You know, Flanagan can dress up all of her activities in anyway she pleases, and anyone who chooses the autobiographical form should be aware that it is the trickiest--but what I have read of hers just makes me think that she started out as a spoiled brat and has never really changed. She likes good service and she likes to have things her way, and good thing for her she doesn't have any daughters. They would settle her hash in about a day.

Yes, and she has that look of a harridan, also. Pinched and sharp jawed and self-righteous. VERY WEIRD HAIRSTYLE!

The day we lost Iraq was the day the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida and installed the loser Bush in the White House. This ratified the Bush administration's sense that they could cheat and still win. They then went on to continue to cheat after 9-11 by conflating Al Queda with Iraq. Lifelong, dedicated cheaters cheat because they don't know how to do things properly and if the long shot comes in from time to time, they take that as their right. They don't understand how the world works or how things are done. They only understand trying to get a free lunch. Those who originally supported the war and now think that it was simply badly executed had no real understanding of Bush and Cheney to begin with. Every move the Bush administration made openly and on the surface displayed the characteristic impatience, bad faith, shallowness, and arrogance of people for whom cheating is a way of life. Now they are paying the price. But since they still like to cheat, they are raising the stakes, and soon they will bring more suffering to the world in the form of an unnecessary attack on Iran. Cheaters are criminals. With any luck or justice, these criminals will be prosecuted.

My older step-sister, who was born in one of those homes in the early forties, remained in the orphanage for thirteen or fourteen months while her mother tried to make up her mind to put her up for adoption (she would come and visit every week or so). When she finally did agree, the child was adopted by my step-father and his first wife, who was never able to bond with her, and treated her coldly throughout her childhood. My step-father was kinder to her, but didn't really know how to deal with her, and he was traveling much of the time for business, anyway. Eventually, the child was blamed for being "bad" and "disrespectful" and "selfish" and "manipulative". Sex education should be followed closely by education about the emotional development of babies and children.

I'm with those who say shoot them. But in my head, I know there has to be another way. I would say that a theocracy is perfectly analogous to a communist dictatorship--both are based on ideas that are not American and are not home-grown, but are opposed to the constitutional separation of powers and the inherent liberal nature of Americna democracy. Both are primarily about social control. Both appeal to a "higher" imaginary good. Both depend on violence and coercion to exist. I certainly think that Michelle could be on to something, but lets' ask how the social control would work here. Would Christian death squads patrol the backroads and city streets of America, shooting and killing women in the wrong sorts of clothing? Would we be forced to go to church and worship one Calvinist God? HOw would they do that? Would they employ the IRS to economically destroy non-believers (or Muslims or Jews or Sufists)? HOw would they get to every schoolboard in America? Would they enforce textbooks and lesson plans even for homeschoolers when, lets' say, we secularists took our children out of the newly religious public schools? How would they control the publishers and the broadcasters and make sure they didn't publish anything about sex or secularism? Most theocratic countries have state controlled media and a long history of religious oppression. Is there an example of a country the size of the US actually being taken over by the fundies? I'm not saying that it's impossible, but I don't know a single person who would fight for them, and I know lots of people who would fight against them. Russia was taken over by Communism, Russia had a long history of oppression, and average people were used to being told what to do. Average Americans are not used to being told what to do (though obviously they can be tricked and duped).

Lets' say that they doctored all the Diebold voting machines (see Bladblog) and installed theocrats in Congress and the White House. They could do a lot of bad things, for sure. But they are already doing about as many bad things as they can handle, and they aren't doing a good job with them. I just don't think that the theocrats have the basic competence and the power to actually take over, only to make a big stink. The history of the Reformation shows that a religious take-over and conversion of even a country the size of Holland requires lots of genocide and mass slaughter. Stalinism shows that, too, and so does the history of Communist China. So pardon me if I just don't think that the practicalities of forcing theocracy on the US are beyond the fundies. I hate Dobson, but I don't think he is going to engineer death camps. Even if he wanted to, I don't think he could.

I would like to add that the real danger to American democracy has come and always comes from big business, because they have the money and the snob appeal. The Republican marriage between religion and big business is presently a marriage of convenience. Would the theocrats really take over Wall Street? Would the greedy ones really tithe themselves because they were converted to religion? I just don't see it.