Forget shopping! Here is a much better way of having a nice time – and it’s completely free! Reading and discussing what you’ve read with intelligent, well-informed people doesn’t cost anything.
It is horrifying to see how many opportunists are trying to milk the murder of Michael Brown to promote their stupid careers. I haven’t felt this disgusted for a long time.
I had no idea anybody still took the Implicit Association Test so seriously. People have so little self-awareness that they flock to these fake and meaningless “tests”. I remember taking this Implicit Association Test a few years ago, and it was obvious that the test had been designed by unhealthy people who were desperate to manipulate everybody into believing they were the same kind of jerkwads as the test makers.
Finally everybody has noticed the rapidly improving economy: “Tuesday’s CNN/ORC poll showed for the first time in seven years, a majority of Americans — 51% — have a positive view of the economy, a sharp increase from the 38% who felt that way in October. The jump was present in every demographic group — men, women, whites, non-whites, urban, rural — and was largest among Americans who earn less than $50,000 annually.”
A great insight: “I really don’t get this media obsession with the idea that The Kids Today aren’t living their lives precisely as the olds imagine they lived their lives back in the day.” Stop belly-aching about the young people. Go take care of your own stupid life instead.
Fighting domestic abuse in India.
Finally, the Liberals are waking up to what Putin’s ideology is really like: “While Putin says he is standing against fascism in Ukraine, he’s had no qualms about cozying up to Europe’s far right. Analysts say the growing bond between Putin and far-right European politicians could benefit to both sides. “In Russia today there is a mix of exalting nationalism, exalting the church and Christian values. . . They are now replacing the red star with the cross, and they are representing themselves as the ultimate barrier against the Islamization of the continent.” Let’s wait and see how long it takes The Nation to figure out that supporting Putin’s far-right regime is a little bizarre.
And from the adventures of the truly shameless: “A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has revived a lawsuit, dismissed by a lower court, charging the law school of the University of the District of Columbia with race and gender discrimination against Stephanie Brown, a black woman who was denied tenure. The ruling noted that Brown had published one journal article and had another accepted at the point at which she was denied tenure.” We, the academics, will keep up this extreme shamelessness until there will be no way of defending the institution of tenure any longer. This is just sad.
And since we are talking about lack of self-awareness, here is a scary example of somebody who is not even trying to gain any insight into himself. This kind of posts just freaks me out.
Now it has become clear why my students are so terrified of the word “black” and wince whenever I use it.
How to tell if you are a really bad teacher.
Triumph of the technocrat: a sculpture.
How the elevator transformed America.
The illusion of constant business is just that, an illusion: “Why do people feel so rushed? Part of this is a perception problem. On average, people in rich countries have more leisure time than they used to. This is particularly true in Europe, but even in America leisure time has been inching up since 1965, when formal national time-use surveys began.”
“And I just think, why do I keep coming back where people don’t like me? They may love me, because we’re family and we kind of have to.” People, please listen: this is NOT POSSIBLE. Love is the highest degree of acceptance. If somebody doesn’t like or respect you, if they casually say hurtful things on a regular basis, if you routinely feel discomfort by their side, this means THEY DON’T LOVE YOU. You are not loved by these people.
There are few things I enjoy more than observing Americans try to convince themselves that they hung the Moon.
I find it disturbing that these humongously outdated blogs are so much more popular than mine.
Why would anybody want to spend any time on Twitter at all?
“In the US you will never see any “progressives” opposing the use of violence including lethal violence by the security forces of Togo and Gabon. US Black Lives matter to them, but African Lives do not when the people doing the killing are African governments backed by the “progressive” and “socialist” government of France. It is considered far more important by US “progressives” that France provides free health care to rich white people than it is that France backs brutal and corrupt regimes in Africa that kill people.” France totally sucks, folks. And our indifference to Africa sucks, too. I have recently started trying to get educated on what is happening on the continent, and there is a million fascinating things happening.
Thin people are to blame for global warming. Why am I not surprised!
“Darrell Issa (R-Vista) wasted enormous congressional resources over the last 18 months trying to inflate the IRS “scandal” into a mountain. The release Tuesday of his final, petulant report on the affair marks what may be its final decline into a mouse. Contrary to his assertions in countless appearances on Fox News, there’s no evidence that the Obama White House directed — or indeed was involved in any way — in the supposed targeting of conservative nonprofit groups for special scrutiny by the IRS.” I said back when this scandal took place that it was a nothing affair, a completely meaningless, overinflated drama. It’s shocking always to be so right about everything.
Is single-payer health care simply not possible in the US? “Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday dropped his plan to enact a single-payer health care system in his state — a plan that had won praise from liberals but never really got much past the framework stage. “This is not the right time” for enacting single payer, Shumlin said in a statement, citing the big tax increases that would be required to pay for it.”
[Russian.] As the economic crisis in Russia intensifies, the support of Russians for their president grows. Yes, I said grows.
If you want me to comment on interesting links, leave them in the comment section of this post.
Clarissa's Blog 
\ France totally sucks, folks.
One of my wishes for the next year is to understand why you think so and what are the reasons for France sucking. 🙂
Isn’t America interfering abroad much much more than France? Doesn’t America back brutal regimes too?
\ US Black Lives matter to them, but African Lives do not when the people doing the killing are African governments backed by the “progressive” and “socialist” government of France.
I think the correct description would be “Black Lives do not matter to them, when the people doing the killing are Black too.” Ditto about Muslims. Nobody cares what Muslims do to other Muslims, as long as the issue can’t be connected (whether rightly or wrongly) to white colonialists and/or Jews.
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“One of my wishes for the next year is to understand why you think so and what are the reasons for France sucking.”
“Isn’t America interfering abroad much much more than France? Doesn’t America back brutal regimes too?”
“Nobody cares what Muslims do to other Muslims, as long as the issue can’t be connected (whether rightly or wrongly) to white colonialists and/or Jews.”
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\ They are about to elect Marine Le Pen as president. Need I say more?
It would be funny, hadn’t it been sad. Saw on the American Interest:
Putin’s Christmas Gift
Vladimir Putin bought the French people a Christmas tree, even as he deepens ties with Marine Le Pen’s National Front.
There are pictures here:
http://www.inquisitr.com/1639889/putin-spreads-christmas-cheer-russia-sponsors-notre-dame-christmas-tree-complete-with-russian-santa/
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France also sucks from a business point of view. Just the payroll tax in France is 66%. That means that you pay the employee’s net pay plus the income tax plus the social security contribution (pension and healthcare), and after that you still have to pay the 66% of this whole amount as a “payroll tax”. As a comparison, Britain doesn’t have a payroll tax at all. Hungary that is a notorious payroll tax charger also has “only” a 27% payroll tax (which is still bad enough). France sucks for starting new businesses in a very serious way. The bloatedness of their welfare state is also ridiculous though. Once (when I still wanted to learn French – I don’t want any more) I chatted with an unemployed young woman who attended a state-financed personal appearance course (where their hair and makeup was done by professional stylists for free – all that financed from the taxpayers’ money). I wonder how they will maintain that in the era of the post-nation state.
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“France also sucks from a business point of view. Just the payroll tax in France is 66%. That means that you pay the employee’s net pay plus the income tax plus the social security contribution (pension and healthcare), and after that you still have to pay the 66% of this whole amount as a “payroll tax”. ”
“Once (when I still wanted to learn French – I don’t want any more) I chatted with an unemployed young woman who attended a state-financed personal appearance course (where their hair and makeup was done by professional stylists for free – all that financed from the taxpayers’ money).”
“I wonder how they will maintain that in the era of the post-nation state.”
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“I only wish the transition isn’t carried out through a spell of neo-Nazism. It’s a big probability, though.”
Yes, they will blame everyone else when they will be deprived of the unnecessary crap the welfare state granted to them. However if the theory about the post-nation state is true, their government won’t have a very big space to move, even if a far-right president is elected. Okay let’s say they reduce immigration to 0%. Then what? Companies still won’t want to hire the kind of people who got used to free welfare. You can’t force that kind of people to work or produce anything valuable in the era of human rights. Companies will leave – the native French businesses already began to flock to Eastern Europe and Asia (my partner worked for one of them back in Hungary). I don’t think neo-nazism will happen on a bigger level in Europe because who would give money to them on the long term? Corporations already want to outsource. Do they want to oust even more? The Russians? Maybe they finance the campaign of the Le Pen girl, but after that? I don’t think they will give money for feeding the Western benefit scroungers who are currently fed by the immigrants. Anyway, Putin just plays a political game, he gives a shit about the welfare of the French. Then where will the money come from? From the postmodern, globalized corporations? Yes, of course…
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“However if the theory about the post-nation state is true, their government won’t have a very big space to move, even if a far-right president is elected. ”
“I don’t think neo-nazism will happen on a bigger level in Europe because who would give money to them on the long term? Corporations already want to outsource. Do they want to oust even more? The Russians? Maybe they finance the campaign of the Le Pen girl, but after that? I don’t think they will give money for feeding the Western benefit scroungers who are currently fed by the immigrants. Anyway, Putin just plays a political game, he gives a shit about the welfare of the French. Then where will the money come from?”
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“You are really getting it.”
I’m getting it, because I experience it in my everyday life, however it was your blog that made me understand the bigger picture. Actually I’m frequently approached by native British small business owners to help them find EE staff, because they’re fed up of being constantly told “fuck you” by their own employees (that literally happens). It’s interesting, because I never initiate these talks, they just ask me because they know I’m from that region. It’s always them who ask about it. Their attachment to their own nation state is zero. And these are not rich people, only working and middle class small business owners. I guess the rich are even more like that. It’s only the fuck-yous who choose the neonazi route.
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Heh this reminds me of this British guy I knew from an online game. He comes back home at noon on one Tuesday, having left work after getting very drunk and getting into a fight with his boss, and then he starts ‘splaining to me how he’s going to lose his job because EE immigrants are willing to work for less than he is. Yeah, buddy…
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“He comes back home at noon on one Tuesday, having left work after getting very drunk and getting into a fight with his boss.”
He got drunk at NOON in his workplace, then fought with his boss, then went home because the precious fweeeelings of the little baby got hurt? Wow. And could he keep his job? What a loser boss, what an easy competition. Why would anyone want to hire people like that? And he genuinely thinks, it’s just about the money. 🙂 Maybe he should start to behave as a responsible adult.
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“and then he starts ‘splaining to me how he’s going to lose his job because EE immigrants are willing to work for less than he is.”
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Oh, he didn’t keep his job, obviously. I was just stupefied that this sort of behaviour was even in the realm of the imaginable for him.
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I read Otto’s post about Russian German Deportees in 1941 and derRach’s comment, and wanted to ask your opinion:
http://jpohl.blogspot.co.il/2014/12/number-of-russian-german-deportees-in.html
One reads on Israeli sites either “neo Nazis in Germany” OR “some young German volunteers [in Israel] view their service to the elderly and sick as atonement for the war crimes of their country against the Jewish people.”
Here I read derRach’s comment and thought about the gulf between us. He says “ethnic German survivors” despite the fact that I haven’t read about Soviet gov attempting to kill ethnic Germans. On the contrary, weren’t those who were deported sent away from the fighting and lived in the same conditions as Soviet people in those areas?
From what I understood he wants to “confront the society of Russia to morally accept their history of crimes against” “Russian Germans deported by the NKVD to Siberia and Kazakhstan”.
I can’t call the latter a war crime, as he wishes. I have read tareeva’s memories and the stories in the comments to her post on the topic:
http://tareeva.livejournal.com/61704.html?thread=2107144
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This is my standard reply to the Soviet revsionism that Russian-Germans did not suffer any more than other Soviet citizens in the rear of the USSR.
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2012/11/an-answer-to-stalinist-revisionists.html
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I haven’t read almost anything on the topic before, except memories of Soviets from the war, so may have swallowed the Soviet revisionism.
\ The Stalinist line that the Russian-Germans did not suffer any more than ethnic Russians is literally the moral equivalent of noting that six million Germans died during WWII so their suffering was equal to that of the Jews.
Just wanted to note that six million wasn’t the same % of total German population as of total Jewish one. In one case, it was attempted genocide of the entire people, in another – no.
Had Soviet government planned to kill those Germans? Had it being an understood goal, or the usual Soviet disregard for all lives?
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Why should plans rather than what actually happened be the basis of judgement? The entire German population west of the Urals in the USSR was dumped in Kazakhstan, Siberia, and a few in Uzbekistan with inadequate food, housing, clothing, and medical care. They were then mobilized to work in labor camps under the same conditions as prisoners without any adequate resources. The completely foreseeable result was that a large minority, around a fifth of them, prematurely died during the 1940s. They were finally granted full formal equality with other Soviet citizens on November 1972, over thirty years later.
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It was genocide, pure and simple. I thought this was well-known. The definition of ethnic cleansing.
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It is a blatant Stalinst lie that the deported ethnic Germans in the USSR “lived in the same conditioins as Soviet people in those areas” during WWII. They were dumped with nothing in those areas, placed under apartheid like legal restrictions, and then mobilized for forced labor in camps in the Urals. Hundreds of thousands of them died from deliberate material deprivation in the settlements and camps.
https://www.academia.edu/5485897/Soviet_Apartheid_Stalin_s_Ethnic_Deportations_Special_Settlement_Restrictions_and_the_Labor_Army_The_Case_of_the_Ethnic_Germans_in_the_USSR
https://www.academia.edu/4762680/Hewers_of_Wood_and_Drawers_of_Water_The_Russian-Germans_in_the_Labour_Army
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Solzhenitsyn describes very poignantly the horrors these ethnic Germans were subjected to for absolutely no reason than their German – sounding last names. This was one of the greatest crimes of Stalinism.
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Otto (can’t comment on your blog as Anonymous, so comment here), I read your post “Thoughts on Gaza”
http://jpohl.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/thoughts-on-gaza.html
and was disturbed to see you think:
“A situation develops where the occupier will face sustained guerrilla and terrorist resistance until they give up and go home. […] I believe we have entered a phase where the end outcome will look a lot more like Algeria’s “the suitcase or the coffin” than South Africa’s “one man, one vote.” It will still be many years before there is a Free Palestine from the River to the Sea, but I now believe it will happen in my lifetime.”
“in my lifetime” – how old are you? This probably means in my lifetime too.
The thing is we, Israeli Jews, don’t have another home. A suitcase to where?
Israel is so strong that I don’t understand how you can believe in Palestinians succeeding in killing and exiling all Israeli Jews. They don’t and won’t have the weapons, the numbers, nothing.
In practice, your prediction means Holocaust 2 for the Jews. Don’t you understand that Israel will do everything (and I mean everything) not to suffer this again?
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“The thing is we, Israeli Jews, don’t have another home. A suitcase to where?”
Many people who are really concerned about the Palestinians don’t care about that. They assume that Israeli Jews will sooner or later emigrate (as they always have when things get too hot or the grass is a lot greener elsewhere).
I personally think Palestine from the river to the sea will simply be another dysfunctional perpetually failing Arab state (sine no Palestinian organization has the first beginnings of an idea of doing things differently from other Arab countries) but it’s what a lot of people want.
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\ They assume that Israeli Jews will sooner or later emigrate (as they always have when things get too hot or the grass is a lot greener elsewhere).
This is ironic descriptions of their beliefs, not what you think, right?
In reality, most Israeli Jews both don’t want and can’t emigrate anywhere, and are ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the state and their lives.
The latter is also true for Americans, Canadians, Germans, Russians, any other nationality. They would do everything, including atom bombs, to preserve their nation states, why would somebody think Israeli Jews are different?
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that should be “Israeli Jews will sooner or later emigrate (as Jewish people always have…”
And I’ve seen the idea proposed often enough that I think it is what they think. I used to get poo pooed regularly for suggesting that non-hassidic Israeli Hebrew speaking Jews are a unique cultural and linguistic group distinct from other Jewish groups and they’re worth preserving. For a lot of people (including some Jews) a Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew and Hebrew going the way of Ladino is of no particular concern.
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I identified now what bothers me about your language. The discussion by itself – “they are (not) worth preserving” – puts Jews in the position of objects, inferior beings, not really A People. Nobody discusses whether Germans or French are worth preserving, as if we are discussing Red Book of Endangered Species rather than an independent people in their own nation state.
We, Israeli Jews, don’t care whether somebody thinks we are (not) worth preserving. After creation of Israel, a modern nation state, Jews are like Germans, like French, etc. Some anti-semits refuse to understand that. Moreover, after 2000 years w/o a state, even some well meaning people may have difficulty to look at Israeli Jews the way they look at French or Spanish peoples. Meaning: as on a people in their nation state, who will do everything to preserve their national independence (and, of course, won’t go away).
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“After creation of Israel, a modern nation state, Jews are like Germans, like French, etc.”
“Moreover, after 2000 years w/o a state, even some well meaning people may have difficulty to look at Israeli Jews the way they look at French or Spanish peoples. ”
“Meaning: as on a people in their nation state, who will do everything to preserve their national independence”
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\ Hebrew going the way of Ladino is of no particular concern.
I, personally, don’t care about Hebrew. (My mother tongue is Russian.) Israel could have chosen Yiddish instead of Hebrew, so what?
I wouldn’t care at all if tomorrow Israeli Jews decided “we want X as our language.” (It won’t happen, but lets imagine for the sake of clarifying this point.)
I do care about Jewish people having a nation state of our own, where Jews would be a majority and capable of protecting their interests and, if necessary, lives. A life of Jewish people as a people.
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“In reality, most Israeli Jews both don’t want and can’t emigrate anywhere, and are ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the state and their lives. The latter is also true for Americans, Canadians, Germans, Russians, any other nationality. They would do everything, including atom bombs, to preserve their nation states, why would somebody think Israeli Jews are different?”
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\ People today are not willing to do even the tiniest, most insignificant little things to preserve the nation-state model.
On a practical level, do you expect Israeli Jews to lose their state quietly as Otto predicts? In Israeli Jews’ case, it would mean either death or becoming stateless refugees whom nobody wants. Would Jews agree to Holocaust 2?
Besides, Israel is behind the European trends. The state needs people to serve in the IDF (remember the link about IDF welcoming trans teens to make them enlist?). Israeli society is very nationalistic, words like “diversity” and “multiculturalism” can’t be applied to Israeli realities, a significant number of people are ready to live in the West Bank because of religious-ideological reasons, etc.
I don’t think Israeli people are not ready to do even the tiniest thing. For instance, most serve in the IDF, people are very patriotic and are ready to fight in wars. You project from the American ivory tower. 🙂 Come and visit Israel, talk with people, may be even visiting an Israeli forum would be enough.
I would love to hear your predictions how Israel, a new nation state, will be affected by the changing world.
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“In Israeli Jews’ case, it would mean either death or becoming stateless refugees whom nobody wants. Would Jews agree to Holocaust 2?”
For an enormous percentage of Israelis, the nation-state is dead already:
I know such people personally and they are perfectly fine.
“For instance, most serve in the IDF, people are very patriotic and are ready to fight in wars. You project from the American ivory tower. 🙂 Come and visit Israel, talk with people, may be even visiting an Israeli forum would be enough.”
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\ This sounds like the Germans and the French are some sort of a lofty ideal. 🙂
Well, they haven’t been living in all possible kinds of ghettoes for centuries and during WW2, have they?
Weren’t discriminated in their nation state because of their nationality.
Some people may not like Germans, but they don’t tend to have extreme not rational reactions like in Jewish / Zionist case. Today Germany is the leading country of Europe and EU, respected everywhere.
\ Today’s Spaniards or French will find this rhetoric very bizarre and outdated. […] And getting them to serve voluntarily in an actual war conflict is a feat nobody is even attempting.
First of all, nobody is threatening their state’s existence. Had French had to choose among a war, genocide or turning into poor stateless refugees, they may have changed their mind. Going to a not crucial war abroad is another matter than being thrown out of one’s own house, don’t you think?
Israel is not in Europe, but surrounded by you know what. The situation is extremely different from peaceful Europe. (I don’t talk about FSU countries now.)
Second, Israel is a new country and Israeli Jews are psychologically and historically like the European states in their early stages. Then people were ready to die for the state, and did so.
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// I only wish the transition isn’t carried out through a spell of neo-Nazism. It’s a big probability, though.
Ha! And you previously said Jews were in more danger in Israel than in Europe, and didn’t need their nation state.
If this neo-Nazi stage comes to pass, won’t it lead to wars and many deaths again? What would happen to the European Jews, were they unable to come to Israel?
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“Ha! And you previously said Jews were in more danger in Israel than in Europe, and didn’t need their nation state.”
This neo-nazism has zero interest in Jews.
“If this neo-Nazi stage comes to pass, won’t it lead to wars and many deaths again?”
“What would happen to the European Jews, were they unable to come to Israel?”
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// It doesn’t seem like they find Marine Le Pen all that objectionable. Can you guess why?
They fear and hate Arab immigrants more than Le Pen.
Time will show whether they are right. Reminded me of Jews in Italian fascism.
Extremists like Le Pen may clean their act (in regard to Jews) for a while to gain power. However, people on the street who hate Arabs tend to hate Jews too, even if Arabs attract the most attention for now. Raised nationalism goes well with raised levels of anti-semitism.
Look at the article in Haaretz:
France now leading source of immigration to Israel (for the first time since the founding of Israel !)
Over 4,500 French Jews have moved to Israel in 2014, marking a 25-year high. Officials say anti-Semitism, weak economy are behind rise.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.614489
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“Over 4,500 French Jews have moved to Israel in 2014, marking a 25-year high. Officials say anti-Semitism, weak economy are behind rise.”
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Quoting Benjamin Disraeli, ‘There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.’ From wiki:
In 2012, a new Global Religion and Migration Database constructed by the Pew Research Center showed that there were a total of 330,000 native-born Israelis, including 230,000 Jews, living abroad, approximately 4% of Israel’s native-born Jewish population. Immigrants to Israel who later left were not counted. Danny Gadot of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles claimed that although some 600,000-750,000 Israelis were estimated to living in the United States, many were not native-born and in fact the children of Israeli expatriates, as the children of Israelis born abroad are counted as Israeli citizens.That year, it was reported that yerida (leaving Israel) had hit a 40-year low, while the number of Israelis returning from abroad had increased.
[…]
Most Israelis who emigrate do not leave permanently, and eventually return home after an extended period abroad […] According to demographer Pini Herman, this circular migration has been an economic boon to Israel. Israel does not have the technological, academic, and other infrastructural resources to absorb its disproportionate number of highly trained and skilled population, second only to the United States. As a result, many Israelis have worked overseas for extended periods of time. Upon their return, they have often attracted or repatriated with them to Israel new infrastructure, such as that provided by companies like as Intel, Google, Microsoft, and IBM.
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“According to demographer Pini Herman, this circular migration has been an economic boon to Israel. Israel does not have the technological, academic, and other infrastructural resources to absorb its disproportionate number of highly trained and skilled population, second only to the United States. As a result, many Israelis have worked overseas for extended periods of time. ”
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“It’s a way of saying ‘the end of the nation-state.’”
I’m not so sure that a circular in-and-out migration of elites means the death of the nation state. I say this because I’m pretty sure that the myth of the nation state – “we lived right on this spot since time began, and we’re going to live here ’till it ends” was not how the actual things that we call nation states worked. Have educated elites ever not shuffled around?
Would you mind making a kind of inventory of what a nation state is composed of? From your previous posts, I have this vague idea that it’s a kind of deal between elites and a local linguistic/cultural majority to cut the latter in on the financial benefits of organized violence so long as they accept the risk of death; all draped in a narrative that helps both parties not lose sleep about the whole thing. Is that the long and short of it, or am I missing something major?
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Let’s drop the elites out of the discussion altogether. This is about the relationship between people and the state and not different groups of people.
Both Stalin ‘s sons fought in WWII. And when the eldest was taken prisoner Stalin refused to bail him out. Aristocracy went to die in massive numbers in both world wars. So this is not about how groups of people relate to other groups. This is about how everybody relates to the institution of the state.
Today, the highly mobile are hardly an elite. Look at the readers of this blog. Is there even anybody here who is writing from the same place where they were born? We are an intellectual elite, obviously. But everybody here seems to be from a pretty modest (if not dirt poor) backgrounds.
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Okay. I’d like to make it clear that I’m not contesting you here, just trying to repeat what I gathered your definition of the nation state to be while bringing in my own best guesses to fill in the blanks.
Given how well I did, I guess I’d like to repeat my request for a post on what a nation state is/was. 🙂
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http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20141226_The_other_class_war.html
The economy? Now that China is coming to the aid of Russia, it has a better long term prognosis than the US.
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“Now that China is coming to the aid of Russia, it has a better long term prognosis than the US.”
As for your link, do you believe there is no class divide in Russia? Or do you believe that it is smaller than the class divide in the US?
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You see that few native-born Israelis leave the country at all, let alone forever.
The site you quoted is very Left-leaning one, and there is a strong political aspect to the way they present things.
// It is estimated that about 45 percent of the adult Israeli expatriates have completed at least a university degree, in contrast to 22 percent of the Israeli population. The Israeli emigrants are deemed to be disproportionately secular, liberal, and cosmopolitan.
Meaning: not everybody is able to emigrate and not everybody is willing to emigrate, even if able. Most Jews will stay in Israel and need a state.
Btw, what about Palestinians “on the way someplace”? If one talks about all Jews leaving Israel and giving the land to Palestinians, why not the opposite? According to surveys, Palestinians in Gaza and even in the West Bank are dreaming of moving.
// You know how much I hate melodrama, right? Crowds of people emigrate from Israel every year and there is no Holocaust on the horizon.
I talked about Otto’s prediction of Israeli Jews losing to Palestinians, losing our state. What do you think Palestinians would do to me then?
Imagine had ALL 6,135,000 (for today) Israeli Jews been forced to emigrate. America wouldn’t want us, that’s for sure.
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“You see that few native-born Israelis leave the country at all, let alone forever.”
“Meaning: not everybody is able to emigrate and not everybody is willing to emigrate, even if able. Most Jews will stay in Israel and need a state. Btw, what about Palestinians “on the way someplace”? If one talks about all Jews leaving Israel and giving the land to Palestinians, why not the opposite? According to surveys, Palestinians in Gaza and even in the West Bank are dreaming of moving.”
“What do you think Palestinians would do to me then?”
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With all these ammosexuals running around the big thing for the Christmas season in the States is Kevlar baby carriers and strollers.( http://www.lulusoso.com/products/Kevlar-Baby-Carrier.html).
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In Zimbabwe, black people call themselves black and white people call themselves white. It’s kind of like when you have slugged it out in the boxing ring to the point that not only are you pretty resigned by now but you have also gained some mutual respect. So it doesn’t matter what you call each other.
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// Their main complaint was the abysmally poor quality of higher education that is not preparing them for the current workplace.
I can’t understand how it can go with genereous welfare state. The latter too may not be true for everybody: I read in one article that the French suburbs populated by immigrants’ children resemble Ferguson.
Read on wiki (the rest is the relevant quote):
Poverty rates are higher than the national average in the cités; those for 2005 are shown below (national averages in parentheses):
Unemployment: 20.7% (8.6%);
Poverty: 26.5% (6%);
Single-parent families: 15% (8%).
The cités contain a higher proportion of children and adolescents than in the rest of France: 31.5% of their population is 19 or younger, compared with 24.5% nationwide.
According to Paul A. Silverstein, associate professor of anthropology at Reed College and author of Algeria in France: Transpolitics, Race, and Nation, and Chantal Tetreault, assistant professor of anthropology at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who has researched and written extensively on language, gender, and social exclusion in French suburban housing projects, the colonial apartheid in Algeria has been re-created in the cities of France:
“As such, the colonial dual cities described by North African urban theorists Janet Abu-Lughod, Zeynep Çelik, Paul Rabinow, and Gwendolyn Wright — in which native medinas were kept isolated from European settler neighborhoods out of competing concerns of historical preservation, public hygiene, and security — have been effectively re-created in the postcolonial present, with contemporary urban policy and policing maintaining suburban cités and their residents in a state of immobile apartheid, at a perpetual distance from urban, bourgeois centers”
The issue of “educational apartheid” is also of great concern to George Mason University law professor Harry Hutchison, who has warned that France’s refusal to implement its 2006 First Employment Contract (CPE) law would disproportionately harm poor youth, particularly immigrants
The contrat première embauche (CPE; English: first employment contract) was a new form of employment contract pushed in spring 2006 in France by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. This employment contract, available solely to employees under 26, would have made it easier for the employer to fire employees by removing the need to provide reasons for dismissal for an initial “trial period” of two years, in exchange for some financial guarantees for employees. However, the enactment of this amendment to the so-called “Equality of Opportunity Act” (loi sur l’égalité des chances) establishing this contract was so unpopular that soon massive protests were held, mostly by young students, and the government rescinded the amendment.
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“Their main complaint was the abysmally poor quality of higher education that is not preparing them for the current workplace.
I can’t understand how it can go with genereous welfare state”
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France has at least one good researcher on Soviet history, Nicholas Werth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Werth
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“However, the enactment of this amendment to the so-called “Equality of Opportunity Act” (loi sur l’égalité des chances) establishing this contract was so unpopular that soon massive protests were held, mostly by young students, and the government rescinded the amendment.”
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http://www.globalresearch.ca/grandmaster-putins-trap-russia-is-selling-oil-and-gas-in-exchange-for-physical-gold/5421567?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=grandmaster-putins-trap-russia-is-selling-oil-and-gas-in-exchange-for-physical-gold
Putin is a brilliant player. Russia and China have put aside historic squabbles…at least until a multi-polar world is restored.
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Ah, so you are a primitive Putinoid. Sorry, this is a blog for people with a functioning brain.
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\ There is a lot that could be done to keep the model in place but any practical suggestion – no matter how small – is greeted by a mile-long bout of whining as to how horribly this tiny effort will inconvenience everybody. Make no mistake: the society of consumers is a place where people don’t tolerate even the slightest discomfort. And that spells death to the nation-state.
Wondered which things could be done to preserve the nation state model and whether you would be ready to do them. Seems like the answer to the second question is “yes,” in contradiction to your “I can always move and am not patriotic” position. How does it go together?
Also, won’t those consumers be more inconvenienced by the collapse of the nation state than by whatever they refuse to contribute to preserve it? Is it an example of a wrong long term strategy, persuing immediate gratification w/o regard for the future? If not, they are right not to preserve the model.
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http://taia.global/2014/12/taia-global-linguists-establish-nationality-of-sony-hackers-as-russian-not-korean/
Sony hackers were apparently native Russian speakers. The whitepaper the page links to has a quite interesting analysis.
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Fascinating! And not hard to believe.
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Now I’m thinking about how future attackers could guard against people finding out their native language like that. Writing the ransom messages in Googled sentences might be useful.
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“They may love me, because we’re family and we kind of have to …”
No no, no no absolutely no.
They don’t like changes in a person’s life narrative.
They don’t like that you’ll stand up for yourself.
They don’t like that you’ll vote for personal survival over whatever madness they have in mind.
They don’t provide meaningful indicators of respect, let alone love.
I had a family like this — I don’t miss these people, and I don’t refer to them as my family.
They never really knew me anyway, because if they did, they’d have known not to have pulled some of the crap they’ve pulled over the years.
When it’s clear that you’re part of a family of strangers, guess what? You’re not actually part of a family — these are just strangers who happen to be related to you.
My friends are my family …
Those other people just share a last name with me.
It’s amazing how putting it this clearly gets rid of the dreadful melodrama.
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“When it’s clear that you’re part of a family of strangers, guess what? You’re not actually part of a family — these are just strangers who happen to be related to you.”
Yes, I think exactly the same, however you worded it more accurately.
“I had a family like this — I don’t miss these people, and I don’t refer to them as my family.”
I wonder how many people like that may exist in the world. Because personally I’ve never met any of them (of course except for myself), but I find many of them on the internet. Is it because they (we) are hiding in real life due to the strong social stigma? And only dare “come out” online for people we will never meet?
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“I wonder how many people like that may exist in the world. Because personally I’ve never met any of them (of course except for myself), but I find many of them on the internet. Is it because they (we) are hiding in real life due to the strong social stigma?”
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\ This is a growing group of people who are shedding the traditional ties and preparing for the greater mobility
You have said yourself that one can keep in touch with the help of technology and have a close relationship despite distance, like you with your sister.
May be, people with not so good relationships with a part of their family simply are freer to cut them. But if a relationship is great, they will preserve it despite distance.
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Precisely, el, and this is a huge change. My parents’ generation says “blood is thicker than water” whereas my generation reblogs on tumblr the folk etymological explanation for that expression (the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, understood as chosen ties being much more important than genetic ones)
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“My parents’ generation says “blood is thicker than water” whereas my generation reblogs on tumblr the folk etymological explanation for that expression (the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, understood as chosen ties being much more important than genetic ones)”
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\ The “water of the womb” has the kind of definitive impact on our lives that all of the rest of the contacts we will make throughout life taken together and multiplied by a million will not come close to matching.
Do you mean it literally or that the first years of life are important?
What about children who are adopted at birth? Would adopting parents be more influential or the genes of the biological parents? (Suppose the biological parents choose not to make contact till the child is 18, if at all.)
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“Do you mean it literally or that the first years of life are important?”
“What about children who are adopted at birth? Would adopting parents be more influential or the genes of the biological parents? ”
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Important to our conscious minds would probably be a more precise description, yeah.
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Jones: brilliant comment. Good for you! I support your manifesto completely.
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Funny:
Egypt bans Biblical epic ‘Exodus’ saying it presents ‘racist’ image of Jews
Cairo explains film puts forth a reading of Egypt’s history that is at odds with the story of Moses told by the world’s monotheistic religions.
[…]
Censors objected to the “intentional gross historical fallacies that offend Egypt and its pharaonic ancient history in yet another attempt to Judaize Egyptian civilization, which confirms the international Zionist fingerprints all over the film,” the statement said.
The ministry said the movie inaccurately depicts ancient Egyptians as “savages” who kill and hang Jews, arguing that hanging did not exist in ancient Egypt. It said the film also presents a “racist” depiction of Jews as a people who mounted an armed rebellion. The ministry said religious scriptures present Jews as weak and oppressed.
The statement also objected to the depiction of God as a child, which also drew criticism in the West.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4608761,00.html
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I don’t understand what they mean by the phrase – a “racist” depiction of Jews. Isn’t it much more flattering to be a people who mounted an armed rebellion rather than “weak and oppressed”? Or do they mean that their citizens wish to see only weak and oppressed Jews, if at all?
Btw, I checked and they really don’t see any Jews:
“In the late 1950s, Egypt expelled its Jewish population and sequestered Jewish-owned property. As of 2014, the Jewish population of Egypt was estimated at 12 to less than 40, down from between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1948”
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Let’s not bring ourselves down to the level of people who take silly Hollywood flicks so seriously by looking for logic behind their arguments.
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\ They will be important but never cancel out the importance of the birth family.
So, you are a huge believer in genetics trampling everything,right?
Otherwise, it sounds like some kind of magic.
What is genetical (IQ, health, personality, love for reading or lack of it)and what isn’t?
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“So, you are a huge believer in genetics trampling everything,right?
Otherwise, it sounds like some kind of magic.”
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\ So. . . we need to rehash the entire topic of my interest in psychoanalysis all over again and its importance to my world-view?
May be, you could clarify a certain point regarding the difference between psychoanalysis and belief in genetics? I do understand the difference between “I am an alcoholic because my father was and it’s in my genes” and “I am X after being raised since brth in a certain way by certain parents.”
However, here we discuss the situation in which a child is NOT raised by biological parents. I think the influence of biological parents is genetic, via genes. The latest research about traumas of parents influencing the offspring’s genes seems to support my theory. You use the word “psychoanalysis,” and I am not sure what it adds to my theory in this particular case. If it is not via genes, then how does psychoanalysis explain it?
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You wouldn’t expect me to retell the entire field of cardiology here, would you? 🙂 Psychoanalysis is no different. It’s a complex branch of learning and I am not aiming for any theoretical advances in it.
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Insane photo (in Russian):
http://marko19511.livejournal.com/1307895.html
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Have you heard about Malta?
On November 14, 2013 : Citizenship for sale: Malta sells EU passports for €650k
On 30 January 2014: Malta has bowed to EU pressure over its controversial new passport scheme for non-EU nationals, saying applicants will now be required to spend at least a year in Malta in order to qualify.
Applicants will still have to invest at least 1.15m euros (£944,000; $1.57m) in Malta to get a passport.
[…]
Malta, like most of the EU’s 28 countries, is in the Schengen zone, where citizens can mostly travel without passport checks. The EU single market has made it much easier for citizens to settle in another member state.
Owning an EU member state’s passport entitles the holder to EU citizenship, with all the rights guaranteed under EU law.
Malta’s scheme, called the Individual Investor Programme (IIP), was initially to be limited to 1,800 people – not including their close relatives, who could also buy passports, for a lower fee.
But Malta is now considering raising that cap, so that more passports could be issued.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25959458
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Am now looking at Events of the Year in Every Country on a Hebrew website. Something curious:
1) The ultimate solution to the cheating problem at universities:
On August 01, 2014: Uzbek authorities suspended Internet and messaging services across the country on August 1 to prevent cheating at university entrance exams.
http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-sms-internet-university-exam-police-cheating/25477815.html
2) Women may soon be able to drive in Saudi Arabia (if they’re over 30, off the road by 8 p.m. and wear no makeup). […] The Saudi king’s advisory council — whose suggestions are not binding — has recommended that the government lift its ban on female drivers […] The council placed heavy restrictions on interactions between female drivers and male traffic officers or other male drivers, and stiff penalties for those who broke them. Merely speaking to a female driver, it said, was punishable by a one-month prison sentence and a fine.
3) May 31, 2014:
Thousands of people marched in Cyprus’ first gay pride parade on Saturday, calling for equal rights in a country where homosexuality is still vehemently opposed by an influential Orthodox Church.
Waving rainbow flags, more than 3,500 people of all ages marched peacefully through the streets of the Cypriot capital where earlier a much smaller, anti-gay group clashed with police.
4) Uganda Holds First Pride Parade Since Anti-Gay Law Was Overturned
Scores of Ugandan homosexuals marched through sprawling botanical gardens in the lakeside town of Entebbe on Saturday, their first pride parade since a Ugandan court invalidated a controversial anti-gay law [that could have landed homosexuals in prison for life].
Many marchers wore masks, signaling they did not want to be publicly identified in a country where homosexuals and their supporters face severe discrimination.
Although organizers had expected more than 500 people to attend the event, fewer than 200 turned up, said gay activist Moses Kimbugwe, who noted that many were afraid of possible violence following a court’s decision earlier this month to jettison an anti-gay law that had wide support among Ugandans.
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Is it my paranoia or a real sign of haredization of Israel? (Bayit Yehudi party is religious Right).
A new Bible study project was launched last week at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, in a bid to promote consistent and continuous reading of biblical verses in Israel’s different communities and sectors.
The project, “929 – Studying the Bible Together,” will be completed on Israel’s 70th Independence Day, in three years and seven months.
The project was initiated by Deputy Education Minister Avi Wortzman of the Bayit Yehudi party and Rabbi David Lau and aims to integrate the Book of Books in the Israeli discourse, breathe life into the stories of the Bible and make it accessible to broad audiences in the Israeli society.
“929” – the number of chapters in the Bible – is based on a continuous reading of one chapter a day.
“We aim to create the largest Bible study community in the world,” said Wortzman.
The project is expected to cost about NIS 47 million (roughly $12 million).
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4608007,00.html
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Harper Collins (headquartered in New York City), one of the largest publishers in the world, has marketed English-language atlases that fail to include Israel to schools in the Middle East.
Unlike absent Israel, the volume includes a map identifying Gaza and the West Bank. Collins Bartholomew, the map company in charge of printing, said including Israel was “unacceptable” for customs in the Persian Gulf.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4610314,00.html
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Guards from American consulate convoy, carrying Palestinians, drew weapons at settlers after the Adei Ad residents pelted their cars with stones.
The convoy was reportedly carrying Palestinians from the village of Turmus Ayya.
The settlers called for back up from the outpost, which is part of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, but by the time additional settlers came armed to join the clash, the American convoy had left.
The settlers claimed the Americans arrived to the area without coordination and brought Palestinians into their territory, saying the American visit was coordinated with the Israeli Civil Administration for next week.
A response by US sources has yet to be made.
More information to follow.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4610673,00.html
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This comment makes a point:
// “Guards from American consulate convoy, carrying Palestinians, drew weapons at settlers after the Adei Ad residents pelted their cars with stones.”
OK. And what is their reaction when Israeli Police or IDF draw weapons after They are pelted with ROCKS by Palestinians?
What is permitted to Americans and Europeans isn’t permitted to Israeli Jews.
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I am glad about results of inner elections in the Likud party, before I wondered how can I vote for that insane politician (showed you his articles once):
Election shocker: Feiglin left out of Likud list
In apparent setback for radical-wing of ruling faction, settlers’ favorite MKs fail to garner enough votes to reach realistic places ahead of elections.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4610471,00.html
Interesting for whom you would’ve voted in Israel. For the Left despite not- looking- trustworthy politicians and peace being far away anyway? Or for the Right despite the accusations of going towards a bi-national state with settlements’ building?
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“Interesting for whom you would’ve voted in Israel. For the Left despite not- looking- trustworthy politicians and peace being far away anyway? Or for the Right despite the accusations of going towards a bi-national state with settlements’ building?”
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\ Who supports feminism more?
If equally? 🙂
Left has been in power for many years after the country’s foundation. However, there still isn’t secular marriage in Israel. And looks like most people don’t want it:
From 2007:
Survey: Only 20% of Israelis consider themselves secular
Number halved since 1970s; claim of religious affiliation higher among Mizrahim.
[…] the recent figures represent a new low point for the secular community. For example, in 1974, the number of those describing themselves as secular stood at more than 40 percent.
[…] Younger people are more religious, people with academic degrees are more secular, and the secular tend to identify more with the left.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/survey-only-20-of-israelis-consider-themselves-secular-1.233815
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Also read another sad article:
The Berlin option and the death of Jewish secularism in Israel
http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/48275-141022-the-berlin-option-and-the-death-of-jewish-secularism-in-israel
Will only religious remain in Israel?
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Антисоветская живопись
http://uglich-jj.livejournal.com/83563.html
Lines in the shops, Golodomor in Ukraine, Gulags…
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Have you read “A Rage to Live” by John O’Hara? My mother liked it, so I decided to recommend. The author has written other long (and probably good) books too. I am planning of giving him a try. He is compared with Dreiser on Amazon, don’t know whether he deserves it.
From Amazon:
A huge bestseller when it first appeared in 1949, A Rage to Live is a large-scale social chronicle of America set against the backdrop of Fort Penn, Pennsylvania, a city with a dynamic history, both public and personal. The Caldwells are its leading family, and Grace Caldwell Tate is the dramatic symbol of their dominance. Her avidity for life carries her through an impetuous childhood, marriage, violent extramarital affairs, scandal, disaster, and her own kind of triumphs. Idealists and libertines, public-spirited and self-seeking citizens, officials and tradesmen and crusaders, men of violence and goodwill, and women of fierce possessiveness and tenderness form the pageant of memorable characters who vitalize what is perhaps the most ambitious work of O’Hara’s career.
“The range of O’Hara’s knowledge of how Americans live was incomparably greater than that of any other fiction writer of his time,” judged The New Yorker. “One would have to go back to Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Theodore Dreiser to find a novelist who had even the intention of acquiring knowledge on the scale that O’Hara acquired it on, and with his degree of particularity.” The New York Times Book Review concurred: “Like Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis before him, he was determined to record the whole of American life, and in such a comprehensive manner that the truth of his portraits would be unassailable. . . . O’Hara was perhaps the most class-conscious writer since James, and certainly one of the most accurate chroniclers of manners in America.”
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Funny cartoon (not about Muslims):
http://www.spectator.co.uk/cartoons/9409862/
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Uri’s latest column:
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/
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Syrian rebels: Iranian officers spotted near site of reported nuclear facility
Senior Free Syrian Army official says suspicious Syrian, Iranian movement noted in Qusayr, where plant is said to be, enhanced by ‘unprecedented’ Hezbollah security.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4613969,00.html
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