Terrorist Death Mosque of Doom™

I was reading the local town newspaper & read a rant by a local woman about the "Cordoba House" community center/mosque that is being proposed in Manhattan.

The shrill letter was unfairly inflammatory to both Muslims & also the so-called "Left" or "liberals" of this country- which seems to be anyone like myself, not filled with fear, hate, & vitriol toward a particular group of people. Basically, her letter described how Islam and The Left are both out to destroy America, and this Park51 center/mosque being proposed is an example of some nefarious agenda. I would recommend the lady turn off the TV or get offline & take a nice, long walk outside to get some fresh air.

To be clear, I don't have any special concern for Muslims, other than they are fellow human beings. Their beliefs are no more or less crazy than the other 2 Abrahamic religions, or any other belief system for that matter. Our country is founded on freedom to worship & you just can't lump in all people of a faith/race/creed together for exclusion and persecution based on the purported actions of a few zealots. If there were really hordes of insane evil Muslims or any other group collectively plotting the destruction of America from within, there'd be bombs and attacks going off in our cities constantly.

Especially considering that the funds for this project aren't even close to being raised yet, this whole 'debate' is basically a manufactured distraction for those easily persuaded.

Politico:
"Mosque a Long Shot to be Built"

Religious Wars are much more exciting for the news industry & 'right-wing' reactionaries than practical issues, like monetary policy or the need for infrastructure investment!

The level-headed among us hesitate branding a general group as The Enemy not out of naïve "coddling," as the writer put it it. The intention is to prevent the violent backlash that has been unleashed on innocent people throughout history, simply because they were part of a particular hated group. It starts with spiteful rhetoric like that letter, but hopefully American society can more quickly learn to deal with these divisive situations in a constructive way.

The op-ed letter really seemed like a Fox News-driven paranoiac screed. The irony lost on the viewers of intellectual luminaries such as Glenn Beck & fellow knucklehead Sean Hannity is that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is a shareholder in Fox's parent company, News Corp. This same prince has also backed the imam behind the proposed community center! The news channel raising the biggest stink about this project is the one with the closest ties to it!!!

NYT:
"Saudi Royal Backs Imam
and Fox News"

Anyway the fact that people are still so monkey-like to still be having these conflicts deriving from primitive clan mentality is expected, but still disappointing in an age of amazing progress in other areas.

I've been seeing plenty of the hateful reation to the specific project & the general idea of Islam in the national news. However, seeing this kind of openly venomous bigotry in my own town's paper has compelled me to respond with an attempt at a rational perspective - free from the emotional parasites of fear, hatred, and anger. Unfortunately when it comes to good ol' traditional religious feuds, it's probably like trying to teach nuclear physics in a room full of apes throwing poo.

Predictably, the best commentary on this whole "Ground Zero Mosque" debacle has been from Jon Stewart & the Daily Show.