Category Archives: Philology

N-Word Metonymy – Richards, Schlessinger in Context

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

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The Old Man in the Shoe / Had so many blogs / he didn’t know what to do!

🙂

What follows I’ve recycled from my first blog, and although Michael Richards is no longer under the hot light and blatant racism seems other than the talk of the town, Miley Cyrus has caught some heat recently for a remark she made about the judgment of septuagenarian Jewish record producers. Sideways, perhaps, this from 2010 — different incident, same ballpark — responds to that latest in the politics of the psychology of small differences.

____________

Nigger.

Want some more?

Kike. Wop. Spic. Kraut. Dink. Jap. Mick. Honky. Frog. Greaseball.

How’s that?

Context and intent count.

Just so no English language speaker is caught short or left behind while trading the dozens, The Racial Slur Database lists some 2,649 of these pejoratives.

Contempt, which is what epithets express, contribute to our defensive arsenal in language: they are the weapons we reach for when we are done with words and reason and, overall, ready to rumble.

Sometimes they come out when rumbling.

Comedian Michael Richards, who had played Cosmo Kramer on television’s Sienfeld, responded to hecklers while working a mike at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood with an out of control “N word” tirade. According to one of the hecklers, Kyle Doss, Richards, responding to a loud group ordering drinks, had said, “Look at the stupid Mexicans and black being loud up there,” before continuing his routine. Doss, according to Doss, had moments later said to him, “My friend doesn’t think you’re funny.” [1]

Richards then sunk his career while his hecklers made their fame calling him a cracker and a “fucking white boy” on their way away from the factory explosion.

It’s true Richards went off, but the heckler reposte suggests we’re all loaded with similar language and, most of the time, we’re just holding our fire.

It turns out we’re pretty good with one another and what goes on in the back of our head by way of examination, judgment, discrimination, and attitude — this applies as much to husbands and wives as well as, say, believers and kaffir — stays in the backs of our heads. As much helps account for our civility: we’re aware of our background static of mixed beliefs, emotions, and impulses, and, with rare exception, we not only contain ourselves but continuously work on ourselves, the better to live with ourselves as well as others.

Although I’ve stated this basis for fair transaction nicely, we may not have much choice about it, as we humans have going a naturally built-in and permanent encounter with conscience with an equally fierce taste for, oh, the horror, love and mutuality.

Last week, wildly popular talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger picked up on the term “nigger” after being fed it during this exchange with a caller:

Caller: I’m having an issue with my husband where I’m starting to grow very resentful of him. I’m black, and he’s white. We’ve been around some of his friends and family members who start making racist comments as if I’m not there or if I’m not black, and my husband ignores those comments, and it hurts my feelings. And he acts like —

Schlessinger: Well can you give me an example of a racist comment? ‘Cause sometimes people are hypersensitive. So tell me what’s — give me two good examples of racist comments.

Caller: Okay. Last night — good example — we had a neighbor come over, and this neighbor — when every time he comes over, it’s always a black comment. It’s, “Oh, well, how do you black people like doing this?” And, “Do black people really like doing that?” And for a long time, I would ignore it. But last night, I got to the point where it –

Schlessinger: I don’t think that’s racist.

Caller: Well, the stereotype . . .

Schlessinger: I don’t think that’s racist. No, I think that . . .

Caller: (unintelligible)

Schlessinger: No, no, no. I think that’s — well, listen, without giving much thought, a lot of blacks voted for Obama simply ’cause he was half-black. Didn’t matter what he was gonna do in office, it was a black thing. You gotta know that. That’s not a surprise. Not everything that somebody says — we had friends over the other day; we got about 35 people here — the guys who were gonna start playing basketball. I was going to go out and play basketball. My bodyguard and my dear friend is a black man. And I said, “White men can’t jump; I want you on my team.” That was racist? That was funny.

Caller: How about N-word? So, the N-word’s been thrown around . . .

Schlessinger: Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger.

Caller: That isn’t —

Schlessinger: I don’t get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it’s a horrible thing, but when black people say it, it’s affectionate. It’s very confusing. Don’t hang up. I want to talk to you some more. Don’t go away. I’m Dr. Laura Schlessinger, I’ll be right back . . . .

Schlessinger: I’m Dr. Laura Schlessinger, talking to Jade. What did you think about during the break, by the way?

Caller: I was a little caught back by the N-word that you spewed out, I have to be honest with you. But my points is, race relations . . .

Schlessinger: Oh, then I guess you don’t watch HBO or listen to any black comedians.

Caller: But that doesn’t make it right.

Schlessinger: Yeah, I think you have too much sensitivity . . .

Caller: So it’s okay to say “nigger”?

Schlessinger: and not enough sense of humor.

Caller: It’s okay to say that word?

Schlessinger: It depends how it’s said.

Caller: Is it okay to say that word? Is it ever okay to say that word?

Schlessinger: It’s — it depends on how it’s said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it’s okay.”

Caller: But you’re not black. They’re not black. My husband is white.

Schlessinger: Oh, I see. So, a word is restricted to race. Got it. Can’t do much about that.

Caller: I can’t believe someone like you is on the radio spewing out the “nigger” word, and I hope everybody heard it.

Schlessinger: I didn’t spew out the “nigger” word.

Caller: You said, “nigger,” “nigger,” “nigger.”

Schlessinger: Right, I said that’s what you hear.

Caller: Everybody heard it.

Schlessinger: Yes, they did.

Caller: I hope everybody heard it.

Schlessinger: They did, and I’ll say it again —

Caller: So what makes it okay for you to say the word?

Schlessinger: And I’ll say it again — nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger is what you hear on HB –

Caller: So what makes it –

Schlessinger: Why don’t you let me finish a sentence?

Caller: okay.

Schlessinger: Don’t take things out of context. Don’t double N — NAACP — me.

I’ve transcribed from a CNN tape posted at Primewriter in a piece by Emma James [2] and will claim fair use, for understanding the character of the discussion, the initiation of the charge of racism, and reading within context fairly requires observation of how the talk really went down.

Schlessinger has apologized to the broadcasting universe, but I’m not sure for what, as the discussion seems to have been about an epithet, not any person, and as for group, the same term has long been incorporated into art (if we care to validate it as such — click on the video “Eminem’s a Bitch” included in the “Other Reference” section below).

This is all just one kike’s opinion, of course.

For the record, rapper M&M’s white, and he’s got a successful song in “Nigga” [3] — and 50 Cent approved [4].

Epithets are not evil in themselves.

Like knives, they’re tools.

In camp, we may use them affectionately (“You old son of a bitch, you”); under pressure and angered, “Why you swine” (or “dirty kaffir Zionazi Yankee pig”); and in combat, well, sticks and stones do break bones, but at that stage, words may be the least of anyone’s problems.

Cited Reference

1. Wikipedia. “Michael Richards”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Richards

2. James, Emma. “Dr. Laura Schlessinger uses the N-word transcript of controversial call on race (video). Primewriter, August 13, 2010: http://primewriter.com/news-1246-headlines/?p=8859

3. Eminem. “Nigga.” Lyrics: http://www.lyricstime.com/eminem-nigga-lyrics.html

4. Youtube poster “maxamillionentco”. “50 Cent Approves of Eminem saying “Nigga.” Posted November 8, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4mu_ip2maw

Other Reference

Garron, Barry. “Dog used the N word? Here’s What to Do.” Past Deadline, November 2, 2007: http://www.pastdeadline.com/michael_richards/

Marikar, Sheila. “Critics: Dr. Laura’s Rant Reiterates N-Word Is Never OK: First Gays, Now Blacks: Anti-Defamation League, Paul Mooney Slam Dr. Laura Schlessinger for N-Word-Laced Rant.” ABC News, August 13, 2010: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/dr-laura-schlessinger-slammed-word-laced-rant/story?id=11394378

The Racial Slur Database: http://www.rsdb.org/

VerBruggen, Robert. “‘Cosmo Kramer’ actor uses racial epithet.” Robert’s Rationale, November 20, 2006: http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com/2006/11/cosmo-kramer-actor-uses-racial-epithet.html

Wikipedia. “Epithet”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithet

Wikipedia. “List of ethnic slurs”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

Youtube poster “mixedfeelins”. “Eminem’s A Bitch.” Posted January 21, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAadjZjk_Tg (love the last spoken words: “Don’t be hatin'”).

Youtube poster “meltdownvideo”. “Kramer Michael Richards Freaking Out Onstage.” Posted April 22, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD9o52U4260

FTAC – Islam – A Voice From Islamabad – “The Question of Dhimmis is Over With”

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

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 . . . as we are advancing towards one Global Humanity in which all religions and faith(s), irrespective need to be respected and respected with the greatest of dignity, therefore, the question of Dhimmis is over with. Islam believes in the equality of one global humanity and not to enslave humanity because of their different religious backgrounds, and faith. Islam protects the weak against the strong, who do not know how to absorb Power and to Practice Power in form of good and credible Justice to be done to humanity, irrespective of their backgrounds in religion and faith. Today’s Muslims or the so called Muslims who have taken Law into their own hands, and violate the law of ONE GOD ALL-MIGHTY of how well to treat ONE GOD’s humans on this earth, are perhaps far and very far from the Principles of Islam. Such violent Muslims, may call themselves Muslims a hundred times, makes no difference, because their hypocrisy has grown so much on them, that they cannot think aright. Their minds have been corrupted to the core and their hearts have been blackened by the demons’ spell, so how can such so called Muslims in name, be the Worshipers’ and followers’ of ONE ALL-MIGHTY GOD, Who, Loves HIS Creation, and then Humans being HIS Most Creative Creation. Islam is Peace, Love for humanity and a crave for Universal Justice among’st all humans.

The bold italics are mine.

The writer is Muslim, vigorously so.

The awesome conversation continues.

______

. . . but I will suggest this much: every human has an interior life, some kind of life of the mind, and the images in that mind float around in there with language. Where there’s abundance and any ability to distribute that, fighting involves something in the head, and we can discern what that is when the head talks and out of its mouth come its attitudes and beliefs, some about the universe, and those entertain us, and some about others, and those words are the ones that may comfort or terrify everyone who hears them.

That voice is my narcissistic own.

🙂

We can experience a great many things in our own heads, but we cannot share them without the creation of sign and symbol, and we do that most often with the words we speak (this not discounting the effects of aural, culinary, and visual fine art).

What we have in our heads too may be put there by language, the “cultural tool”, a powerful one with which each generation of sufficient mien and reach must be careful with in service to themselves and others.

When a Muslim gentleman in Pakistan tells me through the awesome conversation — a term of art on this blog — that “the question of Dhimmis is over with” it is a little like hearing Spielberg’s Lincoln say, “Slavery, Mr. ____, it’s done.”

Of course, it is different when a Lincoln says it, but even from out of the sea of more than a billion voices, the one voice confirms his faith in submission to God but not through himself or others submission to himself or others.

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FTAC – Introducing, Recalling the Ouroboros

10 Thursday Oct 2013

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One appreciates your resolve, would that the instructions, historically enforced, regarding dhimmi status for Jews and Christians were absent from the text. That one element alone lends dignity to the Muslim’s position at the expense of Christians and Jews, not to mention what’s in store for everyone else. It’s a flattering concept; it probably feels large (as in “living large”) but that seems to me a facet of an unbridled and untenable narcissism of a sort to which the world, Muslims first, must respond.

Islam shimmers with this aspect that may embrace and welcome in one part while also reserving to itself the mission to destroy others without restraint. That part today it wishes to cast off, which it must to save itself culturally and socially, but its head meets its tail in this again and again and again across time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

Civilizational narcissism and the Ouroboros would seem thematic kin.

With either, we may drown in our own reflection or, same thing, devour ourselves, such is the nature of all closed ideological and tribal systems.

A good architect would not only design in some path of retreat out of his magnum opus but also a gateway to other gardens and a window to other worlds.

Additional and Cited Reference

Ouroboros – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Force of Reason: Oriana Fallaci: 9780847827534: Amazon.com: Books — This volume starts with an overview of Islamic aggression in Europe.

Running in circles – latimes.com – by Ed Park – 12/2/2007:

In “The Origins and History of Consciousness,” he writes, “It slays, weds, and impregnates itself. It is man and woman, begetting and conceiving, devouring and giving birth, active and passive, above and below, at once.”

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A Long Way to Go! Anti-BDS Video Raps the Earth

07 Monday Oct 2013

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▶ HERE IS ISRAEL – Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser – YouTube

Every complaint listed in the reggae is true but also a little more complex in etiology.

My day started with this on Ayatollah Khamenei’s attitudes toward Jews, Israel, and the west:

“Western countries allow no freedom of expression, which they claim to advocate, with regard to the myth of the massacre of Jews known as the holocaust, and nobody in the West enjoys the freedom of expression to deny it or raise doubts about it.”

What does Iran’s Supreme Leader really think about the Holocaust? – Telegraph Blogs – 10/2/2013.

______

What we perceive as hateful speech, and the Ayatollah’s latest remarks are hateful — what else is new? — but we may also see them as centrally narcissistic.  The politics attending the peacocks of states can and do get quite Out There, but an axis in personality differs from one involving illness: these may have few limits to none in their own domains — I would think Evin Prison a good example of that — but they’re aware of external forces and adjust tactics accordingly.

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FTAC – Good, Evil, Language Metonymy and Social Grammar

04 Friday Oct 2013

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The science experiment preceding the comment involved measurements of attitude affected by first introducing participants to short collections of words that might have an impact on subsequent perception of other subjects.

I thought the science silly, actually, but it lent itself to the kernel, which at this point for me seems iterative.

The “priming” referred to in the article attaches to two fundamental concepts in the cultural perception of good and evil: language metonymy and social grammar. To delve into one may involve dipping into linguistics and poetry and the other wants for focus on the processing of cultural and social signals in infancy’s language acquisition period.

In essence, science still gives us a glimpse of what may be known empirically and religion becomes the mirror of cultural expression, imagination, and invention. “Good”, from such a clinical perspective, becomes what culture and language have become together across time for the set of constituent speakers.

Two enjoyable reference in this area: Daniel Everett’s Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes and Language: The Cultural Tool.

I cannot emphasize the idea too much that a romantic combat signals the poetic arrangement of symbols suspended in language and woven around the fighter’s own self-concept and image.

When one has cause to denote the pen mightier than the sword, doing so recognizes that good and evil, beauty and sophistry, guidance and misguidance involve the speech of either healthy or poisonous tongues and then an accurate or inaccurate assessment of states of affairs.

*

We humans don’t live through our organics: rather, we live with them and at times, this with age especially so, barely tolerate them; where we actually live is within the mouth-ear-mind-heart system that we use to tell ourselves about ourselves and others and the world.

If we’re to find greatness and heroism within ourselves and our ranks, it’s in that vessel woven out of strings of words fashioned like steel; if we’re to be disheartened or humbled, it may be through the deformation or shattering of those same strings, and then perhaps for their being either too rigid to withstand a little pressure or too gimp with receiving a load of confusion to keep their own best form.

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“Another Kind of Islam . . . .”

27 Friday Sep 2013

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Ahmed is convinced that only the Muslims themselves could be the answer to the “Islamists” and that the moderate Muslims must find the resources to counter what she called the “multi-head Medusa.”

“Only if we tell ourselves the truth, that the Islamists are a threat within us, can we confront them. The chasm between Muslims and Islamists is a deep one,” she said.

Israel Hayom | Muslim scholar: ‘I refuse to let Islam fall captive to the Islamists’ – by Reuven Berko, 9/27/2013

Between Islamic Jihad and Western Anti-Jihad, or perhaps better phrased, between the Islamist’s Believers and the More Strident of the Crusader West — that’s got the Kavkaz Center obsession working in it — reside the lives of approximately 1.2 billion persons.

Where the true religion mixes time in a forever present, leaving the virulent segment of believers forever fighting the Battle of the Trench, “another kind of Islam” would seem to want to join with the nations in progress across the many qualities of living.  As sensible as that may seem, as easy as it may be to do — just switch off the “contempt” and “hate” buttons — language-based perception — start with the child’s command of a globally antagonistic and misfitted social grammar; move on to the compression of time integrated with a powerfully romantic and barbaric scripture (for example, reference At-Tawba 29 — the binary or split Jihad/anti-Jihad views of the literature are abundant on the web); and wrap-up with alignment of ahadith, essential hearsay, to suit political interest, and don’t forget to add the black-and-white thinking (acceptable / not acceptable) accompanying it — precludes so convenient an answer.

______

Narrators who took the side of Abu Bakr and Umar rather than Ali, in the disputes over leadership that followed the death of Muhammad, are seen as unreliable by the Shia; narrations sourced to Ali and the family of Muhammad, and to their supporters, are preferred. Sunni scholars put trust in narrators, such as Aisha, whom Shia reject. Differences in hadith collections have contributed to differences in worship practices and shari’a law and have hardened the dividing line between the two traditions.

Hadith – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 9/27/2013.

With Muhammad’s death, apparently, the Religion of Peace seems to have become the Religion of Eternal Conflict, starting with the conflict between the Shiite and Sunni camps in their exercise of a) tribal choice in the b) absence of more clear successionary  instructions.  In the medieval fields of battle in an age much less comprehending of empiricism, enlightened reason (Shakespeare’s contribution to a pagan humanism that he would weave within and around the separate character of the Church — or ever mindful of it — more than 700 years later), it would be said that “God decides” even though what “decided” then (as now) would have been diplomacy, energy (brought to bear in battle), strategy, and steel.

The Jews have had issues with language too, but where the Torah teases minds into arguments — what is the meaning of an action, a passage, a moment? — injunctions to act as programmed in the adoption of attitudes and beliefs about others and with reference primarily to one’s own grandiose image as licensed to subjugate whole populations, a thing well demonstrated by either the invention or favored adoption of the Banu Quarayza legend, that behavior as primarily language behavior has and indeed has had other effects.

* * *

For Muslim readers, perhaps the toughest chapters deal with Muhammad’s slaughter of the Banu Qurayza. Fatah denounces the story as invented by influential scholar Ibn Ishaq nearly 100 years after the Prophet’s death. No archeological evidence supports it. No Jewish text corroborates it. Yet the story forms part of Islam’s Hadith literature and the Sira, the biography of the Prophet, and has come to be regarded as divine truth, Fatah says.

The problem, the author says, is that Islam lacks a tradition of questioning religious texts. So far, no Toronto imam has joined him to reject the Banu Qurayza story. So far, no mosque has invited him to speak.

The Jew Is Not My Enemy: Tarek Fatah | Toronto Star – by John Goddard, 11/19/2010

More than merely modernity or opportunity, the “humanity of humanity” — there will be a page on that here — has long tempered Islam in its treatment of Jews, albeit capriciously, much in line with the fate of the Jews left exposed to the will of more powerful others whenever and wherever Jews have been in the minority position, and that from Roman times to this day.

As with the quintessential Jewish desire to band in the desert — in human evolutionary reality, who were those people who first gathered together and determined a good way, their way, and way of life that would leave dictators to their fates — or, as with Haman, defeat them? — Islamic humanism and humanists seem to me a more natural course for Muslims than that conceived, promoted, and disciplined by the God Mob even though their stripe seems to have been there at the beginning.

There may be in the above thought a patently Jewish perspective, but a glance at Islam’s more beneficent and merciful humans, certainly more so than the miscreants often mentioned on this blog, tells of something deeply universal operating across cultures and languages as one slips into the modernity of any epoch:  Eman Fahad Al Nafjan, Irshad Manji, M. Zuhdi Jasser, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Mudar Zahran, Qanta Ahmed, Tarek Fatah have each taken firm stances against “Islamist” drift while deeply acknowledging or affirming their relationship with Islam.  With such good people and scholars, every one of them, one wants to know whether theirs collectively will become the voice of a powerful Muslim “silent majority” — I don’t think they are that today in the world’s Muslim-majority states — rather than the expression of a highly educated, intellectual, western-oriented elite, which (look ’em up on YouTube) is how some may be played by the more Brotherhoodly among zealous coreligionists.

______

It’s hard to look into the heart except through the mouth using for an instrument one’s ears.

Those I’ve named speak bravely, consistently, reliably and seem ever good voices and great souls.

They are influential in our global online village, and they’re not in the least alone — the fan base is pretty good, but perhaps its development may be likened to depositing vaporized precious metal on a suitable substrate — it takes a little bit of time and repetition to get from that process something solid and strong.

For the time being, I suspect the English speaking and Express Tribune reading Muslim complement to a still emerging global intelligentsia — we have each shared with the other a hearty “welcome aboard!” although aboard what may remain in contention — indeed comprises but a thin layer and kind in the amalgam of the earth-wide communicating whole.

Will Islamic humanism and humanists contain what needs to be contained?

Tune in (after the Sabbath).

Additional Reference

VCU Menorah Review, “An Open Letter to Tarek Fatah” by Richard Sherwin, Winter/Spring 2012.

The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism: Tarek Fatah: 9780771047848: Amazon.com: Books (2011)

Maimonides – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 9/27/2013:

During the reign of the Almoravids, the position of the Jews was free of significant abuses,[14] but after another Berber dynasty, the Almohads, conquered Córdoba in 1148, they abolished the dhimma status (i.e. state protection of life and wealth) in some of their territories. The loss of this protected status threatened the Jewish and Christian communities with conversion to Islam, death, or exile.[13]

Maimonides fled to Egypt and became the personal physician to the Kurdish general and sultan Saladin and his family.

Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 9/27/2013:

The coexistence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians during this time is revered by many writers. Al-Andalus was a key center of Jewish life during the early Middle Ages, producing important scholars and one of the most stable and wealthy Jewish communities and a relatively educated society for the Muslim occupiers and their Jewish collaborators, as well as some Christians who openly collaborated with the Muslims and Jews. María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at Yale University claims that “Tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society”.[1]

Islamic Humanism – Lenn E. Goodman – Oxford University Press

Islam And Terrorism: A Humanist View, by David Schafer, May/June 2002

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A Short Note – The American Anti-Jihad and CAIR

24 Tuesday Sep 2013

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Without political agenda and related reportage, probably half of Washington, D.C.’s offices would be empty.

Perhaps.

🙂

What one may have in addition to motives, including patronage from parties that have literally earned the right to pay for influence in no way different from any other political or industrial interest, are the ways and the means.

For the most part, in fact, as much should be expected and welcomed within the framework of debatable ideas and policies.

The democratic open societies prize tough cultural and legislative debates.

However that may be, in addition to tough battles driven by tough questions entertained in open forums, two dimensions in modern life would seem to bear down on Jihad / anti-Jihad tensions:

1) democratic and humanist values and virtues;

2) empirical methods and practices in debate and research.

Out of that intersection may come the observation of “Fair Play” vs “Mafia Tactics” — and fair play, from Pharaoh’s day to this one, is all that all of the the fighting is about from the western values side.

On the other side are myriad sides reflecting both the want of power as well as the lust for power, all of it fractured in expression but all of it also about control, dominance, greed, and sadism: to put the fine point on it, power over others out to the limits of human comprehension and, for those who lose themselves and their humanity in bullying, theft, and mass murder, beyond.

The God Mob, however or wherever it may appear, and from whatever religion it may appear — this is not about Islam only: it’s about what I’m going to call “the humanity of humanity” and the part of it that loses the same or casts it away — needs to be recognized as an established element in some places (“You’re with us, right?” — God forbid one answers the wrong way on that one, for the consequences start with general diminishment, move on to ostracism, and end with death) and as an invasive one in others.

The catch-all signals:

  • bribery where the target’s opposed, patronage for the zealot on the right side of the dispensing hand;
  • intimidation — like former Egyptian President Morsi’s showing off Mubarak’s torture chambers and then putting them back to use! — that ramps up for the target from intimations to annoyances to threats to violent small crimes to larger ones;
  • including murder.

Along the way, one might remind too that as innocuous a thing as flattery never serves the listener although in very small confines and doses the same may keep the peace between boy and girl.

______

Hide something.

Get something.

*

In the Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy psychology that would port clinical narcissism into cultural, political, and social space, the deep manipulation of others in service to the demands for “narcissistic supply” have play.  Contempt for others, cynicism, deceptions and lies, malevolent suggestions, “gaslighting” all become part of the repertoire in behavior and method within and around the narcissist’s sphere of power.  To cover with a scrim of feigned concern, trustworthy generic comments on many things might work, for a malignant narcissist is not genuinely “in it with the people” or concerned with the constituents but with their own image and associated power.

More genuinely operating may be the “behind the curtains” machinations to arrange things.

That is the land of winks and nods, of under-the-table deals, of the word or two that changes slightly, deviously, a cultural or political landscape.

The world of pleasant surfaces and pleasing reflections belying another of backroom agreements with convoluted and obscured traces is not a good world.

Some among the paranoid would find their way to discovering that world in the most open and transparent of environments, and theirs is another lot, but even the most well grounded of souls might be brought to an abyss where surface separates from underlying forces and some things terribly wrong become visible while leaving much yet to the imagination.

_____

CAIR’s public mission is legitimate, and in public it will win some points within American jurisprudence and policy making and lose some too.

What seems to concern the anti-Jihad and so-called “Islamophobe” community, and will for some time to come, is the assembly of private missions and motivational drivers, many of which would seem at least mysterious, nefarious, or seditious in intents, and it is that part that calls for the slow peeling of the layers of the onion.

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ISW – US Domestic – CAIR’s Cares

24 Tuesday Sep 2013

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American-based groups promoting an anti-Muslim worldview took in more than $119 million in revenue between 2008 and 2011, a new report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations has found.

Anti-Muslim groups in the US raised $119 million between 2008 and 2011, report finds – NY Daily News by David Knowles, 9/19/2013

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conceals donations from overseas through a series of shell organizations, according to documents from court actions involving the Muslim advocacy group.

Since its founding in 1994, CAIR has presented itself to American Muslims and the media as a single organization centered on American concerns. But it shows a different face to the IRS, with multiple corporate entities that conceal the large financial donations that come to CAIR from Middle East sources.

CAIR gets millions from foreigners in non-profit shell game | The Daily Caller 9/21/2013

Related: CAIR’s Irony Deficit :: The Investigative Project on Terrorism 9/23/2013

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Remember: lies are told for only two reasons: to hide something; to get something.

“Trust me,” says the big brother, and fearing him, one might; however, with “big brothers” and others, it may be better to know what they’re about than to pin fate on loyalty and the business of being liked, favored, allowed to live, etc. by a perceived greater power.

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After three years of litigation in federal court in Washington, D.C., AFLC has uncovered facts demonstrating that CAIR has been running a global criminal money laundering operation out of the nation’s capitol. The scheme was discovered in the course of legal discovery in two separate federal lawsuits arising out of allegations by five of CAIR’s former clients that CAIR defrauded them by failing to provide the legal services they had been promised.

CAIR — the Largest Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas Front Group in America — is Running a Money Laundering Operation | Blog – American Freedom Law Center 9/20/2013

I owe absolutely no allegiance to either the American Freedom Law Center or CAIR — or anyone else cited in this blog — but some I trust more than others on the basis of other than affiliation, affinity, identity, or loyalty.

I trust on the basis of the shared ethical and spiritual investment in the nobility of certain values and virtues, integrity first and foremost among them.  This is religion-as-way and if the way is good, the good way may be more universal than specifically affiliated, cultural, or tribal, the appreciation I’ve developed for reform Judaism’s ethos notwithstanding as I have seen the same shared in others carrying within them other cultural legacies and traditions.

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Who speaks straight across contexts?

Whose claims may be investigated, reviewed, studied and whose methods and findings may be recapitulated?

Who says one thing one day and changes it the next?

Who has to change their name to hide their reputation?

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If the reader is of another sort — “my flag vs your flag” in most manners of thinking — this division between the perception of an objective reality that may be investigated and a subjective desire that must be defended and hidden (remember!) becomes cause for fretting and tension.

How must it feel to feel clever?

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Relatives, friends and neighbors of a Minneapolis teen killed in Somalia pressed their argument Thursday that a Muslim civil rights group is hampering a federal investigation into the disappearances of dozens of Twin Cities Somali men.

Somalis take to the street to protest group’s actions | Star Tribune by Allie Shah and James Walsh, 6/12/2009

The group of interest: CAIR.

Perhaps an enemy is not one who tell you that you may be on a wrong track: it is one who says that you are right on the wrong track.

Enter the most cogent and wonderful of fairy tales: “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

Autocrats and dictators, their handlers and sycophants indeed lie to get something: power — and, specifically, power over others: to sell them clothes that don’t exist (we focus more on the emperor in the tale than the evil tailors, but without the tailors . . . read on) for the sake of glorious claims that have no substance — or good substance — either.

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CAIR has attempted to create many misconceptions about ALAC legislation which require correction and clarification.

For instance, CAIR suggests that the purpose of ALAC legislation is to target religious practices. This accusation is baseless.

Center for Security Policy | CAIR Targets Constitutional Rights in North Carolina 7/30/2013

To hide something; to get something.

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In recognition that the United States Constitution and the Constitution of North Carolina constitute the supreme law of this State, the General Assembly hereby declares it to be the public policy of this State to protect its citizens from the application of foreign law that would result in the violation of a fundamental constitutional right of a natural person. The public policies expressed in this section shall apply only to actual or foreseeable violations of a fundamental constitutional right resulting from the application of the foreign law.

www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H522v5.pdf

Enacted on Friday, July 19, 2013, the bill frequently characterized as “anti-sharia” — that shorthand for practiced Islamic doctrine and code associated with, say, for example, Saudi Arabia — more readily defends the Federal and North Carolina state constitutions and their laying out of quintessential American rights.

The American “anti-Jihad” as one might call those aligned against CAIR and whom CAIR would seem to attempt to bite back has been all over the above legislation.  In fact, it took me a few minutes to peg “North Carolina House Bill 522” because web searching, say, “American law ALAC initiatives” would seem to lay bare a fair portion of the community without pointing toward the above noted PDF!

Acronym ALAC (for any foreign readers of BackChannels) stands for “American Laws for American Courts”.

Additional Reference

Muslims name 37 groups that fuel Islamophobia – The Washington Post by Katherine Burgess, 9/19/2013

RALEIGH: NC Senate passes ‘Sharia law’ bill | State Politics | NewsObserver.com by Annalise Frank, 7/19/2013

Legislation Is Not Anti-Shariah by Frank Gaffney and Brigitte Gabriel, 4/10/2012

Anti-Muslim groups in the US raised $119 million between 2008 and 2011 – CAIR 9/20/2013

CAIR, LAS-ELC Announce Settlement in Abercrombie & Fitch Hijab Lawsuits – CAIR 9/23/2013.  Excerpt:

“It has been a long three years, but the resolution we obtained made every step worth it,” said Hani Khan, who spoke at this morning’s press conference. “I am hopeful that my struggle and this victory will ensure that what happened to me at Abercrombie never happens to any other employees there. All Americans have the right to religious accommodation in the workplace, and we must challenge discrimination when it happens.”

Hani Khan may now wear her hijab at Abercrombie & Fitch, essentially nullifying the retailer’s instructions on employee dress.

Related: Abercrombie & Fitch pays out $71,000 to settle lawsuits over hijabs | World news | theguardian.com 9/24/2013

Oddly, perhaps, North Carolinians would find the ruling ALAC compliant, although, perhaps, it might violate the retailer’s control of its fashion expression.

On the other hand, perhaps (and, perhaps, I have developed a “perhaps” verbal tic), the A&F look — “Authentic American clothing since 1892” shouts its slogan on the web search listings — has just gotten an upgrade.

Abercrombie & Fitch revises ‘look policy’ in settling Foster City woman’s lawsuit – San Jose Mercury News by Aaron Kinney, 9/23/2013.

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