Tea Parties A Hopeful Sign That We're Not All Brain-Dead

When I listened in the past to the statements of right-wing pundits who said that they were afraid for this country, I viewed their remarks as over the top and hopelessly pessimistic. During the past year, however, I've felt more of their unease - not because of the Obama administration's obvious grab for power and lack of competence for our national security but because of the apathy shown by the general public.

I live in the very blue state of New York and in New York City, where the greatest attack on this nation was perpetrated on September 11th, 2001. Either the entire city is on the cusp of severe dementia - unable to feel outrage - or it's simply unaware of what's happening. Then, too, the majority of residents might just be brain dead or they'd notice the creeping influence on the city by Muslims with dubious connections.

The latest indignation and slap at our still-seeping wounds are the plans to build a huge 13-story mosque and community center just blocks away from Ground Zero, on the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory on Park Place. Community Board 1's Financial District Committee has approved the center's alleged message of tolerance and voted unanimously to support the project. Do you want more outrage? It's scheduled to open on September 11th, 2011, the 10th anniversary of our day of infamy.

The mega-mosque will be called Cordoba House and it's supposed to be a center of prayer and community. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam of the Masjid Al-Farah mosque, a storefront mosque in TriBeCa, explained, "By being in this location we get the attention and are able to leverage the voice of the vast majority of Muslims who condemn terrorism." Imam Rauf must mean the silent majority because the Muslims who speak out against terrorism are rarely heard in public.

My former colleague at The New York Sun, Daniel Pipes, is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs and is very familiar with the backgrounds of the so-called moderate Muslims. He was the first to alert us to the connection to the Muslim Brotherhood of the designated principal, Debbie Amontaser, of the proposed Khalil Gibran

International Academy public School in Brooklyn. The idea of an Arab school so soon after September 11th seemed outrageous to me. During World War II, did we open a German public school to explain the Third Reich? The idea would have been considered preposterous, yet the school snuck past us without any diligent investigation.

I wrote a column in 2007 objecting to this public school, which had religious figures on its board of directors. I was vilified in the media and by some hostile denizens of the Upper West Side. Our Mayor Bloomberg saw nothing wrong with how inappropriate it was to have a public school with a religious affiliation at the same time every Christian connotation was being removed from them. The mayor has also shown no objection to the Ground Zero mosque and said, "Our city's open to anybody, no matter what your religion is."

Mr. Pipes has weighed in on this offensive proposal in an interview with CBN: "Faisal Abdul is someone with a very dubious record. He's an Islamist. He's someone who has sympathy with our enemies more than with us. In other words, he wants to apply Islamic law. Granted he's not doing it via terrorism, but he's using his own methods of education, propagation in order to achieve the same goals."

Community Board 1 is expected to have another meeting on May 25th and a protest against the mosque is scheduled. I don't hold out much hope that the mosque plans will be halted. The protests against the Arab school didn't stop it from going through and I haven't heard any denouncements from our elected officials.

The only bright light on the horizon is coming from the fast growing Tea Parties that are unafraid of stepping on the toes of the multicultural advocates who care nothing about our national security. These grassroots groups are composed of Americans who have a finer sense of American history than those who've emerged from Ivy League academia totally brainwashed in Marxism.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party Express leader, Mark Williams, made the error of associating Muslims with the Hindu religion, saying that Muslims worship "the terrorists' monkey god." Naturally, he was pounced on by the lamestream media and the "moderate" CAIR - The Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Why does anybody still publicize what CAIR has to say? It's an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas funding case and may be a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. A former deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism, Juan Zarate, once described the Muslim Brotherhood as "a group that worries us not because it deals with philosophical or ideological ideas but because it defends the use of violence against civilians."

The media elite expressed more anger at Mr. Williams's poor choice of words than the fact that the mega-mosque near Ground Zero will be looked on as a badge of honor to radical jihadists. On the first anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, there was a Salafi Islamic conference in Birmingham, England staged by a fundamentalist Muslim leader, Abu Khadeejah, who said: "The Al Muhajiroun conference will be about rejoicing and praising what took place on September 11." Posters announcing the conference showed the burning Twin Towers proudly as an act of achievement.

Our attorney general, Eric Holder, does not even admit that the term "radical jihadists" exists, but terrorists shouting "Allahu Akbar" before they commit acts of murder are invariably radical Muslims. Mr. Holder also seemed to ignore the possibility that New Yorkers would be appalled at the idea of trying the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, here in downtown Manhattan.

Those downtown members of the community board who voted for the mosque probably think it will safeguard the area from another attack. This is the mindset of the appeasers and cowards.

The ordinary citizens who are joining their local Tea Parties are neither racists nor terrorists but they do understand the tenets under our Constitution that grant them the ability to vote the Neville Chamberlains out of office. They are not cowards and have withstood the slings and arrows of a left-wing press that demonized then as angry bigots and with the repugnant sexual soubriquet "teabaggers."

It is with profound joy that I see their numbers growing. My neighbors who once viewed themselves as apolitical are signing up to support the movement. They have a lot in common with the early immigrants who viewed America with awe as the land of freedom.

Our political leaders today care more about the international community that these immigrants fled from. They (Democrats only) stood and cheered as Mexico's President Calderon scolded us for daring to pass a law protecting citizens from criminals from his country.

Those self-serving politicians could learn a lot from the Tea Partiers who still love America and who will gladly teach them a lesson come Election Day.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com