Juan Cole writes.

The demonstration held on Sunday against the Park 51 Muslim community center in lower Manhattan was an attempt by the right wing to strike at first amendment freedoms, but at the same time, it was simply a revival of urban policies of discrimination that were routine in the last century.

Andrew Brown in the Guardian.

The two people behind SIOA are Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who between them run two flourishing and hate-filled sites, Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs, which link into an undergrowth of far-right websites in Europe, including the skinheads of the English Defence League, but also to respectable rightwingers such as Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, and even the Catholic Herald.

Spencer is a Roman Catholic of Eastern Orthodox extraction who, for the last 10 years, has propagandised the view that Islam is a religion that commands its adherents to violence, and that Muslims all round the world obey. Jihad Watch, incorporating the earlier Dhimmi Watch, is a roiling cauldron of stories from all over the world to illustrate the treachery and violence of Muslims, the criminal weakness of liberals, and the twisted, hate-filled bigotry of anyone on the right who has ever quarrelled with him.

Justin Elliot on Salon

A group of progressive Muslim-Americans plans to build an Islamic community center two and a half blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. They have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There's another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years.

In short, there is no good reason that the Cordoba House project should have been a major national news story, let alone controversy. And yet it has become just that, dominating the political conversation for weeks and prompting such a backlash that, according to a new poll, nearly 7 in 10 Americans now say they oppose the project. How did the Cordoba House become so toxic, so fast?

BBC report.

The UKIP candidate for Norwich North has called for the blowing up of Iran before it acquires nuclear weapons and has described Afghans as "backward". Responding to a survey about troops on the website theyworkforyou.com, Glenn Tingle used swear words to describe tribes in Afghanistan.

He said: "We should blow them up first" when replying to a question about Iran's nuclear weapons programme.

Chris Hedges on Truthdig.

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.