"Under a McCain presidency, we’d be back to the square one where we’ve found ourselves since January 2001. Putting Obama in the White House would not by any means ensure progressive change, but under his presidency the grassroots would have an opportunity to create it."

“The Maclean’s article, and others like it, are examples of [Islamophobia]. By portraying Muslims as all sharing the same negative characteristics, including being a threat to ‘the West’, this explicit expression of Islamophobia further perpetuates and promotes prejudice towards Muslims and others. An extreme illustration of this is a 'blog' discussion concerning the article that was brought to the attention of the Commission which, among many things, called for the mass killing, deportation or conversion of Muslim Canadians.”

-- Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission

"A search of major media--print, radio and television--has virtually the same result: silence. The Internet is one of the few places where one can find thoughtful and candid examinations of Israel’s dominance of U.S. society."

"...both the Obama and the McCain campaigns are talking about investing a major policy-planning and staff-planning effort now, in parallel with their campaigns and with the November-January interregnum, with the objective of "hitting the ground running" at least with regard to the Middle East. If they succeed, this would end the current "between administrations" period sometime in early 2009 rather than in midyear."

"Regardless of how these next few months are viewed, however, the level of damage accumulated over the last seven years and the shortage of time left makes it unrealistic to expect any significant breakthroughs, especially since the weakness of the US administration coincides with the weakness of leadership in the region, including both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Significant achievements are possible only if other international powers, i.e., European countries and Russia, can enter and fill the vacuum that the US administration has already left."

"As settlements grew (there are now almost a half million Israelis living in settlements in these occupied lands), not only did Palestinians lose ancestral lands and agricultural areas, they also lost freedom of movement, their way of life, and their hope for the future."

"The Founding Fathers saw popular voting as endangering property ownership. Democracy was viewed by most the same way Washington viewed the “scum” who started the Revolution around Boston. It took about two hundred years of gradual changes for America to become anything that seriously could be called democratic. Even now, what sensible person would call it anything but a rough work still in progress."

"Will democracy take hold in modern Muslim societies? The next few months are poignant with agonizing fear and great hope, and the answer hinges on whether Malaysians and Turks will succumb to the intimidation of the power hungry or show the maturity and courage worthy of free and principled people."