Relatively Courageous Rabbi, Semi-Brave Muslim Congressman Team Up to Save the World.Don’t get me wrong—I admire both these guys. An ounce of courage is better than none.
by Kevin Barrett
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kevin_ba_080424_relatively_courageou.htm
Michael Lerner may be the bravest Rabbi in America…which isn’t saying much. Rabbi Lerner, among all American rabbis, has looked at the contradictions in the official story of 9/11 and written that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if it were a false-flag conspiracy. But that’s as far as he’ll go.
Keith Ellison is definitely the bravest Muslim in Congress…which also isn’t saying much, because he’s the only Muslim in Congress (at least until I get elected). Last year Rep. Ellison said that 9/11 reminded him of the Reichstag fire. After listening to the outraged howling from Fox News, he backed down and whimpered some abject apologies.
Don’t get me wrong—I admire both these guys. An ounce of courage is better than none.
While they’re only semi-brave, Rabbi Lerner and Rep. Ellison are totally visionary. The unlikely pair have just teamed up on a plan to save the world. They’re calling it the Global Marshall Plan: “Under the Global Marshall Plan, the United States would lead the other G-8 nations in dedicating an amount equivalent to 1-2% of each country’s gross domestic product each year for the next twenty years to eliminating poverty once and for all and to healing the environmental crisis.”
The Marshall Plan, for you non-history-majors, was America’s wise and generous (and slightly self-serving) effort that rebuilt a ravaged Europe after World War II. It is credited with laying the basis for enduring peace and prosperity in Europe.
Could the rich countries, by donating just 1-2% of their GNP per year, lay the basis for peace and prosperity around the world? Rabbi Lerner and Rep. Ellison think so. Inspired by Rabbi Lerner’s vision, Congressman Keith Ellison recently introduced House Resolution 1078 to support the Global Marshall Plan…and the media completely ignored this amazing story.
It isn’t just Jewish and Muslim leaders behind this attempt to save the world. Developed by a rabbi and introduced by the first Muslim in Congress, the Global Marshall Plan is backed by an African American Protestant Congressman from Missouri, Emmanuel Cleaver, and a white male Catholic Congressman from Virginia, James Moran.
The powers that be seem to think we need to be permanently at war with something: First fascism, then communism, and now “terrorism.” If they really feel the need to organize society around some kind of hugely expensive “war,” why not fight a worldwide “war” against poverty and hunger and homelessness and disease and environmental damage?
Maybe the problem with the Global Marshall plan isn’t too much idealism, but too much common sense. The powers that be, including the controlled corporate media, just can’t deal with sanity.
Personally, I think that if the media revealed the truth about 9/11 to a shocked public, it would do wonders for visionary proposals like this one. That’s why I wish Rabbi Lerner and Keith Ellison were brave enough to go all-out for 9/11 truth.
Rabbi Lerner did make a great point in his essay “What Next: Will It Make A Difference If We End Up Exposing 9/11 As A Fraud?”: In that essay, published in 9/11 and American Empire v.2: Christians, Jews and Muslims Speak Out, Lerner wrote: “In fact, the kind of psychic trauma that would happen were charges of intentional involvement in 9/11 by the president, the vice-president, and other high office holders ever proved in a court of law would almost certainly open up political space for a serious discussion of the kinds of radical changes I’m suggesting…”
The 9/11 truth movement, while working to open up that political space, would do well to consider supporting the Global Marshall Plan, which could go a long way toward preventing future wars and the false-flag attacks that launch them.
For a page of FAQs and other information on the Global Marshall Plan, go to http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/staticpages/index.php?page=20080102191329956.
www.truthjihad.com
Dr. Kevin Barrett, coordinator of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth, has taught English, French, Arabic, American Civilization, Humanities, African Literature, Folklore, and Islam at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay area, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin. He grew up in a family of lapsed Unitarians (which is about as lapsed as it gets) and reverted to Islam in 1993, a move that gradually impressed upon him the gravity of the moral choices we make in this life. Barrett’s dissertation is on Islam and Moroccan legend. He is also the author and illustrator of the cult classic A Guide to Mysterious San Francisco, published under the pseudonym of “Dr. Weirde.” (He begs Allah’s forgiveness for that slightly twisted book.) Barrett became a 9/11 truth activist in 2004 after reading David Griffin’s The New Pearl Harbor and conducting follow-up research that convinced him Griffin had accurately summarized evidence indicating 9/11 was an inside job. In the summer of 2004 he founded 9/11 Truth Squad, a local group based in Madison, Wisconsin. In July, he rashly rejected a plum post-doc at the University of California because it was funded by the 9/11-disinformation-sponsoring CIA-linked Ford Foundation. In the summer of 2006, Republican state legislators and Fox newscasters demanded that Barrett be fired from his job teaching an introductory Islam class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but the University refused to buckle, and Barrett got high marks from his students. Barrett has led several 9/11 Truth Teach-Ins at the University of Wisconsin, including 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Truth Marathon on the third and fourth anniversaries of the attacks. He has appeared in several documentary films, lectures widely on 9/11 and hosts three radio programs on three different patriot networks: http://www.mujca.com/airwaves.htm