Poll: NY Mosque - exposing other underlying sentiments?

[lostzombies.com]

This isn't a topic about if the building of the building is right or wrong....there have been too many of those already. It's asking if you think the anti-building demonstrations and the people who attend them and just using the excuse to showcase other underlying feelings. This video made me think about the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwaNRWMN-F4&feature=player_embedded

If you don't have 4 min to spare, basically there is a crowd (maybe 200 people) chanting when a blackguy listening to an mp3 player walks past, suddenly he is being chanted at, verbally abbused and surrounded by peeople getting in his face.

Now the kicker is that the guy isn't even muslim, he is just a black man with a white hat on minding his own business walking past. He is taken away by what looks like organisers of the rally and told to leave then given a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo when he says 'hey you know thats a violation of my rights yes?'

So what are your thoughts? Are the demonstations just a medium for people with...other....views on certain people to get their hate out without being tarred as members of the KKK etc?

Or is it a handful of people using otherwise reasonable people's emotions to their own motives?

 

[Ironic Pirate]

I think if anything it shows peoples desire for a scapegoat.

Because instead of taking it as a multi-faceted issue, they just look at the ethnicity or religion of those responsible, and lash out, blaming them specifically for the deaths of loved ones. This is really the reason society has trouble advancing, one group does something and suddenly there's violence everywhere.

That said, are we really any better, pointing to a few random people as the embodiment of any stupidities or failures of the human race? Maybe they deserve, maybe they don't. Maybe, maybe people need a scape goat, just so they can live their own lives in comfort, the trouble happens when said scape goat is available to them, not some hated enemy in a different land, but their neighbor, their co-worker, their friend.

 

[lostzombies.com]

Also, 'never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers'

 

[Avaholic03]

Also, 'never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers'

There, you answered your own question (sorta). Obviously some of the people have ulterior motives, and then the rest of the people protesting get drawn into it.

 

[miscelaneous]

No, I just think its a bunch of dumb people who are afraid and are being taken advantage of.