March 31, 2006
Overheard yesterday on the L train @ 14th & 8th:
Two women sat talking, with fifteen years and probably several income levels between them. The conversation started on the topic of religion and the meaning of God.
Young Woman: I believe in my religion. It is the only faith I know. For me, it is important in my daily life. I have questioned and studied it and I believe that it is part of me and that it must have meaning.
Middle Aged Woman: Faith is a necessary ingredient of Human life. Without it, the world would be a cold and dangerous place. But there is a difference between faith and religion. Don’t confuse the two.
Young Woman: What do you mean?
Middle Aged Woman: Religion is nothing more than politics wearing a mask of spirituality. It has nothing to do with faith. Religion is for Man, not for God. The role of Man is not to tell God what to do, to pray for God to kill other people or make them sick and destroy them. The role of Man is to find a way to God, and that can only be done through faith, not through religion, and certainly through politics.
Young Woman: But you can’t have faith without religion.
Middle Aged Woman: Who says? A priest? A rabbi? A mullah? A guru? Do you really believe that you know the way to God, that you have some sort of secret formula that allows you to unlock the door to what God is? Do you really believe that unbaptized go to Hell, or that killing someone of another faith gets you into heaven?
Young Woman: No, but I don’t believe that my religion is wrong. I can’t believe that. I believe that it is the right faith.
Middle Aged Woman: Does that mean that all other religions are wrong?
Young Woman: I guess only God can answer that.
Middle Aged Woman: Yes, only God can answer that.
Garbled conversation as group of chattering teenagers push into the train. The bell rings and doors close. The teenagers exit at Union Square.
Middle Aged Woman: The purpose of Human life is to find the way to God. How sad it must be for God when a Human life ends before that person has had the chance to understand this purpose.
Young Woman: I never thought of life like that. I am so terrified of death.
Middle Aged Woman: How tragic is it that we ask young men and women to sacrifice themselves on the field of battle in a pre-emptive war that supposedly protects us. How sad that these people have as their purpose only the emptiness that such a war brings. We have one life, one self, and to sacrifice it for no real reason is sad. Think of the progeny lost, the hearts broken, the emptiness of meaning in these deaths. And Bush is asking mother and fathers, husbands and wives to sacrifice their purpose for his ends his political purpose- and he does this by pulling at their religious heart strings. It makes me sad, and it sickens me.
Young Woman: And no one says anything.
Middle Aged Woman: Because they will label you “anti-american” or “anti-troops” if you question them. You are witnessing the end of the American dream.
Young Woman: I don’t know about that.
Middle Aged Woman: This is my stop. Good luck on your journey to God.
Tags:
bush, death, faith, politics, religion, war
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Posted on 3/31/2006
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March 27, 2006
Bush says Stay, Rice says Go
Among the confusing statements coming out of Washington over the past week are those of Bush himself, some rare but very telling ad hoc comments that leapt from his heart not his script. The most important aspect of his comments are their genuineness, especially his remark that the course of the war in Iraq will be left up to “future presidents”.
One can view this as a giant buck passing, a handoff, a warning or any number of things, and be more or less correct. Certainly this comment on future presidents tells us that he is checking out of the hotel on Monumental Mistake Avenue and going back home to this ranch to be with the cows and cactus. As much as he is not a man who reflects and who has much capacity for deep self-examination, he is not wholly idiotic. He must know on a belly-wrenching level that in many ways he has been hoodwinked.
His comment that the future of Iraq and of our role in it will be the worry of those who come after him is a resignation. He has resigned himself to the fact that what was promised and what has been delivered are two different things. He must in his heart be disappointed that at this late date, Iraq is one of the most dangerous places in the world.
This disparity between the pre-war and current understanding of the region has made it cleat that the situation on the ground is not the fault of the fighting men and women but rather it is the fault of those who created legends of WMDs where none existed, created throngs of people waiting to wave the flag of Liberty where they indeed did not exist, and created terrorist bases where none had existed – until now.
Rice, generally Bush’s greatest supporter was on a tour of her own last week, working damage control and trying to re-spin Bush’s now famous comments. According to Miss Hunkydoriness, the situation on the ground is impressive, progress is being made, plans for troop reductions are in the works, we’ll be mopping up soon.
No one in the current administration seems to have read the histories of wars through the ages. But then, we all seem to have forgotten what we heard or read last week.
That fact is that Bush let slip what we all know to be true: we’re in Ira for at least another decade, and we are going to go broke paying for it.
I hope Halliburton is happy now. They’ll be getting our tax revenue ad infinitum.
Tags:
bush, cheney, failure, iraq
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Posted on 3/27/2006
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March 23, 2006
Bush’s ongoing tour of the nation, reminiscent of a D-List, 80’s hair band, reveals more and more about how much he has indeed failed the American people.
The fact that he feels compelled to spend so much time on the road trying to convince Americans that there is progress in Iraq (or eye-RACK, as he pronounces it), should be sounding off the alarm bells in the heads of voters.
First, he fails to define “progress” and how it measured. All he does is blame the media for putting a negative spin on things. But how positive of a spin can one put on the breathtaking deficit that our descendents will still be paying off? How can the ongoing death toll be a positive thing? When he talks about “progress on the ground” what does he mean? It seems clear that Iraq is on the brink of total collapse, not only from sectarian violence but also from foreign terrorists making bases there, from the complete destruction of its infrastructure and from the pork-belly projects handed over to the independent contractor friends of Cheney and Company. Progress and how it is measured need to be defined and clarified. Oh, but that’s all Top Secret Confidential. I guess he got his ideas from “How to Wage a Ware For Dummies”.
We were led into this war on false pretenses, the viability of its execution completely off-base, and now we have committed ourselves to at least another five years and trillions of dollars. This is what happens when mediocre minds with power hungry friends worm their way into American politics.
If Bush’s stumping in small-town America, which often bears the tax burden of such mounting Federal debt, is supposed to give us comfort, it, too, is failing. GBWII should have spent more time in college reading and understanding the lessons of history. Instead he was networking with other privileged boys from that level of society closed off to fully 98% of the populace, bellying up to the bar and ballyhooing about FDR and the left. Had he even tried to understand the lessons of history he would have seen Cheney and Iraq coming miles and miles away.
Now, he is trying to re-spin once again this terribly misguided war of his. We are supposed to believe that this “pre-emptive strike” against the “axis of evil” has led to “progress on ground” in our “war against terror”. The reality is that he was wrong and the rest of us have to pay for it. The National Guard is paying with lives.
Tags:
bush, cheney, irag, voters, war
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Posted on 3/23/2006
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March 14, 2006
President Bush Almost Admits to a Possible Error in Judgment... that headline to come.
As the campaigning season begins and the contenders prepare themselves for Battle of the PR Machines, President Bush has begun to tone down his previous gung-ho, hang ‘em high rhetoric of four years ago. Clearly, the entire military might of the USA has not been able to smoke all of the evil-doers out of their holes. And the polls indicate that Americans think less of Bush’s performance than viewers did of the Turino Olympics. Maybe it’s time for a sports metaphor.
It seems that the murmurs from the White House seem to point to the slow and painful realization that maybe Bush was misled by his throng of Neo Con advisors. Clearly, Bush’s intention was to reinvigorate the US as a Christian nation, part of his greater Mission to bring us all closer to the Truth before the Rapture. (I wonder if he is “Rapture Ready” and will be assumed into heaven as is.)
He has been there to help out his buddies in the Petro-Construction business and has of course provided them with contracts that have made their companies lucrative stock trades on the NYSE. I mean, who wouldn’t want to invest in Haliburton, when such a large chunk of taxpayer money is going right there (an not in Social Security)? Surely this will earn him points with God, who appreciates generating wealth. Right?
Anyway, I don’t think Bush feels too good about being bamboozled, so perhaps he has a plan to rectify the Iraq problem. But I think not. He is too busy focusing on the next Bush, and keeping the evil Liberals out of government.
The struggle for the Republicans now is whether or not they can find someone equally willing to pursue an aggressive war policy, continue to occupy Iraq, continue to send National Guard troops to die, threaten and provoke Iran, hold hands with the authoritarian states of Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and others while continuing to call Saddam Hussein the face of the devil. Additionally, the next Bush must be willing to press a Christian agenda, and to demand legislation that treats a fetus as a person and thus opens the door for the total regulation of the female reproductive system. Women who smoke, drink, take anti-depressants, are slothful, eat too much salt or who are sleep-deprived are all putting the Unborn at risk and are therefore criminals. Bush’s replacement must be willing to criminalize these women of child-bearing age and send them to prison to join the other 8.8 million Americans currently in jails. The next Bush must also be willing to invade Iran. The dye has already been cast. They have oil. What’s stopping him?
Since things are looking dim for Bush and his curren palor threatens to diminish the glow of those hawkish right-wingers who last year were holding him up as the next Messiah, Bush could do a sudden about face, have a come-to-Jesus moment on national television where he admits that maybe he was focused on the wrong enemy; or, he could blame faulty intelligence, or he could just say that’s it’s all good and now it’s time to go.
In any event, something about his rhetoric will have to change, because no matter how obtuse the American public might be from time to time we do know that things are not going well in Iraq, and we do know that pursuing Saddam was not the same thing as pursuing Bin Laden. And we know that we do not want to sacrifice Social Security and the welfare of the aged for an ongoing and endless war.
But who will he appoint as his replacement? Who will get the royal nod? That is question.
Tags:
bush, iraq, neo cons, rapture ready, social secirty, taxes
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Posted on 3/14/2006
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March 07, 2006
To many on the left, Cindy Sheehan is an embarrassment. Her haggard face and rambling sentences full of a mother’s pain are not what the traditional and often elitist Left is looking for in an Opposition movement.
Too bad for the Left.
There is no better Poster Child for the realities of the war in Iraq than a grieving mother who, like Perspehone endlessly seeking her daughter, seeks some sort of closure for the loss of her son. But the left cannot embrace her because the Left is mired in the tired rhetoric of the Sixties, itself as haggard as Ms. Sheehan. The Left seeks to speak from the pulpit of University, but fails to see that Gen Xers are not tuned in; they don’t even know what their rights are under the laws of this country. They don’t care, either. Why? Because there is no draft and they can elect to turn on and drop out, just like the Yippies once commanded us all to do. They are not moved to action because they have been programmed to respond to sound bites, to have others digest the news for them and to be the best consumers ever raised in the most consumption-driven nation ever to grace the face of planet Earth. To them, the war in Iraq is simply not their problem. It does not affect them, simply put. And they are myopic, so much so that planning for the future means simply the upcoming weekend.
Too bad for the Left, again.
How does one stir up passions in such a passionless time? How does one convince the Youth that they are standing on the edge of a precipice that looks down into the bleakness of an authoritarian state? If they are willing to sacrifice their right to free speech, to freedom of the press, to freedom of religion, to freedom of assembly and the right to redress of grievances, what else are they willing to give up?
Cindy Sheehan gave up her son. How many Americans, if polled, would willingly watch their children die in a place so far away and so insignificant? What better face can we put on what the true cost is than that of mother whose child died for Bush/Cheney? How can we not see the forest for the trees here? Would she be a better Poster Child for the anti-war movement if she were a movie star? Younger? Highly educated? Sexy?
The Left Needs to Wake Up
We have all known that since 1974 and the arrival of ERISA and the 401K the party is over – government is not benevolent, the rich are getting richer and trickle-down economics is just another word for Malthusianism. The only way to shock young people into action is to put it in their faces in a way that means something to them. How can the leaders of the Left do that without talking to them, without having Town Hall meetings, without reporting to them daily and in exact terms what their futures will be like?
Why not create an X-Box game that shows them the grim future that has been laid out for them by this ever-increasingly authoritarian state, one that paradoxically uses global hegemony to enforce democracy while at the same restricting it at home?
Suggestions welcome.
And New Yorkers, please note that here in this City, the so-called bastion of the Free World, Cindy Sheehan was arrested for exercising her right to free speech, while her right to redress of grievances has been systematically denied.
Tags:
bush, cheney, cindy sheehan, gen xers, iraq, left
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Posted on 3/7/2006
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