The Fine Art Of Killing Yourself (And Maybe Someone Else)
So here in Nevada we've been getting seeing a lot of the fight for the White House. We're a swing state, we have a good record of choosing presidents -- we voted for Bush, we voted for Clinton, we voted for Reagan and so forth. Obama and McCain have both made appearances at the local university, Romney has recently been visiting little mining towns. The radio is hot with adverts for both parties. And today, I received my copy of Obsession, the hour-long pre-release of a video about "Radical Islam's War Against The West." As it says, "It's our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November." If you don't want to desecrate your DVD player with this disc, or you live in a securely red/blue state and won't get this in the mail, I wrote about it as I watched it:
In the opening, a disclaimer is printed on the screen: "It's important to remember, most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terror. This is not a film about them." And then it's straight into the WTC attack. An expert says that maybe 10-15% of the Muslim world actually believes in using violent struggle. Then, solid wall to wall videos of Islamic religious leaders preaching jihad, random Muslims in the streets burning flags and chanting "death to America."
Half an hour through and all we hear are that some people just hate America, they call the US the devil, compare Bush to Satan. A music video from "the Internet" with some masked guys rapping in Arabic about destroying the US. Many clips labeled simply "Palestinian TV" or "Iranian TV," I'm picturing foreign reports about America with clips from Fox News labeled "American TV." They ask, why do they hate us? Well, "some people" blame American imperialism -- but that answer is distracting Americans from the REAL answer, which is jihad with the west. They hate us because they hate us and believe we will be destroyed, as written in their holy books.
Halfway in, they get heavy into parallels with the Nazi movement. They taught their youth to hate, and people ignored it, now the Muslims are teaching their youth to hate, and we "don't connect the dots" they say.
Michael Moore, in a video where he claims that there is no terrorist threat, just terrorist attacks. Overlaid with horror-movie video effects. Someone claims that if 9/11 had happened on the west coast, Hollywood would have a different opinion. An expert says that terrorism is a single threat, not a scattered number of groups with the same cause, and that single threat can be dealt with. Another claims that America just wants to "ignore a real threat" and we will pay "with many, many millions of dead." Clips from before WWII, Chamberlain placating the Nazis by giving them the Sudetenland. "A ripe plum, ready to fall into Hitler's lap!" Interview with a former Hitler Youth officer. Video of Nazi Germany chanting, "SIEG HEIL!" Pictures of Muslims raising their hands, holding flags, "History has an unfortunate habit of always repeating itself."
Arabs demonize the Jews, we've already seen this many times thus far. "The Jews needed the blood of a Christian child to make matzoh." Scenes from an Arabic TV drama where some Jews kill a young boy to make bread.
More parallels with Nazism. Historians saying that Hitler spread propoganda and had fans -- the Mufti -- in the Middle East who wanted to spread Nazi ideals. The Mufti formed special Muslim SS divisions. A panzer division of Muslims. Islam demands only Islam, so that they were working with the Nazis means the Nazis acted just like Islam. "You could have a success rate of several Nazi Germanies, if they get their way."
More random videos, more sound bites of experts saying that Islam wants to destroy the West, more clips from "Palestinian TV" of people promoting jihad and destroying America.
Videos of people carrying wounded children from WWII. Videos of people carrying wounded children from 2002. The WTC collapsing, FDR sound clip: "It is coming very close to home."
At the very end: experts saying that Muslims have to speak out against the violence. Clips of religious leaders condemning the terrorists. "The very few who are speaking out." Tianenmen Square protest, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lenin's statue falling, Saddam's statue falling. The Edmund Burke quote is repeated a third time(counting the packaging): "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The URL and a message that you can help are displayed.
It never says so much, but it's very very obviously biased toward Western intervention in the Middle East -- we have to do something before, JUST LIKE THE NAZIS, they start a war JUST LIKE THE NAZIS. We can't ignore them LIKE WE DID THE NAZIS. NAZI NAZI NAZI. The group of Islamofascists, which is a real group with real solidarity across 55 nations (citation needed) all hate America and Israel. They will stop at nothing to destroy everything that isn't Islamic, so we have to "do something" to stop them. With the hearts and minds thing not working with people who never stop hating, well... their intended solution is clear. Bullets, bombs, bigotry. And who can you vote for this November who will assure you get that?
The Power of Nightmares, a BBC production, covers similar ground in a far, far more complete way. It discusses the history of Osama's camp and the Neocons from a common point in 1950's America, the politics of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union leading to the formation of two different dangerous ideologies. It condemns both groups equally and explains how both were intimidated by degenerate American culture, and how both seek to fight dangerous individualism through fascism and religion. There they describe how the Neocons created the al Qaida threat after 9/11, and why a single, solid, fictional threat like Islamofascism is so important. This one undermines half of Obsession's fallacies quite easily. The other half of the fallacies are Nazi parallels, and they're so ludicrously transparent they don't need to be explained.
Anyway, in my opinion this is a much better explanation for current world events, with far better sources:
Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2798679275960015727&ei=T9juSI_EM4z-qAPF94TMDA&q=the+power+of+nightmares&emb=1
In the opening, a disclaimer is printed on the screen: "It's important to remember, most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terror. This is not a film about them." And then it's straight into the WTC attack. An expert says that maybe 10-15% of the Muslim world actually believes in using violent struggle. Then, solid wall to wall videos of Islamic religious leaders preaching jihad, random Muslims in the streets burning flags and chanting "death to America."
Half an hour through and all we hear are that some people just hate America, they call the US the devil, compare Bush to Satan. A music video from "the Internet" with some masked guys rapping in Arabic about destroying the US. Many clips labeled simply "Palestinian TV" or "Iranian TV," I'm picturing foreign reports about America with clips from Fox News labeled "American TV." They ask, why do they hate us? Well, "some people" blame American imperialism -- but that answer is distracting Americans from the REAL answer, which is jihad with the west. They hate us because they hate us and believe we will be destroyed, as written in their holy books.
Halfway in, they get heavy into parallels with the Nazi movement. They taught their youth to hate, and people ignored it, now the Muslims are teaching their youth to hate, and we "don't connect the dots" they say.
Michael Moore, in a video where he claims that there is no terrorist threat, just terrorist attacks. Overlaid with horror-movie video effects. Someone claims that if 9/11 had happened on the west coast, Hollywood would have a different opinion. An expert says that terrorism is a single threat, not a scattered number of groups with the same cause, and that single threat can be dealt with. Another claims that America just wants to "ignore a real threat" and we will pay "with many, many millions of dead." Clips from before WWII, Chamberlain placating the Nazis by giving them the Sudetenland. "A ripe plum, ready to fall into Hitler's lap!" Interview with a former Hitler Youth officer. Video of Nazi Germany chanting, "SIEG HEIL!" Pictures of Muslims raising their hands, holding flags, "History has an unfortunate habit of always repeating itself."
Arabs demonize the Jews, we've already seen this many times thus far. "The Jews needed the blood of a Christian child to make matzoh." Scenes from an Arabic TV drama where some Jews kill a young boy to make bread.
More parallels with Nazism. Historians saying that Hitler spread propoganda and had fans -- the Mufti -- in the Middle East who wanted to spread Nazi ideals. The Mufti formed special Muslim SS divisions. A panzer division of Muslims. Islam demands only Islam, so that they were working with the Nazis means the Nazis acted just like Islam. "You could have a success rate of several Nazi Germanies, if they get their way."
More random videos, more sound bites of experts saying that Islam wants to destroy the West, more clips from "Palestinian TV" of people promoting jihad and destroying America.
Videos of people carrying wounded children from WWII. Videos of people carrying wounded children from 2002. The WTC collapsing, FDR sound clip: "It is coming very close to home."
At the very end: experts saying that Muslims have to speak out against the violence. Clips of religious leaders condemning the terrorists. "The very few who are speaking out." Tianenmen Square protest, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lenin's statue falling, Saddam's statue falling. The Edmund Burke quote is repeated a third time(counting the packaging): "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The URL and a message that you can help are displayed.
It never says so much, but it's very very obviously biased toward Western intervention in the Middle East -- we have to do something before, JUST LIKE THE NAZIS, they start a war JUST LIKE THE NAZIS. We can't ignore them LIKE WE DID THE NAZIS. NAZI NAZI NAZI. The group of Islamofascists, which is a real group with real solidarity across 55 nations (citation needed) all hate America and Israel. They will stop at nothing to destroy everything that isn't Islamic, so we have to "do something" to stop them. With the hearts and minds thing not working with people who never stop hating, well... their intended solution is clear. Bullets, bombs, bigotry. And who can you vote for this November who will assure you get that?
The Power of Nightmares, a BBC production, covers similar ground in a far, far more complete way. It discusses the history of Osama's camp and the Neocons from a common point in 1950's America, the politics of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union leading to the formation of two different dangerous ideologies. It condemns both groups equally and explains how both were intimidated by degenerate American culture, and how both seek to fight dangerous individualism through fascism and religion. There they describe how the Neocons created the al Qaida threat after 9/11, and why a single, solid, fictional threat like Islamofascism is so important. This one undermines half of Obsession's fallacies quite easily. The other half of the fallacies are Nazi parallels, and they're so ludicrously transparent they don't need to be explained.
Anyway, in my opinion this is a much better explanation for current world events, with far better sources:
Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2798679275960015727&ei=T9juSI_EM4z-qAPF94TMDA&q=the+power+of+nightmares&emb=1