From Salon: A bigoted pastor who has assailed gays and Muslims is launching the "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero" a mere two blocks from the World Trade Center site this Sunday, but so far the project hasn't drawn a peep of protest from those who are outraged by the "ground zero mosque."
Pastor Bill Keller of Florida said today he will begin preaching Sunday at the Marriott at 85 West Street (see proximity to ground zero here). A weekly service is planned at the hotel until the $8 million 9/11 Christian Center finds a permanent space. (Fundraising is going well, Keller told Salon today.)
To get a sense of where Keller is coming from, consider his project's website, which calls Islam a religion of "hate and death" whose adherents will go to hell. It also says: "Islam is a wonderful religion... for PEDOPHILES!"
Keller is the same pastor who hosted a birther infomercial that encouraged viewers to send him and a partner donations to advance the birther cause. His Internet ministry explicitly calls President Obama the new Hitler. He calls homosexuality a perversion. And in 2008, he targeted presidential contender Mitt Romney for being Mormon with a campaign called "voting for Satan."
In short, if critics of the Park51 Islamic community center, which is explicitly welcoming of all faiths, truly believe that there is a "zone of solemnity" around ground zero (as Gov. Pat Quinn put it), they should be horrified at Keller's 9/11 Christian Center.
Ditto for those who believe that religious leaders should not build "deliberately provocative" projects around ground zero, as another mosque opponent put it.
Geller has declared herself a proud supporter of EDL mouth breathers.
EDL supporters Guramit Singh and Charlie Flowers. Photo source: Posted in comments at UK Indymedia.
From Salon: One of the chief organizers of the upcoming Sept. 11 "anti-mosque" rally at ground zero has denounced Sunday's protest, which nearly degenerated into a mob attack on an African-American carpenter, as "half-assed," "careless, unprepared, shooting from the hip and harmful to the cause of freedom and compassion" and an "ill-conceived botched mess."
Pamela Geller furiously rejects any responsibility for the threatening, racially charged tenor of yesterday's incident. But should anti-Muslim protesters here emulate her thuggish allies in the United Kingdom, nobody should be surprised when disorder and even bloodshed follow.
Geller has declared herself a proud supporter of the English Defence League, a far-right street movement that sprang up in the United Kingdom earlier this year to protest planned construction of mosques and to stoke fear of Islam more broadly. She isn't troubled by the EDL's shadowy leadership, nor by its connections with English fascist organizations and propensity for violence against bystanders, counter-protesters and the police. Last May she wrote:
Free people should support the English Defence League in its efforts to stand for England and the West against the belligerent invaders and Islamic imperialists.
The EDL is routinely smeared in the British media, as the Tea Party activists are smeared in the U.S. media. The corrupt, biased media defames any group, person, or organization standing against Islamic supremacism. They tar, feather, and destroy the good name of good people who stand for life, liberty, and individual rights. Libel and slander like "racist," "fascist," "bigot," etc. color every news report of every counter-jihad action. The quisling media is the propaganda arm of jihad. It's despicable. There is nothing racist, fascist, or bigoted about the EDL.
The brutal bigotry of the EDL and its leaders was thoroughly documented by the Guardian in an undercover investigation conducted over four months and published last May with copious video footage. The Guardian report includes the voice of an EDL leader boasting about what might happen when his followers overpower the police and confront counter-protesters. "If them barriers break one day and our lads get through," he said, "they will murder them all."
While laying siege to the city of Dudley last month -- in a successful effort to stop construction of a mosque there -- EDL hooligans stormed through town, smashing shop windows and vehicles and fighting riot police. The Birmingham Mail newspaper reported on July 19 that "violence flared as police attempted to get the [EDL] protesters back onto buses at the end of the demonstration, with EDL supporters throwing bricks and metal security fences at riot police.
The groups' ideology is reminiscent of the reckless demagoguery of Joe McCarthy.
From Alternet: Pamela Geller, the once-obscure right-wing blogger known for peddling hateful, wildly over-the-top rhetoric (she once claimed that Barack Obama was the bastard stepchild of Malcom X) and for pulling stunts like taping a harangue against Muslims while clad in a bikini, has parlayed the anti-mosque hysteria sweeping across America into mainstream media attention just in time to promote her new book, The Post-American Presidency.
Geller and co-author Robert Spencer have been relentlessly promoting the "nontroversy" over the Park 51 project. According to a profile in the Guardian, the pair have "been at the forefront of drumming up opposition to the center, two blocks from Ground Zero, through an array" of organizations like the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamisation of America (SIOA). The groups "have become increasingly influential as conservative politicians exploit anti-Muslim sentiment before November's congressional and state elections."
The groups' ideology is reminiscent of the reckless demagoguery of Joe McCarthy. According to the Guardian, AFDI "says it is fighting 'specific Islamic supremacist initiatives in American cities' and hunting down 'infiltrators of our federal agencies'." SIOA, which bills itself as a human rights organization "is tied to a similar group, Stop Islamisation of Europe, which goes by the motto: 'Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.'"
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg calls Geller a "lunatic racist," and laments the "very depressing" fact that despite being "a marginal nutbag... it seems as if she's setting the national agenda now on matters related to Islam and religious freedom." Spencer previously penned several books advancing dark conspiracy theories about Islam, including Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. He's also the proprietor of Jihad Watch, a wingnut Web site that helped raise thousands of dollars to pay for a controversial ad campaign smearing the Park 51 project on New York City buses.
(Salon trumpets this video as having 'gone viral,' but with 51,000 hits approximately, I hardly think of that as enough viewers to accurately be described that way. - Salaam)
From Salon: The man who recorded a now-viral video of "ground zero mosque" protesters angrily shouting at an African-American passerby Sunday told Salon this morning that a mob mentality took over the crowd as the confrontation escalated and some protesters apparently assumed -- wrongly -- the African-American man was Muslim.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans' words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums.
From the Wall Street Journal: Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites.
One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.
"By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who...enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames."
White House homeland security adviser John Brennan told reporters Friday that he had seen no evidence that the debate over the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, other mosque protests or the planned Koran burning had affected U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
A White House official on Sunday stressed that Mr. Brennan was addressing the narrow question of whether the debates in the U.S. over Islam were having an impact on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, and that Mr. Brennan specifically declined to address whether those debates were energizing the jihadists.
A U.S. official on Sunday said the administration was taking the upswing in anti-U.S. chatter seriously. "Terrorists like al-Qaeda and its violent allies are motivated already to try to attack the United States, but when it comes to propaganda, extremists are pure opportunists. They'll use whatever they can," the official said.
Many opponents of the planned Muslim community center say they have no bias against Muslims but that putting the building so close to Ground Zero shows an insensitivity toward the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Controversy over the community center, which will contain a mosque and other facilities, has helped fan anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. far from Lower Manhattan in recent weeks.
Jarret Brachman, director of Cronus Global, a security consulting firm, and author of the book Global Jihadism, said al Qaeda and other groups have long used imagery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members. But the U.S. position has been that those wars are not against Islam and that the U.S. has Muslim allies in the fight.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans' words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums, Mr. Brachman said.
"We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup," with the Islamic-center controversy, said Evan Kohlmann, an independent terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners who monitors jihadist websites.
Critics of the proposed Islamic center said their right to speak out shouldn't be influenced by the possibility of jihadist threats. "We will never win a war when we are afraid to even name our enemies," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an e-mail Sunday.
From Religion Dispatches: The proposal to build Park51, a community center, near Ground Zero has unleashed the beast of Islamophobia. Many people are speaking out against the Islamophobes, but we should not conflate this with support of the center.
The organizers of the proposed Park51 project lacked the vision that could have foreseen both the fabricated "controversy" of the Islamophobes and the discontent of the Muslim community that was not included in the planning process. Because the project's planners failed to foresee the former, the Muslim community has been forced to defend a project about which it is otherwise ambivalent.
Prominent Christianist Gary Bauer suggests in this editorial that US textbooks are flummoxed by political correctness in their portrayal of Islam, and that publishers are 'whitewashing Islam.'
One of the themes at the 2007 CUFI conference (whose attendees included Santorum, Delay, Lieberman, and Gingrich) was the threat of Islam and-in an appropriation of the language of fear promoted by neoconservative writers like David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes-"Islamofascism." "The lure of a sympathetic crowd and the chance to trade pieties with the most popular televangelists in the nation attracted Sen. Joe Lieberman and ex-senator Rick Santorum," the American Conservative reported. "Each preached to the converted: Islamic-fascism is the most dangerous threat facing the United States, and Israel is the frontline."'
In the editorial linked above, Bauer has pulled in his claws somewhat as he is engaged in advocacy to a general public that is more indifferent than sympathetic, but there is no doubt his agenda continues to be enemy-formation and war-mongering against Muslims.
In a gesture of religious tolerance, the Muslim Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) provided Yemeni Jews in Amran with clothes and gifts on the important Jewish celebration on Passover last Wednesday.
"During Muslim celebrations, the society donates clothes and food," said Mohammad Al-Qubati, the general manager of the CSSW. "Jews are part of Yemeni society and we are trying to reach all of society's needy groups."
When Citadel Broadcasting bought ABC News for $2.7 billion in 2006, there was some hope that the Islamophobes like Brian Sussman who lurk on some of the smaller outlets in ABC's stable of radio stations would exercise restraint because the new CEO was Farid Suleman. Many assume that Suleman is Muslim, but Suleman has never spoken of his religion. His place of birth is uncertain too, with some reports citing Egypt, and some Tanzania.
Unfortunately, whatever makes up the content of Suleman's life experiences and identity, it seems the steady anti-Arab and anti-Muslim beat has gone on, and on, and on...
COLLEGE STATION, Texas, March 24 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush is set to present the McLane Leadership in Business Award to film and TV star Chuck Norris.
Norris is to be recognized for his achievements as a martial arts legend, entrepreneur and humanitarian at an event Tuesday in the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center at the George Bush Presidential Library Center in Texas.
Put the word "humanitarian" in quotes. Here's Norris in one of the roles that made him a fantasy figure of Muslim-bashing for right-wing Americans.
The Pilibhit police on Tuesday registered a case against Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Varun Gandhi for his allegedly inflammatory speeches on the directions of the Election Commission.
Station Officer of the Barkhera police station registered the case against Gandhi for allegedly making speeches with an intention to create enemity among people on the basis of religion.
The case was filed under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Representation of the People Act and for violations of the model code of conduct. Pilibhit SP R K Chaturvedi said a team has been sent to Bareilly to arrest Gandhi.
The three-member Commission which met today and discussed the speeches of Varun, a member of the Gandhi-Nehru family, in Pilibhit in which he had made inflammatory comments against the members of a minority community. The comments drew sharp criticism from within his party and allies and outside.
In a slew of decisions, the EC directed the Uttar Pradesh [Images] Chief Electoral Officer to file a case under Indian Penal Code and Representation of the People Act against Gandhi. It ordered issue of notice to BJP and Gandhi for alleged violation of Model Code of Conduct. The EC also ordered transfer of district officials and suspended two others for alleged dereliction of duty.
Earlier, the District Magistrate and the ditrict election officer had sent Gandhi a notice seeking his explanation on the speeches in which he had made allegedly made rabid remarks against members of a minority community. However, the official was not satisfied with the explanation, sources said.
Under the Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code and under Section 125 of the RPA, promoting enmity between different groups on various grounds including religion is punishable by imprisonment which may extend upto three years.
Any person convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for over two years shall be disqualified from contesting elections. The EC's action came as Congress met the Commission and complained about Gandhi's speech. Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh said the speech "is highly deplorable and deserves proper action".
Apparently, if Jindal runs for the presidency in 2012 on the Republica ticket, the pro-Sarah Palin forces will run another religious smear campaign like the one against Obama.
While Maher was just exploiting the irony of the story, his via satellite guest for the segment, Brigitte Gabriel, was given a forum to further her fear-mongering cause....This story is pure gold to someone like Gabriel, whose mission is to spread a message that no Muslim-American, no matter how "assimilated" they may appear, can be trusted. With her glee in proclaiming on Real Time that Muzzammil Hassan had called the police to "brag" that he had murdered his wife (this is not true), Gabriel came across to the audience as a funny, personable guest. To those of us familiar with Gabriel, however, her glee was taken as something quite different.
The real Brigitte Gabriel is a woman who has said that Muslim-Americans shouldn't be allowed to hold public office, instructs people to contact the F.B.I. if they see a mosque being built in their neighborhood, and has said that Muslim-Americans, "Are good at nothing but complaining about every single thing."
For the purpose of correcting misinformation introduced into the public sphere, let's reiterate: Muzzammil Hassan never called the police to "brag" about killing his wife.
As someone who appeared numerous times on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, as someone for whom Jerry Falwell used to send his private jet to bring me to speak at his college, as an author who had James Dobson giveaway 150,000 copies of my one of my fundamentalist "books" allow me to explain something: the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes.
....
The problem is that when you deal with the Republican Party you're talking to the polished characters in Washington. I wish you could see the hate e-mail's that I have received over the last two years because I supported you, letters calling for God to kill me, telling me that I hate God because I supported you and that I am "an abortionist" and worse a "fag lover" because I've written that I believe that you will be a great president.
Of course, after Obama, all that fear and paranoia is directed at Muslims. US Muslims should be planning for the next national political campaign now as it will likely feature another huge media blast of anti-Muslim demagoguery. Consider your donations to Muslim organizations and individuals that respond effectively in the media to be an act of self-defense.
Vienna - Austrian far-right parliamentarian Susanne Winter was convicted Thursday of incitement because of her anti-Muslim statements, including the claim that Islam's prophet Mohammed was a paedophile. A court in Winter's home town of Graz also found the 51-year-old politician guilty of humiliating a religion.
She was sentenced to a fine of 24,000 euros (31,000 dollars) euros and a suspended prison term of three months, Austrian news agency APA reported.
The politician, who took a seat in parliament last fall for the Freedom Party (FPOe), made the anti-Islamic remarks in January 2008.
She also proposed in a discussion with students that Muslim men should commit bestiality rather than making "indecent advances" on girls.
The politician had pleaded innocent Thursday, claiming that she "did not want to insult anyone, but only to point out problems."
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Winter's son Michael, a former youth leader in the Freedom Party, was convicted of the same crime last October. He had suggested in a newsletter that Turkish Muslims were in the habit of committing bestiality.
