The Illogic...The Illogic
A bit of a break from polemical style reading...well at least the usual kind.
What a sobering day. This saturday, after a brief month stint of haitus from the political activist world, I threw myself fully into a political slide show/presentation that took place at Hunter. It was set up presumably by the Palestinian Club, and I guessed help by one or the other Trotskyite groups within the school. It was to mark the beginning of Palestinian Apartheid week, and our presenters were Palestinians from the occupied land of West Bank and Gaza. The presentation was rudimentary but blunt and stunning. I recommend anyone who reads this post in the New York area to check out the many events through the following week Here!
But what caught my attention most, and how I came to know that this program was happening, was the attempt by fanatical religious and Zionists Jews to organize a sort of "fight back" against the organized events through the college internent medium known as Facebook. Reading its event board (not unlike those event lists on the network site known as Myspace), I added some thoughts on the very problematic and faint logic in their "counter" information leaflet. It was filled with little more than Red Herring and Racist presumptions about how the rest of the Middle Eastern states are inferior to the state of Israel in terms of liberalism, as if such were the question itself. Essentially, Oppression of Israels was not as bad as the alleged genocide in Darfur, so therefore why even talk about Apartheid?
Of course...we have heard this all before quite really. Illogical presumptions, arguments that have little to do with the discussed issue..etc. etc., an essential fools game if you engage them.
Of course, being the fool...I managed to do just that.
During the event, a woman, who it seemed had a sort of emotional imbalance started yelping and crying as people told her male friend to "shutup." Of course, I won't go into this in much detail, and is besides the point since emotions can get to is in such a political discussion with high emotions rolling. This is however the setup for what was to occur outside of the campus of Hunter College. Me, my friends, left after the first question in Q&A to get a Pizza. We were confronted outside by men, who were flying an Israel flag along a Colonial American flag (a befitting sight), handing out leaflets on how great is Israel is..etc.etc, the usual apologist orgasm in their literature.
I politely said "no..not quite interested," to which an old fat zionist yelled "self-hating Jew." It is funny that this is the gut reaction that we immediately faced, what a cliche! For anyone in the know, I am not Jewish...I am an Atheist, and further culturally I come from an Italian-Chilean backround. But to be called a self-hating jew, that was indeed a first. I exchanged a few words and then crossed the street, to where the man yelled "Go back to Iran with your brown friend." This made me laugh a bit, I had to engage now! Out of just pure entertainment, I wanted to see where this horror show went.
Something attracted myself to such lunatics. It was indeed a sight, hysterical yelling, being told I am complicit with Al-Qadea and the Saudi Arabian government. It made us all laugh. When we got to the heart of the issue, it turns out that my fat old Zionist was a bigger religious fundamentalist then ANYONE in the meeting upstairs.
What was sad was not this looney tunes display of fanatic Judeo pride in front of me, but that these men brought their children and made them sit in the cold for presumably two hours for a small slide show upstairs.
It all ended with my "Brown Friend" yelling...as he is an Atheist himself..."God is dead", to which I responded..."Meaning you guys have no right to no land"
What a sobering day. This saturday, after a brief month stint of haitus from the political activist world, I threw myself fully into a political slide show/presentation that took place at Hunter. It was set up presumably by the Palestinian Club, and I guessed help by one or the other Trotskyite groups within the school. It was to mark the beginning of Palestinian Apartheid week, and our presenters were Palestinians from the occupied land of West Bank and Gaza. The presentation was rudimentary but blunt and stunning. I recommend anyone who reads this post in the New York area to check out the many events through the following week Here!
But what caught my attention most, and how I came to know that this program was happening, was the attempt by fanatical religious and Zionists Jews to organize a sort of "fight back" against the organized events through the college internent medium known as Facebook. Reading its event board (not unlike those event lists on the network site known as Myspace), I added some thoughts on the very problematic and faint logic in their "counter" information leaflet. It was filled with little more than Red Herring and Racist presumptions about how the rest of the Middle Eastern states are inferior to the state of Israel in terms of liberalism, as if such were the question itself. Essentially, Oppression of Israels was not as bad as the alleged genocide in Darfur, so therefore why even talk about Apartheid?
Of course...we have heard this all before quite really. Illogical presumptions, arguments that have little to do with the discussed issue..etc. etc., an essential fools game if you engage them.
Of course, being the fool...I managed to do just that.
During the event, a woman, who it seemed had a sort of emotional imbalance started yelping and crying as people told her male friend to "shutup." Of course, I won't go into this in much detail, and is besides the point since emotions can get to is in such a political discussion with high emotions rolling. This is however the setup for what was to occur outside of the campus of Hunter College. Me, my friends, left after the first question in Q&A to get a Pizza. We were confronted outside by men, who were flying an Israel flag along a Colonial American flag (a befitting sight), handing out leaflets on how great is Israel is..etc.etc, the usual apologist orgasm in their literature.
I politely said "no..not quite interested," to which an old fat zionist yelled "self-hating Jew." It is funny that this is the gut reaction that we immediately faced, what a cliche! For anyone in the know, I am not Jewish...I am an Atheist, and further culturally I come from an Italian-Chilean backround. But to be called a self-hating jew, that was indeed a first. I exchanged a few words and then crossed the street, to where the man yelled "Go back to Iran with your brown friend." This made me laugh a bit, I had to engage now! Out of just pure entertainment, I wanted to see where this horror show went.
Something attracted myself to such lunatics. It was indeed a sight, hysterical yelling, being told I am complicit with Al-Qadea and the Saudi Arabian government. It made us all laugh. When we got to the heart of the issue, it turns out that my fat old Zionist was a bigger religious fundamentalist then ANYONE in the meeting upstairs.
What was sad was not this looney tunes display of fanatic Judeo pride in front of me, but that these men brought their children and made them sit in the cold for presumably two hours for a small slide show upstairs.
It all ended with my "Brown Friend" yelling...as he is an Atheist himself..."God is dead", to which I responded..."Meaning you guys have no right to no land"
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