A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War Two owned a number of large industries and estates.When asked how many German people were true Nazis,the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. "Very few people were true Nazis"he said,"but many enjoyed the return of German pride,and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.So,the majority just sat back and let it all happen.Then,before we knew it, they owned us,and we had lost control,and the end of the world had come.My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories-." We are told again and again by"experts"and"talking heads"that Islam is the religion of peace,and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true,it is entirely irrelevant.It is meaningless fluff,meant to make us feel better,and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.It is the fanatics who march.It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.It is the fanatics who bomb,behead,murder,or honor kill.It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the"peaceful majority",the"silent majority",is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace,yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people.The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well,but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a warmongering sadist.Yet,Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians;most killed by sword,shovel and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda,which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were"peace loving"? History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt,yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence!Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up,because like my friend from Germany,they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them,and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans,Japanese,Chinese,Russians,Rwandans,Serbs,Afghans,Iraqis Palestinians,Somalis,Nigerians,Algerians,and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold;we must pay attention to the only group that counts;the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Scott Ridder, TruthDig, July 23, 2007 The ongoing hand-wringing in Congress by the newly empowered Democrats over what to do about the war in Iraq speaks volumes about the level of concern (or lack thereof) these "representatives of the people" have toward the men and women who honor us all by serving in the armed forces of the United States of America. The inability to reach consensus concerning the level of funding required or how to exercise effective oversight of the war, both constitutionally mandated responsibilities, is more a reflection of congressional cowardice and impotence than a byproduct of any heartfelt introspection over troop welfare and national security. The issues that prompt the congressional collective to behave in such an egregious manner have more to do with a reflexive tendency to avoid any controversy that might disrupt the status quo ante regarding representative-constituent relations (i.e., re-election) than with any intellectual debate about doing the right thing. This sickening trend is bipartisan in nature, but of particular shame to the Democrats, who obtained their majority from an electorate that expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq through their votes, demanding that something be done. Sadly, Congress' smoke-and-mirrors approach to the Iraq war creates the impression of much activity while generating no result. Even more sadly, the majority of Americans are falling for the act, either by continuing their past trend of political disengagement or by thinking that the gesticulation and pontification taking place in Washington, D.C., actually translate into useful work. The fact is, most Americans are ill-placed intellectually, either through genuine ignorance, a lack of curiosity or a combination of both, to judge for themselves the efficacy of congressional behavior when it comes to Iraq. Congress claims to be searching for a solution to Iraq, and many Americans simply accept that this is this case. The fact is one cannot begin to search for a solution to a problem that has yet to be accurately defined. We speak of "surges," "stability" and "funding" as if these terms come close to addressing the real problems faced in Iraq. There is widespread recognition among members of Congress and the American people that there is civil unrest in Iraq today, with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence tearing that country apart, but the depth of analysis rarely goes beyond that obvious statement of fact. Americans might be able to nod their heads knowingly if one utters the words Sunni, Shiite and Kurd, but very few could take the conversation much further down the path of genuine comprehension regarding the interrelationships among these three groups. And yet we, the people, are expected to be able to hold to account those whom we elected to represent us in higher office, those making the decisions regarding the war in Iraq. How can the ignorant accomplish this task? And ignorance is not something uniquely attached to the American public. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the newly appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, infamously failed a pop quiz in which journalist Jeff Stein asked him to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite. Reyes has become the poster boy for congressional stupidity, but in truth he is not alone. Very few of his colleagues could pass the test, truth be told. Read More Here

Steven Weber, The Huffington Post, July 24, 2007 We are rapidly approaching a karmic bitch slap, kiddies. Don't think 'cause we have iPhones and drive Navigators and run our air conditioners 'round the clock that we're immune from history's all-powerful undertow. We are not. We will join the parade of nations who succumbed to the intoxicating effects of their own poetry, who allowed their loins to trump their minds, who permitted hubris and greed to relentlessly infect its population, and their collective egos to swell until the outer skin blistered and popped and oozed life itself, puddling onto the sooty ground that was once home. We are like them, make no mistake. And if we don't address what is happening right now in a specific oval shaped office in a specific nation's capitol, then it will be over and we will be standing around like idiots after a storm and we will look at all the other victims and they at us and we will still be unable to comprehend what has happened anymore than a steer does before it is stunned with a short swift blow to the head. And if you think this is just another liberal blog shouting anti-authoritarian bullshit, you'd be wrong. Because good things go bad all the time. Sweet, pure babies are born and grow into monsters. Republics are hewn by gritty, passionate pioneers of freedom only to have those founders ousted and the nation forcibly occupied and run by fat-assed, profiteering chicken hawks. Must we wait for the Neo-Cons' Lee Atwater moment, the deathbed retraction of all their unfair, unethical, inhuman behavior they've engaged in? Ain't gonna happen, chums. Think of what America was and what it has become. And once you grasp that then look only a little farther ahead to what will be. You don't need a pie chart or a power point presentation. All the work's been done and done and it is in-fucking-fallible. To see the future one need only look to the past. Look at BushCo and his Neo-Con stormtroopers: the more intense their denials, the more incendiary their threats, the more their eyes pop and their veins swell, the closer they are to their ideological orgasm: Fascism. We either heed the signs and choke it off or run before you get drenched. Constitution of the United States: prepare for the money shot! Read More Here

Michael Scherer, Salon, July 24, 2007 0 minutes. CNN host Anderson Cooper welcomes the candidates by admitting his anxiety. "This is something that we have never done before. What you are about to see is -- well, it's untried. We're not exactly sure how it's going to work. The candidates on the stage don't know how it's going to work either." He goes on like this for a while. The questions will be asked by normal people over Web video, not by journalists. Democrats will be logging on to the internetting, surfing the series of tubes. Anything can happen. 2 minutes. To demonstrate the danger, Cooper shows some of the 3,000 video questions submitted via wide world web space. There are videos of a singing chicken lady, a kid with giraffes and flamingos, a screaming toddler. There is a guy who says Arnold Schwarzenegger is a cyborg who can stop nuclear war. Cooper tries to calm the viewing audience. "We all know that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a cyborg," Cooper says, "so there is no need to waste time actually asking the candidates that question." Huge relief. 5 minutes. Finally, the debate gets going. The first question comes from a guy named Zach in Utah. "What's up?" virtual Zach says, before asking a good question. He essentially wants to know if any of the Democratic candidates will be any different from all the other pinhead politicians in Washington. "What's going to make you any more effectual, beyond all the platitudes and the stuff we're used to hearing?" 6 minutes. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., answers by reciting the empty platitudes we are used to hearing. "While hope and confidence and optimism are clearly very important, I think experience matters a great deal -- the experience people bring to their candidacy, the ideas, the bold ideas that they've championed over the years." Why not bring back the chicken lady? What about the screaming child? How do cyborgs stop nuclear war, anyway? 7 minutes. It's platitude roll-call time. "People have an urgent desire for change in Washington," says Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. "We are united for change," says Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Only Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mixes it up. His platitudes sound like Buddhist koans. "Strength through peace," he says. "The science of human relations." 11 minutes. A guy named Rob from Irvine, Calif., asks Clinton if she would call herself "liberal." She answers with an eloquent and concise history of the word, from its 19th-century roots to the current use by conservatives as a synonym for weakness and big government. "I consider myself a modern progressive," she says. 12 minutes. Anderson turns to the malcontent standing at the right side of the stage. "Are you a liberal?" he asks. Former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, dodges the question and decides to attack everyone else's platitudes. "We're not united," he says to Clinton. "And I want to take on Barack Obama for a minute." Gravel looks unhinged. Cooper cuts him off. Read More Here