Glenn Greenwald on the Right's Paranoia of the "Grave Muslim Threat"

Glenn Greenwald has had a couple of interesting posts in recent weeks regarding the American right's paranoid fantasies regarding the so-called "grave Muslim threat." In mid-September, Glenn wrote:

Our Civilization Warriors like Kirchick -- last seen justifying multiple new Middle Eastern wars -- are either so fearful of Muslims or so eager to demonize them as the Greatest Threat Ever (and, in the process, depicting themselves as Brave and Courageous Warriors for Freedom) that they live in a world that exists only in their imagination. If there is one thing that exists in abundance, it is anti-Islamic commentary in the U.S. Does Kirchick's paranoid claims about what happens to the brave souls who express such thoughts bear any remote relationship to reality?

Of course, none of this is new to us Muslims, who have read and listened to numerous examples of hate and incitement against Islam and Muslims over the years. Greenwald runs through a list of various Islamophobes (Michelle Malkin, Charles Johnson, Marty Peretz, Norm Podhoretz, Mark Steyn, Robert Spencer, Glenn Beck, etc., ad nauseum), most of whom are familiar names (unfortunately). Greenwald then continues:

Obviously, there is an extremist sect of Islam that is prone to violence, and there have been acts of violence or threats of violence directed against those perceived to have offended Islam, with some truly outrageous and tragic results. The same is true for Christianity, Judiaism and many other religions. And while one can, if one is so inclined, engage in the rather adolescent exercise of claiming that "one side does it more," the very notion peddled by Kirchick and his anti-Islamic warmongering bosses -- that one cannot speak out against Muslims or make a joke about Islam without endangering one's life, and that Americans live in fear of uttering any comments against Muslims -- is fear-mongering and/or paranoia of the highest order.

This lie is also very familiar, and one I've had leveled at me and other Muslims; one woman I knew would wildly criticize Islam and Muslims on Beliefnet... but never on the numerous boards set up to discuss Islam, including the Islam Debate board, which was the appropriate forum set up by Beliefnet for that very purpose. The reason? Muslims would become so incensed by her criticisms of Islam that they would find out her address, come to her house, and kill her. Yeah, right.

So, naturally, Greenwald was criticized by the wingnuts for his daring to upset their fantasy, and he's apparently come up with a theory as to what's driving that fantasy. Glenn published an e-mail he had received, of which I'm including the second paragraph:

I picture this moment, Glenn, and it brings me a little chuckle. It's you, begging some terrorist for your life, pointing out all the wonderful things you wrote that undermined America's resolve to fight against Islamic terrorism. "Look," you say, pulling articles out of your pockets with shaking hands, "I have served you! Clearly this means that I deserve to be spared!"

I won't tell you how it ends, Glenn.

Glenn responded:

One can only marvel at how developed and richly detailed is the fantasy that he has created and carries around with him -- being on one's knees before a Muslim terrorist, begging and pleading and shaking, dialogue about "having served you." It is really right out of some cheap, trite sadomasochistic pornography script, and yet these fears and truly creepy fantasies are the foundation for their political beliefs, driving most of our political discourse and policy.

And this bile that spewed forth really illustrates so much about why we continue to fight one of history's most absurd wars ever, whereby we occupy Iraq indefinitely even though the original justifications for invading have long ago vanished and even those who want to stay have no idea what we are trying to accomplish. It is the same dynamic that fueled so much of the intense and obsessive hatred for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and which drives the insatiable quest for new Enemies to attack, including what looks increasingly like the new War with Iran.

Bombing and killing Muslims is the only path for avoiding the humiliating scenarios which our nation's war cheerleaders carry around obsessively in their heads, and which are currently filling my inbox. They're not going to be the ones on their knees, begging. They're not going to be the "faggots." Instead, they are going to send others off to fight and bomb and occupy and kill and thereby show who is strong and tough and feel protected.

Homosexuality and humiliation. That seems to be what's driving the American right. Is it any wonder the Republican party has gone through so many homosexuality scandals in recent years? No, I don't think so. I think there is a disconnect in the minds of many men on the right, who are seeking the forbidden fruit they have been told all their lives they can't have, yet pursue it anyway, even at the potential cost (and, perhaps, subconscious fulfillment) of being caught. I think they may be enjoying a psychological game, call it "Catch me if you can," and the humiliation of being caught is the payoff. (Now would be a good time for me to review Eric Berne's classic of Transactional Analysis psychology, "Games People Play". ;) I suspect we could find a "game" in there that matches up to this scenario.)

Muslims, of course, by and large don't practice homosexuality, which may be driving the fantasy further: to seek the forbidden fruit among those men who are least likely to succumb to their seductions. Muslims then are "punished" through vilification for both being an object of desire and to prove to the non-fantasizing right that these men are hetero and macho.

Of course, all this is purely speculation and certainly there are other factors at work, but I wouldn't be surprised if the above isn't at least partially correct.

On Dr. (In)Sanity and Other Islamophobes

The other day, I wrote about a Glenn Greenwald post where Glenn was referring to irrational Republicans who do the Islamophobic variation of Chicken Little:

Every now and then, it is worth noting that substantial portions of the right-wing political movement in the United States -- the Pajamas Media/right-wing-blogosphere/Fox News/Michelle Malkin/Rush-Limbaugh-listener strain -- actually believe that Islamists are going to take over the U.S. and impose sharia law on all of us. And then we will have to be Muslims and "our women" will be forced into burkas and there will be no more music or gay bars or churches or blogs. This is an actual fear that they have -- not a theoretical fear but one that is pressing, urgent, at the forefront of their worldview.

I got several hits over the past few days on that post through trackbacks, and visited some of the sites that had also referred to Glenn's post. One of these sites, The Carpetbagger Report, used a recent post by a "Dr. Sanity" as an example to prove Glenn's point.

I come across loons like "Dr. Sanity" all the time. Type the word "Islam" into Google's blog search engine or into Technorati, and you'll see that about 75% of all the posts are Islamophobic screeds. These are people who have drunk the kool-aid of the Party of Hate and Cowardice™. They may be well educated and act normally in almost every respect, but they are largely provincial when it comes to understanding the rest of the world and are all too often arrogant in their ignorance. They are following their forefathers in a long path of hate for "the other," we Muslims being only the hate du jour, behind the Catholics, Irish, Communists, Japanese, Jews, Blacks, and many other groups.

I think what has surprised me about all this is that well respected blogs like Glenn Greenwald's and the Carpetbagger Report have needed to point out what seems to me something very obvious. I largely ignore people like "Dr. Sanity" and their writings. I used to think that education was the key: that helping to provide information about Islam and the Muslim world would help to defuse some of the tensions and increase understanding... And maybe it has, but - if so - only to a very small degree. I've come to realize that most people don't want to learn. They are perfectly comfortable in their delusions, and suggesting ever so mildly that what they believe is wrong makes not the slightest difference in their outlook. Yes, there will be some whom one can have a reasonable conversation with, who have an open-enough mind to consider a new thought, but they are very much in the minority, a very tiny number indeed.

The Islamists are Coming

Crooks & Liars has referred to a recent Glenn Greenwald piece over at Salon about the wingnuts' fear of Islamists. Greenwald was commenting on an article by Roger Simon by Pajamas Media that is typical of the right-wing "the left must join us in resisting Islam" garbage:

I call on my friends on the Left –- straight or gay -– to help defend that real source of liberalism the Enlightenment, because if we lose and fall under religious law, there not only will be no gay marriage, there will be no women's rights, no freedom of the press, no basic human rights, not even – as in the case of Iran – any music.

Greenwald writes:

Every now and then, it is worth noting that substantial portions of the right-wing political movement in the United States -- the Pajamas Media/right-wing-blogosphere/Fox News/Michelle Malkin/Rush-Limbaugh-listener strain -- actually believe that Islamists are going to take over the U.S. and impose sharia law on all of us. And then we will have to be Muslims and "our women" will be forced into burkas and there will be no more music or gay bars or churches or blogs. This is an actual fear that they have -- not a theoretical fear but one that is pressing, urgent, at the forefront of their worldview.

And their key political beliefs -- from Iraq to Iran to executive power and surveillance theories at home -- are animated by the belief that all of this is going to happen. The Republican presidential primary is, for much of the "base," a search for who will be the toughest and strongest in protecting us from the Islamic invasion -- a term that is not figurative or symbolic, but literal: the formidable effort by Islamic radicals to invade the U.S. and take over our institutions and dismantle our government and force us to submit to Islamic rule or else be killed.

They actually think this is going to happen ("read Zawahiri's speeches about the Plan for Caliphate!!") and believe that we must do everything in our power -- without limits -- to stop it. And there are a lot of them who think this.

In his update, Greenwald further writes:

One way to look at the threat posed by Islamic radicalism (let us call it Option A) is to see it as the Epic War of Civilizations, the Existential Threat to Everything, the Gravest and Scariest Danger Ever Faced which is going to take over the U.S. and force us all to bow to Islam.

Another way to look at it (let us call this Option B) is to dismiss it entirely, to believe there is nothing wrong with Islamic radicalism, to think it should just be completely ignored because it poses no dangers of any kind.

There are, however, other options besides A and B. Therefore, to reject Option A is not to embrace Option B. [Your typical wingnut "If it ain't Christmas, it must be the Fourth of July" "logic." - JDsg]

One would have thought that logical principle too self-evident to require pointing out, but as is typically the case when one assumes that, one is proven wrong.

On a different note, is the curriculum for history classes in some American states restricted to learning about Hitler and the Nazis and 1938 and Hitler and Germany? It must be, because there are many right-wing fanatics whose entire understanding of the world is reduced in every instance to that sole historical event -- as though the world began in 1937, ended in 1945, and we just re-live that moment in time over and over and over:

Love war? You are Churchill, a noble warrior. Oppose war? You're Chamberlain, a vile appeaser. And everyone else is Hitler. That, more or less, composes the full scope of "thought" among this strain on the right.