Occasionally (on a slow day), I venture over to University of Michigan comedian Juan Cole's blog, the curiously-named "Informed Comment", to focus in on the latest piece of inane nonsense that he writes. Alas, Dr Juano is too fast for me. I just cannot keep up with his goofy columns. Thus, today, I am reduced to shotgunning three of Cole's inanities in one post. We'll call it a trilogy.
In the first article running this week is a 9-point essay on how our government (the US government) under the evil Trump and his equally evil henchmen, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, is trying to begin a war with the peace-loving mullahs of Teheran (who are threatening to blow Israel and us all to Kingdom Come).
https://www.juancole.com/2019/05/184071.html
"Having presented us with this tautology, as though it were a new emergency, they then identify a villain. Villainization is the bedrock of all propaganda. In this case it is the ayatollahs of Iran. Once you have villainized someone you no longer need to explain their behavior."
Yes, Juano, the ayatollahs of Iran are villains. From the heady days of the Iranian Revolution when our embassy was overrun and our diplomats held hostage for 444 days to persecuting religious minorities and hanging gays in public from construction cranes, to Iran establishing itself as the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world ("status quo regional power" in Cole's words). The Iranian regime has done a good job of villainizing themselves.
Next, Cole takes an opportunity to pimp his new book about the Prophet Muhammad while writing the below piece about how kind and peaceful the Koran is. Cole actually does a word check to inform us how many times words like "peace" and "forgiveness" appear in the Koran.
https://www.juancole.com/2019/05/peace-forgiveness-dominate.html
"The Qur’an is mostly like the Psalms, its passages waxing lyrical about the beauty of God and human spirituality."
Really? How about all those references to "smiting them on their necks", "I have been made victorious through terror", describing Jews as "sons of apes and pigs", and Jews and Christians as the "vilest of creatures"? As for peace and forgiveness, the Islamic concept of peace is where non-Muslims have either converted or submitted to Islam. The Koran also contains references to when the peace can be broken. In addition, forgiveness in the Koran means when non-Muslims repent not being Muslims. If they accept or submit to Islam, they can be forgiven. If not, they must be killed. In fact, by various estimates, a little over 60% of the Koran is devoted to discussing non-Muslims, and it's generally not very complimentary, if you get my drift.
But Cole's piece de resistance is his defense of radical congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, and her crazy description of how thinking of the Holocaust gives her a "calming feeling" thinking of how the Palestinians ("her people") gave refuge, aid and succor to the Jews in the Middle East. Cole actually compares it to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech"!! You can't make this up.
https://www.juancole.com/2019/05/palestinian-samaritanism-redemption.html
"Its sentiment resembles that of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his iconic “I have a dream” speech:
- “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists (Yes, Yeah), with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” (Yes), one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to
As always, Cole is entitled to his opinions and has the freedom to express them no matter how ridiculous he sounds. It's scary that this guy is a professor, but at least he provides some comic relief.
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