Recently in Democracy Category

A good piece from the New Yorker , hat tip to TPM Josh

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town

Bush and Cheney—even with their approval ratings at historic lows and with Iraq veering toward open civil war—and their staffs still apparently find it impossible to admit error. In the week marking the third anniversary of the invasion, the Bush Administration delivered a portfolio of speeches and op-ed essays that seem even more arid and isolated than usual. (The President kept repeating his claim that he had a “strategy for victory,” but he sounded as if he were reading texts from 2004 that his staff had forgotten to clear from his desk.) At the same time, the White House reissued a national-security strategy doctrine that blandly reaffirmed Bush’s intent to “act pre-emptively,” should he see the need, as if there were not a reason in the world to reconsider his assumptions.

Josh's closing comment after linking to the article:

Even though public opinion has turned fairly decisively against the war, our whole public life today -- not just related to this war, but centered on it -- is awash in a sea of disinformation, official lies and denial. Indeed, lies and bad-faith obfuscation still set the terms of the public debate. We've barely scraped the surface in understanding how we got into this war -- largely because there's been no serious or independent investigation. And the dominant voices in the media are still willing to indulge the voices of liars on a par with those who are at least trying to grapple with what's happening.

Truly a struggling, deceptive crew seeing their house of cards crumbling, but they keep cranking out the propaganda to the ones who lap it up, blinded by their hopes of who knows what. But whatever it is, it bears little resemblance in either means or ends to the reality of the Kingdom of God. There's far too much looking to politics and church as usual that keep us from recognizing the alternate life which God wants us to know in community with the People of God

via Jesus Politics, Franklin Graham spouts more of the kind of maturity all too often typical of the American Civil religion. Anyone who defends the peaceful Islamic themes from distortion by Christians who afford nothing of the "exegetical" hack jobs they do for their own "difficult passages" in the Christian Bible to the Islamic theologians who try to "contextualize" the violent war-like passges in the Koran. It really disgusts me how blindly they follow this path, and fail to show any ability to see their own approach to Islam as similar in any way to those who they think misunderstand Christianity. There are no "explanations" allowed to defenses offered by those wishing to undserstand Islam as they themselves would insist that detractors from Christanity shold consider.

Jay Vorhees has a good post here on this topic

Jesus Politics: Franklin Graham: I don't need an education from Islam

"Do they want to indoctrinate me? Yes. I know about Islam. I don't need an education from Islam," he said. "If people think Islam is such a wonderful religion, just go to Saudi Arabia and make it your home. Just live there. If you think Islam is such a wonderful religion, I mean, go and live under the Taliban somewhere. I mean, you're free to do that."

I commented:

Yes Jay,

I often wonder what many of these “Islam is evil at its core” people would choose as their faith if they had grown up in the Middle East, in an Arab country. Judging by the proclivity of many of them toward Civil Religion, I suspect that they would have been a vocal member of the status-quo, popular religion, and joined in with angered Muslims accusing Christians of generalized hatred toward Islam. I have long believed in a “Cosmic Christ” who reveals himself in and through many “other cultural forms”, seeking to “break through” ANY cultural “norms” which inhibit “Beloved Community”.

Dale

The clincher on the "maturity" of these "islamic curse" people is the "go live there" remark. Not too different from the "America , love it or leave it". "Move to some other country if you don't like it".

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: February 26, 2006 - March 04, 2006 Archives

Oh, videotape is not the friend of George W. Bush today.

Remember this quote, right?

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will." - George W. Bush, Sept. 1, 2005

Only now the AP has unearthed videotape of the president being warned that just that could happen the day before Katrina hit.

Uh.....sounds familiar. .....

"Who would have thought that they would use airplanes to fly into buildings?"
Condaleeza Rice, Sept . 2001 (apparently a month or so after reading the August 9 PDB)

Chris Matthews ran the tape just a few minutes ago on Hardball.

See the report on it here.

Late Update: video link here.

Unbelievable. Send that writer to Iraq and then "Let Him Decide". Good grief. Practically scandalous to drudge up something like that for the sake of "balanced conversartion". Exploring "all sides of the issues". Well, Fox has entered into a new dimension entirely.

hat tip to:
willzhead: Name That Caption: 02/28/06

February 28, 2006 in Name That Caption | Permalink

The Mundane Life of Thunder Jones: Dumb, Lazy, or Controlled?

Our President is woefully uninformed. Worse, he kicks down and makes sure that, whenever he screws up, someone under him takes the blame for his mistakes. This isn't the Texas Rangers or some two-bit oil operation that he can fowl up, he is the President. His actions and mistakes take their toll on the lives and livelyhoods of US citizens.

Honestly, can we afford three more years of this?

There's more. Read the post.

I commented:

Amen dude.

Not to mention how he did the same with Al_quieda, treating Richard Clarke like a leper (all those warnings about Bin Laden were a "Clinton and Gore thing" , and thus the Bush administration doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the now infamous Aug 9 PDB (it was actually presented to Condi Rice OVER and OVER as a matter of urgency by Clarke, and basically ignored....and Bush was , what elese? on VACATION in August 2001, and never read the PDB until Septemeber 10!)

You probably knew all this, but your post here just brought up all that absolute disgust out of me again. The ineptitude of these people staggers the mind. I really do believe they are nothing but Political Money Launderers; they just make sure that their friends get the most bebefits, the most profits, and the PR to back them up, while they dismantle every item traditionally assumed to be the responsibility of government. And so many are still persisting in their blindness and refusal to recognize how inept and evil these people are.

This post from Talking Points Memo brought back to mind the things that has been dancing around in my mind since the whole "ports thing" broke.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: February 19, 2006 - February 25, 2006 Archives

From a TPM Reader BR from Houston: Being a War President, and the War on Terror itself, eclipses everything.

Except when it doesn’t.

The people who voted for him genuinely believed that he would keep them safer than any alternative we could elect. And now he’s blowing it all off, under the guise of “fair play” for countries that have “played by the rules.” Aside from the cribbing from Clinton, just which rules is it he thinks the UAE has played by?

The cynicism of his defense of the port deal is just staggering. He’s not even interested in pretending he didn’t know, or hadn’t considered the psychological ramifications, etc. Not even a nod to “maybe we should review this one more time.”

Could be it’s money—there is clearly some conflict of interesting running around the Treasury Dept.

But maybe they just don’t care. It’s all been a show, from day one. Or, I should say, Day 911.

I hope this knocks some sense into Republican heads. From what I heard on Sean Hannity today, perhaps it has.

As I indicate in the title to this post, this seems to be like a new chapter for the book House of Bush, House of Saud, which chronicles the history of the long-standing relationship between the Bush family and the United Arab Emirates. I'm not at all convinced that Bush didn't know anything about this. It came as a surprise to me that the White House is now saying Bush didn't know. It seemed in keeping with the seemingly irrational protection the Bush administration afffords to the Saudis after 9/11. If the Saudis and the Neocons are in such a mesh of relationships, the ports thing is just one more of those "favors" that get passed around as rewards; a part of the whole "Money laundering" , political-legitimizing (or the attempt to make it so) by the PR machine of the Bush administration. That whole history is what arouses my skepticism about the claim he didn't know. Of course, I don't know why they think that "not knowing" is at all a flattering portrayal of Bush's competence as president. Maybe they figure that ....

Bart Campolo asks what many others are asking:

Bart Campolo

Actually, I don’t have many problems with what the President said; what bothers me is the gaping chasm between his rhetoric and the actions (and inactions) of his administration. I mean, does anyone really that George W. Bush is sincerely committed to breaking this nation’s addiction to oil?

Bush's statement strikes me as similar to Hitler observing "There's a lot of hate and prejudice in the world"

An even better comparison is how the tobacco companies are doing these "quit smoking" campaigns, which they are obviously doing in order to attempt to soften meausres taken against them. And there you have the Bush attempts to "soften the political backlash against them, and to keep people from recognizing how thoroughly the Bush family has been a driving force behind making oil consumption more attractive, and lack of concern about moderation in the form of fuel economy (ie. the explosion of the SUV market, fully encouraged by the Bush administration)

A fellow "State of the Union" boycotter:

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: January 29, 2006 - February 04, 2006 Archives

I have a confession: I'm not sure when the last time was when I watched the State of the Union address. I think I may have watched it in 2003. But I'm not even certain of that. Perhaps a glance through the archives would show that I watched a bit of it last year, I don't know.

The truth is, I find it unwatchable.

Now, I read the transcript later. I'll often go back and watch key sections so I can get the flavor of a particular passage in the speech or of a debate it has spawned.

But the thing itself (watching the actual production in real time) and then the imbecile chatter afterwards -- I just can't deal. I just find it unbearable.

Are there others out there like me? I know that a great portion of the country never watches the thing and can't be bothered with politics in any case. But are there others out there who are genuine political junkies -- downright incurables -- and yet can't bear to watch this thing?

----
Josh Marshall is like me, with some similar reasons, but I have certain theological sensibilities that make it even more ubearable than the simple political shenanigans and dishonesty (in Joshua's defense, I'm sure there's "more to it" than what I just said for him too----including a sense of "moral outrage" that is something akin to the ourage I feel as a particular type of follower of Christ). There's also the almost proud-of-it attitude that "we're gettin' done what needs doin'"---all based on the outrageous lie that further propping up of the rich benefits everybody. Too bad it's just not Christian. And even all the more "too bad" because the American political system simply just isn't capable of doing a faint imitation of the Kingdom to which Christians are supposed to bear witness.

Notice I DIDN'T SAY "looking forward"......I probably won't even tune in, since I can hardly stand to listen to him, since it's all posturing with practically no ability (or even intention) of doing much of anything, except to put a "democratic face" on what these guys really want to accomplish, which is to drain the less fortunate , to the greatest degree they can "accomplish" and send it trickling UP. I heard an economist say a few days ago that this is the first time in history that GDP gains have not been accomanied by some lift in the standard of living for the median income family. There's more of that mythical TRICKLE down. Anyway, Thunder Jones' posts tonight on what he expects from the speech, and this part sort of echoes my thoughts of earlier tonight about Coretta.

The Mundane Life of Thunder Jones: Predict the State of the Union

Finally, out most nauseating element of tonight’s speech will be the appropriation of Coretta Scott King. She was a great lady and we are all in her debt! There will be no mention that she emphasized nonviolence more boldly than MLK. We won’t hear about her opposition to the war in Iraq. We’ll just take some time and honor the icon, but not the ideas.

This is a really good post from one of those Cluetrainer guys, Doc Searls. Doc, David Weinberger, and Chris Locke, the three who blog, basically got me in to blogging in the first place back in 2002 after I read The Cluetrain Manifesto and started reading theirs and other blogs. Thanks , Doc, for that tribute to Dr. King.

The Doc Searls Weblog : Monday, January 16, 2006

That death stands out for me because it was emblematic of the grief, hopelessness, despair and anger that followed the murder of Martin Luther King. Listen to the Dream speech, and hear the hope it brought to people of all races. That hope was real. That hope lifted a nation. That hope moved civilization forward. The Dream speech was dawn. It was light. It promised freedom. After that speech, many more people fought for that freedom, most effectively without violence, as Dr. King had taught them. I was one of those people.

In Ga., Abramoff Scandal Threatens a Political Ascendancy

By Thomas B. Edsall Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 16, 2006; Page A01

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- Ralph Reed, candidate for lieutenant governor, had just finished his opening statement to the Dawson County Republican Party when retired pulp paper executive Gary Pichon sprang from his seat with a question that cut to the chase:

"Did you accept any gifts, commissions or other payments of any kind from Mr. Abramoff, and are you likely to be a party in the unfolding investigation?"

I have cut back drastically on the amount of political outrage ranting I was doing in latter 2004/early 2005. My most choice words always came in response to things re: the Religious Right. Well, Reed was the early figure in the early risings of the Religious Right in the 80's. It seems that much of this is all of a piece, and I might say, signs of a rather disturbing cynical usage of the energies of the Religious Right by manipulating the political machinery to garner the support of the morally outraged. It's not that I don't think this "Kind of thing" hasn't always gone on, but the amount of widespread , almost "I dare you to catch me" kind of hubris with which it is carried out, is scary. I hope that some of this begins to bring about a dawning of realization by the unwittingly manipulated that they have woefully misplaced their trust. (Of course, the "opposition party" has somewhat lost its way as well. Perhaps this might bring about some widespread realization of the problems of this country's political system)

Freedom, liberty. Fox News Middle East. via Informed Comment

KR Washington Bureau | 11/30/2005 | U.S. military pays Iraqis for positive news stories on war

U.S. Army officers have been secretly paying Iraqi journalists to produce upbeat newspaper, radio and television reports about American military operations and the conduct of the war in Iraq.

U.S. officials in Washington said the payments were made through the Baghdad Press Club, an organization they said was created more than a year ago by U.S. Army officers. They are part of an extensive American military-run information campaign -- including psychological warfare experts -- intended to build popular support for U.S.-led stabilization efforts and erode support for Sunni Muslim insurgents.

Juan Cole on George's illusions about being remmebered fondly as a "war president"

Informed Comment

Let me finish with a word to W. As for your legacy two decades from now, George, let me clue you in on something--as a historian. In 20 years no Iraqis will have you on their minds one way or another. Do you think anyone in Egypt or Israel is still grateful to Jimmy Carter for helping bring to an end the cycle of Egyptian-Israeli wars? Jimmy Carter powerfully affected the destinies of all Egyptians and Israelis in that key way. Most people in both countries have probably never heard of him, and certainly no one talks about the first Camp David Accords anymore except as a dry historical subject. The US pro-Israel lobby is so ungrateful that they curse Carter roundly for all the help he gave Israel. Human beings don't have good memories for these things, which is why we have to have professional historians, a handful of people who are obsessed with the subject. And I guarantee you, George, that historians are going to be unkind to you. You went into a major war over a non-existent nuclear weapons program. Presidents' reputations don't survive things like that. Historians are creatures of documents and precision. A wild exaggeration with serious consequences is against everything they stand for as a profession. So forget about history and destiny and the divine will. You are at the helm of the Exxon Valdez and it is headed for the shoals. You can't afford to daydream about future decades.

Referring to an interview with Seymour Hersh by Wolf Blitzer

Hersh goes on to tell Blitzer that Bush disparages any information about Iraq that does not fit his preconceived notions, and that he feels he has a (perhaps divine) mission to bring democracy to the country. Hersh's inside sources paint a president who is detached and in the grip of profound utopian delusions, which Hersh charitably characterizes as "idealistic."

Will Sampson with a set of questions wondering how who I call the "Bush Christians" will begin to react to the now daily uncoverings of the pervasive scandals and manipulations of the Bush administration and its tentacles (the "tentacles" part I have added to the assesment, as well as the question about "holding out"----these are two things that occurred to me as I read Will's post) willzhead: Pastoring People Post-Bush

The cat is out of the bag. The secret has been let loose. President Bush is not an honest man. .... This current administration may go down as one of the most corrupt in history. Bill Clinton received sexual favors from an intern. Shame on him. But, to my knowledge, no one in his purview was responsible for using Christian radio to help further the business of Indian casinos and, in the process, pocket $45 million in lobbying fees.

I'm afraid that a good number of these Christians have hitched a disturbingly high amount of their theological well-being to this house of cards, and will die hard. Especially with Fox News in the mix, which is the only newscast most of them will even watch. They watch others and automatically dismiss any reports that cast the administration in a suspicious light to be part of the "liberal media conspiracy". It is all the more scary because we've seen in history debacles of how tenaciously church folks will cling to "righteousness" of a political cause against all evidence (Nazi Germany). (Once again, it's not comparing the magnitude of the evil, but the propensity for the "court prophets" (the "religious representatives" who provide the theological rationale for national interests as forwarded by the group in power. I must say however, that I can do something of a listing of the consequences of this administration which do catalog quite a distressing list of atrocities, but those shoujld be kept out of a context of "comparison" to Hitler and assessed on their own merits).

The point here is, is that "ideologies" die hard. But in the end, there is always that all-too elusive hope for a deeper harmony amongst God's people. We can't help but be saddened and disturbed when the call of the gospel is exchanged for "lesser", incomplete, even opposing loyalties; what Cavanaugh calls the "false soteriology" of the state.

Josh Marshall has a few choice words for the Disaster readiness consultancy firm Michael Brown is starting.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: November 20, 2005 - November 26, 2005 Archives

First , from an AP article:

Brown said officials need to "take inventory" of what's going on in a disaster to be able to answer questions to avoid appearing unaware of how serious a situation is.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, critics complained about Brown's lack of formal emergency management experience and e-mails that later surfaced showed him as out of touch with the extent of the devastation.

Then Josh, from TPM

This guy's really a Bush man through and through, ain't he?

It's important to keep close tabs on everything going on in your disaster so as to avoid the true catastrophe of having the press think you're not on top of things.

It's good to see that getting knocked around last Fall helped get his priorities straight.

In Josh's previous post on the news of Brown's intentions, Brown said this::
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: November 20, 2005 - November 26, 2005 Archives

"You have to do it with candor. To do it otherwise gives you no credibility. I think people are curious: 'My gosh, what was it like? The media just really beat you up. You made mistakes. I don't want to be in that situation. How do I avoid that?'"

And this service is going to in demand by who? The fact that Brown was so woefully unprepared and unarmed with bare facts about the disaster is going to be something which makes people line up at his door to find out how he did it? As Josh says, it seems that the key thing here is not to APPEAR incompetent. But even there, we're supposed to learn from someone who failed miserably at that as well? I have a suggestion for anyone who wants to "spin" appearances: get it handled on Fox News. Maybe Fox News should hire him. He can do a show with Ollie North.

Juan Cole reflects on the Bush-Aljazeera relationship, and why he doubts that Bush was "joking"

Informed Comment

Despite attempts of British officials to muddy the waters by suggesting that Bush was joking, another official who had seen the memo insisted, "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."

Not long ago I saw a documentary Control Room, about Aljazeera, and prominently featured Josh Rushing, who worked in the U.S. Central Command Media Office. Excellent film, by the way. The death of the journalist menti oned by Cole actually happens during the filming (not on tape, but during a shoot, when the cameras were not rolling....since they were taking cover)

Thunder Jones has a good post on how what amounts to subsidies for high-tech (focused on military) could better be used in subsidizing health care, which will help businesses who are going under and strugging becuase they can' afford it anymore.

The Mundane Life of Thunder Jones: Choosing Your Subsidy

It is true that the military subsidy has helped to create the consumer microchip, the internet, and modern aviation. It hasn't been all bad. Then again, we've essentially been subsidizing the ability to dominate the other via violence or the threat of violence. Subsidizing healthcare will create advances in medicine as well as providing for the common good. I choose healthcare.

Juan Cole explains the manipulative Republicans' adolescent call for what amounts to a vote on a straw-dog: their version of a resoltion that in no way resembled what Murtha actually suggested (except that it had to do with the subject of Withdrawal from Iraq). There's where the similarity ends.

Informed Comment

Republicans in Congress responded to Murtha's considered plan by introducing a phony resolution the bore little resemblance to Murtha's, and then helping defeat it overwhelmingly. The intent was apparently to force the Democrats either to look as though they were in favor of "cutting and running" or to vote against immediately withdrawing US troops and so associating themselves with Bush's 'stay the course' policy. The Republican straw man resolution was:

' Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately. '

Well, this stupid resolution is not what Murtha was saying, and the vote on it is meaningless. It is worse than meaningless. It is political clowning.

From INformed Comment: Informed Comment

At the Iraqi national reconciliation summit, the Shiite delegation of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq walked out when a Christian Iraqi implied that they were traitors and puppets of the US and alleged that the new Iraqi consitution was written by the Americs. The delegation only returned to the table when it received an apology from their hosts and a pledge that the Christian delegate would be prevented from "abusing the platform."

I'd like to find out a bit more on who that person was

Pastor John Wright with a great post

Pastor John Wright

This week, however, I got involved in a discussion in another context that contested the moral superiority of the United States to the 'fascist and totalitarian nation-states' of the mid-20th century. While, to understate the obvious, I am not a big fan of Hitler, Mussolini, or Lenin, I tend to see the United States as the inverse of such totalitarian regimes, with its own version of totalitarianism, the totalitarianism of democratic free-market capitalism, that is at least every bit as pernicious because it is not as obvious in its totalitarian controls.

I was blogging about this some time ago. It was in response to something Bonhoeffer had written

Although the circumstances are not of such extremity of evil, neither was it perceived to be as such at the time. People refused to believe that such could be the case. While I do not see the present tendencies leading to murders of the scale of the Holocaust, I see a different type of pressure emerging, one which is economic, social. political, and like in Bonhoefer's case, VERY much a SPIRITUAL issue. Even one in which the very soul of the American Church is at stake. While some lend their "theological support" and offer various "Biblical supports", others avoid support but choose silence out of a desire to maintain "agreement" and focus on "common ground".

from a post on Dec. 4 , 2004

The more "systemic" processes , those "inherent in our assumptions" and hidden by rhetoric about how "that's just the way the world works" are more effective in that they remain in the dark. It's not overt violence done to neighbors in close proximity (except of course, to those in Iraq, who are, by the way, also our "neighbors", according to Jesus), but a violence of economic isolation; of exclusion; of "fighting back the hordes" who would rob the elite of their profits they have grown to "need" at an increasing pace. The only ethos free of this is that in which we are invited to participate in the power of the people of a resurrected Christ.

Pastor John quotes from an article: Slavoj Zizek | To Loot and Rape

In the much celebrated free circulation opened up by the global capitalism, it is "things" (commodities) which freely circulate, while the circulation of "persons" is more and more controlled. We are thus not dealing with "globalization as an unfinished project," but with a true "dialectics of globalization." The segregation of the people is the reality of economic globalization. This new racism of the developed world is in a way much more brutal than the previous one: Its implicit legitimization is neither naturalist (the "natural" superiority of the developed West) nor culturalist (we in the West also want to preserve our cultural identity). Rather, it's an unabashed economic egotism - the fundamental divide is the one between those included into the sphere of (relative) economic prosperity and those excluded from it.

I haven't pointed to James Carroll in quite a while, but he has a good article, much on the same theme as my previous post, about the hideous force of evil and how craftily sneaky it is in seeping into our culture via fear, greed, and the hubris of those such as the neocons.

Dance of the Demons

Dance of the Demons
by James Carroll

there is another way to think of evil, finding it in the juncture between individual freedom and social context. The story of Genesis posits the malevolent serpent, but what ruined Paradise was not the serpent but the option made in its favor by Adam and Eve. What follows such choice is always unforeseen, but its dynamic is inevitable: Choice leads to consequence, which leads to new and graver choice, which leads in turn to yet graver consequence, and so on. A train of action-reaction is set in motion that quickly outpaces the ability of any one person to slow it.

This phenomenon can take the form of the ''grooved thinking" of a bureaucracy or of the ''institutional culture" that trumps even the good intentions of those who operate within it. Every human choice is made inside a rushing current of prior choices, and the pressure is not good.

Saint Paul spoke of the ''wiles of the devil," but his defining metaphor for evil was systemic, not personal. ''For we are not contending against flesh and blood," he wrote, ''but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness." For Paul, the enemy was not fallen angels, but ''sovereignties" which are hostile to humanity. He was talking about Roman tyrants and an uncaring imperial bureaucracy. He was talking about politics.

The clearest instance of this phenomenon today is unfolding in Iraq. ''Wars generate their own momentum," Robert McNamara once wrote, ''and follow the law of unintended consequences." George W. Bush must be held accountable for the consequences of his fateful decisions, from the 2,000 dead Americans to the American embrace of torture to the igniting of a clash of civilizations. But the ease with which the United States embarked on Bush's unnecessary and illegal war -- with huge popular, political, and pundit support -- was evidence of an already established momentum that predated Bush, and even his father.

This is only a portion, read it at Common Dreams News Center

Fox News treated the whole Plame affair like it was no big deal; Plame was just a clerical worker; she really wan't covert, blah blah blah. I hear the Fox-watchers echo the lines. Such is the news-ghetto these people have allowed themselves to slide into. This article sheds some actual news on the matter, rather than the Fox-fodder

CIA Yet to Assess Harm From Plame's Exposure

But after Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's column, the CIA informed the Justice Department in a simple questionnaire that the damage was serious enough to warrant an investigation, officials said.

Not that the Washington Post is purely news, unswayed by any political/ideological pressure, but my complaint here is against the echo chamber, headed by Murdoch's propagandas machine, who have pitted themselves against any journalism which dares to question the "correct" party lines. Bill Moyers was on Jon Stewart a while back (I watched the video last night), and said that the Right calls "liberal" anything which dares to "investigate" the White House).

So, to the Utilitarians who are constantly claiming that "peace advocates" are naive about the world; that "these are the kinds of things that need to be done to "do what's got to be done" (like the Colonel Jessup "You need me on that wall") , but then when such details as "the importance of covert identities" is transgressed, they seem perfectly willing to smooth this one over, and deny wrongdoing. Their hubris has gotten them this time.

Steve Bush points to a post by Jamie Smith (a.k.a JKA) responding to an article by Jonathan Kozol in Harper's

Fors Clavigera: Orwell, Foucault, and the State of Urban Public Schools

Documenting years of visits and conversations with children, teachers, principals, and education bureaucrats at state and federal levels, Kozol paints the picture of a nation that is clearly going backwards. Fifty years after the supposed 'victory' of Brown v. Board of Education, Kozol shows that civil rights legislation hasn't erased racism, and that legislation for equality needs to be backed up by tax laws that could actually fund equality--but we all know that in that respect, America is headed down the wrong road. Not even Democrats have the courage to talk about raising taxes anymore! I confess to feeling overwhelmed by the direction this nation is headed. How does this happen?

The more I read and hear from Jamie Smith , the less I disagree with and the more I find that those matters where I do disagree are far less weighty than the things which he and other "RO writers" have emphasized about just how "alien" our promised land is to the parody of wholeness and salvation offered by "the mainstream" and by "the empire"; and our value to the existence of God's people as a living and redemptive society. But we also have to be there and work at this in order to understand just how true this is.

It also does my heart good to see the disgust seething through in

Kozol provides a stark picture by considering the "head start" that suburban white children get, and shows up the ridiculous language of "accountability" that we get from the "No Child Left Behind" Act

, especially as the "stuff" starts hitting the fan with heavier and more rpeated "splats" with the inditements handed down today, and the clear indicators of on ominous trail upward. Such things as these are the typical discoveries of a group such as this administration that can BS their way through their "work" in education, while their real attenyi on and energies are in ropin off for themselves what they perceive to be the roads to wealth and power, and the education, health, and the very lives of those not "of them" are of no consequence, especially when they are perceived to be "roadblocks" to absolute dominion. There's certainly a lacking in accountability toward what their "words" pay lip service. It is showing up in nearly every arena of "responsibility" which has unfortunately been largely left to the very ones who increasingly show their unworthiness to the task.

In the early church, it was certainly taken to be very personal that noone was placed or perceived themselves to be, in a place of higher esteem than others, and this state of education in our country is one of the most glaring examples of forces pulling us in the wrong direction (which was part of , if not most of Jamie's point, as well as Jonathan Kozol )

While I'm at it with the venting of my disgust with the Bush men, here's a couple of archived , not-published posts that I had been saving from last week, not sure that I wanted to go down that road, for fear that I'd 'tilt' again and drain energy from my exploration/reflection on what the church IS rather than what it is NOT), nevertheless, SOMETIMES such things are best allowed to vent, so:

I'm so amazed (not really) at how easily the public swallows the continued falsehoods and deceptions of this evil regime. Yes, EVIL. Destructive, murderous, and self-rigtheous. Things like this just raise up the outrage over and over again. When will the nation's eyes be opened to the extent that the scales wil be tipped, and enough people get mad as hell and won't take it anymore? There's "business as usual" (also with its usual amounts of corruption and greed and the usual vestiges of liberal democracy--- conservative political versions included--- and then there's the Bush administration, whcih has taken it all to a new level, heightened and aided by media enhanced corporate interests that are blindly racing toward the neocon dream.

Progress Report RSS - American Progress Action Fund

In 2003, Vice President Cheney asserted, "Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." That wasn't true in 2003, and it's not true now. In 2003, Cheney still received deferred compensation from the contracting behemoth and possessed more than 433,000 stock options. Those options were worth $241,498 a year ago; they now are worth more than $8 million. With Cheney in office, Halliburton has received more than $10 billion for work in Iraq and received one of the first no-bid contracts for work in the Gulf Coast.

Today and editorial in The NYTimes asks a sobering and scary question of the government:

Katrina's Assault on Washington - New York Times

There are dozens of questions Americans will demand to have answered once this emergency has passed. If the Homeland Security Department was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle other kinds of crises?

The ineptitude continues. Of course, Bush was on vacation when it was time to prepare.

From Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall) today:
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

Brown had no experience whatsoever in emergency management. He was fired from his last job for incompetence. He was hired because he was the new director's college roommate. And after the director -- who himself got the job because he was a political fixer for the president -- left, he became top dog. And President Bush said yesterday that he thinks Brown is "doing a helluva job".

Tens of billions of federal dollars are going to be spent on reconstruction, though the first allotment is only $10.5 billion. Does anybody think Bush administration has the competence or honesty to manage that money? Does anybody think it won't be handled with the efficiency, expertise and integrity of the Iraqi reconstruction?

James KA Smith and Steve Bush carry on quite an exchange , and I find quite a bit of hefty theological stuff here, and so off we go (with a few sometimes pithy remarks of mine interspersed, just to let you know how I'm responding to this (in case your're intrerested)

Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank: What is Constantinianism?

Hmmm...I'm wondering if your original post, Steve, might have been an oblique response to some of my comments re: Wallis. In any case, I think your account of Constantinianism is a bit thin. Let me briefly try to expand on this

The article here is a scathing crtique of the lack of response by the church to this enormously unfaithful regime. I believe it to be unfaithful on many levels. First, it operates as an enemy to what I believe to be the Kingdom of God, and against what I believe are the response to which we as church are called. Second, and far below on the scale of importance, is the mockery it has made of even the most common assumptions of what America is supposed to mean. MLK said so many times. "Be true to what you say on paper" (the constitution) he said. The Bush administration is all about appearances, while they work in the darkness of back room meetings and Rove-inpired whispering campaigns and media "suggestions" passed on unedited by Rupert Murdoch to his "minions" below on the News Cahnnel, and circulated amongst the mainstream media's pundits and "counterpoint/crossfire/hardball" matches to obscure their lack of forthrightness.
Here, read this, and then, surprise, surprise, "I got more to say!"

Pax Americana and Christian Values

America is ruled by a secular right-wing political and economic ideology. It was not elected by the people, and it has never enjoyed majority support from the people. It is, however, supported by a significant majority of Christians.

The secular ruling ideology is convinced that Jesus Christ was wrong when he said you can't serve both God and money. With the support of most Christians, it practices the secular economic values of the Russian-born atheist Ayn Rand-the gospel of greed.

Our government nurtures the interests of business corporations. But it turns a blind eye and deaf ear toward the needs and interests of ordinary people. The secular corporate media helps facilitate this.

We now have the most corrupt, dishonest, and mean-spirited government in our history. Its performance in people programs is the worst in the industrial world. The world's richest country is at or near the bottom in things like: minimum wage, vacation time, paternity leave, poverty rate, illiteracy rate, crime rate, prison rate, access to healthcare, access to legal services, access to decent housing, access to public transportation, and access to higher education.

Now here is something that just burns me that the church has so blindly and cluelessly missed:

The secular ruling ideology is convinced that Jesus Christ was wrong when he said you can't serve both God and money. With the support of most Christians, it practices the secular economic values of the Russian-born atheist Ayn Rand-the gospel of greed.

"Love of Money is the root of all kinds of evil". When I often quote that with the "love of" left off, many are quick to correct me, as if by saying this they can excuse themselves, since of course, they don't "love" money. But this is the practical God and therefore false idol of the Bush administration. Special interests , dominated by oil and energy, are rampantly dominating the "decisions" and the "sense of justice" of this administration.

Notice how there is virtually NO talk of energy conversation in the midst of the oil price crisis with which we are now faced? It seems to me that this dwarfs the size of the "crisis" in the 70's. I don't know what the figures are that adjust the size of this crisis compared to the 70's for inflation, but I remember a constant hammering home of conserving tips, and a revolution of "fuel efficient cars" (ie Hondas, Chevettes, VW Rabbits, etc., which really seemed to usher in the invasion of the US car market with foreign made cars). There seems to be an ideological reaction to such talk in today's climate. And that, to me, is just plain irresponsible. And these idiots in charge don't give a shit. (Think I'm pissed?) When I see the gas prices surpass 2.70 (and almost 3 for premium!), and hear nothing from our trusty leaders, I see their hubris. To start being "energy conscious" would unduly "harm our economy" (which would echo their reasoning for rejecting envirionmental agreements being signed by nearly every other "civilized" country).

It's not that I don't think there are not bigger fish to fry than to grant these idiots and blasphemers mcu of anytime on the stage of "concern" in my larger world. It is obvious that our political system is , and has been for some time, "out to lunch" in terms of approaching anything resembling a "servant of the people" status. After reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, I think it's pretty much been that way in America since 1492 or so. More in a bit. Gotta catch my breath and breathe in some perspective in light of the only real Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.

slacktivist: August 6

Four years ago today (Aug.6th) President Bush received a daily brief warning him that terrorists planned to attack America. He spent the next three weeks on vacation.

I had forgotten the anniversary of that now infamous Aug 6 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing).

Ok, that's about enough of the posts on "political things". I'm trying to limit my intake of numerous samplings in the news of "things which make me shake my head"). I determined back in November that I was going to change my focus, and I do believe I have siginificantly "reversed the flow", so that now most of my "political" dissents or comments are the result of a theological concern finding examples of how those are "worked against" by the political structures we have so negligently built. It's not that I think I can "separate myself" from the disgust that I feel over the all-tto-obvious "lacking" of true public welfare concerns in the Bush adminkistration (and in fact, their activity betraying their ultimate alleginaces that are very much to the contrary); the contrast in that kind of whitewashing of policies designed to benefit the largest contributors and their own elite interests is glaring when set beside that of the Kingdom (which results in no naive optiminsm about "alternatives" in this political system of ours, where "the other side" is also deeply entrenched in the system). I guess what fills me with such recoil is the participation of the church in America in this theological distortion which marries "American Values" with "Christian Nation" and outputs a "Gospel" which is NOT the "good news" Jesus had in mind. And on top of that, the glaring , unabashed enthusiasm with which my old denomination, the Southern Baptists, in this heretical mix.

The post on the Bonhoefer biography I made earlier highlights a lingering concern of mine: "what to do?" The answer lies in what for Bonhoeffer, was surely and clearly an ecclesiological one; balanced against what seemed to be in Bonhoefer a similar experience of a reticence to "abandon the world to the chaos". But what do we offer as an "alternative"? I think of two things from my own journey, my own Youth Group, and The Church of the Saviour (the latter as a concrete example of a people working out a "Life Together" that assumes that no real participation in the needed responses are forthcoming from government powers, and simply proceeds to build a structure to address that need.)

Build it they did. I have begun to describe a few of those things in my posts about that church, drawing upon Servant Leaders, Servant Structures Supporting this extraordinary amassing of forces to build safety nets from the bottom up is the sense of ecclesiology that they have had from their beginnings in 1947.