Park 51 Part 1

You know there is a reason I do not talk about political issues on this blog too often. It is not that I fear pissing off people, hell I make a career out of that. No the reason why is that I am a firm believer that every political opinion that every different person on the planet possesses is wrong, my own included. I fully expect 10,000 years from now humanity will look back at the differences in opinion between George Bush and Barack Obama and condemn them both to the trash heap of stupid bullshit along with their forty-one predecessors.

But once in a while a gem comes alone, a diamond of opportunity where I get to step forth and do what I do best, and that is arbitrate the differences in opinion between two or three groups of people who are making complete jackasses of themselves over what will eventually become insignificant bullshit.

There is trouble brewing in New York City, I would say quietly brewing but that would be a fucking lie. This trouble surrounds a building at 45-51 Park Place in lower Manhattan. For those unfamiliar with the New York area, two of the largest commercial buildings in the United States of America stood not two blocks from that region, until they were brought down when 19 Saudis decided to take flying lesions in the middle of their transoceanic flights.

That’s right kids, it is time to talk about the so called “Ground Zero Mosque.” Now I don’t know what is more frightening, that in a recent poll 11% of Americans thought that the building of this mosque violated the 1st Amendment of the Constitution; or that Imam Abdul Rauf seems to be so callous towards the will of the public, the safety of the contractors that will build this center. And the people who will use it that he continues to press the entire thing forward.

So where does the Arbiter stand on this you wonder? Simply put EVERYONE IS WRONG! Opponents of the mosque are wrong, proponents are wrong, the media is wrong, and the politicians who speak out for or against it is wrong. This ENTIRE travesty is about as wrong as a man covered in paper cuts being in the middle of a circle jerk at an AIDS clinic. And sadly it is up to me to break this down for the rest of you folks so you can calm the fuck down!

For the people who oppose the building of this “Ground Zero Mosque,” I have nothing but sympathy for your base argument, I really do. This is hard for many because 19 nut-jobs killed 3000 people in the name of a faith that this new building caters too. It FEELS wrong. I emphasize FEELS wrong because while that feeling maybe there, and it maybe strong, there is not one thing illegal about it. I am thankful that the level headed folks are clinging solely to the fact that their emotional malfeasance towards the building of this Mosque is centered on that.

What makes me ashamed are the fuckwits who go around clinging to silly one liners from the Qur’an trying to prove that it is all part of a greater “muslim conspiracy” to plant some kind of victory flag over the world trade center and wave a big ass middle finger to the United States of America and its citizens. This whole incident has raised a massive wave of xenophobia where people are openly declaring Muslims born and raised in places like New York, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vega, Kansas City, and Orlando as not American Citizens. I wish I could say that this was unique in our history but it isn’t. one only need to look back seventy years ago to the long term imprisonment of American Citizens of Japanese descent after World War Two to show that when we suffer a major blow to morale, the American people will go after anyone who remotely LOOKS like the kind of people who did us harm, despite them having nothing to do with it. It kind of makes it hard to hold a moral authority over the holocaust when we did something pretty similar back home, and yet for some reason we still pull it off!

And then there are the people with thin ass legal challenges. First they were trying to make the original building a historic site, then there were zoning restrictions, and the list goes on. Concerned citizens trying to catch a group on technicalities of building stuff that any responsible and intelligent build would have cleared with the City of New York BEFORE even grabbing a drafting pen.

Here are the facts you nitwits, Islam as a religion is just about as united as Christianity is. If you think that is pretty tight knit, I should remind you that there are over 100 different denominations worldwide that claim to call themselves “Christian”, including Mormons, Rastafarians, and people who practice Voodoo. By trying to lump the American citizens who want to build this Mosque where it is going to be built up with the Al-Queada Terrorists is akin to me lumping Baptists with Catholics and saying “all ministers/priests/preachers are child molestors.”

So stop it, sit down and shut the hell up.

No as for Abdual Rauf and his ilk, and yes I address this to you specifically rather then the greater American Muslim community. I think that is reasonable since it is YOUR Islamic Cultural Center. I have one question for you. Are you Gods damned out of your minds? You have received enough negative press about this that were you running for political office your career would be over, and yet the project still persists, as is, no changes, not mediation, no attempts to reach out to the public that by and large, for whatever reason opposes this project.

This is a continuation of forced ignorance on behalf of Muslim community leadership in the United States. It is not just in new york either, but nation wide, where a lot of people seem to believe that the United States of American and it’s citizens has either forgotten about the September 11th attacks, or has forgiven Islam as a whole for its role as a motivating factor therein. While I am not saying it is just, by and large Americans have not, and that includes some Muslims. I have a Muslin coworker who is pissed of at you guys and used the term Fitna to describe what is happening. I had to look it up, and it means “organized mischief making.”

Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, while noting that blaming all Muslims for 9/11 was "ridiculous", said:
"I don't think the Muslim leadership has fully appreciated the impact of 9/11 on America. They assume Americans have forgotten 9/11 and even, in a profound way, forgiven 9/11, and that has not happened. The wounds remain largely open [...] and when wounds are raw, an episode like constructing a house of worship—even one protected by the Constitution, protected by law—becomes like salt in the wounds". He goes on to say that, in his opinion, if the center is constructed as well as a mosque it should contain a memorial and an ecumenical house of worship.
I do not disregard the legal right for this Islamic Cultural Center to be constructed, I really don’t. You guys have the money, the legal paperwork, the constitutional protection. But that does not change the fact that this is as wise as opening a Planned Parenthood office across the street, and out of the jurisdiction of a Catholic church.

Have you considered in light of the negative flak you have received, working in partnership with Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the United Jewish Federation of New York to create a TRUE interfaith cultural center. In the Park 51 website it is described that the center will contain "a mosque, intended to be run separately from Park 51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community." If a house of worship is a secondary concern to providing a place to workout, provide childcare, etc, then perhaps an interfaith partnership would be the best way to go on this.

The continued progress towards the building of this Islamic Cultural Center is going to be inflammatory, and the persistent hiding behind the law and disengagement from the greater New York community, and fellow Muslim dissenters does nothing to help your cause. The power to perform an action does not mean you SHOULD do that same action.

So that is my take on the people directly involved, next time I am gonna look at those who are not involved, but are not helping the issue. Until then party on.

Christ I would love to know what Marisa thinks of my opinion.