Slashdot Mirror
Liberal Saudi Web Forum Founder Sentenced To 600 Lashes and 7 Years In Prison
cold fjord writes "Some reformers travel a harder road than others. The Seattle Times reports, 'The founder of a liberal-minded website in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes after angering Islamic authorities in the ultraconservative kingdom. ... Raif Badawi, through his website known as Free Saudi Liberals, had urged Saudis to share opinions about the role of religion in the country, which follows a strict form of Islam that includes harsh punishments for challenging customs. A judge in the Red Sea port of Jiddah imposed the sentences but dropped charges of apostasy, which could have brought a death sentence, the Al-Watan newspaper reported. Badawi has been held since June 2012.' More at details are available at the BBC, which informs us that 'The judge ordered that the 600 lashes be administered 150 at a time.' 'The lashes could be spread out but in Sharia this is a sign that the judge wants to insult him,' Badawi's lawyer said."
How many does it take to kill a person? Just wondering...
Good thing we are still friendly with this nation who is a shining beacon of freedom.
Remember this when you get an urge to say that America and Western society is oppressive, and when you decide that Islam is a peaceful religion.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
At least he won't need mascara
Too bad she didn't use one...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is (should be) a BIG dilemma... For any "normal" country... He's a brave guy, a probably could lead a better life elsewhere... BUT, if there ever should be a chance to change Saudi Arabia to a more liberal country, it'd better be changed from inside... (Probably can only happen many years after they run out of oil :-( )
Good thing we are still friendly with this nation who is a shining beacon of freedom.
I hereby declare that Linux Nutcase gets the sarcasm award.
Well done sir!
Especially when you consider we import hardly any oil from them anymore. (Canada and Mexico are the biggest suppliers of foreign oil to the US.)
Gotta wonder why "we're" so friendly with them.
Holy Moley, in his place I'd be happy to be a lot more insulted, say one a day. 150? Youser!
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
As much as I love bitching about the issues that we have here in America, seeing what happens in shitholes like Saudi Arabia makes me feel really lucky to have been born here.
How many does it take to kill a person? Just wondering...
Given that we are dealing with a society and judicial system that is fine with beheading people with a sword I'd say that it takes far more than 150 usually. If they wanted to kill a person they are well informed and well practiced. When there is a limit in such an environment it has probably been empirically determined to be survivable for the average person.
I mean, they just read your mail, they don't whip you for it.
The Flaming Liberal, clearly he got what he deserves... 600 lashes and 7 years in prison will definitely change his mind and reform him about those wrong-headed ideas that the blessed Shariah Law-abiding Conservatives of Saudi Arabia are not too punative or quick to deal out harsh rulings.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Yet another prime example of why alien civilizations won't contact us openly: How can a truly civilized race possibly take us as anything other than animals when we still do things like this? Our so-called "civilization" is just as thin a patina over the animal underneath as our neo-cortex is over the rest of our brains. It's positively heartbreaking to read of things like this in this day and age when I know that the human race, at it's best, is in such stark contrast with such senseless ignorance and brutality.
No, I'm not joking, and I'm not trolling either; this is really how I feel about this, and I don't care if anyone likes it or not.
Bracing for being flamed all the way down to "-1, Troll" for daring to speak my mind, which ironically enough will prove my point for me better than I can prove it myself.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
...you know the rest.
In the 90's, on Jaz drives no less.
True story.
At least they dropped the apostasy charges, right? Right?
These people need more Voltaire. *sigh*
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
yet
... look at what your government does to people anywhere around the world.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
So we deal with these assholes but threaten war with the Iranians? Anyone want to explain that?
That god isn't real, and Muhammed wasn't all that special. It's to bad that all those stupid people have all that money
what a shithole
In a lot of countries kids (up to age 18) can't go to jail, even if they kill someone, while in other countries seems to be ok to even jail them with adults and be waterboarded.
In some countries parents could go to prison for putting in their babies earrings, while in others that and similar practices are even promoted by the religions.
Compare receiving that lashes and ending the trouble there to pass up to 30 years of your life in jail for showing that something that is public is in fact public. Both are pretty bad, but is not something to point to the other side and say "look those savages".
Some post tirades against religion, citing it as the source of all evil with equal vehemence as the religious cite secularism as such. The fact is people, especially those in power, use (whatever) ideology to justify their actions and firm their grip. Enough states throughout history with "Christian" values did things that make the Saudis seem tame. Same with those who have "anarchist" or "communist" or whatever atheist-based values. Read about Stalin, Lenin, Polpot, Orwell's lovely "Homage to Catalonia". Atheists can be just as nasty a bunch because they are human. I love Albert Camus, but also Thomas Merton. Though it is unpopular to say it, Islam is beautiful, but there are people who pervert it. For instance, women have more rights than men. The way you see men behave in so-called countries, you would never believe it. But then, being an occidental, I know that women here were only considered human in the last 100 years. Previously, they were considered chattel with no right to vote! Woman in Arab civilizations had autonomy, ran businesses, and had citizenry power. We tend to get into dangerous territory when we think we have a monopoly on "truth" instead of self-questioning. Perusing a few books by Chomsky will inform that Americans are no less guilty of such attrocities. Israelis are every bit as nasty as much of their Arab neighbours. Deep down, this is about power, not faith and ideology.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Seems to me, if any of the "explanations" for our involvement in Afghanistan were true (rather than that GW was a nutcase and Obama a coward), we'd have as much justification for dropping a missile on this judge as we do on the Taliban.
We should do the same thing to liberals here
It's depressing to read all the comments from fellow liberals that re-direct outrage about this back at the US, which offers First Amendment freedoms for its citizens and asylum for religious dissidents. This guy is having his back ripped open for a right Americans take for granted. I am not religious, but if liberals want to, for example, attend an art show that has a dung-covered madonna, they will loudly fight for the right to do so. Yet they sheepishly cannot even muster the moral clarity to defend a fellow liberal who is getting his back ripped open for doing the same.
Here, you better start with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fateful_Triangle You need to work on your bigotry.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
"Remember this when you get an urge to say that America and Western society is oppressive..."
A different judge would have convicted Badawi of apostasy and sentenced him to death. Remember that when you get an urge to say this judge's sentence is barbaric.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Yes, now, at the peak of human civilization thus far, we have advanced to such things as waterboarding, force-feeding innocent people who have been illegally detained for years and go on a hunger strike as a humanitarian protest to their plight, and extended solitary confinement. I can see how we've risen above all that horrible barbarity.
I don't see the bulk of mainline christianity sounding condemnation of it, so I guess it must be OK, right?
As someone once said: "It's the same dance; it's just a different tune."
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Like the USA which has "In God we trust" on their currency.
That is a slogan with no legal weight. We also have the slogan "A New Order of the Ages", pyramids with all seeing eyes, symbols from ancient Rome (some of which were part of Roman religion), Roman/Greek goddesses, etc.
Where legal weight is concerned all we have is a constitution that says the government can not favor or discriminate against a particular religion.
The NSA has your IP and will be passing it along with your current physical location to the Saudis shortly. Have a nice day!
And yet the US of A is fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What a travesty.
No other species inflicts completely pointless suffering on others like we do.
Have you ever watched a cat play with an animal it caught? Sometimes, they eat them when they are done, but often times they get up and walk away when they can't get it to move any more.
Dolphins too. They will kill for sport not feeding, not defense. They will also rape and commit infanticide.
when you have to use laws to keep people from questioning how it's practiced.
Be seeing you...
'Cause that's where the torture takes place.
urged Saudis to share opinions about the role of religion in the country
Sounds like he got the opinion of the government on file. This should spark some vigorous discussion.
Op Camel Whip?
In my time, running a liberal-minded website would get you 1000 lashes, 36 hours in the the iron maiden without supper and the electric chair.
Kids these days...
How you dare to do this in countries (thick head )like soudi. These middle east countries are surviving on oil, otherwise they don't have minimal intellect to comb the hair, and that is why they put a strange looking thing on head.
It's kind of ridiculous to pretend the solution is to reject the use of a natural resource we've invested well over 100 years of engineering/manufacturing into using, just because we're against the politics/culture of one of the nations that happens to sit on top of a lot of it.
As much as we may despise the Arab way of life, business is still business, IMO. They've gotten very wealthy from selling the oil to countries like the USA. But at the same time, we've made enormous progress ourselves by using that purchased energy source.
I'd love to see our country become more self-sustaining, but not if it means going against progress, logic or the free marketplace. Every time we attempt to legislate or mandate adoption of new technologies (vs. letting them come into their own, becoming desirable options without govt.'s help), it ends badly. We're trying to force the automakers to produce electric cars right now, and guess what? Sales are so slow, they have to rely on taxpayer funded rebates and incentives to knock the price down to something people find acceptable. Even then, the dealerships aren't moving nearly as many as they'd like. This isn't because we're so much in love with the concept of putting gas in our vehicles! Nobody I know finds paying for a fill up at the gas station enjoyable. It's simple economics. Electric cars don't offer enough value yet. Tesla motors may have found a niche market that actually wants what they're selling, but they're still aiming at the higher-end customer.
So, you don't actually have anything to say.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Seems to me that the world should know the name of any pig-fucker who orders violence against innocent people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I mean it, Fuck Islam. And Fuck Christianity. And Fuck the Jews. And Fuck you too Buddhists, just because.
Any religion which seeks to apply punishment to someone who disagrees with it can't be called a 'religion of peace'. More like a religion of oppression and violence. Any religion which wants to cling to barbaric punishments like lashing, beheading, and chopping off of hands more so.
The fact that someone would legitimately want to kill me for saying that tells me there is little room for rationality with these people.
And under the right circumstances, someone from almost any religion would like to outlaw an insult to their imaginary friend -- which makes them all worthy of contempt.
Your god is a complete ass if he can create the universe but still act like a petulant child.
All of Islam is not the same. The problem is that we in the US are propping up the Saudi government which is in turn propping up and promoting this particular style of Islam. That is not the same as declaring all Muslims are inherently more violent than any other group of people on earth.
What is your solution? Bomb them all, wipe them out, deport them from Earth?
Note that Islam is a monotheistic religion very closely related to Judaism and Christianity, so your comment about embracing monotheism leading to less barbarism undermines your thesis that Islam is inherently barbaric.
Enough said. And we feed them our money for petroleum by the boatload . Fu***** disgusting sons of bitches.
May their crotches be infested by the fleas of a thousand Afghan camels and their arms be too short to scratch .
.
People usually confuse between religion and politics.
Here is a prime example of a peaceful academic discussion of Reformist Islam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf9g2oewmZ4&hd=1
New Economic Perspectives
America is dying.
There will be differing opionions as to the cause of death, but adhering to this absurd partisanship while your (D/R, doesn't matter) government fucks you over repeatly with surveilance can't be helping...
You're not saying anything he doesn't already know. The NSA never STOPS watching anyone, and if you've worked for them then they're even more diligent about their tracking.
Fucking savages.
There, someone had to say it.
What's not to love about Middle Eastern culture? They treat women as property, "non-believers" should be killed, anyone that even insults them in any manner is subject to immediate imprisonment followed by cruel and unusual punishment, yet the vast majority live in utter poverty despite sitting on the planet's #1 demanded natural resource while a scant few live in opulence.
Its AWESOME, baby!
Good punishment for ANY liberal in the U. S. too!
Islam has never killed anyone. Islam has never detonated a suicide bomb. Islam has never called for the downfall of Western Culture. Also, Christianity has never declared a Crusade, rallied against equal rights for homosexuals or called for the killings of doctors who perform abortions.
All these things have been done by *humans* who have decided to hijack an entire religion and twist it in order to accomplish their secular goals.
Whenever two assholes fight it is always wisest to let them fight but give hope that the smaller asshole will win. If it does win, then we will be down one asshole and have the smaller of the two to fight ourselves.
In other news people got kidnapped, locked up and tortured based only on suspicion and without any kind of trial.
Privacy is terrorism.
Nope. They don't. On a bad day you're just wondering why you're on a no-fly list and how to get off.
Not less bad. Bad in a different way.
Privacy is terrorism.
The Republican party doesn't want to coddle minorities because it believes that minorities are just as capable as the majority, and believes that introducing dependence perpetuates problems. The Democrats want to keep dependency going because they get to harvest votes (instead of the cotton they used to get). Yes, this is surprising news to you that the *Republicans* believe in true equality regardless of race - but that is the history if you care to look.
The sad thing is that I think you've actually convinced yourself of that. That the political parties are now as they have always been, and that the Republicans are still the "Party of Lincoln."
No, if you really look at the history, you see people like Strom Thurmond and his fellow Dixiecrats who left the Democratic Party to become Republicans in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You see Nixon and the Southern strategy. As Kevin Phillips, Nixon's political strategist said at the time:
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."
The mid 20th century was a transition time in which the Democrats split over the issue of segregation v. equality. Thurmond's Dixiecrats feuded with the rising liberalism in the party, and the end result was that most Southern Democrats were replaced with equally racist Southern Republicans -- at least the ones that didn't just switch parties themselves. It would be the Republican party that would squeeze out its pro-equality members over the next few decades, not the Democrats. As LBJ is said to have told an aide upon signing the Civil Rights Act, ""We have lost the South for a generation." It was the Democrats who made the political sacrifice to do what's right on race. And it was the Republicans who made the cold, amoral decision to pander to racists to gain their votes.
Although it was then-Democrat George Wallace who first linked popularized the connection between racist policies and states rights, it was Republican Barry Goldwater who ran with the idea and became the first Republican candidate to win the South with Reconstruction. Nixon's subsequent campaign on "states rights" and "law and order," all under the guidance of Harry S. Dent, was well understood by Southerners to mean support for racially biased policies. As Lee Atwater said:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me â" because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'"
The only reason Republicans pretend to care today is beca
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Conservatives in this country toss this accusation around pretty lightly. I wonder how many of them still would if they knew exactly what they were saying.
Actually, I bet they *all* still would. More's the pity.
Oh pffsssh. Every decade or so, there's a book from some Christian convert about how secretly the group they were formerly a member of is actually two-faced. "Oh, they seem nice when you get to know them, but *actually* they are practicing hate / debauched sex / devil worship / etc. behind closed doors, which *you* will never be able to see, but you can totally trust *me* because I've been there. And I've usually got some sort of insider connection to make me totally credible."
It's inevitably complete bullshit. (See, e.g., Ergun Caner)
I remember as a kid hearing from the crazier members of my church that ouija boards can contact demons, that people who play D&D are members of satanic cults, that communists teach children not to believe in God by making them pray to God and then the government and giving them a cookie when they do the latter, that the Catholic Church is secretly a Babylonian cult, that modern mainstream Mormons practice blood atonement and have secret assassination squads, etc. etc.
It's amazing what utter nonsense people can be sold on about people different from them. This sort of "they seem nice, but behind closed doors...!" slander is the worst sort of lie, because it's completely unverifiable, and it justifies turning blinders to any signs that the accusation isn't right.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I heard what you meant. Harrar is one of the biggest assholes on this site. I threw you a mod point for your troubles.
I love beacon.....especially the applewood smoked extra encrusted with peppercorns kind of beacon.
I'd have to ride a filthy bus or subway to do that. I love my car. It's freedom (from my parents, which is the only freedom anyone thinks of in this Country).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Definitely less bad! Dunno what you're smoking. Being denied the ability to fly in no way is physically harmful to you*. Being whipped and jailed is. Should we roll over and take what we are given and be happy about it? Not at all! Saudi is still way worse. Bad in a different way is about the only part you got right.
*This is where you will reply with an overly convoluted story about how you have some rare ass-cancer that can only be cured by a single doctor who happens to live on a small island off the coast of Tuvalu. It is surrounded by reefs and laser weaponized sharks so you can't walk, swim, or take a boat. The only way to make it is to fly there but you've been put on that damned no fly list cause you like to jerk off to naked Mohammad photos on a server hosted in Iran. Since you can't fly, that ass cancer is gonna kill you and therefore the government has killed you. Yeah I guess that is way worse than being whipped (possibly to death) and then jailed. How could I have not understood?
Go back 2,000 years and you'll find that the level of behavior we all find barbaric (crucifiction, torture, rape-as-war-tactic and many others) were very common all across the world. What you'll find, though, is that the societies that systematically started moving away from them the hardest are the ones that embraced monotheism of the Judao-Christian line.
Even very moderate reading about the WW2 Eastern front makes me feel a Judeo-Christian line won't necessarily shield you much or at all from that crap. That was happening only 70 years ago. Maybe we just got lucky (speaking for Europe/US), we got rich and were shielded by nuclear weapons and so we were mostly freed of misery and war.
Saddam's armies had custom Soviet T-72 Lion tanks. Last I checked, Russia was responsible for that, not the US.
That's my recollection, the US backed Iran up until the revolution.
And why? It was because the Shah promised to invade the Soviet Union from the south if the Soviet Union attacked Western Europe. That is why Iran could buy equipment like the F-14 and the US backed the Shah in every way possible.
Keep in mind the ethnic/religious composition of the people living in the regions of the Soviet Union near Iran. Many of these Soviet citizens would fight along side Iranian troops to liberate themselves from Moscow. The threat to Moscow was far greater than the capability of the Iranian military.
It's the same submissive position. If you don't break the rules (and I don't mean the law, but the rules of those who have power) you are okay, but if you somehow do, (may be you have to take the blame for someone else) you are pretty fucked.
The difference is that in Saudi Arabia they don't have to take care of public opinion. They can rule as they like.
That totally sounds like something written by Sun Tzu in the Art of War!
They FUND Al Qaeda.
Remember, it was Saudis and Yemenis that carried out the 9/11 hijackings/crashes, not Afghanistanis.
The Taliban provided Al Qaeda safe haven and territory to organize, plan and train in. This includes part of the 9/11 planning. To be fair the Taliban were unaware of the 9/11 attack until after it happened. However once it became known the Taliban ***chose*** to provide safe haven and protect the people involved in 9/11 planning. If the Taliban had turned them over, or even expelled them from their territory, there would have been no invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban made themselves accomplices after the fact by protecting the 9/11 planners.
No, his entire post is based on our history within our lifetimes and all of his claims are easily verified.
Your post, however, was nothing but links to right-wing spew sites that are currently occupied with the business of rewriting their own movement's history because that history is repellent to a growing number of voters. That's not a trend that's going to change as the only people left still swallowing the shit you're shoveling are dying off and not being replaced.
You think .nsf files for a major multinational will bother them? There was no Internet in Saudi and the Saudi customs used to collect CDs out of peoples luggage incase they were saucy pictures, and losing them was inconvenient. But they didn't have a clue what a fuck a jaz disk was.
I don't think the NSA gave a fuck, in fact they'd probably approve since that MNC was serving american companies/interests.
Half of Saudi were dialing up foreign ISPs to get their pron that way, the rest were hoping for some more softcore on the French satellite channel. There was one shown in the afternoon once by mistake, the Saudi mobile phone system went down from the volume of calls as people told each other about it.
Hi NSA! Yeah, it's me! The Jaz drive guy :)
I mean, that's what *I* would want to be if I wanted to move between the stars. Don't like the long travel time? Just turn off except for just enough self-repair to keep things in working order for when something interesting is going to happen.
Potentially infinite lifespan, or as long as the universe lasts. Just replace parts, upgrade yourself.
Create backup copies of yourself.
Modest energy and resource needs (depending on your hardware implementation.) High radiation and temperature range tolerance, potentially.
For all we know, the cold outer planets/moons might be crawling with mechanicals observing us, taking advantage of the cool temperatures to keep their brains going at high speed and holding heat-driven entropy at bay.
Fuck them.
Other Muslim women like Irshad Manji have written the same thing, and between them they are stating what they see in muslim communities in Gaza, Egypt, USA, Canada, and other countries they have visited. These are well known authors and broadcasters who have an audience. They confirm in their own way what translation services like MEMRI point out, that anti semitisim and political Sharia are being widely promoted in Islamic culture.
Of course keep your scepticism, but stay open to new information. I'm not saying you should start hating other groups, I'm saying step back and listen to what people are saying and hear it objectively. You have to read what these women say, why and how they explain how they come to their point of view.
Is there any possibility that we could start a petition or take other action to put pressure on these judges to reduce or change the sentence to something less cruel?
I will sign it if someone puts a link up. Will you?
one that thinks you should wait until girls are over 12 years old before raping them
I do notice you don't actually address my points directly. You can't argue that the Republicans were form as slavery abolitionists, so you misdirect. You can't argue that the KKK were created by Democrat populace, so you misdirect.
Fortunately, the user "cold fjord" has used his/her excellent knowledge to furnish you with links. At least check them out please, before dismissing them out-of-hand.
Thanks for more excellent references, cold fjord.
Hitler was a catholic and had support of the church.
The KKK is a christian organization.
And so on. All within the last 70 years.
Here's some relativism for you: All religions are equally asinine as your fucking moronic and painfully incorrect point of view. No religion is better than the other. They are all dumb.
I mean, they just read your mail, they don't whip you for it.
If they are not happy about what they are reading in your mail, you'll get sent to Guantanamo and get tortured there. Once Guantanamo is closed down, they'll just kill you by drone.
I do notice you don't actually address my points directly. You can't argue that the Republicans were form as slavery abolitionists, so you misdirect. You can't argue that the KKK were created by Democrat populace, so you misdirect.
I addressed your core point directly: the idea that Republicans are all true egalitarians and that Democrats have unfairly tarnished them as racists when they were the racists is shown to be utter bunk when you review the last 50 years of politics. I have directly quoted Republican party election strategists on the issue of how they used racial identity politics to try to capture the (at the time) larger white vote by sacrificing the minority vote, and you claim I haven't addressed the point. How exactly aren't the words of Nixon's and Reagan's campaign strategist failing to address your core premise?
Yes, the founders of the KKK were Democrats. Yes, the abolitionist movement found its place in the Republican Party at the time of the Civil War. But so what? What bearing does that have on modern Republicans? I guarantee you every KKK sympathizer I grew up near was and still is a hardcore Republican.
It doesn't matter how noble the Party was in the 19th century if you're trying to claim that they still have the same nobility of purpose today, because that is an utter lie. The Republican Party of the 19th century was the socially liberal party. The Democratic Party of the 19th century was the socially conservative party. The political lines over issues were radically different back then. In fact, the modern economic leftist movement had its roots in socially right-wing, agrarians. (The Populists, William Bryan Jennings, etc.) Also, the parties tolerated far higher diversity of political positions (which would die during the 1960s-1990s period).
You cannot just simply read history up until the point you like and then just ignore the uncomfortable 50 or so years after that. Maybe, maybe you can argue that 21st century Republicans have eschewed the racism of the past, though I think it's pretty clear from the 2008 election and resulting uptick in white supremacist activity, the birther "movement" and talk of Obama as a "secret Muslim," and from rhetoric surrounding immigration that racial fearmongering is still continuing in the Atwater model.
But you cannot ignore the 1960s-1990s. That is the time of Nixon and Reagan and cynical pandering to Southern whites. That is the time of Strom Thurmond and of David Duke, in which racist Democrats found their party would no longer tolerate them, but that the Republicans would welcome them with open arms. And the policies continue to today with anti-immigrant rhetoric, cutting short early voting specifically to stop black church Sunday voting drives, cheering the defeat of the Voting Rights Act (and turning around and passing overtly discriminatory laws in Republican-controlled states like South Carolina), etc.
Fortunately, the user "cold fjord" has used his/her excellent knowledge to furnish you with links. At least check them out please, before dismissing them out-of-hand.
Glad to. That will be my next post, in response to his.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Thank you for the links. My morning meeting is nearing its end, so I'll have to keep this shorter than this (especially the third link might merit). In order:
1) Yes, the shift did in fact start earlier than the 1960s. The Republican could not have capitalized on purely racial issues. Just as they could not purely rest on social issues like abortion in the 1980s or terrorism in the 2000s. The economic factor is important, but perhaps overstated when compared to the equal prosperity of white Northerners and the grow of wealth in the West, who have either stayed liberal or drifted libertarian. Perhaps most importantly for the question of whether or not Republicans shun racism, the author himself also acknowledges that the GOP did deliberately target racial politics. He just argues that economics was more important.
2) Whitewashing Nixon is an ongoing exercise. Nixon was an interesting and cunning politician. Desegregation happened under his watch, but it happened with him dragging his feet. He ordered Attorney General John Mitchell to pursue a "go-slow" policy. He didn't reverse himself on this until 1970, but by that time he had already gotten Chief Justice Burger on the Court, whose majority decision in Swann limited actions against segregation to those invidiously motivated (i.e. deliberately) to enforce racial division. Before that, he had proposed laws blocking bussing, and supported letting the state courts handle Voting Rights Act cases.
3) This one is the best of the lot. I have addressed many of the points it raises above and in the previous post, even in the words of the people who were planning Republican electoral strategy, but it does raise a few points that I think deserve a response. My main objection is his readiness to dismiss "coding" of messages with racist and non-racist appeal as a phantasm. The overt racism of the 1950s is largely dead (outside of some vocal outliers, as seen in 2008). There is too much of a stigma. However, more subtle bias and distrust is rife still. You see it often in policies that just "happen to" disadvantage minorities and that look down on poorer minorities as somehow deserving their lot in life. That all they need is "tough love," "law and order," and "weaning off the government dole," i.e. crappier and crappier treatment. Is it any wonder minorities believe Republicans are out to get them?
4) Absolutely fascinating. I didn't know much about Goldwater the man as much as Goldwater the candidate. I find it kind of sad that he got in bed with the devil there if those were his honest beliefs about segregation. (But it's indisputable that he did, what with letting Strom Thurmond stump for him.) Anyway, thank you for that article.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICJ can save them
Casteism
These are well known authors and broadcasters who have an audience.
It's easy to find an audience when you speak to people's fears and biases. It's the secret that all demagogues have relied on for centuries.
They confirm in their own way what translation services like MEMRI point out, that anti semitisim and political Sharia are being widely promoted in Islamic culture.
Well that's a sentence with enough ambiguities to cover just about anything.
What is anti-Semitism? Is it virulent hatred of the Jewish people (e.g. Holocaust denial or even praise)? Is it merely opposition to the settlement and occupation policies of the state of Israel and/or sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians? Is it some place in between? Almost invariably, you will find views *somewhere* on that spectrum in most Muslim communities, but whether or not they rise to anti-Semitism depends on how you define it. While I have not personally read her work, it seems that she's taken a stance that Israel is the "good guys" in what, IMHO, is a conflict with no such thing. (Which I find baffling given her father was assassinated by the IDF -- maybe I should read her if for no other reason that to find out how on Earth that happened.)
As for political sharia, it's worth noting that advocacy for sharia as a legal system does not inherently require violent struggle any more than communism did. It is also worth noting that many of the people who do advocate for sharia also advocate for achieving it violently. However, that's also true of people who wish to see this country run by Biblical law. (See, e.g. Dominion theology.)
And lastly, there's a geographic spread on this. It's true that advocacy for violent overthrow of government to establish an Islamic state that would seek the destruction of Israel is a prominent theme in the Middle East. But I seriously doubt it's pervasive in U.S. mosques to the point that your original post suggests.
So in short, your sentence is true in some or even many cases and yet misleading if you intend it to apply to all Muslims, including all of those living in the West. And Nonie Darwish goes far too far in claiming that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
You have to read what these women say, why and how they explain how they come to their point of view.
Oh I will, and I have read many heart-rending testimonials. But one must consider the source and the fact that significant personal biases may have arisen from a given author's tragic backstory, and one must consider the possibility that the author has an agenda, whether public or selfish. I have a bit of skepticism towards an author that is reputed to have such a one-sided presentation of the other side, and I also have misgivings in the way that people can take even an unbiased account and interject their own biases into it upon reading it. Many of the "Christian" books I read as a child and teen were full of outright lies, urban legends, and telephone-game rumors masking as God-inspired truth. I have what I consider a healthy sense of skepticism when a book comes out and tries to paint the other side as inherently evil and distrustful. The world is far grayer than a lot of people like to believe.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
From a country that's still stuck somewhere in the middle ages. Islam, the religion of cruelty, bigotry, sexism, and intolerance.
No better than Afghanistan, we sent our troops to die for THESE bastards?
The backwardness of Islam and their treatment of average people will, eventually, be their downfall. The sooner the better, I say!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
Do you know why Detroit is a mess and Portland and Pittsburg are not? Do you know why White flight is racist because it deprives communities of color of tax revenues, while gentrification is also racist? Do you know why 40 years of affirmative action have produced little more than Barack Obama, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and some actors?
Probably because of institutional racism contexts of White privilege socialization, right?
We just need more welfare and affirmative action and positive media portrayals to uplift the Negro / Colored / Black / African-American to his rightful place, right?
How much longer do we need forced busing and quotas in workplaces? Another 30 years or until the job is done, right?
At what point do you take seriously the conjecture that different races which evolved in different environments have different traits? Never, right?
What did I forget ... bodily fluid poisoning ... vaccine-thought-controlling ... irreligious ... gun control ... aw fuck it, the list is tedious, if not literally endless.
signed : A typical American Tea Party nutjob.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
because torture is a cultural thing in Saudi Arabia that we must all tolerate without questioning?
because without their "culture" the poor peoples of Saudi Arabia would be "lost"?
because Christians where just as barbaric a few hundred years ago?
Why was Iraq invaded and Saudi Arabia left alone?
Oh, obviously it has never been about oppression.