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ridemycamel has requested the following:
Unrelated, but I want you to rant about any aspect of the Palestinian conflict and your involvement as a Jew demon in human form. Bitch about Palestinians, Israelis, other Jews, whites, etc. You can direct it anyway you want, and of course, bonus points if you use racial slurs.
'Cause I haven't ranted about that, ever. Oy. Actually, I suppose I haven't ranted on it for awhile, since it has a tendency to not change very much, despite what the media seems to think. But we just had Israeli Apartheid Week here in Hogtown, so the timing's good. The aspect I'm going to rant on specifically is the Palestinian-Israeli debate on campus, since that's where I was all last week.
The following rules are now in effect:
Before bringing up suicide bombing in an argument, you are now obligated to explain why it's automatically worse than any other sort of bombing. Make the explanation good.
When someone's giving a lecture and you want to take issue with what he or she says, wait for the Q&A session. Why don't people understand that?
"Accredited media" means "accredited media," not "some schmuck with a video camera." If someone doesn't want to be videotaped, it's polite to not videotape them. Also, no one actually believes that you're making an independent documentary.
"Questions" mean exactly that, not "long-winded statements describing in detail how your party is going to solve the conflict." STFU.
The latest atrocity is not "the worst [blank] ever." Newsflash: It probably isn't, and it's all a matter of perspective anyway. I don't care if Desmond Tutu says that Israeli apartheid is worse than South African apartheid; it's bad political rhetoric to rank your suffering in comparison with someone else's. Your situation is dire enough without exaggeration.
Zionists are no longer allowed to tell pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Zionist Jews: "You should be ashamed of yourself." Wow, no one's ever told me that before. I'm now totally ashamed of myself. I think what convinced me this time was how you shouted it in my ear. Asshat.
White people must now pass an IQ test before being issued keffiyehs.
The only person who's allowed to call me a kike isbrownfist. No, I don't care if you called yourself a kike first.
The phrase "a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine" is now banned from political discourse unless you're being deliberately ironic.
Palestinians are not responsible for anything the President of Iran says.
Stop coming up with conspiracy theories. Don't you have enough to worry about without making shit up?
No, I don't hate myself. I probably hate you, though.
If you've prefaced your statement with "I think we can all agree..." I probably don't agree with what you're about to say.
Supporters of a secular, democratic, one-state solution do not believe that Israelis should be sent back to Europe. Therefore, telling me to go back to Europe since Canada is on First Nations' land is not a very effective argument.
This is official notice that Jonathan Jaffit is kicked out of the Tribe. But he should never be banned from campus events because he makes them far more entertaining than they otherwise would be.
Anyone have anything else to add? I have a feeling I'm leaving stuff out.
ridemycamel has requested the following:Unrelated, but I want you to rant about any aspect of the Palestinian conflict and your involvement as a Jew demon in human form. Bitch about Palestinians, Israelis, other Jews, whites, etc. You can direct it anyway you want, and of course, bonus points if you use racial slurs.
'Cause I haven't ranted about that, ever. Oy. Actually, I suppose I haven't ranted on it for awhile, since it has a tendency to not change very much, despite what the media seems to think. But we just had Israeli Apartheid Week here in Hogtown, so the timing's good. The aspect I'm going to rant on specifically is the Palestinian-Israeli debate on campus, since that's where I was all last week.
The following rules are now in effect:
Before bringing up suicide bombing in an argument, you are now obligated to explain why it's automatically worse than any other sort of bombing. Make the explanation good.
When someone's giving a lecture and you want to take issue with what he or she says, wait for the Q&A session. Why don't people understand that?
"Accredited media" means "accredited media," not "some schmuck with a video camera." If someone doesn't want to be videotaped, it's polite to not videotape them. Also, no one actually believes that you're making an independent documentary.
"Questions" mean exactly that, not "long-winded statements describing in detail how your party is going to solve the conflict." STFU.
The latest atrocity is not "the worst [blank] ever." Newsflash: It probably isn't, and it's all a matter of perspective anyway. I don't care if Desmond Tutu says that Israeli apartheid is worse than South African apartheid; it's bad political rhetoric to rank your suffering in comparison with someone else's. Your situation is dire enough without exaggeration.
Zionists are no longer allowed to tell pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Zionist Jews: "You should be ashamed of yourself." Wow, no one's ever told me that before. I'm now totally ashamed of myself. I think what convinced me this time was how you shouted it in my ear. Asshat.
White people must now pass an IQ test before being issued keffiyehs.
The only person who's allowed to call me a kike is
brownfist. No, I don't care if you called yourself a kike first.The phrase "a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine" is now banned from political discourse unless you're being deliberately ironic.
Palestinians are not responsible for anything the President of Iran says.
Stop coming up with conspiracy theories. Don't you have enough to worry about without making shit up?
No, I don't hate myself. I probably hate you, though.
If you've prefaced your statement with "I think we can all agree..." I probably don't agree with what you're about to say.
Supporters of a secular, democratic, one-state solution do not believe that Israelis should be sent back to Europe. Therefore, telling me to go back to Europe since Canada is on First Nations' land is not a very effective argument.
This is official notice that Jonathan Jaffit is kicked out of the Tribe. But he should never be banned from campus events because he makes them far more entertaining than they otherwise would be.
Anyone have anything else to add? I have a feeling I'm leaving stuff out.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 05:05 pm (UTC)As for being self-hating, I thought that was the proper way for any Jew to be. I don't know why it should have anything to do with Zionism, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 05:09 pm (UTC)It's true that a measure of self-hatred is crucial to being a good Hebe, but the amount of decreases the farther one gets from Brooklyn. It's far better to be neurotic.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 05:44 pm (UTC)I would add...also not responsible for the policies of various North African countries, or for anything Sadaam did, or for what the Germans, British, Russians, etc. etc. said or did.
Good list! :D
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 06:29 pm (UTC)Palestinian mothers breed weapons of mass destruction!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 06:37 pm (UTC)But...I thought we liked democracy! o_O
A certain cad wanted to make t-shirts with arrows pointing down and the caption "Demographic Threat." It was one of his more clever moments.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 08:12 pm (UTC)On the intarwebs, however, the first person who links to Rense.com immediately loses the argument.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 08:58 pm (UTC)I would say that suicide bombing is worse than conventional military bombing because military bombing should have an intended military target (even if it misses) whereas suicide bombing is often random or designed only to produce maximum carnage among civilians.
More importantly, military bombing is often the result of a democratic decision to go to war whereas suicide bombing can be taken up by any crank for no reason. Because military bombing is undertaken by a state and the bomber will presumably be around to answer for it, there is a potential moderating effect. The suicide bomber will never have to face consequences because he or she is dead.
Furthermore, the bombing state is more likely to negotiate because it is unified and has its own goals, risks, and restrictions. One could argue that the suicide bomber acts in conjunction with a terrorist organization, organized and with its own concerns, but these organizations are different from states in that they do not answer to laws, treaties, or the will of a larger constituent, and their members aren't bound to do their organization's bidding in the same way a subject is legally bound to obey his or her state. For example, if a minority in a state wants to continue a war, it can't break away and continue the struggle without a civil war, but 40 percent of a terrorist organization can easily splinter.
So conventional military bombing is somewhat better than and fundamentally different from suicide bombing.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:21 pm (UTC)Military bombing typically results in civilian casualties; far more people have been killed by state-sanctioned bombing than by terrorist groups. Military targets are typically not located on remote islands where no civilians are allowed. Civilian casualties, given this, are not an accident -- they are a calculated part of the equation, regardless of how bad the government claims to feel about it. (At least terrorist groups are honest about not caring who they kill.)
If there's someone in a crowd that I feel like killing, and I fire my gun randomly at him, I am still morally and legally responsible for everyone else I hit, even accidentally.
Because military bombing is undertaken by a state and the bomber will presumably be around to answer for it, there is a potential moderating effect. The suicide bomber will never have to face consequences because he or she is dead.
That makes sense. But one could also argue that the suicide bomber is more moral because he is willing to die for his beliefs, whereas the state's decision-makers are not.
One could argue that the suicide bomber acts in conjunction with a terrorist organization, organized and with its own concerns, but these organizations are different from states in that they do not answer to laws, treaties, or the will of a larger constituent, and their members aren't bound to do their organization's bidding in the same way a subject is legally bound to obey his or her state.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of what Israel and the United States have agreed is the Palestinian state. As a state government, is their violence now legitimate?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:26 pm (UTC)By which I mean that theoretically there is a moderating effect; the average person is not going to take his own life unless he's got what he thinks is a really good reason. Whereas someone who just gets to write an order or press a button (see icon) has little to lose and potentially far less restraint.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:57 pm (UTC)If there's someone in a crowd that I feel like killing, and I fire my gun randomly at him, I am still morally and legally responsible for everyone else I hit, even accidentally.
Military bombing has resulted in more civilian casualties than terrorist bombing because of the capabilities of the state. If any given terrorist organization had the power to produce and launch the same number of bombs as a state, they would.
Civilian casualties are inevitable in a military bombing, but the difference in motive is still important. The military can bomb a target as a means of defense; the suicide bomber, by definition, isn't concerned with his or her own safety and, given the suicide bomber's targets, isn't concerned with protecting his or her own people. If America blows up what they think is a terrorist camp it is different from a terrorist blowing up what they know is a daycare. Intentionally targeting a harmless a civilian target is worlds different from accidentally killing a worker at an enemy military facility. The terrorist's motive is never to stop a potential threat but instead to coerce a group of people through bloodshed.
That makes sense. But one could also argue that the suicide bomber is more moral because he is willing to die for his beliefs, whereas the state's decision-makers are not.
The suicide bomber forecloses any possibility of further dialogue, any relationship other than violence. The state's decision makers, while lacking the same zeal and personal responsibility, bomb for a future political goal that could include peace.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of what Israel and the United States have agreed is the Palestinian state. As a state government, is their violence now legitimate?
Yes, their violence is more legitimate. By electing Hamas, the Palestinians have agreed that they want this violence on their behalf. Any given bombing might be immoral but at least the bombings won't be acts of random violence. A group that can collectively agree to violence can also agree to non violence.
I'm not saying that I like war, or that any particular war is justified, but that military bombing[1] is the lesser of two evils. I think war can be necessary but the suicide bombing of a group of civilians is never justified.
[1] Nuclear warfare and carpet bombing being the obvious exceptions.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 01:18 am (UTC)On a more abstract level, it strikes me as the difference between two murderers. One has a knife, and stabs his victim in a heated, passionate moment. The other has pause to consider it, and hires an assassin to shoot the victim. All other things equal, both acts are reprehensible, but the law might assign manslaughter to the first, and first-degree murder to the second.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 01:38 am (UTC)More later, I'm going to be late to work.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 04:07 pm (UTC)No. I don't think "most" of Americans supported the Iraq war. I think "most" of the people the spin doctors deigned to talk to might have. But that's entirely different.
I'm only culpable for this war- or any other atrocities committed by those who think they're my government- inasmuch as I maybe haven't done enough to let them know how pissed off I am about it all. Which I am.
To me, your response about the difference between military violence versus "terrorist" violence shows me that you operate in a completely different paradigm than I do- the one that says that just because violence is state-sponsored that its okay, or somehow more okay than other violence. I can't wrap my head around that one at all.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 12:34 am (UTC)I think you have failed to make the distinction between target and method. Is a suicide bomber against a military target any worse than one dropped from an aircraft? Is a 'military' strike aimed at civilians (or aimed without regard for civilian casualties) any better than a suicide bomber?
Hiroshima, City of a Thousand Bars
Date: 2006-02-22 01:32 am (UTC)I address that in a subsequent comment: "Nuclear warfare and carpet bombing being the obvious exceptions."
I think you have failed to make the distinction between target and method. Is a suicide bomber against a military target any worse than one dropped from an aircraft? Is a 'military' strike aimed at civilians (or aimed without regard for civilian casualties) any better than a suicide bomber?
A suicide bomber against a military target is "better" than a suicide bomber against a civilian target but the suicide bomber still fails to engage in the sort of "collective bargaining" that makes state-to-state wars more effective, decisive, and representative.
A military strike purposefully aimed at civilian targets is morally equivalent to suicide bombing. While the military strike might reflect the will of the people, its perpetrators should be tried and convicted by someone. I would argue that a democratic state is less likely to commit these kinds of obvious atrocities, compared to a paramilitary organization, because of voter squeamishness, international opinion & law, and "hearts and minds campaigns." But when it happens, in an ideal world, there would be repercussions.
Re: Hiroshima, City of a Thousand Bars
Date: 2006-02-22 06:33 am (UTC)You don't have the advantage of having watched B-52s take off to bomb Vietnam, nor did you see how many bombs they were dropping. If you can find the footage, go look at it, though the impact isn't nearly what it was watching 30 B-52s, each with 51 750 lb bombs take off at 30 second intervals. Now, back in those days, a B-52 dropping a much heavier hydrogen bomb from altitude at best could be expected to hit within 300 meters of its target - 750 lb. conventional bombs used in carpet bombing would be considerably less accurate, not that carpet bombing was particularly concerned with accuracy. Carpet bombing (at least as practiced in Vietnam) really wasn't aimed at any particular military target - it's designed to deny the landscape to anyone else, civilian or not - and too bad if you were in the way. Similarly, the use of Agent Orange wasn't used to attack a military target - it was used to deny the civilian populations means of subsistance because they might have fed Viet Cong or NVA troops. Also in Vietnam, My Lai was not (as the US government would have people believe) an isolated incident - there were probably hundreds of My Lais. One of the reasons a good number of Vietnam vets had such bad psychological problems when they came back is because they knew that they had done things, under orders, that qualified as war crimes. Declaring an area a "free-fire zone" doesn't make the people in it any less civilians.
Fast-forwarding to the current conflict in Iraq, I would suggest that you read a number of non-US sources about what happened in Fallujah. Actions there have included using white phosphorus (definitely illegal under international law) against humans, as well as targeting civilians.
What suicide bombing has going for it is that it's not violence-at-a-distance - in some sense, the perpetrator is taking ultimate responsibility for the action - and the person also has to be both convinced that the target is justified and that it is worth the price. While we may not agree with those evaluations, it seems that a suicide bomber is taking on more responsibility for their actions than someone dropping a bomb from thousands of feet in the air.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:47 pm (UTC)When someone was expressing outrage that families of suicide bombers were receiving financial compensation for their self-immoliated relatives, I wondered allowed how much bombing crews are paid to drop bombs from a safe out-of-anti-aircraft-range and get to return home in one piece.
Oooh! That one started a donnybrook, I'll tell you what!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 10:18 pm (UTC)Love the icon.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:51 pm (UTC)New Rule: Zionists cannot keep on claiming that the Palestinians want to push them into the sea!
WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY AFRAID OF???!!!!
Zionists act like Jews cannot swim (is the sea not kosher or something), and that the state of Israel does not have fucking ships, boats etc. The Palestinians are not, I repeat ARE NOT, trying to push Jews in to the sea. No one creates a political movement based on pushing the Jews into the sea. Not even Hitler tried to push the Jews into the sea, he made you into lampshades etc. I mean its all fucked up, and I am not celebrating his deeds but lets not keep on citing the same old "Jews into the sea" bullshit. I have no fucking clue why Zionists are scared of the sea, I mean the last time you dealt with one it fucking parted for you, so there is no reason to doubt that it wont happen again (OH WAIT, I FORGOT, THATS A FUCKING MYTH TOO!). The Palestinians want a state, not a sea full of dead Jews. It doesnt make for good fishing, and long walks on the beach.
And, as for suicide bombers. Suicide bombing is no better or worse than conventional bombing, they both kill people. If you read the ideas of Hamas, they argue that all people who live in the Occupied Territories are soldier or will become soldiers (Israel has a mandatory draft for both men and women). Thus, there is no such thing as a civilian. The Americans and Israeli's have a great little term called "collateral damage" which ensures that their fucking bomber pilots are not responsible for civilian death and thus not accountable. Both sides are fucked up and should stop doing it. If you have such a problem with suicide bombing then fine, give the Palestinians the latest bomber and fighter planes, and let the penis waving begin. This is what the whole thing is about. A bunch of men getting together and waving their dicks around to see whose is biggest. Just fucking stop it!
To conclude, no one is pushing the Jews into the sea, so put your penises away and play nice with the Palestinians!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 10:14 pm (UTC)Also, hee.
They're both fucked up, but...
Date: 2006-02-22 12:13 am (UTC)Conventional bombing is to suicide bombing as imprisonment is to kidnapping. In a democratic state, the majority can have a law changed so that someone isn't imprisoned for a particular crime, but with kidnapping the only want to stop it from happening is to find and physically overcome the kidnappers. If my country is bombing someone, it's because we voted in someone who wants to kill people. But if someone is suicide bombing, there's nothing I can say about it. If any given terrorist group had the latest bomber and fighter planes, it wouldn't change the fact that they're operating without the mandate of the people.
But now that Hamas is a democratically elected government, I hope that the Palestinian people will make them accountable...
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 11:17 pm (UTC)I dont agree necessarily. Some Palestinians want to push Israelis into the sea, "pushing into the sea" being a metaphor for something ickier. There are a lot of people there that are suffering and stupid (like anywhere else! sorry, lots of people just are kinda dim. everywhere.) You think suffering doesnt make you cruel? Look at children that have been beaten by their parents. Let's stop imagining that Palestinians are some saintly nation. They're PEOPLE. Like ANYONE ELSE. A huge amount of them have been through completely inhumane circumstances for years. That has effects and they're not pretty. Maybe if they stop being trampled on it will be less, two minutes years decades who the hell knows. But Palestinians are not a monolith, and there are places that are like dirty little cut off corners, where you dont hear what goes on there except when the army invades and kills or someone escapes and kills, and if you think that Ramallah politico opinions or charismatic Hamas spokespeople define "the Palestinians", maybe on a superficial level, some basic common denominator, but spurts of violence tell another part of the story.
Every person I know that lived in Nablus has heard people talking about wanting/wishing to kill all the Jews. Children, rich children, sad men in Balata camp, people. The way you wish for a beautiful mansion for your mother, not in the sense that you're going to do it.
I was arguing with someone about this, and he said, "but wouldnt someone who has lived through the Holocaust feel the same way? or someone living during the Holocaust, in a concentration camp?" I was angry at the time, but re-recalling what he wrote, it is a valid psychological comparison in a lot of ways.
(Israelis are the same, in terms of diversity and range of ugly to enlightened in opinion. I mean there are plenty of Israelis that really believe Palestinians should be killed. There are plenty that think lovely things about ending the occupation and whatnot. I just want to make it clear I'm not putting one side out to be monsters and not the other. And- just for saying's sake- I'm pointing out one part of what I saw living there, because the absence of that aspect was presented was presented in a definitive manner. The side that I mentioned is also not definitive. But it does exist. It sucks to accept that. But can you really have love for people if you don't truly accept them, good and bad? Knowing that some Palestinians think terrible things doesnt change their cause. It just means they're human.)
(that got super heavy. especially in response to what seemed to be a jokey post by you. what i really wanted to write was- as follows--)
But double-ha, and points for style,
and "Just fucking stop it!" is always true. As is the last sentence.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 11:35 pm (UTC)the mandatory draft includes option for civil service instead of army service, not just for religious. people who do civil service might work in kids shelters, all sorts of social and community work. Palestinian Israelis do not go to the army, and Druze and Bedouin are more and more deciding not to enter the army. The Haifa bombing a few years back killed a bunch of very sweet Druze waiters. They had not been to the army, and one can't be sure they would have gone. Is every woman necessarily a mother and a wife? Is every Israeli necessarily a soldier? People are always more complicated than certain ideologies would make them out to be.
there is also army work that does not involve occupying the west bank, like patroling the northern borders.
Finally, one can certainly read the ideas of Hamas, but that does not make the ideas of Hamas true. One can read documents from the Israeli Army explaining the purity of arms and the highest degree of humanity that the army practices. They, Hamas, the Israeli army, whoever, they can write, and we can read. While reading is good, it is also important for us to use our brains. The Israeli army can say that everyone killed or wounded in Balata camp a few days ago was a terrorist or a militant or was carrying a toy gun that was really real and so are valid targets. Hamas can write that everyone in the "Occupied Territories" of 48, if you prefer to call them that, "is or will be a soldier", and so they are valid targets. Kahane can write that all Palestinian Israelis are a threat to Jewish Israelis, man woman child or womb, and so all are valid targets. They can write, and we can read.
We can do more than that, too. We can criticize. And sometimes, we should. I dont really know when. But there must be times, there must be things so wrong, that they call out to be criticized. I dont know if suffering gives someone a free card to play in terms of criticism of immoral things. Maybe it does. Maybe I will try to pray on that. It's a big question, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 10:06 pm (UTC)Great post/comments.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 10:46 pm (UTC)I loved these:
White people must now pass an IQ test before being issued keffiyehs.
Stop coming up with conspiracy theories. Don't you have enough to worry about without making shit up?
Supporters of a secular, democratic, one-state solution do not believe that Israelis should be sent back to Europe. Therefore, telling me to go back to Europe since Canada is on First Nations' land is not a very effective argument.
How about, bringing up Joan Peters is grounds for public flogging.
You never commented on my entry a bit back about my friend's wacko convert mom. For shame, meydeleh.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 01:06 am (UTC)That's legit, but I like its reference to our immigrant history.
How about, bringing up Joan Peters is grounds for public flogging.
God, yeah. Fortunately there's not a lot of that going around here either.
You never commented on my entry a bit back about my friend's wacko convert mom. For shame, meydeleh.
Oh my! Link! I've had long periods of not keeping up with my friends list lately.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 01:23 am (UTC)Linky!
http://seaya.livejournal.com/143885.html
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 02:49 pm (UTC)I have no idea; probably not. Things that happen in New York tend to carry more cultural weight than things that happen in Halifax, which is patently unfair given the overall coolness of Halifax.
http://seaya.livejournal.com/143885.html
*gapes*
Wow, how did I miss that? That's awesome, and by awesome, I mean holyshitscary. I don't know whether I would be laughing my ass off or fleeing in terror.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 04:45 am (UTC)What is the Unpopular Front and how to I subscribe to its newsletter?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 02:37 pm (UTC)The Unpopular Front tends to mean several groups I'm in. (For awhile I was calling Al-Awda Toronto the Unpopular Front for the Liberation of Judea.) But right now it refers to Toronto ARA. We've got a mailing list, but you have to live in Toronto and be on it.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 11:31 pm (UTC)Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 07:08 am (UTC)On the show, the Narn are a vaguely reptilian race (always sci-fi shorthand for "bad aliens") who have red eyes, seem always angry and come from a desert planet. They have recently freed their home world from the Centari Empire (now Republic) in a protracted guerilla war. Despite this, the audience is supposed to sympathize with the Centari because they are the most human looking of all the show's aliens and their ambassador, Londo Molari, is quite the charmer. By contrast, the Narn ambassador, J'Kar, initially comes across as a childish, petulant bully who is not very bright and easily flustered. However, as the series goes on, viewers learn more about the atrocities that occurred under the occupation and J'Kar becomes more competent and sympathetic. I seem to recall Molari once calling J'Kar a "terrorist," but I'm not certain about that.
If it is commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then Molari's backstabbing, ingratiating manner, coupled with his thick Eastern European accent almost make him an anti-Semitic caricature. (By contrast, J'Kar almost speaks the Queen's English.)
If so, I don't know how much this is offset by the coolest character on the show, Lieutenant Commander Ivanova, being a Russian Jew. The character had flirted with "Neo-Communism" in her youth (It's set in the future) and her starship sports a big honking red star on its back. The character is also incredibly pessimistic. In one episode in which the station had averted utter destruction, another character breathes, "Well the station didn't go boom."
Ivanova nonchalantly responds, "Boom tomorrow. Tomorrow, go boom."
Have you seen the show?
Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 07:19 am (UTC)I'm a bad geek.
Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 07:26 am (UTC)Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 10:58 am (UTC)Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 08:17 pm (UTC)Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 02:53 pm (UTC)Countdown to someone mentioning Firefly in 10...9...8...
Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 09:01 pm (UTC)Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 09:35 pm (UTC)Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-23 03:16 am (UTC)Also it's G'Kar ;).
Also, the depiction of Ivanova's "Jewishness" was always very very hokey/inaccurate/overromanticized/stuck on as an afterthought. Plus, I doubt there will be Jews in Russia at that time in the future.
"No boom Today, Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow." is the quote.
:-D
I'm a dork.
But yeah, I see the parallels slightly.
Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-23 03:28 am (UTC)Yeah, but I think that's not mentioned until late in the series, hence the always angry desert people stereotype applies to the audience's initial impressions.
Also it's G'Kar ;)
I caught myself immediately after wards.
Also, the depiction of Ivanova's "Jewishness" was always very very hokey/ ...
I cede the point.
"No boom Today, Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow." is the quote.
Again, I'm a bad geek.
Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-23 03:33 am (UTC)And no, you aren't a bad geek.
I enjoy your comic book posts, fwiw. ;)
Re: Quasi-Off Topic
Date: 2006-02-23 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 04:49 pm (UTC)Truly Off-Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 09:14 pm (UTC)Have you read Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Violent Cases yet? And you haven't told me if you are interested in Howard Cruise's Stuck Rubber Baby. I sent you an email about it - it has an intro written by Tony Kushner(!)
Thus far, the following books are in the box:
1) All your stuff, except The Master and the Margarita which I haven't finished yet.
2) David Boswell's ultimate "Fire your Boss" comic, Reid Fleming: World's Toughest Milkman. The title is the premise. Lots of sabotage and property destruction by both labor and management. The company CEO, may remind you of Binkus. It's drawn in a B&W cross hatch style with a 1930 feel which compliments its Marx Brothers / Three Stooges sensibilities. Don't let that scare you - trust me: It's funny.
3) Alan Moore's hilarious Top Ten (the actual Alan Moore written issues, not the new guy that sucks). I imagine you read a great deal of cop-negative literature and this may balance it out. Think of it as reading the enemy. The premise is the world has sent all of it's super-powered beings to live in one city and that city needs a police force. Imagine The Watchmen crossed with Hill Street Blues only funny. One character sports the kitty cat Jolly Roger you signed your last note with on his chest. The first two issues / chapters establish place and character. Things get going in three and if you are not addicted and in stitches by six, you are not really Rachel.
4) Welcome to the Zone, another David Chelsea comic about communist folksingers and performance artists in a version of NYC inhabited by space aliens, mutants and undead skeletons. This one is short because it is done entirely in his pointillism style.
5) A bunch of Kyle Baker books: The Cowboy Wally Show, Why I Hate Saturn, You Are Here and Undercover Genie In addition, I'm including Baker's collaboration with Boondocks creator Aaron McGruger: Birth of a Nation: A Comic Novel. In it, the residents of predominantly black East St. Louis secede from the U.S. after another 2000-style disenfranchisement stunt.
Comments?
Re: Truly Off-Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 09:23 pm (UTC)Squee!
Have you read Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Violent Cases yet? And you haven't told me if you are interested in Howard Cruise's Stuck Rubber Baby. I sent you an email about it - it has an intro written by Tony Kushner(!)
I haven't read either, so by all means send.
Re: Truly Off-Topic
Date: 2006-02-22 09:31 pm (UTC)Those two books I was asking about are the only potentially depressing ones in the lot - everything else is comedy.
Also, Firefly (above)
It does have a border. Yours needs a border.
Date: 2006-02-22 09:34 pm (UTC)I'm in an unusually good mood lately (despite the Ranty McRantypants) so depressing comics should be okay.
Re: It does have a border. Yours needs a border.
Date: 2006-02-22 09:41 pm (UTC)And the boss in Why I Hate Saturn could be Binkus too. I've never met Binkus, so all I know of are bits of Binkusness that you have passed on. Is he fat and bald? Bearded or not?
Re: It does have a border. Yours needs a border.
Date: 2006-02-22 09:49 pm (UTC)Discussion of Binkus in detail probably ought to be limited to locked posts. ;)
Re: It does have a border. Yours needs a border.
Date: 2006-02-22 09:55 pm (UTC)It would be perfect for my others, but this one needs a line as fat as those around the characters' faces and maybe slightly scraggly.
You shouldn't have told me you are in a good mood: Now I'm taking advantage of it ;)
Re: It does have a border. Yours needs a border.
Date: 2006-02-22 10:03 pm (UTC)I'm mainly in a good mood 'cause I had an extended lunch break with a friend this afternoon. My good mood will dissipate the moment I realize that it means I'll have to stay later to get all my work done.
Re: It does have a border. Yours needs a border.
Date: 2006-02-22 10:12 pm (UTC)That will do fine, thanks!
My good mood will dissipate the moment I realize that it means I'll have to stay later to get all my work done.
I won't tell.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 10:41 pm (UTC)haa! too true.
not yet finished with list tho. but hee so far! :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 10:48 pm (UTC)