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CELEBRATE THE CONSTITUTION AS A LIVING DOCUMENT

by
Justice Thurgood Marshall

“1987 marks the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution. A Commission has been established to coordinate the celebration. The official meetings, essay contests, and festivities have begun.

The planned commemoration will span three years, and I am told 1987 is "dedicated to the memory of the Founders and the document they drafted in Philadelphia." We are to "recall the achievements of our Founders and the knowledge and experience that inspired them, the nature of the government they established, its origins, its character, and its ends, and the rights and privileges of citizenship, as well as its attendant responsibilities."

Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes particular events and holds them up as the source of all the very best that has followed. Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age. This is unfortunate -- not the patriotism itself, but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify, and overlook the many other events that have been instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the "more perfect Union" it is said we now enjoy.

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The building of a Muslim Community Center in an abandoned building two blocks from the site of New York’s former World Trade Center has become the latest controversy in America’s long fought religious wars. The construction of the center, often referred to as a mosque, has become the latest rallying issue for the Christian right, Tea Party proponents and Republican operatives in their war to impose moralistic and corporatist values on America.

It is still too early to know how the Muslim Center issue will be resolved, but it is clear that the rantings of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Abe Foxman (of the Anti-Defamation League), among others, have played an important role in pushing this local issue onto the center-stage of national politics. Since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, Muslims in general and American Muslims in particular have been the targets of an undeclared religious war promoted by Christian fundamentalists and self-serving Republicans. For some among these religious zealots, Islam is a threat to their belief that the U.S. is a white Protestant nation. Over the last four centuries, Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews and many others have been targets of religious persecution, often the victims of imprisonments, hangings, lynchings and other acts of violence.

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Hugh Hamilton is a professional journalist of wide-ranging experience spanning more than two-and-a-half decades in broadcast (radio) and print media. He is currently host and executive producer of “Talkback!”, an interactive news-talk-analysis program specializing in political discourse and public policy on WBAI, Pacifica Radio, in New York 99.5 FM http://www.wbai.org

Mr. Hamilton is a former news editor and newscaster with the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation. He is also a former interim Bureau Chief of the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency in Georgetown, Guyana; International Editor of The City Sun, a weekly African American newspaper in New York, and has held correspondent positions with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union and Caribbean News Agency.
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CELEBRATE THE CONSTITUTION AS A LIVING DOCUMENT by Justice Thurgood Marshall “1987 marks the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution. A Commission has been established to coordinate the celebration. The official meetings, essay contests, and festivities have begun. The planned commemoration will span three years, and I am told 1987 is "dedicated to the memory of the Founders and the document they drafted in Philadelphia." We are to "recall the achievements of our Founders and the knowledge and experience that inspired them, the nature of the government they established, its origins, its character, and its ends, and the rights and privileges of citizenship, as well as its attendant responsibilities." Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes particular events and holds them up as the source of all the very best that has followed. Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age. This is unfortunate -- not the patriotism itself, but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify, and overlook the many other events that have been instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the "more perfect Union" it is said we now enjoy. Read More .... GUEST COLUMN The New No-Nothings and the War of the Christian Crusaders: By David Rosen August 30, 2010 The building of a Muslim Community Center in an abandoned building two blocks from the site of New York’s former World Trade Center has become the latest controversy in America’s long fought religious wars. The construction of the center, often referred to as a mosque, has become the latest rallying issue for the Christian right, Tea Party proponents and Republican operatives in their war to impose moralistic and corporatist values on America. It is still too early to know how the Muslim Center issue will be resolved, but it is clear that the rantings of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Abe Foxman (of the Anti-Defamation League), among others, have played an important role in pushing this local issue onto the center-stage of national politics. Since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, Muslims in general and American Muslims in particular have been the targets of an undeclared religious war promoted by Christian fundamentalists and self-serving Republicans. For some among these religious zealots, Islam is a threat to their belief that the U.S. is a white Protestant nation. Over the last four centuries, Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews and many others have been targets of religious persecution, often the victims of imprisonments, hangings, lynchings and other acts of violence. Read More .... HUGH HAMILTON A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY Hugh Hamilton is a professional journalist of wide-ranging experience spanning more than two-and-a-half decades in broadcast (radio) and print media. He is currently host and executive producer of “Talkback!”, an interactive news-talk-analysis program specializing in political discourse and public policy on WBAI, Pacifica Radio, in New York 99.5 FM http://www.wbai.org Mr. Hamilton is a former news editor and newscaster with the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation. He is also a former interim Bureau Chief of the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency in Georgetown, Guyana; International Editor of The City Sun, a weekly African American newspaper in New York, and has held correspondent positions with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union and Caribbean News Agency. Read more

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