NTR Is President Obama being insensitive?

Does anyone who was asking about the money trail still wondering about that since the Daily Show did such a good job of uncovering that?

 

Just in case anyone missed this: The Parent Company Trap

 

I was one of the people who said that looking into funding was a legitimate concern. What Jon Stewart addressed was very much connected to some of what I was wondering about.

I am so often impressed that the Daily Show often does a better job at covering the news than real news organizations. I only wish other networks would be as brave in addressing such things.

What they uncovered was part of what I was wondering about, that being the different ways the Imam Rauf has been presented by political leaders in power over the years to serve whatever ends they politically wanted at the time. On the one hand he was a friend of the Bush admin and worked the speak out against extremism after 9-11, yet now he is being painted by some in the Republican party as "radical." He is currently on a tour of the Middle East, representing the U.S. and speaking about Islam in the United States. Bush put him on this tour, but many people blame Obama for it, and almost no news articles mention that his precense on that speaking tour was initiated by the Bush administration.

So the Imam, or the idea of the Imam, has been manipulated in a variety of different ways to fulfill different political narratives. As I said before, that's really interesting in terms of funding because of the connection to Bush and the Saudi royal family. So, you have some folks talking about his radical ties...all the while these radical ties potentially lead back to Bush. So, something does not add up here.

I feel like this is part of the way people in the U.S. are manipulated by political parties. You have Newt Gingrich spouting fear, yet his own party supported the Imam. That's manipulation. Of course, the Democrats do it too.

Just to be clear, I don't think the Imam has terrorist ties. I am much more disturbed at how the narrative is manipulated and altered based on fear and political goals and how they get away with this narrative because very few news organizations will ask the really tough questions.

More journalists need to get to the meat of the issue and address those hard questions and call our political leaders out on their conflicting narratives. If journalists don't ask those tough questions they can never call out leaders or commentators on their conflicting stories.

The journalists can do this by doing just what the Daily Show did, following the real funding trail...not the fear based trail Fox News was suggesting.

If we are not afraid to ask those tough questions, such as questions about the funding trail, the answers the journalists find can be really enlightening.

I don't think asking those questions about funding or the details of the Imam's history is inherently supporting prejudice, as on PP suggested. I think it's all about getting to the facts, and sometimes the facts incriminate our own leaders/media.

What DOES support prejudice is what the Fox and Friends show did. That being to ask the questions about funding with no intension of finding out the answer. So the questions just stir up fear without fact.

Journalists can counter that kind of fear-based narrative by taking them up on their questions...and following through with the facts.


Watching that Daily Show clip just reminds me that if we--- as consumers of the news--- want to be truly educated we have to look critically at the news, ask questions, go to a variety of sources, and always, always suspects more complexity than is presented.

What is sad though is that because the Daily Show is a comedy show (although they indeed do great reporting) I doubt this story will make it in local newspapers, news shows, etc. Most people who believe the fear narratives will never hear this story, and would shrug it off because of the comical way it is presented.

If only "real" journalists would do this kind of work...and when they do it the CEOS of the news organizations would allow the stories to run.

ETA: Fix grammar and wording for clarity.

 

Excellent post, GandEmom!!

 

Ditto.

 

Kim, I see where you're coming from, but I do think people need to stop being so fearful. From what I can see, everyone involved is just afraid of what might happen, and that is so wrong. Why should normal people be afraid, or even compromise for something they haven't done? It's ridiculous! If one action is going to have such a big domino effect, then what is wrong with society in general? Not building this center is not going to erase anyone's hurt, or make people more trusting, and neither is it going to stop Muslims from being Muslim. None of this makes any sense to me, and I doubt anyone involved in this discussion here, has as much fear/loathing for these particular extremists as much as I do. I live amongst them kwim? I've lost more than I care to share, or could describe. Heck, I have no idea if I'll survive tomorrow if they decide to kill a few hundred more innocents "just because." Still, I don't think regular Muslims have to prove anything to me, and neither do I think regular Christians, Germans or what have you have to walk on egg shells of things done by extremists associated with their faith/nationality.

And, it is NOT about "infidels" or "Evil Americans." There was an interview done recently of a captured suicide bomber here... He claimed even children of his religion are not innocent, and deserve to die if they go against his version of the teachings. It's pure psycho babble, and a quest for power, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Anne, I stated my opinion not based on fear of Muslims or any other specific group. but I did so knowing that there are people in this country that thrive on that fear. Their ignorance does not allow them to see Muslims in anything other than a negative light. It is sad but unfortunately a fact of life. My own family has a few members that are just plain stupid and will not allow themselves to put aside their prejudices.
It is not ridiculous to expect one group to reach out with a compromise. If both sides remain stubborn and refuse to budge nothing in this world would ever get accomplished. I'm not saying anyone has to walk on eggshells, but as a society shouldn't we consider others feelings? Is it fair for one group to have to do this over another one, no it isn't BUT someone has to be the bigger person. In this situation asking an ignorant, angry crowd to be the one to compromise is not going to be productive, nor will it happen. So I voiced my opinion and thoughts towards the group (the Muslims in this situation) that I thought had more common sense and were not acting irrationally.

 

I honestly think that this tempest-in-a-teapot will getting boring, people will move on, the thing will get built and on the day it opens (several years from now) everyone will have gotten used to the idea and outside of a few nutjobs with nothing better to do the center will open with little -if any- major protest, national attention or further hoopla.

 

Has anyone else seen this: pictures of things the same distance away from Ground Zero as the proposed community center ?

 

I agree with that. The problem with the comparison is that a country's government does (for better or worse) represent the people of a country, a bunch of Muslim religious extremists in no way represent American Muslims (which this community centre is ultimately for). It would be like claiming the Lord's Resistance Army represents American Christians.

I also don't think that it was (at least not completely) planned by the people who ended up hijacking the aeroplanes. I'm sure some people involved in terrorist groups did know about it. However, I find it very difficult to believe that the vast majority of American Muslims (if any at all) knew it was going to happen and much less were in a position to stop it. In contrast, many Germans did know what was happening (as it was happening right in front of them) and had the opportunity to stop it. There is a good reason Germans are remorseful but it isn't simply because many of the people who collectively murdered millions of people were also German.

Considering the comparison you chose to make I find this prediction extremely disturbing (although I don't think you want it to happen). If what you predict does ultimately eventuate I would be very fearful of what else could happen and not just to Muslims. That people think this is a possibility is all the more reason to build it where it is planned as far as I'm concerned.

 

I posted a reply last night and it disappeared. O_O

I wanted to thank whoever posted that Charlie Brooker link. I like what he had to say and one of the commenters brought up a really good point. When the Freedom Tower is built Muslims that work there will be praying, presumably in some kind of prayer rooms. Since apparently prayer rooms = mosques now it turns out that the Freedom Tower will not only be the world's tallest mosque but it will literally be built right on ground zero!

 

So weird, Jenny. I read your reply this morning. Wonder where it went? *poof!*