Maybe the KTU should contact Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams to see if she’d be interested in teaching English here:
NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren.
Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.
“I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence’, because I don’t believe that I am non-violent,” said Ms Williams, 64.
“Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.” Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.
She’d fit right in.
(HT to Coming Anarchy)
30 Comments
Not so remarkable. Countless others share this desire.
And I’m sure if I got up before a bunch of schoolkids and said I wanted to kill Kim Jong-il or, heaven forbid (!), Fidel Castro it would make me a warmongering fascist.
Interesting how this post is framed in such a way that any counterviews automatically label anyone who defends her right to hold such a view as both inferior EFL teachers (thus not to be listened to), and supporters of killing Bush. And then it gets coupled with the “If I do it, I’ll be punished” paranoid defensiveness that makes it even more difficult to state an argument.
Basically, this was the best wingnut Hannity/Limbaugh/O’Riely-style post I’ve ever seen here. All it needed was a few “traitors” to really make it sing.
Pick a side.
I’d rather see them pick a side.
I’d rather see her take up a gun and fight her passionate battle.
I’m sure there are some recruiting stations that will funnel her into Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechyna or the like.
She’s a Westerner, so she could do her service in a sleeper cell in the US. She’s Irish, so the idea of bombing public places can’t be totally alien to her.
Just pick a side and actually do something.
Instead of the Susan Sarandon style pretending you are picking a side.
There is nothing I hate more than seeing someone wearing a Che Guevera t-shirt sipping a capachino at Starbucks.
If you are going to say it, mean it, and if you mean it, do something about it. Pick a side for real.
“who defends her right to hold such a view”
Cute.
Ouch. That hurt.
And for what it’s worth, I didn’t deny her right to express said view. I was simply expressing my right to call her a nut for going before a bunch of school kids and saying how she’s like to kill the elected (feel free to add a snarky 2000 election comment) American head of state.
“She’s Irish, so the idea of bombing public places can’t be totally alien to her.”
I highly regret that remark. Wish I could delete the comment. There was a point there, but the snide way it came out came from one of my complete horse’s ass moments.
Deeply regret it. Feeling rather ashamed.
The point was that someone from Ireland has had to witness how passions can lead to some of the most brutal forms of action and violence and have seen how it can rip commmunities into bloody pieces.
Yet, she goes out in front of school kids and advocates killing Bush.
“who defends her right to hold such a view”
Can someone show me how Marmot attacked her right to have such ideas? Where is his fascist moment?
So I take this means that the American flag next to your post is a clever ruse and you’re actually over-seas fighting for your beliefs as well?
And what beliefs would those be, William?
First, can you show me where Marmot implied the woman had no right to her thoughts?
When, for example, I start saying that I believe in violence and the US should counter South Korean anti-Americanism (one of my soapbox issues), we should keep violence in mind, perhaps like killing President Roh Mun-Hyun, come and bitch to me about not practicing what I preach, okay….
Or was the flag itself attached to my post that offended you?
I might also add I criticized some North Korean human right activists—including Dr. Norbert Vollertsen—for calling for the overthrow of South Korea’s elected head of state, even though I happened to think said head of state is a complete and utter putz. And while I don’t think I wrote it at the time, I also thought Pat Robertson was off his rocker for calling for Chavez’s assassination—I think Chavez is an ass, but he’s an elected ass, and as I would prefer other democracies not assassinate our elected asses, I wouldn’t support calls to assassinate their elected asses.
NOTE: I wasn’t comparing her to “inferior EFL teachers,” either. I was taking a (really) cheap shot at the KTU.
Even though I’d like to see Bush’s reign, uh, term come to an abrupt end, it’s just not OK for a grown woman to say in front of schoolkids that she wants to kill somebody…and she’s a PEACE laureate for feck’s sake! She should set a good exampleof personal integrity like the Nobel laureate Kim Dae-jung, err, nevermind.
What I hate about items like this is the complete and utter bullshitness of it.
If that woman had a gun in Ford Theatre standing behind Bush while he watched the play “Our American Cousin” - would she pull the trigger?
No. Of course not. She is just doing that petty, cotton candy, bullshit thing that certain types of intellectuals are so fond of.
Meanwhile, in Israel and Lebanon, passions exercising violence are blowing people to pieces. And as I noted above, people taking real actions based on passions (and incitement) and blowing people to bits should be no stranger to someone from Ireland.
But, gee, ain’t it fun to pretend just a little like you mean what you say? Doesn’t it make you feel special? Stoke your own sense of self worth? I mean, why not? Nobody has been blow up around you lately…..
I agree. It shows an error in judgement, regardless of how sincere were her feelings, to have spoken that way to that type of audience.
Regarding the other thing: Robert could tell you if he was trying to take a shot at anyone who teaches English, but it seemed that he was really taking a jab at both Ms. Williams and the KTU, and only mentioned English because that would be a likely employment possibility. I could be wrong, though
“Interesting how this post is framed in such a way that any counterviews automatically label anyone who defends her right to hold such a view as both inferior EFL teachers (thus not to be listened to), and supporters of killing Bush.”
Sorry Willy. No logical or intellectually honest person could write that sentence, based on the actual post. You’re showing your hand here.
Ya know what I’d like to see?I’d like to see usik stop doing the annoying extra spacing crap.
Why can’t these people in public life stick to talking about things they actually know something about? I hate hearing celebrity opinions on politics because most of them don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to politics.
No kidding. Why would the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize recipient feel at all qualified to comment on politics? It’s lucky we have people like you here to give us your expert opinion on what such ‘celebrities’ do and don’t know.
What’s funny asbout that, Robert, is that I never actually said you were.
Yes, the line you focused on sort of implies it. But there’s no actual text based “smoking gun” of me claiming so. This is a common tactic of rightist commentators. Call it character assassination between the lines. You fell prey to doing it with this post.
One of the things I’ve long admired about the Hole is your attempts to keep things on a even keel… “Fair and balanced”, if you’d like… But it seems to me recently that the vicious wing-nut stupidity of a lot of your commentators is rubbing off. And it’s frustrating to see an otherwise pretty darn good blog devolve into, basically, an ESL Cafe whiner thread.
Nowhere did I label—through implication of otherwise—that people who “defend her right to hold such a view” are “inferior EFL teachers” OR “supporters of killing Bush.” Nowhere in the post did I mention anything about Ms. Williams’ “right to hold such a view” or the propriety of others defending said right. My post amounted to nothing more than a snarky comment aimed at a) Ms. Williams; and b) the KTU. Mature? No. But why you brought up anything about “inferior EFL teachers” or Ms. Williams’ right to hold her views (or others defending said right), I have no idea.
Robert - Your post’s meaning was pretty clear and reasonable. Willy G is the one with the poor reading comprehension skills. Don’t let it bother you.
Robet - Why do you dignify this tripe?
WEASEL-WORD PREVARICATION ALERT: Yes, the line you focused on sort of implies it. But there’s no actual text based “smoking gun” of me claiming so. This is a common tactic of rightist commentators. Call it character assassination between the lines. You fell prey to doing it with this post.
YOU ARE COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT == IN A NEUTRAL, NON-PARTISAN WAY, DUDE!!!
One of the things I’ve long admired about the Hole is your attempts to keep things on a even keel… “Fair and balanced”, if you’d like… But it seems to me recently that the vicious wing-nut stupidity of a lot of your commentators is rubbing off.
YOUR CONDECENSION IS UNBECOMING, FOR YOU ARE AN IMBECILE, BILL. I wonder how one should characterize YOUR serial stupidity, The William? Generic cluelessness? Left wing nutjob? Sui Generis Willam G. plot-loss?
Fill us in, please.
No need to get on the guy’s case. I’m just not sure what I did so differently in this post to set him off.
“It’s lucky we have people like you here to give us your expert opinion on what such ‘celebrities’ do and don’t know.”
It doesn’t take an expert to know that this Nobel Peace Prize winner (what does winning one of these have to do with a knowledge of politics?) said something idiotic. Telling people she’d like to kill Bush, that sounds like a real expert opinion there.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s tired of hearing the ‘expert’ opinions of people like George Clooney, Sean Penn, and many others in the world of entertainment. I know enough that much of what these celebrities spout is leftist drivel or in this case, just stupidity.
Obviously. After all, it’s just impolitic to talk about killing foreign leaders, and it would take a real knucklehead to do so. She should have just stuck to using the term ‘regime change.’ And seeing as the Nobel Peace Prize is often given for political accomplishments, it’s a fair bet that a winner of that prize would have at least a fair knowledge of politics.
So you only listen to unqualified people spout off about politics when they have names like “Bill O’Reiley,” “Ann Coultier,” and “Rush Limbaugh”? Seems to me that the main difference between a pundit and a celebrity is that one actually has a reason that they’re famous.
“it’s a fair bet that a winner of that prize would have at least a fair knowledge of politics”
There’s no evidence of that in this case, judging from the dumb statement about killing Bush.
“After all, it’s just impolitic to talk about killing foreign leaders”
This is what I was complaining about. If one is famous, is it alright to spout off like an idiot? Sounds like bad form to me.
“So you only listen to unqualified people spout off about politics”
What are you talking about? I made no mention of these people or pundits at all. I’m just not particularly interested in hearing stupid opinions of people who are famous for something non-political, such as actors or musicians, unless they can make reasonable statements that show they actually know something about the situation. In this case, Ms. Williams has given no indication that she knows anything about politics.
The job of a pundit is to comment on politics (and I don’t listen to any of those pundits you mention-I think Anne is too over the top, which certainly doesn’t help her credibility-just like this Nobel Peace Prize winner). Do most pundits know what they’re talking about? Some do, some don’t. But making stupid comments doesn’t help their case, either.
I just get tired of the blanket stereotypes and attacks and foaming at the mouth regarding Bush that many celebrities (and leftists) indulge in. Can’t we have relatively sensible comments from public commentators? And if one doesn’t really know anything about a topic, or has nothing constructive to say about it, why bother?
If I were famous (and it would never be for punditry or anything related to politics), I expect that I would avoid any talk of politics (in a public forum). Stick to what you know seems to make plenty of sense to me.
Sorry there, Robert, but that was a level of dishonesty and obtuseness that set me off.
They clapped and cheered? Welll, it’s about time the US stop giving Australia (and New Zealand while we’re at it) a free ride on security.
Anyhoo, I agree with The Marmot that this is out of line. It was wrong when Reverend Pat Robertson said it about Chavez, and it’s wrong when Ms. Williams says it about Bush. If George Bush really is the out-of-control murderer she suggests, it’s up to Americans and their political processes to remove him.
That Nobel Piece Prize thing has become a complete joke.
I’ll see if I can dig up the list of winners in the last few years. It’s too funny.
Here it is, It is a who’s who list of corrupt politicans, appeasers and out and out communists and terrorists. They are on a roll like no other.
http://www.almaz.com/nobel/peace/peace.html
I always said America’s Modern Conservative Movement was a reaction to enemic Eurpean envy, so predicatable and base.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/a.....39,00.html