Blogger: Smears and mudslinging keep US the most ignorant nation on earth

[BurtWorm]

From "Once Upon a Time," a blog by Arthur Silber:

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/07/impossibility-of-discussing-anything.html

The Impossibility of Discussing Anything at All


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I personally became painfully aware of the smear tactics that concern me when I began writing seriously about foreign policy in the spring and summer of 2003. Because I offered an extensive critique of the Bush administration's embrace of an aggressively interventionist foreign policy, a policy that history demonstrates always fails, always leads to destruction, and always leads to results that are the opposite of those intended by the interventionists themselves, the same people who had previously found considerable worth in my writing consigned me to "the other side." For many people, I was a "Saddamite," a particularly vicious and dishonest smear that I discussed just recently.

Let us be very clear about the purpose of all such smears. Very simply, it is to prevent all questioning and criticism, and to end debate. That's all. The dishonest smearers hope that their intimidation will cause those with differing views to shut up and go away, never to be heard from again.

But the irrationality of our public discussion is revealed in all its pathetic, emotion-driven futility most strongly whenever the subject of Israel comes up. It is only the debased nature of our discourse that requires me to state obvious truths, which it would be completely unnecessary to identify in this manner if people were capable of thinking in the most rudimentary form:

1. It is not "anti-Semitic" to criticize the state of Israel, even in the severest of terms, without more. A state is only a political designation, referring to the government that controls a specified geographic area. The state of Israel is not coextensive with the "Jews" or with the "Jewish people." The concepts do not refer to the same things at all.

2. It is not "anti-Semitic" to criticize the government of Israel, without more. When we use "government" in this manner, we refer to those individuals who hold power in the state of Israel, and who choose and implement that government's policies. The government of Israel is not coextensive with the "Jews" or with the "Jewish people." The concepts do not refer to the same things at all.

3. A person can fully recognize and condemn the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust -- just as we should condemn all horrors that are similar in principle but usually don't, especially when they are committed by our government, either in the ongoing destruction of an entire country that never threatened us or with regard to the possibility of a nuclear confrontation, which might well be the last -- and simultaneously condemn many or even all of the policies of the state and government of Israel. It is entirely possible to hold more than one thought in one's head at the same time. These particular thoughts are not contradictory in any respect, and they do not even refer to the same subjects.

I go through this exercise in pre-elementary logic because of a post earlier today. In that post, I linked to this Geov Parrish column. In introducing the excerpts from Parrish's article that I wanted to focus on -- and which are entirely correct -- I wrote: "Leave aside the more controversial aspects of this column, if you wish." I realize that some mysterious religious scruple prevents people from following links, but to appreciate what follows you need to see what I actually excerpted. I included the qualifier because I am keenly aware that most people are incapable of clear thought about anything whatsoever related to Israel. But even if people are strongly pro-Israel, I desperately want them, as I want everyone else, to focus on the devastation that is likely to follow an Israeli attack on Syria or Iran, and the horrors that would inevitably come with a broader Middle East war.

It appears that I am now among the worst monsters of all time....