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    Wattree’s Pearls of Limited Wisdom - Update

    By Wattree on Fri, 12/18/2015 - 6:32pm |

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
     

    Wattree’s Pearls of Limited Wisdom - Update 
     
    God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, so the pursuit of knowledge should be a lifelong endeavor and used as a primary assessment of all men. But we should never confuse credentials with knowledge, because some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
     
    *Knowledge is free, so one must choose to be ignorant.
    .
    *Self-Esteem: Never Doubt Yourself. You should always dedicate yourself to truth, and be free of  ugliness, mean-spiritedness,  and spite.
    Then when others hate you, you know it's due to their ugliness and aversion to truth, not your own.
    .
    *Never be afraid of failure. The only reason you can walk is because you got tired of falling down.
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    *The greatest lesson in wisdom, intelligence, and class is the understanding that one doesn't corner the market on any of them.
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    *Intrinsic to every zealot's passion for justice lies the seeds of tyranny.
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    *An efficient thinker gives truth priority over ideology, while ideologues give ideology priority over truth.
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    *The contemplative must always endure the pestilence of mediocrity.
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    *The petty is forced to view life through a microscope in order to find their virtue.
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    *Wit without wisdom is a waste.
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    *An unexamined life is a waste of skin.
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    *Seek to become your own hero, and never allow anyone to remove your cape.
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    *History: The romanticized account of ordinary men engaged in routine stupidity.
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    *American History: The often exaggerated, and invariably sanitized account of ordinary men committing unconscionable atrocities in the name of God.
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    *To Black people: The establishment doesn't recognize the power of your intellect. Use that to your advantage, because your history lies before you.
    .
    *The very rules designed to curb the excesses of irresponsibility, also tend to restrict genius within the boundaries of mediocrity.
    . 
    *Ask not, what your country can do for you. Ask, what YOU can do for yourself.
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    *Hostility is a sign of a weak and frustrated mind.
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    *There are only two kinds of people in this world - good people, and bad people - and ignorance is the dividing line between the two.
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    *The only true road to perfect fulfillment is dedicating your life to becoming your own hero.
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    *Without mistakes we would never grow; so we shouldn't mourn our mistakes, we should celebrate our growth. 
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    *You must recognize who you are, to visualize what you can become. 
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    *The difference between a discussion and a debate is in a discussion both parties have the maturity to understand that since neither corners the market on either wisdom, knowledge, or intelligence, the point of the encounter is to share their respective points of view - not to win, but to learn.
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    *Money is the root of small people.
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    *Never seek recognition. Always seek excellence, and recognition will seek you out.
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    *What an individual says is meaningless - always watch what they do.
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    *When you choose to live in a fantasy, you're forced to view reality as a myth.
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    *You can either speak the truth for the sake of humanity, or be popular. You cannot do both.
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    *Efficient thought requires that we first, see life as it is, and only then, as we would have it.
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    *There is no status more lonely than that of an exceptional Black man - he’s hated by the White establishment because he’s a threat to the status quo, and he’s hated by the Black "aristocracy"  because he’s a pie in the face of their delusions of grandeur.
    .
    *The subconscious mind doesn't deal in self-assessment, so what you tell it you are, it believes, and begins to work on that assumption.

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    *You are what you think, so if you refuse to think, you're nothing.
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    *We all have a burning desire to impress others with who we are, but more often than not we try to express that need through what we have, and there's a huge difference between the two.
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    *Pseudo-intellectual: One who imparts common knowledge like he's telling you something new.
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    *American Exceptionalism: "Of course we believe in the Bible, EXCEPT when it's in conflict with our greed, prejudice, and self-interest."
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    *It's one thing to feel superior, that's merely high self-esteem, but when you begin to believe it, that's arrogance.
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    *Guns are a metaphor for penises, and "American exceptionalism" is a sexual fantasy.
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    *Waiting on happiness to make you happy will insure an unhappy existence. Be happy now!
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    *Never confuse hedonism with happiness.
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    *The only mature form of competition is against you're last best effort.
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    *God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think - but fish have sense enough to adhere to their nature.
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    *Never give anyone else's ability to think priority over your own.
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    *It's not the system that's dysfunctional, we are - we're so apathetic that we're allowing the craziest among us to control the system.
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    *Heroes are for kids - they don't have bills to pay.
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    *Poverty Pimp: One who has an overwhelming need to buy a homeless man a sandwich - but feels an even greater need to bring a camera crew along to record the event.
    .
    *Conservatism: 21st Century pretexts for 19th Century thinking.
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    *Demagogue: One who's quick to give you all he's got - but all he's got is a passionate desire to manipulate you.
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    *Compassionate Conservative: A Christian conservative who's morally, and fundamentally, opposed to lynching - so he'll starve you to death instead.
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    *Donald Trump: Hitler in a wig.
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    *Never fully trust ANY politician - after all, they've dedicated themselves to a life of crime.
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    *Political Rule of Thumb: Trying to find a politician who's not self-serving is like searching for a homosexual who's not gay. 
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    *In order for ANY politician to get the majority of votes from people who disagree, he must lie to at least some of them - so if your favorite politician is holding office, he's a liar by definition.
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    *One's intelligence rises to accommodate one's level of curiosity.
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    *Ninety-nine percent of the people are petty, self-serving hedonists. I only hope the remaining one percent can save me from myself.
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    *When you feel obliged to lock out differing points of view, you incarcerate yourself in a prison of ignorance.
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    *Never become so enraptured by other people's thoughts that you fail to formulate your own.
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    *Soaring rhetoric is only as meaningful as the backbone that sustains it.
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    *We often confuse literacy with intellect. Intelligence is the capacity to assess and creatively manipulate information that the literate merely regurgitates.
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    *Indulging in name-calling is a waste of both time and energy, because fools have a tendency to do all the heavy lifting for you.
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    *Some of the best money I've ever spent was on the gratitude in the eyes of a homeless man.
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    *Truth was the very first victim of American Exceptionalism.
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    *Politicians are not our leaders; they're our employees - and we're grossly neglecting the business.
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    *Friends are at their best when rewarding our failure to succeed.
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    *True love is always having your lover's back, and knowing you don't have to worry about your own.
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    *Some of the greatest minds I've ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores.
    .
    *Some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia giving the pursuit of credentials priority over the pursuit of knowledge.
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    *Before you point your finger at another, you should smell it first.
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    *The only difference between Arab terrorism and American terrorism is the cost and efficiency of the delivery system.
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    *The great institutions of learning can only certify that one was present in an environment where knowledge was shared. But no institution can confer either intelligence, character, or common sense, nor can it certify that the knowledge shared was absorbed.
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    *Man's innate thirst for knowledge will someday overwhelm his passionate lust for stupidity.
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    *Show me a man who believes that Moses parted the Red Sea, and I'll show you one whose grip on reality can't be relied upon.
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    *More often than not, the happiest moments in your life won't cost you a dime.
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    *The only difference between you and Socrates is that you're still capable of correcting your erroneous beliefs.
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    *The key to Black liberation is to practice excellence as though it's a jump shot.
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    *State's Rights: We demand our constitutional right to lynch whomever we wish.
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    *Libertarian: I demand my individual right to abridge the rights of whomever I please.
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    *The GOP: Liberals are un-American - they're engaged in a socialist plot to protect your family.
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    *Religious Bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
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    *We accept the Bible as the word of God because the Bible says it is. Go figure it.
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    *Question: When we're asked to "have faith," are we being asked to have faith in God, or to have faith in what man tells us about God?
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    *Question: Can one believe in God, yet have no faith in man?
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    *Question: If we can only be "saved" though Christ, did God condemn everyone born in non-Christian nations before birth?
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    *Question: If God knows all, and he knows before Billy is born that Billy is going to Hell, can Billy do anything in life to make God wrong?
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    *Every experience is a source of knowledge, so having to endure adversity makes one more, rather than less.
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    *One should take great pride in being the product of adversity, because your mere survival provides you with unassailable credentials.
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    *Unfortunately, man is most generously rewarded for his collusion in the conspiracy against mankind. 
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    *If one can’t find happiness in poverty, wealth will prove to be an ineffective mentor.
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    *It is always gratifying to win a debate, but losing one is of much more value.
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    *We’re Black and we’re proud - right up until we escape.
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    *Question: Why is it that we allow our children to watch murder and mayhem all day long, but if a woman's breast is exposed we feel they've been irretrievably corrupted?
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    *We must buy a license to marry, but we're free to hate with impunity. Go figure it.
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    *I love you madly, my brother - until you succeed.
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    *Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White people. Thus, we're just as racist toward other Blacks as any Hillbilly.
    . 
    *Corporatists: It is always a delight to take so much credit for what so many others have done.
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    *Always follow truth, regardless to where it leads, or whose ox it gores.
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    *Older women aren't quite as frisky as young ones, but at least I have someone to talk to when I'm done.
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    *The perfect woman: One who only tells me to go to Hell half the time.
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    *An epiphany: The triumph of common sense over wishful thinking.
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    *A personal epiphany: Never publish without running spellcheck.
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    *Truth: You know you're aging when you've got the hots for the lady in the Depends commercial.


    Eric L. Wattree 
    http://wattree.blogspot.com/
    [email protected]
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA) 

    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

     The stuff about not locking out different points of view seems to me to be the antithesis of Wattree's statement that "there is nothing to understand about Zionism". I think that statement is basically an embrace of ignorance.


    by Aaron Carine on Fri, 12/18/2015 - 7:07pm

    Aaron,

    I wouldn't even be able to write if it weren't for a Jew.  One Jew and I, Bernie Sanow, who used to write for Jack Benny, were so close that I literally got sick when he died, and had to take a weak off from work, and he remembered me (very generously - 20 years later it's still helping to sustain me) in his will. But in spite of all of that, Zionism is racism in drag, period - and I know Bernie would agree with me, because we discussed it. But because this nation is trying to support that ridiculous philosophy, thousands of innocent Americans are dying in the Middle East, and terrorism is proliferating throughout the world. So the people of the world have got to bring Israel into check.  Jews are not "God's chosen people."  They're just another group of people who need to be treated just like anyone else.
    .
    Who's Buying ISIS' Oil?
    .
    "The Iraqi colonel, who along with US investigators is working on a way to stop terrorist finance streams, told al-Araby about the stages that the smuggled oil goes through from the points of extraction in Iraqi oil fields to its destination - notably including the port of Ashdod, Israel." eatures/2015/11/26/raqqas-rockefellers-how-islamic-state-oil-flows-to-israel
    ​.
    Zionist tend not to care about anyone but themselves. While they gave lip-service to opposing  the South African apartheid government in South Africa, they were in bed with them, just like they are with ISIS today. Principle is meaningless to them. All they care about is what's in their own best interest, and the rest of the world needs to recognize that fact . But every time someone mentions it they start screaming anti-semitism. But the world needs to get passed all of that crazy shit, because continuing to cater to it is destroying American lives, and threatens to destroy the world as a whole. The world needs to tell them, "No, this doesn't have anything to do with Judaism - you're just full of shit."

    "Israel continued to denounce apartheid, but it privately began to cultivate relations with South Africa in secret. This approach was similar to many Western nations at the time.[5][15] Israel's condemnation of apartheid was based on opposition to the racist nature of the practice, and its maintenance of mutually beneficial commercial and military ties was rooted in a concern for South African Jews and a realpolitik attitude that Israel was too isolated to be selective about partners in trade and arms deals.[5][13] Within less than a decade, South Africa would be one of Israel's closest military and economic allies, whilst Israel would occupy the position of South Africa's closest military ally, and Israel had become the most important foreign arms supplier to the South African Defence Force.[3]:117–19 In the wake of the Yom Kippur War, to put additional diplomatic and military pressure on Israel, Arab oil-producing countries threatened to impose an oil embargo on countries with international relations with Israel. As a result, many African countries broke ties with Israel." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93South_Africa_relations)

     


     


    by Wattree on Fri, 12/18/2015 - 11:19pm

    First, there have been Zionists who were concerned about other people, specifically Arabs. They include Nahum Goldman, Amos Kenan, Avishai Margalit, David Grossman, Judah Magnes, Arthur Hertzberg, Peretz Kidron, and a number of others. That you don't know this demonstrates that you DO need to learn something about Zionism.

    Second, it isn't obvious that Zionism is racism. Israel's partnership with South Africa doesn't prove this--it means that the Jewish state has done evil things, which doesn't prove that Zionism is inherently racist any more than Pol Pot proves that Marxism is inherently genocidal. Also, even if we decide that Zionism is racist, that wouldn't mean that there is nothing to understand about Zionism. The Zionist movement's earnest attempt to solve "the Jewish problem", the complex relations between secular and religious Zionists, and between Israel's Ashkenazim and Sephardim, the kibbutzim, Israeli literature---these are all interesting subjects, and to have no intellectual curiosity about interesting subjects is not a commendable trait, especially in someone who professes to be a thinker.


    by Aaron Carine on Fri, 12/18/2015 - 11:22pm

    Aaron,

    Zionism is "Manifest Destiny" revisited.  Why didn't Zionists demand a part of Germany as a homeland?  It was the Germans who abused Jews, not the Palestinians. I'll tell you why, because they knew that wasn't going to happen, so they decided to TAKE land from a people of color.  And no, God didn't promise anyone anything.  God is not a real estate agent.  

    With regard to what knowledge I choose to consume, I don't study Voodoo either, and one makes no more sense than the other. So Zionism is not an "interesting" subject to me. What is there to study?  It's merely a weak justification for flat-out theft, and everybody with common sense should know that. It's simply been made politically incorrect to say it out loud.

    Netanyahu is the Donald Trump of the Middle East. If someone throws a rock at Israel, he goes in and bulldoze Palestinian homes at random, and he's turned Gaza in to one huge concentration camp.

    Gaza is a concentration camp, and it’s an American delusion not to recognize that — Weschler

    Israel/Palesti"Lawrence Weschler, a writer of considerable mainstream prestige, is sick of prevaricating about Israel. It’s rabid. It has rabies. And Gaza is a concentration camp. Weschler has let loose chiefly because of the “remorseless” and “repetitively compulsive” aspect of Israeli violence. I believe that understanding is now widely shared in the liberal mainstream, and interventions like Weschler’s make it easier for others to speak up." From Truthdig: - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/concentration-delusion-recognize#sthash.1m...


    by Wattree on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 8:31am

    Wattree answers his own question: they didn't demand a state in Germany because they knew that wasn't possible. It was either Palestine or nothing. The expulsion of Palestinians wasn't inevitable; there was also the partition option, which Wattree stubbornly refuses to discuss.

    What is there to understand? There is this: Zionists wanted a Jewish state to provide a sanctuary to people who had been kicked around for two thousand years; culminating in genocide. This wasn't a weak excuse for a Jewish state; it was a very good excuse. I don't think anyone had a better solution to "the Jewish problem". That is why some of us think the partition option would have been the "lesser injustice"; it wouldn't have done much harm to Palestinians, whereas Jews in Palestine and Europe would have suffered a good deal of harm without a state. It isn't really true that Palestinians had done nothing to Jews; there were pogroms in 1920.1921,1929, and 1936. But I know Wattree isn't likely to consider these matters.


    by Aaron Carine on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 8:54am

    Aaron,

    Black people have been treated pretty badly as well.  Does that give me the right to come into your home and evict you, or even "partition" you to your garage?  Then, when someone tells me that's unjust, I tell them to read up on Black history.  It doesn't matter what my history is - I don't have a right to do that. Zionist don't have anymore RIGHT to a "homeland" than anyone else. You're homeland is where you were born.  So trying to use history to justify criminal behavior is a weak argument. The fact is, there IS no justification for it. So accept it - when an act is wrong, it's just wrong.  Yet, Zionists have come up with this convoluted pretext that incorporates guilt, pity, special entitlement, and even God himself, and now it's coming back to bite the world.  


    by Wattree on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 9:45am

    We may have to agree to disagree on whether creating a Jewish state without dispossessing Arabs is criminal behavior. I think it is the same principle as affirmative action--giving someone an advantage to compensate for imposed disadvantage--which I presume Wattree doesn't oppose. Perhaps the same with reparations to African-Americans or Japanese-Americans--people who hadn't personally done any harm to members of those groups might say that their tax money shouldn't go to fixing the wrong, but I would say they were mistaken.

    If the only way to secure African-Americans any rights, or to keep them from being massacred was through partition(setting up an African-American republic in the Deep South) then I would say you had the right. But that wasn't the only way. Even in 1938, African-Americans outside the South had it better than Jews in Germany or most Arab countries. For the period 1941--1948, Jews in Europe and the Arab world would have been eager to trade places even with African-Americans in Georgia. Also, the principle of self-determination might have permitted African-Americans to set up their own republic in a contiguous area where they were a majority, if they had wanted to. I've said my say.


    by Aaron Carine on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 11:07am

    Aaron,

    I'm not going to buy into that "Jews were the most mistreated people in the world argument," because that's a lie. There have been many holocausts and atrocities throughout history, of which, the "Jewish" holocaust was just one.  The only difference is the Zionists benefited from the fact that theirs was caught on camera and documented, so they've been able to use it as a political tool.

    Now, Aaron, don't get me wrong.  I have a great deal of respect - and even love - for the Jewish people.  Several Jews have had a huge impact on my life, and two of my grandson (Eric Wattree III,  and Elijah Wattree) could become fully vested citizens of the state of Israel. When they were children, I suggested that they be instructed in Judaism so they would be knowledgeable of ALL of their heritage, but my son decided to raise them in a secular tradition like I did he and his sister. So he instructed them in ethics instead.  

    That's where I think we're disagreeing. You're promoting the interest of a people, and I'm looking at ethics alone.  Because for me, Aaron, there are only two kinds of people in this world - good people, and bad people; and what the Zionists are doing in Palestine is bad.  It constitutes the very same kind of thinking that Hitler used to subjugate "your people" - and it's doing Israel a gross disservice.  Zionists are burning up all of their political capital, because in light of what's going on in Gaza, when Zionists speak of the holocaust, instead of engendering sympathy and regret, it makes them look like the ultimate hypocrites, and I'm not the only one who's thinking this way;  I'm just one of the few people who's willing to say it out loud - but as terrorism increases around the world, that's going to change.  

    Netanyahu came to the the United States and did a speech before a joint session congress ranting about how Iran can't be trusted, which was more hypocrisy. Let's send nuclear inspectors into Israel and see if they can be trusted. The United States need to redirect the billions of dollars in foreign aid that we are spending to militarize Israel to improve the lives of the Palestinian people. That's the way we have to address terrorism, because people are radicalized because they are facing daily injustice, and they have nothing to look forward to but continuing injustice in the future. Okay, now Israel has a secure "homeland."  Now what they need is a true democracy.

    And finally, with regard to Affirmative Action and Reparations, there's a big difference between those issues and what's going on in Palestine. Black people are petitioning the establishment that harmed them,  not going overseas and trying to dominate and steal from people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.  


    by Wattree on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 1:25pm

    Yeah, but I'm not talking about what's going on in Israel/Palestine today; I'm talking about the partition option, which would have been very different. People here can decide for themselves whether it would have been  theft(or if it might have been theft of the stealing-bread-to-feed-their-starving-family variety).


    by Aaron Carine on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 12:28pm

    I'm not going to buy into that "Jews were the most mistreated people in the world argument," because that's a lie. There have been many holocausts and atrocities throughout history, of which, the "Jewish" holocaust was just one.  The only difference is the Zionists benefited from the fact that theirs was caught on camera and documented, so they've been able to use it as a political tool.

    Now, Aaron, don't get me wrong.  I have a great deal of respect - and even love - for the Jewish people.

    No, Eric - you just love yourself, and twist some relation with a few Jews to pimp these connections while tossing out some pretty hugely ugly stuff.

    67% of Europe's Jewry was methodically killed, about 39% of the total world population, and in a number of countries like Poland reaching 90%. Go ahead, name another holocaust where that many people of a particular tribe/religion/belief/whatever were slaughtered in such a cold turnstile/assembly line fashion to such an extent (along with the massive abuse while waiting to be killed). You can't do it because there's no comparison, none, nothing close, much less "many". Stuff it, buddy - I can't see why they let you post here, but their call.

    == Old 12-16-2009  KarlGauss KarlGauss is offline ==

    From here, a country by country breakdown: The first number is the Pre-war Jewish Population, the second is the number of Jews exterminated, the third is the percent exterminated:
     
    Country             Pre-war       Killed    %killed
    Poland             3,300,000 3,000,000   90
    Baltic States       253,000    228,000   90
    Germany/Austria  240,000  210,000    88
    Protectorate          90,000    80,000    89
    Slovakia                90,000   75,000    83
    Greece                 70,000    54,000    77
    The Netherlands  140,000   105,000   75
    Hungary              650,000   450,000   70
    SSR White Russia 375,000  245,000  65
    SSR Ukraine       1,500,000  900,000  60
    Belgium                   65,000   40,000  60
    Yugoslavia               43,000   26,000  60
    Romania                 600,000 300,000  50
    Norway                      1,800        900  50
    France                    350,000   90,000  26
    Bulgaria                    64,000   14,000  22
    Italy                         40,000     8,000  20
    Luxembourg               15,000   1,000  20
    Russia (RSFSR)       975,000 107,000 11
    Denmark                     8,000     --        --
    Finland                       2,000      --        --
    Total                   8,861,800  5,933,900  67%
     
    These are only estimates. Indeed, on different pages of the same site, different estimates are given. Still, they're roughly the same.

    And, God bless the Danes!
    Last edited by KarlGauss; 12-16-2009 at 08:31 PM..

    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 1:38pm

    They didn't demand a state in Germany because it was their Killing Fields. Possibly Argentina could have worked, but the settlement in Palestine was far more advanced, closer and historically relevant & compelling. Former slaves set up in Liberia, and undoubtedly Jews could have pushed for a less contested corner of the world. There were only 2.5 million Jews in Israel as of 1970 even - that's a moderate city, and Israel's about 40% bigger than New Jersey now -http://www.iris.org.il/sizemaps/new_jersey.htm - about the same size pre-1967 and less w/o Palestinian regions - we could have lopped off an equivalent 1/12 piece of Colorado at the time (1947) and no one would have noticed - only 1.3 million at the time. Other western states even bigger.

    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 11:10am

    There is always enough “silly” to go around on this subject. I would like to see your map of Colorado showing the 1/12th part which could have been either given to or taken by a people of mostly different ethnicity, religion, culture, etc without anyone noticing, especially the ones displaced from land they rightfully owned onto a virtual open air prison. Maybe if Russia had immediately recognized the area as a legitimate state it would have gone smoother but as this newly found nation began to expand its borders through military victories while holding out the tacit threat of nuclear annihilation of any of the surrounding states that might threaten it I would expect even more notice would be taken, but that’s just me. Everything is debatable I suppose.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 12:09pm

    Here you go, Lulu - a map showing mostly yellow of Colorado's counties that have only 0.01%-0.25% of the 5 million population as of 2011, or 500 to 12,500 people. Imagine how sparse they were in 1947 when the state had only 1.3 mill, roughly 1/4 that?

    And imagine how much of the West overall was thus unpopulated? (Montana had 600,000, Wyoming 290,000, Utah 690,000, South Dakota 650,000, New Mexico 680,000).

    Compare that strategy with 600,000 Jews sharing New Jersey with 1.3 million Arabs.

    And aside from usual range wars over water rights, I doubt there'd be 4 or 5 foreign armies threatening their existence.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 1:13pm

    Okay, I will stay with the silly for a bit. One of my favorite places to camp is at and around the Great Basin National Park. It is the least visited NP in the country only, I must believe, because it is so remote and off the more beaten paths of vacationers. I have also cycled eight hours across  Nevada on highway 50, “The loneliest highway in America” several times to right in the middle to have a beer at Middlegate Station. The place is so remote that Yahoo Maps doesn’t know it exists.  I love the desert and the only times I have felt the beauty and awesomeness of a remote location to a similar extent is while sailing alone for a week or so out of sight of land, but the desert is what it is because there is not enough water to be anything else. Las Vegas proves this by using most of the water that used to pass through the state. That water allows for a metropolitan population of a bit over two million people in a state with less than three million total and they are rapidly running out. Nevada has an area of 110,560 square miles. Israel has an area of 8,019 square miles.

    The Jewish population of Israel makes up 6,300,000 (74.9%); 1,746,000 (20.7%) are Arabs; and, those identified as "others" (non-Arab Christians, Baha'i, etc) make up 4.4% of the population (366,000 people). A major issue in Israel/Palestine tensions is the control of water. That issue gets little attention in our news about conflict there but I do not believe that Israel could exist with its current standard of living if the available water in that region was allocated equally on a per capita basis. The whole damned state of Nevada, population of less than three million, could not support even the double sized population of the Jewish Israelis without taking the greatest amount of the available water and shorting everyone else just like is being done in Israel. I doubt even then that it would be enough. Water rights, when they determine a country’s viable existence, are enough to start real wars just as assuredly as is access to other vital natural resources such as oil.

    Every place in the West of the US has its own population to the extent that it can supply that population with water. Anyone seriously believing that because the American West has vast relatively uninhabited areas does not mean that any foreign population could have taken some spot anywhere there in anyplace that did have sufficient water [and doing so where there was water would have meant stealing that water and not just the land] and survive with the standards of modern Israel without taking control of the water and without anyone noticing, is silly. And, trying to do so would have led to war. But, you win, I am being silly just going to the effort to respond seriously to something I recognize as being silly in the extreme. Or, maybe you were joking. I admit, sometimes I can't tell.  

    Edited to remove one word, "not" which changed my intended meaning. 


     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 3:17pm

    There are counties *EAST* of the Rockies on this map with very few people - in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, etc. Water wasn't the only deciding factor in settlement - how far north, how close to railroads & west-moving wagon routes, etc.

    I'm also referring to Jewish-only population back in 1948 or even 1970.

    As for surviving as modern Israel, I imagine half would have moved to NY, Miami, LA, etc., maybe more. Or if not constantly fighting wars with the surrounding countries, they'd have just stayed put and built it up. We'll never know.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 3:14pm

    OK, but I did intend to link pictures of Highway 50. Here they are.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 3:23pm

    THIS IS DELIGHTFUL!

    I dunno, you might have summed up 2015?

    An unexamined life....?

    I hereby render unto Eric the Dayly Lines of the year for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of him from all of me.

    hahahhahahahahahas

    THIS ALL IS PRECIOUS and you have me laughing. hahhahahahaha

    I am trying to think of a song.

     

     

    I AM JUST A A WHITE GUY AFTER ALL ! HAHAHAHHA


    by Richard Day on Fri, 12/18/2015 - 9:59pm

    Thank you, Richard


    by Wattree on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 7:34am

    Forget politics for a sec.

    I would have real problems finding lines by me over the last nine years that would even attempt to equal these lines.

    This list is magnificent.

    Race, color or creed; God I love these lines.

    Jesus, this line of truths just got to me.

    I do not know how I could be more astounded!

    Maybe I M overdoing this thing?

    Maybe I disagree with two?  of your sayings?

    I dunno?

    I really have problems even attacking those challenges,

    This is clean. 

    Sombitch!

    I am captivated by this blog.

    I could look at a thousand sites and  not accumulate all these truths.

    I am sorry.

    now I sound like a sycophant

    hahahahahaha

    I really do not understand how anyone could miss this.

    Okay, I am done.

    Here is an old paen.

    I do not know how else to express my emotions right now

     


    by Richard Day on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 8:15am

    Thanks again, Richard.

    Man, I wish I could clone you.  There'd be millions of you.  And no, you don't sound like a sycophant; I've just written something that reflects your own thinking.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said something to the effect that the only reason we think a man has said something brilliant is because he's said something that we've already thought ourselves. 

    So I've made that my niche.  I've never been a "brilliant" man like some of my friends (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2010/09/dr-richard-allen-williams-miles-ahea...);  I've always been a guy who sort of fit into the middle of the pack, but I try to compensate for that by spending more time learning HOW to think, and thinking efficiently. So actually, I refer to myself in "Pearls of Limited Wisdom" - Faux Intellectual: A person who states the obvious as though he's telling you something new. But that works for me, because it allows me to get people to think, and that's what a writer is suppose to do.


    by Wattree on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 12:25pm

    Uri Avnery's latest and beyond troubling report from Israel. at Counterpunch about the summary executions of Palestinian 'terrorists', the latest a 14 year old girl shows just how degenerate the Zionist dream has become.

    With today's Israeli military power and worldwide Jewish political and economic influence it's hard or impossible for many people to sympathize with their historical mistreatment or to view them as the victims they were during WW2.

    Israelis and those who support them unequivocally are their own worst enemies locked in a self destructive spiral of hate and destruction.

     


    by Peter (not verified) on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 2:11pm

    Of course, Wattree is free to be interested or not interested in whatever he wishes, but I do wish he had more curiosity about the things he writes about.


    by Aaron Carine on Sat, 12/19/2015 - 8:35pm

    Aaron,

    We only have so  many minutes on this Earth, so we have to pick and choose what we want to spend our time researching and educating ourselves on.  I see this as nonsense on its face, so I see no reason whatsoever to educate myself on the justification of what is clearly ridiculous.  Should I waste my time researching talking snakes, or Moses telling the Red Sea to scoot over?  Give me, and the world, a break!!!?  The only people who believes the bullshit you're spewing is you, and a few idiots who are anxiously awaiting "the final days" - but I, and most Americans, are not interested in that nonsense. We want to live and not have to continue to sacrifice our children, in spite of your selfish desire for a "homeland."  You need to get use to that opinion, because it's one that's getting ever more pronounced. 


    by Wattree on Sun, 12/20/2015 - 5:44am

    It is Wattree's privilege to regard Zionism and what I write about it as ridiculous bullshit. That is for other people to decide, not me. But I should clarify that it isn't about my "selfish desire for a homeland" because 1) I'm not Jewish, despite my first name. 2) I consider the United States my homeland.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 12/20/2015 - 3:22am

    Aaron.

    My point still stands whether you're Jewish or not.  We're not discussing Judaism, we're discussing Zionism, and many Jews are not Zionist.

     


    by Wattree on Sun, 12/20/2015 - 6:13am

    Your point about me having a "selfish desire for a homeland" suggests that Israel is my homeland. Otherwise how could my feeling that a Jewish state--to be obtained through splitting the land, not by the conquest/cleansing that actually happened--was necessary be a selfish desire? It's not selfish if you have no stake in it. I'm a disinterested observer, like you.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 12/20/2015 - 6:26am

    Aaron,

    I started to try to make the connection by arguing that many Americans feel they have a vested interest in Zionism, but that would have ben a ridiculous attempt to justify what was obviously a logical error on my part.  My assumption that you were a Zionist simply because you were arguing that Zionism is a valid philosophy was unwarranted. So I withdraw the comment, and I'll make a mental note to avoid making that kind of unwarranted assumption again.


    by Wattree on Sun, 12/20/2015 - 9:25am

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