Thursday, October 21, 2010

A Perfect Shitstorm

For weeks I've been waiting for a stroke of inspiration to release one of my deadly rants. Of course, in this country there is a fresh bounty of provocations every day. But some of them are not worth getting our panties up in a bunch about. For instance, I will not waste my time kvetching bitterly about the satanic stupidity of the Tea Partiers. That's way too easy. This one, however, is too good to pass:
Juan Williams gets fired from NPR because he said on Fox News that he is afraid of Muslims on planes. Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly doesn't get fired from Fox News when he says Muslims perpetrated 9/11. And you know what? They are both right in the most idiotic, simplistic way possible. Which is why nobody should listen to either one of them morons.
O'Reilly is right. The people who attacked us that day were all Muslims. They were extremist Muslims, which are a minority in Islam, but they were nothing other than Muslim. Moreover, they attacked us precisely because we offend their particularly destructive way of interpreting Islam. What is idiotic and irresponsible is to blame absolutely every single Muslim person for 9/11. O'Reilly knows it, and he does it anyway because it means ratings and attention. And probably because he relishes the chaos he unleashes on the well-meaning, like Whoopi and Joy, who should have hollered at him until he walked off the set. Talk the asshole down, instead of playing all high and mighty, huffing and puffing with offense.
As for Juan Williams, I defy any fucking liberal (and I consider myself one, although a tad less tainted by political correctness) to tell me that they don't harbor any kind of stereotypical prejudice in their minds whatsoever, about anyone. And particularly when they are on a plane, or on the subway or anywhere that could bring their noble lives to a spectacular halt.
To O'Reilly's question of whether there is a Muslim dilemma in this country, a better answer would have been: there is only the irresponsible fear-mongering that you people are bent on creating. Otherwise, there is no Muslim dilemma whatsoever. Williams' answer was stupid, but I bet that a lot of people, who are not card carrying racists, relate to it. Let's stop pretending that we navigate this world without making these kinds of assumptions every waking second of our lives, because it is simply not true.
I am a paranoid traveler. I am always checking out everybody on the line to see if someone looks like walking mayhem to me, since I don't trust the morons from the TSA to recognize a live grenade if it explodes in their ass. It could be Oxycontin-Guzzling-Trailer-Trash-Walking-Mayhem, or it could be School-of-Mohammed-Atta-Walking-Mayhem, or a number of other potentially obnoxious fellow travelers (on planes, pretty much anyone under two feet tall gets a red alert from me).
This doesn't mean that I believe that every Muslim is a potential Mohammed Atta (although this is what Fox News and their ilk most fervently wish), or that every white person likes Jell-O with mayo and can't dance. But it infuriates me that NPR fired this idiot for speaking his mind. Since when is being a bleeding heart liberal synonymous with censorship? If you don't want Williams representing your news organization in unsavory places, don't send him to Fox News.
Now, let's remember another professional idiot, Rick Sanchez, who was fired from CNN because he said in so many words that "The Jews" own the media. A half truth, just like O'Reilly's. Some Jews own some media. Not all of them, all of it.
As a Jew, do I think that he should have been fired over the remarks? No. Had he said so on the air while on CNN, maybe. But he was on a satellite radio show with 3 listeners.
Fact is, people think prejudiced thoughts in the comfort of their own minds, but few are as stupid as to utter them in public, especially in this country, where we know better (if people were fired for thinking these kinds of thoughts, more than half the planet would be unemployed). Sanchez could have been made to apologize for spewing resentful, benighted and sclerotic antisemitism in public while representing CNN. Period. At least now we know where he stands.

Liberals have to learn to to relax the thought police and give as good as they get. Otherwise, stop the whining.

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