Eliot Spitzer nailed the anger, but nobody heard it in the crosstalk.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

On Anderson Cooper's show, Spitzer was on, talking about the people who said the Imam had issued a challenge, and others heard him be conciliatory, and said the reason people were so angry at Muslims was because the economy was bad. But you had to really listen, and nobody in the shouting match heard it.

Spitzer is a damn smart man.

[dkf]

1. Why would we be mad at Muslims because the economy is bad?

Doesn't make sense to me.

[Ken Burch]

2. Because muslin is harder to wash.

n/t.

[Jim Sagle]

3. By this time, anyone who's not a socialist , or at least a strong social democrat, IS a fool.

The old New Deal ways are best.

[Ken Burch]

6. On that, we agree.

n/t.

[madmax]

8. +10

[dkf]

4. Ack I hate this spell check on my iPhone.

Apple sucks sometimes

[Ken Burch]

5. IT's ok. And actually, the old British comedy group "Beyond The Fringe"

did a bit(in the early 1960's)about people wearing "Black Muslin". To which one of them replied "They're not wearing it...they're JOINING it..."

[Ken Burch]

7. To reiterate my orginal post(now that the spelling in yours is corrected)

It's for the same reason that people used to blame "The Jews" when times got hard.

It's easier to blame a group that's "different" than it is to confront the people who are actually in power and whose greed is CAUSING the hard times.

August Bebel called the phenomenon "the socialism of fools".

(this, for the record, is a rephrasing of the original post I very quickly deleted when I thought dkf was making a joke by saying "muslin" instead of "muslims"-the post Sagle was actually responding to.)

[dkf]

9. But wasn't that anti semitism caused more by resentment of bankers?

Or anti-Japanese from the emergence of the Japanese car makers, or resentment of Chinese railroad workers because the owner was bringing in Chinese and not hiring Whites? For what possible reason would Muslims be at least somewhat associated with causing the economic downturn? I don't think the population that we are talking about resents the funds spent on war, nor does 9/11 seem as big of an economic impact. Is it really that completely irrational?

My opinion is it has more to do with crusades type mentality where my God is better than your God etc rules the day.

[Ken Burch]

10. It was caused by the common, yet obviously false, assumption that most bankers were Jewish

(In truth, the financial sector in Europe was as Gentile as any other part of capitalism-Gentile capitalists in Europe simply used this assumption to deflect working-class anger away from themselves).

Muslims, today, don't hold the equivalent position, but they do represent a group that's seen as being newcomers here-and this is tied into the "things were fine before THEY came around" meme that has always been used to stir up resentment of "the other" and, at the same time, to let the actual exploiters and misers off the hook.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

12. thanks.

I didn't know that the scapegoating of a minority group had a name.
I will have to look up August Bebel.

[DailyGrind51]

11. Minorities always get blamed in a down economy. Look what happened to Jews in the '30s!

[eShirl]

13. And Roma in 1930s and 2010 Europe.

http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=roma+concentration+camps