A useful summary piece on CAIR's war on free speech at the American Library Association. "The Invisible War And Our Enemies: The Untold Story Of Terrorists And Radical Islamists In Our Own Backyard," by Herb Denenberg for the Philadelphia Bulletin, August 10 (thanks to James):
[Steve] Emerson continues to publish investigations on the dangers we face that should have been front-page news across the country, but were censored out by such publications as the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and other mainstream outlets which seem to be among the best friends of terrorists and other enemies of America. They are eager to publicize any slight misstep of our armed forces, but are reluctant to warn us of the threat coming from radical Islam and terrorists. Like our president, they seem to hate America. Here are some of the details of Emerson’s latest investigations:The American Library Association On The Side Of Terror
One of the most disturbing developments involves professional associations, colleges, universities and other important institutions that seem to be more sympathetic to the enemies of America than to America.
The latest incident involves the American Library Association, the largest and leading library association in the U.S. The ALA had planned a panel discussion entitled “Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping” at its annual convention. One of the invited speakers was Robert Spencer, author of eight books on Islam and jihad, and along with Emerson, one of the giants in contributing to the understanding of terrorism and radical Islam (or what some call Islamofascism). All of the books of Spencer and Emerson should be must reading for Americans.
But when the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR) spearheaded an attempt to silence Spencer, because it doesn’t like his ideas critical of CAIR, terrorism and Islamofascism, the ALA quickly buckled. CAIR had pressured all the other panelists to withdraw, and Spencer was the only one left standing. But instead of replacing the other panelists or letting Spencer speak by himself, the ALA simply cancelled the panel.
Emerson notes the multiple ironies in this scenario. The ALA holds an annual banned books week to celebrate “the freedom to express one’s opinions even if their opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.” Nonetheless, ALA cancelled the panel rather than replacing the vacated slot or letting Spencer go on alone. There’s another delicious irony: The CAIR official who complained about Spencer said he offers “grotesque viewpoints that lie well outside the bounds of reason and civilized debate.” But that CAIR official is the one who offers such grotesque viewpoints. He is someone who can’t bring himself to condemn two leading terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah; he minimizes the Holocaust; and he claims the Jews control the media, a classic anti-Semitic ploy.
Emerson notes this is only “the latest in a series of successful efforts to silence viewpoints considered offensive to, or critical of, radical Islam.”
The ALA is in the pathetic and disgraceful position of being unwilling to listen to Spencer, one of the leading authorities on radical Islam, and yields to the views of CAIR, which Emerson describes as follows: “In its frenzy to placate CAIR, the ALA does not seem to have taken any notice of the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case, whose operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Several of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR was also involved in the ‘Flying Imams’ intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.”
So here the ALA, which should stand for freedom of speech, has become a symbol of censorship and obedience to America-hating terrorists. Emerson writes, “And so they have set yet another precedent in which a group with numerous ties to terrorists and Islamist organizations determines what Americans will learn about Islam, jihad, and the terror threat. What’s the point of having principles if they are so easily tossed aside in the name of political correctness.” The ALA is obviously unprincipled, and that’s why librarians should drop their ALA membership....
American survival is at stake. And whether America survives depends on whether we listen to people like Emerson and Spencer or to the biased dishonest and fraudulent mainstream media.
Re-posting my record of the original comments to this article, which were made during the final days of our sojourn with 'IntenseDebate.
I will leave in the complaints re IntDeb as they are inextricably intermingled with intelligent remarks prompted by the posted article.
KAFFIRKANUCK said - Where have all the commentators gone? Has ID really screwed the bloggers that much that I could log in to this page, twice in 20 minutes and still be the first to post? Well, so be it.
As is happening in the UK, such back room subversive actions diminishing free speech are occurring in the US.
All across established democracies are the forces of islam using PC MC fueled libel chill to propagate the muslim agenda. Dar al-Harb’s fall has met the internet wall of information. Go forth and tell all you know of this plot to change your way of life. Don’t let it happen.
-DUMBLEDORESARMY told KAFFIRKANUCK - I'm still here! Still reading. Waiting patiently till the screw-up gets fixed.
Mr Spencer was at a conference recently - it's possible he hasn't had much time to chase the IntDeb geeks and yell at them and throw things.
The thing to do is to ignore the old comments and scroll on down - usually you get to the new ones.
-BONESHACK said to DDA - Exactly! As I have found out.
-HESPERADO said - What's going on is that first IntenseDebate screwed up the comments threads by somehow making weeks-old comments (often over 100 of them) appear on recent threads totally unrelated to them.
Then, apparently in order to fix that, they have chopped out most or all comments on these recent threads -- throwing out the baby (actual recent comments) with the bathwater (all the old comments).
This is way past getting ridiculous. But since I'm just a peasant in the Anti-Islam Movement, I can't do diddly about it and must wait patiently for the aristocracy to do something.
-KAFFIRKANUCK said - I certainly wouldn’t say you’re a peasant, ‘cause if you are, I’m a cave dweller.
-HESPERADO said - Thanks; I guess I meant organizationally speaking.
-DUMBLEDORESARMY said - Hesp - depending on how recent the threads are, I may have saved some of the things that have been tossed. Certainly all the best comments from, say, a week ago are probably safely squirrelled away in my assorted electronic files, along with the articles they referred to, under titles such as 'Islam's War on Women', or 'Raising the Alarm', or 'Eurabia'...you get the idea. (And I get my husband to do a backup copy of what's on my hard disk, regularly - a habit I learned when writing my PHD thesis on my home computer).
-BASEBALLMAVEN said - added to what Hesperado said, I also have trouble being told my session has expired (often only minutes after signing in), or having the 'submit comment' button not work (though scrolling to the next article and then back again, often fixes that).
-HESPERADO replied to BASEBALLMAVEN - Yes, those are all the other bugs of InstantDebate that many of us have just gotten used to over the months (all the more annoying because they are not consistent bugs, but sometimes apply for some people, not for others, or sometimes don't seem to be a problem one day, then reappear the next, etc.).
This most recent spate of new bugs however pushes the problem toward the realm of intolerable.
WELLINGTON said - The ALA, to invoke Teddy Roosevelt here, has the backbone of a chocolate eclair.
Put another way, it's idiotically multicultural and politically correct (both MC and PC being entirely an invention of the modern Left; N.B. liberals) and about as timid and ignorant of Islam as a metropolitan New Yorker or Left Coaster is about the heartland of America. Ironic that time and time again the cognoscenti (e.g., the ALA) are put forward as those in the know when, in fact, they are ordinarily representative of the diametric opposite of real understanding. Stupid world, phony world, much of the time.
-CORNELIUS said - I recently rediscovered chocolate eclairs...and was enjoying one a week for a month or so when I finally read the nutritional info and discovered that one eclair has over 50% of the saturated fat in the RDA table. Appalled, I went back to bran muffins...(with the occasional blueberry).
God, life can be boring.
-DUMBLEDORESARMY told CORNELIUS - Yes: un homme d'un certain age has to be careful how much grease he ingests. My husband (46) had to adopt a lower-cholesterol diet recently, despite the fact that he cycles 10 km to work and also usually does a 20 min constitutional stroll through the city streets at lunchtime.
WELLINGTON replied to DDA - Always could be worse. As examples, we could live in a world without beer or a mosque might arise within sight of your home---------or both.
EPISTEMOLOGY said - Problems again, I thought IntenseDebate had managed the glitches. Wishful thinking.
Anyway, (quoting article) "The CAIR official who complained about Spencer said he offers “grotesque viewpoints that lie well outside the bounds of reason and civilized debate." "
I seem to be in the wrong debate, I can't remember any time when Robert said anything unreasonable. Where are the bounds of reason, anyway? Did CAIR find them or define them? CAIR is pretty hubristic. Not really the intellectual's style. Blokes I have to give you thumbs down.
KAFFIRKANUCK said (re IntenseDebate) - What in loose goose droppings is going on? Going back to the previous pages, the comments are coming up as being from weeks ago, and if you read the content, ya…they are…and have nothing to do with the story of the day. Hello? WTF is going on?
Epistomology, there’s hoping, but the truth seems to be ID is still royally screwing up.
-DUMBLEDORESARMY asked KAFFIRKANUCK - KafKan - how's the prep for the return to the sandbox going? You may find this article from our Australian news to be of interest:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/10/265...
And you may also be interested in this piece - 'Coppersmith or helicopter: the problem is age-old' - from the New English Review blog:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/...
BONESHACK said - Wow! I'm stunned. Here's one "journalist" who seems not to have been infected with the dreaded 'PC MC' disease.
Good job Herb! And to you, Robert! Your message is being broadcast and trumpeted from the lofty towers.
HESPERADO said -
I don't think the Philadelphia Bulletin is really in the mainstream media orbit; so in a sense it doesn't really count. I'd guess it's somewhat to the right of the Washington Times which itself only barely hangs on by its fingernails to the mainstream -- and that by succumbing more often than not to various flavors of PC MC (when it comes to Islam, that is).
-BONESHACK said - Prima facie impressions of this article (and of the author) lead me to stand by my initial statement.
Now, whether the Philadelphia Bulletin is a "right of main stream" publication? I don't know. I have spent lots of time in Philly, but I do know that you can not trust anything printed in the Philadelphia Enquirer.
-HESPERADO told BONESHACK - You were correct about the article and the reporter, but in the world of public information, it matters what the medium is. When publications are not mainstream, then they don't get a wide circulation, and when they are noticed, they are readily marginalized as "right wing".
YANKEL inquired - Is it safe to go back in the water?
-DUMBLEDORESARMY replied - No. Comments still disappear into the IntDeb equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle and then it is anyone's guess where they will end up. The best thing to do if you really want to comment is to include in your comment the name of the article to which you are responding.
Furthermore it is wise to compose your comment, if a long and thoughtful one, in a document on your own computer, then copy and paste it into the comment box. That way, even if the posting gets eaten by IntDeb, you still have the original safe and sound on your home computer.
Similarly: if you see, say, a particularly brilliant comment by Hugh, or Hesperado, or others, then do not just read it; copy it and save it on your own computer, filed under a suitable label; and then, again, if it 'disappears' or gets randomly deleted from the thread, never fear, *you* have a copy.
ALASKAN INFIDEL said (of the article) - Stories like this one are what make me speak up when I hear someone defending islam. I don't care where I am or who's standing around me. I cannot remain silent in the face of lies. Particularly when those lies are going to have a direct and palpable negative, (to say the least.) impact on my life and the lives of my fellow Americans.
The more people know about the true nature of islam the better.
islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.
-DEUSVULT said - Its important to speak up. I find that most people know nothing, or next to nothing, about Islam.
The next thing I discover, when I do speak up, is that *most* people don't *want* to know anything about Islam......... Which is pathetic, because it could kill them some day......
-ALASKAN INFIDEL said - Now that you mention it, it seems strange that people in general, don't want to hear the negative things about islam. They seem quite interested at first but as I proceed to some of the facts regarding the status of women or the whole bestiality thing they tend to stop wanting to know Funny it's never occurred to me to ask them what it is exactly about what they're hearing that makes them want to stop hearing.
It can't simply be that it is contrary to what they're being told in general...? The coming of the 12th imam and how Iran views their part in this...the sexual perversions of the false prophet...the horrific acts sanctioned by sharia law.
The fact that there are many here in America now, who appear in all ways to be and are in fact Americans that would see the world under sharia law and the governments of all nations gone. Instead, ayatoilets would rule the slaves of the world.
And these apologists would rejoice in this. They come here and defend islam as if islam were freedom and not slavery, blind to the impossibility of freedom and islam co-existing. Willfully so if indeed blind. More likely complicit;
IRONGAUNTLET observed - Islam: the original thug-ochracy
FREEDOMFREAK said - Gee I guess I missed out on all the fun.
As for the ALA, is there anyone more irrelevant? Librarians are only known for shushing people anyway.
Though, I do find the thought interesting, that a guy could check out books on how to make bombs, or how to be an Islamic martyr, and the librarians would fight to keep their records out of the watchful eye of Homeland Security, but my constant checking out of books by Steyn, Spencer, Bruce Bawer, Andy McCarthy, Steve Emerson, (etc) might have them falling over each other to be the first to turn me in to some other creepy and illiberal branch of government!
Does anyone really think they'd have the same drive to protect the privacy of people they consider their ideological enemy? I have a bridge for sale, by the way.
MACKIE said - "If it is freedom of speech that is supposed to be a cornerstone of the ALA or for that matter any reputable American organization; what is there to fear from hearing the views of Robert Spencer on Islam? Can the ALA define there reasons for canceling the discussion?
I think there is still time for the ALA to redeem itself and make a noble effort to recast a new discussion on “Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping” so that they may once again demonstrate that they do believe in freedom of speech.
If the previous decision is left to stand then it will remain a stark example of an organization lacking in the ability to support the greatest value this nation has stood firm on for more than 220 years--"The first amendment to the US Constitution"."
Second part of Dumbledoresarmy's record of the comments thread for this article.
MO FOE said - This is being posted under the story "The American Library Association On The Side Of Terror", but it's really about Intense Debate.
It's very sad when we have to start posting which story we are commenting on, because they are going everywhere willy-nilly.
JEW LOVER said - This is being posted under the story "The American Library Association On The Side Of Terror", but it's really about Intense Debate.
Agreed Mo Foe.
Will check back in a week, hopefully things will be worked out by then.
MBR said - A recognition that the pen may be almost as mighty as the Islamic sword? Not yet, but they are working on it. From a just-posted CAIR release: [QUOTES]
'CAIR: Calif. Library Asked to Drop Sponsorship of Anti-Islam Event
San Diego Public Library urged to invite Muslim speaker to offer accurate info'.
Looks like this time it is Brigitte Gabriel in the firing-line. Spokesman Edgar Hopida is nothing if not brazen:
from http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/090810mu...
"Because we are strong defenders of the First amendment right to free speech, even the bigoted speech offered by groups such as Act! for America, we do not ask that the presentation be canceled.
Instead, we respectfully request that the San Diego Public Library withdraw its sponsorship of the event so that local taxpayers are not made unwittingly complicit in the promotion of hatred and bigotry. We also ask that a representative from the San Diego Muslim community be permitted to offer accurate and balanced information about Islam to those attending the event. "
Who said libraries were just dull and dusty places?
MBR TO DDA - My problem with IntDeb is the difficulty in sometimes appending a reply to someone's comment.
In this case my comment is to dumbledoresrmy's reply just above , concerning the value in setting up our own little libraries, and in getting especially important books into conventional libraries, whether school, public or university.
When I come across an especially useful book I sometimes buy another copy just for lending, my own having been heavily pencilled by the time I've finished. Sometimes also for library donation, for those that will accept it.
DDA, you mention Naipaul's "Among the Believers". Before 9/11 it was my good fortune to meet Bassam Tibi quite by chance. He asked me what I had read on Islam. I told him "Among the Believers" only. He was not impressed with my choice nor lack of reading on the topic and challenged me to read both widely and deeply and get up to speed with what was happening.
For that I remain profoundly grateful to him. The web and email present amazing material and opportunities but books remain the bedrock, I believe.
Also from Downunder, I always read your material with interest, dumbledoresarmy.
DUMBLEDORESARMY replied to MBR -
"I mentioned Naipaul's book {in another thread than this one, I think - dda} because it is a good 'beginner's' book; a way in, a book from which the reader may proceed to other, weightier books. And it contains some useful and very telling quotes - for example, the jihadist in a madrasa (pesantren) in Java, who in Naipaul's hearing declared openly that East Timor (at that time under murderous Indonesian occupation) was 'our latest colony' and that "soon we'll be colonising Australia' (!! that's a good one to wake Australians up to the danger!). The other line from that book that has stuck in my mind, is Naipaul's observation that the Pakistanis had taken the rule of law that they inherited from the British "and replaced it with nothing". Not that they had maintained it; they had in fact destroyed it, and in its place there was, so to speak, Nothing.
For the same reason, although our own Geraldine Brooks' 'Nine Parts of Desire' is far from perfect, it still contains useful observations and some handy facts; and a girl or woman who has read it, may be more easily persuaded to watch 'Submission' or to read 'Infidel', or even Nonie Darwish on sharia, 'Cruel and Usual Punishment'.
Did you know that Naipaul was interviewed on Australia's Radio National...on September 9th 2001?
http://abc.gov.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2001/361036.htm#transcript
And toward the end of the interview he warned about the encroachment of Islam in Britain and elsewhere - its demand that its intolerance be tolerated."
END of my record of original comments for this thread.