Say Anything Blog

Cover up??? This guy’s definition of cover up must be “what I do with my tin foil hat to keep the aliens from scanning my brain”!
Isn’t the Unocal story he tells the same factoid that Michael Moore got wrong in his movie? 

Good to know that the Cynthia McKinney wing of the Democrat party is alive and well!

Republican Presidential Candidate Labeled as ‘Insane’ by Local Police Officer

Here’s Michael Jesus Archangel, who claims to be God and the Archangel Michael, and also claims that his wife is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Now check out Archangel’s campaign site for his run at 2008 president.

That’s right, this nut is a Republican candidate for the Presidency.

I’m waiting for Ann Coulter to condemn this member of her party for claiming that he is God and the Archangel Michael.

I’m always amazed at how many conspiracy theory wackos there are out there.
Think about how many people would have had to be in on it to pull off something like this.  And NOBODY talked? C’mon!

Student, did Michael Jesus get the GOP’s official backing in his campaign or is he just some whack job calling himself a Republican?

Because there’s a difference.  This Dem whacko above has his party’s official backing.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

It says he’s an announced candidate or filed an exploratory committee.

Well...wait a sec, he’s an announced candidate.

He’s announced himself as a candidate.

He has no party backing.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Ah, then I don’t know why they had to stick him under that heading…

Come on, lighten up. Every election we’ve ever had brings the whack-job psycho-candidates and the perennial losers out of the closet or from under their rocks or whatever.

This is comedy at it’s finest. Nobody in their right mind will think that Dick Cheney blew up the towers. There are plenty of people out there, mostly demos, who would LIKE to think so, but even they won’t give that serious consideration.

Enjoy the tin foil hat crowd. They just want us to believe the outrageous for their own sake. Sort of like Scientologists.

All of you that think this guys is a nut job need to stop watching network news and eating the lies that this administration and corporate controlled media have fed you.

Truth is not a threat to our safety.
Ignoring the truth is. This administration has committed war crimes and should hang for their actions. If they continue on their course they will destroy the Constitution and make this country into a fascist state run under martial law.

All you empty headed bible thumpers are playing right along with their plans, just like the German people who followed Hitler when he said “GOD IS WITH US” and proceeded to kill and destroy under “their” GOD.

Let me tell you all something. There is not going to be a rapture.
I’m praying for it as hard as any of you nut jobs. The reason I’m praying for it is to rid this planet of all environmental destroying, science denying, bigot creating, hypocrites! But alas I have to find a way to see your screwed up ways.

My suggestion to you all is to seek the truth yourselves. Don’t let anyone tell you what to believe especially this administration and corporate media. They are both lying, for their own gain and for your loss.

Cheney was probably aiming those planes at a pheasant.

I would not doubt that 9/11 is the Bush/Cheney Reichstag Fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

Right on Ma77hew77!  People need to do their own research these days.  And when they do they will probably be quite surprised at what they find.

How did 7 World Trade Center come down again?  That’s a good place to start.

"Denialers” refute the facts [and the mountain of evidence and high level whistle blowers(Paul Craig Roberts, for one)] supporting the crimes of 9/11 to be an inside job carried out to bolster public support for implementing imperial PNAC war plans because their indoctrination into slavish obedience and irrational attitudes of submission to authority won’t allow for a “reality” that stands in such sharp contrast to their adhered-to jingoism/chauvinism.

Instead of disproving facts, they rely on name calling ... which is also revealing, as most of the rhetoric from thr Right wing is psychologically projective: they impute to others that which they’re most guilty of themselves, and hence, on an unconscious level, are most fearful of.

This why Rightists accuse those not of their ilk of “relying on their emotions to formulate their views,” while in reality, the propaganda of the corporate/state nexus relies exclusively on this very scheme; manipulating the base emotions of simpletons in order to ensure less public interference getting in the way of immoral and illegal policies/actions.

If the administration has nothing to hide why are they hiding so much!!! Where are the videos from businesses around the Pentagon, they were taken right after the “crash”. Why won’t they release them. What are they hiding?? People get your heads out of the sand, America is now run by fascists, They know what they represent, why else do they now try to call Islam, “fascist” typical rovian slander and dodge propaganda.

Wow, wackjob central must be linking sayanything today. You guys need to stop watching so much network news, cause every one of your “conspiracy” facts are on network news every night and all day long. How stupid are you morons?

BTW, idiots, people both republican and democrat and those inbetween have suggested that 9/11 is an inside job.  Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re all idiots. 

But not nearly as retarded as you right wing reactionaries.  I have never seen a bunch of retards gathered in one place before.

Fuckity fucking right wingers fuckity fucking just cause fuckity fuck fuck fuck some Democrat fuckity fuck spouts off bullshit conpiracy theories is no reason to fuckity fuck stop hating the fuckity fuck fuck fuckin shit out of you fucking fuck right wing fuckity fuck fuck fucks.  YEARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Fuckity fucking right wingers fuckity fucking just cause fuckity fuck fuck fuck some Democrat fuckity fuck spouts off bullshit conpiracy theories is no reason to fuckity fuck stop hating the fuckity fuck fuck fuckin shit out of you fucking fuck right wing fuckity fuck fuck fucks. YEARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Today must have been a “teacher work day.” So glad my kids are in private school.

I feel quite proud! I teached pussyam a word that was not on it’s talking points email.

Ban everyone you fucking knuckle tragger, little George must have sucked you off and promised not to tell, he won’t but we will, your an asshole!

The truth will come out and we have your place saved in the detention camps.

Ban everyone you fucking knuckle dragger, little George must have sucked you off and promised not to tell, he won’t but we will, your an asshole!

The truth will come out and we have your place saved in the detention camps. The administrations conspiracy therory is a myth.

There goes the next class of Rhodes scholars… just as soon as they get out of Middle School or turn 19… whichever comes first.

Do you realize that along with having a PhD from Cal Tech, Bowman is former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force?

“You crazy, you a nut” doesn’t cut it in a legitimate debate about the facts, even if you’re in first grade.  Sorry.

The Right dominated the political-intellectual landscape for quite a long time in the US but blogs like this are just another indication that those days are long over.

You want to play games batty, or show some intelligence, we can do either one your choice, unless you have nothing intelligent to say....  thats what I thought.

I am tellin’ ya, wackjob central is linking sayanything today. jakey, do you know anything about demo-ing large structures? Have a clue at all? How many people? How many tons of explosive? How many manhours required? Even the slightest idea?

Yes we do know how much, and how long, it has all been figured out, if you need links let me know. Better yet goggle Steven Jones or 9/11 scholars. But I suppose its easier to just guess.

Bowman is the ultimate authority on everything in the universe.  911 was an inside job! I know.  I was there.  Cheney was flying the planes.  Bush pushed the plunger that blew up the dynamite that took the towers down. There were no planes.  The missing people are just missing.  I hated flight 93 the movie.  The left is patriotic.  We know more than everyone on everything and when someone who was the ultimate technician on super space shuttles and stuff says something you just better apologize and kiss his ass and say you were wrong and call Howard Dean and Cynthia McKinney and apologize!

Jimbo,

I’d be glad to show some intelligence… if I thought you could halfway keep up, and not embarass yourself in the process.

And oh yeah.  Some guy used gasoline some cinder blocks and some chicken wire and he proved that Bush blew up the pentagon and that Howard Dean never told that elderly person to shut up in Iowa.  And if you even DARE to question the conspiracy theories of Bowman or if you don’t take the time to refute every single one of his lies then Cynthia McKinney actually won the primary and WE WILL RULE FOREVER AND EVER!!

see ya, when you get a clue let us know, until then that spit flying out of your mouths is getting all over your face cause your facing the wind of truth. There I’m talking like you, sounds intelligent huh!
Now do you understand. Try reading for a change, and turn off fox,
you might learn something.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Steven Jones HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Thats rich, you almost made me spray tea out of my nose. You ever demoed a structure, of any size? Ever handled commercial explosives, C4, TNT, Simtex? Firecrackers, bottlerockets? Blown your nose without mommy holding the tissue? You are monumentally ignorant, truly, you rank among the galactically stupid.

What a load of nothing… according to your expert theory there is no need for demolition companies, all you have to do is crash a plane into a 100 story building and it falls within an hour, straight down in its own foot print.  Matter of fact you don’t even have too crash a plane, WTC7 came down without being even hit. Gee you are so smart.

They lie about everything and you lap it up, sick.

YEAH!  Like ALL you have to do is CRASH A PLANE into a building to make it fall!!!  That’s ALL!

all you have to do is crash a plane into a 100 story building and it falls within an hour, straight down in its own foot print.

Apparently so. Considering it had never happened before in real life, who are you to say it couldn’t have happened that way?

Besides, if the point of this conspiracy was to terrorize the nation, more extreme violence would have been even more effective. So a demolition where the WTC didn’t fall straight down but rather toppled sideways doing even more destruction, would have been more terrible, no?

It is little points like that, that make you conspiracy nuts look so stupid.

Heheheh, I mean, just the idea that these conspirators wanted to create all this destruction, and then go out of their way to do a ‘controlled demolition’ when they could have just gone with wanton destruction, and then engineered a hijacking to cover it up . . .

How stupid would you have to be to believe all that?

Baby jim, turn off your computer, walk out that rectangular opening in the room you are now in, and get a clue. Learn something by direct expirence, get a job and an education. Perhaps you may live long enough to figure something out. For a point of reference, I was blowing shit up before you were born. Hell, I was probably out of the Army before you were born. Wake up! The entire world is outside of that room you are huddled in.

jim Young - less of these abhorrent responses please. Keep the nasty bedroom talk in your bedroom.

Thank you in advance.

… cause your facing the wind of truth.

How typically troll-ish to take something that might well have been linguistically artful and admirable (’cause you’re facing into the wind of truth) and instead make of it something dreary and banal.  More churlish drivel from the looney left.  What a bore!

Wow!!! more government conspiracy theorists… I must believe. If the buildings had toppled they could have destroyed wall-street...duh!! It takes a big show to move a nation to war, wtc was the perfect target. And since when did three buildings in one day just collapse ever before. Comon, is this all you have, this is way to easy.

I heard OJ Simpson never actually landed on the moon, too!

Your so right, this is way to easy. Bring something convincing to the table. Steven Jones ain’t it, either.

A friend once wrote, “After the conflagration in the Middle East caused by Bush and that addled old man Donald Rumsfeld, we don’t need any more of the chickenhawk neocons’ ill-conceived plans to bring democracy to the Middle East at the point of a gun. Rather, we need a change to a policy that restores our multilateral relations and uses special operations and good police and intelligence work to combat terrorism, while we attempt to rid the world of the root causes of terrorism.”

DF: “we attempt to rid the world of the root causes of terrorism.”

That would be Islamic fundamentalism, right?

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

DeppFan offers little, A friend once wrote

Who cares? Your friend is full of empty criticism and high sounding rhetoric.

Islamic fundamentalism is toxic, as is right-wing Christian fundamentalism. 
It’s quite a leap from that to terrorist, though. 
Something else was the trigger:
American policy in the middle east. 
Remove the trigger and it’s a big step in the right direction.

Islamic fundamentalism is toxic, as is right-wing Christian fundamentalism.

Nonsensical attempt at equivalence.

It’s quite a leap from that to terrorist, though.
Something else was the trigger:
American policy in the middle east.
Remove the trigger and it’s a big step in the right direction.

Bullshit. That’s just a blame-America-first excuse.

Islam has been a problem for the world for far longer than America has been around.

Yours is “blame everyone but America”, first and always.  As the world’s only superpower, we are the bully on the block.  The bully doesn’t get to blame all the little punks it beats up on.

Yours is “blame everyone but America”, first and always.

No it’s not. Far from it.

As the world’s only superpower, we are the bully on the block. The bully doesn’t get to blame all the little punks it beats up on.

Whatever. Ignore the history of Islamic fundamentalism. Ignore the many reasons given by those who want us dead. Ignore the moving goalposts. Just blame America and assume that your opponents do the exact opposite.

Ignore and assume. It’s what you do.

If you consider “9/11 to be an inside job”, you have to at least admire the genius behind it! By choosing a target that had already been bombed unsucessfully by Islamists, Bush and company were able to blame the first dozen or so terrorists to hijack airplanes that day!
You also have to admire how fast the left was able to concoct myriad conspiracy theories...at least half fast…

In glancing over these comments, the most striking feature is the blatant hostility and childish name-calling from those marching in lockstep with the American empire’s propaganda, which is a manufactured image of being an essentially benign force in the world despite its violent, imperial policies. Oh, how the herd tries to police our thoughts!

This is jingoism/chauvinism; the Few Big manipulate the emotions of the Many to garner support for the cover story used to disguise it’s immoral/illegal actions ... the thing is though, it’s not as effective with the rest of the world’s vantage point of objectivity. And the rest of world is growing quite tired with the immorality, ignore-ance and apathy of our Idiocracy.

It’s the one’s who fervently support the neo fascists/Christo-fascists in power here who are victimized most by the ruse; they’re *choosing* to adhere to a “reality” which simply does not exist because it sits more comfortably [and smugly, I might add].

The inevitable awakening will eventually be a harsh slap in the face for such people when their belief systems collapse facing the reality that the “captains” of the “home team” are in fact ghoulish thugs drunk on power, seeking to bring about a pseudo “holy” war.

Remember, just because some of the surface trappings here are different than those of the 20th century European forms of fascism doesn’t mean the collusion of the corporate/state nexus doesn’t exist [that’s the brilliance of it, actually]. Ignorance of the existence of the military-industrial complex, or what drives it, doesn’t nullify it ... irrespective to how many lies you right wingers obediently swallow.

Murder, greed, religious wars, and profits over people at ALL costs are wrong, even when it stems from the country you were born in. And re 9/11: I simply cannot believe that given all of the Big War Plans [PNAC] our govt had prior to that day were calculated sans a required justification to implement them. This is why the Right HAD to illegally seize power in 2000.

Living Under Fascism

A sermon on Fascism, by minister Davidson Loehr, November 7, 2004

First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
512-452-6168 http://www.austinuu.org

You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That’s what I am about here. And even if I don’t persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.

The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

Still, it’s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word “fascism” they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and ‘30s as “corporatism,” which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in “The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul"), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it.

Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America.

In Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy - those concerned with individual rights and freedoms - as anti-American. That was 69 years ago.

One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism - a coming which he anticipated and cheered - Dennis declared that defenders of “18th-century Americanism” were sure to become “the laughing stock of their own countrymen.” The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was “liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights.”

So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and ‘30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.

Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as the enemy. “The Fascist conception of life,” he wrote, “stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.” (In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. You can read the whole entry at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html )

Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people.

Still, fascism is a word that is completely foreign to most of us. We need to know what it is, and how we can know it when we see it.

In an essay coyly titled “Fascism Anyone?,” Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 “identifying characteristics of fascism.” (The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2. Read it at http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm See how familiar they sound.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military

Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism

The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media

Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security

Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected

The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed

Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections

Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalisms worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again.

But, again, this is not America’s first encounter with fascism.

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?”

Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in the New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today.

“The really dangerous American fascist,” Wallace wrote, “is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added,

“They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

By these standards, a few of today’s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs - not to mention the largest prison system in the world.

The Perfect Storm

Our current descent into fascism came about through a kind of Perfect Storm, a confluence of three unrelated but mutually supportive schools of thought.

1. The first stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of the Project for the New American Century. I don’t believe anyone can understand the past four years without reading the Project for the New American Century, ["Rebuilding America’s Defenses,] published in September 2000 and authored by many who have been prominent players in the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,Richard Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few. This report saw the fall of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of the world, to establish a new worldwide empire. They spelled out the military enhancements we would need, then noted, sadly, that these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist country. There was no clear interest in religion in this report, and no clear concern with local economic policies.

2. A second powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson and his Christian Reconstructionists, or Dominionists. Long dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration.

Katherine Yurica, who transcribed over 1,300 pages of interviews from Pat Robertson’s 700 Club shows in the 1980s, has shown how Robertson and his chosen guests consistently, openly and passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the control of Christian Dominionists. Robertson is on record saying democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his kind of Christians. He also rails constantly against taxing the rich, against public education, social programs and welfare - and prefers Deuteronomy 28 over the teachings of Jesus. He is clear that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed. Robertson has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ. (the Yurica Report. Search under this name, or The Despoiling of America by Katherine Yurica on the internet.)

3. The third major component of this Perfect Storm has been the desire of very wealthy Americans and corporate CEOs for a plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the destruction of workers’ unions, and the alliance of government to help achieve these greedy goals. It is a condition some have called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which others recognize as a reincarnation of Social Darwinism. This strain of thought has been present throughout American history. Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace Franklin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a fascist dictator in 1934. Fortunately, they picked a general who really was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke and wrote about it. As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in the book and movie The Corporation, they have now achieved their coup without firing a shot.

Our plutocrats have had no particular interest in religion. Their global interests are with an imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the New Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise of America’s middle class after WWII.

Another ill wind in this Perfect Storm is more important than its crudity might suggest: it was President Clinton’s sleazy sex with a young but eager intern in the White House. This incident, and Clinton’s equally sleazy lying about it, focused the certainties of conservatives on the fact that “liberals” had neither moral compass nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to the moral fiber of America. While the effects of this may be hard to quantify, I think they were profound.

These “storm” components have no necessary connection, and come from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldn’t even like one another. But together, they form a nearly complete web of command and control, which has finally gained control of America and, they hope, of the world.

What’s coming

When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead. The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering. Here is some of what’s coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years:

* The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs.

* Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world.

* Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children’s education to Christian schools.

* More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work

* Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state’s official stories.

* The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway. (That was my one-sentence Veterans’ Day sermon for this year.)

* More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq.

* More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security.

* Control of the internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure.

* Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this one, and to characterize them as anti-American.

* Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control - the New York Times, for instance.

* Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America’s workers to a more desperate and powerless status.

* Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning.

* Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase.

* In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said here this morning.

In the fascist story, these things are un-American. In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive - the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing.

Can these schemes work? I don’t think so. I think they are murderous, rapacious and insane. But I don’t know. Maybe they can. Similar schemes have worked in countries like Chile, where a democracy in which over 90% voted has been reduced to one in which only about 20% vote because they say, as Americans are learning to say, that it no longer matters who you vote for.

Hope

In the meantime, is there any hope, or do we just band together like lemmings and dive off a cliff? Yes, there is always hope, though at times it is more hidden, as it is now.

As some critics are now saying, and as I have been preaching and writing for almost twenty years, America’s liberals need to grow beyond political liberalism, with its often self-absorbed focus on individual rights to the exclusion of individual responsibilities to the larger society. Liberals will have to construct a more complete vision with moral and religious grounding. That does not mean confessional Christianity. It means the legitimate heir to Christianity. Such a legitimate heir need not be a religion, though it must have clear moral power, and be able to attract the minds and hearts of a voting majority of Americans.

And the new liberal vision must be larger than that of the conservative religious vision that will be appointing judges, writing laws and bending the cultural norms toward hatred and exclusion for the foreseeable future. The conservatives deserve a lot of admiration. They have spent the last thirty years studying American politics, forming their vision and learning how to gain control in the political system. And it worked; they have won. Even if liberals can develop a bigger vision, they still have all that time-consuming work to do. It won’t be fast. It isn’t even clear that liberals will be willing to do it; they may instead prefer to go down with the ship they’re used to.

One man who has been tireless in his investigations and critiques of America’s slide into fascism is Michael C. Ruppert, whose postings usually read as though he is wound way too tight. But he offers four pieces of advice about what we can do now, and they seem reality-based enough to pass on to you. This is America; they’re all about money:

* First, he says you should get out of debt.

* Second is to spend your money and time on things that give you energy and provide you with useful information.

* Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news media and corporations that feed you lies and leave you angry and exhausted.

* And fourth is to learn how money works and use it like a (political)weapon - as he predicts the rest of the world will be doing against us. (from
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110504_snap_out.shtml)

That’s advice written this week. Another bit of advice comes from sixty years ago, from Roosevelt’s Vice President, Henry Wallace. Wallace said, “Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or indu strial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.”

Still another way to understand fascism is as a kind of colonization. A simple definition of “colonization” is that it takes people’s stories away, and assigns them supportive roles in stories that empower others at their expense. When you are taxed to support a government that uses you as a means to serve the ends of others, you are - ironically - in a state of taxation without representation. That’s where this country started, and it’s where we are now.

I don’t know the next step. I’m not a political activist; I’m only a preacher. But whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we can remember some very basic things that I think of as eternally true. One is that the vast majority of people are good decent people who mean and do as well as they know how. Very few people are evil, though some are. But we all live in families where some of our blood relatives support things we hate. I believe they mean well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us.

Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs in an ideology designed to transfer power, possibility and hope to a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do, individually and collectively. It will not be either easy or quick.

But we will do it. We will go forward in hope and in courage. Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take it - step, by step, by step.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Davidson Loehr

His academic credentials include a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in theology, philosophy of religion and philosophy of science, a master’s degree from the same university in methods for studying religions, and a bachelor’s degree in music theory from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Loehr is a regular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman and represents our church at activities and events sponsored by the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries.

Before becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister, Dr. Loehr was a combat photographer in Vietnam and a professional musician, playing clarinet and saxophone in road bands and combos. His office is lined with astounding photographs of places he has visited and people he has known.

http://www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/LivingUnderFascism.html

28-Year Career CIA Official Says 9/11 An Inside Job
Highlights missing Pentagon trillions as potential motive

“...Christison is just the latest in a deluge of former government and intelligence agency insiders to boldly go public with their doubts about the official story behind 9/11 and he has an urgent message for future whistleblowers who might be considering the same course of action.”

http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/cia_official_says_911_inside_job.htm

HH In glancing over your comments, the most striking feature is the blatant need for a dictionary!  ..."the American empire‘s propaganda...” Do you mean like our colonization of Kuwait and Iraq? Didn’t happen! (Or maybe it was hidden like your hand!)Or are you referring to our form of government where Emperor George Bush replaced Emperor Bill Clinton, who may be replaced by Emperor Clinton II… no, I think not!

And please tell me again, when you call your opponents “ghoulish thugs”, “neo fascists/Christo-fascists”, how your opponents engage in “childish name-calling”?

And the statement ”This is why the Right HAD to illegally seize power in 2000.” So, wrong, you said it twice! Listen carefully! Your meds are calling you!

1) Oh come now...my grammatical structure isn’t so bad, and certainly doesn’t seem to be at the core of what’s angered you! LOL

2) The record of empire stretches back much further than Iraq. Ever hear of East Timor?

3) I guess you’re making some sort of point based on your assumption of me being a Clinton backer? I’m not. Clinton was a moderate republican.
What this has to do with anything I wrote about is ...?

4) If one goes through the remarks, yes, there is plenty of name calling stemming from those taking your position—idiots, whacko, psycho, nut-job, crazy, etc. You yourself do the same by suggesting I’m on, or should be on, “meds.” This type of rhetoric is prominent from the right: read what I wrote earlier on psychologic projection.

On the other hand, I don’t believe people such as yourself are crazy, or evil, or should be medicated based on the views you espouse; I merely think you’ve fallen for the systematic propaganda that comprises the cultural din of one of the most highly indoctrinated societies on the planet. Call it misguided ... yet there are very real and dire consequences involved with what forms of power people choose to support or prostrate themselves to.

However, as far as name calling goes, in case you’re unable to discern the difference, I’ll point out the obvious here, k? ... I refer to those *in Power* as thugs and neo fascists, because they are. People who routinely put profits ahead of people, and make decisons that result in misery, injustice and mass murder are worthy of such epithets.

What I did not do is resort to calling the *posters* here names as my *only* recourse for outlining my position.

5) Yes, the 2000 [s]election was rigged, as was 04’. Plenty of evidence to support it, yet you’re free to ignore it. Re what’s happening though, the thing to remember is that America has one centralized corporate political party with two right wings.

A partial list -

Top Politicians, Economists, Other Leaders
State 9/11 Possibly an Inside Job:

Former Chief Economist under President Bush, Morgan Reynolds

Assistant Secretary of Treasury under Pres. Reagan, Paul Roberts

U.S. Senator Mark Dayton

U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney

Renowned Theologian Prof. David Ray Griffin

Head of Advanced Space Programs, Dept. of Defense, Robert Bowman

UK Minister of Environment (1997 - 2003), Michael Meacher

Assistant Secretary of Housing For Pres. Bush, Catherine Austin Fitts

9/11 statement signed by 100 prominent Americans, 40 9/11 family members

plenty of links:
http://www.wanttoknow.info/050908insidejob911
----------------

FORMER BUSH TEAM MEMBER -WTC COLLAPSE LIKELY INSIDE JOB

Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely A Controlled Demolition And ‘Inside Job’

Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications.
http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=79903
-------------------

Taken from The Capital Times in Madison, Wis.

Kevin Barrett: Media hide truth: 9/11 was inside job
By Kevin Barrett

Last Saturday, former Bush administration official Morgan Reynolds drew an enthusiastic capacity crowd to the Wisconsin Historical Society auditorium. It is probably the first time in Historical Society history that a political talk has drawn a full house on a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of final exams.

Reynolds, the former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and the ex-top economist for George W. Bush’s Labor Department, charged the Bush administration with gross malfeasance, and proposed the prosecution of top administration officials.

Normally, if a prestigious UW alumnus and ex-Bush administration official were to come to the Wisconsin Historical Society to spill the beans about a Bush administration scandal, it would make the news. The local TV stations would cover it, and it would merit front page headlines in The Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal.

Reynolds’ indictment of the administration he worked for was a stunning, life-changing event for many of those who witnessed it. As the event’s organizer, I have received dozens of e-mails about it from people who were deeply affected.

Despite the prestigious speaker and venue, and the gravity of the charges aired, for most Americans indeed most Madisonians the event never happened. Why? Because it was censored, subjected to a total media blackout. Not a word in the State Journal. Not a word in The Capital Times. Not a word on the local TV news. Not a word on local radio news. And, of course, not a word in the national media.

Why the blackout? Because Reynolds violated the ultimate U.S. media taboo. He charges the Bush administration with orchestrating the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for launching a preplanned “long war” in the Middle East, rolling back our civil liberties, and massively increasing military spending.

When a former Bush administration insider makes such charges, how can the media ignore them? Is Reynolds a lone crank? Hardly. A long list of prominent Americans have spoken out for 9/11 truth: Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Sen. Barbara Boxer, former head of the Star Wars program Col. Robert Bowman, ex-Reagan administration economics guru Paul Craig Roberts, progressive Jewish author-activist Rabbi Michael Lerner, former CIA official Ray McGovern, author-essayist Gore Vidal, and many other respected names from across the political spectrum have gone on the record for 9/11 truth.

Are the media ignoring all these people, and dozens more like them, because there is no evidence to support their charges? Hardly. Overwhelming evidence, from the obvious air defense stand-down, to the nonprotection of the president in Florida, to the blatant controlled demolition of World Trade Center building 7, proves that 9/11 was an inside job. As noted philosopher-theologian and 9/11 revisionist historian David Griffin writes: “It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government.”

A growing list of scientists has lined up behind BYU physicist Steven Jones and MIT engineer Jeff King in support of Griffin’s position, as evidenced by the growth of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (st911.org) and Scientific Professionals Investigating 9/11 (physics911.net).

As a Watergate-era graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism, I was taught that exposing government lies and corruption is the supreme duty of the Fourth Estate. I simply cannot fathom the current situation. I do not understand the 9/11 truth blackout. I wish someone would explain it to me.

It is time to break the 9/11 truth blackout. Please put pressure on your local media through letters to the editor, call-ins to talk radio, and phone calls to local and national journalists.

And come see Peter Phillips, director of the media watchdog group Project Censored, who will lead a strategy session on breaking the blackout at the upcoming international 9/11 truth conference in Chicago: 9/11: Revealing the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future, to be held June 2-4 at the Embassy Suites Hotel, Chicago-O’Hare Rosemont. Go to http://911revealingthetruth.org for more information.

The event will feature presentations from dozens of 9/11 truth luminaries, from scientists like Steven Jones to intelligence agency whistle-blowers like David Shayler, and promises to be a historic, watershed event. Be there, or resign yourself to a future of endless war, lost liberty, and a craven media that cannot bring itself to breathe a single word of truth.

Kevin Barrett of Madison is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (st911.org) and SPINE: Scientific Professionals Investigating 9/11 (physics911.net) and serves as coordinator of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth (mujca.com). E-mail:

Published: May 12, 2006
----------------------

Outside the Box Featuring Paul Craig Roberts - former Reagan admin Assistant Secretary of Treasury, and former Wall Street Journal editor

http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/outside-the-box-featuring-paul-craig-roberts
------------------

Cheney behind 9/11 former Star Wars Head claims
April, 5 @ 07:15 GMT
grover

Former head of the Star Wars defense program under Ford and Carter, Dr. Robert M. Bowman has said in a public interview that in his opinion, that if Osama Bin Laden and Al Qeada were responsible for 9/11 then the government stood down and let it happen. Or, elements within the government commissioned the attack and that the most likely suspect is VP Dick Cheney. He also goes on to say that America is in danger of slipping into a dictatorship and that the patriot act has done more to destroy our rights than our enemies.

http://www.atsnn.com/article/202198

...guess that’s a whole lotta meds, eh?

The question becomes: why would these Establishment names - people who, incidentally, certainly didn’t attain their professional status by recklessly lending themselves and their status to crazy sounding “conspiracy theories - be willing to sound the alarm on this if the idea is so implausible?

I’m not saying that they, by doing so, prove the claim of 9/11 as an inside job to be true by coming foward alone, in and of itself. No.

I’m asking a very rational question that cannot be dismissed by simply calling such people crazy, nuts, etc. Surely not all of these people are driven by irrational motives or impulses, political ideology, paranoia, etc. That doesn’t add up.

HH,

I wouldn’t presume to speak for the others here, but for me, anything endorsed by Mark Dayton, Robert Bowman, and Cynthia McKinney is not worth the paper its written on, and certainly not worth my time and trouble to read it.  If I want comedy, I’ll watch Leno, Lettermen, or Harry Reid instead.

Incidentally, it is my understanding that Ronald Reagan, our 40th President, was the one who initiated the SDI program, derisively called “Star Wars” by his small-minded detractors.  So how is it you list Bowman as “Former head of the Star Wars defense program under Ford and Carter.” Perhaps if you had a better idea of what you’re talking about…

Bat: Yes, the new tape from Al Jazeera must be a real problem for leftie parrots like HH…

If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

This would be a very interesting thread, if HH would stop posting multi-page articles as comments. What, is this kid like 12 or 13? No thoughts or ideas of its own? Incapable of articulating an argument of its own? And conspiracy nutjob crap on top of it all. Very sad and pathetic.

Robert108,

Anything that foucses the attention away from the meglomaniacal Mr. Bush is a “real problem for them.”

Of course, the real Emporer in waiting is Bill Clinton, who has been campaigning behind the scenes to replace Kofi Annan at the end of the year as Secretary General of the UN.

And as expected, not one of you can or did susbtantively address the numerous points I addressed, and instead rersorted to name calling and empty conjecture as per usual.

And the missle shield defense program was around before Ray-gun. Do your homework.

Also, “Bush,” per se, isn’t the problem.

And why exactly would this constitute an “interesting” thread only if I hadn’t included access to source material? And you accuse me of being 12 or 13?!

STICK TO THE FACTS AND DROP THE NAME CALLING

...if you can

And as expected, not one of you can or did susbtantively address the numerous points I addressed, and instead rersorted to name calling and empty conjecture as per usual.

And the missle shield defense program was around before Ray-gun. Do your homework.

Also, “Bush,” per se, isn’t the problem.

And why exactly would this constitute an “interesting” thread only if I hadn’t included access to source material? And you accuse me of being 12 or 13?!

STICK TO THE FACTS AND DROP THE NAME CALLING

...if you can