Written by Richard Kane   

Europe and the US are in stagnation, if not decline. Money flees to where the working conditions are the most grim, cracking down on business excess encourages business flight. It’s hard to find a way out. At least, partly due to Obama, there aren’t tariff walls as in the 30's depression making things far worse, nor currency wars between nations, but Obama is asking for blame by spreading hope that he can’t deliver on.

However hate can make conditions far worse in a hurry and some tea party members are advocating it like Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell and Pat Toomey. Toomey running for Senate in Pennsylvania has a long history of heavily pushing brinkmanship and baiting toward war with Iran and Cuba. If the US ended the economic boycott of Cuba after the November election it will immediately comfort the investment world that US policies will make more sense in the future and give the dollar a boast (and for a moment) get Congress inspired to start working together toward finding solutions, not blame. Pat Toomey constantly accuses his Democratic opponent Joe Sestak of being a far lefty, but those who consider themselves Left often think of both Toomey and Sestak to be hawks, and may or may not hold their noise and vote Joe Sestak not considering their differences on Cuba, Iran and the environment. There is one section of Philadelphia and nearby suburbs where a Green Party labor candidate, Hugh Giordano is running a strong race for State Legislator, which somewhat ironically will help those who think that they might hold their nose and vote for the Democratic Senator will actually be sure to bother to vote. Toomey long before he was involved in the Tea Party, had been involved with groups (Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and David Horowitz) that support the Serbs over the Muslims opposing Bill Clinton’s UN peace keepers in the Kosovo War, as supporting the wrong side, the Muslim side. The war between Sebia and Kosovo was a war Toomey vigorously opposed US involvement in. However, Toomey unlike the others never said the Serbian (Christian) side was right.

The Tea Party has two sides that are very different from each other. On one side is Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul who want to leave other countries alone and push economic policies that make sense like ending the economic blockade of Cuba. Several Tea Party businesswomen are silent of the blockade but since business groups oppose the embargo they would be expected to vote to end it unless Toomey successfully lobbies them to at least continue to keep silent on that issue.

Carly Fiorina; the Tea Party challenger of Barbara Boxer, has a unique campaign against hate. Right after 9/11 she spoke out against anti-Muslim hate, including calling Islam a great religion. In her current campaign for Boxer’s seat she has to keep explaining and explaining away her past statements.

In Nevada Harry Reid cooperated with Robert Menendez’s efforts to continue the Cuban embargo and pushed a Congressional resolution praising Israel's attack on the aid flotilla, and more recently
http://www.truth-out.org/harry-reids-anti-islamic-agenda62863
criticized the building of a mosque in downtown New York. This is referred to in a different manner on a Jewish site. It's very helpful to look at the contrast
http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2010/10/22/news/nation_and_world/doc4cc0b0e5b2b81724853385.txt

Also condemning a new NY mosque is Pat Toomey in his ads against Joe Sestak. Earlier Toomey put a lot of effort into supposedly documenting terrorists coming over the southern border.
The strongest hate is coming from Renee Ellmers in North Carolina, with a hysterical video ad about the NY mosque, and the historic evils of Islam.
Ilario Pantano who is also running in North Carolina is a US veteran acquitted of murdering two Iraqis in cold blood plumping two magazine rounds into two prisoners.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/29/from_murder_to_congress_unrepentant_tea
He is also shrilly lashing out against the mosque and if elected might do such things as spit on the Muslim Congressional Representative if not at Carly Fiorina for having called Islam a great religion. If Ellmers and Pantano win they will seem like isolated nuts unless Toomey is also elected to prevent their isolation.

I want to take a moment to review a little rarely noted Vietnam War history. As the war drifted on and on some joined the peace movement, but others in frustration began calling for nuking Vietnam. Near the end of the Vietnam War, organizers of more and more infrequent “back the troops rallies” and Veteran events found the home made “Nuke Vietnam” placarded very disruptive. Then Paul Harvey radio news began calling for “Win or Get Out” which was interpreted by others as get out. Much more recently in the Rolling Stone’s expose of General McChrystal that led to McChystal being fired, soldiers in the field complained about being forced to fight as they saw it with one hand tied behind their backs, sometimes risking their lives because of McChrystal’s policies of avoiding civilian deaths. I hope others reread it in light of my interpretation that the soldiers interviewed represented more of being hawks not doves, and in 2012 if the Afghan War isn’t over besides a peace challenger there will be a super-hawk challenger saying that trying to observe human rights and not kill anyone one that one isn’t sure is guilty is why the US hasn’t won yet in Afghanistan and that candidate might be a soldier who won his court marshal like Pantano.

Unfortunately I think I need to change the subject to a hidden reason why so many Americans, expect Muslim-Americans and earlier Japanese-Americans of be potential terrorists. Right before the US joined World War II, there were spirited, sometimes bloody, arguments in the German and Italian communities whether or not to support Hitler and Mussolini, which the US government kept track of. The Japanese communities were quiet, making many Americans wonder whether they were not secretly supporting the emperor. Today many Americans who are not Muslims see America fighting with Muslim lands believing that if they themselves were Muslim they would be opposing the US and feeling guilty if they didn’t become Muslim terrorists.

The truth of the matter is that al Qaeda attacked a lot of people mostly fellow Muslims. Sometimes, due to al Qaeda and sometimes not, Shiites sometimes face discrimination or even attacks where Sunnis are in charge, like Pakistan, and Sunnis face discrimination and something worse when Shiites predominate. They both at times pick on the Sufis who don’t fight back. No one could look at some of the horror Sufis face in Pakistan and not feel some sympathy for Abjul Rauf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/25/bomb-sufi-shrine-pakistan

Sufis are constantly made to prove they are true Muslims by frequently avowing Mohammad’s teachings. The Muslim styled community center that is attempting to be built in downtown NY would not be considered to contain a mosque if built in the middle east since Feisal Abdul Rauf’s wives don’t wear head scarfs violating what Prophet Mohammad taught. He and many other Sufis are overjoyed that they are considered Muslims in America without constantly needing to prove it. Many Sunnis and Shiites are overjoyed that here in America Sunnis and Shiites get along and thankful that they can feel like they belong unlike in Europe where Muslims are permanent outsiders looked upon as backward and ignorant if they consider religion important. Some in the US have gotten involved in supporting Hamas or Iran against Israel and are arrested for supporting a Muslim terrorist connected charity but don’t get angry at the US or feel they don’t belong, instead get mad at the Israeli lobby. However, the mosque hysteria is threatening to change all this since Israel is in no way to blame.

Ironically, Feisal Abdul Rauf after 9/11 called al Qaeda a death cult, dedicating himself to challenging al Qaeda’s ideas. He approached the US government offering to help then challenge bin Laden’s ideas rather than the other way around, the US asking him for help. Another Muslim who dedicated his life to challenging hate is Dr. Fadl Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif. It’s amazing the amount of effort Dr. Fadl has made at opposing hate starting out by opposing bin Laden’s hate. France combines effective efforts against al Qaeda hate with military efforts with a lot less financial costs and more results than the US does. See the many sites of “France declares war on al Qaeda”. Somehow Americans of various persuasions think it’s up to us how the world gets along, or US responsibility if it doesn’t. Maybe Feisal Rauf is wrong about his dreams belonging in NY City, as a renegade Sufi, he certainly would be out of place in his father’s Egypt. As a renegade Sufi, if he doesn’t belong in cosmopolitan NY, then there is no place on earth where his community mosque-styled project belongs. Getting Muslim visitors to stop coming and to discourage them from buying US goods is not in the direction of solving our financial woes. But toward the bankruptcy bin Laden is baiting us toward.

I think this is an urgent election for those Toomey accuses of being far leftists, not something to yawn about. More importantly it is a dangerous mistake for the peace movement to feel that those who complain that Obama isn’t fighting tough enough is part of ending the war despite the effect the "Win or Get Out” crowd had in ending the Vietnam War.

The following has links to Pamela Geller, Spencer and Horowitz.

RichardKanePA.blogspot.com
By Richard Kane

One argument against looking for workable parts of the tea party is the contention that the entire Tea Party is the party of “No” Ron Paul laments about the good old days when their were public hospitals that poor people felt belonged to them rather than being thrown into a cold world to suffer in front of strangers. Since the charity health system is no more if he were honest he would propose spending a good chunk of money reestablishing them, Then we could all work together at forming better health compromises. Anyway I hope the results of the elections will encourage the thoughts that I started