The right's ingenious campaign to turn one billion people into our sworn enemies.
America has lots of problems, from fighting two wars to high unemployment to anemic economic growth. Our friends on the right, however, seem to think we don't have enough problems and are working like gangbusters to transform more than a billion people around the world into our sworn enemies. As the New York Times reports, the anti-Ground Zero Mosque hysteria has gone nationwide:
In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.
In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.
In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.
Gee, it's funny how quickly the supposedly anti-government Tea Party wants the government to suppress peoples' right to freely express their religion, no? It's almost like they're selective in their outrages against state power! Whoda thunk it!
These local skirmishes make clear that there is now widespread debate about whether the best way to uphold America’s democratic values is to allow Muslims the same religious freedom enjoyed by other Americans, or to pull away the welcome mat from a faith seen as a singular threat.
The cool thing about wingnuttery is that it gets more extreme all the time. Repealing the Fourteenth Amendment is old hat at this point -- now it's time to repeal the First Amendment too! Do you think if more Muslims were gun owners they'd start a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment as well? Now that would be interesting to see!
But they have not gone unanswered. In each community, interfaith groups led by Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, rabbis and clergy members of other faiths have defended the mosques. Often, they have been slower to organize than the mosque opponents, but their numbers have usually been larger.
Well, it's nice to see that we haven't completely succumbed to stupidity in this country. As the Economist notes, one reason America has had fewer home-grown jihad a-holes over the years is because it's significantly more tolerant of immigrants than many European countries. But that could change if more Americans listen to the insane rantings of serial adulterer Newt Gingrich and former half-term governor Moose Eater:
Mr Gingrich also objects to the centre’s name. Imam Feisal says he chose “Cordoba” in recollection of a time when the rest of Europe had sunk into the Dark Ages but Muslims, Jews and Christians created an oasis of art, culture and science. Mr Gingrich sees only a “deliberate insult”, a reminder of a period when Muslim conquerors ruled Spain. Like Mr bin Laden, Mr Gingrich is apparently still relitigating the victories and defeats of religious wars fought in Europe and the Middle East centuries ago. He should rejoin the modern world, before he does real harm.
Newt, for the record, has always been totally insane, especially on matters of foreign policy. I'll never forget Gingrich's 2006 appearance on on Meet the Press, where Tim Russert asked him if having 130,000 of our troops stuck in Iraq had reduced our ability to deal effectively with Iran and North Korea. “Only in our minds,” Gingrich replied. Huzzah, let's invade everyone!
But seriously, of all the bad things the modern GOP stands for, I think its desire to reignite the Crusades may be the worst. I'm not sure what could possibly motivate such a desire, since the Crusades didn't go especially well for either the Europeans nor Muslim nations they invaded. Perhaps Newt thinks invading Iran will bring Jesus back to Earth, thus freeing him to be Raptured away while the rest of the world burns.
But even this doesn't make much sense, since the Bible has had some pretty bad things to say about adulterers. Maybe Newt thinks that the "it's-OK-if-you're-a-Republican" thing applies to the afterlife as well.
Or maybe he's just insane. Allah help us all.
I love feeling pride in my country when we do good in the world. But more and more that I look at the fact that we have a bigot party that get elected again and again it's hard to feel that pride.
It's a shame the pig ignorance we have in this country. Now to be clear I am 100% against religion, worst thing that has ever happend to mankind. However I also feel that what makes America great is that we are tolerant of other people, their culturs and beliefs. All except for the bigot right wing who feels that they are right always and nobody else matters. - mmm, there's that pride again.
Religion was not the worst thing to happen to mankind, because it supported people when there were no answers to impossible questions. However, now it's become more and more irrelevant and used to justify hatred and intolerance in the name of God.(I know, it always has) Judging by worship attendance much of Western religion will be totally passe in 50 years. It won't stop them from passing the plate, however!
ljmel
of the implications of their actions..Or are they just so blind in their pious religious hatred that they do not care!
Should we shut down all Catholic churches because they aided the Nazi's in WWII and have World members in the church that are proven to have protected child molesters! Should we ban all christian churches because their membership was populated by the KKK and McVeigh was a christian?
If the moderates of every religion are not allowed to worship and prosper then they can not fight the fringe of their group!
This is a scare tactic that needs to be called out and stamped out! NOW
They now come to worship and not to learn and grow. To practice the teachings in any religion would include unity,compassion,empathy and love. Things you miss when you are too busy worshiping to grow.
AND WE PAY FOR IT ALL IN CASH
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
we Americans should export christians and Mr. Gingrinch's homosexuality and exploitative values as an experiment before we try stopping Islam.
... a reminder of a period when Muslim conquerors ruled Spain.
Being white and Christian means you get to freak the hell out over long dead history. Being brown and Muslim means you should shut the fuck up about Israel already.
Conservatives need a menacing enemy, whether if is the Communist menace, the Yellow Peril, vile Papists, invading hordes of immigrants, or now Muslims. They that extra frisson of fear and outrage to get them out of bed in the morning.
That the phrase, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" came from a progressive, FDR, not a conservative. Conservatives need fear to keep people in line and existing (and unfair) conditions the same and exclusive for a select few, instead of progressing to the point of inclusion for all. Sad, un-Christian and miserly, IMHO.
and all it needs is a target for well-armed and ignorant tools.
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
Correct but they are using fear to convince you to hate too. Keep people afraid so they keep talking about that instead of shaping the future. They're takin' care of all that for ya.
"Mosques are monuments to terrorismt."
So are evangelical churches and Catholic cathedrals.
Lucky for us only some of the billion
are dumb enough to think these
Xtian creeps speak for all of us.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Catholic churches are monuments to pedophilia.
Study: Contemporary Mosques Are A Deterrent
To The Spread Of Terrorism
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
I can think of no better way of showing the world's billionish Muslims that this is NOT a war on Islam...than to allow the Mosque to be built so close to that location.
'Goofy Old Pricks'
'Godawful Olfactory Pong'
there are many other possibilities given the richness of the English language. Challenge: do this in Spanish!
How about a contest?
For people who want to return to the constitution and the founding of this country, It seems they have forgotten what it is that this country was founded on. Or is it they think it is thier country and damn the constitution, at least the parts they don't like.
Did you ever notice that the people that are always talking about amending or making changes to the constitution are the same ones who decry activist judges and carry the constitution in their pocket.
It seems to me with all the changes they think it needs that they aren't very happy with it.
for their knee-jerk reactions to what any Muslim attempts to do. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Fear is the only thing the Greedy Obstructionist Party has.
Let the Muslims have their mosque. I would enjoy seeing right-winger's heads explode. Their loss would be the world's gain.
If they win we will all be able to force those Baptist terrorist to move out of town, they have bombed medical facilities, the Olympics and are protesting our fallen war heroes funerals. Our towns will be much safer if we can rid them of these terrorists.
Breaking news:
Right wing bottom feeders are bigots. . .
Film at 11
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-- Martin Niemoeller
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Unfortunately, the idiot tea baggers and the rest of the idiot republican base cannot figure out that their GOP heroes are also coming
after them.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
But I'd go you one further ..
Having already brainwashed their base
there's no need to "come after" them ..
They are already "had"
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Fortunately, by the appearance of the number of comments on this site, there are still enough of us willing to "speak out" for anyone that is being discriminated against. That is the wonder of this country, there will always be a portion of the population that is willing to defend the defenseless. The important thing is that we make sure that we make our voices heard to those in a position to make changes that are so desperately needed in this country. We must make sure that the Republican Party is never in a position to destroy the very freedoms that make this country great. We must do that by writing letters to the editor of our local newspapers, writing to our "representatives" in both Houses of Congress, writing to the White House, and most importantly making our voices heard at the voting booth in ALL elections.
It's good for business.
I noticed Armeninajad (whatever) the President of Iran doing the same thing stirring the pot with his comments about 9-11.
Two sides of the same coins.
It's the same old game whether it's done in the U.S. or Iran;
distract the people's attention from what's being done to them by their own government.
On the other hand, that is a very well made sign.
and I assume by "well made" you mean there are no spelling mistakes.
three polysyllabic words.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Are monuments to torture, mutilation, murder, pedophilia.... And the hits keep coming! All religious landmarks are monuments to ignorance of the lowest order..
I hope the rapture is real.Please God take these people away so the rest of us can live in peace.
THEY already hate US for our freedom.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Disaster Capitalism or Shock Doctrine Politics.
The Neo-Cons really do hate us for our freedoms.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Does this mean the statute of limitations for disgraced politicians is approx 15 years ? And who else do we have to look forward to being reincarnated ? What credibilty does this jerk have ? Like Carl Rove saying that the Repubs would win in '08. When they are so wrong about things why does the right think they are messiahs ?
This is a stretch but what if the people who caused all the death and destruction on 9-11 were christians,you know,like Catholic, Babtist, Mormon,etc? Not an eyebrow would be raised if any of these "Christian" religions wanted to build a church or cathedral on "Ground Zero"! NOT a peep!Does the Bill of rights guarantee " freedom of religion" or " freedom of christian religion"?
One of the gifts they have given that has yet to stop giving.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
Secular America recognizes radical religion only when it marches into the public square, bellowing its intentions. When Charles Finney built the nation's first megachurch 170 years ago--at Broadway and Worth, in lower Manhattan—he understood that making a spectacle of faith provided a foundation for power. More recently, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson translated the tent revivals of old into political networks, moral majorities, and Christian coalitions. But now, even that modernization has become shiny with age. Falwell is dead; Robertson is a farce. The secular media finds itself wondering—as it has periodically ever since the Scopes "monkey" trial of 1925—whether theocratic politics are gone for good from America.
Not likely. From Jonathan Edwards and the Revolutionary War that followed the First Great Awakening to the War on Terror, the theocratic strand has been woven into the American fabric, never quite dominant but always stronger and more enduring than those who imagine religion to be a personal, private affair realize.
Part Two, "Jesus Plus Nothing," brings the elite thread into the twentieth century through the story of the founder of the Family, a Norwegian immigrant named Abraham Vereide, and his successor, Doug Coe. Vereide counseled presidents and kings and was spiritual adviser to more senators and generals than Billy Graham has prayed with in all his days of bowing to power. And yet his story is unknown. He preferred it that way; God, thought Vereide, works through men who stay behind the scenes. In Vereide's day, the Family maintained a formal front organization, International Christian Leadership. In Coe's, it "submerged," following instructions he issued in 1966, an era of challenge to the kind of establishment power Vereide and Coe protected as God-ordained.--Jeff Sharlet
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Schenck found a donor to buy him a town house across from the Supreme Court, where he began practicing a Coe-style ministry to judiciary staffers. In 2000, he prayed with Justice Antonin Scalia a day after the Supreme Court decision that made Bush president.
Coe doesn't demand doctrinal loyalty, only a willingness to do business behind the scenes, and liberals are free to join him in the back room. Testifying before Congress about global warming in 2007, Al Gore came under angry assault from Senator James Inhofe, a longtime member of the Family. Gore blunted the attack by invoking their "mutual friend, Doug Coe," with whom, he suggested, he and Inhofe ought to meet away from the cameras. "You know what I think of when I think of Doug Coe?" Schenck asked, his voice thick with admiration and laced with envy. “I think literally of the guy in the smoky back room, you can't even see his face...
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Plans to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero have set off an emotional debate among area residents and relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. http://www.newslook.com/videos/236882-ground-zero-mosque-controversy?autoplay=true"
yes the new anti-communism. I'm not sure where homophobia is located on the ladder of hate
Your God-Emperor Obama the Mostest & Bestest Highest fucking KILLS thousands of Muslims - and you think this handful of racist fucks are the ones that are pissing off the Muslim world? Really?
Boot-lick much?
Are you really that angry or are you just a troll...wait a minute, I'll check your profile/comment history.....
yep, troll.
Why don't you guys make some honest comments or arguments and stop with the transparently phony outrage?
You need a new game plan.
How delusional can you get?
Why would a Muslim kill Muslims?
Cuz one is shia and one is sunni and, well there ya go. The entire world is being divided into tiny little pieces. Hmmmm who would want to promote dividing all of us?
Although I was aware of that fact. I don't however see how alansmith can say that Obama is killing thousands of Muslims, without recognizing that Bush killed more.
I do agree that we are being broken up into smaller groups (easier to entice against eachother). The outcome being that if we are fighting eachother over who works harder, who is more worthy, whose religion etc., ad infinitum, not many will notice what is truly taking place until it is too late. Hopefully there are enough that don't fall for this scam, that we can make a difference.
Here is to the best outcome possible CHEERS!!!!
Actually I think you are right. Although Muslims are killing more other Muslims than Christians.
War is no way to build respect and peace.
No those racist fucks are pissing of US citizens who believe in freedom of religion and speech and equal rights under the law. And people that don't want to be looked at as haters.
There is always a cry for moderate Muslims to stand up and speak out.
Make sure you practice what you preach...so to speak.
Fundamentalism, Aggression and Anger:
The god virus is consumed with propagation and is concerned with challenges to its supremacy. Staying on the offensive is critical to religious survival. When a religion loses its offensive edge, it begins to lose out to other more aggressive religions. The decline of mainstream Protestantism in the United States is a result of decreased aggressiveness and increased aggressiveness in competitive religious groups. Those with the best conversion programs will thrive...
You can see/hear the truth... when the Christian conservatives embrace an atheist.(Ayaan Hirsi Ali interview)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qu'ran is mute
If you'd burn them all together you'd get close to the truth
and will use it!!!! truth
....the fools do not realize,a population that can ,..... not paticipate .............in the 'economy'...,can not keep it viable!..........."we are listening,.......and we're not blind.,......this is your life....this is your time."
This is one time in 9 years i totally disagee with you. Whoever lacked the sensitivity...the compassion to say, "this will be a good spot to build our Mosque" and be pissed at not understanding why the proposal could be rejected...is indeed an enemy.
I just can't believe their decision and its a slap in your face.- A Canadian.
An I mention this because we Canadians are known for being so tollerant.
They're not building a mosque in NYC - its a community center with a prayer room attached.
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
They're building the community center in an area of Manhattan that has a large Muslim population, and is about a block away from their mosque, which has been there for years.
Gee, why in the world would they want to build the community center THERE? I mean, they should put it in Scarsdale and let everyone commute out to it.
"Our friends on the right, however, seem to think we don't have enough problems and are working like gangbusters to transform more than a billion people around the world into our sworn enemies."
That is correct. What's not mentioned is that Christanics are also enemies of civilization in lock step with their Islamic colleagues.
Christanic terrorists invaded Iraq and raped, tortured, and slaughtered a million innocent people, all for the greater glory of the Christanic gods.
Wake the fuck up. Islam is an enemy of the people of the world, and the supposition that they're a "religion of peace" is bullshit.
Especially if you vow them your enemy and are determined to destroy them. There appears to be no religon of peace, especially when threatened.
Many,many Muslims have no desire or intent to kill anybody. Yes they have lots of bad seeds that are actively recruiting. As you so ably pointed out our side is not without its own fanatical bloodthirsty sect .
I support the Muslims who live and act like it is a religion of peace. Just as I would support Christians who do the same.
If your religion makes you a better person I support it. If it doesn't you shouldn't be wasting your time with it.
In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.
Wisconsin is so full of bigots, I hardly think any caricature of a southern state would be any worse.
But you have Feingold! I'm jealous. I grew up next door in Iowa, We have Harkin.....and Steve King. They are everywhere. I am currently in SE New Mexico. There in the armpit of texas. It's scary, I don't go out much. But then we also have Taos and Santa Fe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot
The Republican Party seems determined to destroy the very freedoms that make this country a great place to live. I spent twenty years of my life defending the very Constitution that the Republican Party is trying very hard to destroy, NOT ON MY WATCH will I ever allow that to happen. It is too important that in this climate we all determine for ourselves just how important the U.S. Constitution is to our very lives, and VOTE accordingly.
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