Obama, Osama and the NBA Factor

Osama Bin Laden

President Barack Obama has achieved what two other American presidents failed to do -- kill Osama Bin Laden.

I first learned of this on social media and I soon started checking out reliable news sites to confirm the news. Soon, the AP and CNN confirmed that a military strike had indeed killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.

But this leads to a deeper point about the presidency and race. Obama has already broken through the glass ceiling and achieved a position that many thought was reserved for white men. That in itself has created much anxiety among some White Americans who were already fearful about their rapidly shrinking majority.

I believe many white people were secretly scared not of Obama failing, but of him succeeding. This is what I call the NBA factor. The NBA was once an industry made up of exclusively white males. But in the 1950s, black athletes were allowed to compete, and eventually dominated the industry. Now the NBA is almost 80 percent black and black athletes are the face of the sport.

The NBA is an example of a place where black men have been given a chance, and have not only succeeded but also dominated. The NBA factor translates these fears to the board room and now politics. I believe many white employers are reluctant to let black men into the board room, because they are scared of them succeeding.

Obama’s presidency was unique because he simply couldn’t fail. If he done a terrible job, many Americans would have said, “That’s the last time I am voting for a black candidate.”

Now Barack Obama has done a more than competent job as president. including rescuing the economy from collapse, saving the U.S. car industry, passing health care reform, withdrawing troops from Iraq and now killing Osama Bin Laden, you have to wonder if some white people are saying, “It’s like the NBA, now they are going to take over.”

King Hearings Make Muslims The New Racial Bogey Man

As a black person who has lived 40 years on this planet, I’d like to think that we have made racial progress. But then you hear about things like Rep. Peter King’s Congressional hearings on Islamic terrorism.

King’s hearing on home-grown Muslim terrorism kick off Thursday. This McCarthy-like circus is the culmination of about 12-month of rising anti-Muslim hysteria. This has included protests in the streets of New York over Park51, a mosque scheduled to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero, demonstrations against mosque construction in California and Tennessee and frenzied warnings about alleged plans to impose Sharia law in the United States. (It should be noted that Muslims currently account for less than 0.5 percent of the U.S population.)

This Islamophobic propaganda has been disseminated by a host of shrill, racist commentators. People such as Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, who claimed that the NASA sign had hidden Muslim symbols, Pam Geller, a lunatic blogger, who claimed that President Obama was Malcolm X’s son, and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who has said we should end Muslim immigration.

And all of these propagandists get an open forum on the neo fascist/neo racist FOX News, which is ironically partially owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who also funded Park51. (Although this has been covered extensively by Think Progress and “The Daily Show,” you won’t find this information on FOX or other right-wing outlets.)

Islamophobia is not just words, it has spurred violent action. In Sacramento, two Sikhs were killed in an attack which police believe was a hate crime, and a video from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed Tea Party protestors haranguing Muslims, including children, at a fundraiser in Orange County. Speaking at the event, Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly said, “As a matter of fact, I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.”

Now King brings this rising Islamophobia to a head with his farcical hearings. King claims that about 80 percent of American mosques harbor radical imams. Ironically, he doesn’t plan to call any senior law enforcement or intelligence officials to testify at the hearings. Maybe, because they would disprove his accusations.

According to an article in Think Progress, more domestic terrorist attacks have come from non-Muslim terrorists, than Muslims terrorists. Writer Zaid Jilani says: “In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attacks plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.” Jack O’Reilly Jr., mayor of Dearborn, Mich., a city with a 30 percent Arab population, has described King’s accusations as “just not true.”

King himself has a long history with terrorism. His great uncle was a member of the IRA, which was responsible for a series of terrorist bombings of London in the 1970s and 1980s. King was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and according to the New York Times he said, ““If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.” He was also accused by a Belfast judge of being “an obvious collaborator.”

It’s questionable why King has launched his quixotic campaign against terrorism. His anti-Islam hearings could be a cynical attempt to boost his profile. And it's seems to be working, because he is all over the media. If you didn't know who he was before, you do now. Maybe King, like pseudo-politicians Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, he is following the format of making outrageous comments to sell more books and book more media appearances. But this sudden outburst of Islamophobia is more calculated. Studies show that anti-Muslim rhetoric spiked in the run up to the mid-term election. This is really about politics and scaring people into voting against their own interests.

The upper-class whites who controls this country don’t care about working-class whites who drive Toyotas and shop at Wal-Mart. The only thing that alligns them with working class whites is racism. And over the last 40 years, the Republican party has mined that fear to get people to vote. For a long time it was blacks, with fears of integration and “welfare mothers in Cadillacs,” then it was fear of gays, who were destroying the traditional family, then it was Latinos threatening American culture with the Spanish language. But all of these minority groups have largely been mainstreamed.

The new ethnic bogey man is Muslims (read Arabs.) The right doesn’t seem to care that not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs. To them it doesn’t matter as long as it gets NASCAR dads and Tea Baggers to forget about their vanishing 401ks, declining home prices, the awful health care system and the cost of two foreign wars. Muslim is the new black.


What do you think of the Rep. Peter King hearings?Market Research

Muslim is the New Black

The new wave of Islamophobia is embarrassing and frightening

It seems that some elements of the GOP always need to have a new enemy to hate. Almost 30 years ago, Richard Nixon used the Southern strategy to end the Democratic party’s stranglehold on the former Confederate states.

Black people have been a convenient whipping boy for the GOP over the last few decades, through code words such as “welfare queens” and “state rights.” Then after the growth of the gay rights movement and the rise of AIDS, gays become a convenient enemy for the newly invigorated fundamentalist wing of the Republican party.

But after 9-11, Muslims seem to have become public enemy no. 1. There were a few unfortunate incidents of anti-Muslim violence after 9-11, but it did not reach the level of hysteria we have seen in the past few months. The rhetoric coming from the Tea Party and the GOP is both embarrassing and frightening. Recently we have seen:

• A concerted effort from activists to prevent the construction of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. This has inspired race-baiting comments from presidential aspirants Newt Gingrich and pinup pundit Sarah Palin.
• Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who declared that “Islam was not a religion, and more like a cult.”
• Evangelical churches and synagogues have hosted Brigette Gabriel, a speaker who says that Muslims “do not have souls,” and a Florida church held a “Burn a Koran” day.
• Pam Geller, an unhinged right-wing blogger who lies every time she opens her mouth, has spouted nonsensical claims such as President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim who cavorts with hookers, Muslims have infiltrated the government and military, and Muslims plan to introduce Sharia law.
• Several Christian groups have protested the proposed construction of new mosque around the country, even in supposedly liberal California. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said that he would like to see construction of all mosques cease.

Much of this new wave of Islamohobia is driven by fact-free propaganda spread through pseudo news outlets like FOX News and AM radio. A recent study by Media Matters showed that 75 percent of the guests on FOX News, the “fair and balanced network,” were opposed to construction of the mosque near Ground Zero. The Tea Party has also amplified this xenophobia. One of the current memes spreading through the right-wing media is the idea that Muslims want to secretly take over America by out-breeding good Christian folk.

In a recent New York Times article, Tea Bagger Diane Serfain says, “As a mother and a grandmother, I worry. I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented.” This would take a few generations because according to a 2001 study by the City University of New York, Muslims make up 0.5 percent of the U.S. population.

Americans who are swallowing this garbage should stop and ask themselves, what do the people spreading these lies actuality know about Islam? Sarah Palin just left the country for the first time a few years ago, and barely understands English and Christianity, so is she really the best person to go turn to for advice about Islam? And as for Ramsey, a Methodist, who has spent his entire life in Tennessee which is 1 percent Muslim, has he even had a conversation with a real-life Muslim?

These Islamohobes also seem to forget that freedom of religion is one of the central tenets of this country and is enshrined in the constitution. A few years ago. Gen. (rtd.) Colin Powell criticized Islamophobes and said that many Muslims had given their lives for this country serving in the military. Recently President Obama declared that "I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.”

The terrorists attacks on 9-11 also killed several hundred Muslims. Al-Qaeda kills indiscriminately, they do not care if their bombs rip into Muslims who happen to be in their way, which I am sure is one of their many violations of the Koran.

Islamic terrorists seem to be doing to their religion what the KKK,did to Christianity. Although the Klan claimed they were good Christian men fighting to protect women and the Southern way of life, anyone with half a brain knew they were as far from being Christian as a Satanist.

American Islamophobes are taking the worst parts of Islam to to stereotype a whole group of people. Christianity also has it’s own dark periods such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the church-backed conquest of Africa and the Americas. Also many American clergyman, including Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, supported segregation and were against the Civil Rights movement. It would unfair to judge Christianity by these examples, although many black people have rejected the religion because of its ties to colonialism and white supremacy..

This hatred is not unfamiliar to black people. There was a time when “Christians” said we did not have souls. And many police officers still believe that black men are guilty until proven innocent, But in the age of Obama and Republican neocoons like Alan Keyes and Jesse Lee Patterson, you can get away with a lot more with anti-Muslim hatred.

Islamophobia is a new potent form of racism,because it is backed by religion, which always appeals to irrational thoughts, and many Muslims are well, foreign-looking. (However a visit to a mosque will tell you that Muslims come in every shade of color found on this planet.)

Unfortunately it is easy to demonize a small group of people, who practise a religion that most close-minded Americans know nothing about. And the War on Terror gives people all the more reason to be suspicious of Muslims and anyone who looks Middle Eastern. Americans can now hide their xenophobia behind patriotism, because hating minorities is as American as apple pie.

Right-Wing Violence Shows America Also Needs Mental Health, Education Reform

The recent violent health care protests and spate of terrorist threats aimed at Democratic politicians should prove one thing. Apart from overhauling health care, America needs to spend a lot more on mental health and education.

It seems obvious that many of these domestic terrorists were either mentally ill or simply not too bright. First it was the Hutaree, a bunch of gun-toting rednecks, who wanted to wage war against the government, and now it is Gregory Giusiti, who phoned in threats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He bragged that his calls were untraceable because he was using Phone Jack, an Internet-based phone service. But the FBI tracked him down ... using his phone records.

Giusti's mother implies that he is not the sharpest tool in the shed and was affected by mass consumption of FOX News. (That product should really come with a government warning.) The Hutaree aren't much better. Apart from creating an imaginary name, these jokers also created a map and imagined areas of the country they wanted to take over, along with the imaginary names for these new regions. You almost want to say, "You and who's army?"

It is evident that there are many angry people in this country. They are upset about the economy, the loss of decent labor jobs and the nation's changing demographics. To these people, seeing a black man in the White House is rubbing salt into the wound. But combine that with possible mental health issues, poor education and rabble-rousing media, like FOX News, and it's a recipe for disaster.

When the economy is running well, the average American blue-collar worker, is happy to have his truck, his dip and his guns. But when that economy starts to falter, that same worker, starts to look for scapegoats for his economic situation. The greatest success of FOX News is that it manage to convince average white Americans, that the real enemies are liberals, gays, blacks, Mexicans and Arabs. Anyone apart from the real culprits, wealthy white males. Black and brown people weren't the ones who ran up the deficit, started two wars, laid you off and prepossessed your home. In fact most of them were Republicans, like George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/04/idiocy_a_key_tool_against_the_domestic_terrorists.php?ref=mp

Tea Party Seems to Be Headed for a "McVeigh Moment"

We hear daily reports of terrorism -- yes terrorism -- linked to the Tea Party. The last time I checked this included racial and sexual insults, bricks thrown through windows and spitting. The most recent event involves Rep.Tom Perriello (D-Va.). A Tea Party activist mistakenly published Perriello's brother's address and urged other Tea Baggers to drop by and pay him a visit. Perriello's brother later discovered a cut gas line at his home.

As much as I wish it won't happen, it seems that there is going to be a major, violent incident involving Tea Party activists. Democratic lawmakers have already been assaulted and their families have been targeted. (Even the Mafia doesn't do that.) I wonder when the Tea Party will have their Timothy McVeigh movement?

Older people will remember the political atmosphere of the mid-'90s which spawned the Militia Movement, a bunch of angry, blue-collar white men, who were frustrated with the political and economic system. (Sound familiar?) That movement ran into a wall on April, 19, 2005, when Timothy McVeigh, a disgruntled Gulf War vet, denoted a truck bomb in front of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.

That effectively marked the beginning of the end of the Militia Movement. The bombing killed 168 people, ordinary federal workers who had gone to work trying to make a decent living. It also killed 19 children, who were housed in the day care in the Murrah building's basement, and created 30 orphans. The defining image of the Oklahoma City bombing was a shaken firefighter pulling a dead infant from the building. The photo later received a Pulitzer Prize.

This kind of rage is not new to sections of this country. During the Civil Rights Movement children were often the victims of indiscriminate bombing, as portrayed in Spike Lee's "Four Little Girls," which detailed the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls during Sunday service. During the 1960s, black people jokingly called Birmingham, "Bombingham."

After the Oklahoma City bombing, public opinion turned against the Militia Movement, who were branded as baby killers - and no one wants to side with people like that. I hope and pray It doesn't come to that, but from recent events it seems just a matter of time before the Tea Party gets its McVeigh moment.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34934.html

poll by twiigs.com

U.S. Foreign Policy, War on Terror Doom Us to Vicious Cycle

Helen Thomas tried to get to the root causes of terrorism

Sometimes it seems the the War on Terror is akin to a game of Whack-A-Mole, only the hammers are cruise missiles and predator drones, and the moles have suicide vests.

The attempted Christmas suicide bombing and recent suicide bombing of a CIA station in Afghanistan indicates that these are not isolated incidents. There were also several incidents of both domestic and foreign terrorism under the Bush administration.

About six years ago, I was at a conference with Carlton Pearson, an evangelical preacher who been invited to the White House by President George W. Bush. Pearson said that the president was been misguided by his advisors, and didn't appreciate the complexity of the war he had entered. He said Americans would not truly understand the consequences of the War on Terror until they had to undergo bomb searches before they went into large gatherings.

An article by Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer turned minister, says the U.S. is missing the point on the War on Terror. He cites veteran journalist Helen Thomas, who pressed White House officials for a reason why young Muslims were willing to blow themselves up.

In his article McGovern says that counter terrorism advisor John Brennan waffled with the answer and laid the blame on Al-Qaeda perverting Islam and warping the minds of susceptible young men. McGovern says that the Brennan and the White House are missing the point. He argues that young Muslims are being radicalized not only by Al-Qaeda, but also in response to America's foreign policies.

The war in Iraq was once described as Al-Qaeda's greatest recruiting tool. Muslims are also angry at the U.S.' support of corrupt and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan and Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians. PR nightmares like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo only fueled Muslim outrage towards the U.S.

The pragmatic attitude towards this problem would be sit down and negotiate some kind of equitable settlement, i.e. land for peace or withdrawing American troops from the Middle East. But that will be very difficult for President Barack Obama to do as he is dealing with a military industrial complex which sees war as good business, and a political and media class who sees talking to the enemy as being wimpy. Additionally, as Obama mentioned in his Nobel speech, I am not sure if you can negotiate with fanatics.

Another problem that Obama has to deal with is the fact that a large segment of the United States populace believes that Israel's policies are backed by God, and Jesus cannot return until Israel has reconquered all of it's original land.

I am not sure if the current War on Terror can be won by bombs and guns. The more Muslim terrorists we kill and the more innocent civilians killed by collateral damage, only creates more people willing to become suicide bombers.

The widow of the Jordanian doctor who detonated a bomb at a CIA base in Afghanistan said she is proud of him because he is now a martyr. With attitudes like that on one side, and attitudes like the ones expressed on FOX News (which advocate bombing, torturing and profiling, everyone who looks "Arab/Muslim.") I am afraid we are doomed to be stuck in a cycle of killing and revenge for a long time. Didn't anyone watch "Munich?"

poll by twiigs.com

O'Reilly Calls for Shoot First, Ask Questions Later Policy

Recently on "Countdown," Keith Olbermann again named Bill O'Reilly as the Worst Person in the World. This time it was arguing that terrorists don't deserve rights, and should be arrested, tortured and shot on the spot, with no trial.

Apart from the fact that this breaks about a dozen laws and is blatantly fascist, this attitude also leaves no room for error or intelligence gathering. But I guess that is not important when the people whose rights are being violated are Arabs. Guantanamo has proven to be a terrorist incubator, and if any Muslims weren't terrorists when they went in, after 18 months of torture they sure were.

Any intelligence officer worth his salt would rather keep a terrorist alive and squeeze them for as much information as possible. In addition, torture has been proven not to work. As I have mentioned before, if you shove a hot poker into someone's eye, he will probably tell you whatever you want to hear.

Maybe someone should tell the people at FOX, that "24" is a fiction show, and Jack Bauer's methods don't work in the real world.

poll by twiigs.com

British Colleges Are Training Ground for Future Bombers

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

I have read several articles talking about the growing Muslim presence in Britain, and I have even heard of London been referred to as Londonistan, because of the number of radical Islamic preachers.

Several of the 9-11 terrorists spent time in London, and Britain also had it's own terrorist attack, which is referred to as 9-9, when terrorists simultaneously attack buses in central London.

In this Daily Beast article, Venetia Thompson, a graduate of University College of London, says that British universities are rife with radical Islamic students. This is the same school that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, attended.

She says combined with the fact that many of these young men are studying engineering and other technical courses, it is a recipe for disaster. Thompson said many students arrive at college, friendless, lonely and away from home for the first time in their lives. They are easy targets to be recruited by radical preachers.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-30/my-classmate-the-undie-bomber/2/

poll by twiigs.com

GOP Says Racial, Religious Profiling is the Solution to Terrorism

Not surprisingly the latest attempted, terrorist attack has caused the neo-fascists in the GOP to call for the suspension of the constitution -- but only for people who "look like terrorists."

The Sunday morning talk shows were full of interviews with Republicans who called for profiling Muslims. The only problem with that idea is Al-Queda is a multi-national organization with people from several countries. The terrorist organization includes Africans, Arabs, South Asians and Causians. Let's not forget that John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, was a suburban white kid, who probably would have sailed through any profiling checks. Al-Quaeda also featured David Locke, an Australian, who looked as white as George Bush.

Racial profiling is a waste of time, but it will make a lot of racists happy -- which is probably the reason why it was suggested by Republicans. The Israelis, who probably have the best counter-terrorism operation in the world, do not rely on racial profiling. The Israelis have learned that terrorists soon figured ways to by pass scrutiny, by hiding bombs in the luggage of the white European girlfriends!

poll by twiigs.com

Al Jazeera Cameraman Survived Guantanamo

Sami al-Hajj went through an adventure that gave him a great story. He only had to get locked up, shipped halfway across the world and thrown into a concentration camp. Al-Hajj was a freelance cameraman working for Al Jazeera who was rounded up when the United States invaded Afghanistan.

At the time, the U.S. believed that Al Jazerra was the publicity arm of Al-Queda and considered Al Jazeera journalists to be enemy combatants. Al-Hajj was later transferred to Bagram Air Base were he was tortured and later flown to Guantanamo where he witnessed and endured more torture. Al-Hajj's ordeal has left him with permanent physical and emotional scars.

He has returned to work with Al Jazeera and is also working as a human rights activist. One of his projects if building a case against former President George W. Bush and the other officials who sanctioned torture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/middleeast/23jazeera.html?_r=2

poll by twiigs.com

CIA Used Phony Software to Detect Terrorist Messages

Former CIA Director George Tenet

It's only now that we are learning how messed up the Bush administration's War on Terror was. First it was the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora, and then it was the erronous invasion of Iraq, in search of non-existence Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Well, here another doozy. A Playboy story reports that sometime around 2003, the CIA started using software developed by Dennis Montgomery of eTreppid, which claimed it could decode terrorists messages hidden in Al-Jazerra television broadcasts. Yes, really.

The software was later discredited by French intelligence, but not before Homeland Security had issued several warnings. If the CIA had investigated Montgomery, they would have learn that he only had two years of college training, no science background and was a veteran conman with a gambling problem. His own lawyer described him as "habitual liar." With these guys protecting us, it's no wonder that the 9-11 attacks happened.

http://www.playboy.com/articles/the-man-who-conned-the-pentagon-dennis-montgomery/index.html?page=1

poll by twiigs.com

Rep Aaron Schock Advocates Torture

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock is advocating torture as a way of elicting information from terrorists. So after the Abu Ghraib debacle, he is still advocating a policy which has been proven to be ineffective. You see Mr. Schock, when someone is delivering electric shocks (no pun intended) to your testicles, you tend to tell them whatever they want to hear, so they will just leave you alone.

Torture is a also a violation of the Geneva Convention, the Military Code of Conduct and several U.S. laws. FBI agents knew, this that is why their superiors asked them to leave when they saw what was going on at Abu Ghraib. Any evidence gathered by torture would be thrown out in court.

I've met people like Schock before, hard-core conservatives who say they favor a muscular military policy, but avoid the military like the plague. Does Schock think that torture is a valid policy to use on American soldiers who are captured by the enemy?

poll by twiigs.com

Right-Wing Blogs Run Fake Story About Muslim Terrorists

Did you hear the story about Tedd Petruna, who was got on a flight full of suspicious looking, porn-watching Arabs who didn't speak English? Then Petruna and a handy Texan managed to thwart the would-be terrorist all by themselves Well if it sounds like an episode of "24," that's not surprising because the whole thing was made up! But that didn't stop right-wing bloggers from running it like the gospel truth. It also made it to Glenn Beck's 9-12 blog, which is not surprising.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/fish_stories_more_risky_via_email.php

Did Anti-Muslim Harassment Make Ft. Hood Gunman Snap?

By G.A. Afolabi

While the news of the Ft. Hood shooting by Army Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan is shocking, it should not be surprising. Unfortunately workplace shootings are become a regular part of life in the United States. Hasan would not the first person to turn his guns on co-workers. Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar was convicted for "fragging" two officers in 2003. There have been several incidents of stressed, harassed and downsized workers going on rampages against their co-workers. I wonder if this was a case of backlash against workplace harassment? This is what caused Klebold and Harris to commit their massacre at Columbine.

Hasan was a Muslim, which could not have been easy when we are fighting two wars in Muslim countries. Many Muslims perceive the War on Terror, as a war against Islam. One can only imagine how Hasan dealt with American troops, scarred by the war and probably harboring anti-Arab/Muslim feelings, being treated by an Arab Muslim doctor.

In addition, Hasan was recently moved to Ft. Hood, Texas, and Texas is not known as the most open-minded of places. There is no excuse for what Hasan did, but maybe this was more of a case of someone having a psychological breakdown, than an act of terrorism. My fear is that this will lead to a backlash against Muslims and Arabs. The right-wing media is already screaming that this was an attack by a sleeper agent and Muslim Americans cannot be trusted. The lunatics at far-right WND daily already claimed that Hasan was an adviser to the Obama administration. (This has been debunked.)

poll by twiigs.com