Radical Christianity was a thing at one moment in history and probably still is, "
invisible empire" and all that, so DHS and PBO deconstructing the discourse and
reframing "radical Islam" as "violent extremism" puts the message into a place where the recent
European blasphemy terror attacks are the result of common, secular criminals who have used religion as a pretext for
honor killing (sic), as much racist killing is.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Sunday that President Obama’s decision not to say the actions of the Islamic State is a form of “radical Islam” is at the behest of the Muslim community.
“The thing I hear from leaders in the Muslim community in this country is ISIL is attempting to hijack my religion,” Johnson told “Fox News Sunday,” referring to the terror group also known as Islamic State, or ISIS.
Johnson said the leaders argue their religion is about peace and brotherhood and “resent” that Islamic State is “attempting to hijack that from us.”
Obama is facing sharp criticism, even from within his own party, for instead using the term “violent extremism” to describe the actions of ISIS and other terror groups that are based on a form of Islam....
“To refer to ISIL as occupying any part of the Islamic theology is playing on a battlefield that they would like us to be on,” he said. “I think that to call them some form of Islam gives the group more dignity than it deserves frankly. It is a terrorist organization.”
Johnson also said he was more focused on the potential for Islamic State, with an estimated 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria, to recruit Americans and inspire them to carry out terror acts.
“Whether it's referred to as Islamic extremism or violent extremism, what it comes down to is ISIL is a terrorist organization that represents a serious potential threat to our homeland, which has to be addressed,” he said. “I’m more concerned about that frankly than I am about what two words we use to refer to them.”
Another example of reframing, however inept, could be the
KKK-designed Muslim-killing death ray
Glenn Crawford is a 49-year-old General Electric employee from Galway, an upstate town located outside of Schenectady. He’s reportedly a member of the tea-party group Americans Demanding Liberty and Freedom and of the United Northern & Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. With the help of at least one accomplice, and perhaps more, he designed and partially built a “radiation emitting device that could be placed in the back of a van to covertly emit ionizing radiation strong enough to bring about radiation sickness or death,” according to an FBI complaint. Crawford offered his Death Ray (we’re calling it the Death Ray, FYI) to various synagogues and local Jewish groups as a weapon they could use against the “enemies of Israel.” The police were alerted and infiltrated Crawford’s plot. He and his accomplice now face fifteen years in prison.