Love and Compassion

Dear Friends,

On this Christmas Eve, the letter reprinted below reminded of the true meaning of Christmas and the universality of the saying "love thy neighbor as thyself" which is said in so many ways in so many different religions and by so many people.  The letter from multiple Muslim leaders in Minnesota was published in the Star Tribune today (here).  I hope you will take the time to read and reflect on it.  I hope that all of you will join me as I try harder to live my life with love, compassion, justice and inclusion.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

A holiday letter from Muslim leaders in Minnesota

Two faiths, one hope — for peace

By Multiple authors DECEMBER 23, 2015 — 7:34PM

To our Christian brothers and sisters:

Out of our shared love for the Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, Peace Be Upon Him, we greet you with peace and joy during your celebration of his life.

The Bible refers to him as the Messiah and describes the annunciation, his miraculous birth and his numerous miracles.

The Qur’an refers to him as the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary. It teaches about his miraculous birth and how his mother Mary was honored above all the worlds. Muslims are instructed to invoke peace upon him whenever his name is mentioned.

The Qur’an narrates the story of the angel who visited Mary, saying “O Mary, indeed God has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of all the worlds.” (Qur’an 3:42)

The angel said, “O Mary, indeed God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary. He will be honored in this world and the Hereafter and he will be among those closest to God. He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and he will be of the righteous.” (Qur’an 3:44-45)

She said, “My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?” The angel said, “Such is God; He creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” (3:47)

The Qur’an describes how the baby Jesus, immediately upon birth, looked up to his mother and comforted her: “Do not be sad; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented.” (Qur’an 19:24-26)

The Qur’an describes many instances in the life of Jesus: how he preached the worship of God and compassion to people, how he healed the leper, how he healed the blind, and even how he brought the dead back to life.

Our two religions, Christianity and Islam, which both profess love and reverence for Jesus as a central figure in each of our religions, constitute over half of the population of the world.

Mercy and compassion, charity and love are the divine attributes that the Christmas season evokes among Christians. A mother’s devotion, a child’s love, and the promise of God’s mercy and grace in the coming of Jesus to us are sentiments that Muslims can share and appreciate.

In the Bible, we are told that Jesus, in response to a question about the most important commandment, is said to have answered: “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is similar. You should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40) Jesus added that those whose hearts are filled with such love of God and neighbor live not far from the kingdom of God. (Mark 12:34)

Similarly, the Qur’an teaches us that to “worship God being sincere to Him in faith, to incline towards the truth, to establish prayer and to give alms to the poor is the essence of the religion.” (Qur’an 98:5) “ ... And you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And God is The Merciful Forgiving.” (Qur’an 24:22)

The Prophet Mohammad, Peace Be Upon Him, taught: “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.” (Bukhari & Muslim)

In the words of St. Paul, let us put on the armor of light which is the teaching of God that we are to love one another that we might together better confront the dark that lies within some human hearts which are far from God. (Romans 13:12)

As Jesus taught so movingly, let our lights so shine together before all people that they may see our good works which glorify our God in Heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

Jesus taught us that we should not live by bread alone but by every word of God. (Matthew 4:4)

Thus, we applaud the good hearts and loving deeds seeking to please God in His mercy and compassion that are befitting for us not only during this Christmas season but also every day of every year. Let all people, Christians and Muslims, who love Jesus, peace be upon him, come together to practice what he preached. Let peace and goodwill spread among us all.

We invite all our Muslim brothers and sisters of goodwill to join us in this open letter at this Christmas season and throughout the year as peace and joy, love of God and neighbor, are to be with us always.

This article was submitted by Imam Asad Zaman, Muslim American Society of Minnesota; Dr. Odeh Muhawesh, Imam Hussain Islamic Center; Shaykha Tamara Gray, Rabata/Daybreak Bookstore; Dr. Tamim Saidi, Masjid Al Kareem; Fedwa Wazwaz, Engage Minnesota; Dr. Shah Khan, Islamic Center of Minnesota; Dr. Onder Uluyol, Islamic Resource Group; Zafar Siddiqui, Al Amal School; Imam Sharif Mohamed, Islamic Civic Society of America — Masjid Dar Al-Hijrah, and Owais Bayunus, Islamic Center of Minnesota.

Clinton and Sanders Infrastructure Plans

Dear Friends,

Hillary Clinton has finally come out with an infrastructure plan, and as you might imagine it is very middle of the road and certainly would not accomplish what even she says we need.

Everybody agrees that the United States infrastructure is in grave need of repair, costs Americans a ton of unnecessary money each year and is way behind that of other developed countries.  If you don't believe me read the article in Fortune (here) entitled "An investment in America's infrastructure could cost taxpayers nothing".  It is a full throated argument for investing huge sums of money in our infrastructure.

There seems to be general agreement that the US needs to invest well over $1 trillion in our infrastructure to repair it and bring it to a competitive level with other developed countries.  As the Fortune article points out, an up to date infrastructure would save everybody money that is currently spent on lost time and damage done by a crumbling and overcrowded infrastructure.  In addition, infrastructure spending creates lots of good paying jobs.  The Fortune article estimates that even a $18 billion annual investment in infrastructure would create 216,000 jobs in the first year.  As the Fortune article concludes, "It is hard to think of a timelier win-win proposal."

Bernie Sanders has proposed increasing our infrastructure spending by $1 trillion over the next five years (here).  Hillary Clinton, while acknowledging that estimates of "the size of our 'infrastructure gap' register in the trillions of dollars", proposes that we increase our infrastructure spending by just $275 million over the next five years (here).

You can see a comparison of the two plans at Dave Johnson's blog on The Huffington Post (here).

Secretary Clinton's proposal can hardly be called an incremental improvement much less any kind of a solution to our infrastructure deficit.  It is, of course, better than nothing.  Senator Sanders' proposal truly addresses both the infrastructure deficit we face as well as the need for many more good paying jobs.  Once again the extremely modest proposal from the establishment candidate will not generate any enthusiasm among those in our country who are looking for real change and bold ideas.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama eviscerates our rights and protects wrongdoers

Dear Friends,

I have pointed out before that President Obama is often not the President that he could or should be.  He has referred to his administration as "the most transparent administration in history".  Since prior administrations set such a low bar, his statement may be technically true, but it is very misleading.  President Obama has been aggressively pursuing any "leaks" with prosecutions.  A 2013 article in The Guardian (here) leads off with these paragraphs:

Barack Obama has pursued the most aggressive "war on leaks" since the Nixon administration, according to a report published on Thursday that says the administration's attempts to control the flow of information is hampering the ability of journalists to do their jobs.
The author of the study, the former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, says the administration's actions have severely hindered the release of information that could be used to hold it to account.

President Obama continues to aggressively pursue prosecution of whistleblowers while doing nothing to those whose crimes are disclosed by the whistleblowers.

He is now seeking to limit the authority of the inspector generals of various agency who act as watchdogs over those agency.  Here is a summary of the inspector general concept, and President Obama's attempt to destroy it from a recent article in The New York Times (here)

The inspector-general system was created in 1978 in the wake of Watergate as an independent check on government abuse, and it has grown to include watchdogs at 72 federal agencies. Their investigations have produced thousands of often searing public reports on everything from secret terrorism programs and disaster responses to boondoggles like a lavish government conference in Las Vegas in 2010 that featured a clown and a mind reader.
Not surprisingly, tensions are common between the watchdogs and the officials they investigate. President Ronald Reagan, in fact, fired 15 inspectors general in 1981. But a number of scholars and investigators said the restrictions imposed by the Obama administration reflect a new level of acrimony.
“This is by far the most aggressive assault on the inspector general concept since the beginning,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor who has studied the system. “It’s the complete evisceration of the concept. You might as well fold them down. They’ve become defanged.”

Last summer, President Obama's Justice Department issued a new ruling related to the inspector general concept.  Here are the opening paragraphs from an article at the Huffington Post (here)

The Department of Justice watchdog says a new opinion issued by the DOJ's legal office "undermines" the watchdog's independence and will "significantly" impair its ability to "detect and deter waste, fraud, and abuse, and to protect taxpayer dollars."
The Office of the Inspector General at the Justice Department conducts oversight of the department's activities and law enforcement agencies within it. But under a new opinion from DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, the inspector general has to seek permission from the organization it is meant to oversee in order to obtain certain types of information.
"As a result of the OLC’s opinion, the OIG will now need to obtain Justice Department permission in order to get access to important information in the Department’s files – putting the agency over which the OIG conducts oversight in the position of deciding whether to give the OIG access to the information necessary to conduct that oversight," the Inspector General's office said in a statement. "The conflict with the principles enshrined in the Inspector General Act could not be clearer and, as a result, the OIG’s work will be adversely impacted."

The New York Times article referenced above (here) cited an incredible list of recent examples of investigations that have been hindered or completely thwarted by the agency refusing to provide documents to its inspector general, including, the killing of unarmed Honduran civilians by DEA agents, sexual assaults in the Peace Corps, FBI abuses in counterterrorism cases and the conduct of negotiations of international trade agreements by the Commerce Department.  We have a right to know about the bad and illegal things our government does and to have those responsible held accountable.

As far as we know, President Obama has continued and defended programs which violate our right to privacy and now he is trying his best to ensure that we have no way of finding out about wrongdoings by government officials.  That is not the way a democracy works.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal