"...the coffins still roll in every week at Dover...."
The only nit I can pick in a spot-on rant.
Posted by bartcopfan at December 9, 2008 10:18 AM"We haven't used nuclear weapons". What was dropped on Hiroshima - TNT? The USA remains the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in war.
Posted by Colin at December 9, 2008 10:32 AMCongrats paradox. If the goal was to reduce your workload as moderator/administrator by banning everyone, mission accomplished.
And now the professor is summarily dismissed as well...
Posted by the professor at December 9, 2008 10:48 AMparadox,
Sometimes you are part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to saying Christian churches were looking to keep rich repugs in the seat.
I really want people to watch what they say and not dump all Christians in with the corrupt far right pulpit sitters out there or their non-thinking congregants that insist on plugging their type of christianity as THE Christianity. It isn't mine nor is it most of my friends and family who absolutely ARE Christians. We didn't want the war. Our church protested it in the run up and afterward. And yet all I hear is how christians didn't stand up.
We did. We just didn't happen to be the ones the bought-and-paid-for media broadcast. But then people who follow Jesus' teachings are often ignored.
And please note this isn't they way Muslims or Hebrews or any other religion would want to be represented (as Bush has tried with Muslims) by only the extremists who say they are of that faith but aren't really.
So, at the very least, use some choice adjectives to describe these people as the fringe extremists they are, not representatives of those of us who are really trying to be true Christians in both word and deed.
By lumping me in with all those jerks who pushed for death and destruction is to not only further the yellow-journalistic sensationalist media narrative but is also an act of prejudice. I, for one, am tired of it from anyone.
Posted by gmknobl at December 9, 2008 10:49 AMgmknobl:
I appreciate you protesting the Iraq war before and after but it looks like either you were in minority in the Christian church or you were not loud enough to be noticed.
Just like all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims. Lot of moderate Muslims do not approve of killing of innocent men women and children but they are not loud enough to condemn the terrorists acts. Did any Muslim country had protests on the streets regarding the Mumbai (India) terrorist attacks? They had them when a cartoon in Dutch press about Mohammad was published.
The point is in the 2 elections (2000 and 2004) many christian churches openly preached voting for Bush/Cheney. Not enough churches protested such actions.
The impression left in the country is the religious right is with republicans no matter what the Republicans do. Inspite of the dismal efforts of this administration to help the victims of Katrina, did the christian right say that Bush administration did something that Jesus would not have approved and therefore we would not support them? On the contrary they jumped with joy when Sarah Palin was selected because she represents ant-abortion plank. In other words christian churches have become one issue oriented and fail to see what is important issue for the country.
Posted by suresh at December 9, 2008 11:28 AMIf the monsters are not punished then they will be back. It was a awful mistake to pardon Nixon. That only enabled the rise of monsters like Cheney.
Posted by gay veteran at December 9, 2008 12:04 PMA high-quality and spot-on rant. Sadly, I don't think your fervent hope will turn out to be true. Instead, we will now get a watered-down version of the Bush Doctrine, one that includes "soft-power" diplomacy but, as is always said nowadays, with the "appropriate" use of military force "when needed." Imperialism Lite, though the word "imperialism" will seem too harsh to many who worry more about semantics than reality.
As for Edward Teller, it wasn't, for me, his support for nuclear weapons per se that made me smile just a little when the old man died. It was his lying idiocy about the proposed orbiting X-Ray laser as part of the "Star Wars" project, a weapon that would have set off numerous nukes in space as a means of blasting Soviet missiles.
And it was his Op-Ed argument in the '80s when a Soviet dissident exposed a criticality accident at a nuclear waste dump that killed unknown numbers of people and made a dead zone of the surrounding area in the USSR. Teller's argument was that the exposure of this accident and the spread of knowledge about it by the Western media was bad because it would spur Americans to be anti-nuclear, which was a bad thing.
What a piece of work he was.
Colin, I believe he made clear he was referring to not using nuclear weapons this century, the 21st.
Posted by the young Judith (tyj) at December 9, 2008 08:25 PM"all terrorists are Muslims"
In what world, Suresh, do you contend that is true? Certainly not the real world we all live in. Or are you really that uninformed about terrorism? If you are, may I suggest you take some time to inform yourself before you speak on the subject again?
"Lot of moderate Muslims do not approve of killing of innocent men women and children"
The killing of innocent men, women and children is explicitly forbidden in both the Qur'an and the Hadith. In other words, the killing of innocent men, women, and children is explicitly forbidden by Islam. It is not a question of "lots", and it is not a question of "moderates" (which by definition means pro-American and permissive of anything the United States does), it is a question of what is not allowed by the religion. Muslims who commit violence for any non-defensive reason are violating their own religion. The Qur'an even goes so far as to say that if your enemy puts down his weapon and stops trying to harm you, you must not commit any more violence against him.
"...but they are not loud enough to condemn the terrorists acts."
What the hell does that mean? Not loud enough for whom? Not loud enough for what? How loud to they have to be to satisfy you? How often do they have to condemn any and every negative act committed by a Muslim in order not to be held responsible? And why are Muslims alone required to perform this ritual condemnation of actions committed by their co-religionists in order to cleanse themselves in your eyes?
Are Christians required to condemn every horrific act committed by a Christian in order not to be held responsible? What about Jews? Are they required to condemn atrocities committed by other Jews, including the official atrocities of the Jewish State which claims to represent all Jews? And what about Hindus (oh, you did not know there were Hindu terrorists? Then maybe you need to do a bit of self-educating)? And what about Buddhists (oh, yes, don't laugh, there are Buddhist extremists who commit terrorism)? And what about Tamils? Is every Tamil responsible for Tamil terrorism unless they condemn it regularly and loudly enough for you (if you don't know about Tamil terrorism, they you really do need some education)? And what about secular people? Must they also regularly and loudly condemn secular terrorists? And And how loudly and how often are members of all THESE groups required to do this condemning in order not to be held responsible?
"Did any Muslim country had protests on the streets regarding the Mumbai (India) terrorist attacks?"
Why should they? Ten Muslims allegedly commit a criminal act and the whole bloody Muslim world is supposed to stop everything to hold a protest? Why? Just to prove to the world that they disagree with the actions of a small handful of Muslims? Give me a break!
"They had them when a cartoon in Dutch press about Mohammad was published."
First of all did you even see those cartoons? They were not merely "about Mohammad", they made a deeply bigoted statement about what Islam and Muslims stand for. Second, you should try to educate yourself about just how and by whom those demonstrations were organized, as well as their size. We are talking about a total of a few thousand individuals worldwide who participated out of a world population of 1.5 billion Muslims. The total number of participants worldwide was probably fewer than ten thousand, but let us say it was 100,000 - a very generous number.
Can you calculate the percentage? Do you really find it a big deal that such a miniscule percentage of any group could be persuaded by others to take part in a protest against such an insult to their religion and its practitioners?
Stand back and get a bit of perspective.
Posted by Shirin at December 9, 2008 11:53 PMIt's simple Paradox, stop calling out all Christians or Christian Churches for the acts of the powerful few (or the inaction of a few). Our congregation and I believe my faith actually sent a letter of protest to Bush. Was this reported by the right-wing media? NO.
Then we have the liberals such as yourself condemning us for not speaking up. What do you want? Look, we don't own tv stations, radio stations or newspapers. We do what we can. We travel to under-reported protest marches. We hold local protests. To shovel us into one group with those who actively do this evil is wrong. You should know this. It's called guilt by association. And you are helping define millions of good people as bad this way. Stop it.
Take a minute and just add a few adjective to your remarks on Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Buddhists or whomever to define the narrow group that is actively harming others. It helps people recognize that not "all terrorists are Muslims." It helps people realize that Christian is not a dirty word, that liberal is not a dirty word.
It's pretty simple. Just because some of us don't have the wherewithal to purchase time on big media outlets (but do blog on the 'net, 'cause that's far less likely to be blocked) to make a stink that Bush is a bad person doesn't mean that we aren't trying and in a variety of places. Remember, most of those who are doing these bad things have schemed their entirely life to gain money and power without regard to how it hurt others so, of course, now that they have both, it is very difficult to be noticed since they run the media.
I won't rant any more. Just use some reason and don't mark all Christians (or any real religion) with the broad brush stroke of prejudice.
Posted by gmknobl at December 11, 2008 07:58 AM