Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Religious McCarthyism


In the above (h/t, TPM), Franklin Graham, son of seemingly ubiquitous and well-loved televangelist Billy Graham, is using his media access to discuss the people he believes to be surrounding the current president who are some kind of Israel-hating Muslims. About which he has no solid proof and can name no names, but he's pretty damn sure "radical Islamists" have infiltrated the US government.

I'll never not stop pointing put that there is a clear racialist component to the point of view alleged by Franklin Graham, because Franklin Graham has decided that crusading (ahem) is his appropriate legacy and because something about Obama just looks "Muslim-y". But it's also political in that he seems to want the President to agree with, say, Netanyahu regarding what to do about Iran, when the right answer may very well be continuing to try and get a diplomatic solution because a military solution is, actually, bonkers.  Which I think would be more apparent if this "what side are you on" game weren't being played.

1 comment:

mikey said...

In the specific case of Iran, the thing that makes it so utterly insane is that we keep talking about a 'solution'. A solution to what?

Iran neither has a nuclear weapons development program nor have they diverted the slightest tiny bit of fissile material. They have not enriched any Uranium greater than 20% and have been under IAEA scrutiny for years.

And yet, you really have to dig to find this information. We going through all this madness to solve a problem THAT WE KNOW WITH CERTAINTY DOES NOT EXIST!

We also know one more thing. In order to pursue an active weapons program, Tehran would have to abrogate the NPT and kick the inspectors out of the country. Just like North Korea did. THAT is your red flag. You don't need anything else - the clock starts ticking on the day that happens. Until then, there is no weapons program and no need for sanctions or war. It's all domestic politics, period....

The Red Line for Journalism

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