Misplaced Anger Pie
Ingredients
Take:
Half a cup of misfortune.
Two cups of justifiable outrage.
One cup of blind partisanship.
Three tablespoons of schadenfreude.
A teaspoon of spite, or enough to curdle the mix
Break two or more heads against each other; mix the brains in with the other ingredients until the mixture is lumpy.
Pour into pie shell made of burnt floppy disks. Cook for several weeks, months, or years over low heat (however long it takes), turn up during the last hour of cooking to five-thousand degrees until crust is blackened.
Eat, until ulcers occur. Repeat until all dinner guests are dead or have fled the table.
Update: the pie goes down faster if you wash it down with a big glass of You Can't Possibly Understand juice.
SERIOUS INTERVAL: it's late, so this will be short. In reponse to Meryl's paean to the wonders of Not Understanding what it's like to be Jewish and faced with this situation, maybe she should ask Pejman how he feels, and see if she can "understand" his position as an American-Iranian-Jew. See, maybe I can't "understand" what Jews go through, not being Jewish myself. But, you know, by that criterion I can't understand what it means to be Chinese, or Yanomamo, or male, or a victim (yet) of a suicide bomber, or anything but Andrea Harris. This is an absurd attitude, which assumes that since no one can truly know 100% the experience of someone else then you can't possibly have anything to say about that other person's experience. If people were truly this way, we'd have no novels, no poems, no marriages, no.... anything.
But this is already getting longer than I wanted it to be. Let me finish: when I say that Laurence's (and, I guess, Meryl's) anger is "misplaced," I mean just that. Denying aid to the victims of the Bam earthquake does very little against members of Hizbollah or any other Iran-sponsored terrorist group, unless by some silver-lining happenstance one or more of the key members of such groups perished in the rubble. And it hurts the mullahs that run that country with an iron fist not at all; quite the contrary -- if any of them should happen to hear of any such reaction to their decree they will probably only feel more truculently righteous in their hatred. As for demanding that the victimized and oppressed people of Iran prove they deserve your regard by "rising up" against their government; well, that's easy for someone on the outside to say. Then again, that would take "understanding."
Posted by Andrea Harris at December 28, 2003 11:05 PMI don't think Meryl is saying that you shouldn't try to understand another person's position. It is just that in this case, your blogging indicates that you are falling a little short of understanding her position (whether you agree with it or not).
If an earthquake occurred in Nazi Germany during WWII, would you understand a Jew (or anybody else) choosing not to contribute? Granted that Iran is not Nazi Germany but the fact that they have rejected Jewish help from Israel and are significant sponsors of Jewish-directed terrorism, might help us understand Meryl's position.
I have some additional thoughts on my blog.
Posted by: Mike Sanders at December 29, 2003 at 09:32 AMI don't think Meryl is saying that you shouldn't try to understand another person's position. It is just that in this case, your blogging indicates that you are falling a little short of understanding her position (whether you agree with it or not).
The problem I have with Yourish's position is that she's arguing that she should be held to a different standard because of her Jewishness. Sorry, I don't buy that from a Jew any more than I would from an anti-semite -- if she wants to argue that it's okay to say, "Screw the Iranians" then she should argue that it's okay regardless of whether the person speaking is a Jew or a Gentile.
Posted by: Sean O'Hara at December 29, 2003 at 01:14 PMSean, I don't think she is should be held to a different standard, I certainly don't.
What I believe the point she is making is that as jews we have a different perspective on this than non-jews.
I agree with that though I don't agree with where she goes with it.
Sure we can think, well that is 20 or 30,000 less jew haters but then we need to do a reality check. These are people too and not all of them hate jews, perhaps most do but there were even good people in Germany and we can't throw out the good ones with the bad.
It's not a question of 'denying aid' since that begins with the exageratedly liberal premise that Iran has some legitimate claim on that aid or entitlement to it.
The nature of charitable giving is that it is voluntary and selective. It is not a question of whether we should or shouldn't give money ro Iran but whether Iranian earthquake relief should take precedence over all the other worthy causes in our communities and around the world.
In that regard Iran's support for terrorism is a valid factor in that calculation as is the fact that Iran can apparently afford a nuclear program but not earthquake proofing.
Does it mean that the people of Iran shouldn't recieve any money or don't deserve any money? Certainly not. Does it mean that earthquake relief in Iran should take priority over the homeless in New York, starving children in Africa, terrorist victims around the world and orphans in Asia...perhaps they shouldn't.
Posted by: O. Deus at December 29, 2003 at 02:07 PMWhat he said.
I don't know of anybody who is arguing that, say, the UN or France or the US ought to be forced to deny aid to Iran. But what is the basis for your implication that Iran is intrinsically entitled to aid from others, and that the preference that some might have to make charitable contributions elsewhere and otherwise is anything but understandable and reasonable?
It's not like the only humanitarian need in the world is Iran, and, unlike many other countries, Iran has huge oil fields capable of buying necessary aid.
Me, I don't accept any personal or collective responsibility for natural disasters in Iran, and wish the Iranians well in their own handling of it.
That said, it seems strange that Iran would welcome help from The Great Satan. Does their hatred have an off-switch that gets turned off when their palms are outstretched?
Posted by: Joel Rosenberg at December 29, 2003 at 07:08 PMOh my. No one is saying that Iran or anyone else is "entitled" to anything. Don't worry, the sacred space of your wallet is safe from me. Talk about missing the point.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 29, 2003 at 07:23 PMPhrasing that accuse people of 'Denying Aid' or 'Witholding Aid' implies that the aid is due, that this is aid they are entitled to and that we are witholding that aid from them by not contributing.
This is obviously an invalid and unfair contention. As I've said elsewhere charity is a triage process in which you determine what charity has your highest priority.
Posted by: O. Deus at December 29, 2003 at 10:44 PMAh. "The sacred space of your wallet." Hmm.
Now, what was that point again?
Posted by: Joel Rosenberg at December 29, 2003 at 11:39 PMGee, I don't fucking know, Joel. I kind of thought MY POINT was the idea that people were getting upset at a group of people because they were mad at another group of people, while you and O Deus jumped in here with some sort of thing about deciding who is more deserving of charity, a subject I have ALREADY INDICATED does not interest me. If you wish to wax at length on THAT subject, please do so elsewhere.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 29, 2003 at 11:50 PMAnd O. Deus, that goes for you too. Take it to a blog that cares.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 29, 2003 at 11:50 PMOh hell, why did I leave this open? The discussion has become tiresome. Good-bye.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 29, 2003 at 11:57 PM