Blogcritics Comments on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Comment by Lili on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:37:28 EDT

Where did foot soldiers come from? Can you tell me that in it short.

Comment by Alamgir Hussain on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Thu, 8 Feb 2007 19:49:21 EST

[If some moslems take to the street proteting three ex-terrorists, why did they not do so when terrorists (Hamas, etc.) did come to the University of Michigan?] Aku, this is a point no body bothers to take note. There are loads of useful idiots amongst the westerners making too much noise about moderate Muslim but when real action needed they have no visibility. And of course, these are people who joined the protest the typically moderates. This should bode well for the future with increasing Muslims population in the West. Think about their body-count now and the reaction. Future.. have to wait & see.

Comment by Aku on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Thu, 8 Feb 2007 16:20:25 EST

Back to a point related to the article, If some moslems take to the street proteting three ex-terrorists, why did they not do so when terrorists (Hamas, etc.) did come to the University of Michigan? Saying I want to kill Jews is ok to them, but I don't want to kill Jews is not?

Comment by Ruvy in Jerusalem on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 21:23:13 EST

Bing, thanks for the back-up. It's long past time for Jews to move beyond the holocaust - similarly, it is long past time for South African emigrants to move beyond seeing an Afrikaner cop demanding "waar jou pass" in every regime they don't like. Put your past in your behind Zedd... The world is not one big "Republiek van Suid Afrika".

Comment by Arch Conservative on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 20:12:59 EST

You're more of a raving anti-semite than Ruvy is a supporter of apartheid Zedd.

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 19:14:38 EST

Ruvy because you are a supporter and benefactor of Apartheid we don't expect much from you regarding any issue regarding Arabs or Muslims.

Comment by Ruvy in Jerusalem on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 06:47:01 EST

I wrote you just a few paragraphs in the previous comment to attempt to make a point. The flight of Jews from Czarist Russia and other places in Europe was not a flight from genocide. It was a flight from misery. Thousands of Jews died in Russia, Poland and the rest of Europe in riots and persecutions of various types, and as the Turkish Empire began to rot and stink in its own delayed decay over the entire 19th and early 20th centuries, there was more and more anti-Jewish violence there. The riots in Damascus in 1840 are just one example. But Jews fled to escape misery and persecution, not genocide. The Russian empire just was not efficient enough to accomplish a genocide... My father, may his memory be for a blessing, lived in Poland during the opening years of the 20th century and lived through WWI. He (and many others) were underfed at best in Poland, and during that war he had to forage for vegetables and roots and beg German soldiers for bread from the bakeries that fed the imperial German army invading the Russian empire. HIS memory of Germans was that of decent guys who gave bread to the hungry refugee kids that came begging for food. He recounted for me what happened when he was examined at Ellis Island, NY, when he and his siblings and my grandmother arrived there in 1921. They all had huge tapeworms that had been living inside of them for G-d only knows how long. So every Jewish kid (and every other kid as well) who came from war torn Europe in those years was always hungry. Although there are many books I can refer to on this subject, Jewish misery under the Czar is a subject I know all too well from living in a family that had suffered from it. The Jewish situation in Europe was indeed complicated, but the point here is that complicated as it was, Jews were not fleeing genocide, they were fleeing misery. It was only a very small minority of people who sought to go to Eretz Yisrael at first. The Turks were not particularly welcoming, and unless their palms were generously greased, they could be counted on to only raise obstacles - that appears to be the way business has traditionally been done in this part of the world, at least under Arab or Moslem rule, and that appears to be what had happened in the late 19th century when the first large group of Jews settled who were not specifically there for religious reasons only, but for reasons of setting up a Jewish entity here. A second wave came in the very early 1900's after the wave of pogroms that exploded across Russia in 1903, and again in 1905 upon the defeat of Russia at the hands of the Japanese, and the revolution that nearly overthrew the Czar. This group grew until WWI when immigration stopped due to hostilities between Turkey and Russia. In the aftermath of WWI, thousands of Jews were killed as banditry and civil war became the rule in what had been the Pale of Settlement (see comment #27). Eventually the Red Army established its supremacy in the Ukraine, White Russia and Russian parts of the Pale of Settlement, and they forbade Jews from leaving. Jews continued to leave Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as all these countries, alleged democracies, were anti-Jewish in their policies. When America shut her door to immigration in 1922, Jews went elsewhere, like Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Australia and for those who had been exposed to the idea, Israel. There was an economic depression here in the early 1920's, so few immigrated here then. But when that depression eased later in the 1920's more Jews arrived. After a renewed depression in the 1930's and the growth of the Nazi movement in Germany, even more Jews arrived. This despite Arab riots that massacred the Jewish community in Hebron in 1929, and drove Jews out of what is now called Ir David in Jerusalem. But this is getting to the specifics of this country's history, as opposed to reasons that Jews came here. What validated the view of the Zionists in persistently warning of a massive level of persecution of Jews were the policies of the Nazis and the fact that most countries closed their doors to Jewish refugees from Nazi threats of persecution, and later the reality of Nazi persecution. That persecution turned out to be genocide - but few in the early 1930's realized what would happen. The persistent Arab line of propaganda - pushed so hard and accepted so readily by so many, particularly in Europe and the South Asian subcontinent - is that the situation of the Arab refugees who fled the war of independence in 1947-49 is the same as that of the Jews in the DP camps, and for Israel to keep them from returning home is the equivalent of genocide, a form of racism and racist persecution. Perhaps, if there were not such a strong terror movement among the Arabs this might have validity. Perhaps if the Arab countries had made serious efforts to absorb these refugees, an argument of justice could be made. But neither of these things occurred. The Arab states surrounding Israel kept the refugees from the War of Independence locked in camps in Lebanon, Gaza and Judea and Samaria, until Israel liberated these territories and began improving the situation of Arabs living there. They have sought war and the destruction of this country since its inception and the self righteous whining of Arab supporters on this site and elsewhere do not change that fact.

Comment by Ruvy in Jerusalem on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 06:38:06 EST

These reformed terrorists you talk about were terrorists who attacked Israel and who attacked Jews. Their goal was the death of my people. How and why humanity struck them, and why they turned I cannot ask. It is G-d who directs us, and these former terrorists are attempting to do repentance by their acts. But why did Jews come to the idea to return to Israel? Let's try to explain this to you in a few paragraphs and not make it too complicated. About 700 years ago, the duchies that comprised Poland and Lithuania invited Jews to come and settle there. They came, mostly from Germany, bringing their lingua franca, Yiddish, which is based on German. For the most part, Jews did well in Poland, and when Poland and Lithuania united into one kingdom after the fall of the Mongols, it was a huge country that covered all of modern Poland, White Russia, the Ukraine and of course, Lithuania. Jews prospered in this country and the country prospered as well. And for as long as Poland prospered, Jews were free of the vicious anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred of the Catholic church and the Russian Orthodox church. Google up va'ad arba artzos, or council of four lands... In 1648, a Ukrainian named Hmielnitzky led a rebellion of Ukrainian peasants against the Poles and particularly against Jews. This was the first time you really hear of "pogroms." These riots desolated the Jewish community of Poland and it began to fall into decline, slowly adopting a dog-eat-dog culture of exploitation and hatred and self-hatred that plagues us to this day, particularly in Israel. The last time the Kingdom of Poland played an important role in European history was in the late 1600's when King Jan Sobieski sent his army to save Vienna from the Turks who nearly captured it. From that time on, the Kingdom of Poland was slowly gobbled up by its neighboring powers, Austria, Prussia and Russia. By 1795, it no longer existed. But the Jews did not leave. The area they lived in became known as the "Pale of Settlement" - the term "outside the Pale" comes from this - and Jews were not allowed to leave the Pale of Settlement without special papers. Russians hated Jews and made their life unbearable. Jews could not own land, could not get a decent education. If you transpose all the restrictions of the Colour Bar in India upon Jews in the Pale of Settlement, and add official religious hatred to it, and you begin to have an idea of what life was like there. It was in this sick environment that the idea of walking out took root. At first, the idea was to run to western Europe, and then to the Americas, Australia and South Africa, but a small minority developed the idea of an independent Jewish state in the virtually empty Turkish provinces of what had been Israel millennia before. This concept became known as Zionism - Mt. Zion is a hill in the city of Jerusalem. It was not genocide that inspired the Zionist movement, it was the desire to escape misery and persecution. There had been one genocidal experience in our history, that of the Roman savages in destroying ancient Judea, but the fact that it was a genocidal experience did not register at the time. It barely registers as such today, even though it shaped the nation in quite a number of ways... So it is not an issue of how many Jews died under the hands of the Russians, it was an issue of how many were trying to run away. What would now be called "ethnic cleansing" was a regular part of the Russian treatment of Jews, as the Empire steadily reduced the size of the Pale of Settlement, seeking to make more and more of Russia "Jew-free". But one Russian official did give voice to Russian policy concerning Jews - one third were to die; one third were to convert; one third were to emigrate. In this atmosphere, the Russian government stirred up pogroms - anti-Jewish riots - for the purpose of driving Jews from the country, and for the purpose of deflecting criticism of the Russian empire by the peasantry and developing proletariat. Indeed, the stories of Sholem Aleichem are comedies based on the events occurring in Czarist Russia at the time. Some of these stories, about a dairyman named Tevye, were pushed together into a musical called "Fiddler on the Roof" forty-two years ago, starring Zero Mostel, one of the great comedians of the Yiddish theatre. This was later made into a movie of the same name.

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 18:58:46 EST

Alamgir Is your article against people who practice Islam or is it against terrorists. These are two very different things. Most white supremacists are Christians. Should we lump all Christians with the KKK?

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 11:54:35 EST

Winky You missed the point. The article WAS about an Islamic man who is revealing the ills of the Islamic world. He is not the only one by the way. You named a few men who do the same thing about racism. My point was in response to the FACT that we are no different. There are not DROVES (meaning multitudes) of people who stand up against the evils within our society. There aren't! We should expect Muslims to do what we DONT do. BTW I am a female.

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 11:49:48 EST

RJAs much as I'd like to see Al Sharpton wearing a suicide-bomber vest, that's not always the case... You can spend the rest of your life partially understanding your world and holding on to ideas in order to make yourself feel comfortable OR you can really examine your life and confront the reality of your world and LIVE. We in this country fail to understand race matters because of fear. Your statement demonstrates an unexamined aproach towards this issue. Its a very juvinille way of coping with a painful situation, tit for tat (of the highly unbalanced variety). What you truly know is that what you have stated has no weight or even relevancy to the significance of the racial issues of this land. Is simply smoke and mirrors, denial and a sheild against facing this obviously frightening issue for you.

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 11:39:49 EST

Winky 600,000 Iraqis dead TODAY because of us spreading "freedom", our new religion. Stop the drama. The West agitates, supports atrocities and dictators all over the globe and has been doing it for hundreds of years. Its quite comfy to look at others and demonize them. You have no idea that to others the West has been THE evil and still are. Lets work on human rights instead of demonizing a people. Its foolish, especially for Westerners.

Comment by Alamgir Hussain on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 06:52:40 EST

Islam's foot-soldiers are there everuwhere. We have them in good quantity amongst our communits, left-liberals & now KKKs & neo-Nazis have joined in. Colonization art of modern understanding was spread by the Muslims first from whom the West took it up although after suffering terribly themslves. Islam's foot-soldiers of the Western variety would always ignore this vital fact and many more.

Comment by Winky again on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 06:33:04 EST

Zedd: Yes, it's me again. You seem to have a bent view of history. The 10 million Native Americans that died because of colonization is not the number killed by Americans but by Europeans on both continents, North and South America. "Extremist Muslims are doing what Europeans have already done and have gotten comfy with as if it was sanctioned by God." Correct me, but I seem to remember Muslims originated as Arabs who expanded to Northern Africa, Spain, Persia, India and several other locations before the Crusades began. It wasn't through peace and understanding; it was conquest. In fact, the Battle of Tours deterred the Muslims from advancing any further in Western Europe and the Crusades originally was to help the Byzantine empire from falling to the hordes of Islamic armies taking over their land. But those things are in the past and should not be sins on Muslims today (much like your "butchering of Native Americans" example should not be an albatross for Americans today). However, the "God is on our side" mentality is not coming from Americans or their allies; it's coming from the extremists like Bin Laden. You doubt me? Read some of his speechs, just pick one at random because they all say it. BTW the 600,000 dead number has been proven false. Lancet's study has been totally debunked. More creditable reports of casualities are between 35,000 to 70,000. So can we stop the drama(tisation)? Look West for more atrocities all over the globe? Let's look East for some grusome events in the last century. Mao Tse-tung killed 38 million. Maybe I should move a bit closer to Mecca. Yahya Khan, a Muslim, killed 1.5 million. The Armenian Genocides include over 80,000 dead. Saddam killed between 50,000 and 100,000. All genocides.

Comment by Winky on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 05:48:33 EST

Zedd: "There are millions of hate mongers, white supremacists, skin head types, yet we don't see whites storming the globe exposing them, in droves." Well, hot damn! When was the last time I saw a pro-KKK movie being made? I believe it was way back in the silent era. What about white supremacists being a bad guy in a movie? Dude, I think there was a Tom Clancy movie made a few years ago that originally had Islamic extremists as villians but then changed to Neo-nazi type Europeans. You want real examples though and not Hollywood stuff, I am sure. How about the Southern Poverty Law Center founded by Morris Dees and Joe Levin (two white guys)? Not only have they exposed racists, they broke the back of the KKK by bankrupting them. I'd bring up other examples however I won't since I think you already made up your mind on the subject.

Comment by RJ Elliott on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 00:28:30 EST

"Racists ARE terrorists." As much as I'd like to see Al Sharpton wearing a suicide-bomber vest, that's not always the case...

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 23:41:48 EST

Alamgir Westerners have already trampled all over the world. We are in the US because Westerners TERRORISED the native Americans, butchered them, 10million, and stole their land. Extremist Muslims are doing what Europeans have already done and have gotten comfy with as if it was sanctioned by God. They are lording their world view over everyone... I think that is why we are in Baghdad today (forcing our way on them... 600,000 dead by the way). Lets stop the drama. If we look at the West we will discover a great deal more atrocities all over the globe. THAT is the truth.

Comment by Zedd on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 23:35:45 EST

RJ Racists ARE terrorists.

Comment by Mohjho on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 13:29:31 EST

"..Bush is a moderate Republican." Na, he is a moderately stupid, compassionate conservative Republican.

Comment by STM on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 01:02:09 EST

PS, the use of the Fox News term homicide bombers and the general tone of this an previous articles lead me to suspect that the writer is probably not who or what he would want us to believe ...

Comment by STM on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 00:57:12 EST

A few guys with box cutters and who were quite fervent followers of a particular religious belief that is often practised by people wearing a particular type of headgear and who tend to be quite swarthy in appearance and come from a certain area of the middle-east closely associated with a very valuable, black, foul smelling liquied that is used to power motor vehicles many of which are made by a certain other country that we can't mention. One thing I do know is, they weren't Iraqis.

Comment by Clavos on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 00:32:57 EST

Listen we were attacked by a few guys with box cutters. Lets stop the drama. According to moonraven, it was George Bush and the CIA.

Comment by MCH on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 00:18:11 EST

"Martin, Bush is a moderate Republican. You haven't even begun to know fear yet." - Dave Nalle Didn't Vox Populi say that very same thing?

Comment by RJ Elliott on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Sat, 3 Feb 2007 00:06:21 EST

"Question arises: why aren't Western governments who discover these asshole Imams who preach violence rounding them up & deporting them back to the pissholes they came from?" Well, that would be "racism" !!! And we can't have any of that! After all, "racists" are worse than blood-thirsty fifth-column terrorists!

Comment by Alamgir Hussain on Keith Ellison's Offended Foot-Soldiers, and What Didn't Offend the Muslims

Fri, 2 Feb 2007 23:38:13 EST

Zedd, I agree that all types of people do all kinds of things. Yet, Muslims would virtually vacate the Islamic world within days if the West dismantles its borders, despite the white supremacists, skin-heads or whatsoever. But hardly anyone from the West would move to the Muslim world even if they dismantle their borders. If the Americans & Europeans have to vacate their countries for any emergency; given a choice - Westerners will move to China and India in preference to Saudi, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan or whatsoever. How about you? Probably you will be one of the exceptions. So why the grudge? Overwhelming majority of the Westerners aren't probably aobve anti-Islam racism. Yet, we live in democracy & democracy prevails. Let the Muslim population grow to 20% in the US & witness what the scene would be in cases like M-U talks by the ex-terrorists.