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 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.
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Good analysis, eavesdropper
Taken a bit deeper, the insanity has a purpose. The Muslim menace and fomenting fear of said menace has been a socially conditioning experiment since the fall of the USSR. It was kind of seen as a coalescing force to replace the cold war. The school of thought can be traced back to political philosopher Leo Strauss who taught that liberalism in its modern form contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards extreme relativism, which in turn led to nihilism. Interestingly this was about the time the modern fundamentalist muslim movement started by a fellow named Sayyid Qutb whom thought western influence over the ME would lead to the same thing as Strauss after spending time in the states. Frankly, I tend to agree with both of them to some extent.
Strauss’s thinking was the beginning of the neoconservative movement that has plagued political thinking since Reagan. Today it’s morphed into an alignment of expansionist zionist jews, american imperialists and christian fundamentalists all with converging interests. This trifecta has solid control over both sides of the isle.
Now, the extremists on both sides of the globe play into each others hands. Our support of Israel’s, expansionist, ethnic cleansing, land theft pogroms coupled with our incessant need and manipulation of the ME’s political systems and mass deaths wrought by our military machine has catalyzed a metastasis of anti-western sentiment. The war on terror fuels itself and it is well understood in the halls of power – but routing out “terrorists” was never really it’s goal. That is just what the people that “know best” tell the populace.
Religion, ethnicity, race, nationalism, are not only used as points of affinity but developed as walls and division and are grounds of exploitation. Those within a household to the political offices of a nation learn well and communicate these “differences” to their own advantage.
Maybe we should be glad this is not in california’s curriculum.
From U.S., the ABC’s of Jihad
Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01
In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum.
