AlterNet: Election 2004: The Progressive Morality

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Progressive Morality

This lays out better than I could (maybe) what is wrong with the so-called Family Values morality on the right. If you raise your children to live by outside rules and the whip, then you have children who must have rules to control them. If you raise your children to be independent and think for themselves, you will have a real job on your hands, but you will have upstanding and honorable sons and daughters who work to make the world better and can also obtain success in this world. But the getting there is damned hard work. They will think for themselves and that means a challenge. Raising such children is harder than raising those who live under rigid controls.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Apocalypse (Almost) Now

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Apocalypse (Almost) Now

An interesting take on the Left Behind series based on the concept of The Rapture. I've never read them because, although I like science fiction, I've never cared that much for what passes for fantasy today beyond Tolkien and a very few others. Too much good stuff to read.

Is America a Post-democratic Society? How to Preserve Our Republic

Is America a Post-democratic Society? How to Preserve Our Republic

I think this is a valuable comment on the state of the U.S. at this point. What we have to fear is the Roman example. I've been wondering for some time if we will have the same experience with our grand experiment: unable to keep it from turning into an autocracy with the non-thinkers kept quiet with bread and circuses until the walls fall.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: When the Personal Shouldn't Be Political

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: When the Personal Shouldn't Be Political

Gary Hart, the author of this piece, has a lot to say about the role of faith in public life in the U.S. I agree. As someone who was raised a Catholic in a predominately Protestant community and who, I was taught, sold my soul to the devil by singing in school out of the Methodist hymnal, I agree with his thoughts.

What is the worst of the "religious" revival in this country, if that's what it is (I would suggest that the form it has taken is a back slide into the thinking of the Calvinistic burnings of scientists in Geneva, and the Catholic burnings of Protestants and Jews by the Inquisition, all in the name of saving them), is that the evangelicals and others seem to feel that it is enough to "believe," to be "saved."

In the religion I was taught, you had to believe, but you also had to act as the founder wanted us to, to help the poor, the feeble, the sick, the hungry, not to stomp on them or treat them as trash. Many of the people I hear going on about what their god requires adhere more to the old testament's 10 commandments than the new testament's greatest commandment.

I ask again: if we are going to post the 10 commandments as our guide, why don't we go back farther and post the rules of Sargon or Hammurabi? They are also in the direct line of our tradition.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Voting Without the Facts

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Voting Without the Facts

Now comes someone who puts the values issue in its proper perspective. Many of those who claim to hold to family values actually hold values that are repellent to those of us who have thought the issues through. They think with their gonads and feel that everyone else does, too. And I agree that ignorance played a big role in this election. When reason doesn't work, it is obvious that a lot of the public are deliberately ignorant. We know that is true with those who think evolution is controversial. The survey he cites here shows that the voters who supported baby bush did not know the facts regarding the "war" against terrorism, despite the amount of information put out about it. I can only believe that they were willfully ignorant.

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Day After

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Day After

I think anyone, including baby bush, who suggests that he will make this country better needs to look at the world around him and to look at his actions rather than listen to him. A fellow just died and went to heaven where he was interviewed by St. Pete. On the wall behind the good saint was a wall full of myriads of clocks. The man asked them what the clocks were for. St. Pete said they mirrored the lies that people told. When the man asked for George Washington's clock, St. Pete pointed at a clock where the hands were set straight up, no lies. He asked for Abe Lincoln's clock and saw the hands were set at five minutes past 12, a few tall tales. "Where's the clock for baby bush?" he asked. Said St. Pete, "Jesus keeps that in his office. He uses it for a ceiling fan." So must we all.

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Unbearable Darkness of Being

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Unbearable Darkness of Being

I would suggest that those who do not feel this way are unAmerican and need to go back to civics class and to reread the U.S. Constitution, not that it will remain what it is for long.

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Great Divide Continues

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Great Divide Continues

We need to hope that the end of this analysis is correct, that the American people will win out and our nation will survive. With baby bush in the position he is now, or thinks he is in, he will continue to alienate a large percentage of the populace. He constantly talks in double speak, words that sound find but watch what he does. Environmental laws that strip the environment; religious views that are immoral and bring in the immoral religious right, tax laws that seem to help everybody but give everyone but the rich a pittance sort of like bread and circuses; a foreign policy that makes us less safe and heads us more and more in the direction of imperialism which invariably means a tyranny at home to maintain. He can call himself a uniter all he wants, his policies are those of a divider.

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Great Divide Continues

AlterNet: Election 2004: The Great Divide Continues

We need to hope that the end of this analysis is correct, that the American people will win out and our nation will survive. With baby bush in the position he is now, or thinks he is in, he will continue to alienate a large percentage of the populace. He constantly talks in double speak, words that sound find but watch what he does. Environmental laws that strip the environment; religious views that are immoral and bring in the immoral religious right, tax laws that seem to help everybody but give everyone but the rich a pittance sort of like bread and circuses; a foreign policy that makes us less safe and heads us more and more in the direction of imperialism which invariably means a tyranny at home to maintain. He can call himself a uniter all he wants, his policies are those of a divider.

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: The Day the Enlightenment Went Out