What if Rev. Wright had said . . . ?

As polemical as remarks made were by Barack Obama’s minister, they pale in comparison to comments from prominent American conservatives.



Barack Obama’s former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is facing personal threats because of remarks he made from the pulpit. Churches in Florida and Texas have canceled speaking engagements over safety concerns for Rev. Wright, his family and the churches themselves.

Thank God, Rev. Wright didn’t try saying in church what his prominent white conservative counterparts routinely shout in public.

For example, there is the snippet of Wright saying that minorities should not sing God bless America but instead “God damn America . . .”

Wright better be glad he didn’t suggest concrete action such as:

"Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom [in Washington, D.C.] to shake things up."

But for advocating on television that the U.S. State Department be bombed Pat Robertson didn’t have to cancel any speaking engagements for fear that the host church would be blown up by liberal extremists.

Imagine the reaction if Rev. Wright openly revealed no major qualms with a terrorist bombing a federal building and said:

"My only regret with [the murdering terrorist] is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

But Fox News doesn’t excoriate Ann Coulter like Rev. Wright. Instead, the vitriolic Coulter is a cherished guest at Fox News despite her only regret with Timothy McVeigh being that he didn’t hit the alleged bastion of the liberal media.

Full of hate, they say, the Rev. Wright is toward America and white people. Well, has Rev. Wright ever said anything like:

“The strategy against the American radical left should be the same as General Douglas MacArthur employed against the Japanese in the Pacific . . . bypass their strongholds, surround them, isolate them, bombard them, then blast the individuals out of their power bunkers with hand-to-hand combat. The battle for Iwo Jima was not pleasant, but our troops won it. The battle to regain the soul of America won’t be pleasant either, but we will win it.”

Given the threats to his safety now, somehow I don’t think Rev. Wright could dare suggest lobbing grenades or using flamethrowers against his political enemies like good old boy Pat Robertson did.

Nor would Rev. Wright likely be able to survive saying

“When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you.”

Of course, if you are white, anti abortion and conservative like Randall Terry, you can publicly threaten to kill doctors involved with abortion without having to worry about churches being bombed when you speak.

Rev. Wright is also condemned for saying that AIDS is a government plot against people of color. Obviously, Wright isn’t aware like the late Rev. Jerry Falwell that

“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

Not only that, but American gays and lesbians brought on 9/11.

“[The tragedy of 9/11] could be minuscule . . . if in fact God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve . . . The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this . . . throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

So spoke Rev. Falwell on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club two days after 9/11. Yet, did Falwell have to fear for his life for blaming Americans for the 9/11 attacks?

Not to any significant degree did Falwell, Robertson and their likes have to fear because of outrageous statements they made. On the other hand, Wright has to fear for his life because of statements that he made from his perspective as a black.

Not that Wright has that much room to complain as a black, according to Pat Robertson:

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.”

And they call Rev. Wright an out-of-touch extremist? Sorry, but in America there are things white conservatives can openly say in front of a television camera that would still get a black preacher at least figuratively lynched for saying behind a pulpit.

So: In Dick’s Head

So: one two-lettered word sums up the imperial Republican presidency.

ABC reporter Martha Raddatz said to Dick Cheney: “Two-thirds of Americans say it's [Iraq war] not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives. “

Dick Cheney responded: “So?”

Got to keep the course, no matter what people think. Got a mission to accomplish, no matter what anybody says. Got to bring democracy where the leaders don’t care what the people think. So who cares what Americans think about exporting democracy?

Didn’t get the popular vote? So? Who cares what the voters think? Election results are nothing more than another form of opinion poll. Who has to listen to opinion polls when you’re the leader of the free world?

Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction? So?

Saddam didn’t have ties to al-Qaeda? So?

Americans weren’t greeted as liberators and boulevards weren’t named after Bush and Cheney? So?

Bin Laden not captured? So?

Mission not accomplished? So?

Ask and you shall receive. “Bring it on.” They did. And how. So?

The 4,000th American soldier dies on Easter Sunday? So?

Did Ronald Reagan care what Americans thought when he waged an illegal war in Nicaragua?

Did Ronald Reagan care what Americans thought when he sold arms to militant Iranian fundamentalists?

Did Ronald Reagan give a damn about what Americans thought when he armed and trained the likes of Osama bin Laden to fight against the evil Soviet empire?

Did Ronald Reagan care what anybody thought about torture and death squads in backing brutal right-wing regimes?

Did Richard Nixon give a hoot about American opinion when he secretly bombed Cambodia?

Did Nixon consult the public before bugging Democrats at Watergate?

Hell, no, none of them did. They didn’t have to, by God. They were President. And members of God’s Own Party, the Republicans. And they were only doing what God himself what have been doing if God had only had the time to know the particulars as did Nixon, Reagan and Bush/Cheney in not giving a damn about what Americans think.

Run, Dick, Run

Why isn’t Dick Cheney running for President?

Run, Dick, run for President. Don’t break tradition. Don’t be the first Republican vice-president ever to wimp out and voluntarily not run for the president. Be a real conservative.

Everybody knows that if the incumbent President doesn’t run again that his Vice-President is supposed to carry on the agenda. Al Gore did. So did George H. W. Bush, Walter Mondale, Gerald Ford, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1920 before you find a Vice - President who willingly didn’t run for President when his boss’s term was up. And wouldn’t you know it, VP Thomas Marshall was a wimp Democrat.

As to Republican Vice-Presidents, only four did not become presidential candidates to replace their President. In 1928 the GOP refused to nominate the arrogant Charles Gates Dawes, a banker who was not well received in hard economic times. Instead, the Republicans went with a real winner, Herbert Hoover, whose Vice-President, Charles Curtis, had enough guts to run against the great communistRoosevelt in 1932.

Back in 1908 Teddy Roosevelt supported William Howard Taft and Vice-President Charles Fairbanks realized the futility of running and went back to the pursuit of the legal tender. While his supporters pushed him at the 1892 GOP conventions, poor Levi Morton couldn’t get much backing to carry on Benjamin Harrison’s agenda. And 1880 Republicans wouldn’t even jokingly consider William Wheeler after Rutherford Hayes.

As to the Democrats and their predecessors who did not run for President, other than Marshall in 1920 there were but three: George Dallas who chose not to seek the presidency in 1849; Richard Johnson was unable to get the Democratic nomination in 1840; and Daniel Tompkins was a drunk who died some three months after leaving office in 1825. Tompkins was a Democratic-Republican.

Is that what you are, Dick, a Democratic-Republican? Are you going soft by not running for president? I mean, you are going to be only the first Republican who chose not to run and only the third overall. Are you crossing the aisle and joining ranks with the Democrats? Are you becoming a girly boy?

Look, Dick, the vice-presidency is a stepping stone, not “worth a pitcher of warm piss" according to Democratic Vice President John Nance Garner.

Are your policies not worth warm piss, Dick? Are you willing to turn over waterboarding to John McCain?

Conservatives are not happy with McCain. Wrong on torture. Wrong on buying elections. Wrong on immigration.

As neo-conservative pundit Fred Barnes put it, you are, big Dick: “The obvious man for Bush to tap as his successor in 2008." Barnes wrote that

“The war on terror, national security, and the struggle for democracy will probably dominate American politics for a decade or more. Bush's legacy, or at least part of it, will be to have returned these issues to a position of paramount concern for future presidents. And who is best qualified to pursue that agenda as knowledgeably and aggressively as Bush? The answer is the person who helped Bush formulate it, namely Cheney.”

Regarding the usual arguments about Cheney not running, Barnes said that

“He's not too old. President Reagan was 69 when he took office. Despite past heart trouble, Cheney hasn't had a serious health problem for years. Besides, his health has nothing to do with his refusal to consider running in 2008.”

Then why won’t Dick run for president, even when conservatives are afraid of McCain? "I made it clear when I took the job that I had no aspirations to run for president myself.” Why? Because if he was to run then he would have had to worry "about what the precinct committeeman in Ottumwa, Iowa, is going to think about me in January of '08." Since Cheney doesn’t have to worry about even what his party loyalists are going to think of Bush’s and his agenda, Dick feels free to "offer my advice based on what's best from the standpoint of the president and his program and what we're trying to achieve now."

Ah, yes, Dick Cheney, so-called conservative who admits that he serves his country at his convenience, for his agenda, and could give a damn about what some chump in Iowa thinks about what he is doing.

Run, Dick, run

How Goes the Dream?

Judge yourself where we stand today on fulfilling Dr. King’s words.


“Yes, woes to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders-hypocrites! For you build monuments to the prophets killed by your fathers and lay flowers on the graves of the godly men they destroyed, and say, ‘We certainly would never have acted as our fathers did.’”

“I will send you prophets, and wise men, and inspired writers, and you will kill some by crucifixion, and rip open the backs of others with whips . . .”

Jesus
Matthew 23: 28, 34

Historians fear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s true legacy is being lost. Professor Henry Louis Taylor Jr. said that "All we know is that this guy had a dream. We don't know what that dream was."

Just like Jesus everybody wants to use Dr. King to suit their purpose. Just like Jesus Dr. King was perfectly capable of speaking his own mind without need of theologians, pundits and preachers putting forth the party line.

So just let me put forth some of Dr. King’s words on the table. You decide how we are doing. Indeed, ask yourself, how much of this would Dr. King be able to say today without being attacked from both the right and left.

“I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”

“The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

“We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”

“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.”

“It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

“With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together . . .”

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.”

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

“We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.”

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

“The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest.”

‘The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”

“Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.”

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing"-oriented society to a "person"-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable to being conquered.”

“We must use our vast resources of wealth to aid the undeveloped countries of the world. We have spent far too much of our national budget in establishing military bases around the world and far too little in establishing bases of genuine concern and understanding.”

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

“I just want to do God's will.”

So, how goes the dream?

Be the Change in ‘08

Had enough of making and breaking trivial New Year resolutions?


Tired of waiting on the world to change? Then be the change you want. Hit that high A# note that you want heard resounding through the land.

Show, don’t tell. Demonstrate by example, don’t demand. Solve, don’t complain.

Want world peace? Start by ending the war in your head. Waging war on war is not peacemaking. Violent emotions, words and actions begat only more of the same. Peace is the only way to peace.

Want to end wanton greed and its ravenous decimation of people and the environment? Be grateful for what you already have instead of whining about what you want and don’t have. For greed - whether it is the love of money, power or status - is the root of all cancerous consumerism and infectious imperialism.

Greed to be right is particularly dangerous. Want to help rid the world of fundamentalism and its bastard terrorism? Start by jettisoning all your own dogma, doctrine and devout dedication to the sanctity of your beliefs and opinions.

Tired of simple-minded zealots who divide the world into good and evil? Seek relief by letting go of being a proper devotee of your own chosen creed/belief system. Try appreciating the wonder of being human. Maybe you will realize that we are all made out of the same DNA and have more in common than our senseless arguments over who is the most ignorant.

Tired of low-down, high-spending negative political campaigns? Then begin by giving up politics as usual, as a form of warfare, and learn to embrace your opponents as the pupils of your own eyes. Love your enemies as yourself. Forgive them their politics as they may forgive yours.

Be just as willing to work on yourself as you are to work on others. Ask nothing that you are not willing to do yourself. Remember how hard it is to change your slightest fault when demanding others to immediately recast themselves to fit your lofty standards of perfection.

Had enough of human rights violations and oppression? Cease and desist demonizing people who disagree with you. Quit calling them names, caricaturing their views, and making them into Straw Men ready for mob burning. Stop acting as if anyone who disagrees with you is stupid or evil and deserves elimination in the endless struggle of survival of the fit throwers.

Sick of loud mouth, know-it-all, opinionated jerks on television? Start with the image in the mirror.

Feed up with adrenaline fueled news? Chill, Chicken Little.

Had enough of celebrities getting all the attention? Don’t try to be one.

Tired of all the whining and complaining and lack of accepting of personal responsibility and waiting on someone else to do something? (Refrain, same key, without fading, repeated until sustained crescendo.)

What are Conservatives Conserving?

Just whose traditional values are conservatives preserving?

Many conservatives argue that the Constitution is not a living document. Stick to the original words, they say. Don’t toy around with the intent or meaning.

Swell, I say. Let’s do the same with the term conservative. And if we are going to be precise about what a conservative is, a venerable old Webster’s dictionary is a good place to start:

“One who wishes to preserve traditions or institutions and resists innovation or change.”

All I want to know is which side it is that modern conservatives are conserving. What institutions are they preserving? Whose traditions are they upholding? Or are they merely very stubborn and centuries later still resisting original American innovation and change?

For example, with George Washington, there were those who wanted him to be king. Who needed democracy? Who needed an elected president subject to law? Who needed a Congress to tell King George when he could go to war or who he could throw into a torture chamber and forget? Which side again is it that conservatives are conserving?

Or take the Constitution prohibiting religious oaths as necessary for holding political office. Certain colonies required political candidates to swear allegiance to the official state religion. The founding fathers said no, there must be separation of church and state, and a person’s religious beliefs were their own private matters. Now which traditional values are conservatives conserving?

How about slavery? Radical Republicans and abolitionists used the Bible to condemn slavery. They said all men are really created equally as stated in the Declaration of Independence. No, they’re not, responded conservative white males. The Bible supports slavery. As the Rev. Alexander Campbell said "There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." Some men are more equal than others. They are meant to rule. That’s the way God made it and to go against it is to rebel against God’s law. Whose side?

The Holy Book said men are to be masters of women. Why would the little lady need to worry her pretty little head about voting? God knows what would happen if some cold-hearted calculating witch ever got into power. A woman’s place is in the home and not the White House. Whose views are being conserved?

Consider the Robber Barons. Freedom meant getting all you could for free at government and public expense. Take all you can and buy the best government possible. Screw the poor. God does. Why not us? Which conservative ethics are valued?

Look at the great depression. One side held that the government should help the common folk. Government could do more collectively than people could do as individuals or groups. No, said the other side. Dog eat dog is the rule in this world of survival of the fittest. Let each fend alone. During Katrina, whose traditions were being upheld?

Which traditional values were expressed by those using the Bible to support segregation? Are they the same values aimed at gays? Are the values expressed now toward Mexicans here in the United States the same values vented on Mexicans south of the border when we invaded?

Just whose values are conservatives honoring when they claim to be the heirs to the civil rights movement which but a few decades ago they condemned as anti-American, un-Christian, communist agitation?

Could be that they are doing their damnedest to confirm the tradition of Jesus who said

“Yes, woes to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders-hypocrites! For you build monuments to the prophets killed by your fathers and lay flowers on the graves of the godly men they destroyed, and say, ‘We certainly would never have acted as our fathers did.’”

“In saying that, you are accusing yourselves of being the sons of wicked men. And you are following in their steps, filling up the full measure of their evil. Snakes! Son of vipers! How shall you escape the judgment of hell?”

Maybe conservatives are merely trying to prove Mark Twain correct:

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”

Or, perhaps it is as simple as John Stuart Mill claimed:

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

Fight, Republicans, Fight

How stimulating was last night’s Republican presidential debacle.

Dear Diary:

Last night was exquisite. Passion unbridled, running raw, fighting to be on top. Fingernails digging in, love slaps stinging skin sanguine. Total gratification, again and again, with every sharp thrust penetrating deeper, with ever movement and counter movement, ever groan and exclamation, waves of satisfaction shook me to the core of my very soul. Oh, dear diary, how sweet it was last night watching Republicans f**k each other over who is more holier-than-thou during the so called presidential debate.

What an orgy of hypocrisy it was watching Republicans kick each others’ asses to see who could kiss ass to win conservative votes to kick Hillary’s ass. Kick and kiss ass are the main political strategies these days. All in the name of Jesus, America and traditional Christian values, don’t you forget.

My, how the conservatives have taken to Social Darwinism, or the notion of the survival of the strongest. Then again, they always have. That’s why there have been kings and queens and emperors enough to rule the world ten million times over. Whether the excuse is pseudo-religion or pseudo-science, those who would stand lord over others will use any means necessary to fulfill my will.

What is my will? Get all I can. Nobody is going to look after old number 1. Ask not what you can do to help but ask how can you help yourself. Extol yourself because nobody else is going to sing your praises if you’re not willing to do it yourself.

Hot damn, didn’t the Republican candidates do a bang up job of doing my will last night? Truly, there is nothing more devilishly satisfying than hearing candidates of God’s Own Party extol themselves on who is the number one follower of the One who admonished not to extol yourself for you will be humbled.

Howl on, wolves, howl on. Forget the elephant. Adopt the wolf draped in a bloody sheepskin. Just say that it’s a sissy liberal pacifist’s hide. Nobody will know the difference. If they do, just say that they are being judgmental and intolerant. That should be enough to bring on a crippling case of liberal guilt.

Seriously, I am going to send a memo to my boys, telling them just how pleased I am with their performance last night. Screw all this crap about uniting Americans. Neither Osama nor I want united Americans. Divide, fractionalize and demonize. How else can there be war? And without war, how can I sustain my economic growth?

So, hell yea, if anybody asks, my boys last night were upholding traditional conservative values. Listen to Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter, head of the first Republican political-campaign public-relations firm, who helped defeat Upton Sinclair back in the 1930's:

“The average American doesn’t want to be educated, he doesn’t want to improve his mind, he doesn’t even want to work consciously at being a good citizen. But every American likes to be entertained. He likes the movies, he likes mysteries; he likes fireworks and parades. So, if you can’t put on a fight, put on a show.”

Better yet, as my crusty crew knew last night, put on a fighting show. And of all the shows that I have produced over the years, I do so love having made a mockery of Jesus by starting so many fights and wars in His name. For championing my tradition values of hypocrisy and greed, I do salute you, Republican presidential candidates.

Your biggest fan,


Lucifer Beelzebub “Bubba” Mephistopheles de Mammon

P. S. - Ron Paul, you’re not included. Get with the program. The Republican party you thought existed is long ago dead. Shape up. Get nasty, mean and greedy or otherwise you are on your own.

If America is a Christian nation then why isn’t America more Christlike?

Does the religious right really want America to be Christlike?

If Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers then why do more than 70% of the religious right support the war in Iraq and a potential war in Iran?

If Jesus warned that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword then why has Blackwater gotten rich serving a Christian president?

If the Bible prophesied swords shall be beat into plowshares then why does the religious right support huge military spending?

If Jesus taught to pray for your enemies and wish them well then why are we waging war to wipe them out?

If the Bible revealed that Jesus came so that there could be peace on earth then why do religious righters preach that anybody who wants peace on earth is working for the devil?

If Jesus admitted that not even he knew the day and hour of the end of days then why do so many religious righters make a career off predicting Armageddon?

If Jesus instructed that the mercy you show will be the mercy you are shown then why are conservative Christians so much in favor of the death penalty?

If Jesus proclaimed the new law is to turn the other cheek then why is the religious right so much in favor of the old eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth law?

If Jesus pleaded that it was doing unto him by comforting those in prison then why do so many religious righters say lock them up and throw away the key?

If Jesus admonished that let him without sin cast the first stone what animated Ted Haggard, Mark Foley and Larry Craig to cast away with abandon?

If Jesus gave notice that whoever does unto one of these little ones is doing in my name then why don’t all American children have health coverage?

If Jesus said blessed are the hungry for they will be feed but woe unto those who feast now for their hunger will be far greater then why do Americans waste $88 billion of food a year while someone in the world dies of starvation every 3.5 seconds?

If Jesus declared that we do not live by bread alone then why is 2/3 of Americans obese?

If Jesus advocated that the worth of one’s soul consists of more than mere material possessions than why do we value a person based on their net worth?

If Jesus counseled that when you pray don’t be like the heathens and pray for what you want then why are so many prosperity preachers storing up riches here on earth by selling people the belief that they are not richer simply because they do not know how to pray to God to get what they want?

If Jesus established that if you wanted to follow him then sell all you own and give the money to the poor then why are so many ministers living in pearly white mansions while so many homeless are sleeping under bridges?

If Jesus stated you cannot serve God and Mammon then why is greed good and materialism so worshiped in America?

If Jesus blessed the poor then why are the poor so despised in America?

If James, the brother of Jesus, wrote that the poor are God’s chosen then why do you have to spend so much money to get elected?

If Jesus cautioned do not exalt yourself for you will be humbled then why do Americans elect candidates who exalt themselves as Christians?

If Jesus warned do not swear by heaven, or God, or add anything to your word because doing so would mean your word is inadequate on its own, then why does the religious right always have to resort to invoking God’s name whenever they want somebody to vote their way?

If Paul announced that in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female, Gentile or Jew, nor master nor servant then why have women, nonwhites and gays been treated as second class citizens or worse for so long?

If Jesus taught to do unto others as you would have them done unto you then do Americans want to be treated as they have treated Native Americans?

If Jesus advised condemn not lest you be condemned then why is the religious right so obsessed with damning gays to hell and back?

If the Bible gave notice that a house divided cannot stand then why is America so divided into feuding red and blue factions?

If Jesus cautioned not even to become angry in your own house because you risk the flames of hell then why are so many conservative Christian commentators always so angry?

If Jesus implored you to fear not and the Bible added that him who fears does not know God then why are most religious righters fear-mongers?

If Jesus instructed to love your neighbors as yourself then why do so many conservatives want desperately poor Mexicans to stay home?

If Jesus ordered to render unto Caesar and God each what is theirs, respectively, then why are there any lingering questions about separation of church and state?

If Jesus held the truth shall set you free then why does the religious right oppose the teaching of evolution?

If Jesus preached don’t pray publically like the hypocrites just to be seen but to go by yourself and pray in private then why does the religious right insist on praying loudly in public places like schools?

If Jesus condemned religious hypocrites for wearing special clothes to draw attention to themselves as holier-than-thou then why does the religious right dress in bumperstickers and buttons?

If Jesus let be known that you could identify his followers by them showing love to one another then why do so many conservative Christians have to repeatedly tell you just how saved and Christian they are?

If Jesus advised his followers to move on if nobody wanted to hear his message then why does the religious right persist on making their interpretation of his message the law of the land?

If Jesus advocated living carefree and trusting like wild birds or flowers then why are we paving over paradise to put up a parking lot?

If Jesus’s first miracle was to turn water into wine then why are so many religious righters teetotalers?

Help Stop A Potential Massacre in Myanmar

Sign a petition. Send an email to Myanmar’s dictator. Do something now.


Burma’s military dictatorship is about to show why it is one of the most brutal regimes in the world. The military junta has threatened to crack down on protesting Buddhist monks and civilians. Crack downs in Burma are murder.




Last night security forces raided Buddhist monasteries and arrested around 700 monks and civilians. At one monastery soldiers allegedly “used bamboo sticks to beat everyone in the monastery, including monks, laymen, women and children.”

"Many spots of blood could still be seen in the morning in the monastery compound and nearby," claimed one witness.

Today the Democratic Voice of Burma reported that security forces fired on unarmed demonstrators in Rangoon with a university student killed and a monk being shot in the back.

At another location security forces shot and killed at least one woman and wounded others at a Buddhist pagoda.

Also today, security forces returned to arrest the abbot at that monastery they had brutally raided last night. This time hundreds of thousands of local residents have surrounded the security force. A witness said that “The military is surrounding the monastery and firing warning shots to disperse the crowds, but people are standing firm.”

Now is your chance to stand firm against the brutal military dictatorship of Senior General Than Shwe, whose official title is Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar. (Has there ever been a more fitting title for a dictator?)

The human rights group Avaaz is

“calling for UN powers--above all China, which holds the economic strings of the Burmese regime--to apply decisive pressure now to stop the violence, and to broker a peaceful transition. If they fail to do this, the massacres will be sudden.”

Sign their petition for the UN to take immediate action to prevent a brutal and bloody crackdown in Burma.

Send an email at The Burma Campaign to dictator Shwe to free Aung San Suu Kyi, the Noble Peace Award laureate who is the rightful ruler of Burma. You can personalize the message to demand an end to the violence and the ruling junta.

You can go to the Burma Freedom Campaign and sign a petition to send to Chinese leaders telling them to support the Burmese people and not the military dictatorship.

Then you can send a petition to the UN directly to the UN.

And don’t forget sending one to Bush from Amnesty Internation USA to President Bush.

Remember: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Taser not: Answer the Question, Kerry

Watch John Kerry not left a finger as police cut off and Taser a student asking too tough of questions about the 2004 elections.



Watch police in Florida take down and Taser a college student for not backing down to Senator John Kerry. Andrew Meyer, 21, asked why Kerry had so readily conceded the 2004 election to Bush. The student quoted Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse which detailed how it was known on election day that there were widespread irregularities and that Bush was trying to steal the election again.

First please watch Kerry’s concession speech on election day:



Rather pat and rehearsed, if you ask me.

Now watch the student try to ask Kerry why he gave up so easily on the election when he had to know that the election was crooked:



Kerry might not have directly ordered the student’s mike to be cut or for the student to be forcibly removed. But Kerry didn’t lift a finger from stopping four cops dragging the student to the back of the room and sticking the Taser to him. There’s nothing like hiring a snug, condescending, cold-hearted politician spinning over the screams of a youth bold enough to keep on asking questions even as his mike is cut and cops circle closer.

Angrily is how the Associated Press described the student’s questioning. Funny, they didn’t describe Kerry responding as snide, patronizing or authoritarian. Nor was the word cold-hearted used to describe a politician that would dare to be the leader of the country which prides itself upon free speech and open government.

Kerry needs to answer the question where we can all hear. Kerry needs to address persistent rumors that the Democrats didn’t want to win in 2004. The allegation is the Democrats’ plan was to loose the presidency - that’s why they chose Kerry - and then continue bashing Bush, do nothing too controversial and wait for Hillary to win in a cakewalk in ‘08. Anybody but Bush, the voters are going to say. Kerry needs to sit down with Greg Palast. And whatever Kerry might say or do, I can only pray that he tries to cut off Palast’s mike.

Watch bumbling Bush bungle and fumble down below

WARNING: This video contains raw and graphic stupidity inflicted upon non-consenting adults.

Ladies and gentlemen, and all points in between, please witness in Australia your president, the Ornery-able George W. Bush:




Actually President Bush was at least partially right when he let slip OPEC instead of APEC. What Bush meant was that he attending the meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation on behalf of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

So what that Bush confuses Austrians with Australians? Bush couldn’t tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He couldn’t tell the difference between Afghanistan and Iraq, and Iraq and Iran. Bush can’t tell the difference between a hole in the ground and his you-know-what.

As to his strategy for exiting the stage, somebody please show Bush the door once and for all. Bush might want to slip out the back door but damn if he don’t need to be made to come straight forward and held accountable for all his bumbling, bungling and fumbling of so many lives.

To Flee or Not to Flee: Larry Craig’s Question

Something is rotten in the head of the dumb mark and it sure does sell.


Stay, Larry, stay. Please don’t go. We need the headlines. Bashing a basher is so much fun. We love to see slimy things happen to slime balls.

Twist, Larry, twist. Distort the truth like a pretzel made out of silly-putty. Appeal to us straight men about how often we reach under the wall into an occupied stall to pick up a piece of toilet paper off the floor next to a man’s foot.

Tap, Larry, tap. Dance around the issues. You’re the victim of a conspiracy. They’re out to get you. For years they have rumored behind your back that you’re light in the loafers, you ol’ twinkle toes. Now, just because you got caught in a sting, they want to you to go down.

Stand, Larry, stand. Whatever it is you’re standing for, stand firm and hard. Just let them try to beat you down. Take your licks as they come. They won’t bring you to your knees because you a real man. You’re not one of them.

Most of all, spin, Larry, spin. Explain how you have the right as an American citizen to spam for sex wherever you go. Then reiterate that you are not gay and are in fact against the homosexual agenda.

Worry not, Larry, about blowing it. Such hypocrisy pales along side Bush’s and the religious right’s actions that led to Iraq. If those hot shots try to force you out, threaten to out Karl Rove. Go public on Ken Mehlman. Smear the inside poop on the velvet Republican mafia up on Capital Hill.

Even so, in all honesty, I’ve got to warn you straight up, Larry. If you do decide to stay, Republican leadership has got to come after your butt. For you have broken the one forbidden taboo that the Republican elite can never forgive. They can overlook you having gay sex just like they did with Mark Foley. They can overlook your lying and hypocrisy. That is SOP for the GOP. But they can never ever even in a million years forgive you for having pled guilty.

That was no better than actually admitting responsibility for your actions. God forbid another Republican ever do the same. Right from the start you should have yelled that the liberals were out to get you like any good cornered conservative. You didn’t. You took responsibility and now must be driven out.

But Larry, I don’t want you to go. You’re the life of the party. Don’t let the fun end. I do so hate the sound of folding chairs. So before the roadies come for my keyboard, let me serenade you:

Why won’t you stay
just a little bit longer
We want to play
just a little bit longer
The comics don’t mind
and the writers don’t mind
if you take even more time
and show your fool behind
and stay
just a little bit longer.

Hey, Larry, want to hear the “The Pretender” and “Running on Empty”?

Whoopi Goldberg defends Michael Vick: he’s from the south

Stop already with the southern stereotypes!


Michael Vick is not responsible for torturing and killing fighting dogs. “He’s from the south, the deep south,” said Whoopi Goldberg on her debut on ABC's The View. (Watch video.)

"You know from his background this is not an unusual thing for where he comes from," said Goldberg.

"For a lot of people dogs are sport," she added.

"This is part of his cultural upbringing," she said.

"This is a kid who comes from a culture when [sic] this is not questioned."

"It's like cockfighting in Puerto Rico," she said. "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country."

Goldberg also compared the allegedly wide spread dog fighting in the south to Chinese, who, she implied, eat cats.

That’s us stupid southerners for sure. Don’t hold us responsible for drowning and hanging dogs not deemed up to snuff. Blame southern culture. But somehow I don’t think Whoopi would accept the Klan harassing and killing blacks as a natural part of southern culture.

I mean, according to prevailing negative stereotypes, lynchings are a dime a dozen in the dirty, racist south. Therefore, it’s not unusual. Ask any Yankee. And for a lot of the Klansmen, torturing and hanging blacks is sport. A sport that’s part of their cultural upbringing that’s not questioned, or so the stereotypes proclaim. Now, if Whoopi actually believes Vick is not fully responsible for his violence because of southern culture then the same must hold true for all southerners.

Gravelly grits, I groan. We southerners - black, white, Indian and all points in between - are not sub-humans who have yet to evolve into civilization. We are fully capable of abiding by laws and do not need to use the defense of diminished capacity resulting from being born in the south. After all, like it or not, southerners did pen the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Further, how dare Whoopi Goldberg claim that dog-fighting and torture are a part of the common culture of the south. How dare none of her ABC co-hosts challenge such a maliciously bigoted falsehood. The vast majority of southerners that I know hate dogfighting and look down on the thugs who do it. Are ABC and The View endorsing negative stereotypes about the south?

Y’all listen up. We southerners are tired of being lumped together into one mindless mire. We are sick and tired of being openly portrayed as stupid, backward, ignorant, racist, sexist, hot blooded, lazy, inarticulate, corrupt, violent and unable to take responsibility for our own actions. Such talk toward any other group would be called hateful and intolerant. Shame on the View for allowing such blatant bias to go unchallenged.

Just think of the resulting outrage if on national television I said Goldberg couldn’t help being a big-mouthed, holier-than-thou know-it all given her upbringing. Look at her culture and where she’s from: New York, in the heart of the deep north. Just overlook her. She can’t help but run her mouth without thinking of what’s coming out. What she lacks in substance she’ll more than make up with quantity, loudness and obnoxiousness.

Such remarks would be properly and promptly condemned as bigoted, condescending and divisive. Yet when someone like Goldberg bashes the south, no one bats an eye. No more. Those days of politely sitting back for this liberal while my fellow southerners are demonized are gone with the wind.

Tony Snow gotta go for the dough

Tony Slow becomes the third to exit the White house this month.


White House spinster Tony Snow has become the latest partisan to flee the Bush bunker. Although Snow has just finished demanding chemotherapy, he is not leaving because of recurring colon cancer.

“I feel terrific,'' Snow said today. "It's not a health matter. It's purely financial.”

Poor Tony. As host for Bush’s administration Snow had to get by on a measly $168,000 a year for hosting a free spin zone unfair and imbalanced. As a host at Fox News, Snow made far, far more money slinging Bushit.

Cancer might not have been able to stop him from serving his President and country but making a buck must come first. That’s a call from a higher power any true-blooded Republican can understand. Sacrifice is fine but not when it comes to the wallet. As Snow said: “I’ve told people when my money runs out, then I’ve got to go.” (There you go, folks: the soon-to-be announced Republican solution for Iraq.)

So much for all that liberal hogwash about “ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.”

Expect Snow to return to Fox News where his service at the White House will likely be treated as uninterrupted employment with Fox News.

Yet another gay-bashing Republican goes down

Does GOP stand for Gay Ol’ Pharisees?

Screw or screw over: Republicans just don’t know what to do with gays. So they do both. Add senior United States Senator Larry Craig from Idaho to the rooster of gay-bashing Republicans busted for illegal homosexual activity.

Like conservative evangelist Ted Haggard, Craig is not sure if stoning gays means beating them down or getting them high for a romp in the bathroom stalls.

That’s where Senator Craig was arrested on June 11, in a busy bathroom in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, trying to play footsies with an undercover cop.

Craig has been dodging rumors of being gay for at least 25 years, while all the time championing traditional values. Back in the 1982 Craig had to deny reports that he had been getting high on cocaine and screwing male Congressional staffers. In 2006, Craig called allegations that he was gay "completely ridiculous." In 2007, he responded to similar allegations by saying that “I don't go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho!”

Craig said that he wrongly pled guilty to the misdemeanor charges and that the whole thing is just one big misunderstanding.

Which is what fellow Republican gay-basher Fla. Rep. Bob Allen is also claiming. The "Wicked Witch," as Allen was dubbed by the Florida-based Rainbow Democratic Club for his staunch anti-gay politics, was busted for offering an undercover cop $20 to let Allen fellate him in a park bathroom.

Titusville, Florida police said they saw a “disheveled, unshaven man” go in and out of the park bathroom three times. So they decided to send in a black undercover cop who went into a stall and Allen peeked twice over the closed door before propositioning the cop with a twenty. Gay-bashing Allen’s defense?

"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park." Allen feared that he "was about to be a statistic."

Forget macho Republican bravado. Let’s talk about your basic drop-to-your-knees appeasement. Thank goodness Allen didn’t encounter the Taliban or else Allen might still be setting the world’s record for the longest train ever pulled.

Besides blaming it all on misunderstanding, Allen and Craig also both tried playing their get-out-of-jail-for-free cards. Allen asked "it would help" that he was a state legislator. Craig pulled out his Senate business card and asked if that made a difference. It didn’t in either case. Must be a liberal conspiracy.

Dick Cheney: America shouldn’t invade Iraq

Watch Cheney explain why it would be a disaster to topple Saddam.


“Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.”
Proverbs 6:2


Hindsight is golden. If we only knew then what we know now. Who could have known the quagmire that Iraq was going to turn into? Who could have predicted the casualties and civil war? All of which is standard operating Republican spin to let Bush and Cheney off the hook for misleading Americans into an ambush. But Dick Cheney did know back then. Way back then.

In his own words from 1994 watch Uncle Dick explain.

My, my, Cheney very well knew what would happen. As to the reason why Cheney changed his mind and ardently pushed war? To quote vidiot888, a user at You Tube: “REASON was Never the REASON.”

Even if Cheney had somehow believed that Saddam did actually have weapons of mass destruction, Cheney should have long ago stopped claiming that Saddam did have such weapons when he didn’t. The same goes for the unproven al-Qaeda connection to Iraq. Cheney is either crazy or a liar to continue making false claims.

My vote is for liar. Why? Back during the presidential campaign of 2004, chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer released a report which found that Saddam had not had weapons of mass destruction since but that but that Saddam had no capacity to make any. Saddam could not have made any if he wanted to. Cheney’s response?


“The headlines all say no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad.’ We already knew that.”

Cheney also added that “As soon as the sanctions were lifted, [Saddam] had every intention of going back” to his weapons program. In other words, Cheney knew that the sanctions program against Saddam had worked. Yet Cheney used the argument that sanctions would never stop Saddam from making WMD as a justification for invading Iraq.

Cheney has got to go. Cheney knew what was going to happen. Yet he lied to get us into a war while failing miserably in planning and preparing for the very quagmire and instability he knew was going to happen. Given the accuracy of his 1994 analysis, Cheney cannot argue that he did not know the blood would flow like an oil spill.

That is, of course, assuming that the current state of affairs is contrary to Cheney’s wishes. After all, Cheney is a vital part of Bush’s endless war mind set. When Cheney says things are going “remarkably well” in Iraq, that everything is going on schedule, maybe it is going as hoped for Big Brother Dick and the Holding Company. (apologies to Janis)

“Take just another a little piece of Iraq, now baby. You know you got it, if it makes you get rich.”

Turd Blossom Rove Poops Out: Bush’s chronic cognitive dissonance continues constipating

Who will shield Bush now that his chief strategist and enabler Karl Rove is sashaying off into the sunset?


Karl Rove has resigned and will be gone at the end of August. President Bush’s brain blows. The architect folds. The chief strategist sashays out the bunker off into the sunset. Another bloated rat abandons the sewer clogged with corruption.

What despair departure must be for Rove from his dear W., (watch video) whom he has devotedly served off and on since the 1970s. How could Karl help himself when he met W.? Listen:

"I can literally remember what he was wearing: an Air National Guard flight jacket, cowboy boots, complete with the - in Texas you see it a lot - one of the back pockets will have a circle worn in the pocket from where you carry your tin of snuff, your tin of tobacco. He was exuding more charisma than any one individual should be allowed to have,"

gushed the macho man who would later mastermind the GOP’s anti gay strategy but whose description of first seeing Bush’s rear pockets sounds right off Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Sweet, sweet, Turdblossom, as Bush tagged his wowed admirer: just like a flower that blooms in bullshit.

What a dream dear W. was for Rove. W. had the looks, the charisma, the snuff ring on the butt, all the things Rove didn’t have. Even Rove said that he was the

"complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket protector. I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin, scrawny little guy. I was definitely uncool."

Just how much of a nerd wimp was Rove as a child? When he was age nine in 1960, Karl got into his first political fight when

“a little girl across the street who was Catholic . . . found out I was for Nixon, and she was avidly for Kennedy. She put me down on the pavement and whaled on me and gave me a bloody nose."

Besides being more likely to beat a little girl in a fight, Bush also had something Rove didn’t have: a solid, traditional family. When he came home for Christmas from his first semester at the University of Utah, Karl found out his 300 lb. father was really his stepfather and that he was leaving Karl’s mother. Big Louie, as his father was known, moved to Los Angeles, came way out of the closet and became part of an elder gay group known as the “Old Farts.” Rove’s mother later committed suicide.

None of that is acceptable in a proper conservative pedigree mandatory for a candidate to play on the public stage under the lights. The most Karl could have ever prayed for was to be the brains behind a front man, to be the ventriloquist calling the shots from the sideline shadows while his puppet took the bows for his brilliance.

One could say that with W. that Rove got his prayers answered beyond belief except for one minor detail: Rove is an agnost