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Regime change--ha! We KNOW where "regime change" is really needed!
"Mission Accomplished!" 2009: The "black box" voting machines have been dumped into 'Boston Harbor' and Al Gore re-elected as President. Mission accomplished.
"Winning the war on terror." Torture ended. Unjust detention without charge ended. "Rendition" ended. Guantanamo Bay prison ended. The sadistic crime gang in the White House ended. Illegal, unjust, heinous war ended, and forbidden forever more by Constitutional amendment, if necessary. "Terrorism" relegated to its proper venue, good police work. The "Patriot" Act ended. Competent, loyal Americans put in charge of NORAD and other national security agencies (the NSA, FEMA). No more money to the fascist government of Colombia for slaughtering union organizers, leftists and peasants and dumping them in mass graves, and trafficking in drugs. Winning the war on terror that has been perpetrated by our own government.
"Supporting our troops." New policy: Never again will U.S. troops be put in harm's way to serve the interests of global corporate predators, and to lard the bank accounts of war profiteers. "Support our troops" by SHOWING SOME RESPECT for their patriotism and their service. "Support our troops" by not using them as cannon fodder.
"Supporting our troops," part II. De-mobilize them. Give them good civilian jobs. Cut the military budget by, say, 90%, down to a true defensive posture. No more wars of choice! Stop creating a poor underclass that has no choices except military service! "Support our troops" by creating social justice.
"We are a Christian nation." Then act like one. Understand Jesus' core message--and Christianity's main contribution to western civilization--that every human being is equal to every other human being, rich or poor, royal or plebian, male or female, fisherman or king--and that all should be guided by principles of peacefulness, love and generosity. Reject the DISTORTIONS of this religion into its opposite by powermongers and warmongers.
There are many contributions, from many cultures, that together define what this nation is--including the fact of its multiculturalism. But if you are going to hark back to its Christian--and Deist!--origins, be true to those origins, which inspired Thomas Jefferson, for instance--in Jefferson's Bible--to ferret out the core Christian message, and to imagine a country built on the principles of equality, peacefulness, freedom from religious tyranny, and freedom from religious wars. He may have failed to get his anti-slavery plank into the Declaration of Independence, and may have been trapped by his own society and era in the ownership of slaves, but he knew well what he was about when he wrote of a nation in which "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," and hoped for a time when that would be true.
That is our Christian--and Deist--origin. All men are created equal. The Bushites and the soldiers. The billionaire CEOs and the maids and janitors. The women and the men. The bosses and the workers. The black and the white, and the shades in between. All. That was the dream. This was the main work of Jefferson's life--to keep the U.S. free of religious war and to embed the notion of equality in its institutions. He knew that Christianity could not be true to itself if it continued to be cemented with state power, as had been the case in Europe since the 5th Century AD. Cemented with state power, Christians become torturers and warmongers and Crusaders and witch-hunters. He may have failed on the issue of slavery, but he laid the foundations upon which the slaves were emancipated a hundred years later, and upon which the civil rights movement was based, a hundred years after that. Equality--straight from the life and core teachings of Jesus.
Now we have Bushites trying to undo that equality, with voter "caging" lists (often aimed at black voters), and policies that harm and impoverish people of color most of all. If we are going to be inspired by Christianity, then we might try paying some attention to what its founder said: Love they neighbor; give all you have to the poor and follow me; the kingdom is within you (not outside of you, in your material possessions); forgive your enemies; turn the other cheek.
"We are a Christian nation." Who would Jesus make war upon? Who would Jesus steal from? Who would Jesus torture?
"We are a Christian nation"--not. But we should at least stop being hypocrites--and spitting on the graves of our cultural founders, from Jesus to Jefferson.
Well, I got off point, sort of. What Bushite phrases would YOU like to turn around, and use to good--and sweetly ironic--purpose?
Funny thing is, Cuba--although we may not care for its political system--is a helluva lot more 'Christian' than we are. There, everybody has food on the table. Everybody has medical care--and of a high quality. Everbody gets a free education through university level. Everyone has useful work and a sense of common purpose. The music is great--and corporations are not allowed to ravage the environment. It's still a quite beautiful place--not the horrendous, unnatural eyesore that Miami has become. And do you think the Cubans would evacuate only the rich and middle classes, and leave the poor to rot and die, in a major natural disaster, and use the disaster to lard, say, the vice president's corporation with yet another "no bid" contract? Cuban communism has turned out to be far more 'Christian' than anything we have created. Talk about irony!
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