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Topic Review (Newest First)
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| Feb 12th, 2003 08:43 PM | ||
| Abcdxxxx |
A) They're afraid of change. Even you agreed. Change is not dependant on racial quotas alone, but obviously that's the only aspect you think has meaning. When one speaks of a cultural movement it's not always racial. I have to go get my Fidel poster framed, I don't have time for this shit. B) How about immigrants with a vocalized plan to "harm their host country"? C) That American Nationals weren't involved in 9/11 doesn't clear illegals nor does it prove North America is a tranquil bed of racial equality where Islam thrives in peace. Are you really naive enough to believe American Nationals of various races had no involvement? D) They chant prayes in masques, but they're not even bothering to use "secret code" when they preach the blueprints for a dreamt up holy war. It's only a conspiracy theory to the ignorant, and while these sentiments aren't represntative of EVERY Muslim, they are often ingrained on the teachings. Most Islamic terror cells were seeded at a masque. E) You're the only one here invoking the spirit of Mein Kampf with the usage of words like "infecting" and "altering" a "once proud people" to describe the topic, let alone relate it to Hitler. F) Turkey's still the wild west, and they're going to take a huge role in whatever nightmare goes down out there. |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 07:19 PM | ||
| Systemz |
I like it with gravy. And mashed potatoes. My family deep-fried the Turkey at christmas. |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 07:17 PM | ||
| GAsux |
What was this thread about again? I like Turkey. |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 06:37 PM | ||
| Systemz |
Go Ronnie Go. I Wish Nixon had taken the wall down. If Realpolitik had won, the world would be so much more 1984. And as for YOU, abcd, the reason people keep bringing up cliches is because they're true. And your cultural warfare idea is bullshit. Immigrants from developing states have a right to retain their culture if it doesn't harm their host country, just as I have the right to mark down my religious affiliation as "jedi" if I want to. Your claims to be downplaying the issue of race you should quit talking about "systematic cultural warfare". If the EU isn't threatened by the influx of race into their borders, what are they afraid of? The cooking? People taking the jobs Europeans can't bear to do? Honest folk who work hard, destroying the total lack of competition that Europe has enjoyed for the past 50 years? So if its not economic, is it social? Are Euros afraid of hearing another language on their streets? Music they haven't heard? For a supposedly cosmopolitan atmosphere you're casting Europeans as about as emancipated as North Korea. If they so fear the influx of Arab nationals into their soil, they should think about the fact that Islam has had a pretty decent time of it in North America - remember that not a single American national was a perpetrator in 9/11. They were Saudis, mostly. So if you're worried about their borders, tell 'em to tighten their visa system, not immigration. And I think anytime you start talking about a group of people who are infecting and altering a once-proud society I can pretty much refer to Hitler - certainly that's what he was talking about in Mein Kampf? So now we've got ourselves an International Islamic Conspiracy. That's what they must be chanting in those mosques! Secret code! Islam has a proud and honest history. Prior to the colonial era, Islam was one of the most vibrant and advanced civilizations in the world. Hell, they even read Aristotle and Plato! It wasn't until Marcus Aurelius rediscovered the classics via Muslim-dominated Spain that we got on the road to the rennaisance. If you want to look at a religion well-suited to conquest and destruction, how about we look at Christianity? Crusades, anyone? I don't see Tunisian tanks lined up on the shores, ready to attack France at a moment's notice. A few fundamentalists and crazies get a piece of the pie in every culture - simply because the West has turned to Islam to be the bad guy now that the USSR is in tatters doesn't mean the scenario's any different - now we've got the Green Menace, instead of the Red. It's all bullshit to drum up support and contain the population by fear. |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 05:31 PM | ||
| BombsBurstingInAir | Reagan made the wall come down. | |
| Feb 12th, 2003 05:25 PM | ||
| Abcdxxxx |
"Countries like Britain that were reluctant to join the EU feared a loss of control - of their destiny and culture. " Repeat that five times and realize you should have stopped there. Could you be any more cliche? Oh "the Berlin Wall", oh "that's what Hitler said". We're talking about Turkey...and we're talking about immigration issues with the EU right????? Seems to me my argument was to downplay the issues of race in the fears of the EU, but then you argue that it's very much about race, and start claiming my arguments ethnocentric. Say what? I'm not sure when this became about me expressing MY "paternal, Euro-male dominated viewpoint". I don't recall expressing these fears as my own at any point. Get a grip. Really, who are you kidding. The influx of immigrants from Arab league nations are not going to stay in Turkey are they? No they're heading for London and Paris. "Cultural warfare" is an often misused term co-opted by those you disdain, but it it's not a fictional concept. (Japan's a perfect example. Don't tell me they're not putting secret messages in those Sanrio toys). How is anything Hitler said relevant here?? If we're specifically talking about the religious Islamic community then they (or the more outspoken of the bunch) have indeed declared their desires and plans to wage a war on a cultural lifestyle...haven't they? The history of Islam suggests an ability to go from minority to majority while wiping out advanced civilizations entirely in the process. When did the Jews and Gypsys (etc.) of Germany ever plan to do such a thing? Justify your comments. |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 01:18 PM | ||
| Systemz |
Quote:
And just what the hell is "cultural warfare"? More thai restaurants? The growth of knowledge about cultures beyond our own? Spouting things like "cultural warfare" has been a tool of the elites to raise up public opinion. "Cultural warfare" is what Hitler espoused when he was sending people to the death chamber. Sure - there are criminal organizations of non-whites in most major Judeo-Christian cities nowadays, but much of that stems from a repeated ghettoization by the majority, who is too busy hurling out "cultural warfare" to attend to the needs of an immigrant population that brings considerable skill to the table. As for my Berlin wall analogy, if you were talking about culture, you should have specified yourself - you spoke that everyone "fears" change. Even if people fear "cultural change", broadly defined as a fundamental shift in the mores, practices and beliefs of a people, it does not discount the fact that change is coming, and the best thing you can do is adapt. Egypt has been constantly assailed by its position in Africa, the Mediterranean, and Islam. Still, it persists as distinct from all three. Any country that felt the brushstroke of colonization knows all too well the "cultural warfare" that the western powers inflicted on them. Making your comments as you do, you show the sort of paternal, euro-male-dominated viewpoint held by Mr. Kipling. If these cultures that enter into other countries are a threat to the well-being and prosperity of European culture, the existence of the EU is invalidated. Countries like Britain that were reluctant to join the EU feared a loss of control - of their destiny and culture. They joined anyway - because the economic benefits outweighed the fear of loss of culture. An area as particularly distinct as Europe - with such a tight conglomeration of language and custom - learned to work within their existing structures to allow for growth and change. To exclude people from participation in that framework is to marginalize and discriminate against them. You don't see waves of Belgians swimming across the channel - the freedom of movement the EU provides is a function of its liberal philosophy. And it works - more or less. And it will grow. And get better. And it will get better not only by changes in its original nations but by new ideas and concepts brought to it by its new nations. Change isn't always growth or progress, but if you design your system - hell, your individual life - around adaptation you've got a helluva better chance of surviving and growing from that. |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 01:17 PM | ||
| Systemz |
Quote:
And just what the hell is "cultural warfare"? More thai restaurants? The growth of knowledge about cultures beyond our own? Spouting things like "cultural warfare" has been a tool of the elites to raise up public opinion. "Cultural warfare" is what Hitler espoused when he was sending people to the death chamber. Sure - there are criminal organizations of non-whites in most major Judeo-Christian cities nowadays, but much of that stems from a repeated ghettoization by the majority, who is too busy hurling out "cultural warfare" to attend to the needs of an immigrant population that brings considerable skill to the table. As for my Berlin wall analogy, if you were talking about culture, you should have specified yourself - you spoke that everyone "fears" change. Even if people fear "cultural change", broadly defined as a fundamental shift in the mores, practices and beliefs of a people, it does not discount the fact that change is coming, and the best thing you can do is adapt. Egypt has been constantly assailed by its position in Africa, the Mediterranean, and Islam. Still, it persists as distinct from all three. Any country that felt the brushstroke of colonization knows all too well the "cultural warfare" that the western powers inflicted on them. Making your comments as you do, you show the sort of paternal, euro-male-dominated viewpoint held by Mr. Kipling. If these cultures that enter into other countries are a threat to the well-being and prosperity of European culture, the existence of the EU is invalidated. Countries like Britain that were reluctant to join the EU feared a loss of control - of their destiny and culture. They joined anyway - because the economic benefits outweighed the fear of loss of culture. An area as particularly distinct as Europe - with such a tight conglomeration of language and custom - learned to work within their existing structures to allow for growth and change. To exclude people from participation in that framework is to marginalize and discriminate against them. You don't see waves of Belgians swimming across the channel - the freedom of movement the EU provides is a function of its liberal philosophy. And it works - more or less. And it will grow. And get better. And it will get better not only by changes in its original nations but by new ideas and concepts brought to it by its new nations. Change isn't always growth or progress, but if you design your system - hell, your individual life - around adaptation you've got a helluva better chance of surviving and growing from that.[/quote] |
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| Feb 12th, 2003 05:03 AM | ||
| Abcdxxxx | That's lovely and all, but so what? ... you're saying these fears are without merit....but they do EXIST ... and one can look at history or take a look at what happened in Egypt for example, and see great relevance.....so your logic might be better suited for a good grade on a class paper then the real world. The Berlin wall falling represented the falling of an idealogy not an entire culture. We're not talking about natural progression of time here, we're talking about the threat of a systematic cultural warfare. A strategical immigration movement can not be seen as anything but a threat now matter how passively poetic you look at it. | |
| Feb 12th, 2003 03:49 AM | ||
| Systemz | I agree that the "european lifestyle" is certainly an illusion - just as the "american lifestyle" and the "Iraqui lifestyle" are certainly socialized norms that don't actually reflect the majority of the citizenry of these nations. I'm the last preson that'll tell you that holding on to these illusions is beneficial to the society as a whole. The illusions are the product of a patriarchial social system that wants to retain control - the fear of immigration and the resulting "destabliziation" is baseless. Its not as if these churches in London are being bought out in a hostile takeover - only 12% of Britons actually attend church weekly, and nearly 70% never go at all. That's down enormously from even 10 years ago - and it's not like there are roving packs of scientologists out there scaring Anglicans away from church. So if the traditional Anglicans aren't going to church, its their own damned fault if they lose their churches to a group more interested in practicing. Change does indeed make people miserable - if the people are the people who have control. The fall of the Berlin Wall didn't exactly make the Stasi very happy, but mysteriously our images of those days are of teeming masses of jubilant people - people who were changing their lives. Sure - not every German was out carving their portion of the wall to sell on EBay that day, and certainly some of those people were unhappy about the wall coming down. Just as the landowning classes were cranky when the common man got the vote, and how the common man was cranky when women got the vote. Change happens - in fact, change is inevitable, and even Mr. Realism himself, Niccolo Machiavelli, will tell you that a proper person adapts to change, because the alternative is to be run under the gears. There is no "status quo" - the status quo changes as often as the days are numbered. If you want to be first against the wall when the revolution comes, go ahead and hide in your rabbit hole and scream at anything that comes into your territory - your failure to change'll get you left behind. | |
| Feb 12th, 2003 12:55 AM | ||
| Abcdxxxx | No you're right. Next time I make rude remark about Turkey, I'll be sure to slag off a few of the other EU nations so fools like you don't get all worked and assume it's racially motivated. My comments were actually downplaying race as a factor in this situation, though we both know race is indeed an issue in part. Then again, when some poor fuck watches the Church he was confirmed in turn into a Masque he's probably a bit pissed right? I dout he'd be any happier if it became a Temple, a Scientology social club or a Euro disco. When my father opens up shopping malls all through the Ukraine it pisses people off all over the world, and I doubt the fact that he was born in Iraq is the reason why. Get what I'm saying now? Change makes people miserable...especially when you're a union of nations wrapped around traditions. An influx of immigrants from third world countrys isn't really going to keep in standard with the illusion of a "European lifestyle" that their economy is based around. | |
| Feb 11th, 2003 10:37 PM | ||
| Systemz |
Sorry, bud - I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you on the entirety of your statement, but I fail to see how a religious influx of Islam into London can "pose a threat to some traditional styles of living that gives Europe it's strength". It's not as if having a few less Anglican churches is going to debase the already non-competitive atmosphere of the UK. Most of the jobs middle eastern immigrants are holding down are ones the Euros won't touch. And accepting that culture and race do exist does not necessarily imply for either of us that we are necessarily ethnocentric - but modernity forces us to create these divisions that do not necessarily reflect the situation as it truly stands. Particularly in relation to Nationalism of the type we're talking about - the fact that the Turks are "different" from the rest of Europe implies that they are either "better" or "worse" than Europe. That's ethnocentrism defined. And from that ethnocentrism comes generalization, and marginalization. By simply stating that Turkey is like the wild west you are saying that it is "worse" than modern European states, who are supposed to have graduated beyond that sort of behavior, which I'm sure as you have seen over the past few months of problems in the former Yugoslavia (Or, Serbia and Montenegro, if you're a nitpicker). Ethnicity is not natural, nor is it fundamental to our understanding of things - I'll agree to that - but as long as the people of Europe view the rest of the world as somehow separate from themselves they are in fact feeding the ethnocentrism that has cast a shadow over them since Westphalia. And when I say "Xenophobia isn't limited to race" I think I'm pretty much accepting that a view froma solely racial context is insufficient. Before you start making backhanded remarks I'd suggest you either read more closely or articulate yourself more fully. |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 07:58 PM | ||
| Abcdxxxx |
" that's a lot of Rudyard Kipling ethnocentrism bullshit." No, that's my take on Turkey in it's current state. In Turkey you can study philosphy at one of the worlds most progressive institutions, and fear for your passport all at the same time! Yeehaw! Geedyup doggy! Way to rebutal and prove my point at the same time. Oh, and it matters little where these posts come from, or who it comes from... it's still a "white liberal American mindset" (you've heard the expression before?) to view every situation in racial terms, and you don't have to be White or Liberal or even American to subscribe to them or pay 'em lip service. Do you? Can you string two thoughts together at once? It's even more cliche to view every situation in a racial context and then turn around and accuse others of being ethnocentric or xenophobic. Doesn't that suggest you're in fact the one being ethnocentric here? Learn to tie your shoes first. |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 05:49 PM | ||
| Systemz |
Quote:
What the contemporary attitude of most white Judeo-Christian countries is toward immigration is implied Xenophobia - it's not "let's drag the arabs behind our pickup trucks" but its "they are threatening our tradition and culture", or "they have no respect for what this nation (or in the Eu's case) group of nations represent". Xenophobia isn't limited to race - admittedly, a more proper term might be "pan-Europan nationalism" or an expectation of hegemony by the European states. Because Turkey isn't as developed as Germany or the UK doesn't make it the "wild west" - that's a lot of Rudyard Kipling ethnocentrism bullshit. |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 04:57 PM | ||
| Abcdxxxx |
Turkey's still a bit like the Wild West. It's not merely xenophobia on the part of the EU. It's whatever the name is of the condition that makes people fear change. As I understand it, the majority of churches near London have become Masques, and the influx of immigrants do pose a threat to some traditional styles of living that gives Europe it's strength. It's also what critics of the wacky Euro dollar threatened would happen. If you open the doors to "outsiders" then the fears aren't simply racial alone. It's a really white liberal one track way of viewing the situation. Everything comes back to race? If a huge population from Asia intended to flood Australia, then wouldn't it be an issue of over population and immigration laws rather then race? Immigrant aren't always a racial minority, or oppressed people, and the issues concerning them shouldn't always be viewed as such. It's scary that American's can't seperate the two when talking about the subject. |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 02:57 PM | ||
| Systemz | Another component might be that the Turks are nervous about siding too much with the USA all at once - since France and Germany are EUers who are bitching about the scenario down in Iraq, Turkey might have attempted to refrain from joining the "yaay yaay USA" side until they got some proper under-the-table stuff from the US. Turkey's got one hell of a human rights record (anyone heard of the Assyrians? No? That's because they don't exist anymore) and the EUs using that as a blocker for their EU entry (hilarious considering that Germany's a member) but I think a lot of that has to do with good ol' fashioned Xenophobia on the part of Euros - they're afraid to let the "darkies" in. | |
| Feb 11th, 2003 12:32 PM | ||
| GAsux |
Um..... "GA's mostly right here...." I probably am an ingrate. But I'm not clear on who on proclaimed you Professor Mockery. I'll look forward to getting the rest of my report card soon. SSpad, No problem. I'm no expert either. I did get to spend some time there though and was able to pick up a pretty fair amount of insight. |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 10:11 AM | ||
| sspadowsky |
 ________ No2 vaporizers |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 09:42 AM | ||
| LegoLars |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 08:15 AM | ||
| sspadowsky |
Kids! Kids! Play nice. Thank you, guys. I didn't know much at all about our relations with Turkey; I just assumed they were one of those countries that was on-the-fence (at best) when it came to the USA. 'Preciate the information.  ________ Couples Webcams |
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| Feb 11th, 2003 04:48 AM | ||
| Abcdxxxx | Ingrate. Don't get all hormonal on me. I might have agreed with you, but I'm not so gracious as to ever validate you. | |
| Feb 11th, 2003 12:38 AM | ||
| GAsux |
Ummm... Thanks for your validation. It means a lot to me. |
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| Feb 10th, 2003 11:59 PM | ||
| Abcdxxxx | GA's mostly right here. Expect there to be a bit of a land grab on the part of the Turks and even the Kurds if Iraq falls. The Turks also have good relations with Israel.... and they've already taken an active prepatory role in Northern Iraq. Plus, as mentioned, Turkey is the Arab gateway to Europe. | |
| Feb 10th, 2003 11:40 PM | ||
| AChimp | I just think all Turks are sneaky. 8-) | |
| Feb 10th, 2003 10:58 PM | ||
| GAsux |
Um, yeah The primaty reason the Turks are oppossed to war in Iraq is because they fear that larger Kurdish autonomy will only lead to more problems with their Kurdish population in the south east. It's been a problem since the end of Gulf War I. They also face a bit of an economic dilema in that while they want to support the west and gain a solid foothold in the EU, they are suffering greatly by not being able to openly trade with Iraq which was a large source of revenue prior to the Gulf War. In all likelyhood, like a lot of other oppossing countries have been doing, they wanted to hide thier cards until they got the assurances they desired. The Bush administration has been working the Turkish government hard lately. I'm sure there was the promise of economic compensation, as well as some promise of security with regards to the Kurdish population. I do not doubt that the administration probably made it very clear to the Turks that war was coming regardless, and that they could either get on the gravey train and get their cut, or sit on the sidelines and hope for the best. I don't think its so much a change of heart as it was a bargaining chip to make sure they secured the best possible deal for themselves. Virtually all of Operation Northern Watch is based out of Turkey. It's not a matter of whether or not they support U.S. troops in the region. |
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