August 27, 2010

Muslim "tribes" = Indian tribes?!

Ground Zero Mosque:  It’s Their Touchdown Dance

By Frosty Wooldridge“Why are those Muslims building a mosque at Ground Zero?” one reader asked. “It doesn’t make sense to stick their mosque like a needle in our eyes at a place where their religion blew up the Twin Towers and killed 3,000 Americans. Why?”

Every ethnic tribe throughout history moved/moves toward dominance and turf. In America, over 522 tribes fought for land on this vast continent. Montana’s Blackfeet maintained dominance of their territory. The Comanche in Texas lived to fight for more land. The Michigan Chippewa battled for their region. They killed, scalped and mutilated one another for thousands of years before the white man, yet another ethnic tribe, killed most of them through organized violence even more methodical than the Native Americans. The white man brought guns, disease and religion to America. The Indians today live on reservations where they are controlled by welfare, booze and loss of language, culture, religion and their way of life. Just visit any reservation to see utter misery, purposelessness and boredom for so many Native Americans.

Up until 1965, America enjoyed 90 percent white dominance, 10 percent Blacks and a smattering of Hispanics. But once the late Teddy Kennedy pitched the Immigration Reform Act into the winds of change, he wrought the beginning of the destruction of United States of America. After 45 years and an added 100 million people from predominantly third world countries, America finds itself in a literal “Tower of Babel,” incompatible cultures and growing tension amongst its citizens. Nearly 40 million hyphenated-Americans came to life in a foreign country.

While Americans ‘thought’ immigrants spoke, acted and thought like them--a new kind of immigrant emerged. The newest ethnic tribe, Islam from the sands of the Middle East, counters everything in the Western world as to thought, religion, ethics and culture. Their Koran counters everything in the Bible. Their way of life subjugates their women to servitude through fear of beatings, stonings, acid in their faces and outright cutting off of women’s noses, ears and worse. (Source: Time Magazine with Muslim teen with nose cut off, August, 2010, as well as two teens stoned to death in the last week.)
Comment:  So very much stupidity here.

For starters, the community center near Ground Zero isn't a needle in my eye. That's because I believe in religious freedom and tolerance, unlike many Americans. Also, "their religion" didn't blow up the WTC; 19 extremists who perverted their religion did.

As I wrote on Facebook:Re terrorists "celebrating" the "Ground Zero mosque": 1) This is an unfounded opinion, not a fact. 2) If they want to celebrate our freedom of religion, so what? 3) If they're happy, they won't attack us because they're unhappy, right? It's win-win for everyone--except pandering right-wing politicians, of course.I didn't know where the idiotic Wooldridge got the number 522 from. At present there are 565 federally recognized tribes. But he's talking about the pre-contact number of tribes in all of North America. That number is in the thousands if not the tens of thousands.

Re the Blackfeet and Chippewa: Battling for or maintaining one's land isn't a sign of aggressive or warlike behavior. It's defending one's own territory, as every culture since the dawn of time has done.

Wooldridge could come up with only one example of an aggressive, warlike tribe: the Comanche. That's out of 522 tribes (his number) or several thousand (my number). In other words, Wooldridge's claim is a stupid stereotype unsupported by facts. So is his related claim about scalping and mutilation.

I'm glad he said white men were another tribe, but he either doesn't believe that or doesn't realize what he said. If European nations were as violent as Indian tribes--which they were--then the Indians' tribalism wasn't the problem. Duh.

So the white "tribes" conquered the Indian tribes, stripped away much of their cultures, and forced them into poverty. How is that an indictment of Indian tribes or any tribes? I'd say it's an indictment of America's immorality more than anything.

Wooldridge proves he's a racist

Fortunately, we don't have to guess Wooldridge's mindset. He makes it clear when he touts white America that he's a racist. Tell your 1950s fantasies to the blacks suffering under Jim Crow laws or the Indian tribes being terminated, Frosty the Snow-White Klansman.

"Just visit any reservation to see utter misery, purposelessness and boredom for so many Native Americans"? Okay, visit the Manshantucket Pequots or the Mohegans and tell me how much poverty you see, dumbass. You did say "any reservation," right?

Not too much of a stupid stereotype here, eh? In reality, I'd guesstimate only a quarter or less of America's tribes are so grindingly poor that you can see "utter misery." The rest are lower middle class to middle class, with a few dozen wealthier than average. Nothing miserable there except the hard times facing most Americans these days.

Wooldridge's comments about Islam are equally stupid and stereotypical. He's taken a few extreme cases and attributed them to the whole. It would be like taking every hate crime and abuse case motivated by Christianity and claiming they characterize the religion. Even with Sharia law in some--not all--Islamic countries, I'm guessing Christians commit more moral outrages each year than Muslims do.

His "source," an article about an outrage against one teen, proves my point. That's evidence of what one Muslim did, not what they all do. Wooldridge's inability to see or understand the difference demonstrates how illogical and ignorant he is.

For more on America's bigotry against Islam, see "9/11 Mosque" = "Devil Worship," Time's "Brief History of Intolerance," and Yesterday's Cherokees = Today's Muslims. For more on Islam itself, see Understanding Islam.

Below:  The opposite of a Catholic church that houses pedophile priests? Yes, could be.

9 comments:

dmarks said...

You hit some of the big obvious points of the very bad scholarship. Here's a minor one:

"While Americans ‘thought’ immigrants spoke, acted and thought like them--a new kind of immigrant emerged. The newest ethnic tribe [Muslims]"

Hardly new at all, really. The main waves of Arab-American immigration started during the 1800s (if you will pardon me for equating Arab with Muslim, which I know is a mistake. But it will do for this, as Woodridge probably thinks both groups mean the same thing).

(By the way, I have no problem with pointing out that the place in question is indeed a mosque, and it is at Ground Zero. But none of that makes me oppose it).

Anonymous said...

The Taj Mahal is like a grave man.

GENO said...

So the bitter White man still harbors the classical belief that all Natives still live on the rez.

Blah hahahaha.....

What year do these redneck imbeciles live in? In case some of those KKKrackpots, didn't know this--over 60% of Natives live, work and go to school in urban areas. The population on rez's nationwide dwindled dramitcally, because there is no jobs there. Sorry loony, its just a fact, rarely discusssed. Talk about "assimilation".
But the redneck doesn't want to talk about this. Just the trite "hopelessness" of the rez.

Anonymous said...

Frosty Wooldridge is a classic example of far-right extremist who wants "take the country back" (In other words, white upper-middle class Protestants). He hates Latinos, Catholics, African-Americans, etc. This information you have provided does not surprise me one bit. People like this cause hysteria. He relies on fear-mongering, false and/or misleading information, and race baiting. Far-right extremism is on a rise in this country and quite frankly, it scares me.

dmarks said...

"Frosty Wooldridge is a classic example of far-right extremist who wants "take the country back"

The "take the country back" lingo, of course, coming from this meme used by the hard left during the Bush years. The term as such then as now wasn't racist. Then it was a far-left extremist, Van Jones, who was using it.

Rob said...

Some "Take Back America" conferences that no one remembers don't compare to massive rallies with racist signs and code words. And I suspect these conferences specified the problems they were addressing: Bush's failed wars, torture policies, warrantless spying, deficits, tax giveaways, and so forth.

Rob said...

Good point by Geno. Wooldridge's claims that "The Indians today live on reservations" is false. About 2/3 don't live on reservations these days.

Rob said...

Someone asked why I guessed Christians commit more moral outrages than Muslims. Do I really have to justify guesses? Okay, if you insist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita

Check out the crime rates in different regions and countries around the world. You'll see that Christian regions and countries generally have higher crime rates than Muslim regions and countries. Therefore, it's reasonable to guess Christians commit more moral outrages.

Anonymous said...

I would just like to mention that non-Muslim indigenous peoples in the Middle East are currently suffering persecution, genocide, and forced assimilation. They are being pushed out by the dominant culture, in the same way that American Indians were targeted.