Is Bush the Antichrist?

The Joy Of Our Faith

2008-03-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

I know a gay man with AIDS who probably doesn’t have long to live. I also know his family. They look at him as an as an object of pity. They feel sorry for him and blame the 'homosexual lifestyle' for his condition. They are very conservative and always vote for Republican candidates that denounce his lifestyle. They supported measures that made sure he would never have the same right to marry and have a family. They go to a church that would never accept people like him. And in their hearts they are proud and thankful for 'family values.' They feel good about themselves and their own particular lifestyle, because they didn't end up like him

Just imagine how painful it is to grow up in a family that will never accept you as God created you. It may be all the worse, and all the more cruel, when families only superficially pretend to accept what they will never condone. Love the sinner, while hating everything that you stand for. They don't reject you outright because they don't like to think of themselves as terrible people. But neither would they allow you to have the same rights - and the same chance at happiness - that they have.

It must be kinder and more merciful to reject someone you cannot love and respect as an equal, than to dishonestly pretend that your hatred and bigotry is love. There is nothing crueler than that. At least in rejecting them you might also set them free, and give them a fighting chance to find out what real love is all about. Rather than teaching them how to love their family by hating themselves.

There's this thing that abusive people and families often do where they mistake their guilt for love. They are often cruel and feel guilty about it, but they mislabel the guilt they are feeling as if it were love. So instead of motivating them to change, they only become more abusive and shameless over time. But love is more than a mis-labeled feeling - it's how you treat other people.

I tried to warn him that his family would never be able to love and support him in the way that he needed. That he should stay away and live his own life, because they were destroying his self-esteem. You cannot be around people who hate who you are without some - or a whole lot - of it rubbing off. Sometimes the only way to save yourself is to stay away from your dysfunctional family. At least until you're strong enough, after you've discovered what the word "love" really means.

But he desperately needed and yearned for the kind of love and support that only a family could give, but that his family was never going to give him. He was caught in an impossible bind where he needed for them to accept and love him as a gay man, before he would finally be able to accept and love himself. He used drugs to deaden the excruciating pain of being hated and rejected by the people that he loved and needed the most.

I asked myself: How can I be a Christian when there are so many people just like him – gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered - being destroyed by people calling themselves Christians? How can I call myself a Christian when so many other Christians are emotionally crippling their own children, brothers, and sisters?

I'll tell you the truth - I really wanted to call down the wrath of God upon that family’s head. I would have liked that the Lord put that entire family in his place, so they would finally know what their hatred felt like. I wanted to see justice! Why is it that God allows some of the most heartless people in the world - who often call themselves religious - to triumph over what is right?

Then I remember how He allowed it to happen to His own Son. I remembered the Pharisees and what they did to Jesus. And I remember what Jesus said before it happened:
"These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15:11)

Jesus had just told the disciples that he was going to be crucified, and yet he was full of joy. And if Jesus was full of joy it means that God must also have been full of joy - and not in spite of the cruel injustice that was about to be acted out, but because of it. Jesus was joyful because he was going to the Father, and it would be like a homecoming. God was joyful because He was about to overcome all the sins of the world through the blood of His Son. And His disciples should have been joyful, because they would never again need to be afraid of death or injustice.

And neither should we.

I was angry because, like the disciples, I was looking at the situation as the final act rather than just the beginning. A lifetime of injustice is a hard thing to carry around inside. It ends up breaking and destroying many people. But a lifetime of injustice is nothing when compared with an eternity of joy in the presence of God.

"Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets." (Luke 6:21-26)

I suddenly realized that I should have felt worse for the family. They are the ones about to miss out on all we will have one day. People are only on earth for eighty or ninety years at best, and even the best life on earth still has its ups and downs. But what about the life that is always up, always joyful, forever?

I hope you pray for that family, because they're the ones who may have a much tougher time of it, and forever. They’re the ones we should pity and pray for. Because I have a feeling that, in spite of going to church, they don't believe in God's righteous judgment. That's why many outwardly religious people act as if they can get away with anything. They have no shame because they really don't believe, in their heart of hearts, there will be consequences for what they have done.

I strongly believe that fundamentalist Christianity is the result of a horrendous lack of faith. They don't really believe that God will righteously judge the world, or they wouldn't be doing the things they are doing. Like Jesus said, "By their fruit you know them."

When we truly believe we have joy, and we love in the right way. But when we really don't believe in the things that we say we do, everything that we do is wrong and sinful, because none of it was done in faith, and even what we call love isn't really love at all.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." (Mt 23:23)

The reason that so many fundamentalists feel the need to judge and condemn homosexuals is because they really don't believe there is a God who will do it - if and when it needs to be done. They persecute others to prove to themselves that they have the kind of faith they really don't have - or they wouldn't be hating and persecuting others. They need to establish their own version of justice right now, and in their own cruel way; because they really don't believe that God will ever get around to doing it, His way. They need to force everyone to believe what they do, so they can finally believe it too. They are always struggling to hide their lack of faith by condemning and persecuting others. They refused to put all their trust in God, and consequently, they needed to prop up their weak and disabled faith by judging and punishing others.

We all struggle somewhere between faith and doubt, joy and despair, anger and forgiveness. I am still somewhere between feeling angry towards that family because of the evil they’ve done, and realizing that I need to pray for them. Being a Christian means that none of us is perfect and we are all sinners. But as Christians, we either struggle to believe, or we struggle to hide the fact that we've already given up and refuse to believe. Hopefully, we will never fall into that black hole of faithlessness where religious hypocrites hang out. There is no real joy in that kind of faith because there is no real hope for a better life to come. There is only a kind of sanctimonious smugness that too often passes for joy in many fundamentalist churches today.

Being a Christian means living in the joy of knowing that our life will go on forever in the presence of God. And whatever injustice we may suffer now, we should think of it as a cause for celebration, knowing that God is just, and that those who are unjustly despised and dishonored today will one day be honored and rewarded in heaven.

That family will probably go to their graves thinking they did the right thing. But whether they repent or not is not really the point. God is just, and the point is that today we can rest in Him. We don't need to waste our energy being angry at religious hypocrites. We don't need to make everyone that hates us and does us wrong, feel guilty about it. We can wait for God to deal with them His way, in His own time. And because we know there will ultimately be justice, we should already be celebrating, and living in the joy of our faith.

Accepting Hardship

2008-02-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

In the serenity prayer there’s a line that says “accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.” That’s quite a statement because it’s counter-intuitive. Our common sense tells us that if only we could solve all our problems and eliminate all hardships, the causes of stress in our life, that we could find peace and serenity. We tend to believe the reason for our anxieties lies in circumstances over which we have little, or no, control; and that by gaining more control and solving all our problems, we could then have serenity. That’s why we struggle so hard to gain control over difficult people and impossible situations, to finally find some measure of peace and serenity. But what we inevitably discover is that the more we struggle against circumstances over which we have little or no control, the further we are from peace.

The real problem is that we are looking for serenity in the wrong place – in our circumstances rather than in our relationship with God. We foolishly act like gods ourselves, pretending that we can control everything, rather than admitting we’re only human and giving that control over to God, where it belongs. We secretly tell ourselves that we will only be happy once we become more omnipotent like God; but what we become instead is dysfunctional, desperately trying to manipulate people and things over which we have no control. We will only find peace in our relationship with the God, who is already in control of everything.

The serenity prayer is saying it is precisely by accepting hardships – rather than by struggling against them - that we find peace. By accepting hardship we are giving that control over to God and acknowledging His authority in the matter; and this is the only thing that can bring us peace with God and serenity within ourselves. The reason for our anxiety lies not in our circumstances but in whom we are trusting: it’s a matter of whether we’re trusting in our own limited powers and resources, or trusting in God’s. Peace is the by-product of trusting God. Real peace means resting in God instead of struggling with some imaginary power we have to control everyone and everything, and ending up failing and upset because we always fall short in one way or another.

Jesus said “Peace I leave you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives give I unto you.” The peace that the world offers will always be temporary and conditional since it is dependent upon circumstances that necessarily change. None of us can forever avoid accident, illness, or death, to name just a few. The question is: are we struggling to find the kind of peace that is fleeting at best? Or are we looking for the kind of peace that can never be taken away from us? We can discover serenity in the midst of hardships once we know where to look.

By accepting hardship, we are beginning to look at it in terms of God’s will rather than our own. Whenever something bad happens, our first instinct is to receive it in terms of how much we would like it to go away, and this is measured by the level of anxiety and stress we are feeling. It’s not the thing itself that makes us feel anxious and depressed, but how we are choosing to react to it. The more resistance, the more anxious we feel.

When Jesus began praying at Gethsemane he was overwhelmed by anxiety, so that he was sweating “great drops of blood.” Though the son of God, he was also a man like other men and he didn’t want to suffer and die. Jesus wasn’t a masochist and he wasn't suicidal. He wanted to go on living, and was struggling in prayer with God’s will, searching to see if there was another way for us to be saved, rather than to be crucified. He prayed and struggled three times, and yet each time he finished his prayer with “nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.” Jesus ultimately faced crucifixion with peace and serenity because he embraced God’s will rather than his own.

It’s fine to struggle with God in prayer, and there’s nothing wrong with bringing Him our problems and being honest about how we feel. But the goal of prayer is not to get God to do what we want – which is just another way of trying to impose our will and taking control – the goal is getting us to do what He wants. The happy result is once we accept God’s will in trials and hardships, we find peace and serenity. We’re no longer putting ourselves – and our will - in conflict with the will of God.

It’s certainly much easier to accept God’s blessings, and it’s often wise to focus upon those instead of all our problems; but blessings alone can’t bring us serenity in a troubled world. If blessings and an easier life equaled peace and serenity, the rich and famous would be most serene rather than, very often, being the most anxious and depressed. If having the most control over people and events meant serenity than kings and presidents would have the least stress of all. If peace could only be experienced by those whose problems were eliminated, none of us would have serenity.

We will never have control over all the challenges we experience in life. The only way to find serenity in the midst of trouble is to accept God’s will for us. Moreover, the greater the hardship we can accept in faith, the greater the serenity we will have in this life. Accepting hardship is the path to greater peace because it teaches us Who to trust, rather than trusting too much in our ability to solve every problem.

We need to stop looking at hardship as a barrier to serenity and begin looking at it as the pathway to a much deeper and more enduring kind of peace; the kind not dependent upon passing circumstances, but only upon the faithfulness of God. We should not be aiming at the quick alleviation of all our problems, because that will never happen. Instead, we should be thanking God for hardships and challenges which, by accepting them, can lead us to a much greater peace in the presence of God. Not that we need to go looking for trouble; but when trouble comes looking for us and there is nothing we can reasonably do about it, we should know that it was meant to lead us to the peace that is God. Hardship is God’s way of teaching us serenity; it’s the pathway to peace that we’re on.

If you’ve ever gone on a long hike, you know the importance of staying on the trail. The trail is what keeps us from getting lost in the wilderness, so we can arrive safely at our desired destination. Often the trail is steep and very difficult to follow, and there are times when we feel lost, and feel like giving up. But we also have a certain faith in whoever made the trail that we’re on, and we know that if we just keep following it, rather than trying to find our own way, we’ll eventually come out at a beautiful place. Hardship is like that. It’s our way through the wilderness, so that we don’t get lost, and can arrive at a more beautiful place. And the bonus is that once we accept it’s going to be a difficult hike and stop complaining about it, we can look up, and begin to enjoy the scenery along the way.

The Pentagram & the Pachyderm

2008-01-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

The elephant/flag symbol on the left is the official icon of the GOP/Republican party. The red and white bars and three white stars on a field of blue are supposed to represent the American flag. But there’s a problem. The stars are inverted, and instead of pointing up they point down. In that sense, it is the representation of an upside-down American flag.

There’s no criminal penalty because it’s considered free speech. Still, it’s technically illegal to represent an American flag with the stars upside down.

The law entitled “Respect for the Flag,” US Code Title 4 Section 8(a ) reads “The flag should never be displayed with the union (the stars represent the union of the states) down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”

There is also section 8 (g) “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature” That would supposedly include superimposing the American flag upon any

design, picture, or drawing of an elephant.

And section 8 (i) reads: “The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.”That would certainly include using the flag to advertise your party affiliation.

It seems pretty peculiar that the same party that every year tries to ram through a constitutional amendment to criminalize flag-burning and other desecrations, are themselves openly disrespecting the American flag in at least three different ways at once, and in countless millions of mailers, websites, and bumper stickers. But when is the last time you saw an American burning the American flag? Since there’s no law criminalizing political hypocrisy, Republicans might do better pushing through a constitutional amendment against it, thereby killing two birds with one stone.

The interesting thing about a star is how easily it can be turned into a satanic pentagram. When it’s pointing up it’s a star and a symbol for good. When it’s pointing down it’s a pentagram, a sign of evil.

"Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result." Franz Hartman Magic, White and Black. (1895).

"A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates." Levi Eliphas Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual. (1855)

The 5-pointed star is a symbol for man, and the points were originally associated with spirit and the four elements – earth, water, fire, and air. When the point or head of the star is facing up it’s symbolic of spirit ruling over matter, and when down, it symbolizes humanity overcome by our most destructive instincts like greed and violence. Facing up towards the heavens we are under God’s authority, and when reversed, under the devil’s rule.

In witchcraft the pentangle is used with the "head" of the star point

ed down, illustrating man worshiping Satan. When pointed down it also becomes the face of the goat. Satanists use a pentagram with two points up, often inscribed in a double circle to emphasize the exclusion of God, and sometimes with the head of a goat inside the pentagram.

Another website points out how “Symbologists (like that idiot Robert Langdon in “The DaVinci Code”) agree that the five pointed star, or pentagram, is an ancient symbol for the number “6”. Let me spell this out. Three pentagrams (on the Republican elephant) equals 666. This is the symbol for my arch-enemy, Satan, or his minion, the Anti-Christ. Why in the world would our symbol have the emblem of Satan on it?”

Why indeed. Why would an American president go around constantly flashing the devil’s salute? Why would a 'Christian nation' install as its leader someone who was a member of a secretive satanic cult called Skull and Bones? After 7 years of leading our country deeper into the squalid sewer of torture and political corruption, it seems a little late to be asking such questions. But for the record, my understanding is that the stars were inverted and turned upside down when Bush was appointed president. They weren’t like that before.

It should also be pointed out that using the elephant as a luck charm is a custom rooted in the Hindu religion of pagan India, where the god Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Siva and Parvati, is worshiped as the god of good luck. The British overlords of India imported this pagan superstition into the west during the 19^th century in the form of various good-luck elephant knick-knacks that became all the rage. The front story is that the Republican Party adopted the elephant symbol because of some obscure cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874. But the truth is that the elephant god Ganesha had already been established in the west as the pagan symbol of good luck. One thing more - the other representation of the same good-luck god Ganesha is the SWASTIKA, the symbol adopted by the National Socialist German Workers (NAZI) Party in the 1920’s. The elephant god Ganesha bears the characteristic mark of the swastika in his hand.

The most remarkable thing about Bush’s state of the Union address (beside the fact that he never admitted to the drastically deteriorating state of the union, as he was Constitutionally obligated to do) was his mindlessly cheerful disregard for all the suffering and death he has caused – and is still causing. As one blogger put it, “Bush seems almost pathologically detached from any real understanding of the effects of what he says and does. If you're him, that's probably a good thing. If you're anybody else, it's horrifying.”

We live in a shallow, consumer-based society, and we are taught to focus on style rather than substance. We judge by the most superficial standards rather than considering their real effect. We see a leader who seems very cheerful and personable, and the fact that he’s bankrupted the nation to enrich his class by torturing and murdering about a million Iraqis doesn’t sink in. We look at a pagan Nazi elephant branded with three satanic pentagrams, and think it probably some innocent mistake, that perhaps it's more fashionable that way. We flock to hear a messianic candidate who says he’s going to bring us all together and do great things, though he never gets around to saying exactly how and what. The advantage of only looking at the surface of things is that you never need to find out what’s really going on. It makes life easier and less complicated in the short run, though it turns out badly in the end.

The Politician We'd All Love to Forget

2008-01-20T13:34:00.000-08:00

First, thanks so much for the prayers and concern. My brother is back at home and doing reasonably well and I’m sure that prayers had everything to do with it. I’m sorry that I haven’t posted here in months – if indeed anyone is still reading this. I didn’t seem to have the time or energy, and just fell out of the habit. There are things that we do, or don’t do out of habit, even though we would or wouldn’t.

The news over the past few months has been all about the next presidential election and the candidates for that office. So much so that it seems like everyone’s trying to forget who the president really is - and will be for the next year. It’s almost like if we concentrate completely on the next president, the present disaster might go away. But it’s not going away.

The economy’s tanking, the price of oil is thru the roof, the stock market is in the crapper, and the government is still sinking lives and money into an illegal war with no end in sight. No wonder everyone is for change. But we can’t change the present by ignoring what’s really going on.

Bush said last week, "I'm sure people view me as a war monger and I view myself as peacemaker." But why would he would view himself as a peacemaker when he’s started two wars while concluding 0 peace agreements? It’s more evidence of an irrational stubbornness, one completely disconnected from reality. He’s a peacemaker. Why? Because that’s how he chooses to view himself. Though I suppose even a jackass has a right to view themselves as something other than a complete jackass. Though it seems silly, even for a jackass, to put their delusions on the same level as the cold, hard facts. Though it’s something that Bush does all the time.

Again, regarding Iran, he put his (mistaken) opinions about Iran on the same level of credibility as the facts. Concerning the recent National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that Iran had discontinued their nuclear weapons program in 2003. (that means they don’t have one), Bush said:

“I assured him (King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia) that our intelligence services came to an independent judgment (about whether Iran has a nuclear program). I reminded him of what I said at my press conference when we got involved with that story: they were a threat, they are a threat, and they will be a threat… (Why? Because Bush says so)

“I was making it clear it (the NIE report) was an independent judgment, because what they basically came to the conclusion of, is that he's trying -- you know, this is a way to make sure that all options aren't (??) on the table (misquote or Freudian slip?). So I defended our intelligence services (by dismissing their findings and facts as merely opinions), but made it clear that they're an independent agency; that they come to conclusions separate from what I may or may not want. (Presumably, what Bush wants to hear are the only facts he’s interested in.)

What Bush seems to be saying, in his own peculiar and disjointed fashion, is that he needed to “defend” the NIE report to the Saudis, while assuring them that Iran is still very much a threat. He seems to be indicating that – despite all pretenses to the contrary - the Saudi Dictators (as well as the Israeli government) want the US to do something about Iran before Her Fuehrer leaves office. They didn’t like the NIE report because it seemed to throw cold water on the idea. He was n Saudi Arabia to reassure them that, report or no report, he still sees them as a threat and a military confrontation with Iran is coming.

Saudi Arabia is very worried about Iran. They have been obsessed about their nuclear program, as well as their growing influence in Iraq. In 1987, when Saudi security forces suppressed a demonstration by Shiite worshippers in front of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, it led to the slaughter of 400 religious pilgrims, most of them Iranians. This, in turn, led to angry mobs ransacking the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and a complete severing of diplomatic relations that were only normalized when Iran’s mortal enemy – Saddam Hussein – also began to threaten Saudi Arabia. Iran has frequently called on Muslims to overthrow the Saudi ruling family, seize its oil wealth and strip it of its role as guardian of Islamic holy places.

According to one source, “The main reason for Bush's visit to four Gulf states … was to gauge how much diplomatic support and practical help the desert sheikdoms might give if the United States or Israel attacked Iran.” It certainly wasn’t to get them to pump more oil. The skyrocketing price of oil is the best thing that ever happened to Bush and his oil company cronies. The reason Bush removed Saddam Hussein was to stop him from flooding the market with cheap oil. This was a point I made nearly tree years ago in the post entitled “Oil, Iraq and the Antichrist.” You can read it here.

The consensus in Washington and the media is that it’s now politically impossible for Bush to attack Iran. But a year is a very long time, and a lot of things could happen, and it’s difficult to believe that a megalomanic frat boy who never let reality stand in the way of doing whatever he wants, is going to go away quietly and accept the fact that his was a failed presidency. After all the death and destruction that he’s caused over the last seven years, it’s difficult to believe that he’s through with us yet.

The Nobel Prize for Warmongers

2007-10-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

warmonger (noun) plural warmongers; : 1. one who attempts to stir up war
2. see Dick Cheney

I was thinking how it’s a shame that the Nobel Committee doesn’t give out a prize for warmongers like Bush.

Sure, the Nobel Peace Prize is fine, and there’s nothing wrong with giving it out. But when you think about it, does it really matter? I mean, did Al Gore do everything that he’s doing about global warming because he was trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Of course not. Would he have become discouraged and stopped doing what he’s doing if he hadn’t received the prize? I don’t think so. How about Nelson Mandela or Jimmy Carter? No, and no.

The Nobel Peace prize doesn’t motivate the more virtuous leaders of the world, the ones really seeking Peace, because their own character and ideals are what motivate them. It doesn’t substantially change anything or help to promote peace in the world. It only rewards people who would be promoting peace anyway, even without any prize.

What we really need is to get at the root of the problem, and start singling out and humiliating all the warmongers of the world. It’s the warmongers that we need to focus on and motivate to change, since they are the ones purely motivated by ego. That's why we need to make a public spectacle of them.

The Nobel Committee would be much more effective at promoting world peace if they also handed out booby prizes to the most dangerous war criminals. How much more effective would it have been if, at the same time that Gore received his Nobel Prize for Peace, Bush were to receive the prize for warmongering? Much more effective! It would say that you can steal an election and become the most powerful man in the world, but you will still be a failure in life.

How could Bush keep projecting evil on other world leaders when he already had the Nobel prize for evildoers? And how could his hypocritical wife complain about the leaders of Burma after her own husband was awarded first prize for killing innocent people? There would be a lot fewer pots calling kettles black.

Rather than a medal cast in solid gold, bearing the image of Albert Nobel, the medal for warmongers could be cast in cow manure, bearing the likeness of Hitler. And rather than giving the recipient money, they could give the money out to his victims, one of whom could be flown to Stockholm to receive the medal by ceremoniously tossing it on the ground and grinding it under foot. This could be broadcast over the entire world to the ecstatic jubilation of billions.

It’s one thing when your political opposition calls you names. People like Bush are immune to that. It goes in one ear and out the other. It’s another thing an esteemed and leaned world panel gives you the most notorious prize for in the world. Imagine getting the same prize as Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot! Most leaders would do everything they could to avoid it.

Bush’s preoccupation with his legacy and what history will say about him seem evidence of how badly we need to give out such a prize. It might be the only thing that could make Bush face the truth about himself, before he ends up doing more damage. Nothing else has worked.

The thing about power is that some world leaders – those, like Bush, who have no character - come to believe that power itself is the proof of their goodness. They tend to believe that it was God or destiny that gave them power, and that they can do no wrong. They consider power their natural right, rather than the undeserved responsibility that it is. They define evil as anyone who threatens their power, or their right to more power. It’s easy to be corrupted by power when you don’t know who you are.

Everyone knows that Bush has lied us into an endless war for profit and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings. The entire world despises him and knows that he’s the greatest threat to world peace today. The real tragedy is that he doesn’t have a medal to prove it.

Note: My brother Don is in the hospital and having a pretty rough time. I would really appreciate any prayers for him to recover and be well.

Is Bush Threatening to Start WWIII ?

2007-10-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it
seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," said Bush.

Notice that he didn't say "prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapon" but "preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." The difference is significant because even though Bush mixes up his words and syntax and he has trouble forming a complete sentence or keeping a coherent though in his head, he is careful about the substance of what he says.
For instance, even though we know (and many of us knew at the time) that Bush always intended to invade Iraq, he always said (for political reasons) that he had not made up his mind. Though if you looked closely at what he actually did and said at the time, he was never committed to peace, and everything that he said and did was to further the argument for war.

It seems much the same way now, concerning Iran. If anything, he seems to be pushing back the goal posts and making it impossible for Iran to avoid a showdown, the way that he did with Saddam. Saddam let inspectors in and even offered to resign - but it was all irrelevant, because Bush was determined to attack.

He knows that Iran won't have a nuclear weapon within the next year, even if it wanted one. He also know that last month's report by the Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear programs said that that Iran has neither the intention nor the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons. So what does Bush do? Does he breathe a sigh of relief? Does he admit to the possibility that he may have been wrong? Is he willing to let the next (more competent) president handle the issue? Surely you jest.
Instead, he starts talking about WWIII, and the fact that the Iranians already know too much. It's all about "having the knowledge." Knowledge that's available to anyone who really wants to look for it. Knowledge that the Bush govenment has already published for building a bomb, over the Internet.

Everything that he says - and that the US military is currently doing - seems to advance the argument for war. The only way to prevent Iran from having the knowledge and capability to make a nuclear weapon, at this point, is to go to war and destroy their capability, kill or imprison the Iranian scientists who have the knowledge and skill, and bomb the country back to the stone age.

What is so diabolical is that at same time Bush professes to be seeking a peaceful solution, he's steadily advancing the rational and rhetoric to justify war. He claims that he wants to avoid WWIII, all while making the argument for starting WWIII, regardless of what Iran does.

I don't think there's any question that Bush would like to go to war with Iran. The only question is whether he can manufacture the right opportunity. There was recently an article in Salon that argued "Why Bush Won't Attack Iraq." It might be useful to go over some of the points made:
"If he were (going to attack Iran), he wouldn't be playing good cop/bad cop with Iran and proposing engagement."
Why not? He did the same thing with Iraq. At the same time that he said that he wanted to go through the UN and achieve a peaceful solution, we know that he was determined for war. He went through the motions of trying diplomacy, even though it was irrelevant.
"If the bombs were at the ready, Bush would be doing a lot more to prepare the nation and the military for a war far more consequential than the invasion of Iraq."
Why would he think it would be far more consequential? Did he know how long, drawn out, and costly the War in Iraq would be? In spite of what his own military advisors were telling him - that he needed a force of at least 1/2 million - he still managed to convince himself otherwise. There is no reason to believe it would be any different with Iran. If we know one thing, it's that Bush has the peculiar ability to never learn from his mistakes. What he does is keep repeating the same ones, only making them much bigger, and digging the hole deeper.

"Bush met in "the Tank" with his senior national security counselors and the military's command staff and walked out with the impression that either the costs of military action against Iran were simply too high, or that the prospects for success for the mission too low. "
On the contrary: Bush has demonstrated that he eventually gets rid of the generals who don't agree with him. He trusts his gut, not his generals. He likely walked out with the impression that it was politically impossible to attack Iran as long as the joint chiefs were unanimously against the idea. That's why General Peter Pace is no longer Chairman of the JCS. It's not evidence that he's changed his mind. It only means that he must find another way - some other pretext - to go ahead with it anyway, in spite of what they think.
"We know Bush rebuffed Cheney's view and is seeking other alternatives."
How do we know that? Where is the evidence, when he's now talking about WWIII and stopping Iran from having "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon" ? Certainly it's in his interest to be perceived as wanting to pursue a peaceful course, just like before the invasion of Iraq. Even though he is heading us in the other direction. The last thing that Bush would do now is openly side with Cheney; that's not how the good cop, bad cop game is played out. He must be for peace until the very end so that it can seem like he had no choice in the matter.

This idea that Cheney is the evil, warmongering mastermind while Bush is his innocent pawn is just so much media claptrap. They are on the same team and they think alike. But Cheney must play the role of bad cop because Bush is the president, and must always be seen in the role of the good cop - as someone on the side of peace, even though he obviously isn't. The act doesn't work the other way around.
I would not be surprised if Bush were even more of a warmonger, and more determined to attack Iran, than Cheney. Fortunately for him, he has Cheney to always play the foil. That's why they make such a good team. Whenever we start thinking that Bush and Cheney are working at cross purposes, they have already been successfully at accomplishing their real purpose. When you look at Cheney you're seeing the real Bush; and when you look at Bush, you're seeing a pathological liar and master of deception.

The question isn't whether or not Bush wants to attack Iran because he does. The question is whether he can bring it about without dropping the act and looking too much like the war monger that he is.
,
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Is the USA a Christian Nation?
WASHINGTON — Sixty-five percent
of Americans believe that the nation's founders intended the U.S. to be a
Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian
nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007” national survey
released Sept. 11 by the First Amendment Center.

Sometimes it seems like people keep arguing about things that entirely miss the point. Were the founding fathers really Christians? Did they want the United States to become a Christian nation? Who the heck cares? Because whatever you (mistakenly) believe the nation’s founders intended, and whatever you (ignorantly) think the Constitution says, the simple FACT is that the United States is NOT a Christian nation.

That’s not to say that America doesn’t have a lot of people who like to go around calling themselves Christians. We have more people going to church and calling themselves Christians than in any other country in the world. But that’s not the point, and that's not for any of us to judge, since Jesus will ultimately decide and judge who is and who isn’t a Christian. But what we can know and judge is what sort of country we are right now, by the kind of things we are doing. You know a tree by its fruit, and you know a country by its policies.

The issue is whether we are a Christian nation (if there is such a thing), and whether – as a nation – we exhibit those values and qualities that are uniquely Christian. If you want to keep arguing about whether the Constitution and the founding fathers intended to establish a Christian nation – it’s completely beside the point if, in fact, they failed miserably and were fools. You might as well argue about how many angels fit on the head of a pin. It’s not about what the founding fathers wanted, but about what we are doing as a nation. And we can’t blame it on them because they’re all dead.

I don’t believe the founding fathers failed or the Constitution has failed, but that fundamentalist Christians in America have completely failed to understand what being a Christian is all about; let alone what a Christian country might look like. They have no clue. That’s the problem.

A week and a half ago their president, George W Bush, vetoed the State Children's Health Insurance Program because it asked for $35 billion more in funding over the next five years than he wanted to pay. At the same time, he’s requesting another $190 billion over the next year alone, to keep killing more Iraqis. Is that what Christians do – deny their own children health care, so they can use the money to kill somebody else’s children? But that’s exactly what our country is doing.

Jesus said “resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” But our country spends more on resisting evil and weaponry than all the other countries in the world combined. And America is the only country in the world that has taken upon itself the right to preemptively strike another nation. America not only refuses to turn the other cheek, it insists upon taking the first shot.

Jesus said “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.” But America tortures those it calls its enemies. It holds them in concentration camps and in secret prisons, without any rights. And America has murdered 700,000 people who never did any harm to us.

Jesus said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,” but our country is arguably the greediest and most materialistic society on face of the earth. He said, “you cannot serve God and mammon,” and yet Americans not only serve mammon with gusto, but they despise the poor for not serving mammon well enough.

Jesus said “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned” But many Americans think that by judging and condemning lesbians and gays, that they are demonstrating the moral quality that makes them Christians. But by making their hatred and intolerance the quality that is most distinctive about them as Christians, they’ve turned the Gospel of Jesus Christ completely on its head, and turned their hatred for their neighbors into a (sac)religious crusade.

They have transformed the ‘Good News’ that was intended for the poor and oppressed, into even better news for bigots and all the greedy people who like to call themselves Christians – news that they can keep on cheating and robbing the poor, just as long as they continue hating and discriminating against homosexuals.

The character of America certainly isn’t the character of a Christian. It’s the character of a selfish, arrogant, and lawless bully. It’s the character of the Antichrist, only pretending to be a Christian. It’s a reflection of the American people and their corruption by money and power. The people tolerate corrupt and lawless leaders because they themselves are corrupt and don’t care. They complain about their politicians being crooks, but never do anything about it, let alone, take a good hard look in the mirror.

If you want to see what a Christian nation might look like, look at all the countries that guarantee their citizens health care. Look at the ones who mind their own business and spend more on social programs and infinitely less on the military. Look at the few who treat all of their citizens equally – including homosexuals. Look at the countries that are not torturing people or holding them in secret prisons. Look at societies where money isn’t everything, and where the gap between rich and poor isn’t so extreme.

But please, whatever you do, don’t look at America, because America is about the furthest thing from a Christian country possible in the world today. And don’t ask Americans to look more objectively at their own country, because that’s why they keep arguing about the founding fathers instead. Because turning America into a meek Christian country is about the last thing that most proud and greedy Christians in America would ever vote for, or even tolerate.

The Washington Epidemic in Loggy-Eye Syndrome

2007-09-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Mt 7:3 “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Any hypocrite who votes against making gay bashing a hate crime, and who consistently voted in favor of denying homosexuals equal rights, probably deserved to be exposed as a flaming hypocrite. But how exactly does that make Larry Craig any different from all the hypocrites in Washington who forced his resignation?

True, Craig pleaded guilty to a crime – misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Wow. I mean seriously - Bush pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in 1966, after getting drunk and stealing a Christmas tree – so when is Mitt Romney going to get around to calling Bush “disgusting”? Is there a statute of limitations on disgusting behavior?

More recently, Bush went into a bloodthirsty fit: lying about WMD’s, illegally invading a sovereign country, and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. He’s still on a stubborn and disorderly, murderous rampage. So when is Grandpa McCain going to get around to calling him “disgraceful”? After Bush is convicted of spitting on the sidewalk?

How is touching a man’s shoe with your shoe under a bathroom stall “unforgivable,” (in the words of minority leader Mitch McConnell), but turning a blind eye to torture is OK? Why is it that men can sexually harass and come onto women every day of the week, but when somebody comes on to them in the restroom, all hell breaks loose? I ask the question, not because I don’t already know the answer (homophobia), but to point out how incredibly hypocritical it is. The tragic thing about Larry Craig is that the same people he spent his entire life emulating and trying to please - were the first to toss him under the bus the first time he got into trouble. The cold-blooded political calculation is chilling; even more because they seem so proud of it.

Then there’s David Vitter from Louisiana - the married Senator who pays prostitutes to diaper him before having sex. (Vitter also co-authored the “Defense of Marriage” act.) There’s no law in Louisiana against diapering a Senator. So obviously, in the estimation of our elected officials, it couldn't be as “disgraceful, disgusting and unforgivable” as touching his shoe. Though how those prostitutes managed to get Vitter's pants off without touching his shoes, I’ll never know. It’s emblematic of an attitude that says anything is OK, just as long as you’re straight and get away with it.

Newt Gingrich recently admitted to having an affair with a woman (and lying about it) at the same time that he pushed through a resolution in the House of Representatives, impeaching Bill Clinton for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich finally resigned after being reprimanded by the House ethics panel over using tax-exempt funds to advance his political goals.

Pointing the moral finger at somebody else’s lifestyle is something done primarily by those looking to avoid any scrutiny of their own. It’s not that some politicians are much better at discerning right from wrong (though they’d like us to think so). It’s that they’ve become experts at diverting our attention from what’s really going on. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees made hypocrisy their religion – they said one thing and did another. Now, the religious right and their flunkies in Congress have stepped into their shoes.

What they look at as a moral failing in others is most likely only a projection of that log in their own eye, which keeps growing and adding more rings year after year, so that they can never see the matter clearly. Till finally, one day, they end up like Larry Craig: campaigning publicly for heterosexual marriage in Washington DC and Idaho, while playing footsie in public restrooms at stopovers in Minneapolis. What we presume to be someone else’s moral failure is, more often than not, something visually enhanced and magnified by that unacknowledged log in our own eye. That’s the point Jesus was making.

Though no definitive studies have yet been done, it would be no surprise to discover that the more people are having affairs, the more they are secretly involved in pornography or prostitution, the more completely they’ve abandoned their souls to greed or lust for power, the more heartless they behave towards the poor and persecuted, and the less likely they are to do anything meaningful to aid the sick and suffering of the world … the more stridently they champion ‘family values’ and rail against the ‘homosexual lifestyle.’ The people most likely judge and condemn others for their perceived moral failings, are those most motivated by their need to draw attention from their own sins and shortcomings.

It’s fine to have a political party dedicated to doing the same sort of things that Jesus did – like helping the poor, healing the sick, and loving (rather than killing) your enemies. But whenever politicians pretend to have the inside track on morality, it’s like watching pigs throw mud: the ones throwing the most are always the deepest into their own.

Washington is the last place we should look to for moral guidance. Not only because politicians spend most of their time collecting bribes from special interests, but because it’s not their job to be our spiritual councilors. It’s not what they were hired to do. They need to stay OUT of our private lives, OUT of our bedrooms, OUT of our churches, Mosques and Synagogues, and just attend to public business. It is NOT their job to be our Priests, Confessors, and Inquisitors.

Politicians are little more than highly-paid, overly-dignified prostitutes; they are paid to protect the Constitution, say what we want them to say, and do what we want them to do - not tear down the Constitutional separation between church and state, while informing us that’s what God wants. We pay their salary, and their job is to represent us – not squander more lives and money in a war that 72% of the public wants ended.

Some politicians have gotten as good at manipulating our fears and prejudices as they are at exploiting cultural and religious divisions within the country. Perhaps if they didn’t rely so heavily upon the money of special interests, and maybe if public service wasn’t just first step to making much more money in lobbying firms, they wouldn’t need to find ways to avoid doing their job.

What we call privacy and personal freedom is the secular side of the liberty that we have in Christ as Christians, and just because some people may abuse that freedom to their own harm, doesn’t mean that we all must live under religious tyranny. To advocate laws that infringe upon the private lives and personal liberty of others is to stand in direct opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Passing laws that restrict the rights and freedom of homosexuals and others, is not a way of establishing God’s law; it is a way of putting a lot of demonstrably corrupt and ignorant pastors and politicians and their Newly Revised Mosaic Law over us, and taking the liberty guaranteed by the Gospel out of both religious and secular life. It’s building up again what Christ died to free us from.

The original Mosaic Law was a combination of both civil and religious laws, because at that time there was no separation between church and state. Why not? Because at that particular time, the mediator between God and humanity was not Christ, but the Mosaic Law itself. The same situation exists in some fundamentalist Islamic states today, in their enforcement of Sharia law. At one time in history, the idea of personal rights and moral freedom simply didn’t exist, because the Gospel had yet to be preached. The Mosaic Law instructed people not only in how they should live together in a just community, but also how they would honor and worship God, and what sort of personal moral standards they should practice and uphold.

However, the Gospel tells us that there are no written laws that could show us how to more perfectly worship God in spirit and in truth, and there are no laws that could enable us to love our neighbors as we ought to. That sort of information and that kind of ability can only come directly from God, through the love of Jesus Christ working within our heart. As it says in Jer 31:33 “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.”

Strictly speaking - because a Christian answers directly to a ‘Higher Law’ through faith in Jesus Christ, he/she is completely free - not only from any religious laws, but from civil and secular laws as well. That isn’t to say a Christian is free to be a rapist, an anarchist, a troublemaker, a murder, or a thief. But Christians refrain from rape, theft, and murder, not because there is a law against it, and they’re worried they might get caught and end up in prison, but because they are already obeying the law of love that is written in their heart.

Certainly what Larry Craig did was wrong, but whether he is gay should not be the moral concern of our government (unless he is discriminated against or beaten up because he is gay, and in a way, he has been). It’s between him, his God, and his own conscience. And the total lack of any pity or compassion by his hypocritical Senate colleagues demonstrates exactly why they are the last people we should look to for moral or spiritual guidance, because clearly, they don’t have the love and grace of God in their hearts.

The Stink That Won’t Go Away

2007-07-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

Alberto Gonzales wears a perpetual smirk that seems to say, “Don’t you realize how much fun it is to keep telling these lies to people who can’t do a single thing about it?” It’s just as if he and Bush were cloned from the same ugly smirk. He’s lied so many times under oath before Congress that even Republicans need a shower after questioning him. They could replace all the furniture and fumigate the Judiciary committee room, but the stink won’t go away until he does.

Alberto makes you question the sanity – let alone the logic - of putting anyone at all into prison, just so long as crooks like him are still roaming free. There are about 12 million Hispanics in the country illegally, but he’s the only Hispanic I have ever seen with such complete contempt for America, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

The idea that he heads up the most important law enforcement agency speaks volumes about our government, and it means that the biggest crooks are now in charge of putting lesser crooks in jail. The most sadistic men in prison are probably not responsible for as much pain and suffering as torture-boy Gonzales. Our justice department has become a criminal conspiracy unto itself, and most of its time and energies seem devoted to rationalizing illegal torture, detention, and wiretapping, and covering up the crimes of Gonzales, Rove, Cheney, and Bush.

For all practical purposes, the Justice Department has been transformed into the legal arm of the Republican party. It's comprised of taxpayer funded lawyers supplied by the right-wing ‘federalist society,’ whose political mission it is to convict Democrats and cover-up the crimes of Republicans. In that sense, justice in America is now on the same level as justice in Cuba, North Korea, Communist China, or any other one-party state.

Remember the good old days? There was once a time when a crooked government official would resign gracefully after being caught in the web of their own lies – perhaps as a way of accepting responsibility and minimizing the damage to the nation. Their quick departure told us that they still had enough decency to realize that what they did was wrong – they weren’t complete sociopaths - and they were willing to begin paying the price.

But previous crooks were saints compared to the dedicated sociopaths that now plague the halls of government. Where there is no honor left there is no shame either. Now they tell us they accept responsibility, but then hang onto public office like a cancer. Accepting responsibility has become merely a public relations ploy: They say mistakes were made so they can continue making the same mistakes and committing the same crimes, while blaming everyone else for the consequences. They’re essentially saying to us, “Yea, I’m a crook. I know it. So what are you going to do about it.?” The question is…what are we going to do?

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an editorial calling for Congress to impeach Gonzales if the justice department fails to appoint a special prosecutor. But one of the reasons that Bush won’t fire Gonzales is because he and the Solicitor General will never appoint a special prosecutor to look into the administration’s crimes. So that only leaves the other option.

Article Two of the Constitution outlines the powers of the presidency, and the final section reads: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Notice that it doesn’t say that the Congress can remove officers of the executive branch for high crimes and misdemeanors if they feel like it – it specifically says that they “shall be removed.” It is an imperative and a Constitutional obligation that Congress remove corrupt officials from our government, in the event that the Executive branch refuses to do so.

It is significant that this Constitutional obligation for Congress to impeach, try, and remove corrupt officials is not listed under Section 1, which lists the powers of Congress, but under Section 2, which lists the powers of the executive branch. The founding fathers purposely included this section as a vital check on executive power, and as a way of warning the executive branch that even though they have been given the power to enforce the laws, they themselves are never above the law. It was their way of both warning the president and obligating the Congress to enforce the rule of law. It was their way of ensuring that everyone remained equal under the law.

It follows that if Congress refuses to do its duty, they then become co-conspirators in breaking down the rule of law. They cannot complain that Gonzales is perjuring himself and breaking the law and yet refuse to carry out their own duty under the highest law in the land – our Constitution. The politics involved should have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not to enforce the law. How can the Democrats complain about the manner in which the Republicans have politicized the Justice Department, if they themselves refuse to impeach Gonzales because they’re afraid of the political fallout? It’s just another way of sacrificing justice on the alter of political expediency.

Indeed, the Democrats really ought to be much more afraid of the political fallout than they are. They seem much more optimistic about their future than they have any right to be. Because if Democrats fail to uphold the rule of law, they will ultimately be seen as just as corrupt in the eyes of the American people. Any moral advantage they may seem to have gained over a corrupt administration will then have been squandered. Making every Republican in Congress choose between their own party and the rule of law is like saying “heads I win, tails you lose.” Because those who blindly choose their party will surely be punished at the polls.

It ultimately doesn’t matter in the long run whether Gonzales (or Bush and Cheney) can actually be removed from office – or if there are enough votes to pull it off in the Senate. What really matters (and what the American people are watching to see) is whether there is a party in Washington that cares about the rule of law. Because if there isn’t, than we are all sunk.

Sometimes you have to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. The Constitution was written by people who pretty much knew what they were doing. They certainly weren’t perfect, and the Constitution isn’t Holy Scripture, but it established a framework for maintaining the rule of law and resolving political crises. Believing in the Constitution means having the courage, not only to defend it, but to do what it says. It involves a certain measure of faith. Our political leaders talk a lot about the Constitution, the trouble is, they don’t seem to have any faith in it.

Political parties have come and gone, been up and down, while constantly changing their positions throughout the history of the Republic. Only the Constitution is the same. Our government is so caught up in the political game that they have forgotten that their primary obligation under the Constitution is to maintain a government accountable to the people and accountable to the law. Democracy and the rule of law are two sides of the same coin, and you can’t deface one without making the other side worthless. A government that’s not accountable to the law is no longer accountable to the people either.

There is a grass roots movement for impeachment in America because people can feel their government slipping away from them. That we continue to escalate a war, which most people know has been a tragic mistake from the beginning, is symptomatic of the contempt that our government has for us. The American people understand that if we have been left to choose between two corrupt political parties, both of which refuse to obey the Constitution and uphold the rule of law, that we no longer have any meaningful role in selecting our government. A corporate aristocracy has assumed that role, and our new Constitution is their bottom line.

Down In the Bunker With Bush

2007-07-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

Though some people are offended when you compare Bush to Hitler, as a practical matter, there is no other politician within the American experience left to compare him to. He long ago surpassed Nixon in breaking laws and grabbing onto power. Only last week, Bush claimed not only that he had the right to turn his nose up at Congressional subpoenas, but that if Congress files a contempt citation, his justice department will not enforce the law.

Nixon allowed John Dean to testify, even though he knew it would be a disaster. He knew it meant the end of his presidency, but Nixon was not willing to cross the Rubicon and become an outright dictator. Bush has already crossed that bridge. The difference is that Bush is quite willing to keep breaking more laws and grabbing onto more power to cover-up the laws he’s already broken. He’s the only leader we’ve had who acts so much like a dictator, that we can only compare him to other world dictators. His actions are so completely outside the mainstream of American political experience that we can only understand his actions, as well as predict his future actions, in terms of other totalitarian leaders. Otherwise, it’s like comparing apples to oranges.

At this point, psychologically speaking, George Bush is much like Adolph in his bunker at the end of WWII. Like Hitler, Bush seems completely oblivious and out of touch with reality, and still expecting to win a war that’s already lost. While Hitler pretended to be in control of armies that no longer existed, Bush surges troops that he really doesn’t have by extending the tours of those already in Iraq.

Hitler was unable to take responsibility for his failed war strategy; instead, he ended up blaming the German people for not having the strength and courage to persevere. In the very same way, Bush is going around the country constantly blaming the American people for losing patience and wanting to bring the troops home. It isn’t his fault – perish the thought! It’s our fault for ‘validating the strategy of the terrorists,’ and getting tired of war. Forget that fact that it’s taken longer to secure the road from downtown Baghdad to the Baghdad airport than it took to defeat Germany and Japan. Forget the fact that he shamelessly lied to all of us – how dare the American people ever think of cutting and running. Didn’t we know that the war was all about validating Bush’s role as our leader? We ought to be willing to sacrifice as many lives as necessary to prove that he was right.

It’s important to understand that Bush will never blame himself for leading the country into this disaster – that he is entirely incapable of doing so. Instead, he will – and he already does - blame the country for not being willing to spill more of our blood and treasure in Iraq. And just like Hitler, Bush will find a way to get back at the country for ruining his presidency.

What Hitler did to get back at Germany was to institute a ‘scorched earth’ policy called the ‘Nero Order,’ intended to systematically destroy the country and leave nothing for the allies. Hitler not only committed suicide, but he intended to commit total national suicide. He believed that the German people didn’t deserve to survive the war because they were weak. Unfortunately for him, Albert Speer and others disobeyed his final insane orders, so that even though Germany was in ruins, it wasn’t completely decimated and depopulated. But then, Adolph didn’t have a nuclear bomb like Bush does, and he was too busy gassing the last of the Jews to start in on the Aryan race too.

Anyone who thinks that Bush is going to allow America to betray his authority and leadership skills by getting out of Iraq – thereby making him into the worse president in history – they are deceiving themselves. He may currently believe that 100 years from now, historians will eventually look back at how brilliant he was. But unless he’s taking even more drugs that Hitler (and he may be) I doubt that he will be able to rest easy under that particular delusion for very long, as the magnitude of the disaster begins to dawn on him. And when he finally wakes up to see the shambles we’ve made of his presidency, what’s he going to do?

It seems significant that even now, with his job approval down to 26%, he’s still grabbing onto more power. Why? Because the goal of his entire presidency has always been power for its own sake. 9-11 was just an excuse to grab more power and commit more crimes than any other president in history. And it’s difficult to believe that a man so completley addicted to power, would simply to hand it off to Hillary Clinton a year and a half from now. It’s simply not in his character, and not his style, any more than admitting his mistakes.

The rush that comes with power, which undoubtedly comes over him every time he breaks the law, defies Congress or tortures someone - seems to be the only thing keeping him from crashing psychologically, and that’s why he continues desperately grabbing onto more power, the closer we come to when he is scheduled to give it up. As with any addict, I doubt that he can admit to himself that he can’t give it up. He’s only looking for an excuse or a reason not to have to give it up.

That excuse may come in the form of another terrorist attack on American soil, or it may come by way of attacking Iran or Pakistan, and by drawing the country into a much wider war. The point is that he’s become like Hitler crouching down in a bunker, now capable of just about anything. He’s ripped the Constitution into so many pieces that most people can’t remember what it said anymore. There’s no longer any yardstick with which to measure his insanity.

Crime is a relative concept, and after being constantly bombarded by scenes of violence and torture in the war crime more commonly called the occupation of Iraq, Congressional oversight no longer seems very relevant, as long as the Democrats keep bankrolling Bush's crimes against humanity in Iraq. War - which is always a kind of endorsement of absolute lawlessness - has a corrosive effect on the respect for the rule of law. This is truer the longer that the war continues, and the more unjustified it was from the start.

What Bush is incapable of understanding is that Americans want the war to end, not only because they worry about the lives being lost and the money being wasted, and certainly not because they’re afraid or weak, but because they can sense the corrosive effect this particular war is having upon the character of the nation and the rule of law. Democracies are naturally disposed to be against war because they are strongy in favor of the rule of law.

Like any person, any nation that persists in doing an evil thing cannot help but become more corrupt and evil over time. What we never would have tolerated five years ago, now we have simply learned to live with: Torture, illegal wiretapping, illegal kidnapping and detention – it’s all become a part of the endless ‘war on terror.’ The same way that Germany learned to live with the Holocaust, we’ve leaned to live all the crimes that Bush is doing in our name. We’re quickly sinking to his level, and the only question is whether we are strong and virtuous enough as a nation to stop him. Because make no mistake -he's completely incapable of stopping himself.

If the choice is between giving up power and admitting he’s a complete failure, or getting back at the country for betraying him and going out in a blaze of glory in some final Armageddon push against the axis of evil – he may not see this as a choice at all, but more as his patriotic duty and place in history, just like Hitler did. It’s only the country that’s still in denial about it.

Bush Saves Irving, Kills Karla

2007-07-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

"I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own." - George W. Bush explaining why he signed the death warrants for a record-breaking 152 inmates in Texas.

Bush is a man famous for his lack of compassion in issuing pardons, or anything close to it. Bush has NEVER before used his power to save someone from doing hard time in prison. He always liked to pretend that he was a tough, ‘law and order’ politician, and that when it came to showing mercy towards people convicted of crimes, that it was the criminal who should have thought twice before breaking the law. At least, that’s what he used to say.

US Department of Justice - Section 1-2.113 - Standards for Considering Commutation Petitions

A commutation of sentence reduces the period of incarceration; it does not imply forgiveness of the underlying offense, but simply remits a portion of the punishment. [Bush forgave Libby’s entire sentence in prison – he did NOT simply remit a portion of it] It has no effect upon the underlying conviction and does not necessarily reflect upon the fairness of the sentence originally imposed. [Bush wrongly stated the reason for pardoning his sentence was that it was unfair] Requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence. [Libby never began serving his sentence] Nor are commutation requests generally accepted from persons who are presently challenging their convictions or sentences through appeal or other court proceeding. [Libby was currently challenging his sentence through appeal.]

On every single point, Bush brushed aside the law and the Justice Department’s own guidelines for issuing commutations. Bush has gone out of his way to put himself above the law, and that even applies to the issuing commutations. He needs to prove to everyone – but especially himself – that he is completely above the law.

Previously, Bush’s style was to look for a few people convicted of jaywalking or selling moonshine about 50 years ago, and almost as a way of mocking the concept of mercy, grant them a trivial pardon. But lately, the ‘law and order’ mask that he used to wear has been shredded in Congressional commitees - along with thousands of Carl Rove’s incriminating Emails, and all those cases of selective amnesia that keep sleepwalking up to Capital Hill. We are finally witnessing the Bush Crime Family in its utter and complete moral depravity.

In all his years as president, Bush has only commuted only 2 - that’s right TWO - sentences, and those were for people about to be released from prison anyway. Bush has NEVER before saved anyone from doing any time in prison. He has never before declared anyone’s prison sentence to be “excessive” or “harsh.” Irving Lewis Libby is the only one in America with that honor.

Martha Stewart, you'll remember, was convicted on four counts of lying and obstruction (about a measly stock sale) – and yet she went to prison and served her term, just like thousands of others do for similar crimes every day. Irving Lewis Libby was convicted on four counts of lying and obstruction and perjury, (concerning the far more heinous crime of exposing an undercover agent). Yet Bush and the far right screams: “It’s not fair, I tells ya! Not Fair!!”

If it was fair for Martha, than why wasn’t it fair for Irving? If Bush had no problem watching a woman go to prison, than why not a man? Is it because Martha was a Democrat? Or is it because she probably has more balls than anyone in Bush’s draft-dodging and piss-cowardly administration? There are individuals like Weldon Angelos who will probably rot and die in prison for selling a government informant $350 in marijuana (he got 55 years) – and yet Irving can’t do 30 months for repeatedly lying under oath to federal investigators and obstructing justice? Even Nixon refused to pardon top aids Haldeman and Ehrlichman over the same sort of offences; even he had enough respect for the rule of law that he wouldn't go that far.

Think of what this means for all the countless thousands of people who have gone to prison for things like smoking a joint, or stealing a bike or a pizza. Bush has just declared to America that there has never before been such a serious miscarriage of justice, or someone more deserving of being spared the horrors of a brief country-club prison stretch, than Irving Lewis Libby. All of their sentences were just right – only Libby’s was inexcusable.

In this administration’s estimation, the laws were only written for the underclass – for that guy who got 25 years to life for stealing a slice of pepperoni pizza, for example. But our laws were never intended to disrupt the delicate routine of those who are wealthy, and have political influence. At least, that’s Bush’s clearly-stated view on the matter. (I can just see him calling in all those world-famous historians and scholars just to ask: "Do you think our unpopularity abroad is a result of my personality?" Clue to the clueless: Yea George – it’s because of you and your sick, sociopathic personality.)

To understand Bush’s sociopathic reasoning and his newly-discovered well of compassion, you must understand the concept of 'honor among thieves.' What may be a clear violation of the law to most people, may seem very unfair from the perspective of those who have absolutely no respect for the law, and whose idea of fairness is grounded in whatever serves their common, and criminal, interests. Though perjury, obstruction of justice, outing an undercover CIA agent, and damaging our national security during wartime, may all seem like extremely serious felonies to us – to Bush and the far right it's just downright unfair to hold Libby accountable for anything, because Libby had already skated on the more serious crimes of treason and outing a CIA agent by lying to prosecutors and covering up the truth. He did his job and he was a good soldier. This wasn’t so much a commutation of sentence as a payoff for beating the tougher rap and keeping his lying mouth shut.

To criminals like Bush & Cheney, it seems unfair to hold a person on lesser charges, when they’ve already skated on the more serious ones. If they’ve already outwitted justice and basically beat the system, then you must give a thief their props. It’s petty to hold them up on lesser charges, or at least, that's the view of most sociopaths.

Criminals like Bush, Cheney, and Libby, look at the law as a kind of fixed game; if they’ve outwitted the law and cheated justice, it’s only fair that everyone skates. The law to them is like a game you play to win or lose – there are no in-betweens, just like there are no ties in baseball. Irving’s pardon was the final, tie-breaker inning in a game that was fixed from the start. Bush appointed both the judge and the prosecutor in the case, but since the result was not exactly what he wanted, that part needed to be fixed also.

While treason seems like a pretty serious felony when viewed from the perspective of folk willing to fight for their country (the suckers) - to Bush, Cheney, the far right fascist class, and to the entire organized crime underworld generally, it’s really only a felony if they can catch you red-handed at it. There is no such thing as the rule of law – there is only the rule of the most ruthless, clever, and well-connected among us. It only makes sense that Bush would show no compassion for other (much poorer) criminals – no matter how worthy their case or unjust the law, because they lost the game from the beginning (they were probably born into the wrong family). They are only getting what they deserve by being poor, and not having the right family connections, like Irving.

It’s just like the Soprano family, when Tony Soprano’s cousin Tony Blundetto went to prison for a crime that Tony Soprano bungled and never showed up for. It simply wasn’t fair, and things were never quite the same between them. Tony Soprano certainly would have commuted his cousin’s sentence if he could – so why shouldn’t Bush, since he can? Libby was a stand-up guy – he didn’t squeal – it was only right that Bush should reward him for his silence (and cover his own butt). Didn’t Tony Soprano set up Tony Blundetto after he got out, and do everything that he possibly could to make things right (until he had to murder him)? So why shouldn't Irving Libby get the same treatment? That’s what ‘honor among thieves’ is all about. It means that Bush can genuinely feel that Irving’s sentence was unfair, and that he did the right thing by pardoning him – even though both of them broke the law, and should probably be put away for a long, long, time – and even though they will both go down in history as the sociopathic scum and traitors to their country that they are.

Finally, let’s never forget Karla Faye Tucker. No, she wasn’t a traitor to her country, and she never damaged our national security by outing an undercover CIA agent in wartime. She was never responsible for breaking the law to defend an illegal invasion that ultimately cost over 600,000 innocent lives. But she committed a heinous crime nevertheless, and was ultimately convicted of murder.

While in jail, she became a devout Christian, and for years Karla ministered to other inmates and led them to the Lord. She had already signed an agreement waiving any possibility of parole for the rest of her life in the event that her sentence was commuted to life in prison. Her record and work while in Prison had been exemplary. Even Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell knew about her work, and they were convinced that she was genuinely remorseful and rehabilitated.

Unlike Irving Lewis Libby, Karla Faye Tucker wasn’t asking to be kept out of the prison system – she only wanted to spend the rest of her life witnessing and ministering to others in prison. And unlike Irving, who has absolutely no remorse for his crimes, she very much did. But in the end it was Irving Lewis Libby who had his sentence commuted (eliminated), while Karla Faye Tucker was cruelly mocked and ridiculed before being put to death.

In an interview, Bush volunteered that he had watched Karla's nationally televised prison interview on Larry King. He said that King had asked Karla what she would like to say to Governor Bush. Carlson asked Bush what she said. "`Please,' Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me.'"

Bush thought it was absolutely hilarious that Karla would ask for her life – after all, she never had the money or connections necessary to game the system. She was getting what she deserved for being poor, and apparently for Bush, what made her all the more amusingly pathetic is that she didn’t even seem to realize it.

But Irving Lewis Libby's case was much different. He deserved, in Cheney words “a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man.” What we, a federal prosecutor, 12 jurors and a judge, all know about Irving Lewis Libby is that he’s a compulsive perjurer with no respect for the law, that he’s a traitor who conspired to exposed an undercover CIA agent in wartime, and that he has absolutley no remourse for any of his crimes. But we also know that he comes from a very wealthy family, and that he has the very highest political connections - so that must have been what Cheney was referring to.

When asked in her final days why she remained optimistic about having her sentence commuted, Karla relied, "Because my hope is in the Lord. He can change hearts." How foolish that seems in retrospect - after all, this was George W Bush's heart we're talking about. Maybe she should have been more like Irving and put all her faith in Dick Cheney – because he knows how to handle Bush. And the Lord undoubtedly gave up trying to influence either one of them a long time ago.

If I Broke the Law As Many Times as Bush..

2007-06-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

What could we be charged with if we committed as many crimes as George Bush? Let’s pretend for a moment that instead of having the power to enforce the law (and the power not to enforce it against himself) that Bush was like any other citizen.

When an average American conspires to break one of our laws, he or she can be charged with conspiracy, whether or not they carry out their intentions. And yet, according to a GAO report, Bush has publicly flaunted the rule of law on numerous occasions, and specifically conspired to break no fewer than 1,149 laws through 126 illegal signing statements – and furthermore, he has already broken many of them.

If our local police found out that we were conspiring to break a particular law, we’d end up in jail faster than the speed of light. Yet Bush can brag to the entire world that he intends to break 1,149 of our laws because he can only be arrested and put into jail after being impeached and removed from office, and Congress already declared that “off the table.”

In 2002, Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to wiretap phone and email communications involving United States persons within the U.S., without obtaining a warrant or court order. Even Bush acknowledged (before he was caught) that this kind of surveillance is a violation of the fourth amendment of the Constitution, as well as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and that it requires a court order.

This particular program was set up to monitor and sort through virtually every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through key relay centers. In other words, we are all being illegally spied upon. The same kind of illegal surveillance would get an average American 5 years imprisonment and $10,000 fine for every occurrence. But since everyone is being illegally spied upon, and there are about 217 million citizens over the age of 16 making phone calls - even if you were to figure only one illegal occurrence per citizen, that still adds up to a total of 1,085,000,000 years in prison, and a $2,170,000,000,000 fine, (An amount nearly equal to the total annual federal budget).

Opening up someone else’s mail without a warrant – even if it’s your mail carrier- is a felony that would probably get most people another five years in prison and another $10,000 fine per count. We don’t know how many times Bush has actually done this since he declared that he could, because he doesn’t think he needs to tell anyone (including Congress) when he breaks the law. (What crook does?) But we can assume that he likes reading our mail just as much as he likes listening to our phone conversations or reading our emails. So all told, the accumulated felonies add up to another 1,085,000,000 years in prison, and another $2,170,000,000,000 fine.

Mail and wire fraud is illegal. It is a crime for anyone to use the mails or wires in order to advance an illegal scheme, or to violate the Presidential Records Act.. That includes emails. To violate the law by using separate RNC accounts, and furthermore, to use the accounts to advance an illegal scheme to politicize the justice department by dictating who should be investigated and what should be covered up - is a clear example of email and wire fraud.

The same cynical people who conspired to illegally monitor our phone calls and read our emails - even though we committed no crime - have themselves been involved in an ongoing criminal conspiracy to use their own phones and email accounts illegally, in the commission of a crime.

A conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud carries the penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count, and each time they violated the law by using these non-govenmental accounts. At least 88 White House officials used the RNC e-mail accounts to avoid the record-keeping requirement of the law. If, like political adviser Karl Rove, they each illegally conducted government business by sending more than 140000 emails through the Republican National Committee's computer system, that would be a cumulative total of 61,600,000 years in prison, and a total fine of $3,080,000,000,000.

The Constitution strictly forbids the imprisonment of any person without due process of law, and another name for illegal detention or false imprisonment is kidnapping. There has been an estimated 800 people kidnapped and illegally detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and hundreds more have undergone secret ‘renditions’ - a process where the kidnapped person is dumped in some third-world country, usually to be tortured. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 reinstated the death penalty for the crime of kidnapping. Conservatively estimating the number of people illegally kidnapped to be 1500, that means Bush committed 1500 counts of a capital offense by illegally detaining prisoners.

Another name for illegal torture is felonious assault. A violent assault that inflicts bodily injury would get most Americans up to ten years in prison along with a $5,000 fine. When Bush set up a policy to systematically assault detainees at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, those caught on camera phones carrying out his policy were sentenced to terms up to ten years. And yet Bush is certainly more culpable than they are, inasmuch as they were only following his (illegal) policy. There is also evidence of a vast, taxpayer-financed gulag of illegal torture prisons that have been set up for the purpose of assaulting Iraqi detainees, an estimated 90% of who are completely innocent of any crime. Several hundred thousand Iraqis are at these torture centers, a fact that goes a long way to explain the passion of the insurgency. If we were to conservatively estimate that 200,000 Iraqis have been tortured or sexually humiliated at least once as a direct result of Bush’s illegal invasion and torture policy, that would equal a sentence of 2,000,000,000 years in prison, and a fine of $1,000,000,000 for felonious assault.

Armed Robbery is the name commonly used for obtaining money or property through the use of force. If a poor man breaks into a rich person’s house, and proceeds to cause their death while making off with their valuables, that person will be charged with robbery and murder, even if they never intended to kill anyone. In the 38 states that have the death penalty, they would most probably end up on death row.

Yet no action was taken after two wealthy oil men from Texas illegally invaded the homes of the poor people of Iraq in order to plunder their oil reserves, even though they ended up murdering 655,000 innocent people in the process. No action has been taken against the mass-murderers in the White House, even after their alibi about WMD’s proved to be a lie. Bush is already on record confessing that “let's put it this way, money trumps peace, sometimes. In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests.” A typical sociopath. He's also confessed that he's staying in Iraq because of the oil. This kind of cold-blooded and methodical killing for profit would certainly be a capital crime in Texas, where as govenor, Bush set a record for executing poor Texans for exactly the same sort of crimes. If he were to be prosecuted the same as they were, he could be tried and convicted for a capital offense 655,000 times over.

A violation of the federal Rico statute involves a``pattern of racketeering activity.'' The measure was intended to stop members of organized crime families from using legitimate businesses as fronts for their criminal activities. The penalties include 20 years for each violation, and the forfeiture of all assets attained illegally.

The Bush crime family has long been America’s most successful criminal enterprise. Prescott Bush, the grand-godfather, made most of the Bush family fortune when he conspired with the Nazis to profit from slave labor at Auschwitz, at the same time that the United States was at war with Germany. So profiting from the systematic murder of others is really nothing new to them. The Bush crime family (USA) is now conspiring with despots in the Saudi royal family (Saudi Arabia) to bilk American taxpayers and steal Iraqi oil, much in the same way that the fictional Soprano crime family (New Jersey) conspired with the Lupertazzi crime family (Brooklyn) on federal projects.

The war in Iraq can be best understood as an enormously profitable swindle. Bush even signed an executive order at the very beginning of the war making the companies engaging in racketeering immune from prosecution. We’re now in the fifth year of the of what has become one of the most expensive and corrupt wars in American history, and yet the Bush administration has not litigated a single case against a war profiteer under the false claims act.

More than 70 American companies and individuals won up to $8 billion in contracts (many of them no-bid) for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the first two years. They kicked up to the family boss (George Bush ) a little over $500,000 in campaign contributions the first year alone, to help keep him in power. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts. Detailing all the graft and corruption involved – in Halliburton alone – would probably take volumes, though we know that Cheney’s stock options in Halliburton rose from $241,498 to over $8 million in only year. Meanwhile, Iraqi production of oil has plummeted, making both the oil companies and their partners in crime the Saudis, fabulously richer.

If Bush (and his criminal associates in Saudi Arabia, who provided the manpower and financing for the 9-11 terror attack) was prosecuted under the same Rico statute that put other mob bosses out of business, he would receive 20 years for every crooked government contract that was ever handed out to one of his political cronies, and all of his family's assets would be confiscated several million times over. But he isn’t being prosecuted or impeached, not even by a Democratic Congress. Why? Because if the Bush crime family were ever to be investigated and prosecuted for corruption, half of Washington – including all the crooked lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, media hacks and other bagmen - would probably end up in prison along with them.

When you add it all up - even without figuring in all the penalties involved for violating the Rico statute, for his illegal signing statements, or for conspiring to expose and cover up the outing an undercover CIA agent - it means 656,500 capital offences, a total fine of $7,421,000,000,000, and an additional 4,170,000,000 years in prison. But what does that really mean? It means that if average Americans had committed as many crimes as our 'chief executive,' we would need to pay a total fine that was equal to $24,736 for every man, woman, and child in the country. It means that our ‘chief executive’ – the man entrusted with the job of enforcing our laws – has actually committed crimes that are much more grievous and extensive, than all the people currently confined in US prisons COMBINED.

Figuring the total US prison population at about 1,500,000, it means that if our prison population were as lawless as George Bush, you could execute about half of them for a capital offence, while giving each of the rest 4,943 years in prison. It is a shame and a disgrace to think that prison bars are the only things separating the worse criminals in positions of power, from those doing time for much lesser offences. Tony Soprano’s only mistake is that he didn’t run for president.

When your nation's leaders are committing more crimes, stealing more money, and causing more death and destruction that all the people in prison – that is the definition of tyranny. Then you no longer live in a civilized country, and you no longer have the rule of law. Cheney is even claiming to be a fourth (corporate) branch of government. It’s just the latest example of how determined they are to operate outside the Constitution and above the law. Those who want to believe this extent of lawlessness will just end if/when Bush leaves office, are somehow missing the point. This is another story about criminals that doesn’t have a good ending.

The Moral of the Story

2007-05-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

There is a lesson in the story of Job that gave meaning to his suffering. It’s that, "those who suffer, he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction." (Job 36:15) God is speaking to us through the bad things that happen to us - not to accuse us, but to draw us closer. There is a meaning and a purpose to the worst things that happen that can bring us closer to God. But whether they do or not depends upon our faith.

The story tells us that Job came to know God more intimately through his suffering. As he says at the end of the story, (Job 42:5) “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.” In the end, Job became wiser than he was before, mostly by understanding and appreciating all that he really didn’t know, simply because he wasn’t God. The tragedies he experienced ultimately strengthened his faith by re-centering his faith more completely in God alone, rather than trusting in his own understanding or his own righteousness. Of his own righteousness he now had to confess, (42:6) “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The more we know God and His righteousness, the worse we will seem to ourselves. Conversely, the better and more blameless we may believe ourselves to be, very often the more distant we are from God. The cost of drawing nearer to God is that we can no longer hold onto the delusions about ourselves – either about our righteousness, or about how much we really know about God.

Before these tragedies occurred, Job only knew about the Lord through all he had learned through reading and hearing about God. Like many religious people, he knew all about God, rather than knowing God more directly and personally, through his own suffering. It was through his suffering that Job came to know God much more intimately than before.

The Bible gives us a certain degree of insight into God’s ways. It tells us how God is a righteous God. So it was natural that Job and his friends would debate about how to apply what they knew about the Lord – that He is righteous, good, and just - to Job’s particular situation. If God is good, then how could He have allowed what had happened? His friends reasoned that Job must really be an evil person, while Job essentially argued that God was somehow asleep at the switch. They both assumed that they knew more about the ways and purposes of God than they actually knew.

This kind of presumption is very common among religious people. Not only do we think we know everything, but we often presume to talk like we were speaking for God. Religious people like to act as if they knew all there is to know about God. That’s one reason why there’s so much conflict and violence in the world today – not because most people believe in God, but because religious people want to believe that their Bible, or their Koran, or their Torah, tells them absolutely everything there is that’s worth knowing about God. Religious tolerance goes flying out the window primarily because most religious people don’t understand – or are unwilling to admit - how truly ignorant they are. That’s why God needs to humble us, in order to prove to us how much we really don’t know.

If everything that we know about God is in the Bible, than everything we really don’t know could probably fill ten thousand Bibles. As even the Bible says (Joh 21:25) “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”

The point is that we can know something about Jesus by reading the Bible, but we only really come to know Christ intimately by participating in his suffering and persecutions – either directly through our own, or by ministering to those in need or distress. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” God speaks to humanity through the words of scripture, but he is speaking directly to each one of us through whatever trials and injustices we may experience in life.

Brevard Childs writes about the story of Job, "The primary effect of the concluded dialogue is to register the failure of human wisdom in its ability to penetrate into the mystery of human suffering"[1] The mystery of human suffering, and the mystery of God’s saving grace in Jesus, participate in the same mysterious transcendence of God. That’s also why we are able to know Christ more intimately through our own trials and suffering. "And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:27

It didn’t make any logical sense that Jesus – who was certainly more righteous than Job - should have to suffer and pay for all the sins of the world. It doesn’t seem to make sense in terms of human justice and practical wisdom. That’s why it can only be understood and apprehended through faith. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." 1Co 1:25

Why are some people struck down by misfortune or illness, rather than those who seem to deserve it more? The only thing that can stand in the gap at certain times is faith. Not faith as we would like to define it, by that warm and re-assuring feeling that we get whenever God has blessed our life - but faith that can seem like a cold, flickering light hidden deep within the darkness of our soul. It is by and through that kind of faith - sometimes described in Christian literature as the 'dark night of the soul' - that God is inviting us to know Him more directly and intimately.

Neither blessings nor the power of human reasoning can bridge the gap between God and humanity, or get us to where we need to be spiritually. Only at that desolate place where our religion, Bible studies, our good works, and all the powers of human reasoning, seem all to have fallen short and proven themselves completely useless - that is precisely where faith alone can bring us closer to God. As Martin Luther put it: “If reason not be killed, and all kinds of religion and service of God under heaven that are invented by men to get righteousness before God, be not condemned, the righteousness of faith can take no place.” What God is asking in times of trouble is not that we understand why it happened, but that we simply believe and have faith in His goodness and righteousness, regardless of how we may feel at the moment.

When parents lose a child (let alone all their children like Job), what can you tell them that would make sense of their loss? There is no reason you could ever come up with that might satisfactorily explain or justify what had happened. All that anybody can really tell them is to have faith in God. It is through their faith that God can then comfort their hearts, and eventually give meaning to their loss. Not that they will ever be able to figure it out intellectually, or even that their pain will ever go completely away; but the loving comfort that God gives can be victorious over all the pains and disappointments of life.

We should not assume that since Job eventually had as many children as before that he completely forgot and gave up grieving for the children that he’d lost. Time does not completely heal all wounds, at least not in this life; though time can make it easier to cope with misfortune. Yet the story indicates that Job’s life was much fuller and more blessed at the end than it had been before, and that he was eventually wiser and more righteous than at the beginning of the story. Not because he understood why God had allowed what had happened, but because now he was much more humble; because his faith and trust had been renewed and strengthened through adversity.

Job’s relationship with God was deeper and more intimate than it had been before because of what he suffered. The story doesn’t really explain why God allowed Satan to afflict Job. The Lord only reminded Job – and us - that the ways of God are not like the ways of humankind, and His reasons are not completley accessible to the reasoning power of human beings. That to have faith in God really means putting our faith in reasons that we often don’t understand, for the sake of a God whose overcoming love we can know and experience, and which strengthens us in times of trial.

[1] Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as
Scripture, 536

The Story of Job: Overcoming Guilt & Self-Pity

2007-05-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Many scholars consider the book of Job to be the oldest source text in the Bible. Whether or not that’s true or not, it’s certainly one of the most puzzling.

Job was a man visited by an assortment of tragedies and setbacks, though we are never told exactly why. Unlike most other Old Testament stories, where good and bad people usually get what they deserve, we are told that Job didn’t deserve what happened to him. He probably lived somewhere between present-day Israel and Iraq, about 1800 years before Christ and about 600 years after Noah.

Job may have been a contemporary of Abraham, and it’s interesting to consider that while Abraham was rewarded for his faithfulness in Palestine, Job had everything he had worked for taken away. Bandits, fire, and a tornado took Job’s children, his servants, and his possessions, all on the same day; he then lost his health, and was covered with an assortment of boils.

The story tells us that the Lord allowed Satan to do all these things to Job - not as a punishment for his sins - but to demonstrate that Job’s integrity was strong enough to endure anything. It gets even worse, because even his friends turned against him. Rather than comforting him in his time of need, they basically told him he was getting what he had coming; if he was afflicted by so many disasters - then ipso, facto - he must have deserved it. By failing to confess his sins and repent, Job had brought these tragedies upon himself, and now by maintaining his innocence, he was only adding to his transgressions, by accusing the Lord of being unjust.

Often when tragedy or illness strikes, even our closest friends don’t know the right thing to say. Partly it’s because they can’t find the right words; they may never have had the same thing happen to them, and so they don’t know how to deal with it. But it may also be that they are afraid of the same thing happening to them.

Rather than comforting Job, his friends were really comforting themselves with the false notion that they understood God’s ways, when in fact they didn’t. They were horrified at what had happened; they didn’t want to believe the same thing might happen to them at any moment. So they tried to reassure themselves with the notion that God would never afflict the righteous (or allow the devil to), even though He always punishes the wicked. It’s a comforting notion, though untrue.

As Job pointed out, the objective evidence seems to say otherwise: The wicked very often seem to go unpunished, while good and decent people can suffer such bad luck at times, that you would think their lives were cursed. It simply isn’t true that the wicked always come to an obvious bad end, and it isn’t the case that God openly and invariably rewards kind and highly principled people - at least this doesn’t always seem to be the case during their lifetime. Nor do good people always lead long and healthy lives, because just as the saying goes, ‘only the good die young.’

We could certainly argue that the good and the wicked will eventually get what’s coming to them on judgment day, in the next life – and in fact Job says exactly that, as he comforts himself with the conviction that - (Job 19:25-26) “ I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Job believed that the Lord would eventually judge him innocent. Nevertheless, none of us can honestly maintain that everyone will be justly rewarded or condemned for their actions right here, right now, and in this life.

The saying is that ‘virtue is its own reward.’ We can’t expect the world to reward us for doing the right thing. The wicked will very often prosper, and we shouldn’t expect God to strike them down before they get the chance to harm someone else - though they do have the tendency to eventually self-destruct. Life isn’t fair, even though we believe that God is ultimately just. This is something we can only know by faith, and believe in our heart.

Like Job, we can feel completely overwhelmed by misfortune, and by what seem like the basic injustices of life. Often, we can’t shake the feeling that God is somehow punishing us, the same way Job’s friends were trying to convince him of the same thing. The accuser - which is the devil - seems always to have a way of giving voice to his accusations, whether it’s through other people, or through the internalized voice of a morbidly guilty conscience. This is especially true among Christians, many of who see illness or misfortune as a punishment or recompense for sin.

There may also be a part of ourselves that would rather believe that we are being punished. Paradoxically, and like Job’s friends, we can begin to accuse ourselves in order to feel more secure in the world - especially when the alternative seems either that God doesn’t care what happens to us - or even worse - maybe there is no God, and human misfortune is completely arbitrary, like the atheists believe. Seen in this light, blaming ourselves can be seen as a way of avoiding the alternatives. We would rather blame ourselves, rather than believe that God could be cruel or unjust. We would rather feel guilty, rather than live in a world where human suffering was a only crapshoot, without any meaning or purpose. But it’s always wrong to jump to conclusions that are grounded more in all we really don’t know, rather than in what we do.

There are those times that we just have to hang onto to what we know about God, and how we have known Him. The Psalmist says how at those times when (Ps 143:3) “the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground,” that we should, (143.5) “remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.”
When our faith is tested, we should remember what the Lord has done for us in the past, and how He has always seen us through every difficulty. Or else go to a park or out in the country, and take a walk on a sunny day, just looking at all He has created. God’s creation is beautiful because our Creator is good. When difficulties pile up, we can maintain our faith in God’s kindness and good intentions towards us by meditating on what He has done for us, and at all the beauty of nature.

Faith is ultimately a faith in God’s goodness; it is not a faith that bad things can never happen to us, or that we will always feel good. Rather than weakening our faith, the bad things that happen will only help to strengthen our faith and hope in God, whenever we remember how good God is.

There are things that happen in life that we cannot explain; we struggle to understand why God could have allowed this situation to occur. The reason isn’t because He is punishing us, and He isn’t being unfair either: God is just, and He takes no pleasure in seeing people suffer. We can go around blaming the Lord for this, that, or the other thing, feeling like our life is cursed, or even that we are being persecuted by the devil. We can feel sorry for ourselves, just as Job was doing, and thereby implicitly accuse God of being unfair. But we do this only because our faith is still weak or untested, and we don’t really know God and his ways. To say that God is testing us, is to say that He is deepening and making our faith stronger, just as He was with Job.

Job’s friends argued that guilt was the appropriate response to human tragedy. Their explanation was that Job was guilty of sin, and now God was punishing him. Job, on the other hand, rather than feeling guilty, resorted to a kind of self-pity, which was really just as bad, and potentially even more insidious. Like his friends, Job couldn't understand God’s reasons. His explanation was that the Lord had made some terrible mistake which needed to be rectified; he wanted the opportunity to plead his case and prove his innocence. Job not only judged himself completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but he also implicitly accused God of being apathetic, lazy, ignorant of the facts, or blatantly unfair. When in fact the Lord is omnipotent, omniscient and altogether righteous; He’s always active and in complete control of every situation. He knows everything that’s going on, and He always does exactly the right thing.

Job’s problem was that, like his friends, he presumed to understand and know the ways of God. We can certainly sympathize with Job, much more than with his friends and their empty accusations. After all, it says quite clearly that Job was a good and righteous man, and we also know that his suffering must have been very great. Nevertheless, just because we don’t understand why God allowed something to happen, it doesn’t mean we have any right to judge, or to feel sorry for ourselves. Self-pity is always a judgment about God’s fairness.

The story tells us that God allowed Satan to torment Job to prove his faith and integrity – to prove that his virtue was not simply the by-product of all the blessings God had bestowed upon him. Job was correct in saying that these tragedies were not a punishment for sin, but he was wrong in assuming that God was being unfair, or that a righteous life must always be paid back with an unbroken string of blessings. In that sense - and though he knew differently - Job was making the same sort of assumption as his friends: The idea that worldly blessings are the payment-in-kind for righteousness, while calamity and illness are the inevitable recompense for iniquity. The only difference being that Job saw himself as someone who had somehow - by some tragic mistake - been put in the wrong line, and given the wrong payoff.

Self pity is a haughty spiritual condition wherein we assume to be in a position to judge God and His ways. Instead of accepting God’s will for our life, we presume to be able to judge ourselves completely innocent, and instead of seeking God's comfort, we try to comfort ourselves with the notion that God, or the world, is being unfair. We set ourselves up as judge and jury over the will of God, even though though the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” [Jer 17:9)

Though Job may indeed have been a very good and righteous man, his goodness in no way came close to God’s. As the Psalmist says, (Ps 16:2) “O my soul, thou hast said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee.” As Jesus also pointed out, (Mt 19:17) “there is none good but one, that is, God.” So rather than expecting nothing but blessings, (Lu 17:10) “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” If Job’s friends were presumptuous for judging Job, how much more presumptuous was Job, for judging the ways of God?

What if Job and his friends were wrong (as they certainly were)? What if God sends it to rain on both the just and unjust, and He causes His sun to rise on both the evil and the good (as He certainly does). What if God’s blessings should not be thought of as ‘payment-in-kind’ for our righteousness - as if they were something that we should expect and demand from Him, like wages for services rendered? What if His blessings are always a manifestation of God’s underserved mercy and grace, whether or not we think we are better than other people? And what if people suffer tragedy and illness in much the same way – not necessarily because we deserved it or had it coming to us(though there are certainly consequences to sin), but because God has reasons of His own? What if the meaning of human suffering - just like the logic of God’s grace - must always remain somewhat of a mystery to us, since it's outside the range of our control and understanding?

Job didn’t realize that God had allowed Satan to afflict him in order to prove how upright and faithful God believed him to be. But even that explanation doesn’t fully explain to us why God would have needed to prove anything to the devil. It’s the sort of explanation that gives way to a hundred more questions concerning the mystery of evil and the dilemma of human suffering. As it should, because the story of Job was never intended to fully explain the mystery of human suffering, or to map out and explain Satan’s role in God’s plan of salvation. It was only meant to show us how much we necessarily don’t know about God and His ways. We may think we know more than Job, but we really don’t.

All we really know is that when tragedy or illness strikes, the temptation to blame ourselves, blame other people, blame the devil, or hold God at fault, will always be very high. Why is that? Because as human beings, we want to understand what is going on, to get our mind around what’s happened to us. We want to be in control, and we’re more afraid of situations that we can’t understand. We don’t want to feel as if our lives are out of (our) control, even though they are to a large extent, especially when illness or tragedy strike. Nor do we want to give that control completely over to God, even though we need to, and in the end we must.

Instead, we employ all our powers of logic and reasoning to try to regain some measure of control - or at least the illusion of control that comes by apportioning blame. Unfortunately, the more we give into the temptation to blame ourselves, blame God, or blame other people, the more miserable we make ourselves, the further we are from God’s comfort, and the further we stray from the truth. The only way out of the trap the devil has set for us is by faith, and by trusting God unconditionally. Faith is the antidote to guilt and self-pity.

If we go around playing the blame game, we are only showing our ignorance by desperately trying to take control of a situation that can only be overcome by faith. Faith in God means trusting in a wisdom more perfect than our own, one that never fails or misses the mark. True wisdom is relying upon the wisdom greater than ours, rather than leaning too heavily upon our ignorance.

Certainly there are consequences to sin, and we should do whatever we can to avoid whatever consequences we can by repenting all our sins, whenever and wherever we can. But knowing God is realizing that He doesn’t punish people in the cruel and vindictive manner that many religious people would like us to think. To know God is to know that, even though we may never understand the ways of God through the faculty of human reasoning, we can know God by faith, and so come to love God as completely and unconditionally as He loves us. Knowing God doesn’t mean intellectually understanding all His ways, or understanding why everything happens like it does; it means understanding and experiencing how much God loves us, and this is especially true whenever things go very wrong, and for no apparent good reason.

So that when terrible things happen one after another (as they sometimes do), we can lean on Him time and again, more and more, and so come to rest more completely in Him, by trusting in His understanding, His love, and His good intentions towards us; rather than accusing Him in our heart of being unfair, or else feeling distant because we think God is punishing us. Understanding that even through our greatest trials, God has made a way that will lead us even closer to Him. Just as happened with Job.

Did We Lose the War? Let’s Count the Ways

2007-04-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

Why is it when Harry Reid said, “the war in Iraq is lost” – why did it create so much hysteria? Is saying that America lost the war, a little like saying that Mt. Rushmore is a monstrosity? It may be true, but still, it’s unpatriotic to say it? Or do you either get the point of Mt. Rushmore, or you don’t?

That the war is lost seems not so much an opinion as fact. One that becomes more obvious every day, not only in terms of the various body counts, but in all the possible ways there is to lose a war.

Most people count Vietnam as another war that we lost. But even though we lost a lot of lives and money in Vietnam, we certainly didn’t lose everything there was to lose. We didn't lose the cold war, for instance. We didn't lose our basic rights. The United States was certainly divided by the war in Vietnam, but afterwards we continued on, pretty much as we had before. It wasn’t like when, for instance, the Japanese lost WWII.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about the war in Iraq. The kind of monumental defeat we’ve suffered there may seem, in retrospect, much larger and more comprehensive than what happened in Vietnam. Maybe that’s why many people refuse to look at it honestly – they seem to be confusing the kind of defeat they fear and dread so much, with the one that’s already happened. It may be time to begin taking stock of all we have lost, rather than arguing with those who believe that staying in Iraq - that is, staying in denial - is more patriotic.

#1) The war was lost initially by making it impossible to succeed. By going into Iraq under false pretenses, Bush effectively sent our troops on a fool’s errand. He set them up to fail. There was no way American forces could ever win the war by accomplishing their mission of disarming Saddam, when in fact he never had WMD’s in the first place. And changing their mission afterwards, into something that was just as impossible – ‘democratization’ - couldn't change that central fact. It’s like sending a fireman into a buring building, to rescue a child that you know isn’t there. The best anyone could hope for is getting that fireman out alive – and the best we can ever hope for is getting what's left of our troops out alive.

#2) The war in Iraq was also lost, insofar as it was part of the larger ‘war on terror.’ If indeed our underlying goal was to defeat the terrorists in Iraq – which is how Bush usually likes to frame it - all we have done is make more terrorists. Instead of defeating them, were’re actually breeding and making more of them - we've transformed Iraq into the fertile womb of terrorism - and we will keep on making more of them, the longer that we stay.

That’s why it’s not enough to say that we’ve lost an important - though completley unnecessary - battle in the war on terrorism, without underlining the fact that Bin Laden keeps screwing us, and breeding more terrorists, the longer that we stay in Iraq. This is the war that keeps on losing, because it keeps on creating and training more terrorists.

#3) We’ve lost the war from a strictly militarily point of view. War at its most basic level is all about destroying the enemy’s forces and resources, faster than the enemy can use up your own. The insurgents/terrorists – whatever you want to call them - have succeeded in stretching US military forces to the breaking-point. The so-called ‘surge’ only served to highlight this fact for everyone to see. It made America’s loss - and the limits of American military power - that much more conspicuous. At the same time, the insurgency keeps adapting, and shows no signs of giving up. They keep growing in their ability to launch new attacks, while our entire volunteer army is on the brink of collapse.

#4) We’ve lost the war strategically, in terms of America’s ability to influence and effect change in the Middle East, and in the wider world. The most important thing to remember about being a superpower is that the wars you don’t win outright, you automatically lose. It's the natural consequence of creating high expectations. By getting America bogged down in a war we cannot win, and by dividing American forces instead of finnishing the job in Afghanistan, Bush has compromised America’s credibility as a military power. The perception of America as the world’s preeminent super-power was not something that could be overthrown on 9-11. It was instead the kind of power that has proven to be empty and useless on the streets of Baghdad.

#5) The illegal war in Iraq also represents a terrible loss and setback in the court of world public opinion. Much deeper, and probably more damaging and long lasting than the military loss, or the loss of prestige and credibility, are the long-term consequences of preemptively invading a nation that was no threat to us. Without the trust and cooperation of other nations – and particularly other Arab nations - it will be impossible to deter terrorist attacks on the United States in the future. The war in Iraq represents the end of America’s role as leader of the free world, and the beginning of Bush’s vision of America as a universally despised bully. A preemptive bully that most of the world now considers the greatest threat to peace and stability in the world.

#6) The war in Iraq represents a profound moral defeat for the basic values that we used to uphold. It’s wrong to say that Americans haven’t sacrificed anything for the war effort, when the values we’ve sacrificed at places like Abu Graib, are something previous generations of Americans always fought to preserve. When shameful torture is being committed in our name – we are no longer a civilized people. We may still be a very affluent and technologically advanced nation – but we are only barbarians in business suits.

#7) We’ve also lost some of our most important rights and freedoms. Bush took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic; he eneded up doing the opposite, by tearing up the Constitution, and making war on a nation that was no threat to us. Today, any American can be picked up, put in prison, held incommunicado, and tortured indefinitly; this is something that has never happened in this country before. In that sense, we’ve lost a very big part of what it meant to be a free, and under the rule of law.

#8) The loss in terms of the American military lives is about 3,350 to date. Though this is much less than the 57,000 killed in Vietnam, there is also a disproportionately high number of seriously wounded coming back from Iraq. In terms of civilian casualties, the Lancet study figured about 655,000 casualties in Iraq to date. By comparison, an estimated 365,000 civilians were killed in North and South Vietnam. What the numbers don’t show is how these civilian casualties - that are on par with many genocides - will translate into future terrorist attacks, with many more American casualties.

#9) There has been the unprecedented squandering of taxpayer dollars in Iraq. The Defense Department in the 1970s came up with a figure of $140 billion in direct military outlays between 1965 and 1974 for the Vietnam War. To date we have spent three times that - almost $422 billion in Iraq. Figuring out what that kind of loss really means involves more than just counting up all the dropped bombs, spent shells and wasted vehicles and aircraft. As General Eisenhower once said, ““Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

The killing fields of war has two sides, and what we don’t see every night on the news are the people who’ve died or been wounded from hunger, or lack of decent housing or medical care, primarily because our nation’s resources were funneled into killing rather than healing. We don’t see all the people who were never educated, the medical and scientific research that was never funded, and all the lives that were never given a chance. These losses are just as real as any on the battlefield. Instead of worrying so much about supporting the troops by keeping them posted where they don’t want to be, we should have been paying more attention to problems and issues and people who are getting no attention at all because of the war in Iraq.

Whether or not you think it’s time for American forces to pull out, there should be no debate about all the ways we have irretrievably lost the war in Iraq. General Sherman once said in the waning days of the Confederacy, “All the powers of earth cannot return to them their slaves, any more than they can get back their dead grandfathers.”

All the power that America has will never produce hidden WMD’s or a democracy in Iraq, and it will never stop motivating more terrorists in the meantime. It can never turn an illegal and unnecessary mistake into a legal and necessary war, nor can it restore our honor or basic civil rights, let alone get back our tax dollars, or bring back those who have already died in Iraq. If we still believe that it can, than we might as well be fighting to get back our dead grandfathers too.

Knuckling Under to the Gun Lobby

2007-04-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

With 33 students and faculty killed at Virginia Tech on Monday, you would think that we’d be ready for some reasonable gun laws. You’d be wrong. We’ve been through this so many times before, that everyone should know the drill by now. Incidents like this only give the NRA an excuse to sound the alarm and raise more money for lobbyists.

Instead of questioning the insanity of making guns so readily available to any Tom, Dick, or homicidal South Korean, we have gun nuts suggesting that if more students were packing guns, maybe this never would have happened. As if arming the entire student body would ensure that gun violence on campuses would decrease. Instead of psychoanalyzing Cho Seung-Hui – who is already brain-dead at this point - we ought to be checking the psychiatric records of people crazy enough to think that more guns are the solution to gun violence.

Exactly why is it that every time somebody advocates something like reasonable background checks for all gun sales, cooling off periods, or mandatory safety instruction - in order to help insure that criminals and the mentally disturbed are much less likely to acquire weapons - the same frantic cry always erupts from a certain segment of the gun community, complaining that we are taking away their guns? How could that be? Unless these rabid gun advocates are either criminals, or deranged individuals posing as average citizens?

The facts are clear: Conservative southern states with lax gun laws like Virginia have disproportionately high levels of gun crime, when compared to northeastern states with tougher gun control measures.

According to FBI's Uniform Crime Report, The South - which is also the most populous single region in the Nation - has a disproportionately high percentage of firearm-related murders and aggravated assaults. More specifically, while the South constituted 35 percent of the United States population in 2000, it accounts for 43 percent of murders and 44 percent of aggravated assaults that were firearm-related. In contrast to the Northeast, where there are usually more stringent laws, and which recorded a disproportionately low number of firearm-related murders and aggravated assaults, 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively. This region accounted for 20 percent of the Nation’s population.

In 2004, firearms were used to murder 56 people in Australia, 184 people in Canada, 73 people in England and Wales, 5 people in New Zealand, and 37 people in Sweden. By comparison, firearms were used to murder 11,344 people in the United States, while there were only 143 justifiable homicides by private citizens using handguns. That's nearly four times as many people as were killed on 9-11 who are being killed every year, but don't expect to hear about any war on gun violence. Even Australian Prime Minister John Howard says the latest shooting underscored the problems of a U.S. "gun culture.” While Britain asks, “Will This End 'America's Love Affair with Guns'?” Don't hold your breath.

Every weapon purchased in the US is about 24 times more likely to accidentally kill a person than to save anyone’s life. A gun kept in the home is *43* times more likely to kill a member of the household, or a friend, than to defend against an intruder. Children in the U.S. are 12 times more likely to die from firearm injury than are children in other industrialized nations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A Criminal Justice Research Center survey of prison inmates reports that only 27% of the adult inmates surveyed reported buying a handgun on the black market, while 69% acquired their handgun(s) from family, friends, private owners (at gun shows), or retail outlets.

The book “Gun Violence: The Real Costs” estimates that the financial cost of gun violence is at least $100 billion annually. That’s enough to insure every man, woman and child who is currently going without health insurance.

I’m tired of hearing, “this is the price of freedom’ when it’s the price of shameless irresponsibility. It’s the price of allowing the NRA to scuttle every chance at reasonable gun laws that comes down the pike. It’s the price of living with a lot of mentally confused gun-nuts, who seem to have mistaken their gun for their penis.

I’m also tired of sleazy politicians who dutifully line up to spit on the graves of the victims in these tragedies, by re-telling the same old lie over and over: that the second amendment mandates every loon, illiterate, and gangster-would-be, should always be able to buy any gun they can afford, without any government interference. The same tired and bogus, ‘it’s our sacred right’ argument that has no basis in law or fact.

“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” is the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Supreme Court decided in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, that possession of a firearm is not protected by the Second Amendment unless it has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. The Supreme Court has stated that today’s militia is the National Guard.

No gun control law brought before the Supreme Court has been overturned on Second Amendment grounds, including several local statutes outlawing handguns. Lower federal courts consistently follow the Miller decision that the Second Amendment does not protect an absolute individual right to keep and bear arms.{90} In U.S. v. Toner, 728 F.2d 115, 128 (2d Cir. 1984), the court states that gun possession is clearly not a fundamental right. In U.S. v. Swinton, 521 F.2d 1255, 1259, cert. denied, 424 U.S. 918 (1976), the court states there is no absolute constitutional right to possess a firearm.

Since the Miller decision, the Supreme Court has declined to hear any case brought on Second Amendment grounds, leading many legal authorities such as retired Chief Justice Warren Burger, Justice David Souter, and the American Bar Association to declare this legal issue settled law.

I'm concerned that our sacred right not to be shot will always be infringed by a privileged class of spoiled gun-owners, who expect the freedom to own a weapon, but without any of the attendant safeguards and responsibilities. The Declaration of Independence says that we all have a God-given right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And yet, all our lives will remain in constant jeopardy.

We must all learn to live with the fact that in America, we are 100 times more likely to be shot and killed than in any other country in the world (outside of Iraq). Not because this is the price of freedom, but because – oh gosh - we wouldn’t want to inconvenience gun owners. Our freedom to walk the streets at night, or even feel safe in our homes or classrooms, has been decisively compromised by an obscene proliferation of guns in the hand of the wrong people, and yet there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, given the power of the gun lobby.

We've seem to have created a privileged class of citizens – more commonly called NRA members - whose inherent right to avoid the proper responsibilities of gun ownership, so far outweighs the more basic right of every American citizen to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ that our only recourse is to hold our breath until the next tragedy.

Which may not be long in coming. The NRA is already working to pass laws that would make even murder perfectly legal. They're called the "Shoot First," "Make My Day," or "Deadly Force" laws, where instead of requiring gun owners who feel threatened to retreat when possible, it allows them to fire at will, regardless of the consequences. Some criminals have already been set free, while others and their lawyers are drooling at the prospect of using the NRA's "Shoot First" law as a legal defense. It’s the next logical step in America’s approach to gun violence.

We license both motor vehicles and their owners - we require training and periodic testing of drivers, and we insist upon mandatory safety measures such as seat belts, air bags, and liability insurance. And yet, all that's required to purchase and use a gun is cash and a bad attitude. Haven't you heard - it’s in the Constitution.

It’s time to stop pretending that most Americans care enough about massacres like Virginia Tech, to demand that anything be done about it. So let’s be more honest than we were after Columbine - because we will never learn our lesson. These periodic blood lettings have become an accepted American tradition. They are more like the sequels to an engaging action movie -though without the steep ticket price. School Massacre VI: The Korean Connection. They only add to the culture of violence, by inspiring more of the same.

So I say, why not change and amend our Constitution to formalize the privileged status of the gun-toting class. Let’s take out that nonsense about 'a well-regulated militia,’ as well as all those other rights that used to be guaranteed by the Constitution. After all, those student’s right to free speech was trumped by Cho Seung-Hui’s right to a gun. And Bush has already annulled just about every other right - including the right to a lawyer, the right not to be tortured, the right to privacy, and habeas corpus.

So let’s be honest with ourselves at least, and make gun ownership the only inalienable and God-given right that anyone has a right to expect in this country. Let’s make every American's convenience in aquiring an unlimited supply of guns and ammo, the entire goal and moral purpose of our country – inasmuch as it already is.
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Blknight18: “It is irresponsible for people to advocate policy changes based on
freak occurrences.”

I wasn’t advocating policy change because of what happened. I was saying that there won’t be any policy change in spite of what happened. A very similar massacre occurred in Australia, which caused them to dramatically re-think their gun laws. But bloodbaths like this one are now an accepted tradition in America. That was my point. It was largely because of the Brady Bill that Democrats lost Congress last time, and they’re not about to do the same thing again. Though Bush would love it if they tried.

Jr.: “Guns are one thing that America has that is preventing complete tyranny. I
believe this is just one more way of whittling away our civil liberties.”

You’re mistaken if you think that your gun is going to stop the government from taking it away. Guns are a fetish in America in that they represent the power over their lives many would like to have, but really don’t. In the same way that Cho Seung-Hui bought a gun and shot 33 people to compensate for his inner sense of powerlessness, many gun owners who feel they have no voice in their corporate government or dead-end corporate jobs, use guns to compensate for their own sense of powerlessness. That’s also why they interpret any attempt to regulate guns as an infringement upon that power. But this gun fetish is an illusion, and a self-defeating form of idolatry.

Hister: “Banning guns would do nothing to solve these types of events.”

I don’t know anyone advocating banning guns, but you’re right. Even though reasonable gun laws - as they exist in more civilized countries - might decrease the overall death rate due to guns, it will not in itself change the culture of violence that exists in America. That can only happen by a spiritual transformation similar to what happened in Rome after the rise of Christianity. The problem is that we have a heretical form of fundamentalist Christianity in America, one that is more compatible with war and violence than with teachings Jesus.

Suomynona: Luke 22:38 So they said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” And He
said to them, “It is enough.” Maybe some of you biblical scholars can tell
me just what our savior meant when he said this.

Jesus’ teaching are very clear regarding the use of violence. He said to turn the other cheek and love your enemies - not gun them down. The incident you quote is exactly the same. Though his disciples took weapons with them on the night Jesus was arrested, he forbade them to use them, saying “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” The message is that even though we may have available to us the means to stike out our enemies through the use of force, we are not to resort to violence, or we become just like them. Paul wrote about “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” If you’ve made a fetish out of your gun(s), you are not living in the power of the Spirit.

Matt: 1) “The study by Arthur Kellermann…has been repeatedly discredited.”

I’m sure the gun nuts have discredited in their own minds, every study that says having a gun in the home is more dangerous than not. Nevertheless, it’s absolutely true.

2) “The fact is, most self-defense uses are either
unreported, or not recorded unless a death or injury results.”

That isn’t a fact – that’s your baseless supposition. Everyone who uses a gun to defend themselves is legally bound to inform the police. If you’re saying that gun owners routinely disobey the laws relating to gun use, then they shouldn’t have guns because they’re not responsible users.

3) “The militia of the United States consists of
all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age”

If you want to march back and forth and pretend you’re in the militia, go right ahead. The reality is that this is 2007 – I’m not in a militia, nor is anybody that I know. The law as determined by the Supreme Court is exactly what I wrote: the militia is the national guard.

4) "Stand Your Ground" law... the victim or
bystander must REASONABLY believe that a violent crime…can be prevented by
force.

Shooting some teenager for trespassing on your property because you believed you were preventing a crime - when you could have just stayed in the house and called police - is really what we’re talking about here. You may think that’s OK, but I call it murder.
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Matt again: “guns are used far more to save lives (in over 90% of defensive gun
uses, no shots are fired) than to take them (especially accidentally).

I’m sure that’s what you’d like to believe. But you have nothing to back it up.

Another study at Harvard showed a direct link between gun availability and gun death among children.”

“children living in the five states with the highest levels of gun ownership were 16 times more likely to die from unintentional firearm injury, seven times more likely to die from firearm suicide, and three times more likely to die from firearm homicide than children in the five states with the lowest levels of gun ownership”

But I can site studies all day, and you will keep rejecting them (without offering any facts of your own) because you are immune to the facts. You have an irrational fixation on guns, and that’s why objective facts are not going to change your opinion.

“it's more dangerous to have a fire extinguisher in the house”

Show me a study that says more children have been killed by fire extinguishers than have been saved by them.

“I'm showing you US CODE saying that you and I are both in the militia.”

Under your definition, people over 45 couldn’t buy a gun. The second amendment talks about a “WELL ORGANIZED militia.” The Militia Act of 1903 split the old definition of a militia into two categories – the reserve militia (which is all able-bodied men between 17-45), and the organized militia, which consists of the national guard and naval militia. That’s why the Supreme Court has ruled for the past 75 years that “well organized militia” = national guard.

“Obviously, shooting unarmed teenagers in your front yard would not be
considered "reasonable" in court and you would go to jail.”

Think again. In a typical case, on September 5, 2004, Gary Lee Hill, 24, got into a fight with Amanda Padilla, 19, over a missing purse during a party at Hill's Potter Circle house in Colorado Springs. He got a rifle and ordered her and her friend, Alessandra Ash, out of the house.

The women later returned with Ms. Padilla's boyfriend, John Knott, 19, and Ms. Ash's boyfriend, Anthony Padilla. The four went into Hill's basement, where he was asleep, and Amanda Padilla punched him. That punch opened a gash in Hill's head, and it led to Hill getting a high-powered rifle, which he then went out and fired at the car in which John Knott was now sitting outside the house. Knott was unarmed and he never touched Hill, but he died of a gunshot wound to the back.

Gary Hill was acquitted in 2005 of murder charges after jurors found the shooting fell under the state's "make my day" defense, which allows residents to use deadly force against home intruders. If Hill knew he would have been convicted for shooting Knott in the back, Knott would probably still be alive today. And though he may have gotten off due to the legislative efforts of the NRA, in my book he's still a murderer.

Suomynona again: “A knee jerk response to a tragic situation is just that.”

Frankly, I'm finding this whole attitude that we can’t talk about the gun laws after incidents like this one, to be bizarre and insulting. It’s like saying that you can’t talk about terrorism after 9-11, because after all, that was the first terrorist attack in 10 years, and many more people die in car crashes. It’s bad enough that tragedies like this have become routine in America, but now we can’t even talk about how it might have been prevented? It’s like the NRA is now our politburo. We are all supposed to act as if guns are now sacred, and their availability is never to be talked about or questioned. Screw that. The first thing Bush and McCain said about this tragedy is that they support the second amendment. If that’s not sick, than what is?

Blknight18 again: “Hanchett put up the inflammatory pic and makes a claim that
it was those terrible southerners that made sure there was no law stopping Cho
from purchasing a gun.”

I said that gun violence is worse in states with more liberal gun laws, which is true. Virginia allowed Cho to buy two guns because Virginia is a “shall issue” state, meaning that they don’t spend a lot of time or effort on background checks. They do the bare minimum, because the goal is to get people their guns as quickly and easily as possible. In my state – California – Cho would never have been allowed to purchase a gun. California State law requires all gun buyers to go through a state-based criminal background check in addition to the federal NICS check. This includes checking both state and federal records, in order to prevent criminals and people with mental problems from buying guns.

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4/22/07 I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings with some of the things I wrote here – sometimes I go off half-cocked. I really didn’t mean to say that everyone who has a gun is a nut or is homicidal – my dad always had guns, and he loved to go hunting. Like many people, I was upset about what happened, and also frustrated by the fact that, even though I do believe better gun control laws could help to stop some (though certainly not all) of this kind of violence, there is likely no chance for that ever happening in the foreseeable future. I have nothing against responsible people owning guns. (Though I think they can be dangerous and counter-productive, especially if there are children in the house.) But I also believe that, even though many people like to call this a Christian nation, we seem to have put a whole lot more faith in guns and violence, than we’ve put in God.

Serving at the Pleasure of the People

2007-04-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

During the Congressional hearings over the fired US Attorneys, you couldn’t help hearing the same phrase over and over again (especially from Republicans) “they serve at the pleasure of the president.”

What the heck does that mean? Does it mean that whenever someone in the government is no longer pleasuring Bush, he can replace them with someone who will pleasure him more? Are we talking about prosecutors or prostitutes? Is he running the government or a brothel?

Just imagine if the boss called his secretary in to tell her that she was hired to pleasure him, and the minute she didn’t she was out the door. He’d be facing a sexual harassment lawsuit so fast your head would spin.

If you want to say that Bush has the power to fire almost anyone in the government (in one way or another), then just say it. We already know that. We know because he’s also been replacing career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division - apparently because they weren’t pleasuring him either. This isn’t about Bush’s power to fire people – it’s about why he did it, and what his pleasure is really all about. Does he take more pleasure in twisting our laws to suit his political ends than he does in establishing justice? Is that what really gets him off?

This “serving at the pleasure” malarkey is a throwback to medieval days when subjects served at the pleasure of their king. A king could wake up any morning and decide to chop somebody’s head off just because he had an off day, and because his word was the law. But Bush is not our king and his word is not our law. In our government the people are sovereign, and the president serves at our pleasure – we don’t serve at his.

The problem seems to be that Bush never realized, he is our employee. He can fire US Attorneys for political reasons, but we can have him fired (impeached) for corruption. He was hired to enforce our laws without fear or favor – not to rip our Constitution to shreds, while enforcing only those laws he wants, against whomever he chooses.

Many people don’t seem to understand that the real difference between tyranny and democracy isn’t in our laws, but in the rule of law - in how our laws are enforced, and who has been given the power to enforce them.

The Soviet Union had a wonderful Constitution with many wise, just and praiseworthy laws – just as Cuba, China and North Korea do today. The only problem is that those who have the power to enforce the laws are taking their marching orders from the party and the politburo, rather than fairly enforcing the laws as they exist on the books. Anyone deemed a threat to the party can be brought up on trumped-up charges. Then after they are tortured into confessing, they will usually sign a statement stating that the laws that strictly forbid torture were never violated. Meanwhile, those doing the party’s bidding can murder and violate any law, while prosecutors and the authorities look the other way.

That’s what I think about whenever I hear someone say, “they serve at the pleasure of the president.” I think about how our laws are being enforced to suit Bush’s pleasure and political agenda, rather than doing the job he signed on to do. I think about how easy it is to cross that line between the rule of law and political tyranny. I think about a study that showed in 229 cases of suspected political corruption being investigated by the Justice Department, 83 percent were investigations of Democrats, while only 16 percent were Republicans.

Tyranny doesn’t mind whether it gets in through the front or the back – swiftly and by way of a coup, or more gradually and stealthily, by way of increasingly corrupt and secretive government officials. However it gets in, it’s always much more difficult to ever get it out again.

Listening to Kyle Sampson declare 122 times during testimony "I don't remember" how he did his job, I couldn’t help thinking - who does this bozo think he’s working for? Who is he lying to protect, and why? Is it Bush? Carl Rove? The Federalist Society? Tony Soprano?

Doesn’t he realize that he works for the people? Didn’t anyone tell him anything? Hasn’t he been cashing our payroll checks all along? Did he think to list his severely impaired memory on his job application? Doesn’t he owe his employers – the American people - an honest explanation? Why does he believe it more honorable to lie to his employers, subvert the rule of law for political ends, and piss on our Constitution – rather than tell the simple truth? What Bible is he reading anyhow? I pity his next employer.

Why is it that Carl Rove can’t testify in public? Since when is some sleazy political operative too important to testify? Isn't he on our payroll as well? Why can’t Monica Goodling testify without perjuring herself? What is it with all these people? What have they been up to? What political cult are they involved with? What drugs are they taking? Why can’t they just tell the truth? Might it “embolden the enemy”? Has telling the truth become the moral equivalent of “validating the strategy of the terrorists”?

When Bush’s “priorities” and “pleasures” interfere with the pursuance of justice, then as a nation we have already crossed that line between a government of the people and political fascism. What many people seem to be overlooking in all this is that Bush, Rove, Cheney, together with their mafia of unethical right-wing lawyers – these people are all supposed to be working for us. I don’t give a damn what pleasures Bush. That’s between him and his wife. I only care whether he’s enforcing our laws without fear (of Carl Rove) or favor, and upholding the oath that he took. Clearly, he isn’t.

Bush loves to go around the country working on people’s emotions, pretending that he was “hired to protect the American people.” But that’s another bald-faced lie. The Constitution says that only Congress has the power both to declare wars and to fund them. In the same way Bush can fire an employee he once hired, Congress can end a war they first authorized, and stop funding a war they previously funded, or fund it only with specific conditions. The founding fathers expressly made Congress the ‘decider’ when it comes to waging war, because they understood how easily kings and dictators are apt to abuse that power.

When Bush took his oath of office, he said, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Notice that it says nothing about declaring endless wars, or using our troops to blackmail Congress into funding his foreign adventures. That’s called extortion. The president’s job is not to defend the American people, but to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic. He defends the Constitution from foreign enemies (including foreign terrorists) by fighting only those wars that Congress deems necessary to defend it. Not by going around the country pretending to be defending America. He already had his chance to defend America when he ended up dodging the draft instead.

The founding fathers knew that we could not always rely upon a president’s judgment when it comes to war. That a president might easily get carried away by personal greed and a lust for power, or else bog the country down in his own personal squabbles – as kings are apt to do. And you know what? They were absolutely right.

Waiting on the Lord

2007-03-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

Eze 22:14: “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the
days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.”

Intestinal fortitude is defined as ‘courage plus endurance.’ The phrase is also a literary euphemism for ‘guts’. Whenever a fish or animal is caught in the wild, the first thing usually done is to cut it open, de-gutting the animal by taking out its internal organs. For that reason, someone who has no guts is like captured prey that has quite literally lost their guts - while someone with ‘intestinal fortitude’ has the spirit, the courage - and the ‘guts’ - to live their life fully, even though they may be pursued by various difficulties.

People with courage still have problems, but having courage helps them to overcome their problems. They have the resources to act and live their lives fully, in spite of their problems and fears. Courage doesn’t necessarily make our fears go away - it enables us to overcome them.

Along with the courage to face our problem squarely, the other aspect of intestinal fortitude is endurance, or the ability to out-last a problem that can by its very nature be relentless. It’s a matter of having the courage to face and accept our problems, but also to be able to do this over time, even when we don’t feel like it. It’s having the resiliency and determination to pick ourselves up again and keep living our life in spite of how we may feel at the moment. Endurance is necessarily a skill, and one that must be learned over time.

The scriptures indicate that intestinal fortitude isn’t something we are born with, like blue eyes or brown hair. Having courage is ultimately a decision, and endurance is something we must learn over time. Intestinal fortitude – which is also known as having character - is something we either value and develop or we don’t. It’s something we either choose to have, or choose not to have.

The scriptures tell us that God is commanding all of us to, “be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid.” (De 31:6) God wants people to have character, and also to show us how to develop it. Just as fear and a faintness of heart are the consequences of ignoring God’s will and commandments, when we follow God’s command to be brave and constant, we are developing character.

If we’ve somehow gotten out of sync with God’s will, and we are feeling afraid, the best way to get back into sync is simply by being brave and deciding to trust God. Having courage is the sign that we are trusting, whereas fear and faintheartedness come naturally when we no longer trust. The more we can trust when we don’t see the way through, the more courage we’ll have to take chances, and to live our life more fully. That’s why both the righteousness of God and the courage it takes to live fully, come by way of trusting God. It’s our faith that gives us courage, and without faith, we have none.

The scriptures also say we should, “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD” (Psa 27:14) The scriptures say that having courage is basically a matter of developing a quiet and determined attitude of always waiting on the Lord. This in turn is what strengthens our heart. Exercising our faith in this way is the heart’s calisthenics. The more we decide to exercise our faith by waiting on the Lord - when the alternative is giving into fear - the stronger our heart becomes, and the more faith we’ll have to exercise. This is how God strengthens our faith over time, and gives our life character.

Whenever we are confronted by major difficulties in life, with problems that make us afraid, and whenever we feel like running away, we can always do one of three things:

#1 We can give into fear and let all our problems and fears dictate how we will live our lives - in which case we’ll spend our life always running away from them. By giving into our fears we are eventually ruled by them. or

#2. We can try to solve certain problems that are really too much for us on our own. This is the other extreme. When we follow this route, we’ll eventually end up in the same place as #1 – discouraged, beaten down, and overcome by our problems and fears in one way or another. Because there will always be problems in life that are simply too much for us to handle on our own. What’s more, they were meant to be, because that’s how God keeps us humble, and reminds us that we are only human. By making ourselves and our ego the god of our life – and by dealing with life’s challenges by trying to control everyone and everything - we will always end up failing, and eventually get bogged down in addictive and dysfunctional behaviors. Thinking that we can solve every problem on our own means that we’re setting ourselves up for failure in one way or another. We’ll eventually become addicted, discouraged or faint-hearted, often doubting our ability to handle even the smallest of problems.

God isn’t asking us to solve all our problems on our own, or to be able to overcome all our fears and anxieties without any help. Some problems are too overwhealming to handle on our own. Being spiritual and becoming a Christian isn’t about being completely self-reliant; it’s about learning how to rely more completely upon God. It’s about developing an attitude and way of living that invites the presence of God into our life more and more.

Dr. Charles Stanley (who I disagree with about most things) once said: “Self-reliance is considered a personal strength and an admirable quality by most of society, but it is poison to the soul that would depend on God. The soul that is self-reliant is neither led by God, nor truly submitted to God. The one who trusts in self certainly does not want to die to self! He will not allow God to do this necessary sanctifying work within him. Thus, for the self-reliant, there is no rest. (Heb. 3:16-4:11).

Which brings us finally to the third option, and the kind of courage that God is asking from us. It’s the sort of courage that is always waiting and trusting in the Lord’s help. God defines courage as hoping and trusting in Him, and that’s really what He’s commanding us to do. Not that we should consider ourselves self-sufficient, and able to tackle any problem on our own, without any help from Him – that isn’t courage, that’s plain arrogance, and very delusional at that. Because however strong and resilient people think they are, there will always be problems that will prove stronger than they are. God isn’t asking us to handle every problem on our own – He’s only asking us to trust Him, to have courage, to always hope, to wait for Him, and to basically work as a team.

Very often, people who outwardly seem the strongest or most successful are often running away the fastest from what they fear the most – from issues like poverty, loss, insecurity, shyness, or low self-esteem. They haven’t really overcome the most critical issues in their life – they haven’t yet faced them squarely. Instead, our entire life can become our way of running away from our fears. Why? Because we started out trusting in our self-sufficiency, rather than trusting and waiting on God for the answers. Worldly success is very often the end product of a desperate fear of failure and what other people think, and an unnatural fear of acknowledging our limitations and weaknesses as human beings. Wealth and success can seem like the proof of our omnipotence - until we get sick and discover we can’t take them with us. Until we learn how to face our fears with God, they will always come back to haunt us in one way or another.

Waiting on God is knowing that He will find a way to help us through the present difficulty, however long it takes. We don’t need to run away from our problems, and we don’t need to struggle on our own. We can give the burden over to God, and learn how to catch our breath. Waiting on God is a way of renewing our strength in the face of great difficulties. It doesn't mean running away from our problems, and it doesn’t mean tackling problems that are too big to handle alone. It means knowing that God can help us overcome what we could never do alone.

Overcoming Fear

2007-03-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Le 26:36 “I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.”

Fear is basically a biologically determined response to a perceived threat. Fear and anger are two sides of the “flight or fight” response that automatically pumps adrenaline into our system, enabling us to either flee (fear) or confront (anger) the danger. The problem is that unlike most animals, when people are afraid or get angry, it’s seldom because of some direct physical threat, but much more often because of some perceived threat to our self-esteem or ego. Fear and anger in human beings is usually grounded in human pride. It's the kind of fear that derives from the fact that we’re always trying to judge and control others and make them bend to our will, and when they don’t, we perceive it as a threat to our own security, self-esteem, or happiness. Whenever we try to control something or someone over which we really have no control, our behavior becomes dysfunctional, and we react with the kind of fear or anger that’s inappropriate.

Through Moses, God gave the people of Israel certain commandments and laws to live by. He also gave them a choice in whether they would follow these laws. More than that, He laid out the consequences of disobedience, so they would know beforehand the repercussions involved in whether or not they chose to obey. The full consequences of disobedience were not simply in suffering the penalties prescribed within the law itself, but in being tormented and burdened with the kind of fear that can easily overcome us whenever we are living our lives without the presence and protection of God. The Law of Moses was not originally instituted to keep people in constant fear of breaking the law, but rather to deliver them from the kind of fear that our pride inevitably produces whenever we presume to defy the will of God. Obeying God doesn’t mean living in constant fear, though certainly some religious people would like to make us think it does. It’s really about exchanging our fears for the grace and protection of God.

Those who obey the law are also protected by the law, and those who do the will of God are protected by His grace. By doing God’s will rather than our own we become free from the sort of fear that is rooted in human pride. It’s when we presume to have control over situations and people over which we have either no right or no ability to control that we put ourselves in direct opposition to the will of God. When we live our lives completely out of sync with the will of God, refusing to accept the real challenges he’s given to us to face in life, the end result can be that we become too afraid to really live our life at all. We’re alive, but not really living. We’re just surviving or getting by, and we can become paralyzed by all our fears.

It only makes sense that whenever we live in opposition to God’s will that somewhere deep down we realize we can’t possibly win. The more we try to make others bend to our will, the more we become the victims of our own pride. We can never defeat God’s will, and we have no right to control, to judge, or to condemn other people, as much as we may like to pretend otherwise by playing god. When we try to control others, it’s our own life that is controlled by our fears - and the more we condemn others, the more the spirit of condemnation can eventually permeate our entire being, so that everything we do can seem destined to fail. So like a man who commits a crime, and then lives his entire life running away from the law – we can live our life afraid and running away.

The antidote to human pride and the kind of fear it produces comes when we turn our will and our life over to God’s care, and accept Christ as our savior. Just as fear comes naturally when we are living under God’s condemnation, courage comes by way of faith to those abiding in the grace of God. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Ro 8:1) As long as we are doing what our pride demands, fear will always rule over our life, and everything we do will become our way of running away from God. The same fear is what keeps us in bondage to our flesh, and that’s why fear is the primary instrument of the devil. But once we decide to do God’s will instead of our own, the courage of Jesus’ sacrifice and the spirit of his victory gain dominion over the fears of our flesh. We effectively die to our flesh and to our fears so that we can live more fully in Christ.

There are many religious people who claim to be doing God’s will, though they really aren’t. The way the Bible says we can know whether we have turned our will and our life over to God is when we love our neighbors as ourselves. “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Gal 5:14) Love is the fulfillment of the law, because God is a God of love. “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1Jo 4:7-8)

When we love others without judging, condemning or trying to control them – even praying for those who hurt us, and doing good to those who do us evil - we’re no longer condemned by the law, or shackled to our fears either. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear:…He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” (1Jo 4:18) “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Ti 1:7)

The power of God’s love is in its ability to free us from the fear that made us slaves to our flesh. Our illusion was that by fearing and hating those who may have injured us, or who may have threatened our interests, we were only protecting ourselves. So instead of fearing God alone and relying upon His protection, we came to fear other people. We learned to use fear and anger to protect ourselves (or at least, our inflated view of ourselves). Instead of trusting God, we made an un-holy alliance with our fears – to do whatever they were telling us to do, rather than listening for what God was saying.

Unfortunately, the more we tried to protect ourselves, and the more we resented others for not bowing down to our interests or doing what we thought was right, the more our life was controlled and dominated by our fears and resentments. Instead of protecting us, these fears only increased and came to rule over us like tyrants, often manifesting in various addictions. This only stands to reason. Because the world wasn’t created to do our bidding, but to do the will of God; so that the more we irrationally feared or hated others for not conforming to our interests or doing what we thought was right, the more our world was defined by everything we ultimately feared and hated because it was out of our control. Just as it says, “The fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoever puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” (Pro 29:25)

In the end, we can either be ruled by our fears, or come to accept God’s authority over our life. The kind of decision we make will determine not only the kind of life we lead, but also color our view of the world. Whether we live in a very frightening world full of peril, or in a world full of God’s love, grace, and blessings, depends upon our decision and who we trust and are really listening to – our fears, or God.

The Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10, Pr 1:7, Pr 9:10). What exactly does that mean? It means that when we decide to fear God alone, and we trust Him to protect us (rather than trusting our fears), we can finally begin to see and understand the world as it really is, and exactly as God actually created it. Not as if the world was something created to conform to my will or understanding, or to do my bidding - but to do God’s will, according to His own purposes.

Wisdom isn’t possible as long as we are looking at the world through the eyes of all our fears and resentments, as if the world was only an extension of our childish pride and magical power. Wisdom happens when we mature spiritually, and begin to perceive the world through the eyes of God’s infinite love, and according to His higher understanding and purpose. The reason we fear only God is so that we can become wise enough to rejoice with God in what He created, rather than despising what all our fears invented. We make our fears subject to His will so that our life can be guided by His grace and wisdom, rather than being pursued through life by all our fears, and finally ending up where “even the sound of a shaken leaf will chase us.”

Make no mistake - fear can very easily take over our life, and most people’s lives are defined by all their fears in one way or another. Even what is called ‘success’ in the world is usually the result of some underlying fear of failure and poverty, which is why the wealthy seldom seem happier or more secure. But when we can face our fears squarely - knowing that nothing can ever happen to us that God can’t heal and make right again – we find peace, and discover how the only thing we have fear is fear itself, and the consequence of relying upon our pride. The proper response to fear and the harm others do to us should always be in seeking God more intimately, rather than seeking revenge, or always seeking to expose or change others. We fear God alone so that we can ultimately have nothing to fear from others.

It’s not that we should go around always feeling afraid of what God may do to us – that’s the opposite of living in the grace of God. We make all our fears subject to His will and authority so that we will ultimately have nothing to fear. In the same way that we keep all our money in the bank so that we can know it’s safe and secure – we keep all our fear in God knowing that He will keep us safe and secure. We don't need to look to others for self-esteem because we are the children of God.

When we are no longer living in the shadow of our fears, we can begin to live more in the sunshine of God’s grace, knowing that we’ve turned our will and life over to His care. Not that we no longer have any fears – realistically speaking we may even have more to fear if we are being persecuted for our faith. But our fears no longer need to rule over us, as long as God is ruling over us. Our fears become subject to His will, and He is faithful to give us the courage to overcome our fears – mostly by learning how to ‘love our enemies, do good to those who curse us, and praying for those who despitefully use us, and persecute us.’ (Mt 5:54) The way of overcoming our fears is by learning to love our neighbors unconditionally. By changing our habits and the way we react to our fears, we are also changing the way we live our life, and the way we relate to God. Not that we can do all this overnight, or by some force of our own will (which was really the problem in the first place), but by putting our faith in God, we look each day for the grace to do what we couldn’t do alone, and to love in a way that we couldn’t before.

Jesus said, “Fear them not therefore, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid, that shall not be known.” (Mt 10:26) We don’t need to expose all the religious hypocrites in the world, or make everyone pay for their evil actions – God already sees and knows what’s going on, and He will bring everything into the light in His own time. But how we react to our fears today can mean the difference between living a condemned life in a world full of imminent danger, and discovering that eternal life full of blessings from God. By loving our enemies rather than reacting to our fears, we are fulfilling the law and no longer living under God’s condemnation. We have escaped the tyranny of our fears to find refuge in the grace of God.

Living In the Wilderness

2007-02-28T13:17:00.000-08:00

De 31:6 “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

While wandering through the wilderness, the people of Israel would never stop complaining. Every time they confronted some difficulty, they complained and threatened to rebel. Sometimes they wanted to go back to Egypt to become slaves again, and sometimes they reverted to pagan idolatry. Whenever they were short of food, water, or their enemies threatened to attack, they were sure to start complaining. Even though Moses and the Lord had already seem them through every difficulty. They were on the verge of entering the Promised Land when once again all their fears got the better of them. So after spending two years in the wilderness, they ended up spending another thirty eight, because they didn’t have the courage to enter in.

It just didn’t make any sense. You would have though they would have learned their lesson. You would have thought after seeing the red sea parted, they would no longer question God’s faithfulness or Moses’ leadership from that point forward. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a matter of miracles so much as character. It wasn’t that there were not enough miracles, but that miracles alone were not enough to change their character.

Jesus makes the same point while telling the story of Lazarus (Lu 16:19-31). Lazarus was the poor man who went to heaven, while the rich man who had ignored Lazurus’ plight ended up in hell. While in hell, the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus to his brethren as a sign to warn them, so they wouldn’t end up where he was. Abraham pointed out that if they won’t listen to the prophets God had already sent, they won’t believe in any miracles sent from heaven. The rich man was already evidence of that. The very fact that this rich man wanted Lazarus to give up his place in heaven in order to do his bidding again on earth, only demonstrated that his own heart and character hadn’t changed at all. In spite of ending up in hell, he hadn’t learned his lesson.

It didn’t matter how many miracles God performed for Israel as they wandered in the wilderness, or how many times He delivered them from trouble. The problem was their character, and the fact that they were still thinking and acting like slaves. They wanted someone to take care of them and force them to do everything – just like their Egyptian masters had done – rather than taking the initiative and trusting God. There’s no question they wanted to be a free people in their own land. Nevertheless, they were still behaving like slaves in Egypt.

Jesus makes a similar point about his own disciples. While he was praying in Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion, even though he’d asked his disciples twice to watch and pray for him, they kept falling asleep. Finally, he told them, “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26:41) And as if to prove him correct, they would all soon desert him when he was arrested. In the same way that Israel had followed Moses for two years in the wilderness, only to get cold feet when courage mattered most, and it was time to enter the promised land - the twelve disciples followed Jesus during the two years of his ministry, only to desert him just when he needed them most.

It wasn’t that their flesh was weak and needed to be strengthened and fortified – that wasn’t what Jesus was saying. It was that their flesh had made them weak, and unable to do what the spirit of God required. Their flesh was too overpowering, and still directing their lives. That’s why they kept falling asleep even though they intended to stay awake, and why they later ran away - even though, like Peter, they deeply regretted what they had done. Their spirit was willing and their hearts were in the right place even though - like the people of Israel - they lacked the courage to follow through, and ran away to save their own skin. In contrast with Jesus who prayed, “not my will, but thine.” Even though Jesus wanted to live on in the flesh, (for he had humbled himself as a man, and so had the same flesh and instinct for self-preservation as other men), he became committed to doing God’s will rather than what his flesh required, and ultimately sacrificed his life to save the world.

St.Paul makes the same point (Ga 5:17) “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” It wasn’t that the disciples didn’t believe in Jesus, or hadn’t seen enough miracles. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was their flesh - all their fears and their instinct for self-preservation - was still too strong and too much in control of their lives. They were too enslaved to their flesh to be as courageous as they would have liked to have been – Peter especially. Though eventually they would go through trials and be persecuted for being Christians so they would have the courage to spread the Gospel.

The same was true for the people of Israel. They were born and raised as slaves and taught to fear and be dependent upon their masters. They were too enslaved to all their doubts and fears to take hold of the Promised Land as free men and women. Slavery is a condition where people must live in constant fear of their master’s power over them, whereas freedom is a condition where our fear and awe must be reserved for God alone. To the extent that we fear anything or anyone other than God, and give into that fear, we are still controlled by our flesh, and not yet completely free.

The process by which God builds character and frees us from enslavement to our fears and flesh is often a long and arduous process. It doesn’t mean we’re bad people and God is punishing us, or that we don’t have faith – it’s God's way of strengthening and enabling our faith. “every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” (Joh 15:2) Our spirit is willing, but the extent to which we are living in our flesh we are still weak. That's why God uses trials to teach us how to live in the Spirit.

Before Moses ever led his people into the wilderness, and before he ever saw the burning bush, God had already led and tested him for forty years in the very same wilderness, after Moses first gave into his fears and ran away from Egypt. The difference between Moses and the rest of Israel is that he’d already done his time in the wilderness, and now was helping them do theirs.

Before Jesus ever started his ministry, he also did his own time in the wilderness – forty days and forty nights without any food or water. Why would Jesus need to be tested in this manner, since he was without any sin and the only Son of God? Because Jesus was also still a man, and every man and woman must be tested and undergo certain hardships in life in order to build and strengthen their character. There is no other way. If there was, we would certainly all take it. But since there isn’t, we must all suffer certain trials in life, while maintaining our faith in God.

We can choose to blame God for allowing bad things to happen, and for leading us into the wilderness - but we cannot really blame Him for keeping us stuck there, since that’s to a large extent our choice: Whether we are resenting God and waiting for a miracle, or accepting what has happened and seeking the courage to overcome it. Whether or not we come out of the wilderness with more courage, or ever come out at all (those who were once slaves in Egypt never came out) depends upon our faith, and His ability to strengthen and build character. It’s not a matter of God performing miracles for us, but by confessing our faults and weaknesses, we ask Him to remove our defects of character. The real miracle is how God can turn the weakness of our flesh into the courage to live life more fully.

Supporting the Troops = Getting More of Them Killed

2007-02-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

What’s wrong with that equation? Probably no lie is more aggravating than the one that says in order to support the troops, we have to get more of them killed for Bush’s mistake.

Saying Congress must fully fund Bush’s mistake, is like saying that when delinquent children make the mistake of using drugs, their parents must support them by continuing to dole out (to their drug pushers) the money to support their habit, so they can destroy their lives. What kind of parents are they? And what kind of Americans are we when supporting our troops becomes the moral equivalent of enabling a fear-pushing president? Just because Bush would like us all to view the situation in an irrational manner doesn’t mean we have to fall for it - again.

Let’s make something absolutely clear from the get-go: There has never been a president who used, abused, and carelessly tossed away the lives of servicemen like this one. Bush uses up American lives like a bad gambler spends poker chips. The way our under trained, under equipped, and overly used and abused military force in Iraq has been treated has been nothing short of criminal, and from beginning to end.

Using the same reservists and National Guard troops over and over like gang-raped whores caught in a back-door draft – when all they really want is to get on with their lives – is nothing short of pathological, especially coming from a man who joined the National Guard in order to avoid fighting in a war. It’s as if he’s now punishing the National Guard (and the military generally) for his underlying cowardice and lack of patriotism.

When the troops are killed they’re treated just like spent shells and forgotten – nobody can even photograph their coffins, and heaven forbid that Bush would attend one of their funerals. If on the other hand, they’re lucky enough to only be wounded and permanently disabled, then they will have to contend with the effect of Bush’s cuts for the VA. They are likely to have their pay cut and be left struggling with the red tape and shortages that are never experienced by civilian contractors, who are literally throwing around wads of cash.

I mean seriously – cannon fodder is too mild a word for how Bush has treated the military. It’s something that goes beyond just wanting to involve as few Americans as possible for purely political reasons. Many retired Generals have recognized the same thing, which is why so many of them have come out to oppose his policies, to try to save the military. Even though they are mostly conservative Republicans, and this has been completely unprecedented. They know more than most Americans how far this administration has betrayed and brutalized the men and women in uniform.

Then again, that’s the risk you always take whenever you make a draft dodger the commander in chief. At least Clinton was a principled draft dodger in that he came out publicly against the Vietnam War. At least it’s morally consistent. But Bush was a weasely and unprincipled draft dodger (and so was Cheney) because they both supported the war, and yet did everything they could to avoid fighting in it.

It’s like when you’re a kid, and someone dares you to do something you don’t have the guts to do. You naturally want to get back at those kids who had the courage to do what you didn’t. The war in Iraq now seems like Bush and Cheney’s way of getting back at the military for proving they were cowards. I’m not saying it’s the only thing – there’s also greed and all that oil – but it’s a contributing factor that helps to explain how the troops have been treated in the meantime.

Yet even if Bush was supporting the troops rather than getting them killed and shamelessly using them (the ones still alive) in photo-ops – it would still be a mistake to say we must continue funding the war to support the troops. Because that would mean we are getting them killed for their sake rather than our national interest, and that’s clearly irrational.

If we’re allowing the troops to risk and sacrifice their lives – only because we’re afraid that somehow ‘the terrorists will follow them home’ – they’re really being used as cannon fodder, to protect us from our irrational fears. Not that fear of terrorism is completely irrational (though it has been blown out of all proportion), but any fear that compels us to make more terrorists in Iraq in order to defend against terrorism - that is clearly irrational. Especially since Al Qaeda has made a big comeback in Afghanistan and Pakistan, at the same time that we’ve been tied down in an Iraqi Civil War. That's why we need to look closer at how this irrational belief system concerning Iraq really came about.

Bush’s entire approach to fighting terrorism has always been a fatally flawed and senseless strategy because it’s all about giving into his irrational fears, rather than standing up to international terrorism (and particularly how it is being supported by countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan). Bush and Cheney are the same cowards/draft dodgers they always were (though now they have a lot more security and protection). The real difference is that cowards with power become bullies, even though deep down they are still very afraid.

Psychologically speaking, Bush and Cheney are still dodging the war, even though they’ve become war mongers. Their strategy in Iraq should be viewed from the perspective of avoiding responsibility (including any responsibility for their mistakes) by keeping themselves (and most Americans) out of the real war on terrorism, so that they (and we) will never have to make any real sacrifices, or change our lives one iota.

We can still keep guzzling oil and driving SUV’s and never worry about the consequences of our dependence on oil (while they can get much richer because of it), because those kind of sacrifices will be borne disproportionately by that very small proportion of the population unlucky enough to be connected to the military when Bush declared his ‘war on terror.’ (We should have taken Bush quite literally, because the war in Iraq is really the way he’s dealing with his personal insecurities and inadequacies as president.)

Just as Bush and Cheney stayed safe at home and sent others to die in their place in 1968, now they want to send others to die in their place in Iraq, so that they can feel safe at home. It’s the same thing. They are the same draft dodgers, and they are conducting this war from the same perspective. Only now, they’ve made us into a nation of draft dodgers in a war of perpetual terror. Our part is to stay afraid, be good shoppers, drive big cars, and just continue our lives just as if there wasn’t any war.

Just as it was irrational for Bush and Cheney to pretend they were supporting the war in Vietnam by shirking their duty and dodging the draft, it’s just as irrational to pretend that they (and we) are fighting a war on terrorism, by sending our troops to die in Iraq. The reason they can’t see how irrational and flawed their strategy really is, is because they are still reacting to their fears rather than viewing the situation more objectively.

A more rational and objective viewpoint would say that by dodging the draft they really weren’t supporting the war in Vietnam (they were only protecting their hide)…. and a more rational and objective view now would say that by continuing the war in Iraq, we are only making more terrorists rather than defeating them. That’s the reality. But when fear takes over, reality and rationality take a hike. That’s just the way our brains work.

Like I’ve said before – 9-11 only reminded Bush and Cheney how scared they really were. It regressed them psychologically, so they could re-enact their past experience with Vietnam, and how they dealt with their fears then. That’s why Bush said the lesson of Vietnam was, “We’ll succeed unless we quit.” Because emotionally, he’s still supporting while also dodging the same war. It's why they can seem so cut-off from the realities of what's going on in Iraq, that they say things like, "“The bottom line is that we've had enormous successes." The bottom line is that they are measuring success by their subjective fears and feelings.

They can’t see that the war in Iraq is a terrible blunder because they’re acting out what makes then feel less afraid, rather than what would make our country more secure. They’re still defining the national interest by their own subjective feelings, rather than by the facts on the ground. It wasn’t in our national interest that they dodge the Vietnam draft – and it isn’t in our national interest that they continue the war in Iraq. But they can’t see that because they’re letting their fear do all their thinking. They have fully developed lizard brains. This is especially true with bullies like Dick Cheney, who measure their courage by how completely their actions are controlled by their underlying fears.

Supporting the war in Vietnam while remaining safe at home made both of them feel much more secure during the turbulent period of the 60’s…so that’s the position they took, and what they did. They were overly-afraid of communism, but also too afraid to fight for their country. That’s why they supported the war in Vietnam, while dodging the Vietnam draft. Now they’re overly-afraid of terrorism, but also too afraid to admit their policies are making more terrorists. That’s why our troops are stuck in Iraq, so that they can feel more secure within themselevs. Their feeling that ending our involvement in Iraq would allow the terrorists to invade our country is an irrational fear, based upon their emotional history, and a time when they supported the Vietnam War in order to feel more safe and secure while at home. Yet, just as the communists didn’t take over the world after North Vietnam took over South Vietnam, the terrorists aren’t going to invade our country just because we leave the civil war in Iraq to the Iraqis.

The real problem is that Bush and Cheney have always been ruled by their fears rather than by principals (like duty, honor, integrity, and selflessness) that would have enabled them to finally face and overcome their fears. It may be too late for them and their personal ‘war on terror’ – but it’s not too late for our country to do the right thing and bring our troops home. Bush and Cheney will always be caught up in the quicksand of their fears, reliving the past, and determined to drag our country down with them. The same kind of fear that kept us in Vietnam for eight years could keep Americans needlessly dying in Iraq for years to come, unless we get a handle on our fears, and begin viewing the situation more honestly and objectively. Because the same way people can be controlled by their fears, and become destined to reliving the mistakes of their past - so can nations.

What seems to protect us from our fears is dysfunctional and self-defeating when our thinking becomes irrational, and we feel compelled to keep repeating the same mistakes. Continuing a war that is only recruiting more terrorists is irrational. Supporting our troops by getting more of them killed for a mistake is irrational. Thinking we can now fix a disaster that our presence has brought about is also, ultimately, irrational.

We may have broken their country, but we don’t own their country. (Though Bush, Cheney, and the oil companies would like to own it). Only the Iraqis can fix their own country, because they are the ones who own it. That may not be fair – and we may have to suffer the consequences of our mistakes in Iraq for a long time to come – but that’s just the way it is. That's reality. (I never voted for Bush either, and look at the sort of country I ended up with.) Life isn’t fair, and we all have to live with the consequences other people’s mistakes - even in a democracy. We can only make the best of it.

The Iraqis are going to have to make the best of the mess we’ve left them, while our duty is to bring our troops home, and stop prolonging this bloody mistake. Our duty is to hold those responsible, accountable. That’s the kind of support that we owe the troops now. Pretending it wasn’t a mistake is only digging the hole deeper for both ourselves and the Iraqis. It’s time for Americans to face their fears and stop digging more graves in Iraq.

Fear or Freedom? The Rule of Law or the Law of the Jungle?

2007-02-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

The Constitution, Article II, Section 4: ”The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

By leading our nation into a war based upon lies, Bush has committed the most grievous act of treason in our nation's history. By conspiring with oil companies and others commercial interests to trade American blood for corporate dollars, he has engaged in the most demonic form of calculated bribery since Judas sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. And by constructing illegal prisons, conducting illegal torture, illegally tapping our phones, illegally reading our private mail, issuing un-Constitutional signing statements, outing CIA agents, suspending habeas corpus, and committing countless other high crimes and misdemeanors, he has literally turned the executive branch of our government into a criminal enterprise, and turned America into a police state.

The first and most urgent reason to remove these criminals from office is simply to restore the rule of law. Our founders recognized how it was of paramount importance to preserve the rule of law which this regime has worked so mightily to break down and destroy – to preserve that sacred principal that no man, no woman, no president, and no vice president is above the law. It is absolutely necessary to remove them from office in order to save our country. We cannot have both. If they only had two more weeks to serve, it would be all the more urgent that they be impeached and tried for their crimes. We cannot allow one man or a conspiracy of men in high office to systematically break down the rule of law, and still be protected by the rule of law ourselves. We MUST either try, convict, and punish all those who break the law – regardless of how rich and powerful they are - or learn to live with the fact that the law really doesn’t mean anything anymore.

Then we no longer have the rule of law, but the law of the jungle, where the rich and powerful are allowed to kill, rob, torture, and enslave whomever they please, just because they are richer and more powerful than anybody else. A civilized society can only be maintained by bringing the richest and most powerful criminals to justice, and making them accountable to the law. Because some of them will always do everything they can to revert to the law of the jungle, where they see themselves as kings, completely above the law.

The founders of our nation - who knew what it was like to live under the thumb of a king and tyrant - understood better than most Americans today that to protect ourselves from would-be kings, we MUST impeach and punnish all those who would act like kings. Otherwise, we are no longer a democratic republic. We may be a monarchy, a dictatorship, a theocracy, or a corporate oligarchy – but without the rule of law we are no longer a democratic republic.

The central political battle in the United States from its inception has always been between those who would like to break down the rule of law and revert to some form of monarchy - where a privileged few are ruling over everyone else though fear - and those defending the rule of law, our basic human rights, and our democratic institutions. What Bush is now doing by breaking down the rule of law can only be understood in the context of what Republicans have been doing to our country for at least for the past 40 years.

It was Nixon who broke the law and covered-up a burglary committed by his operatives, as well as committing other assorted crimes while in office. For this, he ought to have been impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But instead he resigned, and was then foolishly pardoned. Even though he broke the law, he was never tried and convicted for all his crimes, and a bad precedent was set (and one that criminals like Dick Cheney revel in today). It signaled to everyone that future presidents could break the law as much as they wanted, and at worst they must resign if they’re caught, though only if their party doesn’t control Congress. The critical safeguard in the Constitution that was wisely laid down to protect the rule of law was never properly used. Consequently, the rule of law suffered, while the law of the jungle and right of kings gained a critical foothold in the highest office in the land.

Then along came Reagan, another would-be king. He systematically broke the law by secretly selling arms to Iran, and using the illegal proceeds to fund an undeclared war in Nicaragua – when Congress had already passed a law specifically saying this was illegal. Yet once again, instead of impeaching Reagan and removing him from office, and then convicting him of his flagrant felonies committed while in office, Reagan pleaded ignorance (or senility), and a foolish Democratic Congress decided not to hold him responsible, because they were already thinking about the next election, and didn’t want to divide the nation. Just like today, the Democrats were more concerned about the short-term politics of impeachment, than the long-term effect of neglecting their duty to preserve the rule of law.

Eventually, even those who were later convicted of crimes involving Iran/Contra, were later pardoned by George H W Bush. Consequently, many of the same people who got away with their crimes 20 years ago, are now working for Bush II and committing even greater felonies today. Though Reagan’s crimes were even worse than Nixon’s, and he succeeded in breaking down the rule of law even more, he and his co-conspirators never suffered any consequences. If they had, we would not be where we are today.

So after doing so much to break down the rule of law while still getting away with it, the Republicans became encouraged like a drunkard on a binge, and they continued to even further break down respect for the law by mocking the Constitution and impeaching a president who lied about a sexual affair. They demonstrated how it really doesn’t matter what you’ve done, whether your private life should remain private, or whether you’ve really committed any crime at all. Because those who hate the rule of law and love the rule of kings and dictators, will always abuse their power by invading your privacy, investigating you incessantly, and bringing you up on trumped-up charges– much as in any other police state. A police state is the opposite of the rule of law – it’s the rule of a dictator's will or a political ideology rather than the law. A police state is the natural extension of the law of the jungle. It was their own radical ideology Republicans were trying to impose on America by impeaching Clinton – not the rule of law.

Since the Democrats had failed to use impeachment to protect the rule of law, Republicans were prepared to use the law and the power of impeachment for purely political ends, and in doing so they once again made a mockery of the law and the Constitution. The rule of law is damaged not only by letting the real criminals go unpunished, but by using the law to make criminals out of people who really aren’t criminals, for purely political purposes. That’s why the impeachment of Clinton did even greater damage to the rule of law than all the crimes of Nixon and Reagan had done previously. Because it demonstrated that Republicans had already crossed that line in their own minds between a third-rate burglary and a police state.

The next inevitable step came when they overthrew the Constitution, the will of the voters, and the presidential election in 2000, in order to install their own hereditary king. Bush has never been a lawfully elected president – he has ALWAYS been a king and tyrant who came to power in bloodless coup. So why would anybody expect a king to uphold the rule of law, when kings have always considered themselves above the law?

In the minds of many Republicans today, the only laws that matter are the ones that can be twisted to fit their political agenda – or fit into their twisted definition of national security. It’s a fascist mindset that was already conditioned by the systematic breakdown of the fair and equal protection of the law. That’s where we are today. It’s important to understand that what we are witnessing today in the complete breakdown in the rule of law at the hand of certain criminals in the White House, didn’t happen overnight, or even over the last seven years. It’s the result of a lawless fascist mentality that has been allowed to fester and grow in this country over the last 40 years. It’s the mentality that assumes all our laws and basic human rights are completely expendable, because they were never as important as their own extremist agenda.

As Americans, we have all been affected to some degree, by this same encroaching fascist mindset. The never-ending lies and criminal activities of Bush/Cheney could not even have been imagined 20 years ago. We have all changed and been conditioned to accept this growing atmosphere of deceit, fear and lawlessness. It’s the end result of a systematic trampling down of the rule of law for the sake of profit and political advantage. And unless we stop it now – or at least take the first step in stopping it by impeaching and imprisoning Bush/Cheney for their crimes – it’s not likely we will have another chance.

Most Americans don’t seem to realize how fragile civilization really is, and how much humanity has struggled to establish the rule of law, and how long we have fought and sacrificed for the idea that every person was created equal under the law. Yet the law of the jungle and the tyranny of kings and dictators are never far away. Maintaining a civilized society is largely a matter of how we think, feel and behave towards each other – and primarily in our willingness to defend and uphold justice and the rule of law, and the proposition that ‘all people are created equal’ under the law.

The more some (rich and powerful) people get the idea the law no longer matters – that our laws are just something they can manipulate to keep everyone else scared and in their place - we are no longer a democratic country. Then we’ve become a police state. When a president presumes to break whatever laws he chooses – we are no longer a free nation, and our basic human rights are no longer guaranteed. When illegal wars and shameful torture are being committed in our name – we are no longer a civilized people. We may be a very affluent and technologically advanced nation – but we are only barbarians in business suits.

Impeaching Bush/Cheney might demonstrate to the rest of the world (and to ourselves) that we are, or could be a civilized country again. Most of the world believes – justifiably – that America has been corrupted by power, and devolved into a nation of arrogant barbarians. What many Americans interpret as the envy of other nations is really the growing fear and disgust among more civilized people around the world, when confronted by the specter of powerful barbarians with no respect for international laws, and loaded down with thousands of nukes.

When Bush declared America’s right of pre-emption and invaded Iraq, he was claiming the ancient right of kings and powerful empires to tyrannize over weaker nations, and the natural right of the rich to tyrannize over the poor (including the right to slaughter 655,000 poor Iraqis to make a few wealthy Americans much richer). The same rule of law he had successfully broken down to gain the power of commander-in-chief, and which he continues to break down while in office, he was also determined to break down on a much broader international scale. Just as St. Paul once wrote about "the lawless one" and "the mystery of lawlessness already at work", we can see it plainly working in the arrogant lawlessness of his regime. (2thes 2:3-12) The history books may one day record that America’s 200 year experiment with freedom and democracy finally ended at Abu Ghraib.

America has become an arrogant, lawless, and uncivilized country, and most of the world now looks at the United States as the greatest threat to peace and stability throughout the world. Why? Because the rule of law no longer really exists in America – except as a means of locking up the poor and keeping them in their place. At the same time Bush has put himself completely above the law, we have a larger percentage of our population in prison than anywhere else in the world. Is this the evidence of a free and civilized country – or more proof that we have become something else, something more like a police state, where the rich and powerful are completely out of control?

If the laws don’t exist for Bush/Cheney, then the protection of the law no longer exists for anybody in America. Then we have become a nation of barbarians, where the rich and powerful have come to rule over our lives through the instrument of a tyrannical corporate power and influence. And in spite of the corporate media propaganda, over 90% of all stocks and bonds are still owned by the rich and the extremely rich, and their wealth is increasingly shielded from any risk or taxes, while everyone else's livelihood is increasingly insecure, and their lives increasingly ruled by fear. Whether it’s fear of losing your job or health insurance, fear of becoming sick or homeless, fear of going bankrupt or remaining forever in debt, fear of terrorists, fear of crime, and now even the fear of being locked up without any charges, the fear of being tortured, the fear of the government listening into your phone calls or opening your mail or tracking your reading or internet browsing – it no longer matters fear of what, as long as those in power who have put themselves above the law and made their own lives and fortunes much more secure can keep you constantly afraid and in line - because that’s how the law of the jungle works. Instead of being protected by fair and just laws, we are now being ruled by a pervasive fear that is constantly played-up and re-inforced by the corporate media.

When Republicans say freedom, they mean the freedom to pay slave wages, the freedom to take away your health care, freedom to ship your jobs overseas or to replace you with 'temporary workers' who will work for less, the freedom to poison our water and air, the freedom to hate and discriminate, the freedom to invade our privacy, the freedom to shift the tax burden and destroy the middle class, the freedom to tax the wages of workers more than profits of speculators, the freedom to shelter the inheritance of the rich while one out of four children is born into poverty, even the freedom to gouge us at the pump just for fun and record-breaking profits, and basically the freedom of the rich and powerful to control and destroy our lives however they choose. Those are the only freedoms that Republicans now defend and care about, and not our rights, our liberty, our jobs, our health, our dignity, our security, our pursuit of happiness, or something as outdated as the rule of law, or that quaint idea that everyone is equal under the law. They’re only concerned about the right of kings, and about those who are now considered above the law.

We write laws protecting children from child molesters, but all the laws that once protected them and everyone else from the unbridled greed of the rich and powerful have been systematically abolished. The protection of the law has been replaced by the pervasive fear that derives from total corporate control of our govenment and our lives. We have moved from the equal protection of the law to the tyranny of the rich and powerful, and from the government of the people to the tyranny of the corporate boardroom.

America is no longer a free country – America is a very frightened country, and everything Bush has done has been calculated to increase our fear and destroy the rule of law that once protected us from fear by seeking justice and guaranteeing our basic human rights. Which is just fine for wealthy Republicans like Bush, since that was their goal all along, as it has been for at least the last 40 years.

Freedom in the most basic sense means freedom from fear, and the kind of freedom that guarantees our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. But freedom for most Republicans means the freedom of the rich and powerful to instill more fear, to take away our rights, our sense of security, and ultimately to declare an endless war in order to keep everyone afraid forever, and to take away even our lives for the sake of more corporate corruption and profits in Iraq. Like it or not, that’s where we are as a nation right now, and if we don’t start waking up to what has been done to our country, and start protecting justice and the rule of law from those who have systematically broken it down, we will never be a free, secure, and civilized people again. Our security and freedom won’t be won in Iraq – it will only be won once we begin bringing criminals like Bush and Cheney to justice.

Cheney the Consummate Coward

2007-01-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

Dick Cheney still speaks in his low-key, matter-of –fact style, that used to lead some people to believe that he actually knew what he was talking about. We’ve heard so much about Cheney being the brains, the common assumption was that he had any. Clearly he doesn’t. Anyone who can say about the war of Iraq that “the bottom line is that we’ve had enormous successes, and will continue to have enormous successes” - the guy’s clearly delusional. When are the men in white suits going to cast a net over this loon? OK – so it’s not prison, but it’s better than nothing. It might stop this insanity we used to call the executive branch of government.

The last time America was confronted with this kind of leadership crisis is when Barney Fife was always telling Gomer Pile what to do. Neither Bush nor Cheney seem to have the sense that God gave cabbages. This White House 'gang that couldn’t shoot straight' is clearly the biggest bunch of clueless losers since ‘Cop Rock’ went off the air. Or should I should I refer to Cheney as 'Richard Bruce Cheney', aka “they’re in the last throes of the insurgency” Dick, aka “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction” Dickey, aka “we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons” Dickless wonder.

Why in the world is anybody still taking this pompous blowhard seriously? He’s been wrong about everything he’s ever done, said, or even thought about. He’s already in the Guinness Book of World Records for screwing up more times than a midget hooker. The only people who’ll still go hunting with him are referrals from Dr. Kevorkian. Every time Cheney goes hunting, all the animals wait till he runs out of ammunition, and then they start nibbling on the dead old people. The AARP is considering filing a class-action lawsuit, and he’s still the only man ever to have his lifetime membership in the NRA revoked for being too stupid to own a gun. And yet this is the bonehead still running our county? Why oh WHY oh why didn’t I escape to Canada while I still had the chance?

The only reason we aren’t in the midst of impeachment hearings right now is because it really wouldn't solve the problem, and most of the country is even more afraid of Cheney than that trained monkey he keeps on a leash.. And yet this is the guy who’s still being asked questions as if he knew anything? Dick Cheney should be in a freak show and laughed at continuously. He should be compelled to wear a sign around his neck that says, “I’m a clueless loser.”

In spite of his comical pretensions about being a businessman, Cheney has spent almost all his working life in government, and he's the ultimate government bureaucrat. He’s good at political infighting, at advancing himself and his agenda within the government bureaucracy, and especially at profiting from the government at taxpayer expense – even though all his policies have inevitably failed miserably, and he’s destroyed the country in the process.

As far as “validating the strategy of the terrorists”, what would a numbskull like Dick Cheney – someone whose been wrong about absolutely everything – what would Old Stumblebutt know about Osama Bin Laden’s strategy? Asking Cheney to understand the terrorists' strategy is like asking a doorknob to understand nuclear physics. If Bin Laden was counting on anything, he was counting on the stupid arrogance of cowardly windbags like Dick (five draft deferments) Cheney.

The problem with Cheney is that he thinks the terrorists are as dumb as he is. Why would anyone in their right mind think that Osama wanted us to pull out of Iraq? So that we could re-direct our resources into protecting the homeland and finally capturing him in Afghanistan? So that the world wouldn’t hate us anymore? So that he could go back to training terrorists in ramshackle camps, rather than using US soldiers for target practice ? The only hope that Bin Laden ever had was to exhaust and discredit America, by getting it bogged down in a war like Iraq. Cheney is right about one thing – they can’t beat us in a stand-up fight. That’s exactly why we’re bogged down in an Iraqi Civil War instead.

As far as the American people not, ‘having the stomach for the fight’, the plain and obvious fact is that 99.99% of the American people are not in the fight at all. How can the American people be afraid of fighting a war where there is no personal risk involved? If the American people are afraid of anything, it’s because cowards and draft dodgers like Bush and Cheney have systematically worked on their fears to convince them that if they don’t support the war, that the terrorists will follow the troops home and start attacking on American soil. If anything, the terrorists are counting on the fact that Americans are frightened enough to keep our troops in Iraq.

The epitome of cowardice is some pitiful old draft dodger wasting other people’s lives trying to prove he has courage we all know he doesn’t have. It’s one thing to be a coward who won’t risk his own life to defend his country, but it’s another to be a chicken hawk so afraid of facing the truth about himself, that he has a lot of other people - people with more courage than he will ever have - needlessly dying for his mistakes. That’s a REAL, dyed in the wool coward. His stubborness is only the reflection of the depth of his cowardice.

He even talks like a coward. Instead of saying things honestly, directly, and in a forthright manner, he uses weasel words so that he won’t get in trouble for saying what he really means. Instead of saying “the American people are on the side of the terrorists for wanting to pull out of Iraq”, so that everyone would know what a bitter and delusional prick he really is (if they don’t already), he says it “validates the strategy of the terrorists”, so he can slander two-thirds of the country and accuse them of being on the terrorists' side, without ever being man enough to actually say it. Typical coward.

The fact is that Cheney still wets his pants every time he even thinks about the War in Vietnam - that's the trouble. 9-11 just reminded him of what a coward he really is. Dickey-boy still has the all-time record for the most draft deferments by anyone in the state of Wyoming. He’s the only draft dodger to have 172 men die in his place during the war. The defense department got so tired of sending out his draft deferments, that finally they just got a bucket of yellow paint and painted a stripe down the middle of his back. That’s why you’ll never see a picture of Dick Cheney in a bathing suit after 1967. Jane Fonda came closer to serving in Vietnam than he ever did. And yet this is the guy who’s now teaching America to hang tough? He’s the one giving us lessons in courage? LOL

It’s not just that he wouldn’t risk his life to defend his country. Cheney’s cowardice extends even to defending members of his own family. He’s such a complete and utter coward that he lets other Republicans beat up and savage his own daughter for being lesbian. They can call her a dike, a degenerate, and denounce her ‘homosexual lifestyle’ every day of the week, but Cheney will never say a word to defend her from these sort of brutal attacks. He’s too much of a coward. Instead, he assaults helpless female journalists like Wolf Blitzer for even bringing it up (bringing up what a coward and hypocrite he really is for never defending her and other gays and lesbians from attacks by his own party.) Rather than defending his daughter, he’s only covering-up his own cowardice, just like he’s doing in Iraq.

He’s also too much of a coward to defend his friends and employees after carrying out his instructions – just ask Scooter Libby. Oh yea, Cheney was a big man when it came to exposing an undercover CIA agent, in order to bully Joe Wilson for showing what a liar he is. Dick’s always been a big man when it comes to beating up on women to get back at their husbands. But when investigators got too close to the truth, he fed his own chief of staff to the wolves and made him the scapegoat. I guess he just ‘didn’t have the stomach’ for prison – huh Dickey boy?

This piece of garbage calling itself ‘Dick Cheney’ is the absolute scum of the earth. All the murderers and serial killers on death row in every state for the last fifty years, could not even come close to being responsible for all the premeditated death and destruction that this greedy corporate filth is responsible for. His ugly crooked smile and gravelly voice would give even Hannibal Lector the chills. He sounds and looks just as if his soul were being dragged through the mud. If Saddam Hussein is in hell right now – which I have no doubt he is – he’s just waiting for Dick Cheney to arrive. Because Cheney’s going to be Saddam’s punk. His pacemaker can’t hold out forever, and one day Cheney’s going to service Saddam for all eternity. Even then it will never equal all the people he’s f-d over.

Cheney could have given Benedict Arnold lessons on selling out his country. Every penny he’s gained from his Halliburton stock options should be dropped on his head one-by-one, while being simultaneously waterboarded and forced to disclose both the minutes of his secret energy task force, and how many people he really has on staff. Then after being tried and convicted of treason, Cheney should not only be stripped of his American citizenship, but he and the bones of all his ancestors stretching back seven generations should be dug up, piled onto a boat, and sunk all together in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, and then the entire country fumigated. Even then, that distinctive Cheney stench would linger for decades.

My neighbors once had a dog that, when they first got him, he was the most frightened little puppy you ever saw. You just had to look at him crosseyed and he’d run away with his tail between his legs. But then as he got older, he somehow got mean and nasty, as if to cover up his deep insecurity. He would bark and growl at everyone who came by, day and night. It was the barkingest dog I’ve ever heard. But you know, for all the growling and barking that dog was still a craven coward, and all you had to do was make a run at him, and he’d still run away with his tail between his legs, leaving a trail of piss. That’s Cheney all over – and it’s about time for Congress and the courts to take a run at him.

The Highly Delusional State of Bush

2007-01-24T11:18:00.000-08:00

Watching Bush always makes me feel in need of a shower, and I just can’t afford the gas bills. His smarmy praise of Nancy Pelosi, while at the same time jabbing a stiff finger in their ribs by referring to the “Democrat Leadership”, and making Tim Johnson’s health into a major political issue, was enough for me. (Clue: There is no ‘Democrat Party’ – there is only a Democratic Party. ‘Democrat party’ has long been a term of derision within the ‘Repub party’. It was most often used by Dick Nixon - another very popular president.)

It thought it would be more useful at this point, rather than discussing the state of the union – which everyone knows is in the crapper – or going over his laundry list of rehashed pipe dreams, to discuss instead the highly delusional state of George Bush.

Let’s put it this way: If Bush could convince himself Republicans would win the last election even though all the polls screamed otherwise. If he could convince himself that attacking a nation that was no threat to us is the same as defending our nation against terrorists. If he could convince himself that we’re winning a war that everyone knows is lost. If he could convince himself that torturing and killing innocent Iraqis is the same as liberating them. If he can convince himself that continually lying to our nation is in our interest rather than his own. If he can convince himself that taking away our most basic freedoms is the same as defending them. If he can convince himself that constantly putting himself above the law is the same as preserving the rule of law. If he can convince himself of all these things and a whole lot more, the real question becomes - what bald-faced lie won’t he believe? How did he get this way? And what sort of danger are we really in?

Bush is delusional because his view of reality isn’t based upon any search for the truth or recognition of the facts – it’s grounded in his own greed, lust for power, and an unreasonably exalted view of his own judgement and natural abilities.

On the latter point, it was Thomas Jefferson who once said, “the wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.” Another way of saying this is that, ‘the most ignorant people are also most ignorant of their own limitations.’ Nowhere is this most apparent that with the current occupant of the White House.

Many people look at Bush’s strange combination of stupidity and stubbornness, as if only the wise and well-informed had any right to be certain. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works. It’s our ignorance that feeds into our pride and stubborness, while wisdom makes us more humble, and more able to listen to other points of view. (As opposed to going on a phoney ‘listening tour’.)

It likely took a prolonged effort to end up as stubborn and self-deluded as George W Bush. Not only does he scrupulously avoid any familiarity with the facts (except when they can be twisted to re-enforce his delusions), but a lot of premium grain alcohol went into making him the man he is today. It’s difficult to understand how anyone could have been reduced to such a state without the involvement of drugs and/or alcohol. Why? Because we are all born wiser than he’s ended up. In a sober state, even the most ignorant human being would still have the common sense and basic instinct to get out of the rain (and out of Iraq) rather than self-destructing (and putting more troops in). But not Bush.

Bush keeps saying, “the American people have to understand...” as if we’re the ones harboring delusions. When you're crazy you think everyone else is misinformed. Certainly he’s a liar, but the most important lies are the ones he keeps telling himself. He could probably convince himself of anything - if he saw a buck or two in it. Now he’s completely caught up in his own lies and empty rhetoric about saving Iraq, when the best thing we could do for the Iraqis is keep Bush and his murderous instincts away from them. The fact is, next to the extermination of native Americans, the war in Iraq is probably the most shamefully dishonest and greedy little genocide our nation has ever conceived. Then it was all about stealing their land, and now it’s all about stealing the oil under their land.

How dangerous is he? Let’s put it this way: Would you rather have a president who did things he knew were evil, but he still had enough sense not to self-destruct? Or one who was already self-destructing and threatening a world war because he’s managed to convince himself he’s doing the right thing? The man capable of doing the most evil is the man capable of believing the evil he’s doing is right and absolutely necessary.

Evil is as evil does, and not as evil thinks of himself. Satan still views himself as an angel of light, unjustly cast down from heaven. The power of the Antichrist is the power of deception, and most of all to deceive himself - just as Bush has deceived himself into thinking he's on some divine mission to save the world by starting wars and torturing people. It’s the kind of deception that springs from ignorance and an exalted view of himself, rather than any deeper understanding of the truth.

Jesus said that to him who has (wisdom and understanding), even more will be given to him, while for those who don’t have, even what (common sense) they do have, will eventually be taken away. (Mt 13:6) So as we humbly seek the truth, acknowledging all our weakness and faults, a deeper understanding of the truth will be granted to us. But when we seek only to disseminate lies, and arrogantly avoid any honest assessment of our own sins and limitations, our lives become ensnared by our delusions, and even the common sense we once had and were born with, will eventually be lost and taken away from us, as our lives self-destruct, and as we also destroy the lives of those around us.

Such is the highly delusional state of Bush, the reason for the mess and destruction in Iraq, as well as the perilous state of our nation.

Unspinning the Media Spin

2007-01-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

I don’t know what’s worse – listening to the lies flowing out of Bush’s mouth like a backed-up toilet, or the media lining up like a French bidet to clean them up. Our media shills are so afraid ending up like Dan Rather, that if Bush started masturbating in the middle of his speech,(which he essentially did), the media would find a way to compliment him on his technique.

First off, and in spite of what the media keeps saying, Bush NEVER admitted to a single mistake, and he never will. What he said was, “mistakes were made”, implying others made them. He’s never personally admitted to a single one, and he never will. He always implies it’s other people who make all the mistakes, and he must put up with them. That’s what he’s always done from the ‘faulty intelligence’ from the CIA, which he distorted and lied about, to the recent lynching of Saddam Hussein, that our army and embassy wanted to stop, but Bush’s national security advisor (speaking for the president) personally gave the go-ahead, saying “We are not going to be their legal nannies.” Bush always screws-up, and then always blames somebody else.

Every bad decision has been Bush’s – and usually against the advice of all the experts, including the CIA, the State Department, and his generals. Yet he has NEVER taken responsibility for anything, and ALWAYS laid it off on others. As if that weren’t bad enough – now he takes credit for accepting the responsibility that he most certainly doesn’t accept or demonstrate.

To accept responsibility for the mistakes would mean – first and foremost – accepting responsibility for the mistake of going into Iraq in the first place, and finally getting our troops out. It would involve a willingness to accept the political fallout for his failure, which he will never do. It would mean bringing the troops home, regardless of what that might do to his legacy. But Bush has done the exactly opposite – it is our troops and our nation that must ultimately take responsibility and suffer the consequences for the mistakes he made and still refuses to admit. They are dying to save his face, and rescue his failed presidency. He insists that we suffer the consequences, so that he will never have to. What Bush calls taking responsibility = NEVER taking responsibility, but always taking the credit.

BTW:. Isn’t this about the umpteenth time he’s supposedly admitted his mistakes, without actually admitting to a single one, or changing his policy one iota? Just because Carl Rove has twisted the words ‘mistakes’ and ‘responsibility’ in another speech aimed at perpetuating the same mistakes without taking any responsibility, that doesn’t mean the media has to slavishly go along EVERY time. It’s getting to be like living in China during the Cultural Revolution: the more everything keeps falling apart, the more our glorious leader is exalted for virtues he never had, and never will.

Another thing that is particularly aggravating is how they keep saying, “this is Bush’s last chance.” Come again? This isn’t ‘Deal, or No Deal’ – we’re talking about human lives, not some TV game show. This president has been wrong about the war for four years now. So how exactly is this Bush’s last chance? Are NBC, ABC and FOX news all going to get together and ask him to resign when his latest miscalculation blows up in our face? Because he’s certainly not listening to anyone else. Congress, his generals, and the American public are done – they’ve given him enough chances already. But he’s still doing whatever he wants. That’s the point - he’s out of control. Yet our media enablers still want to give him another chance. Exactly how is screwing up again going to change anything, except for the worse? We’ve been down this road for four years now. Giving Bush one more chance is like giving a drunk lying in the gutter one more drink to see if he sobers up.

This isn’t Bush’s last chance – he’ll always find more ways to f-up and get more people killed. But it may be our last chance to try and stop him before he touches off another world war. That’s whose last chance it is: Not his - ours.

Giving Bush another chance is like giving Ted Bundy another chance to date women. They’re both homicidal maniacs and it makes just as much sense. While we’re at it, why didn’t we give Saddam Hussein another chance? So what if he killed half a million Kurds during his twenty year reign – that’s still less then the 655,000 Iraqis Bush has killed over the last three years. I just don’t understand why the media is so fired up to give Bush another chance to commit mass murder, and yet they never lobbied for giving Saddam one or two last chances as president of Iraq.

The other pet peeve is how Bush is allowed to lie over and over about establishing democracy in Iraq, when that will obviously never happen, and he is destroying our democracy in the process. Why is Bush allowed to portray himself as if fighting for democracy, when he obviously has a vehement hatred of the most basic democratic principals, and loves to play the dictator?

Democracy is defined as “government of the people.” It means the people have the final say in how the nation is governed – particularly over the most important matters like going to war. Democracy is NOT electing (or letting the Supreme Court appoint) a dictator who ignores the will of the people. That may be George Bush’s and Saddam Hussein’s definition of democracy, but it’s not the definition our media should endorse, which it does by not calling him on it.

It’s absolutely ludicrous for Bush to go on and on about fighting for democracy, while at the same time torturing people, opening our mail and bugging our phones without a warrant, and issuing signing statements like Papal decrees. To hear him talking about fighting for some non-existent and never-will-be democracy in Iraq, when he’s destroying our democracy and completely ignoring what over 70% of the American public fervently wants him to do, is just like living in an insane asylum. When is the media going to stand up and say Bush is so full of crap that if he took an enema he’d disappear with a loud fart?

In his speech, Bush defined the democracy he’s supposedly trying to impose on Iraq as one “that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people.” Wow! How about re-establishing that kind of democracy right here in the United States? How about that for a plan of action? Let’s look at the state of our so-called democracy, at least as George Bush defines democracy.

#1 “polices its territories” – Iraq is not an American territory, and Iraq was never a threat to America. What distinguishes a democracy from a totalitarian state is that democracies don’t go to war unless they have to. By lying to the public and going to war in Iraq, Bush acted as a dictator rather than a democratic leader.

#2 “upholds the rule of law” – Bush breaks the law on principal, just because he thinks he can get away with it. He would rather break the law even though he could get a warrant, because he wants to prove he’s above the law. It’s not just that Bush keeps breaking the law, it’s that he intentionally breaks down the rule of law to make himself more powerful than the law.

#3 “respects fundamental human liberties”- Bwaaaahaaaahaaa! As far as the right to privacy, it no longer exists in America - Bush has taken upon himself the right to open people’s mail, tap their phones and keep track of what books they read – all without any warrant or oversight. As far as habeas corpus – that’s gone too. The government can now pick anyone up without any charges and hold them forever without access to legal representation. As far as torture, Bush loves it. Call it his life-long hobby.

#4 “answers to its people” – Here’s Bush’s answer to the American people last Wednesday: “I’ll do anything I want to anyone I want, anytime I want to. I'll attack any country I choose, waste your taxes and destroy your lives, run up the deficit and charge it to your grandchildren, and what's more, I don't give half a damn what you think about it.” That’s Bush’s definition of democracy. Always has been, always will be.

Note: I hope to be able to announce information about a new book I’ve written in about a week. Also, if any of the regular readers want this blog to link to theirs, send an email with the address to isbushantichrist@sbcglobal.net and I’ll include it.

Repost: Bush is Determined To Escalate the War & Increase the Killing

2007-01-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Rather than posting anything new about Bush’s speech, I figured I’d just say
‘I told you so’ and re-post what I wrote before Christmas.

I would however note that during the speech, he had the same ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ expression he had just before he invaded Iraq, and the day before he stole the 2004 election. It’s the look of a small boy when they’ve done something terribly wrong, but when you ask them what they’ve done, they lie and say, “nothing.” Yet you know it’s something terrible, because they have this frightened and guilty expression on their face.

It’s the same with Bush. Apart from sending the additional troops, he revealed next to nothing about his true intentions. He only uses words to disguise and spin the truth. But you could tell by his expression he was leaving out a whole lot more than he was saying, and that he intends to do something profoundly evil.

Everyone’s speculating about what Bush will do next – whether he’ll heed the advise of the Iraq study group, Congressional Democrats, and the vast majority of the American people, and start pulling our troops out of Iraq. Or will he put a new face on an old pig called ‘stay the course’? (Not anymore we aren’t) But they’re overlooking what he's obviously decided, which is neither to admit defeat and begin cutting our losses, nor just hanging on in Iraq for another two years. Bush will intentionally widen and escalate the conflict in the Middle East, (his speech last night was just the first example) and there are several reasons why.

First because it happened before, under another sleazy Republican president named Nixon. Keep in mind that the same team of experts that helped Nixon escalate the bombing and lose the war in Vietnam, were put in charge of the war in Iraq. (Cheney began working for Nixon in 1969) They have the same plans, ideas, attitudes, and even the same slogans like "staying the course", "support our troops" and "fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them here."

Richard Nixon would never admit defeat in Vietnam, or learn from his mistakes. He was afraid of becoming the first American president to lose a war. So he widened the war, bombed and invaded Cambodia, all in a desperately futile attempt to cut off supplies to the Communist insurgency. Only instead of helping to win the war in Vietnam, he started in motion a chain of events that eventually handed Cambodia over to the communists. Understand the bitter and tragic irony involved: that after fighting ten years and sacrificing 58,000 men for the beloved ‘domino theory’ of Communist expansion, the only domino that actually fell in SE Asia is the one we tipped over by continuing the war, and refusing to admit it was lost. (In the same way Nixon argued that expanding the war into Cambodia would enable us to bring our troops home, Bush is now arguing that escalating the Iraq war will, “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.")

Vietnam’s parallel with Iraq is hard to miss. It’s our presence in Iraq that’s helping to fuel terrorism around the world – the very thing we supposedly went there to stop. But the similarity doesn’t end there. Cambodia’s parallel is now Iran, and their role in supplying the Iraqi insurgency. Can anyone guess the next act in this tragedy? Bush is already building up naval forces in the region. (He announced in his speech that he was sending another carrier strike group “to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.” He also mentioned Iran six times in his speech, saying Iran was “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and declaring, “We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.” In spite of the fact most of the support is coming from Jordan, our ally.)

If he succeeded in lying about the danger of Iraq’s nuclear program, though it didn’t exist, how difficult would (will) it be to create an immanent threat from Iran, when they do have a nuclear program? Or to blow some minor incident into an excuse for widening the war?

The real point being that Bush has painted himself into a corner in Iraq, where the only alternative he understands is to widen the war and up the stakes in the chance that he can still win. Because to admit the war in Iraq is lost, and begin cutting our losses and bringing the troops home, is the same as admitting he’s a failed president. Yet to continue on the same course is politically impossible – conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate, and the political situation at home and in Congress has radically changed.

The only hope he has of saving his presidency is to up the anti in the (completely delusional) chance that the enemy (whoever that really is) will suddenly fold. Like a really, really bad poker player, and one who's betting with other people’s money and lives, Bush will stay in the game in Iraq and keep adding more bodies to the pot until he is stopped.(apparently he cannot be stopped) He doesn’t care how much or how many we lose - the game he’s played has always been about politics and greed, pride and ego. If this had anything whatsoever to do with terrorism and national security we would never have gone there in the first place.

Bush sees himself as confronting a massive conspiracy by the evildoers – I believe those are his exact words. He is nurturing the self-serving delusion of vanquishing the forces of evil - and not just in Iraq. He’s not about to lose his spot in the rapture before getting the apocalypse off to a credible start. After all, how can he really save the world except by first destroying it? (in his speech he warned of “mass killings on an unimaginable scale” and said he "will make the year ahead bloody and violent.") The greatest evil is always done for the greater good, and by crazy people who can’t see how evil they really are.

There is also the issue of the new Democratic Congress. For the first time in six years, the Bush regime will be subject to intense oversight and numerous investigations. It'll be like suddenly turning the light on a moldering infestation of roaches and rats. Bush is not only feeling pressure to change the situation in Iraq, but soon the heat over what he’s been doing, and all the laws he’s been breaking in the meantime. The best, and perhaps the only way out for him now will be to create the wider war and national security crisis that would make the investigations irrelevant, unpatriotic, or even seditious.

The upshot is that the more things deteriorate in Iraq and the longer investigations continue, the more Bush will be determined to create a wider crisis and conflict in the Middle East. He must either create a crisis – like the Iranian nuclear threat, or overreact to one – like with another terrorist attack on American soil. Or it may be that the situation in Iraq will deteriorate so far so fast (especially with more US troops and a few more disastrous decisions like lynching Saddam Hussein) that the rest of the Middle East will be drawn into the conflict in due course. The inevitability of much wider conflict with American forces squarely in the middle of it will greatly increase rather than diminishing over the next two years, (make that the next several months) in spite of what most Americans want.

If poll numbers were dollars Bush might care what most Americans think. But since they’re not, the only opinions he still cares about are ones with lots of dollars attached. That’s always been how he’s governed, and how absolutely corrupt he is. And just because things didn’t work out in the last election, doesn’t mean he’s had a complete change of heart or a character transplant. (Maliki’s government is giving complete control of Iraq’s oil to US oil companies. That’s exactly why Bush loves him and will do anything to support his corrupt goverment.)

Bush intends to go directly against the voters, Congress, and even the joint chiefs of staff, and contrary to what the media is saying it's not because he has the courage of his convictions. It's because his convictions and principals have already been bought and sold to the highest bidders - especially the oil companies. His convictions all have dollar signs. When Bush looks at Iraq, he doesn’t see the mangled, bloodied bodies of tens of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – all he sees is green. He sees the billions of dollars in no-bid government contracts to be handed out to his cronies, and the largest untapped oil reserves in the world. That’s why he sleeps well at night when better men couldn’t. Because instead of counting sheep, Bush counts corporate profits. Do you really think Bush has the character or willpower to swallow his pride and give up the spoils of war? Yea, right. Their conscience can’t bother those who haven’t any.

Don’t kid yourself, and don’t be taken in by all the media propaganda. American foreign policy is still being made by a small cabal within the administration (esp Dick Cheney) – the same corrupt and incompetent know-it-alls who kept us in Vietnam and led us into Cambodia. The thing to remember is that whatever Bush is saying bears no possible resemblance to the truth. 'He's a liar and the father of it.' That includes working with Congress, (he just proved he won’t – the Democrats were informed of his decision rather than consulted.) taking the advise of his generals, (he just fired another two top generals for disagreeing with him) or a ‘temporary surge' of troops into Iraq. (he didn’t say the additional 2,500 troops was temporary, and he didn’t say it was the last escalation) It will eventually become clear to everyone that the only way out of Iraq is a double-headed impeachment - if that’s not already too late. (It’s likely too late)