Aug. 6th: Today is Pregnant With Meanings That Bush Won't Get!

Well, at least when he was in Korea this time, he took off the lens caps so he could see something!

I love it when a date has several different events that are so laden with meaning for our beloved administration or Christofascists! And lord, is Aug. 6th ever one of those days! The same day in the calendar that Bush travels on a Far-East pilgrimage for a better legacy, some very notable things happened:

1890: Murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.

1945: Hiroshima (no explanation needed)

2001: Bush reads - and almost immediately dismisses - the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) headlined: Osama Bin Laden Set To Strike in the U.S.

His visit to Seoul, South Korea, couldn't have timed it better: several days ago, the declassification of documents give light to the fact that refugees fleeing from the onslaught of North Korean military were killed because the Army could not be certain if some of them were infiltrators. (see post below). The refugees were napalmed and strafed without any regard to gender or age. There are 215 suits against the United States (not individuals, but whole towns and villages) that are asking for reparation. The size of the massacre makes My Lai look positively minuscule! We're talking about the willful civilian massacre of thousands of people by the U.S. military as one of it's first acts of the Korean War.

So here is OUR President, who, as governor of Texas held the record for most executions under any governor of any state in the nation. Here is the OUR President who, in representing us, stands for the bad as well as the good: the only country to actually use nuclear weapons against military and civilians of another country. Here is OUR President who wants to go to war with a country because he believes they MIGHT use nuclear weapons. Here is OUR President who disregards an important report because he cannot imagine anyone attempting to attack us on a large scale.

There were , of course, Korean protesters upon Bush's arrival. The press downplayed their numbers (up to 20,000) and, of course, Bush took absolutely no notice whatsoever:

Bush visit highlights divide in South Korea

By Choe Sang-Hun

Published: August 6, 2008

SEOUL: President George W. Bush's trip to Seoul sharpened a political divide in South Korea on Tuesday: Middle-aged Christians and aging veterans in military uniforms prayed and waved U.S. flags welcoming the American leader, while young South Koreans battled riot police officers in downtown Seoul, shouting "Bush out!"

The police fired water cannons to stop the anti-Bush protesters from marching on President Lee Myung Bak's office. The demonstrators hurled bottles and garbage during sporadic, small-scale scuffles with the police. Officers detained dozens of protesters.

Beware of Aug. 6ths: they may come back to haunt you!

Jeane d'Arc Was Not the Only Victim of Religion

088 Paris 26 10 07
Originally uploaded by RoCam

The List Would Be Longer Than the Bible

Religion and capital punishment have a long history together. The problem with history in our country is that we look at ourselves as being so "progressive" that we never look at what history teaches us. The dead have a right to be heard - they give us faith in humanity and faith in ourselves. They also point out our mistakes. Any time religion and government combine in any way, it has been a major mistake. The souls who have gone through being burned at the stake or even died in the electric chair can tell you a lot about how religion played a big role in their execution.


Here is how the Death Penalty plays in the religions of the U.S.:

Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations has called for a moratorium on executions since 1961.

Southern Baptist Convention

In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a resolution in support of the fair and equitable use of capital punishment.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)

Since its first official statement on the issue in 1959, reaffirmed again in 1977 and 1978, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has opposed the death penalty.

National Association of Evangelicals

Since its 1972 and 1973 resolutions on the issue, the National Association of Evangelicals has continued to support the use of capital punishment in cases involving premeditated murder as well as crimes such as hijacking and kidnapping where people are physically harmed.

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

In 1976, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod asserted "that capital punishment is in accord with the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions."

Other religions and churches:

Judaism - Against

Mormons - No stance

United Methodist Church - Against

National Council of Churches - Against

Evangelical Lutheran Church - no stance

Catholicism - nominally For

Buddhism - Against

Hinduism - No stance

Islam - For, but in Islamic countries only

Just three of the above "fors" comprise the majority of church-goers who support the death penalty in the United States. Because of the power of the Religious Right in this country we are one of the few countries that still carries the death penalty!

PEW Research Forum on Religion:

McCain supports the death penalty for federal crimes. As a U.S. senator from Arizona, he has voted to prohibit the use of racial statistics in death penalty appeals and to ban the death penalty for minors. He has also supported legislation to allow the death penalty for acts of terrorism and has said he would consider further expansion of capital punishment laws for other crimes.

Gay Bashing is Up and So Is Church Anti-Gay Rhetoric

- July 17, Dallas Tex. Jimmy Lee Dean is beaten in an anti-gay assault by two men not far from his home. His injuries were so severe that he was in intensive care and could not be interviewed or identified until July 22. The suspect is not currently being charged with a hate crime.

365Gay.com (New York City) The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs said Tuesday that the number of violent crimes against LGBT people is up significantly in 2008. The coalition supports local LGBT organizations in their work to end violence.

Since the February murder of 15 year-old Lawrence King and the brutal beating of Duanna Johnson, there have been at least 13 brutal and violent LGBT hate crimes throughout the country. The organization added that the reported crimes only may be a small number of the total, since many LGBT people are reluctant to go to police, and many of the attacks that are reported are not listed by authorities as hate crimes.

One sign at a gay pride march:

Out and Proud
If you have a problem with it
Phone the Samaritans!

Fred Phelps and The Flames of Hell: They Nearly Got Him!

Looks Like They Need More Volunteers to Hold Hate Signs!

Fire At Westboro Baptist Church!

Actually, it was just Fred Phelps' garage!

I'm sure that when many people read that there had been a fire at Westboro Baptist Church, they screamed "Thank God!" Sorry, but no such luck. It was only his garage and the cause of the blaze is yet unknown. Of course, Fred's trying to turn it into a media circus, but, unfortunately, not many papers/TV/radio venues are very interested. Poor Fred. One six-line mention in a local paper is not exactly media frenzy.

At this point in time, I would like to mention something about organized religion monitoring their own. Yes, we know that Westboro is not a part of any Baptist convention and that Phelps and his family have been "denounced" by some mainstream Christian churches and groups.

But when will Christian churches organize themselves - non-denominationally - not only to denounce but to counteract WBC directly? Pat Robertson has at his disposal (supposedly) up to 500 legal advisers, many of them from his own Regent University. Surely they must be able to find a way of taking away Phelps' non-profit status? Yes, he's still fighting the results of a law suit (compensatory damages of $2.5 million - reduced from $11 million.)

And why hasn't the revered James Dobson gone beyond mere hand-slapping comments? It seems to me that the best way to get Phelps entirely off the scene is for churches to protest ANY media coverage of WBC. Yes, it's censorship, but to many people who still view Westboro Baptist Church as some form of religion, it would make many people realize that the media had better things to cover (I'd personally like to see more stories of kittens stuck in trees).

In other words, the best way to treat a Phelps situation is to make them IRRELEVENT. Not getting much press for a fire on the grounds of the church compound is a start.

Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962)

Marilyn Monroe Illustration
Originally uploaded by dwinning

She surpassed so many "more experienced" actresses, but didn't know it.

People had so many images of her, but she never seemed to find an image for herself. The public sucked too much out of her and then she was gone, much like a beautiful sand castle when it's washed away by the incoming tide. Did Arthur Miller get through to her true persona? We'll never know. And not knowing makes her all the more alluring. Sad.

Another Nightmare Bush Can Pass On To The Next President: Korean War Massacres

The Massacre At No Gun Ri Was Just
The Tip of the Iceberg

While the Koren War is often called "The Forgotten War," it hasn't been forgotten by the people of South Korea whose family members were killed by American soldiers:

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.

A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.

Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.

Oh Boy! You can bet that George Bush will relish handing off this one to McCain or Obama. Killing civilians is enough, but killing civilians trying to flee to the safety of American arms is worse! This may be worse than the MyLai Massacre: America might have to dole out a hefty chunk of change for this mistake.

And the mistake gets more complex when we find out that the Army conducted an investigation of the famous No Gun Ri Massacre from 1999 to 2001, but neglected a prime piece of evidence - a letter from the American ambassador at the time, John Muccio, stating (in secret) that the Army had adopted a policy of killing refugees because they could not distinguish between Communist North Koreans and South Koreans.

This kind of action is certainly not new. It sounds silly to compare the Korean War to something like the Albigensian Crusade of the 13th Century, but the comparison is there: the Cathars (Albigenses) were considered heretics by the pope and a deliberate genocide by the Vatican and the King of France took place. But when laying siege to a town suspected of harboring Cathars, one soldier asked the papal legate (representative) how he would tell the Cathars from the "real" Christians,the legate's response was "Kill them all. God will take care of his kind." The French soldiers killed every man, woman and child - a total of 15,000 people. Later, it was discovered that there were only 200 Cathars in the city.

Collateral damage happened in Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq. "We honor our own who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." - inscription on a plaque in Veteran's Memorial Park.

Does that seem familiar? Something else: the No Gun Ri Massacre investigation (ended Jan. 2001) was inconclusive, but it admitted that the Muccio letter was suppressed. The future President George W. Bush would have been apprised of the findings and of the incidents of Korean civilian massacres. The number of cases alleging U.S. massacres of civilians: 215. Each massacre, it is estimated, killed 50 to 150 people. Bush won't have to do the math concerning a possible settlement (he couldn't anyway). He'll leave the mess to the next President.

One of the most famous photographs to come out of the Korean War: after the bombardment of Inchon, Korea (the first for American forces), a little child cries for his mother. What happened afterwards, we'll never know. The photo at the top depicts Rugees fleeing from their homes - some to be napalmed or strafed by American troops.

Stigma! Stigma! Who's Got the Stigma?? Surely Today's Christians Aren't THAT Uncompassionate!

Guess Again!

Please note: This is not a Christian-bashing post. But then again... Oh hell, somebody's got to be made accountable for their decidedly UN-Christian actions!

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor 2 hours, 56 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New estimates show that least 56,000 people become infected with the AIDS virus every year in the United States -- 40 percent more than previous calculations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday.

Dr. Kevin Fenton, who heads the CDC's AIDS branch, said 15,000 to 18,000 Americans die every year of AIDS.

AIDS is now the common cause of death in Africa. It is of universal concern and religious groups from all countries are trying to come up with as many volunteers and non-profit agencies to fight AIDS in Africa. This is as it should be.

AIDS still carries a stigma, however, and, in a way, people die from the stigma as much as they die from the disease. Unlike diseases, stigmas are entirely man-made. Most of us first read about stigma in the Bible: lepers were stigmatized , shunned and segregated. The term "leper" became a universal word for "outcast." Many people began to think that "lepers" were beset with God's punishment for some sin or another. Lepers and outcasts quickly came to equal SINNER!! (he says while pointing an accusing finger at you!).

So did God create leprosy as punishment for sin? No. Man created stigma for the reason of power; power over groups and individuals. In 1981, AIDS started to give power to religious leaders. Rather than helping the people suffering and dying from the disease, these religious leaders instead jumped for joy because they could create a very powerful stigma: the combinations of two stigmas put together. To them, AIDS plus homosexuality meant that God was angry at the new "lepers." And as the disease began to spread and people were almost literally dying in the streets, "men of God" were (perhaps) dancing in the streets: "See, we were right about those filthy sinners. You must be righteous and shun them, cast them out!"

A Tribute to Father Damien of Molokai

Fast-forward to the early 1990's: medical authorities had known (for several years) that AIDS was not caused by casual contact and that men, women and children were all vulnerable. But the religious leaders kept up their odious song to AIDS being a "sinner's" disease. A few churches realized that compassion was late in coming, but administered it anyway. The Episcopal Archdiocese of Los Angeles started an AIDS faith-based agency in 1988, while several other "liberal" churches followed suit in the 90's.

The "stigma freaks" (if you will) still continue to harangue Americans with the "taint" of AIDS. But, have you noticed that even some fundamentalist churches have begun to have fund drives and missionaries for Africa? Somehow Africa is just a poor part of the world that has contracted the disease ...because it is a disease. Americans contract the disease because they are sinners, because they are gay, because they are drug users. I've said it many times before: the churches of The Southern Baptist Convention still do not sponsor any AIDS organization in this country. Compassion is for Africa, not for gay Americans.

The Religious Right's feeling about AIDS in this country:

"[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers." --The 700 Club, January 18, 1995 - Pat Robertson

“AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals” - Jerry Falwell

"Only 1 percent of the homosexual population in America will die of old age. The average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America is 43 years of age. A lesbian can only expect to live to be 45 years of age. Homosexuals represent 2 percent of the population, yet today they're carrying 60 percent of the known cases of syphilis."- Rod Parsley

On page 76 of, Silent No More, Rev. Parsley says, "Even without AIDS, the homosexual community is sick and dying."

(Dallas Morning News)

While most of his provocative claims are grounded in fact, Dr. Wright has asserted that HIV and crack cocaine were government plots aimed at African-Americans – claims that most historians say are false.

He [Rev. Jeremiah Wright] is hardly alone in those beliefs, however. According to one national poll, about half of African-Americans believe the AIDS virus is manmade. Many also accept the claim that the government brought illegal drugs to black neighborhoods.

But AIDS experts say that no scientist had the skill to craft the virus in the 1950s, when later medical tests say it first appeared in Africa.

Belief in the HIV conspiracy makes it harder to convince some patients to get care, said Dr. Keith Rawlings, medical director for the AIDS Arms/Peabody Health Center in Dallas.

Same sex marriage could actually help reduce AIDS:

(Salon.com, 6/28/06)

Jorge Saavedra, Director of the Mexican government's National Center for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS, said the following to participants at an HIV prevention conference this week:

"Marriage is a factor in the reduction of sexual partners for heterosexuals, it reduces the risk of contracting AIDS, which is why to open that possibility for homosexuals would be positive in reducing infection rates."

Compassion, reason, science are all on the side of Americans with AIDS. Unfortunately, others are not. They want the "culture war" to continue until...