The Idiots in the Main Stream Media

I found this article in the Washington Post, in the "On Faith" section. It boggles the mind to see people writing about things they have no understanding of. Ms. Thistlewaite has obviously never read the quran or the associated writings( hadith, sunna). It is disturbing to see how the main stream media makes proclamations about things they do not study or know about, knowing people rely ion them for information. My comments are in the parenthesis between lines.

Is fear of Islam the new McCarthyism?
By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite

Religious freedom and the right of free expression are the strongest source of power Americans have for combating radicals who use Islam as the excuse for their violent extremism.

(The extremist do not need excuses, they are taking their directives from the quran and its' associated writings.)

The struggle with such extremists will not, indeed cannot, be won with military force, but through the power of our values.

(The same values they respected so much when they brought down the World Trade Center?)


If there is a "narrative" abroad in the world that justifies violence against the West because the West "hates Islam," the way to correct that narrative is with the practice of our cherished ideals of religious freedom and tolerance for diversity of opinion.

(The "Narrative" is the quran, it teaches its' followers not to tolerate other religions, ideas or opinions.The notion that the west hates islam is just that, a notion, but a notion is all islam needs.)

Instead, however, conservatives such as Newt Gingrich want us to reject not only violent extremists, but also Islamic ideas, especially ideas on religious law, that is, Sharia law.

(The writer is obviously ignorant of sharia. Sharia is the racist, sexist, intolerant, hateful, ignorant law of islam. Under sharia this writer would be barefoot, pregnant and beaten, legally.)

Gingrich believes that Americans are "at risk" as a nation, not only from the violence of a "militant Islam," but also from the cultural integration of Muslims in the West.

(Islam does not integrate, it is not here to share, it is here to conquer)

The latter he calls "stealth jihadists." A close historical parallel, Gingrich argued in a lengthy address to the American Enterprise Institute entitled America at Risk: Camus, National Security and Afghanistan, where he is now a senior fellow, is the struggle with aommunism.
Almost, but not quite. The total approach Gingrich is proposing has a better historical parallel in McCarthyism.

(McCarthy went after people who denied any wrong doing, mostly. Gingrich is just pointing out what islam tells us to our face.)

McCarthyism has come to mean making charges of disloyalty or even subversion without regard for adequate evidence.

( There is plenty of evidence showing islam in its' true light)

In his address, Gingrich offered a lot of anger and fear, but very little actual evidence to support his claims about Islam and the West, or even his claims about the ineffectiveness of President Obama's approach to National Security. Joseph McCarthy, as is well known, was a Senator from Wisconsin, who used his position as chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to launch investigations designed to document charges of Communists in government. His often unsubstantiated charges, and the so-called "blacklists" that were created, suppressed American traditions of political dissent, and cultural creativity for many years. McCarthy was censured by the Senate on December 2, 1954, for behavior that was "contrary to senatorial traditions."

(The comparison to McCarthy is a not relavent. The communists in this country were not blowing up buildings, attempting to kill our troops here and abroad, they were not imposing their laws on the US. They were not killing their children over honor, they were not attempting to ignite bombs in their underpants, in airplanes full of people. The communists were not killing our troop at deployment centers, or setting bombs at Time Square. Should we blacklist muslims? Of course not. If they want to support his nation, fully, why should they be blacklisted. The truth is that most muslims are loyal to islam first, that is the beginning of the problem, a problem this writer appears to gloss over with accusations of McCarthyism)

But it is not the career of McCarthy himself that provides the best historical example of the political power of anti-Communism. Historian Rick Perlstein, in his book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, describes the way in which the "the politics of anger," including anti-Communist fervor, were employed by Richard Nixon. Nixon, junior Congressman on the House Un-American Activities Committee, recognized how popular anti-Communism could be as a political platform and employed it to eventually be elected president.

(Now the accustion of "the politics of anger", as though any American has no right to be angry about what islam is attempting to do to this nation. I believe a reasonable amount of anger is justified. Again, islam is not in America to make nice, until islam divests itself from its supremist doctrine, it should be scrutinized in detail)

It is, of course, more than likely that the tactics used by the HUAC were sometimes replicated by the Nixon White House and resulted in the Watergate Scandal that led to Nixon's resignation.
Gingrich, perhaps best remembered for his ethics troubles, his resignation from his House Seat and as Speaker of the House, and his confession of an extra-marital affair, is now moving to the religious right, as well as further to the political right. Gingrich says he will "consider" a 2012 run for the Presidency, and clearly this national security address that focuses on an "Islamic threat" is an opening gambit in that effort.

(It is fine that the writer wants to slam Gingrich, morally he is dubious. What about the rest of the Americans who see the same thing and are not morally dubious, I guess they don't count and of course this article could not have been written without some western person to slam, Newt was an easy soft target)

Conservatives are very divided over national security, argues Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. In light of that, an all-pervasive "Islamic threat," it seems to me, can look like a very attractive, politically unifying strategy. This is a cardinal tenet, in fact, of the politics of anger. People divided about their own constructive approaches to an issue can become united in the face of a perceived outside threat, as was the case for Nixon and Communism.
Violent extremists are a threat. That's not a fantasy. But why single out the idea of Sharia?

(Because sharia is hateful, racist, sexist, intolerant, icompatable with democracy and pluralism, incapable of allowing freedom of expression or religion... do I need to continue?)

I personally also disagree with adopting Sharia law in democracies such as we have in the U.S. and have said so, repeatedly.

( The first sign of sanity in the article)


But to make what is a debate over ideas into a dangerous threat posed by Islam to the West, instead of focusing on violent extremism, is to make Islam itself a vague and yet all-pervasive threat in very much the same way that McCarthy made even general leftist ideas into a threat to national security.

(Until muslims reject the supremist doctrine, reform their approach to their doctrine, islam is a security threat)

What is dangerous about the McCarthyism of conservatives like Gingrich is that making ideas in Islam into the threat, they risk fueling the very narrative about the United States "hating Islam" that violent extremists use to recruit young people. The only way to combat those who would use hatred of Islam as a reason to attack the United States is to actually practice our American values of religious freedom and political inclusion.

( There is nothing non-muslims can do to combat the ideas of islam, they are written in their holy book, only muslims can change their ideas, the author is being very misleading about what can be done. Islam is not open to debate, one cannot have a meaningful dialogue with people who, by directive, can lie to you. Islam does not want to be questioned, so for me to say the writer is "misleading", is me being nice.)

Newt Gingrich peppered his national security address about the threat of Islam with references to famous figures who fought Nazism as well as communism, though not Nixon. He quotes Harry Truman several times, but he does not quote Truman on the dangers of targeting ideas rather than acts in regard to fighting the threat of Communism.

(Fighting ideas is one thing, the chasm at ground zero is what happens when islam gets an idea,)

In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act, and wrote this about his veto: "The basic error of these sections is that they move in the direction of suppressing opinion and belief. This would be a very dangerous course to take, not because we have any sympathy for communist opinions, but because any governmental stifling of the free expression of opinion is a long step toward totalitarianism. There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have." (Italics added)

(So now we cannot critically look at islam, but we can beat up Newt Gingrich for his educated opinion on islam. The writer has a little bit of McCarthyism going on herself!)

There's another historical figure who was not featured in the Gingrich address, but whom we who venture into the media would do well to emulate: Edward R. Murrow, the famed CBS newscaster and analyst, who took on McCarthy and his tactics. On March 9, 1954, Murrow said these words that rebuked forever those who would use fear to manipulate our political processes.
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember we are not descended from fearful men--not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."
Let's remember who we are as Americans who cherish religious freedom and value political dissent. It is the strongest source of our power as a nation. We should value Islam as a part of the American fabric of religious diversity, debate its many ideas in the public square, and not be afraid to do so.

(Honor killing girls and blowing up buildings must be dissent, the chasm where the World Trade Center once stood is apparently not enough evidence, murdering innocent soldiers at Fort Hood is apparently not "disloyal". Until islam shows that it wants to integrate into the fabric of the democracy and pluralism that the USA shares, it will not be accepted as is.)

By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite August 1, 2010; 3:13 PM ET