But they also pander to their bigoted constituency in some ways, in some of the knee-jerk Daily Mailesque editorials they write.

fugstar: i have long thought that everyone in the middle east spends far too much time accusing each other (including people nominally on their own side) of being nazis, with the net result that the label itself is devalued and the understanding of what the holocaust actually was is virtually non-existent. as far as i’m concerned, without concentration camps, gas chambers and a policy of ethnic extermination we just aren’t even in the same ontology, which is just as well.

incidentally, for this reason, the israeli haaretz newspaper, in its below-the-line talkback, does not permit posters to call each other nazis. i think it’s a good rule.

b’shalom

bananabrain

interesting

HP and PP together are actually stronger; not that i’m suggesting they should merge, i just think that they’re more similar than one might think.

In what way?

‘Professor Hobsbawm, who spent his youth watching Hitler’s rise in Berlin, has a warning for those who think this will help the Left in any recognizable form. “In the 1930s, the net political effect of the Depression was to enormously strengthen the Right,” he said.

America was the great exception, as it may prove to be again. I for one will take the enlightened “socialism” of Barack Obama any day over the Hegelian broth nearing the boil in Europe.’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3366575/Revenge-of-the-Left-across-the-world.html

*Sorry, another piece from the telegraph.

israel has plenty of moral compasses. they don’t all point the right way and they don’t all say things in the same way and at the same time. burg just happens to be one that you feel agrees with you (and i’m not sure he actually does agree with you) so you’re fixating on him. in reality, he’s hardly the messiah.

b’shalom

bananabrain

‘that HP and PP together are actually stronger; not that i’m suggesting they should merge, i just think that they’re more similar than one might think.’

Not in the least. I’d hate to think there was any similarity other than sharing the same technology by way of a PC, and perhaps a qwerty keyboard.

PP if anything was always seen as a stepping stone away from the rabid Jihadwatch, whereas HP swings both ways. With greater enthusiasm one way than the other.

I note that HP have finally removed Mad Mel from their links, and its high time PP dropped HP.

Sunny is much smarter than to let that blot remain for much longer.

Bananabrain has never, to my knowledge, bothered with editorial pieces, but frankly his comments on threads tend to be thought provoking, to the point and likely to change minds. He is not singing to the choir.

you’re very kind. i tend to do my editorial elsewhere, in my real-life persona, who can’t always say the sort of things in public that bananabrain says, as real-life me has corporate responsibilities which have little to do with religion or politics (except by accident). the closest bananabrain really gets to editorial is in the stuff i do with my moderator hat on over at http://www.interfaith.org (previously comparative-religion.com)

for what it’s worth, i think you have david t wrong, as per katy’s comment at #60. i think his post #47 explains things pretty well. and rumbold’s comment #85 about judging the bbc by its talkback comments is extremely to the point. what we are kind of touching on here is an emerging standard for editorial which includes talkbacks. to what extent can one be responsible for how people react to how you editorialise? unfortunately, people seem to be struggling here with the conflict between their commitment to liberty in the form of free speech and their need to frame it in such a way as to be able to criticise people that they see as making inflammatory remarks. in other words, how to make it OK for sunny to bitch out people with whom he disagrees, but at the same time remain able to criticise melanie phillips for doing the same. the question is this: how do you differentiate your avowedly principled need to challenge the status quo from others’ allegedly unprincipled need to do exactly the same thing? it reminds me a little bit of the bit in terry pratchett where commander vimes is initially impressed by the idea of ephebian democracy, but gets put off it by the realisation that there is no way that *he* can get the vote which does not also prevent corporal nobbs having one as well. i think i may be forced to conclude that either you are pro-free speech or you aren’t.

another possible solution is to conclude that insofar as blogs are unregulated, the code of conduct for “below the line” comment is entirely at the discretion of the site owner. that is pretty much what we do at interfaith.org; the site owner sets the policy and the moderators (who are, nonetheless, able to influence policy informally) enforce it. moderation here at pickled politics is done on an informal basis, so you can’t refer people to a code of conduct. HP also does not (i believe) have a code of conduct. what is source for the goose is, i would suggest, source for the gander and, i would further suggest, that complaining about david t’s policy on a different site is rather a waste of time. as he puts it, you are better off directly addressing the opinions you object to. so, therefore, the answer is to have a CoC, but then people have to commit to enforcing it (which involves time commitment) and even then it isn’t exactly 100% foolproof. as for responding to complete idiots, sometimes it just isn’t worth the trouble. you should see some of the nutters we get on interfaith.org, self-declared prophets, all sorts. sometimes we take the mick and sometimes we flame (albeit without any swearing) and sometimes we bin or ban. but then, at least we’re sticking to a CoC. as for the likes of this “virgil xenophon” character, bigoted imbeciles are as common on the right as they are on the left. who has time to set all these splenetic nincompoops to rights? not me, that’s for sure; i’d be at it all day. i can barely be arsed to argue about israel/palestine on this site and most people here are at least vaguely reasonable about it here most of the time.

@refresh:

i met avraham burg recently and, while he is spot-on morally speaking, he doesn’t appear to have a practical programme, so he ends up merely as an oppositionalist. in this sense, it is easier to be a “prophet” than a “king”, insofar as you don’t have to be accountable, or deliver anything, it is enough to criticise. of course, i also think what he says needs to be said really, really loudly, but he does go for some rather convenient soundbites at times, being a politician, as he readily admits when picked up on it.

I recall the last time that happened, DavidT routed the asylum to one of Sunny’s pieces (a presumed comradely act), only to lead to hand to hand combat with fascist hordes. I must admit it was a delight to see the whites of their eyes and the fear, when they realised that whilst DavidT ‘presumed’ a kindred spirit in PP; the below-the-line crowd showed PPs true mettle.

perhaps this is really the point (agreeing with refresh twice in the space of a week, holy mary) that HP and PP together are actually stronger; not that i’m suggesting they should merge, i just think that they’re more similar than one might think.

@”andy”:

Some jews find the idea that racism against other races (especially the lowlife Arabs) is as bad and unacceptable as racism against them as intolerable. Its a kind of anti-racist racism

you mean jews insist on being the most oppressed group? perhaps some do. that some jews can be racist? undoubtedly. however, i don’t think this is especially a) relevant or b) descriptive of david t. it seems more to be a rather transparent attempt to construct a basis from which jews can be securely pilloried. but, hey, maybe that’s me insisting on being oppressed, hard to know, ain’t it?

b’shalom

bananabrain

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2093

Fair enough. Though it isn’t irrelevant and the derailing is not down to me, it is down to David T.

Love and respect.

Pickled Politics is far far better than Harry’s Place. We, sir, are grown ups. They are not.

David T comes onto this site, speeling stuff like this:

Well put it this way. There are people like Refresh on this site. Then there are people like Sid. I judge this site by what Sunny et al choose to print, not by the comments you get under the line.

Which he uses an an excuse for allowing comments such as this:

“Amen, David T,. amen. But Morgoth is right, all too many people–no need to name names–have been suicidially naive
about this whole subject for far too long. Rather late in the day, but better late than never…..hopefully. The problem is, once recognized for the mortal danger that this movement represents, will society at large have the courage to gird up its loins for the already present struggle and the stamina to stay the course against a movement that, unless every copy of the Koran on earth is destroyed, will always have on hand the seeds with which to germinate the poison in the distant future no matter how successful present-day efforts are to tamp it down.”

That seems to me to be hate speech, yet David T allows it on his site. Frankly, that is beyond the pale.

Just my opinion, right enough. As you probably know, I have enormous respect for you, I don’t, however, share your favourable views on David T. Nor his complete failure to even respond to the drivel that Virgil Xenophon writes. David T’s silence says a lot about David T. His lack of interest in his very own threads, suggest to me, sir, that, he is a wind up artist.

Its a kind of anti-racist racism