Maureen Dowd is a gifted writer, and although I don’t always agree with her worldview , I usually take time to read her columns. Her column yesterday irritated me, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. While it’s patently obvious that she and I have experienced America in vastly different ways, I’m beginning to realize that the gulf that divides Maureen’s tribe from my own is a product of more than simple geography or social standing.
She sees President Obama as “a rational man running a most irrational nation, a high-minded man in a low-minded age.” I don’t see him that way at all. I see a man who is dangerously overwhelmed by the demands of his office. I see a man who struggles with the very concept of versatility, a man who is frozen in place when events don’t progress as scripted. I see a man who discounts and denigrates a large segment of our American mosaic because of their conservative beliefs. A low-minded age, Maureen? Perhaps you are referring to the mass media, for the fourth estate, in my humble opinion, has sunk to the level of shrieking, chest-thumping banshees, devoid of credibility.
She opines “The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown, with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment.
The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy. The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show that many Americans haven’t flushed the trauma of 9/11 out of their systems — making them easy prey for fearmongers.”
Well, no, I guess I haven’t flushed the trauma of 9/11 out of my system, and I never will. Perhaps the trauma is reserved for those of us less-enlightened souls, those who lost loved ones in the Towers or in the wars that followed, those of us who send our sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, into combat to ensure that 9/11 never happens again.
Her article also states: “Many people still have a confused view of Muslims, and the president seems unable to help navigate the country through its Islamophobia.
It is a prejudice stoked by Rush Limbaugh, who mocks “Imam Obama” as “America’s first Muslim president,” and by the evangelist Franklin Graham, who bizarrely told CNN’s John King: “I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father, like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother.”
Graham added: “The teaching of Islam is to hate the Jew, to hate the Christian, to kill them. Their goal is world domination.”
Maureen, it is boring and disingenuous to cite the media excesses of the right while sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting “la la la” at the excesses of the left. You point your finger at Graham, but not Wright, and at Limbaugh, but not Olbermann. I find myself disinclined to finish reading your article when you jump on the populist-left bandwagon, replete with all the tired, worn-out shrieking points. Your words become noise rather than thoughtful opinion.
Later: “He came as a redeemer and then — tied up in W.’s Gordian knots, dragged down by an economy leeched by wars and Wall Street charlatans — didn’t redeem. And nothing bums out a nation that blows with the wind like a self-appointed messiah who disappoints.”
Oh no. No, no, no. Tell me you didn’t do that. Blame Bush? Again? I’m picturing millions of people rolling their eyes in unison…it’s a tired regurgitation of the same old crap.
In conclusion, Dowd states: “If we’re not the ones we’ve been waiting for, who are we?”
Well, I don’t know about your tribe, but MY tribe is quite confident that we are, indeed, the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Sorry for the light blogging lately. Life has been a whirlwind, but I'm hoping things will now settle to a dull roar. :)]
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to all the contributors who kept things going. Dances With Typos gets an extra gold star. ;;)
Random thought: it occurred to me the other day that of all the syndicated columnists I read, NONE of them writes as well as AFW.
ReplyDelete"If we’re not the ones we’ve been waiting for, who are we?"
ReplyDeleteWell, Maureen, 'WE' out here, you know the mouth breathers, the great unwashed, the fly-over flops & floozies, WE are the ones who saw through the gauzy God that you city-bred 'intellectual types' made of Obama from the beginning.
We saw he had no experience in governing, or in fact, dealing with any sort of setback.
We saw his arrogance, that you seemed to hold up as evidence of his Godhood.
We saw his secretiveness, in refusing to release college transcripts, passport records, or even (yeah, still) a birth certificate that actually PROVES his eligibility for the office he now does so miserably at fulfilling the duties of.
While 'YOU' were so insane with hatred of hie predecessor that you were unable to see any kind of truth or fact about you little gauze God, just so long as he was not Bush.
No Maureen, you have everything pretty much exactly backwards. An irritional narcissist in charge of a country rational enough to see past his lies.
A man who shows ZERO evidence of any faith beyond self-worship, except of course, when he bows to muslim rulers.
Your comments on Billy Graham Jr's remarks, show that while HE is correct in every particular, YOU are still lost in the wastes of misinformation.
No, you are definitely NOT the ones we have been waitnig for, but you surely are the ones we are waiting, as fast as possible, to get rid of.
Lady Red - No gold stars are necessary, but comments would be nice ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, and I agree with you about AFW.
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say about this piece? it's organic?
ReplyDelete"Graham added: 'The teaching of Islam is to hate the Jew, to hate the Christian, to kill them. Their goal is world domination.'"
When a group of people declares that as there position and their goal, and they kill thousands of people to make their point, then I am inclined to believe them.
They kill 3000 Americans, then they want to piss on the spot so as to mark their territory, and we a bigoted because we object? Get over yourself.
Obama is a "rational" man? No, Obama is a fraud.
It is the great unwashed that will go and pull your persoanl bacon out of the fire, Ms. Dowd. Grow up.
Oh, and I also agree about AFW.
ReplyDelete1.) Agree that AFW is a lucid and professional writer. Also happen to think Lady Red is her equal.
ReplyDelete2.) Disagree with the idea that Islam as represented by all Muslims is a major threat, except where the radicals hold sway over the Muslim masses by dint of peer pressure, fear, threat or all three. Holding that position is equivalent to saying the Phelps family and their church represent all Christians.
3.) The entire Cordoba Center dust up is a RED HERRING....a distracting issue trumped up by both sides of the spectrum, and vigorously chomped on by the lunatic right much to delight of the lunatic left, of which Ms Dowd is a charter member. It is solely a NYC matter of utilization of private property within it's borders.
4.) Given my druthers, I'd rather not see the Cordoba Center located so close to ground zero...but my "druthers" are not the issue. The issue is whether we intend to virtually hand the Islamic fanatics a bully pulpit from which to further subjugate their own people. So far, the Limbaugh, Beck, Plain, et al., crowd have done a fine job of doing exactly that. Stupid is as stupid does.
5.) I note with no little anger that all the anti-war crowd raves about unjustified war in Iraq, yet I have not seen once in the past 2 years, any mention of the real violations committed by Saddam Hussein over the 12 year interregnum period of the multilateral armistice from Desert Storm, to whit: The continued murder of his own people (Kurds and Shittes) who were not Sunnis....proofed by the 12 year US "no fly zone" enforcement trying to save some Kurds and most Shiites. He lethally gassed more than a few Kurds. He had 12 years to quit it, he did not quit it. Had we sat on our hands we'd have been guilty of the same ambivalence we committed in the late 1930's and early 1940's when another insane bastard began his run at the world.
6.) Now we are "pulling out"...which fulfills the predictions of the fanatics...e.g., not to trust us. Even the pull out is a "political" lie as we leave behind 50,000 personnel, who will be at measurably higher risk now as IED's begin killing folks in wholesale lots...as they have been for the past couple weeks.
7/) I read all these pundits talking about a war they've never been in as unnecessary. My Iraqi refugee neighbors would disagree. Their biggest "fear" is whether the violence follows them here, their refuge so to speak, or not. 9/11 was an example of how it can follow them here. The Cordoba argument re-enforces that fear.
Aww, thanks aridog. I'm blushing down to my toes!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the Cordoba mosque issue has been hijacked by reactionaries of every stripe.
Me? I think Muslims have the freedom and the right to put a mosque any damn place they please. This is America, and we founded our country on this very premise. However, I bristle with outrage that the builders WOULD EVEN CONSIDER building it a block and a half from where the WTC complex once stood. Do I think it's a victory mosque? Of course it is. Do I hope that every tradesman in New York refuses to work on the project? Yep. Do I want tax dollars or incentives to be given to the developers? Nope, not to them or the builders of ANY place of worship.
The pundits and pseudo-journalists who argue about it incessantly, and at screechingly high decibels, give me a whopping headache. ~x(
MAJOR RANT COMING!!
ReplyDeleteIf easily offended, do not read further.
The Cordoba mosque was designed specifically as, and remains, a deliberate provocation. NOT a 'cultural center' destined to bring people together, but a way for muslims to show their superiority over those they attacked in cowardly stealth and who did pretty much damned nothing in response (ask John F'ing Kerry, who seems just so overjoyed at the formerly secret talks with the Taliban {for God's sake!!} to come back into the government and thereby give over the females of Afghanistan to genital mutilation, being murdered for going to school and stoned to death for daring to be raped) when in fact, STILL, the 9/11 attacks should have resulted in an intense investigation, then a series of freaking mushroom clouds. Let the bastards find their 72 unblemished virgin boys when they are radioactive dust.
That said, these supposed reactionary pundits you are all decrying are saying exactly the same thing you did - 'Yeah, they have the right, but too bad they don't have the DECENCY not to build it there'.
But they don't have that decency, of course. Especially imam Rauf, who has been feted (and tax supported) by the Obama administration, DESPITE his formerly open support for terror jihad, including against the US.
As to whether the reaction plays well on the 'Arab Street', I don't give a f**k. The opinions of muslims Should Have No Effect On Any Civilized Country.
As to not all muslims being involved in Jihad? NO, it is only the devout ones. But Ari, ask your neighbors if they support Sharia in America (watch out for Taqqiyah). If so, then they ARE a part of the problem, and to be trusted no farther than they can be closely watched.
Dances...with all due respect, let me tell you I don't judge people, Muslim, Christian or Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, et al by what the say or how they answer my questions. I form my judgments on their behavior day to day every day as I move among them. From those observations I conclude that a plurality heading for a majority do NOT advocate Shari'a law for the United States....in fact, are grateful to have escaped it.
ReplyDeleteThe customs linked to Islam, such as the Hijab, Chadour, etc. pre-date Islam by centuries, do not of themselves indicate Shari'a advocacy. Fact is after a couple years, with very few exceptions, the Hijab wearing your woman will also be wearing tight jeans and a tee-shirt that appears taped on. Some even go on to become Miss USA. (She is a Shiite, usually associated with black Chadour dress like Penquins or Domincan nuns.)
Now with changes I can see and feel every day I am unlikely to agree with the essentially noisy ignorant sub-urban schmucks who see and know nearly nothing, but what they get from various shriekers in the web, talk radio or MSM TV.
Sure, there are fringe advocacy groups, and I include CAIR in that (they represent no Arab I've ever talked to directly), who delight in hysterical complaints against Muslims...it feed their agenda more than anything they could do alone.
Fact is I know no Arab Muslims who give a shit whether the Cordoba Center is built or not, and a few who agree it might be better located. However, keep up the ridiculous attacks on a issue of a private religious edifice on private property, Constitutionally covered in fact, in a city hundreds of miles from most peoples' homes and that could change. It won't be the Arab Muslims who make it a cause celebre', but the ranting pundits. So far they're doing a great job of making it so.
Compare to the dust up over a memorial statue here, by a predominantly Shiite museum, for a Lebanese Marionite Catholic Christian. Obviously, the memorial is of the Arab ethnicity, not the religion. How many of the shriekers on that topic have bothered with the fact Thomas is Christian? The Islamic fanatics love that too, it lets them join ethnicity with religion, which furthers their totalitarian goals.
Knowing which fights to fight and when is half of winning any battle, and the anti-Islamist folks seem clueless on the subject. Me, I'd prefer to live my life as an example among the Muslims rather than yell at them....guess which way actually effects change? Reformation, or whatever you wish to call it?
Ari, a couple points -
ReplyDeleteI think the case can be made pretty clearly that the attack on WTC was an attack on America, not an attack on lower Manhattan. Therefore the opinion of every American on the matter of the mosque is relevant and legitimate.
(If you doubt this at all, consider the Pentagon was part of the same attack; to characterize that as an attack on urban Washington DC is as absurd as characterizing the attack on Pearl Harbor as an attack on Honolulu. Certainly nobody questioned the legitimacy of mainland Americans' opinion about the attack on Pearl Harbor.)
- Certainly you understand the modalities of provocation - you called out Christians handing out literature at a Detroit street fair as provocateurs (and not without some basis). The people behind the mosque are certainly not naifs - they understand full well how Americans will feel about it.
The idea that provocation is not a motive for the mosque construction beggars belief. I don't think you disagree with this, you disagree that opposition is a wise tactic. Fair enough.
But game it out - suppose we take your advice, everyone shuts up about it, the nation gives it a big fat "whatever" and moves on.
Are we to then assume that happy fun Iman concedes the game, takes his ball and go home?
Fat chance.
There will be ever more strident "sermons". There will be ever more militant demonstrations after prayers on Friday. There will be ever louder calls to prayer. We've seen this playbook, it's what they do in England.
If we retreat from one line in the sand, they'll advance and draw another.
This isn't paranoia, like I said, it's the playbook, we've seen it.
Does it happen at every mosque? Of course not. Not every mosque is a provocation. I get that. (In fact, to be perfectly provocative myself, if I wasn't a Buddhist, I'd probably be a Sufi).
So suppose that this mosque is not a provocation - does that even make sense? Do we suppose this Imam and the developer and all the money that appeared out of nowhere are all sincerely devoted to advancing peace, harmony and understanding?
Fat chance.
We're being gamed.
You're advocating the "don't play along" tactic. This is often a good tactic. "If your enemy is quick to anger, seek to annoy him" - Sun Tsu. Yeah, I get that too.
I just prefer to look a few more moves ahead, and review the games my opponent has played in the past. Left to himself he will run the board until the confrontation becomes profound and explosive indeed.
Nobody is claiming they don't have the "right" to build the mosque - but I would counter that the entire country has the right to free speech as well.
I believe the way to make sure the truly moderate Muslims remain secure from the undue influence of the radicals is for those radicals - and here I include the mosque developers, because to me no other explanation is plausible - to feel the full wrath of the American people.
Relentless and unwavering defiance of a duration and intensity sufficient to dissuade them from undertaking this particular game.
The moderates may object in public, but the reality is that the diminishing of the radicals and the avoidance of the whole provocation end game will give them more freedom, not radicalize them.
Oh, and I agree about afw.
ReplyDeleteAnd lady red.
Man, Lewy...you make a response hard....but this time (rare for you) you are quibbling.
ReplyDelete1.) Attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Pentagon were direct attacks on Federal, DoD, properties....e.g., national community property if you will. A bit different than on the WTC and the purported Cordoba Center is NOT proposed on the WTC site, but 2 blocks away on private property. How many blocks would be acceptable? Who measures and sets these "rules?" Would Central Park West alongside Central Park be "better"...say to replace the now closed "Tavern on the Green" restaurant (private property again)?
2.) Since the Pentagon was attacked, why are there Muslim prayer spaces allocated within the same building? Is a prayer space the same as "Mosque?" Same thing for chapels of other denominations. Find me a military base of any consequence without chapels of various hues?
3.) Free speech and frothing at the mouth are two different things (yelling fire in a theater meme here)
4.) Sun Tsu? You bet...and if the Muslim fanatics are proposing this, via feint through moderates, they are doing a good job of irritating their enemy...and winning the irritation battle. Above all else, Sun Tsu advocated winning, not losing just to demonstrate a tactic or strategy. I know you know enough about martial arts to remember the part about if your opponent is ranting on, let him, he's distracting himself and giving you an advantage...even the chance to just walk away. Trash talking never won fight one. Confident composure is the key.
5.) My objections to evangelicals proselytizing and provoking people at a street fair on public property...paid for by taxpayers here, not from the evangelicals' home locales, is a non-sequitur to the Cordoba issue. Now if they propose to build a mini Taj Mahal you'd have more of a parallel....a triumphalist edifice. The evangelicals here were and are free to speak their minds, but when they incorporate large micro phones and cameras/lights in to the mix, it becomes provocation. It wasn't a Muslim fair, it was an Arab Festival.
6.) My personal experiences tell me that we're not diminishing the radicals by this protest fever, but enhancing them in the eyes of their immediate followers and thence among others of similar ethnicity. We're doing exactly what they want us to do...giving them an edge, and a Constitutional one at that.
I damn sure do not want the Cordoba Center built within (line of) eyesight of Ground Zero, but we just don't have the grounds to object to it 2 blocks away on private property. Opinions are nice, but they are like arse orifices...we all have them. If it meets NYC zoning and use codes, so be it....whether I like it or not.
Me, once they slightly begin construction I'd holler for every variance they seek in that process be reviewed by an entire zoning board and ruled on one by one. If we're right that this is provocation, they will absolutely seek additional variances by default or application. The matrix is there for that kind of administrative 1000 cuts.
Ari - If I remember correctly, you told us a few years ago about how some of your 'neighbors' got in your face on 9/11, both celebrating the attacks and threatening you personally.
ReplyDeleteHave things changed so much in 9 years that you think these same people would now be loath to see another attack, or the institution of the law of their religion of choice?
Since 9/11 every attack or attempted attack has been met be pre-emptive claims of islamophobia which pretty much didn't materialize.
So it seems that this time they've found a way that actually works, IF the rest of the country allows the argument to change from how the intolerance for real sensitivies raised by the building of the victorious affront to America mosque, which is exactly what it is, and into the 'intolerance' of the rest of America for not wanting the murders of thousands of their countrymen shoved in their faces each time they have to see this thing.
afw is a very good writer; so are you lady red. You are a natural, I LOVE reading your op eds, you have such a way with words.
ReplyDeleteSo do all of you, for that matter. I envy you folks. Reading your PsOV is a pleasure.
Thanks for all the great comments. First, I absolutely agreed with Dances #10. Then I read Aridog's post and it all sounded reasonable to me (in spite of being one of the shrill sub urban schmucks)...and lewy's post that followed was right on the money.
ReplyDeleteYou are all persuasive and your posts are thought-provoking. I don't always comment but I appreciate the viewpoints.
Ari, you have good points - very categorical, very logical. But this isn't a debate, or even a discussion about politics.
ReplyDeleteIt is politics.
(And it is in that sense you should read the rest of this).
If the powers that be could be trusted with tying up the construction with variance hearings, etc, then that would be one thing.
But the powers that be seem bent on enabling the provocation, not throwing up roadblocks.
Your strategy depends on institutions that are smart, competent, and representative of the will of the people.
The powers and institutions here are stupid, self negating and openly contemptuous of the will of the people.
To put it in your own blunt terms, they show absolutely no indication that they would object to a triumphalist victory trophy of a mosque. None.
Once the ground of the argument has been ceded to "constitutional rights" and the opponents demonized as "racist" and "islamophobic", then the game is over before it starts.
Once the opponents of the mosque are systematically de-legitimized in public discourse, then no opposition to any mosque is legitimate - that's not an opinion, it's a tautology!
"Triumphalism", "trophy", and "provocation" are all necessarily subjective - and once subjective opinion against the mosque is cast as deviant, who will be willing to draw a line? Where can they possibly draw it?
The target of the mosque opposition is not the mosque itself - it's the idiot, hateful, unrepresentative institutions and politicians which are enabling it. They must be made to understand they will pay a steep political price for their ineptitude. And they will.
Frankly I have no idea what the usual suspects on the right (Rush, Beck et al) are saying - I don't listen to them. On any issue, people who blather on for a living can be relied upon to be provocative. "Oh, look what Rush is saying"... so what? That's just another way of saying "oh look, a squirrel!"... And yes, the same goes for Olberman and Maddow etc - the fact that they're over the top batty on some issue means exactly.... nothing.
My reaction to the mosque is purely visceral and no less valid because I live in Portland than it would be if I lived in TrBeCa.
You get my drift.
These aren't finely calibrated arguments, these are talking points, and this is a struggle. My sense is that people are instinctively rallying to this issue - not because they hate hajis, but because they sense this is a time to draw a line against Islamic radicalism in this country, and a time to send a message to the morons who claim to represent us: "U R DOON IT RONG". These are messages that need delivering.
It's not cerebral and its not pretty and admittedly its not (often) my style. But this is where I'm at, and while things may get worse before they get better, there are a lot of Americans who feel pretty pinned down in the current political situation, and are itching to break out. I'm one of them.
That's my rant, and I'm sticking to it. :)
There is a kind of karmic indebtedness which arises from joining one's voice to that of the vox populi.
ReplyDeleteKarmic, because that voice is more than mere opinion, but a potent political act - a most legitimate political act, in our system.
Indebted, because seldom is the popular voice entirely righteous in its motives and intents.
“We cannot sacrifice what is right for what is expedient.” -RadioMattM
We have chosen to give Matt's words prominence at the top of this blog because "expedience" is always a temptation. Left unmolested, "expedience" degenerates into chronic rationalization of outright vice.
Yet it has to be said - the imperative to promote "what is right" exists in some tension with the imperative to action, especially political action. Politics is the art of the possible, and absent a miraculous advancement in human consciousness, no possible political movement can be entirely pure.
Sometimes the imperative to political action is particularly urgent. I believe that now is one of those times. The financial keel of our ship of state is at risk of breaking. The middle class is in existential crisis, and Americanism itself is openly ridiculed and depricated by those who swore to preserve it.
I think it's widely recognized that there is a very large popular backlash against the current batch of elites, and the institutions they are (mis)managing. Some of these folks identify with the Tea Party, some don't - I've been making the point for some time that there is a faction among the "progressive" left that sounds very much like Tea Partiers when it comes to Wall St and what to do about it. I"ve been at pains in my own life to avoid alienating these people with potential wedge issues and to propagate the idea that the current political class needs replacing.
There is a substantial contingent of people who desire substantial financial reform - reform of fiscal, monetary, and banking policy - who, despite their prudent and necessary financial ideas, are downright anti-Semitic - as evidenced by an utterly disproportionate obsession with, and demonization of, Jews in general and Israel in particular. These people exist on both the right and the left. And they exist in depressingly large numbers.
I've come to the uncomfortable conclusion that it will likely be impossible to overturn the existing order of elites in this country without empowering at least some individuals with views and policies which I find anathema - including (but not limited to) anti-Semitic views.
This is a real rock and a hard place. Of course, you don't want to give aid and comfort to haters - of any kind. But the fact of the matter is that the people motivated to "challenge the dominant paradigm" are in turn motivated by a diverse package of interests, not all of them wholesome.
What to do.
And it is in this depressing context that I examine the possibility that I might, if even indirectly and temporarily, make common cause with a person motivated not by sober and informed opposition to maximalist Islamists, but by an ignorant and bloody hatred of Muslims themselves.
Does this possibility bother me?
Yes, but so do a lot of other things.
And I refuse to be paralyzed at this critical juncture.
This is an excellent thread. You all have given me plenty to think about. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI agree lady red, great comments and lots of food for thought.
ReplyDeletePlus you and afw ARE great writers :)
Dsnces....
ReplyDelete"Ari - If I remember correctly, you told us a few years ago about how some of your 'neighbors' got in your face on 9/11, both celebrating the attacks and threatening you personally"
It may be my failing senior memory, but I believe the instances you mention of hostility were in the summer of 2006 during the Lebanese/Hizbollah/Israeli Border War. Thee was considerable tension during that period. For the most part, of 9/11 I recall people in tears apologizing to me with the "crazies" portrayed mostly on the MSM outlets.
Had someone "gotten in my face" as you say during the 9/11 period I'd likely be writing this from Leavenworth...things were tense, true, but the threat was from sundry white mother f**kers like the man who killed my neighbor, and FPS Officer, in the lobby of the federal building on 9/21/2001.
"...these same people would now be loath to see another attack, or the institution of the law of their religion of choice?"
You error here is the presumption that anything near a majority of them want Shari'a law implemented in the USA. Sure, there are some...and there are also some Yanks who'd put on white sheets again and burn crosses.
The biggest threat is for new immigrants to perceive Americans as their radical elements want them to be seen...as two faced hypocrites. Be an example of that and you conceded the battle before it begins. You concede the historic and Constitutional ground to the crazies if you hold, however insulting it may be to you, and to me, when the proposal is for a private edifice on private property NOT in the confines of Ground Zero, but 2 blocks away. How many blocks before it is not offensive? Is all of Manhattan off limits?
Now when you presume that these immigrants left home and family and moved half way around the world just as a mechanism of Islamic expansion, you're again giving the radicals an edge, since it is they who wish to portray it that way. I've never yet met a true believer in Shari'a expansion among immigrants...in many cases they already had it where they were born.
Personally I am amazed at the outcry over the Cordoba Center and the lack of it over the failure to prosecute anyone for the counterfeit passport and ID mill discovered here (in west Detroit actually) shortly after 9/11...even when it is provable that some of the 9/11 pilots passed through and stayed in that facility. Chances are fair to good that you've never even heard of the issue.
It very well be cunning strategy for the Cordoba planners, if they are closeted radicals, to propose the location knowing the legal ramifications and emotional repercussions. The answer is not shrieking to no avail or if successful, arming the enemy with propaganda to justify their radicalism.
Just how is an alleged Mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero more desecration than a strip joint? I've no problem with people nationwide voicing their opinions. When they make it violent rhetoric I'd say they are conceding loss and just don't know it.
Lewy...
ReplyDelete"And I refuse to be paralyzed at this critical juncture."
So do I. I just go out every day and try to live as an example of what I would like my neighbors to be.
I'm even amused by the furor over an Arabic, mostly Muslim, museum here proposing a memorial to an Arabic Christian. The hollering and yelling on that issue is downright ludicrous....however within the 1st Amendment grounds it might be.
I'm even further amused by the home village of one of the noisiest critics of Arab Muslims, here, being one of the first here to have an Islamic School on main street of that town, for 20 odd years no less, in the heart of a very Jewish community. That doesn't seem to discourage the critic of telling me how to live without concern for her own home village.
In my immediate neighborhood we have a great police department (ignore CAIR, they're agenda driven wonks) no bars, almost no liquor stores, no strip joints, and a nascent ghetto has been rebuilt or built anew on top of the old...by Arabs, 90% of the Muslim. What's to complain?
I can drive as couple miles north or east and see the alternative. No thanks.
To everyone...I want to "win" this conflict, not just illuminate it with trash talk. Trash talk never won a basketball game and it won't win anything else either. If anything it can provoke the violence it decries.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to violence, I am capable of it in the extreme if provoked (long ago devised compartmentalization)....and I'll not say word one to the provocateur, he'll just be gone. That's how I know there is a better way.
Ari - maybe it was my failing senior memory, because yeah, I think I know you well enough to realize that in the aftermath of 9/11 you would almost certainly have reacted violently to such provocation.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that, given what I have seen & read in the news abuot the actions of muslims in every country they migrate to, (England, France, etc) that no amount of lip-service to liberty will make me trust their intentions here.
Anyway, off to work, now.
Dances....yes, 9/11/2001 was an extremely stressful day all told, with the issues in the federal building, people with sub-machine guns everywhere, the genuine fear there as people realized what they'd just seen on various monitors, read on various messages from DC, and then the evacuation.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, or maybe it's a curse, but when such pressure is on me I trip in to a confident nearly serene mode, and act to self-preserve, or solve a critical problem, with little or no emotion. The lack of emotion is the dangerous part for me as I might not even realize what I'm doing if provoked. There is a line to cross where I am wholly fatalistic.
Had I come home that day full of omni-directional hatred and acted accordingly, I would have been very wrong.
I've not been to France or England, however, from reports read, I get the impression they ghettoized their Muslim immigrants as hired help more than immigrants per se....whether intentionally or not. That is not the case here where I am, as the community is nearly 100 years old, just expanded a lot in the last 20 years....a virtual bulwark against what has happened just down the road in Detroit proper. Private people, private money, building pricate businesses and new buildings makes a huge difference. Nobody, in any quantity, is "waiting" for a hand out.
The ones I know are not too proud to take whatever job is available in tough times, and they work hard. They adapt too, recall that Miss USA comes from among the "strictest" of Muslim groups (Shiite)....but they're not Wahabbi or Taliban by any stretch, obviously.
So how do I legitimately complain?