By Ann Werner
The ugly underbelly of the right is on full view for the entire world to see. It is a national embarrassment, but like wishing we could hide Donald Trump, we can’t.
The statement by former NYPD detective Bo Dietl on Sean Hannity sums it up. Dietl said, “…let’s stop worrying about people’s rights.”
And that, folks, embodies everything the right wing is about.
During the show, radio host Dr. Gina Louden makes the claim that “80 percent of the mosques that exist in America are advocating or promoting violence.”
First of all, it isn’t Frank Gaffney’s work, as she wrongly states, it is a right wing piece of garbage referenced by Gaffney.
It is actually a report issued by the right wing organization Perspectives on Terrorism. Hardly an objective study.
How convenient to paint nearly all of the Islamic places of worship in this country as hotbeds of jihad. If that were so, don’t you think we’d have seen a lot more violence in this country since 9/11, the invasion of Iraq or our other adventures in the Middle East?
Yes, there are jihadists who have taken the worst parts of Islam and twisted it into something hateful. But consider the American Christians who have called forexterminating gay people. How is that any different?
President Obama has said we will accept 10,000 Syrian refugees, yet if you listen to those on the right, that number has increased to hundreds of thousands. At least that’s what Donald Trump had to say.
Ted Cruz tamped the number down a bit, reducing it to tens of thousands.
All Republican candidates favor shutting our borders to Syrian refugees, who are mostly women and children, fleeing from the violence of a war torn country with just the clothes on their backs.
According to them and the right wing talking heads, we are incapable of vetting refugees.
There is a never-ending message of fear and hatred spewing from the right wing spin machine and the gullible among us are eating it up. It is a sad statement on what we have become.
Whether it’s Muslims or Hispanic people, or gay people or transgender people, or women who want to be able to control their own bodies and chart their own destinies, there is always someone on the right to disparage them and seek to shut down their freedoms.
Then they holler about their freedom to put forward their sick, hateful, immigrant bashing, misogynistic messages.
Obviously, when they talk about rights, they are talking about their rights and the rights of people who share their fearful and decidedly un-American view of the world. As for me, I still believe in the promise of that beautiful lady in New York Harbor.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'”
Ann Werner is the author of thrillers and other things. Visit her at Ann Werner on the Web. Follow Ann Werner on Facebook and Twitter