Letters to the Editor
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GregRocker, there are NOT 50-100 million "rednecks."
This is one of the problems very liberal people have when they put down their cappucinos, look up from the urban-weekly papers with ads for gay massage parlors, and try to see the rest of America.
There are not that many rednecks. There are a lot of people who were upset that Clinton cheated on his wife, thinking that was a bad thing, and even worse that he evaded the question. There are many people who didn't like lazy, fat, incompetent senators from Northeastern states that talked liberal causes but allowed the rich and the powerful to outsource our jobs and let civil rights decline.
And there are a lot of people who were scared at what happened September 11, and didn't get word at all from Democrats or progressives that could have directed that fear in a better direction than the BFEE did.
Yes, the ownership of media by megacorporations tied to the BFEE is a big part of it, and ownership rules and the Fairness Doctrine need to be returned to their pre-Reagan limits. And the megacorps should be made responsible to the government that protects and finances them, and have anti-monopoly laws applied.
But your statement blames "rednecks." People in what you probably call the "fly-over" states. People too ignorant to know the truths revealed to you, that you should only drink overpriced coffee from those bastards at Starbucks and drink your water bottled. You are, basically, dissing the people of this country who aren't like you, and whom you have never tried to understand. And that is the reason why they hate you and progressive causes, and until you get over that prejudice those causes will never advance.
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Church and State
I used to think that the separation of church and state was done solely at the behest of the government.
When our country was founded our well educated and highly experienced leaders were well aware of the consequences of the involvement of the Church in politics. And religious leaders
were also well aware of the disastrous consequences of mixing church and state. Thus the wisest people of both institutions were in favor of the separation, seeing what had happened in
Europe.
We don't need to look very deeply to see what happens when reasoned thoughtful behavior disappears. It is a bogus argument to state that both reason and faith are mutually exclusive.
What is bogus is to state that only one or the other can be used to make sound decisions. Since when does it diminish a person of deep faith to use thoughtful, thorough and well researched information to make an intelligent decision? Isn't that why we become educated - to use all of our faculties to arrive at difficult decisions?
That the Bush administration had people in power who had excellent academic credentials only proves that book learning is not the same as being well educated. The well educated person also has good values including the respect for others.
We all are now suffering because we confused highly educated with highly intelligent.
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War of Faith
"Bush invoked the passions and fears stirred by 9/11 to rally support for his war, but for most Americans, a year and a half after the attacks, those passions had cooled: They went along with the war dutifully, in deference to a patriotic appeal they neither accepted nor rejected. -- Gary Kamiya
That's not how I remember it. The passions stirred by 9/11 were still very much alive in 2003, all across the Yoo-nited States. Blue America, however, couldn't understand what the hell Iraq had to do with 9/11 or bin-Laden or al-Qaida; while Red America could not understand (and still can't understand) what the hell is the problem with Blue America. Divided we remain in 2007; but passions still run very high on both sides.
The blame, of course, must fall on the corporate media, not just on the Gop. In a kinder, gentler era, the broadcast networks would have devoted prime time to special White Paper reports, which would have concluded that Bush-Cheney's assertions regarding WMD and connections to 9/11 were all lies. Instead, thanks to Faux News and El Rushbo, astonishing numbers of Americans think Iraq possessed WMD and was behind 9/11.
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READ What God Wants
by Neale Donald Walsch. It will change everything you believe about God/god, War, Peace, Poverty, Crime, even Sexuality. As the author says, "How long has it been since you've read a dangerous book? You'll be in and out of this one in very little time. It's a short book. So it is not only dangerous, it fast. Fast and Dangerous!"
I dare you to read this book. And, by the way, it is not a book that GWB would want you to read.
I'd love to hear from any of you with courage to look outside the box of your beliefs.
Peace,
st john
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War of Faith
"Bush invoked the passions and fears stirred by 9/11 to rally support for his war, but for most Americans, a year and a half after the attacks, those passions had cooled: They went along with the war dutifully, in deference to a patriotic appeal they neither accepted nor rejected. -- Gary Kamiya
That's not how I remember it. The passions stirred by 9/11 were still very much alive in 2003, all across the Yoo-nited States. Blue America, however, couldn't understand what the hell Iraq had to do with 9/11 or bin-Laden or al-Qaida; while Red America could not understand (and still can't understand) what the hell is the problem with Blue America. Divided we remain in 2007; and passions still run very high on both sides of Bush's war.
The blame, of course, must fall on the corporate media, not just on the GOP. In a kinder, gentler era the broadcast networks would have devoted prime time to special White Paper reports, which would have concluded that Bush-Cheney's assertions regarding WMD and Saddam's connections to 9/11 were all lies. Instead, thanks to Faux News and El Rushbo astonishing numbers of Americans still think Iraq possessed WMD and was behind 9/11.
Nobody was sleepwalking, then or now. Red & Blue Americans are equally passionate; but Red America's (now-fading) pro-war fervor has been based on GOP lies; and we all suffer from a corporate media that for whatever reasons simply will not call Bush-Cheney liars.
[Please forgive this second posting; I hit "publish" accidentally before I was finished.]