I can understand the emotional aspect of the whole thing, even though, once given all of the facts about the actual location, it all seems like much ado about nothing. The mosque is not at Ground Zero, it's at an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory building two blocks down the street. Since when is the Burlington Coat Factory sacred?
Note: for those of us who do not live in or are familiar with NYC, understand that this is a controversy created by the NY Post - Rupert Murdoch - who should be arrested and deported for sedition.
To believe that building a religious center is an "insult" or a "victory monument" is to believe that those who perpetrated 9/11 represent the entire Muslim religion. There will be no domes, there will be no calls to prayer, it is going to be a cultural center. There are mosques everywhere in this country, and people worship there peacefully.
All people of the Muslim faith are no more terrorists than all white males of the Catholic church are pedophiles. The monsters that flew the planes on 9/11 are the exception, not the rule, just like those good ole Christians who kill doctors and bomb clinics, or tie people of color to the back of a truck and drag them down the road are not indicative of all white people. 9/11 was not an attack by Muslims or the Nation of Islam, but an attack by terrorists on all of humanity, including Muslims.
Religion has got its hands on the throat of America and is choking the life out of every issue: cultural center in NY, gay rights, abortion, supporting candidates who are inferior but say enough Bible speak to get elected and so on. The problem isn't Islam, the problem is ALL religion and the nuts who follow them.
The GOP always has to run on fear: fear of gays, of Muslims, flag burning, and of minorities, particularly our black President. They are smart enough to know that their base is generally under educated, overly religious and abundantly armed, and nothing gets them more riled than fear. What the GOP does not think about is the future. Most Republican leaders will be dead in twenty years so they really don't care what happens. Do they not see that the majority of Americans no longer look like Mitch McConnell, the white-haired grump or old Grandpa Angry Pants, John McCain?
In the end, you can't educate people who are proud of their ignorance. How miserable must their lives be to choose hate over tolerance. In theory all of NYC is Ground Zero then. And DC. And Pennsylvania.
Sadly, the only one laughing at us is Osama Bin Laden.
3 comments:
been thinking about writing something concerning this. don't need to now, thanks to your brilliant post!
god, where to begin this comment? you are right! (i'll start there)on every freakin' count! what the hell has happened to us? we have got to get over this 9/11.
yes, it was terrible. but for chrissakes enough already. an estimated 17,000 african children die every day of starvation. we sound like whiners.
i'm from jersey. i know folks who knew folks who died in the towers. keaton was in a meeting with todd beamer of the flight 93 insurgency the week preceding his flight. my brother has a restaurant no less than a half mile uptown from the towers. i understand.
but enough is enough. i'm tired of fox and the neo-con fringe stirring up hate and fear. sick of it!
thanks itsme for giving me a chance to say something about this.
good job!
Way to go Itsmecissy!
Give 'em hell Bob!!
Okay, my turn to rant:
The U.S. Constitution applies to all Americans, not just to Republican WASPs, and it applies 24-7-365, not just when it’s convenient to the wealthy. So to Sarah, Newt, FOX “News” and their Tea Party sheep who continually abuse the first amendment as they cling to the second, at the peril of the other 25: They can take their feigned Constitution lovin’, States rights touting, no government intervention B.S. hypocrisy and shove it. We don’t need their lies anymore. The Mosque at Ground Zero, that isn’t a Mosque, and isn’t at Ground Zero is just the latest in a long list of things they want us to fear. The entire greedy mindset of the Republican Party is based on just one thing: “People in fear are people who can be controlled.” We, who are still sane in America, need to stand up at every opportunity and call them out, or America will surely slip back into the mire that we have come so close to crawling out of. And given the putrid bigotry that has shown its ugly face during these past two years, we are in danger of slipping even deeper into that mire than we could have previously imagined. And if we slip, history will look back at our time, and wonder why. Why, as we wonder why slavery was accepted, why Hitler was revered, and why masses of Japanese Americans were imprisoned in American internment camps. If we fail to stop the attack on our country by the right wing multi-national corporatist generals (armed with billions of dollars of now legal campaign contributions,) and their conservative Christian Lieutenants (who lead an army of ignorant Tea Party foot-soldiers,) history will, as it has so many times before, look back at this generation and ask why …why were so many so blind?
Great post!
FYI:
1. Rupert just donated $1 million to the GOP.
2. Osama was one of our allies until we mistakenly bombed his family.
The main problem with people, places and things: There are two sides to every story and then there's the truth. AND only God knows what that is. We all need to be seekers of the truth.
There are very few people who think beyond the end of their nose. Those are the ones who are just plain STUPID and full of horse pucky.
Thanks again for the super post.
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