My Very Muslim Christmas

By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME

24 December 15

'The campaign against Muslim Americans spits in the face of everything Christmas stands for'

lthough I am Muslim, I have a deep affection and respect for Christmas. Affection because I was raised Catholic and the holiday season is a nostalgic hug as comforting as a warm crackling fire and hot apple cider. Respect because praising the significance of the birth of Jesus is an important part of the Muslim faith. The Quran, Islam’s holy book, reveres Jesus as a great messenger of God, describes his virgin birth, and acknowledges the miracles he performed: “I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I make for you the shape of a bird out of clay, I breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God’s permission. I heal the blind from birth and the leper. And I bring the dead to life by God’s permission. And I tell you what you eat and what you store in your houses.” (Quran, 3:49).

Christmas time is a wave of good cheer that washes over most people, regardless of their religious affiliations or lack of one. It’s the time when we imagine the best person we could be—and then try to be that person. We hold more doors open for others, let people pull in front of us in traffic, pick up the lunch tab for co-workers. We feel good knowing that such a kind and gentle person lurks within us. And each year we try to coax that lovely person to stay a little longer past the season. Because without that person, baby, it’s cold outside.

However, recent events, from terrorist attacks to police killings of unarmed African Americans, have heightened public awareness that America is in the midst of an identity crisis. On the one hand, Americans see themselves as the great international melting pot that welcomes huddled masses of all religions and ethnic backgrounds. On the other hand, they’re terrified that too much diversity mixed in the pot will dilute our white Christian majority. The resulting American stew might be a little darker in appearance and a little less likely to display a nativity scene at Christmas. Statistics support this perception: over the last 50 years, the percentage of Christians and Jews in almost every denomination have decreased while the number of Muslims has increased to make Islam the third-largest religion in the U.S. At the same time, the number of non-religious people has increased to about 23%.

Our cultural identity is transitioning from a large white majority to a more mocha-shaded complexion. The non-Latino white majority (63% in 2012) has been decreasing every year. Four states—Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas—already have non-white majorities. By 2050, more than 25% of the population will be Latino. The African-American population, currently at about 13%, or 42 million, is also increasing faster than the white population. The fastest-growing ethnic group is of Asian descent, which increased from 10.2 million to 16 million from 2000 to 2013. By 2050, it will likely increase to 34.3 million. In true melting-pot tradition, America is becoming less white and less Eurocentric. According to the U.S. Census, by 2044 the white population will be in the minority.

The speed of change is disorienting for many Americans and makes them fearful that someday they, too, will be marginalized. This fear is, in part, behind the rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the country. A California State University research group, the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, has reported alarming increases in hate crimes against Muslims in America, including physical assault on the streets, arson and vandalism at mosques, and shootings and death threats targeting Islamic-owned businesses. Since the Paris attacks of Nov. 13, the average of 12.6 monthly suspected hate crimes against Muslims in America has tripled. A Muslim cab driver was shot in the back. A hijab-wearing student was attacked and punched. A Muslim woman at a car wash was threatened by a man with a knife. Mosques have been vandalized. A bullet-riddled copy of the Quran was left outside an Islamic store. This is not the religious tolerance that Thomas Jefferson envisioned for America when he said: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

It’s difficult to sustain outrage at the sad individuals conducting these attacks because they clearly aren’t intelligent enough to understand the impotence of their contradictory behavior. They don’t realize that each attack is like donating money to ISIS because it helps them recruit more followers while harming the people here who are just as opposed to the terrorists. To attack Muslim Americans for the actions of ISIS or any other terrorist would be like leaving bullet-riddled Bibles outside churches because Jim David Adkisson, a devout Christian, shotgunned a group of children in a Knoxville church, killing two and wounding seven, because of the church’s “liberal teachings.” Or vandalizing churches because Dylann Storm Roof, a member of the local Lutheran church, slaughtered nine African-Americans during a church service in 2015. Or bullying Christian children because Anders Breivik massacred 77 people in 2011 in Norway, defending his actions in his anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and pro-“Christian Europe” manifesto. Like ISIS followers, these murderers have concocted a fantasy scenario in which they can be glorified through violence but which has nothing to do with the religion they pretend to follow.

These escalating attacks on Muslim Americans are not only un-American but they are also un-Christian. The people who perform these acts of violence and vandalism follow neither the Constitution nor the Bible, but they do represent the distillation of the anti-Muslim sentiment that is flowing across America like steaming lava, vaporizing our Christmas cheer.

The real villains here are the ones who knowingly create an atmosphere of fear and hate without taking responsibility for the inevitable violence that ensues. Private evangelical Christian Wheaton College, for example, is an institution of higher learning that should symbolize the sacred pursuit of knowledge. But when political science professor (and devout Christian) Larycia Hawkins wore a headscarf to show solidarity with Muslims because, as she said on Facebook, they share the same God as Christians, she was suspended. A New Jersey Muslim-American high school teacher claims she was fired for showing a film about Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, even though a non-Muslim teacher had shown the same film several years earlier. She also alleges she was told not to mention Islam or the Middle East in class. So much for educating our children to think rationally.

The worst perpetrators are also the ones who hope to benefit most from amping up the paranoia level to DEFCON 1. The politicians’ alchemy is to transform fear into votes. Donald Trump has said he wants to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and register those already here. Ben Carson, who has said he doesn’t think a Muslim should be president, has said he supports registering Muslim Americans. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush have said they want only Christian Syrian refugees allowed into the country. And dozens of governors announced they would refuse Syrian refugees in their states. It’s like the country has a bruised rib and politicians keep poking the bruise while claiming only they can make the pain stop. They’ve gotten the country so riled up that a recent poll showed 30% of Republican voters want to bomb Agrabah, the fictional kingdom in the Disney movie Aladdin. In the same poll, 54% agreed with banning Muslims from entering the U.S., and 46% agreed with registering Muslims in the U.S. Both proposals are so unconstitutional that they actually do more harm to the country than the actual terrorists.

This campaign against Muslim Americans spits in the face of everything Christmas stands for. Peace on Earth. Good will toward others. Being the best person we can be. Fortunately, there are many Christian organizations that still live by their religious principles as a guide to what Christmas, and Christianity, stands for. World Relief, a non-profit organization started by group of evangelical churches, is helping relocate Syrian refugees in the U.S. “Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors,” Amy Rowell, director of the Moline, Ill., office of World Relief, told Quartz. “The parable of the good Samaritan comes to mind, making it absolutely clear that our neighbors cannot be limited to those of our same ethnicity or religious traditions.” The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans also discussed his church’s support for the refugees: “Today, we face new challenges as we answer the Gospel call to welcome the stranger and care for the vulnerable…. Catholic Charities is a grantee agency that receives refugees from many parts of the world, including the Middle East.” Pope Francis even warned U.S. politicians that: “To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place.”

Last Sunday, a group of 200 Muslims, Jews and Christians in Washington, D.C., walked together in what they called “Faith Over Fear: Choosing Unity Over Extremism.” Led by Imam Lyndon Bilal, Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig and the Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the head of the Archdiocese of Washington, the group walked from Washington Hebrew Congregation to Washington National Cathedral to the Islamic Center, stopping at each to offer prayers for interfaith unity: “Compassionate God, free us to love.” These faithful remind us all of our spiritual—and patriotic—duty.

Muslims, Christians and Jews worship the same God, just in different ways. Those differences can make each group wary of the other, until they realize that a fundamental teaching in all three religions is to co-exist in peace with others. True, we can all dig into each other’s holy texts for isolated quotes that seem to contradict this, and we can all air each other’s historical dirty laundry when each acted contrary to this teaching. But Christmas reminds us all that what really matters is how we behave here and now toward each other.

One popular Christmas song that best embodies the spirit of the season is “Christmas Time Is Here,” from the 1965 TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. The final lyrics are “Oh, that we could always see/Such spirit through the year.”

Now, that would be a Christmas miracle.

The Plutocrats Are Winning. Don't Let Them!

By Bill Moyers, Reader Supported News

23 December 15

ear Readers:

In the fall of 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, as families grieved and the nation mourned, Washington swarmed with locusts of the human kind: wartime opportunists, lobbyists, lawyers, ex-members of Congress, bagmen for big donors: all of them determined to grab what they could for their corporate clients and rich donors while no one was looking.

Across the land, the faces of Americans of every stripe were stained with tears. Here in New York, we still were attending memorial services for our firemen and police. But in the nation's capital, within sight of a smoldering Pentagon that had been struck by one of the hijacked planes, the predator class was hard at work pursuing private plunder at public expense, gold-diggers in the ashes of tragedy exploiting our fear, sorrow, and loss.

What did they want? The usual: tax cuts for the wealthy and big breaks for corporations. They even made an effort to repeal the alternative minimum tax that for fifteen years had prevented companies from taking so many credits and deductions that they owed little if any taxes. And it wasn't only repeal the mercenaries sought; they wanted those corporations to get back all the minimum tax they had ever been assessed.

They sought a special tax break for mighty General Electric, although you would never have heard about it if you were watching GE's news divisions -- NBC News, CNBC, or MSNBC, all made sure to look the other way. They wanted to give coal producers more freedom to pollute, open the Alaskan wilderness to drilling, empower the president to keep trade favors for corporations a secret while enabling many of those same corporations to run roughshod over local communities trying the protect the environment and their citizens' health.

It was a disgusting bipartisan spectacle. With words reminding us of Harry Truman's description of the GOP as "guardians of privilege," the Republican majority leader of the House dared to declare that "it wouldn't be commensurate with the American spirit" to provide unemployment and other benefits to laid-off airline workers. As for post 9/11 Democrats, their national committee used the crisis to call for widening the soft-money loophole in our election laws.

America had just endured a sneak attack that killed thousands of our citizens, was about to go to war against terror, and would soon send an invading army to the Middle East. If ever there was a moment for shared sacrifice, for putting patriotism over profits, this was it. But that fall, operating deep within the shadows of Washington's Beltway, American business and political mercenaries wrapped themselves in red, white and blue and went about ripping off a country in crisis.

H.L. Mencken got it right: "Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it."

Fourteen years later, we can see more clearly the implications. After three decades of engineering a winner-take-all economy, and buying the political power to consummate their hold on the wealth created by the system they had rigged in their favor, they were taking the final and irrevocable step of separating themselves permanently from the common course of American life. They would occupy a gated stratosphere far above the madding crowd while their political hirelings below look after their earthly interests.

The $1.15 trillion spending bill passed by Congress last Friday and quickly signed by President Obama is just the latest triumph in the plutocratic management of politics that has accelerated since 9/11. As Michael Winship and I described here last Thursday, the bill is a bonanza for the donor class - that powerful combine of corporate executives and superrich individuals whose money drives our electoral process. Within minutes of its passage, congressional leaders of both parties and the president rushed to the television cameras to praise each other for a bipartisan bill that they claimed signaled the end of dysfunction; proof that Washington can work. Mainstream media (including public television and radio), especially the networks and cable channels owned and operated by the conglomerates, didn't stop to ask: "Yes, but work for whom?" Instead, the anchors acted as amplifiers for official spin -- repeating the mantra-of-the-hour that while this is not "a perfect bill," it does a lot of good things. "But for whom? At what price?" went unasked.

Now we're learning. Like the drip-drip-drip of a faucet, over the weekend other provisions in the more than 2000-page bill began to leak. Many of the bad ones we mentioned on Thursday are there -- those extended tax breaks for big business, more gratuities to the fossil fuel industry, the provision to forbid the Securities & Exchange Commission from requiring corporations to disclose their political spending, even to their own shareholders. That one's a slap in the face even to Anthony Kennedy, the justice who wrote the Supreme Court's majority opinion in Citizens United. He said: "With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions."

Over our dead body, Congress declared last Friday, proclaiming instead: Secrecy today. Secrecy tomorrow. Secrecy forever. They are determined that we not know who owns them.

The horrors mount. As Eric Lipton and Liz Moyer reported for The New York Times on Sunday, in the last days before the bill's passage "lobbyists swooped in" to save, at least for now, a loophole worth more than $1 billion to Wall Street investors and the hotel, restaurant and gambling industries. Lobbyists even helped draft crucial language that the Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid furtively inserted into the bill. Lipton and Moyer wrote that, "The small changes, and the enormous windfall they generated, show the power of connected corporate lobbyists to alter a huge bill that is being put together with little time for lawmakers to consider. Throughout the legislation, there were thousands of other add-ons and hard to decipher tax changes."

No surprise to read that "some executives at companies with the most at stake are also big campaign donors." The Times reports that "the family of David Bonderman, a co-founder of TPG Capital, has donated $1.2 million since 2014 to the Senate Majority PAC, a campaign fund with close ties to Mr. Reid and other Senate Democrats." Senator Reid, lest we forget, is from Nevada. As he approaches retirement at the end of 2016, perhaps he's hedging his bets at taxpayer expense.

Consider just two other provisions: One, insisted upon by Republican Senator Thad Cochran, directs the Coast Guard to build a $640 million National Security Cutter in Cochran's home state of Mississippi, a ship that the Coast Guard says it does not need. The other: A demand by Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins for an extra $1 billion for a Navy destroyer that probably will be built at her state's Bath Iron Works - again, a vessel our military says is unnecessary.

So it goes: The selling off of the Republic, piece by piece. What was it Mark Twain said? "There is no distinctive native American criminal class except Congress."

Can we at least face the truth? The plutocrats and oligarchs are winning. The vast inequality they are creating is a death sentence for government by consent of the people at large. Did any voter in any district or state in the last Congressional election vote to give that billion dollar loophole to a handful of billionaires? To allow corporations to hide their political contributions? To add $1.4 trillion to the national debt? Of course not. It is now the game: Candidates ask citizens for their votes, then go to Washington to do the bidding of their donors. And since one expectation is that they will cut the taxes of those donors, we now have a permanent class that is afforded representation without taxation.

A plutocracy, says my old friend, the historian Bernard Weisberger, "has a natural instinct to perpetuate and enlarge its own powers and by doing so slams the door of opportunity to challengers and reduces elections to theatrical duels between politicians who are marionettes worked by invisible strings."

Where does it end?

By coincidence, this past weekend I watched the final episode of the British television series Secret State, a 2012 remake of an earlier version based on the popular novel A Very British Coup. This is white-knuckle political drama. Gabriel Byrne plays an accidental prime minister - thrust into office by the death of the incumbent, only to discover himself facing something he never imagined: a shadowy coalition of forces, some within his own government, working against him. With some of his own ministers secretly in the service of powerful corporations and bankers, his own party falling away from him, press lords daily maligning him, the opposition emboldened, and a public confused by misinformation, deceit, and vicious political rhetoric, the prime minister is told by Parliament to immediately invade Iran (on unproven, even false premises) or resign.

In the climactic scene, he defies the "Secret State" that is manipulating all this and confronts Parliament with this challenge:

"Let's forget party allegiance, forget vested interests, forget votes of confidence. Let each and every one of us think only of this: Is this war justified? Is it what the people of this country want? Is it going to achieve what we want it to achieve? And if not, then what next?

"Well, I tell you what I think we should do. We should represent the people of this country. Not the lobby companies that wine and dine us. Or the banks and the big businesses that tell us how the world goes 'round. Or the trade unions that try and call the shots. Not the civil servants nor the war-mongering generals or the security chiefs. Not the press magnates and multibillion dollar donors... [We must return] democracy to this House and the country it represents.

Do they? The movie doesn't tell us. We are left to imagine how the crisis -- the struggle for democracy -- will end.

As we are reminded by this season, there is more to life than politics. There are families, friends, music, worship, sports, the arts, reading, conversation, laughter, celebrations of love and fellowship and partridges in pear trees. But without healthy democratic politics serving a moral order, all these are imperiled by the ferocious appetites of private power and greed.

So enjoy the holidays, including Star Wars. Then come back after New Year's and find a place for yourself, at whatever level, wherever you are, in the struggle for democracy. This is the fight of our lives and how it ends is up to us.