Canada, the UK, Australia, most of continental Europe and Japan represent freedoms not easily found in the rest of the world. I think, for example, that it’s great that same-sex marriages have been approved in Canada (it’s long overdue here). But, in the West, women can vote and hold public office. The press is free. The Internet discussions are free (and not censored ). You can go into court and the chances are good that you’ll get a very fair trial. If you work hard, the chances are excellent that you’ll do reasonably well financially. No one is starving in the streets. You can have whatever political and religious beliefs that you want (as long as you’re not impinging on others), and you can publicly proclaim them without fear of being executed.

These things are true throughout the West. There are more commonalities than differences among the Western countries like Canada and the USA.

Yet, the “progressives” on this board harp (shrilly) about the right-wingnuts in the USA, the christo-fascists in the USA, the corporate empire that runs the USA, the terrible healthcare system in the USA, the stupid chimp who runs the USA, the arrogant USA, the bullying USA, the gun-totting USA and the this and the that USA.

Where is the vitriol against the dictators and Islamo-fascists that run nearly all of the Middle East? Those are the common enemy of the West. Yet, another poster here was waxing poetically about Castro and the wonderful things Cuba represents (although someone rightly took that poster to task about Castro’s deportation of gays).

You guys can’t seem to find it in yourselves to criticize (and morally condemn) the true evil in the world (of course, for many of you, there is no such thing as “evil”, unless you’re talking about the USA and GW).

Instead, they are the “so-called” terrorists. The homicide bombers are, at the core, fighting against the Western oppressors (they are not religious fanatics at all, like the christo-fascists running the USA), in effect, they are freedom fighters.

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Wassup wid dat?

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Of course George Bush is much closer to Canadians in his values than are the Al Quaeda bombers. I would rather live in Texas than in an Islamic Republic.

Luckily, however, I don't have to make that choice. I can be critical of the lack of freedom of an Islamic Republic, and nonetheless feel disgusted with Bush, who lied to create an illegal war which is killing and maiming American soldiers by the thousands.

The war is a LIE. Those who cannot summon any "vitriol" as the bombs fall, as the rockets red glare, as the killings go on, is morally and humanely obtuse.

While many of Bush's policies are idiotic and regressive, it is the war which should make everyone vomit. Take away the war, and Bush is a run-of-the-mill destructive Republican politican, a third generation millionaire hanging around with his Enron buddies.

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Yet, the “progressives” on this board harp (shrilly) about the right-wingnuts in the USA, the christo-fascists in the USA, the corporate empire that runs the USA, the terrible healthcare system in the USA, the stupid chimp who runs the USA, the arrogant USA, the bullying USA, the gun-totting USA and the this and the that USA.

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And you are saying our "shrill harping" is somehow inaccurate? Face it, you're problem isn't that progressives are lying, you're problem is that they would dare to break the most important rule in your crumbling USIan culture: "It's someone elses fault!"

Look, progressives will continue to try and improve the society that we have a responsibility for, or have influence over, while you regressives will continue to ignore your own problems and blame the rest of the world for not bowing to USian superiority.

You're not interested in debating the issues for their own sake, but instead are simply out to shut down debate on the issues and put everyone in the proper "blame the other" frame of mind.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Everyone on babble will have a slightly different take on your post, so don't think I am representative.

Of course George Bush is much closer to Canadians in his values than are the Al Quaeda bombers. I would rather live in Texas than in an Islamic Republic.

Luckily, however, I don't have to make that choice. I can be critical of the lack of freedom of an Islamic Republic, and nonetheless feel disgusted with Bush, who lied to create an illegal war which is killing and maiming American soldiers by the thousands.

The war is a LIE. Those who cannot summon any "vitriol" as the bombs fall, as the rockets red glare, as the killings go on, is morally and humanely obtuse.

While many of Bush's policies are idiotic and regressive, it is the war which should make everyone vomit. Take away the war, and Bush is a run-of-the-mill destructive Republican politican, a third generation millionaire hanging around with his Enron buddies.

Add in the war, and he's a war criminal.

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I can agree with you criticizing Bush on many things (there are several things I disagree with him on as well).

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Guess it's time to go for the IP.

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C'mon, as a Repugnican, didn't you learn the distinction in your "Ten Things Every Conservative Jackass Should Learn About Private Property" class? Your conservative street cred's in peril, Junior.

Anyway, last weekend I made crepes for breakfast. The recipe called for brandy but I, being a lad from the West, used rye instead. They were quite good, all told! A bit of low-sugar strawberry jam for the inside and a dusting of icing sugar to top 'em off.

[ 22 July 2005: Message edited by: Erstwhile ]

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What I don’t get, though, is the overwhelming vitriol against Bush and the USA (it’s non-stop) while the board is, for all practical purposes, leveling no constructive criticisms of Islamo-fascists and what to do about it.

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I know this shithead is banned already, but since shithead will still be reading:

Because there is no such thing as "Islamo-fascists". Because anyone daft enough to believe in such patent nonsense is beyond the capacity for rational thought and debate.

We don't level constructive criticisms of Santy-Claus either.

Those who invented the "Islamo-fascist" label did so for very specific reasons. First, it refers to no one and nothing concrete, just a strawman to whom many devious and nefarious characteristics can be attached without fear of rebuttal.
Second, it conflates in the mind that somehow the ridiculous WOT is the same struggle as the fight against you-know-who without bothering with explanations, examinations, or understanding the historical circumstances or ideology behind real Fascism.
Third, in a typically racist way, immediately renders anyone associated with Islam as suspect until proven innocent. Thus, those who desire a honest-to-god (pardon the pun) crusade against Islam are provided a rhetorical pretext.

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Originally posted by Jingles:
Those who invented the "Islamo-fascist" label did so for very specific reasons.

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I think it was Christopher Hitchens, formerly of The Nation.

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[ 23 July 2005: Message edited by: fern hill ]

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Originally posted by melovesproles:
Hitchens and those like him shouldnt be underestimated, I saw him get a standing ovation in a Canadian University and it wasnt the usual old white male Conservative crowd.

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Hitchens is fascinating to me (I read everything I can get my hands on...some things I really disagree with and other things are bang on). He's no right wing nut (he wrote a book detailing why Kissinger should be tried as a war criminal for Viet Nam and he wrote a scathing attack on Mother Teresa).

I think he's really raising valid concerns about the irrational (i.e., religiously-driven) violent extremism of a small (but significant) portion of Muslim world community by highlighting the danger they represent to concepts we highly value ("highly value" is probably an understatement; that extremist core of Muslims despises the very foundation of what Canada represents: pluralism, church/state separation, civil rights, rule of law and all of the other things that make living life wonderful).

I don't think that hatred is going to go away even if the Bushites pull entirely out of the Middle East by packing up and going home. It's too easy (and probably wrong) simply to dismiss the concern as inconsequential.

As more of a Post Script: Someone mentioned that Islamo-fascist was "racist". I'm not sure I understand that. First, being a Muslim has nothing to do with race. Also, the extreme Muslims of bin Laden's ilk are nothing if not fascists.

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I think he's really raising valid concerns about the irrational (i.e., religiously-driven) violent extremism of a small (but significant) portion of Muslim world community by highlighting the danger they represent to concepts we highly value ("highly value" is probably an understatement; that extremist core of Muslims despises the very foundation of what Canada represents: pluralism, church/state separation, civil rights, rule of law and all of the other things that make living life wonderful).

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The recent course of Hitchens' career provides a useful cautionary tale about the pitfalls of making opposition to religion the cnetral focus of your ideology. I think his hatred of all things fundamnetalist has led him to assume that anything done in the name of anti-fundamentalism must be okay.

My favorite Hitchens "moment" was when he was answering the "chickenhawk" charge, ie. he's all pumped up for a war that he won't be fighting in. This was around the time that the police had apprehended that sniper in Washington DC, and he wrote something to the effect of "apparently my critics haven't heard that I've had a Muslim sniper operating in my neighbourhood". I'm not making this up, that's what he wrote.

Hitchens does a pretty good job of skewering the more "culturally relativist" sections of the Left, the kind of people who defend anything that takes place in a non-western country as being "just part of their culture that we have to accept" while at the same time demanding that western culture promptly shed its hidebound ways. Where he goes wrong is in trying to elevate this critique into a defense of American foreign policy.

[ 23 July 2005: Message edited by: voice of the damned ]

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Originally posted by melovesproles:
I think the term "Islamofascism" is way off. Fascism refers to the form of government pioneered by Mussolini, corpratism.

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I think his hatred of all things fundamnetalist has led him to assume that anything done in the name of anti-fundamentalism must be okay.

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I've begun to think of him as analogous, in a weird way, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who once wrote "that which is against Communism is for humanity."

Hitchens used to be possessed of a lively critical intelligence -- so far as you could tell, he used to think dialectically (as he would say). Past all the (well-deserved) bile, his critiques of Kissinger, Mother Teresa et al were based solidly in verifiable fact.