Scratch & Sniff: Kamal Nawash & Free Muslims front for GOP

Shaula Evans says:

Hi, Martin.

My issue is not that at all the Free Muslims are Republican Muslims (although, at this point, that makes as much sense to me as the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights advocacy caucus inside the Republican Party that are frequently analogized with Jews for Hitler, given that the Republicans have an overt national platform of institutionalizing homophobia).

The problem is that they are Republican Party Operatives, who do not present themselves as such. Instead, they dissemble as “moderate Muslims” and purport to speak for the whole moderate muslim community.

It is a common and accepted practice in the Republican party to hire PR firms to create ersatz grassroots organizations, to be spokespersons for Republican policy, OR, to influence public opinion. It amounts to hijacking and appropriating a community’s voice. The Republicans do this all the time, and their corporate friends increasingly use the same tactics to put corporate collars behind faux grassroots groups that lobby the government and sway the public.

I support moderate Muslims in saying anything they have to say, but I take great offence at Nawash and Huber and their ilk co-opting someone else’s voices in order to manipulate the American public for political gain.

Shaula Evans says:

Sorry to be a dull reader; cynicism doesn’t always carry on the internet somehow.

Also, I keep misspelling your name. My apologies.