[Buddha-l] Buddhism and the "status quo"

[Dan Lusthaus]

Timothy,

   I don't think we can conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, Dan.   

Yes you can. Anti-semiticzionists do it everyday. That smoke screen is no longer offering any shelter. You slipped up; you need to rehearse. The line is "legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitism" [actually it often is, but it needn't be]. Being antizionist is being against the idea of a Jewish state, and since the same people do not declare themselves antimuslim-hegemony-ists, or deny that Irish should have a state, or Iranians, or... it's all smoke and mirrors and mere hypocrisy, and usually a profound ignorance and deep misinformation about the history of the region..But this is not the list for going into all that. (we can take this offlist if you are genuinely interested in why this is the case)

  In some respects, Ahmadjinedad and Chavez are saying what many are thinking, that the US' approach
  to working with others, whether friend or foe, has failed.  I think Chavez isn't too far off the mark when he calls Bush "The Devil".   

Of course he is. Bush, however repugnant and dangerous he is, is not the devil. Demonizing is a problem, regardless whether the target is the home team those "other guys unlike *me*". If Buddhism doesn't even teach that much, then it really is time to pack it in. Politicians play to particular crowds (you like to be played?; go back and read your Greek philos., e.g., Gorgias; that was rhetoric 101). Follow the rest of A & C's agenda and pronouncements, and the meaninglessness and cynical strategicness of their UN performances will look less exemplary. Geeze, let's help Iran build the A-bomb already and be done with the suspense -- that'll show that weasel Bush!.  


  As far as fascism is concerned, 

Well, we old soldiers of the Left like to throw that word around (much like the McCarthyites used to howl "pinko"), but as right-wing and dangerous as the Bush group is (and they are the puppets of the oil interests, including the Saudis, who bought them the white house, they're not autonomous republicans -- but you knew that), the rest of the right-wing in this country has grown disenfranchised with them. You wouldn't want to live in Iran, since if you did and applauded anyone who said anything remotely about A comparable to what A said about Bush, you'd be dead or in jail (Richard would be in the next cell). In short, you have no idea what fascism is. And you certainly wouldn't want to be a Jew in Chavez' country...

Dan
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