But "Islamofascist" test markets so well. It's two words that have negative connotations juxtaposed together for double the negativity goodliness. Regardless if the hearer has any idea what the words mean on their own.

Yeah, it's nonsense, but so is most marketing. It's not like anybody's expecting serious talk out of this administration at this point. It's deceptive marketing-speak all the way down.

If our goal is still to win the hearts and minds of moderate Arabs and Muslims then using terms like "Islamic fascism" or "Islamofascist" is not a good idea.

Call'em what you like but that is counterproductive.

also out: Sand Nazis and Jawas

Well, to me, it looks like Bush got it correct for once and Russ is acting like a PC Geek...

Liberals: "Bush should stop calling Islamic people fascists. Most of them aren't."

Conservatives: "That's PC hairsplitting."

*later that day*

Liberals: "Man, the fundies are trying to pass another anti-gay marriage bill."

Conservatives: "How dare you use the word 'fundies' when referring to proponents of the bill! It is demeaning to the majority of people opposed to gay marriage on traditional grounds!"

I guess things like this hurt a little more when they directly affect your group. And when you have a complete and utter lack of human empathy, of course.

chaunceymo: And when you have a complete and utter lack of human empathy, of course.

Politics as usual then?

quadropheniac

Vetinari:They believe that anyone who does not believe exactly what they believe is "an Affront to God" and needs to be killed until they are dead.

I'm hoping and praying that was intentional. If not, nice.

/Russ Feingold: One of the few Democrats I still respect
//liberal independent

Of course it was intentional it's a quote from a mob movie. I cant remember it right now. One question: Why would it be "nice" if it were not intentional??

Can we PLEASE keep Sand Nazi........

Vetinari: Of course it was intentional it's a quote from a mob movie.

Isnt it from Howard Stern's movie?
First, a political
statement, if I may.
Kill, Kill, Kill...
The White Man,
by Eugene
Mama Look-a boo boo day.
Eugene is my pen name 'cause
I wrote this while I was in the pen.
Kill, kill,
kill the white man.
Kill him
until he is dead.
Kill the white man.
Thank you.

What's with the "recent" definitions as being somehow better? Have recent advances in technology made it easier to define Fascism?

You're being revisionist. This is a fascist. Stop playing fast and loose with history if you want people to learn anything from it.

/And its Fascism, not facism. The former is a totalitarian ideology and the latter is a genre of Japanese porn.

scseth
Yea, but the people calling the anti-gay rights people "fundies" aren't trying to persuade them, they are tring to mock and marginalize them because they can't be swayed. That isn't such a hot idea when you're trying to bring moderates to your side no matter who you are.

In this case the terrorist really don't give a damn what you call them but losing the Muslim moderates is losing a major battle in the War on Terror. It's just a dumb move and I'm tired of paying for the missteps from this administration.

no scseth, Stern (like all of his funny bits) was stealing that from somewhere else. I can't remember the movie but they were definitely Italian and they were in suits.

Vetinari: Can we PLEASE keep Sand Nazi........

Yes, but only for the German North African tank corps in WW2. I'm taking Sand Nazi back for them.

SchlingFo :
"What have you, personally, done to stop all the abortion clinic bombers from murdering in the name of Christianity?
Our government takes action against them when they break the law. But, I don't see very many Christians going out there on their own and hunting down these abortion clinic bombers.
If you want to blame someone for inaction, blame the governments if they don't aggressively hunt down and prosecute murderers."



What you said is true...however you also don't see thousands of Christians (or anyone else) out in the streets in support of wackos who blow up abortion clinics, unlike all of the support that Hamas, Hezbollah, etc, get from the general population.

chaunceymo

Yes, but only for the German North African tank corps in WW2. I'm taking Sand Nazi back for them.

You sir are the master of all you survey! I damn near choked to death trying not to laugh to hard.


/Me and MC Desert Fox are kicking it old school!

"Bush has frequently drawn parallels between the terrorist threats of today and the 20th-century struggles against totalitarian fascism and communism, and he noted in a speech last October that some observers have used the term, "Islamo-fascism." But his own use of "Islamic fascism" is more recent."

Excuse me but isn't the whole idea of "Spreading Democracy" a form of Trotskyism? You know the idea of permanent revolution that was the corner stone of Marxism.

Ghost Rider
Yea, I get that but I'm not talking about intent, I'm talking about effect. Unless you think they are going to preface the use of the term with a short statement about how this just means terrorist leaders then I don't think that it's a good idea.

If you're a cracker like me and you're repeating a Chris Rock joke and drop an n-bomb then your intent is more or less OK but doing it at a meeting of the NAACP might not go over too well.

Thank you, Senator Obvious. We're completely aware that not ALL Muslims are fascists or terrorists. The particular breed of terrorists we are dealing with right now just happen to be Muslim & well, somewhat fascist. At least losely defined. I mean, they ARE pretty right wing & there's no denying they're rather authoritarian in the way they feel things oughta be.

Besides, Russ, it's not like the term hasn't been thrown around losely for the past 40 years. Give it a rest. It lost it's sting years ago.

milk_plus: drop an n-bomb

Whats a nubian?

the_iconoclast,

No, you don't see as many Christians out in the streets supporting the Christians who are blowing up abortion clinics.

That could be, however, due to the fact that the entire population of the U.S. isn't even a third of the population of the Muslim population.

And, that's still an extremely small percentage of Muslims out there vocally supporting the Muslim terrorists.

My original intent, which was to show that painting an entire group of people based on the actions of a small percentage of the members, seems to have been lost.

The vast majority of Muslims out there are no different than the vast majority of Christians. They simply want to go out, work, make a decent living, and raise their family in relative safety and stability.

For some people, it's easier to paint the entire group as being farked up because to do otherwise would require thinking in more than two lines of thought.

"What have you, personally, done to stop all the abortion clinic bombers from murdering in the name of Christianity?"

I fund the police department with my taxes. The police department enforces the laws. Last I checked bombing clinics was illegal. So that is what I do to stop the bombings.Any more questions?

Comparing a handful of Christian nuts with ARMIES of suicidal jihadists is really a stretch. Don't you think?

"So can I call Evangelicans that want to convert everyone, want the government to be Christian, think it's OK to bomb abortion clinics, teach the Bible in public schools and want to ignore science in favor of doctrine "Christian-fascists"?

Go for it. I think all you will get are confused looks.

rose8199 - So can I call Evangelicans that want to convert everyone, want the government to be Christian, think it's OK to bomb abortion clinics, teach the Bible in public schools and want to ignore science in favor of doctrine "Christian-fascists"?

Well, they are pretty totalitarian in their beliefs. Ever attempted a discussion on abortion w/ one? If not, you should. You'd have no problem labeling them Christofascists after the fact.

They are not fascists. They don't want an authoritarian system run by business interests. They want a theocracy. Fascism is not a movement that desired a theocracy. If you feel that the few points of similarity are enough to call them fascists you must never ever even consider complaining when someone calls Bush a fascist, or compares the GOP to the Fascists, etc.

The funny thing about this all is it is an extremely clever GOP trick. Using the term Islamic Fascists, that is. You see it puts bitter democrats in the position of indirectly defending actual terrorists. They aren't fascists, a Fascist is someone REALLY evil like so-and-so...

The unwashed masses will see this as democrats taking the side of Islamic extremists, just like they think Saddam was somehow involved in 9/11.

Vetinari:They believe that anyone who does not believe exactly what they believe is "an Affront to God" and needs to be killed until they are dead

Oh, Wilson, Someday I'll kill you till you die
Oh, Wilson, Punch you in the eye

Svengali4Life,

I fund the police department with my taxes. The police department enforces the laws. Last I checked bombing clinics was illegal. So that is what I do to stop the bombings.Any more questions?

India and Indonesia have two of the largest Muslim populations in the world (around 300 million combined; the population of the U.S.).

The Muslims in those countries pay their taxes and fund their police departments. Those countries aggressively seek out and prosecute Muslim murderers/terrorists in their countries.

So, it would seem that a large number of Muslims in the world are doing exactly what you're doing.

What more would you suggest that they do?

And, if you would suggest that they do more, why haven't you/aren't you done/doing more to stop the Christian terrorists from blowing up abortion clinics?

Comparing a handful of Christian nuts with ARMIES of suicidal jihadists is really a stretch. Don't you think?

1)There's not a "handful" of Christian nuts. The abortion clinic bombers generally have extensive support networks to help them hide/escape arrest.

2)The scale doesn't matter when I'm trying to point out how illogical it is to paint an entire group based on the actions of an extremely small percentage of the group.

Svengali4Life

The funny thing about this all is it is an extremely clever GOP trick. Using the term Islamic Fascists, that is.

Hilarious! Dumb the people down to the point they don't recognize real fascist threats in their midst. What a knee-slapper!

Ghost Rider,

Wow, it's truly amazing how you guys just pull "facts" like that out of your asses on the fly that way, really. Source please.

Eric Rudolph was found scavenging for food in a garbage can behind a Sav-A-Lot store, f'chrissake. That's some extensive support network he had there, I'll say...

Why did you choose to ignore the rest of my post?

Will it actually matter if I provide sources to you? If so, I'll provide them later on once I get home from work.

If not, then let me know and I won't waste our time.

And, on that note, I'm off.

Don't go yet. You haven't helped me figure out why I never hear of abortion clinic bombings in Muslim countries.

Svengali4Life

You know what really stigmatizes the religion? All these violent killers who murder in the name of Islam. Maybe they should stop all the murders... Does that sound reasonable? It does to me.

I could replace Islam with so many things and it would still work. If you're going to make piss poor generalisations, please try to use one that won't end up tagging you as well with a single word change.

One senator shooting his mouth off at Bush isn't going to matter when the Democrats lose this November.

You see, Americans are finally starting to wake up that there is still a threat against this country, and they're not going to choose anyone who squabbles with the President over a choice of words, or for that matter a choice of policy.

unlikely: SchlingFo

Hope you check back to see this...

90% of the abortion clinic bombings in the world are carried out by Christians.

So you're saying we don't need the word Christian in with "Abortion clinic bomber" because it's implicit?

I hope you're not saying that the same is true here, that we need not mention Islam because it's implicit with the act.

Your reading skills are suffering. I believe he was trying to question how you think the Christian world would respond if we were careful to point out that such acts are carried out by "Christian whatevers". The point is that while true and accurate, it erroneously groups the extremists into a larger group of people who've committed no crime.

While we're at it, lets change the history books to give credit for the 60's era lynchings of blacks in the south to Christian Fascists. Or maybe we should rename the KKK as "Christian Segregationists", see how that goes over.

Ghost Rider

Slightly offtopic, but I don't think we really have to worry about these folks (who were ignorant enough to have not actually picked up on the fact that the administration NEVER said Saddam was involved in 9/11) actually vote. At least, I hope not.

They're part the group that voted to re-elect Bush, so yes they do vote and they do so in fairly large numbers.

I've also noticed that it's always the same group of people defending common usage (often wrong) over the actual definitions. Did you people fail english, sleep through school, or just decide that willful ignorance is better than being informed?

skookum

You see, Americans are finally starting to wake up that there is still a threat against this country, and they're not going to choose anyone who squabbles with the President over a choice of words, or for that matter a choice of policy.

They've got you good and scared don't they? Anyone that considers these uppity Bedouins a serious threat to civilisation is severely underestimating the capacity of the West to deal with these tools. The truth is, if the US military could do it their way with limited political interference and full support from it's allies in NATO, this "war" would be over within a year.

Labelling what need only be a series of policing actions a "war on terror" was a stupid and pointless move designed to get the people to accept whatever calls an incompetent administration makes. Dissent is now equivocal to treason.

The objective of Al Qaeda et al is not to take life, but to destroy western civilization through whatever means. When we choose to give up things we are suppossed to believe in for the sake of "security", their victory comes closer. The bad guys are winning.

Oh ferchrissakes, this thread went off the rails at 4pm. Look, objecting to linguistic abortions like "Islamofascism" has nothing to do with objecting to the concept of Islamic terrorism. Although fascist states use terrorism to keep control, terrorism =/= fascism. All black bears have black fur, but not all bears with black fur are black bears. This isn't "PC hairsplitting", unless by "PC hairsplitting" you mean "objections to perverse representations of social realities passed off as truth".

And ericjohnson0's silly comparison of an Islamic caliphate with Nazi Lebensraum is precisely the kind of sloppy, ahistorical thinking that I was biatching about at 03:32:15 PM: it's indicative of a complete lack of understanding of the last 1100 years of human history.


Mussolini, April 1945

Without question, there are clerico-fascist (see Engelbert Dollfuss's Fatherland Front, the Romanian Iron Guard, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, Father Jozef Tiso's Slovakian fascist regime, António de Oliveira Salazar's corporatist state, some of Franco's pro-Catholic policies) elements within some extremist Muslim sects, but that is not sufficient to justify this stupid "Islamofascist" tag. There are extreme pro-Arabic racist elements within the Salafist-Wahhabi Sunni movements like al-Qaeda, but belligerent ethnocentrism alone does not qualify it as "fascist."

Instead of using goddamn brand names, the Bush-Cheney gang should just call it what it is-- violent and criminal Islamic extremism. Stop treating these punks like they're some big, bad force. The ass-wipes who are attracted to goons like Osama bin Laden are disaffected young men, misfits & losers who cling to religion to give their lives meaning & purpose. By reifying their crackpot beliefs into an ideology like "Islamofascism"-- in short, by equating their rage and ignorance to the biggest threat to world peace in the c.20th-- is to give these losers way too much credit and attention.

Every time Cheney mutters about the "war between civilizations" when talking about these misfits, he's like the newspaper editor who runs scare stories about the local serial killer on the front page above the fold. It legitimates them and their ideas & adds to their delusional sense of self-importance.

That's why one of the most important ways of combatting the spread of these ideas is to strip them of their nihilistic glamor. This isn't the Nazi war-machine of 1939; these are criminals, petty thieves and murderers who should be regarded with the same sneer that we reserve for child pornographers, pimps and drug dealers. To give them a sense of importance, value and serious by likening them to the Third Reich is terrible & stupid mistake.

If Bush-Cheney wasn't so desperate to make this out to be a "Good War" (and I use the term as ironically as Studs Terkel) then they wouldn't be so desperate to Godwin the discussion all the time.

They are not fascists. They don't want an authoritarian system run by business interests. They want a theocracy. Fascism is not a movement that desired a theocracy.

Needs to be repeated.

Using the term "Islamofascist" is also anti-semitic, according to the definition of anti-semitism used by the Anti-Defamation League: It implies that the terrorists in question are as evil as the Nazis and the term "Islamofascist" only has power by implying that their actions are as bad as the Holocaust. Since the Holocaust was the worst thing humans have ever done to eachother, trying to compare anything to it is impossible and thus dishonest.


ericjohnson0 and other dumbasses: For each of Umberto Eco's 14 key components of Fascism, identify exactly how the terrorists in question reflect that characteristic.

I can see how the first few might apply, with some fudging, but #9 is right out (because they have legitimate complaints, even though their method of expressing dissatisfaction is, erm... uncouth) and they certainly don't use Newspeak! This is especially ironic in light of the fact that this thread is discussing the Bush administration's Newspeak.