Atheist Republicans?
Daeron
someone can provide some semblance of a reasonable response.
I am having a lot of trouble getting a handle on how any red-blooded
atheist, could possibly be a member or associated with the Republican
Party. Now before I have to grab my asbestos flame retardant suit,
please pay attention.
I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
should be entitled to a vote in a nation 'under God'? (I nearly puked
when I saw this on CNN, when in Barbados at the time). How can anyone wo
declares himself freethinker or atheist possibly be associated with such
a political matrix? A political axis that can spawn such a skewed and
bigoted perspective?
And let us not forget the fact that the Christian Coalition (who want a
school prayer Amendment, return to creationist teaching, elimination of
woman's choice...among other things) now control 80% of the local
precincts of the Republican Party. They represent everything the atheist
is against, so how on earth can any right thinking atheist possibly
share the same 'political bed' with them? Is it a matter of ignoring
them (pretending they don't exist, or don't really mean what they say)or
maybe there is a belief that by being a Republican you can change their
inner dynamic? Or mollify the religious extremists who want the whole
party to be fashioned after their element? (Somewhat like Catholics who
think they can alter the destiny and nature of their religion - and
possibly change the Pope's mind - by staying?)
Again, I'd just like some reasoned responses from those who either are
Repubs, or who see their basis for affiliation (which, alas, I cannot).
What reasons do you have?
Do you not see your affiliation as contradictory? As anthithetical to
genuine free thought. (Which includes freedom from religious or
theocratic enslavement, which the Christian Coalition seeks). If not,
why not?
Any enlightenment, be it ever so humble, would be greatly appreciated.
Again, I am not baiting for flames here, I would just like to try to
comprehend what to me appears as a total anomaly.
--
*DAERON*
"We can have democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated
in the hands of a few. We cannot have both."
- Justice Louis Brandeis.
Newamul K Khan
: I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
: should be entitled to a vote in a nation 'under God'? (I nearly puked
: when I saw this on CNN, when in Barbados at the time). How can anyone wo
: declares himself freethinker or atheist possibly be associated with such
: a political matrix? A political axis that can spawn such a skewed and
: bigoted perspective?
Hm. I'm not Republican, but rather libertarian...yet I really like my
representative to Congress (well, my permenant address is in his district,
so I'll vote for or against him), Rick White (who happens to be one of
those dastardley right-wing Republicans). I used to have the same
question as you, and used to just be Independant even though I agreed with a
lot of Republican positions on the nature and role of government (some
Republicans at least). But alas, there are those gems out there that vote
in a semi-libertarian fashion, and Rick White happens to be one of them.
The comment about George Bush is disturbing, but Clinton certainly panders
to religion when he has to. Yes, the elite of the Democratic party is
rather secular in comparison to the general population (by this I mean
delegates to the electoral college...they did a survey of both Republicans
and Democrats), but there are solid Democratic voting blocks like blacks and
senior citizens that favor school prayer as well. True, Democratic
pandering is toward liberal religion, rather than conservative, and that is
a lesser evil, but one has to align themselves politically so as to maximize
their voice. Although the Republican party has a lot of wackos these days,
the big donors tend to be more moderate. It is the foot soldiers that are
the religious wackos. There is a libertarian strain in the Republican party
that is thouroughly secular in outlook (though since these folks, like
Cambpell in Silicon Valley or White in the Seattle area, are based in
suburbs, they also tend to be enviro-friendly like traditional liberals).
They emphasize less government, not religious theocracy. Needless to say,
the trend is disturbing, but I believe a lot of libertarian atheists like me
believe that the cultural elite in both parties can keep a control over the
hot-heads. For all their blustering and right-wing posturing, the social
conservative agenda rarely gets pushed beyond the point where passage can
occur. The chances that the federal government will outlaw abortion are
nill for instance. Needless to say, since I vote strategically, if I see a
moderate Democrat running against a religious conservative, I would likely
vote for the former since in my opinion religious conservatives simply want
to divert money from public sector to the religious sector (IOW, they want
to use government for their own means) and aren't much of a strike against
big government. There are plenty of atheists with libertarian leanings that
vote straight Libertarian in protest to the major parties. John Laroquette
and Penn & Teller are two examples I can give you (I think it was Penn who
was complaining to a Republican operative that he'd vote Republican if
they'd be OK with porn, the operative [a woman] responded off the record
that they gave lip service to anti-porn rhetoric to satisfy the wackos. I
actually happen to know a kid who's dad lives down the street from Steve
Forbes believe it or not! Anyway, inspite of Mr. Forbes recent posturing to
the cultural Right, my friend assured me that Mr. Forbes could care less
whether you fuck a donkey or not, he only cares about keeping his $$$ out of
the reach of the great masses). Robert Nozick, a prominent libertarian
author who wrote _Anarchy, State, And Utopia_, is not religious or a great
believer in God. Fredierich Hayek was not especially religious either
(though he did ackowledge the utility of religion in his later life).
Murray Rothbard, the father of anarchocapitalism as been referred to as an
"...atheist Jew...." while we all know about Ayn Rand's militant
anti-religionism. Sidney Hook was an atheist I belive, but a rabid
anti-Communist that operated out of the Hoover Institute at Stanford.
:
: Do you not see your affiliation as contradictory? As anthithetical to
: genuine free thought. (Which includes freedom from religious or
: theocratic enslavement, which the Christian Coalition seeks). If not,
: why not?
Free thought is important, but as a libertarian, I would argue that FREEDOM
period is crucial. And freedom means an end to many restrictions upon
mutual contracts between adults. These include repealing laws against
prostitution, "obscene" material, and restrictions on homosexuals. On the
other hand, they also mean freedom from excessive taxation and intrusion
into one's personal life via political correctness ("hate" crimes, aren't
all crimes about hate? Extending discrimination laws to include
homosexuals, transexuals, etc. Libertarians would argue in favor of
repealing ALL anti-discrimination laws and letting businesses pick & choose,
and be punished or rewarded by the general public [the fact is, Christians
might be more willing to buy from a "no gays policy" store, and I think just
as it is unethical for Christians to restrict the rights of homosexuals to
engage in privates acts [sodomy laws aimed at homosexuals, etc.], it is also
unethical for "tolerant" people to tell Christians they MUST accept
homosexuality or be branded evil bigots (well, they might be evil & bigots
:)
Libertarians reject many-most forms of authority, whether it be religion
(some do, some don't), or a leviathen central government that restricts
ones' freedom to do as one pleases (endless regulations & restrictive
legislation).
That being said, since our goal is FREEDOM, not just religious freedom, we
have to look at the big picture. And in the big picture, a large state
seems to be able to facilitate greater persecuation of minorities if the
rule of the "mob" is dominant. Tax collection and income redistribution are
to libertarians direct and immediate threats to our freedom. On the other
hand, the Christian Coalition has yet to pass a wide range of laws limiting
what we can and can't believe.
Basically, I'm saying this:
The threat of the Christian Right is just that, a threat
The threat of government power leading to corruption, abuse, and meglomania
is very real and omnipresent.
And that my friend is why some atheists vote Republican (according to
Almanac of American politics, something like 60% of the irreligious voted
Democrat, much of the rest going Republican, and you know, something like
30-40% of gays also vote Republican [homosexuals that are "out" tend to be
affluent]). Do not pity those of us that lean "Right" (a characterization I
dislike, since I am not a conservative in any sense, but a classical liberal
who believes cultural change is crucial to a dynamic society), for just as
you fear the monstrous forces of the Religious Right, we fear the monstrous
forces of authourity and government period. In what we percieve as an
ideological battle against the Leviathen, we take allies where we can get
them. Sometimes they tend to be religioius wackos
--
----------------------------------
Razib Khan
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~khann
student, University of Oregon
major, biochemistry
----------------------------------
Charles Fiterman
Daeron wrote:
> I am having a lot of trouble getting a handle on how any red-blooded
> atheist, could possibly be a member or associated with the Republican
> Party. Now before I have to grab my asbestos flame retardant suit,
> please pay attention.
No problem here. When Republicans call asking for my vote I say
"I'm an atheist, you can be fired for even talking to me." They get
scared and hang up. The climate in the Republican party is such
that campaign workers can't tell its a joke. Not that anyone with
two brains to rub together could be a Republican.
Another comment is "You don't want my vote. I don't belong
to a hate cult."
A Republican asked how I could waste my vote on Libertarians
I quoted Daniel Boone on the subject of wasted votes. "I'd rather
spend all day chasing a squirrel and have him get away than chase
a skunk and catch him."
Ted Gordon
wrote:
>I don't wish to arouse anyone's ire or animosity here, but am hopeful
>someone can provide some semblance of a reasonable response.
I have misgivings about this, but I will try.
>
>I am having a lot of trouble getting a handle on how any red-blooded
>atheist, could possibly be a member or associated with the Republican
>Party. Now before I have to grab my asbestos flame retardant suit,
>please pay attention.
If you don't want to be flamed, please don't use inflammatory
language. (e.g. why do you use the adjective 'red-blooded'? What
does this have to do with what you are asking?)
Most Americans regard the US as having a two party system. To these
people, the minor parties are a waste of time and effort. So they are
left with choosing between the Democrats and Republicans. Religious
issues are not the only criteria for choosing a political party.
Taxes, foreign policy, defence, crime, gun control, drugs, etc. are
all things to consider in making such a decision, and one's own stance
on these issues may not either of the two big parties. It is then a
matter of priorities. To many atheists, atheism is not a high
priority issue.
>
>I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
>should be entitled to a vote in a nation 'under God'? (I nearly puked
>when I saw this on CNN, when in Barbados at the time). How can anyone wo
>declares himself freethinker or atheist possibly be associated with such
>a political matrix? A political axis that can spawn such a skewed and
>bigoted perspective?
Yes, George Bush was antagonistic towards atheists, but he was one man
in a huge organization. There are differing points of view within the
Republican party. Although I don't know of an atheist organization
within the Republican party, there are a gay/lesbian groups (e.g. the
Log Cabin Society IIRC), black groups, womens groups, etc. each of
which has its own goals within the party, often counter to the goals
of other Republican groups and sometimes contrary to the party
platform.
Bush joined the Republican party, the party did not 'spawn' him. His
view point is part of his makeup; I don't believe that the party
created his point of view, but rather he joined a party with a
platform that was closest to what he held important.
Again, I am concerned with your choice of words. I understand (hope)
your use of 'bigoted' to mean simply prejudiced. Bush showed a marked
prejudice toward atheists, but to be truly bigoted his prejudice would
have to extend to every creed save his own. I did not and do not like
Bush either, but to call him bigoted is unfair and, again,
inflammatory.
>
>And let us not forget the fact that the Christian Coalition (who want a
>school prayer Amendment, return to creationist teaching, elimination of
>woman's choice...among other things) now control 80% of the local
>precincts of the Republican Party. They represent everything the atheist
>is against, so how on earth can any right thinking atheist possibly
>share the same 'political bed' with them? Is it a matter of ignoring
>them (pretending they don't exist, or don't really mean what they say)or
>maybe there is a belief that by being a Republican you can change their
>inner dynamic? Or mollify the religious extremists who want the whole
>party to be fashioned after their element? (Somewhat like Catholics who
>think they can alter the destiny and nature of their religion - and
>possibly change the Pope's mind - by staying?)
I would like to know where you got your figures from and what exactly
you mean by 'control'.
I have no political point in common with the Christian Coalition, but
I can imagine an atheist Republican finding a few things in common.
Perhaps the importance of family, traditional values (other than
religion itself) or maybe the atheist is a homophobe, pro-life etc.
However, generally the CC and any Republican. atheist would be in very
distinct factions. It would behoove the atheist in such a situation
to organize with others who find the CC distressing to counter them
within the party. He/She may not wish to be left without a party if
the CC takes over completely; the politics of the other parties may
not appeal to him/her at all.
>
>Again, I'd just like some reasoned responses from those who either are
>Repubs, or who see their basis for affiliation (which, alas, I cannot).
>What reasons do you have?
>Do you not see your affiliation as contradictory? As anthithetical to
>genuine free thought. (Which includes freedom from religious or
>theocratic enslavement, which the Christian Coalition seeks). If not,
>why not?
I am not a Republican, I'm a Libertarian. I was a Democrat before
that. I prefer Democrats to Republicans when there is not a
Libertarian choice, and I have never cast a Republican vote, and most
likely never will largely for the reasons you pointed out.
However, I can see why an atheist with the right set of political
opinions and priorities would join the Republican party. In fact
several years ago (when I was still a Democrat, and much more
politicly active) I met an atheist Republican. To him it was a matter
of priorities. For example, he said he supported gays in the
military, but not to the point of voting for people whom he didn't
agree with on economics for the gay cause.
>
>Any enlightenment, be it ever so humble, would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Again, I am not baiting for flames here, I would just like to try to
>comprehend what to me appears as a total anomaly.
There are a lot of Rand Objectivists in here and the world at large
that are both atheist and right leaning (if not Republicans), so I
don't think this is an anomaly.
I hope you're really not just trolling lest this effort should
degenerate into another off-topic political thread.
-- Ted
Michael Hoffman
Daeron wrote in message <35D1CF...@ix.netcom.com>...
>I am having a lot of trouble getting a handle on how any red-blooded
>atheist, could possibly be a member or associated with the Republican
>Party. Now before I have to grab my asbestos flame retardant suit,
>please pay attention.
Yes, you can.
In fact, if you are a true Republican then you will fight the Christian
Coalition tooth and nail and tell them to go to their self-invented hell and
reclaim the Republican party and what it once stood for: less government,
fiscal conservatism and self-reliance.
The Republican idea was never to tell you what to believe, what to say, what
not to burn or when and if to pray.
I believe that this Republican party will come back: the take-over of the
fundies won't last, when the Republican party catering to those loons
implodes, because former Republicans voters will stray away by voting
Democrat or not at all.
Mike
Don Latimer
Some Republicans are atheists, but most are religious.
Where is the problem?
post
Chloe Pajerek
> I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
> should be entitled to a vote in a nation 'under God'? (I nearly puked
> when I saw this on CNN, when in Barbados at the time). How can anyone wo
> declares himself freethinker or atheist possibly be associated with such
> a political matrix? A political axis that can spawn such a skewed and
> bigoted perspective?
> --
> *DAERON*
You have, of course, hit on the main internal contradiction that
haunts the GOP, namely the conflict between those who are interested
in free-market capitalism, and those who support the Christian-Right
agenda. An atheist, while abhorring the goals of the second group,
can quite easily be a member of the first.
The question that the Republicans must live with is, How much of
the anti-freedom Christian agenda can we adopt before we cause a
mass defection of the libertarian types? So far, the answer has been,
"quite a lot".
- Chloe
Don Latimer
Few Republicans are atheists many are religious.
In politics there is always somtning to disagree with.
It is trus that fundamentalists have a stronger hold on the Republicians but
that isn't the only subject. So, you shouldn't have a problem with atheist
Republicans.
Daeron
One (being an American, family raised in) is largely a matter of
*accident*. Being a Repub is a matter of conscious *choice*. I had no
choice in being born into a nation in which most profess religious
delusions. I *do* have a choice in whether or not I will join an
organization which has a majority of religious extremists, who profess
extreme positions. (And when I can locate this article from my files,
disclosing the fundies have major control of the Republican Party at its
grassroots levels, i.e. school boards, Country Commissioners, etc.) I
will give the specific citation).
Anyway, I thank those who have provided answers, even though some of you
expressed suspicion. I can now more see how a person can be a Repub and
still be an atheist. Though, *why* a person would choose to do so, even
in the name of 'preserving individual liberties' etc., is still beyond
me. Not when you've got religious zealots in the grassroots, and
sanctimonious fools like Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms etc. at
the higher levels.
To me, if you're for individual liberties, you become a member of the
ACLU, as I have. If you're for curtailing them, then you ally yourselves
with the likes of the above stalwarts.
Dan Flanery
<mich...@barahir.com> wrote:
>I believe that this Republican party will come back: the take-over of the
>fundies won't last, when the Republican party catering to those loons
>implodes, because former Republicans voters will stray away by voting
>Democrat or not at all.
If they don't vote at all, voter turnout being what it is, then the
fundies will have won.
DF
= Remove the "x" from my email address to reply via email
------------------
= Acid, booze and ass
= Needles, guns and grass
= Lots of laughs
= Lots of laughs
=
= Joni Mitchell - Blue
Ken Arromdee
>In fact, if you are a true Republican ...
I consider the concept of "true Republican" to be at least as bad as "true
Christian".
--
Ken Arromdee |They said it was *daft* to build a space
arro...@inetnow.net |station in a swamp, but I showed them! It
karr...@nyx.nyx.net |sank into the swamp. So I built a second
http://www.inetnow.net/~arromdee|space station. That sank into the swamp too.
--------------------------------+My third space station sank into the swamp.
So I built a fourth one. That fell into a time warp and _then_ sank into the
swamp. But the fifth one... stayed up! --Monty Python/Babylon 5
Newamul K Khan
: Anyway, I thank those who have provided answers, even though some of you
: expressed suspicion. I can now more see how a person can be a Repub and
: still be an atheist. Though, *why* a person would choose to do so, even
: in the name of 'preserving individual liberties' etc., is still beyond
: me. Not when you've got religious zealots in the grassroots, and
: sanctimonious fools like Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms etc. at
: the higher levels.
Yes, but these folks (the Senators you mentioned) are funded by rich folk
who are generally socially moderate, though they have to pander to
middle-class conservatives that are social reactionary. Oh, and Orrin
Hatch opposes school prayer in case you didn't know
:
:
: To me, if you're for individual liberties, you become a member of the
: ACLU, as I have. If you're for curtailing them, then you ally yourselves
: with the likes of the above stalwarts.
I respect what the ACLU does, but it is a support of positive, not
negative, liberties. The ACLU does defend things like freedomo of speech,
but they won't protest arbritary government taxation because their base of
support tends to be pro-government liberals. The ACLU also won't defend a
businesses right to discriminate obviously.... It tends to be selective
in the freedoms it defends and hews to a more traditionally "liberal"
positive rights agenda. It defends CIVIL liberties, and these tend to
deal with social issues. It seems to discount economic liberties
(property rights) or something less fashionable in liberal circles than
freedom of speech like gun-rights.
All & all, I think the ACLU is a force for good, but there are significant
gaps in its defense of liberty. In fact, a Republican atheist could
support the GOP to reduce taxes and the ACLU to serve as a check on the
social conservatives via the judicial system.
How's that for you?
JonC49
>Few Americans are atheists many are religious.
A rather broad and indefinite assumption, I think. I feel that
many Americans are atheists, many Americans are religious
(as espousing some religious beliefs), AND most Americans are
indifferent when it comes to the actually philosophical practice of belief
systems.
The problem is not really with Atheist Republicans. It is the problem
of how atheists who deem themselves Republicans can resolve
the very apparent contradiction of their personal stands versus the overt
actions of the Republican Party.
Mark
> Anyway, I thank those who have provided answers, even though some of you
> expressed suspicion. I can now more see how a person can be a Repub and
> still be an atheist. Though, *why* a person would choose to do so, even
> in the name of 'preserving individual liberties' etc., is still beyond
> me. Not when you've got religious zealots in the grassroots, and
> sanctimonious fools like Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms etc. at
> the higher levels.
As has already been mentioned, for some people, money is theirbiggest
concern, and the Republicans do indeed seem to have the
best line on helping people hold on to their money. For me, other
things are more important, and the infestation of religious zealots
into the Republican party has kept me away for many years.I like what
someone else said about Daniel Boone prefering tochase a squirrel and miss
rather than chasing a skunk and catching
it. I voted for Clinton in the last election, because I found his skunky
odor less offensive than Bob Dole's. Looks like I caught a prize-
winning skunk. Nowadays, a lot of people wonder who's been sleeping
in the president's bed. I sleep easier knowing it was Monica Lewinsky
under the covers and not Ralph Reed.
Paul Filseth
> I am having a lot of trouble getting a handle on how any red-blooded
> atheist, could possibly be a member or associated with the Republican
> Party.
Maybe all the Republican atheists are green-blooded pointy-eared
hyper-logical people.
It is entirely predictable from your earlier posts that you would
be unable to understand Republican atheists. You appear to be one of
the all-too-numerous folks who think about public policy tribally.
Republican atheists make no more sense from a tribal perspective than
those other individuals whose existence scandalizes you, black people
who oppose affirmative action.
Given such a mindset, it is not surprising that you would phrase
the difficulty you're having wrapping your mind around them the way you
did. "Red-blooded" is a phrase that refers to patriotism, to getting
lathered up and emotional about us-against-them, to "Go Team" and "My
country right or wrong", to virility. In short, to thinking with your
testes instead of your brain.
And "be a member or associated with" is a categorization based on
what people _are_ rather than on what they think or what they do. One
of the hardest things for tribe-oriented people to grasp is this: not
everybody categorizes that way. There are people out there who don't
decide to _be_ a Republican. They decide to _vote_ for a Republican;
or they decide to _register_ as a Republican.
Now here's something that you might find utterly dumfounding: some
people choose whether to vote for a Republican over a Democrat by
listening to both candidates and thinking about which guy is likely
to do a better job helping run the country; what tribe he belongs to be
damned. And some people decide whether to register as a Republican or
a Democrat, not on the basis of which group they'd like to feel a part
of, but on the basis of which primary they want to be allowed to vote
in. If the most important race this year has only token opposition for
your party's candidate but a close contest between two very different
people for the other party's nomination, all it takes is a little logic
and a little willingness to rise above tribalism to go register with
the other party.
> I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
> should be entitled to a vote in a nation 'under God'? (I nearly puked
> when I saw this on CNN, when in Barbados at the time). How can anyone wo
> declares himself freethinker or atheist possibly be associated with such
> a political matrix? A political axis that can spawn such a skewed and
> bigoted perspective?
And the Democrats spawned the Ku Klux Klan, the Viet Nam War, and
the Communications Decency Act. But I'm not going to ask how anyone
who cares about people's rights can associate himself with Democrats.
What I'm going to ask is: How can anyone who considers himself a
freethinker let what other people have done control his political
reasoning?
> And let us not forget the fact that the Christian Coalition (who want a
> school prayer Amendment, return to creationist teaching, elimination of
> woman's choice...among other things) now control 80% of the local
> precincts of the Republican Party. They represent everything the atheist
> is against, so how on earth can any right thinking atheist possibly
> share the same 'political bed' with them?
"The atheist"? There's more than one. There isn't any atheist
tribe whose members are all against the same things. Maybe you think
there should be, and all atheists should make all their decisions based
on what's good for their tribe, since it seems that's how you think
about other political issues. That's your business. But if you
seriously want to understand Republican atheists, you'll need to stop
assuming other people think that way too.
Some atheists are against high taxes. The Christian Coalition does
not represent high taxes. The _Democrats_ represent high taxes. Ergo,
it is simply false to say the CC represents "everything" "the" atheist
is against.
> Do you not see your affiliation as contradictory? As anthithetical to
> genuine free thought. (Which includes freedom from religious or
> theocratic enslavement, which the Christian Coalition seeks). If not,
> why not?
I see every party, not just the Republicans and the Democrats, as
seeking some form of ideological enslavement. I see our constitution as
having unintentionally made a two-party system inevitable, thus forcing
people either to choose the lesser of two evils or to choose not to help
make policy. And I see making decisions by the criteria you propose as
antithetical to genuine free thought.
> To me, if you're for individual liberties, you become a member of the
> ACLU, as I have.
You might not have noticed this, but the ACLU is very selective in
what it recognizes as an individual liberty. Part of this is their
legal orientation -- there are no constitutional guarantees of economic
liberties. And part of it is that they've in effect decided to let the
federal government violate the 9th and 10th Amendments all it wants,
because they need it to rein in the states. But the bulk of the problem
is that along with a lot of the American population, most of the ACLU's
members have taken up caring more about group rights than individual
rights, and are quite prepared to sacrifice the one for the other.
They've been infected with tribalism too.
> If you're for curtailing them, then you ally yourselves with the
> likes of the above stalwarts.
Or with the Democrats. There is currently no significant force in
American politics that's pro-freedom. If you don't want your liberty
curtailed, you ally yourself with whoever is fighting the biggest threat.
There are a lot of different threats, and if you were serious about
individual rights, you'd realize different people are entitled to make
up their own minds as to which threat is biggest. Celebrate diversity.
> I can now more see how a person can be a Repub and still be an atheist.
> Though, *why* a person would choose to do so, even in the name of
> 'preserving individual liberties' etc., is still beyond me.
Go figure. This is a problem people who think tribally constantly
run into when they talk to people who don't. One customary solution is
to make up a tribal motivation for them and assign it to them. For
instance, a tribally-thinking anti-capitalist might insinuate without
any evidence that the reason three people he's arguing with support
capitalism is because they're racists. So here's an explanation that
will fit into a tribal world-view: you could decide Republican atheists
must just hate poor people.
The other standard solution is to decide the people one disagrees
with are innocent deluded victims of an enemy tribe's propaganda. This
one has the advantage that when someone uses it, the people he's arguing
with can't instantly observe that he's wrong by introspection. It also
lets him feel all noble and heroic by explaining it to them. So I think
your best bet is to blame it all on the corporate-controlled right-wing
American media. Be sure to mention the Wall Street Journal.
--
Paul Filseth That's a hard question. I don't answer hard questions.
To email, reverse lisl. - Justice John Paul Stevens
Paul Filseth
> The question that the Republicans must live with is, How much of
> the anti-freedom Christian agenda can we adopt before we cause a
> mass defection of the libertarian types? So far, the answer has been,
> "quite a lot".
have no place to go. And people who run the major parties tend to be
good at that kind of calculation. One Republican atheist told me that
of all the things she detested about the religious right, only abortion
was important enough to her to make her willing to vote for the
Democrats. But when the Democrats had the Presidency and both houses of
Congress in the early 90's, and legislation was introduced to make state
restrictions and potential Supreme Court reconsideration of Roe v. Wade
irrelevant, by protecting abortion rights in federal law, Congress
killed it. The Democratic leadership apparently concluded that they had
more to gain by keeping the issue alive than by actually promoting the
interests of their supporters. So she figured if she was going to get
half of the policies she wanted that the Republicans could give her, but
none of the ones the Democrats could, she might as well grit her teeth
and go back to voting Republican.
As for the other potential alternative...
Charles Fiterman <c...@geodesic.com> wrote:
> A Republican asked how I could waste my vote on Libertarians
> I quoted Daniel Boone on the subject of wasted votes. "I'd rather
> spend all day chasing a squirrel and have him get away than chase
> a skunk and catch him."
This would at least be romantic and quixotic in a Lost Cause sort
of way, if only a Libertarian government made a lick of sense. But
Libertarianism is the theory that the powers of government can wind up
in the hands of people who don't want to run their neighbors' lives.
When pigs fly and the Libertarians are elected, you'll find out how
easily squirrels can evolve into skunks.
> Not that anyone with two brains to rub together could be a Republican.
That would rule out whom? Steve Martin? :-)
GaryG162
that American Atheist had more Republican members then any other political
party.
Earle Jones
<mro...@SpamBGon.mddmr.fc.hp.com> wrote:
>Daeron wrote:
>
>> Anyway, I thank those who have provided answers, even though some of you
>> expressed suspicion. I can now more see how a person can be a Repub and
>> still be an atheist. Though, *why* a person would choose to do so, even
>> in the name of 'preserving individual liberties' etc., is still beyond
>> me. Not when you've got religious zealots in the grassroots, and
>> sanctimonious fools like Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms etc. at
>> the higher levels.
--
I will *never* return to the Republican Party, as long as it provides a
home for the radical religious right.
Trent Lott and that bunch are an intellectual disaster.
earle
--
__
__/\_\
/\_\/_/
\/_/\_\ earle
\/_/ jones
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
--John Adams
"I consider the Government of the United States as interdicted by the
Constitution of the United States from meddling with religious
institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises."
--Thomas Jefferson
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of
Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all
places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the
laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
--James Madison
Dan Bongard
: I *do* have a choice in whether or not I will join an organization
: which has a majority of religious extremists, who profess
: extreme positions.
What percentage of Republicans are "religious extremists" who
hold "extreme positions"? You claim it is "a majority" -- based
on what?
: Anyway, I thank those who have provided answers, even though some of you
: expressed suspicion. I can now more see how a person can be a Repub and
: still be an atheist. Though, *why* a person would choose to do so, even
: in the name of 'preserving individual liberties' etc., is still beyond
: me. Not when you've got religious zealots in the grassroots, and
: sanctimonious fools like Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms etc. at
: the higher levels.
All organizations contain zealots. Religious zealots are no worse
than left-wing economic zealots, affirmative action zealots,
tax-the-rich zealots, or any of the miscellaneous zealots that
form the more vocal portions of the Democratic Party. :)
My attitude is: I live in California. The odds of the Bible being
enacted into law here are about one in a zillion. The odds of
Diane Feinstein voting to raise my taxes or crack down on the
Internet "for the sake of the children" are quite high. Ergo
I'm more likely to vote Republican than Democrat.
-- Dan
Dan Flanery
>> I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
>> should be entitled to a vote in a nation 'under God'?
>
> And the Democrats spawned the Ku Klux Klan, the Viet Nam War, and
>the Communications Decency Act. But I'm not going to ask how anyone
>who cares about people's rights can associate himself with Democrats.
Two of the examples you cite are ancient history. There's a big
difference between the Democrats' (internally controversial) support
of the Vietnam War 20-30 years ago and a sitting Republican president
questioning whether atheists should have the right to *vote* in
America just 7 years ago. Hello?!? Warning flag to atheists more
concerned about their portfolio than their civil liberties! Hello?!?
While you're on the subject of the Klan, why don't you just go all the
way and blame the current Democratic leadership for slavery, too?
As for the more recent (read "relevant") example, the Democrats were
far from alone in support of the Communications Decency Act. Anyone
want to bet the Republicans would have concocted and pushed through
something far more onerous, had the Democrats not gotten there first?
Mark
Totally insignificant, possibly insightful data point: most of the people Iknow
who vote Democrat seem to register as independents, unless there's
an election to be decided in the primary.
Chloe Pajerek
> And the Democrats spawned the Ku Klux Klan, the Viet Nam War, and
> the Communications Decency Act.
[etc]
The Democratic Party is indeed associated with the Vietnam War and
with the CDA, but I would contend that much of the motivation in both
cases came from a desire to avoid criticism from the Right, much of
it from Republicans. It's simple: in the 1940's and 50's, Republicans
such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy made all kinds of political
hay by attacking Democrats (and others) as "soft on Communism", the
result being a generation of Democrats who had to work extra-hard to
prove that they *weren't*. Thus, LBJ and the escalation in Vietnam.
Similarly, the CDA emerged from the Republican-inspired "family
values" campaigns on the late 80's and early 90's, which included
such gems as Newt Gingrich descrbing Woody Allen as the Democrat's
idea of 'family values'. This sort of thing made it all the more
necessary for Democrats to 'prove' their devotion to the purity of
the family by such atrocities as the CDA.
> Paul Filseth That's a hard question. I don't answer hard questions.
- Chloe
Daeron
> The other standard solution is to decide the people one disagrees
> with are innocent deluded victims of an enemy tribe's propaganda.
Indeed, and you have hit the proverbial nail on the head here. The
nation's media are largely controlled by less than a dozen
mega-conglomerate capitalist, 'free-marketing' interests - to the extent
that a dissenting voice can get a word in, or rather be allowed a word
in the first place. In such an environment, 'brainwashing' - literally,
not figuratively, becomes a very real and pertinent threat. (Which also
sparks denial in those who 'buy into' the systematic capitalist
propaganda machine in place). As Carl Jensen observes in his excellent
introduction to 'Censored : The News That Didn't Make the News And
Why', Four Walls-Eight Windows Press, 1996, p. 12:
"Despite the quantity of news and information being disseminated arond
the clock, you and some 250 million other Americans are not being told
everything you have a right and a need to know. And, without full
information about the affairs of our society, we cannot function as good
citizens."
"The point is that our primary sources of news and information are
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
increasingly being controlled by a very small group of men - supporting
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
the thesis that an elite group has gained control over the information
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
industry in the United States. As media scholar Ben Bagdikian points out
in the latest (1992) edition of 'The Media Monopoly'.....fewer than
twenty corporations now control most of the nation's mass media."
"The next step in the information control process in America is to use
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
this control to effectively manipulate our minds. This also, it seems,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
has been accomplished. The mind manipulators are well aware of the first
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
principle of successful mind control: repetition."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And indeed, the repetition of the same canned, parroted capitalist fluff
on this ng - even in your own post, readily indicates how far along the
mind control process is. You've even taken to invoking terms used in the
co-opted press, such as 'tribalism' and 'collectivism'. You pound the
same dogmatic themes, such as abolition of affirmative action. It is no
wonder none of you are able to truly think for yourselves. Without
someone like me, you'd arguably never even see a glimmer of 'light' -
though you deny it.
>This
> one has the advantage that when someone uses it, the people he's arguing
> with can't instantly observe that he's wrong by introspection.
But I can instantly observe that you all are wrong, or should I say
mind-controlled, manipulated, by parroting the same tripe I see over
andover in the likes of 'The Wall Street Journal' that ongoing icon of
reactionary capitalism, and financial fascism.
> It also
> lets him feel all noble and heroic by explaining it to them.
No, it makes me feel non-coopted, as in *out of* the compromised,
bastardized, information loop. Out of the propaganda-disinformation
loop. This is liberating more than anything else. At the same time, I
fully realize that - just as I had to find the light, by questioning
where I was getting my information from (all the years I bought into the
capitalist mindf*ck hype, read their polluted organs like the WSJ) you
must too. Somehow, some way, you must each find the light in your own
personal 'tunnels' and liberate your minds from their limited,
manipulated matrices. I can't do it for you - though I can suggest
'leads'.
> So I think
> your best bet is to blame it all on the corporate-controlled right-wing
> American media.
I do - see above, and this is not out of 'personal opinion', but blunt,
two-by-four facts, as disclosed by Jensen (and many others) all of whom
point to the fact that this nation's media are a corporate controlled
propaganda machine. Anyone who reads only the American media - and *no
others* (i.e. 'The London Telegraph', 'Barbados Nation', as I do)
*cannot* possibly possess any semblance of an objective view of the
world, or this country's politics, economics.
> Be sure to mention the Wall Street Journal.
Oh - I have, make no mistake (see above). It fairly 'leads the pack' of
corporate, reactionary, media hyenas, as far as I am concerned.
Dan Stephenson
qpc...@frontiernet.net says...
> The Democratic Party is indeed associated with the Vietnam War and
> with the CDA, but I would contend that much of the motivation in both
> cases came from a desire to avoid criticism from the Right, much of
> it from Republicans. It's simple: in the 1940's and 50's, Republicans
> such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy made all kinds of political
> hay by attacking Democrats (and others) as "soft on Communism", the
> result being a generation of Democrats who had to work extra-hard to
> prove that they *weren't*. Thus, LBJ and the escalation in Vietnam.
Let me get this straight, since I wasn't even alive during the Viet Name
war... President Kennedy started and Johnson incredibly escalated the
conflict to prove their anti-communist credentials?
Was LBJ an atheist?
> - Chloe
--
Dan Stephenson
"To conquer death, you only have to die." - JC
If replying with e-mail, please note the spam-block in my e-mail address.
Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail.
Christopher A. Lee
>
>Two of the examples you cite are ancient history. There's a big
>difference between the Democrats' (internally controversial) support
>of the Vietnam War 20-30 years ago and a sitting Republican president
>questioning whether atheists should have the right to *vote* in
Do you have a cite for this? I know that in his successful
presidential campaign while he was still Veep he said that
atheists shouldn't be considered citizens.
Daeron
> Similarly, the CDA emerged from the Republican-inspired "family
> values" campaigns on the late 80's and early 90's, which included
> such gems as Newt Gingrich descrbing Woody Allen as the Democrat's
> idea of 'family values'. This sort of thing made it all the more
> necessary for Democrats to 'prove' their devotion to the purity of
> the family by such atrocities as the CDA.
>
Excellent points here - and don't forget the abolition of welfare as
well (social welfare for the poor and disabled-*not* corporate welfare)
which idea originally emanated from that bastion of reactionary
capitalism, the Amercian Heritage Foundation - then got the rubber-stamp
by Repubs. They would rather dismantle one of the lone remaining social
support systems -to save a few bucks - than to go after the *real*
parasites, the beneficiaries of *corporate welfare*.
All through this, the dems have been forced to go along with perfidy -
to show they're 'true patriots' as it were, because the Repubs have had
access to a large and significant mind-controlled public whose opinions
aave been pushed ever further to the right - almost since the day of the
JFK assassination (after which many dems bailed into the Repub fold,
like John Connally).
Indeed, most of the anti-human legislation of the past twenty years can
be traced to the wild reactionary agendas of the most extreme Republican
think tanks like the American Heritage Foundation (and I won't even get
into the 'American Security Council'- which since 1955 has kept
extensive dossiers on all Americans that dissent from the idiom of the
corporate state).
Those folks, like Filseth, who prout about Vietnam and so on - as
democrat creations- just don't get it. They don't comprehend the
political milieu, or how or why the Democratic party has been pushed
further and further to the right, by the Repub reactionaries - simply to
have a *chance* at political viability in thie country.
The only way out, as I see it, is to somehow force the dismantling of
the capitalist, corporate media elite. Break it up, and appropriate its
various organs for the *people's* use - rather than using our tax money
to support their brainwashing, propaganda and advertising. How many
here, for example, are even aware that radio and TV channels are - by
LAW - *public* entities? Owned - at least in theory by the public, not
networks. That this is not widely recognized shows how far along the
mind control process really is. And the people's minds and hearts - and
political wills - the casualty.
Chloe Pajerek
> : I *do* have a choice in whether or not I will join an organization
> : which has a majority of religious extremists, who profess
> : extreme positions.
>
> What percentage of Republicans are "religious extremists" who
> hold "extreme positions"? You claim it is "a majority" -- based
> on what?
In terms of the rank-and-file, probably not that many. However,
the Christian Coalition has managed to take over the party organizations
at the local level in many states. So, their influence is way
out of proportion to their absolute numbers. They have, among
other things, made it impossible for any moderate candidate, such
as Colin Powell, to obtain the GOP nomination for President.
> All organizations contain zealots. Religious zealots are no worse
> than left-wing economic zealots, affirmative action zealots,
> tax-the-rich zealots, or any of the miscellaneous zealots that
> form the more vocal portions of the Democratic Party. :)
They may or not be "worse" (this depends on your views), but they
are certainly more consequential if they control the party's
nominating process. One thing about the Democratic Party: it is
so diverse that no single group (no even the NEA or the trial
lawyers) can shove its platform down the throat of the party.
> -- Dan
- Chloe
Charles Fiterman
Dan Flanery wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Aug 1998 03:02:23 GMT, Michael Hoffman
> <mich...@barahir.com> wrote:
>
> >I believe that this Republican party will come back: the take-over of the
> >fundies won't last, when the Republican party catering to those loons
> >implodes, because former Republicans voters will stray away by voting
> >Democrat or not at all.
>
> If they don't vote at all, voter turnout being what it is, then the
> fundies will have won.
What happens is that the take over accelerates as sane people leave. I've seen
it before. The crazies are intent in driving out all competition so they will
have clear ownership. They end with clear ownership of an empty sack. This
doesn't bother them.
BTW: In Ford County Illinois the two party is now officially Republicans and
Libertarians, the Democrats can no longer maintain major party status. County
government is structured so the minority party gets things like two seats
minimum on the tax board so this was something the Democrats hated to lose.
Neither major party is doing very well.
Newamul K Khan
: idea of 'family values'. This sort of thing made it all the more
: necessary for Democrats to 'prove' their devotion to the purity of
: the family by such atrocities as the CDA.
This is exactly the point, what motivation does this give for those who
are "leaners" to vote Democratic when they will ape the social attitudes
of "mainstream" Republicans to get votes? The key is that social
conservatives are the populist wing of the Republican party and so weild a
lot of electoral clout, and Democrats want to get a piece of the
action...if the key for voting for the Democrats is because they DEFEND
the rights of the individua to believe or see what we need, what use is it
when a substantial (majority?) of their lawmakers mimick the neandertal
inclinations of the far Right to coopt and siphon off some votes?
Dan Flanery
Lee) wrote:
>In article <35da5892...@news.well.com> sunsp...@hotmail.com writes:
>>
>>Two of the examples you cite are ancient history. There's a big
>>difference between the Democrats' (internally controversial) support
>>of the Vietnam War 20-30 years ago and a sitting Republican president
>>questioning whether atheists should have the right to *vote* in
>
>Do you have a cite for this? I know that in his successful
>presidential campaign while he was still Veep he said that
>atheists shouldn't be considered citizens.
I thought it took place during his run against Clinton. No matter --
I believe American Atheists questioned him on this very issue at a
later date, and received either no response or a backhanded
confirmation this was, in fact, still his position.
Paul Filseth
> Daeron <sta...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > I mean, was it not Geo. Bush (in 1991) who questioned whether an atheist
> > when I saw this on CNN, when in Barbados at the time). How can anyone wo
> > declares himself freethinker or atheist possibly be associated with such
> > a political matrix? A political axis that can spawn such a skewed and
> > bigoted perspective?
>
> who cares about people's rights can associate himself with Democrats.
> freethinker let what other people have done control his political
> reasoning?
this as an attack on the Democrats, which it isn't. What I'm arguing is
that Bush being a bastard and breaking his oath of office is a good
reason to vote against Bush; but it's no more a good reason to vote
against Republicans in general than Jim Exon being a bastard and trying
to repeal the First Amendment is a good reason to vote against Democrats
in general. What I'm attacking is Daeron's approach to politics, where
one party is Good and the other is Evil and that's all anybody needs to
know to cast a vote, so no need to bother with that pesky brain thing.
Political parties are not "matrices" and "axes". They're shifting
coalitions of interest groups. Parties that win elections are,
anyway. They do not spawn perspectives. Rather, people with certain
perspectives find allies in one or another party who happen to be
fighting the same opponent, often for different reasons.
sunsp...@hotmail.com (Dan Flanery) wrote:
> Two of the examples you cite are ancient history. There's a big
> difference between the Democrats' (internally controversial) support
> of the Vietnam War 20-30 years ago and a sitting Republican president
> questioning whether atheists should have the right to *vote* in
> America just 7 years ago.
Bush is out of office and therefore also ancient history. Voting
is about the future.
> Hello?!? Warning flag to atheists more concerned about their
> portfolio than their civil liberties! Hello?!?
This is not a portfolio issue. Democratic politicians are no more
to be trusted with our civil liberties than Republican ones. Democrats
have been as eager as Republicans to have the government profit from
zero-tolerance asset forfeiture laws, for instance. And the Clinton
administration got its hands on the FBI files of hundreds of its
political opponents. As for our voting rights, Bush was not in a
position to put his stupid ideas about citizenship into effect -- the
federal court system would have shot him down if he'd done more than
blown hot air. There are a lot of threats to civil rights that are
action rather than talk; and both parties are guilty as sin.
> While you're on the subject of the Klan, why don't you just go all the
> way and blame the current Democratic leadership for slavery, too?
Because I didn't go _part of the way_ and blame current leaders for
the Klan.
> As for the more recent (read "relevant") example, the Democrats were
> far from alone in support of the Communications Decency Act. Anyone
> want to bet the Republicans would have concocted and pushed through
> something far more onerous, had the Democrats not gotten there first?
Oh, I see, they were protecting us. Well, never mind then, I guess
it's okay.
qpc...@frontiernet.net (Chloe Pajerek) wrote:
> The Democratic Party is indeed associated with the Vietnam War and
> with the CDA, but I would contend that much of the motivation in both
> cases came from a desire to avoid criticism from the Right, much of
> it from Republicans.
No doubt. So what? All that shows is that Democratic politicians
would sell you down the river in a second to save their jobs, just like
Republican politicians. Is that a reason to give them a blank check to
do anything they like? Because that's what you're doing if you always
automatically vote against anyone willing to put up with allies from the
religious right.
Incidentally, it's quite possible that Bush's attacks on atheists
were equally motivated by political calculation -- the man was the most
unprincipled opportunist I've ever seen in action.
--
Paul Filseth That's a hard question. I don't answer hard questions.
Chloe Pajerek
stephed...@cyberramp.net writes:
>
> Let me get this straight, since I wasn't even alive during the Viet Name
> war... President Kennedy started and Johnson incredibly escalated the
> conflict to prove their anti-communist credentials?
To a significant extent, yes. In 1949, the forces of Mao tse Tung
took over China, and there was an incredible flap here over the
question of "Who Lost China?". The result was a purge of so-called
"Communists" in the State Department, and ultimately the McCarthy
hearings (and the House Un-American Activities Committee).
From that point on, every President knew that he could not afford
to let a new Communist government come to power anywhere in the world,
lest the McCarthy-ite attack dogs be turned against him. Consider,
for example, Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign slogan, "Extremism
in the defense of liberty is no vice". What is this but a promise
to go after anyone who is less then fully vigilant in the battle
against Communism?
A nitpick: the first Americans were introduced into Vietnam
under Eisenhower, not Kennedy. The number increased to 16,000
under JFK, and to over 500,000 under LBJ.
> Was LBJ an atheist?
I have no idea.
> Dan Stephenson
- Chloe
Chloe Pajerek
> Chloe Pajerek (qpc...@frontiernet.net) wrote:
>
> : idea of 'family values'. This sort of thing made it all the more
> : necessary for Democrats to 'prove' their devotion to the purity of
> : the family by such atrocities as the CDA.
>
> This is exactly the point, what motivation does this give for those who
> are "leaners" to vote Democratic when they will ape the social attitudes
> of "mainstream" Republicans to get votes?
No much! Those who are concerned about Christian influence in
politics, and who truly want to vote their convictions, should
probably vote Libertarian or something similar.
My point about the Democrats is simply that it was not they
who invented the "family values" craze that has led to the CDA
and other right-leaning policies.
> Razib Khan
- Chloe
Daeron
> Indeed, most of the anti-human legislation of the past twenty years can
> be traced to the wild reactionary agendas of the most extreme Republican
> think tanks like the American Heritage Foundation
Here is more on the American Heritage Foundation, from 'Foreign Funds
Flow to U.S. Think Tank' (The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 2, 1998, p. 5C):
"Heritage calls itself 'the most influential think tank in the most
important city in the most powerful nation in the world'. Even allowing
for hyperbole, the 25-year old institution wields enormous influence.
Before Newt Gingrich became House Speaker he proclaimed that 'Heritage
is without question the most far-reaching conservative organization in
the country in the war of ideas."
"Since the Repuiblicans became the majority party in Congress at the
start of 1995, The Heritage Foundation - by its own account - has been
able to do much more than simply testify in front of committees and
huddle with individual members."
" 'Heritage has been involved in crafting every piece of legislation to
move through Congress', said Stuart Butler.
" 'Without exaggeration, I think we've in effect become Congress'
unofficial research arm', said Kim Holmes, who added: 'We truly have
become an extension of the Congressional staff, but on our own terms
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
and according to our own agenda.'"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let's also not forget that, apart from their initiative to dismantle
welfare, they are also behind the new intiatives to reduce health care
protections, benefits and insurance for all working Americans. (For
example, they are steadfastly against the Democrats' version of 'The
Patient Bill of Rights' which - by virtue of litigation potential -
confers the only true power on those who have been refused treatment by
HMOs.
The Heritage bunch is also behind the misbegotten plan to 'privatize'
Social Security - thereby further notching down or removing a
fundamental, base income for elderly Americans (60% of whom currently
get *all* their income from Social Security). But, Heritage wold rather
put it into the glamorized, over-hyped casino known as the Sotck
market.
And while many brainwashed minions, say in this ng, slaver over
themselves about the great Stock Market, where does the nation's premier
banker, Alan Greenspan - have his money? According to this nearly
invisible (20 line) item that appeared in yesterday's Baltimore Sun,
"the world's most powerful central banker" chose to "put most of his
cash into relatively low-yield, short term U.S. Treasury bills"
Hmmmmm....think the lead banker's actions speak volumes? I do. And
personally, I'd rather follow his lead, and actions, than the hype and
hoopla of the Wall Streeters.
What we emphatically do not need - is *any* legislation, from the likes
of Heritage Foundation - that aims to further impoverish our nation's
elderly (by subjecting their 'privatized' Social Security accounts to
such devices as the 'churning' of accounts, brokerage fees, commissions,
'burning yields' etc.) all the while enriching the Wall Street scum and
their hype peddlers a hundred more times.
We can do better, and we must.
Newamul K Khan
: > Was LBJ an atheist?
I think he was Disciples of Christ or something. A small denomination
which tends to be theologically liberal (insofar as there is only one
declaration of faith-the divinity of Christ and his being Saviour)
Newamul K Khan
: Indeed, most of the anti-human legislation of the past twenty years can
: be traced to the wild reactionary agendas of the most extreme Republican
: think tanks like the American Heritage Foundation (and I won't even get
: into the 'American Security Council'- which since 1955 has kept
: extensive dossiers on all Americans that dissent from the idiom of the
: corporate state).
Maybe I haven't read enough of Daeron's posts, but this sounds NUTTY! I
don't think I'll regret mildly insulting him/her since he/she just
insulted anyone that votes for Republicans, implying that vote for the
"anti-human" side. It's quite clear that someone that would call a
political party "anti-human" isn't too into reason.
I don't agree with the Republican or hard-Right (John Birch Society,
etc.) positions in general aside from the distrust of a central
government, but to characterize them as anti-human is just plain
uncharitable! Although for instance John Burch Society folk tend to be
paranoid (I know of one personally), they want what they believe is best
for soceity. The Heritage Foundation is an extreme and wacko think-tank,
but there are other think tanks on the Right like the American Enterprise
Institute that are well respected in spite of their ideological
tendencies.
What I percieve from Daeron's posts is that he/she does not care so much
about religious influence in politics (Republican politics), but getting
his social democratic leaning agenda to coopt the Democratic party! I
can understand Left-leaning folk (probably a plural majority of my fellow
atheists), but they generally aren't as disrespectfull of my libertarian
(classical liberal) views as this!
JonC49
qpc...@frontiernet.net (Chloe Pajerek) writes:
>A nitpick: the first Americans were introduced into Vietnam
>under Eisenhower, not Kennedy. The number increased to 16,000
>under JFK, and to over 500,000 under LBJ.
Eisenhower put in the "advisors" at the behest of the French government.
And he did this in spite of the fact that Ho Chi Minh was covertly supported
by the US to this time. Also this conflict was considered to be a "police"
action under several treaties, not to mention the UN.
One aspect of this non-delared war was the religion card. It was
promoted as protecting the Christian government of Viet Nam against
the god-less Viet Cong.
Viet Nam War was a cess-pool that was composed of many strange
participants. Viet Nam was the only SE Asian country to have an
nuclear power plant (never started, but payed for by US tax dollars).
Kennedy and LBJ were unwilling participants in something that was
already in progress before they sat in the CIC seat. There were
strong speculations about an oil field in theSouth China Sea just
off Viet Nam. Another reason card for American involvement. But,
to the general public, the religion card was played the most and the
hardest. When you went to Viet Nam, it was to fight for "GOD and
country", not the other way around.
Jon - a Viet Nam Draftee. (1969-1971)
Personal vignette (May 1969):
"What religion do you want stamped on your dog tags?"
"None."
"We can't do that. It is not allowed."
"Atheist."
"That is not allowed either."
"Zen Buddhist."
Bottom line on dogtags: "Buddhist"
TAm...@csi.com
Klansman.
Newamul K Khan
: An atheist Republican makes as much sense as a Jewish Nazi or a black
: Klansman.
And a freedom loving Democrat makes as much sense as the above? No, I
don't think so....
Everyone has different opinions, and to insult in this manner gets you no
where. Atheists get uncomfortable when peoples with theistic inclinations
characterize us, and make statements like, "...there are no atheists in
foxholes..." "...atheists have no morals..." etc. Well, that's the same
as saying, "...atheists can't be Republicans..."
What the above is trying to assert is that being Republican is by
definition anti-atheist, and this is just not true. It maybe GENERALLY be
the modern trend, but it no-where reaches the absolutism of Jewish-nazi or
black-Klansmen....
Daeron
> Maybe I haven't read enough of Daeron's posts, but this sounds NUTTY!
political-economic information (outsided the bastardized,
disinformation milieu) to render your own views and opinions even
remotely objective. Including btw, the one expressed here.
> I don't agree with the Republican or hard-Right (John Birch Society,
> etc.) positions in general aside from the distrust of a central
> government, but to characterize them as anti-human is just plain
> uncharitable!
Hardly, in fact it is quite realistic - when you realize and ppreciate
and *KNOW* how much of the recent legilsation especially - emanated from
the Heritage Foundation (dismantling of social welfare, limiting patient
protections and rights vis a vis HMOs, now trying to put Social
Security into WAll STREET managed private accounts - where elderly
thatcan least afforditwould be subject tosevere losses, manipulations
via churning of accounts, commissions, burning yields etc.) They were
alsoresponsbile for that fiasco - back in the 1980's - of Reagan dumping
a half million mentallyillout of their hospital beds, thereby creating
an instant homeless generation. If you don't think any or all of these
comprise 'antihuman' leglislation, you are too far gone, brain-jacked to
be helped.
> The Heritage Foundation is an extreme and wacko think-tank,
> but there are other think tanks on the Right like the American Enterprise
> Institute that are well respected in spite of their ideological
> tendencies.
That may be the case, but it is *NOT* their whacko, de-humanizing
agendas that are being manifested into law!! Not anywhere near the
extent the Heritage Foundation extreme reactionary agenda - to turn this
nation into a fascist economic oligarchy is. Read, andthink critically
instead ofmerely imbibing the propaganda and lies of the corporate,
reactionary media, press.
What comes across most directly in your post, is an abysmal deficiency
in this dept. As an atheist, if indeed you are one, I think you can do
better.
Daeron
>
> An atheist Republican makes as much sense as a Jewish Nazi or a black
> Klansman.
Thank you. Exactly my sentiments. And it extends, imho - to *voting* for
them as well! (Even if one ordinarily claims some other political
allegiance). I can't see a black in Mississippi voting for a redneck,
KKK affiliated official, and Ican't see an atheist (not merely in name)
voting fora Repub. They are, even moreso after seeing many of these
posts, contradictory in principle.
And btw, *Republican freethinker* is an oxymoron.
dsg5
--dsg
TAm...@csi.com wrote in article <35DF2F...@csi.com>...
Dan Stephenson
says...
> Daeron (sta...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>
> : Indeed, most of the anti-human legislation of the past twenty years can
> : be traced to the wild reactionary agendas of the most extreme Republican
> : think tanks like the American Heritage Foundation (and I won't even get
> : into the 'American Security Council'- which since 1955 has kept
> : extensive dossiers on all Americans that dissent from the idiom of the
> : corporate state).
>
No, you haven't.
Ironically, he reminds me of these Christian fundies who preach about the
coming Rapture. As if they expect it in their lifetime.
> Razib Khan
> http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~khann
> student, University of Oregon
> major, biochemistry
Dan Stephenson
> An atheist Republican makes as much sense as a Jewish Nazi or a black
> Klansman.
That was thoughtful.
BiggHobbit
>An atheist Republican makes as much sense as a Jewish Nazi or a black
>Klansman.
Wrong kemosabi!
I am and atheist Republican.
What you fail to grasp is there are at least three types of Republicans.
Fiscal Conservatives, Social Conservatives and Rights Defenders.
Rights defenders are interested in such things as the right to keep and bear
arms, freedom of religion, etc...
Social Conservatives focus is making America into a Christian Theocracy - where
the precepts of the Bible become the laws of the land. They want everyone to
act like a god-fearing Christian, if not actually become one. These are the
Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson zealots.
Lastly, the fiscal conservatives are concerned with reducing taxation and
limiting the amount of money government spends. They can be social liberals,
atheists, etc..., but they - or shall I say we - are sick of the government
trying to suck every dollar they can out of our wallets to give to others or to
spend on un-necessary programs.
I am against the Social Conservatives and their moral putsch, as you probably
are, so don't paint with such a wide brush in the future. Before you shoot
from the hip, learn more about your subject!
Paul Filseth
> Those folks, like Filseth, who prout about Vietnam and so on - as
> democrat creations- just don't get it. They don't comprehend the
> political milieu, or how or why the Democratic party has been pushed
> further and further to the right, by the Repub reactionaries - simply to
> have a *chance* at political viability in thie country.
The Repub reactionaries can't push the Democratic party -- only
potential Democratic voters can do that. As for Viet Nam, I don't know
the word "prout". Does it mean "point out to someone facts that don't
fit his one-dimensional world-view"?
Incidentally, when was this movement further and further to the
right supposed to have begun? The McCarthy era? Because a Democratic
administration started screwing over the people of Viet Nam in 1945.
Oh, sorry, I forgot I wasn't supposed to prout.
> > The other standard solution is to decide the people one disagrees
> > with are innocent deluded victims of an enemy tribe's propaganda.
> > ...
> > So I think your best bet is to blame it all on the
> > corporate-controlled right-wing American media.
>
> I do - see above, and this is not out of 'personal opinion', but blunt,
> two-by-four facts, as disclosed by Jensen (and many others) all of whom
> point to the fact that this nation's media are a corporate controlled
> propaganda machine. Anyone who reads only the American media - and *no
> others* (i.e. 'The London Telegraph', 'Barbados Nation', as I do)
> *cannot* possibly possess any semblance of an objective view of the
> world, or this country's politics, economics.
You have no information about what I read. It is apparent that
you never had any interest in understanding Republican atheists, and
were just trolling for an excuse to repeat the same put-downs you've
spouted in the past. Several people offered you coherent and reasonable
explanations and rather than accept them or argue against them, you
resort to the same classic ad hominem attack you've used before and
those who think like you have been using for years to avoid having to
take any alternate viewpoints seriously.
> And indeed, the repetition of the same canned, parroted capitalist fluff
> on this ng - even in your own post, readily indicates how far along the
> mind control process is. You've even taken to invoking terms used in the
> co-opted press, such as 'tribalism' and 'collectivism'. You pound the
> same dogmatic themes, such as abolition of affirmative action. It is no
> wonder none of you are able to truly think for yourselves. Without
> someone like me, you'd arguably never even see a glimmer of 'light' -
> though you deny it.
This is a joke, right? No one could really be as much of a
caricature as this. Are we seeing the latest in Eliza technology?
Okay, here's another theory to explain why you write garbage like
this about me. You didn't read my post. (You probably won't read this
one either, but what the heck.) You just assume I'm saying the same
thing as something you saw somewhere and didn't like, so you denounce
me for what somebody else said.
- I didn't invoke the term "collectivism".
- I haven't said anything against affirmative action.
So why don't you either (a) go to Deja News and not come back until you
find something in one of my posts to back up the words you've put in
my mouth, or (b) grow up.
Dan Flanery
> Dan and Chloe both snipped the point I was making here and treated
>this as an attack on the Democrats, which it isn't. What I'm arguing is
>that Bush being a bastard and breaking his oath of office is a good
>reason to vote against Bush; but it's no more a good reason to vote
>against Republicans in general than Jim Exon being a bastard and trying
>to repeal the First Amendment is a good reason to vote against Democrats
>in general.
So, you're saying that the majority of Republicans in Congress and
Republican-appointed Federal (not to mention state) judges don't share
Bush's opinion? I wouldn't bet on that.
> Political parties are not "matrices" and "axes".
I agree. The current Republican party is closer to The Axis. (Sorry.
Couldn't resist!)
> Bush is out of office and therefore also ancient history.
So, you're saying that the values expressed by the leader of the
Republican party just seven years ago have changed significantly since
his departure? I'd agree with that - his party has since moved even
further to the right!
>Voting is about the future.
Or about not having one, if the religious fanatics are allowed to take
control.
>> Hello?!? Warning flag to atheists more concerned about their
>> portfolio than their civil liberties! Hello?!?
>
> This is not a portfolio issue.
This is obviously a portfolio issue, as expressed by several atheist
Republicans in this very thread. They're more worried about their
pocketbooks than their civil liberties, and naively believe that the
Constitution and the courts will protect them from the fundamentalists
who have hijacked the Republican agenda. They don't know how wrong
they are - yet - but my guess is they will in two or three years.
>Democratic politicians are no more to be trusted with our civil liberties
>than Republican ones.
Yeah, it was just last week when President Clinton, between blowjobs,
remarked how he thought atheists weren't fit to be citizens.
Not.
>Democrats have been as eager as Republicans to have the government
>profit from zero-tolerance asset forfeiture laws, for instance.
I agree, those laws are odious. But that isn't a direct infringement
on my First Amendment right to freedom of religion - a right which the
leader of the Republican party would happily have destroyed just 7
years ago. And Bush was considered a *moderate* Republican . . .
>As for our voting rights, Bush was not in a
>position to put his stupid ideas about citizenship into effect -- the
>federal court system would have shot him down if he'd done more than
>blown hot air.
Keep electing Republicans, and we won't have a federal court system
that's interested in defending anybody's civil rights. Judges are
appointed, you know.
>> While you're on the subject of the Klan, why don't you just go all the
>> way and blame the current Democratic leadership for slavery, too?
>
> Because I didn't go _part of the way_ and blame current leaders for
>the Klan.
I wasn't exactly grasping at straws here to make a point -- by
dragging the Democrats' decades-dead support for the Klan into the
discussion (in a misguided attempt to make a point you could have made
with a far more relevant example -- say, welfare reform), you left
yourself wide open to that attack. If you're going to dredge up party
positions from decades ago at all, you should also provide some
evidence to show how they've continued to advance that position into
the present.
>> As for the more recent (read "relevant") example, the Democrats were
>> far from alone in support of the Communications Decency Act. Anyone
>> want to bet the Republicans would have concocted and pushed through
>> something far more onerous, had the Democrats not gotten there first?
>
> Oh, I see, they were protecting us. Well, never mind then, I guess
>it's okay.
So, you're saying the Republicans wouldn't have drafted a CDA of their
own? As I recall, the Republicans complained the CDA wasn't strong
enough.
I didn't leave the Republican party . . . the Republican party left
me.
James E. Martin
> Although for instance John Burch Society folk tend to be
> paranoid (I know of one personally), they want what they believe is best
> for soceity.
Hitler, too, only wanted what he thought was best for society, so this is
no defense at all. There's no need wasting your breath defending the hard
right. They have their own legions of lawyers and followers to do that
for them.
> What I percieve from Daeron's posts is that he/she does not care so much
> about religious influence in politics (Republican politics), but getting
> his social democratic leaning agenda to coopt the Democratic party! I
> can understand Left-leaning folk (probably a plural majority of my fellow
> atheists), but they generally aren't as disrespectfull of my libertarian
> (classical liberal) views as this!
Daeron knows a lot about politics left and right. And if his "agenda" is
to bring the democratic party back to the left, more power to him. If
you're a Libertarian, then why do you identify with republicans anyway? I
know libertarians that are fairly liberal and others that are very
conservative. I know libertarians that are atheist/agnostic and
libertarians that are Baptists. But libertarian and republican parties
are different enough that you ought not to be insulted by someone taking a
shot at the republicans. And I suspect that Daeron meant "anti-humanist"
or "anti-humanistic" rather than "anti-human."
james
--
James E. Martin
wheat...@geocities.com
John C. 'Buck' Field
constitutes agreement by the originator I will be
damaged in the amount of $1000.00 US Dollars
by each use.
Daeron wrote in message <35E13D...@ix.netcom.com>...
>Ican't see an atheist (not merely in name)
>voting fora Repub. They are, even moreso after seeing many of these
>posts, contradictory in principle.
Voting against a worse Democrat? I've done that.
Chloe Pajerek
> Incidentally, when was this movement further and further to the
> right supposed to have begun? The McCarthy era? Because a Democratic
> administration started screwing over the people of Viet Nam in 1945.
US involvement in Vietnam was pretty vague in 1945; the French
were still there. We did support them, however, and in 1954 we
moved in as the "new landlord".
The two big events that got things started were the fall of China,
and the first Soviet A-bomb test, both of which occurred in 1949.
That's what kicked off the so-called "Red Scare" and the McCarthy
era. Ever since then, Democrats have been on the defensive wrt the
charge of being "soft on Communism". Actually, they still are, the
only difference being the substitution of the word "Defense" for
"Communism".
BTW: even though defense spending has been dropping since the end
of the Cold War, we're about to see a major Republican campaign
in favor of an expanded Strategic Defense Initiative.
> Paul Filseth
- Chloe
Daeron
>
> The Repub reactionaries can't push the Democratic party -- only
> potential Democratic voters can do that.
If you read the point carefully, it was that the *voters*' brains have
been co-opted by a largely reactionary press (the Repubs call them
'liberal' but that is merely a smokescreen, since The Nation did a
report a year or so ago which showed that a large proportion of
references were skewed toward reactionary points of view). The Repubs
clearly benefit from this brainwashed public purview, the Deomcrats do
not.
> As for Viet Nam, I don't know
> the word "prout". Does it mean "point out to someone facts that don't
> fit his one-dimensional world-view"?
Actually, more in reference to contradicting facts to attempt to render
credible a bogus point of view. Such as yours.
>
> Incidentally, when was this movement further and further to the
> right supposed to have begun? The McCarthy era?
I already noted that it began immediately in the wake of the JFK
assassination. In the years following, significant numbers of white
democrats -like John Connally) totally bolted to the Republican Party.
The subsequent killings of RFK and MLK consolidated this exodus, since -
by then - the liberal core of the Deomcratic party had been essentially
extirpated. Those left (like myself) found oursevles as largely
political orphans, with no one to speak for us. Many, in this orphaned
atmosphere, went over to the Repubs - or became the ultimate of all
traitors, "Reagan Democrats".
Fortunately, I missed the 'Reagan Years' and the social devastation they
wrought throughout the land. I was in Barbados during those years. I
didn't have to watch up close the spectacle of converting the world's
largest creditor nation into the biggest debtor (by way of amassing a
$2.1 trillion arms credit bill that has yet to be paid off).
> You have no information about what I read.
I admit that, but from your parroting of the reactionary media's
standard fare, it doesn't require an Einstein to deduce it.
>It is apparent that
> you never had any interest in understanding Republican atheists, and
> were just trolling for an excuse to repeat the same put-downs you've
> spouted in the past.
Not at all. I did want to (initially) learn how and why they positioned
themselves this way. I did get a few decent responses, until you chimed
in with your non sequiturs, red herrings, ad hominems and other
deflections. From that point, the quality of the exchange plummeted.
>Several people offered you coherent and reasonable
> explanations and rather than accept them or argue against them, you
> resort to the same classic ad hominem attack you've used before
I know and I acknowledged those people -who offered coherent
and*reasonable* explanations. However, your responses have been another
story entirely. Smarmy, arrogant, prepared to question my intentions
right off the bat - and pick another fight. Remember, *you* came at me
with the initial hostility, I only respond to it.
> Okay, here's another theory to explain why you write garbage like
> this about me. You didn't read my post.
I did read your post. By the time I got to the end- with the smarmy ass
reference to the Wall Street Journal, I also knew exactly how to
categorize it. As more recycled scat from the reactionary media.
> You just assume I'm saying the same
> thing as something you saw somewhere and didn't like, so you denounce
> me for what somebody else said.
I really am beyond 'denouncing' you any more. I just have pity on you. I
feel a sense of tragedy that as fine a mind as you possess, has been
largely hijacked by the propagandizing interests of the Corporate State
and its elites. I feel sad more than anything else. But, I've felt that
way since I came back to this country, and have seen how the meme virus
of reactionary thinking is contaminating the entire framework of public
discussions, including those over the net.
> - I didn't invoke the term "collectivism".
But you essentially invoked a synonymn for it. (I.e. 'tribal think',
'Tribalism')
> - I haven't said anything against affirmative action.
But it is clear to me, that your *thinking* is in line with those who do
oppose it, though you do not specifically mention it.
> So why don't you either (a) go to Deja News and not come back until you
> find something in one of my posts to back up the words you've put in
> my mouth, or (b) grow up.
I think that you are the one who needs to 'grow up'. There was a serious
level of discussion going on with this thread and I was starting to
receive some rational, coherent answers until you showed up and
proceeded to throw a monkey wrench into it. That is the sign of
immaturity - and perhaps discloses more about where you are coming from
than anything else.
Karl A. Krueger
: TAm...@csi.com wrote:
: >An atheist Republican makes as much sense as a Jewish Nazi or a black
: >Klansman.
: This would only make sense to a single-issue voter.
The Nazi platform had other issues on it besides the killing of Jews.
However, the killing of Jews was a sufficiently important element of
that platform to make it foolish for a Jew to join the Nazi Party.
Similarly, the imposition of religion upon the American public is a
sufficiently important element of the current Republican platform to
make it folly for an atheist to join the Republicans.
Given that the Republican Party *has* betrayed its non-theocratic
members in favor of the present theocracy/monopoly/war alliance
represented by the CNP, it is only logical for the non-theocratic
members to leave. The history of the party is irrelevant; its present
principles and platform are what matter. Given that the G.O.P.
leadership have no principles save power, and that their platform is
theocratic, an atheist's loyalty to them is a curiosity.
--
Karl A. Krueger -- ka...@simons-rock.edu
Ken Arromdee
>: >An atheist Republican makes as much sense as a Jewish Nazi or a black
>: >Klansman.
>: This would only make sense to a single-issue voter.
>The Nazi platform had other issues on it besides the killing of Jews.
>However, the killing of Jews was a sufficiently important element of
>that platform to make it foolish for a Jew to join the Nazi Party.
>Similarly, the imposition of religion upon the American public is a
>sufficiently important element of the current Republican platform to
>make it folly for an atheist to join the Republicans.
_If_ this is true, then of course you're right, but it's not as obviously
true as you make it out to be.
--
Ken Arromdee |They said it was *daft* to build a space
arro...@inetnow.net |station in a swamp, but I showed them! It
karr...@nyx.nyx.net |sank into the swamp. So I built a second
http://www.inetnow.net/~arromdee|space station. That sank into the swamp too.
--------------------------------+My third space station sank into the swamp.
So I built a fourth one. That fell into a time warp and _then_ sank into the
swamp. But the fifth one... stayed up! --Monty Python/Babylon 5
sha...@nospam.com
Christopher A. Lee <chri...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <35da5892...@news.well.com> sunsp...@hotmail.com writes:
>>
>>difference between the Democrats' (internally controversial) support
>>of the Vietnam War 20-30 years ago and a sitting Republican president
>>questioning whether atheists should have the right to *vote* in
>
>presidential campaign while he was still Veep he said that
>atheists shouldn't be considered citizens.
It was on Aug. 27 1988 (hey, it'll be ten years tomorrow!), during his
presidential campaign. As I recall, this was an interview at an airport,
and it was a representative from American Atheists that asked him a question
about atheists' rights. He replied:
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should
they be considered patriots. This is one nation under god."
But then again, he also said:
"To kind of suddenly try to get my hair colored, and dance up and down in
a miniskirt or do something, you know, show that I've got a lot of jazz out
there and drop a bunch of one-liners, I'm running for president of the
United States ... I kind of think I'm a scintillating kind of fellow."
-- 4/26/88
"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside [Reagan], and I'm proud
to be his partner. We've had triumphs, we've made mistakes, we've had sex."
"It has been said by some cynic, maybe it was a former president, `If you
want a friend in Washington, get a dog.' We took them literally---that
advice---as you know. But I didn't need that, because I have Barbara Bush."
-- 3/30/89
So what does that prove? Damned if I know.
-s
Shamim Mohamed
spm (at) drones. com
Clara pegg
>Keep electing Republicans, and we won't have a federal court system
>that's interested in defending anybody's civil rights. Judges are
>appointed, you know.
>
Federal judges are appointed for life and serve "during good behavior." In
many states, state judges are popularly elected or reappointed by the
legislature or by a merit system arrangement. I recently discussed the method
by which judges were selected in Tennessee with a death row inmate there, who
told me that while judges on the appellate courts were appointed, they could be
removed at election time by the populace. He said those judges opposed to
capital punishment were being systematically removed by popular vote so that
replacement judges could begin executing the large number on death row there.
This particular inmate had been on death row for almost 20 years.
As for Republicans in Congress, in the executive branch, and in the courts,
they have done irreparable damage to the Bill of Rights and to habeas corpus,
which hails all the way back to Magna Charta. I have been reading in the
thread and agree that both parties have colluded to remove many human rights
from the table, but the Democrats are the misdemeanants while the Republicans
are the felons, if you want to apportion culpability.
>Subject: Re: Atheist Republicans?
From: sunsp...@hotmail.com (Dan Flanery)
>Date: 8/24/98 10:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <35e21559...@news.well.com>
mau...@mail.com
> Given that the G.O.P.
> leadership have no principles save power, and that their platform is
> theocratic, an atheist's loyalty to them is a curiosity.
I just skimmed through the G.O.P. 1996 platform at
http://republicanweb.com/platform.html
and I didn't see anything particularly theocratic.
What did you have in mind?
Maurile
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
Daeron
>
> In article <chrisleeE...@netcom.com>,
> Christopher A. Lee <chri...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >Do you have a cite for this? I know that in his successful
> >presidential campaign while he was still Veep he said that
> >atheists shouldn't be considered citizens.
>
> It was on Aug. 27 1988 (hey, it'll be ten years tomorrow!), during his
> presidential campaign. As I recall, this was an interview at an airport,
> and it was a representative from American Atheists that asked him a question
> about atheists' rights. He replied:
>
> "I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should
> they be considered patriots. This is one nation under god."
This is true, checked it again on the tape of the sound bite (from CNN)
that I made at the time.
> But then again, he also said:
<snip nonsense>
Nope - he *never* said the remaining tidbits at all (tho' they make
titillating reading. Where did you get them?). I hope this was tongue in
cheek but, if so, I find it inappropriate in a discussion thread where
people are seeking actual, bona fide answers. Or cutesy replies.
It does us no good here to conflate nonsense with the truth,
particularly for those who sincerely wish the latter.
> So what does that prove? Damned if I know.
I think perhaps that:
a) you think your superposed 'tidbits' make a kind of a 'joke'?
or b) You are unable to distinguish the truth from fiction?
Daeron
> The Nazi platform had other issues on it besides the killing of Jews.
> However, the killing of Jews was a sufficiently important element of
> that platform to make it foolish for a Jew to join the Nazi Party.
> Similarly, the imposition of religion upon the American public is a
> sufficiently important element of the current Republican platform to
> make it folly for an atheist to join the Republicans.
Indeed, and I'll even go you one better to reinforce this analogy. In a
1992 article, Joe Conason wrote an article for 'Playboy' entitled 'With
God as My Co-Pilot' (I will try to locate the specific cite, date, issue
etc.) in which he documented the extreme Xian Right's plans to construct
'internment camps' for: 'pornographers', 'abortionists', and 'atheists'.
He added that there were voices within that extreme group that also
wanted gas chambers (using nerve gas) to be used on all the above - to
purify the nation for the 2nd coming.
Now, perhaps the nutbags he was referring to are in the minority, but so
were the Nazis in Germany just before they took over the whole country.
The point is that - given such background - to me, no sane atheist can
even remotely consider allying themselves with such despots and
theocrats. (Particularly if they seek our extermination, not merely
discrimination against).
> Given that the Republican Party *has* betrayed its non-theocratic
> members in favor of the present theocracy/monopoly/war alliance
> represented by the CNP, it is only logical for the non-theocratic
> members to leave.
Not only logical but compelling - as in 'What the hell are you doing
with them?' All the ideological hype how the Repubs standing up for 'the
pocketbook' are also bilge, and bunkum. The Repubs stand up for one
'pocketbook' - that of the corporate special interests, and the high
wage earners. They couldn't care a rat's ass about the average Joe or
Jane trying to make ends meet, or even be granted a fair *human* shake.
(No, it ain't 'anti-humanistic' - that's not what I meant. I mean
ANTI-HUMAN).
I mean look at the 'Family and Medical Leave Act' - which allows up to
12 weeks of leave (albeit unpaid) from one's job to care for a spouse or
child. The Repubs under Bush, their heinies bought and sold by the
corporations, wouldn't even seriously consider it. Not even with unpaid
leave! This is ANTI-HUMAN.
It took a dem President, Clinton, to get that Act passed, for the
benefit of all us who can't afford to take time off from jobs to care
for loved ones, and run the risk of not having the job when we return.
> The history of the party is irrelevant; its present
> principles and platform are what matter.
This is also true. And the fact is its present 'principles and platform'
are ever more being hijacked by the extreme right Xian loonies and their
ilk. It is like a veritable tidal wave at the level of the grassroots,
and local precincts and counties. The strategy is clear: to seize the
country from the ground up. Take away every constituency, and then the
top Repub leaders will have to fall in line.
>Given that the G.O.P.
> leadership have no principles save power, and that their platform is
> theocratic, an atheist's loyalty to them is a curiosity.
More than a curiosity to me. An abomination. Oh, I can see many of the
points that have been raised in this thread - along the lines of *why*
an atheist might consider voting or whatever, along Repub lines. But -
to me, if that atheist is alert and aware of the political facts, then
no amount of rationalizations matter. He is simply no longer justified
in providing aid and comfort to the enemy, no matter how much he wants
to 'preserve' his pocketbook, or how deluded he gets in the matter of
'personal liberty' - since today 'person', used by Repubs, normally
means a corporation not an individual. (Did you know that corporations
were ruled 'persons' in an 1886 court case?)
Dan Stephenson
qpc...@frontiernet.net says...
> BTW: even though defense spending has been dropping since the end
> of the Cold War, we're about to see a major Republican campaign
> in favor of an expanded Strategic Defense Initiative.
>
Right on, Chloe! What America really needs next is National Missile
Defense (NMD)!
Even though Republicans can sometimes get a little crazy with various
religion-oriented legislation, at least they have their national security
priorities straight.
Newamul K Khan
: Given that the Republican Party *has* betrayed its non-theocratic
: members in favor of the present theocracy/monopoly/war alliance
: represented by the CNP, it is only logical for the non-theocratic
: members to leave. The history of the party is irrelevant; its present
: principles and platform are what matter. Given that the G.O.P.
The problem with this assertion is that on the national level, this is to
some extant true, as it is in the south and midwest. OTOH, there are in
the west libertarian Republicans, like Rick White of WA, who voted against
the flag burning ammendment and the CDA. Not everyone is a theocrat. So,
while this logic holds true perhaps on the national level (something I am
willing to concede) there are Republicans locally that may be religiously
moderate or apathetic enough to vote fore. Another example is Nancy
Johnson of Conneticut, Republican & Unitarian.
--
----------------------------------
Razib Khan
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~khann
student, University of Oregon
major, biochemistry
----------------------------------
Ken Arromdee
>Oh, I can see many of the
>points that have been raised in this thread - along the lines of *why*
>an atheist might consider voting or whatever, along Repub lines. But -
>to me, if that atheist is alert and aware of the political facts, then
>no amount of rationalizations matter. He is simply no longer justified
>in providing aid and comfort to the enemy, no matter how much he wants
>to 'preserve' his pocketbook, or how deluded he gets in the matter of
>'personal liberty' - since today 'person', used by Repubs, normally
>means a corporation not an individual.
Just because corporations are legally considered persons in some ways does not
mean that Republicans who talk about persons really mean corporations.
That doesn't follow.
Anyway, one problem here is that you're mixing up a lot of different things.
Maybe there is some segment of the right who wishes to kill all atheists.
At _best_ that would mean not voting for someone in _that segment_. When
you go from that to not voting for _Republicans_, you're confusing all
Republicans with a small fringe group. And while the extremists may have
some influence, they don't have enough influence to get all Republicans to
accept death camps for atheists.
In any case, under some circumstances it might be wise to vote for someone
who'd kill you if he could. It is possible that his views on other issues
are things that you do agree with, and you know that there isn't enough
support for his really dangerous ideas, so if you vote for him, the ideas
that you like will have a greater chance of passing, while the threat to
your life doesn't change at all since he has no real chance of getting away
with it.
(Of course, you need to be _correct_. A Jew who votes for Hitler in the
belief that Hitler would never be allowed to kill Jews, would _not_ be
correct.)
Dan Flanery
>As for Republicans in Congress, in the executive branch, and in the courts,
>they have done irreparable damage to the Bill of Rights and to habeas corpus,
>which hails all the way back to Magna Carta. I have been reading in the
>thread and agree that both parties have colluded to remove many human rights
>from the table, but the Democrats are the misdemeanants while the Republicans
>are the felons, if you want to apportion culpability.
Thank you. That concisely sums up my opinion on the matter.
Daeron
> Just because corporations are legally considered persons in some ways does not
> mean that Republicans who talk about persons really mean corporations.
> That doesn't follow.
It does follow when - in their rhetoric concerning 'liberty', and in
conjunction with legislation that affects *corporations* (i.e. the 1992
'Family and Medical Leave Act', they talk about the 'violation of
personal liberties' etc.
Because of this conflation (unbeknownst to most Americans btw) their
rhetoric comes out *as if* they are defending the rights of *persons* as
individuals, when they are actually defending the rights of corporations
(as ersatz 'persons') to usurp the rights of individuals (the real
persons) to take care of family matters and not risk losing their jobs.
This is a direct extension of other rhetoric, also skewed, which
attempts to paint the existence of a 'free market' in terms of
competition between private persons. In fact, what it now means- 99.5%
of the time, is "competition between huge corporations -as shared
monopolies, which - contrary to classical economic theory, control
demand rather than being responsive to demands of the market." (cf. D.
StanleyEitzen &M. Baca-Zinn, 'In Conflict and Order', Allyn & Bacon,
1991)
The constant repetition of such conflated rhetoric (including by the
mainstream media, in discussing such issues as Social Security, health
care etc.), contrary to your claim, serves to perpetuate an
indicscriminate lumping together of corporations and individuals, which
only serves corporate interests.
> Anyway, one problem here is that you're mixing up a lot of different things.
I do not believe so. I simply don't think you have read enough
-politically and/or economically, to make the connections for yourself.
> Maybe there is some segment of the right who wishes to kill all atheists.
> At _best_ that would mean not voting for someone in _that segment_.
Indeed, it would.
But, your 'at best blissfully ignores the 'at worst', which - in an
evermore metastasizing reactionary climate, evolves from a state of
probability to one of certainty. In effect, refusing to vote for these
extremists does not:
a) ensure their influence within the larger party is halted, abated
b) Given (a), ensure that your interests (which include your life) are
protected.
Many well-meaning Germans discovered this fact after they mistakenly
cast ballot for the Nazi Party in 1933. (Thinking their own interests
would be preserved, since Hitler and his extremists would be 'kept under
control' by more moderate influences, voices - including then
Chancellor of the Reich, Oskar von Hindenburg). They could not have been
more mistaken.
In effect, we have a remarkable historical precedent. (Even better given
the Republican Party's many ties to former Nazis and Fascists, see e.g.
'Old Nazis, The New Right and The Republican Party', by Russ Bellant,
American Atheist Press, 1992). This precedent discloses you are
'knocking on wood' but not much more, when you make the above comment.
> When
> you go from that to not voting for _Republicans_, you're confusing all
> Republicans with a small fringe group.
In the end, it matters little, if:
a) the influence of that fringe group is metastasizing (as Hitler's
extemist influence did before the pivotal 1933 election)
b) The few sane 'residents' leave, accelerating the influence in (a)
Again, read Bellant's book. That, more than anything else I can say
here, will show why it borders on suicide for any genuine freethinker
(inlcuding atheist) to ally themselves with the Republicans. And, if one
is cognizant of the current inner dynamics, and what is occurring at the
grassroots, it is only a matter of time before the extremists fully
seize control.
> And while the extremists may have
> some influence, they don't have enough influence to get all Republicans to
> accept death camps for atheists.
Hmmmmmm.......sounds remarkably naive and bordering on what many Germans
insisted was the case just before 1933. The fact remains, as the nucleus
of decent folk leave, extremist influence must compound and accelerate.
No amount of simple thinking or naivete, or belief in the fundamental
'decency' or 'intellectual insight' of man, will save this situation.
Not when it is ab initio co-opted by extremist interests bound and
determined to undemrine the whole. (And even should that 'whole'
diminish in a kind of exodus, that doesn't mean its power will
diminish).
> In any case, under some circumstances it might be wise to vote for someone
> who'd kill you if he could. It is possible that his views on other issues
> are things that you do agree with, and you know that there isn't enough
> support for his really dangerous ideas, so if you vote for him, the ideas
> that you like will have a greater chance of passing, while the threat to
> your life doesn't change at all since he has no real chance of getting away
> with it.
Exactly the sort of nonsensical, Polyannish thinking and believes that
drove many Germans to vote for the Nazi Party in 1933. Because they
firmly believed he had no idea that he could really get away with what
he *already* vowed he would do! In other words, had these folks taken
the time to read 'Mein Kampf' they'd have seen how cockeyed and
misplaced their optimism was.
In the same way, if one were to read some of the manifestos currently
being circulated by the extreme Xian fringe of the Republican party,
they would see unabashedly what this ilk has planned. (For example, any
of the documents produced for the 'Council on National Policy').
One could also obtain this information second hand, say by reading
Conason's article ('With God as My Co-Pilot) or Russ Bellant's book 'Old
Nazis, The New Right and The Republican Party').
However, if one is trapped within the 'ostrich syndrome' none of this
clearly will open his or her eyes. In that case, Santayana's famous
warning will come home to haunt them:
"Those who forget the past, are doomed to repeat it."
> (Of course, you need to be _correct_. A Jew who votes for Hitler in the
> belief that Hitler would never be allowed to kill Jews, would _not_ be
> correct.)
Exactly my point. (See previous references to the 1933 election) So, why
even take the risk? Far better not to play with cobras in the first
place, then to falsely believe one is immune to their venom - or will be
protected from them by all the 'harmless' snakes inhabiting the same
snake pit.
Ken Arromdee
>> And while the extremists may have
>> some influence, they don't have enough influence to get all Republicans to
>> accept death camps for atheists.
>Hmmmmmm.......sounds remarkably naive and bordering on what many Germans
>insisted was the case just before 1933. The fact remains, as the nucleus
>of decent folk leave, extremist influence must compound and accelerate.
>No amount of simple thinking or naivete, or belief in the fundamental
>'decency' or 'intellectual insight' of man, will save this situation.
I'm sure that plenty of times in history people said "sure, we can support a
group containing extremists, because the extremists won't take over". And
they were right. But because they were right, you never hear about them as
much as you hear about when they were wrong.
By the way, what about left-wing extremists? There's bound to be some
left-wing extremists who want to kill all the capitalists. If atheists should
avoid supporting all Republicans because Republicans include a dangerous
minority of atheist-killers, shouldn't the same go for supporting left-
wingers? Why shouldn't I be as wary of the minority of left-wingers who
want to kill me for having stock options, as of the minority of right-wingers
who want to kill me for being atheist?
Dave Wilton
wrote:
>I'm sure that plenty of times in history people said "sure, we can support a
>group containing extremists, because the extremists won't take over". And
>they were right. But because they were right, you never hear about them as
>much as you hear about when they were wrong.
>
>By the way, what about left-wing extremists? There's bound to be some
>left-wing extremists who want to kill all the capitalists. If atheists should
>avoid supporting all Republicans because Republicans include a dangerous
>minority of atheist-killers, shouldn't the same go for supporting left-
>wingers? Why shouldn't I be as wary of the minority of left-wingers who
>want to kill me for having stock options, as of the minority of right-wingers
>who want to kill me for being atheist?
I am less wary of the left-wing extremists because they are a diverse
bunch with differing objectives. As a bunch of splinter groups on the
left of the Democratic Party they are pretty much politically
ineffective. The anti-nukes of Greenpeace don't march in the same
rallys as PETA who aren't fellow travellers with those who want to
dynamite the NY Stock Exchange.
Democratic politicians can, therefore, disagree or ignore many
elements of the left wing and not suffer severe consequences. They
will not lose large blocks of funding nor be kicked out of the party
because they do not agree with a particular plank in the platform.
The religious right, however, while not monolithic, is at least united
around a common core of goals. They are well-organized, move in
concert, and wish to exclude from the political process those who
disagree with them.
A Republican politician challenges the religious right only at his or
her peril. It is impossible for a Republican to run for national
office or assume a Congressional leadership position without kowtowing
to the right.
--Dave Wilton
dwi...@sprynet.com
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/dwilton/homepage.htm
Paul Filseth
> Smarmy, arrogant, prepared to question my intentions
> right off the bat - and pick another fight. Remember, *you* came at me
> with the initial hostility, I only respond to it.
"Initial"? The hostility was present in the post you started
this thread with -- you basically accused Republican atheists of being
traitors. And even if you hadn't, so what? You think you get to start
with a clean slate after the abusive way you argued in the capitalism
vs. socialism threads?
> > You have no information about what I read.
>
> I admit that, but from your parroting of the reactionary media's
> standard fare, it doesn't require an Einstein to deduce it.
But it does require someone willing to read. And the problem is
that you don't read -- you categorize.
> > Okay, here's another theory to explain why you write garbage like
> > this about me. You didn't read my post.
>
> I did read your post. By the time I got to the end- with the smarmy ass
> reference to the Wall Street Journal, I also knew exactly how to
> categorize it. As more recycled scat from the reactionary media.
And you accuse me of parroting. Pot, kettle, black. Bemoaning
the slanted corporate media is a fixture among anti-capitalists, and
they inevitably offer the WSJ as an example, as though that were a
typical American newspaper. I was hoping to shame you out of doing it
again. Silly of me.
Rightists say the American media is left-wing, leftists say it's
right-wing, and such remarks invariably reveal a lot more about the
speaker than about the media. We have a free press and there's no
difficulty in finding many contrary points of view published. As your
own endless quotation from it amply demonstrates.
> > - I didn't invoke the term "collectivism".
>
> But you essentially invoked a synonymn for it. (I.e. 'tribal think',
> 'Tribalism')
Thank you for proving my point for me. You weren't familiar with
people talking about tribalism (or else you didn't understand them),
so rather than have to add a new concept to your mental toolbox, you
assumed I must mean something you'd heard the corporate media griping
about, and you picked collectivism.
Tribalism and collectivism have nothing to do with each other.
Collectivism is about everyone working together for the common good.
It's a social philosophy, and it's unifying. Tribalism is not a
philosophy at all, but a mental habit, and it's divisive. It's about
categorizing, and not letting your thoughts about other people or their
ideas escape from the constraints of whatever categories you want to
pigeonhole them into. Here's an example to clarify the difference: If
a collectivist favors affirmative action, he says "We should _all_
support affirmative action." Only somebody thinking tribally would say
"All _black_ people should support affirmative action."
The Democratic Party is riddled with tribalists. So is the
Republican Party. That's why protectionism and anti-immigration
sentiment cut across party lines the way they do.
Of course, since I'm just recycling the same old spew from the
corporate media that you've seen a thousand times before, you already
knew this.
> > - I haven't said anything against affirmative action.
>
> But it is clear to me, that your *thinking* is in line with those who do
> oppose it, though you do not specifically mention it.
Charming. I must oppose it because people in the category you've
allotted me to always do. This is called "stereotyping". But let us
suppose, for the sake of argument, that your attempt at mind-reading was
successful. So what? What you posted was this:
> You pound the same dogmatic themes, such as abolition of affirmative
> action.
Suppose I hypothetically did harbor anti-AA thoughts. How would
that in any way make the above less of a straightforward lie?
Paul Filseth
> > administration started screwing over the people of Viet Nam in 1945.
>
> US involvement in Vietnam was pretty vague in 1945; the French
> were still there. We did support them, however, and in 1954 we
> moved in as the "new landlord".
we have a substantive disagreement. What happened was the Truman
administration reversed Roosevelt's policy and agreed to a French
reconquest at Potsdam in July, 1945, as did the Attlee government.
Viet Nam declared independence in August. The U.S. military airlifted
a few British and French units there in September, and landed
troopships carrying two American-armed divisions of the French army in
October and November. Until the French reestablished control, Viet
Nam was governed by the British military, using conveniently available
surrendered-but-not-yet-disarmed Japanese soldiers. America apparently
sided against Vietnamese independence primarily to avoid picking a fight
with its allies. Britain, of course, had its own empire to maintain,
and wasn't about to set a dangerous precedent.
All this is ancient history and has no relevance to the merits of
today's Democratic Party. And a Republican government would probably
have done the same thing. I only brought it up to refute Daeron's
claim that the Democrats only got us involved in Viet Nam because the
evil Republicans made them do it -- our troops going there to support
the wrong side predates the Republican pressure he blamed. Politicians
make stupid and immoral decisions all the time, whatever their party,
and saying it's the other side's fault is the oldest cop-out known to
man.
Paul Filseth
> So, you're saying that the majority of Republicans in Congress and
> Republican-appointed Federal (not to mention state) judges don't share
> Bush's opinion? I wouldn't bet on that.
If Congress were a Canadian-style Parliament, where individual
legislators are impotent and vote along party lines, the opinion of the
majority might matter. But Congressthings exercise real personal power:
they vote against their own parties all the time. So the only thing
that matters is the opinion of the specific one you are voting for or
against. I therefore reserve the right to evaluate whether they share
Bush's opinion on a case-by-case basis.
As for judges, most of the Republican appointees on the Supreme
Court have good freedom-of-religion records. Lower down, I don't have
any specific information. Do you? I'd expect Bush's opinion to be
rare, though -- judges, especially those at higher levels, tend to be
capable of reasoning.
> > Voting is about the future.
>
> Or about not having one, if the religious fanatics are allowed to take
> control.
Likewise the anything-else fanatics. Fanaticism does not respect
party lines.
> > Democratic politicians are no more to be trusted with our civil
> > liberties than Republican ones.
>
> Yeah, it was just last week when President Clinton, ...
> remarked how he thought atheists weren't fit to be citizens.
The right of atheists to be citizens is not the only civil liberty
that is in danger. Check out the statistics on federal wiretaps, for
instance. Clinton makes Nixon look like a dilettante. He even pushed
through a law to force phone companies to make them physically easier.
Once the mandated equipment is installed, it will be unnecessary for
the FBI to show up on site and wave a court order at a phone company.
They'll be able to set up wiretaps remotely. Of course the court order
is still _legally_ required...
For that matter, also check out the statistics on how often federal
requests for wiretapping orders are turned down.
It's probably a coincidence that Clinton has been unremittingly
hostile to the wide availability of secure encryption.
> > Democrats have been as eager as Republicans to have the government
> > profit from zero-tolerance asset forfeiture laws, for instance.
>
> I agree, those laws are odious. But that isn't a direct infringement
> on my First Amendment right to freedom of religion
No, just the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth. If you don't care about
those, by all means be a single-issue voter. But why should I have to
follow suit?
It seems to me that if you seriously think a jerk shooting his
mouth off is a bigger threat to your rights than cops getting to bust
into private homes on fishing expeditions and rob and kill homeowners
because people modifying their own body chemistry is so terribly harmful
to the republic, then you place an excessive level of importance on
symbols vis-a-vis actual power on the ground.
> So, you're saying the Republicans wouldn't have drafted a CDA of their
> own?
No doubt they would have. So what's your point? How does voting
for a Democrat protect my civil liberties from the evil Republicans if
the Democrats are just going to push the same legislation?
> As I recall, the Republicans complained the CDA wasn't strong enough.
Some did. And some opposed the whole concept. Is there any reason
I shouldn't vote for one of the latter?
> I didn't leave the Republican party . . . the Republican party left
> me.
Are you saying you used to be a Republican? Why?
Paul Filseth
> Similarly, the imposition of religion upon the American public is a
> sufficiently important element of the current Republican platform to
> make it folly for an atheist to join the Republicans.
That would only follow if the current platforms of American
political parties were a sufficiently important determiner of what
their members do once in office to overcome each politician's personal
convictions and/or self-interest. But in fact the platforms parties
adopt at their conventions are about as significant to actual behavior
as corporate "mission statements".
> Given that the Republican Party *has* betrayed its non-theocratic
> members
Just as the Democratic Party has betrayed any number of its
members...
> in favor of the present theocracy/monopoly/war alliance represented by
> the CNP, it is only logical for the non-theocratic members to leave.
If the U.S. had Israeli-style proportional representation, that
would make sense. But given our "first-past-the-post" voting rules,
what you propose is a recipe for non-theocratic Republicans to be
irrelevant in third parties or betrayed by the Democrats.
Can you explain how a non-theocrat staying in the party and trying
to take control from a theocrat helps the theocrats?
> The history of the party is irrelevant; its present principles and
> platform are what matter.
Principles matter even less than platforms, since neither party
has any. The only thing that matters is expected decision making, and
that cannot be deduced from party membership. You have to look at the
specific people running against each other.
> Given that the G.O.P. leadership have no principles save power, and
> that their platform is theocratic, an atheist's loyalty to them is a
> curiosity.
So who's loyal? Loyalty is for friends, family, country and
species. Anybody who's loyal to a political party is letting other
people do his thinking for him. You own your politics. Your politics
don't own you.
Charles Fiterman
Ken Arromdee wrote:
> I'm sure that plenty of times in history people said "sure, we can support a
> group containing extremists, because the extremists won't take over". And
> they were right. But because they were right, you never hear about them as
> much as you hear about when they were wrong.
First the extremists have taken over.
Second its not a choice between Republicans and Democrats there
are also Libertarians and Greens. In these parties you can not only
be an atheist you can run for office and be open about beliefs. These
are the parties of the future. They have goals beyond simply staying
in power. Because they have goals beyond simply staying in power
they can hold actual conversations on the internet.
Daeron
>
> "Initial"? The hostility was present in the post you started
> this thread with -- you basically accused Republican atheists of being
> traitors. And even if you hadn't, so what? You think you get to start
> with a clean slate after the abusive way you argued in the capitalism
> vs. socialism threads?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Since this was an entirely different
thread. Your statement above discloses in no uncertain terms the
justification you invoked for coming at me full tilt. You deserve no
mercy at all.
> But it does require someone willing to read. And the problem is
> that you don't read -- you categorize.
Isn't that exactly what YOU did, in terms to using previous threads (the
capitalism and socialism one, for instance) to *categorize* all my posts
on the new *Atheist Republicans? thread) , and thereby validate ab
initio your attacks and hostility against me? Sure looks so to me.
You need to repeat 'Pot, kettle, black' to yourself several thousand
times.
> And you accuse me of parroting. Pot, kettle, black.
See above, Mr. 'Pot, Kettle, Black'.
> Bemoaning
> the slanted corporate media is a fixture among anti-capitalists, and
> they inevitably offer the WSJ as an example, as though that were a
> typical American newspaper.
If you had any breadth of reading, including the *censored* press (e.g.
'Censored: The News That Didn'tMake the News and Why' by Carl Jensen,
and Project Censored, 1995, FOur Walls-Eight Windows) you would never
make such a lame and foolish statement. You would see rather, that the
press-media in this country has been befouled by its alignment with
corporate state, oligarchic interests.
>I was hoping to shame you out of doing it
> again. Silly of me.
I was hoping you were a more widely read person than I first believed.
Shame on me for being so utterly and abjectly naive.
> Rightists say the American media is left-wing, leftists say it's
> right-wing, and such remarks invariably reveal a lot more about the
> speaker than about the media.
Not so at all. The Nation cited a comprehensive statistical study of the
use of loaded right wing terms vis a vis typical liberal terms ('Wizards
of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News' by Norman Solomon
and Jeff Cohen) , and noted the authors' found the reactionary slant in
overwhelming preponderence. Your take is thus, merely disinformation.
> We have a free press and there's no
> difficulty in finding many contrary points of view published.
But not to the same degree, frequency. For example, in The Nation's
article ('Unfit to Print', July 28/Aug. 4, 1997, p. 33) on 'Wizards of
Media Oz' they noted, "the misleading phrase 'welfare reform' was used
in 22,013 print news pieces about aid programs for the poor, according
to a Nexis seach, while 'corporate welfare' showed up only 2,351 times,
and 'corporate welfare reform' just 17."
This discloses an unambiguous and biased slant, that no amount of your
soft-soaping and rationalizing can diminish.
The point is a crucial one. While the press may be 'free', to within the
technical definition of the term, it is emphatically not equally so.
Some viewpoints (i.e. the corporate ones) are more free - translated,
given more 'air time', than other contrarian ones.
> As your
> own endless quotation from it amply demonstrates.
See above. My quotations come largely from one mainstream paper, The
Baltimore Sun, and a number of books thatI've taken years of effort and
search to secure - amidst a plethora of propagandizing corporate swill.
> You weren't familiar with
> people talking about tribalism (or else you didn't understand them),
> so rather than have to add a new concept to your mental toolbox, you
> assumed I must mean something you'd heard the corporate media griping
> about, and you picked collectivism.
I have heard, seen the term 'tribalism' used interchangeably with
'collectivism'. Merely because you have conferred some new,
sophisticated interpretation - does not mean the rest of your ilk has.
> Tribalism and collectivism have nothing to do with each other.
See above. And take note.
> The Democratic Party is riddled with tribalists. So is the
> Republican Party.
But the Dem's 'Tribalists' are not out to kill atheists, abortionists,
and/or lock them away in special concentration compounds, as the Repubs'
Tribalists are wont to do.
> Of course, since I'm just recycling the same old spew from the
> corporate media that you've seen a thousand times before, you already
> knew this.
Give the man a dime, he can read minds. >Fanfare<
> Suppose I hypothetically did harbor anti-AA thoughts. How would
> that in any way make the above less of a straightforward lie?
Mr. Filseth, the only straightforward lies' I see around here now are
emanating from your end of the computer. Let me rephrase that out of
courtesy for a fellow 'atheist': disinformation and re-cycled corporate
toady swill.
Ken Arromdee
>> Why shouldn't I be as wary of the minority of left-wingers who
>> want to kill me for having stock options, as of the minority of right-wingers
>> who want to kill me for being atheist?
>activly communist /socialist, or sympathizers. The world events of the
>next two decades changed this.
I was under the impression that the world events of the 1960's changed things
_again_, to make the left more acceptable. Maybe world events of the late
1980's changed it back, I don't know.
>If a segment of the party
>holding such views were to try and become more visible and influential
>today, they'd have to come up with a really, really good explination for
>Stalin first.
I've seen the explanation already. The explanation is that Stalinism and
socialism are, of course, nothing alike.
Here's something I read from a leftist in this newsgroup, today:
# Libertarians are all upper-class scum. Upper-class scum lean towards
# Libertarianism (and towards ultra right-wing ideology in general)
# because it justifies the vast private fortunes they have accumulated.
I am pretty close to libertarian. I am not upper class, and I don't have a
private fortune, but I suspect that the segment of the population who is
willing to hurt "scum" is not going to ask for my bank statement before
acting. Things like this scare me every bit as much as claims by
right-wingers that they want to kill all the atheists.
Paul Pfalzner
> qpc...@frontiernet.net (Chloe Pajerek) wrote:
>> p...@lisl.com writes:
> have done the same thing. I only brought it up to refute Daeron's
> claim that the Democrats only got us involved in Viet Nam because the
> evil Republicans made them do it -- our troops going there to support
Difference between Republicans and Democrats: on my first visit to
the USA, I was informed that the only difference is in the rate at
which they steal. One steals more and faster than the other.
Vietnam - what a topic for USers.
Paul
To hell with holy water and the French-Canadian tuque. - from
Manifesto Refus Global, 1948
Quarren
>'Censored: The News That Didn'tMake the News and Why' by Carl Jensen,
>and Project Censored, 1995, FOur Walls-Eight Windows) you would never
>make such a lame and foolish statement.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The *censored* press is censored
because it is unprofitable. Not because your "radical" (or whatever) politics
are being oppressed.
Levi A.
-
"i stare down your blood coated throat, glancing back into what was daylight.
it shines on your dismembered body as vengeance drips from my hand." -XVIII
Visions
Newamul K Khan
: make such a lame and foolish statement. You would see rather, that the
: press-media in this country has been befouled by its alignment with
: corporate state, oligarchic interests.
Hm. Just out of curiousity, what does anti-coporatism have to do with
atheism/irreligiousness? After all, the business elite is notorious in
its libertine lifestyle (trophy wives, etc.) and approval of "choice" in
matters personal (on survey in the late 80's indicated that 90% of CEOs
were prochoice), etc.
I can understand one being hostile to corporation, but it seems rather
irrelevant to issues involving religion and irreligion. After all,
capitalistic materialism is a great threat to religious communitarian
values.
: I was hoping you were a more widely read person than I first believed.
: Shame on me for being so utterly and abjectly naive.
But I note below that only cite the NATION. You seem to indicate that
Left = objective, non-Left = blinded by corporations. This parallels
strangely Christian ideas that Religious = objective and non-Religious =
blinded by Satan :) Of course, this doesn't speak to whether you are
correct or not, but it does point to in my opinion behavioral
similarities.
: Not so at all. The Nation cited a comprehensive statistical study of the
: use of loaded right wing terms vis a vis typical liberal terms ('Wizards
: of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News' by Norman Solomon
: and Jeff Cohen) , and noted the authors' found the reactionary slant in
: overwhelming preponderence. Your take is thus, merely disinformation.
This tends to be true. On the other hand, it is also true that "elite
media" (ie; Washington reporters) tend to be politically liberal. So why
the paradox? Maybe they are just fake liberals or what not?
: article ('Unfit to Print', July 28/Aug. 4, 1997, p. 33) on 'Wizards of
: Media Oz' they noted, "the misleading phrase 'welfare reform' was used
: in 22,013 print news pieces about aid programs for the poor, according
: to a Nexis seach, while 'corporate welfare' showed up only 2,351 times,
: and 'corporate welfare reform' just 17."
You always point the finger at the press, OTOH, did you ever think that
the white middle class that is indirectly a benificiary of "pork" would
prefer stories about underclass welfare that have human interest and
confirm their prejudices to stories with something like ADM which provides
them jobs, etc.? Of course not. You can't always go blaming the elite,
because to some extant it is a two-way system. I remember the show TV
NATION, which I watched "religiously" often did stories are coporate pork,
etc. It went through 2 networks, and though got good reviews often from
critics failed to find an audience.
: The point is a crucial one. While the press may be 'free', to within the
: technical definition of the term, it is emphatically not equally so.
: Some viewpoints (i.e. the corporate ones) are more free - translated,
: given more 'air time', than other contrarian ones.
And that's why people like you who are so turned-off by that sort of press
should real Mojo, the Nation, the Progressive, etc. Your problem is that
the public doesn't buy these newsmagazines. They want bland
"right-centre" stuff of CNN (owned by that hard-core right-winger Ted
Turner who has that reactionary wife), or ABC news owned by that
right-wing company Disney that is being boycotted by Southern Baptists.
Of course, something like Foxnews channel is plainly biased, but I see not
problem in that everyone knows it is slanted right, for inspite of being
"fair & balanced" it's not too clever in hiding all their right-leaning
operatives that host their shows
: But the Dem's 'Tribalists' are not out to kill atheists, abortionists,
: and/or lock them away in special concentration compounds, as the Repubs'
: Tribalists are wont to do.
Why in God's name do you support the Democrats anyhow? The Greens are at
least honestly anti-coporate? Or are you voting strategically too!?!?!
The Dems supported corporate welfare for years. Groups like ADM and the
sugar lobby are notorious for covering their asses by donating to both
parties.
Puleez. You speak of the Dems as a lesser evil, but I see that for you
the Green Party is a good alternative. Why are you compromising your
beliefs? You seem to indicte atheists that vote Republican strategically,
but are you guilty of the same?
--
----------------------------------
Razib Khan
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~khann
student, University of Oregon
major, biochemistry
----------------------------------
Honor to the gods!
Honor to the ancestors!
Honor to the volk!
Dan Stephenson
says...
> Daeron (sta...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>
> I can understand one being hostile to corporation, but it seems rather
> irrelevant to issues involving religion and irreligion. After all,
> capitalistic materialism is a great threat to religious communitarian
> values.
This is a good synchronicity I see between atheism and capitalism.
> Razib Khan
> http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~khann
Richard Kulisz
Ken Arromdee <karr...@nyx.nyx.net> wrote:
>cms...@is7.nyu.edu (Colleen M Sullivan) wrote:
>>there was such a time, back in the 1930's when much of the left were
>>activly communist /socialist, or sympathizers. The world events of the
>>next two decades changed this.
>
>I was under the impression that the world events of the 1960's changed things
>_again_, to make the left more acceptable. Maybe world events of the late
>1980's changed it back, I don't know.
Every generation, there is an upsurge of democratic feeling as demonstrated
by increased political activism, demonstration, civic unrest, et cetera on
end. And every time that happens, the jackboots crack down (whether through
overtly violent means or intense propaganda is quite immaterial). The 60's
were that generations' upsurge of democratic feeling and we know what
happened to it: it wasn't successful in transforming the USA into a
democratic nation. However, the crackdown (ie, Reagan's military buildup
and the 'Greed is Good' propaganda campaign of the 80s) never managed to
entirely suppress the democratic sentiment as it was able to in earlier
times. The administration knows this (which is why things like Vietnam
simply cannot happen ever again) and so has gone into overdrive in its
efforts to kill democracy (NAFTA and the MAI, the mid-70s Supreme's SUN-PAC
decision, et cetera). So the present situation is that 1) democracy is
currently at a low tide and slated to rise back up, 2) the 'low tide' mark
has never been higher, 3) the corporations are running out of non-violent
means of rulership. The situation is quite complex; much more complex than
simply "sympathetic" or "unsympathetic" to progressive ideas would suggest.
>>If a segment of the party
>>holding such views were to try and become more visible and influential
>>today, they'd have to come up with a really, really good explination for
>>Stalin first.
>
>I've seen the explanation already. The explanation is that Stalinism and
>socialism are, of course, nothing alike.
And communism has nothing to do with socialism (except insofar as they're
mutually sympathetic and both contemptible of anyone who believes in the
the magic of the free market). Stalin was a brutal dictator, nothing more.
This doesn't mean that he wasn't effective; the only two things that are
positively correlated with economic growth are 1) economic equality (and
I don't refer to "equality of opportunity" which the american propaganda
system drums into people's heads) and 2) authoritarianism.
>Here's something I read from a leftist in this newsgroup, today:
>
># Libertarians are all upper-class scum. Upper-class scum lean towards
># Libertarianism (and towards ultra right-wing ideology in general)
># because it justifies the vast private fortunes they have accumulated.
>
>I am pretty close to libertarian. I am not upper class, and I don't have a
>private fortune, but I suspect that the segment of the population who is
>willing to hurt "scum" is not going to ask for my bank statement before
>acting. Things like this scare me every bit as much as claims by
>right-wingers that they want to kill all the atheists.
Human beings are not moral agents (they do not act morally and shouldn't
be expected to do so) because it would require them to be free from their
own self-interest. But this doesn't stop society from being a moral agent.
Nor does it stop human beings from recognizing what (Kantian) morality is,
the fact that it is a good idea, and that it is society's job to implement
it. Thus, I am being perfectly consistent in saying that it is society's
job to protect you and all your scummy brethren even as I fervently wish
you'd all just die. And one can see that left-wing extremists, even ones
who would kill you on sight, are not acting in a manner inconsistent with
their own visions of the world. The only difference between a left-winger
and a right-winger on the topic of murder and other violence is that the
left-winger thinks it is society's job to stop him from committing them.
The filthy rich socialists and communists are very few and far between.
Symmetrically, the poor libertarians are very few and far between. Whether
you're rich or not, the fact that you're able to post to the internet and
have the free time to engage in such activities says that you are very far
from poor, or even from the average middle-class bloke. It's a very good
bet that *not* a *single* person on this newsgroup belongs to the lower
half of socio-economic status. And the natural inclination of anybody who
has won enough in the great big lottery that is the north american economic
system is to not rock the boat and ignore the misery suffered by those
drowning around us.
--
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes
infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country to which
he was born. -- Francois Fenelon
Richard Kulisz
That's what happens after a ruinous war. The American populations'
religious beliefs are similar to Iran's or any other nation that has
been through devastating conflict that destroyed their society. If
it weren't for the fact that corporations utterly control american
politics, the USA would be a theocracy.
>Second its not a choice between Republicans and Democrats there
>are also Libertarians and Greens. In these parties you can not only
As far as voting goes, the choice *is* reduced to just Repocrats and
Demoblicans. The USA's First Past The Post electoral system (a system
rejected by every one save 4 democracies on the planet) tends to
eliminate third parties. As for Libertarians, well; "Individualists
Unite", "party of oxymoron" and "smaller than the Communists were"
are some very appropriate slogans.
>be an atheist you can run for office and be open about beliefs. These
>are the parties of the future. They have goals beyond simply staying
>in power. Because they have goals beyond simply staying in power
>they can hold actual conversations on the internet.
And in democratic nations, the greens actually do have some power.
Daeron
> Hm. Just out of curiousity, what does anti-coporatism have to do with
> atheism/irreligiousness?
Many of the largest and most powerful corporations, and businessmen,
provide funding for the most extreme Christian Right Wing zealots of the
Republican party. As Jensen notes (p.50 'Powerful Group of
Ultra-Conservatives Has Plans For Your Future', in 'Censored: The News
That Didn't Make The News And Why', 1995):
"According to investigative author Joel Bleifuss the media's failure to
investigate the CNP (COuncil for National Policy) a secretive political
networking organization that includes every politician of the far right,
"is a major oversight, given the ascendancy of the Christian Right,
particularly the Christian Coalition..."
" 'The CNP is not powerful in and of itself', Bleifuss added, 'its
importance comes from the role it plays as the ideological tent under
which far right activists confer with the wealthy men and women who
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
fund their activities."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The link of many large corparate entities (e.g. Coors) to these entities
has also been well established. Hence, it is poductive to look into,
examine the linkages between corporations, and their funding of
extremist groups, agendas (like the Heritage Foundation, CNP) in the
GOP.
> After all, the business elite is notorious in
> its libertine lifestyle (trophy wives, etc.) and approval of "choice" in
> matters personal (on survey in the late 80's indicated that 90% of CEOs
> were prochoice), etc.
That is largely a sterotype the media has circulated. However, in my
years at two large corporations I rarely ever encountered such a person.
(The only one I did, an upper level mgr. was fired from the last
corporation I worked at). Most CEOs that I knew were highly *religious*
(even calling employee 'prayer gatherings' ('voluntary' so they said)
to beseech the almighty for greater profit margins. Their temperaments
were stoic to a fault, and their religion to the right of Pat Robertson.
(And the company, pre-merger with ours, was based in Fairfax, VA or in
other words, right inside the DC beltway.
> I can understand one being hostile to corporation, but it seems rather
> irrelevant to issues involving religion and irreligion.
It is *very relevant* (see above) it's just that despite all my efforts,
you've yet to put 2 + 2 together. I hope, given the preceding
perspective, you are now more able (and inclined) to do so.
> After all,
> capitalistic materialism is a great threat to religious communitarian
> values.
True, but as I said, the oddity is that so many upper level mgrs, not to
mention CEOs and owners of businesses, as well as high power righ
businessmen (like Richard Schaifle) are up to their 'ears and eyeballs'
in extremist religious platforms. Go figure. I think we jeapordize our
security byu overlooking these connections. I have made it part of my
research, however, to amass information about these connections.
> But I note below that only cite the NATION. You seem to indicate that
> Left = objective, non-Left = blinded by corporations. This parallels
> strangely Christian ideas that Religious = objective and non-Religious
No it doesn't - NOT when one appreciates and realizes the hidden
connections of many corporations (like Coors) to extremists religious
platforms. Instead of trying to contradict the facts I've presented, why
not try to do some serious research on your own.
As for 'objective' - how can any print or other medium possibly be when
they only focus on 'welfare reform' (for the working class stiffs, their
children) while ignoring the vastly greater waste embodied in corporate
welfare - and the need for corporate welfare reform? No sane or
objective person can deny that this is palpably biased reporting.
> blinded by Satan :) Of course, this doesn't speak to whether you are
> correct or not, but it does point to in my opinion behavioral
> similarities.
Your opinions concerning 'behavioral similarities' are neither here nor
there. What you need to dois to appraise yourself of the facts, and make
yourself au fait with them. Arguing me and using this sort of denial
will not get it down. Leave the 'Christian behavioral similarities' out
of this and do your own homework for a change.
> This tends to be true. On the other hand, it is also true that "elite
> media" (ie; Washington reporters) tend to be politically liberal.
This is nonsense. I live in the beltway and I can tell you it is. The
only *relatively* 'liberal' paper around - the one I subscribe to, is
'The Baltimore Sun'. The Post is *not* liberal, though it sometimes
makes noises like it is, neither is the Washington Times. (Chekc out
their very pro-coporate stances, other stances. i.e. HMOs, privatizing
social security etc.) The talk shows in this area are also dominated by
extreme right nuts, like G. Gordon Liddy and Ollie North.
Try to get your facts straight instead of relying on useless stereotypes
and media myths.
> So why
> the paradox? Maybe they are just fake liberals or what not?
No - not at all. You just don't have your facts straight. Perhaps
because you don't live inside the Beltway like I do.
> You always point the finger at the press, OTOH, did you ever think that
> the white middle class that is indirectly a benificiary of "pork" would
> prefer stories about underclass welfare that have human interest and
> confirm their prejudices to stories with something like ADM which provides
> them jobs, etc.? Of course not.
Well, they are part of the mix as well, particularly the rich
businessmen that buy advertising space and therefore own the 'asses' of
the various newspapers, TV stations. However, the ultimate
responsibility is not theirs.
> You can't always go blaming the elite,
> because to some extant it is a two-way system.
I do blame the media elites - because theyought to be setting the
vision, to some degree - instead of merely throwing people intellectual
pap and crap. That was how it usedto be (i.e.in the 60s) when genuine
standards applied, as opposed tobeing held hostage to a commercial
bottom line mentality. (Where the marketing dept. now runs the newsroom)
This corruption of purpose can only be laid at the feet of themedia
elite, who've lost their way amidst their profits, and taken the upper
economic classes along for the ride.
>I remember the show TV
> NATION, which I watched "religiously" often did stories are coporate pork,
> etc. It went through 2 networks, and though got good reviews often from
> critics failed to find an audience.
See above. The lack of an audience does not mean one should give up
andnot put out the news, the facts of what is going on. If nothing else,
the show belongs on public TV, as the recent excellent series 'Suriving
the Bottom Line' on WETA, Washington.
Not providing the information, because there is a perceived 'lack of
audience' is the worst thing. It results in all of us being something
less than fully informed (and therefore, responsible) citizens, because
we don't have all the facts.
> And that's why people like you who are so turned-off by that sort of press
> should real Mojo, the Nation, the Progressive, etc. Your problem is that
> the public doesn't buy these newsmagazines. They want bland
> "right-centre" stuff
It doesn't matter what they 'want' - as I said above. Part of the
mandate of a *serious* newspaper staff, TV newsroom staff - as opposed
to taboid press, 'Inside Edition' type TV, is to provide people the
news, information they *need* to function as responsible and aware
citizens. The error today is precisely too much giving people what they
want, as the 'center-right' crap to which you referred to feed their
delusions, and even stuff they don't necessarily want but the media
thinks they need (like the Monica Lewinsky garbage).
> Why in God's name do you support the Democrats anyhow? The Greens are at
> least honestly anti-coporate? Or are you voting strategically too!?!?!
I am voting *practically* for those that have the best chance of getting
*elected* and changing the course of this nation when they do. Though I
favor many of the Greens platforms, initiatives - particularly in the
environmental sphere, the fact is they don't have a chance of getting
elected. At least the dems can do things like passing a viable
'Patients' Rights Bill' - just as they were the ones to finally ensure
passage of the 'Family and Medical Leave Act.'
> The Dems supported corporate welfare for years. Groups like ADM and the
> sugar lobby are notorious for covering their asses by donating to both
> parties.
Sometimes, in the interests of larger good, these items have to
overlooked. Sure, corporate welfare pollutes most of the political
infrastructure in this country - that's why I desperately want the
campaign reform legislation passed. Until then, the pragmatic voter, who
wants something more than a symbolic 'protest vote' (as one for the
Greens would be) must work with what's there/. I don't necessarily
'like' it, but there it is.
> Puleez. You speak of the Dems as a lesser evil, but I see that for you
> the Green Party is a good alternative. Why are you compromising your
> beliefs?
See above. While the Greens may be a super (idoeological) alternative,
they simply have no serious chance (at least right now, in the U.S.) of
getting themselves elected other than on very, very local levels - if
that. One has to be practical, pragmatic whatever else he may desire.
> You seem to indicte atheists that vote Republican strategically,
> but are you guilty of the same?
But as I said, the Dems do *not* have extremists within their ranks -
organized, well funded religious extremists - that *want* the death of
atheists. Do I have to spell all this out for you? As in a, b, c..etc.
Richard Kulisz
Quarren <qua...@aol.com> wrote:
>A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The *censored* press is censored
>because it is unprofitable. Not because your "radical" (or whatever) politics
>are being oppressed.
And why is it unprofitable? Because it isn't supported by commercial
advertisers. Labour-based left-wing journals tend to have a much higher
and much more loyal readership than right-wing corporate media but they
don't generate anywhere near the advertising revenue. The corporate
media is not a genuine press but much more like the propaganda arm of
corporate america. So it can be said that *ALL* press is censored in
the USA; the pretext that is used to justify this censorship is not
relevant.
You're the one who has very little knowledge.
Richard Kulisz
Newamul K Khan <kh...@gladstone.uoregon.edu> wrote:
>Hm. Just out of curiousity, what does anti-coporatism have to do with
>its libertine lifestyle (trophy wives, etc.) and approval of "choice" in
>matters personal (on survey in the late 80's indicated that 90% of CEOs
>were prochoice), etc.
>
>capitalistic materialism is a great threat to religious communitarian
>values.
Ha!
Well, I'm forced to analyze what you mean by "capitalistic materialism".
If you mean a working economy (ie, what the indoctrination system wants
everyone to use it as) then it is a threat to *religion*. However, the USA
does not have a working economy; it is rapidly liquidating its capital
assets in order to make up for the shortfall in production. The present
system, state-capitalism, is a threat to *communitarian* values whether
of the religious or irreligious kind. The market is the destroyer of
all things; including communities.
Anti-corporatism is relevant to religion because a working economy
cannot withstand the drain that corporations make on it (and certainly
not the exponentially increasing drain that US corporations have put
on the US economy), and a working economy dilutes religion just as
surely as a wrecked economy (caused by war or other massive disasters)
adds gasoline to the religious fires.
>: I was hoping you were a more widely read person than I first believed.
>: Shame on me for being so utterly and abjectly naive.
>
>But I note below that only cite the NATION. You seem to indicate that
>Left = objective, non-Left = blinded by corporations. This parallels
>strangely Christian ideas that Religious = objective and non-Religious =
>blinded by Satan :) Of course, this doesn't speak to whether you are
>correct or not, but it does point to in my opinion behavioral
>similarities.
Right = evil, selfish, petty, intolerant, and *intentionally* self-blinded
by corporations
apolitical (and thus non-Left) = overworked, underpaid, stressed, roadkill
of the american economic juggernaut
Left = priviledged in education or situation, or superhuman
>: Not so at all. The Nation cited a comprehensive statistical study of the
>: use of loaded right wing terms vis a vis typical liberal terms ('Wizards
>: of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News' by Norman Solomon
>: and Jeff Cohen) , and noted the authors' found the reactionary slant in
>: overwhelming preponderence. Your take is thus, merely disinformation.
>
>This tends to be true. On the other hand, it is also true that "elite
>media" (ie; Washington reporters) tend to be politically liberal. So why
>the paradox? Maybe they are just fake liberals or what not?
The Liberalism Resurgent website has a page specifically devoted to this.
Journalists tend to be liberal because all educated and/or intelligent
people tend to be liberals. However, journalists are highly paid and are
thus deeply sympathetic to the ultra-conservative ****heads they meet day
in and day out. Further, the personal political orientation of journalists
is totally irrelevant since an anti-corporate news article will never make
it past the news editor (who are all, surprise surprise, right wing!) and
if by some miracle it ever got through, it would bring forth immediate
retaliation by 1) the poor bastard's bosses, 2) the advertisers, and 3)
rich conservatives' lobbyists.
>You always point the finger at the press, OTOH, did you ever think that
>the white middle class that is indirectly a benificiary of "pork" would
>prefer stories about underclass welfare that have human interest and
>confirm their prejudices to stories with something like ADM which provides
>them jobs, etc.? Of course not. You can't always go blaming the elite,
>because to some extant it is a two-way system. I remember the show TV
>NATION, which I watched "religiously" often did stories are coporate pork,
>etc. It went through 2 networks, and though got good reviews often from
>critics failed to find an audience.
If the white middle class is the entirety of the tv audience then it's
no wonder. OTOH, the white middle class is a small minority of americans
(and no, I don't include people who have to slave away 80 hours/week to
get 50K per year in the category of middle class).
>And that's why people like you who are so turned-off by that sort of press
>should real Mojo, the Nation, the Progressive, etc. Your problem is that
>the public doesn't buy these newsmagazines. They want bland
The public *does* buy these magazines, but advertisers don't buy ads in
them and so the magazines go under.
Dave Wilton
Kulisz) wrote:
>In article <199808311833...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
>Quarren <qua...@aol.com> wrote:
>>A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The *censored* press is censored
>>because it is unprofitable. Not because your "radical" (or whatever) politics
>>are being oppressed.
>
>And why is it unprofitable? Because it isn't supported by commercial
>advertisers. Labour-based left-wing journals tend to have a much higher
>and much more loyal readership than right-wing corporate media but they
>don't generate anywhere near the advertising revenue. The corporate
>media is not a genuine press but much more like the propaganda arm of
>corporate america. So it can be said that *ALL* press is censored in
>the USA; the pretext that is used to justify this censorship is not
>relevant.
>
>You're the one who has very little knowledge.
I think the ad hominem attacks should best be dropped.
I strongly disagree with the use of the term "censored." In the West,
labor-based left wing journals are not censored. Publishers are free
to publish what they want within exceedingly broad limits (e.g., no
obscenity, no advocacy of the violent overthrow of government, etc.).
But they do have to accept the economic consequences of their
editorial policies.
There are two kinds of press. The popular press survives through
advertising and subscription revenues. The popular press is profitable
or it does not survive. In order to remain profitable, the editorial
policies of such journals do not stray too far from the mainstream
center of politics and culture. Certainly, the major news
organizations are owned by big corporations and they will not
willingly adopt an anti-corporation editorial policy, but they also
want to make a profit and must remain at the center of the mainstream
of political beliefs in order to do so. While corporate media is not
anti-business, neither is it anti-labor.
The second kind is the subsidized press. While subsidized journals may
get revenues from advertising and subscriptions, they do not subsist
off them. Instead, their survival is linked to monies paid by
organizations that want to see these journals continue to be
published. The subsidized press includes business journals,
labor-based left-wing journals, most peer-reviewed scientific
journals, and others.
Since they do not have to be popular (except with those underwriting
them) to survive, the subsidized press can adopt editorial policies
that differ from mainstream culture. They can survive as long as
people with money are willing to underwrite them. Labor-based
left-wing journals may have more readers, but those readers are
unwilling to pony up the bucks to keep them alive. This is not
censorship. Just because business doesn't want to pay for such
journals does not mean they are suppressing them. Why should I pay for
a journal whose editorial policy I disagree with?
Newamul K Khan
: Many of the largest and most powerful corporations, and businessmen,
: provide funding for the most extreme Christian Right Wing zealots of the
: Republican party. As Jensen notes (p.50 'Powerful Group of
: Ultra-Conservatives Has Plans For Your Future', in 'Censored: The News
: That Didn't Make The News And Why', 1995):
What percentage? You don't give any. I know corporations tend to fund
'conservative' think tanks, but generally they prefer something like AEI,
rather than Focus on the Family. Most corporations don't give a dam about
social issues and you know it. Some family empires do lean
socially-Right, that doesn't mean it's typical.
: The link of many large corparate entities (e.g. Coors) to these entities
: has also been well established. Hence, it is poductive to look into,
: examine the linkages between corporations, and their funding of
: extremist groups, agendas (like the Heritage Foundation, CNP) in the
: GOP.
Yes, Coors is notorious for being of Right-wing slant. Yet strangely,
they also funded something called "Outfest" for homosexuals. Strange
isn't it? The fact is that at the Heritage Foundation (your fav. think
tank) they give out Coors beer, and the Christian conservatives (IOW,
those of the fundy Protestant wing) tend to leave at that point because
they are uncomfortable with alcohol. Wow, what fellow-travellers?
: That is largely a sterotype the media has circulated. However, in my
: years at two large corporations I rarely ever encountered such a person.
: (The only one I did, an upper level mgr. was fired from the last
: corporation I worked at). Most CEOs that I knew were highly *religious*
: (even calling employee 'prayer gatherings' ('voluntary' so they said)
: to beseech the almighty for greater profit margins. Their temperaments
: were stoic to a fault, and their religion to the right of Pat Robertson.
: (And the company, pre-merger with ours, was based in Fairfax, VA or in
: other words, right inside the DC beltway.
50% of CEOs are Episcopalian. Hardly a fundy religious group (most
surveys indicate about 5-10% of Episcopalians are Creationists, as opposed
to nominally 50% of the American population). You trot out plenty of
statistics and surveys (done by people on the Left, I note that you avoid
anything nonpartisan, because that sort of stuff is tained automatically
by corporate money and bias of course), but in this case, you bring up
personal experience. I sincerely doubt you would accept me if I said I
had the opposite experience, and would assert that the data inidicates the
opposite (if you have any data). You also assert you worked at *TWO*
large corporations. The fact is, that with two data points you can't even
make a standard deviation! The error factor IOW is large. And you don't
take into account that PERHAPS (yes, maybe) you have some bias, and want
to selectively see what you want to see maybe????
: True, but as I said, the oddity is that so many upper level mgrs, not to
: mention CEOs and owners of businesses, as well as high power righ
: businessmen (like Richard Schaifle) are up to their 'ears and eyeballs'
: in extremist religious platforms. Go figure. I think we jeapordize our
: security byu overlooking these connections. I have made it part of my
: research, however, to amass information about these connections.
No, only some wealthy people give to Religious-Right organizations, most
coporate sponsors of the Republican party are not comfortable with that
agenda. In fact, that is one reason so many Republican operatives were
arguing against a partial-birth litmus test, they didn't want to scare
their big-money donors who aren't too comfortable with social issues. You
can trot out all the cases of moguls giving to Religious-Right
think-tanks you want, as I expected you would, but they are in my opinion
no typical. Far more typical is someone like Rupert Murdoch, who is fine
with funding right-wing think-tanks, but quite obviously isn't concerned
with issues of "morality." As atheists, we would be expected to oppose
religious morality, but nothing more, and you shouldn't pressume so!
: No it doesn't - NOT when one appreciates and realizes the hidden
: connections of many corporations (like Coors) to extremists religious
: platforms. Instead of trying to contradict the facts I've presented, why
: not try to do some serious research on your own.
You can point out some corporations here and there, but that fails to
rebutt my claim that most corporate types aren't sympathetic to
Religious-Right type agendas on SOCIAL issues. You can look at any
surveys done (check out Gallup, though generally sympathetic to the Right,
that polling firm consistantly shows that WEALTHY = less religious, more
pro-choice, less opposed to interracial marriage, etc. etc. etc.) and you
will see that education and money does correlate negatively to religious
conservatism. In the south, there is a pattern of a layer cake with
Episcopalians on top, Presbyterians below them, then Methodists, Baptists,
and finally Pentacostals. See the pattern?
: As for 'objective' - how can any print or other medium possibly be when
: they only focus on 'welfare reform' (for the working class stiffs, their
: children) while ignoring the vastly greater waste embodied in corporate
: welfare - and the need for corporate welfare reform? No sane or
: objective person can deny that this is palpably biased reporting.
Corporate welfare is not sexy. That is a fact. I've seen plenty of
stories brought up about it, and I've seen plenty of liberal and
conservative commentators (note that men like Dick Armey are just as
opposed to ag. subsidies for ADM as Barney Frank, the key with support of
"corporate welfare" has to due with if the company is in your district and
putting money into the economy, not political affiliation) note its
injustice, the fact remains that because of our "takings" oriented tax
system, giving and taking is a part of the political system. Corporate
welfare will always exist as long as companies are based out of districts
with power. And many people don't want their jobs cut because of tax
hikes and loss of subsidies.
: > This tends to be true. On the other hand, it is also true that "elite
: > media" (ie; Washington reporters) tend to be politically liberal.
:
: This is nonsense. I live in the beltway and I can tell you it is. The
: only *relatively* 'liberal' paper around - the one I subscribe to, is
: 'The Baltimore Sun'. The Post is *not* liberal, though it sometimes
: makes noises like it is, neither is the Washington Times. (Chekc out
: their very pro-coporate stances, other stances. i.e. HMOs, privatizing
: social security etc.) The talk shows in this area are also dominated by
: extreme right nuts, like G. Gordon Liddy and Ollie North.
What are you talking about? When did I say that the Washington Times was
liberal? That's like accusing someone of saying that the Nation is a
reactionary publication. Please. Straw men.
:
: Try to get your facts straight instead of relying on useless stereotypes
: and media myths.
All I am trying to bring in is some skepticism, something you
purport to have, but are obviously selective in using.
: > The Dems supported corporate welfare for years. Groups like ADM and the
: > sugar lobby are notorious for covering their asses by donating to both
: > parties.
:
*************************************************************************
: Sometimes, in the interests of larger good, these items have to *
: overlooked. Sure, corporate welfare pollutes most of the political *
*************************************************************************
OK, now I have it! Sometimes in the interests of the "larger good"
(obviously what you percieve as the larger good) you have to sacrifice
INDIVIDUAL issues to get what you want in the long run, or the bigger
picture. Yet, you are the one who starts up this thread that atheists
can't be Republicans by overlooking a social conservative agenda to lower
taxes, yet YOU yourself overlook the coporate sponsorship of the
Democrats because they do things that advance your OVERALL agenda.
I see that you apply a double standard here.
1) You assume that everyone is in favor of a social democratic order
(atheists that is)
That's false
From that assumption, you think it's fine to compromise with a party
funded in large part by the coporate establishment that you have been
berating, to achieve that end.
OTOH, you think
2) that anyone will oppose the Religious-Right (which most people in this
ng do)
But you also add
3) that the Religious-Right agenda is a litmus test on whether you should
vote for someone!
OTOH, you don't use corporate support as a litmus test for your political
preferences.
I think I have it now....
Newamul K Khan
: And in democratic nations, the greens actually do have some power.
As do REAL liberals (classical liberals, not watered-down social democrats
like in the USofA or Canada)
Dan Stephenson
bv...@freenet5.carleton.ca says...
> In article <199808311833...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
> Quarren <qua...@aol.com> wrote:
> >A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The *censored* press is censored
> >because it is unprofitable. Not because your "radical" (or whatever) politics
> >are being oppressed.
>
> And why is it unprofitable? Because it isn't supported by commercial
> advertisers. Labour-based left-wing journals tend to have a much higher
> and much more loyal readership than right-wing corporate media but they
> don't generate anywhere near the advertising revenue. The corporate
> media is not a genuine press but much more like the propaganda arm of
> corporate america. So it can be said that *ALL* press is censored in
> the USA; the pretext that is used to justify this censorship is not
> relevant.
>
> You're the one who has very little knowledge.
Hmm. Let me get this straight. Leftists are not as popular, therefore
generate less advertising revenue, therefore not supporting much leftist
media, therefore less leftist media relative to 'corporate media' =
leftists are censored?
Why don't you move to Myanmar or someplace like that to cry over press
censorship?
Paul Pfalzner
>>If you had any breadth of reading, including the *censored* press (e.g.
>>'Censored: The News That Didn'tMake the News and Why' by Carl Jensen,
>>and Project Censored, 1995, FOur Walls-Eight Windows) you would never
>>make such a lame and foolish statement.
>
> because it is unprofitable. Not because your "radical" (or whatever) politics
> are being oppressed.
>
talking about unprofitable news - but what Project Censored does is
to collect data about important news stories that are underreported
or ignored by the major news media.
And it is quite clear that they are downgraded, not because it is
unprofitable but because they run counter to the ideological bent of
the mainline media - in the great majority of cases.
Paul
If you really want to know what *not* to believe, by all means read
newspapers very assiduously.
> Levi A.
> -
Quarren
>advertisers
Well, duh. What did you think I meant when I said unprofitable?
> Labour-based left-wing journals tend to have a much higher
>and much more loyal readership than right-wing corporate media but they
>don't generate anywhere near the advertising revenue.
Hmmm? Which journals / corporate media puppets are you speaking about?
> The corporate
>media is not a genuine press but much more like the propaganda arm of
>corporate america.
Well, the entire american culture is based on consumerism.
>You're the one who has very little knowledge
Why, because I agree with you? I just despise this "I'm so oppressed" attitude
people with "unpopular" ideas have to project.
It positively reeks of christianity.
Levi A.
-
Forth from cages into the darkness, mink liberated by masked rescuers.
Laws designed to protect the oppressors, correctly regarded as worthless.
Now This War Has Two Sides!
Ken Arromdee
>>>If a segment of the party
>>>holding such views were to try and become more visible and influential
>>>today, they'd have to come up with a really, really good explination for
>>>Stalin first.
>>I've seen the explanation already. The explanation is that Stalinism and
>>socialism are, of course, nothing alike.
>And communism has nothing to do with socialism
See? You're doing it.
>Thus, I am being perfectly consistent in saying that it is society's
>job to protect you and all your scummy brethren even as I fervently wish
>you'd all just die.
Then you are a dangerous extremist. You might not _personally_ go after me
with a meat cleaver, but the kind of hatred you're spreading creates fertile
ground for other extremists who will.
>The filthy rich socialists and communists are very few and far between.
>Symmetrically, the poor libertarians are very few and far between.
You did not say "Some libertarians are upper-class scum". You said
"Libertarians are all upper-class scum".
>Whether
>you're rich or not, the fact that you're able to post to the internet and
>have the free time to engage in such activities says that you are very far
>from poor, or even from the average middle-class bloke.
The average middle-class guy doesn't have the free time to engage in leisure
activities? Of course he does. (He might not specifically be able to post
to the Internet, or any other _particular_ leisure activity, but he'll be
able to do one which takes up a similar amount of his time.)
>It's a very good
>bet that *not* a *single* person on this newsgroup belongs to the lower
>half of socio-economic status.
Ah, law of the excluded middle. Middle class, in this case. Even if your
remark is true (which it is not), it would not mean that libertarians are
all upper class. And you never said "libertarians _on this newsgroup_".
Ken Arromdee
>> After all, the business elite is notorious in
>> its libertine lifestyle (trophy wives, etc.) and approval of "choice" in
>> matters personal (on survey in the late 80's indicated that 90% of CEOs
>> were prochoice), etc.
>That is largely a sterotype the media has circulated. However, in my
>years at two large corporations I rarely ever encountered such a person.
And of course you think your experiences are representative of corporations
in general.
Chloe Pajerek
> Hm. Just out of curiousity, what does anti-coporatism have to do with
> atheism/irreligiousness? After all, the business elite is notorious in
> its libertine lifestyle (trophy wives, etc.) and approval of "choice" in
> matters personal (on survey in the late 80's indicated that 90% of CEOs
> were prochoice), etc.
...and you have just put your finger on the fundamental schism that
haunts the Republican Party. The economic elite that funds the party
is basically pro-freedom on social matters, which puts them directly
into conflict with the religious fanatics who make most of the noise
in the media, and who also control the troops at the grass-roots
level.
> Razib Khan
- Chloe
Chloe Pajerek
> And it is quite clear that they are downgraded, not because it is
> unprofitable but because they run counter to the ideological bent of
> the mainline media - in the great majority of cases.
>
> Paul
There are apparently many readers here who are prepared to deny that
such a thing as "the ideological bent of the mainstream media" exists
at all.
Remember that flap about the CIA and crack? How the "prestige"
organs like the New York Times and Washington Post fell all over
themselves attacking the author and defending the CIA? Well, as
time wears on, more and more is coming out that seems to support
the author's original thesis; it's starting to look like there
really is something going on here. But: do you see the NYT or the
WP or any other major media outlet working on this story? Heck
no, and this is at a time when large majorities supposedly are
rabid in their support for the "War on Drugs".
- Chloe
Richard Kulisz
>
>: And in democratic nations, the greens actually do have some power.
>
>As do REAL liberals (classical liberals, not watered-down social democrats
>like in the USofA or Canada)
I'd like to know what the hell you mean by "liberal", much less "REAL
liberal". As to the situation in Canada, we have 5 national parties;
3 of which are right-wing and 2 of which are left-wing.
Reform is ultra-right wing.
Conservatives are right-wing.
Liberals are right-wing but lie about it (they're dishonest conservatives).
New Democrats are left-wing; they're essentially liberals, not socialists.
Bloc Quebecois is a secessionist party and I'm not too sure but Quebec as
a province is more left-wing than the rest of the nation.
Canada doesn't have any extreme left-wing parties (I exclude the
Marxist-Leninist -- the Communists were outlawed -- and Green parties
because they don't have a single elected representative), and if you
consider the complete political spectrum (ie, if you include socialism
and communism on the left) then liberalism (the NDP) is actually dead
center and Canada doesn't have a single left-wing party!
Canadians consistently vote on the left, but get the f***ing Liberals.
So you're right; the liberals (NDP) don't have any power in Canada.
But I'm not sure this is what you meant.
Now, in the USA the situation is different. There are two parties, one of
which is right-wing (the Dems) and the other of which is ultra-right wing.
I'd like to point out that none of the anglo-saxon nations (Canada, UK,
USA, NZ) are democratic; they're oligarchies.
Richard Kulisz
Quarren <qua...@aol.com> wrote:
>>You're the one who has very little knowledge
>
>Why, because I agree with you? I just despise this "I'm so oppressed" attitude
>people with "unpopular" ideas have to project.
Socialism and communism [and hell, even liberalism] used to be incredibly
popular ideas. Then 50 years of intensive propaganda and indoctrination
kicked in. Let's face it, anyone with an anti-corporate agenda IS oppressed.
NAFTA was rejected by 2/3s of Americans despite a total media ban on the
subject (right in the middle of an election too). What do you call that?
>It positively reeks of christianity.
Christians *are* oppressed; by their fellows, their priests, and the Church.
Or did you mean something else?
Richard Kulisz
Dave Wilton <dwi...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>On 2 Sep 1998 10:17:14 GMT, bv...@freenet5.carleton.ca (Richard
>Kulisz) wrote:
>I strongly disagree with the use of the term "censored." In the West,
>labor-based left wing journals are not censored. Publishers are free
Freedom without opportunity is a f**king sham! What would you say if I
told you that you were free to fly "all you have to do is flap your arms,
nobody's trying to stop you." The simple fact is that it's not *POSSIBLE*
to publish a left-wing journal, newspaper, or magazine in this day and age.
>to publish what they want within exceedingly broad limits (e.g., no
>obscenity, no advocacy of the violent overthrow of government, etc.).
>But they do have to accept the economic consequences of their
>editorial policies.
The "economic consequences" are rigged. Might as well be free to
blaspheme as long as you accept the legal consequences of a kangaroo
court!
>There are two kinds of press. The popular press survives through
Since it's only "popular" among corporations, call it what it is: the
*corporate* press. Or if you're trying to be honest then 'the propaganda
arm of corporate america'.
>advertising and subscription revenues. The popular press is profitable
>or it does not survive. In order to remain profitable, the editorial
>policies of such journals do not stray too far from the mainstream
BS. What it does not stray too far from is the limits of the acceptable;
as defined by other corporations (naturally).
>center of politics and culture. Certainly, the major news
>organizations are owned by big corporations and they will not
>willingly adopt an anti-corporation editorial policy, but they also
>want to make a profit and must remain at the center of the mainstream
>of political beliefs in order to do so. While corporate media is not
>anti-business, neither is it anti-labor.
Then I gather you've never read a single newspaper in your entire lifetime.
>The second kind is the subsidized press. While subsidized journals may
>get revenues from advertising and subscriptions, they do not subsist
>off them. Instead, their survival is linked to monies paid by
>organizations that want to see these journals continue to be
>published. The subsidized press includes business journals,
>labor-based left-wing journals, most peer-reviewed scientific
>journals, and others.
Except that, yet again, the system is f***ing rigged; here by the simple
expedient that corporations have all the money.
>Since they do not have to be popular (except with those underwriting
>them) to survive, the subsidized press can adopt editorial policies
>that differ from mainstream culture. They can survive as long as
>people with money are willing to underwrite them. Labor-based
And who has the millions of dollars lying around to underwrite extremist
media?
>left-wing journals may have more readers, but those readers are
>unwilling to pony up the bucks to keep them alive. This is not
Those readers can't f**king AFFORD it!! And how the hell can they when
incomes for the lower 6 deciles of the population have been steadily
dropping in the last two decades?! Shit, too many people in the USA
are lucky if they can feed and clothe their children and you blame them
for being "unwilling to pony up the bucks"?
>censorship. Just because business doesn't want to pay for such
>journals does not mean they are suppressing them. Why should I pay for
>a journal whose editorial policy I disagree with?
By that argument, why should billionaires allow their money to feed the
starving millions in the USA? And you know what, they've already decided
that they won't.
Daeron
> What percentage? You don't give any. I know corporations tend to fund
> 'conservative' think tanks, but generally they prefer something like AEI,
> rather than Focus on the Family. Most corporations don't give a dam about
> social issues and you know it. Some family empires do lean
> socially-Right, that doesn't mean it's typical.
See Richard Kulisz' point (same thread related to this topic).
> Yes, Coors is notorious for being of Right-wing slant. Yet strangely,
> they also funded something called "Outfest" for homosexuals. Strange
> isn't it? The fact is that at the Heritage Foundation (your fav. think
> tank) they give out Coors beer, and the Christian conservatives (IOW,
> those of the fundy Protestant wing) tend to leave at that point because
> they are uncomfortable with alcohol. Wow, what fellow-travellers?
Coors is butone example, there are *many* others, especially in the
specific orbit of the military-industrial complex (read:defense
contractors, Oil companies etc.)
Look at the horrid fiasco at Texaco, vis a vis minorities there. This
type of regressive, reactionary thinking did not just spring
spontaneously. It arose from a wellspring of extreme right beliefs,
including racial superiority. I worked at large Oil corporation in New
Orleans and saw it continuously -with the religiosity and racism going
hand in hand. Your finding a few odd exceptions to the rule, in one or
two areas - like 'homosexual rights' does not disprove the rule: that
the extreme right is always wrong.
> 50% of CEOs are Episcopalian. Hardly a fundy religious group (most
> surveys indicate about 5-10% of Episcopalians are Creationists, as opposed
> to nominally 50% of the American population).
Just because a person professes (in a public 'survey) to be a member of
a more 'mainstream' religious affiliation, doesn't mean that his views
necessarily are in line with that affiliation's. In fact, the CEO to
whom I alluded was an Episcopalian (not a 'fundie'). But clearly this
didn't prevent him from setting up a virtual 'theocracy' at the last
company I worked at.
Your problem, as usual, is you're too naive by far.
> You trot out plenty of
> statistics and surveys (done by people on the Left, I note that you avoid
> anything nonpartisan, because that sort of stuff is tained automatically
> by corporate money and bias of course),
Of course! Again - I refer you to Richard Kulisz' excellent points on
this same thread. I don't see the need to duplicate his fine efforts
here, but his points address your 'complaints'.
> but in this case, you bring up
> personal experience.
Sometimes, I find that personal experience in terms of specific
examples, can pinpoint much more concretely where a person is coming
from. But, perish the thought that it might have any effect on you.
Clearly, you're far too invested in denial of any corporate wrongdoing
tobe amenable to other viewpoints here.
>I sincerely doubt you would accept me if I said I
> had the opposite experience, and would assert that the data inidicates the
> opposite (if you have any data).
Try me and see. But I would have to ask -in that case, how large these
corporations were (at which you had your experiences) and if they were
large multi-nationals, with several hundred billion in capitalization,
as the ones I worked for. If they were just 'small businesses' (like
under 100 employees) they aren't in the same ball park.
> You also assert you worked at *TWO*
> large corporations. The fact is, that with two data points you can't even
> make a standard deviation! The error factor IOW is large.
Sir, pardon me, but don't be ludicrous. I was not offering my
experiences as any kind of statistical 'data set', or test of
significance. However, if I put my mind to it - and could summon the
willpower and energy, I'm sure I could provide you with more than you
could handle.
> And you don't
> take into account that PERHAPS (yes, maybe) you have some bias, and want
> to selectively see what you want to see maybe????
Well now, I could always take a survey of the hundreds of other
employees that worked at those places when I did and had exactly the
same experiences. Would *that* satisfy you? Nope, didn't think so. You
just do not want to accept the link between corporatism and right wing
ideology including religiosity.
> You
> can trot out all the cases of moguls giving to Religious-Right
> think-tanks you want, as I expected you would, but they are in my opinion
> no typical.
Sure, but that is merely your limited biased opinion. I have reams of
files, statistics to back up what I said, and will be posting these on a
web site.
> Far more typical is someone like Rupert Murdoch, who is fine
> with funding right-wing think-tanks, but quite obviously isn't concerned
> with issues of "morality."
Again, Murdoch is the exception but *not* the rule.
>As atheists, we would be expected to oppose
> religious morality, but nothing more, and you shouldn't pressume so!
But, if extremist agendas are being funded against *our* interests, then
that take is surely misgotten and woefully inadequate. Yes, morality is
one thing, but try to grasp that an extreme self-righteous morality (on
thepart of the CNP, and Christian Coalition) drives their imperative to
set up concentration camps and gas chambers for 'abortionists',
'atheists' and 'pornographers' as Joe Conason notes ('With God as My
Co-Pilot', Playboy, 1992). How, in the wake of such peril, can you
possibly be so naive, blinkered and deluded?
> You can point out some corporations here and there, but that fails to
> rebutt my claim that most corporate types aren't sympathetic to
> Religious-Right type agendas on SOCIAL issues.
And that directly flies in the face of my own extensive experience,
working in two *large* (i.e. multinational) corporations in the U.S.
>You can look at any
> surveys done (check out Gallup, though generally sympathetic to the Right,
> that polling firm consistantly shows that WEALTHY = less religious, more
> pro-choice, less opposed to interracial marriage, etc. etc. etc.) and you
> will see that education and money does correlate negatively to religious
> conservatism.
Cite for me one such specific survey, including the issue of the source,
volume and the date, author etc. If we're not going to be ambiguous, so
be it. Then deliver.
>In the south, there is a pattern of a layer cake with
> Episcopalians on top, Presbyterians below them, then Methodists, Baptists,
> and finally Pentacostals. See the pattern?
Yep, I just fail to see what this has to do with your naivete, in
failing to see that professed membership necessarily means one accepts
that religious group's basic beliefs. For example, the Catholic CHurch
is allegedly getting more 'liberal', in many of their stances, but it
would be a grievous error to neglect the operation of the sub-cult 'Opus
Dei' within them, which adheres to strict doctrinal conformity and
reports all 'miscreants' (like priests who favor birth control) to the
Pope and the Vatican Directorate.
In exactly the same way, it would be a grievous and naive error to fail
to see that the Christian Coalition applies to vastly more than just
'Pentacostals' (or true 'fundies') . Indeed, the CC has members drawn
from many denominations, including: Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran,
Catholic etc.
If one doesn't appreciate this insinuation, as you obviously do not,
then their arguments cannotbe extended much merit.
> Corporate welfare is not sexy. That is a fact. I've seen plenty of
> stories brought up about it,
Where? In what newspaper? (Mainstream). Issue, date, author?
> the fact remains that because of our "takings" oriented tax
> system, giving and taking is a part of the political system.
If so, why doesn't 'takings' apply to the ordinary American worker, your
average 'Joe' or 'Jane' - who will not pull out hundreds of millions on
retirement from a 'platinum parachute' or 'deferred benefits package'?
How come - for them - its always 'losings'? (Next up - after having had
their comapny pensions reduced to 'self-pensions', their social security
reduced to 'self social security')
>Corporate
> welfare will always exist as long as companies are based out of districts
> with power. And many people don't want their jobs cut because of tax
> hikes and loss of subsidies.
Well, I can see you've been reading and imbibing that Wall Street
Journal propanganda rag again. No doubt you also are 'invested in the
market' up to the hilt. Remember now, as the share prices go south,
these are 'buying opportunities'. Now tell me: can you spell
S-U-C-K-E-R?
But to be serious for a minute, no one says that 'tax hikes' need be
applied to the poor little corporations. No, all I am saying is that the
existing subsidies ought to be withdrawn. In other words, let the stupid
little bastards compete *on their own* and earn their own way - as the
many average 'Joes' and 'janes' ar having to do now, having been turfed
out of social welfare.
No more $1.5 billions a year for the Sugar industry. Or $ 4+ million a
year for overseas advertising for 'Mickey D's'.
If the average stiff has to go out and *earn* their keep, let the
corporations do so as well. No more asinine excuses that don't hold
water.
> All I am trying to bring in is some skepticism, something you
> purport to have, but are obviously selective in using.
Skepticism is fine -up to a point. But when it serves to blind one to
threats to his/her own self-interests (and survival) it becomes counter
productive. Who was it, Paul Weiss -who referred to the 'Danger of
Uncritical Doubt' in his little aphorism:
"It's one thing not to see the forest for the trees, but then to go on
to deny the reality of the forest is a more serious matter."
I believe that this eminently applies in this case, to your brand of
skepticism - which erases critical awareness.
> OK, now I have it! Sometimes in the interests of the "larger good"
> (obviously what you percieve as the larger good) you have to sacrifice
> INDIVIDUAL issues to get what you want in the long run, or the bigger
> picture.
I am not going to repeat all of what I said earlier (in my response to
Arromdee) concerning the conflation of the terms 'private individual'
and 'corporation' and how it serves corporate (NOT individual interests)
but read it again and get my drift. You will then see that I am about
sacrificing *corporate* interests, to secure and enable those of the
individual. (Of which the 'Family and Medical Leave Act' of 1992 was a
perfect example).
> Yet, you are the one who starts up this thread that atheists
> can't be Republicans by overlooking a social conservative agenda to lower
> taxes, yet YOU yourself overlook the coporate sponsorship of the
> Democrats because they do things that advance your OVERALL agenda.
I don't 'overlook' it at all. But in the matter of comparisons, the
differences between the two is like that between swatting an ant on an
elephant's behind, and blowing him up with an anti-aircraft gun.
The Democrats have *NO* comparable group in their political
constellation that *demands* the *Deaths* or internments (in
concentration camps)of atheists, abortionists, and pornographers. This
means, ipso facto, than *any* other party - which does not give aid or
comfort or an 'ideological tent' to such genocidal killers, is to be
preferred over the Repubs. (Btw, have you read Bellant's book yet 'Old
Nazis, The New Right and The Republican Party', American Atheist Press,
1992? You really should you know.
Any atheist, therefore - who allies him or herself with Republicans, is
exxactly analogous to a Jew (in 1933) that might have voted for Hitler
and his Nazi party.
> I see that you apply a double standard here.
Not at all, I am simply more aware of the pragmatic choices an
intelligent person would make - one who realizes that aligning with the
Repubs is an alignment with extremist interests that want his
internment, elimination.
> 1) You assume that everyone is in favor of a social democratic order
> (atheists that is)
No - I am quite happy to accept there might be *some* atheists that are
culturally or otherwise retarded, or sociologically dysfunctional. I
simply would not have thought these to be in the *majority* since
atheists are alleged to be the exponents of 'free thought'.
> That's false
I know, I can see it with you.
> From that assumption, you think it's fine to compromise with a party
> funded in large part by the coporate establishment that you have been
> berating, to achieve that end.
See above, and specifically the references to planned death/concentraton
camps for atheists.
Why on earth would a Jew willingly vote or be allied with anyone that
wants him fried in an oven? Why would an atheist - any self-respecting
one worthy of the name, want to be allied with a political group that
harbors extemists that fully intend to gas or incarcerate atheists (As
Joe Conason's article makes clear)? You tell me, since you appear to
have this skewed 'logic' down pat.
> OTOH, you think
>
> 2) that anyone will oppose the Religious-Right (which most people in this
> ng do)
>
> But you also add
>
> 3) that the Religious-Right agenda is a litmus test on whether you should
> vote for someone!
Errr.... I think if a group harbors an element that proposes gas
chambers as part of its 'social solutions' (for atheists and
abortionists, etc) it damned sure as shit should be a litmus test!!
Don't you?????????????????????????????
> OTOH, you don't use corporate support as a litmus test for your political
> preferences.
In general, and to a fault, the Repubs are the party of the
corporations. They receive more per capita from corporate lobbies (look
at the recent Tobacco fiasco, where it was learned Repubs got many free
trips on corproate jets, visits, etc. - not to mention largesse). they
also benefit (by higher perks from lobbies) whenever pro-corporate
legislation is passed).
The Repubs' are fueled propped up - in their legislative agenda, by the
American Heritage FOundation, Libery Lobby and others, all of whom have
strong corporate links.
This stuff isn't 'rocket science' though you try to make it appear so.
> I think I have it now....
For someone who can't reckon the threat of those who vow the use of gas
chambers and concentration camps on atheists?
Hardly.
Dan Stephenson
bv...@freenet5.carleton.ca says...
> Right = evil, selfish, petty, intolerant, and *intentionally* self-blinded
> by corporations
> apolitical (and thus non-Left) = overworked, underpaid, stressed, roadkill
> of the american economic juggernaut
> Left = priviledged in education or situation, or superhuman
Oh! Ok, now, you had us going for a while there. You put one over on
all of us. Heh heh. For a while there we thought you were an extra-
concentrated Daeron!
Ken Arromdee
>>I strongly disagree with the use of the term "censored." In the West,
>>labor-based left wing journals are not censored. Publishers are free
>Freedom without opportunity is a f**king sham! What would you say if I
>told you that you were free to fly "all you have to do is flap your arms,
>nobody's trying to stop you." The simple fact is that it's not *POSSIBLE*
>to publish a left-wing journal, newspaper, or magazine in this day and age.
Flying requires that the laws of physics work so as to let you fly.
Publishing a periodical requires people (to buy the periodical).
A law of physics can prevent you from doing something by inaction. The laws
of physics prevent you from flying. A *person* cannot prevent you from doing
something by inaction, since otherwise you've just created an obligation on
their part from nothing.
And of course there _are_ left-wing joirnals published in this day and age.
They have low circulations, but "it's not possible to publish" is false.
John C. 'Buck' Field
expose of 4 drug operations and the government links. Every once in a while
you catch little bits of important news. Noriega was a great one when he
was going to defend his "drug dealer" charges by going public with CIA
contracts for huge shipments and the payments he received as a result of his
assistance.
--
Unsolicited commercial use of my e-mail address
constitutes agreement by the originator I will be
damaged in the amount of $1000.00 US Dollars
by each use.
Paul Filseth
> Paul Filseth wrote:
> > Bemoaning the slanted corporate media is a fixture among anti-capitalists,
> > and they inevitably offer the WSJ as an example, as though that were a
> > typical American newspaper.
>
> If you had any breadth of reading, including the *censored* press (e.g.
> 'Censored: The News That Didn'tMake the News and Why' by Carl Jensen,
> and Project Censored, 1995, FOur Walls-Eight Windows) you would never
> press-media in this country has been befouled by its alignment with
> corporate state, oligarchic interests.
That's a non-sequitur. How does your example of an anti-capitalist
bemoaning the corporate media imply my is statement lame and foolish?
I've flipped through Jensen, who is, in fact, not censored.
There's a lot of good stuff there. And also examples of "censored"
stories that I remember extensive coverage of, where the only substance
behind Jensen's complaint basically amounts to, "The press wasn't
convinced my position was correct." (Sorry, since I have no breadth of
reading, I haven't looked at the '95 edition; maybe it's different.)
> > Rightists say the American media is left-wing, leftists say it's
> > right-wing, and such remarks invariably reveal a lot more about the
> > speaker than about the media.
>
> Not so at all. The Nation cited a comprehensive statistical study of the
> use of loaded right wing terms vis a vis typical liberal terms ('Wizards
> of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News' by Norman Solomon
> and Jeff Cohen) , and noted the authors' found the reactionary slant in
> overwhelming preponderence. Your take is thus, merely disinformation.
What qualifies that book as a "comprehensive statistical survey"?
It's a collection of the authors' columns. The Nation doesn't claim
otherwise.
> > We have a free press and there's no
> > difficulty in finding many contrary points of view published.
>
> But not to the same degree, frequency. For example, in The Nation's
> article ('Unfit to Print', July 28/Aug. 4, 1997, p. 33) on 'Wizards of
> Media Oz' they noted, "the misleading phrase 'welfare reform' was used
> in 22,013 print news pieces about aid programs for the poor, according
> to a Nexis seach, while 'corporate welfare' showed up only 2,351 times,
> and 'corporate welfare reform' just 17."
>
> This discloses an unambiguous and biased slant, that no amount of your
> soft-soaping and rationalizing can diminish.
This does not disclose a "reactionary slant". A reactionary slant
can't even be objectively defined. The left-right axis that dominates
American politics does not have a zero-point. The media's average
location is somewhere on that axis, and people farther right naturally
think the media is leftist and people farther left think it's rightist.
"Slant" is a relative term, not an absolute one.
As for the survey, a tally of frequency of phrases can be designed
to produce any desired outcome by the person who decides what terms to
scan for. What phrases were in the list, who picked them, and who
categorized them as liberal vs. conservative?
If that example is the best "The Nation" can come up with, all it
discloses is how little the "comprehensive" survey shows. Of course
"welfare reform" came up more than "corporate welfare". It's _news_.
Note that the word "news" has "new" in it. Congress is _doing_
something about government hand-outs to poor people. They're _changing_
the rules. But they aren't _doing_ anything about government hand-outs
to rich people. That's just same-old-same-old, people who can afford it
bribing legislators to rip off the taxpayers. And since neither party
has pushed legislation to cut off that feeding frenzy, there isn't
anything _new_ to report.
This example also fails to show a "reactionary slant" for a second
reason. "Corporate welfare" isn't something the right wants to keep and
the left wants to abolish. Both sides are ideologically opposed to it,
liberals because it helps the rich and hurts the poor, and conservatives
because it makes markets unfree and pushes taxes up. And both parties
are in it up to their necks. The politicians have simply betrayed the
people who vote for them in favor of the people who buy them stuff. If
the media really are siding with corporate welfare, that may imply a
pro-theft slant, but it hardly implies a reactionary slant. Cohen and
Solomon have contrasted a partisan issue with a non-partisan issue.
This, as much as the current-events aspect, throws their commitment to
being fair into doubt.
But of course, that's just one example. The Nation mentions a
second:
"Internet" with 169,886 mentions, swamped "safety net," with only
6,761.
Now this proves their case; we can all see what a slanted right-wing
word "internet" is. That reactionary bias sure is unambiguous. I guess
these guys picked their phrase list fairly after all.
> > You weren't familiar with
> > people talking about tribalism (or else you didn't understand them),
> > so rather than have to add a new concept to your mental toolbox, you
> > assumed I must mean something you'd heard the corporate media griping
> > about, and you picked collectivism.
>
> I have heard, seen the term 'tribalism' used interchangeably with
> 'collectivism'. Merely because you have conferred some new,
> sophisticated interpretation - does not mean the rest of your ilk has.
You're estopped from making that argument -- your position all
along has been that I'm just regurgitating "re-cycled corporate toady
swill." That's inconsistent with me meaning something different from
the rest of my ilk.
Furthermore, the article in which I first used "tribalism" was
quite clear about what I meant by it. You could only have mistaken my
meaning for "collectivism" if you assumed that was what I meant without
reading what I wrote, or if you didn't know what "collectivism" means.
There was nothing in my post that took a position on collectivist ideas
one way or the other.
Incidentally, I scanned Deja News and the web for "tribalism." I
found lots of people using it the way I did and none using it to refer
to collectivism.
> > Of course, since I'm just recycling the same old spew from the
> > corporate media that you've seen a thousand times before, you already
> > knew this.
>
> Give the man a dime, he can read minds. >Fanfare<
All this, and irony-challenged too.
--
Paul Filseth That's a hard question. I don't answer hard questions.
To email, reverse lisl. - Justice John Paul Stevens
Daeron
> I've flipped through Jensen, who is, in fact, not censored.
> There's a lot of good stuff there. And also examples of "censored"
> stories that I remember extensive coverage of,
I don't rightly know what planet you're from, but I recall no such
'extensive coverage' of any of his (1995) primary censored news stories.
For example, the account of the extreme rightist 'COuncil of National
Policy' (Jensen, 1995 - 'Powerful Group of Ultra- COnservatives Has
Secret Plans for Your Future?', p. 48-50). This was in no news stories I
have seen in the past seven years, and I've been a regular subscriber to
both the Washington Post, and Baltimore Sun - as well as had online
access to a number of others. The mainstream press clearly dropped the
ball here and big time. Jensen also notes (p. 50) in regard to this
dereliction of duty, quoting media watchdog Joel Bleifuss:
"No mass media has ever investigated the doings of the COuncil for
Nationmal Policy" and
"it is a major oversight, given the ascendancy of the Christian right."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I personally felt that any atheist that was aware of the CNP and its
role in defining the Republican platforms, could not possibly associate
in good conscience with the Repubs. They are glorified Nazis-Fascists,
as Bellant has compellingly showed in his (American Atheist Press
issued) monograph 'Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party'.
Alert and aware readers, atheists or whoever, should be more in tune
themselves, than to be blinded to the threat and detriment posed to
liberties by the Repubs and their Nazi sympathizers.
>where the only substance
> behind Jensen's complaint basically amounts to, "The press wasn't
> convinced my position was correct." (Sorry, since I have no breadth of
> reading, I haven't looked at the '95 edition; maybe it's different.)
If you haven't seen the above story (on the CNP) in the 1995 edition,.
then you are as forlorn out of touch as I suspected you were. Get a
grip, get a clue (for once) and please get the book. If you aren't
seriously disturbed by what you read, you are brain dead.
> This does not disclose a "reactionary slant". A reactionary slant
> can't even be objectively defined.
But, it can be inferred on the basis of quantifying the frequency of
references. As the NATION article notes (ibid. p. 33):
"One of the great values of this book is that it demolishes the myth
that liberalism dominates the media....the truth is that genuinely
left-wing views rarely get a hearing. Solomon had this confirmed while
trying to peddle his column when editors told him: 'We've got
progressive views covered- we run Anthony Lewis'. The same Lewis who has
described himself as a 'pro-capitalist, middle of the road centrist' who
supported George Bush's Gulf War and who penned a column denouncing
unions for having the temerity to lobby against NAFTA."
This, of course, comes as close as can be to defining 'reactionary
slant' - i.e. any portrayal that essentially and fundamentally excludes
the opposing viewpoint (or renders it so gutless and namby-mamby, or
disinformed, as to be next to useless)
>The left-right axis that dominates
> American politics does not have a zero-point. The media's average
> location is somewhere on that axis, and people farther right naturally
> think the media is leftist and people farther left think it's rightist.
Gibberish, pure and simple. You are merely holding up here the
corporate, propagandized view that the mega-publishing conglomerates
regular peddle and expect us to believe. But, as before, we consider the
source.
> "Slant" is a relative term, not an absolute one.
But 'slant' -when documented in cold numbers - by the frequency of one
set of views to the exclusion of the other) is quote readily apprehended
- even on a relative scale/.
If I happen to be watching a ball game between the Cardinals and the
Cubs, and hear the (supposedly unibased) announcers make 101 negative
statements about the cubbies and Sammy Sosa, and only one vs. the Cards
and Mark McGwire, I think I can reasonably conclude there is a 'slant'
to the redbirds in their announcing- albeit not 'absolute'. Sometimes,
as in your case, people can be too clever by far and outwit themselves.
Or fail to see what is staring them right in the face.
> As for the survey, a tally of frequency of phrases can be designed
> to produce any desired outcome by the person who decides what terms to
> scan for. What phrases were in the list, who picked them, and who
> categorized them as liberal vs. conservative?
I think any common sense person knows how to categorize a 'liberal'
issue as opposed to conservative one. This stuff ain't rocket science
after all, though again, you try to make it so. I mean, social welfare
vs. corporate welfare, with the emphasis on ridding the latter, is
liberal.
> If that example is the best "The Nation" can come up with, all it
> discloses is how little the "comprehensive" survey shows. Of course
> "welfare reform" came up more than "corporate welfare". It's _news_.
> Note that the word "news" has "new" in it.
Corporate welfare initiatives by various legislators (i.e. Mikulski,
Sarbanes etc) are also 'news'. So is Sen. Sarbanes proposed leglisation
on disclosure by the Federal Reserve. But- who hears about them? Not
many. The reason is they are excluded purposefully from the public
exchange, in order to skew debate from the outset.
>Congress is _doing_
> something about government hand-outs to poor people. They're _changing_
> the rules. But they aren't _doing_ anything about government hand-outs
> to rich people.
They are (certain legislators are, or are gathering an initiative to do
so) you just don't hear about it. Why? Because their initiatives are
largely kept off the pages. This leads directly to a skewed perception
on the part of the public (like yourself) that only the social welfare
reforms are news, or have any valid legislative basis. Very, very wrong.
> That's just same-old-same-old, people who can afford it
> bribing legislators to rip off the taxpayers. And since neither party
> has pushed legislation to cut off that feeding frenzy, there isn't
> anything _new_ to report.
No, sorry to say you're very wrong here. There is, and I will dig out
the various clippings I've accumulated and e-mail them to you when I
can.
> This example also fails to show a "reactionary slant" for a second
> reason. "Corporate welfare" isn't something the right wants to keep and
> the left wants to abolish. Both sides are ideologically opposed to it,
That's baloney and you know it. The Repubs, whose palms are regularly
graced by bills from corporate lobbies, want that corporate welfare to
remain. It ensures them of major extra perks when they arrive at the
Beltway.
> liberals because it helps the rich and hurts the poor, and conservatives
> because it makes markets unfree and pushes taxes up.
You are abysmally ill informed. Sure, it 'pushes taxes up' -buton the
middle class who can least afford. The rich fat CEOS and theirilk keep
their deferred benefits packages, and platinum parachutes, thank you
very much. We get to pay for them - twice:first , when we get downsized,
and second via taxation.
> And both parties
> are in it up to their necks. The politicians have simply betrayed the
> people who vote for them in favor of the people who buy them stuff.
But, the frequency-preponderance of those 'polticians' is overwhelmingly
on the Repub side (byabout 75-25% by one recent estimate)
> If the media really are siding with corporate welfare, that may imply a
> pro-theft slant, but it hardly implies a reactionary slant.
If the 'thieves' are initially the corporations -which they are, and the
corporations are largely the main supporters of Repubs, I think the
connection is obvious.
> Cohen and
> Solomon have contrasted a partisan issue with a non-partisan issue.
> This, as much as the current-events aspect, throws their commitment to
> being fair into doubt.
Not at all. The very fact that Solomon could not get his
(progressive)piece published, being offered the pallid excuse that
'progressive views are already covered' (see above)throws yours
contention into the crapper.
> But of course, that's just one example. The Nation mentions a
> second:
>
> "Internet" with 169,886 mentions, swamped "safety net," with only
> 6,761.
You left out the initial part of the passage (conveniently) which read
(ibid.)
"In the year that federal aid to poor children was abolished.."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Now this proves their case; we can all see what a slanted right-wing
> word "internet" is. That reactionary bias sure is unambiguous. I guess
> these guys picked their phrase list fairly after all.
A 'slant' means merely a skewed perception. This can be accomplished
either:
a)by direct preferential reference to the biased, favored side
(conservative)
b) by the simple exclusion of an issue, and replacement by a bogus, or
'non-issue'.
For example, Jensen (1995) notes that the 'Tonya Harding' story became
the pet of the media, a convenient non-story so they could avoid the
more painful and threatening to democracy issue of the Council for
National Policy.
In the same way, the internet serves as a convenient non-issue
thatnicely thrusts all stories to do with kids suffering as a result of
federal aid being cut, off the pages.
Your erroneous assumption, is that a media reference must always be
direct and biased to one side (i.e. conservative, or discussing a
particular conservative issue), to skew a perception or engender a
slant. This ain't necessarily so.
>
> There was nothing in my post that took a position on collectivist ideas
> one way or the other.
Ok, so we can assume from this that you see no problem - have no
inherent 'issues', with a collectivist, or communitarian (less loaded
term) philosophy?
> Incidentally, I scanned Deja News and the web for "tribalism." I
> found lots of people using it the way I did and none using it to refer
> to collectivism.
I do not really consider or regard 'deja news' as setting a standard, or
having much in the way or political or literary merit.I was referring to
book authors, or newspaper columnists (like Wm. Buckley, Geo. Will).
> > Give the man a dime, he can read minds. >Fanfare<
>
> All this, and irony-challenged too.
Pot, kettle, black.