American Dream » Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:19 am wrote:Searcher08 » Sun Aug 11, 2013 3:01 pm wrote:AD,
Firstly, thank you for engaging.
Thank you for your honesty in saying that you dont read my stuff very often - I assumed it was because we have board interests that tend to be divergent (at least virtually) like mine in A.I. and yours in economics etc.
I think in some ways perhaps what you point to is R.I. being actually more like
parallel non-overlapping boards that just happen to be in the same virtual space...
I have really enjoyed your contributions on the TIDS thread, which I tend to dip into or graze and sometimes have spent hours there - I find it has been useful in extendng the post 9/11 shift I had (things are not what they seem) into history (things *were* not what they seemed). I even had a suggestion with it which is to create tumblr site in parallel with R.I. - I think you would get loads more people interested if you had them both ( and a younger demographic).
What you said about advertising about fundraising for Icke surprised me as I dont think anyone has used RI for fundraising anything - if he did, I dont think it was intended to be malicious, but it was certainly not a good idea. R.I. only fundraises for R.I. as far as I know.
I myself had not heard of Ken O'Keefe except in passing as a name on Mondoweiss; I felt sickened at the photo of how he had been beaten up and thought how frightening the Mavi Marmara experience must have been.
I think for slim the issue about Ken O'Keefe was that you pointed out he had either ties to or had been lied to by David Duke. Both of those are potentially good to know, yes?
For me personally, what I feel happens is that the type of post you just did - which lands with me as personal and authentic, is very different from what I am calling CopyPasta, where there is a one line comment from you, then pages and pages. There have been lots of times when you have said I dont respond to content, so I have then gone through something like that with a forensic toothcomb level of detail. I dont do this out of mean-spiritedness, but as a demonstration (in my world) of trying to rigorously engage, which is actually out of respect. So when a long reply is ignored by you, I feel pissed cos it was just a waste of time.
I think you have always seen the kickback from slad and slim and formerly C_W and myself and others as ultimately apologists for ugly tropes, while we have seen it not as uncritical support of these people but as an issue of thinking autonomy, and a reaction to how we are being communicated with - an experiential thing. I think both sides of this have not acknowledged what is underneath. Remember you can walk in sand dunes on the west coast of Ireland for miles and see the bones of familes who were left to starve to death out of sheer callousness - so 'holocaust denial' brings up extremely painful things for many Irish people.
The zionist implication is mirroring the anti-Semite implication in the other direction.
You actually posted the only sodding thread on RI about Norman Finklestein and were actually quite clear on being close to him in the scheme of things, which is deeply admirable IMHO - especially as you referring to his book The Holocaust Industry.
My own thing was you never seem to post anything critical of the specific zionist power structures in the US - like AIPAC, JINSA, ADL or within TIDS anything critical of the Jewish faith, when I think most others have been examined pretty intensely - which at times was very uncomfortable as TBH I had no idea of how much child abuse went on in Buddhist or Hindu contexts...
One difficulty that should be acknowledged between us is around the Rothschilds, because I see them as extremely important - along with the B.I.S. in Basel, but not because they are lizard people or even because they "own the world" or funded Hitler - which I consider far right disinfo, but because of the research into social network analysis into ownership concentrations of corporations. Although I do appreciate it may be an uncomfortable area.
I am sorry you think I am doing an intellectually dishonest reframe and I am sincerely unsure what you mean by that - unless it is putting Tony Greenstein articles through a
linguistic woodchipper? or similarly the MiB video??
Both Greenstein - who reminds me of the SWP types at Uni in the 70s - closed minded, apparatchiks of the worst kind - and MiB whose presence here was entirely manipulative (concerned only with his outcomes, no one elses) - when you post / invite them here - we probably felt similar to when you saw slim's Ken O'Keefe post?
Do you feel I do that to them but not to Icke?
I often feel that we veer really near to fruitful collaboration and then seem to zoom away at the last moment.
How would people feel about a trying peaceful resolution?
Please feel free to add to / re-word etc etc.
Everyone
1 Every one agrees that none of us are in any shape way or form or inclination or supporters of the far right like David Duke, racism like Shamir, zionism like Wolf Blitzer, AIPAC, JINSA, LIKUD
2 Some of us see Icke and Atzmon as varying degrees of unpleasent or misguided or wrong - the people who dont agree with this, honour and accept our fears, issues and concerns.
3 Some of us see Icke and Atzmon as positive and or provocative forces, the people who dont agree with this still honour and accept that we do.
Politeness
4 As a statement of politeness, in debate , we will not post cartoons, scrolling red texts, or loads of smilies.
5 That we will not argue by CopyPasta and avoid multiple repetition of quotes of self or others
6 That we will make an effort to be constructive and appreciative and seek value and assume good intent in the others.
In closing, I would like to thank you for writing it as I feel you did a lot of reflecting and it is probably the longest thing I have seen you post. This was the effort at empathy, that I talked about. I have tried to be honest and frank and sincerely build on it.
Searcher-
I wasn't going to respond to this at all- had put you on "ignore" and felt that was for the best. 98% of your Aloha is burned up with me but I have decided to go with the 2% that isn't.
** I appreciate you replying
Firstly, slim was indeed fundraising for Icke here at R.I.- I was rather shocked and horrified by this, to be quite honest.
** Was it because you need to feel that R.I. itself doesnt contribute to evil?
Secondly, for O'Keefe to have linkages to Duke is a very clear sign that something is wrong but his message would be problematic even if he did not.
* I can understand how you feel that. My feeling is that I have not walked in his shoes, as I have only ever been on one protest (the huge one in 2003 against Iraq); I feel uncomfortable condemning him as it comes across like me being an 'keyboard warrior'. I respect that you are coming from quite a different place.
Thirdly, as to copying articles, often that is all I am inclined to do, as with the earlier Gilad Atzmon thread. No offense intended to anyone but quite honestly it's not worth it to me to expend huge amounts of energy educating myself on all the minutia of an issue I don't know thoroughly when the likelihood that the people I am responding to directly will have a change of heart is small.
* I can appreciate that - would you be willing to consider that it can land as incredibly counter-productive and greatly reduce changing peoples minds? For myself, I sometimes felt a 'blizzard' of extra information arriving like this and at times would feel 'information overwhelm'.
I appreciate your honesty about knowing all the minutae - I have felt the same and that if I am not taking in ALL the detail ALL the time "Im Doing It Wrong!!!"
Especially because some of it is quite upsetting to me, the best I can do is post informative articles with little or no commentary added. I do this because I want more light than heat and do get emotionally triggered...
** I appreciate this might surprise you (and I feel embarrassed saying it), but until your previous post, I hadnt considered that.
At least one time when I ignored a long piece from you it was because I was way too upset and my goodwill had sunk too low to respond fruitfully. I can understand why that might be upsetting to you but also that's the nature of these fora too- we are busy people and have not contracted to give all our time and energy to this.
** I can understand that. Sometimes willingness changes over time from previous delayed emotional reactions bubbling up, so a person may have been willing to engage at 2pm, but seeing a long post later when they have 5 minutes at 7pm may just give a sinking feeling. Been there myself.
Sorry, but David Icke has I think a pitifully bad position on the
Protocols, Nazi mass murder and the like. That Irish people have suffered greatly does not change that.
** I'm hearing you say that you feel the same reading those things as perhaps I might reading an exonneration of the English around The Famine?
As to domestic zionist organizations, do you think I am not outside their meetings getting documented by creepy Feds? Do you think the ADL's domestic intelligence operations never cast their eye towards my own life and organizations I worked with? If so, think again. Just because we can find pet issues that one one of us did not post on proves little when there are a gazillion issues to impugn each other over.
** Thank you for this, as actually in real life I think that having a position similar to Norman Finklestein would have a real world negative cost? So I'm hearing you say that there is a real irony in being called out for not condemning them more when your ACTUAL real world activities are such that you face that sort of horrible intimidation, which most RI keyboard warriors have not.
As to the Rothschilds, I certainly believe they were one rich clan who exercised power these last few centuries. I know they still exist and do things but if you are going to convince me that they are masters of the universe types today, I will need to see some really compelling evidence of that.
** This is perhaps a tricky one for us. A phrase like 'master of the universe' pre-supposes I think of them like that, which I dont.
Regarding Greenstein- the critique of Atzmon should not be reduced to one personality caricature when there is lots of substantive critique to be engaged and the critique is not reducible to just one individual at all. Trying to reframe things in terms of branding the critique as one unsympathetic personality- I think we can and should do better than that.
** There are several things taking place here, which needs to be teased apart.
Lets take the debate out of R.I. for a moment and go to mondoweiss. Assume good intent from the debaters. There were similar issues that surfaced there. There were some people who found it excruciating to even talk about; others who felt the debate shouldnt be taking place; others who thought he had interesting things to say and that the extreme reaction to Atzmon itself was one of them. In other words, we (at RI) are not alone in the structure of the debate.
We disagree on Greenstein; I couldnt watch more than a couple of minutes of him on video before wanting to 'custard pie' him. It isnt just 'not liking' him. I see his approach as embodying something negative and divisive and controlling. I feel suffocated reading him.
So when you have posted lots of stuff from him (that also I may have been critiqued and was ignored as we disussed before) - the effect is perhaps like you finding long rambling articles from St0rmf0nt here.
As to your proposed peaceful resolution, I don't think think we are all agreed about Atzmon, Shamir, O'Keefe, Mullins, Bollyn, the Collins brothers, "Rothschild Zionism" etc. much at all. So I think what you are proposing is in danger of being so superficial as to not be "real".
** I was thinking of the old conflict resolution tool -
looking and map out what we Agree on, then map out what we Disagree on, then map out what is Irrelevant. Also you were mixing people (some of whom I have not heard of ) and ideas.
My feeling is a hope for unity or at least an acknowledgement and acceptance and respect for difference.
I understand that plenty of people here at R.I, support right wing militias, world jewish/"zionist" conspiracy models, and other such things but it really does horrify me and I do think it's bad for the potential of a Movement- so there's the rub.
** I appreciate you saying that - I can sense how appalled you are at that.
I was really surprised when you said that (and feel lots of people would be).
As to what we post, not posting
ad hominems and not posting material with little or no meaningful content is something I would like us all to agree to.
Not arguing by cut and paste: when is it bad to post articles, when is it good? As indicated above I have sometimes felt it was the best thing to do and I think it differed profoundly from much of what slad has been doing here on this thread.
** Each of us will have a very different perceptions of what is meaningful content, that may vary from the other person - (eg I am into A.I. , you are into economics) ; I think it is important not to back aware from an issue on the basis of 'how would we decide it?' I appreciate you see your reasons as differnt from slad, but the behaviour (from either of you) will create predictably negative results in terms of understanding, empathy, temperature etc.
I think that there is another aspect of this which is the situation has a huge factor of perceptions, of how each of us are seeing things - and perceptions are covering the values / needs conversation - an example being my perception "AD doesnt fight the ADL" when you may have been the only person on RI subjected to their 'work'.
On debate by CopyPasta - my perspective is that the reasons may have been different but that the result was absolutely the same and the effect is to prolong threads out of all recognition. It is the one thing which for me personally would hugely improve the board experience for everyone.
Perhaps like a California wildfire, the best thing might be to create a firebreak and let it burn itself out - the idea being any 'firefighting' added to it will just prolong it. This nearly happened on this thread, for example, but you started it again.
Would you be willing to not CopyPasta as an experiment? Because I feel it would rapidly reduce the temperature? And I hope others would follow suit...
"
That we will make an effort to be constructive and appreciative and seek value and assume good intent in the others."- yes, absolutely I do think this is a good idea. I think consistently avoiding
ad hominems, false attributions, unfair/illogical arguments in general, and any and all negative jamming campaigns would really help make this more possible.
Thanks for your efforts on this.