Fear, Incorporated: Who's paying for all that Islamophobic paranoia?

American democracy is a wide-open system, given First Amendment freedoms, the flood of money that corrupts the electoral process, and a wide array of media organizations and political journals that can be used to disseminate and amplify various views, even when they have no basis in fact. This situation allows small groups of people to have a profound impact on public attitudes and policy discourse, provided that they are well-organized, well-funded, and stay on message. Here's an excerpt from a Center for American Progress press release:

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today [.pdf] which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America. Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that "radical Islam" has infiltrated all aspects of American society -- including the conservative movement.

The irony in all this that the extremists examined in this report have gone to great lengths to convince Americans that there is a vast Islamic conspiracy to subvert American democracy, impose sharia law, and destroy the American way of life. Instead, what we are really facing is a well-funded right-wing collaboration to scare the American people with a bogeyman of their own creation, largely to justify more ill-advised policies in the Middle East. [H/T: xymphora]

Raw Story: Report: Foundations paid $42 million to spread anti-Muslim propaganda
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