All Hank, all the time.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
The difference Ty is what the symbolism is. The super duper majority of people in the world not only do not give a flying fuck who Pearl Buck or who gets the Nobel Prise for Lit or what books she wrote but all of those things will have absofuckinglutely no affect of any kind ever on their lives. 0. beyond nothing.

The nobel peace prise, while at the end of the day while conveying no tangible power, is symbolic. Giving it to Arafat is symbolic of the fact that the liberals in the West, the US and Europe and the UN have legitimised this guy as a respected world leader to the point where an international organisation will give him its preeminent declaration of being a person who strives for peace. We both know I could go and google and find websites that detail the thousands of innocent civilians who died at Arafat's orders, including instances where he was on site for terrorist killings of civilians. But the liberals in the media, in the US and Europe were willing not only to overlook this, but to give a mass murdering terrorist who espouses a doctrine of hate and race extermination the legitimacy to have an international platform, again, with the Peace Prise being a symbol of that legitimisation.

It's as if GErmany had fought WWII to a stalemate and then HItler got the nobel peace prise. Would you have supported that?

The result of this symbolic legitimisation is that terrorist organisations are now the most powerful entities in the region at issue and are legitimised from being terrorist organisations to being political parties. The result is War.

Perhaps, if the liberals in the West had been willing to differentiate between a terrorist and a statesmen and could call out the former as being persona non grata in the peace process, there would have been an impetus on the Arab populace of the region to find, develop and support responsible statesmen. Instead the West said, we leigitimise terrorists who espouse hate. And those terrorists exploited the hate, tjhe dark side of the force, iyw, and we end up with a region that has no mechanism for a peaceful solution.

Congratulations!

He's not the first terrorist legitimized by the West and he won't be the last. Think of the contras in Nicaragua or Jonas Savimbi, to take just two examples. Think of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. It's like you're waste-deep in manure and worrying about some shit on your hands. I'm not saying it's not shit -- I'm saying, try to keep your perspective, man.

And, BTW, it's not like I voted to give either him or Pearl Buck the Nobel Prize. Take it up with the academy, or the dynamite heirs, or whoever.