Fear of What We Don't Know

"Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common.

Celebrate it every day."

My response to the anti-Muslim email has drawn out a response from someone else on the mailing list. Here is what this person, who I do not know, sent me:

It's pretty clever of you to send your response to people receiving "London". Now, how about being clever enough to figure out the only fear mongering in this email is coming from those depicted in the pictures. These pictures show an observation of what is happening in our allied country and throughout Europe. To ignore these pictures would be foolish. See, this is part of the problem, muslims are not assimilating to the cultures the move into. It's fine that they keep their religion (providing it is not aggressive to the religious culture they migrate to), the west and U.S. have been more than accomodating to their religious practice. But, if we allow them to move in and push out our culture as they are practicing in Europe, then that puts our values and way of life in jepordy. Just look at England, they are a few short years away from adopting Sharia Law in their laws as stated last year by England's Lord Judge. But you don't want us to observe and question the images we see in these pictures? Maybe your friend should have asked her persian friend if she was now an American or still iranian (assuming this incident occured in the U.S.). God speed. EMG

This was my response:

My first questions to you EMG are "Do you have any Muslim friends?" and "Have you ever spent time with a Muslim?" It is so much easier to be afraid of what we don't know and don't understand.

Visit Snopes (urban legends to read the full story on that email and the photos.) Yes, those are real photos and yes it is extremely disturbing to see anyone promote violent actions and hate as those individuals were doing in those photos. I used the word "individuals" intentionally. Do those individuals represent ALL Muslims? Do you have the audacity to say that these individuals are representative of all Muslims? How could you if you don't really know any Muslims personally? In the Snopes response it includes a statement that "Other Muslims maintained that the protesters were extremists not representative of mainstream British Muslims."

I don't really believe that England is going to adopt Sharia law. There was a controversial suggestion made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who happens to be a Christian, about adopting Sharia Law. There has been much public opinion against his statement. Even the Muslim Council of Britain insisted that most members of the community did not want Sharia and emphasized that it had not discussed the issue. Click here for the article I am referring to if you want to read it yourself.

Lastly I want to respond to your comment about asking the woman if she was American or still Iranian. The truth is that she could be both. You can't erase the woman's heritage, her genes, her culture from her completely. Should we ever ask anyone to reject the culture they were born into? Our country has an extremely long history of melding cultures. Does the diversity in our country sometimes pose challenges - certainly it does. Yet I believe we are also a better nation because of the diversity.

Promoting Prejudice and Fear

I received an email that really bothered me a great deal. I knew I couldn't just hit delete. I knew I had an obligation to respond. I actually cried as I responded. The promoting of prejudice and fear against a group of people is so wrong.

I will include the text from the email I received which was also accompanied by photos. Snopes (aka Urban legends) also listed this email on their web site. You can view it by clicking here. It was a real demonstration in London. Other Muslims spoke out against the signs and messages calling for violence and destruction that were paraded around. My response follows afterwards.

Email Message: Pictures from London ~ this is beyond scary...

This doesn’t help me be very charitable or forgiving. It is hard to turn the other cheek. Frankly I think our country has gone overboard in accommodating their requests? I think it is because we are already frightened of what they will do.

England today.......America next!! They are on the way!

Atlanta is reported to have 80,000 Muslims and they are building a 46,000 sq. ft. mosque in the city....the largest in America! The population of Muslims is growing by leaps and bounds in every major American city. Get ready for demonstrations to begin early next year.

Makes you wonder doesn't it...can you imagine having a Christian demonstration against Islam in downtown Baghdad ! View the pictures below and decide how you really feel about the future of the Western World. These pictures are of Muslims marching through the STREETS OF LONDON during their recent 'Religion of Peace Demonstration.'

Why would anyone think that we should be at war with such nice, peaceful Muslims?! All Christians need to know. You need to forward this one to everyone! These pictures tell it all! Muslims have stated that England will be the first country they take over!

These are pictures not shown on American TV or in American Newspapers (as they might help Bush's war on terror), but were forwarded by a Canadian who thought All Christians ought to know!

My response:

Greetings,

I am disturbed at such a fear-mongering email such as this being forwarded to people.

I have spent time with Muslims. I call quite a few Muslims my friends. Some I consider very close friends. I have been to Morocco, a Muslim nation twice, and I have had the extreme pleasure of spending time with families there. The kindness and generosity they showed me, my friends and also my father was incredible.

I believe that any time we start to label people or group people into a "them" we create more misunderstanding, fear and distrust. When we group people into a faceless mob we forget that we are talking about individuals - children, women and men.

I for one know that I wouldn't want someone to label me in a negative light just because I am an American or because I am not a Christian or because I am a woman or because I am overweight and so forth.

All people have the ability to do good in this world. All people also have the ability to be unkind and even worse to be violent and intolerant. Muslims do not own the cornerstone of being violent and starting wars.

Ironically, a friend shared a story with me just last night. She happened to be traveling in Greece in 1979. It was during this same time frame when the American hostages were taken prisoner in Iran. My friend said that their travels were interrupted and they were treated poorly at the embassy and they were mystified at first as they did not not know what had happened. Afterwards, she, along with many Americans, developed very anti-Iranian views. Many years later while at work she and several other co-workers were folding brochures together. While chit-chatting about this and that my friend shared with her co-workers that she "hated Iranians." The room went completely silent. Finally one of her co-workers, who she really like and considered a friend, spoke up to say "I am Persian. My family and I all immigrated from Iran. I am full-blooded Iranian." My friend said that she started crying and felt so humiliated because she could see the hurt in her friends eyes. She apologized profusely. There was a coldness in the relationship for awhile after that and after some time has passed they did begin to mend the friendship.

Please stop and think before spreading such messages. What good does it do to promote fear and distrust of a group of people? I believe it promotes prejudice and racism.

Honk for Obama and Biden!

I went to an Obama event yesterday. While California is typically quite progressive and liberal overall, I happen to live in an area that is amazingly conservative. Finding other progressives and liberals is always encouraging. I was so impressed that even with the rainy weather a really large group showed up.



We all held up Obama signs and people had signs that read "Honk for Obama and Biden." We had enough people to have groups on all four corners of a large and busy intersection. There were young parents with children in strollers, there was a couple in their 80's, there were several men who were veterans, there was also an exchange student from Japan who held a sign that read "End the War."

It was such a blast! Lots of people honked, waved and gave us thumbs up in support. We all hooted, hollered and waved.




There were also a fair share of thumbs down and sometimes we were flipped off too. We just gave those people the peace sign. In a couple of cases people were stopped at lights that were McCain supporters and after they would yell something we would call back "We love you anyway." It was such a high to be among this positive liberal group of people.

Artist Zina Saunders Renditions of Palin

Artist Zina Saunders has a special take on Sarah Palin.
Her work appears is numerous publications.

"Playing House" for The Nation
©Zina Saunders 2008. All rights reserved.

An energizing bunny boosting the
base at the vice presidential debate.
So much winking and wonking crammed into
90 minutes was a sight to behold.
Who cares what they ask?
One -- two -- three -- KICK!

Sarah Palin, painted for Women's Work,
an online gallery exhibit of women's political art.

©Zina Saunders 2008. All rights reserved.

Sarah Palin, painted for Women's Work,
an online gallery exhibit of women's political art
©Zina Saunders 2008. All rights reserved.

Registering Voters

"Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." ~ George Jean Nathan

When I set up my ironing board and chair in front of Raley's for the first time I wasn't sure what to expect. My hour and a half venture into registering voters turned out to be a really positive experience.

The first woman to stop wanted to switch from another party to Democrat. So as she filled out the form we chatted a little about Jeff Morris and Wally Herger. Another gentleman stopped by to pick up two forms, one for him and one for his wife who was at home. Several people stopped by who were already registered Democrats. One such young couple had not heard of Jeff Morris and they didn't know who Wally Herger was either. I had hand outs on Morris from his web site and I had also typed up a single page that listed Wally Herger's voting record. This proved to be a valuable resource to share with everyone who stopped by. In fact one gentleman who stopped to talk immediately voiced his displeasure with Herger and when I shared some additional facts about Herger's wealth and his investments in the oil industry he too asked for a couple of the handouts to share with others.

I had one woman walk by with her husband trailing her. As she spotted my sign that read "Democrats Register here to Vote" she announced loudly "No thank you!", but I had to chuckle internally as the husband trailing her wagged his finger in her direction and made a funny face to me, as if to say she shouldn't have been so rude and shame on her.

I started off wondering if I would just sit there and have people ignore me and avoid me. It was actually encouraging to have people stop and talk and show their interest in the political process and selfishly it felt good to feel I was making a little bit of a difference in my own way.

Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator John McCain

Gathering Information about McCain's foreign advisor Randy Scheunemann

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Randall J Scheunemann (196?) is an American lobbyist. He is the President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was created by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), of which he is a board member. He was Trent Lott's National Security Aide and was an advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq. He is a paid lobbyist for the country of Georgia and is 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain's foreign-policy aide. He lives in Fairfax Station, Virginia.

Education and early career

Scheunemann attended public school in Burnsville, Minnesota: Sioux Trail Elementary (1966-1972), John Metcalf Junior High School (1972-1975) and finally Burnsville High School (1975-1978) from which he graduated in 1978.
Scheunemann has a degree from the University of Minnesota, and did graduate work at Tufts University. He moved to Capitol Hill in 1986, working in the office of Republican Senator Dave Durenberger. In 1993, he moved onto the staff of Republican Senator Bob Dole, as a foreign policy advisor. He left Dole's staff to work for Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.[1]

Lobbyist

In 1998, Scheunemann went to work for the public relations firm Mercury Group.[1]
During the 2002 and early 2003 campaign by the George W. Bush administration to generate public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Scheunemann had a close association with Iraq exile Ahmad Chalabi.[2]
Until May 2008, Scheunemann was co-owner of a two-person Washington, D.C. lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, LLC.[3] The firm has lobbied on behalf of the Open Society Policy Center, the Caspian Alliance and the National Rifle Association,among others.[4]


2008 McCain presidential advisor

While the foreign affairs advisor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Scheunemann was also a registered foreign agent (lobbyist) for the Republic of Georgia[5] [6]

On April 17, 2008, McCain spoke on the phone with Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili about the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two troubled provices that are considered part of Georgia but have been de facto independent since 1990. That same day, McCain issued a public statement condemning Russia and expressing strong support for the Georgian position. Also on that same day, Georgia signed a new, $200,000 lobbying contract with Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies. Scheunemann remained with Orion Strategies until May 15, when the McCain campaign imposed an anti-lobbyist policy and he was required to separate himself from the company.[7]

In mid-July 2008, The Sunday Times linked Scheunemann to Stephen Payne, a lobbyist covertly filmed as he discussed a lobbying contract and offered to arrange meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others, and recomended donations to the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Payne said Scheunemann had been "working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years." [8]


And consider this excerpt from a piece just published in the Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/ames

"The issue of "conflict of interest" takes on a new and apocalyptic meaning when you consider the role of energy giant BP in all of this. Palin's husband has spent most of his adult life, eighteen years, working for BP. The company is even more important to his wife, as BP owns Alaska's (and America's) largest gas and oil fields. BP hates Russia at least as much as their tools Palin and McCain: the company has been locked in a nasty battle over its 50 percent stake in Russian energy giant TNK--BP's stake in that company is key to BP's stock price. If BP loses TNK to Putin's goons, then billions could be wiped off the stock price. That's something to go to war for.

Meantime, BP all but controls Georgia thanks to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, in which BP is the largest stakeholder. As Manana Kochladze explained, the pipeline was supposed to bring in huge benefits to average Georgians, raising the country out of its dire economic straits. Instead, "very little if any of those revenues have gone to social programs or environmental protection. Instead, the military budget has massively increased to 25 percent of the state budget. The BP pipeline has militarized the country."

One provision of Georgia's agreement to allow the BTC pipeline to pass through its territory was that Georgia is obligated to protect and secure the pipeline--which, Georgians allege, was bombed by Russian pilots during the August conflict.

"From the beginning, we said that Georgia would pay more defending this pipeline than we've received, and now look at our situation," Kochladze lamented.

Another figure tied to BP is, surprise surprise, Randy Scheunemann. He earned handsome fees lobbying for BP in 1999-2000, during McCain's first run for President. More recently, Scheunemann lobbied for the Caspian Alliance, which represents one of the oil majors that pumps oil into BP's pipeline.

From BP's perspective, things look very grim. It's in danger of losing its largest source of booked reserves via its stake in Russia's TNK. And now with the war, investors are worried about the BTC pipeline.....No wonder Big Oil is throwing its weight behind the McCain-Palin ticket."

Georgia is described as being a democracy we need to protect and defend.
Here is an excerpt from this same article that paints a slightly different version of this supposed great democracy:

The false spin on Saakashvili (President of Georgia) as the Jefferson of the Caucasus has driven the hysterical talk of going to war with Russia. Maintaining this false image of Saakashvili has also been key to McCain's candidacy, given McCain's tight relationship with the controversial Georgian strongman.

Jefferson he is not. A former senior US diplomat who served in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans told me, "What Saakashvili has done since coming to power--controlling the television media, rigging elections, attacking opposition protesters and driving his opponents out of the country and now launching a war against an ethnic minority--I've seen this before. Saakashvili is just another Milosevic. He's the kind of guy who will do anything to stay in power for life." It's not like Saakashvili's authoritarian credentials are the world's biggest secret. Freedom House this year downgraded Georgia's freedom rating to the lower end of the "partly free" category, placing it on par with such beacons of democracy as Venezuela--yes, that's right, Hugo Chávez's Venezuela--and Guinea Bissau.

Georgia's freedom index dropped below even such basketcases as Sierra Leone and Papau New Guinea, where nearly a third of the registered voters for last year's heavily-criticized elections were found to have been long deceased. What's more, Georgia's slide towards authoritarianism has only gotten worse, as Freedom House reports:

• Georgia's political rights rating declined from 3 to 4 due to the restrictions placed on political opposition following the November 2007 emergency declaration, and the civil liberties rating declined from 3 to 4 due to the circumscription of media and expression in the aftermath of the November protests.
  
• Georgians took to the streets to oppose President Mikheil Saakashvili in October and November 2007, turning out in the largest numbers since the 2003 "Rose Revolution," which swept Saakashvili to power. The authorities violently dispersed the demonstrators, causing hundreds of injuries, and imposed a state of emergency on November 7. The next day, Saakashvili called a snap presidential election for January 5, 2008. The state of emergency, which remained in place until November 16, banned all news broadcasts except state-controlled television and restricted public assembly. Also in 2007, former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili, a onetime Saakashvili ally who subsequently emerged as a principal political rival, was charged with corruption, jailed, and then quickly released.

That report came out a few months ago. Since then, things have deteriorated even further. The OSCE's election monitoring arm just released a damning report about May's parliamentary elections. As Reuters reported last week:

• Ballot-box stuffing, beatings of opposition activists, biased news coverage and government officials campaigning for President Mikheil Saakashvili's party tainted Georgia's parliamentary elections this year, Europe's main election watchdog said on Tuesday.

And yet McCain, whose top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was paid nearly one million dollars by Saakashvili to lobby his interests, described Georgia last month as a "tiny little democracy." Saakashvili, meanwhile, bragged that he speaks to McCain "several times a day." One wonders, what do they speak about? Do they avoid touchy issues like the recent Reporters Without Borders report denouncing Saakashvili for stomping on the media and restricting access to the internet?

Almost all of the Georgian TV stations support President Mikhail Saakashvili and the only opposition station, Kavkasia, is having difficulty broadcasting. "


Do Your Job: Stop Ignoring Scheunemann's Past
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/203960.php

07.14.08 -- 1:03PM
By Josh Marshall

As you can see, the McCain campaign is moving ahead with a new stab-in-the-back style attack on Obama over Iraq. But as Team McCain is raising the volume on these slash-and-burn style attacks, it's time for some coverage of the guy who's McCain's brain on Iraq. Remember, McCain's pitch on Iraq is that he was a critic of Bush, not a supporter, on the poor decisions and lies that got us into the current mess. In the McCain paradigm, he starts fresh with the 'surge'. That's where he takes ownership, as it were, of Iraq.

But look who's advising him on Iraq, who's crafting Iraq policy. That would be Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy advisor. And he's the guy who today accused Barack Obama of wanting to lead America to defeat in Iraq for political gain.

Scheunemann was a core participant in the lobbying, plotting and organized campaigns of deception that led America to war in Iraq. He was a close collaborator with Ahmad Chalabi through the 1990s. He helped draft the Iraq Liberation Act, which created the new funding stream for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. At the start of the Bush administration he signed on as Don Rumsfeld's 'consultant' on Iraq at the Pentagon. And then when the administration started cranking up the machinery for the propaganda campaign in favor of war he went back on the outside to form and lead the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, to lead the press and lobbying campaign to make sure the war got started on schedule.

Remember, US intelligence later found evidence that Chalabi, in addition to foisting a bunch of bogus intelligence and lying informers on the US and pocketing a lot of US taxpayer dollars, had provided highly classified US intelligence to Iran. Scheunemann worked closely with Chalabi for years in his efforts to get the US into war with Iraq. He was also a go-between between Chalabi and McCain. Now that he's taking such a high-profile role on the Iraq issue in the 2008, Scheunemann's history with Chalabi and the use of bogus intelligence to get the nation into war is unquestionably highly newsworthy.

The Miniature World

The Iran Agenda

President Bush's State of the Union Address in 2002 included the infamous use of the term "Axis of Evil", which was used to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Personally I felt that categorizing whole nations as "evil" was irresponsible and incredibly undiplomatic. Soon after Bush's pronouncement a number of nations also expressed alarm at this statement. Mohammed Khatami, who was President of Iran at the time, had made a concerted effort to tone down hostile rhetoric toward the U.S. as part of a more pragmatic foreign policy, but he condemned Bush's demonizing of Iran as "meddling, warmongering, insulting and a repetition of old propaganda."

Many Iranians expressed sorrow and support for the United States after 9/11. There were even candlelight vigils held by Iranians.  What was also very fascinating to read in a book by Reese Erlich called The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis is how "the Iranian government cooperated with the United States in its efforts to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan.  This may come as a surprise to those who think of Islamic fundamentalists as all in cahoots, but Iran solidy opposed Taliban rule.  The Taliban murdered nine Iranian diplomats in 1998, almost leading the two countries to war.  Iran had supported the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban."  Iran was going to assist in the alliance to invade Afghanistan. The US initially praised Iran's "contructive role" in the meetings.  "In January 2002, Iran pledged $560 million for Afghan reconstruction aid, the largest amount offered from a third world country."  According to the author Erlich, Iranian officials told him "that they expected the United States to extend the contacts over Afghanistan into a wider dialogue about U.S.-Iranian relations."  Instead President Bush proceeded to denouce Iran later that same month as part of the "axis of evil" and this effectively shut down relations.

Iran is often referred to as a "rogue nation" by the American media, which in my opinion, is a direct result of how the current administration wants the public to view Iran. An organization called Just Foreign Policy includes on their web site the following statement: "The Bush Administration has deployed a rhetoric of confrontation against Iran, including the threat of military force without United Nations or even Congressional authorization. Many of the Bush Administration's claims that Iran is a threat echo claims used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq and rest on similarly dubious evidence. Policies have been approved, such as authorizing the killing of Iranian officials in Iraq, that could easily escalate into a broader military confrontation."  In addition they state "Americans are being told that Iran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons, supports terrorism, is helping to kill American soldiers in Iraq, and is determined to destroy Israel. Therefore, the reasoning goes, we must prepare to attack Iran."

Stephen Kinzer, the award winning author and former foreign correspondent for the New York Times rejects this argument. He, along with a diverse group of other experts on Iran, Congressional leaders and military experts have been traveling across the country to present other perspectives and options for a more rational foreign policy towards Iran. You can read more about their ideas at the web site The Folly of Attacking Iran, which is also part of the Just Foreign Policy organization.

I just finished reading Stephen Kinzer's gripping book called All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. In great detail the book shows how the United States has played an active role in Iran for decades, often in ways resented by Iranians. The USA organized a coup in 1953 against the popular and democratically elected Prime-Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had been considered a problem by the British for many years. The British over the years had gained control of various assets of Iran, including their oil. While the British in Iran lived in beautiful homes with manicured lawns and enjoyed swimming pools and such, the Iranians who worked for the oil company lived in squalor. Repeated requests to the British to share the profits more equitably with Iran and to improve conditions and wages for the workers were always met with disdain and no change.

As Iran began to question the British involvement in their county things grew more heated. The British were unwilling to be diplomatic or negotiate. They even tried to convince President Truman to help them overthrow Mossadegh so they could replace him with someone they could control. President Truman wanted no part in their imperialistic desires. The British were almost ready to just attack and take over Iran but world opinion kept them at bay a bit longer. When Truman didn't run for office again and President Eisenhower was elected the British suspected the USA might be more amenable to involve themselves in Iran. They were correct. Certain members of Eisenhower's administration were very open to the idea of choreographing regime change. The overthrow of Iran in 1953 is considered to be the very first coup that the American CIA organized.

After the coup, the monarchy of the Shah was reinstated and supported by the United States. There are many who believe that Iran could well have continued on the path of democracy if it wasn't for the meddling of the USA and Great Britain. The irony is that America is supposed to be the great supporter of democracy and yet it overthrew a democratic prime minister in order to give a monarch full control of the nation.

Years later the people of Iran rose up to remove the Shah, who some say ruled with an iron fist. Under his rule he created a domestic security and intelligence organization called Savak. According to articles in Federation of American Scientists and TIME magazine, SAVAK "tortured and murdered thousands of the Shah's opponents. It has been described as Iran's "most hated and feared institution" prior to revolution of 1979, for its association with the foreign CIA intelligence organization, and its torture and execution of regime opponents. It's "torture methods included electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails." After the 1979 revolution, a CIA film was found which had been made for Savak security forces on how to torture women.

Alarming headlines are in the paper regularly as the Bush administration continues to make accusations that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons. Iran however consistently maintains that they are only seeking nuclear power to improve conditions in their country and they are adamant in insisting that other countries have no right to dictate that they cannot do so. I found it interesting to listen to Condolleza Rice respond to a question about Israel and her response was that the US does not control Israel because they are a sovereign nation. Why then does there appear to be a different litmus test for Iran? Isn't Iran a sovereign nation too?

I also thought that Stephen Kinzer made a very good point in the the following statement in the preface to his book "The only way Iran can reasonably be expected to curb its nuclear ambitions would be through some kind of 'grand bargain' in which its own security concerns would be addresed.  That would probably require a solution that goes beyond Iran's borders and creates a new security architecture for the Middle East.  It is not reasonable to expect Iran to abandon its nuclear program as long as its main regional enemy, Israel, and its main world enemy, the United States, are nuclear-armed and issuing a stream of barely veiled threats to Iran."

I have always wondered if the axis of evil speech made the leaders of North Korea and Iran think seriously about needing to ramp up their military in order to prepare for a US attack, espcially after the US attacked Iraq.  I think it is realistic to consider that both nations considered they might be next.  On October 9, 2006, the North Korean government issued an announcement that it had successfully conducted a nuclear test for the first time. It is also reasonable to deduct that since the US has undermined Iran's government in the past for its own selfish reasons that Iran may still not trust the US government.   Based on this lack of trust and a sense that they are being threatened, Iran may have come to believe that they actually need nuclear weapons in order to ensure they will not be invaded.

I think that the Just Foreign Policy organization summed it up well when they stated the following "The recent history of relations between the United States and Iran has been marked by misunderstanding and mistrust shaped by the unjust use of violence and threats of violence. Violent conflict has not served the interests of either country. Military threats deepen hostilities and resentment and future conflict becomes more likely. Serious diplomacy between our two countries is needed."

Here is a video about the CIA organized coup in Iran in 1953 and includes interviews with a variety of speakers, including Stephen Kinzer, the author of All the Shah's Men.

Polarized Thinking

Left or right. Liar or truth-teller. Lovely or ugly. Greedy or giving. As time seems to be speeding up for me, I find myself relying on heuristics to form quick assessments so I can do a task quickly and get on to the next thing. A sociology term, heuristics is a way of creating snapshots in the mind to identify an ideology, a stereotype. You see a person driving a gas-guzzler monster truck with a pit bull riding gunshot, and you think, redneck.

I recently spent an afternoon with a 50-something man wearing a toupee. His squeaky clean shoes and neatly pressed pants, his cologne and $300 watch suggested money and afternoons playing tennis. But as we spoke he told me that he used to be a "fryhead" - when he was younger, he loved to take LSD and if he weren't fearful of further damage to his aging neurons, he'd still be taking LSD on a regular basis. And, he added, he volunteers as a counselor at a local homeless shelter. Well. So much for assumptions.

The use of heuristics is sometimes necessary if I want to manage my time and my world and get everything done. And it's invaluable in situations where there is danger. I want to rely on my quick judgement if I'm confronted with a man holding a gun. But it has also become a habit of intellectual laziness. Easier to make a quick judgement about someone, either embrace or dismiss them, and then move on. Much more difficult to stop and listen carefully, ask questions, explore and consider. I once worked as a therapist with sex offenders and initially wanted to judge them all as sick, selfish men. But as I got to know some of them, I discovered a compassion, a generosity, and even a gentleness and remorse that astounded me.

So, as the folks of my generation begin to age, to succumb to tooth and hair loss, to suffer incontinence and prostate problems, I'm forced to re-examine my own internal judgements about people. And I need to challenge myself to rise above a certain shallowness that is tempted to dismiss any man as a sheltered neo-con just because he wears a toupee.

by Erin Valdez

Paths to Hope

Many times I take the easy road as I drive through Redding, spotting people and cars that remind me that the Redding denizens lean toward conservative at best and redneck at worst. The other day I spotted a truck covered in mud (OK, I liked that part) and under the mud were two old Bush bumper stickers and another proposing nuking some nation, clearly indicating a need for more mud. The truck groaned along on 8 cylinders, empty of course, carrying a guy smoking underneath his cowboy hat. Did I even bother to look for the gun rack? We all know it was there. Sometimes you do not need to malign people, you just describe them.

Yet other roads are available to the person with hope in Redding, and one of them ended at Clover Creek Preserve for me last week. Knowing the preserve protected only saplings, my daughters and I raced over there right after breakfast to beat the heat. The parking lot held small cars with bike racks and booster seats, making me smile as I unstrapped the twins from our boxy purple Scion. They tumbled out and we set forth on the trail.

We found many greetings and several conversations along the way to the bridge, and nary a negative word even from the cyclists who had to nearly to avoid my meandering toddlers while we raced down the paved part. Once on the gravel, we found ducks seeking bread, bullfrogs seeking love, and people seeking shade from the small willows and cottonwoods along the back of the small reservoir. The water flowed, I believe, from a treatment plant and the Clover Creek Preserve slowed its speed and absorbed its moisture, promising a future of huge cottonwoods between wildflower patches, a future more typical for Palo Alto than Redding, a fluttering triangular leaf of hope for a growing community.

The ducks knew the score, assaulting us with begging quacks on the north side and again on the south. By the south side we had leftover whole-wheat crackers and the bunny shape of the treats did not dissuade the vegetarian ducks. As the food ran out and the ducks swam away, two men approached us on a slightly higher parallel trail. They stood out in Redding because they were people of color (I believe Redding is 95% white and our largest minority are Native Americans), and because they were Muslim. The older man, perhaps 70, wore a miter (turban.)

I admit it, I had a Secret Service moment, scanning the area, ready to leap in front of the men and take a bullet headed for a turban. I blame my drama background and having little kids, which means life sacrifice is a daily consideration. Alright, memories of cowboy hats, nukes, and gun racks influenced me as well. So as I poised to defend, I also waved. The man in the turban joined his hands together as if in prayer and raised them high over his head as he smiled. Clearly I had a few cultural things to learn myself. Reading Three Cups of Tea was only a beginning. It turned out that they spoke almost no English, but they held up two fingers and pointed at my kids. I figured they either wanted peace, drugs, and free love or they wanted to know if the little tykes were twins, so went with a nod and a smile. Twins. Yeah. Identical. Yeah. Two years old. Hell, no one needs to even sign those questions anymore, I know your questions, just read my t-shirt. I had it custom made.

I paid attention to them as they left, passing by others along the path. Seven people in five groups passed by them and every person waved and smiled. One young jogger even offered the clasped-hands-over-head greeting and an awkward smile that said that although she was being cool, she did not know what the hell it meant, either. The men were totally at ease. My guard dogs stood down. My smile went up.

The sun seemed a bit brighter and the air rarefied with hope as we scampered back to the paved trail, dodged more congenial cyclists, and slipped into the car. The girls seemed happier than ever with their fruit juice, and they sang all the way home. I joined them, contemplating a future Redding that may already be on the way.