Is this a great country or what?
by digby
Actually, no, not at the moment. This is just awful:
Speaking to the Guardian, Mohammad Tariq Mahmood, who was travelling with his brother and nine of their children aged between eight and 19, said they had been given no explanation for the last minute cancellation, but he believed the reason was obvious: “It’s because of the attacks on America – they think every Muslim poses a threat.”
He said the children had been counting down the days to the trip for months, and were devastated not to be able to visit their cousins in southern California and go to Disneyland and Universal Studios, as planned.
Creasy believes a lack of information from US authorities is fuelling resentment within British Muslim communities.
“Online and offline discussions reverberate with the growing fear UK Muslims are being ‘trumped’ – that widespread condemnation of Donald Trump’s call for no Muslim to be allowed into America contrasts with what is going on in practice,” Creasy writes in an article for the Guardian. She said she was in contact with at least one other constituent who had had a similar experience.
This is obviously because we're good and they're evil. This man says he's never been in any trouble with the law and neither has his American brother. And what they say bothers them the most is that there is simply no explanation.
They are also just out the £9,000 they paid for the trip apparently. Too bad, you're out of luck. You're a Muslim. Just eat the money and endure the humiliation. Oh, and by the way, while you're at it, we're going to need you to publicly express how much you side with us in this battle and are willing to take this humiliation simply because you happen to be a member of the Muslim faith. It's the least you can do.
And once again, this is completely irrational. We have had a small handful of Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11 which were perpetrated by alienated losers looking for a reason to shoot up or blow up a bunch of people --- something that happens almost every day in this country. The idea that this particular problem in America has anything in particular to do with Muslim extremism and therefore requires that we ban Muslims from entering our precious country is daft. If it's safety we're looking for we'd be better off deporting angry white guys with gun collections.
On Monday a number of people commented on an amazing exchange between Mika Brzezinski and Rick Santorum on this subject in which Santorum was railing against the Muslim community for allegedly failing to properly criticize the terrorists in their midst. Brzezinski then asked the question no other talk show host I can remember ever asking one of these fellows:
You are telling Muslim Americans they all need to come out and talk about the tiny percentage of their community that has kind of, quite frankly, wreaked havoc. But yet, you look at the data of white men wreaking havoc on this country? Why aren’t white men coming forward? Why don’t you call on them to do that?
You won't believe his answer:
I am actually doing a lot of things about that, trying to solve gun violence and that primarily focuses in on the family. If you look at the folks who are causing crime in America almost every single one of them, I think Chuck Colson pointed this out, eighty five to ninety percent of men in prison grew up without a father in the home. So you want to get at the real root problem here. You've got a breakdown of society based upon a breakdown of the family.
Isn't that special? American non-Muslim violence is the result of bad parenting and the breakdown of the family and we need to get to the root problem and help these poor souls who kill people with guns so they can feel loved and secure. American Muslim violence is evil. I'm glad he cleared that up.
Maybe he's right. Dylan Roof, the young white guy with the Nazi symbols on his Facebook page and a hatred for African Americans who shot nine people does seem to have grown up in a turbulent home. I don't know about the Planned Parenthood shooter. Elliot Rodger the Santa Barbara killer, however, had a very stable loving family. Adam Lanza was very close to his mother and while it's true his parents were divorced their situation seemed very much like many millions of divorced families.And interestingly, Syed Farook apparently came from a broken home with a violent father.
But if Santorum really believes this story about the family perhaps he should at least consider the idea that many of those young men in the middle east are drawn to extremism because members of their own families, their entire societies, have been torn apart by war. Imagine how that affects the hearts and minds of those who live there --- and how they might turn to violence in response.
This issue makes me feel as if I'm losing my mind. The irrationality of it, the obvious bigotry, the inane arguments are intensely frustrating. We are working ourselves up into a frenzy over Islamic terrorism while living with terrible violence every day, violence which the right insists is perfectly natural and completely without solution. Meanwhile, we are talking about carpet bombing countries in the middle east, denying entry to British Muslim families and treating American muslims like second class citizens. What could go wrong?
None of the violence on any side is excusable for any reason. But there is little doubt in my mind that we could at least reduce some of the carnage if we stopped worshipping guns at home and demonizing Islam around the world. It certainly couldn't hurt.
I plan to continue writing about this. I hope you'll consider dropping a little something into the kitty to help keep this blog going for another year.
Happy Hollandaise everyone.
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