Anti-Islamic Ads Coming To New York Transit System

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- Anti-Islamic ads will begin appearing on 100 New York City buses and two subway entrances next week, but transit officials have rejected an ad from the same group that includes the phrase "Killing Jews."

The six approved ads show an image of beheaded American journalist James Foley standing next to his killer.

The ads are paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative run by blogger Pamela Geller. She says the campaign highlights points about Islam ignored by government and media.

A court order forces the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to run viewpoint ads. The agency requires a disclaimer saying it doesn't endorse the views.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ANTI_ISLAMIC_ADS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-19-17-52-19

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This should be 'helpful', indeed.

[KittyWampus]

1. Maybe another blogger can do ads showing what Jews did to Gaza & its children.

[oberliner]

12. There are such transit ads already

This back-and-forth has been going on for a while among various Israeli and Palestinian affinity groups.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Sounds like it's anti-ISIS

not anti-Islamic. Unless, of course, you consider ISIS representative of Islam.

The concept of "free speech" includes speech that some in a society find uncomfortable. As I recall, that's not an Islamic value.

[Scootaloo]

4. I suggest you read up on Pamela Gellar

[customerserviceguy]

5. It doesn't matter to me what the rest of her views are

This post is about what she has been allowed to post publicly. I'm opposed to what ISIS is doing, and that part of it is what is the subject of these communications. As for what I assume is being put on display, I agree with her.

It's your freedom to disagree with her for what is posted and what is not part of this advertising campaign. We get to do that in a free society, the kind that ISIS would never allow.

[Scootaloo]

6. Thing is, posting ads in transit isn't a right

It's a paid privilege subject to scrutiny and approval by the transit board. Further, no one is suggesting that Gellar be arrested or otherwise legally punished for her idiocy. So your "free speech" argument is nothing but a red herring, as it's simply not an issue at play here.

What's at issue is whether a series of ads that equate Islam with terrorism is at all appropriate for approval by the transit board - and whether they would help promote such hate against any other group. Look upthread to Kittywampus' reply. Imagine for a moment footage of gaza being used in conjunction with passages from "The Protocols of the Learned elders of Zion."

Would the transit board approve those messages? Would you rush to defend the messenger?

Here's the funny thing. when you carry water for a racist bigot, no one admires you or regards you as enlightened. It's seen as what it is - an endorsement of the bigotry.

[branford]

13. The matter has already been litigated.

These types of ads by Geller and others are hardly new.

Transit authorities from San Francisco to Washington and NYC have tried to reject them, but have repeatedly lost due to 1st Amendment protections. It's simply very difficult for a public institution to reject a political advertisement on the basis of its content or opinion without prohibiting all such advertising. There is no "hate" exception to free speech, and so long as government owned institutions accept broad categories of paid advertising, their discretion to reject such ads will be extremely limited.

Additionally, note that other equally unsavory groups, both in response to Geller and on their own initiative, have in fact paid for anti-Semitic and anti-ZIonist advertising on public transport. It has received less press due to the precedents set by Geller and the fact that due to fewer resources, their ads were far less visible in geographic scope or time displayed.

[Scootaloo]

15. Could you provide sources for claims of anti-semitic advertising in transit?

Thanks in advance.

[Psephos]

24. Google "anti-jewish advertising public transit"

click on the images tab

you'll see plenty of evidence of haters on both sides

[Jack Rabbit]

9. It's not about the rest of her views

Sure, she's against ISIS, but only because they're Muslim. She founded an organization called Stop the Islamization of America. I didn't know America is being Islamized, did you? The Anti-Defamtio0n League accuses Ms. Geller's organization of engaging in anti-Muslim bigotry. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled SIOA a hate group.

Ms. Geller maintains that she is not against all Muslims, only Jehadists. However, she gives every impression that she believes that all Muslims are Jehadists,

[customerserviceguy]

23. In any case

she's not going to change any minds. I'd guess that practically all NY'ers have learned to be oblivious to the barrage of visual stimuli that is constantly in front of them.

[candelista]

26. I think Pam is kinda cute, as long as she doesn't talk.

Disclaimer: I am only talking about Pam here. For example, Naomi Klein is cute, and I like what she has to say, too.

[uppityperson]

8. it is not just anti ISIS, I posted more, including ad in a reply below (here is link)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=899767

[customerserviceguy]

21. Well, is it true?

The "christian" part of the bible says all kinds of nasty things about people, too. Especially gay people. Would an ad exposing that be incorrect?

[uppityperson]

27. I was countering your statement about it being anti-ISIS not anti-islamic. eom

[customerserviceguy]

28. The ad with the jihadi and the about-to-be-murdered journalist

is definitely anti-ISIS, but the one comparing CAIR (an American organization) to the terrorist groups in the Middle East is over the top.

Tell me what you think is wrong with the beheading victim ad. Everything in it seems to be fact.

[cali]

19. they are flat out bigoted dog shit. Nothing but. I suggest you

look at the ads.

[customerserviceguy]

22. Do you have a link to the ads involving only the ISIS murder of James Foley?

I'd like to judge that one for myself.

[surrealAmerican]

3. If we could fund public transit ...

... they wouldn't have to accept any ads. Just imagine what trains and busses would look like then.

[uppityperson]

7. good idea because the media has shown nothing about James Foley being murdered. Some links...

After all, if it weren't for jerks like her, how would we know anything?

to the max

http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/about.html

he American Freedom Defense Initiative is a new organization launched by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Our objective is to go on the offensive when legal, academic, legislative, cultural, sociological, and political actions are taken to dismantle our basic freedoms and values.

AFDI acts against the treason being committed by national, state, and local government officials, the mainstream media, and others in their capitulation to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, the ever-encroaching and unconstitutional power of the federal government, and the rapidly moving attempts to impose socialism and Marxism upon the American people.

It acts against these evils by:
(clip)Promoting candidates who understand state’s rights and the necessity to limit the power of the federal government [as legal status permits]
• Promoting candidates who fight against the march of Islamic supremacists [as legal status permits]
• Calling attention to specific acts of capitulation and collaboration to Islamic supremacism by government and law enforcement officials, and pressing for the reprimand and removal of those officials;
(blah blah blah blah blah blah blah more)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Islamization_of_America

Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) (also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative or simply the Freedom Defense Initiative) is an American far right,[1][2] anti-Islamist, anti-Muslim, and Islamophobic organization[3] led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.[4] Geller describes it as "a human rights entity dedicated to the freedom of speech, which is under attack, as well as to the freedom of religion and to individual rights."[5]
The group was founded in 2010 as the US branch of Stop Islamisation of Europe. It became notorious for its highly publicized ad campaigns in New York City, especially one opposing Park51, a Muslim community center proposed for lower Manhattan.[2] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists SIOA as a hate group.[6] They are headquartered in Houston, purposely to 'reconquer' a city lost to "ethnic and religious diversity".[2]

LoonWatch

http://www.loonwatch.com/tag/american-freedom-defense-initiative/
http://www.islamophobiawatch.co.uk/washington-dc-geller-is-back-with-another-anti-islam-metro-ad/
http://www.loonwatch.com/2014/05/washington-dc-geller-is-back-with-another-anti-islam-metro-ad/

Washington DC: Geller is back with another anti-Islam Metro ad

In 2012, anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative funded ads throughout the Metro system with a quote from the Quran next to a photo of the burning Twin Towers. Ads that cost Metro $35,000 over a failed effort to block them.

Now she’s back with another awful ad, this one claiming that “Islamic jew-hatred” is “in the Quran” as a response to an ad about “Israel’s occupation” from the American Muslims for Palestine. From Geller’s blog:

The DC Metro transit authority made multiple demands for the substantiation of every claim in our ads before they would accept the ad, and I, of course, happily provided that substantiation. The libelous American Muslims for Palestine antisemitic ad (below) did not have to provide substantiation. The MTA had no problem with their antisemitism. And you cannot provide evidence of a smear and a bigoted lie. But it is proof of the AMP’s hate.

Our ads are in response to the vicious Jew-hating ads that American Muslims for Palestine unleashed on Washington, DC Metro buses last month. And might I add, had we not sued and won in NYC and DC for violating our First Amendment rights when they tried to refuse our previous ads, our ads might never have gone up....(more)

?resize=300%2C225

[davidpdx]

10. That group is just as bad as the Westboro Baptist Church

[cosmicone]

11. Anti ISIS is not anti-Islam

just as anti-Israel's policies is not anti-semitic.

[Scootaloo]

14. But characterizing all Muslims by ISIS IS anti-Muslim

Just as characterizing all Jews by Israel is antisemitic.

And then I realize I'm talking to a guy who heartily cheered for the massacre of 4,000 Egyptians and the death sentence of fifteen hundred more, simply because they belonged to - or didn't violently oppose - a political party with the name "Muslim" in its title.

[cosmicone]

16. "heartily cheered?"

Your editorializing notwithstanding, Egypt is now stable as opposed to in an anarchy. Loss of innocent life is always regrettable and no one cheers it, including me.

Ideologies need qualities of good governance and policy behind them to succeed or an organization with a better structure such as a military will prevail.

ISIS will suffer the same fate as Muslim Brotherhood due to a lack of good governance and people who can rule fairly for all the people. However, being fair to all the people is anathema to the Islamic Jihadi cause.

In the end, even Muslims of faith, particularly liberal/moderate ones do not want draconian 11th century ideas. They are speaking up against the ISIS like groups and realizing that that is not true Islam.

[Scootaloo]

18. Yes. Heartily cheered.

The massacre of thousands of people is a little more than "regrettable." Except, to you, they're not people. They're Muslims, a lower form of life, to you. You even insisted that they can only be controlled through violence - and that Muslims must of course be controlled.

People dragged out of their homes, thrown in the street, and had a bullet put through their heads. Men and women whose crime was protesting a coup, gunned down by the military. Politicians condemned to death for being a member of an opposition party. Tried in absentia. Sentenced in masse. To death, one and all - a foregone conclusion, of course.

"Regrettable." That's what you call it. And after cheering it, supporting it, now defending it. Butchery and murder on a massive scale, and you just go "well, it had to happen, and I guess it's too bad, but..."

Your presence here makes me think that perhaps the "big tent" should be quite a bit smaller.

[cosmicone]

20. I doubt the Coptic Christians

who were massacred in the name of Islam and their heritage preserved for over 2,000 years when desecrated and/or destroyed would agree with you.

Muslim Brotherhood was an idealistic, radical concept with zero know-how about how to govern for all the people. It was bound to fail eventually because of its intolerance and inability to coexist. Fortunately, it happened sooner rather than later and saner heads with a proper organization are now running Egypt.

Yes, it is regrettable that some people died and I have not nor will I ever "heartily cheer" such loss of life. I am looking at the fearsome possibility of hundreds of thousands dying with Islamic Brotherhood's chaotic attempt at governing as an alternative and the reality today appears very very stable and comforting.

[Psephos]

25. this goes right to the heart of it n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

17. Ms. Gellar is up to her same old tricks as usual, I see.