Kiss Of Death
Even though almost all major Pennsylvania newspapers have endorsed Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton finally won an endorsement--from Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune Review. This is the man that spent millions trying to destroy her husband. Machievelli said, "Politics have no relation to morals" and Mrs. Clinton is proving out his words. That she so earnestly sought out this endorsement will be pondered by historians in the future. Scaife's views are clear--Hillary is moving towards his view of the world.
Many of her views on domestic issues are too liberal for us, but on others she seems to have moderated. She told the Trib she opposes raising the cap on Social Security taxes, and she is less eager to raise income taxes than Obama.
For progressives with a memory, this should be the kiss of death.
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Comments (44)
It's hard to grasp. Has Hillary all by herself evoked the extreme hatred towards her, or have the sub rosa elements in the Rep Party created it, or have the media created it by early on declaring her the presumptive Dem candidate?
However it's happened, it's the latter which has really raised the shackles of voters. Tell people who believe that they live in a democracy that their votes are meaningless, and what is happening to support for Hillary is a given.
April 20, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is sure to give Hillary's campaign a huge boost.
With The Puppet Master of "The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" and The Big Fat Pillbilly having endorsed her, can it be long before Cheney, Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales throw their support behind Hillary.
This could be the spark that ignites her campaign and allows her wrest away the nomination from John McCain
April 20, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't Brittney Spears say we should just 'trust' Richard Mellon Scaife. or was she talking about George W.? Would you have to be as dumb as dirt to believe any Republican bigshot gives a shit about the average American?
April 20, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perfect. Good timing too. Combine this with her dissing moveon and the liberal activist base and a lovely picture emerges.
April 20, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Creepy.
We swim in an ocean of lies. DAVID BARSTOW's disturbing NYT reportage "Message Machine
Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand" today speaks to the veracity of the socalled conspiracy theories once again proven accurate and correct descriptions of crimes, abuses, deceptions, failures, treasons, and wanton profiteering proselytized and practiced by the fascists in the Bush, and all those who aid and abet them.
Wars may have just causes, but wars that are mass marketed, and sold by "message-force multipliers" are certainly unjust. There is no righting this terrible wrong. Perception management, information domination, disinformation warfare, propaganda, and slime campiagns can brute fairytales and parables, but there is painting lipstick on the bloody, costly pig that is Iraq.
The facists in the Bush government are reaping obscene fortunes, but the American people will gain nothing positive and beneficial from the Bush governments predation, inhumanity, perversions, betrayals, treasons, wanton profiteering, and tyranny in Iraq and here in the land of Oz. Worse, the terrible costs in blood, treasure, and tarnished credibility are ruthlessly heaped upon the shoulders of our children who will inherit an America loathed worldwide, and with good reason.
Hillary's too close to the fascists in the Bush government in mind and practice.
McCain is a vote for the fascists and the unabated perpetuation of the exact same predations, deceptions, financial malfeasance, wanton profiteering, the perfidious reengineering of the Constitution, and the perversion and betrayal of the principles that previously defined America.
Obama has perculiar "issues" as well and makes mistakes.
American's are in fact left with sad choice of the lesser of three evils.
Obama is our only little hope for somethinglike "change".
"Deliver us from evil!"
April 20, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tony-I've tried to dissect the Pentagon's Psy-ops on the American public on my regular blog.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/military-sock-puppets/
April 20, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word 'round Pittsburgh is that Hillary's promise to rid our drinking water of Communist fluoride elements was the key in getting Scaife to come around.
April 20, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahhhh...it's about the precious bodily fluids.
April 21, 2008 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-farrakhan25feb25,0,6391391.story
This is Kiss Of Death in GE.
April 20, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except, um, Obama didn't go hat in hand to ask for and receive Farrakhan's blessing. As far as I know, the two have never met.
If you actually read the post, you'd know that HRC courted Scaife. But then, she's shown a willingness to let bygones-be-bygones that would bother people who cared about, you know, progressive politics and character.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTGbI8pzvqk
"Thank you Karl!!"
April 20, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thougt that Obama was going to unite the country.
April 20, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
and your cat's name is Mittens.
April 20, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Intriguing blog Jon Taplin and your erudite commentary shines a hot light on systemic crimes and wanton profiteering by the fascists in the Bush government, and all those who aid and abet them.
You are correct in the assertion that - "Until a truly free press made up of newspapers, TV networks and the blogosphere refuses to participate in this charade of propaganda dissemination, we will not be able to reclaim our democracy." Tragically, that dim hope exists far into the unknown unknown future, and the all socalled MSM are complicit parrots, propagandists, and disinformation warriors on the payroll of the facists in the Bush government.
"Deliver us from evil!"
April 20, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deliver us from corporate media, too. Don't expect to hear too much about the NY Times' article tomorrow on the tube. That would be admitting they were hoodwinked by their own crooked military analysts, that the networks themselves failed to completely vet these brass-laden war profiteers. The networks would have to explain themselves, and they won't go there.
April 20, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
maybe the networks were 'hoodwinked' by the crooked analysts in exactly the same way Hillary was able to trust Bush to use wisdom and restraint when she authorized his use of military force against Iraq and later Iran ...
right! how could they have known what they were doing?! and who they were dealing with? or what the consequences could be?
April 21, 2008 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jon,
For the rest of us why would this be the kiss of death? Would you go ahead and say what you really are saying? Do you think she somehow "forgave" the man for destroying her husband and herself and now is in league with him?
I don't understand this tact at all from Obama supporters. What exactly do you think it signifies? I say nothing. I say she knows who the hell Scaife is and what he represents. She also knows it will be good to co-op him now and keep the venom at a minimum for either Candidate in the General.
Is he and Bill now fascists? Going to do anything everything to "own" America? I just don't get it.
April 20, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you're trying to convince me that she's being magnanimous in doing this, it's not working.
April 21, 2008 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
What progressives still supported her anyway? She is pretty much running completely on the moderate side of the Party now, and on some good ol' Limbaugh "Democrats".
April 20, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Limbaugh Democrats?
What exactly are Limbaugh Democrats?
April 20, 2008 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary Clinton finally won an endorsement--from Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
Politics can make for the strangest of bedfellows. The wingnutjob Rapturists might be right...the end of the world might be very imminent. I am just trying to figure out exactly who is the Antichrist.
April 20, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah yes. Another kiss of death. Wasn't Obama endorsed by Louis Farrakhan? Or was it the other way around? Or was it Jeremiah Wright? I can never keep all these kisses of death straight.
April 20, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, one BIG difference in the kissing department, is that Hillary is the only one who kissed the ass of someone who tried to capitalize on the Clinton's tendency to self-destruct by bad behavior. This guy helped impeach her husband (through which her 35 years of "experience" came) -- you'd think she would have some pride.
Or not.
April 20, 2008 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Riddle me this progressives? Is and/or did the office of the executive violate the 3rd Amendment and by virtual means house the military in the homes of Americans in the form of the NSA and whoknowswhat Total Information Awareness programs, and by conducting pentagon PsyOps operations, information domination, perception management, disinformation warfare, and slime operations on the American people, misusing the peoples money?
"Deliver us from evil!"
April 20, 2008 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
From where I sit Tony the office of the executive violated the 3rd and not an insignificant number of other amendments.
The question is who is willing to deliver us from the evil? That Psy-Ops deal reinforces to me the warning about the M-I complex which Eisenhower gave on his way out the door. Who now is brave enough to try to stop feeding the War Machine and hopefully be able to live to tell about it? It is The Beast...
April 20, 2008 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word Libertine, and the answer to your query is us. The American people must muster the courage to confront these crimes, and these criminals (and suffer the certain blowback) and hold our government, and our government officials accountable to the law, to people, and to the Constitution they swore oaths to defend.
One option is setting aside all the babel about the necessity of working with future gop leadership and forcing IMPEACHMENT back on the table. What could democrats or progressives possibly loose. Would there be any less slime or scurrilous attacks on progressives, democrats, or liberals? Would there be any fewer abuses, deceptions, financial malfeasance, perfidy, and wanton profiteering by the fascists in the Bush government and all those who aid and abet them?
Would the people be denied any more rights, freedoms, privileges, and protections?
We already suffer these grievous abuses, and until the people demand accountability, - we will continue to suffer, burden, and hazard the terrible, bloody costs in blood, treasure, and lost credibility hoisted upon us by the fascists and wanton profiteers in the Bush government.
It is a masochistic, selfdestructive delusion for democrats or progressives to imagine, that by allowing the criminals and fascists in the Bush government to walk away unaccountable for crimes, deceptions, abuses, and wanton profiteering, that democrats or progessives would somehow be afforded more bipartisan support in the future. We all want peace on earth, and good will towards men, but that ancient hope will never be possible until, and unless criminals are held accountable for crimes, liars are held accountable for lies, and wanton profiteers are held accountable for wanton profiteering.
We either go like sheep to the slaughter, or we stand up, act, and demand accountability from our leadership and prosecute criminals for grievous crimes.
The people have the right "...to petition the government for redress of grievances." It is long past time for the people to act on, and demand that right.
"Deliver us from evil."
April 20, 2008 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
In principle I agree with you 1000% Tony. I want people held accountable in the worst way, now and in the future. But I am not optimistic. My lack of optimism stems from the fact that the giving of money to political parties and politicians has been elevated to the level of protected 1st amendment speech. The more money the higher level of rights afforded the possessor. I am all for free market capitalism but that no longer exists. What we have now, thanks to 1970's money=free speech SCOTUS ruling, is quasi-fascist Corporatism masquerading as democracy. And the 2% with the most money will always prevail over the other 98% of us.
And I agree with oleeb further down the thread when he reminds everyone that even though Obama is a better candidate, even if only marginally than Clinton, there is no true progressive in the running. That being said HRC is crawled into the belly of The Beast by seeking Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement...he represents everything that is regressive and wrong in America. I will not soon, if ever, forgive her for it.
April 21, 2008 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
but clearly, TonyForesta, not all of us do want peace on earth and goodwill towards men!
it seems to me that the criminals in the BushCo gang leveraged some level of corruption in enough of us to gain their power over most of us ... too many of us gave them that power without even a struggle or objection!
but I agree that the way for us to correct that gross wrongdoing and redeem ourselves is to seek accountability and justice in all the crimes done in our name!
this may take generations ... considering how well we're doing at this point!
think of the Nazi hunters who never gave up!!
and we can enlist the whole world in our pursuit of these war criminals ... I'm sure there are many willing to enforce justice for all!
April 21, 2008 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
PA feels like Ohio. She didn't need the endorsement anyway. Hillary is impressive in a lot of ways but, still, I find the scenario of her successfully destroying Obama kind of depressing to contemplate.
April 20, 2008 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is more than a little weird that the Scaife paper endorses Hillary and that she so actively sought it out.
Nonetheless, despite her pandering to the right, the differences between Hillary and Obama remain small. Yes, he's better than she is, but not by much. He's just another DLC Democrat and don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
Without question Hillary should drop out after Pennsylvania (for her own sake at this point as she's doing little more than embarassing herself). But, just because she is making a fool of herself and her lust for power is in overdrive, don't make the mistake of believing that means Obama is a whole lot better on any of the important issues facing the nation. There's simply no evidence for that conclusion.
April 21, 2008 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, oleeb.
But Obama's leadership might help to empower enough people who are more apt to take us to a much healthier course ...
e.g. she would oppose our 'activist base', whereas Obama might engage and help to spur it forward in reaching for and achieving its natural inclinations toward more truly democratic resolutions of the issues we must face and deal with by just means etc ...
and, even if he didn't make heroic efforts at achieving such goals, the people who worked for his victory might just insist on doing so anyway! they/we might just keep working for what we hoped he would help to deliver, and thereby reach it without him if necessary! or dragging him along, so to speak ...
April 21, 2008 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you're right, but it's far more likely that you're not. There's no evidence to suggest that the more optimisitic parts of your post will happen either as the campaign has developed or historically.
We're far more likely to see an Obama Presidency that does pretty much what Clinton did in terms of assuaging the legitimate aspirations of the left/liberal wing of the part and of most citizens coincidentally, telling people to "be patient", "we must compromise in order to get anything done" and so on. Meanwhile, the inexperienced White House staff Obama appoints will commit the classic errors of trying to do too much, too soon (a la Clinton's first six months) and will get branded as inept and without direction, etc...
I don't like being pessimistic, I'd rather not be, but I don't like fooling myself either. All we will accomplish if Obama gets elected (in terms of policy not the obvious symbolism) will be to stave off even further abuse by the Republicans. Little or nothing will be achieved on health care, reducing poverty, the war will not be ended, our economy will continue to be sold off to the Chinese, etc...
April 21, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
what you say may all be true; it does sound extremely 'reality-based' ! I must allow ...
however, none of us really knows what will happen either.
perhaps it is better to imagine how we might make progress so that we do not unnecessarily defeat ourselves when confronting these realities ...
even though 'our leaders' may not actually believe in democracy, wouldn't it be something if it caught on with most of us? hahaha!
we fall in love with it and don't give up ... as if our lives depended on realizing it! we refuse to betray our humanity (any more)!
April 21, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one would be happier to be surprised on all this than me I can tell you that.
Unfortunately, there's just nothing going on that would indicate anything like what you're hoping for. Citizens have almost mindlessly given their support to two candidates who clearly do not advocate the sorts of solutions (changes) that the people of this country need. The citizens have not done anything that would assist in organizing themsleves into a force to be dealt with other than voters for whichever of the two you like best. Thus, when the inevitable result occurs and it is plain as day that we are not only not going to see any meangingful change, but that they aren't even going to try to achieve it, it will be far too late to organize and most people will be so disheartened by the betrayal they won't be capable of taking any kind of action even in protest.
The vaunted Obama "movement" for change is no movement at all. It's just a campaign tactic to energize Obama supporters. As with ever campaign, the "movement" will be boarded up the day after the campaign is over in November and will not reappear until re-election time.
April 21, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I confess that I can believe what you say is true and that it will be so ...
but perhaps somewhere on this planet another people will try to achieve what humanity needs!
let's hope for the best and do what we can!
thank you.
April 21, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paging Idiotic ... Mr. Id Iotic, please... paging idiotic?
April 21, 2008 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, I understand that the so-called (by You-Know-Her) "vast, right-wing conspiracy" has a new conspirator: namely, You-Know-Her. Somehow, the word "irony" just doesn't cover the enormity of You-Know-Her's desperate "clinging" to "bitter" old rich reactionaries like Scaife. (Money may not buy happiness, but enough of it will fund as much fascist bile and spite as any one nation can possibly stomach.)
And lest anyone not understand by now why the rabid right in America so loathes Bawl and Pillory Clinton (yet wants to have them back as principle targets rather than Senator Obama), consider what scientist/logician/pholosopher Charles Sanders Peirce said back at the end of the nineteeth century:
"Where two faiths flourish side by side, renegades are looked upon with contempt, even by the party whose beliefs they have adopted."
Or, as my Chinese wife says that the Chinese say about turncoats: "Our enemies we just kill right away, but traitors we torture."
Or, as the old Ozark Arkansas story has it: a hilbilly bridegroom came back to the old homestead after his wedding night without his new bride. Thee hillbilly boy's pappy asked" "Where'z yore wyfe?" To which the outraged hillbilly son replied: "I shot her, paw?" (HP): "Why'd jew dew that?" (HS): "She were a virgin, Paw!" (HP): "Well, then I don't blame ya nun, sun. If she weren't good enuf fer her own fambly, then she sure as hell ain't good enuf fer ourn."
Sure, the rabid, reactionary Republicans will cynically use "Democrats" like Zell Miller, Holy Joe Lieberman, and You-Know-Her to bad-mouth their own Democratic Party in exchange for a few public pats on the head, but after pissing in their faces only to hear them beg for another taste of the urine, no self-styled Republican could ever respect -- let alone vote for -- them.
You-Know-Her and Bubba Bill have never figured this out. Incredibly, the Partners in Pathos seem to think that Republicans hate and kick them around so much because the Clintons haven't "triangulated" away from their own party and toward the Republicans enough. But nobody likes a sell-out and a kiss-ass, which explains why self-respecting Democrats and independents this November will in no way vote for either You-Know-Her or John McBomb.
April 21, 2008 3:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Socalled progressives need to realize that the only legitimate response to anything bruted by any fascist in the Bush government should be met with peels of uproarious laughter, concerted disrespect, and fierce opposition. Nothing, not one syllable pimped by anyone in the Bush government, or anyone who aids and abets them has any veracity, or basis in reality, or is deserving of one nanoparticle of of the peoples respect, goodwill, goodfaith, or trust. The fascist in the Bush government and the gop enablers and defenders are pathological liars, and should not be afforded any respect or trust. Spurn and ignore the fascist proclamations and partisan parables and deny these fiends any credibility or legitimacy. The fascists in the Bush government have raped, dismantled, mangled, and insidiously reengineered the Constitution, and perverted and betrayed every principle that formally defined America.
Laugh at, and mock these fiends, reprobates, rank criminals, and wanton profiteers, and force and demand accountability. Were there any real investigations into the mass murder and mayhem of 9/11, or the perfidious mass marketing of the bloody costly, noendinsight war and occupation in Iraq - the fascists in the Bush government would be forever damned. The people lack courage and conviction. The people were formally fat and happt and willing to accept the lawlessness and radical perversion and betrayal of the principles that formally defined America, - but once we demand accountability from our fascist leadership, - there will be a reckoning and a balancing, and a restoration to the rule of law and respect for, and devotion to the Constitution. Until that day, Americans will be subjected and forced to pay for, hazard, and endure the terrible costs in blood, treasure, and lost credibility resulting from the fascist predations, wanton profiteering, and rank tyranny of the fascists in the Bush government.
As painfull as it may be, - the American people must, recognize, redresss, and hold accountable the fascist in the Bush government for crimes, deceptions, abuses, failures, and wanton profiteering. If we do not, - then we, the American people may actually deserve whatever fiery pit and hell the fascist in the Bush government hurl us into.
"Deliver us from evil"
April 21, 2008 4:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Deliver us from evil," sounds like a supplication for some non-existent Big Spook in the Sky to "come on down" and "save us" from our own fascists that too many of our fellow citizens voted into office. As a non-subscriber to Single Spook Animism, I believe in a more do-it-ourselves kind of self-deliverance.
I say we need to shrink the numbers of fascists in our government by hauling them -- starting with Sheriff Dick and Deputy Dubya -- one by one into an Iraqi home with no electricity in the bathroom and drown the perps in the stinking, stopped-up toilet. Afterwards, any Single Big Spook in the Sky who may or may not approve can do or not do whatever I don't give a damn that it does or does not do after we do ourselves what we secular humans need to do -- namely, "establish justice and assure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
April 21, 2008 6:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's most reasonable of you to not believe in something outside of your own experience; just as it is of us to believe in what we have experienced.
None of which prevents us from sharing the same responsibilities for our own fates.
My own preference is that I may seek the help of the One Who created life itself -- the power far greater than my own or any other creature in this world.
Do you really need to presume so much as to assume such mocking derision of those of us who do not share all of your particular limitations?
April 21, 2008 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I stated a secular observation. You inferred a "mockery" of something that you apparently hold "sacred," by which term F.C.S. Schiller meant "a fear that anything so denominated cannot withstand scrutiny." Infer away at your pleasure and even sanctify your fear of examining reality. I can't stop you. But please take responsibility for your own inferences and don't try to present your undemonstrated, superstitious animism (pardon the redundancy) as some sort of viable alternative to rational, secular research into how the world really works and how we might best use the results of such research to better our lives here on earth in the present.
I have a master's degree in "Religious Studies," so I write on this subject having at least some acquaintaince with animism's various manifestations throughout human history. "Religion" means "animism," by definition; although I've seldom in my life met an avowedly "religious" person (other than a few Buddhists) who had ever taken the slightest interest in actually defining "religion" in a rigorous way that helps lead to a worthwhile -- by which I mean, prophylactic -- psychological understanding. (My favorite Buddhist monk, the Sri Lankan Venerable Madawela Punnaji calls religion "a public neurosis in which the entire community shares." Therefore, as I wrote somewhere in my unfolding verse epic, "Fernando Po, U.S.A.":
The concept of the single GAWD
Leaves little more to mock.
Yet charlatans consider it
Their tawdry trade and stock
No worse idea ever crawled
From underneath a rock.
The general-semanticist (and humanitarian professor of speech pathology) Wendell Johnson summed up animism best (in his classic text People in Quandaries by describing its various historic instances as pre-scientific "Plogglie Theories." Wrote Johnson, effectively disposing of the entire subject in a few short paragraphs:
My dear, departed mother tried to inculcate Single Spook Animism in me, from infancy onward, and if she couldn't do it, certainly no one else can. I have studied animism and animistic rituals (in several human languages) enough to know that I don't need or want any more primitive, after-the-fact "explanations" of what fickle, impetuous, inscrutable, ineffable, invisible, unaccountable, and above all unpredictable plogglies -- big and/or little -- might or might not "do" about anything with their imagined "great power." The key terms here: namely "do" and "great power," of course remain as eternally nebulous and undefined with animists as the perennial claims of imminent "victory" and "democracy" that one constantly hears blaring forth from the yawning Orwellian mouth of the fascist Dick Cheney Shogunate Regency.
At any rate, I suggest that the person genuinely interested in generic religion read the classic study of human animism by Sir James George Frazer entitled: The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion. Or, a quick easy reading of Wendell Johnson's ought to clear up any lingering suspicion that Deputy Dubya Bush really might have a "higher father" "up above" who talks to him in the dark and commands him to do such stupid and tragically awful things.
Failing any such interest in the comparative anthropology of animism, however, animists will no doubt go on obsessing about their own tender-minded conceits and superstitions until they die waiting for the Rupture that never seems to happen. In any event, I never agreed or promised to take Single Spook animists as seriously as they take themselves. As the Buddha said over two-thousand-five-hundred years ago: "You can't give offense to anyone unwilling to take it." And nobody takes offense more willingly or enthusiastically than Single Spook animists. Which truth led French mathematician Blaise Pascal (back in the seventeenth century) to truthfully observe: "No one ever does evil quite as completely or cheerfully as when he does it from religious conviction." I consider animism an intellectual and moral narcotic depressant, but I do hope that someday human intelligence and secular scientific research -- following Gallileo for the past five hundred years and Darwin for the last hundred and fifty -- will dispell animism's unexamined influence over the fearfully subservient American and rid us of its unfortunate political profitablilty at their and our expense.
April 21, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Michael Murry,
Never fear, you needn't imagine that you have offended me. In fact, you certainly can be entertaining when you try. Your studies too are impressive, no doubt.
Although, in my own experience, the human intellect can only go so far in examining reality. Not that I presume to have extra-ordinary intellect either, mind you! hahaha There are, I find, other human means of connecting to or realizing the truth.
Actually, I never mentioned religion (or GAWD either). Were you inferring something based more on your own familiarities or associations?
But I think perhaps you may presume too much in considering another's 'supplications' or how another person might direct them.
And I agree with you that it is not necessary that any of us 'go on obsessing about their own tender-minded conceits'; but you do sound to me unnecessarily rough, even a bit mean, in some of your notions about what you think some of us may be up to.
But if you are angry I cannot say you have no reason. Indeed, I'd have to agree that I do not know of anything that has not, at times, been corrupted and abused or misused.
But I'm sure that reality still includes all manner of worthwhile truth and goodness, and even that it may depend more on the One Who created it than on us alone who among us shall receive awareness of such truth and goodness or anything else.
Since this is not particularly rational, I suppose I should forgive you in case you may believe me to be deluded or deficient perhaps in intellect or sufficient studies etc, because I do speak of experience beyond the grasp of the mind or intellect. And if that's all you're using to work with -- well, there's the difficulty!
I hope that you receive all that you need or want -- as long as you do no harm to others whom you may at times deplore.
April 21, 2008 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
My theory is that the Clintons were so traumatized by the rightwing attacks in the 90s that they are suffering from a variation on Stockholm Syndrome, which describes the behavior of kidnap victims who over time identify with or become sympathetic to their captors.
April 21, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone else watch Hillary on Olberman, when he asked about this endorsement. Keith was incredulous...Hillary just laughed and laughted while he was forming the question she just didn't seem in control of the laugh.
I had the impression that she was laughing AT Keith and all of us in the electorate who would find it strange that she and Schaife would be bedfellows.
It seemed to say to me that she knows she is not what she appears to be and that is why we are so flummoxed by what and who she actually is.
Her laughed was condescendingly acknowledging that we are trivial beings.
Quite awful...Keith was very ticked.
April 21, 2008 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dark conspiratorial thoughts; phantasies of portents and omens, when instead the more likely answer is that Scaife has come to realise after witnessing the Bush Administration, that W.J. Clinton wasn't so bad a president.
It should also be noted when discussing Scaife and his paper that he has come out strongly against the continuing war effort in Iraq, and even backed Murtha for Head of the House.
And then there may be a bit of guilt playing on Scaife, after he got the tables turned on him over his divorce proceedings, and the tawdry details of his adultery in a 3-hour rate motel with a woman once arrested for soliciting a vice-cop in a convention hotel. It didn't take trolling $100 bills through an Arkansas trailer park to come up with the dirty details either.
April 22, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink