The Search for Moderate Islam

Or it breaks down on how fundamentalist the people are, just as we see fundamentalist christians inn the US advocating and carrying out executions of abortion doctors and bombings of clinics.Where I lived in Michigan we had neighbors that were muslim, and I know of no beheadings there. There are moderates, many have moved away from the war zones leaving more of the fundamentalists to cause mayhem.

No Mike, in my book anyone that kills people and justifies it with their religion is a religious fanatic and irrational\unsane, and it doesn't matter to me in the slightest what religious cloak they wear.And their existence doesn't preclude people holding the same religion to be sane rational people that don't want to go around murdering people.I also think that wars tend to turn otherwise rational people insane.Enjoy

No, we have it, just from Christians that want to write their beliefs into laws (abortion, marriage, women's rights, homosexuality, etc etc etc).Enjoy

Indeed, that was my point. And we know this because we live among them rather than because they advertise and proselytize ... Curiously, I think this is true for any "bin" Yes, I have known some. Sitting quietly at home practicing their religion rather than talking about it or making a public spectacle of their belief/s.Enjoy

“Improvised explosive device” set off near Colorado Springs NAACP office – The Denver Post

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An improvised explosive device was detonated against the exterior wall of a building housing the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP on Tuesday, officials said.

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The explosion knocked items off the office walls but no one was injured.

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According to the the FBI, officials are seeking a "potential person of interest," described as a balding white male, about 40 years old.

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"He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate," the FBI said in a statement said.

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So should we blame\investigate all white people, all white males, all balding white males, all balding white males driving white pickup trucks, all balding white males driving white pickup trucks with dark colored bed liners, all balding white males driving white pickup trucks with dark colored bed liners and open tailgates, or all balding white males driving white pickup trucks with dark colored bed liners with open tailgates and obscured license plates ...Should all people driving with missing or obscured license plates be investigated ... remember McVeigh was pulled over for missing plate and he was a bomber ...Are there moderate balding white males driving white pickup trucks?Inquiring minds want to know.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ...

“Improvised explosive device” set off near Colorado Springs NAACP office – The Denver Post

quote:

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An improvised explosive device was detonated against the exterior wall of a building housing the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP on Tuesday, officials said.

​

The explosion knocked items off the office walls but no one was injured.

​

According to the the FBI, officials are seeking a "potential person of interest," described as a balding white male, about 40 years old.

​

"He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate," the FBI said in a statement said.

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So should we blame\investigate all white people, all white males, all balding white males, all balding white males driving white pickup trucks, all balding white males driving white pickup trucks with dark colored bed liners, all balding white males driving white pickup trucks with dark colored bed liners and open tailgates, or all balding white males driving white pickup trucks with dark colored bed liners with open tailgates and obscured license plates ...Should all people driving with missing or obscured license plates be investigated ... remember McVeigh was pulled over for missing plate and he was a bomber ...Are there moderate balding white males driving white pickup trucks?Inquiring minds want to know.Enjoy

I'm curious Faith. Over on the [tid=746516] thread you say things like: And here you are profiling ALL muslims as being untrustworthy and driven to violence by their religion ... you are invoking a "super-predator" myth about muslims ... but there you adamantly deny that you cannot know a person is racist and that you cannot assume that their behavior will be racist even if they have unconscious racist beliefs.Don't you think muslims should not be pre-judged on what the religion says, even if it is an unconscious belief for some, but rather on behavior and actions when that occurs?Enjoy

And not recognizing the many different sects, not just the main branches, that fall under the Islam umbrella is like lumping all the many different sects, not just the main branches, that fall under the Christian umbrella.And defining the Islam umbrella by the behavior of certain cults within the umbrella is like defining the Christian umbrella by the behavior of certain cults within the umbrella, from Phelps to Jones to Koresh to Aryan Nation to the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades. That is because of the fear factor -- Christians don't fear christians (even if they say they don't like the cults), but they fear the Muslim cults, and that leads to their distrust of all Muslims ... especially ones they don't know (ie virtually all).See http://www.psychologytoday.com/...big-fear-brain-study-finds for some interesting insight:

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Peering inside the brain with MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals. The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity.

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There's more in the article, but basically it says that the first reaction of conservatives is fear (is this why we see so much fear mongering on the reactionary talk shows?) while that of liberals is curiosity.Enjoy.

ROFLOL ... conservatives recognize reality? good one, Faith.During the elections the GOP hyped up fear about all kinds of things ... an ebola plague spreading uncontrolled in the US, ISIS crossing the mexican border ... on top of their old fear mongering over obamacare and death panels ...NONE of it was based on reality ... and the proof of this is that these fear memes have disappeared since the election, not because they were taken care of but because they were false.Global Climate Change is reality. The age of the earth being over 4 billion years is reality. That trickle-down voodoodoo economics is invalidated is reality ...Anti-science and anti-education is not reality based thinking.Being afraid of shadows is not reality thinking. Like Global Climate Change? If you want something to be afraid of ... pick something that affects all life on earth.Enjoy

Of course you don't Faith, because you are ruled by fear even when it is just smoke, mirrors and shadows. Do you mean Faux Noise Nutworks lynch-mob mentality operates on reality based thinking?Or do you mean that "public outcry" scares the ebola away from the US?Do you mean that "public outcry" changes facts? There's that fear bias again.Enjoy

No Faith, what happened is that the real danger of ebola in this country was ignored by the rabid right for political gain in the election who spread fear instead of real information.The information on the real danger from ebola was provided -- along with the precautions that are necessary to handle it without spreading it. Those protocols were followed and as a result there was no outbreak of ebola in this country -- from the courageous and dedicated doctors and nurses who traveled to Africa to help contain the disease there. The ebola that did get to the states was contained, controlled and eliminated by these protocols. Before the election occurred the "outbreak" was over. No and I don't expect to: the reality is that ebola can be contained, that people traveling from Africa that happen to have ebola will get better detection and treatment in the US and have a higher probability of surviving than if you turn planes away. This is proven by those that did arrive and were treated and survived. That is how you handle it, not with fear and xenophobia.Turning planes away just means that people take alternate, longer routes, and are more likely to hide from detection. That is NOT how you handle it. No, Faith it is facts. You have provided none in your fear obsessed post (emotional). Which is what turning planes away would do. What is not stupid and dangerous is to have detection screening at arrival sites and protocols to isolate and treat potential victims, which is how the situation was handled. What is stupid and dangerous is to treat all members of a group based on the actions of a subgroup that can be identified within the larger group. Do you want to radicalize moderates? Treat them as terrorists and you will get your wish fulfilled. It isn't islam that makes terrorists it is oppression. see Message 30 on Marxism vs Socialism vs Communism vs Totalitarianisms. As opposed to ... say ... the reality denying republican party? The ones that herd you with irrational fears as opposed to facts and proven science and economics?Enjoy

How long? 2,000 years?Or do I look at the facts and see that the threat from terrorists of all stripes is remote for people in the US and low probability (near zero) anywhere in the world: Curiously I am much more likely to be killed by a car accident, so I would fear/worry much more about that if I were one to fear/worry.Enjoy

Also see Are Christians more violent than Muslims? | AbagondNow start waving away those statistics ...Enjoy.

This show is about the definition of terrorist. Definitely worth watching.Glenn Greenwald on How to Be a Terror Expert: Ignore Facts, Blame Muslims, Trumpet U.S. Propaganda | Democracy Now!

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Who are the so-called terrorism experts? In the wake of the Paris attacks, the corporate media has once again flooded its news programs with pundits claiming authority on terrorism, foreign policy and world events. We discuss the growing and questionable field of "terrorism experts" with three guests: Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of The Intercept; Lisa Stampnitzky, social studies lecturer at Harvard University and author of "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'"; and Luc Mathieu, foreign affairs reporter for the French newspaper Libration.

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Some interesting facts, and rational evaluation of the issue of what "terrorism" means, what is the propaganda and what is the actuality.Not just STEVE EMERSON but ALL the pundit pretend experts ...From the transcript:

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GLENN GREENWALD: The concept of terrorism is a very widely debated concept all over the world, and there are incredibly divergent opinions, even about what terrorism is, about who it is who’s perpetrating it, about how it is that you define it and understand it, and whether or not there’s even a meaningful definition of the term at all. ...

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It’s an incredibly propagandized term. It’s an incredibly propagandistic set of theories that they have. And that’s really what these media outlets are doing, is they’re masquerading pro-U.S. propaganda, pro-U.S. government propaganda, as expertise, when it’s really anything but. These are incredibly ideological people. They’re very loyal to the view of the U.S. government about very controversial questions. ...

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LISA STAMPNITZKY: I mean, one of the conclusions I draw is that it’s a very peculiar field in terms of fields of expertise, because there is no strict boundary around it, there is no control according to who can be an expert. There’s no credentialing. And so, you have people coming on TV who are just sort of spouting hysteria and not drawing on any real expert knowledge. And even those who are more serious in the field have no ability to regulate who gets called an expert.

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GLENN GREENWALD: And there are so many of them like that. I mean, he’s one of the people called by the U.S. government in these prosecutions, these really dubious prosecutions, of American Muslims for really remote charges of material support for terrorism. ...

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There’s not even agreement about what the word "terrorism" means, which is why the old clich that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist is, though clichd, is so resoundingly true. You can have debates about what terrorism is, about who perpetrates it, and yet all of these so-called experts simply assume the answers to those questions, because if they were, for example, to say that the U.S. government is a state sponsor of terrorism by virtue of its support for death squads in El Salvador or the Contras in Nicaragua or any of the other groups across the United Statesacross the world that the United States continues to support that engages in violence against civilians for political ends, you would immediately have them eliminated. No major network like CNN or MSNBC or NBC would ever call somebody like that a terrorism expert, even though that’s a very plausible claim to make. It’s an extremely ideological and politicized view that gets called expertise. And they don’t even have the basic attributes of what we generally consider that makes somebody an expert.

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Interesting stuff that should make people question deeply where they are getting their information and the purposes behind that information.Enjoy

Did you watch\listen to the whole show? It is now about whether the violence in the middle east is good\bad or about where it is happening, it is about using terminology that reflects reality rather than propaganda.Curiously I could say that you seem to "like" violence by the sound of it. It has no preference for sects religions or cults, just people that condone it and accept it. And you think violence is an appropriate response to any number of situations (your discussions re guns for example), so you have a much more documented affinity for violence than I do.What I don't like is drumming up wars with false information and fomenting fear of ALL muslims for the actions of a few.The US is responsible for a lot of the "terrorism" in this world in many ways. Not least of which is the "terrorist" drone program that kills innocent civilians.Did you listen to the whole show?What the show says is that you can't define "terrorism" in a way that excludes US actions in many places in the world without it devolving into "violence we don't like" ... US foreign policy is the US's worst enemy.Enjoy