It’s the Oil, Stupid

As a wave of anti-Islamic hysteria sweeps the U.S. on the 9th anniversary of 9/11, patriotic pundits tell us that this behavior runs counter to our basic notion of American pluralistic tolerance and inclusiveness. Oh, really? Tell that to the Indians (the kind on the buffalo nickel, not the citizens of India). In the last 150 years, in addition to the Indians, the following groups have been on the receiving end of intolerance, bigotry, xenophobia, prejudice, racial violence, and outright hatred from good upstanding patriotic Americans— Irish Catholics, non-Catholic Irish, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, Italians, people with black-colored skin, people with brown skin who look like they might have a tinge of African ancestry, Jews, non-Jews who have Jewish sounding surnames, and most recently the Muslims. Add to this list, anyone who might have once entertained a private curiosity about Communism, or anyone who ever had sex with someone of their own gender. I apologize to anyone I might have overlooked who’s earned America’s contempt by being “different.”

This analysis would seem to suggest that Muslims are merely the latest group being picked on by a nation that has always picked on one sub group or another. Actually, the Muslim situation is far different. None of the other groups mentioned above owned any oil. The Indians, back in the early days, didn’t have any oil, but they controlled every other natural resource on the North American continent, and for this they were subjected to a century of genocidal extermination. Our government leaders constantly tell us that we, as a nation, are not at war with Islam. Yesterday, on 9/11, Obama expanded this to say, “We are not, and never will be at war with Islam.” The Bureau of Indian Affairs spouted pretty much the same message throughout the nineteenth century to a people who were being slaughtered or driven into refugee status. Watch and see what would happen if Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and the very center of Islam, ever cut off our supply of oil.