Something about this whole west vs islam reminds me of the eastcoast/westcoast rap-war, something fundamentally not-real that somehow stirs enough bullshit to actually cause people to die. Or maybe its just the mediazation. Ok not a perfect analogy... funny similarities.
My poor dad watches fox news. Hes come around quite a bit since katrina, has even expressed regret for voting for bush, but still he cant quite see outside the insidious bigotry of that channel. Ive tried to explain it, imagine for a moment you couldnt support your family, and were forced to move to a far away country with more wealth and opportunities. But theres one catch. Women are expected to walk around naked, and upon meeting a member of the opposite sex they are expected to give a long tongue kiss. You insist, no, my wife is not going to walk around naked and french kiss every guy she meets on the street, but the cultural pressures are so much that eventually she gives in. Sure, eventually, you may get used to the idea, maybe thats 'social progress'. But youre sure never going to feel very good about it.
I mean obviously violence toward women, forcing them to stay home, not offering them education are basic human values and fall into a different category, but still all this fuss about the headscarves. We dont get all pissed about Sadhu's for smoking dope all day and contributing nothing to society. I find just as easy to imagine a parallel universe where we praise and admire islam for its culture the way we romanticize japan or china.
So is this a real issue? Or just bullshit demonization for same old geopolitical reasons?
Fox, Cnn, Pick your poison. Both of these channels are full of nothing but twists turns and conjecture. It is all fueled by this unquenchable hatred that the left has for the right and right for left. So to claim higher ground on either end of the scale is baseless, it's all opinion.
About fundamentalist islam and there hatred for the west, trust me it is fundamentally real. I realize that you or I don't hate them, but they hate us and would systematically eliminate us from the face of the earth if they could. Just look at Darfur, they can and they are systematically killing off all non muslim tribes. It is a real problem that has to be dealt with. How to deal with it, I don't know, but just "giving peace a chance" has done nothing for all the dead in Darfur.
Hatred blinds people. It blinds fox news just as much as it blinds CNN. Peoples hatred blinds them to the point of forming opinions based on hatred rather than rational thought. Just as peoples hatred toward jews, blacks, hispanics, homosexuals ect.. causes them to make blind and irrational decisions. Someone's hatred toward George Bush, religion, ect.. is equally as damaging to their ability to form a clear and sound opinion. People have their reasons for believing what they believe, and if you expect them to respect your reasons you had better respect theirs.
Ok, to clarify, the question Im posing is whether the hatred is drawn more accurately by religious lines or by geopolitics. When you say 'Islam hates us', are you speaking from experience? I havent been into the real heartland of islam, but from my dealings with them in Istanbul and northern india (Kashmir even) I found that among the ordinary people there were almost no ill feelings at all. They were actually quite friendly, loving, generous people toward me. I actually had more trouble with the sikhs than with muslims. I'll grant that there was an air of suspicion at first, (in Delhi more than Kashmir) but once they understood who I was and why I was there, they would offer tea and would laugh and ask questions, introduce me to their families. It became really clear that in places where there was animosity, it was as much propaganda from thier own governments as our paranoia is from ours. Would that not imply that were the political situation to take a less agressive stance the animosity itself would evaporate?
and the heartland of Islam will go to great lenghts to be gracious to you as an individual - hospitality is almost a law
but this is no impediment for the hatred of the culture you represent
wow... and i get most of my international news from BBC online. I would expect that kind of crap from Al-Jazeera. I also thought their reporting of the conflict in Lebanon this year was also heavily biased towards the strife of the Lebanese, they kind of made israel look like the evil empire the islamic-facist world keeps saying they are. Then again it would be kind of hard to paint that conflict in a pro-israel light (FOX sure as hell tried though). I've spent time in indonesia, and I thought they were good people, even though i did get a few dirty looks when i walked by the local mosque. The problem is leadership, the people of those lands are naturally good people, as all people are. But their leaders twist their minds with half truths and lies. They make a couple of Aramco compounds in Saudi Arabia look like an invasion, and a squabble between israel and any muslim entity look like World War III. I find it interesting to note however, that all that crap in Sudan has mostly been about money and access to oil resources over the years, so the government paints an islamist light on things and gets popular opinion in the north so riled up they can go rape non-muslim lands with impunity and steal that wealth for themselves. Whereas alot of the issue in the Mid-east seems to be faith and power based.
Oct 28, 06 3:47 pm ·
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East vs West
Something about this whole west vs islam reminds me of the eastcoast/westcoast rap-war, something fundamentally not-real that somehow stirs enough bullshit to actually cause people to die. Or maybe its just the mediazation. Ok not a perfect analogy... funny similarities.
My poor dad watches fox news. Hes come around quite a bit since katrina, has even expressed regret for voting for bush, but still he cant quite see outside the insidious bigotry of that channel. Ive tried to explain it, imagine for a moment you couldnt support your family, and were forced to move to a far away country with more wealth and opportunities. But theres one catch. Women are expected to walk around naked, and upon meeting a member of the opposite sex they are expected to give a long tongue kiss. You insist, no, my wife is not going to walk around naked and french kiss every guy she meets on the street, but the cultural pressures are so much that eventually she gives in. Sure, eventually, you may get used to the idea, maybe thats 'social progress'. But youre sure never going to feel very good about it.
I mean obviously violence toward women, forcing them to stay home, not offering them education are basic human values and fall into a different category, but still all this fuss about the headscarves. We dont get all pissed about Sadhu's for smoking dope all day and contributing nothing to society. I find just as easy to imagine a parallel universe where we praise and admire islam for its culture the way we romanticize japan or china.
So is this a real issue? Or just bullshit demonization for same old geopolitical reasons?
you got it. same old...
Eliminate religion - its a relic.
everyone has an obligation to function in the society they've chosen by those rules and not the other way around
if we deluge the islamic states with new kids, def lepord and blue jeans will they cave the way the comunists did?
Christ I didnt understand the backstory on that. Yea what an asshat.
Fox, Cnn, Pick your poison. Both of these channels are full of nothing but twists turns and conjecture. It is all fueled by this unquenchable hatred that the left has for the right and right for left. So to claim higher ground on either end of the scale is baseless, it's all opinion.
About fundamentalist islam and there hatred for the west, trust me it is fundamentally real. I realize that you or I don't hate them, but they hate us and would systematically eliminate us from the face of the earth if they could. Just look at Darfur, they can and they are systematically killing off all non muslim tribes. It is a real problem that has to be dealt with. How to deal with it, I don't know, but just "giving peace a chance" has done nothing for all the dead in Darfur.
Hatred blinds people. It blinds fox news just as much as it blinds CNN. Peoples hatred blinds them to the point of forming opinions based on hatred rather than rational thought. Just as peoples hatred toward jews, blacks, hispanics, homosexuals ect.. causes them to make blind and irrational decisions. Someone's hatred toward George Bush, religion, ect.. is equally as damaging to their ability to form a clear and sound opinion. People have their reasons for believing what they believe, and if you expect them to respect your reasons you had better respect theirs.
Oh well, It will all come out in the wash, right?
Ok, to clarify, the question Im posing is whether the hatred is drawn more accurately by religious lines or by geopolitics. When you say 'Islam hates us', are you speaking from experience? I havent been into the real heartland of islam, but from my dealings with them in Istanbul and northern india (Kashmir even) I found that among the ordinary people there were almost no ill feelings at all. They were actually quite friendly, loving, generous people toward me. I actually had more trouble with the sikhs than with muslims. I'll grant that there was an air of suspicion at first, (in Delhi more than Kashmir) but once they understood who I was and why I was there, they would offer tea and would laugh and ask questions, introduce me to their families. It became really clear that in places where there was animosity, it was as much propaganda from thier own governments as our paranoia is from ours. Would that not imply that were the political situation to take a less agressive stance the animosity itself would evaporate?
what I find rather disturbing is that this paints a very different picture than that
what kind of stupidly sympathetic jurnalist would refer to a pig as "soft-spoken, neat, snappy and eminently quotable"
this is certainly not demonization but infinite stupidity and cowardice
and the heartland of Islam will go to great lenghts to be gracious to you as an individual - hospitality is almost a law
but this is no impediment for the hatred of the culture you represent
wow... and i get most of my international news from BBC online. I would expect that kind of crap from Al-Jazeera. I also thought their reporting of the conflict in Lebanon this year was also heavily biased towards the strife of the Lebanese, they kind of made israel look like the evil empire the islamic-facist world keeps saying they are. Then again it would be kind of hard to paint that conflict in a pro-israel light (FOX sure as hell tried though). I've spent time in indonesia, and I thought they were good people, even though i did get a few dirty looks when i walked by the local mosque. The problem is leadership, the people of those lands are naturally good people, as all people are. But their leaders twist their minds with half truths and lies. They make a couple of Aramco compounds in Saudi Arabia look like an invasion, and a squabble between israel and any muslim entity look like World War III. I find it interesting to note however, that all that crap in Sudan has mostly been about money and access to oil resources over the years, so the government paints an islamist light on things and gets popular opinion in the north so riled up they can go rape non-muslim lands with impunity and steal that wealth for themselves. Whereas alot of the issue in the Mid-east seems to be faith and power based.
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