Friday, August 27, 2010

The Collapsing Cordoba House of Cards

Christine Brim’s articulate and meticulously sourced post at Big Peace rounds up all the Ground Zero news.

Below is her summary of the poll numbers on public opinion about The Cordoba Mosque, umm…make that the Cordoba Initiative…uh, no…call it “Park51”; yeah, that’s it, name it after the address of the place; nice and neutral, eh what?

Hmmm…in reality is it Park51 or another version of 52 Pick Up? They’re both mean games, and both require uninformed suckers to make their ploy work.

Ms. Brim says:

On July 22, Rasmussen Reports, the highly predictive polling firm, had reported that 54% of the American public opposed the mosque. At that time, Rasmussen reported that 22% of the American public were following the story closely.

One month later, on August 23, Rasmussen reported that 62% of the American public oppose the mosque, and 77% of mainstream voters oppose it. They reported that 58% are following it closely (up from 22% a month before), and 85% of Americans were following news stories on the mosque.

Of the total American population, 72.4% of the population is defined as adult — over 20 years of age according to 2007 statistics. If 62% of those adults oppose the Ground Zero Mosque, that’s approximately 140 million American adults in opposition.

As to registered voters, another important group: CNN found that 68% of registered voters opposed the Ground Zero Mosque.

UPDATE AS THIS GOES TO PRESS: An August 25 poll from CBS News finds 71% of all Americans now oppose the Ground Zero Mosque.

She has some impressive numbers there. But when did the opinion of the electorate have any sway with the Political Class? The only way we have of “impressing” them is to make them run scared. 71% is a majority of folks, but the public famously has a short attention span. If Imam Rauf can manage to stay on his tax-payer funded tour of the Middle East, raising money for this massively duplicitous undertaking, and Obama can stay hunkered down on the golf course…well, maybe some scandal will come along to distract everyone?

Back to the summary:
- - - - - - - - -
LET’S REVIEW:

  • The money trail is leading inexorably to extremist Islamic states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even Iran;
  • An extraordinary tipping point has happened, a kind of “wisdom of crowds” from ordinary American citizens across the country, bringing together groups and individuals who have never worked together before but who now are allies in opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque, and to the Islamic Shariah law that Rauf proposes for America;
  • Public opinion polls are moving against the mosque at lightning speed;
  • Pelosi’s response: investigate the mosque’s opponents.

Pelosi, it seems, cannot imagine an American public — in this case, 140 million Americans — independently making up their minds to oppose the mosque. She imagines instead that there must be funding at the George Soros/Saudi Prince millionaire levels customary for the leftwing fringe. She cannot imagine that the American people could decide on their own to oppose the policies of this administration — or, in the case of the Ground Zero Mosque, the policies of the House of Saud.

Just as Pelosi said that we had to pass the Healthcare Bill to find out what’s in it, she and Bloomberg have taken the position that we have to allow the mosque to be built to find out Rauf’s plans for Shariah in America. If Americans disagree, they must be investigated.

Poor Pelosi. She can threaten to investigate the “funding sources” for the opposition to this insult at Ground Zero, but only San Francisco cares about Pelosi; the rest of the country laughs. Even the Democrats running for office are doing so from a desperate platform of “NANCY WHO??”. Someone ought to buy them all T-shirts stamped: “I’m not with HER -->”…

Ms. Brim points out that “the dwindling mainstream media” is as clueless as Pelosi. As an example, she points to TIME Magazine’s plaintive headline: “Is America Islamophobic?” [By the way, Phyllis Chesler turned the tables and asked: “Is Time a Muslim Magazine?”. As she said, I did not think that the pro-Muslim/pro-Islamist and anti-Western propaganda could get any worse-and yet it just has…]

Ms. Brim believes that we’re developing something she calls “SIRJ Syndrome”: Shariah-Immune and Resistant to Jihad. And like the executive she is, she hands us some marching orders, some achievable goals:

ACTION ITEMS:

  • On or before September 11, 2010, please consider helping to fund the groups opposing the Ground Zero Mosque, whether they’re in your local community or in New York City or elsewhere.
  • The Coalition to Honor Ground Zero lists a number of groups; it’s a great start, and many other groups are also active in the rapidly growing movement to oppose Shariah law being imposed on America.
  • Other options: donate to your local firefighters or police associations,
  • Or to a 9-11 family group in your hometown (families of 9-11 victims live across America).
  • Or give to your local veterans organization or wounded warriors support group.
  • Find something to fund that matters to you, and to America; do it in the name of the firefighters and police, the many families left behind, the people who died that day.
  • Don’t “get over it.” Instead, keep at it.
  • And then help Mrs. Pelosi in her investigation of Ground Zero Mosque opponents. Tell her to investigate America. She has a lot to learn from 140 million of her fellow citizens.

Pelosi’s input button got lost in the laundry years ago. She hasn’t heard anything new since 1999. But if you shout loud enough in her good ear, a dim awareness of others may blink on briefly. Her poor hearing is no doubt due in part to quaffing those taxpayer-funded bottles o’ bubbly she has ordered for her taxpayer-funded private plane.

The Dems are so skilled at dreaming up new perks. A private plane for the Speaker of the House? Of course! We’ll beat this Depression mild downturn the tried-and-true Democrat Keynesian way: they spend our way to the poor house.

Read all of her essay here. I like the way she sets up the opposing groups at the beginning:

Dueling investigations are underway on the Ground Zero Mosque. Mustering on the Offense, in opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque: hundreds of citizen researchers, reporters, lawyers, authors, elected officials, and scholars who are researching Imam Rauf and his Muslim Brotherhood colleagues and their funding. An Army of Davids.

And playing Defense as best they can, supporting the Imam and his rapidly collapsing Cordoba House of Cards: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Daily Kos, Glenn Greenwald at Salon, ThinkProgress, Vet Voice, and now Politico, all “investigating” the groups and individuals who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque.

“…collapsing Cordoba House of Cards”? Anyone for 52 Pick Up, y’all?

29 comments:

whtly said...

The question remains - will the ruling class take note of the public if the public isn't saying what the ruling class wants to hear?

Unknown said...

Witty. I like your 52 card pickup analogy.

As for Ms Brim's recommendation of donating to the groups listed, I don't see that giving money to some of the mentioned groups has any relevance to opposing the mosque. Said groups may use your money to fund a barbecue to which you will not be invited.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Dingo, I too am a bit weary of all the requests for donations that pop up left and right...

Different and equally useful actions are to repost articles to your own blogs or Facebook, link to them in blog comments etc., all stuff that maximizes the impact of this excellent research at zero cost.

Then, the orgs doing this do need money. They are competing with government, doing a much better job at a fraction of the cost - but the government has guaranteed income in the form of taxes, which sortof skews the competition.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Will the ruling class take note of the public?

They'd better elect themselves a new people. We have very similar problems regarding the European Union :(

ChrisLA said...

When a church or a synagogue builds a house of worship, they raise their own funds and they comply with local zoning laws that often restrict size and location of religious buildings. Muslims should do likewise.

The objection to the Ground Zero mosque stems from the facts that the building size is way beyond the needs of the 250 person congregation, the congregation doesn't even own the land let alone have funds for the entire project, foreign funds and foreign influence will ultimately overwhelm whatever benign motives the sponsors may have had, and the location near a successful Islamist terror attack is inappropriate for an Islamic center. Those issues have nothing to do with religious freedom.

Anonymous said...

I put my own thoughts on this here so as not to monopolize your space.

xlbrl said...

30% of the public are permanently lost except as a fifth column. And rising. Not a good number.

Henrik R Clausen said...

The money trail is leading inexorably to extremist Islamic states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even Iran;

Again. Totally irrelevant.


*SIGH*

Do you even know the meaning of the word 'subversion'?

Juniper in the Desert said...

Pelosy? Is that a disease related to leprosy, except where bits of your brain drop off?

Juniper in the Desert said...

@Dingo, that barbecue will probably be your LAST invitation - as the barbecue-ee! Rather like the Inca sacrifices.

Svartwulf said...

Wow 72%, I guess that means opposition is hitting every single religious and racial group here in America. I don't think they can call the opposition racist anymore...

Anonymous said...

Do you even know the meaning of the word 'subversion'?

Of course. When your worst enemy pays money out of his own pocket to benefit you instead of spending that money to harm you, you are winning.

The point of subversion to to undermine your position to his benefit. In this case, there is no rational benefit beyond their symbolic jesture. The real material benefits are going to America.

Real subversion should be based on a defined process that used your resources to achieve your defined goals. This Mosque does nothign to subvert us and its benefit to Islam is only among those who already supported it, without hope of falling away from it.

Net change: win for us.

Anonymous said...

Wow 72%, ... I don't think they can call the opposition racist anymore...

72% still leaves plenty of room for Islamists to be uniformly on the other side. That means you are still a racist. Even though Islam is not a race. But since only brown people practice it, it is racist to oppose it.

But once you get over being called a racist, it loses its power to coerce you into harming yourself.

Van Grungy said...

I have questions that I'm sure can be answered here...

When did the ruling class embrace islam?

How long have the ruling class used islam secretly to justify their evil deeds against their own people?

It looks to me like the ruling class has decided that it's time to islamicize the masses they rule over because too many people are sick of being slaves... The only way to continue forward in a world of free flowing information is to make the people only think in islamic patterns...

Simple observation through history shows how effective the lessons from the quran are in subjugating people. It's not much of a logical 'leap of faith' for me to understand that the ruling class, throughout our history, have used islam against us whenever the need arose ... As long as they believe the quran is from God, the ruling class could excuse any and all evils and pat themselves on the back for doing their god's work...

Play 'what would a muslim do?' with the history of Europe's ruling class... I did that with the Norman invasion of England... Sure seems to fit the islamic model of conquest...
Isn't the destruction of Cathars an islamic jihad style conquest as well?

I'm sure history is replete with ruling class actions that fit the islamic model of action against "unbelief"...
========

If there are already writings that talk about this idea, I'd like to read them... If anyone has thoughts about this I would like to hear them...

thanks..

Henrik R Clausen said...

72% still leaves plenty of room for Islamists to be uniformly on the other side. That means you are still a racist. Even though Islam is not a race. But since only brown people practice it, it is racist to oppose it.

What utter rubbish! Islam is primarily a political ideology, it is also a religion, and in both cases anyone can join and leave as they see fit.

Except that Political Islam explicitly outlaws apostacy, with cardinal punishment. That is a clear violation of the Constitutional right to freedom of worship, and needs to be solidly rejected for the practice of Islam to be permissible.

Henrik R Clausen said...

What I also meant to say is:

Islam is not a race. Deal with it!

On the other hand, in case we do accept the idea of Islam being a 'race', we face a different and significantly worse problem:

Islam is utterly racist towards 'Kafirs'.

Either way, your line of argumentation fails.

Anonymous said...

Either way, your line of argumentation fails.

Seriously? You guys have not heard this line of reasoning before? It is no skin off my back that the reasoning fails since it is not my reasoning but the official position of Race politics as it currently exists in the USA.

It is because of this view, that I am OK being labeled a racist. In the USA, Racist is just another word for "White guy with a job". Any member of a protected minority cannot, by definition, be a racist no matter what they believe or practice.

Blacks and Hispanics have worked for decades to build this house of cards. In recent years, Homosexuals, the elderly and disabled and Islamists have added their own wings to the structure.

A blatantly racist Moslem cannot be racist since his skin is brown (a protected group).

My previous remarks were a parody of this line of thinking, expecting the readers would instantly recognize it.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Thanks, Hale :)

Honestly, I'm not used to people saying the opposite of what they mean. Makes life a trifle complicated...

Anonymous said...

The fault is mine. I often forget tone does not translate well in blog comments. I should know better by now.

Svartwulf said...

Is okay, Hale, sarcasm is a lost art. But I got it when you posted, so no worries here.

I can relate a unique perspective on the whole racist thing, being Asatruar (Norse Pagan/Heathen) which is we are a minority religion, which theoretically be protected, but since we take pride in our European heritage, we constantly get to fight off getting called racists. I've pretty much gotten to the point where I shrug and move on.

Interesting conundrum I've face in the Pagan area on the whole GZM is that how can you stand against a religion that denies all other religions and freedoms, yet still protect other religions right to worship? I can tell you, many in the Pagan community are fearful that we'll be the next ones turned on after Islam (though most don't realize what a threat Islam is to us). Where do we find the solution of fighting Islam, without giving up a sacred right?

Or, on a conspiracy end of things, perhaps that is the goal of the Elite, to either gain control with Islam, or use Islam as a way to ban all religion in the nations said Elite rule. Seeing as the elite are very anti-religion, how likely do you folks think that option is?

Anonymous said...

I don't consider that an option at all. Speaking on behalf of my own religion, we of the Cross are every bit as devoted to our God as the Moslems insist they are. We in fact have a special place in heaven reserved for those who do not deny their faith even under persecution. The Moslems conversely have a special place in heaven for those who die while persecuting others.

The largest religion in the world is Christianity and it is growing. Of course, it is also dying in sme places but that is from neglect, not from persecution. Christianity flourishes in persecution.

I don't know that the elite are universally defending Islam so much as they defend the trand-migration of third world populations into the first world. The educated and wealthy people of White Europe and the English colonies are a threat to the status quo. Third worlder's uniformely accept the yoke of a benevolent dictator since they have no knowledge of Locke, Burke, Adams, or Jefferson, not to mention the thousands of religious scholars from 2000 years of Christian civilization.

Nothing against you pagans, but intellectually, you haven't contributed much since the Romans fell. But your roots and lineage in Europe ensure you have been exposed to those ideas. The third worlders are still struggling with literacy.

Anonymous said...

Clearly the American people and public opinion are not a priority to the Obama Administration... or any Dem government really, but that's old news. As long as the NYC construction workers continue to hold strong in their protest to refuse to build the mosque, we may have a chance at winning this thing... Or at least buy American's crucial time to get control of this situation.

Svartwulf said...

If I may, Hale, Pagan actually contributed long after the Fall of Rome. Much of American and European culture can be traced back to the Germanic, Celtic, and Norse Tribes, especially with the Norse and the Normans infusing their language and culture into England, Normandy, Italy, Sicily, and many other areas. Also, most of the Enlightenment Ideals that gave birth to the American revolution and the advancements in society that followed the Enlightenment, can be traced back to the ancient Pagan philosophers of Rome and Greece. So, please pardon my bit of pride when I say Pagan culture and thought still contribute and have never stopped contributing to Western Civilization.

That, of course, is not dismiss the contributions of the Christians, but merely a request for the recognition of my people and our ways. As you Christians say, give the heathen devils their due.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Nothing against you pagans, but intellectually, you haven't contributed much since the Romans fell.

Ehm, we (that would be my ancestors) were fighting for Free Trade a millenium before the European Union made a mockery of the concept...

THE RON said...

To: Prof. Hale:
"Real subversion should be based on a defined process that used your resources to achieve your defined goals. This Mosque does nothign to subvert us and its benefit to Islam is only among those who already supported it, without hope of falling away from it.

Net change: win for us."

Right. You DON'T know what it means, nor how, to subvert a country or any group, for that matter.

The Subverter has actually won when his enemy believes, erroneously, that he's ahead of the game. Best to keep this fool thinking that for as long as possible...for best results.

THE RON said...

To: Hale...
"My previous remarks were a parody of this line of thinking, expecting the readers would instantly recognize it."

hm.

Maybe you know more about "subverting" than I first thought.

goethechosemercy said...

Christianity does indeed flourish in times of persecution.
In Christianity, God, in one man, saved humanity, and redeemed the sinner.
In Islam, one man, believing that he was God's prophet, condemned humanity and the sinner.
Christianity gives, and Islam takes away.

Anonymous said...

So, please pardon my bit of pride when I say Pagan culture and thought still contribute and have never stopped contributing to Western Civilization.

Right, and the Moslems gave us the astrolabe. What have you done for us lately?

As it is, the Pagan movement is a modern creation, if Wikipedia can be trusted. With no open practitioners from more than 100 years ago, it seems to be nothing but a modern fabrication along ancient lines, trusting in research and wild guesses to fill in for the gaps in philosophy in a tradition that was eradicated 1000 years ago.

I have no animosity to the pagans. As a group (as small as you are) at least you seem willing to let your non-Pagan neighbors live in peace. for that, I would accord you the same courtesy.

Dymphna said...

@ vangrungy:

I have questions that I'm sure can be answered here...

When did the ruling class embrace islam?

How long have the ruling class used islam secretly to justify their evil deeds against their own people?
...

Several people have answered your questions at length. We're reading Andrew McCarthy's explantion at the moment:

The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America

The very top comment in the customer review section, who says t hits it out of the ball park:

As one who was raised in a muslim country in a muslim family and society, I often find books by westerners trying to describe islam through western paradigms to fail to grasp the reality of islam....

...This author rightly presents the reality that many wonderful muslim neighbors do not want sharia law! They are muslim culturally because their parents were muslims, but they want to be able to walk in public with members of opposite sex, play chess, play soccer, have a drink every now & then, have fun and live a happy life. True Islamic sharia law practiced by muslims for centuries requires the mullahs or imams of the nation to tell all muslims what they can and cannot do. If mohammad can take a 6 year old girl as a bride along with his other teenage wives and concubines and slaves, then muslims are taught that it is right for all muslims. If mohammad told us to hate all nonmuslims, including his final words prior to his surprise death, that we are all to hate Christians and Jews and behead all who will not submit to sharia law, then all faithful muslims are supposed to accept mohamamad's words as divine and imitate his lifestyle.

...Shockingly, ACLU & liberal westerners are falling for this argument now more than ever. Under President Bush, even the muslims who succeeded in blowing up the towers on 9/11 were given muslim freedoms to continue to read the quran and live by the islamic sharia law while in prison. Subsequently, when some of the muslims were released from American prisons, they immediately went back to fulfill their Islamic call to destroy all infidels. Sadly, under hussein obama, we have accelerated our downfall as president obama has opened the door for muslim terrorists to believe they now have the strong upper hand and multiple terrorist attacks in America only failed because of The Grace of God. Shockingly hussein obama told the world that America is one of the largest muslim nations in the world and disavowed all Christian connections of the early founders of America...

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