Thinking Out Loud: Cartoons
By Steve McNamara
Westerners are stunned by the Mohammad cartoon craziness, but among Muslims there must be two kinds of dismay. At one edge the radicals are burning down buildings. At the other edge moderates are watching four years of work since 9/11 go up in flames.
After 9/11 there was a huge effort by moderate Muslims to convince the West that their religion was a peaceful one. They insisted that the people flying airliners into buildings may have professed Islam, but they didn’t represent it any more than Pat Robertson, calling for the assassination of the president of Venezuela, represented Western values.
But when the Muslin world went nuts in February over 12 cartoons published last September, it’s hard to square that with Western concepts of free expression …or the idea that Muslims are just like everybody else, except they have a different take on god. Suddenly it’s harder to sell that idea.
Islam prohibits the artistic representation of Mohammad? Hmmm. What about the statue of Mohammad on the frieze that runs around the top of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington? He’s been there since 1932. Or all the other paintings of Mohammad through history. Check them out here. Some are reverent, some are skuzzy. But nobody has burned down a building because of them. Yet.
MOST OF THE REACTION to Jim Risen’s book, “State of War,” has been about his revelation that the National Security Agency does wiretaps without warrants. But in all the fuss about that news Risen’s other points have been neglected. Such as:
• What a dunderhead George Tenet was, and how sucking up to George Bush kept him at the top of the CIA.
• How our slide into torturing prisoners may have been born with an offhand remark by Bush to Tenet.
• That although Condi Rice was a soul mate of Bush, she was a weak, ineffectual National Security Advisor, constantly rolled over by Cheney and Rumsfeld.
• A wacky plan to send Americans with relatives among Iraqi scientists back to Iraq to check out Weapons of Mass Destruction turned up the news that Saddam’s weapons program had died years ago…news that the administration buried.
• That the CIA constantly sends reports from Iraq accurately describing the dreadful picture there…and the reports are ignored.
• Bush got interested—briefly—in the fact that Afghanistan has turned into a “narco-state” (Bush’s words), but Rumsfeld squelched any planned response.
But the biggie for me was Risen’s final chapter in which he matter-of-factly describes Iraq as a failed venture. It’s not going to fail unless we do this or that. Nope. No hope. Stick a fork in it. Iraq is done.
KARL ROVE has told the troops that the way to win in November’s elections is to play the terror card, right? So my friend Maury Zilber has this excellent question: When do you think the Bushies will promulgate a yellow terror alert? September? October? Maybe there should be a contest. Pick the week in the fall when the yellow alert will be posted.
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February 8th, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
There is a good follow up to the problems of islamic moderates in the comments under the Sam Harris post by Abu Aardvark. There are some strong voices but they are being marginalized and not by fundie clerics.
February 9th, 2006 @ 10:45 am
Where can I find the Aardvark’s comments?
On the cartoon thing - sure, a significant part of the Muslim world has gone nuts, no question about it.
But US politics has gone equally bonkers, with conservatives verbally mugging Democrats and liberals on every street corner, at every opportunity, spreading hate and discord throughout the land. Remember what they did at Wellstone’s funeral? Well they just did it again at the memorial service for another Democratic icon, accusing liberals of pissing on her memory because they dared to memorialize her life.
Read the letters to the editor in this morning’s Chronicle - one accuses Democrats of “defend(ing)the civil liberties of terrorists while the left actively roots for the other side to be victorious over ‘imperial’ America.” Another letter focuses on King’s funeral : “What is there about Democrats that drives them to take a funeral for Coretta Scott King to try to make cheap political points?” This letter also refers to President Carter as a “failed President.” A third (the mildest of the lot) castigates teh SF supes of “working for the Democratic party instead of building a better California.”
After the State of the Union thing, there was a deluge of letters castigating Woolsey for giving a ticket to Cindy Sheehan.
And this deluge of hate speech is appearing in liberal San Francisco. How bad is it in cities in the red states?
So who’s crazier? A bunch of Muslims that have seen the West invade, bomb, and occupy their countries, kick down their doors, torture their people, and mock their religion who have finally had enough and decide to fight back against the crusaders? Or is the dingbats in America, the land of the free, that are terrorizing us all and fighting a war of extinction against their fellow Americans - all for the sake of perpetuating their tribe in power?
Personally, I’d vote for the good old fashioned American loonies.
February 9th, 2006 @ 4:01 pm
Thank you Bill, for being in the “zone” on this one.
The question is how to counter the brown shirt tactics of the GOP, and how to get the media to both refute these tactics, smears, and “kill-the- messenger” assaults, and also include letters and writers who counter these assaults and argument ad hominems.
I first took notice of these brown-shirt tactics in the 2000 election when the GOP political aides stormed off a bus from Washington, DC and into the Dade County vote counting offices to break up the counting and verifying process of the local electoral board. These were all young, and not so young, Republicans herded off to use this belligerent tactic by their leadership, because winning was the important thing, at any price. This was the best dresed group of “rioters” I ever saw. They stole the election fair and square, and as Bill said elsewhere, they believe they have a claim on 100% of the spoils.
Most recently, I have seen this tactic in Los Angeles, where recent young Republican grads from universities put out a price on college professors who give a view or opinion on any matter that differs from these self-styled stormtroopers. They offered students $100 to tape their professors lectures, and turn them over. So suppressing freedom of speech and rights of privacy and academic inquiry is practiced all the way from the top down, and their media hirelings are in lockstep.
I think the RuthGroup blog would contribute considerably to the task of media reform and internet freedom, by offering suggestions others might have.
For example, our local David Mathison’s “Be The Media” might be a good regular contributor to this item. Peter Phillips of Project Censored ought to be invited along.
I think Bill has directly characterized the tirades, mob mentality, and co-ordinated fits and tantrums of the GOP media think tanks. And it also crossed my mind that those public hysterics and histrionics are of a similar nature to the Muslim fits over cartoons. In fact, even if there were no excuses to smear, the GOP would invent them, in order to curb behaviors of their Democratic “enemy”, and mobilize the lock-step conformity of their base. Bill has written three very important assessments recently, two on the blog and one to me, which incorporates thinking from “Off Center”, and from Lakoff’s framing.
He is right about us having a big problem in Progressive Marin. The Marin I-J is no friend of the community in both many subtle and obvious ways. I have been tracking them carefully since they headlined Joe Nation’s smears of Woolsey. They use the craft of the paper in several ways. Their choice of headlines; their cartoons; their editorial opinion which pretends to call for some balance, but sets up other negative frames; their selection of opinion letters, and what to print and when. Their cadence for rolling out bias and their agendas is almost flawless. They reflect a media ownership that wants to propagandize inside of Marin and the Bay Area. I have carefully marked each word of their articles and public letters, and see the “talking points of their Karl Rove, Frank Luntz, and Grover Norquist” media think tanks.
We here in Marin need a 24/7 media taskforce to address this bias in print, in radio, and on TV. We need help from national groups who can collaborate, and reduce our local costs in this effort.
Just so that we are all clear about how formidable is the task, note that 90%, or so I have heard, of the media is controlled by 5 multinational corporations in this country. There are 10 media corporations world wide. Peter Phillips has a study in the 2006 “Project Censored” showing the names of the media corporate board members and the other defense, financial, retail, and manufacturing corporations’ boards on which they also sit. It would be good to know the name of each media corporate board member with the list for each person, of the other companies’ boards on which each one sits.
We now see that the internet is also threatened. So both the public airways and internet infrastructure to which we all contributed and invested, is given away for free to corporate media groups for private gain. Nothing has been reserved for us in the way of fair compensation, “fair comment” rights, and free airtime for candidates and issues. Free airtime alone could reduce the cost of campaigning and the need for poltical fundraising. This along with public fiancing of campaigns would finally help us elect voices for the public good, and to create jobs that vote for peace, and get rid of jobs that vote for war.
So this corrupted media promulgates the GOP smears, ungrounded in facts, defends and insulates those voices of hate from any consequences or accountability, and blocks our messages and proposals from being heard and discussed. They have reduced our politics and social interactions to a Superbowl spectacle, without regard for the human bodies they are piling up and the spiritual destruction of our communities in which they so wantonly participate.
February 9th, 2006 @ 6:56 pm
Jack — What a wonderful post. What is Project Censored? I presume they are paying attention to FOIA requests that are being stonewalled? Apparently, this is a huge problem for the responsible media in the US. Without access to information, there can be no “free press”. I am aghast at how low CNN has sunk; Anderson 360 supplants the rather mild but also fairly thoughtful Aaron Brown? Fox, I am sad to say, has more political, relevant news, than any other TV purveyor — tainted, obviously, with their point of view. This is a SCANDAL. Did Dick Cheney flummox our beloved Jim Lehrer? Did you see it, and how did you assess that? We are in a media morass. Thanks be to all for blogs. But the average guy in this country is being fed pap instead of news, and it is painful and tragic to behold.
Is it time for a UN convocation on world religions — their commonalities rather than their differences, colored by culture through centuries? Culture has perverted the essentially singular experience of religious geniuses/seers from time immemorial. Could an “encyclic” from leaders of all the world’s major religions help ease this catastrophic standoff that gains fire and energy daily? It is, after all, the same experience. How it’s perceived and translated through culture and politics is what’s driving us toward the abyss. It is epic and terrifying. Could the UN address this? Might it help?
This is an unfocussed blather. But heartfelt.
February 9th, 2006 @ 7:16 pm
Hey, Annie, good to hear from you. Your blather is never unfocussed. Come on by the Cruising Club sometime.
Bob
February 9th, 2006 @ 8:05 pm
Steve,
Great job as usual. In response to Jack’s comment, I would be delighted to contribute posts to the RG blog if there is interest in pieces on media justice and reform.
Best,
Dave Mathison
February 9th, 2006 @ 8:35 pm
This is great. I noticed when Steve is at the top of the post, a lot of great voices turn out for the party.
Annie, your questions are great. First, take note that Rabbi Michael Lerner (Tikkun) is on a book tour for his latest, “Left Hand Of God.” He will be at Book Passage in a week or two, and this is a must see, performance. You raised a big, big question, and he is right in the middle of an enormous “Spiritual Progressives” movement. The first event was 4 days long, last summer in Berkeley, and the next is in D.C. this spring, involving hundreds of spiritual leaders and thousands of participants, with workshops as well. I attended for 4 days in Berkeley, and plan to be at Book Passage. Rabbi Lerner will be at a number of locations in the Bay Area now and on and off over the next few months, as well as appearing nationally. You can direct your question to him about UN involvement. I’m sure its on their minds.
I wish Joseph Campbell could have still been here for this resurgence of interest in comparative mythology and spiritual collaboration, which acknowledge with great mutual respect and deep appreciation all of the wisdom in these separate traditions of communing with ones maker. One would have to say that the rigid, and militant attempts of radical fundamentalists of any stripe, to assert their own brand of autocracy on everyone else, must be doomed to failure in that this narrow backlash is contrary to man and nature, to the variety necessary for adaptive evolution, and to the trajectory of self-connecting to our universality and diversity at once and continuously. It betrays all of the history of a progressive extension of human empathy to all communities of people, to all species, to the planet, and to this great cosmos.
As for the media, plainly we need to liberate it. And as you might see, there are many people thinking about it. The Democrats were bribed, and sold out our birthright for a free press, and media, when they gave away everything. The GOP knew what they were doing, and were only too happy to take it over completely. If the public square, open and independent media, the free exchange of ideas and information, are the heart and soul of democracy, and of a people here to inform themselves and reflect on this awesome universe, then a constricted media has to be the tools of a dictatorship bent on propaganda, and enslavement of all of god’s children. Self-styled Christians and Corporateers who are enslaving humans with their ideological straight-jackets, are so far from grace, that the only words for them, are “shame, shame, shame!”
There is a wonderful story, In the February, Common Ground, as part of a piece on Huston Smith’s recent book. Its a “Message From The Hopi Elders”, and I think it is fitting here. I’ll insert it below.
February 9th, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
MESSAGE FROM THE HOPI ELDERS
You have been telling
the people that this is
the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back
and tell the people that
this is the Hour.
And there are things
to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now
very fast.
It is so great and swift
that there are those
who will be afraid.
They will try to hold
onto the shore.
They will feel they are being
torn apart and they will
suffer greatly.
Know the river has
its destination.
The elders say we must
let go of the shore,
Push off into the middle
of the river,
Keep our eyes open and
our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you
and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are
to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do,
Our spiritual growth
and journey come to a halt.
The time of the world is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle
From your attitude
and vocabulary.
All that we do now
must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones
we’ve been waiting for.
February 10th, 2006 @ 9:37 am
Dave,
Does a bear poop in the woods? I’m not our blogmeister and am not familiar with your work, but I say contribute away! There’s no more important issue as far as I am concerned.
February 10th, 2006 @ 3:20 pm
For others of you who may not know about Dave’s work (and he is notoriously reluctant to toot his own horn), you should know that he’s got a major book called Be the Media coming out in April. Go to www.bethemedia.com, first take a look at the impressive list of endorsements, then the Table of Contents. You will be impressed, as I was.
The other thing you should know is that Dave has been very supportive of Ruth Group efforts. He’s been very helpful at getting some of his media friends to Cruising Club meetings, and Be the Media and Ruth Group co-sponsored a fundraiser at Sweetwater for the film Sir No Sir! when it was screened last fall at the Mill Valley Film Festival. That was when the seed got planted for the fundraiser with Jane Fonda taking place later this month. Dave was the first one hereabouts who recognized the importance of that film, inveigled me into San Francisco to meet director Dave Zeiger, and later got others here in Marin to come on board. I can tell you that Zeiger and the band of Vietnam resisters appearing with him are very grateful for Dave’s efforts.
February 10th, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
Re media leads…make sure Kieth Olberman at MSNBC is on your watch list. He’s pretty good the first half of the show and regularly smashes O’Lielly. The second half is often like E! so you can skip that. He’s on at 5:00 and 9:00 p.m. I believe.
Dave Mathieson, please send a sample post or two my way. wbk@cpe-sf.com
March 5th, 2006 @ 11:13 am
well said all of u.islam doesnt allow anyone to insult anyone’s religion.it respects every religion of world.
whether muslim world has gone nuts or not they are just hurt….cartoon pictures published by newspapers hav hurt the feelings of a muslim.see there are extremists in every religion.christians hav catholic n protestants in them,,,wat they feel if anybody hurt their religious feelings
wat indian or hindus feel if they say tat the worship monkeys and statues.
wat i want to say is that denmark and norway have done very wrong thing.they shud b sorry for it plus if they are not NUTS they shud respect theirs as well as others religions.thanx n bye