I can't bring myself to feel sorry for Lara Logan. What the hell did she expect to happen when she went there?
Really? So sad.
It was kind of her job...
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
I dunno, being treated like a human being instead of a sheep?Macbeth wrote:
I can't bring myself to feel sorry for Lara Logan. What the hell did she expect to happen when she went there?
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
Did she miss the reports of other journalist getting attacked? Did she not see the videos of rioting and clashes between protesters and the government? She didn't learn her lesson when she was arrested and kept blindfolded by the police? She didn't think anything was going to happen to her sexy white ass in a sexually repressed middle eastern country during a lawless revolution? She didn't think that maybe the people there wouldn't give a fuck about her journalist status?JohnG@lt wrote:
I dunno, being treated like a human being instead of a sheep?Macbeth wrote:
I can't bring myself to feel sorry for Lara Logan. What the hell did she expect to happen when she went there?
She should have known better. I can't find compassion for a person who willingly puts themselves in that sort of position.
Last edited by Macbeth (2011-02-21 16:23:17)
So what you are really saying is that people can't control their actions and that if you were in a consequence free environment like the environs of a mob you would rape a woman because you knew you could get away with it. Nice to know that your moral compass is so fucked up. It's like the 'she deserved to get raped, she shouldn't have dressed so provocatively' argument.Macbeth wrote:
Did she miss the reports of other journalist getting attacked? Did she not see the videos of rioting and clashes between protesters and the government? She didn't learn her lesson when she was arrested and kept blindfolded by the police? She didn't think anything was going to happen to her sexy white ass in a sexually repressed middle eastern country during a lawless revolution? She didn't think that maybe the people there wouldn't give a fuck about her journalist status?JohnG@lt wrote:
I dunno, being treated like a human being instead of a sheep?Macbeth wrote:
I can't bring myself to feel sorry for Lara Logan. What the hell did she expect to happen when she went there?
She should have known better. I can't find compassion for a person who willingly puts themselves in that sort of position.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
Seriously? You can't suck that bad at reading comprehension to conclude I condone or would commit rape from that paragraph...JohnG@lt wrote:
So what you are really saying is that people can't control their actions and that if you were in a consequence free environment like the environs of a mob you would rape a woman because you knew you could get away with it. Nice to know that your moral compass is so fucked up. It's like the 'she deserved to get raped, she shouldn't have dressed so provocatively' argument.Macbeth wrote:
Did she miss the reports of other journalist getting attacked? Did she not see the videos of rioting and clashes between protesters and the government? She didn't learn her lesson when she was arrested and kept blindfolded by the police? She didn't think anything was going to happen to her sexy white ass in a sexually repressed middle eastern country during a lawless revolution? She didn't think that maybe the people there wouldn't give a fuck about her journalist status?JohnG@lt wrote:
I dunno, being treated like a human being instead of a sheep?
She should have known better. I can't find compassion for a person who willingly puts themselves in that sort of position.
I'm saying it was extremely stupid for her to go there. Actually to go back there after her bad experience with Egyptian police a little while before. Women are treated like shit all across the Muslim/Arab world, you can't seriously expect a foreign women to be safe there especially during a revolution. Everyone in the U.S. lining up to say how terrible the whole thing was is being fucking stupid really. It's their region (Arab/Muslim) if you think that being an pretty white girl in that region means shit and that they are supposed to respect our journalist than you're an ethnocentric moron. Really.
She should have known the risk and if she did too bad, nobody forced her to go back.
And she didn't get raped. They beat the shit out of her though.
Yes, Islam says women must be rapedMacbeth wrote:
It's their region (Arab/Muslim) if you think that being an pretty white girl in that region means shit and that they are supposed to respect our journalist than you're an ethnocentric moron. Really.

Fuck Israel
You didn't even read the whole post and that wasn't the point. But whatever. Israel/Palenstine thread that way ----->Dilbert_X wrote:
Yes, Islam says women must be raped http://i.picasion.com/pic38/2555670bb9d … 79e29d.gifMacbeth wrote:
It's their region (Arab/Muslim) if you think that being an pretty white girl in that region means shit and that they are supposed to respect our journalist than you're an ethnocentric moron. Really.
when im right...im right
A demonstration commemorating International Women's Day was attacked on Tuesday afternoon in Cairo's Tahrir Square. More than 200 men charged on the women..police and military figures stood by.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree … tion-women
A demonstration commemorating International Women's Day was attacked on Tuesday afternoon in Cairo's Tahrir Square. More than 200 men charged on the women..police and military figures stood by.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree … tion-women
Last edited by 11 Bravo (2011-03-10 07:29:48)
backwards country being backwards shocker
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Wow, didn't see that coming.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13256587The Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Araby has urged the United States to support the declaration of an independent Palestinian state.
The call comes after the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah brokered last week by Egypt.
Both Israel and the US have said they will not deal with Hamas, and have until now opposed a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.
The statement marks yet another big shift in Egypt's foreign policy.
The new call marks a move away from Egypt's past compliance with the United States and Israel, which have strongly opposed the Palestinian authority's campaign to win backing for a unilateral declaration of statehood.
Mr Araby says Egypt now fully supports the Palestinian plan, and has urged the US to do the same.
He said the US should view a re-united Palestinian movement, including Hamas, as a positive development, and that it should persuade Israel to negotiate with it.
Both Israel and the US have insisted they will not deal with any side that includes Hamas, which they regard as a terrorist group.
Under President Hosni Mubarak Egypt used to take the same view, but the new government has moved quickly to distance itself from Israel, helping broker the Palestinian reconciliation deal last week.
Fuck Israel
So the revolution lead to the establishment of a regime that is similar to the prior one and we're back to square one. Meanwhile Tunis is headed for a repeat, Syria is still in the midst of a brutal civil war, Yemen is in the same boat as it was in 2 years ago, and all those uprisings in the Bahrains, Kuwait etc. were crushed by their governments.
Progress on all fronts.
In 50 years all the naysaysers will be humiliated. Democracy is coming to the middle east, like it or not.
In 50 years all the naysaysers will be humiliated. Democracy is coming to the middle east, like it or not.
Industrial development -> Technological advances -> modern Democracy
Dem
Demo
/Democrat
Proud to be one
Dem
Demo
/Democrat
Proud to be one
Progress? Uhm, no. Things have either turned for the worse or stayed exactly the way they are.
industrial and technological development doesn't mean social or political changeSpearhead wrote:
Industrial development -> Technological advances -> modern democracy
Ask Chinese republicans. All of those advances have endeared the people to their oppressive government.
Technophilia. The belief that technology is the cure for all of life's issues
What is the term for the belief that Democracy will cure all of life's issues?
Demophilia?
The middle east is progressing, their secular forces are fighting against the religious nuts, once and for all
But you people are too short-sighted. This is potentionally a 30 year phase they are going through. Give them time.
But you people are too short-sighted. This is potentionally a 30 year phase they are going through. Give them time.
Surprisingly has little to do with religion.
you have an extremely curious view of history and political events. not everything is on a grand, deterministic road, with 'democracy' as the final goal and governing telos/principle behind it all. democracy isn't the political panacea; it isn't the answer to all of societies difficult questions. democracy, furthermore, with its individualism and liberties, is a political system evolved for a specific world-historical moment in the west (i.e. post-enlightenment thinking). most of these regions have a social, cultural, and philosophical history that doesn't involve any sort of enlightenment flowering of individualism/liberalism. there is certainly no suggestion they will ever go that way: it's far from a 'logical' endpoint, or a 'natural' state of man (ha!). democracy (and your pro-democracy stance) involves just as much unblinking shit-swallowing and ideology as any other form of governance.Spearhead wrote:
The middle east is progressing, their secular forces are fighting against the religious nuts, once and for all
But you people are too short-sighted. This is potentionally a 30 year phase they are going through. Give them time.
to call the islamic middle-east and its history of social struggle and political rule a "phase" is laughable. that's like saying western democracy is a brief "phase". our political principles and propositions have roots over 2,500 years old. so are many that still hold suasive force in the middle-east today. frankly, if you knew anything about political science or world history, you will know that using the term 'progress' as a single-entendre, un-ironic, naively optimistic term... is laughable. there is no such thing, broadly defined, as 'progress' in politics. progress in living conditions and social conditions, perhaps, but not 'political' progress: it infers that we somehow know what the fuck we are doing when it comes to political rule, and hell, it even implies that we think we're improving at it. that kind of thinking is kind of out-of-step with postmodern (or late capitalist) reality.
i don't know, but 'gharbzadegi' غربزدگی is always useful in these discussions.taiwan wrote:
What is the term for the belief that Democracy will cure all of life's issues?
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-02-10 03:33:36)
Except the religious nuts are winning - Libya, Egypt, we even removed Saddam for them, Afghanistan will soon be more fundamentalist than ever, not to mention destabilising Pakistan...Spearhead wrote:
The middle east is progressing, their secular forces are fighting against the religious nuts, once and for all
But you people are too short-sighted. This is potentionally a 30 year phase they are going through. Give them time.
Fuck Israel
I say it is progress because the SECULAR, NON FUNDAMENTALIST people of the middle east are in a showdown. The Muslim Brotherhood has been exposed as incapable and unfit to govern. Libya, Tunisia, Syria, are in the midst of chaos. I see that as preferable to mass murdering dictators who hold on to power for 40 years. Nowhere did I say "democracy is going to solve all their problems", my point is that this is an international movement with many inter-connected factions and that this will be a positive shift in the middle-east. Their borders were written by Europeans and now they are exercising their independent, entirely autonomous political will. For possibly the first time in recent history.
Spearhead, secular, non-fundamentalist have always been fighting with fundamentalist for many, many years. Middle Eastern regimes have always been fighting with domestic organizations that threaten its power. The oppositions have almost always been crushed unless foreign governments intervene.
The only place where radical fundamentalist are losing is in Syria, a state that has been secular for quite some time. It's the only nation in the Middle East where any change of the establishment might occur(foreign aid) and it is to the extreme opposite of what you describe it as.
You're also making this naive assumption that somehow the secularist will not turn out to be just as dictatorial as the fundamentalist. Have we forgotten about Saddam Hussein? The Iraqi government pre-2003 was based on French Civil Law. The Shah was a pretty horrible guy and Assad is not much nicer.
I'm not making a case for any side but it is really larger then cynical fundamentalist v secularist. By viewing it this way you're neglecting many other reasons for discontent and uprisings in the Middle East. I do believe that there are legitimate complaints to be made about the separation of church(in this case the mosque) and the state but it's root of all problems. A good number of people in those Middle Eastern countries with Islam as the official state religion have no problem with it but are still calling for change within the establishment. It has less to do with religion and more to do with the little or no food, contaminated water, lack of education, no job prospects etc. Religion has been hijacked as a way to help keep those in power, stay in power.
The only place where radical fundamentalist are losing is in Syria, a state that has been secular for quite some time. It's the only nation in the Middle East where any change of the establishment might occur(foreign aid) and it is to the extreme opposite of what you describe it as.
You're also making this naive assumption that somehow the secularist will not turn out to be just as dictatorial as the fundamentalist. Have we forgotten about Saddam Hussein? The Iraqi government pre-2003 was based on French Civil Law. The Shah was a pretty horrible guy and Assad is not much nicer.
I'm not making a case for any side but it is really larger then cynical fundamentalist v secularist. By viewing it this way you're neglecting many other reasons for discontent and uprisings in the Middle East. I do believe that there are legitimate complaints to be made about the separation of church(in this case the mosque) and the state but it's root of all problems. A good number of people in those Middle Eastern countries with Islam as the official state religion have no problem with it but are still calling for change within the establishment. It has less to do with religion and more to do with the little or no food, contaminated water, lack of education, no job prospects etc. Religion has been hijacked as a way to help keep those in power, stay in power.