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Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Proverbs 9: 8-10
We live in the Information Age, with access to unprecedented amounts of data. We've learned to surf the web, skim the news channels, and speed read the headlines. But do we have context? Without a framework, data is meaningless, and leads only to chaos and confusion.
College degrees confer professional respectability...but do they really represent knowledge and wisdom? Access to a wealth of daily, even hourly, information, can give us a false sense of knowing and understanding more than we actually do.I'm in a conference this week... learning how much I still have to learn. Our lives are so brief. Even if we could put them entirely on hold, and devote ourselves to nonstop study (which is very appealing right now), we probably wouldn't end up half as smart as we already think we are.
Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. Psalm 25: 8-10
4 comments:
I would like to ask you what you think about this reasoning. Is Israel and USA locked together in an undemocratic proxy relationship?
It is interesting to observe the similarities between circumstances surrounding the violence executed by USA on one hand and Israel on the other.
In both cases, it is justified as self defense
In both cases this alleged counter violence greatly exceedes "an eye for an eye"
In both cases a large part of the people in whose name,for whose security and with whose money and lives the violence is perpetuated feel they are neither in understanding of nor in agreement with what is done in their name
In both cases the retaliation is backed by words which may attempt to justify - but practically no evidence providing legality
In both cases, any attempts-although sadly there are not many - of the political international "community" of serious questioning of the violent measures is met with very similar arguments ammounting to : "You are either for us defending ourselves(in any way we see fit) or wanting us to be sitting ducks"..(In both cases this is a grave underestimation of the nujmber of choices BESIDES the two extremes. I do not shoot every suspicious looking man I see, but nor I put on a tight top saying "Rape Me,Plese"...)
In both cases an unilateral decision is made as to when i time one starts giving credibility to the law of action and consequence. Example - Israel claims the rockets fired by Lebanon justifies a counter attack, but the fact that the Lebanon rockets ALSO could be justified as counter attacks for Israel violence is NOT included. Below is an excerpt from Democracy Now's interview with NOam Chomsky:
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest on the phone is Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His latest book is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. I wanted to ask you about the comment of the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. He defended Israel's actions as a justified response. This is Dan Gillerman.
DAN GILLERMAN: As we sit here during these very difficult days, I urge you and I urge my colleagues to ask yourselves this question: What would do you if your countries found themselves under such attacks, if your neighbors infiltrated your borders to kidnap your people, and if hundreds of rockets were launched at your towns and villages? Would you just sit back and take it, or would you do exactly what Israel is doing at this very minute?
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Noam Chomsky, your response?
NOAM CHOMSKY: He was referring to Lebanon, rather than Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: He was.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. Well, he's correct that hundreds of rockets have been fired, and naturally that has to be stopped. But he didn't mention, or maybe at least in this comment, that the rockets were fired after the heavy Israeli attacks against Lebanon, which killed -- well, latest reports, maybe 60 or so people and destroyed a lot of infrastructure. As always, things have precedence, and you have to decide which was the inciting event. In my view, the inciting event in the present case, events, are those that I mentioned -- the constant intense repression; plenty of abductions; plenty of atrocities in Gaza; the steady takeover of the West Bank, which, in effect, if it continues, is just the murder of a nation, the end of Palestine; the abduction on June 24 of the two Gaza civilians; and then the reaction to the abduction of Corporal Shalit. And there's a difference, incidentally, between abduction of civilians and abduction of soldiers. Even international humanitarian law makes that distinction.
As a political and military entity - I am trying not to place guilt on a US population as a whole - the USA has built up a considerable amount of "consequential guilt" in the sense that it has spread acts of terrorism, oppression, inhumane treatment etc in human memories and lives throughout the world. Considering just HOW great the number of actions understandable if leading to bitterness and desire to retalliate and avenge is - USA should consider itself lucky(or geographically, geopolitically blessed in comparison might be more accurate) it has not been a greater target of retalliation attempts.
But what scares me personally - since if my suspicion is correct then it is clear that both national sovereignity as well as democracy is in all practical matters no more, both in USA as in Israel - is that it seems the USA and Israel cooperates in going down the list of regimes in the world needed to be "taken out" proposed by so called Neo Conservative groups. In the BBC documentary "The War Party", self described Neo Coservatives inside and outside official agencies and branches of US political system names those regimes. Afghanistan and Iraq has been "delt with" and now Israel is taking on Lebanon and Syria while USA is bogged down by Iraq - both in public support as well as in military and financial resources.
Iran was also on the list. Although the Iranian nuclear energy dispute so far hasn't led to any radical measures, Iran is now tentatively pointed out as a primary source of back up for the violence Israel claims motivates and justifies the invasion and bombing of Gaza and Lebanon.
A characteristic of the Neo Conservative political agenda is the non-questioning of support for Israel - and the high number of Jews in Neo Conservative political pressure groups.
Britain explicitly backed the creation of a Jewsih national home in what then was Palestine, and later acknowledge the sovereign state the jews declared on Palestine soil in spite of no bi- or multilateral agreement for splitting Palestine officially had been made, so that it could gain a foothold in the very important region. When Britain seized to be the nr 1 power in the Middle East, USA took over. While British rule had been much more direct and overt, through colonial rule and puppet regimes, USA had to use more covert methods of enforcing its will in the region. Having Israel as a sort of "proxy" and "extension" ougth to have become even more crucial to alleviate USA in the role as engineer of actions to increase, defend and exercise regional power.
The prospect of Israel being a US proxy - although the relationship shouldnt be misstaken for a simple master-servant one since it is much more mutual than that - is one that implies that democracy can not excist since the popular majority's represented will is not the determining mandate for national political decision. And it also implies that the mechanisms intended to prevent such a power shift away from the people is not working.
Again, I would like to ask you what you think about this reasoning. Is Israel and USA locked together in an undemocratic proxy relationship?
www.alternativeviewpoints.com
www.alternativenewspoints.blogspot.com
For the bold and brave
Liz,
due to the conference I'm in this week, my blogging time has been limited. I'll read your comment at length next week and offer any thoughts.
JT
It's okay. I am not going anywhere, thanks to Homeland Security trusting me for another 6 months (-;
Wow...now THERE'S proof they're not doing their job! ;)
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