Hawklore: Just nice to see someone that isn't into constantly slamming Islam.
Naturally. I only listen to the radio not to fall asleep while driving. I learn from books.
Dago: He talked about it so it must be true? I don' t think him mentioning ISLAM equates to converting to it.
Dago, unless you really fail to understand what this conversation is about, you must be pretending to be so... er.. incapable of understanding what the heck I am talking about, so I will repeat only once more.
Not only do I not care if M.J. really converted from Christianity to Islam, it would not matter to me if he did because I am not religious and do not believe in either Islam, Christianity or any special properties of J. Christ.
I only care that the radio talk show host believed that a muslim convert cannot honestly cite the words of Christ. He said that a muslim convert siting christ to christians proves hypocricy of that convert - whether it was a real or hypothetical muslim convert.
That shows his ignorance of a simple and well-known fact about Islam - that Jesis Christ is a venerated figure Islam shares with Christianity.
miko: supposedely the mortal enemy of our civilisation
Now come on Miko, that is one huge stretch even for you. Normally your arguments are alot more rational and based on something a little more solid.
Now, come on, Dago! What do you think "supposedely" means? You seem to be a native English speaker. Don't you know that qualifiers like "supposedely" and "allegedely" serve to distance a speaker from somebody else's claim he is repeating, to indicate that he does not believe what he is saying is necessarily true and only passes it along or refers to someone else's possibly fallacious views?
In this case "supposedely the mortal enemy of our civilisation" means "according to imperialist neo-con socialist government, lying media and some rabid bible-thumpers - all of whom are liars or ignorant idiots, but not necessarily in my opinion..."
AKIron: How do you justify your belief that "most listeners probably believed him?" Do you really have that low an opinion of everyone else or that high an opinion of yourself?
Oh, God. Another one who does not understand a simple semantics and meaning of plain english words.
People who know the facts do not need to believe - they know. People who knew that particular piece of histiry were not affected, except confirmed their opinin of the media persons' ignorance.
So obviously I am only talking about people who did not know that particular fact and mis-learned it from mr. Sliwa.
And neither do I hold in low regard people who do not know about soviet or german religious policies - unless you are a public figure making an argument that is totally based on this detail of history.
The people who did not know about Stalin and Hitler only had Sliwa's word on whether they turned towards the public support of religion. So they learned the incorrect knowlege. How many people do you think would even stop to think "he may be telling the truth or he may be lying" about this particular statement?
How many people will make a mental note "make sure not to repeat that untill I check with several historical texts."
Americans swallowed this particular kind of lies wholesale. I see it everywhere - that's how I know.
It is a commonly heard explanaton - I do not know whether it is true or not but I never heard it argued - that the message "In God we trust" on money introduced in 1950s as well as "under God" in the pledge was introduced in the same period served to differentiate americans from "godless" soviet communists.
Have you heard anyone comment that the image of "godless communists" clashes with Joseph Stalin attending massive public services conducted by the Patriarch of all Russia, elevating priesthood and commisioning movies that show the history of Russian as based on christian traditions?
If people who did not know otherswise gave any thought to the Sliwa's statement, they probably thought "he would not lie on such a minor point - after all the discussion is about whether Saddam Hussein was an incorrigible enemy of america, not about soviet or german history" and leave it at that.
A lot of americans do not seem to have learned much in school of from books - and I do not talk much with uneducated americans, so my picture may be even rosier than the reality.
It is my strong opinion that americans filled the gaps if knowlege from the speeches of public persons, from items commonly referred to as a matter of fact despite them being completely invented - and recently at that.
How many people hear that we are bringing "freedom and democracy" to Iraq as well as the principles of the Founding Fathers - like "Jeffersonian Democracy", without raisinhg an eyebrow?
I bet an average american would be surprised that it is impossible to find a single positive reference to "democracy" in a public address of an american president or any official paper (like Constitution) before Woodrow Wilson. As for the Founding Fathers, starting with Jefferson, you would have to look hard to find a company of people exuding such hate and disgust towards democracy - and rightly so.
How many people know that an expression "Jeffersonian Democracy" or paper money with Andrew Jackson portrait on it are affronts to the memory of individuals mentioned?
That seems quite a rant but since all those misconceptions are imparted to the people from the media, I just took my own invitation to add them.
miko
