Understand that military personnel are not numbers to me. They are the mothers and fathers of the kids I grew up next door too. They are the parents who died in service to their country. The ones they picked out of aircraft crashes in pieces...usually cooked well-done, though some had their brains splattered by spinning propellers and other ugly ways to die. Some died in wars. I still cry and shudder over things that happened over 50 yrs ago. If a person chooses to fly a dangerous aircraft because it will shoot down a Soviet bomber, that person is a hero to me. They are doing their duty. Do not ask me to stand by while they are sent to fight a senseless war. To oppose that is my duty as a citizen, if I feel that war is wrong. Even if I have to vote for a Democrat.
17 Americans died in Iraq in November 2008. Total deaths for the war, since 2003, are 4209 Americans and 178 British and 138 "other" nationalities. They will continue to die until we are out of Iraq. Not enough people listened during the Vietnam war until over 50,000 had died.......not counting the locals. The pressure needs to stay on until we are out. Promises are cheap. " We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves. ... " Lyndon B Johnson Oct. 21, 1964 In less than three years, President Johnson had increased the number of US military personnel in Vietnam from 190,000 to 350,000. Those of us who did not want to see the lives of our young people wasted again in another war we should not have been in, have resisted the Iraq war since it was obvious that WMD were a facade. I intend to oppose it until we are out....not until we are promised we will be out, not until we reduce the forces in Iraq, but until we are out. You cannot force democracy on a people, or peoples, who are not willing to fight for their own freedom and to maintain a democracy. I'm not willing to buy it for them with the lives of young British and American men and women.....not even if that price is "only" 17 lives a month. One is too many. Why? Because men and women are not potatoes. I am a firm believer in the concept that it is "....better to die on your feet than live on your knees" - Emiliano Zapata
(unless you are a voluntary, sex worker, I support COYOTE's goals in free choice for women and men and those of us inbetween as well as SAFER SEX practices....)
While I do appreciate that progress has been made in Iraq, now is not the time to either give up or to encourage the Republican leaders to believe that they can get away with such wars and not pay the price. We gave them a nudge a couple years ago, but they didn't pay attention. I was willing to vote for Democrats to get that point across, and so were others. I'm sure that, by next election, I'll be back to voting Libertarian....except for my local member of the House of Representatives who has earned my vote. By the way, Obama beat McCain by a 7.2% margin of the popular vote
(Dubya never did as well and he beat Al Gore by the lowest margin since 1888, minus 0.5% of the popular vote hardly Mandates and Oranges....oops did I mention Florida again?),
and the highest number of actual popular votes in a quarter of a century. He also is president because of a mandate....: "an authorization to act given to a representative" clearly given under the Constitution. In fact, John Quincy Adams lost the popular vote by minus 10.4% to Andrew Jackson, which made Jackson so irritable that he took it out on the ENTIRE Cherokee Nation. Whether by one vote or 100 million, it is a mandate, effective January 20th following the presidential election, since the passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, the "Lame Duck Amendment"
(
which was designed to shorten the wasted time in Congress before the new Congress was seated...which took place AFTER the President was sworn in. Now the new Congress is seated on January 3rd, which leaves the new Congress to settle any Presidential election problems which might throw the election into the House to settle. Before this the old Congress would have decided the election of the President, even though the People might have chosen to replace them for the term of the new President. Even in modern times, it takes a person a certain amount of time to settle their affairs, make arrangements for moving their family, settling in and being ready to attend congress. Two months is a short enough time for this. Not everyone is up to Military family standards to move on three days warning.
Why did I vote for Obama? Three reasons, no five ....five reasons and his nifty suits.
1. He wasn't a Republican.
2. He was a Democrat and I felt that the Republicans needed a spanking for the War in Iraq more than I needed to not vote Democrat.
3. I trusted his face when he spoke. I didn't get the same ugly, dirty feeling I get from long time politicians that it's not really them that I'm being shown. I have a lot of professional experience in reading faces. Furthermore, he opted for generalizations instead of resorting to lies. I like his ethics. Give me an ethical incompetent over a competent unethical any day...worst case.
4. It might be possible that someone who isn't experienced enough in "business the old way" might just bring in some changes for the good. He certainly couldn't do much worse than a number of recent US leaders....things were so bad, it was worth the risk. The light in the tunnel was another train. It was time to change engineers cause Bush and his lackeys were pushing the throttle, not hitting the brakes. Perhaps we should have chosen somebody with more experience....like the Governor of Illinois.
5. If all else failed, and Obama ended up being just another stinky politician, an American minority would gain a great deal from having our government led by the first African-American President. Children, whose grandparents grew up without basic civil rights, can look to Washington D. C. and say "I can do or be anything that I want to.... Dr. King was right." You can tell bedtime stories forever and not have half the effect of one man in the White House. To me that is a good enough reason alone to elect a black president. If there was no difference at all between the candidates, and there were differences, like brain function, that would have caused me to vote Obama, IF there were NO differences I would have voted for a black or female or Native American candidate to redress grievances.
(and no, we are not changing the White House's color. You see it is not just white. It is officially "The White House" and if it was painted a different color we Colonials would look like a bunch of twits to our British friends.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where The White House is?"
"Of course, miss, it's that cerulean stone building up on that little hill."
"Huh?"
" The one with the men with surface to air missiles on the roof."
"Oh, the blue one, thank you so much."
"Enjoy your stay in Washington, Miss." )
****
It's true that we had underestimated the number of enthusiastic, voting, religious bigots in CA. It seems we must hold a pogrom before the next election. No point in burning Bibles, those pesky Gideons will just replace them in bedside drawers. At least they are quiet and not annoying like Ladder-Day Saints who knock on your door or Jehova's Witnesses who confront you on busses....dancing up and down the aisle shouting "Jehova, Jehova, Jehova" till you just want to stone them to death. Sometimes I wish they didn't have bus passes then you could just toss them off the bus out the back door at a stop and they would have to pay again to get on.....but then they would just go back to knocking on your door while you were on the toilet again. No, it's gonna have to be a pogrom. I hope you are right, if there aren't enough liberals around who will we get to actually conduct a pogrom. Those wishy-washy, touchy-feely, tree-hugging liberals would never violate someone's civil rights.....where are all the gun-totin', truck drivin', skinhead liberals when you need them? Well, see if I ever stop for a nun in a crosswalk again....ok, ok, that's a bit extreme, maybe a diesel truck air horn under the hood of my Volkswagon. Wait is a boot a boot if it's in the front of a Volkswagon? Can one of you Brits clarify that for me. Boot or Bonnet? I suppose it's better to worry about these things than reading the Bible and having nothing better to do after Church than to get together and figure out how to make life for discriminated-against minorities even more miserable. Well, they tried to use religion to justify slavery........and that failed. They tried to force us to pray in school against our wishes....and that failed [Engel v. Vitale, 1962], to listen to the Bible in school...and that failed [Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963], this trend has continued by denying religious holiday decorations in public schools and buildings, display of The Ten Commandments and even pre-game prayer at high school football games. Now before you all jump on me for suggesting an anti-christian discriminatory pogrom, let me point out that is what they have been doing overtly and covertly to non-Christians for centuries....and still are. They forced it down our throat in public school, they made us pledge Allegiance to our country "under God", God help you indeed if you were Jewish. Gone today in America?
"the Dobrich family in Delaware, victims of harassment, abuse, and discrimination because they dared challenge the practice of Christian prayers during school board meetings (among other constitutional violations). There haven't been any new developments since Christians chased them out of the community, but more details have come out about just how bad it was. "
http://atheism.about.com/[...]ims.htm
"As important as all the rest of the this New York Times article was, I think this single sentence, unadorned by background details or substantive information, may be the most important of all: more schools in Delaware are engaged in proselytizing and harassing non-Christians"
For those who do not want to read the entire article, in short, a Jewish family was driven out of town for requesting less than their Constitutional rights regarding local prayer....sounds like the 50's again but back then they would not have allowed the Jewish family to move in in the first place. Do I seriously suggest a similar pogrom on Christians? No. I like Christians.....TRUE Christians. You think GOD sent his son to Earth just to put on a Three-Day Special for Pilate? Hell, no! He gave the Bible a major rewrite from the old days of stoning people for saying "Jehovah" to a forgiving, tolerant, loving, Christianity. It seems not to have taken with all modern Christians. You want to marry the person you love, or whisper an "Jehovah" here or there and these oxymoronic, "Old-Testament Christians" are picking up bricks to throw at you faster than you can say "Nominus Patre, es file, es spiritus sancti" five times fast. Yep, the message of Christianity really took on these folks. Sad as I am to see the passing of such icons as Christmas Trees in town squares and the celebrations of my childhood (even as an agnostic I saw the other celebration of Christmas, that of love and giving and good cheer among people who normally were not that way. I saw it and it was good. So i bought into it. I even went to Christmas Mass for the beauty of the music and pageantry and the good will of the people there...and wished it was like that all year. ) But the constant push to force religion down other people's throats have caused the laws to be changed and enforced more strictly and much of the beauty of sharing in those religions, at least in part, has been lost...for all of us. I truly see this as a sad thing. However I will mourn the passing of such beliefs far, far less than the passing of any groups civil rights....the right to equality. I only regret that some will paint the TRUE Christians with the same brush as these Fundamentalist Christians. They don't deserve it. (why are they called FUNdamentalists.........they aren't much fun and they are seldom funny except for when they open their mouths to speak about religion? Then they can be hysterical or terrifying like a large angry cobra....somebody pass me a machete)
We Will Win. However long it takes. I've seen Catholics fully accepted because of President Kennedy. I expect to see black Americans finally fully given the respect they deserve, beyond the word into the spirit, because of President Obama. Just promise me this. After we win our rights, don't take it out on the fundamentalists. You are better people than that. Remember that picture of the road to Heaven "except for Alex the Jew"? Well the joke is that when the fundamentalists get there there will be a straightaway into Heaven with a "True Christians, bear left" with a downward path to the right that says "Fundamentalists, bear right at exit, steep downgrade, test brakes before proceeding" Yes, MOM I said bear left.
was affected by out-of-state religious groups infusing massive amounts of money out of fear that if same-sex marriage was approved in CA, the other states would fall like dominoes. An abominable, deceitful, lying campaign was carried out to scare voters into denying a minority their equal rights. No Church was going to be forced to marry same-sex couples. That's the choice of that Church. But they feared that the country would see the truth and grant those rights to ALL Americans. So they poured tax-free money into CA to tell their "Christian" lies (Thou shalt not bear false witness). hypocrisy and sin all rolled into one. ("What profiteth a man if he gaineth the whole world and loseth his soul?") But it really does not matter. Ultimately, as did the racist filth of the past, they will lose. My faith in America is restored and it is only a matter of time. Next time, we will not be distracted by the Presidential Election. Next time we will focus and pour money from across the nation into CA. Perhaps we will also remove the tax-free status from the income of Churches who interfere with politics as a lobby rather than merely preaching their beliefs. One day it will fall. When one state falls, the others will fall in turn. Those who oppose it will have to live with the same shame and scarlet letter that the racists of the last century and today must share. Ignorant. Un-American. The people who make America stand second-place to the EU in Freedoms of substance, not theory. History shows that eventually ignorance fails. Enjoy your win while you have it. We are not giving up either. We will never give up. Eventually the oppressors lose because the oppressed overthrow them. We, not you, have the moral high ground. We are no longer sad and frustrated....we are now Angry. Perhaps you missed it but a New Age in America started last week and your "victory" was really your political, Death Knell. Remember today when Christmas is no longer a National holiday but only a religious one. It won't happen? Where are the Xmas trees, of ten years ago, in schools and public squares? Think long and hard about what you have wrought.
