Fearmongering in the House and Senate

I find myself in a rather unusual state at the moment. And that state is agreeing with the Shrub over something. While I do try to keep an open mind about things, I find myself wondering at this state of affairs since so much of what he does and espouses is wrong in some way. It just so happens that his knee-jerk reflex to defend executive power coincides with the right stance on a particular issue. He is defending the move since it was made by his Executive authority and he desires to keep Congress from meddling in that, not because the stance is morally right (which it is, by the way).

Specifically, the use of a UAE-owned company to provide security at some US ports. This move has been met with bi-partisan out-cry in both chambers. And this is nothing but naked racism. The thinking goes like this:

Fact: The company is a state-owned company.
Fact: The state that owns them is an Arab state.
Fact: Some 9/11 hijackers were from that particular Arab state.

Therefore, terrorists can infiltrate the company and Bad Things happen.
Therefore, this company is a security risk.

Bullshit.

Last night while driving home Daniel Shore on NPR had a piece that covered exactly this topic. His thoughts are very similar to mine on this issue, so those who have heard that piece will find the arguments very familiar. The knee-jerk 'arab = bad security risk' stance is naked racism and fearmongering.

I am greatly dismayed that one (or possibly both) of the Senators for my state, a Democrat, has come out strongly against the deal. It isn't helping that the racism in our country is broad enough that the vast majority of letters received on this topic by our legislators is against the deal. This is a very disheartening thing.

It is unfortunate but our country has a very long history of racism, as any non-white person can tell you. While the civil war may have liberated the slaves from bondage, it did very little to empower them as full citizens. There were more black senators in the 1870's then there are today, and this is after the Civil Rights movement. The period between the 1870's and the 1960's was the era of lynchings and Jim Crow, and the laws designed to strip black americans of the rights due to any citizen of our nation.

Ever since those planes smacked into the Twin Towers, Arab-looking people have remarked on a higher state of hostility. In the year following the event it was pretty common to be selected out of lines at airports for added screening. Some Mosques were attacked immediately afterwards, an event that is deplorable. And now Arab-owned companies, no matter how many Americans they employ, are seen as security risks.

The only valid complaint about this deal is not that it is an Arab company doing the work, it is that it is a non-American company doing it. On the other hand, I heard one news-story that said that the company performing the work right now is already a non-American one (British, as it happens); which if true, makes the hand-wringing moot. An out-sourcing issue. Only, this is a physical-presence thing not tech-support so there will have to be on-site employees with valid work-permits.

The stance that anything 'Arab' is therefore tainted with extremist Islam is racist, and all too damned predictable with our country. This is one of the side-effects of Democracy that is less pleasant than 'freedom and liberty'. Sometimes, dark impulses DO gain a large enough majority to over-come traditions of tolerance and freedom. 1930's Europe is a case in point.

Naked racism!

I have letters to write.