Posted on 08/02/2017 7:23:14 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
WASHINGTON – Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) slammed a Homeland Security official on Thursday for allowing $160,000 in taxpayer money to be spent on a collaborative songwriting approach to fighting homegrown terrorism.
In December 2015, Congress appropriated $10 million in state and local grants for combating the rise of violent extremism. The Department of Homeland Security awards the money to various government organizations, universities and nonprofits.
DeSantis took issue with a $160,000 grant that the DHS awarded to Massachusetts-based Music in Common in January 2017. The Florida lawmaker noted that the group’s mission is to empower diverse cultures through collaborative songwriting, multimedia projects and performance.
The group writes on its website that it has served thousands of American-born and foreign participants all over the world since 2005, including Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, Somali and Bhutanese refugees in Clarkston, Ga., and Jews, Christians and Muslims in Orange County, Calif.
“In terms of effectiveness, collaborative songwriting – is that an effective approach to warding off terrorism?” DeSantis asked George Selim, DHS’ director of Countering Violent Extremism. “Is this a good use of tax funds? Was there any measurable success as a result of awarding this grant? Are there other groups which, I would say, are more fuzzy in terms of their approach? Has there been documented success from there? Because we looked for it. It was hard for us to find it, and it’s a concern.”
The conversation took place during a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security.
DeSantis, the subcommittee’s chairman said the fact that Music in Common has not received any further grants signaled that the approach was not very effective. Selim said that the group was dropped from the grant program because Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and leadership have brought in their own ideas.
In defense of the $160,000 award, Selim said, “What I can say conclusively … radicalization is not a linear process. There are multiple ways that individuals in the United States and across the globe have been radicalized, thus the solution sets to preventing and intervening in the process of radicalization are equally diverse and multidisciplinary.”
He said that the main objectives of Countering Violent Extremism is to view overall readiness for preventing radicalization with a focus on recruitment, community willingness to engage law enforcement and increased capability for law enforcement. The grant program, he said, “ups our readiness game.”
DeSantis asked Raheel Raza, a practicing Muslim and president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, if the collaborative songwriting approach sounded like an effective strategy for combating radicalization. Raza called for a more direct approach, stating that this “fluff stuff” has not led to any direct decrease in radicalization and hasn’t led to countering violent extremism. She said DHS needs specific policies in place that tackle the ideology, while also speaking against government agencies that dance around the term of radical Islam in government manuals, a trend that DeSantis acknowledged.
Separating Islamist ideology from the spiritual message of Islam, Raza said, “is a very pro-Islamic thing to do.”
“It’s not about political correctness,” Raza said. “There are people here in the West who are afraid to use the term ‘radical Islamic ideology’ because they think that it is anti-Muslim. It is actually very pro-Muslim because it makes the ordinary masses of people understand the fate of Islam and an ideology, which is political in nature, and which is evil in its agenda.”
DeSantis asked if DHS should be designating groups like the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist supporting organizations, which he believes could impede finances to domestic groups.
“In order to fight the ideology, you have to name it,” Raza said.
NUKE BUSH’S USELESS BUREAUCRATIC DHS AND GET BACK TO EFFECTIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE FBI & CIA.
I’ve decided to apply for this grant. I’m writing a song called, “Don’t blow me up, bro”.
More proof from opening the can of despicable bottom-feeding worms in government! At some point, We The People will be fed up enough to Repeal and Replace bureaucrats at every level of this infected bottom-feeding, self-serving government.
DRAIN THE FREAKING SWAMP!!!
I hope someone FOIA’s the grant application and makes it public.
Add in a refrain about how beheading is not the way to go, and you might just get the grant!
How about a song about Bacon Haters. Maybe. A stanza about Goat F$*<er’s.
How does one even find out about and apply to the massive Fed.gov bureaucracy of Homeland Security requesting monies available under some obscure purpose?
I assume rather its cover for what otherwise is simply an earmark that some Congressman bestowed on a political group for political organizing services??
“What I can say conclusively … radicalization is not a linear process. There are multiple ways that individuals in the United States and across the globe have been radicalized, thus the solution sets to preventing and intervening in the process of radicalization are equally diverse and multidisciplinary.”
Only pointed-headed PhDs in useless studies talk like that. What a bunch of amphigory.
Wait a minute here, those government propaganda commercials on the radio, oops I mean public service announcements, are AWESOME. I never really believed in advertising and the power of a little jingle song. But then I find myself whistling that government tune as I buckle my seatbeat, refuse to text, decide not to beat women, keep my car out of the HOV lane, just say no...etc.
Maybe an anti-terrorism song is just what we’ve needed all along!
So there he is, walking along in his suicide vest, and in a passing car he hears a little jingle, “It’s not cool, to be a suicide FOOL la la la la” ,, and his terror attack is averted.
God ... these money wasting idiots.
I wonder why no interpretive dance, but only a song about terror?
It is the usual leftist, dishonest in its pro-Islam and pro-illegal immigration propaganda, kind of organization:
https://www.purecharity.com/music-in-common-urgencyfundraiser?aff=7g4rm
In 1978 the Grateful Dead played Egypt. Yeah, Jerry Garcia, picking some dance tunes and blues right there in Giza. A couple of local performers came up and jammed with them so it wasn’t just American musical imperialism. So if THAT didn’t make them think, “say, maybe I -shouldn’t- murder people, NOTHING will”.
I don’t think music is the answer to terror.
Per the founder’s Facebook post here, the grant was revoked a few weeks ago:
Todd Mack
July 27 at 9:04pm ·
Pure Charity
·
Dear friends, I have a birthday wish. Music in Common received some pretty devastating news....news that could topple us and bring our 12 years of community building to an end if we don’t raise the money that was taken from us by the Trump administration a few weeks ago. (Not trying to pick a fight or sling mud, just relaying the facts.) I am humbly asking everyone I know (and those I don’t) to please consider making a donation of any amount to this emergency fundraising campaign and share this post as widely as possible with friends, family, and beyond. Help us raise $5,300 today in honor of my 53rd birthday. With deep gratitude, Todd
https://www.facebook.com/toddmackmusic/
“How does one even find out about and apply to the massive Fed.gov bureaucracy of Homeland Security requesting monies available under some obscure purpose?”
I agree with you that this was some corrupt earmark. All the more likely since it went to a Massachusetts business.
But watch the movie “War Dogs”, it has a pretty worthy explanation of that very question about government war on terror contracting.
“Don’t Nape Me Bro!”
Just curious...
Without your having the benefit of hindsight being 20-20, what should the Bush 43 administration have done differently? It was an idea whose time had come, however forcibly. Today, the DHS may be an idea whose time has come and gone. If the government is supposed to be doing more with less these days, it would make sense to bring the DHS (as we know it) to an end.
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