Christian Religious Right are more of a threat to America than Muslim Americans
And Islamophobes use 9/11 coloring book to teach kids to fear and hate all Muslims including Muslim Americans
" 9/11 Coloring Book Influences Kids With Islamophobia " By Tanya Somanader at Islamophobia Today Aug 30, 2011
Believing that the upcoming 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 is best memorialized in crayon, Really Big Coloring Books, Inc. is publishing a new coloring book entitled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom.” In offering kids the option of coloring the Twin Towers burning, mourning survivors, or the Navy SEALs shooting Osama Bin Laden, publisher Wayne Bell insists that “the doodles represent patriotism,” a “simplistic, honest tool” to “help educate children on events on 9/11.” But many Muslims describe it as, in a word, “disgusting.”
Pointing out that Muslims are already dealing with an environment of increasing Islamophobia, Michigan Council on American Islamic Relations representative Dawud Walid noted that “nearly all of the mentions of Muslims in the book are accompanied by the words ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist.’” Indeed, the page depicting a Navy SEAL aiming at bin Laden cowering behind is veiled wife reads “Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE.” Bell’s response? “The truth is the truth“:
“Little kids who pick up this book can have their perceptions colored by those images … it instills bias in young minds,” said Walid. He says that some of the narrative and photos aren’t even correct, noting that Bin Laden wasn’t hiding behind a wife when he was shot.
Bell stood by the book as an “honest depiction”.
“The truth is the truth,” Bell said, adding, “It’s unfortunate that they were all Muslim and that’s the part people want to erase … I don’t know what else you can call them.”
Noting that one page depicts a woman mourning with a cross chain dangling from her neck, Walid says “Muslims mothers lost sons too.” He also noted that he’s not an advocate of showing children violent images — a sentiment that many military families share. Shariah Gibbs, a military spouse in Germany, said “This should not be a coloring book.” Another said, “I would not buy a coloring book [about 9/11]…To me, coloring books should be fun….this is not!”
It is important to note that Bell has published other coloring books on topics “from dinosaurs and zoo animals to African-American leaders, President Obama, superheroes of the Bible and even the Tea Party.” He even said that, if asked to print a book reflecting positive images of Muslim Americans, “I’d print it tomorrow.” To which Walid said, “Well, I’m asking him to do it right now.
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While the professional Islamophobes have exaggerated the danger of a fifth column of stealth jihadists to America the real internal threat some argue lies elsewhere. For instance as we have noted the rise of the Christian Nationalists characterized as being Dominionists who wish to reform the laws of America to better reflect the Laws of their God as is found in the Holy Bible.
The Christian Nationalists like the Islamophobes are anti-pluralism, anti-multiculturalism and believe that Western Civilization based upon a tradition of Judeo-Christianity is superior to all other religions and cultures including that of Islam.
Article in Islamophobia Today contrast the real threat to American traditions, values and governance by the homegrown Christian Theocrats such as the Dominionists as contrasted to the non-existence of a mass movement of American Muslims seeking to establish Islamic Shariah Law in the United States.
These Christian Theocratic movements include the New Apostolic Reformation and the Seven Mountain Prophecy and Lou Engle's The Call and other related religious right movements which are entrenched in the Republican Party and which Presidential hopefuls such as Governor Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are connected with and supported by.
"Threat to America’s Freedom? It’s Not Islamic Law " Islamophobia Today August 31, 2011
Imagine, for a minute, that Muslims in America were openly advocating at meetings and conferences to take control of major sectors of public life, such as the government, media, and the law.--------------
Imagine further that Muslims had built law schools, accredited no less, with the agenda to teach its students that America should be governed by Islamic law.
And imagine a little further that the leaders of this Muslim movement to Islamicize America were openly calling for America to become a Muslim nation.
And just imagine that all of the above was being absorbed into a major American political party and that some members of this Muslim mission were in Congress and were also looking to become the next President of the United States.
Of course, there would be mass hysteria and panic at such a notion. But none of the above is actually happening. Instead, replace Muslim with Christian and that is precisely what is currently occurring in America.
But of course, certain Islamophobes would have us worry about an imagined threat from Muslim-Americans–who make up a measly 2% of the U.S. population–rather than the Christian groups out there who are actively working to Christianize America, and who have been working at this for over three decades with the aid of one of the two main political parties.
Many of these evangelical Christian groups are actively looking to restrict the rights of women, members of the LGBT community, and to force their religious viewpoint on to the rest of the country. Worse yet, advocates of Christian dominionism call for world conquest, to subjugate the infidel nations of the world to Christian domination.
Here is an excellent article from Sarah Posner on dominionism (emphasis added)–just imagine how utterly insane Islamophobes would go if Muslim were substituted for Christian here:
The Christian right’s “dominionist” strategy
by Sarah Posner
An article in the Texas Observer last month about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s relationship with followers of a little-known neo-Pentecostal movement sparked a frenzied reaction from many commentators: Dominionism! Spiritual warfare! Strange prophecies!
The Nation has published an article which is An expose on the Islamophobia Network in the United States. The article and report it refers to mentions all the usual suspects who before the 9/11 Mosque project were mainly on the fringe but have themselves and their hate filled anti-Muslim agenda moved into the American mainstream with the help of media outlets Fox News, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal , New York Post and some rather wealthy donors such as Richard Mellon Scaife foundations.
Pam Geller & Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes all went from obscurity and being on the fringe to becoming media stars who's agenda against Muslim Americans had created a back lash in which 39% of Americans were against the New York Cordoba Islamic Center which was to be built near to the 9/11 attacks/Ground Zero.
But it should be noted that many Americans after this anti-ground Zero Mosque campaign became rather vocal and radicalized and emboldened in attacking the building of any Mosques anywhere in America.
Fear, Inc.: America's Islamophobia Network " George Zornick at The Notion: The Nation's Group Blog , August 29, 2011
...Pushback against the project actually began months earlier and was led by a group called Stop Islamization of America, which launched “Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!” in May 2010. The group’s founder, Pamela Geller, charged that “this is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem.” The group’s co-director, Robert Spencer, helped Geller organize rallies and protest campaigns aimed at a lower Manhattan community board, which reported getting “hundreds and hundreds” of calls and e-mails from around the world as a result of the well-funded and highly coordinated campaign...
...By late summer, as September 11 approached, the “debate” had gone completely mainstream—Geller was invited to appear on CNN, and President Obama was forced to take a position. (Actually, two positions: he voiced support for the project before walking it halfway back).
At one point in August, more than two-thirds of Americans opposed the project. It was a stunning victory for Geller, Spencer, and the xenophobic right, but also an excellent case study of how they operate. According to a comprehensive new report by the Center for American Progress, anti-Islam efforts like this are no vast right-wing conspiracy: rather, it’s a “rather small, tightly networked group of misinformation experts,” operating on $40 million in funding from just seven organizations.
The report, titled “Fear, Inc.,” names five “experts” who generate a huge amount of misinformation about Islam. They are:
• Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy
• David Yerushalmi at the Society of Americans for National Existence
• Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum
• Spencer, of Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America
• Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism
Meanwhile, seven foundations have donated no less than $40 million to Islamophobic think tanks like these over the past ten years. They are:
• Donors Capital Fund
• Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
• Russell Berrie Foundation
• Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
• Fairbrook Foundation
In extensive detail, the report describes how this small group of donors fund a cluster of think tanks that promote rank Islamophobia, and how their misinformation is spread through a network of conservative media and grassroots organizers like Geller. The important context here is that anti-Islam sentiment is growing in the decade since the September 11 attacks: an ABC News taken last year in the wake of the Ground Zero mosque debate showed 49 percent of Americans had a negative view of Islam, compared with just 39 percent in October 2002.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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