Race and The Paradox Of America

In criticising Obama for turning Trayvon Martin's death into a "racial issue", Gingrich looked like he was merely spewing raw racism [AFP]


Newt Gingrich Is A "Cagey Propagandist" Whose Objective Is Merely "To Hint and Wink At Falsehoods", Writes Stoehr.

By John Stoehr
Last Modified: 05 Apr 2012 09:44
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

New Haven, CT - Newt Gingrich's candidacy is ending with a whimper, not with a bang. It's a just fate for his kamikaze bid for the White House. Even so, his allure among the Republican elite is hardly diminished. Given his performance during the GOP debates and his remarks on the death of Trayvon Martin, Gingrich may have fashioned a new role for himself as a propagandist of white supremacy. This may sound like an outlandish thing to say, and maybe it is, but there's a reason for it.

As you know, Martin was a Florida teen killed by a neighbourhood watch volunteer. Police did not arrest the shooter, because they misinterpreted a state law that puts the burden of proof on the victim. Called "Stand Your Ground", the law was lobbied for by American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that strives for the privatisation of public services, like prisons and schools. President Barack Obama called for an investigation and said that if he had a son, "he'd look like Trayvon".

Gingrich's billionaire backer

Gingrich regaled Fox News Radio with curlicues of tortured logic: "It's not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background... Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn't look like him?... It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian-American of if he'd been a Native American... When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling."

Belief In Falsehoods

Where to begin… well, maybe the claim that Obama is turning Trayvon Martin's death into a "racial issue". It was already a "racial issue". The shooter, George Zimmerman, suspected Martin of wrongdoing, because he was a black kid buying candy in a small town in the Florida suburbs. Therefore, he was shot, because he was black. 

He died, like so many in American history, because he was black. As for Gingrich's question - "Is the president suggesting…" Any honest person could see Obama wasn't saying that if Martin had been white, his death would be OK. 

Of course, Gingrich isn't an honest person. That's why he resigned in disgrace as Speaker of the House and was virtually run out of Washington. But he is a cagey propagandist whose objective is merely to hint and wink at falsehoods. These falsehoods, in turn, may affect credulous voters - and their belief in falsehoods (or anything that's not the truth) may end up being beneficial to the power elite.

What power elite and what does that have to do with Martin's death? 

First, let's recall the meaning of racism, historically speaking. It's the institutionalisation of white supremacy at the point of a gun. But it must also be remembered that white supremacy had practical value. As Ida B Wells famously reported, lynch mobs had a financial incentive to murder - to protect white markets from black competition. Obviously, lynch mobs are gone, but there still remains plenty of financial incentive to disempower black Americans. 

The group that pushed hard for the "Stand Your Ground" law, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is funded by conservative billionaires and corporations, notably Charles and David Koch and Exxon Mobile. 

Among other things, ALEC lobbies state legislators to make laws that benefits corporations that run state prisons. The higher the rates of incarceration, the higher the potential for profit. As Paul Krugman noted: "The penal-industrial complex… has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons."

Gingrich has been a frequent speaker at ALEC conferences. In 2010, after the mid-term elections, he said: 

"ALEC has done many, many things to move America toward more rational, more affordable and more effective government." Earlier this year, he co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for wider prison reform. "Reform" has been a keyword in the corporatisation of the public sphere.

The Stream - #TrayvonMartin's death raises questions about race in the US

Spewing Raw Racism

In criticising the president for turning Trayvon Martin's death into a "racial issue", Gingrich looked like he was merely spewing raw racism, as when he said child labour laws are "truly stupid", that poor children have no values and that Obama is a "food-stamp president".

Anything is fair game when you're running for the United States presidency. But given his relationship to ALEC, the political ideology of ALEC's benefactors and the role of white supremacy in widening the profit-margins of tax-funded prison corporations, Gingrich's remarks appear to be more sinister.

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin," Obama said. It was a touching moment, but it could be seen as symbolising an American paradox - that the first black president in American history is powerless against a system of corporate interests, laws and social norms from destroying the life of a black American. 

If Americans came to realise that their country works best for white property owners and not best for everyone else, they might feel inspired to work together to effect positive change for all, change that would endanger the corporate interests of the power elite. So Gingrich works his magic - bobbing and weaving, suggesting Obama would approve of a white dude getting popped every now and then. As I said, his future looks bright as the chief spokesman for white supremacy. 

Anything to distract Americans from what really matters.

John Stoehr is the editor of the New Haven Advocate and a lecturer at Yale.

The Language Of “Terrorism”

Women in mourning cry outside a memorial service for Shaima Alawadi in Lakeside, Calif. March 27, 2012.  (Credit: Reuters/Denis Poroy)


The Chilling Murder Of A Muslim Mother Of Five Reflects Years Of Bigotry and Stereotypes. It's Time To Change That

BY MÓNICA NOVOA,COLORLINES.COM
FRIDAY, MAR 30, 2012 2:10 PM EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
Courtesy Of "Salon Magazine"

This article originally appeared on Colorlines.com

Police in Southern California have insisted that the brutal beating death of Shaima Alawadi is an isolated incident, and not a crime motivated by hate. Alawadi was killed after a brutal beating last week in El Cajon, Calif. and the attack has sent shockwaves across the country.

At a memorial service this week for the 32-year-old wife and mother of five, Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said it would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions cautioning, “We don’t know if it was a hate crime. We don’t know if it wasn’t a hate crime.” What we do know is that Alawadi 17-year-old daughter Fatima, found a note next to her slain mother’s body that read, “This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist.”

Those words and the animosity and bigotry experienced by Muslim communities of diverse racial backgrounds is rooted in years of ignorant stereotypes. According to the FBI’s latest report released last November, hate crimes in the United States against Muslim people increased nearly 50 percent in 2010. And while hate crimes have risen, Muslim communities have been shamelessly spied on by NYPD as Seth Wessler has written about.  

The chilling murder of Shaima Alawadi has sparked nationwide reflection about anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias, profiling and hate. There have been “hoodie and hijab” solidarity rallies with communities that are speaking out about the role of racial profiling in the murders of Trayvon Martin. Whether or not the investigation points to an official hate crime, the language on the note Fatima found is hate language. Sadly, hate language often ends in destruction. It’s the language of death.

And we are bombarded with it. According to a report from 2005 about the perceptions of Arab Muslims for which 2,420 people were interviewed in the U.S. and western Europe, “The terms Islamic or Muslim are linked to extremism, militant, jihads, as if they belonged together inextricably and naturally (Muslim extremist, Islamic terror, Islamic war, Muslim time bomb).” The recommendation at the time was that “Western media organizations must see normal Muslims in everyday life, as professionals, educators, parents, community leaders and participants.”

While communities mourn and seek justice for both Alawadi and Martin, many of us are at the same time, feeling the need to denounce hate at the very root. As we approach the year 2050 when people of color are projected to become the majority, our multi-tasking for the future is largely about challenging dangerous stereotypes, language, images and fears. Even the very near future has to be imaginable so we have to call out the deep-seated biases that impacts how many people of color can move and thrive in the world.

Changing The Conversation On Hate

After researching and writing the first half of this piece, I went home to think through what else needed to be said. I shared a cab to Brooklyn with my friend Jaime-Jin Lewis, executive director of Border Crossers. She talked to me about a chart she was compiling that included the different stages of development for kids K-5, corresponding with age-appropriate conversations on race and difference. I pulled out of my backpack a study I had discovered minutes earlier about the bullying of Muslim children, and I read her the following shocking quote: “Indeed, growing up Muslim in the U.S. in the 21st century is probably one of the most challenging tasks in human development.”

It was then that the man driving our cab, a father of three, piped up to ask if we were Muslim. He shared that he was Muslim from Pakistan and that almost everyone that gets into his cab wants to know where he’s from, but that when he wants to be left alone, he does not share he is Muslim, but rather tells people he is from Afghanistan. He said that Americans really believe immigrants are “aliens,” like on his green card.

We talked the whole ride home. He studied business administration in England, but has through his own interest become well versed on religions of the world and is always baffled at how other religious people can forget that holy books are always up for interpretation and that every religion has a minority of extremists. We laughed about and lamented society’s unwritten rule that discussing religion, race and politics is not polite conversation. He said that for him, the most beautiful gift from God is a good partner and children, and that he was the luckiest man in the world because he had those things. And he also reminded me of something quite basic: That in addition to whatever racial, ethnic, religious and other identities we have, we are all human and that everyone wants for that humanity to be recognized and remembered.

I asked the driver if he was concerned for his three small kids and the hostility they might encounter in school. He said that he wasn’t because he was going to prepare them to be sure of themselves and that he’d send them to public school so they could learn how to interact with kids of all ethnic and religious backgrounds and that as adults, they would be good listeners and accepting of people who are not just like them, because that’s the way of the world.

The Price Of Terror

The policy brief I was quoting from to Jaime-Jim in the taxi is Global Battleground or School Playground:The Bullying of America’s Muslim Children by Dr. Pia Rebello Britto at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. The report concludes there needs to be extensive effort put into educating the American public about the lives of Muslims — both in popular culture and in schools.

The stakes are high. Evelyn Alsultany, a professor at NYU and author of a forthcoming book on Arabs and Muslims in the media wrote in January about how Lowe’s and other companies pulled their advertising from the reality show ”American Muslim,” based on the possible discomfort people may feel when seeing Muslims and Arabs in non-stereotyped roles outside of the “terrorist” trope.

So the concern here was that showing real-life everyday families (albeit in highly dramatized for reality TV situations) might humanize Muslims too much and make “real Americans” drop their guard.

The stereotype of Islam condoning violence is prevalent. Even now, it’s coming up in the reader comments of articles about Alawadi murder. Knowing absolutely no facts beyond the same things that you and I know, some readers are speculating about how this could be the case of an “honor killing.”

But make no mistake: The note left by Alwadi’s body was about terrorism. Terror and terrorism are among the most controversial terms in our society. Even the United Nations cannot agree on whether or how to define them. It’s been made quite simple for people of color in the U.S., though. We are not allowed the t-word for the crusades, killing of indigenous people in the Americas, the terror lived by Black people under Jim Crow, the terror communities of color feel at the hands of rogue police. However, Fatima al-Himidi, Alawadi’s daughter, was not afraid to say in a recent interview, “We’re not the terrorist, you are, whoever did it.”

Mónica Novoa is the campaign coordinator of the Drop the I-Wordcampaign to eradicate the use of the dehumanizing "illegal" in media and public discourse.More Mónica Novoa

FBI Reports Dramatic Spike In Anti-Muslim Hate Violence

By Mark Potok 
Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project 
Posted: 11/14/11 02:05 PM ET 
Courtesy Of "The Huffington Post"

Anti-Muslim hate crimes soared by an astounding 50% last year, skyrocketing over 2009 levels in a year marked by the vicious rhetoric of Islam-bashing politicians and activists, especially over the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" in New York City.

Although the national statistics compiled by the FBIeach year are known to dramatically understate the real level of reported and unreported hate crimes, they do offer telling indications of some trends. The latest statistics, showing a jump from 107 anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2009 to 160 in 2010, seem to reflect a clear rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric from groups like Stop Islamization of America. Much of that rhetoric was aimed at stopping an Islamic center in lower Manhattan.

At the same time, the new FBI statistics showed a rise of almost 11% in anti-Latino hate crimes. The increase may be related to anti-immigrant rhetoric deployed as Arizona passed a harsh law targeting immigrants in 2010. Since then, even more anti-immigrant rhetoric has been heard around the country, suggesting that when the FBI's 2011 statistics come out, they will show a further rise in anti-Latino hate crime.

Earlier, anti-Latino hate crimes rose some 40% between 2003 and 2007, then diminished in 2008 and 2009. The newly reported apparent rise in these crimes last year also reflected, albeit in a diminished way, a 2010 rise in anti-Latino hate crimes of almost 50% reported earlier in California.

But it was the anti-Muslim numbers that were dramatic, and they occurred in a year when many watchdog organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, reported an increase in Islam-bashing rhetoric. The year 2010 saw multiple verbal attacks on planned mosques, along with several violent attacks and arsons.

It's not provable precisely how hateful rhetoric from public figures drives criminal violence. But anecdotal evidence suggests the link is a tight one. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, anti-Muslim hate violence skyrocketed some 1,600%. But then-President Bush gave several speeches that fall emphasizing that Muslims and Arabs were not our enemies -- only Al Qaeda was. Almost certainly thanks to that, anti-Muslim violence declined the following year by almost two thirds.

Muslim Victim Of Post-9/11 Hate Crime Calls On Texas To Spare Life Of His Assailant

By Amy Goodman
Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011
Courtesy Of "Democracy Now"




In Texas, a hate crime victim is attempting to save the life of a convicted murderer who shot him in the face at close range after 9/11. Rais Bhuiyan is suing Governor Rick Perry in order to stop the execution of death row prisoner Mark Stroman scheduled for Wednesday. Stroman shot Bhuiyan in 2001, partially blinding him in his right eye. Stroman, an Aryan Brotherhood member, also killed Vasudev Patel, an Indian immigrant who was Hindu, and Waqar Hasan, a Muslim born in Pakistan. "I strongly believe what Mark Stroman did was a hate crime because of his ignorance, and he was not capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. Otherwise, he would not have done what he did,” Bhuiyan said. “The way my parents raised me, and my Islamic faith teaches me, that he is the best who can forgive easily. And my faith teaches that no one has a right to take another human life. Islam doesn’t allow for hate and killing.” In a statement written in prison, Stroman says, “Not only do I have all My friends and supporters trying to Save my Life, but now i have The Islamic Community Joining in ... Spearheaded by one Very Remarkable man Named Rais Bhuiyan, Who is a Survivor of My Hate. His deep Islamic Beliefs Have gave him the strength to Forgive the Un-forgiveable ... that is truly Inspiring to me, and should be an Example for us all. The Hate, has to stop, we are all in this world together." [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Texas, where a hate crime victim is attempting to save the life of a convicted murderer who shot him in the face, as well, at close range after 9/11. Rais Bhuiyan is suing Governor Rick Perry in order to stop the execution of death row prisoner Mark Stroman. He’s scheduled to die on Wednesday.

Stroman shot Bhuiyan in 2001, partially blinding him in his right eye. Stroman, an Aryan Brotherhood member, also killed Vasudev Patel, an Indian immigrant who was Hindu, and Waqar Hasan, a Muslim born in Pakistan. Stroman’s half-sister was killed in the attack on the twin towers, and he claimed her death fueled his rampage. The killings happened just a few days after September 11th.

Bhuiyan is now calling on Perry to heed his demand for mercy and lower Stroman’s punishment to life in prison, arguing the attack was rooted in ignorance. As a devout American Muslim, Bhuiyan told reporters his faith led him to advocate for mercy, not vengeance.

In a typed letter from death row, Mark Stroman responded to a New York Times reporter’s question about his final thoughts as he awaits execution. This is what he wrote—we have not edited the original response—quote: "Not only do I have all My friends and supporters trying to Save my Life, but now i have The Islamic Community Joining in ... Spearheaded by one Very Remarkable man Named Rais Bhuiyan, Who is a Survivor of My Hate. His deep Islamic Beliefs Have gave him the strength to Forgive the Un-forgiveable ...that is truly Inspiring to me, and should be an Example for us all. The Hate, has to stop, we are all in this world together." Those are the words of Mark Stroman, scheduled to die on Wednesday.

For more, we’re joined by one of his victims, Rais Bhuiyan—Rais Bhuiyan, who was in a convenience store when Mark Stroman walked in and shot him directly, at point-blank range, in the face.

Rais, thank you very much for being with us. How can you find it in yourself to campaign for clemency for the man who killed others and shot you?

RAIS BHUIYAN: Well, thank you very much for having me on your show.

Well, I strongly believe what Mark Stroman did, that it was hate—I mean, that it was hate crime because of his ignorance, and he was not capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. 

Otherwise, he would not have done what he did. The way my parents raised me, and my Islamic faith teaches me, that he is the best who can forgive easily. And my faith teaches that no one has a right to take another human life. Islam doesn’t allow for hate and killing. All this kind of thing encouraged me not only to forgive Mark Stroman and also do something more to save this human life, because what Mark Stroman did, that it was hate crime, and now it is—we see crime all over the world, based on color, sex—I mean, color, sexual orientation, nationality and faith. So his execution will not eradicate hate crimes from this world. But if he’s executed, we’ll simply lose a human life without dealing with the root cause, which is hate. So that’s what encouraged me to come forward and run this campaign.

AMY GOODMAN: Rais, describe what happened 10 days after 9/11, September 11, 2001. What was the exact date that you were shot?

RAIS BHUIYAN: Well, it was September 21st, 2001. It was Friday, around 12:30, noon. I was working in a gas station. Suddenly, a customer came inside wearing bandana, sunglasses, baseball cap, and pointing a gun directly at my face. From my previous robbery experience, I thought that would be another robbery, so I offered him cash and requested him not to shoot me. In response, he asked me, "Where are you from?" And as soon as he asked me that question, I feel cold air flow through my spinal cord, and I thought, "He is not here for money. He is here for something else." And that question seemed strange to ask during a robbery. So I replied, "Excuse me?"

As soon as I spoke, I felt the sensation of a million bees stinging my face and then heard an explosion. I was not sure if he shot me or I was going through hallucination. I looked down, and I saw blood was pouring like an open faucet from the right side of my head. Images of my mother, my father, other siblings and my fiancée appeared before my eyes, and then a graveyard. I looked left, and I saw the gunman was still standing and looking at me. I thought, "If I don’t pretend I’m dying, he will shoot me again." So I jumped on the floor. And I remember screaming, "Mom!" And I was reciting from Holy Quran all the verses I have memorized, and I was asking God for His mercy to save my life.

AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened?

RAIS BHUIYAN: And I was thinking that "Maybe I’m dying today. This is the end of my life." And I was crying. I was reciting Quran. And I thought I have to stay positive, I have to stay active and keep my hope that God is watching me, and He knows what He’s going to do, so I have to stay focused. And I grabbed the phone, and as soon as Mark left the store, I came outside, with the thinking that if I stay inside and if I pass out, I may not get any help, but if I go in the parking lot, there might be some help. 

So I grabbed the phone, ran to the next door, which was a barber store. And once I entered, those folks, they were so scared, they tried to escape through their emergency door. Later on, they told me they thought the killer was coming behind me as I entered their store by running. So I captured one of them, and I said, "Please call 911." And he called.

That was the first time I looked at myself in the mirror. And I was—I was shocked by seeing myself, that just couple of minutes before, I was a beautiful young man, and now I look like a horror film, all those characters, full of blood on my face and my body. And I was thinking that maybe I’m dying today. I was very scared. I came back to the parking lot. I was running back and forth for the ambulance. Within a few minutes, the ambulance came to the parking lot. I ran towards that. And the paramedics, they were surprised seeing me running towards them, because they said later on that they thought they will be seeing some body on the floor, and they have to go with a stretcher. But rather, I was running toward them. They were surprised. And I was taken to the hospital.

AMY GOODMAN: Rais Bhuiyan, have you gotten to speak to Mark Stroman on death row?

RAIS BHUIYAN: I never got any chance to talk to him directly.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could, what would you say to him right now, scheduled to die on Wednesday?

RAIS BHUIYAN: Well, I will look directly at his eyes, if I get the chance to talk to him, and I will say that I was never angry at him, I never hated him. He is another human being like me, and I do not hate him.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you address the Governor of Texas or the Board of Pardons and Parole? You are a victim.

RAIS BHUIYAN: Yes, I’m the only survivor of Mark Stroman’s hate crime, what he did in 2001 because of World Trade Center tragedy in New York City. Governor Perry said in one of his statements that April 10 to 16, 2011, will be the victims’ rights week. He asked all the fellow Texans to join this effort to listen to the victim and help them whenever possible. I’d like to ask Honorable Governor Perry, that I’m a victim of this hate crime. Please listen to my request. Let me have a mediation dialogue with my offender, a meaningful—

AMY GOODMAN: We must leave it there, Rais Bhuiyan. Thank you so much for joining us.

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A REAL ISLAM POLICY FOR A REAL AMERICA

I thought it was important to post some of the vile and hate that is being preached and encouraged by Extremists, Racists and Islamophobes. Such material definitely should be exposed.

Courtesy Of "Am Nation"

Here is the speech, edited and polished, that I gave at the Preserving Western Civilization conference in February.

A REAL ISLAM POLICY FOR A REAL AMERICAby Lawrence Auster
Preserving Western Civilization Conference
Baltimore, Maryland
February 8, 2009

To deal with the crisis facing our civilization, we must be both realistic and imaginative. The realism part consists in recognizing how bad our situation is. The entire Western world is at present under the grip of the modern liberal ideology that targets every normal and familiar aspect of human life, and our entire historical way of being as a society.

The key to this liberal ideology is the belief in tolerance or non-discrimination as the ruling principle of society, the principle to which all other principles must yield. We see this belief at work in every area of modern life. The principle of non-discrimination must, if followed consistently, destroy every human society and institution. A society that cannot discriminate between itself and other societies will go out of existence, just as an elm tree that cannot discriminate between itself and a linden tree must go out of existence. To be, we must be able to say that we are us, which means that we are different from others. If we are not allowed to distinguish between ourselves and Muslims, if we must open ourselves to everyone and everything in the world that is different from us, and if the more different and threatening the Other is, the more we must open ourselves to it, then we go out of existence.

This liberal principle of destruction is utterly simple and radically extreme. Yet very, very few people, even self-described hard-line conservatives, are aware of this principle and the hold it has over our society. Instead of opposing non-discrimination, they oppose multiculturalism and political correctness. But let's say that we got rid of multiculturalism and political correctness. Would that end Muslim immigration? No. Multiculturalism is not the source of Muslim immigration. The source of it is our belief that we must not discriminate against other people on the basis of their culture, their ethnicity, their nationality, their religion. This is the idea of the 1965 Immigration Act, which was the idea of the 1964 Civil Rights Act applied to all of humanity: all discrimination is wrong, period. No one in today's society, including conservatives, feels comfortable identifying this utterly simple idea, because that would mean opposing it.

To see how powerful the belief in non-discrimination is, consider this: Prior to World War II, would any Western country have considered admitting significant numbers of Muslim immigrants? Of course not; it would have been out of the question. The West had a concrete identity. It saw itself as white and in large part as Christian, and there was still active in the Western mind the knowledge that Islam was our historic adversary, as it has been for a thousand years, and radically alien. But today, the very notion of stopping Muslim immigration is out of the question, it can't even be thought.

What would have been inconceivable 70 or 80 years ago is unquestionable today. A society that 70 years ago wouldn't have dreamed of admitting large numbers of Muslims, today doesn't dream of reducing, let alone stopping, the immigration of Muslims. Even the most impassioned anti-Islamic Cassandras never question--indeed they never even mention--the immigration of Muslims, or say it should be reduced or stopped.

You don't need to know any more than what I've just said. The rule of non-discrimination, in all its destructive potentialities, is shown in this amazing fact, that the writers and activists who constantly cry that Islam is a mortal danger to our society will not say that we ought to stop or even reduce Muslim immigration.

Such is the liberal belief which says that the most morally wrong thing is for people to have a critical view of a foreign group, to want to exclude that group or keep it out.

The dilemma suggests the solution. What is now unthinkable, must become thinkable; what is now unsayable, must become sayable; and ultimately it must replace non-discrimination as the ruling belief in society. I know that this sounds crazy, utterly impossible. But fifty or a hundred years ago it would have seemed crazy, utterly impossible, that today's liberalism with its suicidal ideology would have replaced the traditional attitudes that were then prevalent. If society could change that radically in one direction, toward suicidal liberalism, it can change back again. It's not impossible.

To understand how this unnatural and anti-human liberal belief came into existence and gained such power over us, we need to understand the natural and human order that the liberal belief is attacking.

I would like to quote the Book of Ecclesiasticus:

In much knowledge the Lord hath divided [men], and made their ways diverse. Some of them hath he blessed and exalted, and some of them hath he sanctified, and set near himself: but some of them hath he cursed and brought low, and turned out of their places. (Ecclesiasticus, 33)

Every beast loveth his like and every man loveth his neighbor. All flesh consorteth according to kind, and a man will cleave to his like. (Ecclesiasticus, 13.15.)

This passage beautifully expresses the true order of the world in which we live, the world in which men have always lived, but which modern liberalism denies and demonizes. That world can be explained in terms of two dimensions, which I call the vertical axis and the horizontal axis. The vertical axis is the relationship between ourselves and that which is above us and below us, that which is better and worse, that which is more true and less true, the relation between God and man. The horizontal axis is the relationship between entities on the same level, between different people in the same society, or between different societies or different cultures.

On the horizontal axis, the question is: how similar are things to each other? How different are they from each other? How well do they get along? On the vertical axis, the question is, what are the standards by which we live? What is good behavior, what is bad behavior? To what extent are we following the good, to what extent are we falling short of it or turning away from it?

I would add that one doesn't need to be a Christian or a religious believer to know that this hierarchical order of the world exists. There are many aspects of the order of being that can be grasped through natural reason alone.

What I'm saying here is nothing fancy or metaphysical, it's something that all people know by common sense. We live within these two dimensions--the better and the worse, the more like and the less like--in everything we do.

That is, we did live within them, until modern liberalism came along and said that it's wrong to discriminate between higher and lower, it's wrong to discriminate between better and worse, it's wrong to discriminate between like and unlike.

Modern liberalism says that there cannot be a truth or a standard higher than ourselves by which our actions are judged, because that would make some people better in relation to that standard than other people.

In the same way, modern liberalism says that it is evil to believe that some people are more unlike us than others, because that would also be a violation of the liberal principle that all people are equally like us.

The equality principle of modern liberalism says that unassimilable immigrants must be permitted to flood our society, changing its very nature. It prohibits normal authority such as the authority of parents and teachers over children. It banished the very idea of a morality that men ought to follow. And even God is banished if he's a God who has any claims on us.

This is the ubiquitous yet unacknowledged horror of modern liberalism, that it takes the ordinary, differentiated nature of the world, which all human beings have always recognized, and makes it impossible for people to discuss it, because under liberalism anyone who notes these distinctions and says that they matter has done an evil thing and must be banished from society, or at least be barred from a mainstream career.

This liberalism is the most radical and destructive ideology that has ever been, and yet it is not questioned. Communism and big government liberalism were challenged and fought in the past. But the ideology of non-discrimination, which came about after World War II, has never been resisted--it has never even been identified, even though it is everywhere. What is needed, if the West is to survive, is a pro-Western civilization movement that criticizes, resists, and reverses this totalistic liberal belief system that controls our world.

I said at the beginning that we had to be realistic about the Islam problem. That meant understanding the forces that at present make it impossible for us as a society to discuss Islam honestly, let alone to do anything about it.

Realistically, from where we are now, a solution to the Islam problem is so far away it's as though it were on another planet, another world, where liberalism has lost its stranglehold, allowing non-liberal things to be said and done.

Now it's not only by conservative resistance that liberalism might be stopped. Liberalism may collapse of its own contradictions and irrationality. Liberals may slowly move to more realistic understandings. A recent example was a column by Ralph Peters in which he said that the entire nation of Afghanistan, all Afghans, are radically incompatible with ourselves.

Given that Peters in his basic outlook is a vehement liberal, constantly waging war against bigotry and condemning the whole continent of Europe as incipient Nazis, that was a amazing thing for him to say. If that kind of understanding of the real differences between Muslims and ourselves expands, then even without liberals explicitly renouncing liberalism, they may perhaps move far enough away from liberalism to allow America to begin to adopt sensible policies with regard to Islam.

And other things may happen, acts of God, disasters, economic depressions, or unprecedented terrorist attacks, that may shock society out of its liberal attitudes.
But we don't know that any of those things will happen, and we cannot count on their happening or on their having the effects we may hope for. Our task as Western patriots is to argue against modern liberalism, showing its falsity and destructiveness, showing that modern liberalism is wrong not just in its excesses, but in its fundamentals, because it is incompatible with our continued existence as a society. And in that process, all of the attitudes which modern liberalism enforces--the suppression of discussion about Islam, the suppression of discussion about immigration, the suppression of discussion about race differences and their significance--will be weakened, because each of those prohibitions is based on the idea that discrimination is the greatest sin.

Now that we have acknowledged the currently existing reality, and the tremendous change of thought that would be required to change it, let us take the imaginative and hopeful leap to a different reality, a reality in which society might actually do something about Islam rather than surrender to slow extinction at its hands.

What would be a real Islam policy for a real America? If there were a non-liberal president of the United States, and if he had enough support in the media and the Congress to get his program through, what would he do, and how would he propose it?

So now, as I begin to speak as that imaginary president might speak, let us imagine that we have leaped from our present planet of liberalism, where a solution is impossible, to the planet of reality. It may seem infinitely remote, but it is no farther away than a change in thought.


* * *My fellow Americans:

I come before you this evening to discuss an unprecedented challenge in the history of our Republic, which will require unprecedented measures to meet it. We must think anew and act anew. But, in reality, what we must do is not new at all. It is the way things used to be, before we went so badly astray.

In my speech last week I spoke to you about the nature and doctrines of the Islamic religion; of the permanent state of war that it establishes between itself and all non-Muslim societies; of its ultimate aim of subjugating all of humanity to the law of Islam, known as the sharia; and of the fact that all believing Muslims, whether they are fanatics or moderates, whether they are jihad warriors or people who only believe in spreading sharia peacefully, are all part of one Islamic community, all strengthening in their respective ways the Islamic political agenda of bringing all non-Muslims under the rule of Islam.

I spoke of how, since the spread and imposition of sharia is a central function and goal of Islam, any increase in the number and influence of Muslims in a non-Muslim society helps advance sharia.

It is important to understand that what makes Islam dangerous to non-Muslims is not that Muslims are morally bad people. The problem is not that Muslims are bad people, the problem is that they are good Muslims. Our concern is with the religion and the political ideology of Islam, which makes all Muslims dangerous to us, since all Muslims, even if they personally have no aggressive intentions, even if they are personally fine and lovely people, are part of the Islamic community and owe their highest loyalty to Islam. Therefore any increase in the number of Muslims among us means an increase in the power of Islam and the further spread of the Islamic law.

My purpose is not to promote hostility against Muslim persons or to spark civilizational warfare between the West and Islam, but to reduce and end the current increasing civilizational warfare, by separating Islam from the West. We respect the right of Muslims to follow in peace their religion in their lands. But in order for us Americans to follow in peace our religions and flourish in our way of life, the followers of sharia need to leave our country and return to the historic lands of Islam.

I therefore will propose to the Congress tomorrow the following measures, which shall be called the American Freedom from Islam Act.

• With the exception of immediate family members of U.S. citizens, diplomatic personnel, and temporary visitors for business and other legitimate purposes, all entry into the United States of foreign persons known or determined to be followers of the religion of Islam, whatever their nationality or country of residence, shall cease.

• Any Muslim person with a temporary visa for business or diplomacy who advocates or promotes jihad shall lose his visa.

• Any resident alien who openly espouses jihad or who participates in any pro-jihad activities or organizations will lose his residency status and be deported.

• No resident alien who adheres to, or who on investigation is reasonably suspected of adhering to, the doctrine of jihad, will be naturalized as a U.S. citizen. In order to be naturalized, Muslims will be required to state under oath that they totally reject the doctrine of jihad and have no association with pro-jihad activities and pro-jihad persons.

• Naturalized citizens, whether they were naturalized before or after the passage of this law, who associate with jihad supporters or participate in pro-jihad activities, have shown that their oath of loyalty to the United States was fraudulent. Their citizenship shall be revoked and they shall be deported. 

• All mosques, Islamic centers and schools that promote jihad or sharia in any form will be closed.

• The United States shall encourage the voluntary departure of Muslim naturalized citizens and their native-born descendants by offering all Muslim persons over the age of eighteen $50,000 each in a one-time fee to give up any claim of U.S. residency or citizenship, to return to their native land, and never to seek to return. The federal government will assure that departing Muslims will receive a fair market price for their real property, investments, and other property that they must sell prior to leaving the United States.

My fellow citizens, that is the first part of the bill that I will propose to the Congress. The measures I've enumerated so far would retard the growth of Islam. But they would still leave in place the existing U.S. Muslim population with their belief in sharia. Over time, our will to contain and police them might weaken, while their will to expand their religion and their political power will continue. Also, these measures imply that America would have to become a kind of police state, forever overseeing its Muslim citizens, examining their statements and activities, turning America into something we, and certainly I, do not want it to become.

For these reasons further steps are needed, aimed not just at stopping and reversing the growth of jihad support in America, but at stopping and reversing the growth of sharia in America. And to reverse the growth of sharia in America means to reverse the growth of Islam in America, through the forcible or voluntary departure of sharia-believing Muslims.

Therefore I shall propose these additional measures:

• Any legal resident alien who advocates or adheres to, or who on investigation is reasonably suspected of adhering to, the sharia law shall be deprived of his resident status and removed from the United States;

• No resident alien who advocates or adheres to, or who on investigation is reasonably suspected of adhering to, the sharia law, will be naturalized as a U.S. citizen. In order to be naturalized, Muslims will be required to state under oath that they totally reject the Islamic doctrine of sharia and have no association with pro-sharia activities.

• Any naturalized citizen who violates this oath shall lose his citizenship and be removed from the United States.

• Any mosque or Islamic center in the United States that promotes or seeks to spread the sharia law shall be closed.

This second part of the bill, which deals with sharia, is more far reaching than the first part, which deals with jihad. Removing jihad believers from the United States means removing only the extreme wing of the Muslim community. But since belief in the sharia law, and the obligation to institute and live under the sharia law wherever one lives, and to impose the sharia law on non-Muslims, is the very essence of Islam, removing sharia believers from the United States means removing a large part of the Muslim community from the United States.

But now we need to consider a further problem. The measures enumerated so far will inevitably be attacked as in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Therefore, in order for the measures that I've proposed to stand and not be overturned, we must have a further law stating that the First Amendment does not apply to Islam, does not protect the free exercise of the religion of Islam, because Islam is not only a religion, it is a political movement aimed at establishing tyrannical power over non-Muslims, and specifically aimed at overturning our Constitution, laws, and liberties.

However, even such a radical law would not get us out of the woods, because it also could be overturned as in violation of the First Amendment. Therefore, in order for the measures I have proposed to be truly secure and not threatened by constitutional challenge, we must go to the highest level of our political system. We must pass a Constitutional amendment that prohibits the practice of Islam in the United States. Through such an amendment we will be saying that Islam is incompatible with our existence as a society. We will be making a fundamental statement about the kind of society America is.

And that, my fellow Americans, is precisely what the Constitution is supposed to be about. After the Civil War, slavery was prohibited, not by statute or presidential proclamation, but by an amendment to the Constitution declaring that slavery has no place in the United States.

The same needs to be done with regard to the slavery that is Islam.

Such an amendment will be immune to any constitutional challenges, because it will be part of the Constitution itself. It will encourage many Muslims, at least those who care about their religion, and those are the ones we are most concerned about, to leave the United States on their own, without our having to do anything to make them leave, such as constructing a vast bureaucracy to investigate them and deport them. Simply as a result of our saying to them, "We have nothing against you as human beings, but your religion is a mortal danger to our entire way of life, and we cannot permit it to remain here," the Muslims among us will begin to depart in a steady stream to the Islamic world, or perhaps to other Western countries where Islam is still welcome. It is my hope, however, that all Western countries will adopt laws similar to what I am urging here, resulting in the voluntary return of the great majority of believing Muslims in the West to the Muslim lands.
Here then is the constitutional amendment that I shall propose to the Congress:

Section 1. The religion of Islam, as propagated in the Koran and in the Islamic Traditions or Hadiths, and formalized in the Sharia Law, shall not be practiced, disseminated, or advocated within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. This article supersedes any contrary provision of this Constitution and of the laws of the United States.

Now that I have spoken to the American people about the steps we must take to preserve our freedoms and our very nationhood, I would like to speak to the Muslims of the world who are listening to me tonight.

I repeat that I have no ill will against you as people. I act with no animosity. I act in recognition of reality. And the reality is--and you know it, and now you know that we know it--that your religion commands you to make all peoples and societies submit to the Islamic law, wherever and whenever you have the power and opportunity to do so.

And one of the opportunities that have been presented to you is immigration. A half century ago, when we of the West began to admit large numbers of Muslim immigrants, we were, though we did not realize it, replicating what the city of Medina did in the year 622 when it invited Muhammad and his followers to emigrate there from Mecca. The most famous event in the history of Islam, the event with which the Islamic calendar begins, was an act of immigration. Muhammad and his followers moved to Medina, and within two years he had become the dictator of Medina, and Islamic law ruled in that city. That is a paradigm of Islamic expansion.

When we invited you Muslims into the West, we were, without knowing it, imitating what the Medinans did 1,400 years ago. You saw the significance of what we were doing, and you couldn't believe the opportunity that we had handed to you. You had never imagined that we would do this. But we did it, we gave you the opportunity. And now we have to close off that opportunity by reversing the policies that brought you here.

I repeat, these proposals do not threaten you. We respect the religion of Islam when practiced by Muslims in their own countries. We have no designs on Islam. You have nothing to fear from us. We do not threaten you and your way of life. But you, as a religion and as a political movement commanded by your god to subjugate the entire world, most certainly threaten us. But you can only threaten us if you are in our lands. When you are in your own lands you pose no direct danger to us.

So, Muslims of the world, let us go on sharing in peace this beautiful earth that God created. But in order for there to be peace between us, there must also be fences between us.

Good night. God bless America, God bless Western civilization, and God bless the peoples of the world.


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