ACL dorm, 1/28/09I've also always been a social person, even after I started my ACL studies. But as the subject deepened, so did my need for complete solitude and submersion. I know I made this lifestyle choice freely, nobody forced me to do this, and the daily, hard, physical labor required to maintain my unfunded "student" status is the price I was willing to pay. Little glitches, like my wood delivery never materializing and the leaking roof were all turning into major reasons to go back to the city, get a normal job, and have a "normal life." I was starting to hate my isolation and the extreme lonliness of my choice.
Joining facebook reminded me what my life used to be like, and I've been getting kind of jealous of my friends whose lives have not been obviously or adversely affected by the communitarian's plans. Although the ACL facebook group has 36 members now, the brutal fact is, most Americans I know still do not know what communitarianism is, nor do they want to know. I find it interesting that easily half of this blog's commentors come from the UK and Canada.
The hardest part of keeping up with my work is knowing that the people I think I do it for (besides Nordica and a few others I met online) could care less about what I'm doing. I was beginning to wish I could care less too.
Then, in the midst of all the horrible news about the chemicals dropped on Gaza and the rising death and wounded toll, this came in from Peter Myer's elist. This, more than anything I've read puts my American pitty pot negativity to shame. No matter how bad it gets for me out here in my "school," nobody is dropping American made bombs on my head, or on the elementary kids down the road at Kenny Lake Shool. How far we are all removed from that reality.
(3) Destruction of Gaza's University
From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>
Date: 31.01.2009 03:34 PM
On Saturday December 27th, 2008, the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) was ready to start the final exams of the fall semester for more than 20,000 students (60% of whom are women) enrolled into its 10 colleges -education, religion, art, commerce, law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing. On that day, more than 60 American made Israeli F16 warplanes began to bomb the Palestinian population of Gaza at a time when the maximum number of children going to and coming from schools.
On Sunday December 28th, 2008, the Israeli F16 fighters bombed IUG during the recent horrific attack on the people of Gaza who have been under suffocating siege for about 2 years.
Two 5-story buildings were completely destroyed by Israeli warplanes: the Science Lab Building and the Engineering Lab Building . The two major buildings had more than 50 labs that contained invaluable scientific and medical equipment and devices, and many academic materials which were destroyed. The buildings targeted served as research and development centers for students, faculty and community.
The six-rocket bombardment of both buildings also caused wide damage to all university buildings, including the central library close to the labs buildings.
It is worth mentioning that since its establishment in 1987, IUG has faced many challenges and restrictions imposed by the Israeli military authorities. Yet, IUG managed to provide quality academic education and serve the local community. With the help and support of all good people in the world, the university campus was converted from simple tents and barracks of asbestos to a modern campus with recent facilities that match the best in the world.
The bombing and shelling come at a time IUG faces major financial difficulties as many students’ families cannot pay fees due to high rate of unemployment caused by the siege imposed by the Israeli army.
8 comments:
This: 'most Americans I know still do not know what communitarianism is, nor do they want to know. '
Same can be said for most Brits, or at least the ones I try to inform. Worse still many seem to think it a good thing. A recent conversion attempt comes to mind. He totally missed the thrust of my argument: the impelementation of UN directives (and therefore communitarianism) globally with full agreement of all major political parties= global totalitarianism. His comment, 'well I read Agenda 21 and it all seems pretty good to me'. People want this shit. They cannot seem to graps the possible future consequences of this coup de grace.
Exactly how stupid are you?
If you cannot see that Hamas uses as many civilian sites as they can to shield themselves, then you are truly blind to the real group that is perpetrating the atrocities and crimes of war.
All you are doing is blaming Israel for self defense and using this as your thinly veiled excuse for anti-semitism. I hope you are the first to die when the muslims come and force you to bow to their will.
Zionist Zetaboy has buckets full of labels for anyone who disagrees with political Zionism.
The human shields argument doesn't work. It isn't Hamas who was attacked. It rarely ever is. Its always the same story, Women and children who die.
The pre 1948 Jewish population of Palestine lived peacefully among their Muslim neighbors.
Would Zetaboy prefer Hamas huddle in the streets so they would be easier targets?
NO! He prefers women and children!
Niki,
Thanks for the research you have done. It has helped me to rethink alot of what I have been told throughout my life, via school, college, seminary, media, and in the workforce. Your phrase 'living outside the dialect' is one I think of often to help me remember what it is I am struggling against. I picture it like one of the mazes where a mouse tries to get out. Alot of times the mouse 'hits' a dead-end and then continues to look for another way out. The only real way to get out is to climb the walls, stand on top, get an overall picture of what is going on, and jump out of the maze...not back in. Maybe a poor word-picture...but Dialectical argument you talk of so often will keep anyone in the maze with no hope of getting out. Unless of course one chooses to live outside it.
Thanks again...you've been a huge help. Keep your chin up, many others can benefit from your work. It is not in vain.
Doug James
Niki,
Thanks for all the research you do. Just wanted you to know that there are some of us who are grateful for the time and effort you put into the research and writing...even more than that for the example you give of what it takes to do what you do.
Anyways. Thanks.
I think about your phrase 'living outside the dialectic' often as I interact with others and seek to make a living in the workforce. I think of a maze where people are trying to find there way out only to come to another dead-end. They turn around and try to find another path, only to fail agin to obtain freedom. The craziness of it all is that there is no way out except to live outside the maze. To do that, one has to climb the wall, get to the top, survey the territory, and jump out of the system.
This may be a poor 'analogy', but it helps me understand what you are trying to say concerning the dialectic and the process behind it as I am involved with many who do not know or do not care to hear about this subject.
Keep your chin up. You are helping some out and paving the way for others to understand what is going on and what they can do about it. Many are not able to think clearly anymore about issues like this and therein lies one of the problems in attempting to make the subject of communitarianism understandable.
Doug James
Niki,
I am not crazy : )
I did not think the first one went thru. I received an error message so I sent you a second one. Ooops.
Thanks
Doug
Wow Mudlark, you actually met someone who says they read LA21? I still haven't read the whole thing. But yeah, many Americans say they want this too. People who still have their jobs say things like "well, i think people on unemployment should be made to volunteer because it will help the country and then maybe they'll find a job they like out of it."
My face is cracking up from laughing at so many other smug, "morally superior" observations, like Putin's speech on the danger of national protectionism and tariffs, the Turkish minster's walkout (does Turkey's war on Cyprus matter?), and now, at the local level, we have a new joker calling himself Zeteboy. Obviously the communitarian's globalist program based on "sacrifices must be made for the good of the community" comes in many forms. Zeteboy, I will not publish your last hysterical response to Bobby. The only reason I allowed your first comment was to see how far you would go. I see, and now I have no further use for you. There is no forum for your venom here. Go play your word games on Etzioni's blog, I'm sure he'd love to hear your messianic militant views on how to achieve world peace by bombing civilians. Israel's war on Gaza is leading the world to recognise the ICC as supreme global law. The globalists don't care how many Jews, Christians or Muslims have to die to give the global system validity. We're all just fodder to them. So they must become to us.
Doug, your word picture of the mouse in the maze is a good example of how we are all stuck in the dialectic, in one way or another. And, I may have climbed part way up the wall, my head is almost free, but physically, it's impossible to practice American political economy by myself.
Sometimes Blogger doesn't confirm my posts either, and I have completely lost my comments before and had to start over. These online editing forms are rather intolerant of system timeout errors and they tend to crash too often. I've learned to copy it to the clipboard before sending. Then if it fails, just paste it back in and try again.
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