Bush, Gog, and Magog

As Max Pearson over at The Progressive Puppy so aptly said at the conclusion of this piece by Clive Hamilton:

"As mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and children continue to the mourn the loss of loved ones who were killed in Iraq, Bush enjoys a happy life in Dallas, Texas, confident in his status as God's chosen messenger, oblivious to the suffering he wrought, still seeking affirmation from the Bible.

"Only yesterday Dubya reentered the public sphere to defend his administration's use of torture. If America ever votes another fundie politician into the nation's highest office, we will get what we deserve."



Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"
By Clive Hamilton, CounterPunch
Posted on May 25, 2009, Printed on June 3, 2009
TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT

The revelation this month in GQ Magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means?

The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush's Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:

"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins".

The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university's review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs".

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on "a mission from God" in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.

There can be little doubt now that President Bush's reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam's Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.

Many thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in the campaign to defeat Gog and Magog. That the US President saw himself as the vehicle of God whose duty was to prevent the Apocalypse can only inflame suspicions across the Middle East that the United States is on a crusade against Islam.

There is a curious coda to this story. While a senior at Yale University George W. Bush was a member of the exclusive and secretive Skull & Bones society. His father, George H.W. Bush had also been a "Bonesman", as indeed had his father. Skull & Bones' initiates are assigned or take on nicknames. And what was George Bush Senior's nickname? "Magog".


Clive Hamilton is a Visiting Professor at Yale University He can be reached at: mail@clivehamilton.net.au.

Culture of Violence

As anticipated, I have immediately been labeled "anti-Christian" after posting the story below. This is pretty run-of-the-mill for any of us who publish things that go against the beliefs and ideologies of others - we expect such name-calling and finger pointing.

It's interesting to throw something like this first article out there and watch to see who will be the first one to make such an assertion. This is particularly true of white supremacists and right-wing Christian radicals. If you aren't buying into the white-supremacy notion of separation, bigotry, and genocide then you must be "anti-white" and doomed to be murdered and ravaged by an African-American. And if you fail to accept the dogma proffered by the dominionists or the literal interpretations of the far-right winged Christian Reconstructionists then you are "anti-Christian" and doomed to hell and damnation. There are no "gray areas" with these two myopic groups.

A Fredrick Clarkson article published over on the Daily Cos pretty well sums some of this up:

TO THE CLARKSON ARTICLE

It is this thought process which demonstrates the near-sightedness of such groups as well as their bigoted mindset.



TO THE SOURCE

By Michael Stone


Scott Roeder, Christian fundamentalist and right wing extremist, assassinated Dr George Tiller, a controversial figure and defender of a women's right to choose. Roeder is no doubt a disturbed individual, but this episode can not be written off as a lone gun man gone mad. Indeed, in many circles Roeder is already a hero, and if not a hero at least justified in his actions.



The depravity of anti-abortion extremists is nothing new. Bombings and shootings at clinics occur on a regular basis. Such episodes serve to punctuate a constant barrage of harassment and intimidation faced by patients and staff at women's clinics across the country. There can be no doubt that such extremists encouraged the assassination of the doctor, and those same extremists will attempt to minimize or even justify the crime.

To be sure mainstream anti-abortion groups, after threatening and harassing the good doctor for decades, now offer a tepid condemnation of the assassination. Yet if one listens and looks one finds quiet signs of approval, exclamations that while the killing was wrong, Dr. Tiller deserved to die. Randall Terry, a veteran anti-abortion activist whose protests have often targeted Tiller, said this: "George Tiller was a mass murderer and we cannot stop saying that. He was an evil man — his hands were covered with blood."

Bill O'Reilly, obnoxious on purpose pundit for Fox news, is also indirectly responsible for Tiller´s assassination. O'Reilly ran the headline "Tiller the baby killer" on his show 23 times. Tiller was a constant target of the FOX bully.

O'Reilly, like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, represent the ignorant and highly superstitious of our country. They appeal directly to the Christian fundamentalist and right wing extremist. By invoking a belief in the supernatural and the Law of God as preempting all other natural laws, they set the stage for domestic terrorism. These right wing extremists, these Christian fundamentalists, are cut from the same cloth as the terrorists who flew planes into buildings on 9/11.

George Tiller’s death is the culmination of years of culture war propaganda, fear tactics, and Christianity gone bad. The terrorist threat posed by religious right extremists is real. A domestic terrorism report released by the Department of Homeland Security indicated, among other things, that radicals might use abortion as a justification for committing acts of domestic terrorism. Lost amid the concern about foreign terrorism is the very real presence of homegrown right-wing terrorism in our own backyard. The radical right and Christian fundamentalists must be confronted; they are a cancer on our society.

CUSTODY OF RACIST 7-YEAR-OLD TO BE DETERMINED

Abuse takes many different forms. Using a child to promote a parents ideology, teaching a child that 'black people should die,' instilling them with hate and fear of others all fall under that heading, in my opinion. Children should never be saddled with this kind of baggage and should never be exploited in such a vile manner.

TO SOURCE


Girl, 7, said ‘black people should die’, custody hearing told


By Mike McIntyre, Winnipeg Free PressMay 25, 2009

WINNIPEG — Just seven years old, she showed up at school with neo-Nazi propaganda written all over her body, calmly described how to kill black people, and spoke proudly about white people being superior to all other races.

Now the disturbing views of the girl are at the centre of a heated child-custody case that began Monday in Winnipeg.


"Black people don’t belong. What people don’t understand is that black people should die," the little girl stated matter-of-factly in the March 2008 interview with a Manitoba Child and Family Services worker after she and her brother had been seized by the province.


However, the mother told CTV News on Monday night it is “100 per cent not true” that she taught her daughter that belief.


“Just because somebody’s proud to be white does not make them a Nazi. I’m not a Nazi; I’ve stated that several times,” the woman said.


When asked what she would have done differently, given what she knows now, the woman answered, “For one, I would not redraw a swastika on my daughter’s arm. . . . If I wanted to have it out with the teachers, if I wanted to make it a discussion and an issue, I should have contacted the school.


“I never did it in the first place; I never told my daughter that she should hate anybody,” she told CTV. “At her seventh birthday party, she had a little Asian girl that she wanted to invite; we let her invite. I never saw any reason for her not to be friends with somebody.”


CFS is seeking a permanent order of guardianship for the girl and her three-year-old brother, saying the racist views of their parents have clearly been passed down to the children and amount to emotional abuse.


The girl’s stepfather is fighting back, claiming his rights to freedom of expression and religion have been violated.


The mother has moved out of province, has not retained a lawyer, and is not participating in the trial.


"They have been taught to hate absolutely everyone in the world who’s not white," a CFS social worker wrote in a report tendered in court Monday. "She didn’t see her family views as anything other than normal."


CFS got involved last year after the girl showed up at her Winnipeg elementary school with a massive swastika on her arm and other slogans on her legs, including references to Adolf Hitler and the slogan, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."


Photos of the markings were shown in court.


"The meaning of that is that black people don’t belong," the girl later explained to the social worker.


The woman told court Monday she was stunned by what transpired during an hour-long interview with the girl, who frequently used the N-word to describe blacks and said she believes strongly in what her parents taught her.


The girl also gave a graphic description of how to kill a black person, telling the social worker about using a spiked ball attached to a chain and then "whipping them until they die."


The worker asked the girl if those ideas "scared her."


"No, black people just need to die. That’s not scary. This is a white man’s world," she replied.


The girl also made racist remarks about the World Trade Center attacks, described watching "skinhead" videos and websites with her parents, and watching them regularly smoke marijuana. She said her parents even made a poster of her and her brother with the slogan, "Missing — A Future For Our White Children," which they plastered around Winnipeg.


"White kids are not safe because of (racist term for blacks)," she told the social worker.


The girl’s stepfather — who is currently living apart from the girl’s mother — has denied any wrongdoing and recently filed an affidavit supporting his position. The girl’s mother repeatedly demanded the return of her children in a series of phone calls to CFS last year, noting the children had not been physically harmed in any way.


Police investigated but laid no charges.


"You have no right to steal my children because of religious beliefs," she said, according to the social worker. She admitted to drawing on her daughter to "piss them off" at the school, and said her children "are proud to be white."


"(The mother) made it clear that multiculturalism was the poison of society and she was proud to be able to influence her daughter that way," the CFS employee testified. "My concerns were the emotional impact this was having on a seven-year-old child, that she would describe in detail how to kill a black person. It was concerning that someone would mark their child up like a billboard and send them to school."


On Monday, the mother told CTV, “I mean, I grew up in a very Christian home. I am not Christian. It doesn’t matter what our parents teach us, we’re all going to grow into our own individuals and we’re all going to make our own choices in life. You can’t sit there and tell a Muslim family that they cannot teach their children Islam, because there are some people who take it to an extreme. Just because certain people take white nationalism to extremes doesn’t mean that I am,” the mother said.


The lawyer for CFS told court Monday this case has nothing to do with infringing on free speech or expression. He said it’s about "longstanding family dysfunction" — including drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, neglect, and criminal activity and associations — which will prove the children are at risk if returned to their parents.


CFS is also relying on a doctor’s report that says both parents "are not in a position to offer either of their children care at this time," court heard.


The case has generated national and international publicity because of the unique issues involved. The court hearing is expected to address the extent to which the beliefs as expressed by the parents are legally protected, and whether educating their children in these beliefs entitled CFS to apprehend the children.


The trial will run until Friday, then adjourn until June 23 for another week of testimony.

Ron Paul - Crazyass Bozo

Back during the primaries, I went toe-to-toe with a number of Paulites. They didn't much like anyone who exposed the ties and true nature of their candidate. They were pretty well-known for their internet bullying and spamming of blogs and forums. Well, Ron Paul is still hanging around and still making an ass out of himself. There are a few left-over supporters who just can't wrap their mind around the fact that no one really wants to revist the Constitutional Convention or life on the plantation. So...when something like this comes along, I just have to share it.

From: KICK! Making Politics Fun

Crazyass Bozo Ron Paul has been given a free ride by the media for far too long. It is about time someone somewhere popped up to give this creepy crawler a slap upside his pointy little head.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Republican Congressman and Mad Max Looneytarian Ron Paul - who lives down the street a piece here in Dumbutt, Texas - is as bad as it gets in politics.

It is not only his desire to eliminate the Dept of Agriculture to refuse food stamps for the hungry, but also eliminating public education in lieu of Taliban indoctrination centers, Social Security to put millions of old people into cardboard boxes, Medicare so they will die in their cardboard boxes, Workman's comp to force millions more people next door to the old people in their cardboard boxes with no food or health care, FEMA to make sure people get no help from disasters, Head Start to make children stupid, deregulation of civil rights statutes, environmental laws, banking and Wall Street. And of course to make sure no one has to pay any taxes to promote the general welfare of anyone, anywhere at anytime.

To top all that crap off he is also a rabid pro life evangelical fundamentalist Christian!

Why anyone in their right mind would give this bozo the time of day, yet have Stewart, Colbert, Leno, Letterman et al pat him on his pointy little head is beyond me.

I suppose its because he is ALSO against war and wants to legalize pot, crack, crank, oxycotin and heroin.

So thank you Ed! ABOUT TIME someone stood up and gave this piece of shit a bonk over the head. Am I clear on this? Gee, I hope so! If you are not clear as to how I feel about this check out our Looneytarian pages.

LOVE ENOUGH TO HATE

I found this to be a particularly interesing article and will have more to say about this later on today. I just wanted to get it out there for your perusal.

TO ORIGINAL SOURCE

Love enough to hate

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: May 19, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

The real "hate crime" being perpetrated by Congress and the level of evil it represents should shock every pastor into action. The underlying issue behind H.R. 1913/S. 909 is simple.

Hate crimes legislation, which assigns different levels of punishment for the same crime, is a perversion of equal justice on its face. Compound that injustice by criminalizing the preaching of Scripture as "hate speech" and therefore evil, while protecting unimaginable and abominable sexual behaviors as good, and we are building a perfect storm for national calamity.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:20-21)
We The People have chosen this Congress, delegated God's authority to it and are fully responsible for the depravity flowing from it. Do we think that we can – as a noted pastor's wife did on the National Day of Prayer in Houston – pray the stock market and financial industries rebound while we wallow in rebellion?

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble
And dry grass collapses into the flame,
So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust;
For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts
And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 5:24)
The problem is not that we do hate, but that we don't hate.

I was having breakfast with two black pastors some time ago when one of them mentioned that he was working on a book about hate. I responded with a question that surprised both of us – "Is it about good hate or bad hate?"

Don't miss David Kupelian's culture-war classic, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom"

In our post-Christian culture's worship of the Tolerance Goddess and the extension of federal hate crime laws to protect every possible form of sexual deviancy while punishing PIP (Politically Incorrect Preaching), it is almost inconceivable that we recognize any hate as something desirable and noble. Christians, of all people, should reject hate, should we not?

No. The vital questions are what do we hate, why do we hate and how do we hate?

What should we hate? We have clear parameters given to us by God and, simply stated, we are to hate what He hates and love what He loves. What does He hate? One clear list can be found in Proverbs 6:16-19:

Here are six things GOD hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion: eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family. (The Message)
Aside from the fact that this is a perfect description of what has been spewing out of Washington, D.C., in the last 100 days, our challenge is to look beyond the symptom – D.C. – and discern root causes. Since Congress is a mirror image of the hearts of the people, it is time for another serious "heart test."

Why should we hate? For the same reasons God does, and not out of our own self-focused "rights" or motives. God hates eyes that are arrogant – or a "proud look" in another translation – because it reveals a heart that elevates self while it demeans the value and worth of others. It births tyranny and oppression for self-gain, including voting for leaders who we know will take property and freedom from others because "they owe it to us." We should hate this arrogance because it offends God and hurts people.

Lying tongues are tragically not the exception but the rule in our culture. Remember the "business by handshake" days? Probably not, as they have been extinct for so long. Intentional deceit by current political leaders, however, has escalated into standard practice and has destroyed the trust between people and public servants. We should hate lying because it offends God and hurts people.

Hands that shed innocent blood should be self-explanatory. The blood of tens of millions of innocents already murdered by abortion as well as those yet to be because of the silence and inaction of most pastors and Christians is still crying out for justice. We should hate the shedding of innocent blood because it offends God and hurts people.

Hatching evil plots, feet that run toward wickedness and lying under oath are other increasingly common "hate crimes" that will continue to stop the blessings of God on this nation. The bilking of hard-working, productive citizens by crooks represented by the like of Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford are no different than the plots hatched by radical socialists to seize the business and property of citizens through the abuse of government power. We should hate these things because … You get the picture.

The greatest hate crime a person or a nation can commit is willfully rejecting the authority, laws, grace and mercy of God in preference to the above list of evils. If those we elect to represent us commit that act by passing this abominable legislation, we must either replace them or accept the dire consequences.

Please, pastors of America, love our God and love our neighbors enough to hate what God hates and love what God loves. We can begin by choosing leaders for public office who will do the same rather than expecting those who love evil to cling to what is good.

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Just exactly how this will work out is anyone's guess. I might even find problems with the believability factor of a white Italian dude being played by Jamie. Foxx is a GREAT actor, but I'm not sure even he can pull this one off.

TO ORIGINAL SOURCE

18th May 2009 By Josh Layton

HOLLYWOOD star Jamie Foxx is set to play out of his skin – in a shock film role as Frank Sinatra.




Movie bosses want to prove the big screen is colour blind by casting black actor Foxx, 41, as Ol’ Blue Eyes.


George Clooney, 48, Leonardo DiCaprio, 34, Harry Connick Jnr, 41, and Justin Timberlake, 28, were tipped for the role.


But Foxx has emerged as surprise favourite to play the singing legend – who died 11 years ago aged 82 – in the biopic directed by Martin Scorsese, 66.


An industry insider said: “Jamie would seem to be born to the role.


“Magnificent voice, convincing acting ability – like Frank himself – born the wrong side of the tracks, makes it big against the odds, has his brushes with authority.


“The guy’s a gift.” Foxx shot to fame in 1999 in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday and won an Oscar for playing Ray Charles in the 2004 film Ray.


He has also had a string of hit music releases, including Gold Digger with Kanye West, 31.


He was adopted as a baby by his grandparents and raised a strict Baptist in a racially-segregated Texan community.


Sinatra, who was raised in New Jersey by Italian immigrants, also shot to fame despite a gritty upbringing during the Great Depression.


The My Way star, who won 11 Grammy awards, also combin-ed a music career with film roles.


For years agents at the FBI kept a 2,500-page dossier on the performer, because of his links to Mafia characters.

The Court Takes Over

Should the court be able to take matters out of the hands of these parents?


TO ORIGINAL STORY

Judge rules family can't refuse chemo for boy
By AMY FORLITI, Associated Press Writer Amy Forliti, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 15, 2:08 pm ET

MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota judge ruled Friday that a 13-year-old cancer patient must be evaluated by a doctor to determine if the boy would benefit from restarting chemotherapy over his parents' objections.

In a 58-page ruling, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser has been "medically neglected" by his parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, and was in need of child protection services.

While he allowed Daniel to stay with his parents, the judge gave the Hausers until Tuesday to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist.

If the evaluation shows the cancer had advanced to a point where chemotherapy and radiation would no longer help, the judge said, he would not order the boy to undergo treatment.

The judge wrote that Daniel has only a "rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. ... he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently."

Daniel's court-appointed attorney, Philip Elbert, called the decision unfortunate.

"I feel it's a blow to families," he said. "It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children's medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us."

Elbert said he hadn't spoken to his client yet. The phone line at the Hauser home in Sleepy Eye in southwestern Minnesota had a busy signal Friday. The parents' attorney had no immediate comment but planned to issue a statement.

Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and stopped chemotherapy in February after a single treatment. He and his parents opted instead for "alternative medicines" based on their religious beliefs.

Child protection workers accused Daniel's parents of medical neglect; but in court, his mother insisted the boy wouldn't submit to chemotherapy for religious reasons and she said she wouldn't comply if the court orders it.

Doctors have said Daniel's cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.

Daniel's parents have been supporting what they say is their son's decision to treat the disease with nutritional supplements and other alternative treatments favored by the Nemenhah Band.

The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.

After the first chemotherapy treatment, the family said they wanted a second opinion, said Dr. Bruce Bostrom, a pediatric oncologist who recommended Daniel undergo chemotherapy and radiation.

They later informed him that Daniel would not undergo any more chemotherapy. Bostrom said Daniel's tumor shrunk after the first chemotherapy session, but X-rays show it has grown since he stopped the chemotherapy.

"My son is not in any medical danger at this point," Colleen Hauser testified at a court hearing last week. She also testified that Daniel is a medicine man and elder in the Nemenhah Band.

The family's attorney, Calvin Johnson, said Daniel made the decision himself to refuse chemotherapy, but Brown County said he did not have an understanding of what it meant to be a medicine man or an elder.

Court filings also indicated Daniel has a learning disability and can't read.

The Hausers have eight children. Colleen Hauser told the New Ulm Journal newspaper that the family's Catholicism and adherence to the Nemenhah Band are not in conflict, and that she has used natural remedies to treat illness.

Nemenhah was founded in the 1990s by Philip Cloudpiler Landis, who said Thursday he once served four months in prison in Idaho for fraud related to advocating natural remedies.

Landis said he founded the faith after facing his diagnosis of a cancer similar to Daniel Hauser. He said he treated it with diet choices, visits to a sweat lodge and other natural remedies.