With a few exceptions, liberals and progressives have failed to make the case for why Muslim American citizens should not be intimidated into sheepish conformity to the wishes of a few right-wing bullies. Sure, the media has amplified this story and battered us further; but yet we fail to make the most common sense arguments or even decent challenges of their arguments.

I've been thinking about writing something here about this for weeks, and yet I haven't found anything to say since the current debate is so insipid and, to be honest, boring.

I even got Bill Keller (the Christian minister trying to set up a Christian Center as a response to this) on the phone hoping to get some material, but he bored the shit out of me too. He's a walking bumper sticker of 9/11 right-wing clichés, yet he'll get press.

Meaningful events (and much larger ones) pass unnoticed by the MSM.

It's all incredibly sad to me. But I'll give you my best argument; a simple question that not a single opponent of this has been able to answer (and trust me, I've asked a lot!)

How many blocks?

If we accept, for the sake of argument, that there is something wrong with this location then surely the people opposing it have some idea of where the line actually is. But no one challenges them on this. Placing the argument in the realm of the tangible immediately shows how absurd it is.

And trust me, no one will answer it.

All we know is 2 blocks is not enough.

I propose a simple way that supporters of the community center (and local merchants) can help make this point. Until this ridiculous and false expansion of "Ground Zero" is corrected, let's refer to (and if you own one of these businesses, add something to the sign) EVERYTHING within this zone as "The Ground Zero _______."

"Welcome to The Ground Zero Off Track Betting."
"Welcome to The Ground Zero Pussycat Lounge for the finest in adult entertainment!"
"Welcome to The Ground Zero Burger King, NOW with internet access!"
"Welcome to The Ground Zero Staples, for all your Ground Zero office supply needs"

More pointedly, houses of worship could be amended as well: The Ground Zero Battery Park Synagogue, The Ground Zero St. Paul's Chapel. Let's not forget the Ground Zero Amish Market and The Ground Zero Verizon.

Show these bastards for the cynical liars they are. Ask for specifics, or bring your own.

This is another quicky, but one I'm sure you'll be interested in. It seems my buddy Andrew Breitbart didn't take this tweet seriously.

Like most of his bloggers, Mr. Breitbart is used to the fast and loose internet "standards" where you basically steal art for your articles (I've already bugged him about some others), but this is notable because he got CAUGHT... using Steve Brodner's New Yorker cartoon as his twitter icon.

I'd paste it right here as an example of fair use, but I don't want to confuse the poor guy.

Well, he's already confused:

Fair use, no foul.

Let's just say it has something to do with implied endorsement. Bottom line is, if you don't ask, you are stealing! Now that you are in the big leagues, Andrew, you need to be less sloppy. And congratulations to The New Yorker for not taking this hackneyed "appropriation" lying down.

Here's Andrew's tweet about it:

"Per the artist Steve Brodner's request I am taking down The New Yorker caricature that I use as my profile pic."

Guess 140 characters couldn't fit the "cease and desist" part of the "request," huh?

I don't normally post blogs that are really just glorified links, but in this case I'll make an exception: this is just TOO funny.

It came on my radar because the original headline read "punk BANK" instead of "punk BAND"... this is reflected in the comments asking if punk banks have better interest rates.

John Nolte, BH's editor, rewarded me with a twitter "touche" for catching that.

(For those of you that don't speak Whiteboy, that means "good job"! Actually it's touché, ... but KUDOS to my man for his attempt...)

But the laughs were just beginning...

Chip Hanlons's (snicker) full article is here. What can I say? I did read once that not understanding sarcasm and irony is one of the warning signs of Alzheimer's disease... so perhaps we should warn the poor fellow.

He does contend (also on twitter) that his article IS NOT meant to suggest that Jello Biafra and The Dead Kennedys are secret conservatives:

LOL! No I don't. Read the whole article, sheesh... I get the politics. Lighten up & enjoy their Moonbeam-is-a-tyrant song!

Our goateed friend further disrespects the band by offering (I'm guessing inadvertently) the song in question for FREE.

Jello gets pissed when he doesn't get payed! Hopefully Chip will fix this mistake, if not the others.

Have I missed the subtlety of his post? Big Hollywood sure did.

More importantly, do you think he'll let me write one about how conservative Public Enemy is for his next foray into pop culture? I'd be happy to do it. Really.

UPDATE 1: John Nolte, Big Hollywood's editor has responded to this article (via twitter):

"I need to order 2 tubs of OxyClean, a package of Zorbeez, one Awesome Auger, and a Jupiter Jack. Thanks much!"

Guess he thinks I look like a fat dead TV salesman. Well, I guess it's an admission that he really has nothing. So be it. I also added a YouTube clip of Broken Blossoms below.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

What a REAL race riot inspired by a film looks like.

In 1944 Sergei Eisenstein, without doubt the greatest Soviet revolutionary filmmaker, published his essay "Dickens, Griffith, and The Film Today."

A great admirer of Griffith (specifically his use of montage), Eisenstein praised the American's authenticity of style over German expressionism (which he considered too decadent to represent rebellion and youth) as well as Griffith's depiction of "real" (non-urban) America:

In order to understand Griffith, one must visualize an America made up of more than visions of speeding automobiles, streamlined trains, racing ticker tape, inexorable conveyor-belts...

In short (and I'm quoting here) "the traditional, the patriarchal, the provincial" America. Sound familiar? Not only was the "real" America depicted, but Griffith's films could serve as a model for Soviet authenticity in film:

That the cinema could be incomparably greater, and that this was to be the basic task of the Soviet cinema - these were sketched for us in Griffith's creative work, and found ever new confirmation in his films.

But Eisenstein's enthusiasm for Griffith's vision included no illusions about his dismal politics. He offers this apology for his embarrassing artist friend:

Finally, among the most repellent elements in his films (and there are such) we see Griffith as an open apologist for racism, erecting a celluloid monument to the Ku Klux Klan, and joining their attack on Negroes in The Birth of a Nation.

(my emphasis)

Sixty-six years later, such unfashionable disclaimers are dropped by some Griffith critics in favor of referring to his films simply as "For Conservative Movie Lovers."

This loving 4-part article (so far) on Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood is a fawning discussion of Griffith's Broken Blossoms, an adaptation of a Thomas Burke story entitled "The Chink and The Child."

In the context of the Orientalism fashionable at the time and the plot's sympathetic depiction of a kindly "Chinaman," Burke's slur may be less damning than Griffith's love of the story. Naturally he cast the great Chinese actor Richard Barthelmess in the role (sorry, I couldn't resist... to be fair this was the norm at the time...) of "The Chink".

As Susan Sontag argues persuasively in her essay "Fascinating Fascism," the fact that Leni Reifenstal created a coffee-table book featuring her photographs of heroic Nubain tribesmen does little to change her reputation as Hitler's greatest propagandist; in fact, the book's odd focus on racial purity and strength is a mirror of her previous subjects. Whether Griffith loved the story because of its exoticism and humanity or because he was a racist (or both) is impossible to determine.

Now, to give Big Hollywood the benefit of the doubt, it is a blog with many authors and I doubt this writer's headline is meant to imply that all conservatives "like" racism or all of Griffith's films. It is just sloppy. But this isn't even why I am focused on it.

The real reason is that Big Hollywood is attacking Robert Rodriguez's new film Machete as racist. Not only is it racist, but it will cause (or is trying to cause) race riots.

Yes, just as some (completely wrong) critics of Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing worried about wilding black crowds whipped into a "get whitey" frenzy rioting and looting after seeing the flick, so too the deep thinkers at Big Hollywood think "bad" Mexicans will translate the campy fiction of Machete into REAL violence (actually they just bit Alex Jones' shit, but that's another story).

Do The Right Thing critics used similar words like "dynamite under every seat" and "Molotov cocktail." Spike Lee had some choice words for them, which could as easily go to the people on the right who are disrespecting Machete's audience:

what's even more insane is people like Joe Klein and David Denby felt that this film was going to cause riots. Young black males were going to emulate Mookie and throw garbage cans through windows. Like, "How dare you release this film in summertime: You know how they get in the summertime, this is like playing with fire."

(his emphasis)

Fiction.

Films rarely cause riots, although sometimes small disturbances. Big Hollywood has yet to comment on the violence of Twilight fans.

One big exception was The Birth of a Nation.

The so-called "Red Summer" of 1919 is, at least partially, a result of "conservative" filmmaker's D.W. Griffith's 1915 racist masterwork (the internet was slower then). Let's not trouble Big Hollywood with this lest it disturb its discussion of bad Mexicans and good "Chinks."

Should D. W. Griffith be a subject for "Conservative Movie Lovers" or is it just wishful thinking on the author's part? Certainly Griffith should be a subject of study: both as a pioneering filmmaker and uber-racist. But can a site actively whitewashing his reputation really claim Rodriguez's film to be an incitement to riot? A race riot?

Here's a description of the 1919 violence, from Manning Marable's Race, Reform and Rebellion:

...70 blacks were lynched, including ten soldiers who had fought to "preserve democracy against the Kaiser." Eleven were burned alive. In the Chicago race riot of 1919, 38 persons were killed, and 537 were injured. Up to 1,000 black families were burned out of their homes in the city ... An Omaha, Nebraska, white mob attacked a black man suspected of raping a white woman. The man was shot over 1,000 times, and the corpse was lynched in the city's central district.

So if the editors of Big Hollywood (that's his twitter if you want to say hi) really want to debate causal relationships between films and violence, I'm ready. Even if we are discussing the ones for "Conservative Movie Lovers," the ones that happened to be released in 1919.

Andrew Breitbart's twitter is here.