My father died two weeks ago. He was a devout Catholic and former Franciscan brother. The last week of his life he was really upset -- not about dying, but about that church in Gainesville that’s planning to burn Korans on 9/11.
My dad thought it wasn’t Christian, but an act of Christian supremacy. I said it would be cute if they used German accents.
He didn’t laugh either. But I’ve been thinking of him all week amidst the furor over the ‘Ground Zero Mosque.’ Which isn’t at Ground Zero, and isn’t a mosque. It’s in the old Burlington Coat Factory building, which makes it a deeply offensive to we Americans who care about quality outerwear. I’m very protective of American jackets made in China. And there’s a mosque inside it, but it’s really a community center with a theatre, café, meeting rooms, and, I’m sure at some point, a Pinkberry.
Most people who live here in lower Manhattan have no problem with this. But some of the same politicians who said 9/11 was about foreigners hating our freedoms -- are now busy hating our freedoms. Freedom means that sometimes you’re gonna have to tolerate stuff that you find offensive; like other religions, flag burning, and the Jonas Brothers.
Al Qaeda wants America to hate our own Muslims, and to deny them the freedoms we take for granted. They want to be able to say, "America hates Islam and their claim of freedom is a lie." I say stop giving these guys what they want. If the Cordoba House folks were smart they’d say "Folks, we don’t want enemies; we’re good people, we’re gonna move 6 blocks over into the old TGI Friday's in Battery Park," even Newt Gingrich would have to say "a salaam alaikem."
But until then, they still have freedom of religion & assembly. That means America wins. I don’t think most politicians harbor animosity for Muslims, but you’ll never lose votes hating on Islam in an election year.
And I kinda take this personally, because my cousin’s Muslim. He’s Egyptian American, and a doctor, and 16 years ago, in a previous health scare, he helped save my father’s life. I called him last week to thank him for all he’d done, and he said "Don’t thank me. Your father was my father."
And that made me proud to be an American. I’ve got a Muslim cousin, a Jewish sister in law, an atheist brother and an ex-nun mother. I don’t get to hate on ANYONE.
That was awesome! Great job. Also, great point about “some of the same politicians who said 9/11 was about foreigners hating our freedoms. are now busy hating our freedoms.” That is so true. Like you said, freefom means sometimes having to tolerate stuff that you find offensive. Great work, GRIT TV. You have a big fan in me.
By Kenny on August 21st, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I would rather see an interdenominational building, to honour all 3 religions.
By Vera Gottlieb on August 22nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
You can see very well how the media editors contrived all this by their choices about headlines, missing facts in these stories that were just published in papers and broadcast on mainstream media to stoke this up. Ruling elite dynastic family shareholders in military contractors are the only ones who benefit from all of this kind of thing. They want some violence here in this country between us to cement the conflict in our children’s memories! This is so obvious.
Just check out the Boards of Directors of these companies who sign off on executive searches and compensation committees, and you’ll see how much military industrial complex sits there. Like my grandpa said many times, they hated the New Deal, but the income tax they lived with cause it got them WWI and big part of the tax take got handed back to them as revenue in their industrial, coal, and oil company holdings.
Diddo today where 50% of Federal Income Tax take gets spent on war! And less and less each year on salaries and benefits to the young people actually doing the heavy lifting and bearing the permanent scars!
By planck on August 31st, 2010 at 11:16 am