Letters to the Editor
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Wow prejudice in America, go figure
Actually if you bother to speak with any Muslims in America you'll find that they oppose the war and the administration much the same as you. They don't 'hate' America with th fiery passion of a Black Beret draped Berkeley trust fund anarchist. They hate people who are intolerant of them. Just like everyone else. Is it comfortable to be Muslim in America? I think most would agree. Is it comfortable to be outwardly observantly Muslim in America? Probably about the same as it is to be outwardly observantly anything non-Protestant in America. Go ask a Chassid, Nun, Sikh or Mennonite.
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RealName
A couple of things:
1- I visited France for extended periods in 1964, 65, 66, 67 and 69. I was not spit upon nor was I treated poorly with two minor exceptions in restaurants. It probably helped that I was young and spoke decent French, but your observation is just hyperbole. I was treated far, far worse during spring break in 1968 while playing golf at Calloway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia.
2- You are certainly correct that racism and bigotry are ubiquitous in the U.S., but, just for the record, I have never enocuntered a more racist and bigoted group of people in the U.S. than the Chassidim, and I'm Jewish.
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Largely true, but......
P.W.: You've made a good argument why you think Americans are anti-islam. You've proved that our media doesn't really support Islam. You write about, "a new sort of xenophoia, targeting the entire religion of Islam, as opposed to the extremists within it, has become the norm." That makes sense, but, as an American, I've also noticed an organic, 'new sort of phobia within America, which targets the entire religion of Christianity'. I have to read about Christopher Hitchins on these pages, and Bill Maher and all of these letter writers ridiculing me for being a Christian. If we won't censure them for attacking the religion OUR NATION was founded on, I'm not going to worry about other Americans attacking Islam. Liberals can't have it both ways. You can't DEMAND tolerance to Islamic folks and laugh in the face of American Christians (often your neighbors and childrens teachers - and your parents).
Can't we all agree that if we elect Barack Obama as President, the world will look at us a little more favorably? As superficial and stupid as it is, the world would make an about face if we kicked out Bush and put in a black dude whose middle name is Hussein. It's true.
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The next President
Will the next President:
be wiling to relinquish the powers claimed by this one
rely on signing statements to overrule Congress
get the PATRIOT act repealed
make war only after a declaration of war by Congress
arrange kidnappings all around the world
maintain secret prisons
renounce the idea of pre-emptive strikes
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I wish I knew
I haven't seen any candidate that is above 1% in the polls make any sort of definitive statements like the above
if power corrupts, the next President is headed on a bad course already
A
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JUST SAY NO to medecins sans frontiers...
and rethink your plans for donating to People For The American Way . there is a real cause, salonistas, in black and white courier, before your very eyes.
realname, currently truant & staging a one-man-intifada in the cybercafe al maniacos, is desperately low on ritalin; by donating now, you too can be part of the team that helped him, help himself.
contrary to popular opinion, realname is not willfully fact-averse. His expletives, tics and non-sequiturs are in fact cyclic Islam-triggered Tourettes disorder. To avoid the unpleasantness that invariably ensues following an outburst, try using the word 'Elephant' instead of 'Islamophobe', for instance. Thus 'Islamophobe in the room' becomes 'Elephant in the room', something we are by now all used to.
send your e-gold now to: mennonites4realname@gmail.com.
Disclaimer:this mail has in no way been solicited by Novartis...
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Re: curse
Yes, I rather believe that the intrepreter( who was Turkish) was probably saying it out loud; he just didn't realize that my father (who was smart enough to not tell him what he had just heard) had learned far more than he should have.
BTW, this was in the 50's; just when the Turks were getting American aid to help rebuild their military-my father was there obstensibly to do this, but he was assigned a diplomatic status to make it look good.
My father wasn't a liar, so I do believe his version of the event. I even have pictures of him and his translator, who was named Ahmed.
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I won't bother you again.
Thank you that's what live and let live is all about, isn't it? Tolerance, I mean real tolerance is not banging someone over the head with your god given right to do so. No wonder Americans are hated everywhere. Between the Rednecks and the precious radical assholes, we seem to think that everyone is entitled to our opinion.
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actually, the Muslim claim that Islam must eventually rule the world is old hat
as every Roman Catholic child is repeatedly taught: only within the Roman Catholic church can salvation be found, for those who are outside the faith, only infernal dissolution awaits
the world did not buy that line of bull, and the Muslim version does not smell any better
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Intelligence
Kind of funny that one of the heads of 'intelligence' is the one thinking his god is 'bigger' than Islam's.
The problem is Christian fundamentalism is a stupid way to fight terrorism. That is what has bothered me about the whole military / free market / fundamentalist approach. It is 'guaranteed' to fail. Of course, what other ideas does the oil industry have?
We put the fight against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the hands of people that have no idea of Middle Eastern culture, politics, history, language, and expect them to do a good job? So what do they come up with? Invade Iraq!
It's all about the oil, folks. That is the only logic here.
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Understanding is a strength; willful blindness is not
The article raises at least one fair point, albeit indirectly: our foreign policy towards Muslim Middle-Eastern states, along with our pursuit of a "war against fundamentalist Islam," cannot be successful until we address our tendency to approach all Islamic entities as monolithic in their beliefs and motivations. It has been well documented here and elsewhere that even as they were planning their Iraq adventure, Bush and much of his inner-circle had no clue that Sunnis were any different from the Shia. Likewise, our current policies in Iraq and the region in general betray a stunning ignorance of the diversity (and divergence) of motivations underlying the actions of groups we uniformly label "Islamic fundamentalists." We - our leaders, the media, voters - would be well-served by learning enough about the spectrum of groups in the Muslim world to recognize the folly in a one-size-fits-all view of Islam.
That said, the article goes too far in its implication that calling Islam “violent” reflects some sort of widespread Islamophobia in this country. The truth is, the sacred texts of Islam are full of exhortations to violence. Of course, so is the Old Testament, although to an arguably lesser degree. One does not have to be much of a “fundamentalist” Muslim, though, to derive from the Qur’an that Allah really does want his followers to rid the world of infidels.
Also, while everyone here is certainly aware of all the atrocities that have been committed in the name of Christianity, it is intellectually dishonest to just explain away any criticisms of Islam as some sort of hypocritical bigotry on that basis alone. It is simply a fact that the world is not currently facing an epidemic of senseless violence by Christian fundamentalists driven by a scriptural imperative to kill unbelievers. This has been true for quite some time, now. What’s more, if someone did commit some sort of heinous act of violence in the name of Jesus or Yahweh, you can be positive that the entirety of mainstream Christian and Jewish groups worldwide would stand up in condemnation of the act as non-representative of their religions.
To the contrary, in the case of Islamist terrorism, you can be just as sure of deafening silence from mainstream Muslim religious authorities after any attack. Sure, a handful of Muslim groups in the U.S. would speak out; we are lucky to have fostered the best-integrated, most moderate Muslim population in the West. Sadly, they are the glaring exception, rather than the rule.
The most heavily funded – and thus widely broadcast – brand of Islam around the world today is the fundamental variety championed by the Saudi religious establishment. It is painfully clear that this variety of Islam, which strives to replicate 7th Century Bedouin desert society and views women as chattel, is simply incompatible with the modern world. It is violent and intolerant, period. To point this out shouldn’t be discouraged; instead; it should be the duty of free-thinking people of any religion.