From Sam Seder we get a not so safe for work commentary about the right wing creating controversy for political campaign fodder and, even worse, the Anti Defamation League's contortions on this issue:

"That's Bullshit" with Sam Seder: Pointing out Bullshit so you don't step in it. This week, Sam calls Bullshit on the right wing anti American whines about a Muslim community center slated to be built 2 blocks from Ground Zero and especially the hypocrisy on the part of the Jewish Anti Defamation League.

Video below the fold.

Yesterday evening, I realized the mayor was coming.

It wasn’t hard: Department of Sanitation workers were cleaning the sidewalks in front of my house, my neighbors’, and across the street. Normally, that’s left for us homeowners to do. That, coupled with signs stapled to trees and posts stating “No Parking Saturday –Police Department,” made it clear that something unusual was happening.

another compelling piece from the Race and New Media participants -- originally posted 2008-05-19 07:29:24 - bumped, cho

In 2003 the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) introduced an advertisement campaign titled “If You See Something, Say Something”. Since its inception, New York City has been bombed with posters and billboards proclaiming this ambiguous slogan, most notably on subway cars, buses, and railroad stations. The MTA Newsroom remarks that the security awareness advertisement campaign is to “reinforce the effort to enlist customers to join the police and MTA employees as the eyes and ears of the system… The ads remind customers of the need to stay aware of their surrounds and to report anything suspicious… [and] that continued watchfulness is necessary to help prevent terrorists from carrying out their plans”.

In it’s core foundations, the MTA slogan is based entirely on fear-mongering tactics. The very fact that the slogan is left so open and in-finite suggests an underlying agenda of New York City officials to create a stronger sense of ‘us versus them’ within the city. After 9/11, much of the world reached out to the United States, and especially New Yorkers. Since the decision to go into war with Iraq, the support from the world has lessened so much that the United States of America is now one of the most unpopular nations in the entire world. Our government went into a war on misguided hatred and fear, and the price we continue to pay is a nation confused with whom to trust. It was fear within the nation, the people and the congress that led the United States into the War on Terror in the misrepresented country of Iraq. Led by a government that chooses to pick the wrong battles, how can this nation’s people learn to respectfully interpret their surroundings without fear-colored glasses? And what does that then mean for people who see something and say something?

Standingup is in New York City and has sent awesome pictures!

This is an open thread ...