In January 2008 the Department of Homeland Security issued a non binding report directing the terminology usage when referring to the terrorists. Essentially it appears that any reference to Islam, Muslim, Caliphate, jihad and anything else that links the terrorists to the Mohamedans is taboo because it is offensive to many Muslims. The Muslims themselves do not like to be labeled moderate, they would prefer mainstream, regular, normal, even average would be better because the terrorists should be viewed as a cult group with interests in world domination. Such wording will show sensitivity to the easily offended regular Muslim people. After all one can be a good Muslim and abhor violence.
In the report the American Muslims who made these recommendations are referred to as “the experts”.
Experts are usually found in the footnotes to reports. The DHS apparantly views book reviewers for the Washington Post as experts in policing language. Reza Aslan is one such reference (#2 in the report) and Aslan (Not the Lion) reviews The Al-Qaeda Reader edited and translated by Raymond Ibrahim a research librarian at the Library of Congress. Ibrahim’s text contains a collection of tracts and misifs from Bin-Ladin and Ayman Al-Zwahiri.
Reza Aslan is upset that Ibrahim “marred” the work by comparing it to the ravings of Adolf Hitler in his prison writings gathered for Mein Kampf.
So, now we can assimilate a few minor details from the research done for the Terminology Report from the DHS. Now I admit that this is sloppy research on my part but it seems that I have discovered a cool way to make up “facts” and become an “expert”. I have discovered that when a Washington Post book reviewer is opposed to linking two lunatic fringe cult groups bent on world domination (no matter that they both believe in the rise of a historically vague golden age fantasy people of god-like quality ruling the world for the next thousand years) it gives credence to the arguements from a religious marketing group hoping to rescue their public image. All I need to do then is read the Washington Post and I can become a card carrying member of the language police. You might think me absurd but if the DHS can do it in such a sloppy research inflated way, why not everyone else.
As it turns out, I am not the only one who can be molded into a mindless obedience to populist drivel. I dug deeper into the issues at hand (I read the responses to the book review) where I met another intellectual giant, a molder of opinion and champion of the intellectualista bubble brains. Introducing Mutatis Mutandis, the champion of group think, the holder of all the cards, and the ultimate authority on the dangers of politically incorrect deviance from the agendis liberalista. Mutandis Giganticus believes the liberal agenda of liberation from tyranny remains a pure and holy ordination that has an unbroken since the days of feudal Spain. Mutatis holds the holy orb and scepter, a direct decendant of Mutatis Liberalista Giganticus, the patron saint of all heroic freedom fighters and science saints who died for the cause down through the ages.
We will ignore the other facts of history in order to prove our point that the liberals always know the way and the truth. The pure motive of the liberal agenda is freedom. And that is why the deviant cultists with visions of world domination use their terror tactics to destroy big buildings and kill the people therein, because the liberals provided our liberty, the liberals championed our freedom by categorizing everyone else into groups of reality deniers and factoid distorters. Then they shamed them into silence with threats of the terribulus categoricum “hate”. Everything the politically incorrect write is hate speech. Every assembly of more than 1.3 persons is a hate-group. And we know this because every one of these fringe groups believes “just say no” is the way to handle facts and therefore rejecting the undeniable realities of our post modern times is evidence enough to lump the groups into one insignificant group of idiots.
Gee whiz folks, I really feel better, now that I can be part of the intellectualista grrandiostis. I did not have to spend all those years in graduate school and post graduate studies to be part of the elite. All that time and all I need to do is read book reviews and write to the Washington Post. As long as I hate these people who come do different conclusions than what I learned in the Post, then I can be safe from accusations of hate speech. As long as I read the Post carefully I will never offend anyone within the sphere of our protected groups. Then I can be offensive and hateful without fear of significant reprisals. When I read the Post then I will know which facts fit the reality we endorse and I can categorize everything else as the fictions of a delusional mind. Far Out.
As tempted as I am to become part of the intellectual elite now that I know how to get in. I believe I will stay outside for the moment just so I can think past the Post and the Times. Does anyone remember back to the Clinton era? Those were the days. Hillary discovered the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” against the sex-addict and her delusion of dominion began its evaporation in the morning sun. I remember one day she had a rant about how the conspirators planned out their vast agenda with particularly devilish tactics. The one she focused on was capturing terminology to tip the balance of power in their favor. The right wing had the audacity to have different definitions of the words her highness had decreed to be changed. Her Highness had worked her spell on the Post and the Times in order that everyone would know that no one cared if the sex addict were a sex addict on his own time. Nobody cares, it is a non issue. These facts are irrelevant. One cannot base a viewpoint on irrelevancies and expect to be considered worthy to sit at the table of moral judgement. But they dared to persist. Bill’s lies, perjuring himself in front of the irrelevancy prone Congress was a non issue. Bill was found guilty by the House and was Impeached. The Senate, however, was so engrossed in reading the Post and the Times that they did not find the time to deal with the irrelevant rantings of an irrelevant group unaware of the real facts. No one cares, no big deal. Remember?
My barely noticeable brain is beginning to see a pattern. Could it be that the future holds a new level of persecution for those not in the camp with the politically correct? If the Muslims can separate themselves from the terrorists so that we have a neatly defined cult outside of their religion, and if persecution beginning with the language issue focuses on every group not fitting the pc agenda, and they can be defined as a cult by certain members of their religious groups then all cults can be linked together for persecution and eventual destruction. Imagine an entire nation united in the irradication of the mental defectives, the persons verses the non persons, the correct vs the incorrect, the regulars vs the cults.
Fortunately for us all evidence pointing to the possibility of this future does not seem relevant to our struggle because it is in the past. We do not have to fear the language police, or the thought police, or the secret police. There are no leaders who actively participate in historical revision. Just check the Post.
The most acute observation Reza Aslan makes, is that Al-Qaida’s leaders do not formulate “any specific social or political policy” but instead they have “grievances—many, many grievances”. Aslan seems surprised by this, but there is no reason to be.
For this is nothing but the normal behavior of any group of people who are irrational in their convictions. In this Al-Qaida is not that different from believers in astrology or homeopathy, holocaust negationists, creationists, the followers of Dan Brown, or the latest anti-scientific fad — global warming skepticism. All aggregations of people around an irrational basis have in common, that their ideology in the end consists of a series of objections and rejections. They reject factual reality and the logical systems that describe it. They do not substitute a logical system of their own, because they don’t need one, and it would be impossible to construct one anyway. Any attempt to construct a coherent theory would only produce a shambles. Objections against other ideas suffice. That they are “so heterogeneous, so mind-bogglingly unfocused” does not matter. The motto of the irrationalist is “Just say No!”
The question is, what does Al-Qaida actually reject? Every indication suggests that ultimately, they reject our form of “modern society”; the type of secularized, liberalized, gender-equal, religion-neutral, human-rights-based society that radiates out from the rich west and finds followers everywhere. It pains me to admit it, but when G.W. Bush says that “they hate our freedoms”, he actually has a point. It is mind-bogglingly arrogant and unproductive to equate “freedom” with the American Way of Life, as Dubyah too often seems to do. But yes, I think it is defensible to say that Al-Qaida hates freedom, in the liberal sense of the word.
The modern usage of the term ‘liberal’ dates back to the early 19th century when political debate raged in the Spanish Cortes in Cadiz, in the part of Spain not occupied by the French, and the political left, those who rejected the feudalism of the old regime, were called liberales. The right-wing groups of the time were dubbed serviles, ‘the slavish ones’, because their political ideal was the absolutist reign of king Fernando VII. They were traditionalists who wanted to keep royal absolutism, the fiscal privileges of the nobility, the supremacy of the Catholic church, and even the inquisition.
It is probably best to think of Al-Qaidas leaders as serviles. They are traditionalist radicals. Their political dreams hark back to a golden age that never existed — That is the irrationality of it.
The rank and file, of course, are likely to have their own very diverse motivations, and many recruits would just as likely fight under another banner, if that gave them an opportunity to take revenge for their grievances. Fighting an intellectual battle with Al-Qaida is probably rather pointless.
–Mutatis Mutandis
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