Filibustering Frist!

Filibustering Frist!

DavidNYC at Daily Kos reports on "Filibustering Frist Comes to DC":

"By now you've certainly heard about the Princeton students who've been filibustering Bill Frist for over (as of this writing) 367 consecutive hours. Last night, they took their filibuster on the road and made their way to the Capitol in Washington, DC. After reading about it in this diary, I knew I had to go pay them a visit...this phase of the filibuster comes to its denouement tomorrow, with a big rally and press conference planned for 11am, complete with members of Congress. If you're in the area, you should definitely swing by....It's been a brilliant piece of political theater and has gotten great press coverage. It's also been a great a example of how blogs can be used as an organizing tool and as a way to get your message out......"

The organizers of Filibuster Frist are going to be on CSPAN's Washington Journal tomorrow morning during the last hour.

May 11th

"Inside
Politics" (video) - CNN, 5/1
"Princeton's Mock Filibuster Visits D.C." - U.K. Guardian (from AP), 5/11
"Princeton's Mock Filibuster Visits D.C."- L.A. Times (AP wire), 5/11
The
Frist Filibuster Hits Washington - Time.com, 5/11
Princeton
University's Filibuster Fight Heading to Washington - WNBC.com, 5/11

"Protest Travels to Capitol Hill" - Daily Princetonian, 5/11

"Harvard Dems Filibuster 'Nuclear Option'" - The Crimson, 5/11

May 10th

"Students filibuster against Frist at his alma mater" - CNN.com

"Princeton's filibuster fight heading to Washington" - Newsday (from AP)

"Students give Frist taste of filibuster" - Yuma Sun, 5/10

May 9th

"Blogwatch" - TIME Magazine, 5/9

"Anatomy of a filibuster" - The Daily Princetonian, 5/9

"Princeton Undergrads Speak Up for Filibuster" - The

Dartmouth, 5/9

May 8th

"Of Filibustering And Haberdashery" - NY Times, 5/8 (print only)

May 7th

Wikipedia - nuclear option

"7 Judges' Futures Hang in Filibuster Fight" (picture/caption) - Washington Post (from AP), 5/7

"Don't like filibusters? Just listen" - Courier News, 5/8

May 6th

Transcript - Crossfire - CNN, 5/6

"Filibuster at Princeton Sends Frist a Message" - The New York Times, 5/6

"Princeton 'filibuster' rips alum Frist" - MSNBC News (from AP), 5/6

"Filibuster Protest Continues at Princeton" - The New York Times (from AP), 5/6

"Filibuster

Protest Continues at Princeton" - UK Guardian Unlimited (from AP), 5/6

"Filibuster Protest Continues at Princeton" - The Washington Post (from AP), 5/6

"Filibuster Protest Continues at Princeton" - ABC News (from AP), 5/6

"Princeton Students Protest Anti-Filibuster Frist" - Fox News (from AP), 5/6

Filibuster Fight Slide Show - Yahoo News, 5/6

"'Nuclear Option' is partisan politics" - The Daily Princetonian, 5/6 (guest column)

Op Art - The Daily Princetonian, 5/6

John Edwards to Help Strengthen Democratic Presence in States

John Edwards to Help Strengthen Democratic Presence in States

"Far too often, people think that the solutions to the problems we face as a country must come from Washington, but much of the important work on the issues Americans face every day is done in the states."

-John Edwards

There's some exciting news from John Edwards this morning. Edwards has agreed to help strengthen the Democratic presence in state legislatures by recruiting candidates and raising money.

John, here's thanking you in advance. (America loves you, regardless of what Ferrell Blount the Wicked Grinch has to say).

Hear and See The Eels on Jay Leno

Hear and See The Eels on Jay Leno

Go and listen to (and see) Mark Oliver Everett (aka E). He was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno recently and he was great. The video is at the bottom (right side) of the page.

You can see him (and his band, The Eels) tonight on the Carson Daly Show.

The new album gets an A+ from me. Perhaps I'll soon have a chance to review it at BlogCritics.org.

I just adore Mark's work..and him. And Bobby Jr (his dawg).

Mountain Bloggercon This Autumn?

Mountain Bloggercon This Autumn?

Rumor has it:

There's talk of an autumn Mountain Bloggercon in Asheville, N.C.

*thanks to a little bird

Harry Reid - Stand Up and Fight For America

Harry Reid - Stand Up and Fight For America!

Thanks to Mark at The Common Ills, I found this blogpost at A Winding Road about the "nuclear option" and the out-and-out refusal on the part of the GOP to work with the Democrats. The Democratic leadership cannot keep offering olive branches to Bill Frist, who is gunning for our rights. I recently heard an ex-Congressman speak, off the record, about how the current Congress is alien to him - he recalls a Congress where Reps from both sides of the aisle worked, as statesmen, in the spirit of compromise for the good of America. The current GOP leadership are a bunch of radical thugs who care nothing for the rights of the minority - and President Bush does nothing to temper them, so I have to assume he is fully supportive of their actions.

Harry Reid needs to get tough - and now!

Excerpt:

Reid is like the outcast on the school playground who keeps trying everything in his meager means to be accepted by a group of bigger kids as an equal.

The Republicans have made clear that it's their way or no way. Reid and the Democrats need to be making it clear that they've already been more than reasonable and are not going to give up the right of the minority party to filibuster without a real fight.

The Example of John Brown Raises Moral/Ethical Questions

The Example of John Brown Raises Moral/Ethical Questions

In the current issue of The Nation, I read The Avenging Angel, Martin Duberman's book review of David Reynolds's new biography, John Brown, Abolitionist, and I began to think.

"There is something more terrible than Cain slaying Abel: It is Washington slaying Sparticus!"

- Victor Hugo, 1859

John Brown, the abolitionist, was a complicated man of deep moral values who was put to death in America for putting his faith and values into action in his own spiritual war against the moral hypocrisy of state-sponsored slavery. At that time, Christians used faith-precepts to defend state-sponsored slavery.

In contrast, today, our government expects us to call state-sponsored killing "for liberation" in Iraq (in what the Catholic church considers an unjust war) "heroic".

Think about that, in terms of moral and ethical consistency...and in terms of your personal faith.

In Duberman's words:

"Who, if anyone, has the "right" to kill? And from what source does the right derive? When does (or should) taking another life bring honor, and when disgrace? Is there such a thing as a "just" war that merits medals and heroes..? ..The ethical conundrums multiply even as their resolution resists consensus...

....No madman or fraud could conceivably have matched his astonishing eloquence and spiritual grandeur. This was a special man indeed, made so by the utter sincerity of his egalitarian convictions and his willingness to sacrifice all in their name. Reynolds has managed--long after someone else should have--to restore to us a flawed but deeply impressive humanitarian figure who makes the moral midgets currently dominating our national discourse appear, by contrast, the ignoble specks they actually are.."

Antinomianism is the belief that Christians are liberated from the observance of moral laws when God's grace is active. The belief was first attributed to St. Paul, who declared that his opponents "slanderously" had charged him with saying, "And why not do evil that good may come?" (Rom. 3:8). Antinomianism caused John Brown to kill in Kansas for egalitarian reasons. It causes men to bomb abortion clinics for what they believe is defending uninterrupted in-utero growth.

I ask myself:

Why, in spirit, do I understand why John Brown did what he did?

Why, in spirit, do I not agree with the men who bomb abortion clinics and take innocent life for what they see as defense of innocent life?

It has much to do with the value I place upon freedom. Freedom, for the slave, is a lot easier to embrace than the problem of freedom vs. faith which arises when the free control over a person's own body is threatened by the State. Is abortion not also an issue regarding some element of slavery? What would John Brown do?


The hand in this photo is telling you there is something going on inside this open womb. Personally, it causes me to understand what is real and often unseen to the eye. What is unseen to the eye is easier to neglect. I support sex education in schools along with abstinence programs, pregnancy prevention, counseling, and all adoption support because I believe there's more to that hand than meets the eye. A woman's right to choose should always be a legal option, along with the others.

This is one of the toughest issues we'll have to face in America. We have to learn to talk about it without the strong emotion that comes all too naturally to us.

New Address for Suburban Guerilla

New Address for Suburban Guerilla

FYI: Suburban Guerilla's address has changed. The address may have changed, but blogsister Susie still provides the same great commentary.

Thanks to Elayne for the info.

Poll Shows John Edwards' Nationwide Popularity

2008: Poll Shows John Edwards' Nationwide Popularity

Aides insist [John Edwards] has a serious shot in '08, pointing to last week's Marist poll showing Edwards performing better against Republicans than any Democrat nationwide.

When Republican, Democrat and Independent voters were asked who would be their preference in a nationwide race, John Edwards fared the best of all Democrats in the Marist poll, trailing John McCain by just 3 percentage points (46-43), which is a statistical tossup. John Edwards led Rudy Giuliani in the poll, 48-45, another statistical tie.

Hillary Clinton received 40% support among registered Democrats and Democratic leaning Independents for 2008.

To Impeach or Not to Impeach?

To Impeach or Not to Impeach?
What Can Citizens Do About the State of Their American Government?

I have read this article by Grace Reid at Daily Kos, which is reminding us that we, the U.S., are not the only nation in the world, although we may be the most powerful. We have a media that buries stories that are critical of the U.S. President, but the world outside our borders hears the stories which our media chooses to ignore and/or self-censors.

The writer wonders why American readers aren't more interested in the story about the movement to impeach Tony Blair, since it's bound to have international repercussions which will affect the Bush administration and the large part they played in massaging the intellligence in the lead-up to a war they knew they were going to start - no matter what; UN be damned.

The article also suggests that members of U.S. Congress (both GOP and Dem) are livid after learning about the leaked Rycroft memo from Downing Street because Congresspeople were persuaded to relinquish war powers, which should be OUR power, to President Bush and they now know they were rope-a-doped. They're powerless to do anything at all, in reality. They were castrated when they gave an unworthy leader the reins of power which rightfully belonged to the People.

Do we, the people, have any real democratic power if our Representatives now have such limited power? Listen to what Grace has to say:

When asking, "Where's the Media?" I think its important to remember that you, the reader ARE the media. Whether or not you "seize the day,".... YOU ARE THE MEDIA.... Your opinion matters, you MAKE the news. The media is nothing more than giving the people what they want. And that sells newspapers, and that gets ratings.... but you already know this, right? "Who controls the media, controls the fates." Well, that means YOU!! If you can find the news and report on it, if you can think things through for yourself and write a letter to the editor, if you can decide on these issues and write to your Representatives... YOU ARE THE MEDIA. And as Congressman Conyers has pointed out, your letters make more of a difference than you'll ever know.

Read and consider Grace's conclusion:

During the Nixon years it was John Dean who said, "There is a cancer on the Presidency." But now it is our whole form of government that has reached a critical mass. If the United States is a democratic Constitutional republic, then there is no question that impeachment is the proper course of action. Anyone who says otherwise has chosen the serfs role.

In the mean time, we have to suffer headlines about John Bolton's nomination for UN ambassador - the same old same old - another puppet who will systematically ruin the United States' good standing in the international community in favor of raw power and rule by fear, conquest, and intimidation.

I'm afraid, sadly, that America will not wake up until the first nuclear weapon which some terrorists have purchased from a rogue nation has been detonated in an American city. I pray this doesn't happen, but what if it does? It would be too late - we'd be kissing our hard-won freedom goodbye. Only then might citizens realize that this foreign policy has been all wrong. We'll all wish we'd organized in a movement to impeach George W. Bush a long time ago. But it's too late now, my fellow citizens. You must look at the reality. There is no media on your side. There is no Congress on your side.

When you live in a nation where even the truth's been politicized, you know you have to act for change or see your free country and democractic government die.

I'll leave you with this thought:

An elderly person asked me the other day in the course of conversation: "Why haven't they taken that guy [President Bush] out of the Oval Office in a straight-jacket strapped to a board? He's a madman! Why is he allowed to remain in power after all he's done to our country? Why don't the people act? What's wrong with them?"

Okay, that sounds hyberbolic, I realize, but a hell of a lot of "regular Joes" are talking this way. So -what do we do?

My own conclusion is that I don't believe President Bush will ever be impeached. Let's be realistic. There is no way I could see this Congress beginning the task. To my way of thinking, we should concentrate our efforts to persuade Americans to elect a virtuous Congress that would impeach a leader who would so boldly breach our trust. At the same time, remember that we have a sick media here in the United States. There is too little investigative journalism, too much market-driven self-censoring, and there are too many buried stories. I'll repeat Grace's own words:

"Who controls the media, controls the fates."

I think it's extremely important that we blog (speaking truth to power without faltering); write letters to the editor of news publications (or offer to blog for the newspapers); to hold media's feet to the fire, get involved in a grassroots coalition to promote grassroots candidates in your own community (and if there isn't one, then start one), and write your Representatives and call their offices with your concerns. Turn your anger and frustration toward a committed effort to organize and I think we'll all be the better for it.

Culture War: Fundamental Catholic Leaders Chide Catholic Colleges for Commencement Speaker Choices

Culture War: Fundamental Catholic Leaders Chide Catholic Colleges for Commencement Speaker Choices

The Madison Capital Times is reporting that The Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative Catholic organization, has chided Edgewood College and 12 other Catholic colleges and universities for inviting commencement speakers who publicly oppose "fundamental Catholic teachings." Edgewood College has invited Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Paul Higginbotham to speak at their commencement on May 15, and his views on abortion are problematic for the Cardinal Newman Society, who wish to see a "renewed Catholic identity".

If the Catholic church insists upon this culture war, I hope they will be are thinking ahead about how to sustain a religion where an overwhelming majority of American women, who believe they should have control over each of the decisions they make in this life, will be suddenly missing from their pews on Sunday.

Happy Mothers Day!

Mom sings me to sleep while Daddy plays
Happy Mothers Day!

Be very good to your Mom today, if you're lucky enough to have her with you. Don't forget to tell her that you love her. Life is short. Moms are the best and a mother's love is one of life's greatest gifts.

A special Happy Mothers Day greeting to all the Blogger Moms.

West Genesee High School Makes Newsweek's "Top Schools" List

West Genesee High School Makes Newsweek's "Top Schools" List

Congratulations go out to the administrators, staff, students, and parents of West Genesee High School in Camillus, which made Newsweek's Top 1000 Schools in America list (at 828, tied with Grosse Point North, MI).

Way to go, West Genny!

Dan Gillmor: Human Rights Watch Makes Appeal to Bloggers

Dan Gillmor: Human Rights Watch Makes Appeal to Bloggers

According to Dan Gillmor, Human Rights Watch is "asking bloggers to help 'prevent discrimination, uphold political freedom, protect people from inhumane treatment in wartime, and campaign to bring offenders to justice.'

Gillmor comments:

I trust this will annoy the pro-torture community.

Human Rights Watch RSS feeds

Conyers Circulates Letter Asking Bush to Explain Memo Allegations

Conyers Circulates Letter Asking Bush to Explain Memo Allegations

According to a Knight Ridder news report, an anonymous aide has said that Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking President Bush for an explanation of the leaked (highly classified) British memo's charges that he was determined to ensure that US intelligence data supported his Iraq policy.

Worst "News" Article I've Seen in a Long Time

Worst "News" Article I've Seen in a Long Time

I've just read one of the worst, most biased accountings of the CUNY conference written by an AP journalist and published in the Akron Beacon Journal. I wouldn't complain so loudly had I not been a witness to the conference myself. The article is so one-sided that it seems to me that Mr. Ostling was at a different place altogether.

From the misleading title:

"Academics on left bash evangelicals"

to the opinion-laden statement:

"The book table sold assorted Bush-bashing titles."

..it is an example of terrible, terrible journalism by Richard N. Ostling. The book table, by the way, was filled with a wide variety of political and spiritual titles. Bush-bashing is an incredibly subjective term for someone who claims to be a journalist of independent thinking. He does the average reader is disservice by filing this as "news".

Mr. Ostling has a fine reputation for reporting on issues relating to religion, but he really missed the boat on this one. I was at the conference both days and I'm telling you - he was biased and sloppy on this story. We can learn nothing from it except being led to believe it was a bunch of intellectuals bashing the poor evangelics with their venomous fangs bared. Such was NOT the case. The tired old stereotyping is indicative of clear bias. I cannot see it as anything else.

Listen to Ostling referring to the spirit of the conference:

"...it offered a fresh example of how venomous America's conservative-liberal religious split has become and how entangled faith is with politics."

I was there. It was not a "venomous" atmosphere at all. The speakers were not frothing secular extremists. There were quite a few people of active faith, including Rev. Bob Edgar and Rev. Joseph Hough, who spoke at the conference. There was advice given by some of them for political debaters to cease the urge to call evenagelical Christians names like "wingnut"; to stop pushing the envelope by saying over-the-top things, in the course of debate, to those of a more conservative faith, to talk to people of every faith at 'the middle-level', to engage far right religious leaders at a political level, and to listen carefully to what they have to say. Actual facts were given. (Unlike Ostling's totally unfair "news" article, unfortunately.)

Ostling says:

"..the chief targets were evangelical Protestants."

Once again, Ostling has left out something very important and has misled his readers. The facts issued were about the LEADERS of the Religious Far Right. There was never an ill word spoken or a negative view given about the people who make up the evangelical congregation.

"No speaker representing religious conservatives was invited to offer a rebuttal."

Journalists suffer from the curse of even-handedness - the feeling that they must have two polar sides presented in order to be able to report a news story - and Ostling is no different. If this conference was just going to be another example of Fox News-style "fairness", I would not have attended.

What the heck is this supposed to mean?

"Nor did conferees clarify what religious lobbying is proper or improper."

I'd be utterly ashamed to own up to writing this piece and calling it "news" if I were Ostling.

I question the journalistic integrity of the Akron newspaper for giving it print and trying to pass it off as news!

Warning: Patriot Pastors are NO PATRIOTS

"God has blessed the mission of Vision America...Beloved, the forces we fight are not of this world, and Satan never gives back what he has stolen without a fight. We are in a culture war for the soul of America."

-From Patriot Pastors/Theocrats

Warning: Patriot Pastors are NO PATRIOTS

The Patriot Pastor Network is a misnomer if there ever was one. Any Pastor who would seek to remove the checks and balances which keep our American Judiciary independent is NO PATRIOT! He (or she) would be a traitor to the spirit of American democracy. Their effort to exert and influence political power to impose a religious test on judicial nominees runs AGAINST the U.S. Constitution!

They Chose Culture War Over Common Sense

This is what I can imagine myself doing to folks who chose the culture wars over rational, ethical morality in this last election. Thanks to Biomes Blog for the photo.

Photo by Jude

Coffee shop window NYC
photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Pope Calls For Ousting Of Jesuit Editor

Pope Calls For Ousting Of Jesuit Editor

"Stephen Pope, a moral theologian at Boston College who wrote the article critical of the church's position on same-sex marriage, said of the dismissal: "If this is true, it's going to make Catholic theologians who want to ask critical questions not want to publish in Catholic journals. It can have a chilling effect."

- From a NY Times article by Laurie Goodstein

Rev. Thomas Reese, the 60 year-old editor of the Catholic publication America, who has covered some sensitive issues including gay priests, stem-cell research, whether Catholic politicians can be denied Communion if they support abortion rights, and same-sex unions, has been ousted at the behest of Pope Benedict XVI.

Tom Roberts, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, has commented that he believes this is "an absolute tragedy and an appalling affront to intelligent discourse."

It seems that the man who was Cardinal Ratzinger was waiting for the opportunity to oust Reese. As one of his first acts as Pope, this sends a clear message to Roman Catholics.

After seeing the new Ridley Scott film "The Kingdom of Heaven" last night, I am reminded how the force of organized religion can break down a society's view of the the value of virtue in men and women who hold faith and truth in their own hearts and minds. This is not to say that it is requisite to be irreligious in order to be virtuous, for the modern-day Society of Jesus can be held up as quite virtuous and obviously religious.

When you remove from the public forum your most intelligent, open-minded, and virtuous defenders of the faith, I believe that the faith becomes narrow and, ironically, increasingly vulnerable to corruption for power's sake.

Silencing post-Vatican II theologians is a clear cry for the denouncement of modernity. I am a person who struggles to find reasons to stay with the Roman Catholic faith. I was raised in the faith, educated in the faith, and it is not something I wish to abandon, because I place a high value on the personal virtues that I know I have developed, in large part, because of the education in that faith. However, I'm afraid, truly afraid, that as a result of denouncing modernity, the Roman Catholic Church in America will soon suffer the same fate as the Roman Catholic church in Europe. They are making the already-difficult struggle a near-impossible battle by narrowing the field back down to doctrinal tenets to which the modern man can barely relate. They ask us to stop looking ahead, and thus our hearts and spirits atrophy. It takes a leap of faith to trust modernity, and I only see this current move to silence modern men of faith as a direct way of losing the lambs that stray. When will they ever learn?

NY Times Story
Boston Globe Story
America Magazine

UPDATE: See Andrew Sullivan's take

Excerpt:

If I were a Jesuit, I would take the hostility of this clerical tyrant as a badge of honor. Firing this moderate, quiet, modest man is really a call to arms for those of us who need to save our church from this disastrous choice for the papacy.

John McCandlish Phillips on Various Columnists

John McCandlish Phillips on Various Columnists

By the very title of John McCandlish Phillips' Washington Post column, "When Columnists Cry 'Jihad', I strongly sensed that he wished to rouse emotions of distrust and fear in the average conservative Christian. I am dismayed by this, because, for the sake of the strength of a democratic America, I hope to see reconciliation between the people who call themselves fundamentalists (or born-agains) and so many other Americans who do not share that particular belief. Look at how the 21st century began - with our nation being drawn into Islam’s civil war, which is a war between those who idolize a political and authoritarian religiously-based society and those who champion a traditional, civil, and peaceful Islam of many varied voices. Why do we not see that something similar could happen here in America when political leaders like Tom DeLay admit he believes God is training him in government by divine guidance and a Biblical worldview? That, my friends, is a theocrat who is the majority leader of the American ('small d' - and getting smaller) democratic House.

Mr. Phillips has used what seem to be carefully-selected words from various columnists, and has promoted the most negative version of the often-misunderstood term "jihad". Many Muslims (especially the Sufis) conceive of jihad as a personal rather than a political struggle and do not connect the term with violence against others at all. For example, withdrawal from the world to attend to mystical pursuits constitutes jihad. If monks are to retreat to a monastery to attend to all things mystical, does that mean they want to fly airplanes into buildings?

When Mr. Phillips said:

If [columnist Frank] Rich were to have the misfortune to live for one week in a genuine jihad, and the unlikely fortune to survive it, he would temper his categorization of the perceived President Bush-driven jihad by a minimum of 77 percent.

..his intellectual honesty, as far as I'm concerned, went flying out of the belfry. "Genuine" jihad? I know that Mr. Phillips is not an ignorant man. I understand the meaning of persuasive writing, yet I can't help but think this is a fear-based misleading, because I realize that the average American hears "Jihad" and automatically thinks of Mohammed Atta and Osama Bin Laden. I imagine John McCandlish Phillips knows that, too - very well. I wonder if Mr. Phillips, like so many conservative Christians today, are lashing out in pain, believing they are misunderstood?

This culture war continues to be waged by Conservative Far Right Religious Leaders against secular modernity, against the checks and balances protected by the U.S. Constitution, against the independent Judiciary, and against the American way. I know there are concerned and tolerant Americans who are becoming conscious of the futility of and the reasons for the ugly culture war, and they will look for real leaders who will not use or abuse their faith to manipulate them.

The narrow theological agenda that the theocratic right is imposing on our secular society will not stand. We won't stand for it. The movement values guns and the death penalty. It values the rich at the expense of the poor. It favors corporations at the expense of individuals. It seeks to eliminate virtually all regulations that protect the environment, worker safety, and public health. The political ramifications run against my own personal Christian faith.

I respect Mr. Phillips faith, but I surely cannot abide by his political stance.

Mr Phillips, still referring to columnist Frank Rich, raised the spectre of revolutionary visions of gay marriage. I can easily understand how, after reading Mr. Phillips' piece, that conservative Christian readers might believe the radical revolution is coming from gays (who have been with us from time immortal), rather than admitting that the real radicals are the conservative leaders of the Theocratic Far Right who have been, in truth, trying very hard - for a very long time - to perform a surgical reconstruction of the U.S. Constitution by their religious triumphalism, and worse, with the willing help of the GOP.

When Maureen Dowd wrote "Oh my God, we really are in a theocracy," most New York Times readers are savvy enough to know she was being wry. Mr. Phillips warned someone (just who's he warning, anyhow?) that Maureen shouldn't be taken "lightly". He's right, I think. Maureen has a good point, once you sort through her envelope-pushing satire. Mr. Phillips recognizes her heavy artillery and he is biting back - yet, his bark is worse than his bite if you read what he says about Maureen. It's toothless. He's gumming away at her reality-based snipe-fest, perhaps hoping for an angry or fearful reaction that could only come from red-meat Conservatives. (That answers my question about who he's "warning".)

Worst of all, Mr. Phillips has given the average American reader no credit at all for our belief in upholding the U.S. Constitution and supporting the Establishment Clause while still understanding and respecting all people of faith. I can hardly believe he felt he had to defend born-agains and Catholics in the way he chose (especially since I am a Catholic myself):

I have met hundreds of evangelicals and a good many practicing Catholics and have found them to be of reasonable temperament, often enough of impressive accomplishment, certainly not a menace to the republic, unless, of course, the very fact of faith seriously held is thought to make them just that.

I think to myself: How dare he presume that someone like myself would think any different about these people of faith? I am a Catholic American, many of my closest friends profess the born-again faith. How dare Mr. Phillips make them believe that someone like myself thinks my fellow Christians are raving lunatics? I certainly do not, and I am powerfully sorry for Mr. Phillips if he truly believes most Americans feel that way about people who call themselves conservative Christians.

Mr. Phillips ended his piece with a triumphal claim to theocracy-in-democratic-government by touting the national day of Thanksgiving as proof that God can mix with State and it's all hunky-dory. I recall the story of the first Thanksgiving which inspired the national day's declaration. The Native Americans were allegedly invited to celebrate with the Puritan immigrants after their first harvest in the New World. The Native Americans then had their land stolen and raped by 'Christians'. In 1779, ten years before the first Thanksgiving to God was proclaimed, Washington ordered Haudenosaunee villages burned to the ground in a post-Revolution punitive action. Later, Manifest Destiny made it perfectly acceptable to forget what was morally right or wrong. Expansion at all costs - and slavery - were acceptable to some men who claimed to live by 'Christian principles'. I'm not making any of this up. Read your American history books. The land was stolen. Thou shalt not steal.

What sins, today, will be acceptable to the Religious Far Right leaders in their electoral affinity with the Neocons and the GOP? This is something we need to carefully ask ourselves.

I wish Mr. Phillips, who I believe is a gifted writer, could have appealed less to fear and mistrust and could have, instead, simply written a piece with a tone similar to the one David Brooks wrote this week. I actually thought Brooks did a decent job on his piece titled Stuck In Lincoln's Land. All opinion columnists could do well in pushing the fear-and-division envelope less and giving us more fact-based opinion. Speak to and try to appeal to the "Middle faith", not the red meat; not the extremists. It's a huge turn-off, frankly.
__

"Most people of faith in the U.S. are not right wing or left wing. The U.S. is made up of the religious middle, decent people who do what their doctor tells them and what their president tells them.”

-Rev. Bob Edgar