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All-American Muslim: The Perils of Propaganda
FrontPage Magazine ^ | 12-7-11 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 12/07/2011 5:46:23 AM PST by SJackson

All-American Muslim is on its last legs. Not only was the last episode of the show the lowest rated show in its time slot, losing again to Homeland, but it was also the lowest rated show of the night among the top 100 cable shows aimed at adults. While Homeland has improved its ratings, All-American Muslim has dropped so low that it’s hovering above the abyss.

Just to bring out the vultures, Discovery Communications is being sued by Visionaire Media which accuses it of stealing its idea for an “American Muslim Show” without compensation. At this point Discovery Communications, which oversees the disaster areas that are TLC, The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and several other learning channels that have turned into minor variations of each other serving up the same Reality content, might consider letting Visionaire have the credit for All-American Muslim which a month later looks more like blame.

The media which enthusiastically embraced All-American Muslim has nothing more to say about it. There are hardly any more stories on it and those few that show up make it clear that the writer did not watch the show beyond the premiere episode. The deadly secret of All-American Muslim is that not even the liberals in the media want to watch it.

That is the problem with propaganda, it isn’t very interesting. Negative propaganda can be entertaining, positive propaganda is stifling. All-American Muslim promotes Islam with weak reality show theatrics that are inferior in drama and entertainment value to the competition. It is so determined to promote its agenda that it utterly fails to be interesting.

With All-American Muslim’s fourth episode, Friday Night Bites, the show continues its obsession with making its women dress in the Imam approved fashion and with promoting the Islamic makeovers to general audiences. The birth of a child to one of the couples leads to a spotlighting of the Muslim call to prayer and the adventures of Fordson High School’s religiously cleansed team continues with more Ramadan than ever.

It would be a stretch to call any of this interesting. Watching All-American Muslim is like watching an extended commercial in which smiling people use a product and talk up its virtues, discussing it at length, in order to convince you to start using it. It’s no wonder that audiences are fleeing the show faster than infidels from the Middle East.

The target audience for All-American Muslim is someone who is extremely interested in Islam, but completely disinterested in any dimension or depth, who wants to see women modeling Hijabs and discussing how they deal with fasting, but isn’t at all interested in how the religion reconciles its claim of being peaceful with the violent tendencies in its midst, or who doesn’t care about the larger context of such things as guilting women into wearing Hijabs or forcing non-Muslims to work around the Ramadan schedules of Muslims.

These things are quite explosive subjects in Europe, and they are developing into serious issues in the United States, but All-American Muslim presents them enthusiastically and without any context. To anyone who is at all familiar with terrorism, watching the show is a little like tuning in to a classic cigarette commercial and feeling a little discomfort with the enthusiasm with which the narrator pitches the virtues of smoking a Camel. No matter how you feel about smoking, there is the sense that a serious issue is being ignored. That nagging feeling haunts All-American Muslim which takes audiences on a promotional tour of Muslim life without explaining some of the more problematic side-effects which include the systematic repression of women, the religious persecution of minorities and the criminalization of dissent.

The falling ratings show that by now even the most sympathetic liberal has grown tired of this approach. They may not be able to vocalize if for fear of being branded Islamophobes, but even the most agreeable and open-minded people in the world rarely like condescending lectures or advertising disguised as a television show– and All-American Muslim is chock full of both.

But like all propaganda the interesting moments come when you read between the lines and realize the unspoken assumptions of the people making their pitch. The more the show promotes the Hijab and the Islamic way of dress for women, the more you sense the thoughtless single-mindedness of the series which pretends to question the standard of clothing, but never does, because it can’t. It can temporarily accept liberalized standards, but it cannot part ways with the principle of the Hijab or the rest of the constellation of unspoken assumptions that shape Muslim life even inside a First World country.

Propaganda is revealing its own way because it tells you about the mindset of the people who produce, write and star in it. The more that they tell you how you should see the world; the more they are really telling you how they see the world and how they see you.

The implied premise of All-American Muslim is that Muslim life in America is different from what it would be in their native Lebanon, but it’s not too clear that this is the case. Switch football for soccer (which after all is still called football outside the United States) and it’s quite probable that you could do the same show in Beirut as in Dearborn. You could not do the show in Iran, where the Shiite clerics that you occasionally see on All-American Muslim have taken over and gotten their way.

The more those clerics get their way, the less freedom there is for debates on the Hijab or for that matter on football, considering that allowing women to attend soccer games in Iran is considered a concession. And that is the great unspoken variable in the equation of All-American Muslim. It is only the American context that allows for variation.

Back in Lebanon, religious coexistence has proven to be nearly impossible. Iran represses Sunnis. Bahrain represses Shiites. Iraq is torn between Sunnis and Shiites. If we were to imagine an America that was “All-Muslim” would it be a place where Shiite and Sunnis could even get along with one another, let alone with members of non-Muslim religious groups? A quick glance at the world gives us our answer.

It is a pity that the cast of All-American Muslim is too busy telling us what to think to grapple with such questions that are of great importance to their future and to our own.

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/06/all-american-muslim-the-perils-of-propaganda/

Click here to print. Copyright © 2009 FrontPage


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To: old and tired

There was somebody posting on FR a while back who jumped on me for criticizing Islam several times and starting extolling its virtues.
I reported them.
Their posts stayed up several days.
I don’t know what happened to them.


21 posted on 12/07/2011 9:38:36 AM PST by patriot08 (TEXAS GAL- born and bred and proud of it!)
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To: SJackson; All

NOTICE Keep pounding them while they’re down!

JIHAD PER TV REALITY SERIES!!

“ALL AMERICAN MUSLIMS”

TLC SUNDAY, 9 PM CST

This is to urge all of you to do all you can to get “All American Muslims” taken off the air.
This “reality series” is a blatant attempt to convince America that Muslims are “just like you and me” and to sabotage the work we have done to warn Americans of the danger of Islam to America.
It is supported by CAIR, Libs, and the ACLU.

Flood TLC with emails.

Protest

Boycott “All American Muslims” sponsors

Get up a petition.

They will destroy all we have done to alert America to the danger of Islam

This atrocity MUST be stopped!

.

TLC EMAIL ADDRESS:

http://corporate.discovery.com/contact/viewer-relations/

.

LEAVE A MESSAGE ON THE “ALL AMERICAN MUSLIM” FORUM:

http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/all-american-muslim-videos/

.

From ‘Bare naked Islam’

http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/tlcs-all-american-muslim-series-sponsor-boycott-list/

.

Here’s a simple email form to send: TLC SPONSOR LETTER

http://florida-family.org/take_action_form.php?message=51

.

“ALL AMERICAN MUSLIMS” SPONSORS:
BOYCOTT THEM!

Following are the Sponsors and their on-line web page where you can leave them a message:

Sweet and low
http://www.sweetnlow.com/contact.php

Clinique http://www.clinique.com/customer_service/contact_us.tmpl

John Frieda Hair Care- http://www.johnfrieda.com/en-US/Contact-Us

Walmart
http://walmartstores.com/contactus/feedback.aspx#2

Pet Smart
http://help.petsmart.com/store-help/

Dyson
http://www.dyson.com/contact/default.asp

Amway
http://www.amway.com/Shop/Support/EmailFeedback.aspx

Stop and Shop
http://www.stopandshop.com/customer_service/contact/consumer_affairs_subject.htm

Chase bank
https://www.chase.com/online/services/customer-service-support.htm

T Mobile
http://www.t-mobile.com/contact.aspx

HTC Radar Phones
http://www.htc.com/uk/contact/

Centrum
http://www.centrum.com/Contact.aspx

Home Depot
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContentView?pn=Contact_Us&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053&locStoreNum=581

Sonic
http://www.sonicdrivein.com/business/contactUs.jsp

Time Warner
https://www.timewarnercable.com/SoCal/support/email.ashx

NBC News
http://www.nbc.com/contact/general/

ProActiv
Phone: 1-800-235-6050 // Fax: 1 (515) 284-6745 // Mail: Proactiv Solution P.O. Box 11448 Des Moines, IA 50336-1448

Air borne Supplements
http://www.airbornehealth.com/contact/

Lion King

Kettle chips
http://www.kettlebrand.com/contact/contact_kettle/

True Blue Test
investorrelations@trueblueinc.com

Kyak.com

Kahlua.com

TruMoo
http://www.trumoo.com/contact-us/

Kinect

Bob’s Furniture

Free Country Clothing
http://www.freecountry.com/fc2008/contact.html

NORTH SHORE/LIJ HOSPITAL
http://www.northshorelij.com/NSLIJ/contact-us
(WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS IS A JEWISH HOSPITAL???)

Leap Frog

FACEBOOK Boycott TLC here: BoycottTLC
https://www.facebook.com/BoycottTLC

.

Check this out and see how many Conservative websites are
infuriated over this propaganda TV:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-&p=boycott%20tlc%27s%20%27all%20american%20muslim%27&type=

.

.

Pam Gellar:
“All American Muslims” is an attempt to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to bully them into thinking that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.

The problem people have with Islam is its teachings of violence against and the subjugation of unbelievers. It is with the supremacist ideology and the fervent believers in those noxious doctrines of warfare and subjugation. The ultimate danger posed by a program presenting the “normal” side of life for American Muslims is that it isn’t’t accurate.

The danger is in the deception and obfuscation of the truth which results in the intellectual disarming of the American people.”

_______________________

.


22 posted on 12/07/2011 9:41:12 AM PST by patriot08 (TEXAS GAL- born and bred and proud of it!)
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To: SJackson

23 posted on 12/07/2011 9:43:13 AM PST by SparkyBass
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

To try and destroy it from the inside, using all of our PC laws and liberties as their weapons of choice.


24 posted on 12/07/2011 10:04:44 AM PST by SZonian (Throwing our allegiances to political party's in the long run gave away our liberty.)
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To: patriot08

Let me guess...called you a bigot and a hater. That he knew many moslems and that we were intolerant?

I think I know who you’re talking about, I ran into a similar poster a while back as well, may be the same one.


25 posted on 12/07/2011 10:06:54 AM PST by SZonian (Throwing our allegiances to political party's in the long run gave away our liberty.)
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To: SZonian

Yep. That is he/she/it alright.
I tried to trace back my posts and get a name but was
unsuccessful.
Can you trace yours back?
I’d like to know if they banned this thing.


26 posted on 12/07/2011 10:46:28 AM PST by patriot08 (TEXAS GAL- born and bred and proud of it!)
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To: patriot08

Are you talking about Sand Bar Lake?


27 posted on 12/07/2011 11:39:08 AM PST by bayouranger (The 1st victim of islam is the person who practices the lie.)
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To: bayouranger

That sounds right.
Check and see if he/she/it is still here.


28 posted on 12/07/2011 11:40:37 AM PST by patriot08 (TEXAS GAL- born and bred and proud of it!)
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To: patriot08

Mine was on this thread, something to do with “bar” in the FReepname.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2812187/posts


29 posted on 12/07/2011 11:45:00 AM PST by SZonian (Throwing our allegiances to political party's in the long run gave away our liberty.)
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To: patriot08

Where? On the bottom of my shoes?


30 posted on 12/07/2011 12:18:42 PM PST by bayouranger (The 1st victim of islam is the person who practices the lie.)
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To: bayouranger

No, silly, find his name and check his profile. LOL


31 posted on 12/07/2011 12:24:34 PM PST by patriot08 (TEXAS GAL- born and bred and proud of it!)
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To: SZonian

I think it was Sand Bar Lake.
I would like to look him up and see if he was banned.
Probably not.


32 posted on 12/07/2011 12:26:26 PM PST by patriot08 (TEXAS GAL- born and bred and proud of it!)
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To: roaddog727

You missed the sarcasm tag.


33 posted on 12/07/2011 2:11:08 PM PST by petercooper (2012 - Purge more RINO's.)
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To: petercooper

No, I didn’t miss it. :-)

I just wanted to make it VERY clear (not necessarily to you) about my position.

Take
No
Prisoners.


34 posted on 12/07/2011 2:25:33 PM PST by roaddog727 (It's the Constitution, Stupid!)
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To: SJackson

From observation; there simply is no such thing as the ‘all American Muslim; given what being a Muslim is supposed to ‘really’ mean. So while there ‘could be’; in truth; and if there is one; he is less Muslim than required to call himself. ..Muslim. A ‘reality joke’ of sorts; and contradiction of ‘terms’. . .for sure.


35 posted on 12/07/2011 5:59:47 PM PST by cricket (/get the 'Occupier' out of our White House!/ Newt can make it happen. . .)
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To: SJackson

I have watched every episode.. It is actually a good show. Most of the people are Apple Pie Americans.


36 posted on 12/08/2011 10:20:49 AM PST by hippyhater
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To: cricket

An “All-American” Muslim, is considered to be an apostate.


37 posted on 12/08/2011 10:23:23 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: KosmicKitty

I couldn’t even get through a whole episode. Watched this one scene where this young bleach-blonde clueless Muslim chick was telling her uncle she wanted to open a “nightclub”. Uncle leaned back in the booth and said that wasn’t a “good idea”. She proceeded to argue her case. He just looked at her and said again that it wasn’t such a good idea, that her family wouldn’t like it. And she still didn’t get it. It was chilling.


38 posted on 12/08/2011 9:14:24 PM PST by llandres (Forget the "New America" - restore the original one!! c)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

They’re here to infiltrate and conquer by stealth jihad. They see us as weak and plan to keep using our freedoms against us. They laugh at our political correctness and naivety.


39 posted on 12/08/2011 9:33:19 PM PST by llandres (Forget the "New America" - restore the original one!! c)
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To: roaddog727

May God bless you for your patriotism.


40 posted on 12/08/2011 9:38:10 PM PST by llandres (Forget the "New America" - restore the original one!! c)
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