I think that your pushing the Jewish cause a big heavly for my taste (not that I'm anti Jewish) and appear to have done a google seach on Muslims rather than have actually gone out to meet one, but otherwise your saying a lot of things that must be said.

You might be interested in a few of these links on Human rights Violations in China and on censorship.

Detention of a leading Disident
http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/read/654110.htm

Crackdown on freedom of information
http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/read/650415.htm

Suppression of the Tibetan people
http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/read/631759.htm

Didn't have time to read all the links. The link to Reynolds (TCS) on aging research caught my eye, though, since it is related to what I do. Reynolds asserts that government is not interested in funding research (particularly basic research) on aging. This is simply nonsense. Not only does the NIH fund research on aging, but much of this research is funded through the "National Institute for Aging."

Wow, Lewy-- How many rocks are you turning over today? Nine? Ten? I'll never get through them all this week. :-)
First I want to say that The Memo to Osama is probably the best current read in the blogverse-- I especially wuv the supremely elegant way he employs the device of modelling C.S. Lewis' 'The Screwtape Letters'. You will note that parallelling the book's structure leaves open a follow on for more memos.
And on the Passion-- I have read hundreds of reviews, and even waded through the old 1000+ comment thread at LGF (predates my time here), and I still haven't read aa single instance of what I believe to be the real purpose of the Passion. Lewy, I know you like Umberto Ecco, so this one's for you. In 'The Name of the Rose', Ecco describes a rogue sect known as the "penitenteagite". This is a description of a band of heretics who bellieved in vows of poverty and the 'mortification of the flesh'. One way the 'penitents' achieved spiritual epiphanies was to self-inflict the scourging and flogging endured by Christ, even to the point of opening nail wounds in their hands. Given that Gibson had experienced his own spiritual epiphany, I think The Passion is an attempt to reproduce Gibson's own experience: that is, a virtual reality scourging and flogging if you will. Ideally the experience of The Passion will result in a revelation of faith for those beings with the proper background to accept it. That is why, IMHO, it seems as if Christians and Jews are actually seeing two different movies-- they really are!

We'll have to think about the format for Hatewatch. What would our readers prefer with respect to length, style, focus, etc.?

Angry Chinese Blogger:

If the Jews receive disproportionate coverage, it substantially due to the fact that they are on the receiving end of a disproportionate amount of hate. On the other hand, I'd readily concede that China deserves more focus; I'll be checking out your posts later. As for your conjecture about my lack of first hand familliarity with Muslims, I can say you are incorrect.

joel,

I believe the good perfesser Reynolds was talking about truly revolutionary approaches to aging research as opposed to incrementalism. That the government funds aging research is not in dispute.

jt,

You have a good point, but actually I was hoping to avoid discussing the Passion and focus on Emmerich.

Joe,

FWIW I still had a bunch of material left on the cutting room floor. I collect links all month and I try to let the organization emerge, as opposed to fitting the material to a template. That said, I'm open to suggestions.

:/

enjoyed the roundup dude, but don't you think 'neo-Cobainism' is kind of a dated/random reference and kind of unnecessarily, you know, mildly offensive/hateful (esp considering the 'hatewatch' context)?! cobain's problems were personal and he was never very politically outspoken, it does him a disservice to link him and his inability to deal with himself to the semi-mythical left of the BC's (valuable but extremely broad) analysis that is unable to deal with America/the present in general.

I mean, he's just a dead musician, but I remember well being 13 or so and being totally crushed to hear the news, crying and shit! man was a music icon, not an icon of anti-capitalism/modernity! anyway, sorry to go on, it just kind of reminded me of taping his picture to my binder and being subjected to all these stupid Cobain suicide jokes for the rest of the year... just consider this a request to change that heading in the next report!

Excellent briefing! Very... meaty. There is some sort of dysfunction of the sort you and Wretchard mention (hatred of the present) happening in the Western Left, but I'm beginning to think of it as one of the necessary conditions of Liberalism 2.x. What I mean by that is a non-comprehensive Liberalism, or a Liberalism (as Paul Berman identifies it) of naive beliefs. We are actually facing what I think is Totalitarianism 3.x with the limitations imposed by Liberalism 2.x, and I think we're probably lucky to be doing as well as we are. Our luck may run out, however, if we don't change soon.

I'm thinking that the primary difference between Liberalism 2.x and Liberalism 3.x is that the latter can deal rigorously with complexity and ambiguity. That, simply put, will require some new tools. (Wretchard, bless his heart, points to some of these.)

John Atkinson,

I was thirty something when Cobain took his life and I too was crushed, in my own thirty something way. If my reference upset you, I'm sorry. But Conbain has been dead ten years now, and in a sense he is a public figure, and the bluntness and impact of his quote fit what I was trying to get across so well that I couldn't resist the association.

The confluence of essays and comments in the blogosphere around a cultural self hatred points to a phenomena in need of a handle. That "neo-Cobainism" is a poor choice at best and potentially offensive as well is a point I'll accept. Suggestions for alternatives are welcome.

I've just got to comment on the irrational "Vanishing" fantasy piece by Coupland

Orginal at:
http://plerophory.com/writings/_writings.thevanishees.htm

I love the inherent contradictions that radical eco-terrorist expose when they say things like:

Their goal was to remove every single trace that humanity had ever left on the planet's face. ...

[ Why? Why is humanity different from say, beavers and their dams? And if we did remove ourselves, who would be here to care? ]

[Continuing with the sillyness:]

But it wasn't enough that buildings and roads be removed - they had to be removed in such a way that no ecological trace of them was left

[ Silly. Nature destroys building all the time. Someone with such a perverse desire to erase humanity need only to stop us from fixing things and wait an appropriate amount of time. This amount of time is very, very short compared to natural history's length ]

... Boxes of insecticides and pesticides from garages had to be burned in a way that left behind no toxins. ...

[ Toxic to whom? In what concentration? Just spread any toxin out enough and it won't be toxic. This shows a basic ignorance about what it means to be toxic. ]

Of course the areas of larger cleanup were human traces such as garbage dumps, dams, and industrial and nuclear facilities. Dozens of generations of humans were born and raised with just enough knoledge and just enough will, that they could spend their lives sifting backwards through time through the layers of household trash, construction debris and sludge.

[ What a worker's paradise! And also ignorant; it would not take very long at all to erase humanity's physical stamp on the world. Assuming we used technology to do so; but then again technology is what we are trying to remove? Isn't that some kind of (say it with me) CONTRADICTION? ]

...

[ I saved the most ridiculous stuff for the end: ]

Nuclear waste proved to be the largest problem. The aliens refused to put it inside their spacecrafts,

[ One might wonder how aliens power their spaceships (nuclear technology?) ]

and they left the care of it to the engineers they'd kept behind, and to the subsequent gernerations of engineering overlords. Some of the waste was fired into the sun.

[ How did we do that? What technology was used? How big of an industrial based is needed to make that happen? Wouldn't it be better to BURY IT IN THE GROUND WHERE IT CAME FROM ORGINALLY!!!!]

Some was treated using deradiation techniques pioneered in the centuries after the vanishings.

[ Doesn't that contradict what was said 10 lines ago about humans doing nothing but garbage collecting? Can't even keep the contradiction out of this (horrible) fantasy ]

Even then, a further hundred generations of humans were required to dig and scrape into the planet's skin and remove and remediate all possible radioactive molecules,

[ Ok, this author is really uneducated about nuclear physics. There is mega,mega,mega tons (that's an attempt to clearly communicate the scientific amount to a non-scientific reader) of nuclear molecules in the earth. Most of them haven't been touched by humans, and are a significant natural part of how the earth works (volcanoes, etc, etc). I don't know what the wacko (oops I mean author) means to say when he says remediate. You can't easily change radioactive molecules into something else (transmutation) without have some pretty impressive nuclear plants involved. I doubt that's what he has in mind. The natural thing to do is -- bury it, that's where it came from anyway. Nuclear waste is such a non-issue -- only ignorant henny penny types who believe nonsense like this story think we need to fire it into the sun. ]

Continuing in my voice:

I wish that the meme (idea) of nature as ideal would be tempered with reality that human beings need to have a life. Having any life at all means that we rearrange "nature" to allow us to live. We chop down trees, kill animals (ymmm, meat!) pave things, etc, etc. That makes it convenient, comfortable and useful to us humans. It doesn't matter (to a degree) if you are living like an american indian or a nuclear engineer, you are impacting the environment. That's OK; that's what it means to be human (a living one).

Living in a modern way with oil, nuclear and other technology actually allows us the wealth and freedom to reduce our impact on the environment to near zero in certain areas like National Parks. I can even say that I might agree with the wacko that National Parks are a good thing.

To summarize:
Technology::good
People::good
eco-terrorist ideas::wrong,bad

--Fred

Hey, guys! I actually have been paying attention, just too busy to post or even comment.

But FWIW Voz de Aztlan is a hate site; it no more represents mainstream Latino culture than David Duke represents Republican values.

A.L.

A.L., hello and thanks for checking in.

Voz de Aztlan is a hate site.
Ahh... yep.

It no more represents mainstream Latino culture than David Duke represents Republican values.
I hope no such assertion was implicit in my post.

The reason the site piqued my curiosity was because I can't even understand their agenda as a hate site.

Scott,

The left has to give up two things - socialism, its anti-war stance.

The real problem in America is that there is no party of the center. That will change following the destruction of the Democrats in November.

Bush is suffering buyers remorse (could I have gotten a better deal? Is this the best I can do?) His support will climb from here on.

lewwwy!

yeah, I mean, take the reference to my age at the time and the jokes of those mean kids as a kind of implicit acknowledgement of the faintly irrational and emotional nature of my response. I wasn't offended or anything, but it struck a chord. whatevs!

really, the "I hate myself and want to die" quote is kind of good on its own, I do like the tension between the irony and serious craziness of the quote, much like the irony and serious craziness inherent in the self-identified left's move towards Baudrillardish civilizational suicide fantasies. or whatevs!

off the top of my head, for kicks:

"Suicide Girls"

"Baudrillardonica"

"US Out of America"

"Please Kill Me"

best
John.

A.L.,

Atzlan is no more mainstream than Bustamente.

Lewy sez:
"You have a good point, but actually I was hoping to avoid discussing the Passion and focus on Emmerich."
B-b-b-but lewy, it is all one! I maintain Emmerich's writings appealed to Gibson at very level of gore and agony that is such a motif in the Passion. Since there is a biological basis for all behavoir, the clutch of endorphins and nor-epinephrins engendered by reading Emmerich, would play especially well on screen in the visuals.

Hi A.L. I do miss you. Will you tell us how your meatspace work is going, someday?

John: You forgot 'Suicide Commandos'. :-)

SUICIDE COMMANDOS = GOOD ONE!!

"I believe the good perfesser Reynolds was talking about truly revolutionary approaches to aging research as opposed to incrementalism. That the government funds aging research is not in dispute."

A. You wouldn't know it from his post. He makes it sound as though there's a nefarious government plot to make us all die prematurely. This is just silly.

B. "revolutionary" or "crackpot"? The aging field (like the cancer field) is rife with crackpot claims of "revolutionary" new treatments and cures. I'm sorry to rain on your parade here, but from what I read of his writing, I don't believe dear Dr. Reynolds knows the difference. The people I know who have served on NIA panels do.

Joel,

Glenn isn't asking you to trust him to know the difference between "crackpot" and "revolutionary", in fact he disavows his ability to distinguish: I'm not in a position to opine on the likelihood that aging will prove to be reversible.

What he is saying, citing arguments by Aubrey de Grey, is that there is a vicious circle of skepticism which surrounds age reversal research such that the prediction that it is impossible (and therefore research proposals are "crackpot") is self fulfilling.

Further, Glenn speculates (admittedly unsupported by any citation within his article) that an additional basis for opposition to research on age reversal can identified: an unspoken but deep seated species self loathing. You are the virus, we are the cure says agent Smith in The Matrix, and intuitively we understand where he's coming from.

For the record, I'm no biologist, but I think aging reversal likely a problem of intractable complexity.

For the record, I think there are positive spiritual and philosophical arguments against immortality which don't rely on species self loathing.

But I do think Glenn has a point: if age-reversal technology were on offer, or as close as some other relatively ambitious but "doable" projects in biology and health, that collective thoughts of "we should hate ourselves and want to die" would be given a voice, and a loud one. Which is why I chose the excerpted quote.

lewy: One of my genetics professors felt that we could live to be a hundred, and maintain the physiology of a fifty year old right up until the end-- How ever, this comment was embedded in a nutritional study of mice, which revealed that mice kept at near starvation were more longlived and exhibited fewer symptoms of aging than the 'obese' mice. If we evolved as hunter-gatherers, living at a subsistance level, then probably the age of excess we live in wreaks havoc with the equilibrium of our biochemistry.

lewy: I can argue beatification with the best of them! I was raised a Catholic Grrrl. after all. Emmerich's beatification, IMHO, has nothing to with her writings vis a vis judeaism. In an era where the relevance of the catholic church is underfire from every quarter (pederast priests, ancient, decrepit and meaningless pope, ridiculous positions on abortion, birth control and politics), why would the church NOT desparately seek a link to the Amazingly Popular Passion Play, which is causing epiphanies of faith for christians everywhere? And, Emmerich certainly has better reason for beatification than for example, Saint Rose, the first American saint, whose 'miracle' consisted of making the peskie mosquitos go away so she could write some important religious tome (I kid you not! Rose was my conformation name!!). :-)

jinni t,

That the Passion can inspire genuine epiphanies is not in dispute, as first hand accounts from my own family have informed me. In fact the entire vein of Passion criticism regarding the "obsession with violence" finds no resonance with me, and the usually reliable satiric voice of "South Park" cracked badly in it's treatment of Gibson and his movie.

But consider this section in a beliefnet artcle, my very fist link on Emmerich:

"The Dolorous Passion" also ascribes this vision to Emmerich: "Whenever, during my meditations on the Passion of our Lord, I imagine I hear that frightful cry of the Jews, ‘His blood be upon us, and upon our children,’ visions of a wonderful and terrible description display before my eyes at the same moment the effect of that solemn curse. ...this curse, which they have entailed upon themselves, appears to me to penetrate even to the very marrow of their bones, even to the unborn infants. They appear to me encompassed on all sides by darkness; the words they utter take, in my eyes, the form of black flames, which recoil upon them, penetrating the bodies of some, and only playing around others."

Call me overly sensitive, but I find that objectionable. And my objection will not be removed by appeal to the time and place and cultural context of origin. And my objection is compounded by Gibson's embrace of Emmerich and rejection of Vatican II, which disavows attributions of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifiction, and by Gibson's inclusion of the "blood curse" passage (minus subtitles).

So when you ask why would the church NOT desparately seek a link to the Amazingly Popular Passion Play, I would point out that the APPP is not in harmony with the teachings of the church, but is in fact counter to them, and that parts of Emmerich's writings are objectively offensive and disturbing not only to Jews but to anyone who values the principles of decency and humanity over superstition and demonization...
...if, indeed, Emmerich wrote them herself. And therein lies the sole defense for the decoupling of "her writing" from consideration for her selection for beatification which carries any weight with me at all.

Lew,

I want to let you in on something regarding the Left. While it may be ideologically convenient to treat all 'lefties' as Socialists or Communists, few are. Organized Socialist groups in the U.S. are practically nonexistant. Communists have gone the way of the Wobblies. This lurking shadow that scares the bejeesus out of the doctrinaire right is the classic straw man.

Progressives are not very scary either. I don't think progressives such as myself hate the here and now. The essential quality is to be forward thinking and not confined to looking for the same solutions to new problems in the same place all the time (e.g., the answer to every economic problem is to cut taxes). I have been active on the Left for 25 years. I have never been a Socialist. C'mon Lew, how many real, live Socialists do you actually know? Do you have friends who are Socialists? Would you let you daughter marry one?

lewy: you say--
"I would point out that the APPP is not in harmony with the teachings of the church, but is in fact counter to them, and that parts of Emmerich's writings are objectively offensive and disturbing not only to Jews but to anyone who values the principles of decency and humanity over superstition and demonization" I think that is true. But ask me if the Church cares-- IMHO, the powers that be believe any publicity is good publicity. Perhaps disassociating Emmerich from her writings is a way of keeping their hands clean. In any event, her lifetime of service is probab'ly worth more in the Church's estimate than the 'disappearing mosquitos' trick. I guess I would say, yes, Emmerich's writing are evil and hateful, and no, the Church doesn't really give a rap.

obelus,

I want to let you in on something regarding the Left. While it may be ideologically convenient to treat all 'lefties' as Socialists or Communists, few are. Organized Socialist groups in the U.S. are practically nonexistant. Communists have gone the way of the Wobblies. This lurking shadow that scares the bejeesus out of the doctrinaire right is the classic straw man.

I notice this frequently when anyone criticises the Left in general, someone stands up and says "but they don't really exist!", that a strawman has been set up, etc. I find such blandishments are unpersuasive and I discount them out of hand.

Here's the situation: I believe the kinds of Leftist ideas that I'm talking about (and will continue to talk about) are alive and well and living large in Academia, among other places. In this I'm informed by several commentators including Camille Paglia (no friend of Bush) among others as well as my own concrete experience. Of course the extent of their influence is a matter of debate and I'm receptive to arguments one way or another. I demonstrated that with my update on the Berkeley intafadah; Kevin Deenihan responded with data and articles as opposed to rhetoric, I found them reasonable and informative, and I promptly gave them airing. Do the same and I'll respond the same.

Note that I'm not accusing anyone in particular, including you obelus, of being a self hating leftie. I'll ask you to return the favor and not count me on the column of doctrinair right wingers. In particular you should know that I understand there is a difference between Noam Chomsky and Hillary Clinton, and my regret is that it's even necessary to say such a thing, but the existence of brilliant intellects such as Ann Coulter requires such a disclaimer.

I have been active on the Left for 25 years. I have never been a Socialist. C'mon Lew, how many real, live Socialists do you actually know? Do you have friends who are Socialists? Would you let you daughter marry one?

I've been invloved with the Left, Right, and Center for the last 23 years, and it's been my fate to come to know some "real, live" Socialists, especially in regards to the self hating theme I touched on in my post. In fact one of my closest friends from childhood, I guy I've known for over thirty years, a guy with a brilliant mind and a gentle heart, is so far out to the left that a description of his beliefs risks accusations of caricature. I don't know if he would respond "Yes" on being asked if he was a socialist, but if asked if there were any value or moral right to use force to defend the United States from a genuine enemy posing a real existential threat, he wouldn't hesitate to respond "No". I know because I've asked him. He is evasive with regards to being labled (not that there's anything wrong with that) but he's quite explicit about his opinion that the US is without legitimacy and the right to exist. So yes, these people live and breathe, and I them, and they make me sadder than you can possibly know.

Who my daughter would marry would be up to her and as a progressive I hope you'd grant your own daughter the same freedom even if she fell in love with a Republican. After all, the Shrivers did.

La Voz de Aztlan is a fringe group at best, and hated by progressive Chicanos.

What LVDA is trying to do is appeal to a current of anti-Jewish sentiment that many Christians were brought up with. It's not that different from what right-wing groups used to do, before supporting Israel became a big part of Bush's War on Terrorism. (Or more significantly, before WW2.)

In the larger scheme of things, a greater threat to Jewish people is David Icke, a conspiracy theorist who's making a big appeal to the New Age set, who attributes history to secret rulers (who are a race of reptilian people). He's started to tie his grand narrative in with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He's incredibly popular, drawing thousands to his lectures.

Lewy

I think your confusing anti Zionistisc feeling, anti Sharon feeling and anti Jewish feelings and have worked in a few bits from people who don't know the first thing about hating the Jewish people but are just randomly attacking somebody because they are frustrated idiots (that's the bigots, not the victims).

And you still don't seem to be able to differentiate between a Muslim and a fanatical Muslim, which probably makes up about 1 in 100,000 Muslims.

The level of Jewish hatred is actually very low, most of what you see is anti Zionist, anti settler and anti Sharon sentiment with a little "lets kick somebody" thrown in from right wing groups.

If you can't tell the difference I suggest you stay out of the pundit game or try living in an Islamic community.

The rest of the site however is acurate so keep it up.

"La Raza's" Take? The Jews had it coming?
La Voz de Aztlan is suspected of being a front for "Aztlan" Christian Ministries; a right-wing American Christian group masquerading as La Raza. It is not a Chicano or La Raza website. La Raza, Chicano and Native Americans reject Anti-Chicanoism, Anti-Mexicanism, Anti-Indianism and Anti-Semitism.