Defending a Con Man's Right to Run a Con

If the honor wasn't already taken by wingnut blogger Jim Hoft, fellow wingnut blogger Glenn Reynolds would be a solid contender for the title of Internet's Dumbest Man. They both deal in histrionic dishonesty and over-the-top fake outrage, aiming their posts straight at the most gullible, paranoid, and idiotic readers on the web. If their websites went dark overnight, the world would be a much less stupid place.

But, like Hoft, Reynolds serves a purpose -- both are excellent examples of just how insane the right wing in this country has become and both of these would-be Glenn Becks demonstrate the strident, limitless idiocy that characterizes the wingnut blogosphere. If I were to write a counter post for every stupid and just plain wrong post just one of these two morons wrote, I would never post anything else -- there are only so many hours in a day. So it's not my intention to straighten out the readers of this Reynolds post, but rather to show just how unfathomably stupid those readers must actually be. Anyone who joins in on the hero-worship of known con artist and meth cook Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is a proven idiot, but this goes far beyond that.

Long story short, Reynolds believes (or pretends to believe -- I'll take him at his word and assume he's dumb enough to believe it) that President Obama must resign because of this:

By sending -- literally -- brownshirted enforcers to engage in -- literally -- a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated [his oath of office]. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace.

He won’t resign, of course. First, the President has the appreciation of free speech that one would expect from a Chicago Machine politician, which is to say, none. Second, he’s not getting any pressure. Indeed, the very press that went crazy over Ari Fleischer’s misrepresented remarks seems far less interested in the actions of an administration that I repeat, literally sent brown-shirted enforcers to launch a midnight knock on a filmmaker’s door.

But Obama’s behavior -- and that of his enablers in the press -- has laid down a marker for those who are paying attention. By these actions he is, I repeat, unfit to hold office. I hope and expect that the voters will agree in November.

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The Politics of Hate

It's the most rabid opponents of the First Amendment's separation of church and state who argue that freedom of religion isn't the same thing as freedom from religion. We can't be "protected" from exposure to religion in everyday life and it's not the government's job to keep religion lock up in churches and temples and mosques.

Which is interesting, because these same people fight for laws to free us from religions they disapprove of. It was, after all, Republicans who fought to keep Wiccan chaplains out of the armed forces, for example. And let's not even get started on protecting Americans from the evils of atheism. When the argument is made that there is no freedom from religion, what's really meant is that government can't protect you from exposure to Christianity -- every other religion is fair game.

This is the case with Oklahoma's "Save Our State" amendment, which is meant to protect that state from the evils of sharia law. Of course, saving Oklahoma from the dangers of sharia is completely unnecessary -- not only is the state in no danger of falling to Muslim fundamentalist authoritarianism, but religious-based law is already unconstitutional. as threats go, this is about as close to nonexistent as you can get without involving unicorns and fairies.

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If the Muslim Had Stabbed the Christian, Then It'd be Big, National News

Sometimes, you come across a story and wonder why it hasn't become national news. For me, this is one of those times.

Tampa Tribune:

A St. Petersburg man faces a hate crime accusation after deputies say he stabbed a man because he is Muslim.

Bradley Kent Strott, 52, and Samad Ebadi were at Marsha's Wayside Inn bar, at 4021 54th Ave. N. in St. Petersburg, about 7:30 p.m. Friday, talking about religion, according to a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office arrest report.

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Some of the Tea Party's Best Friends are...

"I'm not a bigot, some of my best friends are _____." It's a fairly common argument in America. If you're accused of racism or bigotry, you point out your associations with minorities. When the tea party was originally chastised in July for harboring racism by the NAACP, tea partiers put together a "Uni-Tea" rally. The rally featured minority speakers and would demonstrate the diversity of their movement. What actually happened was that the speakers wound up doing all their speaking to a small, mostly white crowd. Organizers were expecting around 1,500 to attend -- a third of that showed. Let's be extrememly generous and say that the failure of Uni-Tea had less to do with the average teabagger's lack of interest in diversity and more to do with their lack of interest in an event that wasn't specifically about anger. On that count, the tea party organizers -- if not the partiers themselves -- demonstrated that some of their best friends were indeed minorities.

But if "Some of my best friends are ____" proves you aren't a bigot, then what does it say when some of your best friends are racists? And I'm not talking about casual, comment-under-the-breath racism -- I mean active racists. The kind who actually try to do something about their racism, who join racist groups and create racist publications and websites. Who organize behind racist causes. Real, honest-to-goodness hate group members. What does it say about you that these are some of your best friends?

It's a question that the tea party would do well to consider, since the NAACP now backs up its charge with documentation. A report on tea party ties to racists, titled Tea Party Nationalism, has been released by the organization which "compiles opinion polling data, documents significant examples of racist vitriol on the part of Tea Party leaders, shows incidents where well-known anti-Semites and white supremacists have been given a platform by Tea Partiers, and analyzes the attempt by white nationalist organizations to find new recruits in Tea Party ranks." In short, it's pretty rock-solid.

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Republicans in Search of New Scapegoat to Hate

"We hate Muslims! Grrrr!"

Republicans had hoped to ride a wave of fear and hatred into office, because that's what they do. So they glommed onto the cause of a lunatic backwater blogger, helping to whip up a frenzy of terror over a community center project in Manhattan. It all went pretty well for a while; gullible people really did start freaking out, terrified that the "Mosque at Ground Zero" (which isn't a mosque and isn't at ground zero) meant that terrorists were building a "victory mosque." This went on for a while, but the wave crested too soon and things started to get a little out of hand. "Hot issue" became "hot potato" and suddenly the Park51 project wasn't so important anymore. The Summer of Hate was over and the prospect of a long Autumn Without Hate loomed. It mustn't be allowed to happen.

Since the Cold War, Republicans have been nothing without enemies. They aren't a peacetime party. We're still at war, sure. Two of them, in fact. But the problem with long wars is that they become wallpaper -- if it's always there, you stop noticing it. Muslims were perfect enemies, because it reinforced the far right belief that Bush's War on Terror was really a war against Islam. The wars, although widely ignored now, could be reflected at home. And, like the Cold War communists, terrorists could be everywhere Republicans wanted them to be. So don't think they've dropped the "Muslim automatically equals terrorist" propaganda. It just got a little too hot there for a while, so they had to put it down for a bit. It'll be back.

But Republicans found themselves without enemies within. The "we hate gays!" wedge they'd previously used to divide the electorate had become dull; the GOP may hate them, but most people don't. Polling shows the public is split on the subject of same sex marriage, for example, with opinion moving rapidly against the "we hate gays" position. That territory is being lost, so it was time to retreat from it as well. Who would be the interim boogeyman, scaring the electorate until it was safe to demonize Muslims again?

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A Wedge Issue Becomes Too Hot to Use

It's an example of how stupid our national discourse has become. On September 11, the Portland Press Herald in Maine ran a front page story on Eid al Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan. It was the worst thing ever, according to some readers, and editor Richard Connor felt the need to issue a front-page apology the next day.

We made a news decision on Friday that offended many readers and we sincerely apologize for it.

Many saw Saturday's front-page story and photo regarding the local observance of the end of Ramadan as offensive, particularly on the day, September 11, when our nation and the world were paying tribute to those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks nine years ago.

We have acknowledged that we erred by at least not offering balance to the story and its prominent position on the front page.

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For Once, the Media is Only Partly to Blame

At this point, it's pretty clear that would-be Quran-burner Terry Jones is just a media troll. If there's one thing this country doesn't need, it's more media trolls. We've got Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Pam Geller, etc. There really shouldn't be any openings in that already saturated job market. But here's Jones, dragging the media off toward Stupidville as easily as any of the other manipulative self-aggrandizers.

First, the big Quran cookout was canceled. Then it turned out that Jones canceled the event for completely made up reasons, claiming that Park51-backers had agreed to move the community center in Manhattan. Where the "protest" was originally about Islam in general, it had suddenly taken a sharp turn and was now about the community center. Of course, the backers said nothing of the sort, so now Jones hints coquettishly that his book burning may be back on. Oh boy, a twist!

For their part, the media are starting to wonder how this obvious frootloop ever got their attention in the first place. The New York Times is running a piece titled, "Coverage of Koran Case Stirs Questions on Media Role," in which that burning question not only isn't answered, but is barely addressed. Basically, all it really does is track how a local story went national. Others address the question more directly.

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"I'm Not a Bigot. That Terry Jones Guy -- Now There's a Bigot"

As I've already pointed out, Florida preacher Terry Jones seems to have a lot in common with suicide cult-leader Jim Jones. It turns out that Jones was booted out of his church in Cologne, Germany for being a tyrant and more than a little goofy. According to Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress:

Former members of Jones' German church described a "climate of fear and control" and said Jones insisted on "blind obedience." Some former congregants are even "still undergoing therapy as a result of 'spiritual abuse.'" A German Protestant Church official familiar with Jones even said the pastor has a "delusional personality."

I'm a little lost on what "spiritual abuse" might be, but it's pretty obvious that Jones is a lunatic. If anything is clear about Jones from the totality of the record, it's that he's a headline grabbing clown with delusions of grandeur. He believes that Islam as a whole is evil, that moderate Muslims don't exist, and that Christianity -- and, by extension, the United States -- is at war with Islam. In short, the only thing that makes him any different from the rest of the anti-Islam nuts is that he plans to burn Qurans on the anniversary of 9/11.

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The Terrorists Among Us

America is under attack from violent religious extremists with no respect for human life. They hate our freedoms and stand against liberty. They do not respect our laws and would dismantle our Constitution. They commit crimes against Americans regularly, speak out against our system of law daily, and spread their hatred through internet chatter every minute of every day. They seek nothing less than the takeover of our nation, so they can force us all the live under the oppression of their religious laws.

Damned Christians.

Look, I'm willing to accept that there are moderate Christians. Good people who just want to live their lives the way they want. But it's hard to believe that the extremists don't speak for them when they're all so silent on their brethren's crimes. Our wake-up call actually came back in May, when a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida was firebombed by radical Christian extremists. It was overlooked -- called an isolated incident -- and we all moved on, foolishly believing that it wouldn't happen again. We aren't some backwater third world nation, we thought, surely our Christian population is civilized.

Then came the cowardly attack on a Muslim cabbie, the desecration of a mosque with urine, a suspected case of arson, and shots fired near those picking through the wreckage of that arson. Not enough? David Gibson has more:

A brick was thrown through the window of a California mosque last week and a few days earlier signs were left at the mosque that read, "No temple for the god of terrorism at Ground Zero." Earlier this month, a plastic pig inscribed with messages such as "Remember 9-11" and "MO HAM MED the Pig" was stuffed into the mailbox of another Islamic center in California. (Like Jews, Muslims have a prohibition on eating pork.)

Clearly, they hate our First Amendment freedoms. So far, I've come across one prominent Christian leader willing to speak out against this hate-wave, but even then, the condemnation was conditional.

"The First Amendment guarantees people the right to worship where they live," [Southern Baptist leader Richard Land] said. "I am calling for all people of faith and good will to stand up for the rights of our Muslim fellow citizens."

Land has criticized plans to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center in New York City, saying it was too close to the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"This is different," he said. "There's no Ground Zero in Murfreesboro."

The message is clear. The jihad against the mosque in Murfreesboro is getting too much attention, so cool it off for a bit. But the fatwa against a Muslim community center in Manhattan still stands. Incredibly, this terrorist leader was allowed to go free and remains at large. Already, fellow Christians openly discuss carrying out terrorist attacks on their extremist websites.

Some Christians may find being tied to the extremists in their midst offensive, but I'd just point out that I'm only applying the unassailable logic of the Christian right to the Christian right. For example, toward the middle of August, jihadi talk show host Bill O'Reilly ran with the familiar theme. In defense of building Christian and Jewish houses of worship, Bill said, "Nobody would be complaining because Christians and Jews weren't involved in the 9/11 attack. Radical Muslims were. And you may remember the Muslim world largely did not condemn the al Qaeda action, while most Christians and Jews did."

But the Muslim world did condemn the 9/11 attacks. They did it right away. So I can only assume that the condemnation must either be universal or come from the leaders of his choosing before O'Reilly would accept it. We must also assume that these leaders have to actively seek out O'Reilly to make those condemnations in person, since it's clear that he couldn't be bothered to actually look for them in news stories. So I'm just holding O'Reilly to the same standard; I've chosen you, Bill. Come over to my house and condemn Christian terrorism or I'll be forced to assume you're a jihadist yourself. Really, it's the only safe assumption I could make. We can't be too careful in these dangerous times. The only wise thing to do is assume a Christian is terrorist until it's proven otherwise.

Think I'm overreacting? Consider this chilling passage from their holy book, "The Bible":

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him."

Obviously, their holy book calls for the destruction of all infidels, as well as their cities and buildings. The arsonist in Murfreesboro was only obeying his insane god's edict. Unless people like Bill O'Reilly renounce this passage, we can only assume he supports it as well -- as all observant Christians must. Again, it's right there in their holy writings. They cannot deny it.

We mustn't let down our guard, even for a moment. Because if we do, the Christian jihadists will surely see it as a sign of weakness. We are at war with terror, no matter what form that terror takes. If we ignore the fact that we're the target of Christian terrorism, Christians will take advantage of it. It's the logic their leaders apply to the War on Terror, so it only makes sense that we apply it to them as well.

-Wisco


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Lighting a Very Short Fuse

Yesterday's attack on a Muslim cabbie understandably caught a lot of people's attention. While it's now unclear that the assault was connected to the Park51 controversy, a lot of people -- myself included -- immediately assumed that it was. Allow me to demonstrate why:

That was a protest against the Cordoba House community center at Park51 last weekend. Mr. Brimless Cap there was mistaken for a Muslim and the crowd turned on him, with Mr. Hardhat trying his damnedest to start a fight. Of course, Mr. Brimless Cap would've been torn apart by the crowd if Mr. Hardhat was successful. Mr. Hardhat's courage is the courage of knowing that a hundred equally crazy idiots have your back. In short, Mr. Hardhat is a coward and a bully. Given that this crowd is completely terrified by the prospect of what will essentially be a YMCA, finding cowardice within it isn't all that surprising. Mr. Brimless Cap is escorted out of the crowd, followed by some idiot shouting "Mohammed's a pig! Mohammed's a pig!" which is always helpful and constructive. Later, we learn that Mr. Brimless Cap is a carpenter at Ground Zero, not a radical jihadist. His only crime was making a fashion choice that hate-filled morons found confusing. Worse, had they been correct, his crime would've been being Muslim on a New York City street.





Is he for the project, is he against it? Who knows? All we know is that they saw someone who wasn't white, dressed in a way that was vaguely similar to Muslims they've seen on the teevee (I'm having a hard time believing these were New Yorkers for that reason), and decided that someone needed a good old-fashioned threatening. This could so easily have turned into a lynch mob, a riot, or both. In fact, this video is so embarrassing to the anti-Muslim cause that the main author of the hysteria, rightwing nutcase Pam Geller, has washed her hands of this protest altogether, saying "I had nothing to do with this rally and knew nothing about it." She couches her denial in an attack on a tweet by blogger Max Blumenthal -- as if the media is hanging on Blumenthal's every 140 characters, waiting to pounce and destroy Pam Geller.

And, of course, he doesn't take her denial lying down:

Geller's claim that she had "no idea" about the August 22 rally is ridiculous. According to the Daily Caller, "Beth Gilinsky, an organizer for The Coalition to Honor Ground Zero and founder of the Jewish Action Alliance, is coordinating the rally." And Gilinsky and Geller have worked hand-in-glove for years. At the April 25 Stand With Israel rally in New York City, Gilinsky introduced Geller as "a very dear friend" for whom she holds "enormous admiration." (Geller proceeded to wave a scarf reading "Yid Army" before the crowd, making a cartoonish attempt at Jewish ethnic identification while at the same time expressing her admiration for violent British football hooligans.) Geller has also lavished praise on Gilinsky, hailing her as one of the "warriors" who attempted to stop the Khalil Gibran Academy from opening in Brooklyn.

Considering that Geller and Gilinsky spearheaded the campaign against the Girban Academy and that they at least claim to be "very dear" friends, it is hard to imagine that Geller had "no idea" that Gilinsky and company were planning a major rally on August 22. So Geller is simply deceiving her readers. And given that many of those on the list of organizations and individual racists supporting The Coalition To Honor Ground Zero are scheduled to appear at the rally Geller is planning on 9-11 against Cordoba House, Geller appears to be disparaging her own allies as well, conceding that they are in fact a bunch of deranged, potentially violent bigots whose actions are "harmful to the cause of freedom of expression."

But Geller isn't just deceiving her readers. She knows that this phony outrage she helped create has made her a minor celebrity, so what's on her blog is aimed as much -- or more -- at the media as it is her supporters. Bllumenthal's tweet is just her excuse to distance herself from the whole thing. In this case, P.T. Barnum's rule doesn't apply: there is such a thing as bad press and Geller doesn't want any of it. Still her irrationality shines through, as she begins her post with "Max Blumenthal, notorious Jew hater, is lying, slandering and making up racist propaganda against me again." Racist? Really? In what way? And Blumenthal, like Geller, is Jewish. Like all rightwingers, Geller resorts to hurling random insults and strawmen when backed into a corner. Their model for a perfect debater is Don Rickles. How do you know when a wingnut thinks they're losing a debate? They get really, really nasty.

So, what we see is Geller completely terrified that all the hatred she's heated up is on the verge of boiling over and spoiling her fifteen minutes of fame. If she's so certain this is on the the edge of the cliff, why is it so surprising that everyone else is as well?

It should also be noted that, while the man who assaulted the cabbie, Michael Enright, is associated with an organization that supports the Park51 project, he is not an employee (I originally reported otherwise, consider this my retraction). He was a freelance film maker. And the only thing suggesting that he isn't opposed to Park51 is this association to the pro-Park51 Intersections International. Ideologically, I think stabbing a guy for being Muslim might just put you in the same camp as Mr. Hardhat up there. Just a guess, mind you. But it doesn't seem like much of a leap of logic. I also think a budding documentary film maker (Enright is still a student) wouldn't be extremely choosy about the groups helping him expand his film catalog. You don't have to have a good opinion of Park51 or Muslims to make films about veterans with PTSD.

So, did I and a lot of other people jump the gun in assuming that Enright's crime was based on opposition to Park51? I suppose we did. But that's only because we share something with Pam Geller: we know this stands a good chance of blowing up eventually. The difference is that we're interested in stopping that explosion, while Geller is only interested in not being there when it happens.

-Wisco


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Glenn Beck, Free Speech, and How Hurt Feelings Trump the First Amendment

It makes me feel sad, so of course, they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Glenn Beck and his racist, anti-government forces will gather in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial -- a memorial to a president killed by a racist, anti-government nutjob -- on the anniversary of Martin Luther King jr's "I have a dream" speech. A speech King gave that day from the same location. He too was killed by a racist. Keep an eye out for confederate flags. It was Lincoln who centralized the federal government these people despise so much. And beyond his civil rights work, King was also anti-war and in support of the hated unions. Clearly, Beck's rally is meant as a victory march on the graves of Lincoln and King, a stab at the heart of a nation still healing -- these many years later -- from the wounds inflicted by the deaths of these two men and the war that nearly tore our nation apart. Sure, they technically have the "right" to do it. But it'll hurt a lot of people's feelings, so "rights" should be ignored in favor of psycho-babble about closure and our deep emotional injuries. Perhaps it would be wisest to add "unless it makes us feel sad" to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

I mean that paragraph only half-mockingly. I doubt the intention is to insult Lincoln and King, but Beck's rally -- as well as his attempt to hijack the legacy of Dr. King -- is offensive. The people attending have been told to leave the signs at home (it's not technically a political rally, you see), but these are the same people whose signs attack the president's race and religion and these are the same people who fly the confederate flag. Expect to see a t-shirt or two that features either/or. And these are the same people who believe a Muslim version of a YMCA "desecrates" the memory of those who died on 9/11. They'll gather in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, on the day that Dr. King told us about the "fierce urgency of Now" -- a phrase that the despised President Obama later took as a title for a book -- and desecrate the memories of Dr. King and President Lincoln. That may not be their intention, but that will be the result all the same.

And they'll be allowed to do this, to deliver this insult to blacks and liberals and anyone who believes that people working together can solve problems (they call this "collectivism" and insist it's inherently evil). They'll be allowed to do this because that's the law and we're not insane. And the massive hypocrisy of what they're doing will be lost on them.





I want you to consider how Beck and the rest of the rightwing media would react to this section of King's speech if it were delivered today:

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

Beck himself has already accused Obama of seeking reparations for slavery -- a charge completely without evidence to back it up. Does anyone out there really believe that he wouldn't glom onto this "cash a check" metaphor and cast it literally? Beck would be a friend of King's in the same way he's a friend of Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP. He'd attack him in the very same way. In fact, the tactics haven't changed at all from King's day; Beck would attack him as an anti-patriot and a communist, just as they did back then. Glenn's not fooling many people here.

"Beck is hijacking the imagery and symbolism of August 28 and the Lincoln Memorial to promote an agenda of intolerance," said Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League, told Media Matters. Morial said that Beck "is deliberately trying to poke a stick in our eye, or kick sand in our faces" by holding this rally.

"His vision of America is a vision of America from yesterday and our vision is an America of tomorrow that builds on yesterday," he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist movements in America, calls Beck's rally a "sick farce" and points out that his attacks on Obama and minority leaders have "earned him grudging respect from hardcore white nationalists who usually have little patience for major media."

Even the normally slow-on-the-uptake teabaggers have caught on. "I call it 'Beckaplooza,' because it seems to be all about Beck," Andrew Ian Dodge, the Maine state coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, told Politico.

"There have been discussions continuously over the last year about whether he is necessarily a force for good or not necessarily," he said. "Beck takes it outside of the realm of fiscal conservatism into issues that are more emotional and make you wonder if we really want to be associated with this guy." According to the article, Dodge cites "Beck's inflammatory rhetoric, including his blasting of Obama as a racist."

So, when Beck and his little robots are marching around the Lincoln Memorial pretending to be patriots, remember that they're allowed to do this under the First Amendment. A counter-demonstration is planned, because that's freedom of speech too. And when Glenn Beck gets up behind the podium, squirts Vick's Vapo-Rub into his eyes, and starts "weeping for his country," remember that -- as stupid and phony as those tears are -- they're free speech.

Somehow, I doubt Beck and his robots will give that any thought at all. They're big fans of the First Amendment only when it applies to them. Let it apply to Muslims in Manhattan and they couldn't care less.

-Wisco


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If You Liked "Fahrenheit 9/11," You're a Terrorist

The so-called "Ground Zero mosque" (which isn't actually a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero) is a mere distraction from the larger issues of unemployment, wars, and the economy. It is but a trifle and beneath the notice of intelligent people. It's a blip on the national radar screen that frivolous people have decided to make the fad of the moment. So say the Serious People in Ties. This argument tells us that congress isn't in session, the election campaigns are firing up, so we're entering the "silly season" of American politics, when demagoguery and grandstanding rear their less-than-serious heads and this isn't something we should really pay a lot of attention to. But this line of reasoning ignores the months of hysteria-whipping by the likes of Newt Gingrich and lunatic blogger Pam Geller. This has been brewing for some time and the idea that it's only now gotten the attention of the Serious People in Ties is laughable. They've watched it unfold, reported on it, and now they want to pretend it spontaneously ignited sometime last week. Apparently, the Serious People in Ties have grown weary of this particular story. Time to move on.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald noticed this "it's a distraction" trend in punditry and, as he often does, took the contrary position. According to Greenwald, the issue of Cordoba House at Park51 isn't some momentary outbreak of stupidity. Rather, it underlines a deep and growing misunderstanding of what America is all about and gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves if we like where we're headed.

[The "distraction" meme is] an artificially narrow and misguided way of understanding what this dispute is about.  The intense animosity toward Muslims driving this campaign extends far beyond Ground Zero, and manifests in all sorts of significant and dangerous ways.  In June, The New York Times reported on a vicious opposition campaign against a proposed mosque in Staten Island.  Earlier this month, Associated Press documented that "Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation's heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive."  And today, The Washington Post examines anti-mosque campaigns from communities around the nation and concludes that "the intense feelings driving that debate have surfaced in communities from California to Florida in recent months, raising questions about whether public attitudes toward Muslims have shifted."

To belittle this issue as though it's the equivalent of the media's August fixation on shark attacks or Chandra Levy -- or, worse, to want to ignore it because it's harmful to the Democrats' chances in November -- is profoundly irresponsible.  The Park51 conflict is driven by, and reflective of, a pervasive animosity toward a religious minority -- one that has serious implications for how we conduct ourselves both domestically and internationally...

Case in point: the Wall Street Journal reports that "Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites." For a mere "distraction," this seems to have serious ramifications. According to that report, "One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions." It's obvious that this extends beyond even constitutional issues like the freedoms of speech and religion. As important as those are, there are concerns less abstract and more concrete.

But what is this doing to our rhetorical landscape? The aforementioned Pam Geller posted some quotes from one of the organizers of the Cordoba House project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, "proving" he's some sort of Islamic radical bent on destroying Israel and promoting terrorism in the United States. Among the evidence: Rauf likes Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a film customers give 3-and-a-half stars on Amazon.com. Who knew there were so many terrorist sympathizers in the United States?

One of Rauf's statements that Geller finds outrageous is the following:

We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.

Apparently, math hates America. What Rauf says here is undeniably true; more people died because of Iraq sanctions than have from terrorist attacks in the west. In 1999, the BBC reported, "Unicef estimates that at least 500,000 children have died, who ordinarily would have lived." Madeline Albright may have thought those deaths were worth it, but it doesn't strike me as incredibly unreasonable to disagree -- especially considering the fact that I do disagree. Again, by Geller's reasoning, this "proves" I'm a terrorist sympathizer or an Islamic extremist.

Another "radical" quote has Rauf saying, "The West needs to begin to see themselves through the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world, and when you do you will see the predicament that exists within the Muslim community." Because putting yourself in someone else's shoes is fundamentally un-American or something.

Another: "So men will say: women, you know, they're emotional, ..... whatever, whatever, and women will say: men, they're brutes, insensitive, etcetera [sic], and you have the beginning of a gender conflict. If gender is not what distinguishes us we'll look at skin colouring and say: n#####s or whities, or whatever." This one proves he's... I don't know, racist I guess. Seriously, you have to actively try to read these as offensive. Geller provides zero context (there's a surprise), so anything you try to read into it comes from your own head. And even taken out of context, nothing here seems especially bad. He talks about a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which would necessitate Israel becoming a secular nation, like the US. Geller casts this as Rauf arguing that Muslims -- and I quote -- "must destroy the tiny Jewish state." Needless to say, Rauf says nothing remotely like that, it's just Geller's ham-handed attempt at spin.

I don't doubt that Geller and her crowd aren't big fans of a one-state solution or Michael Moore, but do we really need to elevate these disagreements to the level of some sort of hate speech? Is saying that a lot of people died needlessly because of the sanctions on Iraq really some sort of verbal terrorism? Is it really necessary to equate everyone who watched Fahrenheit 9/11 with Islamic extremists?

Here's the problem in a nutshell: if there's one thing I've noticed about the right over the years, it's that they never let anything go. If something is declared politically incorrect by the right, it remains verboten for decades. So, if it becomes accepted on the right that Michael Moore and criticism of US foreign policy equates to Islamic extremism, then the left can expect to be accused of it until 2020, at least. Probably longer. Republicans started accusing Democrats of socialism after FDR -- look how long it's taking them to let that one go. Similarly, Sarah Palin came just short of accusing Barack Obama of being a terrorist in the '08 presidential campaign. Notice that one fading into the background?

Now, being Muslim is becoming politically incorrect in itself. People like Geller spend tremendous amounts of energy trying to convince people that every Muslim is a terrorist and that there's no such thing as progressive or moderate Islam. If Democrats are still called socialist after WWII, imagine how long Muslims will remain terrorists. And imagine how long it'll be before it's politically correct to criticize belligerence in American foreign policy again.

So no, the focus on Park51 is not a part of the "silly season." It's a struggle for the future of America and what little sanity remains in our national discourse. Far from a distraction and beyond even questions of fundamental fairness and constitutional law, it's essential. It's the answer to a very simple question: will a new McCarthyism rise in this country, to remain a facet of our politics for decades, or will we nip this idiocy and hatred in the bud?

I know which answer I'm rooting for.

-Wisco


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A War that Broke Two Nations

The war in Iraq is over -- except that it's not. Last night, the last combat troops rolled out of Iraq, entering Kuwait on their way home. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" has come to a close, even if our presence in the country is ongoing and active. "The remaining 50,000 troops are viewed as trainers and logistics support to the Iraqi government," writes Juan Cole. "But they include special operations units, helicopter gunship crews, and other war fighters who are still going to be engaged in combat but will not be categorized as being in Iraq for that purpose. Iraq has no air force to speak of, and the US will be providing the air support until at least 2018." This time, no one's being stupid about it; no "Mission Accomplished" banners hang anywhere, there are no "WAR OVER!" headlines in newspapers or crawling along on cable under the chins of talking heads. It's just a quiet, orderly, incomplete withdrawal from a nation we had no business occupying in the first place. Cole writes of the "true significance of Thursday's last convoy":

...It is a symbol of a turnaround in US policy, a repudiation of the Bush administration doctrine of preemptive war. "Preemptive war" is a euphemism for the rehabilitation of aggressive war, which the world community attempted to abolish in the United Nations charter. While many blame Obama for escalating the Afghanistan War, that war at least grew out of the al-Qaeda attack on US soil, which was planned out in Khost and Qandahar, and it has the backing of the UN and of NATO, which invoked article 5 of its charter (an attack on one is an attack on all).

In contrast, the Iraq War was virtually without legal foundation. In the United Nations order, there are only two legitimate preconditions for going to war. One is clear self-defense, in response to an aggressive attack. (The Gulf War, responding to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, is a case in point). The other is authorization by the UN Security Council. But W. had neither precondition on his side when he invaded Iraq, and so he acted lawlessly, as Obama saw clearly at the time.

The US Republican Party has increasingly become the party of fear. Shock and awe was designed to scare the international community. At home, the party sought to rule on behalf of the super-wealthy and of White nationalists and the Christian Right by making the public afraid -– of terrorism, of Muslims, implicitly of minorities. Fear as a tool of statecraft has no place in an Enlightenment republic.

As obvious as Cole's statement is, there are some who'd disagree. While Bush at least tried to make a distinction between Islam and terrorism, it'd be hard to argue that he tried hard enough or enjoyed any success on that front. Our current situation, where the right has become a pack of cowards afraid of religious liberty, demonstrates that well enough. The War on Terror has become a War on Islam. And Bush's statement that "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" has many concluding that President Obama is with the terrorists, since he supports the Constitutional principle of religious freedom. One in five now believe the president is a Muslim -- an increase driven mostly by Republican responses to a new Pew poll. Islam is the enemy, the president is siding with Islam, therefore the president is the enemy. A decade of neoconservative fearmongering as produced a nation of lunatic cowards who wave the flag and talk about liberty a lot, but whose only real issues are safety from various and sundry international conspiracies that exist mostly in their imaginations.

But of course, the rehabilitation of George W. Bush and his catastrophically stupid invasion has been underway for a long time. And, for some, now is the time to step up the effort.

The Hill:

...McCain criticized President Obama's approach to the Iraq War as a senator, saying if he and congressional Democrats had their way, the war would have been lost.

"If Barack Obama had his way as a United States senator," U.S. troops would have had to withdraw early and "over time radical Islamic extremists would have taken over that country," the senator said on KFYI Radio in Arizona.

"We would have surrendered -- waved the white flag of surrender and lost," he said, adding that "none of those people [Democrats] are being held accountable."

Actually, if Barack Obama had had his way, we would never have even been in Iraq. In 2002, as an Illinois state senator, Obama said, "What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income -- to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression... That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics... I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."

Beat that, Senator McCain.

Yesterday's withdrawal was not the end. Not by a longshot. But it was an important step toward peace. It was also a step that no sane nation should ever have had to take. There was no reason to invade Iraq and, having made that mistake, the only reason to stay was to try to limit the damage from that idiotic action. The war became a self-justifying thing, a monster put together from the remaining shreds of our sense of responsibility and our conscience. As Colin Powell warned would be the case, we broke it, so we bought it. And we're supposed to forget we broke it on purpose. We're also supposed to ignore the fact that we've turned into a nation of pansies, afraid of our own shadows and the mosque down the street. We mistake bluster for strength and belligerence for courage and we believe that hate is a virtue, so long as that hatred is pure and passionate enough. If the hatred is of high enough quality, we call it "patriotism."

I'm tempted to say that we may have done as much damage to America as we did to Iraq, but that would be insanely hyperbolic. Still, it'd be hard to argue that the long period of hate and fear and lies and idiocy that was the Bush administration and their wars have left us unscathed. This isn't the country we used to be. This is a stupid country, a fearful country, a reactionary and gullible country, poorer now both morally and materially.

But last night, we took one step down a long road, back in the right direction. It's going to be a real hike, but we don't have any choice but to take it.

-Wisco


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Westboro Hate Cult Wins Big, Rightwingers Too Busy With Their Own Hate to Notice

Hate won big yesterday as a court in Missouri declared a state ban on protests at military unconstitutional. The decision clears the way for a small Kansas cult to march around at funerals with signs that read "GOD HATES AMERICA!" and "THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS!" Why does God hate America, you might ask? Because we don't hate gay people nearly enough. Cult leader Fred Phelps says that our war dead are God's punishment for allowing gays to exist in America, which explains the additional "GOD HATES FAGS!" and "AIDS CURES FAGS!" signs. Of course, the thought of people dishonoring the memory of dead heroes (and they will do it, the ban was in reaction to previous protests) has the nation up in arms, with politicians of all stripes elbowing each other out of the way to to denounce the cult in question, Westboro Baptist Church.

Or so you'd hope. Our reality, however, is an entirely matter. Westboro's big win for hate was widely ignored, because another battle for hate was still being waged. That battle was much, much more important: some Muslims want to build a community center in the neighborhood of Ground Zero. This is apparently more outrageous than hate-cult zombies marching around the graves of veterans with signs that read "GOD BLEW UP THE TROOPS." Never mind that once Cordoba House is built (if it is built), you'll never hear about it again; we're all supposed to think that a mosque within walking distance of the former address of the World Trade Center is a bigger insult to the memories of heroes than people with signs actively trying to insult to the memories of heroes. If you need proof that political outrage is one of the few things still manufactured in America, I'd say the silence on Phelps and his hate-squad qualifies. No one on the right seems to care, despite the fact that the court's decision clears the way for a much greater insult to America and her defenders than anything that will ever come from a community center in a neighborhood most people will never even see.

But, of course, Phelps' hate is based in homophobia and there are more than a few on the right who are no less hateful toward gays, just more cautious in their approach. So Phelps presents a bit of a problem for the homophobic right; how to attack him without running to the defense of the dreaded Homosexual Menace? Better just to pretend he doesn't exist and attack the groups you hate in your own way and in your own time.





And the right has been wasting no time on that front. This has been called The Summer of Hate. As the Republican Party gets closer to election day, they become more and more insane. And the GOP has never -- not in my experience anyway -- been more of the nearly exclusively white Christian party that they are today. The Republican party holds an advantage in the generic ballot only in the south. And the people they've been attacking have either been insufficiently white or insufficiently Christian. Gays, Hispanics, blacks, and Muslims are all facing rightwing hatred these days, as the politics of hatred becomes the new wedge issue the Republican Party uses to divide the electorate. When Newt Gingrich compares an entire American demographic group to Nazis, you know you've left rationality far behind.

"If we had any sense, the fall elections would be about just one thing: the economy," writes Howard Fineman. "But we do not have any sense." What we have is just fear and hate.

...We are facing what Wall Street would call the "triple witching hour." Republicans have their finger on three social-demographic hot buttons. The first is illegal immigration (in proposing a review of the 14th Amendment), and the second is Islam in America (in objecting to the mosque at ground zero). They won't be able to avoid pushing the third, race, even if they wanted to, given that the two leading congressional Democrats facing ethics charges are African-American. The Democrats, in response, label the GOP xenophobic and intolerant -- and those are the nice words. If Barack Obama's inauguration -- could it have been only 19 months ago? -- was a moment of proud, blessed calm, we are now looking at a nasty, community-shredding season of fear.

I've mentioned before how cowardly the Republican base has become, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the GOP have become fearmongers -- and that fearmongering leads to hatemongering. And our current crop of Democrats are such pansies that they won't stand up against it. Many Democrats say they were "blindsided" by President Obama's defense of the First Amendment. And they're complaining about it.

New York Daily News:

Several Democratic campaign operatives complained that without a heads-up, they did not have the time to war-game how to handle questions from the news media or GOP attacks.

"They did the right thing -- they just didn't do it the right way," lamented another Democratic source.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has spent three days on the phone doing damage control with angry Democrats and urging them not to go public against the President, Democratic sources said.

Yes, shame on the president for not assuming you were a bunch of wusses who couldn't be counted on to stand up for American principles. For his part, Senate majority leader Harry Reid completely fell apart on the news. I wish I could say I was surprised. The man has a spine of Silly Putty.

But the spinelessness of many Democrats is no excuse for Republicans. It isn't the other party's job to be their conscience. They are responsible for their own actions and their own words and they are responsible for the almost inevitable results of those actions and words.

So when the Westboro jerks start marching around at vets' funerals with their insulting signs, ask a rightwinger what they were doing the day that became possible. The odds are good they won't have any idea, since they completely ignored it. So go ahead and tell them -- they were busy hating everyone else. Then hand them a sign and tell them to join in.

Veterans will be the only people they have left to hate anyway, so why not just go all the way? Tell them to ahead and join Fred Phelps, the only person who's actually honest about his hatred.

-Wisco


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Reactions to President Obama's Friday Statement

I'm in danger of becoming "Ground Zero mosque" central. I've written three posts about it over the weekend and here I am writing one more. Since President Obama's statement on the subject was on Friday, a lot of people simmered over the weekend waiting to write about it. Now that it's Monday, the simmering is over and it's time to serve.

A good place to start would be at the very beginning. Luckily, Salon.com's Justin Elliott goes all the way back to the time that no one cared about Cordoba House (yes, that time actually existed) and tracks the timeline from local news story to manufactured national outrage. The short version of this story is that Islamophobic wingnut blogger Pam Geller is a very useless and awful person. May history remember her jerkitude.

Another piece worth reading is by TIME's Mark Halperin. In "Obama's Islamic-Center Stance: Why the GOP Shouldn't Run Against It," Halperin spells out how Republicans could take advantage of Obama's support of the First Amendment to fearmonger their way to bigger wins in November. Obama's statement on Cordoba House "opened the door so wide that walking through it will be effortless," he writes. But then continues:

But please don't do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now -- the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled by all the overheated rhetoric -- is not worth whatever political gain your party might achieve.

It isn't clear how the battle over the proposed center should or will end. But two things are profoundly clear: Republicans have a strong chance to win the midterm elections without picking a fight over President Obama's measured words. And a national political fight conducted on the terms we have seen in the past few days will lead to a chain reaction at home and abroad that will have one winner -- the very extreme and violent jihadists we all can claim as our true enemy.

In short, there's every logical and moral reason not to stoke the fires of intolerance and hatred for short-term political gain. Greg Sargent remarks, "Kudos to Mark Halperin for calling on the GOP to 'do the right thing' and refrain from using Obama's mosque speech as a weapon," while Steve Benen is a lot less optimistic.

"I would genuinely love to be proven wrong," Benen writes, "but waiting for GOP integrity invariably leads to crushing disappointment." Early indicators show Benen's pessimism to be well-founded, as an earlier post he wrote shows Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn signaling that pouring gas on this particular fire is something the GOP is more than willing to do.

At the Republican media's "serious" site, National Review Online, Josh Barro demonstrates how Republican demagoguery on the issue will wind up turning off the more civil libertarian and foreign policy-minded conservatives.

If it were generally the case that Muslims are being welcomed into our communities, and allowed to build their houses of worship without public hostility, then it would be possible to condemn the Cordoba House’s site without worrying about alienating and excluding Muslims generally. But unfortunately the complaints about Cordoba House are just the highest-profile example of a wish that Muslims would stay out of our neighborhoods -- the trouble being that everywhere is somebody’s neighborhood.

In addition to being morally objectionable, undermining the integration and acceptance of Muslims in American society is a huge strategic error. Newt Gingrich doesn’t want mosques in Lower Manhattan until churches are allowed in Mecca -- making the bizarre case that our level of religious liberty is fine so long as it is no worse than in Saudi Arabia. But Cordoba House presents an opportunity to show how we are better than Saudis -- and that it is no skin off our back when mosques are built in America, even in the Financial District of Manhattan.

If I were you, however, I wouldn't hold my breath until people like Barro start getting the headlines that idiots like Gingrich get. As always, conflict sells ad time for ShamWow, so voices of reason -- no matter which side of the aisle they come from -- are likely to be pushed aside in favor of Sarah Palin's latest incoherent tweet.

And, of course, President Obama seems to have undercut his own statement -- at least a little. "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there," he said later. "I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding." To me, this isn't much of a backpedal, since an opinion on "the wisdom" of the location is irrelevant anyway. But a lot of people have been making hay with it.

As this whole thing unfolds, we'll see who stands with the Constitution by defending the right to build Cordoba House and we'll see who stands against it by capitalizing on hatred and fear and intolerance. Unfortunately, we'll also see some cowardly Democrats unwilling to touch the issue with a ten-foot pole. And that's a pity.

-Wisco


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The Hate Americans Crowd

It's what they do. Faced with accusations of bigotry, the right always defend themselves by finding token members of the group they're attacking. They aren't racist; look, black teabaggers! They aren't homophobic; see? Here's an anti-equality gay. It's supposed to be proof that the problem isn't their prejudices, because even hated _insert group here_ buy into their unconvincing rationalizations for those prejudices.

And so it is with the right's jihad against mosques. It's not about anti-Islamic sentiment and paranoid wingnut fantasies, it's about the weak justifications for those sentiments and fantasies. As accusations of bigotry rise, the right finds Neda Bolourchi, a Muslim woman whose mother died on 9/11. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Bolourchi defends the position of the prejudiced -- that a Muslim community center in Manhattan should not be built. Not now, not ever.

[A] mosque near Ground Zero will not move this conversation forward. There were many mosques in the United States before Sept. 11; their mere existence did not bring cross-cultural understanding. The proposed center in New York may be heralded as a peace offering -- may genuinely seek to focus on "promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture," as its Web site declares -- but I fear that over time, it will cultivate a fundamentalist version of the Muslim faith, embracing those who share such beliefs and hating those who do not.

The Sept. 11 attacks were the product of a hateful ideology that the perpetrators were willing to die for. They believed that all non-Muslims are infidels and that the duty of Muslims is to renounce them. I am not a theologian, but I know that the men who killed my mother carried this message in their hearts and minds. Obedient and dutiful soldiers, they marched toward their promised rewards in heaven with utter disregard for the value of the human beings they killed.

It's hard for me to read the op-ed and not see, "Don't let them build the center, because we are terrible people." For some reason, this one anti-mosque Muslim is supposed to outweigh all the other Muslim voices. We're supposed to mistake the contrarian for the majority and conclude that even Muslims don't approve of a community center within walking distance of Ground Zero. People unwilling to think about it will do just that.

Meanwhile, a New York Times article makes the anti-"Ground Zero mosque" crowd's real agenda clear; no mosques -- nor Muslims -- anywhere in the US.

At one time, neighbors who did not want mosques in their backyards said their concerns were over traffic, parking and noise — the same reasons they might object to a church or a synagogue. But now the gloves are off.

In all of the recent conflicts, opponents have said their problem is Islam itself. They quote passages from the Koran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic Shariah law.

So, if Neda Bolourchi thinks these people are her friends, then Neda Bolourchi is a fool. The people she's defending think she's a terrorist. "What's different is the heat, the volume, the level of hostility," Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky told NYT. "It's one thing to oppose a mosque because traffic might increase, but it's different when you say these mosques are going to be nurturing terrorist bombers, that Islam is invading, that civilization is being undermined by Muslims."

These anti-mosque campaigns are happening all over the country. And the campaigners are pretty much identical in each case -- fairweather patriots who love the Constitution until they don't. The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion only applies to their religion. Other religions -- and Islam especially -- should be banned. Let's be clear about one thing; this is Anti-American. It's the worst kind of demagoguery and staggeringly hypocritical for a group who compares everyone and everything to Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. Singling out a religious group for persecution is inexcusable and, if you're one of those doing it, you get to shut up about what a big-time patriot you are. "Patriot" is not a synonym for "dick." You might as well burn a flag, while you're at it.

And once again, I'm disappointed -- but not surprised -- by the seemingly bottomless cowardice of the Republican base. All you need to do is point to someone and say, "fear them!" and the wingnuts are diving under the furniture like there's a tornado on the way. The right is far, far too ready to be afraid and far, far too unwilling to embrace courage. At no time will a talk radio blowhard, FOX News personality, or Republican politician ever call on you to be brave. No, they'll massage that mile-wide yellow streak down the average teabagger's back to stimulate their overly-sensitive panic reflex. But don't worry, the Republican Party will protect you. You just need to go out and vote.

And, of course, the paranoia becomes fulfilling. Treat people like crap for long enough and they'll start to get the idea that you might just be cruel and stupid and unworthy of consideration. Shout insults at someone long enough and the thought of punching you in the mouth becomes more and more welcome.

Raw Story:

The efforts by some groups to prevent the construction of mosques could backfire, suggests a recent study that urges the building of Muslim community centers and mosques as a way of preventing Islamic radicalism.

The two-year-long study (PDF), which was brought to public attention in Sunday's New York Times, states that "the creation of robust Muslim-American communities may serve as a preventative measure against radicalization by reducing social isolation of individuals who may be at risk of becoming radicalized."

It asserts that "the stronger such communities are, in terms of social networks, educational programs, and provision of social services, the more likely they are to identify individuals who are prone to radicalization and intervene appropriately."

Oh wow. Hate and stupidity and jerking knees and demagoguery aren't really constructive.

Imagine my shock.

-Wisco


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Newt Gingrich: America's Premier Bigot

Liberty
(n) liberty (immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence)
(n) liberty (freedom of choice) "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes" -- Princeton Wordnet

I start out with a definition of liberty because a lot of the people who use it most seem to have no idea what the hell it means. The people who call themselves "defenders of liberty" were actually handed a couple of setbacks this week, with a city board approving a Muslim community center in Manhattan and a judge in California striking down a ban on same-sex marriage. In both cases, liberty prevailed. And, in both cases, those "defenders of liberty" expressed their outrage.

Among the most shameful voices about the community center -- to be named Cordoba House -- has been disgraced former house speaker Newt Gingrich. And his reasoning was as idiotic as we've come to expect. "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," he said in a statement. "The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."

Shorter Newt Gingrich; "If Saudi Arabia isn't going to practice religious freedom, we should become just as oppressive -- that'll show 'em! First Amendment be damned." You wonder when Newt will get around to calling for a moratorium on Catholic churches. After all, you're not going to find a lot of mosques in Vatican City. But that would require consistency in reasoning and that's not what we've come to expect from Gingrich -- or anyone else on the right, for that matter. And, of course, banning mosques would verify about 90% of Islamic terrorist propaganda. This doesn't strike me as being all that constructive.





"Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for 'religious toleration' are arrogantly dishonest," he went on. "They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City." Apparently, there's an unwritten limit to religious freedom, with one house of worship allowed for every X adherents. Anything more than that and you're just abusing the privilege.

But it's not a privilege, it's a right. For people like Gingrich, rights are things that can be ignored or suspended arbitrarily, with the rights afforded one group depending on the bigoted whims of another. Newt -- and the people who applaud him -- get to shut up about how they're patriots who defend the Constitution from now on. They aren't and they don't. Liberty won, you guys lost. Let that sink in while you're enjoying your frosty mug of STFU.

And it's those bigoted whims of a group that were struck down in court in California. In his ruling, Judge John Walker found:

Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as "the right to same-sex marriage" would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy -- namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages.

Simple, rational, and just. No one is losing anything here, while liberty is expanded. Not surprisingly, Newt doesn't see it that way:

Judge Walker's ruling overturning Prop 8 is an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution and for the majority of people of the United States who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. In every state of the union from California to Maine to Georgia, where the people have had a chance to vote they've affirmed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Congress now has the responsibility to act immediately to reaffirm marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy. Today’s notorious decision also underscores the importance of the Senate vote tomorrow on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court because judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.

Yeah, a judge overturned an unconstitutional law in California and that's why we have to keep Elena Kagan -- who isn't that judge -- off the Supreme Court. Not extremely surprisingly, Newt's not very smart about running his blog and has an open comment system -- where he's getting his sorry ass handed to him. Not only has Newt Gingrich lost the argument in New York and California, but he's losing the argument at Newt.org.

Another win for liberty. Make sure you let him know that.

-Wisco


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Without Hate, the Tea Party is Nothing

This weekend, the Tea Party held a "Uni-Tea" rally to demonstrate all their non-racism and Diversi-Tea. Featured speakers included black conservatives and Andrew Breitbart. The fact of Breitbart's constant attacks on black institutions was totally airbrushed out of his own personal history and no mention was made of the NAACP or Shirley Sherrod. As far as the diversity off the stage goes, I've already covered that -- long story short, there wasn't a lot. The crowd was pretty thin, which suggests to me two explanations, to be taken either in combination or separately: the average teabagger finds a rally without all the racism no fun and/or the tea party is suffering from outrage fatigue and losing steam.

But more than racial diversity was represented at the rally. Two agents of the Homosexual Agenda infiltrated the ranks.

Talking Points Memo:

Apparently, Uni-Tea wasn't only bridging the racial gap. Brendan Kissam and Matt Hissey wandered into the event carrying signs that said "proud gay conservative" and "freedom is fabulous." They said they were "the Gayborhood's envoy to the tea party."

The pair said the tea party is welcoming to their minority group, too. "The Tea Party is accepting of everybody," said Hissey, adding that "Skin color diversity -- that's not real diversity. Everyone here has a different life experience." Hissey recognized that the tea party "might be against gay marriage," but that's ok, he said, because he is too.

I'm guessing that Kissam and Hissey (can those possibly be their real names?) hadn't had a lot of experience with the Tea Party. Just last week, an incident in Pennsylvania demonstrated the Party's attitude toward gays and lesbians -- they're evil. The Potter County library was set to show a film titled Out In The Silence. According to the Patriot-News newspaper, the film is "about the challenges of being openly gay in rural Pennsylvania." This film was not going to be shown... Not if "real Americans" had any say, anyway.

The leader of the Potter County Tea Party, through a local blogger, claimed the library was allowing conservative Christians to be "attacked for our beliefs at a public library we support with our tax money. This is wrong and cannot be tolerated." Later, he apologized for using the tea party name to express his personal opinion...

Although the local tea party official claimed "$1.5 million of local taxes" go to the library, the reality is its total budget last year was $117,000 -- with less than $42,000 from local governments.

At its core, the Tea Party doesn't have any central belief; they are defined by what they're against, because they don't seem to be "for" anything. They like to talk about the Constitution a lot, but their Constitution a fantasy document written by Christian zealots that bears little resemblance to the one ratified by people immersed in the Enlightenment. For them, Freedom of Religion means the freedom to join their religion -- and everyone else gets to shut up about it.

To say that the Tea Party is feverish with bigotry is to simply state the obvious. Never mind the racist signs and slogans, those are dismissed as the "cranks" -- something teabaggers do every time they're confronted with them. Take a look at their stances on issues of tolerance. For example, you will never in a hundred-billion years encounter a Muslim teabagger. There's a reason for that.

Joe Conason, Salon:

Sarah Palin's semiliterate yet somehow Shakespearian tweet protesting the "Ground Zero mosque" has drawn fresh attention to a cause that excites bigots across the country. Her friend Mark Williams, the racist loudmouth expelled from the Tea Party movement over the weekend, is already leading a national campaign of agitation against the "mosque" and the worshippers of Islam's "monkey god." Florida evangelist William Keller wants a piece of the fame and fortune, too. New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio even seems to believe that opposing the mosque -- and perhaps all mosques -- will revive his stagnating candidacy.

Like so much right-wing agitation, the campaign against the mosque in lower Manhattan -- actually an interfaith community center known as the Cordoba House that will include a mosque -- depends on fear and misinformation. Its political purpose is to demonize Islam and its adherents, no matter how peaceful and moderate, by pandering to prejudice and inflaming emotions left raw by the losses of 9/11.

If the Tea Party is defined by those things that they're against, then they're united in their hatred of Muslims. It's not just Cordoba House that draws Tea Party fire, but any mosque built anywhere in America. In Tennessee, a proposed Murfreesboro Muslim community center has become an issue in the Governor's race. Current Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey has gone so far as to deny that Islam is an actual religion and, as a mere "cult," may not deserve any Constitutional protections afforded other religions.

In Florida, things are especially bad. In May, a pipe bomb exploded in a Jacksonville mosque, causing "significant" damage, "right before evening prayers at the mosque." In Gainesville, the Dove World Outreach Center plans to hold a good old-fashioned book-burning, as the Quran will torched to commemorate 9/11. Also in Gainesville, several members of the same church were sent home from school for wearing a t-shirt that read, "ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL."

"I've met Muslim children, but I don't actually have any contact with them at the moment," one student said. "I don't know why that is -- I guess we've just never become friends." You're wearing a t-shirt that says, "ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL," and you don't know why you don't have any Muslim friends? Really?

If there were no racism at all on the right, this would still be bigotry. A multi-cultural, multi-racial alliance against one ethnic group is still bigotry -- and that bigotry is a cornerstone of the entire movement. There's a reason that Republican politicians are jumping on the "no mosques anywhere" bandwagon: because the teabaggers are already leading that parade.

-Wisco


UPDATE: Case in point, via Think Progress:

A mosque in Texas was heavily vandalized last weekend, coming in the wake of a national intolerance movement by the right wing against Muslim places of worship. On Friday, members of the Dar El-Eman Islamic Education Center, in South Arlington, found "graffiti depicting Uncle Sam and Allah in a sexual position spray-painted in the parking lot.”"Then, early Sunday morning, in a case of suspected arson, a fire destroyed playground equipment at the mosque, causing $20,000 worth of damage. The vandals also cut a pipe, allegedly thinking that it was a natural gas line...

According to the report, this wasn't an isolated incident; "An open gas canister was left inside a mosque under construction in the same town last summer, and there was a separate 'attack' reported recently in nearby Rockwall. Meanwhile, in Temecula, CA, where the local Muslim community wants to build a new mosque, about 20 people protested its construction Friday, carrying signs reading, 'Muslims Danced for Joy on 9/11' and 'No Sharia Law.'"

How long before this anti-Islamic fearmongering actually kills someone? Your guess is as good as mine, but don't be surprised if it does.


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