Blogging For Kicks

“A few Bush supporters went to the edge of the anti-war camp on Saturday, trying to remove some of the hundreds of white crosses bearing fallen soldiers’ names. They had a list from families who did not want their sons’ or daughters’ names associated with Sheehan’s group. Sheriff’s deputies said they could remove the name tags but not the crosses, so the group removed a few tags and left without incident. There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read “Say No to War - Unless a Democrat is President.” Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs.”

Do you see the difference between the sides in this story? It was on my PeoplePC homepage when I logged in, and I read it to see just what was going on with the arrival of the Opposition at the Bush Ranch. I was struck by the difference in the reactions of the two sides.

First, the Opposition went to Camp Casey and started tearing out the crosses representing the American soldiers who’ve died in Iraq, and it seems the only reaction they got was from the police, whether because of a call by Sheehan’s side or on their own. Next, at a rally the Opposition was throwing, two guys who were on their side, part of the Opposition, showed up with a sign some of the jugheads there misinterpreted, and they didn’t simply ask them to leave and find out why they were there, they didn’t simply call the police and ask them to handle it, they went berserk.

Now, someone explain this to me. I remember back in the 60’s, during the Viet Nam rallys and even the Civil Rights Demonstrations, it was never the guys participating in these things who started the confrontations, it was the guys who came out to protest them using their American Right to Speak Their Minds. Looks like some things just never change, doesn’t it?

Now, I don’t see why these people are so upset at Ms. Sheehan in the first place. She’s expressing her beliefs peacefully, as we should. But all of a sudden we have this group of nincompoops going by the name “You Don’t Speak For Me, Cindy” who decided to go down to Crawford and raise a stink. Why? And who ever said she was trying to speak for anyone other than herself and those who agree with her? I believe she’d have to be a few bricks shy of a full load to think she was. But these fools seem to be afraid the whole world will think America is turning into a peaceful nation again, and they simply can’t stand for that.

Well, all I can say is it’s this kind of people that cause the rest of the world to see us as selfish, ego-tistical, bullies who have to have our own way no matter who gets hurt in the process. True, not everyone feels that way, but it’s been shown that the majority do, and I truly object to that.

I may not agree with everything Cindy says, but I do understand why she feels as she does, and I can’t say I wouldn’t be right there with her if one of my sons had died over there. We don’t belong there, never did. There was no good reason for invading them, no matter what everyone says about Saddam, etc. He was no real threat to us, he wasn’t involved in any terroism except for paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers a good sum of money for the loss of their child, and as we all know by now, or should, there simply were no WMD’s there. None. They were no threat to us.

Afghanistan is a different matter, and if I were going to go into any other country it would be Pakistan, in an effort to get all the b**tards behind the 9/11 attack on us, but Iraq had no part in that and we never should have gone in there. Now Bin Laden and his buds are sitting high and dry somewhere we can’t find them, and the ranks of Al Queda have grown exponentially ever since we went into Itaq, and it shows no signs of slowing down. So, we went in to fight terroism, did we? Well, it didn’t work, and as a matter of fact it had the exact opposite effect. Great job, W(oodenhead)!

I say, keep it up, Cindy, and yes, most of what you say does speak for me. As for the W(oodenheads) who’ve gone down there to oppose peace on earth, I hope that same earth opens up and swallows every last one of you. Or better yet, I hope a storm blows up and a huge tornado swoops in and carries you all to Kingdom Come, while going nowhere near Camp Casey.

Mr. Robertson has shown the world what he’s really made of, and I just hope people are aware enough to see it. This man claims to be a Christian, a minister of God, and yet he is actually anything but.

How do I know that? Because I read the Bible. My parents were both Full Gospel ministers, I was raised in church, and read the Bible like other kids read Golden Books. I don’t claim to be an expert in Biblical Teachings, but I do know enough to know that man is not, and has not been for years, a true Christian. I have sat here watching him praised to high heaven, treated like a demi-god, and worshipped by millions of people all over the country and wondered just what these people were thinking.

You don’t have to be a Rhode’s Scholar to know the man is a hypocrit of the highest order. He makes a show of “doing God’s work”, but the truth of the matter is God is nowhere near this man and never has been. I have heard unbelievable things spewing from his mouth and wondered just what god he was following, since it clearly wasn’t the God I know, yet people just keep following his orders, sending him money hand over fist, and parroting his words as if they were God’s own truth. Amazing.

My fervent hope is that this latest escapade will open these people’s eyes to the fact God is not connected to this man or his “ministry” in any way, shape, or form, and that they will drop their financial backing of him and let him slip slide away on his ungodly infamy. It is what he deserves, and it would show that there are people out there who are interested in the truth of God’s word, who really want to worship the one, true God, and who have the mental capacity to recognize when they’ve been led astray. Robertson has his reward coming to him, and I imagine God keeps the fires stoked really well, to a white-hot level, just waiting for the time when ol’ Pat gets to dive in head first and spend eternity there.

Can you imagine a “minister” advocating the murder of another human being, no matter who that person is? Whatever happened to Jesus’ admonition to take the Good News of His plan of salvation to the far corners of the earth? What about giving the man Jesus, the real One, so he can see the error of his ways and give his life to God, which would cause him to straighten up and do the right thing at last? No minister of the True God would advocate that the cure for sin is dying. That is not the truth in any way, shape, or form. The cure for sin is Jesus, plain and simple, and if ministers aren’t preaching that, then they are not following the express orders of The One they are supposed to represent.

Stop and think for a minute. Paul, original name Saul, was a mass murderer. He delighted in killing people, thought he was doing God’s work, and was very, very surprised when he found out he was totally wrong. However, presented with the truth, he turned his life around, and as a devout Jew who hunted down and killed all the Christians he possibly could before his conversion, he was chosen by Jesus to become the Apostle to the Gentiles. Many would think that was a step down, considering how Jews felt about Gentiles, but Paul recognized it for what it was and because of him many, many people the world over have accepted Christ, and learned how to live a Godly life.

Never, ever, did Paul or any of the other Apostles ever advocate the murder of anyone. They preached love and forgiveness, even for those who eventually killed them. So, where does Pat Robertson and his proclamations fit into this scenario? Right. He doesn’t fit at all, and if he doesn’t fit, you must admit……he is not a representative of God, he is working for Satan. And y0u can quote me on that.

What does it take to make an imbecile understand what’s right in front of his nose? It’s beginning to look like there’s no way you can do that. Now, I use the word “imbecile” in this instance because I simply can’t think of another word that is usable in public.

Once again we are getting the old, tired lie that Iraq is somehow tied in to terrorists. Ok, I’ll give you the fact that now there are terrorists in Iraq, but only by stipulation that you agree they wouldn’t be there if we had stayed out. There were no training camps in Iraq, not for Al Queda, and that’s been proven. However, at this point, there are probably more “insurgiants” there than regular citizens and US forces combined.

Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but there certainly are a whole lot more of them now after two years of us being there than there were when we went in. WE created the atmosphere that bred the terrorists that are now killing our kids. More accurately, of course, is saying Bush created them, because it was his idea. Good Lord, what an imbecile he is, and a majority of Americans put him back in to do it all over again because his side was so good at demonizing John Kerry, his wife, his mother, his father, his war buddies - you name it. When will America wake up?

What a stupid question, of course. Americans love to be lied to. They thrive on it. As long as it’s their side that’s doing it. I still can’t understand how they got so hot under the collar by a President who lied about getting blown by a woman who was not his wife and that only hurt his family, yet they let this midget slide on lies that have killed close to 2,000 of our best and brightest, along with untold thousands of innocent Iraqis who only wanted to live their lives in peace. Where’s the outrage by those who were so ravenous in their quest for the blood of Bill Clinton that they hounded him for years and impeached him for a sex lie? Why aren’t they foaming at the mouth over the lies that have killed so many people?

I’ll never understand it, and I have to leave it to God to sort out on His Day, but I have to tell you it drives me crazy knowing this fool gets away with lying to our faces over and over again. Now he’s back on the stump, telling his supporters that we have to be in Iraq to do away with Terrorists. I guess the poll numbers showing his popularity plummeting through the basement floor roused him enough to make him get back out (in the middle of his vacation, I might add) to try to shore up his faithful and get the numbers back up.

However, the fact that most Americans feel Iraq was a mistake and his part in it is indefensible seems to have flown in one ear and right out the other, because he trots out the same, tired lies to try to fight his declining numbers with. Go figure. All I know is I’m tired of hearing it, I’m tired of looking at his smirking face trying to pretend he really cares, and I’m tired of being lied to, over and over again. I tell myself that he will be gone in a little more than three years, but then I remember what a mess he made of this country in less time than that, and I realize we might not live long enough to cheer as he skulks out the front door of the White House. So, in case I’m not around, let me tell him what my family always told those we hoped never darkened our door again: “Good bye, good riddance, and don’t let the door hit yer ass on the way out.” Sounds good to me.

Any of you out there who have kids know that the one thing they all have in common once they learn to talk is asking questions. Constantly. They have questions about anything and everything, and nothing is off limits to them.

I know I was that way, too, because my parents told me that many times as I tried to find answers to the questions my own children asked. Most were fairly easy, some were a bit harder, and then there were the ones that just had me stymied. I did the best I could, and made up what I hoped were satisfactory answers to those I had no clue about, and I hoped it was good enough. Having come to what I hope is still the autumn of my life I realize there are still a whole lot of questions out there that I have no idea how to answer.

Why do some people hate others so much? Oh, I know the stock answers - they fear them because they are different, and being different must mean they are bad; they are afraid of change; they are afraid of anything they don’t understand, and, mostly, they are afraid the other guy will make them look bad in comparison. Personally, I’m not sure it’s any of those things in a lot of cases, but I just don’t know.

I understand hating someone for doing something bad to you, like hating the person who stole your spouse, or the person who treats you like trash, or the ones who feel themselves to be superior to you. I know those hates, and they are easy to define. But when it comes to hating a whole group of people who’ve never done anything to me or mine, that’s a completely different story. I have no idea in God’s Green Earth how you make he leap from “This guy did me wrong and I hate him”, to “All these guys are bad and I hate them”. How do you hate the whole group, who did nothing to you, because of the one guy who did? It simply makes no sense to me.

Why do good people get killed or maimed while simply living their every day lives, while those who only cause problems for everyone else live long, healthy lives? True, they may live a large part of it in prison, but still, they aren’t the ones who pay the harshest price for the lives they live. Even if they are put to death for something, it’s a very easy death, quite unlike what they caused to the young mother who’s children will grow up without their mother, or the child who was in pain, maybe all their young lives, before they finally died. It’s simply not fair. Now, I know, life isn’t fair, but then, that’s another question - why isn’t it?

Why do people fight so hard against cleaning up the air and water they depend on for life? Are we really so pliable that we will allow those who’s lifestyle requires they make more money and spend less on safety measures convince us we are bad people for wanting them to safeguard our health and safety? If so, why? What is more important to a person than their own health and safety, and that of their children and loved ones? How can we choose to be on the side of those who willingly sacrifice us for their own greed? Lumber company owners don’t want to cut back on their lavish lifestyles so they convince us that cutting down every tree in sight and destroying the air filtering system God himself put in place is the “right thing to do”, while those who understand the need to save the trees are derogitarily called “tree huggers”, and worse.

Factory owners are willing to foul the air and water instead of spending the money to make their factories environment friendly so they can live in their multi-mansions, etc., and they convince others that unless they do their businesses can’t possibly stay open. Either that or they move them to other countries where there are no environmental protections, and on top of that they can get people to work for next to nothing, with no benefits. They are raking money in hand over fist, and don’t give a darn about who they’ve trampled on and hurt along the way, let alone what they are doing to the world we all live in. Greed is ugly, and allowing ourselves to be deluded into believing it’s really a good thing is simply wrong. We know that to be true, yet we fall for the pary line. Why?

Why do we still “strain at a gnat, yet swallow a camel”, as Jesus said in the Bible? How can we be so blind that we can’t see the truth that’s all around us? I will never understand how a lie told to protect one’s self and family by denying something done that is of a personal nature is seen to be so much worse than lies told to further someone’s career or income goals. When you add to that the fact that people die from the latter lies, how can people equate the two types in any way?

Yet we have a President impeached because he did what men all over this country do day after day, and that is lie about having an affair, while another President lies to get us to send our sons and daughters to die in a war with no good rationale, and he’s hailed as a hero. The first lied to a Grand Jury, you say? True, and that’s not a good thing, but for a lie to rise to the level of perjury it has to be pertinent to the case at hand, and a man having a consentual sexual relationship is in no way pertinent to a man supposedly forcing himself on a woman against her will. However, when a man lies to Congress, to the UN, to the American people, and to the world at large, it doesn’t have the added restriction of needing to be pertinent. It only has to be a lie, told to decieve others into doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

Bush lied. Cheney lied. Rumsfeld lied. Rice lied. And, sorry to say, Powell lied. Now, I expected it from the others, since it’s not the first time, but Colin Powell? I still think he refused to keep working for Bush because he couldn’t live with the lies. That’s just my personal observation, but he simply seems to me to be the kind of man who wouldn’t take kindly to deliberately lying to people.

Why can’t we find a cure for the diseases that kill people every day? Cancer; AIDS; Diabetes; Alzheimer’s; Parkinson’s. There are so many out there, and more every day, like the West Nile Virus that is so virulent out here now. More and more cases pop up every day, and while the number of deaths isn’t staggering, it is still too much.

Does God exist, and if he does, does he really love us? Now, I happen to believe he does exist, but looking around I find it harder every day to believe he really loves us like a father. A father wouldn’t sit by while his children suffered if he could do something to ease it. He wouldn’t let his children die from hunger, or from war, or from disease. He wouldn’t allow evil people to prey on his children. My dad certainly wouldn’t have allowed any of that to happen to my brother or me, and it seems inconceivable that a loving God would. Yet he does. Why? Why wait so long to end it?

It’s in His hands, after all, and He could stop all of this at a moment’s notice. I simply don’t understand why He doesn’t. Yes, I know, we aren’t supposed to question why He does this or that, but come on. How can we not wonder why so many people are suffering every day, with no relief in sight, while He does nothing? But, it’s in His hands, and all we can do is pray it ends soon. But I still have to wonder why.

Why are the winters and summers so long and harsh, while the Spring and Fall only hang around for a few weeks at most? They are the best times of the year, in my opinion. The days are warm, but not too hot, and the evenings cool down to the nippy level, without getting so cold you can’t stand to be outside. Those are God’s perfect climate times, in my opinion, and I would love to see them extended. Shorten winter to a month or so, and summer, too, but give us months and months of Spring and Fall. I wonder what the rationale behind making the worst times of the year so much longer than the good times? See, there we are on the “loving God” question again. Why make life harder on the children he loves?

See what I mean? This is only a partial list of questions I have no idea how to answer. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface, really. But, I don’t have time nor space to ask them all, so I’ll quit here. But if any of you have your own questions, feel free to add them to this article. It would be great to know others wonder about things, too.

Ok, I’m going to go at this from the other side today. I already wrote about my thoughts on Mr. Bush’s behavior concerning Ms. Sheehan, so now I feel I need to address her and the way she’s being portrayed. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m so tired of having the people on the Right throwing mudballs at anyone who disagrees with “their” President, and especially anyone who speaks their mind about it. I found a quote from someone who should know what he’s talking about and I think it best describes what I am feeling:

         "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, 
           or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not 
           only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
           American public."  - Theodore Roosevelt

Now, I don’t see how those words, spoken by a past President of the United States, a recognized Great American Hero, could be any clearer, and I think they fit this situation perfectly. “Morally treasonable.” I think it’s too bad more of those who are branding this woman in the worst terms haven’t read this. It describes what they are doing so well.

I don’t know when it became unpatriotic to speak one’s mind about what’s going on in America, and I have never in my considerable life heard it called un-American to question the President. I mean, it’s part of what makes this country great, right? We can say what we want about our leaders, as long as we aren’t making physical threats against them, and we don’t have to worry about getting in trouble, since it’s our right to do so. At least it used to be. Apparently that’s all changed.

And please, someone explain to me when it became a matter of not supporting our troops to say the President should never have sent them into a war in the first place, or that he should get them out of it as soon as possible? I haven’t heard that one since Viet Nam, and I thought we had learned better, until now. I tell you, they have changed the rules on us midstream, and it’s really getting upsetting to those of us who love our country and our freedoms.

Look. I am proud of every American who has gone and done their duty in Iraq. I am. They have fought bravely and well, under difficult circumstances and without needed protections in some cases. They have died doing their job, the job our President told them to do, and there is no way on earth I could ever fault any of them for that. But that does not mean I have to back up a policy I find disgusting and flat out evil. We should not be in Iraq, never should have gone there, and at this point, after everything we’ve learned, I don’t see how anyone could still honestly think differently. And especially since the objective of our anger, Bin Laden, was nowhere near there and now he’s free to cause us even more harm.

We were sent there on the basis of lies. There. I’ve said it, straight out. Our President and his helpers flat out lied about why we “had” to go into Iraq. That’s not supposition on my part, it’s solid, actual, verifiable fact. I understand most people hadn’t seen the things I saw before we went there, although I and others were busy posting them wherever we could in an effort to alert the people to the truth. However, now that everything we posted has been brought out into the open, investigated and proven correct, there is no logical reason for anyone not to believe it, and yet there are still many who refuse to even consider it to be true. And they attack those who try to explain the truth to them.

I have heard of brainwashing, and I’ve seen the movies, news stories, etc, but I have never actually seen anyone under that “spell” until now. And what else could it be, I ask you? When the truth is out in the open for everyone to see - when it’s clear, concise, and undeniable - how else do you explain the reasoning of those who still refuse to believe it and continue to spew bile at anyone who tries to help them see it? They can’t be in their right minds, that’s the only way I can explain it.

Now all this leads to the reason for this entry. Ms. Sheehan is being called a liar, a Commie shill, a front for the far Left, a pawn….you name it, simply because she wants some answers from the man who sent her son to foreign soil to die. How do you explain that in a country that prides itself on it’s freedom and it’s Brotherly Love? This is a mother who has suffered the greatest pain a woman can know; the loss of her child. This is the baby she carried under her heart for nine months, the one she delivered in pain she forgot almost as soon as she saw and held him. This is a woman who nursed himwhen he was sick or hurt, whose pride increased in his accomplishments every day he lived, and who would gladly have given her own life to save his in a heartbeat. This is a woman who heard that the son she’d loved since his conception had been blown apart in a foreign land, not even giving her the chance to hold him and comfort him as he lay dying. This woman went to a meeting with the man who sent her son to die, hoping to hear something that would help her bear her grief, and what he said amounted to nothing. She was left with more questions than answers, and she simply wants to get the answers to those questions.

One would think that the man responsible for sending all those sons and daughters into harm’s way would take the time to answer a mother’s questions, wouldn’t you? I mean, he’s on a five week vacation. He has the time. It’s not like he isn’t on vacation every other month or so anyway, so what’s 20 or 30 minutes out of one day to help assuage the grief this mother is feeling? Not much. But then, I don’t think it’s the time she’d take up that is the problem. I think the problem is that he would have to come up with some clear, concise, rational reasons for why her son was sent over there. He would have to tell her why, if he feels the cause is such an all-important one, he hasn’t sent his own daughters, nieces, and nephews over to fight alongside everyone else’s kids. And worst of all, he would have to look into whatever it is that passes for his heart and soul and figure out if what he has done was really worth the cost in young American lives. My bet is that he already knows the answers to that one, and it’s not something he wants the world to know. And that’s why he refuses to speak with the woman. He has nothing to say that will help her understand why her son had to die as he did, and so he runs from her, and his followers do their best to denigrate her and make the world see her as anything but the grieving mother she really is.

Now, that’s a question that has been bugging me for quite a while. We have been hearing that since he started running for President in 1998 or so, with supporters claiming he was the perfect replacement for a man who they claim was neither. But when you stop and think about it, it’s kind of hard to make the argument for “yes”, here.

How decent is it to lie to those under your leadership? How moral is it? I mean, aren’t we supposed to be able to trust the word of a decent, moral person? Is a good Christian person supposed to follow the “Thou shalt not lie” rule at all times, or only when it’s politically convenient? I would say the answers should be “not very”, “ditto”, “yes”, and “yes again”. But that’s not what we have with this man.

Now, I realize there are people out there who truly believe the man told the truth about why we had to invade Iraq, even tho the proof is abundant that he absolutely didn’t, but I figure those people will never admit to the fact he lied big time because if they do they have to accept the fact they’ve been snookered, and their pride won’t allow that.

Anyone who honestly looks at the information available can come to no other honest conclusion than that the man flat out lied, and continued to do so all along. He said Saddam worked with Al Queada to bring about 9/11. That’s been shown to be a lie by the Congressional Committee that investigated it. He said there were Al Queada training camps in Iraq, and that was proven to be a lie by that same committee, plus the evidence found by our soldiers when they went in there. He told us Iraq had WMD’s, a fact that was disputed by several sources, including the IAEA, the CIA, the UN inspectors, and Saddam himself. Now, true, the last one wouldn’t be considered valid proof by anyone, but as it turns out, he wasn’t lying this time.

Bush told us Iraq had bought uranium and pipes that “could only be used for enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons.” Or, as he says, “Nukyalur”. Just an aside here; how can you trust a person to know whereof he speaks when he can’t even pronounce the word itself correctly? But back to the topic at hand. We learned that was untrue from the IAEA, the UN, and Joseph Wilson. Now, that is a story showing the total lack of decency and morals on Bush’s part all on it’s own. I mean, ok, he doesn’t like the fact that someone challenges his story, but does he have to attack the man? And worse, his wife? And let’s get real, here, Rove and Libby did nothing without their bosses permission and approval. Otherwise they’d both be gone now.

Bush told us the war was over after a few months when it obviously wasn’t. Over 1500 American deaths since then proves that was a lie. And, just so you don’t think all I care about are his lies about the war, he also told us he could give major tax cuts to the rich, mostly, AND not build up a deficit. That was so totally and undeniably wrong that only the most determined of Bushies continues to say it really wasn’t a lie.

Now, that is just a small part of the provable lies that Bush has told, but it’s certainly enough to show the man is nowhere near being decent and moral. And now, on to the reason for this post.

There is a woman who lost her son in the war who is camped out beside the road to Bush’s home in Texas while he’s on vacation. All she wants is a face-to-face with him so she can ask him some questions and hopefully get some answers that will ease her heart. How hard is that to do? What decent, moral, Christian person wouldn’t talk to that mother? And that proves my point better than anything else, because W won’t bother with her.

Now, you may ask “What about security reasons?”, and I can see that point, but there are enough guards/Secret Service/cops around to make sure the woman gets there with nothing that can do the man any harm, so what’s the problem? Have some SS people come out and check her out, use a hand-held metal detector, etc, and make sure she’s not going in with anything that could hurt the man. Then put her in the SUV, drive her up to the ranch, and let them meet in a secure room or out in the front yard if they think that’s safer.

To sit there and ignore the woman for five weeks, the time he’s going to be in Texas, is just stupid, and I must say, cowardly. True, he’s never done anything to make us think he is anything but a coward, but still, you’d think he might want to try to prove it at some point. But no, what he does is make a statement at a public appearance about how he grieves for all the lost soldiers, etc. What a cop out!

Come on, Mr. President, why don’t you grow a pair and meet with the mother of one of the thousands of America’s young men and women you have gotten killed by your greed? I know it would be a totally new feeling, and it might even be scary at first, but once you get the hang of it you will see that being truly decent, moral, Christian, and unafraid isn’t that bad, and it’s not hard at all. You just have to put yourself second for once. I know it would be a totally foreign concept for you - putting the needs of the people ahead of your own for once - but it can be done, and if you truly want to be that decent, upright, and moral man your handlers keep trying to sell you as, it is absolutely mandatory.

I’d like to say to Mrs. Sheehan that I am proud of her for taking a stand. I so admire her for doing what she feels is the right thing for the memory of her beloved son, and I truly hope the President will act like a man for once and meet with her personally, not just sending a couple of his stooges to do it for him. It’s people like her who put a human face on the actions of the people in charge in this country, and her courage and determination should be an example of the best of American values at work. God bless you, Mrs. Sheehan, and shame on you for being the coward you are, Mr. Bush.

I was watching the Today show this morning, as I do most mornings, and I heard about a book that sounded interesting. It was called “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America”, and it was written by Bernard Goldberg. I thought it sounded interesting, and I wondered who on earth these “subversives” could be, sure that Bin Laden would be at the top of the list. I mean, if anyone has screwed with America, it has to be him, right? I thought maybe Saddam Hussein might make the list, although at this point I think we’ve pretty much screwed him. Anyway, I had my ideas as to whom has done the screwing and who it is that’s been the screwee, and I wanted to see if Mr. Goldberg and I shared the same notions. I couldn’t have been more off the mark had I tried.

See, I happen to think that we, the people, are the ones being screwed, and that is being done very effectively by our President, the Congress, the aforementioned bad guys, and the Oil Cartel. I would add various and sundry others - most notably several people who have “CEO” attached to their names. Mr. Goldberg, on the other hand, chose people who see a lot of the same problems I do and have the money and exposure to speak out publicly about them. Now, while I may not agree with some things these people say and do, I have never thought of them as anti-American, or out to harm the country in some way, so I was pretty surprised to hear all this.

Mr. Goldberg calls these people American Bashers, and says “…the America Bashers these days are in the mainstream, in the top ranks of the nation’s intelligentsia and cultural elite — professors at some of our top schools, journalists at some of our most important news organizations, celebrities in Hollywood, and, of course, Michael Moore, the reigning king of America Bashers, who deserves a category all his own.” He has also mentioned Paul Kruger, Frank Rich, and Jesse Jackson by name, among others. I was shocked, frankly, and wondered what dastardly deeds these people have done that have harmed our country so badly, and it seems that all of them have spoken their minds about what’s going on in America today, and what we are doing abroad.

Now, I could have sworn that falls under the category of Free Speech. Imagine my surprise to find out it’s actually some kind of horrible offense, and that they - and by extension, we - have no right to do such a thing. I began wondering about that, since I’d always heard and believed that dissent was what made America what it is, so I went on a search to see what some other prominent Americans and others have said about it. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of quotes I found, and while I couldn’t possibly put all of them here, I am going to put some I found most pertinent and interesting on here for everyone to read and ponder. So, here we go:

        " Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, 
           are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily 
          dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major 
          delusions."   - Alan Barth

      "No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can 
       control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious
       sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. 
       The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be
       regarded as a sacred right."  -  William E. Borah

      "The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same
        in peace and war. In peace,  too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty
        to our country demands, and an intolerant majority,  swayed by passion 
        or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as 
       disloyal opinions with which it disagrees."  -  Justice Louis D. Brandeis

      "Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists 
       and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. 
      As their heirs, we may never confuse honestdissent with disloyal subversion." 
       -  President Dwight D. Eisenhower

      "If you admit that to silence your opponent by force is to win an intellectual
       argument, then you  admit the right to silence people by force."  - Hans Eysenck

      "To silence criticism is to silence freedom."  - Sidney Hook

      "What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and 
       semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is 
       the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to 
       believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism 
       is a sin."  - Thomas Henry Huxley

      "We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a 
       type that today we hate and fear --unruly men, disturbers of the 
       peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the
       insolence of elected persons' -- in a word, free men. "  
       -  Gerald W. Johnson

      "Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly 
        cruel as in punishing differences of opinion."  - James Russell Lowell

Now, I admit I don’t know who all these people are, but when it comes to what America is all about, I think they have all hit the nail right square on the head. At the same time, I don’t really know Mr. Goldberg, either, although I have seen him a few times. I think he is speaking what he feels, but I honestly believe, from what I know of our American freedoms, that he is absolutely wrong to classify people who believe differently than he and aren’t afraid to make that fact known, as somehow out to get America and do her harm. In point of fact, what they (and he, by the way) are doing is exercising their right to free speech. Just because they have a larger, more prominent stage to do it from doesn’t by any means nullify their right to do it.

I have seen a steady, albeit slow, stripping of freedoms we have always taken for granted, especially since 9/11. I understand the need for some of them, such as being searched before getting on airplanes, etc. But I simply don’t feel that we need to curtail the basic freedoms this country was founded on, like the ability to speak our minds without fear of reprisal. Believe me, this man isn’t the only one to believe as he does, and he isn’t the first to speak about it openly. I get the feeling, tho, that there is more to this than meets the eye. “Softening up the mark” is a well known method of getting people ready to fall for whatever sales pitch someone wants to give them, to get them more in the mood to buy whatever they’re selling. I think this is part of the “softening up” of America, and it’s not going to be too long before our right to dissent, to protest against what our government is doing in our name, is going to be challenged. And it will be in the name of Protecting America From Those Who Want To Screw Her Up. Mark my words.

I have to admit, the title is a little misleading, but it isn’t meant to be that way. I don’t personally have the disease, but here where I live it is everywhere, and people are dying from it, so in reality, we are all living with West Nile Virus.

It first showed up out here last year, having worked it’s way upstate, from South to North. It was a really scary prospect, knowing that any mosquito bite could lead to sickness or even death, and it made going out at the wrong times of the day something that took some courage to do. Or a big bottle of insect repellent. We listened as the news reported more dead birds found that tested positive, then people started becoming infected, and a couple even died. It became apparent we had become the latest US area to be hit with those malignant little mosquitoes, and it wasn’t fun. No one told us about the second year, however.

This year the reports of dead birds and sick people increased at an alarming rate, and then they finally told us why. It seems the second year of the “plague” is always the worst for some reason. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have known that fact last year. At least it would have given us a choice as to whether we stay and take our chances or leave until cooler weather returns. If we leave now we might just be taking the little buggers with us to another part of the country, and that wouldn’t be fair to those people.

For the last couple of months every newscast brings us word of more dead, infected birds, and dead, infected horses somewhere, and finally, infected humans and some who’ve died. True, for most people it only feels like the flu or something, but for those who are susceptable - young kids, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems - it causes major problems and even death. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have given those people a chance to go somewhere else for the summer?

It is a scary prospect to know that lurking outside your door could be a small, buzzing insect that carries in it’s bite the possibility of death. Sure, we’ve known such insects exist in certain parts of the world, but you can stay away from those areas, or get vaccintated against the disease if you choose to go there. With this disease we had no choice in the matter. We were going about our everyday lives and suddenly were surrounded with infected mosquitoes just waiting to sink their beaks into us and spread this potentially deadly disease.

I don’t know what will happen next year. I would think that since the second year is the worst, the third must be better, but one thing I know is that this disease will still be around, and if you’re one of the unlucky few who get bitten by one of those infected little creatures, how much will it matter that you are one of a much smaller group than last year? Personally, I don’t find that very comforting.

I don’t know what can be done about all this, except that giving the public complete information about what to expect would help, but it seems to me that something should be available to fight this stuff. What about spraying? Is there nothing that will eradicate these pests without killing people too? I know we have Vector Control in this county and those around us that were supposed keep the mosquito population down, but I never saw that it really worked. I mean, if what we’ve always had is less than what it would have been without VC then I’d hate to see the summer time without them. We have tons of those pesky critters flying around in the evenings and early mornings around here as it is. There really should be something they can do.

Anyway, this is just a means of getting this off my mind. It really is hard to wonder, if you get bit by a mosquito, whether it will turn out to just be an itchy nuisance or a full-blown deadly disease, and the thought that your child or grandchild could get bitten by a deadly mosquito makes you want to just keep them in the house all the time. I grew up afraid of the A-bomb and the dreaded Commies coming to get me. Mosquitoes were a pest that deserved a good swat. Now the A-bombs and Commies of my nightmares are gone, and they have been replaced by that mosquito, and a swat isn’t going to do it. Is that progress?

If anyone needs help understanding why I feel the far Right religious affiliation is dangerous, they need only look to the death of a Bakersfield, California, serviceman a while back. This man fought for this country, or at least he believed that’s what he was doing, and he was killed for his trouble. His family, mourning his loss, set his funeral for today. Nothing new there, it happens every day somewhere in this country. But what happened next doesn’t, as near as I can tell.

This young man was married to a lovely young woman, who’s wait for him to come home ended with his death. However, for some unknown reason, a church from Kentucky, I believe it is, decided they were going to come out here and picket this man’s funeral as a protest, since they believe the servicemen are dying because - get this - God was punishing America for allowing homosexuality! I was flabbergasted when I heard about it.

Now, luckily none of them showed up, or if they did they knew better than to show their faces, because people from all around were there, picketing FOR him. God bless everyone who showed up and did the right thing, by the way. As for the religious nuts that caused all the furor, it just shows what happens when you let morons get ahold of a Bible without anyone to explain to them what it means.

God’s word is good for all mankind, yet these fools and others like them twist and mangle it to show how God hates everyone but them. And worse, they feel they have the right to rub it in other people’s faces. I know God is watching them, shaking his head in disbelief, and counting up the demerits he will use to determine their ultimate fate, but the problem lies in the fact that too many people out here fall for what they are putting out without questioning it. The preacher says “God told me….” and that’s all it takes.

This is an extreme case, I guess, seeing as how it targeted someone most Religious Righters would admire, but that really doesn’t matter. Jerry Falwell proclaiming AIDS was a punishment from God on homosexuals; Pat Robertson declaring God’s wrath on Florida because they tried to keep George W. Bush out of the White House (his contention, not mine); preachers in pulpits all over the nation claiming JohnKerry/Bill Clinton/Hillary Clinton/any Democrat was working for the devil and had to be defeated, or simply putting price tags on the heads of doctors and nurses who perform abortions or churches that accept homosexuals or whatever, are no better than this minister and his looney ideas. It’s all the same baloney.

One of the legal reasons for stoning people in the Bible is being a false prophet who leads people to worship false Gods, and when these people say the things they do that’s exactly what they are doing. They certainly aren’t telling people about the real God, the one who loves us all and wants us all to be saved. To tell you the truth, I have no wish whatsoever to know the god they are selling to the nation. And besides, if that god is as they say, it’s a wonder any of us are still alive and kicking, since we all sin every day, and there is no “good sin” and “bad” one. Sin is sin, so if homosexuals go to hell for being that way, then the little old ladies who gossip across their back fences will, too, as will all those “Men of God” out there who are anything but.

To the person who posted a comment on the Big Brother Terrorist post, I tried to post it to my page but apparently I did it wrong and lost it. If you’d like to comment again I will gladly try again. I am really sorry, your opinion does matter to me and I simply didn’t do it right.