Disclaimer: This is the voice of a VERY angry and unabashed LIBERAL. You have been warned. (By proceding past this point you agree to shut up about opinions you disagree with. If I want to hear from right-wing nut jobs, all I have to do is turn on the radio.)
Feb 10
Just another gloriously surreal day here in Bush-land.
Not three days after he sets out a budget that slashes social programs and programs for ordinary Americans to the bone, Chimpy McFlightsuit has the gall to.. to.. now where did I put those headlines? Ah yes..
Bush asks for $100 million to help modernize Poland's armed forces
to update their military. And
Bush Seeks to Boost Tsunami Aid to $950 million
A good cause, to be sure. But right after he pleads poverty will force him to shut down domestic programs?
Let's take a look at God's chosen president and the results of his "compassionate conservatism" as it relates to the new budget:
Some of the harsh realities in the budget will confront those who can least afford to handle them. Medicaid cuts totaling roughly $1.2 billion over the next 10 years will hurt hospitals and those who need their services. Roughly $500 million will be cut from education, with the Even Start literary program and the Safe and Drug Free Schools program facing elimination. No Child Left Behind will be underfunded by $9 billion. A Clinton-era program to help communities hire police officers will lose $200 million. Food stamp, child-care assistance, home-heating aid will be cut and veterans will be asked to pay more of their health insurance. Amtrak is losing a $1 billion subsidy while the Navy, as part of a bloated Pentagon budget, is receiving $6 billion to pay for new presidential helicopters.
By damn. That's some kind of compassion. Makes me feel warm all over. But by God... we've got money to do kickbacks to governments that supported Bush's little Iran adventure. Strangely though... the cost of that isn't considered anywhere in the budget.. nor the loss of income from the tax give-aways. Nor the billions it will cost to fund Bush's cock-and-bull Social Security "overhaul"
Interesting accounting , that. If something you want isn't affordable, you just - presto!- omit it from the budget! Why is it I suspect that I couldn't get away with doing the same thing?
As an editorial in the Bershire Eagle (berkshireeagle.com) put it,
Democrats searching for moral issues to support should stop bowing and scraping before the religious right and look at the president's budget. Educating the nation's children is a moral issue. Providing assistance for the poor and elderly is a moral issue. Making sure that poor and middle income Americans have adequate health care is a moral issue. A president who talks the talk morally has presented a budget that is a moral failure when it comes to government's responsibility to help those most in need of help. Let's see how many in Congress, Democratic and Republican, have the moral fiber to call him on it.
My guess would be.. oh.. round about.. none.
Nor will average Americans. Certainly not the "religious" right which has already shown that the only "moral" issues it recognizes are those that enforce it's own creed of exclusion and hate.
Here's another conundrum:
If the White House is so cock-sure of their "mandate" from the masses to persue the rape and pillage of America... if it is only the wicked, wicked liberal media elite who are trying to hoodwink good and god-fearing Americans... then how come the party of morality keeps getting caught bribing people to lie, cheat and generally be underhanded? (Remember now.. this is the same party behind the Watergate burglery and the Iran-Contra lies and deception. Moral values, moral values...)
Last month or so 3 prominant conservative commentators admitted that the White House had been paying them federal TAX DOLLARS (see above) to push Bush policies in their columns. And this week we learn that a "journalist" in the Chimp-inCharge's press conferences who gets called on is, in fact, a plant, working under an assumed name from a GOP website, put there to make partisan statements thinly dusguised as questions, and to provide Bush with "questions" he has already prepared answers to.
From the Boston Globe:
Gannon came under scrutiny after Bush called on him during a rare and nationally televised news conference two weeks ago. Gannon's question attacked Democrats as having ''divorced themselves from reality" and repeated an allegation against Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, that turned out to be a joke by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.
The unusual question prompted a wave of attention initially led by David Brock, the former right-wing investigative journalist who now operates a left-wing media watchdog group, Media Matters for America.
''We didn't think it was appropriate for a conservative partisan with no journalism experience asking loaded questions to be included in those briefings," Brock said.
Meanwhile, US Representative Louise Slaughter, Democrat of New York, sent a letter to the president yesterday seeking an explanation for why Gannon had been ''repeatedly cleared by your staff to join the legitimate White House press corps."
Slaughter said further:
"It appears that 'Mr. Gannon's' presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your administration,"
Naturally the Bastion of Moral Values declined to reply
The House and Senate press galleries declined Guckert's request for credentials in 2003.
Julie Davis, chairwoman of the Senate press gallery's executive committee, said Guckert could not demonstrate any separation between Talon News and GOPUSA, a Republican consulting group.
Both organizations are run by Bobby Eberle, a Texas GOP activist. Many Talon News articles also appeared as news releases on the GOPUSA Web site, said Davis, a reporter for The Sun newspaper of Baltimore, Maryland.
Slaughter said she was writing at the request of senior editors of the Niagara Falls Reporter in her Buffalo-area district.
The newspaper ran an open letter questioning "how a partisan political organization and an individual with no credentials as a reporter -- and apparently operating under an assumed name -- landed a coveted spot in the White House press corps."
In interviews, Slaughter said that "It doesn't matter whether he's a conservative reporter. The question is, is he a reporter?..... I don't want to be fed propaganda from this White House," she said. "I don't want people to be paid to give it to me. We deserve the facts, or this democracy will suffer."
But then... the Conservative right, as I have noted, cares nothing about Democracy. It cares only for power.. gaining it, keeping it, and exercising it. The model set for the GOP by Ronald Reagan still hold true today: the end justifies the means.
Hmmm.. wonder what Jesus would have to say about that?
Last month, conservative commentator Armstrong Williams apologized for not disclosing that his company had received $240,000 from a public relations agency hired by the Department of Education to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind education overhaul.
Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher also apologized to her readers for not disclosing a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help create materials used to promote Bush's $300 million initiative encouraging marriage to strengthen families.
HHS later disclosed that a third conservative columnist, Mike McManus, had received $10,000 to promote Bush's marriage initiative, according to an Associated Press report. His weekly column appears in about 50 newspapers.
But hey! We can't begrudge money in the budget used to run Bush's personal propaganda machine. At least we managed to cut waste out of governement spending, like the funds to help poor and rural people heat their homes this winter.
Read the complete story here
And more from CNN here
Jan 25
Everytime I think the right-wing Nutjobs for Jesus can't get any more ridiculous (or -- dare I say it -- "unChristian") than they have already been during their sad and sorry history, yet another clown jumps out of the little car and the circus continues on.
Apparently having saved us from the menace that is the Teletubbies, now they've decided that SpongeBob Squarepants is a homosexual. Actually, the issue is not that this imaginary character is gay, but that he is part of a sinister plot to persuade normal, wholesome Christian children to drop their drawers and begin sodomizing one another. Apparently the "religious" right thinks everyone spends as much time trying to swell their ranks as the Christians do (you wanna know why I like Jews? They're the only damned faith that not only is NOT knocking on my door trying to get me to join -- they don't WANT me to join. I admire that in a religion! )
So I clipped the following from an online paper.. It seems that I am not the only one bemused and disgusted that the followers of the man who delivered so very many well-crafted lessons on acceptance and tolerance and not judging others should daily make a show of being hateful, judgmental and intolerant:
"Children should be taught tolerance. I went to the Web site for the
ChildCare Action Project and found a warning that SpongeBob and Barney
are promoting gay tolerance. When did Christianity teach intolerance?
Would it be better if children called some little boys "faggots?" That's
what happens when children are not taught that all children are equal in
humanity.
I have never watched an entire SpongeBob episode. I didn't know he was
gay. But then again, I didn't know James E. McGreevey was gay. Was there
a sign? Both of them do dress like Michael Douglas in "Falling Down."
But exactly what kind of adult reads sexual orientation into a cartoon
character? I've been told that SpongeBob holds hands with his friend
Patrick, a starfish. What do you call the coupling of a sponge and a
starfish? Bisexual? Bivalve?
The truly prurient minds are the members of the Christian right who see
sexuality around every corner. Gay people are not looking to convert
anything, except perhaps loft space in the Williamsburg section of
Brooklyn. The We Are Family Foundation should consider making another
music video aimed not at children, but at homophobes. The message of
Jesus is one of tolerance and love. He stops a crowd from stoning a
harlot not because he condoned her behavior but because he loved her as
a human being.
SpongeBob strikes me as a rather silly cartoon. But children and parents
love it.
Apparently so do gay people. I typed "SpongeBob is gay" in a Google
search, and it produced 292,000 entries. So what? There are gay people
who voted for George W. Bush.
First there was Tinky Winky, the gay Teletubby. Now it's SpongeBob. I've
always wondered about Donald Duck's aversion to trousers. But it's a
waste of energy.
Everybody knows the really gay cartoon character was Jonny Quest.
Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of the Herald News. Reach
him at doblin@northjersey.com
Jan 19
Anyone who thinks G.W. Bush is a "uniter" (as a recent poll has claimed 49% of the populace do) is simply retarded. Flat out mentally defective. Probably believes in The Tooth Fairy, Trickle Down Economics, and The Theory of Intelligent Design. As far out of touch with reality as G.W. himself, who claimed last week that his victory (by the narrowest margin of any sitting president in history) represented an overwhelming mandate for his policies.
Really... how do you cope with mental abberations of that magnitude?
And here's how the rest of the world now views us (of course "Tru Patriuts" don't care 'bout no damn feriners):
"The scary thing about the USA and their flagrant abuse of power is that
millions of them, including their leader, believe that they are on a
mission from God and so can't be doing wrong. Religion and politics
should never mix."
Andrew Malden, Milton Keynes, England
From the BBC:
Negative feelings for Mr Bush extended to Americans as a whole
More than half of people surveyed in a BBC World Service poll say the
re-election of US President George W Bush has made the world more
dangerous. Only three countries - India, Poland and the Philippines - out of 21
polled believed the world was now safer.
The survey found that 47% of the 21,953 people questioned now see US
influence in the world as largely negative, and view Americans
negatively as well. None of the countries polled supported contributing their troops to
Iraq.
"This is quite a grim picture for the US," said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), which carried out the poll with GlobeScan.
"Negative feelings about Bush are high and are generalising to the
American people who re-elected him."
On average across all countries, 58% of people - and 16 out of 21
countries polled - said they believed Mr Bush's re-election to the White
House made the world more dangerous.
Most negative feelings were found in Western European, Latin American and Muslim countries. They include traditional US allies such as Germany, France, Britain and Italy as well as neighbours Canada and Mexico.
The only European country to buck the trend was Poland, one of the new members of the European Union, which gave the thumbs up to both President Bush and the US.
Turkey topped the anti-Bush list, with 82% believing his re-election would be negative for global security. The result is bad news for the president as Turkey is a US ally and the only Muslim member of Nato, says the BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels.
Other predominantly Muslim countries - Indonesia and Lebanon - were also high up the list. But, any warmer feelings in Indonesia towards the US following its tsunami relief operations would not show up as the poll was carried out before the disaster struck, says the BBC's Dan Isaacs.
Anti-Bush sentiments also appeared to be strong in Latin America.
Argentina, with 79%, and Brazil, with 78%, follow Turkey in the list.
This seems surprising given that the region has had less direct
involvement in US foreign policy issues, says our correspondent.
Another surprise was India's support for Mr Bush. The poll found 62% believed his administration was positive for global security.
The BBC's Nick Bryant says the reason for this may be because the poll was carried out in cities where people have benefited economically from closer trade ties with the US.
Doug Miller, President of Globescan, said the findings "supports the
view of some Americans that unless his administration changes its
approach to world affairs in its second term, it will continue to erode
America's good name, and hence its ability to effectively influence
world affairs".
Jan 03
Sorry to have let this go of late, but readers of Innisfree online (both of you) will know that things have been a bit chaotic of late. Just didn;t want anyone to think that I had lost heart, lost hope, or was in the slightest even a tiny bit less filled with RAGE than I was. I explained to my wife that short Irish people never give up, and they never give in, and they never forget.
Enough of that. A wonderful quote to start the New Year:
"I like yourJesus. I do not like your christians. Your christians are nothing like your Jesus."
-Mahatma Gandhi-
Ain't it the truth, brother. Ain't it the sad truth.
Jan 03
A sharp-eyed piece from one of our allies across the pond :
GOD HELP AMERICA
Nov 4 2004
THEY say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.
This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.
This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards the rest of humanity.
And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.
But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.
A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity.
A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural resources.
And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the go-ahead for more unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability and most probably another 9/11.
Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare them to the polls, then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?
There's only one headline in town today, folks: "It Was Osama Wot Won It."
And soon he'll expect pay-back. Well, he can't allow Bush to have his folks whoopin' and a-hollerin' without his own getting a share of the fun, can he?
Heck, guys, I hope you're feeling proud today.
To the tens of millions who voted for John Kerry, my commiserations.
To the overwhelming majority of you who didn't, I simply ask: Have you learnt nothing? Do you despise your own image that much?
Do you care so little about the world beyond your shores? How could you do this to yourselves?
How appalling must one man's record at home and abroad be for you to reject him?
Kerry wasn't the best presidential candidate the Democrats have ever fielded (and he did deserve a kicking for that "reporting for doo-dee" moment), but at least he understood the complexity of the world outside America, and domestic disgraces like the 45 million of his fellow citizens without health cover.
He would have done something to make that country fairer and re-connected it with the wider world.
Instead America chose a man without morals or vision. An economic incompetent who inherited a $2billion surplus from Clinton, gave it in tax cuts to the rich and turned the US into the world's largest debtor nation.
A man who sneers at the rights of other nations. Who has withdrawn from international treaties on the environment and chemical weapons.
A man who flattens sovereign states then hands the rebuilding contracts to his own billionaire party backers.
A man who promotes trade protectionism and backs an Israeli government which continually flouts UN resolutions.
America has chosen a menacingly immature buffoon who likened the pursuit of the 9/11 terrorists to a Wild West, Wanted Dead or Alive man-hunt and, during the Afghanistan war, kept a baseball scorecard in his drawer, notching up hits when news came through of enemy deaths.
A RADICAL Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement.
Which translates to telling his troops to do what the hell they want to the bad guys. As he has at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless towns across Iraq.
You have to feel sorry for the millions of Yanks in the big cities like New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco who voted to kick him out.
These are the sophisticated side of the electorate who recognise a gibbon when they see one.
As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity.
Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets.
The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free and strong".
You probably won't be surprised to learn of would-be Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn who, on Tuesday, promised to ban abortion and execute any doctors who carried them out.
He also told voters that lesbianism is so rampant in the state's schools that girls were being sent to toilets on their own. Not that any principal could be found to back him up.
These are the people who hijack the word patriot and liken compassion to child-molesting. And they are unknowingly bin Laden's chief recruiting officers.
Al-Qaeda's existence is fuelled by the outpourings of America's Christian right. Bush is its commander-in-chief. And he and bin Laden need each other to survive.
Both need to play Lex Luther to each others' Superman with their own fanatical people. Maybe that's why the mightiest military machine ever assembled has failed to catch the world's most wanted man.
Or is the reason simply that America is incompetent? That behind the bluff they are frightened and clueless, which is why they've stayed with the devil they know.
VISITORS from another planet watching this election would surely not credit the amateurism.
The queues for hours to register a tick; the 17,000 lawyers needed to ensure there was no cheating; the $1.2bn wasted by parties trying to discredit the enemy; the allegations of fraud, intimidation and dirty tricks; the exit polls which were so wildly inaccurate; an Electoral College voting system that makes the Eurovision Song Contest look like a beacon of democracy and efficiency; and the delays and the legal wrangles in announcing the victor.
Yet America would have us believe theirs is the finest democracy in the world. Well, that fine democracy has got the man it deserved. George W Bush.
But is America safer today without Kerry in charge? A man who overnight would have given back to the UN some credibility and authority. Who would have worked out the best way to undo the Iraq mess without fear of losing face.
Instead, the questions facing America today are - how many more thousands of their sons will die as Iraq descends into a new Vietnam? And how many more Vietnams are on the horizon now they have given Bush the mandate to go after Iran, Syria, North Korea or Cuba...?
Today is a sad day for the world, but it's even sadder for the millions of intelligent Americans embarrassed by a gung-ho leader and backed by a banal electorate, half of whom still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
Yanks had the chance to show the world a better way this week, instead they made a thuggish cowboy ride off into the sunset bathed in glory.
And in doing so it brought Armageddon that little bit closer and re-christened their beloved nation The Home Of The Knave and the Land Of The Freak.
God Help America.
Jan 03
And more from the people who brought you respect for "American Christian Values" by way of the Washington Post:
Ousting the Umpire
Thursday, December 30, 2004; Page A26
WHEN IT STARTED to look as though House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) might be indicted by a prosecutor in his home state, the House GOP rule requiring indicted members to relinquish their leadership positions became rather inconvenient. House Republicans responded by junking the rule. During the last Congress, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), chairman of the House Ethics Committee, proved himself something of an inconvenience as well when it came to Mr. DeLay: Under his leadership, the all-too-often slumbering committee bestirred itself to admonish the majority leader for an array of ethical missteps. Now Mr. Hefley risks meeting the same fate as the discarded rule. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is poised to decide whether to let Mr. Hefley continue in the thankless task of heading the committee. According to The Post's Mike Allen, Mr. Hastert is leaning toward removing Mr. Hefley.
Mr. Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, says that no decision has been made about Mr. Hefley's continued tenure and that, if he were to be removed from the committee, it would be for "no other reason" than that he has served as chairman since 2001. "That's a pretty long time," Mr. Feehery told us. "It's tough duty being an ethics chairman." Mr. Feehery said later that House rules would bar Mr. Hefley from remaining on the committee -- a tortured reading of clear rules that in any event could be waived by the speaker.
Dec 07
And for those still living in George Bush's fantasy land -- where attacking muslim countries somehow magically results in America being safer -- this just in from one of our main allies in the fight:
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says the fight against global terrorism needs to move beyond military action and address the root causes of militant extremism.
"I see the war on terrorism in two dimensions," Musharraf told reporters Monday following a meeting in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"The first dimension is its immediate dimension and that is on fighting terror head-on militarily," he said.
"And then there is there is the strategic long-term dimension and that is getting at the core of what creates terrorists, what creates an extremist, militant environment which then leads on to terrorism.... That is the resolution of political disputes."
Musharraf's comments come one day after he told CNN in an interview that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake that has made the world a more dangerous place.
"I think it's less safe," Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
Asked whether he considered the invasion a mistake, the Pakistani leader said: "With hindsight, yes. We have landed ourselves in more trouble, yes."
Well DUH! A pity our Fearless Leader still doesn't get it
Dec 06
Jesus of Nazareth taught uncritical love. He taught inclusion. He taught that God loves even those (and sometimes especially those) who are spurned by those who consider themselves "Godly" He taught more than tolerance: He taught more than turning a blind eye to the actions of others. He taught love. Uncritical and unconditional love.
And I challenge you to find even a single "Christian" denomination that acts in accordance with the teachings of their "Lord".
Not a one. Christian teachings rely on devisiveness and exclusivity. Thier idea of inclusion lies in their desire to convert all to their particular way of thinking. Include those outside the norm? Hells bells they would condemn even their fellow Christians, let alone unbelievers. Their idea of "unconditional love" is to extend their love once you have accepted their views unconditionally.
And I have to wondr, when considering the "Christian" faiths: Just how far CAN you deviate from the teachings of someone and still claim to be their spiritual heir?
Just look at the "Christian" reaction to gays and ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"
The last person I accused of such perfidy was my cousin Cheryl who, confronted with WWJD never answered the question, but instead railed about "How dare you ask me that?"
But I DO ask. When you hijack my country in the effort to enforce your damned "moral superiority" you're damned right I question you.
Whited sepulchers. All of you. No wonder Jesus wept.
Dec 06
While it is somewhat unnerving to add a quote here from the works of Adof Hitler, I donlt think it is possible to fully appreciate the enormity of the Big Lie fashioned by the Bush administration, or the extent to which Bush is MORALLY BANKRUPT unless you turn to the lessons of his masters:
"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."
~Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" ~
And if there is a better description of the campaign run by Karl rove in 2004 or the boot-licking response of America's Christians, I cannot fathom what it could be.
Dec 05
So yesterday, one of Bush's outgoing cabinet guys warned that the American food supply is exremely vulnerable to terrorist attack. Of course the White House was quick to pooh-pooh and discredit the guy. But... isn't this the same bunch that were told bin Laden was planning to use civil avaiation as flying bombs and basically dismissed it as alarmist thinking?
What do you want to bet that after the attack comes on the food supply, Rice once again drags out her "We didn't know nothing 'bout no terrorist plot" shuck and jive act again?
Dec 05
I love it. Trent Lott gets caught doing damned near everything it's possible to do in terms of malfeasance.. and instead of censuring the rat-bastard, the Republicans just change all the rules to make it ok. And THIS is the party that rode to power on a claim of MORAL VALUES?
Dec 05
The 10 Commandments for Modern American Christians
or
"Correcting the Mistakes God Made"
Nov 28
On Treason and Traitors
The thing that simply amazes me about Middle America's smug self-assurance post election that they have somehow "saved" America from "Moral Decline" is the fact that these "patriots" demonstrably have NO loyalty whatever to this country. They very deliberately turned their backs on fact and the weight of evidence and made a decision based on what THEY WANTED. Not on what was best for the country. The national safety and health were obviously secondary considerations -- if indeed they were considerations at all.
So.. no loyalty to country, to it's people, or to its children. All are just grist in the mill of getting what they want.
And what they want is POWER.
So be proud, Middle America. You have happily made yourself the tools of unscrupulous and ambitious men and allowed those who were not and are not elected or accountable to further insinuate themselves into the halls of power.
But hey... you made us safe from queers.
Nov 27
From the BBC
There is intense speculation in the corridors of Washington over where foreign policy might head in the next four years.
The US is on guard - but is that enough?
But while Iraq and Iran may top the list, you hear almost no talk - at least at the moment - about Washington's "war on terror" against al-Qaeda.
After an election in which the fear of an attack hung over the campaign, there is now little discussion over whether the US is winning or what victory might look like.
While there is lots of talk about which countries the US should seek to press over terrorism, there is not much sign yet of a renewed focus on the ideological struggle or the kind of "imagination" called for by the 11 September commission.
Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism czar under both President Clinton and President Bush, has been an outspoken critic of the current administration since he left it.
He accuses the Bush administration of a lack of strategic thought.
QUICK GUIDE
What is al-Qaeda?
"So much of the US government's attention is on Iraq that they are really not thinking conceptually about the war on terrorism," he told me.
"President Bush has conflated Iraq and the war on terrorism into one thing, and therefore when they're working on Iraq they think they're working on the war on terrorism - which of course they're not because it's a very different thing.
"The administration probably believes its own rhetoric when they say they've captured or killed three-quarters of al-Qaeda leaders, and that al-Qaeda's on the ropes," he says.
New leaders
But Mr Clarke argues that such talk overlooks the possible rise of a new leadership - or of multiple, dispersed groups acting on their own.
"We're in a lull between the first al-Qaeda - which has been to some extent somewhat destroyed - and the second, which is I'm sure now building.
Obviously everyone here would like to see Osama Bin Laden's head on a spike in front of Congress, but that is not the only test
David Frum,
former Bush speechwriter
"People who are mad at the US for what we've done in Iraq and elsewhere are probably organising new networks we don't know about. But if that's true they'll probably be a lull between the time when the old al-Qaeda is destroyed and the new one appears."
But David Frum, a former speechwriter to President Bush says Mr Clarke's criticism is unfair.
He believes there will be some readjustments - but to a generally successful strategy.
"In many areas there are unflashy but important successes to report," he says. "There's the success in Libya. A lot of the component parts in the war on terror are not individually that dramatic, they're incremental.
"They are improvements. They are always imperfect, but I think you see a lot of progress. Obviously everyone here would like to see Osama Bin Laden's head on a spike in front of Congress, but that is not the only test."
'Lack of discussion'
But Mike Scheuer, a former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit who resigned from the agency this month, says there is a dangerous lack of understanding in the United States about what motivates Bin Laden and those who support him.
After the debate, the American people would be going into the future knowing they were faced with an extraordinarily long and bloody war
Mike Scheuer,
former CIA operative
This has led some wrongly to perceive the US as fighting a single organisation when in fact it faces a global, radical Islamic insurgency.
"Bin Laden is attacking us because a specific set of US policies that have been in gear for 30 years and haven't been reviewed, haven't been debated, haven't been questioned," says Mr Scheuer, who has written two books anonymously criticising government policies.
He cited the apparently unquestioning US support for Israel; America's presence on the Arabian peninsula; and support for regimes perceived as oppressing Muslims and for Muslim "tyrannies".
Mr Scheuer doesn't necessarily argue for a change in policy but says there needs to be a greater awareness of the roots of the problem in order to appreciate the potential longevity of the threat.
"At the end of the day it may be decided by the democratic process that these policies are good for us should remain unchanged... but the big difference would be that after the debate, the American people would be going into the future knowing they were faced with an extraordinarily long and bloody war to be fought because of those policies."
Fading memories
The threat is real but the US is doing well, Black says
One problem for those pursuing the war on terror is that as the memory of the 11 September attacks begin to fade, questions begin to be asked about whether the threat may have diminished - or even whether it was exaggerated.
That is a concern for Cofer Black, who until this month was the State Department's counter-terrorism co-ordinator and who had previously served as director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre.
He says the US has done well against al-Qaeda and its allies.
"We've had tremendous successes. The numbers are all good. Tactically the practitioners are doing very well but the threat is real - it is there," he told me in his last interview before leaving office.
"We are much safer, but we are not yet safe."
But, he says, those who work in counter-terrorism "are paranoid or haunted because all the terrorists have to do is be successful once and we have a cataclysmic disaster".
Nov 25 Thanksgiving
I thought this was an apropos time to deal with the claim of the Right wing fanatics that they are returning America to its "Christian" roots.
THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION
Compiled by Jim Walker
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782)
It spite of Christian right attempts to rewrite history to make Jefferson into a Christian, little about his philosophy resembles that of Christianity. Although Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, there exists nothing in the Declaration about Christianity.
Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term "Nature's God" used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.
Distortions of history occur in the minds of many Christians whenever they see the word "God" embossed in statue or memorial concrete. For example, those who visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington will read Jefferson's words engraved: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man." When they see the word "God" many Christians see this as "proof" of his Christianity without thinking that "God" can have many definitions ranging from nature to supernatural. Yet how many of them realize that this passage aimed at attacking the tyranny of the Christian clergy of Philadelphia, or that Jefferson's God was not the personal god of Christianity? Those memorial words came from a letter written to Benjamin Rush in 1800 in response to Rush's warning about the Philadelphia clergy attacking Jefferson (Jefferson was seen as an infidel by his enemies during his election for President). The complete statement reads as follows:
"The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . ."
Jefferson aimed at laissez-faire liberalism in the name of individual freedom, He felt that any form of government control, not only of religion, but of individual mercantilism consisted of tyranny. He thought that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
If anything can clear of the misconceptions of Jeffersonian history, it can come best from the author himself. Although Jefferson had a complex view of religion, too vast for this presentation, the following quotes provide a glimpse of how Thomas Jefferson viewed the corruptions of Christianity and religion.
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
What is it men cannot be made to believe!
-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786. (on the British regarding America, but quoted here for its universal appeal.)
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.
-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819
As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.
-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.
I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned)
Bibliography (click on an underlined book title if you'd like to obtain it):
Merrill D. Peterson, ed, Thomas Jefferson Writings, (The Library of America,1984)
O.I.A. Roche, ed, The Jefferson Bible: with the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson, (Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1964)
Dickinson W. Adams, ed, et al, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series (Princeton University Press, 1983)
Lester J. Cappon, ed, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Vol. 2, (The University of North Carolina Press, 1959)
Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity, (Madison Books, 1987)
Julian P. Boyd, ed, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, (Princeton University Press 1950--)
A.A. Lipscomb, Albert E. Bergh, eds. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903-1904)
The guardians of "Morality" here in the U.S. have elected George Bush because his view of Christ is as ignorant, short-sighted, and hatefull as their own. God may forgive Middle America. History, however, will not.
As I was taught:"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." No matter that the intent was for the "Moral Values" (whatever that means) crowd, the re-election of George Bush was predicated by people who are so busy mining the Bible for minutae, they've utterly missed the whole point their Jesus made. Their crime is stupid, sloppy thinking. God gave you your brain for a reason. Please revisit the parable of the talents and ponder before your Creator asks what you did with yours.
So they bargained away my daughter 's security, her education, and her health care. For what? For their pitiful, evil, twisted, sad version of Jesus? For the sake of the man who came to unite all... to care for the sick and the lonly and the sinner which they celebrate by re-electing the man who has done more to harm the sick and the lonely and the sinner than anyone in the last 50 years?
The RNC: Keeping us safe from two old queens who want to live together since 2004
The Faith of our Founding Fathers, by Dean Worbois
No one disputes the faith of our Founding Fathers. To speak of unalienable Rights being endowed by a Creator certainly shows a sensitivity to our spiritual selves. What is surprising is when fundamentalist Christians think the Founding Fathers' faith had anything to do with the Bible. Without exception, the faith of our Founding Fathers was deist, not theist. It was best expressed earlier in the Declaration of Independence, when they spoke of "the Laws of Nature" and of "Nature's God."
In a sermon of October 1831, Episcopalian minister Bird Wilson said,
Among all of our Presidents, from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism.
The Bible? Here is what our Founding Fathers wrote about Bible-based Christianity:
Thomas Jefferson:
I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.
SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short
Jefferson again:
Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.
More Jefferson:
The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
Jefferson's word for the Bible?
Dunghill.
John Adams:
Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?
Also Adams:
The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.
Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 states:
The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.
Here's Thomas Paine:
I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible).Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the daughters. I would not dare so dishonor my Creator's name by (attaching) it to this filthy book (the Bible).
It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible.
Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins...and you will have sins in abundance.
The Christian church has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in pretended imitation of a person (Jesus) who lived a life of poverty.
Finally let's hear from James Madison:
What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy.Madison objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress and to the exemption of churches from taxation. He wrote:
Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
These founding fathers were a reflection of the American population. Having escaped from the state-established religions of Europe, only 7% of the people in the 13 colonies belonged to a church when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Among those who confuse Christianity with the founding of America, the rise of conservative Baptists is one of the more interesting developments. The Baptists believed God's authority came from the people, not the priesthood, and they had been persecuted for this belief. It was they—the Baptists—who were instrumental in securing the separation of church and state. They knew you can not have a "one-way wall" that lets religion into government but that does not let it out. They knew no religion is capable of handling political power without becoming corrupted by it. And, perhaps, they knew it was Christ himself who first proposed the separation of church and state: Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto the Lord that which is the Lord's.
In the last five years the Baptists have been taken over by a fundamentalist faction that insists authority comes from the Bible and that the individual must accept the interpretation of the Bible from a higher authority. These usurpers of the Baptist faith are those who insist they should meddle in the affairs of the government and it is they who insist the government should meddle in the beliefs of individuals.
The price of Liberty is constant vigilance. Religious fundamentalism and zealous patriotism have always been the forces which require the greatest attention.
Editor's Note: This page was first posted in 1995. Since then we've received volumes of mail from politically conservative Christians supplying us with quotes from public speeches made by the authors above. While most of these author politicians were diplomatic in their public expressions concerning religion, in their private conversations, voluminous writings and correspondences they expressed contrary beliefs.
Which beliefs are true? If a politician appears one way in public and another in private, which do you think better represents their true beliefs? How do you reconcile the inflamatory writings above with various pro-Christian statements that the same men made in public over the course of their careers? Could it be called "politics," an attempt to appease Christians while ensuring a more rational government based on the separation of church and state? It certainly seems that way.
In addition, the Editor does not recognize any religious intentions of the so-called "Founding Fathers" as relevant to discussions of political process today. As a descendent of Native Americans the editor understands that America had already been "found." The "Christian" beliefs of a handful of landed, white, male aristocracy enslaving blacks and murdering Native Americans hold little credibility and should be dumped along with the notions of slavery we so wisely dispensed with on January 1, 1863.
References: The writings of Thomas Jefferson exist in 25 volumes. The references for this article were found in the book, SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS, by John E. Remsburg (who interviewed many of Lincoln's associates). Much of his work on Jefferson came from THE MEMOIRS, CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANIES FROM THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, 4 volumes ed. by Thomas Jefferson Randolph (the grandson of Thomas Jefferson).
Friend Ellen sent me this. Thought it was good for a smile:
Originally, from Michael Moore
Subject: Thoughts
Dear Friends,
Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in
the words of Monty Python, 'always look on the bright side of life!' There
IS some good news from Tuesday's election.
Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:
1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.
2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since
Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults
(Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always
wrong and you should never listen to them.
4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the
country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%), and don't approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)
5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the
Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the
Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do
their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.
6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of
our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West
Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water,
all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in
lava. And no more show tunes!
7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any
old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut.
May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.
8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will
no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If
you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly
golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.
9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married
in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't
have to buy now.
10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress,
including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to
have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates
can't.
11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!
12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.
13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3
chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state
legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the
2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53
chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47
chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber
(Montana House) is still undecided.
14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than
the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out --
and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work
that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th
grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the
next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the
ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his
point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.
15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very
dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two
scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the
Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear
that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that
history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for
too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and
arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such
major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from
office.
16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting
age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it
means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards
to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of
those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go
home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three
yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are
coming!!!
17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the
candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total
number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore.
Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for
a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time
since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has
always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is
that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact,
that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones
who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November
2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of
surprise in 2008.
Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My
Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a
wonderful country -- it doesn't even need a president!'"
But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
I also liked this
By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist
Published November 14, 2004
This past Tuesday in Jacksonville, the Florida Baptist Convention voted to support a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
The Baptists want the Florida Constitution to state that marriage is "the union between a man and a woman and is the God-ordained building block of the family and the bedrock of society."
"The church is the voice of morality," declared the sponsor of this resolution, the Rev. Jay Dennis of Lakeland.
The voice of morality!
I have no quarrel with the Baptists being the voice of morality, even though I was raised a Methodist. (Actually, a Wesleyan - so see, I already know how this whole thing is gonna turn out anyway.)
My only question is:
Why just this morality?
Why just this sin?
Why is this now the moral crisis that deserves to be singled out in our Constitution, the civil law of Caesar, so we can create a lesser class of citizens who don't have the same rights of civil contract?
Could it be because this is an alleged "sin" that only Those Kind of People commit, instead of equally serious sins that Decent People (even Baptists) commit every day?
If we are going to start ranking the "sins," marriage between two gay people who love each other and seek a lifelong commitment doesn't even make the Bible's best-known top-10 list.
Sure, homosexuality is called an "abomination." The Bible says so, not too far from where the Bible also says it's okay to stone your headstrong son to death, and that you'd better stay away from menstruating women.
And yes, the topic of homosexuality really freaked out St. Paul, no question. But so did a lot of stuff.
On the other hand, you know what IS right smack in the Ten Commandments?
Adultery.
Adultery! Now, that's a threat to the institution of marriage. You bet.
Half of heterosexual marriages in our society end in divorce. We heterosexuals are doing a lousy job of "defending" marriage. Adultery is a big part of the reason.
So if we're going to rewrite our Constitution to "protect" marriage from sin because it is the "God-ordained bedrock of society," then I would think that adultery would be a much better target.
The Florida Constitution should be amended to say that there can be no marriage licenses for anyone who has ever had sex outside marriage.
But wait, don't stop there.
Adultery is not the only marriage-threatening sin.
There's coveting.
That's in the Ten Commandments, too. Coveting your neighbor's wife can get you in big trouble.
Bearing false witness is one of the Big 10, too, if I recall. Lying is a pretty big threat to marriage.
No legal rights for liars! God created Adam and Eve, not Adam-You-Can't-Believe.
So, you see, there are the sins that the majority of us Decent People commit, such as lying, coveting, failing to keep the Sabbath, worshiping the wrong things...
And then there is the Really Bad Stuff that God hates even more and wants us to punish and fight by rewriting our Constitution.
I don't believe it.
I am just a poor layman, but I do not recall anywhere in the book seeing instructions to rank what we consider to be sins, and to judge only the ones we find in other people.
In fact, irresistibly, Matthew 7:5 keeps coming back to me:
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Of course, Jesus said a lot of other stuff, too. Rich people almost certainly won't go to heaven. They should give away their money. We should turn the other cheek to those who seek to hurt us. We should clothe the naked and feed the poor and house the homeless.
We also should pray in private, without beating our breasts loudly and rending our garments in the streets like hypocrites.
Jesus' words, not mine.
Maybe he meant we were supposed to just pick and choose the parts we liked.
[Last modified November 14, 2004, 12:04:30]
And although I know it is petty and nasty, I can;t help but chuckle at this correlation between states that voted Bush and those that went for slavery
And this correlation between average IQ and votes for Bush
Nov 12
I love this piece I found online. I've cleaned it up a bit for the faint of heart, but the rest of you can find the original here
I was raised in the traditions of the South, and despite my upbringing as a proud Midwesterner, thanks to my mother, considered my self at least part Souterner. I even have, to this day, a Confederate Battle flag that I bought back in the late 1960s. I do understand those who claim that it is a symbol of heritage and tradition. Anyone who thinks that the War Between the States was fought over slavery, clearly knows nothing of U.S. history. Hell, I'd fly it now if I thought my house wouldn't be burned down.
America -- land of free speech..
So anyway... it is with that background that I present this article:
"Forget the South. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.
And now what do we get? We're the Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we founded this country. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that stuff about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were blue-staters, moron. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the monuments are up here in our backyard?
No, No. Get out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this country, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" idiots.
Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so arrogant if I wasn't paying for your bridges, bitch.
All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a damned swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a hellhole," we said, but you had to have your orange juice.
The next moron who says, "It’s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, it’s our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own stop signs.
Let’s talk about those values for a minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you Real Americans every day of the week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping morons? Well? Can you guess? It’s Massachusetts, the center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to guess? 10 of the top 10 are red-ass we're-so-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its part.
But two guys making out is going to ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we get to hear about it every year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous jerks? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North.
Well this gravy train is over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.
And no, you can't have your convention in New York next time. "
Nov 06
I think, now that the dust has beguns to settle, there is some good news:
First... let the plebs have their day. The Real Idiots and the Jesus Freaks will be nattering about now on how they have a mandate. (HA! Mandate my ass. For a sitting prez in time of war, The numbers Dumbya got were nothing short of pathetic If they want to brag about barely scraping by... let them)
Be cool. It will make the inevitable collapse sweeter.
Second: Let them have their way. Let the house (pubs) and Sennate (pubs) ditto-stamp what the Dubya sends 'em. Then watch them squirm like a virgin in a whorehouse when the chickens come home to roost.
"It.. um.. ah.. um... it's.. erm... Clinton's fault?"
That worked for the past four years. It ain't gonna do squat this time. Even Mr and Mrs America aren't THAT stupid. Mr and Mrs Rapture Jesus-Freak maybe, but not real people.
Third: When Iraq continues to dissolve into chaos (sorry troops. you ARE going to die. While I admire your loyalty to your Commander-In-Chief, next life don't be so knee-jerk stupid. Hinge your faithfulness -- which is admirable -- to someone who deserves it. You voted for this bastard in droves. Go and die happily for his cause) and the National Guard grows increasaingly restless ("Hey.. I just wanted the benefits. I did my stint. I wanna go home") and the draft looms nearer ("Vote or Die" will take on a new meaning) Young folks will start to realise that they have been HAD.
No KY-gel and no flowers or dinner.
And as the economy continues to unravel and jobs are lost.. and those that are gained pay about 1/10th of the old... even the Publicans will begin to realise that what goes around comes around. SUV? Sucks Up Volumes of my money.
The shit WILL hit the fan. The chickens WILL come home to roost. If Bush (and his handlers) had any damned brains, they'd have blown the election and let a Dem take the heat and clean up the shit, as in decades past (ref R. Reagan).
But no...Glory Be to God....they got greedy.
Now Bush has his "mandate" (but can he spell it?) with his Pubs in the house and senate. When Mr. Shit comes calling (as he WILL), "Who ya gonna call?"
Bill Clinton? Ghost Busters?
No... sorry. Reap the whirlwind, folks.
"I went to the rock
To hide my face
Aand the rock cried out
"There's no hiding place."
Nov 05
This is from my friend, Lisa. She's got a fine eye and I've always loved her photographic work. But this is just iconic:
Lisa says:
I took this photo on my way home from work tonight. They say a picture can speak a thousand words, and I think this picture sums up how I feel about the election, politics and America at this point. I fear for us, our rights and our children
My friend Avi (in Canada) contributes this:
i'm sorry that you're stuck in the US with such limited voting options. i don't hate you guys, just the people that voted for your current government, the corporations that bought their votes, the "media" outlets that made their opinions for them, the politicians themselves and their administration. i think that just about covers it. but i know there are a lot of you good people out there. sorry you're stuck with all the poopheads. good on you for getting the vote out! it's worth a try.
Everything else I've got is not appropriate for family viewing. Except this, from a blog Lisa put me on to:
"Like so many Democrats before him, Kerry seemed to take the approach that the best way to win was to be a Democrat Lite. Just as tasty as the Republicans, but with fewer calories or religious zealots. Bush worked hard to portray Kerry as a big, fat Liberal, but the truth is that like Gore v. Bush in 2000, this was a race between someone who is essentially a very moderate Republican and someone who is a bugshit crazy wingnut for Jesus. Still an obvious choice,"
Nov 04
For my young friends who feel so bereft of hope, I offer this.
Like the logo for this page, this is a work I did about age 19 (circa 1970) in oils, in an attempt to define my feelings about my homeland (in which I have never, EVER felt at home) . This was at the height of the Viet Nam war, as I came of draft age and was looking at the prospect of dying for no very good reason.
And I offer it to say to you: "This too, shall pass."
All things are cyclical and come 'round again in their time. Do not lose heart or hope. And unlike the hippies of my generation, do not sell out, sell your souls, prostitute yourselves, and become the problem rather than the solution.
Nov 03
This is cover from the Daily Mirror of London. Those of you who are silly or lazy enough to get your news from the right-wing American press (liberal press? How naive!! Fox appeals to the wingnut right, but the rest licks the Whitehouse posterior daily. See mediawhores.com) have NO conception of how we are viewed overseas. I chat with people around the globe every day. People who like us and are like us. (And do not dare to denigrate them, you weak-kneed "patriots". Britain is, after all, our staunchest ally. Our one friend, whose soldiers are dying alongside ours.)
And THIS is how they view us.
Be proud middle America. Be so very proud.
I have been proud every day of my life, in whatever state I've lived in, to call myself a Missourian. The sound of the river is part of my soul (when things got too much to bear, like Laura in Glass Menagerie, I ran away. And my favorite hiding place-- like hers --was the riverfront. Rivers.. when it is quiet, make a special sound.. like the rustle of Gods sleeves). So it is as a proud Midwesterner that I was shamed as I watched the folly of the keepers of what will ever be my home. Shamed at the point of my greatest pride as I watched my kinsmen humiliate themselves.
America: From global hero to pariah in four short years.
And what did they vote for? Did it matter that our young people are dying?
NO.
Did it matter that their leaders lied like whores in a police lineup on a daily basis?
NO.
Did it matter that we are spending ourselves into a hole that my grandchildren will curse me for?
NO!
Did it matter that my sweet daughter is ten times more vulnerable to terrorists now than in 2001 or that the quality of her education has been bartered away for financial gain? (And do any of you really think I will ever forgive anyone for willfully endangering her? EVER?) No child left behind, my ASS!
NO!
Does it matter that our sacred Constitution has been undermined ?
NO!
No, they had their priorities straight. They voted for -- "values."
That's right. Not real values, of course. Because Bush and company don't have any that anyone who in the slightest understands the teachings of Christ would go anywhere near. No, you voted for the guy who said "Jesus" the most times. Because in America, it doesn't matter if you uphold what Jesus died for... As long as you make the right noises.
Never mind that there is nothing at all Godly about the man. He belongs to the right club. Never mind that he is a whitened sepulcher.. and not very much whitened at that. He said "Jesus" a lot. He said he talked to God.
I mean... we have to uphold values, don't we??
America: Making the world safe from the threat of gay people living together since 2004
(and yes.. the picture is real.. I've watched the video footage. The Leader of the Free World, during the debates, just before the cameras rolled. Be oh so proud, Moral America. THIS is YOUR CHAMPION).
Thank God the Christians voted for values.
Nov 02
I am no longer angry. Oh I was so angry before. A bunch of people who should have known better at one stroke made my little girl less safe. I don;t give two hoots in hell what they thought they were doing. I KNOW what the road to hell is paved with. And I know what they did and the effect it will ultimately have on her little life. And I was so angry. And bitter.
Now I am just.. I struggle to find the word.. I am.. I am grieving.
I am greiving. Not as badly as over my father's death.. but a similar feeling. That's just the closest thing in my young life to compare it to. Something precious to me that I believed in with all my soul was taken from me. Not the election. There will always be others. Something else. Something intangible. Hope, maybe?
And the only thing that keeps running through my head... over and over.. is this:
Jesus wept.
John 11:35