Thomas Friedman seems to be approaching his expiry date according to the package, that boxed and perishable piece of goods called “dogmatic lefty” . The same recycling of Kraft Dinner socialism and status conscious white liberalism based on that hierarchy of values in which morality and intrinsic superiority belongs as in the rights of kings, to this type of Jewish royalty, self-proclaimed prophets of what can be termed Post-jews, as if religious/cultural/ethnic origins in this case are viewed as some form of unfortunate birth defect that can’t quite be eradicated, even through surgery, cosmetic or otherwise, but that doesn’t stop the effort of smothering everyone in smug morals that inevitably underlines who is the colonized and who are the colonizers; and when the natives get “uppity” and no longer bite at being “accommodated” and certainly as “unwashed” very tenuously tolerated at best within the corridors of power then we have this conflagration of borderline antisemitism, through an obviously higher education style of shaping, bending, and massaging the truth, omitting the odd morsel, a nibbling at the edges of credibility.
—The 20-year-old song “Red Sector A,” from the 1984 album “Grace Under Pressure,” comes from a deeply emotional and personal place in the heart of lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee.
The seeds for the song were planted nearly 60 years ago in April 1945 when British soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Lee’s mother, Manya (now Mary) Rubenstein, was among the survivors. (His father, Morris Weinrib, was liberated from Dachau a few weeks later.) The whole album “Grace Under Pressure,” says Lee, who was born Gary Lee Weinrib, “is about being on the brink and having the courage and strength to survive.”
Though “Red Sector A,” like much of the album from which it comes, is set in a bleak, apocalyptic future, what Lee calls “the psychology” of the song comes directly from a story his mother told him about the day she was liberated.
Read More:http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/23003/how-the-holocaust-rocked-rush-front-man-geddy-lee/ image:http://www.giantpanther.com/?p=4424
At heart in this style, and you can put a whole racket of this swindlers on the short leash here, is that they are all jews and don’t care about it. In fact, are ashamed of it. There is a kind of weird transference going on where Israel is held up to some phony ideal baloney code of ethics that is impossible to attain. And yes, Israel is racist, violent and excessive. Fact. And that violence is often not for good reason. What arises is this pseudo jewish hyper secular upbringing which has to limit itself then to a strictly cultural and racial sphere since the parameters are so narrow, where the Left in general is obliged to discredit to play to the base.The reality is that Israelis, and probably jews in general are not more moral or superior to other groups, and will never be, and there is no reason or expectation why they should be.
Journalists like Friedman are guilty of professional fraud; they refuse to ever criticize Palestinians, or at least in meaningful manner. Jews are fair game. They are still expected, even with statehood, not to turn one cheek but two. And Friedman is complicit in the reinforcing of the status-quo in the region, either through excusing the terror, or acting as a fifth column which naturally will have a counter-reaction.But ultimately, its the lower form of expectation Friedman has of the Palestinians. The moral relativism card. Which is insulting to them, since they become the exoticized “other” that was so endemic to colonial Orientalism. Its the classic racist tactic that white activists/journalists/politicians use when it comes to Middle Eastern peoples, and it establishes Friedman’s credentials as something a little more whiter than white…
(see link at end)…Tom Friedman, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist, is perceived to be a Middle East expert. Is he?
In January and June, 2000, on the eve of Bashar Assad’s ascension to power, Tom Friedman (T.F.) was charmed by Bashar Assad’s background: a British-trained ophthalmologist; married to a British citizen of Syrian origin; fluent in English and French; President of the Syrian Internet Association. He compared the eventual Butcher from Damascus, potentially, to Deng Xiaoping, who led China’s economic reforms, modernization and rapprochement with the USA. Swept by wishful-thinking, T.F. assumed that Bashar could liberalize Syria, attract international investors, normalize relations with Israel, end the Arab rejection of the Jewish State, thus demolishing the Iran-Syria axis and ending Iran’s involvement in Lebanon. The prerequisite for such an enterprising scenario was an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. However, as expected, Bashar chose to follow in the footsteps of his ruthless father, Hafiz Assad, slaughtering T.F.’s assumptions and Syria’s domestic opposition, irrespective of the Golan Heights, Israel’s policies or existence.
—When it comes to Thomas Friedman’s all-too-often misguided and misleading commentary on the Middle East, and especially on the Arab-Israel conflict, one must keep in mind that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. In his New York Times article of April 4 (“A Middle East Twofer”),Friedman does offer one accurate insight into the psyche of Israel’s population: Israel can accommodate a Palestinian state on its border only when Israelis can feel strategically secure. Everything else in his article is so inaccurate that it borders on mendacity.
He starts off with praise for Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian terrorist leader serving five consecutive life sentences for the murder of many Israelis in terror attacks. Friedman considers Barghouti to be “the most authentic leader Fatah has produced.” He is right. Barghouti is one of the most, if not the most, authentic of all Palestinian leaders living today. But Friedman fails to note, or fails to mention, that Barghouti’s authenticity, and his popularity with the Palestinian rank-and-file, arise from his success at killing Israelis and his ability to plan and execute lethal terror attacks.—Read More:http://iranaware.com/2012/04/12/nyt-thomas-friedman-praises-palestinian-murderer/ image:http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_product_static.asp?sku=338095&master_movie_id=560
In August, 2006, T.F. told NPR Radio that Bashar Assad’s Syria was not a natural ally of Iran. He maintained that Syria could resume its traditional role as an ally of the pro-US Arab camp of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Thus, he rewrote Syria’s recent history, which has been consistently anti-US since 1946, as well as pro-Iran since 1979.
In June, 2009, T.F. stated that “for the first time, in a long time, [Middle East] forces for decency, democracy and pluralism have a little wind at their backs.” He identified a tailwind to pro-American elements, and a setback to Iran’s fortunes, in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran itself. According to T.F., “the diffusion of technology – the Internet, blogs, YouTube and text messaging via cellphones” – tilted the Middle East in favor of the US. He was determined not to allow the real Middle East to stand in the way of his vision of a Middle East consumed by globalization, modernity, democratization and the Internet. Unfortunately, the increasingly boiling seismic Arab Street from Morocco to the Persian Gulf has repudiated T.F.’s vision….
—Even more delusional, however, is Friedman’s idea of a Palestinian state becoming a Middle East “Singapore,” where “Arab Muslims and Christians, men and women, can thrive in a secular, but religiously respectful, free-market, democratic context, next to a Jewish state.” Where does Friedman find in any Muslim Middle East country the cultural or religious foundations for such a state? Where in the region is there even a “secular” state? The recent revolts have eliminated the barely secular state like Egypt. Turkey has been secularizing for eight decades, and it’s becoming more Islamist, not less. Or where are Christians “respectfully” treated? On the contrary, they are fast disappearing from the regions of Christianity’s birth, those few remaining subject to increasing violence and persecution. More broadly, where in Islam can Friedman find the foundational principles of liberal democracy, such as separation of church and state, recognition of universal human rights, secular law, or free speech?—Read More:http://iranaware.com/2012/04/06/tom-friedman-the-new-york-times-very-own-charlie-brown/
In February, 2011, T.F. determined that “the Muslim Brotherhood is not running the [anti-Mubarak] show…Any ideological group that tries to hijack these young people will lose…. This uprising feels post-ideological�
he emerging spokesman for this uprising is Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing executive.”Enthralled by the Arab Spring delusion, T.F. concluded that the Egyptian Street “tried [radical] Nasserism, tried Islamism and is now trying democracy.” He was convinced that “the democracy movement came out of Tahrir Square like a tiger…. Anyone who tries to put the tiger back in the cage will get his head bitten off…. Witness one of the great triumphs of the human spirit….. The first pan-Arab movement that is focused on universal values….”
T.F. underestimated the surge of the non-Facebook trans-national Muslim Brotherhood and its credo: “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law; the Prophet is our leader; Jihad [Holy War] is our way; and martyrdom for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.” To T.F.’s frustration, the Muslim Brotherhood aims to consolidate Islamic Sharia’ as the legal foundation in Muslim and “infidel” lands, as a prelude to the reestablishment of the Islamic Caliphate….
—Friedman continues his Stephen Walt- John Mearsheimer-compliant Judeophobic bluster that he began when he alleged that the standing ovations Netanyahu received during his 2011 address to the US Congress were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
In his new article, he writes: “The main Israel lobby, AIPAC, has made itself the feared arbiter of which lawmakers are ‘pro’ and which are ‘anti-Israel’ and, therefore, who should get donations and who should not – and you have a situation in which there are almost no brakes, no red lights, around Israel coming from America anymore.”—Read More:http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=279930 image:http://dare2beher.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/tribute-to-bob-marley/
T.F.’s pro-PLO, pro-Palestinian stance dates back to his active involvement, while at Brandeis University, in the pro-Arafat radical-Left “Middle East Peace Group” and “Breirah” organizations. It was intensified during his role as the Associated Press’ and New York Times’ reporter in Lebanon. There he played down Arafat’s and Mahmoud Abbas’ rape and plunder of Lebanon and their intense ties with international terrorism, while expressing his appreciation of the PLO’s protection of foreign media in Beirut.
In September 1993, T.F. welcomed Arafat as a peace-pursuing statesman. He established moral equivalence between the role-model of terrorism, the PLO, and the role-model of counterterrorism, Israel, as well as between Arafat and Rabin: “Two hands that had written the battle orders for so many young men, two fists that had been raised in anger at one another so many times in the past, locked together for a fleeting moment of reconciliation.” T.F. provided a robust tailwind to Arafat’s strategy of deception and bamboozling September 1993 statement at the White House: “Mr. President, I am taking this opportunity to assure you and to assure the great American people that we share your values for freedom, justice and human rights — values for which my people have been striving….”
Iggy Pop. —Joshua Mayhem:In response, Egypt is solidifying the “Egyptian Apartheid Wall” along the border with Gaza and has begun closing up all of the underground tunnels (except for one or two, hehe). I say “Egyptian Apartheid Wall” because if Israel’s security barrier which has reduced bus bombings and other acts of terror by 95%, is a “Apartheid Wall” well then so is Egypt’s wall which now as the PLO’s blessings, as I demonstrate below. So therefore the canard of Apartheid wall made by fanatical human rights groups is null.
Now in a turn of beautiful duplicity and civil strife, the Holocaust denying leader of the PA, Mahmud Abbas, “urges Egypt to destroy underground tunnels.” in order to seal off Gaza ( and choke HAMAS into submission for a PLO takeover of Gaza).
…as the World turns…
image:http://fuckiggypop.blogspot.ca/2012/05/sunlight-in-my-eyes.html
In July, 2000, T.F. posed the question: “Who is Arafat? Is he Nelson Mandela or Willie Nelson?” However, Arafat’s track record is compatible with another metaphor: “Who is Arafat? Is he Jack the Ripper or the Boston Strangler?”
Has Tom Friedman been mistaken? Or, has he been, deliberately, misleading? Read More:http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/08/10/tom-friedman-%E2%80%93-mistaken-or-misleading/
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…At the same time, this administration, just like its predecessors, shamelessly uses every perk at its disposal to win pundits’ favor. Take state dinner invitations, the most treasured party pass in Washington. The scorecard is running at two invites for Thomas Friedman of The New York Times (India and China affairs), and one each for Zakaria (India), Dionne (Germany), David Ignatius of The Washington Post (China), Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times (China), and James Fallows of The Atlantic (China). At the reception line, the pundit is typically introduced by the president to the state leader guest of honor as one of America’s most important journalists. Picture the pundit’s spouse beaming with pride.
The White House can also offer a ride on Air Force One, the ultimate symbol of presidential power and luxury. Back in February 2009, five columnists got to join Obama for a flight back to Chicago—Dionne and Brownstein along with Clarence Page of The Chicago Tribune, Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post, and Bob Herbert, then of The New York Times. Then there were the eighteen holes that Friedman, whom the president has consulted on Middle East policy, enjoyed with Obama on an Andrews Air Force Base golf course back in the fall of 2009.
And, maybe best of all, there’s the book plug. Many pundits write books, whose sales can’t be hurt by an endorsement from the Reader in Chief. Typical of his predecessors, Obama or his aides occasionally lets it be known what the president is reading; the titles have included Alter’s Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope and Zakaria’s The Post-American World, which he was photographed holding during the campaign. (The New York Times website published the image under the headline, “What Obama Is Reading.”) “Our authors have definitely benefited from President Obama’s endorsements,” said Jonathan Karp, publisher of Simon & Schuster, who noted that Alter’s fdr book became a trade paperback best-seller “largely as a result” of being on Obama’s list.
The attention Obama lavishes on pundits’ books can be surprisingly durable. Though he has been referring to Friedman’s 2008 book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America since he ran for president, in August 2009, it was included on Obama’s official vacation book list. The president, a Harvard Law graduate, is not known to be a slow reader.Read More:http://www.cjr.org/feature/all_the_presidents_pundits.php?page=all
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