I believe that Muslims are being set up to be the scapegoats for the economic/political ills of the West by Western Elites. I use the term "West" loosely to refer to US/Europe/UK/etc.
I don't think the Jewish scapegoating is an accurate comparison. While I do agree muslims in some ways play the patsy to US government action and policy, I do not believe the fault is completely one-sided.
Perhaps it just works because muslims are such good patsys, as the reverence for violence and resulting tendency toward it can easily be used by an enemy.
But to suggest that muslims are just innocent persecuted victims in all this is incredibly naive.
What does a sentence like this mean? I'm a muslim- so what am I guilty of? What reverence for violence and tendency towards it do I have?
That's not what I'm suggesting. There are bad apples in any ethnic or religious group. Of course there are violent Muslims and their religious beliefs play the same psychological enabling role in rationalizing murder that the Christian beliefs of the Crusaders did during the Crusades.
But it is my view that the MO of the Elites in starting wars is to always have at hand some group of scapegoats (anarchists, communists, Jews, peaceniks, whatever) and this time around it's the Muslims. And, yes, countless innocent Muslims are being targeted for surveillance, harassment and - overseas - murder.
But the real point of my post is that I believe I can deduce that the Elites do, in fact, intend to start a global conflagration precisely because they are going to such great lengths to foster anti-Muslim hysteria and xenophobia within their ranks, even though they are putting out an official message of tolerance to the Media.
Look at the NDAA, for example. How can any American support such a monstrosity? The US military can indefinitely detain a US citizen, seized on US soil, without charges, if El Presidente deems this is in the interests of "national security." Yet the unwritten implication is that this would only ever happen to Muslim Americans and the hardcore anti-Muslim Christian establishment in the US (the types that are crazy enough to vote for Santorum) forms the foundation of support for this obviously stupid and evil law that's going to snap right back on all Americans, Muslim or not.
Clayton -
This sentence makes it seem like one of the reasons there is animousity between the US government and Muslims is because some muslims opened up the Quran and realized they hate americans. I mean I'm sure you know better than that but I'm interested as to why you decided to make this statement as if it has anything to do with the US vs. Muslims. It doesn't as far as I see.
Perhaps an incident in some tribal village in Pakistan where intolerance and murder took place could be used as a reason for the US to shore up domestic support for persucuting muslims- but then the people who have nothing to do with an incident like that who are tracked through the NYPD's huge spying effort on Muslims in different colleges- or the drone strikes that blow people to bits- those people are completely innocent persecuted victims. Any afghan, iraqi, pakistani, libyan killed by the united states is a victim.
I don't know. The worst Islamophobia you have is unofficial and does not come from polite society. From official channels you have a facade of PC tolerance. Recall the recent appology for destroying Korans in Afghanistan. Official US has little trouble paying lipp service to Muslims, to accomodate them rhetorically and to acknowledge their grievances. Compare this to earlier demonization of Serbs, when it was precisely the guardians of political correctness who were the most chauvinistic.
Recall the recent appology for destroying Korans in Afghanistan. Official US has little trouble paying lipp service to Muslims, to accomodate them rhetorically and to acknowledge their grievances.
That "apology" is pretty standard. Hey we bombed and wiped out a village "oops- wer'e sorry". Its actually more insulting than anything else. I think those apologies are more to accomodate the people here at home to make it seem like the United States doesn't have the image of the "invader". It has nothing to do with acknowledging Muslim or Afghan grievances. Like "hey man, I didn't kill your family for me. I did it for you! For your freedom!". Its more descipable this way than if they were just open with who they were and what they were fighting for.
“This is not just about dishonoring the Koran, it is about disrespecting our dead and killing our children,” said Maruf Hotak, 60, a man who joined the crowd on the outskirts of Kabul, referring to an episode in Helmand Province when American Marines urinated on the dead bodies of men they described as insurgents and to a recent erroneous airstrike on civilians in Kapisa Province that killed eight young Afghans.
“They always admit their mistakes,” he said. “They burn our Koran and then they apologize. You can’t just disrespect our holy book and kill our innocent children and make a small apology.”
I know it is just empty words. But point is the Nazis didn't openly uphold the Jews as generally good guys, with some bad apples among them, adhering to a "religion of peace" and then worked to spark hatred against them covertly. They demonized them through official channels. Anti-semitism was official orthodoxy and to hate them was the expression of outmost Nazi political correctness.
auctionguy10: What does a sentence like this mean? I'm a muslim- so what am I guilty of? What reverence for violence and tendency towards it do I have?
Obviously it's a generaliztion. Neither Clayton nor JJ are saying that each and every Muslim has a reverence and tendency for violence.
This sentence makes it seem like one of the reasons there is animousity between the US government and Muslims is because some muslims opened up the Quran and realized they hate americans.
It means nothing of the sort - there are indeed violent Muslims (bad apples) and Islam plays the same role in dehumanizing outsiders that Christianity does for those in Christian countries (yes, it still does play this role today).
And you are absolutely right that Muslims are angry with the US government because of - most lately - its decade-long war of atrocity in slow-motion against Muslims in their own homelands. That's leaving aside all the dirty dealing we've been engaging in since the end of the Cold War.
JJ's point was that there are Muslim extremists. OK. There are. So what? There are extremists of every variety. My point is that the xenophobia in the ranks of the US government has nothing to do with the fact of Muslim extremists; my view is that it simply happens to serve some other objective they have in mind (scapegoating).
I've been watching official US rhetoric and laws for signs of official anti-Muslim policy. What I realized after talking to my buddy is that they're being more clever than that. Officially, Muslims are not targets. But unofficially, it's all about the dangers that Muslims pose to America, and so on, and they are - indeed - targeted both here and abroad. So, we have a de facto xenophobia - that's been obvious since 2001 but my recent realization is that this is a conscious strategy of disciplined double-speak on the part of senior leadership in the US government. "Muslism are the threat. All Muslims. Spread the word. But don't you dare say a word about it to the media and we don't do 'profiling', you got it?"
I mean I'm sure you know better than that but I'm interested as to why you decided to make this statement as if it has anything to do with the US vs. Muslims. It doesn't as far as I see. Perhaps an incident in some tribal village in Pakistan where intolerance and murder took place could be used as a reason for the US to shore up domestic support for persucuting muslims- but then the people who are persecuted either through the NYPD's huge spying effort on Muslims in different colleges- or the drone strikes that blow people to bits- those people are completely innocent persecuted victims. Any afghan, iraqi, pakistani, libyan killed by the united states is a victim.
Perhaps an incident in some tribal village in Pakistan where intolerance and murder took place could be used as a reason for the US to shore up domestic support for persucuting muslims- but then the people who are persecuted either through the NYPD's huge spying effort on Muslims in different colleges- or the drone strikes that blow people to bits- those people are completely innocent persecuted victims. Any afghan, iraqi, pakistani, libyan killed by the united states is a victim.
The US government is operating on the law of force - we have more force so we can do what we want. There is no legal basis for any of our actions, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both were illegal, unprovoked aggressions. Only in the echo-chamber of US media and in the bizarro world of US/international politics are these invasions held to be lawful.
The constellation of drones being laid over the Earth like a blanket is truly Orwellian. Afghanistan and Iraq are just proving grounds for the latest control measures to be deployed here at home. Unfortunately, I think we're going to have to go through many years of abuse of power before people wake up and begin to revolt against these cattle-stall control measures.
I know and that's why I asked the question because a generalization like that seems completely worthless to me in having any kind of discussion. The only point of saying that is to imply that the majority do. For example if I were to say that "christians have a tendency towards white supremicism"- then someone objected and I said "Ohh no I didn't mean ALL christians- I was talking about the Klu Klux Klan". That just doesn't make any sense.
They demonized them through official channels. It was official orthodoxy and to hate them was the expression of outmost Nazi political correctness.
Yes, and that's what I think is different this time. Everything else is the same. The total economic and political control is there but what's apparently missing is some kind of official "Hate the _________!" This time around, they're doing it through unofficial channels. Fundamentalist churches are an unofficial network for spreading Islamophobia among the populace while the US government has made anti-Muslim xenophobia a de facto policy within its ranks while maintaining a Media-messaging discipline of "tolerance" etc. The reality is that all the pieces are in place. All that is needed is a trigger event, a Gulf of Tonkin incident. I am predicting that a major war is going to happen.
I think functionaries, including elected Democrats, generally recognize that in the end they benefit from popular anti-Muslim sentiment and are therefore privately quite fine with it, but I don't think it has to do with any grand conspiracy. It's just the usuall stuff of making wars easier and defence contracts going.
I don't think it has to do with any grand conspiracy
I don't know what the difference is between a conspiracy and a grand conspiracy. All I know is that there is a pattern to how wars are started and that there is, indeed, a caste of Elite families who have multi-generational expertise in the art of starting, winning and profiting from wars. I see now that all the components of the war pattern are present. War is imminent. To be more specific, if the economy does well during 2012, I think we won't see war until early 2013 (post-election) but if the economy begins to tank we could have war earlier (pre-election). They are trying to prop the economy up with money printing in order to keep popular sentiment sunny and re-elect their current Golden Boy. But if the economy starts to tank anyway, they're prepared to make an early move in order to rally the country around the War President and get him re-elected that way. Either way, a major war is coming.
auctionguy10:I know and that's why I asked the question because a generalization like that seems completely worthless to me in having any kind of discussion. The only point of saying that is to imply that the majority do. For example if I were to say that "christians have a tendency towards white supremicism"- then someone objected and I said "Ohh no I didn't mean ALL christians- I was talking about the Klu Klux Klan". That just doesn't make any sense.
The difference is largely described here:
I don't think it's elaborate. In my opinion they don't know what they are going to do 6 months from now. So I don't think this Muslim think is something they ever planned for either. Perhaps that explains it better.
Well, the reserves are starting to move from the Fed to certain areas of "economy", which will cause a small boom that will be enough for Obama to get re-elected. But as we all know, those reserves will eventually spread to everywhere else, including oil. Oil will go past $150 at some point after Obama re-elections, but something will happen that will cause oil to go past $200 or even $300, but this will be blamed Muslim terrorists or Iran.
If anything, it will be Syria, Iran, or some combination attacking Israel or some place that will cause extreme shock in Americans and the rest of the West. But this will be a false flag, OR it could actually be statists in Iran that go ahead and do it on behalf of TPTB.
That Iran would actually do an attack is probably something that many of us Austro-Libertarians haven't accepted. After all, why would Iran do it knowing that they would get annihilated? Why the hell not, if Ahmadinejad and the other Iranian statists get paid to do it? Do the attack, go to war, half the Persian population gets nuked, then fake Ahmadinejad's death, and then they could spend the rest of their lives hidding somewhere in the world, just like the so many Nazis did after WWII.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I agree 100% with what Clayton said because the U.S. sacrificed its own citizens and blamed Muslims for it so they could invade the lands of the muslims. With more than 1 million Iraqi civilians dead just at the hands of GWB, that makes him worse than OBL could be in the wildest dreams of the latter.
Clayton is also right when he says everyone is going to feel the snapback. I guess the snapback will be hyperinflation but it could be something else.
"Islam/Judeo-Christianity are not religions of peace"
Here fixed that for you guys.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Well played, MaikU.
MaikU:"Islam/Judeo-Christianity are not religions of peace" Here fixed that for you guys.
What guys
Clayton:Woodenly literal reading of a text does not convey its intended meaning. This is as true of Greek myths as it is of the Bible or the Q'ran. So, there is always an element of subjectivity involved in understanding religious texts (or any text, for that matter).
You obviously know very little about Islam.
But what really matters are not Sam Harris's ideas about what Islam "obviously means", what matters are the schools or pedigrees of Islam. There are radicalized schools of Islam. There are more radicalized schools of Islam than there are radicalized Christian sects. I am not aware of any reputable mullah who can trace his pedigree back to the prophet giving Osama bin Laden the authority to act as he did with the stamp of approval of Islam. So, Harris is being extremely disingenuous in substituting his own judgment of what Islam "obviously is" for what Muslim scholars and leaders - who can trace their pedigree back to Mohammed and who are not just fly-by-night radicals - actually teach.
I am not aware of any reputable mullah who can trace his pedigree back to the prophet giving Osama bin Laden the authority to act as he did with the stamp of approval of Islam. So, Harris is being extremely disingenuous in substituting his own judgment of what Islam "obviously is" for what Muslim scholars and leaders - who can trace their pedigree back to Mohammed and who are not just fly-by-night radicals - actually teach.
Find me a Muslim who will claim "The Qur'an is not to be taken literally", "The Qur'an needs interpretation and subjectivity to be honestly understood", "The Qur'an includes passages that are less than perfect, and need to be taken in context", and we can talk.
Religion is a human activity. I don't think I get to substitute my judgment for what constitutes a "proper chess match" for the judgment of the World Chess Federation. Similarly, I don't get to substitute my judgment that Islam is "not a religion of peace" because of ancient history, that is, that it was founded on blood and conquest (no different than Mosaic Judaism or, much later, Roman Christianity).
Blah blah blah. This "no true Scotsman" nonsense has gotten quite old. Again, find me a Muslim who will make any of the statements above, or even one who will publically condemn Hamas and we can have a conversation.
The upsetting of Muslim moderation and the radicalization of Muslims is, in fact, a response to their betrayal by their own secular leaders into the hands of the West. We (the West) are bombing, torturing, occupying and pillaging them. And then we blame their religion when they become radicalized.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is just nonsense. This idea that there isn't any blame at all to go around.
It either suggests that Muslims are just mindless zombies that have no choice in the matter...they just react like Pavlov's dog.
Or that they respect and revere this religion they live by...that virtually every single aspect of their lives is in some way dictated or at least regulated by, and that they voluntarily submit to...that they have this religion of peace that they are guided by so much, that they are willing to defy it's very principles not only in everyday life, but in reaction to "infidels" denigrating it.
Someone burns a book halfway around the world, and they cut people's heads off. Either because they just can't help themselves, or because their passion for their religion of peace is just so great that they can't sit peacefully by while someone speaks ill of it.
and much more so - of Satanism or even Discordianism. They are religions which explicitly call for violence and the destruction of social order. But the fact is that the "beliefs" of Discordianism and - to an extent - Satanism are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, somewhat satirical commentary on life and the human condition.
One of my friends is a Satanist, one of the most peaceful people I know. I never met a Discordian in real life, but neither the Satanist (in it's true form, not some teenagers/pscyopaths killing people and using their own insanity/Satan as a scapegoat) or the Discordian are violent or push the aspect of a chaotic order, there simply is chaos and there simply is order, and functioning within the two.
As far as Muslim scholars, I highly doubt Schuon or Guenon were violent or "extremists" in any sense.
But on the propaganda aspect, months back my brother made a remark about Islam being violent or to that degree, I didn't question him I just listened to what he said. It was odd, because it's coming from my brother, but there was no real evidence, no historical or religious analysis, and for himself to claim Christian and condemn another religion for being intolerable or violent is just a bit ironic. The people who have absorbed this nonsense in don't realize it, they won't question, they think it's a legitimate belief or view they are holding, but they have not done their own non-bias research on the matter.
Another thing that gets me is the culture aspect, and Islam and it's cultural identity is the target that our military must expel to release oppressed peoples. Recently I had read an article about a woman who lived in a very culturally (and sexually) oppressed neighborhood, and from reading how bad it was you'd think it was from another country, but in reality it was a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood in New York City. Their forms of cultural oppression are no different than any other, so why are they not the target?
@Bert: I'm glad to see there is one other sane person on these boards!
This is the problem with Dawkins-Dennett-Harris anti-theism, they are so anti-religious that they will demonize just about any religion. The obvious point that seems to be being missed is that beliefs - no matter how violent their content - cannot hurt anyone. It is true that beliefs have a way of being put into action but the point is that until they are, there's nothing wrong with holding them in terms of peaceful social order. Except for ritual human sacrifice or other ritual abuses, the same is true of religious rituals.
Contrary to Harris, I think it's fairly easy to define what we mean by religion: a venerated set of beliefs and practices (or rituals). As I pointed out already, beliefs in and of themselves can never aggress against anyone and practices/rituals have to involve actual abuse in order to be tortious.
People believe all sorts of extremely dangerous myths - such as the myth that the US government is seeking to advance freedom in the world or the myth that the Federal Reserve is acting to protect the US economy or the myth that the TSA is looking out for our safety. We can go on and on. These myths are much more consequential in the modern world than the myths surrounding the Biblical Creation narrative or Jesus or even Mohammed. Belief in these myths is bad in the sense that they enable all sorts of evils but belief alone is not actionable.
Where it gets really subjective is the inane debate over whose beliefs are more dangerous or false than whose. Most people believe so many economic and political fallacies whose consequences are far more momentous than anything they might believe about who the Jews descended from and who the Muslims descended from. Correcting the former is a much higher priority, in my view, than correcting the latter.
Bert:Their forms of cultural oppression are no different than any other, so why are they not the target?
Probably because they don't make as good patsys.
Clayton:The obvious point that seems to be being missed is that beliefs - no matter how violent their content - cannot hurt anyone. It is true that beliefs have a way of being put into action but the point is that until they are, there's nothing wrong with holding them in terms of peaceful social order. Except for ritual human sacrifice or other ritual abuses, the same is true of religious rituals.
No one said there was anything wrong with holding violent beliefs. All Sam Harris said was that to assert that "Osama bin Laden is [essentially] David Koresh" is not only a lie, but a dangerous one.
Contrary to Harris, I think it's fairly easy to define what we mean by religion: a venerated set of beliefs and practices (or rituals).
Right. And a "sport" is a diversion or recreation or pleasant pastime.
Again, you are misrepresenting what Harris said. He said nothing about religion being difficult to define. He said it is a useless term.
I'm quite surprised at the level of argumentation you're bringing here, and in particular the distortion of the argument in question. I did not expect this.
They've been all patsy'd out, but on top of that Israelie atrocities go under the news/military radar it seems, put all interest towards targeting the non-Judea-Christian people.
I'm quite surprised at the level of argumentation you're bringing here
I don't like Dennett-Dawkins-Harris. I don't think they are pro-liberty people at all and it is my view that their rabidly anti-religion views serve the secular Establishment quite well. These people will on the one hand mock religious belief then turn around and apply the same mockery to anyone who suggests that the government might not have your best interest at heart when it passes a law or enacts a policy or goes to war. The "Reason" crowd is anti-historical and seeks to lobotomize critical thinking (aka revisionism) about accepted, orthodox history as handed down to us by the court historians. They label revisionism as "conspiracy theory" and finger it as another manifestation of the human brain's tendency to "see patterns where there aren't any" just like the superstitious religionists of yore.
Islam is the Establishment's new whipping-boy/scapegoat and Harris is either a useful idiot or a dangerous mouthpiece of the Establishment.
Bert:They've been all patsy'd out, but on top of that Israelie atrocities go under the news/military radar it seems, put all interest towards targeting the non-Judea-Christian people.
What I mean is these other "forms of cultural oppression" aren't able to be as easily used (if at all) to further the agenda of the powers that are benefitted by the "targeting" as you put it.
In other words, there isn't a dedicated effort to call out these "atrocities" (or at least not as large of one) for the same reason there isn't a "war on homelessness", or a "men's movement" of any significance. There isn't virtually anything for the powers that be to gain from it.
Of course, but targetting culturally oppressive people who are "our allies" doesn't work so well, thus we target something foreign to us (figuratively and realistically). Buddy up with Israel (who I'll even consider "Western" in the political/imperialistic sense) and attack everyone else in the Middle East/Northern Africa who's Muslim.
Bert:Of course, but targetting culturally oppressive people who are "our allies" doesn't work so well, thus we target something foreign to us (figuratively and realistically). Buddy up with Israel (who I'll even consider "Western" in the political/imperialistic sense) and attack everyone else in the Middle East/Northern Africa who's Muslim.
That's my whole point. What the heck did you think I was saying that whole time?
Clayton:I don't think they are pro-liberty people at all and it is my view that their rabidly anti-religion views serve the secular Establishment quite well. These people will on the one hand mock religious belief then turn around and apply the same mockery to anyone who suggests that the government might not have your best interest at heart when it passes a law or enacts a policy or goes to war.
Okay...so Harris is wrong about what he says in that clip because he would mock someone who suggests the government doesn't have your best interest at heart?
The "Reason" crowd is anti-historical and seeks to lobotomize critical thinking (aka revisionism) about accepted, orthodox history as handed down to us by the court historians. They label revisionism as "conspiracy theory" and finger it as another manifestation of the human brain's tendency to "see patterns where there aren't any" just like the superstitious religionists of yore.
I have no idea why any of this is relevant.
So basically because what Harris says allegedly "helps the establishment", that makes him wrong. You really want to go down this road?
And I find it interesting you neglected to offer any response to my challenges above.
I was sort of explicitly making a reference to my reference of orthodox Jews I made above.
John James:The difference is largely described here:
Overall, it seems like simple propaganda since he only used analogies and made assertions - if you watch carefully you'll notice he doesn't actually provide any "facts" in that clip - particularly anything to justify the psychos of Christianity being dismissed as not true Scotsmen, while the psychos of Islam are regarded as pious observers of a fundamentally evil faith.
It's clearly meant to be a persuasive speech (as opposed to informative), and he is trying to persuade his audience that it's rational and good to fear and distrust Islamic people because of their religion. I'll be charitable and say that could be because he had some of the same Kool-Aid millions of others drank in the aftermath of 9/11..... even though he uses rhetoric like this:
How many more architects and mechanical engineers must hit the wall at 400 miles an hour before we admit to ourselves that jihadist violence is not merely a matter of education, poverty, or politics? The truth, astonishingly enough, is that in the year 2006 a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Western secularists, liberals, and moderates have been very slow to understand this. The cause of their confusion is simple: They don't know what it is like to really believe in God. [source]
+1 Groucho
Try to keep up. You expressed surprise that I would be unhappy with Sam Harris's condemnation of Islam and I explained that I don't like Sam Harris. He isn't wrong for that reason but I knew he would be spouting unsupported assertions before I even clicked on the link. Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
This isn't my first rodeo - in a past life, I was a devout Christian and debated atheists online, who frequently quoted Dawkins/Dennett/Harris. As a group, you won't find a more rabid bunch of statists than the secular humanists. The Dawkins/Dennett/Harris brand of anti-religionism plays right into the hands of the State which is perfectly happy to end its multi-millenium long power-sharing arrangement with the priestly class and centralize all power and moral legitimacy completely within itself.
Groucho, the is plenty of facts that show Islam is not a peaceful religion. Since the very beginning, Islam expasion was a militartistic one. When Muhammad was expelled from Mecca and went to Medina, he converted enough men in Medina to gather a small army to take over Mecca.
The convertion of persians, nothern african and turks into islamism were all a matter of militar expansion.
Clayton: The "Reason" crowd is anti-historical and seeks to lobotomize critical thinking (aka revisionism) about accepted, orthodox history as handed down to us by the court historians. They label revisionism as "conspiracy theory" and finger it as another manifestation of the human brain's tendency to "see patterns where there aren't any" just like the superstitious religionists of yore. Clayton -
I come across this frequently. It is so intensely frustrating to me that I feel unable to devise a response. What do you say to someone who fundamentally doubts what you say and your sanity on the basis that it is unpopular?
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger