Category Archives: NADA – New American Dark Ages

New American Dark Ages

NADA - New American Dark Ages

In Which I Bite My Thumb At Scalia

I absolutely support the right of a Supreme Court Justice, and the Vice President, to say “fuck you.” We know we live in obscene times, and actual verbal obscenities aren’t the half of it.

I’m more troubled by the character it shows to say later, “no, I didn’t say or do that.” To deny one’s own actions — that’s cowardly.

And, while Scalia doesn’t claim to be a moral leader like the dishonorable Wm. “The Gambler” Bennett, he is one of our Eight Supreme Cardinals. And a hunting buddy of Dead-eye Dick Cheney, who makes no pretense whatsoever of being a moral guy.

And, to all the xenophobes and Radical Righters worried about the influx of foreigners: what does it say about assimilation when one of the most powerful Americans swears and gestures in a foreign language? Can’t we pass a law requiring public servants to swear in English, for god’s sake? mjh

Photographer: Herald got it right By Marie Szaniszlo

What Scalia thinks of everyoneAmid a growing national controversy about the gesture U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the freelance photographer who captured the moment has come forward with the picture.

“It’s inaccurate and deceptive of him to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who made the shot. …

Smith said the jurist “immediately knew he’d made a mistake, and said, ‘You’re not going to print that, are you?’ ” …

Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.

“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”

Yesterday, Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet agreed with Smith’s account, but said she did not hear Scalia utter the obscenity.

Church fires photog over Scalia picture: Freelancer pays for ‘right thing’ By Jessica Heslam

A freelance photographer has been fired by the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper for releasing a picture of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia making a controversial gesture in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday.

Dump Duhbya

A Counter-terror View

I reached the following article through Tim McGivern’s blog. McGivern wrote: “[A]nywhere there is need for sensible, competent U.S. leadership … what we get is Dubya, Dick and Rummy, and it just ain’t even worth the sarcasm anymore.” mjh

‘Unit’s’ military expert has fighting words for Bush By David Kronke, TV Critic

Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military’s elite covert counter-terrorist unit.

Q: What’s your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: “Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and … pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That’s why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

“We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies. …

“For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. … And I say “we,” because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they’re going to have from now on.

“Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat – thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn’t confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with Venezuela.

“The harm that has been done is irreparable. … Their lies are coming home to roost now, and it’s gonna fall apart. …

“The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It’s about vengeance, it’s about revenge, or it’s about cover-up. You don’t gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It’s worse than small-minded, and look what it does. …

“This administration has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of helpless people in your power is torture, period. And (I’m saying this as) a man who has been involved in the most pointed of our activities. I know it, and all of my mates know it. You don’t do it. It’s an act of cowardice. I hear apologists for torture say, “Well, they do it to us.” Which is a ludicrous argument. … The Saddam Husseins of the world are not our teachers. Christ almighty, we wrote a Constitution saying what’s legal and what we believed in. Now we’re going to throw it away.“

Dump Duhbya

John Dean says to censure Bush

In a sense, it’s no surprise what John Dean of the Nixon Administration thinks of the Bush Administration; he wrote Worse Than Watergate a couple of years ago. But now he is speaking with even more evidence at hand and more people are listening.

I have to say I’m impressed by Arlen Spector (again). Of course, his fellow Republicans dispise him. mjh

John Dean says to censure Bush By Maeve Reston, Post-Gazette National Bureau

Former White House Counsel John Dean, a central figure in the Watergate scandal who served time for his involvement in the Nixon administration cover-up, told a panel of senators yesterday that President Bush should be censured for authorizing the government to eavesdrop on Americans’ international phone conversations. …

“I think I have probably more experience first-hand than anybody might want in what can go wrong and how a president can get on the other side of the law,” Mr. Dean said. “Had a censure resolution been issued about some of Nixon’s conduct long before it erupted to the degree and the problem that came, it would have been a godsend.”

Mr. Dean said wiretapping by the Bush White House was “a part of a very consistent, long-term, early-announced policy of this presidency that they are seeking to build presidential power for the sake of presidential power.” And he said censure was appropriate to restore the balance of power.

Rolling Stone : John Dean on Censure

No presidency that I can find in history has adopted a policy of expanding presidential powers merely for the sake of expanding presidential powers…. It has been the announced policy of the Bush/Cheney presidency, however, from its outset, to expand presidential power for its own sake, and it continually searched for avenues to do just that, while constantly testing to see how far it can push the limits. I must add that never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government (and the precedents they are creating) because this administration is caught up in the rectitude of its own self-righteousness, and for all practical purposes this presidency has remained largely unchecked by its constitutional coequals….

Dump Duhbya

DeLay’s Top Aide

DeLay’s righthand man was on the take. So, was DeLay oblivious or involved. Which do you like better: inept or corrupt? mjh

A Force Behind the Power By Juliet Eilperin and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Washington Post Staff Writers

When Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was working his way up the leadership ladder in the 1990s, he often turned to an athletic assistant named Tony C. Rudy.

Rudy, now 39, was known as a bare-knuckle political operator who was trusted explicitly by his ambitious boss. … With Rudy’s help, DeLay rose to the No. 2 position in the House Republican leadership.

Key events in the Tony Rudy investigation

NADA - New American Dark Ages

The Bible in Georgia’s Public Schools

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Teaching the Bible in Georgia’s Public Schools – New York Times By BRENDA GOODMAN

Georgia is about to become the first state to approve the use of the Bible as a textbook in public schools.

On Monday, the State Senate passed a bill providing money to high schools that offer elective classes in the Bible, and setting specific guidelines for those classes. The bill was approved by Georgia’s House of Representatives last week.

Gov. Sonny Perdue is expected to sign the law.

The bill creates two courses, the History and Literature of the Old Testament Era and the History and Literature of the New Testament Era, that can be offered as electives. It gives the state’s Department of Education a year to approve the curriculum, but it requires that the Bible itself, not a textbook, be the core material used. Supplementary materials can also be used.

Other state school systems offer classes in the Bible, but Georgia’s law would be the first to require that the Bible be the core text. Legislators in Alabama and Missouri are considering similar measures. …

The closest thing to a Bible-as-literature class Georgia schools now offer is an elective in comparative religion, and Education Department officials said it is not in great demand. Only 800 students out of 400,000 in state high schools signed up for the class last year, they said. …

The Christian Coalition of Georgia has strongly supported the legislation. The group’s chairwoman, Sadie Fields, said the courses were “another way to help students think critically.” [mjh: LOL. ‘Bible literalism’ encourages critical thinking? When there is only one truth and no others, “critical thinking” means learning how to reject all other views.]

State Senator Williams disputed predictions of the classes’ popularity among Georgia students.

“Where it’s been taught, it’s my understanding it’s a very popular course,” he said. “It’s a very interesting book, by the way.”

Georgia School Superintendent Kathy Cox visits Walker schools Eric Beavers

State School Superintendent Kathy Cox said Wednesday she’s solidly behind a measure that would allow the Bible to be used as a textbook in Georgia’s public schools.

“I think this is much ado about nothing,” Cox said about controversy over the issue, as she toured three Walker County schools. “I was a world history teacher for 15 years, and in world history you teach Greek mythology, you teach Buddhism, you teach Judaism, you teach Confucius — you teach all the world’s religion as part of world history, including Christianity.”

NADA - New American Dark Ages

‘War’ on Christians Is Alleged

I can’t be the only one creeped out about how Evangelical Christians have completely immersed themselves in a war-mindset. It makes them a great tool for fascism. mjh

‘War’ on Christians Is Alleged
Conference Depicts a Culture Hostile to Evangelical Beliefs
By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer

The “War on Christmas” has morphed into a “War on Christians.” …

Among the … speakers [at the two-day conference in Washington on the “War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006”] were former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) as well as conservative Christian leaders Phyllis Schlafly, Rod Parsley, Gary Bauer, Janet Parshall and Alan Keyes.

To many of the 400 evangelicals packed into a small ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, it was a hard but necessary look at moral relativism, hedonism and Christophobia, or fear of Christ, to pick just a few terms offered by various speakers referring to the enemy.

To some outsiders, it illuminated the paranoia of the Christian right. …

“This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position,” said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University.

White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll. …

In a luncheon speech yesterday, DeLay took issue with the “chattering classes” who think there is no war on Christians.

“We are after all a society that abides abortion on demand, that has killed millions of innocent children, that degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity,” he said. [mjh: let me be the first to call Christianity a first-rate superstition]

I watched part of Ron Luce’s Battle Cry on the Christian channel 23 (you’d be shocked how much time I spend on that channel — my wife certainly is — but I feel you’ve got to know what this particular group is up to; besides, it’s always cool to see TDJakes). Battle Cry addresses teenagers as being attacked by their culture and forced to sit in a pen with pigs (me, maybe you). It uses hip-hop and skateboard culture to reach the youngins. Reminds me of that King of the Hill episode when Bobby joins a bunch of Christian skateboarders. mjh

Evangelical teens rally in S.F. Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

“This is more than a spiritual war,” [Ron] Luce, [whose Teen Mania organization is based in Texas,] said. “It’s a culture war.”

Military metaphors abound in Luce’s descriptions of the struggle. He tells young people of how “an enemy has launched a brutal attack on them.” At a pre-Battle Cry rally Friday afternoon on the steps of City Hall, Luce told his mostly teenage audience that “terrorists of a different kind” — advertisers — were targeting them and that they were “caught in the middle of the battle.” [mjh: “Terrorists”? Aren’t we overusing this term?]

“Are you ready to go to battle for your generation?” he asked, and the young people roared “yes!” and some waved triangular red flags flown from long, medieval-looking poles.