It is not your typical cable news fare -- it lasted about 15 minutes, and was a thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion. I found it riveting.
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Saturday, August 21, 2010
Olbermann and Dean
While Jon Stewart has done a marvelous job highlighting the outright hypocrisy and bigotry related to the community center in lower Manhattan, I have not seen a more fascinating discussion than the one between Keith Olbermann and Howard Dean last night. Much to the surprise of many, Dean doesn't support the plan, and Olbermann challenged him.
It is not your typical cable news fare -- it lasted about 15 minutes, and was a thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion. I found it riveting.
It is not your typical cable news fare -- it lasted about 15 minutes, and was a thoughtful, well-reasoned discussion. I found it riveting.
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6 comments:
I love Howard Dean, but he's wrong on this issue. He assumes that the 60+ percent of the people polled who favor moving this "mosque" are not anti-Muslim and are reasonable. That may be true, but they most likely are misinformed, thanks to the right wing noise machine and a lapdog Fourth Estate, about the true nature of the "mosque" (it's a community center) and its real location.
The people of NYC support this Muslim community center and its location, and Mayor Bloomberg, who is Jewish, also supports it.
I cannot figure out what Mr. Dean is advocating. At least I cannot figure out what Mr. Dean is advocating that has not already happened. It's been approved by the appropriate procedures and it's over. Why oh why is Howard Dean, of all people, prolonging and muddying up this debate? Move along people, there's nothing to see here. Come back in a year or three and try the lunch in the culinary school's cafeteria. My guess is that it'll be excellent.
A campaign to educate people about Islam and to leave people who are nutty from the fringe out of the discussion is fine. But it is a separate issue.
Build the thing, and let the loonies (the far right loonies, it appears) suffer a long and lonely case of apoplexy. I wish. Sigh. The loonies are not, alas, lonely.
And that's why I made the connection between the 92nd Street Y and the cultural center being discussed. It's just more hypocrisy from the right wingers who will not accept any criticism of Israeli Jews -- no religious group is always right or always wrong -- and a handful of people do not represent an entire religious culture.
I don't get Howard Dean's argument, either, but it was refreshing to see a discussion that didn't involve screaming and cultural slurs.
Best reading, listening, viewing: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/real-americans-please-stand-up/?ref=opinion
Simple, impassioned and logical.
I think that Howard Dean was assuming that the majority in the poll being discussed were reasonable people, but he should have also assumed that the majority in the poll who opposed the "mosque" could have been grossly misinformed and that the right wing noise machine, which are composed of Faux News and the Right Wing Hate talkers on radio, are acting as our socity's Grima Wormtongues (villain from Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings") and intentionally pumping up fear and hate emotions.
The most basic question here is what does 9/11 have to do with muslims?
1.6 billion people did not attack us on 9/11. It was a mere handful, supported by a few more. You can find just as many christian extremists.
The underlying premise that people are using to say that this building should be moved elsewhere is that muslims are terrorists. If that were true, I'd be right there with them, but it's simply, obviously, not the case, and anyone supporting restrictions on this building needs to be asked if they equate islam with terrorism.
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