The Nadir of Cowardice

I tried to be quiet about this. I really didn't want to have to write what I am about to write, but I had no choice. The idiocy has gotten too grand, too massive, for me to not speak my peace. And it was this story from AP that pushed me over the edge.

The "story," of course, is the one that ought to be a nonstory, the whipped up "controversy" concerning the building of a "mosque" "at ground zero" in Manhattan. I know that I had to use an inordinate number of quotation marks in that last sentence, but the vast mountains of nonsense and folderol at the heart of this made that unavoidable.

Let's start by talking facts. Fact #1: It is not a mosque, but a community center. Fact #2: It is not "at" or "next to" ground zero. It is two blocks away. How far away would it need to be before it is in good taste to build? Three blocks? Seven? Twelve? Give me a number. Newt, Rush, and all the rest of you lying fuckers, any one of you, give me a fucking number. Fact #3: This is only a controversy because the Republican Party repeatedly uses fear to sell bullshit. And they are doing to again because they have no respect for the People of the United States, and judging from the idiotic response to this sideshow, they may be justified.

Let me give you a quick rule of thumb: Any time someone seeks to make you afraid they are selling you something, and they are selling you something you don't need and wouldn't ordinarily want. Fear is the salesman's weapon of last resort. And the only defense against it is a well-displayed middle finger. When politicians sell you fear, confound them by showing courage. Tell them to fuck off.

And this goes for Newt and Rush and Gov. David Paterson and Sarah Palin and Harry Reid. The Republicans are all opportunists using the wedge of fear in order to grab short term gains. The Democrats are spineless, vile weasels who are cowering in fear rather than being defenders of the truth. Even the President's remark about not commenting on the wisdom of building there was gutless and pitiful.

This whole thing makes me sick. Is this the gorge into which this great nation has been pushed by partisan politics and the vast propaganda machine for idiocy that we call "the media"?

It makes me bottomlessly sad to look at the news and to see how little so many Americans think of America and its possibilities. "We have nothing to sell but fear itself" should be the motto of our political class. What a bunch of craven, worthless toads. Is it possible that the American experiment, at the hands of loud and opportunistic cowards, is dead?

I don't think quite, yet. But the prognosis doesn't look good.

UPDATE: One more thing. As of late, it has become a moron talking point that building the community center two blocks from ground zero is akin to the Japanese building a Shinto shrine next to Pearl Harbor. My response is this: A Shinto shrine--from what I know of Shinto, which is apparently far more than what Rush Limbaugh knows--would be a lovely and healing thing. Please America, please, do not give in to ignorance and hatred and fear. Newt and Rush and all of the blank faces on Fox have really put the "con" into conservatism and have thus perverted a necessary and once vital political force. Just say no. In fact, go that threadbare phrase one better and replace it with this threadbare phrase instead: Tell them to go fuck themselves. That's the only way out and the only way back to the greatness that is the American experiment.