Subject: [big campaign] Huff Post from Creamer-Repub Statements on Mosque Endanger National Security
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:16:04 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Irresponsible Republican Statements on New York Mosque Endanger  American 
Security 

It is obvious to many Americans who believe strongly in our  Constitutional 
values that the Republican attempt to use the “New York Mosque”  as an 
electoral issue is a direct assault on the constitutional protection for  
freedom of religion – one of the most fundamental principles that lie at the  
foundation of our country.  
It is also obvious that this is yet one more in a string of attempts by  
mainstream Republican leaders to win elections by dividing Americans against  
each other.  The attack on Democrats  who support the right of Muslim 
Americans to build a place of worship two blocks  from Ground Zero in New  York 
lies squarely in the tradition of the Republican  “southern strategy” that 
fanned the fires of racial resentment and scapegoated  black “welfare queens.”
  And of  course it’s hot on the heels of Republican attempts to whip up 
fear of gay  Americans and their right to marry,  or depicting Latino 
Americans  as encouraging pregnant Hispanic mothers to sneak across the border in  
order to  “drop anchor babies” to  guarantee American citizenship.  
Present-era Republicans have completely abandoned the principles of  
Abraham Lincoln and the founders of their Party.  They live instead in the shadow 
of Strom  Thurmond and Jim DeMint.  
But what is not so obvious is that every time a Republican “leader”  
attacks the notion that a Muslim Mosque should be built two blocks from ground  
zero, they are endangering Americans’ national security. 
Perhaps they  haven’t noticed that America is still involved – at one  
level or the other – in two ground wars in Muslim countries that General  
Petraeus has correctly defined as battles for the hearts and minds of their  
Muslim citizens. Perhaps they forget the long struggle to prevent young Muslim  
men and women from becoming suicide bombers and fundamentalist extremists 
that  endanger our country.  
Every time one  of them attacks mainstream Islam in the United States by 
saying that it would  defile “sacred ground” for Muslims to build a house of 
worship near Ground Zero,  they legitimate the claims of Osama Bin Laden to 
young impressionable Muslims  across the world.   
What do they think Muslims around the world hear when they say it would  “
defile sacred ground” for them to worship within two blocks of a sacred  
American site? They hear contempt and disrespect.  
Former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich said, “you know, Nazi’s don't have 
 the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.... 
There's no reason for us to  accept a mosque next to the World Trade  
Center." 
One big difference: all Muslims did not attack the United States  that 
September day.  A small group  of radical Muslim terrorists attacked the United  
States.  And they attacked all  Americans – including Muslim Americans – 
many of whom died at Ground Zero.  Chicago’s Irish-American Mayor Daley was  
infuriated when a bunch of young “patriots” marched on a Chicago area 
Mosque after  9-11.  He put it clearly when he  said, does it make everyone who 
is Irish a terrorists because of the IRA?  
It’s Al Qaeda  that wants Muslims around the world to believe that the 
United States is  at war with all of Islam – not just a few radical extremists. 
But when people  like Gingrich say things like he did, Muslims hear just the 
opposite – that  American leaders believe we are at war with all of Islam –
 that Muslims are just  like Nazis.  
These people  might as well sign up to work for the Bin Laden propaganda 
ministry.  Their outrageous pandering to fear does  direct damage to the 
national security of the United  States. 
And it doesn’t  matter that this is a fabricated issue.  There is already a 
Mosque four blocks from Ground Zero.  Does it defile sacred ground more to  
have a new one two blocks from Ground Zero?  How absurd.  
It doesn’t even matter that over the long haul the Republican strategy of  
insulting and writing off an ever-growing list of minorities will eventually 
 consign the Party to electoral irrelevancy. After a while, once you’ve 
written  off enough minorities, you’ve written off the majority.  
The bottom line  is this: the Republicans who want to use this issue – and 
fear of Muslims in  general – in order to get votes are betraying America’s 
 national interest for their personal short-term political gain.  Let me 
put it as delicately as I can:  they are pond scum.  
If there were not already enough reasons for everyone to go vote in  
November, we cannot allow the Republican attempts to sow fear and divide  America 
to be  successful. 

Robert Creamer is a long-time  political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book:  Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can  Win, 
available on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1)

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