2015 Veterans Day Parade Freak Out

[cannon_fodder]

Every year Tulsa has a Veterans Day parade downtown. For nearly a decade my staff and I take a break and go down to watch the parade and cheer on the parade. Who doesn't love a parade?

The participation is wide and varied. From school marching bands, to classic car clubs, to motorcycle clubs, businesses, veterans groups, ROTC groups and church groups. I think last year even the Equality Center had a float for LGBT veterans. Ironically, I'm not sure there is ever any actual military presence - stupid Russians get all the cool military parades.

Anyway, ,this year CAIR, the Council on American and Islamic Relations, made an application for a float. And the interwebs lost its mind when it was confirmed that they were granted entry. Not just local media, all over the place.

Discuss.

[Hoss]

Every year Tulsa has a Veterans Day parade downtown. For nearly a decade my staff and I take a break and go down to watch the parade and cheer on the parade. Who doesn't love a parade?

The participation is wide and varied. From school marching bands, to classic car clubs, to motorcycle clubs, businesses, veterans groups, ROTC groups and church groups. I think last year even the Equality Center had a float for LGBT veterans. Ironically, I'm not sure there is ever any actual military presence - stupid Russians get all the cool military parades.

Anyway, ,this year CAIR, the Council on American and Islamic Relations, made an application for a float. And the interwebs lost its mind when it was confirmed that they were granted entry. Not just local media, all over the place.

Discuss.

What's to discuss?  As usual, Tulsa/Oklahoma is the butt of the country's jokes.  Saddening reality.  We might as well live in Mississippi.

[Conan71]

Rather than our usual Okie blanket ignorance and downright stupidity, there's actually some basis for the concern or seeing their entry as provocative or disrespectful.  As long as there are web sites linking CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah there's going to be a perceived negativity toward their presence at the parade.  Especially since we've had boots on the ground battling Muslim extremism for 13 years.

I've not really dug into CAIR.  Web sites and right leaning news organizations glom on to issues like the United Arab Emirates calling CAIR a terrorist organization and CAIR denies it.  Who is telling the truth?  How do we know? 

I'm with CF though, why can't we have parades with guided missiles, tanks, and thousands of marching solidiers rumbling through downtown?

[swake]

Rather than our usual Okie blanket ignorance and downright stupidity, there's actually some basis for the concern or seeing their entry as provocative or disrespectful.  As long as there are web sites linking CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah there's going to be a perceived negativity toward their presence at the parade.  Especially since we've had boots on the ground battling Muslim extremism for 13 years.

I've not really dug into CAIR.  Web sites and right leaning news organizations glom on to issues like the United Arab Emirates calling CAIR a terrorist organization and CAIR denies it.  Who is telling the truth?  How do we know?  

I'm with CF though, why can't we have parades with guided missiles, tanks, and thousands of marching solidiers rumbling through downtown?

I think there were some personal links between the Muslim Brotherhood and Cair, as in the same people in both talking to one another. I don't know how formal or real the links are or were.

Calling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization is a big reach anyway, much less Cair. But The Muslim Brotherhood IS a very conservative and religiously extreme Muslim group and political party. Egypt's military certainly wants us to perceive them as a terrorist group but military rule there has been far harsher than when the Brotherhood was briefly in power. I've not heard of the Brotherhood being behind any terror actions in Egypt. Al Qaeda and ISIS are active in the Sinai Peninsula but even with the military crackdown on the brotherhood Cairo and the rest of Egypt seem pretty peaceful.

I also don't trust the governments that call them a terrorist group: Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Russia. When Russia is the most democratic, open and free country on a list, that's a bad list. That's not to say I want the Brotherhood here. They do have a goal of creating Islamic governments with strict Sharia Law at the center. I don't think that's a good thing, but them going about that goal peacefully and through democratic processes  doesn't sound like a terrorist group to me.

[cannon_fodder]

We know Hamas as a terrorist group, and there is truth to that, but they also have schools, soup kitchens, government offices, road construction crews, etc., they are a defacto government in the region (most other governments in the area are also considered terrorists: the PLO, Hezballah, Syria, IS, Iran, etc.). To a lesser extent the same applies to the Muslim Brotherhood - but in the recent past they are just a political party. Albeit a conservative fundamentalist political party that wouldn't go along with American policies... but they were a duly elected political party (until the US backed Egyptian military imprisoned them). CAIR also certainly has relationships with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other despotic regimes who regularly lop the head off of people and stone women as adulterers. But we don't complain about them...

But, more importantly, there has never been an actual link between the organization and any terrorist group. The FBI actively investigated CAIR under GW and tried to bring it down, but couldn't draw enough to make the accusations stick. It has been compared to McCarthyism... you said things similar to them which is not the official policy of the US, so you're a communist!

CAIR has a $3mil annual budget. Or about the same as Tulsa Opera. If it is a front for terrorism it is doing a really bad job - since the basic premise of a front is that it doesn't raise suspicion and it clearly isn't doing that well fundraising.

Finally, I don't get what it is provocative. If they were marching under the Islamic flag, that would be provocative. But a group of Muslim American Veterans, who very well may have actually been shot at by Muslim extremists marching under the American flag on Veterans day? Our government has been trying to say for a decade now that we are not in a Crusade. This is not Christians vs. Muslims, so we can keep our middle eastern alliances. So it is OK for Christian groups to "support our troops" but a Muslim group can't do the same?


Is it just the CAIR banner is a buzzword like "Blaine Amendment," people don't really know what it is ... but they're against it!

I'm not a huge CAIR advocate. Couldn't tell you if they have an office in town or name a member. But you are just asking for trouble if you refuse them because you heard on the interwebs that they suck, but every Christian group that applies is allowed in.

[Conan71]

I'm not a huge CAIR advocate. Couldn't tell you if they have an office in town or name a member. But you are just asking for trouble if you refuse them because you heard on the interwebs that they suck, but every Christian group that applies is allowed in.

This is the complaint, er speculation, I've heard is they are hoping to be refused so they can raise a stink.

I can see why their presence seems somewhat incongruous, but it doesn't rise to any level of outrage for me.

I wonder CAIR will be entering a float in the newly re-combined Tulsa Christmas parade?

[carltonplace]

What is it with this town and parades? Isn't it just getting in line and then going around in a circle (like ring around the rosie for big people)? I cannot fathom how that can be controversial.

[Ben]

and this:

A group in our area that supports the Confederacy said it was not allowed to join the event this year, and now it plans to file a formal complaint against the city.

The group Confederate Veterans Lives Matter wanted to be a part of Wednesday's parade, flying their Confederate flags, but the committee said no.

http://www.newson6.com/story/30459052/confederate-veterans-lives-matter-claims-tulsa-parade-unfairly-denied-float

[carltonplace]

Are they the undead veterans of the civil war? If so, they should be able to line up...if they are not actual US Veterans then they don't deserve to be honored in a Veteran's day parade. 

[Townsend]

Tulsa's Veteran's Day Parade Angst

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/tulsas-veterans-day-parade-angst

A rally is held in Tulsa calling for a boycott of this Wednesday's Tulsa Veteran's Day Parade. The annual parade is one of the largest in the U.S.  However, some are upset that the Council on American Islamic Relations will have a parade entry.

Those opposed to the entry says they will at least turn their backs when the CAIR entry passes. Others says they will not attend. Among those upset is Broken Arrow State Representative Mike Ritze. He calls the inclusion a slap in the face to veterans who have been fighting Islamic extremists.

However, CAIR says it is only trying to show its American patriotism and wants to thank veterans for their service and highlight the number of Muslim's who have taken part in the American military.

Parade organizers say the parade is not a religious parade  and CAIR will be allowed to take part.

Oklahomans just can't help ourselves.  We are fated to look like jackasses.

[cannon_fodder]

Why do Muslims hate America? Why can't they fight for our country, support our veterans, and march around waiving the stars and stripes to prove their loyalty to the USA!

Those jerks want to support our veterans and march around waiving the stars and stripes to prove their loyalty to the USA?  That's so offensive!

The most common suggestion I see on the comments sections is to assault, berate, or otherwise insult the participants - who CAIR has suggested will be Muslim veterans of American armed forces. So--- to show their support for veterans on veterans day, those that self identify as the most patriotic literally intend to turn their backs on some veterans.

#irony

[carltonplace]

#spareus

[patric]

Are they the undead veterans of the civil war? If so, they should be able to line up...if they are not actual US Veterans then they don't deserve to be honored in a Veteran's day parade. 

I dont think that requirement is applied to any other participants, so it might not be a good idea to start now.
Here's what got my attention:

"Just a regular old float, have the Confederate flag up there like we have mounted on our trucks,"

...which isnt proper flag display regardless of the flag.
I know some very ugly people in the 1920s, 1960s etc. misappropriated Confederate flags for hateful purposes, but we have to also remember that it was also once a flag Americans died defending.
Id be tempted to say let the parade group have at it, and look like fools if they are, or put on a respectable memorial if they turn out to be sincere.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

I dont think that requirement is applied to any other participants, so it might not be a good idea to start now.
Here's what got my attention:

"Just a regular old float, have the Confederate flag up there like we have mounted on our trucks,"

...which isnt proper flag display regardless of the flag.
I know some very ugly people in the 1920s, 1960s etc. misappropriated Confederate flags for hateful purposes, but we have to also remember that it was also once a flag Americans died defending.
Id be tempted to say let the parade group have at it, and look like fools if they are, or put on a respectable memorial if they turn out to be sincere.

Okay, the world is coming to an end, I agree with patric. Take away the perversion of the Confederate Flag, and it stands for those that fought and died for it. It's a part of American history as much as the battle against the British for independence.

[carltonplace]

Except that when you boil down the civil war it was not about states rights...it was about the right to own slaves. The states rights meme is a post war revision.

War over slavery + Confederate side wants to own slaves = Confederate flag is racist.