Young Muslims "are deeply frustrated by what's going on in the name of Islam. They feel they are paying a price for actions done by a very, very negligible minority, but which capture the attention of the media. Terrorism done in the name of Islam has hurt Muslims as much, if not more, than it has hurt Westerners." - From a June 2006 U.S. State Department press release on a conference regarding Muslim youths.
Wow, what a total madman. Or not.
There is no better place on Earth for a progressive Muslim facilitty than near the site where Islam was horribly stained by the actions of a few motherless bastard renegades. Imam Rauf seeks, in his own words, to "push back" against the radicals within his faith through the Cordoba House. It is, in a way, an apology for what happened on 9/11, a repudiation of the perversion of Islam that inspired it, and an avenue for reconciliation and forgiveness. I'm no Christian scholar, but I do recall hearing some stuff about forgiveness in my CCD classes.
Speaking of apologies (and motherless bastards), it was Newt Gingrich who injected an incredible dose of stupidity into this disgusting debate. Newt said, "You know, Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center."
Yeah, this one has me ballistic. Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust were perpetrated by two militarized, nation-based, nationalistic empires. 9/11 was pulled off by a small cohort of fanatics who, thanks to the gross negligence of the Bush administration, got incredibly lucky on one single day. Germany and Japan, it should be noted, apologized for their actions in World War II, and we accepted those apologies, even though their actions killed millions. 9/11 was terrible. World War II was by many orders of magnitude worse, and was made possible by entities that are in no way comparable to a handful of misogynistic throwbacks on the far fringes of Islam.
This whole ridiculous thing is nothing more or less than a midterm election Trojan Horse deployed by the GOP to try and win back the power they lost in 2006 and 2008, and the "mainstream" media appears all too happy to go along. People in this country are justifiably terrified right now, thanks to the results of Republican economic theory we are currently enduring, and the temptation to lash out at something, anything, is all too close to the skin. For two years now - more, actually, if you count the '08 campaign - the GOP has been calling President Obama (and through him, the Democrats) a Muslim terrorist fanatic. The blogger most responsible for this mosque frenzy went so far as to claim Obama's father was Malcolm X, so this whole crapshow is right in their wheelhouse. They are preying on our fears, and have found fertile ground due to the circumstances we find ourselves in, and it is as deplorable as anything the GOP has pulled in their long and sorry history.
A lot of this bad noise is coming from the so-called Christians on the right, who think all of Islam is coming to destroy America, who call that faith a cult, who paint every Muslim as a murdering radical, and who make no bones about the internment-camp solutions they have for this so-called "problem." I think it fitting to remind those people that it was good Christians who enslaved and murdered millions of Africans, who gave blankets infected with smallpox to Native Americans and very nearly annihilated them all, who thought "separate but equal" was a bully idea, and who did all of these things because the victims were the non-Christian/dark-skinned "other." We're knocking on that door again, and only Hell lies behind it.
A little bit of Scripture from the newest "other":
A true Muslim is the one who does not defame or abuse others; but the truly righteous becomes a refuge for humankind, their lives and their properties.
- MohammadBe wary of malice, for malice consumes virtues, just as fire consumes fuel.
- MohammadThe ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.
- Mohammed
The most excellent jihad (struggle) is that for the conquest of self.
- Mohammed
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