Where in that is there any "hate speech"?
People are robbed and killed in New York, and other major cities, on a regular basis, and none of it has anything to do with what radio commentators say, and all to do with the poverty that still exists in this country because of the incompetent attempts to fight it.
You may be sure the attorney for the attacker will try also to put the blame on Rush, et al, saying he was indeed "brainwashed" by them, but that will just be a ploy. The guy obviously is mentally ill, not some hate-filled individual who just decided to throw his life away to kill a Muslim. Only people who dont' have lives decide it's a badge of honor to spend a few years in prison.
Hate crime is born from shameless pandering of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich
Michael Daly
Rush Limbaugh sure lived up to his name. He was in such a rush to leave the city he helps make more dangerous that he left the furniture when he unloaded his apartment.
Limbaugh pocketed $6 million profit on his Fifth Ave. penthouse even as he was fanning the bigotry and hate aroused by the so-called Ground Zero mosque.
So, maybe Limbaugh could spare a few dollars to help out the Muslim cabbie who fell victim to the kind of attack that was sure to come in such a climate.
As Limbaugh and such other self-promoting panderers as Newt Gingrich shamelessly sowed, so did Ahmed Sharif undeservedly reap.
Not that Limbaugh and his ilk are likely to take responsibly for helping to spread a sickness that infected an already unbalanced mind to flare into violence.
In the absence of help from Rush and Newt, I am asking readers to contribute to a Big Tip for Sharif.
My idea is to flag his cab once he is back to work and, when it comes time, tip him whatever I can manage along with whatever Daily News readers send in.
It won't be penthouse money, but it no doubt will be welcome help in raising the four kids Sharif and his wife brought along when they came to see the mayor yesterday. His youngest is not much more than an infant and was asleep in his wife's arms as they came through the metal detector at the gate.
To see Sharif and his family then cross City Hall Plaza was to know he is just the kind of hardworking family man that makes us New York. He looked as manifestly innocent as the thousands who were murdered in the towers on the other side of Broadway.
"I feel like I belong here," he said of the city that he has made his own with 25 years of honest sweat and decency.
"We live here side by side peacefully. Support and respect each other."
Sharif clearly would never make it as a right wing radio host. Limbaugh sits in splendor and makes ever more money talking poison. Sharif survives getting slashed by a 21-year-old bigoted maniac and speaks of peace and tolerance.
He does so even though he remains deeply shaken by the attack.
"Still, I have view of the knife when I close my eyes," he said.
He pulled back the collar of his white shirt to show the wounds of hate, which were vivid in the bright sunlight.
I looked over at the empty sky where the towers had stood until another bright day, when the whole world seemed unbearably vivid.
I remembered that among the papers that drifted down from the burning North Tower was a snapshot of a family much like the Sharifs.
The murder of innocents had only been the most immediate goal of the terrorists.
They wanted to terrorize the rest of us and fill us with a hate as blind as our grief, hate that would make no distinctions between their small gang and the millions of decent Muslims.
How frustrated the terrorists must have been when the immediate aftermath brought out only the best in us. We came together and supported each other and focused our fury in those who had actually carried out the attack.
Just as it seemed the terrorists had failed, we began to lose our focus. We once again splintered into factions. Some of us came to mistrust all Muslims and were outraged to hear a Muslim center and mosque was to be built two blocks from Ground Zero.
The panderers fanned the bigotry and hate, Limbaugh at one point saying it was like building a Japanese temple at the battleship Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor.
One difference is that Japan really attacked Pearl Harbor. The World Trade Center was attacked by a handful of fanatics who need us to do exactly what the panderers are doing.
The front line in the war on terror is ultimately our own souls. One way you can fight the hate is to show Sharif how right he is to love the city Limbaugh fled with stuffed pockets, how right he is to believe this is a still a place of peace and tolerance.
Let's all kick in and give Sharif the New York-sized tip he deserves.
No comments:
Post a Comment