Froggie

Sorry I haven't responded beforehand. I am busy at work and have this evening been organising a talk by South African activist and Marxist Trevor Ngwane. Trevor will be in Canberra next week at a special meeting of Socialist Alternative to speak on "Apartheid's gone, but the struggle continues." Then he is in Melbourne to speak over easter (along with a US Iraqi war veteran against the war, a Hong Kong Labour activist and an Italian socialist plus heaps more) at Marxism 2008. See http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1451&Itemid=137

What is it you wanted me to respond to?

If it is the idea that most of the deaths in Iraq are due to Muslims killing each other, then I have two comments. These internecine battles only erupted after the US encouraged them. Second the Lancet study shows that 80% of the deaths of innocents in Iraq are due to the US war machine. (I think that is the figure, at least from memory.)

Hello Ezhil, I suppose you know I’m not buying all of that, but I would accept humanism as a superficial solution. In fact, on a neighbouring thread, I’m recommending it.

I don’t say “superficial” out of disrespect. btw, what I mean by “humanism” is the belief that ALL human beings are of a very high status and value – and equally so. This being a basis for insisting that they be treated with equal respect.

I know our reasons for attributing this value to humans will differ, but we can still agree on the value.

Religion. I know one’s birth setting is important, but that’s not all there is to it. I’d rejected Christianity before I took it up again. The fashion at that time was to be an atheist or to “go East”, and I found myself doing the least fashionable thing available. Nor do I regard espousing a religion as essentially a matter of “need”, though non-believers often say it is. In fact, I would find life far simpler without believing in God, as I would prefer to be my own authority, to be sovereign. But, while you might regard all of this as nonsense, it needn’t stop us agreeing about some ground rules, and I’m happy for humanism (so long as its rationale is unexplained) as being the basis for a common ethos that everyone could subscribe to.

Passy, You’re starting to sound a tad biased. However, I don’t know you at all well, so perhaps it’s not just the start. Even if the internecine deaths in Iraq occurred post-invasion, they still occurred, didn’t they? You write as though you believe that, if the US suddenly evaporated, the world would be at peace – that, at the very least, there’d be no strife within Islam or between Islam and the rest of the world. Do you believe this? I can’t speak for Froggie, of course, but I think we just want you to admit that the US is not the only problem. Must I wait for Froggie to ask, before you grace me with a reply?

Pax,

Hi Passy
Actually, it was Goodthief who asked for your response to my and his/her post.
You didn't really respond to what I said in my post.
With what you did respond to I have a comment:
Why would the US want to get the Sunni's and Shias killing each other and killing US troops as well. Divide and rule principle? But all this trouble would interfere with the extraction of Iraqi oil, which is what some people say was the reason for the US invasion in the first place.
Surely the US would want as peaceful a place as it could get?
The Lancet study has no real evidence for its statistics and it's study has been totally discredited for this reason.
I've already given you some very good reasons why socialism (and Marxism) will never work. No response from you to those comments.

Froggie and Goodthief

My apologies for mixing you up. Work and activism are taking up my time, energy and concentration.

Froggie, you say the Lancet study has been discredited. George W certainly said as much. But as Mandy Rice Davies said: He would say that, wouldn't he?

The methodology appears fairly rigorous,and those undertaking the study are hardly raving lefties like me. The Lancet is apolitical, and intellectually rigorous. Most of the criticisms of Lancet came from supporters of the war who wanted to hide the war crimes Bush et al have committed.

Interestingly the pro-war mob had no diffuclty with the same methodlogy by the same people in other countries when it suited their own political ends.

But even possibly pro war analysts assert the figure to be 150,000.

And refresh my memory about your criticisms of extending democracy into the workplace and undertaking production to satisfy human need not profit(ie your criticisms of socialism)?

I'll try to reply when my 24 hour limit is up.

And thanks to Phillips for stimulating a debate about the war crimes of Bush et al, the number of innocents they have killed, what socialism is and showing us clearly the extent of the Islamophobia that substitutes for thought in right wing circles.

I do hope that an intelligent right winger eventually writes an article for OLO. I suspect it will be a long time coming.

I sense something enigmatic about CJ Morgan. The way he hops out from nowhere, (when barely confident of striking a "prey"), with very little on him, (like nothing much to say apart from one-liner jibes), then disappears back in the dark.
When he writes long paragraphs, it's pretty much regurgitation of predictable cliche...with self-righteousness and full of insulting stereotyping...void of new ideas.
Yet such a person tries to pass off as a champion moderates... Ummm... How many seriously perceive CJ as a "bridge" between "good" and "bad" ?? I wonder...
Will someone point me to a "significant" post of his?? Honestly I'm not at all motivated to search his posts.

Back to some analysis...

1)... CJMorgan: <<"...Phillips is a Jewish Zionist....Islamophobic, homophobic, creationist hack">>

Frankly, I think you stoop very low with abusive stereotyping, to try influencing the readership.

Fair-minded people assess the MERIT of a writing, but not prejudiced by the status of an writer, which you obviously do.
I had no prior knowledge of M.Phillips. I find her assessment that Tariq Ramadan is a dangerous deceiver has logical merits.

2)... CJMorgan: <<"Who has the better credentials?">>

This is naive and patronising rhetoric. It is the substance and truth that matter, not "credentials".

3)... CJMorgan: <<"...there hasn't been any noticeable upsurge in Islamist activity in Brisbane...">>

Ummm....a deceptive strawman, quite unsophisticated though.
How do you tell there has been NO upsurge in Islamist activity that is UNnoticeable ?? Is this less important ??

4)... CJMorgan: <<"...integration of Muslims into Western societies">>

Let me turn this around and offer you an opportunity to show off what little intellect there is:--
Based on what you know about Tariq Ramadan's movement, tell us IN YOUR OWN WORDS, how exactly Western freedom and democracy can practically and successfully fits in an Islamic Society like Saudi Arabia.

May I anticipate a magnificent argument ?? Good luck for trying !!

LOL CJ

What on Earth did I write that led you to conclude that I "relish" the "development of a school system where 'coloured' school kids are segregated from wealthy 'white' kids?"

I'm simply reporting the facts. If you don't like them go talk to the parents who are fleeing the state system. Our kids went to government schools.

A "cursory sniff" reveals that Ramadan is an "Arab Muslim" who is lately a well known Islamist darling of Left wing (pseudo)academe. That's the same crowd who, in previous generations, swooned over Stalin.

I think "Arab Muslims" have as much right to be heard as "Jewish Zionists" so I would not bar him from entering Australia to give a speech.

But, to put that in perspective, I also opposed barring David Irving, the "Caucasian holocaust denier" from entering Australia to give a talk. Free speech applies even to toe rags such as he.

Muslims do seem to be suffering quite a bit of rejection these days. That walking cliché, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, was prompted to pen the following essay at the behest, so she says, of one of her many Jewish "best friends."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-powells-rivers-of-blood-are-back-again-793666.html

Quotes:

"...Our public service broadcaster [BBC] is surely inciting racial hatred when it privileges whiteness and seats Nick Griffin of the BNP* at the high table of Newsnight?"

"It is our fault too. Muslim politics have savagely wounded the anti-racist** alliance. Inter-ethnic culture wars leave us no energy to confront the bigger problems together as we once did. The bombers in London blew up our hopes as well as the nation's optimism."

*Is the BBC supposed to bar Griffin?

**I.e racist alliance that "privileges" brown-ness.

If this report in the Daily Mail is correct Muslims may be about to suffer even greater rejection in Britain:

"MI5 TARGETS FOUR MET POLICE OFFICERS 'WORKING AS AL QAEDA SPIES'

"MI5 chiefs reportedly believe the suspected moles have been planted as sleepers - agents under deep cover - to keep Al Qaeda informed of anti-terror raids planned by London's Metropolitan Police."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=528813&in_page_id=1770

Even paranoids have real enemies. Shades of Jonathan Pollard?