Wake up, America

[kat_chan]

I've been growing increasingly frustrated with the manufactured controversy of the Not-at-Ground Zero Not-Really-a-Mosque. But the right-wing nutjobs continually tell half-truths or outright lies about the Park51 community center project. Back in the late spring when the permitting process began there was no controversy over this. Then some of

Comments

[kat_chan]

That's what she'd heard because that's what the right wing put out there. And they put it out on the TV and the internet. And people who don't seek out multiple sources, or at the very least one source that isn't full of lies and manipulation, are susceptible to the Big Lie; a lie repeated so often that it takes on the sheen of the truth, especially when not disputed quickly or frequently enough.

I don't necessarily blame your neighbor. If you work a full-time job, donate some of your free time, or have other commitments that take you away from where you're able to read a newspaper or two or watch a couple of news programs (on more than one source), then it becomes difficult to gather any information, and if you hear the same lie two or three times, you don't question its truth because if it was a lie you would have surely heard it debunked. The right-wing media is very cynical in its manipulations because they play on the hurried lives of the public, and tailor their message to maximize the public's suspicions of the "other" and their fears of the unknown. It's very effective, at least until people are able to remove the scales from their eyes and are opened to the truth.