The city manager of Golden, Colo., has decided to withdraw his invitation to let the Al-Jazeera news network broadcast from a barbecue in his backyard on the final night of the Democratic National Convention. City manager Mike Bestor has apologized for any divisiveness he caused in the city of about 18,000, about 15 miles west of Denver. Bestor made his decision after a City Council meeting Thursday at which residents complained the event with the English-language service of the Middle East news network would be disrespectful to veterans and active U.S. soldiers.
Wow, whodathunkit? A simple news broadcast from a backyard barbecue pit is, in our post-9.11, all paranoia all the time world, considered a threat to Our Way of Life © and to the security of the Vaterland Homeland? Then again, WE'RE AT WAR, PEOPLE!! IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US, YOU'RE AGAINST US!!
Look, I'm not sure who Al Jazeera is, or why he wants to broadcast from a backyard barbecue pit in Golden, CO (what, YouTube wasn't accepting submissions from swarthy, bearded men of Middle Eastern descent??), but...uh, wait...it's the English-language version of an Arab news channel? Well, then...shouldn't we just be hanging the lot of them by their short hairs in the village square?? And what does a picture of Osama bin-Laden's niece in a bathtub have to do with anything??
What I find so amusing about this is the almost universal assumption that Arab = swarthy, America-hating terrorist, and that an Arab news channel = anti-American propaganda. In the end, the people who would deny Al Jazeera the right to broadcast end up looking like the ignorant, censorious thugs they apparently really are. Words are not the enemy...and wasn't this country founded on the bedrock of freedom of speech and expression? Perhaps if we were more open to different points of view the world might understand us a little bit better. Perhaps they'd understand that people are people, no matter where they might happen to live.
Al Jazeera is no more a threat to Our Way of Life © than Fox News Channel. In fact, a convincing argument could be made the FNC is a larger threat to this country because of it's emphasis on Right-wing propaganda over impartial journalism. Then again, in our us vs. them, post- 9.11 world, fear rules. It's so much easier to fear Arab culture and Islam than to try and understand either. And why would you try to understand a class of people when you can hate them for looking like those responsible for 9.11?
Who says the terrorists haven't won?
