"We Were Hosed"

Yellow Elephant, where were you? - Civilian Version

The cynical depths to which this postmodern presidency has descended has long ceased to shock or surprise me, but the extent to which pure propaganda has been it's first, second and third string option, and how well that has worked should probably trouble us a lot more than it does in our current depths of accommodation to the increasing awfulness of our current circumstances.

As it becomes clearer and clearer that every effort was indeed to reduce us - the American people - to a panicked dependency upon the good faith of our leaders, we are starting to realize that not only has our trust been abused, but the very institutions and mechanisms that ensure trust and our collective security have been deliberately subverted and those who dedicated their lives and honor to those institutions have themselves been duped and betrayed.

The shocking part of this story is not so much the manipulation of the media by the Pentagon, but the despicable and duplicitous use of it's own to manufacture trust out of the fabric of their own credibility and conviction. They spoke - in the main, I hope - sincerely enough. Retired military members remain in touch, but of course are not current and they can be reliably expected to assume conditions and assumptions about standard doctrines and procedure that clearly turned out to be incorrect.

The use of partisan hot-buttons and the peddling of panic over threats that are, objectively speaking, routinely and quietly managed by other nations without subverting their own internal stability tends to lead one to the more or less reluctant conclusion that the currently shrill and divisive partisan climate is exactly what our would-be lords and masters desire.

George Bush was quite correct when he stood on that aircraft carrier and stated "Mission Accomplished."

The misson was not Iraq, saddam, or "tur'ism."

The mission was to scare the smart out of the American people, and we have been stuck on stupid for some time now. In order to succeed in that effort they have managed to scare, stupify, co-opt or otherwise utilize a lot of people who - had they been a little more cynical, a little less trusting of Authority they had been trained to believe actually is acting in the interest of and within the boundaries of The Constitution - would have been less willing to collaborate.

But, then, they were trained to expect that trust in order to do a job that requires such a level of trust.

If a military man is given what is termed "Actionable Intelligence," they may or may not take it with a grain of salt, but they would never assume that the intelligence itself was selected, slanted, doctored or even completely fabricated.

Beginning with the buildup to the Iraq War, the Bush administration created this "media Trojan horse" to counter any and all criticism. At times, they manipulated the networks' own military experts, spoon-feeding them talking points on everything from Iraq to Rumsfeld's handling of the war to Guantanamo. Here's a quote from the Times:

"Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some of it by the networks’ own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: 'I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena.'"

Because of course it's not the body armor that matters - it's the PERCEPTION of body armor that's critical to administration planning.

As the video reveals, at least one former "military expert" is using blunt words indeed to describe the depth of betrayal that he feels.

Nor is he alone among current and former military personnel who are increasingly upset at the squandering of morale, military fitness and equipment for no obvious strategic or tactical gain.

It only really makes sense if the objective of "the mission" is to subvert the military itself and either turn it into the direct arm of an oppressive state, or render it unfit to oppose the emergent "private" military organizations. Groups such as Blackwater, with their ties both to powerful corporate energy interests and via those ties, the Bush Clan, have gained greatly in both funds and operational experience at taxpayer expense, without even having to pay lip-service to concepts such as "duty, honor or country," much less Geneva conventions, international law or that "Scrap of Paper," the Constitution.

I doubt that there has been any great outbreak of flaming liberalism within the military, so whatever the "official response is," one seriously doubts that military criticism of the emergent results of the "Project For a New American Century" is due to any wide indulgence in socialist thought, marijuana or even "squeamish" Liberal concern for the consequences of war upon the unfortunate. The military - and most properly so - is concerned with the integrity and survival of the Military itself, and struggling to come to terms with a situation in which the entire doctrine of civilian control of military force is - or should be - questioned.

That is to say, what is the proper response when the civilian leadership is clearly unfit, clearly corrupt, clearly incompetent or worse yet, hostile, and increasingly in direct command of alternate force options who are loyal to none but their paymasters? These are circumstances that try men's souls; that make them question the very foundations of their duty and their loyalties. If the military cannot trust the current leadership, to whom may it turn? This becomes even more complex when one realizes that the loyalties of ranking military leaders themselves may be open to substantial question under the circumstances.

Had I wished to create the circumstances, military, social and economic wherein I could declare a civil war and prosecute it against the elements of the Citizenry I considered "disloyal," "surplus" or "unreliable" - well, I'd have acted fairly much exactly as the Bush Administration has done. It generally takes the commitment of about 30 percent of a population to succeed in such an aim, given the current advantages the Bushistas have, and they may, I repeat, may, have achieved that state of affairs by polarizing the politics of the nation around the war and a number of other issues, to a state wherein the irrational hatreds of the fringes are no longer confined to the fringes.

If I'd wanted to commit an act of aggression in order to secure a reliable energy supply and control the crossroads of the middle east - I do believe that would have been possible, if prosecuted both ruthlessly and with the best military and civilian intelligence available, in both senses of the word. It would have been wrong, and it would have been the exact wrong the Left assumes that the Bushes intended - but I do not believe the failure is entirely due to mis-management. Rather, the placement of the mismanagers was as precise and deliberate as the seeding of landmines, or the spraying of chemical agents to degrade the effectiveness of "the enemy."

I do believe that if I'd wanted Bin Ladin hanging from a gibbet at Ground Zero as the proper result of a fair and public trial, I could have achieved that with the available might of the United States coupled with the enthusiastic co-operation of the world.

But despite the expenditure of irreplaceable faith, credit, blood, innocence, lives and the economic security of nearly every citizen of these united states, no such result is evident. This leads to the conclusion that such a result is a matter of policy - or at least, that it would be wise to operate under that assumption that Bin Ladin is either directly or effectively on the same side as Bush.

"Three times is enemy action."

If that is true, what does three to the power of three suggest to you? I don't doubt that the sheer number of deceptions, lies and subversions would be far from that particular mark.

They have met the enemy, and it is us. Your politics are irrelevant. Left, right or middle of the road, when was the last time anything happened that even resembled a result you could reasonably expect based on your understanding of the issues as they were represented to you?

The disconnection between words and deeds is stark and quite obviously independent of the stated politics and agendas of the majority of persons in Washington.

It may well be that your vote will be made irrelevant. It may well be that the existence of the United States as a Constitutional Republic as we have known it is in question. Strike that. It most certainly is in question - the only question is whether that question will be resolved by a peaceful and legitimate political process.

The other question, of course, is where you stand, where your real interests lie; Bush, or your family, friends and neighbors.

It all boils down to ethics, and each of us choosing to act from our most basic understanding of justice, duty, honor and, yes, righteousness.

Love it or Leave it Camo Tee

Nukes Preplaced, not misallocated.

Smirking Chimp: "Nobody should fall for a story that those six (yeah, it was first reported as five, but now the original military whistleblowers have told Army Times it was six) nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that were flown in launch position on a B-52 from Minot, ND to Barksdale, LA, were put on there inadvertently."

The author speaks authoritatively why it could not possibly be a mistake. So why WERE six nukes flown to Barksdale AFB LA to join the other B52's already pre-positioned there for possible
middle-east missions? Oh, yeah, and what were the other B-52's loaded with when THEY arrived?

Let's go to the horse's mouth:

Barksdale Air Force Base, La. Home to the 2nd Bomb Wing and the Mighty 8th Air Force, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana is situated on over 22,000 acres of land in the NW corner of Louisiana. Barksdale warriors and B-52s have a proud tradition serving both at home and abroad in support of the Global War on Terrorism; they have played vital roles in combat operations supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Air Combat Command Mission

Air Combat Command is the primary force provider of combat airpower to America's warfighting commands. To support global implementation of national security strategy, ACC operates fighter, bomber, reconnaissance, battle-management and electronic-combat aircraft. It also provides command, control, communications and intelligence systems, and conducts global information operations.As a force provider, ACC organizes, trains, equips and maintains combat-ready forces for rapid deployment and employment while ensuring strategic air defense forces are ready to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime air defense. ACC numbered air forces provide the air component to U.S. Central and Southern Commands with Headquarters ACC serving as the air component to U.S. Northern and Joint Forces Commands. ACC also augments forces to U.S. European, Pacific and Strategic Commands.

And in a serendipitous discovery, we learn that the 8th Air Force has an odd taste in heroes:

Barksdale AFB welcomes WWII pilot

BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. -- Joachim Hoehne, author of Glory Refused...The memoirs of a Teenage Rocket Pilot of the Third Reich, was the guest speaker for the local Claire Chennault Flight of the Order of Daedalians meeting Aug. 16 at the Barksdale Club.

But then, if and when the 2nd Bomber Wing of the 8th Air Force launches a first strike nuclear attack on - one supposes - Iran, they WILL "just be following orders," so perhaps that provides some insight as to why a former bomber-interceptor pilot would be addressing our Air Force Heroes.

After all, they were so woefully disappointed in their choice of inspirational religious leader, Ted Haggard, who's church was a stone's throw from the Air Force Acadamy. Who now will they turn to for a stiffening of resolve as they face the potential of being sent to rain hell upon the ungodly in their great Crusade (Bush's unfortunate choice of words) against the Terrorist State of Iran? Who might best personify the dutiful air-warrior, than a former ME-163 crotch rocketeer?

read more | digg story

tag: Air Force, Nuclear Weapons, Cruise Missiles, Fallout

Paul Craig Roberts sounds the alarm

WASHINGTON, July 20 (RIA Novosti) - A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year.

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, blasted Thursday a new Executive Order, released July 17, allowing the White House to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies and giving the government expanded police powers to exercise control in the country.

Roberts, who spoke on the Thom Hartmann radio program, said: "When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order], there's no check to it. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule."

"The American people don't really understand the danger that they face," Roberts said, adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party.

I think it's time to start thinking about the possibility that we are in a Civil War, and it's being prosecuted against the American People by their government - or at least, keep that possibility in the back of your mind.

In practical terms, you might wish to consider converting some of your assets into a portable form, such as gold, investment diamonds or bearer bonds. From now on, I would suggest assuming that your conversations are probably monitored, if you are the sort of person who has a reasonable belief they pose a political threat to the Government.

Meanwhile, I think it's about time for us to start reaching out to our state and local governments to see if they are as alarmed as we are, and if not, why not.

"The Wizard of Is"

Alberto Gonzolez, or at least a spokesperson, has snatched the title of "Wizard of Is" from Bill Clinton's willing hands.

Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations - washingtonpost.com Annotated

The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March.

[D]epartment spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that when Gonzales testified, he was speaking "in the context" of reports by the department's inspector general before this year that found no misconduct or specific civil liberties abuses related to the Patriot Act.

Riiiiiiiight. And Gonzalez cannot be proven to have read any of these documents which must have landed on his desk.

So we are left with the choice as to whether Gonzolez is a legal and managerial incompetent or a partisan perjurer. But then, he's a Bush Appointee, there's no reason why he can't be both.

But some might wonder what motive Gonzolez might have had to conceal the truth from Congress.

Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the nonpartisan Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "I think these documents raise some very serious questions about how much the attorney general knew about the FBI's misuse of surveillance powers and when he knew it." A lawsuit by Hofmann's group seeking internal FBI documents about NSLs prompted the release of the reports.

Caroline Fredrickson, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the new documents raise questions about whether Gonzales misled Congress at a moment when lawmakers were poised to renew the Patriot Act and keenly sought assurances that there were no abuses. "It was extremely important," she said of Gonzales's 2005 testimony. "The attorney general said there are no problems with the Patriot Act, and there was no counterevidence at the time."

I suggest that Congress require a higher standard of proof from Administration officials from this point on. If they cannot establish their veracity, Congress should assume they are lying.

Let's take Viral Reality into the so called Real World.

Things Your Media Momma Didn't Tell You - Free Market News Network

The fact that most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and want the president impeached, is testimony to the native intelligence and common sense of the citizens of this nation.

It sure isn't thanks to the quality of the news we're getting here in America.!

Here are some of the things you don't know if you just depend on the corporate media for your information:

The author, Dave Lindorff goes on to bullet point ten critical stories you never heard about from the mainstream media. YOU probably know about one or more, but your neighbor probably does NOT know about any of them. Go read them for yourself and then forward this link to every friend you have. Why this link? Well, because I have some terribly subversive ideas.

Now that you know about this, you see, as either a Citizen of the United States or as someone with a legitimate concern about what sort of threat this nation could become in the hands of an overt dictatorship, you have an affirmative duty to do something. Therefore, the question, "but what can I do" arises.

The thing that needs to be done is to get these truths off the net and into the wild, bypassing corporate, mainstream media. It could be as simple as printing out a hundred copies of the original story and pinning it to every bulletin board in town, or stuffing a copy under the door of every neighbor in your apartment complex.

You could do something as simple as wearing a T-Shirt, and being willing and able to answer the questions it provokes. To help with that, you could print out business or index cards with the URLS of reliable news sources on the web. (You might tape said cards to libarary terminals and leave bunches at your local cybercafe.) It's good to wear any relevant T-Shirt, but it's better to make your own for this issue.

Why? Because that's a sneaky way of getting the message out there. The MORE t-shirts out there with the same general keywords, and the more services they appear on, the better. You are addressing a whole group of people online who may not think much about politics in the ordinary run - but if an idea hits the front page of a T-shrt site, some small fraction of them WILL start thinking about it.

The same statistical approach applies to wearing that shirt. Hundreds of people will see it if you live, work and play in an urban area; perhaps even more. And, should you be somehow harassed in a newsworthy way for wearing it, that's pure gold - something like that probably WILL be covered in local and even national media.

You could go to zazzle.com, (link to my store) create a postcard or note-card with all the information you'd like, order ten or so, and start passing them out or mailing them to friends. Each one would have the url so that people could buy more to pass out or send to all the snail-mail addresses they have. (I'll add an example later - but if you have any artistic or writing talent, you should create your own. Once you have, please blog about it and link back to this article)

I've got a small selection of free-for-use images you could grab right away and use to make shirts and I'll be putting together a few more. and linking to them here. The one you see here links to the set and, just incidentally, works pretty well for items like buttons and cards.

If you like, you can find it at my zazzle store.

Misleader in Red by webcarve

Get this custom button at Zazzle

As you can see, it overlays really well, and will probably work a lot better using a grainy, low-contrast image of your own choosing.

Ron Paul candidicy alleged to be a Democratic Plot.

Ron Paul's determined and surprisingly well-received candidacy is confusing the hell out of the pundits of politics as usual, both left and right. He's showing tremendous appeal with youth audiences, and I'm looking forward to seeing him (again) on The Daily Show.

The funniest remark on the YouTube page featuring Ron Paul on Bill Maher's show was this:

enginedave (12 hours ago) marked as spam

Nope, no identity change here. No, I'm not here to hurl epithets. I just can't understand this Ron Paul thing. I can't buy all these young folks for Paul. Kids are USUALLY liberal. Except for a scant few that have minds of their own. So I can't come to any other conclusion than this being a democrat strategy. Except, of course, for the scant few tried and trues... Just my opine.

Maybe young people prefer bullshit-free leadership that respects it's proper constitutional limitations and role. Perhaps they consider that far more important than any particular political philosophy. Perhaps promises of what a leader WILL NOT do are more important than probably empty and disingenuous promises of what they will do. And, just perhaps, he's credible.

tag: Ron Paul, liberty, libertarian, Bill Maher

Since It's Memorial Day...

I SWEAR
by
webcarve

Get this custom hat at Zazzle

This Memorial Day, remember the Constitution, and the flag for which it stands. Then TAKE a stand - before the first disappears and the second becomes mere patriotic bunting.

Ashcroftgate 2004: Explained Fully On the Daily Show

The frightening thing here is that this incident actually makes John Ashcroft look principled by comparison.

"The Usual Hiring Practices"

Another phony crony is revealed;

The former head of the federal agency overseeing family planning programs misled the public about his qualifications and background, a RAW STORY investigation has found.

Appointed by President George W. Bush in late 2006 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Eric J. Keroack resigned unexpectedly in March of this year after Massachusetts officials launched a formal investigation into allegations of Medicaid fraud during his tenure in private practice.

The Raw Story | Heckuva job? Bush Administration vaunted bogus credentials for birth control czar, records show

Another HHS spokesperson, Rebecca Ayer, said that HHS had never had an official biography for Dr. Keroack, but provided assurances that he had gone through the “standard hiring process.”

Saying she could not comment further on personnel issues due to the Privacy Act, Ayer suggested this reporter file a Freedom of Information Request.

...

Though he has no formal research credentials, Dr. Keroack has lectured widely from a PowerPoint presentation that uses Loony Tunes characters to illustrate his theory that premarital sex damages the female brain, making non-abstinent women incapable of forming emotional bonds. [emphasis mine]

Keroack’s highly unorthodox medical views had originally cast doubt on his qualifications to serve as the nation’s birth control czar. His appointment did not require confirmation from Congress

So this is what the "usual hiring practice" results in - someone who LOOKS competent on paper (if you squint, and nobody investigate) AND who nonetheless holds views the Bush Administration likes. They probably had difficulty getting even palioconservative OBGYN's to sign off on some of the bizarre ideas they have. This is what happens when politicized Evangelical Christians try to govern in the face of reality.

tag: Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Eric J. Keroack, Dominionism, ethics, reality,

Chickenhawk excuses.

"I'm fighting the cultural war. Both need to be fought and both need to be won by Conservatives."

What an astonishingly stupid thing to say. What the hell would a "Conservative Victory" in IRAQ look like? Seems to me it would involve the disenfranchising of women, the suppression of religious and political dissent, a government unwilling to consider evidence that "contradicts scripture"... Or in other words, a "Conservative Victory" seems a hell of a lot like turning over the keys to the Taliban and doing the Baghdad boogie all the way home.

Idiot.

Of course, that's exactly what a "Conservative Victory" in the "Culture War" would look like, so why don't we all just convert to Islam and get it over with?

"I'm fighting the "Cultural War." You gutless no-neck twerp, you who wish you HAD the guts to be a pansy, you phony, with your GI haircut and 'tude - I have these words for you.

Suddenly Seymour Hersh

In reference to Seymour M. Hersh's New Yorker article, "The Redirection." Tom Engelhardt wonders where the media reaction is to something that looks like Iran-Contra, seems as naive and inept as Iran-Contra and likely to create far more problems than Iran-Contra ever did.

TomDispatch: The Seymour Hersh Mystery


"Iran-Contra alumni in the Bush administration at one time or another included former Reagan National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Otto Reich, John Negroponte (who, Hersh claims, recently left his post as Director of National Intelligence in order to avoid the twenty-first century version of Iran-Contra -- "No way. I'm not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. [National Security Council] running operations off the books, with no [presidential] finding."),"

Negroponte - that old cold warrier and worse - scared of blowback from a repeat of his "glory days?" What the hell does he know that Hersh has NOT found out? And dare we wait to know?

"In this country, it's a no-brainer that the Iranians have no right whatsoever to put their people, overtly or covertly, into neighboring Iraq, a country which, back in the 1980s, invaded Iran and fought a bitter eight-year war with it, resulting in perhaps a million casualties; but it's just normal behavior for the Pentagon to have traveled halfway across the planet to dominate the Iraqi military, garrison Iraq with a string of vast permanent bases, build the largest embassy on the planet in Baghdad's Green Zone, and send special-operations teams (and undoubtedly CIA teams as well) across the Iranian border, or to insert them in Iran to do 'reconnaissance' or even to foment unrest among its minorities. This is the definition of an imperial worldview."

Hersh's story amounts to this - there is a huge, complicated and frankly idiotic "black" operation run out of the Vice President's office with "black" funds (possibly stolen Iraqi oil dollars) to engineer a Sunni-Shia rift, civil war within Iran and God only knows what else. And they apparently think they can ride this whirlwind!

It seems like we here in the US are living on the wrong side of Mordor's gate.

tag: Seymour Hersh, Sunni, Shia, Iran, Iraq, Negroponte, Iran-Contra, National Security Council. Dick Cheney,

From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Stupidity

I've been around the block a few times, advocating for ethical outcomes and reality-based approaches to the world and it's problems for years and years now.

The more I go 'round and round the issues, the more I realize that for whatever form of understanding or tolerance I advocate - be it autistic persons, be it multiple personalities, be it survivors of sexual and/or religious abuse, the same sort of people, probably a lot OF the same people, are the ones screaming and gibbering that it's lies, all lies! And It's an Evil Plot to Seduce our Children and Pollute our Precious Bodily Fluids to boot. Any delusions of being different - multiple personality, homosexuality, persistent, corrosive expressions of individuality and social justice such as feminism, liberalism or ecological consciousness will All Go Away when you take a Magic Jesus Pill and submit to the Correction of Proper Authorities.

Really. Just ask Ted Haggard and Oral Roberts! (Both are more than willing to sell you the Magic Jesus Pills they didn't personally need in their Miraculous Recoveries from Sin.)

Not to put too fine a point on it, the people who are out there on the other side, against all forms of choice, all forms of individual expressions that don't involve praising a plastic glow-in-the-dark god onna stick idol, that don't involve white, heteronormative authoritarian submission to Duly Constituted Authority are some of the most willfully ignorant, morally bankrupt and hypocritical mouth-breathing morons I have ever had the pleasure to cluebyfour.

I have passed many, many pleasant hours fighting in my way for individual liberties, freedom of expression, personal dignity and the mutual respect, tolerance and common decency required of any free and civilized society.

In doing so, I've tried to grit my teeth and be respectful of views and beliefs that cannot thrive in the presence of critical thought or evidence, but I can no longer muster any tolerance for the increasingly obvious fear and hatred this roughly 30% of the electorate represents.

As FDR said, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." He was right - fear is the handmaiden of fascism and theocracy.

The unreasoning xenophobia and the very real possibility of violence from the right toward everyone who's views or indeed, existence contradicts their hateful, thoughtless ideologies and demented dogmas has caused many - including myself - to be over-cautious about calling them on their shit.

No more. The marketers of fear, these panderers of panic must be forced to partake of the poison they have peddled. They are either willfully evil, or so blind to the evil of their cheerleaders and exploiters that there can be no useful distinction. Either way, we must no longer harbor them within the "big tents" of our political and social compacts - we must reclaim our school boards, our state houses and our congress from those stupid enough to think either that "The Bible Says It, I believe it, That Settles It" or "I'm right because I'm Right."

It's not a conflict between respectable and debatable political viewpoints - it's really and genuinely now a matter of informed concience and reason in opposition to willful stupidity and the evil that festers in it's presence.

We have reaped the whirlwind by respecting the mindless idolotry of the unforgiving Strict Father ideal as a legitimate, defensable viewpoint compatable with our Constitution and the unabashedly Liberal values of our forebears. The mainstream churches have been complicit in their unwillingness to condemn it for the evil that it is, whether or not it claims the privilege of faith, though knowing well for themselves of permitting any church any degree of temporal power.

Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to trigger Armageddon just so they can meet Jesus while enjoying and mocking the suffering of the "unsaved" from a safe vantage-point needs to be gently restrained from any weapons of destruction available to them - and if this is intuitively true of a ranting street preacher waving a bent butter knife, it's even more true of someone with access to nuclear release codes.

If your religion calls for you to destroy the world, or even to rule it in the name of "cleansing it for Christ's Return", I'm unwilling to sacrifice my own selfish survival in the name of tolerating your "diversity."

Neither Civilization nor the Constitution are a suicide pact. As much as I believe in diversity, no ethical system or social compact that permits the extinction of it's supporters in wholesale lots is very useful. (cc: Moderate Islam - you got some shit to deal with too. And yes, I do consider all Radical religious movements to be as literally and figuratively as unclean as a dog deep-fried in pork-fat with a sauce of caramelized camel feces.)

As it happens, I am Christian in essentials of my faith, but I've long since abandoned it as a religion, because in it's myriad manifestations it has long since proven to be more of a disease than a cure. Far from being empowering of individual conscience, it has become the enemy of progress and justice, at times straying from callus indifference and abuse into outright lunacy.

My nature is to be concerned about justice, to look toward the facts, apply critical reasoning skills and then form an opinion, and I hold my faith and beliefs to the same tests. If a person I respect and who I know to have a well-informed opinion suggests a direction, I'm willing enough to explore it - but even so, I ask myself, Quo Bono? (Who Benefits - that I should believe this?) And, while I'm tolerant enough to let a tree grow and manifest it's fruit, if the fruit is bitter - that tree is firewood.

Speaking of faggots and firewood, It was Ann Coulter who brought this into focus for me. (Via Media Matters.)

COULTER: Right, and I suspect everyone listening to your show knows about that. I mean, I know -- well, I guess Pat is out in America now; you're primarily in New York City. I give a lot of speeches out in America, I frequently visit America, and Americans are pretty freaked out about somebody going to rehab for using a word, and that's of course what I was referring to. And I don't think there's anything offensive about any variation of faggy, faggotry, faggot, fag. It's a schoolyard taunt. It means -- it means wussy. It means, you know, Hillary giving a speech in a fake Southern drawl -- that's faggy. A trial lawyer who weeps before juries is faggy. Lifetime-type TV, faggy. Everyone understood I was not literally calling -- well, I was not calling -- well, for one thing, I wasn't calling John Edwards anything. That was the whole point. I couldn't talk about him, his life's work, his appeasement policies, his wimpiness on foreign policy, because that word is out of bounds. So, in point of fact, I called John Edwards nothing. I said I couldn't even discuss him because using any variation of that totally excellent word would send me into rehab.

Bullshit. A fucking unbelievable bit of utter twaddle unworthy of a fourth-grader, much less a veteran public speaker. Her "explanation" might possibly serve as barely plausible deniablity; enough to muddy the waters enough to keep her out of the civil dock, but what she meant to say was quite clear.

In point of fact, the only people who "think" (so to speak) that "faggot" is not a viciously offensive word is those who like using it to offend, but dislike suffering the appropriate consequences for offensive speech.

I've heard the very same excuse many times before - in excusing "coon" jokes, in regards to "physical humor" that involved pain and or humiliation for those judged worthy targets of "schoolyard taunts."

It's emblematic of Coulter that, when called on this, her response is, essentially "Can't you take a joke?"

Not if I don't have to, Ann.

Would Ms. Coulter like me to come up to her in public, grab her crotch and laughingly report my findings? After all, many people suggest she's not really female in an equally juvenile attack on her person.

Hey, if I did that in front of the right audience, LOTS of people would bust their asses laughing. Does that make it a joke, or an act of vicious humiliation? Targeting Ms. Coulter as a transsexual or transgendered person in order to discredit her is as elementally unethical as calling someone "gay" in order to ignore what they have to say about something you don't want other folks to consider. No, let's take it a step further; it's evil; it amounts to "bearing false witness" in order to gain an unfair judgment in the court of public opinion.

Anyway, As a person subject to such attacks from lefties who should know better, she has no excuse. We all know what she meant by "Faggot." She meant either actually gay, or "less than manly" in some other, equally derisive sense, and she did this in order to avoid saying anything accurate or actually funny about Edwards.

Why? Because there isn't anything valid she can say about him that her audience would appreciate hearing. In the Republican mindset, you cannot address actual policy or positions of your opponents even to disagree with them.

This is in part due to the utter incapacity of the average brain-dead Bushite to recognize a valid argument if it had teeth clamped on their most personal parts. But it's more due to the fact that the Republican leadership and providers of Cultural Conservative talking points believe the very same thing about their own rank and file.

"You can't HANDLE the truth."

Of course, that leads directly to the present situation.

You can be well-informed in matters of politics, conscience and current affairs, or you can be a Republican.

You can honor the words of Jesus who told us to feed the poor and clothe the widow and the orphan - or you can be a Conservative Christian.

If this is what Conservatism and Christianity has become, then I'll join with anyone willing to banish both to the snake-handling hinterlands. Even "godless liberals."




tag: Hate Speech, Hate Radio, tyrrany, opression, Christianity, antiauthoritarian, Red Letter Christians, Religious Fundimentalism, Clash of Cultures, patriarchy, armageddon, Impeach the President, miserable failure, George W. Bush, Neocons, ann coulter

The irony is palpable.

The Raw Story | US refuses to join UN rights council

The United States will not seek a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, senior officials said Tuesday, asserting the body had lost its credibility with repeated attacks on Israel and a failure to confront other rights abusers

...such as...

War Planning for Bushes

Spam comment bumped! It was way too much fun, and there's quite a few useful tools, including a blog-header generator and an rss chicklet maker. So this way I both discourage spam and give credit where credit is due.

BTW, that li'l chicklet links to our rss feed, so feel free to click on it!.

Try making a "Dummies" book Cover yourself!

tag: fun, online text to graphics, free graphics tools, free image tools, free blog tools, blog graphics