[HCCN] Blinded by its own hysteria

[Dexter Bellows]

>
>
> *The right-wing, blinded by its own hysteria*
>
> By Eugene Robinson
> Tuesday, August 24, 2010; A15
>
> When did the loudmouths of the American right become such a bunch of
> fraidy-cats and professional victims? Or is it all just an act?
>
> The hysteria over plans for an innocuous Muslim community center in  
> Lower
> Manhattan -- two blocks from Ground Zero, amid an urban hodgepodge  
> of office
> buildings, eateries and strip clubs -- is wildly out of proportion.  
> It would
> be laughable if it didn't threaten to do great harm to the global  
> campaign
> against Islamic terrorism.
>
> It is by now firmly established that the project, dubbed Park51, is  
> promoted
> by a peacenik Muslim cleric whose sermons often sound a bit like the  
> musings
> of new-age guru Deepak Chopra. It is also undisputed fact that the  
> imam in
> question, Feisal Abdul
> Rauf<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/22/AR2010082201850.html 
> >,
> is such a moderate that the U.S. government regularly sends him as an
> emissary to Muslim countries to preach peace, coexistence and  
> dialogue.
>
> Yet right-wing commentators and politicians have twisted themselves  
> in knots
> to portray the Park51 project as a grievous assault -- and "the  
> American
> people" as victims. Victims of what? Rauf's sinister plot to despoil  
> the
> city with a fitness center, a swimming pool and -- shudder -- a  
> space for
> the performing arts?
>
> The whole "controversy" is ridiculous. Yet conservatives who should  
> know
> better are doing their best to exploit widespread ignorance about  
> Islam by
> transforming it into fear and anger. They imply, but don't come  
> right out
> and say, that it was Islam itself that attacked the United States on  
> Sept.
> 11, 2001, rather than an extremist fringe that espouses what the vast
> majority of the world's Muslims consider a perversion of the faith.  
> They
> paint Park51 as a "victory dance" over the hallowed ground where  
> thousands
> of Americans died -- never mind that there wouldn't even be a sight  
> line
> between the building and Ground Zero -- and suggest that the  
> project, even
> though it would be run by an imam who's practically a flower child,  
> could
> somehow serve as a recruiting center for terrorists.
>
> Message to anyone who will listen: You're a victim. Be very afraid.
>
> In the process, this anti-mosque pitchfork brigade is surely  
> recruiting
> terrorists left and right. As Ahmad Moussalli, a professor at the  
> American
> University of Beirut, told the Los Angeles Times: "Rejecting this  
> has become
> like rejecting Islam
> itself<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-0823-mosque-muslim-react-20100823,0,7775670.story 
> >."
> All the Islamophobic rhetoric tends to reinforce the jihadists' main
> argument, which is that the United States and the West seek to  
> destroy the
> faith held dear by more than 1 billion souls.
>
> The thing is, though, that the manufactured brouhaha over the Park51  
> project
> is part of a larger pattern in which the far right embraces  
> victimhood and
> stokes fear. The faction that likes to portray itself as a bunch of  
> John
> Waynes and "mama grizzlies," it turns out, spends an awful lot of time
> cowering in the corner and complaining about how beastly everyone  
> else is
> being.
>
> Witness the frequent eruptions over instances of reverse racism --  
> real or
> imagined. The Shirley Sherrod
> affair<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR2010072006158.html 
> >
> was
> the most recent example of how eagerly the far right wants to sell  
> the false
> narrative that African Americans, once they achieve positions of  
> authority,
> will use their newly acquired power to punish whites for historical
> discrimination. The facts of the Sherrod case, as they finally  
> emerged,
> argue persuasively against this fictional tale of longed-for  
> revenge. But it
> will be back.
>
> And look at the hysteria over illegal immigration. Facts don't  
> matter -- for
> example, that the flow of undocumented migrants has decreased, or that
> border enforcement under President Obama is much tougher than under  
> George
> W. Bush, or that illegal immigrants are not responsible for any kind  
> of
> crime wave. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), has gone so far as to sound  
> the
> alarm about alleged "terror
> babies<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVfQCpYocQ>."
> The idea is that undocumented pregnant women would cross the border  
> so that
> their children could have U.S. citizenship, then take the babies  
> away to be
> raised as terrorists -- who would be able to come back in 20 years  
> or so,
> with legitimate U.S. passports, and presumably wreak untold havoc.  
> No, I did
> not make that up.
>
> Is the far right really afraid of its own shadow? Do these people  
> really
> have so little faith in our nation's strength, resilience and  
> values? I hope
> this is all just cynical political calculation, because there are  
> genuine
> threats and challenges out there. We'll be better off meeting them  
> with a
> spine, not a whine.
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082303743.html?wpisrc=nl_politics
>
>
>
> -- 
> ______________________________
> ...freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be  
> demanded
> by the oppressed.
> Martin Luther King, Jr.
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