Peter Beinart continues “his ongoing transformation from TNR Seriousness Guardian into shrill liberal blogger“:
Remember when George W. Bush and his neoconservative allies used to say that the “war on terror” was a struggle on behalf of Muslims, decent folks who wanted nothing more than to live free like you and me? Remember when Karen Hughes paid millions to produce glitzy videos of Muslim Americans testifying about how free they were to practice their religion in the USA? Remember Bush’s second inaugural, when he said “America’s ideal of freedom” is “sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran?”
[….]So please, no more talk about those idealistic neoconservatives who are willing to expend blood and treasure so Afghans and Iraqis can live free. People in Basra and Kandahar had better hope that America’s counterinsurgency warriors create a society in which they can practice their religion free of intimidation and insult. Because it’s now clear they can’t do so on the lower tip of the island of Manhattan.
It’s possible someone linked to this already here, but it is the best piece of writing I’ve seen on this subject.
If Peter Beinart can turn it around like this, there’s hope for everyone.
Apnea
PSHHHHH !!
Greenwald bad! Greenwald bad!!!
mnpundit
I am sure if they whisper “Howard Dean” next to his ear he will snap right out of it.
beltane
There may not be hope for everyone, but we have to hope there is hope for enough of us. This is feeling like a day of judgment for our country and it is interesting to see who are the damned and who are the saved.
Martin
Heh. The Rocket indicted for lying to Congress. Aside from the obvious question of why half the Bush administration and every Wall Street CEO wasn’t also indicted, I have to say that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
FTFY
MikeJ
Since Time ran that cover story about how we have to stay in Afghanistan forever to protect the people who were disfigured while we were there not protecting them, I wonder what their view is on the rights of American Muslims?
DougJ
@mnpundit:
That made me laugh but I don’t quite understand it.
JGabriel
OT, but:
When Eggs Go Galt:
Salmonella: The VD of Galtian Eggdom
.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Your glass is half full, mine is half empty. Cheers!
ETA: repeat after me: I miss the days when W was a voice for sanity on the right, speaking out against religious bigotry of the sort on naked display today – today’s leaders on the right look like moral and intellectual pygmies compared with W. Then let the full meaning of that sink in for a little bit.
GN
I’m not sure that Beinart is quite there yet:
The continuing rehabilitation of the Bush legacy (as well as the incredibly dubious and paternalistic assertion that neocons were all about providing “freedom” to their beloved Muslims) continues.
I appreciate Beinart making note of the contradictions between neoconservative words and posturing during the Bush administration versus the Islamophobia unleashed in light of the cultural center. Yet this contradiction was always there, and support for the Iraq War and other components of Bush’s foreign policy was always based in part on fear and loathing of Muslims.
When he’s ready to tell *that* truth, I for one will be listening gladly, and welcoming what would be a far more difficult, yet more honest, conversation.
That said, I again appreciate Beinart taking a strong stance against the current Islamophobic mob. I just don’t agree with many of his conclusions.
Zifnab
@JGabriel: Get the government out of my FDA! Do we want egg panels deciding whether or not I can have my eggs over easy, and rationing my omelets? Hell no! Who are we to judge those eggs? Let the free market decide!
Maybe Red State can do some sort of “Send a Senator an Egg” protest, to show it’s displeasure with all these burdensome government regulations.
Zifnab
@GN: In the Beinart universe your own choices for religious tolerance are George W Bush and folks to the right of George W Bush. You’ll take your mealy mouthed pandering or you’ll take the sharp end of the flailing, fearmongering racist’s stick. No other options.
Maude
If Bush loved muslims so much, why’d he kill so many of them? Seems to be a chunk missing in the Bush was ever so respectful of other religions theory.
licensed to kill time
__
Yeah, I remember that. I also remember laughing my ass off at the hypocrisy and bald-faced lies. So really, they haven’t changed a bit. It has always been about appearances and false constructions, and on it goes.
trollhattan
Meanwhile, three-thousand miles to the west, another voice of (un)reason is heard from.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/08/lungren-to-pelosi-back-off-on.html
Mind you, Lungren was once our “moderate Republican” attorney general. Looks like another miraculous transformation to tea-worthy status has occurred. Praise be to gawd.
cleek
i’ll give Bush credit for one thing: his “no comment” on the Burlington Coat National Monument was exactly the right comment to make. it’s the comment every pundit and public figure who doesn’t live in lower Manhattan should have made.
i would also accept “it’s a local issue”.
Emerald
Note that a close analogy exists between Islam and Christianity in terrorist organizations.
Islam has Al Qaida, which claims to act on behalf of Islam.
Christianity has the Ku Klux Klan, which claims to act on behalf of Christianity.
Have we ever seen anyone decry building Christian churches in the American South? After all, that Christian terrorist organization has murdered at least as many innocent people in the South as did Al Qaida in lower Manhattan. How dare Christians continue to build churches there?
Where is the outcry? Where is the shame?
Bulworth
His latest book, The Icarus Syndrome, is quite good.
malraux
Shockingly, W is still alive and able to speak. If he wanted to express an opinion on the not at Ground Zero not a mosque*, I’m sure he could. As he hasn’t, I have to assume its not all that important to him.
*: am I the only one who has flashbacks to not Joe not the Plumber every time I hear about the mosque?
Mark S.
I hope Abe Foxman reads that.
JGabriel
Zifnab:
1. Eggxactly! When the people who eat Galt eggs have all died off, the only people left will be those with an aversion to Galt eggs. This is how evolution occurs, and without a massive die-off we will never learn to let the Eggs of Galt come to fruition as individualistic Hens and Roosters of Galt.
2. And when we have evolved into the New Man, Homo NonGaltEggDigesting, then …
3. ?
4. Profit!
.
Culture of Truth
I still don’t like the guy.
Gina
I’m bummed that Sam Harris is all hepped up into an anti-Park51 froth. I expected better of him, but he’s digging in.
Meanwhile on Facebook, I’ve had to put a special “wingnut” group together so that I can segregate the frothing loonies to which I’m related from seeing most of my posts about political issues. My dad is the worst, his comments look like something that DougJ would have written for teh lulz (after a few hits of acid and a Glenn Beck marathon), only Dad’s dead serious.
With the groups feature, you can customize your post settings to automatically exclude whatever ones you want as a default, and opt them in as needed. Also good for less loaded issues, like friends vs. business contacts, etc.
Guster
“Heaven is open only to those who accept Jesus Christ.” – GWB.
That never bothered me personally, as I’m less interested in heaven than in the Applebee’s salad bar, but still. It doesn’t exactly reek of respect.
Culture of Truth
It’s like Petey just figured out Karen Hughes was full of shit.
DougJ
@Gina:
I’m not so surprised. I find the militant atheists — at least him, Dawkins, Hitchens — to be intolerant in the same way religious extremists are. I don’t like their tone or their arguments at all, in general.
GN
@Zifnab: LMAO!
Hey, I’m glad that the man is starting to see reason, but don’t drag that neocon mess back out in the process of doing so.
Linda Featheringill
It is a nice essay. Well written.
I would even praise George Bush if it would make people use some sense about this issue.
From a constitutional point of view, they have the right to build and use the structure in any lawful manner. From a political point of view, I don’t live in NYC and therefore it is none of my business. That statement probably applies to a lot of other folks, as well.
This is an opportunity to help integrate peaceful Muslims into the greater US society. Why would we allow this moment to slip away from us because we are busy playing a game of dumb-and-dumber?
Culture of Truth
Here’s another fine piece of writing:
Guster
@DougJ: Their tone, DougJ?
A pox on both houses!
Triassic Sands
No, actually there isn’t.
Beinart has been very wrong about some things in the past, but he was never Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, or for that matter Harry Reid.
GregB
Breaking News:
Rudy Giuliani declares war on David Bowie’s wife.
Guster
@Linda Featheringill: Would it be your business if you lived in NYC?
mnpundit
@DougJ: When you explain something that is funny it ceases to be funny. But here goes.
It’s no secret that I hold Dean to be the Liberal Messiah and yesterday was the first time I thought he’d ever taken a wrong political stance.
TNR however, feels otherwise and in fact created an anti-Dean blog specifically to smear him every single day until he was defeated in the 2004 primary. I can’t remember who ran that blog. It might have been Beinart (I want to say it was Ackerman) but the thing is, if you were a part of TNR you have been genetically altered to hate Dean as hard as talking about bombing Iran makes Charles Krauthammer.
Mention his name and any semblance of reasonable thinking will go out the window.
ED: I might have accidentally requested a deletion of this post, if so, ignore it.
NonyNony
@Gina:
Ooh – I use the old version of that feature. It’s called “de-friend”. I notified my family members that if they bombard me with wingnut political talking points I will de-friend them – I don’t care if they’re my brother, my uncle, my dad or my mother.
Fortunately I have solidarity in this from my mother, though she made her “politics equals de-friending” rule because she was tired of hearing anti-Palin stuff during the election. Still it’s a good rule for me – if Facebook becomes the Thanksgiving dinner table I don’t need to use it (and mom doesn’t get nearly the same quantity of grandkid pictures that she’s now used to getting, so she has a strong incentive to keep dad in line…)
JGabriel
malraux:
The Not Mosque at Not Ground Zero flows a little better. Just for future reference.
I also like, for accuracy’s sake, The Community Center w/ Prayer Chapel Several Blocks Away From Ground Zero, but, admittedly, it doesn’t flow very well either.
.
Davis X. Machina
@Guster:
Now that Steve Jobs has gotten dragged into it, I see no good coming from this development.
Gina
@DougJ: Yeah, I’m definitely more of a Friendly Neighborhood Atheist myself. I get that Harris is friends with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and I agree that “tolerance” can go too far in letting extremists get their way – but how myopic of him to get all batshit over this Sufi guy. And to be buying into all the “hallowed ground” BS on top of it? Cripes, what a comedown.
On a more positive note, I’ll pass along Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait, lecturing at The Amazing Meeting. Topic: Don’t Be a Dick.
Kryptik
@licensed to kill time:
Oh, they’ve changed alright. They found that they’re accepted enough that they don’t need to hide behind couched language. They can throw out their bigotry nakedly, and all they have to do is add some lipservice to ‘sensitivity to the victims’ and they can hate some damn brown folks all they want.
NonyNony
@JGabriel: I prefer “the Muslim YMCA” myself, because it kind of distills just how stupid this whole thing is.
Kryptik
I’m actually going to run around the site today and perhaps tomorrow. Today to scout (on the way to the Checkers on Chambers st.), and tomorrow with a full on sign (as well as a stop off to…*cough* Chinatown Fair. Yes, I’m a game geek, sue me).
Suggestions on what to put on the sign, guys? Serious answers here, and something that’ll fit on a common piece of poster board while still being readable at distance.
Suffern ACE
@GregB: God, he is a a petty, shameless human being.
MattR
@NonyNony:
Shouldn’t that be “the YMMA”? Or is the idea of a Young Men’s Muslim Association the wrong one to be propogating? ;)
licensed to kill time
@Kryptik:
I guess I should amend that to they haven’t changed for me because I always saw through all that bullshit. You are right, they have shed the thin skin of reasonable appearance and are now just laying it all out there in all its ugly glory. They may find riding that tiger more difficult than it seems. I just wish the rest of us didn’t have to go along for the ride.
merrinc
@DougJ:
I’m inclined to believe that atheists and evangelicals are just different sides of the same coin – both want to shove their beliefs (or lack thereof) down everyone’s throat. Is there really any difference between bitching about a nativity on the public square and bitching about someone saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? I lean towards agnosticism mainly because both sides make me crazy. And I really want everyone to just lighten the fuck up.
Suffern ACE
@MattR: Maybe the Muslim Girls and Boys Club would be safer.
Flugelhorn
Another horseshit article. Democrats don’t want it at that location either.
MattR
Maybe it is because I saw him at the 92nd St Y, but I would love to hear Bill Maher commit to perform at the Cordoba House once it is open. And not to put him on the spot, but it would be great to see other entertainers/public personas show their support the same way.
JGabriel
@MattR:
Very likely.
Anyway, if there’s any truth to this Politico article (h/t Digby) on the funding and general ad hoc nature of development so far, then, probably, it will never be built. If the project doesn’t already have full funding, it’s never gonna get it after this firestorm.
Not domestic funding, anyway. I guess we can’t entirely rule out foreign backing, though that looks unlikely too.
.
themann1086
@DougJ: Hey, don’t lump Dawkins in with Harris and Hitchens. He’s shrill in his writing, sure, but he actually supports liberal democratic values, something I find lacking in Hitchens especially…
ETA: And seriously, whining about tone? On this blog?
morzer
@Davis X. Machina:
Well, his mother is really to blame. The original imam, you know.
DougJ
@Guster:
I speak as someone who loves Matt Taibbi — Hitchens is really over the top. “Tone” is probably the wrong word, though, maybe it’s the fact that he sounds exactly the same telling a fundie to stick it as he does when he recommends bombing Iran.
morzer
@Flugelhorn:
*yawn* Let me guess, 3000 miles from Manhattan, and your real name starts with Sarah and ends with asshat.
DougJ
@themann1086:
Sorry about that — I’m actually not so familiar with Dawkins and shouldn’t have lumped him in.
And as for “tone”, there’s such a thing as being too much of an asshole in an argument, and Hitchens does it. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible had I not seen him do it.
Hugin & Munin
DougJ: Is it really too difficult for you to separate “Chris” Hitchens from the rest of the Atheists? Couldn’t you just call him an asshole and be done with it?
Svensker
@Maude:
I agree with Beinart on this one. Bush was in no way a bigot — he did not in any way hate Muslims. He was just insane. It was only coincidence — to him — that the people he was killing were Muslims. Other people in his administration, not so much, the killing of Muslims for them was a feature not a bug.
.
Oh, screw Beinart all the same.
Hugin & Munin
And, furthermore can you describe to me the salient chracteristics of your tribe so that I can be sure to find myself outside it.
DougJ
@Hugin & Munin:
I read Harris’s book and I found it quite similar. I use Hitchens to illustrate because I think people are more familiar with him.
DougJ
@Hugin & Munin:
Human beings?
srv
You know, I think if Bush was asked to come out on this topic, he just might, and he’d be on the right side. For all his innate myopia about his own actions, I just don’t see him sitting at home and chuckling over the party skull-fucking itself with another minority.
Hugin & Munin
that is, to never find myself outside it.
Grumble, grumble backdoor work-slacking methodology.
MattR
@srv: TPM did journalism
DougJ
@Hugin & Munin:
Ha!
Hugin & Munin
No, when it comes to tribalism, I think your world is smaller than that.
Hugin & Munin
Hey, just lay off the atheists who don’t deserve it, read some Dawkins, and we’ll be copacetic.
DougJ
@Hugin & Munin:
I apologize for lumping him in, that was lazy of me. I have read Harris, though, I’m not just talking about Hitch.
The Other Chuck
@merrinc:
Atheists don’t murder doctors.
Hugin & Munin
I don’t know about Harris, but I am betting that one can create a special class of two and call them both assholes!
I appreciate your dehurtful retraction on Dawkins. I don’t agree with everything he says, but on the whole he seems to be a decent chap.
Bill Murray
@DougJ: ah the love cry of the sensible liberal. Love me … but not too loudly, somebody might think you care
mcmillan
@DougJ:
At least in this situation looks like Hitchens is saying some sensible things, starting with:
DougJ
@mcmillan:
He’s not always wrong.
But he sounds exactly like a Crusader when he talks about invading countries in the middle east. His brand of atheism sounds too much like fundamentalism religion for me.
Hugin & Munin
Besides, what do Christians have to worry about? Itch will be in ‘ell soon, right?
Although, YOYO with Harris.
DougJ
@Bill Murray:
Sam Harris on liberalism:
Mnemosyne
I don’t trust anyone who tries to sell me on the One True Faith, even when that One True Faith is atheism.
themann1086
@DougJ: We are in agreement there. I really can’t stand Hitchens at all, though he does sometimes have a decent thought.
More @DougJ: Yup, which is why I didn’t stick up for Harris either. He tends to say decent things more frequently than Hitchens, but anyone willing to trash liberalism (as opposed to sloppy pomo “multiculturalism”*) in order to beat back the Muslim hordes [/snark] is suspect at best.
*Just to clarify cause I know it’s a little unclear, but I do identify as a multiculturalist; I just hate the one strain of thought that thinks we can let sub-cultures enforce their rules within their communities, regardless of the laws of the nation as a whole. It’s a perversion of liberal thought and it drives me up a wall [/rant]
DougJ
@Mnemosyne:
@themann1086:
I can even tolerate the One True Faith stuff when we don’t have to fight wars on its behalf. Harris and Hitchens seems to argue that we need to fight wars in the Middle East because Islam sucks. I just can’t see how that’s different than fighting wars to prove that Christianity is awesome.
I can tolerate the lecturing from Harris and Hitch the same as I can tolerate it form evangelicals (maybe better because I agree with Harris and Hitch that there is no logical basis for most religion), but I can’t tolerate fighting wars over it.
Mark
@merrinc – WTF are you talking about? What atheist is shoving anything down your throat, unless you’re currently blowing one?
Seriously, who are my atheist elected representatives? What’s the atheist agenda? Which atheist organizations have bought off a senator?
themann1086
@DougJ: Good point. I don’t even mind evangelicals (too) much; they’re trying to convince people of what they think is right. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that; hell, I think it’s “good” for that kind of dialogue to happen in democracies. The “i can haz ded arabz nao plz” is what’s really offensive, not the insults to dogma.
Hugin & Munin
Does anyone want to mention the three key points of faith to being an evangelical? Then explain the parallels in atheism? Cause otherwise you are just being an asshole and you can join Hitch and Harris.
DougJ
@Hugin & Munin:
To be clear, I don’t think there are parallels and I’m not even sure it’s right to call Harris and Hitchens atheists, at least not in the sense that I am an atheist. Neoconservatism seems an awful lot like a religion to me (and no matter what those two say, their take on the Middle East is identical to that of neoconservatives).
I think I (and a lot of us non-believers) are peeved that two of the people who are held up as great examples of non-believers are right-wing asshats when it comes to American foreign policy.
Alwhite
slightly OT but this is a real pet peeve of mine forgive my whining.
“There are no second acts in America” is a badly misused quote. In theater the second act is not an encore it is the exposition, the development of the story, the explanation of how the first act (introduction) leads to the 3rd act (the finale).
In America there is a shit ton of encores – dumbasses get multiple chances to come back on stage and fuck up allover again. What we don’t have is the thoughtful, more difficult job of exploring root cause & motivation.
Again sorry for the whine but this gets under my skin
maus
@Flugelhorn:
holyshitsomedemocratsareassholesstopthepresses
Anyone who thinks “Democrats” are a monoculture is a manchild idiot Republican looking to sell a narrative.
mcmillan
@DougJ: I probably left out some of the context of my thinking (don’t you know you’re supposed to read my mind over the internet) :) Mostly I was just amused with the comparison to between Harris and Hitchens, since I just found out that in this situation at least they seem to disagree.
I’m mostly in agreement about Hitchens, though I’ll admit I’ve not really bothered reading much of his stuff. On the more general atheism issues with atheism, I’m bothered by a lot of false “atheists are just like religious evangelicals” comparison, but in some cases it’s justified.
Mike P
I credit Peter’s going into the academy (he was a prof of mine at the CUNY J-School) and the fact that he’s no longer in the cocoon at TNR have probably liberated him a bit.
Hugin & Munin
@DougJ: I can see that. I think I only objected to the conflation of Dawkins with the other two, then it kind of slipped into a general discussion of atheism vs. evangelism, which was not your intent.
The only point to my requesting of parallels is that it as intrinsic theological belief for Evangelicals that they spread the good news. I know of no such obligation (or haven’t been told yet?!) for atheists.
DougJ
@Alwhite:
Thanks. That is really interesting.
merrinc
@The Other Chuck:
Neither do all evangelicals. Duh.
matoko_chan
@DougJ: Dawkins, Hitch and Harris are evangelical atheists. the literal definition of evangelizing is preaching. the New Atheists preach atheism as the superior belief system.
The thing most of my conservative relatives seem to resent is that while muslims can build mosques here they can’t build churches in Mecca….that is muslims can proselytize in America, while christians cannot proselytize in MENA. Actually we have attempted proselytizing judeoxian democracy in Iraq and afghanistan for nearly a decade with zero success.
the reason for this is that when christianity evolved as a CSS, it evolved proselytization and preaching as a strategy to increase reps. Islam, evolving from both christianity and judaism, evolved anti-proselytization strats. Apostacy punishment, outlawing intermarriage, coopting the sacred texts and congregants of the other two abrahamic religions, and outlawing the act of proselytizing.
The Caliphate had freedom of religion….jews and christians, the people of the book, were citizens. But proselytization by christians was forbidden.
So christians are wired to proselytize ……and muslims are wired to be resistant to proselytization.
That is why we are so unsuccessful at “implanting/proselytizing western style democracy” in MENA. And besides, when we do create representative gov’t there, muslims will vote for shariah when they are empowered to vote.
its really painful to see Goldberg and the Sully Borg try to discuss Islam cogently.
Bin Laden doesn’t think Rauf is an apostate…….he thinks Rauf is a maftoon.
that means a muslim that been pithed by western culture chauvinism, like an uncle tom to blacks or a gunga to browns.
maftoon means charmed in arabic. a maftoon is literally a muslim seduced by judeoxian culture.
apostate means a traitor to his religion….an apostate has abandoned his religion….a maftoon wants to reform his religion to make it into a clone of western xianity.
a subtle but powerful distinction.
uncle toms were seduced by southern slave culture…they loved being slaves
Dead or alive, Bin Laden has just been handed a great victory by the American Right.
He always insisted the GWoT was really a war on al-Islam……its pretty obvious that Americans think the same thing.
matoko_chan
@Hugin & Munin: evangelism just means preaching.
the single thing i wish i could communicate about al-Islam….is that the great majority of muslims don’t give a shit if christians want to believe in the jesus godhead.
but we care vehemently that christians want to make us believe it too.
they seem to feel it is somehow their right to proselytize.
this is not a freedom of religion issue….it is a freedom of speech issue.
and it is not their right in MENA.
it is against the law.
besides, its just rude. ;)
Mnemosyne
@Hugin & Munin:
Uh, why am I supposed to care what the “three key points of faith to being an evangelical” are if I’m not an evangelical?
Preaching is preaching, whether you’re telling me I’ll go to hell for not accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior or telling me that anyone who doesn’t accept that there is no God is a delusional idiot. I don’t give a shit about either message, and I really wish both of you would STFU and let me read my Wodehouse book.
matoko_chan
@Mnemosyne: exactly right.
preaching is evangelism whether one preaches xianity, western culture, or atheism.
Preaching arose as an EGT xian strat to increase reps.
Jews had to be born jews to get membership……but anyone could hear the good news and become a christian.
until al-Islam came along.
:)
Joey Maloney
@Kryptik: Are you going to be standing amongst the protestors? If so, I’d go with this classic from the Schiavo days.
Kryptik
@Joey Maloney:
Nah, I’m not going to attempt to be that kind of subversive. I’ll be on the counterprotesters’ side of things.
Triassic Sands
@themann1086:
I understand what you’re saying and agree — up to a point.
The problem with evangelical Christians is not that they are doing what their religion tells them to do, it’s the quality of the product they’re selling.
I’ve never been able to understand how anyone who does even the slightest amount of research into the history of Christianity can come away believing there is anything of substance there.
I think Christianity (the religion, which is not the same as the messages) is bunk. Likewise, Islam is bunk. I’ve read both the Bible and Koran and I simply can’t understand how any thoughtful person can take either one seriously.
Unfortunately, the kinder, gentler teachings of both Christianity and Islam are bundled up with some pretty vile stuff. Both religions expect adherents to accept the religion’s teachings in toto, although most people I know who profess a particular religion conveniently ignore everything that isn’t convenient or comfortable.
Of course, with Christianity we have the added problem of biblical literalists. That brand of Christianity is the perfect training ground for Wingnuts — since both have to believe things that are demonstrably untrue and develop the ability to filter out anything that conflicts with what they need to believe. They don’t adopt beliefs based on evidence, they accept evidence based on its conformity to their beliefs.