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Bush's Attention Wanders From Katrina as Reconstruction Lags

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Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Just three months ago, President George W. Bush couldn't talk enough about the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast and the effort to rebuild it.

Bush traveled to the region eight times in the six weeks following Hurricane Katrina's Aug. 29 landfall. He spoke about the disaster almost every day in September and in all four radio addresses that month. On Sept. 15, during a nationally televised speech from New Orleans, the president promised that ``we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.''

That now seems a distant memory. Bush hasn't been back to the region in almost two months, and he doesn't speak about it much anymore -- four times in November and twice so far this month, and then only fleetingly. In a 44-minute speech on the economy on Dec. 5, Bush mentioned hurricane damage in the context of urging Congress to pass energy legislation.

``The president can do better and should do better,'' said Republican Representative Charles ``Chip'' Pickering of Mississippi. ``The people of Mississippi and Louisiana need to know the administration is still with them.''

The two states were the hardest hit by Katrina, which Bush said was the biggest natural disaster in the nation's history. Entire towns were wiped out, 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded and had to be evacuated and almost 1,000 people died. In the aftermath, Mississippi officials told a congressional panel yesterday, aid for rebuilding has been delayed, school districts are facing bankruptcy and thousands of people remain in temporary shelters.

Building Resentment

While state and local officials say Congress shares much of the blame for lagging reconstruction aid, resentment may be building in the region toward Bush, who created an expectation that the government would focus its resources on recovery.

``Folks are starting to be cynical and thinking that the White House has counted the votes and decided that mad Mississippians and Louisianans can't do much damage politically,'' said Marty Wiseman, a professor of government at Mississippi State University in Starkville.

``The president needs to reconnect with southeast Louisiana and remember that there're Americans who are down here who need his attention and his help,'' said Joey DiFatta, the council chairman of St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans.

Other Concerns

Hurricane Katrina knocked most of the rest of Bush's domestic priorities off the congressional agenda and sparked a decline in his public approval ratings that has continued over the past two months. During October and November, Bush's schedule has been dominated by the conflict in Iraq, a failed Supreme Court nomination and two overseas trips. The state of Florida also was hit by Hurricane Wilma on Oct. 24.

Bush's public comments and travel aren't an accurate gauge of his attention to the Gulf Coast, said Donald Powell, the former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman named Nov. 1 to be the federal coordinator for reconstruction efforts.

``The president is committed to rebuilding the Gulf Coast,'' Powell said in a telephone interview yesterday as he arrived in New Orleans. ``People like me are his eyes and ears.'' Powell said he gives Bush or his staff updates ``almost every other day.''

Some local officials say they don't blame Bush, even as they criticize the pace of federal assistance.

`Other Things'

``I understand that he's the president and there are other things other than the Gulf Coast,'' said Tommy Longo, a Democrat who is mayor of Waveland, Mississippi, a Gulf Coast city largely destroyed by Katrina. The president's staff has responded to his requests for aid, he said.

There is broad agreement that the federal effort is lagging. ``We are at a point where our recovery and renewal efforts are stalled because of inaction in Washington, D.C.,'' Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, former Republican Party chairman, told a congressional panel investigating the botched government response to the storm.

In an interview later, he stopped short of faulting Bush. ``We need everybody to lead,'' he said.

Bush has signed into law aid totaling $70.9 billion, and $26.8 billion more has passed the Senate, according to a Senate Budget Committee tally. There's growing concern that members of Congress are less willing to back more federal relief and rebuilding funds, particularly for the redevelopment of New Orleans, said Loren Scott, an economics professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

`Drop in Sympathy'

``If you're down here, you can sense the drop in sympathy for the city of New Orleans,'' Scott said. ``The further away from those images of people at the Superdome and the convention center, the less you think about it and the more excuses there are for not sending support.''

Bush's recent efforts to emphasize that the national economy is booming are adding to concerns in the region that rebuilding is becoming less of a priority.

The U.S. economy grew at a 4.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, a pace that surprised White House economists including Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Ben Bernanke, who had forecast the disaster would cut gross domestic product by about a half percentage point.

Louisiana and Mississippi had combined economic output in 2004 of $229.1 billion, or 2 percent of the national GDP. They were among the poorest states even before the storms: In both states, about 17 percent of people live in poverty, compared with the national average of 11.7 percent, according to 2002 Census Bureau figures.

Employment

Bush and his senior advisers have mentioned the country's 5 percent November unemployment rate four times since the Labor Department reported it Dec. 2. The jobless rate among 866,000 working-age Katrina evacuees the government surveyed in November was 20.5 percent.

Non-farm employment in the seven-parish area that comprises metropolitan New Orleans will drop next year to 337,000 workers, the lowest since 1963, down from the pre-Katrina level of 620,000, according to an LSU forecast released last month.

``That's the equivalent of costing the area four decades of growth,'' Scott said. ``The rest of the country's economy may be rocking, but here it's pretty rough.''

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article331768.ece

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9 December 2005 05:06

How America Plotted to Stop the Kyoto Deal

By Andrew Buncombe in Montreal



A detailed and disturbing strategy document has revealed an extraordinary American plan to destroy Europe's support for the Kyoto treaty on climate change.

The ambitious, behind-the-scenes plan was passed to The Independent this week, just as 189 countries are painfully trying to agree the second stage of Kyoto at the UN climate conference in Montreal. It was pitched to companies such as Ford Europe, Lufthansa and the German utility giant RWE.

Put together by a lobbyist who is a senior official at a group partly funded by ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company and a fierce opponent of anti-global warming measures, the plan seeks to draw together major international companies, academics, think-tanks, commentators, journalists and lobbyists from across Europe into a powerful grouping to destroy further EU support for the treaty.

It details just how the so-called "European Sound Climate Policy Coalition" would work. Based in Brussels, the plan would have anti-Kyoto position papers, expert spokesmen, detailed advice and networking instantly available to any politician or company who wanted to question the wisdom of proceeding with Kyoto and its demanding cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

It has been drawn up by Chris Horner, a senior official with the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute and a veteran campaigner against Kyoto and against the evidence of climate change. One of his colleagues - who describes himself as an adviser to President George Bush - was the subject of a censure motion by the Commons last year after he attacked the Government's chief scientist.

Mr Horner, whose CEI group has received almost $1.5m (£865,000) from ExxonMobil, is convinced that Europe could be successfully influenced by such a policy coalition just as the US government has been.

He thinks Europe's weakening economies are likely to be increasingly ill at ease with the costs of meeting Kyoto. And in particular, he has spotted something he thinks most of Europe has not yet woken up to. Most of the original 15 EU Kyoto signatories - Britain is an exception - are on course to miss their 2010 CO2 reduction targets. But under the terms of the treaty, they will face large fines for doing so, in terms of much bigger reduction targets in any second phase.

These will prove unacceptably costly to their economies, Mr Horner believes, even if they try to buy their way out by buying up "spare" emissions for cash from countries such as Russia. Mr Horner believes the moment for his coalition is at hand and has been seeking support for it from multinational companies. In his pitch to one major company, he wrote: " In the US an informal coalition has helped successfully to avert adoption of a Kyoto-style programme by maintaining a rational voice for civil society and ensuring a legitimate debate over climate economics, science and politics. This model should be emulated... to guide similar efforts in Europe."

Elsewhere he claimed: "A coalition addressing the economic and social impacts of the EU climate agenda must be broad-based (cross industry) and rooted in the member states. Other companies (including Lufthansa, Exxon, Ford) have already indicated their interest!"

Last night green groups hit out. Kert Davies, Greenpeace's climate campaign co-ordinator, which initially obtained the documents, said: "These are the hitmen for the Bush administration and the likes of Exxon. They are behind the scenes doing the dirty work. They are extending efforts to Europe where they are trying to undermine the momentum to solve global warming."

While there is nothing illegal about the lobbying, the documents reveal a rare insight into the well-funded efforts within the US to influence opinion at senior levels of European corporations. Campaigners say the campaign is similar to a notorious lobbying effort carried out during the 1990s to undermine support for Kyoto within the US.

The revelation comes as international negotiators in Montreal are discussing the next step within Kyoto and the possibility of introducing new emissions targets. The Bush administration - which has rejected the treaty - has insisted it will not agree to any measures that legally bind it to reduce emissions. Mr Horner has been present this week in Montreal.

When contacted by The Independent, Mr Horner confirmed the strategy document was the draft of a presentation he sent to RWE. He defended his lobbying effort saying "that is what I do". He said he simply promoted a point of view, as did Greenpeace. "I don't begrudge them what they do [but] they begrudge me what I do," he said.

Asked if he thought it was appropriate for a major American oil company to be funding a lobbyist targeting European companies, he replied: " Everybody else does." But Mr Horner, who is also a senior figure within the Cool Heads Coalition, a group that questions the evidence of global warming and opposes any policies to "ration" energy, claimed his efforts to influence opinion in Europe had been unsuccessful. He said RWE had not taken up the suggestions contained within his presentation, and that other companies had also rejected his ideas.

"I don't know why it's surprising [I have lobbied European companies]," he said. "What is surprising to me is why it's not working." Ford and RWE confirmed that they and other companies had met Mr Horner and other advocates in Brussels last February. He had not been paid any fee nor had they contributed to his expenses. Mr Horner apparently travelled to Europe at the request of the European Enterprise Industry, a fledgling group hoping to emulate the CEI.

Bill McAndrews, a spokesman for RWE, said: "He met with [us and] other German companies in Brussels. Brussels is the EU capital, there are a lot of people who come to meet. We have not approached him since then." He added: "RWE talks to all sorts of people. We talk with Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund. We discuss matters with all opinions. It's important to hear everybody's side on such a global issue. It does not mean that RWE shares that opinion."

In a statement, ExxonMobil, said: "The notion adopted by some groups ... that only their views and only their funding and lobbying are acceptable is, in our opinion, not helpful to the debates vital to developing good public policy."

Adrian Schmitt, a spokesman for Ford Europe, said Mr Horner had met with company representatives on one occasion "at a Brussels level". He insisted that Ford had not supported Mr Horner's opinions. "Exactly the opposite. Our position is that climate change is a serious issue and appropriate steps need to be taken now."

He said that the company had been one of the first companies to withdraw its support for the Global Climate Coalition - a now-defunct lobbying effort that worked to oppose US reductions in greenhouse gas emissions during the late Nineties.

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Evangelical politics and the Gospel According to George

By Mel Seesholtz, Ph.D.

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Dec 9, 2005, 00:51

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America likes to believe it believes that all citizens are equal, but that's as delusional as Young Earth Creationists' belief that T. rex was a passenger on Noah's ark. The Bush administration owes its existence to the evangelical Christian Right. Their common ideology and tactics derive from the worst that politicized religion has to offer.

In Western history, religious dogma expressed politically has been a wellspring of lies, bigotry, hate, torture, and death. Even among the faithful, some were deemed inherently inferior. For example, in the Christian tradition women were seen as the root of all evil, as was noted by St. Paul in First Timothy when he ordered Christians “suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." And some people had to be eliminated ad majorem gloriam Dei. The Cathars were the first to be exterminated by Christendom's Holy Inquisition. Cathars were heretics, theologically and politically. They believed all men and women were equal, theologically and politically.

In 2004, four landlords in Allentown, Pa., refused to rent to gays, thereby violating a city anti-discrimination ordinance. They were sued. But a section of Pennsylvania's Home Rule Act, which includes Allentown, prevented the city from requiring businesses and employers not to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender, so the landlords won the case. Their crusader attorney commented after the decision: “It's a complete victory. . . . It allows them to exercise their religious conscience in the way that they see fit. "Exercising their “religious conscience" as they saw fit was exactly what the alleged 9/11 terrorists did.

Bush's main supporters are the politicized Christian Right and their leaders who wrap themselves in the flag as they preach hate and discrimination. Rev. Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) come immediately to mind.

Dr. James Dobson and his Focus on the Family (FOF) also come immediately to mind. That antigay organization recently severed ties with Wells Fargo because, according to FOF, the bank supported “the radical homosexual agenda"(aka “the equality of all Americans”). The statement by Focus on the Family president and chief executive Jim Daly made an assertion that rivals Bush's lie about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: “We at Focus on the Family respect the worth and dignity of every human being."All one need do is have a quick look at Dobson's 2004 book, Marriage Under Fire, to see his views about the “worth and dignity of" gays and lesbians and their families.

In commenting on FOF's action, Glennda Testone, spokeswoman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was blunt: “Let's just call this what it is -- another attempt by an antigay group to try to intimidate companies into not supporting or doing business with gays and lesbians.”

“We need to find ways to win the war," Karl Rove told a gathering of the Family Research Council in March 2002. The Family Research Council is one of the most virulently antigay organizations in the Christian Right. Rove wasn't talking about the war on terrorism. He was talking to cohorts about their crusade against civil society and certain Americans and their families.

Then there's boycott king Rev. Don Wildmon who runs the American Family Association (AFA). They target any company that treats its gay and lesbian employees equally or that contributes to organizations that promote equality. Their recently “called off" boycott of Ford Motor Company is a case in point. In May 2005, AFA began its attack on Ford for the company's egregious policies of supporting efforts to increase gay and lesbian diversity in the workplace, supporting events and organizations that promote civil equality, and supporting gay and lesbian media by advertising in them. While the details of the “reconciliation" are not yet clear, Ford spokesman Mike Moran did confirm to Advocate.com that “the company would no longer advertise Jaguar and Land Rover products in the gay media, saying that the decision was strictly 'business.'" However, “a recognized authority in the advertising industry, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told 365Gay.com that the decision to end advertising in the gay media was made 'at the highest level' and was in reaction to the AFA threat.”

Ford's in trouble and plans to shut down five North American plants that employ approximately 7,500 workers. Leave it to the ideologues of the Christian Right to “kick a guy when he's down." And what's their motivation for doing so? To disenfranchise and, thereby, demean gays, lesbians, and their families.

All these "pro-family" religious leaders and their ideological organizations have common tactics and goals. They use concocted, perverted religious dogma to encourage hatred of and discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans in order to enhance their own political power. And in the Bush administration, political power is what they have. That's obvious, as is their perversion of “Christianity." The latter was poignantly illustrated by the United Church of Christ's television ad. It was banned by NBC, CBS and UPN, but recently won the Association of National Advertisers' 2005 Multicultural Excellence Award. Then again, "multiculturalism" and “diversity" are anathema to the evangelical Christian Right.

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“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good . . . Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.” --Christian political activist Randall Terry

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Of course all these “men of God" and their political organizations fully support George W. Bush. As Maureen Dowd noted in an October 21, 2004, New York Times column, “evangelicals call the president a messenger of God." This “messenger of God" used massaged intelligence to justify taking the country to war. Lying seems to be a “traditional value” for the Christian Right and their “messenger of God."

When Pennsylvania representative John Murtha joined the anti-war movement, Bush lashed out and accused those who oppose his stay-the-course Vietnam mentality of “rewriting history." Repeating and rewriting history is precisely what Bush was doing in his 2005 Veterans' Day speech. More offensive was the fact that he was doing it hiding behind the memory of those he sent to their deaths: the same tactic once used to defend the Vietnam war.

A few days later, Bush did the same thing in Alaska. The New York Times commented in a November 15, 2005, editorial:

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Yesterday [November 14, 2005] in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today. It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true. . . . The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful. . . . Mr. Bush said last Friday [Veterans' Day speech] that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that “it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.

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The observations of W. David Jenkins III bear repeating:

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Members of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) were well aware that intelligence coming out of Iraq did not stand up to the claims they were making. There was no evidence of WMD or al Qaeda ties no matter how many times certain members of the White House demanded that the CIA go back and try again. There are reports by intelligence staffers of Cheney and Libby making multiple visits to CIA Headquarters -- during the run up to war -- and demanding a more aggressive interpretation of the supposed threat posed by Hussein. How interesting that those who rewrote intelligence are now accusing their critics of rewriting history.

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But why bother rewriting? The faith-based Bush administration has cast a darker shade of yellow over journalism.

Just as the Christian Right cobbled together their own political scriptures, the Bush administration paid “journalists" and PR firms to create the Gospel According to George. From The New York Times report:

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Federal auditors said on Friday [September 20, 2005] that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party. In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated “covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban. . . .

Congress tried to clarify the ban on “covert propaganda" in a bill signed by Mr. Bush in May. The law says that no federal money may be used to produce or distribute a news story unless the government's role is openly acknowledged. [italics mine]

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Williams, a former aide to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was also shilling antigay “news" for the administration, as 365Gay.com reported in mid-October 2005:

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The US Attorney's office has begun an inquiry into the use by the Bush administration of anti-gay commentator Armstrong Williams to promote its so-called marriage initiative. . . . In a column following the November 2 election Williams linked gay rights advocates with organized crime.

“Despite the rhetoric that you hear from the homosexual Cosa Nostra, the lack of support for the gay marriage amendment has nothing to do with prejudice," he wrote.

“It's not about trying to dictate to adults what they should do in the privacy of their own homes. Let's be clear about that. Opposition to the gay marriage amendment isn't about disallowing homosexuals the same basic rights we extend to everyone else. It is about recognizing that marriage between man and woman is the bedrock of our society. It is about the citizens of this country saying, en masse, that they are unwilling to deconstruct certain basic and essential norms in our culture and society.”

After Williams was exposed the White House pulled the plug on the operation, but sources close to the investigation say that Williams did not return any of the money, nor did the administration request it. [italics mine]

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As has been shown in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the world, same-sex marriage has no effect on marriage between men and women. Quite the contrary. The “bedrock" institution may be strengthened by new participants and their commitments. But the Gospel According George is not interested in reality, honesty or truth. Current headlines -- and cartoons -- confirm that. From the December 1, 2005, New York Times report by Jeff Gerth and Scott Shane:

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Titled “The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.

“Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.

But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.

The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show.

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“Storyboard." What an appropriate term. George W. acknowledged that in 1989: “You know, I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office" unless, of course, you use theocratic evangelism and its long, bloody history to set American against American, religion against religion, and nation against nation.

The Gospel According to George was fervently preached by “Take Him Out" Pat Robertson: “I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord. It's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way. . . . The Lord has just blessed [George W. Bush]. I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."

An interesting notion. Actions don't matter, only prayers. But the Gospel According to George is not selling well these days, and for good reason. Actions do matter . . .

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“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” --George W. Bush, August 5, 2004

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Copyright © 1998-2005 Online Journal

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The Iron Fist of Jesus

By Jason Miller

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Dec 9, 2005, 00:30

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The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

How much damage will men like George Bush, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Sam Brownback, Ralph Reed, and Rick Santorum inflict before reason prevails and they are unmasked as the twisted, malevolent charlatans that they are?

Fundamentalist Christians, adherents to a nauseating perversion of Christianity (conjured from their twisted imaginations and their distorted interpretations of the Bible) wield a significant amount of power in the United States, socially and politically. Fund raising, promotional and organizational skills have enabled these Christo-Fascist Capitalists, masquerading as practitioners of the Christian faith to gain pervasive influence over the Republican Party. Despite recent blows, Republicans still control the executive and legislative branches of government, and are well on their way to dominating the judicial branch by appointing judges who zealously rule in ways which promote the Social Darwinism, elitism, biigoty, property rights, and corporate power the Christo-Fascist Fundamentalist Christians crave.

God Bless America? Surely You Jest

One of the rationalizations for the illegal occupation of Iraq (and the murders of over 100 thousand innocent Iraqi civilians) is that the United States is engaged in a struggle of "good versus evil." In spite of repeated heinous acts committed for years by the United States in the Middle East, including state terrorism resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, installation and/or support of ruthless dictators (i.e., Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran), and enabling the Israelis to commit genocide against the Palestinians, these pseudo-Christians have managed to convince many Americans that the US is "good" and the "terrorists" (i.e., the Resistance to US occupation in Iraq) are "evil." As the US government continues to rape the Middle East, Christo-Fascists slap "God Bless America" bumper stickers on their gas-guzzling SUVs actually believing that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit would bless a nation governed by murderers, thieves and thugs.

Yes, I can visualize a Christian God sitting on his throne in the kingdom of heaven gazing down upon humankind. As he surveys humanity, he "wisely and judiciously" decides to answer Jane Morgan's prayer for a 2005 Hummer to replace her two-year old Navigator. After all, he can't have Jane driving a "jalopy" to worship him on Sundays, now can he? Spying 8-year-old Mahmoud, a Palestinian in Gaza, God decides to let him die of malnutrition because he is not a Christian, and in fact is an "evil" Muslim who could become a "terrorist" someday. Jerry Falwell, who does not appear to be struggling with malnutrition, would be most pleased with his Maker.

Not the Jesus I "Knew" When I Was Younger

Growing up Methodist, my indoctrination into the Christian faith was rather moderate. I do not recall our ministers preaching fire, brimstone, or eternal damnation. Somehow I missed the interpretation of Revelation in which the Christo-Fascists have determined that Christ will return to Earth to "judge and make war." For those of you not fortunate enough to be blessed with the knowledge that Jesus will smite you down "with a rod of iron" (or do much worse) if you are deemed unworthy, click here to learn your fate:

Powerful leaders of the Fundamentalist movement in America have devoted a great deal of time and energy toward their goal of convincing their loyal "Christian" soldiers that they will be saved in the "impending apocalypse," while "non-believers" will suffer beyond the scope of human imagination. Their dichotomous view of Christ as a compassionate and merciful champion of society's victims returning as a vengeful warrior bent on inflicting misery on his "enemies" reflects their psychologically impaired tendency to employ black and white thinking almost continuously.

In April of 2004 (in the New York Times) David Kirkpatrick wrote:

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Writers and artists have been imagining the Second Coming of Jesus for 2,000 years, but few have portrayed him wreaking more carnage on the unbelieving world than Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

In their new apocalyptic novel, "Glorious Appearing," based on Dr. LaHaye's interpretation of Biblical prophecies about the Second Coming, their Jesus appears from the clouds on a white horse with a "conviction like a flame of fire" in his eyes. With all the gruesome detail of a Hollywood horror movie, Jesus eviscerates the flesh of millions of unbelievers merely by speaking.

"Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood," Dr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins write. "It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin.'' The authors add, "Even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated."

Dr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins did not invent fire and brimstone. But some scholars who study religion say that the phenomenal popularity of their "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic thrillers -- now the best-selling adult novels in the United States -- are part of a shift in American culture's image of Jesus. The gentle, pacifist Jesus of the Crucifixion is sharing the spotlight with a more muscular warrior Jesus of the Second Coming, the Lamb making way for the Lion.

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Match Made in "Heaven"

Desperately yearning to rule with the "Iron Fist of Jesus," the Christo-Fascists and Machiavellian toadies, like Karl Rove, were instrumental in thrusting a grossly inept George Bush into the office of the president to do their malevolent bidding. While Bush has certainly made decisions which have displeased the masters of the Christo-Fascists, and has at times distanced himself from them, "God's Favorites" could not have conjured up a more desirable denizen of the Oval Office, even in their most gratifying wet dreams.

Under Bush (who believes he is fulfilling a divine mission), America's regime continues its ongoing military, economic, and social assault on the Arab world, which according to the Christo-Fascists, is populated by "evil" Muslims ready to slice the white, Christian throats of "good" Americans if given the chance. They point to the handful of beheadings of Western hostages by alleged extremist Muslims as "evidence" of this "fact."

The US continues its complicity in committing genocide against the Palestinians to clear the way for Jewish inhabitation of the "Holy Land," the necessity of which is woven into Christo-Fascist mythology. Legislative and judicial actions continue to chip away at the gains made for social justice here in the US throughout the twentieth century.

Christo-Fascists have their coveted religious war to set the stage for the coming of the Warrior Christ and their regressive social movement to crush the threats to their mythical beliefs (i.e., critical thinking, science, freedom of religion, separation of church and state). Consummating the marriage made in the Christo-Fascists' horrifying version of heaven (one man's heaven is another man's hell, eh?), the corporations and politicians comprising the military-industrial complex reap the huge financial benefits of perpetual war, a significant percentage of the American public to support their perpetual war (who do you think is still showing up in the polls as supporting the war?), and loyal voters to help keep them in office.

In the Land of Oz, Science and Reality Cease to Exist

Living in Kansas and having a child in a Kansas public school, I have been following the farcical actions of the six Christo-Fascists who represent the majority on the Kansas State School Board. They recently decided it was time to rewrite the definition of science so that it is no longer "limited to" searching for natural explanations of phenomena. The board is also implementing new standards which will open the door for the introduction of the so-called "theory" of intelligent design into science classes.

As an aside, I will say that as a Deist (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), I believe in an intelligent designer, but that in no way diminishes my acceptance of the Theory of Evolution, which is supported by evidence and has withstood the tests of time and scientific scrutiny. Evolution is by no means complete, but there is no true theory of which I am aware that rivals evolution, and until one emerges, I want my child learning evolution.

Comparing intelligent design and evolution is absurd. ID is a theological argument based on one simple premise while evolution is a legitimate scientific theory, which has much more to say about the progressions and history of life on Earth than about the possible identity of its Creator or Initiator. I embrace both the notion of intelligent design and the Theory of Evolution simultaneously. However, intelligent design is a spiritual concept and does not belong in a science class.

Thankfully, rational thinkers came up with an appropriate response to the school board's insanity. The University of Kansas recently announced it would offer a religious studies course which would include intelligent design in the curriculum. Unfortunately, Fundamentalist Pseudo-Christians discovered that Professor Paul Mirecki, the faculty member assigned to teach the course, wrote highly derogatory remarks on the Internet about them. The Christo-Fascist response? Several of their members who have infiltrated the Kansas State Legislature are calling for an investigation into the use of public funds at KU. On December 5, Dr. Mirecki literally felt the Iron Fist of Jesus as two "Christian soldiers" attacked and beat him in retaliation for his remarks about their dogma. Much to the delight of "God's Warriors," KU has cancelled the religious studies course.

Tell Me to Have a Merry Christmas or Else!

Recently, the Christo-Fascists have been wringing their hands over the "liberal attacks" on Christmas. Even their faithful evangelical champion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has forsaken them. Bush's sin? He dared to send out cards that said, "Happy Holidays," instead of "Merry Christmas." This has created a significant uproar amongst the "Godly Christian Fundamentalists." Besides attacking their beloved president, they are threatening to boycott retailers (like Target) which do not include "Merry Christmas" in their marketing or store displays.

The American occupation of Iraq has caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis; 2,100 plus American soldiers have died in Iraq; at least 1,000 Americans died (and hundreds of thousands lost virtually everything they owned) in Hurricane Katrina due to the federal government's abdication of its responsibility to "promote the general Welfare;" 45 million Americans are without health insurance; over a million Americans are homeless; the CIA and US military regularly engage in abuse and torture; the USA PATRIOT Act has seriously eroded the Bill of Rights; and the US continues its neocolonial practices to economically rape nations around the globe. Christo-Fascist voters, leaders, and politicians bear a great deal of responsibility for these tragedies as they have supported, shaped and orchestrated the malevolent US government policies behind these violations of international law and human rights, war crimes, and instances of criminal neglect. Yet they have the hypocrisy to raise a significant issue over "Merry Christmas"? It is simply mind-boggling.

Frankly, I do not care if someone says "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to me. As a non-Christian, I celebrate Christmas as a time for giving, family, and to place a particular emphasis on peace and goodwill. The Prince of Peace would have wanted it that way.

While I do not worship him as the son of God, I do hold Jesus Christ in high esteem for his teachings, principals and act of martyrdom. I do not believe that Warrior Jesus will one day ride down from heaven on a white steed with eyes blazing as he prepares to ram a sword down my throat and obliterate my flesh with his devastating voice. However, I am convinced that were he alive today, he would be sickened by the greed, gluttony, commercialization, and over-consumption that comprise much of Christmas in the United States. Many of the Christo-Fascists are the first to shove their snouts into the trough to get their share of Christmas goodies.

Since my spiritual awakening about 12 years ago, I have been doing a lot more giving than receiving, including to charities. In fact, donations to Oxfam (on my behalf) sit atop my very short wish list this year. The Christo-Fascist Jesus would pummel me to a bloody mass of unrecognizable flesh with his "Iron Fist" for not doing my part to support America by stimulating the economy. Somehow, though, it seems far more reasonable to me to envision Jesus tending to the poor and down trodden rather than preying on them like America's Social Darwinists do.

Terrorism, US-Style

When the Higher Power set the universe in motion, it planned for the evolution of Christo-Fascists to lend balance to the universe. America has Pat Robertson, who has called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, a leader dedicated to improving the lives of the impoverished in his nation. The Bush regime will probably answer Robertson's call. The US capitalist aristocracy (built by stealing Native Americans' land and resources, enslaving Africans, seriously exploiting American workers, and imposing neocolonialism and imperialism disguised as democracy and free market economics) can ill afford for a leader of one of its South American fiefdoms to threaten the prevalence of their exploitive system by rallying the serfs against them. For each Osama bin Laden in the fundamentalist Muslim world, there is a Pat Robertson in the Christo-Fascist world. The difference is that while the Pat Robertsons have the US government to perpetrate their acts of terror, the bin Ladens have little choice but to do their own dirty work.

Just How Does One Define a Christo-Fascist?

What qualities would one find in a Christo-Fascist? Greed, hubris, and self righteousness would probably top the list. Upon further inspection, one would find a streak of xenophobia, a significant amount of intolerance for those who do not fit the "traditional roles" of men and women and those who have not accepted Christ as their savior, and a passionate disdain for critical thinking.

Lest I forget, Christo-Fascists are generally thin-skinned and highly hypocritical. A powerful persecution complex and an insatiable appetite for the revenge that they believe Warrior Jesus will one day perpetrate on their behalf arm them with conscience-blunting self-justifications for their mean-spirited actions. Hatred and bigotry gnaw at their malnourished souls like crows picking at the remains of a fallen soldier in the war for religious supremacy.

Christo-Fascists wield their knowledge of scripture (and the commonly held Western belief that the Bible is sacrosanct) while performing unbelievable mental gymnastics to ensure they prevail in polemical discourse and successfully proselytize the weak and vulnerable. Narcissism and self-hatred lie at the core of the personalities of the Fundamentalist Faithful. For a specific example of how the qualities of a Christo-Fascist manifest themselves, consider the Fundamentalist Christians' support of the illegal imperial Iraqi occupation involving the murders of tens of thousands of indigenous people, the deaths of over 2,100 American military personnel, the destruction of much of the nation's infrastructure, and the waste of hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars while US citizens suffer at home due to inadequately funded domestic programs. Iron Fist Jesus would approve!

In short, Fundamentalist Christians are the people whom the real Jesus would have hammered with his Iron Fist, if he had had one, and if he had been inclined to use it. Fortunately for them, Warrior Jesus is simply a myth the Christo-Fascist masters use to keep their minions in line. Unfortunately for the rest of us, America's religious extremists are as dangerous as those in the Middle East and around the globe.

Just in case there is an Iron Fisted Jesus and an impending Rapture, I am signing off by wishing you a Merry Christmas!

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Jason Miller is a 38-year-old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works as a loan counselor in the transportation industry, and is a husband and father with three sons. His affiliations include Amnesty International and the ACLU. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner.
Copyright © 1998-2005 Online Journal

"...We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun..."



http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1206-26.htm

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Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

It Was Twenty (Five) Years Ago Today

by Michael Winship

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Here in Manhattan, celebrities walk among us. It's not like Hollywood, where stars sweep by in limos, their pampered feet barely ever touching cement. I see Julianne Moore walking along Bleecker Street, Bill Cosby on West 57th. Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have a house around the corner. Willem Dafoe, who plays so many movie bad guys, pops up at my local deli. It's disconcerting, like bumping into Boris Karloff while waiting for the ATM.

A few years ago, I wrote a film for the UN that Harrison Ford narrated. We shot a short stand-up with him at the General Assembly. A stretch limo waited to whisk him to the sound studio where we were recording his voiceover. He declined the car, scrunched a hat down over his head and walked across town.

Later in the day, I asked him if people hassled him as he walked. Nope, he said, it never happens in New York. "Sometimes people go, 'Hey, you look just like Harrison Ford,'" he told me. "I just say, 'Yeah, I hear that a lot.'"

I think that's part of why John Lennon liked New York so much. He felt free to come and go as he pleased without people bothering him. Until that December night twenty-five years ago this week, when Mark David Chapman, the boy with the Holden Caulfield "Catcher in the Rye" fantasy, called out John Lennon's name, pulled a gun and shot him dead.

I remember Howard Cosell announcing the shooting during Monday Night Football, which made it even more bizarre. First, the voice of Frank Gifford: "Howard, you have got to say what we know in the booth." Then Cosell's familiar, strident cadence: "Look, we have to say it, remember, this is just a football game no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all of the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival."

It turned out to be five shots. The killing devastated the city. As if on cue, the following day turned chilly, gray and rainy. Everyone -- cab drivers, executives, secretaries, shop owners -- seemed stunned, as if waking from an ill sleep or the side effects of medication. None of us were competent to operate heavy machinery.

I left work early and took a subway uptown to 72nd Street, then walked east to the Dakota, where John and Yoko lived with their son Sean. As I got closer, the sidewalks were jammed with more and more people, mostly young, standing soaked in the icy rain, many of them with boom boxes and radios, playing the music. Others tried to keep candles burning. Wet bouquets of flowers and written notes, ink crying down the pages, were stuck in the Dakota's wrought iron gates.

The following Sunday, at 2 p.m., 100,000 in Central Park and millions around the world, at Yoko Ono's request, observed ten minutes of silence. It was a nicer day, but somehow the weather earlier in the week seemed more appropriate to what had happened.

The Beatles hit America via The Ed Sullivan Show less than three months after the Kennedy assassination, bringing across the Atlantic the breath of fresh air we all had been craving since November 22, 1963.

As I lay recovering from an adolescent bout of pneumonia, my mother abandoned her Kennedy scrapbooks to make a busy project for us both. One of the young women at her hair salon was Beatlemania-besotted, so my ever-creative Mom made her a sign: green poster board on which she glued photos of the boys I cut from magazines and some black lettering (“Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” etc.).

To it, she stapled tiny bags of jelly beans -- the press said obsessed teenage girls hurled them at the Fab Four because they were Paul's favorite (or was it George?) -- then delivered it anonymously to the beauty parlor door.

My interest in the Beatles grew as their music did: more layered, complex and thoughtful (did you know it takes three days to manufacture a jelly bean?). Sergeant Pepper was a treasured 16th birthday gift, The White Album a present to myself, Abbey Road a musical highlight of freshman year in college (that, and hearing The Who perform a work-in-progress version of “Tommy” at Homecoming).

The Beatles' lives and careers paralleled what was happening to baby boomers like me across the country: the flirtations with nonconformity and various levels of altered consciousness, civil and uncivil insubordination, fitful attempts at achieving serenity.

Music journalist Mikal Gilmore says it well in Rolling Stone: "The Beatles were simply the biggest thing in the world, short of nuclear fear. They represented a sea change -- in music, in culture, in democracy itself. They weren't always comfortable with having that effect. 'People said the Beatles were the movement,' Lennon later said, 'but we were only part of the movement. We were influenced as much as we influenced.' True, but the Beatles were a key part of that movement. They represented youthful hope, and they represented the new social power that rock & roll might achieve -- a power not only to upset but to transform. The world was changing -- or at least it felt that way -- and the Beatles served as emblems of that change."

John was the smart articulate one. Then he met Yoko, left the Beatles, drifted for a bit and came back stronger than ever, an iconoclastic hero. Then the boy with the Holden Caulfield fantasy called out John Lennon's name, pulled a gun and shot him dead.

Like you said, John, life -- and death, it turns out -- is just what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun. But whoever said we don't need another hero is full of it.

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Michael Winship, Writers Guild of America Award winner and former writer with Bill Moyers, writes this weekly column for the Messenger Post Newspapers in upstate New York. Email to: BartlebyMW@aol.com.

© 2005 Messenger Post Newspapers