The "WTC Mosque" hysteria, in a nutshell

[Kai]

No, owls are the real assholes.

[Jenne]

The point I was making about the dove is that it's seen as a bird of quiet joy and peace in our common Western culture, as well as in the Bible

Except when they shit all over the Baby Jebus' head.

Well, there's that.

And Kai, Squiddy's gonna gitcha.

[Cain]

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/08/17/cordoba-house-the-acid-test/

The cable news channels have been consumed with the "Ground Zero mosque" 24/7, to the virtual exclusion of all else: it's an "issue" made for them, and they're eating it up. I'm soooo glad we don't have anything else to worry about: that the economy is just rolling merrily along, people are not losing their homes, and everything is just hunky-dory in the good ol' US of A, land of peace and plenty. Why else would our "leaders" in both parties be commenting on what, in a rational society, would not even come up for discussion?

Too bad we aren't living a rational society, or even anything close. That's the first thought that crossed my mind as I sat down, today, to once again examine this manufactured controversy. Which led logically and naturally to this second thought: manufactured by whom, and for what purpose?

Is it me, or does anyone else find it passing strange that – at a time when conservatives are on the ascendant, with this administration's increasingly unpopular economic program under attack from all sides – that the American right-wing is taking up yet another nasty-minded "cultural" issue? Forget the bank bailouts, don't worry about the nationalization of large swathes of the American economy (banking, healthcare, housing), and try to forget that China owns us – what's really really wrong with America is that the New York City government is allowing a mosque to be built within a four-block radius of where the World Trade Center once stood.

Never mind that it isn't a mosque, and that we're talking about four New York City blocks, which, where I come from, is the equivalent of the other side of town. Also please ignore the fact that there are already mosques in the vicinity – go here for the Google map – and not only that, but what about all those Muslims living and working in the general vicinity? Isn't their mere presence a slap in the face? What about Alfanoose, the excellent Arabic restaurant a few blocks away, where customers regularly consume such pro-terrorist items as lamb shawarma? Not to mention falafels!

And it isn't just those rag-heads we need to cleanse from the streets of Lower Manhattan. Right in the same neighborhood is the headquarters of the National Lawyers Guild, one of whose members, Lynn Stewart, the 70-year-old attorney for accused terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman, was jailed for ten years for "materially supporting terrorism." White radicals are just as bad as the terrorists they defend, and they have to go, too.

And what about the Mayor of New York City, Mr. Bloomberg: should he be allowed to set foot anywhere near the Sacred Zone? After all, he's defending Cordoba House: indeed, he's the only politician I know of, other than – to some degree – the President, who is standing up for the terrorists – uh, I mean the builders of the mosque – and therefore he, too, should be banished from that holy precinct. And why stop with Lower Manhattan, anyway? Let's extend the ban to all of New York City: after all, the 9/11 attacks were aimed the whole of the Big Bad Apple, and certainly people in all boroughs were traumatized, perhaps they lost loved ones.

But why stop there? Indeed, the power-hungry demagogues who are trying to ride this issue haven't stopped there, and are avidly trying to bring their campaign to the whole country. The idea is to stop the construction of any new mosques, anywhere, using building codes and public pressure to shut them down. The lunatic Pamela Geller – who believes Malcom X is Obama's real father – and her "Stop the Islamization of America" stormtroopers have coalesced with Newt Gingrich, and are putting on a Sept. 11 rally at the World Trade Center site. Gingrich, rather than accept his has-been status and fade away gracefully, has decided to reinvent himself as the American Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who has made a career out of stigmatizing Muslims and campaigning to impose legal restrictions on the immigrant Islamic community. Wilders, who was refused entry to Britain on the grounds that they don't let hate-mongers in, will have no trouble gaining entry to the US on September 11, when he's a scheduled speaker at the hate rally. He'll stand alongside Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican congressman whose history of palling around with the Irish Republican Army would seem to make him an unlikely speaker at an "anti-terrorist" event.

The cynical Gingrich bellows that Cordoba House should not be built until and unless a synagogue is allowed to be built in Saudi Arabia, knowing perfectly well that the group behind the project is not Wahabi – the Saudis' strict sect – but Sufi, the most peaceful and anti-jihadist of the various strains of Islam. That isn't stopping him from trying to revive his previously dead political career with yet another Republican "wedge" issue.

Somewhere, Osama bin Laden is smiling, delighted to discover a good chunk of American opinion agrees with him that Islam, by its very nature, is antithetical to the US and everything it stands for – a premise that puts us at war with over a billion people. He's smiling because Gingrich is doing his evil work for him, striking a blow against our security far more effectively than anything al-Qaeda has so far managed to pull off. Polls show bin Laden & Co. are losing whatever popularity they once enjoyed in the Muslim world, with only 6 percent considering the Evil One an admirable figure. Oh, but don't worry: Gingrich and the Anti-Defamation League are doing everything they can to rectify that.

President Obama, in reaffirming his support for religious tolerance in the US, noted that "this is America." Yes, it surely is, but what kind of an America?

Right now, that's an open question, and I frankly fear the answer. With Senator Harry Reid coming out against Obama's civil libertarian stance, and several Democrats following his lead, it looks like the herd is stampeding in one direction and one direction only. This is what our politicians think of the American people – that we're a bunch of intolerant unthinking idiots who quickly form a lynch mob at the least provocation.

Now that it's politically incorrect to stigmatize or legally punish blacks, the lynchers have targeted a new victim: Muslims are the new Negroes. It may very well take a civil rights movement at least as persistent and brave as the one that acted on behalf of African Americans to stave off the gathering threat.

There is, however, a bright side to all this: in spite of backing down a bit later, the President's statement and the venue in which he made it was heartening. I must say, however, that's the first time I've ever heard Obama mount a defense of private property rights!

Which underscores a point libertarians have often made: that the freedoms we all take for granted are predicated on the centrality of private property as the very basis of our civilization and true liberalism (in the classical sense). There is no freedom of the press if you can't own a press (or a web site). There can be no political and religious freedom without economic freedom.

One would think all libertarians understand this, and are rising to defend Cordoba House – and Muslims all across America – from would-be cultural commissars who would determine who may and may not build a house of worship here in the land of the free. So far, however, I've yet to see a single politician who habitually rails against "Big Government" even take a position on the New York mosque issue, let alone take the right one. Where are ya, fellas? The silence is deafening.

I used to think we were better than that: and by "we," I don't just mean libertarians, but the whole damned country. Can it really be true that people will fall for this kind of obvious emotional manipulation and demagoguery?

I refuse to believe it. If only the President hadn't backed away, no doubt heeding the advice of his pollsters and political hatchet men, he could have turned this into a teachable moment, and shown his capacity for real leadership. The average American hates a bully, and the clownish Gingrich is such a vulnerable target: a veritable piñata waiting to be burst. The first major political figure to step forward and do the honors will find he or she has more support than they ever imagined.

This is really the acid test for civil libertarians of both the left and the right, because if the lynch mob succeeds it will set a terrible precedent – one we may all come to regret only when it's too late.

Raimondo is one of those libertarians who actually mostly makes sense.  Here he is on top form.

[Thurnez Isa]

I know there is a crazy amount of articles now in this thread but I loved this one...

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/3138/dangerous_religion/

What is the most dangerous religion in America?

A slightly loaded question that no one in their right mind would attempt to answer, no? But it is a question at the heart of the debates surrounding mosques and Muslims in America today. The opposition against building an Islamic center near the site where the World Trade Center once stood, and the growing outcry around the country about the creation of other Muslim places to gather and worship, suggests that many Americans are not afraid to answer the question without hesitation.

In the post 9/11 world we now live in, Islam poses the greatest threat to American lives and security, a nefarious, fanatical religion that can bring death and destruction to innocent people, that disregards our laws and codes of conduct, and that is prone to acts of violence beyond the pale of civilized society. At least this is the message we are hearing more and more frequently in the news, especially in the wake of President Obama's recent statements; views espoused by religious and political leaders as well as average American citizens fearful of Muslims abroad and at home.

But perhaps it might be worthwhile to take a step back from all the heated rhetoric and passionate emotions fueling the fires of hatred and distrust in the current moment and take a brief look into the past. In the pre-9/11 world and backward through time to the founding of this great country, a historical perspective leads to a very different picture about religious violence and what religion poses the greatest threat to American lives. Anyone who takes the time to research and reflect on the nation's past might be led to believe that Christianity has been the most dangerous and violent religion in the United States, that it is a religion inspiring bloodshed and discrimination, hatred and terrorist acts against people understood to be infidels, subhuman, or simply different.

"Christianity" of course is a meaningless label, as I've written before. Like "Islam" it is too broad a category to cover the radically diverse practices, beliefs, and interpretive communities associated with it. So let me be even bolder and say that Protestants, and even more specifically, Anglo-European Protestant men, would appear to be the most dangerous religious individuals in American history. Without question white Protestant males from the colonial era to the dawn of the twenty-first century have inflicted more pain, more suffering, more terror than any other individuals in this so-called "city on a hill."

This historical perspective is placed in sharp relief by a new book that coincidentally arrived in the mail as I was preparing to write this piece last week. Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History, edited by John Corrigan and Lynn S. Neal, is chock full of fascinating documentation pointing to this interpretation, providing evidence that throughout US history the perpetrators of religiously-inspired violence have usually been white Protestant men fearful of non-Protestant communities. It's an easy case to make with or without the book when commonly known events from historical eras are brought to mind:

    • In colonial America, Protestant men burned witches at the stake, hanged Quakers on the gallows, destroyed indigenous surrounding cultures, and supported the heinous slave trade bringing Africans to North America.

    • In the early national period and through the antebellum era, white Protestant males continued the wanton devastation of Native American tribes as the American territories expanded, inflicted horrible suffering on slaves by tearing families apart, raping innocent women, and killing blacks as if they were not human beings, murdered Joseph Smith and harassed early Mormon followers, and discriminated against Catholics in both subtle and overtly hostile acts of violence.

    • In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, men associated with Protestant churches espoused awful anti-Semitic views that led to the lynching of Leo Frank and a host of discriminatory practices against Jews, harassed freed blacks and others by wearing white hoods and engaging in despicable, cowardly, and murderous acts, and enacted numerous policies that forced Native peoples to convert to Christianity.

    • From the early decades of the twentieth century on through to the end of the twentieth century, white Protestants made sure that Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps on the west coast, joined a variety of Christian militia movements spread across rural America that promoted violence against the federal government, and participated in a range of hate crimes against blacks, gays, and others deemed to be enemies worthy of discrimination and brutality.

Is it fair to generalize?

Throughout American history white Protestant men enjoyed privilege and opportunities not available to others, and asserted that the destiny of the nation belonged to them under the providential power of their God. And they had no qualms about creating laws to oppress those less fortunate or taking the law into their own hands to lash out against the perceived threats to their version of a Christian nation. Racist views, economic injustices, and political machinations were rationalized by religiously-inspired, divinely-sanctioned hatred emanating from the home, the streets, and even, at times, from the churches they attended.

Did every single white Protestant male share exactly the same perspectives on blacks, Native Americans, Catholics, gays, and others? Were all white Protestant men guilty of heinous actions based on the cruelties and violence perpetrated by segments of the Protestant communities? Is it fair to generalize about an entire religion by singling out the acts of specific individuals associated with that religion?

Using the same logic as those who group all Muslims under one America-hating banner, the answer would appear to be yes. And if we follow this same ignorant logic, it would indeed make sense to begin protesting the building of Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist churches near hallowed sites that are supposed to symbolize the highest ideals and values of the American experiment: religious freedom, opportunity for all, equality before the law, sacrifice for a greater good, and so on. Forget about diversity within white Protestantism — the Social Gospel and pacifists, or communitarian movements and Unitarianism — in this worldview.

But no one in their right mind would use the kind of simplistic, odious, ill-informed logic we hear so frequently in the news and originating from the blogosphere and mainstream media about Muslims. Muslim-Americans who worked and died in the World Trade Center, who are pillars of their local communities, who participate in significant interfaith efforts — all of these religious human beings are utterly and completely disregarded in the vile rhetoric spewing from those who oppose ensuring Muslims have the same rights as other Americans. Even white Protestant Americans who belong to the same religion as those in the past who have been killers, fanatics, and terrorists.

[Jenne]

Yeah, but you know, pointing out red herrings and historical backgrounds does nothing for these folks.  They'd just call you names.

See, I really thought America was better educated than this.

Fuck me running, I was WRONG WRONG WRONG.

[the last yatto]

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

23 skidooo
eta: sorry quote is from http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---team-mohammed-vs--team-jesus

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Yeah, but you know, pointing out red herrings and historical backgrounds does nothing for these folks.  They'd just call you names.

See, I really thought America was better educated than this.

Fuck me running, I was WRONG WRONG WRONG.

It's how America has always been...

I was talking to a friend in Brussels a few days ago and they asked "Do you know how the rest of the world sees America?" I said something like "Jerks, Bullys" or something like that, and they replied... "No... Murderers. You are a nation founded on murder, bound together by murder, you murder those who disagree with you, you murder your fellow countrymen and you invade and murder in any nation you feel like."

I hadn't really considered it that way before.  

[Jenne]

I've heard it all.  All.  Remember: the Afghan ties that bind.  But yeah, I've heard we are soulless, we are immoral, depraved, murdering thieves, selfish.

In the world at large, we have the opposite rep that we pride ourselves on.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I've heard it all.  All.  Remember: the Afghan ties that bind.  But yeah, I've heard we are soulless, we are immoral, depraved, murdering thieves, selfish.

In the world at large, we have the opposite rep that we pride ourselves on.

I think for me, it was the shock of delivery... it wasn't like "YOu are all horrible evil monsters..." it was just a simple statement "You are murderers.." Like saying "you are bankers" or "You are merchants" ... just a sort of matter of fact resigned statement of fact.

I was gonna respond and point out that most countries are founded on murdering indigenous populations and each other and their enemies... but I didn't... cause it felt like a justified comment.

I was weirded out.

[Cain]

I-RON-EEEEEEEEEE ALERT:

One of the tards on TCC just stated that religious freedom should be subordinate to national security objectives...and he has a Benjamin Franklin quote in his sig.

[Thurnez Isa]

well it's good that pagans never talk about religious persecution, cause that would make him a hypocrite

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

well it's good that pagans never talk about religious persecution, cause that would make him a hypocrite

NEVER AGAIN TEH BURNING TIEMS!!!!

Unless we're burning muslims... thats ok.

[BabylonHoruv]

And seagulls are total assholes.

Seagulls are one of my favorite birds (although yes, they certainly can be assholes)

[BabylonHoruv]

Yeah, but you know, pointing out red herrings and historical backgrounds does nothing for these folks.  They'd just call you names.

See, I really thought America was better educated than this.

Fuck me running, I was WRONG WRONG WRONG.

It's how America has always been...

I was talking to a friend in Brussels a few days ago and they asked "Do you know how the rest of the world sees America?" I said something like "Jerks, Bullys" or something like that, and they replied... "No... Murderers. You are a nation founded on murder, bound together by murder, you murder those who disagree with you, you murder your fellow countrymen and you invade and murder in any nation you feel like."

I hadn't really considered it that way before.  

I'd kinda prefer a rep as a murderer to one as a jerk and a bully.  You don't fuck with murderers.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

well it's good that pagans never talk about religious persecution, cause that would make him a hypocrite

NEVER AGAIN TEH BURNING TIEMS!!!!

Unless we're burning muslims... thats ok.

The best part of the Burning Times thing is trying to get people to agree on how many people were killed. I've heard everything from two people to twenty million.