Juan williams fired from NPR

[Piggy]

In what other way could they have done it? Encourage him to "resign", I suppose, but what if he refused to resign?

Just curious about that.

It's a tough call, given where he was aiming to be employed, that's for sure.

They might have taken a little time to have a talk about it, consider the SWOTs. Doesn't seem like they did much of that.

 

[Hazel]

It's a tough call, given where he was aiming to be employed, that's for sure.

They might have taken a little time to have a talk about it, consider the SWOTs. Doesn't seem like they did much of that.

According to one report that I read, they had talked to him about how he presented his opinions before. If I remember rightly, he was not to present himself as connected to NPR when he was on Fox. I do not know the whole story. I only know that, as you said, it's a tough call. There is no gracious way to fire someone.

 

[thaiboxerken]

People seem to be only paying attention to what Juan said, his word and the context. I wonder if any consideration was given to what the actual conversation was about.

 

[Piggy]

People seem to be only paying attention to what Juan said, his word and the context. I wonder if any consideration was given to what the actual conversation was about.

What's the difference between "what the actual conversation was about" and "his words and the context"?

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't think anyone is disputing that there are terrorists who are Muslim. I didn't dispute that some of the IRA were Catholic.

Do you think that those situations are really the same? They aren't. The IRA doesn't justify its violence on the basis of doctrinal differences between the Catholic and Anglican churches. The difference is purely political. Because of past history, the political divide also created a "religious" divide, but that's just a relic now. Nobody in the conflict now really cares about the doctrinal differences between the Catholic and Anglican church. But the same is NOT true about Al Qaeda. It is, from top to bottom, a religious conflict for them.

The problem you are left with if you wish to lay their actions at the foot of Islam is explaining why the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

That's far less of a problem than you think. Most people aren't interested in committing violence themselves. But examine some public opinion polls from the middle east sometime. The terrorists themselves may be a vanishingly small percentage of the population, but public support for terrorism is not. It's quite extensive.

Here is how the Christians do the PR bit. When one of their own goes off the reservation into violent or wacky action, they simply claim, "Well, he's not a Christian." This works pretty well.

As PR it works. You might want to think more deeply about why it works, though. But it's not logical, and it's not true.

So, Bin Laden is not a Muslim.

Of course he is. You don't honestly believe otherwise, do you?

How do I know? He supports the killing of innocent people. This is not a Muslim tenet and therefore, Bin Laden is not a Muslim.

I've seen this argument made plenty of times, though frequently when it's made by "moderate" muslims who aren't really that moderate, bin Laden or any other terrorist isn't named, it's only stated that killing innocent people is un-Islamic. Small problem: what counts as innocent people? In the eyes of many, you and I are not innocent. We're fair game. That's how the slight-of-hand is played.

Many supposedly moderate muslims who publicly condemn violence won't actually name names. Their condemnations are useless without this.

As far as this being religiously motivated, that would work except you have a lot of terrorism directed by Muslims at other Muslims.

Are you really so ignorant of the deep sectarian divides within Islam?

If you'd like to make a sect distinction, then say, "Sunni terrorists" or something. Or, if you want to use the broad brush, try, "Arab terrorists".

Now you seem to be arguing that if you describe something without fully specifying it, then your description is wrong. But that's nonsense.

The point is that the adjective "Muslim" adds nothing as a descriptive.

Sure it does. It's not a complete description (but then, nothing ever is), and it may not be sufficient to satisfy you, but it most definitely does add something as a description. Plus, of course, in many of the cases that it's used (including 9/11), it's true.

What it does do is incite people to fear a religion.

You know what really incites fear of Islam? Muslims killing people and claiming that they're doing it in the name of Islam.

It serves as a sort of 'code word' among folks who are either unwilling or unable to make a distinction.

No. It conveys true information that you don't want conveyed because you think people might draw conclusions from it that you don't want them to draw.

If you truly think Muslim is relevant, we should ban the religion or go full on holy war against them.

And since we were hostile to the Soviet Union, we should have nuked Russia.

Sorry, but this conclusion simply doesn't follow.

Let's get past the smarmy and disingenuous digs.

If you wanted to get past disingenuous digs, why did you just use one? Because your bit about engaging in holy war is disingenuous - or at least I hope it is, because the alternative is worse.

Or, we could just start logging how many terrorist attacks are prevented because of someone's religious beliefs.

Great idea. Except that there's no way to determine this.

The fact that you can't figure out the information you'd like to know doesn't mean you should try to silence information other people might find important.

 

[davefoc]

Ziggurat,
I believe the claim you are supporting with your argument is that Islam promotes more violence in its members than other widespread religions.

It seems like that might be true. Do you have any statistical evidence to support the notion? Could you compare the rate of violence amongst Muslims to the rate of violence among Christians?

This seems like it might be difficult to do without well defined terms. The murder rate is very high in some areas of the US where the dominant religion is Christianity but are the people actually committing the murders Christian or just criminals? Does their violence even count in your claim because their violence is not directly religiously oriented?

Conversely, is some of the violence that you attribute to Islam not religiously based? The US has been mucking about in the middle east for more than 60 years and it has spawned a lot of anti-American feeling there. Is anti-American violence by people who happen to be Muslims a consequence of their religion or the result of resentment against perceived US transgressions.

Even the Muslim sectarian violence is not necessarily driven completely by religion. Were the various civil wars during the breakup of Yugoslavia the result of religious wars or the result of ethnic disputes where the groups happen to be from different religions. Were the Serbs driven by religious zealotry when they were massacring Muslims and Roman Catholics that lived in what they perceived as their territory or was it just routine ethnically based brutality?

I would put to you, that strong defenders of Israel's colonial policies tend to want to paint Islam as an evil religion as part of their internal mechanism they use to justify Israel's policies. To what degree do you think you have been able to eliminate this bias when you vilify Islam?

 

[Ziggurat]

Ziggurat,
I believe the claim you are supporting with your argument is that Islam promotes more violence in its members than other widespread religions.

I want to be more specific about this: I'm saying that there is a significant amount of terrorism, committed by Muslims and motivated by Islam, more so than for any other religion right now, and that this is a problem. Whether or not this is due to any intrinsic features of Islam or just some accident of history or present circumstance is a separate discussion. Nothing Williams said addresses that question, so we need not address it either right now.

It seems like that might be true. Do you have any statistical evidence to support the notion?

I'm not sure who compiles such statistics. Certainly Islamic terrorist attacks against US targets have far outweighed religiously-motivated terrorist attacks from any other religious groups. In fact, the only really large-scale terrorist attack against a US target that wasn't Islamic was the Oklahoma City bombing, but that one wasn't really religious at all.

Could you compare the rate of violence amongst Muslims to the rate of violence among Christians?

That wouldn't tell you what you'd want to know, since violence within each group isn't exclusively religious.

Conversely, is some of the violence that you attribute to Islam not religiously based?

Nope. Not all violence committed by Muslims is religious, but I'm not talking about all violence committed by Muslims. If it's not religiously motivated, then we can consider that being Muslim was incidental to it, and can ignore it for the current discussion, just as I think we can safely ignore the hair color of people who commit violence.

I would put to you, that strong defenders of Israel's colonial policies tend to want to paint Islam as an evil religion as part of their internal mechanism they use to justify Israel's policies. To what degree do you think you have been able to eliminate this bias when you vilify Islam?

This discussion does not involve Israel. I'd suggest that we keep it that way. Such threads have a tendency to stagnate, to put it mildly.

 

[davefoc]

Ziggurat,
All fair responses, thank you.

 

[marplots]

Ziggurat, I also think you responded to my post very well. As a side note, it is refreshing to see a more professional level of dialog in these forums without as much of the back and forth baiting.

Now, as to your argument. I can't say you don't have valid points, but I'd like to try another tack -- mostly because I think we both expressed ourselves well on the things we already covered.

Suppose I tell you that someone is a Muslim. To flesh it out, I'll stipulate they are male, in their mid-20s, in the U.S. on a student visa and that they attend a mosque regularly. They are also vocal about political issues and are quick to identify the U.S. as an aggressor in Iraq -- a war they claim was started based on a lie and continued to promote the interests of U.S. corporations.

Armed with all that, but starting from the Muslim identifier, what conclusions (or even inferences) would you draw about this person being a terrorist or not? I am interested in how the adjective Muslim informs your judgment.

 

[Ziggurat]

Suppose I tell you that someone is a Muslim. To flesh it out, I'll stipulate they are male, in their mid-20s, in the U.S. on a student visa and that they attend a mosque regularly. They are also vocal about political issues and are quick to identify the U.S. as an aggressor in Iraq -- a war they claim was started based on a lie and continued to promote the interests of U.S. corporations.

Armed with all that, but starting from the Muslim identifier, what conclusions (or even inferences) would you draw about this person being a terrorist or not? I am interested in how the adjective Muslim informs your judgment.

They are unlikely to be a terrorist. But they are also far more likely to be a terrorist than someone who didn't fit have those various qualities.

I'm not suggesting that we treat Muslims like they're all terrorists, and Williams argued the exact opposite. But political correctness can blind us. It has blinded us. The Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, is a perfect example. He was a Muslim, and he became progressively more strident in his political and religious beliefs. He matched your description to a T (except for the age). That alone isn't enough to single him out as a potential terrorist, but the thing is, that wasn't all there was either. There were much more significant warning signs. But they weren't heeded. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that authorities didn't WANT to suspect Hasan of being a potential terrorist. After all, he was serving in the military, and what can be more true-blue American than that? Nobody wanted to be seen as singling him out because he was a Muslim.

We don't need to start strip searching anyone who dresses in middle-eastern garb, but we do need to be aware of reality, and not let cases like Hasan slip through the cracks. Islam is the primary motivator for many of our enemies, and we should acknowledge that, not try to avoid saying this because it's uncomfortable to some people.

 

[marplots]

I think we probably agree more than we disagree. I'm actually on Juan Williams' side on this one as well.

The only error, as I see it, is when the term is used to imply a general property to an individual. This, in my view, is what makes something bigoted. I can say, for instance, some true thing about women in general -- some statistical truth about Body Mass Index or whatever -- and it would be valid as an overall statement, but if it were implying that this woman fit the category without any other justification, I get taste of a slur.

(Sorry for that huge sentence, but it's a huge thought, )

There's a fallacy name for this isn't there?

In my example, and your mention of the Major, I completely agree that PC can handcuff us and corrupt our commonsense.

 

[Cicero]

Since NPR is emphatic that Juan was not fired because he appears on FOX News, but because NPR's code of conduct prohibits news analyst to give their own personal opinions on any subject when appearing in other media outlets, NPR news analyst Cokie Roberts and legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg will be getting their pink slips any day now.


"Actually, Beck is worse than a clown. He’s more like a terrorist who believes he has discovered the One True Faith, and condemns everyone else as a heretic. And that makes him something else as well — a traitor to the American values he professes so loudly to defend."
Cokie Roberts March 2010

http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100323/OPINION09/303239994/-1/OPINION

Nina Totenberg pearls of wisdom as spoken as a panelist on "Inside Washington."

“Well, you know, really, this is the next scandal. It’s the scandal in the making. They don’t have to disclose anything. And eventually, this is the kind of thing that led to Watergate.”


"When a party actually has a huge majority, it has a huge diversity. And that is part of the problem that Democrats have. But would I like it to be otherwise? Of course.”

"Let me just say – let me just say something in defense on Jon Stewart here. I’m a devotee of the program because it’s fun…And I must say he’s been pretty savage about Obama and pretty savage about Democrats who smear people, too. So I kind of like the idea of the Rally for Sanity.”

 

[Beerina]

Cokie Roberts is a semi-regular on This Week as well.



Oops

Fox News has assailed NPR for its handling of the situation, calling it an assault on free speech and stoking GOP pundits and potential presidential candidates to demand that NPR's government funding be cut.

NPR posted the e-mail on their news blog, "The Two-Way." It reads:

Dear Colleagues,

I want to apologize to you for not doing a better job of handling the termination of our relationship with Juan Williams. While we stand firmly behind that decision, I regret that we did not take the time to better prepare our messaging and to provide you with the tools to cope with the fallout from this episode. As I’m telling our Member stations in a separate memo today, I also regret that this happened when the staff and volunteers of many stations were deeply engaged in pledge drives.

Rule number one in advertising: Don't attack things people love. And to declare someone defective and distasteful because they beak off on popular Fox news shows...



"See? NPR is such an unrepentant hotbed of liberalism they even turn on their own when enforcing ideological purity! Why oh why do we fund these people?!?!?"

 

[bruto]

I haven't yet slogged through this whole thread, so please excuse if I'm duplicating something further back, but I was listening to some commentary on this whole thing today, and although I believe the firing was probably ill-advised and least handled rather clumsily, I can't help but feel that the manner in which Williams made the statement that got him into trouble was a little disingenuous, one of those halfway statements that allow you to express bigotry while denying it. Here's the part that bothers me:

But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims,....

Would anyone be given a free pass on language like that if the persons referred to were ministers in clerical collars, or Jews with yarmulkas, or Christians with crosses on their lapels? With what group, other than Muslims, would one be able to say that the trappings of one's religion, profession or ethnicity are assumed to trump all other identities or loyalties?

 

[Mycroft]

I haven't yet slogged through this whole thread, so please excuse if I'm duplicating something further back, but I was listening to some commentary on this whole thing today, and although I believe the firing was probably ill-advised and least handled rather clumsily, I can't help but feel that the manner in which Williams made the statement that got him into trouble was a little disingenuous, one of those halfway statements that allow you to express bigotry while denying it. Here's the part that bothers me:



Would anyone be given a free pass on language like that if the persons referred to were ministers in clerical collars, or Jews with yarmulkas, or Christians with crosses on their lapels? With what group, other than Muslims, would one be able to say that the trappings of one's religion, profession or ethnicity are assumed to trump all other identities or loyalties?

I tend to agree with you here. I know I argued the other side of this, but that was an odd way of phrasing it. Who cares if he identifies "first and foremost" as Muslim? He can identify "first and foremost" as anything else, but if he subscribes to violent jihadist beliefs, he's still a problem. Conversely, if he identifies "first and foremost" as Muslim, but doesn't subscribe to violent jihadist beliefs, well, he's got the right to identify "first and foremost" as whatever he wants, just like everyone else.

 

[PhantomWolf]

So this is how freedom of speech ends, not in fire, but through multiple complaints to media stations.

 

[Mycroft]

The only error, as I see it, is when the term is used to imply a general property to an individual. This, in my view, is what makes something bigoted. I can say, for instance, some true thing about women in general -- some statistical truth about Body Mass Index or whatever -- and it would be valid as an overall statement, but if it were implying that this woman fit the category without any other justification, I get taste of a slur.

I think that's a thought worth exploring.

The problem with political correctness is it seeks to prevent us from talking about any generalities at all, valid or not. Very often it's useful to use the generalities and we should be free to use them, discuss them, and even challenge them. In doing that we can be better prepared and informed on how useful, reliable, or un-reliable they are.

Anytime you identify a group, you identify them by something they have in common. Muslim, gay, Christian, Republican, American, whatever. It's not at all unreasonable or bigoted to suggest that a group where everyone has one thing in common might also mostly have other things in common. At the same time you recognize this new commonality wont cover everyone in the first group and probably covers some people not in the first group.

For example, most Muslims speak Arabic. Many Muslims do not. Many people who speak Arabic are not Muslim.

Many Christians are creationists who don't believe in evolution. Many Christians are not creationists. Many people who are creationists are not Christians.

Most Republicans are against granting gays greater rights. Many Republicans are for gay rights. Many people who are against greater rights for gays are not Republicans.

The generality is useful to the extent it's true. If your considering hiring a tutor to teach your child biology and your candidate is Christian, you probably want to find out what they believe about evolution and creationism first. If you need an Arabic speaker, you might consider asking the person you know is Muslim if they speak Arabic and can do the job for you. If you're considering voting for a Republican candidate but gay rights is an important issue to you, you probably want to check that specific politicians stance on the issue first. All of these are common sense applications of generalities that apply to groups of people.

 

[marplots]

The generality is useful to the extent it's true. If your considering hiring a tutor to teach your child biology and your candidate is Christian, you probably want to find out what they believe about evolution and creationism first. If you need an Arabic speaker, you might consider asking the person you know is Muslim if they speak Arabic and can do the job for you. If you're considering voting for a Republican candidate but gay rights is an important issue to you, you probably want to check that specific politicians stance on the issue first. All of these are common sense applications of generalities that apply to groups of people.

This is exactly true and correct. Because you deduced, but then questioned before relying on the deduction. To the extent that PC would have us avoid this process altogether, it's stupid.

After living a few years, it's amusing how PC changes over time. There was a time when, seeing a woman carrying almost anything, the proper action was, "Let me take that" because, as a man, beast of burden was my standard role. Now, the standard is to say, "Do you want help with that?" or say nothing at all -- the first request is interpreted as gender biased or chauvinistic.

 

[Roadtoad]

So this is how freedom of speech ends, not in fire, but through multiple complaints to media stations.

By your definition, we've never had Freedom of Speech.

As I learned growing up in a family working in media, you only have freedom of the press when you can afford a press. Granted, in our day and age, that's a lot of folks, but when you're discussing mass media such as television, radio, and other forms, reality tends to reassert itself.

Consider it this way: The infrastructure of a radio station, for example, requires not only the studio, but the equipment, and the skilled staff to run it. You're talking about a huge outlay, and since your ad revenue pays the bills, you're going to do all you can to protect that, and that includes NPR, CPB, and PBS, all of whom get their income from both the Federal Government and from underwriting credit. (The "Viewers Like You" crap is little more than feelgood, designed to make you, the viewer, feel as though you really have any kind of say in what gets on the air. It's there to keep you watching.)

Williams can say what he wants. What he can't lay claim to is the medium, nor can he lay claim to the venue. NPR has every right to hire and fire whom they choose for whatever reason they choose. Don't agree with PBS's or NPR's decision? Don't watch or listen. Ratings will drop, however low, and that might make a difference, or it might not. Personally, I don't listen to NPR because of people like Williams: I listen because instead of the usual pap that clutters the air on most commercial stations, I actually get the NEWS, and that matters to me. (Frankly, if I wanted to hear which celebrity was entering rehab this week, I'd subscribe to People, or I'd get a lobotomy. Not that there's a difference...)

I'm sorry Williams got fired. It's a tough job market right now. But at the same time, NPR spends millions for access via satellite, transmitters, microphones, digital recorders, not to mention personnel and training. If Williams by his actions is going to cause a downturn in contributions from the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates, the MacArthur Foundation, and Ford Motor Company, they have not only a right, but a responsibility to their other employees to maintain that income stream.

This means that Williams can either go work for Fox, or if he'd like, (and perhaps this might even be a better choice), he can start his own network. Perhaps one that actually covers news from a more conservative bent, instead of trying to create it or rewrite it. Just a thought.

 

[thaiboxerken]

This is a very ironic complaint by Conservatives, given the many number of times they've called for the firing of people who've said things that THEY didn't like.