Okay, I think I figured out what went wrong with the comments. I am still not sure why it was pulling stuff out of active and into moderation, but I bleive I managed to get all of them back. Email if you see nay other issues.
Americans United points out that FEMA is prepared to hand out money to religious organizations who were as concerned with evangelizing as helping the victims of Katrina:
According to Baptist Press news service, Southern Baptist aid workers distributed 11,000 evangelistic tracts and 1,200 Bibles in the hurricane-ravaged areas and saw “45 new professions of faith in Christ.”In a Sept. 20 report, Bobby Welch, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, urged church members to proselytize while providing aid. “When you go and you give the cup of cold water, you be sure you give a witness of Jesus Christ,” Welch said. “Don’t just smile and say, ‘I go to church.’ You give a witness of Jesus Christ to those people because the water, the beanie weenies and the food will run out, but whoever drinks of this water will never thirst again.”
Welch noted that the denomination had launched an evangelism campaign at its 2005 annual meeting, adding, “Do you think that could be providential? Out of the sovereignty of God, that He’d take the largest denomination in the world and all of a sudden begin to focus them on being prepared for a great opportunity to win and witness and baptize like never before? I think so.”
Evangelist Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse has been distributing gift bags to displaced children. The bag includes evangelistic tracts and a stuffed lamb that plays “Jesus Loves Me.” Graham urged churches participating in the relief efforts to include evangelism. “[I]n everything you do,” he said, “I encourage you to remember that your primary purpose is to share the redeeming love of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
TV preacher Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” reported that church-based evangelism even extends to government relief workers. According to a Sept. 6 report, Zion Bethany Church is providing housing for emergency workers, and the workers find a tract on their pillows each night. Tonja Miles, a faith-based charity CEO working with the church, told an interviewer, “[Emergency workers are] going out, and they’re seeing devastation, so we wanted to start something that when they can come in, it’s comfortable. We have a great meal; we have the word of God just all over the place.”
No one has any evidence that anyone has been denied help if they refused to listen to the pleadings of the ones hading out help, these people are the But this is a country of many people with many faiths and many beliefs. The government should not be rewarding people who take advantage of another person’s need for help to press them to abandon their beliefs. It is insulting, demeaning, and places the beliefs of one group ahead of the values of another. It is un-American, and it should be opposed.
Yes, I do know that comments are disappearing and people are being blocked. It’s happened to me, too — I don’t know what I changed to cause this, but something’s messed up. I tried to kill a spam attack last night, and I suspect that something I did there messed things up. I will be setting it back to normal in a bit.
The fact that the US has killed the number two Al-Qaeda man in Iraq is an unambiguously good thing. Having killers dead is inarguably better than having them running free. But just because it is good news does not mean that it is important news. The US has captured and killed many terrorist leaders and leaders of the insurgency without any appreciable effect on the effectiveness of either the terrorists or the insurgency. Winning isn’t measured by the number of bad guys caught or killed. It is measured by the level of security and democracy in Iraq. Unless and until the deaths of terrorist and insurgent leaders contributes noticeably to an increase in security in Iraq, then their death is not important. It is good, but not important.
David Sirota has a nice piece in In These Times that highlights the effect Bush’s choices had on worsening the problems of Katrina:
Consider just a few of the specific examples: In the same budget that provided more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts, Bush proposed providing only half of what his own administration officials said was necessary to sustain the critical Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project (SELA)—a project started after a 1995 rainstorm flooded 25,000 homes and caused a half billion dollars in damage. This 2001 budget proposal came in the same year that, according to the Houston Chronicle, federal officials publicly ranked the potential damage to New Orleans by a major hurricane “among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.”
Similarly, less than two weeks after Bush signed his tax cut on June 7, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “despite warnings that it could slow emergency response to future flood and hurricane victims, House Republicans stripped $389 million in disaster relief money from the budget.”
By the beginning of the 2002 congressional session, Parker had enough of sitting in silence while these tax and budget decisions were being made. In a meeting with White House budget director Mitch Daniels, Parker demanded the Bush administration restore the critical money for flood and hurricane protection.
“I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels’ office,” Parker recalled. “They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding. I said, ‘Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates—either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.’ “
But as Parker noted, “It made no impact on [the White House] whatsoever.” In February 2002, the president unveiled his new budget, this one with a $390 million cut to the Army Corps. The cuts came during the same year the richest 5 percent (those who make an average of $300,000 or more) were slated to receive $24 billion in new tax cuts.
(snip)
When Parker headed to Capitol Hill for annual budget hearings in February 2002, he couldn’t hide the truth. Under questioning, he admitted that “there will be a negative impact” if the President’s budget cuts were allowed to go forward. The White House fired Parker within a matter of days.Some Republicans came to Parker’s defense after he was removed. Then-Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said, “Mike Parker told the truth that the Corps of Engineers budget, as proposed, is insufficient.” Rep. David Vitter (R-La.) said the administration was “in denial” about the cuts. “There’s no two ways about it that [the corps] are very underfunded,” he said, noting that “southeast Louisiana flood control [is] our most obvious example.”
Vitter was right—but he was also “in denial” about his own culpability: Just weeks before, he and his Republican colleagues voted for a brand new business tax cut package, costing the federal government $43 billion in revenues that could have gone to fill the budget gaps Parker identified. And those tax cuts were targeted specifically to the GOP’s biggest financial backers. According to the Houston Chronicle, the White House-backed legislation was a windfall for Big Business, “reducing total corporate tax collections by 21 percent.”
Sirota’s article is a depressing look at how Bush’s desire to give tax cuts to his campaign contributors overrode the need to protect the country’s infrastructure. Would the money have helped? The experts seem to think so:
For instance, take Joseph Suhayda, an emeritus engineering professor at Louisiana State University who has worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. He told the Chicago Tribune that the reason levees weren’t as high as they were designed to be “was a result of lack of funding.”
“I think they could have significantly reduced the impact [of Katrina] if they had those projects funded,” Suhayda told the Tribune. “If you need to spend $20 million and you spend $4 or $5 million, something’s got to give.”
Similarly, Mike Parker told the Washington Post, “You have watched during a period of 72 hours a modern city of New Orleans [become] a Third World country, and it is all because of the disintegration of infrastructure.” He told the Tribune that “had [the infrastructure] been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have.”
Sour grapes from a disgruntled ex-employee? It is echoed by the president’s current Army Corps chief. The Associated Press reported that Lt. Gen. Carl Strock “acknowledge[s] that more funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would allow the Corps to more quickly pump out the floodwaters inundating New Orleans.”
Politics is about who gets to set policy, and setting policy is about deciding what the government does and who it decides to help first. Policy has consequences. Bush’s policies put tax cuts above basic infrastructure, and, at a minimum, helped make a bad situation worse.
The new meme: how many of the ALA’s list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 have you read?
My list below: ones I’ve read in bold-face; ones I “feel like I’ve read” through having them read to me, reference use, or seeing the movie in underline type; ones I haven’t read in normal type.
Some thoughts:
That’s not very many, which is embarrassing except that most of these are kids’ books, and I was never a big reader of the standard “children’s literature” when I was a kid.
Where’s Waldo??! WTF?!
Predictably, several of the books have to do with sex, including several volumes of straightforward factual information about human biology. I just can’t understand why the bookburners think it’s better to be ignorant of that subject.
Of the books I did read as a kid, I can remember almost nothing. I simply remember the titles as things I’m pretty sure I read at one time. To the extent I do have memories of things I read before I was about 12 or so, those memories seem to have no connection to me personally - they’re like images of something I saw happening to someone else. It’s scary how far removed from my own childhood I am now.
The obsessions of the bluenoses and the burners are drearily obvious, and hardly new. Why can’t they get another hobby?
Hat tip: Majikthise
This letter, from an 82nd Airborne company commander to Senator John McCain, published as an open letter in the Washington Post, is exactly right in every respect. It couldn’t be better expressed. Here are some excerpts, but, by all means, go read the whole thing:
Dear Senator McCain:
I am a graduate of West Point currently serving as a Captain in the U.S. Army Infantry. I have served two combat tours with the 82nd Airborne Division, one each in Afghanistan and Iraq. While I served in the Global War on Terror, the actions and statements of my leadership led me to believe that United States policy did not require application of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan or Iraq. On 7 May 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s testimony that the United States followed the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and the “spirit” of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan prompted me to begin an approach for clarification. For 17 months, I tried to determine what specific standards governed the treatment of detainees by consulting my chain of command through battalion commander, multiple JAG lawyers, multiple Democrat and Republican Congressmen and their aides, the Ft. Bragg Inspector General’s office, multiple government reports, the Secretary of the Army and multiple general officers, a professional interrogator at Guantanamo Bay, the deputy head of the department at West Point responsible for teaching Just War Theory and Law of Land Warfare, and numerous peers who I regard as honorable and intelligent men.
Instead of resolving my concerns, the approach for clarification process leaves me deeply troubled. Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment. I and troops under my command witnessed some of these abuses in both Afghanistan and Iraq. . . .
We owe our soldiers better than this. Give them a clear standard that is in accordance with the bedrock principles of our nation.
Some do not see the need for this work. Some argue that since our actions are not as horrifying as Al Qaeda’s, we should not be concerned. When did Al Qaeda become any type of standard by which we measure the morality of the United States? We are America, and our actions should be held to a higher standard, the ideals expressed in documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Others argue that clear standards will limit the President’s ability to wage the War on Terror. Since clear standards only limit interrogation techniques, it is reasonable for me to assume that supporters of this argument desire to use coercion to acquire information from detainees. This is morally inconsistent with the Constitution and justice in war. It is unacceptable.
Both of these arguments stem from the larger question, the most important question that this generation will answer. Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? . . .
If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is “America.”
Once again, I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform. Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they risk their lives for.
With the Utmost Respect,
– Capt. Ian Fishback
1st Battalion,
504th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
82nd Airborne Division,
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
UPDATE: Human Rights Watch details not only this Captain’s claims but those of two others in his Division. Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings provides extensive quotes. It just gets worse and worse.
On the September 23 edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, on which Mitchell was a guest, host Maher referred to Mitchell’s tough questioning of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir during a July trip to Sudan with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s delegation. The Sudanese leader’s security guards forcibly removed Mitchell from the press briefing after she asked about his involvement with the ongoing atrocities there:
MAHER: But by the same token, I don’t think you would ever be able to ask those kind of questions you were asking to that man to George Bush either, would you?
MITCHELL: Well, I think you can. It doesn’t always happen. I’ve been looking back at all of this — it’s one of the reasons I wrote the book — and I think there has been self-censorship. And that since 9-11, or after 9-11, there was sort of a rallying around — and understandable sort of patriotic effect — and I think reporters were less challenging.
From Friedman’s September 21 column (subscription required), titled “Bush’s Waterlogged Halo”:
Katrina deprived the Bush team of the energy source that propelled it forward for the last four years: 9/11 and the halo over the presidency that came with it. The events of 9/11 created a deference in the U.S. public, and media, for the administration, which exploited it to the hilt to push an uncompassionate conservative agenda on tax cuts and runaway spending, on which it never could have gotten elected. That deference is over.
From a September 17 Los Angeles Times article headlined “TV Journalists Stay on Story, and Say It Will Stay With Them”:
[Brian] Williams, the NBC anchor, is now pondering how the press has covered the government — and whether the news media has been tough enough.
“I think we’ve always had our voice,” he said. Still, “I do think — and this is a subject for a long-term study — the news media have been operating under a loose kind of 9/11 syndrome.
“Perhaps we are guilty of settling in to too comfortable a journalistic pattern, and perhaps this tragedy did serve as a reminder that this is what we do,” Williams added. “I think too many people had forgotten that. There is a reason we show up after awful events. We really were the viewers’ advocates on this.”
These are stalwarts of the mainstream media admitting that they and the rest of the media essentially gave Bush a free pass after 9/11. It won’t matter in the least — the call of “liberal media!” will still echo through the halls of the right wing. But it’s nice that future journalists will have this generation’s avowed failure as a warning.
This is kind of amazing. Certain members of the right wing are now taking reports that the violence that was reported in new Orleans was exaggerated as “evidence” that things weren’t as bad in New Orleans as was reported. They pretend that the violence was somehow what horrified Americans. So let me explain this to them again. Hopefully this time they will pay attention.
When people in a major American metropolitan area are left without food, water, medicine, power, and hope of rescue for days after a natural disaster, that is an unacceptable failure. When that the government has spent the previous four years building an organization designed to provide relief in similar situations, then people are justifiably angry. The problem is not the media –the problem is that lack of food, water, medicine and rescue killed people who should not have died.
Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again.
It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.
-- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
