Bill Mahr – comedian turned liberal to support his ‘anything goes’ life style – turned socio-politico shock jock commentator to support the USA-Israeli agenda, after he was ostracized for saying it takes a lot of courage to fly into a building, referring to the terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center Towers, flew into the Pentagon and ditched a plane into a field in Pennsylvania – who claims he’s not a Jew, because he went to a Catholic Church, even though his biological Mom is Jewish – and who claims God speaks through no one, because if there was a God, then God would be speaking to him first, not through somebody else, and he isn’t, proved recently in an interview with Rula Jebreal (a Palestinian secular Muslim), retired General Wesley Clark and Independent Senator of Maine Angus King, that he really can’t have a serious discussion on Muslims.
This was an interview, a debate, an open forum where liberals, or not liberals, are supposed to be able to express their views, whether the guests or the host agree with them or not, and the guests and host are free, or should be free, to express their dissent. Sure, Rula Jebreal monopolized the conversation, but that’s because all Bill Mahr could muster in his interrupting responses were blurbs, talking points, bumper sticker statements that were bigoted even if his critics claim he isn’t bigoted, something he relied on as proof that he wasn’t.
Angus King, one of the few times he spoke, claimed that it’s okay to be offensive in free speech.
Not for shock value it isn’t okay. Not when it’s prejudicial it isn’t okay. Responsibility comes with free speech – or any speech.
Actually, from what I see and read on and in the news, conservatives are far more offensive in their free speech than are liberals.
Wesley Clark said very little, and at one point tried to say what the discussion or issue was supposed to be about, but got cut off, or he cut himself off, I don’t really know.
The debate was supposed to be about a petition that went around the internet wanting Bill Mahr to be uninvited to give a commencement address at UC Berkeley in December due to his supposed bigoted views on Islam.
Berkeley invited him, he accepted, and even after the petition became news Berkeley did not uninvite him. I agree with that. Rula Jebreal noted that Jews would have demanded that someone with anti-semitic views be uninvited to give a commencement address to Jewish students.
In fact, Jews would have demanded that someone with anti-semitic views be uninvited to give a commencement address to any college or university, not just those with a predominately Jewish student body. One statement or word said by the invited guest at any time during their career would be used as justification.
Blacks would do the same thing.
I’d say this interview, or whatever it was, was a little better than the Ben Affleck interview, but there was an underlying current that seemed to blunt the conversations in both, and I think it’s Bill Mahr himself who is doing the blunting. Someone is trying to speak about the realities of an issue as they see them, and Bill Mahr interjects with his all-encompassing, generalized blurbs and bumper sticker views, making the entire process difficult to watch.
Rather than address the issue Rula Jebreal was raising regarding the generalization to all Muslims what a few extremist Muslims do, Bill Mahr burts out,”Can you be a gay in Gaza? And live? Is there a gay bar in Gaza?”
If they had a gay bar in Gaza, they probably don’t any more – not since Israel committed a holocaust against anything that moved.
Then he blurts out – Jews and blacks don’t have religions that kill you for not being of their religion. You can’t be a Gazan and announce that you switched to being a Presbyterian (paraphrase). Once again, he’s generalizing to all Muslims, justifying his views on Islam, by citing what a few Muslims do or don’t do in Gaza.
The Jews just committed a holocaust in Gaza. Had they been Jews, the holocaust wouldn’t have happened. Jews do kill other Jews however, when they don’t toe the Jewish agenda. They do it slowly, first by ruining their businesses and it escalates from there. All a Jew has to do is say a disparaging but accurate statement about other Jews in the media, and the Jews kill that Jew’s career.
What’s happening in Africa? Bill Mahr didn’t say anything about blacks killing gays, just because they’re gay. How about the extremist African Muslims hijacking a religion to steal property and gain control of governments in Africa? Sounds like the open invitation the Israelis extend to foreign countries offering free land they steal from the Palestinians. All you have to do is say you’re Jew, practice our religion and live as we do.
Bill Mahr can’t have a serious conversation or debate, because he doesn’t have the intellectual goods to converse on anything except sex and drugs. He doesn’t understand nuances. With the carnage – the destruction of lives and property – in Gaza, supported by the majority of Jews world-wide, all he can think about is if Gaza has a gay bar. Go to Gaza. Find out for yourself.
Bill Mahr may not be a bigot in his private life, but he’s an ignorant man who is nothing more than one big bumper sticker of a blurb on stage. Maybe it’s time he put down the pipe. For all the drugs he proclaims to take, they certainly are not helping him see the nuances in serious situations all over the globe. The drugs are tricking him into thinking he’s enlightened and informed, when he clearly isn’t.
I do not support uninviting guests or ruining people’s careers and lives, because of what they’ve said or implied in the past or the present. I don’t support it when Jews do it, I don’t support it when Blacks do it, I don’t support it when Muslims do it. That doesn’t mean I’m on the side of the one supposedly doing the offending. It means I don’t support the punishment meted out when someone doesn’t like the view. I support free speech. Responsible free speech is up to the person doing the speaking – whether they want to offend or don’t want to offend. We don’t have to read it or listen to it. Frankly I think there’s been too much emphasis on the impact of a commencement address. These students didn’t make it all this way to have their entire educational experience altered by a celebration and a few paragraphs spoken at the end of the journey, supposedly used as a tool to transition them into the next.
Bill Mahr noted that a lot of the people signing the petition didn’t even go to Berkeley, well neither did he. They had a right to weigh in. He never had an abortion, yet nobody implies that he doesn’t have a right to weigh in on the issue. He can’t keep having it both ways. But he does have a right to accept that invitation and to give that speech. All this hoopla will increase ratings for his show, and yes, out of all of the commencement speeches, by a bunch of famous people, we’ll probably see this one on T.V.
Bill Mahr’s error was in making Gaza the litmus test for all Muslims.
WORD WARRIOR DAVIES-TIGHT™ 