Maybe it’s because I just watched “Mad Men”, but I wonder if Marty Peretz was drunk when he wrote this:
The State of New York has no need for more mosques, since there are plenty of them. Furthermore, Muslims living in New York do not frequent their mosques on a daily basis; usually they go to them either on Saturdays or on Sundays, due to the nature of their work. Therefore, there is no real need for the building of the Cordoba Mosque; especially as the project has already provoked the sentiments of Americans, by reminding them of the attacks on 11 September, 2001, the Islamic conquest of Spain, as well as the tragic consequences of Islamic imperialism in general
The New Republic is not now an awful magazine. I like a lot of what I read there. I do wonder how Jon Chait and Jon Cohn and the rest feel about being this crackpot’s bitch, though. It can’t feel good.
Update. Peretz seems to have excerpted this from elsewhere. I was thrown by the length of the excerpt and the lack of punctuation at the end. And Peretz does describe the source as “phenomenon in Arab-Muslim society in its independence, honesty, unpredictability”.
Update update. Anyway, this is dumber than the excerpt:
In my view, the really modest struggle against the mosque is probably the closest thing we’ve had to a genuinely grass roots effort against the casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalists.
Chad S
Umm…who wrote this again? Peretz is a member of the “only good muslim is a dead muslim” caucus.
Bella Q
Sure, so many Americans are reminded of
by the Cordoba House. Most of those up in arms couldn’t even tell you that there was an Islamic conquest in Spain, much less any kind of accurate history of house of worship in Cordoba. Puhleeeze.
gizmo
Marty seems to be unaware of the tradition of Christian imperialism.
Mark S.
You’ve got to be shitting me! That was 1300 years ago. Who the fuck still cares, if they even know about it? It’s like still being pissed off about the Visigoths ransacking Rome in 410.
Corner Stone
This reminds me of the kind of nonsense some here keep trying to push. If you aren’t doing what’s expected of you then you don’t really deserve to make your own decisions.
MikeJ
I don’t know if he was drunk when he wrote it, but I’m willing to meet him halfway on the reading end.
Even in my state, I’d have to say Peretz is a racist fuckwit.
fasteddie9318
@Mark S.:
OMG if teh Visigoths even try to open up a sausage house in Lower Trevi, I will fucking scream bloody murder.
@Bella Q:
Most Americans couldn’t tell you where the hell “Cordoba” is, much less a single historical fact about it.
DFS
It can’t feel good.
I reckon it probably feels like depositing a hefty check every two weeks.
MikeJ
@fasteddie9318:
Once when I was working in Yurp, an American was sent to the same client. She wasn’t aware that Spain was in Yurp. She thought it was in Mexico or something, since they speak spanish.
Mark S.
@fasteddie9318:
Until about a month ago, I couldn’t.
Warren Terra
Marty Peretz has to display his ignorance and understate his vicious bigotry in that style because he can’t draw.
P.S. For a Jew to be complaining about the Islamic conquest of Spain is just funny. It’s the Christian conquest of Spain that we’ve got good reason to still be pissed off with.
fasteddie9318
I want to make a joke about somebody taking Marty Peretz on a tour of the proposed community center to show him that there aren’t any scary bogeymen hiding there, showing him the facility, taking him up to the upper floors, and then shoving him out a window, but it would probably be in bad taste, so I won’t.
fasteddie9318
@MikeJ:
What are you talking about? Don’t they speak Mexican in Mexico?
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
As a Jew, let me just say: Marty, non-Muslims don’t get to decide this. And honestly, if you need me to tell you this, you have a cabbage for a brain.
Oy. This makes my head hurt.
Corner Stone
@fasteddie9318: Please. Go on.
TD
ugh, we are reminded of 9/11 every g-d damn day alright, but not by the people he is referring to.
Omnes Omnibus
@Warren Terra: Give him 800 years or so, he’ll get there.
Warren Terra
@fasteddie9318:
OMG, I can’t f’ing wait until the racists discover that you can buy a burrito in San Antonio.
ETA my comment twas a reply to Eddie’s comment #7, not his vile and inexplicable #12.
fasteddie9318
Speaking of Mad Men, I’m glad they’ve shown us more drunk people hurling this season. I was beginning to think that they did so much casual drinking all day long that none of them ever got sick.
MikeJ
@Warren Terra: You know the Mesicans always build a taqueria on the site of their on conquests.
DougJ
@fasteddie9318:
I don’t like the full-on drunkeness. It feels preachy to me.
Anya
My god, that does not even make sense. I think Gingrich is infecting everyone. Not that Mr. Peretz had any redeeming qualities to begin with. Is he not close friends with Al Gore?
Console
The hilarious part of all this is that the reconquest of Spain involved torture and expulsion of Jews just as much as it did Muslims.
Is there a Jewish version of Uncle Tom?
suzanne
@fasteddie9318: I doubt most Americans could properly pronounce “Cordoba”.
Oh, please, Mr. Oppressor, tell me what I think I need. Barf.
Alwhite
@fasteddie9318:
SURE we can tell you a lot about Cordoba
It had real Corinthian leather upholstery
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: Could they come and conquer Madison soon? A good taqueria would be nice.
fasteddie9318
Cordoba is great, by the way; the Mezquita alone is worth the visit, it’s just a fantastically interesting structure. All of Andalusia is fascinating as long as you don’t make my mistake and go there in August. Also you have to like ham. A lot. I think they’re constantly eating it because they’re still trying to prove that they’re really Christian.
Ben
Never comment here, but felt compelled to here so as to correct a small but crucial error: Peretz didn’t write that excerpt–he quoted it from “An excerpt from the essay translated into English by the web site Answering Islam”
Following the links, it seems that the passage was translated from Arabic and first appeared in the “Arabic-language online daily Elaph”
Ash Can
Do tell, Marty.
fasteddie9318
@DougJ:
I don’t get a preachy vibe off it yet, but he can’t have Don circling the drain like this for much longer. Something has to give one way or the other.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Ben: Oh. Well. I’m not sure that makes my head hurt any less, but it certainly does change the tenor of things!
Postlethwaite Windschitl
I’ve been seeing bumper stickers everywhere that say, “The Muslim Conquest of Spain: We Will Never Forget.”
Rather poignant, in our own troubled times.
Alwhite
2 things & I am serious about both of them:
Has Marty ever done anything of worth other than wedding well? Was he was a zero that used his wifes money to buy himself something he could never earn.
Didn’t Marty once write about hating Arabs and how they could not be trusted in any deal? If that is true how can he have any credibility at all?
DougJ
@Ben:
Thanks. I don’t usually make that mistake, but the length of the excerpt, the way they format blockquotes there, and the lack of punctuation threw me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Postlethwaite Windschitl: I haven’t recovered from the Sack of Troy yet.
Ben
@DougJ:
Think nothing of it. And now back to quietly patrolling the internet for minor errors of grammar and quote attribution….
DougJ
@Ben:
I for one need the help.
Zuzu's Petals
@Ash Can:
Yeah, and it’s not like Jews living in New York frequent their synagogues on a daily basis; usually they go to them either on Fridays or Saturdays, due to the nature of their work.
Omnes Omnibus
I am more of a business casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalist.
El Cid
Yeah. I’m sure racist anti-Arab anti-Muslim pro-militarism-in-Israel Marty Peretz must have been drunk in order to write this in this shit warhawk rag.
DougJ
@El Cid:
Leaving out the period at the end of the post is one of those typo things that annoys me, especially when it’s uncorrected for three days. And it’s the kind of typo I make when I’ve had a few toots.
El Cid
@Warren Terra: What are you talking about? Remembering the expulsion of the Jews from Christian Spain is just dwelling on the past. Recalling the horrors of the fact that Muslims once controlled parts of Europe, now that’s just good old fashioned modern discourse.
El Cid
@DougJ: What?
Martin
A mosque in central CA was firebombed last week. This week a Planned Parenthood in the same area was also firebombed.
Probably a bunch of hippies did it…
Anya
@Ben: Thanks for clarifying but unless he was making fun of the idiocy of the comment, it does not change things much. If he is using it to advance his opposition to the community centre, then he owns it.
gnomedad
@fasteddie9318:
And push the pram a lot?
fasteddie9318
FSM, DougJ, that second quote really is worse than the first excerpt. “First Amendment fundamentalists”? Fuck you, Marty. Fuck you in your lying, warmongering face. I can write that because some previous First Amendment fundamentalist made it that way.
Backbencher
Clearly if New York has need for more Mosques because most Muslims only use them on Saturdays or Sundays, then there is less need for churches because most Christians only attend on Sundays.
@Dogsdoingthings
Dogs sticking it to First Amendment fundamentalists by struggling against a mosque.
fasteddie9318
@Martin:
They’re trying to frame the teabaggers!
@gnomedad:
You win.
GregB
Glenn Beck has made every jabbering half-wit and shit-heel a revisionist pop-historian now.
burnspbesq
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Why are you insulting all the cabbages in the world by comparing them to Marty’s brain? What have cabbages ever done to you to deserve this?
Davis X. Machina
You want an outrage, I’ve got an outrage.
Even though 9/11 hijackers lived and trained in Hamburg, the Goethe-Institut is allowed to operate only a couple of blocks from Ground Zero. This shall not stand!
Warren Terra
@Davis X. Machina:
And you can buy a Hamburger within blocks of Ground Zero! With, no doubt, French fries, not our honest American Freedom fries.
Zam
Well obviously the first amendment is just a guideline, kinda like the ten commandments. Except that one about the buttsex.
leftist
Why is anybody surprised that the New Republic would write this? It’s a Zionist magazine wth a capital “Z”.
DougJ
@leftist:
Being Zionist does not make you an anti-Muslim bigot.
Villago Delenda Est
@Zam: @Zam:
Do NOT let me catch you eating “jumbo shrimp”, especially if it’s wrapped in bacon, infidel!
Anya
“First Amendment fundamentalists” what an asshole. Because First Amendment fundamentalists of the past, there are many synagogues in New York and this place is not a gigantic version of Saudi Arabia. What a fuckwit. How does an asshole like this have any credibility at all?
Davis X. Machina
I’m guessing that my idea of unhinged first amendment fundamentalism (see ‘Roberts Court’, re: Citizens United) differs somewhat from Marty Peretz’s….
leftist
@DougJ:
1.) Israel was the only country in 2003 that had no substantial protest movement against the invasion of Iraq.
2.) The Israelis are currently agitating for an invasion of Iran.
Not every Zionist is an anti-Muslim bigot. But most are hawks on foreign policy and being favorably disposed to massive military intervention in the Middle East will probably make you more likely to want to dehumanize the people you’re planning to invade, both at home and abroad.
Liberals really have to get over their denial about what Zionism stands for.
burnspbesq
@leftist:
Really? Why don’t you ‘splain it to us?
El Cid
I hate these debates on what “Zionism” is or isn’t or could be or should be, but if you’re a person who in this fucking modern era proclaims yourself “a Zionist” and spends a lot of time basically advocating slaughtering many or maybe all Arabs or Muslims, you’re a complete fucking militarist asshole and a god-damned embarrassment to any supposedly serious argument about the needs and security of the citizens of the state of Israel.
Mark S.
@Anya:
Here you go:
morzer
It might be pointed out that the Visigoths, who lost out in Spain to the Muslims,contributed precisely one word to the Spanish language, namely, the word for “executioner”. It’s hard to feel that the good guys lost, especially when you consider their penchant for internecine violence.
leftist
@burnspbesq:
Zionism is an ideology that attaches Jewish nationalism to western imperialism.
Google “Balfour Declaration” if you’re curious about the origins. The British supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine in order to have a client state near the Suez Canal.”
The current wave of Islamophobia is a result, not of 9/11 but a consquence of two American miiltary occupations in the Middle East. When you go to war with a people you have to dehumanize them. See also, the internment of Japanese Americans.
Zionists aren’t the only Americans who are militantly in favor of a continued American military presence in the Middle East, but they are one of the most vocal minorities, the New Republican being a good example.
noncarborundum
@Mark S.:
I remember a 7th-grade classmate telling me a long, stupid “shaggy dog” joke involving the Hotel Cordoba, which was in fact in Spain. Never let it be said that juvenile humor is unedifying.
KG
Wait, since when is it bad among wingnuts to be a fundamentalist?
Anya
@leftist: I think you’re mixing zionism with Israel. Yes, Israel was founded by the aspirations of Zionists but it does not mean that all zionist support the war and hate muslims and arabs. To give you an example, Chomsky identifies himself as a Zionist. Also, not to give Israel any excuses but most Israelis see themselves as being at war with Arabs, coupled with Saddam’s use of Palestinian cause, they were not sympathetic to the Iraqi cause.
El Cid
I’ve been to Cordoba. I’ve been to Granada. I’ve been to Alcazar. They’re fucking awesome.
El Cid
Please oh please oh please don’t start this fucking “what’s a Zionist” and “the history of Zionists” shit. This is the 21st fucking century.
Anya
The reaction to the community center has made me so depressed. I just cannot believe the shit that comes out of some people’s mouth or gets posted/printed. in addition to the craziness of the wingnuts, I am still trying to recover from Howard Dean’s reaction and the cowardice of most Democrats. To quote the late, and very lamented, Marvin Gay “Oh, make me wanna holler, and throw up both my hands.”
leftist
@Anya:
And was recently barred from entering Israel.
You can probably find a strain of Zionism that isnt’ militaristic and Islamophobic but it has about as much influence in Israel as the IWW has in the United States.
Revisionist Zionism is by far and away the mainstream in both Israel and the USA.
I’d also suspect that the Christian fundamentalists who are currently agitating againt Park51 have close ties to Israel and would probably consider themselves Christian Zionists.
And this isn’t going away. The United States is at the very minimum going to keep up a long term blockade of Iran. This isn’t to say that the Iranian government is good. Quite the contrary. The Japanese government in 1941 was pretty bad also. Whether or not the Roosevelt administration could have avoided interning Japanese Americans is debatable.
But we do now that it’s very difficult to wage war on a people and admit them to full civil rights at home.
In 1917, even German Americans (who are about as close to Anglo Saxons as it comes) were demonized and denied their full civil liberties.
Basically, it’s American foreign policy in the Middle East stupid, with Israel and revisionist Zionism being a key lynchpin.
Objective Scrutator
The only logical response to letting the Islamists conquer America’s holy symbol is to conquer their holy symbol, the moon.
This is something even Harry Reid and Howard Dean should be able to get behind. America-haters, such as the population of Manhattan, the city commission, and Michael Bloomberg, are not worthy to lick the television remote of Marty Peretz.
El Cid
I am opposed to building a 1,000 foot statue of Osama bin Laden as a suicide bombing hang-glider training center on top of the graves of the heroes of 9/11 at Ground Zero.
DougJ
@Anya:
Yes, exactly.
Further, I would argue that nothing could be more contrary to the goal of a stable, Zionist state in the middle east than fomenting religious conflict with Muslims. I simply can’t fathom how anyone would think it is good for Israel to antagonize Muslims over a Burlington Coat Factory.
gnomedad
@KG:
They project there mode of “thinking” onto everyone, so they believe everyone is a fundamentalist. They’re just the right kind.
El Cid
@DougJ: You clearly have no appreciation for the horrors that Burlington Coats caused.
leftist
It’s denial. The more influence Muslims have in the United States, the less biased towards Israel American foreign policy will be.
So Muslims have to be kept political and cultural marginal.
The fact that it can’t be done in the long run, that Israel would probably be better off it its partisans in the USA recognize the inevitable, that white ethic baby boomers (who are radically pro-Israel) are eventually going to be swamped by less pro-Israel Hispanics and Asians, and at least try to get along with its neighbors would never enter the head of Marty Peretz, Daniel Pipes or Pamela Geller.
Why should it? Even Hillary Clinton (a liberal) is in favor of “obliterating” Iran if it gets too far out of line.
gnomedad
@gnomedad:
“their”. Oy.
ItAintEazy
@leftist:
I’m starting a pool for when the word “Zcialiṣonism” will be added to the spam filter.
scarshapedstar
I am proud to be a casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalist.
Anya
@DougJ: My friend Jonathan Garfinkel (a Canadian author and a poet), wrote a book called Ambivalence he talked about his Zionist grandfather who was against Israel because he believed that it was contrary to the values of Zionism. Personally, I equate people who attack Zionism with people who believe all Muslims are terrorists. It’s group guilt and it’s wrong no matter who the group is.
morzer
One thing that puzzles me about Peretz. He has the temerity to spout racist garbage, peddle right-wing lunacy regularly, and clearly has lost his marbles on the Middle East and Islam. Why doesn’t he just do the honest thing, and call his rag:
The New Republican?
leftist
@Anya:
This is a straw man.
I can “attack Islam” without believing all Muslims are terrorists.
I attack Islam all the time. Sky God worshippers who won’t drink, eat pork, or fornicate are idiots as far as I’m concerned.
That doesn’t mean they all want to kill me. And it doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to practice their idiot Sky God worship on their private property.
Not all Zionists are like Marty Peretz. Some have even taken the lead in defending Park51.
But to deny that America’s support for Israel and its military posture in the Middle East (which has Israel for a linchpin) isn’t the cause of the current wave of Islamaphobia is denying reality.
El Cid
Jeebus fucking cripes. Same fucking routine about the bullshit term “Zionism” and how you have to or shouldn’t use it whether or not you’re a critic or supporter of some conception of a nation state. God damn it. What a pathetic fucking waste of time.
El Cid
@morzer: The New Republic jettisoned its previous peaceful outlook and advocated the World War (WW1 in retrospect) as much as all the propagandists who pushed the “Hun” bullshit. Disgusting warhawkery is nothing new to it.
matt
Music inspired by Cordoba.
Anya
I think America has its very own bigots and does not need Israel. Having said that, I agree that the American support for Israel feeds the Muslim fanatics whose actions in turn feed the American fanatics. My argument was not to debate the causes of the current Islamaphobia but to differentiate between Zionists and the support Israel at all cost neocons. They are not the same. The neocons are appropriating the ideals of early Zionists, the same way that OBN and his gang of terrorists are appropriating Islam.
Anya
@El Cid: Believe me, I hate this topic too. I really do.
JamesC
You know what?
Being called, indirectly, a first amendment fundamentalist sounds a-okay with me.
We have eminently quotable ideological leaders, starting with Evelyn Hall’s summation of Voltaire’s beliefs: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” And we get all the fun books too.
Jewish Steel
Can I just point out here that my handle is based on Judas Priest less successful follow-up to their 1980 classic “British Steel” and not some kind of Zionist Panther power fist as I sometimes fear it is interpreted?
Okay, thanks. Carry on.
morzer
@Jewish Steel:
That sounds almost Michael Chabonesque.
Redshift
@JamesC: Yeah, “First Amendment fundamentalist” has the potential to be like “reality-based community” — one of those terms that wingnuts think is pejorative, but everyone else would consider a badge of honor.
Anne Laurie
@fasteddie9318:
You need an excuse to eat ham, she asked in wonderment? Good Spanish ham, at that?
(Yes, my ancestors emigrated from Galway, how could you tell? Srsly, though: You know why the Jews and Muslims prohibit the eating of pork? Because being prohibited from eating broccoli, or chicken, just ain’t much of a sacrifice to make to an angry authoritarian deity.)
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
__
Hell, in order to act in my First Amendment fundamentalist mode, I will even dress up and wear pantyhose. But not heels, because I suspect being a First Amendment fundamentalist will require a certain amount of standing, or even marching…
Warren Terra
@Objective Scrutator:
Well, I see 2 options: we invade the moon (it will pay for itself … in green cheese!), or we use giant space mirrors to turn the crescent moon into a sideways smiley face (more mirrors and the Pepsi logo would be an option during the full moon, though an AT&T logo might freak out Star Wars fans).
AB
I still don’t get why the mosque is offensive.
I hear a lot of people say that they understand the right to build the mosque there, but think it’s insensitive. I don’t really think it’s insensitive, you’d have to be crazy to be offended by it.
IM
@DougJ:
You mean: Does not make you a anti-muslim bigot outside Israel.
Goldberg and Chait are big cordoba center defenders. But a least the former is a anti-muslim bigot in the borders of (greater) Israel.
Batocchio
I think the appropriate, measured response to this is, “Fuck you.”
Also, here’s more about Cordoba. Apparently, the term was picked to convey peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths, not conquest.
IM
@morzer:
So Jewish Steel is not some sort of Shaft, a hard boiled detective in the mean streets of Sitka?
Mark S.
Marty seems to imply that there is public financing for the mosque. Where is he getting that? He also thinks there are zero interest loans and Saudi billionaires and conspiracies up the gazoo but the mosque is in trouble and won’t be built.
Mike G
Yes, Bubba BigotRepublican in Sisterfuck, Alabama is outraged by the Burlington Coat Factory community center in Manhattan because it brings back traumatic memories of the Islamic invasion of Spain in the 8th century.
And he is outraged by the building of a Volkwagen dealership in town because it triggers PTSD over the Goths’ defeat of the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.
Gozer
@Mark S.:
Fucking Germanics!
Objective Scrutator
I think that the moon is made of blue cheese, which is a commodity of Islamophilic Olde Europe. What if we intake the stuff, as well? Will it turn us into surrender monkeys? Not a lick of the stuff should leave the moon. Look what it did to poor Wallace and Gromit.
The AT&T logo is an excellent idea! The War on Terror may shift towards combating Wookiepedians rather than Islamists! I don’t know about you, but I’d rather fight a nation of Jabba the Huts than a nation of Islamists.
Osama bin Laden hates the Saudi royal family. The WTC center was built by a contractor who has worked with the royal family. The Cordoba Project is financed by the royal family. Therefore, Osama bin Laden will destroy the Cordoba Project. QED, treefrogs!
(I really want to see a wingnut try and use this defense. It sounds like a Broder or a Brooks argument, though, as I highly doubt a wingnut could look into the dynamics of various Muslim factions beyond ‘They hate America’.)
Right wingers love it when you frame the debate like that, though. Either you support Israel in all its doings, or you want to vault Hamas into power and embolden upcoming Karl Brandts.
J.Kevin
I like “Fuck You”…it usually is “quite” “2001”, monkey throwing rocks, stones apropos. I’m getting more “SCI-FI”, kinda…”V”…for a actual, “Vendetta”, if it could be arranged.
Cause this shit ain’t work’in.
BrighidG
@Anne Laurie: I really do enjoy people running their mouths about religion when they have no idea what they’re talking about. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to respect it, but get your fucking facts straight. You’re on the internet, it’s not that hard to find out why Jews and Muslims prohibit the eating of pork.
Between you and the leftist, I’m reminded that this hipster bigot trend really needs to die. Listening to a bunch of (usually white, first world, and rich) people find new ways to look down on the poor, the non-white, and the non-Western gets dull.
SRW1
@El Cid:
We know that, Senor Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. Wasn’t that little misadventure part of your downfall?
BobS
@Anya: Chomsky differentiates the Zionism he supported as a young person from the practical reality of Zionism as it exists today.
@BrighidG: leftist seemed to be taking a swipe at monotheism (and probably religion in general), not “the poor, the non-white, and the non-Western”.
Lysana
@BrighidG:
Welcome to Balloon Juice. That was what we call a joke in these here parts.
neil
The only people being “elitist” about the 1st Amendment are those who seem to think it shouldn’t cover and protect Islam as well as any other faith. They’re also the only ones being “casual” about it.
How is Mr. Peretz qualified to contemptuously lecture New York Muslims that they already have enough places of worship?
Of course, the Community Center is more accurately characterized as a place of “assembly” – which is also constitutionally protected behavior last time I checked. But maybe that too is only for “real Americans”, right Marty?
Scott de B.
I heard the same factoid when I was younger, but can’t remember exactly where. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Yes, verdugo (“executioner”) does come from Visigothic, but so do lots of other Spanish words, including guerra (“war”).
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Back this morning to check what happened after @Ben: ‘s update, and I have to agree, the real quote is even stupider than the mind-numbingly unhelpful excerpt from the other source.
the casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalists?
Je suis une casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalist! I want a bumper sticker that says that.
Or, no, no: An embroidered pillow. A tattoo! I want a tattoo on my upper left arm, just about heart level, that reads “I am a casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalist.”
Having said that, if the mosque nonsense, the entire Bush Administration, and Peretz’s article prove nothing else, there had better be nothing casual about it. ‘Cause folks will come and take that Amendment at the drop of hat, apparently.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Omnes Omnibus: Ha! Again. As usual. Damn funny people!
El Cid
@SRW1: Well, I never rode out on my horse dead. As a matter of fact the King’s disfavor let me find where the money was — as a merc. In fact I pal’d up with the Moors to take Valencia and that did me pretty well.
SiubhanDuinne
Not unlike the 92nd Street “Y” in fact. Except for the “sleazy” part.
El Cid
I’m sure this will be permitted to go through unhassled.
As soon as this is reported in the US it will now be assumed to be piloted by Al Qa’ida’s #3 and loaded with plutonium dirty bombs…
BobS
@El Cid: Maybe the Free Palestine Movement could subcontract the job to Brothers to the Rescue.
SRW1
@El Cid:
That may have behooved you in your previous incarnation. Let thou be warned that this privilege is now reserved for members of the House of Bush.
Chris
I think Marty Peretz stopped reading the First Amendment after it guaranteed his freedoms.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: If it actually ever happens, I wonder how Israel will stop it from landing?
Frank
The United States has no need for more churches, since there are plenty of them. Furthermore, Christians living in the US do not frequent their churches on a daily basis; usually they go to them Sundays.
gocart mozart
@El Cid:
Until the Muslims let us build a Burlington Coat Factory two blocks from Mecca, we shouldn’t let them build a mosque near ground zero! I mean, fair is fair.
RSA
@Mark S.:
Exactly. So the Islamic conquest of Spain is relevant but the Christian conquest of the Middle East during the Crusades isn’t? Crazy.
Chad N Freude
Is this a dead thread yet? I quit last night after a long day of posting clever puns and erudite obscure references to stuff before this thread grew into the kudzu vine that it has become. Asking because I’d like to engage here, but if everybody’s gone, I can’t.
Chad N Freude
@Chad N Freude: I guess it’s not dead yet. While I was typing the above, a bunch of new posts appeared. So stand by.
wrb
A common response when pressed as to why I haven’t picked their, or a, religion: “To have confidence in my choice I’d have to study them all first and there are too damn many.”
gocart mozart
@Objective Scrutator:
Treefrogs was a word often used at the old Blogs for Brownback site where I snarked under a different name back in the day. How about you?
Svensker
@Anya:
Peretz has always been an anti-Muslim bigot. The fact that he is still considered respectable in many circles does not say good things about those circles. He should be shunned.
wrb
@Lysana:
“
I’ve wondered how many orthodox jews have any idea how unlikely it is that they’ve avoided pork if they eat out at all, due to its pervasiveness in old American regional cuisines, especially in the form of drippings.
It would be like avoiding olive oil in the Mediterranean.
Among my mother’s people drippings are in the bread, in the salad dressing, in anything fried from pancakes to eggs to fish, it coats the baking pans. Hell, if they make bagels they would surely improve them with some pork fat.
My grandmother was a nutritionist and biochemist andwho swore that the reason that the settlers in the western states grew larger than others of their bloodlines was the large amount of healthful pork they consumed.
eemom
This, imo, is a really good piece about the development of the two competing versions of modern Zionism and how the latter version — the one advanced by the hard-liners — will inevitably doom the ideal of the former, i.e., a democratic Jewish state.
It seems like something we all can agree on, were such a thing not utterly inconceivable on this blog…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/opinion/30taub.html?scp=1&sq=zionism&st=cse
quaint irene
Sure they do. It has ‘fine corinthian leather!’
I think this article was made for the phrase ‘WTF???’
Kryptik
Holy weeping green Christ, Peretz is an asshole of the first measure. I mean… ‘modest’ protest? ‘First Amendment Fundamentalists’? What the fuck is that even supposed to mean, that somehow saying that the First Amendment should apply to all is equal to thinking we all literally descended from Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden?
Fuck you, Marty Peretz, fuck you with a rusty 10 ft. lead pipe.
quaint irene
I thought that was the Tea Party Movement
Anya
Forget about a conquest that happened over 1000 years ago. The same year my father was born (1960) his country gained independence from Britain. Many Muslims still feel the effect of colonization, and when the Brits and the brutal French and Italians left, they were replaced with US controlled totalitarian regimes.
@Svensker: I am learning that anti-Muslim bigotry is acceptable and mainstream. Also, any Muslim acceptable is a Muslim who validates those views.
@wrb: It’s weird how eating Pork can be more cultural than religious. My dad is an atheist from a Muslim culture but he will never eat Pork. I guess one of the things my mom gave up when she married my dad was pork.
Chad N Freude
@wrb: The Orthodox don’t eat out in places that haven’t been certified as kosher.
AhabTRuler
@Chad N Freude: The truely Orthodox don’t eat out at all.
To say nothing of the water in NYC. Oy vey!
Chad N Freude
@AhabTRuler:
Hence they don’t eat in places that have not been certified kosher. Don’t mess with an almost math major. QED
I didn’t know about the NYC water thing. It’s wonderful how the Orthodox are incorporating modern science and technology into their faith. Like the Intelligent Design people.
300baud
For the record, I’m not a First Amendment fundamentalist. It’s just that I think the founding fathers had a pretty fucking good idea when they decided to keep religion 100% separate from the power of the state, and I’ll be damned if I let some loons undermine a pretty good 200-year record for a little temporary political advantage.
Chad N Freude
@300baud: The phrase “First Amendment fundamentalist” should be reserved for people who believe that the First Amendment was intended to enshrine Christianity in the Constitution.
fasteddie9318
@Anne Laurie:
Honestly, and I couldn’t believe it myself, but by the end of that vacation I really had eaten about all the ham I could manage for a while.
Chad N Freude
@fasteddie9318: I’m a serious Hispanophile, but I’m not a big red meat fan in general and pig flesh in particular, and I’ve managed to survive on seafood and don”t-ask-what’s-in-it tapas and pintxos.
Objective Scrutator
@gocart mozart
Yea, I was a big-time commenter at Blogs 4 Brownback. I was “Bob_Corker” and “bobcorker”. How about you?
doctorpsycho1960
Let’s see… “modest struggle”, “mosque”, “grass roots”, “casual and elitist First Amendment”, that makes four.
Or should I count “casual” and “elitist” as two separate bald-faced lies?
bjacques
@132quaint irene:
With all that talk about over-50 geezers a few days ago, it says something that a Ricardo Montalban reference took so long to surface!
Yrs in jealousy…
mei
“casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalists”
Not so sure about that one…but
there’s really no need to limit churches.
DaddyJ
First Amendment fundamentalists? Hell yeah. Should be a tagline here.
Bulworth
This is Gold, Jerry. Gold!
Also, too, how can one be a “casual” First Amendment “fundamentalist”?