loyalsister (8,944 posts)
Salon: The United States is scarier than the Islamic State
I have been very behind in educating myself on ISIL. I'm amazed at how similar they are to Christian fundamentalists in using endtimes prophecies to manipulate people. I can't help but wonder how the substance of some of the war mongering we hear (and what is said in religious groups behind closed doors) is truly different from the terrorist leaders? Do our power and technology dress up the very same phenmomenon? Getting this many people to die for an endtimes cause is Jim Jones shit.
Even our closest allies fear that we are a menace militarily and environmentally
In addition, the Iraq War convinced a whole generation of Muslims — both Sunni and Shi’ite — that the end of the world is imminent, leading to a rise of apocalyptic fervor in the Middle East. As the Islamic scholar David Cook notes, it was “widely accepted†that the U.S.-led war fulfilled certain Islamic prophecies, and in fact a leading Shia militia in Iraq whose explicit aim was to expel the foreign invaders named itself the Mahdi Army after Islam’s end-of-days messianic figure, the Mahdi. A 2014 Reuters article even cites a Shi’ite fighter as saying that he became convinced that the end was nigh after the U.S. and Britain invaded Iraq. “That was the first sign,†he said, “and then everything else followed.â€
What’s perhaps most fascinating about this situation is that Trump appears to be peddling his own apocalyptic narrative to his followers, the least educated Americans. According to Chip Berlet, a scholar of right-wing and apocalyptic movements, Trump’s followers are fixated on urgent phenomena — from China and ISIS to illegal immigration and economic uncertainty — that together create an apocalyptic climate in which a messianic figure of some sort is needed to “save†the believers. As Berlet puts it, “current leaders are corrupt and betraying us, the middle class is having its pocket picked by the parasites below. So white Christians say they have to build a wall to protect themselves from raping and murdering Mexican neighbors, meanwhile registering and rounding up Muslims because they’re plotting terrorism. That’s a pretty good apocalyptic scenario because those threats are existential to the U.S.†The result is, of course, that Muslims are further alienated and the “clash of eschatologies†is ossified, which is exactly what the Islamic State wants. In a sense, it’s a win-win for fundamentalisms.
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/the_united_states_is_scarier_than_the_islamic_state/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Trump and republicans may be employing this most efficiently, but I really think it's in response to a large number of endtimes fundamentalists. They are the ones who worry that gay marriage and abortion will visit some kind of armegeddon rage upon us. Democrats are not above pandering to them. We need to pay close attentions to local elections!
They attacked evolution by getting on school boards where they could.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the entire point of the OP to point out that panicked fear mongering is tool of the politically manipulative?
But the OP is really nothing more than one big "ZOMFG! THE XTIANZ R COMING TO GET US! VOTE DEMOKRAT 2016!"
Surprisingly...
...mocking and derision ensues:
Mosby (5,676 posts)
2. salon is nothing more than click-bait at this point.
Facility Inspector (526 posts)
3. I stopped at a truck stop in Cairo, Illinois
And got swarmed by retrofitted pick up trucks with machine guns mounted in the beds.
A group of fundamentalist christians compelled me to convert to Christianity then sliced my head off for being an apostate.
EX500rider (2,819 posts)
5. Yep....and they turned me into a newt!!!.....
......I got better....
dlwickham (1,724 posts)
6. they just threw me off a building for being gay
guess they liked you more
But then it's back to business as usual:
ronnie624 (4,696 posts)
12. The invasion of Iraq alone
caused more death, destruction and misery than all of the terrorist attacks in the entire world combined for the past 100 years.
Your post clearly illustrates the perception management of the collective American worldview, where no matter what sort of violence the US government perpetrates, it isn't regarded as harmful. This is an attitude that poses a serious impediment to world peace and cooperation.
They still love that "1 million killed in Iraq" stat. In fact, it would break their little hearts and make them angry to imagine fewer people dying. Never mine the fact the study was beyond debunked, they want their body count.
Moreover, they want the body count to be 100% the US's fault.
Ba'athist forces stationing weapons near civilians?
The US's fault.
AQI hiding among civilians?
The US's fault.
AQI setting off bombs in a market?
The US's fault.
Because Ba'athists and AQI are morally superior to the US.
ronnie624 (4,696 posts)
41. How do terrorists
With no air forces or navies, threaten the ruling order of any Western power?
Yorktown (2,815 posts)
42. Because western powers have no appetite for carnage
Therefore the mighty US Air Force and Navy are of very limited use.
Look at Mali: islamists almost succeeded in taking over a whole country.
DirkGently (11,525 posts)
9. The people angriest at ISIL are certainly the most like ISIL.
The problem the Republicans see is not the rise of religious fundamentalists who reject reason, embrace cruelty and violence, and try to destroy anyone not in their cultural tribe.
It's just that to them, it's the wrong tribe doing it.
I see people in the thread curling their lip at the comparison, but our conservatives espouse the same levels of intolerance, the same contempt for reason and the rights of others; the same utter lack of empathy or moral compunction.
And our leaders -- even our minor ones -- have far, far greater actual physical power in the world than the latest Muslim extremist group.
Mike Huckabee, who has been taken semi-seriously as a Presidential candidate, and who has been a governor in a state probably larger than anything ISIL will ever control, has said that the Bible takes precedence over the Constitution, and that women only want reproductive healthcare because liberals have convinced them they can't control their own libidos.
Jeb Bush, a member of America's most powerful political family, suggested that incoming refugees be screened to allow in only Christians.
The entire most recent Republican debate was a contest to see who could sound the most extreme and ferocious in their proposed response to the San Bernadino shootings, because it was apparently motivated by radical Islam. Not a peep about the previous mass shooting by a conservative Christian nut motivated by a hatred of Planned Parenthood. Or the other rightwing nut who murdered Sikhs at their own house of worship, because he equated them with Muslims. Or the other rightwing nut who shot a conservative Christian to death because he thought he was Jewish. Or the other rightwing nut who murdered black people in a church for racist reasons. Or the previous rightwing nut who shot some people in his apartment complex because they were Indian and he thought they were in his parking space.
Chris Hayes asked Republican Rep. Steve King about the parallels between the PP shooting and San Bernadino, and he literally smirked and said his religion doesn't agree with Planned Parenthood, so ...
He essentially said it was fine. The same Mr. King smirked the same way when yet another rightwing nut flew a plane into an IRS building and killed a custodian. He could "understand the impulse" or some such thing.
And of course Donald Trump, who appears to be consciously mocking the conservative id, is winning by proposing we execute entire families and block Muslim fleeing ISIL from entering the country, while encouraging his supporters to drag protesters at his events out by their heels.
Most of the Republican field seems to support intrusive surveillance and the torture of prisoners (maybe not Rand Paul, but who's listening to that guy?)
Most of them likewise have no problem adopting the stance that scientists are probably lying about the effects of carbon on the environment to make pollution seem like a bad idea.
Most of them, including the new Republican Speaker of the House, espouse a "no exceptions" outlawing of abortion, and would force rape victims and children to give birth, and investigate miscarriages as possible "murder," a thing which is happening already in this country.
We DO have within our "mainstream" establishment people every bit as contemptuous of the rule of law, of objective truth, or of human rights, as the most bloodthirsty Islamic radicals. The fact that they have not gotten everything they want at the moment is not as big a difference as people would like to pretend.
So how different are "we," really?
loyalsister (8,944 posts)
17. They have power to do these things incrementally AND legally
"We DO have within our "mainstream" establishment people every bit as contemptuous of the rule of law, of objective truth, or of human rights, as the most bloodthirsty Islamic radicals. The fact that they have not gotten everything they want at the moment is not as big a difference as people would like to pretend."
How many laws making it harder to get an abortion will pass before the Supreme Court sees them for what they are — part of a tireless, coordinated nationwide assault on the right of women to control what happens with their own bodies without the interference of politicians?
One answer is, no fewer than 288. That’s how many abortion restrictions states have enacted since the beginning of 2011, when aggressively anti-choice lawmakers swept into statehouses around the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/opinion/sunday/the-reproductive-rights-rollback-of-2015.html?mwrsm=Facebook
Their agenda is being codified in law. Textbooks that deny history and science are being adopted. Westboro Baptist church developed a strategy to perpetuate their hate nationally. Something will fill that void.
We dismiss the bakers and clerks at our peril because the haters are always looking for like minded individuals to rally around. They find them among the cheerleaders for anti- <whatever> hate, and more quietly in their local church groups.
Personally, I think the funding for PP should be doubled and all regulation and oversight should be stricken.
Every abortionist out there should no that regardless of how they run their business no one will ever pay them a visit let alone prosecute them for malpractice or unsanitary conditions.
In fact, we shouldn't even require licensing. Just hang a shingle outside a building and you're in business. No one should trouble you in the least.
Then, another poster in a new sub-thread says salon is little more than performance art.
ronnie624 (4,696 posts)
23. Why not?
Are there some inaccuracies you can point to?
I strongly suspect that being confronted by the crimes committed by your own government, simply causes you some cognitive discomfort.
Bluenorthwest (39,295 posts)
36. And yet we and other countries are taking tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Isis.
If we are worse why are they risking life and limb and loved ones to run from them and to us? Are these refugees just stark raving idiots in your view? Why don't they refuse to come here and demand to go to some other country, like Saudi Arabia if they despise us so?
ronnie624 (4,696 posts)
37. Our government's conduct is responsible for more problems in the world than terrorism.
It causes more deaths and more damage than terrorism, and not by a small margin, either. This is conclusively demonstrated by the historical record. This doesn't mean that Saudi Arabia is a more secure place to live than the US.
Bluenorthwest (39,295 posts)
55. Those foolish refugees don't know fear from safety! To be decent people we should sent them back
to the loving arms of Isis, since they are our superiors. Hugely daft post. I suppose for heterosexuals like yourself ISIS is welcoming and comforting. It is an organization comprised of straight people who murder gay people.
I don't relate to your idea of that which is comforting. Sorry kid.
Basically, Proglodyte talking points are colliding with each other as they inevitably must because Proglodytes can never be consistent. Whatever decent and civilized people want Proglodytes will choose the opposite in order to claim they are part of the herd that is above the herd.
loyalsister (8,944 posts)
22. To Muslim citizens in this country
who are living in fear because they encounter Donald Trumps attitudes regularly how is it different? I have talked with more than one and their fear is real.
The violence against black citizens is rooted in vengeance and fear justified with biblical "light and dark" references. I had a friend who was roped into it. She was convinced BY HER CHURCH that she was not responsible for her "sins" because the married black man led her into darkness. Soon she started spouting gay bashing, Islamic bashing, quoting Mike Huckabee and rejecting autonamy for women. They made her feel comfortable with the hate by convincing her that the only reason she would be invested is because she loves all people and wants all people to be saved. She justifies the beliefs and actions of fellow believers based on a belief that they did it out of love.
These groups are extremely dangerous and are at the root of the KKK, abortion clinic violence, gay bashing...
LittleBlue (9,207 posts)
38. Let me know when we buy and sell women in slave markets.
Astonishing how all these immigrants want in to the US from Isis territory. If only they knew how much worse it is here!
ronnie624 (4,696 posts)
43. let me me know
when terrorists develop the ability to launch invasions from half way across the world that result in the destruction of entire countries and the deaths of millions of people.
Terrorists are weak. They pose no threat to the global economic/political order. They lack the weapons and capacity to do so. But the best way to reduce that threat even further, is through a reevaluation of our government's policies that make people want to attack us. You can't murder women and children in other countries and then realistically expect the people there to not want to attack you for it.
Yorktown (2,815 posts)
46. That's what ISIS or AQMI/Ansar Dine managed
To take hold of almost entire countries.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027463250You doomer xtians are all alike!
It's because of your doomer apocalypse ideology you want war!
And you're distracting from things that are really important like:
Doomer climate change
Doomer campus rape
Doomer income equality
Doomer abortion restrictions
Doomer police shootings
Doomer buying your own birth control
Doomer college tuition costs
Doomer free speech
and other important things and stuff.
