The Islamophobe Doth Detest Too Much

Posted on May 14, 2012 by

Scapegoating Islam: Covering up the true inspiration for terror against the US.

Slide from Military Training Presentation on Islam

It is inescapable.  Every aspect of American culture and every level of American politics has been penetrated by the notion of Islam as a violent and repressive ideology bent on world domination.   Understanding the dangers of Islam is every American’s responsibility – offering a wink and nod to the ever expanding police state, a patriotic duty.  Trite concerns over civil liberties by the dissenter are to be taken as either naivete or, if Muslim, proof of collusion with the enemy.  Anything and everything is to be done to keep the horrors of 9/11 from revisiting the United States.

Well, almost anything.  Don’t you dare call into question American foreign policy.

The American campaign of demonization against Islam has been so relentless and omnipresent, that it appears to have succeeded in disorienting those of us working to counter it.  By and large, we have unwittingly embraced the framework of “Islam on Trial”:  the Muslim community rallying to educate and offer a softer perspective on Islam, and our non-Muslim allies standing in solidarity, testifying to our good character, moral fortitude, and (nauseatingly) our patriotism.  In the face of racist media characterizations, vile NYPD ethnic profiling and spying programs, and unbelievably hateful military trainings calling for the commission of war crimes and atrocities upon Muslim populations, the desire for compelling counter-messaging  is clearly understandable and arguably needed.  But we have failed to adequately articulate a glaringly obvious point that was made taboo in the days after 9/11 and has, largely, remained so:  terrorism against American civilians is a direct consequence of US foreign policy.

While the narrative of Islamic domination of “western” societies continues to percolate through the imaginations of Americans and find expression in laws drafted by states and municipalities located hundreds of miles from the nearest falafel or biryani, the precise opposite is much closer to the truth.  Against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, and Iran – to name a few – we have committed and/or supported occupation, ethnic cleansing, sanctions, and other violations of national sovereignty that have resulted in mass civilian casualties.  For the people of these nations, the threat of American domination is not a delusional distraction but a palpable threat, if not already a reality.  Just imagine the American response if unauthorized Pakistani drones were to start bombing the rural outskirts of Mississippi… then tell me, who dominates who?

Our domination of these countries is overwhelming.  The imbalance in equipment, infrastructure, funding, and technology translates into relative impunity for the US while we destroy entire societies through wars that have claimed millions of lives.  The starkness of this disparity leaves those defending against American domination with few options, and under such conditions, some segment of any resulting resistance force will turn to the unconscionable.  They will seek to inflict a similar pain to the society of the aggressor as has been wrought upon theirs.  While illegal, immoral, and unjustifiable, is it really all that hard to comprehend?  What is it that maintains the American taboo on expressing this minimal degree of human understanding?

It is becoming increasingly clear that the American campaign to demonize Muslims and Islam is being waged in an effort to interfere with the natural human inclination to empathize with those to whom we do harm.  It is imperative that we see Muslims as something other than completely human – something akin to zombies infected by an unquenchable blood lust – so that we may feel relief rather than anguish at the news of so many innocent lives taken through our actions… so that we may falsely attribute unconscionable acts of retributive violence committed against us to some ethnic, racial, or religious predisposition of the “terrorists”.

Armed Predator drone firing Hellfire missile

Armed Predator drone firing Hellfire missile (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I should clarify: while bluntly stating that “US foreign policy (rather than Islam) is the inspiration for retributive acts of terror” is taboo in the media, nothing could be further from the truth within law enforcement circles.  As pointed out in the AP’s series on the NYPD’s ethnic spying and profiling unit, the targets of spying activities were often chosen in response to American atrocities overseas:

When the CIA would launch drone attacks in Pakistan, the NYPD would dispatch rakers to Pakistani neighborhoods to listen for angry rhetoric and anti-American comments, current and former officials involved in the program said.

Similarly, the FBI and DHS released a joint bulletin a few weeks ago warning of potential terror attacks in retribution for US actions overseas:

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a bulletin Wednesday warning of possible terror attacks on the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death.

The advisory said there are no specific or credible threats but officials are still concerned that a “lone wolf” terrorist would view an anniversary attack, on May 1st, “as a symbolic victory.”

These are just some of the more recently reported examples of law enforcement and intelligence agencies responding to threats posed by American actions overseas.  You’ll recall the early descriptions of 9/11 as “blowback” generated by US foreign policy… insider jargon describing the phenomenon of retributive violence (and other consequences) of covert and overt intelligence and military operations.

So when Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Kelly say that they are doing everything possible to thwart another terror attack, they are once again lying to the people of New York City.  Despite their knowledge of the causal relationship between US foreign policy and terrorism, they have chosen to remain silent or, worse,  support US backed atrocities in the region.  Instead of building a public interest lobbying team charged with putting pressure on Washington to take domestic security into account when engaging in overseas acts of aggression, the pair have decided to put the city of New York on lockdown.  Rather than export “American freedom and democracy”, we are slowly importing the military occupation that we once reserved exclusively for foreign lands.  Militarism has been the prescription for far too many international interactions, and is quickly becoming the go-to remedy for domestic dissent.

One of the undeniable consequences of militarism is that it invites a response in kind.  This has been true of foreign aggression, and it is my fear that domestic militarism will eventually breed the same.  At that point, the narrative of scapegoating may shift to some other “out” group, but we can’t afford to wait until then.  We have to declare that we see through the smokescreen of racist pretext and demand an end to for-profit warfare.  It is our leadership putting our lives in jeopardy, not the arcane words of an ancient religious text.  In the words of Voltaire:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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Anti-Muslim Clarion Fund Promotes Anti-Muslim Norway Terrorist

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

In an e-mail newsletter to subscribers, the makers of NYPD training video,”The Third Jihad”, cite Norway terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and promote his anti-Muslim views.

Isla Mi Vel

Isla Mi Vel (Photo credit: boris.rasin)

In an e-mail from the Clarion Fund, the well financed anti-Muslim propaganda machine that happens to also be a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, subscribers received a disjointed collection of “articles” and links promoting the latest innovations in racist ideology, and a defense of its “work” which has come under fire from segments of the mainstream media.

Most notably, the e-mail highlights the ideology of mass-murdering anti-Muslim terrorist, Anders Breivik… and not for criticism, but as a prescient voice of threat assessment:

A reader from Norway, re: our movie, Obsession, writes:
“What a hot current topic this is! Just today the news came out in Norway, “officially” and in spite of all the PC-ness of this government, that according to the national security forces, the threat of Islamist terrorism is the foremost threat against Norway. You probably remember the July 22 shootings. One of Breivik’s arguments was that the authorities were not taking this threat seriously because you musn’t offend a Muslim. Interesting development.”

The choice to promote this “reader comment” to an untold number of subscribers fits a predictable pattern of projection by the Clarion Fund and its sundry ideological and fiscal supporters.  While their hate-videos accuse Muslim organizations of failing to condemn terrorists, here they are actively promoting – and arguably lionizing – the bloodiest terrorist that Norway has ever known.

This particular segment ends with a solicitation for stories of Muslim attempts at domination and states that stories will be “reviewed”, so the laudatory reference to Breivik is clearly no mistake or oversight:

Let us know about attempts by Muslims to impose Islamic laws in your community, report about radical Muslim demonstrations or activities on your college campus or in your neighborhood. Send us all the details. After being reviewed, your story may be published…

Despite this naked ideological support for a politically motivated mass-murderer, it seems unlikely that Ray Kelly will divert any of the resources dedicated to harassing everyday Muslims in order to investigate his partners in the racist vilification of communities of color.

UPDATE:  Think Progress and other outlets have jumped onto this story and have noted the disappearance of the original e-mail newsletter from the Clarion Fund link provided above.  Click through to the Think Progress story to find a PDF of the original e-mail.

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How Bloomberg Trains his Racist Army

Posted on January 24, 2012 by

As a fuller picture of the NYPD’s use of an anti-Muslim hate flick in police training emerges, it becomes clear that the department has, yet again, lied to the public in an effort to seem less hostile in its racism.

This is the sort of news that just ruins my day:

January 23, 2012:  New York Times,  In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims

Now, I say that such stories ruin my day not because I’m saddened by the incessant stream of revelations that have been exposing the NYPD as overtly bigoted, racist, and discriminatory from top to bottom.  Exposing the NYPD’s long love affair with racial and ethnic hostility is a public service in which I’m grateful to be able to play even an admittedly miniscule role.  However, such stories mean that I’m obligated to delve into the slimy muck of cultural islamophobia.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I had hoped that the focus of this blog would be solely on political islamophobia, or more specifically, the anti-Muslim policies and activities of government agencies, especially law-enforcement.  Stories such as this prove that it’s impossible to confront one sphere of bigotry without encountering the other.

So, this morning I wasted over an hour watching “The Third Jihad” – the anti-Muslim video that the NYPD used to train over 1500 officers, and I have to say that this is propaganda in its most intense, insidious, and clearly well-financed form.  In delivering an acute message of open hostility and fear-mongering, an experienced propagandist understands that it is critical to somehow counteract the “hate-vibe” which all but the most twisted of viewers find inherently repulsive.  To this end, director Wayne Kopping enlists frequent FOX News guest and self-described “Muslim neo-conservative” Zuhdi Jasser to narrate the video and serve as protagonist while delivering its most damning accusations against the Muslim community.  If you’re not a viewer of FOX but are somehow finding Jasser’s name oddly familiar, it may be that your subconscious is trying to repress his painfully stupid testimony during Peter King’s congressional Muslim witch hunt:

After Jasser’s credentials as a practicing civilian and former military doctor are established, we’re immediately subjected to his personal story of a lonely fight against the radicalization of a Muslim community that ostracizes him for voicing his patriotic security concerns.  What then follows is over an hour of Jasser introducing one classic islamophobic trope after another, supported by an endless parade of decontextualized violent ugliness, and a series of talking heads – ranging from academics, former CIA, and sitting government officials – speaking about the nature and “threat” of Islam.

Of course, the boiler-plate “this is not racism” disclaimer appears for a few seconds at the beginning of the film:

This is not a film about Islam. It is about the threat of radical Islam. Only a small percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are radical. This film is about them.

While this line is fraught with inherently prejudicial reasoning (what is meant by “radical Islam”?, what is a “small percentage”?, and why are the so-called radicals of Islam of particular threat?)  the film quickly abandons the notion that it is targeting only a small sliver of the Muslim community.  The title of the video itself, “The Third Jihad”, is a reference to the centerpiece of American islamophobia; namely, the sorry idea that Muslims fighting for their civil liberties in the US and Europe are, in fact, seeking to wage a covert non-violent war of domination.

Jasser promotes this delusional concept and refers to it as “Cultural Jihad” which he defines by stating:

[T]hese islamists use, in a most duplicitous way, the laws and rights they are given in our society to try to work against society and overthrow it.

This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America – a strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. … This is the war you don’t know about.

Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate.  When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.

Just about every Muslim organization in the country is then accused of having direct ties to terrorism and working in some secret capacity to transform the United States into an Islamic state subject to the nefarious strictures of Sharia (and while Sharia is never really explained, the incessant video imagery of explosions and masked men with guns and knives doing horrible things clearly conveys the message that such a development would be a bad thing).

I believe it is exactly for the promotion of this concept that the NYPD decided to formally incorporate “The Third Jihad” into its training program.  The central argument of this hate-video dovetails nicely with the NYPD’s long standing full frontal assault on the civil rights of communities of color.  Adoption of this narrative allows the NYPD to characterize the Muslim community’s complaints against racial profiling, entrapment, and spying as nothing more than a deceptive ploy in the ongoing Muslim campaign for world domination.

Covert Jihad: Make Love not War

Toward the end of the video, the filmmakers completely abandon the distinction laid out in their dubious disclaimer regarding “radical Islam”.  Citing the different birthrates between white and “immigrant” Europeans, the talking heads declare Europe a lost cause on the battlefront against a Muslim takeover.  A chart demonstrates the mathematical consequence of booming Muslim “overproduction” – a Muslim majority in France as early as 2091!!  Seriously.  In the estimation of Jasser et al, every Muslim uterus is nothing more than an incubator for the “third jihad”.  The viewer is taunted with the deplorable notion that the most common name in Europe might now be “Mohammed”, but quickly reminded that such an ugly fate may soon befall the United States if American vigilance in the face of this threat should falter.

Shortly thereafter, we are treated to perhaps the most singularly naked islamophobic statement in the video – no small feat – made by none other than renowned historian and political commentator Bernard Lewis.  Lewis peppers the entire video with absurd assertions regarding Islam and its history but speaks with an air of academic authority that plays as essential a role in this propaganda circus as does Jasser’s.

During the cold war… each side knew that if they used a nuclear weapon the other would respond in kind and everybody would be destroyed.  M.A.D. won’t work with Ahmadinejad because mutually assured destruction for one of his mindset is not a deterrent, it’s an incentive.  It doesn’t matter if you kill billions of your own people.  Allah will know his own and you will be doing them a favor by giving them a quick pass to heaven and all it’s delights.

With ominous background music and the image of Lewis, now thoroughly aged into a figure reminiscent of Hitchcock, it’s difficult to believe that such a statement is being made outside of a bad thriller fiction.

The closing shots of the video are of a gleeful Zuhdi Jasser, prancing about in an obviously staged and unbearably saccharin scene with his children, reminding the viewer that he’s fighting for his family and theirs.  As Jasser plays a mock game of soccer with his family, the viewer is invited to feel absolved of any bigotry by relating to this lone Muslim “crusader”.

So, this is what passes for training within the New York Police Department.  This is the fruit of a decade of cooperation with the Muslim community.  Perhaps a new strategy is in order.

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NYC Muslims Reject Mayor’s Sunny-Side-Up Racism

Posted on December 29, 2011 by

"Don't worry, the NYPD already told us how you take your eggs and coffee."

Members of the New York Muslim community have sent a letter to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg rejecting his invitation to an annual interfaith breakfast citing the mayor’s support for the NYPD’s program of racial profiling and spying upon the community.

The letter can be read in full here: Letter to Mayor Bloomberg 12/29/11

And an Associated Press story on the letter and response from Bloomberg’s office can be read here:  Muslims Upset by NYPD to Boycott Mayor’s Breakfast

Personally, I can’t say enough about how positive a step I think this is for the Muslim community.  This is an example of power-challenging activism originating entirely from within the community that confronts political leaders, attracts media coverage, and forces a response.  It’s wonderful to see the spirit of the November 18th Muslim community rally in lower Manhattan blossom into further efforts, and from what I’ve been hearing, this is only the beginning…

Bloomberg’s office has been quick to point out that the gathering will proceed, with some Muslim community leaders still participating.  According to the AP:

About a dozen people turned down invitations to Friday’s breakfast but “a couple dozen” more said they plan to attend, Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser said Wednesday.

In apparent anticipation that some community members would fail to respect the boycott of Bloomberg’s whitewashing efforts, the letter characterized participation in the event as a failure of leadership and betrayal of integrity:

We believe with heartfelt conviction that during times when a community’s rights are being flagrantly violated its leaders cannot in good conscience appear at a public gathering with the government official who is ultimately responsible and smile for the cameras as if all is well, when we know full well that it is not.

Respectful in tone, the letter nevertheless challenges Bloomberg’s unconscionable position in support of the NYPD’s flagrant violation of civil rights, and attempts to establish solidarity across causes and communities not within the immediate scope of the NYPD’s racist Demographics Unit:

Mayor Bloomberg, the extent of these civil rights violations is astonishing, yet instead of calling for accountability and the rule of law, you have thus far defended the NYPD’s misconduct. We, on the other hand, believe that such measures threaten the rights of all Americans, and deepen mistrust between our communities and law enforcement. We are not alone in our belief. Many New Yorkers continue to express a variety of concerns centered on a lack of law enforcement accountability in our city, from stop and frisk procedures in African American and Spanish-speaking communities, to the tactics used in the evacuation of Zuccotti Park.

Innocent Until Proven Muslim

Bloomberg’s office has made it clear that they will continue to deny the reality exposed by the Associated Press in the leaked Demographics Unit documents.  Claiming to only “follow leads” Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly hide behind Orwellian double-speak:  leaked documents have clearly demonstrated that the NYPD has classified the ancestry of countless New Yorkers as “leads”.  The race and ancestry of these New Yorkers, whose ethnicity or family’s national origin links them to a country with a sizable Muslim population, is what Bloomberg and Kelly are referring to when they claim to be following leads.  The attached slide from an internal NYPD presentation makes clear that when it comes to the Muslim community, ethnicity is a lead.  In a cynically semantic move, the concept of a “person of interest” as a lead in a criminal investigation has been supplanted by the openly racist “Ancestry of Interest” classification.

In the face of such bold denial of what we know to be true, it’s critical that we keep the pressure on, and wonderful to see the community doing just that.

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Racial Profiling and NYPD in New Jersey

Posted on December 23, 2011 by

Last night, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the Arab-American Institute on Racial Profiling and Immigration Enforcement in New Jersey at the Paterson Museum.  The event was co-hosted by the United Arab American Coalition and featured Charles McKenna, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, as “keynote” speaker.  A reporter with the NJ Record was in attendance, and a story on the evening is available here:

December 22, 2011: North Jersey Arab-Americans are urged to report profiling

Before getting into any criticism of the event, let me first say it seemed to me that the panelists and all attendees had the best of intentions in addressing the legitimate fears and grievances of the Arab-American community with respect to the issues at hand: namely, racial profiling and immigration.  The discussion was lively with more than half of the allotted time dedicated to Q&A with the audience, and everyone who had a question or story was given an opportunity to speak.

It is certainly a huge step forward to see this sort of forum taking place in Paterson, NJ; however, in comparison to the activism happening in NYC around issues of racial profiling, the guidance being offered to the community appears to be to work with the system rather than challenge it.  The major take-away recommendations from the evening were to use the dedicated form for filing racial profiling complaints with the Department of Homeland Security, and to call congressional representatives to complain or thank them depending on the substance of their voting or actions (or inaction).  While this is certainly sound advice, it really only scratches the surface in terms of bringing about change to policies that target minority communities.

Missing from the conversation was the coalition building that must happen across communities, not just within.  For example, any organization working for Arab and/or Muslim immigration rights should be collaborating with those organizations working for the same rights in Latino and Asian communities, among others.  The fight against racially profiling Arabs and Muslims will never make any meaningful progress if we do not join the African-American and Latino struggle that has been leading this cause for decades.

But in keeping with the theme of this blog, I had to ask McKenna about the NYPD’s spying operations within NJ:

Sammer AbuLaila of Teaneck said he believed Americans, and especially Muslims and Arab-Americans, had experienced a loss of civil liberties. He asked McKenna about a New York Police Department surveillance program that was exposed in a recent series of stories by The Associated Press. The stories revealed that police were closely watching Muslim neighborhoods, including ones in New Jersey, and infiltrating mosques and Muslim student groups.

McKenna said his office did not know about the NYPD surveillance when it occurred several years ago and he found it “intolerable.” He said New Jersey had better relations with its Arab and Muslim communities than many other states. “They did stuff we don’t do in this state,” he said.

Still, AbuLaila said stronger action should be taken. “It’s still a possibility that it is happening or that it could happen again because they took no action against the NYPD,” he said.

A point that didn’t make it into the article is that I specifically asked McKenna if any action had been taken against the NYPD for operating outside of its jurisdiction in its spying operations against residents of New Jersey.  His reply was that no legal action was taken, but that the NYPD and NJ DHS have since vastly improved their working relationship.  Forgive me for not feeling warm and fuzzy.

I have to say, I find it deplorable that the State of NJ has taken no legal or punitive action against the NYPD’s infiltration of NJ mosques and its spying on private NJ residents.  Exactly what set of guidelines, policies, or laws are the NYPD operating under when they violate the limits of their jurisdiction, profiling and spying within NJ?  The State of NJ has an obligation to protect its residents from rogue police operations, and their failure to do so only calls into question their concern for public safety and police accountability.  Residents of New Jersey have no electoral recourse against the Mayor of NYC to pressure an end to such illegal practices, and so are dependent upon our own elected officials to take action under such circumstances.

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Connected Struggles…

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

This past Saturday, December 17th, marked the anniversary of a few auspicious events of significant importance.  First, it marked one year since the self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself ablaze in protest of the indignities he suffered under a repressive regime, and in so doing, set the world ablaze in the spirit of revolution.  Saturday also marked the three-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement which took to the streets of NYC in mass protests that sprawled from lower Manhattan, where some attempted to occupy Duarte Square Park at 6th and Canal, to Times Square and beyond.  And as if that weren’t enough, Saturday was also Bradley Manning’s 24th birthday – the former US Army soldier accused of transmitting classified documents to WikiLeaks.  Hearings in his case have recently begun, and he was in fact, in court on his birthday.

Hena Ashraf, an independent filmmaker in NYC, did a great job of framing the significance and influence of Bouazizi’s sacrifice with respect to the global revolutions and the shattering of the Orientalist worldview to which only the most pathetically bigoted still cling.  I found these thoughts particularly relevant to the ongoing struggle here in the US:

Within the past week, momentous events have come to pass that Occupy protestors must take note of. The United States government has officially ended the war in Iraq. After nearly 9 years and potentially over a million Iraqis losing their lives, we are told the war is over, though Baghdad will have the largest American embassy in the world, and thousands of “consultants” and private contractors will remain in the country. The War on Terror has significantly drained US resources and has compounded the financial crisis, thus links must be made: Wall Street $ = War $.

President Obama has also said that he will sign the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Under this law, anyone, in any part of the world, who is deemed to be a terrorist can be thrown into indefinite detention, without charges, much less a trial. This includes American citizens. The passage of this horrifying bill codifies practices that the Obama administration has already undertaken.

The NDAA is a law that should be of concern to all, particularly those involved in Occupies in the U.S., because the government can use it to label anyone who opposes American policies as a terrorist and detain him/her indefinitely. The bi-partisan support of the bill is further proof that the two political parties are more similar than they are different, and that we cannot afford to get tied down into the awful election cycle. Our president just made all of us a target. He must be held accountable for his actions; it is imperative that we resist the passage of such legislation.

Please read the entire article which can be found HERE.

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From Wall Street to Tahrir – some disjointed thoughts

Posted on December 20, 2011 by

My birthday was November 15th…

Shortly after midnight on November 15th I started getting calls from friends, but they weren’t ringing me to celebrate the anniversary of my existence.  Instead, chaotic conversations ensued consisting of only sentence fragments with shouts and sirens in the background.  Liberty Square – aka Zuccotti Park – was being raided by the NYPD in an attempt to break the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here… partly because I’ve had trouble focusing my thoughts on any one issue for long enough to be coherent.  In the past 6 weeks or so since my last update, much has happened relevant to the causes that are the focus of this blog:  Muslims held a major rally at Foley Square in lower Manhattan demanding the end of racial profiling, domestic spying, and the firing of racist Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.  In what appeared to be a direct response, the NYPD arrested a young emotionally disturbed Muslim man on terror charges the next day… a supposed “lone wolf” in Bloomberg’s words (as long as you don’t count the NYPD informant who was goading him along since 2009).  In off-the-record remarks, federal law enforcement agents mocked the overzealous NYPD for this arrest of a man who they believed had absolutely no means or intent to carry out an attack on his own, and was clearly disturbed as he apparently had set out to circumcise himself a year earlier.  Nevertheless, Ray Kelly made sure to emphasize at a self-congratulatory press conference that the young man had sought to change his name to “Osama Hussein” in an attempt to more closely identify with his nefarious Muslim heroes (both of whom were executed/assassinated/murdered by the US, incidentally).

More recently, one of the most repulsive figures in contemporary American politics has taken the lead in the Republican primary race.  Newt Gingrich, who a little more than a year ago used “Ground Zero Mosque” islamophobia to unofficially announce his candidacy in the 2012 Presidential circus, has overtaken his islamophobic rival Herman Cain as front-runner (a turn of events which must have Cain’s wife wondering what sort of douche she’s married when the American public turns to Newt Gingrich as the less “cheat-prone” candidate).  To be fair, Newt’s moment in the sun seems to be fading rather quickly with the latest polls showing Romney and Paul gaining ground; nevertheless, it does seem worth noting that two of the most openly islamophobic figures in this race have held the lead for some time.  Just in case anyone doubts the depths of Newt’s ugly bigotry (and this only scratches the surface):

As the traveling carnival that is American electoral politics continues to highlight its freaks and geeks through the giddy childish excitement of a corporate press on an apparent cotton-candy sugar high, it’s important not to lose sight of issues that actually matter.  In part, my absence here has been due to the sheer volume of activism happening on causes around the world related to, but not directly involved in, what I envisioned as the primary focus of this blog.  Some of it, like the decision of Lowe’s to pull it’s advertising from the TLC show “All American Muslim” due to pressure from an islamophobic hate group is certainly relevant to the culture of islamophobia that politicians and law-enforcement help create and use as cover for the rollback of basic American freedoms.  I had set out to steer clear of the cultural component of islamophobia with this blog only because I feel it important to focus on the political arena where bigotry is dangerously shaping policy; however, there is no clear line between cultural and political elements as players in either arena are forever vying to influence the other.  Other blogs and sites are doing a fantastic job at pointing out and critiquing the professional bigots who have made Muslims their latest target, and I should link to them more often; yet, it’s the public political embrace and legal codification of this bigotry that I believe crosses the line from protected (even if abhorrent) speech into a denial of civil rights.  Bigoted rhetoric should certainly be countered, but racist laws and government actions that deny basic freedoms MUST be confronted, overturned, outlawed, and punished.

Take for example Obama’s acquiescence to the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act after an initial threat to veto.  Provisions within the act include the indefinite military detention of American citizens without trial.  Chalk it up to my naivete, but even after Obama’s extra-legal assassination of American citizens, I remain surprised by the degree of basic protections being eroded by this administration and embraced by the American public.  And ALL in the name of islamophobia.  Clearly, the worldwide revolutions have politicians and corporate elites (the 1%) in a panic.  The rollback of rights has almost nothing to do with “islamic terror” in my view, but everything to do with imposing a defacto state of low-level martial law.  As the political awakening triggered or consolidated by OWS takes deeper root – expect to see these detentions, assassinations, and spying operations spread far beyond the American Muslim community.

The permission to strip all Americans of basic constitutional protections is being garnered through the racist belief that those who enjoy the privileges of whiteness will be unaffected.  While ultimately a dangerously false presumption, it is likely that this and future administrations will honor this racist bargain for as long as possible.  After all, the state reaps a rather remarkable dividend on this deal – the surrender of basic rights that were themselves intended as safeguards against tyranny and dictatorship.  Eventually, however, after enough individual rights have been lost, those in power will use the law to violently enforce the inequities of the status-quo while wearing the mask of democracy like a cheap polyester Halloween costume.

One need only look toward Egypt to see how fear of “islamist terror” was used for decades to subvert constitutional protections and institute a permanent state of martial law.  Of course, Egyptians were not the ones to surrender their own rights as we are doing here – in fact, they have been rallying nonviolently and being murdered in the streets for the crime of demanding an end to US funded tyranny.  The following video is deeply disturbing so please watch at your own discretion, but I promise that you won’t take Obama’s rhetoric about democracy in Arab nations seriously when you consider the military aid we send to the nation where he delivered his most famous speech on the subject just a few feet from where these horrors are taking place:

Obama’s complicity in this brutal repression through his continued support of the military dictatorship is unconscionable.  Indeed, the brutality against Bahraini protestors is even more stark with the US president offering a nod of approval with his silence.   Similarly, he fails to acknowledge the plight of nonviolent protestors in Palestine even as another, Mustafa Tamimi,  was murdered a little over a week ago by IDF soldiers, and countless thousands remain in Israeli military detention without charge or trial.  Well, perhaps I’m not being fair on that last point.  In approving an indefinite military detention paradigm for American citizens, Obama has effectively acknowledged and indeed offered the highest praise for the Israeli model… imitation.

So, I’m sorry for this disjointed post… but this is just some of what has been occupying my time and mind of late.  I haven’t even mentioned the actions happening in NYC around vulture funds trying to rob the Congo, the opposition to the racist NYPD “stop and frisk” policy, the attempts to occupy new sites, and the upcoming memorials for the massacre of Gaza.  I might have to broaden the scope of this blog in order to keep it regularly updated, but would love to post thoughts from others working on issues of islamophobia, or anything else related to racist state policies and actions.

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