National Dhimmi Radio shows how dim it is

Brian

"We must be mad...literally mad" said Enoch all those years ago. Well he surely wasn't mad, but look what speaking the truth did for his career.
We seem to suffering from 'mad sheep disease' where expressing a wish to be free of it gets you abused and even physically attacked by slavering mobs with loud hailers.
Baaa!

maddy1

Anybody who reacts in anyway to the orthodoxy is fair game, end of story.

SLedge-Hammer

Love your wit, Melanie. And your chutzpah. Someone said it tonight: National Police Radio.

David in Canada

I hope he sues her ass off.

Stewart Hall

I do not think Juan should have been fired.

But them I think there was always a dichotomy between him being on both Fox News and NPR.

I do not see NPR as being free from their journalists going outside the discipline by often expressing their personal views.

An obvious case of the Kettle calling the Pot, "Black".

Austin Barry

The terrified cry of our supine ruling elite is the Fawlty-like 'Don't mention the Islamists'.

But I do get the impression that all is not lost: that across the West the greater public is becoming ever more alert to the intensifying problem.

How though is it solved?

Clearly our masters haven't the slightest idea, beyond closing down debate.

Larry in Tel Aviv

Moronism is the new normal, actually it's the old normal. Such a "civilization" does not deserve to survive, never mind thrive.

Roy

I'm a Fox News fan to a limited extent and watched this taking place.
Yes, America is slow to appreciate the disaster festering in its midst. Just like cuddly old Britain! Hope the U.S. is starting to get it, but unfortunately they have to see off the staggeringly incompetent president first. The much maligned Fox News is one of the few media operations speaking out. What a pity there isn't a British equivalent. Wouldn't that put the cat amongst the pigeons?

DougS

How on earth can an expression of worry about possible terrorism be regarded as bigotry, especially in view of 9/11 and the many other acts of terror carried out by Muslims?

The only outrageous comment was that by NPR's CEO, Vivian Schiller. She should be ashamed of herself.

Timac

Great Blog post. As an American, I always expect our media to err on the side of hysteria and knee jerk reactions. I agree that Mr Williams had said anything out of order and the media response has been toeing the usual line. Express outrage first, think second.

Also, Melanie, I really enjoyed you on the moral maze earlier this week. What planet was that witness on. It's like she thought we all want a socialist utopia, whether we know it or not! You made her look very silly, indeed. I bet she doesn't get people standing up to her that way in her teacher staff room or wherever.

Anyways, have a great weekend, people

Dhim

We have been told by many militant Muslims that the war is one, that the West must be very, very scared.... yet, when we express this fear, we are called bigots. Unbelievable.

benjamin

Melanie's final comment on the mosque near ground zero is a bit silly. It is approved by 57% of New Yorkers. Why would she view it as a victory for jihadists? Since the people behind it are moderate muslims, reviled by the jihadists, it could be seen as a victory for moderation and reconciliation. But I suppose it all depends what kind of a mindset you have. Mind set in cyclopes mode.

GaryO

You wrote Londonistan, how many years ago?

An Islamist with worrying connections, one Lutfur Rahman has just won a resounding democratic victory to be the first executive mayor on Tower Hamlets, with almost total power over its £1 billion budget.

A forlorn Andrew Gilligan writes on his Telegraph blog "one very senior figure in the Tower Hamlets Labour Party said: “It really is Britain’s Islamic republic now.”"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100060304/labour-london-borough-becomes-islamic-republic/#disqus_thread

This begs a question: does anybody care anymore?

Michael White

They'll be a great deal of extremists thanking their lucky starts at this unexpected gift.

Allan D

What is interesting about this story is that both the left and the right have been outraged by Williams' dismissal in equal measure. Williams' real offence was straying off the plantation and taking the occasional Murdoch shilling as the statutory Obama-supporting liberal (although he has also written a splendid book demonstrating how the Civil Rights movement of the '60s has been betrayed by its race-hustler and victimhood successors who have robbed the African-American community of any feelings of self-worth and self-reliance).

However the liberal elite totally mishandled the situation and they have achieved the almost impossible of turning NPR (which makes even the BBC look fair and balanced) into the broadcasting arm of the KKK. Meanwhile Williams has been rewarded with a full-time contract at Fox News alongside conservative commentators such as Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly.

The impact of Fox News on US politics since it began 15 years ago cannot be underestimated. Liberal-biased cable news organisations such as CNN and MSNBC are in serious financial difficulty with one or other facing closure. Fox News is as significant in opinion formation in the US as conservative talk radio was when it started in the 1980s.

That is why the White House wanted to crush it. Obama's Press Secretary said that it was "not a serious news organisation" and tried to exclude it from the White House Press Corps in another cack-handed move but the rest of the Corps, to their eternal credit, saw this as an attack on press freedom and refused to play along.

Now, in a strange ironic twist, the Fox correspondent sits in the front row at White House Press conferences in the seat vacated by the "dhimmi" octogenarian, Helen Thomas.

Hopefully, Williams' dismissal and the furore it has created will increase the Republican swing in the forthcoming elections a week on Tuesday. I really wish we had the equivalent of FNC in the UK instead of the ghastly BBC-lite Sky News with its AGW agenda. Melanie P's financial future would be secure if we did, as she would never be off air and her books would rocket to the top of the best-seller lists. Maybe one day soon.

PW Virginia USA

Sledge I prefer NPR National Propaganda Radio...I listened less and less until I finally stopped altogether...And Benjamin it's not how the Iman Rauf thinks about his Mosque but how it's interpreted in the Islamic world...

Wolf Terner

Benjamin: You lie in your post!
70%+ New Yorkers are against the Mosque at ground zero. Polls consistently back this up. Did you think your lie would pass unnoticed because this is an English posting?

Bill

With reference to the 9/11 mosque and indeed mosques in the UK. I understand that in Islam "every place where a minaret is visible and each region which can be seen from a minaret must become Islamic". Does anyone know if this is in fact what moslems believe? If it is, then while we dream a true horror is spreading about us.

Zachary

Melanie: Please say something about that ignoramus Jimmy Carter and his acolyte Mary Robinson and their meetings with Hamas and demonstrations in Jerusalem. I realize they are not worth your words, but I would still like your opinion their latest antics. Thank you

Zibgnew

The PC are running scared over here. America is not going to be easy for the Islamists or the PC police to take over or continue to infest. There are battles raging all over America as we speak. The Giant is waking up and the infestation will be fumigated and what's left will retreat. Mark my Words.

AY

In July 2010, the 5-th anniversary of 7/7 bombings coincided with "Inspired by Mohammad" posters campaign IN THE LONDON UNDERGROUND. Posters displayed large faces of identifiable believers, with quite triumphalist expressions on them, and writings like "Mohammad believed in social justice. So do I".

When seeing things like this, there is clear understanding that you are betrayed.

John Holland

Zibgnew- fumigated? Where have I heard that before?
Nice choice of words. You don't sound like a psychopath at all.

zibgnew

Mr. Holland,
Just because your mind dwells in a paticular place don't assume we are all there with you. You have revealed much more about yourself with your interpretation of my words than you will ever know about mine.

Alex Bensky

NPR is selective about getting outraged. One of its correspondents,Nina Totenberg, once said that she hoped the right-wing senator Jesse Helms (and his grandchildren!) would get AIDS. If anyone at NPR even suggested to her that this might be over the top it was not public knowledge.

Meanwhile, apparently NPR had hundreds of complaints about Williams being on Fox, but Fox reported few, if any, complaints about him being on NPR.

Remind me about how the left is open and tolerant and the right close-minded. I keep forgetting.

Winnie

I think anyone who doesn't realise that Islam is conquering us is in for a big surprise. But in a way it's a good thing. It at least makes some of us realise, possibly too late in the day though, what Israel has been going through for 60 years. At least the cat is out of the bag, & that has to count for something.

Joshua

"Benjamin: You lie in your post!
70%+ New Yorkers are against the Mosque at ground zero. Polls consistently back this up."

From an article (Aug 17, 2010) at NBCNewYork.com:

"A majority of New Yorkers oppose plans to build a mosque and Muslim cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released Thursday.

Fifty-two percent of the respondents said they did not want the mosque to be built at all, 31 percent are in favor of it, and 17 percent are undecided."

"Broken down by borough, Manhattan was the most in favor of the mosque, with only 36 percent of residents against it. On the other end of the spectrum was Staten Island, where 73 percent of respondents were opposed."

Rennie

Zibgnew, "You have revealed much more about yourself with your interpretation of my words than you will ever know about mine." This is pure nursery- school debate. You forgot to add "waaaa, waaaa, waaaa..." I think we know more about you than is necessarily pleasant.

David Skinner

Both dhimmitude and sodhimmitude have been fanned into flames by the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory. None of this has just happened.There is a narrative. Though the hymn sheet of Cultural Marxist's was written 70 years ago, we are all now forced to sing from it - or be prepared to suffer the consequences.

Craig Strachan

Yes, if NPR's intention here was to confirm its image as the in-house broadcaster of an bien-pensant, effete elite in thrall to political correctness it's done a bang-up job. It's also helped FOX look all in-touch and folksy, if not exactly fair and balanced.

John Holland

Zibgnew- I would ask you to explain how me questioning the decency of you using the language of Rentokil and of Nazi propaganda against the Jews reveals more about me than you, but I won't.
I would like to know how you think the concept of "fumigating" can be interpreted in a Christian way.

Jack Johnson Lives!

Did you know the greatest drummer ever - art blakey was an ahmadi? or that Herbie Hancock was into a very interesting form of peace loving japanese buddhism?

I hoped Fox would eat NPR alive and take all their business away.

perhaps perhaps perhaps...

C.Gee

John Holland:

Nazism was more than the deployment of metaphor. The Nazis actually did kill human beings because they believed them to be vermin.
And of course your use of Nazi as a metaphor for exterminators is deployed against Israel and Jews by Arab Muslim Nazi allies who wished - and still wish - for the extermination of Jews. The metaphor is particularly useful in exculpating them - after all the Jews were innocent of any actual behavior that could be metaphorically verminous. I do not suppose you would take the metaphor that far, because the Islamists - whatever else they do in reality - leave metaphorical toxic droppings in their virulent anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist propaganda. If anyone is wearing a Rentokil uniform it is you, and your metaphorical fumigator is open at full throttle blowing smoke.

david elder

A pity there is no Olympic award for folding at the knees.

Brian O'Connor

Andy McCarthy offers his less-than-completely--sympathetic take on this. As he points out, Juan played the left ideological game until it bit him. http://tinyurl.com/284llkd

Did he really not understand the kinds of extremes his (former) fellow travelers would go to? (He sure does now!)

And there is this palette cleanser. Charles Krauthammer confronts Nina Totenberg and wants to know why she received a pass and Juan did not. http://tinyurl.com/26rah5m

Awkwardness and distraction prevail . . .

In the Wilderness in America

Melanie, excellent article. We, here in the U.S., are indeed becoming dhimmi. And the Juan Williams debacle is just the first shot at destroying freedom of thought and speech. The only hope is that the federal funding of NPR is abolished by Congress. We should not be supporting, economically or any other way, the propoganda arm of any political movement, whether it be right or left. But I wouldn't bet the ranch on that defunding happening. The jihadists are slowly but surely corroding our freedoms.

John Holland

C. Gee - I'm a bit confused by what you are trying to say.

Are you saying that because Zibgnew has not, unlike the Nazis, actually carried out any fumigations, it's all right for him to use their terminology?

Or are you saying that because some anti-Semitic Islamists use this language, it's fine for their enemies to use it too?
Do you usually take your moral cues from fanatics?

Or maybe you're hinting that, somehow, because I disagreed with Zibgnew, then I'm promoting the murder of Jews? Your image of me in a Rentokil uniform does seem to make an extrapolation from my objection to the use of crass and historically offensive language, to me wanting to exterminate people.

That would be a grossly duplicitous piece of 'thinking', so I'm assuming that's not what you meant.

Maybe you could explain.

Brian O'Connor

Vivian Schiller has revised her justification for having fired Juan Williams . . . originally, he was fired because he was a bigot, but later his sin was that he expressed an opinion, which is verboten if you're an NPR news person, whether you are an NPR "Correspondent" or an NPR "Analyst."

Except in the case of Nina Totenberg, Cokie Roberts, Terri Gross and the late Daniel Schorr. Each of these good folks has expressed quite strong opinions on numerous occasions, evidently without incurring Vivien Schiller's wrath.

I'm just saying . . .

Derek Pasquill

"more likely to be dressed inconspicuously than in full Islamic fig"

Yes I don't give a fig for Islamic fiq either.

C.Gee

John Holland:

"Or maybe you're hinting that, somehow, because I disagreed with Zibgnew, then I'm promoting the murder of Jews? "

Your disagreement with Zibgnew is beside the point.

It is the (leftist) reflex to turn people with whom they disagree about the need to defend the West from Islam into metaphorical Nazis. The left and the Islamic world has already successfully turned Zionism into Nazism. Whenever Israel fights (Islamic) political enemies, Jews all over the world are victimized and killed on the pretext that they are Nazis. So, yes, you and your fellow moralists who invoke Nazism in defense of Islam against those who warn against its predations, indirectly promote the murder of Jews.

Antiracism is the new antisemitism. Antinazism can do exactly what nazism intended: exterminate Jews. Funny that the Jews who were the main victims of it, should not have benefited from the world's brief burst of moral outrage at "racism" after the second world war who were the main victims of it.

John Holland

CGee, you just don't read what I'm saying, do you?

Nowhere have I defended Islamists. I called them, if you cared to read my post, fanatics. Where, precisely, have I defended them?

What I did was voice a dislike of someone on this site using the same language of pest control that was used against the Jews. Are you capable of understanding that is not really the same as endorsing the death of Jews? Can you understand why to do so might be a mistake?

If you really think that the language of the Holocaust is an acceptable way to conduct arguments, then it's pointless arguing further.

David Chorley

what is even funnier is the reaction of a blogger,Michael Tomasky on the Grauniad website who attributed the statement to Juan Williams being contaminated by Fox network money:
But maybe he changed, too. Because what sort of non-conservative – one perceives Williams to be some degree of liberal; he'd probably protest that he's just a reporter; in either case, he's not a conservative – agreed to be an in-house flunky at Fox? I'm sure they offered him nice money, and money is money, and I can't say with certainty that I'd have turned it down if Rupert had waved it under my nose.

"But if you're any kind of liberal at all, even in the softest and most non-political possible sense, it's basically an indefensible thing to do. Fox News wants liberalism to perish from the face of the earth. Going on their air on a regular basis and lending your name and reputation to their ideological razzle-dazzle is like agreeing to be the regular kulak guest columnist at Pravda in 1929. For "balance"."

So a liberal sold out... no big deal.

It couldn't possibly reach the several neurons in the Grauniad that the liberal approach to Islam is basically flawed and is the main reason we are in the mess we are