The Real Terrorist Threat

(This is a picture of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, after it was bombed by white christian terrorists in 1995.)

The following post was written by friend and fellow blogger Jack Cluth (at his blog called What Would Jack Do?). I thought it was excellent, and deserved to be read by as many people as possible. He says:

If you get your news from Fox Noise Channel…well, you’re likely not reading this in the first place. No doubt you’ve propagandized into believing that

A) all Muslims are terrorists, or
B) all acts of terrorism in this country have been committed by Muslims.

Absolutely convinced though you may be, you’d undoubtedly be dismayed- if you care to recognize the truth at all- to learn that most violent, politically, ideologically, and/or theologically motivated attacks in the U.S. are perpetrated by Conversative White males, most of whom identify as Christian. Given that tidbit of news, can we then reasonably assume that

A) all Christians are terrorists, or
B) all acts of terrorism in this country have been committed by Christians?

Of course not, though B is not as far from the truth as you might think. The fact is that, as inconvenient as it may be to Right-wing talking points, domestic terrorism is a primarily White, Conservative, and Christian phenomenon. It’s easier to blame Muslims…because they don’t look like us, so how could the Evil Swarthy Brown People © NOT be to blame? They don’t even worship the right flavor of God, knowhutimean?

It’s certainly inconvenient for FNC and its drooling sycophants to admit to the truth. That would require a degree of introspection…not something those folks have demonstrated they possess in abundance. Still, if we’re going to keep the Homeland safe and secure, shouldn’t we be dealing with the threats that ACTUALLY exist…instead of a convenient scapegoat invented to shift the blame to a group easily identifiable because they look and act differently? American Muslims are every bit as peaceful as American Christians…which doesn’t exactly fit the dominant narrative pushed by FNC and the American Taliban.

This isn’t meant to ignore the fact that, yes, there are Muslims out there who would like nothing more than to kill Americans. Guess what, though? It turns out that there are also angry White Christian males who’d like to do exactly the same thing. So how is it that one group is identified as a clear and present danger to our safety and security while the other is given a free pass? Surely it couldn’t have ANYTHING to do with racism, could it?

This is why we can’t have nice things.