Communism, fascism and democracy ...

Communism and fascism seem to me to have the same ultimate result: making sure workers are completely under the control of management. It seems to make little difference whether management is the government, the party or private industry. Effective slavery is the result.

The US has always had it's proponents for the complete control of workers. But with the T-Bags it's coming to the fore with draconian, or Dicksonian, ferver.

NY Tea Party Platform: Relocate Welfare Recipients to Prison Dorms

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ADDED:
The parallels between the T-Bags increasing attacks on all things muslim is too close to Hitler's sadistically incremental attacks on Jews in Germany for comfort.

The "mosque" debate is not a "distraction"

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ADDED II:
emptywheel writes:

Treasury’s attitude about HAMP is not just evidence they’ve lost all track of who they work for and where the benefits of the economy are supposed to be delivered, but it also suggests that these Treasury folks have lost the most basic notion of capitalism, that if businessmen never pay for bad decisions, they’ll continue to make bad decisions.

I beg to differ. Treasury, as does Obama himself, believe they work for the banksters and other powerful industries.

Elected officials still have to play the election game but money and the corporate controlled media are able to effect sufficient numbers of election campaigns. And when they fail, there's always the Supreme Court who can choose to appoint an embarrassment like Bush to reside in the WH.

Obama, it appears, gave acceptable assurances to the banksters (and others) before he was elected. To get the votes Obama aimed his promises at the fair minded, the liberals, the progressives, the unions, those interested in a responsive and fair government, those who were against these unending wars.

What did Obama do once he was elected? He appointed people who failed to recognize, or actually contributed to, the financial problems of the country. He continued most of Bush's disastrous war and torture policies. He took care to insult most of those who voted for him. His actions and policies appear taken in response to the desires the Robber Barons and the actions of the Crazies.

Everyone has blind spots ...

... but most of us don't have to defend them on video. Howard Dean seems to me to blindly miss the point while thinking Glenn Greenwald (whose position I mostly agree with) is the one who is missing the point:

Video discussion with Gov. Howard Dean

I think I do see into what terms (local zoning) Dean is attempting to constrain the issue. I just don't think it can be constrained. The pressure is on for one group to give up, or have taken away, their --I believe already approved--- plans because a bunch of mostly non-affected US citizens see it as an issue they can make waves with.

Shouting into the void that is US political thinking ...

... At some point, a rational person has to wonder whether people like Jacob Weisberg -- who endlessly advocate policies that fuel Islamic extremism and intensify tension between the West and the Muslim world -- aren't desirous of exactly that outcome. After decades of pursuing this blatantly counter-productive approach, what else could explain such moral and intellectual blindness?

How could these people (like Weisberg) possible fail to imagine how they would respond to the injustices we have heaped on Iraq and Afghanistan? They couldn't! Which leaves us with Greenwald's conclusion that this is all deliberate policy to seek perpetually increasing death and destruction.

These are the same kind of people who also have such extreme and devastating effect on internal US law enforcement policies: wars on drugs, the three-strikes mentality, inhumane treatment, arbitrary penalties, prosecutions and incarcerations based on race and economic class.

All the money they want for war. A fight for any penny spent for jobs or health or education or the general well being of the citizens. After all why would the Weisbergs of this world spend money on the fodder for their wars.

The US government as war-machine, like Hitler's Germany, instead of government as the people's representatives. This has nothing to do with Obama or even Bush the Lesser. Eisenhower even warned us that the machine was already in place and building up steam. Bush apparently relished how powerful this war machine made him feel. Cheney spent his time servicing the machine. Obama, it appears, will do nothing against the machine.

Obama chooses the dark side, again ...

Obama nominated Catholic Alexia Kelley, anti-woman's rights and coat-hanger proponent, to advise him on "faith based issues." Like abortion? Like end-of-life issues?

ABORTION FOE TO LEAD HHS FAITH-BASED OFFICE.

Like, do you really think that I want a Catholic looking for the opportunity to tell me how to live my life and what my responsibility may or may not be. I think that as a country there are a few issues we must come to some understanding about (and notice I do not say agreement) but I do not wish those to be formulated by a Catholic, a Mormon, a Jew, a Moslem or anyone else set on imposing the rules of their own personal belief system on the rest of us. 'My God,' that's what this country was about to begin with.

Let's put an atheist in the office and see what happens. As far as I can tell Atheism appears to be as much of a religion as the rest. Better yet, let's get rid of this ridiculous office. It's just another case of Obama following down Bush's road. Step by step making it less likely we will ever pull out of our decline as a nation.

I guess we're going to find out that the only promises Obama keeps are those aimed at the religious right.

You know, Obama baby, if a woman thinks there is no reason known to man that would justify a woman having an abortion then let that woman forego such a procedure. Other than that let women make their own damn decisions.

Don't you think this country looks just a little ridiculous having this fight about the 'life' of a few cells when we are busily killing people in Afghanistan and have already killed, what, millions in Iraq. Killing like that is certainly not self defense and shows a wanton disregard of the life and well being of the people of those countries. In others words, Americans have shown that they care nothing for 'life.'

But we're are fighting about a few cells. Yea! Get real.

Did the Israelis really plan on letting aid into the Gaza Strip ...

Israeli troops kill U.N. truck driver at Gaza crossing
by Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers opened fire Thursday on a truck attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip, killing one United Nations-contracted driver and seriously wounding another, U.N. officials said.

The shooting occurred at the Erez checkpoint, the main entrance used by relief agencies to funnel badly needed food and medical supplies into Gaza ...

U.N. officials said that they had contracted the truck to deliver supplies into Gaza, and that the Israeli military had approved the delivery. But Israeli ground troops, which control the Erez checkpoint, fired on the truck. It wasn’t clear what caused the Israeli soldiers to open fire, and Israeli military officials weren't immediately available for comment.

Relief officials said that as a result of the shooting, Israel closed the Erez checkpoint. It was unclear whether any relief trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza on Thursday ...

At least they are not suggesting it's separate but equal ...

From McClatchy by By Yonat Shimron, Raleigh News & Observer

Learning to swim: For Muslim women in U.S., it's not easy

Culture and religion are intricately entwined. Most women in the US have much more independence, opportunities and freedom than was allowed when I was growing up.

Expect the Christian fundamentalists to use the quasi cultural/religious 'modesty' of Muslim women as a propaganda tactic against women's independence in the United States. Christian, Moslem and Mormon fundamentalists will gang up to impose their shared desire to strip women of all rights and enforce their control over women's bodies and behavior just as we have already witnessed the combined efforts of the ultra right Christian and Mormon fundamentalists combine to lie and scheme to defeat Proposition 8 in California.

As for the segregated bathhouse, well, all precedents seem harmless in the beginning ...

This all makes me uneasy. I'd be much more comfortable if these differences in dress and behavior were attributed to culture and diverse cultures respected in all reasonable aspects. When religion gets involved then the first step is for the minority religion to demand its right to their own specific version of their cultural preferences (which of course come from their own version or God). All fine and good. But once those have been accepted the next step is to suggest, then demand, that everyone else should follow their rules, because, you know, their rules are the right ones, obviously. Their god said so.

How do we keep them in the 'live and let live' stage? The US Constitution was supposed to help with that. But with everyone ignoring it lately it has not counted for much.

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Today's QUOTES:

This development was hailed as a breakthrough by behavioral psychologists studying learned helplessness, who look forward to analyzing Pelosi's recent diet and other environmental influences to see if a similar shift in thinking can be provoked in Senate majority leader Harry Reid. --After 2 Years, Nancy Pelosi Realizes Democrats Have a Majority in the House by Swopa, firedoglake.com Reid and Pelosi are representing the Republican minority view quite well. Complete mission fail from Democratic leadership, once again. --Gaza Attacks Roil Iraq — Where’s The “Debate”? by Jane Hamsher, firedoglake.com

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... and more Rick Warren ...

McClatchy has a commentary by Mary Sanchez, The Kansas City Star:

Rick Warren needs to evolve

Rick Warren evolve? He's as evolved as the rest of us. Neither evolution (nor the almighty and usually invisible individual or individuals monitoring or mentoring us from near and far) has seen fit to provide, or even allow for, equality of reason, logic, mental prowess, clarity. We must fight this out amongst ourselves and do the best we can ...

Unchristian spirit ...

Men like Rick Warren have been fighting the good fight against Reason since men like him began walking with the dinosaurs. Just ask him ...

To teach that Jesus' goal was to abolish reason and the acquisition of knowledge is to belittle the hopeful --and Christian-- message that Jesus managed to transmit through time.

Christophopia? Bigot, Rick Warren, strikes again ...

Well we're losing one divider in Georgie-boy Bush and picking up a new national divider in Rickie -- the anti Christ-- Warren.

Suggesting that equating gays to pedophiles and incest is hate speech is itself hate speech according to Rick Warren.

If Obama really did select Warren to be inclusive he made a major blunder. If he picked Warren hoping to get support from Warren's fleeced chicks, I doubt it will work out well. If he picked Warren to show some of his former supporters that he doesn't give a hoot, he did well.

Women are being singled out for discrimination because of head scarves? ...

Good grief. These 'scarves' are obviously part of their attire. Forget about the religious indoctrination that forces women to hide themselves, there is nothing wrong about these scarves. I can see where the outfits that hide an entire person except for her eyes could be a concern when security is an issue, but other than that who cares. The only people who could possibly care are the ones who buy into having parts of themselves hidden from public view (and we all do to varying degrees) and those who find it a handy excuse to abuse, bully, intimidate and discriminate.

A judge gave a woman 10 days in jail because she refused to take off her scarf because of her religion.

Hall said Valentine, an insurance underwriter, told the bailiff that she had been in courtrooms before with the scarf on and that removing it would be a religious violation. When she turned to leave and uttered an expletive, Hall said a bailiff handcuffed her and took her before the judge.

[Link: Does anyone else see the irony here?]

Notice something peculiar about all this? The woman was leaving when the bailiff decided to detain her (is that the same as arrest?). Then the judge sentenced her to 10 days for contempt. How dare she attempt to enter the court attired in a manner that gave them the ability to vent their prejudices and then turn to leave when told she couldn't enter. First they insist on being the deciders of what she can wear on her head in the courtroom and then when she decides to leave rather than remove the scarf they objected to they jail her anyway.

Eight years of Bush has eliminated even the pretense of justice in the US.

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Today's QUOTES:

Doesn't that look objective and scientific to you: 'the study of gender or sex differences'? I can see the men (and women! there must be a few women!) in their white coats in laboratories all over the country, sincerely and earnestly staring into test tubes or the desperate eyes of monkeys in cages, all studying gender differences without any preconceptions, without any bias. Just a pure-as(s)-snow scientific inquiry into why biology is destiny, but only for women. ... --Penis Envy by echidne, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES ... Indeed, had Obama answered the question affirmatively, he would have broken with a powerful, 40-year-old political tradition that requires government representatives to endorse strictly prohibitionist, punitive drug policies despite mounting evidence of their inefficacy in order to avoid appearing “soft on crime.” [AE: Wouldn't want that kind of CHANGE, would we?] --Calls for Drug Law Reform Top Obama Transition Website at change.gov by Amy Long, The ACLU's Blog of Rights

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Feel the Christian love ...

Here's another ditzy priest:

Church parishioner sez pastor singled her out for the Obama sign on her car

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Ditzy as in dippy, dizzy, dopey.

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The joke's on us ... and the Mormon Church. Today's QUOTES:

... since ignoring Bush is paramount in the American Corporate Journalism Way there was never a chance our yapping talking TV heads were going to state the plain truth of who Palin is, the parallels to who is sitting in the White House would have been far too plain and uncomfortable. --It Wasn’t Loss of Nerve by paradox, The Left Coaster So -- the Church directly instructed its membership on the roles they were to play in the campaign, allegedly contributed hundreds of thousands in unreported in-kind contributions, kept actual politicking off their lavish campuses, and directed as much as twenty million dollars in church members' contributions to the YES campaign. But now they'd rather not have the bright spotlight of publicity on them, their members who contributed, and the businesses who contributed? ... You can speak your piece in the public square, but you may also be held accountable for your speech and your politicking by your fellow citizens. --How the Mormons Overcame Voter Apathy on Prop 8 by Teddy Partridge, firedoglake.com Can someone show me where in the Constitution or Bill Of Rights it says that "people of faith" are somehow exempt from facing protests? That their "democratic right to express their views in the public square" trumps everyone else's? --First Amendment for We But Not for Thee by Eli, firedoglake.com

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Wherein we learn whether or not Obama intends to manage his own brain ... or turn it over to pseudo analysts and pundits claiming to represent the 'center' Today's QUOTES:

There is and always has been a Beltway cottage industry of trite, platitude-spouting establishment-defenders whose only "argument" consists of issuing grave warnings that Democrats will suffer if they don't ignore and scorn "the Left" (defined as any Democrat dissimilar to Joe Lieberman). ... --Marty Peretz's assistant is the latest to be elected spokesperson for the Moderate Americans by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

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Abortion, no; lots of killing, yes ...

The Catholic Church continues digging itself a hole:

No Communion For Obama Supporters, Says South Carolina Priest

So this Catholic Church priest is saying that Catholics were evil to vote for Obama because he sorta supports a woman having the right to make decisions about her own body.

By inference, it appears that this priest thinks bomb, bomb, bombing Iran would be just dandy.

So lots and lots of dead bodies is OK with the Catholic Church (history shows this to be so) but never, never should a woman be allowed to abort a fetus.

So killing human beings after they have been born is no biggie, but killing even a few cells that are incapable of life on their own is a Catholic no, no.

The snakes in the grass ...

LDS Documents Reveal Eleven Year Collaboration with RCC on Marriage Equality

The media in Salt Lake City have discovered the documents revealed prior to Election Day that show a long-time collaboration between the Mormons and the Catholics to destroy what they call "Homosexual Legal Marriage."

[...]

Americans need to understand that these two powerful church hierarchies have been working closely together to deny us civil rights, for a long time.

And that's not right.

It sure aint! It also should disqualify them for tax exempt status. What is the IRS doing about this? What is the Congress doing about this. If they are going to be active political organizations then they need to be out in the open, not hidden and secret. One would think these two religious entities have something to hide.
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Added: Really this is becoming ridiculous. Now the Catholic Church attacks Congress and Obama by claiming that certain policy actions they may take will be an attack on the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is making what I think is called a preemptive strike (sound like they are starting the 'war' to me).

The nation's Catholic bishops Tuesday approved a statement declaring that if the Democratic-controlled Congress and the incoming Obama administration enact proposed abortion rights legislation, they would see it as an attack on the church.

Obviously I had a different idea of what religion was supposed to be in the US. But it's obvious the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church are trying to control our laws to force their rigid views of what's right and wrong (instead of teaching their beliefs to the adherents of their faiths and administering to the needs of their congregations). They have decided that the Constitution and rights of US citizens must be set aside for their beliefs. Our beliefs don't matter. Again, their freedom to choose and follow their religious beliefs is not enough. They must make us all follow them also.

No thank you. I am definitely being radicalized by the action of these two organizations. I will look askance at everything they do from now on. And I assume I'm not the only one.

I wondered about this ...

A Silver Lining in Prop. 8?

Since the passage of California’s Proposition 8, there have been protests across California. ...

At least the passing of Proposition 8, which was on its way to oblivion until the Mormons and the Catholics poured tons of money into lies and fear mongering (religiously impressive, no?), has energized many in addition to gays. It didn't seem so generally important until it became clear that organized religion, in the form of Catholics and Mormons, were going to go all out to require that everyone should follow their religious dictates. Not being able to manage their own flocks, evidently, they wish to make their religious beliefs the law of the land. Not satisfied with their FREEDOM to worship and follow the rules they choose to believe in, they have gotten so arrogant and superior that they believe they have the right to dictate, through the law, how the rest of us will live.

The Catholic Church is quite amorphous, but the Mormon Church is, I think, already aware of a backlash. Of course, even if these two churches were able to change all our laws to fit their most rigid desires then they would have to turn the fight onto each other. Somehow these two churches just don't exude brotherly love, do they? Hate, control, rigidity seems to what they stand for at present.

Fundamental confusion ...

Found this article (Religious Fundamentalism and Politics by Jeff Haynes) by searching google: fundamentalism and politics.

Being an impatient person I didn't get past the 5th paragraph. This stumped me:

To many observers and ‘ordinary’ people, religious fundamentalism is always socially and politically conservative, backward looking, inherently opposed to change. But if this is the case how can we explain the activities of militant Islamic groups around the world - often dubbed ‘fundamentalist’ - who strive to overthrow regimes with which they disagree? Other groups which have been labelled fundamentalist - such as ‘born again’ Christians in the United States or orthodox Jews in Israel - seem to fit more closely the conventional wisdom, as they are often linked to very conservative political forces who seek to roll back what they perceive as an unwelcome liberalisation and relaxation of social and moral mores.

The paragraph implies that religious fundamentalists cannot be both conservative and seek to impose their fundamentalist beliefs on others through change in current day political environments, even when the goal of the change is to impose upon the society, country or world the 'correct' laws and codes of behavior from the past. Isn't that what the GOP, along with the US christianists, claim to be doing? Re-creating some magical time from the 1950's through a somewhat violent assault on our laws and the very framework that holds our country together to such an extent that our police forces have been turned into military occupiers in our own cities?

Fundamentalism, conservatism and crusades seem, to me, to be linked concepts --with other hidden authoritarian objectives thrown in for good measure, of course.

I suppose for the author a 'rollback' to the past is conservative but 'striving to overthrow regimes' is not conservative. Though, of course, both may follow from a belief in 'the strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of a religion or ideology.'

Really, it's only a matter of degree. If we can still use the term conservatives for those who are said to be 'averse to change and hold to traditional values and attitudes' when this same change-averse group is willing to rollback from present day to some idealized time decades ago, then why not use the term conservative for those who would use shock and awe to bomb a country back to the stone age for their own good?

Or perhaps there is no such thing as a conservative. Or a better definition of conservatives would be that they reject change when they are comfortable with the present but insist on change when the past looks greener? Or there's money to be acquired.

Nothing here, move along ...

Long before today's debate over the need for a federal task force to probe the FLDS Church, a federal civil rights investigation concluded the polygamous sect was doing nothing worth prosecuting.

• "This is not a denial of housing because of the victims' religion per se, but rather because the victims were supposedly unfaithful to the church's requirements," he wrote.

Yeah, kicking people out of their homes, denying them the ability to work, forcing marriages ... nothing to see, move along.

Tell me the world's not going absolutely bonkers ...

Former prime minister Tony Blair has promised to "spend the rest of my life" uniting the world's religions (via)

He is launching a "faith foundation" in New York on Friday.

Mr Blair, who recently converted to Catholicism, said: "Faith is part of our future, and faith and the values it brings with it are an essential part of making globalisation work."

Values? Isn't it odd how so many of the warmongers, haters and destroyers go on about 'values.' Values such as invading and destroying and murdering people for oil, power and control. Values for controlling the lives and causing the deaths of others. Values.

Make globalization work? Why would we do that? So these people with values can globalize their religion and call it 'uniting?'

There must be something contagious about George W. Bush or maybe Tony Blair was always a fruitcake.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Among the things, evidently, that we're not supposed to bring up because it interrupts Peggy Noonan's fantasy vision of an American history populated mostly by noble 49ers and industrious Henry Fords, are the following:

-- The genocide committed against Native Americans.
-- Slavery.
-- The "lynching era" and Jim Crow.
-- Sundown towns.
-- The forced incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
Knowing who we are, what we have done would seem to be the key to doing better in the future, but that's just me, I guess. Don't most religions teach this concept? I thought so at one time ...

The Illinois senator [Obama] said that when folks feel economically shafted, they get “bitter.” Matthews-ism spun the truism into a scandal. [...] By downplaying inequality and couching royalism in middle-class arguments, the Beltway elite pretend there are not two Americas but only one: theirs.

That nurses, the incarnation of care in the eyes of Americans, should now be a bone of contention among unions is a clue to their paramount value as our nation’s conscience. Unlike priests, they do not bear the stigma of exploiting vulnerability. And unlike faith-based institutions, which in general have been complicit in the 50-year decline in union membership by turning away from issues of morality and justice involving workers and workplaces, nurses are tackling them head-on.

How many have actually read Jeremiah Wright's speech AND the questions and answers following it? ... Obama won't vote to impeach the president for his high crimes; he won't even denounce them for what they are. But he has sure enough impeached his preacher for all the world to see. Which, as Silber says, is "much more significant -- and much more revealing -- than any of Wright's comments themselves."

... the South should really be defined as the corporatism or Plantationsim. It is the same forces that led us to the Civil War to begin with and to imperialism, which is now sinking this entire nation.

After all, look at the talking heads themselves. They are in the job of generating controversy and tut-tutting anyone they want to denigrate, without intelligence, thought, analysis, or facts. ... Not just worthless, the media is very dangerous to our freedom, our security, our Constitutional way of government, our very lives.

... I will never understand why the people who attack Islam as oppressive to women have nothing to say about the FLDS. ...

... This election season, we've seen a cavalcade of white, middle-age men express their deep, personal contempt for the first serious female contender for the White House. Contempt, of course, that has nothing to do with Sen. Hillary Clinton's policies or her beliefs. Instead, it's been an oddly personal disdain dressed up as political analysis.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Rights are never given, they are only taken.

The Bible isn’t grounded in reason; it is an article of faith. Reason and faith-diametrically opposed means of understanding the world around us. To the extent that the Bible is, as I have already said, essentially an extortion letter, it is an embodiment of the same tried and true dynamic that underlies the declaration and constitution; law backed up by the threat of force. You are not behaving in a moral fashion when you use your faith to discriminate against me. Get your ‘values’ out of my face.
There was an America for 100 years without gasoline engines, and there will be again one day. We just need the leadership to start.
I find it … interesting … that Mexico’s most powerful law enforcement agency is forced to drop its investigations because it is being threatened by a regional narco.

The party of absolute greed is the party with God on its side ...

Go figure:

With God On Our Side
by Devilstower