Christian = Republican?

A good article from the New York Times about an evangelical preacher who pushed for people to get politics out of the Church.

The part of the article that fascinates me, and one I wish they would have followed up on, is that after he finished his 6 sermon teaching about how the church should not tie itself to war or a single political party, he lost around 1000 of his 5000 members.

First, Mega-churches don't build communities, since there is NO WAY a pastor can know and work with all fo the members. That's an entertainment center, not a church. Second, the Republican Party's strategy of tying itself to the Evangelican Christian community is one of the trend sin politics that I fear the most. Not because I hate Christians, but the fact that they have tied themselves to a single party, and it makes for less political discussion, and more "I'm right, you're evil" shouting matches.

It's a good article, however, and shows how both the Repobicans and the BIG Churches have fed off of each other, and now may be in trouble because their goals are vastly different.

A political thought

I realized something this morning as I dealt with a typical "ditto head" who started an arguement with me using his latest talking points:

-Jimmy Carter caused the fight going on now between Israel and the Hezbollah.
-Right-wing dictators keep the people of the Middle East and Latin America in line, so they are a necessary evil. And while they may use death squads that we train, they have no reason to hate the US when they do overthrow their dictators.
-Liberal are pessimists who don't believe in Evil, since conservatives DO believe in evil, they are optimists.
-Iraq is going swimmingly, and the media is lying about all of the people dying there because we don't see any of the fighting on our TVs, now do we?

As I went home, I thought about the things under these core talking points that quickly become people's beliefs. They all come from a hard, deep rasism that is ground so deep into a person's brain that they don't even know it is there. It comes from a belief that people who aren't US can't handle freedom and need brutal dictators with death squads to help keep them in line. It's the old British belief from the 19th century that "We white people know what is best for the savages. Without us to keep them in line, they'd just be a bunch of murdering animals."

Sadly, the other part of it is something that I have been thinking about for a while, and I'm trying to find a way to express it in art. Here in the US, the marketing of products has conditioned us to think that what is new is great, what is old is bad and what happened more than 20 years ago doesn't matter. The rest of the world has a much longer memory, and many of the wars going on now are the eruptions of anger and hatred that is hundreds of years and endless generations old.

It blew me away when he said that Iran was better under the Shah, and the people who are in charge of Iran now should not hold us responcible for the torture, repression and death squads because the Presidents that pproved those things "have been out of power for a long time."

It's this kind of thinking that brought us to 9/11 - our attackers TOLD us what they wanted and why they wanted it. They let us know they were going to attack years before they did. Now, we are creating whole new genera

Bush rewrites history at the NAACP

For YEARS, Bush has been avoiding going to the NAACP, and his staff keep saying it is because of scheduling conflicts. Oddly enough, that seems to be true, as Bush is as expert at conflicts: Starting them, walking away from ones he's started, lying about them...why not just admit that he schedules them as well?

Anyway, during his speech, he stated that “I come from a family committed to civil rights.”

That's about as true as me saying that I come from a family that could buy Senate seats...

The truth is that his father ran, as did most Republicans in the 60's, on a campaign of decrying the Civil Rights act, and using it to beat opponants to win the votes of angry, racist white voters. And sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.

Let's not even get in to the racism that Bush's father signed on with as Ronald Reagan ran for President against "Cadillac Driving Welfare Queens", saying he would work hard to enforce "state's rights", and appearing at racist insitutions, all meant to use the Nixon "Southern Strategy" of sending subtle messages to racists that he was on their side.

If Bush really wants to show that he is for Civil Rights, he should be working hard on making sure people have the right to vote, instead of actively campaigning for companies that try to make it harder and harder get actual vote totals.

More on Oprah

With the fight for new listeners going into overdrive on Satellite radio, XM has hired a long time professional to run Oprah's station. What they don't say in any of this is that Oprah is only providing a half hour of content herself, and the rest is by people she'll "hire" like this.

I have Sirius radio in my car, and XM on my satellite TV, and for the most part, they have incredibly similiar content. There are a couple fo XM statations I'd like to have when I'm driving and XM has Air America exclusively, but it's going to come down to star power. Here in the US, we seem to only pay attention to celebrities, and that'll be the driving force behind which radio people get - Stern on Sirius and...well, no one on XM really. Their Stern imitators have gone back to regular radio and Oprah is only putting her name on a station.

But, gee, Cory!!, what about regular broadcast radio?

It's dead. It just deoesn't know it yet. But more on that when I'm awake.

Comic Con Pickup Lines

The big GEEK PROM (Sandy Eggo Comic Convention) is just a few days away, and while I can't go this year, I'll prolly be going next year if I can get my job situation taken care of soon enough to save up for it, so, I am going to start a list of:

Comic Con Pickup Lines I have found (or written):

-I am glad to see you, but sadly, it is a lightsaber in my pocket
-I'd love to see what you look like wrapped in mylar
-Hey, want a Giant Sized Man Thing?
-You don't understand, we would ALWAYS sleep together until they ret-conned that story away in the Crisis
-I'd grade you as Prisine Mint, wnna get slabbed?
-Wow, your figure has GREAT articulation!
-My spider sense isn't the only thing tingling
-Wanna slide down the Bat Pole?
-Wanna see my Big Red "S"?
-Chain Mail bikini, huh? I have some salve for after you realize what a bad idea that was.
-Wanna be in my next slash fic?
-I've got an Infinite Crisis...in my pants!
-I'd give anything to see you dressed up like Zatanna.
-Got any geek in you? Do you want to?

Anyone else?