Town Hall Meeting about Terrorism and Foreign Policy

 Mike Ghouse’ Townhall meeting | TheGhouseDiary.com

Saturday, January 9, 2017, Dallas, TX – “War on Terror is the dumbest idea ever floated” was the title of my talk, and I spoke at two places; one was a private gathering, and the other was a group from College of Complexes at Roma Pizza Place on Greenville Avenue.

Here is a full video - including Q&A - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Wm9--V9xY

About 60 people attended the event at Roma Pizza Place; this was my 3^rd time speaking with this group represented by diverse American political values. There were conservatives, liberals and moderates; Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Independents, and a whole range in between. I love this group, as rarely do I speak to such political diversity and walk out learning as much as sharing my views.

Three out of sixty were ethnically and racially different – there was me, and a Black Gentleman, and the third one was of either Hispanic or Native America Origin and is running as a libertarian against Republican Congressman Kenny Marchant, whom I have voted twice.

I've been doing these town hall meetings for a while, it is good to be a moderate and have the ability to see different points of view without prejudice. I ask them “ Don’t go home regretting that you should have asked that lingering question, I will welcome any tough question, we are here to place everything on the table, be sincere with our expressions and deal with the issues honestly. You cannot upset me with any question. ” I encourage frank talks and people do open up to me, and hats off to them for dialogue in the most civic manner possible.

Let me take a detour with my background – in the late eighties, I was tuned into David Gold, the talk show host on AM 570 in Dallas, who was so venomous towards Palestinians and Arabs and made a hill out of every mole. They would not take my calls; they would screen the calls and would not take any one who was opposed to him.  Lo and behold, years later David became my tenant, and I had a conversation with him. His income went up with the ratings, and ratings went up with rants and antics, why would he want to dilute his show with facts?  He inspired me to go get my own Radio show in 1996, on AM 1150 which I ran for 5 years – I made sure both sides of the issue were addressed equally and fairly and no opinion was screened out.

I am looking to get going again in Washington DC with a talk show hour, and I am looking for volunteer research assistants to fact check on Limbaugh and his likes, we still have some talk hosts who will not put opposing views, and we will challenge them to facts. Americans deserve to see two sides of the coin, and not bamboozled by one or the other.  I am a moderate,  and there aren’t any moderate shows out there, although a majority of Americans are moderates.

I asked my audience to lay it out and they do. However, it puts a huge responsibility on our shoulders to repair the world, it was not easy to hear fabricated stuff and the propaganda that some of my fellow Americans have bought into, but what can we do, for that is all they know.  I was not surprised to hear Trump justifiers. We have a lot of work to do.

Town hall meetings are true research material, honest people will tell us honestly what they think about the issue, in this case Muslims.  

There were several rational and good voices in the meeting, some of them who spoke well for Muslims had one thing in common- I.e., each one of them cited examples of good Muslim interactions-- I was particularly buoyed because, one lady said,  had it not been for the medical treatment she got from the Islamic center of Richardson,  she would not have been alive, and that center was set up and established by my late wife Najma and Dr. Amer Shakil, God bless her and may give the strength to Muslims to do more of this.

The second one was the guy who had attended Texas Muslim Barbeque in Cowboys stadium headed by late Dr. Lalani, and the first few meetings for that big event were held in my house, I was one of the three initiators of it besides Ambassador Ahsani. It is so good to hear its lasting effects almost after a decade. This meeting has pumped me up with the initiatives they I've proposed over the years. 

I have responded to some 15 questions, and then about 10 of them shared their 2 minutes  comment, did not get a chance to address them all, but concluded the meeting with a commitment to address them soon. 

The full video will be out in 15 days; instead of negatively reacting to those comments,   we have to think, what is that we need to do to fix the problems. 

These meetings are helpful in learning about each other, what our problems are, and how we solve them. 

We have to become Amins of the society. Praise the lord, many a Hindus Jews, Christians and others consider me as an Amin; the foundation for building cohesive societies.  Amin is some one who tells it like it is, the truth, is trustworthy and around whom people feel secure.

There were several questions and comments - I have made some note and hope to repond to them this week, right here as an update of this note.

A few more pictures

Dealing with Terrorism, the Islamic way

Dr. Mike Ghouse, community consultant, social scientist, thinker, writer, news maker, and a speaker on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, politics, human rights, India, Israel-Palestine and foreign policy. He is deeply committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day; he will discuss how the Bush and Obama methods of handling terrorism have not worked, where the first method created more terrorism and the second one has not mitigated it.  

Also, as a moderate Muslim, Mike will discuss the Islamic way of handling terrorism, to wit:  “Mr. Baghdadi, you have three days to stop killing innocent people and destroying Allah’s creation, life and environment.  If you do not heed the warning, we will hunt you down an ambush wherever you hide.  If not, we will gas you, a few square miles at a time, not to hurt you, but to capture and put you on trial and ask you to give up the false claims you are making about your religion.   Soldiers from around the world will be on the front line against you.”  He argues that blaming the religion is the dumbest thing to do, because we cannot beat, kick, hack, shoot, hang, kill or bury a religion, it’s an intangible thing!   

Mike concludes that we can blame the individuals and restore trust and harmony back for the society to function peacefully and cohesively. See also  http://thearabdailynews.com/2015/11/19/war-terror-dumbest-idea-ever-floated/ 

A FEW MORE PICTURES