[VIDEO] What’s Wrong With Canada’s Islamophobia Motion? A Muslim Answers
Posted: April 6, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Canada, Clarion Project, Free speech, Freedom of Expression, Islam, Islamofacsism, Islamophobia, Jihadism, Muslim Brotherhood, Raheel Raza, Sharia Law, video Leave a commentClarion’s Raheel Raza is unhappy with what she sees as a challenge to free speech, something enshrined in Canadian law.
Houston, We Have a Problem: What’s Wrong With All Those ‘Muslim Backlash’ Stories
Posted: December 29, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, Religion, Terrorism | Tags: Anti-Defamation League, Barack Obama, Ben Carson, California, California State University, Council on American–Islamic Relations, Hate crime, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, journalism, Media bias, Muslim, Paris, San Bernardino Leave a comment
The backlash is back.
Back on the front page, that is:
Bobby Ross Jr. writes: Before dissecting today’s Houston Chronicle story, a little background: After the San Bernardino massacre, the New York Post splashed the inflammatory headline “Muslim Killers” across its tabloid cover. At that time, we noted that — ever since 9/11 — the phrase “Muslim backlash” has entered America’s lexicon.
[Read the full text of Bobby Ross Jr‘s article here, at GetReligion]
In follow-up posts, we questioned media reporting a “surge” in anti-Muslim crime without providing hard data to back up that factual claim. Moreover, we pointed out bias by media using the term “Islamophobia” without bothering to define it.
That leads to Houston, where firefighters battled a Christmas Day blaze at a storefront mosque.Investigators called the fire “suspicious,” citing multiple points of origin.
The fire serves as the news peg for the Chronicle’s Page A1 report today on anxiety in the area’s Muslim community:
Even before investigators determined that a Christmas Day fire at a southwest Houston mosque was set deliberately, Muslims in the Houston area were on edge.
Recent terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., were followed by threats to area Muslims on social media and elsewhere. Now, in the aftermath of the arson at the mosque, local Muslim leaders and public officials are organizing a meeting to try to calm fears and ease tensions.
M.J. Khan, the president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, said he understands the community’s growing anxiety.
“Families and children come, and we do take precautions to make sure people are protected and feel safe,” said Khan, whose organization operates the mosque. Still, he added, “These are places of worship, and we cannot make them fortresses.”
The fire broke out at around 2:45 p.m. on Christmas Day at the small mosque inside the Savoy Plaza strip center, near Wilcrest Drive and Bellfort Avenue. About 80 firefighters helped extinguish the blaze, which significantly damaged the worship hall.
Given the fire, the Muslim community’s concerns are certainly newsworthy. I have no problem with the story angle or the report’s above-the-fold placement.
But here’s the problem with this 1,300-word piece (roughly twice as long as a typical daily newspaper story): It attacks the issue with a giant ax when what’s really needed is a surgical knife.
[Read the full story here, at GetReligion]
What I mean: On a story such as this, journalists need to take extra care to be precise, to report what they know — and no more. Readers deserve hard facts, not squishy generalizations.
Instead, the Chronicle makes the sweeping statement up high that “threats to area Muslims on social media and elsewhere” followed the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. OK, what threats? (Insert crickets.)
The newspaper never provides any evidence of actual threats, such as police reports. The story does provide this brief note:
Waqar Mehmood was browsing his Sugar Land neighborhood’s social media page when he saw posts from a neighbor calling for the community to cleanse itself of Muslims using pig’s blood. Read the rest of this entry »
Donald Trump: At Home in Postmodern America
Posted: December 15, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, White House | Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, Arshad Sharif, Donald Trump, Islamophobia, metanarrative, Muslim, Postmodernism, Progressivism, Republican Party (United States), Socialism, Ted Cruz, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left, United States Leave a comment
Donald Trump is not a conservative—he’s a reality TV star thoroughly in tune with the passions and dynamics of mass publicity and social media. No matter how much he denounces them, he’s still a product of victim-based identity politics.
Kim R. Holmes writes: A lot of people think Donald Trump is a throwback to an earlier time in American history. He’s seen as a nativist who wants to go back to the days of pre-multicultural America, to a time before identity politics and political correctness. But this interpretation misses something very important about the Trump phenomenon.
“Welcome to a whole new image of Donald Trump, the man perfectly at home in the postmodern culture of America.”
The Donald is very much a child of contemporary American culture, including its multicultural offshoot, identity politics. Although he rejects the leftist ideology of multiculturalism, especially the hypersensitivity of political correctness, he is operating well within its value system. He actually represents a new hybrid version of it—a mirror image, if you will, of the very culture he claims to despise.
“Trump is guilty of this deceit in spades. He can make all sorts of erroneous statements knowing full well that his supporters will come to his defense no matter how inaccurate his assertions may be. Who cares, they insist, that he exaggerates the number of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on September 11, 2001? What matters is the underlying “truth” that all Muslims supposedly hate Americans. “
Trump is a champion of identity politics, which in case we should forget, was invented by the left. He advances without apology or qualification the interests and values of his supporters. As a group, they possess the identity of people put-upon by their opponents. It may not be correct to say they are all one ethnic group, although many are indeed white; but it is true that Trump’s “tribe,” regardless of its demography, identifies with him as one of their own because of his unique political style.
“But lest we think this is only a right-wing phenomenon, remember this: the embrace of the narrative-is-truth paradigm by Trump is no different from the one used by ‘black lives matter’ activists who to this day, despite all the facts to the contrary, believe Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was guilty of murder. This metanarrative line of reasoning was invented and popularized by the postmodern left, not by conservatives.”
Like members of the politically correct left, Trump and his supporters see themselves as immune from criticism not because of the strength of their arguments, but because of the distinctive characteristics of “who they are.” They are defined by their grievances. Although their identity politics exists on the opposite end of the political spectrum from the left, they do make a claim to victimhood, the same as “black lives matter” activists do to assert their immunity from criticism.
[Read the full text here, at Public Discourse]
Opinion polls show that Trump’s supporters are by no means the most conservative; indeed, they even include some self-described moderates. What unites them is not ideology but feelings of marginalization, which pertain not only to 
their political views but to the fact that many of Trump’s backers are not faring well economically.
[Order Kim R. Holmes‘ book “Rebound: Getting America Back to Great” from Amazon.com]
Financially stressed and ostracized by the ruling liberal class, they are behaving more like an alienated class of Marxist imagination than as social agents of stability and tradition. They are indeed thinking like revolutionaries, only now their ire is aimed at their progressive masters and the institutions they control.
Authenticity or Narcissism? Facts or Narrative?
Trump also is a purveyor of the extreme narcissism of what used to be called the “me generation.” First arising in the 1970s, the mainstreaming of infantile self-centeredness has today morphed into the childish antics of political 
correctness on college campuses. There is precious little that cannot be justified in our culture today by referring to feelings.
[Also see Kim R. Holmes upcoming book “The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left“
This attitude has been called the culture of authenticity, and there can be no doubt that Trump is a master of it. Why? People love him precisely because he’s “unfiltered” and doesn’t “lie,” which has become another word for using carefully constructed words and phrases. In this worldview, anything well-considered is thought to be false. The only “truth” is whatever emotion happens to erupt from the unconstrained Id, that source of instinctive impulses residing in the unconscious. Once the intellectual property of Sigmund Freud and other champions of sexual liberation, the “let it all hang out” authenticity of Trump is now as commonplace as an Oprah Winfrey show.
“And then there is multiculturalism’s favorite shibboleth—the infamous ‘metanarrative.’ Invented by a host of obscure philosophers of postmodernism, most of whom saw themselves as leftists, this idea is most familiar as the ideological justification for made-up rape stories and accusing white cops of crimes they did not commit. Its calling card is that a larger idea—the narrative—is somehow truer than actual facts.”
And then there is multiculturalism’s favorite shibboleth—the infamous “metanarrative.” Invented by a host of obscure philosophers of postmodernism, most of whom saw themselves as leftists, this idea is most familiar as the ideological justification for made-up rape stories and accusing white cops of crimes they did not commit. Its calling card is that a larger idea—the narrative—is somehow truer than actual facts.
Trump is guilty of this deceit in spades. He can make all sorts of erroneous statements knowing full well that his supporters will come to his defense no matter how inaccurate his assertions may be. Who cares, they insist, that he exaggerates the number of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on September 11, 2001? Read the rest of this entry »
‘Muslim Backlash’?
Posted: December 7, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, Religion, White House | Tags: Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Barack Obama, Ben Carson, Council on American–Islamic Relations, Donald Trump, High school, Islam, Islamophobia, Muslim, United States 2 Comments
Here are the most recent facts, per the F.B.I.
Of the 1,140 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:
56.8 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.
16.1 percent were victims of anti-Islamic (Muslim) biashate crime
6.2 percent were victims of bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
6.1 percent were victims of anti-Catholic bias.
2.5 percent were victims of anti-Protestant bias.
1.2 percent were victims of anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
11.0 percent were victims of bias against other religions (anti-other religion). (Based on Table 1.)
In other words…
A full 84% of hate crimes based on a person’s religion are not directed at Muslims…(read more)
Source: Breitbart
University of Minnesota Hall of Shame
Posted: November 12, 2015 Filed under: Education, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, War Room | Tags: 9-11, Barack Obama, Campus, Islamophobia, Minnesota Student Association, Muslim, Political Correctness, Safe Space, September 11 attacks, Student, University of Michigan, White House Leave a comment
Christine Russell reports: Here’s another instance of political correctness on a college campus going a smidge too far, courtesy of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: A proposed resolution to recognize the 9/11 terrorist attacks on campus each year was rejected by the Minnesota Student Association as it may potentially violate a “safe space” on campus.
From Campus Reform:
“This resolution was non-controversial and was supported by the MSA’s President and Vice-President,” said Amundson, “However, several members, in exchanges with CRs rep Theo Menon, were militant in their opposition to it due to a perceived bias toward Muslims.”
Other proponents of the resolution argued in forum that its passage could bring up controversial topics, and that a healthy dialogue and campus tension reduction would ensue from the moment of recognition.
At-large MSA representative and Director of Diversity and Inclusion David Algadi voiced severe criticism of the resolution. He also made sure to emphasize 9/11’s status as a national tragedy in his response.
“The passing of this resolution might make a space that is unsafe for students on campus even more unsafe,” said Algadi, “Islamophobia and racism fueled through that are alive and well.” Read the rest of this entry »
PANIC: German TV Network Inflames Refugee Debate by Depicting Angela Merkel as a Chador-Wearing Muslim
Posted: October 6, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Global, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Angela Merkel, Antisemitism, Australia, Australian Defence Force, Barack Obama, BBC, Charlie Hebdo, Investigative journalism, Islam, Islamophobia, Jews, Journalist, Muslim, Newsnight, United States 1 Comment
Justin Huggler reports: ARD television was inundated with complaints after it broadcast a mocked-up picture of Mrs Merkel wearing the garment, known as a chador, against a backdrop of the Reichstag surrounded by minarets.
“This is not constructive journalism. Ugh! The mood turns because of such defamation and propaganda. So yes it’s true: integration cannot succeed.”
— A Facebook post
The image was shown during a debate on the refugee crisis on Report from Berlin, a Newsnight-style programme, and was intended to be satirical, the broadcaster claimed.
“Of course it was also the of this artwork to provoke and polarise opinion. We consider this satirical form of representation to be in keeping with our journalistic values. We reject any insinuation that we would operate Islamophobic propaganda.”
— ARD television, defending its use of the controversial image
But many viewers accused the programme-makers of Islamophobia, and said they were deliberately provoking anti-Muslim sentiments.
A Pegida supporter wears a burqa during a rally in Dresden. Photo: AFP
“This is not constructive journalism. Ugh!” read one comment on the programme’s Facebook page. “The mood turns because of such defamation and propaganda. So yes it’s true: integration cannot succeed.”
The broadcaster defended the use of the image. “Of course it was also the of this artwork to provoke and polarise opinion,” it said in a statement.
“We consider this satirical form of representation to be in keeping with our journalistic values. We reject any insinuation that we would operate Islamophobic propaganda.”
Supporters of Legida, a local copycat of Dresden’s Pegida, during a rally in Leipzig Photo: Jens Schlueter/AFP
But many viewers complained that the image was similar to posters produced by the anti-Islam and anti-immigrant movement Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West. Read the rest of this entry »
Gavin McInnes: Islamophobiaphobia
Posted: September 25, 2015 Filed under: Politics, Religion, Self Defense, War Room, White House | Tags: Afghan diaspora, Afghanistan, Anaheim, Barack Obama, Ben Carson, EUROPE, Islam, Islam in the United States, Islamism, Islamophobia, Middle East, Muhammad, Muslim, Muslim world, Qur'an, Republican Party (United States) Leave a comment
writes: Westerners used to just barge into countries, take them over, and make them better. Before the British invaded, India was just a really hot homeless shelter. The U.K. left in 1947 after trying to sort out India’s Muslim problem and the infrastructure they built immediately began to crumble. The same happened to Haiti after 1804 and Jamaica after 1962. It was obvious the West was the best. Today, however, when foreigners fly planes into our skyscrapers and rape our children, we apologize. What the fuck happened?“When this first happened, I assumed Obama was duped. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t think he cares if the clock looks like a bomb. He saw #IStandWithAhmed trending and decided he’d like to be part of it. It’s like black people still wearing T-shirts that say ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot.’ They don’t care about the truth. They just like the story.”
I remember on September 12th, 2001, in NYC’s Union Square there were people holding signs that said “Justice Not Revenge.” The first instinct for much of the country seemed to be avoiding Islamophobia. To this day we have a crippling fear of it. Islamophobiaphobia is so severe, any Muslim circus clown can send his kid to school with a fake bomb and instead of charging the father with child endangerment, we invite the boy to the White House.
[Read the full text of Gavin McInnes’ article here, at Taki’s Magazine]
When this first happened, I assumed Obama was duped. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t think he cares if the clock looks like a bomb. He saw #IStandWithAhmed trending and decided he’d like to be part of it. It’s like black people still wearing T-shirts that say “Hands Up Don’t Shoot.” They don’t care about the truth. They just like the story.
In case you’re not familiar with the story (it’s already dying on the vine), Mohamed El-Hassan Mohamed is a Muslim prankster and publicity hound who is constantly harping about Islamophobia. His daughter was suspended for making bomb threats at school. His brother started a company last year called Twin Towers Corporation. He has made very public campaigns about running for president of Sudan even though it’s a dictatorship.
“When the police arrived, Ahmed was so elusive they were forced to detain him. The crime they were accusing him of was creating a fake bomb to cause a disturbance. This is a misdemeanor, and I haven’t seen any evidence he’s innocent. Despite the case being a no-brainer, the entire country screamed ISLAMOPHOBIA and lay prostrate before the Mohamed family.”
He drove to Florida after Pastor Terry Jones threatened to burn the Koran and represented the book as its lawyer (he failed—the Koran burned). The guy is a complete idiot who debates like a teenager lying to his dad. A week and a half ago, Mohamed’s son Ahmed brought a clock to school that had been torn out of its case and put in a new case in such a way, it resembled a bomb. The first teacher he showed it to told him to put it away. Then, in English class, he either plugged it in or affixed a battery so the alarm would go off.
“I think this kid’s father used his own son as a ploy to garner sympathy for Islam. This is an old trick in the Muslim world. They constantly use children as soldiers to detect mines or simply take bullets. They know it kills us to kill kids and they prey on our morality. Ahmed’s school is trying to tell the world that they are innocent, but El-Hassan refuses to release the records.”
[Read the full essay here, at Taki’s Magazine]
[Also see – THE INCREDIBLE MELTING CLOCK STORY]
[More – UPDATE: Clock Prankster Quits Texas School]
It did and the teacher did what she was supposed to. When the police arrived, Ahmed was so elusive they were forced to detain him. The crime they were accusing him of was creating a fake bomb to cause a disturbance. This is a misdemeanor, and I haven’t seen any evidence he’s innocent. Despite the case being a no-brainer, the entire country screamed ISLAMOPHOBIA and lay prostrate before the Mohamed family. Read the rest of this entry »
THE INCREDIBLE MELTING CLOCK STORY
Posted: September 23, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Clock Boy, Islam, Islamophobia, Middle school, MSNBC, Mullah, Muslim, Sharia, The Daily Beast, Weasel Zippers 1 Comment
Nickarama writes:
Whoa, baby…
Via Daily Beast:
After the MSNBC segment, Eyman and I sit down in the hallway where she says the same thing happened to her as Ahmed.
“I got suspended from school for three days from this stupid same district, from this girl saying I wanted to blow up the school, something I had nothing to do with.”
Eyman talks with the slightest lisp, almost imperceptible, but it becomes stronger as she gets emotional.
“I got suspended and I didn’t do anything about it and so when I heard about Ahmed, I was so mad because it happened to me and I didn’t get to stand up, so I’m making sure he’s standing up because it’s not right. So I’m not jealous, I’m kinda like—it’s like he’s standing for me.”
Eyman said her suspension was in her first year of middle school, “my first year of attempting middle school in America. I knew English, but the culture was different, the people were different.”
The rest of the Daily Beast article is a festival of Ahmed delighting in how famous he is. The reporter doesn’t seem to really understand what he just heard, and then blames it on ‘Islamophobia’….(read more)
Source: Weasel Zippers
Why Does the Left Green Light Anti-Semitism?
Posted: September 11, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, History, Politics, War Room | Tags: Anti-American, Antisemitism, BBC, Far Left, Hate crime, Islamism, Islamophobia, Islamophobic incidents, Jew Hatred, Jews, Jihadist sympathizers, Left Wing, London, Muslim, Neighbourhood Policing Team, Progressive 3 Comments
writes: Why do leftists care more about Muslims than they do about Jews? If that sounds confrontational, consider this: this week, the Met Police released the latest hate-crime figures for London. They show that offences against Jews have risen by 93% over the past year, while offences against Muslims have risen by 70%. And guess which story the BBC, Guardian and Independent, those voices of the British liberal conscience, have chosen to flag up? Yep, the 70% hike in Islamophobic attacks, not the nearly 100% hike in anti-Semitic offences.
“Pretty much every liberal newspaper in Europe continued thundering on about the potential for an ‘Islamophobic backlash’ following the Charlie killings, even as Jews were being killed.”
The BBC’s headline is ‘Islamophobic crime in London “up by 70%”‘. The Guardian‘s is ‘Hate crimes against Muslims soar in London’. The Indie opts for ‘Hate crimes against Muslims in London “up by 70%”‘. What about the crimes against Jews? Sorry, no room for those. They aren’t mentioned. Whether as a result of how the cops chose to press-release their new figures or how editors chose to interpret them, or maybe a bit of both, someone down the line has taken the decision that a bashed-up or verbally abused Muslim is more newsworthy than a bashed-up or verbally abused Jew.
“On the morning the four dead Jews were being put on a flight for burial in Israel, George Clooney was telling fawning hacks how worried he was about ‘anti-Muslim fervour’ in Europe. It’s surreal.”
This is becoming increasingly common. For some reason, so-called progressives, especially those of a leftist bent, are made more upset by hatred of Muslims than they are by hatred of Jews.
“Some people seem more worried about possible attacks on Muslims than by actual attacks on Jews.”
It’s why the very people – Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Diane Abbott, every leftie on Twitter – who normally rail against racism, and against the people who rub shoulders with racists, could in essence say ‘What’s all the fuss?!’ when it was revealed Jeremy Corbyn had been hanging out with Holocaust deniers.
[Read the full story here, at Spectator Blogs]
It’s why every bovine attack on a mosque is held up as hard evidence that Europe is descending into a cesspool of anti-Muslim hatred, whereas you have to scour the media to find mentions of attacks on synagogues. In recent days, a Manchester teen was beaten up in a suspected anti-Semitic assault; a Jewish Spanish teenager was physically attacked; and two Holocaust survivors in Amsterdam were assaulted and called ‘dirty Jews’. Read the rest of this entry »
Sweden’s Multicultural Expert on Islamaphobia Excited About New Career Opportunity
Posted: July 12, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Angela Merkel, Antisemitism, Black people, Central bank, Charlie Hebdo, Ed Miliband, EUROPE, Gothenburg, Greece, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, LGBT, Muslim, Paris, Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden, Swedish krona, Thorbjørn Jagland, University of Gothenburg 1 Comment
Previously, Michael Skråmo worked to counter what he described as an unfair and misleading picture of Muslims as violent fanatics. Now Skråmo preaches jihad and calls Swedish jihadists to leave Sweden and join the holy war
The 29-year-old Swede, who today calls himself “Abdul Samad al Swedi”, grew up in Gothenburg. He converted to Islam during a field trip to Egypt about ten years ago and has since been engaged in a series of tax-funded Muslim organizations.
In 2009 he was invited to SVT, where he told Swedish viewers how Muslim phobia (Islamophobia) and hatred was spread around Europe.
Previously, the Swede have been heavily involved to counter what he described as a misleading picture of Muslims as violent fanatics. In an episode of SVT debate, which can be seen on Youtube, he attacked the malicious picture of Muslims spread in Europe.
“This fear is based on ignorance of Islam,” Michael Skråmo said. […]
Michael Skråmo, 29, took the whole family – his little four children and wife – to the IS-controlled area inside Syria. Now Skråmo filmed a propaganda video outside the Syrian city Kobane where he preaches jihad and calls Swedish jihadists to leave Sweden and join the “holy war”. Read the rest of this entry »
EXPOSED: Foreign Policy‘s Pro-Censorship Propaganda: No, it’s Not a Serious Question
Posted: May 5, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Religion, The Butcher's Notebook, War Room | Tags: Alisyn Camerota, Charles C. W. Cooke, Family Research Council, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Firearms and Explosives, Garland, Geert Wilders, Islamophobia, Muhammad, Pamela Geller, Southern Poverty Law Center, Stop Islamization of America, Texas Leave a comment
In ‘The Self-Fulfilling Prophet Drawing Competition’, David Francis and Elias Grol join the chorus of elite journalists siding with the the gunmen and blaming the victims.
In describing Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller, David Francis and Elias Groll do get one thing right. They accurately describe the look of Geert Wilders’ hair.
“He’s a silver-haired politician who warns about the threat of what he calls totalitarian Islam to Europe.”
David Francis and Elias Groll have apparently paid little attention to the murderous Christian and Jew-hating supremacist ideology that’s flourishing, quite comfortably, under the flag of official Islam, and yes, spoken in prayers every single day, all over the globe.
More loaded adjectives to describe Pamela Geller. (though they neglected to discuss her hair)
“She’s a preening ideologue who thinks Muslims use their daily prayers to curse Jews and Christians.”
FP Writers David Francis and Elias Groll are really upset and offended by the free speech provocations of figures like Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller. That is a very good thing.
Labeling Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller the “odd couple of the global ‘anti-Islam’ movement“:
“They are provocateurs trading in explosive, often racist anti-Muslim rhetoric, and they are now on the front lines of a roiling debate about whether Western notions of free speech ought to take into consideration Muslim sensitivities about images of the Prophet Mohammed.”
“Ought to take into consideration Muslim sensitivities”? Really?
On the popular habit of using the Southern Poverty Law Center as a ‘credible’ source:
“She is also the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a ‘hate group.'”
Note: The Southern Poverty Law Center thinks any organization that doesn’t conform to contemporary left-wing orthodoxy is a “hate group”. The Southern Poverty Law Center would label a ham sandwich and a bag of potato chips a “hate group”. Is Foreign Policy magazine a “hate group”? (Sure, why not?)
Geller has the good sense to ignore the smear merchants “journalists” at Foreign Policy, and accurately reveals the magazine’s ideological bias, calling it a “citadel of leftist power and influence”.
“Geller did not answer a list of questions emailed to her by Foreign Policy. In the past she has referred to FP as a ‘citadel of leftist power and influence’.”
Exactly.
Former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin weighs in:
“If you wanted to conduct a science experiment to show you could elicit jihadist violence, this was the perfect setup. Extremists have shown they are eager to avenge any perception of blasphemy.”
And western apologists continue to appease them, and endeavor to not offend them.
Why does Foreign Policy have this peculiar, almost erotic obsession with Geert Wilders hair?
“Unmistakable with his mane of silver hair, Wilders has tried to cloak his intense dislike of Islam behind a veil of advocating on behalf of liberal values.”
The authors promote a fiction that there’s a “line” between free speech and “hate speech” that must be observed, and “balanced”. It’s a false distinction, often used by those who misunderstand (or want to “raise questions” about) the first amendment. The constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech recognizes no such distinction. In fact, the only kind of speech that the the first amendment was designed to protect is offensive, hateful speech. What protection does inoffensive speech need?
When somebody tells you there’s a “line” that “must be balanced”, they are lying. They are advocating censorship.
The ‘Social Value’ Argument
“Benjamin, the former State Department official who is now a scholar at Dartmouth, said the United States must now balance the right to free speech with speech like the kind used by Wilders and Geller in their advocacy against Islam.”
If Daniel Benjamin is advocating self-restraint, then this is a legitimate expression of concern, aimed preserving nonviolence in a pluralistic society. If, however, he is advocating limiting free expression in order to achieve that goal, he should drop the ambiguous diplomatic double-talk and say what he means. Read the rest of this entry »
Is PEN a Free Speech Organization?
Posted: April 27, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Politics, Reading Room, Think Tank | Tags: Australia, Author, Charlie Hebdo, Freedom of speech, French language, Islamophobia, Jews, Paris, Queen's University Belfast Leave a comment
[Read more here – HALL OF SHAME: Six PEN Members Decline Gala After Award for Charlie Hebdo]
French Clowns Threaten to Sue Fox News Over Manufactured ‘No-Go Zone’ Scandal
Posted: January 20, 2015 Filed under: Global, Humor, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Religion, War Room | Tags: Aziz Ansari, Charlie Hebdo, Fox News Channel, Islamophobia, J. K. Rowling, Jeanine Pirro, Muslim, Paris, Rupert Murdoch, Twitter 1 Comment
From Variety‘s Elsa Keslassy:
“The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced (…) I think we’ll have to sue, I think we’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed,” Hidalgo told CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour.
Fox News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, had invited self-proclaimed terrorism expert Steven Emerson on one of its program segments in the wake of the attacks at Charlie Hebdo and the Kosher market in Paris as part of its coverage of those events Jan. 11….(read more)
Andrea Tantaros and Mark Styen on Confronting the Islamoplogists’ Fear of Violating Social Norms and Correct Manners
Posted: August 31, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Politics, The Butcher's Notebook, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Asian American Journalist Association, Asian American Journalists Association, BBC, Britain, Fox News, Fox News Channel, Islam, Islamophobia, Mark Steyn, Pakistani, Political Correctness, Roger Scruton, Rotherham, Tantaros 2 Comments
Rotherham
Q: Why Did British Police Ignore Pakistani Muslim Gangs Abusing 1,400 Rotherham Children?
Forbes‘ Roger Scruton writes:
A story of rampant child abuse—ignored and abetted by the police—is emerging out of the British town of Rotherham. Until now, its scale and scope would be inconceivable in a civilized country. Its details will make your hair stand on end.
A: Political Correctness
Imagine the following case. A fourteen-year old girl is taken into care by the social services unit of the town where she lives, because her parents are drug-addicted, and she has been neglected and is not turning up in school. She is one of many, for that is the way in Britain today. And local government entities—Councils—can be ordered by the courts to stand in for parents of neglected children. The Council places the girl in a home, where she is kept with others under supervision from the social services department. The home is regularly visited by young men who try to entice the girls into their cars, so as to give them drugs and alcohol, and then coerce them into sex…(read more) Forbes
What happens when public figures fear putting their reputation at stake to speak truthfully 
about the deadly force required confront these depraved, barbaric practices? Rapes and child slavery and beheadings that are, by now, plainly visible to all?
Fox News Channel host Andrea Tantaros is being publicly vilified for her blunt comments, ripping Obama’s handling of ISIS and other radical Islamic groups on last week’s Outnumbered.
“The only proper response, I think, Sandra, is for the president in about 45 minutes, to approach that podium and admit, not just that he was wrong, but that we’re going in there and we’re gonna flatten them. Last night we should have taken out 10,000 ISIS fighters, warned them, last night, not today, that if you kill that other journalist, we will be back and we will wipe out 10,000 more, and we will continue to decimate you with aggressive air war until we obliterate every single one of you, period, end story,” she said.
Tantaros added “they’ve been doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years, if you study the history of Islam … this isn’t a surprise, you can’t solve it with a dialogue, you can’t solve it with a summit, you solve it with a bullet to the head.”
“All we’ve heard from this president is the case to heap praise on this religion, as if to appease them,” she accused. “His Cairo speech, his remarks from last Memorial Day saying that we have a shared history of tolerance. Instead of making the case against this threat that is never going to stop.”
The Asian American Journalists Association went bananas and is demanding an apology:
“AAJA calls for Tantaros and Fox News to apologize for the irresponsible, inflammatory statements,” the organization said. “We also call on Fox News to discourage its journalists from making blanket comments that serve to perpetuate hate and Islamophobia. Muslims and Islam are not interchangeable terms with terrorists or ISIS. We in the media know better and must be vigilant in our choice of words.”
As the left-wing islamopologist backlash continues, Tantaros responds:
I will not apologize for speaking the truth about radical Islamic jihadism. Period.
— Andrea Tantaros (@AndreaTantaros) August 30, 2014
All I can say is, bravo, Tantaros, and recommend NRO‘s comments, No, Pointing Out Muslims Have Been Beheading People for Centuries Isn’t Islamophobic.
It’s not just the kidnapping and beheadings of adult men, captives killed in
distant deserts for prime time viewing on social media, it’s already brazenly at home torturing children in quaint communities in the modern west, protected by a collective fear of violating politically correct social norms.
The parallels between Tarantos’ widespread media “shaming”, and Rotherham’s conspiracy of blindness to widespread child slavery are hard to ignore.
If you dare read anything about the Rotherham nightmare, read Steyn‘s comments:
“The queasy reluctance among the fearless knights of the media to state the truth anywhere north of the 20th paragraph helps explain why this happened, and why it will happen again.”
Where is the mob of Muslim-hating Americans going crazy after Boston? Its a figment of liberals imaginations
Posted: April 25, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: Boston, Crown Prosecution Service, David Sirota, Islam, Islamophobia, Ken Macdonald, Muslim, United States Leave a comment
Where has the backlash against America’s Muslims been?
Whenever a bomb goes off in America or Britain, some liberals’ first reaction is to wonder whether stupid white people will go crazy and attack Muslims. Even while the dust of said bomb is settling, a certain breed of heartless commentator will shift his attention from those who were hurt in the attack to those who might be driven mad with racially tinged fury upon observing the attack: that is, the allegedly Islamophobic mob, the unenlightened public, for whom every Islamo-bombing is apparently a sign that Muslims are evil and must therefore be shouted at, spat on, and possibly punched.
So just hours after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, even before we knew who was responsible, there was media handwringing over the masses’ potentially intolerant response. Part of the reason David Sirota of Salon infamously hoped the Boston bomber would turn out be a white American is because he was fearful of the “societal response” if the bomber were a Muslim, concerned there would be “collective slandering” of Muslims by Americans. Likewise, two days after the attack, the Guardian published a piece implying America is already a country where the ill-educated think “all Muslims are terrorists”, so things could get really hairy if “the perpetrator of the Boston bombings turns out to be a Muslim”. There was a tsunami of post-Boston commentary about “the damage that Islamophobia can cause”, about the “ignorance and prejudice [that emerge] in the aftermath of a terrorist attack”, about Americans undergoing a “collective freakout steeped in Islamophobia”.
Clearly, some observers fear ordinary Americans more than they do terrorists; they fret more over how dangerously unintelligent and hateful Yanks will respond to bombings than they do over the bombings themselves. But where is this Islamophobic mob? Where are these marauding Muslim-haters undergoing a post-Boston freakout? They are a figment of liberal observers’ imaginations. In the years since 9/11, the American public has been admirably tolerant towards Muslim communities. According to federal crime stats collected by the FBI, in 2009 there were 107 anti-Muslim hate crimes; in a country of 300 million people that is a very low number. In 2010, a year of great terrorism panic following the attempt by Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in NYC, there were 160 anti-Muslim hate crimes. In 2011, there were 157. To see how imaginary the Islamophobic mob is, consider a state like Texas, fashionably mocked as a backward Hicksville full of Fox News-watching morons: there are 420,000 Muslims in Texas, yet in 2011 there were only six anti-Muslim hate crimes there. It simply isn’t true that mad racist Yanks are biting at the bit to attack Muslims.
There were similarly wrongheaded fears of an outburst of mass Islamophobic hysteria in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London, too. Policemen were posted outside mosques. NHS trusts encouraged doctors and nurses to keep their eyes peeled for anyone who expressed anti-Muslim hate. Trade union officials warned of a “backlash” against Muslims. But the backlash never came. Brits did not rise up in spite and fury against Muslims. Crown Prosecution Service crime figures for 2005-2006, covering the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks, showed that only 43 religiously aggravated crimes were prosecuted in that period, and that Muslims were the victims in 18 of those crimes. Eighteen prosecutions for anti-Muslim crimes – all those crimes are unfortunate, of course they are; but this was far from an “Islamophobic backlash”. As the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, said: “The fears of a [post-7/7] rise in offences appear to be unfounded.”
Time and again, Left-leaning campaigners and observers respond to terror attacks in the West by panicking about the possibly racist response of Joe Public – and time and again, their fears prove ill-founded and Joe Public proves himself a more decent, tolerant person than they give him credit for. What this reveals is that liberal concern over Islamophobia, liberal fretting about anti-Muslim bigotry, is ironically driven by a bigotry of its own, by an deeply prejudiced view of everyday people as hateful and stupid. The anti-Islamophobia lobby poses as the implacable opponent of bigotry, yet it spreads a bigoted view of ordinary white folk as so volatile, so brimming with fury, that they are one terrorist bombing away from transforming into an anti-Muslim pogrom. Yes, some prejudiced things have been said about Muslims post-Boston; but far more prejudiced things are being said or implied about ordinary Americans.
via Telegraph Blogs
pundit from another planet 
