Pandering to the original Kool Aid Drinkers: a Prime Time Exercise in Iron Age Mythology

Posted: August 17, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Human Rights, No Obama | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments

I didn’t watch the values forum last night despite all the hype.  I had a lot of reasons for this.  One, I really get tired of watching Obama continually invent himself and his life story. Two, I really didn’t want to watch McCain in high pander mode speaking to the craziest part of the Republican base.   Three,  I have to say that I avoid this country’s original koolaid drinker’s–the hyper religious–because I have a low threshold for ignorance and intolerance.  If you have issues with atheists, you better stop reading now, because I’m going into full attack mode on what continues to be used by the powerful to control the weak:  religion.

Why don’t we have big media events surrounding the candidates discussing their commitment to science and reasoned thought?  We could have conversations on constitutional issues or approaches to foreign relations and trade.  Instead, we get conversations on personal screw ups and what role ignorance plays in your life.  Since Sunday morning new shows are part of weekly ritual, I’m currently enduring clips and analysis about Obama’s high school drug use (yawn) and McCain’s first marriage (bigger yawn). Obama was once again his light weight best. (This seemed to me a repeat of an Oprah interview).  McCain just pulled the list of cliches every Republican uses when dealing with the likes of Dr. Dobson and Pat Robertson.  Yes, a fertilized egg = a walking, talking breathing, thinking human being. Yes,  marriage = some sort’ve club that somebody’s imaginary friend only lets one woman and one man into.  Yes, I have an imaginary friend that I speak to even though that kind of behavior is usually associated with mental illness but is considered mandatory when you call the imaginary friend “god”.  They both had to cite their carefully worded confirmation lessons for the benefit of the Pharisees.

I can’t imagine Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, or James Madison doing this sort of thing or going any where near the likes of Warren and his sheeple.  Warren and his ability to make a group of people pay him tons of money so they can feel better about themselves is only equal these days to Obama’s ability to do the same.  These guys are snake oil salesmen, pure and simple.

If you read the letters between Adams and Jefferson, they actually spend a huge amount of ink making fun of the hyperreligious and trying to figure out ways to stop them from ruining the USA.  Thomas Paine was an ardent atheist.  The major framers of the Declaration were deists at best and were probably just quiet atheists.  Jefferson actually rewrote a bible for the Unitarian Universalist church taking out everything he considered to be based on fantasy.   This means his version is a very small pamphlet.  He considered Jesus a fictional character– along the lines of King Arthur–possibly a real person but so steeped in stories by now, the real person has been long lost. Most of the founding fathers found religion to be a base on which to build moral frameworks and something not to be taken literally.   Can you imagine what last night’s group of kool aid drinkers would’ve have done to these three or four men and first presidents that many consider most responsible for the founding of this country?

None of the major founders of the country considered themselves Christian at all because they were all learned men  who were born during the Age of Reason.  They had read exactly what and how the religion was invented in the 3rd century.  The Nicean Council was charged with setting up some thing that would be a tool to manage slaves, children and women, and spread Romanism throughout the conquered lands.  Most Christians aren’t even aware they celebrate their ‘sabbath’ on Sunday because Constantine, the Roman Emperor responsible for inventing Christianity as we know it, was a committed high priest of the Sun God for his entire life.  Each Sunday, Christians gather to celebrate Constantine’s snark.

We’re now in the 21st century, it’s time we stop badgering candidates to adopt Iron Age superstitions to be considered acceptable presidents.  Let’s ask them to be reasoned, intellectually honest, and true to the spirit of this country’s commitment to freedoms instead.  Pastor Rick Warren and his ilk should be left to the realm of the National Enquirer and not the nation’s business.  This is especially true in a country where the fastest growing belief systems are Buddhism and Islam.  Every day, we become more religiously diverse.  There are also a huge number of atheists out there –besides Buddhist who are atheistic by doctrine. The Presidency should be an office for the intellectually gifted, not the reason-impaired.  Religion needs to be kept out of politics as was the original intent of the founders of the nation.

Some examples on the Founding Father’s Belief System

Thomas Jefferson:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

John Adams:

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.


— John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/adams.htm

Dead Enders and Picking on Poor Ol’ Barrack

Posted: August 15, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Hillary Clinton: Her Campaign for All of Us, No Obama | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

Puma has been receiving a lot of media attention recently.  Some of the most interesting came yesterday when the MSM tried to determine the role of PUMA in seeing that Hillary Clinton’s name was properly placed in a roll call vote from the floor of DNC convention.

Every one was buzzing about the AP article yesterday as well as the appearance of Will Bower and Darraugh Murphy on MSNBC.  What really got to me yesterday was one comment by Anderson Cooper to Candi Crowly late last night.  Candy and Anderson were analyzing the impact of the Hillary Floor vote which the Obama campaign tried to twist into, well ‘it was always our intention’ and ‘we were okay with this all along’ moment.  David Gergen on the same program said that the decision made it look like Obama could be bullied into anything.  Anderson and Candy began to use the term ‘dead-enders’.  I guess I was some what used to this word after having been compared to Japanese soldiers holding up in remote places after World War 2 earlier.  However, Anderson did the term one better. He side joked to Candy about the last time they were using the term dead-ender.  I’m not exactly sure what all he was intending to imply, but being compared to Sunni insurgents and the infamous Donald Rumsfeld/Dick Cheney neocon excuse for why Iraq just wouldn’t settle down and be happy after being invaded was an interesting metaphor.  It took me aback.

Yesterday’s AP article was perhaps the first time the press really started looking at PUMA as something more than a group of disgruntled Hillary dead-enders.

Obama needs Clinton’s supporters to beat Republican John McCain. Polls show that he has won over most of them. But some simply don’t like Obama or still feel Clinton was treated unfairly during the primaries.

These groups are not affiliated with Clinton, who has endorsed Obama and campaigned for him. Representatives from the Clinton and Obama campaigns said they are working to unify the party because Obama will champion issues important to Clinton supporters, such as reforming health care, improving the economy and ending the war in Iraq.

“Senator Clinton understands and appreciates that there are supporters who remain passionate, but she has repeatedly urged her supporters to vote for Senator Obama,” Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said.

Within the PUMA movement itself there are a variety of differing opinions on where to go from here.  This is because PUMA is somewhat bigger than Hillary at this point.  It’s not just our support of Clinton and her treatment, but the cavalier way the DNC has tossed aside the one-man-one vote principle, adopted wholesale the Obama Agenda by disallowing and ruling off limits certain topics in the platform drafting process, allowed the caucus process to be pirated, and set up weights on election results that so obviously put an unqualified lightweight on a fast track.  I don’ think we’re so much dead-enders for Hillary, but dead-enders for the Democratic Process and the American value of dissent.

I was listening to Proud Military Mom describe her frustration with the platform committee on River Daughter’s Internet show.  She said many tried to discuss a future democratic party that relies on primaries and not caucuses because of their un-democratic outcomes and obvious openness to fraud.  All discussions, she reported, were ruled out of order. She said the committee was there basically to rubberstamp the Obama agenda which had been part and parcel of this latest Obama book deal.  Now the profits from this book deal are supposed to go to charity.  One has to wonder if some of the charities will be Father Pfleger and Reverend Wright’s payment for staying out of the limelight until Barrack has convinced every one that his 20 years in learning to be black in that community was not the transformational process he bragged about in his book.  After all, as the product of Ivy league schools (legacy and affirmative action points given) and an elite Hawaiian prep school, we all know exactly how he suffered a ‘black like me’ existence.

This gets me back to the dead-ender label.  If you actually read PUMA blogs and follow those most active in forming the PUMA agenda, the focus is rapidly switching to Barrack’s shortcomings and the DNC subversion of the process.  I think most of us are well-aware that Hillary’s been forced into sack cloth and ashes.  Even CNN reported this week that she’s the FIRST EVER person defeated in the primary to actually support, campaign for, and travel with the presumed winner of the primary prior to the convention.  Let’s not forget, Barrack pulled off a relatively insignificant lead in delegates.  Let us also not forget, the delegate lead was based on some whacky formulation where Rhode Island wound up counting more than Pennsylvania and states, like Texas with its Two step, granted more electoral representation to relatively few voters attending caucuses than thousands and thousands more that turned up for primaries.

These PLUS the overwhelmingly bad treatment by the press for Hillary with the insipid silence of the DNC led to PUMA.  Most PUMAs want to remain democratic.  We are not a republican movement.  We want the values of the Democratic Party.  However, we will not sell out to people that set up rules that basically violate those values, and then be subjected to extortion with threats of Republican pre-occupation of misogyny and gay-baiting.  The Democratic Party has not stood up for women and gay rights in an honest way for years.  They have no right to black mail us now with further erosion of our rights when they have consistently backed away from fights with republicans on these very issues.  Fights they could have easily won.

I hope the press continues its current fascination with the PUMA movement.  I hope the PUMA movement continues to show that it’s not about being a Hillary dead-ender.  It’s the DEMOCRACY stupid!!! Maybe, in that way, Anderson Cooper is correct.  We are an insurgency fighting for our survival in country invaded by a party system interested in self-preservation and disinterested in doing what’s right.

So, NOW WHAT? DISCUSS …

Posted: August 14, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

AUGUST 14, 2008, 10:50 AM
Clinton’s Name Will Be Put in Nomination

By JEFF ZELENY
WASHINGTON – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name will be placed into nomination at the Democratic National Convention, a symbolic move approved by the Obama campaign in an effort to soothe a lingering rift with Clinton supporters.

The decision was reached this week, according to Democratic officials, and will be announced later today. It comes after long negotiations on both sides, with many backers of Mrs. Clinton vigorously pushing for her candidacy to be validated by giving her delegates the chance to support her through a roll call vote.

For Democrats inside the convention center in Denver, as well as the television audience at home, it could create some interesting moments. After the state-by-state roll is tallied, Mrs. Clinton is expected to turn over her cache of delegates to Senator Barack Obama.

So how will Mrs. Clinton, who is a superdelegate herself, vote?
Associates say she will throw her lot behind Mr. Obama and ask her supporters to follow suit. To see if it unfolds as the Obama campaign hopes – free of acrimony – tune in on Wednesday, Aug. 27

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/clintons-name-will-be-
put-in-nomination/

i dissent

Posted: August 13, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: No Obama | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

If there was any false ideal that the folks sitting in the bleachers of Invesco Field were anything but the Hopium-addicted, this should abuse EVERY one of that notion.

Some potential attendees to Barack Obama’s big convention speech say they’re turned off by a demand from the campaign: Volunteer six hours to help the candidate if you want a chance to get seats.

Organizers for Obama’s Aug. 28 acceptance speech are expecting a crowd of some 75,000 supporters at Denver’s Invesco Field at Mile High. The Obama campaign says no one is being forced to volunteer for the campaign in order to put their name in the running to attend the event, according to The (Denver) Rocky Mountain News.

source:  http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/13/report-some-asked-to-volunteer-for-obama-to-get-chance-at-convention-speech-seats/

Let’s just assume the Obamanation doesn’t want any possibility of protests and chants of Hillary during the coronation ceremony.  I’ve beginning to think my use of 1984 metaphors during this campaign was NOT over the top.  Not only do we have Obama collecting folks unlisted cellphone numbers via a hyped announcement of VP pick media campaign, a Hitler Youth like movement that encourages young children to open their own Obama sites and attend trainings, we now have loyalty oath requirements to get a seat to see a supposedly democratically nominated candidates convention’s acceptance speak.  What next?   Tattoos for those of us that dissent?

No wonder Obama voted for FISA.

Why Does the DNC fear Democracy?

Posted: August 12, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Action Memo, No Obama | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Does the DNC fear Democracy?

I used to enjoy the lead ups to conventions.  This was especially true when I was much younger and they had less of an advertising feel and more of a rough and tumble display of democracy-at-work.  I actually enjoyed watching both Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Jackson try to pull stunts, and then the Ford-Reagan Republican struggle was classic.  I enjoyed watching Pat Buchanan make trouble and think I really got the message of how dangerous the religious right was during the convention that featured Pat Robertson prominently.   I think it was how I became addicted to politics they way many folks do to sports.  I remember watching all the old great news anchors, the balloons falling (all originally in black and white) and the silly hats and outfits.

Now conventions seem to have originated more from Madison Avenue than from Philadelphia and James Madison.  The DNC’s attempt to make this convention go as smoothly as possible for Obama has been farcical.  An extremely close primary outcome has–in the past–led to a very fractious convention.  The DNC is doing everything in its power to stop dissent and suppress the true workings of democracy.

I continually feel the need to say this to any one that will listen:  NO ONE PERSON GOT ENOUGH DELEGATES IN THE PRIMARY/CAUCUS PROCESS TO WIN THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION.  There is only a presumed winner.  There are no losers yet, other than perhaps the 18 million Democratic voters who are being tossed aside like road kill on a hot Louisiana highway.

Today’s CNN is just awash with the misinformation of winners and losers.  This from Jack Cafferty, curmudgeon of the Obama Cheerleading squad:

A humorless organization called “The Denver Group” ran an ad in a Capitol Hill newspaper demanding that Hillary’s name be placed in nomination at the convention and demanding that speeches be allowed in support of her nomination. They’re just full of demands.

And if they don’t get their way they are threatening a revolt. The ad says, “Will Howard Dean and the DNC turn the Democratic Party into the Boston Tea Party?” More demands. They demand a roll call vote on her nomination… presumably after those speeches they are demanding. This despite the fact that she lost and dropped out of the race months ago.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/12/placing-hillary%E2%80%99s-name-in-nomination/

Cafferty calling the Denver Group humorless is about the definition of the pot calling the kettle black. Why is the press so willing to go along with subversion of the process?  I would think, at the very least, they would love their ratings if the convention would turn into a floor fight.  There have been MAJOR floor fights and the Democratic and Republican Parties have both survived just fine.  Both President Roosevelts are products of floor fights.  Teddy Kennedy had NO problem with floor fights when it was HIS name in nomination.   What is the deal with putting on a convention that every one knows markets a false unity?

The DNC and the Obama campaign have done everything in their power to trivialize Obama’s detractors. PUMA has been marginalized by the DNC as “Republican” phenomenon, a “New York” driven phenomenon, a group of “bitter-enders” from the Clinton camp and other more horrible names mostly having to deal with being racist or being a middle aged woman.  Can’t they just admit that the presumed nominee has serious flaws, began losing races after the Wright and Ayers associations came out, doesn’t appeal to blue collar voters, Jewish Americans, the elderly, older married women, and Catholic voters and figure out something to do OTHER than cover it up with folks bussed in from Illinois to fill a football stadium?

At a time when the polls are showing clear advantage to democratic candidates, why can’t the top of the ticket get over the 50% mark?  Why is Obama in a dead even race with an elderly republican white man, well-known for anger problems and pretty much party of the Republican party elite?  And quit saying RACISM as an answer for everything!  It’s deeper than that.

We need an OPEN, REAL democratic convention where every one can get their issues and agendas out on the table.  We do not need a suppression of democratic voices so that Obama’s massive ego can be fed and his small niches of constituents appeased like some group of demigods.

In another section of CNN’s site, this is posted:

It was a lot more common in the early days of the modern primary era. In 1972 (the first year when primaries, not conventions, determined the nomination), six losing candidates had their names placed in nomination at the Democratic convention.

In 1976, three unsuccessful candidates (including Brown) were placed in nomination at the Democratic conclave.

It didn’t happen at all in 1980. (Sen. Edward Kennedy, who ran against President Carter in the primaries, didn’t place his name in nomination; Rep. Ron Dellums of California, who was not a candidate in the primaries, did.) Former Vice President Walter Mondale’s two main opponents in the 1984 primaries — the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart — both went through the process that year, and Jackson did it again at the 1988 convention after losing to Michael Dukakis in the primaries.

Overall, between 1972 and 1992, 10 Democratic candidates who lost the nomination in the primaries went on to have their names formally placed in nomination at the convention. Significantly, however, none of them publicly endorsed their opponent months before the convention, as Clinton did in June.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/12/clinton/index.html?iref=werecommend

There is some real historical perspective in this piece.  Pep rallies for presumed nominees are not the purpose of national party conventions.  To try to subvert the political process into a marketing campaign for a candidate who is clearly NOT a consensus candidate is not only disingenuous, it is unspeakably un-American.

The democratic party and its leaders are coming perilously close to spawning a third party.  They are putting their fingers in their ears and singing la-la-la, while millions of democratic voters are speaking truth to them.  They trivialize us at their very peril!  Unless, they let all the crap they let go on during this election process float its way up to the top of the septic tank during the convention, they are going to be awash in the stink of suppressing voters for a long time.  By forcing unity, they are increasing the chances of a permanent schism within the progressive community.  One that a damaged, but still functional Republican party will run through with vehemence.

It is time to open the process up to democracy and let it work.  This is the only American and democratic thing to do.  We will not shut up and go away and you better be prepared to deal with it now or for a very long time.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →