I took the picture you see above in Lower Manhattan a few days after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Rescue workers were still teeming all over the carcass of the towers. So were New Yorkers, teeming all over their city pretty much as they had before the attacks. Resilience is difficult to suppress when it’s in your blood. And the city’s veins—its streets, its subways, its towering arteries of steel and stone—were already back to chasing the “mad dream” Jack Kerouac had once described, “the absolute madness and fantastic hooray of New York with its millions and millions hustling forever for a buck among themselves.”
It’s what New Yorkers did. It’s what New Yorkers were back to doing, what made New Yorkers the smash-mouthed geniuses of the American character that they are, fearlessly it seemed, and indestructibly. The legend on the phone booth summed up the city despite its obvious loss: It was the playground of the fearless. The playfulness was in mourning. It couldn’t last, because New Yorkers don’t have it in them to give it up. It’s not that it isn’t in them. It’s that the city doesn’t let them.
Click On:
- When Barbarism Follows Barbarism
- Immigration’s Tale from New York’s #7 Subway Train
- Krauthammer’s Sacrilege: When Reactionaries Fire Up their Sunday Missals–and Miss
- Opposition to the Mosque “At” Ground Zero Desecrates American Values
- From Times Square to Jacksonville: When Terrorism Is a Double-Standard
Sobriety, meekness, ordinariness, New York tells you from every gutter and every penthouse, is for other cities. It’s for Omaha. It’s for Floridian subdivisions. A few days after the shock of 9/11 the city was back to being New York City: A city without equal in power, in defiance, in culture, and despite its loss in Lower Manhattan, in a kind of architectural might the Parises and Londons and Pragues of the world could only dream of behind their mummified monuments. You can visit Notre Dame all you want. You can’t live in it. New York City, from JFK Airport’s and the New Jersey Meadowlands’ grubbiest entrances to its Manhattan core is a city every square inch lived in. It’s not there to be admired for its past but to be remade daily, which is why it has always been the immigrant’s haven. It is where the American idea begins, an idea that puts to shame its heartland effluents that appeal to small minds and xenophobes and pathetic patriots who don’t know their flag from their prejudices.
Not that New York isn’t also rich in the blood and gore of bigotry. It has its fault lines, its class and race wars, its ghettoes of what makes so much of the rest of America so predictable. But New York is also and mostly without equal in tolerance, or at least understanding, in a world of diversity that transcends that stupid word. Alone in that regard among American cities, there are no minorities in New York, because everyone is a minority, whites included, whites especially (since they still cling to feeling to special wherever they can). So the word was finally meaningless there. So was its eminently correct bastard child, diversity. You don’t need to remark on such things when it’s the air you breathe, the skins you rub against, the languages you hear. New York is that future where nationality and religion and race are as close to the surplus conceits that they have always been.
Or maybe was.
What so ails so much of the rest of the country these days, that tearing reaction against the fabric that once distinguished the country from its old world prejudices, appears, like a virus more lethal than those planes on 9/11, to have crossed the Hudson. Hatred of Muslims, in brief, has gone viral, though it isn’t Muslims who are paying the price. It’s Americans who are demeaning their own value, and values. What terrorists could never have demolished for all their atrocities—that American ideal that doesn’t depend on rock or dollars or even blood, in a country used to spilling it occasionally for the right reasons—American hatred is demolishing.
The New York Times today published a poll about New Yorkers’ reactions to the Islamic community center and mosque planned for Lower Manhattan, eight blocks closer to Ground Zero than another mosque in the same neighborhood. Some 72 percent of respondents said anyone has every right to build a “house of worship” there. But not Muslims. Sixty-seven percent want the Islamic center’s planners to find a “less controversial” location—because it isn’t controversial for seedy, slimy, greasy businesses and their attendant call girls and gigolos to rim Ground Zero up to its cemented sphincter, but it is controversial for a house dedicated to teaching tolerance and acceptance and understanding to go up two blocks from there. So it is in America today, in New York as it is elsewhere: sleaze soars, but ideals don’t belong anymore.
It isn’t a coincidence that while 67 percent of New Yorkers overall want the Islamic center built elsewhere, a majority of respondents from Manhattan welcome it where it’s planned. At least there’s still hope there. And it’s always been true that the further out you go from the heart of New York City, past the exuberantly multi-ethnic neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens just across the East River, the quicker you get to the suburban stink and skankiness that makes the George Babbitts and like-minded provincials feel so cozy. Staten Island, the northern reaches of The Bronx and the Hampton-hungry outer banks of Queens are full of arrivistes who equate making it to trampling others for fear of being trampled back from their little plot of wealth. Ironic, too, how the further out you go from Ground Zero, the more xenophobic (and therefore the stupider) the responses.
Myths are the stuff of distance. There’s nothing more mythical than what hoards who pledge allegiance to their flag with mob-like unanimity have made of American values of acceptance and equality of beliefs, or non-beliefs. In time and place, like those concentric circles of closed minds the father you get from Manhattan, the country is moving away from those values. It may have embraced them with extraordinary force in 2008 with Barack Obama’s election. But that’s what that election appears to be now: extraordinary, rather than a new marker on America’s reach for the Declaration’s ideals.
What a long reach it is again, even if it’s “only” Muslims who are victims of this latest vise. The particular group doesn’t matter. That kind of bigotry speaks more ill of those who spew it than of its victims: American Muslims aren’t the problem. Americans who fear and demean Muslims are. But if it can happen in New York, which has always been a prototype of American redemption, there is little hope for the rest of the country. To every terrorist’s certain delight—their work now being done with no need of another bomb—New York is joining the herd.
First Responder says
It is extremely insensitive of the muslim community to want to build a mosque on those grounds.
over it says
The poll broken down by education level is very interesting. And that portion alone explains a lot. I think they should breakout ALL polls like that. I mean, since we all AGREE about the importance of education…….. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge* *say no more…….say no more……..
Dorothea says
Speaking to advocates of community control, the majority of the people who live in Manhattan, the borough where all takes place don’t object. I seem to remember that when the City of Palm Coast wanted to build a memorial dedicated to 9/11, there was a huge negative outcry. Seems the good citizens of Palm Coast didn’t want a memorial paid for with their tax dollars going for something that happened in Manhattan. I wonder how many of these good citizens are now weighing in on what Manhattan is or is not going to build on its own turf.
Tom Brown says
“Island at the Center of the World,” a history of colonial New York by Russell Shorto, details how New York became a great port partly because the original Dutch rulers let everyone come in to make money, while the other coastal cities were less welcoming. And I wonder who declared the World Trade Center a “sacred site.” If it is such, then the U.S. government should have bought up Ground Zero and surrounding property and turned it into a national park years ago. But that’s not the N.Y. way — real estate constantly comes and goes, and eventually a new office complex will rise from the Ground Zero ashes. If Manhattanites can tolerate a mosque, why should people in other cities object?
Jordyn says
The number one article written on this subject is here: http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/08/31/the_mosque_controversy/page/full/
elaygee says
The Durtch were guilty of the same crime. They refused to let the Jewish residents of New Amsterdam (New York before the British took it over) built a synagogue. It was too “offensive” for their sensabilities. nothing changes, just the newest victims of hate.
Phil Chanfrau says
We need to remember 911 was an attack orchestrated by a couple of dozen fanatics who happened to be Muslim. It was not an attack by the Nation of Islam. Timothy McVeigh has proven to us that a madman can cause a terrorist attack that looks like an act of war. 911 was immediately declared by our government to be an act of war, and later used to justify the invasion of Iran, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the waste of our nations’ valuable and much needed savings to pay for the wars that were unleashed. Not even the US CONGRESS had the political nerve to take the political heat by challenging the political conclusion that we were at war. What if a dozen zealots get ahold of nuclear weapons? What is the difference between murder and anyway? WAR has political benefits to the party in power. Murder does not. Unlike the attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese nation using traditional machinery of war, done with great stealth, this was an attack by a dozen or so murders using our own airplanes.
I am all for and support our military which is and always should be honored, and second to none. But my criticism is the leadership which uses fear to motivate its use at the drop of a hat. Here we go again. Almost 9 years after 911 and the death of thousands of our troops, and a couple of trillion $$$ down the drain, some Politicians are inciting fear of Muslims more than ever. And unfortunately, the vast majority of citizens are buying it again…
This was not an attack my a Muslim nation against the USA. Nevertheless our leaders at the time knew that there is no better, no more successful way to unite the nation behind a President than to declare there is a WAR. Ever since Pearl Harbor, we have seen administrations on both sides of the aisle using WAR as a means to unite the country politically behind the President. Time after time many US citizens people are duped into a needless war. Even President Reagan went to WAR…(remember the invasion of Grenada?) It is a fundamental part of our government to find something to have to Defend.
So here we go again.
Enough of the Politics of Fear, hatred and extremism. We are a very powerful, great nation with wonderful diversity. I do not want a couple of WASPS running this government into the ground.
emile says
This community center/mosque has been in the planning since last December, and there were no complaints until Pamela Geller’s blog appeared in May. She tried to stir up trouble, and apparently succeeded. What a pity…
Kevin says
I’m sorry, but again I must untwist idiots’ optic chiasm and their distorted views. When and how often do we see Jews indiscriminately blowing themselves and other innocent victims, or cutting off their heads,, hands, tongues, without provocation or response to an attack, in the name of their religion? Thanks to the educated simpletons referred to in the polls that believe this is a matter of religious freedom, when it is not, this abomination to common sense and facts will go forward.
What we do by preventing the mosque from being built is a step in the right direction in reigning in an ideology that seeks to convert or kill non-believers. As proven from seeing and reading the reporting from other countries and their city’s problems due to Islamification, we have learned that when Islamic communities begin to take root, especially in the impoverished areas, they inject into municipalities a group of people who do not intend to be homogenous and part of American values, culture, and laws. This is a fact, with Islamic figures being on record for saying such. You can, and most likely will, attack me for pointing out this white elephant in the room but that means you are an idiot and refused to check the veracity of my comments.
“(Reuters) – A well-known Australian Muslim cleric has called for the beheading of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders, a newspaper said on Friday. Wilders’ Freedom Party scored the biggest gains in June 9 polls and is currently negotiating to form a new minority government with the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Polls show Wilders would win a new election if one were called now. Wilders demanded to know why he had learnt about the threat from the newspaper and not from Dutch authorities who are guarding him after a film and remarks he made angered Muslims around the world. De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest newspaper, led its front page on Friday with a story on the speech by Feiz Muhammad. The Sydney-born Muhammad has gained notoriety for, among other things, calling on young children to be radicalized and blaming rape victims for their own attacks. The paper posted an English-language audio clip in which he refers to Wilders as “this Satan, this devil, this politician in Holland” and explains that anyone who talks about Islam like Wilders does should be executed by beheading.”
…Just another day in the park when it comes to threats from Islamic leaders.
Often as is the case with this issue, Pierre’s article is based on false assumptions and ignorantly excludes salient facts and research which Pierre doesn’t want to bring include. Him being more object would lead to a break in the bonds he uses to connect his fraudulent convictions of others detesting the thoughts of the mosque being built, or for that matter anyone concerned with the spread of Islamic extremism.
Kevin says
Chanfrau:
Are you an attorney? If you are, it just goes to show why lawyers are a significant part of our social and economic problems here in the US based on your comment. For the sake of brevity, Timothy McVeigh is not on record stating his actions were done for that of Jesus Christ and the God of Christians as is the case withy every Islamic terrorist. And I am really getting pissed of with the continued arguments comparing modern day Christians to that of modern day Islam. We don’t have to do much INTELLECTUALLY HONEST research to find that the evils of Islam EVIDENCED by the actions of cultures and countries practicing it. Who dares debate Sharia law exists and is practiced? We’ll start with Saudi Arabia for starters in our debate!
Phil Chanfrau says
There are extremists in every religion. Remember the Spanish Inquisitions? There are lots of Muslim clerics who are extremists, and I am sure they are way outnumbered by the good, decent moderate Muslims…Doesn’t mean we need to treat every moderate Muslim like an extremist.
Pierre Tristam says
You’re right Kevin. I can’t include every fact: the encyclopedia of bigotry would be too voluminous. But here’s a salient one to your point about Jews, or rather Israelis, to be slightly more precise–because the two are no more interchangeable than Hamas is interchangeable with “Muslim,” or even “Palestinian”–indiscriminately blowing themselves and other innocent victims: they don’t have to, because you and I give them the $3 billion a year to help them buy the kind of hardware that allows them to murder and maim from a distance.
The Israeli demolition of Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 killed as many Palestinians in those 22 days as the entire death toll of Israelis in both Palestinian uprisings in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel proper over 20 years, going back to 1987. That assault was nothing short of state-choreographed terrorism on a mass scale. Indiscriminate, murderous, barbaric, atrocity-filled. It was worse, far worse–in raw numbers, in execution, in immorality–than any two-bit Hamas terrorist ever managed, and heavens know they try. It was high-tech terrorism, and you, me, and every American taxpayer underwrote it.
And that was a 22-day holiday party for the Israeli military. Israel’s entirely useless 34-day demolition of South Lebanon and much of Lebanon’s infrastructure in 2006 killed 2,000 people, overwhelmingly Lebanese civilians who couldn’t give a shit about Palestinians, Hamas or Israel, for good reason. That, too, was a minor incursion compared to Israel’s crown jewel of mass destruction: Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, by the Red Cross’ count, killed 18,000 people, most of them Lebanese, most of them civilian, in 17 weeks. Get a grip on that number: a third the entire American death toll in Vietnam from 1960 to 1975, killed in 18 weeks. And of course generously paid for by American tax dollars.
Look Kevin: Israel gets a pass in this country. I get that. It’s principally the reason mad men like Netanyahu can stay in power and make themselves seem like victims set-upon by vandals from every side (the old 1940s myth that wasn’t true even then, when Arab bands were like shawl-shocked shmucks who couldn’t screw in a light-bulb if they tried, let alone armies capable of dislodging Jews from the land). But if you’re going to venture analogies to put your Islamophobia on display, stick to something you can at least make up more credible fantasies about. When it comes to perpetuating myths about poor old Israel, the lies stop here.
As for your example of a “well-known cleric” who called for Wilders’ beheading, being, “well known” doesn’t mean being respected, or being representative. Osama bin Laden is well known. Paris Hilton is well known. Sarah Palin is well known. That doesn’t make those nut cases or celebrity freaks representative of whatever it is their skin tones coincide with. That mad Australian cleric you’re referring to is no different, for example, than a good many American preachers whose DNA is equally hate-filled and debased, such as the old Jerry Vine, the Southern Baptist nut case who used to preach to great masses in my backyard here in Jacksonville until a few years ago and who has the distinction of being among the early Islamophobes to know a selling point when they see one (he’s the fool who called Muhammad a pedophile and got plenty of mileage from that, you might remember. Christian preachers, not just Catholics, aren’t exactly in the best position to cast pedophilic stones strung right out of their busy little prostates). Anyway, to call Feiz Muhammad an “Islamic leader” is like calling Joe the Plumber a Republican leader. (Then again…)
Keep cherry-picking Kevin. Your comments are a terrific window into America’s raucous remake of Dante’s Inferno. The circles of hell keep expanding. But there you go: you got both Phil and I to take your bait when we both have better things to do than give outright falsehoods the credibility of an answer.
Kevin says
No, Phil we don’t need to treat every Muslim like an extremist. We can easily agree that not all Muslims are bad eggs. I personally know some as well. I believe most people feel the same way and do not want them condemned as a group based on the actions of minority of the group. Unfortunately, a large enough extremist minority exists, making their actions and beliefs ubiquitous.
As a result Muslims need to be vocal acting in a concerted effort around the globe immediately condemning any Islamic group of individual who threatens or kills others in the name of Islam. Currently, the facts are they don’t. It is infuriating to see the antithesis occurs. Instead they insult our intelligence or use disrespectful language by shifting the blame calling us Islamaphobes. For example as everybody knows (who doesn’t love that bullshit line but this time it is true) after 9/11 Muslims around the globe celebrated and were so giddy with euphoria they even had t-shirts and other souvenirs made to commemorate their special occasion.
I believe enough evidence could be dug up to stop the project based on the merits of an illegal money trail. One would think there exists lawyers capable enough to connect some dots and find applicable laws that would bring this issue to a close. The level of inappropriateness of its location is something that most people of good sense and wisdom would agree on.
I want to reply to Pierre’s comment and hopefully I will soon….his requires a few more molecules of glucose to be used and time which I am already borrowing by writing when I should be studying.
Liana G says
As of Sept 3rd, 2010
The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said it will burn the Islamic holy book to mark the ninth anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks.
Federal investigators said Friday that a suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee was arson.
—
How many black CHURCHES have been deliberately destroyed in this country?
How many sacred Native Americans burial sites and lands have been deliberately destroyed and are still being destroyed?
The hypocrisy and intolerance is revolting!
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Mahatma Gandhi
over it says
I don’t have a problem with God. It’s his fan club that disturbs me.
over it says
I agree Kevin. Investigate the money trail for the mosque. Let me know what you find. :facepalm <— for you fans of forum smileys.
over it says
“Unfortunately, a large enough extremist minority exists, making their actions and beliefs ubiquitous.”
– Kevin, thank you for explaining my disdain for certain other religious groups………….. :facepalm
Kevin says
Pierre,
Last night you made some excellent points in your response. Based on those comments, I awoke this morning feeling a commitment to study the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I admit that I am only aware of what I read or heard reported. Thus, I am a little unsure as to where to begin.
I don’t think Israel gets a free pass here in America. I have listened as at least two friends of mine who are close to me and well-educated, speak negatively about and refer to stereotypes that I have never found to be true. But throughout news and other media, there seems to be a huge blowback, including many liberal Jews that are distancing themselves from their traditions, who are quite vocal in their disdain of Israeli leaders and policies. Not to mention they are allowed to be negatively defined by others, especially in the world of entertainment, just are Christians, without cause for concern. I think the embargo raid was an excellent example of how the press and people went after the Israelis without having all the information but I know many here will find the example as but another egregious example of Israeli aggression.
At the same time, to say one is going to urinate on a Quran might lead to a death sentence because Islamic extremism has inched forward with little resistance to these types of events. Their actions are defended by many throughout the world, as a religion of love and tolerance when in fact we see bold evidence that it is anything but that. I think the Cordova Project is another example of the outrageous and audacious lies that best represents the Islamic movement: saying they are for one thing yet boldly acting in another way showing a different ulterior motive.
As for Over its comments, which I understood without further explanation given your past comments, you seem to enjoy making false comparisons. You gleefully state you see an equivalence which shows your critical thinking skills to be suffering. You compare a minority of modern day Christian’s crimes (crimes to give us a basis of comparison) with that of the crimes and atrocities still unfolding daily, hourly, around the globe in large numbers, coming from the most impoverished areas, to the wealthiest of nations, in the name of Islam and handed down from highly biased and subjective judgments based on Sharia Law. These can and do include beatings, whipping, stoning, mutilating, disfiguring, and best of all beheadings? I hate to keep using the same old tired analogies but I find your way of thinking disturbingly twisted by attempting to equate the two based on their transgressions during modern times.
Let me ask this which is worse: Individuals in current times getting his or her head carved off while completely aware of the act, suffering immeasurably, for the crime of having offended the name of Allah or extremely isolated incidents in which doctors were shot by individuals arguably believing they had to do it because that was the only way to prevent the doctor from taking human lives in the future, protecting the fetuses right to live. Know this, while very premature, the fetus can survive outside the womb after around 20wks. Many providers are allowed to abort the pregnancy well after that date.
So applying your comparison, you find the physician murderer to be on par with that of the brutal Islamic extremist. That makes you one twisted individual in my eyes.
Liana G says
Kevin – you said “I don’t think Israel gets a free pass here in America”. May I suggest you research AIPAC. Then you will know for sure exactly the extent of Israel’s influence here in America . That’s if you’re interested of course.
Kevin says
I see that you sent me to their political action committee site. I believe most every organization has one of those. One can’t fault them for that.
over it says
Kevin: Where did I compare the “minor” modern christian crimes (I’m sure the christians appreciate you minimizing their trangressions………. oh yeah, all is forgiven, I always forget that……..) with “beatings, whipping, stoning, mutilating, disfiguring, and best of all beheadings” I may have forgotten where I committed such atrocities. If you are speaking of your abortion rant in your final paragraph, uh, that wasn’t me. I could care less what a woman decides to do with her body. I’m not capable of carrying a baby, so I will never know what it is like to make that decision. So it’s not and will never be MY choice. Now, for those of you who think that it is YOUR job to TELL her what her choice is, good luck with that.
As for false comparisons? I would love for you to correct me. Where have I done that? Please, enlighten me. Which of my comparisons have been false? BTW, How’s it hunt for the mosque money trail going? Find anything out?
Kevin says
I’ll review my comment for its coherence, in case I made a mistake…What does it matter where the trail goes? My point is if it comes from illigitimate sources then that should provide a toehold.
hogdick says
PRAISE GOD AND PASS OUT THE AMMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kevin says
Dear Over IT:
Seems to me you need to work on your reading skills and read what you wrote compared to what I wrote:) It stands as coorect and well worded for what I needed to say.
Hoggie: I already collect ammo :) One likes to be prepared (wink)
over it says
Kevin, you say i make false comparisons. Not hard to understand. My reading skills are adequate to know what “false comparisons” means. And I want to know what those false comparisons are so that I can stop using them. Is that better?
As for what does the money trail have to do with anything. You said this: “I believe enough evidence could be dug up to stop the project based on the merits of an illegal money trail. ” It’s what YOU believe. I’d love to believe it also. So tell us what you know.
Liana G says
Kevin: when I suggested you research AIPAC, I meant researching AIPAC, but not by visiting their website. That would be like a smoker going to the tobacco website to research the detrements of smoking. Get my drift.
Maybe you should research Israel’s influence on America’s foreign policy. Israel receives billions in aid every year from America addition to arms supplies which they turn around and sell to Iran; and in order for America to get them to stop this practice, they are forced to give them even more aid, and the practice continues. That’s the power of Israel’s influence. But you won’t hear it the local media. Politicians in this country do not stand a chance of getting elected without the backing of AIPAC.
William says
“A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot, but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook” – Bertolt Brecht
So on it goes. The screeching sound of (today’s) bogey man, Islamophobia, the fingernails-across-the-blackboard of rational thought. The point being missed here is the well-worn strategy of vacuous drivel. When a group, or more precisely, a political philosophy, finds itself bereft of solutions to problems facing the country, said group can be relied upon to trot out the “us against them” narrative. You know, divide and conquer. And the angry mob of disenfranchised, marginalized, and generally fucked over Plebes falls for it again and again and again and……..
It is a strategy of distraction and division studied and implemented time and again throughout history, and it works because it plays on humanity’s basest emotion – fear. It doesn’t offer any viable solutions to the challenge, but it allows the speaker to manipulate the crowd by making them afraid of it, and telling them who’s to blame for it, thereby deflecting accountability for the speaker’s own failures. You know, like rethugs claiming “fiscal responsibility” in the aftermath of 6 years of the most fiscally irresponsible policies (not saying there were no dims complicit in driving the country off the cliff)
Sadly, it’s working again. People are once again abandoning reason for fear, all because a zionist witch took it upon herself to make an issue out of a (until then) non-issue. Let’s make an issue out of this to deflect attention from the atrocities visited upon the people of Gaza during “Operation Cast Lead” (BTW Kevin, check out some of the interesting T-shirts the “most moral Army in the World” had made for itself) as well as the overt act of piracy and murder in international waters know as the “Freedom Flotilla Massacre.”
Once again, willful ignorance rules the day, orwellian newspeak rules supreme, all made possible by the deliberate dumbing down of americans, their intellectual capacities reduced to this week’s episode of “Dancing with the Stars” and the wholesale acceptance of lies and propaganda fed them by a corrupt and compromised MSM.
If you ever wondered why the people of other countries call us “The stupid Americans”, here’s one example among many for you to hang your proud Murrikan hat on.
hogdick says
I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOOD IS GETTING 75 VIRGINS IF YOU GOT TO BLOW YOUR SELF UP TO GET THEM ? I THINK ALLAH IS OUT OF HIS MIND AND ANYONE THAT BELIEVES THAT CRAP YOU ARE ALL NUTS–CRAZY—SICK IN TH HEAD !!! SHOW ME IN THE BIBLE WHERE GOD WILL REWARD YOU WITH VIRGINS IF YOU GO AND BLOW YOUR SELF UP AND KILL A BUNCH OF OTHER PEOPLE !! IT SAYS THOU SHALL NOT KILL AND I THINK GOD WOUILD ALSO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE 75 VIRGINS .THE Islamic holy book READS IN A CLOUD OF CONFUSION AND IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT ISLAMIC MIND SET YOU HAVE WHEN YOU READ IT!! BULL SHIZ IT IS A BACK WOOD TEACHING AT ITS FINEST .THEY ARE STILL IN THE STONE AGE . PRAISE GOD AND PASS OUT THE AMMO!!
William says
See “Stupid American” reference above.
Please don’t reproduce.
Kevin says
WIlliam,
Since we had six years of fiscal irresponsibility we shoud ignore the fact that in two years we have tripled that magnitude of irresponsibility? Is it your thoughts those six years are the cause of all the problems we face today, especially those on a fiscal level? If so that may as well serve as another example of “stupid Americans.”
Its sad and frustrating to see folks like yourself eager to refer to Americans negatively, defined by hyperbole from those abroad, especially in light of of the many creations that have been born due to the inginuity of the American mind. Boo on you WIlliam.
William says
Tripled the magnitude of irresponsibility? Show me the facts Kevin.
Kevin says
The Israelis set up a blockade to prevent the flow of weapons, notably rockets, from entering and being used against them. Then they give every opportunity to the flotilla to stop for inspection and to be given safe passage into harbor. The floatilla guerillas purposefully refuse so to ignite a clash and an international event which evokes condemnation anti-semite leaders around the global and their armies of Jew-hating leftists. They Israeli forces board them ship and get attacked, an in the course of fighting for their lives, they use deadly force in return. You call this piracy? I called it a sick example of seemingly good men allowing evil to spawn and bad men to thrive and flourish, by giving them safe harbor.
I see that whenever Israel defends itself after many times first of acquiescing to the Palestinian terrorists as well as other terrorists, they are condemned as monster and themselves the terrorists. From what I have read on both sides of the issue, the Jewish people have been in the right. It’s not to say they have been flawless in their execution of defending themselves. Apparently mistakes have been made but overall I am seeing them having just cause, no matter how you try to define them as being the bad guys in the conflicts.
Kevin says
Try looking at the deficit as well as the loss of jobs and trillions in the markets because of failed policies that had no hope in working from the onset, except as pay back to his constituents that got Barrack into office.
[email protected] says
i am already collecting stones in my backyard just in case i found out if my wife is cheating on me
[email protected] says
well stated,
hogdick says
THE BEST T-SHIRT OF THEM ALL — KILL THEM ALL AND LET GOD SORT THEM OUT!!!!! HEY WILLIAM IF YOU DO NOT LIKE AMERICA GO BACK TO THE DESERT AND TAKE YOUR FRIENDS WITH YOU .DO NOT GO AWAY MAD JUST GO AWAY SEMPER FI
William says
Kevin,
first of all, it’s been a while. How are things going with your daughter? Got you wrapped around her little finger yet?
Now, to the discussion at hand. The Freedom Flotilla was inspected and its cargo certified in Cyprus, with the manifest being forwarded to Israeli authorities. It was further certified to be free of weapons and contraband. The orders to dock in the port of Ashdod were refused, because previous shipments were never delivered to Gaza, and to remind a silent international community of the Gazan’s plight, living under collective punishment, a crime against humanity according to international law. Aboard were several journalists, mostly Al-Jazeera, transmitting via satellite feed the early events that occurred during the commando raid. This evidence, shown everywhere except in the US, show the commandos firing as they were rappelling from their helicopter. Video feeds were immediately terminated by the IDF personnel, after which, according to survivors including USMC vet Ken O’Keefe, the commandos found individuals aboard, whose names were on a list carried by some of the commandos, and shot them execution style. This certainly sounds like piracy and murder to me. I could go on and on, but let me recommend some sites you might wish to visit:
Whatreallyhappened.com (should be right up your alley, the webmaster is a conservative republican)
Desertpeace
Uruknet
Mycatbirdseat
Jewish voice for Peace.
Granted, we were not aboard, so we’re not privy to the entirety of events, but I personally haven’t believed a thing Israeli officials told the world since the USS Liberty incident.
As far as the deficit is concerned, yes, it’s an issue, but it’s a long-term issue. People need jobs NOW, and since the private sector isn’t hiring the stimulus was an appropriate piece of Keynesian logic. My complaint about it is that it was too small, a view shared by many leading economists. As recent CBO data shows, the stimulus created or saved 3 million jobs, and kept the unemployment figure from flirting with the 12 – 13% mark. Further, the FY2011 budget is $3.4 trillion, of which $1.3 trillion is deficit, a $300 billion reduction from the FY2010 budget. Expanding the stimulus would accomplish two goals:
1. Provide funding for some much needed infrastructure repair, and
2. Create some positive cash flow for some long-term unemployed and struggling workers and their families.
Agreed, it ain’t perfect, but considering the US economy is 70% consumer driven, putting money into peoples’ hands will increase consumer spending which will increase demand which (hopefully) will create more jobs (hopefully here in the US) in the production sector. The alternative is a further collapse of the economy ushering in the Great Depression II.
Although I’m no great Obama fan, I take issue with republican obstructionism for its own sake, and I sincerely hope the voters will remember whose side they showed themselves to be on. It sure ain’t the middle class, optimistically hoping that such a thing still exists.
I would continue on, but the grand kids have arrived for the night, so I can forget anything resembling peace and quiet. I’ll respond to further comments when I can.
William says
HOGDICK
you’re just way too ignorant to respond to.
Kevin says
William,
It has been but not long enough because I am rounding out school and kick myself for getting tangled up in these information exchanges because of the study time lost. Of course, it addictive and for that I point a finger at the dealer who invokes our comments.
You made me smile because has become exactly as you and others have stated, the center of my wife’s and my universe. She really is a very cute and initelligent child. I read to her when she’ll listen…she preferes my wife’s voice.
Having gotten that out of the way…. blah, blah, blah, raving, yelling, blah. I have a test in the morning but was compelled to check back. I found some issues with your comments, one being the reportings from the CBO which only comments based on the information provided to it by the Speaker of the House department, if I have my facts straight. Those numbers changed many times and none looked good in the end.
I MUST STAY AWAY or my ass WILL get kicked on these tests! Good talking to you.
“What’s that Daddy”~Sophia “Stop saying that for the love of Jesus!” ~Kevin’s thoughts