Keith Devens .com

When I see comparisons between the "war on terror" and communism, I am reminded of this quote by Martin Luther King Jr.:

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

Joshua Claybourn is having the exact same discussion on his blog:

http://www.joshclaybourn.com/blog/archives/002218.html

Pardon me for asking, but what exactly is Islamofascism? Is it in any way similar to Christianofascism or Jewofascism? I find it disturbing that such a term is being used. And what does it imply? Are Muslims fascist? Islam endorses peace - please read http://www.al-islami.com/islam/religion_of_peace.php where the following points are made and argued:
1) Islam Prohibits Violence and Aggression, and stands for Peace and Justice.
2) Islamic Principle: Living Peacefully with All Nations and Peoples
3) Islamic Principle: There is no Compulsion in Religion
4) When are Muslims Permitted to Fight a War?
5) Does Islam Permit Killing Civilians?
And who has "world domination in mind"? It seems to me that the US is the one that has "world domination in mind". I guess that's all just part of Christianofascism, right? Stalin? Wait a minute. He was Christian. Does that mean all Christians are like Stalin? Is this part of Christianofascism? Give me a break. Furthermore, a redefinition of terrorism is needed. Are Palestinians terrorists for attacking Israelis when the Israeli government is killing their leaders and destroying their homes and stealing their land (illegal settlements)? What are they supposed to do: stand by and watch? Maybe if they had 1/10th of the weapons that Israeli forces have they wouldn't be forced to perform martyr operations. Are the Iraqis terrorists for fighting to expel the Americans now that the Saddam regime has been kicked out and the Iraqi people now want to be left alone? Or is terrorism a word used to refer to anyone that actively opposes US policy? Or is it more specific? North Korea seems to actively oppose US policy, but they don't seem to be getting anywhere near the treatment that Iraq got. Why is that? Is it because Iraqis are Muslims? What about Afghanistan? Muslims again. So it seems to be that you have to be both opposed to US policy and a Muslim to get the US to declare war on you and be labelled a 'terrorist'. It is sad to see how terms such as Islamofascism are used to hide the true intentions of the people that created such a word. Ånyway, for an alternative viewpoint of world affairs, please check out http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ and http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/index.asp It's authors aren't Muslim so you can't really claim that it's biased although by nature, everyone has some sort of bias. For a deeper understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict, check out Robert Fisk's excellent site: http://www.robert-fisk.com/ "It is through knowledge that we peel away the layers of ignorance and open the doors of compassion and understanding."

Keith, I didn't realize you allowed comments from the anonymous crowd.

Real quick ... though I know it's not going to do any good ...

Facism refers not to Islam in general, but the radical Islam that sends their 5 year olds to schools to learn how hate the U.S. and blow themselves up to bring about a 7th century form of government.

Facism refers not to Muslims who are working hard to feed their families and run their businesses, but extremists who want a 7th century form of government.

Facism is not about Arabs who in countries like Jordan treat Christians very well, but rather insurgents who are blowing up the Iraqi infrastructure because they want to kill all non-believers and bring about a 7th century form of government.

Then again, I personally use the term "Hyper Fundies" to refer to the KKK loving Kristyun Kooks in my 11th Grade sunday school classs.

Mean Dean, check out http://forums.gawaher.com/index.php

Keith, I didn't realize you allowed comments from the anonymous crowd.

Yep, anonymous is good. By the way, 'AdviceMan' and the first guy are the same person -- located in Egypt. I'll be looking through my logs in a bit to discover how he found my site.

I don't think it's going to do any good either, Dean, but I give you credit for trying. When someone links to sites full of conspiracy theories and offers some of his own, there's not much point in arguing. And... Stalin was Christian? I also think it's funny that he links to Robert Fisk. He must not realize that his name is synonymous with shoddy and biased reporting -- literally. There's even an award in his "honor".

AdviceMan, I will directly reply to one of your questions. Yes, it is terrorism when Palestinians kill Israelis by blowing up buses full of schoolchildren, murdering families while they sleep, etc.

Oooh my. You can read log files. That's great. Okay. Post the IP from which I'm sending this if you can (you might want to traceroute it first). As you mention, Dean's effort was in vain. I guess it's better to just close your weblog to comments from anyone that might have a different point of view. That would save from the pain of actually listening to the other side. In fact, you can set up some bots to mirror your opinion every N seconds. Should I write a Python script to do that for you? Okay. Stalin wasn't a good example (I'm a bit rusty in history), but Hitler was an excellent example (please continue reading before getting all upset). Here's a nice article discussing his Christianity. http://kevin.davnet.org/essays/hitler.html Of course, I agree with the author's conclusion which goes as follows:

"It is an established historical fact that Hitler was baptized a Roman Catholic and confirmed at age 15, and that Hitler never formally and publicly left the Catholic Church.
Hitler considered himself religious, but had only contempt for organized religion and the teachings of the church about Jesus. Hitler had his own private view of Jesus, that of an economic revolutionary and Jew hater. So in some twisted sense Hitler thought he was acting in the tradition of Jesus. If the question is, "can someone read the New Testament and then go off and do horribly bad things?" then the answer is yes. If the question is "was Hitler in the tradition of mainstream Christianity" then the answer is no.
The problem of saying "Hitler was a Christian" when by "Christian" is meant something totally different from normal usage and historical context, is that the sentence ceases to mean anything. One might as well have said "Hitler was a Zorb" because the last word is meaningless. The only "value" in saying "Hitler was a Christian" with an iconoclastic meaning for "Christian" is as a tool of anti-Christian propaganda towards the end of misleading people."

So does this mean that this is part of Christianofascism? If I was baised, I'd say so. But in reality, this can be in no way related to religion and Hitler is in no way Christian. Which is the same for Islamofascism. The same can be applied to any individual in any religion. Finally, I looked at your comment about fisking over http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=8935 The problem is that I hang out at http://littlebluefootballs.com a lot so we have different sources of information.

And as to the web site from which I came from, it's ILikeToSeeThingsFromBothSides.com. You might want to check out. You might learn something.

PS. Any hey, don't go pestering my little brother AdviceMan. And I guess it's terrorism if the Palestinians do the killings but not if Israelis do the killings, right? Sounds fair enough...

Don't worry about it Keith, as Nielsen says about scanning content, e.g.

No one is saying all Islam is Facism, but rather that radical islamic hyper-fundementalism == a form of facism because it wants to bring back a 7th century governance globally.

As for the pope and stuff ... hey, I have no problem calling it like it is ... neither did Paul, neither did Luther ... but please note the lesson of internal house keeping.

Once again proving Nielsen correct.

And I guess it's terrorism if the Palestinians do the killings but not if Israelis do the killings, right?

I haven't seen any Israelis blowing up busses full of Palestinian children, have you? The fact that you fail to denounce such evil acts shows that there's no point in arguing with you.

I haven't seen any Israelis blowing up busses full of Palestinian children, have you?

The Israelis have killed more children than the Palestinians. They regularly bombed villages in Lebanon. They regularly send missiles into residential areas, killing children. I read about one case where an Israeli beat a Palestinian adolescent to death and got fucking community service.

Is terrorism wrong? Yes. Both sides have terrorist -- Israeli is led by a fucking terrorist. Sharon, though, is a clever terrorist -- he knows how to provoke a violent response to provide cover for his project of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians terrorists aren't so clever.

It would be delusional to think that it matters if we condemn Palestinian terrorism here. Do you think there's Palestinians reading this that will suddenly be convinced to change their mind on the matter? That's no counterpoint. I'm more concerned that my tax dollars are going toward funding Israeli terrorism -- and that is relevent for in this audience.

Even then the terrorism issue is a cover -- a way of keeping us from discussing issues of justice. The issue of justice applies not just to the extreme factions on both sides, it applies to the entire subject and the entire region. But it's easier to discuss the most extreme means, and not the underlying issues.