Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

[Puppycow]

Did you know that it's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week?

 

[quixotecoyote]

And the purpose of this powerfully named protest?

The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.

eta: Oh Hitchens, why must you go to such lengths to prove that atheists can be as irrational as the religious?

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Did you know that it's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week?

[qimg]http://www.terrorismawareness.org/images/43tt.jpg[/qimg]

Did I?

Well, what would you think of say, a pointless and confrontational protest called,
American Imperialism awareness week
with

this, as the picture?

Would you perhaps feel that such a provocative name would be perhaps unhelpful and misrepresenting to a country of 300 Million people? Because I would. I'd see it as unintellectual and morally damaging to an already confused world.

Why couldn't this have gone in the 'Islam V Islamists' thread? Attention much?

 

[Puppycow]

Did I?

Well, what would you think of say, a pointless and confrontational protest called,
American Imperialism awareness week
with
[qimg]http://www.gallerym.com/images/work/big/pulitzer_nick_ut_vietnam_napalm_kim_phuc_6872_L.jpg[/qimg]
this, as the picture?

Would you perhaps feel that such a provocative name would be perhaps unhelpful and misrepresenting to a country of 300 Million people? Because I would. I'd see it as unintellectual and morally damaging to an already confused world.

Why couldn't this have gone in the 'Islam V Islamists' thread? Attention much?

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'm not endorsing it, just noting its existence. If I had the time to read every thread in this forum I wouldn't have a full time job and be raising kids. In this case I found out about this from reading an article by Chris Hitchens in Slate and thought it might be something interesting enough to start a thread about.

And yes, you are right to note that American Imperialism has caused much death and suffering in Vietnam. Maybe we should have such a week too. I can recognize that we are not always angels. I would love a world without both American Imperialism and Islamofascism. Like in 'Imagine' by John Lennon. Of course I don't expect such a world will arrive in my lifetime, but it would be a nice world if it was possible.

 

[madurobob]

I'm so glad we've left our Christo-Fascism days behind us (we did, didn't we?)

But really, isn't the use of "fascism" here just pure hyperbole? I've always understood fascism to mean a combination of extreme nationalism, extreme capitalism and extreme totalitarianism. While I agree must of what we see of Islamist ruled countries is totalitarian and heavy handed, I don't think we can legitimately call it fascism.

 

[GreNME]

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'm not endorsing it, just noting its existence.

"Islamofascism" is a loaded term championed by FOX News that dumbs down discourse, marginalizes a religion, and completely misses the point in the attempt to incite fear while inserting the word "Islam." There's not a nice, clean, developed deroggatory phrase out there that is simultaneously able to include terrorists as well as any accused associations (including associating the religion), so "Islamofascism" is the artificial box that it get put into.

 

[madurobob]

Curious. Mussolini defined fascism thusly:

...the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century

Replace "fascist" with "conservative" above and I would have no trouble believing those words came from Coulter, Hannity, Robertson, Cheney, etc...

"Islamofacism" is pure hyperbole and intended to incite hatred and fear while simultaneously hindering true open discourse. Nice.

 

[JoeEllison]

So, it is "Racism Against Arabs" week for the right-wing. I thought that was every week?

 

[GreNME]

So, it is "Racism Against Arabs" week for the right-wing. I thought that was every week?

I don't think it's the "right-wing" so much as it is a subset of the right-wing. It's more like FOX-News-Fan-Bush-Loving-Arab-Hate week.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'm not endorsing it, just noting its existence. If I had the time to read every thread in this forum I wouldn't have a full time job and be raising kids. In this case I found out about this from reading an article by Chris Hitchens in Slate and thought it might be something interesting enough to start a thread about.

And yes, you are right to note that American Imperialism has caused much death and suffering in Vietnam. Maybe we should have such a week too. I can recognize that we are not always angels. I would love a world without both American Imperialism and Islamofascism. Like in 'Imagine' by John Lennon. Of course I don't expect such a world will arrive in my lifetime, but it would be a nice world if it was possible.

Ok sorry.

I must agree with many here at the curious choice of phrase, 'Islamofascism'. If anything, Islamism is an strange hybrid of totalitarianism and extreme anarchism given that God, not man, legislates the rules of man.

But at the same time, I am getting slightly curious about the phrase 'Islamophobia'. It seems to crop up a fair bit on the far left, and I wonder why 'Anti-Arabism' or 'Anti-Persian' or 'Religous Xenophobia' or even, 'racism' is not the norm. We all know anti-semetism is against the Jewish race, not the religion itself.
If people are saying that those who come from Muslim countries, or are Muslim themselves are racially inferior, then shame on them. But if it is somebody saying Islam is a rubbish faith, how is it any different from slagging off the Republican party or Scientologists? Because many are brown skinned?

 

[Puppycow]

I'm so glad we've left our Christo-Fascism days behind us (we did, didn't we?)

But really, isn't the use of "fascism" here just pure hyperbole? I've always understood fascism to mean a combination of extreme nationalism, extreme capitalism and extreme totalitarianism. While I agree must of what we see of Islamist ruled countries is totalitarian and heavy handed, I don't think we can legitimately call it fascism.

Chris Hitchens defends the term thusly:

Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism?

I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. ("Death to the intellect! Long live death!" as Gen. Francisco Franco's sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined "humiliations" and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression—especially to the repression of any sexual "deviance"—and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures.

 

[Puppycow]

Ok sorry.

I must agree with many here at the curious choice of phrase, 'Islamofascism'. If anything, Islamism is an strange hybrid of totalitarianism and extreme anarchism given that God, not man, legislates the rules of man.

But at the same time, I am getting slightly curious about the phrase 'Islamophobia'. It seems to crop up a fair bit on the far left, and I wonder why 'Anti-Arabism' or 'Anti-Persian' or 'Religous Xenophobia' or even, 'racism' is not the norm. We all know anti-semetism is against the Jewish race, not the religion itself.
If people are saying that those who come from Muslim countries, or are Muslim themselves are racially inferior, then shame on them. But if it is somebody saying Islam is a rubbish faith, how is it any different from slagging off the Republican party or Scientologists? Because many are brown skinned?

Racism is wrong. But I think that it is reasonable to be scared of totalitarian ideologies, be they naziism, communism, fascism, juche, state shinto (emperor worship), or totalitarian religious ideologies including the former Catholic Church when the Inquisition had real power, or Scientology and other cults.

I want to make it clear that Arabs are not what scares me, it's the religion. I'm "Islamophobic" only in the same sense that I'm "Totalitariophobic." These are things that seem to be reasonable to worry about. To what extent is another matter.

 

[GreNME]

Racism is wrong. But I think that it is reasonable to be scared of totalitarian ideologies, be they naziism, communism, fascism, juche, state shinto (emperor worship), or totalitarian religious ideologies including the former Catholic Church when the Inquisition had real power, or Scientology and other cults.

So racism is wrong, except when it can be justified to you by you. Okay.

I want to make it clear that Arabs are not what scares me, it's the religion. I'm "Islamophobic" only in the same sense that I'm "Totalitariophobic." These are things that seem to be reasonable to worry about. To what extent is another matter.

Ironic, that: for the longest time, the number one justification for prejudice against Jews-- their religion. Sure, the details (Jews "rejected" Jesus and killed him and so on) were different, but they were stigmatized as a direct result of their religion and religious beliefs (they often "dress funny" or had/have different eating habits based on religious practices). In a lot of ways, white power antisemites still use some of these tired old reasons to hate on Jews, as well as their integration of Mein Kampf-ish rhetoric about "international bankers" and such.

It's natural to fear what you don't understand, but it's racist to prejudge based on that fear.

 

[Puppycow]

So racism is wrong, except when it can be justified to you by you. Okay.

No, I said it's wrong period.

Ironic, that: for the longest time, the number one justification for prejudice against Jews-- their religion. Sure, the details (Jews "rejected" Jesus and killed him and so on) were different, but they were stigmatized as a direct result of their religion and religious beliefs (they often "dress funny" or had/have different eating habits based on religious practices). In a lot of ways, white power antisemites still use some of these tired old reasons to hate on Jews, as well as their integration of Mein Kampf-ish rhetoric about "international bankers" and such.
It's natural to fear what you don't understand, but it's racist to prejudge based on that fear.

I think you misunderstand me. I have no use for any religion. I don't conflate religion with race.
Do you not fear totalitarianism? If not, why not? If totalitarianism takes the form of religion, does that make it any less evil?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

"Islamo-facism" is a phrase that manages to be unfair to both Islam and facism, and I'm not a fan of either.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

It is a bit of a double standard when we can humiliate and laugh at Tom Cruise and their Xenu warriors but cannot inflict the same ridicule upon Islam.

I suspect it comes from a typical Western heedlessness at being frightened of a different culture because they cannot or will not bother to stick their head into a book. Therefore, the real Islamophobes are those who say we should pat Muslims on the head and not upset their feelings. They do not give them enough respect, nor talk to them like they talk to each other, so thus marganlise them and portray them as lessers.

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

Did you know that it's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week?

[qimg]http://www.terrorismawareness.org/images/43tt.jpg[/qimg]

I did know that the demonisers are alive and well and as morally corrupt as ever. Is it a surprise to you?

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

It is a bit of a double standard when we can humiliate and laugh at Tom Cruise and their Xenu warriors but cannot inflict the same ridicule upon Islam.

You did mean Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Shintoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hindism etc didn't you?

For example - all those who need to mutilate the genitals of defenceless babies for their own personal and religious gratification all need to be made fun off don't you agree?

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Chris Hitchens defends the term thusly:

Christopher Hitchens can go suck a cheetah.

Never have I seen a face that needs faster thumping.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism, didn't you?

South Park.

You did mean Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Shintoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hindism etc didn't you?

Those who need to mutilate the genitals of defenceless babies for their own personal and religious gratification all need to be made fun off don't you agree?

Sure. Why am I getting lambasted here?