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).
Yup. Venona nailed them cold, albeit, Ethyl wasn't quite as involved as originally thought.
Venona 'nailed' Alger Hiss also but his family still denies his status as a Soviet spy.
I vote we allow no Muslim to fly unless accompanied by Wayne Madsen.
This is the second Madsen article I've seen in the Drive By Media in less than a month (The first was an absolutely vile anti-Christmas screed that appeared in my local NYT-owned paper). This guy is such a moonbat that his stuff is even banned at DU (unless they've changed their policy recently). Yet the media sees fit to start printing him.
Are liberals in favor of allowing muslims to pray in public schools? Haven't seen that question asked in the context of this debate.
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