Once again, President Bush has vetoed Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, even though polling data shows that an overwhelming percentage of Americans support such research and its potential for life-saving cures.
The public shouldn’t be surprised by Bush’s action – he has never represented the values or aspirations of the American majority. No, Bush and his cronies serve the religious right and corporate clients, and they do it exceedingly well.
Upon vetoing the stem cell research bill, Bush was quoted as saying, “Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” This is an interesting statement from a man who frequently sent death row inmates to the lethal injection chamber when he was Governor of Texas, and is directly responsible for thousands of deaths in Iraq. Then again, hypocrisy and unethical behavior is the Bush Gang’s stock-in-trade.
In his new book, American Theocracy, author Kevin Phillips provides a sobering account of the negative effects of, among other things, “militant” Christianity on our country. When people who believe in Biblical inerrancy assume power and impose their beliefs and values on the rest of us, atrocious things happen, such as imperial military actions cloaked in crusading religious garb, disregard for scientific inquiry and rational argument, and wholesale attacks on an already tattered social safety net.
Who needs science when the secrets of life are contained in the Bible?
Who needs a social safety net when Jesus is standing by, ready to provide material sustenance?
These are sad times, here at the busy intersection where religious fundamentalism meets unfettered corporate power. We cross the intersection at great risk to ourselves and the people we love, particularly if we believe that the Bible is a work of mythology, that scientific inquiry is essential to our survival as a species, or that dissent is patriotic.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Hail Albania!
ABC News interrupted its coverage of Paris Hilton’s comings and goings long enough to report that President Bush received a “hero’s” welcome in Albania, and fresh from that happy experience, felt emboldened to visit Capitol Hill to stump for the federal Immigration bill.
I’m glad there’s a country in this world that Bush can visit and feel the love because he sure as hell doesn’t get that in America, but then, unlike Albanians, Americans have never taken to totalitarian leaders. Even though the “rule of law” is frequently perverted beyond recognition in this country, the “principle” that the Law means something in the land is as ingrained in our minds as the Pledge of Allegiance.
That Bush consistently “disses” the Constitution doesn’t trouble the average Albanian. Perhaps in Bush Albanians see a kindred, a link to the Roman, Ottoman, or Communists who once ruled the land.
But how pathetic is an American President who feels emboldened by a state visit to Albania? Not the UK or Germany or Japan or Australia, places where American heads of state usually receive a friendly welcome, but Albania.
The irony of this was lost on the talking mannequins at ABC. America has slipped so low in the eyes of the world, the Bush record is so dismal, full of error, hubris, and failure, that an inconsequential visit to a marginal nation is given the same gravity as a visit to a country with some juice on the world stage.
We will be rid of Bush in less than 600 hundred days, but his twisted legacy will live for decades. The sad but incontrovertible fact is that the damage Bush has wrought is largely irreversible.
Paris Hilton is in the slammer, crying for her mommy; the New York Yankees have won nine of their last ten game to climb above the .500 mark; and the major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are contorting themselves to prove their religious “faith,” a clear recognition that none of them can win unless they pull in a decent percentage of “religious” voters. Hillary Clinton: “When my husband was getting serviced in the Oval Office by that woman, Miss Lewinsky, my daughter and my faith were the only things I had. Without deep and abiding faith we would not have survived those dark, troubling days. What Bill and that woman, Miss Lewinsky, did was wrong, but my faith made it all turn out right.”
Sweet Jesus! Bush, Paris, Hillary – the inmates are definitely in control of the asylum. The rest of us own the ticket and have no choice but to take the ride.
I’m glad there’s a country in this world that Bush can visit and feel the love because he sure as hell doesn’t get that in America, but then, unlike Albanians, Americans have never taken to totalitarian leaders. Even though the “rule of law” is frequently perverted beyond recognition in this country, the “principle” that the Law means something in the land is as ingrained in our minds as the Pledge of Allegiance.
That Bush consistently “disses” the Constitution doesn’t trouble the average Albanian. Perhaps in Bush Albanians see a kindred, a link to the Roman, Ottoman, or Communists who once ruled the land.
But how pathetic is an American President who feels emboldened by a state visit to Albania? Not the UK or Germany or Japan or Australia, places where American heads of state usually receive a friendly welcome, but Albania.
The irony of this was lost on the talking mannequins at ABC. America has slipped so low in the eyes of the world, the Bush record is so dismal, full of error, hubris, and failure, that an inconsequential visit to a marginal nation is given the same gravity as a visit to a country with some juice on the world stage.
We will be rid of Bush in less than 600 hundred days, but his twisted legacy will live for decades. The sad but incontrovertible fact is that the damage Bush has wrought is largely irreversible.
Paris Hilton is in the slammer, crying for her mommy; the New York Yankees have won nine of their last ten game to climb above the .500 mark; and the major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are contorting themselves to prove their religious “faith,” a clear recognition that none of them can win unless they pull in a decent percentage of “religious” voters. Hillary Clinton: “When my husband was getting serviced in the Oval Office by that woman, Miss Lewinsky, my daughter and my faith were the only things I had. Without deep and abiding faith we would not have survived those dark, troubling days. What Bill and that woman, Miss Lewinsky, did was wrong, but my faith made it all turn out right.”
Sweet Jesus! Bush, Paris, Hillary – the inmates are definitely in control of the asylum. The rest of us own the ticket and have no choice but to take the ride.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Holier Than
Holier than you, Infidel;
Holier than you, Muslim;
Holier than you, Buddhist;
Holier than you, Roman Catholic;
Holier than you, homosexual;
Holier than you, secular humanist;
The Jesus of love-thy-neighbor has become the Jesus
of persecution;
The Jesus of turn-the-other-cheek is now the Jesus
of vengeance;
The Jesus of tolerance is now the Jesus
of intolerance;
The Jesus who chased the money changers from the Temple is now the Jesus
of greed;
Remember these names – Falwell, Robertson, Dobson – mortal men who high-jacked
the Bible;
Beware anyone who claims to speak for God;
Follow the power that flows from the money raised in God’s name;
And when someone claims to be holier-than-you,
Run
Holier than you, Muslim;
Holier than you, Buddhist;
Holier than you, Roman Catholic;
Holier than you, homosexual;
Holier than you, secular humanist;
The Jesus of love-thy-neighbor has become the Jesus
of persecution;
The Jesus of turn-the-other-cheek is now the Jesus
of vengeance;
The Jesus of tolerance is now the Jesus
of intolerance;
The Jesus who chased the money changers from the Temple is now the Jesus
of greed;
Remember these names – Falwell, Robertson, Dobson – mortal men who high-jacked
the Bible;
Beware anyone who claims to speak for God;
Follow the power that flows from the money raised in God’s name;
And when someone claims to be holier-than-you,
Run
A Mother's Courage
Mothers pay a high price in wartime. Mothers send their sons and husbands, and nowadays, daughters, to foreign lands and wait and worry and hope and pray that they come home alive and intact.
War is hell. A man said it, but mothers know what the hell of war feels like, down deep where it hurts all the time.
She was an ordinary woman from California, with a son in the military, subject to the orders of a president hell bent on imperial overreach under the guise of revenge for September 11th. The President said the invasion was necessary for the security of the United States, he said it was about “regime change,” and finding weapons of mass destruction, and bringing freedom to the long suffering people of Iraq. The President denied the most plausible explanation for the adventure: to secure reliable access to some of the largest proven oil reserves on the planet for American oil companies.
The President claimed the mission was accomplished, but the woman from California breathed no easier. Wars are sometimes waged in stages and on shifting battlefields. The “victory” of Shock & Awe – televised and trumpeted like a Super Bowl game – deteriorated into a stalemate, then defeat, but by then, the woman had already received the call and the news.
Her son was dead and her life would never be the same. She had to find meaning in her boy’s death, answer the searing questions, why and for what and for whom? In past wars, answers to those questions might have come easier, but in this new brand of war, a war of choice, pre-emptive and open-ended, based on shifting rationales, all of which unraveled as events on the ground unfolded, meaning came hard, if it came at all. The dead returned home in flag-draped coffins under cover of darkness and secrecy, as if the sponsors of the war were ashamed.
The only constant was Oil. How else to explain why the United States is building permanent military installations in areas with proven oil reserves, or why it is constructing a massive embassy complex on 104 acres in the Green Zone, or why the “Hydrocarbon Law,” drafted to force privatization of Iraq’s oil resources and give foreign oil companies long-term access to Iraq’s oil, was reviewed by the oil companies long before it was seen by Iraq’s parliament?
Imagine the dissonance in her brain, the uneasiness in her soul, forced every day to confront the emptiness and the questions, the constant reminders of her dead son. She was living in the hell of war.
Some women might have retreated inward, suffered in silence or self-imposed exile, but this mother felt the need to act, to communicate her grief and outrage, to challenge the rationale for continuing the military occupation that had claimed her boy. She tried the most direct route, to the Commander-in-Chief himself, and spent the better part of a month camped outside his ranch, hoping for an audience. Media arrived, curious then insatiable, she became renowned, the face of the anti-war movement. Soon she was marching, and speaking, telling her story on prime time media. It’s unlikely that she ever imagined herself in the role she was now playing, but life comes at us hard sometimes, wrenches us from comfortable patterns.
After a time, when her criticisms became too pointed and her face and name over-exposed, the media machine that had thrust her into the spotlight turned on her. The Talk Titans from the Right questioned her patriotism and her motives, called her an “attention whore,” and soon it was all about her and not her dead son and the misbegotten war that took his life.
But mothers like this one don’t give up easily. She stayed in the fire, kept speaking out, marching for peace, and in November 2006 the country came around, voted Democrats into power with an explicit charge to do something about the mess in Iraq.
That they didn’t reflects our sad, dysfunctional political reality, cowardice, and calculation. Too many Democrats lacked Cindy Sheehan’s heart and courage. They should be ashamed. Cindy Sheehan, on the other hand, mother and patriot, has no reason to feel shame.
War is hell. A man said it, but mothers know what the hell of war feels like, down deep where it hurts all the time.
She was an ordinary woman from California, with a son in the military, subject to the orders of a president hell bent on imperial overreach under the guise of revenge for September 11th. The President said the invasion was necessary for the security of the United States, he said it was about “regime change,” and finding weapons of mass destruction, and bringing freedom to the long suffering people of Iraq. The President denied the most plausible explanation for the adventure: to secure reliable access to some of the largest proven oil reserves on the planet for American oil companies.
The President claimed the mission was accomplished, but the woman from California breathed no easier. Wars are sometimes waged in stages and on shifting battlefields. The “victory” of Shock & Awe – televised and trumpeted like a Super Bowl game – deteriorated into a stalemate, then defeat, but by then, the woman had already received the call and the news.
Her son was dead and her life would never be the same. She had to find meaning in her boy’s death, answer the searing questions, why and for what and for whom? In past wars, answers to those questions might have come easier, but in this new brand of war, a war of choice, pre-emptive and open-ended, based on shifting rationales, all of which unraveled as events on the ground unfolded, meaning came hard, if it came at all. The dead returned home in flag-draped coffins under cover of darkness and secrecy, as if the sponsors of the war were ashamed.
The only constant was Oil. How else to explain why the United States is building permanent military installations in areas with proven oil reserves, or why it is constructing a massive embassy complex on 104 acres in the Green Zone, or why the “Hydrocarbon Law,” drafted to force privatization of Iraq’s oil resources and give foreign oil companies long-term access to Iraq’s oil, was reviewed by the oil companies long before it was seen by Iraq’s parliament?
Imagine the dissonance in her brain, the uneasiness in her soul, forced every day to confront the emptiness and the questions, the constant reminders of her dead son. She was living in the hell of war.
Some women might have retreated inward, suffered in silence or self-imposed exile, but this mother felt the need to act, to communicate her grief and outrage, to challenge the rationale for continuing the military occupation that had claimed her boy. She tried the most direct route, to the Commander-in-Chief himself, and spent the better part of a month camped outside his ranch, hoping for an audience. Media arrived, curious then insatiable, she became renowned, the face of the anti-war movement. Soon she was marching, and speaking, telling her story on prime time media. It’s unlikely that she ever imagined herself in the role she was now playing, but life comes at us hard sometimes, wrenches us from comfortable patterns.
After a time, when her criticisms became too pointed and her face and name over-exposed, the media machine that had thrust her into the spotlight turned on her. The Talk Titans from the Right questioned her patriotism and her motives, called her an “attention whore,” and soon it was all about her and not her dead son and the misbegotten war that took his life.
But mothers like this one don’t give up easily. She stayed in the fire, kept speaking out, marching for peace, and in November 2006 the country came around, voted Democrats into power with an explicit charge to do something about the mess in Iraq.
That they didn’t reflects our sad, dysfunctional political reality, cowardice, and calculation. Too many Democrats lacked Cindy Sheehan’s heart and courage. They should be ashamed. Cindy Sheehan, on the other hand, mother and patriot, has no reason to feel shame.
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