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What the West Needs to Know...
So on Monday a United flight from Dulles to Denver turned around due to a male passenger rushing the cockpit and screaming "Jihad." He was restrained by passengers and met at the gate by law enforcement. Here's the article from CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/17/travel/united-airlines-flight-unruly-passenger/index.html
Last night, DH and I rented an Amazon flick called:
Islam: What the West Needs to Know (2009).
This is a documentary with 4 of 5 stars and so far, 185 reviews. The format is mostly interviews with people who know, study, and follow closely the history, movement, and ideology of Islam as a worldview (it's not just a religion but also a life and governmental system). There is also significant footage of an interview from a former jihadist who did indeed participate in at least one bombing in Jerusalem, which we actually found to be the most helpful and informative.
Now that we're facing ISIS as a world society, this movie brings new insight.
Re: What the West Needs to Know...
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
So, I looked at this site. Thanks for providing it. It mentions a few documentaries by name and gives a synopsis of each, but none of them are actually this one that I referenced in my OP: What the West Needs to Know.
My assumption is that your point is that by showing what a crock other documentaries are: this one about radical Islam is also a crock because it is A. It too is a documentary and, B. Focuses on a world religion.
Obviously documentary is a film genre, so YES there is what you can call an "entertainment" factor to it just as any other film genre or book genre for that matter. But why do people read/watch non-fiction/documentaries? I'd wager a guess that some people are looking for entertainment, but I think the predominant reason people expose themselves to documentary (non-fiction books also) is because they wish to learn more and/or be informed.
Regarding entertainment and this documentary specifically...it's pretty dry and no frills. It's not "modern" and "high-tech" or even what I would call fancy. Does a low-budget documentary mean it isn't worth it's salt? Can a low budget film STILL do a good job? Yes, it can. But if you say it cannot then you too are buying into the "entertainment edge" of the documentary genre, which would be hypocrisy because you were first to point to me out that documentaries are/can be entertaining and I guess therefore suspect.
I am also wise enough to know that ANY producer of a documentary or author of a non-fiction work, for that matter probably has an agenda (financial or otherwise). Does this mean we ought to disqualify documentary/non-fiction from our ideological framework, though? Because that seems to be what you are insinuating.
Regarding your phraseology, "...get so whipped up by it..." I wouldn't call it "whipped up." First of all, radical Islam and ISIS as well as other terror groups are a hot topic in the news. Also, numerous recent polls denote the fact that Americans consider radical Islam to be a major concern/issue of these days. This is merely a current event topic. So it sort of makes me laugh that I'm actually being criticized for bringing up a relevant national and international topic for discussion and also provided a link to a documentary DH and I felt helpful in understanding more about this enemy the world is fighting.
Next, let's do talk about your listing of "responsible journalism, peer review, and pesky fact information."
If you watched the documentary...
1. You would find numerous first-hand accounts of peoples' experiences with radical Islam. People who are/were Muslim and/or suffered at the hands of radical Muslims. These are interviewed men and women who were burned, cut, and tortured at the hands of radicals. Are you debating whether or not their life experiences did indeed happen? If yes, then you ought to be debating every single person in current events who said they were injured in some way by another party. You should be calling into question every single man or woman who says they suffered at the hands of someone else....gay couples who didn't have their cakes made or photos taken, Holocaust survivors, shooting victims. Are you questioning these first-hand accounts also? What about peoples' first-hand accounts and testimony with radical Islam calls them into question specifically?
2. The documentary calls out American and British politicians equally and also calls out BOTH Democrats and Republicans for not fully comprehending the dire nature of radical Islam (granted this news footage containing these politicians' sound bites is from the 1990's and early 2000's). So there isn't a favoritism side here being played - from what I know, good journalism doesn't favor a side, but simply recounts the facts of who said what and when they said it.
3. The interviewees in this documentary, aside from the people who suffered at the hands of radicals, are people who are very aware, researched, and educated in Islam and its teachings both in an educational setting and/or in a real-life setting as radical Islam was their world view (did you watch the interview part with the man who used to be a PLO fighter for Yasser Arafat?).
Furthermore, the mere fact that people in this documentary are speaking up and out about this major world problem, puts their lives at risk. Radical Muslims do not like it when people speak out about what they are doing. Let me ask you this: Would you be willing to die for a lie? You would have to be stupid or insane to willingly put a target on your back, yet these people - who aren't stupid or insane are doing it and feel it relevant and important enough to speak up that they take the bodily risk.
4. Regarding "pesky facts"...I need to ask to what specifically in the documentary you are referring?
5. Also, your link and its article from 2013, are from a website called CRACKED. Written by a woman by the name of Amanda Mannen. When you click on her name right there up at the top right, it takes you to a page about a woman named Erratica and/or Manna, not sure which, or if her name is really Amanda...it looks like she goes by three names. Further down on the page it appears that our "friend" Amanda what's-her-face also penned an article entitled, 6 Sex Toy Companies Disguised as House-Hold Products. From March 2015. And her blog: http://mannafesto.blogspot.com which is all her opinion is about whatever she wants. She's a blogger AKA a person who puts her SUBJECTIVE ideas and opinions online.
Your use and quotation of Miss Amanda and the website CRACKED is, um, nicely put, questionable, especially when you use it to call into question the documentary, which is well-research and fact-based that I put in my OP.
6. But then it dawned on me that maybe you intentionally cited this horrendous website CRACKED, to make a point that every John and Jane Doe under the sun can have an opinion on something and that their opinions may be incorrect.
So if this is the case, then I have to go back to my earlier points and reiterate that this documentary isn't based on opinion, but first-hand testimony and also history as well as education on radical Islam.
Now, you may not like this documentary and that's fine. We all have things we subjectively choose to like or dislike. But, fact is fact - it can be ignored and disliked and you can hate or dislike the messenger speaking the fact/bringing it to your attention, but it doesn't change the truth.
I may not like that the sun rises at 6:15am and that rays of bright light pierce my face when I want to sleep, but the fact is, it does. I can move my bed, pull covers over my head, and complain, but the sun will still rise at its appointed time whether I'm into that or not. It's what we could call An Inconvenient Truth (which, by the way is another title of a documentary).
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
In your experience and research then, what is the opposing viewpoint to radical Islam? What's it's stance? What would be the best books to read and documentaries to watch to inform myself about the "other side's view?"
My questions for you are: Does radical Islam exist? Is it no big deal? Do we (collectively) need to give them some pity and "space to be destructive" despite the raping, burning, hanging, beheading, murdering, cutting, and crucifying that is going on? IS any of this behavior ever justifiable?
You seem to be saying that there is a totally justifiable, understandable, and reasonable explanation for WHY radical Muslims are behaving in the manner in which they are behaving and it is fearful and assumptive to think otherwise. Or, if you aren't stating this directly, you want me to leave opening for this to be the case because you keep debating about a well-balanced view of radical Islam. Honestly, I do not believe there is a "well-balanced" view of radical Islam. It is what it is and to think otherwise, is foolishness.
There's fear and there's realism. Fear is limiting my day-to-day activities and staying inside because I don't want to be shot by a radical Muslim that are here just multiplying daily by the thousands (rolling eyes).
Realism is paying attention to the news and knowing that ISIS just took credit for the attempted mass shooting in Texas and announced it allegedly has trained soldiers in 15 states including Illinois, Michigan, California, Maryland and Virginia (the only specific five they listed).
So, I'm eager for your answers here and the ones from my other questions, I posed in my PP.
I think that now our government and others in the world are taking ISIS seriously too. But up until a few years ago, our nation (Republicans and Democrats) and other nations did not...radical Islam has always been a mounting and growing threat.
The film explains how the Quran is written - laid out textually and contextually. It explains Sharia Law. It discusses why radical Muslims are so violent...basically this film is a looking glass into this worldview. The film encourages Westerners in the Americas and Europe to have a grasp of these concepts to not only see where radical Muslims are coming from but WHY.
Right now, we get the news and we get talking heads in the news with the 360 view of every event...there's your who, what, where, when and OPINIONS. But, this isn't the same as digging a bit deeper to grab ahold of the why. Why mass killings and extreme violence? Why wanting to establish a Caliphate and Sharia Law? Why this view of the West?
I found this film helpful to explaining the why. As with anything or anyone, grasping their perspective is so important to help make a friend or to defeat an enemy.
The film uses video footage of radical Islamic TV and footage of interviews with current and former Muslims who know the culture, worldview and text/language/context/history of the Quran and the religion. The film also uses text from the Quran and explains it.
It isn't a $$$ film with super great cinematography. It's very plain and basic and somewhat dry visually.