Gored in Jeddah

The Muslim-Danish cartoon controversy has provided an excellent teaching opportunity in which the West demonstrates to the Arab world how even insulting/silly/opportunistic/sycophantic speech is allowed expression in our world in the belief that Truth ultimately will prevail.

The former vice president spoke in Saudi Arabia last weekend at the 2006 Jeddah (not to be confused with Jihadist, though we're not sure why) Economic Forum, where he bashed the U.S. and made Kumbaya noises about all just-getting-along.

Perhaps Gore, instead of slapping the U.S. for behaviors unbecoming a superpower, might have asked the Saudi monarchy to stop sponsoring terrorists. He might have asked them to stop funding Islamist schools that teach future terrorists that the U.S. is the Great Satan and that all Americans are infidels who need to be killed.

That would be a nice start to our keeping open channels of friendship and mutual understanding. On the other hand, it would probably be considered bad manners to bring up terrorism and that Wahhabi thing while a guest in the Host State. Better to bash the homeboys, who can be counted upon to resist the urge to behead people with whom they disagree.

Besides, Gore has every right to his opinion. We believe in that concept in the West. He also has every right to say that the U.S. committed terrible abuses against Arabs living in the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks, even if it's not precisely true.

Terrible abuses? Gore apparently was referring to the detention of some 1,200 Arabs in the U.S. in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks. With a section of New York destroyed and the smell of burning human flesh still in the air, it seemed reasonable to try to prevent any more attacks.

I'm sure the government considered arresting as many elderly white women as possible, but opted for the politically risky alternative of detaining people of Arab descent whose papers didn't seem perfectly in order and who otherwise fit the description of the 9/11 attackers.

Some of those detained, regrettably, were held for a time without being charged or without speedy access to legal representation.

"This was unfortunate," Gore might have said, "and the U.S. doesn't countenance unfair treatment of any group. We hope in the future to operate more efficiently should the need, God forbid, arise again."

"Of course, we're counting on you, good Saudis, to help us ensure that no such atrocity is committed ever again. We know you can't be held accountable for the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. We don't believe in indicting nations on the basis of a few bad actors.

"But we sure would appreciate it if you'd consider closing down those hideous schools that teach children to hate and kill. And that 72-virgin gig? I mean really." (Urgent Note to Readers: This is not a cartoon.)

To his credit, Gore did urge his audience to join the West in condemning Iran's attempts to develop nuclear weapons. But he saved most of his criticism for his own country, also blasting the U.S. visa policy toward Saudis, which he curiously said was playing into al-Qaida's hands.

It is true that some Saudis have to wait longer-than-usual periods after applying to enter the U.S., presumably while every care is taken to ensure that they're coming for purposes stated rather than to take flight lessons.

No one wants this world we've inherited from the terrorists, least of all Americans who don't relish endless security checks. Nor does anyone want innocent people detained or denied access to a nation that welcomes all.

Were I an Arab-American detained for no good reason and denied my civil rights because of my ethnicity, I'd be furious. I'd raise Cain, write op-eds and maybe even file a lawsuit. And then, very quietly, I'd thank Allah that I live in the U.S., where such protests are encouraged and where a citizen can sue his own government.

However much we might wish otherwise, we're locked into this defensive mode for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, everyone is entitled to think and say what he pleases. The same free speech that permits dissent - and controversial cartoons - also allows fools to out themselves.

Surely even the Saudis see the true picture - that Al Gore is a bitter politician who, sadly, seems to be one slice short of a loaf these days.

A classic

http://www.crm114.com/algore/quiz.html

This quiz was created by Ken Crossman
and originally located here. Enjoy!

Did Al Gore say it? Or was it the Unabomber?

It may be more difficult to decide than you think.

Each quote below is either from Al Gore's Book Earth in the Balance or from the Unabomber's Manifesto.

After each quote choose either Gore or Unabomber. At the end hit the Grade Me button and the quiz will be graded and you can view the correct answers. You will also have the opportunity to view the documentation. To be fair, I should point out that while Al and the Unabomber identify the "problems" similarly, they part on the solution. Al wants a "Global Marshall Plan" with enforcement across national boundaries while the Unabomber prefers the idea of revolution.

I got the idea for the test, by the way, from a column by Tony Snow.

There may or may not be an equal number of quotes from both thinkers.

"The twentieth century has not been kind to the constant human striving for a sense of purpose in life. Two world wars, the Holocaust, the invention of nuclear weapons, and now the global environmental crises have led many of us to wonder if survival - much less enlightened, joyous, and hopeful living - is possible. We retreat into the seductive tools and technologies of industrial civilization, but that only creates new problems as we become increasingly isolated from one another and disconnected from our roots."

1 - Gore Unabomber

"Again, we must not forget the lessons of World War II. The Resistance slowed the advance of fascism and scored important victories, but fascism continued its relentless march to domination until the rest of the world finally awoke and made the difference and made the defeat of fascism its central organizing principle from 1941 through 1945."

2 - Gore Unabomber

"It is not necessary for the sake of nature to set up some chimerical utopia or any new kind of social order. Nature takes care of itself: It was a spontaneous creation that existed long before any human society, and for countless centuries, many different kinds of human societies coexisted with nature without doing it an excessive amount of damage. Only with the Industrial Revolution did the effect of human society on nature become really devastating."

3 - Gore Unabomber

"Modern industrial civilization, as presently organized, is colliding violently with our planet's ecological system. The ferocity of its assault on the earth is breathtaking, and the horrific consequences are occurring so quickly as to defy our capacity to recognize them, comprehend their global implications, and organize an appropriate and timely response. Isolated pockets of resistance fighters who have experienced this juggernaut at first hand have begun to fight back in inspiring but, in the final analysis, woefully inadequate ways."

4 - Gore Unabomber

"Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe."

5 - Gore Unabomber

" All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The Industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before."

6 - Gore Unabomber

"The positive ideal that is proposed is Nature. That is, wild nature: those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control."

7 - Gore Unabomber

"Any child born into the hugely consumptionist way of life so common in the industrial world will have an impact that is, on average, many times more destructive than that of a child born in the developing world."

8 - Gore Unabomber

"And tragically, since the onset of the scientific and technological revolution, it has become all too easy for ultrarational minds to create an elaborate edifice of clockwork efficiency capable of nightmarish cruelty on an industrial scale. The atrocities of Hitler and Stalin, and the mechanical sins of all who helped them, might have been inconceivable except for the separation of facts from values and knowledge from morality."

9 - Gore Unabomber

"The modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things against which he is helpless: nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy by large organizations, and nationwide social or economic phenomena that may disrupt his way of life."

10 - Gore Unabomber

"Industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems."

11 - Gore Unabomber

"What does it say about our culture that personality is now considered a technology, a tool of the trade, not only in politics but in business and the professions? Has everyone been forced to become an actor? In sixteenth century England, actors were not allowed to be buried in the same cemeteries as 'God-fearing folk,' because anyone willing to manipulate his personality for the sake of artifice, even to entertain, was considered spiritually suspect."

12 - Gore Unabomber

What an idiot.

In March 2000, CNN showed a picture of the Virgin Mary made out of dung:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/03/27/museum.flap/index.html

Right there on CNN’s website you have a picture of "The Holy Virgin Mary" by British artist Chris Ofili. He used elephant dung and images of female genitalia in that ‘work’.

This garbage posing as ‘art’ was deemed offensive to Christians. CNN had no qualms about showing it and offending Christians. It has remained on their web site until today. Nearly five years now.

In fact, if you click on the link above, you will see this ‘work’ - still proudly displayed on CNN’s website.

Now the violent Muslims are rampaging and burning things - again - about a few cartoons, and CNN says, “CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/02/05/cartoon.protests/index.html
Follow this link and read the last line in the article.

Hypocrisy?
Do not trust the MSM.

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