If you want a preview of what this election year will look like, look at the online protests over the shooting of Trevor Martin which generated over one million signatures, reopening a dismissed case. Or look how the Komen Foundation’s defunding of Planned Parenthood boomeranged on the internet, causing the Foundation to reverse position, its senior officials to resign, and fund raising to take a major blow. Or look at how Vice President Biden’s endorsement of gay marriage on a Sunday TV talk show fired up non-stop coverage, propelling President Obama to rush his stand in its favor.

Our national discussion on marriage equality heated up Sunday, when Vice President Joe Biden said on Meet the Press that he is “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage, and portrayed freedom to marry, either homosexually or heterosexually, as a “fundamental right.” Two members of President Obama’s cabinet, Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, also say they supported marriage equality, leaving open the question of where President Obama had “evolved” on the issue.

Editor’s Note: This week, Aslan Media columnist Joe Hanania reports on the recent Occupy Wall Street May Day protests In New York City. So, how did New York’s May Day march compare to Occupy marches last fall, I asked two on duty police officers? The first officer gave me a nasty look; the second shrugged his shoulders. “It’s much heavier.” Attendance was extremely heavy as group after group jammed into Union Square, packed in so tightly that not even an extra sardine could have squeezed in. And then, after being fed by additional marchers coming in from Washington Square and elsewhere, the dam burst into a flood rushing down Broadway to Wall Street. The drummers were back – those without proper instruments playing on tin cans. The trumpet players were back – belting out the Star Spangled Banner.

A friend asked for my reaction to the Los Angeles Times’ publishing two photos last week of American soldiers posing tauntingly with the bloodied bodies of dead Afghan insurgents. The photos were reportedly among 18 provided by a U.S. soldier who wanted "to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline.” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had asked the Times and other media publications to suppress the photos for fear that publication would incite more anti-American violence, and even deaths. The other media complied with Panetta’s request; the Times did not.

As election season kicks into high gear, Americans are about to be inundated with negative ads and name calling which reflect - falsely - how powerless we are. That is why the recent tale of Charles Sonder, 24, is so heartening. As reported by the New York Times, Sonder, a former 189-pound Rhode Island wrestling champion, got aboard a subway snacking on Pringles and Gummi-Bears. Also on the subway was a 20-something woman who went ballistic when another man dashed on as the doors closed. “Don’t follow me! Don’t follow me!” she screamed, punching him, the man hitting back. Sonder made like he was about to get off. After the combatants momentarily parted to let him through, Sonder stood between them, snacking. Then, another woman in a poncho ordered the woman to sit, and her pursuer to disembark. Both complied.

“Iraqi Immigrants in California Town Fear a Hate Crime in a Woman’s Killing,” read a recent New York Times headline. The article reported that the murdered woman’s family had previously found a note with the words “This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist,” taped to the door of their Orange County house. Although an ongoing police investigation has unearthed family tensions which may have led to the murder of Shaima Alawadi, the shame and the fear of violence directed at Arab and Muslim Americans is nevertheless very real. I know because I, too, am an Iraqi-American, born in Baghdad and raised here.

Can America wean its oil addiction by making mass transit free? New York Occupiers are suggesting precisely this. Mass transit Farebox revenue in New York, the nation’s largest mass transit hub, totals $4.5 billion a year, according to the city’s Mass Transit Authority. That’s a hefty number – until contrasted with U.S. taxpayer subsidies to the oil and gas industries of $41 billion a year. Just redirecting that subsidy would allow nine transit systems as big as New York’s to provide free ridership. And here’s the sweetener: Other transit systems are way smaller than America’s most populous city, so cities which could have free mass transit could number in the dozens. Think of it. Free transit in Chicago. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Atlanta. Boston. Washington D.C. Include your other favorite city(ies) here.

How much has our participation in community taken a hit due to cell technology and cyber-communication, all this enhanced by increased economic segregation? Several years ago, I was having lunch on the Santa Monica Promenade. The next table over were half a dozen European tourists, talking and laughing. Then, one received a cell phone call which lasted for several minutes. The others kept talking, but their laughter was soon gone, the strain of talking above her obvious. When she got off the phone, their group interaction had also ended. If community is about engaging with others, that ad hoc community had been disrupted. And this was before texting became popular.

The murder of four at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, the worst act of anti-Semitic violence since 1982, was a tragedy. And yet, there was also an aspect of this killing which, up to now, has been largely overlooked. As the New York Times reported, French President Nicolas Sarkozy “has sent gendarmes and riot police officers to guard all Jewish and Muslim schools and places of worship until the killer is stopped.” Other media, pointing to the same gun being used in other murders over the past week or so, have speculated that the killer may be a serial killer – one whose victims also include French Muslim soldiers headed to Afghanistan. So here is the puzzle.

Walter Isaacson’s stunning biography, Steve Jobs, tells how an American visionary designed Apple’s California headquarters to enhance staff creativity. It is a model strikingly similar to that which avant garde urban planners, including the late Jane Jacobs, advocated to enhance creativity within urban communities. Jobs was partly inspired by a “temporary” university building which placed “overflow” faculty and researchers from various departments into available spaces, willy-nilly. That building emerged as the campus’s creative hub, with academics from unrelated fields cross-pollinating via chance hallway chats. This resulted in entirely new fields of study, wrote Isaacson.

I moved to New York City about 18 months ago because I was lonely. Sure, I had friends in Santa Monica, where I had lived for 20 years. The problem was connecting. I would call and get an answering machine, walk out my door to sparsely populated sidewalks, drive amid tens of thousands of others minus any personal interaction. I made up for this social deficit by joining Santa Monica Tennis Club, which had a cadre of a few dozen regulars, and Sports Club LA, where I interacted with more. Despite this, I felt stagnant, encountering few outside of my chosen circles in random, non-sports related encounters. Other than when reporting for the Los Angeles Times, I did not identify with my city and had no real sense of place.

Is Rick Santorum’s fundamentalism rendering the Afghan war more costly in flesh and blood for America? Quite possibly. This became clear last week after American military personnel at a base north of Kabul threw Korans into the garbage, and burned them. Since then, about 40 people, including four American soldiers, have been killed in week long protests which included a suicide bomber ramming his vehicle into the gates of a NATO base, triggering a blast that killed nine Afghans.

In “Fiddler on the Roof,” an impoverished Tevye sings “If I Were a Rich Man,” a song whose lyrics include this line: “It won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong. When you're rich, they think you really know!” Republican presidential candidate Romney is banking on that supposed rich man’s “expertise” as Michigan Republicans prepare to vote on Tuesday. But what would really have happened to America had we allowed the auto industry to fold as Romney proposed in a 2008 New York Times op-ed titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” It would have been “catastrophic,” said David Cole, chairman emeritus for the independent, highly respected Center for Automotive Research in a phone interview from Ann Arbor.

Is the Republican party about to undergo its own Arab spring, with Mitt Romney the first casualty? Let me explain. In much of the Middle East but particularly in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, leadership has consisted of a self-serving dictator masquerading as a democratically elected, people-serving, president. Cut to the Republican establishment, which is used to having its way after a similarly nominal show of dissent. With one foot planted firmly on Wall Street, the Republican establishment is much like the Arab dictators who win by a sweeping majority during “free elections,” touting themselves as paragons of democratic virtue, beloved by their people.

One hundred Iranians, most from Diaspora communities, crowded into an New York University auditorium Thursday. An overflow crowd watched a closed circuit feed from another room. Others, hoping to get inside, were told that there was simply no more room. The event creating this brouhaha? A preview of “Bridge to Iran,” a documentary series to be featured Tuesday by the global media company Link TV. The documentaries are also streamed online. So, why had so many left their apartments on a winter’s night for this small, crowded space? I had asked a similar question years ago of a 20-something Iranian-American, Mohammed Pasha, who managed Panera Bread in Santa Monica, California.

The predominantly Christian-based Republican party, whose leaders annually inveigh against the allegedly secular “War on Christmas,” has declared war... on Christian Republicans. Impossible, you say? Before you refer this columnist to the nearest asylum, let us focus in on Nevada, and more specifically, Las Vegas. As in what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Only this time, it didn't. The party whose mission has seemingly been to uphold the teachings of Jesus - as interpreted by Republicans, of course – held its Nevada caucus last Saturday. There was, however, a minor problem. Because Nevada’s cost of living is substantially lower, the state has attracted many Americans fleeing from the more expensive coasts. These poorer Americans include many orthodox Jews.

“Be careful what you wish for,” goes the saying. More than a few Republicans are undoubtedly discovering the truth in it. Evil Knievel discovered this in 1974, when he tried to jump across the Snake River Canyon, making him the most famous motorcyclist ever. But back to the Republicans who, like Knievel, made elaborate plans for their daring feat. First, they demanded “conservative” judges who would cut back on government regulations allowing “free” citizens to do what they want. So, President Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush, and then W. nominated five “conservative” Supreme Court judges – Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito and Roberts. Culminating in the ultimate Republican and Neo-Con cout d’etat that equated corporations with people, those judges came together in their Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for unlimited, often anonymous cash into the political process by way of super PAC contributions.

Does 2012 mark the last hurrah for a Republican party doomed by demographics, the modernization of social attitudes, and heightened awareness of rising economic inequality? Thomas Edsall, journalism professor at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics, thinks so. American politics have been based on an expanding economy, he said. This expansion enables compromises possible on who gets more tax cuts, and on who benefits from spending programs. But as that expansion has stalled, politics has become a zero sum game, and someone has to suffer. “The discussion is about who loses a little, and who loses a lot more,” he told me.

With Saturday’s South Carolina Primary almost here, the favored Evangelical candidate, Rick Santorum, is running either third or fourth among state Republican voters. He is running behind a Mormon, whom many Evangelicals regard as practicing a false Christianity. He is also running behind a Libertarian, who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and take the world back to the gold standard. And he is running behind a thrice married politician who ran up a tab of over half a million dollars at Tiffany’s. So, where’s the respect? If the once feared Religious Right can not deliver for its favored candidate, then what can it deliver? And this is among Republicans! Lord have mercy! But it gets worse. For when Evangelical leaders recently convened to bless a single non-Romney candidate, they did agree to endorse Rick Santorum. Only the solid majority that endorsed him turned out to be not quite so, uh, solid.

Yes, Occupy’s attempt to have voters cast their ballots for “Uncommitted,” embarrassing Republican candidates in the Iowa caucuses, was a bust. And yes, Occupy’s New Hampshire pride march “honoring” Rick Santorum days before that state’s primary fared only slightly better. But as the Republican contest heads to South Carolina, Occupy has nevertheless scored a crucial, if little noted, victory. It has changed the core political dialogue – among Republicans.

Part 2 of 2: The Economics and Politics Behind Occupy Although conservative journalists who once dismissed Occupy as an unkempt, passing phenomenon now lump the Tea Party and Occupiers as equal grass roots movements, they still have it wrong. True, both have gained strength from our prolonged economic downturn. Their reactions, however, have been almost diametrically opposed, leading Occupy to thrive while the Tea Party declines.

Occupiers in New Hampshire’s second largest city are holding a Pride march this Saturday “honoring” Republican Presidential candidate and anti-gay activist Rick Santorum (who compared homosexuality to “man on dog” sex), three days before the nation’s first primary. Santorum, who scored eight votes behind a first place Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, is not expected to attend, and his campaign officials were unavailable for comment. This makes little difference to the expected marchers.

Ben Johnson recently huddled with fellow Occupiers. How, he asked them, could they maximize their impact on the Iowa caucuses? “I have a lot of friends hurt by the recession, who deserve to go to better colleges than me,” said the American University freshman. “They’re a lot smarter than I am, and have more to offer the world. But they are being held back by their parents’ poor finances.” “An educational system that privileges people by wealth, but does nothing for talented people whose families are not wealthy is screwing over a lot of good people. I’m not getting the shaft. But my country is.”

In each of the last three years, 1 in 5 Americans suffered a decline in household income of at least 20%, says Jacob Hacker, author of “Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class”(2010). Sometimes, these declines overlap – the same household losing 20% one year and an additional 20% another year. More often, they do not. And, according to a recent Census Bureau report, nearly half of all Americans - 48% - have either fallen into poverty or are low income, scraping by on less than $45,000 for a family of four. It is bad out there. Hacker, who is also Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale, measures income instability via an Economic Security Index he devised in 2010. This index takes into account wages, pensions, and the like, minus out-of-pocket health costs and debt service for credits cards and other unsecured credit. The results are eye popping.

Robert McCaw, 29, Government Affairs Coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is urging President Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, whose provisions would allow prosecutors to circumvent the civilian legal system for those suspected of aiding terrorists. McCaw is not alone. “The bill contains a sweeping worldwide ‘indefinite detention’ provision...to indefinitely detain without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up in the United States,” says Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office. “We encourage the president to seriously consider what it will mean for America, for the first time since the McCarthy era, to enshrine indefinite detention without charge or trial right into the statute books.”

Perhaps you’ve seen the 1993 film “Dave,” where Kevin Kline, who looks identical to the American President, becomes President after his real counterpart suffers a stroke? Or, maybe the story about the Hawaiian who writes the Occupy movement song, then gets invited to play his guitar as the President hosts an international dinner – where the singer belts out his song? That actually happened. Amazingly, nobody stopped the singer, Makana, as he sang at the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) dinner in Honolulu.