Islamic Reform Not What It Seems

We've all heard the talk about the anti-American's in the Middle East.  The Jihad, and other irrational Muslims who supposedly are a "threat" to our western life style.  But how true is this view really?  Is it these Muslims groups and individuals who are being irrational?  Or the all mighty United States who believe that no matter where we are, in our country or theirs, that we are in complete control.

The Muslim extremist groups increased in numbers shortly after the cold war when the supposed "Green Peril" was gaining in power.  The Green Peril was basically the term for the quickly rising anti-American groups based off of their background of being Islamic, and the Islamic color green.  

It is important to remember as the article we read pointed out many times, these are not uneducated people like many people see at first.  Some of the largest reform pushers are extremely well respected intellectual Muslims.  The view we see is only that fed to us by large corrupt media sources.  But the truth is that many brilliant minds ponder on how Islam can reform without being over powered by Western lifestyles.  But also not become a pawn of these radical Muslims of feed of the uniting Muslim groups.

The pushing force behind the Green Peril was actually the growing need amongst the Muslim people worldwide to speak up for other Muslims that could not speak up.  Much like the Jihad they began to form as a peaceful group, but soon became violent based due to a preaching of poorly representing leaders.  The distinguishing point between many of the Muslim groups may not be clear based off of their goals.  But the majority of these groups start only looking for some freedom amongst themselves.  An ironic goal seeing as they fight against the overpowering Western views, and yet one of the most defining points of Western culture is the widespread freedom and equality without concern within those Western Countries.

Our invasive behavior in the Middle East, and over controlling actions are what many of the Muslim "extremist" as we call them, fight against.  The United States has too hard of a time letting people decided their beliefs, and governmental form for themselves.  Its a sad irony that we are the country that above all others stands for freedom and equality, and yet we cannot let other countries be free to decide how they want to be governed, and to let their actions be the deciding factor in their change.  Equal in our country, but less important if you live in another one is the true American motto based off the execution of our actions. 

War on Terror, or just others?

Although the United States may have labeled their latest war for oil the the "War on Terror", it begs the question who are we so afraid of? It seems the United States is just afraid of everyone different than our predominantly Americanized Presidents and other members of the U.S. Government we select. But even if we don't fear them, is the rest of the world getting fed up with our meat-head approach to policing over them?

The United States sets up military bases all over the world in order to maintain its complete military power over other countries such as it has for China and North Korea to ensure it maintains control over the farthest corners of the world. But the United States fails to think about the fact that maybe those nations don't want the influence of the United States in their country.

Although O'Keefe tries to make the point that the United States tries very hard to make these military complexes on foreign soil have the least effect as possible it still begs the question should they even be there. We try not to get too many, and keep the ones we have relatively low key in order to avoid getting any publicity from the people of the home countries but that does not mean they are okay with us having them. In my opinion the United States only keeps them low key in order to have these military bases, not because they actually care about the civilians of the countries.



If the people were actually given enough control in order to make changes in their countries and weren't already faced with more serious issues at hand how many of these countries people would actually be okay with the United States military bases on their soil? New Zealand for one already spoke up against these “temporary bases” that have were at one point stopping points for large U.S. vessels during the cold war. If China were to build a military base somewhere in the United States, the civilians would speak out against it.

The United States may believe that they can treat others however they want, and roam around the world pretending that they control everything, but it does not mean that we actually do. Eventually the other countries of the world are going to get fed up with America, like we are already seeing with our reputation diminishing with each war and act of terrorism that we commit around the world. And as we spend all our money now attempting to take control of oil reserves and diminish cultures that our leaders disagree with, we slowly begin to lose the economic advantage that the United States has always had. Without our economic advantage over other countries we may no longer be the super power that we are now.

Gasland, the less commendable view of Natural Gas in the United States

The movie Gasland by Josh Fox, proves undoubtedly that the techniques and methods for drilling, known as hydro-fracturing are extremely environmentally unfriendly. Although many of the camera views attempt to appeal to the viewers emotions it remains true that behind these shots are well researched facts that have caused this undesirable outcome.

The author uses shots that go from a blurry unknown into very emotional pictures, such as sickly people who are wearing gas masks just to breath. Although this is merely showing the outcome of the money hungry mongrels who could careless about the environment and their neighbors, it is also a powerful appeal to emotion. We all care about our neighbors and country men, and although some big corporation workers may have pushed those feelings deep away in order to make a quick buck. Seeing fellow human beings sickly and bent over with gas-masks on; such as if they were thirty years older and had been tortured in some third world conditions tends to be worry some. We work to improve living conditions in other countries to get them up to our living standards with food and water, yet in our own country the living conditions are becoming more dangerous than Chernobyl. Not because of some catastrophic accident, but because fully aware people are willing to risk the safety of millions of people for their own personal gain.

Fox also uses the image of dead animals to hit on that emotional reaction viewers get when they see cute animals such as rabbits and birds dead from our actions. Because the animals had been kept frozen in the woman's freezer they maintained a very live like appearance which I think helped make the emotional connection that the animals really were alive at some point and in fact died because that stream that they used to get there water from became toxic with natural gas and chemicals from the drilling process.

Although it seems like the movie affects people very emotionally the film was based almost completely around the facts of Natural Gas fracting. He named off hundreds of chemicals that were used in the fracting process and the affects they had on both the environment and on humans. There is of course the proof that normal tap water coming from peoples faucets was flammable enough to the point where it could be lit on fire while flowing out of the faucet. The affects of many of the chemicals were loss of smell, permanent lung damage, prolonged exposure led to cancer, and some such as arsenic and lead just poisoned the body themselves.

Fox's Gasland brought to the surface a the monstrosity behind the large oil and gas companies that were doing this and silencing the people. Although this movie brings out something that should be extremely important to the people, I guarantee a very small number of people have seen this movie and heard what it has to say. Fox didn't only bring a topic to the light, but he explored the topic first hand on film and found evidence everywhere he searched to prove that the oil and gas companies were in the wrong.   

The Society in South Park

South Park may use potty humor, but South Park takes intuitive looks into the ridiculous societal issues in the United States and the many issues that arrive with the way that our government is run.  South Park is a perfect example of how open society works.  And as David Valleau Curtis and Gerald Erion point out the South Park potty mouth may be one selling point for the show, but there still is a lot of potency underneath the bad language and childish jokes that gives the show another level for viewers to see when watching

The characters of South Park episode after episode end up on opposite sides of exaggerated popular issues in the united states.  These situations exaggerated and poke fun at controversial issues by making both sides look absurd.  By bringing the issues out in open for the public to scrutinize, South Park actually allows for the public to assess issues for themselves by viewing them in different settings in order to form their own opinions.  



Erion and Curtis argument that South Park is benefit to "open society" and doesn't silence extremist is hard to argue against.  After their explanation of what Karl Popper defined as open and closed society, it is easy in any one episode to see how South Park allows open society with "rational reflection" upon the topics brought up in the episodes.

Take for instance the episode where the boy scouts don't allow the current troop leader stay in place because he is a homosexual.  Although it seems like a ridiculous situation that may not have a greater relevance, but if you think about it, that episode brings up the issue of how many organizations and groups have felt that homosexuals don't belong in their groups.  This is an issue that pops up all the time, one great example would be that many churches that spoke out against gay marriage when California pushed to legalize the right in past years.

South Park however also looks at such social events such as the largely popular World of Warcraft and how it shapes our society.  Once again taking a comical point of view making all the main characters gain notable amounts of weight and break out to fit the most stereotypical overweight gamer, they actually look at society and question it.  And look at other issues that may or may not be related to the over played video-game.



South Parks commentary it plays on the social fads and governmental issues is one way that people are given a chance to examine their social environment.  Open society is what allows America and many other countries people to continue to analyze the government and society they live in, rather than allowing their society to be shaped completely by others.