Morning Cup - 07/28/2006
The Democrats have outlined their Agenda for the 2006 Fall Campaign. Their priorities: National Security, Jobs and Wages, Energy Independence, Health Care, Retirement Security, and College for All.
In response, the Do-Nothing Republican Congress Suddenly want to raise minimum wage. Well, ok lets be real, they don’t really want to raise it, since when have they cared about working families?
But as Republican Mike Castle, a Congressman from Delaware said… “maybe we don’t like it much, but we need to move forward with it just for political reasons.” How nice of those Republicans to take time away from important issues like that flag burning epidemic or installing discrimination to the U.S. Constitution to throw a bone to those working under the poverty line.
In Iran, a teenage girl was executed for having sex outside of marriage, perhaps one day we can look forward to laws like that in the United States if the FundaMENTAList Christians get their wish and take over the country. Virginity Pledges today, Chastity Laws tomorrow. woo hoo!
Finally, I’m off to the Big Easy this weekend and most of next week for work, first time I’ve ever been there. Goofyblog may be a little sporadic for the next 5-6 days or so, but I’ll try to keep the morning cup column alive and kicking while I’m gone. Maybe I’ll even be able to offer some insight into how things look down there post Katrina.
Loser — On 7-28-2006 at 10:39 am
In Iran, a teenage girl was executed for having sex outside of marriageAh… the religion of peace.
All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
out upon,
See, hear, and am silent. — Walt Whitman
Porter Venn — On 7-28-2006 at 11:25 am
It’s not one religion .vs. another religion, its Fundamentalism .vs. Enlightenment. As far as I can tell, there’s really no difference between the Fundamentalist Islamists who kill a 16 year old girl for having sex, and a Fundamentalist Christian father who makes his daughter sign a “Virginity Pledge” and wear a goofy purity ring. The only difference between the two is that the former has cut to the chase, and the later is lagging behind. Give them time.
Loser — On 7-28-2006 at 11:48 am
So to you there really is no real difference between killing someone and make them sign a pledge and wear a ring?
Porter Venn — On 7-28-2006 at 11:57 am
Like I said the only difference between the Fundie Islamist and the Fundie Christians is timing. The Fundie Christians are playing Catchup, give them time, I’m sure if they have their way they’ll be stoning and murdering 16 year old “whores” soon enough, if only that pesky U.S. Constitution thing were not in the way, but hey they’re doing their best to circumvent that. 10 commandments in the courthouse anyone?
Dave — On 7-28-2006 at 1:23 pm
Hey Port - I admit I’m suprised that you can draw some sort of maral equivalency argument between the murder of a young girl and a virginity pact with a parent. I realize not all Islam is radical, but truth of the matter is that there whole countries ruled by a minorityu few who have hijacked Islam and use it as their based to have power over others. Kicking Howard Stern off the air and passing decency laws is a far cry from raping women, then calling them whores, and then killing them for sex outside marriage - which is what the article said happened to this young girl. Face the truth or not, even the most ‘progessive’ of the truly Islamic countries still regard women as property. Millions suffer abuse and degradation every day. Even in so called modern Islamic countried 0 like Turkey - we have people being imprisioned and put to death for converting to Islam. Christianity, whether you want to admit it or not, is a religion of choice. Islam, in may countries of the world, is not.
Dave — On 7-28-2006 at 1:23 pm
oops that should be ‘moral equivalency’
Porter Venn — On 7-28-2006 at 1:43 pm
“Kicking Howard Stern off the air and passing decency laws is a far cry from raping women, then calling them whores, and then killing them for sex outside marriage”
Dave.. ya.. but you gotta start somewhere.
It wasn’t like Adolf Hitler sprouted out of nowhere. Today it’s Kicking Stern off the Air, passing decency laws and so on, Tomorrow its a “Christian Nation” Run by a Christian Talaban Oligarchy.
You say “Christianity, whether you want to admit it or not, is a religion of choice. Islam, in may countries of the world, is not..”
Ya? well if that’s the case, why do so many Christians and Red-States think children in elementary schools should not have the “choice” when it comes to “Under God” in the pledge?
How about a womans right to choose? That one is hanging on by a thread.
How about the right to choose whom you marry, regardless of sex?
How about being able to enter a Court of Law in some states in our nation without having to place your hand on a bible, or be reminded of the 10 commandments on the front lawn.
My point is this, while our home grown fundamentalists may use Virginity Pledges and Rings instead of stonings and Murder, it doesn’t mean that wouldn’t go down that road if they had the power too, why not? They did it in the past.
restless — On 7-28-2006 at 3:29 pm
The Achilles Heel of the American people is their Puritan roots. Legal battles over pornography, which started early in the 20th century, were the beginning of the gradual, now accelerating, curtailment of our freedoms. Puritan ethic: anti-sex anti-drug, let any politician decry some situation relating to either and demand more new draconian laws and the majority of us just let it go on. The American landscape is already vastly changed from just 2 decades ago, even more so if you go back 4 decades. So, like Porter says, give them time.
Dave — On 7-28-2006 at 4:02 pm
I agree that over the last few years we’ve been heading in a more conservative direction, but I would contend that we are a long way stonings and murder. You seem to be making the argument that what MIGHT (and I think that’s stretching it) happen is as bad as what IS happening, right now, right this very instant. You are presenting hypothetical scenarios of extreme speculation even considering the recent groundswelling of Christian ‘morals’. A woman still has the right to choose, a kid doesn’t have to say the pledge if he or she doesn’t want to (or even stand for that matter) and some states allow same sex marriage while even more allow ‘civil unions’.In my admittedly ignorant speculation based on my minimal knowledge of history, I would compare extremist Islam to Christianity around 1,000 to a few hundred years ago, during the time of the inquisitions, burning witches and pagen, imprisoning Islamists, corrupt Catholicism, etc. Christianity preceived all other religions as a threat and tried to wipe them out. They failed of course. Extremist Islam today is the Roman Catholic church of the middle ages, lashing out against anything it feels threatens it.We (we being the world) will never defeat extremist Islam. The only thing that can defeat extremist Islam is Moderate Islam rising up and reclaiming its religion. But I’ve been watching and listening, and moderate Islam is being pretty quiet. You have to realize that WHOLE countries are run by people like this, people who would gleefully cut off your head while praising God and then post the video on the Internet. How can you have diplomatic dialog with people like this? You (being us) can’t.The Christian extremists of the past persecuted with swords and spears and armies. It took a big group of them to do the damage one Islamic extremists with a dynamite vest can do today in an instant.
Aaron — On 7-28-2006 at 4:18 pm
” Extremist Islam today is the Roman Catholic church of the middle ages…”
I’ve often thought sbout this too, and I find some truth to it. A thing to always keep in is that this extremism, the fire, is fueled by the their poor environments. Not just poverty, but seeing other Muslims, or their own Muslims, being supressed or oppressed.
.
Blah, blah, blah blah.
restless — On 7-28-2006 at 4:26 pm
Dave: a cogent explanation for why moderate muslims aren’t rising up is given by Chris Hedges in a recent editorial, Mutually Assured Destruction in the Middle East: “Isreal’s air, land and sea blockade of Lebanon, which includes jet fighter strikes against the airport in Beirut, presages a new era in the Middle East, one in which the center has collapsed and Muslim and Jewish extremists, capable only of the language of violence, determine the parameters of existence. These strikes, like the suicide bombings carried out by Islamic militants in Iraq or Israel, expose the Ahab-like self-immolation that now inflects the region. And unless it is halted soon, unless those fueling these conflicts learn to speak another language, unless they break free from an indulgence in collective necrophilia, the Middle East will slip into a death spiral.
In this binary worldview, force is the only thing Arabs understand. This logic only fuels those in the Arab world who also speak exclusively in the language of violence. The escalating repression by Israel, like the escalating repression by the American occupiers in Iraq, has become the most potent recruiting tool for Islamic extremists. It has rendered each side deaf and dumb. As those under the boot of Israel or America lose all hope for justice, as they give up on peaceful recourses to ameliorate their plight, as they fall into despair, it throws them, by default, into the hands of extremists. And as the extremists grow and their attacks became more deadly, it likewise helps silence those in Israel and the United States who call for compassion, restraint and understanding. It is difficult to argue with those holding up bloodied corpses.”
Dave — On 7-28-2006 at 5:06 pm
“A thing to always keep in is that this extremism, the fire, is fueled by the their poor environments. Not just poverty, but seeing other Muslims, or their own Muslims, being supressed or oppressed.”
The ’soldiers’ of extremism fit this mold, but almost most of the leaders of these extremists groups are well educated and well off, even by Western standards. Many of them have educations from western universities. Some come from influential and powerful families. You don’t see these guys going out and conducting the suicide bombings. The take advantage of the poor, the malcontent, the uneducated and unemployed. I’ve read essays by extremists suicide bomber recruiters. There aren’t many who do it out of a calling. They do it because they get paid, and the suicide bombers family gets paid. So I don’t buy the argument that it’s theunwashed masses driving the violence. Their violence is driven by the same people who have consistently instigated violence though ghistory - theor in positions of power, with wealth and influence. It’s not the soldier that sends the army to war….
restless — On 7-29-2006 at 4:07 am
It seems the Iraq insurgency is leaderless, Dave. Or lots of little groups. The Palestine thing: 4 full generations repressed leads to lots of people with nothing left to lose. Hezbollah: I don’t know, but they have at least some popularity since their reps were elected to some of the seats in Lebanon. I don’t see your elitist leaders in any of these areas directing things. Seems pretty multi-headed Hydra to me.
Anonymous — On 7-29-2006 at 2:18 pm
The insurgency is well armed and well supplied. Where does the money come from? For leadersleess groups, their actions are pretty well coordinated. May of these groups are sponsored by more well know terrorists organizations. If beig trapped in poverty, being abused and being oppressed where the creative forces behind terrorism, then 60 percent of the world would be terrorists. Extremists Islamic groups are well lead, well supplied, and well financed, and the irony is that it’s our money buying their oil that is financing them. I did some breif research (not too much, I’m a lazy American after all) on the biographies of the leaders of some of the well know groups. Some of these guys are doctors and lawyers; they are well educated. Many come from wealthy backgrounds. And just because they aren’t on the ground with a gun in their hand doesn’t mean they aren’t giving the orders.
restless — On 7-29-2006 at 3:01 pm
That the insurgency in Iraq is ordered or being overseen by well educated doctors or lawyers is really a laugh riot. There are terrorists everywhere where there is opression and poverty, it’s so easy to see. I don’t get why there is this insane desire to attribute this to some rich middle class leaders. They killed Al-Zarquwai (spelling?)!! Did that stop anything?? The Isrealis have been selectively and not so selectively killing Hammas leadership for years! Did that stop anything? Does that give you a clue as to how leaderless things are there. As for money, other Arab countries will supply, but why wouuldn’t they? There’s word that Russia and China are going to supply, some word that North Korea will. . or Venezuela. Leaderless insurgencies supplied from all over the world. If thinking there are some rich Arab leaders somwhere makes you feel more comfortable then I guess that’s what you need to feel comfortable. But, oppression makes for insurgency and terrorism.
Dave — On 7-29-2006 at 4:05 pm
Please read the post, restless:
I didn’t say the insurgency in Iraq was being led by doctors and lawyers (although I did say and do believe is is veing led), I said some of the leaders of the more well known terrorsits groups were led (and founded it turns out) by doctors and lawyers and other well educated poeple.
Hamas:
Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin studied at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, following secondary school. Islamist and Arab nationalist movements were strong influences at the University. Yassin joined the Muslim Brotherhood during his studies at Al-Azhar.
Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi was born in Yubna near Jaffa. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, his family fled to the Gaza Strip. He studied pediatric medicine in Egypt for nine years and was a certified physician, although he did not have a practice. In 1976 he returned to Gaza, a deeply convicted member of the Muslim Brotherhood, to practice medicine. Rantissi went on to father six children.
Anyway, I’m not going to argue with you. If you want to prefer to think of most terroerist being terrorists because they have nothing better to do than please do so (though you will be wrong). If you’re really interested in researching these groups and their leaders, check out http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp, the Terrorst Database.
It is a multi-headed hydra when you consider the number of groups, many of which have no relations to each other although they might even share similar goals, but I’m telling you, even in Iraq, these groups aren’t a bunch of people who were sitting around one day and saud ‘hey, lets be terrorists’. They were recruited or actively sought out those they knopw who could get them invovled - and supply them with weapons, ammunitions and ordnance. Or do you think AK47s and rocket propelled grenades and grenade launchers are available by mail or after saving up a bunch of Betty Crocker coupons?
restless — On 7-30-2006 at 1:02 pm
Dave: I’ m saying the preoccupation with who is leading terrorist groups is a waste of time. If you want to spend hours researching who had the “idea” around what then became Hamas that’s the equivalent of saying George Washington was one of the men that had the idea for an American Republic–it’s a historical fact, but nothing more. It’s like saying Karl Marx founded Communism. Insurgencies are difficult to put down one reason is because they are essentially leaderless; another is they are grounded in a populace that’s been oppressed and that has little left to lose, little left to live for. Those are the roots, who cares who heads it? Isn’t it all about ending terrorism? How would you do that? Find and kill a leader? Been done, doesn’t work. Alter the conditions of opression and hopelessness? That’s what works. Ever see the movie, The Battle of Algiers? I just rented it: “It depicts the conflict between Algerian nationalist insurgents and French colonial forces in the late nineteen-fifties, or, as the flyer put it: ‘Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?’… the parallels between the drama of insurgency and counter-insurgency in ‘The Battle of Algiers’ and our present Iraqi predicament are … clear and … depressing…[for] the ugly truth that [the movie] lays vividly bare, is that terrorism works. For, although the film focusses on a chapter in the Algerian struggle when France succeeded in crushing the rebel movement, the final moments of the movie show how within a few years the French were forced to accept defeat and retreat, an outcome that in retrospect appears historically inevitable.” That’s my focus, Dave. Not on who the leaders are or even who supplies the insurgency. It just doesn’t matter. The conditions that lead to the uprise of terrorism matters. The sooner those are addressed, the sooner we will have peace. See the movie, by the way, it’s a masterpiece.