(hat tip: Islamophobia-watch)

Nowadays, racists and bigots usually come up with justifications to cover up their racism and bigotry, to give cover to it and to package it in something nicer.  Bans on the Muslim headscarf (hijab) were no doubt a reflection of deep-seated Islamophobia, yet we heard politicians claiming that the bans were not targeting Muslims.  Rather, we were told, it is a reflection of Europe’s secularism, and would apply equally to religious gear of all faiths.

A recent poll, however, says otherwise: over fifty percent of Europeans favored banning the hijab from schools, but were meanwhile perfectly fine with (and in fact supported) the placement of crucifixes in classrooms.  To us Yankees, that seems downright backwards.  The hijab is something the individual chooses to wear, not the state–and therefore does not at all impinge on secularism.  Meanwhile, the crucifix is placed in the public school classroom, thereby breaching separation of church and state.

Belgium and France lead the pack when it comes to hijabophobia, and France even seems to be considering a law banning hijab in public altogether.  Secularism my ass (forgive my French).

50% of Europeans opposed to Islamic veil in schools: Study

MADRID – Just over half of Europeans surveyed opposed allowing Islamic headscarves in schools but backed the presence of crucifixes in classrooms, according to a Spanish study obtained by AFP Wednesday…

Opposition to the veil was highest in Bulgaria with 84.3 per cent against and France with 68.7 per cent opposed and it was lowest in Poland with only 25.6 per cent against followed by Denmark with 28.1 per cent opposed.

By contrast 54.4 per cent of those polled were in favour of classrooms displaying crucifixes.

In Spain and Italy, two nations with a strong Roman Catholic tradition, support for the use of crucifixes in classrooms stood at 69.9 per cent and 49.3 per cent respectively.

Support for the use of crucifixes in classrooms shot up to 77 per cent in Britain and 78.8 per cent in Denmark.

The issue of the use of Islamic headscarves has been thrust into the spotlight once again in Europe due to controversial moves by France and Belgium to ban Muslim full face veils.

Last week France announced it would seek a law to ban Muslim residents and visitors from wearing a burqa or a niqab in public, while Belgium was poised to pass a similar ban until its ruling coalition collapsed on Thursday…

source

Apparently, many European Christians don’t like this headscarf thing too much, but love the crucifix.  I’m pretty sure that’s a bit strange considering that the man who they believe died on the crucifix was born to this woman here:

If the Virgin Mary was alive today, Europeans would say to her: you have to take that heathen headscarf off!  You can keep the crucifix, though.

Is Joyce Kaufman related to Joe Kaufman by any chance? Florida seems to have a high percentage of loons!

Cerabino: Publix Calendar Yanked through Political Mischief

Hey, don’t bother looking for your free Publix calendar.

The coupon-loaded calendar, which had been a yearly giveaway for the past five years, was yanked this past week from all of the chain’s South Florida supermarkets.

Why? Collateral damage of today’s political climate.

On Dec. 7, the 2010 calendar lists Islamic New Year, not Pearl Harbor Day.

There are two ways to react:

1. To get into a xenophobic tizzy while weaving this into a narrative of a vast anti-American conspiracy that leads right up to the subversive undercover-Muslim, Kenyan interloper in the White House.

Or …

2. To assume that the grocery store chain has no reason to offend people, and that Publix, in an effort to be inclusive, inadvertently became a victim of a synchronicity of dates and an unconscious omission.

Publix pointed out that Pearl Harbor Day had never been listed in the store’s calendars . And the Islamic New Year had been on the Publix calendar since 2006.

And nobody complained.

Not a political document

The rub is that this year the Islamic New Year, which changes dates because it is based on a lunar calendar, falls on Pearl Harbor Day.

And why does the calendar list Islamic New Year? For the same inclusive reason it lists the Jewish High Holidays, Chinese New Year and an international array of other dates, including Puerto Rico Commonwealth Constitutional Day, Haitian Flag Day, Boss’s Day and Administrative Assistant’s Day.

It’s not a political document. It’s a calendar with pictures of animals that you get for free, along with discount coupons. To make more of it is to engage in political mischief.

“I was driving home Tuesday night and Allen West told me to look at the Publix calendar,” said Joyce Kaufman, a WFTL-AM talk-show host.

West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a Republican candidate running for the congressional seat held by Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.

Radio host urges audience uprising

Kaufman, who advertises her radio show with the words “America first. No apologies,” didn’t require much arm twisting to parlay the quinella of Islamophobia and flag waving to her audience the next day.

“What relevance does Islamic New Year have in my country?” Kaufman told me. “Islam is an ideology, and it’s not friendly to me.”

She said World War II veterans were “terribly offended” and she urged her audience to show up at their local Publix to complain.

“You show this calendar to the manager and say, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ ”

Meanwhile, a “Dear Fellow Americans” e-mail was urging a boycott, citing an “un-American attitude” of Publix for “recognizing the Muslim New Year over Pearl Harbor Day.”

Publix wisely yanked the benign calendar, which had become a talking point in a cartoonish alternate universe.

“Based on feedback we have received this year, if a free calendar is produced for 2011, we will also include Pearl Harbor Day,” Publix spokesman Kim Jaeger said in a statement.

~ frank_cerabino@pbpost.com

Michael Savage

Michael Savage’s flagship station in California has decided to drop him. Savage, you may recall, is the genocidal radio personality who has amongst other things called for the “nuking of Muslim countries,” the “killing of millions of Muslims,” and more. He is so over the top you wonder if people take him seriously, but judging from the size of his listeners it seems that enough do for him to be considered a dangerous demagogue.

Zaid Jilani for Think Progress reports,

Earlier today, the conservative blog Patriot Axom noted that far-right radio host Michael Savage has been taken “off the air” from his San Francisco-based flagship station, Talk 910 KNEW. Now, a representative from the station has issued a statement explaining why it will no longer air Savage’s show:

I’m going to answer the very first question many of you have.

“Why did you take Michael Savage off the air?”

Here’s your no-spin direct answer; we have decided to go in a different philosophical and ideological direction, featuring more contemporary content and more local information. The Savage Nation does not fit into that vision.

910 KNEW’s decision is the latest blow to Savage’s efforts to spread hate. Last winter, following a campaign by the Council On American-Islamic Relations and Brave New Films, numerous advertisers ended their relationship with Savage, including Geico, Union Bank of California, and ITT Technical Institute. Savage has in the past advocated killing 100 million Muslims, compared President Jimmy Carter to Hitler, and has said that the U.S. Senate is “more histrionic than ever” because of the addition of female senators.

Cenk Uygur of Young Turks has some commentary that hits the nail on the head:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pnEtbecHmU&feature=channel_page 300 250]

Reeling from this fresh blow from his flagship station dropping him, Savage’s company was also forced the very next day to apologize to Brave New Films as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by Savage,

Yesterday’s news that Michael Savage was dropped in his hometown market, by KNEW, is followed today by news that he and his company, Original Talk Radio Network (ORTN) have reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by Brave New Films (BNF).

Last year BNF produced a short film, “Michael Savage Hates Muslims,” which was posted on YouTube, consisting mostly of audio clips of Savage ranting against Muslims on his syndicated radio show. ORTN subsequently demanded that YouTube remove the clip from its site; as a result, YouTube took down all of BNF’s online content, and BNF filed suit for damages and free speech rights.

BNF was represented pro bono by Bingham McCutchen LLP and Stanford Center for Internet and Society’s “Fair Use Project,” which was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of “fair use” in order to enhance creative freedom.

On Aug. 21, Savage and OTRN settled, which included the following written apology:

OTRN acknowledges that it made a mistake by asking YouTube to remove Brave New Films’ video “Michael Savage Hates Muslims” from the YouTube site. Upon further examination, it is clear that video should not have been included in OTRN’s September 29, 2009 takedown notice. OTRN apologizes for this error.

Savage, of course, has taken numerous anti-Muslim stances over the years, many of which can be heard in the film in question:

It looks like the loons are taking some big hits, but it is going to take a lot more to make people realize that individuals such as Michael Savage are so radioactive that you don’t want to be associated with them.

Jim Quinn is very fond of Neanderthals

In an insane rant, Jim Quinn, who we reported on earlier attempted to use the  emotive memory of the tragedy of September 11th by asking his audience to remain “angry.” Just remain “angry” and everything will be alright, don’t channel that anger into positive action but just remain angry. He then tells his listeners that we have “to stoop as low as the enemy because that is the only way to defeat them.” Pretty much asking us to disregard our laws and make it open season to profile, torture, deport American Muslims.

In the middle of this coarse and illogical, a-la-Glenn-Beck rant, Quinn also states his black and white vision of the world, and calls for Americans to “fight Islam on the battlefield…Kill Islam before it kills you.” He believes you can take tanks, jets and guns and defeat a set of religious beliefs. This is sort of like when Rick Santorum the former Pennsylvania Senator said “Muslims speak Islamic.” How many times do people like Jim Quinn and Santorum have to be reminded that Islam is not a person, Islam is a fourteen hundred year old religion with followers all over the globe including America.

Jim Quinn: “We have to kill Islam”

Neanderthal

Jim Quinn who hosts The War Room with Quinn and Rose on Clear Channel did a segment in which he was discussing the proposed Burqa ban in France. During the discussion he went into a rant about how he can’t understand why any Black person would want to convert to Islam. He chalks up Black conversions to Islam as nothing other than an attempt to “reject our culture.” Yes, it has absolutely nothing to do with spirituality Quinn? It is also condescending and a bit amusing to see Quinn who is a white male and has no knowledge of what it is like to be Black opine on the personal choices of Black people in America.

He goes on to call Islam a “neanderthal religion…this throw back to a thousand years ago.” So the fact that it’s an old religion makes it neanderthal? It seems like Quinn is the one using neanderthal logic here! What would that make Hinduism, Judaism and even Christianity which no doubt Quinn must think is “our culture,”  would they also be considered “neanderthal?”

Nuclear Holocaust

Loons come in many shapes and sizes but you can usually identify them because they utter stark raving mad things that normal mainstream people would never say and would likely find objectionable.  One of those things that might make you flinch is when someone calls for the application of nuclear weapons upon a whole populace or nation.

In a previous post I exposed Joe Kaufman’s wish to launch nukes onto the Middle East, and how he wonders ” if we got nukes, why aren’t we using them?”  This is not an isolated incident but in fact is part of a larger trend that links many of the Islamophobes and instigators of anti-Muslim agitation. 

In the recent presidential race, former Republican Representative Tom Tancredo from Colorado was on the record stating,

If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. Because that’s the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do.

Does Tancredo believe that instead of emboldening terrorists and pouring fuel on the fires of conflict, a strike on the holy places of a quarter of the world’s population would be a “deterrence?”  Can someone from Colorado talk to Tancredo and convince him to go on the same quest as the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz?

Robert Spencer, the self-described “Islamic expert” wrote in his article Nuke Mecca? Nope that he believes the only reason bombing Mecca wouldn’t be a good idea is because it would become

[a] source of spirit, not of dispirit. The jihadists would have yet another injury to add to their litany of grievances.

Why can’t Spencer who easily proclaims that bombing Mecca is wrong for strategic reasons not come out and denounce the idea of bombing close to a quarter of humanity’s most holiest site for moral reasons? Maybe because Spencer wouldn’t mind seeing Mecca bombed. 

He grudgingly suggests that due to the exigencies of Realpolitik we can’t do it because it will become a source of “spirit for the Jihadists” but without condemning it he leaves the possibility that we might be capable of doing it in the future.  He never stops to consider that this might anger more than just the Jihadists but also every single Muslim in the world.

One must ask Spencer how he would feel if someone proposed that the only reason bombing the Vatican might not be a good idea is because it will become a source of spirit for extremist Catholics? Wouldn’t he think that Catholics of all stripes and shades would be angered and not just the extremists targeted amongst them?

Michael Savage

In one of the most recent episodes of using the nuclear card we have Michael Savage echoing Kaufman by asking on his radio show the Savage Nation, ”if we got nukes, why aren’t we using them, what are they good for?”

CALLER: We in the Western world and the United States — I don’t see how we’re gonna win this, because we do not have the guts, we don’t have the stomach to do the things it takes to be violent enough, to fight fire with fire and give these — I mean, basically, we need to exterminate them like rats, and we’re so worried about –

SAVAGE: Yeah, we know where they’re coming from, we know they’re coming out of the — the training, at least, is probably coming out of the area where Osama bin Laden is hiding. If we can believe our intelligence agencies — of course, we have no real knowledge as to whether they’re really intelligent intelligence agencies — they’re in the tribal areas of western Pakistan. What the heck do we have nuclear weapons for? What are tactical nuclear weapons for but to wipe out an enemy? The enemy lives there — kill them and their families, and show them that the terror they inflict on the West will come home to roost and will be inflicted on them. Why must we sit here waiting for the New York subways to go up in flames?

CALLER: Yes, sir, but what are we gonna do? Instead of what you just said, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna cut our nuclear arsenal.

[...]

SAVAGE: The only way to defend ourselves against these fanatic Islamists is with strength. Not with hand-wringing, not with the United Nations, but with a strong and swift attack on the tribal regions of western Pakistan. Now, I will not quibble with you as to whether they should be with nuclear — that is, tactical nuclear weapons, which are limited in their scope and limited in their power — or with cluster bombs or with weapons I’m not even aware of. But there’s no question that entire region needs to be annihilated and stripped off the earth.

Such statements are the logical end of the extremist thought of the anti-Muslim crowd and one wonders considering the evidence how prevalent this apocalyptic call is amongst those who think nuking countries, regions and holy places is a swell idea.