Who Shall We Hate Today?

[Anders Behring] Breivik’s political itinerary shows that his views and actions emerged from broad and powerful trends in European bourgeois politics. He left a trail of postings in right-wing blogs. Shortly before the attack he emailed a 1,500-page document that provides some insights into his thinking. It is based on views that find support not only in fascist circles, but within the established bourgeois parties, including the social democrats.

The focus is a hatred of Muslims. Anti-Muslim racism to some extent serves the function for today’s fascists that anti-Semitism did for the Nazis.
~ from The Slaughter in Oslo by Peter Schwarz ~

When times are perilous and uncertain -- which is most of the time -- there seems to be a human tendency to look for scapegoats. The identification of a bogeyman is fueled by a society's elite members as a mechanism to draw away attention from themselves and their policies -- policies that serve as the fulcrum for peril and uncertainty!

In the United States, those who benefit from the targeting of scapegoats have created a large array: Muslims, Latinos, Blacks, Jews, Gays, Socialists, Non-Christians and Liberals. On any given day, purveyors of hate like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and countless others reach into their bags of demagoguery to select the scapegoat of the day.

Is it any wonder that some individuals -- sane or not -- take the words of these firebrands and use them to commit widespread violence? When some folks are told day-in and day-out that a certain ethnic or religious group represents evil incarnate, should we be surprised that some of them take it upon themselves to try to eradicate this supposed evil stain on humanity?