This country is losing its mind.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Air passengers from Charlotte to Little Rock, Arkansas, had to hurry off their plane Friday after someone found a suspicious liquid on board.
The flight landed at Little Rock as scheduled Friday afternoon. But about seven miles before it landed, a crew member reported two passengers with two bottles of liquid. Police, firefighters and the bomb squad were called in, but the liquid turned out to be water.
Last year some time I started referring to this as "Lady Macbeth Syndrome." Two years ago, I published some thoughts on this at my old blog. Here is that entry, updated and revised slightly:
Now we’re cowering in fear of strange alphabets? And Folk Singers?
Christ, what a bunch of spineless candyasses we’re turning into.
“EEEEK!! MUSLIMS!!”
We have become Lady MacBeth! Subconsciously, perhaps, but aware on some level that we have done something in Iraq that is irredeemable. By the end of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady M is so bewitched with horror at her own savagery that she has lost her mind. She wanders the halls of the castle, unable to sleep and jumping at shadows.
Americans are frightened witless, too. We’re frightening ourselves like 13-year-old girls at a horror movie. We’re so hysterical it’s shameful. Don’t believe me? Go to an airport and try to get on a plane with a jar of strawberry jam. We’re so eager to be “safe” from the big, bad brown horde that we’re acting like idiots and giving up our civil liberties while throwing people into dank prisons at the least provocation. Meanwhile, the soft muscled armchair warriors of the 82nd Chairborne Division bellow for more blood, even if it’s the blood of men who are ostensibly on their own side. Calling these soft old jingos delusional is kindness.
They’re worthless and weak, and I think that their rising bellicosity might be a hint that they know we’re on to them.
“Will these hands ne’re be clean?” says Lady Maceth, scrubbing madly at the imagined spot of blood. “All the oil of Araby will not sweeten this little hand.”
Indeed.
Will we ever spring back to our senses? Will we ever fly normally again? Will we ever stop giving each other the stink-eye when one of us has darker skin?
People need to stop believing the "threats" hyped by the corporate media and get on with flying, driving, riding trains and living life, remembering that billions of people do this every day. Don’t be such a candyass. Geez.
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Ned!
PATRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRICCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!
It’s good to see you posting here again.
Hi, folks.
I was out in the garden for my earlier post about gardens and such.
I have some responses there at the bottom of the comments for those of you who were kind enough to comment and share your experiences and memories of grandparents and gardens.
I wish I had been able to respond in real time. You folks are truly the salt of the earth and I am glad to have made your acquaintance.
neurophius @ 2
Just doing what I can while Christy has a sick peanut.
It’s such an honor just to be asked, too. Thanks, y’all.
I live in Los Angeles, a great city if only because of its diversity. When recently travelling cross this country of ours, switching flights at various hubs, spending time in various towns and cities, I found the great big white (and fat!) middle of our country to be just as Patrick describes. These are the morons who swallowed the war-hype and re-elected the idiot Bush. I gotta say I am pretty sick and tired of all the excuse-making being had on their behalf. Truth is, the United States is worse off for them.
I was going to write something about pee-ing my pants at the sight of a urine sample but decided it would be insufferably juvenile.
I have to imagine that lots of follks are avoiding air travel because of delays and incidents like this one (whether fear of liquids or fear of mindless delays). Has anyone read anything about how this is effecting the travel industry? Because I’m thinking that if it puts a real downer on the bottom line, scary liquid scares may soon be a thing of the past.
Flying back to California from the east coast a few days ago, the flight attendant confiscated our empty, clear plastic water bottle. (Which, yes, we showed at the TSA checkpoint on the way in.)
This is crazy.
I just got back from Nigeria, via Heathrow both ways. The whole airport thing was nuts, particularly since in flights in China which I took this spring, the local air personnel there had a policy that soft drinks and bottles of water brought on board had to be sniffed to determine if they were real or were potentially dangerous. Clearly this was based on the same idea/concern, but in China done far more expeditiously. The strangest thing for me this trip was waiting in Heathrow to leave for the U.S. Anyone on Virgin Air flights (a British company) could buy cosmetics etc and the bags were brought on board for them. U.S. airlines did not allow anything -even in sealed containers from the airport shops. Why? The way the whole thing is being done seems intentionally scare tactics based, and little else. Interestingly more women then men are inconvenienced by this new policy (lipstick, eyeliner, perfume). If men wore this stuff, it probably would have been allowed by now. Note that cell phones and lap tops are now being allowed again.
boo
I am now sitting at a coffee shop in East Atlanta waiting to pick my wife up from a rehearsal at a theater here. There are a ton of people on laptops.
Any FDL readers in Joe’s coffeeshop in East ATL? Represent!
a diaper.
we is done unless we fight.
Yusef Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) is a lot more than a singer anymore.
Does anyone remember Salman Rushdie?
In the 80’s he called for Rushdie to be murdered because he had written a novel that parodied some aspect of Islam…I don’t know I never read it.
People should not be afraid of any Muslim but if that person is a public figure who has called for a fatwa against an artist then he should be on the list. If he was that radical back in the 80’s I would imagine that he has not retired from it recently.
Jenny’O @ 13
Please explain and wtf?
Jenny’O @ 13
May I refer you to a quaint little provision in our nation’s founding document called “The 1st Amendment”?
Man with guitar and funny new haircut/beard configuration != man with firearm or bomb.
This is precisely the thing I am talking about.
“Fear is the mind-killer”, and that’s exactly why the Bushistas use it. If the purpose of a terrorist is to inspire terror, haven’t they accomplished their objective? And if the terror is coming from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, what does that make them?
And, hey, I live in fly-over country. We’re not *all* fat, white and ignorant.
by the way, to non-computer programming geeks out there, “!=” should be read as “is not equal to.”
Didn’t mean to get all geek obscure on anyone.
Am grateful that I do not have to fly for business, and haven’t flown for pleasure in years. All my family is here, pretty much, so no far-flung relatives to visit.
What strikes me is the relative absence of anger that, 5 years after the worst terror attack that used airplanes, our air transportation security is so abysmal that it can grind to a halt over that strange liquid known as water. Where is the outrage over that?
Yes, it’s true that making a big fuss at the airport over how bad the security protocols are will not ease one onto a plane any sooner, but at what point do people say, “Excuse me, but whatever it is you are doing is not going to make us safer when we fly. How does not being able to carry on particular items guarantee that the checked baggage is secure? How does not checking the cargo make me any safer?”
Honest to God, I am getting really sick of these “all terror-all the time” speeches from people who have done very little in the way of establishing security protocols or appropriating the dollars necessary to implement those protocols, and I think it’s well past time for them to be called on it.
out out damn spot!
Lady Macbeth indeed.
After the book salon the title of this thread is appropriate.
Patrick, I got so exercised I forgot to say how very much I enjoyed both your garden post/diary/whateveryoucall it and this one. Hope to see a lot more of you.
Paul @
5
ummm….
That’s not cool.
I live in the big fat white middle–Ohio, to be exact. Yes, SOME people here are as you describe. Not all, however. And I’ve met people here who were Californians, but moved here because they “don’t hear enough English” in LA. So I’m sure you could find plenty of jingoistic, brown-people-hating, white folks out on the oh-so-cool coast.
Just let’s not be doin’ this stereotyping. It certainly isn’t going to bring a freaked out Iowan around to your side to call him/her a moron and blame him/her for taking the bait. Isn’t the blame to had in the centers of power?
When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
Lady Macduff
ccmask @ 22
wow. Nice catch, ccmask.
I think we could take a lot from MacBeth these days…
Who knew Iraq has so much blood in it?
I keep wondering why they make you dump stuff you bought in the secure boarding area. Shouldn’t anything purchased there be safe to take aboard? Isn’t that the whole point of having secure boarding areas? [hit various government adminstrators upside the head]
Back on the garden thread: Patrick, the 1896 Fanny Farmer cookbook tells how to use a wood or coal-burning cookstove and how to judge the oven temperature without a thermometer. Possibly useful information.
A play came out in 1967, I believe, called _MacBird_, which remade _Macbeth_ with LBJ and LadyBird Johnson as the principles of the play. If it had been a decent play, I would have kept the script. I remember little about it.
Yusef Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens)
Last year or the year before there was a hulla-huppa because his name was on a no-fly list, while he was comming from England to the US.
wonder if one of the “3 Shakespeare’s” chimpy read this summer was MacBeth?
t’would be nice if he suffered some personal tortures…
It’s been hard not to be afraid, first with the terrifying attacks, then with the administration’s deliberate exploitation of them, accompanied by the steady drumbeat of vague and impending new ones. Finally, the growing realization that our instituions of government and individual liberties are under siege is itself disquieting.
FDR earned his authority by turning people away from fear. Bush has earned his infamy by sowing it for cheap political gain.
Jenny’O @ 13
JennyO – you might like to research before you make such off the wall comments. Yusuf Islam has been working throughout the Middle East with young Muslims to encourage peace and tolerance. Slandering someone as you just did is beyond the pale.
May I refer our more sane readers to his website:
http://www.yusufislam.org.uk/yi2/index.html
BlueUU @ 21
I kind of had the same reaction to the original comment, but I thought I would let it stand and see how other people took it.
It’s no secret to anyone that has read my other posts, especially the one earlier today, that where I live doesn’t even qualify as flyover country. I live in the sticks….
but I am sort of used to coastal folks and other urban people having a general disdain for the benighted regions of rural America.
Then Atrios busts out his loving soliloquy for deermeat the other night, and I think… “These folks just need to come visit.”
In the original commenter’s defense, one can get a pretty bad impression of people seeing them in the airport these days, too.
I never thought I would say this, but W. actually makes me miss Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
Compared to W., Reagan was Aristotle and Nixon was Thomas Jefferson. Nixon only wiretapped his enemies; W. is tapping everybody and claiming brass balls the right to do so. Reagan was unpopular with our allies, but much more respected for good reason than this cue-card reading bonehead.
I’ll also second BlueUUs comment – we will never change this country if we continually diss the majority of people who live here and who just try to get by. Look at the polls – the majority detest Bush and the war and want change. If we want that change, we will need to learn to speak to our fellow citizens with respect …
Siun @ 28
thank you, ms. siun.
Folks, I have to go meet Mrs. Patrick at the stage door and take her to have some supper.
Be kind to each other and be fearless. It’s the best argument of our point of view that I can think of…
“Come out from under that bed, America, you have nothing to fear but fear itself. Come face the future with courage.”
anytime Angie – I still get teary at Peace Train!
Thanks, Patrick!
Patrick – thank you for these wonderful posts today … what a treat!
“For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” -H. L. Mencken
I think part of our problem is a persistent belief that if we can just inspect enough shoes, confiscate enough liquids, harass enough vaguely-middle-eastern-looking people, etc., we can eventually eliminate the threat of terrorist attacks altogether.
Some time, somewhere, there will have to be a recognition that there will always be some threat of terrorism, no matter how hard we try to eliminate it; along with some kind of determination of a point of dimishing returns where hysterical “anti-terror” measures are concerned. Won’t there?
Funny you should mention fear…
I was in a parking structure today and while I waited for the elevator, I started to read the posted sign:
It went on to request that anyone seen taking pictures in the parking garage should immediately be reported to the Management.
For some reason this sign really irritated me. I wished for a Sharpie Marker. :-)
Thank YOU, Firedogs.
Making peach ice cream tomorrow!
Drop in!
me too, siun!
a little bit more on Yusuf Islam … just in case folks did not know this:
His Islamic faith has not always made his life easy. In 2004, Islam was on a flight from London to Washington when the plane was diverted because he had been mistaken for someone on the “no fly” list. Islam also took successful legal action against The Sun and The Sunday Times for falsely suggesting he supported terrorism.
In 2004, a committee of Nobel laureates awarded the Man of Peace prize to Islam. The following year, the University of Gloucestershire gave him an honorary doctorate for services to education and humanitarian relief.
http://enjoyment.independent.c…..485922.ece
MY MASCARA IS NOT A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY. Am I gonna threaten them with the little wand? Make an ink spill on their clothes? Lure them to their doom? What’s the problem???
An egregious rant on airline paranoia:
dab from CT at firedoglake: “BushCo will do whatever it takes to keep it’s favorite “Dem” in office – terror alerts, swiftboating, campaign specialists, Rep funding, more 1984 word twisting.”
Ya that’s what kinda bothers me. If there aren’t enough real threats, or easily Faux propagandized pedophile
“communist”“terrorist” gay stemcell scary brown people shoebomberSNAKESWOMEN WITH MASCARA ON PLANES immigrant threats, they might decide to do it for real.Watch for the late October “OOH SHINY” terrorist attack.
Distract distract distract attack attack attack!!
Siun @
28
Hi Siun,
Looks like JennyO might have a leg to stand on, according to Wikipedia.Apparently there is some difference between what the press says he said and what he says he said on two occassions. He sued successfully for a later press stmt (about the no-fly) but not for the original disputed remarks. I will read the wiki discussion to see how that shakes out.
google it you guys. i was a big fan of stevens back when but a fact is a fact and during the 80’s he called for rushdie’s murder.
as i said “i don’t know what he’s doing lately…”
Jenny’O:
The Salman Rushdie book you are talking about is ‘The Satanic Verses.’
Patrick, as for the right-wing keyboard brigade (Cheetos-gobbling mongrels that they are) are up to something more than just tittilating each other with scary monster stories (although there is plenty of that going on). My feeling is that, because the administration hasn’t broadened the war–nuked the Iranians and Syrians yet–that some of this bravado is intended, in their feeble-minded way, to taunt Bush to give the order, to give them what they most want.
There’s an air of petulance to their latest grievances.
Cheers.
It’s odd … these days I fly at least once a month with much more travel booked for the next few … and I am much more concerned about bad maintenance and the rush to turn around planes fast at each stop than terrorism.
End air travel all together. Stop flying. Think of the benefits of bringing down the whole air travel industry. End air power and stop the killing machine of misguided smart bombs, errant air strikes…If we must fight over there instead of here, let’s force it to be on as level playing field as possible…earth.
seems there is good reason for the next booksalon of Arianna’s “Fearless”
bullsh^^, JennyO.
don’t go there.
Cat Stevens is a better person than you or I, imho, and he saw the enemies of freedom long ago.
Siun. Congrats on your new position! And yes, there are these other issues. Ed Schulz did something last week on the move against air traffic controllers who are unionized. Lots will be retiring soon, few are in training to replace them. Many are former military, and I think he said that starting salary was in the 40s. Who will take those jobs. Seems as if the aim is to privatize the whole system – we could get many more of hte Kentucky-like crashes.
Dan @ 37
Well said. If we put half as much effort into figuring out how to stop offending/threatening half the planet, as we do trying to defend ourselves against those we’ve offended/threatened/bombed, we might actually have a strategy for getting out this mess. But that’s called “pre-9/11 thinking.”
It is not possible to protect ourselves 100% from a determined enemy that hates us. But it is possible to have fewer enemies. But under Bush, there are probably 10 times as many now as there were on 9/11. And every speech he makes creates more.
egregious @ 42
Mine either.
Although I very much hope we don’t have a nice-and-shiny October Surprise, I expect you’re right. There’ll be something. Scare! Scare! Scare! Of course, it’d be on their watch. A double-edged sword?
PaTRex !!
I have flown twice in country and once overseas since September 2001. A dramatic decrease for me. What horrible treatment and worse food or service. It’s like being a cow in a corral just hoping it’s not yet my turn. Everyone is guilty beyond suspicion and will not be allowed any dignity. When I think about it now it’s real difficult to keep from declaring Godwin’s Law! I feel a greater sense of security (from police) in rural Mexico than in the US these days.
Truman’s comments on his fears for American Democracy:
“I feel that if our constitutional system ever fails, it will be because people got scared
and turned hysterical and someone in power will demagogue them right into a police state of some kind. That’s what I’ve always worried about. And still do.”
Here come da Patriot Act, da No-Fly List, NSA warrantless wiretaps and a whole host of players to be named later.
I’m bein followed by a moonshadow… moon shadow. moonshadow…
Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train…
‘. . .We’re so eager to be “safe” from the big, bad brown horde. . .’
I am the white mother of a brown male child. And this makes me very sad indeed. All the fear mongering makes me angry, but the new improved racism just makes me sad. My son is only 10 and I fly with him all the time. In a few short years he will subjected to all of this and there’s nothing I can do about it.
God bless America.
“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
Winston Churchill November 21, 1943
Avril Lavigne was a Canadian folk singer, so don’t trivialize the threat posed by foreign folk singers.
God bless the kids.
Richmond – thanks and good point re ATC … I remember when they were kicked out and we’re all paying the price these days.
As to flying … for many of us, it’s how we get to work. I’m just bugged I can’t carry my liter of fiji water on at the moment … and moisturizer! damn!
peace.
out.
OK kiddo– haunting music, eh?
Lina – I flew back from Amsterdam with my Korean daughter just after W’s Axis of Evil speech and Dutch security questioned her rather persistently as to which Korea she came from. Very confusing since she arrived in the US at age 3 months! but it also made her kinda proud to be that frightening .
Candyasses indeed.
Some inspiring quotes from a man who had more reason to fear than you, I or Butterfinger-tush down the street.
patrick: but the liquid turned out to be water.
How bout this one?
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d?
By the way Patrick, I haven’t read Macbeth since high school. Thanks for the blast from my past!
Siun @ 64
it sounds like you have given her the gift of self-confidence. I hope I can say the same about my kid some day.
I fly a lot, and really security is more of an inconvenience than a pain. This latest round of forbidding toiletries and such in carry-on is not going to last. It probably won’t survive Thanksgiving, if that long. The airlines cannot afford to hire enough baggage handlers to cope with every passenger checking lugguge. And that’s what’s happening — where more than half of air travelers used to travel with only carry-on, now everyone is checking.
Lina – I suspect you will!
She’s learned a lot in her 20 years … and so have I!
“Americans are frightened witless”
New days of rage are upon us. What do I tell my daughter, the Princess? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I’ve heard that ATC are losing exhaustion as a reason for time off. If they want a sick day, they have to go to a doctor, of the government’s choice. If they want to quit, they have to give 120 days notice, or it’s considered an [illegal] work stoppage.
We’ll have more Lexingtons. It’s going to be messy.
Ed*ard @ 25
I recall MacBird – I was at Berkeley in the late 60s and early 70s (they say if you remember the 60s you weren’t there, but I was a war protester not a druggie) and the only line I remember from it was (spoken of MacBird [LBJ]) “He has a fat but hungry look”. I think the original line was from Julius Cesare, but it doesn’t matter.
Bush is far beyond the evils of Nixon and Reagan that I am continually shocked that the press and popular reaction has been so mild to this lying, incompetent wanna be dictator.
Non-viable parlor game concept (parlor game, like “Trivial Pursuit”): Guess the Google hits on a query.
For example: “Commercialization of fear”
Siun, what’s your new email address?
I saw a report on CNN that said that terrorists could be “living next door”! I haven’t been able to sleep since and the folks at the nursing home next door are complaining about the watchtower, searchlights and razor wire I have put up around the yard.
Pansy nation indeed. Me and Sean Hannity and Bill Kristol are doing 24 hour neighborhood watch.
-GSD
Bruce/Crablaw @
31
OK Kiddo – That moonshadow has night vision and a directional microphone and a terrorist watch list these days. *g*
9,736,000
Karen Allen – I’m at media dot firedoglake at gmail dot com
windje @ 58
Perfect quote, windje! Maybe we should send it to Bush,Jr., Gonzales and every local paper in the country.
SusanD @ 16
Precisely. Mind you (no pun intended), that’s about all the Bushistas have in common with the Bene Gesserit. They don’t have much in common with the Mentats, either.
GSD @ 76
GSD – Hang in there until Homeland Security gets the Neighborhood Islamofascist Watch Corps ramped. Then you will be able to sleep easier.
my puppy, when she gets frightened, is a bit of a “pants wetter”… but she has her excuses – 1) she’s 7 months old and 2) she’s a dog…
seems like we can be just a bit braver than that!
Just spent four fascinating hours at the Book Salon. Let me see if I have this straight. Conservative follower types like/need a strong leader — this from Dr. Bob Altemeyer’s and John Dean’s posts on this week and last’s Salon. These types (Al-Qaeda types? Right-wing types?) crave clear orders to follow. In return they can be relied on to uncritically follow their leader, up to and including dying for him or her, as the case may be. Also, feeling insecure increases the desire/need for a strong leader. I would need to read more of Dr. Bob’s work to be sure, but I suspect that most people have a threshold of insecurity that will send them looking for a strong leader to protect them and tell them what to do.
At present we have lots of insecurity to deal with in the US — ‘terrist’ threats, real or manufactured, in the US and in Iraq, the considerably more real situation of invasion, occupation and civil war. It is no wonder that we have frantic rightwing followers at home and ‘terrorists’ in Iraq, and of course both groups have friends and sympathizers around the world.
According to Dr. Bob and Mr. Dean, confronting these ‘follower’ types in a fire-with-fire sort of way is likely to increase insecurity, thus increasing their numbers and ferocity, if I have got this right.
So, she reasoned, would it then not follow that dialogue and de-escalation would be be the correct approach in both cases, of terrorists *and* right-wingers?
If it would work it has the advantages of being cheap and easy. Nearly anyone could do it. Oh, but there’s a problem — how would anyone make money on it?
Siun @
29
I read The Satanic Verses when it came out. I had to order from a book club, since all of the local stores at the time refused to sell it for fear of bombs and stuff. It’s a very, very good novel, and I highly recommend everyone read it, and not only for the political consequences of it being published.
Rushdie was innocent of everything he was being accused of. He did not insult Islam at all in the book. Some Iranian cleric got a hair up their butt, and told their deranged coreligionists that they should hate the book. A fatwa was issued, and people who had never read it went on the warpath. Anyone familiar with the rightwing blogosphere is already familiar with the mentality involved. Rushdie went into hiding for quite a long time, but I believe the fatwa was cancelled or whatever, and as far as I know, he lives a relatively normal life now. He wrote in an essay somewhere (sorry no link), that it was probably harder for his young son, who also had to be sheltered for his protection at the time.
Now as for what set off the original cleric(s) who did actually read the book, I can only speculate. There is a section of the book that talks about a contemporaneous “den of ill repute”, that apparently offered prostitutes who bore a resemblence to the many wives of Mohammed. (I read it over 15 years ago hehe, my memory is a little fuzzy). That’s the only thing in there that I thought at the time might have been offensive to the ultra-devout. Iran was of course much more radicalized during Khomeini’s lifetime than it is now.
Jenny’O @ 45
NO. If you want to make the claim, you do the Googling and present us the proof. We are not your goddamned research monkeys.
Eureka Springs, AR @ 78
The number drops when you add the quote characters. Really doesn’t matter though.
For some reason the commenting software drops it out – I tried to add it as a link. Tinyurl to the rescue next time.
GSD @ 76
A few years ago we had several foreign people living in a rental house next door to us. They seemed to be Middle Eastern, but we never knew for sure what country they were from. They didn’t bother us, but they did some odd things like mowing their yard at night when it was dark. One of them worked at a local Chinese restaurant we sometimes went to, but he did not appear to be Chinese. After about a year, they moved away without notice to us. We later talked to the people who bought the house, and they told us they found a large number of driver’s licenses in the house.
At the time, it all seemed a little odd, but no big deal. If it happened now, we might wonder whether we should contact the police (especially about the driver’s licenses). How things have changed.
I got off of Cat’s Peace Train after he agreed with the fatwa against Rushdie.
Too bad, he was a great performer but I don’t like intolerance on the right and in the Christian faith and I don’t dig it on the left or with Muslims, Jews or Scientologists or Jim Jonesers or anyone else.
-GSD
But I get the feeling that something good has begun.
I just remember there was a line in the tv series Band of Brothers.
“Fear is poison in war, it destructive, it’s contagious”.
Fear as a motivator is what most abusers and thugs use. The Bush/Coulter party has been sitting around in their beer stained tank tops raising the back of their hand to the American people every election cycle in order to keep them in line.
-GSD
EvilDrPuma @ 86
The wikipedia entry on Cat Stevens appears to be accurate.
There was an initial tv interview when Stevens first converted, when he was asked about Rushdie. He looked kind of uncomfortable, but answered something along the lines of “the Koran would seem to indicate a death sentence, if he were in fact guilty of blaspheming the Prophet” (that’s a paraphrase).
Christians were outraged, started destroying his records, and generally acted like asses. Stevens then said his statements had been taken out of context, and that he really hadn’t called for Rushdie’s death.
But then, as the NYT reported a few months later, Stevens made yet another comment, specifically:
So even though the first statement was taken out of context and overblown, the subsequent one seems to be pretty damning. I gave him the benefit of the doubt back then up until I heard about that second quote, and that’s when I stopped supporting Cat Stevens.
Yusuf Islam may be spinning events differently nowadays, but that’s how I remember it happening, and Wikipedia at least concurs.
GSD, I said in a comment months ago I was sorely tempted to grab the lapels of the those trying to push us over the precipice and leap backwards.
This fear bullshit has to stop.
Kurt @ 91
Please understand that my objection was to an instruction that boiled down to, “You research my claim.” That’s one of the lamest (as well as most common) forms of argumentative slop I can name, and one of those things that can make me turn nasty and hairy faster than a full moon.
GSD,
in the vernacular of today’s youth, those shirts are refered to as “wife beaters.”
tryggth @ 92
Absolutely. The only way to fight terrorism is to refuse to be terrified.
EvilDrPuma @ 86
oh dear EvilDrPuma – call me touchy but your feely to Jenny seems a bit over the top – :~)
HotFlash @ 95
My favorite rejoinder to people who screach about the screaming brown meanies is;
“Don’t be afraid, I’m right here with you.”
EvilDrPuma @
86
Umm, okay. This contains the quote that Yusuf Islam has not adjudicated or disputed.
There was an open miker comic in Boston who used to wear the “wife beaters” on stage.
He would then ask a women in the crowd if he “looked like a wife beater”….after a moment of silence he would raise his hand and yell: “Answer me!”
He isn’t performing anymore.
-GSD
Imagine George Washington, and Ben and Tommy Jefferson, all well-to-do white guys, risking everything they had, even their lives, to pick a fight with the most powerful country on the planet just to have some rights and freedom. Glenn Greenwald raised this point in his Blook, marking the point that we are not a country born of fear.
OFG – Thanks. I’ll use that if I ever get a chance. Not many chances… I think I wear my disgust on my sleave…
Oh my GSD. I know when guys call me Dude or say what’s up Dude? I fire back “What’s happening Pussy?” Amazingly ironic how that offends them.
Kurt–
My recollection of “Satanic Verses” is that there is plenty in it to offend fundamentalist Muslims, including a less-than-reverent retelling of the Prophet’s life story. What probably earned Rushdie the fatwa, however, was a spot-on satire of a very self-important Iranian ayatollah in European exile. It’s a great book, well worth reading, and as a work of art probably as dangerous as it’s cracked up to be (doesn’t excuse the fatwa or agreeing with the fatwa, though).
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
What a day! A four-hour Salon c/w John Dean and Joe Wilson, I’m blogged out! I’m taking my popcorn and soda water upstairs to see if there is a new Black Lagoon, if not I’ll see if Haruhi Suzumiya is up to anything.
Stars in my eyes.
Oh, OFG, thanks again for the front pager yesterday, it’s what got me thinking about terrorists and right-wingers, and then with the stuff from CWC it got to critical mass and I ended up at my 84 above.
It’s important to understand what makes these guys/gals tick.
Anyway, I think of you every time I am at a Flying J now — FDL makes the world a smaller and friendlier place.
I don’t know who said it first but my Mother once told me, “When you are angry you are allowing someone to control you.” I found this very helpful over the years though not absolute.
How does one shake that feeling in an airport full of suspicion and presumed misconduct? I refuse to accept such a premise with everyone I meet. I will not silently pretend this is acceptable behavior by my government much less an individual in my presence.
So my air travel boycott continues. *g*
Cat Stevens should be welcome on a plane to the U.S. because he will fit in so well with our other beloved U.S. religious leaders who teach hate so effectively.
Cat Steven is no more a threat to the friendly skies than other hate-filled-flat-earth intolerant religious bigots who fantasizes about the killing of artists or secularists.
Merely because Cat Stevens advocates or sympathizes with the murder of those people who hold a different view than his sect’s own shallow and insecure religious beliefs, is no reason to keep him from flying. Cat Stevens would sit comfortably between Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberson, James Dobson, most of the Madrassa hate preachers AND that nice lady I saw leaving the parking lot of our local Catholic Church today with the bumper sticker on her SUV “Nuke Their Ass – Take Their Gas.” Like Cat Stevens, ALL of these unquestionably use “the one true” religion to indoctrinate their incurious followers with illiberal ideas of hatred, intolerance and an ignorant worldview.
It is sheer hypocrisy to allow a Christian politician, Pat Roberson, to board a plane on his way to a speech to call for President Chavez’ assassination, while then refusing the Muslin singer Cat Stevens (who wants to see novelists murdered) left at the check-in counter.
(NOTE: I realize there is some debate about whether Cat Stevens wanted Rushdie killed or just silenced under blasphemy laws – for purposes of the analogy there is virtually no difference in my opinion, which he actually advocated. In fact, the overwhelming evidence from the time, (including my memory of an interview I saw him give) was that Stevens advocated physical violence against Rushdie AND NOT just a blanket crime (censorship) against all of us. It now appears his current website distances/whitewashes his past and overlooks contemporaneous interviews he gave on the subject.
I remember listening to Cat Stevens as a teenager and Harold & Maude was once one of my favorite movies. That was long ago. Sadly, Cat Stevens traveled deep into the dark side of religious bigotry and then stooped low into an obeisant knee-jerk adherence to a narrow religious confusion that he would accept his newly found cult’s confused religiously inspired Godly mandate to slaughter a novelist in cold blood.
From the Salem witch trials to George Bush’s crusades, to the Arian Nation’s white’s only Christian hegemonic fantasies of violent racial ethnic separation, history’s narrow minded religionists like Cat Stevens will always find a like-minded niche of fellow travelers to spread their messages of intolerance.
I’m glad his Cat’s PR people are trying to clean up hi$ image so that he can once again $ell album$. However, merely because he is now comfortable being a fraud about his intolerant beliefs rather than continuing to be openly disdainful of the free speech rights of others, he is still a religious enemy of civil society, like most of those leading the GOP.
Regardless, Cat can sit with Pat Roberson on any plane. My preference is that they fly as far away as possible.
From the standpoint of security and safe policy, we cannot justify keeping people such as Yusaf off a plane. Peace is impossible without exchanges of culture, ideas, ethnicities and nationalities. Please also do not whitewash his illiberal views of censorship, and his intentionally hateful and violence inspiring false accusations of blasphemy.
Sláinte,
cl
To quote Lewis Black when confronted with Red State terrorist fantasy panic:
“THE TERRORISTS AREN’T INTERESTED IN KILLING YOU, LOOK WHERE YOU LIVE – YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD!”
Kurt
The Satanic Verses does, first of all, refer to the satanic verses. Which, if I understand, were originally legit according to Mohammed, but were subsequently taken out. Like the Apocrypha of the Bible, but more damaging since they admit to polytheism.
And the book also has a setup where the revelations the angel Gabriel gives to Mohammed are actually made up by a confused Bollywood movie star.
I can see why Muslims were upset. I think it’s dangerously insane to believe religions that would make one murderously upset about such things, but many people do (not just Muslims).
Richmond at #9:
Come on board with those laptops and cell phones. No, they couldn’t be loaded with anything. Those heavy batteries are innocent tokens of the Great American Dream!
But… eek, a liquid!
Airport security in the U.S. is now an even more hilarious joke than it was three months ago.
Patrick @
30
Sorry kids, if your panties got all knotted up, but your discomfort still doesn’t doesn’t mean you get a pass.
In fact, while obesity rates have increased in adults nationwide, the incidence of obesity has increased more dramatically in specific areas of the country. While the prevalence of obesity is highest overall in the Southern regions of the country, it’s followed right behind by the BIG FAT MIDDLE (including Ohio).
And sorry if my using the WHITE descriptor gets you seeing red. It’s just that, compared to some of the more diverse communities in America, the middle part of the country IS overwhelmingly white.
Regarding your snotty little comments about the “oh-so-cool coast,” the facts are that our electoral votes didn’t go for Bush and, from the Canadian border on the north, to Mexico on the south, five out of six of the west coast’s Senators are Democrat, along w/2 out of 3 of the governors (w/Schwarzneggar being something of an anomoly).
So please back off with your “That’s not cool…” remarks. Everything I said is founded in fact.
I think there are a lot of secondary results being obtained by the recent airport security measures. We are being trained to assume we know the answer for a lot of things we see happen.
A good American is willing to sacrifice, without complaint, valuable personal possessions.
It is normal to see soldiers armed with machine guns in public places.
A good American looks the other way as people are formed into long lines by soldiers with machine guns, because he assumes there is a good reason this being done to them. They must be dangerous.
If you question or complain, you may end up in that line.
The answer to all your questions is that there are dangerous people who want to hurt you.
But you can trust us.
We are only doing this to keep you safe.
I think many talk themselves into this whole fear thing as a kind of thrill. subconsciencly. It’s like reading scary books or watching horror movies.
It’s a thrill and so they get into the terror thing and then start seeing terrorists and all like hearing a thump while reading a scary book.
Some are taken for the ride by the thrillers. they get taken into the drama of the other person.
Sorry I missed your post Patrick. It was spot-on. Another thing I’ve noticed in the last few days is how ‘touchy’ it seems in the left blogosphere. I think there has been more in-fighting, disagreements (cat-fights?)
I think we are all nervous/anxious about the election, the rolling out of the ‘fear buffet’ by BushCo, and the plain difficulty of day-in, day-out facing the truth about the shit-storm of a country we live in.
Its hard being awake.
But would you prefer the the alternative? See where that’s got us as a nation.
I’m gonna meditate on this and get back to you.
To the guy from LA.
I like LA too for the same reasons. Still, I believe that the likes of Duke Cunningham and Jerry Lewis were elected in districts from the Southern California area? I am sure the Dukester will lose some of his ample middle in prison, which will make a small improvement in the average BMI statistics for the area. I note that Ronald Reagan came from California too, but of course, he’s dead.
Obviously there are geographical differences in voting patterns, but to use states or regions as the unit of measure distorts everything. If you use counties or precints, and then you discover that the red versus blue map looks very much rural versus urban/suburban. And even then, the unit of measure is the individual voter, whereever they are.
One last thing. I tend to agree that midwesterners tend to be fatter. I can only respond by asking how are all those adjustable rate and interest-free mortgages doing out there? Is the state going to pay reparations to the rest of the country when the imminent housing market crash in California triggers a large scale economic crisis everywhere else?
Obviously, I am being sarcastic to note that your comment was very much not cool.
Patrick @ 23
Sorry, I did that out of order. My sentence about our blood ought to have appeared at the end. Preview is my friend.
My folks are actually driving down to Florida this winter instead of flying, mainly because of the monster that air travel has become.
Ironically, it looks like W wants to single-handedly kill the airline business. Who would’ve actually thought that there are major companies he doesn’t care about?
NOBODY IS CHECKING BOARDING PASSENGERS FOR WATER and they are bringing it on board with no restraint!
Passengers with obvious, full, big bottles of water boarded both of our planes on a recent trip — from Calif to NYC and from NYC to Calif — with nary a word from any flight attendant. Presumably the passengers ignored (or did not understand – one was speaking Chinese) the instructions to board with no liquids.
So with airlines force-landing planes due to bottles of water, nobody is checking or asking passengers as they board whether they have any bottles in their possession.
to the commenter who doesn’t want to be my research monkey–i didn’t post a link because it was an event i remembered from the news at the time, not something i dug up in the tubes. i did check google for the correct spelling of yusuf islam’s name. as i think i mentioned i was a big fan of cat stevens and as a teen girl had a teen girl crush on him. that is why the news about him in the 80’s grabbed my attention so…well also i’m a life long news junkie.
i’d also like to mention that i’m kind of upset by the venom of some of your all’s comments. maybe i’m intellectually and morally confused but to attack like that when someone is pointing out a fact of history is pretty wingnutty. and to suggest that anyone who says anything bad about any muslim for any reason is a muslim hater is just as silly as calling someone an anti-semite for criticizing israel’s actions.
human beings and governments are multifacted. he used to be cat, a performer and isn’t now…are you the same person you were 30 years ago, i’m not.
and p.s. i thought “the satanic verses” suuuuuccckkkked.
and i am fat and white.
Siun @
29
Whatever he may be doing now (good things apparently) he DID call publicly for Salmon Rushdie to be executed for writing the Satanic Verses. Saturday Night Live even did a hilarious parody of that with a picture of a Cat Steven’s Album re-titled “Tea For the Killerman” and then sang [to the tune of Moon Shadow] “I’m being followed by a big Muslim, BIG MUSLIM, big Muslim.”
Kak @
54
That’s what I don’t understand. All of this, including 9/11, has happened on their watch. Yet, Republicans are regarded as the “Party of Security”? Someone with guts (which excludes the Dems.) needs to stand up and say, “All this crap happened with you at the controls, not the Dems!”
It has probably been noted earlier but…. just how many of these ‘terrah’ episodes are genuine (i.e., spontaneous and unplanned)??
does anyone know of any civil disobedience at american airports? people insisting on bringing their water or makeup on the plane to challenge the homeland security justifications for the outright (and over reactive) bans.
in some ways we need to challenge these devices of terrorism (terrorism because americans are scared shitless). how can you stop me from bringing a water-like substance on the plane while at the same moment, unchecked ‘water’ could be in unchecked air cargo on the same plane.
are we to understand that a shipping box has more integrity and more rights than we passengers?
We have a stupid president that when looking for a terrorist in the middle of a haystack, put more hay in the pile…If you ban liquids, then someone will think of using solids. Intelligence with warrants meaning proof is the best way..You cant always stop all criminals ,ask europe, they get a building blown up sometimes, but the difference is they go after the bomber, not the whole race like our idiots in charge.