MORE ANTI-MUSLIM PARANOIA FROM THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

 Mainstream paranoia about Islam feeds Nazionists bigotry and Crusader racism




by Robert Taylor 

For a while, unintelligible, foaming-at-the-mouth rants about the "Ground Zero Mosque" dominated every media outlet. Thankfully, this story (and the irrational bigotry that always permeates it) has largely gone away, but I knew it wouldn't be long until the collective anti-Muslim paranoia in the mainstream media made a comeback.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, Helen Thomas, Octavia Nasr, and Rick Sanchez have all been fired in the past few months for saying things critical of Israel and in favor of the Palestinians following a large outcry.

Whether or not they should have been fired is a separate issue; what is important to note is the lack of outrage when the hostility is aimed at Muslims. "Fox and Friends" host Bill Kilmeade recently noted (incorrectly) that "not all Muslims are terrorists, but all Muslims are terrorists." No gasps, no outrage, no heads rolling. He simply gave a very weak and half-hearted semi-apology, and moved on.

And then there's this tirade from the nauseating Bill O'Reilly during his appearance on "The View" last week (at the bottom of the article).

It definitely makes the skin scrawl.

Now I could go on and on about how US foreign policy is the best recruiting tool for terrorism, by intentionally radicalizing Muslims in the 1980s by infiltrating madrassas in Central Asia, by killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims with bombs and sanctions, or how it subsidizes Middle Eastern dictators --all of these lovely policies are carried out in your name with your money, by the way-- and how this radicalization distracts from the legacy of Islam that stresses a sound currency, free markets, individual autonomy, and praises trade.

But what this paranoia over Islam really iall about is what is at the core of politics: distraction. Create a racket, one that effectively cloaks the real truth that the enemy of the American people is political rule and the bureaucrats, war profiteers, taxation, disorder, and injustice that always accompany it.

Too cynical? Simplistic? Well, all this talk about a foreign culture erasing American traditions, imposing their laws and customs, and secretly working to destroy us from within isn't new. 100 years ago, the US government was using these same anti-Muslim arguments against Catholics.

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Source: Text & Images: Examiner

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