I think it is safe to say that the state of American politics over the past couple of months has taken a turn for the strange. Some may say that this is expected in an election year, but when is it not an ‘election year’ in modern day politics?
I have tried not to write anything about the anti-Muslim rhetoric that has been slowly seeping into America’s political discourse but I was shocked at how the Mosque at Ground Zero and Quran burning story was handled by the press.
I say shocked, but that was a lie. I was shocked not to be shocked about how the western media was handling the Mosque at Ground Zero and Quran burning story. I AM still shocked about how the western media and the West in general haven’t learnt its lesson regarding the Muslim world. The UK and the US have a strange habit of believing that our way of life is the right way of life and more to the point that the East’s, especially the Middle-East’s, is barbaric and pre-historic. We still do not comprehend how different the culture is in the Muslim world.
I have always stated that invading one Muslim country was bad enough (I think the US was right to invade Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11) but to invade a second Islamic country in the manner that the coalition forces did Iraq was irresponsible and showed a lack of respect and understanding of the Muslim world.
With that said, I believed that in the Bush-era we understood that the West was not at war with Islam. I believed that we understood that those that committed the heinous acts on 9/11 and 7/7 were extremists and did not represent the religion of Islam. Things are still this way in the UK as the Conservative Foreign Secretary, William Hague, recently affirmed the UK’s position that religious freedom is the bedrock of our country.
His American counterparts, however, are giving lukewarm responses to a matter that not only shows them playing politics with a very dangerous and sensitive subject. So what has changed in America?
Is it War fatigue? Is it the recession? Is it the constant peddling of lies that Barack Obama is neither a natural citizen of the United States, nor is he a Christian? (*Side bar* how sad was it to see Obama have to remind everyone that he was a Christian at his press conference on September 10th?)
I simply don’t know.
What is alarming though is seeing Rachel Maddow, THE QUEEN OF THE LEFT, sound like a moderate on this very subject:
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This argument could have very well been made on this very site, coming from a well known moderate. This is the state of American politics at the moment.
Things are now so skewed that it’s hard to tell that right and left anymore. This matter should have bi-partisan support. In fact, traditionally, a Republican would be making the argument for the country, but instead we see the GOP running away from this very subject because they don’t want to be seen defending Muslims.
How sad for Republicans. How sad for America. How sad for the world.
Just a normal everyday bloke writing about films.