Marka Ragnos Posted December 8, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted December 8, 2015 58 minutes ago, Awol said: I don't think it matters very much what people believe until that belief starts impacting on others. The west think ISIS are dangerous nutters because of what they do, not because of what they believe. Did you see the big piece in the Atlantic on Isis? What you say reminds me of that because it compares and contrasts a benign radical belief with a radical belief that involves anti-social behavior. Quote The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Careful... de-humanzing the opposition is War-prep 101. Do not allow yourself to be manipulated so! ISIS soldiers are humans existing within a social structure that has resulted in them acting in a certain manner, that most humans find deeply repulsive. However, the use of language like "apocalypse" etc. acts to de-humanize the individuals, hence making their subsequent eradication more palatable. I think that is a path best avoided. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 8, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 8, 2015 56 minutes ago, omariqy said: My wife's sister-in-law who is 9 months pregnant just got called a terrorist in Tesco's in Leytonstone. That's terrible - don't they have a Waitrose! It must be awfully deprived down there. sorry to make light of a bad thing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omariqy Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 1 hour ago, blandy said: That's terrible - don't they have a Waitrose! It must be awfully deprived down there. sorry to make light of a bad thing I said to her it was her fault for mixing with such folk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 3 hours ago, omariqy said: My wife's sister-in-law who is 9 months pregnant just got called a terrorist in Tesco's in Leytonstone. some of the things my work colleagues come out with is unreal and although i may come across a bit anti muslim i would never come out with the shit they do. last year one of the younger lot was driving down the road and they saw a muslim standing on the side of the road and they slowed down to give this poor fella a face full of spit. i was not there and im glad i weren't, some lads i used to go the villa with as well were very embarrassing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 I think there is a dangerous and growing acceptance of abuse toward Muslims that is not the case with other minorities. That needs to be sorted out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted December 8, 2015 Administrator Share Posted December 8, 2015 45 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said: some of the things my work colleagues come out with is unreal and although i may come across a bit anti muslim i would never come out with the shit they do. last year one of the younger lot was driving down the road and they saw a muslim standing on the side of the road and they slowed down to give this poor fella a face full of spit. i was not there and im glad i weren't, some lads i used to go the villa with as well were very embarrassing. How could (any of) you tell this was a Muslim just by looking? Was he wearing a badge or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Communities under siege tend to close ranks and allow some of the nastier elements within to come out. And the cycle continues... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 (edited) 7 minutes ago, limpid said: How could (any of) you tell this was a Muslim just by looking? Was he wearing a badge or something? i was not there as i said so for all they know it might not of been. im assuming he was in muslim dress which id recognise but they probaby would not because my work mate will make comments about people and id say mate hes not muslim hes a sikh. either way i dont agree with it. Edited December 8, 2015 by Rugeley Villa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted December 8, 2015 Administrator Share Posted December 8, 2015 7 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said: i was not there as i said so for all they know it might not of been. im assuming he was in muslim dress which id recognise but they probaby would not because my work mate will make comments about people and id say mate hes not muslim hes a sikh. either way i dont agree with it. Sounds like a racist then, rather than anything religious. Interesting that he uses a religious label for their ignorance/hate - it's like they are following the IS narrative to alienate Muslims. You should ask your mate how long he's been helping IS with their propaganda. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Just now, limpid said: Sounds like a racist then, rather than anything religious. Interesting that he use a religious label for their ignorance/hate - it's like they are following the IS narrative to alienate Muslims. You should ask your mate how long he's been helping IS with their propaganda. yep i know quite a few full on racists. ive not got any close friends which really are but a few people like work colleagues and other people i might share a drink with or whatever. he will come out with shit and i'll say mate that will not help or it will just make things worse. bit like me on here i suppose, im a bit more educated than my work mates on the subject and some fellow VTers are more educated than me. im slightly towards the right but some of them are pure hatred towards muslims and to a lesser degree towards black people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 10 hours ago, villakram said: Careful... de-humanzing the opposition is War-prep 101. Do not allow yourself to be manipulated so! ISIS soldiers are humans existing within a social structure that has resulted in them acting in a certain manner, that most humans find deeply repulsive. However, the use of language like "apocalypse" etc. acts to de-humanize the individuals, hence making their subsequent eradication more palatable. I think that is a path best avoided. I think you are missing the point slightly. What Mr Ragnos wrote is absolutely accurate, the entire IS ideology is about preparing the Muslim world for the apocalypse. That is not dehumanizing language it is their own words and they proudly self identify as such. I would suggest the only people being manipulated here are those whose own social conditioning doesn't allow them to call a duck by its name, even while it's walking around quacking and laying eggs at their feet. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 Problem is, the right wing, the military, those with a military fetish, with a military budget, those that profit from war and people who are easily excitable by guns and bangs or want political gain or want to trick us out of our liberty for their future profit have all been pointing at everything that moved for the last 20 years and shouting 'it's a duck, we must kill it before it kills us alllllll'. Years of these fetishists, conmen and retards have lead us to automatically presume that if they lied about the ducks twenty times, this twenty first duck should probably be treated with suspicion. To simply believe the neo cons one more time would be beyond social conditioning. It would be an admission of learning difficulties on an epic scale. It would be a win for those that jerk off over power, land and blood. Quack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaw_nuff Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 15 hours ago, Awol said: I don't think it matters very much what people believe until that belief starts impacting on others. The west think ISIS are dangerous nutters because of what they do, not because of what they believe. The fact most Indians believe in an eight limbed god with the head of an elephant (apologies to Hindus if that's wrong, I'm a bit sketchy on the details) matters not a fart to the "west" because it causes no harm to us. It would be the same with the more interesting claims made by Muslims if it didn't involve slaughtering large amounts of people to garner those imagined rewards. The basic Christian message is 'be nice to people' and personally I don't find that incredibly offensive or deranged, particularly as the religion has matured and ditched the hell-fire and brimstone parp from the Old Testament. I certainly don't think you can fairly discard the opinions of such people on everything else or question their mental faculties as a result of holding those beliefs. I don't really care what the basic christian message is. Any more than I care about the constant message pushed out about Islam being the 'religion of peace'. I look at what they do and preach. Christianity has caused immense harm in the world and still does (contraception in Africa for one). Problems between Hindus and Muslims have killed millions. The less I say about Israel the better. All religions are incompatible. Their basic premise is you're wrong and I'm right, I'm going to heaven, you're not. And yet they're ALL batshit crazy. I'm not going to pull punches and be all PC about it. You have to have a seriously compartmentalised brain to believe the crap in any holy book. So yes, I stand by my claim that I question the mental health of anyone religious. Obviously it depends on the depth of their faith - it may only be a mild form of brainwashing for some, but if they believe the any of the creation myths for example they're deranged in my book. We need an all out 'war' on religion in the hope that common sense prevails. In the UK alone we could get rid of all religious schools and put a massive emphasis on science subjects. Education alone could rid us of this poison once and for all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 Chris, Do you honestly think ISIS is some sort of con, a fabrication dreamed up by people who just want to read your emails, or buy a new tank? If that isn't what your driving at with your post them I'm not sure what your point is? I struggle to believe that even the most sensibly cynical person could interpret the savagery of ISIS as anything other than the threat it quite obviously is, whether that be a threat to the west (demonstrated) or a threat to anyone who happens to disagree with them in the Middle East (demonstrated in spades). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 Awol, ISIS is clearly real and clearly a real threat. But the route to 'ISIS' has in part been constructed by 'our' politicians. From dabbling in Afghanistan when the Taliban were the greatest threat to our culture, this was morphed in to general middle east terror and we were told that Saddam and his imaginary weapons were a real threat to our families. Al Qaeda were then a real danger to all of us, capable of bombing tube stations and buses. If we just bomb one more place we can kill off AQ. Then we have another go at Iraq, and it turns to shit, but not to worry, we just need to topple Libya and everything will be ok. But then it turns out what we really need to do is topple Assad, but then it turns out Egypt needs a nudge. But then after the nudge we didn't like the direction it fell, so strangely have decided to do nothing about a military coup and dictatorship there? I've mashed up the time line and simplified it, but you'll get the point. We have been lead here either by lies or incompetence. Those that have lied or are incompetent have benefitted hugely from this. To believe what they say again, without question, to go to war on their advice again, without question, would surely be idiotic? Or, in the language we are now adopting in this thread, murderously mentally retarded. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 9, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 9, 2015 2 hours ago, chrisp65 said: Problem is, the right wing, the military, those with a military fetish, with a military budget, those that profit from war and people who are easily excitable by guns and bangs or want political gain or want to trick us out of our liberty for their future profit have all been pointing at everything that moved for the last 20 years and shouting 'it's a duck, we must kill it before it kills us alllllll'.... As a sweeping generalisation, I suppose you could claim that's more true than not true, but that's at least in part because you could tag anyone who disagrees with the theory as "people who are easily excitable by guns and bangs or want political gain or want to trick us out of our liberty" and thereby prove it's correct "see you're one of them and by disagreeing with me, you're proving I'm right" I don't really think it's particularly accurate as a diagnosis of why we're where we are. It's very easy to pick great big holes in. You seem to be including categories that maybe don't appeal to you (?) with categories that actually do bear most of the responsibility. It's all a bit "Stop the War" -y . All a bit "everyone who doesn't think or act like me is guilty". All a bit of a massive over-simplification and generalisation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 17 hours ago, Awol said: I don't think it matters very much what people believe until that belief starts impacting on others. The west think ISIS are dangerous nutters because of what they do, not because of what they believe. The fact most Indians believe in an eight limbed god with the head of an elephant (apologies to Hindus if that's wrong, I'm a bit sketchy on the details) matters not a fart to the "west" because it causes no harm to us. It would be the same with the more interesting claims made by Muslims if it didn't involve slaughtering large amounts of people to garner those imagined rewards. The basic Christian message is 'be nice to people' and personally I don't find that incredibly offensive or deranged, particularly as the religion has matured and ditched the hell-fire and brimstone parp from the Old Testament. I certainly don't think you can fairly discard the opinions of such people on everything else or question their mental faculties as a result of holding those beliefs. I like Chomsky's claim that in the West it is the intellectuals' role to invent complicated reasons why 'they' hate us, to distract the population from the simple and obvious, that it is the West's support of corrupt and brutal regimes and by selling arms to all sides ferment conflict and instability. Ridiculing their religious beliefs is just one such popular distraction which leads people away from accepting the clear and obvious and 'they hate us for who we are' is another. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 @blandyI was being very sweeping and generalised. It was an attempt to answer in kind the sentence above from Awol, Quote I would suggest the only people being manipulated here are those whose own social conditioning doesn't allow them to call a duck by its name, even while it's walking around quacking and laying eggs at their feet Which suggested, if you don't agree with this interpretation, then you are being manipulated, having been conditioned. I felt that was a little simplistic, so thought I'd be equally simplistic. So yes, well spotted, that over simplification was the intention. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 9, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 9, 2015 Everyone knows and agrees ISIS are a threat. The differences are about how to tackle or contain or mitigate that threat and the risks of taking (or not taking) particular courses of action. I think it's undeniable that the consequences of previous western involvements in the middle east have led towards where we are now. In other words the west has made things worse, not better, by doing what has been done these past 10 + years. I agree that repeating the same thing over and over and expecting that eventually it'll work and the outcome will be different is not too bright. Equally the west is far from wholly to blame. Presidents and dictators, barmpot Imams, religionist zealots, racketeers, smugglers, thieves, rapists, murderers, fraudsters, suicide bombers, and every other kind of ne'erdowell, gangster and tyrant have also played their part to as much if not more an extent as Blair, Cameron and Co. Sometimes people can do the wrong thing for the right reasons, or the right thing for the wrong reasons. It is not possible to know what the outcome of actions in such a complex situation will be. In terms of what the UK should be doing this time, it's already been discussed over and over, and while I don't think the military action we're doing is the right approach, I can also see that if ISIL is to be withered away, then there's going to need to be some (large) element of military activity. But what do you do when the countries who ought to be taking the lead all clear off and start bombing Houtis and Iranians in Yemen instead? The west walking away completely would also make it worse. It needs the ISILs money to be cut off, it needs their smuggling routes for Oil to be cut off, the borders of Turkey where the Jihadis go through need to be closed, their internet propaganda stuff needs to be hacked and shut down. The various nations need to be sat down and a common approach to deal with ISILs needs to be agreed and followed through Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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