Anyone who thinks they have all the Answers before they've even heard the Question - is Dangerously Deluded! Real Truth Requires Vigilance, Perseverance and Courage, regardless of Party and who wields Power. Left, Right, Center, Corporations, Government, Unions, Criminals or the Indifferent.
It's Official: Newt Gingrich & Mark Williams have been emboldening the enemy with their anti-Islam Crusade (Yes, I said Crusade).
Taliban officials know it’s sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that’s exactly what they’re wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. “By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”
Nice going Newt, Nice going.
Taliban officials say they’re looking forward to a new wave of terrorist trainees from the West like this year’s Times Square car bomber. “I expect we will soon be receiving more American Muslims like Faisal Shahzad who are looking for help in how to express their rage,” says a Taliban official who was a senior minister when the group ruled Afghanistan and who remains active in the insurgency.
As an indication of the anger that is growing among some Muslims in the West, this official, who requested anonymity for security reasons, mentions the arrest of three Canadian Muslims in Ontario last week on charges of plotting to build and detonate improvised explosive devices. (A fourth individual was arrested in Ottawa last Friday in connection with the case.) The Ground Zero furor will likely add to that anger. “The more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get,” Zabihullah predicts.
Not only has the hate-speech coming from the right begun to inspire the Taliban who we are fighting in Afghanistan, it's begun to inspire domestic terrorist including the arsonist who set fire to the Mosque in Murfeesboro Tennessee.
Local and federal authorities are investigating a fire at the construction site of an Islamic community center and mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., this weekend, as well as reports of gunshots as community members gathered at the site.
The fire, which damaged a large piece of construction equipment, was discovered early Saturday morning. The local sheriff's office, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau and the FBI are investigating.
A spokesman for ATF said today that although they aren't ready to say the fire was intentional, an accelerant was found.
"We're leaning toward arson," Special Agent Glenn Anderson said on MSNBC.
Church burning! We've returned to Church Burning, like what used to happen during the Civil Rights Era. Fighting Terrorism with Terrorism. Brilliant.
But we have to realize that this isn't a battle between Christians and Muslims, it's a battle between Extremists and Moderates as Imam Feisal Rauf himself has stated.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Election-year politics are interfering with the plan to build an Islamic center near the site of the September 11 attacks, the Muslim cleric leading the project said in comments published Monday.
Kuwait-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has been tight-lipped on the planned cultural center as he tours Gulf Arab countries to speak about religious radicalism, but said he felt the uproar was linked to the U.S. congressional elections in November.
"There is no doubt that the election season has had a major impact upon the nature of the discourse," Abdul Rauf said in an interview with Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper.
The imam said the issue was "not between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between moderates of all the faith traditions and the radicals of all the faith traditions."
The other day Radio Host Johnnie Wendel put forth the following question on Facebook.
After the Dickies, Me First + Gimmie Gimmies and too many others to name have made a career out of "punk rock versions of non punk songs", the question remains: Has there ever been a song that cannot be turned into punk rock?
I don't usually wade into musical discussions because they don't generally end well, and can be even more angry than discussions of politics - but this time I did anyway.
Now for those who don't know this is what Me First & the Gimme Gimmie's do, take songs from Pop, Classic Rock, Funk and even R&B and give it a "Punk Rock" make-over as they do here with the R. Kelly song "I believe I can fly".
My answer to the question was simple - there are some songs that where this can't be done. Admittedly I came down hard.
Is there is a song that can't be musically dumbed down into simple-minded 3-chord crap? Yes. Try "Roundabout" by Yes or "2112" & "La Villa Strangiato" by Rush - would turn most Punk Bands to puddles of quivering mush with bleeding fingers and tendinitis.
Now I admit my answer was based in the fact I don't like (most) Punk, hate it even, because I'm a musician who cares about actual musicianship - and Punk at it's core has become ANTI-music.
Be that as it may, I got an equally saucy response from Johnny, who himself is a punk rocker (ne "musician").
"Roundabout" is basically "Eight Miles High", which was punked up impressively by Husker Du, so, that would be easy, changes and all.
No, it's not really "Eight Miles High" - that song is completely different. Contrast and Compare:
No sane human being would bother spending more time on Rush than it takes to hit an "off" button.
To which I responded, rather hotly.
"No sane person" eh? That's a typically bigoted and ignorant punker position. No surprise, I've heard that crap for years. If you were talking about Dream Theater you might have a point, but you don't. Fact is, Rush has had more consecutive Gold and Platinum Records than any band other than the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Lots of proud to be "Not Sane" people out there. If this is how little respect you have for a group of genuine musicianship and integrity, it's no surprise that all it takes to "punk up" a song is to remove the talent, ability, and play it lousy. See, it doesn't suck - it's the "Punk" version. Feh!
And when I say I've heard that for years, I'm not kidding. I heard nothing but a complete disdain for musicianship all through the 90's. Nothing but excuses for bad playing, bad singing and bad writing which grew to it's peak in the wake of Nirvana's rise to fame and misfortune. The problem wasn't necessarily with Nirvana, but with Kurt's specific anti-guitar attitude (he even used to badmouth Pearl Jam because they had extended Guitar Solos, until he met them and got to know them) which permeated the music scene and destroyed tons of bands and tons of perfectly fine musicians. Some of those guys were friends of mine. It was like a plague, and yeah, I'm still miffed about it. Always will be.
Kurt wasn't a great guitarist, but that was ignored because he was treasured as a "Great Songwriter" - however many people don't know what many of his songs are about. Few even realize that "Teen Spirit" was a women's deodorant. Even fewer realize that the reason he could hit the notes during those Meat Puppets songs he was covering was because he was being "so emotional" - it was simply out of his range. What happened, largely because of him - but many others who put him on a pedestal, was that a lot of bad playing and bad singing became treasured and good players and good singers were trashed.
People kept telling me that Chino from the Deftones was such a great singer, I said he's trashing his voice. What happened? He had to have throat surgery, just like Jon Bonjovi who also had lousy technique and some horrific glottal stops in his singing. It's wasn't "Jealousy" - it was just physics - they were SINGING WRONG, and Cobain if he's survived long enough was headed vocally right down the exact same road. I've heard Chino since his surgery and he was retrained to sing properly and Now he's great, he sucked balls before. That's a fact.
I was told then that good singers and players were just "Technicians" - they didn't have "feeling", they didn't have "Emotions". They had "No Soul". All crap. Define "Soul", please? It's all subjective, in the ear and eye of the listener, not something you can quantify and measure. It's about what the listening thinks about someone, whether they think they "Cool" - not whether they actually perform well or not. Yes, there were some who went over the top and overplayed or over sang, but the vast majority didn't. It's like saying that only someone verbally illiterate has the ability to speak, or should be heard. I'm not saying Kurt wasn't great at what he did as a writer and his ability to connect with his audience, I'm saying he became the standard bearer for everyone else to follow and that's always a bad thing. No one should be put on a pedestal that way, as used as a weapon to denigrate everyone else. It's like saying that everyone should eat Italian Food, because suddenly French Food, and Mexican Food and Chinese Food are just no damn good.
We battled further, and all the whlie I kept asking - "How do you convert a song like La Villa... into Punk?" as others jumped into the fray.
Johnny Angel Wendell - Rush couldn't write a concise, succinct song if their lives depended upon it nor could me leben G Lee sing it if they did--might be the worst lead singer in history.
Lee Joseph - Punk by Rush? The least organic thing I could ever think of. Rush does not have the heart nor soul to do punk rock either of the 60s or 70s variety.
Lee Joseph Frank, three words. 1) "pretentious" 2) "bullshit" 3) "yawn" Turn blue, dude. Done.
Fair enough, I came out swinging - but what's writing a concise song have to do with whether someone can do a punk version or not?
The issue to me is one of Musical Supremacy that drives Punk. Is not an accident that it's the chosen music of the Skinhead movement. Certainly they aren't alone in this of course, I've seen the same type of Supremacist attitudes among Classic Musicians and Fans (Oh the compositions are so elegant, you just don't understand how the melodies interweave with the counterpoint in such creative ways).. or Jazz (the inspiration and improvisational nature is just so *special* with Jazz music), or with Metal (Dude, those bands are just so Heavy!) or with Death Metal/Grindcore (Everybody else is FAKE!")
This comment of Johnny's completely betrays the smug hubris of the genre.
Johnny Angel Wendell - Rush, for all of their skill, couldn't possibly write a "Personality Crisis", "Pale Blue Eyes", "Deny", "God Save The Queen", "I Wanna be Sedated", because they do not have it in them to write a song--y'see Frankie, assembling a composition... out of meticulously rehearsed parts doesn't equal "good song", it takes zero inspiration or imagination to "compose", it takes raw talent to make three simple chords and a beat come alive--which is why "Wooly Bully" or "I Fought The Law" or "Dance Franny Dance" are light years beyond Rush and why Al Jackson or Tommy Ramone playing a backbeat are vastly more talented than an uptight rightist ham hander like Neil "Ayn Rand is God" Peart.
So many things wrong with that from "Ayn Rand is God' to "They don't have it in the to write a song"... Yeah, they didn't write "Tom Sawyer", "Freewill", "Working Man", "Spirit of Radio", "Nobodies Hero", "One Little Victory", "Ghost Rider", "Vapor Trails" or "Subdivisions"?
No Songs? Here check this Rush cover by Jacob Moon, if this doens't bring you to the edge of tears you've got compassion deficit disorder.
But here's the bottom line and has purely to do with music. The way that groups like Me First (who I actually like) do what they do is boil a song down to it's essential chord progression, shift the tempo upward to double-time - possibly with a Bo-Diddley Shuffle, and sing the original melody on top. Viola. Presto, Chango - It's Punk.
The reason you can't do that with "Roundabout" is that it's got a specific signature bassline which is integral to the song. It's not about how "cool" the line is... it's that it's not "ROUNDABOUT" if you don't play that part. If you just play a chord and sing the vocal melody - it's an imitation of "Roundabout" but it's not "ROUNDABOUT". Plus it's already pretty fast, so trying to speed it up any further doesn't really work either. You either aren't really playing "Roundabout" or you've sped it up so fast a human being can't perform the parts. Not Les Claypool, not Billy Sheehan, not John Entwistle - nobody could do that part that fast.
La Villa Strangioto.
My point wasn't the "La Villa" Is such a awesome song no punk rocker could play it - although chances are they CAN'T except for maybe the Gimmie's or Taylor Hawking's solo and Coat Tail Riders who already mix punk and prog - but the same thing is true about it as Roundabout, and even worse because it's an instrumental - so simplifying the parts and pretending you're doing the same song by singing over isn't possible - there are no words. Also again, La Villa isn't just a "lot of notes" it has various movements and changes - some of them a very slow and quiet, some of them fairly fast. but the primary portions is just one chord played three times followed by a fast 16th note guitar fill. If you aren't playing that fill - you AREN'T PLAYING LA VILLA STRANGIOTO - you're just playing a power chord three times. If you try and speed the part up and do it double-time, you'd need YNGWIE to pull it off that fast - and Yngwie's not gonna play your dirty little punk song.
Just like the bass line on Roundabout, you've got a simply problem with human physiology and temporal physics. IT CAN"T BE DONE. These songs can't be tempo shifted and work, and IMO you can't remove crucial parts and pretend you're actually playing the song, because YOU'RE NOT.
The fact that Punk Rockers don't know the musicality of that fact is why I started out so harsh, and why I continue to hold my view that some songs can't be reduced to 3-Chord Punk Crap, because once you do that - they aren't the same song anymore, period.
Andrew Breitbart being interviewed by New Left Media:
NLM: That's a big statement to make that the American voting public...(didn't know what they were doing in the Election).
Breitbart: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN & MSNBC, all of Hollywood acted as a protector of (Barack Obama). They coveted him, they treated him with kid gloves - to say the least. The job of the press is to be skeptical, to ask the hard questions. The second Sarah Palin announced her candidacy, that day, they didn't give her a honeymoon - they went after her that day. The exact moment they were grilling her, they sat down with him and ask him "What's it like to be part of this Historic Candidacy"... they fit the narrative to Camelot.
NLM: He still had been involved in long arduous speeches involving complex issues of foreign policy and race relations...
Breitbart: Speeches are speeches. Hollywood can concoct a person who can do speeches. The media had an obligation to grill a guy we knew almost nothing about and spent his formative years in Hyde Park in Chicago, in Columbia University, where we know nothing about him [ed: Except for the two Best Selling Books he wrote about himself which cover those periods]
NLM: He was regularly on Fox News, did Fox News fail to do their job?
Breitbart: That's just one channel. The rest of the media is apoplectic that they even exist. To say that the standard that was applied to Barack Obama, was the same as what was applied to McCain and Palin doesn't pass the smell test.
NLM: These are big claims, and their dubious. Since he did receive a majority of the electorates vote - What does that say about the public?
Breitbart: I think they were not given enough information. They weren't given the whole story. (The media) wanted to be part of history and cross their fingers that he would be a uniter and not a divider.
NLM: What specifically weren't they told?
Breitbart: They should have looked more into his past. This is a media savvy guy whose ability to speak to the public is part of his ascendancy. He's only in his late 40's, so in his 20's and his 30's this is an area where a lot of his history is conspicuously scrubbed of these speeches. We don't have any information from the 1990's and early 2000's of those speeches.
NLM: You can't offer anything specific?
Breitbart: Yes, I can. NakedEmperorNews.com is an amazing collection... who finds the audio and the video. They say that we need to have radical redistribution, redistributive justice all these code-words in academia where you're being completely overwhelmed. You're being indoctrinated in theory.
NLM: You're not offering anything. What information did the public not have that would have made them (not) elect Barack Obama?
Breitbart: I think if they understood the nature of Black Liberation Theology, and it's Marxist origins. That he spent 20 years, working with that guy and his theology, and Father Phleger's theology.
NLM: Reverend Wright showed up, that came out in the press. Black Liberation came out in the press, he had to give a speech on that.
Breitbart: Stop putting words in my mouth. Father Phleger and Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, and that entire Hyde Park crowd, and the lack of evidence of the professors he hung out with.. we don't know what classes he took at Columbia. My suspicion would be - and I'd bet you a lot of money - that if you look at his associations and his past you would find out, not that it wouldn't be anything spooky, other than he's a Marxist. He's completely soaked in the post-modern, post-structural academy that beat the crap out of my head, and I'm still trying to what it out of my hair.
NLM: A lot of that came out...
Breitbart: ON FOX NEWS!! The American Public is now seeing that he's surrounding himself with radicals. ACORN and SEIU were out there community organizing and acting like thugs against those who would disagree with him, and that's not acceptable in America.
NLM: And you think that's how he won the majority of American voters?
Breitbart: That's not what I said.
NLM: I'm asking.
Breitbart: I believe that he deceived the American people, and I believe that the American media aided and abetted in that deception.
Like a lot of hardcore Righties and Neo-Cons, Breitbart is clearly an Ex-Leftie on a Vengence Binge. Hence his obsession with Rev. Jeremiah Wright who factually Wasn't Wrong, even if he did turn out to be self-aggrandizing wack-a-doo.
Yet Andrew thinks only Fox News covered Reverend Wright, and Father Phleger and Bill Ayers? The initial videos of Reverend Wright were edited a published by ABC News, not Fox. There was a long period where all ANYONE would talk about were Wright and Ayers.
This was how Obama, reluctantly, responded at the time.
The issues raised by Reverend Wright were discussed at length, everywhere. - it's patently ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
Sarah Palin spent months attacking Obama for "Palling Around with Domestic Terrorists" even though Bill Ayers was never tried and never convicted of anything. By the 1990's he was simply a local professor in Chicago who tried to help with local housing and social issues, not some hippie radical from the 60's still railing about the Vietnam War. That war was long over and the two of them hardly knew each other.
Frankly the media was more obsessed with what Sarah Palin read than some of the real issues in her past such as her endorsement of Alaska Secessionists, her two-face approach to earmarks, her ethics problems, bullying and intimidation tactics with subordinates.
And it was Hillary Clinton herself who brought up Obama's association with "Slumlord Tony Rezco" during the middle of a Democratic Debate - not Fox News.
Using nothing more than Guilt By Association tactics he wants to accuse Obama of being a Marxist and Communist - yet when those same types of associations are directed against Breitbart and his buddies who stood by as racial and bigoted signs, racial and bigoted epithets and racial violence have been hurled at Blacks, Gays and Muslims by his Tea Party Pals he doesn't think they should take any responsibility for it what so ever? He claims is was "only a few signs" - yeah, but they were still there weren't they?
Why is it the only Racist he could find in America, Shirley Sherrod, clearly wasn't a racist at all? He can't find a single Tea Partier with a "Barack the Marxist Witchdoctor" Sign, but he could try to embarrass the NAACP with Shirley Sherrod only to have it backfire right in his face?
It's because this man puts his theory and paranoid fantasies far ahead of the reality. Are there videos of Barack Obama in 1995 saying he supports Marxism? Hell NO. He did once say he supported single payer health care (as posted and grossly distorted by Breitbart's pals at NewEmperorNews), an idea that every other major industrialized nation has adopted including those "evil Marxists" in Japan, and England, and France and Germany and Canada (but not the original Marxists in Russia). All of whom have better health care than America at nearly half the costs.
Obama didn't even seriously fight for the public option, let alone single payer. All of his health care reform proposals involve the private market, so if he's a anti-private market Marxist - he's not a very good one.
Barack Obama has simply tried to make America better than it has been, to be as good, fair and strong as it could be and should be - while people like Breitbart demonize and scapegoat anyone they disagree with while trying to make themselves the "victims", doing everything they can to make sure that noone can unite us all, because their too busy dividing us with lies and bullshit.
If I had the money I absolutely take his bet and challenge him or anyone else to come up with data or video that shows that in his past "Obama was a Marxist"... the problem is there'd have to be a deadline, since I think their asses should have to pay when they lose.
Fortunately I just woke up, because just a little bit ago I had this horrible nightmare.
I dreamt that for the first time in over 250 years this Country managed to elect it's first African-American President on a wave of positive change, growth, enthusiasm and bright shining hope.
I dreamt that within the first 2 years of his time in office the country would pass it's first comprehensive update to Health Care in nearly 50 years. That the last of combat troops would leave Iraq, with the remaining 50,000 training and support troops scheduled to leave within a year, while the Afghanistan conflict would finally get the attention it long deserves. That he would successfully foil multiple terrorist plots against the nation, save our economy from near total collapse, we would tackle and cap the worst environmental oil disaster in American history faster than any oil spill had ever been stopped, he'd begin the largest investment in Green Technology ever and save the U.S. Auto Industry, that he would negotiate an almost unprecedented Nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia, restart the first serious peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine in over a decade...and Win the Nobel Peace Prize!
And then everyone seemed to magically forget.
That's when it all started to go wrong as while all this happened his approval ratings would dive bomb and his parties control of Congress would almost certain be lost at the midterm elections...
We'd forgotten how he spoke to us, and how he raised us up - impressing not just America, but many in the world and across the globe.
Obama in Berlin:
We'd forgotten how it felt on Election Night. how we cheered, how we cried... how the hope filled us up like a balloon ready to burst.
We'd forgot the intensity and growing desperation of the individual and collective forces aligned against a President of this type - against a Changed America - where it's promises are more than just dreams, but an increasing actually and reality for more and more of our citizens.
We'd forgotten how the previous Administration had completely tanked the economy, and nearly sent us into a new Great Depression - but we recovered.
We forgot those who always hated him, and would always hate him no matter how he might have succeeding in improving even their lives.
Right America, Feeling Wronged... Part 1
Even though he had lowered taxes on 95% of Americans and on small business - still they would cry and scream over the issue.
How they could invent their own victimhood...
We'd forgotten how openly bigoted and vicious they could be...
How they really DID Cling to their Guns, a twisted version of Christianity - and their Nazi Memorabilia.
Berry, the tea party leader who first solicited support for the militia, has posted rants against President Obama: the "Muslim President" — a "reincarnation of Pol Pot" who is trying to imprison Americans for resisting health reform. One ominous posting from Berry says that his militia should "launch a thousand guerrilla attacks on the plans that these people have to ruin us and our country."
Both Berry and Brogdon lean heavily on far right propaganda and media outlets to fuel their conspiracy theories. Berry frequently cites conservative news outlets like CNS and notes that he draws inspiration from the white supremacist thriller The Turner Diaries. Despite his extremism, Berry has met with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and other members of the Oklahoma Republican delegation, and counts them as "rock solid." Brogdon, whose states’ rights resolution was drafted by corporate lobbyists opposed to health reform, has been endorsed by the lobbyist-run Tea Party Express and has appeared on on Fox News, Alex Jones’ radio show, and at a Glenn Beck rally.
Joe Stack crashed his plane into the IRS Building.
Five shot, and 1 killed in Knoxville Tennesese by James Adkisson
Two Police Officers in Pittsburgh killed by someone afraid Obama would "Take his Guns Away"...
Abortion Doctor George Killer, killed by Scott Rbeoder, the first such violent attack by an extreme right-winger against choice in over a decade.
And Micheal Enright would attack a Muslim Cab driver with a Knife in New York in midst of a contentious debate over whether the First Amendment does or doesn't apply to Muslims, even when it hurts someone elses "feelings" (of bigotry).
And that after all this... on the 47th Anniversary of the seminal speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which occurred just a few months before I was borne, a virulent demagogue who calls this President "A Racist", and continues to stand by that claim, called him "Un-American" because his name is Barack Hussein Obama Jr., and that he's simply pushing for "Reparations", and was only elected because of his race would hold a Counter Rally on the very same steps as Dr. King in order to dismantle all the progress that had been made so far.
We'd forgotten all that this President, has done - and has yet to do....
But that's where things turned really dark...
The worst part of this nightmare wasn't what the enemies of the President did, it's what his friends didn't do. Rather than rise up and fight fear and hate with hope - they forgot their own power and responsibility - the President's supporters and all those that truly believe in all the things he talked about so long ago in Germany, in Seattle, and on the steps of the Capital his historic Inauguration would grow silent. That they would grow angry over this missed policy objective, slow response in reversing the previous Administration or an unkind frustrated comment by the Press Secretary or the Chief of Staff and begin to miss the big picture...
The true horror of this nightmare is when the deluded, the haters, the screamers, the bigots and the opportunists started To Win and systematically undo everything the President was trying to do, defunding his initiatives, drowning him trivial trumped-up investigations while they pushed forward their agenda of Reverse Robin Hood, turning Medicare into a "Health Stamps" program while raising it's eligibility age to 69, gifting Wall Streets with a brand new Bail-out of Social Security Funds, continuing to destroy Civil Rights enforcement while proclaiming that the only real victims of bigotry in this country - are White, Male and/or Christian despite all rational evidence to the contrary.
Senator Chuck Grassley says the people who've criticized the Park 51 Mosque in NYC do not have any "Ill Intent"...
Said Grassley: “I doubt there was any ill intent by Muslims in wanting to place that there. I don’t have any evidence, I don’t think any of the critics have said there was any ill intent, and constitutionally you can’t question their right to do it. But I hope, on second thought — and we also sometimes have to have second thoughts about initial decisions, even well-thought-out initial decisions — that it is insensitive and unwise to do it.”
"Insensitive" he calls it?
How sensitive was this?
Anyone think harassing a 9/11 worker who isn't even Muslim to leave the area for his own safety was a great sign of "sensitivity"?
How about the California mosque that wound up with this posted to their door?
In fact, the right-wing echo chamber has done little else but smear Rauf and question his “intent” in recent days. In a campaign ad, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio warned, “Now a terrorist-sympathizing imam wants to build a $100 million mosque near Ground Zero. Where is this money coming from? Who’s really behind it?” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said Rauf “is no friend to America,” because his “radical” views are “very disturbing.” Fellow Fox host Glenn Beck falsely claimed Rauf is “connected to” Hamas, and that Rauf employs an antisemitic imam.
Even though both Karen Hughes and Karl Rove have attempted to deny reality, claiming that iman Rauf was never utilized by the Bush Administration to help build bridges in the Muslim world, but state Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said this.
"His work on tolerance and religious diversity is well-known and he brings a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it's like to be a practicing Muslim in the United States," State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said Tuesday. He added that the department's public-diplomacy offices "have a long-term relationship with" Rauf - including during the past Bush administration, when the religious leader undertook a similar speaking tour.
In 2006 Glenn Beck spoke directly with Imam Rauf and said he was "One of the Good Muslims".
During the ABC segment, Rauf condemned the extremists who issued death threats against the Pope and political cartoonists, specifically saying that "these reactions are not at all called for by Islamic teaching. The teachings of Islam are very similar to the teachings of Christianity, of loving the one God and loving thy neighbor. These are the two common principles."
When Diane Sawyer mentioned that Imam Rauf says the radicals are just a "group of people" and "not him," Beck seemed to agree, saying "sure, sure." He added, "I believe it's a small portion of Islam that is acting in these ways."
Beck, for his part, even appeared to gesture to Imam Rauf when he invoked the idea of "good Muslims." (At about 2:45.)
Just like what they did to ACORN with bogus videos and smears, just like what they did to Shirley Sherrod, I feel that yet again the Park 51 Center and imam Rauf have been Railroaded and Smeared for political gain.
And people like Grassley are giving them even more cover, leaving it up to only the bravest of 9/11 Families to stand up for true Freedom.
As Iman Rauf said, we need to de-link the aspirations of religion from our politics - whether it be Christian or Muslim - because THAT is where the danger lies.
The new plan from Republican Congressman Paul Ryan - his Roadmap to American Prosperity - includes raising the retirement from 65 to 69, permanently cutting taxes on the wealthy from 36 percent to 25 percent, while raising taxes on everyone else (The same way that Ronald Reagan did and put us into a death spiral of deficit spending).
I think it sucks...
"That's not America"
It will be America, if Republicans get control of Congress again, which is why that can't happen.
If Two blocks is too close to ground zero - what about 16,000 blocks away in Murfeesboro TN where community activists are trying to block the building of a mosque (ie. Community Center of DEATH) hiding out right on the middle of a busy street. The NERVE of those Jihadi's to rub our faces in it.
Interesting that the first thing all the anti-mosque people say is - "This has nothing to do with religion". Yeah, except for everything.
Meanwhile in the wake of the Anti-Muslim Knife attack, Conservatives are taking their default position of pretending to be the "Real Victims" simply because of comments - COMMENTS - left on blogs like Thinkprogress that suggest that people like Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin and their anti-mosque Rhetoric may have had something to do with it.
MALKIN: Within an hour of this thing happening, people not really knowing fully who the perpetrator was and as details did come out, you know, this is no right winger, there’s no evidence whatsoever that he’s identified with the Tea Party and yet if you look at the comments and headlines of some of these blogs, let me read some. [...]
[T]he bilge spewing commenters at ThinkProgress immediately indicted Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and yes, right here it says, “Thanks Fox.”
In response to Malkin, Steve Doocy proclaims:
He didn't do it because of the Tea Party he did it because he was drunk. He wasn't associated with a Right-wing organization, he was associated with Lefties
Way to not jump to a conclusion there Stevo. The solution to a "knee-jerk reaction" of blaming the Right, is to reflexively blame the left? Brilliant.
Think progress points out that Malkin herself posts the following disclaimer on her own blog.
I do not own your comments and I expressly disclaim any and all liability that may result from them. By commenting on my site, you agree that you retain all ownership rights in what you post here and that you will relieve me from any and all liability that may result from those postings.
So she takes no responsibility for what her commenters say, but Thinkprogress should? Anyone remember when Michelle Malkin published the contact information for a group of UC Santa Cruz anti-war activists, and when asked to remove the information said...
"I am leaving it up. If you are contacting them, I do not condone death threats or foul language. As for SAW, my message is this: You are responsible for your individual actions. Other individuals are responsible for theirs. Grow up and take responsibility."
Death Threats and Foul Language were exactly what they received, but of course Malkin took no responsibility for it even though she had directly facilitated it.
But now Malkin is arguing that noone on the right wing has anything to do with the anti-Mosque violence which is frankly on the rise. People argue that the knife attacker isn't any anti-islamicist because he had worked with an interfaith agency. Well he also kept a diary full of anti-muslim rantings.
His diary equated Muslims with "killers, ungrateful for the help they were being offered, filthy murderers without a conscience." A top Muslim American organization said the event shows the dangers of extreme anti-Islamic rhetoric.
Whether Enright's actions were inspired by the hateful rhetoric which has become common during the mosque debate, his experience in Afghanistan, his apparently drinking problem, some form of post traumatic stress from his experience as an embed, or some combination of all the above - it is clear that the idea of Get the Muslim has become far more acceptable than it had been just a year ago.
This general attitude of open disdain, disrespect and potential violence is easy to see - as a 9/11 worker is accosted and mistaken for a Muslim during an anti-mosque demonstration - and another man in Queen's walked into a mosque and urinating on their prayer mats.
In another brazen anti-Muslim incident, a man wandered into a mosque in Queens Wednesday night, shouting racial slurs and urinating all over prayer rugs.
According to police, a drunk Omar Rivera shouted "terrorists" before relieving himself in the Iman Mosque.
Meanwhile an increasing number of persons seem to believe that our current President himself is some type of Muslim, despite his own statements recognizing the resurrection of Jesus Christ (a point of view that is not supported by the beliefs of Jews or Muslims) during this years Easter Prayer Breakfast.
Not that people like Franklin Graham who claimed the President was born with a "Muslim Seed" has helped after he claimed that "Islam is a wicked and Evil Religion".
Or Mark Williams, formerly of Tea Party Express say this about Islam.
Days after writing that Muslims worship "the terrorists' monkey god," embattled Tea Party leader Mark Williams apologized for his insensitivity - to Hindus.
"In the course of the article I described the 'god' worshiped by terrorists as 'a monkey god.' I was wrong and that was offensive. I owe an apology to millions of Hindus who worship Lord Hanuman, an actual Monkey God," Williams wrote Wednesday night.
William's had also called Obama a "Indonesian Muslim and Welfare Thug-in-Chief" before he wrote his horrifically bigoted letter parodying the NAACP and caused the expulsion of the Tea Party Express.
Billy Roper is a write-in candidate for governor of Arkansas and an unapologetic white nationalist. "I don’t want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status," he says.
Roper also is a tea party member who says he has been gathering support for his cause by attending tea party rallies. "We go to these tea parties all over the country," Roper said. "We’re looking for the younger, potentially more radical people."
We have Right-Wing Militia which has vowed to help a Florida Church Burn Koran's on 9/11, despite failing to receive a permit from the fire department (also, are they going to buy those Korans or Steal them - before they burn them?)
Is all of this hate and intolerance coming exclusively from the Right just a coincidence? Somehow, I think not. It may have been premature to try and connect Enright's actions to all the rhetoric above - but it's not completely unreasonable to consider it might be linked.
But now Malkin is arguing that noone on the right wing has anything to do with the anti-Mosque violence which is frankly on the rise. People argue that the knife attacker isn't any anti-islamicist because he had worked with an interfaith agency. Well he also kept a diary full of