Robert G. Yetman, Jr.

Peace, Tolerance, and Lies at Ground Zero

I never ceased to be amazed at the gullibility…even outright stupidity…of some of my fellow Americans, and on the heels of that opening sentence, let me say a few words about the Cordoba Initiative and the $100 million mosque, the Cordoba House, that those folks want to build…at Ground Zero.

While the backlash against the proposal has been as most of us would hope, I marvel at the numbers of pathetically masochistic defenders of this idiotic idea, apparently so overtaken with their own innate liberal guilt and apparently suicidal approach to cultural diversity that they have positively lost their minds.  Unfortunately, some of those include the ever-curious NYC Mayor Bloomberg and the members of lower Manhattan’s Community Board No. 1, as well as others with great municipal influence who can do much to see this vilest of affronts become a reality.   

The most troubling aspect of this, for those who choose to pay attention, is the “code” contained in the use of the name “Cordoba.”  Cordoba, Spain is well known in history as the location at which an invading Muslim army established a provincial capital during the 8^th Century, and as a notable part of their conquest,  the invaders converted an existing Christian church into an enormous Muslim house of worship, now historically referenced simply as the Great Mosque of Cordoba.  If the structure proposed for Ground Zero is, as claimed, all about promoting peace and tolerance, why must both its name, as well as that which identifies the group defined as its principal backers, be one that symbolizes a notorious example of violent Muslim conquest over Western Christians?

As far as I’m concerned, a connection of all the dots ultimately reveals a monument of Muslim exult over the devastation caused by the 9-11 attacks against the U.S., and those Americans who support its ultimate creation at Ground Zero should be ashamed of themselves.  That said, they’re probably either too stupid or too driven by their own evil agendas to be ashamed, so we can just put them in the only category into which they really belong: that of the enemy.  

 

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Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the recently-released book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc; www.investorspassport.com)  and the new unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press; www.mikereevesonline.com).

    

 

Tags: ground+zero+mosque

The Late Senator Robert Byrd, Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan…and U.S. Senator

Former Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops…and U.S. Senator…Robert Byrd died last week, and his passing reminds us once again of the very real truth that plenty of high-profile, modern-era white Democrats have within themselves the same capacity for racial hatred as does anyone else.  I’ve mentioned this before in previous columns, and Byrd’s death provides us with another instance to make the note.  Byrd was a member of the Klan, an officer, actually, and once wrote a charming love note about American blacks to Theodore Bilbo, the virulently racist governor of Mississippi and U.S. Senator during the first half of the twentieth century, which included this passage:

“I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

Lovely.

Byrd went a long way to revealing why he really turned his back on the Klan and open racism when he made this statement during a 1997 interview: “Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena."  So the real problem with Klan membership is that “you inhibit your operations in the political arena?”  Not exactly a strong condemnation of racism and Klan ideology, to be sure.

(As a bit of an aside, I think equally as revealing, at least about politics in general, is a statement that former president Bill Clinton made about the late senator’s involvement in the Klan, when he said the other day that as a country boy from West Virginia, “he (Byrd) was trying to get elected.”  Honestly, I’m not sure what’s worse; a racist seeking public office, or a person who’s willing to do or say anything to get elected.  Either way, the people are poorly served.)

Still, with all apologies to the former president, the body of evidence over the course of Byrd’s life suggests that his animus toward blacks was both real and ever-present; the only difference is that he became smarter about hiding it for the benefit of political expediency.

Some will take offense that I have given Byrd’s membership and leadership in the Klan the same weight as I have given his public service as a U.S. Senator.  President Clinton surely would.  My response is that I don’t believe, based on all that we know about his feelings toward blacks, that he was any less of a racist at the point of his demise than he was when he became an enthusiastic young Klansman back in the early 1940’s. 

On that note, I am reminded of that which was said by Byrd’s early hero, the aforementioned Theodore Bilbo, on Meet the Press many years ago: "No man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux."

And there you have it.

Agree or disagree; please register your comments below.

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/robertyetman.

 

Follow me on Christian Chirp at www.christianchirp.com/robertyetman. 

 

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the recently-released book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc; www.investorspassport.com)  and the new unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press; www.mikereevesonline.com).

 

 

Tags: robert+byrd+ku+klux+klan