The "WTC Mosque" hysteria, in a nutshell

[Iason Ouabache]

Most of this originated on FoxNews in which anything anti-government is good, and the altasshrugs blog, a blog which makes Glenn Beck seem like a moderate.
Then it's just fear of the unknown. You can replace Islam with something nonreligious and not well understood by most Americans and have the same well orchestrated campaign of fear and you will get the same response.

Yeah, not long ago it was Communism.

Fuck, they are still yelling about socialism when no politician in America is within spitting distance of socialism.

[Cramulus]

So I had a long talk yesterday with a Brooklynite friend of mine. Despite being extremely liberal, he's admittedly not a big fan of Islam, and opposes the mosque. He pointed out that recent polls lean towards rejection of the mosque. I did some research, and yeah, the polls show that somewhere between 50 and 60% of new yorkers don't want an islamic center there. A smaller percentage, somewhere between 20 and 30%, feel it would be fine. (another a large portion did not care one way or the other)

My friend felt that he would be more trusting if the islamic organization made a statement clearly separating themselves from the terrorists, saudi arabian funding, etc etc. If they got up on a soap box and said "We are against terrorism and think 9/11 sucked," it would probably win some people over. But according to him, they've been very elusive and dodgey about their position, where they're getting their money, etc. He also admits that he finds it hard to find objective information about this group - all the media agencies already have an agenda, so the reporting isn't being very fair.

To me, this discussion seems divided into two incongruent sides. In my perception, the media has facilitated two intractable islands:


1. This is America and Americans have the right to start a religious organization wherever the fuck they want.
2. Building a mosque right there is incredibly rude, kind of like protesting at a funeral.

The problem is, these questions aren't pointed in the same direction. The second camp is not necessarily arguing that Americans shouldn't have the right to build there. My buddy (who is again, extremely liberal but against the mosque) thinks that they absolutely have the right to build there, he's not objecting to that. He just thinks its tasteless.

Meanwhile, let's entertain the notion for a second that these Muslim guys ARE actually connected to Evil Forces Which Conspire to Destroy America^TM. If this were true, objecting to their presence (but not their right to be present) doesn't seem as egregious, right? In that light, it seems like it would go a long way to resolve this tension if the muslim group publicly clarified their position on all the evil things they are being suspected of.



all this being said, I admit I haven't done my google homework on the group. Maybe they've already said "Hey, we totally don't like those Hamas spags." IMO their best course of action is to help Americans understand the distinction between american muslims and the religious whackjobs who crashed a plane into our balls.

[LMNO]

Interestingly, I was just reading a Slate article about this: http://www.slate.com/id/2264754/

One by one, the arguments against the proposed Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero have collapsed. A "13-story mosque"? No such plan. "At Ground Zero"? Wrong again. The imam's radical politics? A myth. His shadowy jihadist financiers? Imagined. His failure to denounce terrorism? Debunked. The "angry battle" he's "stoking"? Please. The guy isn't even returning phone calls. The anger and stoking have come from the other side.

So the mosque's opponents have fallen back on one last argument: sensitivity.

They're searching our sensitivity for an underlying rationale that justifies the exclusion of mosques from the vicinity of Ground Zero. And they aren't finding one.

What they're finding instead is group blame. The destruction of the World Trade Center "was an attack in the name of Islam," says Giuliani. "It was a perverted type of Islam, but a kind of prevalent view that goes on in a lot of parts of the world. So we've got to be sensitive to everybody here." Lowry draws a similar connection: "It is true that Islam as such is not responsible for 9/11, but symbolism and the sensibilities of New Yorkers and victims of 9/11 can't be discounted."

This is the true thinking behind the anti-mosque sensitivity: Muslims committed the massacre. Therefore, no Muslim house of worship should be built there.

But if our revulsion at the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero is irrational—if it's based on group blame and a failure to distinguish Islam from terrorism—then maybe it isn't the mosque's planners who need to rise above their emotions. Maybe it's the rest of us.

Once we recognize the sensitivity argument for what it is—an appeal to feelings we can't morally justify—there's no good reason why the Islamic center shouldn't be built at its planned site, in the neighborhood where its imam already preaches and its members work and congregate. Asking them to reorder their lives to accommodate our instinctive reaction is wrong. We can transcend that reaction, and we should.

[Jenne]

Jon Stewart did an EXCELLENT job highlighting the fact that reactionaryism on any level is not good for our country/society, and that it's easy to inject into our knee-jerk movements the sense of righteousness that only has surface and not true deeper potential.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition

[Cain]

The Cordoba Initative are one of the best known interfaith movements trying to work for peace between religious communities in the world.  The name itself is taken from the (historically dubious but well known Islamic) narrative that Cordoba, under the Umayyad Caliphate, was a place where Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived together in peace and harmony.

Plus, the Imam not only has close links to the Aspen Institute, including such dangerous radicals as, er, Madeleine Albright, Henry Louis Gates, David Koch of Koch Industries, the CEO of Wachovia and Condi Rice, among others, he also has members of the Aspen Institute sitting on his own board of members.  The guy's as establishment as you can get without being appointed Chief Poobah of Islam by Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates.

[Cramulus]

yeah, reading up on the group a bit further, I think they're saying the right things, they're just not saying them loudly enough. I imagine this is largely because the opposition has far more microphones available. I think a crisp, peaceful message would be able to cut through a lot of the noise. Reading the guy's wikipedia page, I'm surprised that he's so controversial - hes even written books about why America is awesome. He is kind of smudgy looking I guess.

[Cain]

"Guy saying sensible things most of our audience agrees with" isn't exactly a ratings winner, whereas "rabid American hating fundamentalist with hooks for hands" more usually does.  Basically, the entire news ideology in America is based around Bile Fascination.

[Don Coyote]

"This makes me angry so I must watch it"

[Requia ☣]

Plus, the Imam not only has close links to the Aspen Institute, including such dangerous radicals as, er, Madeleine Albright, Henry Louis Gates, David Koch of Koch Industries, the CEO of Wachovia and Condi Rice, among others, he also has members of the Aspen Institute sitting on his own board of members.  The guy's as establishment as you can get without being appointed Chief Poobah of Islam by Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates.

Source?  Even if its just your blog really.  This would be useful for tossing at people who claim he must be accepting terrorist money to afford the building.

[Cain]

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/leadership-board is the trustee board of the Aspen Institute, and he is linked to it via John S Bennett, the co-founder of the Cordoba Initiative, a former Vice President of the Aspen Institute, former Mayor of Aspen (4 terms) and a very successful businessman  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cordoba_Initiative and http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_S._Bennett

[Thurnez Isa]

yeah, reading up on the group a bit further, I think they're saying the right things, they're just not saying them loudly enough. I imagine this is largely because the opposition has far more microphones available. I think a crisp, peaceful message would be able to cut through a lot of the noise. Reading the guy's wikipedia page, I'm surprised that he's so controversial - hes even written books about why America is awesome. He is kind of smudgy looking I guess.

Plus the media doesn't get a controversy

[Thurnez Isa]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/politics/3183/it%E2%80%99s_not_just_about_ground_zero/

one of the most obvious things in the world

More recently, in reaction to the California gay marriage decision, columnist and former vice-president of the Moral Majority Cal Thomas wrote: "Muslim fanatics who wish to destroy us are correct in their diagnosis of our moral rot.... While their solution--Sharia law--is wrong, they are not wrong about what ails us." Thomas doesn't say what the right solution is, but it doesn't seem a stretch to suggest that, for him, it is Biblical law. His problem is not with religious law, as long as it is the right religious law.

When people react with such vehemence against the building of mosques, they are revealing far more about themselves than about Muslims. They are projecting their own theocratic political vision onto their perceived enemies. While I'm not suggesting that people like Fischer and Thomas are crypto-terrorists, their ideas are dangerous, fanatical and antithetical to American principles.

[Jenne]

"Guy saying sensible things most of our audience agrees with" isn't exactly a ratings winner, whereas "rabid American hating fundamentalist with hooks for hands" more usually does.  Basically, the entire news ideology in America is based around Bile Fascination.

THIS TIMES A MILLION

[Triple Zero]

Jon Stewart did an EXCELLENT job highlighting the fact that reactionaryism on any level is not good for our country/society, and that it's easy to inject into our knee-jerk movements the sense of righteousness that only has surface and not true deeper potential.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition

It was wonderful! "I'm also against building a Terrorist Command Center elsewhere in New York!!"

[Placid Dingo]

I don't like that whole 'they need to be louder about being the good guys' stuff.

It's like, hey Synagogue. We're only angry because you're not being loud enough in denying your intent to implement the Zionist New World Order. And that's your fault for being too quiet, not our fault for being prejudiced.