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The Democratic motive

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There has been a lot of talk about the driving principals of the Democratic Party in America. It often hinges on the platform, often driven by the ‘left’ or progressive side of the party. And while I am more or less a progressive. I believe that what often is said about the Democratic party being liberal, it just that. And I also believe that is what is the current dilemma in the U.S. The democrats have often been described as spending more time arguing with itself rather than against the Republicans. And if they are to win elections they need to represent a clear deferential to the republican platform.

The republicans are controlled by a small neocon core with a very focused agenda. They do not represent a majority of the voting population. They may boast, and spin the illusion that they are the majority, but they are not. What the democratic party is, and represents are many voices, hence the arguing with itself. What the wrong everyone feels here, is not who is in control of the government, it is that the government voices the opinion of such a minority of the population. The democratic party is a mix of conservative, centralist and progressive voters, a clear cross section of american politics. The current ‘conservative’ party as it is being managed by the neocons, only represents the far right. The merely conservative, just right of center, are not part of the current republican neocon strategy. The complaint here is that the voices of the population, all the voices are not being heard. That is, at it’s core, the purpose of the Democratic party. And that should be the platform of the Democratic party. To represent ALL OF THE VIEWS of the American people. To bring back real democracy, where all voices are heard. That should be it’s battle cry, that it will listen to everyones voice. As opposed to the current republicans, that only want to hear the voices of their far right, a fundamentalist narrow perspective. It’s the reason they do not want freedom of speech. The airing of opposing viewpoints is counter to their objectives.

The Democratic party must represent all of the people of the U.S. not just the conservative far right as the current administration does. But they must take that voice from the far right and insure that their voice is heard along with the voices of their neighbor’s. The entire spectrum of the American voice should be heard through the voice of the Democratic party. That should be it’s strong point. Representation of the American People.

The Phony war on American Christianity

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The so called war on American Christianity is GOP propaganda, clear and simple. If you want to stir up the fundamentalist, bring up a war on Christianity. The current email propaganda I have been subjected to goes like this.

There is a war on Christmas

“We can no longer say Merry Christmas” . Now it has to be Season’s Greeting ”

This isn’t true, we are just as free to say Merry Christmas as we ever were. If the greeting card companies are printing more ‘Season Greeting’s’ cards it’s to maximize profits it’s hardy a war on Christmas. However if right wing talk show hosts say it is a war, well surly it must be so? Not likely, just more GOP propaganda. Something to fire the passions of the wingnut fringe.

“In God We Trust”

“In God We Trust” is our national motto. This is not some Christian,
right wing, political slogan.. We adopted this motto because Christian
men and women…….on Christian principles………….
founded this nation….. and this is clearly documented.

Actually It is clearly documented In God We Trust

is the current national motto of the United States of America and of the Great State of Florida. It was so designated by an act of Congress in 1956 and officially supersedes “E Pluribus Unum” (From Many, One) according to section 5114 of title 31, United States Code. President Eisenhower signed the resolution into law on 30 July 1956.

So the motto was not the official motto for most of the history of the U.S. and was not because Christians founded the nation. Besides the point that Muslim, Jews and Christians all pray to the same God, does not make this motto Christian. As noted in the case of MADALYN MURRAY O’HAIR et al. v. W. MICHAEL BLUMENTHAL, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, et al. (462 F. Supp. 19 — W.D. Tex 1978), the court opined: “Its use is of a patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of religious exercise.”
I personally prefer E Pluribus Unum, From many Nations, one Nation. It’s what America is, the combination of all nations. And this brings about the rest of this propaganda email

American Culture

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don’t care how you did things where you came from.
This is OUR COUNTRY,
our land, and our lifestyle…we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!

The answer here is that Many people are surprised to learn that the United States has no official language. And as for culture, that too has been the aggregate of both it’s immigrant and native populations. The fact that most of the culture reflects western European culture, does not take away from the multicultural nature of our restaurants. The United States has, over the majority of it’s history, been a culture composed of the best features of it’s population. It has never been chained to any particular cultural eddies and back-currents. Mind you learning English will go further to an immigrants integration into the ‘American culture’ but as that culture is always changing you must keep on your toes.

This propaganda is indicative of of the Republican strategy of the old ‘One Two’ punch, Stir up anger, and emotions, then direct the anger at a target. I believe that the next email I receive will be one of ‘It the Democrats that are to blame for the polluting of our culture’. Or it’s the Liberal’s fault, or some named politician that the GOP Neocons are against. The fact that this propaganda is playing on the emotions of the conservative voters tendency to resist change in any form, a belief in ‘the good old days’ and that the ‘radicals’ are destroying America, is just that, propaganda. There is always going to be change, no one can stop it. The GOP only wants to get people to take their eye off the ball so they can continue their practice of corrupt political cronyism. A near royalty of political dynasties, dynasties which we as americans overthrew to become the United States of America.

Update: There does seem to be a move to formalize English as the national language here, but President George W. Bush has long opposed making English the country’s national language probably because he doesn’t speak english 😉

Net Neutrality, and opinions, on Ethics.

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David S. Isenberg is worried that for once he has disagreed with Cory,
Tim Wu and Cory Doctorow on Network Neutrality

Disagreeing with Cory should be common. He’s only another person with an opinion.

As for Net Neutrality regulation, you will never know till you try, if it will work or not.

Anytime congress passes a law, someone’s rights get removed. But would you remove the restriction over which side of the road you drive on?

Many of the restrictions we place on ourselves are based on an understanding of our human nature. We know that we are greedy, we place restrictions on our greed.

Since corporations are treated as a ‘corporate body’ and hence treated in the courts as if the corporation were a human. You must treat that person based upon what you believe that persons ethics are founded on. Since Corporations have no moral soul, the observations of it’s ethical behavior are, that it has no ethics. And hence controls placed on the corporate person are greater than that placed on a human person.

Cory’s problem is that that he personalizes the issues from his own point of view. He believes that as an ethical person, he should be allow to control his own actions. And for the most part he can, except for his tendency to run off at the mouth. But he is not a corporation, who’s only ethic is profit. And has no moral compunction to control that motivation. Laws are passed to provide the moral lessons to corporations.

Iran-Hostage, Iran-Contra, Iran-Nuclear, a pattern?

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We know that the Bush family has had dealing with the Iranian government for many years. In fact many Illegal dealing with them. There is more than a little tin hat theory that this current Iranian ‘Crisis’ is yet another Bush deal to have a ready enemy for the fall elections. Something to scare the grumbling herd of GOP voters back into the republican camps and ensure at least some republicans get reelected and to prevent one or both houses of congress do not fall into Democratic hand.

From The Iran Hostages Fix

Suspicions about a deal between the Reagan campaign and Iran over the hostages have circulated since the day of President Reagan’s inaugural, when Iran agreed to release the 52 American hostages exactly five minutes after Mr. Reagan took the oath of office. Later, as it became known that arms started to flow to Iran via Israel only a few days after the inauguration, suspicions deepened that a secret arms-for-hostages deal had been concluded….

There is, however, widespread agreement on three points: William Casey was a key participant: the Iranian representatives agreed that the hostages would not be released prior to the Presidential election on Nov. 4…At least five of the sources who say they were in Paris in connection with these meetings insist that George Bush (senior ed) was present for at least one meeting

…suspicions deepened that a secret arms-for-hostages deal had been concluded. Five years later, when the Iran-contra affair revealed what seemed to be a similar swap of hostages for arms

What makes it more interesting is this article Administration Blocks Ex-Hostages’ Bid for Damages From Iran

But the administration has thwarted every effort in the courts or in Congress to win a monetary judgment against Iran, even as other victims of Iranian-linked terrorism have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation

…the Bush administration intervened, saying the suit violated an agreement with Iran that had secured the hostages’ release…

To make more of a point, the current President of Iran, was one of the Iranian kidnappers. Interesting circularity here, don’t you think.

Pissing match over Iran.

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The The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the The President of the U.S. George Bush have a lot in common. Aside from them both having small penis’s (hence the current pissing contest). They both like to rule from fear. Ahmadinejad, by making his people afraid that the U.S. will attack Iran. And Bush, the American people, of a potential nuclear weapon that the Iranians might produce.

As I may have mentioned before, I had an Iranian roommate in college. This was when the Shah was in power. And the student was in the engineering school trying to avoid getting a degree in nuclear physics because he did not want to help the Shah develop a nuclear bomb. The U.S. of the time, supported this effort of the Shah, just as they supported Saddam.

The U.S. has been making a potential hell out of the world for a long time.

I just wish one of the presidents grows up, and grows some balls, and steps back from the brink. I suspect it won’t be Bush, as I pretty sure that as a chicken hawk he has no apparatus.

PNAC, MySpace, Murdoch and Technorati Search

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I was disturbed the other day that Technorati was returning a different political balance when I searched. It seemed that the entire blogsphere had moved to the right. And I noted that most of the links were in MySpace blogs. I didn’t think too much about it, just that MySpace bloggers might have been very busy on the subject I was searching for.

Then I saw this:
NeoConservatives: Destroying America for Republicans and Democrats alike

and noticed one thing out of place, or rather one person Ruppert Murdoch and I remembered my search results. And remembered that MySpace.com blogspace had been bought by Murdoch. The phrase from the article “Control the International Commons of cyberspace” struck home.

Could Technorati search results be biased to conservative Blogs on MySpace?

Even given the easily availability of my tinhat close to hand. This scared me. I hope it scares you also. Has someone gained control of blog searching. Could they? And is this part of the NeoCon plan?

Update: More interesting things about MySpace Murdoch wants teenagers’…

Nuclear First strike was granted years ago.

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With all this talk about a Nuclear First strike on Iran, no one bothered to notice that this plan has been in the works since December 2002 since the start of the Iraq war and published here in the Washington post September 11, 2005 Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

To quote:

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Bush has been planning to Nuke somebody for a long time, that would surely guarantee his place in history. The First Strike Nuclear Killer.

The last time nuclear weapons were used was as a Last Resort, By Harry S. Truman. If you use Nuclear weapons at the beginning of a war, where does it escalate from there?

That should scare any sane person, too bad the U.S. does not have a Sane President. (If the president is not sane, does that mean you could replace him on medical grounds?)

This is your most Dystopic Science Fiction movie plot, an Insane President with his hand on the nuclear option.

Funny, I don’t remember any of these movies working out very well.

War with Iran, a dead certainty

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Lets be entirely clear, I’m not i favor of a war with Iran. I wasn’t in favor of a war with Iraq either. But it happened, and the war will happen with Iran, just a sure as the sun rises in the east if George Bush remains as president of the United States. There is nothing in his past experience that would force him to rethink his ability to make war on anyone he wishes. With the republicans in control of Congress, and the Supreme Court. There is little expectation that he will face any opposition to his madness.

So the real question is this, what are we going to do after

Bush Nuke’s Iran in the name of the American People

hits the front page of the world newspapers?

It will be like watching the elite Iraqis scrambling to leave Iraq, we will see the wealthy and well connected in the U.S. vanish out of the country leaving the poor and middle classes to suffer the wrath of the Muslim/Iranian reaction.

And 9/11 will look like ants at a picnic.

History repeats

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If you do this simple exercise with history in mind.

If you refer to George W. Bush as King George II (King George I, being his father)

Then Iraqi insurgencies could be rename as American patriots rebelling against their King.

The Iraqi ‘problem’ is sounding more and more like the The American Revolution

Or if Iraq is headed for Civil War, you could translate the causes from the American Civil War as this.

Change the conflict origins from

States Law VS Federal Law
to
Religious Law VS Secular Law

And guess what, you gain more perspective here

Sleeper Cell

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I have been watching the advertising for ‘Sleeper Cell’ a television program about Islamic terrorists in a western country, trained to hide, and poised to strike on command. This is a standard, ‘spy vs spy’ plot line used in many novels, so the plot element is well known. It’s great when used to produce paranoia in your reader. It’s an even better subject when you use it to control the public. If you point to the possibility, or the probability that there are ‘Sleeper Cells’. ready to strike the public at anytime. You can pretty much do anything you want to that population, their induced paranoia will allow you vast powers to subvert their freedoms and liberties.

What isn’t well known is the concept of a sleep cell is another way to describe an oppressed minority group, any group. As the the description of a cell as a small group of angry people so frustrated, that they are willing to lash out at the majority in a culture. Calling any minority group, a sleeper cell, allows you to suppress that group even more. And, better yet, conditions the majority population to assist you in that suppression. The only difference between the dreaded sleeper cell, and a group of frustrated teenagers is the myth of control. The sleeper cell takes orders from a leader, or a cause from outside, control is from a mythological and mysterious external source. The teens lash out, either from external peer pressure, or from their perceptions of the environments, or from just plain anger.

So the concept is, more or less, a Spin name for a frustrated disenfranchised minority. Again, ANY MINORITY, and that applies to vegetarians, immigrants, old age pensioners, atheists, christians or Muslims. Whom ever you want to suppress, call them a ‘sleeper cell’ and suppress away. They are now the enemy, and you no longer have to deal with their frustrations, or their needs. You no longer have to deal with mythological and mysterious causes for that frustration.

Sound familiar?

Religion vs Morality

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I have been struggling with the concepts of Religion as the source of morality. Each religion I have encountered believes it is the sole source of morality. That to be anti-religion is to be the same as amoralism. I always find that I am very much anti-religion, as it seems to make most people blind and dumb to the world. I think of myself as a scientist, looking at the world as a reasoned individual, but I believe that I am also very moral. Perhaps due to my brushes with a religious upbringing, but I believe that I have, at this stage in life, created my own moral compass removed from any religious aspects. And while I remain spiritual, I am not a religious person. The term ‘Religion is an anathema to reason’ or ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ has strong meaning for me.

This has been brought to the forefront by the ranting of Radical Islamic Clerics, and Fundamentalist Christians ministers who both believe that they are locked into a war of beliefs. And all I see is two factions fighting over political control of an ignorant public.

I believe that if education was allowed to teach the facts, and that people could realize that there is morality without religious foundations. Most of the public would choose the secular morality. And that clerics and minsters who interpret their respective texts, are using these works as a control for their own purposes. That under the appearance of being a moral tool, they are deliberately distorting the message to strike out at opposing religions in a desperate attempt to prevent a secular approach to morality.

Both religions (in fact all religions) are fighting for control, in a vain attempt to preserve their institutes. And that real education, and real truth are the enemy. This appears to manifest in the so called Republican war on Science, and the secular religious schools of Islam. The truth, and perhaps the rational view of facts is being subverted to prevent a more just view of the facts and a clearer view of the truth.

We did not walk out of the jungle, or climb out of the evolutionary ladder just because God Placed us there, we got there, by way of our reasoning minds, and rational thought, corroboration, cooperation and trust.

Update: I heard about this when I posted this article, but I’ll link it now as another confirmation that religion is more concerned with ‘turf’ and not the spiritual nature of the human condition. It also reflects a ‘Burnt Earth’ policy. If we can’t have him, no one will!


Abdul Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and could face the death sentence under Sharia law unless he recants.

Afghan Faces Death Penalty for Converting to Christianity

The Republican’s are getting Desperate

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The Republicans are so desperate to get out from under the corruption scandal(s) (pick one), illegal NSA spying, and Dubai port debacle that they believe that a Call for Censure Is Rallying Cry to Bush’s Base. This is assuming that the 34% of Americans who don’t want him Impeached will rise up and defeat the rest of the country who are already up in arms over presidential incompetence. You can tell when they quote Rush Limbaugh that they are stretching for the highest moral ground that they can reach, the gutter.

It goes to show, when an honest politician (and when I say honest, I mean doing his job) stands up and attempts to censure a president conducting constitutionally illegal NAS spying. That Politician, will not be a Republican. In fact, it’s sad to say, the Democrats spineless response does not merit their reelection either.

Republican Congress, unaware of the U.S. Constitution

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If anyone doubts that most of the Republicans in Congress are unaware of the U.S. Constitution, Here is an example:

Eavesdropping bill spurs concern

So just for the Republicans, who skipped U.S. History and Civics I’ll quote

Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”