When Ideology Masks Ignorance

Frank Salvato

After giving a talk to a group of family values minded Freeport, Illinois area residents addressing three major threats facing the United States – which I term “The Perfect Storm,” and a solution to a problem that safeguards the US Constitution, I found myself personally and ideologically assailed by a letter-writer to a local newspaper, a Ms. Patricia Wemstrom. I take issue with her critique not only because she mischaracterized each and every point that I made at the event, but also because she wasn't even in attendance. The critique was caustic and hateful in nature:

“I am surprised by the hatred, bigotry and lack of knowledge expressed by Frank Salvato in the front page story of Oct. 18. (“Speaker Warns of Threats”) It seems to me the danger to this country rest not so much in ‘Radical Islam,' but in people like Salvato.”

Such explosive rhetoric emanating from a person who wasn't in attendance and who never attempted to contact me for any clarification leads me to believe – through the context of experience – that Ms. Wemstrom is not only of the Progressive or Liberal political ideology but, also, either uneducated on the issues, disingenuous and partisan in her approach, or both.

Although out of order of presentation I will attempt to clarify the misinformation presented by Ms. Wemstrom...in the interest of truth and education.

On a personal note, if Ms. Wemstrom would have bothered to research anything about me or my past at all she would have understood that I spent years as a professional jazz and blues musician having studied and performed with people of every race, ideology and gender. If I were to be racist – which Ms. Wemstrom supposes without proof – I contend I would have been the only “racist” to have been hired to play with Black jazz greats...but I digress from the subject at hand.

Ms. Wemstrom goes on to allege that I incited:

“...hatred of an ethnic group, almost all of whom are loyal Americans and law-abiding citizens...Salvato seems to want to stir up hatred against Muslims, even to the point of having us worry about their birth rate.”

Interesting.

In discussing the threat of radical Islam and encroaching fundamentalist Islam I discussed the actions and desires of those who adhere to the Wahabbist ideology, those who have pledged allegiance to jihadist terror organizations that have vowed to violently attack the United States and those who would embrace the implementation of Sharia Law into the American culture.

In discussing these topics I stressed – in no uncertain terms – that the solution to this violent and totalitarian strain of Islam should and must come from within the Muslim community, perhaps in the form of religious reformation in which the violent tenets of Islam are expunged from the dogma. I stressed that the idea of dictating a solution for this international epidemic to the Islamic community would be in error because it conveys disrespect and, in Islamic culture, great insult. Of course, anyone in attendance would have understood this.

In expressing the idea of cultural demographics with regard to reproduction I expressed that the birthrate among Europeans (1.5) and Westerners (2.1) is significantly less than that among Muslims (4.4). This is a fact that cannot be disputed. Because radical and fundamentalist Islamists represent 10% to 20% of the Islamist population, this information is significant. It is also significant in the face of the cultural conflicts currently facing individual nations in Europe.

In Britain, fundamentalist Islamists – whose global numbers grow in proportion with the general global Muslim population – are demanding that the British Parliament incorporate Sharia Law into British Law, saying:

“We hereby request all Muslims in the United Kingdom...to join us and collectively declare that as submitters to Almighty Allah, we have had enough of democracy and man-made law and the depravity of the British culture. On this day we will call for a complete upheaval of the British ruling system its members and legislature, and demand the full implementation of Shari'ah in Britain.”

Further, in communities here in the United States that are predominantly Muslim, there is a push by fundamentalists to create Sharia councils in order to find remedy for cultural issues within their Muslim communities. These councils would take their guidance from...Sharia Law. These requests of local government have taken place in several locations around the United States including Dearborn, Michigan.

It needs to be pointed out that under strict Sharia Law, women are considered possessions and are deemed less than a man in worth and ability. The fundamentalist Islamic culture embraces the practice of stoning to punish adultery, which can be as simple as having a conversation with an unrelated man in public. Honor killings, which are publicly decried, are more common than not and are even taking place right here in the United States. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Taliban fundamentalists – radical Islamists or fundamentalist Islamists – routinely set fire to girls' schools and young women who dare to self-educate are often killed. Women who refuse to wear the hijab or burqa are often attacked by men who throw acid into their faces. Many women commit suicide or runaway rather that subject themselves to the brutality inflicted upon them in the name of fundamentalist Islamic “honor.” These facts cannot be disputed but by those who embrace ignorance and/or cowardice to the truth.

Further, over the time that I have been advocating for the education of the American public where the religion of Islam is concerned – with an onus on radical and fundamentalist Islam – I have come to know many Arabs, Persians, Muslims and former Muslims whom I admire and consult. From Syrian-born Wafa Sultan, Lebanese-born Brigitte Gabriel and Iranian-born Amil Imani to former Palestinian terrorist Whalid Shoebat, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Dr. Walid Phares and Director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, I count them all among my professional cohorts and personal friends. To suggest I incite hatred toward the general Muslim population is not only ludicrous it is border-line slanderous. It is certainly an uninformed and ignorant assertion.

Ms. Wemstrom goes on to question why I would include groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU into a group described as The American Fifth Column, a group associated with the advancement of neo-Marxism in the United States.

History provides the facts – and they cannot be denied – that founders of both organizations were Marxists and Socialists and sought to advance neo-Marxism into American society to the detriment to the concepts of liberty and freedom as established by our Founders and Framers as derived from the great Western philosophers the likes of Cicero, Aristotle, Hobbes and Locke, among many others.

In the 1930s, Roger Baldwin and the ACLU allied with the Popular Front movement, which was engendered by Stalin to strengthen the Communist Party by allowing it to make common cause with Socialists and other leftist groups. Baldwin himself made two trips to the Soviet Union and in 1928 published a book entitled Liberty Under the Soviets, which contained effusive praise for the USSR.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood, was an avowed Socialist who blamed what she perceived as the evils of contemporary capitalism for the conditions of young white working-class women. Her very personal views on this issue are well expressed in the last pages of What Every Girl Should Know.

That Ms. Wemstrom would cherry-pick statements presented in an 872 word newspaper report of an event that spanned the better part of a two-hour-plus presentation, and then craft an uneducated argument on subjects she clearly knows little about, stands as a monument to knee-jerk reactions everywhere. That people would consider her unqualified and ill-informed diatribe as something to champion presents as proof positive that our mainstream informational outlets and educational institutions have failed in their duties to accurately inform and to cultivate critical thinking skills respectively. In Ms. Wemstrom's case they have failed miserably.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal. He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative.