In my previous post, I delved into the bizarre career and behavior of Oklahoma's junior U.S. Senator Tom Colburn, M.D.
Today's post is about his equally dysfunctional senatorial partner from Oklahoma, James Mountain Inhofe.
The problem in writing or discussing Inhofe is trying to figure out where to begin and to sort out and give priorities to the massive amounts of lunacy and complete stupidity which are the foundations of his being.
First, a little background on his political career.
Inhofe was first elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1966 and then two years later to the State Senate. He ran for governor in 1974 and lost, and then two years later was again defeated in an attempt to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He stopped the downward skid in 1978 when he was elected mayor of Tulsa where he served until 1984.
He then was the head of the Quaker Life Insurance Company which almost immediately went into receivership and was eventually liquidated.
Undaunted, he again ran for the U.S. House and won in 1986. He served there until 1994 and then rode the Republican Contract With America Express into the U.S. Senate. His campaign was based on "god, guns and gays." He has been entrenched there ever since.
To understand Inhofe (if that's possible) you must understand that he has gone from being a devout christian to being a fanatical christian. Every action he takes as a senator is the result of his convoluted thinking about religion (Christianity, more precisely) and his view of its role in American political thought and action.
Inhofe recalled several years ago in an interview with an Assemblies of God publication when he was smotten...or whatever it is that happens when god supposedly touches you.
EVANGEL: "Talk about your personal journey to faith in Jesus Christ."
INHOFE: "I accepted Christ on September 22, 1988, at 2:30 in the afternoon in the Members’ Dining Room in the United States Capitol. I was 54 years old. I always thought I had been a follower of Jesus and had accepted Him, then suddenly realized that that hadn’t happened. All the burdens of life were shifted, and I said, 'God, it’s Your problem now.' It worked."
I am struck by several things in reading this. First, what is it specifically about the Member's Dining room that lends itself to religious conversions? Second is the phrase "God, it's your problem now." What problem is that? Also, does this mean Inhofe sees himself as abdicating his responsibility as a public official to address and find a solution to "the problem" or any problems we face as a country? God, after all, will take care of everything so Jimmy Boy doesn't have to do a damn thing!
Inhofe's public mutterings really garnered attention right after Sept. 11, 2001. Not to be outdone by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter when it came to dumb ass comments about what either caused the attacks or what we should do in response, Inhofe, as always, used the bible as his source for the answers regarding the attacks.
"One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America is that the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them."
Inhofe believes there are biblical passages from the Old Testament which specifically guide us in what we should do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Never mind that this on-going 75+ year conflict unfolded long after the bible was written.
Inhofe has said from the floor of the Senate that god gave the West Bank to Abraham and his descendants, and if the U.S. doesn't get behind eliminating the Palestinians, it violates god's law.
To detail all of Inhofe's utterly absurd and deranged statements, actions and policy positions would mean creating a document as thick as War and Peace. Instead, here is a list of some of his most egregious acts.
It was Inhofe who personally blocked the nomination by President Clinton of James Hormel, who is gay, to be the U.S. Ambassador to Luxemburg. He tied the nomination up for weeks before Hormel was finally approved.
Inhofe portrayed Hormel's sex life as salacious. Later, his own staff was caught downloading tons of porno from the Internet onto their Senate computers. When pressed, Inhofe wouldn't comment saying to do so would be "in deference to legitimate privacy concerns."
Inhofe continually tries to promote and push his fundamentalism into the the U.S. government. He sponsored the Religious Freedom Amendment that would have required accommodation of religion in all government actions, especially in schools. When pressed as to whether this would include Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., he responded that anything other than Judaism or Christianity isn't a "real" religion and wouldn't be constitutionally protected.
When the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was bombed in 1995, Inhofe was asked how many people worked in the building. He jumped on this sudden opportunity to chastise bureaucrats saying "it depends on how many federal workers played hooky today."
Global warming is the one issue where Inhofe displays his profound stupidity. His war chest bulges with money given his campaign by oil and gas interests and Jumpin' Jimmy jumps as high as they ask. He has repeatedly argued that global warming is due to “natural changes.” “God’s still up there,” Inhofe said, and to the extent there is warming going on, it is “due to the sun.”
Finally, there was his response to the Abu Ghraib scandal. When the media, and then the public, raised hell over the actions by the military in Iraq when it came to the treatment of detained prisoners, Inhofe yelled out that he was "outraged over this outrage."
A good friend in Oklahoma summed it up best when he said "Jim Inhofe is a 15 watt light bulb that somehow thinks he is 50 watts."
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
OKLAHOMA OK? PART I
Two months ago, probably 95 percent of Americans could not have correctly answered "who is Tom Coburn?"
Today, that number is probably 90 to 92 percent. Remember, we are asking folks to identify a United States Senator. These are everyday American citizens, roughly a third of whom couldn't find the U.S. on an outline map.
The hypothetical drop from the mid to low-nineties no doubt stems from the recent attention Coburn has garnered in which he has a) been involved in trying to both end, as well as cover up, the sexual affair by fellow Republican Senator John Ensign; and b) made an insensitive comment to Judge Sonia Sotomayor during the judiciary committee hearings on her Supreme Court nomination.
A little background is in order. Coburn is an Oklahoma physician from Muskogee who was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, served three terms, stepped down, resurfaced and then was elected the Sooner State's junior U.S. Senator in 2004. The senior senator is James Mountain Inhofe. Coburn and Inhofe combined have an intelligence capacity that maybe hits three figures. Certainly the two of them are leading the parade of fruitcakes who make up the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party. Today's post is a look at Coburn. The next will be a look at Inhofe.
Let's begin by considering Coburn's role as a medical doctor. I thought Bill Frisk, the GOP senator from Tennessee was the dumbest schmuck to ever be licensed to practice medicine. Remember back in the Terri Schivo days when he said looking at footage of her on TV had pretty much convinced him she still was functional? He also once said he didn't know if HIV could be transmitted through sweat!
When Coburn first came to the Senate there was a full court press by the Republicans who then controlled both houses of Congress and the Bush II Administration, to dramatically restrict class action, mass torts lawsuits. Needing some kind of "expert testimony" to support their arguments, Coburn was asked to give his medical opinion on one example of medical procedures where the so-called evidence countered the argument in favor of the lawsuits. He selected the issue of breast implants and said "there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and in fact, they make you healthier."
Tom Terrific apparently missed the part over 10 years earlier where silicone breast implants were banned in this country because of their history of rupturing and spilling toxic fluids into women’s bodies.
A few years ago, there was overwhelming bipartisan support to ease unfair restrictions on credit card holders and the bill was headed to the President's desk for signing. At the last minute, Coburn tried to attach an amendment which would allow people to carry concealed weapons into National Parks.
I always thought that the role of the doctor was to tend to the sick and injured, promote health and generally protect the living. Coburn sees it differently and in fact has called for the execution of persons associated with performing abortions.
The range of his absurdity is very broad. He has complained that girls’ bathrooms in Oklahoma are bastions of lesbianism. How and why Oklahoma ladies rooms are afflicted with this problem is unclear.
Coburn is the epitome of homophobia and has railed, screamed and voted against every measure on gay rights, funding for HIV/AIDS and even condom distribution and use.
He once said, at a Republican political meeting according to the online magazine Salon.com, that “the gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power. [The gay] agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today.”
He's probably right. Thanks to his bathroom warning, lesbians have been flocking in droves to Oklahoma.
Coburn and his staff once hosted an event in Washington for young aides and pages to preach about the evils of sex with multiple partners highlighted with a slide show illustrating genital infections from various STDs.
He also opposes a national recognition of environmental pioneer Rachel Carson's birthday and raised hell when the film classic "Schindler's List" was to be aired on television because it had scenes of "frontal nudity." Those damn Nazis. Why didn't they have the decency to let those people keep their clothes on when convincing them they were just taking a shower instead of being herded into gas chambers?
Coburn's most recent example of outlandish behavior came last week when in response to a comment made by Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Amendment, Coburn said she would have "some 'splainning' to do" a famous line uttered by Desi Arnez, the late Cuban musician and actor in the "I Love Lucy" television series. Anybody over 35 knew Coburn's intent was to mock Sotomayor's Hispanic heritage.
But his best move in all this time has been both his cover up and advocate bribery in the John Ensign matter. Coburn knew about Ensign's sexual fling for well over a year, yet worked hard to help keep it a secret. After all, Ensign is not only a fellow Republican, but also another born-againer and lives with Coburn in that strange world of the Family, the C Street boys in Washington who pray (and "lay") together.
It was Coburn who came up with the idea of Ensign's super rich father paying nearly $100 thousand to the mistress and her husband to keep them quiet.
In the end, Coburn may be lacking any real seniority in the Senate and is still Oklahoma's junior senator. What he is not lacking is a pattern of very frightening behavior and positions on the issues which are a threat to every American if it ever becomes policy or law.
Coburn is the perfect physician to "heal thyself."
Today, that number is probably 90 to 92 percent. Remember, we are asking folks to identify a United States Senator. These are everyday American citizens, roughly a third of whom couldn't find the U.S. on an outline map.
The hypothetical drop from the mid to low-nineties no doubt stems from the recent attention Coburn has garnered in which he has a) been involved in trying to both end, as well as cover up, the sexual affair by fellow Republican Senator John Ensign; and b) made an insensitive comment to Judge Sonia Sotomayor during the judiciary committee hearings on her Supreme Court nomination.
A little background is in order. Coburn is an Oklahoma physician from Muskogee who was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, served three terms, stepped down, resurfaced and then was elected the Sooner State's junior U.S. Senator in 2004. The senior senator is James Mountain Inhofe. Coburn and Inhofe combined have an intelligence capacity that maybe hits three figures. Certainly the two of them are leading the parade of fruitcakes who make up the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party. Today's post is a look at Coburn. The next will be a look at Inhofe.
Let's begin by considering Coburn's role as a medical doctor. I thought Bill Frisk, the GOP senator from Tennessee was the dumbest schmuck to ever be licensed to practice medicine. Remember back in the Terri Schivo days when he said looking at footage of her on TV had pretty much convinced him she still was functional? He also once said he didn't know if HIV could be transmitted through sweat!
When Coburn first came to the Senate there was a full court press by the Republicans who then controlled both houses of Congress and the Bush II Administration, to dramatically restrict class action, mass torts lawsuits. Needing some kind of "expert testimony" to support their arguments, Coburn was asked to give his medical opinion on one example of medical procedures where the so-called evidence countered the argument in favor of the lawsuits. He selected the issue of breast implants and said "there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and in fact, they make you healthier."
Tom Terrific apparently missed the part over 10 years earlier where silicone breast implants were banned in this country because of their history of rupturing and spilling toxic fluids into women’s bodies.
A few years ago, there was overwhelming bipartisan support to ease unfair restrictions on credit card holders and the bill was headed to the President's desk for signing. At the last minute, Coburn tried to attach an amendment which would allow people to carry concealed weapons into National Parks.
I always thought that the role of the doctor was to tend to the sick and injured, promote health and generally protect the living. Coburn sees it differently and in fact has called for the execution of persons associated with performing abortions.
The range of his absurdity is very broad. He has complained that girls’ bathrooms in Oklahoma are bastions of lesbianism. How and why Oklahoma ladies rooms are afflicted with this problem is unclear.
Coburn is the epitome of homophobia and has railed, screamed and voted against every measure on gay rights, funding for HIV/AIDS and even condom distribution and use.
He once said, at a Republican political meeting according to the online magazine Salon.com, that “the gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power. [The gay] agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today.”
He's probably right. Thanks to his bathroom warning, lesbians have been flocking in droves to Oklahoma.
Coburn and his staff once hosted an event in Washington for young aides and pages to preach about the evils of sex with multiple partners highlighted with a slide show illustrating genital infections from various STDs.
He also opposes a national recognition of environmental pioneer Rachel Carson's birthday and raised hell when the film classic "Schindler's List" was to be aired on television because it had scenes of "frontal nudity." Those damn Nazis. Why didn't they have the decency to let those people keep their clothes on when convincing them they were just taking a shower instead of being herded into gas chambers?
Coburn's most recent example of outlandish behavior came last week when in response to a comment made by Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Amendment, Coburn said she would have "some 'splainning' to do" a famous line uttered by Desi Arnez, the late Cuban musician and actor in the "I Love Lucy" television series. Anybody over 35 knew Coburn's intent was to mock Sotomayor's Hispanic heritage.
But his best move in all this time has been both his cover up and advocate bribery in the John Ensign matter. Coburn knew about Ensign's sexual fling for well over a year, yet worked hard to help keep it a secret. After all, Ensign is not only a fellow Republican, but also another born-againer and lives with Coburn in that strange world of the Family, the C Street boys in Washington who pray (and "lay") together.
It was Coburn who came up with the idea of Ensign's super rich father paying nearly $100 thousand to the mistress and her husband to keep them quiet.
In the end, Coburn may be lacking any real seniority in the Senate and is still Oklahoma's junior senator. What he is not lacking is a pattern of very frightening behavior and positions on the issues which are a threat to every American if it ever becomes policy or law.
Coburn is the perfect physician to "heal thyself."
Saturday, July 18, 2009
WHEN THEY GET BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Have you been wondering what goes on inside the row house headquarters of "the Family."
This isn't a "family" like "All in the Family." No, this is a special sect or cult of primarily U.S. congressman and a governor or two thrown. They are avowed fundamentalist Christians believing they are at the forefront in leading the U.S. and, indeed, the world" and are engaged in a crusade of righteous and God-fearing might.
They see themselves as setting the standard for moral behavior and Christian values. While they are at it, they want Christianity to rule the world.
All this and sexual infidelity with bribery on the side.
The row house is located on what now is becoming the infamous C Street S.E., just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
The Family was founded in the mid-1930s as an ultra- conservative organization both politically and religiously. The group opposed the New Deal, and the whack job who came up with the concept, Abraham Vereide, claimed to have been moved to launch its founding when a vision of God visited him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation. Quick, check on the supply of Thorazine and Haldol!!
The Family was little known and receiving no news coverage until the two most recent poster boys of naughty Republican behavior, Mark Sanford and John Ensign, got caught layin' cable with two babes who were not their wives. Surprise, both are members of the Family. Suddenly, a "who's who" of "family values" bible-quoting hypocrites who serve in public office, cropped up. Even a Democrat or two has been seduced by the rhetoric emitting from the brownstone structure.
They include the likes of Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Congressmen Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA). By the way, if your name was "Zach Wamp" don't you think at some point you would have legally changed all or part of it?
Not only do these guys routinely meet at C Street but several of them live there. They pay a mere $600 in rent which is a form of welfare given what rental rates are in D.C., especially in the neighborhood two to three minutes walking distance from the Capitol complex.
Which begs the question, what goes on between a bunch of married guys all living together in a building owned by a secret society? Men...married and otherwise...do, on occasion, head off together for things like fishing trips, golf trips, lets-see-a-game-at-every-major-league-ballpark-cavalcade, etc. But those are different. When it comes to the C Street boys all tucked in a cozy together for all the times when Congress is in session, something is a bit odd. Given recent developments during the collapse of the "family values" party can you say Mark Foley? Larry Craig?
As far back as I can remember, married members of Congress owned or rented homes in the Washington area and their wives and kids were with them and carrying on a typical family life. Just where are the wives and kids of these guys? It sure seems to me that these jesus-centered living arrangements allow for some flexibility when it comes to a bit of sexual inappropriateness whether it's a mid case of frottage inside the C Street house or full bore copulation outside of it.
A cornerstone of the Family's beliefs dating back nearly 75 years to its founding, is that the traditional concept of Christianity of helping the poor, the sick and the downtrodden is out the window. The Family basically says "fuck those people, this is about us and acquiring more wealth and power. It is really about you and me and our needs and self-gratification and all of this government involvement in serving the citizenry is taking away from what we want."
A case in point is Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor recently caught high-tailing it to Argentina last month to chase pussy which wasn't his wife's.
A couple of months before he got caught with his pants down, Sanford was in the news because he was amongst a handful of Republican governors who announced they wouldn't accept any of their state's share of the Stimulus money. These fiscal conservatives would be damned if they took this money made available by the Obama Administration designed to help with the much-needed economic recovery.
Yesterday, the Huffington Post reported that Mysterious Mark "shed his fiscal conservatism on several taxpayer-funded international trips, including a South American jaunt that included time with his mistress and choosing expensive first-class or business-class seats while his aides sat in coach.
"Sanford, who once criticized other state officials for costly travel, charged the state more than $37,600 for one first-class and four business-class flights overseas since November 2005, expense records show.
Family value Mark charged the state $8,687 for a trip to Brazil last year that included business class.
Oh, yes, there was a side jaunt to fuck his Argentine mistress, Maria Belen Chapur.
In keeping with the true concept of the "have, have-nots" which is a hallmark of the Family, the rest of the state employees had to fly coach.
Caught with one hand in the state till and the other pulling down his zipper, Sanford had no choice but to repay $3,300 for part of that Brazil-Argentina poon tang jaunt.
His spokesman defended the governor's state travel as "very judicious."
A spokesman for the governor, Joel Sawyer, said sinful Sanford "compares very well" with previous state administrations when it comes to use of public money for travel.
That's nice, but were previous state officials getting laid in the process?
This isn't a "family" like "All in the Family." No, this is a special sect or cult of primarily U.S. congressman and a governor or two thrown. They are avowed fundamentalist Christians believing they are at the forefront in leading the U.S. and, indeed, the world" and are engaged in a crusade of righteous and God-fearing might.
They see themselves as setting the standard for moral behavior and Christian values. While they are at it, they want Christianity to rule the world.
All this and sexual infidelity with bribery on the side.
The row house is located on what now is becoming the infamous C Street S.E., just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
The Family was founded in the mid-1930s as an ultra- conservative organization both politically and religiously. The group opposed the New Deal, and the whack job who came up with the concept, Abraham Vereide, claimed to have been moved to launch its founding when a vision of God visited him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation. Quick, check on the supply of Thorazine and Haldol!!
The Family was little known and receiving no news coverage until the two most recent poster boys of naughty Republican behavior, Mark Sanford and John Ensign, got caught layin' cable with two babes who were not their wives. Surprise, both are members of the Family. Suddenly, a "who's who" of "family values" bible-quoting hypocrites who serve in public office, cropped up. Even a Democrat or two has been seduced by the rhetoric emitting from the brownstone structure.
They include the likes of Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Congressmen Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA). By the way, if your name was "Zach Wamp" don't you think at some point you would have legally changed all or part of it?
Not only do these guys routinely meet at C Street but several of them live there. They pay a mere $600 in rent which is a form of welfare given what rental rates are in D.C., especially in the neighborhood two to three minutes walking distance from the Capitol complex.
Which begs the question, what goes on between a bunch of married guys all living together in a building owned by a secret society? Men...married and otherwise...do, on occasion, head off together for things like fishing trips, golf trips, lets-see-a-game-at-every-major-league-ballpark-cavalcade, etc. But those are different. When it comes to the C Street boys all tucked in a cozy together for all the times when Congress is in session, something is a bit odd. Given recent developments during the collapse of the "family values" party can you say Mark Foley? Larry Craig?
As far back as I can remember, married members of Congress owned or rented homes in the Washington area and their wives and kids were with them and carrying on a typical family life. Just where are the wives and kids of these guys? It sure seems to me that these jesus-centered living arrangements allow for some flexibility when it comes to a bit of sexual inappropriateness whether it's a mid case of frottage inside the C Street house or full bore copulation outside of it.
A cornerstone of the Family's beliefs dating back nearly 75 years to its founding, is that the traditional concept of Christianity of helping the poor, the sick and the downtrodden is out the window. The Family basically says "fuck those people, this is about us and acquiring more wealth and power. It is really about you and me and our needs and self-gratification and all of this government involvement in serving the citizenry is taking away from what we want."
A case in point is Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor recently caught high-tailing it to Argentina last month to chase pussy which wasn't his wife's.
A couple of months before he got caught with his pants down, Sanford was in the news because he was amongst a handful of Republican governors who announced they wouldn't accept any of their state's share of the Stimulus money. These fiscal conservatives would be damned if they took this money made available by the Obama Administration designed to help with the much-needed economic recovery.
Yesterday, the Huffington Post reported that Mysterious Mark "shed his fiscal conservatism on several taxpayer-funded international trips, including a South American jaunt that included time with his mistress and choosing expensive first-class or business-class seats while his aides sat in coach.
"Sanford, who once criticized other state officials for costly travel, charged the state more than $37,600 for one first-class and four business-class flights overseas since November 2005, expense records show.
Family value Mark charged the state $8,687 for a trip to Brazil last year that included business class.
Oh, yes, there was a side jaunt to fuck his Argentine mistress, Maria Belen Chapur.
In keeping with the true concept of the "have, have-nots" which is a hallmark of the Family, the rest of the state employees had to fly coach.
Caught with one hand in the state till and the other pulling down his zipper, Sanford had no choice but to repay $3,300 for part of that Brazil-Argentina poon tang jaunt.
His spokesman defended the governor's state travel as "very judicious."
A spokesman for the governor, Joel Sawyer, said sinful Sanford "compares very well" with previous state administrations when it comes to use of public money for travel.
That's nice, but were previous state officials getting laid in the process?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
IT'S IN THE TREES
I am routinely reminded as to why as a species we have not advanced further than we have. Some scientists say we only use, on average, as little as 10 percent of our intellectual capabilities. When I, and others, wonder why we can't do more to cure diseases, live in balance and harmony and help raise the less fortunate masses up to a higher level, I need only look at the following.
In the last couple of weeks, large numbers of people have claimed either to have seen, or have taken away from their valuable time to go see, animate objects inside inanimate objects.
The one that is no surprise is the Virgin Mary. The other is Michael Jackson.
Now the Virgin Mary sighting is nothing new. For centuries she has managed to show up in the most outrageous places at least in the minds of backward, superstitious, uneducated morons.
This time it is a tree stump in Ireland.
Less than a week ago, a story appeared on the wires which had run in the Courier-Mail and was written by Charles Miranda stating, "it may look like a tree stump to some but for others it is a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary who appeared in a churchyard in Ireland after a willow tree was chopped down.
"The rural Irish village of Rathkeale in County Limerick is being inundated by hundreds of worshippers after workmen claimed the image of the Virgin Mary appeared in the remains of a felled tree in the Holy Mary Parish churchyard.
"Noel White, Rathkeale Community Council Graveyard Committee chairman, said workmen sprucing up the church land saw the image when they cut the tree.
"One of the lads said ‘look, our Blessed Lady in the tree,’ " Mr. White said yesterday.
"One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock. It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby."
The article went on to state how people from all over...up to 700 at one count...had converged on the site, light candles next to the stump and draped rosary beads over it.
A local priest refused to get caught up in the hype saying "I have seen the tree ... it's only a tree," he said.
The Irish Catholic Church has also called for calm and said it treated the phenomena with skepticism.
"While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition,'' a spokesman said.
Two thoughts here: first, given Ireland's recent history with sexual and physical abuse of children I am surprised a priest would even have time to comment publicly about anything, given that his attention would most likely be focused elsewhere. Second, the church saying it wished "to avoid anything, which might lead to superstition" is remarkably banal: the whole thing, all of this stuff, is steeped in superstition. That's how the church manages to survive.
Apparently, the last time the country was plagued by massive joblessness in the 1980s there were numerous reported sightings of moving statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
One of the most infamous was in Ballinspittle in County Cork, where locals insisted they witnessed the statue of Our Lady floating in the air! Floating in the air?
The claims drew worldwide attention as busloads flocked to see the roadside grotto.
Such psychotic-induced sightings were not confined to the Emerald Isle. Let's drop in to the San Francisco area for another example of why as a species we are only a few steps removed from the savannahs of Africa several million years ago.
"Dude Sees Image of Michael Jackson in a Tree Stump" said the headline in a story on the Net written by Robert Paul Reyes. Reyes is a NewsBlaze writer on Politics, Pop Culture and Pointless Pontificating.
"People have claimed to see the image of Jesus in everything from a Cheeto to a piece of toast. Now a California man says a knot in a tree stump resembles the image of Michael Jackson," Reyes Wrote
Reyes talked to Felix Garcia of Stockton, who said he first noticed the image last Thursday while working in his yard.
Word spread and then crowds of people who were earlier were no doubt busy drooling, dragging their knuckles and stumbling around like adenoidal louts, started to gather near the home to get a glimpse of the image.
"Michael Jackson impacted our lives more than Jesus or any of the saints, it's understandable that folks with a spiritual bent would see visions of the King of Pop," Garcia was quoted as saying.
“Garcia claims to have noticed the image of Michael Jackson while working in his yard. But he probably said to himself "that tree stump sure looks like the King of Pop", while trying to decide which bills he could skip paying this month," Reyes added sarcastically.
"Let me go out on a limb, and predict that the Michael Jackson tree stump will soon be up for action on eBay.
"Folks will soon claim to see the image of Jackson on everything from a Doritos chip to a rotten banana."
The Jackson image story made me think back to the old Monty Python series that the BBC used to air on PBS here in the States. There was a hilarious skit called the Lumberjack Song. I think the title, at least for now, should be the "Lumberjacko Song." The original lyrics also seem to fit given Jackson's persona in recent years.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay
I sleep all night and I work all day
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavat'ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones with tea
I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I love to press wild flow'rs
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I'd been a girlie
Just like my dear papa
Saturday, July 11, 2009
FAMILY VALUES PART II; ULTRA-RIGHT RANTINGS VOLUME II
The Coe Brothers, David and Tim, have been more than a little busy the past few weeks.
Back in 2007-2008 Ensign had been banging Cynthia Hampton, wife of Ensign's best friend, Doug Hampton. Ensign got caught, but before he did, he took "family values" to a new level: he got his parents (primarily his father, Mike) to pony up roughly $100,000 to pay off Hampton so she would shut up and go away. The old man owns, among other things, the Mandalay Group which operates casinos in Nevada. The Ensign hush money payment proves that there are real "values" in having a rich "family."
The C Street boys then got Ensign to write a letter to Cindy Hampton expressing remorse and calling off their fling. A copy of the letter was obtained by Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston. In true born-again fashion, Ensign, a long time mouthier of bible verses, references to god, the sanctity of marriage and all things holy and pure, made sure (or the C Street guys made sure) that there were a few references to the guy in the sky in the letter. In fact, most of the letter is about god.
"God never intended for us to do this."
"I walked away from him and my relationship with him has suffered terribly."
"I know he loves me and he loves you."
"He wants to restore Darlene to me and he wants to restore Doug to you."
"More than that, he wants to restore our relationship to him."
Then to be certain he could be trusted, the C-Street boys along with Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn (a Republican, natch) drove him to a local FedEx site to guarantee the envelope with the letter was sent off to the lovely Ms. Hampton. I suspect the money from daddy got to her via some other method.
Coburn is another in a long line of crackpots from Oklahoma, the same state that sent Jim Inhofe to the Senate. Coburn denied any involvement in the Ensign matter but that was refuted by his own staff, which said he was. Coburn then would not comment or respond to questions on the situation claiming that as "a physician and ordained deacon" in his church, it was privileged information. I'm trying to imagine what medical procedure Coburn would have been administering during all this. Checking to see if Ensign had the clap?
* * *
She recently introduced in the Oklahoma legislature a document, which blames “abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse and many other forms of debauchery” for the country’s economic woes.
To rectify the problem, it suggests the following solution: “BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, humbly call upon Holy God, our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, to have mercy on this nation, to stay His hand of judgment, and grant a national awakening of righteousness and Christian renewal as we repent of our great sin.”
Then there is Rush Limbaugh who must have at least a dozen writers he keeps on staff to produce commentary that I have to admit is very creative. Two recent examples are that President Obama is planning to ignore the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution and will simply continue in office with at least a third term. A week or so ago, he said that Michael Jackson's career hit its zenith when Reagan was in the White House, continued through Bush I and then begin to go into a free fall when Clinton took office and culminated with death while Obama was in the White House. He skipped over the Bush II eight-year nightmare.
Finally, we venture to Arizona where on June 25, the Arizona Senate’s Retirement and Rural Development Committee discussed the prospects for uranium mining in the state. During the hearing, State Senator Sylvia Allen (R), the vice chairman of the committee, argued in favor of mining by saying that the earth “has been here 6,000 years" and almost all of that time there were never any environmental protection laws and things seem to be fine."
Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Jacob Javits & Co. have to be spinning in their graves.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Robert McNamara, Vietnam and Iraq
The death a few days ago of Robert S. McNamara may well have been the final chapter on the Vietnam War sans any expected future historical analysis.
All of the Presidents who conceived of, executed, slowed down and terminated the conflict are dead. The "best and the brightest" from the JFK and LBJ years are as well. Except, perhaps, for Henry Kissinger and some lesser known participants, everyone is gone. McNamara now joins McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, Walt Rostow, Bill Westmoreland & Co. in that great DMZ in the sky.
Vietnam became so unpopular because to the average American, there was no end in sight. In World War II everyone could look at maps in their daily newspapers and weekly magazines and quickly understand why massive armies and navies were closing in on Germany and Japan. In the late 1960s and early 1970s an ever-growing number of Americans came to realize the original argument for sending hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops into this small country in Southeast Asia was making less and less sense. The argument was that we needed to stop communism in Vietnam and, more importantly, from it spreading throughout Southeast and Southern Asia. Hawks back then used to say things like "if we don't stop them in Vietnam, in three years they'll be in Hawaii." I used to try and envision boatloads of Vietnamese communists puttering across several thousand miles of the Pacific as part of an invasion armada focusing in on Honolulu and how the sophisticated U.S. Navy would be useless in stopping them.
Vietnam, by Ho Chi Minh's own admission, was a war of nationalism, not monolithic communism, and was designed to give the Vietnamese the right to their land and to control their destiny free from the likes of the Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, French and the Americans who for centuries had colonized the country.
Ho had told the French right after WWII when it was obvious that he and the Viet Minh were going to take up arms to kick the French out of their country that "you will kill 10 of my men and I will kill only one of yours. But in the end, you will tire and leave." After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in the Spring of 1954, the French left. By 1975, we too were very tired and couldn't get out fast enough.
The American policy (and the war) was riddled with false assumptions, hubris and lies. In the end, these caught up with us.
You would think that less than 30 years after we got out, U.S. officials would not have made the same basic mistake again. But we did. I won't bore everyone with Santyana's famous quote about not understanding history and making the same mistake twice. I will say that, like Vietnam, false assumptions, hubris and lies were the platform under which the policy for going to war in Iraq was built. Arguments, documents, investigations and in-depth analysis have today confirmed that the 2003 attack on Iraq, while different in its specific conditions and dynamics than Nam, was still predicated on complete mistruths. A clear example is the following which appeared recently in the New York Daily News. It was forwarded to me by my friend Tom Baines in Oklahoma City, an attorney of note, a former military officer and intelligence wonk, one of a few Democrats in the Sooner state and a man of keen intellect and insight:
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein Bluffed About WMDs Fearing Iranian Arsenal, Secret FBI Files Show.
Saddam Hussein feared Iran's arsenal more than a U.S. attack, and even considered asking ex-President George W. Bush "to protect" Iraq from its neighbor, once secret FBI files show.
The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request. The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
Of all his enemies, Iraq's ex-president - who insisted he still held office during captivity - hated Iran most.
Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.
"Hussein replied Iraq would have been extremely vulnerable to attack from Iran and would have sought a security agreement with the U.S. to protect it from threats in the region," according to a 2004 FBI report among the declassified files.
Without Bush's help, "Iraq would have done what was necessary," he told FBI Agent George Piro in his Baghdad International Airport cell.
That didn't mean an alliance of evil with Al Qaeda, he insisted months into what he called a "dialogue" with Piro.
The interrogations unfolded in 2004 after his capture the previous December at the same farm where he said he'd hidden after orchestrating a failed 1959 coup plot.
Saddam denied ever laying eyes on the "zealot" Bin Laden, bent on striking the U.S.
He said he "did not have the same belief of vision" as the terror kingpin.
Saddam never sought Al Qaeda assistance because he feared the terror group would turn on him. To protect his country, the more likely ally "would have been North Korea."
Saddam also said the U.S. "used the 9/11 attack as a justification to attack Iraq" and "lost sight of the cause of 9/11."
The U.S. "was not Iraq's enemy," just its policies, Saddam explained.
Asked about WMDs, Saddam insisted: "We destroyed them. We told you."
"By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the U.S," he added.
McNamara was vilified by the Vietnam anti-war movement. Post death blogger comments the past few days have varied a good deal but certainly there were the predictable "war criminal" and "may he burn in hell with LBJ and Nixon" rants.
I will say this in McNamara's defense. Thirty years after he left the Secretary of Defense post in the Johnson Administration, he publicly admitted he was "wrong. Terribly wrong."
My chances of being alive in thirty years are very slim but I will bet that none of the Bush II crowd...George himself, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney or Wolfowitz...will every use the word "wrong" when they publicly look back.
All of the Presidents who conceived of, executed, slowed down and terminated the conflict are dead. The "best and the brightest" from the JFK and LBJ years are as well. Except, perhaps, for Henry Kissinger and some lesser known participants, everyone is gone. McNamara now joins McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, Walt Rostow, Bill Westmoreland & Co. in that great DMZ in the sky.
Vietnam became so unpopular because to the average American, there was no end in sight. In World War II everyone could look at maps in their daily newspapers and weekly magazines and quickly understand why massive armies and navies were closing in on Germany and Japan. In the late 1960s and early 1970s an ever-growing number of Americans came to realize the original argument for sending hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops into this small country in Southeast Asia was making less and less sense. The argument was that we needed to stop communism in Vietnam and, more importantly, from it spreading throughout Southeast and Southern Asia. Hawks back then used to say things like "if we don't stop them in Vietnam, in three years they'll be in Hawaii." I used to try and envision boatloads of Vietnamese communists puttering across several thousand miles of the Pacific as part of an invasion armada focusing in on Honolulu and how the sophisticated U.S. Navy would be useless in stopping them.
Vietnam, by Ho Chi Minh's own admission, was a war of nationalism, not monolithic communism, and was designed to give the Vietnamese the right to their land and to control their destiny free from the likes of the Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, French and the Americans who for centuries had colonized the country.
Ho had told the French right after WWII when it was obvious that he and the Viet Minh were going to take up arms to kick the French out of their country that "you will kill 10 of my men and I will kill only one of yours. But in the end, you will tire and leave." After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in the Spring of 1954, the French left. By 1975, we too were very tired and couldn't get out fast enough.
The American policy (and the war) was riddled with false assumptions, hubris and lies. In the end, these caught up with us.
You would think that less than 30 years after we got out, U.S. officials would not have made the same basic mistake again. But we did. I won't bore everyone with Santyana's famous quote about not understanding history and making the same mistake twice. I will say that, like Vietnam, false assumptions, hubris and lies were the platform under which the policy for going to war in Iraq was built. Arguments, documents, investigations and in-depth analysis have today confirmed that the 2003 attack on Iraq, while different in its specific conditions and dynamics than Nam, was still predicated on complete mistruths. A clear example is the following which appeared recently in the New York Daily News. It was forwarded to me by my friend Tom Baines in Oklahoma City, an attorney of note, a former military officer and intelligence wonk, one of a few Democrats in the Sooner state and a man of keen intellect and insight:
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein Bluffed About WMDs Fearing Iranian Arsenal, Secret FBI Files Show.
Saddam Hussein feared Iran's arsenal more than a U.S. attack, and even considered asking ex-President George W. Bush "to protect" Iraq from its neighbor, once secret FBI files show.
The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request. The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
Of all his enemies, Iraq's ex-president - who insisted he still held office during captivity - hated Iran most.
Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.
"Hussein replied Iraq would have been extremely vulnerable to attack from Iran and would have sought a security agreement with the U.S. to protect it from threats in the region," according to a 2004 FBI report among the declassified files.
Without Bush's help, "Iraq would have done what was necessary," he told FBI Agent George Piro in his Baghdad International Airport cell.
That didn't mean an alliance of evil with Al Qaeda, he insisted months into what he called a "dialogue" with Piro.
The interrogations unfolded in 2004 after his capture the previous December at the same farm where he said he'd hidden after orchestrating a failed 1959 coup plot.
Saddam denied ever laying eyes on the "zealot" Bin Laden, bent on striking the U.S.
He said he "did not have the same belief of vision" as the terror kingpin.
Saddam never sought Al Qaeda assistance because he feared the terror group would turn on him. To protect his country, the more likely ally "would have been North Korea."
Saddam also said the U.S. "used the 9/11 attack as a justification to attack Iraq" and "lost sight of the cause of 9/11."
The U.S. "was not Iraq's enemy," just its policies, Saddam explained.
Asked about WMDs, Saddam insisted: "We destroyed them. We told you."
"By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the U.S," he added.
McNamara was vilified by the Vietnam anti-war movement. Post death blogger comments the past few days have varied a good deal but certainly there were the predictable "war criminal" and "may he burn in hell with LBJ and Nixon" rants.
I will say this in McNamara's defense. Thirty years after he left the Secretary of Defense post in the Johnson Administration, he publicly admitted he was "wrong. Terribly wrong."
My chances of being alive in thirty years are very slim but I will bet that none of the Bush II crowd...George himself, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney or Wolfowitz...will every use the word "wrong" when they publicly look back.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Listening to the Guy in the Sky
When it comes to getting your marching orders from god, Democrats can't hold a candle to the Family Values Republicans.
Two recent GOP cultural icons and big-time news makers disclosed this past week that "the guy in the sky" has mandated recent decisions on their parts which will forever shape the course of American political history. They are none other than Mark "the Galloping Gaucho" Sanford and Joe "the Plumber" Wurlzebacher.
Actually, god took action in their situations that were individually the exact opposite of each other. I assume that if you can create the universe in six days this would not be too difficult. In the case of Sanford, he told Quick Zipper Mark to stay on as governor of South Carolina and in the case of Joe the Plumber that now is not the time for him to run for public office.
Joe the Plumber is not, nor has he ever been, a plumber. He is some disconnected buffoon the Republicans had hidden away in 2008 and then rolled out during the homestretch of the presidential campaign. He was to represent Middle America, confront Obama during a campaign stop in Ohio and somehow make the vast majority of Americans stop drifting toward the Democrats and go back to embracing failure after failure by the GOP. Within a week, Joe's "plumber's crack" had been exposed.
Prior to announcing that god told him to be patient and not run for office just yet, Joe had a few days earlier called for "stringing up" U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) No specific reason was given for this pronouncement, but I have to assume it has to do with Dodd's strong efforts for health care reform. Joe must believe enough inbred dopes out there still think he is a plumber and, therefore, doesn't want the government messing with the cushy health care benefits he gets through his union.
In some ways, though, my favorite recent utterance by Joe was not too long ago when he proclaimed the Constitution as "almost like the Bible" and that the the Founding Fathers "knew socialism doesn't work. They knew communism doesn't work." Joe would have us believe he knows how to replace a bad elbow joint under the bathroom sink. That's a good idea because he knows nothing about history. Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Wythe, Franklin, Rutledge, Sherman & Company reportedly never got around to addressing socialism and/or communism what with all the concerns and focus on Federal vs. States rights, separation of powers, elections, etc. Well, that and the fact that socialism or communism didn't even exist in the late 1780s. It would be nearly 60 years before both were really rolled out as economic and political theories by the likes of Marx. Joe is rumored to also believe that Lincoln was the first chief executive to address the nation on television.
Hey, when god talks directly to you, you can't be concerned with historical accuracies.
Nevertheless, Joe's talking to the guy in the sky is not nearly as entertaining nor as delusional as Sanford's. A little background: roughly two weeks after "returning-from-Argentina-where-I- was-fucking-my-hot-little-Latina" Family Values Mark let it be known that god spoke to him and commanded (or whatever gods do) that he was to stay where he was and not vacate the governorship. It's easy to see why this would happen.
Sanford, who has banged the bible relentlessly since becoming a politician, has belonged to a bible study group run by a guy named Warren "Cubby" Culbertson. Cubby (not to be confused with Carl "Cubby" O'Brien one of the original Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse Club show in the 1950s) runs a court reporting business in Columbia, SC when he isn't leading his charges in bible 101. Cubby has for many months been helping Sanford and his wife "work through" the problems associated with Family Values Mark nailing babes south of the border.
It gets better. Today's edition of Buzzflash has a story from Facing South: A New Voice for the Changing South. After reading it, it makes sense why god talks to Mark. The article is titled "Meet Gov. Sanford's Other Family."
Now he has a third family!!
Anyway, read on:
There was a cryptic moment in the emotional press conference South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford held last week to apologize for committing adultery.
"C Street," Sanford said, is where men face "hard questions." Later, in response to a question from a reporter, the Republican governor and former congressman said that he had been to "what we called 'C Street' when I was in Washington." Sanford was referring to the address of the Washington headquarters for The Family -- perhaps the most politically powerful religious group in Washington. Sponsor of the annual National Prayer Breakfast that draws leading U.S. politicians, the secretive Christian organization also known as The Fellowship was founded in Seattle in 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and itinerant preacher who worked with the city's poor and feared the pull of socialism.
He claimed that God appeared to him to warn that Christianity's preoccupation with the poor and weak was misguided, so Vereide began to minister to the powerful. He organized prayer breakfasts for political and business leaders to promote anti-Communism and anti-unionism, and the group later went on to work with dictators in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The family is headed by a man named Douglas Coe, who has controversially encouraged the men under his tutelage to follow Jesus with the same sort of blind devotion shown by Hitler's followers.
The members also refer to themselves as the "new chosen people," believing that the Jews broke their covenant with God. Incorporated today as a tax-free 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating under the name The Fellowship Foundation, the Family maintains a three-story, $1.1 million brick townhouse at 133 C St. in Washington -- a former convent that's now home to members of Congress while being treated like a church under tax law. In a meeting with his cabinet after his public confession, the New York Times reported, Gov. Sanford apologized for letting people down but said he has no plans to resign. He referred to the biblical story of King David: "the way in which he fell mightily ... but then picked up the pieces and built from there."
In a radio interview yesterday with Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air, Jeff Sharlet -- author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" -- shed more light on the shadowy group and Sanford's connection to it. Sharlet, who is also the co-creator of Killing the Buddha, an online literary journal about religion, spent almost a month several years ago living at Ivanwald, The Family's two-story colonial house on a cul-de-sac in Arlington, Va. that serves as a training ground for the group's next generation. Recommended for membership by a banker acquaintance, Sharlet was in fact there on a reporting mission that besides his book led to a 2003 Harper's magazine story titled "Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats."
During the interview with Gross, Sharlet noted The Family's emphasis on the biblical King David story that Sanford referenced. In that tale, David sees the beautiful Bathsheba, decides he must have her, gets her pregnant, arranges to have her husband killed in battle, and then marries her. Asked by Gross whether he had a better understanding of the Sanford affair because he studied The Family, Sharlet pointed to the governor's King David reference:
That's actually one of the sort of core parables of The Family that I encountered, and describe this experience with David Coe, the son of Doug Coe, the leader, came around and gave us this long lesson. He says, 'What made King David great?' And the men I was with are all trying to say, 'Well, he loved God,' all this. He [says], 'No, No, that's not it. King David was a terrible man. You know, he was an adulterer and a murderer. So why is he a hero of the Bible?' And the answer is because God chose him. King David is beyond morality, in their limited understanding of scripture. ... I could almost hear Doug Coe's voice when Gov. Sanford was saying, 'I need to keep governing, because I'm like King David.'
The calls for Sanford to step down are growing louder, with a half-dozen newspapers, a majority of Republicans in the South Carolina state senate and U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) all urging his resignation.
But the South Carolina newspaper The State reports that Sanford says he plans to stay "until they throw me out." After all, that's what King David would do.
Well, this explains it and it certainly makes a lot of sense. We men now have the perfect excuse: the next time the ol' lady confronts you for having a babe on the side just tell her it's what King David did.
Have a nice Fourth of July. Oh....and Michael Jackson. Still dead.
Two recent GOP cultural icons and big-time news makers disclosed this past week that "the guy in the sky" has mandated recent decisions on their parts which will forever shape the course of American political history. They are none other than Mark "the Galloping Gaucho" Sanford and Joe "the Plumber" Wurlzebacher.
Actually, god took action in their situations that were individually the exact opposite of each other. I assume that if you can create the universe in six days this would not be too difficult. In the case of Sanford, he told Quick Zipper Mark to stay on as governor of South Carolina and in the case of Joe the Plumber that now is not the time for him to run for public office.
Joe the Plumber is not, nor has he ever been, a plumber. He is some disconnected buffoon the Republicans had hidden away in 2008 and then rolled out during the homestretch of the presidential campaign. He was to represent Middle America, confront Obama during a campaign stop in Ohio and somehow make the vast majority of Americans stop drifting toward the Democrats and go back to embracing failure after failure by the GOP. Within a week, Joe's "plumber's crack" had been exposed.
Prior to announcing that god told him to be patient and not run for office just yet, Joe had a few days earlier called for "stringing up" U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) No specific reason was given for this pronouncement, but I have to assume it has to do with Dodd's strong efforts for health care reform. Joe must believe enough inbred dopes out there still think he is a plumber and, therefore, doesn't want the government messing with the cushy health care benefits he gets through his union.
In some ways, though, my favorite recent utterance by Joe was not too long ago when he proclaimed the Constitution as "almost like the Bible" and that the the Founding Fathers "knew socialism doesn't work. They knew communism doesn't work." Joe would have us believe he knows how to replace a bad elbow joint under the bathroom sink. That's a good idea because he knows nothing about history. Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Wythe, Franklin, Rutledge, Sherman & Company reportedly never got around to addressing socialism and/or communism what with all the concerns and focus on Federal vs. States rights, separation of powers, elections, etc. Well, that and the fact that socialism or communism didn't even exist in the late 1780s. It would be nearly 60 years before both were really rolled out as economic and political theories by the likes of Marx. Joe is rumored to also believe that Lincoln was the first chief executive to address the nation on television.
Hey, when god talks directly to you, you can't be concerned with historical accuracies.
Nevertheless, Joe's talking to the guy in the sky is not nearly as entertaining nor as delusional as Sanford's. A little background: roughly two weeks after "returning-from-Argentina-where-I- was-fucking-my-hot-little-Latina" Family Values Mark let it be known that god spoke to him and commanded (or whatever gods do) that he was to stay where he was and not vacate the governorship. It's easy to see why this would happen.
Sanford, who has banged the bible relentlessly since becoming a politician, has belonged to a bible study group run by a guy named Warren "Cubby" Culbertson. Cubby (not to be confused with Carl "Cubby" O'Brien one of the original Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse Club show in the 1950s) runs a court reporting business in Columbia, SC when he isn't leading his charges in bible 101. Cubby has for many months been helping Sanford and his wife "work through" the problems associated with Family Values Mark nailing babes south of the border.
It gets better. Today's edition of Buzzflash has a story from Facing South: A New Voice for the Changing South. After reading it, it makes sense why god talks to Mark. The article is titled "Meet Gov. Sanford's Other Family."
Now he has a third family!!
Anyway, read on:
There was a cryptic moment in the emotional press conference South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford held last week to apologize for committing adultery.
"C Street," Sanford said, is where men face "hard questions." Later, in response to a question from a reporter, the Republican governor and former congressman said that he had been to "what we called 'C Street' when I was in Washington." Sanford was referring to the address of the Washington headquarters for The Family -- perhaps the most politically powerful religious group in Washington. Sponsor of the annual National Prayer Breakfast that draws leading U.S. politicians, the secretive Christian organization also known as The Fellowship was founded in Seattle in 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and itinerant preacher who worked with the city's poor and feared the pull of socialism.
He claimed that God appeared to him to warn that Christianity's preoccupation with the poor and weak was misguided, so Vereide began to minister to the powerful. He organized prayer breakfasts for political and business leaders to promote anti-Communism and anti-unionism, and the group later went on to work with dictators in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The family is headed by a man named Douglas Coe, who has controversially encouraged the men under his tutelage to follow Jesus with the same sort of blind devotion shown by Hitler's followers.
The members also refer to themselves as the "new chosen people," believing that the Jews broke their covenant with God. Incorporated today as a tax-free 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating under the name The Fellowship Foundation, the Family maintains a three-story, $1.1 million brick townhouse at 133 C St. in Washington -- a former convent that's now home to members of Congress while being treated like a church under tax law. In a meeting with his cabinet after his public confession, the New York Times reported, Gov. Sanford apologized for letting people down but said he has no plans to resign. He referred to the biblical story of King David: "the way in which he fell mightily ... but then picked up the pieces and built from there."
In a radio interview yesterday with Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air, Jeff Sharlet -- author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" -- shed more light on the shadowy group and Sanford's connection to it. Sharlet, who is also the co-creator of Killing the Buddha, an online literary journal about religion, spent almost a month several years ago living at Ivanwald, The Family's two-story colonial house on a cul-de-sac in Arlington, Va. that serves as a training ground for the group's next generation. Recommended for membership by a banker acquaintance, Sharlet was in fact there on a reporting mission that besides his book led to a 2003 Harper's magazine story titled "Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats."
During the interview with Gross, Sharlet noted The Family's emphasis on the biblical King David story that Sanford referenced. In that tale, David sees the beautiful Bathsheba, decides he must have her, gets her pregnant, arranges to have her husband killed in battle, and then marries her. Asked by Gross whether he had a better understanding of the Sanford affair because he studied The Family, Sharlet pointed to the governor's King David reference:
That's actually one of the sort of core parables of The Family that I encountered, and describe this experience with David Coe, the son of Doug Coe, the leader, came around and gave us this long lesson. He says, 'What made King David great?' And the men I was with are all trying to say, 'Well, he loved God,' all this. He [says], 'No, No, that's not it. King David was a terrible man. You know, he was an adulterer and a murderer. So why is he a hero of the Bible?' And the answer is because God chose him. King David is beyond morality, in their limited understanding of scripture. ... I could almost hear Doug Coe's voice when Gov. Sanford was saying, 'I need to keep governing, because I'm like King David.'
The calls for Sanford to step down are growing louder, with a half-dozen newspapers, a majority of Republicans in the South Carolina state senate and U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) all urging his resignation.
But the South Carolina newspaper The State reports that Sanford says he plans to stay "until they throw me out." After all, that's what King David would do.
Well, this explains it and it certainly makes a lot of sense. We men now have the perfect excuse: the next time the ol' lady confronts you for having a babe on the side just tell her it's what King David did.
Have a nice Fourth of July. Oh....and Michael Jackson. Still dead.
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