If a philosophical Art of War were written on anti-terrorism, it would include a chapter entitled
"FEAR IS SURRENDER."

In a War on Terror, promotion of public fear in exchange for support of policy is nothing more than defeatism.  In the White House, this kind of self-serving surrender-talk only comes in one flavor - - - treason.  The Neocon war plan?  Surrender THIS democracy.

RECENTLY, A JANITOR AT MY WORKPLACE tried to counter my criticism of the war by saying, "All I know is, we haven’t been attacked since 9/11."  Here, I thought, is a soundly and roundly defeated man.  A man who, as a political being, has been reduced to "knowing" only one thing.

Nevertheless, by this word, "WE," he still held on to a thread of his dignity - like some aging oracle of a once-proud people, he had not yet stopped referring to the nation AS A WHOLE.

Some GOP leaders are trying, after the election, to represent the will of the majority in their districts and states (against the will of the President and his diminishing band of loyalists).

They are being downspun by conservatives as "followers" (i.e. not "real leaders").  Regular use of the word "traitor" in this context is predictably certain in the near future.  Perhaps a party purge (at least some financial string-cutting) is not far off.

Neocon Robert Kagan, in Sunday’s Washington Post:

Resolutions disapproving the troop increase have proliferated on both sides of the aisle. Many of their proponents frankly, even proudly, admit they are responding to the current public mood, as if that is what they were put in office to do. Those who think they were elected sometimes to lead rather than follow seem to be in a minority.

One man from the new minority who believes he will be elected President to lead rather than follow the General Will seems to be the Rev. Mike Huckabee, former Gov. of Arkansas.

In his most recent confession, Ted Haggard admits he tried to lie his way out of a tough spot.  But the BIG LIE goes on.

Haggard is still withholding from God-and-everybody the existential truth - that he and everyone with his kind of "problem" really is not a weak-willed, sinful heterosexual but in fact a GAY.  And that being Gay is not in itself a crime or sin.

What'd he say?

"The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality.  And I take responsibility for the entire problem. ... There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life"

In my opinion, the preacher is HIDING FROM THE TRUTH that gayness or straightness is NOT A MORAL CHOICE that someone makes in the face of a struggle with an imaginary "dark side," but is a plain and simple matter of dyed-in-the-wool sexual orientation.

As a response to international terror, any widespread public fear or curtailment of everyday liberties constitutes surrender. The Bush administration acts as if it doesn't know this fact of war - because our fear and reduced freedoms have become crucial to the only result they count as victory - concentration of party power in every artery of the American government.

The President put every single American on the front line in his "War on Terror" by his foolish decision to engage a pack of murderous international pirates with his army instead of his diplomatic and intelligence assets and allies. And his promise, "we will never surrender to evil," was broken the first time he evoked the spectre of attacking foreigners and domestic traitors in exchange for greater political power.

- Could it be time for - - real bravery?

Even before I found Shakespeare's political drama, I was long in the habit, whenever conversation turned to Nixon or Watergate, of referring to Dick Cheney as "RICHARD the SECOND," the true political heir to the Presidency of Dick Nixon (America's Richard I).

But the play surpassed my expectations, not only accommodating the Vice President in the lead role (large differences in age and charisma notwithstanding) but even providing a role for the President himself - a Sir BUSHY, aptly identified in the dramatis personae as "a creature of Richard's."

What is more, there is the noble FITZWATER, who brings serious allegations against a confidante of Richard's suspected of committing a high crime at Richard's own request...

The constitutional argument for Full FISA compliance - and the accusations of law-breaking by the President - are not finding traction with a fearful public.

Is a "national defense" argument possible? After all, the oversight of the FISA court represents our only nonpartisan guarantee that the Executive branch will not misdirect surveillance technology dedicated to our nation's defense (i.e., weaken that defense).

Such a misappropriation and compromise of our total defense capacity might come in the (excusable) form of mistaken assumptions of terrorist connections - or it may be a result of a conscious obsession with the doings of groups and individuals who pose only a political and legal threat to "the Party" - but who are no threat whatsoever to the common good.

Somebody in Congress needs to be blunt with these people:

"Mr. Gonzales, the reason we desire that this administration abide in full by the letter of the FISA Law is that - er - we want to be very sure that ALL of our surveillance technology is actually being used against the common enemy of this Republic, sir."

Virginia State Primaries are Tuesday, June 14, and theocrats are hoping last year's state tax increase will provide a wedge to draw moderate Republicans into their fold.

They are fielding anti-choice anti-privacy anti-democracy nominees in at least 6 legislative districts.

For the half-Christian churches of Virginia, that makes today the Sunday before the Election. This unorthodox observance has become the most important moveable feast in the calendar of the nation's totalitarian religious cults.

If you care about democracy in Virginia, go to one of the heretic churches and take a little tape recorder.

If you enter one of these stricken congregations, expect to witness an overt flouting of material and spiritual law and a disgraceful preaching-up of the theocrat office-seekers. Expect to hear a tax-exempt pulpit radical dictating voting choices to his flock.  Don't be surprised if preacher doctor silver tongue should even stoop to equate their private vote with unholiness and sin if it should be cast in a direction opposed to his/her commands.

Continuing a topic by Armando, "The Choice Issue" (Sunday) especially the point that the "privacy" frame had positive spin for the Schiavo case but won't work as well with the abortion issue.

I think the right to privacy is a tough frame, because so many free people just don't (and never will) understand that it defines the frontier of the personal over against the public citizen and the state, and is the last line in their defense against totalitarianism.

Ineffective or not as a frame, then, we have to bear in mind that privacy rights are the heart and soul of the real struggle.

Why such a tough frame on abortion?

Most would agree that a valid right to privacy exists wherever concealment of a person's identity, wealth, position, or activity from the public shields that person or his interests from nuisance, undue humiliation, prejudice, dehumanization, robbery, theft, and more serious types of criminal activity.

For example, the Nazi requirement that Jews bear external marks of identification represents in this sense a serious invasion of privacy by the state.

On the Christian calendar, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004, was either Reformation Sunday or the 22nd after Pentecost.  It was the eve of All Saints Day, or all-hallow's eve (Halloween).

But there are indications that theo-political radicals (especially in the Full-Bible cults) were worshiping a different spirit, and celebrating a new high Holy Day not of God but of Mammon: the Sunday before Election.

Under cover of constitutional protections from persecution and taxation, yet in flagrant contempt of the material and spiritual conditions of those very protections, these tax-exempt radicals were actually dictating voting choices to their hearers, and threatening those who strayed with persecution.

Everyone knows that the Republicans were able to energize their base on single-issue moral issues prior to the 2004 National Elections. But not enough people are talking about the fact that lots of spiritual and material crime may have been committed in the process.

Evidence below the fold:

The etymology of the Greek word diabolos evokes the driving force behind all division and accusation.  This division and accusation, this diabolos, is the modus operandi of the thief who enters the sheepfold, the wolf in sheepskin, the bad shepherd.

HR 235, with its 160+ sponsors, would authorize our nation's preachers to engage in the kind of dictatorial preaching that recently divided the body of Christ at East Waynesville Baptist Church - and the entire student body of the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs.

In my view, these 160 lawmakers would give us a nation of Bad Shepherds who would preside over the division and dismemberment of the body of Christ, and the end of true religion.

I gave up on Big Media completely on "Ash Wednesday" (Nov 3, 2004).

I can't even pull my basic liberal duty of "surveillance" anymore (just can't bear it), and I'm relying on bloggers full time now.

Not to be AWOL, I try to fulfill my service duty by monitoring a local Evangelical station on my clock radio for 10-15 minutes in the early AM.

Below I report some "recon" I did on a series of pre-taped "family values" sermons.

In my opinion, because they think he can beat it.  However,

There's lots to worry about with John Bolton other than his complete emotional unfitness as a manager.

The White House has blocked the NSA intercepts and blocks investigation into the allegations of his recent perjury before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,.

But there's this from Steven C. Clemons of The Washington Note

Additional findings above and beyond abusive behavior (under the fold):

Diary entry by Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller for early April, 1933:

The founder of the `German Christians' was Berlin Pastor J. Hossenfelder, a Nazi preacher who had commenced in early 1932, at the urging of his party leadership, to unite the various right-wing factions of the Protestant church into one `German Christian' movement in which eventually the only political party represented was the Nazi party.

On 26 May 1932 they published their first manifesto. It affirmed a principle they called "positive Christianity." These German Christians said they opposed `the spirit of a Christian cosmopolitanism' which might threaten `faith in our nation's God-given mission.' `We want a dynamic national church [Volkskirche], which espresses the living faith of our people.'