Most people are familiar with the tragic case of Rachel Corrie, an American “peace activist” who was backed over by an Israeli bulldozer and killed when she was in the Gaza Strip acting as a human shield against the destruction of Palestinian houses.As several photos of Ms. Corrie reveal, she not only sported the keffiyeh — a length of cloth with a distinctive pattern representing “Palestine”, and worn as a neckerchief or other trendy accessory by leftists — she also veiled herself in the hijab, Muslim-style.
This always made me wonder about the back-story of Ms. Corrie’s involvement with Palestinian “peace” activism. When you see a woman wearing hijab in a Muslim context, it’s not only signal that she is an observant Muslima, obeying the strictures of Islamic law concerning the modesty of women. It also indicates that she is the property of a man — her husband, brother, father, son, or other male relative. An uncovered woman is a “whore”, fair game for the first man who happens upon her. A covered woman is protected from such assaults, but only because access to her is guarded and controlled by a man recognized under sharia as her legal keeper.
Chances are that when Rachel Corrie arrived in the territories, whether she slapped on a hijab or not, she was fairly quickly acquired by a local strongman in the area she chose for her “protest”. She would have been considered an especially choice target, being young, not unattractive, and blonde — all characteristics that rich Arabs are willing to pay good money for.
All of the above must remain mere speculation, since Rachel Corrie will never be able to reach a wiser maturity and write her memoirs about what really happened to her. However, from the following article in Arutz Sheva, we catch a glimpse of what befalls young naïve “peace activists” of a similar stripe when they arrive in the territories:
Arabs Harass Female ‘Peace’ Activists; Left Silences Victims
Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify. They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes.
Roni Aloni Sedovnik, a feminist activist, penned an article in News1 – an independent website run by respected investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak – under the heading “The Left’s Betrayal of Female Peace Activists Who were Sexually Assaulted.”
“A nauseous atrocity has been going on for a long time behind the scenes at the leftists’ demonstration at Bil’in, Naalin and Sheikh Jarrah [Shimon HaTzaddik],” she writes. “A dark secret that threatens to smash the basic ideological values upon which the demand to end the occupation of the Territories rests.”
Now, why has this remained a “dark secret”? There are numerous witnesses to what goes on in “Palestine”, and not just Muslims or other young women in a similar bind. In the photos taken immediately after the accident that killed Rachel Corrie, you can see young Western men crouching over Ms. Corrie’s prostrate form. There are plenty of Western useful idiot males in the Palestinian environment who could blow the whistle on the “dark secret”, if they had a mind to.
But they don’t, and this is the result:
It turns out, she explains, that when female peace activists from Israel and abroad come out to Judea and Samaria and demonstrate against the Israeli “occupation,” they are assaulted sexually by the Arab men whom they have come to help. These are not isolated incidents, Aloni-Sedovnik stresses. Rather, this is an “ongoing and widespread” phenomenon that includes verbal and physical abuse. She accuses the ‘peace’ camp of purposely covering up the trend so as not to offend “the Palestinians and their heritage, which sees women as sexual objects.”
That is, the primacy of political ideology and the maintenance of solidarity are more important than whether the young women in their midst are systematically exploited as sex objects.
That’s the Left for you.
Media cover-up
Aloni-Sedovnik cites two specific cases which she has knowledge of – one is a case of rape and another is “severe sexual harassment.” The attackers in both cases, she stresses, were familiar with the victims and knew that they were “peace activists.”
The rape occurred several months ago in the village of Umm Salmona, near Bethlehem. The victim, an American activist, wanted to press charges but leftist activists put pressure on her not to do so, so as not to damage the struggle against the ‘occupation.’
The second case involved an Israeli activist who took part in the demonstrations at Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, where the High Court ruled that Jewish families may move into homes that they have owned for generations. This woman filed a complaint with the police but retracted it after “severe and unfair pressure” from the demonstrations’ organizers, according to Aloni-Sedovnik. Furthermore, the organizers appealed to demonstrators to dress modestly when they come to the Arab neighborhoods and suggested that they wear head scarves.
Unfortunately, wearing headscarves by itself is not enough: every veiled woman must also have an owner. If a woman is lucky, she will find a protector who is interested in her only for her political value, and become attached to him. But obviously this is not always the case.
Aloni-Sedovnik accuses the Israeli media of complicity in the cover-up.
“How is it that we do not hear the voice of the radical feminists who repeat, day and night, that occupation is occupation, and it does not matter if it is a nation that is doing the subjugation, or a man who is subjugating a woman?
How indeed? Whence this Silence of the Feminists?
“It appears that there is a gap between the radical-leftist feminist theory about the active resistance to the occupation of the Territories, and the stuttering self-annulment in the face of the violent conquest of women.”
The gap is unbridgeable: Marxist ideology — including its modern offshoot, Multiculturalism — trumps the rights of women. We saw a version of the same phenomenon in the 1970s, when even the most gung-ho feminists ignored the way American black revolutionaries treated their women. Smashing the state was more important than the rights of women back then, and it still is today — especially when the state is the Zionist Entity.
[…]
Earlier this year, a blogger and literature buff named Yehudah Bello, who writes in various venues about history and the theory of evolution, wrote a blog post with the striking title: “The Female Leftist Activists are Raped Day after Day, Night after Night.” Bello is no ultra-nationalist, and he supports the creation of a PA state – a fact which makes his claims all the more believable.
Most female leftist European activists, writes Bello, are brainwashed in their youth into hating Israel, and then sent directly into Judea and Samaria, without spending a single night in Tel Aviv, lest they see civilian Israeli society for themselves and find that they like it. They are whisked off to Shechem, Jenin and other PA towns and housed in Arab educational or cultural facilities, or private homes. Local Arab girls are sent to befriend them and they have no choice but to trust them.
It is easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first days away from her family, in a place where no police have ever visited. And this is what happens, and has happened.”
[…]
“These are not just cases of rape carried out to satisfy lust,” he writes. “Usually, they are carried out systematically in order to make the girl pregnant and then take her as a wife – after she converts to Islam, of course. We know about this system from the stories of women who underwent a similar process within Israel and escaped to Europe. But it is hard to escape from the Palestinian territories. Sometimes these women – some of whom are no longer young – are never allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to forestall their escape.”
If someone were to compare the list of foreign female activists who enter Judea and Samaria to the list of those who leave, Bello claims, the magnitude of the phenomenon would be proven. “Everyone knows about it, but no one dares talk about it...”
“Everyone knows about it, but no one dares talk about it...”
This is the heart of the matter. As in everything else concerning Islam’s impact on the West, the problem is not Islam itself, but the radical Left.
These young women could not be led like lambs to the slaughter without the cynical connivance of the international Socialist establishment, which is more than willing to break a few blue-eyed blonde eggs, provided they get to make their anti-Zionist omelet.
Hat tip: latté island.
From Dymphna, an update to this post, based on Phyllis Chesler’s recent essay. She verifies and underlines the ugly truth here:
What is happening on the West Bank reminds me of the American 1960s, when idealistic young white and Jewish women, who thought they were volunteering for Martin Luther King’s non-violent movement for black civil rights, found themselves up against many angry, sociopathic, criminal, and sexually violent members of the Black Panther Party. I was one. I have my war stories.
Today, privileged, young, white, Jewish, and Arab women who travel to the West Bank to “protect” Palestinians from Israeli soldiers, also seem to be facing similar troubles. According to one recent and very disturbing report [note: this is the same report cited in our post, above], foreign (American and European) and Israeli Jewish and Arab left-feminists are being routinely harassed, raped, and even forced into marriage by the very Palestinians whom they have come to “rescue….
Ms. Chesler has her own experience in this mess. As a young woman:
I myself was once pressured by leading left feminists not to reveal that I had been sexually harassed and then assaulted by my United Nations employer.” It would not look good for (white) feminists to accuse a black man of what may only have been a cultural misunderstanding…” I nevertheless continued to demand justice-and was not supported by some of the very same feminists who years later would support Anita Hill against Clarence Thomas.
In other words, this repression of the reality of race-based and “cultural” brutality has been going on for fifty years.
So much for feminism. We need to walk it back to the very early feminists ideals and start over. Modern-day lefty feminists are deeply embedded in and part of the problem. They stopped being part of the solution during the very early days of the ‘60s “Revolution” when they failed to speak out about their own experience of abuse in order to ‘belong’.
In reality, it was just more of the same Bolsheviks cynicism two generations previous to the Civil Rights “revolution”. Only this one was more cynical than ever because the sixties couldn’t claim ignorance. They simply buried the truth of history.
And so it continues. Different actors, different stage, same criminally foul play.
It appears that no matter where you step on the left, you sink up to your neck in the muck of rotting, corrupt ideas that ought to have been given a decent burial long ago.
45 comments:
Well, I´ll take the risk of appearing as a cynic, but who actually cares? Stupidity is obviously painful and everybody makes their own choices and faces the consqeuences. They make their choices and pay for it.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for these girls/women? If that is the case I´m very sorry to announce that I neither can´t nor won´t.
They have down wind, in opposition to good advice and commen sense, and now they reap well-deserved and expected storm.
Submit or die.
Who would want to advocate peace in such a place, and for such a people?
The blessing of peace is like respect-- earned not given.
The truth, freedom, and peace are never, ever free.
If there's any truth to this, Israeli intelligence would know about it. Why aren't they making capital of it?
You might consider this one for the "Cultural Enrichment" category also.
Just as a matter of curiosity, is there a particular reason Ms. Corrie's designation as a "peace activist" is in quotations, implying the title is somehow questionable? Have you reason to believe she was pursuing a different agenda? Is there something wrong with being a peace activist, or is it in some fashion a preferable example to be a "conflict activist"?
As to her death, I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened. But if the testimony of four eyewitnesses who were there (2 Americans, 2 Britons) is accurate, it is disingenuous at best to suggest the bulldozer backed over her, as if it were an unfortunate accident caused by her perhaps being out of the driver's field of view. If eyewitness testimony is accurate, the driver of a machine that is 13 ft high at the cab drove straight over a person standing on top of a mound of dirt directly in front of him, while that person was wearing a blaze-orange roadworks vest for visibility. If it were an accident, the driver could reasonably have been expected to inmmediately descend to offer assistance, upon noticing he had crushed someone under the machine. According to eyewitness accounts, again, this did not happen (although it would likely have made little practical difference).
Many activists adopt the symbols of the people they are trying to help, as a form of solidarity. Recall that on the occasion of George Bush's 2005 State Of The Union speech, Congressional Republicans dyed the ends of their index fingers purple to express their solidarity with the Iraqi people. I find it difficult to imagine this signified their acceptance of all Iraqi customs or an acknowledgement to be bound by the responsibilities of citizenship.
You are of course your own best judge as to how far to responsibly take speculation. In my own opinion, implication that Ms. Corrie was "acquired by a local strongman" and willingly became subservient to him for whatever considerations is gratuitous insult.
Why is raping a foreign woman who throws herself at you, "a nauseous atrocity", but raping your own sister/wife/mother/aunt/complete stranger but a muslim, NOT nauseous, in the eyes of these moral screw-ups?
Not one of these so-called feminist activists has condemned honour killings, disfigurements, FGM, rape and torture of women in Iranian(and other islamic countries)prisons!!
They make me puke! THEY are the enablers of these horrors by refusing to pass honest judgment on these "people"!!
Rachel Corrie, the urban myth that just won’t die. All of the pictures I’ve seen, that were taken at the time of her accident, all point to her being rolled under that CAT as it was backing up; not going forward as the myth that has grown up around her has it.
As readers here know, in my younger days I was a logger. Not only have I been up close and personal, as a choker-setter, with CATs in operation, I also operated a D7 for a while.
Having seen the absolutely brain-dead things that some Earth Firster!s have done around a logging operation, then when one of them gets hurt or killed, they go out publicly with the most libelous made up stories about what happened. I assumed that the same held for the Rachel Corrie story. That’s when I went on the Internet to find out all I could. Sure enough, at least as of a few years ago, the photos of her accident were still to be found.
I know about the so-called witnesses that were there that day. But they were all part of her activist group. Sorry, marknesop, the only honest witness from that day is those photos; and they tell a completely different story.
Enough of this! I know people are against Westerners forcing our views on other people, but Rape is Wrong! If they wish to do it their own, fine, but as soon as they do it to our Kin, I say we end it! It has gone on too long! These girls, if the article are accurate, are being sacrificed for the satisfactions of scum!
I say we end it!
@wildiris:
You are completely mistaken.
Those eye witnesses are absolutely reliable, almost as much as Stalin's descriptions of the wonderful life of ordinary people in the USSR.
But jokes aside, here's the more interesting curiosity: a certain person's willingness to accept the accounts of leftist activists, in relation to an article that exposes the fact these people are willing to lie about everything, in order to advance their political agenda.
The human mind is a wonderful thing, is it not?
Is feminism deaf to the women in Islam?
In a word, yes.
From the get-go, feminism was never about making life easier for women, either in the US or anywhere else. It was only about promoting the leftist agenda at any cost, including that of the women whose interests it pretended to serve.
I've looked at all the photos of the scene that I could find, and I don't know how you could tell anything from them. The eyewitnesses were quite specific that the bulldozer first drove over her, and then backed up. There's only one set of tracks, and they don't extend beyond where she's supposed to have been crushed. Some photos show her standing in front of the bulldozer, with a building directly behind her, so that a bulldozer in reverse couldn't approach from that direction - although there's no way to know if the photos all reflect the same incident or even the same timeframe, except for the clothing. But what would be the point of a peace activist standing behind a bulldozer? Whatever it's destroying would likely be in front of it.
Police forces worldwide don't seem to see anything wrong in relying on the testimony of eyewitnesses, especially when they have nothing better. I didn't see anywhere that their stories were disproved by investigation. The state's first witness (a member of the investigation team)testified that neither he nor any other investigator had visited the scene of the accident. It is Israeli policy to use two-person teams when operating the D9, one of whom does nothing but spot obstacles, as the driver's field of view is not large. Of course members of her organization would be motivated to report that her death was not an accident - but the IDF would be equally motivated to say it was. Why should motivation be a factor for credibility for one side and not the other?
Erick, you almost had me going there with your response.
Seriously though, this is something that I've always found difficult to impossible to communicate to sane people like you. These people are not lying. They actually believe, from start to finish, every word they say.
It was a phenomenon I experienced being around Earth Firsters. What I encountered were people seemingly capable of making the most egregious and verifiably false statements. I used to think that they were just liars of the first rank. But one day it finally struck me, that what I was witnessing were individuals whose minds had such a tenuous grasp of reality, that for them, their brains were incapable of distinguishing between a dream, a fantasy, a good story or reality.
At one point I had a nice email exchange with Dr Sanity on this subject, and she validated my observations that, yes indeed, what I was seeing was a real clinical phenomena.
This is why a person’s sincerity alone should never be a measure of that person’s honesty!
Wildiris, yes, the phenomena you described is what I hinted at with 'the wonders of the human mind'.
I believe there was a post here at Gates of Vienna that mentioned 'the subtle art of self delusion', or something along these lines, which had also dealt with the issue.
But, even if to themselves they are sincere and well-meaning, it doesn't mean we cannot call their lies out - right? After all, Muslims are also calling everybody racist with absolute conviction, because they are blind to their own actions.
Or perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying there?
In hoc signo vinces
There is no dispute that Rachel Corrie was acting as a human shield bizarrely not in any attempt to save life but purely as a tactical obstruction that can only be considered as aiding and abetting a belligerent party in theatre.
Peace activist I think not, primed political activist definitely, complicity combatant probably.
Erick, no you’re fine. The point that I'm trying to get to is that when most normal sane people discuss these issues, there is a built in assumption that both sides of the debate are in fact, sane. What we are dealing with here is the fact that one side of the debate is severely cognitively dysfunctional, but on outward appearance is perfectly normal. This kind of individual has a tremendous advantage in any formal debate because they are capable of telling falsehoods with perfect sincerity.
So who is someone like marknesop going to believe, their friends, that while they have no experience whatsoever working around heavy equipment, will, with all sincerity tell them one story, or me, someone they don’t know, that while I might have over a decade and a half experience working around heavy equipment, tell them a different story?
The problem for me is that to explain to marknesop what is wrong with the photos, it would probably take me an hour out in the backyard with a pile of dirt, some dolls, and a toy Tonka bulldozer to go through all the details of how a CAT is operated and correlating that to the views that I saw in the accident photos.
Sincerity trumps truth in any debate in the public forum. So to restate my point, when dealing with the lies, it is the apparent sincerity of these individuals that needs to be questioned, not their facts. But, then that isn’t considered “fair play”. So attacking them on that count turns into an automatic win for them too.
Skalman" said Well, I´ll take the risk of appearing as a cynic, but who actually cares? Stupidity is obviously painful and everybody makes their own choices and faces the consqeuences. They make their choices and pay for it."
Somewhere along the way, you lost your compassion.
The girls made a mistake, young women in the West make mistakes in the choices of life, but I wouldn't wish that kind of sexual slavery to my worst enemy!
NEVER!
It really is a fate worse than death!
wildiris --
I don't have your expertise, so I came at it from another angle.
That bulldozer driver was (is?) an IDF guy, laboring under all the draconian Israeli ROEs that are even more strict than the American ones in Afghanistan. He knew what he would face if he harmed a single hair on the head of any of those useful idiots.
To believe that he would look at that young woman and deliberately run over her is to believe that he would willingly throw away his career and possibly his freedom.
It violates Occam's razor to assume that to be the case. As Jayne Cobb says in Firefly, "Don't make no sense."
I understand perfectly if you prefer to characterize everyone who disagrees with you as having some sort of mental problem - that, too is a recognized phenomenon of the human condition - or a "useful idiot". I don't think it will be necessary for you to show me with dolls and some dirt and a Tonka tractor exactly what transpired, because you weren't there. If you know where photos are located that will demonstrate the sequence of events to be other than what the witnesses say happened, that will suffice; I might not be as smart as you, but I'm sure if you figured out what happened from photos, I'll eventually get it.
I didn't say I knew what happened, either. I said that the statements of eyewitnesses, none of whom are known to me, contradicts the version you appear to like, and that I couldn't find any investigative reports that disprove what they say. The IDF did an investigation; it would be in their interests to publicize facts it established beyond doubt to be true, wouldn't it? Complete with photos with circles and arrows and timelines?
Imagine a death occurs in your hometown, and an army reservist (or two, if they were driving a D9) is involved. Eyewitnesses say the reservist deliberately drove over the victim. The army does an investigation which does not involve visiting the scene; when the reservist begins to testify, he is instructed to keep silent. The reservist is exonerated by an investigative team that were not present when the accident occurred.
Who do you think the police would believe? How about if the witnesses were all Catholic priests, or Amish farmers, or NASCAR drivers? If that would make them more or less credible, then you choose to assume the eyewitnesses in the Corrie matter are lying just because of who they are.
"Severely cognitively dysfunctional" - I couldn't agree more.
Also, I'd like to second the Baron's remark. Our soldiers are being subjected to ridiculous rules, while still under pressure to win battles, preferably without incurring any casualties (since the Israeli media considers one lost soldier to be a terrible catastrophe, which can only be averted by total surrender to whatever enemy is currently near a microphone).
While Islamic terrorists have deliberately used heavy machinery to run over civilians on more than one occasion, IDF soldiers are made quite aware of the diplomatic burden that lies on their shoulders.
The bulldozer operator was not some lone madman thirsty for blood, and it is highly unlikely that he was following a direct order.
The 'eye witnesses', on the other hand, are political opportunists, who are highly likely to capitalize on the death of one of them to promote their agenda.
In hoc signo vinces
No rational human being would stand within 20 metres of a moving bulldozer.
Looking at her actions Corrie was obviously not acting like a rational human being was she infected and overwhelmed by being emersed in the violent and foreign culture of jihad which then induced a hysteria for shaheed (martyr) status, the very same violent cultural immersion that made the act of burning the US flag seem rational to her.
@ marknesop
...I don't think it will be necessary for you to show me with dolls and some dirt and a Tonka tractor exactly what transpired, because you weren't there...
"Being there" is not the point.
Having more than a decade working with this equipment, Wild Iris would be qualified by any American court as an "expert" when it came to his opinion re what is possible or probable in such a situation. In fact, he would be considered more qualified than the untutored eyewitnesses because of his work experience.
Dr. Chesler, given her time married to a Muslim &living under Shariah, along w/ her subsequent education & doctorate, & extensive research in the area of Muslim family life is an "expert witness" when it comes to muslim family violence . That's why she’s in that update to this post.
Her first-hand, extensive experience as a leftist "peace activist" also qualifies her in that area if it came to a court case.
During the Rifqa Bary case, Dr. Chesler agreed to write a letter to the court in FL re the danger Ms. Bary faced if she were returned to her home. The letter was entered into Bary's file & forwarded to Ohio.
My only qualification as an "expert" lies in domestic violence of the Western variety, which is quite different from Muslim dv. I've testified a # of times. (In fact, I've been threatened with contempt for refusing to testify)
I was seldom ever called to testify re events. My extensive experience with battered women was what the court wanted to hear -- iow, my opinion, which was due to the # of clients, and # of years working in dv.
My point: accumulate enough time in a field of endeavor & pass the district attorney's aggressive questions as to what constitutes "expert testimony" and presto! in that subject your opinion is worth substantially more than that of the mythic "reasonable man".
You, marknesop, are a reasonable man, but you're not an expert. Wild Iris is, because of his expertise w/ that kind of heavy equipment, not to mention his experience with "peace activists". In reality, they're "conflict activists" because that's why they come: to create conflict.
If you've been working in a given area long enough you qualify as an expert, marknesop. Your opinion trumps even eyewitnesses if it's a complex event.
Zenster--
I'm too tired to clean up your comment and repost it. You've been around here too long to think we'd let "moron" slide or that other snarky nickname you employed.
I will have to delete other comments that refer to yours, thus you're doubly unfair.
Ms. Corrie was naive. She is another case where that kind of over-determined innocence in the face of reality was paid for dearly. In order to defend against the awfulness of their daughter's choice, her parents are forced to carry on in her name, creating the opportunity for the possible deaths and suffering of other young women.
We also see this kind of denial in the moral blindness of Dr. Pearl re the beheading of his son by Muslims. Even so horrendous an event as this, caused ultimately by the indoctrination of Daniel by the good professor, couldn't break through his shield.
He still doesn't understand Islam's lethal plans for the rest of us nor does he comprehend that Daniel Pearl used poor judgement in deciding to attempt a fool's mission in a place full of death.
Given all that, your name-calling is unacceptable. Please check the rules again. I'm not cleaning up after you anymore.
Rollo May's Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence is still worth reading.
I was still a kamikaze bleeding heart when I first encountered this book and it resonated then with its accusations against America's "inherent" violence.
Though I would discard much of that now, he made a good point: when you live on in innocence once childhood is over, then the edges of that innoncence can be hazardous to your well-being.
May is a flawed chronicler; he took the pov of the chattering clases of his time (they haven't changed) and often attempted to supress other writers' work when he didn't want their experiences revealed.
Nonetheless, there are diamonds in the rubble, including his requirement for moving past innocence to a fragile wisdom, i.e., that we become aware that we all have blind spots; the things about ourselves that we don't know we don't know. It's inherent in the human condition.
It comes down to the three versions of ourselves: our own self-image; how others view us; and how we really are. That third one is like the dark side of the moon.
*****************
BTW, marknesop, you're right re the effect that the deleted comment would have on our homeschoolers. Aside from violating the rules, it could've upped the cynicism quotient for any kids reading here.
Thanks Dymphna for watching my back on this. Here is the Cliff Notes version.
There is no such thing as a love-tap from a D9/D10?
If it runs over you, you’re popped like a big zit (logger-lingo). Was she crushed? No.
If the blade contacts you with any force it will dismember you. Was she dismembered? No.
If you’re standing on top of a pile of dirt and the Cat is coming forward (at a blazing 1 mph) with its blade down, it will just push the dirt you’re standing on. If you’re quick on your feet, you can ride it like a surfer riding a wave. At least for a little ways, I know, because I’ve done it. The worst that can happen is that you’ll fall down and get buried. Was she buried? No.
If anyone bothered to stop and think about it, they would realize that there is no way, starting out in front of a Cat that is moving forward, pushing dirt with its blade down, can anyone then end up behind or under that Cat.
I’ve personally gone through a lot more scenarios than these few. And in none of them can I come up with one that would have her start out in front of the Cat and end up where the pictures I saw showed her without her having suffered some kind of massive injuries.
The pictures I saw showed her lying on top of the Cat’s trail in what looks like a rut left by its left sidetrack. You can see the Cat in the background with its blade lifted. Her superficial injuries were slight, compared to what they could have been. Sources seem to be unclear, but some suggest that she lived for a couple hours after the accident. This points to the kind of crushing injuries that happen around heavy equipment: someone gets “bumped” by a piece of equipment, they get back up, seemingly OK, then 30 min or an hour later, they fall over dead.
How she got under the Cat, I have no idea. My one guess is that at some point she tried to climb up on the Cat and confront the operator face-to-face. Fell off as the Cat was backing up then got rolled between the Cat’s underside and the rocky road surface underneath.
I didn't post the comment that was removed by the moderator. I wouldn't call you a moron, and my previous posts were uniformly respectful. It's someone playing provocateur.
Ah. Disregard. I see what happened; I repeated the nickname that a previous commenter had posted. The moderator can tell who's who - anyone can post under someone else's username, as someone evidently did with mine (adding "moron" to it, it appears), but they would not know the correct email address.
@wildiris--
I wasn't watching your back so much as I was trying to reframe the situation to reflect a more accurate view of reality.
Often eyewitness "accounts" aren't reliable, as I learned in my work as a crisis counselor. Too much adrenaline pumping, too much time to re-visit what they saw...AND felt. Too much righteous indignation feeding their memories. All those things mess with one's faculty of Reason.
An expert witness is a valuable person to have in any conflicted situation. That's why I took a Mediation course (taught by the Mennonites) after I left the women's shelter. I'd planned to volunteer but then fibromyaliga set in and I had to stop after my probationary period.
Anyway, I recommend studying mediation to anyone who has it available in their community. If you can pass the course (it's demanding and rigorous) you have a great tool to offer the people who live around you.
Beats the heck out of being a "conflict advocate". IMHO...but you won't find Soros funding the Mennonites.
-----------------------------
If you’re standing on top of a pile of dirt and the Cat is coming forward (at a blazing 1 mph) with its blade down, it will just push the dirt you’re standing on. If you’re quick on your feet, you can ride it like a surfer riding a wave. At least for a little ways, I know, because I’ve done it. The worst that can happen is that you’ll fall down and get buried..
Well, now we know where the "wild" in your name comes from.
Sheesh!
I doubt Ms. Corrie ever expected to die and now, from your description, it seems my doubts could have some merit.
I never, ever looked at the pictures of her accident. PTSD is bad enough without deliberately engaging it. I'm the one who averts her gaze when passing an accident. Can't stand to see it, and I feel sorry for those people who are exposed to the public eye when they're injured or dying.
Doesn't give me any virtue, I simply can't stand to impotently watch others suffer.
Managed to look at the 9/11 materials because they had that "attention must be paid" quality but now the images are permanent and I turn away from any fresh views, thankyouverymuch.
One of the great things about blogging is getting to meet experts -- engineers, mathematicians, oil rig people, or experienced psychologists like Nicolai Sennels who has hands-on experience with Muslim "youths". He finally figured out what made them different from Western kids-- i.e., inner motivation is 180 degrees opposed to the average Western adolescent.
Intellectual achievement is important (e.g., Sennels and Chesler) but so are people who have studied almost any field in depth. That really became clear during the oil clean up.
We sure do need fewer bureaucrats, social workers, and lawyers.
@marknesop
Didn't realize that *wasn't* you. When comments get deleted for violating the rules, then usually subsequent comments which refer to the deleted one must also be removed to avoid confusing later readers. That's why I complained about the violation being unfair to others in addition to not abiding by the basics.
Zenster usually recovers his equilibrium and returns. I hope that is the case here.
@1389
It became obvious very quickly that the "feminist" movement that gained ground in the 70s and destroyed so many marriages was narcissist at heart. I had such hopes for it in the 80s, when it could have given poor women a leg up and some leverage, but all it was ever interested in was moi.
Have there ever been more ludicruous, trivial mags than the ones marketed to women? In fact, feminism became a marketing ploy and a leftist Potemkin movement very early on.
Poor women were ignored, black women had to make their own way without any help from those precious "conscious raising groups". Talk about Marxist derivative, with no intellectual content.
And Swedish feminism is particularly lethal to men. Read the English version of the Swedish paper "The Local". Scary sometimes.
That's an important signal re any movement: how does it treat its opposite, especially if it is regnant?
How do feminists treat men?
How do black activists treat whites?
How do the new agressive atheists treat theists?
How do the leftists (now in power) treat the minority conservatives? (You have only to look at Obama's behavior and language to know the signals he's giving off as the Leader of the Left. They are divisive and unkind and...well, very high-school.)
I'm sure there are other divisive categories. But at least the polarization is out in the open. The Left (of which feminists are one ghetto) is scared, as well it should be. The Republicans may not be vertebrates yet, but if nothing else, the worm has turned...
Feminists have a lot of bad karma to work out. Esp their abandonment of girls...ambition is a double-edged sword.
It's just the "noble savage" syndrome in full flower.
Skalman said...
NO SKALMAN you do not need to feel sorry for them.
you seem to have missed the point of the article.
...they deserve justice as much as anyone. ...but the point of the article is that the progressives turn a blind eye and even abet the criminals.
"Rachel Corrie, an American “peace activist” who was backed over by an Israeli bulldozer and killed when she was in the Gaza Strip acting as a human shield against the destruction of Palestinian houses."
It's like I've always said, "Humans make lousy shields." Go with metal next time, and the thicker the better.
I'll put this in diplomatic terms.
Some people lack sufficient intelligence needed to survive. Others may have a barely adequate supply of such wits and manage to comprise the functionality of that reserve by placing themselves in enough danager whereby their usable intelligence is overcome by external circumstances.
The Hollywood stereotype of a bimbo on safari in the jungle wearing stiletto high heels springs to mind.
Plainly put, non-Muslim Western women − especially white non-Muslim Western women − who voluntarily travel to Muslim majority countries may just as well be committing "suicide by Islam".
This goes double for white Western non-Muslim women who make such sojourns with the explicit intention of supporting Islamic causes.
The issue of being a white woman only has bearing due to the intense racism of most Arab cultures and not because of any distinction I might make on my own.
Rachel Corrie placed herself directly in harm's way long before she ever stood in the path of a D9 Caterpillar bulldozer. Her inability to recognize that fact may have arisen from sheer ignorance or even willful ignorance.
She chose to ignore the realities-on-the-ground with respect to the "Palestinian Terrortories" and paid for it with her life. I find it impossible to feel a shred of sympathy for someone so dead set on supporting clearly terrorist causes. Furthermore, a woman of any race or creed who engages in such blatant tomfoolery is even less deserving of sympathy.
If it weren't for the videos of the flotilla incident which clearly show the IDF men being attacked, we'd probably be hearing similar Leftist lies about the flotilla incident.
Actually, we're still hearing such leftist lies.
Here is a video of some dude disrupting a Leftist rally for domestic workers:
http://tinyurl.com/2f2bxmd
Although it's true that the disruptor is being a bit of an ass, what's interesting is that the Leftist hags try to stop him by calling the police and claiming (falsely) that he had threatened somebody. Watch as the Leftists lie without any hesitation at all.
So without knowing anything at all about the Rachel Corrie incident, I'm pretty confident that nobody intentionally or knowingly killed her.
The Case of Rachel Corrie only has worth as a cautionary tale about the kinds of tragic ends that can await someone like her that has been fated to live their life with a mind crippled with a narcissistic personality disorder.
I don’t think going over the details of what might have happened to her the day she was killed are a discussion that belongs at GoV. But the aspect of the RC case that I do think is apropos to not only this thread, but to the GoV forum in general, is the question, why is it that individuals like Marknesop find it so easy to believe the accusations of a few of RC’c fellow activists and their Palestinian handlers, while categorically rejecting any and all valid criticism from someone like me.
I don’t know what happened to RC that day. I wasn’t there. But, then I’ve never made any pretence to the notion that I do know what happened. But to the extent that the story line that RC’s supporters put out overlaps my own experience working around heavy equipment, I assert that I not only have a moral right, but a moral obligation to make a judgment call and speak out about it. I didn’t just call RC's apologists liars, I made factual assertions that someone like Marknesop could, if he wanted, go out and independently verify himself. But my counsel is rejected and instead the word of people’ with a known track record of lying and fabricating stories’ is taken at face value. Even though, after all of these years, not a single piece of hard evidence has ever been put forth by RC’s supporters to back up their accusations.
Suppose you had a neighbor or co-worker. Someone you’ve known for years. Someone you’ve always seen as upstanding, honest, and trustworthy. Then one day this person confides to you that last weekend they had been abducted by space aliens and taken to Jupiter. For most of us, our “reality filter” would kick in and say, “Joe, you’re a great guy, I’ve always liked you, and I’d like to believe you, but space aliens? Jupiter? No.”
Continuing with a comment I made to Erick. It’s not that the truth isn’t out there. It’s as if a critical mass of individuals in our society today have had their “reality filters” shut down. IMHO the real challenge for forums such as this isn’t getting the truth out, it is getting people to turn their “reality filters” back on. If ever a way to do that could be found, then everything else would take care of itself.
wildiris: It’s as if a critical mass of individuals in our society today have had their “reality filters” shut down.
The shutdown is attributable to several major factors:
1.) An industrialized society that allows for the survival of those whose lifespan would be severely curtailed in a wilderness environment.
2.) The ability for individuals to be accepted by others despite having a tremendously distorted worldview that would normally cause them to be excluded from the company of sane people.
3.) A similar ability to embrace totally dysfunctional or irrational philosophies without experiencing any censure by society in general. Devil worship and "truthers" being prime examples of this.
4.) Finally, there is the prevalence of Magical Thinking™ − especially with members of the Liberal persuasion − that absolutely defies rationality and logic (see item #3) and which goes relatively unpunished by what was once a rather unforgiving natural environment (see item #1)
… the real challenge for forums such as this isn’t getting the truth out, it is getting people to turn their “reality filters” back on. If ever a way to do that could be found, then everything else would take care of itself.
Due to the issues listed above, it is almost a given that any awakening or reactivating of said “reality filters”, if indeed it is at all possible, will most likely only be precipitated by an event of such magnitude and indisputable heinousness that there will be no way of denying it.
We are not talking about the proverbial "trout in the milk pail" that defies casual explanation. More than likely, resolution of modern society's indulgence in such self-delusion is going come about by, if not help to cause, an act of such depravity and total inhumanity whereby typical misdirection or misinformation simply will no longer function.
From all indications, this event will probably be in the form of one, if not several, terrorist nuclear attacks. Such ultra-violence will either rip away the façade of ordinary Liberal-style deluded thinking or make it impossible to survive for those who engage in it. It has long been thought that World War II had provided this important message but, astonishingly enough, a huge number of people have seen fit to dismiss this gruesome and precious history lesson. That they simultaneously doom themselves to repeating it is utterly lost on them every bit as much as the original significance of it all.
Either way, this reawakening will not be pretty and there seems little alternative to a tremendous loss of human life as to what will be the catalyst for such a sea change in perceptual reality. It also seems to be an equal given that any return to reality via this route will result in an even more massive obliteration of humanity by way of ensuing retaliations. The monstrous lessons of World War II will be dwarfed by this looming horror.
Your post was as excellent as it was pertinent, wildiris. Thank you for taking the time to have waded through so much dross in order to deliver up such a gem.
PS: For those who have not done so already, the linked article, “Modern Leftism and Magical Thinking” by Kelly O'Connell is a masterpiece of analysis with respect to Liberal thought processes. Its identification of Barack Obama as a sufferer of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is spot on as is the entire essay.
@Wildiris:
Like Zenster has explained in length (and wisdom), it is almost impossible for the men and women who completely believe in their own imaginary ideals to drop them for such trifles like facts or reason.
Having lived around such people, and exposed to their propaganda for most of my life, in a country that's surrounded by hundreds of millions of murderous Muslims, I've also stopped wasting brain cycles on debating with them.
If a nuke would detonate in Tel-Aviv tomorrow, those of them who will survive will still not change a single belief as result. They will run the even through the same distorted "reality filters", and carry on.
Because each side claims the other is utterly insane, I guess judgement will ultimately fall on the 'gray area' in between - that is, the undecided folks who can still be persuaded.
"Like Zenster has explained in length (and wisdom), it is almost impossible for the men and women who completely believe in their own imaginary ideals to drop them for such trifles like facts or reason."
Yeah, " trifles like facts or reason'-
How's one going to get these, if the Peace group recruiting the women, doesn't tell them?
It can be an "open secret..."- but only to the immediate group...outsiders don't have the information, don't you know?
How are the women supposed to know, if they haven't been warned, so as to go into danger or not?
This may be known or not, in the area of Israel, but I for one, admitted, got the different version of the story of Corrie.
The leaks on the happenings, the kidnappings, have only come now.
I bet, you didn't imagine the horrors, either!
@allat:
I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you saying that all of these people are unable to think? Ask questions? Use their senses, and analyze what they see or hear?
Are you saying the are only capable of understanding what they are told to understand? Accept only what they are told by the group that recruited them?
If so, then you have a harsher view of them than me. I merely say they make poor choices, and follow them zealously.
You hint they are incapable of having a choice at all, and so are not accountable for their actions.
I've been told for decades now how great and wonderful the Palestinians are, and that all they want is to live peaceful lives, while our evil soldiers butcher them in cold blood.
And yet I was able to figure out what was a lie, and where was the truth, by using my own brain. What a miracle!
But you also have to understand that I was talking about zealous leftists in general, and not particularly about the girls mentioned in this article. Still, when one becomes a tool of evil and deception, deliberate ignorance hardly equals innocence.
allat: How are the women supposed to know, if they haven't been warned, so as to go into danger or not?
Have you done much traveling in your life? I have and anyone, repeat anyone, who goes to a foreign country without studying the culture and traditions practiced there has to be dumber than a sack full of hammers.
In most cases, women are more vulnerable than men, at least physically. So it behooves them even more to investigate what is waiting for them upon arrival.
Rachel Corrie and every other non-Muslim woman who tavels to an Islamic country has to be painfully stupid. Why not ask Sarah Shourd just how brilliant of a choice it was to go anywhere near Iran.
Do these women deserve what has happened to them? No, Muslims do not get off the hook for their cretinous behavior. Still, personal responsibility plays a part in all of this and when you act stupid, excrement occurs.
Erick: Still, when one becomes a tool of evil and deception, deliberate ignorance hardly equals innocence.
Le bingo. If there is one unforgivable sin, willful ignorance ranks pretty high on the list. We live in the Information Age and people who are incapable of utilizing the Information Superhighway just as often end up being roadkill.
Exactly just how sorry am I supposed to feel for these maroons?
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