Talking to Muhammad

No, not that Muhammad. This one was a man about fifty who was manning a a stand at the Adam Street Fair in San Diego yesterday. He was there to provide information on Islam, and that's want I wanted, so we engaged in an extended discussion that I will share here. It was quite enlightening.
I was brought up in an orthodox Jewish home, being of a generation in the midst of the process of secularization that occurred among those whose origin was the great immigration of Jews from eastern Europe around the turn of the century. The practices of the religion was an ever fading echo of what defined life when my mother was born in Europe in 1902

I used my experience in attending an after school "Chader," or Hebrew School that was taught by a Rabbi who was born in a Polish Ghetto, and intellectually never left it. His world, unlike mine that meant living among non Jews, was in a bubble where he would only interact with those like him. I verified with Muhammad that as Hebrew (before Israel) was a sacred language that was used in prayer even among those who didn't fully understand the words, so it is with Arabic in countries such as Indonesia, the most populous of Islamic countries, where Arabic is not common.

Mohammad was quite candid in confirming what I had heard about the Madrasa, unlike the more politically correct Wikipedia article. He confirmed that often children learn the Koran by rote without any understand of the meaning, or even what the words mean, if they do not speak Arabic. The term includes a more broad Islam focus education but also this type of indoctrination that perpetuates ignorance.

This was enough for me to see that he was not only knowledgeable, but truthful. I then went on to the concept of Jihad, and one aspect of it that was most damning to the religion that he represented. It is the subject of apostasy, the treatment of those who leave a religion. I have strong feelings about this, as it is a cause of great pain in many religions. I have a good friend who happens to be a Jehovah's Witnesses, and my affection for him increased when I learned how during the Nazi era those co-religionists in Germany joined the Jews, Gypsies and Gays in the Concentration camps rather than accede to the demands of overt symbolic respect to the state.

This affection for the religion was strained when I found out that they practice shunning of apostates, even members of one's own family are so discarded if they leave the church. I knew that Islam went further than this, much further. My question to Muhammad was: "If your own child denounced Islam, would you accept the edict that he is to be put to death?"

He responded by not only confirming that this is the command of the Koran, but a firm, "I agree with it." At that moment I realized the width of chasm that separated us in spite of our reaching some common ground. So, I probed a bit further, and here's where it gets interesting.

I asked him what if he were a small child who had been kidnapped, and lived a life outside of Islam and rejected the religion, would he faces such a punishment. "No", he said, explaining that such a person would not be considered a Muslim and therefore not one who leaves the fold.

At one point Muhammad pointed out to me that the command to kill apostates is not only Islamic, but it applied to Jews, and is in Deuteronomy 13, with extra viciousness such as destroying the entire town of the blasphemer. And he is right, as excerpted here.
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6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, 7 of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, 8 you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him; 9 but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 11 So all Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you.

12 “If you hear someone in one of your cities, which the LORD your God gives you to dwell in, saying, 13 ‘Corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of their city, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods”’—which you have not known— 14 then you shall inquire, search out, and ask diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination was committed among you, 15 you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it, all that is in it and its livestock—with the edge of the sword. 16 And you shall gather all its plunder into the middle of the street, and completely burn with fire the city and all its plunder, for the LORD your God. It shall be a heap forever; it shall not be built again.

17 So none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and multiply you, just as He swore to your fathers, 18 because you have listened to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep all His commandments which I command you today, to do what is right in the eyes of the LORD your God.


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We then discussed the fine points of this issue, which shows how different are the values of Islam and other "Western values," a term I use to include everything from the Catholic Church to myself, an atheist. It turns out that the crime that he strongly believes deserved being killed for is not the leaving the church, it is blasphemy The confusion is described in the Wikipedia article on the word.

Apostasy ( /əˈpɒstəsi/; Greek: ἀποστασία (apostasia), a defection or revolt, from ἀπό, apo, "away, apart", στάσις, stasis, "stand", "standing") is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy apostatises and is an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday use. The term is used by sociologists to mean renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense and without pejorative connotation.......

Many religious groups and some states punish apostates. Apostates may be shunned by the members of their former religious group[1] or subjected to formal or informal punishment. This may be the official policy of the religious group or may be the action of its members. A Christian church may in certain circumstances excommunicate the apostate, while some Abrahamic scriptures (Judaism: Deuteronomy 13:6–10, and Islam: al-Bukhari, Diyat, bab 6)[citation needed] demand the death penalty for apostates. The death penalty is still applied to apostates by some Muslim states (such as Iran[2]), but not in Christianity or Judaism.

Well, I can add that it's not only Iran where this is approved of, but among those who represent the religion in the United States. And this is what was illuminating. While the foundational text of both of our religions mandate death for apostates, I don't believe that there are more than a tiny fraction among Jews who would say that they agree, even going to the practice of execution, with this stricture.

But the Gentleman I spoke to yesterday, was clear, if someone born and bred to his religion overtly and publicly proclaimed their rejection of Islam, he affirmed that not only his religion, but he as an individual believes such such a person should be killed.

Muhamad, a pleasant erudite courteous man, is still existing in a primitive village that his namesake experienced fourteen centuries ago, one that has not been encroached upon by concepts of freedom of thought and expression. Those orthodox Jews like my Rabbi, may among themselves share this condemnation of apostates, but I doubt it, as too many of them have their own families who would be so condemned. Jews, using the racial definition, encompass a wide ranging of thinking about God and humanity. In the United States as well as in Israel, most Jews are secular, and even if we have place in our hearts for what we, or our parents, learned as children, we have a greater place for the enlightenment values of understanding others.

Muhamad was not an aberration, as he was in charge of that booth that was sponsored by a national Islamic information organization. I engaged him in open conversation hoping to find that the public image was wrong, that those he represented were more like those who call themselves Jews, yet whose values have been formed by so much more.

I don't know how his attitude can be reconciled with this county's values, much less it's laws. Not only may we not kill someone for expressing any opinion, we may not prevent them from doing so. There were two people in the booth who agreed with everything he said, so I would guess that there is more validity to this than we would like to believe.

Worksheet on Time Travel

From George Ellis)
The Myth of a Purely Rational Life, pp14

World 3a: The world of physical possibilities, delineating possible physical behaviour

(it is a description of all possible motions and physical histories of objects). Thus it
describes what can actually occur in a way compatible with the nature of matter and
its interactions; only some of these configurations are realised through the historical
evolutionary process in the expanding universe. We do not know if laws of behaviour
of matter as understood by physics are prescriptive or descriptive, but we do know
that they rigorously describe the constraints on what is possible (you cannot move in a
way that violates energy conservation; you cannot create machines that violate
causality restrictions; you cannot avoid the second law of thermodynamics; and so
on). This world delineates all physically possible actions (different ways particles,
planets, footballs, automobiles, aircraft can move, for example); from these
possibilities, what actually happens is determined by initial conditions in the universe,
in the case of interactions between inanimate objects, and by the conscious choices
made, when living beings exercise volition.

Alzhieimer's Association Website "Myths" page

Alzheimer's Myths
Myth 1: Memory loss is a natural part of aging.

Reality: In the past people believed memory loss was a normal part of aging, often regarding even Alzheimer’s as natural age-related decline. Experts now recognize severe memory loss as a symptom of serious illness.

Whether memory naturally declines to some extent remains an open question. Many people feel that their memory becomes less sharp as they grow older, but determining whether there is any scientific basis for this belief is a research challenge still being addressed.

Myth 2: Alzheimer’s disease is not fatal.

Reality: Alzheimer's disease has no survivors. It destroys brain cells and causes memory changes, erratic behaviors and loss of body functions. It slowly and painfully takes away a person's identity, ability to connect with others, think, eat, talk, walk and find his or her way home.

Myth 8: There are treatments available to stop the progression of Alzheimer's disease

Reality: At this time, there is no treatment to cure, delay or stop the progression of Alzheimer's disease. FDA-approved drugs temporarily slow worsening of symptoms for about 6 to 12 months, on average, for about half of the individuals who take them.
---------------------------------------
Revision based on Mario Garrett's forwarding of my objections to AA.  As of 5/1/12

Myth 1: Memory loss is a natural part of aging.

Reality: As people age, it's normal to have occasional memory problems, such as forgetting the name of a person you've recently met. However, Alzheimer's is more than occasional memory loss. It's a disease that causes brain cells to malfunction and ultimately die. When this happens, an individual may forget the name of a longtime friend or what roads to take to return to a home they've lived in for decades.

It can be difficult to tell normal memory problems from memory problems that should be a cause for concern. The Alzheimer's Association has developed information to help you tell the difference. If you or a loved one has memory problems or other problems with thinking and learning that concern you, contact a physician. Sometimes the problems are caused by medication side effects, vitamin deficiencies or other conditions and can be reversed with treatment.

Interview with first person tried under Chelsea's Law, Joseph Cantorna

This half hour interview was on a local San Diego Station, and I hope to speak to the interviewer to extend this commentary.  It was an incisive interview, made all the more difficult by Cantorna's ill fitting dentures that precluded clear speech.  He is clearly both mentally retarded and delusional, both conditions interacting in ways that I wouldn't assume to be able to explicate.

The interviewer-reporter asked probing questions, gently but directly.  When unsure of what Cantorna was saying offered some options, multiple choice to overcome his speech impediment.  Cantorna was like a child, devoid of artifice and defensive self serving expressions.  He acknowledged his earliest offenses, with flat affect, neither pride or shame, just describing the way it occurred.  The reporter, by her asking and allowing him to speak formed a type of bond with him.  At the very end Joe asked, "How did I do?"  He wanted her to like him.

His crimes, based on both the record as described here, and his self reporting, were limited to touching, exposing and masturbating in front of children.  When asked whether he knew that this was wrong, the question seemed irrelevant to him.  He did what he did,  He accepted it, he went to jail for it, he spent most of his life in mental institutions, and that's just the way it is.

He talks about sons and grandsons, which may or may not exist.   At times there is pure fantasy, as when he answers to how many grandsons he has with "seven, six, five....."  Another time he describes his many sons as being shot in the head, and shows what happens with his hand forming a gun.

He appears clear about the immediate events that he was presently incarcerated for, even describing how he walked away from the psychiatric community facility, saw two young boys riding their bikes, and asked their age.  They apparently started a conversation.

He describes touching one of the boys on his butt, the one who he said was his grandson, but not the other one.  He described pulling down his pants to show them his penis, to demonstrate how he had no pubic hair, apparently because he had shaved it.   (has anyone checked whether this is accurate just for a measure of the degree of his delusions)    When asked whether there was anything else that he did to the boys,  he said there wasn't, nor has anything more been alleged for this incident.

He has no sense of the notoriety of his being the first man indicted under Chelsea's law, which he had never heard of.  When asked whether he was afraid of going to prison for a long time, he responded, "Yes."

Nathan Fletcher, the sponsor of Chelsea's law commented on Cantorna's indictment, saying that it proved how important it was to have Chelsea's law passed expeditiously.  



It turns out that he will not face this punishment.  After months of the D.A. preparing for trial, on the first day the Judge ruled that Cantorna was not competent and remanded him to the the  Mental Health agency for sequestered treatment, not that different than what he has known all of his life.

Buzz off Ykos attendees

So, you had a big party.  You got to watch all the Presidential wanabees give their speeches, each one searching your faces for flickers of approval.  So you greeted each kossack like long lost friends, saying how you never expected someone who wrote so brilliantly to also be so attractive.  You had a few drinks together.  And after a few more, you compared notes on who had the most revealing chat in the hall with your new pals, Johny, Barry, Hilly and Denny.  

And we stay-at-homes are now expected to be hanging on every word from you insiders.  Yeah, we who were stuck in our studio apartments in the teeming city or sterile McMansions in the burbs,  all over the country-but not in Chicago, where it was all happening.  Gee, maybe we will be treated to some more inside information, some more tid-bits.  Gee, I just can't wait!

You want me to believe that you all had such a terrific time?   Weren't there any fights.  Didn't anybody come on to someone and get shot down—brutally, you know, really devastated like what happens on comments here. 

How about after a sharing a few drinks after the last event, when the conversation naturally turns to the viability of a pure progressive movement in the face of widespread voter apathy compounded by the ascendancy of amygdala mediated pre-cognitive responses to policy initiatives?  Will she, or he respond with, “I'm not sure that I completely understand you since it is so intelligent, but maybe you could explain it in more detail later on.”   Or was it a scornful,  “Your obvious attempt at erudition as a mask for your utter vacuity is pathetic.”   You know, like those comments that I always get!

So, Ykos attendees, I've had it up to here with your “good times,”  “new friends” and brilliant personal insights from your close encounters with the candidates.  If I hear another analysis of  a speech capped with  “I was there” I will puke.  Didn't anyone have a lousy time?  I want to hear of disappointments, overpriced restaurants, arrogant people, insults, devastated egos, lost wallets, missed planes...... 

Didn't anyone come home with a strange rash that they didn't have when they left?  Come on.  Throw us outsiders a bone, here.   Make us feel how smart we were to have stayed home, rather than risk interacting with real flesh and blood people. 

Now get back to your computers and write those diaries and comments like the rest of us.   Your moment of glory is over for at least another year. 

Aug 6, 2007

Facial Features of Dangerous Criminals

A little before 1 PM today I got home from the grocery store after playing tennis in the morning.  When I checked my email I was struck by this listing of events:

SPECIAL EVENTS—from newsletter of Encinitas Library

Facial Features of Dangerous Criminals

Saturday, June 5
2-4pm

Each facial feature has a corresponding psychological interpretation that will reveal a person’s true inner nature.  Learn about specific visual features that will help you protect your family, date safely on the internet, and gain more of an understanding of news and politics. Barbara Roberts will teach you the patterns in body-mind psychological assessment that she’s seen on 6,000 people’s faces in her 20 years of practice.  More information at FaceReading1.com

Having spent three years doing graduate work in Social Psychology, while I never did my dissertation, I did learn quite a bit about human behavior, enough to know that there are no distinctive facial features of Dangerous Criminals, other than perhaps a tattoo of a gang insignia.

This was an offering of the public library of my city, one that I have participated as a citizen in it's governance and had a degree of involvement with.  The clock was running, as I was a ten minute drive from the library, and needed to change and shower from tennis.  First thing is I went on the speakers web site, and it got worse.   Here's a video sample of her "science," applied to O.J. Simpson.

I was running out of time, as I was thinking of how I would respond, whether I would confront her as she was speaking, or try to be more reserved, I wrote the following letter that I decided to give to the highest level person on duty at the library:

There is a point when good old fashion hokum crosses a line and become a danger to society, to the people who believe in the nonsense being spouted.  This appears to be the case for Barbara Roberts, who has gone from claiming that she has a system to read faces to allow for financial and romantic success to something much more serious.

She was featured at a municipal library, Encinitas California with the headline: Facial Features of Dangerous Criminals.  She also alludes to vague psychological and medical credentials, such as a phi beta kappa in Social Psychology.  She may have a Phi Beta Kapa, but it is not IN social psychology.  She seems to have achieved a BA in these areas with no advanced training at all.

Her Internet site describes her system as “science” yet the essential element of science is verifiability, that the conclusions are subject to objective critical review.  There is no evidence at all that her “facial reading” is even in this tradition, much less accepted.  Actually it is too silly to even be called “pseudo science”

The greatest danger is that those who actually believe that they are gaining scientific expertise are the same people who could end up on juries, deciding the fate of those accused of crimes.  Such people could use these tools to help them decide guilt or innocence, without knowing that they are absolutely without any scientific support.  Innocent people will be jailed or worse, because of Ms. Roberts nonsense.

One would have to question the ethics of someone who would perpetrate such a false sense of being able to understand the criminal tendencies of an individual.  Based on her  claims it is meant to assure a parent that the person they entrust their child with is safe, or a women that an Internet dating  connection is not a danger.  If taken seriously this person could cause serious harm, and more so, since it seems that she has been validated by an official at the city of Encinitas.

P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute.   But this person who is taking advantage of this truism, could be causing more harm than she imagines.

I got to the library exactly as the talk was beginning, gave my letter to the librarian and entered the auditorium.   The first part of the presentation was innocuous enough, a variation of palm reading, tarot cards or astrological charting.  She brought a few women to the front,( only two others of the thirty three in attendance were men,) and gave the standard personality evaluations for these venues such as, "You often feel disappointed in life, but you manage to keep on trying"  or "sometimes you have difficulty making decisions and after you do often regret it."  In other words every variation of "face reading" were the universal qualities of human nature, give in a way that seems like personal insight.

As she said herself, her career began with advising women in areas of "Love, Sex, and Money”  Only later did she expand into something of much greater seriousness, and where her exaggeration of her credentials and absurd "teachings" can have life altering effects.

I had to make sure that my concern about these people who now feel that the shape of an ear, or the whites of the eye can be the signal of a dangerous criminal with "95% accuracy" was valid.  So, gently, when she asked for questions I broached the issue.  Taking careful notes, here's the gist of the conversation:

AR (arodb):  This would seem to be useful if somebody were on a jury with a really tough case and you hear stuff from both sides and if you have these cues I guess that could help a jury decide......

..... people who have internalized and learned your material, they could be better jurors.

BR:  They could be better jurors or better jury selectors (a profession that advises lawyers on selecting jurors).

AR:  No, jurors, I'm talking about people who are jurors.

BR:  Could be.  Well, I think the bottom line of face reading is whether you're a juror or you're working with your teenager or working to rear a child or you're dating or you're trying to get along with your boss, it helps you to see people clearly, know where they're coming from and know what they're capable of.  So it would be great for a juror.

AR:  It would be.  They would have a better idea.  You know sometimes the evidence is unclear.  So they would be able to tell.

BR:  Sure.  Absolutely. (spoken with a strong voice)

AR:  Thank you very much.

At the end of the second part, on Criminology, where she went into excruciating details of the facial characteristics that betray criminal minds.  Mustaches were important.  Anyone who had a little mustache like Hitler is a bad man.  And rapists tend to have mustaches that are a quarter inch below the top of the upper lip.  An oddly shaped ear is another giveaway.  These were all accompanied by a picture book that she was selling, including one of Jesus Christ illustrating features representing pure goodness.

This would all be easy to dismiss as beyond absurdity, yet the books that Ms. Roberts has written on this subject have been quite popular, and her audience is amplified far beyond little gatherings such as this, being a frequent guest on local and national television.  Actually, the experience was frightening, not for my personal safety, but it was chilling to be surrounded by seemingly intelligent individuals who actually bought into this inanity.

Since I was there, I felt the least I could do was connect with Ms. Roberts on a personal level.  So, as the program was wrapping up and she asked for questions or comments, with a calm respectful voice, I started off by saying that I admire her, that she has followed the American Dream of finding her niche and creating a career.  Then I told her my concerns, in these words:

Most of what you do is in areas of love, money and relationships. What disturbs me very much is that in our county everyone here is a potential juror. Everyone here could be looking at a person on the dock to try to find out whether he is someone who deserves to go to jail for a long time or even be executed.  You are claiming, erroneously, that you have tools that will aid these people. This is not the place to go into a debate on the details, but unfortunately I don't know whether you are even aware of the potential damage you could be doing.

She listened intently, without any attempt to refute my comments.  I continued, after responding to some members of the audience, who were surprised and interested in my words

You mentioned that one sign of a character defect is that the left eye shifts outward.  When I was 12 years old, and you can still look at my eye and I can make it shift out, but my mother, bless her soul, took me to a specialist who helped me control it.  Whatever my personality flaws I can attest that controlling this problem, amblyopia, has absolutely no effect on my character.   

As I walked out I checked with the librarian whom I gave my letter, who assured me that it will be passed up the chain to the person who made this booking.  She read it and understood my point clearly. She told me that Roberts had given two earlier talks on the "fun" aspects of face reading, and that this topic may have slipped by.  I'll be looking for a response from whomever did the booking.

And that was it.  It was 3:45 and I was on my way home. 

There are many problems in this world, a few that I feel I have some insight into, but no way to make a difference about them.  But this time, by acting on my instincts, it's just possible that this particular woman will always wonder whether there will be another person like me in the audience, or watching her TV appearance, who will point out the absurdity and the danger of what she is promulgating.

Let her stick to her fun specialty, giving her followers some sense of control over “Love, Sex, and Money” and stay away from identifying "dangerous criminals" and I would wish her all the luck in the world. 

6/05/2010 Dailykos



  

Three weeks before the war

May 5, 2007 Dailykos.com 

I was going over my old emails when I came across this one to several friends.  It was a few days after the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated, killing all 7 astronauts. For a few weeks this story pre-empted that of the war we all knew was approaching, in spite of President Bush looking America in the eye and saying that he had not yet decided.   

We need to keep, and to share, personal documents such as this.  It allows us to refute the big lie of  “No one could have known it would turn out this bad?”   If I knew; if we knew, how could our elected officials not  have known?

History is being rewritten.  This is becoming a no fault war, fomented by a no fault administration, and acceded to by a no fault opposition party. We must keep our own notes, our own records, to preserve the reality of what actually happened.
Here's what I sent to my friends, only slightly abbreviated:

February 4, 2003

Dear Marta,

Yesterday, I watched a panel discussion on CSPAN titled "Iraq after the War" sponsored by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Most of the speakers were pessimistic, seeing the war as bringing internal chaos and possible invasion by Turkey and Iran.  Each time I watch one of these discussion among knowledgeable people it is like an onion being peeled, with infinite levels of complexity being exposed, each with their own unsolvable quandaries.

I discussed the goals that the administration was defining, and the hope of achieving them.

What are some of the things that are desired when nations are formed?  Democracy, self determination, stability and, in Iraq's case, maintenance of existing territorial boundaries. Self determination of ethnic groups, the old Wilsonian ideal, is not even part of the idealized blueprint.  The historical antipathies between sects have had too long to fester.  Historically, when you lose in Iraq, you lose big. You do not simply get put out of office, you and your family and your tribe all die.

So, what will the new Iraq be like?  Democracy as an ideal- forget about it.  One person-one vote would bring something akin to the Ayatollah in Iran. But maybe not.  Do we check this out by sponsoring an election with the caveat that it only counts if the outcome is to our favor?  That's what we did in Iran in the 1950s when we deposed Mossadegh, the elected prime minister, and installed our Shah. This worked for a few decades, but then we reaped what we have in that country now. So, in the new Iraq we will be left with no democracy, no self determination and our providing an autocratic government that will impose pro-American policy .  From Saddam being the despised ruler, the US puppet will soon have the honor.

I commented how we were ignoring the larger question

Watching this panel yesterday, made me aware that the antiwar movement is focusing on the war against Saddam, while we should be looking at what comes after.  Of course, Saddam will fall quickly.  Yet, I am not so sure about that either.  The point is I don't know, and I fear no one else knows either.

How many American soldiers would have to die before we pack it in?.  It took only a dozen for us to abort Somalia (did Bush see the film "Blackhawk Down") a couple hundred and we were out of Lebanon.  Just how great will be the American resolve if the war does not go according to the hopes of Rumsfeld-Chaney et al.  (I was about to say, if it does not go according to the war games, but the war games show us losing-but then we can just hit the reset button and do it over- like when we were kids playing war)  So, a few hundred, or a few thousand casualties and the American mood changes.

Lets say a miracle happens; that the most optimistic scenario of quick victory and a breakout of amity occurs in Iraq; that the different tribes who have hated and battled each other decide to let bygones be bygones .  This still leaves a monumental job of nation building to an administration that has no use for complexity.  It leaves this solving of the ultimate Rubic's cube to a president who can't handle two dimensions, much less three.  Without the simplicity of a mythical good against evil, this man and the rest of his cohorts are in un-chartered territory.

And then I considered how the characteristics of our president affected the prognosis of the outcome of the war:

As a secular Jew I was stunned at the President's covert reference to a hymn of praise to Jesus Christ during last week's State of the Union Message. Yes, we all know that Christianity is a religion of love, but over the course of history there has also been a good deal of hate.  It has also been a clarion of death to non-believers.  It was the cross of Jesus that inspired those who killed my family in the pogroms of Poland and this same cross that fueled the ravages of the crusades against the Muslim infidels.

While President Bush demands war against Iraq in language of geopolitical rationality, his subtext of religious fundamentalism grows.  He seems oblivious to the Muslim view that Christianity represents a soul destroying rejection of Allah. How many American's will die at the hands of Muslims whose fears of Christianity inspire martyrdom?  And who can foresee the ultimate course of events if this military operation becomes infected with the fervor of religious war?  The President's spin doctor's explanation of his use of "crusade" just may not carry the day among the unwashed masses in the trenches preparing to die for their faith.

He slipped in the code words "power, wonder-working power" in his state of the union speech to evoke a praise to Jesus.  What other code words have I missed.  What are the lines to the hymns to the elite of corporate America that he uses to show his solidarity, and the verbal wink that means not only will they not see a jail cell, but they need not pay taxes on their ill gotten wealth.  I wouldn't have any idea.  The Democrats seem not to be to outraged about anything (Except Ted Kennedy, he seems pretty outraged)

 

I then expressed my disappointment with the Democrats in Congress who didn't resist the President:

Those in the Senate will not use the tools of Filibuster to stop the right wing agenda where they can, since they will not initiate “class war” or “weaken our commander in chief.”   The decisions taken today will not be reversed after the next election, no matter the outcome, or the one after that. The course of events for decades to come are being set right now, both domestically and internationally.

George H.W. Bush (old #41) was shown briefly on the news yesterday when he visited NASA to express his condolences. There is an irony here of classic proportions.  Years ago, George H. W. Bush referred to his son's tax policy as "voodoo economics."  He refrained from toppling Hussein when the Shias were in full revolt after Desert Storm, while his son is going ahead.  Bush Sr. volunteered to serve in the second world war, while his son sat out his war.  He was shot down in a real dog fight, while his son protected the skies over Texas from his gilded perch in the National Guard.

Yet, it will be the son who will eclipse the father on the stage of history.  It was the influence of "Pappy" (family name for Bush Sr.) that gave everything to his son, from admittance to Yale to the Presidency.  There is a reason why dynasties do not work.  Sadly, while using the mechanism of democracy, a dynastic succession has taken place.  We anointed a leader, without the usual trial by political fire that winnows out those who lack the skills to meet a nations great challenges.

And I concluded:

Saturday, when the Shuttle Columbia was lost, we experienced a national tragedy.  President Bush stepped up and, genuinely touched, led the country in mourning.  But the fates continue to conspire to favor George W. Bush.  Just as his war on terror resulted in terrorizing the Democratic party into passively ceding their constitutional war powers in order to get on with the election campaign, only to lose the election along with their dignity; the Columbia tragedy allows the President to don the robe of comforter-in- chief, while the fuse burns ever closer to the explosion that will make him once again the Chief of the Military.
 
The few precious days that had existed for this country to re-think what we are about to begin are thus lost in the mist of sadness over the death in the sky.

So, I wrote a letter.  I also joined a rally that took several hours out of my enjoyable life in Southern California.  I spoke at the rally, but so what.  It was preaching to the choir. 

I would like to think if I were in Congress I would have joined Wellstone, Byrd, Kennedy and Feingold in voting against the Iraq War Resolution.  But, who knows.  What makes me think that having worked all my life to gain political prominence, I would have risked it all by taking an unpopular stand.

Perhaps, rather than condemning those Democrats who folded, we should admire those who had the courage to go against public opinion. I wish I could be that magnanimous and understanding.  But it is difficult for me to do.

Newdow's Innauguration Suit...Why it Matters

There is a lawsuit that has just been filed by Michael Newdow, that among other demands, would restore the Presidential oath of office to the actual words of the constitution.  

Our founders wrote a secular document, with defenses against the encroachment of the majority religion, something that was one of the reasons that many of their forebears had left Europe.  They knew it would be a difficult principle to maintain, but they did what they could, by writing the protections clearly.

But in the words of Benjamin Franklin, we only have a democracy, we only have the formula set out in the constitution, "if the people can "keep it." 

And that's exactly what Michael Newdow is attempting to do....for us, for the future, and for those who labored in to give us a charter for The United States of America that hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. 
     

Here's the AP report of the law suit.  It's hard to condense into a paragraph the thousands of hours of legal research that is behind this suit, and the seriousness of it for those who care about the secular principles that our founders incorporated in the constitution.

While this suit is a broad based challenge to the recent tradition of turning a presidential inauguration into a sacred anointment by "God Almighty," rather than the elevation of a fellow human being by his peers, the immediate demand is much less grand and more accessible.

The first of the two causes of actions would not require the ending of prayer, but would simply require the Chief Justice, a man who promised to do the humble task of enforcing the constitution, acting like a baseball umpire who enforces the rules of the game, to do exactly that. 

And this isn't a tough call.  The words are written right in the body of the document, thirty five words that are to be said by a person who has won the majority of the electoral college votes, and by agreeing to the prescribed oath shall become president.

In the words of the suit:

CAUSES OF ACTION
COUNT 1:

THE ALTERATION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OATH OF OFFICE
SPECIFIED IN ARTICLE II OF THE CONSTITUTION, TO BE
PERPETRATED BY DEFENDANT ROBERTS WITH NO AUTHORITY
WHATSOEVER, VIOLATES THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE


Of all governmental officials, the one who most personifies the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution is the Chief Justice of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 1. One  might argue that he, more than anyone, has a duty to maintain the document’s purity.

The oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the  Constitution’s Article II, Section 1. In its entirety, it reads:

‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the
Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my
Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
States.’’

It is to be noted that the words, “so help me God” are not included in this oath.

What follows is Newdow's argument that the story of George Washington first appending "So Help Me God" at his first inaugural is a myth. I argued strongly in an exchange of emails that this was a diversion, that even if he said it, it was not as part of the oath, but as a reply.  The story of his saying these words never implied that Washington was was trying to amend the oath, by intent or by process.

But Newdow has spent years refuting this myth, and felt he had to make the argument of its falsity in this case, even though it was an aside.  But the central point is that the Chief Justice has a clear duty to deliver the words of the constitution as written.

He continues:

104. In fact, it isn’t until 1881, ninety-two years after George Washington’s initial ceremony,
that the first use of the “so help me God” phrase can be verified. That occurred when Vice
President Chester A. Arthur took the oath upon hearing of President James Garfield’s death.

The phrase, (So Help Me God)if used at all during the next half century, was apparently used only intermittently until 1933, at President Franklin Roosevelt’s first inauguration. (It is known that neither President Herbert Hoover nor Chief Justice William Howard Taft used those
words at Hoover’s inauguration in 1929.40)

Since 1933, “so help me God” has been used at every public inaugural ceremony, with that unauthorized alteration interposed each time by the Chief Justice of the United States.

If President-elect Obama (as a black man fully aware of the vile effects that stem from a majority’s disregard of a minority’s rights, and as a Democrat fully aware of the  efficacy his Republican predecessor’s “so help me God” oath additions) feels that the verbiage formulated by the Founders is so inadequate that he needs to interlard his oath with a purely religious phrase deemed unnecessary by the first twenty presidents, Plaintiffs have no objection at this time. The President, like all other individuals, has Free Exercise rights, which might permit such an alteration.

This suit is demanding that the Chief Justice deliver the constitutional 35 word oath of office, but is not denying the right of then President Obama from appending "So Help Me God."  Perhaps, this is close to what the first president did in his inauguration.

The second count, to eliminate all prayer from the inauguration is well researched and presented, and in a better world with more truly originalist justices it would be endorsed. It is a more complex issue than the oath, and is separable from the first count, which is clear and could be followed without disrupting the planned inauguration.

What it would do is remind the billion or so people who view this historical event of exactly what the founders of this country wrote into our constitution.  It will be a small step, the first in memory, to counter the creeping theocratization of our government that has become so ubiquitous that trying to reverse it is seen as inappropriate by too many of us.  

This count, restoring the constitutional oath,  was not in his suit that he brought to end prayer in 2004, so there is no restriction on it being brought now. 

For those who doubt the sincerity, knowledge and courage of Newdow, I suggest you listen to the oral argument of his Pledge case, and how he gained the respect of each of the seven justices who he dialoged with.  Scalia recused himself because of his statement that atheist are so far beyond the pale that they need not be considered in constitutional issues. Thomas, as usual said nothing, perhaps ironically agreeing that atheists were not fully worthy of constitutional protection.

Here is the 39 page complaint which is well worth reading for the history and jurisprudence of this issue.

President George W. Bush Declares Emergency Rule

This was a satiric essay I wrote on Dailykos, November 3, 2007- It was marked as satire (snark) at the end and there was a future date at the beginning to indicate it was not real.   The comments were extensive, many believing that it was true.   When one person said that he expected it would happen, I clearly said as much as I detest President Bush, I didn't think so.
-------------------------
Provisional Constitution Instituted, Leader Expected to Address Nation Saturday

The Washington Post
Saturday, February 13, 2008; 2:11 PM

President George W. Bush declared emergency rule Saturday, suspending the constitution and removing the Supreme Court chief justice from office.
"The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," a newscaster on state television said in announcing the decree, which referred to President George W. Bush as Commander in Chief of the Military and did not mention his dual role as president.

The declaration referred to a "visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks . . . and the banding together of some militant groups." It also cited "an unprecedented level" of violence that poses "a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of The United States."  No specific mention was made of the terrorist bombings of Los Angeles and Chicago last week.
President George W. Bush was expected to address the nation later Saturday.
While other television news stations in The United States were blacked out Saturday evening, only Fox News ran segments in which pro-government analysts criticized political opponents and the independent media for not backing President George W. Bush at a time of crisis.

Political analysts said that by suspending the constitution and removing Supreme Court justices, President George W. Bush had essentially declared martial law, even if he was not calling it that. One columnist, who asked his name be withheld stated:

"He's pretty much carrying out a second coup,"   "For all practical purposes, it is direct military rule. And he becomes the supreme ruler of The United States. There's no constitutional limit on him because he's set aside the constitution.

The first coup was bloodless, and no one prevented the signing statements and defiance of law that was the hallmark of his first seven years in office. 

“What is ironic is that he is using the constitution to eliminate the constitution.  President George W. Bush's stated reasons for declaring an emergency were misleading. "It has nothing to do with the insurgency," he said. "It has to do with President George W. Bush's political survival."

Secretary of Defense Gates, who had been a  close adviser to President Bush, until his resignation yesterday, said the steps amounted to "de facto martial law." He said he had repeatedly tried to persuade the president against the measures in recent days but was outvoted within President George W. Bush's inner circle.

Gates predicted that the moves would be disastrous for President George W. Bush and for the country. "The way forward has to be democratic and constitutional. Any other course is a recipe for disaster. More importantly, it will not be accepted by the people of The United States and it will not work," he said.

According to Gates, President George W. Bush convened a meeting of his top advisers and cabinet members on Wednesday to discuss their options and that 20 of 25 were in favor of emergency rule.

The key voice for declaring the state of emergency came from Attorney General Mukasey, who forcefully articulated the exact words that he had spoken during his confirmation hearing.  “No law supersedes the obligation of the president to defend the country.  This abrogation of the constitution is implicit in the words of this document when he is acting for the good of the country.” he went on to state, "The fact of my confirmation shows approval of this principle and validates the action of the President."

Senators, Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York, the two Democrats who allowed Mr. Mukasey to gain office have not been available for comment.

President Bush appointed as the new chief justice, Associate Justice Atonin Scalia, to take the place of John Roberts, whose whereabouts remained unknown Saturday night. In addition to the other dissenting judges were also removed Saturday. The four remaining judges signed new oaths and have been sworn in to a new panel.

Hundreds of police and army rangers set up multiple checkpoints in and around Pennsylvania Avenue, the wide, leafy boulevard where the president's house, the Congress building and the Supreme Court all are situated. Agents from Blackwater International have been identified as manning some key intersections. 

At one of the checkpoints, dozens of President George W. Bush opponents began to gather in an apparently spontaneous display of anger at the emergency declaration, shouting " President George W. Bush must go!"

It is unknown how long the Washington Post will continue to publish, as a new edict to require prior approval is being drafted that must be signed by all media outlets.  It is doubtful that this paper will accede to this requirement.-----------------
My first coment:

It can't happen here, can it??? (53+ / 0-)

This was easy, too easy to do with a few global find and replace from the article on the Pakistan Martial Law edict.
And the Attorney General would find it perfectly legal based on his testimony.

by arodb on Sat Nov 03, 2007 at 12:18:58 PM PST

PBS airs religious right's "Wall of Separation

PBS airs religious right's "Wall of Separation

A recent diary warned us about this Christian Right's Falsified History, and asked us to try to get PBS to cancel it.

This rubbed me the wrong way since it was asking us to boycott that which we hadn't even seen.  So, I searched for the program, which wasn't easy, since it wasn't on any of my cable channels.  It was only available on HDTV, which by luck I can pick up on my little rabbit ear antenna.  But with no TIVO to record it,  I would have to take notes and use my digital camera to capture key excerpts.  I have  now viewed it carefully three times—including  getting up this morning at 4:30 to capture a key segment for the readers here. 

Did this program falsify history?  If not for one statement, I would have to say, technically, no.  They were much too clever, if not for the one example, to do something so crude. Just like George W. Bush never said that Iraq was responsible for 9-11, there are ways to convey false messages far more powerfully than blatant lying.

It is done by tone, by selective presentation of facts, by repetition and by the skillful placement of verbal and visual symbols.  This program could be used as a case study in the art of public manipulation—at the post graduate level.

For an example of one technique they used  there is this segment showing  a recitation of religious symbols that adorn monuments in Washington D.C.  Note the calming voiceover, conveying the unspoken certainty that all of these symbols demonstrate a transcendent connection between our country and the almighty.  And then there is the music. Turn up your volume and listen to the soaring sound of serenity, of spiritual upliftment as we are wordlessly assured that God is an integral part of our country.


Those who manufactured this pseudo history were very careful not to convey something that was not true.  They got by with endless repetition of those examples that supported their argument, while ignoring those events that tell a different story. Now watch the following excerpt for their one outright deceit.



In the context of the spokesman making an elaborate claim that article six of the constitution means something other than what its words convey,  the screen shows a copy of the hand written constitution panning to this sentence:

......and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath

The voiceover appears to reads along: ...every government official has to take an Oath to God.
The video image panning the sentence stops at the word “oath” and then cuts away.  Here is the completion of the actual sentence as written by Congress and approved by the thirteen states:

.....shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Thats it.  Not only is God not mentioned in this clause, he is not mentioned in the entire United States Constitution. This simple obvious deceit conveys the overriding motivation of this film enterprise, to spread their claim that God and County are inextricably bound together.  They were not to be deterred by trivial impediments such as mis-characterizing the words of our constitution. 

Only such extreme ideological fervor could have blinded them to the outrageousness of such an insult to this revered document.  It demonstrates more than anything we can say how little they respect this Constitution they claim to be so dedicated to preserve. 
-----
I wrote a second part of this diary, with some completely different angles that is linked here.

End of life care: torture for the patient, bankruptcy for the country

This is a review, more of a strong recommendation for reading a long article in New Yorker Magazine "Letting Go, What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?" by Atul Gawand on end of life medical care.   It is well researched, written by a physician who follows several individuals facing death from terminal cancer.  While this depressing subject is systematically ignored, for many reasons it must not continue to be so.  I am writing this because I learned important information that is contrary to what I thought about the Hospice movement, and how it is handled under Medicare.

This article does not focus on the fiscal effects of end of life care, as important as this is since the current system is far beyond this nation's financial ability to maintain.   Written by a physician, he writes with both a professional and a human sensitivity.  While there is a natural aversion for individuals to face their own, or loved one's, impending death,  adding to the difficulty of addressing this is it's being distorted for partisan political purposes.  As a person who did considerable research resulting in serious objections to the recently passed Health Reform,  this article describes one laudable, and actually cost saving provision that encourages primary physicians to discuss this issue with their Medicare patients.   This became part of the attack by right wing opponents, decried by many as a foot in the door for  "Death Panels."

For those who don't read the long article, I will cover a few of the points that were most important. The writer introduces the subject with:

(pp 4) Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. When Cox was transferred to hospice care, her doctors thought that she wouldn’t live much longer than a few weeks. With the supportive hospice therapy she received, she had already lived for a year.

Hospice has tried to offer a new ideal for how we die. Although not everyone has embraced its rituals, those who have are helping to negotiate an ars moriendi for our age. But doing so represents a struggle—not only against suffering but also against the seemingly unstoppable momentum of medical treatment.  

Dr. Gawand does not place himself above the pressures that militate for treatment beyond objective reason.  He describes his own experience, this time in his role as a surgeon.   It was with one the patient followed for the article, a women named, Sara Monopoli, in her thirties whose terminal cancer was discovered shortly before giving birth to her first child:

Ealier that summer, a PET scan had revealed that, in addition to her lung cancer, she also had thyroid cancer, which had spread to the lymph nodes of her neck, and I was called in to decide whether to operate. This second, unrelated cancer was in fact operable. But thyroid cancers take years to become lethal. Her lung cancer would almost certainly end her life long before her thyroid cancer caused any trouble. Given the extent of the surgery that would have been required, and the potential complications, the best course was to do nothing. But explaining my reasoning to Sara meant confronting the mortality of her lung cancer, something that I felt ill prepared to do.  (Eventually he said:) We could monitor the thyroid cancer and plan surgery in a few months.

I saw her every six weeks, and noted her physical decline from one visit to the next. Yet, even in a wheelchair, Sara would always arrive smiling, makeup on and bangs bobby-pinned out of her eyes. She’d find small things to laugh about, like the tubes that created strange protuberances under her dress. She was ready to try anything, and I found myself focusing on the news about experimental therapies for her lung cancer. After one of her chemotherapies seemed to shrink the thyroid cancer slightly, I even raised with her the possibility that an experimental therapy could work against both her cancers, which was sheer fantasy. Discussing a fantasy was easier—less emotional, less explosive, less prone to misunderstanding—than discussing what was happening before my eyes.

Under Medicare, to receive Hospice care one has to agree to forgo aggressive treatment.  In surveys this is appreciated by those in their final months,  and their families suffered less, including measurable indexes of depression.  Much of the article goes into the details of this type of treatment. The following experiment by a private insurer went further, with unexpected result that has serious implications on the the fiscal and individual level

(pp8) In late 2004, executives at Aetna, the insurance company, started an experiment. They knew that only a small percentage of the terminally ill ever halted efforts at curative treatment and enrolled in hospice, and that, when they did, it was usually not until the very end. So Aetna decided to let a group of policyholders with a life expectancy of less than a year receive hospice services without forgoing other treatments. A patient like Sara Monopoli could continue to try chemotherapy and radiation, and go to the hospital when she wished—but also have a hospice team at home focusing on what she needed for the best possible life now and for that morning when she might wake up unable to breathe. A two-year study of this “concurrent care” program found that enrolled patients were much more likely to use hospice: the figure leaped from twenty-six per cent to seventy per cent. That was no surprise, since they weren’t forced to give up anything. The surprising result was that they did give up things. They visited the emergency room almost half as often as the control patients did. Their use of hospitals and I.C.U.s dropped by more than two-thirds. Over-all costs fell by almost a quarter.

snip-

Among elderly patients, use of intensive-care units fell by more than eighty-five per cent. Satisfaction scores went way up. What was going on here? The program’s leaders had the impression that they had simply given patients someone experienced and knowledgeable to talk to about their daily needs. And somehow that was enough—just talking.

The marshaling of the most advanced technology for medical care creates issues that we as a society have managed to ignore.  We are a religious people, and too easily ascribe to a higher being the right to determine when life should end.   And that "higher being" is as often wearing a white coat with a stethoscope as he is clerical robes.   This article gives some practical information on those facing these painful decisions for themselves or loved ones, and raises larger questions that we must answer as a society.

Atheism on the defense, Scalia and Congress

I just finished reading  Pentagon Pushes Apocalyptic Christianity. and took a careful look at the comments.   It is always so much more rewarding on this site to slam Republicans and support the belief that once we regain power everything will be different, that rationality, good government and reason will return to the halls of government. 

While I would love to believe this, the evidence is not promising for reversing the encroachment of Religion in government.  And it never will be until Secularists, that means atheists, agnostics or those in progressive branches of the major religions, demand more from the Democratic party.

The referenced diary describes one aspect of the infiltration of evangelicals into the military, focusing on the pentagon building.  I am familiar with this and have had the privilege of meeting Mikey Weinstein who is leading the battle against the Christianizing of the American Military.   I have written many diaries on this same subject from a different perspectives.

Even PBS felt compelled to air a blatant propaganda piece entitled "Wall of Separation" a term the producers argue is fraudulent. After several viewings I was able to find a specific misleading aspect in this film, that was featured on the web site of the PBS ombudsman.

A more detailed description of our Democratic party deferring to the Religious right was in this diary  Feds now control Mt. Soledad Cross Site  This tells of legislation that illustrates the thesis of this diary.  The Democratic Senators refused to stop the takeover of land for the sole purpose of maintaining a 42 foot high Christian Cross over San Diego. 

When I spoke to Representative Bob Filner about his Senate colleagues lack  of courage, having voted against the bill in the house, he responded with a sad shake of his head, “Sometimes you have to do what is right, no matter the political cost.”

What is rarely said on this site, and needs saying, is that the candidates for the nomination of our party, are more concerned in capturing the Religious vote then they are in taking a stand against the Christianizing of our country-which includes the military.   Do I hear a communal, “Duh, they have to get elected, dude.” 

Yes, and they can get elected if they differentiate themselves more clearly from those who would erase the separation of church and state that has served our country so well for so many decades. 

The nine candidates for the Presidential nomination were asked during the Iowa debates a few weeks ago their feelings about a personal God who responds to prayer, specifically to thwart disasters such as Katrina:

This was Dennis Kucinich's response

So when we think of the scriptures, Isaiah making justice the measuring line; Matthew 25, "whatever you do for the least of our brethren"; where the biblical injunction, "make peace with your brother" -- all of these things relate to my philosophy.
Now, the founders meant to have separation of church and state, but they never meant America to be separate from spiritual values. As president, I'll bring strong spiritual values into the White House, and I'll bring values that value peace, social and economic justice, values that remember where I came from.

His words, that the founders never meant America to be separate from spiritual values is the prime talking point of those who would return prayer to public schools and the ten commandments to the walls of our courts.  

Other candidates took the occasion to proclaim their personal relationship with God, even though they explained they prayed for more abstract comfort than changing the course of hurricanes.  But not a single viable candidate refuted the idea that praying to God was an essential component of being a national leader, along with the implication that this belief is integral to what it means to be an American.

Only one candidate, Mike Gravel, the one with support that wavers between zero and one percent, felt free enough to utter these words.

And so you can pray -- I was always persuaded or struck by the fact that many people who pray are the ones who want to go to war, who want to kill fellow human beings. That disturbs me.

The mass delusion of Apocalyptic Christianity may, in fact, lead this nation, and perhaps the world, into the catastrophe that they predict.  I'm sure that there are those in the Military who are outraged by this, but where are they to draw their strength.  When they look at the Republicans they see this belief reflected in the highest places.  Yet, when they look at the Democrats they see a quiet acceptance, a refusal to explicitly reject this pernicious distorted sect of Christianity,out of fear of losing votes.

Just as we demand that Gays, Blacks and the impoverished not be marginalized by our candidates, we have a right to demand that they demonstrate their acceptance and respect for those who do not believe in God.  We are part of the fabric of America.   While this should go without saying, this is under attack, from the leaders of the Republican party, to the burgeoning Evangelical movement, to the new majority of the Supreme Court.

It is about time we insist that our party- the secular party, the “reality based” party- stand up for these principles.   Silence, and just being a bit better than the Republicans will not reverse the blind ideology that is taking over our hitherto Secular Democracy.
****

Addendum:

Some comments indicate a lack of awareness of the current aggressive antipathy towards non believers. Nothing better illustrates the current view of those who would reject the concept of “Separation of Church and State” as these:

One cannot say the word "God," or "the Almighty," one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs. With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.

This was not from a Fox pundit or a right wing blogger.   This was written by  Justice Anton Scalia in his dissent in this 2005 Supreme Court Case on allowing a copy of the ten commandments in a court house.  He has since been joined by two justices who share his world view on many issues, so there is reason to believe this would now be the decision of the court, that our constitution permits the “disregard of devout atheists.”

If this were to be adopted, atheists would legally become non-persons.  And Monotheism would have become our national religion. ------------
Originally posted at Dailykos on 9-2-07- Still relevant today

Obama interview with O'Reilly

I just finished watching the last of four segments of an interview recorded on the last day of the Republican Convention.   At first I thought this was a blunder by Obama, and after the first segment, I felt I was right.

O'Reilly was abrupt, and his demeanor was as much to show his dominance over a Presidential nominee than to explore his interviewee.  I thought three more days of this would not be good.

Coincidentally this last segment coincided with the "Lipstick on a Pig" comment by Obama, something that has been touted as a direct attack on Sarah Palin by the McCain group, and retorted as a distortion by Obama.  There have been a number of these claims of nefarious "dog whistles" by both sides in this campaign. Most notoriously was the "Celebrity" ad that many here maintained were racist assaults.

So, how did Bill O'Reilly respond to his party's attack on Obama's purported misogyny.   He not only said it was unsupported by the evidence, but called the accusation unfair, and warned that it could come back to harm McCain.  Interesting!

Although the interview took place over one half hour period, its being spread over a period of six days gives an illusion of a developing .....friendship, is the only word that comes to mind.  It reminded me of the kind of conversations I have with my conservative tennis friends, the few that have the ability to think about the issues. 

We disagree, but we welcome each others knowledge, perspective and conclusions.  It has the quality of the tennis games we play, where the competition is the essence of the enjoyment, and the better the players, the more fun it is.

Obama went toe to toe with O'Reilly.  When he saw a mis-perception he pointed it out and O'Reilly listened.  "No, you are wrong when you say I oppose nuclear power."  "No, it's not true that I will raise taxes."  and, "I have acknowledged that the surge has lessened violence."

Let me confess something here.  I am not one of the greatest fans of Obama on this site.  No one can possibly know whether he will be a  transformational historical figure, but he sure is a damn effective politician.  And I disagree with a whole batch of his policies, and his tactics.

However, watching how he interacted with O'Reilly impressed me greatly.  Of course he had his facts down cold, but any policy wonk can do that.  What he was able to do was interact with someone who had a different political ideology with firmness that never even approached hostility.  His skills were enough to interface with the man, so that he never really felt he had to demonstrate his toughness.  It was self evident.

At the end there was a little impromptu tease that O'Reilly initiated, asking, "on a game of one on one basketball, what will you spot me?"  Barack, lawyer that he is, made sure the terms were clear asking, "How many points?"  When they agreed they would play to eleven, Obama thought for a second and seriously said, "I'll spot you ten."

It was a mock put down that was as skillful as any basketball play or negotiation with a world leader.  They connected "man to man, which is close to "boy to boy."   I had a strong sense that both of them had enjoyed the interaction, the bantering; and had gained some mutual respect.

I don't know whether there were any in The Factor audience whose votes were changed, but I'd be surprised if there weren't quite a few.  For me, it was a demonstration of the type of personal skills that got him elected to the Presidency of the Harvard Law Review.  It's a rare combination of personality and intellect, which is the ultimate quality needed in a President of the United States. 
---------
Addendum: djrez wrote a comprehensive diary describing in detail all four segments after this was posted.   It's here and worth reading.
----------
9/10/2008  Daiilykos  Rec diary

Not just a lie, a "Big Lie"

10/12/08  Dailykos 

See the President of the United States of America rewrite history in front of your very eyes when he was asked this Wednesday whether there was any choice other than going to war with Iraq:


It's important to document the actual history of those days, when there was a choice to be made, since this version, repeated often enough without a single objection soon becomes the new reality

Here are the President's words, which he has spoken numerous times before almost verbatim, from the White House Transcript:

Q So there was no choice -- so there was no choice between the course we took and leaving Saddam Hussein in power? Nothing else that might have worked?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we tried other things. As you might remember back then, we tried the diplomatic route: 1441 was a unanimous vote in the Security Council that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. So the choice was his to make. And he made -- he made a choice that has subsequently left -- subsequently caused him to lose his life under a system that he wouldn't have given his own citizens. We tried diplomacy. As a matter of fact, not only did I try diplomacy; other Presidents tried diplomacy.

Let me paraphrase his statement:

The United Nations, the nations of the world, speaking in unity, gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disclose his Weapons of Mass Destruction and to disarm (destroy his illegal weapons, (specifically defined as WMD along with certain long range missiles.) He then adds that this was encompassed in Resolution 1441 which stated that if he refused, he would face "serious consequences" which is diplomatic language for war.

This statement is so clear and reasonable, if only it were true. This was not an off the cuff answer.  This is the story that is being repeated to the public. It could be taken from this description of Joseph Goebbels' "Big Lie,"  that if you you repeat something consistently over a long enough period, even though false, it becomes a new reality.

Now comes the easy part, dissecting this sham for what it is:  Yes, Saddam did refuse to disclose his WMD. But in this case his excuse is pretty compelling: he didn't possess any to disclose. My source?  How about President Bush from the same news conference, spoken about one minute before he said Saddam was attacked for not disclosing WMD:

I obviously thought he had weapons, he didn't have weapons; the world thought he had weapons. It was a surprise to me that he didn't have the weapons of mass destruction everybody thought he had....

O.K. He couldn't "disclose" what he didn't possess; now what about the "destroy" part of the ultimatum?

It turns out that there was only one type of weapon that Iraq possessed that was marginally illegal based on the outside limit of its range.  Weeks before the invasion these missiles were being destroyed as fast as possible as indicated in this report from the New York Times of March 8, 2003, twelve days before we attacked:

The assessment from the weapons inspectors took account of Iraq's cooperation since Nov. 27, when inspections in Iraq resumed for the first time since 1998, after the Security Council passed a unanimous resolution. In addition to casting severe doubt on the reported Iraqi attempt to buy uranium in Niger, Dr. ElBaradei said that ''there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment'' of uranium into weapons-grade material. For months, American officials have cited Iraq's importation of these tubes as evidence that Mr. Hussein's scientists have been seeking to develop a nuclear capability.

Mr. Blix reiterated that the destruction of 34 Al Samoud 2 missiles in the past week ''constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament indeed, the first since the middle of the 1990's. We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks.'' 

Disarm?: far from refusing, Iraq was acceding to the demand, as reported by the U.N. Chief Inspector.

So what else is wrong with President Bush's summarization of why we attacked Iraq?  I'm talking about proximate causes here, not underlying motivations which is another more complex subject.  He mentions U.N Resolution 1441 as containing the ultimatum and threat of war. Here's how one newspaper saw it:

 

It should be remembered that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, adopted in November 2002 regarding Iraq, was also unanimous but not definitive. The consensus was an additional resolution would be needed to authorize action against the Baghdad regime. But when Washington tried to get such a resolution, it failed to even muster a majority of the Security Council, with three veto-yielding members (China, Russia and France) opposed.

This wasn't from the New York Times or the Washington Post. It was from the July 26, 2006 edition of The Washington Times, considered the Fox News of the print media.

There's more, so much more that refutes the content and implications of the President's statement, such as the acknowledgment by his Press Secretary as the war was approaching that even acceding to the 1441 demands would no longer be sufficient,

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said today that President Bush was hopeful that war could be averted, but that to escape military action, Iraq must disarm and Mr. Hussein must be deposed.

That combination of events, he said, looked highly unlikely.

Pressed on the point, Mr. Fleischer said both would be necessary conditions because disarmament was the United Nations' goal and changing Iraq's government was the president's.

The statement puts the United States on a different track from the United Nations, whose resolutions have been concerned with the immediate and unconditional disarmament, not with a change of government in Baghdad. that Saddam must give up power.

the above report from a New York Times'  article concluded with, "All pretense of Iraq being attacked based on the will of the international community was abandoned."

There are those who are convinced that everything that President Bush has said about this war is a lie, most importantly his underlying motivation for it in the first place. While some may refute this, and many do, how does one justify his blatant rewriting of the events leading up to this war.

We could not have possibly attacked Iraq because Saddam refused to "Disclose and Disarm."  He was disarming and he had nothing to disclose. This is irrefutable fact-- from the President's own words, that of his press secretary, and the most extreme right wing newspaper in the country. 
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A few days ago there was a highly recommended diary by a noted humorist that showed a video of a fictional white house reporter challenging the President at a news conference. While most of us were enjoying the satire, I almost believed it was real. And I was somewhat peeved that I was tricked into buying into it.

Perhaps I was made numb by the routine bizarre fiction coming from the highest office in the land.  What I find more incredible than the satiric video is that among the assembly of white house correspondents who listened to President Bush say these words, not a single one stood up and challenged him. 

Not a single one of these "respected" journalists was willing to state the facts that refute his statement, to incur the wrath of this one man, who willfully and purposefully perpetrated an illegal act of war; and now has the effrontery to attempt to rewrite history, by erasing his crime with this "big lie." ----------
180 comments, 400 recs

Man Behind Obama Attacks-N.Y Times- with Update

10/12/08 Dailykos.com 

Man Behind Obama Attacks-N.Y Times- with Update  

The N.Y Times article was posted just a few minutes ago online, and should be on the front page tomorrow.  His name is Andy Martin*, and his background, associations and character explains the root of a venom as vicious as it is surreal.

The article begins:

The most persistent falsehood about Senator Barack Obama’s background first hit in 2004 just two weeks after the Democratic convention speech that arguably set him on the path to his presidential candidacy: “Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”

.....The press release was picked up by the conservative FreeRepublic.com Web site and spread virally and steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites and, ultimately, books.

It continues....

Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyber-whisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs where he is a bête noir.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The Fox program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

While this article is mostly an indictment of Mr. Martin, Fox News, who knew of his background, became his patron last week.  Rather than being a fringe radical that his career should have defined him to be, he was given a platform to spew his hatred to those who were eager to hear the worst about the Democratic candidate. 

And what a career he had:

An examination of legal documents and election filings, and interviews with those from Mr. Martin’s past, revealed a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims, who has left a trail of animosity – including anti-Jewish comments -- among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over the course of more than 30 years.

A law school graduate, his admission to the Illinois state bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” Though he is not a licensed lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he also made various unsuccessful attempts to run for public office in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as an author and writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases. 

It seems like the party of tort limitation could have made a major contribution by exposing rather than enhancing this individual, who seemed to have used his legal training like a blunt instrument of terror.

The CBS News program “48 Hours” devoted an hour-long program to his legal prowess in 1993 entitled, “See You in Court; Civil War, Anthony Martin Clogs Legal System with Frivolous Lawsuits.” He has filed so many lawsuits – and paperwork containing anti-Semitic slurs – a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court house without preliminary approval.

He prepared a run for Congress in Connecticut – where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew Power.” He ran for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he showed a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of cocaine use.

In the mid-1990s he was jailed in relation to an assault case in Florida.

His newfound prominence, and the persistence of his line of political attack -- updated regularly on his Web site and through press releases -- amazes those from his past.

From this article, we get a picture not so much of an extreme partisan, but of someone who has the skills, unhampered by any need for truthfulness, to spuw calumny just short of being actionable libel.  I guess he did get something out of going to law school after all.

I will be sending this around to my right wing friends who hear these libels so often that they feel it must be true.  Perhaps when they learn of the nature of the person who started it all, it might give them some second thoughts. 
--------------------
*Update from comments:

The subject of this diary originally was named Anthony Martin-Trigona, but he became so notorious under that name that he change it to Andy Martin. Several people, including some attorneys, give specific examples of his gross abuse of the legal system, their personal experiences with him and the response of the judiciary to this abuse of process.

Here are the links to some relevant comments:

This is an extensive report on the legal trail of destruction left by this man.

Here is the top comment from a lawyer who describes defending media companies against Martin's meritless suits of intimidation. 
----------Barack Obama, Smears, Andy Martin, Fox News, Recommended
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452 comments, 903 recs

Kitty Werthman, distorted memories of anschluss

Too often when we look across the chasm to that other side, we see the snarling faces of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck or perhaps Pat Robertson.  We quickly decide whether something is from the "Great Right Wing Conspiracy" and if so to be rejected out of hand without serious consideration.   

It's a bit different when the voice is from an 84 year old woman, Kitty Werthmann whose antipathy towards the left is based on her own experiences as a child when Hitler took over her native Austria.  I have a good friend, Bill S., a bright man of generous spirit, who at my request keeps me up to date on the viral email that he gets as a bonafide Christian Conservative. 

I read most of them, and when I point out those that are fraudulent he sends my "correction" back down the email chain, hopefully having some effect on the most extreme accusations.  Recently I recieved one that is the  basis of this diary:  

The email that was sent to me is long, so I made it available here.  After I responded, implying that the whole essay was fiction, Bill sent me this web address, which showed the actual woman giving a long speech, 45 minutes, that the original letter accurately condensed.

I watched it carefully, taking notes, did some research; and I want to share my response, not only with my liberal friends here on Dailykos, but to Bill, whose fairness and good will continues to provide hope that our political divide can be productively bridged.

I'll intersperse my comments in italics to her excerpted letter:


  

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away
     By: Kitty Werthmann

    What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

    I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

   -she then describes her home life, her mother helping those in need.

    The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

    -she then described how much better things were in Hitlers Germany adding:

    Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy.


-Here was my first gotcha, so I thought.  Surely Kristalnacht would have been widely publicized.  So, I did some research and while the statement was too broad, since the Nuremberg Laws that restricted Jewish participation in German Society had been promulgated in 1935.  But in almost all of Eastern Europe such restrictions were not uncommon.  And Kristalnach, the beginning of Nazi homicidal antisemitism, was still eight months in the future.

I happen to have a rare yellowing copy of Liberty Magazine, one of the most popular magazines in the U.S., of May 21,1938, probably written almost exactly at the time of the Anschluss  Here's the conclusion of an article by Edward P. Bell, that is mostly laudatory of Heir Hitler:

    I left convinced of his sincerity, his rectitude of intention, his high purpose according to his light.  The international danger, such as it is, arises from suspicion and fear and misapprehension and their ugly, formidable children, hated and swelling armaments.

This was the conclusion of an American mainstream publication, that it was not Hitler who was the danger to world peace, but those who overreacted to this "sincere" man. The writer, and supposedly the American people were satisfied with Hitler's answer to the question of the "Jewish Problem" which was, "we are not against Jews, we are for the Germans as Germans"

Around this same time, people such as Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes among many others spoke kindly of Hitler, especially when he was seen as the bulwark against Stalin, who was considered the far greater evil.  So, Ms Werthmann's memory of Hitler not persecuting his people was plausible.

I can see that this process of critiquing all of Ms. Werthmann's essay here, and her video would make this much too long, so I invite readers to go to the links above if interested. 

Every reader here looks back at Nazi Germany with knowledge of the horror it would inflict on the world, and finds it difficult, if not impossible, to go much beyond that.  To illustrate this problem, I will reference this article: Nazi Medicine and Public Health Policy By Robert N. Proctor


   

The Nazis...supported many kinds of science, left politics (as we often think of it) out of most, and did not abandon ethics. There was an ethics of Nazi medical practice -- sometimes explicit, sometimes not.
    snip-
    The story of science under German fascism is not, as conventional wisdom would have it, only a narrative of suppression and survival; a truthful account will explain how and why Nazi ideology promoted certain areas of inquiry, and how projects and policies were championed or disappeared because of political considerations.

This article was not from Stormfront.com or even National Review, rather it is from the website of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism.

While Ms. Werthmann does make some errors of fact, after some careful analysis, acknowledging that I am not highly versed in this specific history, I believe that her writing and speaking for the Republican party, now going on for some two decades, is based on her actual memories of events.

In a certain slice of the left-right economic spectrum both Adolph Hitler and Barack Obama were believers in a left oriented mixed economy.  This means that both of them favored more government participation, even control, of some areas of life than those of the right.  In this narrow spectrum Adolph Hitler was a progressive.

Here, of course, is where the similarity ends.  Ms. Werthmann then makes assumptions that such similarity means that those of the left have the same intention, are of the same mentality of Hitler.  She is very careful, never to say these exact words, but the allusions are obvious, as I will show in this example from her video:

In her essay she wrote

    Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family

In the video she referred to Hitler's new rights for women as "The equal rights amendment" which, of course, was a provision that would have amended the United States constitution.  It is highly unlikely that Hitler, who at the time was ruling by edict, needed an amendment of anything to do this.

This is just one clear example that Ms. Werthmann has managed to seamlessly merge in her own mind the most heinous man of the twentieth century with any Democratic Leader, specifically at this time, President Barach Obama.   According to her story the actual fact that Hitler removed the crucifixes from the public schools, means that being opposed to Catholicism is the necessarily and sufficient condition for brutal dictatorship. The counter example of Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco, who as a defender of Catholicism ruled as an absolute dictator for over thirty five years does not interfere in this belief, since she benefits from the simplicity of her thinking.

Medical Care after Anschluss

Werthmann, in the video, says that Hitler nationalized medical care, and that "doctors had long waits of people after this occurred."  After considerable research I have not been able to find a single source, other than she, to confirm or refute her statements.  The closest I could come to finding a carefully researched work on this era was this piece from the Annals of Internal Medicine.   It is a concise essay focusing on the medical profession, which in Austria had been overwhelmingly Jewish.  In the age of contagion before antibiotics, it was one of the few professions allowed to this group.

Of the 4900 physicians practicing in Vienna in 1938, 3200 were of Jewish origin. Thus, the proportion of Jews in medicine was greater in Vienna than in Germany, where it was about 20%. The relationship between Viennese Jews and non-Jews had been relatively unproblematic until the late 19th century, when the ideas associated with social Darwinism began to spread and combine with overt anti-Semitism [7].

Academic promotion in general became more and more difficult for Jews to obtain. The “Society of German Doctors in Austria,” a professional organization in favor of German (and Nazi) influences, grew and published lists of non-Aryan colleagues, lists that later provided some of the reference material for the events to follow. Because of this insidious change in climate, many Jewish colleagues emigrated well before 1938, and the seed of Nazism fell on fertile ground. The events that ensued must therefore not be seen as an “accident of history.”

While Werthmann has explained the shortage of medical care on Hitler's socialized medicine, here's another explanation, that happens to be authentic.

Medical care in general showed similar deficits. Before the Anschluss, more than 5000 physicians were practicing in Vienna; by 1942, the figure had decreased to 519 general practitioners and 211 specialists. The first anniversary of the above events was celebrated in a newspaper article by Professor Hans Eppinger: “Now that all disease has been eradicated, the Viennese School of Medicine can in future dedicate itself to its great task without inhibition”

Conclusion:

What is important is not so much this one individual, Kitty Werthmann, but that what she says resonates with many in this country.  They know how one political leader promised his people everything, eliminated all organized opposition, and then destroyed their country, not to mention a good part of the rest of the world.

I have learned something from this process.  While many here on Dailykos, myself included, can't understand why Obama would not make health care a national program with the simplicity of single payer, or why he did not nationalize the banks that were no longer viable economic entities....the answer lies in Ms. Wertmann's speeches, and the reaction of them to a fairly large following----currently under the banner of teabaggers. 

Hitler did (to the best of my knowledge) actually nationalize the banks, and in Austria replaced private health insurance companies with British Style universal care.  And this was a surprise to me--he believed in an activist government that in other ways would protect the people (well, not all people) in promoting epidemiological studies and preventing use of tobacco  (See ADL article)

The ADL article linked above actually describes the positive aspects of Nazi governance and refutes the illusion that since the regime was the apotheosis of evil, that nothing about it could have been positive.  I doubt that such an article could have been written much before now, after those who lived through the Nazi horrors are mostly gone.

What I can tell my friend Bill, and Kitty, were she ever to read this, is that she misses the essential quality of Hitler, that his quest for power was built on hatred--- of Jews, victors of WWI, Slavs, and all of those whom he saw as inferior.  He happened to have emerged at a moment of great distress of the Germanic people.  He was enough of an intuitive master of the art of politics to marshal this suffering to his own ends.

Hitler's job was made easier by the degree of hatred, the vicious murderous state of the Kulturkamph, a permutation of our own culture war that currently is on low simmer.  Ms. Werthmann equating Obama to Hitler, does a disservice the her adopted country, and threatens this country that I believe she loves.  She makes the possibility of her fears someday coming true that much more probable.

The constant drumbeat that lawful exercise of Presidential power is tantamount to tyranny creates a dire risk that healthy political dialog will be transformed into rabid mutual hatred, resulting in the very chaos that will produce an actual tyrant, someone with a Final Solution to all of our vexing social problems.

Nazism has not become the epitome of evil because Hitler promoted equality of women, universal health care or secular public education.   He will forever be equated with evil because of a remorseless hatred that was divorced from reality.  Our country has been immune to such excesses because with all of our disagreements about policy, we have preserved a common set of values, along with mutual respect for those whom we disagree with. 

It's sad that Kitty Werthmann who lived through the efflorescence of hatred that destroyed her country along with much of the world has learned the wrong lessen, and has made a career of fostering the very distortions that contributed to such a calamity.