http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/us/08muslim.html?ref=us
Religious leaders held an "emergency summit" to denounce bigotry toward Muslim Americans, while the imam behind a planned Islamic center finally spoke out about the controversy By Laurie Goodstein NY Times: September 08, 2010 WASHINGTON - Prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders held an extraordinary "emergency summit" meeting in the capital on Tuesday to denounce what they called "the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry" aimed at American Muslims during the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero. "This is not America," said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the emeritus Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, flanked by three dozen clergy members and religious leaders at a packed news conference at the National Press Club. "America was not built on hate." They said they were alarmed that the "anti-Muslim frenzy" and attacks at several mosques had the potential not only to tear apart the country, but also to undermine the reputation of America as a model of religious freedom and diversity. The imam behind the plan to build an Islamic center near ground zero, Feisal Abdul Rauf, finally spoke out about the controversy, saying in an opinion piece in The New York Times published Tuesday night that he would proceed with plans to build the center. He wrote that by backing down, "we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides." The meeting in Washington occurred amid growing concern by the White House, the State Department and the top American military commander in Afghanistan over plans by Terry Jones, the pastor of a small church in Florida, to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Gen. David H. Petraeus warned on Tuesday that any video of Americans burning the Koran "would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan - and around the world - to inflame public opinion and incite violence," endangering the lives of American soldiers. A State Department spokesman called Mr. Jones's plan "un-American." Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said any activity "that puts our troops in harm's way would be a concern to this administration." Several clergy members in Washington and Florida said that there were efforts to dissuade Mr. Jones from proceeding with the event, but that he appeared unlikely to relent. The religious leaders in Washington said in their statement, "We are appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text that for centuries has shaped many of the great cultures of our world." Interfaith events are not unusual, but this one was extraordinary for the urgency and passion expressed by the participants. Some of the same religious leaders later met with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to urge him to prosecute religious hate crimes aggressively. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said: "We know what it is like when people have attacked us physically, have attacked us verbally, and others have remained silent. It cannot happen here in America in 2010." The clergy members said that those responsible for a poisoned climate included politicians manipulating a wedge issue in an election year, self-styled "experts" on Islam who denigrate the faith for religious or political reasons and some conservative evangelical Christian pastors. The Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, said: "To those who would exercise derision, bigotry, open rejection of our fellow Americans of a different faith, I say, shame on you. As an evangelical, I say to those who do this, you bring dishonor to those who love Jesus Christ." The summit meeting was initiated by leaders of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group of mosques and Muslim groups, who contacted Jewish and Christian leaders they know from years of joint interfaith projects. A Catholic priest, the Rev. Mark Massa, executive director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote the draft of the statement. About three dozen clergy members representing Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, evangelical and Orthodox Christian groups refined it at the meeting. They did not take a stand on whether to support the proposed mosque and community center near ground zero in Manhattan, saying, "Persons of conscience have taken different positions on the wisdom of the location of this project, even if the legal right to build on the site appears to be unassailable." But some groups at the meeting, like the National Council of Churches, an umbrella group representing 100,000 churches, have come out in support of a mosque near the World Trade Center site, said the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the council. *** http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20100906_The_deficit_worth_worrying_about.html The deficit worth worrying about By Judith Stein The Philadelphia Inquirer: September 6, 2010 It won't be a good Labor Day for America's jobless. August's employment report showed the economy was still losing jobs (54,000 of them in the month), underscoring the weakness of the recovery. Politicians debate the consequences of the budget deficit, but it's the trade deficit that accounts for meager American growth and employment. Global imbalances - especially the U.S. trade deficit and Chinese surplus - were at the root of the financial crisis in 2008. For the past 40 years, American leaders assumed high-tech services, finance, and housing could sustain prosperity. They stood by as East Asian and European governments promoted manufacturing and manufacturing exports. Too much U.S. investment went into non-tradables: finance, housing, retail, personal services. Americans amassed trade deficits because we didn't make enough autos, appliances, and computers. Cheap money - mainly from China and Japan, which accumulated dollars from trade surpluses - funded U.S. consumption despite stagnating wages. The trade deficit peaked at 6.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2006. After the 2008 crisis, President Obama promised to reform and "rebalance" the economy that brought the world to the edge. "For too long," he said recently, "America served as the consumer engine for the entire world." Yet the president's actions have reinforced the old imbalances. Bailing out banks resurrected finance while industry struggles. Health-care legislation will expand the bloated medical sector in the short run. Imports have risen sharply since February, while exports barely moved. The rising trade deficit will certainly reduce the meager estimated second-quarter growth of 2.4 percent while keeping unemployment high. Obama's $787 billion stimulus leaked. Much of the new consumption was of foreign goods, stimulating other economies - China's, Germany's, Japan's. The spending produced fewer U.S. jobs than Keynesian economists predicted. In the open U.S. economy, stimulus is problematic. The alternative is not austerity - which would simply shrink the economy - but rather targeting employment. Even in the era of globalization, most countries make sure they protect their labor markets, which usually means running a trade surplus. China, Japan, and Europe maintained such industrial policies during the recession. And the European Commission plans to unveil an industrial strategy stressing manufacturing and downgrading services and "knowledge" industries. By contrast, the United States imagines that markets, not governments, determine a nation's industrial mix. And U.S. foreign policy still trumps economic objectives. The tolerance for China's currency manipulation is surely related to efforts to win Chinese support for U.S. policies on Iran and North Korea. America does have industrial policies by default: Sugar, housing, finance, and pharmaceuticals get breaks, for example. But we need to ask whether those are in the nation's interest. To begin to rebalance, we could reduce aid to the housing industry through tax deductions, mortgage guarantees, and other incentives. That could be coupled with an infrastructure program employing construction workers no longer needed in housing. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest should lapse not to reduce the deficit, but to fund infrastructure, which could be the core of a manufacturing renewal. If the nation is to end the trade deficit, it has to manufacture more. Manufactured goods make up more than half the value of U.S. exports. American manufacturers can also cut the deficit by competing with imported goods. But selling more here and abroad will require the government to enforce trade laws for a change. Manufacturing also nurtures skilled jobs and high wages. It will not by itself provide the huge number of new jobs we need, but it will create additional jobs in financial and technical services, transportation, storage, and wholesaling. There are pitfalls as well as promise in industrial policy. But 9.6 percent unemployment should concentrate the mind. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judith Stein is a professor of history at the Graduate Center and City College of the City University of New York, and the author of "Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies" (Yale University Press). She can be reached at [email protected]. ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
