Comment trail:

* Engage

"And when would this - err boycott thing - be lifted? What does Israel do to be relieved of this punishment?"

Good luck trying to coax a clear answer to this question. The coyness of Deborah's earlier statement points to an aimless, hazy, luxurious kind of boycott, deliberately open-ended; something along the lines of this idea:

"... And you should, if you please,
refuse Till the conversion of the Jews."

* The Drink Soaked Trots

* Bob From Brockley (Whenever I mention Bob's blog I have to resist the urge to write: Bob of Broccoli, may the gods, and Bob, forgive me)

Rowan Williams on good and bad imperialism

* Terry Glavin: Chavez Vows Inquiry Into 200-year-old Conspiracy, Cover-up, In Bolivar "Murder"


* From Tehran with Love (a micro-mini symposium on the translation of poetry)

Almost forgot about this blog:

* The Sojourner Truth Here is the comment which I submitted yesterday but has not yet been posted:

Quote “Fascism is a revolutionary form of right-wing populism, inspired by a totalitarian vision of collective rebirth, that challenges capitalist control of the state while defending class exploitation.”

Can I please get a translation into comprehensible language? When I encounter this kind of overwrought formulation my usual gullible nature springs to alert mode: What is the speaker trying to hide here? What’s “a totalitarian vision of collective rebirth”?

I also wonder at Mike that he finds it necessary to condemn the Israeli Jewish woman who courageously braved the "we are all Hamas and Hizballa “ crowd when she “presumed" "to define the acceptable limits of Palestinian resistance. "

My own knowledge is that Palestinians believe there are no acceptable limits to their "resistance", a term, which is a euphemism for an ideology and praxis of killing systematically, Israeli citizens, preferably kids, and women of childbearing age. Strange that of all the people you mention and quote in your exposition, you single out the "Jewish Israeli woman" for opprobrium.

And this, in the context of a presentation purporting to discuss how you, noble Rococo leftists, plan to fight "Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and Fascism".

Laughable, really.