Comments on: It didn't make a dent

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Yoda indeed; but I fear that he is right, and that we are on the verge of something quite new and very unpleasant.
BTW the link to Noorster is broken.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Thanks Udge, I fixed the link to Noorster. Your response is really interesting; I had the impression that my acquaintance saw the failure of terrorism as evidence that the "forces of darkness" were unable to win. You seem to see it as a foreshadowing of worse things to come. The opsimist in me fears you may be right but hopes my acquaintance is right.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

“Bad relations with the arabs have we” (Okay, originally that was about Wookiees, but I subverted it for my purposes).
I thought the point of terrorism (state or guerilla or Jedi-sponsored) is to foment fear and uncertaintly and get the population suspicious and polarized enough that people allow a fundamentalist/extemist gov't to rule them. Oh wait, that's the fascist M.O. … and I think it has worked in the US.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Stop being so clever all the time – it's intimidating.
xoxo אוהבת אותך

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

and I think it has worked in the US.
Oh, good lord, isn't there anyone left on this planet who is not certain that Bush is just like Hitler, only worse? Come on, I am sure there is a better way to describe the US than a paranoid, suspicious population ruled by extremist fundamentalists?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Udge might have a point. But…….
I saw a very interesting interview a few months ago with a reformed IRA terrorist (forget his name) who said that terrorists give up when they see that it just doesn't work, and that was the impetus for the formation of Sinn Fein and the move towards a political solution in Northern Ireland.
So don't let your optimistic side go just yet.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

The optimist in me is sure hoping he is right. It feels like we are certainly on the verge of …something. On my reallllllly optimistically good days I see agreements happening and everyone deciding to try to play nice and economies booming rather than bombs; on my regular optimistic days I see agreements happening that no one pays attention to after a few months of semi-calm but maybe a few advances that stick; and on my bad days I see civil war breaking out (there) and our settlers going crazy here and a repeat of 2002.
I'm in a realllly optimistic day today thanks to your consultation with Yoda

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Even I want to be optimistic here, but (you saw it coming right) even on my most optimistic day I worry about this conflicts consequenses. I mean, even if the conflict was “over” tomorrow (yeah, right) there would be years and years of healing needed, if it ever can heal.
All I know right now is that the world need more of the likes of Ms Goldman. Even visiting your blog makes me optimistic.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

The conclusion that terrorism doesn't work, even if it _is_ the conclusion Fatah has drawn, is a thin thing to hang hope on, isn't it? In the conversation with your acquaintance, your guess, Lisa, was that Fatah had concluded that terrorism was a mistake because it led to reprisals, whereas your acquaintance's assessment was that Fatah had concluded that terrorism hadn't made a dent in the targeted societies. But in neither case is it suggested that (even) Fatah has decided that the targeting of civilians is _morally wrong._ In a different context, George W. Bush has spoken of “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Isn't that what's at work when we derive optimism from the _possibility_ that group x has made a _strategic calculation_ that they haven't made a dent through a barbaric means of warfare? It's better than nothing, I guess, but so far as the deep wisdom of it goes, remember the line sometimes attributed to Freud:
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And terrorists would have made a bigger dent if the IDF hadn't intercepted as many of them as it has.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 +0000

Lisa – The housing prices in Sederot are plummeting…