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Ahmadinejad at Columbia? Why not?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, is speaking at Columbia today. Many in NYC and the United States find this appalling. I don't.

It gives the public an opportunity to hear him and, if Columbia is doing its job, ask him questions that enables him to attempt to explain his nation's supporting terror in Iraq and maybe elsewhere and why he denies the Holocaust. Indeed, if he attempts to answer questions, he will harm his own cause because he can't rationally answer some questions.

Hopefully, the Columbia Police will not Taser questioners for asking too tough a question of him.

In 1966, I heard George Wallace when he came to a college in Upstate New York, and he was defending segregation.  Also remember that Wallace ran for President in 1968 as an Independent and took several southern states garnering 46 electoral votes.

We sat in rapt attention, appalled.  I ended up walking out as a political statement. I might have been the first to go. One can speak with his or her feet. But, if the questioning goes well, it might be like watching a train wreck.

As for the Holocaust, no rational human being can deny it. My father still talks about liberating a concentration camp in Germany at the end of WWII, and I have old grainy 2×2 pictures he brought home from the War showing stacked bodies. "The Germans just ran from the camp as we came up on it."

It is worth his coming just to have him fall flat on his face.  And isn't that what free speech is all about? In the marketplace of ideas, the best will rise to the top, and the worst will just disappear.

He will, too.

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    The President (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by tnthorpe on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:26:45 AM EST
    of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, is one of America's great academic leaders for his insistence on both academic freedoms and intellectual responsibility. He has posted at his C.U. Office of the President website his rationale for offering such a platform to Pres. Ahmadinejad. I take the quote below from that source.

    President Bollinger's Statement About
    President Ahmadinejad's Scheduled Appearance

    On Monday, September 24, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is scheduled to appear as a speaker on campus. The event is sponsored by the School of International and Public Affairs (see SIPA announcement), which has been in contact with the Iranian Mission to the United Nations. The event will be part of the annual World Leaders Forum, the University-wide initiative intended to further Columbia's longstanding tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues.

    In order to have such a University-wide forum, we have insisted that a number of conditions be met, first and foremost that President Ahmadinejad agree to divide his time evenly between delivering remarks and responding to audience questions. I also wanted to be sure the Iranians understood that I would myself introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges to the president on issues including:

    the Iranian president's denial of the Holocaust;
    his public call for the destruction of the State of Israel;
    his reported support for international terrorism that targets innocent civilians and American troops;
    Iran's pursuit of nuclear ambitions in opposition to international sanction;
    his government's widely documented suppression of civil society and particularly of women's rights; and
    his government's imprisoning of journalists and scholars, including one of Columbia's own alumni, Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh (see President Bollinger's prior statement).
    I would like to add a few comments on the principles that underlie this event. Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas--to understand the world as it is and as it might be. To fulfill this mission we must respect and defend the rights of our schools, our deans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes. Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious. We trust our community, including our students, to be fully capable of dealing with these occasions, through the powers of dialogue and reason.

    I would also like to invoke a major theme in the development of freedom of speech as a central value in our society. It should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas we deplore in any way implies our endorsement of those ideas, or the weakness of our resolve to resist those ideas or our naiveté about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas. It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible.

    That such a forum could not take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here. To commit oneself to a life--and a civil society--prepared to examine critically all ideas arises from a deep faith in the myriad benefits of a long-term process of meeting bad beliefs with better beliefs and hateful words with wiser words. That faith in freedom has always been and remains today our nation's most potent weapon against repressive regimes everywhere in the world. This is America at its best.

    The main reason wingers are upset (5.00 / 2) (#26)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:31:09 AM EST
    Has absolutely zero to do with outrage at Irans' atrocious domestic record.  Even the idea that they are morally offended ought not to be met as a form of entertainment.  As I said with respect to the Betray Us ad, they brouight us the Iraq War: therefore what right have they to speak of moral standards and sensibilities?  

    What it is has nothing to do with Columbia and/or Ground Zero per se.  All they want is the carpet rolled out for yet another war and they see they're not getting it.  They want yet another assault on John and Jane Taxpayer's perception, they want to make us think war with Iran is inevitable.   It worked last time, right?  

    But this is one of many signals that they are not going to get quite the same media and institutional complicity in ratcheting up the drums of war as they got for Iraq.

    If the wingers had their way you'd already be seeing all the news programs leading with the graphic, the maps, the ominous music, the shots of Ahmminijahd thrusting his finger at the camera.  Headlines like "On the Path to Tehran," that sort of gobilty gook.

    I meant (5.00 / 1) (#27)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:32:27 AM EST
    idea that they are morally offended ought to be met as a form of entertainment.

    Entertainment only.

    Parent

    translation (5.00 / 1) (#30)
    by popsnorkle on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:18:25 AM EST
    I remember reading Juan Cole saying that Ahmadinejad was mistranslated.  

    http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html

    The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."

    Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.

    Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.

    http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/ahmadinejad-we-are-not-threat-to-any.html

    Wrong (1.00 / 1) (#60)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:36:45 PM EST
    If he was misquoted he could have very easily corrected it.

    He did not.

    Parent

    He didn't have to (none / 0) (#70)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 03:19:59 PM EST
    Anyone with half a brain knows he was misquoted and can easily find the translation.

    If they're interested in the correct translation rather than spreading the misquotation (perpetuating the lies), that is.


    Parent

    If he was misquoted (1.00 / 1) (#78)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:50:57 PM EST
    he could have easily answered NO to the question.

    He didn't.

    Your making excuses of him defines your position re Israel quite well.

    Parent

    I used to think that (none / 0) (#111)
    by Edger on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 07:35:42 AM EST
    you were just pretending to be stupid enough to believe that people are stupid enough to not see though you, your trolling attempts at diversion, your lame, childish and pathetic attempts at lying about what people say to try to bait them into denying things they haven't said, your inability so face reality, and in this particular case your blatant, incompetent and unapologetic attempt at spreading the misquotation of Ahmadinejad to perpetuate lies that only peasants would believe.

    But even they smarten up and are able to see though you. For more than a year now even other "wingnuts" don't come to your defense or support anything you say.

    You can't even troll competently.

    You've finally convinced me that you've never been pretending.

    Parent

    Yes (none / 0) (#31)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:27:56 AM EST
    The wingers wouldn't want Juan Cole speaking at Columbia either...

    Parent
    I wouldn't listen to Cole (1.00 / 1) (#79)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:52:10 PM EST
    if he was speaking at Eastern Illinois... even if Rollo was doing the introduction.

    Parent
    please put your links in html format (none / 0) (#71)
    by Jeralyn on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 05:13:28 PM EST
    or they skew the site and I have to delete the whole comment since I can't edit them. Thanks.

    Parent
    Its interesting the President of Iran (5.00 / 1) (#42)
    by oculus on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 12:58:09 PM EST
    got a visa to come to the U.S. to speak at Columbia but so many artists have either been denied visas or didn't get them in time to come to the U.S. for scheduled performances.  

    Pretty hard for them to deny him a visa (none / 0) (#43)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 01:04:45 PM EST
    without making it obvious that they want no one to hear what he has to say.

    Artists aren't so high profile politically, and can start memes that spread quickly. Easier to shut them up?

    Parent

    semi-denying. No ground zero speechifying, (5.00 / 1) (#47)
    by oculus on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 01:52:23 PM EST
    photo-op.  I say, let him go to ground zero also, although it may not be entirely safe for him to do so.

    Parent
    The problem (5.00 / 1) (#44)
    by Al on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 01:13:16 PM EST
    the warmongers have is that in order to wage war you have to dehumanize the enemy. It would be very hard to do that after you've invited him to speak at Columbia.

    If only anyone had the brains... (5.00 / 1) (#50)
    by Dadler on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:03:06 PM EST
    ...to answer his Holocaust denial with more than empty outrage.  The irony is we here have denied Iran's history time and time again.  Which is why his Holocaust denial must be answered with this: "You know, Mr. President, it's funny, how there are all these pictures all over your country of that Ayatollah Khomenei guy, and there's a lot of talk about some Shah guy further back.  But we all know they weren't real people, that they didn't exist, just like you claim the Holocaust didn't.  We know America didn't kill your elected leader and then install the Shah, no matter how much film and documentation exists.  You must have taken lessons from those who "made up" the Holocaust on how to make up a fake history for your own country.  Now, when you're ready to be an adult and talk honestly about mutual history, get back to us.  Until then, pity the poor people who find you in charge of their great and ancient and proud nation.  What a shame.  And if you'll excuse me now, Mr. President, I have to go make some more important stuff just disappear like it never really happened.  Have a nice speech."

    Instead, we get the same essentially empty outrage, that, at its core, also denies Iran's history, and diminishes absurdly our own wretched role is hindering a nation from determining their own destiny.

    We won't even talk to Cuba, can you imagine what we would do to a nation who assasinated on of our Presidents as recently as we did theirs?

    The fact that we can't imagine says it all.

    Dadler (1.00 / 1) (#61)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:38:29 PM EST
    I'll be happy to talk to Iran after they have re-established a secular government that is helpful in the fight against the WOT.

    Parent
    Good point... (5.00 / 1) (#64)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:42:47 PM EST
    I'll be happy to talk to Washington after they have re-established a secular government that is helpful in the fight against the WOT.

    Parent
    LOL (1.00 / 1) (#77)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:48:34 PM EST
    Show me the non-secular government in DC.

    You show your colors.

    Parent

    I can't show you something you cannot see. (5.00 / 0) (#118)
    by Edger on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 11:20:07 AM EST
    You have to take  your blinders off to see it.

    The Bush Crusade

    George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."
    ...
    Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched.

    The same dynamic--war against an enemy outside leading to war against an enemy inside--can be seen at work today.
    ...
    A cosmic moral-religious battle justifies, equally, risks of world-historic proportioned disaster, since the ultimate outcome of such a conflict is to be measured not by actual consequences on this earth but by the earth-transcending will of God. Our war on terrorism, before it is anything else, is thus an imagined conflict, taking place primarily in a mythic realm beyond history.

    In waging such a "war," the enemy is to be engaged everywhere and nowhere, not just because the actual nihilists who threaten the social order are faceless and deracinated but because each fanatical suicide-bomber is only an instance of the transcendent enemy--and so the other face of us. Each terrorist is, in effect, a sacrament of the larger reality, which is "terrorism." Instead of perceiving unconnected centers of inhuman violence--tribal warlords, Mafia chieftains, nationalist fighters, xenophobic Luddites--President Bush projects the grandest and most interlocking strategies of conspiracy, belief and organization. By the canonization of the war on terrorism, petty nihilists are elevated to the status of world-historic warriors, exactly the fate they might have wished for. This is why the conflict readily bleeds from one locus to another--Afghanistan then, Iraq now, Iran or some other land of evil soon--and why, for that matter, the targeted enemies are entirely interchangeable--here Osama bin Laden, there Saddam Hussein, here the leader of Iran, there of North Korea. They are all essentially one enemy--one "axis"--despite their differences from one another, or even hatred of one another.
    ...
    "The past is never dead," William Faulkner said. "It isn't even past."



    Parent
    Correction (none / 0) (#119)
    by Edger on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 11:29:04 AM EST
    You have to be smart enough to take your blinders off.

    Parent
    Against the WOT (5.00 / 1) (#69)
    by jondee on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 03:17:20 PM EST
    and against any number of other bogus Rethug issues would be a good start.

    I guess the concept of constructive engagement is moot when your heart has been set on endless war, i.e., "regime change in the M.E", for fifteen years.

    Parent

    Jondee (1.00 / 1) (#103)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:07:37 PM EST
    Do you condemn the actions of Iran?

    A simple yes or no will wor

    Parent

    And your answer is?????? (1.00 / 1) (#117)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 11:07:55 AM EST
    I condemn SOME (none / 0) (#131)
    by jondee on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 03:13:32 PM EST
    actions of some people in Iran, such as the persecution of homosexuals and the relegation of women to property status, which are the sorts of actions that your crypto-Klansman base cares theleast about.

    Funny that your phoney "concern" for human rights always begins and ends with the nations that the neocons want to attack. S.A. China (God shed his slave labor on thee) and Mynamar might as well not exist.

    Parent

    Jondee' selective condemnations (1.00 / 0) (#136)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 05:50:05 PM EST
    Funny that your phoney "concern" for human rights always begins and ends with the nations that the neocons want to attack. S.A. China (God shed his slave labor on thee) and Mynamar might as well not exist.

    Well you see, that's one of the reasons we need to attack them. Kinda like day following day.. That and them supply materials and men to attack our troops in Iraq.

    BTW - So you don't condemn them supplying Hezbolah weapons and money to attack Israel.... I knew you wouldn't. You've pretty well defined yourself re Israel..

    But how about the Holocaust? Don't you think it wrong for him to deny that?? Guess you agree with David Duke???

    Parent

    LOL (none / 0) (#65)
    by garyb50 on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:46:43 PM EST
    Iranians will be dancing in the streets tonight now that they know how to dialogue with jimaka ! ! !

    Parent
    GaryB (1.00 / 0) (#94)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:30:48 PM EST
    Okay, boys.... let's see your facts....

    Don't have any???

    sigh... no surprise...

    Parent

    Ahmadinejad at Columbia (5.00 / 1) (#55)
    by deputydawg on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:25:09 PM EST
    I think he should be allowed to speak. This country is about free speech. We allow the KKK to meet and spread its beliefs. I think this administration is afraid of what he will say, to further incriminate the corrupt mishandled state of affairs that is coming out of this administration.

    If he should speak ill of our country, at least let us hear it for ourselves and form our own opinion.

    He should have also been allowed to visit ground-zero. I mean what were they thinking he would do, sing and dance? He made a gesture to pay respects and was shunned. Making us look no better than what this administration want to portray him.

    Good grief. (1.00 / 1) (#62)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:41:11 PM EST
    I think this administration is afraid of what he will say, to further incriminate the corrupt mishandled state of affairs that is coming out of this administration.

    Then why didn't Bush just deny him the right to travel? He could have, you know.

    As for ground zero, his visit would have been seen as him respecting the radical Moslem terrorists.

    Parent

    Good for them (5.00 / 1) (#68)
    by Jlvngstn on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 03:07:10 PM EST
    Bollinger was tougher on him than any US journalist has ever been on him while in such close proximity.

    Perhaps a few members of the MSM could take some tips from Bollinger on how to introduce Bush etal.

    "Bankrupted a country, completely divisive, borderline christian wacko, completely asleep prior to 9-11 and cannot speak in complete sentences"

    can you name the leader?

    They stone women in Iran? (5.00 / 1) (#108)
    by Che's Lounge on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:33:27 AM EST
    I heard about this guy back in 1993 who not only killed his wife for exerting her independence (he cut her throat), he also killed some poor guy who was just returning her glasses.

    And he walked.

    But no one blamed the president.

    Then there were these guys who killed some poor kid in Oregon just because he was a homosexual.

    But no one blamed the president.

    Then there is the history of eliminating an entire nation of indigenous people on the north american continent in the 19th century. About 20 million of them at last count. It's repeatedly denied.

    But no one blames the president.

    Hypocrites.

    Wow (1.00 / 1) (#112)
    by Slado on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 08:01:13 AM EST
    That was a stretch.

    You just took the moral equivalency game to new uncharted territory.

    I won't bother with a factual argument because you've proven like the speaker at Columbia that facts don't matter.  You will simply make a point despite them.

    Impressive.

    Parent

    The problem is (1.00 / 1) (#1)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:08:02 AM EST
    there will be no hard questions.

    All this does is provide a forum for an enemy of America and the western world.

    Should he be shut up? No.

    Should Columbia provide him a forum? No.

    hahahahaha (5.00 / 0) (#2)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:13:04 AM EST
    Should Columbia provide him a forum? No.

    Should he be shut up? No.

    Pretty early in the day to be doing the upside down backwards inside out shtick. Think about what you wrote.

    Parent

    Catch a clue (1.00 / 1) (#8)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:27:28 AM EST
    No one is required to provide a platform for him to spew his evil.

    It is an embarrassment to a once great school that they do so.

    Parent

    Catch (5.00 / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:31:43 AM EST
    a clue, yourself. If you can. Sorry to be asking so much, but you know how it is.

    There will be hard questions

    Parent

    I hope you are correct. (1.00 / 1) (#14)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:34:58 AM EST
    You don't have to hope. (5.00 / 0) (#17)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:37:57 AM EST
    My estitnate was proven correct (none / 0) (#80)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:54:31 PM EST
    Bollinger pitched a hissy fit and then didn't follow up to point out the BS of his answers.

    I am not surprised.

    Typical of the Left.

    Parent

    A Beautiful Mind (5.00 / 1) (#93)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:30:47 PM EST
    Earlier, Jim wrote:

    My point remains that Columbia should not have invited him because he will not be harshly engaged.

    Afterwards, Jim writes:

    Bollinger pitched a hissy fit and then didn't follow up to point out the BS of his answers.

    Wow, it's a lot like the Iraq War rationale when you think about it. Keep moving the goalposts, never have to admit you're wrong.

    Stay alert, and stay with Fox.

    Parent

    It hasn't happened yet, so how do you know (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by lilybart on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:14:49 AM EST
    there won't be any hard questions?

    We cannot censor people and then claim to know what they would say if we allowed them to speak.

    America is NOT afraid of his ideas.

    Are YOU afraid?

    Parent

    I hope I'm wrong (1.00 / 1) (#4)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:21:36 AM EST
    You don't have to hope. (5.00 / 0) (#6)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:24:40 AM EST
    All Talkleft does letting you post here is provide a forum for an enemy of America and the western world.

    Should you be shut up?

    No.

     

    Parent

    Unlike you, I believe in free speech (5.00 / 1) (#13)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:34:12 AM EST
    From your pen:

    Do we offer them respect? Absolutely not. We do our best to marginalize and get rid of them.

    That's what you believe.

    My point remains that Columbia should not have invited him because he will not be harshly engaged.

    Parent

    Your treatment of the Columbia audience (5.00 / 1) (#21)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:16:34 AM EST
    is ridiculous.  But then the school of prgnostication that you hail from demands it.  I heard Bill Cristol and Charles Krauthammer also "predict" the Columbia audience will throw him softballs.  Guys who helped propogate the "predicted" flowers at soldiers' feet in Iraq.

    I'd wager the house that your and other neocons' predictions of what they will ask will be, as usual, dead wrong.

    Unlike, say, my (and millions of others) almost year long, 100% correct prediction of what Petraeus would say.

    :-0

    Parent

    glanton (1.00 / 0) (#52)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:19:13 PM EST
    The questions were quite good.

    He, of course, did not answer them directly.

    What was lacking was the strong follow up. They should have been restated more than they were.

    And before moving to the next question it should have been noted what he said, or did say.

    Parent

    Great Response!!!!! (5.00 / 0) (#75)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:10:01 PM EST
    The questions were quite good.
    He, of course, did not answer them directly.

    What was lacking was the strong follow up. They should have been restated more than they were.

    And before moving to the next question it should have been noted what he said, or did say.

    I agree with every word.  Total unironic agreement.  

    You know what else I bet we'll agree on.  You could write those same exact words in response to the press conferences, debates, &c. involving any of our most powerful government officials.

    Parent

    Our most powerful governmental officals (1.00 / 0) (#81)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:59:27 PM EST
    are not denying the Holocaust, threatening to destroy Israel, proving support for the terrorists around the world, providing munitions and people for our enemies in Iraq, denying women rights and murdering homosexuals.....

    Other than that, not much difference...

    Parent

    Way to Spin (5.00 / 1) (#84)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:09:14 PM EST
    I didn't compare his governance to that of those who govern us.  

    I did compare his handling of tough questions.  Because he handled them the same way ours handle theirs.  When they get them.  


    The point is, you totally screwed the pooch on Columbia, and you're totally busted for it, which is funny considering that by now you've probably convinced yourself you knew what was going to happen all along

    Instead of just manning up and being done with it, the best you can come up with is some sissy complaints about follow up questions.  Sheesh.

    Parent

    I understood your point. (1.00 / 1) (#109)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 07:10:31 AM EST
    My response was a sarcastic remark meant to raise the question of why you are interested in cutting this terrorist killer any slack what so ever for any reason.

    And that is exactly what you do when you bring up the "equivalent" issue.

    Parent

    Also (5.00 / 1) (#85)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:09:55 PM EST
    Stay alert, and stay with Fox.

    :-o

    Parent

    Be of good cheer, Jim (5.00 / 2) (#39)
    by jondee on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 12:28:53 PM EST
    He'll never be invited to Bob Jones.

    And, why do I get the feeling that "harshly engaged" means not being able to get one complete sentence out?

    Parent

    And neither will you. (none / 0) (#53)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:19:41 PM EST
    Thank God on both accounts.

    Parent
    The 5 (none / 0) (#16)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:36:52 AM EST
    was for the first part of your "comment".

    The last sentence of your "comment" is idiocy.

    Parent

    It's your comment. (none / 0) (#51)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:16:00 PM EST
    Love it or leave it.

    Parent
    A simple question: (none / 0) (#18)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:08:37 AM EST
    Why not let Jim Gilchrist speak?

    Parent
    They have a rule (5.00 / 1) (#40)
    by jondee on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 12:33:19 PM EST
    at Columbia which states that speakers have to be able to hold their knuckles above stage level.

    Parent
    Good point (5.00 / 0) (#41)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 12:48:16 PM EST
    Ability to communicate in more than monosyllabic grunts is probably a fair prerequisite as well.

    Minuteman Founder Jim Gilchrist Storms Off Debate

    Minuteman Jim Gilchrist and student organizer Karina Garcia begin a debate that ends when Gilchrist abruptly pulls the plug after he was asked about his ties to the Neo-Nazi group National Alliance. The anti-immigration group the Minuteman Project announced yesterday that they are seeking to strip Columbia University of federal funding for what they say are violations of their civil rights.

    Last week, student demonstrators disrupted a speech by Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist who was invited to the school by the College Republicans. The demonstators got up on stage and unfurled banners saying "No human being is illegal" and "Say no to Racism!"



    Parent
    OK, (1.00 / 1) (#46)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 01:49:02 PM EST
    so you're back to the old "if you are not for open borders you are a racist" argument. Most of you here deny being for open borders, but you are so strongly against any attempts to protect our borders that you cry racism when someone calls for enforcement.

    Just admit that you are for open borders.

    Parent

    Jondee (1.00 / 0) (#54)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:22:40 PM EST
    not to mention they must also hang homosexuals...deny the Holocaust and state their intent to destroy the country of Israel...

    But they are, of course, "cultured."

    Parent

    coming from the man who applauded (none / 0) (#67)
    by Jlvngstn on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 03:05:05 PM EST
    Freedom Fries
    Osama when he was a "freedom fighter"
    Rumsfeld
    Cheney
    Bush

    etc.

    Want to see how cultured Americans are?  Watch a little of Ali G on HBO.  There really is not much difference in the peoples of the countries, more to do with the idiots that run them.

    Parent

    Jlvngstn (1.00 / 0) (#82)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:03:17 PM EST
    I didn't much care who was fighting the Soviets as long as they were fought.

    Of course if you didn't have a dog in that fight, I can understand why you don't understand.

    BTW - Welcome back. Nice to argue with someone who has a few principles...

    And the French are back in my good graces...
    .
    ;-)

    Parent

    Wasn't Gilchrist (none / 0) (#22)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:19:48 AM EST
    Invited to speak?  What happened on the stage is deeply unfortunate, I grant you.  But some audience members getting out of control is not quite the same as a University President not inviting him to speak.

    Parent
    His invitation (none / 0) (#23)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:25:40 AM EST
    Pancho (5.00 / 1) (#28)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:39:49 AM EST
    Thanks for the link.  I didn't know they had tried for another go-round, let alone that it was rescinded. At any rate, I agree it is too bad he didn't get to the stage; clearly, the rescinsion cannot be attributed to lack of public interest.  So I agree with your complaint.  However much Gilchrist and his buddies disgust me.

    As for Ahminnijhad.  I look forward to him getting grilled by people not afraid of him.  

    Parent

    Oh really? (1.00 / 1) (#9)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:29:08 AM EST
    We cannot censor people and then claim to know what they would say if we allowed them to speak.

    I guess you missed the censoring of the Minutemen. Shouting down speakers with differing viewpoints is a VERY common tactic of the left.

    Parent

    Not at all. (5.00 / 0) (#12)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:33:07 AM EST
    Pointing out idiocy is a very common tactic of the left.

    Parent
    and (5.00 / 2) (#15)
    by tnthorpe on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:35:57 AM EST
    so-called Free Speech zones miles away from Bush's propaganda events are a hallmark of the far right that runs the country these days. Planting reporters with soft-ball questions to end press conferences with is a typical strategy of the authoritarian Bush administration. Arresting people attending events with anti-Bush t-shirts on is a common practice of the Bush crew. You have no doubt heard about the infamous handbook for Bush event managers? I quote from the article below

    A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around the country.
    Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.

    Is the "left" that you had in mind?

    Parent

    What does Bush have to do with this? (1.00 / 0) (#20)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:09:33 AM EST
    To these folks Bush is more evil (1.00 / 1) (#56)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:27:56 PM EST
    ..than a man who hangs homosexuals, stones, women, sponsors terrorist groups and threatens to destroy Israel.

    And when you start demanding free speech at a university, you should remember edger's guidelines:

    Do we offer them respect? Absolutely not. We do our best to marginalize and get rid of them.

    That the university's administration runs and hides from taking responsibility for the actions of the radicals in the student body proves only that they do not condemn the action of those who have come behind them.

    Parent

    you have (none / 0) (#72)
    by tnthorpe on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 05:20:05 PM EST
    a big strawman addiction. Pancho complains that the "left" shouts down their opponents. I provide documentation that our president's White House actually has a manual that calls for shouting down opponents at presidential events. Then you chime in with a typical misprision of the conversation.

    Let me make this simple for you and Pancho. The Bush Administration has an official policy of suppressing dissent at presidential events, not the "left." This doesn't mean I "hate" Bush, just that his policy is the exact thing that was being foisted, wrongly, on the so-called "left."

    Them's just the facts, so deal with it.

    As for liking Ahmadinejad, oh please. Thinking someone ought be permitted to address the public in no way suggests any support for their viewpoints. Really, that's one of your more obtuse assertions.

    Parent

    Wrong again and again. Yes you are. (none / 0) (#83)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:08:18 PM EST
    What has any of that to do with the documented facts that time and again the Left has shouted down speakers at our so-called bastions of free speech??

    Based on what happened to me in Memphis, I think its time for Americans to wake up as to what is occurring within their very midst. It is time to be energized and empowered to stand up and fight to take back our universities. Its incidents like this that spurs speakers like me to defend our civilization and everything it stands for.

    Link


    Parent

    The Left (5.00 / 0) (#95)
    by tnthorpe on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:31:32 PM EST
    is your biggest strawman of all, but you know that don't you?

    I guess that civilization didn't end after Ahmadinejad got laughed at by his audience at Columbia.

    So, 0 for 2 there. Pity.

    Parent

    Changing the subject? (1.00 / 0) (#102)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:06:00 PM EST
    You do that a lot because you get proven wrong a lot.

    Parent
    Are trotting out (5.00 / 0) (#104)
    by tnthorpe on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:22:12 PM EST
    that warhorse of yours already? I haven't changed the subject at all. Ahmadinejad ought to have been permitted to speak and he was. He was laughed at, which shows how little his audience bought into anything he had to say. Today's events proved Lee Bollinger right, proved me right, and the dissent in the plaza outside and the laughter inside showed that pretty much everybody has the right idea of who and what Ahmadinejad is.

    So now you're 0 for 3. Really, stop while you're behind.

    Freedom is something proud liberals such as myself embrace. Even when it means affording a platform to those we find odious. When was it that conservatives like yourself decided to start fearing freedom and embracing fear?

    Parent

    Proud liberal??? (5.00 / 0) (#110)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 07:18:00 AM EST
    LOL.... More like an open borders anti-war Far left winger who can't figure out that your enemies don't have the same rights as your friends..

    But even then I wouldn't censor him.

    I just wouldn't have invited him to what is supposedly an elite university.

    Parent

    So now, you're 0 for 4 here. Oh well. (5.00 / 1) (#113)
    by tnthorpe on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 08:52:14 AM EST
    Columbia is still an Ivy League University, and you're still peddling fear. Lee Bollinger is still its very articulate, brilliant president and you're...?

    Ahmadinejad was not given any rights, just the opportunity to speak. Didn't make any converts to his cause, did he?

    I like your persistent mischaracterization of my positions and my politics. They always bring a smile to me face.

    Proud liberals like myself embrace what is best about America, things like unfettered speech and the robust debate it makes possible. The chance to come here and make a better life. We grieve when a centuries-old basic human liberty like habeas is curtailed by fear-mongering, right-wing cynics. Conservatives like you can't seem to get past your own fear and fantasy.

    Why don't you try to be a little less Rovian and a little more realistic? You could be more principled in your criticism, more realistic, but, nah, it'll never happen.

    Parent

    Who am I? (1.00 / 1) (#114)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 10:57:54 AM EST
    Somebody who is smart enough to have NOT invited a known terrorist to the university I was President of.

    What you and Bollinger both can not grasp is that "telling off" such a person does absolutely no good.

    This terrorist accepted the invitation knowing that he would receive great press in the Moslem world, as well as in many non-Moslem places that hate the US.

    It was a great PR coup for the A man. There he was, toe to toe lecturing a "leading" man of America....

    As for Columbia.... past glory fades rapidly. It started when they no longer wanted to train our future military leaders and threw them off campus. Bollinger continued that a few years ago when he kept the ROTC off campus...

    Like many things associated with the Boomers, this was about Bollinger wanting to show how he could talk tough. Unfortunately, talking and being are two different things.

    Parent

    The elected (5.00 / 1) (#133)
    by tnthorpe on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 04:10:13 PM EST
    President of Iran holds perfectly egregious opinions, though whether he's a terrorist as you and the Bush Administration want to say is indeed a very open question. The wingnut line is that we're at war with Iran, and have been for decades. They would like to see war becuase they profit immensely from war politically and financially.

    If having Ahmadinejad speak helps to prevent the mad rush to war, it will have been a very good thing. You see, it wasn't about talking tough, but about dialog with one's enemies. About taking the first tentative steps away from what could be a globally catastrophic conflict and toward other forms of conflict resolution. You and your fascist buddies at "Gates of Vienna" and JihadWatch can only see appeasement when dialog begins, but I've noted elsewhere the profound lack of moral imagination present in that brand of politics.

    Parent

    Beautifully said (5.00 / 0) (#134)
    by glanton on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 04:44:32 PM EST
    true in every word

    Parent
    Ah the fog of nonsense (1.00 / 1) (#135)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 05:41:37 PM EST
    So Bolinger told of this dude and the dude didn't answer any questions...

    You call that dialog??

    Well, he did answer one question. He said that they had no homosexuals in Iran... Since they kill them as soon as they find'em, in his view they don't!!

    Conflict resolution???? Repeat after me. We are at war, NOW. We will either win this war or we will lose. There is no middle ground to have "dialog" over.

    Gesh.

    Parent

    ROFLMAO (5.00 / 1) (#137)
    by tnthorpe on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 06:13:43 PM EST
    You really believe this. You keep asking me to repeat after you when you repeat the same tired wingnuttery day after day.

    Too too funny.

     We're "at war" only because it allows the Bush kleptocracy to function without impediment. Gore Vidal had Bush pegged as chickenhawk before Bush was even sworn in. Every single military engagement that Bush has handled has been a fiasco and detracted from, actively hindered, the real effort that needs to take place. Pull your head out of the sand!

    Gore Vidal from the Nation, January 8, 2001:

    "What will the next four years bring? With luck, total gridlock. The two houses of Congress are evenly split. Presidential adventurism will be at a minimum. With bad luck (and adventures), Chancellor Cheney will rule. A former Secretary of Defense, he has said that too little money now goes to the Pentagon even though last year it received 51 percent of the discretionary budget. Expect a small war or two in order to keep military appropriations flowing. There will also be tax relief for the very rich. But bad scenario or good scenario, we shall see very little of the charmingly simian George W. Bush. The military--Cheney, Powell et al.--will be calling the tune, and the whole nation will be on constant alert, for, James Baker has already warned us, Terrorism is everywhere on the march. We cannot be too vigilant. Welcome to Asunción."

    I could go on and point out the myriad ways your assessment is off target and Vidal's was sadly prescient, but why? You like to play the victim card and the war card, moving  from American hegemony to Terrorist Target America in one bold leap. Too too funny and too too sad.

    I prefer dialog, with all its hesitations, false starts, and uncertainties to the rush to war in which untold thousands will die unnecessarily. But hey, keep up the cheerleading for death and destruction, it's what conservatives do these days.

    Parent

    Think about your question for awhile. (none / 0) (#25)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:31:04 AM EST
    It'll come to you. I hope.

    Parent
    Of the Left? (5.00 / 1) (#35)
    by TomStewart on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 11:47:48 AM EST
    and the right, or don't you watch Bill O' or the other Fox News 'commentators'? Maybe the sinister left should do like the Bush Admin does, check their bumperstickers and see if they agree with you before letting them into a public event.

    Really, the right needs to stop projecting their own bad behavior onto the so-called 'left' (you know, the boogyman under the bed) and clean up their act.

    Parent

    Why not (1.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:24:17 AM EST
    allow Jim Gilchrist of the Minutemen speak?

    Why is it OK to advocate genocide, but not OK to advocate protecting our borders?

    Remember (5.00 / 1) (#37)
    by TomStewart on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 12:06:03 PM EST
    This is a World Leader Forum, and the President is of Iran is a leader of a nation that is involved in a region that is playing a very important role in the world and nation at this moment. Yo9u may not like what he has to say, I may not like it , but hen we don't have to listen. Me I want to hear it, if only to get a good idea of  what he's feeding his people and where he's standing today.

    Why are you afraid of what the man has to say? The right wing is jumping up and down over this because this is a university and the righties hate universities as places of learning and hotbeds of 'liberalism'. Why not scream about him addressing the press club? Because they can't use it to bash liberals and higher education, that's why.

    Oh, as soon as Gilchrist becomes the president, maybe they they will ask him to speak. Until them he can rent a hall, invite the general public, and let them question him closely about his ideas of this nation and it's priorities and the history of violence in the minutemen. I'm sure he'd welcome harsh questioning as much as the president of Iran would.

    Parent

    I'm not (1.00 / 1) (#45)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 01:34:19 PM EST
    Why are you afraid of what the man has to say?

    Why are the leftists at Columbia afraid of what Gilchrist has to say?

    That lying sack Karina Gilchrist claims that he was allowed to speak, but that is clearly not true, and there is videotape to prove it.

    Parent

    What this was...was a very dumb thing (1.00 / 1) (#57)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:31:16 PM EST
    for a supposedly intelligent man do do.

    By doing so Bollinger gave a supporter of world wide terrorism a platform to spread his propaganda and encourage his followers.

    Parent

    Do have a link to Bollinger supporting Bush? (none / 0) (#66)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:56:43 PM EST
    I am also sure that Bollinger (none / 0) (#86)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:10:20 PM EST
    is for God, chocolate, and Chevrolet...

    What does that have to do with this debacle??

    (Thanks BTD. I believe I never used the word until you showed up.)

    Parent

    Sorry Jim (none / 0) (#74)
    by TomStewart on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 06:25:33 PM EST
    but the biggest spreader of world-wide terrorism has been GW Bush. He is the greatest recruiter terroism ever had, much more effective then Osama ever was was.

    Think about it. Had GWB not pulled the troops and equipment out of Afghanistan and had captured OBL, then put him on trail in the Hague for all the world to see, would we have the world recruiting ground that is Iraq today? George acted just the way that Osama wanted him to, and now we have the never-ending nightmare that is the Iraq war, thousand joining the terrorist ranks today, and America, once the most admired of of nations for it's moral values and compassion, reviled and spat upon as a byword for imperialism.

    And we're worried about what the president of Iran is saying at Columbia?

    Get real.

    Parent

    Tom S (none / 0) (#87)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:16:55 PM EST
    And if Algore hadn't proved to be such an unbelievable ninny he might have won his home state and you could be picking out a prayer rug to match the living room drapes...

    (A small bit of humor there folks, but very small..)

    Parent

    That (none / 0) (#89)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:23:40 PM EST
    is such an ignorant comment. Ignorant in so many ways.  Congratulations on having willfully constructed such stunning ignorance.

    Parent
    I see your sense of humor (1.00 / 1) (#91)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:25:14 PM EST
    is as small as your.... intelligence?

    Parent
    Not a joke (5.00 / 1) (#98)
    by glanton on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:36:29 PM EST
    When read in context with your Paul Revere paranoid fantasy stuff.  

    Now, IF

    you're telling us it's all beena joke and that you actually don't think the United States is in danger of converting (or being forcibly converted)to Islam regardless of which of the two Parties holds the White House:

    Then, yes.  Heh.  You've made a funny.


    Parent

    Since we're playin 'if' ball... (none / 0) (#107)
    by TomStewart on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:28:14 AM EST
    'if' the SCOTUS hadn't decided to play politics with  the national election, we might be in the middle of Gore's second term, NOT in Iraq, and 9/11 might not have happened.

    And GWB would be back hanging out with his daddy's buddies, cadging board of directors jobs off the Saudis.

    Parent

    No stealing (none / 0) (#115)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 11:02:32 AM EST
    And if the Fl SC hadn't been packed with Demos and simply declared that Algore's mighty minions couldn't change the rules.....

    Of course the fact was, the SCOTUS said they couldn't.... And even if they had allowed them to, recounts show that Bish would have won...

    But, IF they had been allowed to keep recounting, I'm sure some of those hanging chads and dimples would have magically become votes for Algore....

    Parent

    Sorry, Jimmy, offsides... (5.00 / 1) (#121)
    by TomStewart on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 12:57:55 PM EST
    You can't rewrite history, as much as the repubs think they can.

    The Florida Supreme Court was correct in trying to find out the true vote count in a close election, and the  SCOTUS was completely wrong in stopping it, depriving many voters of their rights (in a 5-4 decision, btw, meaning they couldn't agree even among themselves). The vote counting was stopped before many of the districts were never re-counted, several of the republican counties had just resubmitted the same numbers they got on the original count and refused to do a hand count. They refused to abide by the same rules that George W himself had signed into law in Texas as the best way to do a recount (GW even had said it was the most accurate way to count, but that was then). Gore changing the rules? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

    This is the way of the modern republican party, change the rules, lie when it suits you, get in bed with anyone who might get you ahead one inch, hide your true motives behind coded language, and never let on as to your real goals. Shameful. But then, it's ok, because with the mighty projection apparatus of the modern republicans, it's justified because they know the Dems are doing it to.

    As to the final count? If you go back and read something beyond the right wing press, you'll find that a state wide hand count had Gore winning, and winning by more than 500 votes.

    But, this is not the thread or the place to fight over the Florida debacle that has led to this war nightmare, and the degrading of our country.

    Parent

    wrong (1.00 / 1) (#123)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:25:57 PM EST
    Okay... (none / 0) (#127)
    by TomStewart on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 02:11:33 PM EST
    "..."

    Parent
    Pancho (none / 0) (#100)
    by Jeralyn on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:49:08 PM EST
    you are chattering with the intent of hijacking the thread to being about Gilchrist. You are done on this thread. See the comment rules.

    Parent
    And he won't answer (1.00 / 1) (#10)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:29:27 AM EST
    He will just repeat his charges, and the fine President will not lay a glove on him.

    Bollinger exhibits a striking lack of commonsense.

    And I was right. (none / 0) (#58)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:33:20 PM EST
    Bolinger made some great statements.

    They could have been made at any press conference.

    Parent

    Simply amazing (1.00 / 1) (#19)
    by Slado on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:08:47 AM EST
    The man stands against everything this website is supposed to be about...

    Human rights, freedom of speech, Holocost denial just to name a few.

    You know what he's going to say.  You know that he isn't going to answer "tough questions" but you let him come to speak because it serves to show that you are somehow above the dispute and politics.

    He doesn't allow his people to speak freely.  Young people in Iran can't listen to music in public but you would allow this man to come here and spew his hatred.

    What a double standard the left will embrace.  As long as you don't practice your hatred here in America we would love to hear your views.  If this man said half the things here and was an American politician there would be demands for apologies etc... but if you kill homesexuals, round up dissadents because they have a cross word in another country the stage is yours.

    It's simple hypicrosy covered in academic gobilty gook.


    Slado, please clarify... (5.00 / 1) (#24)
    by garyb50 on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:26:52 AM EST
    ...is he Satan or just one of Satan's Spawn?

    Parent
    "kill homesexuals, round up dissadents" (5.00 / 0) (#29)
    by Edger on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:44:20 AM EST
    No double standard. No one on the left in America supports the right in America doing those things.

    Parent
    edger (1.00 / 0) (#88)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:20:14 PM EST
    The issue isn't about the Left supporting anyone on the Right killing homosexuals...

    The issue is about the Left failing to condemn the killing of homosexuals... and rape victims and women accused of infidelity in the country the invited speaker at Columbia represents.

    You are discouraging... You really are.

    Parent

    What? (5.00 / 1) (#122)
    by TomStewart on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:20:19 PM EST
    Where is the left...
    failing to condemn the killing of homosexuals... and rape victims and women accused of infidelity in the country the invited speaker at Columbia represents.
    ?

    I'm sorry, and I apologize if I'm wrong, but are you high?

    The 'left' is often the only voice crying against the winds of human rights abuses! It is the left talking about Darfur, about the abuses under Saddam when he was our supposed friend, standing up for human rights of our friends was well as our enemies. It's what makes America different from any other nation in the world, and it's usually the left out in front. But now you decry the 'left' for having the courage to uphold the American way and let a man with principles that go against everything America believes in to have his say? Wow.

    Somehow, America still stands, but the president of Iran ended  up looking like the petty fool he is. America heard what he had to say, and rejected it for the nonsense it was. That's America, that's why we're a strong nation.

    You know, I have never met anyone who fits this weird 'left' delusion you hold, and I hope I never do. You might get out more, met some real lefties, rather than buy into the strange straw men the right cobbles together from left-over 60s stereotypes and old Dragnet episodes.

    Parent

    TomS (1.00 / 1) (#124)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:32:02 PM EST
    The 'left' is often the only voice crying against the winds of human rights abuses!

    I see no condemnation of the Irarian actions, or of the attacks on Israel, or of Hezabolla or Hamas or Syria.....

    Parent

    gee... (5.00 / 1) (#128)
    by TomStewart on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 02:38:21 PM EST
    I don't see the left supporting them either, but do I see plenty of condemnation of the violence that all these named have wrought, including Israel. Just because you do not 'see' them, don't mean they do not exist. I'd suggest you spend a little time with the Google, rather than trolling through Drudge and  the Washington Times websites.

    I have yet to see major left groups say 'wow, that was really cool, the way hezbollah killed all those people, they really had it coming'. Maybe you can find some posters on some sites saying this (or jump over to the Freepers and find the opposite) but that is hardly 'the left', just like Lyndon LaRouche is hardly the entire right.

    Parent

    Key word is "hear" (5.00 / 1) (#34)
    by kdog on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 11:42:57 AM EST
    Not endorse his views, not pervert his views....but hear his views.  Damn right I wanna hear his views, so to better denounce him...or maybe, just maybe, find some common ground.

    I wanna hear what Ahmadenijad has to say, instead of just hearing what right-wing war-hungry pundits say he has to say.  Let's hear it from the horse's mouth and react accordingly, instead of just assuming we know exactly what he's all about, courtesy of politicians and pundits with an agenda, in this case the agenda being another war.

    Parent

    kdog (1.00 / 1) (#59)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:34:59 PM EST
    Hear his views?

    Heck, they are on the Internet almost 24/7.

    Why help your enemy??

    Parent

    His views not PC enough for you? (5.00 / 1) (#63)
    by Molly Bloom on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:42:17 PM EST
    Whatever happend to the old American saying

    I disagree with what you say, but will defend to death your right to say them.

    Why do you hate American values?


    Parent

    Why do you (1.00 / 0) (#97)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:34:28 PM EST
    want to provide a platform for such scum as this??

    Parent
    Did you hear him make a fool out of himself? (5.00 / 0) (#99)
    by Molly Bloom on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:48:33 PM EST
    Do you really have to ask me why I want him to have the opportunity to make a fool out of himself?

    What you and your foolish allies don't understand is that when you raise such a silly ruckus you give him stature In Iraq and in the Arab world.

    You want to suck the life out of him? Then let him get up on stage and get laughed at in front of the world.

    The answer to "bad speech" isn't suppression, the answer to bad speech is more speech.

    Again I ask is your problem, he isn't Pollitically Correct enough for you?

    Why do you hate American values?

    Parent

    There is nothing Bollinger (1.00 / 0) (#101)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:59:34 PM EST
    could have said, and certainly nothing you can say that will cause him problems in the Moslem world.

    Bollinger's and your inability to understand the enemy is epidemic. In your case it may be understandable... I have no real resume of you to look at besides your comments and they don't speak well of you... But Bollinger is the President of what used to be an elite university. His inability to understand is well, amazing, but in looking at the history of the Left, understandable..

    Tell me. Do you really think that an university president speaking "truth to power" means anything in the world of hanging homosexuals and killing US military??

    Surely you do not. But I expect you will attempt to find some excuse for this embarassment.

    Parent

    The only thing embarressing is your fear of speech (5.00 / 0) (#106)
    by Molly Bloom on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:42:53 PM EST
    and disregard of Americna Values. Why do you want to live here, if you do not believe in our values?

    Parent
    Catch a clue (none / 0) (#116)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 11:06:53 AM EST
    Were is it written that we are supposed to provide a PR function, in the name of free speech, for a man who sanctions killing homosexuals, hanging rape victims and providing assistance to those killing our soldiers??

    BTW - Couldn't you understand what he was saying when he declared Iran had no homosexuals??

    Catch a clue. He was telling the world that in Iran they killed.

    Parent

    Catch a clue yourself (5.00 / 1) (#120)
    by Molly Bloom on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 11:53:01 AM EST
    And they have records on every homosexual in Iran, including the ones born today?

    You have proof that they killed every homosexual in Iran, including the ones born today?

    He was denying the undeniable, which is why the audience roared with laughter.

    We aren't providing him a PR platform.

    Again, why do you fear mere speech? When did you join the PC police?

    Most people when they find they've dug a hole, put down the shovel.

    I am begining to realize that you don't understand our American freedoms which explains  why you do not value them, why you are so willing to give them up whenever a charltan like Bush or Cheney tells you to wet your pants with fear.  Democracy is not for the weak hearted. I recommend you try an authoritarian regime, where you can be protected from bad speech, where anyone the Dear Leader says is a threat to you is put away without trial or evidence.

    Good luck.

    Parent

    You set a new record in obtuseness.. (1.00 / 1) (#125)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:34:29 PM EST
    You still don't catch on!

    He was saying that when they find them, they kill them.

    Good grief.

    Parent

    Oh I catch on all right (5.00 / 1) (#126)
    by Molly Bloom on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 01:59:31 PM EST
    So does everyone else.

    Parent
    I've been meaning to ask (none / 0) (#130)
    by jondee on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 02:53:50 PM EST
    Jeralyn that.

    Parent
    I hear what the NY Times..... (none / 0) (#73)
    by kdog on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 05:43:26 PM EST
    says his views are, what Fox News says his views are, etc.

    I still can't find a transcript, but from what Rueters quoted he sounds like a nutty tyrant.  A nutty tyrant who can make a good point about US foreign policy once in awhile.

    What was the harm of the debate?  The Columbia guy engaged him intellectually and got the dope to say there are no homosexuals in Iran.  

    We showed the world you can let your adversary speak without beheading them.  People are allowed to protest peacefully.  It's a beautiful thing.

    Parent

    I can at least respect (none / 0) (#48)
    by Slado on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 01:52:56 PM EST
    Kdog's opinion.

    what I can't respect is that others would try and compare our government to an actual dictatorship in order to justify their veiw.

    In short I just don't think Ajad is going to answer anyones questions.  I mean the guy denies the holocost.   If Columbia asked someone who doesn't beleive we went to the moon to speak and then you asked him how can you explain the movies what do you think they would say?  

    He is an authroritarian dictator who knows he doesn't have to asnwer any questions because he isn't held to the standards our officials are.  There is not fact checking or investigative reporting in Iran.  

    A bunch of liberals will pepper him with "hard ball" questions and he won't answer them, or he'll give an answer so ridiculous that you'll wonder did he even hear the question.

    Then he'll go back and tell his people that he won the debate and it won't matter what they think.

    "Fool a liberal once and he'll ask you back to fool him again." - Slado 2007

    Parent

    At least give him a chance..... (5.00 / 1) (#49)
    by kdog on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 02:00:59 PM EST
    to dance around the tough questions like our leaders do.

    Then we can say the American people gave him a chance to plead his case and express his views...and he let the opportunity slip away.  Make him the bad guy, not us by refusing him the opportunity.

    Parent

    He is a bad guy (1.00 / 0) (#76)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 08:47:35 PM EST
    and this isn't a debate over a beer with your buds.

    Parent
    Please (1.00 / 2) (#96)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:32:27 PM EST
    Slado. These people are not Liberals. They are anti-war Left wingers.

    There is a difference.

    Parent

    As are the members (5.00 / 1) (#129)
    by jondee on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 02:51:55 PM EST
    of the Buchanan and Libertarian Right who opposed the war; they're all anti-war Leftists, they just dont realize it.

    Moron.

    Parent

    Tell us (1.00 / 1) (#138)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 08:48:36 PM EST
    what it is about Israel that you hate.

    BTW? Moron? Lost another and you go for the personal insult to show the world what dumb really is.

    Parent

    Tell us (1.00 / 1) (#139)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 08:48:51 PM EST
    what it is about Israel that you hate.

    BTW? Moron? Lost another and you go for the personal insult to show the world what dumb really is.

    Parent

    If A-man just stopped (5.00 / 1) (#36)
    by jondee on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 11:48:15 AM EST
    at hateing gays, like Slado's base, and threatened
    lynchings, with nooses hanging in playground trees, everything would be jake.

    Parent
    And how many people (1.00 / 1) (#90)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:24:25 PM EST
    do you think showed up to protest this??

    These are the people you defend, Jondee. Enjoy.

    FP: Ms. Zand-Bonazzi, why does the male get lashes and the girl gets executed? What is the psychology here?

    Zand-Bonazzi: Well, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran's interpretation of the Shari'a (I don't know how it's interpreted or done in Arab countries) a woman is automatically the seductress, however young and innocent. According to them, a man, no matter how old and promiscuous, is considered to be a "victim."  

    Now, quite a few facts about this poor young girl has come to light. First of all she was visibly mentally unwell (I guess bi-polar because by all accounts she wasn't retarded or dysfunctional; she defended herself at the so-called trial ) She told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims. I've also heard charges (which I had suspected would be the story) that the Mullah judge, Hadji Rezai, who was also the proud executioner, had in fact wanted her for himself as a "temporary wife" and because either she or her parents had refused him, he had become enraged and had turned against her and falsified her age as 22, so that he could execute her.

    I should add that this Mullah was not only the Judge but also the executioner and he proudly hung the noose around her neck himself. After her execution, he said publicly that her punishment was not execution but he taught her a "lesson" because of her sharp tongue.

    I do want to mention one thing about these "temporary marriages" if I may...this allows men and women to get married for one hour or stay married for the rest of their lives. It's basically for the most part, a form of "legitimizing" prostitution and by the way, the woman has no rights to any income or assets of the man AND cannot be married to another man though the man is allowed to have his main wife and as many temporary wives he wants.



    Parent
    Well Jondee - How many showed up??? (1.00 / 1) (#140)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 08:49:39 PM EST
    To me, that is dumb. (1.00 / 0) (#92)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 09:29:13 PM EST
    Ah yes.... free speech...

    Bolinger kept the ROTC off the campus... Funny, he condemned the ones who make it possible for him to have free speech...

    While letting on the campus a person who would happily chop his head off..not to mention rip out his tongue.

    Expose him for the hateful fraud he is. (none / 0) (#32)
    by Geekesque on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:47:35 AM EST
    This is much different than letting him use Ground Zero as a propaganda backdrop (too bad Bush and Ghouliani still get away with doing that).

    Is he (1.00 / 1) (#33)
    by Pancho on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 11:19:56 AM EST
    a hateful fraud or is he just misunderstood per Juan Cole?

    Parent
    Juan Cole says he's a hateful fraud (5.00 / 1) (#38)
    by Geekesque on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 12:21:35 PM EST
    and a Holocaust denier.

    Parent
    Free speech (none / 0) (#105)
    by diogenes on Mon Sep 24, 2007 at 10:37:27 PM EST
    This guy can call a press conference anytime he wants while he is in New York City and be asked hard questions.  
    People may be right that now it's more out in the open of how evil a regime it is (murder of gays, women, etc), but the people who invited him are the ones who are trying their darndest to make sure that the US does nothing in the way of regime change to actually help matters and offer no other solutions other than handwringing and candlelight vigils.  It's not as if revealing the truth is meant to mobilize support for any meaningful action.