At 12:37 PM 13/09/2001 -0700, Brian D Williams wrote:
> >From: Miriam English <miriam@werple.net.au>
> >Try cramming a heap of US citizens into a tiny and deprived space
> >with appalling restrictions upon their normal movement, with most
> >of what you would consider essential rights taken away by
> >faceless, brutal soldiers and see if those US citizens would be
> >peaceful. *Of course* some of the Palestinians have gone for the
> >violent solution, what else could be expected? Many normally
> >enlightened members of this list have been braying for incredible
> >and truly terrifying violent solutions lately.
>
>You have a double standard.
>
>It's perfectly understandable to you that the Palestinians use
>violence and terrorism to try and achieve their aims, but those who
>have to use violence to defend themselves are the bad guys
Hmmm... I probably should have made myself clearer. I figured my
anti-senseless-violence stance would have shown where I was coming from. I
don't excuse the violence of Palestinian extremists. Such violence is
counterproductive and a big mistake. It enables the US and Israel to
(somehow) discount these people and say that they're not serious about peace.
I certainly wasn't defending violence. I did say that it was understandable
if you consider the brutish impositions upon them. It would take incredible
self control to avoid violence in such a situation. I tried to illustrate
this by imagining a situation where US citizens were confined in such an
inhumane manner. Wow! Can you see how the sparks would fly? There would be
*massive* violence.
>I'll ignore the braying remark for now, next time it's sig file
>time.
OK. Sorry. It was a bit low... I just get sooo sick of the automatic "we
can kill anybody we suspect of hurting us, but other people are to be
despised for retaliating against brutality" stuff.
> >The Palestinians are just people. They are the same as the people
> >on the other side of the border. When you forget that they are
> >people then you can justify atrocities... exactly the same way
> >those fools who rode the airplanes into the WTC did.
>
>I see them as people, people who won't listen to reason, people who
>think they can get away with using terrorism for political aims.
No. There are some who do indulge in terrorism, and that can never be
excused. But you can't blame all the other men, women and children for the
sins of a few. That is as bad as the blind fools who thought that killing
all those people in the WTC was justified because they were the American
people who caused them their grief.
> >The image of them cheering is hard to get rid of.
>
> >Which is probably why the clip was played over and over again...
> >or maybe I am wording that wrongly. I should probably say that the
> >viewers were played by those that screened the tape of those kids.
> >It was guaranteed to get a nasty reaction. It almost certainly was
> >not representative. So, why do you think they showed it?
>
>Actually I only saw it once, but that was enough. It was being
>broadcast by international media and was picked up here.
>
>The theatrics of the Palestinians happened after we know they saw
>broadcasts of American reaction to the dancing in the street bit.
>
>Which is why it carries little weight here.
You "know" it? Why do you know it?
Did you read the post from the guy who says it was footage shot in 1991?
You have to be careful of the news media. They have incredible power and
are often careless, inflammatory, even slanderous. We have had for a long
time in Oz a program which alerts viewers to wrongful, misleading, and lazy
reporting. It happens way more often than you would like to think.
Cheers,
- Miriam
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Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape?
A. They are both purple... except for the elephant.
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http://werple.net.au/~miriam
http://members.optushome.com.au/miriame
Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au
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