WTF?- School shows "Fitna," made by the anti-Islam and anti-immigration Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders

[Are_grits_groceries]

SOMERSET, Ky. (AP) -- A Kentucky girl is seeking counseling after her class at a Kentucky high school watched a short film that showed beheadings and other violence allegedly committed by Muslims, the student's father said Tuesday.

Bill Cruey said his daughter Amber, 17, was horrified by images of children being injured and dead bodies interspersed with readings from the Quran while watching the film "Fitna," made by the anti-Islam and anti-immigration Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders.
<snip>
Pulaski County Superintendent Tim Eaton said Tuesday that the teacher's intent was to commemorate the Sept. 11 terror attacks and discuss the dangers of extremism -- "not only of Muslims but other viewpoints, too."

"The intent of the lesson and discussion was very appropriate," Eaton said. "However, the teacher's choice of the clip was not appropriate, and that's been dealt with.
<snip>
"She stood up for what's right, and then everybody's kind of teasing her," he said.

Aly A. Farag, imam at a Louisville mosque, criticized the school for exposing students to a "very tilted and utterly hateful message about a religion."
http://www.whas11.com/justposted/stories/whas11-topstory-090922-film-upsets-students.1a5c618d4.html

Is "Birth of a Nation" up next? Good grief! At the moment, I can't think of a more racist and hateful piece of propaganda against Islam.
Geert Wilders certainly earned a membership in the KKK.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. It sounds like the teacher WASN'T fired...

Eaton declined to say what action was taken against the teacher, calling it a personnel issue.

Amazing...:eyes:

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. And a movie about Darwin won't be shown in the US?????

[Doctor_J]

17. Who is Darwin?

The next generation of HS students will not have heard of him. They will know all about Rusty Limbaugh though, thanks to the Great State Of Texas.

[BB1]

3. Freedom of speech, I'd say.

Wilders made this movie to show the intolerance of extreme fundamentalists. Most Dutch reckon that no matter what religion you cling to, there are fundamentalists in each and every one of them.

Besides, some beheadings and hate mongering against Muslims are not issues Hollywood hasn't preyed on yet. Maybe with some subtility, but still.

And, since Geert Wilders used to live in a predominantly Moroccan neighborhood and these days has to have bodyguards and lives in hiding kind of makes his case. He's not hiding from little old grannies.

Geert Wilders is someone you have to form your own opinion on. Don't blindly follow his lead, that would be fundamentalist. Get to know the voters he attracts, they're like the 28%-ers. Geert is our Bush.
He hasn't killed one Muslim yet, or given the order to do so (unlike a whole string of American Presidents). That lousy one-million Dutchmen he appeals to is greatly insignificant in the world order of things. Holland may be leaning right, but the Dutch right is still the US left. Obama would be FAR religious right.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. This is still a noxious piece of racism against Islam.

Would that school allow a similar film that highlighted some of the horrors Christians have committed? I doubt it.

In addition, just because he hasn't "killed one Muslim yet, or given the order to do so (unlike a whole string of American Presidents)" doesn't make it okay to promote these views in a school. We have tried to keep religion and government separate. It is a constant battle. Those kids had no options in watching that film.

Geert Wilders is familiar to me in many ways. He demonizes people who are of the Islamic faith. However, if called out on that, he probably will point to other views that are much less incendiary and palatable. That is an old racist trick used here.

Politicians for years in the US were blatantly racist in dealing with African-Americans. Many of them had other views that helped their constituents. However, I don't give a happy damn about what their other policies were. The one issue they espoused fervently tore this country apart.

There are "Geert Wilders" here now trying to ruin Obama. They just haven't made a film. They are more subtle than those that came before them, but that makes them no less dangerous because they stir hatred.

As far as Wilders having to have bodyguards in a Moroccan neighborhood, why does that justify anything? If a Moroccan lived in certain neighborhoods in the Netherlands, they would probably need a bodyguard too.

As far as where Wilders falls on the scale of political ideology, that still doesn't make that film any less vile.

I wouldn't dismiss 1M people of any certain belief. I don't dismiss those in the US who are stirring hatred just because they don't have numbers yet.

Lastly, there are fundamentalists in all religions who represent the worst those faiths have to offer. I don't think that is the message Wilders is getting across with his film.

[BB1]

6. Of course it's racism.

I don't deny that.

You're right on some points, wrong on some others.

Would that school show A passion of the Christ? The Mel Gibson reli-flick?

Separation of school and church/politics is something we all would like. In the US and in The Netherlands. Still, having been to an American Highschool, I found the religious zeal intimidating. More so than the racism, which was clearly going on (Richmond, MO, '94-'95). Being an atheist was definitely not appreciated;)
You can't be serious about keeping the church out of school if there are mass prayers, a no-show of Darwin, stoopid stuff like that. But parents can keep their kids away fgrom school if the President has something to say?
They were (for the bigger part, probably) too young to view a racist movie like this. But they've been exposed to hatred against minorities and people of other faiths many many times. Even in school, where the 9/11 Commission has the last say on the official story that runs in the text books.

Geert Wilders always comes up with excuses about him not being a racist. Usually he says something about not being against Islam, but crusading against the excesses that come with Islam. It's the racist trick allright. He uses the racist codes, though, not all-out racism.

Who are you referring to by calling some of your countrymen "Geert Wilders"? We're talking about Glenn Beck and his ilk?

You got me wrong on the next point: Geert Wilders used to live in a Moroccan neighborhood. When he first started poiting out intolerance amongst Muslims, many of which were his neighbours, the thanked him in kind by threatening him for not agreeing with him. He did so with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was later almost reverently welcomed in the States.
Wilders needs bodyguards period. He lives in hiding, 'cause there's a prize on his head. As for Moroccans not being able to walk any neighborhood, that's laughable. It's the young Moroccans who supply the threat, up to the point where shootings occus nearly everyday. Guns are illegal in Holland, as you might know - none of my friends have one.

The 1M idiots who run after Wilders would run after anyone with a general view slighter wider than their own. I don't absolutely dismiss them, but I sure don't think they're a serious threat to anything. Yet.

Lastly, Wilders' film is not remotely objective. Neither is Religulous. Neither is The Passion. None of 'em are, that's the fun part of it. You need to see them all to finally reach the conclusion that each and every religion is racist from the ground up.
Moderate believers, muslims, christians, jews alike, I don't care about. They don't bother me and vice versa. It's the freaks- the ones who tell me my friends are bad for being gay or black, or attack me for not believing in their god(s)- I have a problem with. And that will most likely get me shot before I die of old age.

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. I don't want Religulous

shown either. None of them. I Know they are trying at every turn to use religion in the classroom. It gives me agita and I fight them doing it.

I don't think religions are racist from the ground up. I said there were fundamentalists in most of them that pervert their message.

I wish you would visit me in SC. The religion is definitely more "in your face" because it is louder and easy to see. Not a week goes by that somebody from some sect doesn't knock on my door to save me or whatever. They are from all persuasions. I've now taken to telling them that they have interrupted my prayers to Ra,the Sun God.

I can also give you a racism tour sadly enough. It is "in your face" too if you really open your eyes.

My point is that just because other things are wrong that shouldn't stop people from trying to prevent what they can.
:hi:

[Beacho]

8. I Agree with your points, BUT

It's not racism, it's bigotry. Islam is not a race, it's a religious creed

[QC]

13. Islam isn't a race. n/t

[Are_grits_groceries]

14. I stand corrected. It's bigotry. nt

[cali]

5. sorry, this was inappropriate propaganda to show to HS students

without the proper context- for example a discussion of propaganda. this was shown in the context of 9/11. Completely wrong.

[BB1]

7. Wrong indeed.

Have you seen the film? On the internet, perhaps?
(I had an email conversation about it with John Gibson, Fox. He wrote me he loved it, the douche. He referred to Theo van Gogh, who was shot and stabbed by Mohammed B., a muslimfundi. Theo's death was, according to Gibson, good reason to get rid of the radical elements.)

[Doctor_J]

11. A PS teacher doesn't have freedom of speech

If the teacher had gone on an anti-Christian rant in class, he would have been fired summarily before the week was over. Then he would have been terrorized by David Horowitz's storm troopers.

[Doctor_J]

10. We're becoming more like Nazi Germany every day

Now the public school is an indoctrination center.

Since this was to show "other extreme viewpoints, too", was the waterboarding inflicted as part of Smirk's Crusade shown?

:scared:

[cali]

12. oh what bilge.

This is one public school. Yes, what this teacher did was bullshit, but so is your extrapolation that we're becoming more like Nazi Germany based on this.

see my tagline.

[Doctor_J]

18. Yes, stupid should be hated

Like ignorance of the fact that HS text books are having the history of George Washington replaced by the history of Newt Gingrinch. And that Thurgood Marshall won't be mentioned in those books. And that teachers can show anti-Muslim propaganda, but will be hounded from their jobs if they say out loud that the Iraq War was a fraud and a failure.

Keep denying, Good German. Look at how fascist the US has become since 1992, and extrapolate that 17 years into the future.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. "Equal treatment" would include commemoration

of the many decades of "Christian" extremism and the dangers that has posed on citizens right here in the U.S. of A, but suppose that this doesn't count.



AGG - the travesty "Birth of a Nation" is still sadly considered a "classic" by too many in the U.S. :puke:

[Are_grits_groceries]

16. True.

However, for all the cinematic breakthroughs it made,it is still a vile piece of crap. One can tell a story well, but that doesn't make it a decent story.

I wish when somebody brings this film up, they would also have to point out its major deficiencies.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Similarly, you have the first talkie

"The Jazz Singer", with the breakthrough of "sound", yet the subject is not much better than "Birth of a Nation". But I suppose that is what "sold" back then.