<< PEACENIKS FOR HALLIBURTON ~ MAIN ~ NUKE NUKE NUKE >>

BEST AND BRAVEST

Can someone please buy Antony Loewenstein a vocabulary?

I gather strength from brave Jews ...

A truly brave Israel would end the occupation immediately.

I want to see a brave new magazine that is unafraid to challenge Australia’s underlying assumptions and those of our media elite.

Christopher Hitchens ... once forthright and challenging before power and now hectoring a grieving mother. Brave stuff, indeed.

[Mark Latham] dares to prick the Murdoch worldview. Brave stuff, indeed.

[The Fairfax press are] positioning themselves as the media company best suited to pursue the new lifestyle agenda of the 21st century. Brave stuff, indeed.

As for Hersh, he’s the best journo in the world, I reckon, other than Fisk. The amount of stories they’ve both broken over the last decades. Brave stuff.

[Norman Finkelstein is] a fine and brave man.

Accusations of bias and prejudice may get the juices going of brave cultural warriors ...

Chomsky, for example, is a true libertarian, and defends free speech for all with no exceptions, a brave act in the 21st century.

If our media doesn’t provide ample protection for these brave individuals ...

Finkelstein is a brave soul ...

The Australian media have largely decided that Iraq is in such a dire state that honest and brave reporting is simply too difficult ... The British press are a little braver.

Truly brave indy publishing is something like US-based Counterpunch,

Atrocities are being reported by the few brave journalists entering the city.

A recent letter sent by a brave Israeli, Jacob Katriel ...

If this is truly the end [of Webdiary], it’s the passing of a brave, frustrating, challenging and bold experiment.

Brave, noble Israel is vital in the “War on Terror”, or so we’re told ...

Ilan Pappe, a man I respect hugely, perhaps Israel’s bravest dissenter ...

Pappe is a brave man.

Brave, little, irrelevant Australia.

What individual, other than the bravest, will want to be chastised by Bush and his cronies?

[Robert] Pape is brave enough to state that although September 11 was a horrific event it was not unique.

The ABC needs reform. New energy, ideas and bravery would be a good start.

The introduction of a private member’s bill by a brave Victorian Liberal backbencher, Petro Georgiou, is a welcome sign.

[Daniel Ellsberg’s] bravery can be summarised thus ...

Poor kid might be working through some masculinity issues. Prepare now to enter Loewenstein’s Gallery of Putting-It-Besters:

The SMH’s David Marr puts it best ...

Lynne Withey, director of the University of California Press, puts it best ...

Hitchens puts it best ...

Scott Burchill put it best ...

Phil Gomes put it best ...

Salim Lone, former spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq put it best ...

Britain’s Daily Mail put it best ...

Sher Khan, chair of the public affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, puts it best ...

Josh Marshall @ Talking Point Memo puts it best ...

Buzzflash puts it best ...

Andrew Sullivan, a blogger in the US, puts it best ...

Crikey’s editor Misha Ketchell put it best ...

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, puts it best ...

Daily Flute blog puts it best ...

UPDATE. Loewenstein puts it bravely:

I was recently appointed to the Board of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. This was due to a number of board members, and staff at Macquarie, expressing support for my work.

And what a great body of work it is! Here’s an example, from a Webdiary post in which Loewenstein invents a medical condition known as “hick-ups”:

Australians appear to be taking their history pretty seriously these days, especially if through the prism of fighting imperial wars (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan and now Iraq).

Those imperial wars led to the creation of the Australian empire, which stretches from Saigon to Berlin. Antony continues:

I was told they wanted to attract journalists, rather than just academics, to the board.

Well, why didn’t they invite an actual journalist instead of a failed online trainee?

UPDATE II. Jim Treacher—author of A Million Little Meeces—finds Antony’s poetic side.

Posted by Tim B. on 01/15/2006 at 01:26 AM
  1. putting it best bravely I suspect :-)

    Posted by Louis on 2006 01 15 at 02:41 AM • permalink

  2. With writing like that, I can’t wait to see how his crappy, upcoming book will read. 

    Not that I’ll ever find out first-hand, mind you.

    Posted by HisHineness on 2006 01 15 at 02:52 AM • permalink

  3. The man with more braves than Sitting Bull. Of course for him, the h isn’t silent.

    Posted by Zoe Brain on 2006 01 15 at 02:55 AM • permalink

  4. You do of course realise Tim, Dreamboat’s head will damn near explode with this recounting of his brave exploits. He’s already got you pegged as a stalker. This just confirms the conspiracy for the mighty Ant.

    I think Aristotle, or was it Cletus, put it best. Loewenstein’s a dick.

    Posted by CB on 2006 01 15 at 03:07 AM • permalink

  5. He’s on SBS tommorrow night bravely lying about ‘Jew-only’ roads in the West Bank.  They are Israeli only roads but that would suit the Apartheid line he’s pushing.

    Posted by Melanie on 2006 01 15 at 03:13 AM • permalink

  6. I meant it wouldn’t suit the Apartheid line he’s pushing.

    Posted by Melanie on 2006 01 15 at 03:15 AM • permalink

  7. He’s a brave man going on TV without a paper pag and the face of a pig.

    Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 01 15 at 03:31 AM • permalink

  8. I think that I am putting it best in saying that Melbourne University Press is very brave indeed.

    Posted by captain on 2006 01 15 at 03:31 AM • permalink

  9. Surely, a bravura blog with zest that - to put it best - puts originality to rest.

    Posted by tmciolek on 2006 01 15 at 03:39 AM • permalink

  10. I think brave Loewenstein, a Jew, is very brave in enthusiastically supporting the genocidal ambitions of every ranting anti-Semite and Arab car bomber in their brave quest to finish off what Hitler started. We all flatter ourselves that we have principles, but how many of us can say we are prepared to be personally murdered or driven out of our homes just to enjoy indulging in the public masturbation of leftist moral superiority?

    Oh wait, Loewenstein lives in Australia, where his own revolting, zit-scabbed commie hide is perfectly safe. It’s Israeli Jews who will be murdered and driven out or struck by an Iranian atomic bomb.

    Oh well, I still think he’s jolly brave.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 01 15 at 03:43 AM • permalink

  11. He also needs a thesaurus.

    Posted by graboy on 2006 01 15 at 03:58 AM • permalink

  12. So much bravery, so few brains.

    Posted by Crusader rabbit on 2006 01 15 at 04:12 AM • permalink

  13. Once again, Tim Blair puts it best…

    #5 Melanie, You are spot on.

    He’s on SBS tommorrow night bravely lying about ‘Jew-only’ roads in the West Bank.

    The masthead on his blog asks “Just what is the whole truth?”

    Evidently he hasn’t worked it out yet…

    In terms of his SBS appearance, he claims:

    As leading Israeli journalist Gideon Levy told me last year:

    “When you drive a road in the West Bank which is a road for only Jews, what is it if not apartheid? When you cross a checkpoint which is only open for Jews, what is it if not apartheid? If you are an Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin who tries to find in this liberal neighbourhood an apartment to rent, and you have terrible difficulties doing so because you are Palestinian, what is it if not apartheid?”

    Note the quotation marks signifying what Gideon Levy “told him”. Now read it again and ask does anybody actually speak like that?

    Regardless, anti-Zionist posterboy Gideon Levy (who isn’t actually a “leading” journalist as Loewenstein claims) and his colleague Amira Hass are of course entitled to his views as Israeli journalists. Find me a comparable dissident Palestinian who could write against the PLO and be published in an Arab newspaper without fear or murder, and I will personally eat a copy of Ha’aretz.

    When criticising Israel’s democracy, this point (like so much else) is of course lost on Brave Mr Loewenstein.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 01 15 at 04:14 AM • permalink

  14. Not only is he a shocking writer, he has been censoring a lot of plain-talking anti-Palestinian/Arab and pro-Israeli posts. He had better pray that he has a good editor otherwise he will end up looking like a goose.

    Posted by Noelenet on 2006 01 15 at 04:18 AM • permalink

  15. Sorta O/T: My flatmate wrote a letter to Tony Abbott the other day, asking him to condemn the appointment of Loewenstein to Macquarie University’s Centre for ME and N. African studies, seeing as Tony is a Patron of that ‘fine’ board.

    I’ll make sure he posts the reply on his blog, should be interesting (if he gets one). I think the link is on my name.

    Posted by anthony27 on 2006 01 15 at 04:21 AM • permalink

  16. anthony27

    Does he have any academic qualifications in the field?

    Posted by Noelenet on 2006 01 15 at 04:36 AM • permalink

  17. He’s Jewish ain’t he? What other qualifications does he need to be a plausibly-deniable academic anti-semite?

    Posted by Amos on 2006 01 15 at 04:52 AM • permalink

  18. Does my flatmate have any academic qualifications? Heh heh.. nah.

    I’m guessing Loewenstein has a BA in sociology or something nasty, but I questioned him before and he said they ‘wanted him’ because he is a journo rather than an academic.

    Posted by anthony27 on 2006 01 15 at 04:53 AM • permalink

  19. #13 Dan Lewis.  I pointed out to Antony that he lied about the roads being jewish only because they are Israeli-only and this is what he had to say:

    Pray tell the difference. An Israeli-only road only for…Jews. I’ve seen them and been on them. What exactly is unclear? There comes a time, and that time is now, that Israeli actions simply cannot be justified as “security”. Perhaps you aren’t ready for those truths.

    He can’t tell the difference?  He was on those roads and he is a Jew so that proves it?  What an idiot. 
    With his logic how can he then agrue there is a difference between an anti-Zionist and anti-Semite.

    Posted by Melanie on 2006 01 15 at 05:01 AM • permalink

  20. Remember when you were a kid and you lay there in bed saying the same word over and over, (bravely, perhaps), until that word became a meaningless string of phonemes?  And you wondered how it could ever have had any semantic meaning for you, given that it was clearly a completely arbitrary string of meat-rendered sounds?

    Brave, brave, brave, brave… (rinse, repeat)

    Posted by zeppenwolf on 2006 01 15 at 05:20 AM • permalink

  21. anthony27: He’ just posted regarding your flatmates letter

    Posted by Melanie on 2006 01 15 at 05:39 AM • permalink

  22. “Brave” is easier to spell than “courageous.” Also, wouldn’t it be “The number of stories they’ve both broken,” not “The amount of stories they’ve both broken”?

    Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 01 15 at 05:39 AM • permalink

  23. I also enjoyed this:

    As an anti-Zionist Australian Jew, the opportunity to air my views to a wide public audience are few.

    He’s a poet, but the Jew-run media won’t let him show it!

    Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 01 15 at 05:46 AM • permalink

  24. As an anti-Zionist Australian Jew, the opportunity to air my views to a wide public audience are few.

    As opposed to the rest of us who are on SBS nightly and published in the Herald daily.

    Ass.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 01 15 at 06:01 AM • permalink

  25. Jack Nicklaus was a brave putter.

    Posted by rog2 on 2006 01 15 at 07:06 AM • permalink

  26. Thanks Melanie. I was going to log into his blogger account and reply (we both use the same account here- I’m guessing the password is the same), but I’ll let him do it himself when he gets back from work.

    Dan- spot on. When was the last time SBS gave air-time to a Zionist academic? Now that I mention it- when was the last time academia gave time to a Zionist :S

    Posted by anthony27 on 2006 01 15 at 07:22 AM • permalink

  27. zeppenwolf:

    Actually, this constant use of “brave” has me thinking of the Ballad of Sir Robin.

    Posted by Patrick Chester on 2006 01 15 at 07:24 AM • permalink

  28. Bravo Tim!

    Posted by WeekByWeek on 2006 01 15 at 07:46 AM • permalink

  29. I gather strength from brave Jews ...

    Yes.  Like those who did sweet FA at Baba Yar.

    Posted by murph on 2006 01 15 at 07:54 AM • permalink

  30. wtf murph, at Babi Yar in the Ukraine circa 1942-44 the Nazis murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews. I assume you have a wrong reference.

    Posted by percypup on 2006 01 15 at 07:57 AM • permalink

  31. The Leunig ‘comment’ in The Age Saturday doubtless distracted right-thinking readers from the other side of Saturday’s op-ed spread, namely a piece by a Professor Allan Patience, titled “The neo-liberal hijack” . The Spooner cartoon that goes with it is a fittingly incoherent and nasty accompaniment.
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-neoliberal-hijack/2006/01/13/1137118964513.html
    Patience purports to re-define ‘conversatism’ as some sort of socialist-leaning wet-ism, thus excluding Howard and shifting all Liberals except Mal Fraser to some sort of hideous extremism.
    Patience’s final para goes:
    “It’s time for true conservatives to speak out against the prevailing narcissism and negativism, particular among those in the media who are poisoning a once-decent society.”
    Golly. And see his first 3 paras: the Liberal Party is being run by a ‘harem’???
    His long and pompous piece seems to reflect the left’s angst that they are being defeated in the intellectual debates by the blogs, Andrew Bolts, Mirandas, Hendersons etc and he does a real whine about it, portraying his lot as the virtuous underdogs. This is pretty rich considering the Age’s lineup of myriads of Left columnists (their ranks recently augmented by Sushi Das and Kenneth Nguyen - see Nguyen’s silly piece today p15).
    Anyway, Patience spends four columns beating up his opponents, without naming a single one of them.
    The Age heirarchy must be really insecure to have run this pathetic stuff.

    Patience seems to have been around for yonks doing the apocalyptic wet commentariat thing. see for example http://evatt.labor.net.au/news/12.html

    Posted by percypup on 2006 01 15 at 08:04 AM • permalink

  32. Nice work, Tim.

    Obviously, only leftists can be brave.

    To test that assumption, try this: In some public forum, attribute “bravery” to a non-leftist who’s risked his reputation, wealth, or career to “speak truth to power,” as they say.  Oliver North, Ward Connerly, Anita Bryant, Newt Gingrich, Margaret Thatcher, and James Watt come to mind.

    Raise a glass to any of those names, and you’ll be scoffed to within an inch of your life.

    All deserve political Purple Hearts, were there such a thing.  And they’d probably decline them out of modesty.  They certainly wouldn’t toss them over a fence to show others how brave they are.

    The last man they called “brave” who actually earned it was probably Martin Luther King.  He fought mostly Democrats.

    Posted by Rittenhouse on 2006 01 15 at 08:18 AM • permalink

  33. echolalia

    Posted by BIWOZ on 2006 01 15 at 09:10 AM • permalink

  34. Krusty the Clown put it best when he found out he wasn’t actually a Jew. (This is off the top of my head.) “All this time I just thought I was a self-loathing Jew, now it turns out I’m just an anti-Semite.”

    Posted by Humblogger (the Younger) on 2006 01 15 at 10:26 AM • permalink

  35. Chief Nokahoma puts it best: “Go Braves!”

    I put it like this: Go Broncos!

    Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 01 15 at 11:09 AM • permalink

  36. What good would a larger vocabulary do the man?  You have to know how to use it for it to be effective.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 01 15 at 12:13 PM • permalink

  37. Sher Khan, chair of the public affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain.

    Wasn’t Sher Khan the villainous tiger in Kipling’s The Jungle Book?

    For Antony Lowenstein?  It’s a Brave New World.

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2006 01 15 at 12:51 PM • permalink

  38. Is Lowenstein the new Margo?

    Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2006 01 15 at 01:25 PM • permalink

  39. Wait a minute here…

    Flavius Antonius is an anti-Zionist Jew… living in a country where Jews are not native? 

    As for his limited vocabulary, I think William Goldman put it best when he wrote, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 15 at 01:52 PM • permalink

  40. Whistling past the brave-yard of his own antisemitism…

    Posted by PW on 2006 01 15 at 03:01 PM • permalink

  41. Perhaps autobiographical children’s books is the way to go?

    Antony, the Brave Little Kapo.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 01 15 at 04:03 PM • permalink

  42. Australians appear to be taking their history pretty seriously these days, especially if through the prism of fighting imperial wars (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan and now Iraq).

    Leftards use imperialist like they use fascist. Which is to say, with no regard to their actual meanings. They’re synonyms for somehow bad in a way that people like me think is bad and related somehow to the actions of people who do not think like me.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 01 15 at 04:09 PM • permalink

  43. Loewenstein is a victim of that common mistake of confusing bravery with stupidity.

    Posted by SB on 2006 01 15 at 06:04 PM • permalink

  44. #38 Is Lowenstein the new Margo?

    Ernst,

    Considering the trajectory of the careers of Margo and Bob Ellis since Tim has taken them on, Lowenstein has something to be worried about.

    None of this would be of concern to any of us, except that the decline in their incomes can have a trickle down effect on their servants…

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 01 15 at 06:16 PM • permalink

  45. Great Handle.
    LOL
    </New and improved Bolding - with extra emphasis>

    Posted by monkeyfan on 2006 01 15 at 06:38 PM • permalink

  46. You’re missing Marog, aren’t you…

    Posted by Paul on 2006 01 15 at 06:46 PM • permalink

  47. Polishing Margo’s nooks and dusting her crannies was more than a job, it was a way of life…

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 01 15 at 06:55 PM • permalink

  48. #47

    Arrgh, horrible mind picture….

    Stop it, stop it, stop it!

    Posted by kae on 2006 01 15 at 07:17 PM • permalink

  49. At least he admits he considers replacing Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with actual, functioning democracies “imperialist.”

    Posted by John Nowak on 2006 01 15 at 07:37 PM • permalink

  50. John Nowak — Pity we couldn’t do it with France…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 15 at 10:35 PM • permalink

  51. #47,
    Not to mention having to constantly watch her to make sure she didn’t eat her crayons

    Posted by Rachel Corrie's Flatmate on 2006 01 16 at 12:03 AM • permalink

  52. #34 Humblogger,

    Surely you aren’t talking about Krusty the Clown, son of Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky (the Simpsons)?

    I assume you mean some blogger of the same name? Google fails me.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 01 16 at 12:47 AM • permalink

  53. Damn the adjectives!

    Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 01 16 at 02:07 AM • permalink

  54. Full Speed Ahead !

    Posted by guinsPen on 2006 01 16 at 02:17 AM • permalink

  55. You may fire when ready, Gridley.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 01 16 at 03:19 AM • permalink

  56. PercyPup,

    I’m alluding to the fact that Lowenstein (and the Jewish Left) are sleepwalking to genocide, just like the Jews did at Baba Yar and across Europe.

    Many Jewish victims of the Nazis took the view that they’d better not fight back for fear of reprisal; they disasterously overestimated the humanity of the Nazis.

    This is the same mistake that Lowenstein is making.  This pinheaded, semi-literate, know-nothing twit is convinced that the Muslims will “see the light”.

    Thank God for the likes of Netanyahu and Sharon.

    Posted by murph on 2006 01 16 at 03:20 AM • permalink

  57. Someone call Martin Amis. The war on cliche needs to open up a new front.

    Just for fun, I might try this game with a few mainstream (credentialled) newspaper writers and see how Loewenstein stacks up. Or maybe some politicians, ones with international audiences and a fleet of speech writers.

    Anyway, what is the suggestion here - that repitition means stupidity? “I reject that.” (Can anyone pick that quote?)

    Posted by DBO on 2006 01 16 at 04:35 AM • permalink

  58. Lowenstein is on SBS right now (9.15pm, Monday), on the show Speaking in Tongues, he’s up against Austen Tayshus (sp?)

    Posted by Junia on 2006 01 16 at 06:15 AM • permalink

  59. Dreamboat should be re-titled Braveheart…

    Posted by crash on 2006 01 16 at 07:55 AM • permalink

  60. Hmmm…. I suppose Crash. But he’d have to ride a camel, not a Horse- Horses are the tools of the imperialists. And he couldn’t carry any swords made by Halliburton.

    Junia, I sat through Loewenstein’s appearance on SBS as well. I was disappointed by his debating opposition- in fact, both of them were as useless as an empty six-pack. Loewenstein has no public speaking talent, thankfully that’ll mean he’s confined to his blog.

    Posted by anthony27 on 2006 01 16 at 11:09 AM • permalink

  61. Page 1 of 1 pages

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Members:
Login | Register | Member List

Please note: you must use a real email address to register. You will be sent an account activation email. Clicking on the url in the email will automatically activate your account. Until you do so your account will be held in the "pending" list and you won't be able to log in. All accounts that are "pending" for more than one week will be deleted.