The right-wing hate circuit is reaping a windfall from the "Swine Flu" (Influenza A/H1N1) scare. Live links for each of these outbursts are provided by Associated Content [2], May 1:
Take for instance talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Jay Severin. Savage told his audience that people should have "no contact anywhere with an illegal alien."
He also said that to avoid contracting the swine flu, people should avoid restaurants (ostensibly he suggests because they employ illegals, mainly Hispanics) because you "don't know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!"
Severin was suspended from his radio program in Boston because he called immigrants from Mexico "criminalians" and for suggesting that hospital emergency rooms are "essentially condos for Mexicans." He also offered the notion that "terrorists are using Mexican immigrants as walking germ warfare weapons."
A similar rant was offered by syndicated radio host Neal Boortz when he said "what better way to sneak a virus into this country than give it to Mexicans."
Blogger, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin says that Swine Flu is a reason the U.S. should "finally get serious about borders now" saying that the spread of disease is reason enough for shutting down open borders.
Her co-Fox news host, Glenn Beck, also lamented about open borders and how closing them would help stem the spread of disease.
The questionable attitudes regarding the Swine Flu are not reserved for the U.S. In Russia Mexican pork products have been removed from grocery stores because of fear that pork products will aid in the spread of the flu. This even though there is no evidence that humans can get swine flu from eating pork. Similarly, in Egypt - which has as yet no reported cases of swine flu - government officials have ordered the slaughter of all pigs in the entire country. In some countries, the name of the disease is now being called the "Mexican flu."
There are pigs in Egypt?
MSNBC [3] cites another example:
"This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!" an anonymous poster ranted on the "prison planet" forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones' Web site.
Prison Planet [4] immediately screams that it has been the victim of a "smear"—despite PP guru Alex Jones' enthusiastic embrace of the xenophobe right [5].
See our last posts on the radical right [6], bionoia [7] and the politics of immigration [8].
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