I always lived by what I felt was the most important part of The Golden Rule: "... and do unto others as you would have done unto you." As I have said here many times, I am not a religious person. These days I must confess I rarely find the strength to even hope there is a God, let alone believe He/She/It is out there somewhere. But, I try and keep a part of myself that is as abidingly spiritual and loving as I can manage at any given moment. My wishes and hopes are those of World Peace (or, these days, peace of any kind, actually.) My heart is broken for the hungry, the displaced, the chronically hopeless, and those in war's way with no hope of getting out. I believe in equality for everyone, regardless of sex, color, nationality, or sexual preference.
I know there are so many here who believe these very same things. And, yet, we are called "Godless", "unpatriotic", "disloyal", "unAmerican", and many other epithets too numeous to mention by those on the other side. The candidates we support and work hard to elect are smeared mercilessly, and maligned by the likes of "Swift-Boaters". We are villified daily by those on RW Hate Radio, like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and the like. Our values are spat upon by the Ann Coulters, the Michelle Malkins, and their ilk day in and day out. It's not good enough for them to simply disagree with us on our beliefs, but they have to hate us, too, and they have to convince as many as they can to hate us, too. Not to get too New Age-y on you, but I do believe that any energy attracts like energy, and so this hate only builds on itself. We can argue that all day long, but at the end of the day, we have only to read the news, or watch it to know things are not going well on this Planet at the moment. So... maybe I'm right. Hate begets hate, war begets war, intolerance begets intolerance.
By now, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this. Well, as I drank my morning cuppa, I went (as I usually do) to BuzzFlash to check out the real news. Their headline this morning really got to me:
"God, the Bushies are so transparent in their naked abuse of terror attempts: 'White House officials said Friday that the fallout from the discovery of the British bombing plot could help the administration advance its agenda in Congress. The officials cited in particular battles over supervising the program of eavesdropping without warrants and how to try detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.' And Don't Forget That They Want to be Retroactively Protected Against War Crime Trials and Convictions."So, that's how low they've sunk. People's suffering has now become a tool for furthering their political agenda. I'm not saying that hasn't always been true, but now they don't even bother to hide it. It's right there... in front of our faces... for
all Americans to see. It's like they're so convinced that none of us can or will do anything to stop them anyway, that they aren't even going to bother with secrecy at this point. My heart died al little as I read the NYT story that went with that headline:
Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and GuantánamoCRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 11 — White House officials said Friday that the fallout from the discovery of the British bombing plot could help the administration advance its agenda in Congress. The officials cited in particular battles over supervising the program of eavesdropping without warrants and how to try detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Taking the White House’s lead, Republicans throughout the country used the arrests of terror suspects in Britain to go on the offensive against Democrats for the second day in a row. They accused Democrats of failing to understand the nature of the terrorist threat facing the nation.
Aides to House Republican leaders said they believed that the arrests would help them make their case on other issues that will allow them to keep the focus on national security, including the call for tighter control of the border with Mexico.
Democrats promised to engage strongly in the newly energized debate on national security, saying they would not cede that ground. They said they would argue that the White House and the Republican-led Congress had failed to provide the money necessary to protect Americans fully from the threat of terrorism and that President Bush had pursued a foreign policy, especially through the war in Iraq, that has fueled Islamic radicals and created more potential terrorists.
Entire Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/12/washington/12bush.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin They have no shame about it. None. In the past couple of days, the following posts echo this sentiment:
Your pain is their gainhttp://journals.democraticunderground.com/BobcatJH/129GOP Caught Using Terror News To Fundraise…http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1890391Cheney accused of politicizing terrorismhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2451654US Public has ADD - MSM enables it, Rove knows/uses it.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1894157NYT editorial: "When leaders use nation's trauma for political gain"http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1883389As Defined By Othershttp://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/70WH Official: "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big"http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1877057I am of a generation that grew up believing I'd never see this day in the United States of America. I watched as they assassinated JFK, MLK, and RFK, all men of peace. And, it wasn't just here... Gandhi was assassinated for his belief in peace on this planet as well. Even against this backdrop, I felt that there were enough of us to carry on the work of those great human beings. I don't know what the answer is, but I do feel we have come to the perverbial line in the sand, my friends. This is where the Neo-Con agenda for America and the World must stop. I don't want to think of my family or my friends living on after I've gone in a world of perpetual war, global environmental disaster, religious persecution, or worse. Corporations don't care about our plight, just their bottom line.
Time to start winning elections again. And, that means nominating those we know can win, fixing the system so our candidate
can win, and pulling together for the common good. Are you with me?
TC
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