"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances." President Obama
Damn! There's that inconvenient First Amendment thing cropping up again as American citizens attempt to exercise their Constitutional right to build a mosque on privately held ground two blocks from "Ground Zero."
Of course the fact that 9/11 was masterminded by al Qaeda and not all Muslims is lost on the likes of Mark Williams, a spokesman for the Tea Party, who declared that the center would be used for "terrorists to worship their monkey god."
Nice well-educated guy, huh? (Gee, Mark, I'm white - does that mean that I represent the KKK, Nazis, elderly men in plaid golf pants? Do you?)
One father, Herbert Ouida, whose son died in the devastation of the attacks on the World Trade Center, supports the plans. "I'm very much in favor of religious tolerance. I don't believe that the 19 people who flew those planes, and the people who supported them, represent Islam."
Colleen Kelly (whose brother Bill Kelly Jr. was killed in the attacks) told The Associated Press that she believes that the mosque is "in many ways a fitting tribute. This is the voice of Islam that I believe needs a wider audience. This is what moderate Islam is all about."
Two wise and patriotic people who have experienced unimaginable loss and still retain their sanity.
But what strange and terrifying illness is besetting America? Apparently Ignorant Generalization and Bigotry Syndrome is our newest and most pernicious plague: one that may well be the instrument of our demise. (And you thought H1N1 was scary?)
Immigrants, gays, Muslims, liberals, pro-choicers, tree-huggers - these are the new blacks (it's rather poor form to whack-the-blacks at this point and so the Righteous Right must find a new cause célèbre). How delicious for them that they can use a tragedy that spawned worldwide conflict, draconian "homeland security" Bushisms and a whole new world of people to hate in order to feed their xenophobic paranoia. This is the stuff that feeds the rapacious appetites of the Limbaughs, Becks, Palins and others.
Ignorant Generalization and Bigotry Syndrome (IGBS) is rampaging throughout the land and depriving the populace of both sense and sensibility. For those who fear that they may suffer from this debilitating illness, the symptoms are as follows:
1. Knee-jerk head-nodding when listening to bloviating media gad-flys who seek only to line their own pockets by rabid flag-waving and hate-mongering.
2. Joining the "Christians good - other people bad" school of Homer Simpsonesque "logic".
3. Pigging out at the Pick-and-Choose buffet line of Constitutional adherence.
4. Finding yourself chanting, "Take back America" without ever wondering who the hell you're taking it back from.
Like it or not, Mark and your brethren, this is a country of diversity: the much-vaunted Melting Pot. I expect that you adore the "Bush Doctrines." The rest of the world gasped in horror when he broke the universal "Prime directive" and bleated these words: "The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction - and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." (By the way, Mark, supporters of so-called "preventive war" include the Posadist Communists, who argued for war to destroy capitalism).
Those who breed hatred corrode the foundation of democracy - and to do so with a bible in one hand and a flag in the other is the height of hypocrisy.
Now, when a mosque is to be built - a house of prayer within walking distance of Ground Zero - instead of acknowledging the peaceful intentions of the majority of Islam (the world's second largest religion with 1.57 billion adherents, making up 23% of the world population) some spew venom and speak of a "monkey god"?
Is the project in "good taste"? In that I have yet to be crowned as Grand Poobah of Taste in America my opinion is irrelevant. The simple fact is that to deny the legal right to build a mosque in this location is a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Will others shriek at me because I have dared to voice my thoughts on this? That's pretty much guaranteed. (The poor First takes quite a bashing these days, doesn't it?).
Perhaps what is most needed in the area around Ground Zero are synagogues, mosques, temples, churches, meetinghouses, halls and other structures of religion. (Toss in a place for agnostics and atheists to gather if they so choose). Now that would be a fitting tribute to both the American Constitution and the world's desperate need for tolerance, understanding and sanity.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Can We Hear?
The speech below is an excerpt from that which was delivered by Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, during an I am an American Day gathering in New York's Central Park. Ickes spoke these words during a fragile and terrifying period in history: May of 1941 -when Hitler stood upon the precipice of world domination.
On this day in 1941 the countries that had fallen to the Nazis included Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and areas in North Africa. England was under incessant and devastating air attack from the Luftwaffe while Nazi U-boats blockaded the British Isles. And yet, still, many Americans questioned the sagacity and compelling necessity of direct U.S. intercession in what was viewed as a "European war". This, in part, was Mr Ickes reply.
"I want to ask a few simple questions. And then I shall answer them.
What has happened to our vaunted idealism? Why have some of us been behaving like scared chickens? Where is the million-throated, democratic voice of America?
For years it has been dinned into us that we are a weak nation; that we are an inefficient people; that we are simple-minded. For years we have been told that we are beaten, decayed, and that no part of the world belongs to us any longer.
Some amongst us have fallen for this carefully pickled tripe. Some amongst us have fallen for this calculated poison. Some amongst us have begun to preach that the "wave of the future" has passed over us and left us a wet, dead fish.
They shout--from public platforms in printed pages, through the microphones--that it is futile to oppose the "wave of the future." They cry that we Americans, we free Americans nourished on Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, hold moth-eaten ideas. They exclaim that there is no room for free men in the world any more and that only the slaves will inherit the earth. America--the America of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and Walt Whitman--they say, is waiting for the undertaker and all the hopes and aspirations that have gone into the making of America are dead too.
However, my fellow citizens, this is not the real point of the story. The real point--the shameful point--is that many of us are listening to them and some of us almost believe them.
I say that it is time for the great American people to raise its voice and cry out in mighty triumph what it is to be an American. This tide of the future, the democratic future, is ours. It is ours if we show ourselves worthy of our culture and of our heritage.
But make no mistake about it; the tide of the democratic future is not like the ocean tide--regular, relentless, and inevitable. Nothing in human affairs is mechanical or inevitable. Nor are Americans mechanical. They are very human indeed.
What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men. An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
Americans have always known how to fight for their rights and their way of life. Americans are not afraid to fight. They fight joyously in a just cause."
Democracy is, at its most fundamental, the protection of individual rights and freedoms. In that sense the "the whole is more than the sum of its parts." (Aristotle, Metaphysica). The denial of one man or woman's rights is a grievous blow to the "whole" for it erodes the foundation of the principle. If even one of our brothers or sisters suffers injustice by the very systems that have been created to ensure equality, due process of the law and fairness then we all, as a people, are weakened - and our democratic and human ideals compromised.
There are small wounds inflicted each day: an employee unjustly terminated with no recourse; someone silenced by slanderous internet chatter; voices hushed by fear of reprisal; equal rights casually denied while the courts debate whether or not some are more worthy than others; health measured by the size of one’s bank account, not by the scope of one’s need; media that, increasingly, values ratings over truth and crucifies their targets on the cross of “market share”; books banned because a writer has dared to tell a painful tale…the list is long and seldom counted.
Each small blow weakens the base until it seems that the whole once-proud and seemingly indestructible structure must surely crumble - with only its dust left to lie thickly upon the pages of history.
I have just, as I do each morning, read the national and international news. As I sit at my desk with my framed certificate of American citizenship on the wall before me, and my Canadian citizenship in my blood and bones, I feel frightened by the increasing lack of vigilance and sanity.
That which is cherished must be fiercely and tirelessly protected. Even as we develop weapons that are capable of soul-searing destruction; even as we strive to increase our military might; even as we send our men and woman to die in some desolate and unimaginable location half way around the world, we are losing the war on our own doorsteps. The voices raised in anger and divisiveness threaten to drown out those of individual freedom and quiet truth.
The cacophony is becoming deafening and soon we will no longer be able to hear the guiding echoes of the past or the small cry of a child.
Just my thoughts...
On this day in 1941 the countries that had fallen to the Nazis included Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and areas in North Africa. England was under incessant and devastating air attack from the Luftwaffe while Nazi U-boats blockaded the British Isles. And yet, still, many Americans questioned the sagacity and compelling necessity of direct U.S. intercession in what was viewed as a "European war". This, in part, was Mr Ickes reply.
"I want to ask a few simple questions. And then I shall answer them.
What has happened to our vaunted idealism? Why have some of us been behaving like scared chickens? Where is the million-throated, democratic voice of America?
For years it has been dinned into us that we are a weak nation; that we are an inefficient people; that we are simple-minded. For years we have been told that we are beaten, decayed, and that no part of the world belongs to us any longer.
Some amongst us have fallen for this carefully pickled tripe. Some amongst us have fallen for this calculated poison. Some amongst us have begun to preach that the "wave of the future" has passed over us and left us a wet, dead fish.
They shout--from public platforms in printed pages, through the microphones--that it is futile to oppose the "wave of the future." They cry that we Americans, we free Americans nourished on Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, hold moth-eaten ideas. They exclaim that there is no room for free men in the world any more and that only the slaves will inherit the earth. America--the America of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and Walt Whitman--they say, is waiting for the undertaker and all the hopes and aspirations that have gone into the making of America are dead too.
However, my fellow citizens, this is not the real point of the story. The real point--the shameful point--is that many of us are listening to them and some of us almost believe them.
I say that it is time for the great American people to raise its voice and cry out in mighty triumph what it is to be an American. This tide of the future, the democratic future, is ours. It is ours if we show ourselves worthy of our culture and of our heritage.
But make no mistake about it; the tide of the democratic future is not like the ocean tide--regular, relentless, and inevitable. Nothing in human affairs is mechanical or inevitable. Nor are Americans mechanical. They are very human indeed.
What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men. An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
Americans have always known how to fight for their rights and their way of life. Americans are not afraid to fight. They fight joyously in a just cause."
Democracy is, at its most fundamental, the protection of individual rights and freedoms. In that sense the "the whole is more than the sum of its parts." (Aristotle, Metaphysica). The denial of one man or woman's rights is a grievous blow to the "whole" for it erodes the foundation of the principle. If even one of our brothers or sisters suffers injustice by the very systems that have been created to ensure equality, due process of the law and fairness then we all, as a people, are weakened - and our democratic and human ideals compromised.
There are small wounds inflicted each day: an employee unjustly terminated with no recourse; someone silenced by slanderous internet chatter; voices hushed by fear of reprisal; equal rights casually denied while the courts debate whether or not some are more worthy than others; health measured by the size of one’s bank account, not by the scope of one’s need; media that, increasingly, values ratings over truth and crucifies their targets on the cross of “market share”; books banned because a writer has dared to tell a painful tale…the list is long and seldom counted.
Each small blow weakens the base until it seems that the whole once-proud and seemingly indestructible structure must surely crumble - with only its dust left to lie thickly upon the pages of history.
I have just, as I do each morning, read the national and international news. As I sit at my desk with my framed certificate of American citizenship on the wall before me, and my Canadian citizenship in my blood and bones, I feel frightened by the increasing lack of vigilance and sanity.
That which is cherished must be fiercely and tirelessly protected. Even as we develop weapons that are capable of soul-searing destruction; even as we strive to increase our military might; even as we send our men and woman to die in some desolate and unimaginable location half way around the world, we are losing the war on our own doorsteps. The voices raised in anger and divisiveness threaten to drown out those of individual freedom and quiet truth.
The cacophony is becoming deafening and soon we will no longer be able to hear the guiding echoes of the past or the small cry of a child.
Just my thoughts...
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