Is Fox News evil or stupid? Jon Stewart parses Ground Zero mosque funding
Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 12:12 AM
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Jon Stewart is the only pundit to take-on the question of the Ground Zero mosque's funding with anything like detail. The mosque is being funded in-part, by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who is also a major shareholder in Fox News Corporation. Other benefactors of the poorly placed mosque project are unknown and will remain so, according to organizers.
This means the media outlet most critical of building the mosque on top of a site destroyed by parts of the hijacked plane, is also kind-of building it.
Fox and the mosque are shareheld by the same Saudi Arabian prince.
Who is Prince Alwaleed? and what is Wahhabism? What other Wahhabists are paying for the project? These questions are not asked on TV, and yet the answers are what will define the mosque on a site so much intimately associated with Ground Zero, that it is Ground Zero.
American news should hash this out. Who is Alwaleed? And what is his Wahhabi Islamic political ideology? To leave these questions hanging makes it possible for Wahhabi idealists to fund this mosque, and have a chance to claim a piece of Ground Zero.
If we can be critical of the Christian right on TV, New Yorkers can be critical of Wahhabi Islam building anything on Ground Zero. It's not racist, it's about the ideas and feeling and messages and symbols of 9/11 made possible by building the mosque on that site.
The media was supposed to get us to the Wahhabi discussion, but did not, preferring to couch the debate as people against all Muslims. It was left to Jon Stewart to bring up the Wahhabi connections. Before that, the mosque had nothing to do with Wahhabi-sympathetizers, at least in how it was presented. We now learn, it's probably going to be entirely funded by them. Is that wrong? We are not allowed to know. Prince Alwaleed is no more a spawn of evil than any other hoarder of immense wealth. Wahhabism may really just be fundamentalism that was perverted even further by a worse sub-sect. I don't know, and it's not my place, I now realize, to explain those nuances. I'll leave that to Jon Stewart, who is alone on TV for even beginning to explain how Saudi Arabian Wahhabi billionaires will own and define what is their project.
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seanomelbourne | Aug 31, 2010, 06:20 AM EDT
I am not familiar with David Cohen. The unions here (traditionally)underwrite the labour party but to be fair they founded the labour party,these donations are no different to private or corporate donations to the right. I do take exception to print or visual media of any persuasion treating the truth "loosely". We now have News Ltd (Murdoch) bullying the independents to back the right here in Aus. In the past he has backed both sides in his editorial content, depending on who will change the media laws to his advantage, not an honourable person in my opinion.
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Monsoonman | Aug 30, 2010, 11:41 PM EDT
Lad, what do you think of Comcast corps. vp. David Cohen raising 6 million for obama? How about GE's (owns nbc) 245k donation to dem governors, not to mention being a 24/7 propaganda machine for the dem party. But what I find most offensive is labor groups, the Service Employees International Union, which donated $1.1 million, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which contributed $3.3 million to the dem governors. My state is 45 billion in debt due to unfunded public employee union mandates for pensions and benefits. Public employee unions own the democrat party and own the country.
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seanomelbourne | Aug 30, 2010, 10:29 PM EDT
Monsoonman you are not by inference claiming that Fox is not influencing public opinion? Do you think they should be "fair and balanced" and donate a million bucks to the dems as they did to the GOP? This is a no spin zone here.
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saratoga | Aug 30, 2010, 04:04 PM EDT
No Victory Mosque at Ground Zero!
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Monsoonman | Aug 30, 2010, 10:17 AM EDT
Does Irish Central receive any George Soros grant funding?
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seanomelbourne | Aug 30, 2010, 12:33 AM EDT
Dr tiller, Ahmed Sharif whose next in line? Fox should suspend it's gutter reporting demonising some people then washing their hands of responsibility when some r/wing freak rallies to their cause and murders some unsuspecting individual.
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Monsoonman | Aug 27, 2010, 10:42 AM EDT
Unlike George Soros organizations who are set up to sway American opinion, Newscorp is a publically traded company. anyone can buy or sell stock in this company. If the prince wants to sell all of his stock tomorrow he can do it, he has no influence on the product put out by this company. It would be the same if the Prince bought a large stock position in GM, GE, etc.
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dseigler2 | Aug 25, 2010, 09:57 PM EDT
http://groundzeromosquetheamericanway.blogspot.com/
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DennisQ | Aug 25, 2010, 06:29 PM EDT
You'll see their ugliness momentarily . . .
As I predicted yesterday, the anti-Muslim mob was embarrassed by a drunk who stabbed a cab driver for being a Muslim. It's pretty ugly behavior, and it shows what happens when you encourage bigots to act out.
As I predicted yesterday, the anti-Muslim mob was embarrassed by a drunk who stabbed a cab driver for being a Muslim. It's pretty ugly behavior, and it shows what happens when you encourage bigots to act out.
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BrendanPKeane | Aug 25, 2010, 02:15 PM EDT
woodkern: take that "Obnoxiousness" to a non-symbolic site.
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tetome1 | Aug 25, 2010, 10:37 AM EDT
@ McNabb1966 - I don;t think Stewart is seriously saying that News Corp funds terror. It's just that the dufuses on Fox News are the only ones clamoring about where the money is coming from for this mosque, only to find out it's coming from their own backyard. I just find the irony amusing.
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McNabb1966 | Aug 25, 2010, 09:24 AM EDT
@DennisQ...Sounds more like a screenplay to me, than reality. I'd say you've watched "The Wall" a few too many times.
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Woodkern | Aug 25, 2010, 01:38 AM EDT
Obnoxious rich people have been funding the erection of houses of worship since Solomon's Temple. The benefactor doesn't necessarily reflect the edifice, nor does the ediface redlect the benefactor.
Another NYC example,,, Arch-capitalist (and anti-Semite right-wing) John D. Rockefeller built Riverside Church.., and one of my fondest memories (aside from its tower view of the Hudson River)was the joint Pete Singer/Billy Bragg concert that I attended in its sanctuary.
I suppose that it's easy to cut a cheque than it is to repent.
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DennisQ | Aug 24, 2010, 11:58 PM EDT
Fall all we know, the thuggishness calling itself patriotism may have already reached Ireland. All the elements are there - an embattled, uneducated working class full of resentments about foreigners undermining "their way of life," they claim. The English Defence League look very similar to the goons who attend the anti-Muslim rallies here. The accents are different, but the feeling of class entitlement is the same.
I call it racism, a word that reaches into their motivations more than similar words. They are more than religious bigots; they are bigots seeking to restore a tradition of intolerance that's been discredited for many years.
They will no more be able to restrain themselves than their counterparts in Israel are able to restrain themselves. All your pretty talk about how high-minded there purposes are will go for naught once they spill over the line . . . and they are bound to. The Israeli thugs claimed to be motivated by security interests, but then came Qana and Gaza and the other massacres.
Yer backin' the wrong horse, McNabb. These people are ugly and they're going to stay that way. You'll see their ugliness momentarily . . . .
I call it racism, a word that reaches into their motivations more than similar words. They are more than religious bigots; they are bigots seeking to restore a tradition of intolerance that's been discredited for many years.
They will no more be able to restrain themselves than their counterparts in Israel are able to restrain themselves. All your pretty talk about how high-minded there purposes are will go for naught once they spill over the line . . . and they are bound to. The Israeli thugs claimed to be motivated by security interests, but then came Qana and Gaza and the other massacres.
Yer backin' the wrong horse, McNabb. These people are ugly and they're going to stay that way. You'll see their ugliness momentarily . . . .
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