The mainstream media's love affair with Islam in America

So help me, I'm tired of writing about Islam. Plenty of other worthwhile subjects come to mind (usually). Yet when I tell myself it's time to give it a rest, further evidence comes to light that Islam in the United States is on the way to making the same kind of inroads it has made in England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium ... and our mainstream media are doing all they can to help. 

Maybe they honestly don't realize what they're doing. Maybe they're run by '60s retards who absorbed the politics of that era to the point that they can't help fitting the story into a "civil rights" narrative. Or the media are owned by what Angelo Codevilla describes so well as America's Ruling Class (and if you haven't read his brilliant essay, waste no time in doing so). As he puts it: "[The Ruling Class's] first tenet is that 'we' are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained."

You think the ink-stained wretches out in Montana, in the country's rugged West, are holdouts against this blatant propagandizing? Hah. 

While Montana is far from the headlines about the so-called "ground zero mosque" or a pastor's plan to burn the Quran, it's not immune from America's anxiety over Islam.

For many Montanans, Islamic culture is defined more by what they see on TV, the movies or the news, and less by personal relationships with Muslim people.

Nationwide, a recent Gallup poll found 43 percent of Americans admitted to feeling at least "a little" prejudice against Muslims. And just this month, another study found Americans have increasingly negative views of a woman wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim headscarf.

 It would be hard to pack more bias into three short paragraphs.

The "so-called" ground zero mosque? If not that, what is it, a department store? Only cave dwelling  Cro-Magnons could have any objection to a mosque at the site of an attack on America launched on behalf of Allah. 

Next, any opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is of the same order of a publicity hound pastor's announced Koran burning (notice how the story spells it Quran, the Arabic way). 

Montana isn't "immune" (a word used in connection with diseases) from America's "anxiety" over Islam. Right, people look at a politico-religious ideology that has been at war with the West for 1400 years and twice came within shouting distance of conquering Europe by force, but their "anxiety" just shows what dopes they are.

"For many Montanans, Islamic culture is defined more by what they see on TV, the movies or the news, and less by personal relationships with Muslim people." Some skepticism about what you see or read in the media is healthy, but is this fool Amanda Ricker trying to tell us that we should ignore history, assume everything broadcast or written about Islam is irrelevant, and rely only on "personal relationships" with Muslims? 

Individually, Muslims can be pleasant and likable -- or strident and aggressive in their belief system -- but in neither case does it matter. This isn't a high school popularity contest. It's about an ideology that divides the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, the latter being the part of the world that does not yet follow their Prophet. Does Ricker actually know anything about Islam, or did she just get an assignment from her editor to go interview some Muslims and obediently write what they tell her?

I don't know what Gallup poll she refers to, but reliable polls are supposed to use neutral language so as not to influence responses. It's hard for me to believe that Gallup, unless the company has gone over to the Dark Side, asked people if they were "prejudiced against Muslims." 

"And just this month, another study found Americans have increasingly negative views of a woman wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim headscarf." What swine we are! Imagine having negative views about a Muslim tradition! All traditions are wonderful, except American traditions, to people like Ricker. 

It is probably beyond her to grasp the idea that the hijab has a symbolic meaning, that Americans are uneasy not about a piece of cloth (only a couple of generations ago most American women wore scarves), but about what it represents: a value system that is incompatible with ours.

Muslim Americans are largely assimilated, happy with their lives and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world. The estimated 2.4 million Muslims living in America are "solidly middle class and mainstream, with incomes and education levels mirroring the general public," the Christian Science Monitor reported in September, citing a Pew Research Center survey.

I would like to hear her defend that first sentence with anything beyond what a few local Muslims told her. The following sentence is invalid as evidence: first, because the Christian Science Monitor is in the same league with the New York Times and Washington Post as a Voice of Islam; second, because it's a non sequitur. It is possible to be middle class and mainstream (whatever "mainstream" might mean in this context), to have a good income, and still have jihad in the heart.

But Ricker no doubt imagines that only poverty and failure to assimilate can account for any problems with Islam, problems caused by those mean nativists who make Muslims wash their feet in separate drinking fountains.

I hear fishing is popular in Montana. Maybe she's angling for a job on the New York Times.

UPDATE 10/18

Even the left-wing British journalist Robert Fisk and the left-wing Guardian are capable of being more honest than our media about one reason some Americans feel "anxiety" about bringing Muslim culture to the United States.