To know the past is to know the future

[MentalExpedition]

First day of high school, my teacher kept repeating the same words: History repeats itself. I laughed it off at first, but that was the year I became active in the news and politics. And there I realized everything going on in our current world has gone on before. Germany and Japan built up their nations in post-WWI. We imposed (or I should say tryed to impose) santions and received WWII. Iran and Korea are building rockets and nuclear weapons. We are currently, and unsuccessfully attempting to bargain with them. Will we see WWIII?

Post-WWI, Russia went from a weak nation to a powerful one in a matter of years with communism. Then came the Cold War. Post-WWII, China went from the bullied to the bully. Will they assert hegemony over their neighbors just as Russia did, and ultimately threaten the U.S. as well?

I can think of more, but I'll leave them to your imagination. Just keep up on your history: you may just learn the future.

 

[palerider]

First day of high school, my teacher kept repeating the same words: History repeats itself. I laughed it off at first, but that was the year I became active in the news and politics. And there I realized everything going on in our current world has gone on before. Germany and Japan built up their nations in post-WWI. We imposed (or I should say tryed to impose) santions and received WWII. Iran and Korea are building rockets and nuclear weapons. We are currently, and unsuccessfully attempting to bargain with them. Will we see WWIII?

Of course we will. The president of iran, by his own words, believes it is his mission to bring armageddon about to facilitate the return of the 12th imam.

 

[Lilly Marlene]

Of course we will. The president of iran, by his own words, believes it is his mission to bring armageddon about to facilitate the return of the 12th imam.

Citation please.
I would like to see those words. My sense is that you have grabbed that notorious mistranslation about "wiping Israel off the map" ...which he did NOT say ...and run with it.

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

Citation please.
I would like to see those words. My sense is that you have grabbed that notorious mistranslation about "wiping Israel off the map" ...which he did NOT say ...and run with it.

good call, that mistranslation is thrown around the Iran debate so often. the translation is wrong, and it's a quote from about a dozen years ago.

It just goes to show how often people think "they know" and are just regurgitating what they've read or heard without doing any research of their own.

 

[palerider]

Citation please.
I would like to see those words. My sense is that you have grabbed that notorious mistranslation about "wiping Israel off the map" ...which he did NOT say ...and run with it.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060522/22imam.htm

Clip:
All that would be troubling enough in itself, of course. But Iran's firebrand president also appears to be driven by a strongly messianic strain of his Shiite Muslim faith. Gauging the intentions of a politician who declares that his "revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," is not easy.

I suppose next you will try and make the claim that the return of the 12th iman has nothing to do with armageddon.

And ahmadinejad spoke of wiping israel away. In the language the phrase "wipe israel off the map" doesn't exist. Wiping israel away is how that thought is expressed in his language.

Tell me Lilly. What has made you such a vigorous apologist for islam?

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

And ahmadinejad spoke of wiping israel away. In the language the phrase "wipe israel off the map" doesn't exist. Wiping israel away is how that thought is expressed in his language.

Tell me Lilly. What has made you such a vigorous apologist for islam?

the quote is actually "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,"


The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel.

but you'd have to read the entire speach to understand that, not just rehash political talking points.

It's important to note that the "quote" in question was itself a quote. they are the words of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic Revolution.

 

[Lilly Marlene]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060522/22imam.htm

Clip:
All that would be troubling enough in itself, of course. But Iran's firebrand president also appears to be driven by a strongly messianic strain of his Shiite Muslim faith. Gauging the intentions of a politician who declares that his "revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," is not easy.

I suppose next you will try and make the claim that the return of the 12th iman has nothing to do with armageddon.

No I won't do that; I don't know enough about that topic ...but really it doesn't sound that different to me than the aspiring of some Christians towards the "end times".

I do know one thing after going to your link.

In the article you present, US News & World Distort has fallen for the same propagandist's handiwork that CNN consistently has. I allude to the following section:

"...who last summer defeated the moderate reformist cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is now widely known as a defiant booster of his nation's nuclear enrichment program. Thought to harbor dreams of an Iranian bomb, he thumbs his nose at the United States and the United Nations, denies the Holocaust, and announces that Israel will one day be "wiped from the map."

It is not true that he "denies the Holocaust".

Please see for starters:

http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog/?p=15

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12790.htm

And after that if you want we can take a look at his letter to the American people.

And ahmadinejad spoke of wiping israel away. In the language the phrase "wipe israel off the map" doesn't exist. Wiping israel away is how that thought is expressed in his language.

He is talking about the State, palerider, not the Jewish people. He is speaking of the regime, the occupation ...that we in the US prop up with billions of dollars.

 

[Lilly Marlene]

Tell me Lilly. What has made you such a vigorous apologist for islam?

Is this just us talking, with no tricks involved ?

I think the first time I felt affectionate towards Muslims was when I found out how high a regard they have for Mary the mother of Christ.
In fact,
They refer to Jesus as "Issa bin Miryam" (Jesus son of Mary).
It's true that they seem a little fuzzy on some distinctions between her and Moses's sister Miriam, but the endearing feature to me is the high esteem in which they hold her.
That one goes pretty deep with me.

Also, much of it is just seeing the blatant bias against them in news reporting.
The Palestinian dead so outnumber the Israelis, yet the Palestinians always gotta be the bad guys in the reports.

Many people have noticed and commented on this.
You never hear the Palestinians' names in the reports; you never see interviews of their relatives crying over them and talking about when they were the cute babies - even though you so often are treated to such interviews when Israelis are killed.
No, the Palestinians or other Arabs are just numbers, just "gunmen" or "militants" as opposed to the Israelis who are usually characterized as "settlers".

Even subtler tactics are involved ...active vs. passive voice. We hear how "the Palestinian terrorist killed ten Israelis" but on the other hand we are told that "the Palestinian village was hit by Israeli fire."

A noticeable linguistic prejudice.

Please understand that I do not try to whitewash the faults of Muslims; I know about the dhimmi laws and other ways they have lorded it over minorities. That is not unique to them though ...did you know that the Jewish Noachide Laws call for the death penalty when a gentile kills a Jew, but not the other way around ?

And as I've told you I consider the Wahabbhist agenda reprehensible. But that is only one offshoot of Islam and really, it's politics posing as religion much like Zionism.

Muslims are not the monsters you suppose.

They want us the hell out of there: if you put yourself in their shoes, you know, you would want that too.

 

[palerider]

It is not true that he "denies the Holocaust".

This is what he said:

They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report on Wednesday from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets," he said. "(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet."

He said what he said Lilly, and he has said it in more than one place. Suggesting that the holocaust was a myth constitutes denial in exactly the same way that my characterization of peaceful islamic rule of spain as the andalusian myths constitutes a denial. The difference is, history supports my denial but not his.

 

[Truth-Bringer]

Post-WWI, Russia went from a weak nation to a powerful one in a matter of years with communism.

LOL. Communism doesn't create a strong economy. It creates poverty and totalitarianism. That's why North Korea and Cuba are dirt poor. China has only improved because the government has allowed some market reforms.

In 1913, under Czar Nicholas II, Russia was the world's largest food exporter. In 1989, it was the world's largest food importer. They couldn't even feed themselves any longer. That's one of the many reasons the Soviet Union collapsed.

 

[Truth-Bringer]

This is what he said:

They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report on Wednesday from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets," he said. "(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet."

He said what he said Lilly, and he has said it in more than one place. Suggesting that the holocaust was a myth constitutes denial in exactly the same way that my characterization of peaceful islamic rule of spain as the andalusian myths constitutes a denial. The difference is, history supports my denial but not his.

What doesn't support the Neocon propaganda machine as far as the threat of Iran to Israel is concerned is the treatment of Jews who are living under full control of the Iranian government. If Ahmadinejad truly wanted another genocide involving Jews, nothing is stopping him from doing that now.

Here's a source to confirm that 25,000 Jews are currently living in Iran and that forced conversions or physical abuse aren't the norm:

http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html

''Sometimes I think they are kinder to the Jews than they are to themselves. ... If we are gathered in a house, and the family is having a ceremony with wine or the music is playing too loud, if they find out we are Jews, they don't bother us so much,'' Eliyason said.

''Everywhere in the world there are people who don't like Jews. In England, they draw swastikas on Jewish graves. I don't think that Iran is more dangerous for Jews than other places.''

 

[vyo476]

LOL. Communism doesn't create a strong economy. It creates poverty and totalitarianism. That's why North Korea and Cuba are dirt poor. China has only improved because the government has allowed some market reforms.

In 1913, under Czar Nicholas II, Russia was the world's largest food exporter. In 1989, it was the world's largest food importer. They couldn't even feed themselves any longer. That's one of the many reasons the Soviet Union collapsed.

Tsarist Russia was exporting food entirely at the expense of the Ukrainians who grew it; check your history and you'll see that Ukrainian slave labor was responsible for most of that food exporting in 1913. The Ukrainians were starved nearly to death so that Nicholas II could make a little coin. By 1989 the various Soviet Republics had started to break away and relations between Mother Russia and the rest of the decaying Warsaw Pact were so far deteriorated that trade was being effected. They were importing food like mad because, up until 1989, food shipments between the People's Republic of the Ukraine and the People's Republic of Russia (which had the largest population and land area of any of the Soviet republics) wasn't considered import/export but domestic trade. The Soviet Union wasn't considered more than one country until then and that's why their food imports seemed to suddenly skyrocket - the place they were getting their food from went from being domestic to foreign.

Other than all that I agree with you one hundred percent. North Korea and Cuba are both great examples of communism gone sour, as it naturally and irrefutably does. The present Chinese market reforms bear striking resemblance to Lenin's Free Market politics of the early Soviet period, before Stalin took over. Granted, Lenin's "free markets" weren't terribly free, but they did bolster the Soviet economy to the point where they were number three in the world - behind us and Germany, of course.