Today - A Proud Californian

Of course, that can (and will) change. Not only is our state not immune to non-sense, it often seems we are the center of it. But lately it appears Pennsylvania has taken over our role as weirdest state in the Union. Not that weird is always bad. A lot of "weird" that people associate with California is perfectly fine by me.

Anyway, there was the breath-taking decision a couple of weeks ago by a fairly conservative California State Supreme Court that ruled in favor of gay rights, including the right to marry. I was immediately asked by several out-of-state friends if I thought the electorate would overturn it at the polls. I was highly uncertain of what the result would be. This article from McClatchy news gives me hope and makes me proud of many of my fellow Californians. It also, once again, underlines the cultural war we are chest deep in.

American Dictatorship

This blog post by KargoX today in The Daily Kos just about says it all. Well, not really, because you could write a book about what has happened to our country since Bush and Cheney came into power, followed by the tragic events on September 11, 2001. This is what America has come to. Every time we fail to speak out about it, we ARE the problem. The truth is, we have nothing to fear but ourselves.

She's gone too far...

And maybe now - she's gone. Let's hope so.

Today, the woman who will seemingly do anything to win the Democratic nomination for President of the United States of America actually had the balls to invoke the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 as he was wrapping up his nomination, as the reason she continues to stay in the race.

As a 15 year old high school student, I worked in the RFK campaign. I was a volunteer in our local West Los Angeles campaign office - about 8 miles from the spot Kennedy was shot. It was one of the worst moments of my life and I'm sure of many Americans. The Democrats went on to nominate Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon went on to win the White House. The rest, as we say, is our history.

Once again, Olbermann says it all. The end is incredibly strong so watch it all the way through.

DOWN GOES HAGEE! DOWN GOES HAGEE!

Keep in mind that this was recorded prior to the latest news - "DOWN GOES PARSLEY! DOWN GOES PARSLEY!"

Hagee and Hitler and dangerous biblical scripture

So if you haven’t heard the latest hoopla over presumptive GOP Presidential candidate John McCain supporter Pastor John Hagee, here’s what it’s all about. First of all, remember that Hagee is a vehement supporter of Israel, but solely because he believes the Jewish people have to be positioned in that part of the world in order for biblical prophecy of Armageddon to be fulfilled. It’s all in that wonderful New Testament book, Revelations. Every time anything happens in the Middle East, he is the fattest cheerleader on the sidelines, screaming for Israel to fire another missile or to annex another piece of land.

Back to hoopla (the prior stuff is largely overlooked these days) – Huffington Post columnist Sam Stein uncovered this tape of Hagee in top sermon form, explaining that Hitler was simply here on earth to do God’s will. He was the “hunter” in prophecy who drove the Jews out from under rocks and forced those who had survived the Holocaust to return to the Holy Land.

Today, Hagee has his Magic Underpanties in a bunch (oh, wait, wrong superstition)… anyway, he’s pissed about all of this and claims that the biased press is trying to make him look like some sort of Nazi sympathizer, when he has always loved the Jewish people and always thought Hitler a monster. He said in his sermon, "Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."

Fair enough – you personally aren’t against Jews or pro-Nazi. But you knew people would be offended, so don’t act surprised. Further, what is it, exactly, that this Jeremiah (as in “the Book of”) had to say about Hitler committing genocide against the Jewish people? Well, nothing. It was just one of those crazy acid-trip stories about end-times in that wacky "Revelations". So, in a way Hagee, you are indeed the one saying it. It’s entirely your interpretation of a scripture! It’s the problem with prophecies. Like so much else in the bible, they are open to various decipherments. And you interpret it as saying that Hitler had come to do God’s work. Others read it and see nothing of the kind. This shows that prophecy and other biblical teachings are useless to give us an exact message about anything. Beauty, or evil, is in the eye of the beholder.

And what if Hagee got the rest of his prophecy the way he wants it? What do his precious Jewish people gain from his Armageddon? Well, it’s not very pretty. You see, unless they happen to be Jews for Jesus, they and their children and grandchildren are all going to die in that much anticipated apocalypse. Aren’t they lucky to have a good American friend like Pastor John Hagee? And isn’t John McCain lucky to have his endorsement? He must think he is. On several occasions he has said that he is proud to have it. And wouldn’t it be great to have a President handling our Middle East policies who gets regular input from John Hagee, on what our next move should be? Want to know what his advice would be? He believes that a war with Iran is a necessary precondition for the kick-off of Armageddon – which is “imminent”.

UPDATE - I've never been forced to update a post so soon after writing one. John McCain has just rejected the endorsement of Pastor Hagee, based on this new information. In the past week, Candidate Maverick McCain, who fancies himself a proponent of election reform, has had to drop several lobbyists from his campaign and now this. I've felt that an even larger issue for McCain than Hagee (who, after all, only endorsed him) is the spiritual advisor to his campaign - Rod Parsley. I'm sure we'll be talking more about him in coming months. Parsley thinks America was founded as a Christian nation, in part to destroy Islam.

UPDATE 2 - This John McCain... I'm having a hard time keeping up! Now he is dumping Parsley as well. Ordinary Girl (in the comments) predicts that this whole thing will be glossed over, unlike the Rev. Wright scandal for Obama. I think she's 100% correct. Now you might argue that McCain was smarter than Obama and got rid of his baggage before it bacame a big issue. And I would fire back - why the fuck wasn't it a big issue months ago?

Our deep national divide

My friend, the Spanish Inquisitor, tells us an interesting story of how he spent his weekend. In the process he further develops this thinking on the future of society in regards to religious practices. Specifically to doing away with them, without doing away with “ceremony”, which he believes are critical parts of human interaction.

SI said: …the last couple of hundred years, since the Enlightenment, indicates that we are already on that path, and we’ve come pretty far along it to boot. Recent claims to the contrary notwithstanding, America is based on the premise that we can continue along this path of secular humanity without gods to guide us, using only the reason and intellect we’ve developed on our own.

This forced me back into thoughts I have been dwelling on quite a bit. As I look back over my (our) life I think I can see something going on. I hesitate to claim it as a fact, because I'm well aware of how easily our senses can skew towards a belief of the times we live being particularly important for one reason or another. This is a very human failing. For instance, has there ever been a generation who thought, “Huh, how about young people these days? They have better music, are more well-behaved, and know better than we did how to face the challenges of life”? We all know the answer to this and it has to make you laugh every time you hear someone say it (or catch yourself thinking it).

But it seems that even if you simply do an objective historical comparison by cutting this country’s history into 50 year chunks, you will have to conclude that the last 50 have been a critical point in the Culture Wars that have haunted our nation (and the very idea of the first truly egalitarian society in the history of mankind) since our founding days, when slavery was given a pass. This was the so-called "original sin" of America.

Since my birth we have seen the end of segregation, movies and (to a lesser degree) television and radio free to use the explicit content of the choice of the producer, women obtaining and extending rights won earlier in the century, minority groups finding legal remedies to problems created by racism, reproductive rights, inter-racial marriages, new acceptance of gays and lesbians in the community, minorities and women in places of power, people feeling more free to declare their atheism openly and much more. Some of us feel completely at home with the notion, but think how radical it is that the Democratic Party primaries have come down to a decision between nominating for President a woman, or a black man.

These are substantial and revolutionary changes over a mere half century. As we all know, there are 10's of millions of our fellow Americans who would turn back each and every one of these advances if they could. And, so, we are at war. Make no mistake - it is a culture war. It's a terrible sore that is coming to a head. In the near future people will be making the ultimate decision – do we carry on with this noble experiment or do we stem the tide of freedom? Either we continue headlong into the notion of egalitarian society, or we destroy the experiment.

Most of us might not see the determining battles in the conflict. But we can be among those who lay the groundwork for a winning final battle. Think of the turmoil and upheaval of the past half century and then imagine what could happen in the coming 50 or 60 years.

The Family - more religious wackiness

Jeff Sharlet has a book coming out that will hopefully get a good deal of attention. It's title is "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power". It's not just for hayseeds anymore. Hillary Clinton, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, Jesse Helms, Charles Colson, Tom DeLay and the list goes on and on through American politics. Jesus uses, and rewards, these individuals for bringing Christianity to the world - behind the scenes. This is very disturbing.

Here's about 5 minutes of Will Wilkinson's interview with Jeff Sharlet for Bloggingheads.tv. And the full interview here.

From 'Too much fun', to 'way too scary'

Only in America (post-2000 election)

I knew Bush couldn't complete his 8 years without me hearing at least a couple more things to make me double-up on my Lexapro prescription. This one courtesy of our friend Ric, the Grumpy Lion. And here's the link to the Progressive article that he cites.

Basically, the FBI has deputized nearly 25,000 of your fellow citizens and they are watching you! If you are a terrorist, or pissed off one of them, you are going to get reported. And, apparently, "when" (not if, according to the article) martial law is declared, they are authorized to use deadly force on any suspected terrorist, or person who pissed them off, without fear of prosecution.

I used the word "apparently" in the last paragraph for a couple of reasons. First, the article itself made clear that they were going on the best information they could come up with, but that it may not be perfect. They had an InfraGard (remember that name) member who swears it was said. They had a number of people deny it, including the FBI. But they did get one source to confirm it and another who would not deny it.

The second reason is that Ric received the following in his comments section:

Ric get your coat on I’m stopping by and taking you out for a drink. The article by Mr Rothschild has been pretty much debunked. I’ll chime in that Mr. R actually refused to tell the FBI where the meeting re: deadly force” was.

There was more to the comment and you may want to read it in it's entirety, as well as responses to it from Ric and myself. We wanted sources cited for this "pretty much" debunked story. In fairness, he did return to Grumpy Lion with sources - an official statement of denial from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Well, golly Hoss, if the FBI denies it, then it must not be true! If you think this is a "debunking" of the article then you might as well say that the article debunked itself, since it quoted an FBI official as saying it was ridiculous!

Meanwhile, I've done a little investigating of my own. Using the story title with other key words such as "debunk" and "disprove" and "false", I could find nothing of substance. More importantly, Using the solitary keyword "InfraGard" and using a date filter, there is only one news story, since the Progressive article, and it had nothing to do with debunking the Progressive.

So my real question is, why the deafening silence from the news media on this story? Oh... hold on. Here's something now...

Too Much Fun!

I'm sorry, but I can't stop -

The "Inside Bill O'Reilly" Edition

If you haven’t seen the clip of O’Reilly that’s been going around the Internet, where the hell have you been for the past 36 hours? It’s funny enough on it’s own (and not a little disturbing). I’ve included it for anyone who has missed it. But more importantly, you have to see the BillO Meltdown Remix!