American - Commerce and Benevolence

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Event Name: American - Commerce and Benevolence
Transcription Date:Transcription Modified Date: 4/24/2022 8:47:06 AM
Transcript Version: 2


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he said the the thing I would hope for is that I pray that God

really gives all of you success and also

rectifies the problems that we have

rectifies America but also rectifies the

global problems that we're facing

<ARABIC>

he said I don't think this is

an insignificant thing if the idea

praying for America because America

right now they are the pilots and the

sailors that are Manning the ship of

humanity the key need accountability

nemidoonam he said if we have mad

sailors OE and I'm not you or they fall

asleep you could listen etana he said

the safina can lose its way and the ship

can lose its way and and dragged her I

madinah termina he said this is my hope

venison oh yeah management this and this

is what I don't want it

you know I'll tell you some if you heard

the translations at the Brookings

Institute trust me i'm doing a great job

high heel a little shimmy Lysander to

the zohan chamba he said it's a

beautiful evening and I'm going to have

a recollection behind occur at least oh

dear he said I'll make mention of it in

in my recollections in Saudi Arabia from

jamia and measurement Kahuna que es hora

de vie he said I hope any of you come to

Arabia there in Jeddah that you visit

him in his house which is on the way to

Mecca Goodwin and I'm oh shoot he said

my address is known at Roca vbulletin ER

doc in pero nunca más de una he said I

would invite you to Mauritania in West

Africa but I know very few would

actually answer the invitation then

that's not the Sahara Khedira he said

people don't like the deep desert very

much a lot could be hiding Veronica

jimmied he said but we do have a

beautiful ocean with natural vn'oco

busaba and we're simple people Reginald

Ohana and and more poor people condemns

Arabic avira but we have great wealth

and dumb Elam we have knowledge we're in

dumb the throat oh and dumb one yep he

said now they're finding oil and gold as

well

like a nomad SFM you said middle he said

but we haven't been able yet to really

utilize and bring to fruition the

Minotaur agenda I'm at so I'm inviting

all the business people money or what

but every item and also the seekers of

knowledge were many way to solve and

even the seekers of Sufism any other way

down and come to Mauritania yeah jidoka

mucho fun was so my greetings to all of

you there's a big secret in that talk

because I've known the shift 20 years

that's the most humorous talk he's ever

given

miss manamana him first of all I want to

thank both ray and his wife for bringing

all of us together one of the

extraordinary things about our country

is it's a country of diversity it always

has been America has never been a

homogenous country anybody that claims

that is a liar and knows nothing about

the history of this country it's a

country that's forged in diversity our

extraordinary banner and really almost

mission statement is a pluralist una out

of many one and and this is what this

country is about we're in in really

almost four Americans sacred ground

because this is this is Mount Vernon

this is a place that represents

sacrifice a man like George Washington

was a man who had everything and he

risked everything for something better

not for himself because he was a

well-to-do businessman he had everything

that he needed he had a beautiful and

devoted wife he was from one of the most

distinguished families in Virginia he

was a millionaire by the late teens in

his life he was a distinguished military

officer and he was despite the fact he

was seen as one of the less bright

people amongst that generation of

geniuses he translated Tacitus from the

latin into english at the age of 15 so

he was no slacker in studies either the

men that founded this country and the

women because Martha was part of the

operation as well as abigail adams and

many of the other great women and our

flag was sewn by Betsy Ross as everybody

knows but these people had a vision of a

different world it was a world that was

a departure of the ways of Europe

hierarchical worlds that didn't allow

for meritocracy it didn't allow for

natural genius to flourish amongst

people that that's the type of world

that they wanted to see transformed into

a new world a world where people could

live based on merit to put it in the

words of Martin Luther King that people

would be judged by the content of their

character and not by the color of their

skin or any other arbitrary quality such

as your birthplace or the family that

you came from and that's what made this

country great it has embraced immigrants from all over the world

In my own blood flows Irish immigrants.  Daniel Copelan who came to this country in 1764 fought in the Continental Army for two years, and was awarded land in Georgia;  As were many of the veterans of the war.   

That's one of my grandfather's, he married into the "Fields" my mother.  His mother was from Georgia from Macon, Georgia. 

My father's side I have Irish Catholic blood.  Hanson is O'hanson; When they came here, Irish Catholics often changed their Irish names to have more anglo-saxon sounding names.  They were in the Philadelphia community they were welcomed into Philadelphia.  Bridget and Michael o'Hanson my great-great-grandparents were welcomed in 1838.  They came to Philadelphia; in 1842 they had the Kensington riots where they burnt down 4 beautiful Catholic churches, because of rumors that the Catholics wanted to change the Protestant Bible from the public schools

This is American history.  Scores of Irish Catholics were killed by Protestants in Philadelphia, that led to a major transformation in the United States.  Because people were so ashamed of what had happened and that was the beginning of the transformation.  The Irish Catholics succeeded in becoming fully franchised Americans and that full enfranchisement was realized with the election of John Kennedy into public office at the highest office in this country.

this is America the African

Americans have been here for 500 years

many of them brought in Chains they've

struggled they've survived

many of them are still struggling and

just barely surviving but their part in

American tapestry they're now in the

highest offices in this country Arab

Americans have been here from the

beginning we forget that we had a

massive Arab emigration a hundred years

ago Henry Ford in the 1920s was looking

for people that didn't drink because he

had such an alcoholic problem with the

factory workers in Detroit and so he

decided to import Yemenis who didn't

drink and so he brought hundreds of

Yemenis led to thousands of Yemenis

immigrating to this country they'd been

here for a hundred years now one of the

most important Arab communities is in

Michigan this is America this is the

America that I'm part of where our

country right now is being faced with a

grave crisis it's a crisis of the values

that this country was established on and

the values that we have renegotiated for

two hundred and some-odd years we have

renegotiated these values all men are

created equal was an ideal when that was

first articulated in our foundational

document that we are much closer to that

ideal than we were when it was first

articulated in this country by men some

of whom owned slaves but there were not

all of them dr. Benjamin Rush the great

signer of the Declaration of

Independence was one of the most fervent

opponents of slavery in this country at

the founding of the country and he

wanted to see it abolished in the

original documents that did not occur

the great compromise it led to the civil

war that now we're looking at his

hundred and fiftieth anniversary this is

America but we as a people of diverse

and very backgrounds represent a hope

for this planet the possibility of

people of different creeds of different

colors

of different persuasions to actually

live together in conviviality in respect

and if not respect at least tolerance

because tolerance is an underrated

virtue this is what we're looking for I

want to see the leadership in this

country not just the political

leadership the economic leadership the

social leadership the movers the Shakers

the mavericks the influencers the mavens

I want to see these people really rise

to the occasion that this present

circumstance is demanding that we

recognize that it is unacceptable what's

happening in this country I listened to

a man yesterday at the Brookings

Institute today I'm sorry I listened to

men today from an Arab background say

how Islamophobia was a meaningless idea

there was no problem this is America

everybody's entitled to their opinion I

find that utterly unacceptable we have

Arab and South Asian bashing that's

going on day in and out on talk radio

and other places and it's time for good

Americans that believe in the ideals of

this country for too long we have

sublimated our ideals to our interests

Socrates in the apology which is worth

reading every once in a while Socrates

in the apology said one of the most

extraordinary political statements that

I'd ever heard he said the state worries

far too much about its interest if the

state concerned itself more with its

virtue its interest would take care of

itself George Washington in his farewell

address and I once read a book of all

the farewell addresses of the

president's is one of the most

interesting reads I ever had because

they always tell the truth on the way

out

George Washington said he wanted to see

America a land of Commerce and

benevolence he wanted to see America

trade with the world not in the Articles

of War and he was very worried about a

war economy emerging in this country he

did not want to see a standing army we

now have a massive war economy it's

creating great problems economic

problems in this country we're talking

about a 14 trillion dollar deficit 54

trillion dollars in liabilities double

the amount of dollars in circulation and

yet the sacred cow of our budget is our

military expenditure which is nine times

greater than all the military budgets on

this planet I think we've got a lot to

think about as a people if we want to be

the beacon and the guiding light the

sailors that are that are taking care of

the ship of humanity I think we really

need to reassess that and one place that

I absolutely found it necessary to do is

in how we treat our Muslim Americans

because this is an important community

if the doctors from the Muslim community

got up and left America today we would

have a health care crisis in this

country of unprecedented proportions and

that is not hyperbole Americans put

their hands in Muslim doctors every

single day we had David Letterman said

on national television I went to my

doctor today and he said face Mecca and

cough and everybody in the audience

laughed because people have Muslim

doctors we've got engineers we have

entrepreneurs we have business people we

have an extraordinary and talented

community we also have an

african-american community that is

Muslim and has been here for a very long

time and increasingly a Hispanic and a

Caucasian American community

euro-american were diverse we have a lot

of problems but we are part of America

and we need to hear the rest of

America acknowledge that and embrace

this community and and and the panderers

of fear they'll always be there but

their voices will only be drowned out

when the voices of sanity the voices of

reason the voices of good are amplified

in order to drown those voices of

stupidity out the malaise can't

pronounce the H in Arabic so they say

for the stupid in Malay is in Arabic

it's I'm up the Malay said amok so

running amok is is acting foolishly and

stupidly we have a lot of people that

have lost their heads of late in this

country and it's the people that still

have their heads on that really need to

to come together in solidarity and help

these other people help them they're

afraid there's a lot of fear in this

country they're afraid but we're a great

country we've been through a lot of

difficulties we're in a current crises

there's a lot of difficulties but the

truth is I believe in this country

that's why I'm still here this is my

country it's been the country of my

father who was a world war two veteran

who signed up to defend this country at

the age of 17 with his mother's

permission and left high school who's

given an early graduation this is my

country I believe in this country I

believe in the goodness and the

fortitude of this country and its people

but I really want to see more of what

needs to be done from all of us thank

you