I wonder what it is that we really lose as we decend into an increasingly polarized world. With the primary divider being religion, how is this different than what we often refer to as the Dark Ages, where religion was the dominant fascist paradigm. Through crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, and sectarian warfare, both the so-called West, and the Muslim world, were set back for centuries. While the Islamic world often seems still mired in the 9th and 10th centuries, so too does the West appear to be moving backwards, in rapid retreat from the Enlightenment.

I cannot help but wonder at the increasingly obvious fear of the future exemplified by all three monotheisms in the present day. There is a call to retreat, to repudiate all of the advances of a once-great civilization. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the USA. The calls to condemn Islamic Fundamentalism increasingly issue from the mouths and pens of Fundamentalist Christianity and Fundamentalist Judaism. And both of these camps have enough sins on their own heads to render their pronouncements both absurd and, increasingly, worrisome. When an Ayattolah in Iran justifies the use of nuclear weapons "in the defense of Islam,", which is NOT what is obstensibly under attack, amid similarly irresponsible calls from American Fundamentalists that maybe assassination is not such a bad idea, I'd say we all need to be very worried indeed. In fact, I think it speaks to the very heart of the contention of our Founders that the separation of Church and State are of paramount importance.

Most of us are able to get along with people different than ourselves just fine, and do so on a daily basis. Some of us, in fact, prefer diversity over mono-culture.But, and this is an ever-growing "but," there are far too many who are easily manipulated by power and vengence-oriented individuals, through increasingly sophisticated uses of the media. We look at examples like R'wanda, and say "it can't happen here." But that is NOT true - it most certainly can, and has happened here. While on a smaller scale, the sporadic urban riots that have taken place in the USA over the past 40-50 years make it all too clear what we are capable of. Add into the mix a demigog like McCarthy, throw in a paranoid and heavily-armed police force strongly beholden to an isolated Executive branch controlled by a group of religious extremists, and an Islamic state like Iran, oops, a Christian Fundamentalist oligarcich state like the USA is not unthinkable.

Constant Vigilance, people, constant vigilance.