Andrew Sullivan: The Party of Death

[smoogatz]

I usually detest Sullivan, but he's spot-on here:

"In the latest New Yorker, Michael Specter has a positively chilling story on how theoconservatives and Christianists have waged a quiet war against some critical vaccines, especially against Human papillomavirus or HPV. A vaccine exists against this virus that would drastically reduce the numbers of cervix cancer cases. The religious right opposes it as a mandatory childhood vaccination, because it removes a disincentive to having sex:"

'Religious conservatives are unapologetic; not only do they believe that mass use of an HPV vaccine or the availability of emergency contraception will encourage adolescents to engage in unacceptable sexual behavior; some have even stated that they would feel similarly about an H.I.V. vaccine, if one became available. 'We would have to look at that closely,' Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said. 'With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition' - a medical term for the absence of fear - 'would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.' Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control's Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations.'

"Specter has a Q and A about the article here. These people would rather people die of AIDS and cancer than do anything to "encourage" sexuality. And they have the cojones to call the Democrats the 'party of death.'"

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/03/the_party_of_de.html?promoid=rss_daily_dish

[wicket]

1. Sullivan voted for Kerry

He's been much more tolerable the past 3 years, what really put him over the top was Abu Ghraib.

[MissWaverly]

7. Sullivan did not vote for Kerry!

I posted on another web site, where he replied to my e-mail, that I should get over 2004,
his candidate, the best man won, and that George Bush was the best choice. I don't care
what he says now. I had posted about the science of hate, and that by suppresing people's
rights in the election and villifying gays we were on the march towards a fascist society.

[ChiciB1]

13. He Voted For The Idiolt!

Saw him on Maher after that, but he wasn't happy with The Idiot then!

Between him and Christophr Hitchins, I'd say they keep it fuzzed up!

[MissWaverly]

18. He also said that if I remember correctly that

the Republican party was the best party to lead the country and I think he used the
national security argument. My sister said that after Nixon resigned, noboty would ever
admit that they voted for him. I believe we are now undergoing a similar occurrence.
But his e-mail to my post occurred in November, 2004.

[wicket]

19. Ok, I was just going on his web postings at the time, and this article:

WHY I AM SUPPORTING JOHN KERRY. By Andrew Sullivan 10.26.04

[MissWaverly]

22. Hey, I understand but you don't expect truth do you

Look at Bill O'Leilly and the rest of them. They say whatever it's convenient to say.
Rush Limbaugh admitted as much. I don't lie except I don't always tell the truth.

I do blame much of this on Clinton's "I smoked but I didn't inhale" excuse.

[wicket]

30. nah, I don't expect the truth from them

If you have a website, you should post the Sullivan email as you have proof of him telling a very big lie. Thanks for letting me know :)

[MissWaverly]

33. I wish I could remember the website

it was not mine, but I had posted about the 2004 election, I will do a google but all I
remember is that it had big chocolate chip cookies with a bite out of them as a graphic

[Jack Rabbit]

10. Sullivan is a conservative, not a right winger

The word conservative is the most badly abused term in the American political lexicon.

A conservative is for small government, lower taxes, free enterprise and individual liberty. While I am not a conservative, I find much common ground with them on some of these issues.

A right winger believes that some people are simply better than others and the elites have a right to rule over the masses. The definition of elite may be on racial, gender, religious or class lines. Individual liberties are to be subjugated to the interests of the elites. When the government uses force to break up an attempt to organize workers, it is a right wing action; when land is seized from one ethnic or national group for use by another, it is a right wing action; when a council of stuffy old men determines which candidates are pious enough to run for public office, it is a right wing action.

To advocate a restriction on individual liberties on the grounds that it violates one's religious tenants without regard to whether or not other citizens of the state share those tenants is a right wing argument. This would apply as much to moves to outlaw abortion, some forms of birth control or homosexuality as to moves to restrict free speech or press freedom.

Jesse Helms, Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh are often mislabeled conservative. That is as ridiculous as calling Che Guevara a New Deal liberal.

[smoogatz]

20. I think the distinction no longer exists.

There are no real conservatives anymore. The word has come to mean "fundamentalist wingnut fascist Bush supporter," and should be a universal political pejorative. Conservative=evil, IMO.

[Jack Rabbit]

21. We need to resurrect the distinction

Otherwise, we're buying into Orwellian language, the very purpose of which is to blur distinctions. By calling themselves conservatives, right wingers minimize the differences that set them apart from liberals and progressives, not to mention sober conservatives like Sullivan. By painting Sullivan with the same Brush as Ann Coulter, one makes it seem as if Sullivan, who simply believes in those things I described as conservative above, is a racist and a homophobe, which he is not. He certainly isn't a homophobe.

[smoogatz]

24. I disagree. I think we should shout from the rooftops

that all conservatives are despicable fascist whackjobs who want their own daughters to die of cervical cancer as a penalty for having even monogamous, marital sex--among other things. Otherwise we provide an easy out to all the Bush ass-lickers and enablers, like Sullivan. Make them defend their little love affair with fascism before you let them off the hook, fer cryin' out loud.

[Jack Rabbit]

26. I'd rather welcome them to our side of the barricades

Yes, they are guilty of enabling the right wingers with the idea that they could control them. (Where did we hear that before? Was it it 1933?)

However, they aren't fascists. We'll defeat yuppie fascists or neoconservatives or fundamentalist right wing morons or whatever they are a lot faster if we recognize the distinction between them and people like Sullivan.

Andrew Sullivan has more in common with us than with this other crowd. We can have a civil argument with sober conservatives after we marginalize fascists now in power, who are as much a threat to Sullivan as to us.

[MissWaverly]

27. Yes but they are not a threat to him

They believe that the lean times and the failures from Bush policies will only effect
the democrats, the unwashed multitudes and people who sneaked over the border illegally,
all gays and anyone else that has been villified since '00. It is not going to come
to their quiet gated community where their SUV's are parked. It is not going to effect
their portfolio and their affluent lifestyle. I know this is incredibly hard to believe
but George Bush is not the only American who is not reality based.

[Jack Rabbit]

37. Bush is down to a 34% approval rating and free falling

I know some Americans are no more reality based than he. But they are not as many as you think.

[BootinUp]

28. naaah.

there's too many swing voters who hitched up their bandwagon to the conservatives in the last 20 years that we need to reclaim. They are not wacko nutjobs just because they call themselves conservatives.

[smoogatz]

32. Responding to both of you

I only have a few seconds--on my way out the door, so pardon misspellings, etc. But--you've got it all wrong. Branding is key to winning elections. Lool at what the right did to the word "liberal"--half of us here are still afraid to use it in connection with our own politics. Point two: old-line Goldwater conservatives no longer exist. They've been extinct at least since Reagan, who turned their quaint philosophy of fiscal responsibility and minding our own international business on its head. ALL conservatives nowadays are Reagan/Bush conservatives, because that's what the philosophy has become. They have less than nothing in common with us politically, and in fact detest us and everything we stand for--in particular the notion that government ought, from time to time, think about what's actually best for people rather than corporations, ditto the idea that everyone ought to have the same rights as the majority. Let the Republicans dissolve into warring factions; let them eat their own; let them rue the day they ever signed on for the current disaster. But DO NOT let them off the hook until they disavow not just Bush, but his stupid ideas, too. "We didn't do it right" is not a sufficient apology, IMO. Until they can say they were wrong about all of it, the whole hideous can of worms, fuck 'em--I don't want 'em pretending we're suddenly all on the same side.

[Jack Rabbit]

36. Responding to you (and you may respond when you return)

I'm not pretending we agree with them, either. However, I still think that Goldwater conservatives still exist. Most of the conservatives I know are more like that then they are yuppie fascists. Many of them have come to realize that Bush (although perhaps still deluded about Reagan) is fiscally irresponsible.

Bush's war on terror was executed so badly that there are many reasons to be alarmed. I would maintain, although some would disagree, that it was never conceived honestly. The neocon WoT was never as much about bringing the September 11 criminals to justice as about implementing an ambitious imperialist agenda outlined by PNAC in the 1990s. Invading Iraq was had nothing to do with terrorism; the argument that it was an honest mistake based on bad intelligence becomes weaker daily.

When this is over, we may even have many conservatives agreeing with us that Bush and his aides should face war crimes charges.

Nevertheless, the most important thing is to put this regime where it can commit no more war crimes. At the very least, that is out of power. I still maintain that will require that we join forces with those who were somewhat slower than we were to see the danger that Bush posed all along.

[smoogatz]

42. You're SO pragmatic...

and right, of course. But I do believe we need to sieze the opportunity to hit the right with some negative branding of our own. Conservatism is rotten to its roots, and ought to be discarded into the bin of crappy ideas sooner rather than later. But yes, I agree, getting the durrent crop of conservative idiots out of power is the most important thing.

[MissWaverly]

25. I understand but remember the conservatives enabled Bush

What I don't understand and I have been reading Bruce Bartlett: "Impostor: How George
W. Bush bankrupted America and betrayed the Regan Legacy." is that they understood more
than we the liberals did, how dangerous Bush was for America. Why? Because the advisors
that Bush picked and then abused were part of their conservative circle. Then why
did they hand the 2004 nomination to him. Why did they help to coverup his failed
presidency. Why was he presented to the America people as a sure thing for the 2nd time
when he was clearly not. I am not sorry for the conservatives, they help to villify
Clinton who was impeached over a blue dress when they have been head bobbers of this
administration's failure. Go watch the Republican convention from 2004 over again, you
can get it on "TDS-Indecison 2004." You will see the leading conservatives in the country
all doing the I love Bush mantra.

[Jack Rabbit]

29. I agree that they are guilty as you charge them

But this is war, not politics as usual. We're going to need all the friends we can get.

We are in the same position as the French Resistance from 1940-44. The Resistance was largely made up of anarchists, socialists, Communists and other leftists. They were willing join forces with conservative nationalists and even take direction from one (General de Gaulle). Of course, they had differences of opinion with de Gaulle. De Gaulle wanted to maintain French colonialism after the war; that was anathema to many in the Resistance. However, the important thing was to defeat the Nazis and get them out of France. Discussion of all other matters was rightly postponed until the important thing was accomplished.

For over four years on these forums, I have been saying that G. W. Bush is not just another conservative president, like Ronald Reagan or George Bush. This regime is a genuine threat to American democratic institutions. Bush and his aides don't believe in a government of law, the right to dissent or in checks and balances. They think nothing of undermining the right to vote. Now, more people than ever are realizing that he uses the Constitution as a door mat.

I disagreed with Senator Kerry on more things than I agreed with him, but I voted for him. Removing Bush and his the fascist regime from power was too important to worry about ideological purity. The important thing was and remains to remove from power those whose ideas of good and wise government appear to stem more from thoughts of a seventeenth-century royalist than from The Federalist Papers.

We cannot afford to be so righteous at this time as to reserve for ourselves, who were right all along, the privilege of ousting this illegitimate and criminal regime from power. If we do, we will fail. Many have been slower than we to realize that Bush is a threat to American democracy and Constitutional law. Many more will come to realize this in the coming months. Some of those who will actually voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. In order to succeed in our effort to restore democracy to America and make it stronger than ever, we must welcome them to our cause.

[MissWaverly]

31. I am not trying to be self righteous, I am saying they still believe

They still see George Bush as the one or the current Neocons as the one. Their comfort
zone has not been impacted and they will not see a reason to change. I think many
conservatives ideas are good, like we must eliminate Medicare Part D, it is a corporate
sweet heart deal which allows companies to off load promised benefits onto the taxpayers,
the same way the government is now paying to clean up corporate toxic waste dumping sites
and other corporate liabilities. They have been lulled into false security by their tax
breaks, who is going to want to support the whopping price tag which is to come to pay
for this idiocy of the last 5 years.

[Jack Rabbit]

34. I agree again

They have been lulled into false security by their tax breaks.

Or other things.

My post was not so much to persuade you of anything (you seem to understand the point), but to persuade those who don't see the necessity of making a coalition with moderate conservatives in an effort to remove Bush and the neocons from power.

As for Medicare Part D, my 94-year-old father agrees with you.

[MissWaverly]

38. What can we do to lure them in

I think that the Dubai ports deal helped because they realize that there is no bottom,
Bush is the Pied Piper, but if I remember correctly the Pied Piper brought only heartache.
What hook can we do to get them behind us.

[Jack Rabbit]

39. We don't need to do a lot except agitate for removal from office

Otherwise, Bush is doing our work for us.

[MissWaverly]

41. I would like to add something here

Governor Ehrlich (R) is our governor in Maryland. I think in his way-he is dedicated and he understands government from a business perspective. I think that he is a fact based sort of guy and not the type to emotionally make a decision on impulse. Suddenly he and our Maryland State Assembly (D) have jumped into election reform in a big way. They are going to lease optical scanners for 13 million and not use the 90 million dollar Diebold machines in our election this year. Something is up, I am convinced that our government and those who are privy to information know more than we do about the rigged election of 2004.

Bartlett in his book quoted the exit polls that said 18% of self pro-claimed conservatives
said that they were voting for Kerry. The exit polls that were villified for ignoring the
shy republicans. It seems that the conervatives were not shy in expressing their support
for Kerry!

[BootinUp]

2. chilling is a word

So is "crime" as in against humanity.

[stellanoir]

3. It's nuts

I got screamed at for the first time in as long as I can recall by a women who thought I was inappropriate to encourage a teen who wanted to have 20 kids to try a modicum of selectivity.

It was as though I was telling her to go get pregnant that night just because I discussed sexuality and discretion with her.

Psssssst. . . .the kids are having sex anyway.

[Lorien]

12. A personal story that debunks that RW crap

When I was a child, my parents were both atheists. My father was a sex therapist, so there were quite a few clinical books on sexuality around the home. I also overheard quite a few conversations on the subject growing up. When I became a teenage my parents had divorced, but my father and stepmom still spoke openly about sex and encouraged all of their children to be safe and selective. We were even given condoms in our christmas stockings.

My mom, on the other hand, became a fundie. I was out of the home when this 180 occurred, but my younger sister was still living at home. My mom became determined to "save' my younger sister. She insisted that she destroy all her suggestive rock and roll albums, and live a chaste existence. Men became the enemy-they were not permitted in the home-ever (meanwhile-I was allowed sleepovers at my father's home with my boyfriend). By age 17 my younger sister had herpes, a drinking problem, and was a heavy smoker. By age 19 she had her first child out of wedlock which she gave up for adoption (she has had another since then). She became involved with drugs, she shoplifted, she wasn't the least bit selective when it came to her choice of partners. I was-I've never had an STD, never gotten pregnant, never had substance abuse problems or committed a crime. The only real difference it the way we were raised? She spent five years with a repressive fundamentalist while I did not.

[rniel]

4. He flips and flops like a fish

You should see him when he's on bill maher's show. He goes back and forth right and left, whichever way the wind blows.

[Lorien]

5. This seals it; the Religious Right cares more about what happens in your

bedroom than whether or not you die. Sick, sick SICK! No wonder wars, poverty, starvation, and climate change doesn't faze them a bit; they're obsessed with sex and money, and that's about it.

[mondo joe]

6. It makes me respect him even less. He knew this - he knew who

he was in bed with, but it suited him at the time.

[gratuitous]

11. Yes, Sullivan's regret is far, far too late

Better he should find another line of work, because at this point, he's just an embarrassment.

[sutz12]

8. It's always about the sex

Abortion, medicine, advances in biology, social organizations, education, it doesn't matter.

The singular goal is to limit sexual activity by making sure that people suffer the maximum negative consequences. Individuals don't matter, only the ideology. The sad truth is, it doesn't even have to 'work,' because they define the measure of success, which is generally less sexual activity, indicated by more deaths.

[Arkansas Granny]

9. I don't think I've ever known a single person, regardless of age,

who would have been encouraged to have sex due to a vaccination against HPV or was discouraged from having sex because of the risk of contracting HPV. It is scandalous to think that the wingers care more about regulating a woman's sexual encounters than they do in protecting her health or life. Explain to me again this concept of "right to life".

[Occulus]

14. deleted

but it's STILL fucking sick and wrong.

[madmom]

15. well fine they don't have to have it, but we can and should.

[smoogatz]

16. What's truly stunning about this is the infiltration of the CDC

by the fundieocracy. Note the last two sentences of the New Yorker excerpt:

"Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said. 'With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition' - a medical term for the absence of fear - 'would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.' Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control's Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations."

It's pretty damned shocking that the American mullahs are making medical decisions for the rest of us. This shit has GOT to stop.

[Doctor_J]

17. Well, Sully, it's your party, so

shut the fuck up

[Vinnie From Indy]

23. Sullivan is still a punk.

It is going to take much more from him before I forget his monumental lies and BS.

[The Backlash Cometh]

35. Why don't we just deny that vaccine for conservative kids?

The rest of us should sue the churches for withholding the vaccine since it doesn't infringe on our religious beliefs.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

40. Those evil fuckers make the tinfoil-hat theories about AIDS plausible -nt

[autorank]

43. The parties encouraging death are consistent If fits their philosophy.

The general rule of their theory is that if you don't accept their version of salvation, then you are guaranteed a place in Hell to suffer forever. This is Hell on earth. Just the sam old same old.

This should be available to all, it's a freedom issue. But then again, many have surrendered to
what Al Gore corr erectly called tyranny.

Great post recommended. Thoughtful. Thanks.