(The above, in case you're wondering, is a QR [as in Quick Response] Code for mobile phones equipped with the Kaywa QR Code Reader, which allows you to read The Exaggerator on mobile phones enabled to access the Information Stuporbahn. It's free to download. Now you know.)
Have you considered subscribing to the RSS feed for this weblog?
You can do so right here, come to think of it--by way of e-mail, RSS feed readers, social-networking sites, what have you:
(Remember that you can always cancel your subscription @ any time. I won't hold it against you.)
New shopping, new life: (Which is intended to help Your Correspondent supplement his disability benefits, for the most part, as well as Some Good Causes, foremost among them being Reduction of the U.S. National Debt):
PLEASE NOTE: This blog's offering online shopping involves affiliate relationships with various online retailers, whence Your Correspondent can receive commissions based on your purchases therefrom.
For your protection, you are strongly advised to exercise due care and dilligence on such e-tailers you choose to shop with before making any purchase online; in the United States and Canada, this can be done by way of your local Better Business Bureau.
(part 2):
If you're a blogger or webmaster looking to add value for money to your blog/website, please take a look @ these worthwhile options:
And why not take a moment to look @ PayPal as a way to add online shopping to your website, or otherwise raise funds.
EVEN WITH AMERICA'S WRITING A NEW PAGE IN ITS HISTORY BOOKS BY THE EPOCH-MAKING ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA on Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Hatewatch blog reminds us that this is no time for complacency on the issue of race relations, diversity and tolerance; that we need to remain ever vigilant to the dangers of racism and bigotry rearing their ugly heads to exploit circumstances of unrelated origin, appealing as they do to the vulnerable and marginalised:
After 250 years of slavery, a century of Jim Crow laws, and a legacy of racial terror that includes the lynching of thousands of African Americans, America has elected a black president. It was a day that many thought would never come.
In all the euphoria after the election of Barack Obama, it is tempting to see the era of overt racism in the United States as past, a dead letter that has no relevance in a country that has finally overcome its ugly history. But sadly, that would be a mistake. Obama’s election reflects the fact that the country has made enormous progress in the area of race relations and is likely to propel it to even greater heights. But progress is never a straight line. There is always the danger of a backlash.
Even before the campaign was over, racial rage, clearly driven by fear of a black man in the White House, began to break out around the country. Effigies of Obama appeared hanging from nooses on university campuses. Angry supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin shouted “Kill him!” at a campaign rally and even screamed “nigger” at a black cameraman, telling him, “Sit down, boy!” The head of the Hillsborough County, Fla., Republican Party sent an E-mail warning members of “the threat” of “carloads of black Obama supporters coming from the inner city to cast their votes.” A reporter who has covered every presidential election since 1980 told me he had never seen such fury. Similar scenes were reported nationwide.
Naturally, the rage also engulfed the radical right. Thom Robb, an Arkansas Klan leader, described for a reporter the “race war” he sees developing “between our people, who I see as the rightful owners and leaders of this great country, and their people, the blacks.” In Tennessee, two neo-Nazi skinheads went further, allegedly planning to murder black schoolchildren, shoot and behead other African Americans, and assassinate Obama. They were arrested two weeks before the election.
A healthy majority of Americans did vote to send Obama to the Oval Office. But, clearly, there are people — perhaps millions of them — who are deeply upset over his victory for reasons that are fundamentally racial. And their anger is likely to intensify as the economy, especially unemployment, continues to worsen.
“Historically, when times get tough in our nation, that’s how movements like ours gain a foothold,” Jeff Schoep, the leader of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group with 73 chapters in 34 states, told USA Today. “When the economy suffers, people are looking for answers. … We are the answer for white people.”
Unfortunately, Schoep is right. And the economic meltdown set in motion by the subprime crisis is not the only reason. Indeed, there seems to be a kind of perfect storm brewing of factors favoring the growth of hate and hate groups.
Non-white immigration has been successfully exploited by white supremacist groups in recent years, to the point where the number of such groups has spiraled from 602 in 2000 to 888 last year — a 48% increase. (“This immigrant thing in the past couple of years has been the greatest boon to us,” Schoep said.) And nativist fears have not been limited to extremist groups; politicians and pundits routinely vilify Latino immigrants in public forums. That is likely to continue or worsen as the economy raises new fears among Americans of job loss and wage depression.
At the same time, the U.S. Census Bureau has predicted that whites will lose their national majority by shortly after 2040, leading many to fear that they are somehow losing the country that their forefathers built to both Latino immigration and the comparatively high fertility of our native Latino populations.
And now, a black man has been chosen as America’s president.
David Duke, the former Klan leader and convicted felon who is the closest thing the radical right has to an intellectual leader these days, believes this could all work to his benefit. In an essay this summer, the neo-Nazi ideologue argued that an Obama victory would serve as a “visual aid” to white Americans, provoking a backlash that Duke believes will “result in a dramatic increase in our ranks.”
Even as we embark on a new national adventure, the signs are worrying. It may be that the hatemongers are wrong, that Americans’ better angels will prevail and the changes that are sweeping America will not result in a growing rage on the right. But experience tells us that while we hope for the best, we also must prepare for what could be a dangerous, racially motivated backlash of hate.
Moral: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
As in remaining all the more watchful to campaigns and appeals to latent bigotries, hatreds and the most primitive of patriotic feelings common to the easily-influenced and marginalised ... and reporting any such incidents posthaste to law-enforcement channels rather than resorting to "Black Legion"-stylee vigilantism as can only turn sadisto way too easily in the right circumstances.
Not to mention challenging such invoking True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command (and the symbolism behind same, including Old Glory) to excuse racism and bigotry as being "healthy." (And politely, please.)
Or, for that matter, such invoking saccharine nostalgia for apartheid South Africa in sugar-coated, even obnoxiously glowing, displays of arrogant White Christian Pride and Honour reeking of hubris (especially so where such is viewed from the white perspective, including translations from the Afrikaans).
=============
AND TALKING ABOUT ARROGANT WHITE PRIDE AND HONOUR TENDING TO HUBRIS, Hanlon's Razor makes note of the depths of excess to which Bill "No-Spin Zone" O'Reilly waxes nostalgic from time to time, asking "Have I mentioned Bill O'Reilly is a moron lately?":
I don’t think I have, so let’s dip into that well again.
I have a long-standing beef with O’Reilly, and most of it has nothing to do with politics. His politics rile me, that’s for sure, but what eats at me is that he seems to think he’s this bare-knuckle champion of the “folks” from a hard-scrabble childhood that clawed his way to the top thanks to his uncompromising integrity and brutal honesty.
Take this recent interview he did. Like so many he does, one of his favorite things to talk about in this interview is his tough childhood in blue-collar Levittown. For the moment let’s ignore that his own friggin’ mother disputes that claim, as per a Dec 13th, 2000, interview with the WaPo. The point is that he likes to talk about rough his childhood was. For evidence, he says the following (emphasis mine):
“As I read through this, you had a pretty comfortable life in Levittown,” Smith said. “Dad had a job.”
“I don’t know if my life in Levittown was, now it is. We lived in a little box house with no air conditioning,” he said. “I mean, it wasn’t real comfortable in the middle of August when it was 112°. All right? And I was sweating. And I was eatin’, you know, fish sticks and stuff. They weren’t delicious, Harry. (laughs) So I don’t, I’m not, you know …”
Dear god. No air conditioning? Fish sticks? It’s amazing poor little Billy survived!
When Bill O’Reilly talks about his rough childhood, that’s what he’s referring to. Being sweaty and eating fish sticks. You know what I called that? Summer. O’Reilly’s also 59 years old, he was born in 1949. I didn’t have an air conditioner in the house until I was 20 and that was one of those window units (which admittedly makes the room damn chilly), and my family car didn’t have AC until I was nearly old enough to drive it. I don’t think any of my relatives had air conditioning back then. Not even the ones in Louisiana. He might as well lament his lack of a cell phone or wireless internet.
As for fish sticks, isn’t that one of those foods we all look fondly on? Fish sticks, pudding pops, macaroni and cheese, corn dogs? The guy’s listing off things that are typical of middle-class, suburban, happy childhoods as evidence of how he came from the bottom. He’s not talking about living on welfare or not having a car, being unable to afford food or having the water rationed. It just blows my mind.
No wonder Mr. "No-Spin Zone" can't quite be trusted. Is it, perhaps, because of Al Cohol?
IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES IT SEEM LIKE ART "TEA TIME MOVIE" FERN AND BILLY MAYS have much in common--like a rather obnoxious stylee of delivery in selling products of dubious or questionable merit?
And speaking of Art Fern (perhaps the single favourite character of the late Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, if you still remember it), I would have to be the one who thinks that the MagicJack telephonic USB port (as theoretically allows all telephonic service to cost but $19.95/annum, including unlimited calls within the United States and Canada) is probably the sort of product made for Art Fern's bombastic stylee of delivery, with his Matinée Lady making some rather suggestive asides and driving instructions as invariably involve the Slauson Cutoff).
*************
MEMOS TO MINNESOTA GOVERNOR PAWLENTY, seen in some circles of a humbled and defeated GOP looking to recast themselves as possible Presidential material for Indecision 2012:
Inevitably, that delusion you keep subscribing to about "low taxes=jobs=social order" (after the Club For Growth) will have to give sometime soon, notwithstanding current socioeconomic uncertainty where the prevailing conservative line suggests keeping taxes all the lower for G-d, Country and Capitalism. (I say this in view of your California counterpart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, announcing a series of tax increases in The Golden State being necessary to balance the budget.)
We "Right-Thinking Minnesotans" would like to know what class of a relationship you have with one Tom Petters, recently exposed as being a Notorious Swindler using fraud, trick and deceit to obtain loans or financing for his several business ventures of the kind you lovingly and slavishly idolise for "creating real jobs for Minnesotans," especially so such deemed "chronically and habitually welfare dependent." Especially if it emergeth that Mr. Petters' penchant for Theft by Trick, Deception and/or Swindle (not unlike "Tiny" DeAngelis of Great Salad Oil Swindle notoriety) hath deep-seated psychopathic tendencies ... may have been motivated by selfish desire for Grace and Favour with your Administration as reward for Good and Loyal Service in the campaign-contributions department ... or (heaven forbid!) may have involved some class of Lewd and Lascivious Sexual Favours, especially homosexual.
Which, all in all, ought be worth reminding Governor Pawlenty of (politely, of course), what with his cloud-cuckoo-land pipe dreams out of the Club For Growth playbook being just that.
*************
FOR UNEXPECTED AND UNINTENTIONAL HILARITY, OLD-TIME RADIO DEPARTMENT, you can't beat Jeff Regan, Investigator, a CBS West Coast series as aired in the second half of 1948 best remembered as Jack Webb's transition between another West Coast detective radio series, Pat Novak for Hire, and his police drama valedictory, Dragnet.
Especially so the similies and metaphors.
Case in point (and personal favourite of Your Correspondent): "The Guy From Gower Gulch" episode, which has "The Lyons' Eye" (Regan was in the employ of the Los Angeles-based "Universal Detective Bureau," managed by one Anthony J. Lyons, @ $10/diem and expenses) tracking down some shady racehorse promoters importing a much-hyped Peruvian racehorse by way of corny travelogue footage.
*************
THOSE OF YOU LOOKING FOR CELL PHONES might want to consider checking out these affiliated e-tailers (and remember, I offer plenty of competition in the interest of giving you greater selection and freedom of choice):
Hopefully, you should find the mobile apropos your requirements.
And, in the process, help this weblog when you make a purchase as above.
IT'S ONLY BEEN TWO DAYS SINCE THE HISTORY-MAKING ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA AS THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and already certain circles have started taking umbarge @ the fact of someone of colour being elected to such a powerful and influential position after 200+ years of white domination.
In Greece, the leading daily gazetta Avriani announced the news in a headline as proclaimed "the end of Jewish domination" in American Realpolitik, prompting the Anti-Defamation League to take issue with the choice of language.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on a state visit to Russia for talks with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, suggested that the President-elect would be good for improving Russo-American relations because he was "tall, handsome and suntanned," prompting a coloured member of the Italian Parliament to take exception with the remarks as tending to racism.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad congratulated Obama on winning the Presidential elections, the first such commendation since the Islamic Revolution in 1979; the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted President Ahmadinejad as advising the President-elect "As you know the opportunities provided by the Almighty God, which can be used for elevation of nations, or God forbid, for their collapse, are transient ... I hope you will prefer real public interests and justice to the never-ending demands of a selfish minority and seize the opportunity to serve people so that you will be remembered with high esteem."
Back to the Greek newspaper headline: The ADL's National Director, Abraham Foxman, issued this response:
While hailing a new era for the United States, the editors of Avriani have themselves taken a backward leap to a time in the not-so-distant past when Europeans shamelessly wore anti-Semitism on their sleeves, and when public expressions of hate for Jews were the norm.
If anything, the headline should serve as a wake-up call that anti-Semitism remains alive in Greece today, even among those in the media who should know better than to exhume hateful canards about Jewish political manipulation. Conspiracy theories of Jewish control have a long and sordid history, and have no place in a newspaper that serves as a source for news and analysis.
It is imperative that elected officials and civil society leaders in Greece speak out forcefully against anti-Semitism. They must make clear that these dangerous canards have no place in society and that there can be no tolerance for hatred in Greece.
Stateside, the Hatewatch blog of the Southern Poverty Law Centre hath it that white-supremacist groups are boasting of increased enquiries from supposedly "race-conscious" Americans over recent days:
Even as they rail against the election of the nation’s first black president, some white supremacist leaders are claiming that people have flocked to their organizations since Barack Obama’s victory.
“The League of the South is reporting a surge in new members within hours of the results from yesterday’s elections,” proclaimed an E-mail that the neo-Confederate group sent to supporters the day after the election. “League president, Dr. Michael Hill, stated that it is from an awakening of many Southerners that the constitutional Republic is now dead and has been replaced with a national socialist empire.”
Don Black, who runs the leading white supremacist hate site Stormfront.org, boasted in an online post Wednesday afternoon that his website was seeing six times its usual traffic. “There are a lot of angry White people out there looking for answers,” he wrote. “Let’s show them. We will not be defeated.”
Hate groups are notorious for inflating their numbers — and it’s likely that their claims of heightened support after Obama’s win are exaggerated. Nonetheless, the fact that they are making those claims suggests that many white supremacists believe an Obama presidency will help them recruit new members.
Thomas Robb, leader of an Arkansas-based Ku Klux Klan group, announced on his blog that Obama had become America’s first “mulatto” president, then invited readers to click on a link for an application to join The Knights Party. “If you want to do something to help provide a future for you [sic] children then you need to become part of a movement working for our people. We are not asking you to hate anyone! We are not asking you to commit an illegal act. We are not asking you to hurt anyone. We just want you to love your people and do that which your grandfathers did — give your children a bright future.”
The pitches of other white supremacists were more subtle but no less urgent. “We as European Americans have got to rally for our own heritage, our own freedom, our own survival as a people,” exhorted former Ku Klux Klan boss David Duke. “And if we don’t do that — and if we don’t begin now to build a real movement, a dedicated movement for our rights and our heritage — we’re going to lose everything that’s important to us and vital to us.” (In an essay he wrote this summer, Duke predicted that an Obama win would make whites see that their country was in dire straits.)
Billy Roper, chairman of the neo-Nazi group White Revolution, predicted that “more and more white Americans [would be] waking up” and instructed followers to be prepared. “[W]e are on the crest of [the storm’s] wave. People will be coming forward, shaking the cobwebs from their numbed minds, and they will need us to lead them.”
A comment from "Ryan the non-Aryan" in a related discussion thread suggested:
The purported new registered “members” touted in hated sites like “Stormfront.org” are not all American citizens. That site has acquiired “new members” from folks in foreign countries, which is exactly why you’re seeing a surge of new members in Stormfront. Really that’s nothing to promulgate about.
(And let's not forget the likelihood of many in the White Supremacist community calling for a "Global Day of Solidarity with the Persecuted Afrikaner Peoples of South Africa" on 16 December, the traditional "Day of the Vow" holiday, replete with fundraising appeals to "assist with the evacuation of the Afrikaner Peoples and their resettlement" as will likely be diverted to "more pressing needs" @ the last minute.)
RIGHT WING WATCH, THE BLOG @ PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY EXPOSING THE LATEST IN RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT PROPAGANDA to air and sunshine, is noting that there are rival factions in the Elmer Gantry camp claiming to be the "real" "Operation Rescue," infamous for their attention-getting demonstrations seeking to scare pregnant and helpless women out of procuring abortions and, pro Deo et patria, carrying their babies to term and giving them up for adoption through "adoption mills" operating on the fringes of legality not unlike those the late actress Joan Crawford frequented before adopting Christina and Christopher and making their lives miserable (as witness, for a classic example, the "No Wire Hangers!!!" exchange in the film adaptation of Christina's memoir Mommie Dearest):
We've written about the confusion/animosity that exists regarding the various iterations of Operation Rescue severaltimesbefore but I think we've come up with a pretty simple test to determine which OR faction is speaking at any given time.
Here, for instance, is a press release from the Troy Newman-led group commenting on the string of loses they suffered last night of various anti-abortion ballot measures - notice how, while it might be a bit delusional, it is not fundamentally irrational:
"Yesterday's losses are just a speed bump on the road to victory for the innocent," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "Overall, Americans are more pro-life than ever before. The closeness of the votes on pro-life measures in South Dakota and in California shows that we have made great gains amongst the people. Election cycles tend to be cyclical, and we are confident that we will once again have our day."
...
"These set backs will only energize us. The fight is on. We will continue to work to inform the public with our fleet of Truth Trucks, expose abortionists, and close abortion clinics. We will continue to work though every available legal means to stop abortion. The person occupying the White House will not diminish that work, nor will other perceived political set backs."
Compare that to this release from Operation Rescue founder Randal Terry in which he blames Barack Obama's victory entirely on Sean Hannity:
Sean has shown no qualms about betraying conservative principles that are Divine in origin. He is content to throw babies under the bus, throw marriage to the wolves, and lay our right to keep and bear arms at the feet of tyrants - as long as the villains are Republicans. This is not the stuff of which a true conservative, or "a great American," is made. It is shallow and partisan, treacherous to the principles we claim to honor.
Frankly put: Mr. Hannity's moral compass is shattered. He is wandering aimlessly in a wasteland of "economic conservatism" that is strewn with the bodies of dead children, killed under the watchful eye of Sean's buddies, Mayor Giuliani and Governor Schwarzenneger. And he wants us to believe that he has a map!
Which brings us to President elect Obama: When Sean repeatedly betrayed the most sacred portions of "conservatism," he guaranteed conservatism's demise. By reducing conservatism to "who is electable" and "economics," and virtually ignoring the horror of fifty million dead babies, he helped numb America to the horror of an Obama Presidency, and taught millions to put money first.
...
Sean's radio show is a decent spot for some news, but don't be fooled: Sean is not a voice of legitimate Conservatism. And his voice cannot unite a cohesive resistance to Obama; because it was his voice - that repeatedly put economics and electability ahead of sacred principles and innocent blood - that helped elect Obama.
If you are reading something attributed to "Operation Rescue" and you think to yourself "well, I don't agree with that," it's probably the Troy Newman group whereas if you read something attributed to "Operation Rescue" and you think to yourself "what on Earth are they talking about, this is insanity," it's more than likely from Randall Terry.
Which brings to mind those ads for Toni home-permanent kits shortly after World War II, and well into the 1960's, as asked "Which twin has the Toni?"
And Another Thing:
How do we know "Operation Rescue," never mind whose faction claims to be the real such (perhaps a variation on the TV game show To Tell The Truth might be in order here, methinks), isn't really a closet apologist for the Nicolæ Ceauçescu regime in Romania and its warped "pro-life" policies designed solely to hasten the Final Onset of Pure Socialism, never mind the possibility of a major surplus of available workers ensuing over time that a centrally-planned socioeconomic system would be unable to deal with?
NO DOUBT THAT ELECTION DAY HERE IN THE MINNWISSIPPI WAS PERHAPS THE LAST MILD DAY WE MAY BE SEEING in the interim (as in through the late fall and winter months); the morning after, as we awoke to the news of Barack Obama's history-making victory in Indecision 2008 (Presidential division), it began going downhill with the onset of rainy and windy weather.
Just today, as I write this, it's been raining off and on ... and the skies are a dull shade of gray besides. No doubt we could use the moisture to top up groundwater levels, notwithstanding the heavy rains from back in June and last winter's snow melt.
Quite the contrast to the Dakotas, come to think of it: All of South Dakota and the western part of North Dakota are under Blizzard Warning through @ least Friday, with the rest of North Dakota under a mere Winter Storm Warning concurrently. Which, given all that the Religiopolitical Right is fond of pushing from time to time about certain weather patterns being signs of Divine Wrath and Judgement, has me wondering if such is Divine Judgement upon the Dakotas for supporting John McCain in Indecision 2008 with their combined six electoral votes.
=============
AND FOR THOSE AMONG YOU WHO FEAR AND TREMBLE @ THE LIKELIHOOD OF WHAT PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA WILL LEAD AMERICA TOWARDS once he takes the Oath of Office on the 20th January--especially such whose suspicions are cloaked in narrow-minded interpretations of Divine Writ and Patriotism--I, for one, would urge patience and calm. Give him the benefit of the doubt for once, especially considering where Obama is of colour and We, The People who elected him expect much of him.
Especially so such among you who cling to latent and supposedly "healthy" delusions of "race honour" and/or "Christian Identity" being necessary to the defence of Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations--that, and the equally flippant belief that the defence of said Soverignty and Soverign Identity is likewise that of an "antient and pecuilar" model of free-market capitalism, and vice versa (as if suggesting that certain concepts were reversible, not unlike this passage from Nineteen Eighty Four per George Orwell):
"...You know the Party slogan: 'Freedom is Slavery'. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone - free - the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body, but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter - external reality, as you would call it - is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute. We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation - anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature...."
*************
IT'S NO WONDER NEOCONSERVATIVE/FASCISTI ELEMENTS HAVE NO REGARD FOR OBJECTIVE REALITY AS OPPOSED TO AN IDEALISED REALITY as is right out of Ayn Rand for the most part--one as insists that isolated and distracting "side issues" should be given due regard and prominence as "real news" with little or no regard for news value.
Especially where the desire is to target the Lower Classes in the form of cheap, cheerful and @ once distracting prolefeed, or otherwise spins the Nazi-stylee "big lie" for no worthwhile editorial purpose other than selfish interest.
Case in point, from ConWebBlog:
Ronald Kessler uses his Nov. 3 Newsmax column to complain that the media was "ignoring their obligation to report the news" by not giving what he considered to be sufficient attention to Barack Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright:
I began writing stories about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's mentor and former pastor, Jan. 7 with "Barack Obama's Racist Church."
[...]
During the next two and a half months, I wrote more than half a dozen stories disclosing new information about Obama and Wright.
[...]
Meanwhile, I sent the Newsmax stories to dozens of people I know in the print and broadcast media. In contrast to their interest in Joe the plumber's background, no media outlet would touch the Wright stories.
Unmentioned by Kessler: He has long ago squandered any journalistic credibility he might have had through his biased (and occasionally creepy) opining for a blatantly partisan "news" outlet, and his entreaties to other news organizations were rightly ignored as the partisan motivations of a political activist.
Kessler concludes: "The media's continuing coverup of Obama's associations with radical hate-mongers like Wright is a shameful chapter in the history of American journalism." If he's so concerned about such associations, why doesn't he expose and denounce his own--and his employer's--associations with unrepentant domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy?
(I have one likely cluedo: Money.)
*************
AND HOW DO WE KNOW HIS FRAUDULENCY WASN'T SPENDING QUALITY TIME WITH AL COHOL WATCHING TUESDAY NIGHT'S ELECTION RETURNS on the vidiot's box as it became evident that We, The People were soundly rejecting His Fraudulency's Greater Conservative Agenda?
En 'n Ander Ding:
I'm probably the first to suggest the possibility for where the lion's share of Neoconservative/Fascisti power and authority, in the face of defeat this past Tuesday @ the ballot box (virtual and otherwise), will be resorting all the more to Al Cohol for friendship and comfort as they start withdrawing all the further from Reality. That, and their unwillingness to face up to their own mess once Al Cohol enslaves them all the more.
(Memo to certain purists among the readership: If you ask why I refer to "Al Cohol" when it comes to alcoholic beverages and its evils in this blog from time to time, consider it as personification therefor--not to mention demonstrating the colourful way with words I seem to be gifted with, and their value in the Greater Blogosphere. Since when did blogs have to be stale, dry and formula-written?)
THE JANUARY 13 (OLD STYLE), 1736 EDITION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, UNDER THE CELEBRATED DIRECTION OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, featured on its front page "The Drinker's Dictionary," a glossary of some rather colourful terms used in colonial Philadelphia (or so Mr. Franklin hath it) to explain why someone was drunk.
Read it for yourself:
Nothing more like a Fool than a drunken Man. Poor Richard.
'Tis an old Remark, that Vice always endeavours to assume the Appearance of Virtue: Thus Covetousness calls itself Prudence; Prodigality would be thought Generosity; and so of others. This perhaps arises hence, that Mankind naturally and universally approve Virtue in their Hearts, and detest Vice; and therefore, whenever thro' Temptation they fall into a Practice of the latter, they would if possible conceal it from themselves as well as others, under some other Name than that which properly belongs to it.
But DRUNKENNESS is a very unfortunate Vice in this respect. It bears no kind of Similitude with any sort of Virtue, from which it might possibly borrow a Name; and is therefore reduc'd to the wretched Necessity of being express'd by distant round-about Phrases, and of perpetually varying those Phrases, as often as they come to be well understood to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK.
Tho' every one may possibly recollect a Dozen at least of the Expressions us'd on this Occasion, yet I think no one who has not much frequented Taverns would imagine the number of them so great as it really is. It may therefore surprize as well as divert the sober Reader, to have the Sight of a new Piece, lately communicated to me, entitled
The DRINKERS DICTIONARY.
A He is Addled, He's casting up his Accounts, He's Afflicted, He's in his Airs.
B He's Biggy, Bewitch'd, Block and Block, Boozy, Bowz'd, Been at Barbadoes, P***'d in the Brook, Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow, Burdock'd, Buskey, Buzzey, Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brewer's Basket, His Head is full of Bees, Has been in the Bibbing Plot, Has drank more than he has bled, He's Bungey, As Drunk as a Beggar, He sees the Bears, He's kiss'd black Betty, He's had a Thump over the Head with Sampson's Jawbone, He's Bridgey.
C He's Cat, Cagrin'd, Capable, Cramp'd, Cherubimical, Cherry Merry, Wamble Crop'd, Crack'd, Concern'd, Half Way to Concord, Has taken a Chirriping-Glass, Got Corns in his Head, A Cup to much, Coguy, Copey, He's heat his Copper, He's Crocus, Catch'd, He cuts his Capers, He's been in the Cellar, He's in his Cups, Non Compos, Cock'd, Curv'd, Cut, Chipper, Chickery, Loaded his Cart, He's been too free with the Creature, Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap, He's Chap-fallen,
D He's Disguiz'd, He's got a Dish, Kill'd his Dog, Took his Drops, It is a Dark Day with him, He's a Dead Man, Has Dipp'd his Bill, He's Dagg'd, He's seen the Devil,
E He's Prince Eugene, Enter'd, Wet both Eyes, Cock Ey'd, Got the Pole Evil, Got a brass Eye, Made an Example, He's Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast. In his Element,
F He's Fishey, Fox'd, Fuddled, Sore Footed, Frozen, Well in for't, Owes no Man a Farthing, Fears no Man, Crump Footed, Been to France, Flush'd, Froze his Mouth, Fetter'd, Been to a Funeral, His Flag is out, Fuzl'd, Spoke with his Friend, Been at an Indian Feast.
G He's Glad, Groatable, Gold-headed, Glaiz'd, Generous, Booz'd the Gage, As Dizzy as a Goose, Been before George, Got the Gout, Had a Kick in the Guts, Been with Sir John Goa, Been at Geneva, Globular, Got the Glanders.
H Half and Half, Hardy, Top Heavy, Got by the Head, Hiddey, Got on his little Hat, Hammerish, Loose in the Hilts, Knows not the way Home, Got the Hornson, Haunted with Evil Spirits, Has Taken Hippocrates grand Elixir,
I He's Intoxicated, Jolly, Jagg'd, Jambled, Going to Jerusalem, Jocular, Been to Jerico, Juicy.
K He's a King, Clips the King's English, Seen the French King, The King is his Cousin, Got Kib'd Heels, Knapt, Het his Kettle.
L He's in Liquor, Lordly, He makes Indentures with his Leggs, Well to Live, Light, Lappy, Limber,
M He sees two Moons, Merry, Middling, Moon-Ey'd, Muddled, Seen a Flock of Moons, Maudlin, Mountous, Muddy, Rais'd his Monuments, Mellow,
N He's eat the Cocoa Nut, Nimptopsical, Got the Night Mare,
O He's Oil'd, Eat Opium, Smelt of an Onion, Oxycrocium, Overset,
P He drank till he gave up his Half-Penny, Pidgeon Ey'd, Pungey, Priddy, As good conditioned as a Puppy, Has scalt his Head Pan, Been among the Philistines, In his Prosperity, He's been among the Philippians, He's contending with Pharaoh, Wasted his Paunch, He's Polite, Eat a Pudding Bagg,
Q He's Quarrelsome,
R He's Rocky, Raddled, Rich, Religious, Lost his Rudder, Ragged, Rais'd, Been too free with Sir Richard, Like a Rat in Trouble.
S He's Stitch'd, Seafaring, In the Sudds, Strong, Been in the Sun, As Drunk as David's Sow, Swampt, His Skin is full, He's Steady, He's Stiff, He's burnt his Shoulder, He's got his Top Gallant Sails out, Seen the yellow Star, As Stiff as a Ring-bolt, Half Seas over, His Shoe pinches him, Staggerish, It is Star-light with him, He carries too much Sail, Stew'd Stubb'd, Soak'd, Soft, Been too free with Sir John Strawberry, He's right before the Wind with all his Studding Sails out, Has Sold his Senses.
T He's Top'd, Tongue-ty'd, Tann'd, Tipium Grove, Double Tongu'd, Topsy Turvey, Tipsey, Has Swallow'd a Tavern Token, He's Thaw'd, He's in a Trance, He's Trammel'd,
V He makes Virginia Fence, Valiant, Got the Indian Vapours,
W The Malt is above the Water, He's Wise, He's Wet, He's been to the Salt Water, He's Water-soaken, He's very Weary, Out of the Way.
The Phrases in this Dictionary are not (like most of our Terms of Art) borrow'd from Foreign Languages, neither are they collected from the Writings of the Learned in our own, but gather'd wholly from the modern Tavern-Conversation of Tiplers. I do not doubt but that there are many more in use; and I was even tempted to add a new one my self under the Letter B, to wit, Brutify'd: But upon Consideration, I fear'd being guilty of Injustice to the Brute Creation, if I represented Drunkenness as a beastly Vice, since, 'tis well-known, that the Brutes are in general a very sober sort of People.
Try these out some Saturday night after quite the drinking jag....
NOW THAT THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT, LONGTIME DROOGS AND MALACHIKS OF THE GOP, IS FACING THE RATHER OBVIOUS PROSPECT of having to reassess themselves in the face of serious losses across the board in Indecision 2008, Right Wing Watch notes where it may have only just begun, and less than 12 hours after Barack Obama was declared winner of Indecision 2008, Presidential division:
It has been less than twelve hour since the historic election that saw Barack Obama become President-elect of the United States and the Democratic Party widen its margins in the House and Senate, and while we are still months away from them actually taking office, the Religious Right is already warning that their first order to business will be to presecute Christians:
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, believes Senator Obama was elected, in large part, because the church in America has failed to address sin in its own ranks and also in society.
Perkins says Christians should pray for and return to a biblical model of holiness and righteousness. And believers in America, he adds, should prepare for persecution.
(Memo to Mr. Perkins: How do we know the "biblical model of holiness and righteousness" you're asking Christian Americans to pray for isn't really the same one which held high carnival in apartheid South Africa, complete with all manner of Afrikaner hubris and arrogance as was perverted to justify the enforced racism @ the heart of apartheid? And what exactly prevents your acknowledging as much--money from your droogs among "the Four Hundred"?)
Tony Perkins"We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act," he says. "We're going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack."
And before that happens, other right-wing leaders are rallying the troops to launch their own right-wing attacks with Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, declaring that Obama has already "failed miserably":
"Americans have made a grave mistake in electing Barack Obama to the presidency," Fr. Pavone wrote. "He said during the campaign that he does not know when a human being starts to have human rights. How can one govern from that starting point of ignorance? Governing is about protecting human rights; to do it successfully, you have to know where they come from, and when they begin. The President-elect has already failed that test miserably."
Fr. Pavone sounds a note of defiant confidence, declaring that the pro-life movement is winning in the culture and that "a new chapter of the pro-life movement has just begun. ...We will keep marching toward that pro-life America we seek, and won't stop until we get there."
For its part, the Christian Defense Coalition has announced its own "The Birmingham Letter Project" which they plan to use to "challenge the radical pro-abortion policies of President-elect Barack Obama":
"We will be coming to Washington, D.C., as President-elect Obama is sworn in, to boldly stand as public and prophetic witness for life. As the pro-life community, we will not go silently into the night and allow the violence to continue. Instead, we are issuing this national call for the pro-life community to come to the streets of our nation's capital and be a prayerful voice for those who have no voice."
As for the "conservative movement" that was so badly damaged by President George Bush, Phyllis Schlafly declares that they are already in the process of rebuilding:
"I think we’re going to be looking for new leaders who express conservatism across the board – whether its sovereignty, limited spending, limited government, cuts in spending, cuts in taxes, the social issues – to simply reject these groups who are trying to muscle into the driver’s seat of the Republican Party, such as the multinationals with their ‘free-trade globalism’ agenda ... We have about 30 very good members of Congress who are destined to become good leaders.”
(Memo to Ms. Schlafly: How do we know these "30 very good members of Congress***destined to become good leaders" aren't really cast in the same mold as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Mao Zedong, "Eternal Leader" Kim Il Sung, Pinochet and/or Verword? And how do we know they're not secretly alcoholics, drug addicts, sex fiends, psychopaths or even emotionally unstable?)
=============
ALL IN ALL, SUCH DICTATES THE NEED TO REMAIN ALL THE MORE VIGILANT AND WATCHFUL of attempts by the GOP to win favour and influence policy by associating with the weird and unwholesome, among other Dregs of Society.
As well as encouraging the GOP's rank-and-file (especially so those among the socioeconomically-marginalised) to so disassociate themselves and consider creating a Secular-Progressive movement for once.
THERE CAN BE NO MISTAKING THE FACT THAT YESTERDAY, AMERICA WAS VOTING FOR THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THIS ANTIENT AND PECUILAR among the world's soverign nations to succeed George Bush fils; the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting the President to two consecutive four-year terms, saw to that.
And that a man of colour, by name Barack Hussein Obama, winning the Presidency by virtue of the Electoral College (which is what really matters, as opposed to the popular vote, which was rather close all last evening) was triumph in itself. Especially when it became clear that Ohio and Pennsylvania, two states whose 43 combined electoral votes John McCain needed all the more badly to ensure victory, instead became his Achilles heel thanks to new voters from especially the ranks of the young, the Lower Classes and National Minorities ... and Obama's offering a more positive message of serious change for once after eight long years of His Fraudulency's delusory concept of Unitary Executive Privilege (read: autocratic rule) threatening to reduce our Constitution to what His Fraudulency himself once referred to right after 9/11 as no better than toilet paper and our soverignty likely being compromised by the "New World Order."
And which John McCain, (un)consciously, sought to maintain the status quo of "staying the course"--even if it meant the "New World Order" eventually compromising Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations.
Hence explaining my using as the title of this "morning after" piece an Engrish variation of "it's morning again in America" which The Great (Mis)communicator used as theme for a 1984 campaign commercial.
=============
ON THE OTHER HAND, THOUGH, YOU HAVE THE FORCES OF NEOCONSERVATIVE/FASCISTI THOUGHT likely to be driven all the more to paranoia mode under an Obama/Biden Administration, and especially so the kind as targets in particular the poor, undereducated or homeschooled, easily-led and socioeconomically-marginalised (not to mention using that last point as a Badge of Honour).
In case you'd like a preview, consider this analysis from Media Matters for America just prior to the election:
Since October 16, several media figures--including author Jerome Corsi, Fox News contributor Ann Coulter, radio hosts Mark Levin and Bill Cunningham, author Hilmar von Campe, and Townhall.com columnist Laura Hollis--have compared Sen. Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis.
In an October interview with Gentleman's Quarterly magazine, responding to the question, "What's been the most interesting reaction to your book?" Jerome Corsi, author of the debunked and discredited book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, asserted: "This whole cult of personality is a miscalculation. We should have learned in the last century that a cult of personality was very dangerous--left or right, Hitler or Stalin. It didn't work out very well."
On the October 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Coulter asserted: "With one association after another that is beyond the pale with Barack Obama, I feel like we are talking to the Germans after Hitler comes to power saying, 'Oh, well, I didn't know. I had no idea he was going to be like this.' " As Media Matters for America has documented, Coulter has repeatedlylikened Obama to Hitler.
On the October 29 edition of ABC Radio Networks' The Mark Levin Show, Levin asserted that Obama is "really into these big German-like events that he creates in this country, isn't he? Have you noticed that?" Curtis Sliwa, WABC radio host and CEO and founder of the community activist organization Guardian Angels, responded: "I am telling you, and he comes out and it's almost as if the crowd stands in unison, and I'm saying to myself, 'Oh my God, the Olympic Stadium, Berlin, 1938,' " to which Levin replied: "Yeah, we've seen this. It's scary." Sliwa then asserted: "And the only thing missing is he's not standing up in an open car."
On the October 28 edition of Clear Channel's The Big Show with Bill Cunningham, referring to Sen. John McCain, Cunningham asserted: "Maybe it's his age, or maybe it's his lack of eloquence. Whatever it is, the guy just doesn't have the same verbal skills of someone like a Barack Hussein Obama. Of course, Adolf Hitler had great verbal skills, too, and he led the country of his country to disaster."
In her October 16 column headlined, "Time to Use the 'C' Word," Hollis wrote: "And we are being lured into the same noose that has ensnared so many millions of hapless souls, despite reams of pages of history. We express horror at the Hitler Youth in little matching uniforms singing 'Hitler will save us, Hitler is our Lord,' but then we smile and laugh as we see grade schoolers in matching blue t-shirts singing, 'Obama's gonna save us.'"
Not Only That: There's also clear and present likelihood for the GOP, in trying to rebuild themselves from the debacle of Indecision 2008 built around an ongoing Cult of Personality based on The Great (Mis)communicator and Sarah Palin trying to become Evita reincarnate @ the GOP's expense just to whip up shame among the Great Unwashed, associating themselves with weird and unwholesome elements as include the ilk of racists, white supremacists, Elmer Gantry types among the pseudoreligious, nativists, even xenophobic isolationists--all funded, no doubt, by "the Four Hundred" in substantial measure (howbeit taking great pains to avoid any suggestions as could "cause scandal") seeking to maintain their "antient and pecuilar rights, privileges and powers entitled them under the unwritten law, the Natural Law, the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" towards the "winning of hearts and minds" among the Archie Bunker/Alf Garnett crowd to the Greater Republican Agenda.
Said agenda, on closer inspection, being on the same par as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Dr. Hendrik Verword omnibus, whose lives will likely be studied by the GOP's "inside of the inside" in preparing a litmus test of ideal candidates for midterm elections in Indecision 2010 and the next Presidential elections, Indecision 2012.
And which could produce an agenda which may be all the more disastrous to the point where the Republican Party's founders @ that little white schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin back in 1854 would barely recognise it for what they had created.
Hence, my advice to GOP rank-and-file, especially if you still value the classical Republican agenda: Resign posthaste. And if you seriously value Republican values and beliefs such as were evolved back in Ripon, consider launching a new party based on Secular-Progressive articles of faith, even if it means scaring Bill "No-Spin Zone" O'Reilly to the point of his having an apoplexic fit on the set. Live. On camera. (Especially if it emerges from whispers in certain circles that Mr. O'Reilly had a few drinks before going to air, and took great pains to avoid suspicions by way of "detoxifying" herbal teas produced by Church of Scientology-affiliated front companies.)
*************
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT HAS ANNOUNCED THAT THEY WILL BE "GOING VIRTUAL" EARLY NEXT YEAR (AS IN ENDING INK-ON-PAPER PUBLICATION) in an effort to deal with heavy losses as forced them to shift from weekly to fortnightly publication. (They will, however, continue having a print presence, howbeit as monthly consumer guides which will bear the US News and World Report imprint.)
Let's just hope that the long-established conservative rival to Time and Newsweek in the newsmagazine department, in joining The Christian Science Monitor and The Capital Times among the ranks of mainstream gazettas "going virtual" after years of print publication (with a continuing weekly print presence), doesn't fall to the same level of pseudojournalism tending closer to ideological rants and screeds serving a perverted form of conservatism as the likes of WorldNetDaily, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, the Media Research Center and NewsBusters, all deserving targets of the especially thorogh and conscientious analysis of ConWebWatch and the interrelated ConWebBlog--both of which should be regular reading among all Right-Thinking Americans needing to understand the latest in Neoconservative propaganda and doublethink.
*************
WITH THE LIKELIHOOD OF HIGH-SPEED PASSENGER RAIL BETWEEN CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE AND THE TWIN CITIES ALL THE MORE SO within measurable distance, something as may be worth thinking about vis-a-vis Amtrak and the Canadian Pacific Railway as successor to the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern:
As appeasement to such in the Rochester area who may be concerned about the impact of increased freight traffic through the Clinic City--in particular the likes of hazardous or dangerous cargoes, as well as coal trains from the Powder River Basin fields of Wyoming--might I be one to suggest where Amtrak might want to have one or two trains from Chicago and Milwaukee routed to Rochester, with particular benefit to Mayo Clinic patients who can't endure air travel for medical reasons.
Not to mention looking into the possibility of having the Rochester station located so that such could be connected to the Mayo Clinic's pedestrian subway and skyway network in beautiful downtown Rochester--even more so if it were designed as a Ground Transportation Centre to also serve intercity buses, airport shuttles, Rochester City Lines local and commuter buses and a proposed light-rail line to the Rochester airport.
SO MUCH FOR REASONABLE DOUBT, THAT PREFERRED TOOL OF CONSERVATIVE ZEALOTRY AND TRUE BELIEF in "winning of hearts and minds" among especially the weak-minded and easily-led: Can there be such a thing as "unreasonable doubt"?
*************
IN ANY EVENT, YOUR CORRESPONDENT LEFT HIS FLAT RATHER EARLY (6:45 THIS MORNING, TO BE PRECISE) this Election Day to make sure he was among the first to cast his vote in this most crucial Election of Elections.
As he was preparing to cash his vote, he noted where the election officials @ the polling station assigned his address, in view of the heavy crowds likely to show as the day wore on, made a back table available for voters to cast their ballots in the interest of saving time.
Isn't this more of a threat to "electoral purity and integrity" than all the platitudes Fox Prolefeed and their droogs have been spewing about "voter fraud" and suchlike to call for further kerbing electoral franchise to such being essentially restricted to white male Low Church Christians owning real property freehold (and on clear title)?
=============
IF YOU HAVE ALREADY VOTED--thank you for serving your civic and patriotic duty.
If not--vote.
So what stands otherwise in the way, aside from the obvious bars to voting such as undischarged criminal records and fear of being "outed" for voter registry documents somehow "not in proper form"?
(Remember this: If you're in the queue @ your polling station when the official closing time comes up, you have the legal right to cast a ballot nonetheless. Be sure to check with local election officials.)
=============
JUST AS "ONE SWALLOW DOES NOT A SUMMER MAKE," OR SO THE PROVERB HATH IT, one shouldn't read too much about the traditional "first-in-the-nation" result from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire just after midnight: 15 votes for Obama; six for McCain.
=============
WHY IT PAYS TO SERIOUSLY SWITCH OVER TO PAPER BALLOTS OUTRIGHT FOR ELECTIONS HENCEFORTH: Breakdowns of touch-screen voting machines in several precincts in and around Richmond, Virginia just after the polls opened prompted election officials to switch over to emergency paper ballots almost immediately.
This as voters in Virginia, Texas and one or two other states were getting text messages on cell phones of dubious nature "advising" that Democratic voting would be moved to tomorrow to ease pressure on voting stations; such, IIRC, is Voter Intimidation and illegal under pain of penal sentence.
=============
SOMETHING WORTH CONSIDERING FOR FUTURE ELECTIONS WHERE A PAPER BALLOT IS CALLED FOR: Adopting the Australian practice known as "party preferential" balloting, where voters choose candidates based on a numeric value which has 1 as first preference, 2 as second such, and so on.
=============
AND COULD IT BE THAT THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT IS IN "WISHFUL THINKING" MODE ALL THE MORE this election of elections?
Right Wing Watch has these observations:
So it look like Rev. Rob Schenck has put together a rather simple and straightforward explanation regarding "God's Word on How to Vote." Based on his reading of Deuteronomy, Chapter 17, verses 14 – 20, Schenck explains how Old Testament rules regarding Israelite kings and his horses and wives should guide Christian voters today.
Here are the verses Schenck sites and explains:
14 “When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’ 15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. 16 “Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ 17 “He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.
18 “Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19 “It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.
Schenck has released an accompanying podcast in which he goes through and explains what all of these verses mean, such as when the Bible talks about horses, it means power and when it talks about not sending people back to Egypt, it means that the king doesn't seek earthly solutions but rather "points the people Heavenword to God ... [and is] someone who can direct the people toward our ultimate help, which comes from the Lord."
Not being a Biblical scholar, I guess I don't have much to say about Schenck's interpretation of these passages, but I did want to highlight his interpretation of verse 20, which proclaims that the king "may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left."
Here is Schenck's explanation:
Now somebody made a political joke about this and said that must mean we have to vote for independents. Ha ha, very funny, no. But there is something here about someone who sells out to a political ideology on one extreme or the other, right or left. We’re looking for someone who stands on principle even against political pressure to cave into ideological platforms, parties, and so forth. This is someone who does what is right for the country and resists the temptation to capitulate to political pressures and political pressure groups.
Hmmm ... so Christians shouldn't vote for someone who "sells out" to an extreme idology, someone who caves into ideological platforms, or capitulates to political pressure groups? Interesting, since that is exactly what John McCain did in order to win the support of the Religious Right.
Thus, at least according to Schenck, Christians clearly cannot vote for McCain.
So who would Rev. Schenck rather have "right-thinking Christian Americans" vote for, Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party?
WITH SO MANY GAZETTAS FROM MAINE TO HAWAII ENDORSING BARACK OBAMA OVER JOHN McCAIN FOR THE PRESIDENCY in tomorrow's oh-so-crucial elections, you may want to know about the McCain/Palin ticket's biggest (and yet most unlikely) supporter.
We'll let Dave Zweifel, Editor Emeritus of The Capital Times (cyberspace, via Madison, WI), explain for you:
Nicholas Kristof, one of the New York Times' op-ed columnists and an expert observer of world trouble spots, remarked last Sunday that al-Qaida has endorsed John McCain for president.
It was a bit of useless information, except for one glaring fact. The terrorist organization that is responsible for causing death and destruction at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon figures that if McCain becomes president, the U.S. will continue George Bush's Iraq policy, thereby making it easier for al-Qaida to recruit more members.
If the American military begins to withdraw from Iraq, a policy favored by Barack Obama, the anti-U.S. sentiment would cool down and the numbers of young men and women willing to blow themselves up for the cause would diminish.
That isn't just Kristof's theory. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, both said they weren't surprised that al-Qaida prefers McCain.
"From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting," Nye said.
"In contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim grandfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give al-Qaida recruiters fits," the columnist wrote.
Kristof compared the McCain policy of staying in Iraq indefinitely to some of the blunders we've made in other parts of the world, including the catastrophe we know as Vietnam.
There it was an exaggerated fear of communism that led us to a disastrous occupation that tore our own country apart.
Now we have an exaggerated fear of "Islamofascism" that causes us to overreact and damage our own interests, Kristof said. In Somalia, for instance, we became alarmed that an Islamist movement was taking hold among the political factions there, so we jumped in on the side of Ethiopia, giving it a green light to invade. The result has been a humanitarian crisis that some claim is worse than Darfur.
The result has been yet another region furious over U.S. involvement. Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism are rampant, further assisting terrorist recruiters.
McCain, Kristof claims, would amount to four more years of "blindness to nuance in the Muslim world."
And that, he adds, would be a tragedy for Americans.
Which makes you wonder, then, whether supporting John McCain is one with supporting International Terrorism, howbeit discreetly.
