Populist movements like the Tea Party are dangerous in times of economic instability.  We have to look no farther than Mussolini’s Italy or Hitler’s Germany to see how oligarchs can encourage frightened masses to revolt.  In the case of the Tea Party those oligarchs are the Koch brothers and their front man Dick Armey.  Historical Sociologist Michael Mann defines Fascism: Fascism is the pursuit...

A Message to Unlikely Voters by Peter Funt When Barack Obama was a state legislator in Illinois he occasionally used the tactic of voting “present” on certain bills because the measures, as written, were flawed and the goal was to get them improved before passage. It worked as a legislative maneuver but was misrepresented years later by political opponents who claimed it was a sign of wishy-washiness....

Is it time for Muslims to be more tolerant of criticism? Columnist Francois Sergent of France’s Liberation writes that one crazy pastor doesn’t represent the West, and that it’s time for Islam to accept that attacks like his are just a normal part of being one of the world’s leading religions. For Liberation, Francois Sergent writes in part: This man, a huckster of God and not much of...

As the unusual confluence of the Jewish new year, Ramadan and September 11th has come and gone, I’ve been thinking a lot about the direct talks being pursued right now by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But this post is not about the talks’ core issues, as they’re called, or about the fact that the talks themselves are happening. I want to focus on Secretary Clinton and the skills...

Is the United States making a mistake by leaving Iraq to its own devices – and the tender mercies of neighboring countries like Iran? According to columnist Hamid Shehab of Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, America can stay engaged and help Iraq become an ‘arc of stability,’ or, ‘There will likely be more unhappy surprises putting the United States on the threshold of an era of fragmentation,...

For many years the U.S. Oligarchy has ensured that the American electorate is perpetually faced with a meaningless choice between only two political parties (i.e. Tweedledum & Tweedledee), Independents have deluded themselves into thinking they actually make a difference in our quasi-defunct representational democracy. Third parties have been roundly ignored by the electorate except for a few Presidential...

With these two sentences, Missouri’s state lawmakers have appointed themselves to the position of guardians of the mind of God:

Has political correctness, that well-meaning plan to remove negative phrases from common language, led to another kind of extremism? Swiss columnist Patrik Etschmayer writes that banning words has led to a ban on entire debates that in a democratic society, leads to the emergence of fringe groups in power. Highlighting the case of Thilo Sarrazin, who has been driven off the Bundesbank board of directors for...

Bill Maher tells The Hollywood Reporter he’ll never win an Emmy because he’s an atheist. Hey, some of those nomination came because he is an atheist. Regardless, I think he hasn’t won because he is too religious.

Learn From Our Past by Martha Randolph Carr Recently I wrote a column about tolerance toward those of different beliefs whether it’s at Ground Zero in New York City or in our own hometowns. In the column I also made the statement that we didn’t deport Germans during WWII. Thanks to two readers, Art Jacobs in Tempe, AZ and Eberhard Fuhr in the suburbs of Chicago, IL, who were both interred in the 1940’s...

I have only one question: why did it take the New York Times two months to write about this? Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef,...

With anti-Muslim sentiment joining anti-Mexican immigrant bias and undisguised racism against the first black President, the American dream of assimilation seems to be falling apart. Why is all this happening now when an even worse Depression and a wider war in the past century brought the country together, leading to the breakdown of discriminatory barriers in the decades that followed? Blame it on Tea Party...

Martin Sutovec, Slovakia This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Are political clerics destroying the image of Islam? According to columnist Saad Al-Ramla of Iraq’s Sotal Iraq newspaper, clerics with outdated interpretations of Islam should keep out of politics and the law, because they are ruining the lives of ordinary Muslims trying to live in the modern world. Directing his invective toward today’s politically-active imams, columnist Saad Al-Ramla writes in...

Yes, and the actual term is kidnapped children, not ‘child soldiers’… it’s kidnapped children forced by gunpoint from their families and forced to serve evil or else die if they try to run away. Hanging, and skinning the children who try to flee, burning them and hanging their remains to terrify human beings, is the favored act. It’s everywhere, Taliban, Somalia, Kenya, anywhere...

Is growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, highlighted by Quran-burning Paster Terry Jones, evidence that we are quickly headed toward World War III? According to columnist Yevgeniy Shestakov of Russia’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta, ‘American dogmatism’ will mitigate against compromise with Muslims over issues like First Amendment rights, and may well lead to the fulfillment of Fidel Castro’s...

Two Issues: The War Within Islam + Israel and Islamism by Barry Rubin Two readers asked me questions well worth answering. The first asked whether Islam itself isn’t the enemy; the second, how these distinctions appear from an Israeli standpoint; . Regarding the first question, I would stress that “Islam” as a religion functioning in the world is not at war with anyone as such. There are those...

This past week we saw a bewildered, confused Pastor Terry Jones of an obscure Gainesville, Fla., church back down after gaining international hysteria he would lead his flock in burning the Qur’an. Today, Sept. 12, nine years and one day after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers and Pentagon, Pastor Jones’ 15 minutes of fame mercifully is over. Time will tell whether the blowback will continue...

South Africa’s Star newspaper reports that Muslims in in the city of Johannesburg went to court to prevent an angry Muslim businessman from setting Bibles on fire in retaliation for the anticipated burning of Qurans by Pastor Terry Jones. According to the account, evidence presented by the Islamic ‘Scholars of the Truth’ persuaded the angry Muslim defendant that the Quran includes the Gospel,...

The purveyors of hate on the religious right often claim that Islam is inherently a violent religion.  A couple of examples here and here.  And yes indeed they can find many examples of violence in the Qur’an.  But have they read their own Bible? 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and...

In a couple of gripping pieces about the horror and continuing grief experienced by 9/11 survivors and about the recent “blather on television by various women and men about keeping the ’sanctity’ of the 9-11 bomb site,” Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, referring to all the “trout-pout commentators [who] hog the discourse” on that issue, says: Those directly affected by 9-11 who themselves escaped or/and...

Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center who had threatened a 9/11 Quran burning at the church, told NBC’s Today show that “we have decided to cancel the burning…God is telling us to stop.” NPR: He says that his Gainesville, Fla., church’s goal was “to expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical.” He tells NBC that “we...

9/11: The Rest Should Be Silence by Michael Winship This past Sunday was beautiful, bright and warm, not unlike the sky blue day when those two airliners hit the World Trade Center in 2001, just a mile or so from where I live. That day, a Tuesday, was a bit hotter, a bit more humid, yet just as sunny and promising. But this Sunday morning’s silence was broken by the sound of a bell and a small, organized crowd...

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

I cannot speak for 9-11 survivors for I am not one. I am only a walker. A person who walks with people on the way back from hell. I can only give you my understanding of those whose staggering gait I know deeply. I’ve been a post-trauma specialist and psychoanalyst for forty years. I’ve worked with 9-11 survivor families, individuals and first responders from New York and New Jersey who survived...