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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLawrence O'Donnell just did the best example of intellectual dishonesty ...
I've seen in a long time. He was on Steve Kornacki, condemning President Obama's recent "before we make this about Islam the religion, let's remember, Christians did some pretty horrific stuff in the name of religion, too" comment.
Lawrence's argument was that it was inappropriate for President Obama to include lynching and the slave trade in this context because those committing those acts weren't doing it in the name of Christianity, unlikely ISIS. So we can absolutely point out the "connectivity."
The Black guy destroyed O'Donnell's ahistorical point, and named a number of right wing nuts making the same point as O'Donnell.
Then, O'Donnell did the thing ... even, angrily .... (In sum) "Yeah, I know those nuts are making the same argument I am making; but those nuts are nuts!"
hlthe2b
(102,336 posts)and the bible was used to justify their bigotry. How quickly some forget.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)My bet is probably not, but they sure are fucking lazy, because if they actually took the time to listen and absorb what Obama said at the National Prayer Brunch they would know he said the exact same thing in India in an hours long interview with CNN that covered in detail every topical issue of our times.
When no one in the same mass media seemed even aware he was in India, too busy riding around in Blizzardmobiles.
Uneducated, lazy and saddled with the burden of white privilege, it is not just the RW media.
America is being trolled by it's mass media.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)I have always thought O'Donnell was smarter than that. I guess not.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Being reminded of the brutality and institutional misogyny of his chosen sect of Christianity and its terrorist history under the thumb of psychopathic leaders must be very troubling.
Crusaders were terrorists, hard to wrap ones mind around that, but it is true.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...not really acting out of a sincere religious belief, but merely exploiting the religion to gain followers; more of a megalomania than a crusade.
That's pretty much how I view the cross-burning racism practiced by the Klan and others. There's really nothing directly associated with religious belief among southern Baptists which dictated the hatred. It was (is?) mostly an opportunistic linkage used by the KKK to lend a social respectability among their peers to their bigotry and race-based violence.
brush
(53,824 posts)they burned crosses to terrorize people.
The cross is THE symbol of Christianity.
Sincere or not, religion has been used throughout history to justify violence.
It's no difference whether it be the klan or ISIS.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...just as it's not right or correct to conflate all of Islam or Muslim theology with terrorism; the same dissonancy should apply to Christianity (mostly southern Baptist, in this case) and the Klan.
I can't regard burning a cross as particularly 'Christian', although Klan members may well have believed their god approved. I see it as a mostly cynical, opportunistic appropriation, though, not one that was inextricably linked with any church doctrine on racism; unlike Mormon theology which drew analogous references from the bible to claim superiority of whites over blacks.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)President Obama was making. The problem seems to be westerners seem to be applying this view to to the acts of outlier Christians, while denying outlier status to those of the Islamic faith committing the atrocities.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)elias49
(4,259 posts)or are they just f***** psychopaths?
But something else is happening. How do you keep 30,000 savages from self destructing?
I'm not aware, either, of there being any particular "leader". Who or what unites them?
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...but, like al-Qaeda, their membership is attracted and enhanced by the prospect of a head-to-head fight with Americans, represented by the U.S. military forces. I'd have to admit there is at least an exploited belief driving the followers. Iraq is the holy caliphate; the land where they fight Americans for their delusions of blessed victory over the infidels. Still, it's a perversion of Islam which is being promoted, exploited by their leadership to cull a following.
procon
(15,805 posts)He was trying to rewrite history by saying the Jim Crow era was only about racism and Christianity was not a player because only blacks were killed. He totally ignored how the KKK and others used the cover of religion as a justifiable excuse for their crimes.
Then he goes on to say that its all about the numbers, "the scale", since the armies under ISIS are bigger than the membership of the KKK, they are the baddest of the bad based on the headcount.
My eyes are still spinning...
brush
(53,824 posts)O'Donnell seemed to be very enlightened about these issues.
I even donated to his campaign to furnished school desks for young African students, and he was (don't know if the still is) in a relationship with POC woman.
Maybe his Christianity is clouding his judgment on this.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)ISIS has, according to Fox's wildest estimate, 35,000 fighters (or whatever the Hell they are), while the Klan has had as many as 8 million members.
Hey Larry, which is the bigger number--35,000 or 8,000,000?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Obama's. The Papal Executioner, for example, an office that existed until 1862 and lopped the heads off of people found guilty of civil crimes in the theocratic Papal States. The final holder of that office chopped off 516 heads each on the order of the Pope. This practice ceased only when the Italian Republic seized control of those territories. 516 heads cut off by the command of the Vicar of Christ.
This information often upsets those who still dig the Popes, so I usually point out that at that same time, the US was just dismantling the Slave Nation and an economy based on brutality and force.
It is pretty easy to draw equations between both the Papal States and Slave Era US and that which is done by Isis. Too easy to be of comfort to anyone who has not very seriously confronted the factual history of this country, of the RCC, of the UK, of France, Belgium....Leopold the Second anyone?
mikehiggins
(5,614 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)He kept excellent records. Charles Dickens described one execution by him in his 'Pictures From Italy' in 1864.
Before 1816, they used the axe and noose but also some burning alive. The invention of the guillotine was a boon, but they also did drawing and quartering and a method which involved crushing the head with a mallet then slitting the throat.
Back in the 1500's, Pope Sixtus V lined the bridges with the heads of pickpockets, it was said to be more heads than there were melons in the market.....
Ninga
(8,277 posts)because of their religious beliefs....but because of the color of their skin.
The perps hid behind their religious beliefs, used them to justify.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)but how did the black guy destroy O'Donnell's point? I'm asking this as someone who is glad Obama said what he said. I think he's right and it took courage for him to say it, but it is definitely something worth debating.