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Brave Rep. Brian Baird Compares Own Twin Grandkids To Gaza's Dead Children
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There are decent fair-minded Congresspeople with backbones after all. Thanks for relaying this.
November 11, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
We all need heroes. It looks like I've just gotten a new one.
Thanks, MJ. I wish Rep. Baird a long and productive career.
November 11, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's a coward! Why don't he care about Afghani kids killed by American troops?
November 11, 2009 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA, he was not giving a speech on a motion regarding American conduct in Afghanistan.
He was giving a speech on a motion put to the Congress regarding the Goldstone report.
He had two minutes to give that speech, so what did you expect him to talk about?
(a) the subject under debate, or
(b) something else entirely?
YOur starter for 10, AnnaA.
November 11, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you saying that he always wanted to talk about Afghani kids killed by American troops for the last 8 years but just haven't yet had a chance to do that.
November 12, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm saying that you based your initial statement upon a logic that demonstrates that you are as nutty as a fruitcake.
And that's being charitable, AnnaA, because your rebuttal is equally as illogical, being as it is a transparent attempt at a ludicrous straw man argument.
November 12, 2009 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm saying that you based your initial statement upon a logic that demonstrates that you are as nutty as a fruitcake.
And that's being charitable, because your rebuttal is equally as illogical, being as it is a transparent attempt at a ludicrous straw man argument.
November 12, 2009 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
In which case we can compare and contrast our respective logic, AnnaA. As in....
The house debates the Goldstone report.
Baird contributes a speech to that debate.
AnnaA: "What's a coward! Why don't he care about Afghani kids killed by American troops?"
That is an illogical statement, because you can not come to THAT concluse on the basis of the facts before you i.e. you have to take a leap of faith to get to where you are.
Johnboy4546: "AnnaA, he was not giving a speech on a motion regarding American conduct in Afghanistan."
That is a FACT, and so I am perfectly entitled on the basis of the facts before me to come to the conclusion that I did i.e. that Baird's lack of mention of Afgani kiddies in that speech indicates nothing other than the utter lack of relevence of that topic to this debate.
Result: both of us accuse the other of being as nutty as a fruitcake, but with one important difference: I can justify my statement to you, while you are merely screeching like a mindless parrot.
November 12, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 12, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA: "Are they using double standards or are they consistent?"
Question: Is Baird using "a double standard" when he insists that a report into war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza should not be summarily dismissed by Congress?
Answer: It only becames a double standard when Baird also insists that a report into war crimes committed by the USA in Afghanistan should be summarily dismissed by the Congress.
Doing THAT is displaying a double-standard.
But you can only demonstrate THAT if you can demonstrate that
(a) such a report was commissioned, and
(b) that report was debated in the Congress where
(c) Baird insisted that it be summarily dismissed.
If you can not demonstrate that then you can not justify your claim that Baird is quilty of a double-standard.
He is not, because you can not.
You argument has a name i.e. it is a "non-sequitur".
November 12, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 12, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA: "The congressman had 10 years to express his opinion about killing of Serbian children by American military. He has not done that."
That is a non-sequitur, AnnaA, precisely because the "standard" you would have to compare that against would be "10 years of expressing his opinion about killing of Palestinian children by Israeli military".
It is rather axiomatic that if you want to claim "double-standards" then your comparisons must be "standardized", AnnaA.
You have made not the slightest attempt to do that, and so your claim is a non sequitur.
November 12, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are wrong.
The standard is not "10 years of expressing his opinions" but expressing his opinions once during ten years.
November 12, 2009 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Explaining to AnnaA how you debate....
First, there are these things called "facts", and you must introduce them into the debate before you can use them.
Then you draw your "conclusions" from those "facts".
Any follower of courtroom dramas would recognize the concept e.g. "from the facts that are before us we can conclude that....."
That is not to deny that other facts may exist: it is merely to insist that if those facts are not before us then we can not use them as the basis for our conclusions.
(A judge, for example, has to disregard all inadmissible evidence when formulating his ruling, even though he is fully aware that those facts exist)
This is a long-winded way of pointing out where AnnaA keeps going wrong i.e. while I attempt to base my conclusions on the facts that are before us, AnnaA keeps attempting to reach a conclusion based upon Other Things.
As an example:
"The congressman had 10 years to express his opinion about killing of Serbian children by American military. He has not done that."
That statement doesn't contain a single "fact", only a pair of "accusations".
AnnaA has:
1) presented no evidence that Baird has maintained a 10 year silence on that topic
2) presented no evidence that a debate on that subject has ever been introduced into the Congress, thereby allowing Baird to put his opinion (whatever it may be) on the congressional record.
Indeed, AnnaA has yet to present any evidence that Baird has ever made any perjorative statement about "the deaths of Gazan kiddies at the hands of the IDF".
Certainly not in that recent Congressional debate (you know, "the fact that is before us"), because Baird did nothing more than insist that the Congress owes it to those children not to summarily dismiss a UN-sponsored report into their deaths.
It is the difference between "facts" and "belief", AnnaA.
Try the former once in a while; you may even come to prefer them.....
November 12, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
November 13, 2009 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA: "An US congressman has many opportunities to express his opinions."
Then Baird would be guilty of a "double-standard" if he
a) seizes every opportunity to complain about Israel going whammer-jammer on Gazan children, while also
b) dodging every opportunity to complain about American doing a slam-dunk on Afghani children.
You have not established either proposition (a) nor (b).
You have merely made accusations, and then presented them as self-evident truths.
I will repeat: a clear-minded debater comes to their conclusion by way of establishing "facts". You arrive at your pre-conceived conclusion by way of "accusation".
November 13, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand why MJ doesn't also point out the even more powerful speech given by Dennis Kucinich
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=medww6KK_L4&feature=related
That's a very powerful speech indeed, given without props and with impeccible logic.
His disgust at the cravenness of his fellow congressmen was written all over his face, and with very good reason.
Kudos to Kucinich.
November 11, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was also a very good speech. Kucinich said almost everything important that anyone could have said in two minutes. Would have been even more impressive had he looked us in the eye, and been less buried in his notes. Nonethless, well-spoken and worthy of being posted.
But, let's also please keep the reality check switched on here. Neither Goldstone nor the US Congress have any real power over the UN, and the UN has no real power over Israel or the Palestinians. By itself this speech is purely symbolic. What matters is the foreign policy of the Obama administration which, for practical log-rolling political reasons, cannot deviate too greatly too long from the positions of the Congress, whose members are not realistically going to go out on limb to rebuke what they believe to be a powerful special interest group, even if that purported special interest group actually amounts to a bunch of charlatans and tricksters using fearmongering and deceit that defacto serve only a much narrower, more fanatical, and ultimately anti-American set of interests.
And, by himself, Kucinich is too much of an odd ball. Baird could carry much more weight, and likely will if supported. I will now shut up here and instead write him a letter of thanks.
November 12, 2009 4:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The summary: The Jewish lobby controls the US Congress.
November 12, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your groundless fear, not my summary.
November 12, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good, You don't think that the Jewish lobby controls the US Congress.
November 12, 2009 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you call it "the Jewish lobby", AnnaA?
It clearly is not, because it is not concerned with promoting the interests of "the Jewish nation".
It is concerned with promoting the interests of "the state of Israel".
It may have escaped your notice, but they are not one and the same.
November 12, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, It the Zionist lobby.
November 12, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
More correctly, it is the "Likud lobby".
November 12, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a Jewish lobby. Some of Jews are so powerful that they control US.
November 12, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it is not a "Jewish lobby", AnnaA, because a "Jewish lobby" lobbies on behalf of "Jews".
This lobby lobbies on behalf of "Israel".
If you want to say that those are one and the same thing then be my guest, but if you do so then you will be insulting two groups:
1) The 50% of Jews who are not Israelis.
2) The 20% of Israelis who are not Jews.
Par for the course of a zionist, I know, but an insult nonetheless.
November 12, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to M.J this lobby lobbies against "Israel" and for American Jews who moved to the settlements in the WB. So it's a Jewish lobby, not the lobby of all Jews, but a lobby of some Jews.
Let's re-phrase my original statement.
A Some Jews lobby controls the US Congress.
November 12, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
AnnA: "Let's re-phrase my original statement. A Some Jews lobby controls the US Congress."
And let me expand my statement: every "settler" is an Israeli citizen, and every "settlement" has been established by Israel, and so any lobby that seeks to support those settlements is acting to further the interests of "Israel", and that makes it an "Israeli lobby".
You can not make the counter-claim, because none of these settlements has been established by "the Jewish nation", and not a single Jew anywhere on Planet Earth can hope to become a "settler" without first becoming an "Israeli citizen".
November 12, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The lobby of American citizens who are Jewish control the Congress.
November 12, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA: "The lobby of American citizens who are Jewish control the Congress."
The lobby is named after the interest that they represent, not who is doing the lobbying.
There is no logic that insists that the only people who can work for an "Israeli lobby" must be "Israeli citizens".
There is no logic that insists that the only people who can work for a "Jewish lobby" must be "Jewish".
There is no logic that insists that the only people who can lobby on behalf of the "Aged lobby" must be "old farts", let alone have "one foot in the grave".
It is WHO THEY REPRESENT that defines the lobby, not WHO IS DOING THE LOBBYING.
After all, nobody suggests that the "animal rights lobby" consists entirely of felines and canines: I can assure you that there are some Homo sapiens in that group too.
Quite a few, actually.
November 13, 2009 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK.
The Israeli lobby, using the support of American citizens who are Jewish as well as the support of majority of all Ameericans, control the Congress.
November 13, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
AnnA: "The Israeli lobby, using the support of American citizens who are Jewish as well as the support of majority of all Ameericans, control the Congress."
Well, we've made some progress i.e. "The Israeli lobby", but as for the rest..... oh, my.....
Two points:
1) The phrase "using the support of American citizens who are Jewish as well as the support of majority of all Ameericans" can only be interpreted as a claim that all American Jews support that lobby.
That is clearly an incorrect assumption.
2) You need to define the phrase "control the Congress" before that sentence has any meaning whatsoever.
November 13, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly.
Furthermore, AIPAC stands for 'The American Israel Public Affairs Committee." And identifies itself as '...America's Pro-Israel Lobby.'
As I have said before, it is an insult to the Jewish faith and its adherents, to try to equate this noble faith and its followers, to the zionist state of Israel.
The Goldstone report identified possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli military and Hamas. Please note the following link in which Bill Moyers interviewed Judge Goldstone (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/profile.html.)
Of special note, Judge Goldstone refers to himself not only as a Jew, but as a zionist. He talks of his total commitment to Israel, but he states his absolute love for Israel cannot and should not stand in the way of justice. He states that what he saw in the Gaza will reside with him in the nightmares he will see for the rest of his life. This statement comes from a man who bore witness to the horrors of Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Goldstone has also said "bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust."
Congressman Baird was right, those children have a right to know why thy had to die.
November 12, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I have said before, it is an insult to Germans to try to equate its noble history to the Nazi Germany. So what?
November 12, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Sir or Madam,
I find it of interest that you equate/use as a synonym zionist Israel with Nazi Germany.
Coming from such an ardent supporter of zionist Israel, as your numerous posts have identified you to be, I appreciate you making this link for me. Had I made such a link, you would have accused me of anti semitism. Having made the link yourself, is must be so.
As such, you, have just made the case for the prosecution of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli military and Hamas and identified in the Goldstone report.
'...From out of the mouth of babes comes the truth...'
November 12, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only after prosecution of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by NATO in Serbia
and Afghanistan.
November 12, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Sir or madam,
I appreciate the long road you have traveled in finally reaching the conclusion that the '...possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli military and Hamas as identified in the Goldstone report...' must be prosecuted.
And I agree with you, Serbian, Afghani, Iraqi, Iranian, Rwandan, Palestinian, Armenian, Tibetan, Burmese children etc., have a right to know why they died.
But to "delay justice" until we have all the 'Goldstone' reports in hand, is "justice denied." We must prosecute now. For in so doing we may prevent future abuses of one of mankind's greatest treasures, our children.
November 12, 2009 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
If countries responsible for killing thousands, tens thousands, hundred thousands and million children will prosecute Israel for few hundreds civilian casualties, that would be justice denied. So doing will encourage prevent future abuses of one of mankind's greatest treasures, our children.
November 12, 2009 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Serbian and Afghani children also have a right to know why they had to die.
But I have an answer for you about Gazan children. Gazan children had to die so that Hamas can use them as a weapon in the PR war against Israel.
November 12, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
PTroub: "And, by himself, Kucinich is too much of an odd ball."
Yeah, I can understand how a man of intergity would look rather odd in amongst a Parliament of Whores.
Mind you, any paradigm shift demands that someone has to start the ball rolling, and that someone has to be - by definition - an odd-man-out.
That is as true in politics as it is in science or, indeed, in any other field of human endevour.
After all, even such a political titan as Winston Churchill (and I'm not suggesting that Kucinich is "Churchillian") spent considerable time as a lone voice in the wilderness.
November 12, 2009 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink