Bush Checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move

[LFTKBS]

Holy lord.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php

"t was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios."

More at the original site.

Doesn't this freak out JREFers who are both skeptics and conservatives? Is this acceptable behavior?

[varwoche]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Doesn't this freak out JREFers who are both skeptics and conservatives? Is this acceptable behavior?
I find it profoundly disturbing, though I'm not a "conservative".

I have a hard time understanding how any skeptic/non-religous type is able to vote for Bush without holding nose shut with an industrial grade clamp.

[DavidJames]

Doesn't this freak out JREFers who are both skeptics and conservatives? Is this acceptable behavior? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, no, won't budge them at all from their support for GWB.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Doesn't this freak out JREFers who are both skeptics and conservatives? Is this acceptable behavior?

I don't know if I am conservative but I will answer this. It pisses me off that they are meeting with these people but it does not freak me out. If you read the article and look at the positions taken by the administration you will see they are not nearly on the same page. Aside from the fact that there have been presidents for almost 50 years supporting Israel with out the benefit of the fundies you also have to keep in mind that Bush is for a Palestinian state, something these fundies oppose strongly and in fact is the opposite of what they want.

[hgc]

I think they are already starting to crack. I've even seen one or two conservatives around here who won't stomach voting for GWB.

As soon as someone 'up high' breaks loose, that'll open the floodgates. Someone like Colin Powell or John McCain.

[Skeptic]

And you consider the village voice to be a reliable news source? Ah well.

I, for one, stopped taking anything it says seriously after I noted that almost every issue starts with a 10-page article of how the evil establishment is driving poor women into the slavery of prostitution... only to be confronted with a zillion ads for "massage parlors" (yeah, right) in the last 20 pages of the paper.

(One can easily guess, by the way, what they would have said if any government publication tried to reduce costs by selling ad space to whorehouses.)

More to the point, in the last two years the "voice" ran a cover with GWB as a monkey / Alfred E. Newman / otherwise disparaged at least once a month, if not more. Yup, just the place to go for objective information about what Bush is doing.

[Jocko]

Originally posted by Skeptic
And you consider the village voice to be a reliable news source? Ah well.




The "article" in question here reads like an editorial. No, strike that, a RABID editorial. But it makes the excellent point that people should not be pestering the government with correspondence. All that amazingly detailed information, and yet... no actual e-mail!

Now that's what I call reporting!

Ah well... today's Village Voice headline, tomorrow's Snopes feature.

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by varwoche
I find it profoundly disturbing, though I'm not a "conservative".

I have a hard time understanding how any skeptic/non-religous type is able to vote for Bush without holding nose shut with an industrial grade clamp.

I'm against Bush and always have been, but what I find puzzling is how any skeptic can take this article seriously. There is enough to criticize how Bush runs things without going into this wacko stuff.

Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter.

Since when did meeting with someone prove that you agreed with their ideas?

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Holy lord.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php

[ ... ]

Doesn't this freak out JREFers who are both skeptics and conservatives? Is this acceptable behavior?

Well maybe.

I'd need more than The Village Voice before I accept this story at face value. Particularly considering this (more at link):

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=572&ncid=696&e=6&u=/nm/20040518/lf_nm/campaign_evangelicals_dc

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Concern among evangelical Christians over the course of the war in Iraq is
opening a crack in their strong bond with resident Bush (news - web sites) and the Republican Party, political analysts who track this powerful voting group said.

But they caution there are doubts over whether John Kerry can lure evangelicals into the Democratic camp in November's presidential election.

"I know there are a lot of evangelicals who are disillusioned with the war and worried about a lot of things, the Woodward book, the Clarke book ... (and) how we got into this thing," said Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., referring to recent books on the al Qaeda threat and the Iraqi war and occupation.

Compounding that is the growing scandal about prisoner abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq.

[Skeptic]

By the way, if you want to get an idea of the REAL reason anybody reads the Village voice--apart from the massage parlor ads, that is--check out the part of their web site which they themselves rank as "most popular":

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0419/savage.php

[LFTKBS]

Dan Savage is great. What's your point?

[Skeptic]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Dan Savage is great. What's your point?

As Armstrong used to say, "if you have to ask, you ain't never gonna know".

[cbish]

Is TIME magazine mainstream enough for everyone.

This editorial pretty much sums up for me why I won't be voting for Bush again.

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,634641,00.html

A few quotes I found interesting.

Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance, the eternal pratfall of the religiously convinced. We are humble before the Lord, Bush insists. We cannot possibly know His will. And yet, we "know" He's on the side of justice—and we define what justice is.

Bush's overheated sense of good vs. evil has been reinforced by the intellectual fantasies of neoconservatives like I. Lewis Libby and Paul Wolfowitz,

[TillEulenspiegel]

I admit I think Bush is an idiot altho surrounded by some of the best ( and most dangerous ) minds in the US is motivated by some sort of third grade bible class mentality coupled with a spoiled child's insistence that things be done his way.

This article holds nothing new. For the past 2 years I have been a vociferous critic of Bush's motives in re the middle East and have pointed out that his ( and his fellow fundie Christians ) view of the world stage is an attempt to bring about " The Second Coming" or the last days or what ever the heck they call it. I have always pointed this out as not so much an indictment of what I ( and many ) see as Pro-Israeli policy , but as an ironic amusement that this mook actually believes this poop and the Israelis are content to let him wallow in his own phantasmagoria as long as it serves their purposes. If you don't know what I'm talking about it boils down to this.

The fundies believe that according to prophesy: When Israel is finally "Regathered" as one whole state and all the A-rabs are driven out. God will come again and the faithful will go directly to heaven ( don't pass go ) all the rest will be here for a thousands years of the tribulation and then go to hell. Of course the Jews will never see heaven because their heathens- oy! Who knew? I find this supremely ironic and funny .... well sadly funny.

So Sharon and his pal's are aware of this and push the envelope, knowing ( seemingly ) the views of Mr.Bush.

If You think I'm kidding look this crap up.

I have seen the Prez declare his allegiance to these ridicules pronouncements BY HIS OWN WORDS on Night line,Frontline,Newsweek, 60 minuets,The Atlantic...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/03/60minutes/main524268.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,820528,00.html
http://wais.stanford.edu/Politics/usa_busharmageddon.htm
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/04/04/apocalyptic_president/
http://www.whitehouse.org/dof/defending-israel.asp <----------------- This is hilarious!!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26366-2004Mar26.html ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,bla,bla,blech!

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel

http://www.whitehouse.org/dof/defending-israel.asp <----------------- This is hilarious!!!!

You do know it's a fake site, right?

[TillEulenspiegel]

Oh ! Man I'm so embarresed!. I thought the word parody at the bottom was a reference to Jimmy Buffet.. you know key west , parrots?

http://www.chickenhead.com/

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel
Oh ! Man I'm so embarresed!. I thought the word parody at the bottom was a reference to Jimmy Buffet.. you know key west , parrots?

http://www.chickenhead.com/

Jimmy who?


Anyway those other links you posted are about crazy Christian fundies and not Bush.

[TillEulenspiegel]

I guess denial IS just a river in Africa.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by Mycroft
I'm against Bush and always have been, but what I find puzzling is how any skeptic can take this article seriously. There is enough to criticize how Bush runs things without going into this wacko stuff.

Since when did meeting with someone prove that you agreed with their ideas?
Pardon me, I didn't make clear that I was ranting in general. That confessed, the religious views of Bush and other powerful fundamentalists (i.e. Ashcroft, Delay) are, indeed, disturbing.

Tom Delay, R Texas, house majority leader and one of the most powerful people in the country, unabashedly advocates that US foriegn policy be based on biblical end of days prophecy.

No, that Bush hobnobs with these types of wingnuts does not prove he is of like mind. Nor does it allay concerns.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Skeptic
By the way, if you want to get an idea of the REAL reason anybody reads the Village voice--apart from the massage parlor ads, that is--check out the part of their web site which they themselves rank as "most popular":

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0419/savage.php

So, apart from the fact that you think the VV is hypocrtical, and you may be right there, you agree with the fact that Dubya is consulting with some very strange people on his most critical policies.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by Grammatron

You do know it's a fake site, right?
So who's making this (http://www.preteristarchive.com/GeneralStudies/Press/media_98_ctonline_weber.html) stuff up?

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent

So who's making this (http://www.preteristarchive.com/GeneralStudies/Press/media_98_ctonline_weber.html) stuff up?

God? Devil? Cthulhu?

[Frank Newgent]

http://cthulhumobil.de/images/cthulhu_und_bush.jpg

God? Devil? Cthulhu?

[Renfield]

Originally posted by hgc
I think they are already starting to crack. I've even seen one or two conservatives around here who won't stomach voting for GWB.

As soon as someone 'up high' breaks loose, that'll open the floodgates. Someone like Colin Powell or John McCain.

John McCain doesn't care much for Bush, me thinks, though he's too loyal a republican to come out and admit it.

And Powell is definately distancing himself from Bush. Just listen to what he said last Sunday on meet the press.

[Renfield]

Some of the Moore "debunking" going on out there is much shakier than the man's films.

This one is pretty laughable I think.

http://www.moorewatch.com/comments.php?id=P201_0_1_0_C

a
"One of the segments of the movie that gets the most airplay on TV takes place at the very beginning. There's a bank in Northern Michigan that will give you a free gun if you open an account. Moore is shown walking into the bank and asking to open "the account where you get the free gun." He's led to an office where he fills out a couple of forms, answers a couple of questions, a quick background check is completed (Moore comments about the speed and ease of the process) and presto: he exits the bank, proudly raising his new Weatherby rifle in the air.

So I called the bank, North Country Bank & Trust. The spokesperson who processed Moore's free gun in the film doesn't work there any more, but I spoke to one of the gun program's customer-service reps. It turns out that it's impossible to duplicate Moore's experience.

Here's the procedure for the gun program, as it was explained to me:

1) You walk into the bank and ask for "the account where you get the free gun."

2) You're shown a catalogue of available products. They're famous for their guns, but you can also choose a set of golf clubs, a grandfather clock, or other expensive bric-a-brac. You pick out an item.

3) The gun isn't actually "free"; you're buying a Certificate of Deposit and the bank is paying you all of the interest from the account in advance, in the form of fabulous prizes. The bank employee knows what each item costs and calculates how much money you'll have to desposit and how long you'll have to keep it in there to pay off the gun. For instance, I was told that to get the Mark 5 Stainless Weatherby, I'd have to deposit $5697 and keep it there for three years.

4) You fill out paperwork. Two sets, actually. One is the usual paperwork for opening a CD, the second is information for the required firearms background check.

5) You go home and wait. The bank processes your paperwork, both to make sure that no other bank has ever lost money doing business with you, and to make sure that they can legally sell you a firearm. I asked the rep how long the bank took to approve a customer and get him his gun, but she was uncomfortable with giving me an actual number.

"Well, are we talking hours? Days?" I asked.

"Oh, days, definitely." Later in the conversation, she described it as "Like, two weeks' worth of days."

6) When the bank is satisfied that it's safe to issue you a CD and a gun, they notify you. You have the option of picking up the weapon at a local gun dealer or right at the bank but in either case, the weapon has to be shipped there from a different location. No gun inventory is kept at the bank; the only firearms they have on hand are display models so you can fondle the merchandise before you make a selection.

So there are obviously some major disconnects between the experience Moore presents and the experience a customer would have if they didn't appear with a film crew. Again, this is preliminary stuff: it's possible that the process was indeed just that simple when Moore came to film. But it's also possible that the bank agreed to streamline it for the purposes of filming. Unfortunately, the woman who actually chairs the program (and perhaps can speak more authoritatively) was on vacation when I called, but I've got her return-date circled on the calendar. Stay tuned.

The movie's hardly even begun, and already two major facts and incidents depicted are wrong. These things aren't just "matters of opinion," either; he's making a statement of fact that's contrary to physical evidence and presenting a "reality" that only exists through filmmaking."



Originally many of the debunkers tried saying this event was completely staged (http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110003233), but of course since the bank and the people are real, that didn't hold up too well.

Notice in the above while they claim Moores' depiction of the "facts" are wrong, the bank official would not come out and deny that Moore's experience at the bank could not have happened. At best they can say that Moore's experience wasn't what was typical at the bank.

And some of the so called errors they find are just lame. Only in Right wing fantasy land could the fact that "They're famous for their guns, but you can also choose a set of golf clubs, a grandfather clock, or other expensive bric-a-brac. You pick out an item." stand as a contradiction. Yes, dumbass, they're famous for their guns, and that's what Moore's reporting on. Its what they push most heavily by far in their promotions too, btw. That they have other promotions going on is hardly surprising or relavent. This kind of thing is just stupid, but I guess right wingers go for it so they're not going to stop anytime soon.

The right did find some problems with the film, but most of their claims prove to be far shakier than the movie itself when you really examine them.

[cbish]

Grammatron

Are you going to contribute anything more than vague 'one liner's'?

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by cbish
Grammatron

Are you going to contribute anything more than vague 'one liner's'?

Well since you asked so politely, sure.

Originally posted by Frank Newgent

So who's making this stuff up?

No one is making this stuff up -- well actually since I am an atheist I think their whole belief system is made up but that's a different conversation. That those fundies are thinking Israel is the road to their salvation or whatever I can not dispute. They are determined and they do scare me like any other fundy would. However I see no connection of them wanting it and it driving US's foreign policy.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Grammatron
However I see no connection of them wanting it and it driving US's foreign policy.
Absolutely right. These fundies have been spouting this stuff about Israel all along. But would anybody conclude that all US presidents after FDR were fundies?

And no I don't think it proves W is a religious fanatic every time he says 'God bless America' or something like that.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by Grammatron
However I see no connection of them wanting it and it driving US's foreign policy.
I've heard talking heads refer to Tom Delay as one of the 5 most powerful people in Washington, and on the rise.

Familiar with his stated views?

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by varwoche

I've heard talking heads refer to Tom Delay as one of the 5 most powerful people in Washington, and on the rise.

Familiar with his stated views?

I'm sorry, I do not understand the question.

[rastamonte]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Dan Savage is great. What's your point?

This made me laugh:


Q. If you're telling women that low-rise jeans only look good on a handful of people, also tell men that only a handful look good with no shirt at all! I'd much rather be subjected to GLH than beer-gutted, love-handled, hairy-backed men all summer. —HEATHER

A. At the risk of inducing anorexia in millions of young men, I have to say that I agree with you 100 percent, Heather. Beer-gutted, love-handled, hairy-backed men shouldn't go shirtless in summer. Or any other season.

[varwoche]

Originally posted by Grammatron
[BI'm sorry, I do not understand the question. [/B]
You said that the the nutcases don't influence foriegn policy, and I wondered if you were familiar with statements made by Tom Delay, house majority leader.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by varwoche

Tom Delay, R Texas, house majority leader and one of the most powerful people in the country, unabashedly advocates that US foriegn policy be based on biblical end of days prophecy.

Other Jews are less sure, fearing that fundamentalist Christians are religious wolves in sheep's clothing, extending the hand of friendship in the present while believing in an eventual endgame of conversion or death for Jews upon Jesus' return.

In February, Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, said he had blocked settlements in Gaza from accepting bulletproof vests from evangelicals.


http://web2.iadfw.net/dsh440/support.htm

[Beerina]

Originally posted by Skeptic
I, for one, stopped taking anything it says seriously after I noted that almost every issue starts with a 10-page article of how the evil establishment is driving poor women into the slavery of prostitution... only to be confronted with a zillion ads for "massage parlors" (yeah, right) in the last 20 pages of the paper.


Hehe, noticed that, did you?

And what few ads aren't for massage parlors or phone sex lines are fraudulent "clear drugs from your system fast!" type ads, which are snake-oil type products. So much for their "truth".

[Regnad Kcin]

Originally posted by Beerina
Hehe, noticed that, did you?

And what few ads aren't for massage parlors or phone sex lines are fraudulent "clear drugs from your system fast!" type ads, which are snake-oil type products. So much for their "truth". You (and Skeptic) must be joking.

As if it weren't obvious, a publication's editorial content and advertising content are two separate matters, and should be scrutinized on their own individual claims.

Are you suggesting that a story in a newspaper or magazine which maintains that, say, water is wet may (if not must) be disregarded because somewhere within the same pages an ad promotes a legal business offering, say, body piercings? How does that follow?

In the case of the Voice, the types of businesses found there are simply choosing a widely circulated and read means to pass along their particular promotional message.

Tell me, do you dismiss outright your local newspaper because it carries horoscopes and "Garfield?"

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Regnad Kcin
You (and Skeptic) must be joking.

As if it weren't obvious, a publication's editorial content and advertising content are two separate matters...

Not entirely. A newspaper may have a policy of not taking certain kinds of advertising. It's very common in fact.

This is particularly true for political ads.

[Frank Newgent]

http://www.cakenyc.com/press/images/nypostcover.jpghttp://www.cakenyc.com/press/images/nypostcover.jpg



I, for one, stopped taking anything it says seriously after I noted that almost every issue starts with a 10-page article of how the evil establishment is driving poor women into the slavery of prostitution... only to be confronted with a zillion ads for "massage parlors" in the last 20 pages of the paper.

[Skeptic]

As if it weren't obvious, a publication's editorial content and advertising content are two separate matters, and should be scrutinized on their own individual claims.

It's a matter of degree. Surely, the fact that the NYT sometimes accepts ads for (say) worthless self-help books doesn't mean it is a worthless paper.

But when virtually EVERY advertisement in the paper is for a whorehouse, a strip club, a "how to kick your drug habit" snake-oil scam, or an "adult video store" place; when virtually NO reputable business advertises there, lest it ruin their reputation (nothing say "the car for the whole family" more than being placed between Mimi the hot tranvestite and the big jugs adult club); well, it does say something. It says that it's an anything-for-buck paper with a well-known reputation that's about as good as that of a rather rude leper.

Sure, the ad department and the investigative journalism departments are not the same, but both are below--and responsible for--the editors of the paper as a whole. And when these editors allow the ad department to advertise whorehouses by the score, or to sell snake oil to the (apparently significant) number of junkies among the readers, it's quite unlikely that the selfsame editors would suddenly discourage the "fluffing" of "investigative reports" with innuendo and rumor to make it look more anti-Bush, for the satisfaction of their readership. It's not, after all, as if they need to fear their good name being damaged if it turns out to be inaccurate nonsense, as they have no good name.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent
(NY Post trash)

Whatever the NY Post was 200 years ago when Alexander Hamilton owned it, it has always been trash in my lifetime.

The NY Post was a left-wing scandal sheet when Dorothy Schiff owned it, and became a right-wing scandal sheet when Rupert Murdoch bought it. So it has remained through various changes in ownership since.

Please don't take my disparagement of The Village Voice as an endorsement of the NY Post or even the NYT.

I'm old enough to remember when the Voice was a pretty decent, slightly gay, neighborhood paper.
Then it began to be sold in other Manhattan neighborhoods, because there was a demand for the off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theater listings. Not particularly for the editorial content.

Now it's a more gay than average, slightly leftist, pompous national rag.

[cbish]

Grammatron wrote:
Well since you asked so politely, sure.

Yes, I know the civility of this board has been questioned recently and I have to admit that I was afraid my post might be inflammatory. I just wanted you to put in your $0.02 worth rather than joking about Jimmey Buffet.

No one is making this stuff up -- well actually since I am an atheist I think their whole belief system is made up but that's a different conversation.

No, I think that's the entire topic of conversation here. It's not made up. That's what is scarry here. It's time to discuss it now. Either here or on another thread.

That those fundies are thinking Israel is the road to their salvation or whatever I can not dispute.

Personally, I don't know if I believe this is true. However, it doesn't dismiss the attitude of this administration. If it is true, then it's exponentiallly disturbing.

However I see no connection of them wanting it and it driving US's foreign policy.

I respectfully disagree. With the articles posted,documentary done by PBS (Frontline; Why We Went to War ; last spring I dont have the source off hand), and with my personal discussions with "conservative repulicans" (for whatever that's worth), I cannot help but conclude that the Times article that I posted (see above) is not a realistic picture of reality.

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/...,634641,00.html

[cbish]

Grammatron wrote:
Aside from the fact that there have been presidents for almost 50 years supporting Israel with out the benefit of the fundies you also have to keep in mind that Bush is for a Palestinian state, something these fundies oppose strongly and in fact is the opposite of what they want.

Just one more thought before I go watch hockey!

BUT, has there ever been a time in our history when this mattered so much???