What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Terry Jones, the guy in Florida who plans to burn Korans, said that he’s calling off the burning event because he has been assured by a Florida Imam, Muhammad Musri, that in exchange for the Koran burning being called off, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will move the planned Community Center near Ground Zero to a different location, something which Jones called “a sign from God.”
When I read this, I thought, “that sounds crazy, maybe even stupid.” I mean, really–if Rauf were to agree to move because some nutjob in Florida announces he’s burning Korans, that’s kind of like giving in to terrorist demands–you give him a cookie, he’s gonna want a glass of milk. before you know it, fundie pastors from across the nation will hold Koran burnings unless Muslims do this or that. I thought, maybe Rauf is taking one for the team–but it still sounded wrong.
And indeed it was: Musri stated that there was no deal in place, but instead that the deal was to have a three-way meeting between Rauf, Musri, and Jones in New York to discuss the issue.
Okay, so maybe Jones was just playing things up, and got ahead of himself, or else was desperately looking for a face-saving way out and exaggerated a bit.
Rauf, however, claims that he wasn’t contacted by either Jones or Musri, and has no plans to move the planned project, and would not barter over the site.
Looking back, Musri had not said he talked to Rauf, but to Rauf’s “office.” That makes some sense–it could have been a miscommunication or something. Musri calls Rauf’s office to set up a deal; maybe Rauf’s people say the Imam is willing to talk to anyone as a statement of general policy. Musri perhaps tells Jones they can have talks, and maybe in that discussion tries to beef up the possibility of a deal to sway Jones, and Jones takes that as an assurance there will be a deal, and so announces he’s the NYC Mosque hero. Something along those lines. Then Rauf comes back to his office, and asks, “so what happened while I was away?” And then has to deny everything.
It wasn’t hard to predict how Jones would react to that. Claiming that Musri had “clearly” lied to him, Jones said that the Koran burning was not being canceled. However, some reports have him going forward with the burning, while others say that Jones has cryptically characterized the burning as being “suspended,” whatever that means.
All this happened, as far as I can tell, within the span of a few hours.
So, what’s next?
I’m beginning to wish this stupid community center was in fact a Victory Mosque®.
“Do you really think you can control these guys”
– Liza Minelli, paraphrased, at the end of Cabaret, re. Nazis
The point is, conservative elites used negative emotional manipulation of the masses to an extreme point. They turned in on, and they thought they could then turn it off when they had gotten what they wanted.
So, at some point the elite driven anger/hate media campaign stops short of some imagined line. What they don’t realize is any tom, dick or harry with a token of ambition and no sense of decency can pick up that ball and move it across the line.
At that point control is ceded to the most rutheless.
That’s what appears to be happening here.
The elite used anger/hate memes to manipulate the public. But, they don’t want to inflame 1.5 billion muslims, so they stop short of that. No problem, some two bit southern preachers are willing to pick up that ball and carry it further on into infamy. When others realize this, what will happen?
Hopefully, good sense will belatedly prevail, over all. But make no mistake, there is no shortage of low lifes willing to pick up the hate/anger card that conservatives elites belatedly discard out – having finely honed the anger and hate meme… like scraps thrown from the table, it still has value to lesser but ambition elite wanna bees.
Here we have a two bit preacher trying to manipulate the Sufi’s on their Muslim center.
Up to now, everyone, conservative elites were manipulationg the issue to manipulate the public before an election. I’m sure, everyone silently agreed, this issue would go away quietly after the election. The Sufi building the Muslim center figured to just quietly (as possible) ride out the storm and wait for things to go back to normal in a few months. The conservatives, I’m sure were happy to go back to normal after the election. They do this every election season.
But the hate anger card still has value for the lesser beings trying to make their way.
It now looks like this issue could grow out of control. A guy preacher with 50 parishiners is getting big time print by seizing the card that the elite’s have cast asside because provoking 1.5 billion muslims might increase his church’s membership from 50 to 52.
This, I would suggest, is just the start of what could happen when conservative elites chose to run down this negative emotional manipulation corridor. In Germany it ended up with the country in ruins, occupied and divided by it’s enemies and surrounding powers.