Muslim bashers aren't new to art of hate for profit

Another heroic and fair reporter from Tennessee.
I am starting to really like that State.

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Muslim bashers aren't new to art of hate for profit
Commentary by Gail Kerr • THE TENNESSEAN • October 26, 2010

Some people have no problem making a financial killing by spreading fear.

A two-day, front-page series in The Tennessean on Sunday and Monday by reporter Bob Smietana shone the bright light of truth on the people who are making millions of dollars perpetuating the current trend to hate Muslims.

They make a financial killing spreading fear.

They skirt facts and intellectual investigation by making stuff up. It's mind-boggling, both that any humans would want to spend their lives wallowing in such muck, and that thinking people fall for it.


Here are some of the highlights from Smietana's report:

• Washington-based SAE Productions, owned by Steven Emerson, collected $3.39 million in 2008 for "researching" alleged ties between American Muslims and terrorists. The money came from a nonprofit charity Emerson also started, which asks for donations by telling the ignorant they are in danger from Muslims.

The relationship between this nonprofit and for-profit appears to be a blatant violation of IRS laws. The IRS has strict rules about how grants are given and received, and what has to be disclosed. Emerson may end up paying a goodly part of his Muslim-hating windfall to attorneys...

Smietana's fine reporting pointed out a similar set of circumstances, when the Ku Klux Klan stirred up hate and fear about Catholics moving to the Murfreesboro area in 1929.

There's another obvious comparison: Hitler's Germany, which declared all Jews had to be eradicated from the Earth. At every phase of the world, every religion — including Christianity — has had a set of extremist nut cakes who preached hate.

It's just hard to fathom that we're still seeing this in 2010. How, I wondered out loud, do these people go to sleep at night?

On very nice sheets and down pillows.