WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SINCE 9/11? from SOJO

What Have We Learned Since 9/11?

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This Saturday, we commemorate the ninth anniversary of 9/11. It is with pain and sadness that we remember the day the towers fell, the Pentagon was attacked, and another plane full of passengers crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after brave citizens stopped the terrorists from hitting their target. For nine years the anguish of lost loved ones and the feeling of vulnerability we all felt as terrible acts of violence were perpetrated on our soil have stuck with us all.
At this time, it is also appropriate to ask, What have we learned? How have we grown as a country? How have we healed, or how have we, in our hurt, turned around and hurt others? These are not either/or questions. We have, in fact, done both: healed and wounded, learned and regressed, grown and shrunk back from the challenges before us. The challenges before us today lie in our ability to move forward in healing and building the cause of peace while remembering the lessons and lives lost in the past.
But rather than showing that we have grown in understanding, this anniversary has been marred by two events that show how the extremes can still control the discourse, both in America and around the world.
First, there has been near-universal condemnation of the Quran burning planned for this Saturday by Terry Jones and his Florida church. Opposition has come from Muslims, Christians, Jews; Republicans and Democrats; civilians, politicians (including the president), and generals.
What Jones doesn't seem to understand is that the message he is really sending is a sacrilegious slap in the face of Jesus Christ. If Jones and his followers go through with their plans to burn the Quran, they might as well burn some Bibles too, because they are already destroying the teachings of Jesus. Jesus called his followers to be peacemakers, and to love not only their neighbors, but also their enemies; instead Jones and his church have decided to become agents of conflict and division. Jones needs someone to tell him that Americans should not judge all Muslims by the actions of a small group of terrorists -- and I hope somebody tells Muslims around the world not to judge Christians, or all of America, by the actions of a radical fringe like the members of Dove World Outreach Center.
But just as the proclaimed faith of the terrorists bears no resemblance to the faith of most Muslims, the actions of Jones and his followers bear no resemblance to the faith of most Christians. Jones knows that his actions are legally protected, but if he follows through he should know that he makes a mockery of the teachings of Jesus and even puts our country and U.S. troops in danger.
If you are a pastor, especially an evangelical or charismatic pastor who might have a way to connect with Terry Jones, please contact him and tell him you are praying that he won't do this. If you are a Christian (and especially those who are members of a church in the Gainesville, Florida, area), please look into some of the other events that are being planned that day. Use this as an opportunity to be a prayerful presence for peace, love, and reconciliation -- for Jesus' sake. And send a message to the world about what our faith is truly about.
Second, an issue that many people are much more mixed about: Will building an Islamic community center within two blocks of Ground Zero help bring healing? Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who had the vision for the center, is a good friend I have known for many years. I've had the pleasure working beside him in building bridges between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. His heart and commitment to the work of reconciliation between people of different faiths and backgrounds has always shone through in everything that Feisal and his wife, Daisy Khan, do. They are genuine peacemakers, and I know this controversy about their dream of a community center pains them deeply. I do not doubt for a second that every action they have taken toward building this Islamic community center has been with peace and reconciliation in mind.
When the story first broke in The New York Times this past December, it was met with little interest. The fact that a moderate Muslim leader, who had lived and worked in the community of lower Manhattan for 25 years, was planning to build a community center was not considered controversial. Unfortunately, there were those who saw this as a political opportunity to create conflict and division and stir up ideological passions by distorting Imam Feisal's mission and purpose. He told the nation last night that if he had ever imagined that his plans would cause this much hurt and distress, he never would have proposed building the center at that location.
I do not believe the center of the debate is merely the community center's proximity to Ground Zero. Across the country, the building (and even existence) of mosques is being protested, others mosques are being vandalized, alarming attacks on individual Muslims are occurring, and now, an obscure and marginal group in Florida is planning to burn the Quran in the name of their extreme brand of Christianity -- getting the pastor's face on the front page of USA Today.
This conflict is really about the role that faith will play in America. It is about whether or not we will accept Muslim Americans as true Americans or second-class citizens. It is about whether we will blame millions of American Muslims and 1 billion Muslims worldwide for the actions of a small number of Muslims who try to use their brand of faith to murder innocent people. It is about whether or not the country will embrace a Muslim who seeks peace and wants to help rebuild lower Manhattan or reject him because of his religious beliefs.
This is a test of our character; and we dare not fail it.

HEY, THIS TERRORIST IS A CHRISTIAN!Self-Described ‘Christian Counterpart To Osama Bin Laden’ Arrested In Plot To Bomb Abortion Clinic 10SEP10

OUTRAGE? CONDEMNATION? FAUX NEWS......ANYTHING FROM YOU? ANYONE? The study follows this post from ThinkProgress...
A study released today by former leaders of the 9/11 Commission finds that “terrorism is increasingly taking on an American cast.” Warning of “a much more diverse threat,” the report urges the U.S. government to prepare for “the radicalization and recruitment of Americans to terrorist ranks.” While the report rightly warns of threats from radical Muslim extremists, law enforcement officials should also be concerned about right-wing zealots, as a 2009 Homeland Security report warned.
For instance, this past Tuesday, the FBI arrested 26-year old Christian radical Justin Carl Moose in Concord, NC for “providing information to create explosives” to “blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic.” Through his conversations with an FBI informant and his Facebook page, Moose expressed virulent “anger at abortion doctors, President Barack Obama’s health care plan, and plans to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city.” He goes on to describe himself as “the Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden” who “has learned a lot from the muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics”:

Justin Carl Moose, 26, is a self-described “extremist, radical” and the “Christian counterpart of Osama bin Laden,” according to an affidavit filed by FBI agents. [...]
“Whatever you may think about me, you’re probably right,” he wrote on his Facebook page, according to the affidavit.
“Extremist, Radical, Fundamentalist…? Yep! Terrorist…? Well, I prefer the term ‘freedom Fighter.’” [...]
Status updates posted beginning in January urge violence, FBI agents said in their affidavit.
“The Death Care Bill passed last night,” he wrote when Obama’s health care plan was approved in March. “Keep your phone and rifle close and wait.”[...]
“If a mosque is built on ground zero, it will be removed. Oklahoma City style. Tim’s not the only man out there that knows how to do it,” the affidavit says he wrote in July, in a reference to Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City.[...]
FBI agents obtained search warrants and started reading his private messages. In one sent to a fellow abortion opponent, agents say Moose wrote: “I have learned a lot from the muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics.”

According to WCNC-TV, a yellow “don’t tread on me” flag – the anthem of the Tea Party movement – hangs over the door to Moose’s family home. Watch it here:




Moose is self-attested member of “Army of God,” an “underground network of domestic terrorists who believe that the use of violence is appropriate and accetable as a means to end abortion.” According to its manual, the group’s purpose is to “officially declare war on the entire child killing industry.” Believing that “Our Most Dread Sovereign Lord God requires” bloodshed, members “are forced to take arms against” abortion clinics in which “execution is rarely gentile [sic].”
Arrested Tuesday, Moose will appear in federal court Monday. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Despite his arrest, Moose has no intention of surrending peacefully. In a post taunting the federal authorities monitoring him, he told “all the feds watching me: You can’t stop what is in motion. Even if you bring me in, my men will continue their mission. Furthermore, I will not go peacefully. Do you really want another Waco?”

DHS Report: After Obama’s Election, Right-Wing Extremists ‘May Be Gaining New Recruits’

Throughout the presidential campaign, the public saw extreme right-wing rhetoric on display at several McCain rallies, with some yelling “kill him” about President Obama — and others even calling him a “terrorist.”
The extreme right — those who are “hate-oriented,” “mainly antigovernment,” or those dedicated to a “single issue” — is a legitimate threat that law enforcement must deal with, according to a new assessment from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. The report, which was coordinated with the FBI and is being given to federal, state, and local law enforcement, warns:

[R]ightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.

Most extremists have made “rhetorical” statements and have “stopp[ed] short of calls for violent action,” but since the 2008 election, right-wing extremists are “reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.” Some highlights from the report:

Anti-immgration: “Rightwing extremist groups’ frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration has the potential to incite individuals or small groups toward violence. If such violence were to occur, it likely would be isolated, small-scale, and directed at specific immigration-related targets.”
Recruiting returning vets: “Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.”
Gun-related violence: “Heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms … may be invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements.”

If the “uncertain economy” and a “perceived rising influence of other countries” continues, “rightwing extremism is likely to grow in strength,” the report adds. “[L]one wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.”
The DHS under President Bush was apparently more reluctant to make such assessments about the right. According to CQ, a 2005 report outlining terrorist threats “does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements.” Bush’s report did, however, list the threat of left-wing groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. And a 2001 report from the Energy Department examined “Left-Wing Extremism: The Current Threat.”
Conservative bloggers — such Michelle Malkin and Newsbusters — are up in arms over the report. A DHS official responded to the right’s criticism, noting that DHS did an assessment of left-wing extremism in January. “This is nothing unusual. … This is about awareness,” the official said.

Update The Southern Poverty Law Center also reports that the "number of hate groups operating in the United States continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000 - an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama."

GO THE HOMELAND SECURITY STUDY HERE

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

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Florida pastor says he's reconsidering plan to burn Korans 9SEP10

By Krissah Thompson and Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 9, 2010; 9:36 PM


The pastor of a small Florida church who had planned to burn copies of the Koran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 said Thursday he would cancel the event - at least for now - hours after President Obama condemned it as a "recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda" and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates phoned the minister as a worldwide fury grew.
At a chaotic news conference in Gainesville, the Rev. Terry Jones said he gave up his plans after reaching a deal to stop the construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero.
But Jones appeared to have misunderstood or mischaracterized discussions, if there were any, about the center. Later, he said he was misled by an imam in Florida who "clearly, clearly lied to us" and he would "rethink our decision."
Muhammad Musri, a Florida imam who has been trying to get Jones to call off the event, said at the news conference that he had brokered a meeting with the project developers in New York, not an agreement to terminate their plans. A short time later, New York Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his partner in the project, Manhattan real estate developer Sharif el-Gamal, said in a statement that they had made no deal to stop their plans and had not, in fact, spoken to Jones or Musri.
"I am surprised by their announcement," Rauf's statement said. "We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."
The parties did, however, agree to meet Saturday in New York.
The disjointed exchanges are part of an odd saga that has vaulted an unknown pastor to an international stage.
Few outside Gainesville had heard of Jones or his Dove World Outreach Center in late July when he announced "International Burn the Koran Day" - and it largely remained that way until this week. As anger grew among Muslims worldwide and as U.S. leaders began to fear that images of Koran-burning in the United States would be a recruitment tool for Islamic extremists, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned in a statement that the move could endanger American troops abroad. Condemnations from across the political and religious spectrums poured in, including from the Vatican, conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. By the time Jones held his news conference, Obama had weighed in, the State Department had warned traveling Americans that they could be in danger and Gates had felt compelled to ask the pastor to cancel the event.
The president made his plea during an interview on ABC.
"If he's listening, I just hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans; that this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance," Obama said of Jones in an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America." "We're already seeing protests against Americans just by the mere threat that he's making."
Demonstrations erupted in Afghanistan on Thursday as hundreds of enraged youths burned effigies, threw rocks and chanted, "Death to America."


Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in a statement on Thursday that the Koran burning would "inflame sentiments among Muslims throughout the world and cause irreparable damage to interfaith harmony and also to world peace."
After the event was called off, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States said, "Pastor Jones's decision to cancel the event he had scheduled to burn copies of the Koran helps avoid an unnecessary inflammation of passions. . . . This is definitely a positive moment in showing America's tolerance and pluralism and should not go unappreciated in the Muslim world."
Senior Obama administration officials had hedged on how much attention to give Jones but thought they had to respond, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. "The potential ripple effect here is very real," he said.
According to Jones, it was not the call from the Pentagon chief that convinced him but his perception of a deal with Rauf, the New York imam.
Jones had rebuffed appeals to cancel his event for days. But on Thursday, he said that he asked God for a sign and that he considered the movement of the New York Islamic center as a message from on high.
Jones and his small church have drawn controversy before. He attracted a little attention earlier this year when he posted a sign reading "No homo mayor" in front of the church protesting the openly gay man running for mayor, and last year Jones he put up a sign declaring "Islam is the Devil" and sent children from his church to their public schools wearing T-shirts with the same message. The children were sent home, the Gainesville Sun reported.
Jones looked bewildered when he was told that no agreement had been made about the mosque and he repeated what he thought he had been told.
"The American people do not as a whole want this mosque, and if they were willing to either cancel the mosque at the Ground Zero location or if they were willing to move it away from that location, we would consider that a sign from God," the pastor said.
The confusion seemed to stem from a meeting Jones had with Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida. Musri, who stood beside Jones as he emotionally agreed to call off the Koran burning, said he had promised Jones only a meeting with Rauf to discuss moving the planned community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan.
"There are no written agreements," Musri said. "I feel that the imam [Rauf] is a very wise imam, and I think that now knowing that over 70 percent of the American people do not want it there, I think he is reconsidering it."
Musri said in interviews that he had not spoken to Rauf but that he had set up a meeting with him through Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan.
In a CNN interview Wednesday night, Rauf indicated that he was open to moving the proposed Islamic center from its current location two blocks from Ground Zero.
"Nothing is off the table," he said. "But we are consulting. We are talking to various people about how to do this so that we negotiate the best and the safest option."
Rauf said that if he had known the proposed site would cause so much controversy, "we certainly never would have done this."
But he warned that moving the center could be construed as giving in to radicalism and could foment anti-American feelings abroad.
"If we move from that location, the story will be that the radicals have taken over the discourse," he said. "The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack."
Additional calls for Rauf and his partners to move the mosque came from developer Donald Trump, who made a splashy offer to buy the building for 25 percent more than its value. It was batted down as a publicity-seeking stunt given that Rauf's partners in the development have turned down larger offers, according to reports in New York newspapers.
In Gainesville, there was a sigh of relief that the Koran burning was called off. Safety officials had been bracing for the event and volunteers at the church had said they were expecting "several hundred people" there on Saturday, including national and international media.
Regardless, Ismail ibn Ali, president of Islam on Campus, a student group at the University of Florida at Gainesville, said he hoped Rauf would not strike a deal with Jones.
"If the deal is that they move the mosque in order to stop the Koran-burning, I'll be very disappointed," he said. "It ultimately ends up being a win for the Islamophobes in America."

Bigot starts ground zero church: Where's the outrage? 30AUG10

JUST as the Muslim community plans on constructing Park51 / Cordoba House, the supporters of this project should be allowed to build their church. We celebrate freedom of religion as one of the greatest rights, guaranteed by the constitution, that we have in our democratic republic. Planning, fundraising and construction should be allowed to proceed without hindrance no matter what one's views of the beliefs of the supporters are.
A bigoted pastor who has assailed gays and Muslims is launching the "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero" a mere two blocks from the World Trade Center site this Sunday, but so far the project hasn't drawn a peep of protest from those who are outraged by the "ground zero mosque."
Pastor Bill Keller of Florida said today he will begin preaching Sunday at the Marriott at 85 West Street (see proximity to ground zero here). A weekly service is planned at the hotel until the $8 million 9/11 Christian Center finds a permanent space. (Fundraising is going well, Keller told Salon today.)
To get a sense of where Keller is coming from, consider his project's website, which calls Islam a religion of "hate and death" whose adherents will go to hell. It also says: "Islam is a wonderful religion... for PEDOPHILES!"
Keller is the same pastor who hosted a birther infomercial that encouraged viewers to send him and a partner donations to advance the birther cause. His Internet ministry explicitly calls President Obama the new Hitler. He calls homosexuality a perversion. And in 2008, he targeted presidential contender Mitt Romney for being Mormon with a campaign called "voting for Satan."
In short, if critics of the Park51 Islamic community center, which is explicitly welcoming of all faiths, truly believe that there is a "zone of solemnity" around ground zero (as Gov. Pat Quinn put it), they should be horrified at Keller's 9/11 Christian Center.
Ditto for those who believe that religious leaders should not build "deliberately provocative" projects around ground zero, as another mosque opponent put it.
(An enterprising reporter could no doubt find some Sept. 11 families who are offended by Keller's project, just as an enterprising reporter did in the beginning of the Park51 controversy.)
And if there was ever a case of insensitivity to Sept. 11 -- another frequent argument of the anti-mosque crowd -- consider the fact that Keller has a history of seeking to profit from his various projects (one, called Gold for Souls, involved telling people to simply mail him their gold and jewelry). The 9-11 Christian Center appears to be no different. The project's website features a prominent link telling viewers to "Earn $$$ - Click Here!" It goes to a letter from Keller offering people a 10 percent referral cut on donations from their friends to the 9/11 Christian Center.
To be perfectly clear, Keller should be permitted to build anything he wants as long as it's legal.
But the only logic by which Keller's project would not be horrifying to those who oppose Park51 is if they believe all Muslims, including the progressive Muslim Americans behind Park51, should be treated as suspicious or even in the same category as the Sept. 11 terrorists. If mosque opponents' concerns are truly about sensitivity to the neighborhood around ground zero -- and not about Muslims -- we'll hear them denounce Keller loudly in the coming days.

Thursday, Aug 19, 2010 15:30 ET Heroes, villains and cowards of the so-called "ground zero mosque" 19AUG10

Who's defended religious liberty, who's been too scared to, and who truly hates our founding principles? Video

By Alex Pareene

AP

Top left, clockwise: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Harry Reid, President Obama

The bizarre, ginned-up controversy surrounding the Park51 project -- a proposed Islamic community center, like the 92nd Street Y, including a space for worship, to be built at the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory (which is a store, not a factory) on Park Place in lower Manhattan, near, but not in sight of, the site of the World Trade Center -- has exposed not just the blatant Islamophobia (and cheerful willingness to exploit bigotry) of many luminaries of the right, but also the cowardice of many supposed liberals. Just so we know where we stand, and using, as criteria for placement, my own inexact impressions of their public statements, I present the official War Room lists of "ground zero mosque" heroes, villains and cowards.
Heroes
It's not a particularly hard case to make: The Constitution guarantees the right of the Cordoba Initiative to construct a house of worship on private land without any interference from the government, "Muslims" as a whole did not attack "us" on 9/11, Feisal Abdul Rauf is a well-respected, progressive imam with a history of performing outreach for the Bush administration, and even if the project was a "ground zero mosque," celebrating its construction would demonstrate an admirable commitment to the founding ideals that we are supposedly fighting for Over There. At a time when Islamophobia appears to be on the rise, in part because xenophobia always tends to get louder during periods of economic uncertainty, liberals and progressives should be forcefully making the case for tolerance and liberty. But only a couple have bothered. Still, we should celebrate them!
Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose district actually includes ground zero, has been a loud and unflinching supporter of the project. He makes the case well, and without tossing in wishy-washy qualifications:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's speech in support of the Park51 project has been rightly celebrated as a courageous moral and intellectual defense of religious freedom.
Outside of New York, Sen. Russ Feingold accused mosque opponents of "gutter politics" and affirmed his support for "freedom of religion," the simple answer that all Democratic politicians and candidates should give. Minnesota's Al Franken also attacked opponents, and even cracked a joke.
I think the best response for a non-New York politician to give is probably Sherrod Brown's. Brown said, first of all, that it's a local, New York issue, which it is, and also said, "We're not at war with a religion," which is the sort of thing that needs to be said, constantly, by people with consciences, in order to rebut assholes like Gingrich.
Pennsylvania candidate Joe Sestak has been accused of "dodging" the question, but his answer seems straightforward to me: He believes it's a New York issue and he supports the Constitution. (He has received the endorsement of Michael Bloomberg.)
Some perhaps surprising heroes include Grover Norquist, who makes the political case for supporting the project, and Ted Olson, a longtime Republican attorney whose wife died on 9/11. Olson forthrightly said, "We don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith."
Cowards
The coward's usual formulation of wishy-washy nonsupport is to proclaim that "they have a right to build it, but ..." While I'd argue that even if you don't feel like issuing a spirited defense of the specific project being debated, you can simply stop at "they have a right to build it" and retain some dignity, these politicians seem to think that they have to balance their respect for the Constitution with a healthy dose of skepticism about Muslims and acknowledged sympathy for hysterical opponents whipped up into a frenzy by lying propagandists.
Harry Reid decided to point out that while the First Amendment protects the rights of religious minorities to practice their religion, that doesn't mean that they should practice it where it might upset someone.
Howard Dean, too, thinks that religious minorities should respect the wishes of majorities of Americans and not go around building houses of worship in places where Americans don't want them. (Memo to Gov. Dean: One of the reasons so many Americans polled about the subject are opposed to it is because right-wing liars defined the entire debate from Day One. If you'd polled everyone in the nation back in, say, March, and asked, "Should there be an Islamic community center with a pool and an auditorium in lower Manhattan near City Hall and, yes, the WTC site?" I'm guessing it would've been a three-way split between support, oppose and don't give a shit. And even if "oppose" had still won that theoretical poll, it still wouldn't have been a good reason for the organizers to be more "sensitive" and find a new building.)
Some New York Democrats are just completely punting on the issue. Anthony Weiner refused to say anything about it for weeks, then issued a baffling letter that says nothing. Chuck Schumer, a man who stands no chance of losing reelection, and from whom a defense of religious liberties would've been celebrated and important, will only say he isn't opposed to the project.
Villains
They are mostly the obvious ones: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani -- all Republicans with a history of exploiting racial and ethnic tensions and resentments without regard for the consequences.
New York Democrats John Hall, Tim Bishop, Mike McMahon and Mike Arcuri all decided their best shot at reelection was joining the chorus against the project. Cowardice may have inspired them, but Arcuri's move, in particular, seems more villainous.
Rand Paul, supposed libertarian, thinks Muslims should give money to 9/11 memorials, presumably because of collective guilt, rather than construct community centers in their communities. (His opponent, Jack Conway, is a simple coward.)
Supposed Democrat Jeff Greene proved his independence from the party bigwigs by being grossly bigoted in the name of sensitivity to 9/11 victims he invented, in his head, while mangling the geography of lower Manhattan.:

The proposed $100 million Muslim center offered one such contrast. Greene echoed President Barack Obama's recent defense of religious freedom but said, "When those families go to mourn their losses, they shouldn't be looking at a mosque right there.''

(His opponent, Kendrick Meek, merely said he wouldn't "step in front of a decision that's already been made in New York City," which is halfway between cowardly and acceptable.)
The Confused, and Confusing
I think New York politicians have a responsibility to defend the project itself, while I'll let most non-New Yorkers off the hook for stopping at a defense of the principles involved (as long as they don't add a Reid-ian "but ...") and an acknowledgment that it's a "New York issue." But what about New Jersey politicians?
Well, who can even say where Chris Christie stands. The Republican New Jersey governor was celebrated for seeming to support the mosque, but his statement was actually just a defense of how independent and awesome Chris Christie is with a stupid and nonsensical "pox on both houses" line thrown in.
New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez supports the Constitution, but then changes the subject to jobs, the economy, etc.
Back in New York, Carolyn Maloney and her primary opponent, Reshma Saujani, both signaled their support for the project, but Saujani (a born panderer) supports it super hard, and claims Maloney only kinda supports it. I'm not convinced by Saujani's argument, but you can read Maloney's statement for yourself.
I might need to invent a separate "I think he actually means well but what the hell" category for Gov. David Paterson, who is, I think, trying very hard to be a peacemaker, as part of his "fuck it, I'm out of office soon anyway" tour '10. But his claims that he will give state land to the developers (which would be constitutionally iffy) and his repeated insistence that he's meeting with Cordoba Initiative representatives about moving the site (which they keep disputing) are just serving to support the idea that there's some compelling reason why they should move.
Kristen Gillibrand's support for the project seems halfhearted and overly cautious, but it's there.
And, yes, then there's the president. Had he stopped at his Friday night statement, a simple defense of religious liberty, I'd happily put him in the heroes category. But his Saturday non-clarification, stressing the fact that he doesn't explicitly support the project, completely muddied the issue. Was it a walk-back? Sort of! But also not quite! His response is a Rorschach test, and interpretations of it necessarily depend on impressions of the president himself.
The heroes list is depressingly short, the cowards and villains lists populated with people I wish weren't included, and while I understand that defending the project could be interpreted as "politicizing" the issue, I'm still depressed at how few "progressive" leaders are unable to mount simple, surprisingly necessary defenses of the fundamental rights of Americans to worship, or not, as they see fit.

Orrin Hatch Supports Building Of Park51: 'I'd Be The First To Stand Up For Their Rights' 31AUG10

HERE is a very courageous stand by a man I have next to nothing in common with politically, and I admire him for speaking out on this issue. Sen Orrin Hatch (R UT), thank you. This is from HuffPost and you can also read the article from ThinkProgress and watch the video of the interview.


ThinkProgress's Alex Seitz-Wald has video of Hatch giving an interview to Salt Lake City's Fox 13 News, in which he offers up soft-spoken yet strong support for the Cordoba Initiative's Park51 project in Manhattan.

HATCH: Let's be honest about it, in the First Amendment, religious freedom, religious expression, that really express matters to the Constitution. So, if the Muslims own that property, that private property, and they want to build a mosque there, they should have the right to do so. The only question is are they being insensitive to those who suffered the loss of loved ones? We know there are Muslims killed on 9/11 too and we know it's a great religion. I know a lot of Muslim people who I have a very great regard for, not the least of which is Muhammad Ali. He's a great friend of mine. But as far as their right to build that mosque, they have that right.
The question is, should they? Is it insensitive not to, in the eyes of the majority of New Yorkers? It's going to come down to New York and what New York decides to do.

Hatch went on to add that as a legal scholar, "I have the tendency, when it comes to religious liberty issues, to always uphold the rights of legitimate churches... I just think that what's made this country great is we have religious freedom. That's not the only thing, but it's one of the most important things in the Constitution."
Hatch has something of a personal stake in the matter as well, and he recalls an instance in which the late Senator Ted Kennedy lent a hand to get a Mormon temple built in Massachusetts, despite some local obstruction.
Hatch also seems to have a proper grasp of geography:

There's a question of whether it's too close to the 9/11 area, but it's a few blocks away, it isn't right there. Frankly, there are a lot of people who feel, including the mayor of New York, that they should have every right to do it, and that New Yorkers should support them...And there's a huge, I think, lack of support throughout the country for Islam to build that mosque there, but that should not make a difference if they decide to do it. I'd be the first to stand up for their rights.

It's probably worth your time to revisit Alex Pareene's compendium of the "Heroes, villains, and cowards of the so-called 'ground zero mosque,'" if only to be baffled by the people who haven't the guts to join Senator Hatch in standing up for some basic freedoms.

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Sen. Orrin Hatch: 'I'd Be The First To Stand Up For Their Rights' To Build A Mosque Near Ground Zero [ThinkProgress]

Sen. Orrin Hatch: ‘I’d Be The First To Stand Up For Their Rights’ To Build A Mosque Near Ground Zero

While virtually every Republican and conservative leader has come out strongly against the construction of the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strongly defended the organizers’ right to build the center today, saying, “what made this country great is we have religious freedom.” In an interview with Fox 13 News in Salt Lake City, Hatch — who has long been a proponent of religious liberty — said it shouldn’t “make a difference” that the majority of Americans don’t support the center’s construction, because religious freedom is too important, and noted that the proposed site is actually “a few blocks away” from Ground Zero.
And countering those on the right who have implicated Islam in terrorism, or who have tried to paint it as anything less than a legitimate religion, Hatch said that “there are Muslims killed on 9/11 too,” and said, “we know [Islam is] a great religion”:

HATCH: Let’s be honest about it, in the First Amendment, religious freedom, religious expression, that really express matters to the Constitution. So, if the Muslims own that property, that private property, and they want to build a mosque there, they should have the right to do so. The only question is are they being insensitive to those who suffered the loss of loved ones? We know there are Muslims killed on 9/11 too and we know it’s a great religion. … But as far as their right to build that mosque, they have that right.
I just think what’s made this country great is we have religious freedom. That’s not the only thing, but it’s one of the most important things in the Constitution. [...]
There’s a question of whether it’s too close to the 9/11 area, but it’s a few blocks away, it isn’t right there. … And there’s a huge, I think, lack of support throughout the country for Islam to build that mosque there, but that should not make a difference if they decide to do it. I’d be the first to stand up for their rights.

Watch it:



In defending Muslims’ right to build the community center, Hatch, who is Mormon, noted that his religion has faced its own opposition the building its houses of worship. Nonetheless, fellow Mormons like Fox News host Glenn Beck, and disappointingly, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have come out against the mosque in New York. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is also Mormon, has been “noticeably absent” from the mosque debate

Glenn Beck, Imam Rauf Both Denounced Radical Islam In 2006 (VIDEO) 23AUG10

The campaign to defend the controversial Islamic cultural center in downtown Manhattan continued on Monday even as the imam behind the project remained virtually silent and the group's communication shop remains understaffed and overwhelmed.
Several prominent progressive groups came to the aid of the the Islamic community center that would be built two blocks away from Ground Zero, publishing pieces and launching campaigns aimed at undercutting the project's chief critics.
The media watchdog group Media Matters highlighted a 2006 segment from ABC's "Good Morning America" in which Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and conservative TV host Glenn Beck discussed the need to separate moderate Islam from the extremist elements of the religion. Both Beck -- who has emerged as a leading critic of the imam's Cordoba House project -- and Rauf seem to be speaking with a shared voice on the need to elevate moderate Islamic elements. At one point, Beck appears to gesture toward Imam Rauf as he discusses the "good Muslims" who make up the "vast majority" of Islam's believers.

As Media Matters notes:

One of the loudest voices in conservatives' fight against the center has been Glenn Beck, who has specifically targeted Imam Rauf with blatant falsehoods and hypocritical attacks in a desperate attempt to smear him as a radical.
Additionally, among other offensive comments, Beck has asked, "after you've killed 3,000 people you're going to now build your mosque?" He's also absurdly labeled the center an "actual danger" and suggested it is an "Allah-tells-me-to-blow-up-America mosque." Though we -- and many other outlets -- have repeatedly pointed out that Rauf is widely viewed as a moderate and has often denounced the extremists who carry out violent attacks in the name of Islam, Beck and his fellow demagogues continue to push the dishonest attack.

Later in the morning, a coalition of two-dozen prominent religious leaders launched a campaign titled "Stop the War on Prayer" defending the Islamic cultural center on broader terms. Gathering leaders of several different faiths, the group posted both a video and an "Open Letter to the Faithful," arguing that the effort to stop the construction of the Cordoba House was an affront to the notion of religious tolerance (for any religion).

"All of us are children of God, " says Rev. Jim Forbes, Director of the Healing of the Nations Foundation and former pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan, "Anybody who has such a fear or contempt of somebody else that they would deny them the opportunity to pray, or establish a place to pray, that's a real problem I think to God and clearly it's a problem in our nation."


The Media Matters clip and the religious leaders' campaign are a telling illustration of the type arguments to which defenders of the Cordoba House have begun to turn. With the rhetoric surrounding the project already heated, various efforts have been made to not only underscore Imam Rauf's history of preaching tolerance and moderation, but also to highlight the inconsistencies of his critics. Likewise, there have been previous campaigns to align community, religious, and even political leaders behind the cultural center.

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Even more telling, however, is the vacuum in which the project's backers are operating. There has been, to date, no coordinated effort to defend the mosque. Rauf, for one, has been traveling overseas, limiting his press exposure. And until Sunday none of the formal supporters of the project had much -- if any -- national television appearances to diffuse the controversy.
Progressive institutions have been left to essentially pick up the cause on their own, demonstrating both the magnetic draw of this particular debate and how great a public relations challenge the Cordoba House faces

"Ground Zero Mosque" Foes Bankrolled By Feds from MOJO 23AUG10

OUR tax dollars at work,  doing their best to show the world that hypocritical tea-baggers and gop right-wing fanatics and even some people of faith have the right to prove to the world they are ignorant, racist, and prejudiced, all at taxpayer expense. Why would any county, accused by the U.S. of discrimination against and repression of religion feel the need to respond at all considering the actions of the government's U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF)?

— Tumblr/topherchris (used with permission).

The leaders of a religious freedom commission solely financed by the US government say moderate Muslims are not free to build an Islamic center in New York.

— By Nick Baumann and David Corn

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President Barack Obama has declared that a group of moderate Muslims have the right to build a community center in lower Manhattan, two blocks from the site once occupied by the World Trade Center towers. Yet representatives of a wholly US government-funded outfit have joined the vociferous opposition to the Park51 or Cordoba House project that critics have dubbed the "Ground Zero Mosque." A leader of this group—which receives $4.3 million a year from the government—has even proclaimed that the community center could be a front for Islamic terrorism. That's not all: the same agency, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), has been the subject of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint for allegedly discriminating against Muslim employees.

The commission was created by Congress in 1998 to monitor religious freedom around the world and scold countries that aren't meeting religious freedom obligations outlined by international human rights treaties. Its sole source of funding is the US government; it is empowered to make recommendations to the president about policy decisions related to issues of religious freedom. Recently, the commission has decried Vietnam for its systemic violation of religious freedom and slammed China for its repression of Uighur Muslims. But leading conservative members of the commission have supported the opposition to the Cordoba House, essentially joining those who want to deny New York Muslims the freedom to build their religious and cultural center at this particular site.
In a recent piece for National Review Online, Nina Shea, one of USCIRF's nine commissioners (who are selected by the president and congressional leaders), wrote that instead of "a cultural center for all New Yorkers," the "mosque" project could be "a potential tool for Islamists"—suggesting it would be a hotbed of jihadism that, among other things, spreads the literature and ideas of Islamic extremism. She compared the leaders of the Cordoba House project to convicted terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman (the "blind Sheikh") and accused Fort Hood and Christmas Day bombing coordinator Anwar al-Awlaki. (Shea's piece, as of Monday, was no longer showing up on the NRO site.)
Shea, long an influential figure in neoconservative circles last appointed to the commission by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), is not the only commissioner of this religious freedom organization trying to block the Cordoba House project. Leonard Leo, the chairman of the commission and a top official in the conservative Federalist Society, is director of Liberty Central, a new tea party-related rightwing group organized by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Liberty Central has organized a petition campaign against the Cordoba House project. Moreover, Virginia Thomas is one of several conservative leaders participating in a 9/11 rally against the Cordoba House project, organized in part by anti-Islam activist/blogger Pam Geller, who runs an organization called Stop Islamization of America and who kick-started the "mosque" controversy. (Geller recently said that Obama has "sided with Islamic jihadists.") To break this down: the chairman of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (Leonard Leo) is working closely with a conservative activist (Virginia Thomas) who is a featured speaker at an event being mounted by an outright anti-Islam group. [Regarding Thomas' participation in this rally, see the update below.]
And as TPM reported, Richard Land, another USCIRF commissioner and the influential president of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has opposed the project, comparing it to a (non-existent) Shinto shrine near Pearl Harbor and a (never-built) convent near Auschwitz. (Land says that the USCIRF itself is prohibited from intervening in domestic matters, but the commission has officially criticized a Saudi-run high school in Alexandria, Virginia.)
The USCIRF also happens to have connections to former UN ambassador John Bolton, one of the fiercest critics of the Cordoba House project. Bolton served as a USCIRF commissioner in the early years of the George W. Bush administration, and Jackie Wolcott, the commission's current executive director, worked under Bolton when Bolton was in charge of nuclear nonproliferation efforts within the Bush State Department. (Bolton wrote the forward to Geller's anti-Islam book and is another scheduled speaker at her September 11 rally against the project.)
The USCIRF may have internal problems with Muslims, too. In February, the Washington Post broke the news of religious infighting at USCIRF. According to the Post, Safiya Ghori-Ahmad, a former policy analyst at the commission, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that her contract was cancelled because she was a Muslim and affiliated with the Muslim Public Affairs Counsel, an advocacy group. Another researcher at the commission, Bridget Kustin, quit in protest after Ghori-Ahmad's contract was not renewed. In her resignation letter, Kustin wrote that she did not want to "remain part of an organization that would be willing to engage in such discrimination."
In a message on the commission's website, Leonard Leo notes that the USCIRF "seeks to advance the visibility of and serious thinking about" how to best address the challenge of religious "intolerance" throughout the world. Yet Leo and the conservatives of the taxpayer-financed commission are siding with the foes of the Cordoba House and bolstering the misleading claims about the "mosque." They have not been advocating tolerance at home.
UPDATE I, 12:00 p.m. Monday: We spoke to Imam Talal Y. Eid, a Muslim USCIRF commissioner. He says the anti-Cordoba House commissioners were speaking in their personal capacities, he disagrees with them (although he respects their opinions), and he may raise the issue with them when he sees them. (He was out of the country last week.)
UPDATE II, 8:00 p.m., Monday: A publicist for Liberty Central emailed us a statement from Sarah Field, the conservative group's chief operating officer: "Mrs. Thomas was not invited, and has not agreed to attend and speak at the 9/11 Rally at Ground Zero on September 11th, 2010 in lower Manhattan, New York City. Any report of her attending is an error. However, Liberty Central does support leveraging citizens’ voices in opposition to this mosque." Geller's Stop Islamization of America did issue a press release on August 14 that noted, "The confirmed list of speakers includes 9/11 family members; former U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton; former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; the Dutch Parliamentarian and freedom fighter Geert Wilders; Gary Berntsen, a candidate for the US Senate from New York; Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, which has filed suit to stop the Ground Zero mega-mosque; Ginny Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife; Michael Grimm, a candidate for Congress from New York's 13th district and a 9/11 first responder; and journalist Andrew Breitbart." We have asked Geller to explain how Thomas came to be promoted as a confirmed speaker, if (as Field says) she was not even invited to participate.

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Stewart: FOX Failed To Mention Co-Owner Is One They Accuse Of 'Terror Funding' (VIDEO) & News Corp. Executives Actually Recently Met With Saudi Billionaire In Mosque Controversy 24AUG10

Jon Stewart continued his coverage of the 'Ground Zero Mosque' debate last night, focusing on Fox News' incongruities harder than he ever has. In a segment called "The Parent Company Trap," Stewart shared with his viewers how Fox News' plan to "follow the money" from mosque builder Imam Rauf to terrorists will be a tricky one because it leads right back to Fox News.
Stewart showed clips from his show last week, in which he mocked Fox News for playing a dangerous game of association based on speculation, and wherein Fox continued to mention a nameless man with ties to Imam Rauf through the "Kingdom Foundation." It turns out the man they are referring to but never name is Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the biggest shareholders of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Showing a photo of the prince shaking hands with Rupet Murdoch, Stewart exclaimed, "That's right, the guy they're painting as a sinister money force OWNS Fox News." Stewart then used Fox's own logic to explain how the "terror mosque" is funded by Prince Alwaleed, despite being a co-owner of Fox News, and therefore funding terrorism. So, using their logic, Stewart said, "If we want to cut off funding to the terror mosque, we must, together as a nation, stop watching Fox."
But with this new information, one thing is now uncertain. Did Fox actually not know the name of the Kingdom Foundation leader or that he is a News Corp investor? Or did they, as Stewart said, "purposefully cover it up because it didn't help their fear-driven narrative?"
Stewart turned to John Oliver and Wyatt Cynac to figure out whether Fox is, in fact, evil or stupid?

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News Corp. Executives Actually Recently Met With Saudi Billionaire In Mosque Controversy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/news-corp-executives-actu_n_692790.html

By now, you may have heard about how on last night's edition of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made fantastic comedic hay out of a Fox And Friends segment, in which the gathered panel indulged in some outsized fearmongery over Cordoba initiative funding without mentioning how the shadowy, unnamed figure at the center of controversy, Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, was "one of the biggest shareholders of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp." Per our own Katla McGlynn:

But with this new information, one thing is now uncertain. Did Fox actually not know the name of the Kingdom Foundation leader or that he is a News Corp investor? Or did they, as Stewart said, "purposefully cover it up because it didn't help their fear-driven narrative?"

That led to a lively debate between John Oliver and Wyatt Cenac over whether Fox was being "evil or stupid." Well, I'm not sure whose argument this aids more -- maybe we need to combine the concepts into a new catch-all phrase that I will call "steevil" -- but one thing worth underscoring is that News Corp. executives actually just met with Al-Waleed bin Talal. From today's TradeArabia:

The top management of Saudi-based media group Rotana met under the chairmanship of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud to discuss the latest developments at Rotana after its strategic alliance with global media giant News Corp.
The meeting, which was attended by Dr Waleed Arab Hashem, vice chairman and Fahad Alsukait, CEO, discussed ways to strengthen the strategic alliance with News Corp.
According to a company statement, Newscorp bought a 9.09 per cent stake in Rotana Group in February to further develop its postion in the media sector in the Middle East and expand it horizon.
Under the terms of the agreement, Rotana said the News Corporation would acquire newly-issued shares in Rotana for $70 million. News Corp has an option to boost its stake to 18.18 per cent in the 18 months following completion.
Pierre Daher, president of Rotana TV Channels, and the members and representitives from News Corporation including Marc Heller, Gary Davey besides Charlotte Burr, vice president of Star Group and Michael Nelson, CFO of Rotana also attended the meeting.

Kingdom Holding Company, the principal shareholder of the Rotana Group, is owner of approximately 7 percent of News Corporation's Class B Common Stock. It has a 29.9 per cent share of the SRMG.

And here's your picture of said executives, makin' deals and dollars with the alleged Ground Zero Terror House Funder that everyone is supposed to be terrified of!

[Hat Tip: ThinkProgress]

Bloomberg Launches Another Impassioned Defense Of Cordoba House 24AUG10

THANK you Mayor Bloomberg, for defending our religious freedom!
 
In a rousing address before a predominantly Muslim audience Tuesday night, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reaffirmed his commitment to the controversial Islamic cultural center near the former site of the World Trade Center.
Bloomberg, who hosted the annual Ramadan Iftar dinner at his official Gracie Mansion residence, did not back away from his position as the most vocal and public defender of the so-called "Ground Zero mosque." If anything, he couched his defense of the project in even deeper moral and political terms, calling the Cordoba House a telling illustration of intrinsic American principles and a valuable tool in the war on terror.
From Bloomberg's prepared remarks:

But if we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom.

We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting. We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims. We would send a signal around the world that Muslim Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen. And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam.
Islam did not attack the World Trade Center -- Al-Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American. Today we are not at war with Islam -- we are at war with Al-Qaeda and other extremists who hate freedom. [snip]
The members of our military are men and women at arms -- battling for hearts and minds. And their greatest weapon in that fight is the strength of our American values, which have always inspired people around the world. But if we do not practice here at home what we preach abroad -- if we do not lead by example - we undermine our soldiers. We undermine our foreign policy objectives. And we undermine our national security.

While some of the cultural center's other early supporters have backed away from their defense of the project, Bloomberg has emerged as perhaps the least fickle of its supporters. And he's been hailed for that defense -- locally, nationally and among the commentariat -- even though a majority of the public opposes the Cordoba House's proposed location.
Addressing those calling for a compromise location for the center, Bloomberg offered the logical rejoinder. "The question will then become, how big should the 'no-mosque zone' around the World Trade Center be?" he remarked. "There is already a mosque four blocks away. Should it too, be moved?"
However the debate ends, of course, there will be hard feelings. Still, the Mayor ended his remarks with an appeal to the lessons of history.

I know that many in this room are disturbed and dispirited by the debate. But it is worth keeping some perspective on the matter. The first colonial settlers came to these shores seeking religious liberty and the founding fathers wrote a constitution that guaranteed it. They made sure that in this country the government would not be permitted to choose between religions or favor one over another.

Nonetheless, it was not so long ago that Jews and Catholics had to overcome stereotypes and build bridges to those who viewed them with suspicion and less than fully American.

Ground Zero Mosque Opponents Have a Lot of Work to Do 17AUG10

HERE'S a few interesting facts blowing holes in the hypocritical and hate filled un-American propaganda against Park51, or as the right wing loonies and tea-baggers call it, "the mosque at ground zero", comparing it to the desecration of Gettysburg, something all these blow-hards don't seem to have a problem with. I especially appreciate and agree with the author, Bob Cesca, pointing out the hypocrisy of a memorial at Gettysburg honoring robert e lee. Memorials and ceremonies and the like honoring the traitors from the confederacy have always disgusted me.....think about it, the aim of these people was to destroy our nation, and they do not deserve any respect or honor for their acts of treason. They were traitors and the only thing to celebrate about them was that they were defeated and our nation survived. 

If we take Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich at their word, their objection to the proposed community center two blocks north of Ground Zero is that the entire area is hallowed ground, and a Muslim facility so close to the site is an insult to the victims and heroes of September 11.
Of course this is entirely about a swath of 9/11 fetishists, mostly Christians, ginning up anti-Muslim fear and demagoguery to score political points. It's a cheap and obvious exploitation of the widespread American prejudice that anyone who happens to be Muslim is equally as guilty and offensive as the terrorists who hijacked and crashed two airplanes into the World Trade Center towers.
It must be an election year because Republicans are once again rolling out September 11 as a wedge issue. You know, because they care about honoring the fallen. When it helps them politically.
If Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and Gingrich, along with the entire population of far-right AM talk radio, really cared about hallowed ground and historical preservation, they wouldn't be limiting their crusade to Park 51 (formerly Cordoba House).
As many of us have heard, there's a strip club two blocks away. I'm not sure how lap dances are less offensive than a religious community center. In fact, there are quite a few places in lower Manhattan within short walking distance of Ground Zero that would have to be eliminated as part of these stringent guidelines dictating how sacred ground ought to be respected. Via Twitter, Sarah Palin urged President Obama to weigh in on the Park 51 issue. Well, I urge Sarah Palin to weigh in on the strip club "at Ground Zero." We're waiting, Sarah. Will you campaign against the strip club? How about the gun shows that happen at Cox Pavilion, not far from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing? Or the shinto shrines a mile or two from Pearl Harbor?
Actually, come to think of it, I want all of the usual suspects -- Beck, Palin, Gingrich and the rest -- to weigh in on a variety of actual trespasses upon hallowed ground.
Let's begin with the actual ground. The Ground Zero. Literally, the ground. The One World Trade Center (aka. Freedom Tower) website notes the following feature:

The below-grade concourses will include approximately 55,000 square feet of retail space and connect to an extensive transportation and retail network...

So there's going to be a shopping mall literally in the ground of Ground Zero. "Below-grade" means "in the ground." The Ground. In other words, Sarah Palin and her entire gaggle of various babies and ghost writers can visit Ground Zero and honor the heroes and victims of 9/11 while trying on tankinis at Juicy Couture (or whatever clothing stores end up there) constructed within the actual ground of Ground Zero.
This bears repeating: unlike Park 51, which is blocks away, there's going to be a 55,000 square foot mall under the same ground where people fell to their deaths on that terrible day. Ground that's mixed with the remains of the dead. A mall.
And it wouldn't be the first time we've besmirched and destroyed the hallowed ground where American heroes have died.
I have yet to see Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin contribute their considerable wealth and celebrity to the cause of preserving the Wilderness and Chancellorsville battlefields in Virginia where Washington, D.C.'s suburban sprawl is rapidly consuming the land where thousands of Americans were killed during the American Civil War. When will these self-proclaimed patriots stand against the latest eyesore -- a Walmart Super Store that's likely to be built on the Wilderness battlefield?
Newt Gingrich, for his part, has written several books about the Civil War, one of which fantasizes about a Confederate victory at Gettysburg. Actually, I once stood several feet away from Gingrich as he held a book signing at a Gettysburg gift shop located a block or two from a McDonald's on Steinwehr Avenue -- a McDonald's that sits on the actual battlefield, specifically the location of the infamous Pickett's Charge on the third day of battle. (The gift shop is also technically on the battlefield.)
The McDonald's is next to a Friendly's restaurant and across from a hotel with a swimming pool where tourists can honor the fallen while wearing arm floaties and smacking each other with foam noodles. There's a restaurant called General Pickett's Buffet on the battlefield. There used to be a Stuckey's Restaurant literally in the Peach Orchard. There's a 7-11 convenience store where U.S. cavalry commander General John Buford, arguably the hero of Gettysburg, was headquartered on the first day.
Sarah? Beck?
On the site of some of the most bloody fighting, East Cemetery Hill, there's a towering Holiday Inn, a Rita's Italian Ice, a cigar store, a Hall of Presidents wax museum, another gift shop and another convenience store. Oh and there's a hilarious outhouse attraction complete with an animatronic townie relieving himself and yelling at tourists to stop "letting all the flies in." Hilarious. West of the town, on the site of one of the Civil War's largest field hospitals, known at the time as Camp Letterman, there's a Walmart and a trailer park. South of town, behind Power's Hill where my great-great grandfather's 155th Pennsylvania volunteer regiment bivouacked, you can walk the hallowed ground while playing a round of miniature golf at Mulligan McDuffer's Putt-Putt.
Sure, a soulless free market conservative might shrug off these monuments to corporate consumerism as being the wheels of commerce and capitalism rolling on. Even if that means rolling over the ground where 23,040 United States soldiers were killed or wounded (the Confederates suffered around 20-25,000 casualties at Gettysburg). For the federal Army of the Potomac, that was a 27 percent casualty rate. Unimaginable by today's standards.
And that leads us to an aspect of this particular expanse of hallowed ground that most directly relates to the fracas over Park 51.
To review: Park 51 will be two blocks away from the actual WTC site. It's being installed by American citizens, the chief of whom, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an American citizen who has worked with the Bush administration on Muslim outreach. These are peaceful Muslims who had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attacks nearby. The opponents of the inaccurately dubbed "Ground Zero Mosque" suggest it's the work of an enemy religion and offensive to the memory of those who died.
But at Gettysburg, just south of the town and west of the Emmitsburg Road near the tree-line from which 12-15,000 Confederate soldiers emerged on the third day of battle to attack the United States army on Cemetery Ridge, stands a tall marble and bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. It's not the only Confederate monument on the actual battlefield, but it's certainly the most striking and the most famous. At the peak of the obelisk is Lee mounted atop his horse, Traveler, staring out at the battlefield. Just below him are heroic bronze representations of random Virginia Confederates.
This general committed treason against the United States. By definition, he was a traitor who commanded a rebel army against the U.S. and inflicted unprecedented casualties. Specifically, General Lee's invasion of the north and advance into Gettysburg was responsible for the aforementioned 23,040 United States military casualties, and, of those 23,040 casualties, 3,155 were killed on that ground.
Yet there's a statue at Gettysburg honoring the fiercest enemy of the United States at that time. Had Lee been victorious, the United States as we know it today would not exist. But he gets a statue on Pennsylvania soil -- a statue which, by the way, stands at the exact same height as the statue to U.S. General George Gordon Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac (and a Pennsylvanian).
I can't even imagine the September 11 equivalent of such a memorial to an enemy of the United States. Now, just to be clear, I'm not advocating one way or another about the Confederate battlefield monuments at Gettysburg (the retail shops, on the other hand, are a blight). I'm merely drawing a parallel here. If Newt and Sarah and Glenn were truly so driven to maintain the sacred purity of American "hallowed ground," they definitely have a lot of work to do. And they can start by campaigning for the removal of the Lee statue of Gettysburg. You know, for the sake of consistency. Let's see how popular that'll be, especially with their southern fanbase.
Naturally they won't bother because the mosque issue isn't really as much about the ground as it is about stoking and capitalizing on religious intolerance. When you eliminate the inconsistencies, contradictions and oversights, all that's left is political fear-mongering, demagoguery and a disturbing disregard for the free exercise clause. If it was truly about hallowed ground, we'd hear about all of those other American sites.
Ultimately, though, I'm expecting too much from the modern conservative movement, considering how it's built entirely upon obvious contradictions, unserious chicanery and an escalating campaign of intolerance.