The Cartoon that launched a thousand Protests
Ah. The cartoon. The dreaded Danish cartoon. The Danes are always stirring things up.
Anyway, here's my long awaited perspective.
You have a splinter. That splinter gets infected. Now, every single brush of motion in the vicinity causes wincing and pain. You can get punched in the arm, no big deal. But someone passes you in the street and their windbreaker glides over the affected area, and you are in excruciating pain. Are you exaggerated in your response? Are you being incited to howl in pain?
Muslims are feeling just a tad bit persecuted. If you go to any website that favors Islam or Muslims, you will be privvy to another world. I don't want to become any more of a target for a wiretap than I already am, but I do, occassionally peek at the "other" side. Should you venture into this realm, be prepared, you will see sights that will sicken you. It is mostly children and women. Pictures. Recent pictures of babies with their heads blown open, children screaming in hospitals with no arms and no legs. Mothers wailing while holding what looks like a shredded rag dolls. Horrible horrible pictures. Unfortunately, the Arab world doesn't understand the whole concept of a free press and they think that it's ok to do this sort of thing. Our press on the other hand shows heightened degrees of decorum and protects our delicate sensibilities. As mandated by the administration.
The fact is, these guys are pissed. They are seeing babies, toddlers, teens, girls, boys, women, grannies and grandpas being blown to smithereens. They see these guys with chemical burns, the obvious victims of chemical warfare. They see that we are there when we have no right to be there. They see us running around telling everyone what to do, when we can't get it right ourselves. They see arrogance and intolerance and they see their people being decimated in a war that had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. Their religion is being tied on an hourly basis to terrorism as a blanket statement.
I think that the splinter is infected and the cartoon depicting their prophet as a terrorist was just another slap. One slap too many. You can isolate it and make a big deal about how easy they are to incite and how the extremists are taking advantage but the question is, who is fanning the flames of this controversy? Sure we can answer who started it...but the question is..who will end it? Who will be the bigger person and step up and solve this problem so that we don't bring about armegeddon. Because that would suck. I want to see my kids graduate. I want to see how they do with the skills they have been given.
With the way the world is being incited to violence, not by Muslim aggitators, but by right wing neo cons who insist on this ridiculous cowboy bravado, painting anyone who dissents as a hater of freedom, anyone protests or speaks out against this administration as an enemy of the state, it is no wonder the world has become a dangerous place. When people in one country wage a brutal attack against another, but another country gets the wrath visited upon them, well, that tends to annoy and upset people. If my neighbor went out and shot up her postal office, I would be pissed off if the police went into her house, couldn't find her, then decided that I needed to be invaded.
Hate radio is screaming about invading Iran. Right wing news is screeching about closing our boarders and stirring up aggression with Mexico. What is the purpose of this? What are we trying to accomplish? That might makes right? That we are stronger than everyone else? Isn't that the most vulgar display of bullying you have ever seen?
It is time to put an end to this. Distracting away from key, vital issues such as lobbyist reform, voting reform, spying on Americans, our leader's inability to tell the truth, throwing out false statements and allegations in order turn attention away from the true goings on within the administration. It has all got to stop. What's it going to take? How much more are we going to tolerate?
I find it shockingly funny that so many on the right are absolute aghast by the continuous onslaught of attacks on bush. "Let him do his job" "attacking our leader during a time of war! Shame on you" "he hasn't had a moment's rest" (well, yeah, he has. He's vaca-ed more than any other president in our history). What short memories! The difference between him and Clinton is that Clinton was slapped with something new - from his past - on a regular basis. Whitewater. Flowers. I can't even recall all the sludge that was hurled at him repeatedly. Now bush is being confronted with what he has done WHILE IN OFFICE, and the right is upset? Golly. That's a little confusing. Are we not supposed to point out his illegalities? Are we not supposed to point out baldfaced lies? Are we not supposed to care about the continuous stream of evidence that is coming to light that proves bush manipulated data so that he could justify his invading Iraq? Are we supposed to overlook witness testimony that ties this administration with the purposeful outing of a CIA operative? I wonder what would have happened if Clinton had done that?
They still do lynchings, don't they?
The point is - we had thousands - hundreds of thousands of people protesting this war, amassing for candlelight vigils for the soldiers - and they barely got two seconds on the news. Australians went on a massive tirade of racist killings and attacks just a few months ago - did we see it and hear about it relentlessly? Yet Muslims protesting the depiction of their prophet as a terrorist - with some fringe members causing property damage - that is on an endless news loop.
We need people who understand that others have a right to practice the religion of their choice without obstruction. We do not define Americans by the clowns that blew up the building in Oklahoma. We do not paint all Christians by those that shoot abortion doctors or blow up the clinics. We do not need to define an entire group of people - billions in fact - by an fringe extreme. God knows, I don't want anyone to do that with us. We need a rational mind right about now. We need someone who doesn't see diplomacy as weakness.
What truly frightens me is the slow infiltraition of hate towards mosques on our own soil. I heard stated as fact on, yes, hate radio, that 80% of mosques in America are preaching hatred. They need to be shut down.
Say what?
This is how it begins.
I am hoping that my son's assessment is wrong, but I think he might be right. He said that most people that care about these issues are comfortable. People are not taking to the streets because they aren't hungry, they aren't feeling the effects of an environment being polluted at an unprecedented level, they aren't tasting the arsenic in the water....but if they are, they can still afford to buy bottled water.
There has been a string of church fires in Alabama. It has been determined that these are predominantly arson.
At some point we have to look up and start putting all this stuff together. All this anger. All this intolerance. All this bravado and swaggering. Is this who we are?
Is this the new America?
I sure hope not.
Ah. The cartoon. The dreaded Danish cartoon. The Danes are always stirring things up.
Anyway, here's my long awaited perspective.
You have a splinter. That splinter gets infected. Now, every single brush of motion in the vicinity causes wincing and pain. You can get punched in the arm, no big deal. But someone passes you in the street and their windbreaker glides over the affected area, and you are in excruciating pain. Are you exaggerated in your response? Are you being incited to howl in pain?
Muslims are feeling just a tad bit persecuted. If you go to any website that favors Islam or Muslims, you will be privvy to another world. I don't want to become any more of a target for a wiretap than I already am, but I do, occassionally peek at the "other" side. Should you venture into this realm, be prepared, you will see sights that will sicken you. It is mostly children and women. Pictures. Recent pictures of babies with their heads blown open, children screaming in hospitals with no arms and no legs. Mothers wailing while holding what looks like a shredded rag dolls. Horrible horrible pictures. Unfortunately, the Arab world doesn't understand the whole concept of a free press and they think that it's ok to do this sort of thing. Our press on the other hand shows heightened degrees of decorum and protects our delicate sensibilities. As mandated by the administration.
The fact is, these guys are pissed. They are seeing babies, toddlers, teens, girls, boys, women, grannies and grandpas being blown to smithereens. They see these guys with chemical burns, the obvious victims of chemical warfare. They see that we are there when we have no right to be there. They see us running around telling everyone what to do, when we can't get it right ourselves. They see arrogance and intolerance and they see their people being decimated in a war that had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. Their religion is being tied on an hourly basis to terrorism as a blanket statement.
I think that the splinter is infected and the cartoon depicting their prophet as a terrorist was just another slap. One slap too many. You can isolate it and make a big deal about how easy they are to incite and how the extremists are taking advantage but the question is, who is fanning the flames of this controversy? Sure we can answer who started it...but the question is..who will end it? Who will be the bigger person and step up and solve this problem so that we don't bring about armegeddon. Because that would suck. I want to see my kids graduate. I want to see how they do with the skills they have been given.
With the way the world is being incited to violence, not by Muslim aggitators, but by right wing neo cons who insist on this ridiculous cowboy bravado, painting anyone who dissents as a hater of freedom, anyone protests or speaks out against this administration as an enemy of the state, it is no wonder the world has become a dangerous place. When people in one country wage a brutal attack against another, but another country gets the wrath visited upon them, well, that tends to annoy and upset people. If my neighbor went out and shot up her postal office, I would be pissed off if the police went into her house, couldn't find her, then decided that I needed to be invaded.
Hate radio is screaming about invading Iran. Right wing news is screeching about closing our boarders and stirring up aggression with Mexico. What is the purpose of this? What are we trying to accomplish? That might makes right? That we are stronger than everyone else? Isn't that the most vulgar display of bullying you have ever seen?
It is time to put an end to this. Distracting away from key, vital issues such as lobbyist reform, voting reform, spying on Americans, our leader's inability to tell the truth, throwing out false statements and allegations in order turn attention away from the true goings on within the administration. It has all got to stop. What's it going to take? How much more are we going to tolerate?
I find it shockingly funny that so many on the right are absolute aghast by the continuous onslaught of attacks on bush. "Let him do his job" "attacking our leader during a time of war! Shame on you" "he hasn't had a moment's rest" (well, yeah, he has. He's vaca-ed more than any other president in our history). What short memories! The difference between him and Clinton is that Clinton was slapped with something new - from his past - on a regular basis. Whitewater. Flowers. I can't even recall all the sludge that was hurled at him repeatedly. Now bush is being confronted with what he has done WHILE IN OFFICE, and the right is upset? Golly. That's a little confusing. Are we not supposed to point out his illegalities? Are we not supposed to point out baldfaced lies? Are we not supposed to care about the continuous stream of evidence that is coming to light that proves bush manipulated data so that he could justify his invading Iraq? Are we supposed to overlook witness testimony that ties this administration with the purposeful outing of a CIA operative? I wonder what would have happened if Clinton had done that?
They still do lynchings, don't they?
The point is - we had thousands - hundreds of thousands of people protesting this war, amassing for candlelight vigils for the soldiers - and they barely got two seconds on the news. Australians went on a massive tirade of racist killings and attacks just a few months ago - did we see it and hear about it relentlessly? Yet Muslims protesting the depiction of their prophet as a terrorist - with some fringe members causing property damage - that is on an endless news loop.
We need people who understand that others have a right to practice the religion of their choice without obstruction. We do not define Americans by the clowns that blew up the building in Oklahoma. We do not paint all Christians by those that shoot abortion doctors or blow up the clinics. We do not need to define an entire group of people - billions in fact - by an fringe extreme. God knows, I don't want anyone to do that with us. We need a rational mind right about now. We need someone who doesn't see diplomacy as weakness.
What truly frightens me is the slow infiltraition of hate towards mosques on our own soil. I heard stated as fact on, yes, hate radio, that 80% of mosques in America are preaching hatred. They need to be shut down.
Say what?
This is how it begins.
I am hoping that my son's assessment is wrong, but I think he might be right. He said that most people that care about these issues are comfortable. People are not taking to the streets because they aren't hungry, they aren't feeling the effects of an environment being polluted at an unprecedented level, they aren't tasting the arsenic in the water....but if they are, they can still afford to buy bottled water.
There has been a string of church fires in Alabama. It has been determined that these are predominantly arson.
At some point we have to look up and start putting all this stuff together. All this anger. All this intolerance. All this bravado and swaggering. Is this who we are?
Is this the new America?
I sure hope not.
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