Day: January 8, 2011

Religious Fundamentalists in the military at it again


The dangers of an active military command structure pushing a fundamentalist religious doctrine upon its soldiers and the rest of the public are obvious and incendiary.   Imagine if you can a group of Muslim imams first conducting a spiritual fitness survey to determine someone’s eligibility to serve  or otherwise flag that individual with regard to his/her value to the military.  Such a revelation would be enough to cause a revolution within the country and it is such a notion many within the birther community think will happen under Obama.  The exact opposite has happened, with the Obama administration like its predecessor Bush falling under sway of the fundamentalist Christian influence within the military.  Many people of that religious persuasion believe in an apocalyptic version of history that has America engaging in a war to end all wars in order to foster the return of Christ Jesus. Of course for anyone in the military to put forward such an ideology is self-serving to say the least if not dangerous for the country and the world. So news that some in the military are evaluating the spiritual fitness of other soldiers is troubling. Even more troubling is the person who made this survey is responsible for the CIA’s torture program.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation learned in December that soldiers were being asked to respond to statements such as “I am a spiritual person” and “I believe there is a purpose for my life.”

If soldiers received a low score on their spiritual fitness questions, they received an assessment that said “Spiritual fitness is an area of possible difficulty for you. … Improving your spiritual fitness should be an important goal.”…..

 

 

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No matter how many pictures published of the inhumane conditions Palestinians are forced to live under Israeli occupation; no matter how many wars of aggression Israel starts with her neighbors, regardless of the number of Palestinians murdered by the IDF it just doesn’t reach the American public that what we are witnessing there is no less than genocide by the hands of an American ally.  The accompanying video points out only one of the daily injustices Palestinians face when trying to move throughout their “country”.  The video shows people, mostly women, trying to move from the West Bank to Jerusalem for the Friday prayers.  It will not soften the hard hearts of Israel’s most ardent supporters, but it’s just another piece of evidence to show the world of Israeli war crimes against the people whose land it occupies.

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The Insanity of Islamophobia


Pat Robertson, who has said he supports the decriminalization of  marijuana must have decided to take a drag from a joint which caused him to come up with this latest proclamation.  Notice how, with just the mere accusation Robertson’s media machine has maligned Muslims, the Muslim Brotherhood, Quick (a fast food restaurant in France), Campbells, McDonalds, Walmart, and Whole Foods among others because they offer  customers choices; menus are not being changed, things aren’t being prohibited today that were offered in days gone by, in fact beer which is on Quick’s menu in France is still available for those who drink.  Rather, a method of slaughtering meat employed on some of the meat used used for some of the food choices by these companies  is upsetting to the Islamophobes like Robertson and Pamela Gellar who talk about the fear of Islamic law taking over Europe and ostensibly America, merely because consumers are offered choices.  Usually that’s considered good business, but to racists like Robertson, et.al that’s cause to incite and inflame passions against a religious belief.  Such a jump can only be attributed to drugs and while we haven’t seen Gellar or Robertson taking them, or rather there are no pictures of them doing so, we can only assume because of their stance concerning the criminalization of drugs that drug use is  what’s  caused them to come to such far flung conclusions.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what has caused Frank Gaffney to such delirium as his latest insanity regarding a conservative PAC. Gaffney seems to think the nefarious Muslim Brotherhood has taken over the Conservative Political Action Conference, because…..are you ready for this……..there is a Muslim member, Suhail Khan a GWBush ex-staffer who represents a group, Muslims FOR America. (Look at the mindlessness of Gaffney’s opposition, decrying the participation of a group of Americans in the political process who are FOR America)  The whole goal of Gaffney, Robertson, Gellar and all the rest is to marginalize the participation of Muslims in the political process of America even when there is absolutely nothing objectionable to the aims of that participation unless such groups are under their control. In other words they want to make enemies where there aren’t any, by making their involvement illegal, and they want to instigate  bystanders in the political process into such a frenzy and hatred in order for them to accomplish this goal.   In even simpler terms, if you don’t do what they say, or agree with their program they won’t like you and threaten to do everything to make you illegal, the textbook definition of fascism.

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the mindless, racist intent of people like Gaffney and Robertson than their own senseless rants regarding people who are different than they are.  The kind of talk regarding Muslims and Islam by the likes of the Islamophobes would not be tolerated if it were applied to any other group either in the borders of America or outside of it.  Spurred by the equally insipid distribution of lies and innuendo of today’s media outlets and you have the makings of a propaganda machine that surpasses  the wildest dreams of the most fanatical government. These are troubling times.

An I told you so moment


If you do, you’ll be a lot smarter, or so says the latest study on FoxNews which claims you are very misinformed if you do depend on that medium for news or even informed opinion.  This isn’t news for many of us in the blogsphere….FoxNews has serious credibility problems and their own air talent are nothing short of refined racists with an open mic and the American airwaves to spill their venom and infect the body politic.

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely), most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points), the economy is getting worse (26 points), most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points), the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points), their own income taxes have gone up (14 points), the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points), when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points). The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it–though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.

Continue reading “An I told you so moment”