one of three emails I got about Rachel Corrie
Lucy Kemnitzer
this story in outline at least.
>The Truth about the murder of Rachel Corrie
>In Rafah, Gaza Strip today Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old American woman from
>Olympia, Washington, who was a volunteer with the International Solidarity
>Movement, was killed by the Israeli Army. Rachel was standing in the path of
>the bulldozer as it advanced towards her. When the bulldozer refused to stop
>or turn aside she climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered
>in front of it wearing a fluorescent jacket to look directly at the driver who kept on
> advancing. The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was pulled under
>the pile of dirt and rubble. After she had disappeared from view the driver kept
>advancing until the bulldozer was completely on top of her. The driver did not lift the
>bulldozer blade and so she was crushed beneath it. Then the driver backed up -
>effectively running over her again. The seven other ISM activists taking part in the
>action rushed to dig out her body. An ambulance rushed her to Al-Najar Hospital
>where she died.
>http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml
Except the link doesn't actually work tonight.
Lucy Kemnitzer
A.C.
news:3e76bd8f...@cnews.newsguy.com...
> Following is the text of an email I got. You probably already know
> this story in outline at least.
from
> >Olympia, Washington, who was a volunteer with the International
Solidarity
> >Movement, was killed by the Israeli Army. Rachel was standing in the
path of
I'm assuming we're going to get the usual apologists screaming about how it
was her own fault for getting in the way of the bulldozers.
Daniel R. Reitman
<nomadi...@removethistomailmehotmail.com> wrote:
>I'm assuming we're going to get the usual apologists screaming about how it
>was her own fault for getting in the way of the bulldozers.
i've already seen one. The person in question claimed that it was
impossible to see in front from the cab. He was immediately
contradicted.
Dan, ad nauseam
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Well, you see, she burned an American flag, apparently, so it's all
right to kill her. Really.
You don't believe people can actually commit words to keyboard to this
effect?
http://www.nathannewman.org/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=861
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Kris Hasson-Jones
posted the following for all the world to see:
>Following is the text of an email I got. You probably already know
>this story in outline at least.
Well, some version of it.
Alternatively, here's the story I've read (the first paragraph is a
quote from a Haaretz story; that link is on the webpage):
http://silflayhraka.blogspot.com/2003_03_16_silflayhraka_archive.html#90829505
According to the ISM activist, Corrie was wearing
a bright jacket and climbed onto the bulldozer
shovel-plow and began shouting at the driver.
Note that her own organization claims here that she climbed onto the
bulldozer, not that it ran her down as she was calming standing on the
ground.
"There's
no way he didn't see her, since she was practically
looking into the cabin. At one stage, he turned
around toward the building. The bulldozer kept moving,
and she slipped and fell off the plow. But the bulldozer
kept moving, the shovel above her. I guess it was
about 10 or 15 meters that it dragged her and for
some reason didn't stop. We shouted like crazy to the
driver through loudspeakers that he should stop, but
he just kept going and didn't lift the shovel. Then
it stopped and backed up. We ran to Rachel. She was
still breathing."
She was still breathing--to me that sounds like she was probably hit
by debris, not actually run over by the weight of the bulldozer. And
there's a picture that shows her sitting up with a head wound, not
someone crushed to pieces by heavy machinery. Also if you look at the
pictures, the bulldozer is not the open machinery you might see at a
local building site, it's completely armored with narrow windows that
undoubtedly provide a smaller field of vision. It's armored because
soldiers have been shot and killed while using unarmored bulldozers.
After climbing up onto the blade of a heavy earth moving
machine, she either fell, or jumped off, though of course no
one mentions that, and the distracted driver drove over her.*
She wasn't sitting in front of the house, she wasn't
running alongside the bulldozer, she was bronco busting.
If you think a bulldozer blade is an easy place to
keep your feet, go watch a construction site one day.
On level ground a bulldozer will bounce enough to put that
blade through a couple of feet of vertical movement. I
can only imagine what it's like over rubble, and that's
why I wonder if she didn't jump off or not. It would
take a person with a deathwish just to jump onto the
blade.
This link also has a few photos that indicate the story is being told
in more than one way (naturally), including one showing Ms. Corrie
standing in front of a bulldozer whose blade is full of dirt and
debris, which looks to me as if it blocks any view of the people
standing in front of it from the driver.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
What Would Aragorn Do?
David Dyer-Bennet
Well, I was going to say "brave but stupid". Is that close enough?
Of course, it's only stupid if you don't think her cause is worth
dying for. She's created a lot of political attention, which was her
goal I'm sure.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info
O Deus
> >The Truth about the murder of Rachel Corrie
Generally the best place to get the truth is from a more objective
media organization rather than a site that bills itself as the
'Electronic Infitada' which also features an article oppposing
Canada's ban on contributions to the Hizbullah.
> In Rafah, Gaza Strip today Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old American woman from
> Olympia, Washington, who was a volunteer with the International Solidarity
> Movement, was killed by the Israeli Army.
Killed implies that she was deliberately murdered. Something that has
yet to be proven. So much for 'Truth'
O Deus
Well yes it is. It's hard to get chased down by a bulldozer.
Especially a slow moving bulldozer. If I lie down down on train tracks
as a form of protest hoping the engineer sees me and stops the train
and I get run over instead; it's my fault for lying down on the train
tracks in the first place.
If you start clowning around a bulldozer in the middle of a war zone
whose driver has a limited viewing area, is more worried about getting
attacked by terrorists than than watching out for idiots climbing
around a construction area and whose dozer is making more noise than a
mettalica concert then you should have a reasonable expectation that
it might end badly.
O Deus
> Daniel R. Reitman <drei...@spiritone.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 18 Mar 2003 07:14:52 GMT, "A.C."
> > <nomadi...@removethistomailmehotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I'm assuming we're going to get the usual apologists screaming about how it
> > >was her own fault for getting in the way of the bulldozers.
> Well, you see, she burned an American flag, apparently, so it's all
> right to kill her. Really.
No but seeing that photo of her face distorted with hatred burning an
American flag at a middle-eastern rally where flag burning is an
unambigious call for the destruction of the United States makes my
sympathy for her vanishingly small.
As was the fact that she participated in a rally with terrorist groups
that have murdered thousands of civilians...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0303/S00019.htm
"The demonstration began at 11 and lasted about an hour. Children and
representatives from community groups gave speeches in Arabic. Masses
marched carrying signs and banners that said "Peace for children in
Palestine and Iraq" and "The real terrorists are in the United States
and Israel", among many other statements against war on Iraq, and in
support of the Iraqi people. The internationals recognized symbols and
banners from numerous school and community-groups, Fateh, DFLP, FIDA,
PFLP, Hamas and many individual demonstrators among those marching."
How much sympathy am I really supposed to have for a terrorist
sympathizer?
Mark Jones
> rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote in message news:<3e76bd8f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>>In Rafah, Gaza Strip today Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old American woman from
>>Olympia, Washington, who was a volunteer with the International Solidarity
>>Movement, was killed by the Israeli Army.
>
> Killed implies that she was deliberately murdered.
No it doesn't. "Killed by falling rocks" or "killed by lightning" or
"killed in an auto accident" carry no such implications.
I don't have much sympathy for Rachel Corrie, but to say that she was
killed doesn't imply murder--it's a statement of fact.
O Deus
It does imply that when 'Killed' in linked with an individual or group
capable of voluntary action, rather than a natural phenomenon (Killed
by lightning) or phrased as an event rather than an act (Killed in an
auto accident.) It's not absolute but the phrasing implies blame.
Mark Jones
did you or did you not state:
Yes, "killed by the Israeli Army" does have an implication that
"killed by lightning" doesn't.
But that wasn't what you claimed. You claimed that the use of the
word "killed" without any other context implies murder. It doesn't.
--
"It will let you do things nobody else can do, see things nobody else can see."
"_Real_ things?"
--Egg Shen and Jack Burton
Lee Ratner
> rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote in message news:<3e76bd8f...@cnews.newsguy.com>...
>
> > >The Truth about the murder of Rachel Corrie
>
> Generally the best place to get the truth is from a more objective
> media organization rather than a site that bills itself as the
> 'Electronic Infitada' which also features an article oppposing
> Canada's ban on contributions to the Hizbullah.
>
more reputable than respected newspapers and media outlets like the
New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.
I'm going to put down my two cents on the issue because this is a
good as place as any to do so and the Pro-Palestinian faction started
this thread so I can't be blaimed for causing a flame war. Corrie did
not deserve to die but her death was the fault of her own stupidity.
She voluntarily performed dangerous actions in a war zone. What did
she expect Israel to do? Look at her actions and say "Oh we Zionist
facist pigs are so evil and stupid. We Jews will leave the Middle East
and cut out all references to Israel and Jerusalem in our culture
because it really belongs to the Palestinian Arab Muslims." The Human
Shields are stupid and wrong and are not peace activists. They are
Pro-Palestinian activists only>
Johan Anglemark
<59117524.03031...@posting.google.com>:
>O Deus wrote:
>> Generally the best place to get the truth is from a more objective
>> media organization rather than a site that bills itself as the
>> 'Electronic Infitada' which also features an article oppposing
>> Canada's ban on contributions to the Hizbullah.
>>
> With a certain crowd any source that has their political slant is
>more reputable than respected newspapers and media outlets like the
>New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.
> I'm going to put down my two cents on the issue because this is a
>good as place as any to do so and the Pro-Palestinian faction started
>this thread so I can't be blaimed for causing a flame war. Corrie did
>not deserve to die but her death was the fault of her own stupidity.
No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
wasn't an accident.
>She voluntarily performed dangerous actions in a war zone.
It wasn't a war zone. It was a civilian area, where Israel was busy
punishing relatives of Palestinian terrorists by destroying their homes.
>What did she expect Israel to do?
The same that you would expect a bulldozer driver to do if you stepped out
in front of one on a buiding site, waving a shirt and managing eye contact
with him before he came too close. In other words, curse and call for the
police to come and drag you away.
Not kill you in cold blood.
-j
--
Kom och träffa Alastair Reynolds
och Ken MacLeod!
Swecon 2003 - Upsala SF-möte X
Uppsala Sweden, 15-17/Aug/2003
http://sfweb.dang.se/2003.html
Kris Hasson-Jones
posted the following for all the world to see:
[Corrie]
>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
>wasn't an accident.
You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver? Or perhaps
you can provide a cite where the driver admits he saw her and drove
over her on purpose? I've heard too many versions to think I know the
truth: that she was standing off to the side and the bulldozer
intentionally swerved off its course to get her, that she climbed some
debris to be at eye level to the driver and fell in front of the
machine, that she climbed onto the shovel and jumped or fell off. And
I've linked to photos that would support any one of those scenarios,
but they are mutually exclusive and none of them demonstrate intent of
the driver, in fact some prove just how difficult it would have been
for the driver to see her--the bulldozer is armored with small, narrow
windows that limit the field of vision of the driver.
Randolph Fritz
> On 19 Mar 2003 14:18:56 GMT, jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark)
> posted the following for all the world to see:
>
> [Corrie]
>
>>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
>>wasn't an accident.
>
> You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver? Or perhaps
> you can provide a cite where the driver admits he saw her and drove
> over her on purpose? I've heard too many versions to think I know the
>
The likelyhood, however, is that she made every effort to be noticed.
If it was a normal demolition operation, there would have been other
people on the site, too, and they would have been watching and
notified the driver. There's a possibility it was negligence.
There's a possibility she was suicidal--even talked into it by one of
those Arab clerics who persuade the sucide bombers. Without other
information, though, operator intention seems very likely.
Randolph
David Dyer-Bennet
It's pretty likely this was NOT a normal demolition operation, by
American standards at least. We don't normally need, or use, armored
bulldozers; that suggests an environment very different than the one
where demolitions take place in the US. As does other information.
If the driver couldn't hear her, from right on top of the blade (or
maybe the dirt mound, or something; I find so many variant versions
already), he certainly couldn't hear somebody further away. From
inside his sealed, armored, cab, on the noise bulldozer.
Kris Hasson-Jones
<rand...@panix.com> posted the following for all the world to see:
Not to me. I will not on this little evidence think that ill of
someone I don't know. I think it's much more likely that it's
negligence. According to one source I read today (link at bottom of
this paragraph) it's common practice for this organization
(International something) to climb mounds of debris to harangue
bulldozer drivers, *because they are confident the drivers won't run
them over.* In other words, the routine is that the drivers take care
not to run over them. It seems more likely to me that this driver
either didn't see her or lost track of her when she fell (or jumped).
http://talg.blogspot.com/2003_03_16_talg_archive.html#90912772
So the ISM itself admits that Corrie deliberately jumped
in front of the bulldozer, confident that it would stop
because IDF bulldozers have always stopped in the past.
But in fact it's obvious that the driver must be
considered guiltless until there's serious evidence
to the contrary - just as any driver would if someone
jumped in front of his vehicle.
(The link to the story in the Jerusalem Post that includes quotations
from the ISM at the beginning of the above blog entry is included
below.)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1047874558468
Joel Rosenberg
> Randolph Fritz <rand...@panix.com> writes:
>
> > In article <1t3h7v8r3ha6u4n81...@4ax.com>, Kris
> > Hasson-Jones wrote:
> > > On 19 Mar 2003 14:18:56 GMT, jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark)
> > > posted the following for all the world to see:
> > >
> > > [Corrie]
> > >
> > >>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
> > >>wasn't an accident.
> > >
> > > You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver? Or perhaps
> > > you can provide a cite where the driver admits he saw her and drove
> > > over her on purpose? I've heard too many versions to think I know the
> > > truth: [...]
> >
> > The likelyhood, however, is that she made every effort to be noticed.
> > If it was a normal demolition operation, there would have been other
> > people on the site, too, and they would have been watching and
> > notified the driver. There's a possibility it was negligence.
> > There's a possibility she was suicidal--even talked into it by one of
> > those Arab clerics who persuade the sucide bombers. Without other
> > information, though, operator intention seems very likely.
>
> It's pretty likely this was NOT a normal demolition operation, by
> American standards at least. We don't normally need, or use, armored
> bulldozers; that suggests an environment very different than the one
> where demolitions take place in the US. As does other information.
It's also not particularly normal for bulldozer operators in the US to
have serious concerns about being shot at, with either rifles or
RPGs.
>
> If the driver couldn't hear her, from right on top of the blade (or
> maybe the dirt mound, or something; I find so many variant versions
> already), he certainly couldn't hear somebody further away. From
> inside his sealed, armored, cab, on the noise bulldozer.
> --
It's theoretically possible, of course, that he simply decided --
independently, or under orders -- to run over her, and do so in a
fairly half-hearted way. Seems fairly unlikely, but . . .
Early reports from the "internationals" had her kneeling in front of
the bulldozer. That story has been changed in recent reporting from
the "internationals."
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Del Cotter
Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> said:
>jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark) posted:
>>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
>>wasn't an accident.
>
>You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver?
Were you? Can you?
>Or perhaps you can provide a cite where the driver admits he
>saw her and drove over her on purpose?
I'm having a Mandy Rice-Davies moment here. 'The driver says "Oops!"'
That's good enough for me, no followup question needed there, nope.
>I've linked to photos that would support any one of those scenarios,
>but they are mutually exclusive and none of them demonstrate intent of
>the driver, in fact some prove just how difficult it would have been
>for the driver to see her--the bulldozer is armored with small, narrow
>windows that limit the field of vision of the driver.
The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive to minimise the
driver's culpability (and you're contriving with all your might here)
still leaves him driving a deadly vehicle with inadequate forward
vision, in an environment where he knew there were people in front of
him.
(you know the joke about the Quaker who warns the burglar he is about to
discharge a gun where the burglar is standing? It's a *joke*: an actual
Quaker would consider that to be "shooting at somebody". A soldier who
tried to use that logic as a defence in the Bloody Sunday inquiry would
*not* get an indulgent chuckle)
*Any* sane health and safety practice would necessarily oblige him to
stop the blind bulldozer and not start it again until the protesters
were taken off the site, or to refuse to drive a blind bulldozer at all.
The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide. I believe
that under Israeli law he'd be in the dock if he were a regular driver
working on a regular building site, and it had been a genuine accident.
The reason he's not is that it wasn't an accident. He did it
deliberately, and you're defending him because you agree with what he
did, not because you think it was an accident.
Just say it: "the protestor deserved to die because she brought it on
herself, and should not have been interfering". And then we can go on
to debate the merits of that. At present you're just being dishonest.
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead::NeilGaimanAmericanGods:GwynethJonesBoldAsLove:KenMacLeodDarkLi
ght:DamonKnightWhyDoBirds:JRRTolkienTheTwoTowers:RobertCharlesWilsonBios
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Joel Rosenberg
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
> Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> said:
>
> >jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark) posted:
> >>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
> >>wasn't an accident.
> >
> >You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver?
>
> Were you? Can you?
>
> >Or perhaps you can provide a cite where the driver admits he
> >saw her and drove over her on purpose?
>
> I'm having a Mandy Rice-Davies moment here. 'The driver says "Oops!"'
> That's good enough for me, no followup question needed there, nope.
>
> >I've linked to photos that would support any one of those scenarios,
> >but they are mutually exclusive and none of them demonstrate intent of
> >the driver, in fact some prove just how difficult it would have been
> >for the driver to see her--the bulldozer is armored with small, narrow
> >windows that limit the field of vision of the driver.
>
> The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive to minimise the
> driver's culpability (and you're contriving with all your might here)
> still leaves him driving a deadly vehicle with inadequate forward
> vision, in an environment where he knew there were people in front of
> him.
Yup. And, of course, the reason that the IDF uses the D9 bulldozer is
because the drivers have been known to be shot at. Tanks also have
inadequate forward vision, particularly when buttoned up.
>
> (you know the joke about the Quaker who warns the burglar he is about to
> discharge a gun where the burglar is standing? It's a *joke*: an actual
> Quaker would consider that to be "shooting at somebody". A soldier who
> tried to use that logic as a defence in the Bloody Sunday inquiry would
> *not* get an indulgent chuckle)
>
> *Any* sane health and safety practice would necessarily oblige him to
> stop the blind bulldozer and not start it again until the protesters
> were taken off the site, or to refuse to drive a blind bulldozer at
> all.
That certainly would be what snipers in surrounding buildings would
like -- a bunch of juicy IDF targets.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Kris Hasson-Jones
<d...@branta.demon.co.uk> posted the following for all the world to
see:
>On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
>Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> said:
>
>>jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark) posted:
>>>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
>>>wasn't an accident.
>>
>>You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver?
>
>Were you? Can you?
>
>>Or perhaps you can provide a cite where the driver admits he
>>saw her and drove over her on purpose?
>
>I'm having a Mandy Rice-Davies moment here. 'The driver says "Oops!"'
>That's good enough for me, no followup question needed there, nope.
>
>>I've linked to photos that would support any one of those scenarios,
>>but they are mutually exclusive and none of them demonstrate intent of
>>the driver, in fact some prove just how difficult it would have been
>>for the driver to see her--the bulldozer is armored with small, narrow
>>windows that limit the field of vision of the driver.
>
>The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive to minimise the
>driver's culpability (and you're contriving with all your might here)
>still leaves him driving a deadly vehicle with inadequate forward
>vision, in an environment where he knew there were people in front of
>him.
No, in an area where it was possible some bonehead might jump in front
of him *on purpose* to stop him from carrying out a legal order from a
superior.
>*Any* sane health and safety practice would necessarily oblige him to
>stop the blind bulldozer and not start it again until the protesters
>were taken off the site, or to refuse to drive a blind bulldozer at all.
It's not blind, it's limited forward and side vision.
>The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
>guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
>America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide.
I really doubt that, since he is under orders. Personally I blame his
superior officer for failing to clear the area.
>The reason he's not is that it wasn't an accident. He did it
>deliberately, and you're defending him because you agree with what he
>did, not because you think it was an accident.
This is a heinous accusation you are making against me with no
support. I think it tells more about your mind than anything about
me, that you would personally attack me because I fail to agree with
you, even though I don't disagree either, I am simply reserving
judgment.
I do believe it is possible that it was an accident, and that I do not
have enough evidence to determine whether it was an accident at this
time. There are mutually contradictory stories coming out of the very
organization she belonged to, so even if I were to take what they say
at face value I could not draw a consistent picture of what happened.
>Just say it: "the protestor deserved to die because she brought it on
>herself, and should not have been interfering". And then we can go on
>to debate the merits of that. At present you're just being dishonest.
Reading minds again? I am not a bit dishonest, I resent the
implication that I would ever be dishonest, and I will defend that
with arms if you choose, send me your seconds you insulting
pusillanimous jerk, I will defend this calumny, this libel you are
publishing against me. I do not believe she deserved to die, at all.
She was exercising a right I support, the right to protest peacefully
a government action that she disagreed with.
Mark Jones
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
> Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> said:
>
>
>>jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark) posted:
>>
>>>No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
>>>wasn't an accident.
>>
>>You were there? You can read the thoughts of the driver?
>
>
> Were you? Can you?
No, she wasn't. But then, she isn't the one claiming to KNOW what the
bulldozer operator intended or didn't intend. YOU are the one claiming
clairvoyant knowledge.
>>Or perhaps you can provide a cite where the driver admits he
>>saw her and drove over her on purpose?
>
> I'm having a Mandy Rice-Davies moment here. 'The driver says "Oops!"'
> That's good enough for me, no followup question needed there, nope.
You're blowing smoke out of your ass. Kris said we don't know for sure
what happened. Nothing more. You can, of course, assume the worst of
the bulldozer driver if you like. And others may, if they like (though
Kris isn't), assume the worst of Rachel 'Roadkill' Corrie.
>>I've linked to photos that would support any one of those scenarios,
>>but they are mutually exclusive and none of them demonstrate intent of
>>the driver, in fact some prove just how difficult it would have been
>>for the driver to see her--the bulldozer is armored with small, narrow
>>windows that limit the field of vision of the driver.
>
> The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive to minimise the
> driver's culpability (and you're contriving with all your might here)
> still leaves him driving a deadly vehicle with inadequate forward
> vision, in an environment where he knew there were people in front of
> him.
And Rachel Corrie's legs were broken? (Hah hah--before she got run
over, that is*.) If someone near _me_ was driving a large, heavy,
dangerous machine and steering by peering out of a small window in an
armored cab, I'd make it my business to stay the hell out of his way,
not dance around in front of him.
*Is your blood pressure rising yet? One can hope.
> *Any* sane health and safety practice would necessarily oblige him to
> stop the blind bulldozer and not start it again until the protesters
> were taken off the site, or to refuse to drive a blind bulldozer at all.
No, a sane health and safety practice would prevent asshole protesters
from gathering on the site in the first place, though I'm sure you'd be
crying about _that_, if that had been the case.
> The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
> guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
> America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide. I believe
> that under Israeli law he'd be in the dock if he were a regular driver
> working on a regular building site, and it had been a genuine accident.
>
> The reason he's not is that it wasn't an accident. He did it
> deliberately, and you're defending him because you agree with what he
> did, not because you think it was an accident.
Go fuck yourself, you lying sack of shit. Now you're not just reading
the mind of one person you've never met, you claiming to read the minds
of two people you've never met. And proved your inability to read thru
your own narrow-minded prejudices, too.
> Just say it: "the protestor deserved to die because she brought it on
> herself, and should not have been interfering". And then we can go on
> to debate the merits of that. At present you're just being dishonest.
You're being an unmitigated asshole.
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
Her colleagues called to the driver with loudspeakers (the ones they
were demonstrating with).
--
Marilee J. Layman
Handmade Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
Joel Rosenberg
Did they call out "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!"? Did he hear them? I dunno.
I think it was a brave thing to run in front of a bulldozer and kneel
down -- as the "internationals" first reported -- but bravery and
stupidity are not impossible to have at the same moment.
(See the volunteer human shields in Iraq, for example, carefully
stationed as close as possible to, or on, military targets by their
hosts -- those that haven't thought better of it and left. If there
are any left, and some are killed in the bombing -- which has already,
at last report, started, although not near Baghdad, I'm wondering if
the same people calling for the arrest of the IDF driver will be
calling for the arrest of the pilots and their commanders.)
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Mark Atwood
> were demonstrating with).
What a great way to "cry wolf". I wonder if it's been done yet, thus
causing the logical result of doing so.
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
O Deus
> Scríobh czar...@aol.com (Lee Ratner) san airteagal
> <59117524.03031...@posting.google.com>:
>
> >O Deus wrote:
> >> Generally the best place to get the truth is from a more objective
> >> media organization rather than a site that bills itself as the
> >> 'Electronic Infitada' which also features an article oppposing
> >> Canada's ban on contributions to the Hizbullah.
> >>
> > With a certain crowd any source that has their political slant is
> >more reputable than respected newspapers and media outlets like the
> >New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.
> > I'm going to put down my two cents on the issue because this is a
> >good as place as any to do so and the Pro-Palestinian faction started
> >this thread so I can't be blaimed for causing a flame war. Corrie did
> >not deserve to die but her death was the fault of her own stupidity.
>
> No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
> wasn't an accident.
Yes because of course we all know that the Israelis are evil maniacs
who when they're not drinking the blood of children are running people
over with bulldozers. Why wait for the investigation when the same
sources who also claimed that the Israelis killed thousands in Jenin
have 'confirmed' that it's murder.
> >She voluntarily performed dangerous actions in a war zone.
>
> It wasn't a war zone. It was a civilian area, where Israel was busy
> punishing relatives of Palestinian terrorists by destroying their homes.
It was a war zone as it was an area where military forces have clashed
with each other in the past and are likely to do so in the future and
where the military was present in the expectation of potential
clashes.
O Deus
Has anyone considered that this might have been suicide...after all
she seemed to really admire suicide bombers.
Witness this excerpt from her writings
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0302/S00049.htm
"I would also like to ask you, and those to whom you pass this on, to
think about the relative positions of the fighters and occupiers in
this monumentally unequal struggle. While the huge force of Israelis
have every technical aid invented by the US war machine, the few young
fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern)
- no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No
back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares,
ambulance or refuge - put all the Israeli/American propaganda aside
for a few minutes and try to imagine, please, the courage it requires
to do what these young fighters do, knowing that the odds are against
escape and that, every time they do succeed in evading death, the odds
against a further survival are shortened. Even if the operation is a
success the price is always high.
And every time the Israeli Command terrorises Nablus as today with
tanks and Jeeps and APC's bristling with death at every junction
within the city, operating a lock-down even worse than before (how can
this be possible), more Martyrs are ready to defend the honour of
Palestine and fight for the freedom of surely the most gentle,
generous and peaceful people on earth..."
David Dyer-Bennet
Okay, that makes up for their being further away. Since we don't know
how loud they actually were, it leaves it back up in the air again.
I'm really sorry she got killed. I'm not exactly sorry for her,
though; it seems to me she died by her own choice doing something she
thought was important.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <dd...@dd-b.net>, <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
Photos: <dd-b.lighthunters.net> Snapshots: <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera mailing lists: <dragaera.info/>
Ulrika O'Brien
sni...@pacifier.com says...
> >The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
> >guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
> >America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide.
>
> I really doubt that, since he is under orders. Personally I blame his
> superior officer for failing to clear the area.
Oh. My. God. You're actually willing to use the "he was only following
orders" defense? Even the U.S. military doesn't buy that one. Paging
Dr. Milgram. I've got a live one for you.
--
Oh, to have a clever .sig file
Ulrika O'Brien, still without portfolio
Ulrika O'Brien
> That certainly would be what snipers in surrounding buildings would
> like -- a bunch of juicy IDF targets.
And this justifies anything whatever, does it?
Ulrika O'Brien
> Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
>
> > On 19 Mar 2003 15:18:59 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> > wrote:
>
> > >If the driver couldn't hear her, from right on top of the blade (or
> > >maybe the dirt mound, or something; I find so many variant versions
> > >already), he certainly couldn't hear somebody further away. From
> > >inside his sealed, armored, cab, on the noise bulldozer.
> >
> > Her colleagues called to the driver with loudspeakers (the ones they
> > were demonstrating with).
>
> Okay, that makes up for their being further away. Since we don't know
> how loud they actually were, it leaves it back up in the air again.
>
> I'm really sorry she got killed. I'm not exactly sorry for her,
> though; it seems to me she died by her own choice doing something she
> thought was important.
Why does that deprive her of your pity?
David Dyer-Bennet
Pity would suggest she'd made the wrong choice, or it had somehow all
been a mistake. While I don't especially agree with her, I admire her
strong devotion to her principles.
Ulrika O'Brien
> Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > In article <m2fzpip...@gw.dd-b.net>, dd...@dd-b.net says...
> > > Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
> > >
> > > > On 19 Mar 2003 15:18:59 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > >If the driver couldn't hear her, from right on top of the blade (or
> > > > >maybe the dirt mound, or something; I find so many variant versions
> > > > >already), he certainly couldn't hear somebody further away. From
> > > > >inside his sealed, armored, cab, on the noise bulldozer.
> > > >
> > > > Her colleagues called to the driver with loudspeakers (the ones they
> > > > were demonstrating with).
> > >
> > > Okay, that makes up for their being further away. Since we don't know
> > > how loud they actually were, it leaves it back up in the air again.
> > >
> > > I'm really sorry she got killed. I'm not exactly sorry for her,
> > > though; it seems to me she died by her own choice doing something she
> > > thought was important.
> >
> > Why does that deprive her of your pity?
>
> Pity would suggest she'd made the wrong choice, or it had somehow all
> been a mistake.
Really? Why?
> While I don't especially agree with her, I admire her
> strong devotion to her principles.
Which is admirable. And yet I can't imagine she prefers to be dead.
Does that not affect you?
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <m2wuiuo...@gw.dd-b.net>, dd...@dd-b.net says...
> > Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
> >
> > > In article <m2fzpip...@gw.dd-b.net>, dd...@dd-b.net says...
> > > > Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
> > > >
> > > > > On 19 Mar 2003 15:18:59 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > >If the driver couldn't hear her, from right on top of the blade (or
> > > > > >maybe the dirt mound, or something; I find so many variant versions
> > > > > >already), he certainly couldn't hear somebody further away. From
> > > > > >inside his sealed, armored, cab, on the noise bulldozer.
> > > > >
> > > > > Her colleagues called to the driver with loudspeakers (the ones they
> > > > > were demonstrating with).
> > > >
> > > > Okay, that makes up for their being further away. Since we don't know
> > > > how loud they actually were, it leaves it back up in the air again.
> > > >
> > > > I'm really sorry she got killed. I'm not exactly sorry for her,
> > > > though; it seems to me she died by her own choice doing something she
> > > > thought was important.
> > >
> > > Why does that deprive her of your pity?
> >
> > Pity would suggest she'd made the wrong choice, or it had somehow all
> > been a mistake.
>
> Really? Why?
Pity is a condescending, I-know-better kind of thing. That's why it's
so often so offensive.
> > While I don't especially agree with her, I admire her
> > strong devotion to her principles.
>
> Which is admirable. And yet I can't imagine she prefers to be dead.
> Does that not affect you?
Yes. Just not down the track to "pity".
Kris Hasson-Jones
<uaob...@earthlink.net> moaned and squealed:
>In article <3gsh7vcklqhp0demq...@4ax.com>,
>sni...@pacifier.com says...
>> >The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
>> >guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
>> >America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide.
>>
>> I really doubt that, since he is under orders. Personally I blame his
>> superior officer for failing to clear the area.
>
>Oh. My. God. You're actually willing to use the "he was only following
>orders" defense? Even the U.S. military doesn't buy that one. Paging
>Dr. Milgram. I've got a live one for you.
Why, yes, I am just a dupe, a credulous fool who doesn't think for
herself, who just accepts the pablum the national media (with their
vaunted anti-liberal bias) feeds me without contradiction. Obviously.
How clever you are to have sussed that out, while ignoring all the
other points I made in that post.
Ulrika O'Brien
> Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > In article <m2wuiuo...@gw.dd-b.net>, dd...@dd-b.net says...
> > > Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
> > >
> > > > In article <m2fzpip...@gw.dd-b.net>, dd...@dd-b.net says...
> > > > > Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> writes:
> > > > >
> > > > > > On 19 Mar 2003 15:18:59 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > >If the driver couldn't hear her, from right on top of the blade (or
> > > > > > >maybe the dirt mound, or something; I find so many variant versions
> > > > > > >already), he certainly couldn't hear somebody further away. From
> > > > > > >inside his sealed, armored, cab, on the noise bulldozer.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Her colleagues called to the driver with loudspeakers (the ones they
> > > > > > were demonstrating with).
> > > > >
> > > > > Okay, that makes up for their being further away. Since we don't know
> > > > > how loud they actually were, it leaves it back up in the air again.
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm really sorry she got killed. I'm not exactly sorry for her,
> > > > > though; it seems to me she died by her own choice doing something she
> > > > > thought was important.
> > > >
> > > > Why does that deprive her of your pity?
> > >
> > > Pity would suggest she'd made the wrong choice, or it had somehow all
> > > been a mistake.
> >
> > Really? Why?
>
> Pity is a condescending, I-know-better kind of thing. That's why it's
> so often so offensive.
Interesting. I'm not sure that understanding of pity is universal. But
it is worth knowing about your world view.
> > > While I don't especially agree with her, I admire her
> > > strong devotion to her principles.
> >
> > Which is admirable. And yet I can't imagine she prefers to be dead.
> > Does that not affect you?
>
> Yes. Just not down the track to "pity".
As you understand pity. I see.
Ulrika O'Brien
sni...@pacifier.com says...
MMm. Good thing that's not pejorative.
> >In article <3gsh7vcklqhp0demq...@4ax.com>,
> >sni...@pacifier.com says...
> >> >The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
> >> >guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
> >> >America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide.
> >>
> >> I really doubt that, since he is under orders. Personally I blame his
> >> superior officer for failing to clear the area.
> >
> >Oh. My. God. You're actually willing to use the "he was only following
> >orders" defense? Even the U.S. military doesn't buy that one. Paging
> >Dr. Milgram. I've got a live one for you.
>
> Why, yes, I am just a dupe, a credulous fool who doesn't think for
> herself, who just accepts the pablum the national media (with their
> vaunted anti-liberal bias) feeds me without contradiction. Obviously.
> How clever you are to have sussed that out, while ignoring all the
> other points I made in that post.
And how clever of you to miss my point.
The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
is manslaughter. And yet you doubt that he would be in jail in the
U.S., arraigned on charges? Bad news. And the reason he is magically
not responsible for his own actions is because he was under orders? Bad
news again. That you would hold to such a morally bankrupt posture as
was evidenced in the Nuremburg trials does a good deal to undermine both
your credibility and your objectivity on the rest of this. Hence not
responding to your flopping on the deck about evidence. In the end, you
obviously don't actually care about that, yourself, since you're happy
to skip the trial entirely, on the grounds that somebody else giving
orders to do evil things magically exculpates the people who do them, in
your world. See also the Milgram experiments.
Squick.
David Dyer-Bennet
> The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
> absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
> is manslaughter.
No. Sometimes a person kills another, and is not arrested, let alone
charged, let alone tried, let alone convicted. The police and the
prosecutor use their discretion to avoid wasting the system's time with
cases that would clearly not be won.
This happens in various kinds of accidents, and it happens in
self-defense cases. It doesn't *always* happen; as I say, the police
and prosecutors use their discretion. But it's not automatic,
cut-and-dried, as you describe.
Mark Jones
-0600, did you or did you not state:
>Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>> The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
>> absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
>> is manslaughter.
>
>No. Sometimes a person kills another, and is not arrested, let alone
>charged, let alone tried, let alone convicted. The police and the
>prosecutor use their discretion to avoid wasting the system's time with
>cases that would clearly not be won.
>
>This happens in various kinds of accidents, and it happens in
>self-defense cases. It doesn't *always* happen; as I say, the police
>and prosecutors use their discretion. But it's not automatic,
>cut-and-dried, as you describe.
You don't understand, David. Kris has failed to unthinkingly accept
the party line. Crimethink.
--
"It will let you do things nobody else can do, see things nobody else can see."
"_Real_ things?"
--Egg Shen and Jack Burton
David Bilek
>David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>, on or about 19 Mar 2003 22:14:51
>-0600, did you or did you not state:
>
>>Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
>>
>>> The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
>>> absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
>>> is manslaughter.
>>
>>No. Sometimes a person kills another, and is not arrested, let alone
>>charged, let alone tried, let alone convicted. The police and the
>>prosecutor use their discretion to avoid wasting the system's time with
>>cases that would clearly not be won.
>>
>>This happens in various kinds of accidents, and it happens in
>>self-defense cases. It doesn't *always* happen; as I say, the police
>>and prosecutors use their discretion. But it's not automatic,
>>cut-and-dried, as you describe.
>
>You don't understand, David. Kris has failed to unthinkingly accept
>the party line. Crimethink.
Also, it's not obvious to me that "the absolute minimum charge that
accrues to that under civil circumstances is manslaughter" is
relevant, much less true. These were assuredly not "civil
circumstances".
-David
Mark Jones
04:05:22 GMT, did you or did you not state:
>In article <46ci7v8d5ouehb90k...@4ax.com>,
>sni...@pacifier.com says...
>And how clever of you to miss my point.
Pot, this is kettle. You are black.
>The girl is dead, yes?
Yes.
>The bulldozer driver killed her, yes?
So it appears.
>The absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
>is manslaughter.
Wrong--but thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for
you. People get killed in accidents all the time, but sometimes
they're just that. Accidents. Not murder. Not even manslaughter.
Your assumption that the situation is cut and dried, and that we're
getting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the
various media reports is...touching. Or maybe credulous is a better
word. Wow, we've been wasting fortunes on investigations and
indictments and trials and rules of evidence all these years, when
apparently you can discern the truth from inconsistent media reports.
> And yet you doubt that he would be in jail in the U.S., arraigned on charges?
Yes. Even if he _were_ ultimately charged with manslaughter, there's
no guarantee that he'd be immediately charged or arrested. Nor, I
should probably point out for the hard of thinking, has it been
demonstrated that he _committed_ manslaughter.
>Bad news. And the reason he is magically
>not responsible for his own actions is because he was under orders?
No, he
>Bad
>news again. That you would hold to such a morally bankrupt posture as
>was evidenced in the Nuremburg trials does a good deal to undermine both
>your credibility and your objectivity on the rest of this.
As opposed to morally bankrupt posture of assuming on the basis of
scattered media reports that he's guilty of ANYTHING, much less of
manslaughter or murder. But, hey, the presumption of innocence only
applies to those you approve of, it seems.
>responding to your flopping on the deck about evidence. In the end, you
>obviously don't actually care about that, yourself, since you're happy
>to skip the trial entirely, on the grounds that somebody else giving
>orders to do evil things magically exculpates the people who do them, in
>your world. See also the Milgram experiments.
>
>Squick.
Asshole.
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>And Rachel Corrie's legs were broken? (Hah hah--before she got run
>over, that is*.) If someone near _me_ was driving a large, heavy,
>dangerous machine and steering by peering out of a small window in an
>armored cab, I'd make it my business to stay the hell out of his way,
>not dance around in front of him.
A UK witness told the on-site WashPost reporter that she had kneeled
before it and when she realized it was still coming, tried to get up,
but couldn't move fast enough:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35126-2003Mar16.html
Mary Kay
> In article <3gsh7vcklqhp0demq...@4ax.com>,
> sni...@pacifier.com says...
> > >The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive still leaves him
> > >guilty of culpable negligence. He'd be in the dock in Britain or
> > >America and staring a jail sentence in the face for homicide.
> >
> > I really doubt that, since he is under orders. Personally I blame his
> > superior officer for failing to clear the area.
>
> Oh. My. God. You're actually willing to use the "he was only following
> orders" defense? Even the U.S. military doesn't buy that one. Paging
> Dr. Milgram. I've got a live one for you.
Uh, Ulrika, I think that's really a kind of large and unjustified leap.
I don't think I could get there at all from what Kris actually said. I
think she meant he wouldn't be in jail; being investigated perhaps, but
not in jail. And you know, if had limited visibility his superior
officer or someone assigned by that person should have been spotting for
him.
MKK
--
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary,
and those who don't.
O Deus
> In article <m2vfyfk...@joelr.ellegon.com>, jo...@ellegon.com says...
> > That certainly would be what snipers in surrounding buildings would
> > like -- a bunch of juicy IDF targets.
>
> And this justifies anything whatever, does it?
No but it does justify a situational awareness more oriented towards
enemy threats than boneheaded activists clambering over the site and
the inability to deal with the situation as if this was a logging site
in Oregon instead of a battleground in the Middle East.
Lee Ratner
I don't feel much pity for individual human shields because I think
they are wrong. They call themselves peace activists but seem to have
no trouble with Arab terrorist actions against Israeli Jewish
civillians who do not even live in the territories. Jose Bove, one of
the more famous ones, honestly believes that its Mossad thats
committing the anti-Semitic incidents in Europe. Israel under the
Barak administration offerredt the Palestinians a good deal. The
Palestinian leadership choose to reject the offer and launch a stupid
and unnecessary uprising for a reason unknown to me and apparently
this is Israels fault and Israel should capitulate to Palestinian
violence.
Joel Rosenberg
> Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
> > absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
> > is manslaughter.
>
> No. Sometimes a person kills another, and is not arrested, let alone
> charged, let alone tried, let alone convicted. The police and the
> prosecutor use their discretion to avoid wasting the system's time with
> cases that would clearly not be won.
Sure. We had a case, locally, where a sixteen-year-old girl ran over
a toddler in a parking lot. No question that the sixteen-year-old
girl did it, or that the toddler -- who, obviously, wasn't
deliberately trying to play chicken with the driver -- is dead.
The girl was charged -- but for hit-and-run, as she panicked, and fled
the scene. (A bad thing to do, of course, but if not entirely
forgivable, at least somewhat understandable -- and her fleeing didn't
contribute to the child dying.)
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
That's for sure.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
Joel Rosenberg
I'd like to read the rest of that sentence.
I think there's a fundamental difference between a civilian driving a
bulldozer under peaceful circumstances, and a soldier doing so in what
is a war zone.
I'm sure -- and I don't mean this sarcastically -- that many of the
same people who want to see this soldier charged with manslaughter
will feel the same way about US/UK/Australian pilots who kill
volunteer human shield (as I suspect will happen) during the ongoing
operation. I think they'll be wrong about that, too.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
mike weber
<uaob...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Which is admirable. And yet I can't imagine she prefers to be dead.
>Does that not affect you?
Yes; it makes me wish that she had realised that there is a point
beyond which one must choose between principles and self-preservation.
And that is where the pity aspect comes in.
--
"He had long ago come to the conclusion that there was nothing
Man Was Not Meant To Know. He was willing to concede that there
were things Man Was Too Dumb To Figure Out." -- Michael Kurland
================================
mike weber mike....@electronictiger.com
Website Of Perpetual Procrastination: http://electronictiger.com
mike weber
And which he would have a good chance of beating, clean, under the
circumstances as described in posts here.
Ulrika O'Brien
@aol.com says...
Nice tinfoil hat. Only means I know of to project that much baggage
onto the thought processes of someone you don't know.
Ulrika O'Brien
> Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
> > absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
> > is manslaughter.
>
> No. Sometimes a person kills another, and is not arrested, let alone
> charged, let alone tried, let alone convicted. The police and the
> prosecutor use their discretion to avoid wasting the system's time with
> cases that would clearly not be won.
The police, and subsequently the DA, use discretion in all kinds of
cases. There's also, and you may have heard of it, a judicial process
whereby a judge and jury actually gets involved to assess whether there
is enough evidence to go to trial. I believe it's called an indictment
hearing. None of this actually means that no law has been broken, nor
that the law doesn't apply in these cases. Merely that there has to be
room for judgment in the system.
That room for judgment generally gets a lot smaller in high profile
cases. Such as the one under discussion.
> This happens in various kinds of accidents, and it happens in
> self-defense cases. It doesn't *always* happen; as I say, the police
> and prosecutors use their discretion. But it's not automatic,
> cut-and-dried, as you describe.
Did I? Funny, I didn't notice.
Ulrika O'Brien
> I'm sure -- and I don't mean this sarcastically -- that many of the
> same people who want to see this soldier charged with manslaughter
> will feel the same way about US/UK/Australian pilots who kill
> volunteer human shield (as I suspect will happen) during the ongoing
> operation. I think they'll be wrong about that, too.
There is also a third alternative, which is that many of the same people
don't feel that you repeating it necessarily makes it true that the
situation in Israel is identical with the case of war, any more than it
is identical with the case of peace.
Ulrika O'Brien
sin...@pacifier.com says...
> Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net>, on or about Thu, 20 Mar 2003
> 04:05:22 GMT, did you or did you not state:
>
> >In article <46ci7v8d5ouehb90k...@4ax.com>,
> >sni...@pacifier.com says...
>
> >And how clever of you to miss my point.
>
> Pot, this is kettle. You are black.
Ad Hominem. Zero points. Next contestant.
Pete McCutchen
<uaob...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
>absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
>is manslaughter. And yet you doubt that he would be in jail in the
>U.S., arraigned on charges?
Well, no. If somebody is driving a bulldozer in the US, and a woman*
suddenly jumps in front of the bulldozer, which proceeds to kill her
because the driver either couldn't see her or couldn't stop in time,
that driver might very well not be charged. There's certainly no rule
that requires charges to be brought every time somebody gets hit by a
vehicle of some sort. It depends on the circumstances.
I cannot judge, in this case, whether charges ought to be brought,
because I don't know all the facts. There are differing accounts, and
I honestly doubt we'll ever know whose account is most accurate.
*I've heard women of Rachel's age object to being called "girl" on the
grounds that it's demeaning.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 15:17:28 -0800, Mark Jones <sin...@pacifier.com>
>wrote:
>
>>And Rachel Corrie's legs were broken? (Hah hah--before she got run
>>over, that is*.) If someone near _me_ was driving a large, heavy,
>>dangerous machine and steering by peering out of a small window in an
>>armored cab, I'd make it my business to stay the hell out of his way,
>>not dance around in front of him.
>
>A UK witness told the on-site WashPost reporter that she had kneeled
>before it and when she realized it was still coming, tried to get up,
>but couldn't move fast enough:
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35126-2003Mar16.html
Thank you for the link. His statements are at least consistent with
the "he didn't see her" hypothesis. Even in a regular bulldozer, the
blade might well prevent the driver from seeing somebody kneeling in
front of him, depending, of course, on how far away the person doing
the kneeling was. The same is true of other large vehicles -- I
understand that this is why school busses are now equipped with
devices that prevent students from passing too close to the front of
the bus.
It also strikes me as being inconsistent with the earlier report of
her jumping up and making eye contact with the driver.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>Her colleagues called to the driver with loudspeakers (the ones they
>were demonstrating with).
So? We're dealing with a fairly high ambient-noise environment, here,
what with the sound of the bulldozer engine itself and, no doubt,
other distractions as well. Plus, we don't know exactly what they
said, or what the driver heard. On a construction site, if somebody
yells at a bulldozer driver to stop, and the driver hears, he'll
usually stop, because he assumes that most people in the area agree
with his basic purpose and are telling him to stop for some specific
reason. Here, the driver knew that the protesters were against his
actions. If they yelled "STOP! STOP!" he'd probably assume they were
protesting, not warning him of a very specific danger.
--
Pete McCutchen
A.C.
news:59117524.03031...@posting.google.com...
> With a certain crowd any source that has their political slant is
> more reputable than respected newspapers and media outlets like the
> New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.
The "certain crowd" includes both sides of the spectrum.
> I'm going to put down my two cents on the issue because this is a
> good as place as any to do so and the Pro-Palestinian faction started
> this thread so I can't be blaimed for causing a flame war. Corrie did
> not deserve to die but her death was the fault of her own stupidity.
It depends. If the driver saw her and didn't stop, then it was murder.
Since all we know about the driver at this point is that he's willing to
knock down people's homes, we know he probably has some moral limitations,
but I'm willing to wait until we find out more about what happened.
> She voluntarily performed dangerous actions in a war zone. What did
> she expect Israel to do? Look at her actions and say "Oh we Zionist
> facist pigs are so evil and stupid. We Jews will leave the Middle East
> and cut out all references to Israel and Jerusalem in our culture
> because it really belongs to the Palestinian Arab Muslims." The Human
I think what she was trying to do then is prevent a bulldozer from knocking
over someone's house. Or do you think bulldozing someone's house as
punishment for someone else's crimes is something other than evil? How
about filling in a community's well in a desert?
A.C.
> Has anyone considered that this might have been suicide...after all
> she seemed to really admire suicide bombers.
>
> Witness this excerpt from her writings
...and nowhere does she mention suicide bombers.
> escape and that, every time they do succeed in evading death, the odds
> against a further survival are shortened. Even if the operation is a
> success the price is always high.
Furthermore by mentioning them attempting to evade death that automatically
precludes them from being suicide bombers.
A.C.
> jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark) wrote in message
news:<Xns93439C99799Fj...@195.58.103.121>...
> > No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
> > wasn't an accident.
>
> Yes because of course we all know that the Israelis are evil maniacs
> who when they're not drinking the blood of children are running people
> over with bulldozers. Why wait for the investigation when the same
That's thin, even by your standards. I could easily claim that you believe
no Israeli soldier ever did anything even remotely immoral or illegal, but
that they're all living saints forced into doing battle by all those
toddlers they inevitably kill.
> > It wasn't a war zone. It was a civilian area, where Israel was busy
> > punishing relatives of Palestinian terrorists by destroying their homes.
>
> It was a war zone as it was an area where military forces have clashed
> with each other in the past and are likely to do so in the future and
> where the military was present in the expectation of potential
> clashes.
It was a war zone because it was under attack. Civilians lived there
though, well, until they had their homes demolished. Can you provide any
moral justification for rendering someone homeless, by the way? What about
filling in a well?
A.C.
news:3gsh7vcklqhp0demq...@4ax.com...
> of him *on purpose* to stop him from carrying out a legal order from a
> superior.
Ohhh, so he was only following orders.
Christopher K Davis
> I don't feel much pity for individual human shields because I think
> they are wrong. They call themselves peace activists but seem to
> have no trouble with Arab terrorist actions against Israeli Jewish
> civillians who do not even live in the territories.
In Rachel Corrie's own words, as reported by the _Guardian_:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html
If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with
children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous
experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at
any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating
for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held
captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might
try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments
remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and
greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and
cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow
and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation,
most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle
Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.
--
Christopher Davis * <ckd...@ckdhr.com> * <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/ckd/>
Of course I feel old. The videos I used to watch on MTV (back when they
still showed videos) moved to VH1, and now they're on "VH1 Classic".
Jonathan J. Baker
>Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> said:
>>I've linked to photos that would support any one of those scenarios,
>>but they are mutually exclusive and none of them demonstrate intent of
>>the driver, in fact some prove just how difficult it would have been
>>for the driver to see her--the bulldozer is armored with small, narrow
>>windows that limit the field of vision of the driver.
>The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive to minimise the
>driver's culpability (and you're contriving with all your might here)
>still leaves him driving a deadly vehicle with inadequate forward
>vision, in an environment where he knew there were people in front of
>him.
Ah, yes. By that reasoning it should be illegal to drive railroad
locomotives on any line with grade crossings. Or automobiles on
glaring sunny days. Nonetheless, people do drive these things
without assuming sole liability for running people over, regardless
of the intent of the driver.
>Just say it: "the protestor deserved to die because she brought it on
>herself, and should not have been interfering". And then we can go on
>to debate the merits of that. At present you're just being dishonest.
Do civil juries in your country only find that the fault in a given
case is 100% for one party or the other? In this country, juries
can find that in a given case, the incident was 30% the fault of
party A, and 70% the fault of party B, for instance. This reduces
the payment made by the more at-fault party proportionately.
When you walk in front of a bulldozer with limited vision, you take
your own life in your hands. When you protest something in opposition
to local laws, you risk being the target of police - you have the
possibility of arrest, injury, etc. - you assume that risk on yourself.
Of course she shouldn't have been killed. But she took the risk
voluntarily.
--
Jonathan Baker | Knock knock. Who's there? Mischa. Mischa who?
jjb...@panix.com | Mishenichnas Adar I marbim besimcha ketanah.
New on Webpage: On Mendelssohn's Biur <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker/biur.html>
Jonathan J. Baker
>> The girl is dead, yes? The bulldozer driver killed her, yes? The
>> absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
>> is manslaughter.
>No. Sometimes a person kills another, and is not arrested, let alone
>charged, let alone tried, let alone convicted. The police and the
>prosecutor use their discretion to avoid wasting the system's time with
>cases that would clearly not be won.
>This happens in various kinds of accidents, and it happens in
>self-defense cases. It doesn't *always* happen; as I say, the police
>and prosecutors use their discretion. But it's not automatic,
>cut-and-dried, as you describe.
Sure. There are vehicular manslaughter cases every day where nobody
gets punished as for a regular murder or manslaughter, perhaps losing
their license. Consider the case that started the Crown Heights pogrom
12 years ago - a guy's car pulls the wrong way, and he hits the curb,
killing a kid who happens to be playing there. I don't think charges
were ever filed. Even though there was no doubt that he had done the
act. And you're going to assume greater culpability on the part of the
bulldozer driver when a protestor *willingly* runs into its path?
Lee Ratner
> czar...@aol.com (Lee Ratner) writes:
>
> > I don't feel much pity for individual human shields because I think
> > they are wrong. They call themselves peace activists but seem to
> > have no trouble with Arab terrorist actions against Israeli Jewish
> > civillians who do not even live in the territories.
>
> In Rachel Corrie's own words, as reported by the _Guardian_:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html
>
> If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with
> children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous
> experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at
> any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating
> for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held
> captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might
> try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments
> remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and
> greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and
> cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow
> and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation,
> most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle
> Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.
Is she talking about the Palestinians having a right to use
violence or the Israelis having a right to use violence to defend
themselves?
I'll say this again. Israel under the Barak administration
offered the Palestinians under the Arafat administration a good deal.
Arafat rejected the deal and did not even make a counter-proposal.
Instead he waited for a good opportunity to start a useless, violent
rebelllion for no reason. Israel naturally clamped down on the
rebellion and will continue to do so until the Palestinians give up
violence against Israel. Everytime Israel eases up the Palestinians
use it as an opportunity to strike and kill Israelis. What should
Israel do, roll over and die?
This is just personal opinion but a good deal of the Middle East
conflict is the fault of Arab leadership. What was the difference
between the Arab bigot raving against Jewish immigrants to the Middle
East and the American bigot raving against Southern and Eastern
European immigration to the US in the late 19th and early 20th
century?
Lee Ratner
Nice personal insult. What is wrong with what I wrote? Rachel
Corrie picked the side in the conflict she supports and called herself
a peace activist when her side started the war. How could somebody who
supports aggressors, who rejected a good peace proposal, be a bloody
peace activist? Every time, Israel eases up on the Palestinians the
various Palestinian militias use it as an opportunity to attack
Israel. If the Palestinians choose to be violent and they will be
treated harshly. If they choose to negotiate, Israel will negotiate
with them. The ball is in their court and they are the ones who must
decide their own fate.
Karen Lofstrom
> This is just personal opinion but a good deal of the Middle East
> conflict is the fault of Arab leadership. What was the difference
> between the Arab bigot raving against Jewish immigrants to the Middle
> East and the American bigot raving against Southern and Eastern
> European immigration to the US in the late 19th and early 20th
> century?
Whoa there!
Now if I were a Native American and were watching Southern and Eastern
Europeans settle on land that had once been mine, I would be pissed off.
Rightfully so. No bigotry required.
If I were a WASP living in New York enveighing against the migrants
ruining the city, I would probably be a bigot. If the migrants cordoned
off an area of the city, declared their own state, and expelled the
original inhabitants, I don't think I'd have to be a bigot to object.
Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If Usenet had a coat of arms, the
motto on the banner would be "SO THERE". -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Seth Breidbart
Mary Kay <mar...@kare.ws> wrote:
>Uh, Ulrika, I think that's really a kind of large and unjustified leap.
>I don't think I could get there at all from what Kris actually said. I
>think she meant he wouldn't be in jail; being investigated perhaps, but
>not in jail. And you know, if had limited visibility his superior
>officer or someone assigned by that person should have been spotting for
>him.
And if any spotter outside the armor were likely to be shot, what
then? Would it suffice to give enough notice to people to get out of
the way?
Seth
mike weber
wrote:
>Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
But there are a lot of people who would like to so define it.
O Deus
> "O Deus" <od...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
> news:c6784f8f.03031...@posting.google.com...
> > jo...@anglemark.pp.se (Johan Anglemark) wrote in message
> news:<Xns93439C99799Fj...@195.58.103.121>...
> > > No, she died because someone drove a bulldozer over her on purpose. It
> > > wasn't an accident.
> >
> > Yes because of course we all know that the Israelis are evil maniacs
> > who when they're not drinking the blood of children are running people
> > over with bulldozers. Why wait for the investigation when the same
>
> That's thin, even by your standards. I could easily claim that you believe
> no Israeli soldier ever did anything even remotely immoral or illegal, but
> that they're all living saints forced into doing battle by all those
> toddlers they inevitably kill.
Except that I'm suggesting that an investigation should determine what
really happened instead of announcing that it was definetly murder as
Johan has done.
> > > It wasn't a war zone. It was a civilian area, where Israel was busy
> > > punishing relatives of Palestinian terrorists by destroying their homes.
> >
> > It was a war zone as it was an area where military forces have clashed
> > with each other in the past and are likely to do so in the future and
> > where the military was present in the expectation of potential
> > clashes.
>
> It was a war zone because it was under attack. Civilians lived there
> though, well, until they had their homes demolished.
It was a war zone because it's a place where both sides have clashed
with each other and in the Middle East, most war zones are places
where civilians live.
> Can you provide any
> moral justification for rendering someone homeless, by the way? What about
> filling in a well?
If these people allow their homes to be used as bases for terrorist
actions or know about a suicide bombing before the fact, making them
accessories to the crime or if they support terrorism.
A.C.
> > > who when they're not drinking the blood of children are running people
> > > over with bulldozers. Why wait for the investigation when the same
> >
> > That's thin, even by your standards. I could easily claim that you
believe
> > no Israeli soldier ever did anything even remotely immoral or illegal,
but
> > that they're all living saints forced into doing battle by all those
> > toddlers they inevitably kill.
>
> Except that I'm suggesting that an investigation should determine what
> really happened instead of announcing that it was definetly murder as
> Johan has done.
Then why not state that instead of parodying the protestors?
> > Can you provide any
> > moral justification for rendering someone homeless, by the way? What
about
> > filling in a well?
>
> If these people allow their homes to be used as bases for terrorist
> actions or know about a suicide bombing before the fact, making them
> accessories to the crime or if they support terrorism.
So where's the trial? How can any civilized country justify destroying
people's homes because the police/army thinks they may be connected with
terrorists?
Niall McAuley
> Now if I were a Native American and were watching Southern and Eastern
> Europeans settle on land that had once been mine, I would be pissed off.
> Rightfully so. No bigotry required.
Even if they bought the land off you?
> If I were a WASP living in New York enveighing against the migrants
> ruining the city, I would probably be a bigot. If the migrants cordoned
> off an area of the city, declared their own state, and expelled the
> original inhabitants, I don't think I'd have to be a bigot to object.
If the bigots attacked them in overwhelming force, promising to drive them
into the sea, and the immigrants fought back, and after the fighting held
a part of the city, and the bigots continued to attack over many years, and
never recognized the right of those immigrants to be there, would you still
back the bigots?
--
Niall [real address ends in se, not es.invalid]
Lee Ratner
> Lee Ratner wrote:
>
> > This is just personal opinion but a good deal of the Middle East
> > conflict is the fault of Arab leadership. What was the difference
> > between the Arab bigot raving against Jewish immigrants to the Middle
> > East and the American bigot raving against Southern and Eastern
> > European immigration to the US in the late 19th and early 20th
> > century?
>
> Whoa there!
>
> Now if I were a Native American and were watching Southern and Eastern
> Europeans settle on land that had once been mine, I would be pissed off.
> Rightfully so. No bigotry required.
>
> If I were a WASP living in New York enveighing against the migrants
> ruining the city, I would probably be a bigot. If the migrants cordoned
> off an area of the city, declared their own state, and expelled the
> original inhabitants, I don't think I'd have to be a bigot to object.
>
> Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
The Jewish-Arab situation in the Middle East is not analogus to the
Native American situatuion in the Americas. First, the area was part
of a formal albeit weak country, the Ottoman Empire. Second, the
Jewish immigrants actually brought the land from its owners who
happened to be absentee landlords for the most part. Third, even
anti-Zionist Arab journalists in the 1920s and 1930s realized that the
Jewish immigrants were the main reason for the revival of
Israel/Palestine from a dumpy swamp and desert to a relatively
prosperous area.
Fourth, anti-Zionism may not be anti-Semitism but it is extreme
insensitivity to Jewish aspirations. Why should Jews be dominated by
goys everywhere in the world? Can't there be a small corner of the
world, our homeland, where its our civilization that matters the most?
The bloody anti-globalization people always talk about the West
silencing non-Western cultures but they really don't seem to give a
damn about Christian and Muslim societies silencing and dominating
Jewish society.
The Arabs were bigots. They sold the land to the Jewish immigrants
but demanded that the Jews leave. They alienated their own Jewish
communities. The Arabs made it clear that their was to be no place for
any Jew in the modern Arab world and we Jews were suppossed to accept
that?
Lee Ratner
> On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 00:44:13 -0000, lofs...@lava.net (Karen Lofstrom)
> wrote:
>
>
> >Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
>
> But there are a lot of people who would like to so define it.
Why is anti-Zionism of the non-Hassidic variety not anti-Semitism?
Why should Jews be given two choices, assimilation or alienation?
There are enough places in the world were European, Christian, Arab,
Muslim and all other goyish cultures dominate. Why can't there be a
small coutry where Jewish culture dominates? Where its our history and
literature and philosphy that is taught in schools, where its our
language that is spoken, where its our festivals that are the big deal
rather than Christmas and Ramadan. Why should Jews be under this
Christo-Islamic domination?
Kris Hasson-Jones
>Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
Sure it is. Anti-zionism is specifically the belief that the state of
Israel as a Jewish homeland and modern nation should not exist. But
you can be anti-Israel without being an anti-semite, because being
anti-Israel just means criticizing the policies of one of the many
governments on the planet, and that can be done without being
anti-Jew.
--
Kris Hasson-Jones sni...@pacifier.com
What Would Aragorn Do?
David Dyer-Bennet
Why should atheists be under Christian domination? Why should
protestants be under Catholic domination? I don't think there's any
real hope of a good outcome from trying to give every cultural
grouping a "homeland".
I think Israel has the right to exist for the relatively simple reason
that it *does* exist. We're well past the point where the injustice
done by ejecting the current residents would exceed any justice owed
due to inequities during its founding. Every patch of ground on the
planet, so far as I know, has changed hands by force multiple times.
We're against doing that in the future, but we can't reasonably go
back and undo every past instance.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <dd...@dd-b.net>, <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
Photos: <dd-b.lighthunters.net> Snapshots: <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera mailing lists: <dragaera.info/>
Bernard Peek
<czar...@aol.com> writes
>mike weber <mike....@electronictiger.com> wrote in message
>news:<q10l7vg9ogqrmlnsf...@4ax.com>...
>> On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 00:44:13 -0000, lofs...@lava.net (Karen Lofstrom)
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
>>
>> But there are a lot of people who would like to so define it.
>
> Why is anti-Zionism of the non-Hassidic variety not anti-Semitism?
That's a difficult question. The right of return seems to me to be a
claim by the state of Israel that there is no difference between a Jew
and a Zionist. I know that
>Why should Jews be given two choices, assimilation or alienation?
>There are enough places in the world were European, Christian, Arab,
>Muslim and all other goyish cultures dominate. Why can't there be a
>small coutry where Jewish culture dominates?
There's no problem with that at all. Likewise there's no reason why
someone else shouldn't be permitted to oppose the formation of such a
state if that offends their moral sense. That's anti Zionism and it's a
perfectly reasonable political objective.
On the other hand some people want to discriminate against an individual
because of their race or their religion.
It's a difference between discrimination against what someone is and
what they do. It would immoral (and illegal) to discriminate against
someone because they worshipped the Aztec gods, but not to stop them
from sacrificing people.
> Where its our history and
>literature and philosphy that is taught in schools, where its our
>language that is spoken, where its our festivals that are the big deal
>rather than Christmas and Ramadan.
As far as I know nobody, not even the Palestinians, have any objection
to that. They do object to you doing it in Palestine. I don't see any
solutions to that problem. Even if the current Israeli government
elected to go elsewhere it would only move the problem and not eliminate
it.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
www.diversebooks.com: SF & Computing book reviews and more.....
In search of cognoscenti
Lee Ratner
> In message <59117524.03032...@posting.google.com>, Lee Ratner
> <czar...@aol.com> writes
> >mike weber <mike....@electronictiger.com> wrote in message
> >news:<q10l7vg9ogqrmlnsf...@4ax.com>...
> >> On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 00:44:13 -0000, lofs...@lava.net (Karen Lofstrom)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> >Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
> >>
> >> But there are a lot of people who would like to so define it.
> >
> > Why is anti-Zionism of the non-Hassidic variety not anti-Semitism?
>
> That's a difficult question. The right of return seems to me to be a
> claim by the state of Israel that there is no difference between a Jew
> and a Zionist. I know that
The State of Israel is painfully aware that not all Jews are
Zionist. The Law of Return is about giving Jews a place to go if they
need to leave where they live and boost the population. More than a
few Hassidic Jews have used the law of Return to settle in Israel but
still are politically oppossed to its existence.
> >Why should Jews be given two choices, assimilation or alienation?
> >There are enough places in the world were European, Christian, Arab,
> >Muslim and all other goyish cultures dominate. Why can't there be a
> >small coutry where Jewish culture dominates?
>
> There's no problem with that at all. Likewise there's no reason why
> someone else shouldn't be permitted to oppose the formation of such a
> state if that offends their moral sense. That's anti Zionism and it's a
> perfectly reasonable political objective.
I hope you realize that the onjectives of Zionism and
anti-Zionism are not reconsiable. You can not satisfy both groups.
> On the other hand some people want to discriminate against an individual
> because of their race or their religion.
>
> It's a difference between discrimination against what someone is and
> what they do. It would immoral (and illegal) to discriminate against
> someone because they worshipped the Aztec gods, but not to stop them
> from sacrificing people.
>
> > Where its our history and
> >literature and philosphy that is taught in schools, where its our
> >language that is spoken, where its our festivals that are the big deal
> >rather than Christmas and Ramadan.
>
> As far as I know nobody, not even the Palestinians, have any objection
> to that. They do object to you doing it in Palestine. I don't see any
> solutions to that problem. Even if the current Israeli government
> elected to go elsewhere it would only move the problem and not eliminate
> it.
If the Jews choose to settle in Africa, the Africans would have
objected. If we formed a state in Eastern Europe, the Slavs would have
objected. Israel was the only place a Jewish state could have been
reasonably been formed.
Lee Ratner
> On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 00:44:13 -0000, lofs...@lava.net (Karen Lofstrom)
> moaned and squealed:
>
> >Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
>
> Sure it is. Anti-zionism is specifically the belief that the state of
> Israel as a Jewish homeland and modern nation should not exist. But
> you can be anti-Israel without being an anti-semite, because being
> anti-Israel just means criticizing the policies of one of the many
> governments on the planet, and that can be done without being
> anti-Jew.
It actually depends on how you criticize Israel. Somebody you says
"I do not like the policy of the Sharon administration towards the
Palestinians" is not anti-Semitic. Somebody who equates, and I
actually knew a girl who said this, that the use of Hebrew as a living
language is racist, is an anti-Semite. Specific criticisms of Israel
with specific things Israel can do to end the criticism is not
anti-Semitic. Criticising the basic premise behind Israel and leaving
the only option as Israeli national suicide is anti-Semitic.
Pete McCutchen
> The Jewish-Arab situation in the Middle East is not analogus to the
>Native American situatuion in the Americas. First, the area was part
>of a formal albeit weak country, the Ottoman Empire. Second, the
So what? The Native Americans weren't organized in formal states, but
they surely had some sort of claim on this land. Of course, before
the 20th century, it wasn't yet widely accepted that stronger groups
weren't allowed to go and take land belonging to weaker groups. Nor,
for that matter, did the Native Americans accept such norms; they were
more than willing to fight each other. North America before the
whites was not Eden.
>Jewish immigrants actually brought the land from its owners who
>happened to be absentee landlords for the most part. Third, even
Well, in the late forties, quite a few Palestinians were displaces by
force. Of course many Jews did buy the land, under the then-accepted
rules of the Ottoman Empire. That gave them a right to live there; it
didn't necessarily give them a right to form their own state.
>anti-Zionist Arab journalists in the 1920s and 1930s realized that the
>Jewish immigrants were the main reason for the revival of
>Israel/Palestine from a dumpy swamp and desert to a relatively
>prosperous area.
That may well be true.
> Fourth, anti-Zionism may not be anti-Semitism but it is extreme
>insensitivity to Jewish aspirations. Why should Jews be dominated by
>goys everywhere in the world? Can't there be a small corner of the
You know, I wish you wouldn't use the word "goys." It strikes me as
being, well, faintly racist.
>world, our homeland, where its our civilization that matters the most?
Is there enough room on Earth to give every identifiable ethnic or
religious group its own homeland? And what do we do about the people
already their?
Israel is there, now. It has citizens who anticipate its future
existence; it has a functioning government and economy. It's a
reasonably prosperous society. Given the fact of its existence, I
don't see getting rid of it. Still, I just don't think that every
single group can have a country where it's "our civilization that
matters the most," for different definitions of "our."
You also seem to be buying into this silly identity-politics notion of
what constitutes "your" civilization. A free multi-ethnic Republic
like the United States has a common culture that draws upon all sorts
of elements. Jews have certainly made their mark on American culture,
from Alice Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand) to Noam Chomsky.
>The bloody anti-globalization people always talk about the West
>silencing non-Western cultures but they really don't seem to give a
>damn about Christian and Muslim societies silencing and dominating
>Jewish society.
The bloody anti-globalization people are a bunch of fucking idiots.
Yes, of course they're hypocrites in all sorts of ways, but that
hardly proves anything. Yes, if you take their identity politics to
the ultimate logical end-point, Jews ought to get their own state.
But so too should left-handed black lesbians.
Nor are Jews necessarily "silenced" and "dominated" simply because
they live in a country where they are a minority. Jews in the United
States are hardly either "silenced" or "dominated" in some significant
respect. Nor, for that matter, are American Muslims, Bahais,
Armenians, Catholics, or atheists. Say, do we atheists get our own
country?
>
> The Arabs were bigots. They sold the land to the Jewish immigrants
>but demanded that the Jews leave. They alienated their own Jewish
>communities. The Arabs made it clear that their was to be no place for
>any Jew in the modern Arab world and we Jews were suppossed to accept
>that?
Yes, the Arab world has managed to do almost nothing right for the
last hundred years. The relevance of that is, what?
--
Pete McCutchen
Kris Hasson-Jones
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> moaned and squealed:
>You know, I wish you wouldn't use the word "goys." It strikes me as
>being, well, faintly racist.
Does it? I'm curious about that. It is one of the words that
supposedly every language has, that means "not one of us." But to me
it means not one of us in the religious sense, because there are Jews
in most "races," including Chinese, Somali, Arab, Caucasian, etc.
Would you be willing to explain more about how you react to this word?
Del Cotter
Joel Rosenberg <jo...@ellegon.com> said:
>Mark Jones <sin...@pacifier.com> writes:
>> Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@earthlink.net>,
>> >The absolute minimum charge that accrues to that under civil circumstances
>> >is manslaughter.
>>
>> Wrong--but thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for
>> you. People get killed in accidents all the time, but sometimes
>> they're just that. Accidents. Not murder. Not even manslaughter.
>>
>> Your assumption that the situation is cut and dried, and that we're
>> getting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the
>> various media reports is...touching. Or maybe credulous is a better
>> word. Wow, we've been wasting fortunes on investigations and
>> indictments and trials and rules of evidence all these years, when
>> apparently you can discern the truth from inconsistent media reports.
Evidently you can. Are Ulrika's powers less impressive?
>> Even if he _were_ ultimately charged with manslaughter, there's
>> no guarantee that he'd be immediately charged or arrested. Nor, I
>> should probably point out for the hard of thinking, has it been
>> demonstrated that he _committed_ manslaughter.
The Israeli army has already said her death was an accident. It isn't
true that there's going to be any investigation into whether or not it
was. Previous incidents, both those in which peace activists were
bulldozed into buildings, and those in which Palestinians were killed by
collapsing buildings, were not investigated either. This is only the
first such incident that has resulted in the death of a US citizen.
>I think there's a fundamental difference between a civilian driving a
>bulldozer under peaceful circumstances, and a soldier doing so in what
>is a war zone.
Yes, the soldier is much more likely to kill someone attempting to
hinder him in the course of carrying out his orders, and much less
likely to be investigated for it.
>I'm sure -- and I don't mean this sarcastically -- that many of the
>same people who want to see this soldier charged with manslaughter
>will feel the same way about US/UK/Australian pilots who kill
>volunteer human shield (as I suspect will happen) during the ongoing
>operation.
It's a fair point; I've heard some people call the bombing of Dresden a
war crime because it did not in hindsight seem reasonable to those
people suppose that it had a legitimate military purpose. But if it
did, then we generally allow for the unavoidable killing of civilians
while pursuing valid military objectives.
The two important factors there are "unavoidable killing" and "valid
military objective". Running down unarmed civilians violates the first
and bulldozing civilian homes violates the second. The correct thing to
do with an unarmed civilian who is interfering with a military operation
is to arrest and escort them to a place of detention until the operation
is over, and then allow them to go back to their home afterwards.
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead::NeilGaimanAmericanGods:GwynethJonesBoldAsLove:KenMacLeodDarkLi
ght:DamonKnightWhyDoBirds:JRRTolkienTheTwoTowers:RobertCharlesWilsonBios
ToRead:GuyGavrielKaySailingToSarantium:ChinaMievilleTheScar:ChristopherP
Del Cotter
Bernard Peek <b...@shrdlu.com> said:
>Lee Ratner <czar...@aol.com> writes
>>mike weber <mike....@electronictiger.com> wrote in message
>>> lofs...@lava.net (Karen Lofstrom) wrote:
>>> >Anti-zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
>>>
>>> But there are a lot of people who would like to so define it.
>>
>>Why is anti-Zionism of the non-Hassidic variety not anti-Semitism?
>>Why should Jews be given two choices, assimilation or alienation?
>>There are enough places in the world were European, Christian, Arab,
>>Muslim and all other goyish cultures dominate. Why can't there be a
>>small coutry where Jewish culture dominates?
>
>There's no problem with that at all. Likewise there's no reason why
>someone else shouldn't be permitted to oppose the formation of such a
>state if that offends their moral sense. That's anti Zionism and it's a
>perfectly reasonable political objective.
You can even be an anti Zionist and believe that the state of Israel has
a right to go on existing. You only have to disagree with its
formation.
>On the other hand some people want to discriminate against an individual
>because of their race or their religion.
>
>It's a difference between discrimination against what someone is and
>what they do. It would immoral (and illegal) to discriminate against
>someone because they worshipped the Aztec gods, but not to stop them
>from sacrificing people.
Yes.
Del Cotter
>Mark Jones <sin...@pacifier.com> wrote:
>>And Rachel Corrie's legs were broken? (Hah hah--before she got run
>>over, that is*.) If someone near _me_ was driving a large, heavy,
>>dangerous machine and steering by peering out of a small window in an
>>armored cab, I'd make it my business to stay the hell out of his way,
>>not dance around in front of him.
>
>A UK witness told the on-site WashPost reporter that she had kneeled
>before it and when she realized it was still coming, tried to get up,
>but couldn't move fast enough:
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35126-2003Mar16.html
The argument that Corrie had to have been in the way accidentally for
the driver to be culpable is a bit of a red herring. It's quite clear
she deliberately put her life in danger in an attempt to stop the
bulldozer. A pointless attempt, as it turned out. But that she
conspired in her death has no bearing on the responsibility of the
driver bears for killing her.
Del Cotter
>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>The *most* generous possible scenario you can contrive to minimise the
>>driver's culpability (and you're contriving with all your might here)
>>still leaves him driving a deadly vehicle with inadequate forward
>>vision, in an environment where he knew there were people in front of
>>him.
>
>Ah, yes. By that reasoning it should be illegal to drive railroad
>locomotives on any line with grade crossings. Or automobiles on
>glaring sunny days. Nonetheless, people do drive these things
>without assuming sole liability for running people over, regardless
>of the intent of the driver.
They do if they cover the windows of their vehicles with duct-tape. The
point being that they would have taken reasonable care to see where they
were going.
Of course this was not a civilian vehicle, and it was not engaged in a
civil operation; I was straining to contrive the *most* generous
possible scenario in which a driver might accidentally kill someone.
That it was a soldier driving a military vehicle, in an offensive
operation, makes it far more likely that the soldier did not accident-
ally kill the person trying to stop him carrying out his orders.
Construction workers aren't that dedicated; they'll stop, and damn their
orders.
>Of course she shouldn't have been killed. But she took the risk
>voluntarily.
As I said in another post, if she conspired with the driver in her
killing, that just makes the driver a co-conspirator. Like the Quaker
joke, it does no good to shrug and say the deceased ought to have got
out of the weapon's way.
Del Cotter
Kris Hasson-Jones <sni...@pacifier.com> said:
>Randolph Fritz <rand...@panix.com> posted
>>The likelyhood, however, is that she made every effort to be noticed.
>>If it was a normal demolition operation, there would have been other
>>people on the site, too, and they would have been watching and
>>notified the driver. There's a possibility it was negligence.
>>There's a possibility she was suicidal--even talked into it by one of
>>those Arab clerics who persuade the sucide bombers. Without other
>>information, though, operator intention seems very likely.
>
>Not to me. I will not on this little evidence think that ill of
>someone I don't know. I think it's much more likely that it's
>negligence. According to one source I read today (link at bottom of
>this paragraph) it's common practice for this organization
>(International something) to climb mounds of debris to harangue
>bulldozer drivers, *because they are confident the drivers won't run
>them over.* In other words, the routine is that the drivers take care
>not to run over them. It seems more likely to me that this driver
>either didn't see her or lost track of her when she fell (or jumped).
Why? This isn't the first time civilians have been killed by IDF forces
demolishing their homes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,684540,00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030303_536.html
It also isn't the first time members of Corrie's group stood in front of
an IDF bulldozer and the bulldozer didn't stop.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2856433.stm
This falsifies your claim that the bulldozer drivers stop when they know
there's someone in front of them. They don't, they carry on, just as
they carry on when there are people inside the houses they demolish.
> So the ISM itself admits that Corrie deliberately jumped
> in front of the bulldozer, confident that it would stop
> because IDF bulldozers have always stopped in the past.
You're contradicting yourself. How is it that IDF bulldozers always
stop when protesters step in front of them, if they can't see what's in
front of them?
This Israeli columnist points out that attempting to stop an IDF
bulldozer by standing in front of it is so futile that Palestinians
never try to do it. They don't stop.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=2111
David Goldfarb
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>You know, I wish you wouldn't use the word "goys." It strikes me as
>being, well, faintly racist.
I forget -- where do you stand on the use of "mundane" by fans?
--
David Goldfarb <*>| "Questions are a burden to others.
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | Answers are a prison for oneself."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- _The Prisoner_, "Dance of the Dead"
David Bilek
>In article <6j8j7vs16l532m29l...@4ax.com>,
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>You know, I wish you wouldn't use the word "goys." It strikes me as
>>being, well, faintly racist.
>
>I forget -- where do you stand on the use of "mundane" by fans?
FWIW, "goy" also smacks faintly of racism to my ear. The non-racist
term would be "gentile".
-David
mike weber
Why should American Indians be given two choices, assimilation or
alienation?
Why should Australian Aborigines be given two choices, assimilation or
alienation?
Why should {fill in ethnic group} be given two choices, assimilation
or alienation?
Why should Jews be special?
mike weber
<d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>It's a fair point; I've heard some people call the bombing of Dresden a
>war crime because it did not in hindsight seem reasonable to those
>people suppose that it had a legitimate military purpose. But if it
>did, then we generally allow for the unavoidable killing of civilians
>while pursuing valid military objectives.
Based on some not particularly strenuous on-line research i did a
while ago, the bombing of Dresden apparently falls into two separate
operations -- the USAAF's bombing of primarily the rialyards during th
day hours, using primarily high explosive ordnance, and the British
night bombing or primarily urban areas with mostly incendiaries.
The attempt to destroy the railyards using HE, the appropriate weapon
of choice, seems to me to be legitimate military action. The bombing
of the city for several nights with incendiaries strikes me more as a
terror raid...
Karen Lofstrom
I wrote:
>> Now if I were a Native American and were watching Southern and Eastern
>> Europeans settle on land that had once been mine, I would be pissed off.
>> Rightfully so. No bigotry required.
Niall wrote:
> Even if they bought the land off you?
I suppose you're referring to Manhattan Island?
Not at all clear that that people who "sold" the land had the right to
speak for everyone who lived there, or remotely understood the
consequences of taking the offered goodies. Fee simple land titles were
simply not part of any Native American cultural baggage.
> If the bigots attacked them in overwhelming force, promising to drive them
> into the sea, and the immigrants fought back, and after the fighting held
> a part of the city, and the bigots continued to attack over many years, and
> never recognized the right of those immigrants to be there, would you still
> back the bigots?
They declared the state and got attacked, not the other way around.
I'm NOT arguing for the destruction of Israel, BTW ... I'd just like the
Israelis to get the heck out of the occupied territories.
Then I'd try to subvert the Palestinians by getting them to form bunds
(non-violent) instead of waving Kalashnikovs. If they start asking for a
multi-cultural state, in which everyone is *equal* and there are no
favored groups, then they'll have achieved the moral high ground. The
Israeli apartheid solution is going to look shabby by comparison.
I'd like to see ALL nation states (the US included) hollowed-out, so to
speak, by becoming more and more multi-cultural. Until nobody has a state.
Until our fortresses are each other, not bits of ground surrounded by
walls and soldiers.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A product of Happy People's Recycled Food Cooperative Division Three
Pete McCutchen
(David Goldfarb) wrote:
>In article <6j8j7vs16l532m29l...@4ax.com>,
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>You know, I wish you wouldn't use the word "goys." It strikes me as
>>being, well, faintly racist.
>
>I forget -- where do you stand on the use of "mundane" by fans?
I've never had occasion to take a stand on that pressing issue.
To be consistent, I suppose I'd have to be against it.
--
Pete McCutchen
Karen Lofstrom
> The Jewish-Arab situation in the Middle East is not analogus to the
> Native American situatuion in the Americas. First, the area was part
> of a formal albeit weak country, the Ottoman Empire.
So it's OK to carve a chunk out of a weak country? So how is stealing
different if you steal from a country rather than a tribe?
> Second, the
> Jewish immigrants actually brought the land from its owners who
> happened to be absentee landlords for the most part.
I don't have figures, but I suspect that the amount of land seized from
refugees or just plain confiscated is vastly larger than the land
purchases.
> Third, even
> anti-Zionist Arab journalists in the 1920s and 1930s realized that the
> Jewish immigrants were the main reason for the revival of
> Israel/Palestine from a dumpy swamp and desert to a relatively
> prosperous area.
White man's burden? The country was a dump, under its former owners, so we
took it over, because we're smarter and more deserving than they are.
The funny thing is that I've heard exactly the same sentiments from
Chinese defending the takeover of Tibet. The Tibetans are lazy and
inefficient, their customs are disgusting, they need to be taken in hand
and civilized by the Hans.
> Fourth, anti-Zionism may not be anti-Semitism but it is extreme
> insensitivity to Jewish aspirations.
I am insensitive to the aspirations of all kinds of imperialists.
Including the Chinese and the current Washington administration.
> Why should Jews be dominated by
> goys everywhere in the world? Can't there be a small corner of the
> world, our homeland, where its our civilization that matters the most?
Look, if you want to build a Jewish paradise in orbit, where no one else
is being dispossessed, be my guest. I don't LIKE the idea of state based
on "anyone not part of the in-group is a second-class citizen" but I
figure that internecine squabbles are going to take that to a reductio ad
absurdam fairly quickly.
Please note that I'm not calling for the immediate destruction of Israel.
It's a fact, on the ground. Just like lots of other states founded on
conquest. But I'm not going to pretend that it has a glorious history,
just like I'm not going to pretend that the US was justified in its
treatment of Native Americans. Nor am I going to be friendly to ongoing
efforts to drive out Palestinians and take their remaining land.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------
Oh what a cute wee thing!
Karen Lofstrom
> As far as I know nobody, not even the Palestinians, have any objection
> to that. They do object to you doing it in Palestine. I don't see any
> solutions to that problem. Even if the current Israeli government
> elected to go elsewhere it would only move the problem and not eliminate
> it.
Low earth orbit.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nevermore
Lee Ratner
> On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 22:42:07 GMT, Pete McCutchen
> <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> moaned and squealed:
>
> >You know, I wish you wouldn't use the word "goys." It strikes me as
> >being, well, faintly racist.
>
> Does it? I'm curious about that. It is one of the words that
> supposedly every language has, that means "not one of us." But to me
> it means not one of us in the religious sense, because there are Jews
> in most "races," including Chinese, Somali, Arab, Caucasian, etc.
>
not the best thing to do even though it might be accurrate. Its kind
of like calling a person from Spain, Hispanic, an association not
wanted. Jews from Iran tend to refer to themselves as Persian and Jews
from Arab lands refer to themselves as Jews.
James Nicoll
Karen Lofstrom <lofs...@lava.net> wrote:
>In article <JN+dtwzv...@shrdlu.co.uk>, Bernard Peek wrote:
>
>> As far as I know nobody, not even the Palestinians, have any objection
>> to that. They do object to you doing it in Palestine. I don't see any
>> solutions to that problem. Even if the current Israeli government
>> elected to go elsewhere it would only move the problem and not eliminate
>> it.
>
>Low earth orbit.
LEO orbits decay quickly. Given that all societies seem to go
trhough phases of 'Why spend all that money on -maintainance- when
The Friends of the Government are so poor?' designing your hab to
be a lethal trap seems ill-advised from the POV of the poor saps
who will be cooked liek a Thanksgiving turkey when the hab comes down.
Plus LEO is too damn easy to shoot at.
A large aggregation of habitats at L4 and L5, like a sargasso
of loosely coupled objects, could hold a few hundred billion people and
even be massive enough to provide a certain amount of gravity perpendicular
to the Earth-Moon plane.
On the other hand, NorAm has lots of places that are emptying.
Northern Saskatchewan. Nebraska. For a zillionth the cost of a L4/5
colony, we could make little hobbittowns in the wilderness, underground
to avoid dealing directly with the reality of northern Saskatchewan or
Nebraska. We could even move the top few meters of Israel there (and
in the case of colonies in the Shield, the soil would be damned handy
since the last ice age shifted the old topsoil south).
--
"About this time, I started getting depressed. Probably the late
hour and the silence. I decided to put on some music.
Boy, that Billie Holiday can sing."
_Why I Hate Saturn_, Kyle Baker
Joel Rosenberg
> I wrote:
>
> >> Now if I were a Native American and were watching Southern and Eastern
> >> Europeans settle on land that had once been mine, I would be pissed off.
> >> Rightfully so. No bigotry required.
>
> Niall wrote:
>
> > Even if they bought the land off you?
>
> I suppose you're referring to Manhattan Island?
>
> Not at all clear that that people who "sold" the land had the right to
> speak for everyone who lived there, or remotely understood the
> consequences of taking the offered goodies.
Or even had any right to speak for anybody who lived there. It was, I
believe, a Pequot myth/belief that the actual guy who did the selling
was a Pequot visiting the island to do some fishing . . .
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
David Dyer-Bennet
> I'm NOT arguing for the destruction of Israel, BTW ... I'd just like the
> Israelis to get the heck out of the occupied territories.
Why? They took that land fair and square in defending themselves
against a war of aggression initiated against them. And a fair amount
of it looks to me to be necessary for any vaguely defensible nation.
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <v7o7k02...@corp.supernews.com>,
> Karen Lofstrom <lofs...@lava.net> wrote:
> >In article <JN+dtwzv...@shrdlu.co.uk>, Bernard Peek wrote:
> >
> >> As far as I know nobody, not even the Palestinians, have any objection
> >> to that. They do object to you doing it in Palestine. I don't see any
> >> solutions to that problem. Even if the current Israeli government
> >> elected to go elsewhere it would only move the problem and not eliminate
> >> it.
> >
> >Low earth orbit.
>
> LEO orbits decay quickly. Given that all societies seem to go
> trhough phases of 'Why spend all that money on -maintainance- when
> The Friends of the Government are so poor?' designing your hab to
> be a lethal trap seems ill-advised from the POV of the poor saps
> who will be cooked liek a Thanksgiving turkey when the hab comes down.
Maybe that'd be a good way to train people out of skimping on
necessary maintenance.
> Plus LEO is too damn easy to shoot at.
True. And too expensive to get to. We're not ready for serious
colonization out there yet.