the USA, Israel, and national interest

Nah, but he basically did the same thing he criticized someone else for like 2 posts ago.

are we ready to have this thread locked yet

i think we're very close to a solution of the crisis, hang on

are you really saying...

Did I really say that? I don't think so. Let me clarify.

What I had in mind is that, if the you are deterred from demonstrating against an abhorrent act by the thought that you may somehow lend support to a group whose actions you also have reservations about, then it is legitimate to consider where your greater reservations lie.

One the one hand you have a war going on right now that is killing many hundreds, including a very high proportion of non-combatants. One the other, you are concerned that your protest might possibly be seen as condoning rockets fired randomly into Israel - although this is not how the demonstration's purpose is framed. Just the presence of groups who may condone this seems troublesome.

So, do you wait until a pristine opportunity to march comes along and meanwhile do nothing, or risk the chance of sending a signal that may have a few political components you disagree with? It is a legitimate question, but silence also risks the chance of sending a wrong signal. Your choice.

Well put.

not wanting to be identified with certain messages at a protest where people are waving swastikas about seems perfectly reasonable to me

you are concerned that your protest might possibly be seen as condoning rockets fired randomly into Israel - although this is not how the demonstration's purpose is framed.

condoning more than this, and the demo *does* frame its purpose in explicitly pro-hamas terms, from the reports i've read. (it is organized by the SWP-ish StWC.) what you've written, especially the use of the word 'risk' in the final paragraph, does lead me to the cliche that it's more about the protesters than the plight of palestinians. (not to mention the fact that the demo will achieve exactly nothing -- about a million of use marched against UK involvement in the iraq war, as i said.)

xpost

Stop the War Coalition isn't even SWP-ish: Lindsey German was the then-editor of their magazine Socialist Review, and her effective second-in-command was John Rees, then of the SWP, now of Respect.

Although lol at this section from the SWP's wiki:

The SWP has been accused of being overly accommodating to the allegedly reactionary concerns of some practising Muslims; for example its anti-Zionist stance has been accused of being anti-semitic by Zionists

A pal of mine lives off Kensington High Street. He tells me his street's been smashed up, piles of debris and piss everywhere - plus loads of groups of masked guys chanting from 'down down israel', through 'death to israel' all the way to 'death to jews'. Also the local muslim-owned shops getting attacked for selling alcohol. He's a bit shocked at how intimidating it all is

so is no one mentioning Iran and the bigger picture in this whole thread which I haven't read completely yet? That's okay since I need to paste this somewhere - and now maybe y'all can tell me how veracious this seems:

Bush reportedly rejected Israeli plea to raid Iran
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090111/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_israel

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran's main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported.
Israel's request was for specialized bunker-busting bombs that it wanted for an attack that tentatively involved flying over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country's only known uranium enrichment plant is located, the Times reported Saturday in its online edition. The White House deflected requests for the bombs and flyover but said it would improve intelligence-sharing with Israel on covert U.S. efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
The covert efforts, which began in early 2008, involved plans to penetrate Iran's nuclear supply chain abroad and undermine electrical systems and other networks on which Iran relies, the Times said, citing interviews with current and former U.S. officials, outside experts and international nuclear inspectors who spoke on condition of anonymity. The covert program will be handed off to President-elect Barack Obama, who will deciding whether to continue it.
According to the Times, Bush decided against an overt attack based on input from top administration officials such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who believed that doing so would likely prove ineffective and could ignite a broader Middle East war.
Israel made the push for permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran following its anger over a U.S. intelligence assessment in late 2007 that concluded Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier. Israel sought to rebut the report, providing evidence to U.S. intelligence officials that they said indicated the Iranians were still working on a weapon.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to comment Saturday.
In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week, Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, said he believed that Iran is the biggest challenge Obama will face in the Middle East and that more sanctions will be needed to force Tehran to forgo its nuclear ambitions and support for extremists. He said the Bush administration has been trying to "shore up and store up leverage" to bequeath to the Obama administration.
Last month, Obama suggested that a combination of economic incentives and tighter sanctions might work. Tehran rejected the proposal. Obama also has said he would pursue tough-minded diplomacy.

This article hints at actions that would be highly typical of the Bush administration specifically, and US policy in general.

It obv tiptoes around the very great probability that these covert actions aimed at sabotaging Iran's "suspected nuclear weapons program" amount to acts of war against Iran. We seem to be at war with a fair portion of the world, covertly, when you get right down to brass tacks.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054296.html

Haaretz editorial board comes out against the offensive -- which is a bit of a bigger deal than just having usual suspect columnists like Gideon Levy do it.

did pinefox go? what did he make of the invited speakers?

Oh wonderful.

Go to what? Your post shows a blank.

go to the demo. the clip is of one of the numerous speakers who extolled the virtues of hamas.

What's your point?

I went to the rally in Hyde Park, yes, as I said upthread. I didn't go all the way to the second rally which was, I think, somewhere beyond the Israeli Embassy. As your clip doesn't work I can't tell whether I heard it or not.

my point is, the pinefox and others painted the demo as a simple plea for peace, but in fact its invited speakers variously praised hamas (above and beyond the 'right to resist), denied the right of existence to israel, and encouraged the crowd to 'shut down israel shops', not boycott, shut down. pretty unedifying stuff, no? perhaps it's not worth commenting on, what do you think?

b-b-but he was being very specific about shutting down a tiny market stall in westfield don't you see

That sounds pretty bad if invited speakers denied Israel's right to exist and urged action against Israeli shops in London.

So you think the original message of the protest was effectively hijacked into anti-Semitism?

Hijacked?

I didn't hear any speaker denying the right of existence to Israel or urging anyone to shut down Israeli shops. I heard a number of speakers talk of the terrible conditions and violence to which Palestinians have been subjected. I agree with those speakers and with those who believe that this is wrong and should not continue.

Insofar as I understand what is going on in Palestine - and my knowledge remains entirely second-hand, via the news, the LRB and the like, unlike those like the Dirty Vicar and his partner who have been to the Middle East and, I think, witnessed Palestinian society - events and conditions sound pretty unedifying. That seems to me to be the most important thing to recognize, remember and address, if one is going to address anything. I don't, myself, pretend to be making any noteworthy political contribution.

just as well

This is all having one really positive effect: it's reminding me that it is not generally worth spending time on ilx.

there's always a disconnect between the message of the protest as construed by the organizers (in this case the unappetising trot-islamist 'stop the war coalition'), and as constued by the majority of attendees (in this case decent people who want peace, for convenience) -- it would be mad to deny it. i wouldn't put it in terms of hijacking: it's just an inevitable thing.

but in this case the disconnect strikes me as quite stark. i would guess that the majority of attendees didn't actually know what tariq ali was talking about (saying fatah had sold out the cause at oslo, etc) and were unlikely to attempt to shut down 'israel shops', as proposed by galloway. but i am genuinely interested to know what the 'vibe' was like, whether there was indeed a disconnect. i would like to think so.

xpost

i guess pinefox didn't see ali, galloway, azzam tamimi, or that brit ambassador guy who married a stripper then. just as well!

I remember attending a peace demo in Minneapolis not long after 9/11 and being forced to physically distance myself from people chanting "Sharon and Hitler are the same, the only difference is the name," and feeling the same way at one of the massive D.C. anti-war marches before the Iraq invasion, when somebody with a bullhorn started yelling something about infidels (he noticed no one was chanting along, and quickly changed his tune).

But this stuff happens at protests. Was I wrong to be at that Iraq War protest? No, I wasn't. If I had been silent, I would have been counted among those endorsing the war.

these were the invited speakers, the organizers, not random thug elements, though they attended to.

there aren't british boots on the ground, and it's completely untrue that non-attendance means endorsement; or rather, can anyone live up to that standard? unless you've protested all wars, i don't see how.

too

there aren't british boots on the ground

britain doesn't make military boots anymore

plenty of british weapons, though

true indeed.

i didn't and wouldn't have gone on the protest - partly out of the 'what about Africa' argument, partly because of fear of nutjob quotient being much higher than say the Iraq war protest (which was obv a much bigger deal to Brits) and partly because then whole thing is so blatantly fucked up i never know what to think.

"it's completely untrue that non-attendance means endorsement"

I'm speaking from the U.S., the largest backer of Israel since 1967, the functioning democracy where the F-16s are made.

That doesn't make the statement any more true.

I have endorsed every war waged since I was born and I stand by those endorsements, all war is totally great.

AHH COME FROM THE CITY WHERE THEY LOVE TO HATE
SPECIALLY ON THAT TRIPLE SIX

lol rong thread

xxpost

Well, I would argue that it does. If you live in a democracy with a certain amount of freedom, you are more responsible for what your leaders do in your name than if you don't.

Like the Palestinians, too!

What if you live in a constitutional republic as opposed to a democracy?

This isn't worth getting into. The participatory democracy part of the argument has been discussed at least three separate times in this thread, it applies to almost all the states involved, and yes it's sad that wingnuts of all stripes seem to hold more sway than they deserve, also, self-righteousness regarding violence is even lazier than self-righteousness regarding pornography

in fairness, it's more understandable to tut-tut about someone killing someone else than it is to tut-tut about someone jackin' it

xpost: doesn't make the statement any more true

Dan, given "true" as viewed from the neutral perspective of logic and denotative language, you are correct.

Politics puts this into a different framework. The US government position establishes the political default. If you do nothing at all, you are pretty well guaranteed to get more of the same. In political terms, silence has the practical effect of assent.

We had a similar argument many times about anti-war protests before the Iraq invasion, when a lot of people attending were either disappointed with claims beyond made or just embarrassed by the opinions and behavior of some of the people around them.

Obviously you have to put some care into what you're going out for, and try not to wind up in an action whose official organizational point you don't agree with. But there's also a level where politics is about big tents, and you get under the tent of one thing you agree on -- say, "we oppose invading Iraq" -- with people you think are wrong about why and are wrong about other things, who you find politically embarrassing, who you might condemn for other reasons. (Part of why you show up, in fact, might be to help your reasonable position outnumber the unreasonable ones.)

I know nothing about the London protests, who organized them, who spoke at them, what they said, etc., so this should not be construed as offering an opinion about that, okay?

Just saying that masses of people mobilize around one central point and are bound to vary wildly on a lot of other things, and I don't think this reflects badly on the individuals mobilizing. I'd also note that one consequence of this is that some of the most effective and powerful protest movements in recent history have gathered people around a very simple message of, as Lamp mocked a couple days ago, "Not Cool" -- not complex, detailed policy positions, but just "This Is Not Acceptable." (Hell, some of the best protest signs of the 20th century read only "I AM A MAN.")

this yet?:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/12/joe-the-plumber-ban-media-from-war/

Nabisco OTM, but all protests are not equally effective. Therefore, "to protest" is not neccessarily to have accomplished some good WR2 your own political goals, even if the ostensible point of the protest seems to sqare with your views/values. Protests can be hijacked, and their surface messages can act as a curtain for views that might not otherwise be so attractive. If a "peace protest" turns into, disguises or enables an anti-Semitic/anti-Israel rally, then supporting such a thing may actually do more harm than good -- strenghtening the resolve of hardliners and equating the opposition with racism. Big tent sure, but you wanna be careful who climb in under the sheets with.

Dan, given "true" as viewed from the neutral perspective of logic and denotative language, you are correct.

Politics puts this into a different framework. The US government position establishes the political default. If you do nothing at all, you are pretty well guaranteed to get more of the same. In political terms, silence has the practical effect of assent.

You realize you are stating that when the government does something you disagree with, the only way they will know you disagree is if you run out and join the first street protest you see, right? I mean, screw voting, screw contacting your elected officials, screw running for office yourself; street protests are the only things that matter and anything unsavory in the stance of the people putting it together is something you have to accept if you want to participate in the political process.

"I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting," Wurzelbacher said. "You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, 'well, look at this atrocity,' well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

It's better to forbid information than risk hearing half the truth.

"I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting."

Joe the Plumber is basically the epitome of "this fucking guy"