Norman Rufus Colin Cohn (January 12, 1915 – July 31, 2007) and Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 - August 4, 2007) died within a week of each other this summer.
I intend no meaning in noting the proximity of their deaths, other than to state that these men shared a common disdain for the power of the state aligned with the indifference of its citizens to inflict genocidal catastrophes upon humanity.
And their lives and work ought to live on as a furious reproach to contemporary Americans who passively watch the destruction of over one million Iraqis as demagogic figures in American popular culture vilify anyone (achieving a certain level of celebrity) daring to point out the crimes against humanity that war inflicts.
Cohn’s most influential works are The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (1957) and Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1970).
Hilberg wrote The Destruction of the European Jews (1961), regarded as the seminal study of the Holocaust killing of millions of Jews, and millions of other victims.
Both men were historians believing in precision free of ideology in depicting the facts of past occurrence without apology to contemporary political motivations.
Cohn and Hilberg’s eloquence and precision inspired generations of humanists.
Reading Noam Chomsky’s The Culture of Terrorism (1988), Cohn’s words ring out.
All the NAZIs required of the population is a “mood of passive compliance” as Hitler’s Holocaust coursed through Europe as he promised a return to “traditional values” and security for good German families, cites Chomsky.
Passive compliance; that phrase should become an imprecation, a curse reserved for the most despicable of acts.
Norman Finkelstein, a child of concentration camp survivors and a furious critic of violence, writes of Hilberg after his death:
Hilberg famously used the triad Perpetrators-Victims-Bystanders to catalogue the main protagonists in the Nazi holocaust. It is notable that he didn't include a category for givers of succor, presumably because they were so few in number. Judging by the life he lived, my guess is that, had the tables been turned, Hilberg would have been among those few.
I can’t help but think that Hilberg and Cohn went to their deaths disappointed and saddened as the idiocies of the Bushes, Cheneys, Powells, and Rices go unchallenged by far too many Americans.
However, millions of Americans have come to the conclusion that halting and reversing the obscenity that we as a country inflict upon the people of Iraq ought to become the deciding factor in whom we elect as the next president.
And that conclusion owes nothing to Hilberg and Cohn, but rather is the result of independent, free thinking.
Hilberg and Cohn, as great intellects, would have smiled and saluted that.
Nate Cohn demolishes another Scott Walker myth: That winning gubernatorial elections in Wisconsin means Scott Walker has broad appeal for a presidential general election, bringing electability to a GOP presidential ticket.
"[Walker's] electoral record — three wins in governor’s races in four years in Wisconsin, including a recall election — isn’t as impressive as it looks," writes Cohn in the NYT in his column, The Upshot. "Mr. Walker’s electoral performance was average for a Republican running for governor in 2010 or 2014. His showing — a modest victory in a modestly Democratic state — was highly consistent with the extent that Republican candidates for governor outperformed Mr. Romney’s showing from 2012."
Cohn points out off-year turn-out adequately explains Walker's statewide success, and notes, "One could even argue that Mr. Walker’s performance was the least
impressive of any Republican candidates for governor in the Midwest."
These facts are not lost on Wisconsin.
Nor is the fact that Walker garners his electoral success from the racially segregated counties, the WOW counties, outside Milwaukee and in rural Wisconsin where younger generations don't stay around that long as Walker continues to demolish community institutions that took generations for Wisconsin to build.
So, Walker continues his ambush on Wisconsin through his ludicrous 2015-2017 budget proposal that seems as much as a tool to bash political and ideological foes, as a thoughtful document to solve the deficit Scott Walker created.
Scott Walker is working to accumulate as much power as he can in his politicized Department of Administration.
Office of State Employment Relations
Walker's budget, for example, eliminates the "Office of State Employment Relations (OSER)" and transfers "the funding, positions, and functions of OSER to a new Division of Personnel Management in DOA which is attached administratively to the Department of Administration (DOA)." (Legislative Fiscal Bureau, p. 330)
The OSER is already sending risk notices to employees that they might be canned by Walker.
Wisconsin Division of Hearings and Appeals
And, administrative law judges in the Wisconsin Division of Hearings and Appeals (DHA) which hears complaints from Wisconsin citizens about many state agencies, such as the DNR would be moved to Walker's Department of
Administration.
"According to the Budget in Brief, the Governor recommends that DOA conduct all administrative hearings for state agencies, with the exception of the Public Service Commission and unemployment insurance." (Legislative Fiscal Bureau, p.41)
This proposal can be understood as payback against Administrative Law Judge Jeffrey D. Boldt who hit the DNR for not considering
"the accumulated effects of groundwater use when the agency reviewed an
application for a high-capacity well for a $35 million dairy farm," a decision unpopular with Walker campaign contributors. (Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Less citizen recourse against a more corrupt state government. Walker would never run on this, and does not enjoy a broad mandate for most of his agenda.
Any suggestion that Walker has cross-over appeal and electability as political assets is absurd.
Members of the U.S. Marine Corps 1st Recon Battalion, Charlie Company operating in the Sangin district, Afghanistan felt the need—for some incomprehensible reason—to use the Ancient Runic alphabet letters adopted by Heinrich Himmler's Schutzstaffel, the SS, as their own icon, placed next to the American flag in a picture for which they posed in September 2010.
Heinrich Himmler's Schutzstaffel, the SS
You fucked up. Renounce it and move on.
When you felt the need to mark your rifles with the SS symbol, you fucked up again. Renounce it and move on.
No one expects you to read Norman Cohn's analyses of the NAZIs in the middle of this bull-shit war known as Operation Enduring Freedom, especially your unit. No one expects you to know all of the particular idiocies of NAZI iconography
Jesus Christ, do you know what Himmler's SS means? Seriously, I would recommend no dishonorable discharge, not loss of anything as reportedly the U.S. military has already dealt with your imbecility internally.
"Those people. Those millions of people. I never knew it would come to that."
—"It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent." Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Why would you use the ancient runic alphabet letters used by Heinrich Himmler's Schutzstaffel, the SS? Deliver a message to Islam that your unit is genocide-capable?
Walter Plywaski, a survivor of the Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II who later became a US citizen and Air Force veteran, expressed disgust at the Marines' behavior. "The photographs below roil my intestines and break my heart beyond words to express," he wrote in an email to Weinstein. "I wish I could really believe that these sniper teams innocently combined the view of the United States flag with the central symbol of the murderous SS!"
I had the pleasure of many exchanges with Walter over the last few years. Think he would be proud of a public renouncement by your unit. But renounce NAZIs for your selves.
As for Norman Cohn, I'll break it down for you: All the NAZIs required of the population and NAZI Party members is a “mood of passive compliance” as Hitler’s Holocaust coursed through Europe as he promised a return to “traditional values” and security for good German families,
Marine sniper's rifle-stock sporting
Himmler's Schutzstaffel, the SS Icon
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is absolutely sickened by the disgusting images of members of the U.S. Marine Corps 1st Recon Battalion, Charlie Company, proudly posing in front of the U.S. flag juxtaposed alongside a symbol associated with the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, the genocide of religious minorities throughout Europe, and the forces of white supremacist racial hatred.
Marine sniper's rifle-stock sporting Himmler's Schutzstaffel, the SS Icon The fact that United States service personnel were caught proudly posing with the emblem of the Nazi SS, which symbolizes the vile ideology of Hitlerian fascism, sends a menacing signal to religious minorities within the United States Armed Forces. The symbol’s usage conveys a message that the U.S. Military is an organization within which white supremacists can feel at home, free to espouse their murderous ideology and proudly don their symbols of hatred.
This brazen display of a symbol which is synonymous with death squads, gas chambers, and brutal occupation reflects a sociopathic, marauding attitude which violently jars with the supposed "nation-building" efforts which the NATO forces have embarked upon. It exacerbates the anti-Americanism felt by the people of the region who we claim to be helping in the context of a UN-mandated, NATO-led security mission.
Closer look at Marine scout sniper, right, with an "SS"
marked on his rifle in this 2004 photo
In short, this shameful display of SS "lightning bolts" by U.S. service personnel enrages our regional allies, emboldens the extremist Islamist forces with whom we are contending, and eviscerates good order, morale, and discipline within the U.S. Marine Corps. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation immediately calls for the leadership of the United States Military to condemn this stomach-turning display without equivocation or delay and severely punish ALL of those responsible.
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq.
Founder & President
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
As prosecutor-politicians and police advance their careers over the shattered lives of the wrongfully convicted, from Texas comes a report on the success of the country's first conviction integrity unit.
In 2007, the new district attorney of Dallas County partnered with the Innocence Project of Texas to review over 400 old cases, many involving denied requests for DNA testing, because the county had the highest number of wrongful convictions in the country.
To ensure such mistaken convictions never happened again, District Attorney Craig Watkins established the first conviction integrity unit in the United States later that year.
'We made history ... I still get calls to my private office for individuals that want me to do that,' Watkins said this week of reviewing old cases, 'but I don't have the power to do that anymore.' ...
While they exist in less than 1 percent of the nation’s 3,007 counties, such units were responsible for 39 percent of overturned wrongful convictions in the U.S. last year, according to a report by the National Registry of Exonerations. That’s 58 of the record-high 149 exonerations in 2015.
'There is a huge sensitivity now to the misuse of prosecutorial and police processes to convict people who are innocent,' Liebman said. 'Officials have become sensitive to those (innocence) claims and are taking responsibility to do something about it.' ...
“As information has spread and (units) have gotten more praise and done more good, you see a rapid uptick,” Hollway said. “More than half of them were started in the last 24 months.”
The units spend a lot of time sorting through requests from the convicted parties, innocence projects and other sources to decide what to review, said Inger Chandler, chief of the Conviction Review Section at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston.
'We try to give every case its due diligence because the last thing you want to do is miss that needle in a haystack,' Chandler said. 'Where we carve people out of eligibility for our review is that you have to be making a claim of actual factual innocence. In other words, 'I wasn’t there' or 'I was misidentified.' Not a justification, not a lesser role, but factual innocence.'
Working to free the innocent. Sounds like a good idea.
As such, every base motivation and imperfection to which the human mind is subject—prejudice, hate, complacency, career opportunity, convenience, lassitude, intellectual laziness, tunnel vision—are inflicted onto the suspect and accused.
Conviction integrity units
Conviction integrity units independent from the District Attorney's office are critical, emphatically when one considers police and prosecutors often stand in the way of exoneration and freedom for the innocent in the face of exculpatory evidence, (Gould, Leo; The Path to Exoneration).
Our local democracies must embrace the fact many in law enforcement will take a conviction of the innocent over the truth, or tragedy results.
When victims, whom police and prosecutors know to be innocent, are impelled onto the criminal justice conveyor belt, law enforcement personnel convince themselves they're just doing their jobs.
Steven J. Phillips published No Heroes, No Villains (Vintage) in 1978, explaining the procedures of criminal law in a gripping account and chronicling of a true-crime murder case in New York. Phillips' thoughtful book no longer bears any relevancy to criminal law procedure in the police-prosecutor-prison-state America.
Today, the villains often wear badges redolent with the myth of purity, defenders against the dangerous class. Prosecutors, judges and court services are bureaucrats working busily like something out of Terry Gilliam's film, Brazil.
In Dane County (Wisconsin), advocates working to free an innocent woman, Penny Brummer—convicted in 1994 and inflicted a life sentence behind bars by an unholy convergence of bigotry, tunnel vision, careerism and demonetization—are cautious to adopt an oops-could-accidents-will-happen and passive-accomplices-just-doing-their-jobs-should-be-excused account of law enforcement in the wrongful conviction and malicious prosecution of Brummer.
The ethics and efficacy of this moral-immunity approach to freeing the innocent Brummer convicted by hatred of lesbians, among other pathologies, are not convincing.
Indifference
But there is another perpetrator beyond law enforcement in Brummer's case: Indifference.
To borrow from a critical study of totalitarian systems edited by Alan L. Berger:
If the reader considers studies of totalitarianism in 1930s-40s Germany and conquered nations not relevant to Brummer's case, consider what a life sentence of incarceration would mean to someone you know wrongfully convicted of first degree intentional homicide in her young 20s, just months home after a five-year stint serving her country, (straight out of high school), in the U.S. Air Force.
As a Brummer advocate's signature on her emails reads: "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..." - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)
An independent conviction integrity unit would have and still can free Penny Brummer and who knows how many other wrongfully convicted (and finally exonerated) Forest Shombergs, Ralph Armstrongs, Anthony Hicks, and Audrey Edmunds, or anyone black and in the wrong place at the wrong time in Dane County.
What’s scary is how tenaciously police and prosecutors cling to their initial assumptions—and how much this reflects basic human tendencies. ...
It’s natural for police and prosecutors to want to ease public fears. And it’s also natural for them to stick with the evidence that supported their preferred explanations. As University of Wisconsin clinical law professor Keith Findley shows in his excellent 2010 article Tunnel Vision, the phenomenon 'is the product of a variety of cognitive distortions,' chief among them confirmation bias. In other words, we tend to give weight to evidence that confirms our existing beliefs. 'Although such confirmation-biased information is often less probative than disconfirming information might be, people fail to recognize the weakness of the confirming feedback they receive or recall,' Findley writes. He cites studies finding that 'police officers who are convinced that a suspect is lying are very resistant to changing their minds' and often 'rate disconfirming or exonerating evidence as less reliable or credible than guilt-confirming evidence that supports their initial hypotheses.'
I called Brandon Garrett, the law professor who wrote the book on wrongful convictions and why they happen, and he pointed out that police and prosecutors have no obligation to pursue alternative explanations, or even to follow a particular method of investigation or keep a record explaining the course they’re taking. Which means it’s close to impossible to hold them accountable for their errors.
Errors and the indifference of the many. These features of American society ought instruct the creation of independent integrity units in every territorial law enforcement jurisdiction in the nation.
Adam Liptak and Jo Becker have a piece in the New York Times today about Judge Sonia Sotomayor and the case of Maher Arar—an innocent Canadian man abducted by US authorities, "held in solitary confinement and subjected to harsh questioning before being sent to Syria ... where (he) was tortured ... and imprisoned for nearly a year in an underground cell the size of a grave until the Syrians finally let him go. (NYT. Feb. 17, 2009)"
Seems Sotomayor didn't approve of rendition and the innocent Arar being tortured. But some believe this case demonstrates a "blunt and even testy side (that) was on display in December during an argument before the federal appeals court in New York."
I hope that should President Obama continue this repulsive practice that all decent men and women display their blunt and testy sides.
Write Liptak and Becker:
'So the minute the executive raises the specter of foreign policy, national security,' Judge Sotomayor asked the lawyer, Jonathan F. Cohn, 'it is the government’s position that that is a license to torture anyone?'
Mr. Cohn managed to get out two and a half words: 'No, your hon—— .'
Judge Sotomayor cut him off, then hit him with two more questions and a flat declaration of what she said was his position. The lawyer managed to say she was wrong, but could not clarify the point until the chief judge, Dennis G. Jacobs, stepped in, asking, 'Why don’t we just get the position?'
Good for Sotomayor. The United States can afford to be just and humane and when we lose our capacity for outrage, we're through.
Dave Umhoefer and Gina Barton's piece in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS) this morning is paired with a prominent shot of the white supremacists group, Volksfront with which Wade Michael Page made common cause in his mass murder at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek.
The MJS piece offers more insight into what brought this white power man to the most segregated metropolitan region in America, suggesting that it might be "a woman who may have shared his white power beliefs," pictured at left-front in the photo above.
White power and mass murder.
The combination ought to provoke discussion in any sane society asking 'why.' See for example, Judith G. McMullen's piece this morning, We Are All Sikhs.
More interesting than the geographical travels of Wade Michael Page are the societal forces preaching hate and fear, because in the words of Ralph McGill: "When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe."
A young black man, Darius Simmons, taking out the garbage is killed in Milwaukee, Treyvon Martin in Florida, a Muslim, a Sikh, killings of innocents across the country; whatever they're not real Americans so they can't be that innocent.
Hate and fear are aid and comfort for the likes of Wade Michael Page, self-proclaimed protector of the Volk, the German analogue of real Americans fighting off other "human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil," in the words of the late Norman Cohn in his Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith (1993).
The wolves of hate and fear are loosed by the American White Party, the Republican-Tea Party, daily (as in today) dishing out coded and explicit appeals to the xenophobic racists in the American white working class.
In 2010, the Republican white strategy was boosted by the fact that minority turnout traditionally drops in non-presidential years, perhaps especially so without Obama on the ballot. But the scope of success went far beyond expectations. (NYT, November 21, 2011)
Sure, scum like Wade Michael Page and the Volksfront have been driven underground by the successes of the American civil rights movement.
Not so far as to be beyond reach of the daily rants of the Walker-Romney Republican-Tea Party providing succor to the Volk pathology of many white Americans holding that the human species is composed of distinct races marked by dissimilar character inclinations and behavior patterns.
A false and psychopathologcal racial conception, the volkisch-racist outlook has played a starring role in the crimes of NAZI Germany, the destruction of the Native Americans by the US, though this volkisch conception is "irrational, unscientific and demonstrably nonsensical," as Cohn writes in Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1967).
Today, we have regular mass murders of the anti-volk like the Sikh, the American prison system that is a "leviathan unmatched in human history," and a major political party playing to the delusional, racist view held by Wade Michael Pages, Jared Loughner and other constituents of the American White Party.
While the generations of young Americans provide continuous hope, it is fair and prudent to ask what we will have tomorrow.
Alex Gibney: "Judging from statements from the Vatican, it's as if there has barely been a sex abuse crisis." ... "I think what this film does is show what happens to institutions when they become so convinced of their own goodness that they imagine that they can do no wrong."
Wisconsin, former Milwaukee DA E. Michael McCann (1968-2006), the city of Milwaukee, Boulder Junction, Three Lakes, former Archbishop Rembert Weakland and host of heroic activists refusing to remain victims are featured in Alex Gibney's powerful, disturbing, inspiring and brilliant new documentary on the Catholic Church and its systemic preying on children by Catholic priests protected from on high, the current pope, Rat-something, who gives a shit what the guy's name is—Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.
McCann and the Milwaukee Police Dept. don't come off well. They come off as bystanders and careerists who chose to look the other way.
Weakland is a hero, just not to the Catholic Church and its sick dogma.
The Republican Party has consolidated its allegiance with the the hierarchy of the Catholic Church now.
That's why the Wisconsin Child Victims Act was killed. Locally, around here (the Madison area) Morlino is the head shit-head.
Whenever I think of organized pond scum such as the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, I take solace in the words of Norman Cohn. A "mood of passive compliance" is all that is required for atrocities to take place.
But these victims, robbed of their childhoods, spoke up, beginning with homemade flyers (at right) they handed out at Milwaukee City Hall and Catholic institutions.
This is the beginning of how this came to light. I surely would like to meet these people some day and have a cold beer with them.
Rep. Garey Bies, (R-Sister Bay, Wisconsin), at right at a
bill-signing ceremony, shakes hands with Scott Walker. Bies is
coauthoring a bill to help the wrongfully convicted in Wisconsin
"There is no more cruel tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of the law, and with the colors of justice." [UNITED STATES v. JANNOTTI (nos. 81-1020), UNITED STATES v. SCHWARTZ (nos. 81-1021)]
I came across the above quote at the Innocence Consultants site, an enterprise dedicated "to advise and assist the wrongfully convicted and those who have been victims" of the 'criminal justice system.'
Not a popular pastime in American culture.
Attempting to compensate innocents prosecuted and convicted in Wisconsin is one issue (I cannot think of two issues) gathering bipartisan support.
Most Americans maintain an unthinking animus toward lawyers, politicians, and various party hacks.
Yet, when these same lawyers and hacks assume the power of the prosecutor and don the robes of the judge, critical thinking and healthy animus dissipate—displaying again the human inability in far too many to question 'authority' and challenge the players in the judicial system, just as corrupt and eminently more damaging than the other two branches of American representative government.
People appear to naturally adopt "passive compliance" as liberty and human decency are lost, to borrow from Norman Cohn and Noam Chomsky.
Dee Hall notes this morning in the Wisconsin State Journal a bipartisan memo (precursor to a legislative bill) gathering support to enhance the compensation and procedural capacity of the wrongfully convicted. [Now, if we can just get innocents not arrested and prosecuted in the first place, but that's a different story.]
"Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Corrections, and Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, last week began seeking co-sponsors for a bill to greatly boost compensation to the wrongfully convicted. Similar bills have failed to advance in the previous two legislative sessions," writes Hall.
The Wrongly Convicted Re-entry Act is picking up numerous co-sponsors across partisan lines.
In the state senate the co-sponsors are Senators Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), and Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay).
Bies' office said this morning that the legislative memo notes the deadline for sponsorship is October 9.
The memo reads in part:
Co-sponsorship of LRB-2091/2 – Wrongly Convicted Re-entry Act (relating to: resolution of claims against the state for wrongful imprisonment of innocent persons, exempting from taxation certain amounts an individual receives from the claims board or legislature, and making an appropriation).
Most wrongfully convicted individuals serve decades-long prison sentences and face great hardships upon release. Apart from the horrors of prison life, the wrongfully convicted have few resources to draw upon when set free, and their families have often incurred enormous attorneys’ fees related to their cases. While in prison, they miss out on educational opportunities, job training, and career advancement opportunities.
Bies' office sent the following biography of the case of
Robert Lee Stinson:
"An innocent man awarded just $25,000 for 23 years in prison
Incarcerated for a Crime He Did Not Commit":
In 1985 Robert Lee Stinson was convicted of the murder of
his 62-year-old neighbor. The victim, Ione Cychosz was found dead on Nov. 3rd,
1984. She had been beaten, stabbed and bitten. The police employed a forensic
dentist who drew a sketch of the bite marks found on the body. He determined,
based on the bite marks, that the suspect was missing an upper front tooth. The
police interviewed several suspects missing teeth consistent with the sketch,
and quickly focused their investigation on 21-year old Robert Lee Stinson,
whose backyard connected to the lot where the victim’s body was found. While
interviewing Mr. Stinson, they noticed that he was missing a tooth, although
not the same tooth that the dentist had thought the perpetrator was missing.
After a 3-day jury trial Mr. Stinson was convicted of
first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. The trial centered
largely on the testimony of two bite-mark experts who claimed that Mr.
Stinson’s teeth matched bite marks left on the body of the victim. In 2009,
after serving 23 years in prison Mr. Stinson was exonerated using both DNA
found on the victim’s sweater, and the testimony of forensic experts who
re-evaluated the bite-mark evidence and found that Mr. Stinson’s bite did not
match the marks on the victim. Eventually the DNA found on the victim not only
excluded Mr. Stinson, but also implicated another man, who later confessed to
the crime. After he was released Mr. Stinson said that it was “a long ride for
me. I’m finally out, and I’m going to enjoy my life.”
The Quest for
Compensation
Robert Lee Stinson’s story exemplifies how woefully
insufficient Wisconsin’s current wrongful conviction compensation scheme is.
After serving 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Mr. Stinson
applied to the Claims Board for compensation under the current statute, Wis.
Stat. §775.05. The current statute only allows an exonerated person to receive
$5,000 per year of incarceration up to $25,000. Even though Mr. Stinson was
incarcerated for 23 years, he was only able to claim $25,000—just over $1,000
for each year he was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Mr. Stinson was
able to meet the high burden of proof required by the current statute,
something that many innocent exonerees are not able to do (especially if, for
example, they were coerced into confessing), and the Claims Board awarded him
the maximum amount available under current law. Noting the inadequacy of the
amount, the Claims Board recommended that the Legislature make a separate appropriation
for Mr. Stinson in excess of the statutory cap for wrongful imprisonment.
A Better Way
Under the proposed bill individuals like Mr. Stinson would
be entitled to up to $50,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment. They would
also have immediate access to social services, health care and transitional
assistance as soon as they leave prison, to help ensure a smooth transition
back into the community.
Update: North Carolina's population has been assaulted like no other by the Repulbican Party. The people are fighting back and propelling Hillary Clinton to a likely victory over Trump. See Cohn, NYT.
---
Hillary Clinton has taken out ad buys in Wisconsin and other blue states, hence this must mean Clinton is losing ground fast, goes the wisdom of the moment.
It's not wisdom, and such meaning as this line possesses is false or misleading.
Buying ads in northern blue states is common sense because Hillary's goal is to reach 270 electoral votes and block Donald Trump's paths to 270.
Assume a melt-down unprecedented in modern American presidential politics that sees Trump winning Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Florida on Election Night.
In this scenario Trump's path forward to 270 goes through Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump's path is blocked in Illinois and Minnesota. By the way, Scott Walker is not going to propel Trump to victory in Wisconsin.
Failing to win Wisconsin and Michigan, then Trump must seek another path and win Nevada and New Mexico, or Colorado, if Trump is to reach 270 electoral votes. The west coast and Hawaii are no-go for Trump.
So increased Democratic Party attention in Nevada, New Mexico or Colorado is also not a sign of impending Clinton collapse. It's another obstruction blocking Trump's path to 270.
This electoral situation does not suggest complacency; anything but.
It means Clinton will win; or if most put forth a tiny bit of effort then Clinton will win in a landslide.
Writes David Leonhardt today in the NYT: "... through all of the campaign’s ups and downs, Clinton has never trailed, whether you look at state polling or national polling averages. Most of the poll fluctuations stem from people’s waxing and waning enthusiasm about responding to polls, based on the news surrounding their preferred candidate."
Then on Election Night, open a bottle of your favorite beverage and know you helped defeat this cretin. For your emotional health, check out VoteCastr on Election Day and watch the live, slow-motion defeat of this fascist lunatic.
In the meantime, go to Hillary's site and do or give something. For an anxiety-blocking bit of news, know the early voting in Florida looks great for Hillary's defeat of Trump. Without Florida, Trump has no path forward to 270.
And if you note the dearth of news assuring a Clinton victory, know this is simply because no one wants to add to people becoming complacent.
Neighborhood destroyers, latent criminals. They're loud, black, brown, (some of them are really black). They're spoiling for a fight, disordering the peaceful citizens of white America.
Surly, the time has come to get behind Donald Trump who will take our country back. Republicans are amped-up. And the brown shirts are wearing blue and can be found in your local police departments, adjunct Republican Party units.
The paranoid escalation in the war on latent criminals means 'get them before they get us.'
This imbecilic posture toward people by racists is caught in the iconic shot of the 28-year-old nurse, Ieshia Evans, who was rushed by Louisiana riot police for walking in July 2016, (captured by Reuters photographer Jonathan Bachman).
Not so much desired policy, just reenactments of myths, some tangible way for pathological racists to feel good about themselves. The warrants are out. Time to wake up.
From Elizabeth Hinton and her From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, The Making of Mass Incarceration in America, (Harvard University Press), 2016:
Johnson’s War on Poverty policies sought to foster equality and economic opportunity. But these initiatives were also rooted in widely shared assumptions about African Americans’ role in urban disorder, which prompted Johnson to call for a simultaneous War on Crime. The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act empowered the national government to take a direct role in militarizing local police. Federal anticrime funding soon incentivized social service providers to ally with police departments, courts, and prisons. Under Richard Nixon and his successors, welfare programs fell by the wayside while investment in policing and punishment expanded. Anticipating future crime, policymakers urged states to build new prisons and introduced law enforcement measures into urban schools and public housing, turning neighborhoods into targets of police surveillance.
By the 1980s, crime control and incarceration dominated national responses to poverty and inequality. The initiatives of that decade were less a sharp departure than the full realization of the punitive transformation of urban policy implemented by Republicans and Democrats alike since the 1960s.
Lock them up, it's open season and happy hunting.
Ieshia Evans faces lunatics in Louisiana in July 2016. Get her, she's coming!
Update: The Fitchburg Star is out with the story and guess what Frances Huntley-Cooper deigns to offer as comment: Nothing. As in, "Huntley-Cooper did not immediately respond to a Dec. 2 email from the Fitchburg Star asking for comment."
The narcissism and anti-democratic attitude towards the Fitchburg people of Ms. Huntley-Cooper are astounding. C'mon, don't we the people of Fitchburg deserve even a comment? Guess not.
Renaming City Hall is a foolish idea on too many levels to itemize here.
It seems redolent of the compulsion to establish a Ronald Reagan monument in every county in the United States, or plastering someone's face on public structures to honor their greatness, like Stalin, Mao or Saddam Hussein.
But characterizing, honoring or debasing any human being on the basis of skin color, even a one-term mayor who served some 30 years ago, honors racial classification schemes leading anti-fascist writers, such as Norman Cohn, Ashley Montagu and Marvin Harris, to note similar enterprises as meaningless myth, an idea that 'race' enjoys a status as anything but irrational, nonsensical and demonstrably false.
I don't know why Frances Huntley-Cooper endorses this effort.
Thirty-one years ago, I broke the news in The Capital Timesthat Ms. Huntley-Cooper would become Wisconsin's first black mayor in Nov. 1990 when she declared for a mayoral run.
Huntley-Cooper downplayed the fact of 'Wisconsin's first black mayor' in a phone conversation then, and I had to rewrite a draft incorporating her comments and stated campaign priorities before I filed the piece.
What has changed since then, in my view, is the rise of woke identity politics that glorifies and validates 'race' as a system purporting to have non-zero scientific status.
I don't think the liberals raising this flag of the cancel culture have the faintest clue how toxic and ridiculous is their performative theater in this proposed renaming, not seen since the great removal of the 42-ton boulder from UW-Madison because the pre-Cambrian rock was deemed racist.
Hey, nothing against Frances Huntley-Cooper, but I think I can make a good case for renaming City Hall after Doug Morrissette, Mark Vivian, Roger Tesch, Jay Allen, Tom Clauder, Dave Herbst or current Mayor Aaron Richardson, among dozens of others who have served our city honorably.
We could even emblazon the front of City Hall with a likeness of the chosen's face.
If we are going to brand and rename monuments, buildings and parks, then I want Western Hills Park by our home renamed after my wife, Jackie Captain, for her outstanding work on anti-fascist artists, Ben Shahn and Eugene Higgins.
Further, I want to rename my street, now Monticello Way in the Jamestown neighborhood — named after a seventeenth century indentured servant-cum-slave colony — renamed Don Kosterman Way in recognition of this Fitchburg resident's academic work on the Milwaukee Police Dept's unconstitutional effort to sabotage the publishing of Kaleidoscope in the 1960s-70s.
See what I am getting at here?
Representative democracy and municipal policy are not about one person, or even one body of elected persons.
Especially on the municipal level, democracy is about the people and their liberties that make democratic processes a breathing monument that lives forever for future generations.
If we are truly to rename a such a vital public building as City Hall, the process being contemplated — a Common Council resolution — is inadequate.
We need a much more deliberative process that would include and invite extensive public input, a long list of nominations, including a referendum that offers no-name change at all, because every present and future Fitchburg resident has a stake in this enterprise.
Norman Cohn, who served in the Intelligence Corps during World War II and was an author of vital work on the Holocaust and tyrannous systems, wrote of the totalitarian phenomenon as “the urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil.”
Today, Days of Remembrance commences marking the 70th anniversary of the liberations of Nazi extermination camp systems.
From the Fitchburg Star, Fitchburg, Wisconsin resident, Michael Liethen, is writing a book after discovering the work of his father, Alois ‘Al’ J. Liethen a leader of a US Army military intelligence POW interrogation team.
There is much to despise in the administration of George W. Bush. Its secret program for inflicting torture certainly leads the counts of the anti-democratic indictment of this reprehensible regime.
Scott Horton, a human rights attorney, writing at Harper's has written among the most incisive commentary on Bush's human rights violations, and has broken much ground uncovering the administration's corruption of the Department of Justice that has often functioned as a political machine using the power of the prosecutor on Republicans' political enemies.
Many agencies of government of been similarly corrupted and used for purposes that can only be labeled as indecent.
For those Americans, and there are tens of millions of them, for whom human rights, liberty and clean and open government remain the foundations of a decent society, acting against this administration is a moral imperative.
What the historian Norman Cohn called the "mood of passive compliance" that enabled the Holocaust and the rise of the NAZIs ought not allow continuation of Bush's atrocities that (though not comparable to the Holocaust) have claimed millions of victims, corrupted the foundations of a society, and functioned with the same levers of citizen disengagement.
Whether the current target of the jackals that be in our society is the Arabs, the Muslims, the Iranians, an entire religion, or a claimed dangerous class of domestic individuals (citizens), the anti-intellectual forces and bigotries infecting our society live today mostly in the Republican Party.
The jackals are loosed, and their urge to purify the "world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil," (Norman Cohn (1915-2007), Martin, NYT) is loud in this "out-of-control" world, (The Guardian).
The nomination for the presidency of the United States by the Republican Party depends to a large degree on which candidate speaks most compellingly on protecting us from the 'evil,' (Cole, Informed Comment) with promises of destroying it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, good afternoon. And, Sabah, thank you for the wonderful introduction and for your example -- your devotion to your faith and your education, and your service to others. You’re an inspiration. You’re going to be a fantastic doctor. And I suspect, Sabah, your parents are here because they wanted to see you so -- where are Sabah’s parents? There you go. (Applause.) Good job, Mom. She did great, didn’t she? She was terrific.
To everyone here at the Islamic Society of Baltimore, thank you for welcoming me here today. I want to thank Muslim Americans leaders from across this city and this state, and some who traveled even from out of state to be here. I want to recognize Congressman John Sarbanes, who is here. (Applause.) As well as two other great leaders in Congress -- and proud Muslim Americans -- Congressman Keith Ellison from the great state of Minnesota -- (applause) -- and Congressman Andre Carson from the great state of Indiana. (Applause.)
This mosque, like so many in our country, is an all-American story. You’ve been part of this city for nearly half a century. You serve thousands of families -- some who’ve lived here for decades as well as immigrants from many countries who’ve worked to become proud American citizens.
Now, a lot of Americans have never visited a mosque. To the folks watching this today who haven’t -- think of your own church, or synagogue, or temple, and a mosque like this will be very familiar. This is where families come to worship and express their love for God and each other. There’s a school where teachers open young minds. Kids play baseball and football and basketball -- boys and girls -- I hear they’re pretty good. (Laughter.) Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts meet, recite the Pledge of Allegiance here.
With interfaith dialogue, you build bridges of understanding with other faith communities -- Christians and Jews. There’s a health clinic that serves the needy, regardless of their faith. And members of this community are out in the broader community, working for social justice and urban development. As voters, you come here to meet candidates. As one of your members said, “just look at the way we live...we are true Americans.”
So the first thing I want to say is two words that Muslim Americans don’t hear often enough -- and that is, thank you. Thank you for serving your community. Thank you for lifting up the lives of your neighbors, and for helping keep us strong and united as one American family. We are grateful for that. (Applause.)
Now, this brings me to the other reason I wanted to come here today. I know that in Muslim communities across our country, this is a time of concern and, frankly, a time of some fear. Like all Americans, you’re worried about the threat of terrorism. But on top of that, as Muslim Americans, you also have another concern -- and that is your entire community so often is targeted or blamed for the violent acts of the very few.
The Muslim American community remains relatively small --several million people in this country. And as a result, most Americans don’t necessarily know -- or at least don't know that they know -- a Muslim personally. And as a result, many only hear about Muslims and Islam from the news after an act of terrorism, or in distorted media portrayals in TV or film, all of which gives this hugely distorted impression.
And since 9/11, but more recently, since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, you’ve seen too often people conflating the horrific acts of terrorism with the beliefs of an entire faith. And of course, recently, we’ve heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that has no place in our country.
No surprise, then, that threats and harassment of Muslim Americans have surged. Here at this mosque, twice last year, threats were made against your children. Around the country, women wearing the hijab -- just like Sabah -- have been targeted. We’ve seen children bullied. We’ve seen mosques vandalized. Sikh Americans and others who are perceived to be Muslims have been targeted, as well.
I just had a chance to meet with some extraordinary Muslim Americans from across the country who are doing all sorts of work. Some of them are doctors; some of them are community leaders; religious leaders. All of them were doing extraordinary work not just in the Muslim community but in the American community. And they’re proud of their work in business and education, and on behalf of social justice and the environment and education. I should point out they were all much younger than me -- (laughter) -- which is happening more frequently these days. And you couldn’t help but be inspired, hearing about the extraordinary work that they’re doing. But you also could not help but be heartbroken to hear their worries and their anxieties.
Some of them are parents, and they talked about how their children were asking, are we going to be forced out of the country, or, are we going to be rounded up? Why do people treat us like that? Conversations that you shouldn’t have to have with children -- not in this country. Not at this moment.
And that’s an anxiety echoed in letters I get from Muslim Americans around the country. I’ve had people write to me and say, I feel like I’m a second-class citizen. I’ve had mothers write and say, “my heart cries every night,” thinking about how her daughter might be treated at school. A girl from Ohio, 13 years old, told me, “I’m scared.” A girl from Texas signed her letter “a confused 14-year-old trying to find her place in the world.”
These are children just like mine. And the notion that they would be filled with doubt and questioning their places in this great country of ours at a time when they’ve got enough to worry about -- it’s hard being a teenager already -- that’s not who we are.
We’re one American family. And when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation. (Applause.)
It’s a challenge to our values -- and that means we have much work to do. We’ve got to tackle this head on. We have to be honest and clear about it. And we have to speak out. This is a moment when, as Americans, we have to truly listen to each other and learn from each other. And I believe it has to begin with a common understanding of some basic facts. And I express these facts, although they’d be obvious to many of the people in this place, because, unfortunately, it’s not facts that are communicated on a regular basis through our media.
So let’s start with this fact: For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace. And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam -- peace. The standard greeting is as-salamu alaykum -- peace be upon you. And like so many faiths, Islam is rooted in a commitment to compassion and mercy and justice and charity. Whoever wants to enter paradise, the Prophet Muhammad taught, “let him treat people the way he would love to be treated.” (Applause.) For Christians like myself, I’m assuming that sounds familiar. (Laughter.)
The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are as diverse as humanity itself. They are Arabs and Africans. They're from Latin America to Southeast Asia; Brazilians, Nigerians, Bangladeshis, Indonesians. They are white and brown and black. There’s a large African American Muslim community. That diversity is represented here today. A 14-year-old boy in Texas who’s Muslim spoke for many when he wrote to me and said, “We just want to live in peace.”
Here’s another fact: Islam has always been part of America. Starting in colonial times, many of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslim. And even in their bondage, some kept their faith alive. A few even won their freedom and became known to many Americans. And when enshrining the freedom of religion in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, our Founders meant what they said when they said it applied to all religions.
Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans. And Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom he wrote was designed to protect all faiths -- and I’m quoting Thomas Jefferson now -- “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan.” (Applause.)
Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran. Benjamin Franklin wrote that “even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” (Applause.) So this is not a new thing.
Generations of Muslim Americans helped to build our nation. They were part of the flow of immigrants who became farmers and merchants. They built America’s first mosque, surprisingly enough, in North Dakota. (Laughter.) America’s oldest surviving mosque is in Iowa. The first Islamic center in New York City was built in the 1890s. Muslim Americans worked on Henry Ford’s assembly line, cranking out cars. A Muslim American designed the skyscrapers of Chicago.
In 1957, when dedicating the Islamic center in Washington, D.C., President Eisenhower said, “I should like to assure you, my Islamic friends, that under the American Constitution … and in American hearts…this place of worship, is just as welcome…as any other religion.” (Applause.)
And perhaps the most pertinent fact, Muslim Americans enrich our lives today in every way. They’re our neighbors, the teachers who inspire our children, the doctors who trust us with our health -- future doctors like Sabah. They’re scientists who win Nobel Prizes, young entrepreneurs who are creating new technologies that we use all the time. They’re the sports heroes we cheer for -— like Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon. And by the way, when Team USA marches into the next Olympics, one of the Americans waving the red, white and blue -- (applause) -- will a fencing champion, wearing her hijab, Ibtihaj Muhammad, who is here today. Stand up. (Applause.) I told her to bring home the gold. (Laughter.) Not to put any pressure on you. (Laughter.)
Muslim Americans keep us safe. They’re our police and our firefighters. They're in homeland security, in our intelligence community. They serve honorably in our armed forces -- meaning they fight and bleed and die for our freedom. Some rest in Arlington National Cemetery. (Applause.)
So Muslim Americans are some of the most resilient and patriotic Americans you’ll ever meet. We’re honored to have some of our proud Muslim American servicemembers here today. Please stand if you're here, so we can thank you for your service. (Applause.)
So part of the reason I want to lay out these facts is because, in the discussions that I was having with these incredibly accomplished young people, they were pointing that so often they felt invisible. And part of what we have to do is to lift up the contributions of the Muslim American community not when there’s a problem, but all the time.
Our television shows should have some Muslim characters that are unrelated to national security -- (applause) -- because -- it’s not that hard to do. There was a time when there were no black people on television. And you can tell good stories while still representing the reality of our communities.
Now, we do have another fact that we have to acknowledge. Even as the overwhelming majority -- and I repeat, the overwhelming majority -- of the world’s Muslims embrace Islam as a source of peace, it is undeniable that a small fraction of Muslims propagate a perverted interpretation of Islam. This is the truth.
Groups like al Qaeda and ISIL, they’re not the first extremists in history to misuse God’s name. We’ve seen it before, across faiths. But right now, there is a organized extremist element that draws selectively from Islamic texts, twists them in an attempt to justify their killing and their terror. They combine it with false claims that America and the West are at war with Islam. And this warped thinking that has found adherents around the world -- including, as we saw, tragically, in Boston and Chattanooga and San Bernardino -- is real. It’s there. And it creates tensions and pressure that disproportionately burden the overwhelming majority of law-abiding Muslim citizens.
And the question then is, how do we move forward together? How do we keep our country strong and united? How do we defend ourselves against organizations that are bent on killing innocents? And it can’t be the work of any one faith alone. It can’t be just a burden on the Muslim community -- although the Muslim community has to play a role. We all have responsibilities. So with the time I have left, I just want to suggest a few principles that I believe can guide us.
First, at a time when others are trying to divide us along lines of religion or sect, we have to reaffirm that most fundamental of truths: We are all God’s children. We’re all born equal, with inherent dignity.
And so often, we focus on our outward differences and we forget how much we share. Christians, Jews, Muslims -- we’re all, under our faiths, descendants of Abraham. So mere tolerance of different religions is not enough. Our faiths summon us to embrace our common humanity. “O mankind,” the Koran teaches, we have “made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another.” (Applause.) So all of us have the task of expressing our religious faith in a way that seeks to build bridges rather than to divide.
Second, as Americans, we have to stay true to our core values, and that includes freedom of religion for all faiths. I already mentioned our Founders, like Jefferson, knew that religious liberty is essential not only to protect religion but because religion helps strengthen our nation -- if it is free, if it is not an extension of the state. Part of what’s happened in the Middle East and North Africa and other places where we see sectarian violence is religion being a tool for another agenda -- for power, for control. Freedom of religion helps prevent that, both ways -- protects religious faiths, protects the state from -- or those who want to take over the state from using religious animosity as a tool for their own ends.
That doesn’t mean that those of us with religious faith should not be involved. We have to be active citizenry. But we have to respect the fact that we have freedom of religion.
Remember, many preachers and pastors fought to abolish the evil of slavery. People of faith advocated to improve conditions for workers and ban child labor. Dr. King was joined by people of many faiths, challenging us to live up to our ideals. And that civil activism, that civic participation that’s the essence of our democracy, it is enhanced by freedom of religion.
Now, we have to acknowledge that there have been times where we have fallen short of our ideals. By the way, Thomas Jefferson’s opponents tried to stir things up by suggesting he was a Muslim -- so I was not the first -- (applause.) No, it’s true, it’s true. Look it up. (Laughter.) I’m in good company. (Laughter.)
But it hasn’t just been attacks of that sort that have been used. Mormon communities have been attacked throughout our history. Catholics, including, most prominently, JFK -- John F. Kennedy -- when he ran for President, was accused of being disloyal. There was a suggestion that he would be taking orders from the Pope as opposed to upholding his constitutional duties. Anti-Semitism in this country has a sad and long history, and Jews were exclude routinely from colleges and professions and from public office.
And so if we’re serious about freedom of religion -- and I’m speaking now to my fellow Christians who remain the majority in this country -- we have to understand an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths. (Applause.) And when any religious group is targeted, we all have a responsibility to speak up. And we have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias, and targets people because of religion.
We’ve got to make sure that hate crimes are punished, and that the civil rights of all Americans are upheld. (Applause.) And just as faith leaders, including Muslims, must speak out when Christians are persecuted around the world -- (applause) -- or when anti-Semitism is on the rise -- because the fact is, is that there are Christians who are targeted now in the Middle East, despite having been there for centuries, and there are Jews who’ve lived in places like France
So none of us can be silent. We can’t be bystanders to bigotry. And together, we’ve got to show that America truly protects all faiths.
Which brings me to my next point: As we protect our country from terrorism, we should not reinforce the ideas and the rhetoric of the terrorists themselves. I often hear it said that we need moral clarity in this fight. And the suggestion is somehow that if I would simply say, these are all Islamic terrorists, then we would actually have solved the problem by now, apparently. (Laughter.) Well, I agree, we actually do need moral clarity. Let’s have some moral clarity. (Applause.)
Groups like ISIL are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders and holy warriors who speak for Islam. I refuse to give them legitimacy. We must never give them that legitimacy. (Applause.) They’re not defending Islam. They’re not defending Muslims. The vast majority of the people they kill are innocent Muslim men, women and children. (Applause.)
And, by the way, the notion that America is at war with Islam ignores the fact that the world’s religions are a part of who we are. We can’t be at war with any other religion because the world’s religions are a part of the very fabric of the United States, our national character. (Applause.)
So the best way for us to fight terrorism is to deny these organizations legitimacy and to show that here in the United States of America, we do not suppress Islam; we celebrate and lift up the success of Muslim Americans. That’s how we show the lie that they’re trying to propagate. (Applause.) We shouldn’t play into terrorist propaganda. And we can’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem. That betrays our values. It alienates Muslim Americans. It’s hurtful to those kids who are trying to go to school and are members of the Boy Scouts, and are thinking about joining our military.
That kind of mindset helps our enemies. It helps our enemies recruit. It makes us all less safe. So let’s be clear about that.
Now, finally, just as all Americans have a responsibility to reject discrimination -- I’ve said this before -- Muslims around the world have a responsibility to reject extremist ideologies that are trying to penetrate within Muslim communities.
Here at this mosque, and across our country and around the world, Muslim leaders are roundly and repeatedly and consistently condemning terrorism. And around the globe, Muslims who’ve dared to speak out have often been targeted and even killed. So those voices are there; we just have to amplify them more. (Applause.)
And it was interesting, in the discussion I had before I came out, some people said, why is there always a burden on us? When a young man in Charleston shoots African Americans in a church, there’s not an expectation that every white person in America suddenly is explaining that they’re not racist. They can Everybody is assumed to be horrified by that act. And I recognize that sometimes that doesn't feel fair.
But part of the answer is to make sure that the Muslim community in all of its variety, in all the good works that it’s doing, in all the talent that's on display, that it’s out there visible on a consistent basis -- not just at a certain moment. (Applause.)
But what is also true is, is that there is a battle of hearts and minds that takes place -- that is taking place right now, and American Muslims are better positioned than anybody to show that it is possible to be faithful to Islam and to be part of a pluralistic society, and to be on the cutting-edge of science, and to believe in democracy. (Applause.)
And so I would urge all of you not to see this as a burden, but as a great opportunity and a great privilege to show who you are. To use a little Christian expression -- let your light shine. Because when you do you’ll make clear that this is not a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam. This is a struggle between the peace-loving, overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world and a radical, tiny minority. And ultimately, I’m confident that the overwhelming majority will win that battle. (Applause.) Muslims will decide the future of your faith. And I’m confident in the direction that it will go.
But across the Islamic world, influential voices should consistently speak out with an affirmative vision of their faith. And it’s happening. These are the voices of Muslim clerics who teach that Islam prohibits terrorism, for the Koran says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind. (Applause.) These are the voices of Muslim scholars, some of whom join us today, who know Islam has a tradition of respect for other faiths; and Muslim teachers who point out that the first word revealed in the Koran -- igra -- means “read” -- to seek knowledge, to question assumptions. (Applause.)
Muslim political leaders have to push back on the lie that the West oppresses Muslims, and against conspiracy theories that says America is the cause of every ill in the Middle East. Now, that doesn't mean that Muslim Americans aren’t free to criticize American -- U.S. foreign policy. That's part of being an American. I promise you, as the President of the United States, I’m mindful that that is a healthy tradition that is alive and well in America. (Laughter.) But like leaders everywhere, these leaders have been offering, and need to continue to offer, a positive vision for progress, and that includes political and economic progress.
And we have to acknowledge that much of the violence in places like the Middle East is now turning into fights between sects -- Shia, Sunni and others -- where differences are often exploited to serve political agendas, as I said earlier. And this bloodshed is destroying Muslim families and communities, and there has to be global pressure to have the vision and the courage to end this kind of thinking and this approach to organizing political power.
It’s not historically unique. It’s happened in every part of the world -- from Northern Ireland to Africa, to Asia, to right here in the United States -- in the past. But it is something that we have to fight against.
And we know it’s possible. Across the history of Islam, different sects traditionally have lived and thrived together peacefully. And in many parts of the world they do today, including here in the United States.
Like people of all religions, Muslims living their faith in a modern, pluralistic world are called upon to uphold human rights, to make sure that everyone has opportunity. That includes the aspirations of women and youth and all people. If we expect our own dignity to be respected, so must we respect the dignity of others. (Applause.)
So let me conclude by saying that as Muslim communities stand up for the future that you believe in, that you exhibit in your daily lives, as you teach your children, America will be your partner. We will -- I will -- do everything I can to lift up the multiplicity of Muslim voices that promote pluralism and peace. (Applause.) We will continue to reach out to young Muslims around the world, empowering them with science and technology and entrepreneurship, so they can pursue their God-given potential, and help build up their communities and provide opportunity. It’s why we will continue to partner with Muslim American communities -- not just to help you protect against extremist threats, but to expand health care and education and opportunity -- (applause) -- because that’s the best way to build strong, resilient communities.
Our values must guide us in this work. Engagement with Muslim American communities must never be a cover for surveillance. (Applause.) We can’t give in to profiling entire groups of people. There’s no one single profile of terrorists. We can’t securitize our entire relationship with Muslim Americans. We can’t deal with you solely through the prism of law enforcement. We’ve got to build trust and mutual respect. That’s how we’ll keep our communities strong and our communities united.
As I was in discussion with the young people before I came in here, I said this will be a process. Law enforcement has a tough job. Some of these groups are specifically trying to target Muslim youth. We’re going to have to be partners in this process. There will be times where the relationship is clumsy or mishandled. But I want you to know that from the President to the FBI Director, to everybody in law enforcement, my directive and their understanding is, is that this is something we have to do together. And if we don’t do it well, then we’re actually not making ourselves safer; we’re making ourselves less safe.
And here, I want to speak directly to the young people who may be listening. In our lives, we all have many identities. We are sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters. We’re classmates; Cub Scout troop members. We’re followers of our faith. We’re citizens of our country. And today, there are voices in this world, particularly over the Internet, who are constantly claiming that you have to choose between your identities -- as a Muslim, for example, or an American. Do not believe them. If you’re ever wondering whether you fit in here, let me say it as clearly as I can, as President of the United States: You fit in here -- right here. (Applause.) You’re right where you belong. You’re part of America, too. (Applause.) You’re not Muslim or American. You’re Muslim and American. (Applause.)
Don’t grow cynical. Don’t respond to ignorance by embracing a world view that suggests you must choose between your faith and your patriotism. Don’t believe that you have to choose between your best impulses and somehow embrace a world view that pits us against each other -- or, even worse, glorifies violence. Understand your power to bring about change. Stay engaged in your community. Help move our country forward -- your country forward. (Applause.)
We are blessed to live in a nation where even if we sometimes stumble, even if we sometimes fall short, we never stop striving for our ideals. We keep moving closer to that more perfect union. We’re a country where, if you work hard and if you play by the rules, you can ultimately make it, no matter who you are or how you pray. It may not always start off even in the race, but here, more than any place else, there’s the opportunity to run that race.
And as we go forward, I want every Muslim American to remember you are not alone. Your fellow Americans stand with you -- just as Sabah described her friends after she decided that she was going to start wearing a hijab. That’s not unusual. Because just as so often we only hear about Muslims after a terrorist attack, so often we only hear about Americans’ response to Muslims after a hate crime has happened, we don’t always hear about the extraordinary respect and love and community that so many Americans feel.
I’m thinking about the seven-year-old boy in Texas who emptied his piggy bank to help a mosque that had been vandalized. (Applause.) Or all the faith communities that rallied around Muslim Americans after the tragedy in Chapel Hill. The churches and the synagogues standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their local mosques, including the woman carrying a sign saying “We love our Muslim neighbors.” Think of our men and women in uniform who, when they heard that a little girl was afraid because she’s a Muslim, sent her a message -- “I Will Protect You.” (Applause.)
I want every American to remember how Muslim communities are standing up for others, as well. Because right now, as we speak, there are Muslims in Kenya who saved Christians from terrorists, and Muslims who just met in Morocco to protect religious minorities, including Christians and Jews. (Applause.) The good people of this mosque helped this city move forward after the turmoil of last year. Muslim Americans across the country helped African American churches rebuild after arson.
Remember the Muslim Americans in Boston who reached out to victims of the Marathon bombing; the Muslim Americans across the country who raised money for the families of San Bernardino; the Muslim Americans in Chattanooga who honored our fallen servicemembers, one of them saying, “in the name of God, the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, God bless our fallen heroes.” (Applause.)
We are one American family. We will rise and fall together. It won’t always be easy. There will be times where our worst impulses are given voice. But I believe that ultimately, our best voices will win out. And that gives me confidence and faith in the future. (Applause.)
After more than 200 years, our blended heritage, the patchwork quilt which is America, that is not a weakness, that is one of our greatest strengths. It’s what makes us a beacon to the world. It’s what led that mother who wrote to me -- the one who worries about her young daughter -- it led her to end her letter with hope, despite her fears. She said, “I still believe in one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” (Applause.)
May God's peace be upon you. May God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)
Norman Rufus Colin Cohn (January 12, 1915 – July 31, 2007) and Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 - August 4, 2007) died within a week of each other this summer.
