Letters to the Editor
-
You say sharia inspired fundamentalism
Like it's a bad thing.
-
Everywhere I go today it stinks loopers!
I confess I killed by smashing the old-time fashion methods, the cabbage worm loopers.
I repent of it. I washed.
__
H.L. Mencken, who my muckraker grandmother gardener affectionately called- Mencken, "Oh, My Louie" (not looper, Louie), reported about clever trumped-up etymology for words like 'yankee' 'hanky-panicky' etc., and H.L.M. got irked because other "journalist" had lost touch with Noah Webster's love of words and reverence for sound and honest mental clarity. Words. Words are beautiful.
__
In 'Anthology and Boston Review' HLM mentioned in the Persian language (1810), 'janghe' or 'jenghe' -- that is, 'yankee'-- (in out English) signifies a warlike man, a swift horse; also one who is prompt and ready for startng fist fights and runs off.
The word is formed from 'jank' or 'jenk', battle, contest, war, and this from a word signifying the fist, the instrument in fighting. A chicken, uncivil, a trouble maker...
__
In Persian, 'jankidan' is to commence or carry on war.....
The word can be traced back to Mongolian khan, Jenghis; and in our dialect a 'yankee' is titled, literally translated, would be "Yankee King," that is, "Warlike Chief." GWB? Yes.
Unfortunately, "Louie" Mencken did not indicate how completely this artful deception had fooled the public. Was Jenghis/Bush not the same-same characteristic similar (?) that once voiced this ugly sentiment:...
...
..."I want to burn (lefty's) barns, enslave their women, watch their children cry, go hungry, and I'll steal every horse, pony, buggy, and saddle?" IMHO- The stinky Americans or the foul Islamist who are already here - NOW - oughta' smash the damn cabbage loopers. Or, there will be no cabbage broth soup for rt-lf wingers bloopers to eat. Maybe we do come back as a cabbage worm? I don't know? The wingers seem to have all the right answers and never ask the right question or avoid the direct questions.
O, slime critters.
-
Islamist takeover
I'd be more worried about our homegrown religious fanatics on the fringe right wing trying to take over.
-
Simon is irony-impaired
You've got to be kidding me.
Simon says, "if we lose and fall under religious law" ...
Does he not realize we're already under religious law?! We live in a christianist theocracy already, or at the very least an incipient one.
I think I'll have more to say about this on my webradio show today: listen at http://flprogressive.blogspot.com/2007/08/join-me-today-for-blast-off-radio.html (cut and paste into browser) ...
-
Springfield, January 27, 1838
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Lincoln's words were true then, and they are true today. The total force of Al Queada and its allied groups could never "conquer" America. The idea is ludicrous. Oh, they might kill some of us. If they tried as hard as they could they might even succeed in destroying a city or two (though I highly doubt it). But they could never destroy those things that make us who were are: our values, our freedoms, our sense of ourselves. The only people who could do that are the enemies within, the power-mad hippocrites who rabble-rouse with the fear of sharia and the coming Islamic horde while they themselves would love to enshrine as law their own twisted readings of Biblical doctrine.
Lincoln faced (and defeated) the great internal threat to the nation that arose in the 1860's. I can only hope and pray that we today do not have to fight another such struggle to preserve our way of life.
-
Religious Law
A serious person would have concerns with Islamists and their religious law and with Christianists and their religious law. The problem is religious law. I think most readers of this blog are secularists. Separation of church and state implies separation of mosque and state, and separation of temple and state. There are threats to secualrism, both internal and external. I oppose both of these threats.
-
Ye of Little Faith
Muslim take over of the west could occur in 2 ways:
1) violent, military engagement style. This is currently ridiculous given the relative strengths of western verses muslim militaries.
2) assimilation, as apparently is the rabid fear among more than a few fearmongers harping 'look at Europe, look at Europe, the sky is falling'. This second mode is in fact the only practical way that (in the absence of wingnuts undermining American values) Muslims could plausibly impact western society. But is this really any more plausible than the unbelievable military method? What is far more likely to occur under this mode is the freedoms enjoyed by western cultures would undermine the authoritarian regime of Muslim cultures than the other way around.
Most people that experience freedoms do not relinquish them willingly. People without individual freedoms are attracted to freedom. Authoritarianism is fundamentally unsustainable (even though many people may suffer untill it is defeated or collapses). The notion that Muslim authoritarianism will somehow be embraced peacefully in the west is just not very credible.
Ironically, instead of supporting western values, the fearmongers undermine the very freedoms that they proclaim to embrace. Nothing could have advanced the cause of authoritarianism in the west more than those supporting bush's Iraq invasion and his use of the metaphorical GWOT to undermine American civil liberties.
The enemy of America is truly within, and its name is: republican.
.
-
There is a term for this phenomenon - Entryism
Originally advocated by Trotsky in the 1930's.
Entryism (or entrism or enterism) is a political tactic by which an organisation encourages members to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism
In the US, the John Birch Society and other groups were accused of entryism when Barry Goldwater was unexpectedly selected as the Republican Party candidate for US president in the 1964 election...
A similar technique is used by the Aryan Nations' religious branch, the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, Christian Identity, and the Creativity Movement in taking over small churches. The Church of Scientology has also practiced entryism in taking over Alcoholics Anonymous meetings...
During the 2000 presidential election in the United States, some members of the Reform Party, which had been founded by Ross Perot, charged that the presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan was engaging in entryism. However, while a large number of new members did join to support Buchanan, he did not maintain a large separate organisation outside of the Reform Party. It is worth noting that, after the election, many of Buchanan's support did split from the Reform Party, taking several state organizations with them, to form the America First Party. The America First Party itself was quickly engaged in a controversy involving alleged entryism by supporters of James "Bo" Gritz.
Another example of charges of entryism involving the United States Reform Party involved supporters of Fred Newman and the New Alliance Party joining the Reform Party en masse and gaining some level of control over the New York State affiliate of the Reform Party. Another United States politician, Lyndon LaRouche, has attempted an entryist strategy in the Democratic Party since 1980, but with little success.
The two major parties regularly complain of entryism tactics by the other, notably by the GOP, leading to the term 'dirty tricks' being associated with the right wing since the Nixon Era. Recently, in 2007 the Republicans settled a lawsuit in New Hampshire with the Democrats after accusation of infiltration. In addition, GOP and Libertarian Party chapters have complained of takeover by religious or police elements, in one case in Colorado leading to scandal when the charges led to police department shake-ups.
Small parties in recent years have also complained. The US Libertarian Party has lost, according to its annual reports, nearly 90% of its members after a group called the Libertarian Reform Caucus, which its literature says was formed by Republican, Green and former Libertarian Party 'big tent' libertarians de-funded local Libertarian affiliates and 'overturned' the long standing LP platform when it took control in the 2006 convention, leading to the collapse of three quarters of its state parties. The Green and Constitutionalist parties have experienced splits after similar complaints. In common is the appearance of members calling for a more moderate platform, charges of lack of financial transparency, and claims the party must 'get professional' even as archives and resources vanish and positions seem to be quickly changed to support other parties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism
An interesting concept employed by fundamentalist and extremist ideologues of all types and persuasions and the right wing in America has been accused of it before. Perhaps that is why they view the tactic as such a threat. It is analogous to the Free State Project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project