Okay, now that we have the "cartoon wars" going on....here's a sermon.....

[forwarded from my forum hyperlucidity, where this and a lot more gets written in drabbles as the news goes on...also posted on to my blog Aureantes' Realm...]
=================================================================

Personally, I think this debacle over the Danish cartoons has done more than anything in the mind of the average rational person to discredit the stance of those rioting and getting violent over them, despite whatever the official statements and apologies and such have been so far.  No one religion/culture deserves special kid-glove treatment unless all do, and we already know that the most vocal factions in the Islamic world are unfortunately not those calling for respect for other faiths and nations or treating them with civility.  It's more like, actually....hmm, the Republicans in Congress accusing the Democrats of partisan politics when they vote against legislation that is itself hostile and partisan from the start.

Now....personally, I'd like to leave any question of the United States' virtue out of this -- we know my opinions on the war, and we know that I have no fondness for the way that national foreign policies have hobnobbed conveniently with princes and dictators (as it suits their agendas) while worsening the plight of the average working stiff in any aid-dependent nation.

But that has had nothing to do with religion...rather, religion has been used as an excuse and a popular cause for retaliation, as much so as national pride. It's not that kind of personal, people -- it's not a matter of repeating the Crusades, and even there the factor of faiths was a smaller thing than the matter of underlying greed and striving for territorial control. Liberate the Holy Land? -- sure, as much as we liberated Iraq...it's the same basic thing, when ideologies are trumped up to rouse the public spirit, and governments are just as willing to kill and suppress people of their own basic creed (and even nation) if they happen to get in the way of the greater plan.

But to have such a pricklish sense of vested dignity that one thinks it justified to run amok and riot over the use of a holy figure in a cartoon is...a bit much. A bit thin-skinned, a bit childish, a bit spoiled in the demand for respect where none is given and much bile is spewed on a regular basis. And, reasonable minds must admit, the satirical points made were not devoid of truth.

If having an attitude of fanatical extremism exposed and pricked by mere cartoons -- and this goes for ANY belief -- is too much to take, so much that mobs must rise and chaos ensue in protest, then that only proves that those who are quivering with outrage and fury at the jab and the insult, hell-bent on demanding apologies and reparations and capitulations are all the more deeply and tragically WRONG.

Strong words, right?--afterall, moral terms and absolutes aren't supposed to be brought into the politics of nations and global affairs anymore, not so long as hairs can be split and legalities dissected and prerogatives claimed within the dry technical boundaries of law. But this is moral, and the law has lost its sense of moral discernment, had it bled dry by design to let hypocrisies reign. Strong words must be used again, and strike to the core of the matter.

Extremism is inherently wrong and pathological, no matter where it arises and what creed (or lack thereof) it claims. Claiming orthodoxy ("right belief") as one ideology's possession and all other faiths, paths and philosophies as misguided, inferior, immoral and right to destroy, is inherently wrong -- no matter from where the impulse comes. One's beliefs may be worth dying for personally, but they are never worth condemning others to death. Never. Claim the "divine right" of spreading your way by force through all the world, and you step over the line of morality. Any credo of "manifest destiny" -- whatever its form -- is wrong, was wrong, will always be the wrong way to conduct human affairs.

Unfortunately, though...

Unfortunately, Islam is one of those religions in the world whose origin and history from the very start has been marked by reactionary resentment and a quest for ascendency over the faiths and cultures that preceded and surrounded and dominated it. In claiming supersedence of both Judaism and Christianity by virtue of a superior prophet and scriptures, it announced itself as being in struggle from the start, emerging out of the inferiority complex, if you will, of the Arabic peoples who lacked a unified and respected monotheism of their own in a predominantly monotheistic world. Not just an assertion of "we-too", but a "we-better-than-you" -- as with all movements when they assert the chosenness of their mission over all others.

And this has nothing to do with finding ultimate truth within Islam, mind you -- I have every respect for those who can find their truth personally and live it honourably for themselves -- but it is an immensely unrefuted and uncontested point within most of the Islamic world, that Islam must and will triumph over all faiths.

As it is within America's so-called "heartland", that American conservative fundamentalist Christianity must and will win out in the end (and better fight for its aims sooner than later, 'cause the Rapture's a-comin')...but then, most of the vitriol there is aimed at domestic purported enemies than global ones, except for enforcing their version of "moral values" in policy wherever the U.S. holds effective sway...

At any rate, the idea is a backwards one that badly needs fighting-against. Not that there's no value in people's religions, no transcendent worth, nothing worth preserving, but that the ingrained idea of any one religion -- or nation, or ideology -- being supreme, perfect, and sacrosanct from all reproach or challenge or levity MUST be brought down wherever it exists. Because that is the root of all fanaticism. If you've ever read or seen The Name of the Rose, you might recall that the root cause of all those apocalyptically-themed murders was to protect against the dissemination of blasphemy in the form of laughter, with comedy, satire and travesty being perceived as insults against the dignity of God.

Which, of course, *always* needs fierce defending by the faithful...

I remember hearing on the radio one morning a few years ago that Pope John Paul II had chosen not to sign to a declaration of religious human rights, on the grounds that it would compromise the Church's missionary efforts.

No faith is supremely perfect. No institution is supremely perfect. Anytime an ideology becomes more important than the community of people it's applied to, it loses its way. The reason revolutions devour their own children is that maintaining the purity and control of a philosophy becomes more of an ideal than maintaining and bettering the state of humanity.

So that's the thing -- really, no one should get away with putting their own religion on so high a pedestal that they themselves can't tolerate laughter or an unflattering truth.  People who are so deadly serious are also bloody immature, and a danger to others around them.  Idolatry at its core doesn't consist in whether or not a picture or a statue is allowed, but in the worship and importance of images above their realities.

In preserving the sanctity of a symbol while ignoring or violating that which it ought to represent.  In using the Ten Commandments as an excuse for social tyranny.  In taking the name of Jesus as a flag for trampling on one's brother, or extolling the virtues of the Virgin Mary while demeaning and repressing the women who are real and alive in the world around. Or invoking the spectre of the Holocaust as the one atrocity that can never ever be equalled or even compared with, keeping it in hand as a constant justification for every deed of oppression, violence and chauvinism thereafter. Making it a crime to burn the American flag -- stop me if you've heard this one -- while systematically unraveling all the liberties and justice and greater human possibilities that it was made to serve as the banner for in the first place.

And in that respect, all those who show themselves willing to resort to threats and violence and destruction over the implications of mere images are truly and pathetically idolaters. They have lost the way, whatever their way -- if ever indeed they had it.

_______________________________________________________________
[Hmm....anyone else wanna pitch in some thoughts? I know I'm being rather bold and absolute in my assertions of truth, but hey--I ain't gonna execute anyone for not going my way....>:)...]

"Thinking Like a Terrorist"....here's my reasoning about that L.A. plot...

This, regarding the FAIR media alert re the purported planned-and-foiled terrorist plot against L.A. -- as posted and commented on at hyperlucidity:

Preceding post: [Actually, I thought it sounded rather trumped up when I read the story originally....seemed a bit too convenient an incident (and already "foiled," moreover) to bring up as evidence that the administration's carte blanche re civil liberties is working. There's also one major flaw in the official story as I read it.....but I'll bring that up later -- key idea though, ya gotta think like a terrorist convincingly if you're going to fake a terrorist plot. Details at 11...*snicker*]

Simple thing, really....do you honestly think that a pan-Islamic terrorist cell would target a building simply because it was "the tallest building in Los Angeles"? And this after successfully attacking the World Trade Center towers (symbol & center of American financial power) and the Pentagon (symbol & center of American military might)?

No. That's stupid. Actually, the only reason that that skyscraper would be a target for anything is that a lot of Americans have a decent amount of concern for Los Angeles and its environs because of the cultural/commercial reputation there. We like Hollywood, in short...and an attack on L.A. = attack on Hollywood, glamour, creativity, ambition, freedom of the arts....well, bollocks, that ain't a target that Al-Qaeda cares about, it's one that "we" care about. And that's why it's a red herring to make us all sigh in relief and trust our fates and civil liberties to the government, because they say that they thwarted a terrorist attack.

Terrorism by definition is the methodical intimidation of a populace through the infliction of maximum physical and psychological/emotional damage.
Here are the main things that you have to remember about planned targets for terrorism:

* They have to be prominent and/or relevant.
It does no good to attack somewhere that isn't going to be readily recognized by the citizenry. They must have a quality of instant and/or iconic identification, or of universal relevance to daily life and necessity. Airplanes, sports stadiums, skyscrapers that are well-known in and of themselves for the business that goes on in them.

* There have to be a lot of people in/around them.
Terrorism requires appreciable human carnage, so that it damages the emotions and morale of the populace. Much as I hate the arrogance of Mount Rushmore, it's not a useful target for terrorism. Grand Central Station at rush-hour, though...possible, but trains are not as likely as airplanes, which are far more dramatic and cause more lasting paranoia. Airport terminals, though they may have more potential victims, don't have as much velocity and impact to work with...:-|

* They have to mean something important as representative of the "enemy" as seen by the terrorist.
The targets on 9/11 made sense, because they were embodiments of U.S. dominance/imperialism in two areas, the military and the financial/economic sectors. Unless something can be seen as a real locus of power that is being destroyed/damaged by the attack, it is unlikely to be chosen as a target of terrorism.


So....in short, that's why I had a gut feeling that that reported thwarting was a tale full of crap and machination. Just like the whole purported biological warfare threat in mid-late winter before the start of the war, with the stocking-up on plastic-wrap and duct-tape.....and again I say unto you, bullshit (which is what I was saying then, too, actually).

Winter's a really bad time to attempt biological warfare as a terrorist weapon, because people aren't as likely to be congregated together out-of-doors or in large stadiums and such, they cover themselves more if they do, the air's much colder and/or drier and so contagion range is likely to be shorter and breathing passages less efficient to absorb what's in the air....in short, it's really not that effective a season for toxic gases and such.

It's a great season for fighting in Iraq, though, as compared to waiting until the desert warms up and the sand gets into everything and the heat fouls up your computers and navigational instruments and the metal of the tanks turns them into furnaces on treads...whether you're not used to fighting in the Middle East or you are, it makes sense to mount your technology-heavy offensives in the cooler season as opposed to the hot season -- and that's precisely what the U.S. administration was gunning for, in my opinion...getting the public anxiety/fervour strong enough over this to start attacking Iraq as soon as possible, while it was still easy going to start and maintain a desert campaign efficiently.

At least, that's the way I see it. Thinking like a terrorist has its advantages. So does thinking like a general or commander-in-chief who wants to get his war on already...strategy, people, strategy........

It's only a diversion.....(as usual)

Your Personality Is

Rational (NT) You are both logical and creative. You are full of ideas. You are so rational that you analyze everything. This drives people a little crazy! Intelligence is important to you. You always like to be around smart people. In fact, you're often a little short with people who don't impress you mentally. You seem distant to some - but it's usually because you're deep in thought. Those who understand you best are fellow Rationals. In love, you tend to approach things with logic. You seek a compatible mate - who is also very intelligent. At work, you tend to gravitate toward idea building careers - like programming, medicine, or academia. With others, you are very honest and direct. People often can't take your criticism well. As far as your looks go, you're coasting on what you were born with. You think fashion is silly. On weekends, you spend most of your time thinking, experimenting with new ideas, or learning new things.

The Three Question Personality Test

You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!" Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Your Blog Should Be Green

Your blog is smart and thoughtful - not a lot of fluff. You enjoy a good discussion, especially if it involves picking apart ideas. However, you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Heh. You don't say.

But anyhow....I do believe I have some RP posts to make...>:)...if you're in on 'em, you know why the devilly-face. Oh...and the lack of details....>:)

(If you do want to get details on that sort of thing with me, I'll be resuming posting updates on my RPGs at Scholomance Dramatica -- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scholomance_dramatica -- among other RPer-relevant stuff...)