Today marked the beginning of Congressman Peter King’s (R-NY) fifth hearing on “Muslim radicalism” in the United States. This hearing focused on “Prislam” a term coined by King to refer to Islam practiced in the prison system. Rather than having a serious conversation of the many ills of the U.S. prison system (The U.S. is the country with the largest percentage of its population incarcerated), the hearing focused on how Islam has somehow “infiltrated” prison systems, causing prisoners to become even more dangerous. Or perhaps the discussion revolved around an absurd idea that Muslims are more likely to go to jail? Whatever the connection between Islam and the prison system was supposed to be, it was lost behind bigoted testimonies by non-experts and seemingly self-loathing Muslims.
The few who actually had something of substance to say exposed the hearings for what they really were: bigoted attempts to allude the public from worrying about real issues such as the economy, U.S. foreign policy, racism, the prison system etc, and instead instill fear of Islam into the hearts of many so that the important issues could be avoided, or better yet, blamed on Muslims.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of these hearings is that Peter King was known to be an avid supporter of Irish terrorist-group, the IRA. How does a supporter of terrorism lead a hearing on counter-terrorism efforts? Your guess is as good as mine. The hypocrisy is almost comical.
It is important to say, however, that Peter King, doesn’t hate all Muslims; only most of them. Muslims that care about their civil liberties are despised by King, but right-wing, Zionist Muslims who say that Muslims are inherently hostile towards American values (unless they choose to praise all American government’s foreign policies, intrusion of privacy, as well as all the glories of free-market capitalism), like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, are praised by Peter King. King and Jasser are personal friends and have contributed money to organizations founded by one another, so how is there no conflict of interest in Jasser’s testimony? Jasser seems to clearly be in it for the money: As long as he is the Muslim that bashes Muslims, he is the Muslim that gets a big paycheck from former AIPAC board member and avid Daniel Pipes supporter, Nina Rosenwald.
Congressmen King continually says there is a lack of cooperation from Muslim communities, without giving numbers or specifying what cooperation entails. Although 79% of American mosques engage in inter-faith work, and 44% are reported to be involved in social justice endeavors, mosques and Muslims aren’t doing enough. Even when Muslims turn in an FBI informant who tried to stir-up support for a terrorist plot, they still aren’t cooperating!?!? It seems clear to me that “cooperation” for Mr. King means for Muslims to denounce their faith and say, “the Quran demands that we all watch baseball, eat apple pie, and praise America as a savior of global democracy.”
Here is an extra for your reading enjoyment: The 6 dumbest things said at the Peter King Hearings:
aaahhrealmuslims 
