Gotta pass it on
 

Saw this and can't help but post it, even though I probably will bail from this thread when it hits 10 posts.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2WLoasfOLpQ

Interesting.

I am surprised that this woman is still alive, frankly. I am also amazed that those men would actually put themselves in a position to allow a woman to speak to them like that.

Thanks for posting that. She certainly said it like it is.

Thanks for the link. Sometimes the messenger is as important as the message. It's good to hear some sanity from a source that is usually insane (and by that I mean television, of course).

I'm not surprised she is alive, she does, after all, live in Los Angeles and while I'm sure she has some increased risk, political and religious killings are pretty rare here.

I also love the subtitle of the book she is writing, though just in general and not necessarily directed at Islam specifically.

Oh....I suppose I should have paid better attention to that. Silly little me living in my non-diverse Phoenix universe. I figured since it was in Arabic and it was English subtitles that it must have been coming from somewhere in the middle east.

So, I'll change that. Not surprised she's still alive.

Well, the show was on Al-Jazeera and broadcast in the Middle East, but she was in a Los Angeles studio.

Amen

Nasty, nasty comments posted on youtube. Those, coupled with the immovable opinions of the men interviewing Ms. Sultan, illustrate the hole we've dug for ourselves by allowing ultraconservatives an unfettered and equal voice in the world. I want a new group of people, call them ultracompromists, to start running things. Marginalize the smug and negativistic. Embrace compromise for the sake of not blowing people up.

Oh lookie, I'm number 10. 'Bye Jen!

11. ;)

Sac beat me to it. That quote was good.

A report on Buddhist violence targeting Muslins in Burma (from Human Rights Watch).

There aren't many religions that can claim purity unless they've never actually been in power, even the supposedly pacifist ones.

I'm still here. :)

Violent Buddhists, wow.

Source

Looks like they're trying to rebuild two of the three statues. Huge jigsaw puzzle this is.

Just to be clear (I'm blond you know), was this a new broadcast or the one from February? All common sense but she put it in just the right words. Amazing woman!

February.

Violent Buddhists brings up a good point: Are jews not terrorists because they don't want to be, or because they don't have to be? Would jews have blown up German citizens during the Holocaust as a means to terrorize the Nazis and their collaborators ... if they'd had the opportunity to do so?

I'm not aware of jews being particularly oppressed in the modern era. Find me some non-violent, ultra-opressed peoples and we might have a fair comparison.

The violent Bhuddhists doesn't support that question, they're the majority and hold the power in Burma. They don't have to be violent to throw off oppression. They're attacking Muslims simply because they don't like them and blame the minority for the larger economic problems the country faces.

Not that it isn't an valid question, and a point that I've raised before. Once "terrorism" (the targetting of civilians and civilian infrastructure to coerce political and military decisions) is the only tool left for what you perceive is justified resistance it seems that everybody easily finds a way to justify it.

There was not insignificant Jewish resistance to Nazi's during World War II in various areas, partiularly in parts of Poland and (at least to the extend I'm familiar with it) it was restrained to attacks on military targets. But their capabilities were pretty limited.

I guess it depends on what one considers to be ultra oppressed and if nonviolent is a choice or out of inability or fear.

I would regard living in a communist state as being ultra oppressive. Uprisings such as Tiananmen Square are quickly and violently quashed. Dissenters are thrown in prison. I think fear comes into play quite a bit.

I would suspect many tribes beholden to tribal violence in Africa would fall into the same category. They lack the means to fight back and fear reprisals if they do so.

But when you can't possibly fight back against a military power in these days of high technology, and you've still got fight left in you .... is fighting against the civilian power inevitable? What if that civilian power holds the ultimate sway over the political and military power? When do civilians become the legitimate target of those who have no other means to do battle, but whose battle is justified? Or is such warfare always illegitimate no matter what?

Killing innocents to bring attention to your cause is never just, IMHO. Even worse than this is sending children to throw rocks at tanks. If you want to fight a war, fight a war. Muster the best of your available strength, technology and training, and fight. Cowards hide behind civilians and children.

I saw this a while ago. Quite moving in my opinion. Girl Power!

That was VERY cool.