"If you have happy thoughts, then you make happy molecules."
Blockquotes from: Deepak Blames America
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
Ah, the intellectual mind!
The font of wisdom that is a "healer, New Age philosopher and digestion guru, advocate of aromatherapy and regular enemas", Deepak Chopra, has pointed out the real reason for the Mumbai massacre.
In his CNN interview, he was no less clear. What happened in Mumbai, he told the interviewer, was a product of the U.S. war on terrorism, that "our policies, our foreign policies" had alienated the Muslim population, that we had "gone after the wrong people" and inflamed moderates. And "that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in Bombay."
See, I told you it was my fault. My desire to stop people that will settle for nothing less that killing or subjugating me caused these people to attack a city in India.
Funny thing though, when asked why they were doing this, the terrorists told their hostages that they should remember some mosque that was burned down decades ago.
When called on this being solely the U.S.'s fault, dr. Chopra backed up a bit...for a bit:
The Mumbai catastrophe was not Washington's fault, it was everybody's fault. Which didn't prevent Dr. Chopra from returning soon to his central theme -- the grave offense posed to Muslims by the United States' war on terror, a point accompanied by consistent emphatic reminders that Muslims are the world's fastest growing population -- 25% of the globe's inhabitants -- and that the U.S. had better heed that fact. In Dr. Chopra's moral universe, numbers are apparently central. It's tempting to imagine his view of offenses against a much smaller sliver of the world's inhabitants -- not so offensive, perhaps?
What the hell has changed here? I guess now being a major (22.4%) make up of the worlds population makes it OK to do whatever you feel you should do. I'm getting confused. They keep changing the rules on me.
A faithful adherent of the root-causes theory of crime -- mass murder, in the case at hand -- Dr. Chopra pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that most of the terrorism in the world came from Muslims. It was mandatory, then, to address their grievances -- "humiliation," "poverty," "lack of education." The U.S., he recommended, should undertake a Marshall Plan for Muslims.
Why is it our responsibility to address their grievances? Perhaps their "humiliation," "poverty," and "lack of education" have something to do with their choice to follow Islam. They send their children over here and get western educations, yet can't seem to develop anything when they get back home to better the plight of the people.
Nowhere in this citation of the root causes of Muslim terrorism was there any mention of Islamic fundamentalism -- the religious fanaticism that has sent fevered mobs rioting, burning and killing over alleged slights to the Quran or the prophet. Not to mention the countless others enlisted to blow themselves and others up in the name of God.
Well, if you mention it, they riot, burn and kill. It's another slight against them that must be avenged.
The author, Rabinowitz, sums it up:
So unworthy is the U.S. -- an attitude solidly established in our media culture long before the war on terror -- that only it can be held responsible for the deranged fantasies cherished in large quarters of the Arab world. So natural does it feel, now, to hold such views that their expression has become second nature.
Which is how it happens also that the U.S. is linked to the bloodletting in Mumbai, with scarcely anyone batting an eye, and Larry King -- awash perhaps, in happy molecules -- thanking guest Dr. Chopra for his extraordinary enlightenment.
God help us.
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Bonus:
A journalist who was braver than the police during the attacks. He pointed out where the terrorists were and tried to get the cops to shoot back, they didn't.
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