Making Movies, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

September 15, 2012 Martha Thomases 3 Comments

Deadlines should only be my biggest problem this week.

As I write this on Thursday, the attack on the American embassy in Libya is new news.  I hope that, by Saturday when this is published, the situation has not worsened.  It’s bad enough today.

People died.  Other people are seriously injured.  Property has been destroyed.  And why?  Because a bunch of idiots went out of their way to provoke another bunch of idiots.  In this case ,they made a film that may exist only as a teaser on YouTube, from a man who has devoted his life to demonizing Muslims.

He has a First Amendment right to make whatever film he wants, and to distribute it in any way he can.  However, just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s moral nor honest.  In the link, it says he deliberately misled his cast and his potential audience, claiming in the first case that the movie was about a different (non-Muslim) subject and in the latter by misrepresenting the content.

The fact that Terry Jones is involved (and, alas, not the real Terry Jones) should tell you all you need to know.  Jones claims to be a Christian and a patriot, and yet seems eager to put American diplomats and armed forces in harm’s way whenever he can.

Even worse, these rabid fundamentalist extremists play right into the hands of their Muslim counterparts.  You might not know this if you get your information from network television, but there are a wide variety of Muslims, just as there are a wide variety of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and atheists.  In fact, the vast majority of Muslims seem to be irate about their nuts as we are about ours.  As The New York Tiimes notes:

“At the same time, there were outpourings of rage across Libya on Wednesday against the killers and against the Salafis more generally. In addition to demonstrations in Tripoli and Benghazi, Twitter was inundated with pro-American messages by young Libyans; several of them pleaded for the United States Marines to come and crush the Salafis.”

 

For further evidence, consider this.

As I’ve mentioned before, I live in New York.  All kinds of people live in New York, and we have a wide variety of spiritual values.  In general, we learn to coexist, and sometimes even thrive.  If someone wants to show her devotion to God by her way of dress, or her eating habits, that has no effect on me.  If someone wants me to do the same, we can have a conversation, preferably with sandwiches.  If someone wants to force her habits on me, we have a problem.

In most cases, no one wants to force anything.  We simply want to go about our business, so we can afford our apartments.  Our apartments are expensive because everyone wants to be here (you know, supply and demand, the cornerstones of capitalism), in no small part because we are so various.

If you want to live in Gainesville near Terry Jones, on the other hand, it’s way, way cheaper.

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Media Goddess Martha Thomases likes it when she can demonstrate that being enthusiastic about diversity is profitable.