Terry Mauro

I call into question your credibility because Mr. Myers performed a thoroughly superb investigation and it is clear to me you are like so many others here, Dixie included of course, who wouldn't know where to begin, especially if it led in the 'wrong' direction.  And why would you, especially when you can get on here and chat it up with the ignorami?

  You're into the usual wishful thinking of the Progressives.  It's called agendae and it reflects poorly on the credibility of the honest researchers, authors and members of the cognoscenti who know a fact when they see one and can recognize those who are just spreading warts, like yourself.  You make it easy for the McAdams of the world to brand others as loony conspiracists.

  I see you as just another Progressive being allowed to dispense profanity and personal attacks on the Re-Education Forum.  Ah, but you can't top Jack - who observed that people wrote things they wouldn't say to someone's face and then, practically in the same breath, he wrote the same type of things and used the very same profanity.  But you're good, though; just vile enough and clearly out of control - a true Progressive.

  Now, go away.  I'm off to correspond with your betters and to receive updates on how Mr. Roberts is toying with the fools on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  I leave you to yourselves, again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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I call into question your credibility because Mr. Myers performed a thoroughly superb investigation and it is clear to me you are like so many others here, Dixie included of course, who wouldn't know where to begin, especially if it led in the 'wrong' direction. And why would you, especially when you can get on here and chat it up with the ignorami?

You're into the usual wishful thinking of the Progressives.

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I find this statement quite interesting, considering the fact that the Dixie Dea I happen to know personally, is a Republican and was so, even when JFK was still alive.

And, having clarified that fact, I find the form of rhetoric reflected in your biography, indicative of your affiliations, and where your true loyalties are placed.

The attitude of a pugnacious prig is also reflective of your personality, especially in the choice of words with which you describe others

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Hello To My Fellow Truth Seekers:

I'm a long time resident of my beloved Boston, MA, having departed several times but unwilling to stay away for too long. I am a former Special Agent in Military Intelligence and have received two diplomas from the US Military Intelligence School. Post military, I worked as a broadcast journalist at two radio stations in New York after graduation from the now defunct - and lamented - Leland Powers School of Radio, TV & Theatre which I attended on the GI Bill, of course.

Most of my life since then has been spent as an Investigator here in the Boston area where I worked for three private agencies for an average of five years each. I have had many fascinating cases over the years. From time to time I still am called upon to assist in the occasional thorny investigation. Somehow, I've achieved Emeritus status at one of my former agencies. Presently, I work as a Veterans Representative for the Commonwealth of MA - a good job with good wages, as our former MA Chief Executive M. Stanley Dukakis was fond of saying.

My interest in this site lies in respect for those members whose names are known to me and appreciation of the mature approach on the part of the membership as a whole. In addditon, I have a long standing interest in the JFK assassination as well as in all things Watergate. Besides, where else do you find zealots who have read the ENTIRE Weberman site, as I have!?

Finally, I believe I have some opinions of substance as well as facts to share. My opinions and facts easily will be discernible in my correspondence.

This post has been edited by John Gillespie: Sep 2 2005, 08:43 PM

--------------------

Biography: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4288

From the September 13 (or 14?) New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - President Bush said on Tuesday that he bore responsibility for any failures of the federal government in its response to Hurricane Katrina and suggested that he was unsure whether the country was adequately prepared for another catastrophic storm or terrorist attack.

Perhaps the Bush-bashers on the Forum will now see the man in a different light.  I think the problem was in the first place created by failures at the local level but from what I am reading the recently resigned FEMA head was too caught up in red tape.  I will admit that the POTUS should have realized this sooner than he did and it appears he now understands that as well. 

But again the initial response to a natural disaster is always on the local level.  Perhaps there ought to be co-ordination between various localities so that, for instance and simply hypothetically, New Orleans could have learned from the hurricane plan of Miami.  Although, as pointed out in previous posts, New Orleans did indeed have a plan and the problem may have arisen from the failure of the City to implement its plan as the disaster approached.

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"But again the initial response to a natural disaster is always on the local level. Perhaps there ought to be co-ordination between various localities so that, for instance and simply hypothetically, New Orleans could have learned from the hurricane plan of Miami. Although, as pointed out in previous posts, New Orleans did indeed have a plan and the problem may have arisen from the failure of the City to implement its plan as the disaster approached."

Tim, has this always been the case? Or, to phrase it another way, has it always been a matter of states' rights over federal intervention? Why do I equate the gov.'s inability to respond to the disaster a matter of the intense de-regulatory processes set in place during the Reagan regime? Or, does that have anything at all, whatsoever, to do with it?

Many of us are wondering how sites related to the JFK assassination, such as the Oswald's apartment and the Reily Coffee Company on Magazine Street, survived Katrina and its aftermath.  Here is a link to a flood map that shows current and highest flooding of the different areas.

http://www.mapper.cctechnol.com/floodmap.php

It looks as though Magazine Street survived ok, although I have also heard that David Ferrie's apt. on Louisiana Ave. was flooded.

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An empty city with old buildins scoured by federal agencies? Hmmm..wondering who is monitoring what they find in the old boxes tucked away in the attics? ..........Anyone?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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Well, as long as Bush's Department of Homeland Security finds the Blackwater Mercenaries method of security measures applicable to New Orleans, his loyal constituents and lobbyists have nothing to fear. Wouldn't you agree?

And BTW, is there anyone out there, besides myself, who thinks that the name,

"Department of HOMELAND Security" leaves alot to be desired? Such as the use of the initials, "DHS" as possibly being counter-productive since they are the same as those used by the "Department of HEALTH Services?" Not to mention the hokey-sounding "HOMELAND", which is more indicative of a bread factory, or bakery, rather than that of a NATIONAL police force, in charge of the defense of everything within the borders of the UNITED STATES with which it's supposed to be identified? How about The Department of NATIONAL Security, for instance? The DNS? Or better yet, The Department of The NATIONAL Police Force, or The NATIONAL Police Force Department, or NPFD? Or, The NATIONAL Police Department, or NPD? Anyhow, you get the idea, don't you? ANYTHING but "HOMELAND." "HOMELAND" sounds like a Kindergarden security system. Can't this administration be a little more creative than to think up anything less innovative than, "HOMELAND"? Or, is this merely a reflection of the level of demented originality, acceptable to the citizens of the U.S.?

And, as in the article below, the name "Blackwater". Was the deployment of this group of organized thugs and mercenaries something the Department of Kindergarden Security figured was applicable to the City of New Orleans, based upon the color of the water under which the city is now submerged?

___________________________________________________________________

Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans

By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo

t r u t h o u t | Report

Saturday 10 September 2005

New Orleans - Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.

"This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States)," a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq."

Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago.

What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal and Louisiana state governments.

Blackwater is one of the leading private "security" firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has several US government contracts and has provided security for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations. The company rose to international prominence after 4 of its men were killed in Fallujah and two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004. Those killings sparked the massive US retaliation against the civilian population of Fallujah that resulted in scores of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees.

As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

Officially, Blackwater says it forces are in New Orleans to "join the Hurricane Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website, dated September 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other properties. But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general law enforcement activities including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals."

That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater's men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety." he said.

But in an hour-long conversation with several Blackwater mercenaries, we heard a different story. The men we spoke with said they are indeed on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Louisiana governor's office and that some of them are sleeping in camps organized by Homeland Security in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. One of them wore a gold Louisiana state law enforcement badge and said he had been "deputized" by the governor. They told us they not only had authority to make arrests but also to use lethal force. We encountered the Blackwater forces as we walked through the streets of the largely deserted French Quarter. We were talking with 2 New York Police officers when an unmarked car without license plates sped up next to us and stopped. Inside were 3 men, dressed in khaki uniforms, flak jackets and wielding automatic weapons. "Y'all know where the Blackwater guys are?" they asked. One of the police officers responded, "There are a bunch of them around here," and pointed down the road.

"Blackwater?" we asked. "The guys who are in Iraq?"

"Yeah," said the officer. "They're all over the place."

A short while later, as we continued down Bourbon Street, we ran into the men from the car. They wore Blackwater ID badges on their arms.

"When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?,'" said one of the Blackwater men. He was wearing his company ID around his neck in a carrying case with the phrase "Operation Iraqi Freedom" printed on it. After bragging about how he drives around Iraq in a "State Department issued level 5, explosion proof BMW," he said he was "just trying to get back to Kirkuk (in the north of Iraq) where the real action is." Later we overheard him on his cell phone complaining that Blackwater was only paying $350 a day plus per diem. That is much less than the men make serving in more dangerous conditions in Iraq. Two men we spoke with said they plan on returning to Iraq in October. But, as one mercenary said, they've been told they could be in New Orleans for up to 6 months. "This is a trend," he told us. "You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."

If Blackwater's reputation and record in Iraq are any indication of the kind of "services" the company offers, the people of New Orleans have much to fear.

-----

Jeremy Scahill, a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, and Daniela Crespo are in New Orleans. Visit www.democracynow.org for in-depth, independent, investigative reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Email: jeremy@democracynow.org.

John wrote:

Do you think God is trying to tell Pat Robinson something with sending Hurricane Katrina to the United States?

Well it is presumptuous to attempt to judge God but the only thing we know for sure is that Katrina made a bee-line for that den of iniquity New Orleans, appropriately named "The Big Easy".

An aside: We had 75 mph winds in Key West on Friday and it was the wettest August day in Key West history, but no major damage.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I find it comforting that the genes which cause such pinheadedness amongst Christian fundamentalists will in time be eliminated through natural selection

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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Personally, Andy, I've lost faith in the human race of ever having the intellectual capacity for being able to successfully evolve to a higher plane of human dignity and compassion, let alone logic and/or constructive efforts at critical thinking. At least, not as long as they insist on being steeped in the superstitions of organized religion. Not to mention their knee-jerk response in allowing the continued acceptance of the color bar to exist. But, that's JMHO.


From THE LA WEEKLY September 9 - 15 VOL.27/NO.42 THIS LAND IS OUR LAND

A GOD WITH WHOM I AM NOT FAMILIAR

By Tim Wise

THIS IS AN OPEN LETTER to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, in the Brooks Brothers shirt:

You don't know me. But I know you. I watched you as you held hands with your tablemates at the restaurant where we both ate this afternoon. I listened as you prayed, and thanked God for the food you were about to eat, and for your own safety, several hundred miles away from the unfolding catastrophe in New Orleans.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal - and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word - moralistically scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them - all of them, without distinction, it seemed - for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big-screen TV's.

I heard you ask, amid the din of your colleagues' "Amens," why it was that instead of pitching in to help their fellow Americans, the people of New Orleans instead - again, all of them, in your mind - chose to steal and shoot at relief helicopters.

I watched you wipe salsa from the corners of you mouth, as you nodded in agreement to the statement of one of your friends, her hair neatly coifed, her makeup flawless, her jewelry sparkling. When you asked rhetorically, why it was that people were so much more decent amid the tragedy of 9/11, as compared to the aftermath of Katrina, she had offered her response, but only after apologizing for what she admitted was going to sound harsh. "Well," Buffy explained. "It's probably because in New Orleans, it seems to be mostly poor people, and, you know, they just don't have the same regard."

She then added that police should shoot the looters, and should have done so from the beginning, so as to send a message to the rest that theft would not be tolerated. You, who had just thanked Jesus for your chips and guacamole, said you agreed. They should be shot. Praise the Lord.

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.

Two thoughts: First, it is a very fortunate thing for you, and likely for me, that my two young children were with me as I sat there, choking back fish tacos and my own seething rage, listening to you pontificate about xxxx you know nothing about. Have you ever even been to New Orleans? And no, by that I don't mean the New Orleans of your company's sales conference. I don't mean Emeril's New Orleans, or the New Orleans of Uptown Mardi Gras parties.

I mean the New Orleans that is buried as if it were Atlantis, in places like the lower 9th Ward: 98 percent black, 40 percent poor, where bodies are floating down the street, flowing with the water as it seeks its own level. Have you met the people from that New Orleans? The New Orleans that is dying as I write this, and as you order another sweet tea? I didn't think so.

Your God - the one to whom you prayed today, and likely do before every meal, because this gesture proves what a good Christian you are - is one who you sincerely believe gives a flying XXXX about your lunch. Your God is one who you seem to believe watches over you and blesses you, and brings good tidings your way, while simultaneously letting thousands of people watch their homes be destroyed, and perhaps 10,000 or more die, many of them in the streets for lack of water or food.

Did you ever stop to think just what a rancid asshole such a God would have to be, such that he would take care of the likes of you, while letting babies die in their mothers' arms, and letting old people die in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street? But no, it isn't God who's the asshole here, Skip (or Brad, or Braxton, or whatever your name is).

God doesn't feed you, and it isn't God that kept me from turning around and beating your lily-white privileged ass today, either. God had nothing to do with it. God doesn't care who wins the Super Bowl. God doesn't help anyone win an Academy Award. God didn't get you your last raise, or your SUV. And if God is even half as tired as I am of having to listen to self-righteous bastards like you blame the victims of this nightmare for their fate, then you had best eat slowly from this point forward.

"Why didn't they evacuate like they were told?" Are you serious? There are 100,000 people in that city without cars. Folks who are too poor to own their own vehicle, and who rely on public transportation every day. I know this might shock you. They don't have a Hummer2, or whatever gas-guzzling piece of crap you probably own.

And no, they didn't just choose not to own a car because the buses are so gosh-darned efficient and great, as Rush Limbaugh implied yesterday, and as you likely heard, since you're the kind of person who hangs on the every word of such bloviating hacks as these.

"Why did they loot?" Are your serious? People are dying, in the streets, on live television. Fathers and mothers are watching their babies' eyes bulge in their skulls from dehydration, and you are begrudging them some goddamned candy bars, diapers, and water? If anything, the poor of New Orleans have exercised restraint.

MAYBE YOU DIDN'T KNOW IT, but the people of that city with whom you likely identify - the wealthy white folks of Uptown - were barely touched by this storm. Yeah, I guess God was watching over them: protecting them, and rewarding them for their faith and superior morality. If the folks downtown who are waiting desperately for their government to send help - a government whose resources have been stretched thin by a war that I'm sure you support, because you love freedom and democracy - were half as crazed as you think, they'd march down St. Charles Avenue right now and burn every mansion in sight. That they aren't doing so suggests a decency and compassion for their fellow man and woman that, sadly, people like you lack.

Can you even imagine what you would do in their place? Can you imagine what would happen if it were well-off white folks stranded like this without buses to get them out, without nourishment, without hope? Putting aside the absurdity of the imagery - after all, such folks always have the means to seek safety, or the money to rebuild, or the political significance to ensure a much speedier response for their concerns - can you just imagine?

Can you imagine what would happen if the pampered, overfed corporate class, which complains about taxes taking a third of their bloated incomes, had to sit in the hot sun for four, going on five, days? Without a margarita or hotel swimming pool to comfort them, I mean?

Oh and please, I know. I'm stereotyping you. Imagine that. I've assumed, based only on your words, what kind of person you are, even though I suppose I could be wrong. How does that feel, Biff? Hurt your feelings? So sorry. But, hey, at least my stereotypes of you aren't deadly. They won't affect your life one bit, unlike the ones you carry around with you and display within earshot of people like me, supposing that no one could possibly disagree.

But I'm not wrong, am I, Chip? I know you. I see people like you all the time, in airports, in business suits, on their lunch breaks. People who will take advantage of any opportunity to ratify and reify their pre-existing prejudices toward the poor, toward black folks. You see the same three video loops of the same dozen or so looters on Fox News and you conclude that poor black people are crazy, immoral, criminal.

You, or others quite a bit like you, are the ones posting messages on chat-room boards, calling looters subhuman "vermin," "scum," or "cockroaches." I heard you use the word "animals" three times today: you and that woman across from you. What was it you said as you scooped the last bite of black beans and rice into your eager mouth? "Like zoo animals."? Yes, I think that was it.

Well, Chuck, it's a free country, and so you certainly have the right, I suppose to continue lecturing the poor, in between checking your Blackberry and dropping the kids off at soccer practice. If you want to believe that the poor of New Orleans are immoral and greedy, and unworthy of support at a time like this - or somehow more in need of your scolding than whatever donation you might make to a relief fund - so be it. But let's leave God out of it, shall we? All of it

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar, I'd prefer to keep it that way.

Time Wise lived in New Orleans from 1986 to 1996. He is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son, and can be reached at tim/wise@msn.com
This piece previously appeared on www.counterpunch.com.

Take a look at this.

No wonder they weren't answering the phones at their headquarters in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, or West L.A. And, here I'd thought they'd all gone to a barbecue for the Labor Day Weekend.

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Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

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Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10121.htm

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

We Have Been Abandoned By Our Own Country

"Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. "

You have to watch this video to understand, how little regard our government has for the welfare of its own citizens.

Press play to view.

Click here to play in remote player

TRANSCRIPT

Jefferson Parish President Broussard, let me start with you. You just heard the director of Homeland Security's explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?

MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership.

It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It's so obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the property. We can rebuild the property. It's got to be able to come in and save lives.

We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to accomplish this and to-- reconstructing FEMA.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask--I want to ask--should...

MR. BROUSSARD: You know, just some quick examples...

MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...

MR. RUSSERT: All right.

MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...

MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

MR. RUSSERT: Just take a pause, Mr. President. While you gather yourself in your very emotional times, I understand, let me go to Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

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Proud to be an American? Not hardly. But, I've just donated two weeks of my PTO [Personal Time Off] and my skills in disaster response to wherever they may need me in the Gulf states. So far, I've received replies from LSU in Baton Rouge, somewhere in Houston, TX, and somewhere in Montgomery, AL. I also just filled out an application with the USHHS in D.C.

My boss is going to kill me tomorrow.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Shrub has met his Waterloo...Where-oh-where is the Christian right? Ya know, the M O R A L majority? Truck loads of water sitting on a freeway in the south, won't move till authorized, all the 'authorizers' are posing for photos while townspeople need a drink of potable water -- you got a world class cluster f*** underway, Mr. Gratz! How will Karl Rove, ole buddy, fix this ONE?

F E M A? What's FEMA?

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By using Republican disinformation agents like Tim Gratz. Apparently a poll shows that 45% of Americans are pleased with the way George Bush has handled the crisis so far. It seems that the Americans do have a lot of people like Tim who are incapable of logical thought. I suppose some could use the excuse that they only get their information from media outlets like Fox News, but Tim has the benefit of reading the thoughts of the wise people who make up this forum. But as I have long suspected, Tim does not actually read these posts. If he does, he clearly does not understand them.

"Apparently a poll shows that 45% of Americans are pleased with the way George Bush has handled the crisis so far."

Could that possibly have anything to do with the fact that when a survey was done in recent years, during the attempts to overhaul the education system of the U.S.? It came to light that the majority of the average intelligence of the population barely hit 72 on the scale used to measure the effectiveness of the curriculars being taught in K1 through 12? And if so, that in itself might explain the choices being made in the current electoral process which allow for ex B-rated movie stars, and C? [more like D-] persons of low average intelligence to be elected and accepted based on their television photo-op projectability, or their penchant for mouthing pre-fabbed sound-bytes. Rather than, based on their ability to correctly apply logic and critical thinking skills needed for assessing every kind of situation, and/or worse-case scenario to be anticipated and confronted in a timely manner?

I have failed to denote any of these skills reflected by this administration at any time during its regime. The only thing they've ever accomplished in a timely manner was their declaration of war in Iraq. And, if this is what 45% of these yahoos find acceptable, then by all means let them send their sons and daughters off to be slaughtered. If they're ignorant enough to be amenable to the possibility of that kind of an outcome, are willing to be handed an American flag folded into a triangle at their child's funeral, and ready to raise their grandchildren without benefit of a mother or father, or adequate compensation for their loss, then that's just great!

In the case of the Katrina disaster, I find it despicable, as well as deplorable, and especially egregious in the manner in which the "color bar" [sTILL] has been allowed to rear its ugly head. Once more proving a point to history and revealing to the world at large, the truly mean-spirited, and horrific soul [sTILL] being shamelessly exhibited by this paradox of a "so-called" free and equal brotherhood of man, un-equally co-existing in these United States of America, and in the 21st Century, yet. I guess I must be expecting too much from a race of white morons.

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush to Diane Sawyer

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Yeah, right. Just like they'll claim they hadn't anticipated a Category 5 Hurricane, yet continued to assure New Orleans that the levees would hold in a Category 3. Hello??? Well they classified Katrina as a Category 5 at 16:30 hrs on Sunday. Excuse me, but he should have had the National Guard deployed the minute it went to a 5, by no later than Sunday evening! Shoulda, woulda, coulda, but all we got was Dumb and Dumber.

Oh, and BTW, the last time I was in New Orleans was for a visit in 1991. I walked the same backstreets that I did when I lived there in 1965, on Esplanade between Royal and Chartres, giving someone a tour of the area. I never noticed this element that you've been describing, either in 1965, nor in 1991. What I did find fault with was the way they had relocated the original "Morning Call" from it's original building right up against the riverfront, and had it [or what was supposed to have been "it", because it now had two stories to it and was all mirrored and gussied up], situated a block or two inland. And, after walking to the river's edge where I remembered it being, and finding the original building, which had a rounded front to it's facade, which the present one did not have. I found it had been painted an beige-pink color and had been turned into a warehouse, or storage facility. And in 1991, I also found the area to have been renovated and overly commercialized, as it resembled an attempt to upscale it in much the same way they do with mini-malls or galleria-type shopping venues. It took away all the charm and antiquity of the area, as I had remembered it. As a sideline, the original "Morning Call" that I frequented, was the same one my Grandfather and Mother used to go to when taking their crops to market after harvest. My mother had given me directions and a description of the place when she knew I was going to be living there, to be sure I'd go and frequent it, as she had loved it so, as a young girl in the 30's and 40's.

VHeadline.com

Commentary

Published: Thursday, September 01, 2005

Bylined to: Arthur Shaw

Can you believe it? GOPs watched as a category 5 approached New Orleans...

VHeadline.com commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: The rescue workers in New Orleans ... mostly the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) until Thursday, September 1 ... brag cavalierly on national TV that they aren't trying at this time to collect dead bodies ... they are concentrating on trying to rescue the survivors.

Given the limitations of the resources that have been made immediately available to the rescue operation, their concentration on rescuing survivors is not a bad choice.

But in a country like the United States, which can afford to give the rich hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and Israel US$30 billion dollar every year in various forms of aid ... why is there a limitation on the resources immediately available to the Katrina survivors.

Unless the resources are immediately available, the "survivors" won't remain survivors for long. Thanks a lot, GOPs, for your liberality after the potential survivors have perished.

The body count of the dead in New Orleans is certain to reach 10,000 and maybe ten times 10,000, with many of the dead being lost during the three or four days after Katrina hit New Orleans when the GOPs intentionally or negligently responded to the disaster with extreme incompetence.

The GOPs calmly watched as a category 5 approached New Orleans.

Did the GOPs now pretend that they did not ask themselves: "What are the probabilities that a category five or four or three will breach the levees in New Orleans?"

We know the GOPs ask themselves this question because the federal law requires certain agencies -- the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and, etc. -- to make such preliminary assessments of threats to strategic facilities.

But GOP-loving US citizens are pretending otherwise.

Common sense, conventional wisdom, and foregone conclusions tell us that a category five or four would breach or wipe out all, or some of the levees. Surely, this had to be the finding of the mandated technical studies by the US government of the threat to the levees posed by Katrina.

Given this unavoidable finding of the GOP technical studies, the GOPs had to ask themselves: if the levees are breached how many people in New Orleans will drown?

It will be interesting to discover the answer to this question through litigation under the US Freedom of Information Act.

One thing is for sure, as they watched the category five approached the New Orleans levees, the GOPs stayed calm.

Did the GOPs ask: "Will New Orleans -- almost certainly without power and under water -- have the resources to handle the emergency resulting from a visit by a category Five or Four to the levees?"

Of course, the GOPs ask this question.

How could the GOPs avoid asking themselves this question?

What's more, the GOPs answered this question ... "without power and under water the overwhelmed local authorities wouldn't be in a position to do anything for the survivors, if any of the levees breached.

All of this was known before Katrina made landfall, or as it did, as a category five, moving north at 15 miles per hour, headed toward the strategic levees.

The evidence is that the GOPs in Washington, watching the imminent calamity in News Orleans, said to one another "Them New Orleans folk elected a Democratic mayor and ... worse ... help to elect a Democratic governor. Let the liberal mayor and the liberal governor ... without power and under water ... help the inevitable liberal victims of Katrina."

The GOPs are in state power and thereby command the immense resources of the United States ... but they are pretending that they did not know that New Orleans was NOT similarly situated to other cities that become the targets of powerful hurricanes.

New Orleans has special vulnerabilities as a result of being under sea level and surrounded by three bodies of water, all of which threaten the city's existence.

And the lying and stinking GOPs knew it .. although they lie and deny it. And didn't do anything. Nothing!

The GOPs treated New Orleans just like any other city threatened by a major hurricane. But they knew! Can you believe that? They knew!

The point is that the GOPs in the White House knew that there was a very real probability of a historic calamity in New Orleans because of the peculiarities of the city's geography next to several adjacent bodies of water, so once the Category five had included New Orleans in its projected path, a total effort toward evacuation became a necessity.

The mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana went to the media and begged the residents of the city to leave. GOPs in the White House watched the disaster unfold. The GOPs knew its would require tens of thousands of armed troops to accomplished the kind evacuation of a city of the size of New Orleans that a threat of Katrina's magnitude posed. The GOPs saw that the pitiful resources of Louisiana were already stretched to the limit. The GOPs did nothing to help the evacuation.

FEMA has state of art and very sophisticated technologies that measure the success or failure of evacuation efforts ... so the GOPs knew that the New Orleans "evacuation" was a sham. The GOPs did nothing. FEMA, for example, has methodologies that can statistically measure current demographic density by the degree of telephone usage ... but the GOPs, knowing how many people were still in New Orleans, did nothing.

And in little Cuba, the government there sometime moves as many as 3,000,000 people out of harm's way who were less threatened than the precariously situated citizens of New Orleans.

The GOPs botched the evacuation and deliberately botched it.

The GOPs knew their help was essential to an effective evacuation, but the GOPs played coy "Cross your fingers, New Orleans."

If the GOPs, out of partisan reasons, chose not to lend a hand with the total evacuation of New Orleans, then that's one thing. But the GOPs could have at least timely lent a hand with the rescue operation which was bound to occur in the wake of Katrina. The GOPs didn't even do this.

The mainstream media announced early Monday, August 29 morning about 9:00 am eastern standard time that a levee in New Orleans at Tennessee Street had been breached and water was pouring into the city from a huge adjacent lake.

So, even the GOP-loving base and GOP leaders knew as of 9:00 am, Monday, that New Orleans was about be drowned. We all knew it. We presume that the GOPs, who run the country, would do something. They did nothing either on August 29 ... or immediately after ... when they and the rest of us were informed that the calamity was imminent or indeed occurring.

Even if the scum who run the country did not earlier ask and answer the question: can a category Five or Four breach a levee? ... they should have known that a levee was breached after the mainstream media announced the breach. Monday morning at nine.

As of Wednesday night, they still did't have a rescue operation in place.

The GOPs didn't do anything before the disaster happened even though they knew, at least three days before about the probability of a calamity. They didn't do anything immediately after the calamity happened even though they knew almost to the second when the calamity occurred ... letting an untold number of US citizens die while the citizens waited for help that only they ... not the local authorities possessed.

Generally, it's believed that one can double the number of casualties resulting from a natural disaster by commencing the rescue operations belatedly two or three days after the disaster.

This evidently is what the GOPs did.

From the aspects as evacuation or rescue, Katrina is not just a natural disaster. Katrina is a natural disaster aggravated and magnified by extreme GOP incompetence or magnified by their partisan malice. Some of it is natural disaster ... no doubt. But a lot of this disaster is not natural, it's low-down, dirty spite.

The GOPs didn't do anything about evacuation and waited a few days until casualties mounted until they did something about rescue even though they had at least six days warning or notice that rescue operations were inevitable.

Within hours after the Katrina has left New Orleans with thousands of people stranded and starving on rooftops and on expressway overpasses and wherever after being trapped by the visiting hurricane for two days, they and the lying mainstream media are appalled by the "looting."

Can you believe it?

These people plainly abandoned by their rulers, bereft of drinking water, food, clothes, bedding, etc., are "looting."

What do you think of that ... yes, "looting" right here in River City?

The surviving population of New Orleans should loot!

The survivors of Katrina must loot to stay alive ... ... loot your drinking water from the flooded stores ... much of the canned food in flooded stores should still be good, loot it. Clothes and bedding and tents ... loot that too.

The GOPs stance of the on "looting" resembles their stand on medication for HIV/AIDS ... "afflicted, please don't violate our AIDS drugs intellectual property rights in ... please just go ahead and die quietly and accommodatingly ... OK!"

The GOPs want the survivors in New Orleans to perish quietly without "looting" or noise ... this is also what they want for Latin America.

Arthur Shaw

belial4444@aol.com

More VHeadline.com commentaries by Arthur Shaw

Any opinions expressed in various VHeadline.com storyfiles across

this e-publication are the sole responsibility of the individual authors

quote=Tim Gratz,Aug 23 2005, 06:56 AM]

Mark, I too found the statements attributed to Robertson appalling.

At least he called for the use of the Special Forces and did not suggest subcontracting the hit to the Mafia.

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[/color]

And using the Special Forces to assassinate a leader is somehow better than using the Mob? As usual Tim, your logic is less than logical. But then again you are on another thread saying that the CIA has "never" assassinated leaders. When you know full well that is not true. So FAR from it.

Dawn

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But as you already know, my friend. Our Tim G. does serve a good purpose, be it nothing more than tossing more neocon double-speak at us, to ponder and prepare to counter-point. He does keep us on our toes, and at least doesn't stoop to those Dan Akroyd forms of rebuttal, hurled so unmercifully at Jane Curtin on the old SNL shows. "Jane, you insufferable, ignorant slut!"

Thank you Tim G., for being both a gentleman and a scholarly fascist, at least.

Ter

P.S. Where are my pictures, Tim? Should I send you film for your camera?

I'm getting a bit off track, but I like this point:

In this nation's epic struggle on behalf of freedom, reason, and democracy, the press has unilaterally disarmed - and therefore many good Americans, both liberal and conservative, have lost faith in the promise of self-government. That vast surrender is demoralizing, certainly, but if we face it, and endeavor to reverse it, it will not prove fatal. This democracy can survive a plot to hi-jack an election. What it cannot survive is our indifference to, or unawareness of, the evidence that such a plot has succeeded.

This article on Inadequate Ideologies really heightens my frustrations with the two-party system. We now get to, depending upon partisan, "pick and choose" what is and isn't immoral. Immorality can be something we accuse our opponents with and look the other way when our party is being confronted with wrong doings.

Anyhow, John Denver once sang a lyric to the effect of 'working for our machines.' He was in a round about way saying that the more technology humanity produces, the more technology we need, and the more we work for them to keep pace in a fast technological world. This is why the rural way of living will always be more satisfying to live in. It is closer to nature.

This could be said also for political corruption. The more there is, the more there will be because the other party has to cheat or the opponent will win out every time, or at minimum have a better advantage. I get the feeling even though Reagan defeated Mondale in nearly every state, there were hired hands to make sure that outcome remained so just in case the Democrats were cheating as well. I'm not pinning the blame on Democrats because it is a universal problem, and I think the column

you presented shows time and time again that these examples distance the average voter from the political landscape.

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt put out a book not to long ago called "If it is not close, they cannot cheat", or something along those lines. I'm indifferent about reading it because I have the feeling it will, again, highlight cheating in a partisan way. I've been called a "coward" for not sticking to one side of the fence, but on issues like this it becomes difficult for me to want to when it is evident in both party's.

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"This article on Inadequate Ideologies really heightens my frustrations with the two-party system. We now get to, depending upon partisan, "pick and choose" what is and isn't immoral. Immorality can be something we accuse our opponents with and look the other way when our party is being confronted with wrong doings."

Actually Brent, some of us have begun referring to it as:

ONE PARTY - TWO BRANCHES.

Tony Blair constantly tells us that those who criticise George Bush are anti-American. This is of course a lot of nonsense. However, it is true is that George Bush is seen as the main representative of your country. We are also aware that he has won two elections (although some suspect he has stolen both elections). I am afraid that some people in Europe believe that most Americans are like Tim Gratz. One of the pleasures of this Forum is that it shows that America is full of intelligent and rational people. Tim appears to be in a minority of one. I can only sympathize. It must be terrible having someone like George Bush representing your country. It is bad enough for us having Tony Blair. Although, like Bush, he is corrupt, at least he is not an ignoramus.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

******************************************************************

It must be terrible having someone like George Bush representing your country. It is bad enough for us having Tony Blair. Although, like Bush, he is corrupt, at least he is not an ignoramus.

So terrible, in fact, that there are some of us seriously considering leaving the place.

Another great article from Harper's Magazine August 2005

NONE DARE CALL IT STOLEN

Ohio, the election, and America's servile press

By Mark Crispin Miller

Whichever, candidate you voted for (or think you voted and for), or even if you did not (or could not vote), you must admit that last year's presidential race was - if nothing else - pretty interesting. True, the press has dropped the subject, and the Democrats, with very few exceptions, have "moved on." Yet this contest may have been the most unusual in U.S. history; it was certainly among those with the strangest outcomes. You may remember being surprised yourself. The infamously factious Democrats were fiercely unified - Ralph Nader garnered only about 0.38 percent of the national vote - while the Republicans were split, with a vocal anti-Bush front that included anti-Clinton warrior Bob Barr of Georgia; Ike's son John Eisenhower; Ronald Reagan's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Crowe, Jr.; former Air Force Chief of Staff and onetime "Veteran for Bush" General Merrrill "Tony" McPeak; founding neo-con Francis Fukuyama; Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, and various large alliances of military officers, diplomats, and business professors. The American Conservative, co-founded by Pat Buchanan, endorsed five candidates for president, including both Bush and Kerry, while the Financial Times and The Economist came out for Kerry alone. At least fifty-nine daily newspapers that backed Bush in the previous election endorsed Kerry (or no one) in this election. The national turnout in 2004 was the highest since 1968, when another unpopular war had swept the ruling party from the White House. And, on Election Day, twenty-six state exit polls incorrectly predicted wins for Kerry, a statistical failure so colossal and unprecedented that the odds against its happening, according to a report last May by the National Election Data Archive Project, were 16.5 million to 1. Yet this ever-less-beloved president, this president who had united liberals and conservatives and nearly all the world against himself - this president somehow bested his opponent by 3,000,176 votes.

How did he do it? To that most important question the comentariat, briskly prompted by Republicans, supplied an answer. Americans of faith - a silent majority heretofore unmoved by any other politician - had poured forth by the millions to vote "Yes!" for Jesus' buddy in the White House. Bush's 51 percent, according to this thesis, were roused primarily by "family values." Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called gay marriage "the hood ornament on the family values wagon that carried the president to a second term." The pundits eagerly pronounced their amens - "Moral values," Tucker Carlson said on CNN, "drove President Bush and other Republican candidates to victory this week" - although it is not clear why. The primary evidence of our Great Awakening was a post-election poll by the Pew Research Center in which 27 percent of the respondents, when asked which issue "mattered most" to them in the election, selected something called "moral values." This slight plurality of impulse becomes still less impressive when we note that as the pollsters went to great pains to make clear, "the relative importance of moral values depends greatly on how the question is framed." In fact, when voters were asked to "name in their own words the most important factor in their vote," only 14 percent managed to come up with "moral values." Strangely, this detail went little mentioned in the post-electoral commentary, [although another poll, by Zogby International, showed that 33 percent of voters deemed "greed and materialism" the most pressing moral problems in America. Only 12 percent of those polled cited gay marriage.]

The press has had little to say about most of the strange details of the election - except, that is, to ridicule all efforts to discuss them. This animus appeared soon after Novermber 2, in a spate of caustic articles dismissing any critical discussion of the outcome as crazed speculation: "Election paranoia surfaces: Conspiracy theorists call results rigged," chuckled the Baltimore Sun on November 5. "Internet Buzz on Vote Fraud Is Dismissed," proclaimed the Boston Globe on November 10. "Latest Conspiracy Theory - Kerry Won - Hits the Ether," the Washington Post chortled on November 11. The New York Times weighed in with "Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried" - making mock not only of the "post-election theorizing", but of cyberspace itself, the fons et origo of all such loony tunes, according to the Times.

Such was the news that most Americans received. Although the tone was scientific, "realistic," skeptical, and "middle-of-the-road," the explanations offered by the press were weak and immaterial. It was as if they were reporting from inside a forest fire without acknowledging the fire, except to keep insisting that there was no fire, [Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC, stood out as an heroic exception, devoting many segments of his nightly program Countdown to the myriad signs of electoral mischief, particularly in Ohio.] Since Kerry had conceded, they argued, and since "no smoking gun" had come to light, there was no story to report. This is an oddly passive argument. Even so, the evidence that something went extremely wrong last fall is copious, and not hard to find. Much of it was noted at the time, albeit by local papers, and haphazardly. Concerning the decisive contest in Ohio, the evidence is lucidly compiled in a single congressioanl report, which, for the last half-year, has been available to anyone inclined to read it. It is a veritable arsenal of "smoking guns" - and yet its findings may be less extraordinary than the fact that no one in this country seems to care about them.

On January 5, Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released Preserving Democracy[/i]: What Went Wrong in Ohio. The report was the result of a five-week investigation by the committee's Democrats, who reviewed thousands of complaints of fraud, malfeasance, or incompetence surrounding the election in Ohio, and further thousands of complaints that poured in by phone and e-mail as word of the inquiry spread. The congressional researchers were assisted by volunteers in Ohio who held public hearings in Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, and Cincinnati, and questioned more than two hundred witnesses. (Although they were invited, Republicans chose not to join in the inquiry.) [The full report can be downloaded from the Judiciary Committee's website at www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf, and is also, as of May, available as a trade paperback, entitled What Went Wrong in Ohio. I should note here that, in a victory for family values, the publishers of that paperback are my parents, Jordan and Anita Miller.]

Preserving Democracy describes three phases of Republican chicanery: the run-up to the election, the election itself, and the post-election cover-up. The wrongs exposed are not mere dirty tricks (though Bush/Cheney also went in heavily for those) but specific violations of the U.S. and Ohio constitutions, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act. Although Conyers trod carefully when the report came out, insisting that the crimes did not affect the outcome of the race (a point he had to make, he told me, "just to get a hearing"), his report does "raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said that the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone Federal requirements and constitutional standards." The report cites "massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies" throughout the state - wrongs, moreover, that were hardly random accidents. "In many case," the report says, "these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio." [When contacted by Harper's Magazine, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo dismissed Conyers's report as a partisan attack. "Why wasn't it more than an hour's story?" he asked, referring to the lack of media interst in the report. "Everybody can't be wrong, can they?"]

The first phase of malfeasance entailed, among many other actions, several months of bureaucratic hi-jinks aimed at disenfranchising Democrats, the most spectacular result of which was "a wide discrepancy between the availabitlity of voting machines in more minority, Democratic and urban areas as compared to more Republican, suburban and exurban areas." Such unequal placement had the predictable effect of slowing the voting process to a crawl at Democratic polls, while making matters quick and easy in Bush country: a clever way to cancel out the Democrats' immense success at registering new voters in Ohio. (We cannot know the precise number of new voters registered in Ohio by either party because many states, including Ohio, do not register voters by party affiliation. The New York Times reported in September, however, that new registration rose 25 percent in Ohio's predominantly Republican precincts and 250 percent in Ohio's predominantly Democratic precincts.)

At Kenyon College in Gambier, for instance, there were only two machines for 1,300 would-be voters, even though "a surge of late registrations promised a record vote." Gambier residents and Kenyon students had to stand in line for hours, in the rain and in "crowded, narrow hallways," with ome them inevitably forced to call it quits. "In contrast, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, which is considered more Republican leaning, there were ample voting machines waiting, and no lines." This was not a consequence of limited resources. In Franklin County alone, as voters stood for hours throughout Columbus and elsewhere, at least 125 machines collected dust in storage. The county's election officials had "decided to make do with 2,866 machines, even though the analysis showed that the county needs 5,000 machines."

It seemed at times that Ohio's secretary state was determined to try every stunt short of levying a poll tax to suppress new voter turnout. On September 7, based on an overzealous reading of an obscure state bylaw, he ordered county boards of elevtions to reject all Ohio voter-registration forms not "printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight." Under public pressure he reversed the order three weeks later, by which time unknown numbers of Ohioans had been disenfranchised. Blackwell also attempted to limit access to provisional ballots, The Help America Vote Act - passed in 2002 to address some of the problems of the 2000 election - prevents election officials from deciding at the polls who will be permitted to cast provisional ballots, as earlier Ohio law had permitted. On September 16, Blackwell issued a directive that somehow failed to note that change. A federal judge ordered him to revise the language, Blackwell resisted, and the court was forced to draft its own version of the directive, which it ordered Blackwell to accept, even as it noted Blackwell's "vigorous, indeed, at times, obdurate opposition" to compliance with the law.

Under Blackwell the state Republican Party tried to disenfranchise still more Democratic voters through a technique known as "caging." The party sent registered letters to new voters, "then sought to challenge 35,000 individuals who refused to sign for the letters," including "voters who were homeless, serving abroad, or simply did not want to sign for something concerning the Republican Party." It should be noted that marketers have long used zip codes to target, with remarkable precision, the ethnic makeup of specific neighborhoods, and also that, according to exit polls last year, 84 percent of those black citizens who voted in Ohio voted for Kerry. [Let it not be said that the Democrats rose wholly above the electoral fray: in Defiance County, Ohio, on Chad Staton was arrested on 130 counts of vote fraud when he sumitted voter-registration forms purportedly signed by, among others, Dick Tracy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Michael Jackson, and Mary Poppins. Of course, depending on party affiliation, the consequence of election misdeeds varies. Staton, who told police he was paid in crack for each registration, received fifty-four months in jail for his fifth-degree felonies; Blackwell, for his part is now the G.O.P. front-runner for governor of Ohio.]

The second phase of lawlessness began the Monday before the election, when Blackwell issued two directives restricting media coverage of the election. First, reporters were to be barred from the polls, because their presence contravened Ohio's law on "loitering" near voting places. Second, media representatives conducting exit polls were to remain 100 feet away from the polls. Blackwell's reasoning here was that, with voter turnout estimated at 73 percent, and with many new voters so blissfully ignorant as to have "never looked at a voting machine before," his duty was clear: the public was to be protected from the "interference or intimidation" caused by "intense media scrutiny." Both cases were at once struck down in federal court on First Amendment grounds.

Blackwell did manage to ban reporters from a post-election ballot-counting site in Warren County because - election officials claimed - the FBI had warned of an impending terrorist attack there. The FBI said it issued no such warning, however, and the officials refused to name the agent who alerted them. Moreover, as the Cincinnati Enquirer later reported, e-mail correspondence between election officials and the county's building services director indicated that lockdown plans - "down to the wording of the signs that would be posted on the locked doors" - had been in the works for at least a week. Beyond suggesting that officials had something to hide, the ban was also, according to the report, a violation of Ohio law and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Contrary to prior understanding, Blackwell also kept foreign monitors away from the Ohio polls. Having been formally invited by the State Department on June 9, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, an international consortium based in Vienna, had come to witness and report on the election. The mission's two-man teams had been approved to monitor the process in eleven states - but the observers in Ohio were prevented from watching the opening of the polling places, the counting of the ballots, and, in some cases, the election itself. "We thought we could be at the polling places before, during and after" the voting, said Soren Sondergaard, a Danish member of the team. Denied admission to the polls in Columbus, he and his partner went to Blackwell, who refused them letters of approval, again citing Ohio law banning "loitering" outside the polls. The two observers, therefore, had to "monitor" the voting at a distance of 100 feet from each polling place. Although not technincally illegal, Blackwell's refusal was improper and, of course, suspicious. (The Conyers report does not deal with this episode.)

To what end would election officials risk so malodorous an action? We can only guess, of course. We do know, however, that Ohio, like the nation, was the site of numerous statistical anomalies - so many that the number is itself statistically anomalous, since every single one of them took votes from Kerry. In Butler County the Democratic candidate for State Supreme Court took in 5,347 more votes than Kerry did. In Cuyahoga County ten Cleveland precincts "reported an incredibly high number of votes for third party candidates who have historically recieved only a handful of votes from these urban areas" - mystery votes that would mostly otherwise have gone to Kerry. In Franklin County, Bush received nearly 4,000 extra votes from one computer, and, in Miami County, just over 13,000 votes appeared in Bush's column after all precincts had reported. In Perry County the number of Bush votes somehow exceeded the number of registered voters, leading to voter turnout rates as high as 124 percent. Youngstown, perhaps to make up the difference, reported negative 25 million votes.

In Cuyahoga County and in Franklin County - both Democratic strongholds - the arrows on the absentee ballots were not properly aligned with their respective punch holes, so that countless votes were miscast, as in West Palm Beach back in 2000. In Mercer County some 4,000 votes for president - representing nearly 7 percent of the electorate - mysteriously dropped out of the final count. The machines in heavily Democratic Lucas County kept going haywire, prompting the county's election director to admit that prior tests of the machines had failed. One polling place in Lucas County never opened because all the machines were locked up somewhere and no one had the key. In Hamilton County many absentee voters could not cast a Democratic vote for president because county workers, in taking Ralph Nader's name off many ballots, also happened to remove John Kerry's name. The Washington Post reported that in Mahoning County "25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column," but it did not think to ask why.

Ohio Democrats also were heavily thwarted through dirty tricks recalling Richard Nixon's reign and the systematic bullying of Dixie. There "literally thousands upon thousands" of such incidents, the Conyers report notes, cataloguing only the grossest cases. Voters were told, falsely, that their polling place had changed; the news was conveyed by phone calls, "door-hangers," and even party workers going door to door. There were phone calls and fake "voter bulletins" instructing Democrats that they were not to cast their votes until Wednesday, November 3, the day after Election Day. Unknown "volunteers" in Cleveland showed up at the homes of Democrats, kindly offering to "deliver" completed absentee ballots to the election office. And, at several polling places, election personnel or hired goons bused in to do the job "challenged" voters - black voters in particular - to produce documents confirming their eligibility to vote. The report notes one especially striking incident:

"In Franklin county, a worker at a holiday Inn observed a team of 25 people who called themselves the "Texas Strike Force" using payphones to make intimidating calls to likely voters, targeting people recently in the prison system. The "Texas Strike Force" paid their way to Ohio, but their hotel accommodations were paid for by the Ohio Republican Party, whose headquarters are across the street. The hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returning to jail if he voted. Another hotel worker called the police, who came but did nothing."

The electoral fraud continued past Election Day, but by means far more complex and less apparent than the bullying that marked the day itself. Here the aim was to protect the spoils, which required the prevention of countywide hand recounts by any means necessary. The procedure for recounts is quite clear. In fact, it was created by Blackwell. A recount having been approved, each of the state's eighty-eight counties must select a number of precincts randomly, so that the total of their ballots comes to 3 percent (at least) of the county's total vote. Those ballots must then be simultaneously hand counted and machine counted. If the hand count and the new machine count match, the remaining 97 percent of the selected ballots may be counted by machine. If, however, the totals vary by as little as a single vote, all the other votes must be hand counted, and the results, once reconfirmed, must be accepted as the new official total.

The Ohio recount officially started on December 13 - five days after Conyers's hearings opened - and was scheduled to go on until December 28. Because the recount (such as it was) coincided with the inquiry, Conyers was able to discover, and reveal in his report, several instances of what seemed to be electoral fraud.

On December 13, for instance, Sherole Eaton, deputy director of elections for Hocking County, filed an affidavit stating that the computer that operates the tabulating machine had been "modified" by one Michael Barbian, Jr., an employee of Triad GSI, the corporate manufacturer of the county's voting machinery.

"Ms. Eaton witnessed Mr. Barbian modify the Hocking County computer vote tabulator before the announcement of the Ohio recount. She further witnessed Barbian, upon the announcement that the Hocking County precinct was planned to be the subject of the initial Ohio test recount, make further alterations based on his knowledge of the situation. She also has firsthand knowledge that Barbian advised election officials how to manipulate voting machinery to ensure that [the] preliminary hand recount matched the machine count." [In May 2005, Eaton was ordered by the Hocking County Board of Elections to resign from her position.]

The committee also learned that Triad similarly intervened in at least two other counties. In a filmed interview, Barbian said that he had examined machines not only in Hocking County but also in Lorain, Muskingum, Clark, Harrison, and Guernsey counties; his purpose was to provide the Board of Elections with as much information as possible - "The more information you give someone," he said, "the better job they can do." the report concludes that such information as Barbian and his colleagues could provide was helpful indeed.

"Based on the above, including actual admissions and statements by Triad employees, it strongly appears that Triad and its employees engaged in a course of behavior to provide "cheat sheets" to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets told them how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law. If true, this would frustrate the entire purpose of the recount law - to randomly ascertain if the vote counting apparatus is operating fairly and effectively, and if not to conduct a full hand recount."

The report notes Triad's role in several other cases. In Union County the hard drive on one tabulator was replaced after the election. (The old one had to be subpoenaed.) In Monroe County, after the 3 percent hand count had twice failed to match the machine count, a Triad employee brought in a new machine and took away the old one. (That machine's count matched the hand count.) Such operations are especially worrying in light of the fact that Triad's founder, Brett A. Rapp, "has been a consistent contributor to Republican causes." (Neither Barbian nor Rapp would respond to Harper's queries, and the operator at Triad refused even to provide the name of a press liaison.)

There were many cases of malfeasance, howver, in which Triad played no role. Some 1,300 Libertarian and Green Party volunteers, led by Green Party recount manager Lynne Serpe, monitored the count throughout Ohio.[The recount itself was the result of a joint application from the Green and Libertarian parties.] They reported that: In Allen, Clermont, Cuyahoga, Morrow, Hocking, Vinton, Summit, and Medina counties, the precincts for the 3 percent hand recount were pre-selected, not picked at random, as the law requires. In Fairfield County, the 3 percent hand recount yeilded a total that diverged from the machine count - but despite protests from observers, officials did not then perform a hand recount of all the ballots, as the law requires. In Washington and Lucas counties, ballots were marked or altered, apparently to ensure that the hand recount would equal the machine count. In Ashland, Portage, and Coshocton counties, ballots were improperly unsealed or stored. Belmont County "hired an independent programmer ('at great expense') to reprogram the counting machines so that they would only count votes for the President during the recount." Finally, Democratic and/or Green observers were denied access to absentee, and/or provisional ballots, or were not allowed to monitor the recount process, in Summit, Huron, Putnam, Allen, Holmes, Mahoning, Licking, Stark, Medina, Warren, and Morgan counties. In short, the Ohio vote was never properly recounted, as required by Ohio law.

That is what the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee found, that is what they distributed to everyone in Congress, and that is what any member of the national press could have reported at any time in the last half year. Conyers may or may not have precisely captured every single dirty trick. The combined votes gained by the Republicans through such devices may or may not have decided the election. (Bush won Ohio by 118,601 votes.) Indeed, if you could somehow look into the heart of every eligible voter in the United States to know his or her truest wishes, you might discover that Bush/Cheney was indeed the people's choice. But you have to admit - the report is pretty interesting.

In fact, its release was timed for maximum pulicity. According to the United States Code (Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 15), the President of the Senate - i.e., the the U.S. Vice President - must announce each state's electoral results, then "call for objection." Objections must be made in writing and "signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives." A challenge having been submitted, the joint proceedings must then be suspended so that both houses can retire to their respective chambers to decide the question, after which they reconvene and either certify or reject the vote.

Thus was an unprecedented civic drama looming on the day that Conyers's report appeared. First of all, electoral votes had been contested in the Congress only twice. In 1877 the electoral votes of several states were challenged, some by Democrats supporting Samuel Tilden, others by Republicans supporting Rutherford B. Hayes. In 1969, Republicans challenged the North Carolina vote when LLoyd W. Bailey, a "faithless elector" pledged to Richard Nixon for that state, voted for George Wallace.[Offended by the president-elect's first cabinet appointments (Henry Kissinger, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, etl al.), Bailey was protesting Nixon's liberalism.] And, a new challenge would be more than just "historic." Because of what had happened - or not happened - four years earlier, it would also be extraordinarily suspenseful. On January 6, 2001, House Democrats, galvanized by the electoral larceny in Florida, tried and failed to challenge the results. Their effort was aborted by the failure of a single Democratic senator to join them, as the law requires. Al Gore - still vice-president, and therefore still the Senate's president - had urged Democrats to make no such unseemly waves but to respect Bush's installation for the sake of national unity. Now, it seemed, that partisan disgrace would be redressed, at least symbolically; for a new challenge from the House, by Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio, would be co-signed by Barbara Boxer, Democratic senator from California, who, at a noon press conference on January 6, heightened the suspense by tearfully acknowledging her prior wrong: "Four years ago I didn't intervene. I was asked by Al Gore not to do so and I didn't do so. Frankly, looking back on it, I wish I had."

It was a story perfect for TV - a rare event, like the return of Halley's comet; a scene of high contention in the nation's capital; a heroine resolved to make things right, both for the public and herself. Such big news would highlight Conyers's report, whose findings, having spurred the challenge in the first place, would now inform the great congressional debate on the election in Ohio.

As you may recall, this didn't happen - the challenge was rejected by a vote of 267-31 in the House and 74-1 in the Senate. The Boston Globe gave the report 118 words (page 3); the Los Angeles Times, 60 words (page 18). It made no news in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, or U.S. News & World Report. It made no news on CBS, NBC, ABC, or PBS. Nor did NPR report it (though Talk of the Nation dealt with it on January 6). CNN did not report it, though Donna Brazile pointedly affirmed its copious "evidence" on Inside Politics on January 6. (Judy Woodruff failed to pause for an elaboration.) Also on that date, the Fox News Channel briefly showed Conyers himself discussing "irregularities" in Franklin County, though it did not mention the report. He was followed by Tom DeLay, who assailed the Democrats for their "assault against the institutions of our representative democracy." The New York Times negated both the challenge and the document in a brief item headlined,

"Election Results to Be Certified, with Little Fuss from Kerry," which ran on page 16 and ended with this quote from Dennis Hastert's office, vis-a`-vis the Democrats: "They are really just trying to stir up their loony left."

Indeed, according to the House Republicans, it was the Democrats who were the troublemakers and cynical manipulators - spinning "fantasies" and "conspiracy theories" to "distract" the people, "poison the atmosphere of the House of Representatives" (Dave Hobson, R., Ohio), and "undermine the prospect of democracy" (David Dreier, R., Calif.); mounting "a direct attack to undermine our democracy" (Tom DeLay, R., Tex.), "an assault against the institutions of our representative democracy" (DeLay); trying "to plant the insidious seeds of doubt in the electoral process" (J.D. Hayworth, R., Ariz.); and in so doing following "their party's primary strategy: to obstruct, to divide and to destroy" (Deborah D. Pryce, R., Ohio)

Furthermore, the argument went, there was no evidence of electoral fraud. The Democrats were using "baseless and meritless tactics" (Pryce) to present their "so-called evidence" (Bob Ney, R., Ohio), "making allegations that have no basis of fact" (Candace Miller, R., Mich.), making claims for which "there is no evidence whatsoever, no evidence whatsoever" (Dreier). "There is absolutely no credible basis to question the outcome of the election" (Rob Portman, R., Ohio). "No proven allegations of fraud. No reports of widespread wrongdoing. It was, at the end of the day, an honest election" (Bill Shuster, R., Pa.). And so on. Bush won Ohio by "an overwhelming and comfortable margin," Rep. Pryce insisted, while Ric Keller (R., Fla.) said that Bush won by "an over whelmingly comfortable margin." ("The president's margin is significant," observed Roy Blunt, R., Mo.) In short, as Tom DeLay put it, "no such voter disenfranchisement occurred in this election of 2004 - and, for that matter, the election of 2000. Everybody knows it. The voters know it, the candidates know it, the courts know it, and the evidence proves it."

That all this commentary was simply wrong went unnoticed and/or unreported. Once Bush was re-inaugurated, all inquiries were apparently concluded, and the story was officially kaput. By March, talk of fraud was calling forth the same reflexive ridicule that had prevailed back in November - but only now and then, on those rare moments when somebody dared bring it up: "Also tonight," CNN's Lour Dobbs deadpanned ironically on March 8, "Teresa Heinz Kerry still can't accept certain reality. She suggests the presidential election may have been rigged!" And when, on March 31, the National Election Data Archive Project released its study demonstrating that the exit polls had probably been right, it made news only in the Akron Beacon-Journal. [On the other hand, the thesis that the exit polls were flawed had been reported by the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Columbus Dispatch, CNN.com, MSNBC, and ABC (which devoted a Nightline segment to the "conspiracy theory" that the exit polls had been correct). The article included this response from Carlo LoParo, Kenneth Blackwell's spokesman: "What are you going to do except laugh at it?"

In the summer of 2003, Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.) was interviewed by Alexandra Pelosi at a barbecue on the White House lawn for her HBO documentary Diary of a Political Tourist. "It's already over. The election's over. We won," King exulted more than a year before the election. When asked by Pelosi - the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - how he knew that Bush would win, he answered, "It's all over but the counting. And, we'll take care of the counting."

King, who is well known in Washington for his eccentric utterances, says he was kidding, that he has known Pelosi for years, that she is "a clown," and that her project was a "spoof." Still, he said it. And laughter, despite the counsel of Kenneth Blackwell's press flack, seems an inappropriate response to the prospect of a stolen election - as does the advice that we "get over it." The point of the Conyers report, and of this report as well, is not to send Bush packing and put Kerry in his place. The Framers could no more conceive of electoral fraud on such a scale than they could picture Fox News Channel or the Pentagon; and so we have no constitutional recourse, should it be proven, finally, that the wrong guy "won." The point of our revisiting the last election, rather, is to see exactly what the damage was so that the people can demand appropriate reforms. Those who say we should "move on" from that suspicious race and work instead on "bigger issues" - like electoral reform - are urging the impossible; for there has never been a great reform that was not driven by some major scandal..

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization," Thomas Jefferson said, "it expects what never was and never will be." That much-quoted line foretells precisely what has happened to us since "the news" has turned into a daily paraphrase of Karl Rove's fevered dreams. Just as 2 + 2 = 5 in Orwell's Oceania, so here today the United States just won two brilliant military victories, 9/11 could not have been prevented, we live in a democracy (like the Iraqis), and last year's presidential race" was, at the end of the day, an honest election." Such claims, presented as the truth, are nothing but faith-based reiteration, as valid as the notions that on chooses to be homosexual, that condoms don't prevent the spread of HIV, and that the universe was made 6,000 years ago.

In this nation's epic struggle on behalf of freedom, reason, and democracy, the press has unilaterally disarmed - and therefore many good Americans, both liberal and conservative, have lost faith in the promise of self-government. That vast surrender is demoralizing, certainly, but if we face it, and endeavor to reverse it, it will not prove fatal. This democracy can survive a plot to hi-jack an election. What it cannot survive is our indifference to, or unawareness of, the evidence that such a plot has succeeded.

End of article

Mark Crispin Miller is the author of The Bush Dyslexicon and, most recently, Cruel and Unusual.

His next book, Fooled Again, will be published this fall by Basic Books.

What a fantastic article? One of the best I have ever read on the subject of religion. Thank you for posting it Terry. It is difficult to know how the Christian Right can defend themselves against this well-argued piece. Not that they ever get involved in intellectual arguments. The Christian Right is only interested in one way dialogue. It is why Tim Gratz will ignore it.

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Here's another one from a Minister, Dr. Meyers, that Len Osanic had posted on Prouty's last February.

I was so touched by it that I went to Dr. Meyer's site and wrote him a letter of appreciation for his wonderful speech. See below:

----- Original Message -----

From: Terry Mauro

To: cyasunday@aol.com

Cc: Len Osanic

Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 8:19 AM

Subject: Re: Dr. Meyers' speech at Oklahoma University...

Len Osanic

Guest

Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 12:27 am Post subject: The Immorality of Bush's Christianity

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Courageous Speech by Oklahoma City Congregational Minister: The Immorality of Bush's Christianity

Dr. Robin Meyers' Speech to Students at Oklahoma University

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and Professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.

Tonight, I join the ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value - I mean, what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does.

Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

a. When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.

b. When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

c. When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount, stuff like that we must never return to violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

d. When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.

e. When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

f. When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

g. When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva Convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

h. When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists - and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted - instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

i. When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

j. When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.

k. When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

l. When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

m. When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.

n. When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

o. When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faiths - compassion - and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

p. When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

q. When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.

I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war. I heard that when I was your age - when the Vietnam War was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong - the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?

This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you - young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.

Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do Real Jews, and Real Muslims, and Real Hindus, and Real Buddhists - so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious.

Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith.

And war - war is the greatest failure of the human race - and thus the greatest failure of faith. There's an old rock song, whose lyrics say it all:

"War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing."

And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.

February 13, 2005

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Dear Dr. Meyers,

I wanted to thank you for your insightful and uplifting speech which I just read on my good friend, Len Osanic's forum for the late Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. Not only has it confirmed for me that there is a man of the cloth, with an enlightened and progressive mind, teaching the Word from a sane and modern perspective, but it also gave me faith in the realization that as long as there are ministers, such as yourself, imparting the gospel with a format based on the present, here and now, there may be hope, for a mental intelligence [quotient] evolution of humankind, to raise our perspective to a higher plane of consciousness, such as may have been the message intended for the human race, all along. Let me confess to you, that until I read your speech, my faith in anything more than, "if there is a higher power out there somewhere in the universe, may the Force be with you." Because, after witnessing the knee-jerk response of most of middle America in voting for a candidate based on his religious leanings, gave me pause to think about what kind of future remained on the horizon, given the radical fundamentalist, holy-rolling doctrine he was preaching in order to get votes. It reminded me more of sheeple, following this fraud of a leader, to the slaughterhouse, instead of "the Lamb of God, and His flock of angels."

I had always deferred to the legal aspect concerning the separation of church and state embedded in our constitutional law as to be taken literally, as a given. You have imparted a whole new aspect to the importance of teaching the philosophy of religion's true meaning as the code of ethics handed down by Moses and Abraham, who carried the messages for the first stage of man's enlightenment. Jesus and Mohammad followed. One, as the Son of God, and the latter as, The Prophet. I once read in a book by Betty Eadie, that she felt that God, or The Father, looked upon all religions, as the tutorial or evolutionary road of mankind in the quest for learning Who the Creator is, and that possibly the different doctrines being taught, are the different levels of understanding needed in this step up to a higher plane of understanding. I am not quoting her verbatim. I'm merely remembering from my own cognitive processes as to what she wrote, as this has also become my own humble opinion in the process of trying to find something to believe in.

Thank you again, Dr. Meyers, for being a light shining brightly through the wilderness. The world is made a much better place for people such as yourself, and your conscientious approach to an extremely sensitive arena.

Sincerely yours,

Theresa C. Mauro

Culver City, CA

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I have just received word that researcher John Ritchson died on 8/18, of a "heart attack" at his home.

Does anyone here remember what John was working on?

I remember talking with him after his "car accident" and the details did NOT sound at all like an "accident". He was quite frightened by this.

But not deterred from his work on this case.

There is a obit, posted at Wim's site (JFK.solved. com), which leads me to believe that this is not just some ugly rumor, but true.

I do not have JOhn's phone number in my phone book, to verify this, but I cannot imagine someone posting an obit that is fraudulent.

Sadly,

Dawn

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I just spoke to John's father, Vernon, and John's sister, Laverne, and they confirmed that John passed away from a heart attack, and that he was with his friends, at the time. Vernon and Laverne were not present.

As you already know, Dawn, John and I were planning on meeting up with you in Dallas this November. I guess I'll be making that trip alone now.

Well, there was a call coming in as I was talking to Laverne, so I'm going to call her back right after posting this. I just posted the news over at Prouty's.

Keep John's father, Vernon who is also in failing health, and who depended on John, as well as John's sister, Laverne, in your prayers.

I can't believe he's gone.

Ter

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I just spoke to Leanne, [sorry for the mistake in getting her name wrong], and she verified that John passed away on August 13th at 01:00 hrs.

He was buried at Fort Harrison, MT will full military honors, on August 18, 2005.

Rest In Peace, my dear friend. I'm going to miss our Sunday evening phone calls.

I have just received word that researcher John Ritchson died on 8/18, of a "heart attack" at his home.

Does anyone here remember what John was working on?

I remember talking with him after his "car accident" and the details did NOT sound at all like an "accident". He was quite frightened by this.

But not deterred from his work on this case.

There is a obit, posted at Wim's site (JFK.solved. com), which leads me to believe that this is not just some ugly rumor, but true.

I do not have JOhn's phone number in my phone book, to verify this, but I cannot imagine someone posting an obit that is fraudulent.

Sadly,

Dawn

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I just spoke to John's father, Vernon, and John's sister, Laverne, and they confirmed that John passed away from a heart attack, and that he was with his friends, at the time. Vernon and Laverne were not present.

As you already know, Dawn, John and I were planning on meeting up with you in Dallas this November. I guess I'll be making that trip alone now.

Well, there was a call coming in as I was talking to Laverne, so I'm going to call her back right after posting this. I just posted the news over at Prouty's.

Keep John's father, Vernon who is also in failing health, and who depended on John, as well as John's sister, Laverne, in your prayers.

I can't believe he's gone.

Ter

I started to notice the power of the "Christian right" in the mid/early 80's. As a Christian myself I became alarmed by the level of intolerance, hatred,  self-righteousness that was espoused by  this "religious/political" group.  As the decades passed I saw this group grow in numbers as well as power.  It never failed to amaze me how little this so -called "moral majority" actually PRACTICED what Jesus taught.   Concern for life was ALWAYS "unborn life", NEVER concern for the millions of unwanted, neglected starving children in this world. Never concern for the poor uneducated mother for whom "choice" is often not even a thought, much less an option. (As an aside I consider the so-called "pro-life movement" falsely named. It's not about life, it's about controlling women's bodies. About keeping her "barefoot and pregnant" and voiceless.)

When the war in Iraq began I felt very isolated at my church....where the members  are STILL buying into W's lies, arrogance and false patriotism. 

The (stolen) electin of 2004 seemed to indicate that all Christians are Republicans and this is just FALSE.  W has many people brainwashed,  spiritual discernment taught by Jesus is  at an all time low, IMO.  But there are liberal Democrats who are also Christians. Who are sickened by having our God "hijacked" by these immoral "leaders".

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Good points Dawn. The teachings of Jesus Christ have motivated reformers with a social conscientious for centuries. Most of the much needed reforms that took place in the UK in the 19th century came about because individuals had a good knowledge of the teachings of Jesus. This included the successful campaigns against slavery and child labour in the early part of the 19th century. The demands for universal suffrage and the welfare state in the second-half of the 19th century mainly came from those inspired by the reading of the New Testament. George Bernard Shaw once claimed that Jesus was the world’s first socialist. Others, like the historian Richard Tawney, rightly pointed out that the Labour Movement in the UK had been more influenced by Methodism than Marxism.

The link between Christianity and reform has been in evidence throughout the world. This includes the United States. You have followed a similar pattern to that of Europe. The campaigners against slavery were devout Christians. The early Labour movement relied on the leadership of Christians. After the war, committed Christians such as Abraham Muste, George Houser (two men that deserves to be better known), and Norman Thomas helped establish the first effective civil rights groups such as Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). Like the Quakers, members of the FOR were Christian pacifists (based on their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus).

The success of the FOR inspired the setting up of the Congress of Racial Equality. Again this was a Christian pacifist organization. In early 1947, CORE announced plans to send eight white and eight black men into the Deep South to test the Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in interstate travel unconstitutional. Organized by Baynard Rustin, this two week pilgrimage through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky was the beginning of the civil rights movement.

CORE inspired others to join the struggle for civil rights. In 1957 Rustin, Martin Luther King and Ralph David Abernathy established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The new organisation was committed to using nonviolence in the struggle for civil rights, and SCLC adopted the motto: "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed."

In the 1950s and 1960s several members of organizations like CORE and SCLC were murdered by people who considered themselves as Christians. This raises the important issue: How can the followers of Jesus Christ come to such different conclusions?

History gives us an answer. Christian reformers have mainly belonged to smaller religious groups that have not been under the control of the state. Ever since the nationalization of the Catholic Church by the Romans, the state has been very good at using Christianity to support the status quo.

In recent years, in the UK and most of Europe, virtually all Church groups, have been on the side of reformers. When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister she accused the leaders of the Church of England of being Marxists. Despite this, church leaders continued to give into this attempt at smearing them and they played an important role in stopping the welfare state from being dismantled under Thatcher's extreme right-wing government.

The continued liberalism of religious leaders was reflected in the almost complete unity they showed in the campaign against the Iraq War.

The United States has not followed this pattern. The main reason for this was the McCarthyism that took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This period of history managed to virtually destroy the reform movement in America. Those that survived were in such a minority that it was possible to smear them as being “Marxists” or “Communists”. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI played a very important role in this. All the leading figures in the civil rights movement suffered from being identified as “left-wing”. Leaders of CORE and SCLC were common targets for Hoover. Especially when people like Martin Luther King became concerned about issues like the Vietnam War and the plight of the low paid.

It is this irrational fear of “leftists” that is often displayed by Christian Fundamentalists like Tim Gratz. This is why I asked Tim about his actions during the Civil Rights campaigns. For people like Tim showed no interest at all in civil rights during this period. Instead they joined J. Edgar Hoover in going along with the idea that it was some sort of “communist conspiracy”.

It is no surprise that it is now these old Cold War hardliners are now supporters of Christian Fundamentalism. It also helps to explain why they are unwilling to speak up for the poor and the dispossessed today. Instead they are advocates of maintaining the privileges of the rich and powerful. How can they defend this position that is so different from that advocated by Jesus Christ? With great difficulty and helps explain why it will take a brave (or foolish) supporter of Christian Fundamentalism, to join this debate.

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Here is an essay by Bill McKibben which appeared in the August 2005 issue of Harper's Magazine.

THE CHRISTIAN PARADOX

How a faithful nations gets Jesus wrong

By Bill McKibben

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation's educational decline, but it probably doesn't matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three-quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans - most American Christians - are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.

Asking Christians what Christ taught isn't a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation - and, overwhelmingly, we do - it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons, increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of the U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.

And, therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox - more important, perhaps, that the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese - illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.

Ours is among the most spiritually homogenous rich nations on earth. Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked, somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. Israel, by way of comparison, is 77 percent Jewish. It is true that a smaller number of Americans - about 75 percent - claim they actually pray to God on a daily basis, and only 22 percent say they manage to get to church every week. Still, even if that 85 percent overstates actual practice, it clearly represents aspiration. In fact, there is nothing else that unites more than four-fifths of America. Every other statistic one can cite about American behavior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of professed Christians. That's what America is: a place saturated in Christian identity.

But, is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion - say, giving aid to the poorest people - as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said, the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. what would we find then?

In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each provide fifteen cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And, it's not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to twenty-one cents. It's also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose - childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool - we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin. The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; it's that the overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention. And, it's not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that were "food insecure with hunger" had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999 and 2003.

This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bilbe would seem to frown upon. Despite Jesue' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate - just over half - that compares poorly with the European Union's average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult: still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent. Teenage pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline - like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government dificits? Do you need to ask?

Are Americans hypocrites? Of course they are. But most people (me, for instance) are hypocrites. The more troubling explanation for this disconnect between belief and action, I think, is that most Americans - which means most believers - have replaced the Christianity of the Bible, with its call to deep sharing and personal sacrifice, with a competing creed.

In fact, there may be several competing creeds. For many Christians, deciphering a few passages of the Bible to figure out the schedule for the End Times has become a central task. You can log on to RaptureReady.com for a taste of how some of these believers view the world - at this writing the Rapture Index had declined three points to 152 because, despite an increase in the number of U.S. pagans, "Wal-Mart is falling behing in its plan to bar code all products with radio tags." Other End-Timers are more interested in forcing the issue - they're convinced that the way to coax the Lord back to earth is to "Christianize" our nation and then the world. Consider House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. At church one day he listened as the pastor, urging his flock to support the administration, declared that "the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse." DeLay rose to speak, not only to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God."

The apocalyptics may not be wrong. One could make a perfectly serious argument that the policies of Tom DeLay are in fact, hastening the End Times. But there's nothing particularly Christian about this hastening. The creed of Tom DeLay - of Tim LeHaye and his Left Behind books, of Pat Robertson's "The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today" - ripened out of the impossibly poetic imagery of the Book of Revelation. Imagine trying to build a theory of the Constitution by obsessively reading and re-reading the Twenty-fifth Amendment, and you'll get an idea of what an odd approach this is. Your might be able to spin elaborate fantasies about presidential succession, but you'd have a hard time working backwards to "We the People." this is the contemporary version of Archbishop Usher's seventeenth-century calculation that the world had been created on October 23, 4004 B.C., and that the ark touched down on Mount Ararat on May 5, 2384 B.C., a Wednesday. Interesting, but a distant distraction from the gospel message.

The apocalyptics, however, are the lesser problem. It is another competing (though sometimes overlapping) creed, this one straight from the sprawling megachurches of the new exurbs, that frightens me most. Its deviation is less obvious precisely because it looks so much like the rest of the culture. In fact, most of what gets preached in these palaces isn't loony at all. It is disturbingly conventional. The pastors focus relentlessly on you and your individual needs. Their goal is to service consumers - not communities but individuals: "seekers" is the term of art, people who feel the need for some spirtuality in their (or their children's) lives but who aren't tightly bound to any particular denomination or school of thought. The result is often a kind of soft-focus, comfortable, suburban faith.

A New York Times reporter visiting one booming megachurch outside Phoenix recently found the typical scene: a drive-through latte stand, Krispy Kreme doughnuts at ever service, and sermons about "how to discipline your children, how to reach your professional goals, how to invest your money, how to reduce your debt." On Sundays children played with church-distributed Xboxes, and many congregants had signed up for a twice-weekly aerobics class called Firm Believers. A list of bestsellers compiled monthly by the Christian Booksellers Association illuminates the creed. It includes texts like Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen - pastor of a church so mega it recently leased a 16,000-seat sports arena in Houston for its services - which even the normally tolerant Publishers Weekly dismissed as "a treatise on how to get God to serve the demands of self-centered individuals." Nearly as high is Beth Moore, with her Believing God - "Beth asks the tough questions concerning the fruit of our Christian lives," such as "are we living as fully as we can?" Other titles include Humor for a Woman's Heart, a collection of "humorous writings" designed to "lift a life above the stresses and strains of the day", The Five Love Languages, in which Dr. Gary Chapman helps you figure out if you're speaking in the same emotional dialect as your significant other; and Karol Ladd's The Power of a Positive Woman. Ladd is the co-founder of USA Sonshine Girls - "Son" in Sonshine, of course, is the son of God - and she is unremittingly upbeat in presenting her five-part plan for creating a life with "more calm, less stress."

Not that any of this is so bad, in itself. We do have stressful lives, humor does help, you should pay attention to your own needs. Comfortable suburbanites watch their parents die, their kids implode. Clearly I need help with being positive. And, I have no doubt that such texts have turned people into better parents, better spouses, better bosses. It's just that these authors, in presenting their perfectly sensible advice, somehow manage to ignore Jesus' radical and demanding focus on others. It may, in fact, be true that "God helps those who help themselves," both financially and emotionally. (Certainly fortune does.) But if so, it's still a subsidiary, secondary truth, more Franklinity than Christianity. Your could eliminate the scriptural references in most of these bestsellers and they would still make, or not make the same amount of sense. Chicken Soup for the Zoroastrian Soul. It is a perfect mirror of the secular bestseller lists, indeed of the secular culture, with its American fixation on self-improvement, on self-esteem. On self. These similarities make it difficult (although not impossible) for the televangelists to posit themselves as embattled figures in a "culture war" - they offer too uncanny a reflection of the dominant culture, a culture of unrelenting self-obsession.

Who am I to criticize someone else's religion? After all, if there is anything Americans agree on, it's that we should tolerate everyone else's religious expression. As a Newsweek writer put it some years ago at the end of his cover story on apocalypticvisions and the Book of Revelation, "Who's to say that John's mythic battle between Christ and Antichrist is not a valid insight into what the history of humankind is all about? (Not Newsweek, that's for sure; their religious covers are guaranteed big sellers.) To that I can only answer that I'm a ...Christian.

Not a professional one; I'm an environmental writer mostly. I've never progressed further in the church hierarchy than Sunday school teacher at my backwoods Methodist church. But I've spent most of my Sunday mornings in a pew. I grew up in church youth groups and stayed active most of my adult life - srarted homeless shelters in church basements, werved soup at the church food panty, climbed to the top of the rickety ladder to put the star on the church Christmas tree. My work has been at times, influenced by all that - I've written extensively about the Book of Job, which is to me, the first great piece of nature writing in the Western tradition, and about the overlaps between Christianity and environmentalism. In fact, I imagine I'm one of a fairly small number of writers who have had cover stories in both the Christian Century, the magazine of liberal mainline Protestantism, and Christianity Today, which Billy Graham founded, not to mention articles in Sojourners, the magazine of the progressive evagelical community co-founded by Jim Wallis.

Indeed, it was my work with religious environmentalists that first got me thinking along the lines of the essay. We were trying to get politicians to understand why the Bible actually mandated protecting the world around us (Noah: the first Green), work that I think is true and vital. But one day it occurred to me that the parts of the world where people actually had cut dramatically back on their carbon emissions, actually did live voluntarily in smaller homes and take public transit, were the same countries where people were giving aid to the poor and making sure everyone had health care - coutries like Norway and Sweden, where religion was relatively unimportant. How could that be? For Christians there should be something at least a little scary in the notion that, absent the magical answers of religion, people might just get around to solving their problems and strengthening their communities in more straightforward ways.

But for me, in any event, the European success is less interesting than the American failures. Because we're not going to be like them. Maybe we'd be better off if we abandoned religion for secular nationality, but we're not going to; for the foreseeable future this will be a "Christian" nation. The question is, what kind of Christian nation?

The tendencies I've been describing - toward an apocalyptic End Times faith, toward a comfort-the-comfortable, personal-empowerment faith - veil the actual, and remarkable, message of the Gospels, When one of the Pharisees asked Jesus what the core of the law was, Jesus replied:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Love your neighbor as yourself: although its rhetorical power has been dimmed by repetition, that is a radical notion, perhaps the most radical notion possible. Especially since Jesus, in all his teachings, made it very clear who the neighbor your were supposed to love was; the poor person, the sick person, the naked person, the hungry person. The last shall be made first; turn the other cheek; a rich person aiming for heaven is like a camel trying to walk through the eye of a needle. On and on and on - a call for nothing less than a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love.

I confess, even as I write these works, to a feeling close to embarrassment. Because in public we tend not to talk about such things - my theory of what Jesus mostly meant seems like it should be left in church, or confined to some religious publication. But remember the overwhelming connection between America and Christianity; what Jesus meant is the most deeply potent political, cultural, social question. To ignore it, or leave it to the bullies and the salemen of the televangelist sects, means to walk away from a central battle over American identity. At the moment, the idea of Jesus has been hi-jacked by people with a series of causes that do not reflect his teachings. The Bible is a long book, and even the Gospels have plenty in them, some of it seemingly contradictory and hard to puzzle out. But love your neighbor as yourself - not do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but love your neighbor as yourself - will suffice as a gloss. There is no disputing the centrality of this message, nor is there any disputing how easy it is to ignore that message. Because it is so counterintuitive, Christians have had to keep repeating it to themselves right from the start. Consider Paul, for instance, instructing the church at Galatea: "For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment," he wrote. "'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

American churches, by and large, have done a pretty good job of loving the neighbor in the next pew. A pastor can spend all Sunday talking about theRapture Index, but if his congregation is thriving you can be assured he's spending the other six days visiting people in the hospital, counseling couples, and sitting up with grieving widows. All this human connection is imprtant. But if the theology makes it harder to love the neighbor a little farther away - particularly the poor and the weak - then it's a problem. and the fominant theologies of the moment do just that. They undercut Jesus, muffle his hard words, deaden his call, and in the end silence him. In fact, the soft-focus consumer gospel of the suburban megachurches is a perfect match for emergent conservative economic notions about personal responsibility instead of collective action. Privatize Social Security? Keep health care for people who can afford it? File those under "God helps those who help themselves."

Take Alabama as an example. In 2002, Bob Riley was elected governor of the state, where 90 percent of residents identify themselves as Christians. Riley could safely be called a conservative - right-wing majordomo Grover Norquist gave him a Friend of the Taxpayer Award every year he was in Congress, where he'd never voted for a tax increase. But when he took over Alabama, he found himself admisistering a tax code that dated to 1901. The richest Alabamians paid 3 percent of their income in taxes, and the poorest paid up to 12 percent; income taxes kicked in if a family of four made $4,600 (even in Mississippi the threshold was $19,000), while out-of-state timber companies paid $1.25 an acre in property taxes. Alabama was forty-eighth in total state and local taxes, and the largest proportion of that income came from sales tax - a super-regressive tax that in some counties reached into double digits. So Riley proposed a tax hike; partly to dig the state out of a fiscal crisis and partly to put more money into the state's school system, routinely ranked near the worst in the nation. He argued that it was Christian duty to look after the poor more carefully.

Had the new law passed, the owner of a $250,000 home in Montgomery would have paid $1,432 in property taxes - we're not talking Sweden here. But it didn't pass. It was crushed by a factor of two to one. Sixty-eight percent of the state voted against it - meaning, of course, something like 68 percent of the Christians who voted. The opposition was led, in fact, not just by the state's wealthiest interests but also by the Christian Coalition of Alabama. "You'll find most Alabamians have got a charitable heart," said John Giles, the group's president. "They just don't want it coming out of their pockets." On its website, the group argued that taxing the rich at the higher rate than the poor "results in punishing success" and that "when an individual works for their income, that money belongs to the individual." You might as well just cite chapter and verse from Poor Richard's Almanack. And what ever the ideology, the results are clear. "I'm tired of Alabama being first in things that are bad," said Governor Riley, "and last in things that are good."

A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to get into heaven. Jesus did not say he should invest, spend, and let the benfits trickle down; he said, "Sell what you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me." Few plainer words have been spoken. And yet, for some reason, the Christian Coalition of America - founded in 1989 in order to "preserve, protect, and defend the Judeo-Christian values that made this the greatest country in history" - proclaimed last year that its top legislative priority would be "making permanent President Bush's 2001 federal tax cuts." Similarly, a furor erupted last spring when it emerged that a Colorado jury had consulted the Bible before sentencing a killer to death. Experts debated whether the (Christian) jurors should have used an outside authority in their deliberations, and of course the Christian right saw it as one more sign of a secular society devaluing religion. But a more interesting question would have been why the jurors fixated on Leviticus 24, with its call for an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. They had somehow missed Jesus' explicit refutation in the New Testament: "You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." And on and on.

The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their very boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they're talking about. The're like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track. But their theology is appealing for another reason too: it coincides with what we want to believe. How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that our income was ours to keep, instead of insisting that we we had to share. How satisfying it would be if we were supposed to hate our enemies. Religious conservatives will always have a comparatively easy sell.

But straight is the path and narrow is the way. The gospel is too radical for any culture larger than the Amish to ever come close to realizing; in demanding a departure from selfishness it conflicts with all our current desires. Even the first time around, judging by the reaction, the Gospels were pretty unwelcome news to an awful lot of people. Ther is not going to be a modern-day return to the church of the early believers, holding all things in common - that's not what I'm talking about. Taking seriously the actual message of Jesus, though, should serve at least to moderate the greed and vilence that mark this culture. It's hard to imagine a con much more audacious than making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich or war in Iraq. If some modest part of the 85 percent of us who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change.

It is possible, I think. Yes, the mainline Protestant churches that supported civil rights and oppose the war in VietNam are mostly locked in a dreary decline as their congregations dwindle and their elders argue enlessly about gay clergy and same-sex unions. And the Catholic Church, for most of its American history a sturdy exponent of a "love your neighbor" theology, has been weakened, too, its hierarchy increasingly motivated by a single0issue focus on abortion. Plenty of vital congregations are doing great good works - they're the ones that have nurtured me - but they aren't where the challenge will arise; they've grown shy about talking about Jesus, more comfortablewith the language of sociology and politics. More and more it's Bible-quoting Christians, like Wallis's Sojourners movement and that Baptist seminary graduate Bill Moyers, who are carrying the fight.

The best-selling of all Christian books in recent years, Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life, illustrates the possibilities. It has all the hallmarks of self-absorption (in one five-page chapter, I counted sixty-five uses of the word "you"), but it also makes a powerful case that we're made for mission. What that mission is never becomes clear, but the thirst for it is real. And, there's no great need for Warren to state that purpose anyhow. For Christians, the plainspoken message of the Gospels is clear enough. If you have any doubts, read the Sermon on the Mount.

Admittedly, this is hope against hope; more likely the money changers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our "spiritual" life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus. As in so many areas of our increasingly maket-tested lives, the co-opters - the TV men, the politicians, the Christian "interest groups" - have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too. The have invited us to subvert the church of Jesus even as we celebrate it. With their help we have made golden calves of ourselves - become a nation of terrified, self-centered, obsessed idols. It works, and it may well keep working for a long time to come. When Americans hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry, and too often hungry people just come back for more of the same.

End of essay.

Bill McKibben , a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, is the author of many books, including The End of Nature and Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape.

His last article for Harper's Magazine, "The Cuba Diet," appeared in the April 2005 issue.

This has also occurred in Australia. Our party of the left (the Australian Labor Party) has changed character and merely supports the wealthy while professing to be the champion of the working class. It seeks friendship and funds from the big corporations while mouthing platitudes about the plight of the poor and does nothing for its original constituency when it is in power--as it was from 1983 to 1996. The ALP here in Australia is worse for the poor than the conservatives, IMO. In addition to failing to tackle the main infrastructure problems ie. funding of schools, hospitals, adequate aged care etc, the ALP has pioneered insidious new forms of predatory taxation:

1. Gambling. This is heartily encouraged by Governments (especially Labor) and people who visit Australia from abroad are amazed at the constant television and radio advertising encouraging people to paticipate in lotteries, lotto, scratchies, footytab and horse racing. Betting shops are open 7 days a week and also facilitate and encourage betting on all domestic and overseas sport eg. golf, cricket, tennis, baseball, basketball, motor racing, soccer etc. Betting shops (TABs) are also strategically placed in most drinking establishments so people who have lost their sobriety and judgement can also lose their money. It's cynicism at its worst and the practise of placing TAB's in bars was pioneered by a former Labor Premier of the state of New South Wales, Neville Wran. The TAB in NSW is run jointly by the Government and private interests. In addition to all this, almost every bar in this state has dozens of poker machines where people can watch their money disappear at any time, night or day. On top of this, all Australia's major cities have a casino. These casinos, also a joint Government/Private sector enterprise, never close. 

2. Traffic and parking violation revenues. What started as a disincentive to breach road rules has blossomed into an industry of its own. Like junkies, all state Governments in Australia and many local Governments have become addicted to this revenue. Minor traffic and parking violations can bring penalties of up to $300, a real knockout punch for people on low incomes but a mosquito bite for millionaires. The problem here is one of equity. Why should a person on a low income be penalised half his/her salary for a minor offense when a person earning 5 million a year suffers no financial hardship when committing exactly the same offense? A recent proposal to make financial penalties for such offences commensurate to the offendor's financial circumstances was pilloried in the tabloid media but it seems to me that the fine structure allows mega-wealthy people to breach the rules with no financial penalty.

These are examples of what Governments will resort to when starved of financial resources by those who should rightly be providing them. The income tax regime doesn't need to be harsh or overly punitive to those on high incomes--it should merely require that all should contribute, commensurate to their incomes. Allowing those at the top of Paul Samuelson's pyramid to escape their responsibilities by the use of cleverly designed discretionary family trusts and allowing the Corporations they own to avoid tax through devices such as transfer pricing and tax havens is a serious breach of a Government's responsibilities. To restsate the obvious, the mainstream media will never focus on these injustices (which are very damaging to society) because, of course, the media is owned by the very same people who employ such tax avoidance tricks. The media have forged an alliance with compliant Governments, elected by us. Most Governments discover that they must comply with this duplicity because they fear that failure to do so will result in them being destroyed by the media. In the absence of a strong willed Government, the media will control the Government and the ordinary working person will be crushed at the bottom of the pyramid.

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Very interesting account. Of course, the Australian government is also a supporter, along with Blair, of George Bush’s adventures in Iraq. It is not a coincidence that all these policies have been fully supported by another Australian, Rupert Murdoch. He of course has tremendous media power in the US, UK and Australia. Murdoch owns 179 newspapers worldwide. All of them supported the invasion of Iraq. Murdoch admitted in an interview in the Guardian that he had ordered all his newspapers to support this war. The main reason for this was his belief that the invasion would result in lower oil prices. This in turn would increase share prices and would help the economies of both the US and UK before Bush and Blair went to the polls. He was wrong about the price of oil and the stock market but with his help, Bush and Blair won their elections.

It is no coincidence that right-wing extremists like Murdoch now supports so-called left of centre organizations like the Labour Party. This strategy began after the war when the OSS and later the CIA used Marshall Plan funds to bribe left-wing politicians in European countries. Tom Braden, who was head of a CIA fronted organization, International Organizations Division (IOD), admitted in a television interview in 1975 that it was vitally important in the fight against communism to “turn” the leaders of left of centre political parties in Europe (they were particularly active in France, Italy, Greece and the UK).

In the 1980s Murdoch supported right-wing political parties such as Thatcher’s Conservative Party. By the 1990s, despite the propaganda of Murdoch’s media empire, people began to reject this right-wing agenda. By about 1996 it was clear that in the UK the British people were ready for change. Murdoch therefore had to get to Tony Blair in order to get him to follow Thatcher type policies. This has been highly successful and Blair has loyally followed Murdoch’s policies.

Murdoch of course does not work on his own. He has many allies in his successful strategy of stopping governments from employing progressive taxation and closing tax loopholes that enables people like Murdoch to avoid paying any tax at all. After all, we now live in a world of global capitalism.

A couple of years ago an article in the Sunday Times pointed out that the UK Labour Party was mainly funded by a small group of extremely wealthy businessmen. Apparently, they were concerned about what would happen when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as leader. Over the years Brown had made speeches in favour of progressive taxation and closing tax loopholes. This group had been threatening to cease funding the Labour Party if Brown became leader. Murdoch, who is apparently head of this group (he does not provide money to the Labour Party but uses his newspaper empire to support its policies), had a series of meetings with Brown. It has recently been reported that Murdoch now has no problems with Brown replacing Blair.

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It's shameful that the British Labour Party can't independantly choose a successor to Blair without Rupert Murdoch's imprimatur. It's dazzling proof that funding of political parties must be closely regulated otherwise Governments are corrupted from the start.

Of course Murdoch supported the war in Iraq. It sells newspapers and boosts ratings for his Foxtel network. Iraq and the war on terror are great moneyspinners for this global parasite. If there's harmony in the Middle East and less crime at home ("war on drugs"), then who needs to be glued to Foxnews 24/7?

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The complete collapse of our economies was guaranteed and solidified with the election of the Reagan/Thatcher Alliance. Their concerted deregulatory policies, aka assault on the federal government's power to rein in corporate greed and plunder, merely served to complement the "voo-doo" economic paradigm shifts implemented during their terms in office. The greatest mistake, as a populace, is to buy into the materialistic lures, employed through the use of sound bytes, about how much more buying power one has due to the deregulation of government, or by "getting big government off of the backs of big business" sloganeering, which is the biggest crock of crap being swallowed by the masses today. Sure, you can buy anything your want, albeit without the caveat emptors in place to assure quality, reliability, or any reasonable degree of warranty beyond the span of 2 months. And besides, where does all your purchasing power go when your job has been lost and outsourced to the third world, due to this exciting, new concept of "global economy" constantly being shoved down our throats? NAFTA, CAFTA, AFTA? Free trade for whom? The corporate giants, gobbling up every small company, putting "Mom and Pop" stores out of business by narrowing the playing field to suit the big "chain" stores, all the while outsourcing labor to China and India? Where do the manufacturing and industrial bases of the U.S. and the U.K., France, Sweden, Australia, figure in this scheme of things? NOWHERE.

In the past twenty years or so, I've witnessed more homelessness than I've ever seen in my entire life, mainly because the only homelessness I ever saw while growing up, consisted of a couple of drunks lying on the subway grates, on the sidewalks of New York, presumably too inebriated to seek shelter anywhere else. And, there definitely were't any homeless camping out on the stretches of grass above Santa Monica Beach in the 60's, or the 70's that I can recall. No, only after 1980, after Reagan "the tired old man who they elected king", did this begin to materialize and become a blight to the communities. But, what's even more insidious is the fact that by one stroke of complacency on the part of the American electorate, those citizens who elected the conservatives into POWER, [which BTW, is the only thing they understand]. By that one stroke of complacency, our fate has been sealed, ad infinitum. The damage has been wrought and allowed to cement itself into the very fabric of society.

Nothing short of physical revolution by concerned masses of humanity will budge this cancer, eating away in the guise of a bastardized version of the republican-democratic, one party-two branches, form of government it's been allowed to morph into, today. The majority are too hypnotized by their plasma screens, or too cowed by what they insist on believing verbatim, and emanating from the mouths of their all too familiar icons, the talking heads of multi-media's "clear channel" broadcasting, to even begin to think for themselves. And, I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of anything being able to turn this around in the very near future, either.

But just watch:  this thread was about Jimmy Carter and a threat on his life.

Twas not I that brought up the bearded one (who had a birthday yesterday).

I think you guys throw red meat at me just as I sometimes do at you!  I just gotta resist or I will be convicted of hijacking!

Back to topic, re Watergate, a Mr. Leon and a Mr. Russell both died at a young age and within a few weeks of each other, just before Leon was to host what was to be an explosive press conference.

How much clearer can it get that the "hidden hand" behind the Watergate mystery was not John Dean, as Len Colodny wrote, but rather LEON RUSSELL?

One of his songs was "Give Peace a Chance".  He certainly had a motive to bring Nixon down in a non-violent matter.

Then again perhaps the congruence of the names Leon and Russel twas only a coincidence!

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"How much clearer can it get that the "hidden hand" behind the Watergate mystery was not John Dean, as Len Colodny wrote, but rather LEON RUSSELL?

One of his songs was "Give Peace a Chance". He certainly had a motive to bring Nixon down in a non-violent matter.

Then again perhaps the congruence of the names Leon and Russel twas only a coincidence!"

Tim, now what the hell is that suppose to mean?

I noticed the combination, but failed to see the relevance in bringing it up, simply because there is none! Possibly you're becoming giddy from all the time you seem to be expending in trying to explain away the actions of a dumb collegiate indescretion on your part. You know who you're beginning to remind me of? Did you ever catch that movie, BULWORTH? You remind me of the two young bumbling campaign manager/aides of the fictional character, Senator Bulworth, who keep trying in vain to steer their boss back to his angry right-wing vested interest groups.

Don't you find that sad, or disconcerting?  Or am I over-reacting? Maybe it's all a lost cause, and I'm the odd man out. I just always thought there was more to life than material acquisitions, especially when these acquisitions happened to create such a negative effect on our surroundings, and on the planet, itself.  If we could put a shuttle in orbit, why haven't we been able to perfect another form of fuel or energy withwhich to power our vehicles, heat our homes, etc.?  There's got to be another alternative source.

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You are not alone Terry. There are several members of this Forum who still hold onto their beliefs they developed in the 1960s. We won the political argument for a better, fairer world, but were defeated by the right’s control of the mass media. This enabled right-wing extremists to take control of the political system. On another thread I have illustrated the role that Rupert Murdoch has played in this.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4644

Murdoch has tremendous media power in the US, UK and Australia. Murdoch owns 179 newspapers worldwide and all of them supported the invasion of Iraq. Murdoch admitted in an interview in the Guardian that he had ordered all his newspapers to support this war. The main reason for this was his belief that the invasion would result in lower oil prices. This in turn would increase share prices and would help the economies of both the US and UK before Bush and Blair went to the polls. He was wrong about the price of oil and the stock market but with his help, Bush and Blair won their elections.

It is no coincidence that right-wing extremists like Murdoch now supports so-called left of centre organizations like the Labour Party. This strategy began after the war when the OSS and later the CIA used Marshall Plan funds to bribe left-wing politicians in European countries. Tom Braden, who was head of a CIA fronted organization, International Organizations Division (IOD), admitted in the 1970s that it was vitally important in the fight against communism to “turn” the leaders of left of centre political parties in Europe (they were particularly active in France, Italy, Greece and the UK).

In the 1980s Murdoch supported right-wing political parties such as Thatcher’s Conservative Party. By the 1990s, despite the propaganda of Murdoch’s media empire, people began to reject this right-wing agenda. By about 1996 it was clear that in the UK the British people were ready for change. Murdoch therefore had to get to Tony Blair in order to get him to follow Thatcher type policies. This has been highly successful and Blair has loyally followed Murdoch’s policies.

Murdoch of course does not work on his own. He has many allies in his successful strategy of stopping governments from employing progressive taxation and closing tax loopholes that enables people like Murdoch to avoid paying any tax at all. A couple of years ago an article in the Sunday Times pointed out that the Labour Party was mainly funded by a small group of extremely wealthy businessmen. Apparently, they were concerned about what would happen when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as leader. Over the years Brown had made speeches in favour of progressive taxation and closing tax loopholes. This group had been threatening to cease funding the Labour Party. Murdoch, who is apparently head of this group (he does not provide money to the Labour Party but uses his newspaper empire to support its policies), had a series of meetings with Brown. It has recently been reported that Murdoch now has no problems with Brown replacing Blair.

In the US Murdoch currently supports the Republican Party. If as I expect, the American public become disillusioned by these right-wing policies. Surely it is only a matter of time when people begin to reject these expensive foreign adventures and become concerned about the US budget deficit. When that happens, people like Murdoch will do what they did in the UK, they will begin to manipulate the selection of the 2008 Democratic Party candidate. Although on the surface they will appear to be to the left of Bush, once in power, they will play the same role as Blair plays in the UK.

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"If as I expect, the American public become disillusioned by these right-wing policies. Surely it is only a matter of time when people begin to reject these expensive foreign adventures and become concerned about the US budget deficit."

Between you and me, John? I seriously doubt the majority of the American public have/has half a brain between them, to even consider the consequences of these foreign adventures, or even know of what a budget deficit is, let alone that the U.S. has one. They merely mimick sound bytes. I seriously doubt if they could even explain what they're mimicking due to their propensity for the knee-jerk methods of sloganeering they're constantly bombarded with via the advertising and news media swill.

Thanks for all your hard work and efforts in trying to impart the truth about our two countries' collaborative, albeit coersive, efforts in maintaining what the Murdochs, Scaife-Mellons, Morgan-Rockefellers, Dupont-Dow, Cargill-ADM, et. al., really have in mind as the "status quo", and how easily the sheeple are willing to be led into the virtual stockyard.

Hi Terri

The end of your post relates more to my point than you think.

       

"consuming mass quantities..."

For the "Middle America" I mean is not just the geographic middle of the United states but more broadly, "The moderate, middle-class segment of the US population that comprises the largest consumer group."

Definition in http://www.motto.com/glossary.html

You ask: "What makes the people of middle America happier living under fascist rule, as opposed to living with social equity?"

-- They don't know they are living under fascist rule, thus their complacency.

You say, "Sorry to sound so dense, but don't they care about the rest of the world, or what effects the insatiable quest for fossil fuels to fill their SUV's has on less developed countries, who might not share our desire for 'consuming mass quantities' [remember the Coneheads on the old SNL shows?]"

-- No they don't care, partly because they are not told to care, or else they believe that the United States is doing its best in terms of bringing democracy to the rest of the world, and in terms of foreign aid, etc.

Chris

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Don't you find that sad, or disconcerting? Or am I over-reacting? Maybe it's all a lost cause, and I'm the odd man out. I just always thought there was more to life than material acquisitions, especially when these acquisitions happened to create such a negative effect on our surroundings, and on the planet, itself. If we could put a shuttle in orbit, why haven't we been able to perfect another form of fuel or energy withwhich to power our vehicles, heat our homes, etc.? There's got to be another alternative source.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ter

Definition in http://www.motto.com/glossary.html

Targetted consumers.

My Dad had been a commercial artist from the late 1920's until the day he died in 1983. He worked for Westinghouse, created the "7" in Seagram's 7 Crown, the Coppertone baby in 1947, Coca Cola, Kelloggs, Johnson & Johnson Sheer Strips.

I learned about subliminal advertising at the age of seven when I asked my old man why he was always drawing the word Kellogg's, to which he proceeded to answer me by pulling down a bunch of pieces of tracing paper he kept over the years, where he had re-drawn the word slightly differently, not so much as to change its appearance, but just enough to catch the consumer's eye as they walked down the cereal aisle. I told him I thought that was cheating because it seemed like he was trying to fool the people. But, he patiently explained that it was more like livening up the name in order to wake up the peoples' attention so that they'd notice it. I don't know about that...

I have never voted for Edward Heath or his party but I have always respected him as a political figure (I know everybody in now saying this but I really mean it). I say this for the following reasons:

(1)  In 1938 he went with three other undergraduates to observe the Spanish Civil War. He met leaders of the Popular Front government and on his return he campaigned against General Francisco Franco and the Nationalist Army.

(2) Heath was a strong opponent of the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain. Although a member of the Conservative Party, Heath supported his university tutor, A. D. Lindsay, the anti-appeasement candidate in the Oxford by-election in October, 1938.

(3) In the 1950 General Election Heath won Bexley with a majority of 133. A committed European, Heath made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 26th June in favour of the Schuman Plan. He ended his speech with the words: "It was said long ago in the House that magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom. I appeal tonight to the government to follow that dictum, and to go into the Schuman Plan to develop Europe and to coordinate it in the way suggested.

(4) Heath was a one nation Conservative as illustrated in his article showed in the seminal Conservative pamphlet, One Nation (1950).

(5) In 1965 Heath supported attempts by Harold Wilson to bring down the white minority regime in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). This upset Conservatives on the right and Heath had to deal with a rebellion led by Lord Salisbury.

(6) Heath lost the 1966 General Election to Harold Wilson. In 1968 Wilson's popularity slumped after Enoch Powell made his "rivers of blood" speech on immigration. Instead of supporting the use of the race issue to gain favour with the British electorate, Heath sacked Powell as a member of the shadow cabinet.

(7) He considered Margaret Thatcher to be a right-wing authoritarian and like another former Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan, Heath constantly criticized her policies.

(8) After leaving office he did not spend his time getting obsence amounts of money from the lecture circuit in the US. Instead he campaigned for justice for the Third World, for example, he was a key member of the Brandt Commission.

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"(7) He considered Margaret Thatcher to be a right-wing authoritarian and like another former Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan, Heath constantly criticized her policies."

I admire this man. He knew a rogue when he saw one.

By any chance, were these the two gentlemen George Harrison immortalized, albeit "tongue-in-cheek", in his song, "Taxman"? Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Heath?

The only eras in which America has been able to pass for anything remotely resembling a true "democracy" was during Lincoln's term, FDR's, and JFK's, that I am aware of. All other terms have been a paradox, due to the intentional extermination of the Native Americans, the slavery issue, and the equal rights issue, which have yet to be adequately addressed, and have always been swept under the rug in the hopes that it will either go away, or die away.

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Hi Terry

Since persons of color and women were disenfranchised at the time of the Lincoln administration and for much of the nineteenth century eligible voters were bullied by machine politicians (Boss Tweed etc) or by street gangs, I don't see Lincoln's time or the rest of the 19th century as being a golden age of democracy. Civil rights were an issue during FDR and JFK's administrations so those examples don't really show us democracy at its best either. In fact, in terms of the population eligible to vote, the United States populace of today is probably best able to enjoy the fruits of democracy, although the flaws in the U.S. system with the electoral college and the inability to have a vote of confidence for lawmakers to call an election, unlike the British system, impair the ability to have democracy.

Your media and the European media portray America correctly, but the majority of Americans are unaware of Operation Mockingbird, and have been coerced pschologically into believing whatever is fed to them via NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Therefore, the impression that "the American people are not aware of what is happening..." is very much on the mark, but you can add to that, "nor do the majority want to know, but prefer to remain in the dark, as long as they're assured their most basic needs are going to be met." Case in point, I can only discuss what we're addressing here with a few people at my job. Three to be exact, out of fifteen, because the other ten are afraid to make what they believe to be waves in their lives, are fearful of what kind of a can of worms they may open up and find, and consider themselves totally helpless to change the pattern they feel has been allowed to evolve, because they view their vote as an exercise in futility. The two others are not citizens. I have heard only one of my colleagues mention remorse in casting her vote for Bush. And, that's probably because she never really listened to what my two like-minded co-workers and I were discussing until recently, and began observing inconsistencies in the Bush administration that ran counter to what she had been anticipating. 

The majority of the American people are more impressed by "showmanship" and the latest fashion, moreso than by content and quality. It's been successfully ingrained into their psyches by the media. Nor will they listen to something not presented as a sound byte, or a catchy slogan. They prefer everything pre-packaged, par-boiled, and easily consumable, with the minimum of effort required to read the fine print, or warnings on the labels. This is what I refer to as the dumbing-down of American, or of western intellect. And, they've bought it, wholeheartedly and accepted it, regardless of the consequences, or recognizing any responsibility their actions [in-actions] may have contributed to what they now find to be so inadequate.

They've allowed themselves to be led down a primrose path, and could care less about government policy, just as long as they're able to afford to send their kids to private schools, in order to avoid the stark and gutted realities of our inner cities' public school system. Those in California, who've voted for Scwartzenegger [sp.?] are finally coming to terms with his worthless promises. There aren't  enough textbooks to go around, and the ones that exist must be shared between students. People in California vote to keep their property taxes down, but as a result, shoot themselves in the foot, because their school system ends up taking it in the teeth. What about all those promises of Lotto money and the shot in the arm it would provide for the schools? Probably pocketed by the owners of the Lotto franchises. Let's face it, there's no pie in the sky scheme that's going to somehow miraculously come down and "amnesty" us out of this debacle. If people come to California, hoping to raise a family, they'd be better off looking to Oregon or Seattle to meet the educational needs of their children. Because, unless you're able to afford private schools, you'll be doing your children a grave disservice.

So, if we sound cynical, maybe we should heed the words of either George Bernard Shaw, or was it Noel Coward, or Oscar Wilde [pardon my lapse of memory here] who stated in so many words, "A cynic is not one to be thought of as a negative person, but one who is simply aware of his surroundings." Or, something to that effect. The majority of Americans are totally unaware because they choose to be ostriches and hide there heads in the sand.

A total embarressment before the rest of the world.

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I really think the American populace is complacent because they are living the good life and are not faced with enough economic woes to want to change the system, plus the media and popular myth tell them the American system is the best in the world, that they are better off than anyone else in the world, so there is no fire in the belly to change things. The situation in the Sixties when college students were faced with the draft and when blacks were fighting for their rights shows that groups of Americans can become mobilized when they have a personal reason to become active. At present, the large majority people in the U.S. populace believe they have no reason to become activists, and so many do not even vote for the same reason.

Best regards

Chris

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"for anything remotely resembling a true "democracy"..."

is what I believe I stated.

"I really think the American populace is complacent because they are living the good life and are not faced with enough economic woes to want to change the system, plus the media and popular myth tell them the American system is the best in the world, that they are better off than anyone else in the world, so there is no fire in the belly to change things. The situation in the Sixties when college students were faced with the draft and when blacks were fighting for their rights shows that groups of Americans can become mobilized when they have a personal reason to become active."

To whom are you referring as, "living the good life and not faced with enough economic woes to want to change the system"? and, "plus the media and popular myth tell them the American system is the best in the world, that they are better off than anyone else in the world, so there is no fire in the belly to change things." Surely you jest?

Have you been to South Central, Compton, or Carson, lately? Oh, I forgot. They've had crack cocaine supplied to them via Operation Watchtower for 15 or more years now, to help them view their surroundings in a much better light, and from a much better perspective.

If and when the supply is ever cut off, which I seriously doubt will happen, [otherwise how else will the huddled and weary masses be controlled, and thus contained?] and people are allowed to come off this grand illusion of an economic boom town, we're supposed to be living in and through, heaven help Nero when Rome really does begin to start burning.

Or, maybe what's needed is the reinstatement of another "involuntary" draft board to drag the kids away from their game boys? Hell, by now their hand and eye coordination should be exceptional after the many hours they've spent playing virtual war games! Of course, once faced with the reality and gore of real warfare, they might possibly get a "fire in the belly", especially after seeing their buddy's body blown to bits and sprayed all over them, in the interim. Then again, what are the drafts for in the first place? Not fighting for liberty and justice for all, that went the way of WW II. No, just think of it as another form of culling the herds of humanity aka "huddled and weary masses".

Warmest regards,

Ter

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Hi Terry

The people of "South Central, Compton, or Carson," Watts, Harlem, poor Appalachia or poor Mississippi are another matter. I'm talking about middle America which makes up the majority of voters who are satisfied with the way things are and don't have a reason to want to change the system.

All my best

Chris

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"I'm talking about middle America which makes up the majority of voters who are satisfied with the way things are and don't have a reason to want to change the system."

Hi Chris,

So, in order to live happily within a fascist form of government, if one would move to middle America [the midwest?], one would find a more satisfying lifestyle within the status quo? I'm not sure I follow you here. Why would that be? What makes the people of middle America happier living under fascist rule, as opposed to living with social equity? Sorry to sound so dense, but don't they care about the rest of the world, or what effects the insatiable quest for fossil fuels to fill their SUV's has on less developed countries, who might not share our desire for "consuming mass quantities" [remember the Coneheads on the old SNL shows?] But then again, what do I know? The majority of white rules in middle America, I suppose. Or, maybe I live too close to the inner city to be able to find the yellow brick road, anymore.

Warmest regards,

Ter

"consuming mass quantities..."

I believe the biggest obstacle to the establishment of real democracy in western countries is the deepening but false ideological message that democracy is synonymous with capitalism. We are therefore left with a a market place view of democracy where elites compete for the people's vote in the context of a profoundly inegalitarian social and economic system.

Important  concepts of deep participation, political equality and responsive government, which should characterise what democracy really means, are at best marginalised and at worst lost for good - see USA and increasingly the UK for prime examples

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Very important point. In fact, capitalism, because it creates so much inequality, is at hear anti-democratic. I would like to think that capitalism could be tamed and therefore could allow for a fully functioning democracy to be achieved. However, the jury is still out whether this is possible. All the signs are not good. Except in the area of mass communications, power is concentrated more and more in a small riling minority.

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That's a very astute comment by Andy. Most take it for granted that capitalism and democracy go hand in hand but there's no reason why that should be so. Capitalism is so out of control in the west that it's become a rigid dogma itself. There's nothing democratic about it.

A true democracy is probably a utopian ideal, not because Governments of all political persuasions are so corrupt, but because people are basically corrupt. Why? Because power corrupts them.

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"Capitalism is so out of control in the west that it's become a rigid dogma itself. There's nothing democratic about it.

A true democracy is probably a utopian ideal, not because Governments of all political persuasions are so corrupt, but because people are basically corrupt. Why? Because power corrupts them."

Exactly.

The only eras in which America has been able to pass for anything remotely resembling a true "democracy" was during Lincoln's term, FDR's, and JFK's, that I am aware of. All other terms have been a paradox, due to the intentional extermination of the Native Americans, the slavery issue, and the equal rights issue, which have yet to be adequately addressed, and have always been swept under the rug in the hopes that it will either go away, or die away.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Terry

Since persons of color and women were disenfranchised at the time of the Lincoln administration and for much of the nineteenth century eligible voters were bullied by machine politicians (Boss Tweed etc) or by street gangs, I don't see Lincoln's time or the rest of the 19th century as being a golden age of democracy. Civil rights were an issue during FDR and JFK's administrations so those examples don't really show us democracy at its best either. In fact, in terms of the population eligible to vote, the United States populace of today is probably best able to enjoy the fruits of democracy, although the flaws in the U.S. system with the electoral college and the inability to have a vote of confidence for lawmakers to call an election, unlike the British system, impair the ability to have democracy.

Your media and the European media portray America correctly, but the majority of Americans are unaware of Operation Mockingbird, and have been coerced pschologically into believing whatever is fed to them via NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Therefore, the impression that "the American people are not aware of what is happening..." is very much on the mark, but you can add to that, "nor do the majority want to know, but prefer to remain in the dark, as long as they're assured their most basic needs are going to be met." Case in point, I can only discuss what we're addressing here with a few people at my job. Three to be exact, out of fifteen, because the other ten are afraid to make what they believe to be waves in their lives, are fearful of what kind of a can of worms they may open up and find, and consider themselves totally helpless to change the pattern they feel has been allowed to evolve, because they view their vote as an exercise in futility. The two others are not citizens. I have heard only one of my colleagues mention remorse in casting her vote for Bush. And, that's probably because she never really listened to what my two like-minded co-workers and I were discussing until recently, and began observing inconsistencies in the Bush administration that ran counter to what she had been anticipating. 

The majority of the American people are more impressed by "showmanship" and the latest fashion, moreso than by content and quality. It's been successfully ingrained into their psyches by the media. Nor will they listen to something not presented as a sound byte, or a catchy slogan. They prefer everything pre-packaged, par-boiled, and easily consumable, with the minimum of effort required to read the fine print, or warnings on the labels. This is what I refer to as the dumbing-down of American, or of western intellect. And, they've bought it, wholeheartedly and accepted it, regardless of the consequences, or recognizing any responsibility their actions [in-actions] may have contributed to what they now find to be so inadequate.

They've allowed themselves to be led down a primrose path, and could care less about government policy, just as long as they're able to afford to send their kids to private schools, in order to avoid the stark and gutted realities of our inner cities' public school system. Those in California, who've voted for Scwartzenegger [sp.?] are finally coming to terms with his worthless promises. There aren't  enough textbooks to go around, and the ones that exist must be shared between students. People in California vote to keep their property taxes down, but as a result, shoot themselves in the foot, because their school system ends up taking it in the teeth. What about all those promises of Lotto money and the shot in the arm it would provide for the schools? Probably pocketed by the owners of the Lotto franchises. Let's face it, there's no pie in the sky scheme that's going to somehow miraculously come down and "amnesty" us out of this debacle. If people come to California, hoping to raise a family, they'd be better off looking to Oregon or Seattle to meet the educational needs of their children. Because, unless you're able to afford private schools, you'll be doing your children a grave disservice.

So, if we sound cynical, maybe we should heed the words of either George Bernard Shaw, or was it Noel Coward, or Oscar Wilde [pardon my lapse of memory here] who stated in so many words, "A cynic is not one to be thought of as a negative person, but one who is simply aware of his surroundings." Or, something to that effect. The majority of Americans are totally unaware because they choose to be ostriches and hide there heads in the sand.

A total embarressment before the rest of the world.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I really think the American populace is complacent because they are living the good life and are not faced with enough economic woes to want to change the system, plus the media and popular myth tell them the American system is the best in the world, that they are better off than anyone else in the world, so there is no fire in the belly to change things. The situation in the Sixties when college students were faced with the draft and when blacks were fighting for their rights shows that groups of Americans can become mobilized when they have a personal reason to become active. At present, the large majority people in the U.S. populace believe they have no reason to become activists, and so many do not even vote for the same reason.

Best regards

Chris

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"for anything remotely resembling a true "democracy"..."

is what I believe I stated.

"I really think the American populace is complacent because they are living the good life and are not faced with enough economic woes to want to change the system, plus the media and popular myth tell them the American system is the best in the world, that they are better off than anyone else in the world, so there is no fire in the belly to change things. The situation in the Sixties when college students were faced with the draft and when blacks were fighting for their rights shows that groups of Americans can become mobilized when they have a personal reason to become active."

To whom are you referring as, "living the good life and not faced with enough economic woes to want to change the system"? and, "plus the media and popular myth tell them the American system is the best in the world, that they are better off than anyone else in the world, so there is no fire in the belly to change things." Surely you jest?

Have you been to South Central, Compton, or Carson, lately? Oh, I forgot. They've had crack cocaine supplied to them via Operation Watchtower for 15 or more years now, to help them view their surroundings in a much better light, and from a much better perspective.

If and when the supply is ever cut off, which I seriously doubt will happen, [otherwise how else will the huddled and weary masses be controlled, and thus contained?] and people are allowed to come off this grand illusion of an economic boom town, we're supposed to be living in and through, heaven help Nero when Rome really does begin to start burning.

Or, maybe what's needed is the reinstatement of another "involuntary" draft board to drag the kids away from their game boys? Hell, by now their hand and eye coordination should be exceptional after the many hours they've spent playing virtual war games! Of course, once faced with the reality and gore of real warfare, they might possibly get a "fire in the belly", especially after seeing their buddy's body blown to bits and sprayed all over them, in the interim. Then again, what are the drafts for in the first place? Not fighting for liberty and justice for all, that went the way of WW II. No, just think of it as another form of culling the herds of humanity aka "huddled and weary masses".

Warmest regards,

Ter