*To make a record straight: It's proposing to build a Islamic Community Center (not a Mosque), and it's not at the "Ground Zero" site (two blocks away). Peace NO War Network
G.O.P. Silent on Ground Zero Strip Club, Loud on Mosque/Community Center By Gary Kopycinski Sunday, 15 August 2010 _http://www.enewspf.com/index.php/opinion/18147-the-gop-silent-on-ground-zer o-strip-club-loud-on-community-center_ (http://www.enewspf.com/index.php/opinion/18147-the-gop-silent-on-ground-zero-strip-club-loud-on-commun ity-center) Ground Zero is sacred ground. You better believe it is. So where is the voice of the G.O.P. shouting a unanimous and bombasitic, "NO!!!!!!" regarding the Ground Zero Strip Club? The G.O.P. wants us to believe that it is wrong for a religious group to openen a community center close to Ground Zero. The religious group should locate elsewhere, not so close to Sacred Ground. Did the G.O.P. happen to miss the _Cordoba House_ (http://www.cordobainitiative.org/) complex at _45-51 Park Place_ (http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/ground-zero-mosque-name-belies-distance-from-world-trade-center-site-ot her-local-realities/19590651) , a mere two blocks away from the World Trade Center site? _A bit more from Forbes.com_ (http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/22/ground-zero-mosque-religion-terrorism-opinions-columnists-conor-friedersdorf.html) : As yet, I haven't heard anyone wonder why our political class is silent as the sex industry operates on sacred ground. It would be a bizarre complaint: It's Manhattan, where you can find anything mere blocks from a given location. The closest strip club to Ground Zero happens to be two blocks away, a fact that has nothing to do with our reverence for the place where so many Americans were killed by terrorists. As you've probably noticed, it doesn't even make sense to call it The Ground Zero Strip Club. But it makes no less sense than naming an Islamic community center "The Ground Zero Mosque"--as much of the media have done--because it's going to be located a couple blocks away. Even worse, opponents of the project are opportunistically invoking the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, even going so far as to appropriate their imagery. "Join the fight to kill The Ground Zero Mosque," intones a video advertisement released by a group called National Republican Trust PAC. "A mosque at Ground Zero must not stand. The political class says nothing. The politicians are doing nothing to stop it. But we Americans will be heard. " As an American in good standing, I'd like to be heard--and to make sure that _James Madison_ (http://topics.forbes.com/James%20Madison) , a colleague of mine in citizenship, is heard too. The fourth president of the U.S. once wrote, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It's a line that National Republican Trust neglects to remember. Perhaps "the political class" isn't doing anything to stop the construction of an Islamic community center because the Constitution forbids it. Even worse, the advertisement I've mentioned engages in just the sort of religious bigotry that the First Amendment is meant to guard against. "On Sept. 11 they declared war against us," the narrator says. "And to celebrate that murder of 3,000 Americans they want to build a monstrous 13-story mosque at ground zero." "They" declared war against us? Who is this ambiguous "they?" A radical group of al Qaeda radicals led by Osama bin Laden attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Who are "they" who wish to open the community center? "They" are an Islamic group that has long run a mosque in the area for _New York City_ (http://topics.forbes.com/New%20York%20City) Muslims. On 9/11, "they" found their community under attack, too. It is slander to assert that they've declared war against us, or that their motive in building a community center is celebrating the murder of Americans. "They" who wish to open this community center are peace-loving Americans. That's it. This is a non-issue, and the G.O.P. should be ashamed. ============================================================================ == Ground Zero Mosque Opponents Have a Lot of Work to Do Bob Cesca August 17, 2010 The Huffington Post _http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/ground-zero-mosque-oppone_b_685164. html_ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/ground-zero-mosque-oppone_b_685164.html) If we take Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich at their word, their objection to the proposed community center two blocks north of Ground Zero is that the entire area is hallowed ground, and a Muslim facility so close to the site is an insult to the victims and heroes of September 11. Of course this is entirely about a swath of 9/11 fetishists, mostly Christians, ginning up anti-Muslim fear and demagoguery to score political points. It's a cheap and obvious exploitation of the widespread American prejudice that anyone who happens to be Muslim is equally as guilty and offensive as the terrorists who hijacked and crashed two airplanes into the World Trade Center towers. It must be an election year because Republicans are once again rolling out September 11 as a wedge issue. You know, because they care about honoring the fallen. When it helps them politically. If Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and Gingrich, along with the entire population of far-right AM talk radio, really cared about hallowed ground and historical preservation, they wouldn't be limiting their crusade to Park 51 (formerly Cordoba House). As many of us have heard, there's _a strip club two blocks away_ (http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2010/07/the_ground_zero_2.html) . I'm not sure how lap dances are less offensive than a religious community center. In fact, there are quite a few places in lower Manhattan within short walking distance of Ground Zero that would have to be eliminated as part of these stringent guidelines dictating how sacred ground ought to be respected. Via Twitter, _Sarah Palin urged President Obama_ (http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/21181380373) to weigh in on the Park 51 issue. Well, I urge Sarah Palin to weigh in on the strip club "at Ground Zero." We're waiting, Sarah. Will you campaign against the strip club? How about the gun shows that happen at Cox Pavilion, not far from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing? Or the shinto shrines a mile or two from Pearl Harbor? Actually, come to think of it, I want all of the usual suspects -- Beck, Palin, Gingrich and the rest -- to weigh in on a variety of actual trespasses upon hallowed ground. Let's begin with the actual ground. The Ground Zero. Literally, the ground. The One World Trade Center (aka. Freedom Tower) website _notes the following feature_ (http://www.wtc.com/about/freedom-tower) : The below-grade concourses will include approximately 55,000 square feet of retail space and connect to an extensive transportation and retail network... So there's going to be a shopping mall literally in the ground of Ground Zero. "Below-grade" means "in the ground." The Ground. In other words, Sarah Palin and her entire gaggle of various babies and ghost writers can visit Ground Zero and honor the heroes and victims of 9/11 while trying on tankinis at Juicy Couture (or whatever clothing stores end up there) constructed within the actual ground of Ground Zero. This bears repeating: unlike Park 51, which is blocks away, there's going to be a 55,000 square foot mall under the same ground where people fell to their deaths on that terrible day. Ground that's mixed with the remains of the dead. A mall. And it wouldn't be the first time we've besmirched and destroyed the hallowed ground where American heroes have died. I have yet to see Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin contribute their considerable wealth and celebrity to the cause of preserving the Wilderness and Chancellorsville battlefields in Virginia where Washington, D.C.'s suburban sprawl is rapidly consuming the land where thousands of Americans were killed during the American Civil War. When will these self-proclaimed patriots stand against the latest eyesore -- _a Walmart Super Store_ (http://www.civilwar.org/take-action/speak-out/wilderness-walmart/) that's likely to be built on the Wilderness battlefield? Newt Gingrich, for his part, has written several books about the Civil War, one of which fantasizes about _a Confederate victory at Gettysburg_ (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031230935X?ie=UTF8&tag=bobcescom-20&linkCode=as 2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=031230935X) . Actually, I once stood several feet away from Gingrich as he held a book signing at a Gettysburg gift shop located a block or two from a McDonald's on Steinwehr Avenue -- a McDonald's that sits on the actual battlefield, specifically the location of the infamous Pickett's Charge on the third day of battle. (The gift shop is also technically on the battlefield.) The McDonald's is next to a Friendly's restaurant and across from a hotel with a swimming pool where tourists can honor the fallen while wearing arm floaties and smacking each other with foam noodles. There's a restaurant called General Pickett's Buffet on the battlefield. There used to be a Stuckey's Restaurant literally in the Peach Orchard. There's a 7-11 convenience store where U.S. cavalry commander General John Buford, arguably the hero of Gettysburg, was headquartered on the first day. Sarah? Beck? On the site of some of the most bloody fighting, East Cemetery Hill, there's a towering Holiday Inn, a Rita's Italian Ice, a cigar store, a Hall of Presidents wax museum, another gift shop and another convenience store. Oh and there's a hilarious outhouse attraction complete with an animatronic townie relieving himself and yelling at tourists to stop "letting all the flies in." Hilarious. West of the town, on the site of one of the Civil War's largest field hospitals, known at the time as Camp Letterman, there's a Walmart and a trailer park. South of town, behind Power's Hill where my great-great grandfather's 155th Pennsylvania volunteer regiment bivouacked, you can walk the hallowed ground while playing a round of miniature golf at Mulligan McDuffer's Putt-Putt. Sure, a soulless free market conservative might shrug off these monuments to corporate consumerism as being the wheels of commerce and capitalism rolling on. Even if that means rolling over the ground where _23,040 United States soldiers_ (http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/gettysburg/getty4.aspx) were killed or wounded (the Confederates suffered around 20-25,000 casualties at Gettysburg). For the federal Army of the Potomac, that was a 27 percent casualty rate. Unimaginable by today's standards. And that leads us to an aspect of this particular expanse of hallowed ground that most directly relates to the fracas over Park 51. To review: Park 51 will be two blocks away from the actual WTC site. It's being installed by American citizens, the chief of whom, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an American citizen who has _worked with the Bush administration on Muslim outreach_ (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/ground_zero_mosque_imam_bush_partner_for_peace.php) . These are peaceful Muslims who had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attacks nearby. The opponents of the inaccurately dubbed "Ground Zero Mosque" suggest it's the work of an enemy religion and offensive to the memory of those who died. But at Gettysburg, just south of the town and west of the Emmitsburg Road near the tree-line from which 12-15,000 Confederate soldiers emerged on the third day of battle to attack the United States army on Cemetery Ridge, stands _a tall marble and bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee_ (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Virgnia_Monument.jpg) , commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. It's not the only Confederate monument on the actual battlefield, but it's certainly the most striking and the most famous. At the peak of the obelisk is Lee mounted atop his horse, Traveler, staring out at the battlefield. Just below him are heroic bronze representations of random Virginia Confederates. This general committed treason against the United States. By definition, he was a traitor who commanded a rebel army against the U.S. and inflicted unprecedented casualties. Specifically, General Lee's invasion of the north and advance into Gettysburg was responsible for the aforementioned 23,040 United States military casualties, and, of those 23,040 casualties, 3,155 were killed on that ground. Yet there's a statue at Gettysburg honoring the fiercest enemy of the United States at that time. Had Lee been victorious, the United States as we know it today would not exist. But he gets a statue on Pennsylvania soil -- a statue which, by the way, stands at the exact same height as the statue to U.S. General George Gordon Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac (and a Pennsylvanian). I can't even imagine the September 11 equivalent of such a memorial to an enemy of the United States. Now, just to be clear, I'm not advocating one way or another about the Confederate battlefield monuments at Gettysburg (the retail shops, on the other hand, are a blight). I'm merely drawing a parallel here. And if Newt, Sarah and Glenn are truly so driven to maintain the sacred purity of American "hallowed ground," they definitely have a lot of work to do. And they can start by campaigning for the removal of the Lee statue of Gettysburg. You know, for the sake of consistency. Let's see how popular that'll be, especially with their southern fanbase. Naturally they won't bother because the mosque issue isn't really as much about the ground as it is about stoking and capitalizing on religious intolerance. When you eliminate the inconsistencies, contradictions and oversights, all that's left is political fear-mongering, demagoguery and a disturbing disregard for the free exercise clause. If it was truly about hallowed ground, we'd hear about all of those other American sites. Ultimately, though, I'm expecting too much from the modern conservative movement, considering how it's built entirely upon obvious contradictions, unserious chicanery and an escalating campaign of intolerance. ============================================================================ == Peace NO War Network (http://www.peacenowar.net/) _http://www.PeaceNOWar.net_ (http://www.peacenowar.net/) War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate Not in our Name! And another world is possible! Information for antiwar movements, news across the World, please visit:_ http://www.PeaceNoWar.net_ (http://www.peacenowar.net/) e-mail: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Tel: (213)403-0131 Please Join PeaceNoWar Listserv, send e-mail to: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Please Donate to Peace No War Network! Send check pay to: ActionLA/AFGJ ActionLA P.O. 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