Announcing Threadless Thursdays!
An Agora (be it Athenian or Grayian) is somewhat ineffective as a forum for public discussion if the host is the only entity that can determine the topic of the day. Worse yet, this is only a virtual Agora, so if you are bored with the discussion, you cannot wander around and buy a lamb, or a bolt Persian cloth, or a good canola. Frankly, like my friends, I often tire of the sound of my own voice. To remedy this situation and to truly provide an open forum in Gray, we are proud to announce
"Threadless Thursdays"
Every Thursday, you will find a blank scroll available with no thread of the day that you have to slavishly subscribe to. Got an issue you want to get off your chest, you are free to post it and wait for the crescendo of replies or the deafening roar of the crickets. Agora Rules of Order shall apply at all times. And since we failed to notify our throngs of loyal visitors in advance (actually we just came up with this screwball idea an hour ago), Gray Agora will be extending Threadless Thursday through this weekend to Sunday night.So here's your chance to blog away.
posted by Publicus at 8:27 PM
4 Comments:
Hey, OK, I'll start. It's not very profound, but have y'all noticed how absolutely beautiful this September has been? No bugs, no tourists, even the road construction is friendlier. Warm days and crisp evenings ... things could be worse, eh?
Welcome Walker!
You speak great truth my friend. Can't get much better than this.
Its a good dfay to be alive.
Publicus, I can't link the comments on today's thread so I will publish here. Perhaps the miracle of the computer will allow you to move it to the right thread.
I'm not sure the enemy is in fact the Muslim World.
I think it's alliance between what people are told (or taught) and what they believe to be true. Seems to me that our own country has just as many zealots who thirsted for blood after 9/11 and eagerly followed their leader into a war with Iraq, a non-sequitur. Something like 50% of Americans still believe there was a connection despite officials finally publicly denying it.
In their world, they have rioted over cartoons, over the milk industry, and over the Pope's comments. Perhaps they too are being sold a bill of goods by their leaders and, based on their circumstances, are more than willing to believe what they hear.
I hardly think it makes their general populace any more dangerous or less educated than our own.
Gala:
The enemy would not be the Muslim world if the Muslim world was not defined by the jihadist doctrine.
I have heard our leaders speak of the moderate elements of the Islamic faith and how radical Islam has hijacked a “Religion of Peace”. And yet we hear no clammering outrage from the Muslim world over the practices of Al-Qaeda, the beheadings of innocents, the incessant carbombings of infidels and other Muslims alike. I have visited the AIC and other “moderate” Islamic sites, and yet to hear a convincing theological polemic that refutes the Qur'an's clear directive to proselytize by force. The strange silence from the moderate elements of Islam seems to confirm the observation that there is NO other interpretation except conversion by the sword or threat of the sword. As such, the moderates must be either heretics, or a minority that are cowed into silence by fear of jihadist retribution, or. a necessary convention of statecraft for dealing with the West.
I would like to think otherwise. But the proof lies in both the surahs and the actions they provoke.
I fear that education is not as much of a factor as you would like to suppose. The Qur’an is published in every language and dialect of the Muslim world, media is available to just about everyone (even the poorest Somali kid has a portable radio if not an IPOD), and there are innumerable madrassas and Mosques to correct wrong-headed doctrine. Consider also the fact that nearly all of the 9-11 attackers were well-educated . The British underground bombers were not only highly-educated but they were also second generation Britons, well steeped in the traditions of democracy and western culture. Education isn’t the factor, indoctrination is. Further proof? Consider a generation of highly-intelligent and cultured Germans who succumbed to the xenophobic tenets of National Socialism.
In regard to the American bloodlust that arose after 9-11, you seem to forget that Al-Qaeda had officially declared war on the US back in 1996. Hamas and Hezbola (and Iran) declared war on the US back in the 1980s. We Americans did not notice it, even after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, even after two of our embassies were bombed, even after the USS Cole was nearly sunk. It took four hijacked 757s and three thousand lives to get it through our heads that we are in a shooting war….and we better shoot back.
America in the 21st century is too pluralistic a society and in fact is too politically divided to succumb to the type of indoctrination that Islam and facism demands. Certainly we have an ADD problem in maintaining a war stance for any extended period of time…and the jihadists know it, as do the Chinese, and the Iranians, and the Syrians, etc.
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