Thom Hartmann: At the end of the day - this isn't about Islam

[thomhartmann]

The Arab Spring turned ugly in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, as angry crowds stormed U.S. diplomatic buildings. The U.S. Ambassador to Libya - Christopher Stevens - was killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya along with three other American diplomats when a rocket propelled grenade was shot into the building. Stevens is the first U.S. Ambassador to be killed on duty in more than 30 years.The attack in Libya occurred just hours after angry protestors stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt - climbing the walls, taking down the American flag, and hoisting up a black Islamic banner.

Both attacks were believed to have been prompted by a movie made here in the United States by a California filmmaker who claims to be both American and Israeli. The movie depicts the prophet Muhammad as a fraudster and womanizer - something that is deeply offensive to the Muslim faith. The film was promoted by anti- Muslims organizations and a trailer for it was posted on Youtube sparking the outrage. However now - U.S. officials believe that at least the attack on the consulate in Libya that claimed the life of Ambassador Stevens may have been pre-planned and executed by using the protests outside as a diversion. President Obama strongly condemned the attacks and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement saying, “we are heartbroken.”

The question now everyone is asking is...why did this happen? Too many Americans - particularly on the hard right - are quick to jump in to blame Islam for the death of four Americans and the taking down of two US diplomatic buildings - a consulate in Libya and an embassy in Egypt. But this is simplistic thinking at best, and racist at worst. Remember Rodney King, when he was beaten by police in Los Angeles? That was followed by weeks of riots in Los Angeles in which thousands of people were injured and 53 were killed. Conservatives at that time tried to blame black people for the riots, insinuating that there was something wrong with African-American culture, probably created by LBJ's Great Society programs.

But what happened after the Rodney King beatings - or the more recent riots in New York City over the past decade, each one following a police shooting - is not an expression of a defective culture. In fact, it's a reflection of how this country was born. In 1776, Americans rose up and rioted against a system of government that was oppressive and unfair. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government...

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." You see, people don't riot when times are good. They riot when they're pushed to it. The people of both Egypt and Libya have seen the United States support dictators in their countries for generations. They've seen us fund repressive and violent armies and police forces. They've watched our transnational corporations work with local oligarchs to keep the rich fabulously rich and the poor in poverty.

Just like in the United States when redlining was legal and regularly done, keeping poor neighborhoods poor; where discrimination and badly funded schools conspire to reduce entire populations under absolute despotism; where communities are torn apart by poverty and hopelessness. Americans have risen up over and over again, whether it was the American Revolution, the Civil War, the labor movement from the late 1800s until the early 1930s, or in our poorest and most destitute communities from the 1970s to today. And it's not just people of color. Irish people in New York City rioted in 1863 because they were poor and being drafted while rich people could hire stand-ins to fight for them in the Civil War.

They rioted in Boston in the late 19th century to protest attempts by the largely British-ancestry Protestant government of Massachusetts to force their children into Protestant public schools. Italians and Jews, at various times, rioted against terrible working conditions, particularly in early 20th century New York. It's not because they practice a religion that's stuck in the 10th century, or because their skin was a different color, or because they're uncivilized. It's because they were facing, as Jefferson wrote, "a long train of abuses and usurpations." The match that lit the riots in the Middle East may have been an intentionally inflammatory video - or maybe it wasn't.

But Muslims in more affluent parts of the world aren't rioting or trying to throw out the United States. At the end of the day, this really isn't about Islam. It's about oppression, poverty, and despair. And until the good citizens of the United States realize that, and stop with the jingoistic and racist language and intellectual shortcuts, and instead move to stop bombing these parts of the world and instead help them build schools and hospitals, we're just going to be facing more and more of the same.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[Hey Jude]

1. Isn't that like saying that the TeaParty isn't about the Republic Party

Until the so called mainstream of each much more forcibly denounce, condemn and rein in the actions of their radicals I'll lay the blame on all of them.