Repression of freedoms?
Like the work done by Moqtada's Mahdi militia? UAE's National Newspaper reported earlier this week that Moqtada's militia was making itself known again:
On the buildings that line the streets and alleyways of neighbourhoods in the Shiite strongholds of north-eastern Baghdad, similarly foreboding messages admonish men against shaving their beards and women against forsaking the abaya for western clothing. Iraq's security forces quickly whitewash over the warnings, only for them to reappear elsewhere.
They appear to be a calling card of the Mahdi Army which, at the height of its influence in Baghdad after the US-led invasion of 2003, prohibited Iraqis from watching football on television on the ground that sport was against the teachings of Islam. It also operated death squads and fought US troops and Sunni militants with equal ferocity.
Repression of freedoms? Like when Moqtada declared that gay men should be killed?
It's strange he's only concerned with one alleged repression of freedom.
Tuesday, the US Embassy in Baghdad posted to their FaceBook page about the French ban. One comment ended up being highlighted by the Embassy. Here's the original comment (in the comment below it, the US Embassy asks if there is a double standard):
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Bulend Sadiq I guess this is a good regulation coz if they want to dress like a moving tent they should go back to their countries. For example if a French women went to Saudi, she will have to put on a veil and shes not allowed to drive a car!!! so when the Muslim countries respect the freedom of others then they should blame France.Tuesday at 12:55am · 7 peopleZaineb Al-Qazwini, Talib Fawzi, Z Melinda Witter and 4 others like this.
Moqtada, what doth thou sayeth?
Nothing of course because he's a fundamentalist. No different than fundamentalist Christians in this country. Freedom isn't anything Moqtada's ever concerned about, only enslavement and that is the point of the niqab.
It's to remove women, it's to punish women, it's to make them the other. Now if you were as ugly and fat as Moqtada, an argument could be made that dressing in a niqab would make the surroundings lovelier for those around you. But of course men are never dressed in such things, are they?
Moqtada shot his mouth off about something he shouldn't have, story of his life. He's a bit like The Nation magazine in that regard and maybe that's why they love him so much there. It's France's issue. Unlike the majority in beggar media, I actually own property in France. That doesn't make it my issue. It's a matter for the people of France.
Maria Margaronis is among the hypocrites at The Nation magazine who've attempted to slime France for the law. The law isn't surprising and it is in keeping with France's history. I'm not passing judgment on whether the law is "right" or "wrong." I'm not French. If they decide to change it, that's their business, just like passing it was their business. It created no hardship despite all the sliming going on from the hypocrites in Panhandle Media.
I am old enough (more than old enough) to remember the move to strengthen the wall between church and state in public schools here in the US (a move I applauded then and applaud now). It's hilarious to read the whinings at The Nation and elsewhere on the left and realize how quickly they rush to embrace indoctrination -- not freedom, not free speech -- and repression . . . as long as the words "Jesus Christ" aren't attached to the indoctrination. They're as clueless as the character Annette Benning plays in Mars Attacks. It's amazing that we've had to endure, in this country, countless rants about how America needs to be free of religion from these hypocrites who now rush to insist that other countries must allow it.
They're mental midgets completely ignorant of France's long history of secularism, of the French Revolution, the Enlightenment and the work of Montesquieu, Voltaire, etc. If you wonder why it was so easy to co-opt anthropologists into counter-insurgency (war on a native people) in the last years, there's your answer: Anthropology is all but forgotten. The idea that you might have to study a culture? Please, no. You just write your little slam piece, turn it into Katrina vanden Heuvel and she posts it and you feel so much better because you've taken a centuries old movement of secularism and twisted it into "They hate Muslims!"
Yeah, right. I suppose it was a 'war on Muslims' in 1937 that made the French outlaw religious symbols at schools? (The focus there was the Christian cross.) But, hey, those are only historical facts, what do they matter, right? Just invent your own storyline, it makes it so much easier to 'prove' the conclusion you came to before you ever wrote your first word on the topic.
How very pathetic and that really is the level that The Nation magazine operates at now and why are they are so very worthless. It's all calls from a campaign playbook. You'll be informed -- like good little Stalnists -- what the flavor of the month is and what talking points to embrace. And four years from now, you'll get contradictory marching orders but pretend not to notice. You'll never learn a thing that challenges you or educates you or, heaven forbid, enlightens you.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4449. Tonight it is [PDF format warning] 4450.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
