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| If you are of the Christian persuasion, and even remotely interested in politics, I encourage you to check out this post by Donna Brooks on the "Christian voters" forum of Obama's Facebook group. ...do i agree? sure do.
Shane, you are being hoodwinked by the right-wing again. When I was in
college, I and my Christian friends voted for Reagan and were so
excited because we wanted to see Rove v. Wade overturned. Here we are,
a quarter century later, and they are still using that same carrot to
get Evangelicals all riled up to vote against the Dem candidate. Can't
you see that it's manipulation?
The Republicans have had CONTROL
of ALL 3 BRANCHES of government for 6 out of the last 8 years. From
2000-2006, the Repubs had a majority in Congress, a so-called
"pro-life" President, and 7 of the 9 judges on the Supreme Court were
appointed by your Republican candidates. Yet, no legislation was ever
passed to challenged Roe v. Wade. Why not? Could it be because
right-wing Evangelicals are like Pavlov's dogs, and once the meme
"Republicans-good; Democrats-baaaaaaad" is implanted in their heads,
then all the far right has to do is play the "Dems - baaaaaad" abortion
tune and Evangelicals HAVE to dance with their candidate, regardless of
ANY OTHER CONSIDERATIONS!!
This administration and the
Republicans in Congress who have loyalties to party over country has:
broken laws, lied to the American people hundreds of times, violated
the Constitution, ignored subpoenas, attacked any efforts to hold them
accountable as "partisan" and "unpatriotic", started a war against an
enemy who did not attack us, has approved of TORTURE, indefinite
detentions without charges or access to a lawyer, has broken our
treaties with other countries, has plunged millions of Americans into
poverty with their HORRID economic policies, has filled the coffers of
Big oil, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, Wall Street
investors, and the Saudi Royal family (an oppressive Islamic
dictatorship, BTW), blocked all efforts to have a health care plan so
that the 45 MILLION Americans who can't afford healthcare can have it,
has subsidized the meat, nuclear, & oil industries,-- which are
DESTROYING the Earth and its ability to sustain life as well as God's
other creatures, and fired Federal attorneys who were independent and
refused to prosecute only Democrats!!
What part of all that is Christian?
You
will never hear this on right-wing so-called "Christian" radio. They
are just a propaganda machine for the far-right. These people are LYING
to you, man!! They are the party of BUSINESS, of SELLING, of MARKETING,
of ADVERTISING. It's all packaging. Like Jesus said, they are
white-washed tombs,-- beautiful on the outside, but inside fill with
decay and the bones of the dead!
Sarah Palin is hardly a "real
treat" for Christian voters. Your ONLY consideration is that she is
"pro-life". I am really disgusted that a party that is so PRO-KILLING
has done such a good job of marketing themselves as being THE
"pro-life" party.
Consider abortion, for example. Abortion in
the U.S. was on a steady decline the entire time that Bill Clinton was
in office, but then started steadily increasing under Bush. An increase
of 50,000 MORE abortions in Bush's FIRST TERM. Why? ECONOMIC POLICIES.
People are STRUGGLING economically. Even I am struggling just for food
and shelter,-- for the first time in my life!! In the 90's, EVERYONE
did better, -- the wealthy, yes, but also the middle class and the
poor, who were able to climb out of poverty. I didn't have an economic
care in the world in the '90s, but I didn't know how good I had it
until now.
Conservatives are all about using FORCE, FEAR, and
PUNISHMENT to *make other people do what they want*. Is that the way of
Jesus?
For example, they want to PUNISH women who get pregnant by
forcing them to carry the baby to term, but they insist on
abstinence-ONLY education, on blocking access to birth control, and
they don't do anything to help them get pre-natal health care or to
help them after the child is born. The conservative paradigm is "you're
on your own". Right-wing talk radio even MOCKS children who came to
testify to the need for healthcare for the 11 million children without
it in this country. Don't let them fool you. These people aren't
"pro-life". They are pro-pregnancy, and I think it stems from a deep
misogyny that says that women who have sex must be punished. If they
really wanted to prevent abortions, then they would advocate for
insurance companies and assistance programs to pay for BIRTH CONTROL,
and NOT VIAGRA.
Not only that, but they are amazingly callous
to any life outside the American woman's womb. For example, they can
commit abortion by missile or bomber and cheer about it, and shrug it
off as "collateral damage". They can let children suffer from asthma,
but want to eliminate all responsibility for giant corporations who
pollute the air. The human world population has risen from 4.5 BILLION
people when I was in college in 1984 to 6.7 BILLION people today.
That's 2.2 billion more people in just 24 years. There are already food
and water shortages, and all the other species on Earth are being
pushed out by our invasive species clearing forests to make room for
our cattle and our houses and our extravagant lifestyles in the U.S.
The Orangutan may be extinct in as little as 5 years. Tigers are on the
brink of extinction. Why are men so self-centered to believe that God
only loves humans? God gave us dominion so we could CARE for creation,
not destroy it! Yet, the far-right dismisses animals as insignificant
and extinction as a natural process. A natural process, yes, but one
that has been accelerated by man up to 1,000 times. There are now
16,000 species on the International "Red List" of endangered species.
Yet, the Bush administration and Republicans was to do away with the
Endangered Species Act.
Look at Sarah Palin. She advocates for
abstinence-only education, cut funding for programs in Alaska to help
pregnant teens, wants to have the government decide how many kids you
are going to have, wants to remove the protections for the Polar Bear
as an Endangered Species, and wants to open ANWR for drilling for oil.
Drilling more holes and destroying more of God's earth to feed our
ADDICTION to ease, comfort, convenience, and THINGS is not good
national energy policy, nor is it good stewardship. Her policy isn't
about getting us independent from "foreign oil". It's about bringing
home PORK to Alaska. Oil is a finite resource. Solar and wind energy
are completely CLEAN, will never run out as long as the Earth is here,
are FREE, and abundant. Yet Republicans have subsidized (with taxpayer
money) nuclear energy and Big Oil for decades, while eliminating
incentives for wind and solar. WHY? Maybe it's because corporations
can't CONTROL the flow of FUEL with solar and wind, the way they can
with extractive industries, including uranium. Whoever controls the
fuel, controls the price.
Oh, Sarah Palin also has a bounty on
wolves shot from airplanes. $150 for each front left foreleg. Do you
think that pleases God? More "collateral damage"?
Look also at the double standard:
Could
you imagine how the conservatives would be attacking Hillary or Barack
Obama for bad parenting and not being able to even manage their own
household if one of THEIR daughters became pregnant as a teen? Yet they
manage to turn this same situation into some kind of VIRTUE for Sarah
Palin?
So conservatives are "pro-life" as long as you are human, Christian, American, wealthy enough to afford health care, and unborn.
Once you're born, that's it. It's everyone for himself.
I've
noticed something about "conservative Christians." (I'm really starting
to believe there is no such thing as a "conservative" Christian, given
the truly radical and liberal Jesus I see in the Gospels and in the 1st
Century Church, and the way he tore into the conservative religious
leaders of his day, not to mention the moneychangers in the Temple. In
fact, it was the religious conservatives who thought they were doing
God's will who conspired with the state to have Jesus executed as a
political prisoner. Do you see how dangerous it is to mix "true
believers" and their religious values with the power of the state?)
What
I notice about conservatives who take the name of Jesus (and I believe
take it in vain), is that everything is about me, my, and MINE.
MY
salvation, MY church, MY family, MY country,-- even Jesus is "MY
PERSONAL Saviour"!!! How self-centered!! Remember, I used to BE a
Fundamentalist!! I used to BE one of those self-centered people whose
main concern was going to Heaven and not going to Hell and getting
people "saved", and overturning Roe-v-Wade. And that was it. That was
what being a Christian was to me for years. Being a Republican,
pro-life, anti-gay, defender of religious dogma.
But then I
attended the School of Hard Knocks. And I had a crisis of faith and
emotional breakdown. And after a period of over 3 years of agnosticism,
God broke through again and I "got it". I let go of my beliefs, and
came to faith. As the poem goes, "I took the road less traveled
by...and that has made all the difference." I read the Bible again as
if for the first time. I saw that Jesus talked about the Reign of God
ON EARTH, not in some afterlife that can only be attained if you
believe the right things and have all the answers (pat and simplistic
ones at that). Also, I stopped thinking about ME all the time, and my
circle of awareness and empathy has continually expanded. This was
possible because I was finally secure in God's love for me and my love
for God. God's love for me is extravagant, unconditional, and (words
fail me)...deep. No more fear of punishment for not towing the line or
not having enough faith or any of the other things that once made me
afraid. You have no idea the power and freedom that comes when love
trumps fear.
Jesus said to take the Good News of the Reign of
God to EVERY CREATURE, -- not just to humans. All of creation is
groaning under the onslaught of humankind's greed and violence upon the
Earth! Christ has redeemed it ALL, and it is my job to carry that
message of grace to those who suffer, -- and to oppose the powerful
forces of greed, nationalism, lust for power, etc. that cause their
suffering. God does not love America (which is a continent, BTW, not a
country, which is why I use "U.S.") and Americans more than any other
country or people. I am concerned about human rights, not just about
the rights of Christians to religious freedom, but the rights of ALL
people, -- in Burma and Congo, as well as in the now popular in
Evangelical circles, Darfur. Likewise at home, I don't want freedom of
choice for me but not for thee, which is what conservative Christians
want. All Americans should have the same rights. That goes for
atheists, homosexuals, Muslims, and any other group the far-right
vilifies. The arguments made against gay marriage are EXACTLY the
arguments made against INTER-RACIAL marriage 50 years ago! The Bible
NEVER CONDEMNS SLAVERY, and the Christian Church in the U.S. was torn
in two over that issue to the extent that certain states severed their
ties with others and tried to start a new country and a bloody Civil
War ensued killing half a million Americans!! All while the proponents
of slavery were using the Bible to justify a practice that had been an
INSTITUTION for hundreds of years!! God's Kingdom, which is what Jesus
talks about most, is continually EXPANDING to INCLUDE more and more
groups that were previously excluded (Samaritans, women, Greeks,
Gentiles, etc., until all of creation (not just humans) is included.
Likewise, the franchise of American liberty has been continually
expanding to include blacks, women, Irish, Italian, other immigrants,
etc. It is both American and Christian to be expansive, generous, to
welcome newcomers without insisting they become clones of those who
came before. This is why I am a PROGRESSIVE Evangelical. Conservatives
seem to me to be stingy, fearful, and unwilling to accept those who are
different from them, much less welcome them. This kind of contraction
into ourselves (seen in "OUR country", OUR religion, OUR families,
etc.) is the total antithesis of the message of Christ. What about
OTHER people's kids? What about kids in Iraq that we bomb? What about
political prisoners in Burma? What about protecting the air and water
and soil and plants and biodiversity that God made? What about
protecting the animals that God made? What about the suffering of
billions upon billions of animals who live horrible lives and die
horrible deaths so we can eat meat, while half the humans in the world
starve, when we would be a lot healthier, and could feed up to 10 times
the number of people if we all ate a plant-based diet directly instead
of feeding the plants to animals first? What about the suffering of
people in China and South American sweatshops so that you can have your
Nikes and buy cheap crap from Wal-mart? Don't you think God is upset
about these things?? Conservatives have a tiny, mean, violent, hateful,
punitive, tribal God. That's not the message of Jesus, and I will have
nothing to do with it!! In fact, I denounce it every chance I get!
Conservative
Christians SAY their faith is in Jesus, but it's not really. They don't
know that though. Their faith is really in their own faith. They think
they will be saved from Hell because they believe the right thing. They
have also elevated the Bible to the point where it has become an idol.
Bibliolatry. The Bible is not God. The Bible is ABOUT God. Jesus, the
Christ, is the Word of God. Big difference. Also, they seem to think
that the Bible is clear about everything and that they are somehow not
INTERPRETING the Bible when they teach about "family values", etc.
This
post is already too long, but I challenge you to do something. Turn off
the "Christian" radio programs, stop reading the blogs that tell you
what to believe, get a few DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS of the Bible. ESV and
NIV is fine, but also use the NRSV and one like the Contemporary
English Version. Don't use the Living Bible because that is a
paraphrase by one man and has personal biases in it (which I can
demonstrate at another time). Forget everything you have ever heard
about what a certain verse or passage means, and just read the Gospels
for yourself. That's all. Not the notes in the Study Bible or a Study
Guide. Just read the Bible and think about it on your own, and let me
know if you discover anything. Pay particular attention, for example,
to what Jesus said about family. It will blow your mind.
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The distasteful comments and childish gestures made by the speakers at the Republican National Convention struck me as being not only unnecessarily petty, but also foolishly offensive to the very voters they were trying to woo, middle class Americans (an increasingly rare breed) who are aware of political trends and who devote their time to active citizenship (as through the much-berated and belitted community organizing).. a reader who commented on this article on DallasNews.com pointed this out...
reader's comment:
GOP criticism of Obama's leadership organizing churches' charity
work in south Chicago reveals the hypocrisy that is the GOP claim to
care about average people. They could mock Obama's role as a community
organizer because there were probably very few in that convention
center who ever had to deal with job loss because of plant closings and
outsourcing. Community organizer? What's that? Yuck, yuck.
(the author himself writes:)
Giuliani last night: "On the other hand, you have a resume from a
gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community
organizer. What? He worked -- I said -- I said, OK, OK, maybe this is
the first problem on the resume."
Palin last night: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a
'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."
....I don't think it's right to attack someone for working in a faith-based
charity out of college. I think we all have some embarrassing
first-jobs in our past. I would not make fun of Palin for being a
beauty queen and sports reporter out of college during these same years.
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| wow i haven't taken one of these in a long time, but this one was frighteningly accurate o_O
| What Your Sleeping Position Says |  You are secretly sensitive, but you often put up a front.
Shy and private, you yearn for security.
You take relationships slowly.
You need lots of reassurances before you can trust.
If you don't get enough sleep, you are: Cranky and a big baby
It's hard to sleep next to you because: You are a light sleeper |
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| utopiadise: hello
mellowdiouss: hello.
utopiadise: how are you
mellowdiouss: ok u
utopiadise: ok
mellowdiouss: bye
utopiadise: see ya
mellowdiouss: ......
mellowdiouss: HAHAHA
mellowdiouss: hahaha i almost spit carrots everywhere
utopiadise: AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHA
mellowdiouss: if we talked like that for real i would cry
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| This is taken from an old post, but its message still pertains:
WARNING: may become
excessively reclusive following submission of final paper (in this case, final exam). this is
ashley's default mechanism for mental and emotional repair after
periods of stress, and should not be misconstrued as misanthropy or
dislike for any individual.
please avoid taking personal offense.
thank you.
^_^
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