Park51 Anti-Islam rally: Man Mistook for Muslim is Violently Harassed. Right-wing Media gets a Good Look at it’s Handy Work

Congratulations Park 51 protesters. In a country that claims to be the beacon of free speech and religious freedom you have shown the world your true colors.

A video has surfaced recently that shows a belligerent crowd of protesters harassing, screaming, and physically confronting an African American man for nothing more that walking though the angry mob and looking Muslim.

This is true ugliness in our country, and it certainly doesn’t reflect the Constitutional values we hold so dear.

The fact is, the issue of allowing the Park 51 Community Center to be built is a manufactured issue by the right in an attempt to unite people under hate, racial and religious profiling, and persecution of what we don’t understand.

Contrary to their justifications, this isn’t about the 9/11 families or Ground Zero; it’s about racism and bigotry. Overlooking the fact that the religion we are prescribing conditional freedoms to, did not attack this country as I explained in an earlier post: ” On The NY Islamic Community Center a Few Blocks Away From “Ground Zero” “; the controversy surrounding  Park 51 is the result of the ramblings of a viciously anti-Muslim, extreme right wing, conspiracy-theorist blogger named Pamela Geller. Geller’s hate filled rhetoric first found it’s way into the main stream media by way of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, and has taken off ever since, inspiring bigots and misleading those with zero knowledge of who to blame .

The emergence of Geller should have been a warning. That we were taking things too far. That we might need to take a step back and reexamine the issue and not let our emotions take us to a place from which there is no return.  Instead, a chunk of this country took her behavior as an example, and have revealed a side of this country that still clings to old habits of fear, hate, and persecution of what we don’t understand.

The mountain of hypocrisy surrounding the debate should be enough to quell nay-sayers, but despite overwhelming evidence, the right refuses to quit with the anti-Muslim rhetoric and propaganda. Glenn Beck and FOX “News” have both praised and condoned the efforts of the Park 51 community center and it’s founders long before this became an issue, but in lock-step with recent party politics, they have had a sudden change of heart. The complete absence of any criticisms of the project before the center’s approval has also not been a concern. From inception to approval,  the center has been drawing praise (as I have shown above) from prominent right-wing sources, but this evidence is categorically ignored. Disconnected conspiracy theorists are going on about the project being funded by terrorists or some sort of Jihad group, the truth is that it actually isn’t funded at all. They haven’t started raising money yet. These points have been made in various ways in the Times, Politico and the Post, but this is also ignored in favor of fear and hate mongering television hosts that rely on unhinged propaganda and delusional claims to keep their brain washed masses tuning in, and their ratings up.

The fact that there is another, decades-old mosque two blocks away from the site that has never run into problems has also gone ignored by the would-be oppressors of religious freedom. And Muslims have been using the Park 51 site for Ramadan and Friday prayers for almost two years now without incident. Muslims have also been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years as well. So why is this an issue at all?

Hint. Election season!

The right has all but run out of their same tired attacks against Obama and the democrats, (not to mention the absence of any real substance of their own to offer the public) and they desperately need an issue to distract from their agenda of Obstruction , so they are using a decade old attack on our soil by a political group to rally their supporters under one banner of denying a different group their constitutional freedoms. You know, what they’re good at. They’re goal is to circumvent facts and logic, and to rely on emotions to get them through November. (Again, what they’re good at) Until then it’s business as usual.

As for the man in the tape (according to the guy who uploaded the video to YouTube, the gentleman’s name is Kenny and he’s “a Union carpenter who works at Ground Zero.”);  I comend him and point out that the mob was lucky that he was the only sane individual there. I don’t know if I would have been able to keep my composure as well as he did; undoubtedly preventing a major event from occurring. But the right will still do everything they can to distroy this man’s reputaion, undeservedly, in an attempt to justify unjustifiable behavior. Beck might claim he is George  Soros in disguise, Limbaugh will say he’s a plant, and they will all ignore that no matter who he is, nothing justifies the behavior of their mob that day. A mob absolutly created by them, their rhetoric, and with every intent of having something like this happening.

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~ by michaelburger on August 24, 2010.