Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Excess cynicism: Our biggest challenge

Mazin Qumsiyeh (Palestine)

Our biggest challenge in my opinion is not the Israeli occupation, corrupt politicians, the apartheid wall, the economic deprivation, the moral slide, or the environmental catastrophe unfolding. Our biggest challenge is excess and paralyzing cynicism. How can one not be cynical when even just the past week:

- Israeli courts ruled that any Jew can claim land supposedly owned even after 100 years (or 2000 years for collective ownership) evicting others whereas a “nonJew” has no similar rights. Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem for example cannot reclaim their lawfully registered property in West Jerusalem but a Jew can claim property (rightly or wrongly) anywhere even with forged documents. Meanwhile evicted Jerusalemites sleep on the street outside their homes. And..
at

12 comments:

  1. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 6:10 PM

    Goodness, this place is very quiet?????

    ReplyDelete
  2. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 8:19 PM

    The man is a nut.
    <div class="storyHead">
    <h1>Hugo Chavez moves to close golf courses</h1>
    <h2>Hugo Chavez's socialist "revolution" has found its latest victim - golf.</h2>
    </div>


    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/6017397/Hugo-Chavez-moves-to-close-golf-courses.html

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  3. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 8:20 PM

    <span>The man is a nut.</span>

    <span>Hugo Chavez moves to close golf courses</span>
    <span>Hugo Chavez's socialist "revolution" has found its latest victim - golf.
     
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/6017397/Hugo-Chavez-moves-to-close-golf-courses.html</span>

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  4. vAugust 12, 2009 at 8:38 PM

    That is nothing vza, if I had my way I would turn exclusive golf club lodges and property into a haven for the homeless and poverty assulted (I will not say stricken, in this system it is deliberate).  However, I would reserve one inadequate hole for people like you...hehehe

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  5. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 8:54 PM

    They could remain golf courses and also serve the poor. Why not camps where the kids could go and learn the game and participate in other programs and at the same time stay open as a golf club?
    Along with his TV program and his goofy rhetoric, he is becoming a joke.

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  6. vAugust 12, 2009 at 9:00 PM

    I know vza, you would rather listen to the stellar programming on brain dead TV in the states.  Can it become any more ridiculous?  If that fails you can go to a town hall meeting :)

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  7. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 9:05 PM

    Obama sends a message to Hugo and the boys:

    “The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America. You can't have it both ways.”

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/obama-blasts-the-hypocrisy-of-critics-over-the-handling-of-honduras-coup.html

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  8. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 9:08 PM

    I know, like Chavez, you want to limit freedom of speech. Get those little grannies to the gulag!

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  9. vAugust 12, 2009 at 9:20 PM

    The retort is a canard vza (however, I can understand why you would never see this),  Chavez's refrain about Honduras is a taunt because he knows what is taking place.  What Chavez said to Obama is like a a party who knows how ridiculous the request is, and is just displaying it in public.  Obama will not do anything because both US interest and military are foundationally there in the first place (in other words, ithas a long history),  and secondly they will not leave because they have the ulterior motives of exploitative and murderous empire.  Although this song is about a different subject, it poses the same issue (of which Obama is a domestic servant to, along with the rst of the assholes in Washington) - 

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xAJVri2a1U

    An entirely new game is needed

    ReplyDelete
  10. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 9:39 PM

    v :
    <span>The retort is a canard vza (however, I can understand why you would never see this),  Chavez's refrain about Honduras is a taunt because he knows what is taking place.</span>

    Don't make me laugh!

    By Thursday, Chavez really lost it, making a bizarre, out-of-protocol 11:15 p.m. phone call to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon urging the U.S. to "do something," suggesting a military invasion. Seems Chavez was losing sleep at night over <span>Honduras</span>.
    Then, on his weekly variety show Sunday, Chavez made a long speech about his call to Shannon, hurling insults at the very country he wanted go to war for him. He blamed the U.S. for instigating the "coup" that removed Zelaya and maintained that the 600 U.S. troops stationed on <span>Honduras</span>' Palmerola military base had a role in it..

    http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548482246461&kw=honduras

    Good old Hugo.

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  11. vAugust 12, 2009 at 9:51 PM

    Like I said, you don't get it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. vzaAugust 12, 2009 at 9:54 PM

    Although I do like Thievery Corporation a lot! (Babylon is my favorite)

    You may even be right, v that a whole new game is needed but if you think Hugo is the type to provide it, you are more naive than I am. I do not deny any of the good things he has done  but he has turned a corner that all too many of these populists cannot resist.

    ReplyDelete