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Lieberman's Very Serious Muslim-Bashing Senate Report
A bigoted bombshell was lobbed from Inside the Beltway last Thursday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security under the "leadership" of Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking Republican Susan Collins. The report, "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorism Threat," (PDF) combines Muslim bashing with suggestions that would further undermine Consitutional rights in the United States.
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, summarized the ACLU response to the awful Lieberman/Collins Senate Committee report:
Though the need to prevent criminal acts of violence is unquestionable, targeting communities based on religious beliefs is unacceptable and unproductive. We will only end up stigmatizing the Islamic community and creating a nation of Islamophobes. We should not be legislating against thought and we should certainly not be regulating religious or unpopular thought. A dynamic debate can only make this country stronger and safer. (More here)
Is Islamophobia something to worry about? I think so. Islamophobia has been simmering of the back burner of Campaign 2008 for some time.
Take the case of Debbie Almontaser in New York. There are lots of statistics and studies, but sometimes a personal story is the best illustration of a problem.
Almontaser was removed as the principal of a new Arab language public school in New York City in 2007. She was thrown to the circling wolves by her own union and the NYC department of education.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Almontaser explains that she began to "help safeguard my Arab, Muslim, and South Asian neighbors in Brooklyn." Aha! Typical! After all, Almontaser is an Arab Muslim immigrant from Yemen. What do you expect? Well, expect more, because Almontaser had already spent years working with a "group of Jews, Palestinians, Muslims, Christians, and others who meet on a monthly basis to talk about world issues and give each other a sense of hope and support. Immediately after September 11, some members of the dialogue called to check up on how my family and I were doing. Based on the concerns and issues I raised, I was invited by these members to go to their churches and synagogues and to speak on behalf of the Arab-American and Muslim communities in Brooklyn."
What got Almontaser fired? She became the target of right-wing media fanatics who used her to whip up fears of terrorist Muslims teaching children to become suicide bombers.
The New York Post and New York Sun led the attacks. Sun columnist Alicia Colon was especially nasty: "So whose insane idea was it to have an Arabic public school in Brooklyn open this September? Are they out of their minds? Have they learned nothing from the Netherlands about the danger of pandering to multiculturalism?"
When I first heard of this proposed school, I thought it was a joke. But then I read Daniel Pipes's column about this disguised 'madrassa' and discovered who the major principals were. Now I can't dispel this feeling of disbelief and outrage. This proposal is utter madness, considering that five years after September 11, ground zero is still a hole in the ground and we're bending over backwards to appease those sympathetic to individuals who would destroy us again. Smart, really smart.
In one online essay, Daniel Pipes, a scholar and anti-Islamic pundit, claimed that Almontaser said, "Arabs or Muslims...are innocent of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."
The actual quote? Almontaser said "I don't recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.... Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion."
The bigoted media feeding frenzy was a disgrace. Months later the New York Times did the right thing and published a thoughtful article titled "Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School" (online here).
The Bush administration policies in the Middle East have been a disaster, and part of the blowback has been a tragic escalation of both Islamophobic and antisemitic rhetoric in volitile political debates. Muslims are portrayed as a barbarous, tribal force prompting a "Clash of Civiliaztions" in the analysis by Samuel Huntington. Jews loyal to Israel are said to be controlling U.S. foreign policy through the U.S. neoconservative movement and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The lurid and bigoted claims wash across the Internet. Such xenophobia and stereotyping has no place in a country that aspires to be a real democracy.
Debbie Almontaser was engaged in working in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities to challenge stereotypes and build bridges across communites. There are several initiatives across the country twinning the issues of Islamophobia and antisemitism. Almontaser, an early leader in such efforts has been slapped down by fanatics. Almontaser is still fighting to clear her name and regain her position in the courts. (Read more about Almontaser and an earlier Witch Hunt here)
It is into this target rich political environment of fear and xenophobia that Lieberman and Collins toss their bombshell report. And they promise more to come. More than fifty years ago, a lawyer representing another target of a political witch hunt confronted the head of an earlier Senate committee: "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
History may be repeating itself. Time will tell, and history will judge our response.
Follow Chip Berlet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cberlet
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Pathetic fools.
Fear is the weapon of idiots.
I thank god that everyone can acccess the internet and get facts about these idiots.
History shows us fear mongers lose in the end.
I am happy that the voters will see fear as an election issue put out of the arena.
:-)
Don't forget to vote.
:-)
Lieberman is the standard bearer of the old school thinking and engaging fear to continue the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a flashpoint for a destablilized Middle East. This is the kind of thinking that is old, jaded, unproductive and seriously lacks insight: it is a worn out argument against resolution of the P-I conflict and it will go the way of the cold war. Time marches on and so U.S. foreign policy must reflect the reality of the times we live in. The Muslim countries (within OPEC) supply 60% of our oil, Americans prejudice toward Muslim cultures serves no useful purpose. If anything, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have accomplished one thing: Americans have become more enlightened about the world we live in. American culture remains to our disadvantage: an isolationist culture. U.S. favoritism of Israel is a disastrous policy and will be the source of continued conflict. I am not ant-semite or anti-Arab, it stands to reason that there must be balance in policy.
Thanks for a thoughtful comment. a balance in U.S. Mideast policy is much needed.
Lieberman=McCain's brain. So if you get rid of Lieberman, McCain will have a mind meltdown. Noone to whisper in McCain's ear to correct his flagrant mistakes like calling Al Queda-Sunnis. And Lieberman does not know how to take "NO" as an answer. He was defeated in the Democratic election in his state, then chose to run as an Independant. Tenacious, bold, & arrogant. How did he ever get elected as a Dem in his state? Maybe he's also a complete flip-flopper so intent on power that he will pander to anyone about anything. I think, he is keeping his eye on the ball for some departmental head in the administration if McCain does get elected. Maybe another Rumsfeld clone!He needs to be exiled to one of the Muslim countries for life!!!
Maybe Joe could go to work for Obama to remind him that the USA only has 50 states - not 59!!
There are politicians like Bush and Lieberman that general public relate as individuals belonging to specific religions, however these cult's in fact have established regimes and terrorist's such as called by the CIA as "Freedom Fighters", and today called by these same agents as Al Qaeda. To believe any of these generalities and agencies are in truth related to God or religion in any way is self delusion.
Understand that evil and strong men (with their front individual as above) commonly and falsely throughout history wrapped themselves up in Flag and Religion, however only a fool or the seriously uninformed/misinformed would believe this as fact. Nor are individuals throughout history to be accredited or blamed for an entire nations actions or regime in control.
Hitler was not alone in Germany, Stalin was not alone in Russia, and certainly Bush is not alone and accomplished what has become known and continues with blessing of many citizen. History is written by the victorious Empire, still it is not all citizens that benefit from the operations of an Empire, instead it is by the strong men or regime and those citizens that did nothing but allow continue of Empire.
America today is an Empire by all definitions of the word, and although a godless few benefit most from the covert and Corp-Gov operations, the crumbs enjoyed by the general public should soon prove not worth the disaster that this will soon bring upon all of the nation.
It's time for a concerted campaign directed squarely at the hatemonger, Daniel Pipes: he has been the source for this and similar attacks for more than a decade, and its time for some pushback by fair thinking people.
Pipes will find it a whole lot less comfortable being the target of tactics like his own.
Well, I think the point is to be critical of Pipes, without stooping to smear tactics and stereotyping. I have worked with Pipes on studying apocalyptic demonization and conspiracism, and know that he is capable of some very fine scholarship. I talk about how "countersubversion" mania carries some people away in my longer article on "Almontaser and earlier withhunts" mentioned in my blog post above.
Pipes' brand of hatemongering has as much to do with scholarship as his skill at plumbing: nothing. Your objection is a red herring. The appropriate venue to discuss Daniel Pipes the scholar is elsewhere. It's time to address the issue of Daniel Pipes the racist.
Talk about Pipes the scholar is exactly as appropriate as a discussion of Josef Mengele the physician. Yes, he may have been one, once, but that's not the reason for his notoriety, and is utterly irrelevent to the present debate.
Pipes vends hate, not scholarship, using all the tactics familiar to any exploration of antisemitism, or indeed many other forms of racist propaganda.
Has Joe Lieberman become another Joe McCarthy?
Huff's article regarding John McCain's vote against Bush was picked up by major media and flashed all over the world. Great job Huff!
Now do the same with Lieberman vis McCarthy.
Thanks.
It is something a new President will need to face. Eight years of an ignorant, self-serving and predjuiced administration who, along with a sheep-like following in Congress, drug America down into a pit. The threats we may face are at least partly the responsibility of this government's attacks on Islam, forcing them into a corner, as it were.
The world has always had radicals...and it always will. Unfortunately the most dangerous radicals the world has ever faced were elected here in America. An extreme right wing psudo-christian, in control of the most powerful military in history, bent on destroying Islamic countries to steal their oil is what has upset the world.
We need to pay very close attention to our elected officials and keep reminding them of their oath of office which REQUIRES them to uphold the Constitution.
Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
This means we must accept a certain amount of danger as a consequence of our freedoms and if we allow our freedoms to be eliminated for security, then we don't deserve those freedoms at all. You can't ask a soldier to die to protect a freedom then expect the rest of us to give up that same freedom at home. It disrespects every life lost in it's defense.
The school is to teach Arabic in addition to English, not instead of it. Almontaser had nothing to do with the T-shirts in question. And anyway, infada means protest, a Constitionally guaranteed right in the US. It is the Israeli reaction that has an Army killing unarmed civilians, in order to incite terrorism to justify stealing land at the point of a gun.
Many of those who oppose the school are simply bigoted and dumb. The smart and perceptive ones who oppose it do so because they understand that multi-cultural understanding increases peace, and that a pool of competent Arabic translators is a valuable means of evaluating intelligence and preventing terrorist attacks before they occur. The far right loves terrorism, because it gives them a chance to clamp down on civil liberties, and gear up the war machine to steal from US taxpayers and foreigners.
There is far more evidence to support the hypothesis that one or more of the WTC towers was felled by a controlled demolition than otherwise. Also, the Bush administration has always behaved as if 9/11 was at least partially an inside job. After all, they did not fire anyone for doing a bad job leading up to 9/11, so it is reasonable to believe they thought everyone did the job they wanted.
Unarmed civilians lobbing rockets and mortar shells into a civilian town in Israel after they were given back Gaza...
Iran is flooding Hamas and Hizbullah with weapons.
There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that the WTC was blown up just as hijacked airplanes hit the buildings.
Those zealots flew into TwinTowers and Pentagon WERE Muslims. Like Christians are Christians commit atrocities. Crusades? Inquisition? Like religions do. Philosophy/ religions, Buddhism? Killing Fields? Hindus? Ancient to current history? Zoroastriansm?
"Stolen" my religion? Betcha. Legitimate to look at it that way. What religion core teaching authorizes slaughter? No really. Tell me, I got to know. Even infers it is JUST in any circumstance? Talking religion now, not tribal politics, territorial rights, oil rights, occupation rights, even human rights.
"Jews loyal to Israel are said to be controlling U.S. foreign policy through the U.S. neoconservative movement and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad." Let's see. AMERICAN JEWS we are talking about, right? Into something else again aren't we? Touchy. American citizens spied and handed classified information to the Mossad, hasn't one or two? In prison right now. Let's talk Lieberman and his foreign policy attitude. Is there some question that AIPAC and Jewish lobby aren't aimed to protect ISRAEL? Course not. All of us, AMERICA is committed, pact with ISRAEL. How far do neocons go to protect Israel? Extent they suggest WAR with IRAN is essential? Lieberman infer this? Maybe forefront legislator of this attitude? Kristol, Feith, Wolfowitz, Pearl, Lieberman, these men will send their countrymen to their death to advance their neocon agenda. Like, what? We got this super military machine, don't let it rust, use it! Thing about Lieberman that is so dangerous, he is a United States Senator who can directly influence that this happens.
Can you perhaps see, Balloonman, how some of the text in your post might be seen as invovling a wee bit of stereotyping about Jewish power?
No, it's not, if you go back to the late 19th and early 20th century Euopean Zionism it is not stereotyping but an historical reality. The modern pervayors are simply the most recent in a long line of treasonous provacateurs.
Let me ask you - why do you think American legislators are as beholden to Israel (and AIPAC), as you claim? Out of THIRTEEN Jewish U.S. Senators, the only one pressing for war with Israel is Joseph Lieberman, the vast majority of the rest of them are actually completely opposed to the Neo-Con agenda (9 of the 13 are Democrats, including Schumer, Boxer, and Feinstein, three of the most anti-Bush members of the entire Senate)
The Neo-Cons aren't doing the bidding of Israel or of American Jews. They are acting in their own best interest to do what their nasty little minds think is necessary for the preservation of America, and they're using Israel and AIPAC's support as a partner to do so. If AIPAC didn't exist, the NeoCons (they have their own acronym, PNAC) would still be out advocating for war with Iran, because they think it's in America's best interest to, by any means necessary, overthrow any and all unfriendly regimes in the Middle East. It's not about religion as much as it is about the preservation of American prosperity, and the fear of Islam.
9 of the 10 most influential Neoconservatives, are Jewish "Intellectuals". Explain that away...
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html
Irving Kristol
Norman Podhoretz
Paul Wolfowitz
Richard Perle
Douglas Feith
Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Elliott Abrams
Robert Kagan
Michael Ledeen
William Kristol
Frank Gaffney Jr.
Feinstein is "opposed to the Neo-Con agenda"?
LOL, that's HYSTERICAL!
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/11/feinstein_again_breaks_ranks_w.html
Is Feinstein the Democrats' Next Lieberman?
For the second time in recent months, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) on Friday confirmed that she will break ranks with a majority of her Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, in this case to confirm President Bush's nominee for attorney general.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Sen. Feinstein's support for the Mukasey nomination is a big victory for the White House. (Getty Images)
Feinstein, along with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), announced that she will support Michael B. Mukasey's nomination, virtually assuring his confirmation despite the nominee's controversial refusal to declare an interrogation technique called waterboarding to be an illegal form of torture.
"So whose insane idea was it to have an Arabic public school in Brooklyn open this September? Are they out of their minds? Have they learned nothing from the Netherlands about the danger of pandering to multiculturalism?"
This remark was in response to a Dutch politician, Geert Willems, who is a ULTRA-conservative (one might even label him 'Nazi") who is almost isolationist in his views. Many Dutch people view him as an embarrassment, if not a danger.
As an native Californian who has migrated to Holland, I find the Dutch to be the most tolerant and humane people I have ever met. They live in harmony with all races, religions and nationalities. They actively encourage immigrants to learn the language and culture. The open paranoia and prejudice of one such as Geert Willems is, in my opinion, a threat to the national harmony of The Netherlands. America SHOULD take a lesson from the Dutch and become more tolerant of people of all religions, ethnicities, nationalities and sexual orientations. America is very narrow-minded in its view of the word 'freedom'. I never realized this till I moved here and got a little perspective.
Actually I think they were referring to the assassination of Theo Van Gogh in 2004 as the "danger of pandering to multiculturalism", I don't think this context can be appropriately applied to Geert Williams, though Williams certainly has exploited Theo Van Gogh's murder as a means to stoke the fires of his bigotry.
"...ULTRA-conservative ( one might even label him a 'Nazi')... Why can't the Left get it through their thick skulls that National Socialism, Fascism, Socialism and Communism are ALL Left wing. Moussolini created National Socialism as a rejection of international communism, Hitler adapted it to Germany and added racial extermination. It was Joseph Stalin who labeled National Socialism "right wing" because German communists and Nazis were fighting for the same constituency. Sure, National Socialism was to the right of Communism ( just a ted ) but then what isn't?
Actually, most scholars argue that National Socialism (aka Nazism) and Fascism are either right-wing or ally with the right. No one disputes the socialist roots of Fascism and Nazism, but real socialists only made that mistake once...and regretted it.
Unfortunately, for most of us outside the US, America now equals 'stupid'. At first we thought it was just GWB who was stupid. But then the American people voted for him AGAIN. And then we knew at least half of the country was as stupid, if not stupider that GWB. Dumb and Dumbnation, if you will.
What a dishonest column. Almontaser was NOT fired because of "right wing attacks" or the benign comment posted. After bending over backwards to keep her, her defending of INFATAH NEW YORK CITY! t-shirts was was pushed people over the brink. She thought kids would take a positive message from "Infatah NYC" shirts, and "explained" why it was all just peachy to distribute them. Are you kidding?
Not actually what happened. The New York Times explained how that version of events was hyperbolic and misrepresented the complexity of her response. Times: "words that The Post, according to a ruling by federal appellate judges, attributed to Ms. Almontaser 'incorrectly and misleadingly.'”
Thanks for responding, Chip, but the fact remains that whatever your or the Times
interpretation, you deliberately left out the key element that lead to Almontaser's removal. What we both probably find noteworthy (and depressing) is, out of the very few responses to this article, the unfortunately significant % of loony, creepy responses-- the same stereotyping of Jews from the left that facists historically have done from the right, the "one or more of the WTC towers was felled by a controlled demolition" conspiracy theorist wackos, etc. I saw the planes smash into the twin towers. Friends died. It is sickening.
I don't know about you, but I find true believers on the left as creepy as those on the right. In the end, they are both the same.
Intifadah is between resisting and revolting against something. What is wrong with resisting and revolting against occupation?
Muslims in the 2000's United States have become the Jews of 1930's Germany... Just wait, it's only going to get much worse. The 'power class' needs an enemy to rally the people around so they can control the public... It used to be 'commies'... now it's Muslims. A sick state of affairs.
You hit the nail on the head. One sure-fire way to distract the mindless masses is to scare them with a boogey man so the traitors (neocons) feed their insatiable hunger for money and power.
I have said that before here, Muslim is the new Jew of early last century. I just hope that Muslims do learn one or two things from their Jewish cousins and use their brain more than their emotions. Though the Jews have suffered a lot more than others, I would have expected them the first to rally against this stereotyping.
Agreed. But there is one advantage Muslims have over Jews. They are 1/6th of the entire world population.
Jews have always only been a historical and numerical minority of any society.
And I wish I could say that Muslims would be more rational, but the truth is that they are extremely emotional in their reactions to events. Note the cartoon controversy of 2 years ago.
Does America (or anyone) really want to mess with 1.6 billion people who are not afraid to die for what they believe in?
"Arab language public school in New York City"
Um... this is America. I really think that we should be teaching immigrants - all of them - English, because English is still our national language. Never mind that we're too lazy to learn other languages - that's another issue. We wouldn't like it much if there was a public Jew school (for Jews who speak Hebrew and Yiddish), would we? Howzabout a public Spanish school? ("Bilingual" education is often a sad joke, with neither English nor other subjects in the native tongue taught well). What about a public Korean school? Maybe a public Black school? Oops, we have those, and they're bastions of poor funding and poor education.
It was wrong to run Almontaser out of town on a rail. It's wrong - and stupid - to consider all Arabs and/or all muslims to be terrorists. But we shouldn't start kids out by segregating them into their own little language-based or religion-based or race-based school communities, either.
And just how are all those non-English speaking children supposed to learn English? We can't just hand them a copy of "Oliver Twist" and a dictionary and say, "Go to it!" As far as a Korean school, if there are enough Korean students who do not speak English, why not? Schools are there to serve the students in the best possible way. Having taught in a school system with many English Second Language students in it, I well know the problems these students can and do have just getting to the point they can function in a regular classroom. By the by, comparing language based schools with religion or race based schools is not only comparing cats and cars, it's down right ignorant.
"Maybe a public Black school? Oops, we have those, and they're bastions of poor funding and poor education."
I'm not sure exactly how their "poor funding and poor education" are relevant at all here. The argument has nothing to do with whether or not the Arabic language schools were well funded or properly administrated, supposedly we're talking about the appropriateness of them. So why do you feel the need to bring this up?
The Democrats should remove this man from all committee positions.
He's not a Democrat. But thanks for playing.....
The Democratic Party has the majority in the Senate, which means they were responsible for putting Lieberman up as chair of it, which means they can pressure him to step down from the post. It doesn't matter that he's not a Democrat, because the Democrats are the ones in charge of his position.
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