Local Muslims spar with Walsh in Lombard
By Eric Peterson
A meeting between Republican Congressman Joe Walsh and members of the local Muslim community in Lombard Friday evening — intended as a forum for mutual understanding — remained an emotional debate throughout (Given the Nature of Joe Walsh, this was entirely predictable).
The gathering of more than 50 members of the Muslim-American community in the backyard of local Republican official and former York Township Trustee Moon Khan was organized at Walsh’s request (Interesting - Joe invites himself over to a Muslims house in order that he might further insult Muslims - that boy gots CHUTZPAH!) after many expressed outrage over recent remarks he’d made about America being threatened by a radical strain of Islam.
Those who attended the meeting hoped for a retraction from Walsh and a promise to refrain from his using such language in the future (I hope and pray for peace on earth and good will towards all; at this moment in time, however, it appears that my hopes and prayers are going unanswered). They were obviously unsatisfied by Walsh’s repeated efforts to clarify his former words (I don't think his words needed any clarification; he was QUITE clear - (1) there is an existential threat, right here in the suburban Chicago area, in Elk Grove Village, in Elgin, in Addison (2) the threat takes the form of a stream, (3) a stream not of water but a stream of Radical Islam - which is interesting; Islam is a religion, consisting of it's holy writings, ethical practices, etc, etc - perhaps Joe should have spoken of radical Muslims - that would put the issue on a rather small cohort rather than smearing and slandering an entire religion and by extension, ALL of its practitioners; Islam means "to surrender (one's will to the will of God") without regretting them.
“There is a threat (Joe makes this statement with SUCH certitude). We cannot let political correctness (as used in this context, I assume Joe i using the expression "political correctness to mean 'we must not speak this great truth, lest we hurt the feelins of some too small to matter group of people who might get pissed and hire the ACLU or something and get their commie legistlators to approve some legislation what makes it legal to put white people in jail for speaking the god's honest truth which has to be spoke, otherwise the terra-ists win!" get in the way of that threat,” Walsh said to one speaker. “If you don’t believe the threat exists, I respect your opinion (JOE, you idiot - when a person disagreess with you, it's because he BELIEVES what he believes, and finds your position disagreeable - but, Joe is very good with weasel words here .. so, it is not the gentleman's OPINION that Joe respects, it ought to be the gentleman's BELIEFS that you respect), but you and I will never agree (cuz Joe ain't changin his mind any too soon!.”
The point Walsh, a McHenry Tea Partyer, kept repeating was that while the vast majority (care to quntify that a little more Joe?of Muslim-Americans are (good, patriotic, God-fearing people, their religion is being usurped by a small group of radicals (of course, such a thing could NEVER happen in America, where the Xtian Fundies siezed control of the Southern Baptist leadership, and radicalized that Church, and in so doing, also took over the Texas Republican Party - they did it using the 7 1/2% solution) trying to recruit individuals to their cause throughout the country.
But the words he seemed to feel were making his point understandable to the attendees (At the risk of being rude, I will suggest that Joe intended his remarks to feed his x-tian, war-mongering, fear-mongering base red-meat devouring raw base - the kind that likes to brutalize people who aren't white, and aren't Christian) were obviously stinging them.
Oak Brook Trustee Asif Yusuf said Walsh’s words could create a reality in which all Muslim-Americans remain under some suspicion (But, my brother Asif, the reality IS that all Muslim-Americans remain and will always, at least to some remain undersome suspicion).
Feroz Ahmed, a financial adviser from Glendale Heights, said an extremist by definition cannot be considered a true Muslim any more than a true Christian (No, we Christians LUVS US our extremist Christians, say, the likes of General Boynkin, who, in full general's regalia explained to the assembled throngs, our God's stronger than their God!).
And Aamir Safdar, a psychiatrist from Lombard, said that as an elected congressman, Walsh has a higher responsibility to avoid language that could make him sound extremist himself (BUT JOE IS an extremist himself - ignorant, poor abused white kid who is forever getting shot down by pariahs who want to render his voice mute)).
“As a representative of the people, you have to be very mindful of what’s coming out of your mouth,” Safdar said.
But Walsh said his belief in a radical strain of Islam is based on the same belief of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (so, they too have their beliefs ... now, are these beliefs grounded in anything factual? another entirely different question).
“You don’t know more than Janet Napolitano, do you (Janet Napolitano - fount of every blessing)?” Walsh asked one speaker.
But Khan, the host of the event, quoted Napolitano as saying that there are no radical Islamic cells in Elgin, Elk Grove Village and Addison — contrary to Walsh’s claims earlier this month (nonetheless, it is still possible that Napolitan and Walsh sit on the same congress critters councils and get fed the same information).
Khan said he hosted the event because he felt Walsh’s words created as wrongful a portrait of Republicans as of Muslims (too bad he decided to invite Joe - yes, indeed Walsh's words DO CREATE a wrongful portrait of BOTH republicans and of Musilms)
Some Muslim officials and organizations avoided the event because they thought Khan might purport to grant forgiveness too easily to Walsh (They totally underestimated Joe's ability to reject forgiveness, or to even ask for it, certainly not in a matter where Joe does not know (and this is the shame of it all - he cannot even understand how insulting his remarks are - he writes it all of to "too much political correctness"( . But the event was hardly the warm bath for Walsh they suspected (Hopefully, it will be more like a blood bath - GO TAMMY!!!!) .
“I don’t think this event is about forgiving anyone,” said Shazia Sultan of Oak Brook just before it began. “It’s about opening up dialogue.” (Point well taken - if the democrats are not sharp enough to leap on this right now, they deserve to never again be any more than an annoying irrelevancy, couteracting the party of NO, big money, big business, and self-serving hedonism)
Walsh said his belief in the goodness of the vast majority of Muslim-Americans was reinforced by the dialogue but that he couldn’t ignore that a threat from extremists exists (yes, like the extremeists who pass laws making it illegal to protest on public property at conventions, who cart away photographers and journalists from the 2010 Republican convention in Minneapolis-St Paul).
“Folks, I’m not going to back down from what I said because there’s nothing to apologize for in my heart (Oh, Joe, your heart is probably ok, (albeit, black) - it's your IQ and your mouth, and your brain that are under the most scrutinty you just gots to say what you gots to say - because you KNOW in your guts, you speak the truth - yes, indeed, the truth well-known by all the white, racist, lazy, ignorant slobs that you normally hang with) ,” he said.
Syed Ahmed, an oncologist who treats patients in Walsh’s 8th Congressional District, was among several who said they were leaving feeling disappointed.
“All he had to do is say, ‘I’m sorry,’” Ahmed said (Joe, being Joe, is probably too ignoarnt to do so, and Joe, being who what he is, is not gonna back track and say "I'm sorry" when a simple "I'm sorry" would have done).
