Month: March 2006

The Islamists can always beat out the Christianists in their intolerance. Here’s a classic from a member of the Syrian government:

"All the diseases that have to do with sexual organs, mainly AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, and so on… When these diseases appeared, they killed millions. More people were killed by these diseases than by wars. The only reason for this is the straying from the divine way regarding fornication, and when I say fornication – "Do not even approach abomination" ‚Äì this means fornication, homosexuality, and all the sexual deviation it entails… The entire world, from the US to the most distant country, acknowledges that if they had stoned the fornicators, and prevented abomination, things would have been much better."

Just an update from the religious right in Islam. (Hat tip: Petrelis.)

Horrible news: the twelve signatories of the anti-Islamist manifesto, "Together facing the new totalitarianism," have now been put under a very credible death threat by a thread on the British Islamist site, Ummah.net. They’ve had random indidivual death threats in the past, but this one has "authority." In response, the twelve are asking for more of us to put our own names to a second manifesto, supporting them against the Islamist brownshirts. The text to be signed is:

"We support the signatories of the Manifesto ‘Together facing the new totalitarianism’  On Saturday, March 11, a thread on the British Islamist site, http://www.ummah.net, issued a death threat against the 12 signatories. The text of the threat is very clear:

‘Excellent – makes killing the kuffar [apostate] all the bit easier… Now we have a hit list of a ‘Who’s Who’ guide to slam into. Take your time but make sure their gone soon – oh and don’t hold out for a fatwah it isn’t really required here.’

We, the undersigned, wish to express our unequivocal support for and solidarity with the twelve signatories and our outrage at the Islamist movement’s attack on them. We stand firm with the 12 against this reactionary movement and join in their call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all."

To sign it, simply email your name to prochoix@prochoix.org. Very soon, they’ll post the manifesto with the names attached. Stand up for those whose freedom and very life is threatened because of their free speech. If our governments and our own media will not stand up for free speech, we can.

Just when you think this administration may have learned something about exaggerating claims or saying things that are not rock-solid in the war on terror, you get the following contrast. On Monday, the president said the following:

"Some of the most powerful IEDs we are seeing in Iraq today includes components that came from Iran.
Our director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, told the Congress, Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran. Such actions, along with Iran’s support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, are increasingly isolating Iran."

Yesterday’s Pentagon press conference elicited the following exchange, acording to Reuters:

"President George W. Bush said on Monday components from Iran were being used in powerful roadside bombs used in Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel had been inside Iraq.
Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran’s government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, ‘I do not, sir.’"

I cannot imagine it’s a good idea for the president to offer what is billed as an honest assesssment of what’s going on in Iraq, while his chief military commander sees no proof for the accusation. We’ve just learned not to trust what this president says about Iran. It keeps getting better, doesn’t it?

"Today, same-sex couples are marrying under the law in Massachusetts. Some are actually having children born to them. It’s not right on paper. It’s not right in fact. Every child has the right to have a mother and a father," – Mitt Romney, to supporters in Utah, last year, an applause line he often reprises to Christianist groups.

"I know that there will be some gay couples who will say that this could be discriminatory against us. Except that there are many, many other agencies that can meet the needs of those gay couples, and I recognize that they have a legitimate interest in being able to receive adoptive services," – Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, Monday.

I guess it’s hard out there for a bigot.

There is no popular writer with real intellectual credentials who has had as much impact on American evangelicalism as C.S. Lewis. He’s often quoted in Republican circles. Fred Barnes I know is a big fan – the same Fred who has dismissed "water-boarding" as a trivial "coercive interrogation technique". Maybe he should have used the euphemism Lewis mocked: "scientific examination." But don’t give Rummy any ideas. Here’s a reader who’s been immersed in Lewis lately:

"I have been rereading C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength from his Space Trilogy, and I came across a quote from a character who’s one of the bad guys. Your discussion of the torture issue brought you to mind when I read these lines, from a figure considering the torture of another:

"Oh," said Wither, "there is nothing I should more deeply deplore. Scientific examination (I cannot allow the word Torture in this context) in cases where the patient doesn’t know the answer is always a fatal mistake. As men of humanity we should neither of us … and then, if you go on, the patient naturally does not recover … and if you stop, even an experienced operator is haunted by the fear that perhaps he did know after all. It is in every way unsatisfactory."

And that’s one of the bad guys!"

But we, as Barnes and Bush would insist, are the good guys. And being the good guys, when we do bad things, that makes them good, see? "We do not torture." Because we’re us.

Ever get a desperate or enticing message frome one PRINCE SOKI MOBUTU, son of the late President Mobutu SeseSekou of Zaire, new Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)? A charming fellow, who goes by the name of Ebola Monkey Man, decided to have a lengthy, Ali G-style, correspondence with said Prince. I must say I found it rather amusing. The first reponse is:

"Dear Prince Soki Mobutu,
Hello. My name is Mike. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner but I haven’t checked my email in awhile. Your proposal sounds very interesting to me and I want to help. Let me tell you something about myself and then you can decide if you want to work with me.
I work in the music industry. I’m hoping to cut an album with my boy B-Smooth later next month. I was thinking that if I helped you get this money, then I would have enough to cover our expenses and even make a music video.
What do you think?
Thanks
Mike Banks aka ‘Black Mic – Bitch Honkey Killa’"

It gets better.

(Hat tip: the Prophet Matthew, peace be upon him.)

From Sunday’s Meet The Press:

"MR. RUSSERT: Senator Biden, you voted for the war. Senator Edwards was on this program last week, and he said he was wrong in voting for that war. Were you wrong?

SEN. BIDEN: I was‚Äîthe mistake I made was that I never imagined they‚Äôd be this incompetent in the pursuit of the war. I‚Äîon your program not almost a year ago I said that, Tim. It has stunned me, the incompetence and way in which they pursued the war, what they’re doing now."

I await the pile-on from the Kossers. It was my primary mistake as well.

Salon has the rest.

It’s more apparent than ever that this administration has abandoned any pretense of being conservative in domestic policy. I don’t mean by "conservative" applying fundamentalist theological positions to social policy, regardless of the consequences. That’s well entrenched. I mean actually limiting government, favoring personal self-reliance, and balancing budgets. More evidence here:

"A USA Today analysis of 25 major government programs found that enrollment increased an average of 17% in the programs from 2000 to 2005. The nation’s population grew 5% during that time.

It was the largest five-year expansion of the federal safety net since the Great Society created programs such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s.

Spending on these social programs was $1.3 trillion in 2005, up an inflation-adjusted 22% since 2000 and accounting for more than half of federal spending. Enrollment growth was responsible for three-fourths of the spending increase, according to USA TODAY’s analysis of federal enrollment and spending data. Higher benefits accounted for the rest."

Bush is not a conservative. He’s a Christianist in social policy; and a left-liberal on entitlements. This has been clear for several years now. His main achievement has been to wean more and more people onto government assistance; and to pledge vast increases in the generosity of that assistance. None of this will be reversed; very few entitlements ever are. All that’s left is a massive tax hike. But that’s coming. When it arrives, whoever enacts it, it will be the legacy and policy of one man: George W. Bush. And it will have to be the biggest tax increase for a very long time.