Tags
GOP, Ground Zero, hatred, History, Muslims, Newt Gingrich, Obama, racism, religious intolerance, religious right, right wingnuts, Sarah Palin, teabaggers
Hatred and bigotry have had an illustrious career in America. It did not originate here of course, earliest man soon found an angry god to blame for snow storms and drought.
But American has certainly refined the concept better than most places in the world, if only because we have been oh so willing to transfer our aggressive fears and hatreds to so many different groups.
Religious hatred is not new. In fact, it prompted today’s religious right’s most reviled amendment–the first, which mandates a clear non-involvement of government with religious practices. At it’s inception the new United States of America was a collection of states each, for the most part, with their laws and practices that excluded (and often road out of town and sometimes executed) such groups as Catholics, Jews, Quakers, and Anabaptists.
What those who champion “our Christian origins” forget, is that the Pilgrims didn’t come to these shores to establish a community of religious tolerance, but rather to establish a practice of their version of Christianity without interference from other “papist” types.
We soon moved on from religion however, and took up the banner of “non-humanity.” By that I mean, peoples who were not white anglophiles were soon relegated to non-human status. This included native peoples, and then Africans, but came to include Italians, Irish, Chinese, and Eastern Europeans, and Latinos from anywhere.
All of these groups, to one degree or another, found the going tough in America where they were shunned, segregated, consigned to the lowest jobs and least pay. White American strutted as superior in every way. (Certainly we were not alone in this. Britain and much of Western Europe also played this game.)
Class, in America at least, has been down played, but there is little doubt that the upper echelons of our society have felt “entitled” to their privilege largely due to their superior breeding and determination. Ask any nouveau-rich just how long it takes to break into the blue blood of our major eastern cities. (Boston would be a key case in point.) No, it has been largely the working and working poor who continually have declared that we are a country of equality of opportunity.
So, I am not surprised nor shocked at the ugly and vicious attacks upon the Muslim community in this country. The rabble have been assured that it is always okay to blame someone other than themselves for their perceived woes.
Yet, the rhetoric coming from our so-called educated leadership is most troubling. Words and arguments drip from their jaws that one would have thought more likely to be from the minds of the KKK and other white-rights militia groups. We are used to that kind of ugliness and we have learned to turn a deaf ear as the best defense. Shun and ignore has been our winning motto.
Today, however, we find those whom we would not expect saying simply awful things. People like Newt Gingrich spew hatred with abandon against Muslims. Ditto Sarah (that woman is an idiot) Palin, though she can be forgiven to a degree since she is so ill-educated in public affairs.
But, and here is the irony, these are the same folks who rant and rail day in and day out that Obama and company are “destroying our freedoms.” One of those freedoms, they declare that is on the brink of destruction, is their ability to practice their religion.
Clearly, they do not offer this right to others. In reality they are really saying that Obama is not George Bush, who at least mouthed his preference for Christian rights as the best. Obama, following the Constitution, refuses to support efforts to raise Christianity above other faiths, and in fact has made it most clear in his remarks about the Islamic Center proposed in NYC, that government has no business voicing any “advice” about where a religious building is erected.
And that is perhaps the key point to be realized here. The extreme religious right, and it’s congressional and pundit minions, are not really about our freedoms at all. They are about instituting a “Christian” government in the US as they define it. They are about shredding the US Constitution whenever it becomes necessary to accomplish that goal. They are about revising history to “prove” their point of view.
People like Gingrich and Palin, have no real intent to alter the the Constitution, I suspect. They have a strong intention to use the mob mentality of the religious right and all the tea bagger unfocused anger to gain power for themselves. That in some sense is all the more egregious. As one of Gingrich’s ex-wives noted in a link we gave you last week, Newt gave up on principles when he decided he wanted fame and fortune and power more.
Palin, of course, is a study in opportunistic ranting. She neither knows nor cares about truth. She plays to anger and fear and desperation. She creates it when necessary, all in her pursuit to “be somebody.” We have John Sidney McCain to thank for that one.
The Becks, Limbaughs, Hannitys, they are just pure feeders upon the human flesh. They are the vultures and hyenas, fangs dripping with our blood, returning to their lairs with bloated stomachs, laughing and reeking of their own evil.
I can but smile when I think, that history will not be kind. Gingrich, Kyl, Palin, King (Peter and Steven), Bachmann, McCain, Graham, DeMint, (oh the list is interminable indeed), will be remembered for a very long time. But not as great states-persons. No not a one. But they will be remembered.
Wallace blocking school desegregation
They will be remembered.
McCarthy & House UnAmerican Activities Hearings
They will be remembered.
Existential Ennui 
What an eloquent and important post! Thank you for offering the perspective of history on this current day. Religious leaders who are stepping up to the plate to confront this horror deserve our respect and appreciation. Your readers can access a petition of support for the proposed mosque in NY on my blog: “Religious Leaders Support NY Mosque; Denounce Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich” http://bit.ly/9OspPe
Billie, thanks. I did follow you link yesterday and signed up. The link I posted today, is to the same general site, just to their blog. I would encourage everyone to visit and sign up in support of the Muslim community at large, and to the Cordoba Initiative specifically. I note that even George W. Bush enlisted the help of this group to mediate and present the peace loving Muslim community on behalf of the US. The hate-baiters are sick and we need to speak loudly on this issue
Perhaps you give this whole bunch too much credit. I don’t think a single one of them, regardess of education and intellect, are really reading, thinking, or understanding what is going on. In particular this is what I hear from people in church, people I would otherwise assume are educated smart people….but then again, you know what happens whenever a person makes an assumption….sigh.
Terri, whether they are just ill-read or intellectually incapable, seems to make little difference. They cannot be educated simply because people who are so set in their perceptions can’t see the truth even when given them unequivocally. We simply have to preserve their right to be asshats while making sure that we retain the reins of government so that they cannot destroy us all. That’s the way I see it.
Wonderfully written. The only way to dispell the darkness of hatred is to blind it with light. Thank you for doing that. I will be sharing this with many.
If I have not charity, if love does not flow from me; I am nothing.
Thank you Susan. I agree with your sentiments. It is so painful to watch this occuring. Muslims have lived in this country for a very long time, and I can but imagine what it must feel like from their point of view. Being hated for simply being is a pain that so deep and awful. I could not wish it upon another human being. As Jesus said, “they know not what they do.”