Note the first line: "You've got freedom of religion, I understand, but..." I also love the peppy, upbeat chorus with the line "thousands of Americans died in the attack." Classy. And if your perception of 9/11 is so vulnerable that an activity center several blocks away manages to "turn 9/11 into a mockery," you need to consult your doctor about your medication.
...and Greg Sargent flags down this.
Yes, a new CNN poll finds that 68 percent oppose the Islamic center near Ground Zero. But the poll calls it a "mosque," and doesn't ask people if they support government intervention to block it, which is the rub here.Both men have excellent points, but the simple fact of the matter is the campaign to drum up Islamophobia in America is working terribly well right now, and it's working even better given how this economic recession/depression is fomenting serious xenophobic and racist garbage.
Also: The worse the polling gets on this, the more urgent it becomes for politicians and others to stand up against the mob and support the project. This controversy is a test of whether our public officials have the guts to defend people's rights when it's difficult to do so -- that is, when an organized faction, for transparent political reasons, is trying to make the political cost of doing so too high.
At this point we have winger outfits like the American Family Association open calling for blocking of all new mosques in the US and 49% of Americans want to take out the citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment now. At what point do we say enough is enough?
It turns out that Trade Martin is an aging rock/R&B journeyman -- he started in the business half a century ago, even had a hit once, wrote some mostly forgotten songs for others, later produced B.B. King and other established acts, wrote some film scores.... Some YouTubers think he was a pretty good blue-eyed soulster.
ReplyDeleteI guess you get embittered when you get within shouting distance of the brass ring and never quite catch it. My brother-in-law lives in the Florida Keys, and when we'd visit him we occasionally went to see this aging early rocker who, in his dotage, became the leader of a band called Big Dick and the Extenders. He sang, but mostly did really filthy, really offensive insult comedy a la Andrew Dice Clay, on a set festooned with penis-shaped balloons. You didn't want to sit near the stage or he'd insult you mercilessly. And he seemed really, really bitter.