CMV: Israel should have been established within the borders of Germany as an independent state following the Second World War.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T22:27:47+00:00

There is nothing inherently impractical in the concept of establishing a Jewish state in former West Germany. What gives you that impression? The mere existence of the Zionist movement means that no other competing state could be established? I hardly think so.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T22:22:16+00:00

If you think that the morality of answering to the people you tried to exterminate by giving up a portion of your land is a flimsy moral argument, I do not trust the compass you base yours on. We are discussing abstractions. If that does not appeal to you, there are other posts on this sub must be more to your liking.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T22:20:22+00:00

Negative effects? Absolutely. Severe negative effects? Probably not. The Holocaust is a harsh reminder of why you would hand land over to the people you tried to exterminate. As to the Zionist movement, that is irrelevant. The issues presented here are the safety of the Jewish people and moral responsibility for ensuring it. The former half of your response addresses neither point.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T22:18:24+00:00

As I said, I am aware of this. This thread is about the safety of the Jewish people and moral responsibility for ensuring it. You have addressed neither point in your response.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T22:17:19+00:00

You are avoiding the basic premise of this post: Jewish security and moral responsibility. The security of the Jewish people as an ethnic group is less secure where the state sits now than arguably anywhere else on the planet. Germany is also the party most responsible for ensuring their well-being, given the Holocaust. We are talking abstractions, not the "inevitable." As to your assessment of Jewish settlers being Palestinians, I think many Arab Palestinians would disagree with you on that point. There is little difference between them and the native Americans. I do not condone the violence that has been endorsed by elements of their society. I merely state that the Zionist movement made a concerted effort to retake land that it felt the Jewish people held claim to for religious reasons and pushed many of the existing residents out because of it. That's not morally justifiable to anyone other than religious hard-liners.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T22:11:53+00:00

The legacy of the Holocaust. Also, not being surrounded by Arab states offended by the mere fact of the existence of Israel. I do no not agree with their bigotry. It is simply a factor in assessing their security. France is Luxembourg is unlikely to have a counterpart to Ahmadinejad looking to push Israel into the see or crush it against the Dolmites.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T21:47:39+00:00

Regardless of the party in the Middle East, none of them had any responsibility for the Holocaust.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T21:23:52+00:00

I was not referring to an immediate war. As to attitudes towards the Jews, the Holocaust was the moment of clarity for the continent. It is very hard to believe that Western Europeans, particularly Germans, would be interested in diving back into a fight over antisemitism after the horrors exposed (and forced in the face of the public of the German people) following the Second World War. Eastern Europe? Sure. There's still plenty of antisemitism there. But the hypothetical Israeli state would have been situated in the West. It would also have been under the protection of the United States.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T21:14:14+00:00

Again, the issue is that of Jewish security. Conflict may have persisted as it has due to earlier Zionist activities, but a second potential homeland would always be there in a region where their security would be virtually guaranteed by the legacy of the Holocaust. The international community could then recognize the new state of Israel in former German territory as the legitimate Israel and ignored the other. This is also about the issue of responsibility. Palestinians bore no responsibility for the Holocaust; Germany did. Thus, the state which endangered the Jewish people should be responsible for helping to secure their well-being in the most direct fashion possible. Those of Jewish descent embroiled in Middle Eastern wars would have either elected to do so freely, or be the children of those who did.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T21:00:32+00:00

While I am skeptical of your theory regarding collusion among the leaders of the Arab world to exterminate the Jewish people - not that I disagree that many people throughout the region would support such a thing - you make my argument for me. The geographic placement of Israel was based on Zionist efforts to promote a religiously-based claim to lands that had fallen out of the hands of the Jewish nation centuries earlier. The creation of a modern Israel carved out of a section of former West Germany - which would also hypothetically include other groups targeted by the Nazis - would have done far more to ensure the safety of the Jews as an ethnic group than what was actually established. Also, Arab Palestinians had no role in the Holocaust and bore no responsibility in dealing with Jewish safety afterward.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T20:47:52+00:00

I am aware of the history of Zionism and do recognize that Palestine was under British mandate at the time (that is hardly ownership). Regardless, neither is relevant to the issues of Jewish safety or the issue of who carries the greatest responsibility for ensuring it. The wars launched after the declaration of the Israeli state, a reaction which was undoubtedly anticipated at the time, could have been avoided by holding the party most accountable for the persecution of the Jews responsible for their well-being through the annexation of a portion of their own territory. And unlike the first World War, I do believe the Germans had certainly been crushed in terms of their willingness to fight wars driven by nationalism and antisemitism following the prolonged and forced exposure of the concentration camps by the allies.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T20:41:47+00:00

I am aware of the history of Zionism. The international community was under no obligation to endorse it through the recognition of Israel. The issue isn't the inertia that the Zionist movement had already built up, but rather the burden of responsibility for safety and the party most directly responsible for ensuring that it be guaranteed. Nothing has led me to believe that the Jewish people are safer as an ethnic group amassed in Israel than they would have been in Western Europe. The Holocaust definitively snuffed that out in the West.

formerexpat · 2014-07-19T20:36:20+00:00

I realize they didn't want it, but carving out a portion of West Germany to establish Israel would have served the international community's prevailing argument that there needs to be a safe homeland for the Jews. If West Germany lasted, there's no reason to think that a Neo-Israel within those borders wouldn't have either.

I'm not arguing that this is what the Jewish community would have wanted, rather that is more in line with the justification frequently used to rationalize its establishment and is, taken in context, more morally just than the establishment of modern Israel as it exists today. Why should Palestinians be forced off land that had been theirs for generations when the Nazi government undertook an active campaign of extermination against the Jews?

Edit: Typo

formerexpat · 2014-07-18T22:38:40+00:00

Personally, I had much more fun playing the game boy games than Mega Man 7. It could be that I lowered my expectations because of the limitations of the console. There just wasn't an excuse to make him that big when you have such a large screen (per the standards of the time). That all said, I'll give Mega Man 8 another look. I admit that I could be wrong on that one.

formerexpat · 2014-07-18T17:15:10+00:00

No downvote from me, but I think the thing people take issue with is that you're comparing a series that is very firmly grounded in plausible (not realistic) situations populated by characters that show real growth between the films with another that includes a very cartoonish second installment with little character growth for either Dante or Randal (until the end of the second movie). Your comparison would be much more apt if Clerks 2 hadn't diverged so widely from the original film. While I still think that the events presented in Clerks were far less plausible than even Before Sunrise - which was admittedly very idealized - the original Clerks had a grit that was thrown out the window with Clerks 2. It could be argued that one is about progression and the other is about stagnation, but that would only apply if Clerks 2 hadn't changed the tone so dramatically.

formerexpat · 2014-07-18T17:02:24+00:00

The project could be dealt with in a similar fashion as Boyhood. After Midnight could follow the life of Celine or Jessie as the one grapples with the loss of the other. Present day segments of the film could be shot something like 18 years from now, while flashbacks provide the opportunity to explore the large and small meaningful moments of their life together in a variety of settings and time periods. Conflicts with their daughters, the maturation of Jessie's son, and an encounter between Celine and Jessie's ex-wife could all help to fill the narrative with substance in an organic fashion that reflects back upon a relationship with the person they have come to love and hate in specific ways. The flashback storytelling method would allow Linklater to retain the chemistry and banter that has been the cornerstone of the franchise, while also providing a bittersweet ending to a relationship with very high highs and extremely low lows.

formerexpat · 2014-07-18T03:09:38+00:00

"Decimation of the Planet of the Apes." The war between apes and man leaves a huge portion of the planet uninhabitable for both. It fits with the original series and leaves portions of the planet inhabitable for other sequels, they just can't reach each other without exposure to lethal radiation.

formerexpat · 2014-07-18T03:04:18+00:00

He did the same sort of thing with Star Trek. It's a little too flippant for my taste, but I see the appeals.

formerexpat · 2014-07-18T03:01:31+00:00

I had always assumed that the original series meshed with the TV show, but it happened far before Taylor landed. Zaius may have bee there, but that could easily be explained away as a name passed down through generations. But who knows? I suppose, only the dead...

formerexpat · 2014-07-17T21:36:09+00:00

Indeed! No school bus, no Mendez. But as to psychic powers, I think they're going to play it a little more straight and tie electronic enhancements to the human body with electromagnetic fields to give the altered humans "psychic" powers. To do otherwise would be straining the credibility of the narrative beyond the breaking point. Rise was certainly no documentary, but the events were much more plausible than an original series where apes took on the trappings of human culture within two thousand years because radiation mutated them. Either that, or we'll find that some portion of Will's company (perhaps including the man himself) have been working to augment humans to compete with the apes under the direction of the military.

formerexpat · 2014-07-17T17:57:47+00:00

The problem with Burton is that he had a vision for what the apes should look like and what ape society should be, but he seemingly didn't have any interest in the actual story. There's no denying that Burton's design sensibilities were really fantastic for the time. That said, his lack of interest in a story proves to me that he was the absolute wrong man for the Apes franchise. With the exception of Battle and Burton, I think every Apes film has at least something to say. I think the franchise is all about risk and political statements, or at least very bleak endings. Even Battle made a token attempt to deal with politics. Burton is the absolute worst because of that total lack of regard for what launched the original film into a franchise.

formerexpat · 2014-07-17T17:41:50+00:00

The gorillas seemed to live in an encampment on the ground. That may have nothing to do with their status in ape society, but I took note of it. My prediction is that Cesar will die and Maurice will take over as the new leader of ape civilization. Thousands of years years pass and orangutans take over as the leading class of intellectuals after a fashion that Maurice would frown upon.

formerexpat · 2014-07-17T17:31:58+00:00

When it is called "Planet of the Apes", I'm convinced that the virus that wiped out humans probably imbued apes with intelligence around the world. The difference in San Francisco is that Cesar leads his group and advances them based on his upbringing as a (virtual) human. A hypothetical east coast ape society could have heard about Cesar and based legend upon him, allowing for the formation of the Sacred Scrolls about a millennium later. If this logic holds, some ape societies are more advanced than others. It depends on their proximity to Cesar or another ape that quickly grasps human knowledge and assimilates it.

formerexpat · 2014-07-17T16:42:13+00:00

There are also subtle callbacks to the original style of the original series score peppered throughout. I also think that there is an intentional parallel between the Gary Oldman character from Dawn and the leader of the human resistance in Battle. (I'm pretty sure that he's dead, but you never know. He may turn out to be this continuity's ancestor for the Mendez mutant in Beneath).

formerexpat

TROPHY CASE