like a figurehead, and where they hold weekly meetings to disseminate his vile teachings. It beggars belief that the Mayor stands on public podiums praising their work as “mainstream Muslim”.
Ken frequently cites social deprivation as a cause for extremism. But the most deprived community in Britain is the white working class. And yet they are not producing suicide bombers. Why? Because they are not exposed to an ideology that venerates murderers as martyrs. […]
>Ken frequently cites social deprivation as a cause for extremism. >
“Red Ken” spouts the typical marxist nonsense of ‘economical determinism’.
But this just the cover story. In fact, his (just as with many of the indoctrinated into far-left) hatred for the western culture and civilization is so deep that he is enthusiastically willing to give support to anything and anyone bent on destroying it : the Middle Ages Islamists, Multiculturalism, or anything else useful for this purpose.
Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari criticized psychoanalysis as both
theory and practice, emphasizing the ideological roots of
psychoanalysis in bourgeois capitalism.
“Capitalism and Schizophrenia” is an attack against Freudian
psychoanalysis. Castration implies the existence of a single sex. An
opposition is drawn between the West and the rest (the West as
hegemonic, centre of society; the rest as marginal, unimportant).
Hegemony is the Freudian representation of empirialism, colonization is
the Oedipal story. There is an extension of psychoanalysis from the
realm of the individual to the domain of large human groups (nations,
races).
What do you think about such critiques?
>Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari criticized psychoanalysis as both
theory and practice, emphasizing the ideological roots of psychoanalysis in bourgeois capitalism.< My experience of trying to read the writings of Deleuze and Guattari is that it is like attempting to swim in treacle. I freely admit that I gave up on *Anti-Oedipus* as pretty meaningless ramblings after a limited perusal, so don’t ask me to specify any particular items.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Oedipus
Fortunately Sokal and Bricmont (*Intellectual Impostors*) have a whole chapter on Deleuze and Guattari, so I’ll just quote their view of the their writings:
>The main characteristic of the texts quoted in this chapter is their lack of clarity. Of course, defenders of Deleuze and Guattari could retort that these texts are profound and that we have failed to understand them properly. However, on closer examination, one sees that there is a great concentration of scientific terms, employed out of context and without any apparent logic, at least if one attributes to these terms their usual scientific meanings. To be sure, Deleuze and Guattari are free to use these terms in other senses: science has no monopoly on the use of words like ‘chaos’, ‘limit’ or ‘energy’. But, as we shall show, their writings are crammed also with highly technical terms that are not used outside of specialized scientific discourses, and for which they provide no alternative definition.< The authors provide numerous examples, following one of which they comment: >This passage contains at least a dozen scientific terms used without rhyme or reason, and the discourse oscillates between nonsense…and truisms…< They quote the continuation of the passage, on which they comment that “one can detect in this paragraph a few meaningful phrases, but the discourse in which they are immersed is utterly meaningless.” On the other hand, of course, their writings may simply be too d-e-e-p for me to grasp.
>Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari criticized psychoanalysis as both
theory and practice, emphasizing the ideological roots of psychoanalysis in bourgeois capitalism.>
Well, indeed Freud declared once (in an interview) that in ethics/politics he was a classical liberal (free-market economics).
This as opposed to a mind shaped by readings in Marxist ideology and who, after a period of readings, begins seeing “bourgeois consciousness” (i.e., class distorted thinking) in everyone who thinks otherwise (i.e., who does not sees the truth of Marx and thinks he is dead wrong).
>”Capitalism and Schizophrenia” is an attack against Freudian
psychoanalysis. >
Postmodernism in general is an attack against reason, it pains the mind to read such authors.
They try so hard to be deep that they become more incomprehensible than the mysteries they purportedly explain.
Castration implies the existence of a single sex. An
opposition is drawn between the West and the rest (the West as
hegemonic, centre of society; the rest as marginal, unimportant).
Hegemony is the Freudian representation of empirialism, colonization is
the Oedipal story. There is an extension of psychoanalysis from the
realm of the individual to the domain of large human groups (nations,
races).
What do you think about such critiques?
Richard Dawkins has some caustic comments, with quotes, about Deleuze and Guattari at the beginning of his review of *Intellectual Impostors*
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/dawkins.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/5cxl8
Thank you, Allen Esterson and ‘Delirium Tremens’ for your answers.
I have found these authors quite difficult to read and I wondered if their critiques are really worthy to consider.
It also seemed rather strange to compare psychoanalysis to an ideology. I see them as two different fields.
When I was captured…I told them not to kill me, I am on your side.” (Alan Johnston, in an interview)
Johnston has been a terrible reporter from Gaza, and he shows every sign of continuing to refuse to comprehend, or even to recognize, the evil that is in front of his face. He was a tool, a tool when a free reporter, a tool when captured, a tool now that he has been freed — a tool of Fatah, and then a tool of a particular local clan, and finally, a tool of Hamas, attempting to burnish its image.
And the entire BBC effort to “free Alan Johnston” was blatantly based on an appeal to the “Palestinians” to free him not because he should never have been taken in the first place, not because he was a journalist, but because he was so “friendly” to the Arab cause, so intent on “telling their story,” so firmly in their camp. Excutive after executive trumpeted Alan Johnson’s “value” to the “Palestinians” as their propagandist (“telling their story to the world”). In other words, the BBC admitted publicly, but only because it had to, it felt, in order to free him, to the very things which others have charged the BBC with, as part of its systematic anti-Israel and pro-Arab, pro-Muslim bias. Had Alan Johnston never been taken hostage, the BBC would not only never have admitted to these things, but would have stoutly, even indignantly, denied them.
Might the BBC somehow be taken to task by members of Parliament?
Canada better wise up and curb the flow of immigration from the middle east and other Muslim hotbeds.
The desire of Canadian Muslim leaders to try and move Sharia Law forward – at any level – is clearly disturbing. So much for coming to Canada to start a new life.
It is to bad because I am quite sure many Muslims in Canada do not want Sharia Law – but would be socially pressured into it – by the loud/influential voices of their community leadership.
Here is a right wing scary concept – fast forward 50 years into the future – after continued immigration and procreation – perhaps Muslims could become a majority. Then they could create Sharia Law nationwide – effectively taken over the country without having fired a shot. The large majority of Canadians are “asleep” to this trend. Year 2057 – Become Muslim or Die – I’d choose death. Welcome to Armageddon.
>It is to bad because I am quite sure many Muslims in Canada do not want Sharia Law – but would be socially pressured into it – by the loud/influential voices of their community leadership.>
It sure is tiresome to hear how Islam consists of a vast majority of peaceful people being held captive by a tiny minority of psychos and dummies who simply don’t understand Islam. This “hostage crisis” has lasted 1400 years with no end in sight.
>It sure is tiresome to hear how Islam consists of a vast majority of peaceful people being held captive by a tiny minority of psychos and dummies who simply don’t understand Islam. This “hostage crisis” has lasted 1400 years with no end in sight.< Agreed – when you put it that way – it almost seems intentional – like we are being played. Must be that the Muslim masses are actually playing there silent “captive” part and waiting for the right time to do their thing. Take the head of the snake off – not easy to do – social political – lots of issues – some think George Bush is crazy – maybe he is just very obvious – still needs to be done though – if not the US – then who. Power to ’em.
it’s truly remarkable how ignorant and deficient in conceptual ability most of the “critical thinkers” on this page are. While there are some incisive contributors to this web site, it is driven by a smugness and sound bite mentality every bit as propagandistic and shallow as its targets. The very notion of dismissing “fashionable nonsense” with a wave of the hand, sans the ability to analyze it as well as the reality it falsifies, betrays a fundamental deficiency in the critical repertoire of both the creators of the site and most of the commenters.
>remarkable how ignorant and deficient in conceptual ability.. >
Ralpellectual, why don’t you give
examples and the corresponding critique ?
Doing what you have just done (that is writing conclusions with no arguments for them) doesn’t make you appear much better than those you criticize.
Re GK’s comments on Ralphellectual, aka Ralph Dumain [HT: Google]:
I second GK’s request for specific examples of the alleged ignorance and deficiency in conceptual ability that Ralph finds on B&W.
Incidentally, we presumably get a fair idea of what Ralph regards as examples of high level conceptual ability from his compilation “Marx and Marxism Webguide” at:
http://www.autodidactproject.org/guidmarx.html
This includes the link “From Marx to Mao”, which has been honoured by being “A recepient [sic] of the Order of Lenin in the first annual May Day Awards presented by the Academy of Socialism on the Internet, May 1, 1998.”
http://www.marx2mao.com/
Here is an example of a selected quotation on this webpage, from Chairman Mao:
“In the struggle to defend the legacy of Leninism… [Stalin] proved himself to be an outstanding Marxist-Leninist fighter… Stalin’s works should, as before, be seriously studied… [to] see what is correct and what is not.”
Seeing that he links to this webpage, it would be of interest to know if Ralph regards this as an insightful view of Stalin. And just what is the legacy of Lenin that is worthy of defence? Is it the legacy revealed by Dmitri Volkonov in his biography *Lenin: A New Biography*, much of which is based what the author was able to examine in the previously secret Soviet Archives?
Correction! The surname of the author of the biography of Lenin should have been Volkogonov.
>what is the legacy of Lenin that is worthy of defence?>
just as that of the Holocaust : “never again”
>Starting from their critique of traditional psychoanalysis, the authors resort to ‘schizo-analysis.’ >
Haha..laughing with tears here..
There are many fools and folies but when balloney is uttered ex-cathedra and with all the academic pretentiousness and pomposity it has an irrestibile comic effect.
Anti-Oedipus
This book is at the border between psychoanalysis and marxism, philosophy and economy.
Deleuze and Guattari refer to Melanie Klein, Reich, Lacan, Foucault, to the surrealists and Artaud. These ‘desiring machines’ are like M. Klein’s ‘partial objects.’
Starting from their critique of traditional psychoanalysis, the authors resort to ‘schizo-analysis.’ They are looking for appropriate tools to study the fragmented, the partial, the separated, in order to understand the functioning of ‘desiring machines.’
(found out by reading from Catherine Wieder, “Elements de psychanalyse pour le texte litteraire,” Bordas, Paris, 1988)
Well, I dont know when this article was published may be iam late in reading this. But I want to ask one simple question..
Where is Hindu Nationalism in India??
We have given reservations to all minorities.We have given them more religious freedom than any other country. We have more population of Muslims in India than in Pakistan.Every one around the world remember the Godhra riots but no one see what caused the riots.Can’t you find out how many people were burnt alive in the train in which the Hindu piligrims were going!!
Berrida:
Would you mind entertaining yourself without typing meaningless messages?
to A
Realx and, in the future, try not taking Deleuze, ‘schizo-analysis’, “critical theory”- postmodernism in general– that seriously. It is a French parlor game and if you forget this you may end up unable to distinguish the meanigful from the meaningless. That would be a serious condition indeed.
Chomsky, for instance, had it well about Lacan : ” an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan”.
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
to Berrida:
I’m not saying that Deleuze & Guattari hold the absolute truth in what they write. But this is an interesting book that generated a certain reaction in France when it appeared.
Allen Esterson’s little piece of character assassination ups assinity to a new level.
My Marxism web guide has an easily understandable purpose, one which might fit into any number of orientations and projects geared to compiling information of use to the public. It’s a guide to resources on Marxism on the web, not advocacy of the links contained therein. My sole interest in the Marx 2 Mao site is not its political orientation, but its archive of primary source materials.
Other people’s questions about my specific criticism of Butterflies & Wheels will take more time to address. In the meantime, see my blog:
Reason & Society
http://reasonsociety.blogspot.com/
See for example my post:
Scientism of the Gaps & the ‘Two Cultures’
http://reasonsociety.blogspot.com/2007/04/scientism-of-gaps-two-cultures.html
Interesting comments from Ralph Dumain. He tells us that most of the ‘critical thinkers’ [his scare quotes] on B&W are “ignorant and deficient in conceptual ability” and that it is “driven by a smugness and sound bite mentality every bit as propagandistic and shallow as its targets”. I responded by seconding a request for some specific examples to illustrate his contention, and then directed attention to a webpage of his that provides an indication of the kind of ideas of which he evidently approves. I then cited one of the links on his webpage and asked him his views on a quotation from Mao highlighted there. I would have thought that this was pretty mild stuff compared to *his* comments about the bulk of contributors to B&W, but he accuses *me* of “character assassination”!
Instead of throwing around more choice epithets, it would be refreshing if Ralph would actually reply to questions asked of him in direct response to his posting. So please enlighten us as to your view of Mao’s opinion of Stalin as expressed in the quotation I reproduced.
In addition, you might tell us which of the linked websites at http://www.autodidactproject.org/guidmarx.html
is so ignominious that someone directing attention to it is guilty of “character assassination” of the person who provided the link.
‘berrida’:
Too tired to argue [uselessly] with you.
A. ‘berrida’: Too tired to argue [uselessly] with you…I’m not saying that Deleuze & Guattari hold the absolute truth in what they write. But this is an interesting book that generated a certain reaction in France when it appeared.
I am sure it did. ‘Schizo-analysis’ of the ‘desiring machines’ is interesting thing indeed, one never gets tired of it.
The French love their intellectualy sounding chatter, their endless spinning of empty words.
Vocabulary and style, not ideas and clear thinking, is their killing time game. Ennui.
> Support for bombings fell in seven of eight Muslim countries surveyed — the headline at B&W
This survey means nothing, except insofar as it has the ability to mislead and console the unwary.
Why? Suicide bombings are now taking place not against the Americans — who mostly suffer casualties from I.E.D.’s, but against other Muslims, in both Iraq and Pakistan, where they are directed against the government. And there have been other cases in Lebanon and in Saudi Arabia. And it may have spread to the Maghreb. Muslims are well aware of this. They are well aware that suicide bombings may be a threat to them, to their own wellbeing, as they walk down the streets of Cairo or Damascus or Beirut or Algiers or Riyadh.
“Support for bombings fell in seven of eight Muslim countries surveyed — the headline at B&W”
That wasn’t the headline at B&W. The headline at B&W was “Muslim Support for Suicide Bombing Falls”; the teaser was “Pew Survey reports fall in support since 2002, but in Palestine support is still at 70%.”