Greetings to the American and the UK people

quote:

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Originally posted by bigmick:
... pointless flaming is Arye's MO and he has left a long trail of angry and exasperated contributors over the last few years, I considered reporting it ot the mods but on reflection I replied to it in what I actually thought was quite a jokey manner ...

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Bigmick,

I share your distaste for the Arye's remark, but using abusive language just doesn't serve any purpose on an internet forum. It's so hard to convey nuance. Arye did rather ironicly point out the Bush presidency of the UK, but, sadly it goes further than that. Bush is arguably the president of the world, given the influence that the US exerts over other countries. The worst of it is that Bush is an religious integrist. To me, the US Citizens have made the worst possible choice if they want a world free of terrorism.

Peter

Quote from Geoff P:

"Unfortunately the other one that's pleased with the result is running the UK."

Well, maybe not. The Iraq conflict is a potential election loser and party splitter for Blair. Kerry's election into the White House could have been convenient in allowing "our Tone" to downsize his commitment to the war without losing face here and in the U.S.

I'm sure we've all seen the anlysis produced from voters citing morality as the top issue for election at 21% and this representing a 78% majority within the Replublican voters.
The word "morality" is open to a number of interpretations but it does suggest that "Christian" values are what's meant here.
In a time when the U.S.is seemingly becoming more insular, it might be a case in religious terms of "them vs us", ie. Christian vs Muslim, where these voters are concerned.Amongst these insular voters there's an association between religion and terrorism.
Bush may have waged a lousy war in Afghanistan and Iraq but I think the perception is to many Americans this is part of the global war on terrorism and something that the country is in for the long haul.In other words, it's acceptable.

Peter, the point is taken and as I have remarked it was my second choice reaction to the thread. I was coming off the back of a thread where I was attempting to address the hectoring and bullying behaviour of arguably the most abusive and offensive forum member and my reaction was perhaps coloured by this.

Again, apart from Arye, I apologize to anyone on whom the humour element was lost and who was offended by ,what they regard, as extreme language.

Bigmick,

If you don't count "eat shit and die" as extremely abusive I would struggle to re-calibrate my understanding of your scale.

Matthew

Matthew, I've can't make my stance any clearer on this matter and can't see the point in wasting any more time on going round in circles.

You have got a certain level of sensitivity. My remark has offended you. I have apologized and explained why I said what I said.

So what is it exactly that you want? If you have some other axe to grind then spit it out. If you've really got nothing better to talk about and you want to make a meal out of this then be my guest.

To all Americans,

You have my deepest sympathy in these times of horror.

Rob.

bigmick,

I thought it is a very cynical sentence, I didn't think that it would be so offending, especially for people and country (BBC) that names Sharon in much worse way.

Arye

Well Arye, it was cynical and as you can see from the majority of the responses, deeply offensive. I wouldn't for a minute dream of running into the midst of a public gathering in Haifa and loudly celebrating a victory of Hamas, so why would you do this here if not to cause offense? I really implore you to examine your motives and stop antagonising people in this way.

I simply cannot believe that you don't have something constructive to offer the debates on this forum.

bigmick,

You asked me, albeit somewhat rheotorically, if I "really, really honestly" thought your comments were abusive. So I just re-iterated that I thought there were.

I have no axe to grind and was just stating my opinion (as an ordinary member of this forum) that your comments were out of order and certainly far more offensive than Arye's thread.

Matthew

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin Payne:

Mick,

that's a very Daily Mail sort of attitude.

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What else do you expect?



Stephen

There is a view that as Bush has his second term he can now be more independant from the Israeli lobby and come down much harder on Israel and get them to adopt a reasonable position in dealing the Palistineans

Derek

<< >>

quote:

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Originally posted by Derek Wright:
There is a view that as Bush has his second term he can now be more independant from the Israeli lobby and come down much harder on Israel and get them to adopt a reasonable position in dealing the Palistineans

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Derek,

You may well be right. However it takes both sides to negotiate, not just the Israelis. Bush will not deal with Arafat. It will take the death of Arafat for the peace process to have any chance of moving forward.

Steve M

bigmick -
It seems to me that you compare President Bush to the Hammas and I think you are wrong on this.
The Hammas is killing people, I don't think that my words can be understood for encouraging the killing of people of the UK or something like this.

Arye

Arye old bean,

More than 10,000 Iraqi civillians have died since Bush enacted his war in Iraq. The Americans continue to not have the faintest idea of the nature of the country they have invaded. They now have a country riven with terrorists. Most locals don't even trust Oyad Allawi, who they see as nothing more than a collaborator with the Americans - the chief occupying force in the country.

For this alone Bush should have been defeated at the polls yesterday. He wasn't.

How many more thousands of civillians will die in Iraq before his forces finally leave the country alone to (finally) try and govern itself?

One final point; earlier you said:-

quote:

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Originally posted by Arye_Gur:
President Bush is a good President for Israel

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I think that pretty much says it all really.

jon

jon,

I have no argue with you about what goes on in Iraq and how sad it is - seems to me that from time to time you forget that you have a part in this and not Bush by himself.
But you have to understand that here the situation is not the same as at your place:
Saddam was a crazy and maybe not a predictable leader - see what he did in Kuwait. Even the Jordanians were afraid that in order to start a war against Israel he might cross Jordan. We were under a threat here, and when Saddam is gone, the threat gone too.

Arye

quote:

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Well Arye, it was cynical and as you can see from the majority of the responses, deeply offensive.

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I don't think Ayre's comments were particularly offensive. You can guarentee that most the topical comedies over the next few weeks will have many varients on this theme. It was clearly meant as a dig at (mainly) Brits, but hey we can take that! can't we?

quote:

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Originally posted by Arye_Gur:
...I have no argue with you about what goes on in Iraq and how sad it is - seems to me that from time to time you forget that you have a part in this and not Bush by himself.

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I think that Arye makes a good point here.

If, as seems likely, we re-elect Blair as our leader, I wonder how the British will be seen in the rest of the world. Will Le Monde mount a campaign to persuade us to vote for Michael Howard?

Steve M

Well, yes fair point Steve.

Some of us Brits here (myself included) have been very quick to criticise the Americans for letting that 'f**ker' Bush in for another four years, but what about our own god-forsaken situation?

How many of us here think Blair's a twat and worse still, Bush's poodle, yet how many of us think he will still win the next election?

jon

Jon - I think Blair will win the next election for mainly the same reason Bush was re-elected:

There's no effective competition.

It doesn't matter what we think of Blair - a trained monkey could be heading up the Labour Party and they'd still get in because of the simpering berks running the so-called opposition parties.

This is IMO a huge over-simplification but that's about the crux of the matter as far as I'm concerned.

Jon

quote:

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if you think that your remark makes any of your arguments on other issues more credible, then you are deluding yourself

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Ross, everybody’s post is credible or otherwise on it’s merits, as you know to your cost, and I fail to see how the remark which is causing you so much concern has any impact on the credibility of my other posts. We read each other’s posts and decide on their merits accordingly; sometimes a person surprises with their slant, often not. Which post you did or did not find offensive is not my concern, what you do or do not find humorous is similarly not my concern and your idle speculation on what or what isn’t lost on other members is again, not my concern. You are welcome to your own opinion, as I am to mine.

As I have already made it clear that I won’t be apologising to Arye your request just makes your post even more laboured.

As it seems to matter so much to you, I’d say that a snapshot would reveal that a considerable majority of the posts on this thread are much more concerned with and offended by Arye’s remarks than by my remark. You however clearly appear to having some sort of ludicrous hysterical episode over this matter……….and I wonder why?

Since I have clearly said all that needs to be said and apologized where appropriate, this thread can continue on it’s increasingly frenzied way without me.

Greeny, I agree that it will probably be easy to laugh at, what you clearly identify as a dig at Brits, in a week or two. But not yesterday and Arye knew that. I spoke to nobody who was laughing yesterday and quite a few friends who were exhausted, in shock and tearful. So you’ll appreciate that I did take deep offence at these jibes.

Quote:

"In the US, there was a credible and viable alternative in Kerry."

Sorry Alex - I don't think it's necessarily fair to say that Kerry was credible in competition to Bush.

The Democrats fielded a competitor to Bush who was an exact opposite because that's what they thought the American people wanted. They obviously hadn't done their homework.
A credible alternative would have been a candidate from the heartland,(perhaps as Clinton was in coming from Arkansas), and more to the right than Kerry was. Kerry didn't help himself by being wishy-washy on his views in a time when the country was (and is) looking for strong leadership.
His biggest failing though was to assume that he didn't need to make a case to the American people for choosing Kerry the man: it was enough to knock Bush and his policies.
This tactic,(along with some misguided publicity stunts),contributed IMO to his unsuitability as an effective candidate against Bush in the current political climate.

quote:

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Originally posted by AlexG:
Jon

You are missing the point entirely.

In the US, there was a credible and viable alternative in Kerry.

In the UK, we have Michael Howard - quite frankly I have a bowl of custard downstairs who is more likely to become the next PM.

ag

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Alex,

As a matter of fact, that was my point!

jon

No probs, Alex.

Having said that, the mention of custard always brings back unhappy memories of being force-fed the stuff at school when I were a lad.

I've hated it ever since.

The question is, is the prospect of having Michael Howard as PM more distasteful?

Errrmmm...

Yup

jon

Alex,

Please tell us more about your bowl of custard. More and more I'm liking the cut of its jib.

Matthew

Oh come on Jon and Alex!

No mutual politeness is allowed on this thread. Surely you know better than that?