Friday, July 25, 2008

Incompetent Fool


Incompetent Fool
Originally uploaded by bobster1985
The picture to the right is an extremely accurate one, consisting of all the soldiers killed until the NYT piece on March 20. The accompanying editorial is worth a read in its entirety: log onto the archives of the New York Times.

The New York Times

March 20, 2008
Editorial
Mission Still Not Accomplished

It has been five years since the United States invaded Iraq and the world watched in horror as what seemed like a swift victory by modern soldiers and 21st-century weapons became a nightmare of spiraling violence, sectarian warfare, insurgency, roadside bombings and ghastly executions. Iraq’s economy was destroyed, and America’s reputation was shredded in the torture rooms of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret prisons.

These were hard and very costly lessons for a country that had emerged from the cold w ar as the world’s sole remaining superpower. Shockingly, President Bush seems to have learned none of them.

George W. Bush: A More Tortured Richard M. Nixon?



We Can Only Hope!

July 24, 1974 - Watergate scandal: the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.


"I am not a crook " "I did not have sex with that woman." "We do not torture."

Three lies: one from Richard M. Nixon , another from Bill Clinton, and the third from George W. Bush. Spanning thirty-four years. Lies with one very significant difference: in the end, it was Nixon who acted with honor.

Bush will not.

The irony, of course, is that Bush's lie is the most serious of the three. Nixon's concerned the Watergate break-in, questionable campaign contributions and conspiracy to keep them from the public. Clinton's was about sex. Bush's was about American honor ...and war crimes.

From today's The Washington Independent:


One of the most important building blocks in the Bush administration’s apparatus of torture became public today. An Aug. 1, 2002 memorandum from the Justice Dept.’s Office of Legal Counsel to the Central Intelligence Agency instructed the agency’s interrogators on specific interrogation techniques for use on Al Qaeda detainees in its custody. Most of the 17-page memo is blacked out and unreadable. But at least one of those techniques is waterboarding, the process of pouring water into the mouth and nostrils of a detainee under restraint until drowning occurs.

That’s certainly how it was viewed in the Nuremberg era. As the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1944: “There have been, and are now, certain foreign nations with governments … which convict individuals with testimony obtained by police organizations possessed of an unrestrained power to seize persons suspected of crimes against the state, hold them in secret custody, and wring from them confessions by physical or mental torture. So long as the Constitution remains the basic law of our Republic, America will not have that kind of government."

But America DOES have that kind of government now, doesn't it? We're holding people "suspected of crimes against the state", "hold them in secret custody" and "wring confessions by physical or mental torture."

Someone has to be accountable for all of those things and more, like "WMD lies" and extreme secrecy in foreign and national affairs. But don't look to Bush, because the buck will never stop with him. No accountability, no resignation. In their place we will encounter the obstinacy usually attributed to a petulant little boy. A boy who has very little conscience and who laughs at those who do.

So here's a CNN piece on torture. Please view it. It's ten minutes long, but it will stay with you for a long time.


Thursday, July 24, 2008

Hagee Update: Lieberman Loves Him!!


god's quotable quotes
Originally uploaded by haywardART

From: Andy Sullivan
Reuters

Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent who frequently campaigns with McCain, said pastor John Hagee's support for Israel outweighed the remarks that led McCain to reject his endorsement.

...Hagee has written that events in the Middle East point to an imminent apocalypse Christians should welcome, and in several books envisions a climactic battle in Israel leading to the second coming of Jesus. Christians United for Israel takes an uncompromising stance toward Israel's enemies and opposes giving land to the Palestinians.

Hagee said that it was up to Israelis to reach their own peace terms, and said the group was not trying to bring about a biblical apocalypse in the Middle East.

"We don't believe that we can speed up the End of Days one second because we believe that God has shown that he will set the time," Hagee said.


An organization supporting a negotiated peace in the Middle East, J Street, said it had delivered a 40,000-signature petition to Lieberman's office urging him not to speak to Hagee's group.

"We don't believe..." WHAT?!!

Hagee's been trying to speed up the End of Days his whole ministerial life! Give us a break! He's got "rapturists" and "End-Timers" salivating at the thought of telling God to hurry! He wants (like Rod Parsley, CUFI's regional manager) Israel to DESTROY the Palestinians and DESTROY Islam! He wants war even worse than George Bush!

Now we REALLY have to know what's going on with Lieberman in tow! Secret meetings, endorsements from senators... things are getting worse.

Heaven help us.


Hagee and Gary Bauer: Hate Speech Takes It Underground?


But Will God Be Allowed To Listen In?

Dana Milbank, columnist
Washington Sketch
Washington Post, July 23

"I have some bad news for you," announced the group's spokeswoman, Avraleigh Keats, when reporters showed up for a panel with Hagee and Gary Bauer, president of the group American Values, yesterday morning. "There's been a change. There's no press allowed. . . . No interviews. No filming. Nothing."

So why did Hagee's group announce the summit agenda with such fanfare and invite the public to watch? Executive Director David Brog speculated darkly: "I don't know if it was someone trying to sabotage us."

....Asked for an account of Hagee's secret meeting, Brog replied: "We're not going to make that transcript available."

Read the entire article here.

It seems as if CUFI is following the style of the Bush administration: everything must be secret!!

Secrecy is becoming a familiar pattern for Hagee. Earlier this month, he and his copyright lawyers managed to get YouTube to remove 120 videos of him preaching. And now, for the first time, he wanted to have his "summit" meeting in private.

And why pull sermons from YouTube? Doesn't Hagee believe that The Word of God will transcend? Maybe not. All things considered, this stinks. Something is rotten, and Christofascist Hagee is stupid enough to think that nobody will suspect anything. We expect the Bush administration to do things behind closed doors, but not faith-based concerns like Christians United for Israel. And will the "honored guest list" be in attendance in disguises? Joe Lieberman? Gary Bauer? Jonathan Falwell? Rick Santorum? Michael Little (Pres. of Pat Robertson's CBN)? Dennis Prager?

Maybe they'll all meet in the hotel kitchen. That looks to be Hagee's favorite hangout.


Things in Christofascistland are getting weirder and weirder.



Pastor John Hagee Going To His Secret Meeting!



Sorry - When I Saw This I Couldn't Resist Posting it!

United We Hate!


United We Hate!
Originally uploaded by joshuapaulcrigger

This actually looks a lot like Tony Perkins' "Values Voters Summit." Or, it could be another "secret" session of Christofascists. They just can't get the "secret" part right.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Hate Speech Gallery: Savage Is In Good Company


When It Comes To Antilocution (?)

O.K., so Michael Savage is not alone in profiteering from hate speech. Look at the post below (7/22) and look closely at the definition of hate speech. Now here's another look at it in, say, a sliding scale and what it can lead to:
Allport's Scale of Prejudice and Discrimination

Scale 1, Antilocution. Antilocution means a majority group freely make jokes about a minority group. Speech is in terms of negative stereotypes and negative images. This is also called hate speech. It is commonly seen as harmless by the majority. Antilocution itself may not be harmful, but it sets the stage for more severe outlets for prejudice.

Scale 2 Avoidance. Harm is done through isolation.

Scale 3 Discrimination. The majority group is actively trying to harm the minority. (e.g. Jim Crow laws)

Scale 4 Physical Attack. The majority group vandalise minority group things, they burn property and carry out violent attacks on individuals or groups.

Scale 5 Extermination. An attempt to eliminate an entire group of people (e.g., Indian Wars to remove Native Americans, Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Germany, Ethnic cleansing in Armenia).

Here's a "gallery" of hate speech. Note that even the "saints" are prone to it (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Hitler

According to one confidant, Hitler stated in private, "The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness..."

Michael Savage

"Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is.
"

Pope Benedict XVI

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. (quoted from a 1391 treatise as an expression of the views of the
Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus )

Michael Richards

...shouting "Shut up" to a heckler in the audience, followed by "He's a nigger!" to the rest of the audience (using the word 6 times altogether), and also making a reference to lynching.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Some of Wright's statements, such as when he said, "God Damn America", were widely interpreted as being unpatriotic and deeply offensive.


Martin Luther King

"America was founded on
genocide, and a nation that is founded on genocide is destructive."

Rod Parsley

Parsley has said that the U.S. government, by funding
Planned Parenthood, is complicit in "genocide" against African Americans, because Planned Parenthood performs abortions in the black community.

Father Charles Coughlin

"When we get through with the Jews in America, they'll think the treatment they received in
Germany was nothing."

Pat Robertson

"Regardless of an individual’s sexual orientation, God expects him to control his appetite….You can talk about sexual orientation all you want, but that will not alter the Word of God. The Bible does not compromise its standards to comply with current opinions, or the fickle, waffling positions of so-called political correctness. The Bible says homosexuality is wrong."

Mel Gibson

"I am politically incorrect, that's true. Political correctness to me is just intellectual terrorism. I find that really scary, and I won't be intimidated into changing my mind. Everyone isn't going to love you all the time."

Bailey Smith (Former President of the Southern Baptist Convention)

"God Almighty does not hear the prayers of a Jew)

Martin Luther

His main works on the Jews were his 60,000-word treatise
Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies), and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (On the Holy Name and the Lineage of Christ)

Rush Limbaugh

"(Fox) is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act.... This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."


William F. Buckley -

Vidal called Buckley a “Crypto-
Nazi", to which Buckley replied, “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddamn face, and you will stay plastered.”













And Last, but certainly not least:


Tuesday, July 22, 2008

rush_obamas


rush_obamas
Originally uploaded by Jules Siegel
This says a lot: The New Yorker's cover was satire, but Rush Limbaugh wouldn't get it.

Keep smoking those cigars Rush!

Inhale! Inhale!