Embarrassed, Frustrated, and . . .
Alright, alright, I apologize. I’m really, really sorry. I apologize unreservedly. I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact and was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future. (John Cleese, “A Fish Called Wanda”).
I have been terribly frustrated and embarrassed by many of my fellow Americans that continue to inaccurately label a proposed community center in New York City a “Mosque”. Moreover, the intentional labeling of persons as “Muslim Americans” by some entertainment, mainstream media, and faux news outlets is a level of cynicism and misdirection that should give every American in this melting pot pause. Unlike nations that define themselves by religious or ethnic division, the United States is a melting pot of people across a vast landmass, many of whom have access to opportunities to better their existence (a topic for another day), and all with the option to worship or not to worship as their religious inclinations lead. This latest religious discrimination against Americans that practice Islam is an example of our nation not learning from our history and how we repeat past mistakes. Where are the historians, actual degree bearing historians, that can help this nation recall the discrimination against Catholics, Mormons, some forms of Protestantism, or ethnic groups immigrating to this country?
Given the violence and separation that families have experienced this past decade this is an understandable emotional response to Americans that practice Islam, but the categorical assumption that every person that practices Islam is intent on becoming a terrorists is shameful behavior and every thinking American knows it in their heart. The nation did not conclude that every Christian participates in adultery when Jimmy Swaggart tearfully professed, “I have sinned.” nor do we determine that every Christian is a terrorists when groups are found in compounds with weapons and plans in the woods somewhere. We understand these persons to be on the fringe and outside the mainstream. Why is it so hard to come to the same conclusion about those that practice Islam in this country or around the world? No doubt that there are sociological reasons for this behavior: white America adjusting to a non-white male holding the office of President, economic uncertainty, distrust of once trustworthy institutions, and the overt rigging of the economy by elected officials to benefit those with the most accumulated wealth (the top 1%). No doubt there are Christian religious leaders as convinced of the superiority of their faith over others as the Taliban or Bin Laden is about Islam. Again, where are the leaders helping the nation through the grief process?
We’ve sold out the melting pot of coexistence for the stew pot of capitalism that relies on “separate but equal” to turn a profit. In our evolution into the 21st century we are devolving into a pre-civil war America that is more interested in states rights, personal profit, and political power rather than the rights of all citizens from which we have all descended: immigrants, illegals, and natives. In a consumption culture the words of President Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” fall on deaf ears and a visit to the Lincoln Memorial no longer has the power to shake America awake to do what is right because we know it to be right. We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them.
What can the top 1% of earners do? Divest from companies that treat their employees as disposable as we do when replacing their products when they break. Invest in companies that create goods and services that provide a living wage, health care, and treat employees with respect. If you make .15 cents a share less profit what does that matter in a portfolio worth 1 million or more? Invest in your communities so that quality business rather than cheap business wants to do business in your state and your community. If you are a person of faith, whatever religious faith that may be, how does your faith square with allowing the least to pay the most? With great power comes great responsibility and in our country great power is typically related to money. If you serve in Congress (Representative and Senators) give up your government salary and pension payments until the national debt is brought under 5 trillion dollars.
What can the rest of us do? Turn off the political fear profiteers and stop buying their books. If you think Palin, Army, or any of the Fox show hosts have the countries best interest in mind then you are probably not reading this anyway. The owner of their parent company is interested in taking money out of your pocket by whatever means necessary and increasing their ratings and stock price by appealing to the nation’s fears and voyeur culture. The power of the American people has often been how we spend our money. Ask your local government to invest in the things that make your community strong: quality education, infrastructure, health care, and companies that are seeking to do business rather than make a quick buck and move on. And finally, we can listen to the depth of these words from Keith Olbermann. Yes, he is on a network at the other end of the political spectrum from Fox News. Yes, he does some “over the top” stunts on his show and sometimes crosses the line. But, these words from Olbermann remind me why candidate Obama was my choice for President. Candidate Obama spoke to the nation and the challengers for President, as adults. It will require President Obama to return to this way of leading if his Presidency is going to recover and nation is going rise from the ashes of a decade of fear, separation, war spending, and financing our habits to claim his slogan, “Yes we can.”
It begins by pointing out the selfish, often childish or uneducated behavior of law makers, no matter their party affiliation, when they are not working for the common good of us all but for lobbyists. It begins with this community center in New York City and ending the demonization of all persons that practice Islam. Yes we can reclaim the melting pot expression of our nation that has made it strong. Yes we can limit speech that seeks to intentionally start a riot (shouting fire in a theatre) as a distraction or with the intent to publicly discriminate. Yes we can turn off, tune out, and marginalize the voices that profit from segregation, discrimination, and economic uncertainty so that our nation can be whole. Yes we can embrace people of all faiths with good will to build a peaceful, mostly equal nation and world. The problem is, you have to want it and you have to speak up.
Excerpts from Keith Olbermann’s “Special Comment”, August 16, 2010.
“They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Pastor Martin Niemoller’s words are well known but their context is not well understood. Niemoller was not speaking abstractly. He witnessed persecution, he acquiesced to it, he ultimately fell victim to it. He had been a German World War 1 hero, then a conservative who welcomed the fall of German democracy and the rise of Hitler and had few qualms the beginning of the holocaust until he himself was arrested for supporting it insufficiently.
But Niemoller was not warning of the Holocaust. He was warning of the willingness of a seemingly rational society to condone the gradual stoking of enmity towards an ethnic or religious group warning of the building-up of a collective pool of national fear and hate, warning of the moment in which the need to purge, outstrips even the perameters of the original scape-goating, when new victims are needed because a country has begun to run on a horrible fuel of hatred — magnified, amplified, multiplied, by politicians and zealots, within government and without.
And in America, when somebody comes for your neighbor, or his bible, or his torah, or his Atheists’ Manifesto, or his Koran, you and I do what our fathers did, and our grandmothers did, and our founders did you and speak up.