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Revealed; Newly Invented, Ancient ‘Secret to Life, the Universe, Sex and Parcheesi’
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What Non-Western Civilization?
Is there anyone who can tell me just which part of modern world civilization is Non-Western?
If it came about in the last 300 years, and general world-wide opinion is that it is “civilized” then it came from the West; deal with it people! IT is not about race or the color of anyone’s skin, it is about CULTURES; some are structured in healthy ways, others , um… are not.
I believe that the source of the West’s almost incomprehensible loss of the will to keep the more unruly cultures on a leash (or at least penned up) is related to the fact that we have won the war, the struggle from animals to civilization; the rest is just tuning and tweaking and finding the best ways to do this civilization game. If the world were ‘civilized’ as a whole there would be no need for war or armies or bombs; but only part of the world is civilized and our own civilized “sensibilities” tell us that it is not “nice” to fail to “be nice” to those unfortunate cultures that still have a lot of growing up to do. And so we allow the idiots to blow themselves and others up, rape, pillage and commit genocide – all in the name of being “civilized”!
How is it a civilized act to allow barbarism to flourish? It isn’t; it will not eve produce stability. Ask the Romans; ask the British.
We in the West walk a fine line; on the one hand we must protect and hold on to our hard-won prize: the dignity and honor of the individual based on their own life instead of their family,tribe, nation or race. On the other hand we must not shy away from swift and effective actions to contain the un-civilized while their cultures slowly grow up in their own time.
I have always felt it was a form of racism to ascribe every problem and ill suffered by the second and third world to the first world; those places all were, in Kipling’s words, “dog’s breakfasts” of cultures to live in long before any ‘white man’ came to interfere with the quaint native ways.
It was Western culture that came, not a color of skin. And everywhere it has gone, the individual has seen the length, prosperity and stability of their lives increase dramatically; at the cost of most of the “old ways”, the majority of which where of questionable psychological value to begin with! Anyone who disagrees about some cultures being more messed up (none are perfect, by a long shot) had better be prepared to come up with a “good” reason why some primitive tribes to this day retain a rite of passage to manhood that includes the child/man performing, willing or not, ritual fellatio on an older man in order to protect the younger one from “the overwhelming power of the female”! I am not sure about you, but I just can’t go along with forced sex with minors in the guise of a religiously vital ritual of passage, and I hold some fairly heretical notions about what a sexually healthy society would look like!
Sex is one of those “tweaks and tunings” I spoke of that Western society needs to work on; oh boy do we need to work on it! But, that hardly means we in the West (the role models of civilization) should be so timid about being settled in our minds on the basics: non-Western ways of treating women as a class, and personally, quite simply suck.
Check out this attempt at a defense of non-Western views toward women.
The whole bazaar mentality of “narrative” is also questionable; it is not who makes the loudest, most emotional yet traditional argument first who wins, it is the guy who goes over and counts the mules teeth and knows the facts.
I close with my update of Kipling; all I did was take one word, and translate from what it meant then to the word we would use to show what Kipling was really saying.
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to naught.
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:–
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the Westerner’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Finally remember that I consider Japanese, South Koreans, and much of India etc., to be “Western” before you light your straw-men.
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Forget Faith in Jesus or Mohammad – I Believe in Bugs Bunny
One thing seems to be consistent about religions all through human history; faith in the literal truth of the religion’s doctrines and dogmas is strongest in the least educated and least widely experienced, while the “elite” tend to range from religious beliefs with agnostic admissions to full-blown, cynical atheism. This aspect of societal religion tends to favor the more partisan of each camp; the “masses” are peer-pressured to “show faith” and not think too much, while the “elite” are pressured in the same way to deny ALL aspects of deity and belief and God(s). For those of us to who seeking understanding of God in a REAL sense, as opposed to a political or emotional/security sense, this is a bit of a hindrance.
To try to avoid the almost inevitable miscommunication that occurs when attempting to discuss God let me define my own terms; belief is not the same as faith; faith is something that causes grief and only causes good by accident; belief is what built civilization as we know it.
Faith is defined in Western culture as belief in something unseen, unproven, un-EVIDENCED other than by conflicting scriptural testimonies; this is a fool’s game at best!
Pseudo-religion has taken over much of the world’s “Faithful” by taking advantage of the tendency of the masses to desire a simple creed with an un-questioned authority to follow – just so that they do not have to ponder things that they do not have the experience or education to ponder with any confidence.
It is not enough, their preachers say, to believe in the bridge over the canyon, you must have and prove absolute faith that it is there…
The next sound you hear is the sound of crunching bones at the bottom of the canyon; and if the snake-oiled social-system-from-perdition that they are selling fails the test in the real world they have an escape clause; it is the fault of the poor soul who failed to “show enough faith”; you know who I mean, they are most likely a victim of the situation for which they are receiving (divine sanctioned) blame!
As you can see Virginia, I have never completely gotten over my desire to seek God, and lead others to know God better! Mea culpa; I still care. But, at some point I recognized that all the “Organized Religions” have long since been co-opted by pirates, parasites and reactionaries – who are their own enemies as well as everyone else’s; never thinking, believing then acting – just fighting the others while stealing as much power over people’s souls as possible.
Oh, let me point out that yes, Atheism is a faith; it takes a lot of ego-based, un-founded faith to KNOW that “our reality contains no form of anything that might be called God, period, debate closed; it is not even possible you know, why even bring it up in ‘intelligent’ company?”
Belief on the other hand is based on facts and experience and even intuition, if that intuition has a good track record; if every time you had something very bad happen in your life, and you had ignored a strong, distinct feeling to avoid the situation, eventually you would “believe” enough to listen; even though for years you might not have the “faith” to gamble on your premonitions being something other than a coincidental case of indigestion!
I have beliefs, I have very little faith; I like it that way.
Faith has to be blind; the blind tend to step on things, including other people’s toes, property, pets and even bridges that are NOT over canyons.
Of course many of the things that can fall under either label are good, or useful!
In a documentary film about the life and death of comedian Andy Kaufman (Man on the Moon) there is a scene where he is waiting to undergo a faith healing in India with full belief, from things he has seen and read and experienced, that he would find healing given by an honest healer. But instead, he sees from where his stretcher is laid that the “healer” is faking the procedure, and his belief dies.
Of course, the proponents of “faith” will tell us that if he had continued to ‘have FAITH ™’, instead of merely believing, the placebo effect would have worked with a holy head-start, and he might have found healing; I do not disagree but, I find that level of blind faith an evil, black magic; one that is less a slippery slope than a swift escalator to horrific abuses ( ones that we have seen over and over again in history when people forget the reality of their fellow man, and treat them solely according to their “faith.” Q.E.D. Virginia, Q.E.D.!
The bottom line is that true lover’s of God are recognized despite their religion, not because of it; mostly everyone stays for their entire life in the religion that they were born into; in some religions it can be fatal to become an Agnostic let alone change your religion; so much for an honest quest for God.
Yet there are good, godly, devout people wherever you find human hearts and human tears. You can’t avoid that simple, obvious truth; unless you cling to “faith” in the notion that God made a special effort to make sure that you were born in the faith that you “happen” to believe in – all just so you could be “saved“! Of course, anyone not so favored was chosen by the ‘Infinite Power and Mercy of Deity’ to be born in an “un-Godly cult” that destines them to almost certain “damnation”!
If you do believe that this is true, then there is a quote from the Christians’ Bible that I believe is appropriate: “Jesus Wept“!
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Calling Yourself Liberal and Religious won’t MAKE You a Good Person
Today we have two re-writes of older articles that seem very relevant today:
First, we will take the “Liberals” as well as the “Conservatives” to task for partisan hypocrisy…
Nowadays the word Liberal is often used as a pejorative; I often use it that way myself for good reasons.
Yet I am a moderate, and probably spend about 40% of the time cursing the idiocy of the Left, and 60% of it complaining and worrying about the Right (It is too bad there are not more real conservative minds in the Conservative camp these days.). Of the two the Conservatives tend to scare me a bit more but the Leftists in total power would be/ have been worse. But the actions of the radicals on either side do not condemn entire schools of thought to a mature mind. This should be remembered by pundits on both sides in this age of attack politics.
Lately a radically Conservative group has taken over almost all the political voice of conservative American Christianity. They have used their pulpit to propound, and pound in, their own view of history, and how Christianity has influenced the development of the United States as a nation.
They are not actually lying about the influence of the churches. The problem is that they have forgotten from just where in the Church all that influence came. Yes, it was those damn liberals every time!
In American history, every time the religious culture has had a profound positive influence (as judged by successive generations) on changes in society those influences have their roots in the Liberal-to-Radical churches. They most certainly did not come from the Conservative ones!
The Conservative Churches in every case have held the line with the status quo through history whether it was regarding the Revolution, slavery, child labor, workers rights, racial equality or now, gay rights. Yet the Conservative Churches of today want to shine their halos with the contributions made for the most part by the Liberal Churches of the past.
This activity is not unique to Christianity by any means. A Radical Conservative Jew will spend much energy telling you about Judaism’s amazing contributions to Western society, but will refuse to see that his brand of thinking never produced any of it. Find a Conservative Imam, and you will find a man eager to convince you that Islam has been an enormously positive contributor to civilization over the centuries. But if you remind him that blind faithfulness to Islam’s Conservative philosophy had nothing to do with the various periods of (heretically liberal) Islamic glory that he is polishing up for you to admire; he may even take offense.
In every case where religious and political power intermingle the things that modern world civilization would call progress has only come when the dominant Church(s) is(are) liberal to the point of being heretical (to the parent dogmas and doctrines), tolerant and more focused on understanding, accepting and spreading the “love behind the Law” rather than promoting a zero-tolerance attitude regarding adherence to the “Letter of the Law.”
But only stagnation and decay ensue when the Churches are conservative and cling to a memory, or fictitious ideal, of “the way it should be.”
It should be noted that Conservative religious thought can have a greatly positive influence on society but, that usually the effects remain chiefly negative.
Witness: the defense of slavery, and the stances of “Godly” preachers and priests against child labor laws, and minority civil rights laws.
Witness: the attempts at forced, coerced and violent conversions directed at any people of another religion that are under the influence of a politicized religion (theocracies, inquisitions, shari’a states).
We all admit that Conservatism is designed to be highly successful at keeping the wheels of a society turning. Who but a fool will deny that there is a true virtue most times in maintaining most of the status quo; Leftists take note of the qualifications and keep your straw men to yourselves – I am not Christian, and never have been a Republican, or supporter of either Bush.
But, it also must be admitted that Conservative governments and organizations have a poor track record when attempting to grease those wheels, to make accommodation for the fact that seems “odd“, “weird“, “different” to the average mind; whether the ideas are good ones or not!
When the going gets rough or to be a creative inspiration for the people who bear the main burdens of pushing the cart of civilization further, faster and safer than our ancestors ever believed it could go Conservatives can be of more a drag chain when they should be acting like the regenerative brakes that go with a hybrid engine.
Conservative ideology certainly does not allow real flaws in the basic social system to be changed without a protracted, and often ugly, fight with the liberal mindset who are busy finding things that are not really broken to make into really nasty situations with well-meaning new laws and more, and more, and more tension from enforcement, and less and less elbow room for the well-intentioned citizen just trying to get along and improve their lives.
Without a Liberal element in society, one that has enough influence to smack the current bosses on the head now and then but, not enough to dominate society a person lives in what is at best a well upholstered slave camp destined to fade into the dust of history.
And…
Without a Conservative element at the core to give perspective and balance a people will… well, just look at the aftermath of every single revolution in the past – the American revolution was actually a colony revolt – it was an independently evolving, functioning society that broke away from the parent nation/culture rather than an indigenous movement to topple all the central power structures and replace them ad hoc with unproven or dis-proven but, “much better” institutions; not long after they succeed the real bloodshed is just beginning!
Who was it again that decreed with proven ‘Holy Authority‘ that all human problems can, and may, only be solved by a totally Left-wing or totally Right-wing ideology? When did admitting that your Party’s platform cannot solve all problems if followed by ”good” people?
The voting public needs to take off their trendy, strait-jackets/sheep-outfits, grow up, and look at reality – of the real kind, rather than the oh-so-importantly-unimportant political sort – and then find the ideal solutions, not the solutions that serve your political tribe while walking over everyone else’s Lives’, Liberties, and frantic Pursuits of Happiness.
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Theocratic Reformation from Judaism to Islam – Christians 4: Jews 5: Muslims: 0
Ok, we can all agree that Pat Robertson was a dork of stellar magnitude, and the Phelps Family are supernovae in that particular area called theocracy.
That said, before we submerge a crucifix in urine let’s give the Abrahamic tree a second look, and examine the fruit it has borne.
The Jews never had a drive to spread over the Earth. Their scriptures taught them that certain lands were given them by God; so they took them, enough said, this was 6,000 years ago after all. But after that they lost any territorial ambitions. But, the Persians and Romans proceeded to push them this way and that; being rather fanatical, they pushed back. After the destruction of the 2nd Temple and the Judean Diaspora the centuries have seen Judaism become a religion withdrawn into itself. Having lost the arrogance of the Temple but retained the Love of God and intellectual tradition they became a creative yeast in their host cultures.
The Jews never expected to take over the world; at most they expected, and some maybe still expect that the world will join them. Not by the sword, but by the Love of God. One of the best aspects of the Jewish religion is its focus on the Love of God and a Love for God in each moment of a person’s life.
But along came Jayzus!
Things started out ok, Yesuah merely echoed and extended the teachings and philosophy of Hillel. It expanded organically and gently; converting mostly people otherwise considered “unworthy” of membership in one of the more respectable religions, then into the idle upper-class (often by way of religiously adventurous wives discontent with being the ornament on a rich man’s arm.
But then Paul and Constantine came to deal the Judaic Chrestians, and then, later, the mild original “Greek”, a double death-blow of politicization.
Saint Bartholomew’s Massacre
After several centuries of defending themselves from the fanatically imperialistic Islam Christianity began to model all sorts of the worst of the Islamic “innovations” in religion and took on an expansionist, aggressive attitude of its own.
But, it is inherent in a religion mostly based on the teachings of Jesus that every now and then people would remember what their religion was supposed to be about. Christianity may have done much more good during those periods than it did evil during its more cognitively-dissonant times.
Since the Enlightenment the swings of the pendulum between arrogant fanaticism on one hand, and humble servitude to God on the other seem to have gotten gentler. Christianity also seem centered more and more toward the liberal side of the equation; i.e. Fred Phelps, not Qaradawi.
Christianity may one day even manage to have more people who follow it for the right reasons than fools-in-lambs-clothing who use religion in unhealthy ways, or merely for social reasons.
Christianity has a core in its teachings and scripture that is there for all to see; one of Love. It today can be, and always has been, a potentially dangerous religion (I.e. Fred Phelps, Torquemada) but is not inherently so by the structure and teachings of its chief scriptures.
I do think that, despite the quantum jump that The Enlightenment enabled in society’s evolution, Christianity has shown a definite tendency to speed humanity’s growth due to the focus of many of the faithful being on Jesus’ ministry rather than the “died for your sins” part.
Now, about Islam.
Islam teaches much about peace and love. There are verses equal to any in the other Abrahamic writings. I will not comment here about those who feel it was the work of someone passingly familiar with both religions. But Pat Robertson did get one thing right; Islamic theology IS inherently aggressive.
The Islamic scriptures consist of three parts:
The Qur’an, the Sunnah –basically a biography of Mohammed’s life, and the ahadith – stories about Mohammed from people who knew him. If you read it all it is clear that there can only be peace when everyone has submitted to Allah.
Even the most fanatical religion tends to mellow over the years; people are basically families, people who want to live and work and laugh and have the space to find God before they die. Even individuals attracted to a “religious” life for evil reasons can be shocked to learn that Love of God and Love BY God can blossom in their hearts; that is the core of any religion.
Islam unfortunately is working uphill in the all so human battle against hubris while trying to find truth. But, by having such an aggressive set scriptures; by having so much to draw from that feeds the darker hungers of man, Islam will, I believe spend more time orbiting around radical aggression before submitting finally to that peace and love that is God, is Allah.
Islam is inherently dedicated by its self-declared scriptural doctrine to naturally one day rule the world by TAKING control of it and forcing Dar al-Harb(‘House of War’) (Non-Muslim controlled regions) into Dar al-Islam(‘House of Islam); then all people will be free, in the Islamic view, to “choose” the “right” religion.
Sadly, it is not hard to justify all sorts of atrocities on infidels (non-Muslims) with the Qur’an; by contrast there are very few Samaritans or Philistines around for Jews or Christians to use their scripture as an excuse to start a pogrom against.
In Islam it does not matter that reformist Imams do not support something. In fact it is literally forbidden in Islam to use your ‘conscience’ as a guide in a religious dilemma; the only proper way to get an answer is to ask the proper authority, and then submit to the “truth.”
In Christianity, the violent books and verses are all somewhat shielded by being in the OT and considered to be superseded by the Love of Jesus when any conflict occurs. Islam does not have a NT to mellow its hard edges, though it does recognize the concept of abrogation (what a prophet says later is ‘rock’ to the ‘scissors’ of any earlier pronouncements or doctrines).
This makes “insulting” Islam dangerous at times in the modern world of high tech, and horrific weapons that you can make in your garage.
Solutions
I mostly find it sad that the bulk of Muslims are not more vocal about denouncing their radical Brethren in both the private and the public arena. It is every person in the world’s duty to restrain the fundies of all aggressive religions until they grow up. Until a religion’s devout – highest clergy to clueless souls just born in it – recognize to their core’s that it is ok to DIE because of your religion but, that it is NEVER anything but evil to use religion as an excuse to KILL, that religion should be watched, and kept on a leash in polite company.
Islam has yet to show that it can stay grown up. They are younger though, lets give them time…but, keep the rolled up newspaper ready to smack their noses if they sh*t on the rug. We have too many permanent stains from Christianity and its messes; AND the Islam’s’ earlier messes. Of course Christianity STILL pees on the floor now and then. We just have to be patient and rub their noses PROMPTLY in their messes; but, we don’t have to worry about them eating the neighbor’s cat anymore.
I am not too PC to call a club a club (well, I can’t say spade anymore can I?); religion can be very wonderful but, people need to get over their BS and realize that the basic code of ethics that most religions have can also be formulated by simple common sense and an understanding of psychology and social dynamics. Go read a little about Neuro-Linguistic Programming and such. Real secular morality is what the world needs, not the Fascist pretend kind, only then can religion truly flourish; when we get over all this bickering on who is actually the only ones in touch with the “ONLY source of Morality™”; which they cannot even prove exists.
Faith is the problem; submission to something you do not feel yourself is the problem. Beliefs have reasons, sometimes bad ones but, reasons that can be ‘reasoned with’; faith has no reason therefore the most reasonable argument does no good, your head still rolls on the floor.
Have faith in Jesus of Mohammed; I will Believe in Bugs Bunny!
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He Said, She Said.
She stood at the kitchen counter slicing food for dinner while he watched her from his perch on an old wooden stool with green legs that he took with him wherever he went. He smiled as he watched her and played with some magnetic balls on the table with one hand while the other rubbed his neck.
He was dressed in his usual comfortable jeans with an old, homey t-shirt with an out-of date political slogan emblazoned on the front. His socks were rather loud, an argyle in fact, but warm and comfy on his tired old feet. Freshly bathed and groomed, as groomed as a naturally almost hairless man need be, he seemed cheerful but troubled.
She noticed his hand on his neck, a sure sign of tension, and asked “Is something bothering you Dear?” in a voice that left no doubt in a hearers mind that she felt nothing but affection for the old man before her.
“I am not bothered.” He replied, “…just don’t get it.”
Long training at keeping a perfect poker-face kept the hitch fro her voice, this conversation had been repeated many times before; she prayed, as much as it hurt her, that it would be repeated many more… or something like that.
“Do you need to get it?” she asked, trying a new approach.
“Well, no, I guess I don’t.” He re-lied, “I mean it is not like it is something bad I want to get, I like that you take such good care of me, treat me so nice.” He smiled at her, “Just don’t get it. It is not like I help you, I like it here but I don’t understand why I don’t have to work like the people on the television.” He shrugged, guess if I don’t get it I might stop doing what I am doing to deserve it.” He paused for so long she thought he had drifted into other thoughts. “ I wouldn’t like that.” He finally said softly, and went back to smiling and playing with the Buckey balls as she fought back sudden tears.
She tried, but she could not leave him in uncertainty, not because it might build up into a “bad day”, but because she loved him, and wanted the rest of his life as happy as possible, he deserved that much. “You have already earned it!” she said with warmth, you … used to be a person who helped many people understand things, you gave to others, and you wanted nothing but to love them all.” She faltered, “You ‘did that which you should have done and you did not that which you should not have done’. Don’t let it worry you; it makes me happy to make you happy, period, o.k.?”
He smiled brightly, “okay!” he said. There was a short silence, then, “But, why are you crying now?” he asked with his eyes welling up in sympathetic response. “Because I am sad I cannot give you back what it was that earned all this for you.” She said waving at the home around them. “And why I am here with you; I always will be.”
He said with a smile in his eyes, “I am happy, and I love you ‘Baby Girl’.”
He paused.” why do you like that name, anyway? You are an old woman, well, 60 at least!” He pondered. “Maybe, I say it because it tastes right in my mouth, ‘Baby Girl’!”
“But,” he said, “If I did good things, and we have all this because of it, isn’t that a good thing?” “And I don’t want to be that again if it means having to make my head hurt and worry, like you do.” He looked uncertain. “I really did all that stuff that you do… and real good?” He grinned, ‘Oh, the horror’ he said in a mocking voice,” I am the lucky one. I like simple. I must have won a prize or something”
Rinsing some glasses to cover her emotions she then turned and smiled at him. “Don’t worry about ‘getting it’ anymore, that is my job now, your job is to be my husband, and to be loved.”
She wiped her hands on the dish towel. “If you can wait a few minutes on dinner I need to go to the ladies room, I will be right back.” He nodded brightly, engrossed in whether a fly would find the escape of an open window; without seeming to look he swatted her on the bottom as she passed, and her pace quickened though she smiled; he began making bets with himself about the fly in different accents, his worries gone.
She made it to the bathroom and managed to lock the door and even run some water in the sink to cover the noise before she began to cry, but dinner was late that evening; he did not mind, he had found a re-run of Dancing with the Stars to critique.
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CNN Cheers on Hamas as They Make Their Own Children Bleed!
We All Saved! CNN has put out a FAQ on Hamas and Israel and their conflict! World Peace is IMMANENT!
Problem:
That FAQ was actually almost MOSTLY objective; but boy is that ‘mostly’ a big one!
Did you notice Virginia, that the author left out the fact that after Hamas won enough of the Gazan elections to control the Strip they violently and illegally ejected all non-Hamas persons of authority from their positions and made Gaza a virtually independent HAMAS territory; while the West Bank remains controlled by a somewhat pseudo-democratic mix of Fatah and Hamas and others?
Their violent conversion of political dominance into dictatorial control in Gaza puts a very different spin on a lot of things that have happened since then!
The author might as well put on a sweater declaring “Hamas, Hamas! RAH! RAH! RAH!”
The tone of the language used about the Palestinians is very neutral, objective and non-judgmental while the language used to describe the actions of Israelis is full of prejudice and filtered through a bigoted lens.
Some Examples
Four years after the last major conflict in the region, Israel and Hamas are once again on the brink of war in Gaza. So what is the group, and what does it hope to achieve by its rocket attacks on Israeli targets?
A psychologist might find it amusing to note that usually, when insider describes something like their political, criminal, or terrorist group for the most part they refer to them with terms like “the group” rather than the more formal names used by outsiders such as “the Catholics” or “the Smith’s” or “the Bronco’s.“
Terms like “the Church, “the family” or “the team” are reserved (mostly) for group’s with which the speaker likely self-identifies. Yet here Hamas is referred to as “the group.” It is as though a member of a new Christian cult explained to you what “the group” was about, as opposed to telling you about “the Moonies“; a term that a non-Moonie would use” to explain “that group” as opposed to “The Group“; just saying.
After failing to mention any of Hamas’ more ‘unsavory’ activities in the years since its founding the author goes on to say:
Hamas’s refusal to recognize the state of Israel is one reason why it’s been excluded from peace talks. In 1993…
Then it never mentions the bombings, rocket attacks, and relentless television propagandizing on the Palestinian people by Fatah and Hamas; the “FAQ” even fails to notice the recent Palestinian government dedication of a public square in celebration of the mother of several suicide bombers. A woman who expressed the wish that all of her sons would die killing as many Israeli civilians as possible; that occurred in the “moderate: West Bank
After failing to mention any of Hamas’ more ‘unsavory’ activities in the years since its founding the author goes on to say:
Hamas’s refusal to recognize the state of Israel is one reason why it’s been excluded from peace talks. In 1993…
Later on we have this gem, remember Virginia that virtually all Muslims you see on TV will declare that ‘Jihad’ and ‘Holy War’ are not at all the same thing!
However, the founding charter of Hamas, published in 1988, called for jihad, or holy war, and marked a decisive split with the Muslim Brotherhood’s philosophy of nonviolence.
After the FAQ gives paragraph after paragraph of “facts” simply stated regarding Hamas’ actions (All reported in the most neutral tones, whether good or heinous but focused almost solely on the positive) we get this kind of tone about the Israelis:
“Israel also accuses Hamas of using civilians in Gaza as a “human shield,” and the territory’s schools and hospitals as a cover for military hardware…”They bury their military infrastructure inside civilian areas,””
Given that the entire sentence above are established facts about the tactics Hamas uses regarding civilians, hospitals and children it is hard to understand the sudden change in tone from the Hamas description earlier in the ‘FAQ’:
Hamas has sections dedicated to religious, military, political and security activities. It runs a social welfare program, and operates a number of schools, hospitals and religious institutions. It also has about 12,500 security personnel.
The FAQ reads like it was written half by an actual moderate seeking to explain facts on the ground and an actual member of Hamas; then some utterly clueless CNN suit chose which to include in the limited number they had space for; this FAQ explains nothing but the need for people to go out and look at information for themselves to decided who did what to whom in each case.
GO ISRAEL!
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