Scaring White People

For those who are not fans of Rachel Maddow (and if you aren't, why not?), I have done you the favor of embedding this snippet from her news program last night.

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Last night Rachel Maddow examined the growing frenzy over the "Ground Zero Mosque" and relates it to recent scares that so many have gone frothing at the mouth over.

I've been watching this mosque debate since it all started, shaking my head all the time about some of the ludicrous statements that have been made. One guy said he didn't want a terrorist training camp built at Ground Zero. So...uh...they should train their terrorists at, say, Central Park?

Everybody has talked about how it is being built AT Ground Zero, when, in fact, it is projected for a couple of blocks away (it's a Catholic church that is right at Ground Zero). No matter how you feel about the project, this frenzy is way premature. According to Harpers Weekly, the mosque doesn't even have an engineer, an architect, or a blueprint yet, or, "according to their most recent disclosure, $99,981,745 of the $100 million they intend to raise."

But in spite of war in Afghanistan, unemployment, house forclosures, e.coli, and a host of really serious problems, we are once again listening to the fear-meisters who are making us distrust our friends and neighbors,

A guy on the nightly news tonight is trying to prevent a mosque from being built in his South Carolina neighborhood because he sees that the faithful will block the parking places of his florist business. When they asked if he would mind if a Christian church would be built there he said it would be no problem because the faithful would dutifully park in the parking lot, but the Muslims have no respect for the rules of law.

Somebody in...is it in Florida?...wants to outlaw Islam as a religion in this country, founded on freedom of religion, and arrest anybody who professes to be a Muslim. (Heck, if they're going to start outlawing religions, can we please put the Westboro Baptist Church on the list?)

So many of the objections that are being made against mosques across the country claim that Islam is a religion of violence and hate. (Well, not yet, but we may drive them to it!)

Will anybody be surprised when the first bomb is hurled at the first mosque somewhere in this country, or a fire is set at a mosque somewhere?

I really hope you watched the Maddow video because she does a wonderful job of pointing out the various cause célèbres that we have endured, all of which have targeted some minority group or person for villification, too often resulting in a bad end for the targetee, even if later the charges are proven to be without merit.

I mean...think of the job they did on Shirley Sherrod. The charges against her were so egregious that she had to be called on her cell phone and fired while she was driving her car. Nobody bothered to do any investigation. Not even the White House.

The history of all these scandals-that-aren't would be funny if it weren't so sad.

My own feelings about the Islamic center is that not only should it be built where planned, two blocks from Ground Zero, but the building should be a community affair, involving members of all religions coming together in one big, healing, "really getting to know you" project, with the Baptists supplying the casseroles.

Christiane Amanpour interviewed a rabbi and someone from the proposed mosque on her show on Sunday. It was the most reasonable, rational discussion I've heard since this whole thing started.

I'm sure nobody currently frothing at the mouth about terrorist muslims saw it.

I hate what some of us are becoming in this country.