illspam (NoMoreChess) wrote:
Nick wrote:
Here's what Edward Lasker wrote about nationalism:

"My French friend proved to be a very interesting fellow, remarkably mature
for his 18 years. He was studying mathematics at the Sorbonne, and we
compared notes on the French and German system of education. Basically,
there did not seem to be much difference. ... In both countries the
youngsters were indoctrinated with the most stupid kind of nationalism.
The result was that every German boy reached maturity with the conviction
that everything in Germany was better than in any other country; and every
French boy reached maturity with the same conviction regarding France.
In later years, when I lived in England and in the United States, I was
much surprised to find that the same methods were used, as a matter of
course, in Anglo-Saxon schools. I do not wonder that we had two world wars."
--Edward Lasker ('Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters', p. 135)

I think Mr. Lasker was correct.

However, it is mistaken to refer to American schools as "Anglo-Saxon."
Here in America. there are many different peoples, from a diverse range of
ancestries, only one of which is "Anglo-Saxon." The idea of American schools
being comprised of homogenous "Anglo-Saxons" is almost racist, in addition to
being erroneous. ...

Edward Lasker showed a tendency to make some oversimplified generalizations.

"The kind of chess which I saw at the Regence (in Paris) was not very
impressive when compared with what I had been up against in Berlin.
For some reason the French people had not produced a first class chess master
since Philidor and La Bourdonnais, just as chess in Spain and Italy had failed
to live up to the great promise shown in the days of Ruy Lopez and Greco or
Stamma. Perhaps the quick Romanic (sic) tournament is not as conducive to
good chess as the more contemplative character of Northern people. The latter
are more drawn to the study of intellectual games and this provides a broad
background from which masters develop more readily. If it were not for this
lack of chess background, one would expect France to produce outstanding
masters. For chess mastery requires a mind capable of scientific thinking
and one gifted at the same time with a flair for artistic creation. And a
country which produced an Henri Poincare and a Cezanne should certainly be
fertile ground for rearing another Philidor."
--Edward Lasker ('Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters', pp. 132-3)

Would Edward Lasker have believed that Bobby Fischer's 'chess mastery'
demonstrated that Fischer must have 'a mind capable of scientific thinking
and one gifted at the same time with a flair for artistic creation'?

--Nick

..
Would Edward Lasker have believed that Bobby Fischer's 'chess mastery'
demonstrated that Fischer must have 'a mind capable of scientific thinking
and one gifted at the same time with a flair for artistic creation'?


Edward Lasker seems to have ignored the importance of accurate
*visualisation* (correctly "seeing" the position after mental moves), and his
phrase "scientific thinking" gives a very broad impression, while it is
sufficient to merely calculate variations correctly in order to play strong
tactical chess.
This is more like skill at math (the "language" of science).

As for artistic creation, this gift is nice to have, and comes in handy when
seeking a brilliancy prize or consolation for not placing first overall, but a
pleasing style is not so very important when it comes to merely getting
results. Fischer once called Em. Lasker "a coffeehouse player," but he did not
-- nor could have have -- berate the man's results, only his style. Fischer's
own style was sometimes called into question, for he was something of a
materialist -- snatching pawns and relying upon his superior calculative
ability to survive to the endgame, with his material booty intact. Of course,
the average Joe prefers the sacrificial style, even if it doesn't fit the
position.




"In Great Brittain, we don't take Kings, so."


"We do in America!" -- Ben Franklin

(DDEckerslyke) wrote in message
. com...
Complete the following sentence in ten words or less
Being proud of your country is like being proud of ...

'In fact, as a woman, I have no country.'
--Virginia Woolf (1938)

I once heard the idea that a flag should be replaced by a picture
of your mum and dad having sex. This seems to sum it up nicely.

"She will find that she has no good reason to ask her brother to fight
on her behalf to protect 'our' country. '"Our country"', she will say,
'throughout the greater part of its history has treated me as a slave, it
has denied me education or any share in its possessions. "Our" country
still ceases to be mine if I marry a foreigner. "Our" country denies me
the means of protecting myself, forces me to pay others a very large sum
annually to protect me, and is so little able, even so, to protect me that
Air Raid precautions are written on the wall. Therefore, if you insist upon
fighting to protect me, or "our" country, let it be understood soberly and
rationally between us, that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which
I cannot share; to procure benefits which I have not shared and probably will
not share; but not to gratify my instincts, or to protect myself or my country.
For', the outsider will say, 'in fact, as a woman, I have no country.'"
--Virginia Woolf (Three Guineas, pp. 165-6)

--Nick

(DDEckerslyke) wrote in message
. com...
Complete the following sentence in ten words or less
Being proud of your country is like being proud of ...

I once heard the idea that a flag should be replaced by a picture of
your mum and dad having sex. This seems to sum it up nicely.

Should one's passport(s) determine one's fundamental human identity?

"One summer I was taking part in an international symposium on Palestine
for NGOs in Geneva. I took Radwa (his wife) and Tamim (his son)...
We (a Palestinian family) drove across the border in two cars. The policeman
stepped forward and asked for the passports. We collected them and gave them
to him, and he saw an amazing sight: in his hands were passports from all over
the world--Jordan, Syria, the United States, Algeria, Britain, even Belize--
and the names in all of them showed that their holders were from one family:
all Barghoutis. Add to that Radwa's Egyptian passport and Emil Habibi's
Israeli passport--for he had come from Nazareth to take part ... I understood
from the French speakers among us that the policeman asked for an explanation
of this cocktail of travel documents, but when someone started to explain to
him he interrupted, laughing: 'That's enough! I don't want to understand.'"
--Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, pp. 138-9,
translated from the Arabic by Ahdaf Soueif)

"In my opinion it is impossible for anyone at the beginning of the
twenty-first century to believably claim a single identity. One difficulty
of our times is that people restrict their concerns to ever smaller details,
and that they often have little sense of how things are intermingled with
one another, and together form part of a whole."
--Daniel Barenboim ('Germans, Jews, and Music', 29 March 2001,
The 'New York Review of Books')

"We tend to think of borders as something absolute, as if God himself drew
them. But any person with an open mind and modicum of moral courage knows
that borders are a human fabrication. Human beings remain human beings
regardless of which side of the border they live on. Nonetheless, people want
to belong. They need to belong. You can belong to your street or village, or
race, or continent, or you can belong to the human race in general. When my
ideas began to take shape after 1967, I arrived at the conclusion that perhaps
my ultimate aim was to become a citizen of the world."
--Salah Ta'mari to Amos Oz (quoted by Aharon Barnea in 'Mine Enemy', p. 44)

"I heard interesting comments from (Palestinian) intellectuals who saw in the
streets of the Intifada and in people's behaviour during its first years a rare
actualization of the (Palestinian) national spirit, which was being shaped
naturally every day, in spite of all the sacrifices. Now the significations
are confused. Abu Muhammad, one of our old neighbours, said to me: 'Raising
a small Palestinian flag on the roof of the school or a house or even on the
electric wires used to cost young men their lives. (Israel's Prime Minister)
Rabin's army used to fire at anyone who tried to raise one flag, and we gave
martyrs throughout the Intifada just to raise a flag. Now the (Palestinian)
flag is everywhere--behind the desk of every civil servant down to the smallest
clerk.'"
--Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, p. 141)

--Nick

AntiZionist
.com...
makes propaghanda in his dirty style (any pretxt is
good for this cowardish AntiZionist phoney
"Nick Bourbaki"):

"Abu Muhammad, one of our old neighbours, said to me: 'Raising
a small Palestinian flag on the roof of the school or a house
or even on the electric wires used to cost young men their
lives. (Israel's Prime Minister) Rabin's army used to fire
at anyone who tried to raise one flag, and we gave
martyrs throughout the Intifada just to raise a flag.

I am sure that an Abu could say something like
this. But it is of course an urban story (if not
an outright junk).

Now the (Palestinian) flag is everywhere--behind
the desk of every civil servant down to the smallest
clerk.'"
--Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, p. 141)

Now the so-called militants and martyrs are
murderers always ready to murder people, including
children, in kindergartens, synagogs, restarants,
public transportation buses, supermarkets...
Just give them a chance and they will murder.

India got free of Brittain. Countries of the communist
block got free of the Soviet domination and of
communism. Even in Russia communism went down.
All this happened mostly in a non-violent way.

Palestine had a wonderful chance to get their
freedom by peaceful means. They were in a much better
situation than India or countries of the communist block.
But the dirty oil money and the stupid Western European
money preferred to sponsor the murdering of Jews in Israel
and of many other people around the world. They raised
youngsters not to be engineers, doctors, artists, ...
but to be murderers. And they have support from
the AntiZionists (who too are thus to some extend
responsible for this continuing, never ending murdering
of so many people).

Wlod


--Nick

This post responds to the first part of Wlodzimierz Holsztynski's post.

(Wlodzimierz Holsztynski) wrote:

(The following personal invective was written by Wlodzimierz Holsztynski)

AntiZionist
(Nick) . ..
makes propaghanda in his dirty style
(any pretxt is good for this cowardish AntiZionist phoney "Nick Bourbaki"):

(Of course, the context was snipped by Wlodzimierz Holsztynski,
who might well have been unable to understand it.)

Please read my earlier post for yourself.

In response to Mr Eckerslyke's original question about 'patriotism'
(or 'being proud of your country'), my post touched upon some questions
about passports, identity, and borders (citing quotations by Mourid Barghouti,
Daniel Barenboim, and Salah Ta'mari). Should the Barghoutis, a Palestinian
family evidently in exile, have their personal identities determined by their
passports when they have so many different ones? At the end of my post,
I sought to raise the question about whether or not it had been worthwhile
enough for some young Palestinian men to risk and evidently sometimes even
to sacrifice their lives--by being shot by Israeli soldiers--for the sake
of raising the Palestinian flag, which was long banned by the Israel, under
Israeli military occupation.

As for the persons whom I had quoted in my earlier post:

Mourid Barghouti is a Palestinian writer in Cairo, who has won the prestigious
Naguib Mahfouz Medal for literature in Arabic. His wife, Radwa Ashour, is
also a distinguished writer.

Daniel Barenboim is a famous Israeli conductor and musician, who was a close
friend of the late Edward Said, a famous Palestinian critic of Israel.

Salah Ta'mari is a Palestinian leader, who fought against the Israelis in
the famous 1968 Battle of Karameh ('karameh' means 'dignity' in Arabic).
Salah Ta'mari's wife was married to the late King Hussein of Jordan.
Salah Ta'mari also has quite a few Israeli friends, including Amos Oz
and Aharon Barnea, an Israeli journalist who has written a book about
his unexpected friendship with Salah Ta'mari.

"*Looking at Zionism without taboos means seeing the hard reality of the
domination and oppression it has created.* Out of the original sins of
the world against the Jews grew the original sins of the Zionism against
the Palestinians. The issues are often raised through a counting and
recounting of massacres and victims on both sides. The problem is one
of principles, not atrocities. Even if nobody died, *there is something
wrong with Zionist principles*. The problem is a moral one. Raising the
moral question is not a mark of idealism but of realism.

*Admitting the injustice done to the Palestinians is so terrifying that
Israelis will try to avoid it at all costs.* Their feeling is that if they
admit any guilt, they will be punished severely and mortally, as the magnitude
of their crime warrants. They are afraid of the natives' wish for revenge.
*But there will be no reconciliation without an open admission of the basic
injustice involved in Zionism.*"

--Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism
and Israel)

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (whom I have met) is a professor at Haifa University
in Israel. (Yes, he's Jewish, and he has served in the Israel Defence Force).

From what I know of Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, he would regard someone like
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski, who evidently worships the state of Israel and
prefers to deny any facts that could seem unfavourable to Israel, with disdain.

"Abu Muhammad, one of our old neighbours, said to me: 'Raising a small
Palestinian flag on the roof of the school or a house or even on the
electric wires used to cost young men their lives. (Israel's Prime
Minister) Rabin's army used to fire at anyone who tried to raise one flag,
and we gave martyrs throughout the Intifada just to raise a flag.

I am sure that an Abu could say something like this.

Wlodzimierz Holsztynski wrote: "I am sure that *an Abu*..."
'An Abu', eh? Will any 'Abu' do for Wlodzimierz Holsztynski's purpose?
So why would Wlodzimierz Holsztynski apparently stereotype Abu Muhammad
(whom he could *not* have known) on the basis of his Arab name?
Would Wlodzimierz Holsztynski believe that all 'Abus' are alike?

But it is of course an urban story (if not an outright junk).

Then does Wlodzimierz Holsztynski believe that Israeli soldiers have *never*
fired at any Palestinians who attempted at any time to raise the Palestinian
flag under Israeli military occupation? (Displaying the Palestinian flag was
long considered a serious crime by the Israeli military authorities.)

If Wlodzimierz Holsztynski *does* believe that, then perhaps he should read
'Haaretz' (a major Israeli newspaper) more attentively.

Now the (Palestinian) flag is everywhere--behind the desk of every
civil servant down to the smallest clerk.'"
--Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, p. 141)

"'You don't like the fact that the romance has gone?'
'No, it's the absence of real sovereignty signified by the raised flag that
I don't like. Israel will not let us have sovereignty even over transport.
It still controls everything....'"
--Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, p. 141)

--Nick

(Wlodzimierz Holsztynski) wrote (about the Palestinians):
(snipped)
Now the so-called militants and martyrs are murderers always ready to
murder people, including children, in kindergartens, synagogs, restarants,
public transportation buses, supermarkets.
Just give them a chance and they will murder.

So would Wlodzimierz Holsztynski believe that the Palestinians have an
inevitable natural predisposition to murder because they enjoy it?

Here's an article, 'I would have done the same', by Yitzhak Frankenthal
for 'The Guardian' (7 August 2002). Yitzhak Frankenthal's son, Arik, a
soldier in the Israel Defence Force, was killed on 7 July 1994 by Hamas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...770326,00.html

"The worst in my mind is not what has already happened but what I am sure
one day will. And it will--because the political and military leadership
(of Israel) does not even have the most basic integrity to say: 'we are sorry'.
We (Israelis) lost sight of our ethics long before the suicide bombings.
....
Had I been born into the political and ethical chaos that is the
Palestinians' daily reality, I would certainly have tried to kill and hurt the
occupier (Israel); had I not, I would have betrayed my essence as a free man.
Let all of the self-righteous who speak of ruthless Palestinian murderers take
a hard look into the mirror and ask themselves what they would have done had
they been the ones living under (Israeli) occupation. *I can say for myself
that I, Yitzhak Frankenthal, would undoubtedly have become a freedom fighter
and would have killed as many on the other side as I possibly could.*
It is this depraved hypocrisy that pushes the Palestinians to fight us
relentlessly--our (Israel's) double standard that allows us to boast the
highest military ethics while the same military slays innocent children.
This lack of ethics is bound to corrupt us.

My son Arik was murdered when he was a soldier by Palestinian fighters who
believed in the ethical basis of their struggle against the occupation.
*My son Arik was not murdered because he was Jewish but because he is part
of the nation that occupies the territory of another.* I know these are
concepts that are unpalatable, but I must voice them loud and clear, because
they come from my heart--the heart of a father whose son did not get to live
because his people were blinded with power.

*As much as I would like to do so, I cannot say that the Palestinians are to
blame for my son's death. That would be the easy way out, but it is we,
Israelis, who are to blame because of the occupation.* Anyone who refuses
to heed this awful truth will eventually lead to our destruction.

The Palestinians cannot drive us away--they have long acknowledged our
existence. They have been ready to make peace with us; it is we who are
unwilling to make peace with them. It is we who insist on maintaining our
control over them; it is we who escalate the situation in the region and feed
the cycle of bloodshed. I regret to say it, but the blame is entirely ours.

I do not mean to absolve the Palestinians and by no means justify attacks
against Israeli civilians. No attacks against civilians can be condoned.
But as an occupation force it is we (Israelis) who trample over human dignity,
it is we who crush the liberty of Palestinians and it is we who push an
entire nation to crazy acts of despair."

--Yitzhak Frankenthal (27 July 2002, from his speech in Jerusalem)

Speaking from his heart and his tragic experience, Yitzhak Frankenthal has
given an eloquent response to the rhetoric of Wlodzimierz Holsztynski.

(snipped more nonsense by Wlodzimierz Holsztynski)

Based on his many posts written here in his intended support of Israel,
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski evidently worships the state of Israel and prefers
to deny any facts (even when they have been widely accepted by well-educated
Israelis) that could seem unfavourable toward Israel and its policies against
the Palestinians.

"Such denials are the product of political fanaticism, not of serious
investigation, and are not susceptible to rational argument."
--Richard Evans (In Hitler's Shadow, p. 143, commenting on another
kind of flagrant denial of historical facts)

"For example, certain lives had media value while others are expendable.
The killing of those of 'us' counts as a crime; the rest are unpeople."
--John Pilger (The New Rulers of the World, p. 137)

With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which has had many civilian
casualties on each side, but most of them have been Palestinian), it does not
seem too hard to tell who Wlodzimierz Holsztynski perceives as among 'us' and
who he perceives as 'unpeople'.

--Nick

Wlodzimierz Holsztynski wrote:

snip

And they have support from
the AntiZionists (who too are thus to some extend
responsible for this continuing, never ending murdering
of so many people).

I'm not 'up' on the term 'antizionist' but will assume your average
'lefty-do-good' is the same critter, albeit with a heart that bleeds
like no other, & indeed, I believe they are responsible to quite some
degree. Sadly, they seem incapable of apology..





Wlod

--Nick

Nick wrote:

(Wlodzimierz Holsztynski) wrote (about the Palestinians):

(snipped)

Now the so-called militants and martyrs are murderers always ready to
murder people, including children, in kindergartens, synagogs, restarants,
public transportation buses, supermarkets.
Just give them a chance and they will murder.

So would Wlodzimierz Holsztynski believe that the Palestinians have an
inevitable natural predisposition to murder because they enjoy it?

snipped stuff not attributable to Nick, & more importantly stuff
already read, & hence not necessary to re-read ad-nauseum. Some people
are more comfortable with indoctrination than others I guess

Speaking from his heart and his tragic experience, Yitzhak Frankenthal has
given an eloquent response to the rhetoric of Wlodzimierz Holsztynski.



(snipped more nonsense by Wlodzimierz Holsztynski)

Based on his many posts written here in his intended support of Israel,
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski evidently worships the state of Israel and prefers
to deny any facts (even when they have been widely accepted by well-educated
Israelis) that could seem unfavourable toward Israel and its policies against
the Palestinians.

With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which has had many civilian
casualties on each side, but most of them have been Palestinian), it does not
seem too hard to tell who Wlodzimierz Holsztynski perceives as among 'us' and
who he perceives as 'unpeople'.

--Nick

mmm, that's better, I've denuded your post of all the other 'dudes' you
habitually quote to back yourself up. I think I deserve a banana what!
Honestly Nick, you should try to stand on your own more, be more like
Wlod & myself for example. Happy posting..

(Nick) wrote in message . com...

(Wlodzimierz Holsztynski) wrote
(about the Palestinians):

(snipped)
Now the so-called militants and martyrs are murderers always ready to
murder people, including children, in kindergartens, synagogs, restarants,
public transportation buses, supermarkets.
Just give them a chance and they will murder.

So would Wlodzimierz Holsztynski believe that the Palestinians have an
inevitable natural predisposition to murder because they enjoy it?

Phoney coward anonimous "Nick Bourbaki", listen
carefully. A few of us are considering a class
suit against you for your lies, distortions,
smearing other people real name etc.

You think that people are idiots like you,
and some are (unless you faked some of the
idiotic support which you got, when writing
in a dishonest way about me). You will find
that a judge and jury will read your harmful
falsifications carefully. I don't think that
you have any money to pay for your deeds, so
I think that you eill do time. That will teach
you responsibility. I suggest for your own good
never call me "racist". You will not get away
with your lies and dishonesty. You better stop
smearing my name now.

Wlod

PS. Anybody, who wants to join the class suit or support
it in any way, please do it openly right here on
this list or send me an email. Enough is enough.