YOKED: The Debasing of American Popular "Culture" and the Rise of Radical Islam

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                                               YOKED          THE DEBASING OF AMERICAN  POPULAR “CULTURE”                        AND THE RISE OF RADICAL ISLAM                           Is American Popular “Culture” A True                          Reflection of Core American Values?                       Does the rise of radical Islam correlate to the debasing of American popular “culture” and its commensurate growth and export since the 1960’s?  Moreover, is contemporary American popular culture, replete with all the fashionable isms, a true reflection of core American Values?  Has it ever been?  Can it be?  Should it be?  Or does it reflect merely the “values” of those who produce and purvey it?  If so, how did this happen?  When did this happen?  Why did this happen?  Who’s responsible for it having happened?  What can be done about it?  What should be done about it?          Has our popular “culture” been hijacked and b------ ized by a self-selected coterie seeking to alter, fundamentally and permanently, our core Values and Traditions?  Have our domestic culture wars metastasized to a global threat orchestrated by religious zealots demanding obeisance to an unyielding, atavistic Charter – and God help the rest of us?  Have we Americans become inured to cultural habits amounting to no more than an ugly scab on the open wound of a poisonous decade – the 1960s – driven far, far more by collective fatigue and guilt than shared passion?          How do technology, media, commerce and politics converge to define and promote America to the rest of the world?  The core of us?  All of us.  Our very Essence.. Our ‘sine qua non’ – and that against which contemporary Western Society conspires – with a vengeance I might add [to borrow a thought].  Daily. Hourly.  With characteristic celerity and naivete.  
         Has our collective sprint away from Faith [note, please, I’ve alluded neither to God nor Religion] and contemporaneous Affaire D’amour with ‘Reason’, with ‘Secular Values’ [an oxymoron if ever there was one] and their b------ Step-Child ‘Nihilism'  frightened the living daylights out of Islam generally, Wahhabism particularly, and Al-Qaida – the ‘Tip of their Spear’?  It sure has frightened the Hell out of me.  And alone I’m not.  Not by a long shot!  “ Secular Socialist Utopia” my ass.          Are decent Muslims terrified [given our power, our reach, our pervasive influence, our arrogance, our ‘in-your-face’ affluence] that Our Blaspheme will infect and pollute them, their precious children, their rich, storied, enviable Culture – and prove their undoing [as it has proved ours] – like a malignancy?    Who can blame them?  Not [certainly] their Fear.  Yes [certainly] its horrific manifestation.  This latter never to be defended nor rationalized.  NEVER!          Dabit Deus His Quoque Finem ...        Dabit Deus His Quoque Finem.          Certain is this:  Never may we begin even to reveal the right Answers unless and until we acquiesce to the right Questions.  We must shine a very bright light on some very bad habits.  And soon!  Painful or not ...          As the Ancients Say wisely, have a care o' th' main        chance, And look before you ere to leap; For as you sow, ye are like to Reap.                                    --  Samuel Butler                                                         QUERY
     JUDEO -- CHRISTIAN                                ISLAM                                                                                                    
Does Judeo-Christian Tradition                  Does Radical Islam
     Subordinate Institutions to                   Subordinate Individuals    
        Dignity of Individual?                       to Dignity of Institution?                                   
                                                                

                                                                                                                            Does This Conflict Lie At The Margin ...                                       Or Collide at It Core?                                                                         Or Both?
                          [A Distinction Without A Difference?                                   
MMS
6 September 2009
U.S.
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