The Gutless Media And Muslims

In the torrent of yarns on the Fort Hood massacre several words have been conspicuous by their absence. The words "Muslim," "Islam" and "terror(ist) seem to be utter anathema to the main stream media both print and electronic.

Finally the solid ranks of denial through silence have been broken by at least two outlets. One is American. The other hails from North Ireland.

Both editorials are well written, well argued, and properly point to the fact that fear and fear alone have inhibited honesty in reporting and public discourse on the shooting episode perpetrated by Major Hasan. The American piece, in the Miami Herald, focuses on the pop psychology aspects of the coverage and discussion of Major Hasan's act. The Belfast Telegraph takes on the matter far more bluntly, far more honestly, and far more accurately as it directly links the religious grounds of the Major's exercise in mass murder with the larger subject of Islamist jihadist terror generally.

The religious roots of Major Hasan's act (and those of Muslim jihadists generally) are treated by the Herald with an undue degree of care. The writer of the Telegraph piece has much more of a "damn the torpedoes" attitude as befits a person who has witnessed up close and personal the years of religiously affiliated political terror in North Ireland.

Admittedly Americans, particularly those of the chattering, academic, and political classes, like to see themselves as ever-so-sensitive, ever-so-careful, ever-eager to avoid giving unintended offense to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Beyond that, the talking heads of TV as well as the keyboard pounders of the print media have no capacity to trust the good judgement and basically good will of the mass of We the People.

As the Miami editorial carefully avers, there is a widespread fear that We the People, the great majority of us who are of the hoi polloi and not members of the self-appointed elite of journalism, politics, and academia are a passel of peasants replete with pitchforks and torches eagerly salivating over the possibility of running down fugitive Muslims in the deepest dark of a foul night. This level of distrust, of a willingness to think the worse of one's fellow citizens who are not in the elite is a far worse offense against truth than is the unwillingness to acknowledge reality about Major Hasan and his trigger pulling.

In the immediate (and not so immediate) wake of the Fort Hood shootings, politicians, bureaucrats, senior Army officers and the media generally tripped over their tongues and typewriters alike warning of the dreaded backlash against Muslims which might (would?) ensue as word of the massacre percolated through We the People. Interestingly, there were no warnings of "backlash" against either Army majors or psychiatrists generally considering that the shooter was a member of both as well as being a Muslim.

It appears that the same self-designated elite, the same molders of opinion, the same politicians who are convinced the American public is ever eager to whomp-a-Muslim is able to distinguish between the categories of "Army major" and "psychiatrist" and one specific psychiatrist and major. Just where in heck are these pundits et al coming from?

It is self-evident that We the People can be trusted to act responsibility and restraint whether the words "Muslm" or "terrorist" or "Army major" or even "psychiatrist" are employed in examining the events at and before the Fort Hood shootings. In the days after 9/11 there were no mobs besieging mosques. Most violations of the rights and dignity of individual Muslims or Arabs were not committed by outraged citizens seeking revenge on any convenient symbolic target but rather by the myrmidons of law enforcement, particularly those acting at the federal level with the full backing and encouragement of the Bush/Cheney administration.

The same lacking of mobs taking the law into their own grubby hands was observed in the UK following the murderous bombings of 7/7. Muslims in both the US and the UK were and are safer after even the most bloody of terror attacks than is, say, a Christian in Egypt or Pakistan, or Iraq.

The only reason which can be adduced to the cowardly treatment of Major Hasan's religiously predicated act by the MSM is fear. And, not fear of the Great Backlash but rather fear of maybe, perhaps, possibly offending some Muslim somewhere. Perhaps not a fear of Muslm martyrdom seekers, but rather of Muslim advocacy groups with their default response to any criticism no matter how fact based.

The default response is loud and repeated cries of "Islamophobia" (whatever that might be in the real world) and equally loud assertions of "discrimination" or "xenophobia" or, worst of all, "racism." It is quite true that Muslims have, as the writer of the Telegraph editorial remarked, a hyperdeveloped sense of victimization and an equally high capacity to announce just how Muslims have once again been victimized by the dominant culture in the US--or UK or wherever.

Now, not to put to fine a point on the matter, this cry of "victim" is a crock of nitrogen rich solid waste--and the leaders of CAIR and its fellow groups know it. The assorted "advocacy" groups and their apologists within the chattering, academic, and political classes are exploiting for their own advantage an unfortunate aspect of American life--the rise of the "politics of victimization."

There are a handful of groups indigenous to the US which have a somewhat legitimate claim to the status of "victims." But, beyond Americans of African ancestry and Native Americans, the demands for special status and protection attenuates to zero. For Muslims to muscle in on the historically justifiable grievances of the two specific groups is both a travesty and a mockery.

For the MSM and others in the opinion molding elite to both allow and facilitate this Muslim hijacking of "victimhood" is beyond travesty. It is a self-loathing gesture which casts the worst aspersions on the American public generally.

It is this willingness on the part of the elite--including President Obama and his Secretary of Homeland Security--to heave billingsgate on We the People as if all of us in the hoi polloi are mentally challenged juveniles which is the most disgusting part of a tragic affair. The lockstep way in which the MSM and others have marched along with the don't-trust-the-common-folks message is frankly nausea producing.

Only the honest courage of a couple of isolated voices in the great media wasteland serves the public interest, the public's often celebrated "right to know." If there were only more!

But, that halcyon state is too much to hope for as long as the phony voices of Muslim "victims" is given priority over the truth, and only the truth.