Roger Waters-Nick Mason: Why Stones shouldn’t play Israel

[Goat Boy]

On a roll? You are fucking deluded. Seriously....FUCK OFF YOU HYPOCRITICAL WANKER.

[Quaco]

I think we're forgetting the real point here, which is that the Stones shouldn't play anywhere in this day and age.

[Jimbo]

On a roll? You are fucking deluded. Seriously....FUCK OFF YOU HYPOCRITICAL WANKER.

Wait, I called you a hypocrite. You - and Roger Waters - have no real reason to support the Palestinians over Iraqis, Native Americans, Indian untouchables, the homeless, drug addicts, stray animals. How am I hypocritical? Without your usual asininity tell me how that is.

[Belle Lettre]

Well maybe she can knock some sense into you then.

Hey, Jimbo, still got that lotion in your desk drawer hon?

Seriously, have a look at this article and the work the Zochrot group are trying to do. They are good guys. You should be supporting them! that kibbutz you worked on might well have been built over the rubble of Arab villages.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... ot-history

[northernsky]

Israël... it seems so stubbornly and stupidly unwilling to enter any serious peace process. A situation that's been going on now since... 1967? 1970? 1980? I am no historian and am open to correction.

A ruse

No, not entirely. A hopeless enterprise? Perhaps.
But I would urge anyone who's interested and who has read this far (and why would you have, if you're not?) to check out the brief diagnosis/solution proposed by the late and much lamented Tony Judt:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2003/oct/23/israel-the-alternative/

2000 or so words of radical common sense.
Some things have changed in the last 10 years.
But not so much.

[Jimbo]

Well maybe she can knock some sense into you then.

Hey, Jimbo, still got that lotion in your desk drawer hon?

Seriously, have a look at this article and the work the Zochrot group are trying to do. They are good guys. You should be supporting them! that kibbutz you worked on might well have been built over the rubble of Arab villages.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... ot-history

A problem is many Palestinians in the region are more like the native Americans, more aboriginal, no offense, than the largely European Jews who took over the place. I wonder if, as part of a solution, could Palestinians be happy if, in the western territories, they were presented with modern Israeli-type settlements which resemble American suburban housing projects and not their quaint, farming villages of old. Me, I'd say hell yeah to a garage and a dishwasher.

[The Modernist]

I can't believe the naivety of what you just wrote there. Staggering.
They don't live in shacks because they're primitive people who are unfamiliar with western comforts, they're not some tribe in the fucking Amazon!
They live in those conditions because they have no jobs, they live in those conditions because their land has been taken and they've been shovelled into shanty towns, they live in those conditions because their water has been siphoned off. You are unbelievable.

[Bungo the Mungo]

I wonder if, as part of a solution, could Palestinians be happy if, in the western territories, they were presented with modern Israeli-type settlements which resemble American suburban housing projects and not their quaint, farming villages of old. Me, I'd say hell yeah to a garage and a dishwasher.

That's honestly one of the stupidest and most ignorant statements I've ever seen on BCB. And you're a teacher?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

[Jimbo]

Fair enough. I'm chastised. Truly stupid of me.

My ignorance aside, those settlements are pretty nice. Build a few more for the Palestinians - there's plenty of land in the west bank - and maybe a solution could be had.

[Foxhound]

Fuck. You're all thinking like aging hippies and other assorted wimps. The Rolling Stones have made a career out of offending the straight-laced and I'd be surprised and disappointed if the Stones now deviated from the "Screw you" attitude in which they've gloried from the very start of their careers.

What old Keith should do in this situation is say "Screw you man, I like my money!" and set his dogs on any petitioning Pink Floyd member who dares to darken his doorway. Now that would draw both the headlines and the assault charges that we long time Stones fans so love! And of course they'd sell tens of thousands more concert tickets. As they say "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

Can you explain your emoticon given that your post seems entirely humour free?

Really? Do all you Brits hate dogs or is it septuagenerians with earrings you despise? If you'd shed those politically correct blinkers of yours, you might on occasion recognize a well-turned phrase when you see one.

Fucking hell. Someone who still takes the Rolling Stones seriously and thinks that they stand for anything other than themselves and their bank accounts!

Fucking hell. Another daft bloke who looks to rock musicians for insights into the human condition. Hint - that daft bloke would be you. I'm not the one here taking these rock musicians seriously. I simply expect them to play for their dinner. It's "Shut up and play son. I'm not paying to hear your political opinions."







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[Foxhound]

I think we're forgetting the real point here, which is that the Stones shouldn't play anywhere in this day and age.

No. The Stones know enough to play anywhere they can make a buck. They leave the talk of boycotts to doddering old fools such as Roger Waters and the less intellectually inclined members of this board.

[Muskrat]

Gilmour wasn't a founder member

And Syd wasn't available for comment.

[...]

Fuck. You're all thinking like aging hippies and other assorted wimps. The Rolling Stones have made a career out of offending the straight-laced and I'd be surprised and disappointed if the Stones now deviated from the "Screw you" attitude in which they've gloried from the very start of their careers.

What old Keith should do in this situation is say "Screw you man, I like my money!" and set his dogs on any petitioning Pink Floyd member who dares to darken his doorway. Now that would draw both the headlines and the assault charges that we long time Stones fans so love! And of course they'd sell tens of thousands more concert tickets. As they say "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

Can you explain your emoticon given that your post seems entirely humour free?

Really? Do all you Brits hate dogs or is it septuagenerians with earrings you despise? If you'd shed those politically correct blinkers of yours, you might on occasion recognize a well-turned phrase when you see one.

Fucking hell. Someone who still takes the Rolling Stones seriously and thinks that they stand for anything other than themselves and their bank accounts!

Fucking hell. Another daft bloke who looks to rock musicians for insights into the human condition. Hint - that daft bloke would be you. I'm not the one here taking these rock musicians seriously. I simply expect them to play for their dinner. It's "Shut up and play son. I'm not paying to hear your political opinions."

Sorry, mate, I;m not the one who implied I was looking to rock stars for insights into the human condition, I merely gently poked fun at you for thinking that anyone here (or anywhere else for that matter) really gave a shit about the Stones or their views.

You're beginning to sound like one of those Japanese soldiers who were still hiding out in the hills of the Philippines 30 years after the war had finished, only in your case you've been stuck up a tree in Knebworth Park since the Stones played there in the summer of 76

[...]

Fair enough. I'm chastised. Truly stupid of me.

My ignorance aside, those settlements are pretty nice. Build a few more for the Palestinians - there's plenty of land in the west bank - and maybe a solution could be had.

Why don't we include a nice high-end audio system with a CD collection of the Stones, Floyd, et al, for the Palestinians to listen to when they move in. That would keep em quiet for a bit*

* assuming they've got some electricity, of course

[Deebank]

Jimbo - pretty much uniquely here I reckon - is big enough to admit when he's wrong. I expect the Palestinians want to build their own nice houses on their own land though.

Not aimed at anyone here in particular, but to counter the argument of 'Why does Israel get all the criticism? There are worse places!"
Israel is a 'bad' place that is bankrolled by and is a close ally of the west (Europe US). Thus leverage could and should be applied to Israel to hasten positive change and encourage engagement.

And anyway, rock bands and other entertainers get all sorts of shit when they visit dubious regimes. Rodman in North Korea, Sting playing for El Presidente in oil-rich central asian dictatorships - that sort of thing.

Israel and its supporters have done very well for themselves deploying the anti-semitism bomb every time they face censure. The Waters and Mason thread on Facebook is full people calling them anti-semitic. It is a brave entertainer that pokes his head above the parapet in this atmosphere and for that they should be applauded.

[Jimbo]

Israel and its supporters have done very well for themselves deploying the anti-semitism bomb every time they face censure. The Waters and Mason thread on Facebook is full people calling them anti-semitic. It is a brave entertainer that pokes his head above the parapet in this atmosphere and for that they should be applauded.

I'm not saying they are. I'm not saying they aren't. They could be. Some people are. I think the defensiveness/over-sensitivity of Jews is sort of understandable when the singling out of Israel is done mostly by gentiles when - back to my argument - there are other baddies in the world to pick on. Why Israel, they wonder. Eliminating how much worse their actions are compared to other nations they themselves will find some rational and conclude that they aren't that much worse. Many Jews will think they're better, i.e., look at how well we treat Jews! So, by the process of elimination, Jews and Israelis figure the vilification of Israel could be because a lot of people simply don't like Jews. History does bear this out. But perhaps you are implying calling Waters and Mason anti-Semites is just a cynical tool to win the argument. Could be. Chinese play a similar card with the Japanese. Chinese suffered a similar fate to the Jews in WWII. Japanese whom I know think labeling the Japanese as China haters is obnoxious because these Japanese say they don't particularly dislike the Chinese. But some Japanese do dislike Chinese. And on it goes.

And you know what, I applaud Waters and Mason for taking action, for taking an active political stand. I'm so apathetic it's ridiculous. Look, Sting has his rain forest, Paul and Morrisey have vegetarianism, John had PEACE, couldn't the Pink Floyd boys find another cause? Please.

And Waters and Mason won't win. Maybe they should campaign to raise money for poor Palestinian children, get them college scholarships. But they think by getting the Stones to back out they will embarrass Israel so much Israel will tear down that giant wall and go back to the old borders. Fat chance. At this point the situation in Israel is so intractable Waters and Mason may as well be protesting the hardness of rocks. The best solution lies in that essay above saying how Jews and Arabs should all get real, join the 21st century and create one new integrated nation. We can only hope.

[Muskrat]

Now I'm torn. Whom should I rely upon as my moral compass -- Bono, or Roger Waters & Nick Mason?


*not that they don't always disagree

[The Modernist]

.

[algroth]

Two things to note in the "Native American" argument: a) the Native Americans do not have their basic human rights taken away from them in the US or in most (maybe all, I don't know) reasonably civilised countries, and the way the matters concerning indigenous peoples are dealt with today involves none of the violence, brutality or even hostility Israel employs against Palestine; b) the cases such as Indian unthouchability which go against one's human rights do not preclude the fact that what Israel are doing is wrong, the same way the fact that people are murdered all around the globe does not right any one instance of murder.

[der nister]

May 8
The Residents
Tel Aviv, Israel
Barby

They'll be doing their Stones' show.