Please explain to me how this can make sense: Rabbi Lerner edits Tikkun, a leftwing (or liberal anyway) magazine. Rabbi Lerner is against the war. Rabbi Lerner wanted to speak at an anti-war rally sponsored by commie group ANSWER. (Who are about as anti-war as Lenin was, but anyway.) ANSWER said to Rabbi Lerner: "Ew! Stinky Zionist! Begone!" I paraphrase, but the gist of the matter is, since Rabbi Lerner still supports the existence of Israel, though he may criticise it for whatever reason, he is therefore an Eeville Zionist Person and thus he does not get to play any of ANSWER's reindeer games. ANSWER prefers "Muslim clerics" who spout anti-Semitic remarks and lies about Jews being "told to not go to the World Trade Center" on September 11th.
So what does the learned Rabbi do after being shown in no uncertain terms that ANSWER is an anti-Semitic-preferring group? He tells people to go to the rally anyway. E. Nough has the rest of the story on this.
I'm sorry, I'm just not getting these antiwar people. Are they so hungry to have an experience akin to that of anti-war protesters in the Sixties that they will twist logic, deny concrete evidence, and practically bend the very fabric of space-time until they get what they want? How much do you have to hate yourself to do this to yourself? What is wrong with people like this? Is it all the drugs they did back then? This goes beyond self-esteem issues into some really dark area of the human psyche that I don't think I want to know more about. I am only sure of one thing: I want these people and their fans and sycophants to be so humiliated by the truth that they disappear from public life, preferably to the ashrams and monasteries they no doubt yearn to flee to. Please, Jebus, can't you give me this one wish?
Posted by Andrea Harris at February 11, 2003 02:00 AMUhm. You just used "make sense" and "Rabbi Lerner" in the same sentence. I stopped reading at that point, for there was no reason to go on.
You might as well say, "2+2=5. Make sense of that."
:-)
Posted by: Dean Esmay at February 11, 2003 at 03:26 AM"Making sense" is a notion best applied to arguments of some sort, Andrea. The Left doesn't make arguments, or at least not ones that have importance other than the transitory and tactical. Their positions are all premises, absolutes that owe nothing to reasoning. (The giveaway is that, when their current "reason" for a position is logically refuted, or shown to be in contradiction to reality, they jump to another at once, with no change in the "conclusion.") As Chesterton noted, it's a fool's game to try to reason a man out of something he didn't reason himself into.
All of which is why I no longer bother to try to change the mind of a Leftist. "When the student is ready, the master will appear." But the student is not ready, so the master hides himself away.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at February 11, 2003 at 08:13 AMi've thought for a long time that the reason we have so much protest of capitalism, and war, and the Raiders losing, is because young people today are bored. they keep hearing these tales of a time when protest gave blacks (more) equal rights, when women stepped forward and demanded equal pay, burned their bras, etc etc. and they think "wow... that sounds COOL. i can break stuff and yell and scream AND make the country better! THAT'S what i need to take the edge off!"
only problem is that they were handed a country much better - in many ways - from the one their parents were given. fairer.
note: they could be out protesting about lead and mercury and rampant energy consumption and environmental degradation, and overfishing of critical species, but those are all boring, wussy things.
"!!WAR!!" is so much more studly and empowering.
Posted by: chris at February 11, 2003 at 10:44 AMMe thinks you got it, these folk are simply trying to rekindle the 60's protests they've seen on PBS and get laid.
Posted by: feste at February 11, 2003 at 06:14 PMAre they so hungry to have an experience akin to that of anti-war protesters in the Sixties that they will twist logic, deny concrete evidence, and practically bend the very fabric of space-time until they get what they want?
In a word? YES! HELL YES. I don't know about you, but the people who lived the 60s have never forgotten it, nor moved beyond it...all my life I have had to listen to the 'elder' generation wax poetic on "love ins and protests and gee, your generation just doesnt seem to have their act together do they?" As an anthro student I was accused of following in their footsteps, never mind that I was inspired to become an archaeologist because of a dig at Colonial Williamsburg while taking a tour of Early American historical sites!!!
Anyway, blogs are the way to go as far as putting the lie to these ridiculous children. Your site rocks, Andrea!!
Posted by: Sharon Ferguson at February 12, 2003 at 02:33 PMMy fingers got away from me...I meant to add, that most of who you see today are the young children of the 60s generation who are seeking to recreate for themselves a time that they have been told was so noble and so wonderful. They want to dress like their parents, talk like their parents, act like their parents, BE their parents. It doesn't help that they end up going to college and become students of professors just like their parents. They were there in the 80s...they were entrenched in the 90s.
Thing is, I am old enough to remember what the culture was like in the 60s and 70s the first time around...and I keep asking myself...why do they want to recreate it??! It was HORRIBLE.
Posted by: Sharon Ferguson at February 12, 2003 at 02:38 PM