ISIS!

[chenGOD]

And my question to you Lane is: what good does describing them as "Islamic extremists" do? Policy makers are not combating them on theological grounds. They are terrorists. Combat them on those grounds - that is, the desire for control and power.

[goDel]

Again, it is just a label. In what way would it help if politicians start using that term as well? Other than comforting your sense of "truth and logic".

 

Example: lets say you're a politician and you're asked to write some proposals for new laws/policies which should deal with "radical islam"/"terrorism"/ or whatever kind of label you'd prefer.

 

I'm sure I don't have to explain that the used language is really important. If you'd write proposals specifically aimed at "radical islamism" you immediately leave out any other kind of extremism. Making your proposals useless outside of the specific instances it aims at. So in practice, it could be useful to prefer a more general term over a more specific one. Regardless of whether the specific term is "right" in the academic sense, or the moral sense even (thinking about trumps remark of stopping muslims from entering the us).

 

Whenever you hear politicians debating about language, there are often two things important: what would the language mean/imply in a legal context; and could it have certain political repercussions (think about international relationships, for instance)?

[Lane Visitor]

And my question to you Lane is: what good does describing them as "Islamic extremists" do? Policy makers are not combating them on theological grounds. They are terrorists. Combat them on those grounds - that is, the desire for control and power.

 

Several things here.. First, linguistics and etymology can only go so far to combat global issues. At the end of the day, policies and decision-making is what creates solutions.

 

Second, you're assuming that removing the concept and wording of Islam entirely from Islamic extremist movements and discussion of terrorism is somehow going to help solve the issue at large. If you're going to ignore that there's some kind of relationship between political Islam and Islamic terrorist movements, you're putting your head in the sand. You're telling me that it's just purely mental illness and there's no connection between for example, the religious conservatism of Sharia-law run nations and radicalization that breeds terrorism?

 

* waits for "it's the US that creates terrorists" *

[goDel]

You're question is aimed at chen, but it's to easy to not answer myself.

 

The simple answer is that your assumption that leaving out references to islam is equal to completely ignoring the relationship between certain kinds or terrorism/extremism/radicalism and islam, is false. Dealing with "terrorism" instead of "radical islam" in no way implies ignoring any relationship with islam. I'd argue that the pros of dropping the explicit "islam" thing is that you broaden the entire discussion up, instead of narrowing it down to just one kind of religion. I don't think you'd argue that religion is the only factor that's of real importance here, right?

[Lane Visitor]

 

I don't think you'd argue that religion is the only factor that's of real importance here, right?

 

It's clearly not the only imo, but it's radicals who use religion/philosophy and use the particular religion of Islam in an extreme form, so by that very nature it's connected to the religion. Even many clerics around the world agree that it's a problem that needs to be addressed and battled from within the mosques, and to preach tolerance and condemn terror.

[goDel]

I don't think those clerics will make much difference at this point though. But I'm getting a sense that you're sticking to your guns, so there's no point in discussing this any further.

 

I mean, "I'm not really arguing anything" is really another way of saying we're wasting our time, isn't it?

[Lane Visitor]

You're question is aimed at chen, but it's to easy to not answer myself.

 

The simple answer is that your assumption that leaving out references to islam is equal to completely ignoring the relationship between certain kinds or terrorism/extremism/radicalism and islam, is false.

 

I actually agree with you here.. but I think that there are many people who would use the lack of reference as a way to make a case that it has nothing to do with religion, which muddles the issue even further.

[goDel]

If we would put anyone in jail for making faulty/imperfect/wrong arguments, I don't think there's going to be many people outside of prison. Apart from some individuals with an IQ below 60 who'd make no arguments at all, perhaps.

[goDel]

edit: the only place where the issue shouldn't be muddled, is the place where policies are being made to deal with the issue. Normally, your neighbour having some bullshit argument has close to zero impact on the political level.

 

If there's some issue on the political level, discuss that. Discussing against any nonsense argument you can find in the street is a waste of time.

[chenGOD]

I've explicitly stated what it is I believe they want - power and control. There is no connection between political Islam and ISIS. Other terrorist organizations yes, sure (Hezbollah springs to mind), but that's just politics as usual - western governments fund shady organizations all the time to achieve geopolitical goals. And note that those organizations were not referred to as Islamic extremists - they were called terrorists.

Mental illness has nothing to do with this, and attempting to characterize this as such is both insulting to people with actual mental illness, and discrediting the ability of ISIS. Very similar to how people wanted to declare Kim Jeong Il crazy.

Trying to approach this problem from the idea of changing the religious mindset is a huge waste of time and resources. Further, putting it under the blanket of Islamic fundamentalism hinders operations and creates a mindset of "us vs them", which is also hugely damaging in trying to use Islamic allies to combat ISIS.

 

I'm not bothering anymore, you clearly want to tie in "muslims" as some form of scary bogeyman.

[Lane Visitor]

there's no connections with religion, im just trying to create a boogeyman by bringing it up. got it.

 

Interesting how you have no problem referring to them as ISIS (which uses I and S for Islamic State) you should just use Daesh since you don't ever want to tie the word Islam/Muslim next to anything remotely negative.

[goDel]

o wow, sometimes i get the impression chen is an even bigger grumpy old fart than me.

;P

[cwmbrancity]

 

And my question to you Lane is: what good does describing them as "Islamic extremists" do? Policy makers are not combating them on theological grounds. They are terrorists. Combat them on those grounds - that is, the desire for control and power.

 

Several things here.. First, linguistics and etymology can only go so far to combat global issues.

 

 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=-pHOU8n5Bc_H8ge1xoJA#safe=off&q=george+orwell+politics+and+the+english+language

 

 

(enters escape pod)

 

 

i get a genuine sense of your disgust & frustration at what you see unfolding among your fellow humans, Lane.

 

if it helped, maybe an international aid organization should receive a cv or 2? You CAN make a difference somewhere.

 

if yer anywhere between 25-35 (?) then you've seen how fucked up things can get, post 9/11, but its been much much worse b4 this (i know thats hard to accept), but Northern Ireland seemed like the least likely region to find peace, and yet, while its still "simmering" and deeply factional, its slowly recovering. Despite centuries of trauma.

 

so if you think its hopeless at any point, with us stoned apes throwing our shit at each other (as we tend to do as corporations, nation states, religions & so forth), things can get better with a great deal of human effort & time. Although with this latest epic-fail in the Middle-East, it would make anyone question or wonder "wtFUCK?".

[cwmbrancity]

its page 23, quick, b4 superfluous intersections cross-contaminate this much heralded confirmation bias

[Lane Visitor]

More knee jerk relativism brought up when we discuss the phrase Islamic extremism.. Got it.

 

I'm glad to discuss humanity on a more abstract and timeless level if you'd like (in fact I love that topic), and we'd prob both agree on many things such as how the Islamic civilization is the youngest of the 3 major religions and so a lot of the Middle East is still in the process of their reformation/enlightenment age in terms of liberalism, so it actually makes sense that religion & state are merged and things like strict Sharia still rules in many areas, just every other civilization went through its dark ages. This, for me, is common sense. I'm also glad to repeat the catch phrase/ mantra / disclaimer that the West's early settlers, the early Catholic Church and many colonies through out time were just as barbaric. No disagreement there either.

 

But because this thread is about ISIS / atrocities in the name of their religion that's happening right now and today/tomorrow, then yes it is appropriate for someone to bring up current events that are associated with the topic and it warrants digust.

 

As far as my fellow humans, my fellow humans that are not religious fundamentalists are mostly peaceful people, so I don't know what you're going off about, and would be sad to learn that the current event's atrocities don't evoke some kind of disgust from you.

 

Reminder: This is a thread about ISIS, a terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State that wants to create an Islamic caliphate across the globe, so excuse me if that's what I'm discussing in here. Feel free to make a thread about "Atrocities All Around The World From The Beginning Of Time" thread if you want to go this far off topic.

[cwmbrancity]

More knee jerk relativism brought up when we discuss the phrase Islamic extremism.. Got it.

 

 

 

As far as my fellow humans, my fellow humans that are not religious fundamentalists are mostly peaceful people, so I don't know what you're going off about, and would be sad to learn that the current event's atrocities don't evoke some kind of disgust from you.

 

 

 

 

twas mentioned in neutral tones and about disgust at the current situation re-IS, with a pick-me-up kicker for how conflicts based on deeply ingrained religious views can be resolved (if only partially with the case of the 6-Counties in Eire)

 

if thats relativism and thus irrelevant, then i can relate

 

as i said b4, i'm not out to bait you and think if you could convert some of this energy into alternative sources of output you could achieve a lot helping the real victims of this current pestilence, lord knows i've wrestled with this more and more recently but being in calipers and waiting on more NHS-trauma treatment has held me back personally

 

the 23 bollix was just for the lols, cos i love the universe/world that William Burroughs mapped out

[YO303]

What scares me about this whole thing is how easy it is to trick people to commit atrocities, you can just go up to an orphan teen and recite him couple of passages from the quran tel him how everyone on the west killed his family and this orphan teen will blow up himself for god or whatever fucking stupid lame ass shit they call religious war.

 

(kind of how the bush admin used 9/11 to "inspire young people" to join the army and fight cause GOD told pres bush this is the rightful path)

[cwmbrancity]

all too true, me deery, the child that fathers the man

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

Anyone have any thoughts on the fact that terrorism is an ism? Divergent thinking may be necessary for progress, but a high degree of fragmentation can mean it is difficult to create messages that resonate with a majority. So those most willing explore divergent ideas exhibit a propensity for the extreme, yet most would never endorse symbolic killing and destruction. So in this way, terrorism acts as a kind of one-upmanship of isms, from which reasonable people with difficult ideas recoil back into the main blob of humanity.

[goDel]

I'm not too fond of treating ISIS under a flag of terrorism, or just another ism. Perhaps it's a useful idea in an academic context, but in practice it's more useful to understand the specific context in which this behaviour has grown. There might be some overlap between say ISIS and the IRA, but I don't have the impression that the similarities are bigger than the differences. In the case of solving the ISIS thing I believe there are too many things which are uniquely to this specific context that using some generic "ism" template wouldn't present effective solutions.

[cwmbrancity]

Personally, growing up around The Troubles, there were moments that transform you through their sheer intensity of violence.

 

Some were more immediate than others and violence can catch us all unawares, random acts across time. Its only through accidents of birth whether you ever avoid them directly or not.

 

A few specifics stand out....... being stopped by 2-Para at a British Army checkpoint coming home from my grandparents aged about 5-6yrs old. I remember it going from 0-60mph in milli-seconds b4 those scarlet Berets filled in both my uncles pretty mercilessly with rifle butts until they were unconscious, then when they heard my accent panicked and drove me all the way to Belfast because they thought i'd been kidnapped. From another perspective and later on, seeing the Michael Stone attack on an IRA funeral in Belfast and then the retribution by kidnapping (and by inference killing) of 2 plain clothes British Army personnel who strayed into a full blown IRA funeral cortege in '88. Others seem even more visceral - the Hyde & Regent's Parks bombings for example, bodies and the remains of horses strewn across elegant parks. Horse Rotorvator in full effect and 1 of the main reasons i started listening to Psychic TV & Coil.

 

That leaves an impression on you, the psychology of terror and thats where the comparisons seem most relevant. Maybe certain killing techniques are different comparing The Troubles & IS (there was no social media and killings were never "broadcast"), they offer v different ideologies and worldviews, but you have to remember proven & deeply embedded British state police collusion with (so-called) Loyalist/Unionist movements, the terror of mass IRA bombings across Britain that were common here not so long ago, so you could walk into a pub in London or Manchester and never really know the degree of threat.

 

Whose faith was more pure, whose ultra-violence more savage? Those of the Republicans or Unionists?

 

Men of blood are men of blood, from whatever era, because what binds them is the damage they accrue, the causes often left for bribes (see some of those olde IRA families from S Armagh on my own doorstep who now drive round in fat 4x4's paid for by Tony B.Liar, shopping in Sainsburys in Newry, all v respectable now of course).

 

Only by family moving away & a shared heritage did it seem to seep away, v slowly of course, but how many are left forever haunted?

 

Fast forward a decade and 9/11, with countless centuries of blood drawn previously between so-called civilizations, another cycle winding up in intensity.

 

The equivalents arent maybe as direct when you compare how deeply parts of Syria & Iraq have been laid waste, but this is where agriculture was invented which transformed us all around 10,000BC, a blink of the eye in cosmic terms.

 

Wont repost in this thread again as it seems almost as depressing as the situation unfolding around the southern Mediterranean now, but Seamus Heaney says it best in his poem "Casualty":

 

 

Casualty

By Seamus Heaney

I

He would drink by himself

And raise a weathered thumb

Towards the high shelf,

Calling another rum

And blackcurrant, without

Having to raise his voice,

Or order a quick stout

By a lifting of the eyes

And a discreet dumb-show

Of pulling off the top;

At closing time would go

In waders and peaked cap

Into the showery dark,

A dole-kept breadwinner

But a natural for work.

I loved his whole manner,

Sure-footed but too sly,

His deadpan sidling tact,

His fisherman’s quick eye

And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible

To him, my other life.

Sometimes, on the high stool,

Too busy with his knife

At a tobacco plug

And not meeting my eye,

In the pause after a slug

He mentioned poetry.

We would be on our own

And, always politic

And shy of condescension,

I would manage by some trick

To switch the talk to eels

Or lore of the horse and cart

Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art

His turned back watches too:

He was blown to bits

Out drinking in a curfew

Others obeyed, three nights

After they shot dead

The thirteen men in Derry.

PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,

BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday

Everyone held

His breath and trembled.

II

It was a day of cold

Raw silence, wind-blown

surplice and soutane:

Rained-on, flower-laden

Coffin after coffin

Seemed to float from the door

Of the packed cathedral

Like blossoms on slow water.

The common funeral

Unrolled its swaddling band,

Lapping, tightening

Till we were braced and bound

Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held

At home by his own crowd

Whatever threats were phoned,

Whatever black flags waved.

I see him as he turned

In that bombed offending place,

Remorse fused with terror

In his still knowable face,

His cornered outfaced stare

Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away

For he drank like a fish

Nightly, naturally

Swimming towards the lure

Of warm lit-up places,

The blurred mesh and murmur

Drifting among glasses

In the gregarious smoke.

How culpable was he

That last night when he broke

Our tribe’s complicity?

‘Now, you’re supposed to be

An educated man,’

I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me

The right answer to that one.’

III

I missed his funeral,

Those quiet walkers

And sideways talkers

Shoaling out of his lane

To the respectable

Purring of the hearse...

They move in equal pace

With the habitual

Slow consolation

Of a dawdling engine,

The line lifted, hand

Over fist, cold sunshine

On the water, the land

Banked under fog: that morning

I was taken in his boat,

The Screw purling, turning

Indolent fathoms white,

I tasted freedom with him.

To get out early, haul

Steadily off the bottom,

Dispraise the catch, and smile

As you find a rhythm

Working you, slow mile by mile,

Into your proper haunt

Somewhere, well out, beyond...

Dawn-sniffing revenant,

Plodder through midnight rain,

Question me again.

[cwmbrancity]

spooky, watching The Revenant tonight too, ever more intersections

[LimpyLoo]

Alright so, I'd like to address a few recent points (while simultaneously trying to be thoughtful yet unambiguous) about Islamic Terrorism:

 

1) First, let's spell out the usual Red Herrings:

 

-Christians do it too

-the US Gov't is just as bad

-you must not know any Muslims

 

For the sake of argument, let's all just concede these points so we can move on

 

2) let's address the "this has nothing to do with Islam" claim

 

Here are some facts:

 

A) the most basic goal in Islam is to follow the example of Muhammad

(This is completely uncontroversial)

 

B) Muhammad took sex slaves* and beheaded people

(*the most charitable reading would be that he took slaves, then had sex with them...I'll leave it up to the reader to determine whether a slave is capable of giving genuine consent to sex)

 

C) when Muslims *actually* follow the example of Muhammad, taking sex slaves and beheading people, civilization is (rightly) horrified

 

D) the Left claims "this has nothing to do with Islam"

Or the No-True-Scotsman gambit of "they aren't Muslims"

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Muhammad#Points_of_contention

 

Muslims are fellow human beings

They deserve all the rights and freedoms everyone else does

But they don't have the right to have their beliefs shielded from mockery and criticism

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my pee-pee using poo-poo

[LimpyLoo]

So my plea to Islam is this:

 

You *really* want to see people follow the example of Muhammad?

Careful what you wish for

 

 

Sent from my pee-pee using poo-poo

[usagi]

whatever. can you and Lane and whoever else petition Joyrex for your own circlejerk subforum where you can talk about this all day, because I'm pretty sure everyone else is tired of seeing these threads get bumped by your posts.