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bemildred

(90,061 posts)
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 10:16 AM Sep 2012

Islamophobia and right-wing terrorism

Reasonable voices within the population should publicly shame bigots and marginalize their harmful messages that can provide terrorists with ideological underpinnings.

---

Nathan Lean responds:

My Op-Ed article on Islamophobia and the Anders Behring Breivik verdict sparked a lively debate. And that's a good thing. Conversations like this belong in the pages of prominent newspapers, not on the blogs of hate group leaders.

Shapiro falsely asserts that I prescribed censorship to combat a growing discourse of hate. Instead, what I advocated was that reasonable voices within the population should publicly shame bigots and marginalize their harmful messages so that there is a well-considered and persuasive counterpoint that drowns out their hate. If thoughtful people more frequently and more forcefully speak out against individuals who provided Breivik with his ideological underpinnings, one day, hopefully, they will be treated with the same derision as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups.

Shapiro belittles my claim that right-wing terrorism is of great concern. He psychoanalyzes domestic terrorists like McVeigh and Koresh as "obsessed" or "paranoid," discounting their violence as somehow less concerning than that carried out by Muslim terrorists, whose violence he views as a normal part of their ideological makeup. For those predisposed to judge Islam in this light, if violence is committed by a Christian or someone of another preferred identity, then he is an aberrant mental case, but if it is performed by a Muslim, then that is just how those people are.

This week's news of a plot by four Georgia-based members of the U.S. military to blow up several bases and other targets around the country and assassinate President Obama apparently did not calculate in his logic. Though some may believe otherwise, it's not the Muslim Brotherhood that's planning attacks or infiltrating America's corridors of power.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0901-postscript-islamophobia-20120901,0,7976921.story

Difficult to choose a proper excerpt, I chose to let Mr Lean speak.
17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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aranthus

(3,385 posts)
1. Lean pretends not to get it.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 01:24 PM
Sep 2012

The issue is not that Christians can't be terrorists. The issue is that they don't commit their terrorism out of religious identification. McVeigh didn't point to anything in the Bible or Christian teaching to support his mass murder. But Islamist terrorists do cite the Koran as justification for their murders. Further, the fact the people like Brevik take reasonable concerns about Islamism (not Islam) to extremes doesn't deny the legitimate concerns. And while irrational hatred of all Muslims is worthy of inclusion with KKK or Nazi ideas, the belief that Islamists are a threat is certainly not.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
2. Yeah, he goes through all that and he disagrees, and explains why, and I agree with him.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 01:32 PM
Sep 2012

Like this:

Shapiro belittles my claim that right-wing terrorism is of great concern. He psychoanalyzes domestic terrorists like McVeigh and Koresh as "obsessed" or "paranoid," discounting their violence as somehow less concerning than that carried out by Muslim terrorists, whose violence he views as a normal part of their ideological makeup. For those predisposed to judge Islam in this light, if violence is committed by a Christian or someone of another preferred identity, then he is an aberrant mental case, but if it is performed by a Muslim, then that is just how those people are.

This week's news of a plot by four Georgia-based members of the U.S. military to blow up several bases and other targets around the country and assassinate President Obama apparently did not calculate in his logic. Though some may believe otherwise, it's not the Muslim Brotherhood that's planning attacks or infiltrating America's corridors of power.

aranthus

(3,385 posts)
3. You're making my point
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 01:50 PM
Sep 2012

Read what he writes carefully. He's equating terrorism by those who happen to be Christian with that committed by people who do so in the name of Islam. That's a false comparison. I'm not suggesting that just anyone who happens to be Muslim who commits violence does so because of religion. But those who cite the Koran certainly do. Now look at the story of the four Georgia service people. Is there any mention of them citing the New Testament as justification? Of course not. They didn't. Is there any mention that they are even Christian? Nope. Any indication that they were Right wingers? Also no.

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
4. so the there is no proof that the guys plotting to assassinate President Obama were rightwingers
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 03:03 PM
Sep 2012

I guess we'll just have to your word for it

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
6. No I'm disagreeing with you.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 03:45 PM
Sep 2012

I do think all terrorists are cut from the same cloth, same as he does, and as as you deny. Your opinion that it is a false comparison is exactly that, an opinion, and my opinion is like his.

PS: I'm going to be quite disappointed if you come back with the claim that it's a fact, that my opinion is an opinion and your opinion is a "fact". You have been failrly realistic in the past, we usually agree a lot.

aranthus

(3,385 posts)
7. Your opinion is based on fudging an obvious distinction.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 04:02 PM
Sep 2012

You are conflating identity (merely being Christian) with motive (terror in the name of Islam). That's why its a false comparison. By the way, any comparison is an opinion. They can still be false. Likewise distinctions. Even if you are trying to compare right wing terror with Islamist terror, there is still the difference that extreme right wingers aren't running governments. They aren't a sizeable part of the American Right. Whereas Islamists are a dominant part of the Islamic middle east.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
8. There is one obvious thing that distinguishes all terrorists from everybody else.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 04:27 PM
Sep 2012

And it is not their religion, or any other dogmatic system they happen to adhere to, it is their propensity to think violence is a good answer to disputes. You can separate dogmatists most effectively by how they respond to not getting their way, some decide to resort to violence, some don't. The more of the former you have laying around feeling thwarted, the more violence you are going to have. Again, look at N. Ireland, Sri Lanka and the LTTE were buddhist commies, and as you point out sometimes religion has nothing to do with it, race for example works something wonderful, but there is always some dogmatic belief system behind it, and any obvious physical distinction will do to separate out the lesser folk, and we can invent them if none are handy; there is always the belief that violence is justified and effective to right wrongs or to bring about the new millennium, whatever dipshit utopia they happen to believe is inevitable, coming soon. We don't need better ideologies, we need better people, we're the problem.

There are of course many other distinctions that one can focus one instead, and people do that all the time, to push whatever propaganda line thay are infatuated with today, but they are wrong, because no religion or ideology accounts for more than a small part of terrorist violence.

QED

 

shira

(30,109 posts)
9. You really cannot see that state sponsored incitement to terror....
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 04:39 PM
Sep 2012

...as well as rewarding the aftermath is far worse than a few rightwing nut jobs or small organizations within any Western nation?

If not, the distinction is stark. One government clearly incites and rewards terror. The terrorists are martyrs and heroes in state-sponsored media, schools, and government institutions. The other makes it illegal and takes measures to stop it, preaches tolerance routinely. Who in their right mind today celebrates Breivik or Koresh, wishes to do more of the same, and challenges the govt/state authorities to do something about it?

Can you really not see the difference?

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
10. First tell me if you can see the distinction I was making?
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 04:46 PM
Sep 2012

About how different people feel about what to do when they don't get their way?

Then we can talk about state terror if you like.

aranthus

(3,385 posts)
11. At a sufficient level of generality you are correct.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 05:10 PM
Sep 2012

In general, terrorists use terror to force societies to do what decent reasonable societies would not otherwise do. However,the question is whether that level of generality is relevant. For example, I believe that your statement that, "no religion or ideology accounts for more than a small part of terrorist violence." is just plain wrong. Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Bahaism and Animism combined don't account for a fraction of the terror coming from radical Islam. Neither do right wing political ideologies. Different ideologies create different percentages of violent dogmatists. Can you imagine Christians world wide rioting and murdering innocent people because someone insulted Jesus? Of course they wouldn't. Remember Piss Christ? Now imagine the result of a Piss Mohamed. Huge difference.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
12. And I think you are confusing effects with causes.
Wed Sep 19, 2012, 05:22 PM
Sep 2012

You think a general view of the situation misses the special evilness of Islamism, a special case, the extra baddest one, and I think that's poppycock, extremists don't just pop up like mushrooms in content civil societies because of some religious dogma, they pop up when there are bitter disputes at hand over food and sex and power, our favored primate obsessions, or outside meddling stirs them up, for again much the same sorts of reasons.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
15. Do you think ideologies are invented by people, for human motives?
Thu Sep 20, 2012, 12:56 AM
Sep 2012

Or do they just sort of exist out there in idea-space waiting to innocent humans to come along to infect? My experience is that first people get worked up, and then they start researching rationalizations, and there ideologies are dandy, but first you have to have the motive. You can whine about terrorism until you are blue in the face, but until you do something about the motive force behind it, you are going to continue to have frequent incidents of one sort or another, not to mention the bigger messes that happen now and then when somebody gets lucky or proves smarter than average, like 9/11.

pelsar

(12,283 posts)
16. or the reverses.....
Fri Sep 21, 2012, 02:04 AM
Sep 2012

Last edited Fri Sep 21, 2012, 04:04 AM - Edit history (1)

the ideology causes the reaction, the "getting worked up". Ever see what religion can do to people who a few years earlier were depressed, etc. It gives them a 'reason to live." an identity, a group to join. They are motivated because of the ideology.

and ideologies are not the same (a variant strain of the multiculturalism mentality). Some ideologies (cultures/subcultures/traditions/beliefs - and other group activities) have different characteristics...in case you missed it.

today we have a subset of the muslim religion/culture that is very violent, with a tendency to riot "upon command". How long they will continue with this we dont know. It took the Christians a few hundred years to get it out of their system, and i do believe we can call the crusaders christians (something about killing in the name of jesus was a "give away".) And since i'm a believer in a single standard, i believe the muslims get the same label-we got people screaming for their version of god and killing on his behalf. (when you riot for allah, your clearly doing it for the religion..when the imans declare rioting "bad", and only they can make that declaration, will their reason for rioting become more mundane....)

as far as if we have something in the US that is similar....the closest we have is the riots by the far left during the G8 summit in seattle. The G8 group were warned about the riots to be, came anyway and got a violent protest, based on their ideology. ....its about as close as we have to the "muslim riots"

who knows maybe my next words will cause a riot in israel, the US or in Libya....and clearly we all know which group might actually riot:

moses was an egostical maniac- and the hassidim are all clowns
jesus was really gay
allah, the gods a joke, and he needs a haircut

i leave you with my favorite cartoon and really hope it doesnt see the light in some other country: I wouldnt want to see those jews in israel getting all worked up rioting because i made fun of moses


http://worldtvnews.com/tag/buddha/


http://imgur.com/Rg9mKhttp://www.google.co.il/imgres?q=cartoon+of+moses,+jesus,+buddha&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1142&bih=819&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=8eg_h7d6LKxUuM:&imgrefurl=http://imgur.com/Rg9mK&docid=bJzF9n6PCKDeRM&imgurl=&w=960&h=543&ei=ZQNcUJjFBs3Psgay_IDgCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=407&sig=106477326161720490118&page=1&tbnh=110&tbnw=194&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:68&tx=108&ty=25

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