Sunday, September 11, 2011
Bullies can be stopped
When bullies are accustomed to rolling over everyone in sight with zero resistance, a surprisingly small counterforce can slow them down or stop them.
Reprinting something I wrote in 2006:
Now we find Turkey applying a very small counterforce against the world's greatest bully, Israel.
This is the first time in several decades that the bully has shown any signs of backing down, any attempt to 'mend relations' with anyone. Until now, Israel has been able to use its own forces plus the combined economic, military, psychological and diplomatic forces of all the Western fucking idiots to fend off even the slightest criticism, the slightest hint of less-than-total submission.
Turkey hasn't even kicked Israel's skateboard into the street! Just issued some standard diplomatic indications of extreme displeasure. Just hard talk and gestures. But hard talk is a tremendous change from the previous context of total surrender by all of the bully's neighbors. And in human behavior, it's always the Delta that counts!
Reprinting something I wrote in 2006:
Back in Oklahoma, my not-so-academic friends used to talk about feeling froggy. I never understood it fully, except that it meant ready for a fight. For whatever reason, I had never experienced this state of being.
Never, that is, until 1998. At that time downtown Spokane was overrun by skateboarding assholes, who enjoyed playing cat-and-mouse games with unsuspecting adults. One afternoon a skateboarding asshole was playing with me; he skidded in front and cut me off, then saw that I was crossing a street, and zoomed across to cut me off on the other side. Right then I had absolutely had it. I didn't feel angry or hot; just ready to do whatever was necessary. Ready to calmly smash his miserable head through the nearest window if that was necessary. In other words, froggy. I kicked his skateboard into the air; it landed in the middle of the street. I said simply "Get out of the way", then walked on toward my destination, ready for whatever might happen. He squawked for a while, threatening to do innumerable and unspeakable things to my white ass, but he did nothing.
After that day, no skateboarding assholes bothered me. Not one, not ever.
Now we find Turkey applying a very small counterforce against the world's greatest bully, Israel.
Turkey's foreign minister says the prime minister will not cross the border into the Gaza Strip during his trip to Egypt but warns that Israel faces "growing isolation" in the region.
Ahmet Davutoğlu said Sunday that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who visits Egypt Monday, will also travel to Tunisia and Libya, but will limit his itinerary to those destinations.
Israel has had strained relations recently with both Turkey and Egypt, where rioters ransacked the Israeli embassy. A visit to Gaza by Erdoğan could spike tensions following Israel's refusal to apologize for its raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed nine pro-Palestinian activists last year.
Israel says it "will act to lower the flames" and try to mend relations with Turkey.
This is the first time in several decades that the bully has shown any signs of backing down, any attempt to 'mend relations' with anyone. Until now, Israel has been able to use its own forces plus the combined economic, military, psychological and diplomatic forces of all the Western fucking idiots to fend off even the slightest criticism, the slightest hint of less-than-total submission.
Turkey hasn't even kicked Israel's skateboard into the street! Just issued some standard diplomatic indications of extreme displeasure. Just hard talk and gestures. But hard talk is a tremendous change from the previous context of total surrender by all of the bully's neighbors. And in human behavior, it's always the Delta that counts!
Labels: Turkey
¶ 6:34 AM
