David Vitter has lost the governor race in Louisiana. When he was getting desperate, he ran an ad going after his Democratic opponent blaming the response of the Paris attacks on him. Video of the ad fearmongering with the refugee situation. Another Donald Trump rally ended with his angry mob supporters assaulting a Black Lives Matter protester in Birmingham, Alabama. Videos of other times his supporters assaulted opponents at his rallies, such as one getting spit on, another getting dragged out by the neck while the crowd cheered “USA, USA.” Video of the Alabama rally where the 31 year old Black protester was roughed up. When asked about it, Trump said that the man was so obnoxious that he should’ve been roughed up. A Trump supporter; a business man and Super PAC creator came out in support of the assault. Videos of Robert Kiger telling CNN that Black people have no right to interrupt a Trump rally. After the attacks, Trump tweeted an image with extremely false stats on murder in the country among the races. The origin of the racist meme was from a White Supremacist site. After the CNN reporter was suspended for tweeting that the Statue of Liberty is ashamed over the refugee bill, Glenn Greenwald called out the network on the bias. Video of Greenwald’s debate with Brian Stelter on the subject. Video examples of CNN’s Amanpour and Lemon showing biases against all Muslims in the wake of attacks.
Hour 1 Source Articles:
Sign up for The Young Turks daily source articles email newsletter: http://eepurl.com/PLlqD
Donald Trump: My Fans Were Right To Beat Up Black Protester
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/11/22/3724879/donald-trump-black-lives-matter-protester-beating/
Glenn Greenwald calls out CNN’s awful coverage of Paris attacks on CNN
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/23/glen_greewald_calls_out_cnns_awful_coverage_of_paris_attacks_on_cnn/
The Most Fascinating Thing About Donald Trump’s Racist Tweet
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/11/most-fascinating-thing-about-donald-trumps-racist-tweet
The Koch intelligence agency
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-koch-brothers-intelligence-agency-215943
Congressman: Syrian Refugees Are Just Looking For A ‘Paid Vacation’
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/21/3724723/mo-brooks-syrian-refugees-vacation/
Analysts Accuse CENTCOM of Covering Up Cooked ISIS Intelligence
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/23/analysts-accuse-centcom-of-covering-up-cooked-isis-intelligence.html
John Bel Edwards beats David Vitter to become Louisiana’s next governor
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/11/louisiana_governor_democrat.html
Trump supporter tells CNN: ‘I’d get beat up’ at a black church so black activists deserve it at Trump events
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/trump-supporter-tells-cnn-id-get-beat-up-at-a-black-church-so-black-activists-deserve-it-at-trump-events/
Comments
The entire first segment was butthurt on parade. I don’t believe that Cenk thinks Sam Harris and Mo Brooks are on the same team. Yet, he says it anyway. What a dishonest, butthurt cunt. In that 3 hour exchange where Sam absolutely *spanked* Cenk, Cenk got hurt. He got his ego and his self-image hurt. He had to of for him to go on like this. When Cenk didn’t understand probability for example, I think that got explained to him later, off air. And I bet his face turned red.
This entire first segment was a straw man and stealth attack against Sam Harris. You are a cunt Cenk, grow up and apologize so we can all move past this.
Why do you post or watch TYT?
Are you that miserable? Are you disabled without a job and really angry all the time because of it?
The only person whose face turns red is yours, anytime you ever post. So much anger. So much hate. So much distaste for TYT…except that you watch TYT every single day and post about it constantly?
Do you pay TYT for a membership just to rage on them?
On religion, TYT is total bullshit. On Sam Harris, they are worse than bullshit, they are unhelpful and slanderous.
On about everything else, they more or less get it right.
Is it that hard to understand? Do I have to have giant posters of Cenk in my bedroom and agree with him down the line?
I’d love to leave TYT and see it fail. I have nowhere to go that is even remotely as good. I’ve been here since 2009 and since then have stopped watching the second hour. I am here for Cenk’s analysis of politics ONLY. ONLY. I do not support the “cause” of TYT as I feel they are dishonest where it matters. I pay for Cenk.
I agree completely.
I’ve been a paying member since 2009 too and Cenk is often fantastic on domestic politics, he’s mostly good at amusingly simplifying important articles and hammering away the important points.
I think it’s hard for fanboys to see the world not through fanboy eyes and they assume criticism of the dear leader is just competing fanboyism.
Let us keep the sequence in the proper order. Violence and religion are both symptoms of social deprivation. The social deprivation in the Middle East has been part of UK/US foreign policy for a century. If we change our policy the region has a chance to progress, until then the cycle will continue.
History didn’t start a century ago, religious sectarian violence has plagued the region for 14 centuries
Always at the behest of people in power looking to grab land and resources using the ill informed as their fodder. Religion colours violence, it doesn’t cause it, ignorance causes religion and violence both.
So the leaders in power in Denmark wanted their people to riot over religious cartoons for resources and land or the Muslim leaders in Denmark want their people to riot over cartoons for resources and land?
You just simply cannot explain the treatment of gays and women and apostates in these countries as a response to US policy or as people in power looking to grab land and resources. Absurd. If you cannot understand that, if you can’t understand the link between belief and behavior, then you really don’t have the capacity to be in this conversation.
If it’s just the leaders, explain to me why when these religious cultures have the choice in authoritarian societies they choose to elect the most religious guy as leader? And then what inevitably happens is the guy they accept as leader for being the most religious then gets rid of democracy and installs himself as dictator.
Ignorance doesn’t cause violence lmao, arrogance causes violence. Thinking you know what God wants and being willing to die for it causes violence. Tribal violence between religious sects is not caused by ignorance but it is exacerbated by competing levels of differing interpretations of faith. You need to remember that there are multiple sects of Islam and they all hate each other and the only thing they hate more is the West (and don’t be naive they attack the west for more monetary support and recruits in addition to striking at the great satan).
Again, explain to me why you don’t get death cult behavior out of other oppressed religions? Because there are differences in the religion and religion matter, even Cenk agrees with this, he just likes to go overboard and say politics matters more. Remember, just like here in the US, people get their views on the conservative right mostly from religion and they vote based on religion, the difference is the west had an enlightenment before it had modern weapons and the Middle East and Southeast Asia and Africa, did not.
Religion matters, not all religions are the same, no ideas are above criticism. Cenk rants on Christianity like there’s no tomorrow and no one calls him a racist or a christianaphobe. Criticize the ideology and doctrine and their consequences in today’s world (like the treatment of women as second class citizens, imprisoning secular free thinkers, killing apostates, gang raping women who aren’t chaperones etc) and then even Cenk apparently will call you a racist bigot islamophobe.
“One doesn’t have to be a bigot to see shari’ah as a problem. In fact, it’s impossible to be a true liberal without seeing shari’ah as a problem. It’s impossible to be a true liberal and not acknowledge that one has to be very unlucky indeed to born a girl in almost any Muslim-majority country. And this is an injustice that liberals should be the first to care about. Just because you were born a woman in Afghanistan, you shouldn’t be condemned to live like a slave. There’s not a shred of bigotry behind observations of this kind. On the contrary, it’s the bigotry of low expectations that allows white, privileged secularists to imagine that a majority of woman and girls forced to wear the veil probably enjoy it.”-Sam Harris
You’ve spent a long time to refute nothing I wrote. Violence, ignorance, bigotry, religion, and terrorism all thrive where there is poverty, as they did in Christendom when those factors were more prevalent. The poverty in the Middle East has been vastly and willfully exacerbated by UK/US involvement. You can find examples of educated, wealthy people who do dangerous things due to religion, but they’re few and far between and almost always ultimately act for their own gain. Rather than repeat your own (or I should say your religious leader’s) flawed talking points, consider the root of these problems (poverty) rather than get worked up about the symptoms (religion). The most well educated and economically equitable cultures are generally the least violent and bigoted, such cultures lose religion by these virtues, the US would do well by giving it a try.
Clearly a moron invested in their position. Muslim terrorists are everywhere, ones with educations as well. The 9/11 and Paris attacks were all carried out by Western born Muslims. Jihadi John? Western. Every single ISIS fighter from the west, and their are thousands, was educated.
So please, acknowledge you are woefully ill-equipped to be at the adults table. Please see yourself to the door.
If you feel the need to endlessly question other people’s intelligence, check the chip on your shoulder, you may find you’re trying to overcompensate for your own shortcomings. Your use of the term SJW would suggest as much.
lol you just simplified the problem even more (and worse) than Cenk. When you adjust for wealth and literacy in the Muslim world support for radicalism actually goes up so there goes your whole argument. Douglas K Murray’s think tank has been debunking all these myths and will continue to do so.
Of course, we all know the more healthy, happy and well educated a culture is the more religious it becomes and the more extremist those beliefs are….. Just because people who do (relatively) better in a regime claim to believe in it’s tenants doesn’t mean they do.
The facts are the billionaires here and the billionaires in the Middle East do very well keeping the people there impoverished and therefore more susceptible to extremism. That is the game being played. The idea that Islam is the cause of the problem, or fundamentally better or worse than any other stone age nonsense requires a total misunderstanding of the human species and our history. Of course your answer does absolve the West and keep you in your bubble of superiority, which I imagine is extremely comfortable, hence your hysteria when someone pops it.
10 lines or less:
(1) The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
(2) Islam can only be reformed if ~90%+ of Muslims accept that the Quran (i.e. the perfect word of god) is not a guide to organize society.
(3) We can see how (a plausible interpretation of) the Quran is implemented in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, ISIS, etc. It isn’t great.
(3) ~90%+ of people raised in an Islamic context are not likely to independently realize that the Quran is not a guide to organize society.
(4) In light of 1… 3, we have to show why the Quran isn’t optimal, we have to provide the better alternatives, and we have to explicate this.
(5) Number 4 is not possible if we cannot get past 1 and 2.
The first rule of Fight Club is…..
Your cult is really no different to any other, come up with ludicrous answers that make you feel special then repeat ad nauseam. The first step to your recovery is to admit you’re part of the problem. The second would likely be to stop mindlessly repeating the blank eyed whisperings of a war monger and think for yourself.
You also need to explain why more British Muslims have joined ISIS than volunteered for the British Military Services. That seems like it has very little to do with poverty and everything to do with ideology. They could have joined the British military and got paid and educated but instead they joined ISIS. Explain how that is a result of poverty and not ideology.
Joining any military is an insane choice to me, so I see no sense in your attempt to make an equivalence between those choices. Are you saying joining the British military would be a moral choice? For a bunch who claim to enjoy thought experiments you Harris worshipers seem light on love for the analytical process. The number of European Muslims who have joined IS are an infinitesimally tiny minority, who each have their personal reasons. Some are gullible disenfranchised young people, some are sociopaths or psychopaths looking for an excuse. Set up a lawless wasteland anywhere and you’ll find the right kind of people to go and sign up. Once again that is nothing new, once again it is not exclusive to Islam.
lol my point had nothing to do with what you took away from it apparently. My whole point was debunking your theory which thinks people join ISIS for money and lack of education. You need to explain Al, why there aren’t poor and poorly educated christians and jews and atheists joining suicidal death cults. Why don’t you see more poor and poorly educated russians or mexicans joining suicidal death cults? The numbers of europeans who have joined ISIS is in the thousands and I’m fairly certain you don’t go to syria unless you are a jihadist who believes in a fundamental interpretation of islam that has been brainwashed into you. I find your argument to be childishly weak but I understand you feel the need to think all people everywhere/(generic brown skin people) are exactly the same because it gives you hope to think if you just give jihadists toys they won’t want to follow their religious myths commandments.
Every country has gangs, violent movements and cults full of impoverished people prepared to do anything to survive or in the hope of something more than the misery they’ve lived in. The Middle East as an entire region has been willfully decimated by the west to steal the resources for a century, making the circumstances there the most perfect for such cults to thrive. Our purposeful theft began in earnest when the UK military went from coal power to oil power at the command of Winston Churchill. These are facts you could learn if you spent less time questioning other people’s intelligence to silence that inferiority complex that screams from every comment you write.
” Religion colours violence, it doesn’t cause it, ”
You’re wasting your time trying to explain this to any of these Sam Harris followers. And yep, Yamo87 is a mindless Harris worshiper.
Unfortunate. However you’re definitely right about the ignorance thing! His ignorance, and Gryph’s too, both cause their Sam Harris religiosity and their Muslim hatred.
Sad and unfortunate, but at least with many others we only need to educate them.
Yes it’s almost amusing how alike to religious zealots like they are in their unquestioning, dogmatic repetition of Mr Harris illogical talking points. We can see the similarities also in the way their set of beliefs make them feel superior, exceptional even, which will always be a draw to people whose ego drives them to masquerade as intellectuals, hence the repeated statements from them about how the rest of us are just too stupid to grasp the concepts in question. As you say people not so entrenched in their cult think won’t be quite so immune to logic, hopefully….
What is your logic that we are refusing to acknowledge? For the most part we keep making points that you ignore and then you pivot and say the same anti-state rant, that Jihadism and Islamism is ONLY the fault of the CIA and the West. Wes Clark already called bullshit on that in this weeks Old School. True liberals should be fighting for secularism everywhere. Listen to any of Faisal Saeed Al Mutar’s speeches, get a better idea of the issue from a liberal secular humanist Iraq refugee who predicted the sectarian violence post Saddam.
You really can’t help yourself can you dear? Here’s what we’re going to do, I’ll keep addressing the causes, you keep pretending the symptoms are the causes. I’ll keep being right, you’ll keep feeling good about yourself.
If you ever feel like breaking the cycle try and remember, it’s not secular vs Islam, it’s not East vs West, it’s a handful of billionaires around the globe vs the rest of the human species. The games the rich play to make you detest your fellow man have you hypnotized.
Wes Clark disagrees with you. I think Wes Clark is a more reliable source of wisdom. Your simplification of the worlds problems is not a criticism of my perspective, your simplification of my perspective is also just shallow in terms of criticism.
I’ll keep drawing my own conclusions from the evidence, you keep parroting what other people think. I didn’t say the game the rich are playing was simple, far from it, it’s designed to be complicated enough to befuddle people like you.
You haven’t given any evidence but I’m glad you will start trying harder. If you had any idea what you were talking about you wouldn’t be so emotional about critics. So far it seems like the only argument you have provided is ‘I am superior because you are not’.
Wes Clark said “at one point the people on the ground have to take responsibility”, but then he also told the story of Indonesia and didn’t deny the role of the CIA in South America either – all he said is: “if someone gives me a name, money and a gun, I still don’t shoot someone, but say FU to this guy” He’s right, of course, yet…
Let’s say (thought experiment) good old mob boss “Don Rambo” (completely made up) is on trial and whoever’s cross-examining him is asking why he thinks he’s innocent and he goes “Well, yes, I did gave him 500,000 names, weapons and money – but did I shoot the guy? Hey, if someone gives me names, weapons, money – I send him away, I never killed someone my entire life!” Do you think he gets acquitted? Do you think he gets less than the actual hit man? Come on, to say it’s not (at least in part) the US’ fault is ridiculous…
Wes Clark also said “Lemme just call some bullshit on this ‘Fuckin America started all this” Bullshit!”
We are heading down EXACTLY the same path as Germany did…it scares me that we CAN NOT SEE IT.
Don’t be so dramatic.
Holy fuck the comments on this clip.
I just want an answer from the Sam Harris fans out there, and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, I am actually interested in the answer.
For the sake of argument, let’s say Harris is right; Islam is the worst (and depending on how you draw the boundaries for how you define ‘worst’, he might be right).
Then what? How does pointing fingers help with a solution? Especially when groups like ISIS want nothing more than to cause a rift between “westerners” and Muslims, or removing the ‘grey zone’ as they call it? Pointing fingers kinda helps causing that rift, doesn’t it?
Maybe I just haven’t paid enough attention to hear the answer (this discussion usually makes me switch my ears off because I’m soo tired of it), and maybe I’m just too stupid to realize how defining a religion as the worst one would help. Maybe it’s obvious. Give me the answer in 10 lines or less.
I’ve been looking into this recently, no expert but here’s my 2 cents.
Sam Harris is saying that the jihadis are obviously the problem and there is no negotiating with them, they have to be wiped out which I assume everyone on board for.
Jihadis will not stop trying to destroy the western world, therefore we have to at least think about what would happen if they got their hands on a nuke and consider the possibility we’d have to strike first.
This caused issues because his critics say “Oh look at that, he wants to indiscriminately nuke the middle east!”
The major beef comes from Sam citing polls that show whatever ~25% of Muslims in western countries are at least somewhat sympathetic to the terrorists cause. Meaning in the Middle East it’s safe to say it’s higher. He’s saying this is obviously a problem and needs to be dealt with somehow, we need to win the battle of ideologies. He did say “vast numbers of Muslims” believe x because 25% of 1.6B is a vast number of people.
That’s what they use to say he hates all Muslims ad nauseam.
If anyone can correct me with quotes or solid evidence to the contrary I’d appreciate it but that’s my opinion based on what I’ve been watching and reading lately.
10 lines or less:
(1) The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
(2) Islam can only be reformed if ~90%+ of Muslims accept that the Quran (i.e. the perfect word of god) is not a guide to organize society.
(3) We can see how (a plausible interpretation of) the Quran is implemented in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, ISIS, etc. It isn’t great.
(3) ~90%+ of people raised in an Islamic context are not likely to independently realize that the Quran is not a guide to organize society.
(4) In light of 1… 3, we have to show why the Quran isn’t optimal, we have to provide the better alternatives, and we have to explicate this.
(5) Number 4 is not possible if we cannot get past 1 and 2.
*slow clap*
Indeed, double slow clap, I might just paste this post anytime I see people interested in Sam Harris. Thanks!
Think macberg will come back or pretend we never answered his question on the next show where Cenk shows us his chapped ass from Harris?
lol I don’t think we’ll see macberg ever again
Awesome first hour Cenk! loved bashing of CNN. We can’t have people like that in the media when the consequence is war.
I love watching TYT when Cenk is in the house; he has the passion and it always shows. Hour 2 is ok but I can take it or leave it, the same, sorry to say, as hour 1 if Cenk is not presentThe other hosts are good but Cenk has the passion.
Watergate spied on their political foes and led to impeachment.
Kochgate (they are at the heart of the rep party) is spying on their political foes. Let’s impeach these assholes out of our politics.
I read the full text of Sam Harris’ genocidal rampage… he never made direct reference to the scenario’s that he mentions when he is walking the statement back on any of his interviews, including the interview with Cenk. Why didn’t he make mention of those exact scenario’s in the full text?
It’s because by making genocidal statements, he is getting his feet wet, trying to see how much he can get away with – if that had worked, he would have pushed things further. But it didn’t work, and he got beaten over it time and time again. It’s that simple. I’m not involved in any telepathy here, I’m just drawing conclusions from the things that come out of his mouth.
I’m so tempted to call you a clown after everything I read but I resists! I resist…
read the post i left for you at the end of our second thread on the old school page. it’s the one you haven’t read before about the flaws in the pew poll on muslims. then you might hear where i am coming from.
here:
tytnetwork.com/2015/10/15/young-turks-oct-14-2015/
even if sam harris wasn’t aware of the flaw (and i’m sure he wasn’t) i find him at fault for cherry picking the polls and never mentioning the gallup poll which totally contradicts the findings of the severely flawed pew poll. evidence in above link. and btw, thank you for not punching below the belt.
Having consumed (presumably) all of the same content you have on this topic, I reached a completely different conclusion than you. Sam Harris is accurately describing the problem. People like you and Cenk are constantly trying to derail that by claiming Harris’ intentions and “true meaning” is genocidal or something else patently stupid.
The snackbarians coming with their iphones etc to pollute Europe ,even further ,with their retarded religion need to be ALL sent back, to fight and if needed to die in the religious civil war they have. That’s the only way to help them. All religions are stupid and irrelevant. Just Islam happens to be the most savage.
so you want innocent muslims to die in cross fire, or to fight in a war they are not responsible for, because they are muslims and all religions need to die by ensuring all religious people end up dying? It’s the only way to get rid of religion?
Everyone else: If you’re reading this, congratulations, the fascism, bigotry and racism you’ve all been pushing for is now tipping people over the edge where they are in favour of sam harris’ genocidal views.
I wonder what % of white people are now in favour of genocide?
idk how you can think anyone takes you seriously. Sam Harris Genocidal views? Your brain is fried.
If Sam Harris and his fans support genocide, then Cenk and his fans support the murder of innocent Parisians by ISIS.
Have you ever spent time in Iraq? Syria? The Palestinian Territories? I have (I’m not Muslim). Please, before you make generalized statements about their religion, see how these people live because of our intervention. Then you’ll have some perspective about why things have become so bad.
lol no one wants to go to those places for obvious reasons. Our intervention does not explain their religious violence against themselves. Patently absurd. Our intervention allowed sectarian violence to flourish but our intervention did not create the tribal animosity between religious sects. Those groups that hated each other for 1000 years started to kill each other after rule of law vanished and they knew they could blame it all on the outsiders after the fact.
yeah, and that is an indictment on them how? if rule of law vanished in america, you don’t think right wing nuts won’t be killing black people and other groups killing others? of course they will. without rule of law, there is nothing to keep people together.
you say “they kill each other, our invasion cannot account for that” – well, it doesn’t need to, the above things i mentioned (rule of law collapsing) accounts for that. also, does this now mean you will not judge them (all or most of them) on the actions of terrorists hitting the westerners because you accept that the invasions account for that? thanks, since i agree you shouldn’t.
when you topple a country, rule of law and government is gone, and some of them seek revenge or are unable to keep their country together and violence breaks out because of the toppling you’ve done… then you point fingers at them saying, oh look at those barbaric savage people who can’t even keep rule of law together and have this insatiable appetite for revenge… how f-ing dare they? LMAO – come on dude, seriously, come on! action and consequence.
I know, you’d love it if it was their religion, but it isn’t. amnesty international did a study, 95% of all terrorist attacks are for political reasons (to create change or revenge or both). i know it doesn’t fit your precepts, but that’s reality.
You have so much more patience with the bigots than I do. i commend you for the important work you’re doing confronting mindless bigotry and jingoism.
I second this.
That’s why I just call names, I have little patience for your willful ignorance and persistent obtuseness.
I second this.
Cenk, your insight into what Sam Harris secretly means but never says is very impressive. In your capacity of an omniscient mind reader, can you please tell me what I secretly think but don’t say?
Your a narrow minded bigot who thinks all Muslims are to blame and want them all to apologize for fundamentalists crazy actions. Fuck you and Sam Harris.
Regressive Leftists :) one thought at a time
Damn your right I forgot they can’t multi-task with several thoughts.
I don’t blame them really, not all brains evolved equally.
Muslims bomb each other more than they bomb us, all Harris does is point out the danger of religious dogmatism. Which should be obvious for liberals but is not because a large amount of them are religious or completely ignorant of the subject.
“Muslims bomb each other ” that’s exactly the problem…
-> Maybe you have a chart, similar to Trump (about Blacks killing Blacks)
Terrorists(!) killing Muslims more than they kill Christians, Jews etc – that’s the right expression. Again the same question: What have the Muslims killed by terrorists or just living their peaceful lives to do with the terrorists?
You say you criticize dogma – but what exactly is then not enough for you guys, when Cenk criticizes “the ideology of Islam” – isn’t that not the exact same opinion?
Personally, I disagree btw. The problem are the ideologies of all the terrorists/fundamentalists/extremists – they can be religious dogma, but a lot of people follow the same religion without following the same ideology or dogma – there is no such thing than Christian, Muslim, Jewish ideology – I bet there are no 2 people on the planet sharing the exact same ideology – our beliefs are formed by the entirety of our life-experiences – what is or isn’t in a book is almost irrelevant – how to interpret it much more important, but even that not nearly as much as your socio-economic status, if you have access to healthcare etc. But you can criticize the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, of course. You could even say it’s anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim, according to the majority of Muslims/”followers” of Islam – if you judge people/movements/beliefs by democratic principles that is…
Look you just equated a race with an ideology. It’s absurd to say people are more dangerous because of their skin color but you can obviously say a someone is more dangerous based on their beliefs.
I don’t need to give you a chart, it’s obvious and it would take me too long to count all the civil wars and sectarian conflicts and terrorist attacks that happen daily in Muslim majority regions.
Religious dogmatism, following the religious text literally as the one true word of God (and in Islam the last true word of God, no additions), is the problem and it’s what promotes sectarian violence.
Let me spell this out for you because you seem to be confused, there are many different denominations of Islam and the denominations fight against each other via Sunni , Shia, Kurd. The Sunnis are thought to be more democratic (allowing the election of their leaders) but the Saudis have their own Sunni religion they call Wahhabism which is just as radical as Shias who believe all leaders must be descendants of Mohammed. Now all these Muslims should love each other because of Islam right?
Sure there might be some Arab vs Persian tribalism but there is obviously obviously religious tribalism which is driving the violence. The religion says kill the infidels and the apostates who leave the religion are worse. Lo and behold you see this constant ‘your not a true Muslim’ debate happening all over the Middle East. So you need to explain radical Islamic jihadi terrorism against other Muslims because all I’ve been hearing from regressive liberals is that the terrorists are only motivated by US foreign policy and not their religion AT ALL.
So I just leave the question open for you to ponder, how come the Muslims are so willing to kill their neighbors who hold slightly different interpretations of the same words? And you actually can’t use socioeconomic status as the sole reason because then you need to explain why there isn’t more suicidal terrorism in poor regions generally. You also can’t use that argument because many of the most dangerous and radical religious extremists were in fact highly educated and had money and opportunity to live any life they wanted. Bin Laden and the 19 high jackets are the best examples of this. Did those 19 men with higher education who lived in Germany fly planes into the World Trade Center because they didn’t have opportunity? Beliefs matter. To say ideology doesn’t matter is absolutely rubbish and it’s shallow intellectual thinking. Culture (beliefs) matter, environmental context (social circumstances) matter, and resources matter.
If one has relatively few opportunities AND is from an authoritarian/religious culture AND is surrounded by other radical extremists who dogmatically follow a religious text a certain violent way then you should not be surprised when that one person joins a well financed terror group that holds the same values and has the same people or type of people you were born into. Nuance is so hard I know.
What do normal peaceful Muslims have to do with terrorism? Well first off that’s not as strong of an argument or question as you think it is. If they are peaceful Muslims committed to the benign parts of the text or if they are like most simply ignorant of the majority of the text then most Muslims have little to do with terrorism. However
And for another thing, these radical groups actually give ‘peaceful’ conservative Muslims in theocracies a free pass to stone gays and rape women if they aren’t being chaperoned. Another thing, the peaceful Muslims constantly play the same ‘oh they aren’t true Muslims’ game, which is largely something that animates the divide in the Islamic world.
I love when Cenk criticized the ideology of Islam, to be honest he kinda flips a lot on how much he thinks it’s either the religion motivation or just evil thrill seekers using it as a vehicle to be evil thrill seekers. I fall more in the side that you don’t get suicidal men blowing themselves up in mosques for evil thrills, rather you do it because you expect paradise to be on the other side and you expect your purpose and duty in life is to fulfill a faith based mission from the almighty creator.
There are clearly principles you can lay out and say ok only Jews follow this, only Muslims follow this, and only Christians follow this. Stem cell research for Christians (due to beliefs about when souls enter the zygote), Jews and their hate of ham (that evil dirty animal that looks like it has human skin) and Muslims can’t draw cartoons of the prophet. There is a direct line from the religious doctrines of these religions and beliefs and actions in the real world. There is no one universal ideology no, but don’t be silly, of course there are religious ideologies, each sect/denomination within a religion has a varying interpretation but they all get their source material content from the same books and I think by this point in time we can recognize that all the Iron Age texts are extremely barbaric and don’t fit with modern liberal/secular values.
There are no 2 people that share the same ideology? I think you mean that no two people share all of the exact same thoughts but don’t be so patently absurd. pick any two people in ISIS, those two will hold the same ideological views (Islamic caliphate is great) just as much as two soldiers in the US military hold the same ideological views (Islamic caliphate is not so great).
The last thing you said is the most important lesson for me to hammer away. ‘You can criticize the fundamental interpretation of Islam as being anti-Muslim according to the majority of Muslims’ but don’t you see how this simply exacerbates the divide within the Islamic world? Can’t you see how entire countries have radical interpretations that they govern their population with? You seem to be stuck in the view that all these Muslims everywhere live in secular societies and actually have a choice about wing radical or not but its just not true.
And one last thing, because I highly doubt you will edify yourself by reading my whole argument, the context of your existence determines how radically and faithfully you choose to follow religious text. If radical interpretations of a single holy text can give birth to radical extremist groups who take the book literally, then the books and ideas are the problem. And of course not everyone holds the same passion or intensity for all the same views, there will always be a spectrum. Think of it as concentric circles overlapping, in the center you have the minority jihadist terrorists who are willing to kill and die to promote an Islamic caliphate and sharia law, outside that circle are Islamists, islamists also want an Islamic caliphate and they want sharia law but they go about it by political means via supporting coups and revolutions. Then in the next circle outside that group you have the run of the mill conservative Muslims who just want to put their wives in bags but have less of a problem living in a secular society. Then you have the moderate Muslims who are generally in prison and then you have the secular/liberal Muslims who are tarred and feathered more than radical Muslims (and by other conservative Muslims!)
So in the end, it is the ideology that gives birth to these suicidal groups, they just obviously don’t hold to the views with equal fervor, some believe more than others because of their religious upbringing and other environmental contexts.
In the end it is all religion that is the problem, arrogance of thinking with certainty that one might know exactly what God wants is going to be the end of us all some day. And dogmatism (following without reasoning) is also an issue.
We need to stand up for liberal human rights and use our brains to reason how best to do that and not simply follow the crowd. Sometimes I feel like it is a Herculean task but I get encouraged when I find others who can stand up for liberal principles and say “ya raping your wife is bad even if it’s your culture”.
The problem most liberals have is that they think digitally, either a Muslim is peaceful and just like me or he is violent and not really a true Muslim. Because then I get to remind them how conservative the Islamic religion is and how they treat liberals, women and gays etc. it makes no sense for someone who calls himself a liberal to defend conservative ideology that in fact hates them.
Good day sir. I don’t expect you to read this, but I do believe it will help you wake up if you do.
apologies for any typos, i wrote this on my phone and I really really want to impress all of you #sarcasm
When you invade a country, rule of law collapses, and people go nuts, apparently that is an indictment on Islam? When you topple a country and rule of law no longer exists, all groups who have grievances against one another will fight, because _some_ human beings, without rule of law, are savages.
Also, even without the last point, if last point didn’t exist, how do you know and what data do you have to prove that it is because of their religion and not because of other humanly forces like politics, revenge, grievances etc?
And no, someone saying allah akbar doesn’t mean he is doing it for religion. Point me to data, I just told you about the amnesty international study, terrorism is 95% political. What is your study to refute that directly? And no, I”m not accepting sam harris’ standard of evidence, which is to point to a line in the Koran and claim it is evidence that the book is to blame (lol).
I’m always amazed at people (like harris & maher) who’ve never met any muslims or had muslim friends but yet are confident enough to go out on this rampage about them based upon wrapping hateful sentences in a blanket on intellectualism in order to make them more palatable.
You clearly know nothing about Bill Maher. Just shut the fuck about it already.
I second this.
“And no, someone saying allah akbar doesn’t mean he is doing it for religion.”
-eaxx
lmfao
Yes, I’m narrow minded. After all, when I disagree with someone, my first response is “fuck you”.
i know its hard to have your racism accepted by society, but it will never happen, you will always be a bigot
The number of mind readers here is really amazing. It is impressive how by using your mind reading power,s you were able to identify me as a bigot. Are there any other odious personality traits you are able to psychically identify in me?
What don’t you stop telling everyone they don’t know what you’re thinking, and start telling everyone what you’re thinking?
If you stand with sam harris and bill maher, there is no alternative. I wish you weren’t a bigot. It’s because of people like sam harris, bill maher, and their supporters that countless innocent muslims women are being beaten up by hate-filled white men around the world, mainly in the west. Please own up to your impressive work.
It’s the same things they did to black people, now it’s begun for the muslims as well. congratulations.
ever heard the saying, lets avoid these beginnings so that we may avoid those ends?
Cenk seems quit smitten with that phrase, “ever heard the saying, lets avoid these beginnings so that we may avoid those ends?”
I find it utter tripe. Sounds like something a stupid person would think a smart person would say.
Bill Maher – Iconic leftist comic and TV show host. For the last 20 years has been on the progressive left on every issue from taxation, war, drugs, race, inequality, and crime. Famously, Bill dates almost exclusively black women.
Also, he is a racist and anyone who agrees with him is automatically a racist by association… This conversation like some sort of liberal purity inquisition.
For real, that has to be the most bigoted thing I’ve heard all day. Guilt by association!? What kind of liberal conversation is this? Bill Maher is on the far far far fucking left, how could you honestly think he is the cause of conservative bigotry and violence against muslims? Guaranteed the people who did the violence fucking hate bill maher. I am amazed sometimes at how much liberals fail to promote liberalism.
I’m going to speculate, Cenk would actually be good friends with Bill Maher and would be on his and Harris’s side if Maher liked him enough to invite him on his show (he doesn’t) and if Harris wasn’t already slimed by a plagiarist cohost. Cenk flip flops all the time on what he believes regarding foreign policy. Bill Maher and Sam Harris are consistent, stand up for liberal principles everywhere. Only Cenk bootlickers plug their ears and scream racist and bigot when they hear that. Cenk wanted to be on RealTime, don’t kid yourself, he’s super bitter that we wasn’t let into that club so him and his followers continuously demonize fellow liberal progressives for small minded personal reasons.
Dude, we’ve spoken abotu this before with gathly and others. Maher won’t have cenk on because he doesn’t have true progressives on, like john stewart, colbert and others. i thought it was because he didn’t want other left wing comedians on but gathly and others came up with the reason i mentioned, i was wrong they were right we all concluded.
But to suggest that just because of that Cenk would be going after them, come on? Of course it is about their bigotry and racism. And yes, maher has a very revealing moment with that Palestinian girl and he made it clear that it was about arab’s and not necessarily all muslims that he had a problem with – really both. also it’s the same “type” of hatred, one isn’t better than the other, they are both at the same level.
And Cenk goes after sam harris much more than he does bill maher, cenk barely even mentions bill maher. You can’t just jump ship like that and expect a feeling you have in your gut to be true and shape opinions based on your feelings etc… that isn’t how we figure reality out.
Just my 2 cents… also, have you been following cenk and david rubens fight over twitter recently?
We have spoken, you don’t listen, I do my best to understand you but it’s basically you shouting from the top of a mountain “It’s US foreign policy!” like the US alone is the sole cause of sectarian violence and terrorism INSIDE the muslim world.
just because he isn’t racist against black people it doesn’t mean he cannot be racist, he is racist against arabs and bigoted against muslims. he needs to promote these views in order to justify israel’s war crimes against Palestinian muslims. it’s personal for him, just like sam harris, he is half jewish.
so is david ruben, m. packman & that parrot of his… gee, i wonder why they always turn out to be jewish? of course they are, it’s 100% personal for them. make no mistake, this is about israel/palestine! it ain’t a coincidence!
I’m not sure what you just said. Apparently, you called someone a parrot, whether or not you were referring to David Rubin or this Packman guy, I don’t know.
What I do know is that “gee, i wonder why they always turn out to be jewish? ” is easly an anti-semitic comment. Now, I don’t think you are an anti-semite. In fact, I think you are probably a reasonable person who just opposes Israel’s foreign policy, and you just got caught up in the moment. I do that too. Can you extend the same benefit of the doubt to people who disagree with you?
So can I blame you for all the horror done in the name of Islam, since you won’t allow criticism of it? Are you at fault for all the other people, far away in the world, who cut the clits off of their daughters? Who behead atheists and homosexual, FOR BEING atheists and homosexuals? Do you accept blame for the men who ran through Paris shooting innocent people yelling “Allahu Ackbar!”
Or would that be brain aneurysm stupidity?
Gray Mouser, you make me and the victims of the Paris terror attacks sick. Go mix bleach and ammonia in a small room.
Isn’t this comment section only for TYT members? Why do you pay 10$ for a show you disagree with?
I agree with probably 70% of the coverage on TYT. Most of the time Cenk is a very reasonable person. And even when I disagree with TYT, they tend back up their position with good arguments. Finally, this is the best news show period.
I think this is worth $10 a month, even if Cenk makes me reconsider my membership every time he talks about Sam Harris.
I would say we are in the same boat Warren. You know you can actually be your own person too Nikolai! You don’t have to agree with everything someone says just because you like them.
Same boat.
It’s called listening to his words and trying to uncover his ulterior motives – after all, him and bill maher are Jewish guys who want Muslims to be the boggy man in order to justify Israels war crimes against Muslim’s.
lmfao, you kinda suck at reading minds. Just saying.
I agree, I (and others) suck at reading minds, I don’t believe in psychics
You also suck at reading in general.
BOOM! *Jon Stewart’s voice*
It’s “boogie” man. Boggy is too wet and muddy to be walked on. Boogy is dancing. Boogie is the dangerous monster in the night.
“Bloody dictator Assad”?
Assad was/is authoritarian, but was/is never dictator, let alone “bloody”. All claims of bloodiness came from Saudi/Qatari/CIA-controlled “defectors” that could not produce evidence. Reports from government-controlled areas in Syria (like by Channel 4 and others) do not show any trace of bloody dictatorship regime whatsoever. Of course, there are always crimes within any government, but the very fact that TYT spreads StateDep propaganda without any critical thinking whatsoever is quite sad.
Did you know that, for example, city of Aleppo in Syria is actually partly controlled by government, and partly by “moderate” “rebels”, and that government part has 2 million people in it, and “moderate” “rebel”-controlled part only has about 40 thousand?
Do you know why? Western media would say this is because “bloody regime” uses barrel bombs on “rebel” areas, but in reality there were only few cases of that ever in whole time — since Syrian army has proper industrially-made munitions, there is simply no point.
The reality is that “moderate” “rebels” are Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda) and its clones. The only careers your children will have there is to become a garbage bag for girls (they look like that in those “moderate” clothes: https://twitter.com/LinaArabii/status/662324863537909760/photo/1 — notice how “oppressed” children look in government-controlled Homs) or suicide bombers for boys. This is why most of Syrians go to government controlled territory. Almost all of internal refugees come to government since they know no one will chop their limbs there or turn them into suicide bombers or into garbage bags (both in literally and figuratively) and there.
Now that Russia has entered the scene, plan by Saudi Arabia/Qatar/Turkey to overthrow government and turn the country into heads-chopping Salafist/Wahhabi tyranny is impossible to implement. Syrian government does not loose territory any more, and even has started to make small gains. Over 1 million of refugees have already returned by to Syria (of course, to government-controlled areas) as they now know that the government will not fall. And “evil” Putin is hero to all moderate Sunnis (majority of Syrian army and government), let alone Syrian Christians and national minorities who would be obliterated if jihadists would own the country. Syria will keep being secular and non-sectarian.
More than anyone else here, I am sure of your motives. Fuck off you paid RT troll.
Here comes StateDep/CIA paid troll, just as both Wikileaks and Snowden’s documents confirmed earlier. The first thing that those trolls are taught is to call detailed arguments of an opponent “trolling” (preferably by Kremlin, RT, etc) — this instruction is very simple as it does not require knowledge of anything to use.
You are doing your job here, I understand, but be sure that readers will notice your tricks, I will expose you every time you try this “paid troll” “argument”,
Also, you missed an enormously important detail in the Vitter story. People were saying the party might not want to run Vitter for Senate he was looking like such a liability. Then Vitter announced he wouldn’t even run for Senate again in his concession speech. Was big news.
Okay, finally gonna say it. When Cenk is screaming “Don’t let them in! Don’t let them!” the parody of the angry conservative finally went too far for me. Bring it down a notch, man. When I’ve heard some of this stuff a lot of times before from him, I want a bit more than just angry shouting. Don’t pull back on the truth, but on the shouting delivery, sometimes it’s enough already, Jesum Lord Mercy.
Enjoyed the mega first “hour.”