Two Thumbs Up for Obsession

The sweetie and I were discussing what kind of movie we might watch Friday night when I noticed that both she and my mom got copies of a movie in the mail. At first I thought it was just some chick flick trailer, but the closer I looked, the more I realized it said it was the whole movie inside the very professionally printed envelope so I suggested we check it out.

The movie was called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. It didn’t sound like anything we’d normally pick from the list available on cable or the local movie rental, but we like to mix it up a little every now and then so we decided to give it a shot. While sweetie finished up some to-do list items I read some more of the info on this weird envelope. I learned that the movie inside would teach me about a very serious threat that few Americans take seriously enough. I learned that the movie was paid for by the Clarion Fund and that it wasn’t rated by the MPAA.

That wasn’t much to go on so I Googled “Clarion Fund” and visited their web page. Turns out they’re “a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to educate Americans about issues of national security.” Says they're a 501c3. Wikipedia told me a 501c3 is an organization most recognized as a religious non-profit, but that non-religious organizations can claim the status as well as long as they don’t “conduct political campaign activities to influence elections to public office.” This still didn’t tell me anything about the movie, so I clicked a link on the home page that took me to RadicalIslam.org. The logo of their header uses the twin towers as the “l” at the end of “radical” and the “I” at the beginning of “Islam.” The page is copyrighted by The Clarion Fund. Buttons on this page led to “Shari a Law, Radical Islam Overview, Fueling Terror, and Vote 2008.” I clicked on the "Vote 2008" button, not 'cuz I thought it would tell me about the movie, but because I'm kind of a political junkie. (perhaps you've noticed)

Links there took me to either McCain’s pages of anti-terror policy or to Obama’s or I could watch a short video called “The Stakes” which just showed a bunch of pictures of Muslims in traditional garb with angry expressions and ended with a picture of McCain and lots of text floating in and out bearing ominous warnings. I clicked a few more links from the Google search results and learned that this movie we were going to watch had been included as “paid advertising” in newpapers delivered to 28 million U.S. homes this week, but only homes in swing states. The “advertising” was paid for by the Clarion Fund. Strangely, I couldn't find out much more about The Clarion Fund or about the movie.

I gave up on learning any more about the movie and sweetie had finally made it to the couch so we fired up the DVD. Two disclaimers came first. One warned of the graphic nature of the movie. The other noted that the majority of Muslims are peace-loving people and that this movie was not about them. The movie then opened with video of the second plane hitting the twin towers followed by a series of other terrorist incidents and interviews with journalists, think-tank researchers, former terrorists and a few others interspersed with footage, often poorly shot, of radical Islamic fellows yelling hateful things (subtitled in English) to variously sized crowds, and scenes from terrorist strikes throughout the world.

15 minutes was about all we could stand, but we did skip to the beginning of each of the remaining chapters, sampling them to see if this pattern would change. We'd stop and read the chapter titles like "understanding the jihad culture" then watch for a while hoping we'd actually see some Arab culture, but instead it was just more video of some radical televangelist performing for a crowd of loyal followers.

Five minutes is all it took to convince us that instead of a free razor, pack of laundry detergent, or the other advertising items that often come in unsolicited mail or along with the Sunday paper, this particular delivery was pure propaganda. Then it occurred to me that it was clearly the propaganda out of the Carl Rove fear tactics playbook. That's when I went back and read the 501c3 restriction again about not campaigning for an elected official. Hmmm. Sounds like the IRS will be after someone soon!

As you might suspect, I couldn't wait to sign on to Poup where I would quickly tear Obsession a new one. I was going to talk about how un-subtle this endorsement of McCain really was... about how all this fear crap was clearly designed to retro-fit a legitimate reason for the invasion of Iraq... about how the comparisons of unnamed terrorist groups to Hitler's Reich were cheap, emotional appeals, but then I thought, "That's awfully narrow-minded of me. I must step back for a moment and see the bigger picture. Perhaps I've missed some detail that would make this film actually live up to the non-partisan claim of its sponsor." After all, my writing has been good therapy and has really helped me deal with those previous episodes of reactionary off the handle flying I used to do so frequently. It's time to grow up.

I was shocked at the results of this stunning display of maturity. Suddenly the scenes of the movie began to gel into one of the most powerful, non-partisan, rational statements I've ever seen in a free mailing arriving unsolicited to my mom and my wife. (I wonder why I didn't get my own copy?)

I was so ready to believe this secretly funded, produced, and covertly delivered piece of propaganda was the work of the Red Right Radicals that I almost missed the true, totally obvious message of the film. You'd think I'd learned not to do that anymore.

So yeah, there I was replaying the Hitler scenes in my mind when I also thought, don't trust your mind... you know where that's gotten you before, watch the damned movie again. So I replayed the scenes where Neville Chamberlain returns triumphantly with the accord Hitler signed bringing peace to Europe. And the scenes where Hitler's followers in Africa and Palestine met with him and promised to deliver nations of people ready to help him exterminate the Jews. Hitler was a big fan of the Muslims I guess. And, you have to admit, it would be an easy mistake to simply associate all things Muslim with all things Nazi at that point.

Somewhere in the middle of these scenes, former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat, who makes quite a few contributions to the movie, notes that it takes more than just desperation and brainwashing to get people to act like this. Hitler may have been charismatic, but that alone doesn't move people to genocide. Shoebat says, "the secular fascism of the Nazis was far less dangerous than the Islamofascists of today because Islamofascism has a religious twist to it. It says God, the almighty ordered you to do this, not just the fuehrer."

And therein lies the real message of the film. I'm afraid; however, that it will be misinterpreted, so now I'll give a chapter by chapter translation of the film's main points:

Chapter 1: The Culture of Terror
Nonie Darwish, daughter of Palestinian suicide "martyr" explains that hers was a childhood of terrorism.

Translation: My father gave his life while taking the lives of others for his God. That was our (religious) culture.

Ch. 2: The Culture of Jihad
Several experts explain that the most accurate translation of Jihad is "struggle" or "personal struggle" or "inner struggle" proving that Muslims are not to be feared... followed by footage of radical Muslims doing frightening things.

Translation: Religion allows many irrational interpretations of its word leading to many frightening things.

Ch 3: The Culture of Hatred
A series of radical clerics tell stories on TV mostly based in one way or another on the blood libel that Jews (or any Westerners) use the blood of children or the elderly in various recipes. OR motivational films depicting all Western symbols as Demonic or Satanic.

Translation: Religious leaders use deceit to build and then manipulate their congregations. They create enemies with lies and proclaimed partnerships with the Devil. (your flock will only fight if they believe there is a threat)

Ch 4: The Media of Terrorism
This one's pretty funny actually. It starts with two kaftan-wearing folks in the Sunday political talk show format discussing the idea that Arab media pushes kids to terrorism, or at least violent fanaticism. They're subtitled in English. It sure looks like the interviewee is actually complaining, NOT bragging about this, especially when he goes on to say that starting suicide bomber training so young robs the youth of their childhood... that we "teach them how to die for Allah, but we don't teach them how to live for Allah." I'm not sure why this "evidence" that they are evil was included, but I'll still attempt a translation. (anyway, then the movie jumps to a series of bad MTV-like videos both humorous and frightening made my radical groups)

Translation: Any argument that stems from religion is, by definition, irrational. This particular argument is SO irrational that it fails to separate out that which does not make its case, but rather, seems to prove otherwise. By the way, it struck me as funny whenever the movie broke to its interviewees who then decried the Arabic media for doing exactly what they were doing. Let's face it, if I flipped the channels through the televangelist series, I could pick out some equally radical sounding footage of Christian "clerics" doing the same thing this chapter accuses ALL Muslim clerics of doing. Americans have heard a good 3 minutes of one Rev. Jeremiah Wright sermon and we've made up our minds about his 40 years as a preacher, right?

Ch 5: Jihad in the West
The "infiltration" of radical Islam in the West is described as the spreading of seeds. Hints of denial are included as foreshadowing for the next chapter, but the best scene is an interview wherein Dr. Ahmad Dwidar, Islamic Cleric (according to the footage) says he once heard a sermon that predicted that Muslims would march on the White House. When the interviewer asks what this means, Dr. Dwidar says, "through the domination and distribution of Islam, the White House will be changed. It will become a Muslim House." It's one of the most quiet, rational sounding pieces of footage featuring a "cleric" in the whole movie. It's such an obvious nod to the fact that Obama's middle name is Hussein that I almost laughed out loud.

Translation: The religious right in this country will stop at nothing to get their boy into the big house... including subtly hinting that his opponent is a seed being spread by radical Islamists - a thought they KNOW the ignorant among us already believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary. In other words, folks who claim to know more about what's right, largely due to some religious claim of a direct connection with God, as opposed to observing anything like evidence, are the same all over. They'll lie, they'll cheat, they'll steal in their own form of Jihad if that's what it takes to put their chosen people in power.

Ch 6: The Culture of Denial
Basically, the world is being taken over by radical Muslims and we're denying it.

Translation: The world is being taken over by religious fanatics of all types and we're denying it. The longer we hide behind "religious tolerance," denying the irrationality of religion and perpetuating the one remaining mythical god we've chosen to keep while recognizing all the others for the myths they are, the longer we subject ourselves to the violent actions of irrational people who believe they're doing the work of this god and will thus stop at nothing until all of that work is done.

Ch 7: The Common Denominators
The movie draws many comparisons among the Nazis and today's Radical Muslims (as though that were a fixed, definite group like the Nazis.

Translation: Dictators, especially those bent on destroying all those they don't like, are always justified by some higher power. (Just as Mien Kampf is similar in meaning to Jihad, so were the religious justifications of the Nazis to today's religious radicals) Christians destroying pagans in Rome, Muslims in Spain...

Ch 8: Hitler & the Mufti
Hitler quickly befriended radical Muslim leaders because they shared the goal of getting rid of the Jews.

Translation: Hitler quickly befriended radical religious leaders because he knew no reasonable people would buy his irrational bullshit.

Ch 9: What do Radical Muslims Want?
The same as Hitler wanted: to destroy the Jews, bring down the West.

Translation: What do all religious groups want: world domination... their brand of irrationality to be the entire world's brand of irrationality. Granted, some are happy to try to accomplish this by more peaceful means, but you can't deny that's what they want. Except maybe, for the Masons... cuz they don't come after you. (2B1Ask1) Though I've been subject to some coercion to "ask1" before just like all the others!

Ch 10: We've Been Here Before
History repeats itself.

Translation: No shit! (Ancient Rome, Christopher Columbus, The Crusades, St. Patrick, Salem Witch Trials, the Red Scare, Church of England, Branch Davidians, Jim Jones, pretty much every major war ever fought, you name it, we've seen it all before and yet, here we are again, tolerating the same irrationality in spite of the growing body of evidence against it.)

By the way again, the movie lists 13 chapters, but I didn't figure I needed to translate the intro credits, title scene, and I've already mentioned the disclaimer.

One more thing worthy of note: the movie begins and ends with the Edmund Burke quote:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Isn't it strange that they should quote a guy from a land where Christians ran off, converted, or killed all the pagans several hundred years ago and yet the land is still racked by the memories and lingering violence and hatred resulting from that invasion. It reminds one of a time when Christians played the role of today's radical Muslims. Hmmm, I guess history really does repeat itself... only the names change. You'd think that by now, the good men would have had their fill of this so-called source of all life, knowledge and morality they refer to as religion. You'd think by now we'd stop doing nothing and start calling for people to put aside their irrational beliefs and step into this modern world where physics, chemistry and biology really can shed light on most of the important questions.

So the movie turned out to be a pleasant surprise, but what's most surprising is that a work of the Right (and let's not pretend that it is otherwise) does such a great job of calling for the end of faith.

Bravo. Perhaps my loyalty really has been misplaced.

Luth,
Out.