COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
MEDIA RELEASE: JAN. 8. 2009
AMERICA’S SOUL SICKNESS PART II
BY ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ

In Columbus and other Cannibals, American Indian scholar, Jack Forbes
writes about a disease that afflicts the West, an illness he refers to
as: soul sickness. It’s the belief that God has especially chosen
Westerners to bring civilization and enlightenment to the rest of the
world. While it permeates all of Western society, it appears to
manifest most poignantly in the United States.

With Obama soon to be at the helm, many people are seemingly not clear
about what this means vis a vis this sickness.

Under this superstitious belief system, Westerners have been
authorized by God to eliminate infidels and heathens if they don’t
convert (because if they don’t, the unbelievers may wipe out the
civilized world). This traditionally has meant the right to take
lands, colonize and enslave peoples and the right to invade, occupy
and destroy nations. It matters little if one innocent person dies or
a million, because they are not truly human. Conversely, the death of
one Westerner or the threat to one, is “just cause” for war. Since
Westerners believe God has anointed them to spread Judeo-Christian
values, democracy & capitalism, all their military incursions are
justified. This is why war is constantly waged, always obviating the
need for laws and trials

Under this belief system, Westerners are always combating evil,
terrorists and disciples of the devil. Yet, this delusional belief
system sometimes comes face to face with reality. For instance, most
religious/spiritual leaders worldwide do not believe that the invasion
of Iraq has constituted a “just war.” This has led to cognitive
dissonance – a contradictory mental and spiritual state.

None of this has affected president Bush who actually believes that
God specifically chose him to lead the United States and to wage war
against Iraq. Yes. The Prince of Peace chose him to bring peace – via
war – to Arab/Muslim infidels, and eventually, to the entire world.

Bush’s beliefs best exemplify that soul sickness that Forbes writes
about. It is a combination of sickness and delusion – the
spiritual/political belief that the United States and its allies are
entitled – by divine birthright – to wage permanent war against any
and all nations – to bring civilization to the uncivilized. This
belief did not begin with Bush-Cheney. Reagan-Bush took these same
ideas to Africa and Central America. Johnson & Nixon previously took
them to Asia. As Forbes points out, it is the same ideas – steeped in
the Dark Ages – that were brought to this continent by the
conquistadors.

Accompanying these delusional ideas is the belief in the eternal right
– with impunity – to freely exploit these nations, their peoples and
resources.

All of this also is combined with the belief that Euroamericans were
especially chosen to build a heaven on earth in the Americas – a place
reserved for God’s chosen few (dark people not welcome here).
Ironically, this belief system – as exemplified by the idea of
Providence, Manifest Destiny and the religio-secular idea of American
exceptionalism – has never believed in borders. Quite the contrary.
The very idea of a United States has been an expansionist belief: the
original idea was that Euroamericans would one day take over the
entire Americas – from sea to shining sea. Yet, now, heaven on earth
seemingly constitutes the entire planet.

But there is still the land mass called the United States – the New
Promised Land – especially designated for the chosen few. While these
chosen few seek global domination, adherents of this philosophy insist
upon a form of racial/political and cultural purity for these United
States. This is why we have “culture” or “civilizational” wars.

This is why these chosen few insist upon English Only and walls along
the southern, but not the northern, border. This is the reason for
massive immigration raids against red-brown peoples; to communicate
the message of who belongs, who is legitimate and who merits rights
and who doesn’t. It’s all predicated on a 500-year idea on this
continent of who is human and who is entitled to live – and who isn’t.

The majority of the world has diagnosed this sickness and thoroughly
rejects it. It is highly likely, based on the 2008 presidential
elections, that most Americans have also diagnosed this sickness, and
many also reject it.

The idea of Barack Obama in the White House also causes cognitive
dissonance. It may be counter-intuitive, but it is not at all certain
that a Black Man – or this Black Man – will combat this centuries-old
soul sickness and the barbaric policies that emanate from it.

(c) Column of the Americas 2009

Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

Column of the Americas
PO BOX 85476
Tucson, AZ 85754

http://web.mac.com/columnoftheamericas/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html

This is what a feminist looks like?? File this one under: Does Feminism Even Need Women? While progressives lament and metaphorically pull their hair out over the sad fact that President-elect Obama is not a progressive, the easy to please feminists over at Ms. Magazine put Barack Obama on the cover and gush like teeny-boppers that Obama is some Feminist Super Man who will, presumably, save us little wimin.

I must have been asleep when the self-identified feminist and Wonder Woman presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton made the cover of Ms.

There are many many many problems (Jon Favreau, Larry Summers, Rick Warren, etc.) with a liberal feminist magazine proclaiming Barack Obama to be a feminist, starting with the fact that he is Not exactly a liberal, and he has never publicly identified himself as a feminist. (Michelle has rejected the term.) And then there is the undeniable fact that a feminist president would have far more than a pitiful 5 women in his/her cabinet.

I will be overjoyed if Barack Obama proves to be a feminist or pro feminist president, but this preemptive and gushing teeny-bopper declaration that he is one — on the cover of Ms. Magazine – should be an embarrassment to feminists everywhere.

What they’re saying:

Amy Siskind at The New Agenda (and Daily Beast): It is time that we take back the term “feminism” and restore its dignity and honor. It is time that we, our daughters, and granddaughters discover our inner Wonder Woman. And, for those of us who dream, maybe Ms. and the former national women’s movement will return in the sequel as Superwomen once again.

Feminist Law Professors: This seems designed to mock people who supported Hillary Clinton during the Democratic Primary. Why does Ms. want to do that now?

Reclusive Leftist: Rage. Just: rage.

PUMA PAC: MS.ogynist - Call Ms Magazine: Ms.Magazine toll free # 1-800-787-1414

Heidi Li’s Potpourri: This is the person who has retained Jon “The Groper” Favreau as his chief speechwriter; installed Tim “I’m not really for serious guarantees of Roe v. Wade” Kaine as the DNC Chair; appointed far fewer women to his cabinet or to cabinet-level positions than Bill Clinton did and barely the number that George W. Bush has.

AnnieNYC: Where have all the feminists gone.

The New Agenda: If “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” (see below), is NOW now open to a male president?

Hillary’s Village: oh, the irony of picturing a feminist as a superMAN.

The New Agenda: Yes, we are aware of Ms. Magazine cover…. And no, it is not a hoax. Apparently, the Special Offer also includes a 18″ x 24″ poster - no joke.

Peacocks & Lilies: Apparently this is what prostitution looks like.

Riverdaughter: And women like Hillary will be completely forgotten as the true workhorses and champions of women’s rights.

Feminist Politics Gender News Misogyny Women’s History Patriarchy Liberal Feminism Ms. Magazine President Barack Obama

Okay, now the Repubs. are really, really worried about deficits

The economic debate highlights yet another reason why Republicans have no credibility. And, also demonstrates why Obama has to be very, very careful when dealing with them. The Republicans have no scruples:

Out of power, Republicans appear to be retreating to familiar old ground. They’re becoming deficit hawks again.

GOP lawmakers didn’t seem to mind enjoying the fruits of government largesse for the past eight years while one of their own was in the White House. Now they’re struggling to regain footing at a time of economic rout, a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit and an incoming Democratic president claiming a mandate for change.

It might not be the best time for running against more government spending. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from casting themselves as protectors of the public purse, striving for relevancy as Congress tackles President-elect Barack Obama’s stimulus legislation.

“Congress cannot keep writing checks and simply pass IOUs to our children and grandchildren,” says Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Asks House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio: “How much debt are we going to pile on future generations?”

For the record, as this AP article notes, when George Bush took over with a GOP Senate and GOP House, our country was on track to have surpluses. Now, we’ve got a $1.2 trillion deficit adding to the enormous debt. So, the GOP’s new-found fiscal discipline rings hollow — and is cravenly political. That’s a problem for the GOP:

“It’s hard to oppose fixing the economy right now,” said Stanley Collender, a former congressional budget analyst now with Qorvis Communications, a Washington consulting firm. Collender said the depth of the crisis makes it difficult for fiscal conservatives in either party “to say that deficits are something that should be addressed right now.”

“If you say that, you kind of lose credibility,” Collender said.

If you’ve got no credibility, you’ve got nothing to lose.

Once the final stimulus package is presented to Congress, opposition to it has to mean opposition to fixing the economy. Are the Republicans who created the mess willing to push the country off the cliff into a depression? That’s the question.

(Americablog)
—
So it’s ok to create record-breaking deficits while hurting the country and the world, but it’s not ok to increase the repug-created deficit to help the country?
That’s sure to go over big with the electorate!

GOP sees Franken as top public enemy

With only a longshot court appeal standing in the way of Democrat Al Franken’s election to the Senate, Republicans are gritting their teeth and bracing for the arrival of a new senator whose every utterance will sound like nails on a chalkboard to them.

While Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) has filed suit to contest the results of a disputed recount process that turned his narrow lead into a 225-vote deficit, his likely defeat stands to turn Franken, the polarizing former “Saturday Night Live” writer, into the senator who launched a thousand direct mail fundraising appeals.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever had an opponent who is so disliked by Republicans as Al Franken,” said Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Carey, who cautioned that Coleman’s election challenge could still turn the results back his way. “It’s one thing to lose to an honorable opponent, but Al Franken is not considered an honorable opponent by Minnesota Republicans.”

Marty Seifert, the Republican leader in the Minnesota House of Representatives, said Franken’s long record of antagonizing conservatives would make it difficult for him to connect with voters who supported Coleman.

“It’s going to be hard for Franken to be very effective with any Republicans, in terms of having any credibility with us, just because he’s been so nasty in the past,” Seifert said. “He certainly has callous and very partisan behavior in the past that is beyond the pale.”

According to Carleton College political scientist Steven Schier, Franken’s record as a “flamboyant and aggressive partisan” would make him ripe for criticism back home.

“I think it’s impossible to overstate the hostility Minnesota Republicans feel toward Al Franken,” Schier said. “He will be a very useful fundraising tool.”

Republicans outside Minnesota are equally apoplectic when it comes to Franken. Prominent conservative Rush Limbaugh, who Franken mocked in the title of one of his books, has already jabbed Franken on his radio show, telling listeners in December that Franken “won’t quit [the Senate race] because he doesn’t know how to get a real job…He’s a pathetic figure.”

Democrats are hopeful that the resentment Franken faces from Republicans both within and outside of his home state will not impede his ability to win over his constituents – and his fellow members of the U.S. Senate. They believe that by leaving behind his past as a bomb-throwing entertainer and focusing on issues, he will earn the respect of colleagues and can build on the 42 percent of the vote he won in November.

(Huffington Post)
—
Considering the evil, partisian, vile, repugnant rhetoric of most repugs, I think that Franken’s humor is the last of anyone’s concerns.
If he really had that bad of a reputation, how did he win the election? Guess that just means that people hate repugs even more!

Florida’s Transgender Bathroom Rule Angers Conservatives

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A blond girl heads from a playground into a women’s restroom. A scruffy man, lurking outside, darts in behind her. “Your City Commission Made This Legal,” the words on the TV screen read.

The dark ad came from opponents of a gender identity provision added last year to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance, which now allows the city’s roughly 100 transgender residents to use whichever restroom they’re most comfortable using.

Foes want to repeal the new protection with a March 24 ballot measure that has divided Gainesville, a generally gay-friendly university city surrounded by staunchly conservative north Florida.

Those who support the transgender protections say their opponents are really unleashing a broader attack on the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals in general.

The city commission approved the restroom provision by a 4-3 vote a year ago. Before the ink could dry, Bible-quoting opponents angrily began working for its repeal.

“You are trying to operate in a realm you do not have the authority to operate in,” one pastor, George Brantley, told the commissioners.

The debate is expected to become noisier as the ballot nears with opponents resorting to more TV ads and campaigns pegged to such slogans as “Keep Men out of Women’s Restrooms and vice versa.”

Organizations defending transgender rights are mustering their own campaign.

—

There is no way that any politician actually believes that this bizarre scenario would legally occur because of this common sense law. Obviously, they are just trying to scare their less-intelligent, bigoted constituents for political reasons.

Pretty freakin’ sickening. Damn, I hate mindless bigots…

How to teach Creationism

(The Whited Sepulchre)
—
This is all so profoundly silly. What is there really to teach regarding creationism? I wouldn’t object to science/biology teachers from saying “this is what scientists have theorized based on the evidence that we have. Some non-scientists think that their god created everything.”

That about sums it up, doesn’t it? What is there to “teach”? “Godidit” doesn’t really take that long and doesn’t really detract from the facts of biology and evolution. It superfluous and silly but if that’s all these wackos want, give em that and let them teach the “details” (the couple of paragraphs in Genesis) in church.

But, i guess they want more than that, don’t they? They want scientists to lie and say that biology and evolution is in doubt when it isn’t. They can’t just keep their delusion to themselves, the pushy bastards…

Bush says torture still necessary

President George W. Bush told Fox’s Brit Hume that he approved enhanced interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Bush explained, “My view is the techniques were necessary and are necessary.”

Many critics view waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques approved by Bush to be torture. The president disagreed with notion that such tactics amount to toture. “I firmly reject the word ‘torture,’” said Bush.

Dave N: Mebbe Bush believes that because he’s Preznit, he gets to deciderer what the meaning of words is. But by every national and international law that defines torture — including the laws by which we have convicted people of other nations and sent them to prison — waterboarding and a number of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques are definably torture.

Moreover, Bush can give these acts whatever fancy word he wants — it’s still torture in the eyes of the world. That, and not Bush’s hermetically sealed little world, is what matters in the end.

(Crooks and Liars)