Salon Weekly
A Weekly Email Publication of The Lloyd House
Circulation: 525
Growing out of the Monday Night Salon
For info about the Salon, see the bottom of this email
Join us at the Lloyd House every Monday of the year at 5:45 for pot luck and discussion.
3901 Clifton Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio
.
At the table on 12/26/05: David Rosenberg, Diane Marcus, Adrienne Cooper, Dan Hershey, Steve Sunderland, Gerry Kraus, Marvin Kraus, Mike Murphy, Spencer Konicov, Ellen Bierhorst, Mira Rodwan. (Welcome Diane!)
Chanukkia lighting, blessings
Topics Nominated and announcements:
Mosque Bombing
Letter from the Salon to senators and congress people on Bush¹s illegal, unconstitutional wiretapping.
David: update on city political events,
Marvin: how Jews celebrate Christmas
Mira: Kwanzaa
Discussion:
Ellen... on handouts from the Mosque. As you know from the Weekly last week, I attended the Friday (sabbath) service at the Clifton Avenue Mosque in solidarity with the Cincinnati Muslims. As I was leaving, I was handed a couple of papers I didn¹t look at until today.
I am heart sore and furious to read their content. They paint a vivid and electrifying picture of what it means to be a Muslim in America today.
One is the Council on American Islamic Relations Weekly news sheet. At the end of the news piece about the bombing, is a link to a downloadable Muslim Community Safety Kit for free at http://www.cair-ohio.com. What does that tell you? Ever get handed a set of strategies at your church for handling terrorist attack or hate crime attack?
The other piece of paper is from the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) on ³What to do if the FBI or department of Homeland Security wants to question you². At http://www.acluohio.org you can read about your rights. I do not expect them to want to interview me just because I am Jewish. I am sick to experience vicariously the suspicion of our government of all our Muslim neighbors.
Steve: Zeynab Schwin describes the harassment she gets from wearing the scarf ... Her children being harassed. So she started the group Muslim Mothers against Violence. ... Barbara Glueck of American Jewish Committee chapter here believes CAIR is a front for terrorist activities. (I have sent Barbara an email asking her to confirm and comment on this. She lives down the street. ellen)
Muslim Political Action Committee says: the Muslim community has not made it clear where the moderate muslims are on many questions. Misogyny, religious freedom, etc. Constance Rice of the Advancement Project of Los Angeles, a progressive black group... is the relative of Condolesa... calls for a major action of US Muslims to clarify that progressive Muslim Americans do not support suppression of women, violent assault upon governments, total intolerance of other religions, and jihad. If this doesn¹t happen and there is another terrorist attack, they will be impounding all Muslims. Interview on NOW the TV program.
In Cincinnati we see Muslims have not been active in educating us. Zeynab said ³My religion has been hijacked.:²
Mike: Months after 9/11 I invited this UC prof. to the salon, he contributed to the book about hijacking Islam. Moderate/ progressive. Ali Minai.
Dan: a long time ago we asked that the Catholic running for president declare loyalty to the US before the pope.
Mira: most Muslims in the world are not Arabs; most are Indonesians.
... There are people who have grown up Muslim but today are agnostics. US Secret Service, the National Security Agency has been spying on groups and individuals in mosques freely regarding emails and also monitoring for radiation ...
Marvin: Whether you are Muslim, Catholic, Jewish... if you are an American, born here, you are an American. Do you have to take a loyalty test, and declare you would support US rather than Israel in a conflict?
Steve Zeynab has not stopped wearing her scarf as a result of discrimination and hassle.
Adrienne: we are ALL at risk from the government. They could put us in jail for no reason, because we are progressives or jews or ...
David: there are reasons why these people go to jail; SOME of them are real enemies, and it is difficult to discern who is and who isn¹t. Tension between civil liberties and national security.
Gerry: but we are a country ruled by law. If the National Security Agency is doing surveillance of people, there is a law you can go to a secret court and get permission. Trouble is the CIA and the SA are not doing that, and the president says it is ok.
David it is a country of law until the law is gray. Then the leaders can abuse....
Steve: are there conditions under which we should suspend law? It terrifies me that state power can supersede the laws. ... This is a cause to die for. When this becomes blurred, then the major part of the American character is lost, and we must fight to sustain that character.
Gerry: it could be the Muslims today and the Jews tomorrow, the Catholics....
Adrienne: ... this is crazy.
Spencer: issue is for the last 40 years there has been a party saying ³We are for your protection, the other party is not.² You cannot be both protected and free. I am willing to take that risk in order to be free. We understand and accept that contract.
Dan I just heard on the radio that Chenney is very influential in the administration in the sense, ... chief of staff under Ford. Feels strongly the exec. branch has given up too much of its power and responsibility to the congress and courts. He will do whatever whatever needs to be done to regain executive power that he feels is important. That¹s their game.
And on the Muslim question, ... my father was a (jewish) refugee from Hungary. I was trying to be a regular American. I asked him, ³Are you Jewish or are you American first?² In the early days he would say, ³Jewish². Later, he changed as he got more conflict about the US gov¹t.
The Muslims are not yet confident that we in this country will deal in a fair way with them.
Mike: it is about exercising our rights. I can understand Dan¹s father. He lived through the Palmer raids, the McCarthyism. ... The War on Truth talks about disinformation 9/11, why America was attacked. It was not a breakdown of military response, rather a ³stand down², a complicity at high levels. To permit these attacks, so the White House would have the chance to declare war and push through the Patriot Act. And this scholar is not the only one to think so. Others have also said so. There is plenty of smoking gun evidence that Bush and Chenney should be indicted.
We need to ask What is it to be an American? We should volunteer to set up a buddy system with Muslims, e.g. to go make a complaint.
I was working at a h ospital with a bunch of glass walls, ... could see them looking through my employee files. I went to complain. ³We think you might know the guy who threw a bomb.² I asked them to come talk to me at home. At the time I was handing out socialist labor party literature. There was no Patriot Act at the time. I don¹t know if one could be that aggressive today. So, maybe a buddy system.
Mira: I could imagine citizens in support of nonviolent Muslims, something like that.
And there is no organization doing more on these concerns than the ACLU. I have been a member for many yeARS. Great organization to send money to. They have meetings from time to time at St. John¹s UU church.
Maybe someone like Howard Tolley who teaches political sci. could come talk to us about these issues. He was in France when 9/11 happened. Warm support immediately afterwards. ... frightened to get on a plan to come home afterwards.
Gerry: about fear. I am reading Truth by Al Franken, all about how Bush won the election. Three tactics: fear, smear, and queer. ... when WWII started, FDR said, ³The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.² That¹s exactly what bush used in his campaign to win the presidency. 158 times during the Rep. Convention they brought up 9/11.
We do have to take a chance. Like Spencer said; accept risk.
Dan the right wing is spreading the word that this was never said. Never happened.
One of the greatest failings since 9/11 it has been the press. I would join rather than the ACLU, an organization that hounds the media to be honest and do their job. The latest is Woodward, who became very successful after the Watergate thing. Now is an insider. CLose to high level Republicans, getting inside information. This compromised his impartiality. He recently withheld critical information for a year so that he could write his book.
Steve: the issue as I see it is what can we do to support democracy with Muslim people. If we are afraid to visit the mosque, to have muslims here, to work with Muslims then we are part of the problem. So this year I am determined to make sure as much as I can, bring Muslims, Christians, and Jews together in places of worship, and talk together.
At Zeynab¹s presentation we were all electrified as soon as she put on the scarf. She said, ³I am the same person!²
This week, those of us who went to the mosque this week were making a clear human relations statement: ³We are with you.² More people came to the mosque than had every before come.
Gerry I was out of town when it happened. Were there elected officials there?
Steve: mayor Mallory was there and opened the press conference. He was very clear.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL WIRETAPPING AND SPYING : LETTER FROM THE SALON
Steve: Letter asking for an investigation of what the president is doing and whether or not ...calling for investigation of the spying without warrant.
Marvin: ...erosion of our system of checks and balances. Put that in our letter.
HOW TO SIGN IT?:
The Social Action Committee of the Lloyd House Salon of Cincinnati
WE DECIDED THAT INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS WOULD SEND STEVE THEIR Specific names WITH ZIP CODES.
(See below in Blue section, "Articles", for text of the letter and the email to respond and join the letter.).
Gerry: since congress ins on vacation now. put on the Weekly, have folks email to Steve.
David on Local Political Issues
We are fighting the identical issues here: abuse of power, lack of gov;t transparency, lack of democracy.
Our mayor changed committees and city council rules in a meeting behind closed doors. Laketa Cole and Crowley objected, and lost power as a result, lost chairmanships. The whole issue of zoning and land use got taken away from her committee and was put in Bortz¹ committee instead. We have worked hard for years and have started making progress on zoning. Now we are starting back at square one.
Northside had a comprehensive community devel plan which was nixed by the planning commission for no apparent good reason.
Steve Stephanie had that changed. But good point, it was done unilaterally.
David We have worked hard for alternative zoning for Winton Pl. City mysteriously dragging its feet. Now discover that a huge big box developer has been wanting to lease property. Gray Rd. Wandarkaar
There are analogous issues that we have been discussing all evening on the national level, right here in cincinnati.
People with money and power have bought all three political parties. (Gerry, yes!) If we don¹t wise up and hire a full time staff person to watch dog the government...
Marvin: neighborhood summit Feb 4, Sat at the Cintas Center. As many of us as possible should go. Purpose to give residents to meet council and mayor and dept. heads. Ask questions publicly. Remind these people that we are watching. (See Neighborhood Summit announcement in the Announcements section, maroon, below.)
Ellen: Let¹s have a unified group presence...let¹s all go in with a sheet of talking points... make same point.
Marvin Cinti has a law that a paid lobbyist must register, but don¹t have to tell who you are lobbying for. ...take a look at the law, look at list of who are all the lobbyists are and publicize. Who are these people who are influencing our elected officials? Obviously they are not being influenced by us.
Steve What do we think of Mallory on doing this?!
Marvin: Let¹s Invite the mayor to come back and talk to us and we can ask him the question. Let them come here. Ask Jenny Edwards to bring him.
Mira this intrusion into the Gray Rd thing was before Mallory was elected.
Dan: blogs are a new weapon.
Ellen: the lloyd House Salon has a blog at blogspot.com. We are working the bugs out.
Gerry: put the blog blurb on the front of the Weekly.
David: money gets stuff done. We need a full time paid employee working to watch over city council.
Mira: and the republicans are more clever...
Steve within a minute of his election, our good guy mayor Mark Mallory has changed rules in secret meetings....
Mira: let¹s ask Roxanne Qualls what she thinks of this; she endorsed him.
David our city is so devoid of good leadership, common sense ideas. ... we need a lobbyist.
~ End of Table Notes ~
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