America’s Growing Intolerance: How “Enemy Creep” Is Guantanamo-izing America

[marmar]

from Tom Dispatch:




America’s Growing Intolerance
How “Enemy Creep” Is Guantanamo-izing America

By Karen J. Greenberg


Just in case you thought that “political correctness” had been thoroughly discredited in the culture wars of the 1990s, it’s back -- and this time it’s being treated as a stalking horse for terrorism and getting pummeled all over again.

You only had to listen to the recent hearings convened by New York Republican Congressman Peter King on radicalization and the Muslim religion to know that, if the ascending right in Washington (and elsewhere) has its way, the age of tolerance in America is over. In the name of putting political correctness in its grave, a surprisingly sizeable contingent of politicians, judges, and other influential figures are now calling for transforming draconian behavior -- that once would have made Americans blanche -- into the order of the day.

Blaming Political Correctness for Terrorism

King’s hearings underscored the urgency with which a growing cast of influential characters seeks to open yet wider the door to the sort of anti-democratic (and anti-constitutional) actions that have been woven into counterterrorism policy since September 11, 2001. As chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, King made it his job to acknowledge the obstacle that -- as he might put it -- excessive tolerance for minorities, foreigners, or other religions and cultures can pose. “To back down ,” he insisted when criticized, “would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee -- to protect America from a terrorist attack.”

It was hardly the first time in the Obama era that political correctness has been identified as a major cause of terrorism, or at least as a major roadblock to confronting terrorism. One need only think back to the November 2009 killing spree in which Major Nidal Hasan, a Muslim Army psychiatrist, fatally gunned down 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. In an op-ed penned several days after the attack, Republican Congressman John Carter, who represents the district where Fort Hood is located, pointedly connected political correctness to the dangers posed to the country by terrorism, warning, “Political correctness is killing Americans and undermining the national security of the United States." ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175373/tomgram%3A_karen_greenberg%2C_intolerance_%22r%22_us/#more (the story follows a brief intro)

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[certainot]

2. 1000 coordinated radio stations are the biggest PC cops and censors by threat

in the US -

because their main blowhards, extemporizing on the same coordinated think tank talking points every day, are protected by call screeners and are unchallenged by ANY organized effort, they can have it both ways.

three weeks ago a weekend fill in local RW blowhard was selling this very same meme (as were the national blowhards) and i wouldn't be surprised if half his back-patting callers were sitting in the basement of the heritage foundation.

without knowing what is being sold daily on that giant megaphone always gives them the advantage to make shit up for weeks and even months before the left even notices- too late....

[999998th word]

3. This has 'Luntz stench' all over it as usual.

? sorry.