Posted on 01/02/2007 5:37:50 AM PST by radar101
Muslims are required by their faith to pray to Mecca five times a day. There is nothing sinister or criminal about people peacefully carrying out the obligations of their faith. Airlines that single out praying Muslims and deny them flight privileges permanently are no different from the five-and-dime stores that once prevented blacks from eating at luncheonette counters.
It is as unthinkable to ban praying Muslims from a flight, as it would be to deny boarding to a group of praying Hasidic Jews. Both sects engage in public group prayers. Both are exercising their constitutional rights as U.S. citizens.
Persecution of religious minorities by the majority is nothing new in the United States. Nor is an attempt by the majority to link religious minorities to some grandiose and evil global plot against America. The pre-Civil War "Know Nothing Party" attempted to paint all Catholics as diabolically serving the interests of the papacy in Rome. Catholics were systematically purged from government positions because they were suspected of primary loyalty to the pope. In the post-Second World War McCarthy era that saw the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, alleged atomic spies, accusations of communist sympathies often went hand-in-glove with anti-Semitic charges of being a "Jewish-Communist" agent in the service of the Kremlin.
Many of those Americans who would now paint all Muslims as being in league with international terrorists ignore past injustices suffered by their own ancestors.
The decision to remove six Muslim imams from a plane in Minneapolis in November last year represented a ratcheting up of the conditions necessary for the neo-con dream of a global "clash of civilizations" — a new Crusade that will pit Judeo-Christianity against Islam in a bloody world war.
The coming Armageddon is a tenet of the neo-conservative movement and is documented in the pre-9/11 book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" by professor Samuel Huntington.
Using the example of 9/11, ultra-conservative demagogues of the airwaves are quick to demonize traveling Muslims as potential hijackers. Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich led the McCarthy-like polemical charge against the six imams when he falsely told a New Hampshire Republican gathering that the six men sat in the same seats as the 9/11 hijackers. Gingrich added that the six Muslims should have been "arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists" and the flight crew who removed them should have been honored at the White House.
Gingrich and his ilk are the actual terrorists who threaten America. Their rhetorical flourishes terrorize innocent American citizens and the very foundations on which this country was founded. Their speech, not the protected constitutional speech of those practicing their faith, is what must be restricted in the United States.
Hate speech is unwelcome in today's America whether it comes from a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a radio talk-show host, or a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The world is full of countries that discriminate against their citizens based on race, ethnicity and religion. Today, we see the horrific effects of that discrimination in places like Darfur, Palestine, China, Pakistan, Iraq, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia. Some of those countries and others are at the front lines of the neo-con clash of civilizations. We must ensure that the United States does not fall victim to their militaristic designs by becoming an intolerant religious war zone. Wayne Madsen is a contributing writer for the liberal Online Journal (www.onlinejournal.com).
"Alleged" - as in "comprehensively proven by the Venona decrypts".
Does this imbecile have no memory? Or rather does he just hate America so much he wants to abet those who murder us? This man is also our enemy.
I guess the purpose of this article is to make the population at large guilty enough so that when suspicious behavior is observed we just ignore it for fear of offending anyone. Liberals and liberal bleatings such as this will be the death of us all.
Mega barf alert.
And just how is a muzzie supposed to know what direction Mecca is on an airplane that's in the air anyway? And why can't they just pray sitting down like the rest of the world instead of butt up? If the position is more important than the attitude of the heart, they've got some real issues. (Like we didn't know that already)
Whay can't they pray in their seats? They can't expect that
they can just get up and gather in a group during the flight. You can't even wait in line for the john anymore.
The agenda here is pretty clear to me; get an incident that could possibly hurt the self-esteem of a Muslim. Then call for the abolishment of talk radio. I'm not sure that this guy really understands the value of political debate.
I guess I'm just not as tolerant of innocent people being murdered by terrorists as I used to be.
WRONGO! There is something sinister about it, because we are a nation which regards religion as an individual exercise, pursued in private according to the individual freedoms of the first amendment. Our constitution comes first in the USA, and our religion comes in second, in terms of community manifestation of who we are. We are under a duty to tolerate the religious freedoms of others bit not to accept the imposition of individual religious needs on our communities.
Accordingly, Muslims are free to pursue their religion in the privacy of their homes, but NOT free to insist that our nation,states, cities, villages allocate time, resources, or administrative exceptions so that Muslims can exercise mass prayer in public. It is Muslim insistance that we accomodate group or mass parayer, along with the law of Sharia that is ominous, and anyone who thinks NOT is simply ignorant of the facts , and ignorant of the system of conquest that Islam represents. As a freeman, I spit on Islam and all it represents, and say that their religion is nothing different than all the others found in America.If Muslims can't accept that, then we will defeat them anywhere they wish, whether at the polls or on the battlefield.
He understands it.
That's why he's trying to stop it.
They were not "alleged" spies, but convicted traitors, they were not "accused" of having "Communist sympathies" but were card-carrying CPUSA members who did not make their affiliation secret.
History, for the majority of Americans (for the majority of the world's people for that matter) begins anew each morning with breakfast.
Wayne here does a great service by pointing himself out as one of the people Lenin would call a "useful idiot." That's one of the great advantages to living in a culture that values free speech.
Alas, Wayne would like to squelch that same free speech for anyone who disagrees with him. In the same manner, he appears to have no clue whatsoever about the current conflict between Islam and the rest of the world. I would recommend therefore that he keeps speaking loudly so we all know where he is at all times. Better that than quiet subversion of the American culture.
I would also invite Wayne to travel to scenic Baluchistan and share his colorful political opinions with the imams and the punditry of the region. Perhaps he'll reconsider his hatred of his own countrymen once his hosts introduce him to the rusty knife blade.
Put Madsen on the same plane with these people.
Then see what he says...
Wayne, you ignorant slut, MCCARTHY WAS RIGHT.
Click on the image to enter "Wayne's World".
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