Changed

I must really not be getting around much anymore. It seems all of a sudden, something has changed. White Christian Americans have suddenly become a victimized minority. They are being persecuted and abused to the point where they are frightened for their lives. Have we awakened into a different world, as Glenn Beck says, a “planet of the apes”?

FOX has Americans terrified of New Black Panthers out to stop us from voting. They warned us about some evil communist convict named Van Jones and forced him to resign his job as an advisor to the Obama Administration.

FOX has also exposed the treacherous racism of one USDA employee Shirley Sherrod oppressing a white farmer. They alerted us to devious plots by a subversive group called ACORN who, while committing election fraud to elect Obama, were also scheming to import sex slaves from Mexico.
Help! Those black people are out to get us! I want my country back! Thank God we have an honest news organization to say “we report you decide” on their self proclaimed “fair and balanced” programming.

All of these are, of course, pure race-baiting, fear-mongering LIES by the radical right wing in America. In a just society FOX would be sued out of business for slander and libel.

Ever since Obama won the presidency, FOX and its fellow republican thugs have been inciting hatred and anger against blacks like nothing seen since before the civil rights movement and after Emancipation. What we are witnessing is the rise of fascism in the United States. The radical Right used to limit their hateful propaganda to demonizing and scapegoating liberals. Then they campaigned to blame all the nation’s woes on illegal immigrants. This was not enough. They’ve expanded their campaign of fear and smear to every minority, and to any political perspective to the left of George W. Bush.

Now that a moderate Muslim wants to build an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, the group targeted for hatred and anger are Muslims. Bush quickly backtracked from his call to “crusade” when he was advised not to alienate all Muslims when ginning up war fever for his invasion of Iraq. The fascists held their fire for their leader’s cause. But no longer, it’s open season on Muslims, all Muslims. They are the dark ones with the non-Christian religion shared by the 9-11 terrorists.

We now have a dark skinned president with an Islamic sounding name. And he is the enemy of American fascists. In fact, all of us who care about democracy, equality, truth and justice are enemies to American fascists.

As important as it is for the fascists to associate Obama with scary black people, it is even more important to connect him to Muslim terrorists. It wasn’t enough for Sarah Palin, the Twit-Of-The-Tundra, to accuse him of “Pallin’ around with terrorists”. No, Obama must be painted as an enemy of America.

Fascist Minister of Propaganda Limbaugh has been busy. First up we have his words from May 29, 2009: “How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration? By hating white people or even saying you do or that they‘re not good or put down ‘em, whatever. Make white people the new oppressed minority and they‘re going right along with it because they‘re shutting up. They‘re moving to the back of the bus. They‘re saying, “I can‘t use that drinking fountain.” OK. “I can‘t use that restroom.” OK.”

And here a few more samples from the Grand Imperial Wizard of radio this summer:

June 30, 2010: Rush said, Obama is "the first president in history -- to my knowledge, anyway -- who actually wants his nation to fail"
July 12, 2010: Limbaugh says "this is the Democrats' economy -- Obama didn't inherit anything. This is not Bush's economy"
July 13, 2010: "Liberals are like Muslim extremists" because "they want to be told how to live" and also "can't stand freedom"
July 20, 2010 "...the NAACP is as racist an organization as there has been and is in this country."
July 22, 2010: "Andrew Breitbart was exactly right," Sherrod is "racist -- the NAACP is racist"
August 19, 2010: "There might be reasons why some people think" Obama is a Muslim. "Obama says he's a Christian but where's the evidence?"

The fascists are succeeding. America is changing, but it is not the change the majority voted for in 2008. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll:

“A substantial and growing number of Americans say that Barack Obama is a Muslim, while the proportion saying he is a Christian has declined.”

“A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center."

“The view that Obama is a Muslim is more widespread among his political opponents than among his backers. Roughly a third of conservative Republicans (34%) say Obama is a Muslim, as do 30% of those who disapprove of Obama’s job performance. The belief that Obama is a Muslim has increased most sharply among Republicans (up 14 points since 2009), especially conservative Republicans (up 16 points). But the number of independents who say Obama is a Muslim has also increased significantly (up eight points).”

Oh... my... God... Are there any Americans left who are more frightened by this level of fascist indoctrination than are terrified by the “New Black Panthers,” both of them?

So the Big Issue from the Reich Wing’s Big Lie factory is the proposed Islamic cultural center in downtown Manhattan, only because it is the closest of several to the World Trade Center site. In a nation of Constitutional religious freedom, this would be no issue at all. But this is post-Bush America, or perhaps as it may appear to the rest of the world, AmeriKKKa.