Demagogues in Our Time, Part 2
I am happy to report that Slate.com has also come out with an excellent article on this sordid business, by William Saletan. (This essay is a sequel to my last one, Demagogues in Our Time.) Saletan says (among other things):
“The stated mission of the organization behind the project, the Cordoba Initiative, is to build “interfaith tolerance and respect.”
“The initiative’s chairman, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has denounced church burnings in Muslim countries, rejected Islamic triumphalism over Christians and Jews, and proposed to reclaim Islam from violent radicals such as Osama Bin Laden.”
(More about Rauf: Rick Hertzberg, in The New Yorker, says: “He denounces terrorism in general and the 9/11 attacks in particular, often and at length.” Remember people saying “well, where are these moderate Muslims, anyway?” Here’s one excellent example, a man not afraid to stand up and say what is right.)
A Rasmussen survey released on July 22 asked adults nationwide, “Do you favor or oppose the building of a mosque near the 9/11 Ground Zero site in New York City?” They opposed it, 54 percent to 20 percent. But why was such a misleading question asked? Perhaps because “polling” isn’t just a way to learn what people think, but also to affect what they think. This may have been an intentional Push Poll.
Add to the “Demagouges” column: (Read the Slate article to read their lies. Sorry, but there is no more appropriate word than “lies”.)
- Rep. Peter King, Republican, New York.
- Debra Burlingame, the co-founder of “9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America”
- Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, le
- “Dr. Babu Suseelan”, claiming to be a Hindu leader.
“Babu” is a title of respect, meaning “boss” or “father”; his real name (I think) is Madhavan A Suseelan. (Similarly, you have heard of Mahatma Gandhi, but many people don’t know that “Mahatma” is not a given name; it is a title meaning “Great Soul”. His given name was “Mohandas”.) In his writings, he always refers to himself as “Babu”. Dr. Suseelan is the Director of Addiction Research Institute, Pennsylvania. His essays about Islam are extremely easy to find from a web search. He groups recent Islamic Jihad attacks to “…death and destruction caused by Jihadis in different parts of India[, which] are the continuation of the Islamic brutality stretching back to the time when Mohamed led Muslims in the first Jihad.” He goes on about “Jihadi invaders” to India in the early Eighth Century, and goes on at great length about how Muslims destroyed the great civilization of the Hindus. That does not square with what I have read about the Mughal Empire period, although I am hardly an expert. This man hates Muslims, everywhere and anywhere, and is horrified by them. In another essay, he says ” These Islamic terrorist’s devilish acts of unimaginable hatred are designed to send tremors of alarm, fear and a warning throughout the civilized world.” If there is any evidence that he is a Hindu “leader”, or a representative of any subset of Hindu people at all, I was unable to find it. You can form your own opinion.
Sarah Palin has been saying/tweeting many interesting (read: hilarious) things lately.
Rick Lazio, who is in the earlier list of demagogues, tried to get the Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, to “conduct an investigation into the mosque, which is a legally registered charitable organization.” The AG “dismissed the calls for an investigation, saying he knew of no criminal action by the mosque”, and then gave a short, clear speech defending freedom of religion.
I have no doubt that Lazio knew full well that this is what Cuomo would do. Oh, by the way, it just so happens that they are running against each other for Governor. You don’t think that maybe Lazio’s negatiive political ads will stress Cuomo’s refusing to investigate, do you? If anyone hears about Lazio’s this, I’d like to know.
Abe Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, said: “Their [9/11 families’ anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted.” So, it justifies bigotry. Is that really what the ADL wants to be known for? I have now more than lost respect for the ADL.
In both the New Yorker article and the Slate article, the quotes from Newt Gingrich are generally the most despicable. Take a look, and then see Slate’s analysis and fact-checking, written by Brian Palmer. It ends with “I can’t think of a surer way to lose both our national soul and the struggle against terrorism. Yes, Mr. Gingrich and Ms. Palin, there’s a cultural-political offensive afoot to undermine our civilization. And you’re leading it.”
August 19th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
People like Suseelan are absolutely crazy ! They believe they are doing “good”, but in reality cause a lot more damage than they realize.
Its nice he does most of his preaching out of India. In India, he would either be dead, or have caused many to die.
The world’s moved ahead, and its people like this who keep the hatred alive in people …
Here’s another guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Thackeray... A lot more dangerous …
August 19th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Useful links — thank you for this and the previous article.
(And: sigh.)
August 19th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
The ADL certainly has its problems, and one of them is Foxman. He should go. But that doesn’t mean the whole organization belongs in the trash-heap of history. This article gives, I think, a balanced view of the organization.
August 20th, 2010 at 7:10 am
I’m not American, so sort of looking in from the outside, but it strikes me that every single American who I have the slightest amount of respect for has taken your stance on this issue. It’s odd, really; who _are_ these people who are objecting so strenuously?
August 20th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
I don’t think anyone has suggested the ADL belongs in the trash-heap of history; that seems like a straw man. The ADL has done some very good work in the past. At the same time, we should be realistic about what sort of organization the ADL is at heart: specifically, they seem to share values with conservative Israeli politicians.
Thus, the ADL ignores rights violations of groups that conservative Israeli leaders don’t like. Today, that includes Arabs and Muslims. In the past, it included black South Africans who didn’t like living under the Apartheid regime. The Anti-Defamation League participated in a blatant propaganda campaign against Nelson Mandela and the ANC in the 80s; they described the ANC as “totalitarian, anti-humane, anti-democratic, anti-Israel, and anti-American.” This was very bizarre behavior considering how much the South African Jewish community did to help end Apartheid.
I guess the ADL is like many groups: it fights on behalf of people deprived of their rights. It just defines “people” a bit more selectively than your average dictionary. No Muslim need apply.
August 20th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
By the way, I remain confused at to why anyone would read Saletan. Events have shown that he is either an incredible bigot or a writer so stupid as to make anything he writes untrustworthy. Cosma Shalizi generously opts for option 2 here: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/546.html
August 21st, 2010 at 8:55 am
@Turbulence: You’re right about the ADL. I was too emotional when I wrote this. My earlier blog entry about email, saying that you should never, ever write email when you are angry, applies to blogging too, a lesson I will try to remember. Yes, the ADL has been an extremely valuable group for all of society, and I should not give up on them just because they made one mistake. Or, more accurately, what you say! Thank you for the correction!
I had not known about their propaganda campaign against Nelson Mandela. I agree, in retrospect it seems awful. If I bend over backward to try to put the best face on this action by the ADL, I would say that at the time, it was not entirely clear what Mandela would do if and when he were released. But in reality it was probably motivated by something else, and if they felt he was anti-Israeli, that would probably do the trick.
When people come out “against Israel”, we all have to look carefully, since that phrase can sometimes mean anything from actual anti-Semitism at one end of the spectrum, or, at the other “I am opposed to the Israeli govt’s treatment of Paleststinians”, as are a very significant number of Israelis. I think sometimes when people come out “against Israel”, they haven’t even completely thought through precisely what they mean. I think this kind of thing can possibly shed light on the “bizarre behavior”; the position of South African Jews can be entirely unlike that of the govt of Israel. (Esp. due to the unusual way that the Knesset works, but that’s too long to go into here.)
As for Saletan, I’ve been reading him for a long time and have formed a high opinion of him. I’ll read the article to which you linked when I get a chance, but the idea that Saletan is stupid is pretty hard for me to imagine. I disagree with what you say (re Saletan), but will defend to death your right to say it! Thanks very much for commenting!
August 22nd, 2010 at 2:21 pm
What gets me about this is that the initial motivation for the founding of al Qaeda was the mere presence of infidel Americans on holy Saudi soil. In short, people objecting to this project are thinking in exactly the same way bin Laden thinks!
August 29th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
@Robert: You asked who _are_ these people? They are Republicans. Rick Lazio (Republican, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Lazio)is using this as an issue against Andrew Cuomo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo). They are both running for Governor of New York State. Lazio is taking advantage of the fact that most voters are not paying much attention to this issue. The issue has been dubbed “The Ground Zero Mosque”. The Republicans are great at making these labels, knowing that most voters won’t know much more than the label itself. The label evokes the image of a giant mosque, with minarets and so on, in exactly the position where the World Trade Center towers stood. If American voters took a bit more trouble to understand what was going on, these tactics would never work. It’s very sad that they don’t, and speaks poorly for how the practice of representative government is so far from the theory.
August 29th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Time Magazine has come out the an article entitled “Ground Zero: Exaggerating the Jihadist Threat”. The title of the web page is: “‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Park51 Not a Triumph of Radical Islam – TIME”. The good news is that Time’s article hits the nail right on the head. See
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2011400,00.html.
The bad news is that they are forced to use the Republican’s term, “Ground Zero Mosque”, simply so that their readers will know what they’re talking about. It Time had headlined the story with the more accurate “Park51: Exaggerating the Jihadist Threat”, readers would not know what the article was about (and the story would not have sold as many magazines). There’s no way to retort the Republicans without using their own damning phrase. They tried, at least, by only saying “Ground Zero”. Their heart is entirely in the right place, but their hands are tied.
There’s an old saying “any public relations is good public relations”, meaning that even if a publication says something bad about you, it still helps you, by putting your name in front of the public. In these days when “fame” and “infamy” have changed from opposites to synonyms, the slogan is more true than ever.
September 1st, 2010 at 9:02 am
And, not surprisingly, add Congressman Alan Grayson to the list of good guys. He wants to turn the discussion to the question of why George W. Bush went on vacation for a month after he was told a lot about what Osama bin Laden was up to?
The CIA told him in writing! Every day, the President of the USA is given a top-secret Daily Brief constructed just for him. On August 6, 2001 (about six weeks before the 9/11 attacks), the headline of the Daily Brief was: “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”. It is full of specific facts to back up the analysis.
President Bush made 149 visits to Camp David, spending 487 days there. He also made 77 visits to his ranch for a total of 490 days. In eight years, there are 2920 days, so he spent 33% of his time in these two places, setting a new record by a very wide margin.
This is far more relevant and important than Park51. One of the reasons the Republicans have stirred up so much press about Park51 is not only to win certain elections, but to move the dialog and headlines away from what really matters.
On at least one right-wing blog I saw, it was claimed that Grayson said that Bush on purpose allowed the attacks to happen. Of course, Grayson has never said that Bush wanted the attacks to occur. He said that Bush was negligent, which is quite a different thing. But, why let the facts stand in the way of some good rabble rousing? As Stephen Colbert so famously said (when he was only feet away from President Bush), facts have a liberal bias.