Does Bush's religious faith inappropriately dictatate policy

Not Lubbock, Lola -- good ol' sulphurous Midland. And last night on the news I heard Billy Graham is going to Iraq... Seriously.

To do what - denouce the Jews?

Billy Grapham in Baghdad, the TV special. See it on Fox Tuesdays immediately following World Wrestling Federation and Blind Date Threesomes. There will be singing and healing. Christ will enter hearts. There will be PEACE AT LAST...but it's just a tease really, what with Armageddon and all. Gosh, I love America.

:wink:

I must congratulate you, Mr. Blatham on your funny and charming post. It made me laugh. Billy Graham in Irac, there really isn't much more that needs to be said about that other than to image ..... I must say, it makes me die with laughter.


Tartarin,

Of course, it was Midland, of course I knew that. :-) But really, I've always confused those West Texas towns........Outside of the fact that Lubbock has a State University, they're all the same, dry and boring. (Sorry if I've offended someone in West Texas) Well, I should qualify this and say that they are dry and boring relative to those things that interest me..................Don't you think GW looks like he'd be better off and more comfortable in Midland? He looked this way before he became President, and before he became govenor too..................Billy Graham in Irac.............. (laughing).........Of course it is really quite serious. I heard a Newsweek reporter in Jordan, I think it was, on NPR today saying he never thought he'd see this, but the reporting from the Arab States is more accurate than is that of the U.S. He was faulting the embedded system of reporting being employed by the government. He said it became very clear early that if a reporter isn't embedded, he/she would have no protection from the military, and he is much more at risk of injury. He said the danger was so great, it wasn't worth it. Our civil liberties are endangered, if you ask me.

I realize you're being facetious, but I couldn't help but wonder if a certain strain of sarcasm lends credence to those on the right saying those against bush and war "hate America". I have my serious reservations about this country, but the maintenance of the tenuous bond that allows us to consider ourselves even remotely interrelated depends on those of us who can carry on discourse making a consistent attempt to honor that bond. In other words, I ain't sayin' "love it or leave it", but rather "you need to love it more than you hate it", or the whole thing goes straight to hell.

Snood,

Is Blatham's "Gosh, I love America," a declaration of hatred? Or of being against America? Or is he expressing an opinion about a certain characteristic that is pervasive in the United States? Or might he be developing his character? The kind of person who would want Billy Graham to go to Irac, would probably have the same blind faith about everything in their lives. Blind faith is a way of life with them. And Blatham probably is showing the ridiculousness of any blind faith rather than telling us, "isn't that ridiculous?" Showing is more effective than telling when trying to communicate through an affective reaction.

So I don't think his facetious sarcasm lends credence to any thing about hating America..............it might, but it's more likely that it is one of the other possibilities I mention above. And I think many people take it as such. The paranoia of the evangelical, religious right will always be with us, and it's a danger, but we won't be able to counteract it by giving up our sense of humor.

Mine wasn't a call for anyone to turn in their sense of humor. Rather, I believe I was simply contemplating publicly what his "humor" brought to mind. and, just a friendly suggestion - maybe you should leave Blatham to explain his own words; I'm sure he has a better idea of what he meant than you could.

I was only speculating, Snood. Sometimes, I know, I do get enthusiastic about my ideas and forget to put in all the qualifiers.........Don't go and get in a huff with me. But if it bothers you, I apologize. I'll try to control my speculating behavior when ever I can.

I wasn't speaking about what Blatham meant by what he said, or even about what he was doing. I was talking instead about something else. I was addressing your question about whether it lent any credence or not. I didn't say anything about what his intentions actually were. I wouldn't know the answer to that question unless I asked him to tell me.

dear friends lola and snood

Let us all, as charter members of the Balding Canadian Socialists for Domination of the World by People Wearing Toques (CSDWPWT), not skirmish amongst ourselves.

Snood's point is not a bad one, and in fact I considered it before I sent the post off, but perhaps too briefly. There is the real possible consequence that some might understand the "Gosh, I love America" final sentence as evidence of anti-Americanism (which is, to that same set of possible readers, a High Crime bearing no comparison whatsoever to the cute misdemeanor of anti-Frenchism).

When Aristophanes wrote 'The Clouds', a 5th Century BC Athenian satire directed at the itinerant philosophers of the day (particularly Socrates), he said that he did it on the belief that deflating pomposity had real educative value for all. I share this belief. I want Donald Trump to do a pratfall in front of some group of pretty teenage girls he's trying to impress. I desire that Donald Rumsfeld's comb-over gets caught in the wind, and on video. I want sanctimonious Carl Rove to be caught on audio tape threatening some recalcitrant Republican or fumble-fingered young aide that "You mess with me and I will f-ck you up in this f-cking town so badly you'll wish you'd never been f-cking born!" I wish....very, very much....that more people born and raised below the sacred 49th come to understand better that God is not at the helm of their ship of state, and that the pretence that He is anywhere near that place is just a very old trick used by these modern Caesars and Caligulas. And I very much wish that more Americans understood the historical reasons why so many are so willing to think of their country's place in the world this way, to justify its acts this way, to EXCUSE its own evils this way.

Under the direction of these people presently in control, who are using the delusionary elements of sanctity in American self-image, America, as a force in the world, is doing the precise opposite of what it hopes - it is making the world a less safe place.

As Snood is likely already thinking, these paragraphs above are not redeeming my earlier post. I'm sorry. I am really no more anti-American than some wicker-weaving Saxon, sitting in his home near the Thames, listening to some rumor of a legion heading his way might have been anti-Roman.

Lola, my Mom's from Lubbock - and yes, it is certainly dry and boring; been there many, many, too many times

And, let's not forget Blatham is from Canada - though I still consider him from "America" as I do my brothers in Mexico -

Peace and love to you all, these are trying times and I need you both, you three, you all!

Getting right down to it, its probably good to remember we're likely all Terrans, whatever other affiliation may be involved. This is not meant to be construed as being in any way perjorative of any members who may in fact not be Terran.

ah, now i am beginning to understand why i feel alienated.

timber

With the clear and evident exception of dyslexia, which we've all known about but were hesitant to make mention of until his coming out above, 'terran' is the constituency where we all find ourselves and it is the only one where I include myself. I despise nationalism and all its symbols. Flags look good on women who are naked beneath, and it is their only value.

Blatham-
Well said, sir. In fact, I share your desire for that comb over to blow away, and for that pratfall to take place; I understand what motivates that desire (high in the list of such events would be actually seeing Bush debate unscripted).
I strive for balance - I am often unsuccessful, but as long as I continue to strive, I can consider myself a grown-up.

Thanks for replying. No hard feelings, Lola.

Blatham -- I herewith bequeath you half my citizenship so you can have the right (anyone does, when you get right down to it) to tease Americans!

Lola -- Remember Buddy Holly! I give you Midland and Odessa, but Lubbock has its points. I'm one of those weirdos who is turned on by West Texas -- the people and the landscape. But (just to show I know what this thread is supposed to be about) if you'd care to join me in a guerilla mission against Republicans and churchgoers in that area, I'd be right glad for the company...

We real Terrans, by the way, are giggling at you urban wannabes.

Tartarin, have a cousin who played back up behind Buddy Holly but didn't go on the road - or so I'm told!

No hard feelings, Snood. It was the middle of the night, after all. What were you doing up at that hour anyway? I was just enjoying my thoughts and trying to share, but I do realize it sounded a bit snappy.

And Tartarin, yes! Let's have a little fun with the Republicans and churchgoers of West Texas. I can think of almost nothing that would be more fun. When do we start? When feeling down about the scary religious ideology represented by GW, I often like to think about the interview I saw on Larry King several years ago. Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell. Larry Flynt handled Falwell with the ease and grace of Mohammed Ali when he was at his best. Funny to call it ease and grace, but it was like a funny dance in which Falwell kept finding himself face down on the floor. And Falwell would look up and still have that silly **** eatin grin plastered across his starry-eyed, chubby little face, as if he didn't quite grasp the meaning of what Larry F had said.

You are certainly more knowledgeable about West Texas than I am because I am truly a city dweller. I saw Buddy in London a few years ago. It was at the end of my visit there and I hate to admit it, but I was feeling home sick and so enjoyed the musical all the more for it's charming Texas setting. (Still talking about the same Midland I was picking on last night.) Funny how our ambivalence reveals itself.

And Blatham, I hate ethnocentrism as well. I love my country, but I do truly hate the people in power at this time. And I feel very unhappy about the willingness of so many people here to follow so blindly when the people they're believing in are so obviously up to no good. Rumsfeld, yesterday in his press conference, was truly disgusting.

When was Rummy truly gallant and edifying?

As Blatham, Snood, and a couple others have said and alluded to...

...we'd all be better off if we considered ourselves Terrans first and any nationality second.

There were folks who tried to explain that sort of thing to the Virginians and Georgians back when a federal government was first considered. The Virginians and Georgians really hated the idea. They thought small places like New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were beneath their dignity.

But things worked out rather well.

I suspect it would work out just as well if we started thinking globally rather than parochially.