A decision by retail giant Lowe's Cos. to pull ads from a reality show about American Muslims after protests from an evangelical Christian group has sparked criticism and calls for a boycott against the chain of home-improvement stores. Full Story »
Posted by Barry Grossheim
How much intelligence does it take to understand the Florida Family Assn. complaint describing the TV show as "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values" is obviously hateful, racist, and Xenophobic? It’s full of right wing racist code words like: “riskily”, “danger”, “American liberties”, and “traditional values”, which, in themselves, should have triggered some sort of warning to the geniuses at Lowes.
No doubt Lowes is getting a lot of heat, along with “I’ll-never-darken-your-door-again” menacing. I Googled the Xenophobic Florida “Family” only to discover they have shut down their website, claiming it was hacked. Hacked? Really? Bet it’s more of a case of tons of vitriolic criticism and a couple of death threats focusing the mind wonderfully.
this article could have been more in depth. How many e-mails were sent to Lowe's? There was no attempt to contact the church group and no report about how large this church group is.
This piece reports the facts of the matter, but could have told us what the show actually contained, and could have addressed the veracity of the charge that the show was "propaganda." It could also have told us a bit more about the Florida Family Association. As it happens, Jon Stewart did a pretty good job of showing that the Muslims seen in the show are just folks like the rest of us -- and other Muslims of my acquaintance.
Seems to me that Lowe's wussed out on this one, caving to a flood of emails from a bunch of automatons who did what they were told to do without thinking the matter through for themselves. It's the Florida Family Association that's now suspect in my book. I think I'll shop at Home Depot or Menard's for a while...
A boycott would be good in view of this bigoted behavior, but Home Depot is owned by fascist bigots too! Shop anywhere else.
This seems like a cowardly move by Lowe's to appease the Florida Family Association. As a Catholic I do not expect to face discrimination by those who belong to a different religious tradition. Muslim's should be able to expect the same acceptance in a country founded on the idea of religious tolerance.
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