Hat tip to Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
The below article by Steve Lipmann was sent to me by the above organization and raises an issue that must be confronted. Unfortunately, it is too often swept under the carpet in the politically-correct Western world. The article is published in the New York Jewish Week.
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No Islamic Mea Culpas
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
In the shadow of the controversial planned Islamic center near Ground Zero and a State Department alert about suspected Al- Qaeda attacks in Europe, several dozen experts on the threat to national security posed by contemporary Muslims met here Sunday
— and a 48-year-old turning point in Roman Catholic history became an unofficial theme.
Several speakers at the first Conference on Muslim Antisemitism, held at the Metropolitan Doubletree Hotel on the East Side and sponsored by the two-year-old Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, invoked the memory of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, which was held in Rome from 1962 to 1965. Vatican II, which introduced innovations in the Church’s liturgy, improved relations with the Jewish community by admitting Christianity’s fault for implicating Jews in the death of Jesus.
A similar interfaith effort is needed — but unlikely to happen — in Islam, which has become the chief instigator of anti-Semitism in recent decades, participants in the conference said Sunday.
A Vatican II form of “self-reflection” by prominent Islamic leaders is required in order to reduce tensions between Jews and Muslims, said Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, keynote speaker and author of the newly published “Jihad and Genocide” (Rowman & Littlefield). “I do not see this in Islam.”
Instead, said Rabbi Rubenstein and other speakers, Islam — little distinction was made at the conference between Islam itself and so-called Islamists who represent the extremist, terrorist wing — has become more assertive in preaching anti-Semitic aspects of the Koran and other Islamic texts, and Muslim leaders who engage in dialogue activities with non-Muslims often make less conciliatory statements to Arabic-speaking audiences.
In his keynote address, Rabbi Rubenstein said he finds dialogue with Muslims to be unproductive.
“I don’t engage in dialogue” with Muslim representatives,” he said. “I think it’s a waste of time. It gives them a legitimacy in the United States that they do not deserve.”
On the other hand, said Rabbi Rubenstein, president emeritus of the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Conn., dialogue with Christians is “a realistic possibility. I’ve spent 50 years in a fruitful dialogue with Christians.”
The rabbi’s remarks about dialoging with Muslims drew a mixed reaction from the conference participants, some five dozen of the leading experts — most of them Jewish — on Islamic politics and theology. Some of the other speakers said they enthusiastically take part in Jewish-Muslim dialogue. Many said they shared Rabbi Rubenstein’s feelings.
Many Jewish participants in Jewish-Muslim dialogue have been “burned many times” by Muslim participants who later made radical statements, said Sam Edelman, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He said he, and other potential Jewish dialogue partners, have grown suspicious of participating in such dialogues. “Without trust, dialogue is difficult.”
Though some dissenting views about the militancy of most Muslims were expressed at the conference, the participants, mostly scholars and activists who spend their time monitoring Islamic activities, were largely in agreement that Islam is a threat to Jews and that few Muslims would qualify as worthy dialogue partners. This would appear not to represent the diversity of thought in the Jewish community on this issue and put the sentiments of conference participants at odds with many mainstream Jewish organizations in the U.S. who continue to support an outreach to “moderate” Muslims while criticizing Muslim excesses.
Sunday’s conference was convened, said Neal Rosenberg, co-editor of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, because “there’s an ideological war going on.” The subject, he said, “is topical right now. Anti-Semitism on a worldwide basis is growing.”
A score of books on anti-Semitism are being published this year in the U.S., he said.
Rosenberg said he was disappointed that few members of the general public attended the conference. “It’s a problem of America,” he said. Most Jews in this country, he said, consider widespread attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions to be something that happens overseas, in Europe. American Jews “don’t feel threatened.”
Conference participants browsed at tables that exhibited such books, in English and German, as “Muslim Anti-Semitism in Christian Europe,” “Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom” and “ Hatred of the Jew in the 21st Century,” and they viewed posters of anti-Semitic rallies in England.
Speakers at the conference described Muslims’ attempts to deJudaize Jewish scriptures and biblical sites in Israel, to deny the Jewish roots of Islam, to blame Jews for “slaying Allah’s prophets” and to equate Israeli actions with Nazi crimes.
Muslim anti-Semitism, they said, predates the modern Zionist movement, Nazi-style anti-Semitism and the establishment of the State of Israel, but can be traced to Koranic statements that call Jews “apes and pigs” and relegate Jews to an inferior status. They cited centuries of forced conversions, pogroms and expulsions at the hands of Muslims.
“There’s nothing new about this,” said freelance journalist Alyssa Lappen, who writes frequently for the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.
Other conference participants shared their personal stories of experiencing Muslim-generated anti-Semitism, and they offered suggestions for countering Muslim anti-Semitism. Among the suggestions: make coalitions with non-Jews, especially with members of the Islamic community who are open to admitting the problems in their faith; work to have anti-Semitic references removed from texts used by Palestinian children and expose “left-wing” activists who abet Muslim anti-Semitism.
Islam has replaced Christianity as the main source of international anti-Semitism, several speakers said.
“Today we take for granted that it is a global phenomenon. We’re in a new era of anti-Semitism … you can find it at any moment and anywhere,” said Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of the best-selling 1996 book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” who is at work on a book about anti-Semitism. “The Internet makes it available. It’s a click away.”
A Muslim version of Vatican II, a first step to reducing Islamic anti-Semitism, is unlikely, several speakers agreed.
“Vatican II was based on some form of mea culpa,” a Catholic admission of guilt in fomenting anti-Semitism, said Andrew Bostom, editor of “Legacy of Jihad and Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism” (Prometheus, 2008). “Mea culpa is not on the [Islamic] radar screen.”
“There is,” added Steven Baum, co-editor of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, “no mea culpa in Islam.”
Read more: New York anti-Semitism Islam Journal for the Study of Antisemitism
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/no_islamic_mea_culpas
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This article raises several important points, which must be discussed openly and honestly. Today, all we hear are claims from Muslim organizations like CAIR that Islamophobia is rampant in the US. Similarly, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the largest voting block in the UN, is pushing for international law to ban criticism of Islam. Yet, few dare to speak of the anti-Jew hate that is found within Islam. It is the Koran, and it is in the Hadith. It is spoken openly in the Middle East, while those in the US-insisting they are not anti-Semitic- use "Zionist" as a code word for what they really hate-Jews.
Suspicion is also placed, correctly in my view, on all those interfaith activities that are on-going in the US. While some Muslim participants may indeed be sincere, many talk out of both sides of their mouths. I have attended two of them in Orange County, California, and in both, I found the imam participating to be less than honest. I suspect that many of these exercises are meant to lull the non-Muslim audiences to sleep. They seem to find many willing and gullible Jews and Christians only too ready to accept what they are told.
So, as the West continues to follow political correctness, ignoring what is happening all over the world and what is right smack dab in front of them, they wring their hands over real or perceived Islamophobia and ignore the dramatic rise in anti-Semitism-primarily fueled by Muslims world-wide and latched onto by leftist non-Muslims, who see Israel as an inconvenient presence in the world. How many predominantly-Muslim nations can you list that don't discriminate against or persecute non-Muslim minorities? How many of you reading this are aware that after the creation of Israel, some 700,000 Jews were driven out of Arab nations-many having to leave all their possessions behind?
As I have said before, I don't want to see innocent Muslims (and there are innocent Muslims) living in the West subjected to prejudice and ill-treatment. Yet, how can we concentrate on one form of prejudice and ignore another? Leaving aside the whole issue of terrorism, if Muslims in the West want to be accepted, then they must accept all others.
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37 comments:
It is indeed a waste of time to engage in "dialog" with people who won't budge. That even applies to simple disagreements. I continuously try to keep up a mutually respectful dialog between my pro-choice self and a number of sincerely pro-life individuals. At times, it becomes obvious that, OK, we have reached an impasse, we have offered mutually exclusive premises, we must agree to disagree.
There is no question that there are currents of anti-Semitism within Islam at this time. To assert a political position that the state known as Israel must be dismantled is not, per se, anti-Semitism. To seek out and destroy Jews wherever they may be found, or to denounce Jews per se as enemies of Islam, is undeniably anti-Semitic.
Challenging Islamic anti-Semitism requires a rigorous historical perspective. The history of Islam, including several Caliphates and empires, offers a variety of practical dispositions and cultural attitudes toward Jews. Muhammed had his political quarrels with Arabian Jewish tribes, as well as some disappointment that they did not immediately accept him as the latest and greatest prophet from a God they had been worshipping for 2000 years or so.
The Rashidun Caliphs and the Ummayads benefitted from the enthusiastic collaboration of Jewish people in the conquest of territory (especially Jerusalem) from the Byzantine empire. The Abassid Caliphs were sponsors of a renaissance of learning in which the Jewish community of Mesopotamia played a substantial role, ditto the Umayyad Amirate and later Caliphate of Cordoba.
The Fatimids and Almohades were mystically hostile to Jews, for obscure reasons. Jews served in high positions, including admirals, in the Ottoman Empire.
Modern hostility to Jews in the name of Islam derives specifically from the creation of Israel, and the wars fought by various Arabic kingdoms and semi-republics against Israel. It is a gross mislocation, even on Islamic grounds alone, to direct hostility against Jews as Jews in the name of Islam. That should be the starting point of any "dialog" with Muslims about anti-Semitism.
There are those among Christians and Jews in the west who like to cherry-pick the same verses from the Qu'ran that al Qaeda and Hizbullah do, to show that anti-Semitism is fundamental to Islam. That is highly productive for two ends:
1) to convince Muslims that as an article of faith, they must indeed hate and despise Jews, or,
2) to convince Jews and others that they must exterminate or forcibly convert every Muslim from the face of the earth in order to end anti-Semitism.
If those are not the goals at hand, then a sound basis for promoting the many periods of close collaboration and amity between Judaism and Islam as an example and baseline are essential.
Well put, Gary!
This is a crucial question that sooner or layer we, as a nation, are going to have to address. The question is whether the Muslims, for religious or cultural reasons, are even capable of being assimilated into our society. I hope they will reform their religion themselves before it comes to that.
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"The history of Islam, including several Caliphates and empires, offers a variety of practical dispositions and cultural attitudes toward Jews. Muhammed had his political quarrels with Arabian Jewish tribes, as well as some disappointment that they did not immediately accept him as the latest and greatest prophet from a God they had been worshipping for 2000 years or so."
Siarlys, you are a master of understatement. Is dhimmitude the practical disposition you are talking about for Jews?
As for Muhammed, yes, he was disappointed that many chose not to accept his new religion. At that point, he went from preaching to war.
Part of what I wrote about the question of whether Muslims are capable of being assimilated into their various host countries comes from the observations made in this article:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/28407
It includes this phenomena, which is frequently repeated, and unique, as far as I know, to the Muslim religion in modern times
"The problem is that Muslims believe that their way of life is morally superior, and that any system or institution that does not follow those laws, is invalid. Furthermore they believe that they have a duty to impose their laws on others in the name of their religion or honor. Attempting to accommodate people who believe this, by accepting their laws in whole or in part, leads to an avalanche effect, with each concession generating demands for new concessions. There is no final point of accommodation to be had, except complete submission to Islam, because those being accommodated never recognize the inherent validity of the system that is accommodating them. Not until it becomes their system."
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Gary, your petty and ignorant harping on the subject of "dhimmitude" is pathetic. There was no such thing. There was a general term of reference, dhimmi, to those who were under the protection of the rather clannish Muslims who first took over the role of protector from the decrepit Byzantines. How did they become protectors? In the time-honored manner any empire replaced its predecessor, the same manner a man gets a job as bounced in a tough bar -- beat up the previous protector, who got their job the same way.
Sargon of Akkad did it to the Sumerians, Hammurabi to Saron's heirs, the Assyrians to the Babylonians AND the Egyptians, Necuchadnezzar to the Assyrians, Darius to the Babylonians again, Alexander to the Persians, the Romans to the Seleucids, etc. etc. etc.
Life under any empire was a subject status. The Bill of Rights wasn't written for another millenium or so. Life for Jews under the Caliphates was as good as it got since Solomon's time.
That makes perfect sense, Gary, and that is the way it normally happens EXCEPT in the case of the Muslims. You would think they came to live among us as conquerors and can impose, as a right of conquest, their culture. As it is they use our lenient laws (and soft hearted people) to advance their agenda.
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"I figure it this way. If I immigrate to Saudi Arabia, I will have to adapt to their way of life. Those who immigrate here should adapt to our way of life-or don't immigrate here."
Yes, because we should certainly model our society and its behavior after that of Saudi Arabia. That makes perfectly logical sense.
You would think they came to live among us as conquerors and can impose, as a right of conquest, their culture.
This doesn't describe any Muslim I've ever met. The ones I know are pretty Americanized.
Miggie, as I've said before, all the Muslims I know living among us here in Milwaukee are too busy running businesses that are growing during a recession and providing jobs for all the dhimmis around here to think about conquering anything.
Which brings us back to the silly notion that there are "some good Muslims" or that Gary doesn't want "the peaceful Muslims" to be hurt by the measures he advocated. That's patronizing in itself. In this country, we treat each individual according to their own individuals actions, not their group identity. Period.
You are morally no better than those Muslims who claims some sort of special privileges for themselves. Your rants are the flip side of the same bigotted coin. Yes Gary, I said any Muslim pushing their own supremacy is a bigot. Deal with it.
Anonymous,
Your comment really doesn't make any sense. Take my advice; stay anonymous.
Lance,
I am sure that is true and same goes for me. I think I've been very careful to distinguish between the two. Make no mistake, however; there are Muslims who want to end the way of life of the West. Those are the Muslims I oppose.
Siarlys,
"In this country, we treat each individual according to their own individuals actions, not their group identity. Period."
I certainly agree with that. Isn't it interesting how liberals like to push the group identity philosophy?
Like I said to Lance, most American Muslims are not trying to push their ways on us, but some are. Worse, many Muslims outside the US have a vision of installing Islam upon the West. Many of them are in Europe and hard at work trying to achieve that agenda.
Recognizing that most Muslims are good folks does not require that we be afraid to talk about those who have bad intentions.
"Life for Jews under the Caliphates was as good as it got since Solomon's time."
I beg to differ and offer this review on a new book by an eminent author on this topic.
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Fourteen+centuries+hatred/3655998/story.html
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Notwithstanding the statistical significance you place on your personal acquaintances, the actual current count of deadly terror attacks carried out by Islamic terrorist worldwide since 9/11 is 16,194 (!).
In the week of 10/2/10 - 10/8/10 there have been 41 Jihad attacks, 131 dead bodies, and 266 critically injured.
In the last two days:
2010.10.10 (Leheis, Iraq) - Sunni bombers take out three civilians by blasting their minibus.
2010.10.10 (Paktya, Afghanistan) - Three young children and three women are among nine dismembered by a Taliban bomb.
2010.10.10 (Maiduguri, Nigeria) - Islamists gun down a rival cleric and his assistant.
2010.10.09 (Fallujah, Iraq) - Three brothers are pulled out of their home and shot execution style by al-Qaeda.
2010.10.09 (Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia) - A court official is murdered by suspected Muslim gunmen while walking home.
2010.10.09 (Yusufiya, Iraq) - Two civilians are shot to death in a Religion of Peace drive-by.
You can look this up on line or take a poll of your friends and neighbors ... I think I already know which one is more valid to you.
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Miggie, I'm not denying anything you wrote. You were painting with a mighty wide brush, and I was just speaking to my own experience. Again I must point out that I am hardly a Muslim apologist.
Miggie, you are arguing points that I'm not even trying to make. Again, I was responding solely to this statement:
You would think they came to live among us as conquerors and can impose, as a right of conquest, their culture.
I only meant to suggest that this was an oversimplification and didn't represent the whole picture. As for your last post, I don't really disagree with your overall thesis (although I wonder if it's true about the Muslims in our prisons. Did they start out Muslims or did they convert? I don't know, but I'll look it up when I have some more time later.)
Miggie, you need to realize that just because somebody doesn't agree with you 100%, that doesn't mean that their viewpoint is the exact opposite extreme of yours. This isn't Hannity and Colmes.
Well, Gary, at least we both agree that we despise the liberal world view.
There are also Christians who want to establish world domination by violent means, but fortunately, most of them are not ready to risk their comfortable life in the pluralistic USA to actually act on their rhetoric. Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh remain, for now, abberant exceptions.
I have no objection to talking about individuals who commit acts of terror, or to the fact that they were inspired by some version of their faith, including Islam. I object to broad characterization of "Islamic Anti-Semitism." That, despite your denials, automatically tars all Muslims, and then you have to patronizingly make exceptions to the "rule." By the way, have you noticed that some of the major victims of Salafist violence have been time-honored shrines of both Ammadiyah and Sufi Muslims?
Miggie: yes, that is a lot of deaths. Far more people have died in car accidents in the U.S. alone during that period. But it is a significant pattern of terror. What you have not established is that it is inherent to Islam. Kill or lock up the people who committed those acts of terror.
I don't know of any Christian group in the last several hundred years at least who wanted to take over the world by violent means. McVeigh and Rudolph are not even aberrations, they are non-sequitors. McVeigh had a beef with the government without any religious overlay and Rudolph was anti-abortion and denied any religious motivation.
None of the deaths from auto accidents have any connection to religion. It is just another big number that nothing to do with the amount of terror that I maintain is interstitial to Islam. I don't suppose references within the Koran would be sufficient to make the case. The extent of the terror by Muslims worldwide has already been supplied. There nothing comparable to it in the world. I have supplied a rebuttal to the notion that Jews had it pretty good under the rule of the Muslims. I hope that review enlightened those who bought that line.
It would be comforting to believe only a few bad apples are ruining the image of all Muslims. The few bad apples are setting the agenda and the good ones are not stopping them. To consider this situation anything less than a war is suicidal.
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I don't know of any Christian group in the last several hundred years at least who wanted to take over the world by violent means.
Ummm...how many hundred counts as "several"? How about the KKK? How do you think Christianity spread amongst the Natives in the Americas? Think they all converted willingly?
Lance,
Your comment about the conversion of the Indians (by the Spaniards) is a valid point. Still it is rather outdated to put it mildly.
But the KKK?
Last I checked they were motivated by race not by religion.
Here is yet another current data point on the Religion of Peace. http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/08/and-beat-goes-on.html
I can't wait to see how the cavilers here will compare this to some other group some time in history or deny there is a religious motivation here. Perhaps they will ask their Muslim friends and neighbors that form their opinions if they know about this incident. If so, what do they say? Have any of them participated in any protest over it? No? Maybe they wrote a letter to the newspaper. No? Maybe they felt so strongly that they discussed it their discussion groups.
Maybe they don't care about this treatment of Christians by Muslims. ... not the Muslims or their "same as everyone else" defenders. Actually, I don't think they will read it.
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Ugh.
Gary, I was responding to how Miggie said that there weren't any Christian groups who wanted to take over through violent means for the past "several hundred" years. The word "several" is a vague term, but even by a conservative usage, what the Spanish did to the Native Americans still counts. (Not to mention what the Protestants did - which was that they'd rather wipe them out than try to convert them.)
As for the KKK, they are a Christian organization. Why do you think the cross is such a big part of their symbolism? I don't think that they're a very good representation of Christianity though, just as Al Quaeda isn't a very good representation of Islam.
Miggie, as usual, you're so eager to get out your talking points that you've forgotten the point what I'm actually refuting. Again, just because I find fault in part of your reasoning, that doesn't mean that I'm some apologist for Islam. God, but you're as thick as a brick sometimes.
Lance,
My Dad (may he rest in peace) had an expression for certain people when it came to religion. Some may find it offensive, but he said,
"so and so, doesn't know whether Jesus was hung or shot in a pool hall.
I would apply that to the KKK. Oh, they may have had a loony pastor here and there, but most of the them were and are too dumb to find their way to a church.
Calling the KKK a Christian organization is absurd. When they committed their acts, they weren't thinking about how pleasing it might be to God.
C'mon.
No, Gary, you come on. The KKK calls itself a Christian organization. I hate to use one of Miggie's lines, but to deny it is to ignore some serious cognitive dissonance. They speak of the Christian God. They read The Bible. They advocate the notion of a "Christian nation". Their application form has members sign a statement reading "I believe in the ideals of Western Christian civilization and profess my belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God." (I perused their website).
Now, if you want to say that they are poor examples of the Christian religion, and that they're not following it as it should be practiced, that's fine. I'd even be inclined to agree with you. However, the reasoning is exactly the same as a Muslim who says that Al Quaeda is a poor example of their religion.
Are you really not seeing that?
Come on, Lance, bear down and try to concentrate. That the KKK wants to call themselves Christian doesn't at all mean they are following Christian precepts or are part of any organized Christian religion. They can call themselves whatever they want but that doesn't actually make them what they say they are.
Al Queda, on the other hand, is fully within the Muslim religion. No Muslim cleric denies that they follow Muslim precepts. Some may not agree with their methodology or strategy but none have denounced them for religious purposes. Aside from Al Queda, the most prominent Muslim clerics and Muslim countries sanction religious stonings for adultry, genital mutilation of women, honor killings, death penalties for conversion from Islam, and the list goes on and on. None are denounced by the top Muslim clerics in the world in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, etc. These are all from the Koran, the teachings of Mohammiad, and the Muslim religion.
There is no comparison with the KKK as much as you would like to find a quibble point.
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Miggie, can you feel that? It's cognitive dissonance. For somebody who likes to throw that phrase around, you're sure living in a constant state of it.
Are you familiar with the "No true Scotsman" fallacy? That's precisely what you're engaged in here, ya know.
If we're discussing religions like Christianity and Islam, then we don't get to pretend that they're brand new. Christianity has plenty of blood on its hands. The only conclusion we can reach is that they're both obviously the creations of humanity and not some divine, all-loving deity.
And when are you going to address what you meant by "several hundred"? Even if we go conservatively and say that three counts as "several" then there are plenty of examples of Christians being evil, or maybe you never heard of the Indian Wars and the colonization of Africa?
I notice that whenever you are shown to be completely wrong about something, you dodge it and move on to something else. Hey, I once admitted that I was wrong about something. Why can't you? Just because you're wrong about one thing, that doesn't mean that you're wrong about everything.
Lance, let me make this real simple for you. You are too stupid to discuss anything with. You are a quibbler and you argue in an insulting way for the validity of your quibbles as though they were substantive arguments.
I keep resolving that I am going to ignore your posts and I'm always sorry when I slip up and forget. I hope it never happens again. You are a waste of time.
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Miggie, you're projecting again. Your argument consists of:
You: Christians don't do this.
Me: What about these Christians who did it?
You: They're not real Christians.
How convenient - and intellectually dishonest.
Speaking of idiots, remember that time you insulted me and claimed to be debunking during that argument about paleontology and evolution? Remember how you posted two links that proved how I was wrong? Remember how I actually looked at those links only to discover that they have nothing to do with the topic? And yet you were so smug and condescending about it! You still have never told me exactly what you were thinking when you did that. Was that an example of what a smart person does? Seemed kind of dumb to me, unless your sole objective was to get me to waste my time.
Now you're really showing your true colors. You can't even deal with the points that I've made, so you've reduced yourself to insulting me. And this from the guy who claims that liberals can only demonize their opponents! Man, you're like an exercise in irony!
Maybe I am dumb, but I'm a hell of a lot smarter than you.
Oh, and just to add...
You are a quibbler and you argue in an insulting way for the validity of your quibbles as though they were substantive arguments.
You really have no sense of self-awareness, do you?
Lance and Siarlys,
Here is a link you may want to read.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/10/open-letter-to-dr-ekmeleddin-ihsanoglu.html
I checked it out, and I've read similar stuff before. I don't completely disagree with his point, but I know that he's doing a lot of picking and choosing without giving any context (either from history or the Koran). It's basically a lot of propaganda.
No doubt this means that I'm some sort of apologist for Muslim extremists.
On the contrary, you are absolutely correct. It is all pure BS and racist propaganda.
Did I even say that? Why do you always put words in my mouth? Look, I quote myself:
I don't completely disagree with his point
"It's basically a lot of propaganda" was the expression you used.
It is propaganda. This doesn't mean that it's all lies or all wrong. Why We Fight was propaganda to get us to fight against Hitler. I'd say that was a good thing.
I think that we mean different things when we say "propaganda". I don't see it as being necessarily good or bad.
Yes, the actual definition of propaganda does not reflect truth or falsehood. Some countries have named their ministrie-ministry of propaganda.
We both know, that in the American English vernacular, however, propaganda is a negative word that implies BS.
Fair enough.
Ugh. Kirsti, was of course me again. Didn't realize she hadn't signed off. But you knew that.
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