Bush's "Holy" War

New!
Interview published in Common Ground has yet another perspective. See it here.
My whole world changed on 9/11. I instantly went from an alienated person who was cynical about the government to a proud patriot. It did feel good to be in the mainstream for a change. The issue was really clear. Some wretched culture is trying to force it's miserable lifestyle on us? I looked around and saw how good I had it here — all the variety my culture offers as opposed to life with the Taliban where even music was contraband. I was happy with Bush, whom I had originally opposed, because he was acting like a no-nonsense warrior against terrorism.

I just saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and my world has changed again, for the worse. Suddenly, all the things that didn't add us, do add up, sadly. When Bush claimed that Iraq had ties to El Queda and had weapons of mass destructure, I took his word for it. After all, he was privy to the best intelligence reports so he must know. Right? But now he has admitted that Sadam didn't have those weapons after all. But, rather than take responsibility for his own "mistake," he blaimed the same intelligence.
This tarot card looks eerily like the WTC.

Certainly, Al Queda and other terrorist organizations are an abomination that must be destroyed. Terrorism is not our fault. How do I know the terrorists aren't really reacting to U.S. imperialism? Some people blame us, claiming that we're responsible for the poverty of the Middle East. Without trying to sort out all the strings of economic cause and effect, we can see the glaring oppression and desperate poverty forced upon the people of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Furthermore, while the average Arab is poor, often lacking in basic necessities, the terrorist movement is not at all poor. Bin Laden is personally worth billions. He could help the poor in Afghanistan if he choose but he would rather use the money for terrorism. Meanwhile, the U.S. recently sent Afghanistan $125 million for food and medicine. None of this seems to be taken into account when the U.S. is blamed for poverty in the Middle East and the terrorists excused as having a just grievances.

Fighting in Afghanistan was, no doubt, the right thing to do. However, the war in Iraq is not helping to defeat terrorism. It has even helped terrorism manifest. It has been devastating to our own economy. While unemployment condemned Americans to forced idleness or, in some cases, jobs well beneath their former earning capacity, Bush didn't even have the decency to extend Unemployment benefits. People whose benefits expired were forced off the roles. Yay! That's so many fewer "unemployed." Yeah, they still don't have jobs but now, they are not counted so I guess they just don't matter.

Let's look at Afghanistan under the Taliban. The government was brutal, uncompassionate and oppressive in the extreme. Never has a regime so completely dedicated itself to stamping out joy. They made all forms of leisure enjoyment illegal. They stamped out all vestiges of women's rights. Women were forbidden by law to seek medical attention. They were shot down in the street for even being on that street without the company of their husband. Being in the presence of a man who is not a relative meant a public whipping if the woman was single and death by stoning if the woman was married. They forced their people to live in abject poverty while they obsessively searched out any deviation from their rigid and anti-life blue laws.

We are certainly lucky to live in the United States where nobody's idiotic religious mania is imposed on everyone regardless of their views or preferences. Wait a minute! The same man who has dedicated himself to "fighting terrorism" seems to have his own religious agenda. OK. It's nothing like what the Taliban imposed. But poison, even in a smaller and more benign dose, is still poison. This same person who denies that Wicca is a religion is taking it upon himself to give our tax money to "faith based" organizations of religious groups Bush does recognize as religions. I don't think Buddhists or Hindus have seen a penny of this money. Most of it has gone to Christian organizations. Is there any question of Bush's preference for his own religion in what is supposed to be a secular government? Consider this article at Freedom From Religion: "Talking about the Administration's vision for the Iraqi government, Powell said he expected it to be 'an Islamic country by faith, just as we are a Judeo-Christian . . .'" HELLO! We are supposed to be a SECULAR country where many citizens happen to be Judeo-Christian. What is "an Islamic country by faith?" Sounds like the good old Sharia to me. A theocracy. We are supposed to be AGAINST theocracy. Is Bush's "war on terror" just going to be a fight by a Christian theocracy against a Muslim theocracy? Are we going to support more Muslim theocracy in Middle Eastern countries while building a Christian theocracy here? I thought we stood for FREEDOM. But Bush goes his merry way, imposing his religious opinions on the rest of us whenever an issue impinges on the area of his mania. Thus, he opposes things like stem cell research and same sex marriage because they are forbidden by the "god" of his interpretation of the Christian bible. Much as Christian extremists are less repressive than Muslim ones, I am not supporting a war against one form of poison only to be fed another form of poison in it's place.

Bush was never elected to office. He was appointed by the right-wing Supreme Court after extremely questional election practices in the State of Florida made the real outcome problematic, at best. Bush came into office without a democratic mandate but with an agenda. His agenda included "getting" Sadam Husain, forcing an extreme right-wing program on the economy and pushing his religious views. The founding fathers would be turning in their graves.

"We have been following developments very closely and are deeply disturbed by the extensive and credible reports of fraud in the election. We call for a full review of the conduct of the election and the tallying of election results . . . . We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, 11/23/2004.

Is this a "Christian" Nation?

The very first act of the new Bush administration was to have a Protestant Evangelist minister officially dedicate the inauguration to Jesus Christ, who he declared to be "our savior." Invoking "the Father, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ" and "the Holy Spirit," Billy Graham's son, the man selected by President George W. Bush to bless his presidency, excluded the tens of millions of Americans who are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, agnostics and atheists from his blessing by his particularistic and parochial language. — Alan M. Dershowitz

President Bush and the Republican Party in Texas voted at its convention to re-affirm a plank in its platform that disputes the "myth of Separation of Church and State." The plank celebrates the United States as "a Christian nation." — Washington Times

The following exchange took place at the Chicago airport between Robert I. Sherman of American Atheist Press and George Bush Sr., on August 27, 1988. Sherman is a fully accredited reporter, and was present by invitation as a member of the press corps. The Republican presidential nominee was there to announce federal disaster relief for Illinois. The discussion turned to the presidential primary:

RS (Rob Sherman): "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"

GB (George Bush): "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me."

RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"

GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."*

RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?"

GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists."

UPI reported on May 8, 1989, that various atheist organizations were still angry over the remarks.

The exchange appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on Monday February 27, 1989. It can also be found in "Free Inquiry" magazine, Fall 1988 issue, Volume 8, Number 4, page 16.

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology... Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."— Notes on Virginia

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." — Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests." — Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion, and the Superiority of the Former Over the Latter.

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity." — The Age of Reason

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." - Thomas Paine,_The_Age_of_Reason_

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."

"Let it once be revealed or demonstrated that there is no future state, and my advice to every man, woman, and child, would be, as our existence would be in our own power, to take opium. For, I am certain, there is nothing in this world worth living for but hope, and every hope will fail us, if the last hope, that of a future state, is extinguished." — Letter to F.A. Van Der Kemp, December 27, 1816

There are "Christian" fanatics at work today planning to establish a harsh Puritan-like theocracy. How far Bush would go in implimenting their agenda is hard to say at this point but it doesn't look good. While we were busy looking at Muslim extremists, "Christian" extremists have been busily promoting an agenda that is every bit as evil and anti-life as that of the Taliban. See this Critical Analysis

Church and State
Greed and Hate
Two baboon persons
In one supreme gorilla.

— Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence

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