Jerry wrote: > > > > I see Willy Horton and the welfare queen making room for Vinnie up on the > > shelf. Haven't you learned by now that Lee Atwater is dead?
And Alan responded: > I will have to figure out who this Lee Atwater person is. > > But anyway, Vinnie committed no crime. He was just being "clever" like John > Marchioro's Palestinian ambulance hijackers. > Um, they are not my Palestinian ambulance hijackers, Alan. They are yours. You cited the clip as evidence, not me. My only point in response was that invoking an instance like this as a justification for Israel's striking all ambulances (and hospitals, schools, other civilian infrastructure) basically leads to an exterminationist logic. More generally, I think the "human shields" argument put forward by Israel, and adopted by you, is specious. I indicated as much by my post earlier today about how it was used in the Lebanon campaign in 2006. As Mearsheimer notes in his talk, Human Rights Watch's report about that campaign indicates that Israel knowingly attacked civilian targets with impunity. And even Israel's own domestic media cites Israeli soldiers who validate this, with the most damning kind of claim possible, namely that it used cluster bombs against civilians. That is not "propaganda from the other side", Alan; that is serious evidence that this was criminal conduct on Israel's part, straight from the perpetrators and reported by Ha'aretz. And it is not the first time (read again what John G. posted), and it is almost certainly what is happening right now in Gaza again. Now, maybe you think Ha'aretz is a mouthpiece for or dupe of the Hezbollah/Hamas propaganda machine, but the burden to prove that lies hea vily on you. I will get back to that issue later today but have other fish to fry now. I think I am sort of in the middle here between Jerry and Alan on the mortgage issue. There was an awful lot of fraud, irresponsibility and the like on the borrowers' side in all this. But as I said before, I frankly am not sure that is the real nub of the problem. It is the credit default swaps and the like that are ultimately causing the financial crisis, not the sub-prime mortgage market. And that is a sign of fraud, irresponsibility, etc. in very high places, for a very long time. Maybe we need a new shelf, for Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson. Or maybe an expanded wing of the Allenwood Prison Farm? John M. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
