Sunday August 28, 2011, 11:59 pm
Thanks Cal we should not preach any hate

Monday August 29, 2011, 12:14 am
I will say there is a enough hate of Muslims and it is wrong

Monday August 29, 2011, 1:26 am
I hope that many of funders were merely duped, and somehow there should be a law where all aspects of organizations ingaged in this type of fundraising are forced to divulge everthing in laymans terms. Wishfull thinking i'm sure..thanks again Cal

Monday August 29, 2011, 4:24 am
hmmmm, Noted TY

Monday August 29, 2011, 7:34 am
I just checked a couple of these, and they are not even remotely hate-groups. The problem is that their messages, while absolutely valid and vital for public discourse, differ from Islamophobic claims only by (not really all that) subtle nuances. Nuances tend to be lost as those statements get disseminated through second and third sources, in a destructive and troubling game of Broken Telephone.

The first hit that came up in a Google search for "daniel pipes islam U.S." was
http://www.danielpipes.org/77/the-danger-within-militant-islam-in-america . The first thing he says about Muslims in the U.S. is that the proportion of them who actually want Sharia (as implemented elsewhere) is "statistically tiny". The problem is not Muslims as a whole, but enough of them to cause serious damage. If 0.01% became terrorists, we would still be talking about a force roughly ten times that of the 9/11 attack. The point is that he actually started off with the definitive anti-Islamophobic statement.

MEMRI discusses media in the Middle East. It really is extremely anti-Western. Remember that Arabs there mostly do not have a free press, and the state-press pretty much reports only what the government says. Also remember that Arab leaders tend to blame the results of poor governance on outside forces. Is it any wonder that MEMRI turns up so much stuff? The nuance here is that Arab governments are not the same as American Muslims. It seems pretty obvious, but this is what gets lost in Broken Telephone. I suspect something similar is true, garbling the MEF's message. I could go on with more groups' and people's messages, but I think you get the picture.

The other thing that bothers me about this article is the presumption that there is some sort of conspiracy. This is a popular movement, not a conspiracy. Specifically, it is a popular movement of people concerned for the maintenance of American physical security and the maintenance of current American culture, with a dangerous bigoted group within it. Is that dynamic starting to sound familiar to all the non-Islamophobes here? Anyways, the central error in the article is the failure to recognize nuance (again) in the distinction between a consensus and a conspiracy. If you want to see another consensus (rather than conspiracy) which should be more familiar to most posters here and clarify the difference, look at the Progressive movement.

Monday August 29, 2011, 7:48 pm
This whole islamophobia thing is sheer manipulation by the R And T party to separate us....To distrack us from what their doing...........

Monday August 29, 2011, 8:26 pm
Noted , thanks !

Monday August 29, 2011, 8:30 pm
Noted thanks Cal.

Monday August 29, 2011, 9:27 pm
I don't know as much about Islam as I should, but I do know Total Fertility Rates. Some of the rants of the anti-Muslim forces in the U.S. have caused me to question other things that are said. You might have heard that "they" are breeding large families so they can take over the U.S.

Odd since Iran, which is 98% Muslim, has a 1.9 Total Fertility Rate (lower than that of the U.S.). Turkey, 99% Muslim, has a 2.1 TFR (the same as that of the U.S. until we dropped to 2.0 last year).

Tuesday August 30, 2011, 1:13 am
Time can twist the mighty oak. The Arabic people made it abundantly clear that they did not want to be westernized. We foisted TV on them anyway. We surrounded Japan with war ships to force them into the 'free' market.
We hated Russians, Germans, Japanese, and now were on to the Arabs. We even hated the American indigenous people while we went about stealing they're land and slaughtering they're woman and children.
You want something to hate? That's what mirrors are for.
Leave these people to decide for themselves who they wish to sell they're oil to. If we don't like the price - oh well, we can always tear up our own environs.
Terrorism is a response to terrible foreign policy. Oh yeah, and now come the Mexicans because we exported our Nixonian war on drugs.
Can we really stand against the world as Bush told us we could? I don't think so, I hear the crying already.

Tuesday August 30, 2011, 1:27 pm
No offense here...but just what IS "Islamophobia?"

You all DO realize that there's a huge difference between an honest criticism of something and "hate speech," and yet, honest critics are being flamed and branded, all over the world, by irate Muslims who will not tolerate one negative comment about the actions of Islamic governments, fundamentalist terror groups and practices of Sharia law.

Look at the "outrage" which put poor Geert Wilders through years of expensive and dangerous litigation, simply because he made a film about womens' rights under Islam! He was vilified around the world as showing "Islamophobia" when, in reality.....he was making a personal statement which reflected verifiable truths.

TRUE "Islamophobia" exists when someone clearly says "ALL MUSLIMS ARE EVIL."

There's an enormous difference between that action and the simple expression of freedom of speech when someone says "I think that it's far too easy for Muslims to blame "Islamophobia" or for Christians to complain about "Christian bashing" than to face the frequent truth of their negative behavior.

If we're all honest (and not just "politically correct," we can recognize that there's a big difference.

Tuesday August 30, 2011, 2:41 pm
It is just a case of propaganda and brainwashing. Like a dripping tap can erode a stone block, it is the same kind of process Hitler used in making Europe first distrust and then hate jews, blacks and Poles. A friend of mine is Croatian and we constantly take him to task about his anti-semitic comments, yet he has no basis for his feelings it is just what he grew up with the 1940s. Those of us who have a wider perspective should be grateful we were exposed to openess when we were growing. The worst states certainly for racism are those who espoused slavery and they again have this glorified but totally unfounded view of themselves.

Tuesday August 30, 2011, 6:26 pm
Interesting. Thank you for bringing this information.

Wednesday August 31, 2011, 4:42 am
I tried to post this earlier, don't know what happened but here goes again.
I'm not sure where I really sit on this one. Seems to me that I just can't understand some things about Muslims, for example why they would force dozens of school girls to stay inside a burning school house to burn to death just because they were not allowed outside without their headscarves. Or why there is a practice such as genital mutilation for Muslim girls. I just can't understand why Christians are not allowed to even have Bibles in Saudi Arabia, or Churches for that matter. I'd include Jewish Temples as well but I'd venture to say there are NO Jews in Saudi Arabia and I'd not even wonder why. I'm wondering as well why there is no discussion on what we might call Muslim "Everybodyelsesreligionophobia" since in no country where there is a predomininant Muslim population and government is any religion tolerated. So please, tell me again just what is "Islamophobia" and why is there no discussion of how Muslims treat others?

Wednesday August 31, 2011, 8:36 am
Thanks, Ken....my point, exactly!

Saturday September 3, 2011, 12:25 pm
We have to remember that the problem is not Islam or Muslims, but people's fear and negative attitudes and blind hatred towards them simply because they are perceived to be a threat. That's what Islamophobia is pam w. Granted there are some in their religion that distort it to justify their hatred and terrorism, but those are the crazy few, not a definitive representation of the religion or its followers. It's just that media and conservative nutjobs are quick jump on the hate bandwagon and sensationalize the actions of the few bad apples to define the entire orchard.

Saturday September 3, 2011, 6:22 pm
I disagree, Robert.

The "problem" is entire governments of Islamic countries...all of which restrict freedoms of speech, artistic expression, women's rights, sexual and other personal freedoms, such as those OF religion other than Islam, FROM Islam, etc. I've heard many people try to excuse this all away by talking about "the few" and "the crazy," etc.

But...it doesn't explain entire nations, Robert. This is CRITICISM, and NOT Islamaphobia. It's also truth.