There are extremists and abuses in all religions.
Some of the posts on this list demonise Islam and Muslims by taking excesses as an example of the practise of all Muslims.
As far as I can tell after a short time on this list, anti-Muslim stereotyping is being used for a propaganda purpose: defence of brutal practices by the Israeli state and its military machine.
The mirror of the method of argument in this thread would go something like: the Israeli army, which is overwhelmingly Jewish, bulldozes the houses of innocent people, shoots down schoolgirls on their way to school and protects fanatical thieves who steal the land of Palestinian farmers, therefore Jews bulldoze innocent people's houses, shoot schoolgirls and steal people's property. (For anyone who lacks a sense of irony, this is not my opinion, but a mirror of the method used against Muslims by some on this list.)
There are enough historical examples of religious and ethnic stereotyping to understand where it leads.
I joined this list thinking it was a forum for left discussion. So far it has been dominated by debate on the Middle East, which is fair enough, but much of the material in this debate is racist.
There's no point debating hate propagandists. I'll be leaving this list very soon.
Ed Lewis
----- / o o \ ===OO=====OO================================================== http://pnews.org/ (links) http://pnews.org/PhpWiki/ (West Coast News Wiki) http://g0lem.net/PhpWiki/ (East Coast News Wiki) =============================================================== Sub/Unsub [pnews-l - rhetoric] :: http://pnews.org/signup.shtml ===============================================================
================== FIGHT THE RIGHT! ==================
