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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 😉

Michelle Malkin: Bush Critic, incites impeachment

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Michelle is inciting the Right Wing Bloggers to call for an Impeachment.

DENY, HEDGE, SPIN

This White House has another burgeoning debacle on its hands.

Message to (bush) apologists: Stop blaming the messengers. It’s only going to make those poll numbers you worry so much about worse.

Message to the White House: Stop blaming the messengers. Do us all a favor by ending this travesty and apologizing. And please don’t fire Mario Martinez for telling the reporter the truth.

Mass Media, and the Internet’s blogger truth.

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I have been reading plenty about the fears that the Television and print media are loosing ground to the Internet and bloggers as a source of news. And as I posted earlier I knew that I was missing the point as well. The mass media just like most of the reporters now are just repeating ‘stuff’ and not reporting the whole story. They never put the information into context, never illuminate the information into anything other than a mental monotone of words. It’s no wonder that no one listens to them any more, or worse yet listens and then gets it wrong.

Years ago I was on a Jury in a manslaughter case. (Trust me you do not want to be on a jury for capitol offense trial) I always thought that the nature of lawyers was to get at the truth in the case. But both the Defense and the Prosecution did more to withhold the truth than illustrate the truth. Both presented facts, in general terms, but what they left out was all the contextually important facts. We as a jury had to recreate the actions of what had happened. We had sat through a whole week of the trial, and then we spent more than a week deliberating, and analyzing what really went on.

This is what has happened to our very ‘legal’ and proper news in the mass media world. The lawyers have prevented the reporters from doing analysis of the news to prevent liability. So there is no real reporting, only information droplets dispensed from their sources are presented. Always legal deference can be applied. It’s always ‘Their’ information, ‘Their’ facts, or the ‘what your see is what you get’, the camera never lies. ‘We just report the news as we see it.’ And should things like ‘Bias’ be accused, well that’s not even a legal issue. You can’t call them a liar if they DON’T report the facts, only if they report the facts wrong.

And this brings us back to the Blogs. People are seeking the analysis that is missing from the news, they are seeking point, counterpoint. They have the news illustrated and illuminated to make sense of the world. Bloggers on their own are only responsible for their own opinions. Viewers of Blogs usually only visit blogs that generally reflect what the viewer is seeking. They receive the illustration painted in colors that are familiar to them. And if the mass media, afraid of the loss of revenue, seek to regain their viewers. The first place they will have to start is to, fire the lawyers, and get back to news analysis, and proper investigative reporting.

Mindless reporting, Scare Tactics

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It’s almost as if no one in the Media, or for that matter, any reporter, makes any connections with the facts. As an example:

Connecting these two articles,

Mac OS vulnerabilities increased 200 percent McAfee rains on Apple’s smug parade

and again

Cold water thrown on Apple TV claim

Leave it to McAfee to rain on those new television commercials Apple Computer is running about its virus-free computing.

and this article?
Vista to hit anti-spyware, firewall markets

New security features in Windows Vista will largely eliminate the need to run separate antispyware or firewall software, according to a new analyst report.

Spyware-killing Vista could take out rivals

The first two articles, while feeding on themselves, never makes the connection that McAfee, or for that matter any anti-virus company is facing elimination at the hands of the Microsoft Monopoly Monster. And that for them to survive they, like President Bush, must find a new enemy, and a new platform that needs their protection. It has very little to do with Apple needing virus protection. And everything to do with scare tactics as a marketing tool.

The GOP’s New Cold War

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Unsatisfied with being a hypocrite a liar and a traitor Dick Cheney’s speech spurs new Cold War. The GOP and the Bush administration must be desperate to boost it’s polling numbers by seeking out the ‘Old Enemy’, the tried and trusted Ronald Reagan Evil Empire. At least when Bush begins threatening to use Nuclear Weapons, the Russians can fight back. It does makes for a better scare tactic against the American people.

Who knows Cheney probabally gave the Russians, Stephen Colbert’s address as his own so when they try and nuke him, they’ll be doing he a Bush a favor.

Update: Well there must be a World War III in the planning stage in the White house after all.

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.

What’s the other word for gouging, Hoarding isn’t it?

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The first stage to price gouging is hoarding. If you hoard your supplies of anything that you bought at a lower price. And wait for the supplies elsewhere to drop until the price for the goods rises, you make a profit. So isn’t it any wonder that Oil prices tumble on fuel report that ‘showed that US petrol reserves have increased.’

Lets get serious here, they either caught the oil companies hoarding. Or the government told them to reveal what they really had on reserve. Either way the oil companies were either forcing the price up, or were expecting the price to rise.

And you wonder why the Bolivians took back control of an economic resource from private hands. Bolivia gas under state control

Looks like the GOP is gearing up the propaganda again

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I just received my first bit of anti-Hillary-Clinton-email-joke propaganda. The GOP must be really scared that she will be running in 2008 to be starting the propaganda campaign so early. I don’t personally want her to run either, I even think that most democrats, real democrats anyway, want her to run either. None the less it’s interesting that the GOP is already in swift boat mode already. I hate to think what this years Senate and House campaigns are going to be like. There is going to be a lot of mud slinging. And to be gearing up this early for 2008 the GOP must be shaking in their boots. Here’s hoping that they loose both the house and Senate this year.

Update: The slam in this joke/propaganda included Bill Clinton, and Al Gore as well, does the GOP know no end to their fears?

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.

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.

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?

Looking for good in Iraq

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Looking for the ‘good things’ in Iraq might just be the very thing to bring Iraq awareness to the forefront. If the Majority of Viewers Feel Iraq Coverage Is Flawed as in this article. ABC should go find it. If they can, if it really can be found, then that would put to the test, the question that the media is flawed. If it can’t find any good in Iraq then it would also prove the reverse. That Iraq was a mistake, a flawed nonexistent plan by the Bush administration. And then questions could be ask about what good it really did….

Oops….

I forgot the Bush administration doesn’t want people to ask questions, so maybe they will prevent the media from finding any good in Iraq, so that they can continue to blame the media for Iraq.

No, I must have my tinfoil hat on too tight.