PCG's Richard Palmer Moans About the Non-Islamophobic World

When I had previously listened to PCG's Richard Palmer he did not seem overly ideological. But one can see beyond that in a recent broadcast of The Trumpet Hour he did shortly after the massacre in Orlando (Orlando: You Can't Call It Islamist Terrorism, June 13, 2016). Here is the synopsis.

Once upon a time, the media labeled anyone who said “Islam is a violent religion” as Islamophobic. But after the Orlando shooting this weekend, all you need to do to earn that label is mention that the terrorist was Muslim. The shooting has been blamed on “hatred,” “religious fundamentalism, whether your call it ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim,’” and even “the patriarchy.” One senator was so anxious to avoid the term “Islamic terrorism” that he referred to the attack as a “public health crisis.” No one wants to talk about radical Islam. Even after news media reported Omar Mateen’s pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State, United States President Barack Obama said he had no “judgment on the precise motivations of the killer.” As former CIA director James Woolsey said, “You can’t effectively fight something if you can’t discuss it.” Trumpet writer Richard Palmer explores America’s muddled response to Sunday’s shooting and shows why America cannot solve a problem that it refuses to see. 

Here Palmer complains that the liberal media does not call the gunman in Orlando a Muslim.

He complains about how the BBC covered the massacre. He first learned of it through the BBC, but he complains that their reports did not say the gunman was a Muslim. He then says a friend advised him to look up Fox News. He then states that their coverage mentioned the gunman was a Muslim. Palmer insists that pointing out that the gunman was a Muslim is not bigoted. It is worth noting that PCG has a long history of demonizing Muslims.

(It seems strange for an organization that discourages interracial dating to dare suggest they are competent in deciding what is bigoted or not.)

Back in January 2014 Jeremiah Jacques gave a presentation advising PCG's leaders not to use Fox News too often in their writings. He said many people get turned off hearing about Fox News and will simply conclude that PCG's writings are right wing. Palmer appears to have disregarded Jacques' advice in this broadcast.

Palmer points to media reports that the gunman had pledged allegiance to ISIL. Using this Palmer proclaims this massacre to have been a Islamist, jihadist terrorist attack. Today it is now known that the gunman gave his allegiance to several armed groups including one that is diametrically opposed to ISIL. Last Thursday the CIA said they could find no direct link between the gunman and ISIL. It seems all too likely that he was just saying such things to make himself appear more intimidating.

Palmer then complains that Pamela Geller was blocked on Facebook. (The self ordained, almost arrested Bob Thiel also complained about this same matter.) Geller is notorious for vilifying Muslims and has been noted as being part of what some have called an Islamophobia Network.

If Palmer is worried about being blocked on Facebook it is really simple to avoid. Just blame those individuals responsible for acts of violence such as the massacre in Orlando instead of an entire religion. Just distinguish between those who are guilty and those who are innocent.

It has also come to light in various media reports that the gunman was gay. Media reports indicate he was man inclined towards violent tendencies who used to beat up his first wife. But what use is domestic violence to PCG's writers? PCG's writers decided to just leap to their favored conclusion and just blame it all on ISIL instead of waiting to see the fuller picture emerge and before the nature of the gunman's (seemingly non-existent) involvement with ISIL was better described.

At one point if he said that they hoped that this massacre would make people view Muslims and ISIL the way the PCG leadership does but were disappointed to see that it was not so. That they even had such a hope indicates just how narrow minded they are about such issues. Perhaps PCG's leaders should try to understand differing viewpoints instead of just simply insisting that they are right and any other opinion is wrong and worthy of contempt.

It is also worth noting that back in 2011 Richard Palmer minimized the genocidal Srebrenica massacre of 1995 in which 8000 Bosnian Muslims were murdered as merely "a crime of passion ... provoked by crimes on the other side."