Sunday, August 27, 2006

Blowing Up the Wing Nuts

We’ve spent 5 years trying to blow up the foreign bad guys in the old timey way.

But I mean the post title in the hip hop sense.

Maybe we’ve been making the religious wing nuts both here and in the Islamic world bigger than they should be.

Paul Campos, a law dog at the University of Colorado and quickly becoming one of my faves, took on the topic recently. Read more

Politics of fear. Spirituality of fear. Sort of blows both here and there.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

James Fallows in the September issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" had a host of critics argue that our response to the terrorists in the war of terror has actually exponentially increased the power of the terrorists.

A couple months ago, the same magazine also pointed out that Al-Zarqawi was really "nothing" in the Islamic or the terror world, but that the US needed a name/face to the terror, and so we unintentionally made him into a legend and gave him undeserved authority.

10:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Love your writings Tom. Especially enjoyed the neo-conservative Jesus.... As an antidote to the irational fear based judgment on Islam, i have been slowly reading through a website of a man who is doing his doctoral thesis at Fuller on the theory of Islam being the next world superpower - and specifically their desire to deal with global poverty. I heard him speak, crazy ex-military guy who has spent a lot of time in the desert talking with Islamic economic leaders. Not sure all of what I make on his theories yet, but a fresh perspective on the subject. Here is the link if you are interested: http://www.islam21stcenturysuperpower.com/

4:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am very skeptical of the 21st century superpower site. First of all, the "facts" that are presented seem off. I don't have the knowledge or the time to check all of them, but he makes some statements (like calling nearly every African country 50%+ Muslim) that are wildly off. Every resource I find shows that quite a few of those countries (Kenya, for example) have strong Christian majorities. That makes the rest of his facts suspect to me.

The second big confusion I had is that he seems to assume a ton of things about Islamic regimes in the future that aren't even true now. How will they use their theology to eliminate the poor of the world when they're not even doing it in their own countries? If we were just looking at theology, I could make a strong case that the Jewish and Christian nations should be working to eliminate poverty too, but actions rarely fall in line with the best parts of theology.

12:04 AM  
Blogger 3wishes said...

It is amazing to watch our over-medicated nation drink the kool-aid. Summer camp 06: Kids line up to take their meds before breakfast. Parents okay cheating so long as their uninformed offspring make the grade. Is it any wonder this nation will believe anything its told?

3:01 AM  
Blogger Wordcat said...

Great comments everybody.

Yeah, I saw that article Eddie. I loved Fallows take--let's declare the war on terror won and move on so we don't end up fanning it even further. It's clear from recent polls that most folks have stopped believing Iraq has anything to do with the war on terror. What took them so long? :^) Of course, I also saw a recent study which showed that 73% of all Americans could name all 3 Stooges but only 42% could name all three branches of government. Here's the part I liked best: the dude that did it said "Americans aren't idiots as much as pop cultural geniuses." The Ultimate Spinmeister! That guy should be working with Karl Rove.

Great to know you're readin' Chris. I'll check out that site.

Yeah, Jon, theology is one thing but reality another.

Where does the line for the Kool Aid start 3? I need me a big dose of comforting fantasy :^)

4:56 PM  

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