Reckoning with the God Squad

I object to Moyers’ assertion… “The radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America’s great political parties-the country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is-and they are driving American politics, using God as a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on.”

This kind of generalization is on a par with the very faction Moyers is criticizing. I consider myself to be an independent – not a Republican, but just because the president is a religious fundie is no reason to tar the whole party with the same brush. This only serves to further divide and radicalize people.

Neither do I consider myself a Christian (been there), but we should not lump Christian conservatives in with the likes of Robertson and Falwell. These two and other narrow minded pontificates are the reason more people have been killed in “God’s name” than under any other battle banner.

“ What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? “ - Mahatma Ghandi

Hi Dave,

“ What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? “ - Mahatma Ghandi

Probably no difference initially, but unlike Ghandi, I do believe it makes a difference to the living. There are things worth dying for and even things worth killing for.

Better to fight (in my opinion) FOR liberty and AGAINST totalitarianism. If our ancestors had not we would not be carrying on this conversation.

The reason Ghandi was able to protest as he did was due to 300 years of British colonial rule. I remember being in London on Fleet Street and noticing how many people of African and Indian descent were walking along in three piece suits and carrying briefcases.

We could say the same for our citizens whose family is here because of slavery.  We didn’t get to choose, but are all products of our personal history for better or for worse.

Ghandi’s protests would not only have had the results they did, but under a totalitarian regime we would probably not even know his name.

Hi whattheheck

You wrote :
“There are things worth dying for and even things worth killing for.”

My response would be, if I can quote Ghandi again :
“Nonviolence is the first article of my creed. It is also the last article of my creed”

The thing worth dying for (for me) is : not killing.

When liberty is delivered and enforced by violence hasn’t liberty taken the first steps to totalitarianism?

Bill Moyers wrote :
“ Bullies-political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies-cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own. “

And he is right. Evil men who would manipulate and exploit people’s beliefs into violence and hatred against “the others” should be opposed. But that opposition should not be more violence and hatred.

“ An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind “ Mahatma Ghandi

or

“ Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called sons of God “ Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:9)
“

Rabbit is going to say his opinion here and it is given in deference to no-one.

Rabbit comes from a Mormon Family. Mum and Dad, Sister and her family, they are all totally committed to their faith. Rabbit was at one time a member and is an Elder, though ex-communicate. Rabbit lives not far from his Mormon Family.  Rabbit knows something about fundamentalist Christians.

They are if anything as insane and irrational and bloodthirsty as the most fundamentalist Muslim or Jew. Despite being Rabbit’s mother and Sister they can see nothing past their own long term and complete blindness to all reality. They are always right, they know it and you either do to or you are a “Pitiful” poor lost soul, or an evil blood soaked satanist.

They answer words of love and peace and tolerance with spitting venom and curses and all manner of incredible presumptions. These people are known to and Rabbit loves them. They are living farcical lives, where everything they describe about Satan and Illuminati and all manner of extreme visions is as true only as they are making it. Worst and it is this which chills Rabbit to the soul, they are the closest thing to the wicked and decieved ones who are aligned with THE GREAT WHORE OF BABYLON, as could be imagined. This is their image, their prophesy and they can’t see their place in it. Tragic.

The horror for Rabbit who is a contented Agnostic and deeply spiritual, loving person, is that these loved ones are the very thing they are describing as “lost”.

God help us all because these crazies believe that they are about to be carried away from the World and all it’s troubles and the quicker they set fire to the whole place the quicker they will get their Rapture.

They are totally non-compos mentos (Sorry Latin students). They have completely substituted Beliefs for facts and have practised long and hard at believing in things which have not a shred of evidence to support them.They call this faith.

....For merely questioning how does a Loving God allow them to call for the blood of Muslims and support illegal unjust wars, Rabbit is said to lack faith.

For pointing out that Jesus Christ did not carry a Machine Gun, Rabbit was assured that he should not speak Jesus Christs name, for he is a sinful Rabbit who knows nothing of “The Lord” and Rabbit should instead get down on his knees and pray for help. Hmmm.

When Rabbit tried to point out that George Bush was not a Christian just because he said he was and that his actions had never led one to expect he might even be a decent human at all, Rabbit was subjected to insane gibbering, curses and threats. The sister almsot went into a fit, yelling about murder, baby rapists (this was about victims of Katrina) and evil hateful Muslims who all had to be killed or nobody could ever live in peace, becaue they had no God, they had a false God.

Also Rabbit was told he knew nothing about how much tolerance and Love the sister had for Muslims in general, it was just the Fundamentalists who had turned their faith into a religion of hate.

There was more and strange as it all was the hideous face, foaming mouth and rolling eyes were even more strange. This is Rabbit’s little Sister. Rabbit shocked, still is.

That is some but a good sample of it.

Now how the hell does anybody reckon with that?

Trolls and Shills are bad, but oh boy wait till you’re up against the God Squad.

There is one sniffing around this site by the way, having lost his usual hunting grounds at ADE, he may pop up and give us a full blown demo if we are lucky..

Rabbit whistles,................................. will he come?

Whattheneck Rabbit knows too there are things worth killing for and worth dyiong for, but you are in my territory if we start them. These things have been defined by Rabbit as Ideals and they are listed as Love (Family), Shelter, Food and a Future for our children.

Every living creature has the same ideals and they are the only things worth killing for or risk being killed for. Yet many people support actions and even perform actions which threaten their own ideals in a very real and even immediate sense. The only way this could happen is if those people had been tricked into believing they were doing something which was for other than it’s real purposes.

Christians can be tricked into believing their God wants them to do anything. So can any population that does not recognise its own basic ideals but instead allows Governments and Churches to define and guard their ideals.

First identify those absolute ideals, what will you die for. No slogans! Nobody would die for a country or a flag or an idea, people die in wars thinking they are helping protect those they love. The politicians say they dies for their country. Those who survive may kid themselevs those others died for their country. Bullshit. They died believing they were defending those ideals of Rabbit’s or they died dissillusioned realising the truth.

Since nobody can make their own ideals safer by threatening others, who must by definition strike back, no war is ever justified unless it is a defensive war.

Any war which seems inevitable is not. If it seems os then somewhere somebody is lying, because it goes against the nature of life.

Anybody who chooses to keep breathing at birth, who gets ouit of the way because they might get hit by a bus or bomb chose life, so why would you ever believe anyvbody out there worships death? Those few who do soon take themselves out of the equation, the rest think they are chasing their ideals because they are so deluded.

Rabbit. Isn’t he sweet?  He’s quite grown on me.

Are you a fan of Watership Down… which rabbit are you??

No slogans! Nobody would die for a country or a flag or an idea, people die in wars thinking they are helping protect those they love. The politicians say they dies for their country. Those who survive may kid themselevs those others died for their country. Bullshit. They died believing they were defending those ideals of Rabbit’s or they died dissillusioned realising the truth.

Hmm Rabbit.  That reminds me of something in the Frank McCourt memoir “Angela’s Ashes"… trying to remember it now… it’s when the drunken patriot father “drills” his 3 boys, just as he is about to go out the door to the pub, to “die for Ireland"… the boys afterwards wonder why no-one has ever asked them to do anything enjoyable “for Ireland”??  Or words very much to that effect.  Nobody in the town of Limerick did, you see.  They were just interested in pushing both religion and patriotism down their necks… nothing which would feed or clothe or educate them.

THAT hit home for me!!  (They were all half-starving and had patched boots with soles of bicycle tyres you see.) And their father didn’t feel very guilty about it.  (NB.  If he hadn’t drunk, they would have been slightly better off, but not by much.)

Hi Liz

Combination Rabbit. Soul is Rabbit Year (Chinese astrology). Inspiration is a Dwarf Black Rex, Rabbit looks most like Christopher Robins Rabbit, bit Grey not so cute as the Rex.

..............Rabbit likes Liz too, someone who stops to smell the roses, Rabbit and Missus Rabbit went for a bike ride around the Swan River this afternoon. Could smell the honeysuckle and other wildflowers along one path at one point, so sweet...........................^^.................

Oh gosh!  You sound like a very nice Rabbit and I hope you and your doe (I always liked the name Hyzenthlay - if I’ve got it right! out of the Richard Adams masterpiece....)
have a very nice walk and lots of kittens.  (this being the correct technical term.)

Can see the scene not sure if Rabbit seen Angela’s ashes though. Like when I saw “Once we were wariors”, Rabbit saw the whole Maori thing and so familiar.

Such ideas are bound to resonate, Rabbit has seen and read much and is only a simple Rabbit so has not made up anything new yet. Just find old things lying around, sometimes they just need a bit of polish or a better setting and something old and even ancient can seem like a new idea.

People dig new ideas. They think if they can get enough ideas then they will be able to get the best. That is the sort of thinking which separates men and women shoppers as a rule. (In OZ) Rabbit thinks maybe the problem is too many ideas. Maybe we can find a simple one we can all agree on.  Well most all, can’t do anything for the “FANATICS”. So we may have to cut our losses as a race.

Lose about 20% of them and so long as it was the 20% who are most determined to join their God, we’d be in heaven ourselves, at least for our alotted timespans on this lump of rock and dust swooping about in the big black space called time.

Yes but Mrs Rabbit is so in name only, the doe is actually a Snake, but a cute Danish one and three healthy Kittens show a good union has been achieved.

Must go home and have dinner, after will be looking by in about an hour, to see if the God Squad has arrived. Is Liz waiting for the God Squad too?

Now upon re-reading that gives one heck of a weird image for kittens doesn’t it? Rabsnattens? Rakes?

....................................^^..............................Daft Rabbit hops off for something to eat.....

Are you an Australian Rabbit then, or a New Zealand one.... but you talk also as if you were right in the thick of North American events… I’m not.  Thankfully.

Question:  What is a Jebusite?
Is a follower of Jesus W.’s brother.  Somebody let me know, OK?  Gotta run now, have to bail out my son from jail and take my wife to the airport.  She’s flying to Paris to do some shopping.  Take care and may God bless Corporate Amerika/Saudi Arabia.

Back to the article, if Moyers generalizes too far by broad-brushing the Reps at large, it’s only by a half-step.

When I hear of activist Republicans vociferously denouncing the infiltration of biology classrooms by the Old Testament, when they publically abandon any sponsorship of a marriage-defining amendment to the Constitution, when TV preachers who advocate political assassination are shut down hard instead of their words being called (in a singularly mealy-mouthed fashion) “regrettable”, I’ll believe that the party isn’t possessed by the spirit of aggressive reactionary Christianity.

Moyers has it dead-on when he says we’re too polite, to afraid to speak right out about values that denounce sectarian control of the law. When they call us traitors, satanists, degenerates, we should fire it right back that they’re medievalists, dogmatists, fearful of the liberty they glibly claim is their agenda.

And more to the point, they should be disobeyed. Whether they finnagle control over the law or not, when it comes to matters of conscience and personal guidance over one’s own mind and body, they should directly and without pity be disobeyed and fought off if they try to bully.

See if they can keep me from legally joining my life to the one I love! See if they’re able to grab my childrens minds and force them into medieval, knowledge-fearing shapes.

That’ll be one fuckin’ fight!

Rabbit is an Aussie Rabbit. Irish Scottish ancestry.  The internet is a good medium of exchange and Rabbit is a citizen of any medium he cares to enter.

How can anybody NOT be in the thick of events of the magnitude of that we are witnessing?

The only difference is perception. Rabbit is small, somehow the World does not seem to be so big though. Have lived and travelled a bit and many things and places feel close when they are no longer strange.

From whence cometh the good Liz?

Hi ho,

Q:How did these religious poseurs obtain the moral high ground?

A:They claimed it.

Q:Why do these zealots have as much power as they do?

A:We allow it happen.

Frankly,these bumpkins who sell religion like after-life insurance should never have been able to gain as much power as they have.They have a product to sell and will never quit until everyone is a loyal customer.
Unfortunately,opportunists in a certain party sought to manipulate the religious right to tap into their coffers.Just look at the mess.

Compared to the G.O.P.,Dr Frankenstein was a rank amateur.

Kuya

Have read Rabbit post about Mormon family?

This is the sort of people who form the God Squad. They are among the core of the last supporters of “The Junta”. These ones are in Westren Autralia too, it is no further away from Rabbit than he must face the same insane radicals in his house too. (Not for a while though after the last round, thinks I)

Rabbit knows them well and there are many examples. They have even less of a coherant argument than the Right wing Dittos and Morons we see around here. These God Squad people are totally irrational, they cannot even articulate anything better than “Get down on your knees”, “you need to ask God for forgiveness” “We must have faith” “God will take care of things” Put it all in the hands of Jesus and lets go sing some lame songs.

Kuya, how the F**K do we reason or otherwise deal with these people?

The horror was it was so easy to convince them Bush is their messiah.

He says God and Jesus a couple of times and even though he’s never even been seen in a church he is their great Christian Leader.

Lets be quite clear about this Wwoods this is a truly incredible , most surreal situation we are witnessing. Does it ver strike you as it does Rabbit, this just cannot be happening? I am going to wake up any day and everything will make sense again? Up will be up, day will be day and left and right will at least occupy opposite sides of the plane.

From Moyers’ article:
“Fundamentalist bullies cannot be appeased. they must be confronted.”

Bingo!

I maintain the only reason Ghandi could make those statements was due to others who “confronted” evil.

It is the police, the military, and all individuals willing to put their lives at risk fighting (killing when necessary) not for personal gain, but for freedom, liberty or to protect the weak, who have held societies together for pacifists and dreamers. Without them all would be anarchy.

What good is it to “confront” a bully if you are unwilling to fight? My religious experience is somewhat like Rabbit’s. My more literal Bible believing father always said, “We are to turn the other cheek.” My mother said, “Don’t start a fight, but if someone hits you, hit back twice as hard.

All my fights were of one punch — I would hold back for as long as I could stand it.  The bully would pick on me each day until I would finally give in and hit him as hard as I could.

You can figure for yourself which philosophy worked for me both in school and as an adult in the army.

----------------------------------------

Rabbit— you might like to read, BORN FIGHTING, by James Webb. I am of Scots/Irish ancestry as well. (Yup, my mother’s side —StClair)
Her father was an army officer. General Arthur StClair was a US Revolutionary officer with George Washington.

Bonny Prince Charles had a bastard son in Ireland if I recall.

Rabbit got into it with the school bullies evrywher. Glasses, non-conformist, bookworm, but saild an sawm lots on weekends. Rabbit kicked their arses at each school, then went back to being the school outcast. Could never give any noitice to all the “Suckholes” who were always so ready to transfer loyalty to the new “Tough Kid”.

Never made the grade as a tough kid, just a Bully Basher.

Have noted the book, don’t know if it’s anything like it but Bryce Courtenay’s “Power of one” inspired and Richard Bach’s, “Jonathon Livingstone Seagull”, “Wings” and “Bridge Across Forever” are the quintessential soul books for modern man.

Goodnite for now.

WTH the thing about fundamentalists and confronting them needs more discussion, Rabbit agrees but needs to extend this to mean all fundamentalists, in this case especially the Christian ones. It is first and foremost our duty to confront our fundamentalists. The Muslims are quite willing and capable of dealing with their fundemenatlists if give a chance.  The problem begins when our fundamentalists get control as they have, and obviously it gets worse when their fundy’s get the reigns.

What can be seen in the ME as we speak is that the very act of allowing our fundys to call the shots and threaten others is giving their fundy’s a fantastic recruiting tool. The fundys who have arisen in ME have typically done so on the back of mis-guided Western interference. If we could all take charge of our own backyards we might soon see that once the fundys of all persuasions are dealt with by their own nearest neigbors, the rest of us will probably be able to get along fine afterwards. Rabbit has said clearly why before, hint the FOUR IDEALS.

GhostRabbit: I definitely understand where you’re coming from. There are wing-nuts in every organization, creed and religion. It sounds as if you are related to a few of them.

But keep in mind that not all Mormons are like that.  “Wing-nut-itis” is somewhat rare in my experience although I’ve definitely met my fair share. I’m a Mormon and, unlike your family, I decidedly agree with Mr. Moyers assessment of how religion is being used to overtake and demean our great nation. And how the once great GOP party has been possessed by the neo-cons and their twisted agendas. It makes me sick sometimes just thinking about it.

But I also agree with whattheheck’s point made above that not all religions are politicized and controlling as we are seeing with some of the religious right groups. To label all religion into the “religious right” category casts too great of a shadow over all of the good that is done by all denominations in this country. The good folks at Interfaith Alliance have made this point spot on. Check out the web site here: http://www.interfaithalliance.org

Also, as an aside, I’d like to set the record straight that the LDS church’s policy is hands-off and neutral concerning politics. It definitely encourages its members to be politically active as they see fit (although most choose poorly in my view), but the church itself does not ascribe to any political party, view or dialogue and does not tell it’s members how to vote.

And that is how I think it should be.

Hi whattheheck

You wrote :
“It is the police, the military, and all individuals willing to put their lives at risk fighting (killing when necessary) not for personal gain, but for freedom, liberty or to protect the weak, who have held societies together for pacifists and dreamers.”

Many pacifists have/do put their lives at risk and many have lost their lives for their beliefs. My own pacifism is more practical and pragmatic than an absolute radical principle. I do not think it is morally wrong for someone to “kill when necessary”. I do think that refusing to fight and working for peace are the better answer to violence. Violence begets violence.

Rabbit —

“The Muslims are quite willing and capable of dealing with their fundemenatlists if give a chance.”

I wish this were so, but 9/11 here and the Iraq mess indicate otherwise. The most I personally expect to be bothered by U.S. Christian fundamentalists is the Robertson/Falwell type of BS in the media, or an occasional doorbell evangelist. The kill-them-because-they-don’t-think-like-us attitude doesn’t fit my experiences where Christians are concerned.

As for the Republican party being taken over as Moyers believes is an extreme exaggeration.

The best assurance against a Christian fundamentalist takeover is — they can never agree on a broad enough agenda to get that organized. That’s why there are so many small “Bible Churches”.

The majority of the Christian conservatives who I know spend more time worrying about my not being “saved” than politics. They help a lot of people — the poor, the hungry, etc. I know a plumber who went to Africa on his own to run water from a well to a village a mile away. A teacher went to Somalia two years ago to see conditions for herself and has been raising funds ever since.

The biggest difference? They don’t seek media attention. If they did maybe not so many Muslims would hate us over here.

------------------------
Bonny Prince Charles had a bastard son in Ireland if I recall.

The Scots/Irish (as I found out in Webb’s book) were Scots who went to work the fields in for wealthy landowners in Ireland several centuries ago and migrated to N. America in three waves.

There’s a basis for the old adage: “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Truer words were never spoken!

Hi James there is nothing in whatyou say which Rabbit would disgree with.

Self many years as LDS member and have retained great respect for the Church. Rabbit is well aware about LDS Church policy too. Indeed many members consider Rabbits menbtioned family to be over the top.

The thing about it though is that it is one of the Christian faiths which is susceptible to Wing-nutism. Rabbit would never say that all Christianity or all of any doctrine leads to fundamentalism. My point is that the fundamentalists, God Squad, for short, come out from the bowels of religion and as such need to be dealt with by the individual religions.

The alternative is what we have now. An entire people, essentially separated from us by no more than religion, who are being made our enemy in war.

For both of our sides the people who are cheerleading and desirous of this war, are the fundamentalists. These people are the weakest link in any organisation.  They are dangerous now because someone has hijacked their faith and is using it to bring about the fundmentalists own worst nightmare. All the way the Fundy’s think they are getting closer to re-uniting with their God.

These people are bats, they are blind and totally beyond reason, and they’ve got guns!

(They actuallyhave the most enormous arsenal of destruction at their fingertips and they “want” to use it.)

Be sure of Rabbit intentions James, he definately does not label all religion as radical.

WTH and Rabbit also on the same page, there are plenty of relions, including Christian denominations which are non-politicised. For this it’s hard to look past the Budhists though. Last step for Rabbit beofe accepting Gnosticism was all was Budhism, and they are gentle and good. Still like all religions the majority of its adherants only understand the wider message via symbolism, but whatever it takes.

WTH Rabbit will be posting a reply to you in a few hours. It is very important, but must deliver a boat to Mandurah a couple hours away first.

g-love. is right, but only the masse who haven’t already got Opium, or whatever your choice, if you know what Rabbit means.

The effect of allowing any “DRUG” to replace those four Ideals of all life. Alcohol, Cocaine, Weed, Religion even Politics can become opiates. All lead to abandonment of nmatural human principles in an insidious way, and can come to dictate all our life and relationships etc.

On the Scottish thing, again (won’t swear by this, it is what Rabbit remembers Granny telling him as a weeny one) A french born servant had a small one to Charles who was as far back as we could go.  The wife is a descendant of the Danish “Gorm the old”.  Much celtic and viking blood in Rabbits family. Proud Freedom Barbarians, but strong supporters of village life.

The things we will be examining in detail WTH will be 911 especially in relation to Iraq. We need to examine the differences certain scenarios would have on our opinions in these instances. We need then to look at Christian Fundamentalists, in light of your contentions about Just and right warfare. Especially in respect of how they are critical components of the support for war in the Middle East.

Others may have tackled this last before Rabbit gets back. Just a minor detail, remeber Robertson contributed majorly to Bush re-election and are staunch supporters. It would seem logical to any reasonable person that if such lunatics as Robertson support the same cause as one’s self, that should be reason enough to at least look very carefully at one’s own cause and what constitutes the facts upon which the opinion is based.

Rabbit has said that The God Squad Fundys are saying the same things as WTH to justify their crazy ideas, just not able to articulate all the details so they substitute faith and “Gods Word” whenever in doubt.
...

Point is.....These are your allies....Doesn’t that worry you WTH?.......It would worry Rabbit.
...
Back later..........^^........

Actually since this alone could be the Paradigm shifting thing for you WTH, and because Rabbit’s coffee is still hot.
............
The information needs to be shared and things re-considered in that light to actually make the full jump, but this idea should give one such as you pause WTH.

......
Consider that here are numerous people with whom you have interacted, on this site and others of a “Left” persuasion. We have all shown ourslevs to be varied and most clearly have a lot of clues and superb reasoning skills.

The fact that we really care, is shown in our very presence. Many ridicule Internet Blogging and Forums such as this, as being doing nothing. They are just not getting it. The internet is a huge community and is very much connected to the community at large via every single terminal. (We are each and every one, seen and invisible...{Hi watchers}...a terminal to the rest of our communities.)
We are the public debate which has never really gone beyond the local meeting house before.
Now among these people WTH you will notice many who are over the top Lefty and you will have noticed plenty who are over the top Right wing. Amongst this latter it should be apparent it is here the God Squad resides. You have seen them, Rabbit may be mistaken, but I’ll bet you have noticed a lot less reason and ability to discuss and find compromise, amongst those of a more “Leftist” persuasion.

Now the fact is that Rabbit hates using these words Left and Right to delineate any people.

It just does not work. WTH you are as much a holder of so called Left wing ideas as many of us hold ideas which are basically normally said to be rightist. The thing is only the extremists among us can accurately be charactersised as either. That is logical really.  Thus the rest of us, those with more nuanced views, who are able to and desirous even of engaging in a two way communication in order to not only teach but to learn, we are not definable by left or right except in the relative sense. You are more Right wing than me, but you are are standing far to the left of that guy over there.

If Rabbit ever comes across as arrogant it can maybe be traced back to this attitude of his, which cannot actually define left anfd right as anything more than adverbs. 

The fact is that when Rabbit looks at those who are furthest to the left, they are small in number and dwindling, often re-adjusting their vies over life, what is often called left is no more than the abandonment of many old ideas and an opening up to many new possibilities. The process may be left wing, but the result is typically much more balanced, someone like Rabbit for instance.

The Extreme Right is not diminishing. It is becoming more and more isolated and defined. The God Squad are in there well dug in and nothing short of an Apocalypse is going to move them at this point. If you don’t believe Rabbit, ask them.
Rabbit will wager a bet that WTH is going to turn around in the next few days and have a look at those with whom he is siding, even if only by default of the same cause. WTH is going to compare this to the spectrum of opinion, the massive variety of souls who much more gently yet firmly are saying no this is not what it seems, look away a moment, re-focus on something you know is real, then look back. The story of the Emperors New Clothes will come to be the most poignant political commentary in an instant, just maybe.

Rabbit has been using the allegory since Katrina, annd can see that it has become an oft repeated comparison for many more too. The parallels are shocking and then if you have not WTH, read, or re-read Orwell’s, 1984.

Will come back to the above but this part is worth thinking about WTH. Rabbit is delighted you have turned out to be a shining one and you are. Many find their way out of the labyrinthe by chance. Few have the power to find their way out, it is the most awesome thing I have ever seen actually, and twelve months ago would not have expected to see it happen over years. Suddenly it is a weekly experience. It is both exhilarating and a little frightening.

This seems to be happening for a reason. A quickening. James as an LDS you know the significance of this?.........The Quickening is upon us.........Sorry folks, silly Rabbit again...But maybe?

Sorry long....

“a lot MORE reason and ability to discuss and find compromise, amongst those of a more “Leftist” persuasion.”

Rabbit removes foot from mouth...........^^.......

Teasing a little here ...

whattheheck writes : “All my fights were of one punch — I would hold back for as long as I could stand it.  The bully would pick on me each day until I would finally give in and hit him as hard as I could. “

Sounds a little like practical pacifism to me. But seriously, your parents gave excellent advice and you are wise to follow it. A word for your mothers good advice might be necessarianism.

More teasing ..

GhostRabbit writes :
“ You are more Right wing than me, but you are are standing far to the left of that guy over there. “

whattheheck writes :
“ This kind of generalization is on a par with the very faction Moyers is criticizing. I consider myself to be an independent – not a Republican, but just because the president is a religious fundie is no reason to tar the whole party with the same brush. This only serves to further divide and radicalize people. “

See .. not so different after all, both trying to avoid generalizations and absolutes and point it out when others make generalizations too.

Back in a couple of hours David. Want to go into the basics with WTH for Rabbit feels we have found the gate between our two fields.

.. and in the final analysis, to get back to the origins fo the article, the fundamentalists and extremists, of all stripes, shapes and sizes, have stolen and continue to steal the only thing of value we really and truly can call our own, the ideals we all hold so dear; peace, love, etc, etc .. if that isn’t too generalized and rhetorical. Big grin while I write this.

“I smite, you smite, he smites… we done smote!”—from the Coen Brothers movie; ‘The Ladykiller’s’

WTH wrote: “...just because the president is a religious [fundamentalist] is no reason to tar the whole [Republican] party with the same brush. This only serves to further divide and radicalize people.”

WTH here writes perfect copy for postcards from the 51st state—what Kurt Vonnegut refers to as the fifty first state—the state of denial.

Where were you during the election campaign when the party used the church as a bully pulpit, or during the end days of Terri Shiavo, for crissake?

For WTH, start…
..

The left wing are in a better position to be able to accept the views Rabbit and many others here espouse, that is perhaps because the right has the problem we seem to be facing from within it’s own ranks. Permit this humble observation. It is entirely natural that such a problem as we describe would be harder to discern the closer one was to it. Logical? This does not say that WTH is part of the problem except in an indirect sense by supporting their aims. The ideas are not actually left wing either, they are simply an alternative but as a reaction to the extreme right, and due to the ease with which “The Left” is able to adopt these ideas, they seem Leftist.

It is obvious that if people like WTH were indeed in control of the current admin it would never have reached even the stage of invasion of anybody, after 911. Rabbit would confidently say that 911 would never have occurred or if it did the outcome would have been of the wholly positive kind, which appeared at the time only to be snuffed out like a candle in the wind.  The chance was there for that terrible event to have become the unifying factor between all peoples of the world. What has it been made instead?
The same could have been said for Hurricane Katrina, all these people, even people of Banda Aceh and also from Palestine and believe it or not Afghanistan, Iran and Iraqi gave much and expressed their sadness for the victims. The Venezuelans and Cubans and Libyans, everybody gave immediately and wholeheartedly, sending billions in food, blankets, oil, and emergency personnel. All was offered without anything but genuine charity and concern behind their actions.

What happened then WTH? The USA, would not accept any help, while her people suffered things nobody within a hundred miles of civilisation should suffer. They continued to suffer many days after even the poorest nations would long since have been helped at least over the worst of it. Much of the aid and help went unused, wasted or returned. That is what happened. Instead of saying thankyou and accepting the obviously needed help allowing everybody to heal a bit, the current Junta in control, made the worst of the situation, and managed to offend many who had done nothing but try to help.

That is too opportunities lost for the USA to make a huge difference to the state of world relations without doing more than showing a little humility.

Does nobody remember the massive outpouring of grief and sympathy, which came to the USA from every corner of the Planet?  Rabbit knows for a fact that there was a universal sense of outrage and it was expressed in the most unequivocal terms by every nation on the planet. There were no exceptions Rabbit is aware of. This was more than just government diplomacy, the feelings were real, would you like to see some blogs by Iraqis and Iranians from 911 to see the horror and dismay they really felt?

Now the usual response to this is to point at some obscure incidents of small groups of people dancing in the streets in Middle Eastern Countries.

These instances were few and far between but were given maximum coverage by MSM. They were neither typical nor were they presented in context. Some of the footage was actually from Israel, where there was not only some dancing in the streets by shall we say ‘mixed’ groups of people, one or two of the top ministers of Israel expressed satisfaction that America would now realise their plight at least.  Those dancing in the streets were decidedly happy that the “Fight” as they saw it would now be joined by the USA. Of course there were some Muslims who were dancing for joy, because there are some people from several Middle Eastern countries who have very real and genuine grievances against USA. They do not for the most part have any interest or concern for Americans religion, honestly. The majority of Middle Eastern people who hate America do so because of land and political interference in their lives to the extent of assassinating their popularly elected leaders and supporting all the worst most repressive regimes in the region.

Now it suits many to believe that the Two groups, the Muslim God Squad, and the Muslim people who mostly are just saying leave us alone, are the same. They are absolutely not. There are enough Muslims who hate America enough not to have been altogether sorry to see America get a Bloody nose on 911, but there were surprisingly few at the time who said so.

All of the above is Facts and not opinions. Rabbit forms his opinions based on the above facts and others, but it is important to state clearly the above things are not debatable except to be compared to other things. They are history. The following should be in the same category.
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There was not at the time nor is there today even a credible story or any solid evidence upon which to base the official line about 911.

Whatever evidence we are aware of and there is a great deal, has not ever been given official attention and most of the most critical evidence is being actively withheld. The truth could be established, certainly in relation to proving Bin Laden or even Muslim Extremists were responsible. The incredible and deeply suspicious thing is that it has not been. The US government has obstructed any attempt to resolve the truth and this is not in question. There is a considerable body of evidence, in the public domain, which completely discredits the entire official story. “No attempt” has yet been made to remove all doubt about ANY of the massive list of reasonable questions of not only affected people, but also some very well respected members of your own government.

There are so many facts and this is not the place to begin sharing opinions about 911.  Of the 19 alleged Hijackers, nine so far have been “proven” to be alive and well, never having been anywhere near the USA when it happened. These nine are still officially listed. These alleged terrorists, are mostly Saudi and if there was one country who was not connected to Iraq in any way it is Saudi Arabia.  The earliest statements by Bin Laden, the genuine ones, did not actually claim responsibility for 911. That is an interesting fact. His later statements seemed more to just fill out the role, but all this was in the wrong order to a suspicious Rabbit.

There is much more about 911 which not only discredits the official story but goes a long way towards making a strong case for an entirely different scenario. Whatever one believes about 911, the whole tower of lies appears ready to collapse under its own weight. Various explosive court cases are coming to a head; indictments are now in the pipeline for most of the top administration on these and other matters. The truth about 911 and a few other matters is pending. Very pending.

There is speculative stuff at the end there, but it remains to bring this into Rabbit’s argument. No matter what reasonable viewpoint of those on offer about 911, there is one thing that nobody can say about it. There is no justification here for an attack on any Muslim country, let alone Iraq who was a secular thorn in the side to Fundamentalist forces in the region. There was never any credible reason given to go after Bin Laden if the facts are examined, without the rhetoric.

Most of the evidence which has since arisen which links Muslim Extremists to the event, is also proving that there was obvious foreknowledge by and even collusion with government of USA agents.

No justification for attacking a nation because of a small group of extremists with whom they share a religion.

What about how wrong we have been in the past? It is one thing for a rogue group of Religious Fundamentalists to bomb a building or hijack some planes, but how much more vile is it when a country uses it’s military to bomb another or fire some missiles at another country for no good reason or a mistake.

For example:
Libya was hit with missiles by the USA for refusing to hand over some of its citizens for trial when they said there was no case for those citizens to answer. The Libyans suffered a lot of flak and when they stood their ground as they had every right to do, they were labelled a terrorist nation and have been treated as such ever since.
……………….Does WTH know what has happened in the Lockerbie Bombing case since?  The original story has been completely disproved, the so called experts were not experts, their testimony was false and both a policeman and a CIA agent have come forward to claim the only piece of evidence which was ever presented for the case against Libya, a piece of circuit board was planted.
……………….Do you realise that this means Libya was telling the truth? It also means there is no evidence to suggest Libya is a Terrorist state. Libya has suffered sanctions, missile strikes and all manner of threats and abuse, and they were set up. Does this matter? Rabbit thinks it does, and we could look a lot more closely at many instances, which are often cited as justification for labelling Muslims as worse or more violent somehow than us. If we did we will find that on balance there is nothing to suggest that the West justifiably vilifies Muslims.

Take away the genuine grievances from the long suffering people of the Middle east and if all you have left is a bunch of fanatics full of intolerance and hate, the Muslims will soon shove those swine back in the box.  They don’t want them either, but when our Christian Extremists manage to hijack the ship of state, or the Hijacked ship of state is given a Christian Mascot, then it is hardly surprising that the Muslims are going to be driven into the arms of extremists, since they are offering the only sort of resistance they feel will work to defend themselves, Direct Confrontation. Now truly WTH no, matter what you think is happening in the Middle East it is not Muslims confronting us, Christian Invaders. Some are using this language and they are being heard. Most Muslims are trying to be patient and do not wish to strike back.  If we allow this conflict to continue to develop the Christian, White is Right face, which is characterising it to the wider world, then sooner or later the Muslims really are going to flip their lids. Rabbit is sincerely warning his White Western Brothers, you are fooling yourselves if you think this fight between Christians and Muslims is a two-way thing yet. It is not but it is not far away from becoming so, and brother if it becomes so it is going to be one hell of a big bang.

If it comes down to a battle of courage and determination Rabbit will put his money on the Muslim fundamentalists. They just have that edge which is born of hardship you know.

Sorry, was long.......^^...................

WTH is too good to be left holding the bag, when the shit hits the fan, look behind WTH, these Crazies have hijacked the right, move a little this way and you will see it. After that, one of your discernment can soon see how easily it is for even some lesser debaters to pick off many of your considered points so easily. This is due simply to seeing cetain things in a different light. Rabbit is not saying take anything on faith. But he is saying do not defend anything purely on faith either.

Rabbit is less interested in opinions than that those opinions are genuine and that they can stand up to important facts when challenged.

It is not opinions which we must establish, we must establish the facts by which we have formed those opinions.

Finally.............

Hello Rabbit,
Way back up-thread, you asked me how to reason with (so to speak) legislatively ambitious fundamentalists, or to phrase it better and more accurately, theocrats.

The only way I can see it happening is to simply forbid sectarian domination over the law, to separate church and state and make it stick. For one thing, reasoning with them doesn’t work, because their positions have little to do with reason except to logically pursue the conclusions based on their inviolable a priori assumption, e.g. that the Bible and every literal word in it is a direct transmission from the mind of God to the society of men. Add the Quran, Vedas, Pali Canon, whatever whatever. The fundamentalist stance is that it’s impossible for scripture to be interpretable within a particular historical or cultural context, because it supposedly stands outside of historical forces. That means there’s no latitude of meaning and understanding, it says what it says and it’s the unquestionable, permanent, cosmic truth.

A little study of scriptural history dispels that view without, I believe, diluting the wisdom that can be found in holy writings. But when they’re unquestionable, when we’re basically forced to accept the dictates of priest-pastor faction who convince politicians that they’re incapable of being wrong, it all falls apart, and becomes just another mechanism for oppression. That includes majoritarian oppression (e.g. one of my line-in-the-sand issues, restriction of marriage rights).

There’s little of reason in their insistance that simply holding other values than theirs is an attack upon the foundations of the universe. But that’s what they think, and if they control the law, that’s the paradigm we’ll all have to obey.

For God’s sake, I’m not even an atheist!

They simply have to be forbidden from foisting their religious culture upon us by way of law. If they choose to exert religious discipline within their own lives, I will fight to make sure they’re able; the Soviet tactic of trying to destroy faith with force was a bitter oppression of its own, for example (not to mention, they failed miserably despite their brutality), and anyone who believes in conscience would have to have opposed it. Better yet, subverted it.

The crusader faction in America likes to prattle on about liberty, the religiosity of the Founding Fathers (which is highly debatable), etc. So let them live with an official and cultural separation between church and state. Make sure government is religiously neutral, permitting any worship form or none at all if one is atheist. The intensity of feeling among fundamentalists is not a sufficient reason for them to be able to control the law. It will just be a recipe for sectarian domination, educational erosion, victimization of targeted out-groups who don’t have Biblical favor, and control of culture by overly strict, zealous, delusional people who actually believe in fairy-tales like a 6000 year old universe.

And if they want to continue believing that and teaching that to their kids, oh well. It’ll give my own kids a competitive edge in the real world.

By the way, you actively religious types, before you call me a hater or anti-religion, just hold your horses. If you want to push the line of devoted compassion, doing good works in the world, promoting a sense of worshipfulness toward the source of all being and consciousness, I’m there. Teach away. Push the compassion of Jesus, you’ve got an ally.

But don’t expect me to stand still while moves are made to make it law, either statutory or Constitutional. No cops, no courts, no law that compels worship or adherence to sectarian values not my own. Nope. I refuse. And I hope every thinking person disobeys all of that stuff to the limit of their endurance.

That is the surreal part though, that they just cannot be reasoned with. It is a scary thought Kuya but it is hard to avoid concluding that the only way to deal with fundys is, with vuiolence. Not a problem before, but shit, they’ve got the bomb now dude. They’ve got the flaming Button, and they are not afraid to use it. Jesus Christ mate these maniacs want to bloody use it.

They scare the bejesus out of Rabbit, I can tell you, and Rabbit is an Gnostic. Please don’t mistake Agnostics with Atheists. We are the opposites as it happens. Just in case when you say Atheist you were thinking Rabbit.

Rabbit would appreciate any help going on the Radioactive wounds of war thread. The most determined yet outed shills are preaching death and evil and resort to complaints (False) to stifle opposition as well as every dirty shilling trick known to man.

What is more it is an issue most any body from any political persuasion around here can agree on thinks Rabbit. Thread is long but it has certain unique features as will be seen..

“We also know that the “violence-of-God” tradition remains embedded deep in the DNA of monotheistic faith. Inside that logic you cannot read part of the Bible allegorically and the rest of it literally; if you believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection, and the depiction of the Great Judgment at the end times you must also believe that God is sadistic, brutal, vengeful, callow, cruel and savage-that God slaughters.”

Perhaps true for the writer, but some of us have other, less limited, views. To embrace such a viewpoint as quoted above, one has to be remarkably unaware of Christainity (or perhaps have an agenda of some sort). Even a simple agnostic like myself knows better than to trivialize viewpoints that i do not personally ascribe to.

To the confused, don’t despair! Perhaps the place to begin is “God is good” and go from there.

A metaphor. When painting a picture, all colors may be utilized. Even ones that, all by themselves, appear to be ugly. But when taken all together, these apparently ugly colors can create creations of both beauty and meaning. . .

The writer has an agenda, alright. I have an agenda, you have an agenda—we all have our agendas.

This seems to be happening for a reason. A quickening. James as an LDS you know the significance of this.

It sounds like that movie, “The Highlander”. :-)

Seriously, I was very glad to read the statement that, “Rabbit hates using these words Left and Right to delineate any people. It just does not work”. I agree wholeheartedly. But these monikers have been quite effectively used to divide the US. Even if we don’t use these labels, those in power will and will use them very effectively. You see it in the media every day (especially in the Fox News and Propaganda Channel). And the pundits and followers of the current push have written the red vs. blue and us vs. them mentality into everything they write or publish. Thus creating an even wider divide.

This is not a typical, “wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t use these labels” situation. These labels are a weapon. Just as effective as any gun in silencing an opposing view. If you dissagree with their views that the red states are the “true” America and that the conservative views are the only realistic and moral possibility to consider, then you are automatically given the label, “Liberal”. And that label comes with all the negative connotations that it has been warped to contain.

If you haven’t yet read the book, “What’s the matter with Kansas?”, read it. The beginning chapers hits right on this subject in how the perceptions have been altered over the years so that any liberal-style thinking is automatically thought to be elitist, snobbish, tea-drinking, Europe-loving, hedonistic, intellectually superior, wine-tasting, American-hating, Blue-stater, blasphemous lies. In their view it is extremely white or black (or Red and Blue in this case) with no shades of grey allowed. You are either with us or against us.

Well, I have liberal-style thoughts. Lots of them. But none of the descriptions above pertain to me, or at least I’m unaware that they do. In fact a good portion of the descriptions (hedonistic, snobbish, elitist to name a few) aptly describe Bush’s “base” instead. But of course no one bothers to see past the surface of the rhetoric to see that.

It was mentioned above in this list that you should read 1984. I agree. (Although I think he was twenty years too early with his title.) While we aren’t to the extreme control as is displayed in that book, a good portion of the “mindspeak” and control over thought patterns is very much evident in today’s government. Brought to us in the most part via the media.

So how can we avoid the ending in 1984? Because at this point I’m just making myself depressed…

Hello again Rabbit,
My hesitancies about initiating violence against fundis are 1) it would be immoral and oppressive, and I don’t want to become what I hate, and 2) it wouldn’t do anything but galvanize counter-violence. Oppression doesn’t make people go away, they just go underground and make plans for the future. Also, at least in America, I think too many people would see an assault on fundis as an assault upon religion per se and would rally to their sides, not just evangelical Christians but even lukewarm ones, as well as most of our citizens.

So I see practical and (mostly) moral reasons against attacking them. However, I feel perfectly free to defend myself, my loved ones, my country against any sort of movement toward a Gilead-like revolution, as per Margaret Atwood’s novel “A Handmaid’s Tale”. That’s a work of fiction, but when I read it I couldn’t say that its scenes and speculations were entirely unrealistic, in a not-too-distant future day.

However, since the more likely (and some would say observable here-and-now) scenario is slow infiltration of our institutions by sectarian priorities, I’ll work to contribute to a social and legal culture that stays religiously neutral but that permits worship in whatever form, pushing scientific attitudes to the extent that people are willing to investigate and discover new information about how the world and people work. There are lots of good reasons why people worship, social, cultural, even possibly biological if you like to read some of the interesting material on the subject in anthropology and physiological psychology. I pray myself, though silently, figuring that The Real Thing, if it cares to listen or has the capacity to do so, will catch my drift. Worst case is that it’s a psychological game played against the background of the instinctive fear of death. I’ll see when I’m dead (or not see anything at all, as the case may be).

I’m not at war with the faithful, even the evangelical, but I just don’t want them to control the law. Middle Ages Europe, 1990s Afghanistan, ongoing Saudi Arabia, etc etc, how many examples of excessive connection between priests and rulers can one cite? Anti-freedom, to say the least.

Wolf there are those of us on this thread who are probably better informed about Christian doctrine and bible than you.
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Rabbit has previously known you to spit hellfitre and brimstone, you are very ready to do the “Vengeful God” act, remember I’ve seen it in full flight.
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Like many self deluding Christians you talk about a loving God and yet you seem to revel in the blood and guts at every opportunity.
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Now that the God Squad Cheerleader is here, we can really begin. ..
Rabbit has been calling you Wolf, what kept you?
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Wolf,
Rabbit and probably James too has 4 years of Seminary behind him. What are your qualifications to discuss Christianity?

James
There is a tremendous amount of truth in the fundy view of what is happening. The question of course becomes which came first the chicken or the egg.

Prophecies have a immense creative power, the more who believe, the more that power grows.  This is partly why usually the seer cannot absolutely say what will be.

The fact remains that such ‘beliefs” which have been fed by most cultures over hindredsd of years or more, hold quite a bit of momentum.

With the visions summoned by our shared prophesies, coupled with the very real life counterpart, it is understandable to be afraid.
Faith in something magical like a ‘Translation’ or whatever the big “save” is called, has to be long practised until all reason and logic is gone from one. In this way only is it possible to strive for Armageedon and feel clever doing it.

Then of course such people are completely Rabid and leave us with no choice but to excise them somehow. Rabbit is not advocating violence, he has recently chosen to give evrything he has to try and avoid the otherwise Massive violence which is approaching. The question remains whta are we going to do to bring the God Squad back to earth or at least make them leave the Earth intact. They cannot be reasoned with, they have got the gun, and they are completely predictable qat this point.

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It is a very worrying thing if you consider how many “conservative” thinking people are turning a complete 180 degrees in their feelings about US direction and Politics.

The woorying thing is that the core supporters who were never in there due to conviction anyway. Since they chose Bushler for no reason just Faith, and since Faith is all they have, they are unlikely to fall away.

Rabbit foresees an almost solely Fundamentalist support base remaining about the Junta, before long. They will be completely isolated, unreachable and they still are holding the Bloody button.

beyond what rabbit has already said Kuya, we are in agreement on all points of what would be best.

...
To ask you a question Kuya, How long do you think we have to get the “GUN” out of the crazies hands before thye really do some harm?

Do we have enough time for the steady, steady drip of reason to soften the Rockhard shell of Fundamentalist Armour?

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It is at this practical consideration that Rabbit runs into the same despair everytime.
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Rabbit even has a simple Religion Buster, a supremely simple creed which should nullify the effects of religions, you have seen it
I think.
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Do you not feel that we are on the eve of destruction?

Sorry but short.......
The more chaotic and horrifying the world situation the more the God Squad is going to commit to their course of action. Do you see haow incredibly dangerous a situation this is? Any sane and rational people would start to back away from a course of action which brings more chaos and destruction. These WACKOS are going to become more and more convinced they are right the more things go berserk.
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Man that is one hell of a situation, and very , very unstable.
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Makes you wonder of the brilliance of the neo-can Junta having alligned them selves with the Fundy Christian cause in the first place. When it comes to trashing the planet, these guys were made to order. They need only be a minority to work well, because they are such an all-fired voacl and absolutist minority.
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Once again Rabbit points out that these nut-jobs have got the Button. The BIG red scary BUTTON. Not to mention planes, bombs, ships, lots of soldiers and more buttons......
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Seriously, this is not just an academic exercise. Wolf should be into his stride in a few posts then take the opportunity to observe one of them in action..........try and imagine him with a gun in his hand then, tell Rabbit that isn’t worrying.
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..............Hey WOLF................
Rabbit thinks Jesus Christ was a Hippy like Rabbit and he probably smoked pot. He sure as heck was more comfortable among the crowd at the Pub than in the churches. God and Rabbit are good friends, God and Jesus loves Rabbit, they tell him so in his Rabbit heart.
..
...What says Wolf to this?........

Kuya writes : “ My hesitancies about initiating violence against fundis are 1) it would be immoral and oppressive, and I don’t want to become what I hate, and 2) it wouldn’t do anything but galvanize counter-violence. Oppression doesn’t make people go away, they just go underground and make plans for the future. “

Well said. Setting a better example is the best way. Being a peacemaker doesn’t guarantee peace, but to lose is gain, sometimes.

I’d like to remind Whattheheck the his belief that Americans military actions around the world somehow automatically equate to fighting for “liberty” and against “totalitarianism” may be no more that a comfortable, conditioned perspective.  He forgets the death squads in Latin America and the overthrown democracies replaced by fascist U.S. puppet regimes.  Iraq did not attack America, yet we saw fit to visit upon them our “shock and awe”, as we hurried to “secure” their oil fields.  Suprise! No weapons of mass destruction… But, it’s all good.  We needed to free them from that monster (who the U.S. put into power there, but who now refused to obey).

Also… Whattheheck may not know much of Ghandi.  But Ghandi was able to say the things that he said because he was a man of great faith and personal courage and integrity.  And it was he, himself, who stood up against the evils of his day and challenged the very self-righteous imperialism that Whattheheck inadvertantly seems to be advocating.

One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.  Thoughts like these deserve deep consideration.  Let’s stop using Christian “religion” (whatever that really is… it certainly has nothing to do with the sensibilities of Christ) as a smokescreen to obscure hidden agendas that ultimately are contrived to help the rich get richer and to marginalize everyone who doesn’t support that idea. 

This God thing of today is mostly self-serving human bullshit.  ‘And I truly believe that God would agree with me… and Christ too.

ljwhit writes : “ This God thing of today is mostly self-serving human bullshit.  ‘And I truly believe that God would agree with me… and Christ too. “

That bears repeating.

Verily and Amen.

Only the God Squad will not allow you to claim their GOD. If it is not their God you are talking about, and only they are the boss of their GOD, then you are obviously talking about SATAN.
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Get down on your knees David....
.....You know?.....

Rabbit mentions again the fact that the God Squad is no longer just a funny sideshow. They are the main driving force, or the excuse for the future which is looming like a very bad nightmare, an approaching Cyclone, or Hurricane.
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The storm is looking so big it may cross the boundaries of both hemispheres, then what do we call it..............Hurriclone?...........
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Maybe the word is already coined............... Armageddon feels close.
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Rabbit says again, guys they have got the Buttons and Guns and Boxes of bad things and they are in a corner of own making. Being nice to them is not working. Rabbit has a sister,........ you know the rest.

GhostRabbit says:  Rabbit mentions again the fact that the God Squad is no longer just a funny sideshow.

True that the God Squad is humorless and certainly not humorous.  These sick, dishonest Machiavellian bastards are truly dangerous.

True that their god is not my God.  But it is not in the nature of my God to shrink in fear from their intimidations.  Afterall, he who would save himself, will be lost.

We must offer a more honest God to those whose world is so narrow, stupid, contracted, and mean that all they have to justify their comfort zones is their self-rigtheous faith.

Perhaps the truth can set them free.  If there is no power to love… then what is the point?

Take heart, GhostRabbit.  No need to behave unwisely, the danger is real, but we must each do what we can to try to save the day.

Hello again Rabbit,
As for guns, I favor strict regulation. For everyone, fundis, socialists, liberals, conservatives, hunters, and target shooters. Not total confiscation (except for illegal weapon holders), but careful, enforced regulation.

The 2nd Amendment gets so much heated debate, it’s an insoluble issue in America. Personally I don’t get too worked up over it. I don’t think firearms will protect citizens at large from oppression.

A lot of my in-laws think that favoring gun regulation is a daft position, saying that we might need to fight off oppressive government troops. But as far as I can see, governments everywhere on Earth will simply appropriate whatever resources are necessary to fight armed insurrection. Shooting at cops brings SWAT teams, shooting at soldiers leads to tanks in the streets. The state gets stronger, more ready to deal out violence of their own, when citizens shoot at them. So if (like me) one wants a less invasive and less brutal state, shooting at uniformed officers would be a 180 degree wrong tactic.

Fundis who arm up may fantasize about fighting off federales, but the events surrounding the Branch Davidian group in Waco TX during the Clinton administration was a pretty vivid lesson against their views. Whether the fire was deliberate or accidental, the point is that federal agencies closed in and were not going to play softball with armed resistors. We can debate about the BDs (from what little I read, they sounded rather bizarrely cultic in the worst sense of that word), or the competence and justifiability of the federal response, but anyone can see that their move to arm themselves didn’t help them. Probably it led more quickly to the fatal outcome.

Coming back to my original point, I’m less concerned about fringe wacko groups (not to discount fringe wackos like Tim McVeigh, who was executed for destroying the Murrah Federal Building with a truck-sized fertilizer bomb in Oklahoma City), and more worried about a popularly backed, fundamentalist legislative movement that gains power through activist political tactics and strong emotional appeal. For me that’s a more likely and more dangerous scenario. For violent fringe weirdos, there are law enforcement agencies. But when government itself has the agenda of pushing a sectarian line, who protects us then?

Oh yes, and as for people who have an overzealous “afterlife” emphasis getting ahold of warheads and missile systems, well, I think those types are far more likely to us the things precipitously than secular-minded types.

Not that I trust secularists who have nukes either. Still, if one believes that the “real” world is the one to come, on the other side of death, I can’t help but suspect that they’d hesitate to nuke an enemy less and be more likely to go for it. The ITT article pondering Iranian nukes drew this same response from me. It’s a quandry. The former Soviets were officially atheist; if they had been religious revolutionaries, would they have been more likely or just as likely to cap off a few MIRVs? Hell, maybe it makes little difference, but I do get a visceral sense of suspicion when people speak of “the world to come” as being more real than this world. Plenty of delusion to go around, I suppose, secular or sectarian, but in any case that’s my gut response.

Kuya
Rabbit agrees that firearms for protection from our governments does present a largely self defeating solution.

Violence is rarely the best solution and is never a preferred one for Rabbit. Any sort of violence should be entered into from a position of strength, and a last ditch defense against advancing superior forces is not likey to be one of strength, rather one of desperation.

.................As for Guns, the fact is and always has been that anybody who would use them for the wrong reasons is not going to follow the law anyway.
.....Guns are NOT hard to get hold of if one is determined. If one is already familiar with criminal circles, many are thanks to banning of popular drugs, it is downright easy.............Rabbit is talking about Australia, which has had a level of Gun control you Gun Control Americans can only dream about. Also strengthened substantially of late. ....Rabbit swears that illegal firearms have become eeven more prevalent and easy to acquire since the recent tightening of Gun Laws.
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Rabbit who is an experienced and very competant shooter, prefers not to own any firearms these days, legal or otherwise.
.............Rabbit is actually quite a good Explosives Chemist and Practitioner of the fine (and it can be fine) art of Blowing things up, not to mention cutting, softening and opening with high energy reactions.

Very highly exothermic reactions are Rabbit’s favorite toys......He loves them....He loves Rockets of his own design and manufacture. Rabbit loves Catherine Wheels too.
.....Holes can be dug with such ease, with such toys. .........The point is that when it comes to violence, Rabbit though eminently qualified would do a lot to avoid having to do anything violent. Things can go bang without breaking and killing, Fire and Sparks can be much more than just an effective way to kill. They can be, should only be, for our enjoyment.
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If the dreadful day comes when people must stand and fight those who would oppress them from within, then the best trick will be to get all the stuff you need of them. That is typically how resistances work. Rabbit has some old friends who were part of the Danish ressitance in their youger years, many interesting stories.
....We have always got the upper hand, w are the majority by a massive degree.

.................
Like Ghandi, we can and should extend a peaceful resistance to tyrrany for as long as there is a chance they will back down.
.....Unlike Ghandi we are facing a far more tyrranical, determined and entrenched foe. It may in the end come down to having to die fighting or live like curs.
....Oklahoma Bombing as well as many other “Events” over the last decade or two, are not good points of comparison anymore. There are too many “VERY” substantial questions about too many VERY critical deatils of such events, even the Federal Murrah Building.
...Rabbit will not accept that there is any proof that there are any particularly significant Terror organisations which exist for any other reason than as “Snowball” type creations. The unseen enemy, the danger against which we must defend ourselves at the cost of all freedom and privacy.

I am quite frankly sick and tired of people using these “Events”, so few and far between, as any kind of justification of anything. They are pretty few and far between even if all are legit.

.

It is not merely because of a few Crazy conspiracy theorists that there is an IMMENSE culture of people who are convinced that many of these things have been deliberately orchestrated by a single entity or two all along, but it is not those who have been very unconvincingly given the blame.

Rabbit does not raise these matters because he feels it is the time to discuss such things, seems off topic to be fair, but it is not as if these “events” were even well established facts. Many of the official stories have been so severely discredited at least that they have no more right to be badied about in serious discussion forums without qualification......
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Rabbit assumes that people on this thread are sufficiently informed about recent developments in the 911 case? The whole deck of cards is due to collapse any day, and even a totally compliant media will not be able to hold back the flood waters on this one.
....
911 is of crucial importance, because if it was not what it seemed and we know it was not, then pretty much everything which has gone on since is cast in a “New Light”. That last sentence may be one of the greatest understaements of the decade.
....
The artifical WOT and the whole Painted Scenario comes crashing to earth, leaving the most arrogant and hubristic race of people ever envisioned, devastated, as a superpower, extinct. As a world leader, extinct. All in less time that it takes to write a constitution.
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No knee jerk “Rabbit hates America” rubbish please from anyone. Knows Kuya is not so narrow minded, but who else is there? Rabbit is sad, devastated even to see this once beautiful and respectable Nation of Ideals, become what it is becoming. The worst of it is it is taking Rabbit’s homeland down with it, we are joined at the hip, or somewhere on Johnny Howhards Anatomy anyway

Kuya Rabbit has before said that Iranian Nukes do not worry him, and they should not worry anyone.

The only reason Iran has a “More” religiously inclined government that even the Iranians want, is due to the interference and heavy handedness of US interference in their business.
...
Let’s not go there, unless you seriously don’t know what Rabbit is talking about when he says that the USA, solely responsible for the hatred held for it by not merely religious Iranians but the secular ones as well.
Iran is being backed into a corner and it is only natural they would seek Nuclear weapons for their defence.
Stop slandering the Iranians who have not engaged in violence or even threatened it against the USA.
They have legitimate grievances with the US, a long and well documented list, but are asking nothing than to be left in peace.

Still they are being slandered by the US, they are being asked to jump through even more impossible hoops than any devised for Saddam Hussein and they are actually jumping through those hoops with flying colours. Kuya you are a reasonable person, Rabbit requests you formally to have a closer look at the reasons for your judgements of Iran or indeed any Middle Eastern Nation. You have got some shocks coming thinks I and Rabbit is not being rude saying this. The time is come for the truth, you would want nothing less I am sure.
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Let us say some Muslim God Squadder started blathering hate, in a similar way to a Robertson, for example. Let us say the Muslim government does not lock that Muslim Cleric in jail for saying such crap, but instead merely distances itself from the clerics words.

Does that justify calling that nation a terrorist nation?
.....If it does then the USA is by definition a Terrorist Nation too.

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How about Libya, set up, lied about, slandered and even had missiles shot at them by the US Military, not merely some Fundy nutcases, no sir, they got a few cruise missiles up their backsides and an attempt made to KILL Ghadaffi. Got some of his family for those who care. All Libya did was say we were not involved and nor is there any evidence to say our citizen was involved.
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....Oh but Libya is a terrorist nation. The Lockerbie Bombing is the evidence for that. Yes it is about the only evidence for such claims....Who knows the rest of the story?
......The whole case has collapsed as a Senior policeman and a CIA agent have independantly come forward to say that the only piece of evidence to link the Libyans, was planted. That is just the death stroke for the case, there is a lot more went wrong actually.
.......
Now Kuya, does it seem right that this was done to Libya? Does it seem possible that Libyans might have a bit of bad feeling about that?
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The most incredible news is that because they are Muslim nations they have a spiritual aspect to them which allows them to rise above a lot more of the hate and pettiness which is more common to Christian society on the whole.
...Mate if the MUslims were more intrinsically violent we would be living a daily bloodbath.
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Mate the fact is that it is mostly Muslims who are living the daily bloodbath, and it is us doing the killing.
...................An observation.

“Libya was hit with missiles by the USA for refusing to hand over some of its citizens for trial when they said there was no case for those citizens to answer.”

Being stationed in Germany when L.I.B.Y.A. meant Lakenheath Is Bombing Your Arse, I remember that the bombing of Libya (April 1986) was in response to the West Berlin Disco Bombing that killed many American serviceman. This was three years before Lockerbie (December 1989).

I don’t know if GhostRabbit is a fantasy persona or real.  What is evident though is that Rabbit is able to think.  He is clearly well-informed and researches for a more objective truth.  He is not some ring-the-bell-the-dog-salivates, knee-jerk, programmed-by-corporate-propaganda type.  He is outside the matrix, and sees what the real deal is… more or less. He is no longer sitting in the cave, watching the shadows cast unto the wall: he has gotten away and stepped out into the light.

He seems to understand what most are afraid to even consider, and what most are in fact dedicated to being in a state of denial about… in protection of their ego-centered self images and their immature comfort zones.  Rabbit is not so easily controlled by the stupor of fear and insecurity. 

Rabbit is right… and it bears repeating, that the “events” that are used by ruthless Machiavellian types to steer “the bewildered herd” are, when closely studied, bogus and not at all objectively consistent to the “official versions” of what occurred.  There are important unanswered questions and valid reasons to be suspicious that the truth has been hidden and we are deceived.

‘And he is quite sensible to reflect that even if these events were actually legit, as shaped for us by the corporate media, they are so few and far between that is doesn’t make sense that they should be the center of our lives and the singular driving force of our national agenda.  Our unelected “leaders” do not serve “the people” but are errand boys for, and members of, the stratospheric elite of the “new world order”, who would rule the world.  They use these explosions, and their God bullshit, to steer the frightened herd towards the cliffs.

The ability to quote Plato does not make one right. Remember, Plato also thought that societies should be ruled by philosopher-kings who had the right of sovereignty by virute of being smarter than the rest of us.

To say one has the ability to think, that one seeks objective truth, and then back it up with comments that are over-the-top conspiracy theories about “unelected leaders” and that “straospheric elite...steer(ing) the frightened herd towards the cliff”, is about as disingenuous and counterproductive to intelligent discourse as you can get.

It is no different than saying God exists because without a God, there would be no intelligent design.

Bill Moyers says,
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“Having lost faith in all else, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause to please a warrior God. They win if we become holy warriors, too; if we kill the innocent as they do; strike first at those who had not struck us; allow our leaders to use the fear of terrorism to make us afraid of the truth; cease to think and reason together, allowing others to tell what’s in God’s mind. Yes, we are vulnerable to terrorists, but only a shaken faith in ourselves can do us in.”
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Yea, verily.
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Yet the implicit assumption being made, and not being challenged, is that America has become a nation led by holy warriors, that we have become a nation fearful of the truth.
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Au contraire, mon ami.
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The truth is somebody punched us in the nose and have since made it verily clear they will continue to do so.
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Putting up your dukes is not the behavior of a fearful man; turning tail and running to the nearest sand pit and burying your head in denial is.

To Jay Cline continued:

As for the elite:  You are aware, are you not, that less than 1% of our population owns more than 50% of the wealth in our nation.  Ponder for a while the implications of that.  That, to my mind, is not exactly the kind of society
that our founders had in mind.

Speaking of conspiracy theories: Let me give you a couple of dots to connect. 

Dot 1:  Are you aware that in the early 1930s that the very popular Marine General Smedley Butler reported to congress that he had been approached to lead a military coup against FDR.  The coup was backed by some of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful business interests, who wanted to establish a Mussolini-like fascist government to replace our democracy.  There was a congressional investigation which seems to have validated the possibility of such a plan.  However, the whole thing was swept under the rug somewhat by insecure politicians and a not very free press.  No one was ever held accountable.  For a deeper look at U.S. history as it is NOT taught in our schools you could read The Plot to Seize the White House by John Spivak, one of the better researched accounts of the plot.

Dot 2:  Are you aware that the term “military-industrial complex” was not created by some 60s hippie?  The term was coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he tried to warn the American public, during his farewell speech to them, that our government was insideously being taken over by military-industrial interests who were driven more by greed and concern for the nation.  Read the speech, research the concept.

Dot 3:  The Project for the New American Century --- The New World Order.  This neo-con plan for the American Empire which calls for the U.S. to take control of the middle-eastern oil fields.  Members of the Project include Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc.  These plans were presented for consideration to Bush I, but he thought that the American people would not go along with such extreme measures when they lacked justification.  In the neo-cons own language, some type of “new Pearl Harbor” would then be needed to bring the American people on board.  How fortunate for them that 9-11 provided that new Pearl Harbor event to justify implementing this hidden agenda, which had been in waiting in the wings for a decade.
Do you homework.

I was in the Air Force Security Service, the USAF branch of the NSA, in the mid 60s.  I had a top-secret, crypto clearance, and was involved in electronic/communications espionage.  I spent 2 years in the northern snow mountains of Honshu, Japan and a full year in the Northwest Tribal Territories of Pakistan, where Bin Laden is now.  One thing I came to understand from this and other experiences is this:  Things are seldom what they seem.  Most agendas are hidden and fed to the public as something else… something admirable.  Truth is that there is are ongoing agendas in both domestic and foreign policy that have nothing to do with the commom good or our national interests, but instead are devised to transfer large amounts of public capital into private corporate pockets.  This is not the society that our founder’s intended.

‘And any close, thorough, fact-based analysis of our last two presidential elections ought to leave some bit of fishy smell in your nostrils.  Who are we to be trying to establish “democracy” around the world, when the will of “the people” is being undermined and discouraged here at home?  These last elections are two of the most questionable in our nations history.

Obviously, I have too much time on my hands, Jay Cline.  But it is good that we deliberate and respectfully exchange perspectives.  This is what our founders intended.  No one account has the total picture, but a collaborative pursuit of honest, objective truth will help to get us closer to it.  The truth will set us free: and nazi-like, emotionally-conditioned, corporate-sponsored, faith-based propaganda will enslave us.

Response to all three DOTs from ljwhit.

Yea, who doesn’t know that? You don’t need a top-secret crypto clearance to “ferret” that out.

Typical conspiracy nuts believe they know everything and everyone else is just dumb, blind and stupid. I believe the medical terminology is ‘delusions of grandeur’.

Did you know General of the Potomac Army George McClellan, affectionately known as “Little Mac” or unaffectionately as “Little Napoleon”, advocated a dictatorship (ie military coup) to rescue us from Lincoln’s simple-mindedness? And did you know that he was the Democratic presidential candidate running against Lincoln in 1864?

Did you know that Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a dual during Jefferson’s presidency, was approached by the British to start a new “republic” out West? With British military support?

Did you know that Generalissmo Douglas MacArthur attempted to force President Truman’s hand with regards to using nukes in Korea?

Did you know that General Arnold Benedict ... well, you get my point.

What’s your point? I mean, short of invoking Illuminati conspiracies, that is.

My point, which you never even touched, is that
leading the country into a fight against an evil that actively target civilians and commits mass murder is not tantamount to fear-mongering.

(Mis)quoting the sign on the gates to Auschwitz, “Arbeit macht frei”, doesn’t give you much credibility, either.

One additional note:

“You are aware, are you not, that less than 1% of our population owns more than 50% of the wealth in our nation.  Ponder for a while the implications of that.  That, to my mind, is not exactly the kind of society that our founders had in mind.”

umm, you mean the kind of country where free men can aspire to be something? where free men can keep the fruits of their labors?

Did you know that nearly all of the really big tycoons in American history, started out with practically nothing?

Yeah, I really do believe that is what was intended…

Do your homework.

God, I just can’t let this alone.