We know these murdering terrorists all too well, as Tiller isn’t the first doctor they’ve attacked and/or killed. The goal of killing doctors who provide legal medical services is not to end abortion. Abortion is as old as the hills. Safe medical abortion is relatively new.

Humans of course have more choices than bears and deer and burrowing critters who consume certain plants to induce abortion. Humans decide to have sex (most of the time), then they decide to have or not have a baby. It is apparently the freedom to choose that the antis so vehemently disagree with, so they engage in acts of terrorism with the intent to scare doctors away from providing the safe medical procedure.

Now, the denizens of Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion groups don’t offer to cover the costs of prenatal and delivery care for those who think abortion is the best answer to their life-dilemma. Nor are they noted for assuming responsibility to care for the children they demand be born, by support, adoption or fostering. And they don’t much care about the heartache they’d visit on women and families faced with the birth of a child that is seriously compromised genetically or developmentally and has no chance for a decent life.

The specter of innocent fetuses (or just collections of rapidly-dividing cells) being removed is a much more powerful incentive to opposition than the true reasons for the fundamentalist religious objection to this medical procedure. Let’s face it – God is the #1 abortionist in the universe, causing at least a third of all pregnancies to end in ’spontaneous’ abortion. And there’s no evidence whatsoever that life – or even human life – has ever been considered “precious” to the Judeo-Christian God who demanded blood sacrifice, or to his fervent followers.

The FBI defines terrorism as:

The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

That’s clear enough. The government ruled in 1973 that women have a right to choose whether or not to have a baby, up until viability when states may exert their interest in the unborn child. In Jesus’s Jihadists Sara Robinson wrote:

The fact that this shooting occurred in a church (again) suggests that this tactic is now being tried out on more closely related faith groups whose views don’t comport with the fundamentalist party line. As Dave has often pointed out, bringing violence to houses of worship is usually an overtly eliminationist act.  They are trying to terrify liberals by making us feel at risk and unsafe inside our own spiritual sanctuaries — the very places we go to feel the most security and peace. This is terrorism, plain and simple — Christian fundamentalist terrorism, committed by people Sam Smith has started referring to as “Jesus’s Jihadis.”

The surest, quickest way for radical fundamentalist wingnut-ism to go away is for them to turn terrorist against other members of the faith. Make no mistake – Roeder’s choice of setting for his crime means as much as who the target was. After the Department of Homeland Security issued its Report on Rightwing Extremism naming anti-abortion groups as an example of the genre, Jay Sekulow of the right wing American Center for Law and Justice issued a statement:

“This is an outrageous characterization that raises serious questions about the leadership and direction of the agency charged with protecting Americans in the ongoing battle against terrorism. Why would the Department of Homeland Security single out groups like pro-life supporters when they should be focusing on identifying and apprehending the real terrorists – like al-Qaeda – groups that have vowed to destroy America?

Well, fact is that the United States government is a democratic republic by charter, does not recognize any state religion or denomination, and prohibits agents of the state to proselytize religion on government’s dime. It has three branches, one of those to decide matters of law, and it decided a long time ago that women have a right to privacy in terms of their reproductive functions. Religion has gifted American law with many of its most blatantly useless and/or actively harmful legislation over the years, and these eventually came to be struck down. Prohibition, slavery, eugenics, miscegenation, anti-abortion. Because forcing everyone to abide by one’s own religious beliefs doesn’t work.

What these religious terrorists want is to “destroy America.” They want to abolish the Constitution and the entire body of US law in order to erect something quite else in their place. A theocracy – government by religious authority and religious law – is not a democratic republic. These extremists are every bit as dangerous to the body politic as al-Qaeda, moreso because they live among us rather than in caves in Central Asia. These people share our schools and workplaces and streets and neighborhoods. They are invisible because they look just like us.

So yeah, I think religious and other extremists in our midst DO need attention from DHS. Hopefully before any one or more of them pulls a Timothy McVeigh and kills a lot of innocent citizens. I figure if the anti-terror apparatus is going to waste time and money spying on groups of overage pacifist Quakers, they ought to be spying on the really dangerous groups too.

We begin the New Year with diminished expectations for the Obama administration in the face of worsening economic conditions following the Bushies’ End Game looting of the nation’s wealth. Predictions are now beginning to acknowledge that there’s not much hope for recovery until 2011 at least, credit card companies have jumped into the looting frenzy en masse to jump interest rates approaching 50%, juggled due dates and credit cut-offs even for cardholders and small businesses who have spotless records and pay off balances every month. Ranks of the unemployed continue to swell, reaching official levels close to 10% and unofficial levels over 15%. Citizens continue to die for lack of accessible, affordable health care, and states are now cutting their Medicaid and SCHIP coverage due to diminished income.

Nothing particularly happy about this New Year. Meanwhile, over in the Middle East where things have been decidedly unhappy for at least 4,000 years, Israel is at it again. Eight days’ worth of air bombardment of cities, towns and refugee camps have killed more than 400 Palestinians and injured more than 2,000 in retaliation for Hamas rockets fired into southern Israel across the border by that hopelessly terrorist enclave of perpetual victimhood and hate no other Arabic nations care to embrace for resettlement, knowing the players are incurable barbarians just like Israel does. After generations of forced incarceration in camps, this predicament was entirely predictable 60 years ago when the arrangements were made.

On Saturday morning leaflets were dropped into Gaza warning residents to flee with their families “for your own safety,” though where they should flee was not specified. 12 hours later IDF ground forces, under cover of tank and mortar fire amassed at the borders, moved on in.

So far 4 Israelis have been killed, 59 injured. While I can applaud the latecoming recognition of many in the region that what the Palestinians have been doing with their rockets and suicide bombers in Israel is indeed genuinely and properly labeled “terrorism,” I wonder when the civilized world is ever going to live up to its self-bestowed title and figure out some other, more effective response to terrorism than all-out war. Oh, and I do have a question about the timing of all this nastiness…

Is Israel attempting by this mass slaughter to dictate to incoming [on January 20] US President Barak Obama what his administration’s policy should be per this eternal conflict, or is it simply getting its licks in while the Bushies are still ostensibly “in charge?”

Janis Joplin once sang someone else’s song very poignantly – “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…” – and that’s semi-true in my experience. We all make choices about what’s important in our lives, and usually become enslaved to that which we choose. At the low end of the scale there’s never enough, just paying the bills is a constant struggle. At the high end of the scale there is also never enough. The thirst for more and more and more rules lives and ruins them too.

As Wall Street melts down we’re suddenly informed we must Spend, Spend, Spend!!! They can never make up their minds. Either we’re not saving enough or we’re not spending enough, it’s always our fault. I call bullshit. Slave wages have not even kept up with the cost of living, they can’t have it both ways.

I read about a 50-something day care worker yesterday who a coworker noticed sitting in the corner crying. When asked what’s wrong, she finally said she couldn’t feel her face. The coworker was alarmed, saw one side of her face drooping as they were talking, speech slurring. She drove her friend to the hospital, but the woman just cried harder and wouldn’t get out of the car. Said yes, she must be having a stroke, but if she walked in the door she’d lose everything – house, car, meager income (job)… she was terrified. Her friend finally talked her into going, she is still in the hospital and her coworkers are trying very hard to raise the tens of thousands she’ll need to pay for the care. There is no insurance at that end of the scale.

Some people on that discussion board from Europe and Australia were horrified. Simply trying to imagine what it must be like to face utter ruin just because you need to see a doctor – when you might be dying. Where dying is the “reasonable” choice, just so your children aren’t left bankrupt. Every other civilized country in the world provides basic health care for their citizens. Only in America…

This is wrong. We all work, much harder than the greed-head capitalists who skim the wealth we create for themselves. There are only so many hours in a day, and humans need sleep. If two full-time minimum wage jobs or three part-time minimum wage jobs – 16 hours a day, the kids are home alone – can’t provide a decent income, it’s NOT because these people are “lazy” or “shiftless” or anything. That’s wrong too. Now that Wall Street has cashed-out, millions who are very much willing to work won’t have jobs – there won’t be any. Great Depression v2.0. This is what unfettered ‘free market capitalism’ has wrought. It’s not pretty, and I sincerely doubt Jesus would approve.

So the haters are busy whipping up more hate. Buzzwords like “socialism,” taxing the rich, scary black people, gays and terrorists around every corner… “God’s Voter Guide.” That’s f***ing obscene! Dogs and cats living together, total chaos!!! Booga Booga, blah, blah, blah, Osama bin Laden, blah, blah, blah, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, blah, blah, blah. Disgusting.

We need change, not hate. Hate’s not going to help anyone, it’s just going to cause more pain. Maybe if the so-called Christians spewing hate 24-7 and worshipping golden bulls on Wall Street were exposed as the liars, posers and hypocrites they truly are, we could finally all work together to improve our nation and everyone’s lives. As if this were the United States of America, sans secessionists and domestic terrorists in the White House.

There’s a difference between “socialism” that has the government working for the people, and “socialism” that has government working for the corporate greed-heads. One is how the rest of the free world functions these days. The other is fascism. Things can’t go on like this, so when the dust clears which choice will we make? Valueless money is just mammon. Belongs to Caesar, not to God (who is pennyless). Our nation is drowning in it. If We the People ever come to our senses, we’d realize there are way more of “us” than “them.” So I hope. Right now that’s pretty much all there is, and a great many others are hoping too…

Happy Halloween – Booga Booga!!!

Berlin

Jerusalem

Now, THAT’s how you woo the world! Our erstwhile allies are all pretty darned tired of being bullied. Maybe it’s not too farfetched to hope that Americans might finally get tired of being bullied too.

The Bushies (including John McCain) reacted to Obamapalooza just as everyone paying attention would expect. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice issued orders the night before Obama left to State Department employees in all the scheduled tour stops that they must not attend any speeches or events or aid Obama (or the other two US Senators on the tour) in any way when they’re in-country. But since assisting US leaders – or even arranging their events, as has been done for McCain’s travels – when they’re in-country is part of the diplomatic corps’ job description, most pointedly ignored the orders.

This is going to be a fun election.

Rich takes a refreshingly detached look at the current situation in the Presidential candidate fields on both sides of the party divide, that stupid game I like to call “Dueling Religious Bigots.” In particular, Rich dares to take on John McCain’s coveted endorsement by the right-wing religious ‘base’ wannabe spokesperson, the Reverend John Hagee. Who stars in the amazing (and highly disgusting) video below, that everyone who reads this should watch – if for no other reason than to remind you WHY Democrats very much need to win big this November…

Now, we’ve all heard over and over again ad nauseum all about the strange racial ideas of Barack Obama’s favorite black clergyman, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama has reluctantly had to distance himself and even denounce his old friend after Wright went on the warpath to destroy his parishoner’s chances at the White House to the best of his abilities. Who knows why a black preacher would want to prevent the chance that we might elect our first black president? I expect hubris is right up there with the money for that odd situation.

But who besides Rich has bothered to take a real look at Hagee’s crazy views? Why is the mainstream media harping on Wright and giving Hagee a pass? Pertinent observation from Rich…

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

To which I say, Amen.

“We will never forget, we will never hide, and we will never stop asking ourselves every morning what we must do to prevent what happened to ever repeat itself.”

So said Israeli President Shimon Peres at the main ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned his audience that anti-semitism is on the rise across the world today, and that insidious forms of Holocaust denial were asserting themselves even in nations that have every reason to remember with circumspection what occurred in Europe 63 years ago.

Iran’s quixotic dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims the Holocaust is a “myth,” and hosted a revisionist Holocaust conference in 2006. Given that Israel and Iran are currently at a heightened state of tensions – complete with bravado from Hillary Clinton about “nuclear umbrellas” and US defense of Israel (which has plenty of its own nuclear weapons) – it’s worthwhile for those who weren’t born when this horror occurred to take a long, hard look at reality.

Yet in Britain, Muslims have joined in commemoration events, which is a step forward, at least for those Muslims who have chosen to participate in the modern world by immigrating to countries like Britain.

A documentary film entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was released just two weeks ago purporting to examine the censorship and discrimination in American academia against biologists and other scientists who criticize the Neodarwinian model of biological evolution. The never-ending Evolution vs. Creationism debates aside, a disturbing focus of the film are images linking Darwinism to Eugenics, and Eugenics to the Holocaust. This has resulted in the explosion of a very strange form of Holocaust denial coming from the ranks of science and academia that is a bit shocking.

Despite the ebbs and flows of partisan politics and election campaigns and candidates who will say or do anything to get themselves elected to power, today is a very good day to stop for a moment and asses our overall sociopolitical situation. We are at war on two fronts (again), and the costs are now coming due in increasing poverty and rising prices for every necessity of life. Will we again stoop to blaming the poor? Will we once again single out the religious for persecution and ‘elimination’? Will we allow the so-called “intellectual elite” to deny the lessons of real history in order to justify a renewed eugenics aimed (as always) at those they see as ‘lesser’ humans?

That seems a serious question to me. The quadrennial international convention of the United Methodist Church meeting on this day in Fort Worth, Texas, issued a historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of eugenics in the 20th century, apologizing for Methodist support of eugenic policies in America in the first half of the 20th century, and warning about a resurgence of eugenics in the 21st century. They are the first Christian denomination to issue such a resolution and apology, in recognition of the Holocaust such policies were used to justify.

Perhaps someday we’ll see a similar resolution from some organization of influence in biological/evolutionary science apologizing for the corruption of Darwin’s theory that was used to justify forced sterilization and miscegenation laws in this country and in Europe, and which did in fact get further corrupted by Hitler in his quest for “racial purity.” That too would be a step forward after more than 6 decades. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

Links:

Marking annual Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day
Israel marks Holocaust Memorial Day
Eugenics Apologies

Speaking about the people of rural Pennsylvania – site of the next primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Obama said on Friday…

“…it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Aside from the fact that this statement is 100% true of small town and rural people as a general demographic – as one sociological reason that rural dwellers so often vote against their own best interests after being swayed by propaganda fluff from so many GOP “values candidates” who don’t practice what they preach – Clinton’s smear team was poised and ready to make as much hay as possible about how “elitist” Obama has revealed himself to be.

As if Hillary’s just another good ol’ boy fundamentalist hater chewing tobacco and playing with guns while eating possum as the “other other white meat.” Riiiiiight… I swear, this campaign just gets sillier and sillier.

Fact of the matter is that Obama’s off-the-cuff response to a question (as cited above) pretty well captures the malaise in rural and small town America these days. They are the people who suffer first and most from the outsourcing of jobs and factories, from bad agricultural policies and bad trade agreements, from shortfalls in the so-called “safety net” that prevents new enrollees in Medicaid, food stamps, extended unemployment benefits, etc., etc. These are the people the American Dream has passed by, and yes, they *are* bitter about it.

Still, it’s probably smarter to appeal to hopes for renewal that may yet be attainable than to reiterate hopes dashed on the rocks of reality in 21st century America. At least, if you’re hoping to get votes. As for guns and religion, rural people have always cared about these things as part of their heritage and community. These are not things that are new for the left behinds in our society. As for racism and anti-immigrant feelings, these rear their ugly heads whenever people lose their jobs en mass and see that newcomers and ‘others’ still have jobs (even if they’re not jobs the recently unemployed factory workers want to do).

Democrats shouldn’t be attacking each other using GOP frames, but for some unfathomable reason Hillary Clinton believes this is her best strategy for winning a nomination she can’t win by counting votes. Appeals to base instincts like racism will blow up in her face, given that in that same base instinct pile are all the reasons men can think of to hate and distrust women. I’d hoped she was smarter than that.

Hillary Clinton is running as a DC insider and a representative of the latte-drinking, ‘establishment’ elite, so it’s quite amusing to see her attempt to out-redneck the rednecks while accusing the black guy of being an ‘elitist’. But before this gets out of hand, someone maybe ought to remind them both that in this country it’s considered okay to both have religion and own guns. Those are right there in the first two amendments to the Constitution, and making the free exercise of those rights an issue of ignorance, bitterness and fear is NOT a winning strategy.

Why, it just might alert all those ignorant non-citified rubes out there that the Democratic Party might not have much respect for their most cherished rights – with intent to abridge them unconstitutionally the moment they get the chance. Just not a good way to go about gathering votes, I’m thinking.

Of course, that’s what I get for thinking…

On the last day of November, 2007, a tense standoff in Rochester, New Hampshire occurred when a man walked into Hillary Clinton’s local campaign headquarters, claimed he had a bomb strapped to himself with duct tape, and took two campaign volunteers hostage. It lasted for hours before he finally allowed the hostages to leave and walked out to unstrap the “bomb” to turn himself in.

There has been quite a lot of talk in the political blogosphere about how hate speech in the ‘normal’ course of politics as usual can incite unstable people to commit terrible crimes. And as people living near the economic edge begin to fall off, we aren’t seeing any slowdown of bizarre acts and mass murders. But in politics, the hate is just getting warmed up.

On the right (RedState and FreeRepublic) the denizens were hoarding popcorn and speculating that Clinton had arranged for this attention-grab herself, liberally (ha!) salted with the usual right-wingnut hate speech we’re so used to from that corner. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly has of course embraced “The Politics of Hate” as his theme for the election season.

On the left there is also no shortage of hate, and it’s not all directed at G.W. Bush. Hillary Clinton, whom many progressives believe to be just another puppet of the status quo of cowards and shrinking violets that comprise the Democratic leadership gets more than her share.

Things haven’t gotten any better since the start of the primaries and caucuses, though many of the wannabes have dropped out. Republican front-runner John McCain comes in for regular trashing from the talking heads of his own party’s hate machine (Rush Limbaugh, et al.). Though no one should take the threats of suicide should he win the nomination seriously. More interesting are the threats to vote for Hillary instead!

Meanwhile, Hillary is still distrusted by many. First for her macho posturing – an attempt to be more of a hawk than the chickenhawks to prove a woman can be Commander In Chief – and secondly for the confusion her hubby keeps slinging into the race. As if Hillary’s quest for the White House is just a way to get him a third term.

Obama hasn’t really encountered the worst of the Hate Machine yet, but things are picking up from the usual racist front as well as the religious bigot front. So long as things remain essentially tied, we can expect the hate speech to get louder and louder.

Perhaps as things go forward to the conventions America will have overdosed on the Politics of Hate enough to change the station. We can always hope!

The Dems

For those of us who weren’t thrilled with the idea of revolving political dynasties – the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton mantra – Iowa’s caucuses came as a refreshing surprise. Given Hillary’s “brass balls” approach to belligerent foreign policy, obvious ties to Big Business and business as usual, and her penchant for dirty politics, I think she got what she deserved – a sound slap-down.

It’s not that I like Barack Obama that much either, or that the mostly rural, stoically rustic population of Iowa is a particularly good representative of America in general (or the political leanings of the nation). But when Hillary Clinton set her staffers on Obama with repeats of already established lies and smears, it’s gratifying that Iowans turned against her in droves. The *last* thing this country needs is just another dirty politician in a bad suit.

All that said, Obama is going to have to learn some things quickly that my personal favorite – John Edwards – had to learn the hard way back in 2004. Like Edwards then, Obama is a relative rookie. He’s mostly an unknown factor for the country at large, and while young and energetic and extremely well-spoken, he’s got some serious deficits.

His health plan is weak, though so is everyone else’s now in the arena save for Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich could still weild some power and contribute single payer as a platform plank at the convention if he can stay afloat through the early primaries. Obama’s tried hard to out-balls Hillary for so long that now Democrats must wonder who will finally do their expressed bidding – reflected in the ‘06 voting – and get us the hell out of Iraq.

Obama’s never faced the Republican slime machine either, at least not in as significant of ways as Hillary and Edwards have. Still, if his middle name, ethic heritage and kindergarten transcripts are the best that Hillary’s minions could dish out he may be a shoo-in.

Edwards beat Clinton for second place by a mere nose, but New Hampshire should come in a little differently. There I’ll be brave and suggest that Edwards and Clinton will be neck and neck for the top spot, with Obama bringing up the rear. Looks to me like the real race is between these three, even though I’d really like to see Kucinich and Richardson show well in at least one of the early primaries.

Possibly the most gratifying thing about the caucuses was the turnout. Independents overwhelmingly caucused with Democrats, bringing in 236,000 participants. In 2000, all the Dems could pull for the exercise was 59,000. This should be telling ALL the candidates something. People are upset that their Congressional votes in ‘06 didn’t manage to sway the leadership into doing what We the People want done. Now we want an administrative leader who will.

Both Joe Biden and Chris Dodd used the opportunity to bow out of the race gracefully. While we know that the fields have to be trimmed by the process, I’m a little sorry to see them go. Our Democratic field this cycle is the best I’ve ever seen in all my long years, and any of them could have beaten any Republican in the race. Here’s hoping that the best ideas among them end up in the platform when the Convention’s final bell has rung!

The Reps

Republicans drew around 115,000 participants in the caucus, compared to a mere 87,000 in 2000, a 30% increase. So it’s clear that the citizenry is more than ready for a big change in D.C. and the country after 8 years of depression and anxiety from Bush and the ‘Borg.

Mike Huckabee, another former Arkansas governor, soundly defeated the strong Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, an upset that has the campaigns re-thinking strategy a little bit. Particularly in regards to the notorious “Base” of reliable voters that come from the megachurches of the Religious Right. Huckabee’s sudden surge appears to have come based on his rather radical theocratic rhetoric in the past few weeks, while other Republican candidates have been downplaying ties to the RR base of Bush voters.

As a Democrat I’d love to see a Romney-Huckabee horse race deteriorate into savage inter-religious back-biting, which would disgust mainline Christian voters – and possibly whole branches of the once-independently minded Baptists – enough to start looking elsewhere for national leadership.

Rudi Guiliani, the arguably mob-connected ex-mayor of New York City running on the “Hero of 9-11″ platform, came in #6 with just 3% of the caucus support. His organization had pretty much ignored Iowa and had no active on the ground campaign going there, so this result isn’t too surprising.

John McCain, who is possibly the strongest real-life candidate for his party’s nomination, will have an opportunity to turn Romney’s loss and Guiliani’s poor showing to his advantage in New Hampshire. In Iowa, however, McCain lost third place to Fred Thompson, a latecomer to the race. Not a very good showing, though he’s still a favorite in New Hampshire.

To tell the truth, I think that either Huckabee or Romney would be excellent candidates against any Democratic ticket we could put together. The issue of religious oppression and wannabe theocrats who have been trying for decades to usurp our national charter – that pesky Constitution – for establishment of their own version of Sharia Law – must play a large role in the 2008 elections. I am hoping that sensible religious people are finally waking up to our national nightmare and all these radical end-timers so eager to launch Armageddon in the Middle East over oil instead of simply invent our own ways of fueling our country. Tuesday should be very interesting!

Links:

NYT: Obama Takes Iowa in a Big Turnout

Kos: The Iowa Results

David Brooks: The Two Earthquakes

The Big Winner: Democrats

NYT Analysis: 2 Newcomers Jolt Parties’ Status Quo