Wednesday, September 12, 2012

When Religion Matters -- Loony Toons



I'll See Your Loony Toons and raise you ours

You see this movie Innocence of Muslims  was made by people who acted one set of lines and thought they were making one movie, and then nasty words were dubbed in, and the director turns out to “not exist.” This is classic “agent provocateur” behavior. And if it fools people, all the better for the ones who staged it and provoked it.
"The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer," they said in a statement to CNN about the movie, ".
The Cast and crew were played. And now simple Moslems the world around are being played. And who is playing with them?
The Wall Street Journal identified the filmmaker as Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American real estate developer. The Journal reported that, in its telephone interview with Bacile, he characterized his film as "a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam."
The Al times claims:
"“Sam Bacile” told The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press in interviews Tuesday that he was an Israeli-born Southern California-based real estate developer, who received $5 million from “100 Jewish donors” to finance his anti-Islam film, Innocence of Muslims, “Islam is a cancer,” he told the Journal and AP."
So is this a cynical manipulation by the Mossad? What does Israel gain from Moslem hatred of their people? Nothing. It could be the work of cynical arms producers or warmongers, because only warlike and warmongering factions can gain at Israel’s expense. Ordinary Israelis gain nothing from the terrorist attacks such reactions provoke.
Except for one problem.  Sam Bacile may not exist!  Some of the actors talked about this “Bacile” fellow speaking perfect Arabic and looking like an Egyptian with an Arab entourage.
“But several elements of “Bacile’s” story appeared on further examination Wednesday to be phony. There are, for instance, no California real estate license records  for anyone with the last name Bacile.  And the fact that Bacile said precisely “100 Jewish” donors financed the project also seemed dubious. Israeli officials, contacted by Al-Monitor, declined to say if Bacile was an Israeli citizen, demurring in part because of uncertainty over whether that was a real name”
My own suspicions point to Karl Rove, and/ or the Saudi Secret Service; or maybe sinister arms dealers.  The article says this identity has to be fake because Bacile can’t have Jewish family members in Cairo and still be Jewish:
“Steven A. Klein, a Hemet, Calif.-based “consultant” to the film and self-styled terror expert, told the AP Wednesday that Bacile had family members in Egypt. With reports suggesting there have been fewer than 100 Jews living in Egypt since 2004, it did not seem that Bacile's Egyptian Jewish family members would be hard to locate — or easy to protect. 
He’d better stay in hiding because I’d like to kick his ass too. On the other hand. Steven Klein really exists and is defending the movie. Who is Steven Klein? Who is Bacile? Steve admits [Bacille]’s not Jewish:
Klein, in an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg on Wednesday, admitted that “Sam Bacile” is a pseudonym, and that Bacile is neither Israeli nor Jewish. Klein further claimed to Goldberg that he didn’t know Bacile’s real name, didn’t know his origin, and that he had only met him in total for one hour.
This looks like a setup job, an agent provocateur. An effort to inflame religious hatred for the sake of politics.  Even if the Mossad had been involved or my theory about Karl Rove turns out to be true. It ought not to be so easy to cynically use people this way.  Maybe this is a teachable moment.
A trace of the cell phone number used by “Sam Bacile” led the AP to a man named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, outside Los Angeles Wednesday.  Nakoula, of Egyptian background, acknowledged to the AP that he had been a manager for the company which produced the video, but denied he directed it. Court records show that Nakoula was convicted of federal bank fraud in 2010 and sentenced to 21 months in prison.
The article goes on to implicate Egyptian Copts.
“The AP said it had originally been given Bacile's cell phone by Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-American Copt and anti-Islamic activist who is a principal with the National American Coptic Assembly. Coptic groups sharply distanced themselves from Sadek and the film, and expressed sorrow for the violence in Egypt and Libya.”
But  I don’t think they want to be attacked any more than Israelis, Jews or Wall Street Financiers do.  Copts have been victims of some awful violence lately. And unless we want them all to immigrate to the USA I don’t thing they’d want to be tied to something so incendiary either. But who knows?
No this looks like a Right Wing setup.  And Klein is no mere insurance salesman:
“Klein describes himself in the bio of a self-published 2010 work, Is Islam Compatible with The Constitution, as a Vietnam vet who since 9/11 has used contacts in the Arabic Christian diaspora community as translators as he has scoured Southern California mosques hunting for terrorist cells. “With 9/11, 2001 I immersed myself with Islam in America; went to every major Mosque in SoCal with Arabic speaking Christians as translators and uncovered useful information about many Mosques being the headquarters of terrorism in America,” Klein wrote.”
So Klein turns out to be a member of a Right wing Church:
Klein is a member of the Church of Kaweah, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as "a secretive cohort of militant Christian fundamentalists preparing for war" with Muslims. Klein said that he, Bacile, and the others responsible for the film were refugees from the Middle East.
So I see the cynical and exploitive hands of folks like Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers here.  The “100 Jews” will probably turn out to be one or two wealthy billionaires and this whole thing will probably turn out to be a cynical attempt to manipulate the USA election by stoking up trouble outside the USA.
“An examination of California public records by Al-Monitor shows that in July 2011, Klein registered a group called the Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment (CCFA) as a California business. The group has reportedly staged a few protests in front of Southern California high schools in 2011 to express opposition to mosques. “
Last year Loonwatch covered them as the loony toons they were last year. In May 2011:
“About a dozen members of Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment perched themselves on the sidewalk outside Murrieta Valley High School Tuesday, handing out fliers to students walking by.”
You see our loons provoke your loons, and the cycle becomes a death match of stupidity.  I don’t criticize the religions themselves. But our holy people and leaders need to engage in some reflection.   It is the maturity and wisdom with which Islam, or Christianity, is interpreted that is at stake and failure to use real spiritual wisdom allows both our peoples to be manipulated and both religions to be corrupted.  Moslems and Christians are both being played and as long as they are both led by religious charlatans and demagogues the results of such games are going to continue to be ugly and tragic.
There is a spiritual war within the hearts of people, and until we awaken and see the many corridors in our hearts there is every possibility that surface teachings will be used to shut down access to deeper ones, and that folks will be played into enmity by evil persons who pretend (and may even have convinced themselves) that they are good and righteous people. Other issues are being played the same way, and no people are immune from such manipulation of their cultural fears and understandings. A little doubt is a good thing. Too much certainty is the road to the darkside.
This is why we not only have to practice separation of religion and politics in our civil life, but we also have to struggle with the same subject in melding our spirituality with living in this material world of needs and desires.
          

Return to Previous page: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/09/when-religion-matters-part-i-background.html

Continued: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/09/when-religion-matters-why-inflame-people.html

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