Toronto Star: American anti-Muslim prejudice goes mainstream

[marmar]

By Haroon Siddiqui
Editorial Page



Conspiracy theorists, especially in the Muslim world, held that 9/11 was really the work of Israelis or the Americans themselves. Nine years out, it’s the Americans who are singing loony tunes about Muslims.

Eighteen per cent think Barack Obama is a Muslim, according to a Pew poll. That’s 55 million Americans. Many use only his middle name, Hussein. Rush Limbaugh calls him Imam Obama.

Newt Gingrich believes that sharia, the Islamic law, is coming to America by stealth. The danger is so high, says a Republican state representative in Oklahoma, that “there’s a war for the survival of America.”

Others have called Elena Kagan, the newly appointed Supreme Court judge, “Justice Sharia” because she had been dean of Harvard Law School, which teaches Islamic jurisprudence.

Two Republican members of Congress, Sue Myrick of North Carolina and Paul Broun of Georgia, believe that young Muslim interns are part of a secret Islamic infiltration into Capitol Hill. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/852506--siddiqui-american-anti-muslim-prejudice-goes-mainstream

[Better Today]

1. Every time I think my disgust in our country can get no deeper... I'm unpleasantly surprised

that we can actually get worse.

[MisterP]

2. lots of examples here, including the "mainstreaming" of Islamophobia

http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/

with Sam Harris, Chris Hitchens, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Salman Rushdie, "liberals" and conservatives, atheists and fundaChristians, formed a grand anti-Islam and -Muslim coalition portraying them as threats to the Christian/secularist homeland; the broadness of the coalition made their frothing fears seem more than the rantings of a provincial, ignorant minority bounded by the Potomac, the Ohio, and the Rio Grande: it made it seem like a convincing, objective, rational position, whose convincingness, objectivity, etc., were demonstrated by its broad bipartisan and interfaith appeal

[BolivarianHero]

3. "Newt Gingrich is too smart to be that stupid."

Right on the money. Gingrich knows this is nuts but is the sort of person who would use his formidable intellect to rationalise ignorance when doing would further his own ambitions. Every iota of evidence proves that the man has no moral compass and is a world class hypocrite.