OPINION & EDITORIAL
Yet another Middle East article
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Also by Jack Garigliano:
- Tuition raise continues daunting trend (October 25, 2007)
- Republicans overreact to UW e-mail (October 11, 2007)
- Music downloads still safe (September 28, 2007)
- College Dems do it dirty, focus on 'ass'inine issues (September 13, 2007)
- Tibetan flag flap should blow over (May 2, 2007)
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- Horowitz speaks; now it's your turn (September 27, 2001)
- Newspapers must take extreme care in dealing with victim identity (February 2, 2006)
- Opinion page needs more guest feedback (March 30, 2006)
- Abandoning the sideshow (September 4, 2006)
by Jack Garigliano
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Reading the opinion section of The Badger Herald, I am troubled by the disturbing number of opinions contaminating the page. Opinions are insidiously infectious little germs. They cause their victims to do nothing but whine, whine, whine. If the victim is not quarantined in time, hapless bystanders will soon complain that the first victim is whining for all the wrong reasons and a vicious cycle of opinions will soon swallow the immediate population in a swirling, pestilential torrent.
"The Cosby Show should air Wednesdays at eight," one might say. "Why must the powers that be move the program to Tuesdays at three, in direct conflict with my chemistry lab? Truly, I am sick with despair." "Indeed not," another would reply. "I tutor underprivileged children on Wednesdays; the change in the broadcast's schedule makes me positively feverish with joy." Indeed, the opinion sickness is so prevalent that I must resort to using a rather trite example to avoid accusations of flippancy from those contaminated with the relevant strain of opinion.
To be fair, an opinion can occasionally have beneficial side effects that extend beyond mere whining. Some people today are able to put their opinions to good use. For simplicity's sake, let us use protest rallies as an example. Millions of people worldwide used their opinions to publicly rally against the Iraq War, as many also did 40 years ago during the Vietnam War. Allow me to insert a disclaimer: The use of rioting and violence here and overseas is an example of active opinionating taken too far. While historically effective on at least a temporary scale, it is never something to encourage or look upon with fondness. Active opposition, using our first example, since the initial outbreak four years ago has decreased markedly. A rally in Madison last Sunday drew no more than two dozen, while the last gay rights protest in Madison attracted barely two and a half dozen. This does not mean that people in the current and last couple of years have any shortage of opinions.
Here is the part where I present another example. I am going to say one word, and this word will trigger a pre-conditioned reaction in many of your heads. Anything I say about said word will cause the same people to immediately judge this entire article based on any opinion I may give to that word alone. Are you ready? Here it comes: Israel!
This issue has been fodder for perhaps the greatest number of opinions published on these very pages, certainly in the last month; eight articles concerning Israel have been published in that time. Half of these publications directly rebuked a previous article, and the majority of them unleashed a fury of feedback in the form of online response. The essence of the responses ranged from "You are wrong" to "You are right," with added bits of witticism thrown in here and there (Sarcasm again? That is so original). The troubling thing about most — though certainly not all — of these articles and their online responses is their eerily well-defined opinion of who should be blamed for the seething unrest in the region and what exactly should be done to stop it. With one exception, none of the writers has ever even visited the region.
Opinions of this particular nature create a massive amount of presumption. The victims passively collect information, then take the desirable parts and sort them — if someone has not already done so for them — until the casualties presume to know what is best for those crazy foreigners living on the other side of the globe. I mean, those are facts, and you obviously can't argue with facts, and thus the opinions — the passive, constricting opinions — are born. The fact is, in my opinion (irony, get it?), the deep-seated sectarian opinions held by the violent inhabitants of the Middle East is such that no one raised this side of the Prime Meridian can ever truly hope to understand or appreciate it, and the history of the region includes so much widespread violence, "warranted" or not, that to point fingers at who started what or who should back down first is irrelevant and useless, respectively. Better to do your best to quell those opinions and leave them to more positively affect those who actively work to resolve the issue, and, hopefully, as a result of their actual involvement, have more constructive, realistic opinions to offer.
Jack Garigliano (garigliano@wisc.edu) is a freshman majoring in English.
Anonymous (December 14, 2006 @ 5:34am):
Look, is it over the line to have a negative about opinion about Hitler? I don't think so. Likewise, Israel is a blatantly racist nation that has disenfranchised the oppressed Palestinians for decades.
Your comments about "constructive, realist opinions" may sound good ina a fashionable, liberal way, but when applied concretely turn out to be pretty absurd. There is nothing wrong with pointing out obvious injustices in this world - especially since it provides the basis for the constructive action that you so desire.
Anonymous (December 14, 2006 @ 5:28pm):
"Likewise, Israel is a blatantly racist nation that has disenfranchised the oppressed Palestinians for decades."
F*$# you, Nazi boy! Apparently, you support terrorism, Which is exactly what the Palestinians are really all about. Why would you even care about a people who willingly chose a terrorist organization-Hamas-to represent it? Does that really sound like they want peace? And all you can do is bitch at the Israelis for striking back when they are attacked.
By the way, have you noticed that the Palestinians are now on the brink of civil war? Maybe you should concentrate your efforts on resolving THAT conflict instead of making an ass of yourself. Liberals suck!
Anonymous (December 14, 2006 @ 5:30pm):
"...Israel is a blatantly racist nation..."
Israelis are racially Middle-Eastern, like the Palestinians. How could they be racist? Or are you just another one of those idiots who still believes in the Jewish race myth?
Anonymous (December 14, 2006 @ 8:37pm):
The Palestinians are enemies of the United States. Israel is a steadfast ally of the United States.
Those are the facts that should drive our actions.
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.
Anonymous (December 14, 2006 @ 10:09pm):
"With one exception, none of the writers has ever even visited the region."
Just two weeks ago Andre Granias, who is on the same flipping page as you are in today's paper, wrote an article on Israel with his main theme being about his experiences there. Read your own damn paper before writing in it.
This article made no sense. Enough with writing about Israel. Please.
Anonymous (December 14, 2006 @ 11:06pm):
Yes, those poor Palestinians. We shouldn't criticize them for their terrorist attacks against public buses, shopping malls, pizza parlors, coffee shops, and a bunch of Jews sitting down to celebrate the traditional Passover meal.
Anonymous (December 15, 2006 @ 8:02am):
You wrote: "Reading the opinion section of The Badger Herald, I am troubled by blah-blah-blah..."
We read: "I'm a loner with no redeeming social importance, a terminally hopless nerd whose only special talent is masturbating with my older brother's slide ruler, I still live at home in my parents' basement..."
Anonymous (December 15, 2006 @ 9:03am):
Given the way Palestinians kill each other, I guess you can't expect them not to kill Jews. But you must not expect the Jews to just sit around waiting to be killed.
Anonymous (December 15, 2006 @ 11:26pm):
Darn those mean Jews being mean to those peaceful Palis.
***
Twenty Palestinians were wounded, two critically, in exchanges of fire between warring factions in the Palestinian Authority Friday.
Sixteen people were wounded in Ramallah, four in Gaza. Fatah officials reported that several Hamas gunmen have barricaded themselves in the Nazer mosque in the city of Ramallah and are firing at Fatah and Palestinian security forces inside the mosque compound.
Witnesses added that PA security forces have begun covering their faces with masks as they try to overpower protestors and gunmen from both factions, mostly against Hamas.
The atmosphere in the city is reminiscent of a battlefield say residents, against the soundtrack of massive gunfire.
Anonymous (December 15, 2006 @ 11:51pm):
"WHEN IS NBC NEWS GOING TO PRONOUNCE civil war in 'Palestine'?"
Anonymous (December 16, 2006 @ 11:11am):
i'm pretty irritated by the quality of your piece. frustrated that the badger herald would print something NOT promoting diverse and vibrant opinions. please stop writing.
Anonymous (December 18, 2006 @ 9:39pm):
Palestinian gunmen waged a street battle outside the residence of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas around dawn Monday, dashing hopes that an overnight truce would bring quiet to the Gaza Strip. Elsewhere, the bullet-riddled body of a top security officer affiliated with Fatah, Col. Adnan Rahmi, was discovered in northern Gaza several hours after he disappeared, Palestinian medical officials and his family said. No group took responsibility, but Rahmi's family blamed Hamas for the killing." Apparently, the Palestinian leadership isn't any better at keeping cease-fires with other Palestinian groups than it is at keeping cease fires with the Israelis.
Anonymous (December 19, 2006 @ 1:31pm):
Obviously the U.S. invasion of Palestine and the toppling of Arafat were mistakes, creating a quagmire of sectarian strife which despite official denials is now turning into open civil -- oops, wrong story template. That should have been: "It's all the Israelis' fault!"
http://instapundit.com/archives2/2006/12/post_1142.php
