I guess it's true that Milwaukee is a pretty boring place-so boring that Marquette University "students of color" need to sit in the middle of a campus intersectiont to protest their miserable lot at the university.
On April 13, Muslim writer and activist, Reza Aslan, spoke at UC Riverside, where he is a professor of creative writing, before a crowd of almost 300 people, mostly students. His topic was Islamophobia, which he described as "an American problem". The event was sponsored by the Middle Eastern Student Center. Introductory remarks were given by UCR Chancellor Kim Wilcox.
Note: I was present for this event. I am paraphrasing Aslan's words, but I videotaped the event. There is a gap of approximately 60 seconds after the first 15 minutes or so while I was changing the memory card in my video camera.
Aslan began his talk by talking about his experiences growing up in the 1980s as the child of Iranian immigrants. It was the time of the Iran hostage crisis, and he spoke of trying to pass himself off as a Mexican kid. "It wasn't a good time to be an Iranian in the US," he said. (Comment:It wasn't a good time to be an American in Iran either.)
As far as Islamophobia was concerned, Aslan noted that immediately after 9-11, there was not an outbreak in Islamophobia, and Americans rallied around their Muslim friends and neighbors. It has been in the subsequent years that Islamophobia has become a real problem. This Aslan attributed to people like Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, Pam Geller, Brigitte Gabriel, Daniel Pipes and others, part of a well-planned and well-funded "cabal" whom he described in mocking terms bringing laughter to the audience. According to Aslan, others, like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michelle Bachmann, Allen West, and Peter King have followed their lead. This has led to those who have carried out acts of violence against Muslims. Aslan supplemented this with slides showing statistics of hate crimes against Muslims and percentages of Americans having negative perceptions of Muslims. One slide stated that in an 11 day period in 2012, 8 mosques were vandalized, attacked, or burned to the ground. He also cited a report by the liberal Center for American Progress about Islamophobia and said that anti-Muslim sentiment was now the highest it has ever been. At one point, referring to the attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, Aslan said that the FBI had concluded that the attacker had assumed that he was attacking Muslims because he assumed that "Muslims wear turbans". (Comment: That seems like an assumption on Aslan's part. The shooter, a white supremecist, killed himself during the attack. This writer is unaware of subsequent information that indicates he was specifically targeting Muslims.)
At one point, Aslan told the audience that "none of you are going to be killed by a terrorist". While showing a slide that said people were more likely to be killed by their furniture, Azlan said that people have more chance of being killed by "a lazy boy". (Don't tell that joke in Boston.)
Aslan compared prejudice against Muslims with previous problems experienced by other religious groups including Catholics and Jews, who are now a part of the fabric of American life. He predicted that in another generation, Muslims would also be fully integrated into American life.
After his presentation, Aslan took about 4 questions form the audience. At this point, there were two giant 800-pound gorillas in the room. Aslan had devoted his entire presentation to describing Islamophobia in America as if it all existed in a vacuum. He gave only passing reference to Islamic terrorism and said virtually nothing about the horrors going on around the world, the intolerance towards non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries, or the campaign of genocide against Christians in Iraq and Syria to say nothing of Egypt, Libya, northern Nigeria and other countries. He didn't even provide a definition of Islamophobia, a rather tricky term.
This writer got the first question (8:50 of the third clip) and began by saying that most Americans did not blame all American Muslims for the horrors going on around the world. Yet, Aslan was asked to explain his definition of Islamophobia. Was it a dislike, a hatred, or a fear-and if a fear, was it an irrational fear of Islam as a religion, as a political ideology, or Muslims as a people? Secondly, would he condemn groups like Christians in Syria and Iraq, Coptic Christians in Egypt, Nigeria or Pakistan, the Baha'i or gays in Iran as being Islamophobes? Aslan asked the writer to repeat the second part of that two-part question.
As to his definition of Islamophobia, he mentioned anti-Semitism as an example and said that everyone knew that meant bigotry against Jews although not all Jews were Semites or all Semites Jews. By the same token, he said that he didn't care to break down the term Islamophobia (as the questioner did), but preferred to simply call it bigotry against Muslims. (Comment: That gets a lot of people off the hook in my view including those he mentioned earlier. It could be inferred that those who simply criticize some aspects of Islam and relate them to terrorism, or other forms of violence and intolerance by Muslims do not fall into that category of being bigoted against Muslims themselves. Aslan should have addressed those points as well.)
As to the second part, Aslan said that he really didn't understand the question, but said just because someone was treated badly didn't excuse bigotry. He compared it to the person who gets mugged by a black guy. That doesn't justify him or her putting blame on an entire group of people and saying all black people are thieves. He mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had "an awful" personal experience, but that didn't excuse her statements about Islam. (Comment: Ali, an apostate from Islam, experienced forced genital mutilation as a child and an attempted forced marriage, which led her to flee her family and renounce Islam. She lives in fear for her life, while Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch film producer, was savagely murdered in the Netherlands for co-producing a film with Ali about Islamic mistreatment of women. That was the "awful" personal experience(s) Ali suffered, and which Aslan did not mention.) Aslan also said that just because a Copt in Egypt has suffered violence doesn't excuse being bigoted. (Comment: The bad experiences Copts are experiencing are killings, burning down of their churches, kidnapping of their children and forced conversions. That seems excuse enough for me.)
Another question from a young lady referred to a Pew Research study, which said that 23% of 1.5 billion Muslims support stoning. Aslan added death for apostates to the topic and replied that those numbers were especially high in Egypt, but very low in Tunisia as an example (5%). (78-79% of Egyptians wanted sharia law and 62% supported the death penalty for apostates, but 70% supported freedom of religion, according to Aslan.) He made the point that it was in countries governed by secular dictatorships where these numbers were highest.
In conclusion, Aslan simply attacked those who find fault with Islamic ideology while not honestly addressing the reasons for people's fears-a word he used to describe Islamophobia. Is it really bigoted to speak out on the horrors taking place virtually on a daily basis and to seriously question whether Islam itself is the root cause? Does he really blame non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries as being bigoted "Islamophobes" when they are being persecuted and living in real fear for their lives? He implied that he did. As to the rise in Islamophobia in the years following 9-11, could it not be argued that:
1- There have been thousands of Islamic terrorist attacks world-wide since 9-11, coupled with intolerance and violence against non-Muslim minorities and
2- More people have taken the time to research Islam?
Aslan was playing to a young, college audience and his theme was designed to appeal to them; Bigotry is wrong. That is true, and Americans should not assign blame to all Muslims. Yet, Aslan cannot effectively talk about "Islamophobia" unless he is prepared to honestly discuss the reasons for it instead of blindly attacking the critics-and dismissing the victims as bigots.
"integrity, accountability, excellence and respect"
This is what we would call a hummer in DEA jargon. I guess it was a slow news day at the LA Times. It seems Students for Justice in Palestine had convinced the campus cafeteria to take an Israeli product (hummus) off the shelves. Now it has been put back.
Above is the evening schedule for next week's side show of anti-Israel activists. There will be some sort of displays on Ring Road during the daylight hours, but the "main events" are scheduled for the evenings.
The Monday night event will feature San Francisco State University professor Rabab Abdel Hadi, a controversial character to be sure. She was in the news recently when some of the General Union of Palestinian Students, for whom she is mentor, made headlines by displaying posters on campus that glorified those who kill Israeli soldiers. The then-head of GUPS showed up on his Facebook page brandishing a knife and fantasizing about killing IDF soldiers. Maybe they will be on the panel.
In addition, Hadi recently made a school-financed trip to the Holy Land for purposes that did not exactly line up with what she actually did once she was over there.
The presence of Hadi and her GUPS followers casts doubt on any MSU/SJP claims to be moderates and human rights crusaders, oops, activists.
She and Terese Jordan went to the Holy Land last year with some peace group, Interfaith Peace Builders. It appears they got the Palestinian guided tour. Jordan is a free lance journalist from Los Angeles.
Loubna Qutami appeared last year at UCI, where she showed a video showing the abuse of Palestinian women by their menfolk. Of course, it was really all the fault of the Israelis and Western colonialists, not the Palestinian men themselves. During that talk she praised, the ex-Palestinian terrorist, Rasmieh Odeh, who was convicted of lying about her past when she immigrated to the US..
Here is the narrative from the SJP Facebook page.
In the effort of raising awareness and creating discourse around the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Muslim Student Union along with Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Irvine are co-hosting their annual week long series of events titled "In the Face of Violence: A Culture of Resistance," to be held on Week 6 from May 4th to May 7th.
Monday, May 4th
To Resist is to Create – Ring Road, 9:00 – 5:00 PM
To keep a culture alive is to keep a people alive. Zionist narrative aims to wipe out the culture in an effort to wipe out the people of Palestine making art a strong platform for resistance. We will explore the distinct forms of Palestinian art that combat the erasure of Palestinian history and culture. By focusing on art forms such as tatreez embroidery, dabke dance, or the music from oud, we show how rich Palestinian culture is beyond the images of rubble and warfare.
Resistance is Existence – Rabab Abdel Hadi & G.U.P.S. Panelists – Crystal Cove Auditorium, 6:30 PM
Explore the history and trajectory of Palestinian activism with resistance to the Zionist regime. A conversation with members of the former General Union of Palestinian Students talking about the way political activism has performed as a tool of resistance.
Tuesday, May 5th
Democracy in Shambles – Ring Road, 9:00 – 5:00 PM
So what exactly is going on in Palestine? We aim to answer the basic questions about the way the government operates in Palestine.
Growing Roses from Rubble – Kamilah Moore & Terese Jordan – HIB 100, 6:30 PM
Often students ask what they can do for Palestine beyond hosting events that raise funds or awareness. Delegation work is a key part of providing aid to those who need it the most. Join Kamilah Moore as she talks about her experience in the region.
Wednesday, May 6th
A Woman’s Place is in the Resistance – Ring Road, 9:00 – 5:00 PM & Lobna Qutami – HG 1800, 6:30 PM
The Palestinian woman's body is the most destructive tool for the Zionist agenda as it is the location for producing Palestinian life. We seek to examine the unique role of the woman's role in the resistance movement. There is gender-based violence employed specifically for the female population ranging from rape, forced sterilization, or denied access to hospitals for childbirth. Learn how the people of Palestinian can never be liberated unless the women are liberated from the patriarchal double-bind from both the Zionist regime, and the oppressive family structure at home.
Thursday, May 7th
Doctors without Checkpoints – Ring Road, 9:00 – 5:00 PM
With limited access to water, women giving birth at checkpoints, and no food security, Palestinian health is in a crisis. Explore the health care disparities for Palestinians zoned into settlements with no access to proper hospitals, produce, or water. Learn what life is like for people who must wait hours in line at a checkpoint in order to get adequate medical attention.
Stories of Survival – The Parents of the Resistance – Pacific Ballroom C, 6:30 PM
For our closing event this year, we invite you to an intergenerational panel that serves as "storytime" with your grandparents or parents generation. Shifting from bringing only academics or activists, we've invited family and community members to share their stories about Nakbah, or leaving Palestine, their individual activism, and stories of survival and displacement. The goal of this event is to have that intergenerational storytelling feel and the importance of the preservation of oral histories.
This can only increase the questions surrounding Huma Abedin. An Egyptian former aide to the Clinton Foundation has been sentenced to life in prison for his activities with the Muslim Brotherhood.
We still don't know all the facts about the death of Freddie Gray, which has led to riots in Baltimore, but it is not too soon to pass judgement on some of the comments coming in.
Like this series of empty platitudes from Her Majesty, Hillary Clinton:
Mrs Clinton apparently has nothing to say about ending the era of mass crime. Or maybe she is just worried about the prospect of her own possible incarceration given the latest scandals being uncovered.
Even more outrageous was CNN's Brooke Baldwin, who blamed the problem on returning military veterans. Breitbart has the clip where Baldwin, who is usually too busy opining to ask serious questions, is interviewing Elijah Cummings, who "represents" Baltimore in Congress when he is not defending Obama's scandals.
At least she didn't accuse them of being the biggest terrorist threat in America like Janet Napolitano did.
And what is this stuff about apologizing on Twitter? No, Brooke. You said it on national TV; apologize on national TV.
If we are going to have a discussion about the state of the black community in Baltimore and other US cities, looking for deeper causes for all the misery, is it not time we ask why so many of these problems exist in metropolitan areas long dominated by the Democratic party? What have they accomplished for their communities in places like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and other places? Yet, black voters never seem to hold them accountable.
On Sunday, as friend and I were walking thorough Golden Gate Park in San Francisco (one of the sanctuaries from the armies of homeless walking the streets of the city). Imagine my surprise when we found ourselves on Nancy Pelosi Dr.!
I applaud this resolution. Of course, the Palestinian "This and That" groups are opposing it. Also opposing it is Jewish Voice for Peace. That is hardly surprising. Those misfits would not shed a tear if a second Holocaust occurred in Israel.
If you live in California, you might want to lend your support to this resolution. It would mean a lot if we could get Sacramentio behind this effort to crack down on anti-Semitism on our campuses.
On Monday, I was on the campus of UC Berkeley for the first time, and one of my goals was to visit the famed Islamophobia Research and Documentation Center.
It proved to be easier said than done.
The listed address is Barrows Hall room 638, actually located in the Gender and Women's Studies Dept. (Rather odd, I thought.)
Barrows Hall is home to lots of those identity-based departments, like queer studies, Hispanic, African-American studies, and all that. As you walk down the corridors you can see all kinds of flyers about police shootings, discrimination against this and discrimination against that. Finally, we found room 638, just another tiny cubbyhole of an office big enough for one person.
Could this be the world famous Islamophobia Research and Documentation Center? I mean, where do they put all those files? My intent was to introduce myself as an adjunct teacher and researcher from UC Irvine and arrange to spend a few hours going through their extensive files to see who all the Islamophobes were. Alas, nobody was home. I hung around a few minutes hoping that their founder, Hatem Bazian, would show up, but he was nowhere to be seen. All there was was a flyer for the just-completed Islamophobia Conference.
I am traveling and my posts are brief, but I wanted to post this news about a joint letter to the UCLA Jewish Studies Center questioning the speaking appearance of Cornel West. This is cross posted from Jew Hatred on Campus.
And I think I am an English teacher. It's hard enough keeping up with the New English on American college campuses. Now get a load of the New British English spoken on British campuses. In this report from The College Fix, we hear about a campus meeting to protest racism. However, only BMEs are invited plus non binary types, whatever that is.
In the wake of the recent arrests of 6 Somalis on their way to join ISIS, another Somali man has been arrested after he tweeted threats to kill the US Attorney General (whoever that is) unless the 6 were released.
Of course, none of this would have ever happened in the first place had our government not brought in some 80,000 of these yardbirds back in the 1990s. And they are still coming.
Yesterday at UC Irvine, one of the pro-Palestinian protesters I described disrupting a pro-Israel fest was carrying a poster that read something about "queers condemn Israel for pinkwashing". That really made me laugh.
Meanwhile in Syria, ISIS was putting on its own show of pinkwashing as they stoned two gays to death. (Warning: Graphic images)
It's all so unfair, isn't it? Israel is taking unfair advantage of its tolerance for gays while they are all subject to the death penalty in the rest of the Arab world. It's unfair PR.
Isn't that the whole point of the pinkwashing campaign? Kinda shows you the logic of the pro-Palestinian side.
Earl Cox has an article in the Jerusalem Post on Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim college in America. Highlighted in the article is our old friend, Hatem Bazian.
As we speak, Bazian is putting on his 6th annual conference on Islamophobia at UC Berkeley. Never mind that Christians are fleeing for their lives in Iraq and Syria. never mind the recent beheadings of Christians in Libya. Never mind the constant harassing of Jews in Europe by young male Muslim men. Never mind the persecution of Christians, Baha'i and gays in Iran. Never mind the never-ending and bloody war between Sunni and Shia.
Islamophobia is the problem.
This guy Bazian is a complete joke. When he is not lamenting Islamophobia, he is lamenting the existence of that Jewish entity called Israel. He is what we call a two-trick pony.
But here is the good news. Having sat through his (power point) presentations before, I am sure his audience is probably asleep by now.
I have just received some clips from David Wood showing Pam Geller's speech at Brooklyn College This week. In one, when she mentioned the beginning of ISIS, one girl in the audience said, Thank God".
This article first appeared in Eagle Rising. It was written three says ago. Hell, it's already old news in light of the latest allegations.
Hillary Clinton was running around New Hampshire last week and refusing to answer questions about the allegations contained in Peter Schweizer's new book, Clinton Cash.
If the allegations are true, Hillary Clinton used her office as secretary of state to enrich herself and her husband at the expense of the foreign policy of the United States.It involves not only individuals and companies, but nations who paid millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and received favorable decisions from the State Department in return, in some cases reversing previous policy. These are serious charges and if true constitute bribery. They would make the charges against indicted New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez look minor in comparison.
The question is-who will investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute? Up to now, wrong-doing by people in the Obama administration has been, in effect, the perfect crime because nobody will prosecute. We have a corrupt attorney general, Eric Holder, running the Justice Department (from which I am retired). Loretta Lynch, the current nominee for the post and the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, will likely soon be hit with this decision if and when she is confirmed. (She was confirmed yesterday.) One can hope that she will bring more honesty and professionalism to her post given her present position.
Already, the Clinton machine and liberal outlets like Media Matters and MSNBC are busy attacking Schweizer as a Republican hack who cannot be believed. Perhaps, but we have to judge the information in the book on its merits. Schweizer reportedly has done a pretty good of following the money trail, the donations to the Clinton Foundation, the higher speaking fees to Bill Clinton, and the State Department decisions that rewarded the donating parties.
Unless these allegations made in Schweizer's book are wild and unsubstantiated, the Justice Department has no excuse for not investigating them or turning it over to a special prosecutor. I still trust the agents in the FBI to do their duty-if the Justice Department will let them.
How Did the Russians Get Our Uranium? Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Bill and Hillary Clinton
The Clinton scandal of selling our government policies for contributions to the Clinton Foundation and huge speaking fees for Bill has just gotten even more serious. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/23/tangled-clinton-web/
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed off on this along with Eric Holder and 5 other cabinet secretaries. And $31 million paid by this Canadian businessman to the Clinton Foundation with a promise of $100 million more to come?
Corruption, influence peddling, selling off our national security, you name it. Bill and Hillary Clinton have got to be the two biggest crooks to ever come down the pike.
Today, Anteaters for Israel (AFI) held their annual I-Fest event at UC Irvine. It was a simple collection of tables with information about Israel and free food. The previous evening, AFI held a dignified tribute and candle vigil for the IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians killed by terrorists over the years.
Things were going along very nicely until 12 noon when pro-Palestinian protesters came marching out of the Cross Cultural Center (more about that later) located directly behind the I-Fest tables. They proceeded to march to a spot a few yards away from the AFI tables where they spread out across Ring Road, forcing other students to have to walk around their lines. They then began chanting their usual stupid slogans about Palestine. They continued for over two hours drowning out the AFI music and distracting all the attention away from the I-Fest proceedings. Several Jewish community members began waving their American and Israeli flags. (The pro-Palestinian crowd only had Palestinian flags.) At one point, some Jewish folks began doing their traditional dances in response to the protesters.
The campus police were present as was the dean of students. Later the vice chancellor of student affairs showed up. When they were finished with their protest, which outlasted the remainder of the I-Fest, the protesters straggled back to the Cross Cultural Center (their "safe space"). They had disrupted and marred what had been for the first hour a pleasant, quiet and civilized event.
But not all of my criticism is directed at the pro-Palestinian protesters.
First of all, AFI put on this production without any financial support from Hillel or the Jewish Federation of Orange County. That didn't stop the heads of those two useless organizations, (Lisa Armony and Shalom Elcott respectively) from showing up for whatever reason is lost on me. But it got worse.
Shame on Armony for trying to direct members of the community holding Israeli and US flags to move back as they were facing the protesters. (Yeah, I saw that, Lisa.)
But worse yet, shame on Elcott for berating the head of AFI, a tiny little female student, who was left shaken after Elcott got in her face and blamed her for everything going wrong.
And shame on the Cross Cultural Center. This is the second year that the anti-I-Fest protesters have staged in the CCC and marched out to disrupt this event. In fact, for years the Muslim Student Union has used the CCC as their staging area. As far as I am concerned, the CCC has put its imprimatur on disrupting Jewish events at UCI. It is disgraceful and the administration must be held responsible for letting it occur.
And shame on whoever that Jewish woman was who said that the people holding US and Israeli flags should put them away because they were inflaming the other side.
It was not a pleasant day, but I do think it gave another black eye to the pro-Palestinian crowd. That is a good thing.
Here are the videos I took. The third video begins with the protesters coming out of the Cross Cultural Center. I had to leave to teach a class before the end of the event.
Here is something for the jurors deciding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's fate to consider. It is a jailhouse camera showing him 3 months after the Boston Marathon attack. Pacing his cell, Tsarnaev gives the finger to the security camera and puckers up a kiss.
Today, President Obama announced that two hostages of Al Qaeda, an American and an Italian, had been killed in January in a strike against Al Qaeda in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. Also killed were two Americans who were fighting with Al Qaeda, Ahmed Farouk and Adam Gadahn.
While I grieve for the loss of the two hostages, the deaths of Farouk and Gadahn is good news, indeed. In particular, we will not miss the whiny smarmy lectures of Gadahn that he had sent out during his years hiding from the US. Indeed. we had not heard the "communiques" from this creep for quite some time. May he and Farouk burn in Hell.
Newsweek is hardly a conservative news outlet, and they preclude this bombshell by saying at the outset that political enemies of Hillary Clinton will jump all over this story in an effort to discredit her.
As I see it, this guy, Viktor Pinchuk, the largest individual contributor to the Clinton Foundation, is violating the sanctions against Iran with his sales of pipelines to that country. Not that he is beholden to US law, but wait! He has a subsidiary of his company in the US. They could be penalized. Why haven't they been? Well, we all know the answer to that, don't we?
