Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion.jewish,net.nlang.africa Subject: Re: The definition of terrorism is NOT flexible! Message-ID: <2246@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Dec-85 10:45:23 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2246 Posted: Wed Dec 11 10:45:23 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Dec-85 05:30:36 EST References: <4188@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <360@ubvax.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 123 Xref: watmath net.politics:12429 net.religion.jewish:2852 net.nlang.africa:182 > Marcel-Franck Simon writes: > > Thedefinition of terrorism, and justification for supporting it, is highly > > flexible. Those who are on our side are democratic freedom fighters. Those > > who are not are bloodthirsty murderers. > (Mr. Simon either must not be reading what I've been writing, or > chooses to ignore me. No matter:) > > THE DEFINITION OF TERRORISM IS NOT FLEXIBLE. > > Once a person accepts such Orwellian doubletalk, it becomes possible to > justify any act of violence. [ABELES] It seems that Mr. Abeles either must not be reading what Marcel was saying, or he is choosing to ignore him for his own ends. What Marcel was saying (and he is right on the money) is that use of the word terrorism (for those on "their" side) and the term freedom fighters (for those on "our" side) *IS* the REAL example of Orwellian doublespeak. He is not commenting on the actual definition of the word (which really isn't all that flexible) but on HOW IT IS USED BY RHETORICAL MANIPULATORS FOR THEIR OWN ENDS!!!! > (It is not, however, true that > people attempt to justify all acts of violence; rather, all acts > of violence can be justified given a nice fairy tale about how > individuals have suffered unfairly.) Let me remind foggy thinkers > out there that in the ideal laws made by man are not meant to be > fair, but merely just. That is, many people suffer, but we can > only treat people justly. It is the best that can be done. That cuts both ways. If you go out of your way to get fairness for your "own" despite your own assertion that all anyone can expect is just "just", then your whole assertion is blown away. I would caution Mr. Abeles that there are those people who sound an awful lot like him when they proclaim that the Holocaust is an example of a "fairy tale about how (certain) individuals have suffered unfairly". > With this rather abstruse introduction: I will now state that > WAR IS NOT TERRORISM. And finally that THERE ARE MORE THINGS > IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, HORATIO, THAN ARE DREAMED OF IN YOUR > PHILOSOPHY. I know this last is true since you don't understand > my point of view (quod erat demonstratum). And you obviously don't understand his, but who said either perspective represented the actual truth of things? In fact, war is nothing but sanctioned legalized terrorism. In war, it's "OK" to do what you couldn't legally do at home: murder and slaughter because you have a "mandate" to do so. That mandate stemming from the "right" of a nation to fight with another nation. It never ceases to amaze me how people will continually fall for the bullshit of "this is for the good of your country that you go out and kill those bastards", and thus perpetuate the horrors of war. As long as people allow themselves to be manipulated by power brokers who insist that because they are a part of their "group" they are "obliged" to fight for that group against that other "evil" group, we are stuck with this. > HOWEVER, to take the point of view (if it can be thus dignified) > advanced by Mr. Simon, is to deny that there is any difference > between GOOD and EVIL. I must say that this is a lesson which > has not been lost on Christian fundamentalists in the 1980's-- > a group of which I rather suspect Mr. Simon disapproves. To wit: > The Christian fundamentalists have reversed an historical trend > of latent hostility towards Judaism in order PRECISELY to make > the point that there is a difference between GOOD and EVIL. This is nonsense of the highest order. You obviously haven't heard a lot about a certain breed of fundamentalist Christian called Identity Christian, but no matter. One thing it seems that a lot of divisivist people need to learn is that as long as your perspective of "good" and "evil" are limited to the needs of your particular group over those of anyone else, you are doomed to perpetuate the horrors of war and violence. When your "difference" between GOOD and EVIL consists of "good is what's good for us and evil is what's bad for us", if your definition of "us" is some small petty group pitted against another rather than the whole human race, you are a contributor to an atmosphere that could lead to the destruction of the entire human race. And if that's not motivation enough to redefine us to be the whole of humanity, I don't know what is. > Pooh, pooh! Those nasty Americans are aiding the CONTRA's! > If you are a Nicaraguan leftist in 1985, I understand your > chagrin. Please remind me what this has to do with Palestine? > In Nicaragua there are poor people, historically suffering > people. There are also ambitious generals, and games of geopolitical > chess. In Israel there are a united people, the Jews, who are > peaceful people by any reasonable standard, people who can > claim a measure of self-righteousness. And they are physically > attacked constantly. Day after day, year in and year out we > hear the doubletalk rubbish from certain quarters about driving > the Jews into the sea. Is this GOOD? Thank you for providing a fine one-sided example of what I describe above. If your only concerns are the immediate short-term concerns of Jews in Israel, then for sure your short-term solutions would not resolve the long-term problems of people in the area with another (perhaps, what you would call "EVIL") perspective. > That viewpoint makes me sick--as it does all real people. Who > among us can live with the thought (REALLY LIVE WITH IT) that > there is no difference between GOOD and EVIL? If GOOD for > me is EVIL for you (and life is a zero sum game) than how can > I look at myself in the MIRROR? If it is all just stepping on > others to gain advancement for myself then what is the point? I don't know, with a perspective such as yours, how DO you look at yourself in the mirror? Perhaps by recognizing that you don't spend your life actually stepping on other people (I hope), but acknowledge that they ARE real other people, and that their wants and needs are as valid as yours, and taking that into account in your dealings with them, rather than calling the person ahead of you in line at the bank "evil". The same rules should apply to larger groupings of peoples as well. > For the Jews, the establishment of Israel was a positive thing, > a step forward. For the other Palestinian inhabitants, mostly Arab, > it need not have been a step backwards, but it undoubtedly has > worked out to be one. But I submit to you that it would not > be a positive thing for Palestinian Arabs to become pre-occupied > with taking revenge on the Jewish state. For that is TERRORISM. By the same token, those who are obsessed with obliterating or otherwise getting rid of the "Palestinian problem", even by ignoring it, in hopes that the people and their problems will just go away, is also not a positive thing. -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr