[quote=Arraya][quote=meadandale][quote=afx114][quote=meadandale]Your liberal friends in the CA school system want to teach Islam in school. Do you have a problem with this?[/quote]
Citation needed.[/quote]
How many do you want?
Here’s several. Note that the text book that is frequently cited in many of these articles portrays Islam as a peaceful religion and curiously omits anything remotely negative. Christianity isn’t given such a pass and most of the discussion of Christianity is done in with a negative tone.
Despite some of the ‘rebuttals’ I’ve seen to these articles it is confirmed that they aren’t just teaching Muslim history, they are having students memorize verses from the Koran and pray to Allah as well as dressing like Muslims, adopting Muslim names and planning trips to Mecca. How many of these schools have the same students learn passages from the Bible and have the students pray to God?[/quote]
Between this, homosexual sensitivity training and a course on Marx our kids are going to become skateboarding marxist, gay suicide bombers.[/quote]
As presented here, I absolutely agree that I would not want my children to be schooled in this particular curriculum without the balance that should be provided by teaching of equal time and depth that would cover the tenets of other widely practiced international religions. As presented here, I find the curriculum a bit over the top, considering how much material has to be covered in a school year.
However, I find this response to Brian’s request for documentation of meadandale’s earlier statement somewhat flawed. And, fresh off my earlier “rant”, I am concerned.
First: Did anyone notice that, aside from the Weekly Standard article, the sources of the information were not exactly mainstream journalism? One of them was WorldNet Daily, which is an entity that was set up as a news source for far-right politicians, bloggers, and voters, and is widely known for its sensationalistic one-sided “news” articles, the veracity of which has been frequently called into question. The second is an opinion piece by Dr. Herbert London, director of the New York division of the Hudson Institute, a right-wing “think tank”. Dr. Hudson is highly educated, and has a strong academic background and impressive CV. But the first sentence of his piece read, “It was reported recently by Assist News Service that in the aftermath of September 11 a large number of California public school students were asked to attend intensive courses and workshops on Islam.” Sounds impressive. Difficult to understand how people missed something that had been reported by the Assist News Service. Until one discovers that ANS is the rather amateur-looking newsletter of Assist Ministries, run by a former reporter for the National Enquirer.
The third source is the Weekly Standard article, and while I am well aware that the Standard is a distinctly right-leaning publication, I respect them them as a journalistic source. That’s why it was so disturbing to discover that the author of their article is Steven Schwartz. I’ll be happy to expand on this another time, but suffice it to say that he has a rather fast and loose way with facts, which could well be the result of a rather large conflict of interest he and his right-wing editors choose to ignore when they frequently turn to him as an “expert” on all things Islam.
The fourth article is from a little-known publication called “Insight Into the News”, owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. Like WND, the articles in “Insight” contain information that is, shall we say, “flawed”. Verification of said information is difficult, if not impossible, because the editor-in-chief would not identify his reporters who, he claimed, were actually employees of MSM outlets who feared for their jobs (and more) because of the explosive secret information they had pried loose from their sources. Because their employers wouldn’t publish information that was essential to the well-being of every American citizen, these heroic reporters had to rely on the discretion and on the courage of “Insight”‘s management to print their stories.
So, I’m sorry, but I’m not buying into this whole drama. Damn right I’d be upset if these events were exactly as they appeared in these articles. But I seriously doubt that they are. Given the current viral hypersensitivity to anything even remotely smacking of Islam, somewhere along the line there would have been some outraged Tea Party moms looking for their star turn on Fox News, telling about little Bobby Ray being forced to learn the meaning of East and West so that he would be oriented correctly to face Mecca, right before the Pledge of Allegience to the Flag of Islam. Or about Britnee Lisa-Marie asking her mom to make her a “burka costume” for the school play in which she’d be falsely accused of adultery and stoned by the audience. Somebody, somewhere would have said SOMETHING. Well, perhaps not. Many of our middle-class families have had a lot to deal with, thanks to Obama and the Democrats. Job losses, home foreclosures, death panels, and now, another unbelieveable governmental intrusion.
Except….. then there’s the dates. Did anyone happen to notice that three out of four of the sources provided were from early (January & February) of 2002. This is from almost nine (!) years ago.
Read the source articles. See what they have to say. What ALL of the parties to this have to say. No matter what side you are on, don’t be searching for information that will confirm your preconceived opinions. Then ask yourself why are people suddenly getting all up in arms about this now,. In fact, is this book and/or curriculum even in use anymore.
If it was bad enough to raise the alarm back in January 2002, whatever happened? Why didn’t the right follow up on this? There was never a time more favorable politically for them: GWB in the White House, Republican majority in the Congress, rage at Islamic fundamentalists at peak…Hell, the Department of Homeland Security was even helping, keeping us all on edge with their color coding game.
This is the latest in inciting panic and unrest in the people, which has proven to be a far more effective tool in gaining votes (and control). Send out stuff that sounds bad, satisfying all the visceral “food groups” in terms of the impact it has on the average middle class joe on the street. Middle class joe dons his rather worn Paul Revere cloak, and gets on Facebook to bravely sound the alarm, making sure to bash a few “libtards” along the way for being so clueless (and socialist, to boot). The alarm goes viral, and you have millions of infected people wondering whether we’ll have any country left in two years.
I’m not belittling your concerns, meadandale. Lord knows, very few of these lawmakers and bureaucrats are worth a penny of what we pay them. I appreciate that people have finally shaken off their complacency, and are demanding answers. But I, for one, would be grateful if they would, first, be sure that they have the right QUESTIONS. I hate to be cynical, but I believe that most people have gone into this because they’re unhappy with their lives, and they don’t want to look into the mirror to see who’s at least partially responsible. Why do that when there are so many “smart” people telling you that it’s someone else’s fault.
In addition to that, I believe that this collective movement gives people the impression that they’re courageous and tough and badass. They can go on a board or in a chatroom, and openly talk about beating the shit out of people, or pulling out their (fill in your favorite gun model and ammo type here) and shooting someone, the criteria for doing so being the victims’ political opinions, sexual persuasion, or skin color. I might be 5’7″, not possess any clearly delineated muscle, be losing most of my hair, and weigh 325 pounds, but, in my mind, to the other guys on that board I’m Chuck Norris.
I’m not making this up, nor did I get it from a liberal website. I frequently visit right-wing websites, and am increasingly horrified by what I’m encountering there. It scares me a helluva lot, but I’m also puzzled. I can understand the frustration at the government, having felt a similar antagonism for several years now. But what I’m seeing doesn’t mesh with the message. The Tea Partiers I’ve encountered don’t distinguish between good politicians and bad. They align themselves solidly against Democrats and unanimously for Republicans; the only exception is when there’s a candidate that they prefer over the incumbent Republican, and there is never a discernible policy difference between the two. In fact, what stands out most of all about the Tea Party slate is their almost uniform unsuitability for public office.
Is it too much to expect people to investigate this “explosive” stuff a little BEFORE they light the fuse? It’s not rocket science (no pun intended). The alternative, to me, is unthinkable: that the right is grabbing at everything and anything, even at blatant untruths, to throw out there to panic the citizenry into action. I’m not sure which is worse: a nation’s people who don’t have the intellect or the willpower to question ALL that they are being fed, or one that believes any act of dishonesty or violence is justifiable in the name of getting their own way. When will enough be enough?
