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in passing, not so much politics as "dear God(s), teh Stupid they claim in Your Name..."
Has anyone else noticed that a lot of the "Oh Noes Mosque on Sacred Amurican Ground!" hysteria seems to come from people with a vested (or not so vested) interest in NYC -home of those danged liberals - not actually recovering, ever?
Because it seems to me "yay the real estate in the 5-block radius is coming back to finance-generating use!" is a much better response to the news than fear. Especially since I don't recall anyone saying anything similar about Catholic-based organizations around Oklahoma City...
For those coming in late: it's not a mosque, it's a Muslim community center (akin to a YMCA/YMHA), it's not on Ground Zero, it's two blocks away, which in NYC is Actual Distance, and I've yet to find any verified links suggesting the man who is spearheading all of this has ever condoned the attacks or been anything even remotely resembling the actual definition of a terrorist. If you can give me a legitimate source that says otherwise, sing out. But if you link me to Faux News or its ilk, I will scorn your ass into orbit.
[New Yorkers will also point out that the 'sacred ground' has more than its share of "gentlemen's clubs, (aka expensive strip joints)" tacky tourist shops, and the much-beloved-by-New Yorkers lunch trucks -- many of which are Halal trucks owned and operated by Muslims. Nobody seems to think that any of this is an insult to the memory of those who died...
Because it seems to me "yay the real estate in the 5-block radius is coming back to finance-generating use!" is a much better response to the news than fear. Especially since I don't recall anyone saying anything similar about Catholic-based organizations around Oklahoma City...
For those coming in late: it's not a mosque, it's a Muslim community center (akin to a YMCA/YMHA), it's not on Ground Zero, it's two blocks away, which in NYC is Actual Distance, and I've yet to find any verified links suggesting the man who is spearheading all of this has ever condoned the attacks or been anything even remotely resembling the actual definition of a terrorist. If you can give me a legitimate source that says otherwise, sing out. But if you link me to Faux News or its ilk, I will scorn your ass into orbit.
[New Yorkers will also point out that the 'sacred ground' has more than its share of "gentlemen's clubs, (aka expensive strip joints)" tacky tourist shops, and the much-beloved-by-New Yorkers lunch trucks -- many of which are Halal trucks owned and operated by Muslims. Nobody seems to think that any of this is an insult to the memory of those who died...
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ETA: And there's a mosque/muslim prayer space *in* the frigging Pentagon.
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But overall, your point is right on IMO. ( :
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I've noticed that too. In all the news coverage I haven't seen to many people who live in the city being upset over it.
And I too am so tired of the media mislabeling it a mosque and also mis-stating it to actually be on Ground Zero. They also seem to miss what you point out - 2 blocks in NYC is a lot more distance than 2 blocks elsewhere.
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It should also be noted that the actual Mosque even closer to ground zero than Park 51 is beyond capacity. Given how Muslim prayer is scheduled, expecting them to be forced to travel to some mythical "not-ground-zero" zone just to pray is just plain rude.
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Because all Muslims are Evil and Wrong.
Speaking as someone whose people were on the smite-and-convert side of the Catholic Church for a thousand+ years but still manages to get along reasonably well with the majority of observant Gentiles, I'd like to have a word with some of these hysterics. Possibly with a fact-studded clue-by-four.
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To which I call bullshit.
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As I understand it, many of those who object don't see it as a NYC issue, but rather a national one. Ground Zero has become the national symbol of 9/11, so even people who are not from New York feel like they have some right to comment on what happens there. And because they're not from NYC, they don't understand things like the size of NYC blocks, or that there is already a mosque much closer to Ground Zero that predates the World Trade Center. They just hear "mosque" and "two blocks from Ground Zero" and it flips them out.
There's much more to it than that, but I'm really stoned on Benadryl which is making it hard to formulate coherent thoughts.
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Except that people from outside NYC are saying "you can't do this in your city it's WRONG" without bothering to know anything about the city (like the fact that there's already a mosque closer to the site, as was pointed out upstream). They're telling us what is/isn't acceptable in our city -- where most of the time they wouldn't care if we fell off the map entirely, and certainly have no interest in living here.
You may not be hearing it where you are, but a lot of the comments from talking heads recently have been rather pointedly "New Yorkers don't understand how WE AMERICANS feel about this..." So that's been putting up a LOT of hackles.*
*at least one person I know, who was originally against the idea of the community center, has done an aboutface, because he got so pissed off at the "NYC Must Not" tone of the discussions.
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No, I'm well aware of that. What I was trying ineffectually to say is that Ground Zero has become this great mythic thing to many Americans, most of whom have never even been to NYC before. It's like ... there's New York City and then there's Ground Zero, and they're two completely separate places. So, yeah, these folks think they have a God-given right to dictate what NYC should do in this instance, and are utterly baffled by the fact that NYC is (rightly) telling them to get bent.
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I'm with you, myself; the city is a tapestry and every building is a quilting square, which makes every block a significant distance. Muslims died in 9/11. All this righteous talk from the right is smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned. I hate that this has become an issue. It's another way for the right to keep us from discussing substantive issues in prep for the upcoming elections.
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Yep, which is why I specified "a lot" and not "all." Even the best of places has its share of ignorant jackasses, who bray more than they think. But the ringleaders, who keep it in the public eye? They seem to have, historically, anti-NYC biases.
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In 2003-4, the University of Waterloo had just completed an extension to its Student Life Centre, where I worked. The extension included a brand new multi-faith prayer room, which was most often patronised by the Muslim Students Association (MSA).
Campus police, in my opinion excessively concerned about security, required that a card-swipe electronic lock be installed on the door to the room. (though given that Waterloo was a university with a sizeable Muslim student body in a town with a sizeable White Supremacist presence, maybe the police were right after all)
The problem was this: If the lock remained unengaged for more than 30 seconds or so, a silent alarm would go off in the security office. The MSA would routinely leave the door propped open so that late arrivals to prayer who happened to not be students (and didn't have the card to unlock the door) could sneak in without disturbing the others.
Alarm goes off. Cops know it's likely nothing, so they call me and have me trek three floors up to chew out the Muslims and close the door. Lather, rinse, repeat, roughly every two days.
So you see, this completely unrelated story of my minor annoyance and inconvenience clearly supersedes the Manhattan Muslims' desire for a place to congregate and thus they must be stopped!
In my defence, my claim to relevance and importance is no less valid than the vast majority of those being expressed by opponents to the project.
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Try Massachusetts next, to test reaction time?
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Kind of defeats the purpose of going bananas about this new center, right?
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I've given up trying to explain that it's not a mosque, mostly because they wouldn't believe me if I pulled out the actual laws for a mosque in the Quran, in Aramaic and written by Mohammed, and translated it into "God's Language" (English, according to them). I'm now trying to explain why I don't see any issue with it, and don't think there SHOULD be any issue with it.
I haven't tried to explain to them that there are strip clubs there, or other ACTUAL mosque in that area, or even try to explain that "Yes, believe it or not Muslims ARE American." Instead, I've tried the tactic of asking them to imagine living and working two blocks away from Ground Zero.
Those people have been dealing with Ground Zero since the very beginning. Through the attacks, the clean up, the recovery, the smoke and dust and jet fuel and every other blasted issue imaginable. I imagine that they, above anyone else in America, have the right to decide what comes into the neighborhood. From what I gather, the community welcomed the building of this "mosque" with open arms.
Then again, I've never been to New York, city or state. Most of the people I've debated with haven't either. So really, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans what our opinions are about a street or building we may never see without the aid of Google Maps. So what's more of an insult to the fallen? Showing that the spirit of America is one of rebirth and growth by allowing a group to buy out an unused building and make it into something potentially great, or comparing an entire religion to the Nazis because of a few individuals?
...Sorry if I got a bit long winded. This has been the topic of conversation in my household since Fox started talking about it. Though, it is a semi-nice change of "disgustion" from our normal "Obama is a Muslim/Terrorist/Nazi/Hitlerbaby.
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Also, Jon Stewart/John Oliver debating last week on The Daily Show with words to the effect of "so are other religions being held accountable for their biggest assholes too?"
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* One is a Republican. No exceptions for line officers (ok, 7% or so); only doctors, nurses, chaplains, and lawyers were "allowed" to be liberal, and even then not so much. And along with that comes three decades of solicitations for the Republican Senatorial Campaign.
* One is xtian, and more particularly Protestant. Lots of fun with my ancestry and the Catholic school my spousal unit taught at... in what is probably the most bigoted SMSA in the US (Oklahoma City).
* One believes that the only enemy is the Soviet Union, and that paying attention to anything else was disloyal (except maybe — and only maybe — Germany, so that one could refer the farmers complaining about the tanks ruining the crops to the Public Affairs office).
* One believes that European governments are just a bunch of anti-American commies. (It wasn't the governments; it was the local, as opposed to national, media.)
* One believes that the Democratic Party is not only a bunch of long-haired hippie freaks, but the spawn of Satan. Or Stalin — take your pick.
* One enjoys eating babies. Well, ok, but ONLY at high tide, and with mint sauce.
And anything an officer says to disabuse anyone of those notions will be either (a) ignored or (b) the cause of a report to base security questioning one's loyalty.
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Imam Rauf, however is a Sufi Muslim married to an Iranian woman who escaped the country after the fall of the Shah.