Angels of Light or Right Wing Hate Mongers?

ANGELS OF LIGHT OR RIGHT WING HATE MONGERS?
By Donatra

Are you sick and tired of Republican attack ads? Are you sick and tired of verbal assaults on twelve-year-old-boys and two-year-old-girls by rich, white fat men wo share a basic contempt for change and who practice rhetorical savagery as a virtue? Yeah. I am too. And I think I finally understand the reason behind all the right wing hate-mongering and vitriole.

For all intents and purposes conservatives tend to view human beings as evil, demented creatures. Several years ago one of our blogging partners found himself involved in a truly viceral school board race in which members of the supposedly Christian Right were trying to take over a local school board. He wasn't running for office himself, but as an independent thinker and as a child of the 18th Century Enlightenment, he gradually discovered that the indviduals with whom he was debating had a very different view of the world than mainstream Christians. As we all know, many right wing Christians believe that human beings are products of the Biblical fall from grace as told in the Book of Genesis. They genuinely believe that because Adam and Eve fell from grace that every subsequent human being on the face of the earth must be a depraved, sinful criiminal at heart and that societies need strong, perhaps even repressive forms of government to keep the evil, criminal sides of our natures under strict control. To that end conservatives, especially Fundamentalist Christians, place a greater emphasis on control and regulation and less emphasis on personal freedom, constitutional liberties, and representative forms of government in general. They believe that if you give the people too much freedom that they will act on the depraved, sinful natures, creating chaos and wrecking havoc.

That however, was not what many of the Constitutional Framers believed. Many of the most influential framers were liberal Christians or Deists who believed that mankind, while not entirely perfectable, was at least somewhat perfectable. To that end they emphasized public morality as opposed to the kind of Puritanical, private morality with which the far right has so disturbingly obsessed. The far right in this country, again, the Fundamentalist Right in particular, believes that the purpose of the federal government is to control the private lives of the indvidual, to act as a kind of thought or morality police to prevent the ignorant masses from hurting themselves or others. As a dirct result we see a twisted preoccupation with sexual matters, and other personal issues which are none of the government's business. By the same token the far right dismisses the idea of public morality, so while the far right tramples on the Constitution to invade our private lives, indeed our privacy in general, it is perfectly content to tolerate the suffering of large groups of people. Whether it's uninsured children, the sick, the old, the weak, or the infirm, etc, the far right operates under the false assumption that people deserve to suffer because--you guessed it--Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. In sharp comparison, the Framers of our Constitution, like modern day liberals, were less concerned with private morality than they were in public morality. In this regard they emphasized the central teachings of Jesus. Indeed, it might even be suggested that the NonChristian Deists had a better understadning of Christ's morality than the suposed Christians who use the name of Christ but who spit upon his techings whenever tose teachings become a political inconvenience. Unike the radical right, Liberals take Christ seriously when he talks about healing the sick, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, and turning the other cheek. Unlike the Conservatives who pay mere lip service to what Jesus taught, Liberals believe that civilized governments take care of their weakest citizens.

In recent days we have seen the end result of conservaive thought (an oxymoron if ever there was one!). We have seen a President, who once preached an empty gospel of Compassionate Conservatism, as he vetoed a program that wuld have provided health insurance to lower and middle income children. And what was the Conservative reasoning behind this veto? if we help a few more people now we may be tempted to help more people in the future. NOOOOOO. We wouldn't want to do that. Why, who ever heard of a government that didn't leave its chjildren vulnerable to illness and possible death. We wouldn't want to prevent that. Not when we have some archaic paradigm that says we have to punish everyone because Eve tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. And while we're at it, suppose we talk a little more about the rhetorical attacks by conservatives on defenseless children. Will someone please tell me just what in the hell a two-year-old girl did to merit the dubious labels of evil, sinful, and/or criminal? From where I'm sitting the most this poor child has ever done has, in all liklihood, has been to poop in her pants or knock over a glass or orange juice. Certainly that did not merit public attacks in our corporate media. Then we have the outrageous attacks on a 12-year-old boy who recoevered from a coma. What exactly did this boy do to deserve public humiliation? Was he in the Garden of Eden? The last I knew he probably wasn't, and yet the far right had no trouble when it came to picking on someone who wasn't able to defend himself. rather like Anne Coulter's attack of the 911 widows.

On the bright side, I suspect that the American people may be waking up to the basic fact that some of the talking heads (I so want to say driping penisis) on the far right simply don't know what they are talking about. They are so convinced that everyone else is evil and depraved that they refuse to cast the very large and blinding motes from their own eyes. And that's the problem, the underlaying weakness in their basic philosophy, their basic paradigm. If people are corrupt, evil, and sinful, then how can we be certain that the conservativs themselves aren't judging others by themselves? How do we know that they aren't engaged in the fine art of projection? Doesn't it stand to reason that if, according to their belief system--all people are criminals and sinners that they themselves are also criminals and sinners and that we have merely elected devils in the guise of self-righteous angels to be our dictators, tyrants, and fuhrers? It may well me. I know, I know, the Funamentalist right may wel argue that they have been filld with the Holy Spirit, that they have been chosen by God. But how can we be sure? For if we take a literal translation of Biblican text, we arrive at a point where that same text warns us about deception.

Does any one recall that inconvenient verse in 2 Corinthians, 11:14? "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." Isn't that what can happen when we begin to believe in the natural superiority of both, ourselves and our belief systems? Do we not begin to accept evil as a form of benevolence?

Looking at the Social Darwinism that has become our economic policy; at the violence, sadism, and mass murder that has become our foreign policy; at the torture, corruption and prevarication that has become our legal system, and the ceaseless flow of verbal attacks against the weak and defenseless which has become modern day journalism, I would suspect that the term conservative morality is also an oxymoron and that we have exchanged Christ's morality for deregulated savagery.

--

CHEAP GRACE

CHEAP GRACE:
THE HYPOCRTICAL AND DESTRUCTIVE NATURE OF THE PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN RIGHT

By Trevor, Jeffrey, Brandon, Daniel, Kyle and Brian


"We don't lie, cheat, or steal on Sunday, but God help you on Monday."
An old Midwestern joke

Call it what you like: cheap grace, hypocrisy, dime store theology, a mockery of the Holy bible, sociopathy: In the end it is almost invariably excused by two of the worst and most abused passages in the New Testament:

"And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words when ye depart out of that house or city, Shake off the dust of your feet..."
-------The Gospel of Saint Matthew 10:14

And

"Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily I saith unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said..."
-------The Gospel of Saint John 3: 3-7

-------One of the great ironies (read deceptions) in the year 2006 was the utter lack of consistency that the so-called Christian Right brings to both, the political and religious arenas. Certain pastors and politicians argue that the Ten Commandments are so important and such an integral part of Western Civilization, that they must turn them into graven images, mere idols as a part of the Christian Right's ongoing war against western civilization. The Ten Commandments, argues the Christian Right, must be forced into virtually every aspect of our public institutions, from village squares to court house lawns, to school rooms and governmental buildings etc. But what the Christian Right fails to tell you is that while reactionary religious leaders on the far right are trying to force the Ten Commandments on everyone else, those same religious leaders are telling their own congregations that the Ten Commandments are obsolete, that Jesus Christ nailed them to the cross and that we are all saved through grace alone, not deeds or actions .

-------To be honest, I have some major problems with that kind of theology (or lack thereof). In many ways it reminds of me of an under-Christianized version of navel contemplation, an excuse for doing nothing, for not getting involved with the world condition while human suffering and abject misery run rampant. Ideally, faith or grace-based theology is supposed to work like this: You are born again; you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and if you are sincere in your acceptance you will naturally be guided to behave in a way that is acceptable and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord because you have been filed with the Holy Spirit. But as we all know, there is a tremendous difference between the stated idea and the actual end result, the every day practice of one's religion.

-------Far from being filled with the Holy Spirit, it appears as if some religious leaders and their authoritarian followers are filled with what John Dean refers to as "cheap grace." The same appears to be true of certain right wing politicians. Instead of behaving in a more spiritual or compassionate manner, many authoritarian Christians use cheap grace as an excuse to engage in a remorseless, over-glorified ego trip which is anything but Christian or beneficial. Convinced that the Ten Commandments are obsolete, they substitute a clear cut code of moral and ethical behavior with a quick prayer in which they beg the Lord to forgive them. Believing that Jesus now sits up at night to admire them, they then operate under the false assumption that they can transgress, perform unspeakable acts, beg for God's forgiveness, and then proceed to commit even more outrageous transgressions against their fellow man or even society at large.

-------It is as as if these individuals had worn down their consciences with cheap grace--a remarkable and frightening process. "One of the things a conscience is supposed to do is make us act better, but when you have a means of eliminating guilt there is not much incentive to clean up your act. You see how conscience gets short circuited," (Robert) Altmeyer noted. He added. "bad behavior may produce guilt, but it is easily washed away. So then more bad behavior can result again and again, getting removed very easily through religion. There is a terrible closing to this reality. The lack of guilt over things he has done in the past can actually contribute to the self-righteousness of the authoritarian. And this self-righteousness has proven, in experiments, to be the main factor that unleashes the right wing authoritarian's aggressive impulses." He concluded, "I have called them 'God's designated hitters.' We end up with the irony that the people who think they are so very good end up doing so very much evil, and more remarkably, they are probably the last people in the world who will ever realize the connection between the two." There is no better explanation for the behavior of many Christian conservatives, for it accounts for their license to do ill, Christian beliefs notwithstanding."
-------From Conservatives Without Conscience (page 64)
------- by John Dean

The results have been disastrous: A loose-tongued evangelist who endorses the assassination of foreign leaders; a sociopathic Texan Governor turned sociopathic (P)resident who rejoices at the ideas of war, death, torture, and stealing from the poor to give to the rich; a right wing party which embraces the Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism while spewing disingenuous double talk about democracy and freedom. Why, when you listen to these warped individuals, you practically have to stop and ask yourself: Are they quoting from a Catholic or Protestant Bible, or have they embraced the teachings of Anton LaVay's Satanic Bible? If you didn't know better you'd think that the teachings of Jesus were irrelevant to these phony Christians. Their warped theology may well teach that Jesus nailed the Ten Commandments to the cross, but they don't have a clue as to what Jesus himself had to say. Indeed, they seem to believe that when Jesus spoke (in the New Testament) he was only doing so because it was a boring Tuesday afternoon and he didn't know what else to do with himself. But if Jesus is indeed both divine and perfectly human (without sin) then why do these pontificating hate mongers ignore their own Savior when he asks us to feed the hungry, give alms to the poor, and turn the other cheek? Again, the answer seems to be cheap grace. They don't mind bastardizing the name of Jesus Christ as long as then can exploit His name to promote hate, warfare, violence, racism, homophobia, and Social Darwinism. But when Jesus specifically asks them to be more generous, less hateful, and more forgiving, they not only nail the Ten Commandments to the cross--they also nail the teachings of their beloved Lord and Savior to the cross. All the while begging the deity to forgive them so they can turn around, undermine His teachings, and move on to even more shameful and damaging acts.

-----Moreover moral codes aren't the only victims. Other victims include legitimate Christianity itself and the Red State Cesspools where the Republican/Pseudo Christian fecal matter has backed up into the lives of Red State citizens. Consider the following:

-------* THE 10 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST OVER ALL INCARCERATION RATES: Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Arizona , and Delaware; Delaware neing the only blue state. In other words, nine out of ten were Red States. [ Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners, 2003 (November 2004)]

-------* THE 10 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST RATE OF FEMALE INCARCERATION IN 2003: Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Montana, Idaho, Arizona, Alabama, Nevada, Colorado. Ten out of ten were Red States . [Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners 2003 (November 2004)]

-------* THE TEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF EXECUTIONS IN 2004 WERE ALL RED STATES: Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada . [Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2004 (November 2005)]

-------* The 15 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST RATES OF DEATH BY FIREARMS IN 2003 WERE ALL RED STATES: Alaska , Louisiana, New Mexico, Nevada, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Arizona, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky. [Deaths. Final Date for 2003 National Center For Health Statistics Volume 54, No 13, 2006 ]

-------* OF THE 15 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST RATES OF SUICIDE, 14 OUT OF 15 WERE RED STATES: Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada, Montana, New Mexico, Idaho , Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, South Dakota, Kentucky. Note that Oregon was the only blue state. [Deaths. Final Date for 2003, National Center for health statistics. Volume 54. No 13, 2006]

-------* TEN OF THE TOP TEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST DIVORCE RATES ARE RED STATES: Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida. [Division of Vital Statistics. National Center for Health Statistics CDC. 2005 among 45 reported.]

------- * NINE OF THE TEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST ILLEGITIMACY RATES ARE RED STATES: New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, and Delaware--again, Delaware being the only blue state. [Births. Final Data for 2003. National Center for Health, Statistics. Volume 54, Nov 2, 2005 ]

-------* 14 OF THE 15 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST OBESITY RATES ARE RED STATES: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee,Louisiana, Arizona, Kentucky, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Michigan--Michigan being the only blue state. [Behavioral Risk Surveillance System. Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2004 ]

-------* EIGHT OF THE ELEVEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST GROSSING MARKETS FOR GAMBLING ARE RED STATES: Nevada, Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, Iowa, Colorado, South Dakota, New Jersey, Ilinois, and Michigan--New Jersey, Illinois, and Michigan being the only blue states. [United States Gaming Bulletin. Ernst Young 2005. Includes Native American gambling. ]

-------* EIGHT OF THE TEN SMARTEST STATES ARE BLUE STATES: Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota, Virginia, Wisconsin, New York, and Montana--Montana being the only red state. (On the other hand, the 10 states with the worst paid teachers are all red states. Out of the bottom states, eight out of ten are red states, a situation that might be explained by the fact that blue states place a higher premium on both education and a willingness to pay for education. [From Morgan Quinto Press. Based on 21 factors from its reference book Education State Rankings 2005-2006]

------- All right. Maybe I'm being a little unfair. Instead of looking at the deplorable results that conservative policies have produced in Conservative, Republican states, maybe I should be looking at what faith only religion has done for the individual believer, to the individual conservative politician or preacher. Truly their belief in God, their repeated prayers for redemption have made them better people.

-------Right?

-------Wrong.

-------This is a list of Conservative politicians and preachers who have...Well, just read on. You'll get the idea.

1. Edison Misla Aldarondo: Republican legislator. Sentenced to thirteen years in prison for molestation of a nine-years-old.

2. Randal David Ankeney: Republican activist. Arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces six charges related to getting a thirteen- year-old girl stoned, then having sex with her.

3. Merrill Robert Barter: Republican County Commissioner. Pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact & assault on a teenage boy.

4. Robert Bauman: Republican congressman & anti-gay activist. Charged with having sex with a sixteen-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

5. Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to thirty months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

6. Louis Beres: Chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. Three of his family members accuse him of molesting them when they were preteens.

7. Howard L. Brooks: Republican legislative aide and adviser to a California assemblyman. Charged with molesting a twelve-year-old boy & possession of child porn.

8. Andrew Buhr: Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, former Tom Delay aide. Charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a thirteen-year-old boy.

9. Born Theodore Robert Cowell , this individual, under the name of Ted Bundy, would become synonymous with the term serial killer. " Bundy worked on the re-election campaign of Washington's Republican Governor Dan Evans. Evans was elected and he appointed Bundy to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee. Bundy's political future seemed secure, when in 1973 he became assistant to Ross Davis, chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. It was a good time in Bundy's life. He had a girlfriend, his old girlfriend was once again in love with him, and his footing in the political arena was strong."

10. John Allen Burt: Republican anti-abortion activist. Convicted of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran.

11. Keola Childs: Republican county councilman. Pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree for molesting a male child.

12. Kevin Coan: Republican St.Louis Election Board official. Arrested & charged with trying to buy sex from a fourteen-year-old girl whom he met on Internet.

13. Dan Crane: Republican congressman. Married, father of six, received a "100% Morality Rating" from Christian Voice. Had sex with a minor working as a congressional page. On July 20th, the House voted for censure of Crane, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct.

14. Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a fifteen-year-old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women The barrage of Republican public figures having sex with minors is hard to keep track of without a program. Fortunately, The Sappho Manifesto has provided us with a program to keep track of them all.

15. Peter Dibble: Republican legislator. Pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a thirteen- year-old girl.

16. Richard A. Delgaudio: Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer. Found guilty of child porn charges.

17. Nicholas Elizondo: Director of the Young Republican Federation. Molested his six- year-old daughter & sentenced to six years in prison.

18. Larry Dale Floyd: Republican Constable in Denton County, Texas, Precinct 2. Arrested for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with an 8 year old child & charged with seven related offences.

19. Jack W. Gardner: Republican councilman. Convicted of molesting a thirteen year old girl, when the Republican party, knowing of these crimes, put him on the ballot.

20. Richard Gardner : Nevada State Representative. Admitted to molesting his two daughters.

21. Matthew Glavin: President & CEO of Southeastern Legal Foundation, big player in Clinton impeachment. Arrested multiple times for public indecency, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him.

22. Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing eight-and ten-year old girls.

23. Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a . "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

24. Mark A. Grethen: Republican activist. Convicted of six counts of sex crimes involving children.

25. Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

26. Mark Harris: Republican city councilman who is described as a "church goer". Convicted of repeatedly having sex with an eleven- year-old girl & sentenced to twelve years in prison

27. The Reverend Ted Haggard of the New Life Church, after preaching a message of strict, right wing "morality" and brazen homophobia, was outed in November, 2006 by a male escourt (read male prostitute) with whom he had been sleeping once a month for the better part of three years. In addition Haggard was also accused of using methamphetamine. Haggard subsequently confessed to the allegations

28. Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his twelve-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

29. Howard Scott Heldreth: Anti-abortion activist who gained famed during the Shiavo media-circus. Convicted of two charges of raping a child in 2002.

30. Mike Hintz: First Assembly of God youth pastor, introduced by Bush on the campaign trail & promoted his policies. two months later, this married father of four turned himself into police, charged with sexual exploitation of a child.

31. Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to forty years in prison for molesting an eight-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

32. Paul Ingram: Republican party leader of Turston County, Washington. Pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served fourteen years in federal prison.

33. Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

34. Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.

35. Jon Matthews: Republican talk show host in Houston. Indicted for indecency with a child, including exposing his genitals to a girl under age seventeen.

36. Nicholas Morency: Republican anti-abortion activist. Pleaded guilty to possessing child porn on his computer and offering a bounty to anyone who murders am abortion doctor.

37. Jeffery Patti: Republican Committee Chairman. Arrested for distributing what experts call " some of the most offensive material in the child porn world." It was a video clip of a five- year-old girl being raped.

38. Mark Pazuhanich: Republican judge. Pleaded no contest to fondling a ten-year-old girl and sentenced to ten years probation.

39. Dennis Rader, otherwise known as the BTK (Blind, Torture, Kill) Serial Killer was a savage homicidal maniiac who murdered his many victims according to a ritualized script. When he murdered his neighbor Marine Hedge, in 1985, he quite literally took her to the Wichita Christ Lutheran Church and photographed her dead body on the altar. To the outside world, Rader gave all the outward appearances of normalcy. He was a Boy Scout Leader; he was a member of the above mentioned Christ Lutheran Church, and he was a registered Republican. He was also considered a loving father and decent family man who never the less quoted the Bible at his sentencing hearing.

40. Beverly Russell: County Chairman of Christian Coalition. Sexually molested his step-daughter, Susan Smith, who later drowned her two children.


41. Brent K. Schepp, a Republican candidate for the Kane County Illinois Board, who was arrested on charges of child molestation. Then there's 65-year-old Republican Pennsylvania Congressman, Don Sherwood, who was accused by his 29-year-old mistress of repeated instances of physical abuse, including strangulation (by the way Sherwood's campaign held a rally last week hosted by President Bush and Rick "Family Values: Santrorum,* who has also recorded endorsements for the embattled candidate.

42. Larry Jack Schwarz: Republican parole board officer & former Colorado State Representative. Fired after child porn was found in his possession.

43. Tom Shortridge: Republican campaign consultant. Sentenced to three years probation for taking nude pictures of a fifteen- year-old girl.

44. Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a fifteen year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.

45. Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

46. David Swartz: Republican County Commissioner. Pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of eleven, sentenced to 8 years in prison.

47. Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly had sex with a sixteen- year old girl when he was 28.

48. Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.

49. Robin Vanerwall: Republican strategist & Citadel Military College graduate, Director of Faith and Family Alliance, member of Ralph Reed's inner circle who funneled money to and from Jack Abromoff to Reed. Convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the Internet.

50. Spokane Mayor Jim West (a conservative Republican who rabidly opposes gay rights and teen sex) was caught in a sting operation by the local newspaper as he was arranging sex with a forensic computer expert – hired by the paper – that he thought was an 18-year- old boy. While technically never convicted of having sex with a minor, there was plenty of evidence that he molested children while he was a scout leader years ago.

51. Keith Westmoreland: Tennessee State Representative. Arrested on seven felony counts of lewd & lascivious exhibition to minors under 16-years-old.

52. Stephen White: Republican preacher. Arrested after allegedly offering $ 20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

----- - To this list I might have added Virginia Senator George Allen, for his history of racism and domestic violence, but to the best of my knowledge Senator Allen is only a bigot, a bully, and a thug, not sexual deviant. And I really don't know what to do about Dennis Hastert because he only covered for online stalker Jim Foley. As far as I know Hastert has not molested nor stalked any minors nor engaged in any sex crimes--only covered them up. On the other hand, I probably should have included terrorist bomber, Eric Rudolph, the homophobic, anti-abortion fanatic who killed two people and wounded 110 others because he had a problem with abortion and "abberant sexual behavior." As if murdering people is the "Christian" alternative.

------- As you can tell, I am hardly surprised by this kind of behavior on the conservative side of the political/religious spectrum. The Republican Party, after all has been hijacked by people who John Dean refers to as "Conservatives Without Conscience." What, you might wonder is a conservative without a conscience? Read on. Dean divides them into two categories: The Social Dominators (or leaders) and the Right Wing Authoritarians (or followers),

-------Social Dominators are typically men. They are dominating, and they oppose equality. They also crave personal power and tend to be amoral. In addition they are also: intimidating, bullying, faintly hedonistic, vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic), mean-spirited, militant, and nationalistic. They tell others what they want to hear, they take advantage of suckers, they create false images to sell themselves, they may or may not be religious, and they are usually politically and economically conservative/Republican. Right Wing Authoritarian Followers, on the other hand, may be men or women. They are submissive to and aggressive on behalf of authority, and are highly conventional. They are also deeply religious (often to the point of fanaticism) and possess moderate to little education. They trust people who should never be trusted and, like their totalitarian masters, they are highly prejudiced (especially against homosexuals, women, and followers of religions which differ from their own). They are also mean-spirited, narrow-minded, intolerant, bullying, zealous, dogmatic, uncritical of authority, hypocritical, inconsistent, contradictory, prone to panic easily, highly self-righteous, moralistic, strict disciplinarians, severely punitive, demanding of loyalty and eager to return loyalty. They tend to possess little in the way of self awareness and they are usually politically and economically conservative. (See John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience pages 68-69, for the source material).

-------The upshot here is obvious. On one hand the pseudo Christians claim to be moral, God-fearing people, but when you look at some of the areas in this country where they have the most influence they are what some of us might refer to as "dens of iniquity." They preach morality and good government on one hand, but when it's all said and done they are little more than authoritarian (some might say totalitarian) leaders and followers who couldn't tell a decent set of morals from an advanced case of genital warts .

-------Their so called Christian values are the same values that one would find among sociopaths and malignant narcissists, people with dangerous, incurable personality disorders. And while we can't send them to the mental hospitals for the criminally insane (which is where a few of them belong) , we can at least remove them from elected positions in the same way that one would remove a cancerous tumor.

-------These people have done enough damage. It's time to bring an end to their irrational reign of terror. Let logic, compassion, and reason flourish once again.


Trevor, Jeffrey, Brandon, Daniel, Kyle and Brian



SOURCES

THE KING JAMES BIBLE: EXTRA LARGE PRINT EDITION
American Bible Society, New York

CONSERVATIVES WITHOUT CONSCIENCE
Page 63- 64, 68-69
by John Dean
Viking 2006

MEET UP
46 Republican Pedophiles
http://dfa.meetup.com/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2075382

WASH PARK PROJECT
Republican and Religious Right Wing Pedophiles
26 April 2006
posted by Andrew Oh-Willeke
http://dfa.meetup.com/boards /view/viewthread?thread=2075382

ABOUT
Crime / Punishment
Serial Killer Ted Bundy
From Charles Montaldo
http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/tedbundy.htm

CNN.com / Law Center
Rudolph Reveals Motives
Tesday April 19, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/13/eric.rudolph/index.html

VANITY FAIR (November Print Edition)
"Red State Babylon"
Page 164
by James Wolcott

DUAL DIAGNOSIS AND THE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
March 25, 2000
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/antisoc.htm

GEORGE BUSH IS A MALIGNANT NARCISSIST
by Paul Levy
2004
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/bushnarc.html

Special Thanks to "Dude" from THE BLUE REPUBLIC for the information about Spokane Mayor Jim West; and to "Jay" from THE BLUE REPUBLIC for his information about Brent K. Schepp. And a big thank you to LEftOfCenter at The Blue Republic for providing us with the wonderful article about Malignant Narcissism



Authors notes by Trevor and Jeffrey

-------In many ways this was a a more difficult project than our recent revision of THE FOURTEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM. We have worked together on projects before, but this is the first time that all five of the founders have worked together on a single project. For the record, Trevor is a dyed in the wool atheist--quite a change from the devout and very conservative Prebyterian that he had once been. Jeffrey has been drifting towards Deism; possibly because his "favorite" Founding Fathers were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Brandon is a "Secular Buddhist," essentially accepting the moral teachings of the Buddhist faith without the supernatural trappings. Danny is an agnostic, although he may quite possibly swing over to a liberal form of Christianity. Kyle is a "recovering Presbyterian--and if you know what that means you know more than the authors.

------- Oddly enough, we enjoyed every minute of the composition--bringing together the various threads, weaving in past posts, and discovering that the material was more related than we had ever imagined.

-------Will we work like this again? We certainly hope so. Peace to you and yours

-------Trevor and Jeffrey

MOVE ON, MISTER RESIDENT, MOVE ON ALREADY

MOVE ON MISTER RESIDENT, MOVE ON ALREADY
by UncleAbe and PraetorOne
Edited by BibleBelted


Who in the hell does George W. Bush think he's kidding?   Was it my imagination or did I actually hear the Pretender and Thief shedding more  crocodile tears because a liberal organization dared to question the veracity of a general who, for all intents and purposes, is little more than an obedient puppet for an administration that has begun to believe its own lies and half truths?  For those of you who missed the president's (20 September 2007) drivel--and you were God-awful lucky if you did--the Demander and Thief had the audacity to criticize the folks at Move On for daring to question a general whose rectum is little more than an opening through which the Bush Administration can insert its hand whenever it needs a ventriloquist's dumbly to defend the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq which has now devolved into a full blown religious civil war.  

Oh.  I'm sorry.  

The Administration doesn't like to call it a religious civil war.  That might be too untidy, perhaps a tad too honest.   The current Orwellian doublespeak for what we have created in Iraq is "an ethno-sectarian conflict over power and territory."  Or if you will, a religious civil war replete with ethnic cleansing.

But I  seem to have digressed.  Listening to this President complain because the folks at Move On dared to criticize a doctored report--which by the way was more authored by Bush and Cheney than it was by General Petraeus--is a little like listening to Adolf Hitler deliver a lecture on the evils of violence and antisemitism.  Even as Bush delivered his usual half-baked platitudes about insulting the military I couldn't help but think that there's a huge difference between criticizing the Bush/Petraeus report and what George W. Bush has done to our military, and in my humble opinion someone should take this morally deficient president aside and explain that there is a difference between the kind of criticism that we heard from Move On and the kind of Mass Murder that has been committed by the Neocons in the name of oil, money, and empire. 

Nearly 4,000 American troops dead.  Nearly 21,000 wounded.  Thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis killed, maimed, and battle scarred.  That is the direct result of the Bush Administration's illegal invasion and occupation.  Now you tell me.  Which is more damaging?  Words which openly question the competency and honesty of an incompetent and dishonest Administration and its all too many Mortimer Snerds, or just condemnation of a domineering president and an acquiescent general who regurgitates the Demander and Thief's rhetoric on demand? 

And while we're at it, will someone please tell me just why in the hell our elected officials should take the time to condemn justified political speech?   Granted, Move On was audacious enough to refer to the general as General Betrayus, but let us talk turkey here my friends.  The General has betrayed us.   He has betrayed the American people and in refusing to question the congenital malignancy of our sociopathic president; he has betrayed the very troops who he and the Administration so hypocritically claim to support.  Moreover I find it interesting that the same party which slimed John Kerry's war record through the Swift Boat Liars association, and which denigrated the reputation of Vietnam Veteran/triple amputee max Cleland should opt to condemn Move On for far less caustic criticism.  Did we see a Congressional condemnation of the Swift Boat Liars?  No.  Did we see a Congressional condemnation of the goons and thugs who compared Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden?  No.

But that's what it takes to be a Republican today:  duplicity and arrogance. 

These people are perfectly willing to condemn minor examples of what they themselves do on a regular basis.  Comparing Max Cleland to Osama Bin Laden; telling us that you're either with them or with the terrorists:  Are these or are these not the same kinds of tactics that were employed by Joe McCarthy during the abominable Red Scare of the 1950s?   You'd think that in the 53 years the Republicans would have learned a few new tricks--or better yet--developed a sense of decency.  In 1954 Joe McCarthy accused the United States military of harboring communists.  Prior to that he had turned America into the 20th version of 1692 Salem, creating a witch hunt climate in which people were persecuted on the basis of mere suspicion.  During that time McCarthy himself played the part of a  genuine witch hunter with great enthusiasm, less concerned about uncovering communists than he was in using the publicity and propaganda which stemmed from his own actions to bolster his political career and personal popularity.   In other words, Joe McCarthy was more interested in Joe McCarthy than he was in the protection of his own country.  Having unleashed the dogs of persecution in the arts and entertainment community he turned on the churches and finally on the United States military.  Does anyone out there remember the statement:  "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessnesses...Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.  You have done enough.  Have you no sense of decency?"*   Those words were delivered by Boston Attorney Joe Welch and they were heard by millions of Americans during televised Senate hearings.  They also brought about the long overdue fall of Senator Joe McCarthy as a political force in this country. 

I think it's time that we ask the same question of the Republicans once again.  As in the 1950s the right wing witch hunters and McCarthyites have again resorted to sliming those who would ask legitimate questions, to smearing those who would offer justifiable or even constructive criticism.  I think we all need to remember that the criticism leveled by Move On was not so directed against the General as it was against the Bush administration for using the General as a front to offer a doctored report which had been manipulated by George W. Bush himself.   We also need to remember that the Administration has created arbitrary standards which are designed to disguise the actually damage which is currently taking place in Iraq.  For example.  If an Iraqi is shot in the back of the head that counts as a terrorist attack.  If an Iraqi is shot in the face that particular attack is counted as a mere murder having nothing to do with terrorism.   It is through tricks, manipulations and machinations such as these that George W. Bush and his War Crime Syndicate have been able to fudge the data and present phony progress reports which are designed to both, the peoples representatives and Senators, and the citizenry itself. 

If anything Move On was not harsh enough in its criticism of George W. Bush himself.   Perhaps Move On should have openly stated that George W. Bush has betrayed us.  He betrayed us when he manufactured phony evidence during the build up to the war.  He and his Neocon cronies betray the troops when they send these battle weary young men and women back to Iraq again, and again, and again for multiple tours of duty without proper rest and relaxation between tours of duty; he betrayed the troops when he sent them into battle without sufficient provisions; he betrays the American people every time he tries to sell out Constitutional protections in favor of security, and God knows that he betrays the people, the Constitution, and the troops when he claims personal and political powers more appropriate to a Francisco Franco or a Benito Mussolini. 

In fact...the more that I think about it...George W. Bush is just an ugly betray with a name and a beady-eyed face connected to it





* For a transcript of the Army-McCarthy Hearing please click on the following:
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6444
For a general history of the fall of Joe McCarthy please click on
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Have_you_no_sense_of_decency.htm

WITHDRAW TAX FREE STATUS FOR CHURCHES

http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2007/09/19/3

What can I say? It's about time that a church lost its tax free status for sticking its nose into a political issue.

One of the fair trade offs that we make in this society is the practice of allowing religious organizations to "spread the word" and offer humanitarian in a tax free environment as long as they don't use their considerable resources to influence political events. In the case above it seems to me that the Methodist Church in question crossed the line when it decided to wrap itself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy, declaring a political issue a moral issue, and then using its considerable resources to campaign against the civil liberties of gays and lesbians, a group of people which the Methodists clearly love to hate.

As far as I'm concerned the Methodists in question got exactly what they were asking. Now if we would only take the above story as an example and apply it across the board to other churches which use their financial and political power to influence elections and political issues. A good [place to begin would be with the Catholic Church which seems bound and determined to replace American Democracy with a Vatican-based theocracy. Or, perhaps an even better place to begin, would be with some of our loonier, Protestant Fundamentalists who want to turn America into a Reich wing theocracy in which the words, theology, and practices of Jesus Christ are replaced with the words of Jesus Christ and the theology and policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Frankly I'm sick of my tax dollars going to Historical and Constitutional revisionists who seem to think that religious tyranny is better than representative democracy. It's time to hold these people, these groups and organizations accountable. If they're going to undermine the work of the Constitutional Framers then they don't deserve to use our tax dollars to do so.


Peace and Enlightenment always

BRAVERY AND TORTURE: THEN AND NOW

BRAVERY AND TORTURE: 
THEN AND NOW
By PraetorOne and Donatra


Sometimes you just have to wonder where George W. Bush gets his ideas.  Shortly after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the Demander and Thief issued a statement in which he maintained that the oceans no longer provided adequate protection.   Well, Mister Bush, we have news for you.   If you had studied your American history instead of guzzling booze and snoring illegal substances, you might have learned that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have never offered complete safety. 

Need we remind you, Mister Bush, that prior to the American Revolution, the American (then British) colonies took part in the Seven Years War (AKA The French and Indian War) which, for all intents and purposes was nothing more nor less than an 18th Century Global conflict?   Need we remind you, Mister Bush that the Atlantic Ocean didn't provide a great deal of protection from English warships during the American Revolution?  And do we really have to remind you of the painful and humiliating fact that in 1814, during the War of 1812, British troops actually burned Washington DC? 

And it gets even worse.  We are all familiar with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but our history books have either forgotten, or deliberately chose to omit, references to Japanese attacks on the American West Coast?  No, I am not making this up.

"The attack of June 21, 1942, had been provoked two months earlier, in April, when Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and his squadron of B-25 bombers attacked Tokyo. The raid, a jab in response to the body blow at Pearl Harbor, infuriated the Japanese. Now the enemy was about to jab back, sending two I-class long-range submarines to harass naval and commercial shipping off the Northwest coast. The I-25, under Commander. Meiji Tagami, had torpedoed a freighter the day before but failed to sink it.

On the evening of June 21, Tagami snuck the I-25 past a minefield under a screen of fishing vessels. He surfaced in the dark, and his crew used its 5.5-inch deck gun to fire toward land. Relying on faulty intelligence, Tagami thought he was dropping shells on an American submarine base. "I did not use any gun sight at all—just shot," he said later.

The resulting explosion roused personnel at Fort Stevens from their weeks of tedious duty and instantly erased their complacency. Searchlights went on, and lookouts spotted the submarine at sea. Senior Duty Officer Robert M. Huston decided not to return fire, since his plotters erroneously gauged the sub to be beyond the range of the fort's main guns and he didn't want to fruitlessly give away his battery positions. His men were frustrated, but the decision was prudent." [1]

Luckily the attack caused little damage, but it does provide an example which undermines the president's half baked theory that the oceans were ever an adequate protection against a determined attacker. 

Nor was this the only Japanese attack on the Japanese mainland. 

"The Japanese didn't give up. In September the I-25 was back along the Oregon coast, carrying a disassembled seaplane in a pod in front of its conning tower. After being assembled, the plane was catapulted from the ship on the morning of September 9, and the pilot dropped incendiary bombs over the thick Oregon forests, intending to start fires. However, unusually heavy rains had drenched the woods, and the fires were quickly controlled. It was the first aerial bombing of the continental United States by a foreign power." [2]

And there was more to follow.

"Beginning two years later, increasingly desperate Japanese commanders tried yet another tactic. From Japan's home islands they released 33-foot-wide hydrogen balloons calibrated to ascend to 30,000 feet and travel the jet stream all the way across the Pacific. Each balloon was equipped with a small bomb that would drop and detonate automatically when the balloon descended to a certain altitude. Again, the intention was to ignite fires across the Western United States.

A few of the 9,000 balloons released between November 1944 and April 1945 did make it across. Some traveled as far as Wyoming, and one reportedly reached Detroit, but they did little damage. One potentially hazardous attack occurred on March 10, 1945, when a balloon descended near the laboratory in Hanford, Washington, that made plutonium for the Manhattan Project. It knocked out power to the pumps that cooled Hanford's nuclear reactors, but backup power, fortunately, kicked in almost immediately.

The worst incident took place near Bly, Oregon, in May 1945, when the Rev. Archie Mitchell and his wife were taking five Sunday-school children for a picnic in the woods. One of the children found a balloon partly intact. While Mitchell was returning to his car, his wife Elsie and the children hurried to examine the find and were killed when it exploded. They were the only deaths from enemy action on the American mainland during the war." [3]

By now you may be wondering why I a discussing attacks on the American Mainland in a post about bravery and torture.  Well, dear readers, I am doing so because it is appropriate to the topic at hand.

It seems to me that the American people have gone through an obvious, and I might add, despicable change in character.  If you read the article from which I extracted the above quotes you will note that the government felt that it was in our best interest to keep incidents such as these from the American people in general because it was felt that those incidents might cause a panic among the general population.  Today, we have evolved--or should I say devolved to the point where the government (read "the Bush Administration") floods us with misinformation which is specifically designed to frighten and terrorize us.  Indeed there are times when one might think that the only secrets this Administration would ever willingly keep quiet are those which involve embarrassing and/or illegal activities.  But if it's designed to frighten us, if it's intended to manipulate and cajole us into behaving like frightened children with the primary purpose of making us give up our civil liberties, there isn't anything this Administration won't use to get its way.  Whether it's designed to p[lace more power in the hands of our Fuhrer select, or if it's geared to manipulate the American people into approving torture and the undermining of basic Constitutional liberties, there isn't anything this Administration won't do or say to propagandize the American citizenry.

It wasn't always so.  While our Executive Sociopath seems to delight in war, death, pain and suffering, our first President, another George had an entirely different attitude towards torture and the treatment of those who fought against the American cause during the War for Independence.

Said Washington:

"Sir: You are intrusted with a Command of the utmost Consequence sequence to the Interest and Liberties of America. Upon your Conduct and Courage and that of the Officers and Soldiers detached on this Expedition, not only the Success of the present Enterprize, and your own Honour, but the Safety and Welfare of the Whole Continent may depend. I charge you, therefore, and the Officers and Soldiers, under your Command, as you value your own Safety and Honour and the Favour and Esteem of your Country, that you consider yourselves, as marching, not through an Enemy's Country; but that of our Friends and Brethren, for such the Inhabitants of Canada, and the Indian Nations have approved themselves in this unhappy Contest between Great Britain and America. That you check by every Motive of Duty and Fear of Punishment, every Attempt to plunder or insult any of the Inhabitants of Canada. Should any American Soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any Canadian or Indian, in his Person or Property, I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary Punishment as the Enormity of the Crime may require. Should it extend to Death itself it will not be disproportional to its Guilt at such a Time and in such a Cause: But I hope and trust, that the brave Men who have voluntarily engaged in this Expedition, will be governed by far different Views. that Order, Discipline and Regularity of Behaviour will be as conspicuous, as their Courage and Valour. I also give it in Charge to you to avoid all Disrespect to or Contempt of the Religion of the Country and its Ceremonies. Prudence, Policy, and a true Christian Spirit, will lead us to look with Compassion upon their Errors without insulting them. While we are contending for our own Liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the Rights of Conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the Judge of the Hearts of Men, and to him only in this Case, they are answerable. Upon the whole, Sir, I beg you to inculcate upon the Officers and Soldiers, the Necessity of preserving the strictest Order during their March through Canada; to represent to them the Shame, Disgrace and Ruin to themselves and Country, if they should by their Conduct, turn the Hearts of our Brethren in Canada against us. And on the other Hand, the Honours and Rewards which await them, if by their Prudence and good Behaviour, they conciliate the Affections of the Canadians and Indians, to the great Interests of America, and convert those favorable Dispositions they have shewn into a lasting Union and Affection. Thus wishing you and the Officers and Soldiers under your Command, all Honour, Safety and Success."  [4]

That profound statement was issued by George Washington  at his Camp at Cambridge on September 14, 1775.  Moreover, on Christmas Day, Washington ordered his troops to give refuge to hundreds of surrendering Hessian troops, encouraging his soldiers to "treat them with humanity."  [5]

Thomas Paine expressed a similar sentiment when he said:"

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws." [6]

What can I say?  They were good words then and they are good news now.  Granted, the 18th Century did not possess the kinds of weapons that we possess today, but let's face the facts.  War is hell--at least to a sane person.  But who said the key movers and shakers in this Administration were sane?  In a single swoop they have managed to undermine the Constitution while making a mockery out of the basic tenants of Western Civilization.  Indeed, their attitude seems to suggest that the only way to defeat terrorism (note I did not use the word terror) is to become more brutal and more rapacious than any enemy we can imagine.   One only has to ask oneself, "what would George Washington have thought of rendering?  Of Abu Ghraib, of Guantanamo, of rendering individuals to countries that employ torture as a standard method of law enforcement?  I think it is safe to assume that Washington, along with Paine, Jefferson, et al would have been disgusted.  Disgusted by the Shrub's gleeful attitude towards death and by the manner in which he has used fear, unreasonable terror, on a regular basis to undermine our Constitution in the creation of a unitary executive; or, if you prefer, right wing dictatorship under Bush, Cheney, and the Necons. 

You might argue that the British weren't as brutal or as savage as the Taliban and Al Quaida, but as I stated before, the British proved how mild mannered they were in 1914 when they burned down America's Capitol.  And let's not forget--ALL wars create their share of atrocities:  rape, pillaging, what today we might refer to as war crimes.  The primary difference, at least in my opinion, appears to be a change in both, our leaders and in our people.  While our more enlightened leaders have encouraged us to be brave, the Bush Administration is determined to make us tremble and cower in fear, to sell our liberties for the illusion of security.  That's quite a change from 1814 when Dolly Madison, upon learning that the British were heading for Washington, took up a sword and swore to defend herself against the approaching enemy.  That's quite a difference from our war dodging president, who, upon learning we had been attacked by terrorists on 911, went into a state of paralyzing terror in front of a class room full of children.  And while George Washington is a study in both, the moral and the courageous, the current George in the white house is a coward who managed to avoid serving his country on several occasions and who views soldiers as disposable cogs in a machine. 

As for the people, we have changed too.  In the 200 plus years since the American Revolution we have become as complaisant as cows on  milking machines.  So many of us respond to unreasonable, perhaps even phony, terror alerts, to rhetoric designed to create fear and terror.   You have to wonder why.  Oh Jeez.  I don't know.  Could it be--just as a wild guess--the kind of "news" (some might say propaganda) that is repeatedly shoved down our throats by the conservative corporate media? 

When the Bush administration decided to launch an illegal invasion based on phony evidence, the print and electronic media in  this country, with only a few, independent exceptions, seldom questioned the Administration's facts or motives.  As in the previous Gulf War, those individuals who obtained their news from television (FOX in particular) were the least informed among the population.  As one channel-surfed the various Network and Cable outlets one couldn't help but wonder if virtually every news outlet on the proverbial boob tube had been purchased overnight by the Bush Administration.  The Administration was given carte blanche to spread its propaganda and those who dared to question the validity of his rhetoric or who went to far as to protest against the impending war crimes, were quickly and efficiently marginalized, given only the slightest amount of coverage and often challenged by the so called television journalists who were behaving more like Paul Josef Goebbels than Edward R. Murrow.  Truth was a rare commodity.  Outright lies were common place.   And that was / is dangerous.

Consider the following quote by Peter Finch (Howard Beale) from Network: 

"You people and sixty-two million other Americans are listening to me right now.  Because less than three percent of you people read books.  Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers.  Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube.  Right now, there is a whole, an entire, generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube.  This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation.   This tube can make or break Presidents, Popes, Prime Ministers.  This tube is the most awesome, god-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world and woe to us if it ever falls in the wrong hands...And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome, god-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network.  So you listen to me!  Television is not the truth!  Television is a god-damned amusement park.  Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, story tellers, dancers, singers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players.  We're in the boredom killing business.  So if you want the truth, go to your God, go to your gurus, go to yourselves, because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth.  But man, you're never gonna get any truth from us.   We'll tell you anything you want to hear.  We lie like hell..We'll tell you any shit you want to hear.  We deal in illusions, man.  None of it is true.  Buy you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds--we're all you know.  you're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here,  You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal.  You do whatever the tube tells you.  You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube.  You even think like the tube.  This is mass madness.  You maniacs.  in God's name, you people are the real thing, we are the illusion.  So turn off your television sets.  Turn them off right now.  Turn them off and leave them off.  Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I am speaking to you now.  Turn them off!" [7]

Is it any wonder the American people behaved like trained, Pavlovian dogs?  For all intents and purposes our corporate media had entered into a symbiotic relationship with the Bush Administration.   The Administration needed the media to spread its misleading propaganda.   The media didn't want to risk its reputation (read corporate advertisers)  by challenging a (then) popular president.  Moreover, the media recognized that fear and blood produce both, readers and viewers.   Succinctly stated, the media were perfectly willing to help the president spread his fabrications as long as the media benefited from an increase in advertising, readers, and viewers.   We needn't wonder why the American aren't as courageous as they once were.  Both, the media and the politicians have learned to play us like finely tuned violins.    How can you produce a populace which asks questions and refuses to be intimidated when the media and our political leaders are bound and determined to keep us in a perpetual state of fear?  How can we expect to live in a vibrant, democratic Republic with a respect for constitutional values when constitutional freedoms and liberties are routinely touted as threats to our very existence? 

In a very real sense, PraetorOne deals with this issue on a daily basis.  He was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when he was a child.  He's been testing his blood sugar and giving himself insulin injections ever since.   For those of you who aren't familiar with Type 1 Diabetes, it is a condition in which, for reasons unknown, the immune system attacks the insulin producing cells in the pancreas.  As a result Praetor tests himself and takes regular doses of insulin as often as six times a day.  Does he allow this condition to frighten him?  No.  Does he allow his condition to control his life?  Of course not. He does what he has to do.  He follows his doctor's instructions.  He watches his diet.  He exercises on a regular basis.  He does what he has to but he doesn't allow the diabetes to control his life.

Sadly the American people have developed a kind sociological diabetes. We're afraid of everything, and it serves our media and our politicians well.  We don't only take the practical steps required to survive.  We panic.  We stop living.  We give up civil liberties in exchange for liberty.  We refuse to investigate, to challenge what our leaders tell us.  We are content to allow our politicians, our televisions, our websites, and our books, magazines, and newspapers to do our thinking for us.   Couching this in terms of diabetes, that isn't taking the proper precautions.  That's locking yourself in your house, over-medicating, and starving yourself to death because you're afraid your diabetes will kill you! 

In a quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, we are told that a nation which gives up freedom for security will lose both and deserves neither. [8]  By the same token, Thomas Jefferson told us that you cannot sustain a democratic (small "d") form of government without an enlightened and educated citizenry.  [9]

They were good axioms to live by then and they are good axioms to live by today.   What else can one add, except perhaps that George Washington was a better roll model than George W. Bush?



SOURCES

[1]  From American Heritage.com
Forgotten but True:  Japan Attacks American Mainland
by Jack Kelly
June 21, 2007
Today's date:  14 September 2007
Copyright 2006 by American Heritage
http://www.americanheritage.com/places/articles/web/20070621-oregon-fort-stevens-world-war-II-I-25-submarine-fire-balloons-doolittle-raid.shtml

[2]  Ibid

[3]  Ibid

[4]  From NION:  Never in Our Names
More on the George Washington Quote
by Mister Helper
February 23 2007
Today's date, 14 September 2007
http://www.neverinournames.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=956

[5] NPR LEGAL AFFAIRS

Will Terrorism Rewrite the Laws on War?

by Alex Markels
September 7, 2007
Today's date, 14 September2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5011464


[6]  From Quotes I Found and Liked
Posted by Ritchie on July 31, 2007
Today's date, 14 September 2007
http://quotesquotes.blogspot.com/

[7[  From Greatest Films
Network (1976)
Review by Tim Dirks
Created in 1996-2007
Copyright by Tim Dirks
Today's date, 18 September 2007
http://www.filmsite.org/netw2.html


[8]  From  Helium:  Where Knowledge Rules
Will Our Society Be Safer With Decreased Liberties?
By Dean Schutt
Copyright 2007 by Helium
http://www.helium.com/tm/235175/little-securitythey-essential-liberty
Today's Date:  18 September 2007

[9] From Running on Empty
Thomas Jefferson's "Informed Citizenry"
Posted by Philip Waring
August 26, 2006
http://www.philipwaring.us/running_on_empty/2006/08/thomas_jefferso.html
Today's date, 18 September 2007





Noli nothis permittere te terere
Jolan Tru
PraetorOne and Donatra

THEY KEEP DEMANDING MORE

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/259406.htm

When I was a kid the Christian Right used to swear that it would be happy with a moment of silence in our public schools.   Then they wanted student led prayer.  Then they wanted prayers led by teachers.

When I was a kid the Christian right used to swear that it was primarily interested in stopping abortion, contraption seldom coming into the discussion.   Then they wanted to eliminate certain kinds of contraception because they believed those forms of contraception destroyed life at the moment of conception.  Now the truth has finally come out.  They want to eliminate contraception all together and force their sexual mores onto the entire population, namely celibate lifestyles until marriage.

This, of course is just another stab at an establishment of religion.  In a Christian Republic, or a theocracy if you will, the schools would be geared up to spread the Christian faith.  So of course they're going to take what they can get piece by incremental piece.  In a Fundamentalist Theocracy, gays and lesbians would become second class citizens--if not subjects of public execution--so of course the Fundamentalist have to begin by denying gays and lesbians employment, marriage, and adoption rights.  In a Fundamentalist theocracy women would be subservient to men, and to achieve that end the Fundamentalists want to take away a woman's right to control her own body and destiny.  They began with abortion.   They they expanded their demands to include certain forms of contraception.  Then they revealed their true colors, exclaimed that God wants us to live celibate lives until marriage, when in fact what they really mean, is "honey, back to the bad old days of knocked up, barefoot, and no control over your own body and destiny."   The fitly Fundamentalist bastards know that they can't effect an outright theocracy all at once because that really would violate the Constitution, so what they're trying to  impose the various beliefs of their Fundamentalist "Christianity" piecemeal on a nation of approximately 300 million people.   To which I ask, why should a maximum of 28 percent of the American people, of a particular group of one particular faith be allowed to impose ANY of its values on the nation as a whole?  

 

If they want to pray (some might say that they prey) let them do so in designated times and places as other extracurricular groups are required to do.  If they don't ant to use contraception they should get out their thermometers and hope to God the damned thing is properly calibrated.  If they want to be celibate they themselves know what is best for them and how they can best maintain their celibate lifestyles until marriage.  If they are offended by homosexuality they can stop snooping n what their gay or lesbian neighbors are doing and not engage in homosexual acts.   In other words, it's about time that these Pecksniffian  Puritans began to mind their own business and removed the motes from their own eyes.

 

Because I for one, am getting a little sick and tired of being told how to live, think, and behave by a vocal minority with the fanaticism of a Reverend Jim Jones and the collective IQ of a used condom.