18
Aug
Keith Olbermann: ‘There Is No ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
Muslims want to build a mosque/ Islamic center in Manhattan, a few blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood. Why is that dominating the news? Why is that a rallying cry for conservatives? Last I checked, the “founders” of this damn country fled England over the persecutions they were enduring under the crown over religion, speech and other self-evident freedoms. But now the people who want their country back want to dictate which people gets to build what where? Are they going to ban mosques and any other Muslim-related establishments from being built anywhere there was an incident involving somebody that identified as Muslim? There is already a mosque just blocks from Ground Zero. Will they allow that one to stay? Will people of color be prohibited from owning property ten blocks from where another person of color broke some law? I have more questions than answers because the logic of the people opposing the mosque dumbfounds me. I can understand how the sight of a Muslim call to prayer being held a couple hundred of feet from the place where the towers fell is bothersome but St. Joseph’s Old Cathedral is directly across the street from where the Oklahoma City bombing happened. Do we persecute all Catholics because the guy who bombed the federal building came from a catholic household?
The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy Mcveigh was also a registered Republican and card carrying member of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Do we prohibit the building and placement of cathedrals, Republican and NRA-related establishments within ten blocks of federal buildings? No. We can’t because the guy that killed hundreds of people on U.S. soil didn’t pray to Allah and he also lacked melanin. And also, it’s not morally or constitutionally right to do so. One set of rules shouldn’t be granted to one people and not others. This whole issue is bullshit really.
Right-wing lawmakers publicly spew this goofy rhetoric to galvanize their oft-ignorant paranoid base. And, sadly, it’s working. The president is taking fire for even speaking on the matter.
“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said. “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. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. Our capacity to show not merely tolerance, but respect to those who are different from us—a way of life that stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of those who attacked us on that September morning, and who continue to plot against us today.”
Seems pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, words that should have been digested as a “teachable moment” with beans has rolled up into a shit bomb being used to rattle the president and his party’s chances for re-election.
In his Monday “Special Comment” for Countdown, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann gives an articulate truth-bearing Shakespearean rant that doubles what I’m trying to say sans all of the damn questions.
