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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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 Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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buncheon bum wrote:
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| kuros posted a clip of his "no homosexuals in iran" bit. I'm not sure what he was thinking. Did he really think speaking at columbia would help his image? |
Obviously, yes, or he wouldn't have solicited an invitation to speak there, not once but twice (last year it was quashed due to security concerns).
mindmetoo wrote:
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| Actually the more secular, university middle/upper class actually likes America. |
Even in 1977-79 when my own parents were living in north Tehran and the Shah was still in power, most of their neighbors of this SES were quite fond of Americans and dreaded our departure. Even then they feared the backlash from the Islamic fundamentalists. Today, it is this same demographic that suffers most under the ayatollahs. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
SO WHY DIDN'T BUSH DEBATE HIM? 
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Bush didn't debate him because as the leader of the most powerful country on Earth it would have given Agmadinejad more credibility than he deserves. Plus it would have given him the belief that when he snaps his fingers (so as to speak) the Western nations come to his beck and call "Look I made the most powerful man come to me and talk to me" Staying away sends the correct message. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| igotthisguitar wrote: |
SO WHY DIDN'T BUSH DEBATE HIM?
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Bush didn't debate him because as the leader of the most powerful country on Earth it would have given Agmadinejad more credibility than he deserves. Plus it would have given him the belief that when he snaps his fingers (so as to speak) the Western nations come to his beck and call "Look I made the most powerful man come to me and talk to me" Staying away sends the correct message. |
Bush didn't, and won't, because he is a coward. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| igotthisguitar wrote: |
SO WHY DIDN'T BUSH DEBATE HIM?
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Bush didn't debate him because as the leader of the most powerful country on Earth it would have given Agmadinejad more credibility than he deserves. Plus it would have given him the belief that when he snaps his fingers (so as to speak) the Western nations come to his beck and call "Look I made the most powerful man come to me and talk to me" Staying away sends the correct message. |
Bush didn't, and won't, because he is a coward. |
Spoken by someone who has the debating ability of....well....a howler monkey. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
| Bush didn't, and won't, because he is a coward. |
Bush is not a strong debator. But there can be many justifications. Allowing Amadinnerjacket access to the president when allies don't get that amount of time might seem a bit odd. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 12:17 am Post subject: |
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This is a stupid question, worthy of little more than our contempt. Here is my answer -- in the appropriate order:
-- no diplomatic relations exist between Washington and Tehran;
-- Washington and Tehran are reciprocally hostile and not friendly;
-- Tehran is transparently not looking for any debate at all but rather propaganda opportunities and would love to subject the President of the United States to an hour-long diatribe in an international forum; and
-- as I already asked, Who says the President of the United States must come running when Ahmadinejad calls...?
Finally, speaking of "translation difficulties" and apologia, did Bollinger call Ahmadinejad a dictator or did he point out that the man was acting like, behaving like, or resembling a dictator?
Does anyone here honestly take issue with such an observation? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Finally, speaking of "translation difficulties" and apologia, did Bollinger call Ahmadinejad a dictator or did he point out that the man was acting like, behaving like, or resembling a dictator?
Does anyone here honestly take issue with such an observation? |
You are alluding to another thread, perhaps. If that is the case, let me point out that the issue was 'demeanour' and common manners etc, and how poor he came across in this regard. Like a 'lout' - was how someone put it. Nobody was saying they disagreed with Bollingers statements, were they... ? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:50 am Post subject: |
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Not alluding to another thread. Just pointing out, too, that even if the current Iranian president is "elected," Iranian Fundamentalists have subjected all Iranians to a theocratic dictatorship since 1979.
I thought Bollinger did rather well, incidentally. Doubt his remarks will get much airplay in Iran, however. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Not alluding to another thread. Just pointing out, too, that even if the current Iranian president is "elected," Iranian Fundamentalists have subjected all Iranians to a theocratic dictatorship since 1979.
I thought Bollinger did rather well, incidentally. Doubt his remarks will get much airplay in Iran, however. |
Bollinger could have said what he said in a much more scholarly fashion. Ah, but it is, indeed, the new fashion to attack, debase, insult and call it civil discourse or justify it by claiming your opponent is not worthy of better.
Bollinger let his politics get in the way of his job: he is an educator acting in his capacity as one, not a blow-hard on a Sunday morning news magazine. His points would have carried far more weight had he not lost his composure and left his ethics sitting in the wings.
This will damage his reputation more than his guest's, unfortunately.
Again, we are not surprised you praise him. Bollinger was rude. He was inappropriate. But, as is your manner, you pretend at manners then act like a punk. Then claim you never do so. Bollinger did the same. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
Allowing Amadinnerjacket access to the president when allies don't get that amount of time
might seem a bit odd. |
President ... i'm a dinner jacket?
rotflmslao |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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I would have liked to see Lyndon Johnson debate Ahmadjinedad. During the Viet Nam war Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson went to a US university and gave a strident ant-Vietnam speach and the next day or so was meeting Johnson at the whitehouse.
It is reported that Johnson lifter Pearson to his tippy toes by his lapels and growled, "you pissed on my carpet!'
I can see it now. GWB who is another Texan is on the stand with Ahmadjinedad. Sticks hs finger in A's face, grabs him by the crotch and hustles him out.
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:45 am Post subject: |
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| Bollinger could have said what he said in a much more scholarly fashion. Ah, but it is, indeed, the new fashion to attack, debase, insult and call it civil discourse or justify it by claiming your opponent is not worthy of better. |
Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like every leftist/liberal I knew at my university and that was 12 years ago, so could you please explain who exactly are you attacking?
Yes, I was the minority in that University. Explaining that I came from the section of my country that didn't support hatred of the US was not the most pleasant of my memories.
But if I read your points you are attacking conservatives or university today  |
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yawarakaijin
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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A nice little article here. ttp://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092807E.shtml
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The Bollinger/Ahmadinejad Farce
By Rosa Brooks
The Los Angeles Times
Friday 28 September 2007
If the Columbia University president were to introduce Bush the way he did the Iranian president, that would be an act of free-speech bravery.
Imagine the scene: As angry protesters march outside, a nation's unpopular president prepares to address students and faculty at a prestigious university. Introducing the president, the head of the university is bluntly critical of his guest speaker: "You, quite simply, [are] ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. . . . I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer [our] questions . . . I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mind-set that characterizes so much of what you say and do. . . . Your preposterous and belligerent statements . . . led to your party's defeat in the [last] elections."
Unfazed, the president rises to begin his speech. His sometimes bizarre remarks generate hoots of derision. But he plows on civilly, though he ducks and weaves when faced with critical questions from the audience.
When the clock runs out, many are dissatisfied with his answers. But everyone applauds the courageous head of the university, who wasn't afraid to speak truth to power, and everyone praises the student protesters, who exemplified the democratic values of dissent and free expression.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if something like that could happen in our country?
No, no, I mean really happen in our country. Tuesday's farce in New York at Columbia University, starring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the Unpopular Presidential Guest and Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger as The Man Who Spoke Truth to Power, doesn't count because it was just that: a farce.
Ahmadinejad was playing to global public opinion, and though he lost some PR points for incoherence and general bizarreness of message ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals"), he gained some for coming off as a bit more mature than his prissy, infantile host. ("In Iran, when you invite a guest, you respect them," Ahmadinejad observed dryly.)
Bollinger, meanwhile, was playing to a different audience. After taking a beating for giving Ahmadinejad a forum, he was eager to show the media, alumni, concerned Jewish organizations and a raft of bellicose neoconservative pundits that he was no terrorist-loving appeaser of Holocaust deniers.
In a narrow sense, both Ahmadinejad and Bollinger achieved their goals. Ahmadinejad showed that he could be dignified in the face of crass American bullies, which will play well abroad - and may even buttress his dwindling prestige in Iran. And Bollinger showed that he can be a crass American bully, which, in our current political climate, is what passes for "courage."
Bollinger's tactics went down well with the New York media, anyway: The New York Sun rhapsodized about a "Teaching Moment," while the New York Times expressed the pious hope that "what Americans and Iranians will remember is that image of professors and students, in a true democratic forum." And Bollinger seemed quite pleased with his own performance. The Bollinger-Ahmadinejad Show was "free speech at its best," Bollinger modestly explained to reporters.
Sorry, no. "Free speech at its best" is when someone really does speak truth to power, and power stops blathering long enough to engage with inconvenient ideas. If an Iranian professor, inside Iran, had said what Bollinger said to Ahmadinejad, that would have been brave.
Or - stay with me here - if Bollinger had invited President Bush to Columbia and made those same unvarnished remarks to him, and Bush had toughed it out and struggled to answer half a dozen unfiltered, critical questions from an audience not made up of his handpicked supporters . . . . Well, that too would have been free speech at its best.
Unfortunately, that's not the kind of thing you're likely to see in America.
It's odd, because Bush - like Ahmadinejad - makes plenty of statements that, to paraphrase the eloquent Mr. Bollinger, could be characterized as ridiculous, provocative, uneducated and fanatical. (Take Bush's repeated suggestion of a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, for instance.) And as in the case of Ahmadinejad, some of Bush's preposterous and belligerent statements contributed to the GOP's defeat in the last elections.
But so what? Here in the land of free speech, elites - including those at universities - too often collude to keep our own president in his safe little bubble. (Those who forget to pretend that the emperor is fully dressed, such as Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents Assn. dinner or Jimmy Carter at Coretta Scott King's funeral, are instantly chastised for being "inappropriate.")
This week, a global audience saw Iran's "petty and cruel dictator," as Bollinger called him, courteously parrying questions from hostile students - something viewers won't see our democratically elected president doing.
So fine, let's congratulate ourselves for showing Iran just how many freedoms we have in America. But when we get done congratulating ourselves on our fancy freedoms, let's figure out why we can't be bothered to put them to use. |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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What an incredibly assinine op/ed that piece to trash penned by Brooks is. She is so consummed by hatred of Bush that she can see nothing else. That is not journalism or commentary but simply cheap, ignorant political polemic.
This consumately stupid pargraph shows the almost juvenile and thoughtless nature of her comments.
"In a narrow sense, both Ahmadinejad and Bollinger achieved their goals. Ahmadinejad showed that he could be dignified in the face of crass American bullies, which will play well abroad - and may even buttress his dwindling prestige in Iran. And Bollinger showed that he can be a crass American bully, which, in our current political climate, is what passes for "courage."
Ahmadinejad was not showing any dignity but only the smirking composure of a fantic outwaiting his critics. Bollinger was simply being in your face direct, somethin that happens much to infrequently in cases such as these. That is not being a bully.
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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President Ahmadinejad Meets Jewish Rabbis
In New York City
Tuesday 25 September 2007 - 11:36
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Monday afternoon met with a group of Jewish rabbis who gave him a silver grail as a sign of friendship.
The president is currently in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly.
The rabbis carried a placard which read, "I am Jewish NOT a Zionist."
A senior rabbi of the group said that they considered the visit to New York of President Ahmadinejad as an exceptional opportunity and would never forget it.
He referred to the Iranian president as a person who made a distinction between Jews and Zionists.
"You understand us and make a distinction between the violent behavior of Zionists and the religious beliefs of Jews," said the senior rabbi who called President Ahmadinejad "a pious man who is seeking to restore peace in the world and has humanitarian plans." Appreciating the rabbis for their gift, President Ahmadinejad said he was happy to visit them.
"All people in the world have now understood that Judaism is different from Zionism," said the president.
He added, "Zionists are a political group looking for taking advantage of the opportunities while Jews are the followers of the Moses who promoted peace and friendship."
President Ahmadinejad stressed that there was no disagreement between the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as they all pray the same God and are brothers.
The president said the future belongs to the monotheist faiths and that liars would be eliminated.
He stressed that all followers of divine faiths were responsible to promote monotheism and defend peace, justice and brotherhood.
New York, Sept 25, IRNA |
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