The New York Times has a story up about what it calls a Muslim “prayer center” in the World Trade Center. Muslims who worked in the Twin Towers met there for their daily prayers — there was even a wash room nearby set up for the pre-prayer ritual cleansing.
By any measure, the “prayer center” in the trade center is much closer to the definition of a mosque than Park 51, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” — a 12-story non-sectarian community center with a culinary school and sports facilities.
The fact that there was a mosque in the south tower — compounded by the fact that it is as likely as not there were Muslims praying in the mosque on the 17th floor when terrorists jet-bombed the building — should make it harder for Republicans to argue that construction of Park 51 somehow defiles the memory of those who died in the 9/11 attacks.
It should, but it won’t. This controversy is not about Park 51 or even about Ground Zero. It’s about Republican leaders fanning the flames of fear and hatred among their tea bagger base.
[Noticing] some fellow Muslims on the job, Mr. Abdus-Salaam voiced an equally essential question: “So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.
He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.
On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.
Leaping down the stairs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he had been installing ceiling speakers for a reinsurance company on the 49th floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam had a brief, panicked thought. He didn’t see any of the Muslims he recognized from the prayer room. Where were they? Had they managed to evacuate?
He staggered out to the gathering place at Broadway and Vesey. From that corner, he watched the north tower collapse, to be followed soon by the south one. Somewhere in the smoking, burning mountain of rubble lay whatever remained of the prayer room, and also of some of the Muslims who had used it.
Given the vitriolic opposition now to the proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks from ground zero, one might say something else has been destroyed: the realization that Muslim people and the Muslim religion were part of the life of the World Trade Center.
Mr. Ponder,
Would you consider the epithet “tea bagger” a vitriolic slur on a par with ‘raghead’ or ‘camel jockey?’
In your own words, there is opposition “to a proposal,” to a proposal “to build a Mosque.” The opposition is not against a person or a group of people, unlike your opposition to “Republican leaders” and “their tea bagger base.”
Emotions are running high with many; some who are expressing their opposition on site, others on line, on talk radio and cable news channels, or among friends.
No one side has a monopoly on being right, nor of being hateful. Even columnists are capable of “fanning the flames of fear and hatred.”
Ramjet: “Teabagger” was a term developed by Fox News for the Tea Party movement in early 2009, and the Tea Party movement wholeheartedly and proudly embraced the term with countless photos of people having signs like “Teabagging 4 Jesus”…until they found out it mostly known as an oral sex term and then it got awkward.
Ramjet,
I’d like to interject.
Would I consider those on par? No. Simply, no. ‘Teabagger’ is a lashing towards an individual’s political beliefs. These other distasteful names you mentioned discriminate against an entire portion of our planet. Political following change as much as the weather; but culture, race, and spirituality are many-fold more meaningful and potentially offensive.
Opposition against the “mosque” is certainly against a people, and their religion. My opposition, and I think I speak for many when I say OUR opposition, is against the extremely ignorant belief that Islam is to blame for the 9/11 attacks.
Finally, I have to outright disagree that there in fact -is- a monopoly on being right when it means defending religious freedoms, and the defeat of racism and bigotry. We are right. Any who disagrees is wrong. Personally, I will not allow myself to hate the persons who are wrong in this argument, but I will do everything in my power to guide them to the light of love.
Not exactly-one FNC reporter used the t-bagger phrase one time, oblivious to its tawdry meaning. One FNC commentator used the term one time, possibly unaware, though more likely, a slip of the tongue. President Obama has used the term, at least once, knowing full well the meaning and the intended insult.
The tea party movement most certainly has NOT embraced the term, considering it a contemptuous, cheap insult, typically accompanied by a smirk. It is emblematic of the arrogance and sense of superiority prevalent among its peddlers.
It becomes increasingly apparent that the opposition to Park 51 is merely a cheap political tactic to manufacture a energetic wave that is designed to garner votes for the Novemeber election. Park 51 has already been used for a year by this Islamic group, yet only now that they wish to improve the building is it becoming an issue? I think this faux controversy is a greater insult to the memories of the 9/11 victims than Park 51. It is shameful that we are even having this debate in America at all … if our constitution guarantees the freedom of religion, the right to assemble and the right to own private property, why is this even being discussed? Is this how we want we want to be seen in the world? As cowards, afraid of a religion? As bigots, too ignorant to know the difference between muslims and terrorists? As hypocrits, willing to defend our own rights, but summarily revoking the rights of anyone falling foul of public opinion? As an American, I insist that we staunchly uphold our own consitution, for *every* citizen, no matter what the pundits say!
Ramjet, you’re just flat inaccurate. You guys introduced yourselves to the world as “Tea Baggers.” In my area, which is a hotbed of tea party activism, I remember seeing the yard signs littering the road side in early 2009 proclaiming a “Tea Bag Revolt,” for the first rally held. The next rally, a few months later, added actual tea bags affixed to the signs, waving in the breeze. It was your side’s clever little modernization of the Boston Tea Party…until it was pointed out that the term is also used to refer to part of oral sex, and then you guys not only discontinued its use, but now claim you never used it. Stop rewriting history and quit telling me what I saw with my own eyes.
Ramjet – Tea baggers are the biggest name callers around. They toss words like bombs, calling the president of the United States, a “socialist,” “fascist,” “Nazi,” “Muslim” and on and on — none of which is true.
What is true is that for months after the president was inaugurated, protesters showed up at rallies with tea bags stapled to their hats. They put out messages in the media encouraging each other to “tea bag Congress” and “tea bag the White House.”
The grass roots phase of the tea party movement, such as it was, lasted about a month. By June 2009, the astroturfers had moved in. Professional organizers like Dick Armey at FreedomWorks, the racist Mark Williams at Tea Party Express (which is owned by the Republican PR firm Russo, Marsh & Rogers) and other soulless Republicans were paid handsomely (Armey’s salary is $500,000 a year) by the billionaire Koch brothers and others to commandeer the movement and channel the rage into corporate protectionism — toward protecting the profits of giant health-insurance, banking and energy corporations.
As superannuated frat boys, Armey and the other astroturfers must have known, or should have known, that the tea bagger brand had a salacious connotation. If tea baggers have a problem with the branding of their movement, they should take it up with their highly paid leaders, not their critics.
As you might have gathered from the comments here, and as polls show, the country is entering a new phase in its attitude toward the tea party movement — a phase where normal Americans are increasingly impatient with the tea baggers’ self-absorption, selfishness, infantile fits of rage, threats of violence, barely concealed racism and displays of unbelievable ignorance. My prediction is that the backlash against this bogus movement is going to be as hellish as it is richly deserved.
But here’s the bottom line: if tea baggers can’t take name-calling, they should stop dishing it out.
Good morning all,
A special thank you to you, Jon, for putting a smile on my face with your “bottom line.”
As I listen to Michelle Obama at the future site of the Flight 93 National Memorial, I, as I hope all of you will, set aside for a time, those differences we share and pick up those binding principles which are also shared. It is a time for remembrance, honor, and unity.
May God bless us all.
I agree with your comment “My prediction is that the backlash against this bogus movement is going to be as hellish as it is richly deserved.”
Watching the right repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot has been mildly entertaining over the last few weeks, and it will certainly get more interesting as the elections get closer.
Yes there was a mosque already at the Towers.
But we already knew that Muslims were among the victims of 9-11. Just as we already knew that Muslims are among the US troops that got sent into Afghanistan and Iraq.
I know it and yes the people opposing the center know it. But it doesn’t make a bit of difference
Because they are motivated by bigotry. That’s not a slur, it’s an accurate observation. When they lump a religion of over a billion people, as diverse as any major religion, as all being the same as one extremist sect they show their true colors. It’s like saying ALL Christian Churches are like Westboro or support clinic bombings
That Muslims were victims of 9-11 doesn’t matter because for it to matter, the people opposing this would have to consider Muslims human beings the same as themselves.
Recognizing and having empathy for people’s common humanity is not something bigots are known for.
Ponder – what planet are you from? Obama is ‘not’ a socialist. Neither was Karl Marx! “Redistribute the wealth” came from O’s mouth as I recall.
Another interesting byproduct of this situation is once again the disconnect between the “Islam equals peace” rhetoric and the reality people see on a daily basis. If Islam is so peaceful and only a “tiny minority’ of Muslims are “violent extremists”, why do we constantly have to be so damn sensitive to pissing them off?When the whole Piss Christ thing happened Christians were told to suck it up and shut up. I don’t remember anyone worrying about marauding bands of Presbyterians going on a murder spree over it. But when it comes to cartoons or a bunch of loons (a true ‘tiny minority) burning some books, the world has to go on red alert if it involves Islam. Why is that exactly?
Ed – Thanks for wasting bandwidth with your GOP-Fox TV talking points. Meanwhile, in reality, Obama is a regulatory capitalist just like every president since Teddy Roosevelt, at least, including Reagan, who raised taxes 8 times. Under Obama, taxes are the lowest they’ve been since the 1950s.
Besides, who are you to call someone a socialist? It’s more than likely you went to a socialist (not private) school and perhaps even a socialist university and that your home is protected by socialist (not private) police, fire and emergency services, that you drive on socialist (not private) streets and that your parents or grandparents are not eating cat food because they have socialist (not private) pension and medical accounts in Social Security and Medicare.
But here’s the real proof that Obama is not a socialist: If he were, our unemployment rate would 3.2% just like Norway’s, which is up from 2.6% in 2008 because of the Bush-GOP recession.
I think i finally know what this is all about.
This story is actually a deviation of something more important, who brought down the towers and why building 7 went down? This story is trying to silence the truth about what really happened on 9/11.
http://www.911truth.org/
IF it were truly “Republicans” speaking against the Islamic mosque/center etc., BHO would not have won the election, folks, because at least 70% of AMERICANS do NOT want this structure! The facts, not emotions, not opinions,are: Ground Zero is the site of the most lethal attack of the worldwide movement known as RADICAL ISLAM which, altho NOT a majority of Islam, does command allegiance of 80+ million Muslims (7%) AND is a very powerful strain WITHIN ISLAM! This worldwide movement consists ENTIRELY of Muslims. This movement acts IN THE NAME of Islam and is deeply embedded WITHIN THE ISLAMIC world! Radical Islam is the reason the airports in the West are “armed” and that every land is on constant alert!
So, knock it off pulling out the bigotry charge just because the majority of the American people know what is decent and sensitive and you do not! You would do well to read some of Charles Krauthhammer’s articles, especially his from August 31st “Liberals still looking down their noses at most Americans”. Here’s probably just enough to make your squirm and disparage him because he’s describing YOU: “This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with Obama administration’s pretense that we are at war with nothing more than ‘violent extremists’ of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem attack du jour.
The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November: Not just because the economy is ailing………But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.”
Anne – Liberals can tell the difference between right and wrong — an ability that conservatives seem to have lost these days, apparently willfully. One thing that is certain: You can’t rely on polls to determine what is right and wrong. For example, in 1958 a whopping 94 percent of Americans told Gallup that they believed that interracial marriage was taboo. What was behind that embarrassing response? Bigotry.
It is wrong to demonize all people of a particular faith because of the actions of a handful of their co-religionists who happen to be madmen. Otherwise, every Christians in the world would be responsible for the actions of right-wing Christian terrorists like Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh and Scott Roeder, the lunatic who gunned down Dr. George Tiller in his church.
The opposition to Park 51 is based entirely on ignorance and fear, which are the two main components of bigotry. Those of us who support the Constitution and particularly the First Amendment, stand with the peace-seekers behind Park 51.
I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of the comments posted her after Jon Ponder’s original article. Some I agree with, a lot I don’t. However, in reading all the comments in chronological order, you see a pattern of people getting away from the content of the article and starting arguments on a completely different topic. I believe Mr. Ponder’s point is quite clear: The Twin Towers once housed a mosque. Period. Fact. No wiggle room for argument at all.
So, for other than political gain by the Republicans going into the November election, using the Park51 Community Center as a way to proliferate their fear-mongering and take the citizenry’s eyes off their failed policies of the past, what possible argument could there be for preventing Park51 from being build, which is two blocks away from Ground Zero anyway.
Let’s try to stick with facts, as stated in Mr. Ponder’s original article. We’ll all get along a lot better if we leave heated opinion out of it.
I think it is pretty sad to watch you sheep go back and forth blaming Obama, the tea baggers, the GOP, the Democrats and everyone else in between. Don’t you find it a little bit odd these groups blab on and on about something as stupid as the “Ground Zero Mosque”, but NOBODY wants to talk about America’s interventionist foreign policy which is the root cause of our trouble. Obama is perpetuating wars and conflicts that have been passed down from president to president over the last 50 years.
So here is an idea, grow a brain, stop your petty squabbling and start electing governments that represent the people, not themselves.
I find the facts in the article informative and enlightening to give me perspective on a few of the issues at hand. Here is what I found relevant in all of this:
1) The World Trade Center was a hub for a multi-cultural/generational community of relations and affairs of all types. From diplomatic, financial, educational, communications, religious, etc. So many things happened there in daily routines!
2) Yes, there was an eatablished Prayer Center (does it matter what the religious bearings of it’s participants were?) Were there no Chapels or Church, perhaps Non Profift Christian based organizations also calling the towers home?
Many diverse and American iconic centers house a place that is for the Mind, Body and Spirit of All our Peoples, as Americans.
That is why the twin towers were chosen.
3)The World Trade centers were a tragedy, that were targeted and attacked by a select group of people. Not every Muslim, so let’s not persecute that religious group. Our very 1st Founding Fathers struggled to secure a new land and develop a Constitution under which we would be provided for regardless of your predjudices, gentlemen.
4)Your acting immaturely. By the way, The is only one Race truly, it is the Human Race. It is my Ethnicity that gives me color and so long ago, every one of our groups was opressed and came here or struggled. There are “slurs” for all of our backgrounds. Even worse than being tagged a WASP, white is not always right.
Grow up and stop your squabbling.
5)The ParkPlace Mosque proposal isn’t actually on the grounds where any of the towers stood. It has stood there long before and as a building is protected historically. The change to over making into a multi-denominational but, Islam privately funded Community Center and place of worship (Mosque).
YMCA’s are Young Men’s Christian Associans, were started and encouraged by some of our top politicians and have a long standing of of good repute as a place to gather and work-out (gyms), take classes, counseling and worhip (Christian). And in the past, they even served as a hostel. How is this any different? Why should we be alarmed?
Dear Ed Glimpse
Please think about the following points,
POINTS TO PONDER:
1) “Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians — whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord. And there will be no fear for them, nor shall they grieve”
The Holy Koran(2:62, 5:69, and many other verses).
2)”…and nearest among them in love to the believers will you find those who say, ‘We are Christians,’ because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.
-The Holy Koran(5:82)
3) “If you encounter a funeral of a Jew or a Christian in the street, offer your shoulder.”
-Prophet Mohammed.
4) In case a Muslim marries a Christian or Jewish woman, Islam forbids her conversion to Islam against her will, and orders that she should be allowed to practise her faith even after marriage.
5)Islam recognises as prphets of God Jesus, Moses, Abraham and all other Jewish and Christian prophets. No devout Muslim utters their name without following it with the words “Peace be on him.” (Alaihi Salam in Arabic).
6) According to Islam killing of even one innocent person is equivalent to killing the whole humanity. It is expressly forbiden to harm women, children and old men and even wanton destruction of plants during war.
7) Islam clearly says “There is no compulsion in religion.” A verse in Koran says
“….. to you your religion and to me my religion.”
8) Dr. William Draper in ‘History of Intellectual Development of Europe’
“During the period of the Caliphs the learned men of the Christians and the Jews were not only held in great esteem but were appointed to posts of great responsibility, and were promoted to the high ranking job in the government….He (Caliph Haroon Rasheed) never considered to which country a learned person belonged nor his faith and belief, but only his excellence in the field of learning.”
9)A TRIBUTE BY BENJAMIN DISRAELI TO THE THE TOLERANCE OF MUSLIM RULERS OF SPAIN:
“That fair and unrivalled civilisation arose which preserved for Europe
arts and letters when Christendom was plunged in darkness. The children of
Ishmael rewarded the children of Israel with equal rights and privileges
with themselves. During these halcyon centuries, it is difficult to
distinguish the follower of Moses from the votary of Mahomet. Both alike
built palaces, gardens, and fountains; filled equally the highest offices
of the state, competed in an extensive and enlightened commerce, and
rivalled each other in renowned universities.:”
-BENJAMIN DISRAELI
10)In Spain under the Umayyads and in Baghdad under the Abbasid Khalifas, Christians and Jews, equally with Muslims, were admitted to the Schools and universities – not only that, but were boarded and lodged in hostels at the cost of the state.
When the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christian conquerors held a terrific persecution of the Jews. Those who were fortunate enough to escape fled, some of them to Morocco and many hundreds to the Turkish empire, where their descendants still live in separate communities, and still speak among themselves an antiquated form of Spanish. The Muslim empire was a refuge for all those who fled from persecution by the Inquisition.
–Moammed Marmaduke Pikthallear Ed Glimpse,
@Ramjet – sorry, but the first recorded use of “teabagger” was on February 27, 2008. It was on the Free Republic web site, which is one of the most right-wing places on the Internet.
@Anne Carignan – thank you for outing yourself as a hysterical, ill-informed, bigot who opposes everything that America stands for. I would greatly appreciate it if you mentioned your home city so I can avoid running into you.
Thanks.
” …. No one side has a monopoly on being right, nor of being hateful. ….”
This is absolutely wrong. The promoters of this community center are absolutely right under our Constitution. They have met all the legal requirements to own and develop the site and if they wish to establish a prayer room in the building anyone who tries to interfere with them practising their religion is doing the work of the terrorists who do not understand our freedom of, or from, religion. That is anti-American.
Hey Teabagger, spend a little money on me. Back to the original question…I consider to be or become a tea bagger requires the ability to lie, along with the ignorance of an onion. Teabaggers are mean-spitful people who have a Bible on their shoulder to throw at you, and the fire and brimstone of a church full of snake handlers. Go away, you blindly follow the last angry call against government. And you stupidly follow people who would trick you into believing they can handle your social security better than the government. I am getting fighting mad at your screams and the attention you give to crazy preachers and crazier radio and television personalities. You follow a new station, Fox, which is a teller of lies and ommissions. I want my country back from you dumb angry teabaggers and I want you to shut up. You are an embarrassment to any person beyond the first grade intelligence. If you are too dumb to demand the truth from your leaders…you are too dumb to be in a society that was founded on liberty and religious freedom. Leave now. There is a ticket to Mexico for you at the bus station. I am a liberal and I am taking my country back from you tea bagging lunatics who refuse to remember that they invented their name. Bus Station. Now, rimjet!
I love the comment”T-bagging is a form of oral sex” and from this day forward I will visualize all of those so named people licking the grizzled two appendages between the legs of all those “pundits” on Fox.
As for a mosque 2 blocks away from the Towers site I say go for it as the Towers went down so nicely, exactly as planned.
Islam had nothing to do with it. Saying they did is just another “false flag” in hopes of strengthening hate against Muslims.
I’d like to make one comment in regards to the Tea Party movement. I gave up on the democrat party when I was 42 years old after discovering they were nothing but a bunch of socialists or even communist at that time. They were into it to help get rid of the middle class by taxing them out of society. After that I became a republican only to find out they were still for the high ranking individuals of this country and wanted again to take the money out of the middle class hands. I gave up on the republican party three presidential elections ago. Now I support the Tea Party candidates to take back this country from the socialists and dictators that have ruled it for so long. We had the right idea when the original tea party threw English tea into the water to protest taxation without representation. Now I’m protesting for the middle class to take back our country from both democrats and republicans. These socialists/communists that feel the Tea Party of today are republicans are out of their minds. The democrats have failed to govern in this country and are giving it away to the wealthy because the democrat leaders of today are part of he wealthy and part of the problem in this country just as well as the republicans are. Another thing I never want to see in office again is another lawyer.
I don’t understand why the Republicans care. 9-11 was an attack on a bunch of liberal New Yorkers and Washington bureacracy — the kind of things that real right-wing conservatives (like me) don’t like. I do have some sympathy for that farmer’s field in Pennsylvania, though.
Thanks BCLI, and there you have it folks, conservatives hate the military — don’t care that the “bureaucracy” that was attacked by right-wing nutjob Muslims on 9/11 was the Pentagon. (And never mind that the Financial District in New York is the one place you’re likely to find conservatives in the city.)
But seriously, BCLI, Republicans and conservatives care about the attacks because they are bloodthirsty and the attacks gave them a long-sought excuse to kill and wound innocent babies, children, parents, grandmothers and grandfathers as well as, of course, the US service personnel you just admitted you don’t give a shit about.
The attacks also gave them a reason to steal billions of dollars from the US Treasury and hand it over to their buddies who run Halliburton, Blackwater and the rest, who then funnel a percentage back in campaign donations.
And finally, Republicans loved the attacks on 9/11 because it gave them an issue (Osama bin Laden — be afraid!) with which to terrify their poor half-wit base into voting for them.
Jon Ponder, YOU SUX !
You just don’t get it do you and refuse to even mention in your article about the families of the Victims that day and how the feel about this. You are an idiot.
Jon, The south tower collapsed first, and the north tower collapsed second. You had it backwards. Thank you for bringing this story to light.
Susan, Actually, I did mention the victims. I suggested that the fact that Muslim WTC workers were likely killed while they were praying in the mosque on 17th floor of the South Tower when the madmen bombed the buildings would make it more difficult for Republicans to say the building of Park 51 desecrates the memory of the other victims of the attack.
Why do the proponents of the mosque keep saying it is two blocks away? WTC 7 was only a block away. Isn’t building 7 part of Ground Zero too?
No, Tommie T. It isn’t. WTC was a collateral hit, not a target: target = “ground zero.” Get it? Besides, there was a mosque in WTC2 on the 17th floor and Muslim prayer center near the top of WTC1. It’s quite likely that Muslims were praying in the World Trade Center at the moment it became “Ground Zero.”
Yes, both Republicans and Democrats are only out for big business, big money and themselves. The Tea-baggers scare the bejeepers out of me, although the Republicans are running close behind. I do not want to be under the govern of any party whose idea is to govern by fear!