Dare To Inquire: Hamas Must Be Stopped |
Category: Articles 4 comments 22 Mar 2006 @ 20:46 by vibrani : What's really dispicableis the Israeli media that is bendt on assassinating the character of the ONLY man who knows what's going on and how to deal with it. They are doing everything possible to make sure Bibi doesn't have a chance. And Israelis who are just within ten years younger than we are don't know about the real Bibi, nor how good he was as prime minister. 23 Mar 2006 @ 21:50 by bkodish : I agree Vibrani... For those who are interested click here to sign the Stand Firm Against Hamas-Led Palestinian Authority Petition - {link:http://www.petitiononline.com/biac2006/petition.html|Resolve not to fund the PA wavers, but a BIAC petition asks the US not to fund a Hamas-led PA} 24 Mar 2006 @ 07:21 by vibrani : Guess we're Nerds, Bruce Nerds for Netanyahu By Bradley Burston There's nothing quite like a revolution run by nerds. The nerd, by his or her very nature, is a technocrat, a disciple of seriousness, of success as a function of nose-to-the-grindstone effort on behalf of original thinking, of doing your homework, of sticking to the plan. The nerd, by definition, does not get by on good looks, nor physical prowess. The nerd is resourceful, self-reliant (if not always by choice), and, at root, mad as hell. It's that anger - that buried breeder reactor fueled by a childhood of bullies and teases and a thick catalogue of unredressed, unredressable insult, of injustice and grievance engraved on the bone - that makes a nerd tick. Maybe that's why so many nerds are going Netanyahu this time. Perhaps they see in his evident pain, his crying out against a jeering, condescending, implacably negative news media, a model of their own inner log of torments. Many on the settler right dismiss him, belittle him for having waited to long to effectively fight the disengagement. Many on the blue-collar right have turned on him for the Reagan Revolution economic policies he implemented. Only the left, it seems, feels as they once did about Netanyahu - they revile him. No, that's not true. There is one other group whose feelings about Netanyahu have not changed. Nerds. Nerds for Netanyahu, who identify with the crucified conservative in their midst. I mean this in no way to be unkind. I feel for them. I was born and raised a nerd. I carry my scars as they do, with a mixture of pride, shame, and fury. For a nerd, there is nothing like a sense of, for once in your life, tasting a share of power, of having your long-disparaged views finally matter, of being heard in the corridors of rule. For the last several decades in the United States, arguably the world's largest producer of Jewish nerds, the ticket to that feeling has been neo-conservatism, as championed by the ultra liberal-turned-hard right editors of Commentary, the heady exhilaration of Revolution through Republicanism. The pinnacle of Jewish neo-con triumphalism came at the turn of the millennium, with the simultaneous rise of the much-maligned George Bush, supported by a bevy of Jewish neo-con advisers, and, in the neo-con laboratory of the Middle East, the even more maligned Ariel Sharon. But things didn't turn out precisely the way neo-cons might have hoped. Something about neo-conservatism has grown very old very quickly. Still, a nerd is nothing if not dependable. The nerds will not abandon Netanyahu, the golden boy of the true neo-con. They will continue to idolize him. He is still the champion of their revolution. It may be true, in any case, that all revolutions are fundamentally run by nerds. There may be a golden throat and a pretty face in front, but the ideology, the movement machinery, the very architecture of the revolt require the kind of dedication that only the revenge of the genuine nerd can generate. And there are no two ways about it: Netanyahu speaks to the nerd. He speaks the language the nerd wishes he had used, back there on the playground. The Iron Wall. We are not afraid. We are not afraid. Strength in the face of those who would bully us. Give no ground to the bullies. We are not afraid. Prosperity through hard work and strength. Seriousness, reality. Those other guys, with their pretty words and PR gloss and illusions and shortcuts, led us into ruin. I was right all along. We know what to do. I will stand up to the entire world if necessary. I was right all along ... In the end, at root, perhaps it's not politics. Perhaps it's personal. Could it be, that it's exactly that aching loneliness that pours off Netanyahu like sweat, that so stirs identification in the nerd? "Leaders aren't tested by whether they follow the popular fashion of the times but whether they are willing to chart out a course that will give people a better future no matter how unpopular it will appear at the time," Netanyahu said this week. " ... the minute they find that I disagree with their political views, they begin to disparage my personality," he said. (From "Ha'aretz" Friday) 24 Mar 2006 @ 22:06 by bkodish : Bradley Burston in Ha'aretz I take Bradley Burston's stuff here with some salt. As a good Ha'aretz writer (that paper loves Jews who have and promote negative stereotypes about Jews and Judaism) he doesn't really seem to like those he considers 'conservative' or 'neo-conservative' and paints them with a broad, over-generalized brush--implying that Bushes Mid-East policy was dictated by a conspiracy of 'neo-conservative' Jews. Utter nonsense. Some of the people around Bush were 'Jewish', most were not. Some so-called 'conservatives' or 'neo-conservatives' --only some of whom 'are' Jewish--have probably been very rah-rah about Bush's policies. However many have not and have had things, sometimes many things, to be critical about. Other entries in Articles 24 Jan 2009 @ 00:36: History's Tragic Farce 22 Jan 2009 @ 19:56: Sowell On Our New President 20 Jan 2009 @ 02:53: The Bush Legacy 4 Jan 2009 @ 19:56: Israel' Response Is Disproportionate! 13 Nov 2008 @ 04:09: I'm Goin' To New York... 10 Nov 2008 @ 17:33: "A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist" by Barry Rubin 31 Oct 2008 @ 18:02: Running against Bush by Caroline B. Glick 8 Oct 2008 @ 19:18: Yom Kippur Greetings 6 Oct 2008 @ 22:10: One Reason That I'm Voting For McCain 7 May 2008 @ 22:51: Happy Birthday, Israel!
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