Yes, that is the correct description. So why are you denying the Muslims of their Constitutional 1st amendment rights?
Less rights, get use to it?
Ground Zero: Mosque; or No Mosque
- Thread starter QueEx
- Start date
Yes, that is the correct description. So why are you denying the Muslims of their Constitutional 1st amendment rights?
Less rights, get use to it?
Will you please look at post 26 of this thread!
My only statement was an attempt at clarification. I don't really think people have a problem with the building of a mosque, I think the problem is where it is being built.
P.S. Good read muckraker10021
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You're right.... just like how white people have no problem with black people buying houses just not in their neighborhoods.
Remember the words on the Statue of Liberty
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of you teamming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door
Religious Freedom is the corner stone of this Nation....
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of you teamming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door
Religious Freedom is the corner stone of this Nation....
I respectfully disagree. The location of this one is a smokescreen and it's another case of opportunists using 9/11 for political gain.
Is Murfreesboro, Tenn to close? They're protesting a mosque there. Temecula, Calif.? Protests. Sheboygan, Wis.? Same.
And as this thing plays out, I'm coming to that conclusion as well (not really changing my opinion, just acknowledging the "location as a smokescreen" point). I never thought this issue was a big deal but the media has taken a "local" issue, blown it up to national & possibly international proportions. I thought it would have the usual 2-day news cycle & fade away
In the last 24 hours, I've developed the hypothesis that the mosque issue is staged to bring out 3 feelings in the general populous:
1. To get Americans, both left and right to feel some new animosity towards muslim people as a whole.
2. To inject elements of the "Official 9/11 story" back into the national consiousness.
3. Iran pregame.
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Because the media is republican/corporate controlled and the republicans have nothing pertinent to run on.
Yeah, these Tea-ocons are playing a dangerous game
But what about Harry Greid distancing himself from the Pres on this issue, as well as some other NY Dems?
I don't even think it's that serious. I think the news media in this country is so corrupt and so lazy that it's just easier to kick this around for days and days instead of real issue that aren't as emotionally charged. Nothing garners ratings and hits like a good "race" story.
They're very selective about what parts of the Constitution they want protected but very few outside liberal leaning sources even take time to point out their hypocrisy (MSNBC night time line up, The Nation magazine).
Reid's trash. He's a senator from Nevada, what does this have to do with him. He should have sidestepped this issue.
Reid has always been suspect.
The only reason I want Reid to win in Nov is Sharon Angle is an even dumber Sarah Palin clone. Dude has been a weak kneed Senate leader and has not been much help to Obama moving his agenda forward.
No it's not I'm not dealing in hypotheticals I'm saying strict adherence to the Constitution can be fatal, or will be fatal without basic common sense. For instance Prop 8 isn't law yet because people with common sense want to make sure it's the right thing to do. I haven't been keeping up with it but the last I heard was.
Building a Muslim Cultural center on a site where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Muslims shouldn't be taken lightly even if it's ok under the Constitution.
"The right thing to do" based on the law, which is based on the Constitution. There is no real "strict adherence" because the Constitution is and has been interpreted differently by different judges as mores and perspectives change. One Court made the Dred Scott decision and another made the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Both Courts would claim they based their decisions on constitutional grounds.
3000 Americans including 300 Muslims.
And it's not being build on that site, it's two blocks away and not even in sight of the former WTC site, in a building they're already using for religious and social activities.
Those cases are good examples because they illustrate how the times influence the courts and how they interpret the Constitution. Brown vs Board would have never became law in the Dred Scott era. That in a nutshell is what I'm saying, in these times allowing that center to be built there might not be a good idea regardless of what the Constitution says.
Ron Paul: Left and the Right Demagogue Mosque, Islam
LAKE JACKSON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on the controversy concerning the construction of an Islamic Center and Mosque in New York City:
“Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?
“It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”
“The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.
“Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”
“Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?
“In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.
“They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers from in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice.
“The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.
“The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.
“Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.
“This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.
“There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?
“If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.
“The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.
“Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.
“Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam--the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.
“It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.
“The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservative’s aggressive wars.
“The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding a Congressional investigation to find out just who is funding the mosque—a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law—in order to look tough against Islam.
“This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.
“We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.
“Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.”
LAKE JACKSON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on the controversy concerning the construction of an Islamic Center and Mosque in New York City:
“Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?
“It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”
“The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.
“Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”
“Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?
“In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.
“They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers from in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice.
“The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.
“The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.
“Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.
“This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.
“There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?
“If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.
“The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.
“Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.
“Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam--the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.
“It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.
“The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservative’s aggressive wars.
“The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding a Congressional investigation to find out just who is funding the mosque—a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law—in order to look tough against Islam.
“This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.
“We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.
“Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.”
man I left a couple of days to spend time with my girl, and now this thread has became a bush did this thread...
I'm going to say this in regards to the economy. Both sides are at fault.
Republicans didn't stand on what got them there. They spent too much to keep their power. Thus, turning off their base. Thus, allowing the left to take control. The left further screwed up a bad situation ON PURPOSE *yea I said it* to gain more power while blaming Bush in the process. Same goes for when Obama got in office. They can always blame Bush because they think people *like this board* is dumb enough to believe that the Democrats had no hand in the matter. NO matter WHO is the president, if you have a badly ran congress, that president will resemble Nixon/Carter. Right now Bush/Obama is really like Nixon/Carter II.
Back to the mosque. The group who is raising money for the mosque *Cordova house* screwed up PR wise. The best thing they could of did was to reach out to the 9-11 victims BEFORE THE MEDIA GOT IN IT, and explain their reasoning. *if anyone has an article of them doing this please let me know* To me, it is rather counter-productive to build something, under the cover of reaching out, when the other side doesn't want what you are providing. There's better ways to reach out to other religions without offending victims.
For example, wouldn't it be great if they would of got with some of the top religions advisers in the world, the federal/local governments, and establish a center *sort of like the UN* for different religions? That would cover more ground, and produce better tolerance within the religions IMO. Just a thought...
I'm going to say this in regards to the economy. Both sides are at fault.
Republicans didn't stand on what got them there. They spent too much to keep their power. Thus, turning off their base. Thus, allowing the left to take control. The left further screwed up a bad situation ON PURPOSE *yea I said it* to gain more power while blaming Bush in the process. Same goes for when Obama got in office. They can always blame Bush because they think people *like this board* is dumb enough to believe that the Democrats had no hand in the matter. NO matter WHO is the president, if you have a badly ran congress, that president will resemble Nixon/Carter. Right now Bush/Obama is really like Nixon/Carter II.
Back to the mosque. The group who is raising money for the mosque *Cordova house* screwed up PR wise. The best thing they could of did was to reach out to the 9-11 victims BEFORE THE MEDIA GOT IN IT, and explain their reasoning. *if anyone has an article of them doing this please let me know* To me, it is rather counter-productive to build something, under the cover of reaching out, when the other side doesn't want what you are providing. There's better ways to reach out to other religions without offending victims.
For example, wouldn't it be great if they would of got with some of the top religions advisers in the world, the federal/local governments, and establish a center *sort of like the UN* for different religions? That would cover more ground, and produce better tolerance within the religions IMO. Just a thought...
Unless there's a zoning issue, there's no such thing as not allowing them to build regardless of the Constitution. That's a huge hypothetical because the Constitution gives them the right to build. Please, one more time, explain to me what's wrong with this building. Will it make some people feel bad? Yes, it probably will but since when do we suppress people's rights because of the feeling of others? Those people have the right to protest but the government can not stop this from happening.
I'm rereading your post and I have to know: are you two different people using the same name? Your whole thing seems based on the Constitution being outdated and static so my examples, while they are good, are examples that contradict you, not support you.
While I'm sure there may have been some mention of the previous President, this is so far from a Bush bashing thread this part of your post looks like you talking about another thread.
This is funny. Last year, some of the same people denouncing the community center were applauding it and the outreach of the organizers. I don't have the video but I just saw John Stewart make fun of Fox News for being on both sides of this issue. What you're asking for them to do, they already did, for the most part.
i need to see that video.
You will not understand my position if you view the Constitution as definite because it's not. If it were Brown vs Board would be the law in any era. The Constitution is subjective, arbritary, it can enforce Brown vs Board and outlaw it depending on popular opinion. People in positions of power support the mosque because they know we cannot defeat Al Qaeda without Muslims if they didn't believe that they would lock them up the way they did Asians during WWII. The Constitution is flawed thank God MLK, Thurgood, Rosa, Malcom, Fredrick etc didn't accept it as his will or we would still be slaves.
Praising people who used the constitution to fight the discrimination of their time and attacking the usefulness of the constitution when you want discriminate against another group of people in this time... all in the same post.
Amazingly Illogical
Praising people who used the constitution to fight the discrimination of their time and attacking the usefulness of the constitution when you want discriminate against another group of people in this time... all in the same post.
Amazingly Illogical
Normally I wouldn't even acknowledge you but in spite of your silliness you somehow manage to touch on some important points. If the people I mentioned accepted the law as written Blacks would still be slaves, if we accept it now we would allow people we are at war with to build a center on the site where 3000 Americans died.
I know people like you ignore what they can't understand or counter. Anyways, You do realize slavery ended way before everyone you listed except Frederick Douglass. Now if you mean discrimination it has continued way after their deaths. Now the fucked part of the constitution is that it labeled slaves as less than men but once slavery ended... black men deserved the same rights as listed in the constitution and that's how the majority of the people you named used it to get the rights that you want taken from Muslims.
By the way... are we at war with Muslims, Arabs or Al-Queda?
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Bitch, please. The cornerstones (one word) of this nation are ethnic cleansing and slavery.
Praising people who used the constitution to fight the discrimination of their time and attacking the usefulness of the constitution when you want discriminate against another group of people in this time... all in the same post.
Amazingly Illogical
Amazingly!
QueEx
How Fox Betrayed Petraeus
by Frank Rich
August 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html
<br>THE “ground zero mosque,” as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It’s not a mosque but <a title="An index of stories in The Times about the planned Islamic cultural center." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/park51/index.html">an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room</a>. It’s not going to determine President Obama’s political future or the elections of 2010 or 2012. Still, the battle that has broken out over this project in Lower Manhattan — on the “hallowed ground” of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory store <a title="A column by Errol Louis in The Daily News about the stripclubs nearby." href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/12/2010-08-12_defeat_mosque_demagogues_why_arent_they_bothered_by_the_nearby_stripclub.html">one block from the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club</a> — will prove eventful all the same. And the consequences will be far more profound than any midterm election results or any of the grand debates now raging 24/7 over the parameters of tolerance, religious freedom, and the real estate gospel of location, location, location.
<br>Here’s what’s been lost in all the screaming. The prime movers in the campaign against the “ground zero mosque” just happen to be among the last cheerleaders for America’s nine-year war in Afghanistan. The wrecking ball they’re wielding is not merely pounding Park51, as the project is known, but is demolishing America’s already frail support for that war, which is dedicated to nation-building in a nation whose most conspicuous asset besides opium is actual mosques.
<br>So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the <a title="An article in The Times about the Anti-Defamation League.D.L.’s position on the Islamic cultural center." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/nyregion/31mosque.html">Anti-Defamation League</a>, <a title="A blog post on The Washington Post’s Web site about Reid’s statement." href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/08/harry-reid-weighs-in-on-ny-mos.html">Harry Reid</a> and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?
<br>You’d think that American hawks invested in the Afghanistan “surge” would not act against their own professed interests. But they couldn’t stop themselves from placing cynical domestic politics over country. The ginned-up rage over the “ground zero mosque” was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad — a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated — but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season.
<br>We owe thanks to <a title="The timeline by Justin Elliot of Salon." href="http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins">Justin Elliott of Salon</a> for the single most revealing account of this controversy’s evolution. He reports that there was zero reaction to the “ground zero mosque” from the front-line right or anyone else except marginal bloggers when The Times first reported on the Park51 plans in <a title="The Times’s December report about the proposed cultural center." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html">a lengthy front-page article on Dec. 9, 2009</a>. The sole exception came some two weeks later at Fox News, where Laura Ingraham, filling in on “The O’Reilly Factor,” interviewed Daisy Khan, the wife of the project’s organizer, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. <a title="A blog post from ThinkProgress.org about Ingraham’s comments." href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/16/laura-ingraham-mosque/">Ingraham gave the plans her blessing</a>. “I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it,” she said. “I like what you’re trying to do.”
<br>As well Ingraham might. Rauf is no terrorist. He has been repeatedly <a title="An article in The Times about Imam Feisal’s latest trip." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/nyregion/20imam.html">sent on speaking tours</a> by the Bush and Obama State Departments alike to promote tolerance in Arab and Muslim nations. As <a title="Goldberg’s blog post on The Atlantic’s Web site." href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/-ground-zero-imam-i-am-a-jew-i-have-always-been-one/61761/">Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic reported last week</a>, Rauf gave a moving eulogy at a memorial service for <a title="An index of articles in The Times about Daniel Pearl’s murder." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/p/daniel_pearl/index.html">Daniel Pearl</a>, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan, at the Manhattan synagogue B’nai Jeshurun. Pearl’s father was in attendance. The Park51 board is chock-full of Christians and Jews. Perhaps the most threatening thing about this fledgling multi-use community center, an unabashed imitator of the venerable (and Jewish) 92nd Street Y uptown, is its potential to spawn yet another coveted, impossible-to-get-into Manhattan private preschool.
<br>In the five months after The Times’s initial account there were no newspaper articles on the project at all. It was only in May of this year that the Rupert Murdoch axis of demagoguery revved up, jettisoning Ingraham’s benign take for <a title="The New York Post story about the “Ground Zero Mosque” in May." href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/panel_approves_wtc_mosque_U46MkTSVJH3ZxqmNuuKmML">a New York Post jihad</a>. The paper’s inspiration was a rabidly anti-Islam blogger <a title="An item by Gawker about the anti-Muslim blogger’s conspiracy theory." href="http://gawker.com/5071373/bombshell-obama-malcom-x-love-child">best known for claiming that Obama was Malcolm X’s illegitimate son</a>. Soon <a title="A report by MediaMatters about Fox News’s coverage of the Islamic cultural center." href="http://mediamatters.org/research/201008130015">the rest of the Murdoch empire</a> and its political allies piled on, promoting the incendiary libel that the “radical Islamists” behind the “ground zero mosque” were tantamount either to neo-Nazis in Skokie (<a title="The column editorial in The Wall Street Journal." href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423463411360770.html">according to a Wall Street Journal columnist</a>) or actual Nazis (<a title="An article in Politico about Gingrich’s comments." href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41112.html">per Newt Gingrich</a>).
<br>These patriots have never attacked the routine Muslim worship services at another site of the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon. Their sudden concern for ground zero is suspect to those of us who actually live in New York. <a title="An article in The Times about the vote in the House." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/nyregion/30zadroga.html">All but 12 Republicans in the House voted against health benefits</a> for 9/11 responders just last month. Though many of these ground-zero watchdogs partied at the 2004 G.O.P. convention in New York exploiting 9/11, none of them protested that a fellow Republican, the former New York governor George Pataki, so bollixed up the management of the World Trade Center site that nine years on it still lacks any finished buildings, let alone a permanent memorial.
<br>The Fox patron saint <a title="A blog post about Palin’s comments." href="http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/sarah-palin-why-are-the-muslims-choosing-a-location-just-a-block-or-two-away-from-911.php">Sarah Palin calls Park51</a> a “stab in the heart” of Americans who “still have that lingering pain from 9/11.” But her only previous engagement with the 9/11 site was when <a title="An article in The Times about Palin taking questions at Ground Zero." href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/palin-takes-reporters-questions/">she used it as a political backdrop</a> for taking her first questions from reporters nearly a month after being named to the G.O.P. ticket. (She was so eager to grab her ground zero photo op that she defied John McCain’s just-announced “suspension” of their campaign.) Her disingenuous piety has been topped only by Bernie Kerik, who smuggled a Twitter message out of prison to register his rage at the ground zero desecration. As my colleague <a title="Haberman’s column in The Times about the center and Kerik’s message on Twitter." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/nyregion/27nyc.html">Clyde Haberman reminded us</a>, such was Kerik’s previous reverence for the burial ground of 9/11 that he appropriated an apartment overlooking the site (and designated for recovery workers) for an extramarital affair.
<br>At the Islamophobia command center, Murdoch’s News Corporation, the hypocrisy is, if anything, thicker. A <a title="The editorial in The Wall Street Journal." href="http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704901104575423243201956002.html">recent Wall Street Journal editorial</a> darkly cited unspecified “reports” that Park51 has “money coming from Saudi charities or Gulf princes that also fund Wahabi madrassas.” As <a title="The recent clip from “The Daily Show.”" href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition">Jon Stewart observed</a>, this brand of innuendo could also be applied to News Corp., whose <a title="An article in Daily Finance about News Corp.’s Saudi shareholder." href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/news-corp-the-saudi-prince-and-the-ground-zero-mosque/19593554/">second largest shareholder</a> after the Murdoch family is a member of the Saudi royal family. Perhaps last week’s revelation that News Corp. <a title="An article in The Times about News Corp.’s donation to Republicans." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/us/politics/18donate.html">has poured $1 million into G.O.P. campaign coffers</a> was a fiendishly clever smokescreen to deflect anyone from following the far greater sum of Saudi money (a $3 billion stake) that has flowed into Murdoch enterprises, or the News Corp. money (at least $70 million) recently <a title="An article about News Corp.’s investment in a Saudi media company." href="http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/news-corp-makes-mideast-push-with-rotana/">invested in a Saudi media company</a>.
<br>Were McCain in the White House, Fox and friends would have kept ignoring Park51. But it’s an irresistible target in our current election year because it revives the most insidious anti-Obama narrative of the many Fox promoted in the previous election year: Obama the closet Muslim and secret madrassa alumnus. In the <a title="The new Pew poll." href="http://people-press.org/report/645/">much discussed latest Pew poll</a>, a record number of Americans (nearing 20 percent) said that our Christian president practices Islam. And they do not see that as a good thing. Existing or proposed American mosques hundreds and even thousands of miles from ground zero, from Tennessee to Wisconsin to California, are <a title="An article in The Times about opposition to mosques around the country." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/us/08mosque.html">now under siege</a>.
<br>After 9/11, <a title="Transcript of President Bush’s speech about Islam in September 2001." href="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html">President Bush praised Islam as a religion of peace</a> and asked for tolerance for Muslims not necessarily because he was a humanitarian or knew much about Islam but because national security demanded it. An America at war with Islam plays right into Al Qaeda’s recruitment spiel. This month’s incessant and indiscriminate orgy of Muslim-bashing is a national security disaster for that reason — Osama bin Laden’s “next video script has just written itself,” as the former F.B.I. terrorist interrogator Ali Soufan <a title="Soufan’s article for Forbes." href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/18/ground-zero-mosque-controversy-opinions-contributors-ali-soufan_print.html">put it</a> — but not just for that reason. America’s Muslim partners, those our troops are fighting and dying for, are collateral damage. If the cleric behind Park51 — a man who has <a title="An article by TPMMuckraker about Imam Feisal’s outreach work during the Bush administration." href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/ground_zero_mosque_imam_bush_partner_for_peace.php">participated in events with Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes</a>, for heaven’s sake — is labeled a closet terrorist sympathizer and a Nazi by some of the loudest and most powerful conservative voices in America, which Muslims are not?
<br>In <a title="An article from CNN.com about the poll." href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/17/poll-opposition-to-iraq-afghanistan-wars-reach-all-time-high/">the latest CNN poll</a>, American opposition is at an all-time high to both the ostensibly concluded war in Iraq (69 percent) and the endless one in Afghanistan (62 percent). Now, when the very same politicians and pundits who urge infinite patience for Afghanistan slime Muslims as Nazis, they will have to explain that they are not talking about Hamid Karzai or his corrupt narco-thug government or the questionably loyal Afghan armed forces our own forces are asked to entrust with their lives. The hawks will have to make the case that American troops should make the ultimate sacrifice to build a Nazi — Afghan, I mean — nation and that economically depressed taxpayers should keep paying for it. Good luck with that.
<br>Poor General Petraeus. Over the last week he has been ubiquitous in the <a title="A recent article about The Times’s interview with Petraeus." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/world/asia/16petraeus.html">major</a> <a title="An article in The Washington Post about their interview with Petraeus." href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/15/AR2010081501514.html">newspapers</a> and <a title="Transcript of Petraeus on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38686033/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts">on</a> <a title="Katie Couric’s interview with Petraeus on CBS." href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/19/eveningnews/main6788279.shtml">television</a> as he <a title="An article in The Times about Petraeus’s latest public relations campaign." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/us/10petraeus.html">pursues a publicity tour</a> to pitch the war he’s inherited. But have you heard any buzz about what he had to say? Any debate? Any anything? No one was listening and no one cared. Everyone was too busy yelling about the mosque.
<br>It’s poignant, really. Even as America’s most venerable soldier returned from the front to valiantly assume the role of Willy Loman, the product he was selling was being discredited and discontinued by his own self-proclaimed allies at home.
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Praising people who used the constitution to fight the discrimination of their time and attacking the usefulness of the constitution when you want discriminate against another group of people in this time... all in the same post.
Amazingly Illogical
Incredibly!
Nittie
Your lack of understanding in this is astounding. Those people you named based their argument on the law established in the Constitution.
In America? Companies aren't even allowed to use interns more than a set amount of hours so where are the legally-recognized slaves in America? There's a huge difference between chattle slavery of the 18th, 19th centuries and sex trafficking, so try to stick to the topic at hand.
I'm waiting for his source on that, but I am pretty sure he won't come back.
Nitties lack of knowledge is shocking, but to try to act like you're having an intellectual argument based on that shaky knowledge is terrible. Nitties like this have no way of shaping their believes around logic or new information. Overall it's sad when black people support discrimination.
*Correction due to the rules of the board
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I agree with all of that.
It's one thing when a person is speaking for themselves, we all have our own prejudicesa and bias, but it's mindboggling when Black folks support any type of arbitrary, gov't-sanctioned discrimination.
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You know I gotcha, right?
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins
1. Laura Ingram was commenting on the local officials NOT having a problem with it. This article you posted took her words out of context.
2. Khan ,perhaps, could mean good with her intention. Not to mention, I actually applaud her efforts. However, the issue isn't with her, and this groups, it's really towards the extremist who WOULD look at this as a blow to OUR *the greater western Judea-Christian believers* willingness to take a stand. To make a better example, if we would of taken over Baghdad, and build a mega church in the middle of one of Saddam's palaces, how would the people in that country see it? We're not that much different than them in that aspect.
3. The reason this didn't take hold as a story for over a year was due to attention made to other things. You have to remember, the American public was worried about health care, jobs, oil spills, Afghanistan, and taxes. Not to mention, Lebron fiasco. There was no room for attention for this story.
So you think the best way to answer the extremist minority is to prove them right and actually discriminate against Muslims? Since when do we ignore our principles because of the opinions and feelings of assholes who will still hate us?
Your example is not only NOT better, it's completely false. First the history of Christians invading and attempting to subjugate that area of the world (see Crusades, The) is still a wound on the psyche of those people. Second, when you say "we're not that much different from them in that aspect", I say "we're supposed to be". How goal is to be better than that. Someone should remind you and Newt Gingrich that our standard of religious freedom shouldn't the lowest commond denominator.
What's funny is Khan speaks directly to the idea of extremists' being the face of Islam and how this center is a blow against them and that idea.
I noticed Ingraham (who's really trash) calls it an "Islamic center" in the segment but now it's a "mosque".
It's ironic to hear these political "Christians" who wants to mimic the intolerance of some Muslim dictators.
Now which one of those stories have been resolved? Which one should have been moved from the forefront for this very local story? Take dumbed down corporate media who add political opportunism and you have this mess.
You see actinanass finds it in himself to defend Laura Ingram.
A really indefensible person. She may have some journalist talent and integrity but I've almost never seen it. This clip was the exception and she's messed that up.
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