The prophet with a bomb for head-gear is an interesting image. It
depicts what the west thinks about mohammedanism these days. Moslems
would do well to clean their own house before burning the houses of
others. It might be useful to look back at the 7th century man who got
booted out of town, put together a politically and militarily powerful
group of followers and came home to Mecca as a conqueror. The
hagiography surrounding Mohammed emphasizes this warlike attribute and
it’s easy to see why people who follow that path accept violence as a
legitimate response to any offense. Not very advanced culturally. Not
very enlightened. I mean, thanks for the alphabet, thanks for algebra,
now get back on your camel and come back when you have learned not to
break shit. Just my opinion…
The other cartoon, the one about running out of virgins in paradise
cracked me up. It deserves the widest possible republication. This
redneck gives it two thumbs up and suggests that even if the sale of
Danish ham is cut to zero across the entire moslem world, it’s still a
funny cartoon.
If you value freedom of expression then you will understand why I
believe that there will be no peace with the moslem world until moslem
countries are ready to jail people who burn the embassies of other
countries without regard for whatever may have inspired the violence.
None of this is about religion. It’s about powerful interests
jockeying for power and manipulating the "faithful," the credulous
masses, who are willing to believe some metaphysical horseshit because
the objective reality of their own powerlessness is too difficult to
face.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
None of this is about religion. It’s about powerful interests jockeying for power and manipulating the “faithful,” the credulous masses, who are willing to believe some metaphysical horseshit because the objective reality of their own powerlessness is too difficult to face.
There is a culture thing at work here too.
Frank, have you read Ralph Peters ‘Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States’. It’s at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/98spring/peters.htm
Worth a few minutes of your time.
Thanks Brian! In addition to these seven “failure factors”:
* Restrictions on the free flow of information.
* The subjugation of women.
* Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
* The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
* Domination by a restrictive religion.
* A low valuation of education.
* Low prestige assigned to work.
I would add “an inability or unwillingness to differentiate the roles and responsiblities of governance from the economic imperatives of a free market.” Then I would filter Bush’s America through this matrix and ask if we are succeeding or failing.
Geez Louise, Frank. You’re swingin for the fences these daze. I *hate* to spoil a good joke, but I really can’t tell if your first paragraph is some sort of satire. For a sec, I wasn’t sure if I was at the right url.
So, erm, were you serious?
I was seriously reacting to the assholes who are burning embassies because of a cartoon. That whole thing about “my god says I can kill you if you piss me off” works to the detriment of all people everywhere. These folks who never learned any better probably aren’t to blame for going apeshit when somebody riles them up, but who’s doing the riling? The thing about the prophet… well, he was a warlike mo-fo and it’s built into the way a lot of people understand his metaphysics. Me, I think when we’re dead, we’re dead, and it’s better not to burn embassies and shit.
“None of this is about religion. It’s about powerful interests jockeying for power and manipulating the “faithful,” the credulous masses, who are willing to believe some metaphysical horseshit because the objective reality of their own powerlessness is too difficult to face.”
Yes. Definitely. Yes.
Your last paragraph says it all. That could be used not only for describing the followers of Mohammed, but just as well for the pitiful fundamental far-right blind-faith bible-thumping christian-republican church-party right here in the good ol’ USA. Unfortunately, they all voted for Bush, and far too many of them continue to support his sorry incompetent lying ass. How long, Oh Lord, how long?
Fair enough, fp, thanks for clarifying. That’s the thing with religion, separating the revealed ideals from the practitioners. I like your bit about powers-that-be whipping lordly messages into a froth and converting that righteous indignation into … well, whatever. i don’t know the religion as well as you do perhaps, but i don’t think it’s about encouraging itchy trigger fingers. i suspect it’s a far more beautiful thing, with man-on-man retribution low on the priority list. same goes for christianity.
some have perveted it for thier own uses and needs, whether for economic or pyschological gain. yeah, i saw syrianna.
I gotta see that movie.
People are drawn to gather in worship and to share a sense of awe regarding the universe and what-not. That beautiful thing has been perverted in culture after culture. I’d submit that worship of Moloch and Aztec human sacrifices rank right up there with what I’m talking about. On the other hand, I don’t have contact with primary sources that prove that there actually was baby-sacrifice in the worship of Moloch, and the history there was written by the winners.
Whenever I see catholics fighting with protestants, mosems fighting with jews, christians fighting with moslems, or whatever… I have to ask who benefits. Why is this struggle happening?
How many of the billion and a half nominal moslems actually give a good goddamn about the Danish cartoons?
How many actually would find them mordantly funny?
“I would add “an inability or unwillingness to differentiate the roles and responsiblities of governance from the economic imperatives of a free market.” Then I would filter Bush’s America through this matrix and ask if we are succeeding or failing.”
I think you’re reaching a bit. You’re talking about political issues which are - I submit - higher up in the protocl stack.
Which is to say that ‘culture stuff’ would be layer 2, while political bits belongs way up at layer 4-5. Urm, for those of you following along at home I’ve just used the OSI network protocol layer as an analogy for ‘real life’. I am such a dork.
Anyway - the political bits are layered on top of the cultural ones. You can’t really compare them without mixing apples and oranges. Or Macs and PCs.
Yah-but yah-but… just when you’re not looking you see that the whole thing has been reengineered to someone’s proprietary model and the protocol stack has been jiggered to fit.
Time to open-source the kit and kaboodle, I say. In the long run a million hackers can out compete any closed source stateist enterprise.
This requires a strong degree of cooperation. Which, curiously, brings us back to medieval god-struck folk who would rather whine and moan about how we’re not respecting their own proprietary OS and API calls …