A Modest Proposal

My proposal:  "Congress shall enact a bill declaring that from now until his death, every word uttered by Pat Robertson is irrelevant, mean spirited and devoid of spiritual significance."

As we should have expected, Pat Robertson has weighed in on the Pulse nightclub shooting here in Orlando. While not actually blaming President Barack  Obama, he did blame the USSC for "legalizing" Gay marriage. We should have known it would happen. we've had more than three decades of warnings!

This venal, wicked man has, for far too long,  sold his personal style of  vindictive and evil faux Christianity for the sake of monetary gain.  He has done this with the connivance of people close to him who should have years ago simply said,  "Pat, shut the F**k up!"  

Robertson is hardly  a novice at pretending to read the mind of the cosmic muffin. Below are just a few of the times he's been really, really wrong. I'd add the times he's been right, for fairness, but he hasn't ever been right!   

Each year Robertson takes to the airwaves with something he calls "Words of Knowledge", predictions that he says come from God. Here are a few of the doozies Robertson has floated over the years, and never really come back to revise, revisit, or review.

1980 - Robertson predicted that the USSR would invade the Middle East.

1981 - Robertson predicted global economic collapse, and that the USSR would invade Israel, control all the oil in the Middle East, and foul up the world economy.

1988 - Robertson said God told him to run for President. Apparently God did not tell him to win.

1996 - God told Robertson that Bill Clinton would not be elected for a second term. He also said that a terrorist with a nuclear weapon would strike within the United States.

1998 - Robertson said God would strike the United States with tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and "maybe even a meteor" due to Orlando, Florida's city council voting to fly rainbow flags during a Gay Pride celebration. Orlando was never hit, though Virginia Beach, Robertson's home, was.

2005 - Robertson said God told him that George W. Bush would pass Social Security reform, tax reform, and that the Supreme Court would end up packed with conservative judges. He also said there would be a wide scale conversion of Muslims to Christianity.

2006 - Robertson said God told him that tsunamis would ravage the coasts of the United States.

2007 - Robertson predicted that there would be a massive terrorist event aimed at the United States that would result in "mass killing" during the second half of the year. "The Lord didn’t say nuclear, but I do believe it’ll be something like that - that’ll be a mass killing, possibly millions of people, major cities injured," Robertson said.

2012 - Robertson said God told him who would win the Presidential election that year, but he would not tell. However he later said, "I won’t get into great detail about elections but I sure did miss it."

2012 - Robertson also said that 2012 would bring about a collapse of the American economy. This information came only after a question and answer session with God that included Robertson asking if the disaster would be the result of an "EMP blast" or a "Mayan galaxy alignment", all of which God took a pass on.

2013 - For this year, Robertson revisited some older financial themes again, saying that a financial reckoning is coming, debts called in, money devalued, people on fixed incomes will suffer. Creditors will seize assets to pay back debts.

So who really is this false prophet moron?

         Before I amplify on this, I swear that every word I write about Robertson is true and documented. Born a Senator's son, Marion (yes, that's right) Robertson led a fairly normal life, but it got a bit shaky when as he claims he went Korea and was decorated in combat three times.   You see,  former Republican Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Jr., who served with Robertson in Korea, wrote a public letter which said that Robertson was actually spared combat duty when his powerful father, a U.S. Senator, intervened on his behalf, and that Robertson spent most of his time in an office in Japan. According to McCloskey, his time in the service was not in combat but as the "liquor officer" responsible for keeping the officers' clubs supplied with liquor. Robertson filed a $35 million libel suit against McCloskey in 1986, dropped it in 1988, before it came to trial and Robertson paid all McCloskey's court costs. So we have established a pattern of lying early on.

Although a grad of Yale Law (same school as "W", weird, huh?) Robertson soon saw the money to be made fleecing the flock via radio and TV as a Baptist minister. Out of deference to real Baptists, many of whom have distanced themselves from him, as stated above, Robertson claims to have regular conversations with God and at least once predicted the "end of days", saying the Lord told him so . (Relax, it was to start in 1982 and be over by 1989!)

  Robertson is also an advocate of Christian dominionism — the idea that Christians have a right to rule.(The World!)  In several  published writings, especially his 1991 book The New World Order,  Robertson  has offered  theories about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy,  plagiarizing  chapter and verse from well-known anti-Semitic works.

          Lest you think all religion and no job make Robertson, like most Protestant ministers, a man of average means, be advised  that his personal fortune is estimated between $200 million and $1 billion.  How does he do it, you say? Much of his  income comes from sales of  commercial time and the fleecing of viewers from his 700 Club TV show. 

Much of  it also comes (or came) from blood diamonds. What??? Blood Diamonds - Not our Pat?  Yep : Robertson had extensive business dealings with former Liberian president (and genocidal maniac) Charles Taylor. Taylor gave Robertson the rights to mine for diamonds in Liberia's mineral-rich countryside. According to two Operation Blessing (Robertson's  "cover" for his money making schemes) pilots who reported this incident to the state of Virginia for investigation in 1994, Robertson used his Operation Blessing planes to haul diamond-mining equipment to Robertson's mines in Liberia, despite the fact that Robertson was telling his 700 Club viewers that the planes were sending relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda! 

 When the United States Congress passed a bill In November 2003 that offered two million dollars for his (Taylor's) capture. Robertson accused President George W. Bush of  "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country." At that   time Taylor was harboring Al Qaeda operatives who were funding their operations through the illegal diamond trade.  On February 4, 2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Taylor testified that Robertson was his main political ally in the U.S! It is not known if any Blood diamond money financed Robertson's other favorite murderers - The Nicaraguan Contras, but it is a matter of record that when  Ronald  Reagan and Oliver North needed a way around the Boland amendment, Robertson funds provided it.

          As if these talents weren't enough, Robertson has also demonstrated clairvoyance, control of the elements, insider knowledge of the mind of God and an incredible well of hatred and bile. It's fun for me to describe his pronouncements, but I think you need to hear it from the devil himself. ladies and gentlemen, the lad himself in quotes.

On January 4, 2012, Robertson reported that God had spoken to him and "He showed me the next president" but wouldn't name who it is. He did give an indication that it wouldn't be President Obama since Robertson said God told him Obama's views were at "odds with the majority"  Really? Quick question here Pat. Was God wrong, or are you just full of hubris and bullshit?

"It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-biased media and the homosexuals who want to destroy all Christians." (don't tell my Christian gay friends)

"Lord, give us righteous judges who will not try to legislate and dominate this society. Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court." (Robertson calling in a divine air strike on the USSC)

"(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." (I'm a feminist and I did not approve this message)

"the ACLU has to take a lot of blame for this" in addition to "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians [who have] helped [the terror attacks of September 11th] happen." (who could have guessed Al Qaeda even knew what the ACLU is?)

"I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you, This is not a message of hate -- this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor." referring to  

"gay days" at Disneyworld (oh the horror, the 
horror!)

          Of course, we all know that if you are a man and your wife has Alzheimer's, it's ok to divorce her (what would be the advice if the genders were switched? Any bets?) Likewise, of Course general Petraeus had an affair, he's a man, she's a girl, June, Moon, alone at the drive in. It's natural (for men).

          And now something that hasn't made the media. Years ago, when Robertson still was a preacher in the VA tidewater area, a young man, a foster child, was hospitalized after being badly beaten by his foster father and mother (for running away, imagine that.)  The foster father had two cards to play; he was an ex Navy commander, and they were members of  Robertson's church , quite a big deal at the time in the area. Robertson , as a character witness, pled with child services to overlook the violence and return the boy to the foster home. They did and within several months the child was dead, abused to death by Robertson's parishioners. I guess God wanted the kid dead, huh?

  A doctor friend of a very close friend once described Robertson as "The embodiment of evil."  On a lighter note, I think it best to include  one last quote from Pat Robertson, although I know when he said it he didn't mean it to be used like it is being used on his behalf these days.

 "I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people." - Pat Robertson.

Truer words have seldom been used against the speaker. I think the late Christopher Hitchens must have had a Robertson, Osteen, or  Huckabee  in mind when he said, “We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.  Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”

As usual, Hitchens was, at least in Robertson's case, absolutely correct.

I was wrong

        I was wrong. I once thought that our Governor, Rick Scott, was the poorest example of elected civil servant in the nation. That honor has been taken away by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick who, in the wake of the horrible events  of early Sunday morning in Orlando, tweeted "You reap what you sow!"  Patrick later claimed, in the face of overwhelming  "Tweetiverse" condemnation, that the tweet was "preset," however the time stamp of 7:00 AM,  local Texas time, would have made the tweet at 9:00 AM EST, 4 hours after the end of the standoff at the Pulse Nightclub. Anyone awake would have known something was terribly wrong back East.

        I would like to believe the Lt. Gov, really I would, but it IS Texas, where state sponsored murder  is a major indoor sport and Texas leads the league with Florida not too far behind.  One wonders exactly what the twisted mind of this Brazos bumpkin perceives it to be that is "sown" by the LGBT community.  I have never seen violence, intolerance or bigotry "sown" by any members of the LGBT community. It doesn't happen. Never. I have, on the other hand, seen acceptance and inclusion after years of rejection and discrimination.  What should have happened Sunday morning, if what was sown was truly reaped, would have been the convening of the safest gathering  on earth, where individual differences were washed away by understanding , tolerance and acceptance of the individual on their own basis.

        Patrick's attitude is reminiscent of the Reagan administrations several years' "don't worry about it, they're only queers"  point of view as AIDS ravished the community. It is also an example of all the bad things religion can do as well as the truly good works done in many communities by persons of faith. Patrick and the shooter are exceedingly dissimilar save in this one aspect: both , if judged by their actions, believe(d) that it was insufficient for them to simply live their lives as they believed their version of the cosmic muffin dictated. To complete the heavenly daily double they also felt compelled to act out in anger, revenge, or mean spirited sniping.

         In the Orlando shooter's case, this meant that he apparently believed God compelled him to take the lives of individuals who he had never met, but who he, the shooter, in loco God,  had judged and decided to kill. That is psychopathy and insanity.  Patrick on the other hand, smarmy prick that he is, decided to simply make a hurtful statement, regardless of impact on others, based on his personal pipeline to the divine and go on about his day, self satisfied and smug in his delusion that he speaks for God. That is sociopathy.

        Meanwhile, the shattered lives of the families and friends of the victims of the shooting at Pulse will  be forever affected and haunted  by the actions of someone who, as so many have before him, believed himself to be the self appointed  righteous arm of a vengeful God.

         And you wonder why I'm an atheist?  

Benghazi, a Brief Prequel for Comparison

Note: this is excerpted with some modifications for brevity and clarity from a longer New Yorker  article by Jane Mayer        

        Around dawn on October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon,  a suicide bomber drove a truck laden with the equivalent of twenty-one thousand pounds of TNT into the heart of a U.S. Marine compound, killing two hundred and forty-one servicemen. The U.S. military command, had left a vehicle gate wide open, and ordered the sentries to keep their weapons unloaded!

         The only real resistance the suicide bomber had encountered was a scrim of concertina wire. the Marine barracks were flattened. Under  smoking slabs of collapsed concrete,  American voices were begging for help. Thirteen more American servicemen later died from injuries, making it the single deadliest attack on American Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima. This was horrific, but.......

        Six months before, militants had bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut, too, killing sixty-three more people, including seventeen Americans. Among the dead were seven C.I.A. officers, including the agency’s top analyst in the Middle East, an immensely valuable intelligence asset, and the Beirut station chief.  No investigation. Compare this to the 4 dead embassy staffers in Benghazi. Let me make this clear: The Reagan administration and those responsible to it in various capacities had a six month warning about the dangers facing Americans in Lebanon. This warning included more than four times the American death toll of Benghazi!  There was every opportunity (and justification) for laying  blame for the horrific losses at high U.S. officials’ feet. There was loss of life precedent six months earlier for enhanced security. Military staff were unprepared, essentially unarmed.

        Unlike today’s Congress, congressmen did not talk of impeaching Ronald Reagan, who was then President, nor were cabinet members subpoenaed.  Just as today, the opposition party controlled the majority in the House. Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, was no pushover. He, like today’s opposition leaders in the House, demanded an investigation—but a real one, and only one. Instead of a witch hunt/smear campaign for political points,  The US  House  undertook a serious and measured  investigation into what went wrong at the barracks in Beirut, and why. Two months later, it issued a report finding “very serious errors in judgment” by officers on the ground, as well as responsibility up through the military chain of command, and called for better security measures against terrorism in U.S. government installations throughout the world.

       In other words, Congress actually undertook a useful investigation and made helpful recommendations. The report’s findings, by the way, were bipartisan. The Pentagon, too, launched an investigation;  its report was widely accepted by both parties.

        In March of 1984, three months following the closure of the investigation and the issuance of its bi-partisan report,  militants again struck American officials in Beirut, this time kidnapping the C.I.A.’s station chief, Bill Buckley. Buckley was tortured and, eventually, murdered. Reagan, tormented by a tape of Buckley being tortured, blamed himself. Congress held no public hearings, and pointed fingers at the perpetrators, not at political rivals.

        If you compare the costs of the Reagan Administration’s serial (3) security lapses over little more than a year  in Beirut to the costs of Benghazi, it’s clear what has really deteriorated in the intervening three decades. It’s not the security of American government personnel working abroad. It’s the behavior of American congressmen at home.

        The story in Beirut wasn’t over. In September of 1984, for the third time in eighteen months, jihadists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut yet again. President Reagan acknowledged that the new security precautions that had been advocated by Congress hadn’t yet been implemented at the U.S. embassy annex that had been hit. The problem, the President admitted, was that the repairs hadn’t quite been completed on time. As he put it, “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.”  Imagine how Congressmen Trey Gowdy,  Darryl Issa and Fox News would react to a similar explanation from President Obama today!

Wasted Time and Money in an Ignoble Cause

     OK,  before Trump delivers his Clinton smear speech tonight: Let's get one thing straight. Regardless of what you may think about Hillary Clinton, know this about the Benghazi fiasco: There were barely token investigations of attacks on US embassies during the Reagan and Bush administrations, and none attacked the SecState. 

     Mrs. Clinton was targeted specifically because, even then, Republicans feared that she would be a Presidential contender, and in that, they were correct. Consequently, House and Senate Republicans wasted more time and money on "The blame game" than was spent on the combined investigations of: The JFK assassination, Watergate, 9/11, and Iran Contra scandal. 

     Several House Republican committee members and staffers , sickened by the actions of Rep. Trey Gowdy, have broken ranks and admitted that these investigations, chaired by Gowdy, were convened for the express purpose of discrediting Mrs. Clinton politically. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence concluded its two-year Benghazi investigation in November 2014 when it released a report exonerating the Obama administration of wrongdoing in its response to the attack. The report found evidence of contradicting intelligence among government officials and concluded officials did not intentionally mislead the public with information in the days following the attack. 

     Instead of taking concrete steps to enhance the safety and security of our diplomatic corps overseas, the Select Committee on Benghazi continues to squander millions of dollars and has nothing to show for it other than a partisan attack against Secretary Clinton and her campaign for president. As of right now as I write, the cost of just this committee's fruitless efforts is set to top 7 million dollars. Excluded from this one Committee's expenditures are the costs of the independent Accountability Review Board; the eight previous reports by seven Congressional committees; the time, money, and resources consumed by federal agencies to comply with Select Committee requests; or the opportunity cost of not spending this money elsewhere, like improving security for our diplomatic officers abroad. 

     When the Marine Barracks in Beirut was attacked in 1983, , no one blamed the Reagan administration, even though 241 American servicemen died. Rather we just fled Lebanon.

“TWO AND TWO MAKES FIVE” ― George Orwell, 1984

The below is my final post in a string of posts related to Common Core and education in general

       "Winning the testing game" and "losing our creativity and entrepreneurial skills" are, in fact relatively unrelated. I have already expressed my displeasure re: the way testing scores are used, That is not a Common Core issue, that is a state and local school board issue . It's the sort of thing you get with a formerly corrupt, now politically rehabilitated  "play it to the press" governor, a career political failure as Superintendent and a school board whose only educator is a media specialist who continued working in one district while supposedly serving the needs of another. Any effort to block a student from an appropriate vocational track vice a strictly academic one is a state/local issue and essentially unrelated to CC as well. I remember when we actually awarded three types of HS diplomas, Academic, Vocational and Clerical. Change "Clerical" to  "Technology" and you might have a plan with applicability to the apparent problem.  

     You say you support standards, well, since that's really all the Common Core is, then it follows that you support Common Core, or at least the concept. Opposing CC because state and local boards misuse/misrepresent it is a "Baby with the Bathwater" mentality. Then, in a later post **** hints at the conspiracy ravings of  the mythologizers who would have us believe it is all part of some shadow government plot. Hogwash. The negative reactions to CC start with those who would "purge " our history and turn us all into Pollyannas who simply repeat  patriotic jargon without considering that many of those who made a difference, did so by swimming against the stream. “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”  George Orwell understood this, as do the school boards of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, who would purge or deemphasize the unpleasantness in our history: you know -The Scottsboro Boys,"Wounded Knee" Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., Vietnam, and/or Iraq.

     When you have entire state educational structures which want to remove history from history books, then and only then are you headed in the direction **** cites, with semi hysterical and egregiously inappropriate allusions to Nazism and Chinese conformity. One Texas legislator wants to remove the teaching of critical thinking skills from curriculum, again citing CC as the villain. I would submit that the easiest way to subvert an entire population group is to suppress legitimate question among its younger members. "Why?" is the right question 99% of the time. In the remaining 1% doing the emergency action followed by "Why" is the proper response. As I often told my students, usually in day one or two of class, respectfully questioning authority is always appropriate. It's how we learn, and it's certainly how we become aware that authority can be misused.

     It is also the precise antithesis of the protestations voiced by the opponents of CC. If one looks beneath the surface at the motivations of those who most violently oppose the implementation of CC one sees the very opposite of what **** says we should be doing - i.e. encouraging individual thinkers, doers and entrepreneurs. Most of those in arms against CC are persons whose religious/political beliefs would include the idea that their children should be discouraged from questioning authority. It doesn't take a genius to extrapolate why that is. I have seen it in the classroom, when after discussing prehistory, a parent e-mailed to warn that "we're a Bible based family, and the earth is 4800 (and change) years old."  Fortunately, the son was a bit brighter than they realized and processed all of this appropriately.

      “You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.” Orwell again, understanding that the hidden agenda in those mid west school boards and of the most vociferous opponents of  CC is to fill empty vessels with the standard "our way or the highway" social/religious/political orthodoxy which is so threatened by CC emphasis on critical thought and cross cultural learning. They see a clear and present danger in teaching kids "how" to think instead of "what" to think.

     Ask yourself simply: "If the Texas or Kansas standards, similar to the Sunshine State Standards, were to be adopted nationwide, do we really think anyone in either state would protest that action.?"  Of course not, because this entire tempest in a teapot is really about having people think as "we" (you know, us religious zealot, right wing, bigots) think. Testing is another issue altogether, CC as an idea is fine. I loathe the emphasis on testing because of the same reasons **** dislikes it - too much emphasis on how to use the results. My challenge would be to simply say "OK, find a better way."  In my 20 years in education at advanced studies levels, I never saw an alternate proposal which worked. But I know this:  If one opposes a set of standards which stress learning goals, critical thinking skills and cross curriculum interaction, then they need to get out of education and into the food service industry.     

Hey, Hey, we're the.....?

        There are some ideas so bad that one can merely shake one's head and try to forget them. Unfortunately, it's more difficult to unsee and unhear one of these bad ideas actually brought to fruition in a public forum.  an example would be Liza Minelli deciding to sing again. Another such an ill conceived scheme is the unfortunate decision to "reform" the Monkees! Today I was assaulted, visually and auditorially, as I worked the crossword, by their "performance" on Good Morning America.

        Let's be clear; the two relatively talented members of this rather horrid "pre-boy band" boy band were Davy Jones (dead since 2012) and the truly multi talented Michael Nesmith, who apparently had the good sense to tell the originator of this ill conceived fever dream scheme to "f**k off."

        That leaves 2 remnants of the original tripe fest . Peter Tork  became a Monkee  primarily because Stephen Stills didn't photograph well and turned the job down, recommending  Tork in his stead. A real shame, that, I wonder what ever happened to the Stills kid?  Mickey Dolenz became a Monkee hard on the heels of his rousing, yet unsurprisingly short lived and unacclaimed, dramatic triumph as "Circus Boy." 

        Meanwhile, the real brains behind the Monkees, other than the occasional Nesmith penned song, were the team of Boyce and Hart, who actually played and sang lead on most songs in the studio and then watched as the Drab Four overdubbed them for airplay. These guys churned out top forty hits for others, but never really received the acclaim they probably reserved for not killing the Monkees for murdering their work.

        But back to today's nightmare. Dolenz, who played at drums on the show, simply stood and may have been actually singing (more on that later) while Tork (bass player) seemed to be faking it on a keyboard beside him. They were surrounded by six other real musicians, who were not only playing, but, since they were all on microphones, were also singing, to the point that it was difficult to tell whose voice was actually carrying the melody.

        Tork now resembles Don Quixote as portrayed on Broadway by Richard Kiley, only even scragglier and older, while Dolenz'  face now resembles an overripe heirloom tomato. (no offense intended to tomatos). In short, the Monkees now resemble the Orangutans and their "talents" are woefully and sadly gone. 

     Sometimes "Let's get the band back together!" is just a really bad idea. This is especially true  when half of them - the talented half - are either dead or missing.  

Don't blame it all on religion

I'm Baaaaack! A month in Europe and Africa was amaahzing, as Seth would say.  Upon returning I posted a little blurb about Morocco which triggered the following discussion, submitted for your approval :

Me:

  "I just recently (a week and a half ago) spent 7 days in an overwhelmingly Muslim nation - Morocco. I felt safer in Marrakech Rabat and Fes, than in Paris or Madrid. The people were friendly, generous, and warm hearted. Isn't it time to judge people by their actions rather than by external labels applied by others? By that standard, most Muslims fare quite well and Donald Trump is an profoundly pathetic failure."

Colleague:

"Agree but still disturbed by recent Pakistan Muslim decree that it is permissible to "lightly beat" wives who disobey rules set up for them. What's up with that"? Mixed messages for sure."

Me (social scientist pen in hand):

 "Again, Pakistan isn't Morocco. the ethnic populations are different. Morocco's Berber population are of totally different stock than Indians and Pakistanis who are, in many cases of the same lineage centuries back. Berbers are most closely related Mitochondrial DNA- wise to the Lapps of Finland, and are neither Arab or of the Indian sub-continent. What you describe  is more indicative of the general attitude of males toward females in that part of the world. I (and you) have both dealt with parents with roots in that region in our years in education, and you are aware of the general attitude and male superiority displayed by some of them. Look at Sikhs, of the similar ethnicity, yet their religion tempers that streak to the point of essentially gender equality. But both Hinduism and  Islam, unfortunately tend to amplify it. Recall all the gang rape cases seen over the last ten years in India and in some cases blown off by courts as "She was asking for it." I hate stereotyping, and generally find it vile and unrealistic, but the Indian mainstream press is rife with examples of Indian Hindu males behaving exactly as Pakistani Muslim males. Religion certainly plays a part, but societal and cultural norms of the ethnic group would seem to indicate a proclivity for under respecting and protecting women which may in fact date back to the domination of the region by Britain and the emasculation of males of sub-continental ethnic groups by the abhorrent British  attitude that they (colonial subcontinental Aryans) were, as a race, inferior. Left with that centuries old discrimination, who do they take it out on? You can figure the rest. British poor males and American poor males acted similarly two centuries ago, some still do, and the Pat Robertsons and Warren Jefts of our nation still apparently feel that way. Don't blame Islam for the totality of women's subjugation; other factors are at play here, too. Hell, we have a presidential wannabee who has just about as little real regard for woman as persons!