Fighting America’s dark side. Fighting against those seeking to divide and weaken us.

Larry Kummer, Editor

12 years ago

Summary: We are not a nation of hate-mongers, and can restrain those of us who are. But inaction and apathy — closing our eyes to the rising fear and hatred of Islam — will have long and ill effects. This social disease is spreading; the clock is running.

Jihadist traitor? Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief for Staff in DoS. From Vogue, August 2007

Contents

Introduction: contagion
Poisonous slander
Hate crimes
Other posts about the rising hatred of Moslems in America

(1) Introduction: contagion

Divide et impera

There are always those among us who seek to exploit our dark side — feeding our racial, ethnic, and religious divisions for their own political gain. These episodes sometimes do terrible damage to the nation, as in the McCarthy era (among other things, damaging the State Department such that it’s never recovered).

It’s happening again. It’s a war fought in homes, bars, churches, and workplaces — any place Americans gather and talk. It’s a war we have to all enlist and fight. It’s getting worse; here are two recent examples.

(2) Poisonous slander

“If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.”
— Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 24 July 1711

Who is the lady in the photo at top? She is Huma Mahmood Abedin. She was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

American deputy chief of staff at the State Department,
longtime aide to Hillary Clinton,
practicing Muslim,
married to (Jewish) ex-congressman Anthony Weiner

All black marks to the far-right. Now she’s the subject of their despicable attacks. For details see

(a) Bachmann’s website has the letter from Bachmann and 4 other Representatives to the Deputy Inspector General of the State Department, 13 June 2012. Plus the subsequent correspondence, and additional material.

(b) Andrwe McCarthy is a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, now a columnist for National Review. From op-ed in the Washington Post by Dana Milbank, 8 August 2012 — opening:

There are frequent bouts of McCarthyism in the capital, but the latest version has the special touch of being delivered by a guy named McCarthy … providing the intellectual underpinnings — such as they are — for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s outrageous suggestion that Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

McCarthy gave a 90-minute talk at the National Press Club on Wednesday morning sponsored by the conservative Center for Security Policy, which was the source cited by Bachmann (R-MN) in her letter challenging Abedin’s loyalty. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other top Republicans justifiably blasted Bachmann, but McCarthy defended the congresswoman and went her allegation one further — drawing a twisted line from Abedin all the way to al-Qaeda.

“I don’t understand why more people in Washington from both parties have not rallied in support of Congresswoman Bachmann” and her fellow signatories on the letter, McCarthy lamented, “at a time when government policy is being radically harmonized with the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, meaning policy has shifted in the direction of avowed enemies of the United States.”

(c) Gingrich, Limbaugh defend Bachmann’s accusations on ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’, MSNBC, 24 July 2012 — Transcript here.

(d) Eric Cantor defends Michele Bachmann on “CBS News This Morning”, 17 July 2012 (Cantor, GOP-VA, is the House Majority Leader):

(3) Hate Crimes

“Hatred is a vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their meanness, and make it a pretext for sordid tyranny.”
— Honoré de Balzac, The Muse of the Department (1843)

These are an endemic disease throughout American history, like malaria it rises and fades. Now it returns. Harassment by civilians and the government. Burning down mosques. Unless stopped we can easily imagine the evolution. History provides too many examples. It’s a small problem now; let’s not wait until it metastasizes.

For details see about the latest rash see:

“Was There Really a Post-9/11 Backlash Against Muslims?“, Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 4 May 2012
“Combating Islamophobic violence“, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 9 August 2012

(4) For more information about these hate crimes

(a) About the drivers of anti-Moslem hatred

“Terrorized by ‘War on Terror‘”, Zbigniew Brzezinski, op-ed in the Washington Post, 25 March 2007
“The sham ‘terrorism expert’ industry“, By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 15 August 2012 — “A highly ideological, jingoistic clique masquerades as objective scholars, all to justify US militarism.”
“Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network”, Center for American Progress, 26 August 2011
“The Terrorism Delusion“, John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart, International Security, Summer 2012 — “America’s Overwrought Response to September 11”

(b) About one of the nodes promulgating lies about Islam in America: the Center for Security Policy