I was just poking around the TV listings, and the description of tonight’s E-Ring caught my eye:
New, “Delta Does Detroit”, (2005), J.T. journeys to Detroit to handle a delicate hostage crisis after a radical Christian collective assumes control of a mosque and holds its members captive. (Drama).
I thought it was absurd when the bad guys were changed from Islamic extremists to neo-nazis in the movie of “The Sum Of All Fears.” But this is obscene. It’s a complete inversion of reality. It’s cognitive dissonance of epic proportions.
Hollywood’s now officially Topsy-Turvy Land. I don’t think even the French could surrender and collaborate so thoroughly and completely.
Muslims in a mosque as the innocent victims of psychotic Christian militiamen. Hell, one of them is in prison for going to Iraq as a security contractor, then shot and killed innocent Iraqis as part of his “holy crusade.”
This is beyond obscenity, beyond parody, beyond satire. This is perversion, this is subversion, this is submission.
And it gets only better: at 10, Law And Order is featuring a bunch of illegal aliens being smuggled in a truck apparently murdered by Minutemen.
OK, let’s get the “it’s only entertainment” out of the way. This lineup can NOT be a coincidence, and the message is clear:
Muslims are all innocent victims.
Illegal aliens are also all innocent victims.
The real dangers to society are Christians and the Minutemen.
Black is white. Up is down. Right Is Wrong.
Which is why I don’t watch them.
Where is Eugene McCarthy when we need him?
Wow. I’m glad I stopped watching e-ring before it got e-tarded.
And really, couldn’t they have found somebody less butterfacey to play benjamin bratt’s GF? that actress has a funky face…
In the words of Homer J. Simpson: “Sweet merciful crap!”
I didn’t see it but I am told the medical show House last night basically was an hour long trashing of Lance Armstrong. Guess he should have known better than go riding with President bush.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Old Isaiah had that one right.
Woe to them, indeed. A POX upon them!
I’m starting to get pissed off again.
All I can say is, this crap is good for the republican party. I was getting ready to walk, now I’m getting ready to fight.
Nothing But Crap.
It’s been years since I’ve found anything I could watch on NBC.
“‘Ed’ was pretty good,” he said, trying to find something, anything good to say about NBC since the last “Seinfeld” episode.
NBC sucks. There’s no telling how much marketing research they piss away daily, and it’s worth exactly dick apparently.
Example – when jackasses like Katie Couric ask someone from the West Wing something like…
“Are you going to tackle the tough issues this season?”
What the hell does that mean exactly? I guess that it means making shit up as they go based on this week’s news.
Just look at them all of the sudden pumping SNL behind the scenes bullshit that no one cares about. Here’s some marketing research for ya NBC – SNL is still not funny.
I’ll give ’em credit with some of their comedies, but other than that, it’s just moving pictures with shitty, tired scripting… …and don’t forget the ass load of advertising for the rest of the weak links in their prime time chain.
I love the MSM.
OK. Contrarian view. E-Ring is a good show, at least for me, since I spent three years in the Puzzle Palace, a/k/a Pentagon.
I like it because it is a fantasy for anyone who’s ever served there. It’s fun to see a junior Army O-4 do what the Bratt character does, because, let’s just say that they typically don’t even come close. The kinds of things that happen do occur — just not not at the Bratt character’s grade.
This latest plot perversion looks like wishful thinking on the part of some network suits; i.e. having Christians taking Muslim hostages.
On balance, I’d say cut E-Ring a little slack, because the Major does things that we all wished we could have, and that many of them are the right thing to do.
Something I’ve rarely seen on network television.
As for the Dick Wolf leviathon, the guy seems to hate Christians and is a love slave for the abortion-on-demand crowd. ‘Nuff said.
My prediction on that L&O, based on nothing other than watching the promo, is that the Minutemen didn’t do the murders. Just from the add, they’re being set up too obviously as the ‘bad-guy’ red herring.
Of course this has nothing to do with the point of the post. (Yes they’ll be depicted as ‘beyond the pale’ sub-literate hicks and not so quasi-racists. The promo made that clear.)
I’m just pointing this out cause I like guessing whodunnit from just a slice of a show. I could ruin every Murder She Wrote for my grandma from watching just the first three minutes.
It’s a gift.
It’s possible that irony is the key issue here, an intellectual attempt to get folks from all sides to look at the issues from different perspectives.
But there’s a reason I gave up on network television a while ago – the hacks trying to sell their views in the scripts are for the most part perverted panderers with morals closer to Bob Guccione and Larry Flynt than they’d like to admit.
Have you noticed that Showtime has been running Micheal Moore’s Farenheit 9/11?
E-ring blows. It’ll be gone shortly. But Law & Order, that makes me sad. Although since Lenny Briscoe left, it just hasn’t been the same.
Watching the program – i’m home sick with flu and so not worried about getting more nauseated. So far the irony theory seems fairly strong. The “Christian” terrorists look an awful lot like Chechens. Lots of play actually in favor of erasing Posse Commitas.
The old saying ….. Hollywood is high school with money. Ceptin that ain’t really accurate. It’s high school with crack. A good connection ….. knowing where the party is …. a bottle of bubbly. Shazaam, you’re a writer. A producer. A keeper of ideas.
http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/rubriques/b/b10_drogue/cocaine/materielcrack.jpg
Standards? Accuracy? A functioning moral compass? A sense of right and wrong? Utter derangement masked as a small bowl of enlightened mints.
Trouble with the MSM is that they actually think all conservatives are like this guy – http://www.thekidfrombrooklyn.com/ (Not a work safe link by any means — watch your volume if you play any of his videos) or the ones from “Deliverance”.
Homophobic, Hateful, Angry radical.
Personally, I think the Kid from Brooklyn is a bit nutz, I did find his BatDay video joke to be funny once my ears stopped burning from the constant stream of obscenities!
Typical NYC/NJ Italian with a big mouth and the propensity to let the obscenities fly with zero restraint. Reminds me of an older Joey Buddifuco or Tony Soprano; Badda Bing Badda Boom!
Yet they seem to fear angry strong Americans more then they fear the real enemy. I guess they realize that they themselves are weak and the strong will eventually take over so they feel a need to prejudice everyone against the strong.
Jack Rich,
Doesn’t Puzzle Palace refer to NSA? In your defense, I did get lost in the Pentagon once. For over an hour.
They need to take all these twits with the “America is bad” complex, round them all up, and dump them in some country where things really ARE bad, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………
“Black is white. Up is down. Right Is Wrong.”
Didn’t the bible predict something along those lines?
Let’s get a little perspective folks. While I admit the plot of E-Ring sounds suspiciously anti-Christian, I am reminded of Jim Jones. He was Christian.
History is littered with Christians doing bad things. Let’s not get “holier than thou” with our Christianity. A true Christian would “turn the other cheek.”
“irony my $ss!” This is why I stopped watching TV long, long, long ago!
Best line on TV then was: “Ward, weren’t your a little rough on the Beaver last night!”
OK, so I go way back. TV is crap! Stop watching it!
I watched the e-ring episode.
What struck me was that, by comparison with reality, it really did make Islamic terrorists look bad.
I was reminded of Beslam and how stuff like that doesn’t happen in our part of the world.
The Christian Holy Warriors were the mirror image of Islamic Mujahadeen, and consequently, seemed a parody.
No matter what religious labels they put on the bad guys in that epidode, it was obvious that they were mujahadeen in sheeps clothing.
Lunacy
I dispute the assertion that Jim Jones was a Christian.
If he was, he was really, really bad at it.
edmcgon: no, Jim Jones was not “Christian.” Jim Jones was insane, and if ever there was a good example of what spiritual possession is, I’d say that Jim Jones was it.
Christians — the real ones — don’t lead people astray and conduce them to commit suicide or murder or any sin of any sort. People who DO do those acts are, to use an internet term here for ease, are “posers.” They are souls serving the OTHER interests, not Jesus Christ. But they do so love to lead people astray and violate the presence of Christ…just as they have led you to wrongfully conclude that Jim Jones was “a Christian.” That’s the game…to mislead whoever they can.
And, speaking of Hollywood and posers, I’d say that the plan has included Hollywood throughout the history of “the industry.” Moreorless what Elmo wrote (^^).
It’s actually, to my view, truly sad to see television trying to be trendy to conservatives…they just have no clue.
Remember the thing with Tom Cruise on Oprah? Even Oprah is now trying to be ‘apart’ from Cruise, doing the old ratings fetch and dance routine, eager to step away from anyone (in this case, Cruise) who’se indicating a loss of audience confidence. And to think, before that, they were “friends.”
The Minutemen-as-murderers thing from Peddler Dick Wolfe is beneath the pail, however. Just disgusting, completely dishonorable.
‘ I am reminded of Jim Jones. He was Christian. ‘
WTF? He was a lunatic heretic. But in his defense, his followers didn’t kill anybody else.
In defense of “E-Ring” last night, I don’t think it was some left wing conspiracy to make Christians look bad. I believe it was an attempt to demonstrate (and rightfully so) that *any* religion has fanatics who do things out of a perverted sense of that religion. The show was trying to point out that there are radical Christians who are no more true Christians than the radical Muslims are true Muslims.
Beofr critcizing something, you should make an attempt to be sure about what you are criticizing.
What is this “television” of which you speak?
I believe it was an attempt to demonstrate (and rightfully so) that *any* religion has fanatics who do things out of a perverted sense of that religion.
In other words, pure PC “moral equivalence” crap.
at least they are consistent in their bias. most of L&O episodes are based on local, NYC cases, tweaked in politically correct way. thus when a chinese deliveryman was bludgeoned to death by black gang over $12 of food, L&O made killers into irish & italian teens. anothet episode was based on infamous puerto-rican parade of some years ago, when scores of women were sexually assaulted. NBC portraye them as salvadorans, not puerto ricans.
i stopped watching that drivel years ago.
Jim Jones thought of himself as a Christian, much like Bin Laden thinks of himself as a Muslim.
If you want to see the difference between the two, it is that Christians distance themselves from Jones a lot more quickly than Muslims do from Bin Laden (if they ever do).
Amen, brother.
Oops…now you’ll think I’m a Christian-o-fascist.
-s-
“no, Jim Jones was not “Christian.” Jim Jones was insane, and if ever there was a good example of what spiritual possession is, I’d say that Jim Jones was it.”
Ah, so one can’t be Christian and insane?
I can think of plenty of insane Christians.
Mark,
Please list the Christians that take Jim Jones as their hero.
Take your time.
Then compare to the list of Muslims that celebrate any suicide bombing that kills Americans, Jews, Russians, basically any infidel.
I just wanted you all to know how disgustingly bigoted you are. Yes, your comments ARE worth of neo-nazis. Christians are always right? Have you ever HEARD of the crusades? History sure repeats itself. Thousands of innocent muslims and jews were slaughtered at the hands of bloodthirsty, carveman-like christians who knew nothing about anything and then were mildly surprised when they discovered the amazing culture they had just annihilated. Now, who is taking advantage of the lower class, discriminating against the immigrant and stereotyping all Arabs or people who don’t look like them as terrorists? You. White people. George W. Bush and his neocon right-wing fanaticist christian administration. Have you ever even heard of John Walker Lynn? You know, the guy with the bombs in his shoes? If we had relied merely upon your point of view that all arabs and immigrants are the ones that cause the problems, at least a hundred people would have been blown up at the hands of yes, a white christian man. Fuck you – learn something about reality; the KKK no longer exists.
Joe?
How are your comments related to mine?
I do believe that Jim Jones’s follwers DID murder a few other than their own. How quickly we forget!
I appreciate your concept of posers, -S-, but my problem with organized religions is that one man’s poser is another’s true zealot. All the major sects I’ve become familiar with have had periods in time where under the banner of their true beliefs coupled with intolerance to others, torture, thievery and murder if not war were sanctioned events. Not by splinter groups at the fringes, but central authority. Just basic human frailty of mob mentality, lust [for power], greed and pride taking over decent moral values.
I don’t decry the good that a strong social value system in a particular religion may impart, but the potential that is too often realized of evil from such an organization gives me pause.
Joe,
Just to clarify: I agree with the point you’re making. What puzzles me are people like -s- who feel threatened by Christian whackos. Yes, some are whackos, some are insane. But does that make them any less “Christian?” Says who? Is that written somewhere?
i like
edmcgon, Jim Jones didn’t think himself to be a Christian. He thought himself to be a Christ:
“Jones separated from the Pentecostals because he would proclaim the Second Coming
himself saying that he was the perfect example of a human possessed with the spirit. He would say:
“I say I am your Savior but don’t make me your creator.” What Jones succeeded in doing was to
create a religious group with a zeal prevalent during the times of the primitive era, and
incorporating the concerns of today’s era: race, class and nuclear holocaust.”
He created a cult where he and his followers believed themselves divine, not a Christian Denomination.
I agree with the statement that Muslims do not distance themselves from Bin-Laden very quickly. The reason for that is because unlike Steve L.’s belief:
“I believe it was an attempt to demonstrate (and rightfully so) that *any* religion has fanatics who do things out of a perverted sense of that religion. The show was trying to point out that there are radical Christians who are no more true Christians than the radical Muslims are true Muslims.
Beofr critcizing something, you should make an attempt to be sure about what you are criticizing. – Steve L.”
Islam in it’s truest form is closer to Bin-Laden’s beliefs than to what President Bush has mistakenly defined as a “religion of peace & love”. Bin-Laden isn’t an extremist… he’s a “literalist” when it comes to the Koran. He’s only following Mohammad’s example.
Mohammad was a killer. He had his followers take human lives with their own hands, as well as having his army wipe out tribes who would not convert.
Here, read the words of the Koran yourself and see what a religion of peace and love it is:
Sura 5 contains the following command:
[Sura 5.51] “O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.”
Extreme intolerance is commanded in Sura 5:33
[5.33] “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”
How about Sura 9:5?
[9.5] “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”
Good thing Allah is merciful. I’d hate to see what his wrath is like.
The peace that Sura 2:190-193 shows is a little sobering too with phrases like:
“And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you” [Sura 2:190]
and
“kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.” [Sura 2:191)
and then there’s:
“fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah” [Sura 2:193]
So Steve L… I’d ask you to head your own words:
“Beofr critcizing something, you should make an attempt to be sure about what you are criticizing.”
When a true follower of Jesus does something wrong, they are doing something wrong. If they kill in the name of Christ they are going against Jesus’ own example and His very words:
“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
“Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39).
“Do not judge, lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1).
“However you want people to treat you, so treat them” (Matthew 7:12).
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).
“This is my commandment that you love one another” (John 15:12, 17).
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
But if a Muslim kills a Jew or Christian or any person who is not a Muslim, then they are fulfilling the words of Mohammed to a “T”.
How can that be considered an “Islamic Extremist”?
Peace through Islam can only be achieved once all have converted to Islam:
“fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah” [Sura 2:193]
Allah akbar
Sheesh,
I just love how Christians can be Christians all their lives until they do something wrong. Then the judgmental “Christians” immediately claim the wrong-doer was not from their faith. Its as though a life of Christianity is erased or rewritten as a result of one non-Christian act. And, the revisionism is done by Christian lay people.
They bomb an abortion clinic, and they’re no longer “Christian.” They feed Kool-aide to the flock, and “they’re not Christian, they’re insane.” Can’t one be insane yet still Christian? Is it a religion that discriminates against the infirm?
For what it’s worth, i was raised Christian, and am now agnostic.
‘I do believe that Jim Jones’s follwers DID murder a few other than their own. How quickly we forget!’
According to this they were all his followers.
Wow, this blog sure has a lot of responses. I have not been able to keep up with E-Ring and have been recording it on my DVR. I really like(d) the show but since I am about two weeks behind have not seen the above episode.
I did, however, get that feeling in the pit of my stomach last night when I watched the one where his girlfreind was assasinated. It really hit home when they set up the head of the CIA as the leak and then the commander brought in a reporter to chew him out about reporting her CIA status and where abouts.
I think that episode was called “The Plame Affair”
Too bad, I liked the show, but just like West Wing, it will be politisized until I stop watching there by killing off another great idea.
” It’s cognitive dissonance of epic proportions.”
Have you ever heard of Dean Gotcher (sp)? I went to one of his seminars and he has studied the dialectic for years. I see it everywhere. I also agree with your upside down observation. The Lord said that in the last days “evil will be seen as good and good evil”.
“Just to clarify: I agree with the point you’re making. What puzzles me are people like -s- who feel threatened by Christian whackos. Yes, some are whackos, some are insane. But does that make them any less “Christian?” Says who? Is that written somewhere? Posted by: Mark
The word “christian” has become almost synonymous with “gentile who has been inside a church at some point in their life” in our society. Instead of meaning someone who faithfully follows the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, believes Him to be the Messiah, and places Him as the Lord of their life. For that person, it is THE key indentifier of their being. They are a Follower of Christ before they would describe themselves as Man, Woman, Black, White, American, Iraqi… whatever. That is because it is more important than any other priority in their life. (Going to a “Christian Church” doesn’t make you any more a Christian, than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger.)
Therefore Mark, if someone calls themselves a “Christ” or “Messiah” they are creating their own religion naming themselves a god. They are no follower of Jesus.
If someone claims that their words are as important or more so than those of Christ, they are no followers of Jesus.
If they kill in Jesus name (abortionists, their own followers, or any others), how can they be a follower of Jesus, if they don’t listen and head His own words?
Absolute followers of Jesus are still human, so they will still make mistakes and sin. However, to do something so grievous as to be in complete contradiction to Christ and His teachings, doesn’t that logically follow that they didn’t really know Him to begin with?
It’s not some kind of “religious saving of face”. It’s just a fact.
ICallMasICM,
I read your link. Did you?
“But there was little official government action until November 1978, when U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan, who had been contacted by a number of people worried about their relatives in the Peoples Temple, decided to lead a delegation of reporters and relatives to Jonestown.
Ryan’s group arrived on November 17. Their visit began happily enough, but the mood soured after some Jonestown residents indicated they wanted to defect. The group was ambushed the next day as they tried to leave at a nearby airstrip. Ryan and four others were killed.”
That makes 5 non-followers who were killed.
D. Dore,
It is easy to sit here and say Bin Laden is reading the Quran correctly and the so-called peaceful Muslims are not. But did the Crusaders read the Bible correctly? How about abortion clinic bombers?
“Do not judge, lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1).
edmcgon, here’s one major distinction: Christianity outgrew that phase. Judaism had its own expansionist, conquering phase, too, and outgrew it. Islam is having its right now.
Unless you’d care to cite say, ten incidents of Christian-inspired terrorism in the last twenty years. Terrorist incidents where the terrorists proclaimed that they were doing it for Jesus, and significant numbers of Christians either refused to denounce it, or said it was “provoked.”
J.