Who Cares What The Media Thinks About The Gorund Zero Mosque?

The current flap over the “ground zero mosque,” which seems to have largely run the usual course of discovery, hysteria, disinformation and dissipation at this point, revealed an interesting thing about the modern media and its arrogance. It was particularly hard on this story to separate the whirlwind of borderline racist rhetoric coming from the right, with hard facts about exactly what the building was, and most importantly, did the general community in NYC themselves have a problem with the planned structure. Because here’s the thing… I don’t care what anyone in the media think about it, unless they live in the community. I care no more what Jon Stewart thinks about it, than I do Glenn Beck. I know that because we have 24 hour news networks, so many tempests in teapots are quickly ballooned to being genocide level threat bombs, that feelings, more than facts drive the media. But the whirlwind of rhetoric that exploded on this issue seemed to forget about actually asking the people in the community if they wanted it there in the first damn place. And I’m not insinuating that anyone shouldn’t have the right to comment on it, but it struck me how arrogant it was for people who don’t actually live there to decide the morality of the issue.  And you know what; if the people of NYC don’t want it, it shouldn’t be there. If they do, it should. But I don’t think Keith Olbermann or Ann Coulter should be the ones to decide. Unless they’re going to be the people who walk past it day after day.

Oh, and in the name of fairness, let’s take a look at the polling numbers from NYC itself, as gathered by Wikipedia:

By a margin of 52%–31% New York City voters opposed the construction, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll carried out in June 2010.^{[32][124][125][126]} At the same time, 46% of Manhattanites supported it, while 36% opposed it. Opposition was strongest in Staten Island, where 73% opposed it while only 14% supported it.^[32][33] A higher percentage of Republicans (82%) than Democrats (45%) opposed the plan.^[127]

OK, the people have spoken, take it as you will. It honestly looks like the general community does not want the structure. But since the right went out of their way to continually brand this building as simply a mosque, or more inflammatorily as a “victory mosque,” let’s take a look at some of the proposed accoutrement this building is supposed to include:

The proposed facility's design includes a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court, September 11 memorial, and Muslim prayer space that would accommodate 1,000–2,000 people.

Wow, imagine all the recruiting extremists can do while going to gourmet school, or shooting hoops.

And did anyone on Fox point out there’s a damn 9-11 Memorial planned in the space? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess no, unless they reported it as a concession (wink, nudge) to those who’d be opposed to the plan.

But you know what…I don’t live there. This is one of those issues that I can really, truly see both sides of the argument on. But for me, it simply boils down to letting the public decide, hopefully civilly, what their community consists of. Not Washington, not media spin, but the community itself. Period.

Mike Grefski