The most evil

[Liar]

And while I wrote my reply, Colly sneaked in with a mega insightful post. Read it, folks.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I think everyone should re read Box's comment and consider it. Especially those who were quick to condemn it. Not because it should be accepted or lauded, but because I think it represents a substantial portion of the people in the U.S.

I don't have to come here to hear it. It's rampant down at the bodega. It's alive and well at right aide and at the grand union. I can see it in action by walking to Thayer gate, where the MP's practice racial profiling unabashedly. I can hear it repeated in much less civil terms at the VFW back home. Even on Campus when I visit my brothers.

With every innocent blown up on a bus in Jerusalem, every poor hostage beheaded on the web, every child who died in Russia, the sentiment quietly grows, takes shape and invades more minds. With each atrocity it moves from a vague thought, to a red hot ember of anger to a rock solid fact in people's minds.

Box girded his loins, prepared for the slings and arrows and stated what a lot of americans feel, wether they proclaim it loudly from the pulpit or just believe it quietly. And it grows. Every day it grows as the barbarity of terrorists sinks to new lows to garner the shock effect they crave. With every press conference where the government fosters the idea that Arab, Muslim, terrorist are all the same word.

Here the person who voiced it has been chided, the majority here reject the notion you can characterize a religion by the acts of a few adherents. Here it's easy to take a stand against it because it's annonyamous and you will be in the majority. But here on the streets of this town, or my home town, or the town my grandfather lived in, or the campus, it isn't shouted down anymore. People quietly accept it at worst or fail to conftont it at best and it grows.

This is a scared country, and the portion of the population most terrified is the muslim population. They catch the fall out from it. They undergo the descrimination of it. They suffer greatly for their religion.

I don't condemn box for this sentiment. His post dosen't make me angry or sad. It frightens me, because I don't think he's on the lunatic fringe, I don't even think he is in the minority. Until muslims the world over stand up and with a unified voice say these people aren't us and we are not them, it will grow.

This kind of pervasive, if unspoken latent hatred for a class of people existed in Germany after World War I. It took only a few anti-semites, without even the excuse of 9/11 or web broadcast beheadings to fan that latant hate into fire. Krystalnacht is just waiting to happen here. It will take only the right act of barbarity and the right leader and it will explode with the same horrible outcome.

Look at his post again. Substitute Jew for Muslim. If that dosen't cause you to shiver, I don't know what will. Focused anger, for a specific act, diffused to cover a broad class of people. There is precedent for it and that precedent is chilling.

A long runing question about World War II has been how much the average German knew and how could normal people become such monsters. I wonder if we are not close to answering that question, when our own Krystalnacht and concentration camps spring up.

-Colly

Because this needs to be on the second page as well. Brilliant, Colly.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Box girded his loins, prepared for the slings and arrows and stated what a lot of americans feel, wether they proclaim it loudly from the pulpit or just believe it quietly. And it grows. Every day it grows as the barbarity of terrorists sinks to new lows to garner the shock effect they crave. With every press conference where the government fosters the idea that Arab, Muslim, terrorist are all the same word.

I personally don't feel this way but I do believe that you are correct in your asssessment Colly. I see it everywhere, from work to the store to family. Each attrocity, each picture of a dead child, each beheaded captive pleading for their life, each car bomb in a shopping area drives the idea home harder. Most Americans get their news in 30 minute chunks (if they see it at all) and it is not possible to get any kind of real feeling for a situation in a 2 minute clip. So we see a picture of a burning US tank and a few people celebrating and we get the impression that that is what they all are doing. While in reality most of them are just trying to get on with their lives, the same as us. But the media never showes us that.

A long runing question about World War II has been how much the average German knew and how could normal people become such monsters. I wonder if we are not close to answering that question, when our own Krystalnacht and concentration camps spring up.

I like to think that we as a society have progressed beond this but I look at the reports about Gitmo and I'm not to sure. Some of the 'Combatants' have been heald there for years with no due trial and we as a country haven't batted and eye.

Insightful as always Colly.

CD

 

[amicus]

JoeW & others...you might apply your logicians expertise at this conclusion.....

For whatever reason in the 1920's and 30's most and I do mean most of the German people accepted Adolph Hitler. They became 'believers' in his policies and plans.

The same can be applied to the Imperial Japanese, the Japanese people believed in the Emporer enough to commit suicide rather than be captured and to kill the enemy in Kami Kazi attacks.

You might even say the same for the Chinese soldiers in North Korea who used only numbers of the willing to overwhelm allied positions.

It is politically correct, I suppose, to not paint all of a particular people with the same wide brush. But when people accept a 'faith' or a belief instead of using their individual minds to choose between right and wrong..that rather blurs the issue.

Once the 'faith' of Germany and Japan was broken, those people became what they potentially always could have been. individuals.

The Muslim world is not different, most individuals who have accepted Islam, do not think and make moral judgements on their own. They, like the Nazi's and the Japanese, as a people, share the blame for the atrocities committed.

The caveat is, and I know this well, that it is almost impossible for a few rational people in the midst of the fervor of faith and belief, to have much influence. It is almost a mob psychology and is the inherent danger in any society that replaces or allows 'faith' to supersede reason.


So Joe....is there logic in that....or does (insert all names addressed to amicus) my logic fail?

amicus....

 

[McKenna]

Does anyone wonder if the hysteria gripping the nation about Arabs and Muslims will have us sending all of them that live within US borders to "relocation camps" like we did the Japanese-Americans in WWII?

I certainly hope not. You'd think we'd have learned our lesson 60 years ago.

 

[Guest]

Does anyone wonder if the hysteria gripping the nation about Arabs and Muslims will have us sending all of them that live within US borders to "relocation camps" like we did the Japanese-Americans in WWII?

That's the first thing I thought of when I read Box's post. It is that kind of thinking that leads to "camps". Italians were also herded into such places then too, it's just not as well known.

I think Colly is right in her view, but I stand by my earlier unkind opinion because it was focused on one individual making a public declaration.

Perdita

 

[McKenna]

That's the first thing I thought of when I read Box's post. It is that kind of thinking that leads to "camps". Italians were also herded into such places then too, it's just not as well known.

I think Colly is right in her view, but I stand by my earlier unkind opinion because it was focused on one individual making a public declaration.

I hadn't known about the Italians, but I can't say as I'm surprised. For a nation that is supposed to be so open and free to all peoples, we can be, at times, rather selective about who gets to enjoy "our" freedoms.

 

[Guest]

Italian immigrants were a core founding group in the growth of San Francisco so I've learned much of their history here.

"When Italy declared war on the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Italian residents in the USA as well as much of the Italian-American community were suspected , by the Roosevelt Administration, of having questionable loyalty. Executive Order 9066, signed by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 not only allowed the military to evict and intern Japanese- Americans but applied as well to German- and Italian-Americans.

In February of 1942, some 10,000 Italic residents along the Pacific coast were forceably evicted from homes that they had occupied for decades and issued identity passes that restricted their travel, employment, and ownership of such things as fishing boats and radios. Scores of fishing boats, the livelihood of thousands of Italic families, were impounded for naval use. Hundreds of community leaders, newspaper editors, social club officers, and teachers were summarily removed from their jobs and shipped to Montana for internment.

Across the nation, Italian resident aliens and Italian-American community leaders were interrogated, travel-restricted, and many interned. Italian language newspapers were suppressed and even the Italian language condemned in government propaganda. People such as scientist Enrico Fermi and the parents of baseball star Joe DiMaggio were subjected to restrictions. Although the worst of these injustices were ameliorated after six months, mainly for political reasons dealing with off-year elections, the shame and the economic consequences have never been addressed by the United States Government."
source

Later:
"In 1999, as a result of lobbying by the Italian American community, the United States Congress addressed the treatment of Italian Americans during World War II, which resulted in House Resolution 2442, acknowledging that the United States violated the civil rights of Italian Americans during World War II. The bill was passed in the House of Representatives in 1999, the Senate in 2000, and signed by President Clinton in 2000.
source

 

[amicus]

There are documented cases of both Japaneses and German spies in the United States and what was the Territory of Hawaii during world war two.

There are examples of Japanese airborne remote fire bombs up and down the west coast and German spies in Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports reporting by radio, ships movement from the ports and various acts of sabotage throughout the United States.


Americans were frightened in December of 1941. We had been attacked in Pearl Harbor, bases in the Philippines and throughout maritime asia were under assault.

Instead of demeaning the American character for choosing to protect loved ones, one might consider that as an example of rational self interest.

You need not be reminded that the Saudi Nationals who received flight training and support while on US soil, also operated through and with perhaps still unknown cells of Muslim terrorists in the United States.

Should you live near a 'target' in terms of terrorist activity, you might even be thankful for the increased level of awareness by the agencies of government obligated to protect you.

You might even help yourself by close observance of suspicious activities near those targets. You will not be chastized if you report an Arab appearing person who has 20 pounds of TNT strapped to his/her chest outside the highschool in your neighborhood.

America did not begin this war, we were attacked, on our own soil. And it was not a military target, it was innocent people.

You may not, but I certaiinly urge everyone to act as the eyes and ears of the population. After all, it is our homeland.

amicus...

 

[McKenna]

Later:
"In 1999, as a result of lobbying by the Italian American community, the United States Congress addressed the treatment of Italian Americans during World War II, which resulted in House Resolution 2442, acknowledging that the United States violated the civil rights of Italian Americans during World War II.The bill was passed in the House of Representatives in 1999, the Senate in 2000, and signed by President Clinton in 2000.
source

Gee, it only took fifty years, too. Good grief.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

You might even help yourself by close observance of suspicious activities near those targets. You will not be chastized if you report an Arab appearing person who has 20 pounds of TNT strapped to his/her chest outside the highschool in your neighborhood.

amicus...

Nobody would chastize you for reporting any person appearing outside a highschool with explosives strapped to themselves.

The problem is that nowadays, nobody will chastize you for reporting an Arab, period. They don't even have to be doing anything. The simple fact that someone is an Arab is now a crime, or at the least makes you a suspect, in this country, and that is truly sad.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . nowadays, nobody will chastize you for reporting an Arab, period. . .The simple fact that someone is an Arab is now a crime . . .

It's a government approved adaptation of "driving while black."

 

[Liar]

The Muslim world is not different, most individuals who have accepted Islam, do not think and make moral judgements on their own. They, like the Nazi's and the Japanese, as a people, share the blame for the atrocities committed.

...and by your definition, the Americans as a people share the blame for Abu Gharib, or maybe for Pinochet? I think not.

Germans in general were kept in the dark about the atrocities in the concentration camps, and the general participation on their part was not greater or more evil than the American ones that put Japanese, or as Perdita informed me, Italians, in camps on US soil. That makes them perhaps gullible and duped by one of the most effective propaganda machines in human history. But not evil per se.

I don't know enough about the Japan situation, but I suspect the circumstances were similar. The common man, who you are so fond of blaming, probably only had the government controlled information channel on what was right and wrong.

However, when it comes to today, only but a few isolated fractions of the moslems does not have access to a more varied and nuanced view of the world. Those I have spoken with, students and social workers mostly, in Europe, Turkey and in and around Israel, all tell the same thing. The common man is abhorred and ashamed of the way those maniacs smear the good name of their belief.

Support for terrorism is marginal. But it is higher among the moslems for the same reason that the actual terrorists are there - their whole religion is under attack, on military, political and cultural fronts alike. That is something that will drive extramists of any political or religios faith over the edge. Had the tables been turned, you bet your sweet ass there would had been western "freedom fighters" blowing up things, as well as the occational cheerleaders. (That cheers on, I mean. Not gets blown up.)

ANd there is the one aspect in the Islam society that has not done the right and approproiate thing through all of this - the mainpart of the muslim clergy. This is not because they support the terrorist activity of the few (and it seems I have to repeat this in absurdum - the terrorists are, albeit loud and visible, a few stray lunatics, cheered on by the few - and not countered by the handfallen others), but because Islam has never had the had the centralised and policy-guided structure of the Christian church.

By tradition, every faith and sub-school within Islam is supposed to mind it's own business and tend to it's own herd. So when violent atrocities was committed in the name of a god that was supposed to be peaceful, the mainpart of the moslem world did not stand up as one to shout the extremists down into their shoes. They were simply not prepared to deal with the recent wave of actions. Actions that sprung out of a pretty secular local conflict against an aggressive Israel. And the longer they were tongue tied, the harder it got to make a difference.

But sure go ahead, blame nations and people. And while you're at it, blame religion and why not race? I honestly don't think that you taking that simplified stance against complicated problems is going to convince anyone here.

#L

 

[amicus]

Liar...concluded with...


"But sure go ahead, blame nations and people. And while you're at it, blame religion and why not race? I honestly don't think that you taking that simplified stance against complicated problems is going to convince anyone here."

Thank you for taking the time to make a large comment...I am saddened that you ended it in that manner.

I do not claim to have a monopoly on truth or an infinite knowledge of all things....

Nor do I have an agenda...a faith or a belief...a bone to pick or an axe to grind with anyone...

As I was reading your post, I was seeing the 10,000 man armies of the Greeks and the Romans...and the Mongol hordes and the Franks and the Gauls and the Arab armies that spread Islam into Europe....

And I recall the history of the entire Arab world uprising against the new nation of Israel....

Perhaps you are right...it is just the bad guys and the the fanatic few...but in my perusal of history...it is not so....

As for Americans being like everone else...perhaps...but we are diverse....we do not have 'one' religion...we do not have just one political party....we have a hard time agreeing on much of anything. We have never had a King or A Dictator...we demand to keep the right to bear arms should anyone attempt to become King Clinton...or otherwise...


If you say the German people were ignorant of what was going on, I can point you to a dozen books that say otherwise. The Italians...perhaps...although they invaded Africa....the Japanese, no...they would have all sacrificed their lives for the emporer had the main island been invaded...

To each his own...I guess....


amicus...

 

[SummerMorning]

Colly wrote:

This kind of pervasive, if unspoken latent hatred for a class of people existed in Germany after World War I. It took only a few anti-semites, without even the excuse of 9/11 or web broadcast beheadings to fan that latant hate into fire. Krystalnacht is just waiting to happen here. It will take only the right act of barbarity and the right leader and it will explode with the same horrible outcome.

Look at his post again. Substitute Jew for Muslim. If that dosen't cause you to shiver, I don't know what will. Focused anger, for a specific act, diffused to cover a broad class of people. There is precedent for it and that precedent is chilling.

(my emphasis)

Funny thing, isn't it - but both jews and arab muslims are "semites" - whatever we believe that means.

As regards the precedent. Yes, it is chilling, and it's trying to make a comeback using the language propagated throughout the media and society. The discourse of us against them and of a clash of civilizations.

May I point out once more, that civilizations cannot clash. Individuals can clash. Can act. Same thing as with guns: people kill people.

 

[Pure]

I think one problem is in the word 'evil', which suggests unmotivated malevolence.

Along the lines of Box, Bush et al., have the line "they hate us for what we are. they hate us for being free." etc.

To take a very blatant, extreme case, extremely horrifying.
Two Chechen women had their families killed by the Russians' bombs. The conned their way onto two Russion airliners and blew up themselves and the planes. I wonder if Box, Bush, etc., can make the argument that they're 'evil.' Vengeful, yes, but with some sort of reason-- if anything's a reason.

Same holds for any Iraqi who's lost relatives, in the 'freeing' of Iraq. He makes a roadside bomb which kills Americans in a passing vehicle. Again, vengeful, intemperate (maybe) but expectable.... so why 'evil'?

 

[Guest]

I think one problem is in the word 'evil', which suggests unmotivated malevolence.

Along the lines of Box, Bush et al., have the line "they hate us for what we are. they hate us for being free." etc.

To take a very blatant, extreme case, extremely horrifying.
Two Chechen women had their families killed by the Russians' bombs. The conned their way onto two Russion airliners and blew up themselves and the planes. I wonder if Box, Bush, etc., can make the argument that they're 'evil.' Vengeful, yes, but with some sort of reason-- if anything's a reason.

Same holds for any Iraqi who's lost relatives, in the 'freeing' of Iraq. He makes a roadside bomb which kills Americans in a passing vehicle. Again, vengeful, intemperate (maybe) but expectable.... so why 'evil'?

A very good point well made.

 

[Liar]

I think one problem is in the word 'evil', which suggests unmotivated malevolence.

The more I think of it, the more I agree. The word 'evil' is a tricky one. Can a person who has a different set of values and believes them to be true, and then acts upon them, geally be called evil. If you truly believe that eradicating a whole people is your god-given duty, a good deed to the world, is genocide really an evil act then? Or just an incorrect and insane one?

I have always seen evil as knowing the difference between your own right and wrong, and then doing the wrong, just for the fuck of it. This doesn't happen too often.

#L

 

[oggbashan]

Terrorists who are so-called 'Muslims' have a long way to go to surpass the killers of the 20th Century.

"Evil" ones - Hitler, Chairman Mao and Stalin in ascending order of the number of victims.

"Good" ones - Winston Churchill and the US wartime presidents.

All 5/6 count their victims in millions.

None were remotely 'Muslim'.

The Influenza epidemic of 1919 probably killed more than Stalin did. Was that an 'Act of God'? Whose God?

Og

 

[rgraham666]

In the Sept/Oct 2004 issue of Foreign Policy there are a set of columns grouped together under title of The World's Most Dangerous Ideas.

The first column is War on Evil.

An interesting and insightful article.

 

[Liar]

And I recall the history of the entire Arab world uprising against the new nation of Israel....

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that uprising only hit the fan for real when said Israel decided that what was granted them was not enough, and that they needed the added lebensraum of Sinai, Golan the West Bank and Gaza?

the Japanese, no...they would have all sacrificed their lives for the emporer had the main island been invaded...

They would defend their homeland if under attack from a foreign invasion? Quelle surprise. It sounds to me that they were...drumroll please...good patriots, then.

History can be writter from as many perspectives as there have been people around to witness it. I'm sure there are books saying that a substantial number of germans knew about the ins and outs of the holocaust. All I have to counter that are actual germans claiming otherwise.

Trying to get what you're aiming at about Italy, but not quite succeeding.

#L

 

[matriarch]

Senior UK Muslims fly to Baghdad to plead for Bigley.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's easy to make blanket statement about large groups of people, and it's always tempting and almost invariably wrong.

Thus, all Jews are money-grubbing, all blacks are wellfare cheats, all Mexicans are illegal aliens, all Chritsians are fundamentalist hysterics, and all Muslims are terrorists. It goes on and on.

It's called prejudice.

---dr.M.

 

[sincerely_helene]

It's easy to make blanket statement about large groups of people, and it's always tempting and almost invariably wrong.

Thus, all Jews are money-grubbing, all blacks are wellfare cheats, all Mexicans are illegal aliens, all Chritsians are fundamentalist hysterics, and all Muslims are terrorists. It goes on and on.

It's called prejudice.

---dr.M.

How dare you leave us sluts out!

 

[patrick1]

What a melancholy thread.

Just a reminder: the USA and their little poodle Britain declared war on Iraq, not the other way round. Saddam Hussein, an evil man, practised Islam erratically, when it suited him, and was not respected by most Muslims in the world.

Two leading Muslims from Britain have just flown to Iraq, probably hopelessly, to emphasise that most British Muslims are against kidnapping and violence, and thus to try and secure the British hostage's release.

For long periods of history - for instance, in the period the crusades, when Christian popes destroyed much of the knowledge left to us by Greeks and Romans - it was Muslims (and a few renegade Irish monks) who kept safe precious documents, and advanced knowledge, and preserved civilisation.

I say this as an atheist, someone personally against Islam as a philosophy, but a respecter of the truth, horrified by the profound prejudice that begins this thread.

patrick