I will be interested in seeing this film.
I remember liking Giuliani as mayor
until the week he got re-elected as he
went all psycho against strippers, porn,
hot-dog vendors, taxi drivers etc.
And those white cops in the vans
patrolling black neighborhoods like
an occupying army. Yuck.
I still dislike Rudy for that abuse of power
he showed the second term. Such a thug personality.
Amen for that! Imagine the horrible things he'd do as president!
shareYou know, I didn't like Giuliani much when he was mayor, especially second-term when he started in on the hot dog guys. But watching Al Sharpton crying that it is an outrage that people should have to work for shelter - priceless!
The whole controversy about using public funds for anti-religious art seems extra quaint now, after the Mohammad cartoon riots. Funny how a little bit of context makes Rudy look like a pussycat who just wants a little respect if you are using taxpayer dollars. Islamists murder hundreds of people over some dopey cartoons and the media clams up and talks about respect, refusing to publish the cartoons which are the subject of the biggest story at the time. Priceless!
Giuliani was a bully and a dick, but I have a feeling that I'd like him more after watching this movie.
First off, what the hell does muslims being angry over depictions of their religion have to do with this mayor over abusing his powers. He had every right to speak out against such art, but he had no right to use his power to stop it. Its called freedom of expression. I don't remember the cartoonist pulling their work. If they did, then that's sad...
If the catholoc church wanted to boycott and sue over such issues, then thats on them.. Giuliani should not have gotten so involved. oh and BTW the Mohammad fiascal did not occur in the states and im sure the muslims over here would not go to such extreems. Actually they were pretty angry too and they did not go trough such extremes.
I have a feeling that you were indeed a closet Giuliani fan and would love to sleep with him...
Freedom of expression does not mean you have the right to force taxpayers to pay to to express yourself. That art was being promoted with taxpayer dollars and the government has every right to regulate what is said with tax dollars. Had the artist been a real artist and not tried to suck the government teat, it would never be an issue.
As for the Mohammad cartoons - there were many places they were banned in the U.S. Borders books banned an issue of "Free Inquiry" magazine because they published them (one of the only magazines in the U.S. that dared to). NYU forced a symposium to not show the cartoons or else not allow outsiders to attend (in violation of thier charter) just because they were afraid of violent reactions from Muslims. No major U.S. newspaper, magazine or TV station showed the images, even though it was the biggest story at the time.
The big difference is that as bad as Giulianni was, no one feared for their life in criticising him. No one feared for their life for painting the virgin Mary out of dung. They do fear for their life in showing Mohammad. Yet the attitude of the media is that they are standing up for expression against a terrible tyrant (Giuliani) in showing the dung-maddonna and that they are respectful and sensitive to the beheading lunatics for not showing bomb-mohammad.
These filmmakers did a lame puff piece for thier lefty buddies. This isn't daring political commentary. It isn't "standing up to power". It is just lame. Theo Van Gough did daring political work.
orders-34 you have no context in the Mohammed cartoon issue.
For instance did you know:
*That a man in another European country was sent to prison for denying the Holocaust (Jews and Muslims have a troubled history to say the least) but no one in Europe really care if people deny history about Muslims.
*That - speaking of the Holocaust - it is illegal to have a swastika in Germany
*That the editors of the same newspaper that first published the cartoon halted the publication of cartoons that were insulting to Cristians. Talk about cencorship.
*That blasphemy is illegal in Denmark, the country were the cartoon was published. I guess Muslims are just out of luck when it comes to reprecentation from Denmark.
*That the protests were peacful until several other newspapers in Europe published the cartoon and opportunist extremists came into the picture. The American news media didn't really care about the story until the protests got violent and by the way the American media wasn't as sensative and respectful as you say, they were actually very hateful and border-line racists, equating (like you are doing) Muslims with terrorists as if all Muslims are terrorists and there are no white Chirstian terrorists (remember McVeigh for starters).
*And, oh yeah, there are a bunch of Europeans and Americans in Muslim nations killing innocent people.
I agree that laws banning the swastika and forbidding speech denying the Holocaust are stupid laws. Luckily we don't have them in the U.S. Outlawing that kind of speech just gives the ideas behind it credibility.
As for your comments that Muslims' relationship with terrorism is no different than Christians - that is a bunch of crap. That is showing you have no sense of context.
How about this: hundreds of people are killed every week in the name of Allah by fanatics who are trying to get to heaven. You have to go back to 1993 to find a terror bombing by a Christian. Islamic terror bombings happen daily.
How about this: Uniformly, you will find Christians denounce, unconditionally, McVeigh. They think he was scum. Many, many Muslims consider the thousands of Muslim suicide bombers to be great heros.
How about this: McVeigh was caught, prosecuted and put to death by a majority Christian nation. Most of the people who fixed the problem were Christian. Who fights Muslim terroists? The West. You don't see the Pakistani citizenry going after Bin Laden. You don't see Saudi Arabia sending troops to the Phillipines to crack down on Islamic beheaders. The Muslim majority either supports or is silent about Islamic terror. Most people in Jordan think the Muslims killing hundreds of fellow Muslims in Iraq are doing good and holy work.
Can you walk around in public in a Muslim majority nation and say "Bin Laden is scum, Al Queda is scum, the Salafists are scum"? Compare this to walking around in America saying McViegh is scum and so are the KKK. There is no comparison.
Of course not much of a percent of Muslims are terrorists, but there are also very few (especially in Muslim majority countries) who are willing to unequivicably condemn Muslim terrorists. They are unwilling to fix the problem in their own community. They enable the terrorists.
I'm sorry I didn't reply quicker. I'm not so eager to prove some stupid, insignificant point like you are orders-34.
Well exactly what are we doing to combat racism in this country...not a whole lot. Sure we have hate crime laws, but they are met with extreme opposition by the good ol' Christians that you are talking about. We have this mentality of "You're a racist but that's ok 'cause we're Amercia." We excuse vile behavior all the time (and by the way I didn't call the laws against swastikas and Holocaust denial stupid, they may be overdoing it a bit but Nazism/Fascism should not be afforded this attitude of "condoning by silence and apathy" as you might call it. Amercia went after Communists inside the country with HUAC and the blacklists etc. Am I missing something? Which is a bigger threat: Communism or Fascism? Our priorities are off. Anyway back to the subject.) Are we enabling racism, sexism, homophobia and all that by ignoring them and not doing enough to combat them? I would say yes we are.
Europe isn't so fixated on terrorism, but guess what...they have more experience of it than us. They know it's a problem but they don't crap themsevles and think it's the end of the world when a terrorist attack happens. They are calm and have a cool head about it (well not that much of a cool head but still) and they deal with it rationally. Are the Europeans enabling terrorism by not going all nuts about it? Let me guess your answer... uh let's see... oh I got it... YES THEY ARE. YOU'RE STUPID RLH_1984. EVERYONE SHOULD GO AFTER A COUNTRY THAT DIDN'T ATTACK US JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE MUSLIM AND BROWN AND ALL LOOK ALIKE (sorry if I'm jumping to conclusions or making a bad assumtion, I'm trying to be dramatic). And I know that it might seem like Muslims are ignoring it and therefore enabling terrorism, but there are always statements by Muslim leaders denouncing the attacks and distancing themselves from the one's who carried out the act (but you wouldn't know that from the American media).
Now I don't know what you consider terrorism but the last Christian terrorist wasn't in 1993 (by the way you reffered to McVeigh after you mentioned the year 1993 giving the impression that you were saying the Oklahoma bombing was in 1993. Try 1995.... Not that much later but still 1993 was soooo two years ago in 1995). And despite the fact that Oklahoma was in 1995 since then let's see what we can think of (not in chronological order)... Columbine, several killings by the KKK (and I'm sure you would admit that the KKK is a terrorist organization), the Olympics bombings (four in all by Eric Rudolph), the 1995 Palo Verde train derailment, the numerous attacks by the Army of God targetting gay bars and abortion clinics (I'll be nice and count them all together. I don't want my list to be too big), James Charles Kopp who is not directly associated with the Army of God did target abortion doctors. I'll follow the rules and not mention all the other one's before 1993. Maybe later I could talk about the terrorists who are non-Christian and non-Muslim.
(You could argue that one or two of my examples does not fall into the catigory of Christian terrorism. We could argue forever on what Eric and Dylan of the Columbine shooting were. The point is they were not Muslim or Jewish and they were very white and raised in a Christian environment. I'm not sure I buy the story of the girl being shot in the Columine massacre after professing her love of God. That, along with the Manson scapegoating, is a product of the Christian right to put prayer in school and steer the country more toward Christianity.)
Oh, and remind me: are we still killing innocent people in Iraq?
One quick note.
In re-reading the post that I most recently responded to, you say: "As for your comments that Muslims' relationship with terrorism is no different than Christians - that is a bunch of crap." Uh, too bad I never said that. What I did say is that a lot of Americans - averavge Americans and those in the media - equate Muslims with terrorists, as if all Muslims are terrorists and there are no Christian terrorists. What I said and what you claim I said are two very different things.
As for your comment that Muslims are not doing anything about the daily "terrorist" attacks. Well that shows that you not only have no historical context conserning terrorism, but you also don't know anything about current events. The vast majority (and I mean vast) of the people causing the violence in Iraq right now are insurgents not terrorists. The vast majority are people - who were once happy that America got rid of Saddam and generally glad with Americans being there, mind you - who are now very angry with the American presence and are fighting off an occupying foreign invader. There are three catigories of the people causing the violence in Iraq: 1) The largest group being insurgents fighting against a foreign occupying nation; 2) The second most common being Saddam loyalists; and 3) The smallest group being members of terrorist organizations from other countries who come to Iraq to fight Americans. So most of the attacks against the troops in Iraq are not "terrorists" rather people who are frustrated with the American occupation and want us to leave (which is more reason to leave Iraq: the terrorists are only there to kill our poor troops, and the insurgents have no other reason for fighting other than to get us to leave).
Peace to you orders-34 I wish you good times.
P.S. what's with the name orders-34. Do you like taking orders. Are you a conformist. Just want to know. Hey, how about this: you tell me what your name means and I'll tell you what my name means.
Neither one of us are Iraqi or live in Iraq so we can only guess at what really goes on there. However I think your characterization of Iraqi violence as being all about the occupation is wrong. The occupation is a fact of life in Iraq but the real power struggles are going on between Iraqi factions over who will run the country after the U.S. leaves.
The vast majority of violence in Iraq is done by Iraqis against other Iraqis. Much of it is done to forment fear and intimidation through atrocities aimed at innocent people. This is a pretty good definition of terroism.
I wouldn't call an Iraqi with a gun who hides in a building and shoots at American troops a terrorist. I think he is foolish and screwing his children out of a decent future, but that is his decision. I do call an Iraqi a terrorist who blows up a restaraunt filled with people from another Muslim sect, just to cause fear and intimidate them into staying out of the political process. Or to cause a full blown ethnic civil war that will overwelm the U.S. and allow thier sects' neighboring Allies to rush in (Syria, Iran) to establish another fascist dictatorship.
Read an Iraqi's point of view here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/zeyad_a/2006/06/zeyad_on_zarqawi.html
Also, regarding your earlier comments about racism in the U.S. -
Race relations are still a problem here but I think progress in this area ground to a halt sometime in the 60s or 70s. I think outright racism is waning - what we need now are more people who can get beyond race and just live as people. Unfortunately, the 60s brought in the culture of victimhood, and the adoption of this culture by many urban blacks has become as much of an obstacle to race relations as the rantings of the stereotypical southern bigot. I think when everyone ignores Al Sharpton as much as they ignore the KKK we will start making progress again.
Ethnic minorities generally are more successfull in the U.S. than in other countries. For example, Pakistani immigrants to the U.S. have above-average incomes and are well assimilated. Compare this to Europe where Pakistani immigrants often end up in ghettos and isolated from thier host culture. Philipino and African immigrants to the U.S. tend to be successful whereas they are treated as subhuman servants in middle eastern countries and sometimes actually enslaved.
P.S., the name orders-34 is an accident of registration, I haven't bothered changing it.
Well I have grown tired and weary. I must say that your most recent post was the most rational, calm and resonable one that you've done so far. I do disagree with you when it comes to race (in most ways, but not entirely) but to go into it with the depth it requires would be useless and off topic in an IMDb message board (we've already done that, why do it any more). And what's with people thinking that Al Sharpton is a racist or anything like that. Mr. Sharpton is probably the least racist person in the world who has done great work and would be a better role model for kids than any stupid celebrity.
While neither of us live in Iraq, the simple facts are that the vast majority of the violence is caused by those who were once glad that Saddam's evil Fascist regime was toppled, but now are frustrated with the American occupation and want us to leave. Those figures are from various sources including American and British military intelligence, and Reuters (did I spell that right).
So to finish I will do my part in the "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" game: My initials are RLR. I don't think that RLR sounds particularly good in a handle (I'm so old fashioned) so I decided to switch out my last initial for that of my mothers maiden name which is "H" thus making up the rlh portion. As for 1984, that is my favorite book (and my birthday is January 2nd 1985 which is close to 1984). Then I put them together in a THX-1138 style number to create rlh_1984 (I just swapted out the dash for an underscore, which doesn't show up in the heading of the posts).
Well I see no reason to continue with this. I have my beliefs and you have yours and it seems that this would make it so that neither of us would be convinced of the others arguement. It was, however, fun to have my first IMDb message board feud (just look around they are all over the place). So, whenever I hear the wind blow I will hear the name "Lowenstein, Lowenstein."
I wish you good things in life orders-34. Keep your knees loose. Good night and good luck.
You picked quite possibly the worst example in Saudi Arabia, a country where extremist Muslims outnumber moderates, and have been known to terrorize said moderates to boot.
shareThe exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum that RG tried to shut down WAS NOT ANTI-RELIGIOUS! The artist was a devout christian, a fact that Rudy did not bother to research before he denounced his painting. In the artist's african culture, elephant dung is a symbol of fertility. Rudy, on the other hand, pretended he didn't know he had married his own cousin so that he could get an annulment instead of a divorce and stay in the good graces of the catholic church. I guess he at least had the intelligence to know that he couldn't pull that off a second time, especially after cheating on his wife.
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