Roger Ebert's Journal- Ten things I know about the mosque

[stlsaxman]

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/08/ten_things_i_know_about_the_mo.html

Excerpts:

1. America missed a golden opportunity to showcase its Constitutional freedoms. The instinctive response of Americans should have been the same as President Obama's: Muslims have every right to build there. Where one religion can build a church, so can all religions.


2. The First Amendment comes down to this: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It does not come down to: "The First Amendment gives me the right to shout the N-word 11 times on the radio to an inoffensive black woman, and when you attack me for saying it, you are in violation of my First Amendment rights."

6. Somewhere on the Right is an anonymous genius at creating memes. Sarah Palin floats a suspicious number of them: Death Panels, Ground Zero Mosque, 9/11 Mosque, Terror Babies. Her tweets are mine fields of coded words; for her, "patriot" is defined as, "those who agree with me." When she says "Americans," it is not inclusive. These two must have been carefully composed in advance to be tweeted within 60 seconds of each other: (jpeg of two tweets). By using the evocative word "shackles" she associates Dr. Laura's use of the N-word with the suffering of slaves. By implying Dr. Laura was silenced by "Constitutional obstructionists," she employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that "no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." She uses the trigger word "reload" to evoke her support of Second Amendment activists while attacking "activists" for evoking the First.

End Excerpts...

Ebert follows this up with a beautiful, thoughtful op/ed that he wrote on 9/12/01 titled "The Green Field".

NOTE TO MODS: For copyright reasons I kept it down to three clippings... hope this passes muster.

[dkf]

1. You forgot 3. where he said the Imam showed flawed judgment

and the mosque should move .

[stlsaxman]

2. He "expects it will be moved"- not he thinks it should move. Subtle diff there.

So he thinks the "Imam showed flawed judgment". Does that negate everything else in this op/ed?

[wellst0nev0ter]

3. Somewhat. He Makes It Seem Like It Was Somehow The Imam's Fault

that there are a bunch of religious bigots making this into an issue. In fact, I'm in the mind that he NEEDS to build a cultural center there, because his failure will just give legitimacy to those that think mosques and Muslims deserve to have their freedoms restricted.

[RufusTFirefly]

5. I agree. I think capitulating emboldens the Right, although I respect...

... the notion that you pick your battles and that you don't do something that whips the Right into a frenzy and winds up losing ground for you instead of gaining it.

I respect it. But I don't agree with it.

What I've learned in witnessing the Right and its gigantic megaphone (aka the Corporate MSM) is that they can turn anything into an issue. The building of the community center should've been a sign of America's strength and tolerance. Either that, or it should've been a non-issue. Instead, these Nazis have used it as an opportunity to whip the rabble into a fascist frenzy.

(And by the way, I'm tired of pulling my punches. I am fully aware that "Nazi" and "fascist" are loaded words.)

[dkf]

8. No the Imam planned it badly.

If he had already got a consensus from a significant majority of the families then there is no issue. But he didn't. He did not properly gauge the sentiment of the bereaved before he stepped into a sensitive subject. Then he didn't leave himself a good out.

I think his problem is that he thought the only opinion that mattered was Bush and Obama.

[wellst0nev0ter]

9. Frankly, I Couldn't Give A Rats Ass What That "Significant Minority" Says

So are they there to speak for the 98 Muslims that also died on that day? Yes, what happened to them that day was a tragedy, but for them to leverage that tragedy to cynically stir up anti-Muslim sentiment, that's all the sympathy they'll get from me.

[dkf]

7. No he thinks it would be prudent to move the mosque...

That is more than "he expects".

[Ohio Metal]

4. Follow the link. It has been self edited for content. n/t

[Martin Eden]

6. When she says "Americans," it is not inclusive.

That is a SPOT-ON observation about Sarah Palin.

K&R that!

[seattleblue]

10. -+Ironically he is dead wrong about #2. The First Amendment is about that.