Comments on The Burd Report: After the Taliban furor - this!!

Your point was to falsely attribute me with being ...

2009-04-17T08:29:00.000-04:00

Your point was to falsely attribute me with being a proponent of invasion and forcefully pursuading people in a country. You knew you were fabricating a falsehood. And you weren't quoting anything whatsoever, so your attempt to weasel out on the basis of "perfectly correctly." It's all too typical of leftoids to smear people with falsehoods.

When the German nazis mobilized Jews to the ovens, there were many people who turned a blind eye. Live and let live.

When South African Apartheid prevailed, I was all for lobbying, demonstrating, and democratically subverting that system. I chose not to live and let live.

When communist regimes oppressed their people ala 1984, I chose to smuggle forbidden literature/documents/art in and out of those countries for the dissidents, poets, writers and artists in those countries who were being imprisoned, tortured, and worse. I chose to stand with those unable to live and let live with totalitarian oppression.

When women take to the streets in Afghanistan to protest a law giving husbands the right to rape them, I'm all for funnelling whatever cash and other material support to protect and project the empowerment of those women. I chose not to live and let live.

Whatever rights a woman enjoys in Canada is universal. It is called the UNIVERSAL Declaration of Human Rights. Countries sign on to it. It means that any country that violates that covennant should be called to account. If they don't then I support whatever non-military mobilization to undermine that regime.

You have only proved the point that you would not lift a finger to help the oppressed anywhere on earth under the cavalier dismissive gesture of Live & Let Live. I don't sit on my butt whining about old white guys at hockey games. Let them live and let live.

I think you have pretty much proved my point Wally...

2009-04-16T10:47:00.000-04:00

I think you have pretty much proved my point Wally, even if I didn't quote you perfectly correctly.

My position is that every country/culture/society has the right to decide how it will operate. We in the West do not have some kind of divine right to compel others to adopt our ways.

LIVE AND LET LIVE.

DJO

Deborah Jean O`Connor wrote, "I note that a p...

2009-04-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

Deborah Jean O`Connor wrote, "I note that a poster here, not content with the idea that it could take several hundred years for some parts of the world to catch up on womens' rights, was ready to go in and invade whichever country didn't meet his idea of equality and forcefully persaude those people to adopt curent sophisticated Western ideals."

There was no poster here that said they were ready to "invade" and "forcefully persuade" anything. I can certainly attest that I made no such recommendation as that whatsoever, nor would I.

This is what I recommended, "Active programs for undermining and subverting many aspects of non-Western cultures need to be implemented now & with rigor."

In the 1960's I was an armchair cheerleader for "undermining and subverting" the racist impediments in the USA, that is to say, march, demonstrate, lobby, sing, protest, use all the tools of free speech and free expression to undermine and subvert.

Just to reinforce what I was recommending, I also wrote in the same posting, "Retro cultures need to be actively subverted, and the better parts of Western culture proselytized more rigorously."

Hmmm. I wonder who it was who did recommend invasion and force?

Mr Burd’s equivalency comparison is an old trick t...

2009-04-09T15:41:00.000-04:00

Mr Burd’s equivalency comparison is an old trick that dupes only the lazy of mind, and there are lots of them in the left as well as the right from whom Mr Burd can earn a hearty applause.

Mr Burd’s first sentence opens with a reference to the ‘coalition of the right’, then the second refers to ‘rightist newspapers.’ Mr Burd indulges in dilution here. The article that Mr Burd links mentions only two newspapers, characterizing them as ‘ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers.’

Perspective and context are notably absent from Mr Burd’s simplistic black is black and white is white assertion. Neither of the two offending newspapers are msn -- far from it. They are more along the lines of The Amish Times. While not insignificant to point out, they simply do not reflect mainstream anything in Israel.

Mr Burd asserts that there is equivalency (period) between the public denial of the image of two female cabinet ministers, and the public torture of a woman being held down on the ground by two men while a third man whips her again and again and again and again and again and, count ‘em, again and again and again ...

Hmmm, I wonder if the two women cabinet ministers who were omitted out of the photo-op feel as humiliated and damaged as the woman publicly flogged in Pakistan? Mr Burd would argue that they would. (Contrary to Mr Burd’s assertion, the flogging took place in Swat Valley in Pakistan, not Afghanistan -- so much for Mr Burd’s fidelity to facts.)

Israeli women have the right to hold office, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to a full education, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to any employment, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to divorce, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to not bear violence, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to abortions, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to contraceptives, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women have the right to drive vehicles, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women can marry the man of their choice, women in Taliban turf cannot.

Israeli women can appear in public as they wish, women in Taliban turf cannot.

Israeli women can consort with any man they wish, women in Taliban turf cannot.

Israeli women can sing, dance and act, women in Taliban turf do not.

Israeli women can fly a kite, women in Taliban turf do not.

All of the above, and more, is enjoyed by Israeli women, be they Jew, Christian, Muslim, Palestinian.

Palestinian Israelis can run for all political offices and get elected; there is a Palestinian on the Supreme Court of Israel. Try that equivalency in any Middle East country.

The equivalency argument is old hat. When the Security Service of the RCMP during the 1970’s were intercepting and withholding my mail, wiretapping my phone, doing dirty tricks with my landlord and employer, little lefties were puzzled why I spent a portion of my time excoriating communist countries during the 1980’s. They pointed to my experience in Canada and said it’s just the same as there. Sure. Equivalency. Far from it.

I spent several years going in and out of those commie countries to assist dissidents, peaceniks, freeniks, refuseniks, etc. There was no equivalency, not even near. The same with Mr Burd’s cheap equivalency.

Am posting this comment after a couple of days thi...

2009-04-08T16:26:00.000-04:00

Am posting this comment after a couple of days thinking about the subject of womens' rights, or as some of us sometimes simply say, human rights. They are one and the same, after all.

I note that a poster here, not content with the idea that it could take several hundred years for some parts of the world to catch up on womens' rights, was ready to go in and invade whichever country didn't meet his idea of equality and forcefully persaude those people to adopt curent sophisticated Western ideals.

In another blog I read occasionally the topic of conversation was abortion rights, and recent attempts by the Right in Canada to re-start that whole debate here.

Unfortunately the mostly very Left crowd of posters got into a fight amongst themselves about various aspects of abortion and when it was ok, when it wasn't, etc. on and on. And on some more...

Witches and African slaves somehow got into the debate as the topic turned to which categories of humans were most persecuted and who was allowed to talk about it.

No conclusions were reached although several posters called other posters nasty names and I'm sure a few peoples' blood pressure was raised alarmingly. No solidarity was built, despite the fact these folks mostly agreed with each other.

What seems to be missing in so many discussions these days is any notion of that old saying,
LIVE AND LET LIVE.

The whole world doesn't have to subscribe to our Western, progressive values. Hell, there are plenty of folks here who don't subscribe either, let alone those in other countries.

The whole point of having rights is having the ability to choose! It's just as wrong to tell women they must have so called careers as it was to tell them they must not a generation or two ago.

Free determination of oneself is just that, whatever the gender. Those who presume to know what's best for anybody fail to acknowledge that person's human rights. It is that simple.

Lots of women still wonder why lots of men keep missing that point altogether. Even the ones who think they are Alan Alda quality feminists.

By the way, I love men. Some of my best friends are men. Even old white ones. Even ones who might forget sometimes that women can do a lot more than make sandwiches.

I will sign my name with every confidence that no personal attacks will ensue. Just interested in hearing other opinions, that's all.

Deborah Jean O'Connor (DJO)

Thanks, Ben, for the story about Jewish fundamenta...

2009-04-07T08:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Ben, for the story about Jewish fundamentalists who can't stand the site of women in newspapers. I've sent the BBC link to some Christian fundamentalists in my life, who are waiting hopefully for the Battle of Armageddon to begin, but in the meantime subscribe to the belief that the only good Mulim funamentalist is a dead one. Aren't they all a pound of mixed nuts?!

As regards the Northumberland News story about 'Ha...

2009-04-06T11:17:00.000-04:00

As regards the Northumberland News story about 'Happy Town' and Blake Holton, I wonder if there will ever come a time when people who get paid to write (like Jennifer O'Meara who wrote the story) will learn the difference between 'flaunt' and 'flout'?