When It Comes To Grievance-Mongers, Imus Keptic

From Hot Air: radio comedian Don Imus is chided for “racist comments” by Rev. Al Sharpton, and then suspended by NBC News for two weeks. Bryan of Hot Air says:

Go-to guy to apologize for making racist comments. What a world. Don Imus may well be and probably is a bigot, but Rev. Al Sharpton is worse no matter how you look at the situation. But now he gets to be Imus’ judge and jury. What a world.

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Update: MSNBC is reporting that “NBC News” has suspended the morning simulcast of Imus’s radio show for two weeks. A tipster sent me the statement from NBC. Money quote: “In addition, his dedication—in his words—to change the discourse on his program moving forward, has confirmed for us that this action is appropriate. Our future relationship with Imus is contingent on his ability to live up to his word.” I.e., he’s on double-secret probation.

From LGF: Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, blames the Zionists for the hostility of the US Congress toward his spotless Islamic paradise. Quoting the prince:

RIYADH, 11 April 2007 – Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the United States, accused the US Congress of being “the center of hostility” in America toward Saudi Arabia.

“The reasons for that are many, the first of which is the Zionist lobby in the United States,” Prince Turki said at a symposium entitled “The Role of Diplomacy in Political Crises,” organized by the Saudi Association for Media and Communications here yesterday.

From Gates of Vienna: CAIR [Council for American(slave)–Islamic(master) relations –ZY] files a “hate crime” report to the FBI, concerning a Koran found with strips of bacon. The report says:

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations CAIR said worshipers at the Islamic Center of Clarksville found a defaced copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, on the front steps of the mosque just before communal prayers (Jummah) on Friday. Two strips of bacon, which is prohibited for Muslims to eat, were smeared in the Quran. Local police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

“Offended”. “Hurt”. “Hate crime”. “Racism”. Anything to turn a conflict or debate away from reality-based action or discussion and into the realm of feelings, which are sacred, sanctified, consecrated, sacrosanct.

I have no doubt that this grievance-mongering is of immense help to its perpetrators in addressing their problems: Sharpton gets to whip out the fanatical commitment of the black voters, and to dress himself in angel wings and a judge’s wig at the same time; despotic rulers of Muslim states get to deflect the blame for the plight of the man in the street on an external enemy; CAIR gets to receive a moral blank check, if not martyr status, for weakening non-Muslim resistance to Islamic imperialism; and bloggers burned out from the reality of the free-for-all of the blogosphere get to appoint themselves presidents of a Politburo of their own construction. It is helpful to their, and only their, cause, to them who know what’s best for everyone else, to them who have no problem forming divisions and enmity when there aren’t and shouldn’t be any, just to aggrandize themselves.

Cox & Forkum nail the issue, as usual.

I have no doubt all this grievance-mongering helps the pragmatic cause, the cause of crowning oneself and shutting out all opposition. But, as far as the actual feelings go, count me a skeptic. They say they’re offended, hurt, heart-broken, driven out of their ever-lovin’ minds, on the verge of nervous breakdown, on the brink of needing a therapist session (I could go on, but you get the idea), because of all that awful hatred seeping from that horrid, intolerant, insensitive hegemon (The Corporations, The Whites, The Patriarchy, The Neo-Con Zionist Crusaders, you name it), but I say, judging by their actions, “Like heck you’re offended”.

Like heck they’re offended. They put on the mask for the public announcement, but under that mask, on the sound of such an “incident”, their faces glow in elation. Yay, a golden opportunity to dump our problems on some external factor, to secure us from internal criticism or revolt by misdirecting the focus of our constituency to the outside! Sad? Hurt? Not on your life! More incidents, we need more incidents! Keep ’um coming, please, just keep ’um getting out in a serial fashion!

One may object: “Your site, and others of the LGF type, make very good use of divisions themselves”. I reply: No, they address already-existing divisions, confront a real conflict that many people choose to ignore. They differ from grievance-mongering in that the latter takes issues that, if left untouched, should already have petered out, and rekindles the fire of needless hatred. There are two types of hatred: caused-based, forced hatred, as against existential, nurtured hatred. The former can be expected to end once the momentary cause is eliminated, while the latter is never expected to end, for it is kept alive, even indoctrinated into the next generation, in order to serve an ultimate purpose, a total purpose, an ideological purpose.

It’s time to tell all those professional grievance-mongers: you’re not sincere about your feelings, you do it out of selfish motives, and your focus on issues which, let’s be real here, are now thankfully a shadow of what they once were is diverting us from confronting issues that are relevant and do present us danger in our day. It’s the difference between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X: someone who tries to solve a real problem, in order to have it solved, with the intention of laying down his arms once it is, as against someone who, with constant whining and bitching, uses the problem in order to elevate himself and fuel hatred toward the Establishment™, with the intention of keeping the flames burning to the end, until the day all opposition is scrubbed off the face of the earth and the New Man inherits the earth. Love for humanity versus the desire to apotheosize oneself. Oil and water, no matter the similarity of appearance on the surface.

“Offended? I’m more offended than you, neener neener!” A childish reply? Yep: a childish reply to the whole childish practice of grievance-mongering, which is the antithesis of the very concept of, “progressive”. Irony strikes again.