Glenn Greenwald: The right kind of bigotry

[meegbear]

From the long-time Editor-in-Chief and owner of The New Republic, this morning:

There were moments--long moments--during the Iraq war when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

The point here is so obvious that it makes itself. In the bolded sentence, replace the word "Arabs" with "Jews" and ask yourself: how much time would elapse before the author of such a sentence would be vehemently scorned and shunned by all decent people, formally condemned by a litany of organizations, and have his livelihood placed in jeopardy? Or replace the word "Arabs" in that sentence with "Jews" or "blacks" or "Latinos" or even "whites" or virtually any other identifiable demographic group and ask yourself this: how many people would treat a magazine edited and owned by such a person as a remotely respectable or mainstream publication (notwithstanding the several decent journalists employed there)? Yet Marty Peretz spits out the most bigoted sentiments of this type -- and he's been doing this for years, as is well known -- and very little happens, because, for multiple reasons, this specific type of hate-mongering remains basically permitted in American political discourse. The double standard at play here is as extreme and self-evident as it is pernicious, but it doesn't matter. And we'll all wait with bated breath for the next installment of The New Republic's righteous, accusatory attacks on the entirely fictitious manifestations of the one strain of bigotry that bothers them, because they're such credible arbiters and opponents of prejudice.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/06/peretz/index.html

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. The nakedness of it is an awesome thing to behold!

Greenwald is absolutely correct about this! It would be hard to imagine a more racist remark than that offered by Peretz. It staggers the mind to contemplate the tsunami of outrage that would ensue if Peretz had made this statement about any other minority or ethnic group.

I would offer that the lack of outrage is a testament to the power of our corrupt mainstream media. They will ignore this statement by Peretz because it fits the marketing campaign behind our two wars. It also demonstrates their power in another way as well. The fact that there will be not general outrage shows that they have done their jobs exceedingly well to demonize and dehumanize an ENTIRE race of people.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. I guess this Peretz asshole got the message

He has since edited his piece to tone down his racism to medium roar instead of a full-throated one.