Bush's "Christian" Base! Haw-haw-haw!

So now the Pom-Pom Boy-in-Chief has determined to go to bat for the "right" to torture.

So much for his claim that his favorite "philosopher" is Jesus Christ. Or that his political base is Christian.

The only "philosopher" he seeks to emulate is Adolf Hitler. Or maybe Attila the Hun. And his base is comprised of forlornly pathetic, stupid people.

Anybody who tells me that he or she is a Christian, while rah-rahing a coward who ran from his duty to serve in Vietnam and who now not only sends other young people out to do what he was afraid to, but who also advocates torture, is nothing but a clown. His followers couldn't be any more ridiculous if they wore frizzy orange wigs, red rubber noses, big floppy shoes and squirting carnations.

The "Christian" Right is nothing but a gigantic fraud. I wouldn't be surprised, on the Day of Reckoning, to discover that it is the very Antichrist itself.

These people won't stop making asses of themselves until they have destroyed every last shred of credibility they ever had.

And at the very same time they clamor to see unconvicted prisoners tortured, they crusade against equal treatment under the law for gays.

There's a connection between those two seemingly-unconnected facts. Wake up, America, and recognize what's just as plain as the red, rubber nose on your face!

Aquarius -- or Armageddon?

Well, here it is...the day for which this Blog was named. As I have already explained in this space, I was born on a September 11th. As I have also already explained, so was the Twenty-first Century as we now know it.

My few, very hardy loyal readers have followed my spasms of self-analysis over the past ten months. They know how bitter, angry and defeated I have been. At least a few may also have realized something about me that I've only just begun to realize about myself.

I haven't been defeated. I have been defeatist.

I now confess that I have long felt as if good times -- the hopeful and progressive times -- were all behind us. I have mocked those who keep their torches lit for a new tomorrow. Not because my dreams were any different than theirs, but simply because I was ready to give up on them, and I thought they were bringing heartbreak upon themselves for not doing the same. I had suffered so many hurts, insults and deep disappointments over the failures of liberal progressivism -- and, more specifically, the Democratic Party -- that I felt I had to wake up to a harsh reality and toughen myself to face it. That is the way frustrated idealists almost always react when the backlash of the backwards against them turns into a cataclysmic storm.

But if the only people in this country who are willing to keep fighting the good fight are those fighting the WRONG fight -- those who persist in helping terrorist-recruitment efforts in the Middle East with their insane insistence upon "winning hearts and minds" by invading small countries and bombing the crap out of their children -- then we're all doomed. America is being run by neo-fascist nuts who think that God is calling them to bring on Armageddon. I can't laugh anymore at those who want to work for a new Age of Aquarius. I've come to realize that if, indeed, they don't succeed, the price we'll all have to pay is just too high.

It's come to that, people: Aquarius or Armageddon. Either way, we've got to slay the Dragon that threatens to devour us. The warmongers in the Islamist world and those in our own society are not enemies -- no matter how vociferously they claim to be against each other. The warmongering, fundamentalist religious loonies have declared war against every one of us who refuses to sell out to their evil agenda. Just like the worst of the Islamists, our own King George would use bad religion to enslave us, and terror to keep us in line.

Those who want to think I'm a starry-eyed dreamer can go ahead and laugh all they want to. I'd rather stand for something than fall for anything.

Second Thoughts -- Part III

Okay, so it's conclusion time. Where do my second thoughts lead me?

As choices obviously must be made as to which segments of the population will bear the primary burdens of "libertarianizing" society (and I do believe that this libertarian direction is ultimately the one in which, to save this country, we must go), I must admit that I definitely have strong preferences in the matter. Those who bear the primary burdens, who pay the biggest share of the price, must be those best able to afford it. It must be the wealthy and the comfortable, the powerful and the privileged.

The only way this would ever happen would be if the libertarian movement moved to the Left, the Left moved toward libertarianism, and the twain met in the middle. A movement full of former Right-wing Republicans just ain't gonna cut it. That is, however, exactly what today's libertarian movement is.

Do I think more liberals will be attracted to libertarianism as I have been? Given the heavy-handedly statist turn of the Right wing, it is certainly possible. But thus far I see very little sign of it.

I will be blunt. Ultimately, I would prefer to see our society conform as closely as possible to the libertarian model. But if that does not happen -- and UNTIL it happens -- I would vastly prefer to see the Left running things than I would the Right. And I would rather see the Left running things forever and evermore than to see the country become libertarian at the expense of those who would most suffer to bear the brunt of it.

At this point I can just see libertarian eyes narrow. "You're not a true believer," they would sneer. And no, I suppose I'm really not.

We can't simply flip a switch, or wiggle our noses like Samantha on Bewitched, and make the libertarian vision happen. I wish we could just as much as the libertarians do, but I think we can all just pretty much shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which one fills up faster. If our vision ever comes to be a reality at all -- and that is a very big IF -- it will only happen slowly and gradually. Imperfectly. Because we aren't angels, and we do not yet reside in Heaven.

I don't know yet how this affects my party affiliation. Here comes yet another national election, and the Libertarian Party is as disorganized and head-in-the-clouds as ever. The Democrats show little sign of returning to their former convictions, so to run right back into their arms may not be the answer either. Though it could very well be that I -- and people like me -- have a better chance of reforming the Democratic Party than we ever would of helping the Libertarians come down to earth and come up with a strategy that has any hope of making their party a contender.

Immediately on the horizon is the necessity of taking our country back from the jackbooted fascists who now run it. For the time being, at the very least, I will back whichever party shows itself most up to the task.

To mark the first September 11th of this blog, I will officially launch its brand-new format, concentrating from then on on what I have come to believe should be its biggest concerns. Stay tuned, darlings. It's taken awhile, but Born on 9-11 is about to hit its stride.