reflectivepundit

America’s Fanatic Anti-Abortion Enforcers Copy ISIS Women’s Cruelty

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The incredible sage of the 10-year-old pregnant girl, a rape victim, who had to be brought from her home in Ohio to Indiana in order to get an abortion, laid bare the horrific consequences of the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the new legal reality’s implementations by GOP-dominated states.

Ohio’s categorical ban of abortions, in place when the case unfolded, and the Indiana Attorney General’s defamation of the female physician, who treated the little girl before the state could outlaw the procedures, were strikingly similar to the Islamic State’s abusive treatment of young girls under the terrorist organization’s interpretation of Sharia law.

In early 2015, ISIS’s all-female al-Khansaa Brigade posted the tract “Women of the Islamic State: A Manifesto on Women” on several social media sites. According to the manifesto, “the fundamental function for women is in the house with her husband and children.” In tune with this, al-Khansa prescribed a rudimentary education for women built around their obligations to please their husbands and bear children raising boys and girls to become future jihadists and wives respectively.

In what I thought was the most shocking passage, the guidelines stated that “it is considered legitimate for a girl to be married by the age of nine” [emphasis added].

Obviously, this passage would not shock the army of fanatic GOP antiabortion legislators and enforcers. If you are firm in dictating that a 10-year-old child, impregnated by a rapist, must give birth to a baby and become a mother, you must be perfectly okay with ISIS-women’s edict that marriages of nine-year-old girls are legitimate.

That’s what you get, when religious zealots are at work. Whether they call themselves  Muslims in ISIS or Christians in Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere in America.

When the Dear Leader is Said to Be Sent by God

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“Loved watching the crowd fill up for the 547th Rally in Green Bay. There has never been and probably never will be a movement like this again. Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation and only God could allow me to help. God bless America!”

The above tweet posted by Donald Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale on April 30, 2019 celebrated the U.S. President as savior sent to America by God. Parscale was and is not an exception among those who worship the Dear Leader in the White House as God-sent gift. Others in Trump’s orbit and many of his supporters among Evangelicals--ministers and rank and file supporters-- believe that he is the leader of a divine movement blessed by the Lord.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the recently departed White House press secretary, told the Christian Broadcast Network News when she was still in office,  

”I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times, and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president. And that’s why he’s there, and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about.”

Earlier this week and following Trump’s racist tweets against four members of Congress, all women of color, Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the only black cabinet member, praised Trump during a cabinet meeting in the White House,

“You know," he said, "as I told you before, I think God is using you.”

This kind of worship is not unique among coteries surrounding divisive, racist, illiberal leaders. And it is not unique for hard-core rank-and-file supporters.

Comparisons to those surrounding Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany are instructive:  

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, said in a speech, “With all our powers we will endeavor to be worthy of the Führer [Hitler] thou, O Lord, has sent us!”  

Hermann Goering, one of the most fanatical and most influential figures in the Nazi party and Hitler’s government, told the nation, “God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany.”

Joseph Goebbels, Secretary of Propaganda, who had grown up in a very religious family, stated, “We have a feeling that Germany has been transformed into a great house of God, including all classes, professions and creeds, where the Führer [Hitler] as our mediator stood before the throne of the Almighty."

There are valuable lessons to be learned from the past, But too often, as in today's America, those lessons and warnings are ignored by open worshipers and silent enablers of the occupant of the Oval Office.    

From Franklin Graham to Rick Santorum and the Republican Mainstream: Self-Appointed Moralists and Guardians of America’s Values have lost their Moral Moorings

By Brigitte L.Nacos

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” whether he believes President Obama is a Christian, Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, said the other day, “You have to ask that of President Obama. You can ask me do I believe you’re a Christian. I think people have to ask Barack Obama. He's come out saying he's a Christian. So I think the question is, what is a Christian?” He was not finished yet. “Under Islamic law, under Sharia law, Islam sees him as a son of Islam, because his father was a Muslim, his grandfather was a Muslim, his great-grandfather was a Muslim,” Graham stated. “So under Islamic law, the Muslim world sees President Obama as a Muslim, as a son of Islam. That's just the way it works. That's the way they see him.”

When asked whether he believes Obama is “categorically not a Muslim,” Graham said, “I can't say categorically because Islam has gotten a free a pass under Obama.” He then attacked the president’s policies which, according to Graham, favor Muslims over Christians.

Graham also said that he asked the president how he became a Christian and was told that Obama joined a church in Chicago after he became a community organizer which had Graham wonder about Obama’s motives.

All of this sounded just like the crazy arguments of the right-wing hate sites of the militia and patriot and birther variety that have bemoaned the end of America as we know it from the day Barack Obama won the 2008 election. Warning that "Obama is the Antichrist," one of those sites’ posts stated, “He claims to have discovered Christianity in his adult life but I would ask you to check that claim. He is a phony Christian and is in fact an aggressive supporter of murdering unborn children. Obama speaks of Christianity while openly rejecting the teachings of the Christ and the Bible.”

Pretty much along the lines of what Franklin Graham tells us.

The greater problem is that such paranoia has become part and parcel of the current Republican primary campaign and of mainstream Republicanism.

Just as the right-wing hate sites, Rick Santorum paints a grim picture of an apocalyptic future—if Obama remains in office.  Last weekend, the former U.S. Senator told reporters that the situation today is pretty much the same as around 1940 and 1941, when Americans hesitated to fight Adolf Hitler because they thought he was “a nice guy.” So, what was the lesson of this comparison? Obama is as great a threat today as Hitler was then.

While Santorum’s rhetoric is now a tact more fanatical than in the past, it is far from unusual.  He has chastised Obama for “absolutely un-American activities” and warned that “this is the most important election of my life. This is where America’s freedom is at stake.”

And his competitors, too, are blowing in the same horn.

Mitt Romney has told us that “the president said he wants to fundamentally transform America, I kind of like America. I’m not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don’t want it to become like Europe.”

Yesterday, Newt Gingrich told students at Oral Roberts University that Obama is “the most dangerous president in modern American history.” Claiming that Obama is particularly weak when it comes to fight radical Islamic terrorists, Gingrich said furthermore that "defeating Barack Obama becomes, in fact, a duty of national security. Because the fact is, he is incapable of defending the United States." Ah, well, this was more than a senior moment for Gingrich, he simply does not want to recognize that Obama has been far more successful in fighting this kind of terrorism than George W. Bush and any other president.

I think that the real threat to America are fanatics and right-wing ideologues whether of the Christian or secular libertarian kind.And of course opportunists like Gingrich.

Anti-Muslim Bigotry is Un-American

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Both the Anti-Defamation League which was founded nearly 100 years ago “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all" and the 40-year old Southern Poverty Law Center, founded to promote the Civil Rights movement and racial equality, are among the leading civil rights and human rights organizations. Both have long expanded their anti-discrimination work beyond their original devotion to Jewish and African Americans respectively. Most recently, both organizations have recorded the growing anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States and the growing incidents of violence against mosques and Muslim Americans.

In advance of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, there have been plenty of manifestations of Islamophobia in America. Most disturbing is that the political mainstream is part of this anti-Muslim rhetoric. The following is an exchange between talk show host Glenn Beck and Herman Cain, Republican from Georgia and candidate for the presidential nomination, in June 2011:

BECK: You said you would not appoint a Muslim to anybody in your administration.

CAIN: The exact language was when I was asked, “would you be comfortable with a Muslim in your cabinet?” And I said, “no, I would not be comfortable.” I didn’t say I wouldn’t appoint one because if they can prove to me that they’re putting the Constitution of the United States first then they would be a candidate just like everybody else. My entire career, I’ve hired good people, great people, regardless of their religious orientation.

BECK: So wait a minute. Are you saying that Muslims have to prove their, that there has to be some loyalty proof?

CAIN: Yes, to the Constitution of the United States of America.

BECK: Would you do that to a Catholic or would you do that to a Mormon?

CAIN: Nope, I wouldn’t. Because there is a greater dangerous part of the Muslim faith than there is in these other religions. I know that there are some Muslims who talk about, “but we are a peaceful religion.” And I’m sure that there are some peace-loving Muslims.

When Cain’s remarks came up during the first debate of Republican presidential hopefuls on June 13, 2011 in New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, sided with Cain and went even further:

"Now, I just want to go out on a limb here. I'm in favor of saying to people, if you're not prepared to be loyal to the United States, you will not serve in my administration, period. We did this in dealing with the Nazis. We did this in dealing with the Communists. And it was controversial both times and both times we discovered after a while, you know, there are some genuinely bad people who would like to infiltrate our country. And we have got to have the guts to stand up and say, No.”

Just think for a moment how fellow Americans who happen to be Muslims must feel, when they hear even candidates for the presidency single them out for discrimination.

If you want to know how our Muslim neighbors and colleagues feel, click the link below for a short but gripping film clip:

http://myfellowamerican.us/