Comparison - The media took

Comparison - The media took note of the incident at yesterday's pro liberation rally - the one I noted yesterday, where a small number of meatheads in the crowd booed the Moslem woman who broached the subject of US relations with the Arab world.

The only speaker who received a hostile reception was N. Ruby Zigrino, a Muslim from Minneapolis. She was initially cheered when she said she supports "ousting a tyrant regime."

But she then read passages from the Qur'an, suggested that a new Marshall Plan will be needed in Iraq, and said administration officials should study foreign-policy failures to avoid repeating them.

Her listeners responded with boos and shouts of "Screw Muslims!" "Screw the Qur'an!" and "Go home!"

Yep - I, as a pro-liberation conservative - was ashamed of that part (maybe 10%, at the very most) of the crowd, and condemn their meatheaded mobthink.

But there's something good to chew on here, too: the organizers of the pro-liberation rally had the cojones to book a speaker that did color outside the lines, that did challenge the crowd's groupthink.

The same could not be said of the rally at MacAlester. None of the speakers that I heard urged any though on behalf of the tortured and butchered Iraqi people, Hussein's biggest victims. Had anyone done so, I doubt that they'd have been able to continue. That crowd knew what it wanted to hear, too - and unlike Col. Reppya (organizer of the capitol rally), they gave it to them with no challenges or embellishments.

Posted by Mitch at March 23, 2003 03:28 PM