Muslims are so uncivilized. They’re brown savages.
Geraldo Rivera, who seemingly has had a foot surgically implanted into his mouth, needs to shuts his piehole — forever. From Think Progress:
Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera described a “big big hunk of the Muslim world” as naive, “behind us in terms of political sophistication,” and “easily enraged,” during a segment on the unrest in the Middle East on Friday morning. “They have 100 years to evolve, to catch up to anything like the sophistication of the West. We have to appreciate that. In some ways, they are almost childlike, dare I say it.”
Dare I say it? Of course you dare say it, because you’re an asshole. As I wrote earlier this week:
Look — there are assholes everywhere: Muslim assholes; Christian assholes; Jewish assholes; European assholes; Black assholes; and Arab assholes who aren’t Muslim (just because, you know, not every person of Arab descent is Muslim). There are people who are assholes because they are stupid and people who are assholes because they are scared and people who are assholes because they just feel like it. Whatever the basis for the assholery, if we let the assholes of any group define the group — if we let the white supremacists, and Terry Joneses, and right-wing hatemongers define who we are as Americans — then we are nothing but a giant American asshole.
Geraldo Rivera is an asshole.
[via Think Progress]
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Brachiator
I remember when Geraldo Rivera wasn’t a white man.
rlrr
Geraldo probably shouldn’t be talking about sophistication…
patroclus
I don’t think a “journalist” who tries to disclose the precise positioning of U.S. troops during an invasion is particularly adult nor do I think that someone who honestly believes that he’s going to find Al Capone’s loot in an abandoned warehouse a half a century after Capone’s death has much upstairs either.
Gerry Rivers had promise back in the early 70’s; Geraldo Rivera has squandered that for decade after decade.
Mike E
Well, with that face, what else would he be? 70’s porn chic is a fashion choice, yo.
El Cid
“Dare I say it,” as though disparaging brown people of the wrong religion in another part of the world for your idiot right wing welfare FoxNooz network is somehow gutsy.
Amir Khalid
As an uncivilized, almost childlike brown Muslim savage, I’d like to say: Ooga booga.
Alexander
Vonnegut on Rivera in 1991:
Not relevant, really, but it sorts me out.
Mnemosyne
Don’t care. The space shuttle just flew OVER MY HEAD
jrg
I’d say that a group of people who don’t understand that freedom of speech means that people in the US can say things without support of the government is behind us in terms of political sophistication… And “easily enraged”? How can you even begin to question that?
Mnemosyne
Don’t care. The space shuttle just flew OVER MY GODDAMNED HEAD 20 minutes ago.
Will worry about politics later.
ETA: Sorry for the double post. Excited clicky finger got excited.
danimal
Look, as much as I support Obama, and as I agree that Gerardo Rivera is a pompous self-promoting asshole, there is something that absolutely nobody in the current polical/media whirlwind wants to face directly: the protests are about far more than an idiot’s video blaspheming Mohammed. This is a bit more than a childish over-reaction to a provocation. The hot-headed Arab Muslims just might have more substantive reasons to be pissed.
Is it really a stretch that the Arab Street, or at least a chunk of it, is really, really pissed that the War on Terror can come crashing down on their heads at any time via drone missile. I’m quite certain that our targeting decisions are taken very seriously, and I’m just as certain that they are occasionally wrong. Even when the bad guys are targeted accurately, collateral damage can and does lead to the death of innocents. Given these fairly uncontroversial realities, is anger at the west really unexpected?
We can (and should) argue the policy for the War on Terror, drone attacks and general Mideast diplomacy. But we should acknowledge and understand that there are ramifications to the policy choices that we make. Protests and terrorist attacks/assassinations do not happen in a vacuum. While pointing at the childishness of Arabs, perhaps we should conduct adult debates ourselves. Is that too much to ask, Gerardo?
Alex in NYC
I hate Geraldo generally. However, I have to disagree with the characterization here. I don’t know why I flipped to Fox this morning, but I saw this interview live, and he really was just saying that many of the people are living in an earlier time in terms of technology and being able to understand the nuance of what is official v. what is an ass on YouTube — it’s very hard to reach them. Actually, he was very supportive of the State Department’s efforts to educate. Brian Kilmeade and Eric Bolling were calling any attempts to educate “an apology tour.” Geraldo quite forcefully said they were basically idiots, and what did they think we should do, get into another war in Libya or Pakistan? It was one of his finer moments.
SatanicPanic
FOX viewers are naive, behind us in terms of political sophistication and easily enraged. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Geraldo.
Alexander
@jrg: Do you really think that your understanding of how things work over there surpasses their understanding of how things work over here? On what basis?
joeyess
This should be a bumper sticker.
ET
Well considering some of the shows he put on back in the day I don’t think he has any room, at all, to talk.
Ash Can
Is the Peggy-Noonan-bashing making Geraldo nervous? Is he feeling a need to reassert his “white” bona fides?
(Edited to put “white” in quotation marks, as Hispanic is not a race.)
jrg
@Alexander: If you have a better explanation, I’d like to hear it.
SatanicPanic
@jrg: Those gangs of angry seniors who want government out of the Medicare totally agree with you
Mike E
@danimal: And, treating sociological issues with maturity and (dare I say) fairness would direct any observer of this region to conclude that when a large population of young men are unemployed/idle, violence is to be expected…and they will lash out at the usual suspects (Westerners, foreigners, women, non-Muslims). Call it the GOP model.
Brachiator
@El Cid:
It’s only Geraldo, but even here these fools forget that this is the age of the Internets.
I don’t think that this despicable idiocy would spark riots, but the increasingly open contempt with which conservatives view Muslims and others will be noted.
GxB
Why do I get the impression that given the Repub’s careening through a gulch towards most certain disaster, their toadies will stop at nothing – including shitting in the global punchbowl – to make everyone else’s life miserable? Especially the guy in the big chair.
Trentrunner
To act like there isn’t qualitative difference in the violence, misogyny, and hatred in the Koran from the other mainstream world religions (atheist here, so shut up) is really to ignore reality. OF COURSE there are decent Muslim people. But their religion/culture/politics (it’s all one–that’s another big difference) is a retrograde powderkeg of medieval superstitions and exclusionary violence dressed in religious garb. Look what’s happening in Europe.
scav
Sophistication of the west? Compare and contrast the effectiveness and decorum of Tea Partiers at Town Hall meetings and the Arab Spring. Mixed bag I’d say. And more along the lines of what @danimal said. They’ve got ample cause to be tetchy.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Ditto.
The shot of the shuttle flying past the Hollywood Sign, just wunnerful, as great (to be fair) of the shots of the shuttle flying over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
lee
I can be quite the asshole when I want to be. Usually when I decide I want to be an asshole I enjoy it.
So yeah there are all kinds of assholes around.
Alexander
@jrg: Explanation for what? If you mean the protests/riots/attacks, I wasn’t suggesting that you were wrong about their reasons for engaging in them. (Though you might well be; I just didn’t talk about that.) I was asking you whether you think that your understanding of the way things work over there is any more sophisticated or accurate than their understanding of the way things work over here?
Obviously, I doubt that it is. And that’s not because I think that their understanding of us is sophisticated. It’s because I think that your understanding of them is simplistic.
j
O/T, but Pete La Barbera of the Nat’l Org of Homo Haters threatened Chick fil A with a boycott
http://americansfortruth.com/2012/09/20/encourage-chick-fil-a-not-to-cave-in-to-gay-activists-by-dropping-marriage-support/
so naturally Cathy caved.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/chick-fil-a-anti-gay-donations-dan-cathy-tweet-_n_1901146.html?utm_hp_ref=chicago&ir=Chicago
No word yet how Alderman Moreno will react.
Now, back to the regularly scheduled thread.
Mnemosyne
@jrg:
Yeah, why do those people get all upset about us bombing and occupying countries in their region? Why can’t they be calm and rational about it like the Vietnamese were?
scav
@Trentrunner: You mean all the football hooligans and skinheads are Muslim? It was uniquely Muslims out rioting in the streets in the UK? That lone Muslim nutjob in Norway?
arguingwithsignposts
@danimal:
I would like to throw “the Arab Street” “under the bus,” but I imagine “the optics” would do me in “if the election were held today.”
Also, FTR, the U.S. doesn’t have a shuttle in operation at the present time.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
Well played, sir! Well played!
jrg
@Trentrunner:
Yep. This is a big part of the problem, I think. Someone who does not understand that the religion or the government has final say in every movie that gets made or every image that is broadcast is going to have a very hard time grasping freedom of speech. Instead, if something comes from the US that offends them, they’ll assume it was created by our clerics or our government.
Alexander
@arguingwithsignposts:
I doubt it. After all, both sides do it.
scav
And, can I say the political sophistication and decorum of teapartiers dressed up in colonial outfits with poorly spelled signs shouting at townhall meetings is clearly the apex of civilization. Effective too — remind me again who’s toppled more unpopular regimes lately?
Brachiator
@Trentrunner:
Yes, yes, we all know about the contemporary Republican Party in America.
What does this have to do with Muslims?
Mnemosyne
@Trentrunner:
The difference is that the Koran is actually more feminist for its time than either the Old or the New Testaments. It at least acknowledges, to use just one example, that women should be allowed to inherit property in their own right, or that you can’t just divorce your wife and abandon her in the street. Women have actual, specific rights laid out in the Koran.
If you think the Koran is more bloodthirsty, you haven’t read the Old Testament lately, where a group of small children is torn to pieces by bears because they mocked a prophet’s bald head.
Sorry, but the problems of the Middle East have a whole lot more to do with Western imperialism and meddling (particularly by the British) than they do with the Koran. Or have you forgotten about that whole “overthrowing the democratically elected government and installing the Shah” thing that the US and Britain did in Iran in the 1950s? I guarantee you the Iranians haven’t forgotten.
danimal
@arguingwithsignposts: Point taken. Arab Street is retired from my lexicon.
piratedan
@Brachiator: after years of bombing brown people for having the temerity of having oil reserves underneath their desert and causing us to prop up military dictatorships and do everything possible to prevent self determination over the past 40 years, I would tend to be a bit skeptical of the motives of our country too, especially since we allow our theologically deranged such free reign of our media.
patroclus
@danimal: Yeah, Rivera’s a clown and I’m generally an Obot, but I think the recent events are substantive and not a result of child-like anger. To me, this was probably blowback for the recent death of Zawahiri’s aide and other things that the U.S. has been doing (it varies per country) and the video (and the 9/11 anniversary) was/were just the pretext(s).
Only substantive changes in policy will lessen the blowback.
Ruckus
Geraldo Rivera is an asshole.
I thought we were supposed to discuss new issues. This one has been on going for what, 30+ yrs. He is being true to form, he has always been an asshole. Better question, when has he not been an asshole? You expect a zebra to change it’s stripes and look like a horse?
raven
The roots of Muslim discontent (FB Ali) (From Pat Lang’s site)
“However, the first step in any sensible policy-making or intelligent debate and comment should be to understand the causes underlying the problem.”
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne:
What? I need a cite there. Not because I don’t believe you, but because I want to go read that for myself. The bible has some good, gory action, but I can’t be bothered to slog thru the boring parts.
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
Depends on your definition of “in operation,” I suppose.
Tractarian
I’m sorry, but this is really mild. There’s nothing particularly bigoted about observing that some (a “big big hunk” to be exact, not all) of the world’s population of Muslims are “easily enraged”. (The Onion made this point very well in slightly-NSFW fashion.) And “behind us in terms of political sophistication” is pretty much the standard liberal view (i.e., there’s nothing inherent about Islam that makes it more prone to violent fundamentalism).
That said, I’m sure Geraldo is an asshole.
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
The prophet Elisha and two She-Bears vs. 42 children
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne: Yes, being strapped to the back of a jumbo jet like a dog on romney’s SUV is not definitionally “operating.”
This is operating.
scav
@SatanicPanic: Looks like it’s 2 Kings 2.23-25 or around there. Elisha being the prophet. alas, low on the visible gore metric but it’s there.
Paul
@jrg:
Speaking of easily enraged; how about the made up war on Christmas that has Christians in a frenzy. How about the disgraceful (to put it nicely) behavior by Christians outside abortion clinics?
There are extremists in every religion…
PurpleGirl
@Brachiator: Well, he originally used the name Jerry Rivers. Later he ethnicized himself and became Geraldo Rivera.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne: There’s also the father/daughter stuff, I forget which old testament heroes were engaged in that stuff (Lot or Noah, at least, and another random character), and plenty of stuff in the NT from Paul about male domination of women.
I think it’s generally a good idea to avoid the whole comparing notes thing on ancient religious texts to see which is the most retrograde.
Fester Addams
@arguingwithsignposts:
Sad to say, it’s probably the best kind of operation for this craft. After all, 40% of the fleet failed catastrophically, killing all on board.
Spatula
Yes, Virginia, Geraldo Rivera is an asshole.
And yes, Virginia, there is a lot of truth to what he said here. Which is why you’re overreacting.
Even George Bush the Dumber could observe that the sky is blue.
whidby
What do you call someone who kills somebody else because a third person from the same country made fun of their god?
Childlike isn’t the word I’d use.
Mnemosyne
@Tractarian:
Interestingly, those “easily enraged” Muslims all seem to be concentrated in a specific geographical area that doesn’t include, say, Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim country in the world. In fact, three times more Muslims live in Asia and South Asia than in the Middle East, and yet you rarely hear about huge religious riots in Indonesia or Malaysia.
A rational person would come to the conclusion that the problem is with politics in the particular area where the riots are happening, not with the specific religion of the rioters, since the vast majority of Muslims aren’t rioting. But I guess all people have to do is say “OOGA BOOGA MUSLIM!” and it’s time for you to change your Depends.
arguingwithsignposts
@Fester Addams: Oh, I agree. I’m just making a point because I’ve seen way too much shuttle geek ZOMG teh shuttle flew near me! on the tubes today.
Comrade Dread
He works for Fox News, so it’s kind of redundant.
There’s a picture of Pat Buchanan on the door where they hold employment interviews with a sign that says “You must be this much of an asshole to work here.”
Palli
With mouthpieces like fellow citizen Rivera this country will never be safe!
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
Dude, you’re going to have to get over your jealousy at the fact that a freakin’ SPACE SHUTTLE JUST FLEW OVER MY HEAD. You cannot change that extremely awesome fact with a weasely “well, but it was piggybacked onto another aircraft, so since the space shuttle in and of itself was not specifically flying under its own power, it didn’t actually happen.”
Lighten up, Sheldon.
Mnemosyne
@whidby:
American?
ETA: Also, too, it’s pretty clear at this point that the 4 embassy workers in Libya were not killed by rioters, but in a planned operation by Islamist militias.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Also saw the belly of a low flying 747. Something seemed to be on top of it, could be Dubya Mitt’s campaign plane.
gelfling545
@SatanicPanic: A friend who had been “born again” undertook to read through the entire Bible to his children night by night. After about 3 nights he had to stop – way too violent & nasty.
LanceThruster
There is, however, a correlation as to how much assholeyness any given culture (or a percentage thereof) puts up with. Additionally, how outraged are the rank and file, and how big a ratio of those who will actually do something about it by concrete action versus those who just shrug it off.
Examples –
Yeah, it was a pretty extreme reaction to kill the ambassador, but he did work for the country that allows for the blaspheming against Mohammed.
-or-
Sure, he did kill that abortion doctor, but the abortion doctor was murdering babies.
To my mind, the first example has far too many people who don’t see the insanity of getting your knickers in a bunch over someone’s devoutly held belief about their mythology.
Xians grew out of it (though not necessarily by choice).
At what point of the rise of Islamic extremism, so much so that it was virtually holding the world hostage, would you counter with a promise of assured destruction of the inanimate object of Mecca with warning for the inhabitants to leave? The extremists say that would be impossible because Allah would not allow it.
Up the ante, offer them free passage to Mecca to test their own hypothesis. Extremists gone, problem solved?
What if the obliteration failed? Everybody converts because obviously Allah is the one true God?
What if we learned that false flags were set in motion by a group known for such, in order for bad things to happen to Muslims?
Then what?
I think religionists need to leave the punishments of those who besmirch their divine beings to said divine beings, otherwise they’re just admitting how impotent their gods are.
I do not fear the gods, I fear their damn proxies.
g
So, they invented algebra, astronomy, and the concept of the number zero while “our” European ancestors were treating medical patients by draining their blood, dunking “witches” in ponds, and living in thatched huts with their cows in the same room, but they’re the “savages.”
Ruckus
@Comrade Dread:
Wow. That’s a pretty strict level of assholyness to achieve, just for a paycheck.
LanceThruster
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Must have broken down out on Highway 61.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ruckus: Yes, and as much of an asshole as Juan Williams is, he clearly doesn’t meet the Pat Buchanan Bar.
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Shoulda got on top of a parking structure with the rest of us geeks for a better look. I have photos of the adorable piggybacking.
Though my friend is very annoyed with herself because she accidentally turned off the video on her camera and got nothin’.
Amir Khalid
@Trentrunner:
I suppose I could retort that there is no shortage of violence, misogyny, and hatred in the Bible, or maybe in any scripture if one looks hard enough and with enough intent to accuse. But pointing a finger back would really serve no purpose. Besides, you say you’re an atheist.
As a brown, etc. Muslim myself, I understand very well the anger behind the protests this past week, and I too feel some of it. It is a reaction to what Muslims feel (justifiably, I reckon) is a deliberate provocation against us because of our religious identity. But I don’t condone the violence at all. It is wrong in itself. Worse, it profits the provocateurs, whomever Nakoula B. Nakoula is working with/for, and whomever else has an interest in painting Muslims as prone to violent “jihad”.
And now there has been more provocation, from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo with a fresh batch of blasphemous cartoons. The French Government has had to shut down schools as diplomatic missions abroad for fear of more violence. At some point you have to blame toe provocateurs, as much as you blame the ones provoked. Right?
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: Oh that is awesome. I might have to re-read to Bible just to see what other crazy stuff is in there.
arguingwithsignposts
@SatanicPanic: Don’t bother, there’s way too much other shit in there (whole chapters of begat-ing, for instance). There’s probably a condensed version of all the bad stuff somewhere (In fact, I know there is, but I’m too lazy to google it) that would suit your voyeuristic needs.
Ruckus
@g:
Funny how that works.
It’s why extremists in all religions don’t want exposure to the real world with it’s history and all that science stuff. You’ll find out fairly easily that they are full of shit.
Bob In Portland
Gee, I’ve said the same thing about consumers of Fox News.
Mnemosyne
@LanceThruster:
Of course, the ambassador was murdered in a planned operation that used the protest as a cover for the crime, not as a spontaneous reaction during the protest, but why bother with facts when you can pretend it happened because those Muslims are just so hot-headed?
Hint: when it turns out that the militias know the secret location of the consulate’s safe house and are able to attack it as soon as the staff is evacuated to it after the initial attack on the consulate, that ain’t because of a spontaneous riot that just happened to erupt.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Got a few pics, a parking structure was quite unnecessary; it flew directly overhead right by Home Depot, actually surprised me.
Jerzy Russian
It is almost like we are surrounded by assholes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sen8Tn8CBA4
Violet
@Amir Khalid:
Not really. Those who get provoked have a choice. They can get angry, protest, kill people, burn things, or whatever else they do while provoked. Or they can choose not to be provoked. They can choose to ignore the attempts at provocation, to laugh at them, to say the movie maker/magazine publisher/whoever is stupid and rude but not worth their energy and go on and live their lives. They do not have to become provoked. That is their choice.
This choice in no way excuses those who make the horrible movies or whatever. Those people have made their own choices. But they are doing it to get a rise out of people. To get attention. Why give them what they want? That’s the choice of the people who choose to become provoked. No one’s making them riot in the street or protest or kill people. They chose that.
Plantsmantx
@Trentrunner:
“…a retrograde powderkeg of medieval superstitions and exclusionary violence dressed in religious garb.”
Oh, conservatism. Ok.
Amir Khalid
A few months ago, this same Geraldo Rivera blamed Trayvon Martin’s death on Trayvon’s choice of clothing, only to be publicly scolded for this idiocy by his own teenage son. So I guess no one is really surprised to hear him saying foolish things on a regular basis.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, apparently the current government of Egypt was trying to use the anti-Muslim film to shore up their own credentials with the local extremists, but they got spanked by the US and had to back down. See also Dr. Cole’s coverage of other governments’ reactions throughout the region.
Again, almost as though all of the rioting has more to do with local politics than religion, innit?
LanceThruster
@Amir Khalid:
Unfortunately, no. True human freedom needs to be completely free to mock or disparage anyone’s belief in the supernatural because the claims of the supernatural are outside of the realm of what we CAN agree upon.
I am an atheist. Mock and belittle my godlessness all you want. It does not effect what I choose as a worldview/godview. You are free to choose your own worldview/godview in that regard.
But part of the problem is that religionists have been mollycoddledfor far too long. There was a time (and in some parts of the world still is), that the mere act of rejecting someone’s deeply held belief meant that I could be killed, tortured, imprisoned, harassed, oppressed, exiled, condemned, or otherwise sanctioned as they felt that my expression of such was an insult to their god.
Let their god damn me as She/He/It/They see fit…NOT their proxies!
I do not fear their hell, just their followers.
SatanicPanic
@gelfling545: They always steered us away from that stuff in religion class when I went to Catholic school. Besides the Proverbs, they treated everything in the Old Testament like a crazy relative locked in the attic.
Djur
@Mnemosyne:
But, but, but Trentrunner said that Muslim “religion/culture/politics” are “all one”. This is because all Muslims are Arab, and all Arabs are Muslims, and every Muslim in the Middle East and North Africa and Central Asia is an Arab with the same culture and politics. Except some of them are Turks. But obviously the issues European countries are having with Turkish immigrants have the same root cause as religious extremism in North Africa.
All those Muslims in Southeast Asia aren’t real Muslims, or they’re just doing taquiyya. Unless they’re extremists, in which case they’re real Muslims again.
Come back next week when we find out that all Muslims practice “female circumcision”, and “female circumcision” is always the same thing as infibulation.
Death Panel Truck
@Mnemosyne: Oh, but it was okay, says Bible.org, because they had it coming, and besides, they weren’t children (like it makes a difference if they weren’t):
And of course, we know damned well who was really at fault. Hmmm…let’s see now…who could it be…could it be…SATAN?
Ah’mo get me a couple of hungry bears, so when the bible-pounders come knockin’ on my door on Saturday mornings, I won’t have to fix my bears any breakfast. It’ll be like ordering in.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
At some point you have to blame toe provocateurs, as much as you blame the ones provoked. Right?
Agreed. Bullies should always be called out for what they are.
arguingwithsignposts
@SatanicPanic: Honestly, probably 99 percent of all believers have never read the Bible all the way through, and the reason for that (as someone who has) is because it’s plodding and boring in far too many places, the plot wanders, and it’s too damned long. And then it closes with a manic apocalyptic hallucination.
ETA: Sort of an ancient Atlas Shrugged, if you will.
Djur
@LanceThruster: I’ll agree with you as soon as the West stops using Islam as a proxy to attack and dehumanize filthy wogs who have the gall to attempt to run their own societies as they see fit, or to emigrate legally for the purpose of finding work.
SatanicPanic
@arguingwithsignposts: What kind of begatting we are talking about?
ETA- The final chapter should have been left out. But then if I were editing I would cut it down to just one Gospel, Proverbs and maybe Genesis just to introduce the story. Christians never ask me opinion on their holy book, I wonder why.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Win. Pure, unadulterated win. Your internets will be delivered shortly- just pay shipping and handling costs.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
I don’t know if you have ever read the timeline of the original Muhammed cartoon controversy, but in that case non-violent complaints was actually the first reaction. The cartoons were published three times before the newspaper finally got the violent reaction that they wanted instead of the mild, peaceful protests and official complaints that happened first and were ignored.
If you don’t allow people any outlet other than violent protest and instead mock and belittle them when they try non-violent means and deny them any kind of relief through the legal system, eventually they will violently protest. Or, as we say here in Los Angeles, April 29, 1992.
Don
I can’t believe I have never shared this here before.
Because you’re an idiot.
Ruckus
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’ve noticed many times that many people who do read the thing all the way through go, WTF is this shit. A lot of them seem to have this “conversion” at about 11-13 yrs old.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
I don’t think we’re really in disagreement here. Those who react to the provocation with violence and riots (the murder of Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues was a separate, premeditated crime, as Mnemosyne points out) are very wrong to overreact. Nakoula Nakoula, and whoever’s behind him posting that video, intentionally caused that reaction. Each side is to blame for its part in this, and for the consequences.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The biggest assholes I’ve ever met, bar none, were a pair of Iranian Jews who owned the cockroach-infested restaurant next to the music store I worked in.
(Persian as they liked to be referred to, and by saying that I just gave them far more respect than they ever gave me)
I think they’d figured out a long time ago that everyone on the planet was going to hate them for what they were, and that they might as well behave accordingly. Small comfort when they parked their cars in front of my loading dock door.
Violet
OT–has anyone checked out Mitt Romney’s Twitter feed? I linked over to it after a mention of Ann Romney’s plane making an emergency landing (everyone is fine). Wondered if Mitt (or a campaign person) would make a comment like, “So glad everyone’s safe. Thanks to our brave firefighters.” or something. But no. No mention of it, and the whole thing reads like robotic soundbites. Last three tweets:
There’s no personality at all. It’s like the Mittbot pressed his soundbite generator button.
trollhattan
But what about Muslims in hoodies, huh, Geraldo?
Bloix
@Alexander: Geraldo used to spend a lot of time talking to people who had been kidnapped by aliens and had flown around in their UFO’s.
Joel
Geraldo is looking more and more like Gene Shalit every day.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Julia Sweeney has a great one-woman play about becoming an atheist called “Letting Go of God.” One of the big things that sent her on her journey was starting a (Catholic) Bible study class and thinking, “What the hell?!? I had no idea this was in here!”
@Amir Khalid:
A lot of people think free speech = consequence free speech. Weirdly, some of them here are the same ones who were trying to get Rush Limbaugh’s sponsors to drop him after he called Sandra Fluke a slut on his radio show.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
And of course 1992 was not the first time in LA
Jay in Oregon
@joeyess:
FTFY.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@LanceThruster: Nicely put. I can’t respect religious viewpoints or perspectives because they’re rooted in a crock of absolute bullshit.
I have good manners; I’m not going to tell you to your face you’re full of shit unless you decide to discuss your insane and wrong beliefs with me, or force a course of action on me. If you do, be ready: I’m not going to respect your, or anyone else’s religion, because there is no God of any sort and saying otherwise is promulgating easily-disproven lies.
arguingwithsignposts
@SatanicPanic: lots of the boring kind, in addition to the daughters getting him drunk so he’d impregnate him kind. Take Genesis 11, for instance:
And they’re just getting warmed up with the begeting there.
hep kitty
I hate to admit this, but I used to have a ginormous crush on Geraldo, back when he did Good Night America and before he became a bona fide whore.
AA+ Bonds
i just miss matoko who was one of a handful of erstwhile posters here with depth of knowledge about the subject and the guts to take on liberals about their belief that everyone on earth wants to be a liberal
matoko pretty much called the current political alignment in the earliest post-Mubarak weeks with the Muslim Brotherhood at the center and everyone was like YOU HIDEOUS MONSTER, HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT ABOUT THE POOR EGYPTIANS
The Ancient Randonneur
Yeah, all those uncivilized … wait … what’s that?
What a bunch of uncivilized beasts! Peaceful demonstrators marching on the headquarters of an armed militia group is surely a sign that those people are violent fanatics!
arguingwithsignposts
@Omnes Omnibus: Someone has been looking for you in the late night threads.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Amir Khalid: That didn’t wash with my mother when my little brother used to annoy me to the point of hitting him. She was right, of course.
That argument also doesn’t wash as a defense for those who rape scantily-clad women. Not should it.
Bullshit argument and you know it.
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Or they could protest like Rosa Parks and all the folks who refused to ride buses did. Or other non-violent forms of protest.
I am not intending to be contrary. I hear what you are saying and I also agree with Amir Khalid that the movie maker was attempting to be provocative to get a reaction and that that has to be taken into account. I also agree with whoever upthread said not letting bullies get away with being bullies. It’s important to let bullies know they will not be allowed to behave in such a manner.
But I think there is a tremendous amount of strength in not being provoked. I take President Obama as an example. The man has almost preternatural calm in the face of so many things that would cause a meltdown in lesser humans. And what happens? His opponents inevitable ramp up the crazy and then self-destruct. Happens over and over again. At some point it’s worthwhile looking at how he manages to get that to happen. I think a lot of it happens to do with his ability to stay calm, to not get ruffled, to look at the long game.
I think choosing other, less violent forms of protest could be more successful in the long run for those in Muslim or Arab countries. But it’s tough to implement. Young men especially are full of testosterone and violence happens.
Culture of Truth
Isn’t he the guy who shoot someone for wearing a hoodie, while wearing a hoodie?
SatanicPanic
@arguingwithsignposts: Hmm, yeah, not the hottest begattery I have ever read about. I guess it’s tougher in your 400’s.
AA+ Bonds
but NPR will continue to run side by side pieces trying desperately to carve the protests in the Muslim world away from opposition to Assad, to pare off Benghazi-that-didn’t-like-Qaddafi from Benghazi-that-doesn’t-like-us, and meanwhile we are over a barrel because there is serious consternation in the Muslim world that we won’t jail more people responsible for the video as a demonstration that we give a damn
Certainly this involves demagoguery by Salafists and others but their strategy is sound, what are we going to do about it? with our precious First Amendment, and I am not being sarcastic about how precious it really is
Villago Delenda Est
Jerry Rivers needs to shut his fuckin’ pie hole.
arguingwithsignposts
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I think the comparison to “she had it coming” is a bit weak here, as in the case of incitement to violence, there is a third party between the violent and the violated that is attempting to set match to tinder.
hep kitty
@arguingwithsignposts: I remember when I was in my 20’s a black co-worker and friend kept after to me to come to her church. I finally went. It was a fully integrated church but reminds me, now, of the megachurch vibe, but without all the bands and pyrotechnics they have now.
Of course, they were trying to get me to join. They talked about basing your life on the word of God, the Bible, and all. So I had to ask about the whole Lot thing.
I told her that as a young girl, I decided to read the Bible from the beginning, but when I got to that part, it stopped me in my tracks. I was shocked and disturbed and couldn’t read any further.
And this zealous young lady hemmed and hawed b/c she didn’t know what I was talking about b/c she didn’t know this story! Then she tried to change the subject.
I said thanks but no thanks.
eemom
@arguingwithsignposts:
“Little Boots.” Almost to the level of “desperately seeking,” IMHO.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
Except that, interestingly, many of the really bad race riots in the US in the 1960s happened after the non-violence of the Civil Rights Movement. The Montgomery bus boycott was in 1955, ten years before the Watts Riots. There were major riots in India after they gained their independence from Great Britain.
Again, if you ignore and belittle people when they act nonviolently, they will eventually act violently. That’s the history of the Mohammed cartoons that people in the West love to glide over — the original protests were nonviolent, but those protests did no good because the papers just kept publishing the cartoons until they got the reaction they wanted. They wanted violent protests and they would. not. stop. until they got them.
Maybe we should be asking why there is a hardcore group of anti-Muslim fanatics (many of whom are operating out of the US) who deliberately provoke people over and over again and refuse to stop until they get the reaction they want. What is Pam Geller getting out of sponsoring the same guys who made this video?
Paul
@AA+ Bonds:
I don’t know much about Egypt. But I presume Egypt wouldn’t have been all that different than France in 1789 after its revolution. France wasn’t exactly at peace after its revolution. Thousands and thousands of innocent people got murdered after the revolution. That’s what happens in a power vacuum right after the overthrow of a dictator. If you are going to criticize Egypt, you pretty much have to criticize every country that had the guts to overthrow their dictator.
Amir Khalid
Juan Cole posted this video in his blog, for anyone who’s interested in hearing a thoughtful (and better educated than mine) reaction to the Innocence of Muslims riots.
FlipYrWhig
@LanceThruster:
Um, if by “grew out of it” you mean “enjoyed killing each other for stupid-ass reasons, like whether a cracker was literally or metaphorically a guy’s body, for hundreds of years,” then, I suppose so.
muddy
@Violet: When I was in 6th grade there was this bully who was always calling other kids out, and was going to beat them up because she didn’t like stuff they said. She was a lot bigger than most kids. Not fat, just large, like she was older. One day she doesn’t like what I said, and she says she will beat me up and that means she wins. I said fighting over something only proves who is the better fighter and has nothing to do with who is right.
I said I was sure she would totally kick my ass, because she was always in fights and I wasn’t, she was clearly going to be better at it. I added that I would be beat up, but still I would be right and she would be wrong, so what was the point, really.
Her frustration was so thorough upon hearing this that she was too pissed off to even beat me up. Damn it was swell, I never saw her get that mad in the actual fights.
Ruckus
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
It’s not a bullshit argument. Did your little brother get away with his crappy behavior for ever? Did you keep hitting him? Or did you both learn something?
Sure you were wrong to hit him for provoking you. He was also wrong for doing that. You don’t yell fire in public without there being one. It’s inflammatory, it causes a bad reaction, it’s provocative. If you do so is it the problem of the people reacting or the person at fault? Do you poke a bear at the zoo with a stick and expect no response? I don’t think so. You do this sort of shit to get a reaction, just as your brother did. He got what he expected, you got your ass wuped and he got to gloat.
It’s called responsibility for your actions.
Violet
@Mnemosyne:
I disagree that it’s inevitable. It’s certainly more likely, but acting violently is always a choice. People do not have to choose it.
This would be a very profitable line of inquiry. What’s in it for them. Figure out who’s funding them and why. Put some sunlight on that issue. I agree it would be quite beneficial.
Chicken Juice
@rlrr: I totally agree with Geraldo,and am frankly surprised most of you don’t. I mean the superiority of the west, in politics, business, science, education, and ethics is an established fact. The west routinely trounces the south in every objective metric, and…wait, he wasn’t talking about the west coast versus the south? Never mind.
LanceThruster
@hep kitty:
Nowadays when someone asks me why I reject the god(s) of the bible, I mention the story of Noah’s Ark. That god drowns puppies, babies, and kittens to teach the survivors a lesson (who wound up not learning it – you drown the whole goddam planet in front of me and I straighten up and pay attention. Noah, instead, just got drunk first chance he had).
I find nurseries decorated with a Noah’s Ark theme might as well have pictures of a working abattoir. Find out how adorable you think a child would find the story if you drowned baby animals in front of it to demonstrate.
Sheesh.
Culture of Truth
This idea that the U.S. “allows for” the YouTube video is interesting. Pakistan and Bangladesh ony this week blocked YouTube in their own countries. How will that go over? Why was it not done earlier?
Have other countries done the same? If not, why not?
Chris
@danimal:
Here’s something that was posted by a left-wing blogger back in 2006 while the riots over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons were in progress;
“The response from the Muslim world has been excessive. Of course, boycotting Danish goods is their right – our wonderful economic system is based on freedom of transaction – although it makes little sense to target all of Denmark instead of the paper in question. Calls for a government apology or for government action against the newspaper betray an unhealthy lack of appreciation for independence of the press. And, of course, burning down buildings and calls to kill people are unacceptable, as numerous Muslim leaders, including one of the key organizers of the march in Beirut that led to the burning of the consulate, have stated quite clearly.
But let’s get a grip here. One person may have died in Beirut; reports conflict. But so far nobody else has been killed in this campaign that has aroused so much opprobrium. All of the Sturm und Drang doesn’t compare to one day in occupied Palestine, let alone to the violent invasion and occupation of two countries, killing tens of thousands directly and leading, in Iraq, to the death, direct and iof over 150,000 people.
It is a little too much to see the perpetrators or supporters of those atrocities lecturing the victims about overreaction.”
I still think he made a fucking good point.
LanceThruster
@FlipYrWhig:
They grew out of murdering and burning heretics at the stake and such (in *most* of the modern xian world).
But again, even that was not a choice. The church(es) did not concede power voluntarily for the most part.
LanceThruster
@Violet:
Was it Bill Maher who said part of the problem is that they need to get laid more?
Culture of Truth
Perhaps if the protestors cited invisible balsa wood drones it would all make sense to Fox News
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
Given human nature, it is inevitable that closing off all other behavioral avenues will lead to violence. Violence may not be the first choice, but it will always be the choice of last resort when the people in question feel that every other avenue open to them has failed or been blocked off.
Ah, but as the free speech absolutists here will tell you, we’re not allowed to even look at that avenue of inquiry because First Amendment rights always trump society’s interest in keeping the peace, so we can’t even ask why someone would do this and what their possible motive would be. They said it, they had a right to say it, and any criticism of them for saying it is infringing on their free speech rights. The only permitted criticism is of the people who reacted.
Ruckus
@Violet:
Violence is not inevitable as Mnemosyne pointed out in her example. But the total non violent person is rare in this life, we react with what level of response we feel is necessary in any situation. We have to train ourselves not to over react. And then there are the people who keep up their provocative behavior until they get the response they want. Forum Transmitted Disease hit his little brother because his little brother keep doing something till he got the reaction he wanted.
So I say violence is not inevitable but it sure is predictable.
Violet
@LanceThruster: Don’t know. But societies that strictly segregate the sexes, strongly discourage or even legislate against premarital sex, don’t support men getting married until they can support a wife, and where unemployment is high, especially among young people, do not decrease the odds of young men looking for other outlets for their hormones.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Which, again, supports my point:
So, basically, protesting in the non-violent ways open to them (boycotts, calls for apologies, etc.) is ignored or mocked, and the provocation goes on until some people lose their tempers and act violently because all of their other attempts to get an apology have been fruitless, even with people who are supposed to be on the left.
I know that wasn’t the conclusion the blogger eventually came to but, seriously, do we have to belittle people for trying non-violent means first?
AA+ Bonds
@Paul:
I’m . . . not sure that’s really an accurate reading of the French Revolution, it’s pretty Burke-propagandish, and also, the French Revolution was explicitly secular, so much so that even the moderates got too far ahead of the curve . . . the comparison just doesn’t go very far IMO
LanceThruster
@Djur:
I stand for the end of oppression/demonization of the Palestinians and other Arabs/Muslims/Middle Easterners because they are fellow human beings and other human beings are using their religion as a club or the other’s as a badge of shame.
This too is wrong.
There is no merit whatsoever in the who follows the right god/who follows the wrong god? debate.
This needs to go beyond that, and soon.
LanceThruster
@Violet:
If I’m not mistaken, part of the perks of being rich when from an Islamic country is to get out of it when one chooses to dabble in vice where it is off the radar enough to gain a pass, or at least not rub the nose of the faithful in it.
Jay C
@BillinGlendaleCA:
More likely the dog carrier….
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
Sweeney is a treasure. My favorite line of hers in that show was (paraphrased), “That means Hitler got away with it? We’d better make sure that doesn’t happen again!”
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: So you believe that it’s understandable that some Muslims are violently demonstrating, and killing people, just because someone publishes a cartoon or makes a film that mocks their religion? Really?
Spatula
@Amir Khalid:
Wrong.
“blasphemous” lol.
What would really be awesome is for every major newspaper in every western country to print several “blasphemous” cartoons every freaking day until the novelty wore off. Slam Jesus and Abraham while you’re at, show Buddha on the toilet, I don’t care…but the only thing more absurd than ME Muslims rioting and killing foreigners and their own people over a pathetic little poorly made movie trailer is that supposedly progressive commenters here are defending their behavior.
The low bar your setting for them as civilized people is extremely condescending.
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Well, I’m not fully in agreement. I do support freedom of speech. I also think that when something is being deliberately done to provoke a response, and requires a large amount of organization and funding, that it’s useful to look into it. As I think you (or someone) said upthread, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. I support people’s right to say what they want, but that does not mean there won’t be consequences. And those who speak can’t just hide behind first amendment language. Consequences are part of the responsibility of freedom of speech.
@Ruckus: I agree that total non-violence is most likely to be something aspirational. I’m not sure that the example of the children hitting each other is truly applicable because they are children. I have been speaking of adults who, I hope, act more maturely than children. Again, aspirational thought there.
As to having to devolve into violence, I think people are lacking imagination for other ways to protest. For instance, Middle East countries could have decided to cut off oil supplies because of the cartoons. Which country was it in Africa where the women refused to have sex with their husbands until the violence stopped? Liberia? There are multiple ways to protest. And they too have consequences. But violence is not inevitable until you get down to the level of basic needs, like people do not have enough food, clothing, shelter.
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
I learned from photographing rock shows (strictly amateur), to just be in the moment (enjoy the show). Getting good pictures is gravy, and unless the pics themselves are the most important thing, can keep you from enjoying the actual experience.
Robert Waldmann
Rivera may be an asshole but he is very expert on the uncivilized and childlike. And mustaches.
Spatula
@Mnemosyne:
My god, you are still an idiot. What part of freedom of speech don’t you get? I don’t know of any western country that has a law against having your fee fees hurt.
Let these deeply offended morons print up some fucking cartoons of their own and print them in return. THAT is how civilized people argue, debate, and insult each other.
Paul
@AA+ Bonds:
All I was saying is that both countries were run by brutal dictators. After the dictators in both countries were overthrown, both countries ended up with violent aftermaths. This in spite of their cultural differences.
Not sure what religions, secular or whatever has to do with it. Sorry…
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Exactly.
I posted this on S, N as well, but yesterday I went through the casualty list on Wikipedia. If you take out Libya, for the reasons you listed, and Afghanistan, because that’s a war zone – in other words, nothing going on there but an already ongoing conflict between armed opponents –
Take those out of the picture, then, and you’re left with ONE casualty, someone who died in Beirut when American fast-food joints were set on fire. As far as I can tell, every other dead person has been a rioter, either shot by the police or dying of Darwinism like that rocket scientist burning the American flag in Pakistan.
So, one person dead, and a ton of property destruction. Pardon me for pointing this out but these things happen in the “civilized,” “law abiding” West on a not-exactly-unheard-of basis too, and often for reasons that are just as dumb (I could probably find you an English soccer riot that’s done as much damage as this).
Yes, it’s bad. No, the entire Muslim world is not rising up in revolution against the United States. It’d be nice of the media were able to point that out, but the Narrative (peace be upon its holy name) must be observed.
FlipYrWhig
@LanceThruster: Mostly I’m quibbling with the figure of speech “grew out.” That implies a peaceful and steady and almost inevitable process. Maybe they burnt out, or bled out.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, but I would still put the bigger share of the blame on the people throwing sticks and stones as opposed to the people throwing only words. Of course there’s a larger context this is happening in, but between those two groups I’d have to say that insults, no matter how heinous, aren’t equivalent to actions.
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
I agree that the murder was done with the unrest as cover, but I still reject the claim of the right to punish living beings because an act of any sort of disparaging of someone’s god-view hurt the fee-fees of the believers, or their god(s) (or prophets).
At some point, humanity needs to say, “Suck it up.” Either their god(s) can handle it, or they can’t.
There a rule in Islam IIRC about graven images and idol worship, yet Egypt still cashes in on the pyramids.
That it is ancient doesn’t matter because their are some who still cling to the gods of ancient Egypt (Boris Karloff IIRC)
On the other hand – Karloff? Sidekick? FUCK YOU! Karloff did not deserve to smell my shit! That limey cocksucker can rot in Hell for all I care!
Spatula
@AA+ Bonds:
Wow. Just Wow.
Totally fuck off.
LanceThruster
@FlipYrWhig:
And with Dominionism and Xian Reconstructionists, they’d love to “grow back in” to the good old days.
There is always a danger of the return to blindness and barbarianism (as well as those whose attitudes, if not actions, have truly never left)
Omnes Omnibus
@AA+ Bonds: Non sequitur alert.
@arguingwithsignposts: I’ve been busy.
Chris
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Thank you, buddy. That just went up on facebook.
The last year or two have left me increasingly impressed with the Libyan people. For folks who were kept under control for almost fifty years, they’re not doing too badly for themselves.
hep kitty
@Amir Khalid: That was excellent. I’ve been following @jricole for a while. I’m sharing on the twitterverse! Thank you!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
Aside from Spatula, who are the free speech abolutists who say this? You appear to be suggesting that some people here are adopting the the GOP version of free speech – that the freedom to speak includes freedom from the consequences of that speech.
Chris
@Spatula:
Um, jackass, there’s a fuckton of Western countries where Holocaust denial, antisemitism or overt support for the Nazis will get you slapped with a fine or even some real jail time. The head of France’s far right party has been hit with it before, and it’s not the only country that does that. Here, have some bedtime reading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial_laws).
Plenty of countries make exceptions to free speech for no better reason that “hurting people’s fee fees.” It’s more of an exception than a norm, even in the oh-so-progressive West.
Amir Khalid
@Spatula:
Do read more carefully. Before i said that, I said this:
Also, no one else in this thread is defending the violence either, from a “progressive” point of view or otherwise.
Keith G
Rivera is an asshole and the world has an Islamic problem (of which vipolence is only one part)- both are as undeniable as the raising sun. I understand that the highly violent extremists make up only a small percentage of all Muslims.
A small percentage of 1.5 billion folks is still a large number of violent people. Then there is the percentage who technically don’t set out to adopt violence but can be co opted to participate. And then there is the percentage that will never act violently but will give support to those who do. And then there is the percentage (the largest?) of those who are against extremism, but do nothing to confront and oppose it.
I understand where much of the frustration and anger comes from and it worries me how easily it can be provoked into thoughlless action. I do not see it getting any better, though it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t move heave and earth to try to find solutions.
Until then, the world has an Islamic problem.
eemom
@Amir Khalid:
I suppose you could quibble about the word “defend”, but certain people on this thread HAVE essentially said that the violence is understandable.
And I am going to have to agree with those who challenge that view. Among other things, I think the much-maligned Spat has a point that there is an inherent offensive condescension in an attitude that absolves the “provoked” from responsibility for their actions.
(Hi, Spat.)
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
If the intended consequence of the insults was the unrest and accompanying violence, as seems likely in this case, then I hold that the provocateurs are fully responsible for what they caused, even if they didn’t throw any rocks with their own hands.
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
I distinguish between understanding a violent overreaction, and defending it. I’m sure you do too.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: The idea that the violence is understandable is somewhat akin to the idea of fighting words in 1st Amend. jurisprudence. Gawd, someone with your dark view of humanity should be down with the idea that human nature is such that certain topics are hot button issues and that sometimes the response to hot button issues is violence. Doesn’t make it right, but the impulse is there. The idea that this impulse is more prevalent in some cultures is where the whole thing goes badly astray.
ETA: What Amir Khalid said.
arguingwithsignposts
@eemom:
If anyone were “absolving” the “provoked” from responsibility, Spasshole would have a point. But I haven’t seen that on this thread, so he doesn’t.
Lyrebird
Hit ’em where it hurts… got over to GOS (dailykos) and put money into their “Hell To Pay” fund, or here, or wherever… but they’re featuring Michele Bachmann?’s opponent, who’s just faced huge Muslim-baiting nastiness…
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
No, I think it’s understandable that people will riot when they are insulted and they are denied peaceful avenues of protest.
Again, there is a dedicated group of people in the West who are devoted to insulting Islam and Muslims until they can provoke people into reacting violently. Why are you defending Pam Atlas and her friends and deciding that an abstract concept of free speech is more important than, you know, not insulting people to their faces?
dance around in your bones
I don’t know why anyone listens to Jerry Rivera.
Such a dipshit.
eemom
Maybe the problem is in lumping disparate “provocations” together. Mnem’s point that “it’s understandable that people will riot when they are insulted and they are denied peaceful avenues of protest” makes sense to me when she was talking about about the civil rights riots of the 1960s….or when someone else above alluded to the French Revolution.
I’m sorry, but the “understandability” of violence when you are starving or oppressed does not carry over to being pissed off because some asshole made a movie that insulted your God.
Ash Can
Reading through this thread, I’m struck by how many otherwise-reasonable people here have no problem with ascribing the actions of such a small percentage of a group to the entire group. Or with ignoring the lack of spontaneity of the violence and the machinations of a relative few to foment it. Or with the blanket application of the American First Amendment tradition to any and all societies world-wide. By the same standards of reasoning I’ve seen here, the world has a Catholic problem and an Anglican/Episcopalian problem because of events in Northern Ireland. And an Evangelical problem because of events in the US. And a Hindu problem because of India’s conflicts with its Muslim populations/neighbors. And so on.
There’s an awful lot of bullshit in this thread. And pointing it out has nothing to do with condoning or defending or even understanding or explaining the violence that erupted.
dance around in your bones
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that, because some of the coolest guys I ever knew ran a small store down the street from us. They were Iranian (I think Muslim, not Jewish) and they would let us run a tab for our kid and her friend when they would ride up on their horses and want a soda and some chips.
They would tear up cigarette cartons and keep the tabs on those.
Actually, I also knew a liquor store owner close to me (different house) who would also let you run a tab. Try THAT at any fuckin’ 7-11.
I LOVE the independent Middle Eastern guys.
eta: maybe it helped that I can speak a few words of ‘Persian’, I dunno.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
I would bet that the vast majority of them were not insulted to their faces and if they saw the offending clip at all, they had to actively look for it. It does seem that many of the protests were allowed if not egged on by their governments and/or other elites.
Riddle me this, Batman, how did so many denizens of the Arab street end up with broadband access? The answer: They don’t have it and they did not see the film clip. They had to be told that they are offended.
Jeese people. Do the math.
Many (both Muslims and non) had a hand in planning and fomenting this offense.
jimmiraybob
Pause. Oh Boy. How awkward.
Why does Geraldo hate the little baby Jesus? And, presumably, little baby Jesus’ future Mrs. Jesus?
I’m sure the goodly fox viewers all caught this and are currently expressing their outrage to their Tea Captains.
[chirp]
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
maybe it helped that I can speak a few words of ‘Persian’, I dunno
Probably that you give them the chance to prove they are assholes, or not, before you make up your mind. I’ve found that helps immensely with bigotry. Who they are not what they are.
Ruckus
@Keith G:
how did so many denizens of the Arab street end up with broadband access?
You have any substantiation on that or did you just pull it out of your ass?
Svensker
@eemom:
You think that having a number of occupied countries, bombs dropping, and violent revolutions in the area might have stirred folks up a bit? Maybe?
I mean it’s not like they were living in Leave It To Beaver Land and then — lo and behold, lawd a mercy — them wacky mooslims just up clutched their pearls and rioted fer no reason. Jess a little bitty insult. Who could understand it?
Jeez, people. Context matters.
AHH onna Droid
@Ash Can: well said. This thread has been a depressing mash of sophistry and WATBing. Something about fear lizard brain defrcts in cognitive reasoning something.
AHH onna Droid
@Ash Can: well said. This thread has been a depressing mash of sophistry and WATBing. Something about fear lizard brain defrcts in cognitive reasoning something.
eemom
@Svensker:
Do you know what, exactly, they were rioting over?
Rude Pundit
Keith G
@Ruckus: That is exactly my point, friend. Slow down and recognize sarcasm.
Svensker
@eemom:
And you think the camel fell down and went boom because of that one iddy biddy piece of straw, apparently.
As I said, context matters.
Spatula
@Chris:
Chris, you are correct about the Holocaust denial laws. I stand corrected.
I believe that those laws are bullshit also.
Nothing good comes from stifling speech. If ALl speech is allowed, there will be plenty of truth floating around to counter the lies.
Spatula
@arguingwithsignposts:
“Spasshole” lol
That’s actually quite amusing.
Spatula
Because it IS more important. Much more so.
We’re back to hurt fee fees.