Sterling Ambivalence

Originally posted on sterlingnorth.vox.com

—

Solemn - Merriam-Webster definition

“I do believe that there are special places on Earth that should have a zone of solemnity around them.”

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) using that word to argue against placing a room of worship somewhat near where a World Trade Center used to stand (but further away than an extant mosque is in relation to the Center).

I wanted to say something for quite some time, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the absurdity. Everybody is giving credence to this parody of an argument that this ground is too sacred to place a house of worship on it. The truth—of course—is that this isn’t the real argument against the community center; it’s the argument that’s acceptable in polite company.

"Are you Muslim?"

Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.
Police say the passenger asked the driver, "Are you Muslim?" When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.

This is the monster that was released thanks to people (particularly Pam Geller and Newsmax, and excused by the likes of Ross Douthat and Jonah Goldberg). This is fun times, fun for tribalists everywhere.

When I wrote this post last month, I really did not imagine that the path this story would take would lead to..... this! Newt Gingrich compares a proposed Muslim Center barely within sight distance of the former WTC complex to Nazis putting a sign by the Holocaust Museum. (How this man retains the honorific as a serious think remains a mystery to me.) People who have previously held the US Constitution as sacred, sacrosanct and divinely inspired as the Ten Commandments and the Holy Bible are now looking for loopholes and exceptions because... That Michael Steele would run to embrace the position of the NewsMax PAC that operate under the chameleon name of The Republican Trust PAC. To the man who has been bitterly cynical, that I have not been pessimistic enough in my expectation is sad. And that this is not the first time I find my pessimism turn out to be too optimistic a prediction is horrifying.

That's the only explanation I have for this. . .The Anti Defamation League coming out against a mosque near Ground Zero because. . .religious bigot have successfully conflated terrorists with the entirety of the population of worshipers of Islam.

Jim Newell of Gawker did the dirty work so I don't have to pollute my blargh and video list with this commercial, but it has to be seen to be believed. The National Republican Trust PAC is not run by the Republican Party, but by NewsMax magazine -- one of the most right-wing commentary sites on the Internet.

No matter.

They are trading under their name, and has been with outrageous ads like this since 2008. The Republican Party needs to come out and condemn this group and demand they stop advertising under that name. Otherwise, I can only assume the Republican Party has no problem with religious bigotry in their name, which makes them accessories to it.

Originally posted on sterlingnorth.vox.com

...and there was secret racist code in the license plate, too. A Sons of Confederate Veterans plate I might add. And of course CV stands for Confederate Veterans in the code. Ah, hell, I may as well decode the whole thing no one clicks on links. . .

14CV88

14 = Fourteen Words which are "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." That is the motto of the late David Lane, imprisoned white supremacist.

CV = Confederate Veteran. This veteran who as Gawker noted, must be 172 years old.

88 = HH = Heil Hitler, though he could just be showing support for Barack Obama. As numerous average concerned citizens have argued, Obama is just like Hitler!

Yeah, he's just celebrating his heritage.

The SPLC thinks these people are dangerous.

Oh, how I wish I could simply say there's just eleven more days of this nonsense and be done with it, but it's never that simple. Several weeks ago, new Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, at the behest of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, issued a proclamation declaring this month Confederate History Month. The original proclamation romanticized the cause of the South by calling the conflict a war for independence and omitting that the root cause was that the South wanted to maintain the institution of slavery. After a public firestorm, during which he made the unfortunate statement that slavery wasn't a significant issue for Virginia (despite it being the reason Virginia itself broke in two during the Civil War), he backed down and added an apology for slavery to the declaration itself.

Really, there's a lot one can say about this, but one understated irony here is how the party of Lincoln and abolition -- a fact which is brought up frequently when the discussion in politics comes to race -- will today honor the people who launched a war against their country, against Lincoln and those abolitionists. Which brings up the irony of the following, spotted by Gawker.



While condemning an entire religious group because a number of its followers executed an attack on America nine years ago, he is celebrating a group who also executed an attack on America one hundred and forty-nine years ago.

Fifteen years ago today, Timothy McVeigh attacked a federal building in Oklahoma City. Many people died. Today, there will be protests more in support of the militias to which McVeigh swore allegiance to, against this nation. Today, many actual members of the government by election pander to the people who see the United States Federal Government as illegitimate. This is playing with matches around a open powder keg.

Happy 1400th post to me.

Because today, a number of conservatives will try to pull a misdirection by claiming that Martin Luther King was a Republican. Look at the issues Martin Luther King advocated for in addition to civil rights, and then try to tell me which Republicans today are advocates for the same issues.

It's a curious historical revisionism that is being played out today by some in the right, with the goal to convince blacks that "the real racists" are those of the Democratic Party. To believe this, you have to ignore all history from 1950 to today where the racist Democrats of the South who voted against civil rights legislation eventually switched parties to become racist Republicans, some by way of the Dixiecrat Party. You have to forget the fight in the 1980s by many of those Republicans to stop the creation of a holiday in his honor.

It would be funny if it wasn't so brazenly shameless and sad.