idiots

This is what Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior United States commander in the Middle East, has to say about the "terrorist" (read oil) wars there: More troops will not solve the problem, but only increase it..."I think our structures for 21st-century security challenges need to adapt to this type of an enemy...The 21st century really requires that we figure out how to get economic, diplomatic, political and military elements of power synchronized and coordinated against specific problems wherever they exist.”

The same NY Times front page has Bush once again foaming at the mouth about increasing the number of troops in the U.S. military, and a number of quotes from other high power idiots insisting on sending more American troops over. This list includes "responsible" Democratic leaders. All in the confort of their offices, or some other site where these creeps spend their time talking to "journalists"...meanwhile, the poor, misguided men and woman already over in that hell continue to be killed (or to go on savage killing and/or torture binges that further engulf the image and reputation of the U.S. in deep and lasting disgrace)...

Idiots.

Hay que joderse.

reflections on a grey day

A great chasm, a profound emptiness resides within each one of us. It is an unfathomable void that must be addressed in some way. The one truly universal challenge we all must face – the creation of ourselves. Yet authentically facing up to this fearful task seems to lie beyond our capacities. It produces dread, fear, angst and severe insecurity – all of which must be overcome in some way in order to function in this life.

How we cope with this task is the great determiner of our personality, of who we are. The huge majority among us are led away from our true condition by early childhood socialization and education. We are taught roles; we are shown the molds within which we must operate. The world around us is defined according to the particular social environment we live in. We are offered the relatively easy escape of simply connecting the dots of a life that has been pre-drawn for us. We come to accept simplified codes of behavior, all clearly defined. We identify ourselves within the matrix of these codes. We are a son, a daughter, a student, a high achiever, a hard worker, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a father or mother, an employee, an American or Spaniard or Russian or Chinese…a Christian or Muslim or Jew or Hindu, a citizen, a consumer or person of business. All of these roles fill the chasm, or at least construct an internal edifice that serves to block it out of consciousness.

All of these roles, of course, require a kind of faith, an unquestioned acceptance of the qualities and characteristics of each particular role. Opening them to question not only undermines their psychological and social value, but can also seriously threaten the security of others employing the same roles if such open reflection is externalized.

Thus do the great majority of us avoid authentically confronting our greatest challenge as conscious beings. And thus does the mass of humanity continue blinding itself to our one truly universal condition – thereby creating divisions, clashes, fear and distrust of the other, hatred, war…

broken bread 

Love

I must admit to having become quite uncomfortable with the word "love".

I know...that sounds terrible.

This is not some sort of bitter response to love sickness, rejection or heartache. As in, "I'll never fall in love again", or some such thing.

This is simply a product of experience and reflection.

Romantic love...ahh!...that devious manipulator of the will, so skillful at cloaking the effects of boiling hormones into poetry...

...clearly, this kind of "love" is much closer to hatred than any kind of "friendship".

In fact, "love" does not reside in the same house as friendship...unless we re-define the word into something along the lines of "very close friendship"...which, in the end, is "friendship", not heart-bedecked "love"...

Then we have the purveyors of various faiths equating their respective gods with "love"...or shall we write "Love"...as in "God is Love"...

That certainly sounds innocent enough...unless we commit the phrase to the most rudimentary analysis (omniscient, omnipotent God coexisting with untold evil, suffering, misery, injustice, etc., etc.) = "Love"...yikes!!...someone, save me from such "Love".

I recently had to sit through the oration of an Archbishop. Our gospel choir (a quite secular routine, believe me) was invited to sing during the mass at a seminary, and I foolishly agreed. We were placed up front with the Archbishop and what seemed like an army of priests (my grandfather would be spinning in his grave), so I had to sit there expressionless as we listened to this man - whose hateful politics label anyone who doesn't "love" the way he and his cohorts in the Vatican have currently defined as acceptable as "unnatural" and wrong...even sick - go on about "Love". Lots of incense, lots of low humming harmonies from the priests...and nothing whatsoever showing that this man knows anything about the real life that goes on around him. His kind of "Love", and that of Christians in general, somehow fits with hatred of the other, harsh judgments, perverse visions of hell for all those who do not follow the line (virtually everyone, in their private life), not to mention war, murder, torture, etc. etc.

I'll pass on their kind of "Love", thank you.

As I will on the more secular, but no less socially problematic kind of "love" - that exercise in unabashed selfishness directed at the heart and soul of another person.

Telling the World

People have been getting on me for not writing more entries here.

Evidently, once you set up a blog, you have to keep filling it with some sort of text on a consistent basis, whether or not you actually have something remotely worthy to say.

Hmmm. I have sinned. Not having anything of particular interest to add here, I haven't added a post for many moons. I suppose I could have. I mean, as always, there's plenty to rage about. Yet I prefer to have some kind of particular angle on a subject before setting forth to tap tap tap the keyboard.

So what's today's particular angle? Let's see...

I love today's headlines concerning the Republican party's strong defence of its Halliburton mafia benefactors. I enjoy giggling when I encounter some fool still going on about something called "moral values" that supposedly led minions of blithering idiots to vote for these banally evil shitheads. Moral values. Yep. Support our soldiers as they torture, kidnap, and enter into what are most likely daily exercises in war crimes in their good work as defenders of whateverthefuckit is they are "defending".

This cannot be stressed too strongly, nor repeated too many times: in the name of all Americans, people are TORTURING, KIDNAPPING AND DISAPPEARING PEOPLE, AND COMMITTING MASSACRES OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ON A REGULAR BASIS (this last according to the poor fucker who is currently leading the Iraqi "government"). This has been going on for long enough. There is simply no legitimate way that Americans can claim any kind of moral or ethical superiority over their "foes". And that, my friends, is more important than you think.

On teachers and students

I recently received a letter from an old student of mine. She was in one of my philosophy classes some 16 years ago. Over that time, she has advanced far in her university studies, and is now herself a professor of legal philosophy in Brazil. Heartening news to receive.

Some of her words are well worth repeating here in terms of the degradation of the U.S. as an example for the world. I quote:

“The political situation in Brazil is in fact very interesting but also full of tensions and contradictions. At the same time that democratic forces are taking root and causing many changes, we still have a very strong authoritarian tradition that emerges even among these such called democrats. Fortunately, this is not as frightening as what is
happening in the US today, something that is very bad in many ways for Latin America. Here in Brazil, for example, constitutional law has for a long time looked up to constitutional law in the US, at the US Supreme Court. But now we are like orphans, because all constitutional parameters, even in the Supreme Court, have been shaken. In a different way, though, this is very good because at least some people will understand that we must not look up to any "fathers" but rather try to construct something of our own.”

I am particularly impressed with her last words. Indeed, this is happening all over the world. Those seeking to improve upon democratic structures no longer look to the United States as models…and that’s just fine.

Perhaps, at some point, in a near or far future when decent, thinking North Americans once again assume political power, they will be able to look upon all of this work in order to improve upon their own model. In the end, that’s the way it should be. No country as the “political leader”. No “political heroes.” Just humanity looking to create an ever more just, open, tolerant, mature and thriving world.

Morbid fascination vs. sexual enlightenment

Not long ago I saw a bioflic covering the life of Alfred Kinsey. It’s a well-done, if perhaps romanticized treatment of the life and work of this amazing biologist from the last century. Amazing because he so clearly transcended the dictates of fear and superstition, ignorance and social pathology in attempting to place human sexuality under scientific scrutiny. The film covered the inevitable reactions to Kinsey’s work, his difficulty in obtaining funding, the mad-dog criticisms, the mass-denial. But in the end we are left with hope that objectivity and science can triumph over unquestioned taboo and ignorance.

Hell no. Half a century later, a Google-search of Kinsey turns up a host of sites dedicated to criticizing and disproving his research and conclusions…frenzied, foaming-at-the-mouth denunciations of this supposed “pervert” (that’s always a great word – pervert…one immediately imagines drooling old men lewdly contemplating innocent children). In short, nothing has changed. Human sexuality continues to elude the application of common sense and practicality. The great majority continue to squirm at the mere mention of something sexual. Mass spasms of social unrest are set off because a woman’s breast is mistakenly uncovered during a televised football game. Homophobia wins another election for what is clearly the worst administration in U.S. history. The clearly demented Catholic church hierarchy perform witch-hunts for homosexuals. That same institution continues to demand of its misguided flock that it avoid the use of birth-control (thus directly contributing to the deaths of millions by AIDS). One of the most (supposedly) advanced countries on earth defines sex-education as abstinence-education. Abstinence. HA!

What did Kinsey do to stir up such nervousness? He simply found a way to get hundreds of thousands of people to talk frankly about their actual sexual practices, and compiled the results. You see, what they are ridiculously calling “moral values” strictly prohibits such a thing. It is much more “moral” to simply ignore what is most likely the strongest natural influence on our behavior. This way, reality can have no effect on the notion that all “normal” people are heterosexual individuals who never masturbate and have sex (which is strictly limited to coitus, of course) only for procreative purposes. All of this in line with what the Christionists believe is their god’s stern rejection of sexuality.

Of course, keeping such a liberating force as sexuality under wraps is quite useful for social control (see Foucault). Yet we cannot blame the long-lasting mass hysteria about sexuality on some explicit conspiracy of the elite (an elite, mind you, which throughout the ages has never, in any place followed the horrendous dictates of sexual repression). No, there is something about sex-phobia that sells – the great, quite heavily-tapped market that appeals to morbid fascination. Fact – people like sex, in all its many creative forms. And I would venture to say that this applies to the overwhelming majority. Yet complete sexual freedom tends to remove the morbid fascination from it…leaving only the healthy experience.

I believe that reality-based sexual freedom (meaning an open acknowledgement of what people actually do, along with the acceptance of any non-damaging, consensual sexual practice that is non-manipulative) would in time lead to the disappearance of pornography, prostitution and other such manifestations of the “morbid fascination” market, along with a tremendous reduction in rape and sexual violence in general. It would also greatly reduce the terrible suffering inflicted on so many hundreds of millions today and throughout history, people who have been made to hate themselves because of their natural desires.

BUT OH NO! We can’t have that. Nope. Not with the “moral values” set continuing to impose their pathological squirmishness on the rest of the world. ¡Hay que joderse!

Wake Up?

I see where they are referring to the latest swell in fundamentalist religiosity (read: mass, fear-based fallback into escapist, hypocritical, hatred-of-the-other superstition) since the 70's in the States as the "Third Great Awakening". Huh? Since when does "awaken" apply to self-immolation into irrational, mass hypnosis? The kind of twisted stop-think that has millions of poor souls politically supporting people in power whose policies work directly against the very interests of those millions..."Awakening"...¡Hay que joderse!

Speaking of irrationality and thought systems that work against the very self-interest of those who partake in them..Yesterday, Islamic militants blow up an important Islamic shrine (according to news accounts, anyway). Does this spark any mass protests (apart from those particular Muslims whose shrine was destroyed)? Of course not. Do repeated reports of barbaric treatment of prisoners, mass civilian deaths as the result of wars of aggression, ad nauseum spark such rabid mass protests? Not really. But badly drawn, unfunny cartoons poking fun at yet another sky-god...why, time to scream bloody murder!

Pathetic.

Just pathetic.

Now, whose interests, praytell, do such manifestations serve? Why, the "clash of civilizations" set, that's who. You know, those "intellectuals" enlisted in the newest great crusade, either directly or indirectly serving the arms industry, along with the energy mafia it is really meant to protect, and the financial-shenanigans industry it has likewise spawned.

Clash of civilizations...break out the bullshit dectector, folks! There is a clash, but it's not between the "Muslim" and "Judeo-Christian" worlds. Within all of those parts of the world, there are secularists,atheists, folks with faintly religious leanings, the devout, and fundamentalists. There are those who want more, and those who settle for less. There are the powerful and the not-so-powerful. There are shitheads and good folks. The clash, in the end, is between decent people with their values grounded in experience, history and collective human knowledge. The tolerant. The live-and-let-live. And those who stimulate and stir up tribalism, hatred of the other, infantile patriotism, irrationality and fear in the service of their own ill-gotten power...and those who would allow themselves to be led in such a way. To use older terminology - the fascists versus the anti-fascists...

That's today's real clash...

Hmmm...

So Bush mentions in his "State of the Union" speech that the U.S. must reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil...huh? How, praytell? Through the use of alternative fuels, renewable resources, mandating auto manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles? Cmon!
No...that's certainly not it.

I've been scanning the press, and no one seems to have made the connection...where get the oil? Why, closer to home, that's where. And where might closer to home be? Well, Canada and Mexico are both major oil exporters to the States...but the real motherlode happens to be in Venezuela...

Right...subtle hints at where the next war is to be fought.

Mark my words.

Hyprocrites, Zealots and Priests, oh my!

They should learn from Sharon. Even that sadistic zealot - and the Israel defense apparatus in general, realized long ago that trying to scare the shit out of their enemies just created more enemies who are all the more willing to kill themselves in the name of their own zealotry. Anyone willing to kill oneself for a "cause" is certainly not going to be deterred by the possibility of torture, etc. As I've mentioned before, the only conceivable explanation for the U.S. government's open admission to torture and other crimes against humanity is, firstly, that they can, and secondly, that it will serve to deter the enemy through fear. They need only ask their closest ally in the Middle East.

Speaking of zealots, I've seen progressive journalists and opinion writers using the words "draft dodger" recently to describe people like Cheney and Bush, et. al. Now, it is understandable that they would want to drive home the utter, unabashed hypocrisy of these people. But "draft dodger" has built-in negative connotations derived from its use during the Vietnam war, when it was used to describe those who refused to participate in that war. The left should not be falling into the trap of throwing a negative light on all those who refused to fight in that horror show. While it is useful to shed light on the hypocrisy of Cheney, Bush and the other chickenhawks, it should be remembered that it isn't their decision not to go to Vietnam that is worthy of criticism, but their decision to send thousands more to kill and/or be killed for a less-than-justified cause.

And while we're on zealots, the Ratzinger Church hierarchy has reached a new level of absurd hypocrisy with its latest "no gays" edict. In fact, it's pretty funny. One can easily imagine so many of those sleazy old bastards squirming in their seats during the reading of the text...

Now, according to this document, the good, Christian, decent, loving Church directors must "evaluate all of the qualities of the personality and assure that the candidate does not have sexual disorders that are incompatible with priesthood" Sexual disorders. Jeeezus. This from an institution that has been denying and rejecting any healthy form of sexuality for as long as anyone cares to remember. Then, when, accordingly, the huge army of gays inside the church are forced to closet their desires even more, the text accuses them of "an inauthentic attitude that does not correspond to the spirit of truth, loyalty and availability that must characterize the personality of one who considers himself called to serve Christ"...Christ. Poor poor Christ. Truth, loyalty and availability. Absolutely hilarious.

Bonzo vs. Mr. Smith

While meandering through the satellite tv's film offerings today, I ran into the end of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington...you know, where Jimmy Stewart is raging, quivering with fiery goodness, in front of the senate, jumping on the case of all those haughty, corrupt bastards that surround him with suits...and you can hear his voice get shakier and shakier...his face takes on the kind of mad, sainted glow that could well be part of some religious agitprop film (jeez, how Capra used light and focus!)...but of course not at all religious...just a regular, decent guy flung into the snakepit of mainstream politics, flipping out with the slime and shit, and standing up there and giving hell (a filibuster, no less!!). In less than thirty seconds, I was brought to tears (I knew what was coming, which made those tears flow all the more quickly and easily)...

...and I think...what the hell went wrong? Why did America choose Bonzo instead of Mr. Smith? And how have these goddam bonzos managed to claim some kind of moral high ground? Moral values...whatthefuck!!!? Shit and greed and shit and torture and ignorant revenge fantasy manipulation all wrapped inside a redwhiteandblue flag with that time-old torture symbol thrown in for good measure (you know that one...the cross). And they get enough votes to win again (he he he...or did they?)....

America chose Bonzo and his children over Mr. Smith and his progeny...

...and now all the world is paying the price.

future wine 

mayhem

Horrid times, indeed. I certainly feel for sensitive, decent folks trying to remain sane while living in the States. But hell, these times also dish up a steady diet of hilarious news bits - from virtually anything that flounders out of Bush's mouth to any and all attempts by the "Krish-chun" right to sell itself as "moral".
In any case, this one from today's NY Times was particularly worth a yelp of laughter:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation on Friday to outlaw the sale to teenagers of electronic games featuring reckless mayhem and explicit sexuality."

"Reckless mayhem and explict sexuality". Jeez. As opposed to "thoughtful", "cautious" or "prudent" mayhem.

Mayhem. Good word.

Gotta keep the kids away from reckless mayhem...and, "Hey, c'mon!"...god knows from explicit sexuality...

Meanwhile, no problem having the majority support the wholesale ignoring of the Constitution, or becomming inured to the systematic use of torture by those acting on their behalf (you know...the "moral" ones).

The cited video games are creepy, but not due to their reckless mayhem or explicit sexuality (you can find that at almost any given moment at some mass-culture feeding point). It's that they present an asshole's view of the world...leading one to the question - why are they so popular? What has occured in cultural evolution to bring us to this point? Why do so many people, young and old, get such a thrill from virtually assuming the role of fucked up shitheads?

How many billions do they say will be directed at rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf coast? Eighty-something billion dollars. Huh? Just whereinhell do they come up with that wealth? Sure as shit not from the bulging federal treasury...which is basically imploding into a netherworld of future financial disaster.
So what do we see right away? Cozy-assed corporate shits belonging to the same rancid mafia cashing in immediately on this newly minted wealth. Did I hear the name Halliburton? Who's in charge of this "great effort" from the White House?...none other than everyone's favorite christofascist faker Rove! Warms the heart.
So we have a new New Deal for the South, with money popped into existence suddenly...most or all of which will fall into the greasy hands of greedfilled wretches...most or all of which will, of course, be financed not by U.S. corporate (or individual) taxes, but by China and other governments trying to keep the incredible shrinking dollar from breaking the levies of the international financial system (and that lovely American market from morphing into depression nothingness)...all of which, supposedly, must be paid back (will American troops be called out to quell the next Tiannamin Square uprising?).
Oh, right. Let us not forget that much of the relief money from contributions goes into a fund highlighted by Pat Robertson's "charity" (which channels half of the cash back into its fascist tv network). Good ol' "let's kill president Chavez" Pat...this, while Chavez himself offers more in material aid than most of the supposed "Christian" groups combined...

Finally, we're treated to the speculator spectacle...armies of shitheads (neo-carpetbaggers?) scouting out flooded properties for cheap deals...ah, what a wonderful New Orleans shall rise from the muck! With the speculators in the lead!

Fucking hell!
¡Hay que joderse!

thinking... 

what the fuck?

Might it be possible for thinking people to still argue for "free-market" politics (what the Europeans call "neo-liberalism"? This when the generalized privatization of everything in the U.S. economy has, of course, led to ever-more-Brazil-like contrasts in wealth/poverty, one of the industrial world's highest crime and encarcelation rates, a level of national debt that dwarfs that of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina before their respective crises (ironically, it's China that's keeping the U.S. economy afloat, by purchasing billions of dollars in U.S. bonds...will China act like the IMF and World Bank, sternly insisting that north Americans "tighten their belts" and start functioning with fiscal responsiblity? I doubt it).

And now this spectacle...an entire week goes by with hundreds of thousands of people abandoned to their fate, without food or other basics, with no escape out...and not enough public resources to mobilize. Not enough public buses to get people out...but of course, no need whatsoever for Greyhound or Continental to mobilize. Why should they? They might lose money. So the world looks aghast at the U.S., with every day bringing another reason to forget the United States as any kind of reference for decency or even practicality. Even Chavez is on the tube, talking about helping out the new wretched of the earth...in the States. How it is that Bush and his supporters can look themselves in the mirror, I do not know. As Maureen Dowd put it today - the United States of Shame.

"Conservatives"?

From the time of the "Reagan Revolution", I've always marvelled at how this political movement could get away with labelling itself "conservative", or "patriotic", while deriding anything remotely progressive in the U.S. as "anti-American". Check this out. "They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state... We're going to force a constitutional crisis... If necessary," he said, "we will secede from the union." This from a group of crazed Cristofascists planning on taking things into their own hands, as it were. It's worth posting the whole story here (from the L.A. Times, Sunday, 28 August).

A group of believers wants to establish Scriptures-based government one city and county at a time.

Greenville, SC - It began, as many road trips do, with a stop at Wal-Mart to buy a portable DVD player.

But Mario DiMartino was planning more than a weekend getaway. He, his wife and three children were embarking on a pilgrimage to South Carolina.

"I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord," said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. "I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world."

DiMartino, who drove here recently to look for a new home, is a member of Christian Exodus, a movement of politically active believers who hope to establish a government based upon Christian principles.

At a time when evangelicals are exerting influence on the national political stage - having helped secure President Bush's reelection - Christian Exodus believes that people of faith have failed to assert their moral agenda: Abortion is legal. School prayer is banned. There are limits on public displays of the Ten Commandments. Gays and lesbians can marry in Massachusetts.

Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff's offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.

"We're going to force a constitutional crisis," said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.

"If necessary," he said, "we will secede from the union."

Burnell has not moved to South Carolina himself - he promised his wife that they would stay in Valley Springs, Calif., until the end of next year - but believes that his 950 supporters will rally to the cause. Five families have moved so far.

Burnell said his inspiration came from the Free State Project, which in October 2003 appealed to libertarians to move to New Hampshire for limited government intervention, lower taxes and greater individual rights. By 2006, organizers had hoped to have 20,000 people committed to relocating to New Hampshire; so far, 6,600 have said they intended to make the move, and only 100 have done so.

Christian Exodus, Burnell predicted, will be more successful.

"There are more Christians than libertarians," he said.

After scrutinizing electoral records, demographic trends and property prices, Christian Exodus members identified two upstate South Carolina counties - they will not officially say which ones - as prime for a conservative takeover. By September 2006, Burnell hopes to have 2,000 activists in one county and 500 in the other.

Frank and Tammy Janoski have settled into a five-bedroom house with white vinyl siding in a new subdivision in rural Spartanburg County.

"This is where God wants us to be," he said.

Janoski, 38, a self-employed computer engineer, had been contemplating moving from his deadline-oriented lifestyle in Bethlehem, Pa., to a more conservative region with cheaper housing and lower taxes when a church friend handed him a Christian Exodus flier.

"What attracted me to the movement was the idea of calling back the country to a righteous standard," he said.

His first six months in South Carolina have been idyllic, Janoski said. Not only do his neighbors wave as they pass by, but they also share most of his conservative Christian beliefs.

"If you're going to secede, this is the place to do it," he said. "A lot of the locals have that spirit."

Although Christian Exodus members are confident that they can capitalize on evangelical disillusionment with the Republican Party, local observers are skeptical.

James Guth, a professor at Furman University in Greenville who studies the influence of religion on politics, does not think that Christian Exodus will be successful beyond a county level.

"South Carolina is a state that is dominated by Republicans," he said. "Although there are people on the far right edge of the Republican Party … in general, the population is a big fan of Bush."

Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, upstate South Carolina is the most conservative region of a conservative state: Bush won 58% of the South Carolina vote in 2004, and Greenville is home to Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian college that until recently had banned interracial dating.

Cleatus Blackmon, treasurer and director of missions at the Greer Baptist Assn., which oversees 39 Baptist churches in Janoski's town, doubts that Christian Exodus' focus on taking over government bodies will appeal to the majority of the region's Christians.

"You don't find the word 'control' in the scriptures," he said. "The basic mission of the church is to proclaim God's redeeming love through the example of Jesus Christ."

But Christian Exodus activists insist that they will forge ahead, even if they end up polarizing the Christian community.

"We want to separate the wheat from the chaff," DiMartino said. "There's a lot of deception in the church. If the Republican Party says something, a lot of churches say it's gospel."

Despite its cynicism about the Republican Party, Christian Exodus plans to use the party's popularity to its advantage. Rather than running for office themselves, Christian Exodus activists hope to influence which Republican candidates win local primaries.

"All we have to do is put our guy on the ballot with an 'R' sign," Burnell said. "It could be a corpse and they'll vote for him."

Local Republicans, however, point out that they would never sit idly by while Christian Exodus took over.

"He talks about 2,000 activists, but I can easily get 4,000 activists," said Bob Taylor, a Republican Greenville County councilman and a dean at Bob Jones University. "There's incredible dedication to the [Republican] cause."

While many South Carolinians may oppose abortion and gay marriage, Taylor said, few would support secession.

But DiMartino is not worried about the naysayers.

When he explained Christian Exodus to the man who sold him his home in Pickens County, he said, the salesman gave him a high-five. DiMartino looks forward to living alongside Christians who want to put local government back in the hands of what, he believes, America was really founded for.

"Whether it flies or not," he said, "is really in the Lord's hands."

Now really, with "conservatives" like these, who needs radicals?

Meanwhile, for a bit of levity, check out this link: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-dinosaurs27aug27,1,7272573.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

silly shitheads and perfect scripts

I've been telling people for a while now that the next big target for the American military/industrial complex (read: Halliburton, et. al)/ Cristofascist mafia would be Chavez and Venezuela. It's just too perfect: a strong and popular political leader dedicated to uniting Latin America, with relatively progressive economic and social tendencies, leading a country full of oil, a friend of Castro...mixed with the situation in neighbouring Colombia (devil drugs, evil commie revolutionaries in the mountains allied with the devil drug dealers, etc.)...it simply seemed to be a script pre-written for the bastards to convince 'mercuns' of the drug/commie/oil danger to the south...the only thing missing was the radical Islam terrorist link...Send in the Marines, dammit!!...and what a great way to remove attention from Iraq...slowly remove all troops, keeping only a small contingent to help the private armies (Halliburton, et. al.) prote ct the oil fields...It would work perfectly! Evil drug-running commies led by a dark-skinned Castro lover...people (and the mainstream media) would forget about Iraq within days...just in time, perhaps for the mid-term elections (perhaps Rove should moonlight as a writer of international intrigue novels)...
So, in the end, the words of this silly shithead Robertson did not surprise me...and when I went to his website, the final ingredient was there!...evil drug-running commies ALLIED WITH ISLAMIC RADICAL TERRORISTS!. Lions and tigers and bears...oh no!!
No thought, of course, is given to the fact that Chavez and his ideals are considered, openly, a much bigger enemy by radical Muslim fundamentalists then the creepy Christian blue meanies who supposedly oppose them. No need for such reflection.

So...how long before the Marines are landing on the shores of Venezuela?

 

The Good and the Bad

History as it unfolds is odd.
A federal judge sends a reporter to jail for not disclosing her source.
Bad.
That reporter is Judith Miller, a NY Times reporter who did as much as anyone to hype the war with faulty reporting. In fact, when the Times "apologized" some time back for their coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq war, they were surely referring to Miller's bad journalism (although it went unsaid).
Good.
It seems quite clear that the source being protected is Karl Rove, one of the most dangerous and evil men ever to roam the halls of the White House. This "patriot" told reporters that a certain U.S. diplomate working overseas was actually a CIA agent. This was the inimitable Karl's way of punishing a dissident among the ranks of chickenhawks leading the Christian soldiers on to war. The federal inquiry is now closer to nailing Rove thanks to the judge's heavy-handed tactics. This horrible character will surely (??) have to resign.
Good.
But...jailing a reporter for not revealing a source?
Clearly bad.