Writer-director Qasim Basir is nothing less than compelling in his feature film debut, “Mooz-lum.”  In it he attacks Islamist extremism while giving moviegoers a rare and enlightening portrayal of life as a Muslim in America. There’s an indisputable strength to the raw melodrama of “Mooz-lum,” a tale from the heart indie that expresses itself in primary colors. A coming of age story of a Muslim-American college student in the midst of an identity crisis on the eve of 9/11, the plot will engender debate and curiosity once audiences leave the theater. The stellar acting from the very accomplished ensemble only adds to the list of reasons this film is worth seeing.

The LA Times says, “Having created rich roles for his actors, Basir elicits from them inspired portrayals. Well-crafted in all aspects, “Mooz-lum” is not only rich in nuance, but also an engrossing entertainment made with skill and passion.

We say, don’t miss it.

From American Corespondent Jack Walsh…

Marijuana occupies a curious cultural and political space in the world right now.

Banned for reasons that have no doubt been incoherently recounted to you by a stoned person, its illegality is increasingly becoming irrelevant. The addictive and criminal ravages of crack, meth, and heroin have put cannabis in perspective for most law-enforcement agencies, and many cops no longer care about possession at this point. Law-and-order conservatives have either caught their kids with it too many times or smoked too much of it to get worked up about the demon weed anymore. There are entrenched interest groups still fighting the good fight, but as far as their actual popular support goes, they’re working on credit.

Much as stories about obesity always show fat people's corpulent bodies from the neck down, stories about weed always include pictures of smoking mouths cut off below the eyes.

Also, the medical marijuana crusade has made major inroads. More and more states are legalizing marijuana for medical use, buying into the massive charade that the marijuana-rights lobby has pushed for years. Marijuana is not medicine in the same way booze is not medicine: you could certainly use it to alleviate a few specific symptoms, but it’s just too crude to be real medicine. It’s a plant which you burn to create 1,600 combustion products, and while people are known to toss a few addys or pain pills to their friends, you usually don’t assume you’re welcome to someone’s prescriptions when they take them in the same room as you.

This is the problem with any struggle: it will ultimately shape the cause. People who are faced with nigh-insurmountable obstacles to something they want will inevitably oversell the righteousness of their mission, and the pro-marijuana camp has adopted all manners of asinine dogma in their efforts to prove they’re less of a burden on society than crackheads: it’s not a drug. It’s not addictive. It doesn’t cause lung cancer. It doesn’t make you stupid or lazy if you do it all the time.

Marijuana is a drug, full of nasty shit you’d be better served to not put in your lungs, and anyone who has ever looked at a piece of drug paraphernalia knows that full well. It can rob almost any user of direction or motivation with adequate use. Also, take it from someone who, though several weeks inactive, can’t see it depicted in movies or write a blog post about it at 1PM on a Thursday without craving some just a little bit: weed is addictive. It takes some serious work to get addicted to it, and you need a supportive group of friends to get you to that point, but psychological addiction is addiction nonetheless.

I have it on good authority that they did not get rid of this bong after the story broke, and that it hits pretty nice.

So we are left with one of those situations which would be pretty straightforward if not for human nature: the issue could be laid to rest with a little pragmatism and honesty, but there are simply too many agenda-driven parties still prepared to fight this battle like it’s the fucking Marne. If the legalization set could admit that elements of marijuana use and legalization are undesirable, we’d assuage the other side’s concern for their vulnerable children. If the opposition could admit that it’s not dangerous enough to warrant prohibition and focus on preventing their vulnerable children from firing it up so enthusiastically, we could collect excise taxes out the ass.

That’s the heart of my argument. With $5-$8 per gram in federal and state excise taxes, we could raise billions of dollars a year for healthcare and education, to say nothing of the previously-undeclared income added to the IRS’s rolls. While the austere stoner might balk at that tax figure, the specifics of certain international treaties mean that the legalization of pot in America would yield the legalization of pot in basically every country outside of Southeast Asia and the Muslim World, meaning that globalization would drive prices down for marijuana as it has for everything else. Also, you don’t have to pay for the risk of legal products, and cheaper mass-production methods would result in a situation similar to tobacco where the production costs are lower than the taxes. A side-effect of that tax hedge: the artificially smaller margins between cheap outdoor shit and the finest green would push the market towards high-potency production.

I also find it slightly suspect that news stories about weed never fail to include pornographically filmed close-up shots of cured marijuana

Admittedly, I think we should be getting taxes on cocaine, heroin, and all the other hard drugs as well. The problems of drug addiction will be there anyway, and we should stop giving murderous criminals and terrorists total control of the blue chips to end all blue chips. We could pacify Afghanistan and build up their economy with the one industry they’ve proven any good at, cement South and Central America’s current path of stabilization, and decimate terrorist financing worldwide. Still, the conspicuous ravages of hard drugs make for a harder fight, and we should start with the only popular drug that doesn’t destroy lives (okay, maybe it ruins one here and there). The government is beating itself up trying to fight the deficit by increasing existing taxes. If our elected officials could simply see past their misguided quest for public morality , they could stop throwing away an untapped source of tax revenue that our country so desperately needs.

From Larry Wohlgemuth…

While the tea party ostensibly labors for the return to constitutional governance (no, that’s not a joke) it’s easy to see other hands at work. Several tea party factions have been co-opted by fundamentalist Christians. It’s written all over their signage.

They long for the “good old days”, like back when white people were white and black people were scared shitless. It was a time when your children could pray openly to Jesus in the classroom, getting their heads right for the Klan rally and cross burning on Saturday night. Makes you long for simpler days, doesn’t it?

Now they howl for a return to principles which, if rightly understood, would be the last thing they would want. Their true desires are to exercise a degree of hegemony over other races and classes of people like they did in the 1950s. They couldn’t be more transparent.

These fundies, having gotten a few of their candidates elected, will be clamoring to post the Ten Commandments and reinstate prayer in schools. They see this as a time when the United States will turn its back on sin and return to its “core principles.” It begs the question, do these people have the slightest clue about anything they say?

Christine O’Donnell, the anti-masturbatory candidate from the Jesus party in Delaware, demanded her opponent explain where the words “separation of church and state” appeared in the First Amendment. Well of course he couldn’t, because those words were spoken by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists to elucidate the Establishment Clause to them.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Thomas Jefferson ~excerpt from Letter to Danbury Baptists January 1, 1802

As the main framer of the Constitution, Jefferson was an expert on its intent, and clearly it restricted the state from establishing any religion. This followed the government’s claim in article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Since most of the founders were Deists it seems unlikely that their intent would have been to establish a nation based on the Christian myth. Clearly their writing say as much, but suppose their intent was to create a Christian nation, then whose Christianity would it be? Everybody who wants to see this as a Christian theocracy imagines the dogma would mirror their personal beliefs exactly, but how would that be possible? Since you can’t get any two Christians to even agree on which Bible version to use, how would they ever compromise to create a theocracy?

A cursory review of the data says that Protestant Jesus wins, however closer examination shows a multiplicity of denominations with widely varying and irreconcilable theological disparities. Baptists by far are the largest Protestant denomination, but they make up only 16.5% of the population. They are far outdistanced by the Catholics at 24.5%. For Protestantism to rule would require an unlikely coalition between Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Pentecostals and Presbyterians.

Then you have the minor denominations like the Assemblies of God, Mormon/LDS, Church of Christ and Jehovah’s Witnesses; a more disparate group you could not find. While the Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians might be able to work together, they comprise a paltry 14% of the adult population. And the Baptists, well, they vomit in their mouths at the thought of these “lukewarm” denominations. They are certain God will send all mainstream, non-Baptist Protestants to hell.

Since a Protestant coalition acceptable to all is inconceivable, by default we would become a Catholic nation, but hasn’t that been tried before? I seem to recall something in the history books about Inquisitions, Crusades and other generally less than acceptable behaviors on the part of the Catholic Church. Plus we can’t forget how fond they all are of buggering little boys, so I think in the court of public opinion that most would find theocratic Catholicism unacceptable.

So how in the world can we ever get God wedged back into everyone’s lives whether they want it or not? More importantly, how can we do it so that OUR beliefs (which we know are the only TRUE beliefs) are the ones taught in school? How do we make sure that one of the false religions like (insert name of your least favorite Christian denomination here) doesn’t get to impose their will and false doctrine upon us? While I don’t believe Christine O’Donnell could ever think this critically, if you have an IQ above seven and can fog a mirror it’s starting to make sense to you now.

This was exactly the scenario that Jefferson anticipated, and the crux of his explanation to the Danbury Baptists about why they shouldn’t demand a national religion. His argument was, that unless you find yourself in the majority, you might be forced to embrace dogma with which you disagree. Though the Baptists were in a majority in colonial times, today they would find themselves subservient to Catholics. Baptists generally refer to Catholicism as the whore church, so it’s unlikely they would be happy with that circumstance.

While visions of theocratic rule dance in the heads of men like James Dobson and Billy Graham, the fact is they would be serving as butt-boys to Pope Benny the Rat and his cadre of boy-buggering wilde-priests. It would almost be enough to make you laugh except we would all be in the same position, and that’s on our hands and knees.

So as teabaggers display their buffoonery, they can rest secure with the knowledge that the Constitution protects them even though they don’t understand how it works. In this case the worst thing for them would be to get that for which they wish, because the law of unintended consequences would quickly convince them of their error. Unfortunately that’s a deal that once it’s done, too bad, so sad.

It makes you wonder if most of them deserve the protections that the Constitution affords. And Christine, you are correct, the words “separation of church and state” do not appear anywhere in the document although clearly that is the intent, however you have to be able to think more than uni-dimensionally to understand it. That leaves you and most of your teabagger friends out.

The 2010 American midterm elections are over, and there’s important metaphorical tea leaves to read regarding the politics of the immediate, near, and semi-near future, especially in terms of electorate, legislative behavior, and the state of the nation. Republicans have taken the House of Representatives, by a strong majority, in addition to a few seats in the Senate that detract from the Democratic majority, while not removing it. There are, however, a number of reasons this occurred, not necessarily in agreement with what many citizens believe to be true.

Most important, in any definition of the term, was the Tea Party: they both built and destroyed the Republican chances within this election. The Tea Party itself is a group comprised mostly of white, elderly, conservative, irrational individuals that have been deftly manipulated to stand-up for corporate interests and the self-serving agendas of many conservatives with political interests – this was an astroturf, not grassroots, movement. They managed, however, to develop a force of their own that was known to be problematic prior to the election, and their influence wreaked havoc on November 2^nd, 2010.

Tea Party favorites, like Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell or Nevada’s Sharron Angle, managed to receive the GOP nomination, only to be soundly defeated in general voting – this occurred numerous times across the country, simply because moderate Republicans, Independents, and Democrats will not vote for such staunchly conservative candidates who were largely unelectable, unprepared, and demographically non-representative. The other result, however, was that the Tea Party created such a conservative fervor that far more right-wing voters turned out than left-wing, giving credence to candidates who would have stood no chance in a more evenly balanced electorate – Senators Blanche Lincoln (AR) and Russ Feingold (WI), among others, lost for this very reason.

Young voters, who elected President Obama in 2008, chose to not vote, as did far too many Democrats. It’s no small coincidence, however, that this was the first election after the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates for even greater corporate influence in elections, at the same time that Karl Rove and others used FEC and IRS loopholes to spend huge amounts of money, much of it anonymous, to run negative ads for conservative, corporatist interests, dwarfing all Democratic efforts in fundraising or campaigning. In an election with a populace easily influenced by advertising and soundbites, no matter their outright lack of basis in truth, it’s no surprise that Republicans did far better than their opponents, especially with the aid of FOX “News” as a political mouthpiece.

Republicans now have a problem: governing. Those who are now within the halls of Congress are there only thanks to the Tea Party and corporate funding, who turn out to be very different masters. The Tea Party claims to care (an important distinction from actually standing for) about lowering the deficit, controlling government spending, rolling back various legislation from the last two years, and various other items that sit in direct conflict with the corporate interests that focus only on their bottom line. Furthermore, the GOP has come to power on a platform of anti-Obama, anti-government rhetoric that now faces the stark reality that not only is government necessary and that they’re a part of it, but also that they can simply no longer refuse any legislation proposed and consider themselves to have behaved sufficiently. As a party with control of half of Congress, and a great influence on the already-problematic other half, Republicans must propose, negotiate, and vote on legislation – “no” will no longer stand as their party response. How are they going to merge the interests of their two funding sources, both of which will be sure to hold them accountable in 2012, with the actual, non-rhetorical needs of the nation?

In all likelihood, the next two years will see little to no legislation passing – the GOP strategy in the Senate seems to be unending attempts at repealing legislation from within the reign of the Obama Administration, and the House’s strategy still remains unclear, although it seems to be slightly more reasonable. It’s fully possible that the Republicans will now spend the coming months in holding hearings and investigations into individuals, legislation, and situations that will waste everyone’s time, as they have done in the past, but will, in parallel, provide them with political theater and a sense of accomplishment. There will be no impeachment of Obama, if only for the obvious reason he has no reason to be impeached; there will be no repeal of healthcare or financial reform, because they don’t have the votes or the true political willpower; there will be no passing of ludicrous legislation, even if it can get through the Senate, because President Obama will not sign it. What will, happen, however is far too much brow-beating, political theater, and finger-pointing, while the act of governing is essentially ignored. Individuals such as Rand Paul, a government-hating Senator who has incredibly damaging ideas of what it means to govern, will attempt to push a radical far-right agenda, but it will go nowhere.

Assuming that the government continues to function at some level, such as Congress passing budgets and essential pieces of legislation, the next two years are not likely to see any major damage done to the nation – if Democrats and President Obama stand strong. On the majority of issues, there should be no compromise, not as a tit-for-tat measure, but simply because Democrats are all that currently stand in the way of the United States waging more wars, fully handing the political system over to corporate interests, and destroying the civil rights of the American people. It will be frustrating that those Democrats of rational mind can do nothing but vote down legislation and create gridlock, but it must be done. It will be frightening to see what will undoubtedly be attempted by John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, but they have no true power without aid from the liberal, or even moderate, sides of the political aisle. It will be embarrassing for all of this to occur, putting general legislative and political insanity on display for all the world to see, but outside powers should know that what is coming will not represent the true attitudes of the country – it will merely be a reflection of a small subset of the nation that managed to, through a series of just-as-embarrassing mistakes by the populace, rise to power.

All of this, however, points to an overwhelming conclusion that will be worth the pain: 2012 will be another Year of the Democrat. As a Presidential election, there will be a higher voter turnout, and it’s reasonable to expect a strong youth turnout as well, swinging the electorate strongly to the left. In addition to the effects of turnout, the coming two years are going to demonstrate to the American people, who have apparently so soon forgotten, what it means to have Republicans in power and how it does neither the people nor the nation any good. Barring a major political misstep by President Obama, he will be re-elected, especially if any of the current potential GOP candidates end up with the nomination – they are just as popularly unelectable as Christine O’Donnell was. Furthermore, without another nation-unifying event, such as a major terrorist attack or some other catastrophic disaster, Democrats will be put back into control of Congress, regaining the majority of the seats they have just lost. The economy will not have improved greatly by the next election and, as in 2010, it will be used to the detriment of those in power, namely the Republicans.

Gridlock, attempted legislative undermining of the nation, and a forestalling of progress on all fronts is nothing to look forward to, but it should be enough of a warning to Democrats for them to get their act together and come back into power in 2012, ready to behave in a more liberal fashion. Democrats, young and old, didn’t vote in 2010 because they saw their members of Congress as too moderate, too conservative – Blue Dogs are a quickly-disappearing political aberration. So, if for no other reason, rationally-minded citizens and liberals alike can look at the coming Congress as a necessary gauntlet that must be passed through in order to reach the progressive light at the end of the tunnel. There can be no question that if the Republicans prove themselves as inept at governing as they truly are, and have been for decades, their political future will seriously begin to be questioned – moreso as they continue to alienate non-whites, younger generations, LGBTs, the educated, and the rational from their party of corporatist, far-right elitism, all while waging internal ideological wars that will split the party.

This, however, says nothing of the extremely damaging and over-reaching conservative activism of the Supreme Court.

How would you react if you saw a Muslim woman being mistreated in a store, not being served purely because of what she was wearing and the religion she follows?

ABC’s news magazine Primetime posed this very question and with the help of hidden cameras conducted a little experiment. The results are interesting to watch and at times, highly emotional. They show that while some Americans are prejudiced, most aren’t. The minority of those involved in the experiment who supported prejudiced behavior don’t realize North American culture as a whole is very much the New World, a civilization built upon the pillars of immigration and secular thought.

Given the high-stakes ideological wars being fought in modern American politics, and with such intense levels of rhetoric, it’s interesting to consider what the Presidential election of 2012 might look like. Three scenarios present themselves: an extension of the current situation, a Republican Congress for the coming two years (or at least half of Congress), or a Democratic Congress

Assuming for the moment, no matter how improbable it is, that Congress stays in essentially the same form of seat-based gridlock, a curious situation arises: if Congressional Republicans, and the GOP at large, continue the path they’ve begun of obstruction, rollbacks, repeals, and “how far can we move to the right”, they will have essentially handed the Presidency to President Obama for his second Term of Office. Contrary to the belief of some, a policy of obstruction and extreme conservatism is not what the majority of America wishes to see, and it places the members of such a party in an unelectable position. More importantly, however, is the gift they give to their opponent: talking points.

Even if nothing else is passed in Congress over the next few years, President Obama will have healthcare reform, financial reform, the beginning of Iraqi withdrawal, an Afghanistan military timetable, and considerably more to speak about. Additionally, the GOP’s “Pledge to America” and well-documented behavior will give him the ability to point toward the actions of Republicans over the preceding four years, and ask America if this is truly what they want more of. It’s easy to see how, no matter who the Republican candidate is, this would be another landslide election for President Obama – no matter personal opinion of his time as President, he truly shines in a competitive campaign environment, and hard data will only strengthen his position.

Similarly, a Democratic Congress for another two years is merely an extension of the aforementioned situation, as it would both give Republicans the ability to continue to obstruct and generally fail to govern, without actually handing the government over to them. Therefore, the presentation of a Republican Congress is the only truly different scenario, as there would be a period of two years for President Obama to reference, using their failed control of Congress against them. It’s not difficult to imagine a Republican Congress refusing to cooperate with President Obama’s policy goals, just as it’s not difficult to imagine President Obama handily vetoing many of the pieces of legislation passed under such a Congress.

If, however, a Republican Congress manages to achieve some of their stated goals, such as a repeal of healthcare reforms, continued protection of Big Business, or a version of “fiscal conservatism” that results in an even greater national deficit, they will have once more walked into a corner. Two years of Republican policies, perhaps even ones that negatively effect the country, will be far easier set of talking points for a Democratic Presidential candidate to use on the campaign than the obstruction of a Congressional minority. When President Obama can point to the number of ludicrous bills he vetoed, or bills turned into law that were catastrophic in their results, the election will have again been won.

Perhaps Republicans will take some Congressional seats in November, although any form of majority seems unlikely, but this is not necessarily for the net negative – two years of Republican rule in Congress will see President Obama handily re-elected for a second Term of Office, and control of Congress passing once more to Democrats, in a far larger majority than in 2008. The only choice the GOP has to avoid this future is to stop, effective immediately, their continued push to the extreme right of both ideology and religion, but this is, realistically, all but impossible. Having built their existence and negligible growth on the fundamentalist ideology of the Tea Party and other similarly non-mainstream ideas, it would, at this point, be difficult to reverse course, or even slow the process.

Republicans, welcome to your future.

From Kyle Brady…

Kyle can be found on his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

While listening to Dr. Laura’s racist meltdown the other day I was reminded of a recurring episode from my childhood involving my brother. Like all siblings we competed with each other, which inevitably led to physical confrontation. Being two years older and considerably larger, they usually ended with me imposing my physical will on him, and he would run crying to mom.

He’d be screaming all the way that I hurt him, and my response would be, “That didn’t hurt, that didn’t hurt,” all the while telling him to be quiet. Then there was the moment of truth where mom would listen to the facts and make her decision. My brother’s claims and my protestations had precious little to do with her judgment. Unable to appreciate that our tiny house allowed her to hear everything that transpired, we’d both state our cases passionately. Generally her rulings were just, although there was a time or two that she missed. Regardless, neither his claims nor my protests ultimately had much impact on her ruling, but what I learned was I didn’t get to decide whether my actions were hurtful. It begs the question, what the hell makes Dr. Laura believe she gets to decide whether her behavior was racist?

Dr. Laura is a hate filled, homophobic, xenophobic, religious wingnut, titty-baring bitch, and I’m working very hard to be as kind as possible. She’s the spawn of Satan sent to cause immeasurable pain and suffering on the world. That said, let’s look at her actions.

On the radio she goes into a complete meltdown, using a pejorative racial epithet repeatedly, deluded that she was helping a human being of the race she was denigrating. Eleven times in five minutes she used the N-word, rationalizing that since black comedians on HBO and Showtime use it that she should be able to use it, too. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, we’d suggest that she was just trying to open a heretofore off-limits dialogue. The thing is, when it comes to hatred it’s never reasonable to give a person the benefit of the doubt. However there was one thing that I did find amusing in this reprehensible display of ignorance and bigotry.

When the caller, an African-American woman who was obviously timid and self-conscious, finally mustered the courage to confront Dr. Laura, she responded much as I did all those years ago. She exclaimed, “That’s not racist, that’s not racist,” as if it was her decision to make. Just as I’d done all those years ago, she was living with the misconception that ultimately it was her right to determine whether her actions were inappropriate. The difference is that I was only seven years old, and based on the crevices in her face she has to be at least 80, and should know better. The sad truth is, despite being a psychologist, she actually believed that it was her right to decide whether her behavior was hateful and racist. The problem is, we’re seeing that same conduct from the borderline personalities on the right every day.

Look at the teabaggers and you see this dynamic in action all the time. They walk the streets with signs depicting Barack Obama dressed as a tribal African with a bone in his nose, or one that reads “Monkey See, Monkey Spend,” yet they act like none of us are capable of reaching our own conclusions. They protest vociferously any suggestion that they might be racist, xenophobic or homophobic, all the while acting racist, xenophobic and homophobic.

It’s like walking in on your three-year-old who has cookie all over his face and hands, and when you ask him he denies having been in the cookie jar. You know he’s lying, and he knows he’s lying, yet somehow in his tiny, marginally functioning intellect he’s convinced that he’s really telling the truth. The problem is that we have a large number of adults, capable of doing adult damage, who are functioning intellectually and emotionally at the level of a three-year-old. The question becomes, what are we to do about it?

Since I already started this by being less than politically correct a judgmental asshole, I don’t see any sense in ending it any other way. If someone was destroying his life with addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex, we’d feel compelled to intervene on his behalf. We wouldn’t allow him to careen out of control without throwing him a life preserver. We need to do the same with Dr. Laura and the teabaggers.

I propose a stupidity intervention. It’s time we approach them with our concerns that they are so totally ignorant that we’re worried they might forget to breathe, and that they need to get help. The first thing we’d do is use parental controls on their televisions and lock them out of FOX News, forcing them to get their information from a variety of other sources. The second would be to require them to attend a class about the Constitution of the United States. Finally, and most importantly, we’d demand they spend 10 hours a week as a minority at a gathering of people from another race or ethnic background. I know these are extreme measures, but we live in desperate times.

If you have someone that you’re worried about, please don’t stand by and allow them to slide into the abyss. Confront them and tell them that you really wish they would go for help. It’s the only merciful thing to do.

From Larry Wohlgemuth…

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

I occasionally get Emails and comments from non-Arab people asking what they can do to help. Generally there isn’t much that can be done by outsiders as it’s my belief that sustainable change is only change that happens from within. However in areas where West collides with East there are things that can be done to either hurt moderate Muslims or help us.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an area that has a lot of impact on the growth and recruitment of terrorist Islamic movements. This is a previous post on how young Saudis come to hate the West as a result of it.

Now with the Park51 Mosque, things have come to a head. This is an area where you can help. To lump Islam as one single ideology and 23% of the world population as terrorists is a grave mistake. To fight Islam in general is the single best backing position for the West to take in aiding fundamental Islamists. When you don’t support people like Imam Rauf and Tariq Ramadan, then in effect you are supporting people like Osama Bin Laden.

When outsiders  lump Islam into this one narrow interpretation that must be fought, they are playing their part in Osama Bin Laden’s world stage. Fundamental Islamists, from the nonviolent to terrorists all use the same effective argument to recruit Muslim laypeople. It goes along the lines of “see, see they hate us. They want to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Where is their freedom and democracy?”

They use as examples for this argument America’s support for Israel, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and discrimination against Muslims in western countries. The opposition to and cancellation of Park 51 looks like a future addition to the list alongside the burning of the Qurans in Florida.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone born in a Muslim country who only speaks the language of that country and who has never been anywhere besides that country. Your religious leader, your school teacher or any other person you might have reason to be drawn to tells you about the Palestinian plight illustrated with photos of maimed children and refugee camps. He then talks to you about the innocent civilians killed indiscriminately by American tanks and bombs. Iraqi women raped by American soldiers. He shows you pictures from Abu Ghraib. He talks to you about how Americans hate Muslims and illustrates about how thousands of Americans opposed the building of a mosque and how an American priest is going to burn the Quran. How would you feel?

Do Americans really want to feed into that argument? Islam is the second largest religion in the world, second only to Christianity. It’s not going away, you either help moderate Muslims or you feed into the fundamentalists’ view of the world. Who do you want to be proven wrong?

While the so-called “9/11 mosque”, which is actually instead an Islamic community center, has merits on both sides of the conversation regarding its existence, the conversation should not even be occurring, let alone at the level or with the furor that it currently holds. The simple answer to the situation is Freedom of Religion, via the Constitution’s 1^st Amendment, and that should be enough to silence any of the ludicrous commentary.

Except it apparently isn’t.

There are two core problems that are either confusing or enlarging the issue: a Republican interest in psychotic, election-cycle pandering, and fundamental misrepresentation. It would be slightly more understandable for people to be upset if a traditional-style mosque were opening at the very foot of the fallen towers, but the basic fact is that it’s a community center, no different than a Y with a different religious bent, that’s going inside of a former warehouse. There will be no spires, no minarets, no calls to prayer – none of the traditional items associated with Islamic properties. More importantly, however, is that it is not as close to the World Trade Center as is being portrayed: a few blocks, yes, but bringing such an institution to an area of strip clubs, sex toy shops, and other not-so-Christian-values enterprises is not quite the outrageous event that is being put forth.

The overwhelming problem, however, is one of Constitutionality. As a nation, the United States promotes religious freedom, and has since its founding – why should that be subject to geographical location, local proximity, or specific religions? A small group of fundamentalist individuals with extreme views of their religion has caused great trauma and havoc, but they do not represent their religion, as has been proclaimed so often since the events of September 11^th, 2001 by Muslims worldwide. True that there are those who believe their religion justifies such acts of terror and aggression, but this mindset of justified abhorrent behavior is not limited to Islam – are all Christians held accountable for the slaughtering seen during the Crusades? Are all Germans held responsible, presently, for the actions of a dictator half a century ago?

Islam is merely an extension of Christianity, and yet it’s demonized as some sort of inhuman belief system, especially by those of fervent Christian belief – there is deep irony in the persecution of Islams at the hand of Christians in the United States, because some of the very reasons for the founding of the United States having ties to religious freedom. The 1^st Amendment delivers freedom of religion to all religions and all individuals within the United States, not just selectively chosen groups of people or religious sects, and believing otherwise belies an arrogance and ignorance that is simply unacceptable.

The fact that this is even an issue points to the motives of those arguing against the building of the community center: elections. Republicans are currently in the process of pandering to their extreme base, made even more extreme by the laughable Tea Party, which involves, essentially, the subjugation of any and all cultures and people that aren’t white – Arizona’s racist attempt at immigration law, a scramble to modify or repeal the 14^th Amendment, the Manhattan Islamic center, and various other behaviors of the last year have proven this quite staunchly. After the elections in November, Republicans will have no interest in touching the 14^th Amendment, walking all over the 1^st Amendment, or participating in any other actions that will essentially frame their party as one of an anti-Constitution, anti-minority, pro-white ideology – at least until the next election cycle. This coming from the party that believes, wrongly and without evidence, that President Obama is “walking all over” the Constitution, even while they attempt to do so.

Build the Islamic community center in Manhattan – there’s no reason not to, unless those reasons include racism, religious discrimination, or political pandering.

From Kyle Brady…

Kyle can be found on his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

“ Mr. Speaker, we are now in chapter 11. Members of
Congress are officially presiding over the greatest
reorganization of any bankrupt entity in history”…
Congressman James Traficant March 17th 1993

I’m afraid that those words uttered by congressman James Traficant, back in 1993 were true. In fact this was not the first time that the United States and its citizens were secretly in official bankruptcy. It was actually our fourth bankruptcy.

We have been bankrupt right from the start. It’s how banks prefer their patrons, because they can charge them high interest rates and get away with requiring all sorts of servitude, that they would never get away with under prosperity. In 1776 we won our “independence” from England, but we were financially bankrupted by the costs of the war. We took a loan and entered into a bankruptcy agreement with the Bank Of England. The terms of this agreement required us to give our new found property rights over to the bank. Thus the Bank Of England owned the United States Of America
.
The Civil War also created another bankruptcy opportunity for the international bankers. The European bankers helped ferment the war, and then cashed in on our weakened state. In return for our solvency they would extract their pound of flesh! They would do this by dismantling the constitution of one of the major countries whose existence challenged the authority of the crown.

Shortly after the Civil War, congress passed The Act of 1871, which threw out our real constitution, replaced it with the corporate constitution, and created the District Of Columbia. The new country would be called THE UNITED STATES (in all capital letters) as opposed to The United States Of America. The Constitution for the united states of America, as it was once written, was changed to THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The capital letters were placed into the constitution and the name of the country for very specific reasons. The people who drafted the changes where changing the government from a republic to a corporation. In a Republic we each had fixed, sovereign rights, that could not be changed by the majority, or the whims of the powerful. As a corporation however, we now only had “privileges”, which would be subject to change by forces outside the individual.

You are also a corporation. Bet you didn’t know that! I know, I was shocked when I found out. They don’t tell you this in school. However if you look on your birth certificate, drivers license, or any other legal certificate from the government, you will see your name in capital letters. The reason for this is so that the owners of the United States Corporation can own you.

The government does not work for the people. It is beholden to the corporation. The center of the corporation is The District Of Columbia. The lawmakers there work for the corporation, not you and me anymore. The corporation controls the democrats and the republicans. They may try and fool people who do not really understand, but once you know these facts they will no longer be able to fool us.

In 1909 there was a major down turn in the economy ( probably purposeful shrinkage of the money supply ) and the banksters took advantage again by creating the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. The foreign owners ( hypothecated ) were given the right to all land, and all people, inside the United States Of America, as security. In exchange they would issue us credit, and print as much money as we would need. At least that was the plan that was sold to congress. The bank’s shareholders ( some foreign families ) were given title to everything within the United States, and we the people, would be listed as the beneficiaries, by way of a birth certificate. This certificates would be a commodity. Your birth certificate is given specific monetary value and traded on the stock exchange. The red numbers on your birth certificate correspond to your stock number that is traded on the stock exchange.

You didn’t know you where traded on the stock exchange? I didn’t know either, for the longest time, but it’s true. In fact it is estimated that you are worth between 1-2 million dollars. You can read more about this later in the final chapters where I talk about the Freeman Movement.

In 1933, after the banks restricted the money supply, causing the stock market to crash, and the great depression; congress passed The Emergency Banking Act. This dissolved the United States of America, it’s sovereign authority, and all of it’s governmental bodies. From that day on, the United States Of America would exist in name only.

Authority was turned over to the International Monetary Fund ( linked to the Rothschild’s ). The International Monetary Fund is the “center” of all the central banks around the world. Through similar schemes they have acquired the rights and legal title to most of the property and people around the world.

I find it so sad that politicians have through the ages, sold their countrymen’s freedom and prosperity out to the highest bidder. By doing this they have traded our children’s lives away in exchange for immediate personal fortune. This was true of colonial politicians, like Alexander Hamilton, and even the Joe Liberman’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, and Harry Reid’s of our day.

From Dr. Kazi Kearse PsyD…

Kazi can be found on Facebook, his blog and liveperson.com