The right-wing, blinded by its own hysteria OpEd

[liberal N proud]

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?

By Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082303743.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline


The brouhaha over Park51 is part of a larger pattern in which the far right stokes fear.

[indepat]

1. RW hypocrisy, hate, hysteria, histrionics, and other heinousness, defining this nation's soul and

its people, day by day, one outrageous act followed by yet another, and it ain't a pretty sight. :P

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Excellent, excellent article. K&R.

[foxfeet]

3. K&R

[Enthusiast]

4. What the RW is doing

is an act of desperation. They are desperate to regain power.