Monthly Archives: April 2014

Hamas and the Tyranny of Labels

The Israeli and U.S. posture toward Hamas is fundamentally self-contradictory. It involves saying that a certain form of behavior is unacceptable and then making impossible the use of alternative behavior. It involves saying that we don’t like a group because it has used violence instead of peaceful negotiations, and then refusing to negotiate with it. The same self-contradictory posture was exhibited in 2006, when Hamas did the most that any party could do to be accepted as a legitimate, peacefully installed representative of its people—it contested and won a free and fair election—but then Israel and the United States refused to recognize the election result. That not only contradicted the rationale for not talking to Hamas but also contradicted a supposed commitment to democracy.

Greater unity and cooperation between Fatah and Hamas is fundamentally a good thing for whatever possibility remains of a negotiated two-state solution, because a single Palestinian negotiating team that can plausibly and legitimately speak for the Palestinian people as a whole is necessary for reaching such an agreement. The reality of the Gaza Strip cannot be wished away. In the meantime, however, this latest announcement has become yet another excuse for Netanyahu not to negotiate seriously or not to negotiate at all.

nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/hamas-the-tyranny-labels-10344

Now that he’s racist, New York Times suggests Donald T. Sterling is a southerner instead of a Jew

NYT: Donald T. Sterling, Southerner
By Steve Sailer on April 29, 2014 at 12:09am

From the New York Times:

After 33 Years of Sterling, a Boiling Point

APRIL 28, 2014

By JULIET MACUR

… For decades it was perfectly acceptable to let him run his team like “a Southern plantationlike structure,” as the former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor once charged in a lawsuit. …

That suit also accused Sterling of running his franchise with the mentality of a Southern plantation owner, as a man who preferred a team of “poor black boys from the South” who were “playing for a white coach.”

Baylor lost the lawsuit, but among the most shocking parts of it — just like the most shocking aspect of the most recent accusations against Sterling — was how long Baylor put up with “the Southern plantation” mentality before standing up for himself.

[emphasis added]

Sen. Rand Paul, possible 2016 Republican contender, to introduce pro-Israel legislation

In a gesture that is sure to win applause from supporters of Israel within the Republican electorate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday will introduce a bill that would stop U.S. aid to the newly formed unity government in Palestine unless certain demands were promptly met, including a cease-fire and a public declaration of Israel’s right to exist.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-rand-paul-possible-2016-republican-contenderto-introduce-pro-israel-legislation/2014/04/27/34cdc664-ce83-11e3-a6b1-45c4dffb85a6_story.html

Kissing the ring.

the “rational restlessness” of the West

–“I can think of only four individuals, two philosophers of history, one
sociologist, and one world historian, who have spoken in a wideranging
way of:
i) the “infinite drive,” “the irresistible trust” of the Occident,
ii) the “energetic, imperativistic, and dynamic” soul of the West,
iii) the “rational restlessness” of the West,
iv) “the deep-rooted pugnacity and recklessness of Europeans”
– Hegel, Spengler, Weber, and McNeill respectively.”– Ricardo Duchesne

Quotes about Academia

“Every man who does not have a trade must eventually become a rogue” – Baruch Spinoza

Nassim Nicholas Taleb reflects this same sentiment when he says: “…as a practitioner, my thinking is rooted in the belief that you cannot go from books to problems, but the reverse, from problems to books.”

“Learn a trade so that you experience the real world. Identify a problem that exists in the real world. . . . Otherwise you invent a mystical hammer and go on and endless search for the appropriate nails – which you seem to find all over the place.” ~ Curt Doolittle

Foucault On Obscurantism: ‘They Made Me Do It!’

No one should ever go to a university without understanding the nature and motives of post-modernism.

“… Searle claims Foucault told him: ‘In France, you gotta have ten percent incomprehensible, otherwise people won’t think it’s deep–they won’t think you’re a profound thinker.’ When Searle later asked Pierre Bourdieu if he thought this was true, Bourdieu insisted it was much worse than ten percent …”

www.critical-theory.com/foucault-obscurantism-they-it/