Your tribute and Bono's tribute are beautiful.
Posted by andgarden at February 15, 2008 04:49 PMThanks Turkana. I was surprised by his death--I didn't know he was sick.
Posted by CG at February 15, 2008 04:58 PMI keep hearing over and over and over ad nauseum what a great humanitarian and deeply committed defender of human rights Lantos was. Oh yeah? Tell that to the Palestinians whose crushing he always supported whole heartedly. Tell it to the Lebanese who have suffered and died for decades as a result of Israeli aggression, which Lantos never failed to support. Tell it, in fact to all the Arabs and Muslims because apparently Lantos did not consider Arabs or Muslims to be deserving of human rights any sort of human consideration.
Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy.
And it is very fitting that another deeply hypocritical man, Elie Wiesel, who has made a career out of being a Holocaust victim (at least Lantos did not stoop to THAT), spoke at his funeral.
Posted by Shirin at February 15, 2008 04:59 PMI met Tom Lantos in 1989 when I was with another officer in my union lobbying in Washington. I talked with him once before at a town meeting here in the district about the Post Office's failure to negotiate in good faith (I think it was Reagan's intended Patco II, but the postal unions didn't blink). I forget why we stopped by his office in '89, but I remember that during the meeting his wife showed up with her little foofoo dog and whatever we were discussing ended with everyone watching the dog.
About a year ago he came to a Sunday morning breakfast held by the letter carriers union here in the area. He was still a forceful speaker. He'd moved from his support of the war. Organized labor never had a better friend. He never saw a war he didn't like, though, at least initially.
How did Bono know him?
bob,
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8261151:
Rock star Bono, a friend who'd worked with Lantos on issues including HIV/AIDS prevention, led the hundreds of House members and senators present in a chorus of the Beatles' "All You Need is Love."
Posted by Turkana at February 15, 2008 06:37 PMThat was beautiful...one of the best posts tonight...thanks...principle mattered to this man...
and it says something about you that it was important enough to post...classy
Having been a friend of Rachel Corrie, for a while, I was also upset with Lantos over the issue of Palestine/Israel. I saw Lantos as perhaps most responsible, of any congressman, for the blocking ofBrian Baird's bill a few years ago that called for an investigation into Rachel's killing. I thought it could have perhaps been a good thing if that bill had been allowed to reach it to the floor. (Perhaps.)
As the person's comment above indicates, many people have gernerated a lot of anger for Lantos over this issue. And sometimes that anger can start to sound like it is, (and sometimes it indeed is) motivated by anti-Semitism.
Despite differing on several issues, I really, really liked and admired Lantos too, and I very much appreciate this post.
Posted by jonathansword at February 16, 2008 01:11 AMshirin and jonathan,
even though i consider myself a supporter of israel, i also often strongly disagreed with lantos on u.s. policy there. i considered his stands to have been reflexive, and steve clemons says lantos was coming around:
Lantos was not someone without controversies. Many, like myself, who are very committed to seeing a near-term resolution to the Israel-Palestine standoff had been frustrated with him in the past. Some of his detractors considered him to be one of AIPAC's chief allies (they would say "tools") in Congress.Posted by Turkana at February 16, 2008 01:30 AMThere is no doubt that he was a committed advocate of Israel's interests as he saw them -- but recently, in several discussions that I was privileged to have with him -- Lantos had really shifted his rhetoric and his thinking somewhat away from an Israel-centric filter when looking at Middle East affairs and towards a position that supported robust American diplomacy in the region -- with Iran, with Israel-Palestine, and with the contingent parts of the Middle East puzzle in the broadest sense. I think many of Lantos' detractors have not given him credit he probably deserves for finally seeing the need to achieve a different kind of equilibrium between Israel and its neighbors than he had advocated in the past.
Unfortunately, Lantos' own realizations seem to have come too late in his political and real life for him to use his powerful Congressional perch to help lend legitimacy as a Holocaust-surviving House Member on any eventual deal that the US, Israel, Palestine and other Arab states cobble together by the end of 2008.
"And sometimes that anger can start to sound like it is, (and sometimes it indeed is) motivated by anti-Semitism."
HUH?!!!!! So, now one does not dare to express anger over the words and deeds of someone who is Jewish for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism, even though one's anger is completely unconnected with the person's Jewishness?!
Posted by Shirin at February 16, 2008 09:29 AMI'll feel some empathy for the Palestinians when they stop strapping bombs on their kids and sending them into crowds in Israel.
Until then, fuck 'em.
Posted by RAM at February 16, 2008 09:35 AMTurkana, I can only judge Lantos on the bases of his actual words and deeds, and not on the basis of someone's speculation about what he might have done had he lived longer.
No true humanitarian, no one who has true compassion, no one who truly cares about human suffering could possibly have taken the positions he has taken in regard to Israel's horrific human rights record.
I object to the portrayal of him as a humanitarian and a champion of human rights. Israel is one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, and he consistently supported and facilitated them in every bit of it.
The fact that he had good qualities, and did a number of good things can never, ever erase this, and I do not accept him as an icon of humanitarianism.
Posted by Shirin at February 16, 2008 09:37 AMThe attitude displayed in both RAM and Shirins comments are the reason why I generally avoid discussion about the issue of Israel/Palestine. You both need to go get some therapy and get off the internet.
Posted by jonathansword at February 16, 2008 02:52 PMLOL! Jonathansword, if you were, in fact, a friend of Rachel Corrie's as you claim, you would not have made that last comment. You would have, at the very least, understood why I and numerous others find it hard to swallow Lantos' (and Elie Wiesel's) reputation as a great humanitarian.
And if you read anger in anything I wrote here, that is coming from you, not from me.
Posted by Shirin at February 16, 2008 03:47 PMJonathansword, after a bit of reflection, I am curious as to exactly what "additude" you saw in common between my comments, and that of RAM. His remark appears to me to be of a completely different nature and style, and to come from a completely different type of attitude than any comment I have ever made. So, where do you get that his attitude and mine have anything at all in common.
Posted by Shirin at February 16, 2008 04:12 PMWow! Deleted twice. I guess the fact that Lantos deliberately deceived the American people by knowingly have the Kuwaiti Ambassador's daughter (even though she resided in the U.S., she pretended to have just come from Kuwait were she had seen first-hand, the non-event) lie about Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators is not allowed here.
Posted by D at February 16, 2008 11:48 PMno, d-
you were deleted for the despicably hateful comments you added afterwards. and if you want people to take you seriously, anyway, you can provide links. but keep up the hateful crap and you'll keep getting deleted.
Posted by Turkana at February 17, 2008 12:26 AMSorry for hating people who help start wars that kill innocent people--just my nature.
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen02152003.html
d,
i get it. you take wayne madsen seriously. that's all i need to know.
Posted by Turkana at February 17, 2008 03:08 AMIt is tiring to always hear that some Tom, Dick, or Harry was a holocaust victim. Being such a victim does not make one smarter, more moral, or more respectable than anyone else. It does not make their opinions more valid. It has nothing to do with decisions that must be made today.
Nowadays, "holocaust" and "holocaust victim" are just code words meaning that we have to support Israel 100%.
Posted by bernarda at February 17, 2008 05:55 AM"It is tiring to always hear that some Tom, Dick, or Harry was a holocaust victim. Being such a victim does not make one smarter, more moral, or more respectable than anyone else. It does not make their opinions more valid. It has nothing to do with decisions that must be made today."
I have to agree with you. Every time I heard the stock phrase that Lantos was "the only Holocaust victim to serve in the U.S. Congress" my response was "so what?". What had that to do with his undeniably considerable abilities as a legislator? And since when does being a victim of anything guarantee a good character?
"Nowadays, "holocaust" and "holocaust victim" are just code words meaning that we have to support Israel 100%."
Yup! It also means that once someone is identified as a Holocaust victim they are untouchable, holy even. You dare not criticize them or even suggest that they are not the very epitome of human perfection.
Well, Lantos was, without question, an admirable, hard working, and extremely able person in many, many ways, and he deserves all the recognition he has received, and more. But he does not deserve to be recognized as a humanitarian and human rights advocate because his humanitarianism and human rights advocacy turned 180 degrees as soon as it encountered an Arab, a Muslim, and in particular, a Palestinian.
Posted by Shirin at February 17, 2008 11:02 AMThis may be a bit late but I believe that Frank Church was a senator for the State of Idaho. Not sure why he would be running for office in Oregon..
As to the comments about holocaust survivors, I think it is a sad day when we minimize what they went through. Progressives are appalled by the crisis in Darfur but holocaust victims are passe?
this logic escapes me. Perhaps Mr. Lantos had his faults but I don't think it is appropriate to denigrate him on the basis of his personal history. Not to excuse his blindness in regards to the Palestinians, but perhaps some of what he endured may have shaped his perceptions.
"I think it is a sad day when we minimize what they went through."
I don't anyone has done that here.
"Perhaps Mr. Lantos had his faults but I don't think it is appropriate to denigrate him on the basis of his personal history."
No one has denigrated him on the basis of his personal history.
"Not to excuse his blindness in regards to the Palestinians, but perhaps some of what he endured may have shaped his perceptions."
If that is the case, then, as I have said, he has not earned the right to be known as a great humanitarian.
Posted by Shirin at February 19, 2008 03:37 PM