The OTHER Terrorist act

Yes, What about the anthrax?

Well, yes, its about damn time. The terrorist attack which did come after 9/11. How quickly we forget, especially when the media and our leader-in-thief keep omitting that this ever happened. Amuricans, who have the attenion span of gnats, have asked not one question about or puzzled over the repeated omission of the anthrax attacks.

But the widow did not. Its been 5 years since her husband died and still she has no answers. Expect tumbles and twists to rival Cirque de Soliel as the guvmint covers again to get out of this one!

As a reminder, here's my previous post about the sitch.

Yes to a Church of the US

When debating whether or not we should have a state church I say let 'em have it. Chances are, if we follow the trends of other western countries, within a few decades the church will be in decline and its influence will fade, giving us back our liberty and making more civil progress.

So have at it. Hail Mary and hang on. The sooner the better for the generations to come.

Immigration- the new Willie Horton

So its election year again and the Republicans are fanning the flames of xenophobia, homophobia, and brown-ophobia. But they have found a way to get a two-fer.

This year's Willie Horton is immigration. Its been an issue for YEARS, and yet now they are trying to do somehting about it. But as the immigration amnesty of 1986 did not work or have lasting effect neither will anything they do now.

Unless we include workers in NAFTA and CAFTA agreements. Open the borders, give folks permanent residency and let market demand take care of things.

But meanwhile, the R's and some D's damn it are using this issue to talk about safety and security of the US. The only way to do this is to register everyone north and south and here. If the local bar can scan a drivers license to detect an underage drinker, then we can do this with border crossings without too much bother. Really. Track everyone with their knowledge they are being tracked.

Hint: open borders are working quite well in the European Union.

How about the Union of the Americas?

But why are we not seeing white folks who are illegally here protesting and such? I mean there are alot of Irish and Russia illegals here, too. Hmm Maybe they are not Horton enough to give us the willies?

Becoming that which you are against

I have long thought and spoken about the irony of becoming what one is against.

For example, Eco-terrorism sprung from a fanatical desire to preserve ecosystems. Problem is that eco-terrorism results in damage to the system and to humans, too. Mothers Against Drunk Driving...there are a few members who were caught driving drunk, we still have drunk drivers on the road and little to nothing has been done about the causes of drunk driving. Because whatever would the well-heeled, part-of-the-political- landscape national organization do if there weren't drunk drivers? If there weren't drunk drivers there would be no MADD, so in order to exist, MADD must have drunk drivers. In order to have a war on drugs we must have drugs. In order to be right someone has to be wrong.

Which leads to perhaps an understanding of why the US is where it is today. We have become that which we were against and now find ourselves as the new wrong in international terms.

We were most defined when we were against communism, i.e. Russia. They were at one philosophical end and we were at the other. They were the ying to our yang, the spice to our sugar. They had little freedom, we lauded ours even when it hurt us. We had political discourse, because they had none. We had ethics and review systems because we viewed them as steeped in chrony-ism and black market activity. We particularly had religious freedom and even regarded the freedom to not hold to a religion, because that too was preferred to forbidding choice on religious beliefs.

With them out there, we knew who we were, what lines we could not cross for fear of becoming them. They as the penultimate political evil were our balaste which kept us in place. And visa versa.

But without them, we are drifting and moving closer to where they used to occupy the continuum.

Our current enemy is slippery in defining what to be against. Much of what they believe we also believe. Much of what they hold as canon, we also find in our texts. Paradoxically, if we accept that our enemies are hyper-religious folk who long to die for the cause and laud those who do, who are we in our beliefs? Do we, in comparison appear not as religious? Are we perhaps on the soft end of a new continuum?

And therefore is it not those who do not worship, or stand in question of strict religious dogma who are weakening us?

The confusion and heave to the right might just be the fight to deny the need to be against religious fanatics. If we are to be against them then we would have to be at the other end of the continuum, which would be....no religion.

So in order to determine an us/them right/wrong, we step onto shaky ground with hair's breadth distinctions on morality, virtue, and one faith vs another. Many denominations of faith spring from adherence to one interpretation of one verse among thousands of others. And this is when the political pie or ground to gain becomes so small, the battles result in more intensity, more blood shed and more rigidity.

What we are fighting to gain is moral ground and in a war over religion, war is the deadly virtue.

If we get back to the idea that there is a right and therefore a wrong, something clearly to be against, but we see we are not polar opposites in this religious war, we then are now them.

Otis and George

So reading the paper this morning, I was perusing the reports of our fair state's primary held last Tuesday. Yes I already knew the results, but no one scantily covers the news like the Plain Dealer. Its a style like no other. Pages and pages on gubernatorial candidate Blackwell and his end-times supporters, some on his opponent, Democratic hopeful Strickland and just very very little on Bob Ney, running for Congress under a growing cloud of bribery and improprieties.

So I turn to the internet for more in-depth and diverse sources of news. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a quote from Bush, given to the German paper, Bild am Sonntag. Mind you, the U.S. press has asked him if he made any mistakes. He said none that he could remember. He has been president for 5 long years, during which time, he has overseen 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, little to no opposition to flawed proposals and executions of policy, a rising debt, a declining economy, weakened foreign influence and prestige. I am sure he believes he has done things to be proud of. I mean, he is the President. It does avail one of fantastic opportunities. But when Sonntag's reporter asked him what he most proud of in those 5 years, his response? His proudest moment was catching a 7.5 pound perch in his lake on his ranch. Which coincidentally, does not take being president to do. And it speaks not to his prowess but the fish's happening upon his bait at the right time. I mean that's why they call it fishing-not catching.

But it could speak truth to his world view. He doesn't have one. It could speak truth to his understanding of his place in the world. He doesn't get it. It could speak truth to what he should be doing instead of being president. Sittin' on the dock of the bay, wasting' time.

Just When is Religion a Bad Thing?

Well, let's see...

When it creates a superior class or group of people. Why? Because it therefore makes everyone else inferior. Why is this bad? Because it establishes a position of domination over others. Why is this bad? Because not one of us should be in dominion over others as we all are capable of corruption, abuse, and deceit. Dominion implies scarcity and that means that at some point it is inevitable might well be seen as right.

When it encourages, nay, institutionalizes hate for those who are different.










When it makes heretical thought or consideration of change.

How much more powerful it is to say I choose to act beneficially on my and your behalf than to say some mythological construct I believe in says to-otherwise suffering some to-be-determined penalities.

Ah, the parallels...We'll drop the Bomb and then apologize..or maybe not even! yeah That's right

Duck and Cover

"Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff." from Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

My First Amendment Hero

Harry Taylor

I wonder when there will be swift boating of the poor fellow?

Penn and Teller 'nuff said

shout out to bacon eating atheist jew! click here for link to Penn and Teller's Bible is Crapola