On the first anniversary of Egypt’s Revolution that dethroned a thirty-year dictator, activists lament the continuing power of his army, while Americans worry about the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood. Little by little it’s becoming clear that fundamentalism and military control are not limited to Third World countries trying to achieve ‘democracy’.  The most powerful democracy in the world increasingly uses drones to spy on its citizens and assassinate enemies – or unlucky by-standers – around the world.

As usual, I’ve raised two issues here, but they are related: one is the increasing clout of fundamentalists in all religions, the other is rulers’ increasing recourse to military means to control populations.

Fundamentalists are not generally perceived as threats by governments. They tend to approve of the use of force to force conversions, but more ‘fundamentally’ , obedience to any higher power, be it God or a President, implies a willingness to accept that power’s use of force.  As I have written in ‘A Taoist Politics’, both the Judeo-Christian ethic and Islamic morality are based on God’s perceived power over life and death.

Thus it is not surprising that American military bases and academies have increasingly made room for religious services, fostering a simultaneous commitment to God and the use of force.

Nor is it surprising that our twenty-first century enemies go by names such as Al Shabaab (Movement of Striving  Youth) in Somalia, or Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) in Yemen.  Have we not fundamentalist militia groups preparing to take on the American government, which they see as opposed to their moral convictions?

Not to mention well-funded movements of American evangelical Christians who oppose “both modernism in theology and the cultural changes that modernism endorses”? <en.wikipedia.org/wiki Christian_ fundamentalism# Militancy_ and_ evangelicals>.

The fact that Tea Partiers and associated groups tend to believe in competition rather than cooperation is really a detail compared to the fact that they, like Islamic fundamentalists, believe women should be subservient to men, and that real men carry guns.

Every time I open my mailbox, out come tumbling desperate pleas for money, like so manhy outstretched hands.  First I wondered why we need mail service if nine-tenths of what it delivers are either advertisements or pleas for help. Then I began to wonder about the organizations sending out those pleas: they are in fact [...]

When The Economist www.economist.com/node/21542162 celebrates the new year by publishing a story on academic studies of the Koran, it’s time to point out the values we share with Islam. Is it not odd that the far right, the most hawkish element of American society, calls for the same family values that are practiced in Muslim [...]

The extraordinary January 9th issue of The Nation is worth reading not only for what three articles say about the twenty years since the Soviet Union was abolished, but for what their writers reveal about the little-known event and even more importantly, about nostalgia for what we could only see as a monstrosity.  This is [...]

It’s a corny title, but I don’t know of a better one to describe the situation of our President. Like the Mickey Mouse character in Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasy’, who carries buckets of water ever faster to try to stop a flood he caused in his master’s house, President Obama rushes from one fire to another, [...]

It’s a good thing I get emails from Europe, because if I had to rely on the American media, I’d miss a lot of what’s going on in the world.  Even Amy Goodman has passed on the rambunctious anti-immigrant demonstrations Thursday in Tel Aviv.  The video made it on-line before Ha’aretz pulled the story: http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/israeli-jewish-hate-rally-against-africans-tel-aviv-caught-video-haaretz-deletes. [...]

From Neill LeRoux, on my Facebook page: “Besides the RQ 170, Iran has two other US Spy Drones in its possession as well as 4 Israeli Spy Drones… thats quite some collection. Its also an indication of just how aggressively the US and Israel have been spying on Iran. Iran complies with all inspection demands [...]

There’s something that has escaped me regarding the Republican presidential debates: perhaps they are carried routinely by Fox, but none of the other channels mention when and where they can be heard. This was doubly irritating yesterday when I really wanted to listen to the Huntsman/Gingrich debate.  I started consulting my TV Guide around 5 [...]

A week of massive demonstrations protesting rigged parliamentary elections failed to suggest to any journalist I heard or read that Vladimir Putin’s hold on Russia may be weakening. Finally, the BBC dares to speculate that he may not be elected President next spring. How could anyone have thought Russian politics would continue as usual when [...]

On May 21 I published a blog titled  ‘My Bet is On Huntsman’: “On February 19th, 2007, I wrote in this space that ‘Obama would ‘continue a graceful yet powerful surge to the White House’. Today I predict that barring an Act of God, John Huntsman, the only candidate that Obama rightly fears, will represent [...]

Every morning when I wake up and turn on the TV while making breakfast, I have the same reaction: why is the news all about which presidential candidate said or did what,  and what are his chances of being the candidate to face Obama, and what does so and so think about it, and what [...]

Here is a recent quote from the Occupy movement: “The Occupy movement is born of the simple belief that humanity could meet our common needs if not for the predation and greed of the very few.” That is a left-wing credo no matter how you slice it. Now two quotes from Ted Rall’s new book, [...]

I was just formulating a comment to the raid on the Oakland protesters, helicopters and all, when a raid on Zucotti park in New York was reported. Few readers may remember that in 2002, President Bush quashed a proposal by Vice President Cheney to use U.S. troops to arrest the Lackawanna Six, accused of being [...]