Extremist Cubs fans kill 12 (not really)

[Cartoonist]

Fundamentalist Garden Club members kill 9
Panhandlers go on killing spree

Just three headlines you never see.
I am sick and disgusted by those apologists for religion who try to blame this shit on other causes. They claim there are many factors at work here and that religion is only a teeny tiny part of it. Equally reprehensible are those who say not all religious people are like that. Who said they were? Not every smoker gets cancer, but when they do, no one blames the Jello they had for desert.

[RussBLib]

1. desperate gasps in the throes of death

The # of those affiliated with no religion will continue to rise, even in far-flung places like Egypt and Indonesia.

[Cartoonist]

2. As long as it's not a pendulum

where after a few centuries of sensibility, religion comes up with a new Prophet who plunges the planet into a new dark age.

[trotsky]

3. Yes of course, if it wasn't religion it would be chess clubs!

[mr blur]

4. Yeah, but they're not "true" Cubs fans! (nt)

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Great analogy.

For some reason, the smoker analogy tickled my funny bone. I think it is the sheer truth of it.

[Exultant Democracy]

6. I an analogy like the September massacre would illuminate far more...

Last edited Mon Jan 12, 2015, 10:55 PM - Edit history (1)

While religion is a major factor we can not ignore the impact that western imperialism has had on Islam. Economic and political oppression lead to violence even in the absence of religion. In this situation they are also major causative factors in the current relationship that should not be ignored.

[Cartoonist]

8. No! Fuck that shit about western imperialism.

The west sends the arab world billions for their oil. Whose fault is it that the peoiple go hungry? Whose fault is it that the people are oppressed? Ask the local Imam.

The ones they should be rising up against are their leaders, both tribal and religious.

[Exultant Democracy]

9. Your contention is that history has no bearing on the current circumstances?

As if the Arab world exists in a vacuum where the most defining aspects of modernity managed not to have any effect on their development?

The arrogance in your statement is astounding since you clearly have clue as to what the west has actually been up to in the region for the last two-three hundred years. It isn't like it is all ancient history we have been deposing progressive democratic governments and propping up totalitarian monsters in very recent history. Not just here or there but as a rule across the entire region.

Shit we made Osama bin Laden as a weapon against Russia, do you really not understand what we have done there? Radical Islam can only be understood in it's proper context as a reaction against western imperialism.

[Cartoonist]

10. I know all that shit

I saw Lawrence of Arabia.

To be serious, yes, the USA and the west have strutted around imposing their will and screwing up things all over the world. The true victims of our imperialism is Central and South America, and Hawaii, and the Phillipines. While we've meddled in the Middle East in an attempt to control the oil fields, the truth is, it is the Saudis that call the tune. And they dance to the Imams. The king gets all the money and the Imams get all the power. The USA is not the enemy of the Arab people, their own leaders are.

[Exultant Democracy]

11. Who do you think keeps the Saudis in power. The west sells them their tools of coercion.

We build design and sell them the systems they use to spy on their people. System that would be against the law in every western democracy. So we sell them the ability to find any dissidents and the weapons to kill them once they do. How are we not to blame for the behavior of the Saudi regime we have propped up?

In terms of recent history the current Iranian government is a direct result of an American led coup that disposed a progressive democratic government, this isn't Lawerence of Arabia cowboy this is a few decades ago. Do you think we do not have any blame in Iran either? What about the fact that we train armed and financed Osama Bin Laden as a weapon against the Russians in Afghanistan, this is all shit that just happened from a historical perspective.

"The true victims of our imperialism is Central and South America, and Hawaii, and the Phillipines." Are you forgetting to add the sarcasm tag this is an absurd statement by any measure this discussion not withstanding. Western imperialism reached everywhere, and the sun never set on the atrocities committed by Western Imperialist powers.

[Cartoonist]

13. 1st, let me apologize for my attitude.

I have anger issues that cause heated outbursts.

At the end of Lawrence of Arabia, the Arabs were unable to rach any kind of accord. This holds true to today. Their tribal animocities are the root of their problems. When Churchill drew his boundaries, the Arabs could have told him to stuff it and draw their own. They still can, but don't hold your breath waiting.

My main point is that the people of the middle east are their own worst enemy. It is their rulers that keep them in poverty, not the USA. It is their religious leaders that oppress them, not the USA. We just stir the shit up, but the problems are already there.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. This topic is too complex to speak of so generically.

In terms of recent history the current Iranian government is a direct result of an American led coup that disposed a progressive democratic government

The United States and Great Britain helped to overthrow Mossadegh and reinstall the Pahlavi regime as a puppet government in Iran. While that may have directly caused the Iranian Revolution, it did not directly cause the ascendency of Khomeini's Islamists over competing, secular revolutionary groups. The only people responsible for the Ayatollahs taking control of the Iranian government are the Ayatollahs themselves, who, once Pahlavi had been ousted, engaged in a brutal campaign of suppression against their political "enemies".

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is a completely different situation.

There, political authority is shared between House Saud and Wahhabi clerics. The region's turmoil largely stems from Western interest in the region's oil fields, but has more to do with a clash of cultures than exploitation of natural resources. The Clerics were never pleased by the presence of westerners in their lands, much less the cultural goods these westerners brought with them. For the past half a century, the clerics have been spouting off about the corrupting influence of western culture in the land that houses the two holiest sites in all Islam. The royals, therefore, are not so much hated because of their wealth or political power, but because they are seen as having been corrupted by the west.

They drive fancy cars. They wear revealing clothing. They are educated in the United States and Europe. They vacation on the French Riviera. They drink.

House Saud is a problem, no doubt, but it is far from being the only problem endearing the Saudis to extreme interpretations of Islam. The clerics are a major influence, and held power in the region long before the west ever took an interest in it.

We are certainly part of the problem--if not a BIG part of the problem--but people take this to mean that the United States is chiefly responsible for the emergence of fundamentalist Islam... that if we left the region in peace, everything would be lollipops and rainbows. The reality of the matter is we're just throwing gasoline on a fire that's been burning for over a thousand years. If stop throwing gas on the fire, it might not burn as brightly... but it'll still be there.

[Exultant Democracy]

16. Wrong, American intervention lead directly to the ascendency of the Ayatollahs

Jimmy Carters famous speech in Iran was the flashpoint that incited the leftest into open protest against the Pahlavi regime. The Carter speech basically told the progressive left in Iran that the US would intervene to protect them if they fought for Democratic reform.

The Left and what was left of the Mosaddeq supporters stuck their neck out and they were put down with bloody efficiency when the US was no where to be found. Then the Islamic Fundamentalist were the only organized force left in opposition to the regime when the outrage over the executions of the leftest student leaders pushed the population into open rebellion.

On the Sunni side of the world I think you are vastly underestimating the effect of western imperialism on the development of the relatively modern school of Wahhabism. While the Muslim world was more or less in control of everything there were very much schools of thought similar to Wahhabism present, but they were always suppressed by leadership and the concepts never filtered into the popular religion.

It was only as the Islamic States started to crumble, under pressure from Western powers bloated by the wealth of their conquests that Islam started to change in response. The more Muslims got their ass kicked the more openings the regressive portions of their society found to exert influence. Similar to how a desperate German population turned toward someone they thought had an answer. It was a slow process and even 150 years ago the common religion in most Sunni states resembled an informal Sufism more then anything around today. One thing is sure as shit, sufis don't strap on bombs, it took a lot of work to get their popular religion where it is today with internal and external forces working in synergy.

[AlbertCat]

14. the impact that western imperialism has had on Islam.

on Islam
on Islam
on Islam
on Islam
on Islam
on Islam

[Gelliebeans]

7. Bravo!!!!

[Kevin from WI]

12. To be fair to the fundamentalist Garden Club

A french satire magazine did print a cartoon saying fertilizer is shit, and then another that was offensive to those who use mulch.