Some of it has to do with our infamous anti- semite "gracing us" with his presence recently. For the first time, with respect to him, I tried to get SI Administration to take action, at least to issue an admonishment, since he was using classic anti- semitic canards such as that Jews control the media and even that they control the government. I got an answer a day later, that in Jeff's opinion, what I cited, though it might offend some people, did not violate the terms of use. Then, a few days later, JLA gets a week off (standard punishment, 3 days) for an allegedly "obscene" post that was mainly dopey, not even as disgusting as thames- sider's remark about scraping Bush's diaper.
In addition, JLA is mad at me for having been polite to CH since this happened, since he blames CH for it occurring. CH admits that he called Jeff's attention to a word in the post, but denies pushing for punishment. JLA and I have been friends for awhile, more than Christopher and I, but I have known Christopher for awhile too, and we are fellow alumni of St. John's, the only one I know on SI. I was partially trying to broker the peace to depolarize things, so that I would not be caught in the middle. I got caught anyway.
Then, the usual suspects on the Bush thread are getting on my nerves more than usual since the Evil One's appearance, partially because only the conservatives/libertarians took it upon themselves to really deal with the Motha, and partially because most of them are the Evil One without the anti- semitism: instead of Jews, they substitute the WASP establishment or Big Business or the nether world of spooks, but they are chockful of ill- founded conspiracy theories and half- baked leaping to conclusions about Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld that sound as stupid and mean to me as the Evil One's rants about Talmud Jews and Zionism. They are not based on evidence, they are the fleshing out of prejudices.
Then I come over here, and I am bugged by the fact that those with clear orientations, who think that religion is bad and oppressive and superstitious and polarizing, and who think that atheism or agnosticism is rational and humane and heroic and liberating, pretend that they are somehow more objective than I am, fail to make a serious effort to engage the points on the table, and merely resort to accustomed forms of ridicule, in essence. To me, they may as well be Jew- haters, even granting they do not limit themselves, but despise those with some religious belief (most of their fellow men) pretty equally. Instead of admitting that there may be sympathetic reasons for belief, or that, absent certain knowledge, belief may be okay (one opines when one does not know, but surmises), they ridicule and slander those with belief as having imaginary friends and being too weak to stand on their own, or having a taste for authoritarianism, or some such. What may be worse is that people like Poet and Rambi are defensive about their beliefs, and even though somewhat religious, accept some of the ridicule as if they had masochistically to prove they did not believe too damned much.
Then let's see: then I have to listen to endless "same old- same old" foreign policy apercus from some of the posters around here whose fundamental premise is that the entire foreign policy apparatus of the United States was either stupid, deluded, or cynically manipulative since World War II; that the Cold War was a sham; that there was never a justification for "lesser evilism", at least since we supplied "Uncle Joe" through Lend- Lease; that, despite all of the evidence, Reagan's tenure was a "bust"; and that containment, rather than being a largely successful policy followed with remarkable consistency since the late 40s, was
a total waste of energy that compromised our moral position abroad and enabled the "national security state" at home. No, the people I am thinking of know better than all of those who were on the line for what happened in the post- War Era, and they do not need to prove that it was all stupid, it is taken for granted. Of course, then, I am supposed to trust them rather than the Administration in their comments on foreign policy and our military posture. It is a real strain on my politeness.
There is more, but that should do for right now....... |
