Dear Media, Accurately Portraying Muslim Rage as Muslim Rage is Not Islamophobic
This week we learned what really gets the liberal media in a ... well ... rage. It isn't the act of perpetrating violence upon the innocent. No, it's calling out that rage for everyone to see. In Liberal Land, words speak louder than actions.
The media on the left side of the aisle took more umbrage with a Newsweek article titled, Muslim Rage, than they did with the incidents that demonstrated that rage - the killing of four Americans in Libya, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and the hoisting of Islamist flags on sovereign U.S. soil. Outlets like Think Progress called the Newsweek cover, which featured an image of a group of obviously agitated Muslims, Islamophobic. Newsweek for their part did not apologize for their portrayal of events in the Middle East saying:
"This weeks Newsweek cover accurately depicts the events of the past week as violent protests have erupted in the Middle East (including Morocco where the cover image was taken).”
Rather than focusing on the real issues here, the liberal media is doing everything in its power to avoid pointing the finger at radical Islamists. They point it at Mitt Romney for his statements, they point it at Newsweek, at the author, Ayaan Ali Hirsi, and they point it at an obscure film heretofore unknown to the general public.
None of these are justification for the scene currently spreading throughout the Middle East. And most assuredly, the rage is not a response to an anti-Mohammad film, despite what the White House would have you believe.
The rage has been consistent and perpetual, and it has long been evident prior to any version of any anti-Mohammad film. During the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. At the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. At the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. With the USS Cole bombing in 2000. At the Fort Hood massacre in 2009. And of course, September 11th.
This to name a few.
The rage is tangible, and it is very closely associated with radical Islam.
Giving terrorists built-in excuses such as an obscure film only serves to add fuel to their fire. Appeasement does not work.
What the left clearly needs are more people of reason, more people like Kirsten Powers who wrote:
"... our leaders shouldn't let our enemies know that when they kill our people and attack our embassies that the US Government will act like a battered wife making excuses for her psychotic husband. Wake up: we weren't attacked because of a movie made by an American. We were attacked because there are crazy religious fanatics who hate the United States. We didn't ask for it."
Say it along with her - Crazy. Religious. Fanatics.
Muslim rage.
Do not fear it. Fearing words only serves to embolden the enemy, and they know it.
While we continue to fight over those words, extremists continue to point their RPG's at our foreign diplomats, storm our embassy walls, burn American flags, call for beheadings and public hangings, and on and on. All the while, the media criminally continues to whistle through the graveyard.
That said, I would like to propose a change in how the media labels things of this nature. I'd like to redefine the term Islamophobia. The phrase, much like the race card, has been overused by the left and has been played out. It has outlived its usefulness. It no longer sticks as a term of bigotry or intolerance toward radical Muslims.
To quote the classic line from The Princess Bride - I do not think it means what you think it means.
Instead, the meaning should revert to a more literal translation. Islam-phobia.
The phobia involves those in the media continually capitulating to the radicals and terrorists killing in the name of their religion. The phobia involves Democrats who continually bow down to the unreasonable demands of terror-linked domestic organizations such as CAIR, or the ICNA, and are willing to release known terrorists in a foolish attempt to establish peace.
The phobia equates to fear. That is why liberals refuse to stand up to radical Islam, and it is why the media refuses to accurately portray the level of rage being executed in the name of the tenets of radical Islam. They are afraid.
No more.
Journalism is a profession. Stop acting like amateurs. Stop being Islamophobes.
At some point, you will have to grow a spine when it comes to the threat of radical Muslim rage.
At some point, you will have to stop pussyfooting and tiptoeing your way around the subject matter.
In the end, at some point you will have to address reality, and not continue to long for some fantasy world that exists only in your minds.
Follow Rusty at the Mental Recession
