I suspect most people on this list find this exchange pointless. Your relentless lack of civility and aggressive attack mode creates a kind of snearing arrogance that is hard to tolerate. I do not wish to engage you in a debate where the response will most likely be more crude priapic bashing.
I sometimes lose my temper on this list, and then I apologize. If you have an off switch--click it. Let me try one more time.
Many people disagree with me, and that's OK. Many of the people on this list with whom I disagree, still engage in a productive exchange, and I have learned a lot from them. People who wish to see that I tried to engage Herman in a dialogue can merely look it up in the archive. The outcome essentially was that Herman claimed I misunderstood what he had written. When I diagrammed his original sentence to show why I read it the way I did, he grew even nastier. There was no point in continuing the exchange, especially since he was not even on this list.
My assessment of your bigotry is based on the same model we all use at the think tank where I work. We study the history and structure of oppressions based on race, gender, sexuality, and class as well as religion and ethnicity.
Your fall into the category of insensitivity to historic oppression that leads you to use rhetoric that stereotypes--perhaps inadvertantly--a targeted group. I make the same observation about people like Alexander Cockburn or Israel Shamir. For an explanation of what I am saying from a different perspective, check out Nigel Parry's collection at:
http://www.nigelparry.com/issues/shamir/
See especially the comments titled
"SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT ISRAEL SHAMIR"
>From Ali Abunimah & Hussein Ibish (acting solely in his private capacity)
"Many people have welcomed the contributions of Israel Shamir in good faith, but we feel they may not be paying close enough attention to what he is saying. Perhaps this is because many of us welcome criticism of Israel from someone who appears to be an "insider," that our hunger for validation from Jewish Israelis sometimes allows us to proceed without the requisite skepticism or overlook excesses we otherwise would not tolerate. Perhaps some are ready to overlook statements that appeal to anti-Semitic sentiments because the person making them identifies himself as a Jew. But the identity of the speaker makes such statements no less odious and harmful. We do not have any need for some of what Israel Shamir is introducing into the discourse on behalf of Palestinian rights, which increasingly includes elements of traditional European anti-Semitic rhetoric. Such sentiments will harm, not help, the cause. We urge all our friends in the movement for Palestinian rights to seriously consider the long-term effects this rhetoric will have on the cause, and act accordingly."
Pradeep, you step over the line. It is a mild form of antisemitism. I am not trying to smear you. I am raising a criticism. I tried to raise it in an oblique way because it was always possible that you might take the criticism as worthy of consideration.
When you gleefully urge someone to label you an antisemite as if that will raise your status in your own eyes or the eyes of others, it is a mild form of antisemitism.
I would draw the same conclusions if the issue was White racism, heterosexism, Arabophobia, or Islamophobia. I am currently embroiled in a debate with Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes over their Islamophobia. They, like you, are unable to see the basis of my criticism.
Please wait a few hours before you respond, and think about what I am saying.
Sincerely,
Chip Berlet Senior Analyst Political Research Associates
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of pradeep
> Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 1:11 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: RE: Russian Israelis
>
>
> Chip Berlet:
> >As for my opinion of you, it is just that, an opinion. You
> reject it. Fine.
> >We disagree.
> >
> >-Chip Berlet
>
> Hmmm. . .good effort.
> I take this to mean you've found yourself, yet again, making
> scurrilous
> and unsubstantiated claims about someone, and are now trying to sneak
> off ... right?
>
> -p
>