The Recent American-Muslim Controversies

Toward the end of this ridiculous double controversy surrounding the Muslim center in Lower Manhattan and the Exalted and Most Disturbed Individual's threat to burn Qur'ans here in good ol' Gainesville on September 11, the idea was floating around the media (stirred up in part by the EMDI himself) that there could be a trade-off that could resolve the problems.

It sounded simple: in exchange for the Muslim center not to be built in its proposed location a couple of (substantial) blocks from the World Trade Center construction site, the EMDI wouldn't burn Qur'ans as promised. Sounds equitable, doesn't it? Uh...only one problem with that...

In both cases (Manhattan and Gainesville), it was Muslims who were under attack from others. The "deal" would have been for them to yield to one attack (in Manhattan) "in exchange" for the other attack (in Gainesville) to be called off. So how is that equitable?

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush went to great pains to repeatedly emphasize that Islam was not to blame for those tragic events. Now, nine years later, much of our attention-span-challenged nation seems to have forgotten this (assuming they were ever paying attention in the first place). But that really shouldn't surprise me: they're about to vote a whole slate of loony-bird Tea Party politicos into power without giving the current administration the needed time for his policies to work for the nation. The book Dude, Where's My Country? was Michael Moore's attempt to try and make some sense out of the irrational public mood of America during the Bush Administration. We seem to be collectively slipping back down into another of those "dude, where's my country" periods, I'm sorry to say.

Of course, the bigots (oops, I mean "concerned citizens") protesting against the Muslim center in New York think they are just being "reasonable" about their objections to anything Islamic being located in the vicinity of the "sacred" Ground Zero. But as it has been pointed out, there is a strip club and a betting parlor right next to the supposedly "hallowed ground". I walked through this area back in April and was dismayed to find only heavy construction work going on (for the new buildings on the site), with a memorial several blocks away. Ground Zero wasn't at all like the way it is being currently portrayed on television. This entire controversy is nothing more than a whipped-up media event on the part of political/media interests to emotionally stir up enough irrational people to rush to the polls and vote "their" guys into power this November. You know, the same kinds of folks mobilized to vote on all of those anti-gay-rights referendums conveniently placed on state ballots (including Ohio's) during the 2004 presidential election.

As I said, "Dude,..."