Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Monday, December 5, 2011

Well, He's Screwed

By BJ Bjornson

The U.S. ambassador to Belgium recently had the audacity to point out that some of the rising anti-Semitism in the Arab world may have something to do with Israeli policies vis a vis the Palestinians.


According to the prepared remarks of his speech, Gutman distinguished between �anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating� from what he perceived to be a different phenomenon tied to Israeli policies.

. . .

Gutman said that �throughout the Muslim communities that I visit, and indeed throughout Europe, there is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes and all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East�every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.�


Israel�s policies may be the cause of resentment and hate? Heresy! Treason even! Well, treason if you discount the fact that he�s not an Israeli, but it is sometimes hard to tell with U.S. politicos regarding which country�s interests are supposed to come first. Definitely heresy, though. Israel could never do anything that might cause people to get angry at it. Anyone who doesn't like Israel just hates Jews, period.

It isn�t even that Gutman is trying to rationalize or otherwise discount the problem, but then for a lot of people, attempting to understand the motivations of the people who hate or commit crimes against Jews is the same as apologizing for them, rather than being part of an attempt to better counter them.

I think it�s safe to say that Mr. Gutman will be spending some more time with his family in the very near future.



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1 comment:

  1. Ron BeasleyDecember 5, 2011 at 11:28 AM

    Having an amazing grasp of the obvious can be a career beaker.

    ReplyDelete

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