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No Islam or Cats Allowed

Will someone pinch me and help me wake up? I am having this nightmare about our government running amuck and keeping people out of this country because they disagree with some of its policies. Did we actually authorize it to behave this way? Is this the action of a government by and for the people in this nation today? Are we that afraid of a singer who no longer sings because his faith in Islam will not allow him to do that any more?

This is a man who has disavowed any actions of terrorists publicly and privately and was a peacenik by anyone’s history of our times. One of his songs “Peace Train” remains a favorite of people who believe that peace is to be preferred to war. What is happening here, have we all gone insane?

I am appalled at our government’s casual use of its virtually unlimited power these days. If you are Islamic and visible about that practice you are likely to be on someone’s watch list. Expulsion, even if you are a citizen is now possible. The prospect of punishment being visited on you if you wear a beard is higher than at any time since Vietnam faded into history. We are being led into fear and, foolishly, we are following the bullies and misfits in charge because they tell us they can protect us better than any nice guy could. That kind of leadership is always available but not easy to get rid of when you tire of it and the people who impose it on you. If you didn’t learn that in the schoolyard then the price gets higher as you get older. Now the price is thousands of lives in Iraq, ours and theirs. That price can easily grow into tens of thousands and even millions of lives on both sides if we keep pursuing this course that we are on today. Islam is not our enemy yet but we are surely working toward making it the enemy that replaces Communism.

There is a peaceful way out of this mess in Iraq, but it will take time to implement it. It is based on our leadership having at least the modicum of integrity that saying what you mean gives you. Plain and simple we need to communicate like we are really in touch with what is happening in the real world. When we were struggling in Korea we admitted it and negotiated an end to the war like adults do when no further prospects of real gain exist in pursuing a war. When the guerrilla tactics of the Vietnamese who were fighting against us had defeated our tactics and we were losing more than we were winning. Then we finally left the Vietnamese nation at long last to the Vietnamese people. We are going to have to do the same thing eventually in Iraq.

It will take different leadership to get us out of Iraq than it took to get us into this new mess. This is a real prospect today; we are a few percentage points from making a change in this election that would help us get out sooner. Kerry does not have to defend some of the mistakes that Bush has hanging around his neck. That will leave him more room to maneuver if he wins this election. If Kerry loses this election, the midterm election will change the congressional makeup and put a different face on our international policies. It will do that by using that tool of our democracy that has been so quiescent during Bush’s first term, the Senate and House. Many of the Republican Senators are losing faith in Bush and even if he wins another term it will not give him the blank check that he has had since 9/11. Republicans will lose the Senate in 2006 and may actually lose the House too.

Republicans are as frightened as Democrats of some of the policies pursued by this Administration that spends like there will be no tomorrow. They too fear the just retribution of the mass of people in this country that will be visited on the Republican Party if the Bush policies bankrupt Medicare, destroy Social Security and continue to erode our position in the world outside our borders. They too fear the day that will come if our dollar grows too weak to be the basis currency of world trade and our balance of payments deficits finally come home to roost. Not all of the people on the right side of the aisle in the House and the Senate believe as Bush apparently does, that the “Rapture” is coming soon. They recognize that the raptor flying overhead could become a vulture if we continue on the course set for us by the Neocons and Bush.

Meanwhile the indignities heaped on the musician and peace worker formerly known as Cat Stevens do not help our cause which is to win the minds and hearts of people around the world. Since this Administration behaves like a schoolyard bully it tries to strike fear into their minds and hearts. It has succeeded here at home but the rest of the world is full of disdain, disgust and disregard for us now. It will take decades to undo what they have done to our good name in the world. Four more years will make it worse and greatly enhance the chance that these “wanta be” Cowboys will lose their economic future and ours to the Indians and Chinese. They are losing our jobs today without so much as the recognition that they are being taken right out from under their noses. In fact the Bush approach to governing hands jobs over with a smile and a handshake. Nothing makes the Republicans as vulnerable as four more years of this type of leadership in the White House, Democrats should pray for Bush to win. Then he will be a Lame Duck and vulnerable to the evidence of his mistakes which are legion. God bless and preserve you from the Cats and Islam’s of the world, Oh that’s right Bush is doing that on his behalf, never mind. ©Henri Reynard/GoldenBrush Interactive