The pesky truth: the Statue of Liberty WAS originally a Muslim Woman

I"m fed up with the lie blindly and enthusiastically accepted by the right that credible, professional media has a secret agenda to lie to the general populous.  It is false. In point of fact, the only real "fake news" of any substance or quantity originates from the right, particularly the right wing propaganda machine.

There is a fact free, fact averse paranoia which is being promoted by "their" president, Rump, and his White House, most notably by press secretary Spicer and other spokes puppets that the main stream professional media are liars.  We see it in a wide range of major stories and also minor stories like the one about the origins of the Statue of Liberty origins, a topic featured on CBS news and USA Today among others.  The Statue of Liberty Originated as a Muslim Woman story is an excellent template to examine the right wing mdeia paranoia.

The reality resisted by the right, for example, in their anti-Muslim bigotry,is that the story is true and factually correct that the Statue of Liberty really was originally conceived and designed as a female Muslim figure, Libertas, (the Roman Goddess of Liberty) by the artist who created it, Bartholdi. 

Why pick a Roman goddess reconfigured as a Muslim woman in Egypt? Why not? A little history: the Romans conquered Egypt when Octavian /aka Augustus kicked out Marc Antony and Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemeic dynasty put in place by the Macedonian Alexander the Great. (Cleopatra was actually ethnic Greek.) Trajan conquered the rest of the applicable territory to the canal a bit later.  And in the era of Bertholdi (a German from the Alsace Lorraine region of France) the French were fascinated with "orientalism" and neo-classic subjects in the works of artists like Gerome and Ingres as well as Bartholdi.  So the assumption that the Egypt of the mid 19th century, the time of the construction of the Suez Canal, was subject to rigid Islamic fundamentalism is false, as is the right wing notions of the Islamic version of Aniconism as it pertains to a Muslim woman being the image for a statue of Libertas/Liberty.

Aniconims is the prohibition of figural art, sometimes defined as only applying to human figures, sometimes applying to images of all forms of natural and supernatural subjects, both plant and animal, as well as figures such as angels and demons, etc.  The strongest examples of aniconism tend to occur in the monotheistic Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  But that varies tremendously by geography and historic era.  There is in fact a rich tradition of figural art in Islam, both religious and secular forms.  But don't take my word for it, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has an excellent essay on it, here.  In my personal experience, which has included viewing a wide range of Islamic art featuring human beings, aniconism tends to be limited to religious contexts, such as inside mosques.  The assumption that all figurative art is prohibited in Islamic countries or by Sharia law is ridiculous, the kind of bigoted misinformation one finds on the right.

A little more history as context to the original statue that became the Statue of Liberty in New York City harbor, while Egypt at that time was a semi-autonomous part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, it was ruled by Mohammed Ali Pasha, a Muslim Albanian.  Egypt had a substantial presence of Albanian mercenaries.  But the real control of Egypt was by the French and English, who owned the debt for the building of the canal, and who held important seats in government that provided de facto control of the region involved in the Canal zone.

The original design was for a female figure holding aloft a torch, that would serve as a lighthouse at the mouth of the Suez Canal, back in the 19th century.  We only have the current statue of Liberty, or more correctly, and certainly ironically, "Liberty Enlightening the World", because the funding on the Suez Canal version fell through.  The title for the proposed but not completed Suez Canal version of Libertas, holding a torch just like the one held by the USA Statue of Liberty was very similar, "Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia".

This rubbish about the mainstream media is simply not true.  It relies on a mixture of propaganda from what has become a right wing propaganda machine, a concerted effort to misinform and dis-inform, and from willful intentional ignorance on the part of the right wing and right wing leaning information consumers.

The premise of being "post Truth" is wrong, that facts simply matter less in this first quarter of the 21st century.  This is pure bloody-mindedness combined with a childish denial of objective reality by those who don't find reality catering to their prejudices.   Put another way, the facts are not their friends. It is compounded by resentment that the 21st century requires education based knowledge and expertise, and that gut hunches and wishful thinking are insufficient for making good decision or for good governance.  An example of this would be Sarah Palin's selection and appeal as John McCain's VP choice and Betsy DeVos, the theocrat Education Secretary pick of Trump who wants God in schools, not facts or logic.  These are two women who shed only darkness on the American populace.

To be unable and unwilling to differentiate fact from ideological fiction, to believe one doesn't need to know anything of history, or art, or factual comparative religion, or geography is a weakness.  To deny objective reality is a terrible failing.  This is a facet of right wing ideology which not only dangerously exacerbates existing tensions but which endangers us all in the short, middle and especially the long term.

Update: Katie Couric vs. Conservatives: the Under the Gun controversy

Update: The controversy over the "Under the Gun" documentary centers on an inserted pause during a question about terrorists being easily able to access firearms.

In the face of the incident early Sunday morning in Orlando, Florida, that question could not be more timely.

Conservatives are not factual, and conservatives whine, claiming they are victims when they are not, in fact, victims at all.  And conservatives are massive hypocrites, holding others to a more rigorous standard than they hold themselves (or other conservatives).

I would argue that the hypocrisy alone would be sufficient to disqualify conservatives from criticizing others, but that the additional factual deficiency renders them the ones who merit harsh criticism.

The latest controversy over a gun violence documentary in which Katie Couric conducted an interview is simply the latest iteration.

Katie Couric was a news personality on ABC in 2008, when she exposed the lack of qualifications of Republican candidate Sarah Palin for the position of VP.  That still gripes the behinds of conservatives, who will look for pretty much any pretext to jump all over her, fair or foul.  That Couic continues to enjoy some measure of success, while Palin is at best a marginal figure, only adds to conservative irritation, especially by those less successful conservatives in the media (including the blogosphere).

What is she doing now?  From the Wrap:

Couric is the current Yahoo global news anchor and a legend in her field. The former “Today” show staple is an anti-cancer advocate, documentary film producer and New York Times best-selling author of “The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons From Extraordinary Lives.”

Let's start with the facts; Katie Couric did not insert the controversial 'dramatic pause' in the documentary in question, Under the Gun. and did not agree with the insertion, but was over-ruled.
Continuing from the Wrap:

Katie Couric said she “didn’t feel comfortable” with the controversial edit in her recent documentary on guns, but hopes it starts a broader conversation about the gun control in America. “I can understand the objection of people who did have an issue about it,” Couric said at TheWrap’s Power Women Breakfast in New York on Thursday morning.

...Couric did not edit the interview herself, and said last week that she questioned director Stephanie Soechtig and an editor about the pause when she screened the film, “and was told that a ‘beat’ was added for, as she [Soechtig] described it, ‘dramatic effect.'”

I would posit that the dramatic pause was not particularly significant, that the controversy is a tempest in the proverbial tea pot. But I would add to that criticism that the pause should not have been inserted in a documentary; dramatic license belongs in dramatic productions, not in non-fiction features.

But to return to the massive hypocrisy of the right, who are kvetching about a lack of factual content by Couric, and/or 'fake footage', let's recall here for a moment the appalling actions of convicted criminal James O'Keefe when HE inserted footage of himself as a pimp in undercover interviews with ACORN, while actually appearing in the real interviews as a normally dressed boy friend of a woman appearing to be an abuse victim.

Not a peep out of conservatives, about deceptive editing, or fake footage when it is 'one of theirs', not then, not in the past year, not ever.

Rather they defended O'Keefe, trying to justify false claims as 'B roll' and other flimsy excuses. Again, as another example out of many, the insertion of fake footage from other sources, representing it as from Planned Parenthood, was deliberately misleading and unethical. Like James O'Keefe,who was convicted of illegal activity in his filming, those faux documentarians are also now facing criminal indictment for fraud. Did anyone here much criticism of these far more egregious examples of bad faith documentary making? Heck NO! Far from it, the right tried to find pretexts and excuses to condone THAT conduct.

Unless they drop the double standard BS and their whining, I would argue that conservative critics should sit down and shut up.  If and when they are willing to do the right thing, not just the right wing thing, then and only then do they have a legitimate complaint about others; in the successful PROFESSIONAL and more ethical media.

Michele Bachmann Struggles with Rejection by America by Attending CPAC

At CPAC, Michele Bachmann continued her cray-cray. She is dealing with rejection the same way she deals with the rest of reality, by denying it. Her own party and base don't want her. She couldn't get re-elected in Minnesota CD6 if she ran.
From the Huff Po:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) continued her effort on Saturday to tank a potential 2016 presidential bid by Hillary Clinton, telling the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference that a woman should eventually be president -- but not the one many Democrats are rooting for.
"We will have a woman for president, just the right one," she said, adding that Republicans are the only party that had a woman on the presidential ticket this century: former Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee in 2008.
Bachmann, who ran for the Republican nomination unsuccessfully in 2012 and declined to run for reelection in Congress this year, was invited to CPAC as a guest of Jenny Beth Martin, the president and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.
She went on to attack Clinton's work as secretary of state, including relations with Russia and the Benghazi attacks in 2012 that killed four Americans.
"She's going to have to answer a very tough question: Did she pick up the phone and call the secretary of defense and the president of the United States and demand that they send a military rescue operation into Benghazi to rescue Americans that were under fire?" Bachmann said.

Michele Bachmann has low approval ratings - and has had them for quite a long time. The same is true of her buddy in politics, Sarah Palin, unless you get your fake reality from the right wing media.

Of course, Michele Bachmann, like so many conservatives, has a hard time owning responsibility for that disapproval, including the massive failure of the shut-down of government that she supported last fall.  Palin gave the keynote speech at this year's CPAC.

Back in January of this year a PPP poll showed Palin popular among Republican Primary voters, one of the most extreme right wing of the generally radical right.  However, given how badly she failed in 2008 and her failure to remedy any of her failings and deficiencies, there is no way that Palin could become the national candidate for the GOP, much less win a general election in 2016, against ANY of the potential Democratic candidates.

Palin is so generally unpopular, she couldn't win her conservative home state of Alaska - according to mixed messages from PPP.  There is clearly a big difference between Republican primary voters, and the overwhelming majority of normal, sane people.

From PPP - in January:

The best liked person we tested on this poll with Republican primary voters is actually Sarah Palin who has a 70/20 favorability rating. She's followed by Huckabee at 64/18, Ryan at 58/18, Paul at 58/21, Bush at 56/18, Cruz at 45/20, and Christie at 40/38. Most of those numbers are similar to what they were a month ago but Christie's seen a substantial drop from +18 at 47/29 a month ago to his new +2 net favorability.

From PPP - in February:

-Sarah Palin continues to be so unpopular in her home state that she trails Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical contest for President there. Only 39% of voters in Alaska have a favorable opinion of her to 55% who see her in a negative light, and she trails Clinton 44/43 in a head to head. Palin does worse in her home state than any of the other potential Republican candidates we tested. Jeb Bush is the strongest, leading Clinton by 8 at 47/39, followed by Rand Paul who leads her by 6 at 47/41, and Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee who both lead her by 4 points at 43/39 and 45/41 respectively.
The Republican primary field is a jumble with six potential candidates polling in double digits. Rand Paul leads with 15% to 13% for Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz, 12% for Jeb Bush, 11% for Mike Huckabee, 10% for Chris Christie, 6% for Marco Rubio, and 4% each for Paul Ryan and Scott Walker. Even among GOP voters only 28% think Palin should run for President in 2016, compared to 62% who think she should sit it out.

One of the best litmus tests to define a conservative is that they believe things that are not true. That continues to define Palin, the radical right, and more than most of the radical-right-wing-nuttery, that defines soon to be out of office Michele Bachmann. THAT day cannot come soon enough.  But it is likely that Palin and Bachmann and the Tea Party branch of the GOP will believe that they can elect a woman to the presidency, in spite of the efforts by the radical right to continue waging their culture wars on women.

What can you expect from people who hear voices in their head, and think they personally are challenging the voice of God?

Legitimate candidates for office can distinguish the difference between reality, and right wing primaries or CPAC.

YES! Hooray for Michael Higgins, President of Ireland for calling out tea party wankers!

There is nothing quite like enjoying Friday with a rousing rant that makes you want to cheer. We don't use the perjorative 'wanker' in American punditry; I think this an enrichment that our version of the parent language should adopt. Enjoy!



From the HuffPo:

Leave it to the Irish to teach their American cousins a thing or two about the ancient art of the smackdown.
A 2010 interview between Michael D. Higgins, who was elected President of Ireland in 2011, and Boston conservative radio host Michael Graham has recently gone viral, with a YouTube clip of the debate attracting over half a million visitors. (Close to 200,000 of those visits were recorded in the past 48 hours, according to The Irish Times.)
The clip's newfound surge in popularity is due in large part to video-sharing website Upworthy, which posted the audio on Tuesday with the headline, "A Tea Partier Decided To Pick A Fight With A Foreign President. It Didn't Go So Well."
The contentious encounter occurred during a May 28 special broadcast of The Right Hook, a NewsTalk radio program hosted by conservative Irish radio pundit George Hook. The fiery Higgins, a longtime leftist politician and human rights activist, takes Graham, a Tea Party organizer, to task for the party's criticisms of President Obama and its strident opposition to the White House's health care reform bill.
"I think even the poorest people in the great country that is the United States should be entitled to basic health care," Higgins said. "And I don't think they'll thank the Sarah Palin lookalikes and followers for taking it off them."
Although Graham tries to interject, Higgins is clearly having none of it, continuing to berate Graham and Sarah Palin for perceived warmongering.
"You're about as late an arrival in Irish politics as Sarah Palin is in American politics, and both of you have the same tactic," Higgins continued. "The tactic is, to get a large crowd, whip them up, try and discover what is that creates fear, work on that and feed it right back and you get a frenzy."

Graham, who according to his bio introduced Sarah Palin during a Tea Party rally on Boston Common in 2010, is barely able to get a word in during the tirade, which lasts over four minutes.

As applause and cheering is audible in the background, Higgins tells the American pundit that "the image of the United States is getting better," and upbraids Graham, urging him to "be proud to be a decent American rather just a wanker whipping up fear."

Sarah Palin - No Longer A Prominent Republican????????????

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Bristol Palin Disses Obama, Dumb Hits the Second Generation

The dumb apple doesn't fall far from the stupid tree.
Bristol Palin made the following less than thoughtful observation about President Obama's interview describing the many factors which formed his change of heart about same sex marriage:

Suggesting that Obama might have appointed Dora the Explorer Attorney General had his daughters been a few years younger, Palin dismissed the announcement as the presidential equivalent of a teenage flirtation. “Sometimes dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking. In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.”

Palin has been a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, which has featured gay contestants and a transgender contestant, both of whom are arguably more deserving of being considered stars in any sense of the word than Bristol Palin.  Clearly her experiences on Dancing with the Stars supposedly changed her lifestyle - notably being a chance for her to make a lucrative financial deal by making it to the finals, after which she bought a very expensive home in Arizona; but also at the time she noted that the television experience was life changing for her.
Her mother has had a few 'life changing' experiences on television as well, unfortunately they do not seem to have expanded either her knowledge level or her understanding; Sarah Palin is as ditzy and ill-educated as ever.  So perhaps it is understandable that her daughter thinks that other people get their in-depth information and inform their ideas from entertainment rather than reading books - or actually writing them themselves.  Because clearly Bristol Palin's ideas are as shallow and trivial and just plain silly as her mother's, and as insensitive to an entire group of people with same -sex orientation.
As to the 'leadership' role of fathers, it would seem that Bristol's father has taken a backseat and subordinate role to her mother for a long time.  The man is no rocket scientist; his big claim to fame is he rides around on a snow mobile and he does manual labor in the oil fields and goes fishing for a living.  I have to wonder what kind of leadership role in shaping Bristol Palin's life he has had, given that the first dude and her mother got married several months AFTER the conception of her oldest brother.  It seems that Dad passed on the premarital sex lesson as his leadership contribution.
On the whole, I think President Obama showing a willingness to learn from a variety of serious sources, and his concern that he set an example to his daughters - which is what he was doing in matching actions and words to his thoughtful change of position on this subject - IS leadership.
Perhaps no one in the Palin household when Bristol was growing up set that kind of example, because clearly no one set an example where opinions are formed on facts and critical thinking; this is how the woman thinks, this is how her mother thinks - in shallow, fact-averse and intellectually dishonest terms.  No one knows how her father thinks, or if he thinks; he's relegated to the background, holding Sarah Palin's purse, not speaking roles.
Until Bristol Palin's social positions or political savvy or intellectual accomplishments in ANY area can match those of the President, perhaps she would be wiser to just shut up and stop embarrassing herself, or drawing more attention to her parental intellectual deficiencies.  It was no accident that while commenting on Obama's cartoon illustration, Sarah Palin was compared unfavorably AS a cartoon in the McCain campaign on a recent Jon Stewart's the Daily Show.  It was funny, because it was true; Sarah Palin is an even dimmer bulb than Michele Bachmann.

Un-Presidented, Undefeated, Unattended: Has Palin Peaked?

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little. - Lord Byron

The highest form of vanity is love of fame. -George Santayana

Sarah Palin recently debuted her new movie with the improbable and inaccurate title of Undefeated.  In her crazy world view, she conveniently ignores that she was quite thoroughly defeated in the 2008 election for vice president.  That is like, well, like ignoring the 8 ton bull(shit) GOP elephant in the middle of the room.

What is more significant than any content in the widely panned movie, for which I could not find a single positive review, is that to me it seems as if Palin is winding down in popularity and influence.  I think she's 'peaked', and done so far too early.

Palin was very clever in capitalizing on her post 2008 campaign popularity; those who loved her didn't care about looking too closely at her lack of real accomplishment, or her ignorance.  They were curious, they were perhaps even charmed.  Palin did an excellent job of turning that interest in to self promotion to enrich herself; she made herself a relatively wealthy woman in doing so.