Hate

Here’s a curious post trying to get at the bottom of all the hate and bile flowing from the right. It highlights a curious conundrum…

The answer is that until the advent of the Obama presidency, Republicans had no reason to scapegoat Muslims or demonize Islam — and indeed, they could not have inflamed those prejudices without damaging their own leaders, especially George W. Bush.

Evidence of the blatantly partisan character of the current anti-Muslim campaign can be found everywhere — on Fox News Channel, cable channel of the GOP; in the latest excrescence of Newt Gingrich and David Bossie; and in the roster of speakers at Saturday’s “no mosque” rally, which featured a video message from John Bolton, the Bush administration’s former ambassador to the United Nations.

The presence of Bolton is telling because he served a president who articulated precisely the same benign view of Islam — which Bush famously described as a religion of peace — as his successor. But the political and cultural messaging that Republicans and conservatives accepted quietly from Bush is today considered tantamount to treason when promoted by Obama.

Oh, it’s more than that. The debts ran up under Bush and Reagan were quietly accepted, if not celebrated, until Obama, then they became considered tantamount to treason. Unfunded mandates (Medicare Part D) were quietly accepted, if not celebrated, until Obama, when *funded* mandates (Health Care Reform) became considered tantamount to treason. Heck, Obama ending Bush’s wars is considered tantamount to treason by the Right, despite the fact that it was they, and their lying President, who started them.

The reason they can do this, and their core batch of ignorant bigots eats it up, is their branding of Obama as *the Other*. 40% of Republicans think he’s Muslim. Over half aren’t sure he was born in this country. They get to load up all their hate and fear and project it onto *the Other*.

Rather despicable that they can get away with it, but in a media age when the “liberal” channel is run by a combination of a convicted monopolist and a huge defense contractor, it’s not surprising this kind of crap gets a pass.

One would hope to see this tactic of motivating by hate and fear dissipate after the Republicans shamelessly use it to gain back some power in November. Taking a quick look at the history of democracies in the throes of financial turmoil (and our own history which is replete with this stuff), I’m guessing this hate-tactic is going to be around for a while. After all, it certainly can’t be the rich, white folks who ran our military into stupid wars (while cutting taxes, no less) and off an the economic cliff.

No sirreee, they’d never do such a thing. They’re like “us”, responsible people who love good things.

It has to be the Muslims/Mexicans/Socialists/’Pick Your Fear Group’. After all, “they” don’t like good things at all, and in fact want to destroy everything you love. Right, Republicans?

The level of absurdity on this one just went to 110 (out of 10).

Here’s the backstory (a bit of it anyway). And here’s the ad from a political group that invaded and destroyed a country because it had the same religion as “them”. You really can see “their” thought process on Iraq in this video. The hatred just seeeps…

I guarantee you the Tea Party nutjobs (with their own “class” displayed here) probably got a stiffy and a nice herp, derp, guffaw out of “the audacity of jihad.”

The amount of hate and death spread by a group of whom 90% allegedly follow a guy who said to love your neighbor and turn your other cheek when attacked (and wasn’t so high on the rich) is astounding. It’s almost like they are a bunch of hypocrites (yet another religio-politico contradiction). Scratch that, it’s not almost, it’s exactly like that. I guess it’s easier to shoot people when sitting on a high horse.

I mean, can you find a better real-world example of hypocrisy?

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

“Go home,” several shouted from the crowd.

“Get out,” others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

“I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

“I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here,” a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.