the conservative political machine: manufacturing islamophobia

strange, i don't remember anyone quoting much from soros. maybe you've got some magickal divining rod that allows you to sort that out. i'm pretty aware of what, say, the open society foundation is about, what it produces and what it does. it's never turned up as a source that i am aware of. almost all the references to soros come in the form of some pointy statement from the right, and function entirely to suggest yet another imaginary equivalent between the contemporary right and an imaginary left.

so it appears that the possibility exists of going round and round--you making another version of the same basic statement to rationalize not interacting with information, someone else saying--um, this is just an empty rationalization---you accusing everyone else of using memes---someone else pointing out that your accusation is a simple compendium of memes. it'd be better to talk about the report, yes? something that's actually not simply mired in a pre-fashioned meme-space.

for someone who claims to work non-american sources for information, i'd expect you to have a better handle on this sort of stuff. since you say you're somewhat outside the american meme-space. but you repeat it like a pro. that's quite an achievement, defeating the effects of non-us sources in order to present yourself as someone whose entirely stuck in them.

:// page-4#ixzz1XBn2zfIe​

 

You can skip the insults. I read the report and agreed with most of the content.

Note that your source for the report, Americanprogress.org, is a Soros funded entity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress

 

but strangely, i saw nothing to indicate any control over the contents.
so maybe we can also skip the red herring business, hmm?

 

My point is that talking points, reports, and sound bites are all funded by both extremes. There is no moderate equivalent.

I have no issue with the report in question. However, I think it is important to understand and be upfront regarding the bias in what we regard as news. Surely you are not naive enough to believe that the funding of the report had no effect on it's outcome.

 

It's painful to argue a moderate position because unless one wants to get into nitty gritty details, the moderate position is nothing more than agnostic rhetorical fumbling (see the "moderate" responses to the OP). The "moderate" position here is apparently to reject the assertion that 2 + 2 = 4 if the politics of the person making that assertion are somehow too "fringe".

Despite how it is portrayed in the media, not every politically significant topic can be broken down into fringe positions. And the fact that an argument may be advanced primarily by those with fringe sympathies in no way invalidates that argument. These two facts should be obvious. Factually based, logically sound arguments don't depend on ideology, they depend on facts and logic. Let's not make "moderate" a synonym for "intellectually lazy".

Further, one doesn't have to take an ideological position to acknowledge the likely existence of well funded, private anti-islamic propoganda campaigns or their possibly pernicious outcomes. The position that both sides are crazy and so we need not spend time generating a meaningful position is contemptible.

Neutrality is a position occupied only by those too busy making excuses to put in the effort required to understand the issues. I'm not saying it's never justified, but as a whole, it's problematic when the silent majority is silent because they can't be bothered to stake out any ideological position beyond "only fringe partisan hacks have actual opinions".

I'm not sure if you're a Republican primary voter, but this strategy will only ensure that any actual moderates will have dropped out long before you decide to provide any input.

 

This is what I challenge. No group or PR campaign is going to make me "hate", I doubt it works on others either. Real knowledge, real interaction, real information always trump "hate" campaigns.

I don't suggest ignoring such groups. The approach I suggest is that those who know share what they know with those who don't. Outside of the extreme small number of people who will never be open to cultural/religious differences everyone else is. Again, the problem is discounting those who have honest questions and concerns and are open. In this thread I have sought a better understanding and I walk away without one. I have been categorized with the most extreme who actually hate. That seems to me to be the exact opposite way to solve a problem rooted in not understanding.

 

ace...stop with the martyr complex, please.

You admitted knowing nothing about sharia law...you could have stopped there, yet you then made dubious claims about it is at the core of the anti-Muslim sentiment.

You refuse to read the report, but want your opinions on it to be taken seriously.

You dismiss the significant increase in hate crimes against Muslims as statistically misleading and state that Americans are not intolerant of Muslims,, but are only intolerant of indiscriminate terrorists attacks.

And you divert the discussion, like you do in early every fucking discussion, with questions to distract when you are presented with facts that you are unwilling to accept.

And you misrepresented what I and others have said and claim you were categorized as a hater and Islamophobe. Bullshit!

 

Brookings came out with a study today addressing the issue of attitudes towards Muslims, among other issues.

​

Americans are evenly divided over whether the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life (47 percent agree, 48 percent disagree).​

BUT, Approximately two-thirds of Republicans, Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement, and Americans who most trust Fox News agree that the values of Islam are at odds with American values. A majority of Democrats, Independents, and those who most trust CNN or public television disagree.​

By a margin of 2-to-1, the general public rejects the notion that American Muslims ultimately want to establish Shari’a law as the law of the land in the U.S. (61 percent disagree, 30 percent agree). ​

BUT, Nearly 6-in-10 Republicans who most trust Fox News believe that American Muslims are trying to establish Shari’a law in the U.S. The attitudes of Republicans who most trust other news sources look similar to the general population.​

http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/0906_american_attitudes.aspx​

Two-thirds of Republicans who identify with the Tea Party believe the values of Islam are at odds with American values and six in ten who rely on Fox News (and 30 percent overall) believe Muslims are trying to establish sharia law.

The unfavorable attitude towards Muslims certainly tilts towards one-side:

​

Does the red really represent just extremists? Or perhaps, core (ace's terminology) Republican or Tea Party values?

 

Facts. They're so radical.
--- merged: Sep 6, 2011 11:55 PM ---
It just kills me that conservative fantasy-nightmare land has not one single graph or consensus anywhere to prove their claim that the Muslim Sharia threat is creepin' in on our freedums but somehow reality has to be proved. I mean, jesus, come on people! Don't let the terrorists win.

 

I don't know that you'd find a lot of people who'd openly admit to being amenable to hatred if only a sufficiently persuasive argument came along. Nevertheless, hatred continues to exist and, in some places, thrive. I suspect that it's because hatred doesn't have a basis in rationality. I think that rationalization tends to enter the picture later, when the hatred needs to be justified. Hence, there is no rational basis for the fear of sharia law gaining a foothold in the United States (a majority christian country). The threat of sharia law does make for a convenient rationalization of anything ranging from a general distrust of muslims to outright hatred.

Really, take a cursory glance at any of the more recent instances of war crime and you'll likely see people who were all too easily convinced by opportunistic ideologues to hate their fellow human to an extent that atrocity was the natural result.

 

Your interpretation of my post is not consistent with my view on this. I am not a martyr or victim of anything. I know what my concerns and questions are.

It is my choice to seek a better understanding.

What you take serious is your choice. I simply ask you a simple and direct question - do you want to help fix a real problem or do you have another agenda?

Now this is an out right lie. Anyone who has read this thread knows I did not dismiss the increase in hate crimes, I simply presented additional information for perspective.

What you call islamaphobia and the premise of the report in question has a basis in misinformation being promoted by some groups. Deep in the body of the report they go into what some of that misinformation is - and even you brought up the issue of Sharia Law before I did. So again your claim is false and without merit.

I shared what I thought, if I am wrong I am open to correction. Your comments are not helpful to me, if you want to be helpful be more specific.

 

ace, you're arguing an entirely untenable position. what you appear to want to do, with your usual disengenuous questions and silly rhetorical attempts to take over the definition of dialog, is to introduce ignorance and fear as somehow legitimate.

they aren't.

you try to make arbitrary separations between the fact that there is a network that has an interest in structuring and maintaining islamophobia amongst the conservative base and some alternate reality in which no-one is really swayed by repetition of ideological memes.

look at the brookings data that redux posted above. that alone demonstrates that your position is nonsense.

so why do you persist?

 

I don't care what the religion is, the Constitution should over-ride any religious view. I am as against some fundamental Christian views being codified into law as I am some fundamental Islamic views. As I recall English history the monarchy had real issues regarding the rule of the King being secondary to the rule of the Pope, these types of conflicts are not new and present real governing issues. Again, rational people should be able to discuss these things in a rational manner. And perhaps is has nothing really to do with "hate" for most people.
--- merged: Sep 7, 2011 4:17 PM ---

I am confronted with tons of conflicting information. I repeat, I do not see this as legitimate. I repeat, I see this as a problem. Can you folks read????? Related to you original post, isn't that the entire point???? Given the conflicting information isn't it very easy for some groups to try to take advantage of that for their own purposes????? Have you read the report????? Do you know and understand the real point of the report???? Do you know what the counter is to the point in the report???? Or, for you is it simply they are targeting dumb conservatives who can be manipulated by invisible PR conspiracy campaigns????

 

my my, ace, first you play by your own rules, making up stupid objections to even reading the report, trying to derail the discussion and get your backwater views about islam taken seriously in a thread that begins by demolishing your backwater views, both in fact and in principle by demonstrating the who what where and how of the dissemination of those backwater views. and now you're trying to make the "point" that your refusal to interact with the information in the op constitutes some kind of principled objection to the information. information that you don't fucking know about. because you are afraid to read the report.

let's be blunt, shall we? your arguments are ridiculous. you have no point to make in the context of this thread. if you want, make another thread about how it is that being conservative does not require coherent information about the world and does not admit of dissonance. then you can twaddle on and on about how much information you don't take in and all the grand reasons for not taking in that information.

it's like you've decided to turn yourself into bartelby the scrivener. a character from a herman melville short story. except without the herman melville short story part. if you don't know the allusion, perhaps you can look it up. the text is available online. unless you think there's some "premise" problem with a herman melville short story that makes it impossible or dangerous for a conservative like yourself to read.

 

You are making me laugh now, you won't get off of me not reading your report. Dude, what I did read was that we are talking about $40 million from these groups. Wow, what a PR campaign that is. In some places you could not get elected Mayor with $40 million! Did you even read the report?