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28434. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/28/2006 3:50:52 PM Typical Jenerator style–ignore (as in ignorance) what you don't care to see, evade answering any pertinent points, then derail the argument with flotsam that will appeal to an idiot's tendency to fear, anger and resentment. Fox News and Limbaugh tactics.
And speaking of one story driving out another, if Jen can spam with trivial distraction about oppressive garments, I guess I can counter with more salient issues . . .
TV, Bush Feeding On Fear
July 28 2006
State of play in the Middle East: Lebanon, extensively damaged plus a half-million refugees; Syria, tired of being dissed; Israel, disproportionate. Are you kidding? Did it work last time they occupied Lebanon? Condi Rice, undercut by neocons at home? Iraq, completely fallen apart. Iran, only winner? Everybody else, mad at Bush. Most under-covered story, collapse of Iraq.
And what do I think this is? A media story, of course.
From the first day of 24/7 coverage, you could tell this was big. By the time Chapter 9,271 of the conflicts in the Middle East had gotten its own logo, everyone knew it was HUGE. I mean, like, bigger than Natalee Holloway. Then anchormen began to arrive in the Middle East and people like Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson - real experts. Then Newt Gingrich - and who would know better than Newt? - declared it was World War III. Let's ratchet up the fear here - probably good for Republican campaigning.
By then, of course, you couldn't find a television story about the back corridors of diplomacy and what was, or more important, what was not going on there. Between Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson, it was obviously World War III, and besides, there were a bunch of American refugees in Lebanon who couldn't get out, and so elements of the Katrina story appeared. Thank God Anderson was there.
Meanwhile, people who should have known better were all in a World III snit over Chapter 9,271. Actually, they all knew better, but it was a better story if you overplayed it - sort of like watching a horror movie that you know will turn out OK in the end, but meanwhile you get to enjoy this delicious chill of horror up your spine. ...
What if it really was The End? I mean, any fool could see it could easily careen out of control, and when George W. Bush is all you've got for rational, fair-minded grown-ups, well, there it is.
If I may raise a nasty political possibility. One good reason for the Bush administration to leave Chapter 9,271 to burn out of control is that this administration thrives on fear. Fear has been the text and the subtext of every Republican campaign since 9/11. Endless replay of the footage from 9/11 has graced every Republican campaign since. Could it be that 9/11 is beginning to pall, to feel as overplayed as Natalee Holloway?
Fear is actually more dangerous than war in the Middle East. For those who spin dizzily toward World War III, the Apocalypse, the Rapture - always with that delicious frisson of terror - the slow, patient negotiations needed to get it back under control are Not News.
All we have to fear, said FDR, is fear itself. And when we are afraid, we do damage to both ourselves and to the Constitution. Our history is rank with these fits of fear. We get so afraid of some dreadful menace, so afraid of anarchists, Reds, crime or drugs or communism or illegal aliens or terrorists that we think we can make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free. We damage the Constitution because we're so afraid.
We engage in torture and worse because we're afraid. We damage our standing in the world, our own finest principles, out of fear. And television enjoys scaring us. One could say cynically, "It's good for their ratings," but in truth, I think television people enjoy scary movies, too. And besides, it makes it all a bigger story for them.
What's fascinating about this as a media story is how much attention can be given to one story while still only about a fifth of it gets told. The amount of misinformation routinely reported on television is astounding. For example, "Israel is our only democratic ally in the Middle East. ..." How long has Turkey been a real republic and ally?
The more surprising development is how completely one story drives out another. At other times, the collapse of Iraq would have been news. [Molly Ivins]
28435. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 4:05:33 PM Israel has gone way beyond defending itself. It appears to have planned the invasion of Lebanon months ago and waited for a pretext to "defend" itself by bombing much of Lebanon back to the stone age with weapons supplied by the United States. Now it is invading south Lebanon with an objective that has little likelihood of succeeding and certainty of great negative consequences to Israel, the region and to the United State. 28436. Jenerator - 7/28/2006 5:12:04 PM Guys, chill out. I am simply posting some basics about Islam so that we can first start with the essentials and the areas of commonality before we launch into deeper issues.
28437. Jenerator - 7/28/2006 5:18:42 PM As you know, I am interested in who the infidels are according to Islam and what the Muslim is called to do with/to the infidel.
According to Middle-East-info:
Islam divides the world into the Dar-al-Islam (House of Islam), where the faithful rule, and the Dar-al-Harb (House of War), ruled by infidels. The Moslem belief is that the latter should become the former. These "houses" are in a permanent state of war interrupted only by temporary tactical truces (Hudna). There is no question as to whether actual war should be waged. The only question is when and the answer to that is a purely tactical one.This conflict will not cease until the whole world is brought into the Dar-al-Islam with institutionalized discrimination (dhimmitude) that targets Jews and Christians.
Others, such as Hindus and Buddhists, have a choice to convert or to be slaughtered. These regulations prohibit the non-Muslim from possessing arms, ringing church bells, testifying in courts, building and restoring houses of worship and require them to wear special identifying clothes.In obedience to core teachings of the Islamic faith, Muslims armies overran the predominantly Christian Middle East, then drove deep into Europe long before any Crusade was even contemplated. Christianity is Dying in Its Birthplace.
This is how Islam justifies such groups as Hezbollah, Al Jihad and Hamas.
28438. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 5:21:39 PM Islam doesn't "justify Hezbollah." It condemns them. 28439. Jenerator - 7/28/2006 5:26:01 PM No it doesn't. According to Islam, Jews and Christians are infidels, and according to certain sects of Islam, Muslims are *called* to wage jihad against Israel. 28440. Macnas - 7/28/2006 5:27:26 PM No muslims I know agree with it.
28441. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 5:30:01 PM Well, here's what our local Muslim says. As in Christianity, there is more than one interpretation, a reality you have trouble dealing with. "Never confirm. Seldom deny. ALWAYS DISTINGUISH." St. Thomas Aquinas. 28442. alistairconnor - 7/28/2006 5:46:51 PM That Middle East Info site (your link was busted) is not a neutral source of information : it is a militant, anti-Islam site. Your quote about jihad (There is no question as to whether actual war should be waged etc...) in particular, is a crock of shit. There are widely varying schools of thought within Islam, and they are interested in tarring them all with the same brush, as if every Middle Eastern moslem were a Wahabite.
Not very useful, Jen. Not a good basis for discussion. 28443. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 5:59:57 PM Zbig Brzezinski says what Israel is doing "amounts to the killing of hostages." Here. 28444. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/28/2006 6:39:38 PM Faggedabowdit! Jen is just another soldier in the Christian reign of error.
Reign of Error
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Amid everything else that’s going wrong in the world, here’s one more piece of depressing news: a few days ago the Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans now believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when we invaded, up from 36 percent in February 2005. Meanwhile, 64 percent still believe that Saddam had strong links with Al Qaeda.
At one level, this shouldn’t be all that surprising. The people now running America never accept inconvenient truths. Long after facts they don’t like have been established, whether it’s the absence of any wrongdoing by the Clintons in the Whitewater affair or the absence of W.M.D. in Iraq, the propaganda machine that supports the current administration is still at work, seeking to flush those facts down the memory hole.
But it’s dismaying to realize that the machine remains so effective.
Here’s how the process works.
First, if the facts fail to support the administration position on an issue — stem cells, global warming, tax cuts, income inequality, Iraq — officials refuse to acknowledge the facts.
Sometimes the officials simply lie. “The tax cuts have made the tax code more progressive and reduced income inequality,” Edward Lazear, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, declared a couple of months ago. More often, however, they bob and weave.
Consider, for example, Condoleezza Rice’s response a few months ago, when pressed to explain why the administration always links the Iraq war to 9/11. She admitted that Saddam, “as far as we know, did not order Sept. 11, may not have even known of Sept. 11.” (Notice how her statement, while literally true, nonetheless seems to imply both that it’s still possible that Saddam ordered 9/11, and that he probably did know about it.) “But,” she went on, “that’s a very narrow definition of what caused Sept. 11.”
Meanwhile, apparatchiks in the media spread disinformation. It’s hard to imagine what the world looks like to the large number of Americans who get their news by watching Fox and listening to Rush Limbaugh, but I get a pretty good sense from my mailbag.
Many of my correspondents are living in a world in which the economy is better than it ever was under Bill Clinton, newly released documents show that Saddam really was in cahoots with Osama, and the discovery of some decayed 1980’s-vintage chemical munitions vindicates everything the administration said about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. (Hyping of the munitions find may partly explain why public belief that Saddam had W.M.D. has made a comeback.)
Some of my correspondents have even picked up on claims, mostly disseminated on right-wing blogs, that the Bush administration actually did a heck of a job after Katrina.
And what about the perceptions of those who get their news from sources that aren’t de facto branches of the Republican National Committee?
The climate of media intimidation that prevailed for several years after 9/11, which made news organizations very cautious about reporting facts that put the administration in a bad light, has abated. But it’s not entirely gone. Just a few months ago major news organizations were under fierce attack from the right over their supposed failure to report the “good news” from Iraq — and my sense is that this attack did lead to a temporary softening of news coverage, until the extent of the carnage became undeniable. And the conventions of he-said-she-said reporting, under which lies and truth get equal billing, continue to work in the administration’s favor.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Bush administration continues to be remarkably successful at rewriting history. For example, Mr. Bush has repeatedly suggested that the United States had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let U.N. inspectors in. His most recent statement to that effect was only a few weeks ago. And he gets away with it. If there have been reports by major news organizations pointing out that that’s not at all what happened, I’ve missed them.
It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press? 28445. alistairConnor - 7/28/2006 7:16:29 PM The neocon credo was that by determined action, you can create a whole new reality that fits with your belief system.
But their legacy will have been to redefine the meaning of "truth". 28446. Jenerator - 7/28/2006 8:34:26 PM From islamworld
A Slight Tear in Socks is Overlooked
Question: What is the ruling if someone notices after prayer, either a short or long time afterwards, that he had a medium size tear in one of his socks? Should he repeat his prayer or not?
Response: If the tear is small or the hole is small according to convention or custom, it is overlooked and the prayer is correct. However, it is safest for the believing men and women to be very careful about keeping their socks free from any kind of tear or hole. This is being more cautious with respect to their religion and it also avoids the difference of opinion [that exists concerning such torn socks]. This approach is indicated by the Prophet's statement,
"Leave what makes you doubt for that which does not make you doubt."1
The Prophet (peace be upon him) also said,
"Whoever avoids the doubtful matters clears himself in regard to his religion and his honor."2
Shaikh Ibn Baz
Now, this sort of legalism is interesting to me, and it also plays into the concept of works (for salvation). Do any of you find this interesting too? For someone to be worried about a hole in his sock, and for that to be enough of a reasonable issue that it's posted. 28447. Jenerator - 7/28/2006 8:35:41 PM Alistair,
If you don't like the link, then we don't have to use that site. We can stick with the plethora of other sites I have used. 28448. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 8:54:29 PM Jen, would you mind reading the statement by a Detroit Muslim linked above in #28441 and respond to my comment. Just as Christianity is not monolithic, neither is the Muslim religion. You put too much credence in stuff you read. Just as there are big differences among devout Christians,e.g., between you and Jexter, a wide spectrum of views prevails among Muslims. It seems to me you are picking the most extreme interpretations and practices and over-generalizing to ALL Muslims. The Southern Baptist girls in my high school in Louisiana were't supposed to use makeup or dance. But, obviously this restriction applies only to a small minority of Christians. 28449. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 8:55:40 PM It isn't helpful to peace and understanding in the world to tar everyone of any religion with the most extreme views and actions of members of their religion. 28450. wonkers2 - 7/28/2006 10:12:38 PM Jen, I hope you didn't bug out! 28451. anomie - 7/28/2006 10:15:27 PM Jen,
What's the solution? Prayer? Maybe God needs some persuasion, worship, or begging to stop all this Islamic nonesense. Maybe another human sacrifice on the cross for a fresh start? Maybe the plan has gone awry. Another flood might do it. Kill everyone. Maybe your God should slaughter innocent first borns again to demonstrate his glory...plague and pestulence. Hey, it worked in Egypt.
You seem to be amazed that your God has created a sect that relies on violence, terrorism, deceit,and so on. You should know this is standard operating procedure for the inept diety who can't figure out how to forgive people without killing something.
Quite a guy you worship... 28452. anomie - 7/28/2006 10:32:32 PM Here, Jen. Problem solved. This should give you the knowledge of all things. You just need to find out where the Holy Spirit is hanging out these days.
John 14:26-"But the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He [Gr. that one] will teach you all things..." 28453. anomie - 7/28/2006 10:39:30 PM I should apologize for the sarcasm. It's not just Jen. I'm feeling provoked by the ubiquitous ignorance that seems to be pervading so many aspects of the world...politics, religion, media - especially news, education. I sometimes think we're living in the second dark age.
Jen, you don't even realize you're a fish in the same barrel as your antagonists.
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