hey Sayaret.... our presuppositions do matter.. they are what we speak from.
Anyway, now I understand your point... thanx
BOAZ

Sayeret, your great post failed to raise one other important 'hate' question.

WHY is the USA so viciously and relentlessly hated by...er, ah...'educated' people like Annabelle?

Why do leftists (including the US's own Democrats)---and academics generally (yeah, same thing)--- resolutely, determinedly, relentlessly try and show the USA up as a "loser"? This is the nation that provides 40% of all the planet's foreign aid to underprivelaged countries and about half of the UN's budget, all of which the 'caring and sharing' leftists would like to dismiss as 'irrelevant'.

A nation that could with the greatest of ease right now annexe Iraq, declare martial law, shoot half its citizens, hang Saddam upside down by his..well, anyway...pump as much oil as it wants, enslave the rest of the Iraquis and DARE the rest of the world to even utter a peep of protest---------BUT DOESN'T

THINK about it.....

By the way, for those who don't get it, 'Hollywood' is NOT the USA. All half-decent people---including the more-than half of the USA population that voted for Pres. Bush.----are disgusted by Hollywood.

So WHY would anybody in the West hate the USA the way the likes of Annabelle do? So much that she would gleefully do that disingenuously dishonest linguistic dance in stillettos on its valiantly trying, fairly damn bloodied torso?

WHY, Annabele?

Biting the hand that protects and feeds...and all that.

WHY? WHY?

Any answer, Annabelle?

Helloo....anybody there...Annabeeeelle??...helloooooo?

Oh well, I guess the good Doctor's lights are on, but....

Ozaware,

I doubt very much Dr Lukin will be able to stop laughing long enough to respond to your comments but I am somewhat immune so....

You state that Dr Lukin appears to be telling us that Bush "used language carefully designed to signal his unwavering resolve to take out Saddam." A rather novel interpretation of the article - I suggest a re-read.

Then you build a the usual straw men and knock them down - tired old stuff I'm afraid... A few of my favourites :

"War in(sic) not made ‘possible’ by language, Annabelle. Two lions battling for pride supremacy..." If you are seriously equating a few tufts of flying fur to the loss of human life (soldiers/innocents)and the suffering caused by war I suggest an adjustment of your moral compass and the purchase of a good dictionary as quickly as possible.

"You say that to wage war, one must define an enemy and justify the human and economic costs of going to war. Shall we completely ignore that the enemy most often first defines himself—Hitler invading France...". You have completely missed the point here - this is not a refutation. In your example Hitler has defined the enemy - France. If the French government was led by Ghandi or Christ, they might turn the other cheek and not even name an enemy. Some Iraquis considered the coalition forces liberators, some considered them as enemy forces. Language is important.

The bulk of Dr Lukin's essay you characterize as a "...subtle, linguistic war against President Bush.." and then blithely ignore most of the discussion of rhetoric,modality,grammatical analysis and linguistics and busy yourself with the construction of some lovely straw men...nice work if you can get it. 18 or so mentions of Islam for example and some associated "Why is..." questions to Dr Lukin, even though the word Islam is not mentioned once in her essay.

A few cheap shots about ideologies, leftists and "people like yourself" - information which you have miraculously gleaned by methods no doubt privy only to you.

And finally, as much fun as this is, as for the "‘nonexistent’ WMD’s you imply (but I note cannot quite bring yourself to state directly - funny about that) that they were whisked out of Iraq on "hundreds or road trains" and caught on satellite cameras that don't lie.

Once again I see you have information not available to the US or other governments.

Perhaps you could have passed it on to the White House so that when Barbara Walters asked the question, instead of saying "I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction — like many here in the United States, many around the world. The United Nations thought he had weapons of mass destruction" Bush could have replied "There were WMD's. The US intelligence services have these photographs showing..etc etc". Alas, a missed opportunity.

Good luck with your reading in the future.

Well done Shemthepost. I didn’t know where to begin (or why) to respond to Ozaware and his rip-snorter mate. It is easy and fun to discredit their rhetoric, but people with paranoid personality disorders do not acknowledge any logical, rational critiques of their delusional interpretation of events.

I suspect that Ozaware did not even read the article. He (I am presuming that this person is male) would have scanned it looking for key words and then launched into a ‘programmed’ response. I wonder why, since he feels so strongly about fighting terrorists, he has not joined up and volunteered to go to Iraq.

Molydukes

shemthepost, girdle your loins and sharpen your sword---or perhaps get a tea-towel to cover your face for fear or being recognised on the streets after these discussions. Unlike the gal who cast the first stone, I do have the moral integrity to respond to those who have challenged my response to Annabelle. It takes time to compose...ahem....well-researched observations that are grounded in reality.

Actually, you may not believe this, I even have the intellectual integrity to say such things as "wow, you were right and I was wrong. I accept what you are telling us."

You'll be a long time looking to find anybody from your side of intellectual/ideological fence who can do likewise. If you want to see the colour of their--and perhaps your own?---kind of thinking, read http://www.oz-aware.com/socialsuicide.htm, and note that the piece is entitled....yep....Social Suicide......for good reason.

But there's a catch to being prepared to recognise a well-groundsd viewpoint. Nobody can rationally make such a response to an attack that's merely a molotov cocktail of ad hominens, generalisations, epithets, wild, unfounded assertions and disingenuous misrepresentations of what was stated.

Why do you think I constantly provide hyperlinks in my posts-many of which refer material that is not of my own original making? (Actually ALL, but that's too complex to explain here....)

Thus far, all you and mollydukes have done is throw noisy cocktails into the arena.

While I compose a response, you two may want to read http://www.oz-aware.com/kooky.htm and http://www.oz-aware.com/pointless.com

The latter (succinctly)points out that it is tyically pointless explaining certain realities to people who have a certain *way* of thinking.

[John Ray provides a rather interesting analysis of such minds at http://www.oz-aware.com/leftistmind1.htm and I explain in at least two different places why many such people don't understand what their thinking invites - http://www.oz-aware.com/askfor.htm and http://www.oz-aware.com/ideology1.htm ,with a recent news report confirming the viewpoints at http://www.oz-aware.com/ideology2.htm]

So if explaining is pointless, why do I invest effort here?

Because there are other *rational* people out there who are 'independent thinkers' (read http://www.oz-aware.com/evil#independent)and who merely need enough reality-based info to be able to then see the truth.

Enough info, which you may recall I stated is the one thing that Annabelle surely wasn't providing in her essay.

Ozaware,

I'm beginning to see a pattern here, and if your further contributions are to be of a similar ilk, I'd advise you not to bother.

Once again I sincerely advise you to actually read the post that you are responding to. My original response was critical of you introduction of extraneous matter, and yet...

Also I note that you have used your secret methods of divination once more to illicit what "your side of intellectual/ideological fence" is, in my case, at least to your own satisfaction. This despite the fact that I make no mention of my politics, beliefs or anything relevant to such an assessment (apart from the fact that I am critical of your post of course). Dichotomy is a useful concept, but the world is a little more complex than black hats and white hats. I refer you back to Dr Lukin's essay and the sections on modality and "shades of grey".

Advertising is a wonderful concept and I'm sure your website is just dandy.

A criticism is not necessarily an "attack" - take a few deep breaths.
However, I would suggest that "molotov cocktail of ad hominens, generalisations, epithets, wild, unfounded assertions and disingenuous misrepresentations" more accurately describes your responses that it does mine.

And for future reference, the expression is to "gird your loins" not girdle them.

Cheers