If only Ellison would do what everyone else does, he wouldn’t get attacked

December 23, 2006

Between Dennis Prager, Roy Moore, and Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.), Rep.-elect Keith Ellison’s (D-Minn.) very presence in Congress seems to be causing all manner of consternation among far-right observers. His decision to use his own holy book for a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony has driven some activists to hysterics.

To hear CNN tell it, the uproar is Ellison’s fault.

On the December 21 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer attributed a “raging controversy” to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN) for his reported intention to use a copy of the Quran as part of his swearing-in ceremony — rather than attributing it to those who have denounced Ellison. Blitzer’s comments came while reporting on a letter written by Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) attacking Muslims and Ellison. Blitzer stated that Ellison’s “plans to use the Quran in the swearing-in ceremony have touched off a raging controversy.” Blitzer also suggested that Ellison was “war[ring]” with Goode.

Blitzer’s suggestion that Ellison was to blame echoed Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus, who, as Media Matters for America noted, said she thought it was “a little bit strange” that “we’re focusing on” Goode instead of Ellison on the December 21 edition of MSNBC News Live.

I just can’t understand this blame-the-victim approach to the controversy. Ellison didn’t pick a fight — he has a choice on what book to use during a photo-op, so he chose the book of his faith tradition. Right-wing activists and at least one lawmaker throw a fit and start a bigoted uproar.

This is Ellison’s fault, how?

This is Ellison’s fault because Wolf Blitzer is a drooling moron who has made his career spouting Republican talking points. There’s a reason CNN stands for Cretin News Network.

It’s really time for people who dislike this crap to let that fucking pissant know we don’t like it. Not just him. We need to personally whack these people by e-mail every time they pull this crap the same way the right has done for the past 12 years.

Wolf.Blitzer@cnn.com – let him know what you think.

  • That is a strange media trick to make the victim of intolerance into the one causing all the trouble. I can see how that particular book is controversial for many Americans. Maybe it’s Goode that the Goode brought up the issue so it sparks conversation although we could wish for a higher level discourse than either Goode or Blitzer is capable of.

    It’s too bad people don’t realize that the contents of the Bible are just as controversial as the Koran. They’re both mind-fucks.

  • Excellent example of Right-Wing authoritarian behavior. Textbook example!

    Contradiction and Hipocracy define the modern Conservative.
    They exist because we do not stop them.

    If we pulled a Corporations charter whenever they mis-behaved, they would no longer do it. But the Corporations rule both political Parties, so nothing will ever happen.The Dems will complain, but haven’t got the fortitude to shed capitalisms “lies for profit” business model.
    We only have one political party in this country, The Corporate-Fascist party.
    And we all are complicit in this crime.

  • “This is Ellison’s fault, how?”

    For being a Muslim after 9/11.

    Just like it was the German Jews’ fault for being Jewish after 1933.

  • I’m more pleased than ever that I got the chance to vote for Ellison. Back in November, it didn’t really affect my decision one way or another to know that he’s Muslim- the only time I even thought about it was to note that he was endorsed by local Jewish groups. A good thing, I thought; he’s not some sort of raging ideologue.

    But these days I’m really happy I got a chance to send a Muslim to the U.S. House, because it’s causing the Republican bigot faction to come lurching out into the sunlight, where the whole country can see them for what they are.

  • Yep, and it was them coloured folks’ fault when they got beat up and fire hosed an’ all during them civil rights marches. They shoulda jest stayed in their place and eaten their Jim Crow steda upsettin’ folks with their talk about equality an’ all that. Course the police set dogs on them little children. They was out in the streets in big groups scarin’ the white folks! Same goes fer women what goes outside at night and gets raped. Ifn they stay in the kitchen like they belong nothin’ would happen to ’em.

    Bigots = Boring arsed fuckwits.

  • “When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews,it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

    Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” And again the miracle would be accomplished

    .Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more,would go into the forest and say: “I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

    Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire andI do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient.”

    From Elie Wiesel’s novel on the Holocaust, TheGates of the Forest (1966)

    I’d say the religion doesn’t matter either. It’s the story we tell.

  • It’s all Ellison’s fault because he makes too many people uncomfortable with his religion and their intolerance for it. Got it? Another “inconvenient truth”.

    And I hate to break it to Goode, but 1) Ellison’s ancestors have been in the US since the 1700’s (he’s no immigrant), and 2) Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.

    Ellison has been nothing but classy throughout this whole thing.

  • So abolishing the Koran will join anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality as key right ranters talking points.

  • Goold ol’ American, circa 1840: “Them Irish’s gonna wreck the culture if’n we let ’em in!”

    Good American, circa 1870: “Them German’s gonna wreck the culture if’n we let ’em in!”

    Good American, circa 1880: “Them Jew’s gonna wreck the culture if’n we let ’em in!”

    Good American, circa 1890: “Them Eye-talian’s gonna wreck the culture if’n we let ’em in!”

    Good American, circa 1900: “Them Polack’s gonna wreck the culture if’n we let ’em in!”

  • and while you hinted at this in your choice of quotes, CB, it should be noted that Ellison is hardly “warring with Goode.” Indeed, Ellison has not risen to the bait in the slightest. For Wolfgang to so state is an outrageous lie that renders all of Ellison’s mature restraint useless — if a representative exercises restraint in a forest and the news says he didn’t, did it really happen?

  • There are two problems feeding this disaster. First is the obvious, in that a member of Congress doesn’t know what the Law of the Land is (Congress shall make no Law regarding the Establishment of Religion, nor Prohibit the Free Exercise thereof). Any member of Congress who so blatantly denounces the Constitution should be hauled out to the Rotunda, and publicly drummed out of the government Stoning, in my opinion, would be a viable method of attaining this end.

    In addition, the talking heads—with specific reference to “Woof” Blitzer (more like the yammering chirp of a poodle, if you ask me)—who so callously defend their alleged right to do away with standing Federal Law, in order to form a more perfect union with their deviant imaginations and new-found friends in the Reich, should be held to account through professional licensure for their stock-in-trade. You violate the Core Ethos of Journalism—defense of Truth—and you surrender your license for a set time. No work during the “hiatus.” You lie for monetary gain or professional stature—you’re out. Period.

    But the second problem—the subtle one that’s been brewing for about a full quarter-century now—is the pedagogical duality of self-esteem and zero tolerance. It has become societally unacceptable to tell someone that they’re wrong—even in the pathetic nursery-esque excuse that America now fields as “public education”—and it has become societally acceptable to force the victim—even in the primary grades—to share whatever blame ought to be borne solely by the perpetrator. Because of this, there is (IMHO) ample reason to believe that people are no longer capable of indignant, righteous outrage against those who wield power. The people have, through the medium of reality television, GameBoy edition whatever, and a cowardly mass media that will not stand on its own feet, entered the realm of desensitized complacency—thus earning their title of “the sheeple.”

    And in a realm of sheep, the only thing powerful enough to deal with a “wolf”—even one called blitzer—is a bigger wolf….

  • I think Goode should be made to read the entire Constitution with amendments on the floor of the house.

    Religions want to be intolerant. Religion is, in simple terms, an imposition of rules intent on changing the pervailing culture. Look at the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Though they were ethnically Pastun, the Taliban were war orphans taught in Madrases funded by Wahhibists from Saudi Arabia. When they took power in Afghanistan, they had no concept of the pervailing culture, Pashtunwali. And since they didn’t, they outlawed everything about the culture that they felt was against Sharia law (kite flying, singing, tribal bloodletting and revenge, all that good stuff 😉 ).

    The same is true of Evangelicals here in America. They want to be intolerant, and will start whereever they can. Ellison is just low hanging fruit, being of the same religion (vaguely) as the extremists who attacked us on 9/11/01.

  • Virgil explicitly states that he would not bar Ellison from using the koran:

    Rush Limbaugh Show
    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_122206/content/stop_the_tape_2.guest.html

    “RUSH: Final question from David Asman. “Would you prohibit, Mr. Ellison — would you prohibit him from bringing a Koran into that ceremony?”

    GOODE: If the voters of that district want persons that are going to swear by the Koran, that’s the choice of the voters of that district, but I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible if a book is used, and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

    ASMAN: Well, that I may well be true, but again just to put a fine point on it: You are not, then, for prohibiting Mr. Ellison from bringing in a Koran?

    GOODE: No, but I am for restricting immigration so that we don’t have a majority of Muslims elected to the United States House of Representatives. ”

    A cost-benefit analysis, with lives being weighted the most, is the best way to approach Virgil Goode’s sole policy proposal, which is a halt to muslim immigration.

    Whatever the outcome of a cost benefit analysis, it will only be valid if it is actually acknowledged that muslim immigration, student studying, and tourist visits has a cost in treasure and lives, which September 11th, the Los Angeles El Al ticket counter shooting, the first WTC bombing, the London bombing, the Madrid train bombing, and numerous averted terrorist attacks show. Nearly every ledger has two sides to be acknowledged, and this is no exception. The outcome doesn’t have to be all or nothing either. I believe that the optimal policy is reduced muslim immigration from the current ~40,000 per year to something like ~10,000 per year. We’d keep most of our international prestige and the psychic gain which a non-discriminatory immigration policy gives us, and US muslims wouldn’t feel *quite* so hated as a complete ban would make them feel, but we’d have a far slower rate of growth in the sea in which terrorists swim and recruit. If we made sure that the reduced flow was more proportionately the cream of the crop than the current flow is, then we’d have less economic losses (they are highly educated) than pure reduced numbers of muslim immigrants alone would indicate.

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