Tag: Dean Obeidallah

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/15/opinions/trump-call-white-supremacists-losers-opinion-obeidallah/index.h

Dean Obeidallah writes on CNN:

“As part of the Trump administration’s extreme vetting, they are now examining the social media accounts of people applying for visas to see if they have ties to ISIS-related groups. Well, they must do the same to determine if a person seeking to enter our country has any ties to white-supremacist or neo-Nazi organizations in their home countries.

No one wants anyone with ties to ISIS allowed in the United States. We must also guard against allowing those with ties to dangerous white supremacist groups from setting foot on our soil. They, too, are a potential threat to the people of our nation.
This sick ideology is not just limited to America, as we saw in January in Canada when a young white man described as an “ultra-nationalist white supremacist” walked into a Quebec mosque and shot and killed six Canadian Muslims as they prayed.

And after Charlottesville, white nationalist groups in various European nations cheered the attack by the man who killed Heather Heyer. Do you really want people with those views granted visas to visit our country?

Although, to be blunt, the greatest threat likely comes from white supremacists already within our own borders.

If you think Charlottesville is the only deadly white supremacist terrorist attack in recent times, you haven’t been paying attention.

In May, we saw a self-professed white supremacist in Portland, Oregon, stab two people to death on a train after they stood up to his anti-Muslim tirade directed at a young Muslim-American woman. In March, a 28-year-old white man who was a reader of white supremacist websites traveled to New York for the sole purpose of killing African-Americans. He killed one black man before being arrested and charged with terrorism by the Manhattan district attorney.

In December, another white supremacist was sentenced to 30 years in prison for plotting a domestic terrorist attack involving a radioactive device that he planned to kill Muslims with in New York state.

All of these domestic terrorist attacks prove that it’s time that Trump take the deadly threat of white supremacists as seriously as the threat that ISIS poses. And one big step he can take — in addition to enacting policies and allocating resources to fight their hateful ideology — is making it clear on Twitter that he views white supremacists as “losers.” The lives of Americans depend on it.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Trump never speaks to or deals with the “real” America: the diverse, multicultural, multitalented, multiracial, ecumenical America where the majority of us live. Not surprising, perhaps, considering that this is the America that by and large didn’t vote for him. Yet, it’s also the “majority America” that a much less diverse minority of Americans elected him to govern.

No, instead Trump chooses carefully orchestrated “campaign-style rallies” where he speaks to crowds of “True Believers:” nearly all white folks wearing red baseball caps, waving American flags, and chanting inane nationalist slogans like “build the wall” and cheering wildly as Trump does things like heap praise upon  the racist, scofflaw, hate-monger “Racist Joe.” Whipping up destructive and divisive passions while spreading a false narrative praising the myth of the “Great White America” is a “clear and present danger” to our national security and our national values.

Meanwhile, the Administration doubles down on the contrived message that we should fear visa holders and exhaustively vetted refugees from a few Muslim countries. When will those charged with protecting us turn their attention to the real security threats among the far right and how their own ill-conceived actions and inflammatory words actually increase the danger to all of us?

PWS

09-16-17

 

 

 

 

 

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