When: January 20, 2009

What: A twilight of relevancy

WTF: There’s no shortage of memorabilia celebrating Dubya’s final 24 hours of power, by which I mean someone of extreme prescience has trademarked the date itself. Well you can stop looking forward to the third Sunday of the first month right now, my friends, because that’s exactly when the worst shit comes to pass and hits the fan in the process and the resultant shit fallout seeps into your drinking water.

In encouraging the U.S. to defend the nation of Georgia, why did John McCain insist on labeling Georgia a "Christian Nation"?

Armageddon.  Wiktionary offers the following definition:

From the Hebrew word הר מגידו (har megiddo), used in Revelation 16:16, referring to Mount Megiddo, the place of the last battle at the Last Judgment.

A little bland.  How about Urban Dictionary?

1. The scene of a final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied to occur at the end of the world.

2. A decisive or catastrophic conflict.

3. THE END

There, that's sufficiently dramatic.

Besides being a Catholic, who was dragged to Church EVERY Sunday and other Holy Days, by my Irish Mother and also being, the great grand-daughter of an Orthodox Rabbi, I too have studied religion somewhat.

I have a minor in Philosophy, mostly religion classes, taught by a Chinese American professor. Truly a man of God. One couldn't find a more devout person. I learned a lot from him.*

One thing I learned is, God does not just twinge the conscience or move the Spirit. He calls, loud and clear when he wants someone to do something.

Mankind has a habit of distorting the Bible to suit themselves.  Heck they didn't even translate it correctly.

When it comes to Pastor John Hagee, John McCain and Joe Lieberman have a lot in common.  Both men addressed the 2007 convention of Hagee's organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI).  McCain and Lieberman each voiced support for a pre-emptive strike against Iran.  But while John McCain aggressively sought Hagee's endorsement, only Joe Lieberman compared the Texas pastor to Moses.

[promote this story! - if you visit the Talk To Action version of this story you can vote it up on Digg, Reddit, Buzzflash and other news-ladder sites - thanks for you support, Bruce Wilson]

The initial controversy over Pastor John Hagee's highly public endorsement of Senator John McCain's presidential bid, at a nationally televised press conference viewed potentially by millions of Americans, arose when the Catholic League, a far-right Catholic defense organization headed by William Donahue, attacked the endorsement on the basis that Hagee was virulently anti-Catholic. Beyond Hagee's demonizing of Catholics and Catholicism, pastor Hagee appears radically anti-American to the extent that he hopes and expects, as evidenced by a 2006 Hagee appearance on WHYY's "Fresh Air" radio show and also in Hagee's 2006 best-seller "Jerusalem Countdown", that God will incinerate most Americans now living - with a nuclear strike on America's coastal regions. In 2006 Presidential hopeful John McCain appeared to hold similar view on possible outcomes of a US war with Iran.

Any one who has been paying attention to the rhetoric coming out of the current administration regarding Iran cannot help but see their attempts to integrate Iran into a larger conflict. While it might sound to some like a conspiracy theory, the theme is clear. Iran is a threat that needs to be dealt with. That dealing, knowing the history of this administration, will be via force. There is a constant saber rattling almost daily designed to heighten tension and increase the justification for going to war with Iran. The latest and most dangerous is that the war against Iran is just another part of the War Against Terror.

Barack Obama in no uncertain terms Tuesday made a clear break with his incendiary former minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  But despite Obama's disavowal of his one-time pastor's outrageous statements, the media spotlight continues to shine on Wright.  Meanwhile, John McCain has maintained his silence on the dangerous vision of Armageddon and Iran held by his own pastoral supporter, John Hagee.

Just one day before lambasting Barack Obama over his recent comments about religion, John McCain was a no-show at Sunday's CNN Compassion Forum on faith.  That's because when it comes to discussing his own religious beliefs, the Republican presidential nominee believes that silence is golden.  And judging by the fawning stories from the Washington Times, CNN and the Politico, the press corps seems to agree.  But McCain's reticence to speak about his faith doesn't represent a generational preference for private piety.  No, McCain's silence is an essential strategy to avoid alienating his party's evangelical base and independent voters alike by drawing attention to his confusing religious conversion, his myriad past gaffes and his current backing from extremist ministers.

This Reuter’s photograph (shown on my blog), taken on the Gaza border, shows a soldier praying in his armoured personnel carrier.

The picture, a masterpiece of irony, shows two things which are totally contradictory though they’re not supposed to be: a trained killer praying to his God of Love while he sits in a vehicle that has been used, or is to be used, for the purpose of killing Palestinian men, women and children (120 of whom have been killed in the last six days).

I wonder what the man is praying for? Perhaps he’s asking his God to protect him? Perhaps he’s asking his God to assist in smiting the enemies of Israel even if some of them are children? Perhaps he’s asking that the snipers that will ride in his vehicle will have a good day and blow the heads off lots of Palestinians no matter their age or gender? Perhaps he’s asking that his God will help Israel to achieve its aim: that of using military force to make a Great State of Israel, one that will spread into Lebanon, to the Jordan River, and to the sea, one that will contain only The Children of God? Who would know?

In Gaza, in the last four days, 80 Palestinians have been killed, one third of them children. Abbas has today described what is happening as a Holocaust.

One of the Israel defense officials promised on Friday that 'shoah' or holocaust would descend upon the Palestinians if they continued to fire homemade rockets in protest at the cruel Israeli blockade. Israelis are world experts at telling others to, "Do what we say not do what we do!"

So Armageddon has begun. The Israelis have begun using their military might against largely unarmed civilians. They have their tanks massed on the border. They are firing missiles at anything that moves. If they invade, they will kill as many Hamas people (they were the democratically elected Government, remember) as possible and imprison the rest. Perhaps they'll go further and annexe the Gaza Strip and push all the Palestinians into the Egyptian desert.

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart tried to warn him in 2006, but John McCain didn't listen.  Battered by all sides over his embrace of End Times Pastor John Hagee, John McCain is finally experiencing the blowback from his pandering visits to "crazy base world."

Bill Gothard--as I've been showing the past couple of days--runs a highly coercive "Bible-based" group whose abuses rival that of Scientology in pure "may be harmful" content....with a taste for politics.  

First came the revelation that Mike Huckabee was a Gothardite, then the news that a former Cincinnati city commissioner is investigating frank political donations to Phil Heimlich's campaign by Gothard's "Character Cities" program.  Most recently, the neoconfederate group "Christian Exodus" is known to have been soliciting campaign funds for a Summersville, SC sheriff who operates a Gothard frontgroup targeting cops.

Now, there are disturbing revelations coming out that Ken Blackwell--largely seen as handing the election to Dubya in 2004--may also be a member of the Gothard cult...and even more disturbingly, so may George W. Bush.

Here's my f***ing rant!! Or, maybe, it's just my deperate plea to end this madness. If it keeps up, this might be the last diary I ever post, because I'm sick of all of you and what you are all so deliberately, unthinkingly doing to the Democratic Party. And, rest assured, I've got plenty of ammunition here for all sides....

Just a brief post to show what I found splattered across several of the news groups today. Bill O's counterattack on the War on Christmas is going well, and the folks are zealously defending the birth date of the Savior and the Prince of Peace.

From the internet: "is what evangelicals believe based on anything more substantive than unscholarly, recent reworking of traditional mythology into literal revelation? Why is this not addressed?"

One reason it is not addressed is that it is not so simple. The writings of St. John (The Divine) of Patmos, which form the basis of the eschatology of most Christian churches, date to ca. 70 CE. John, who I - non Christian though I am - consider to be the historical Anti Christ, wrote what is known as the "Book of Revelation" or "The Apocalypse". It is hard to consider beliefs based on this book as an "unscholarly, recent reworking of traditional mythology into literal revelation" when it has always been seen as "revelation" and is still not seen as "literal".

In fact the "novelty" of current interpretation of the overtly allegorical  "Apocalypse" is itself at least three centuries old, dating to certain extremist sects of European Protestantism in the late 1600's and early 1700's, and drawing on themes tracing to Calvin in the 1500's.

As reported by Harvey the Rabbit as Times of London interview:

-- After nearly seven years of silence, former First Cat Socks is appearing before the media with horror stories of what it was like to live with the Clintons, including his harrowing escape from death after his owners left the White House.

Currently living in hiding with former Bill Clinton secretary Bettie Currie, Socks - now 16 - gave an interview to the London Times.
"America must know the truth about how Hillary tried to kill me."

"At first I really liked Hillary," Socks said. "she was cold, calculating, and utterly indifferent to the feelings of others. She was like a soulmate to me. But then she changed. Every time she was angry at Bill, she took it out on me."

Balance of interview below the line.

-- We knew Socks was good. Giving an interview to ToL !! Wow.

Gen. Musharraf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan declared martial law today. (funny, you NEVER hear Bush folks call it that in public)  This country of 165,000,000 people became independent in 1947, and immediately jumped into a series of civil disputes, many violent, a few not. - After Martial Law in 1958, the legislature (and political parties) were abolished.   - In 1959, a new constitution proclaimed that it was a Muslim nation. - In 1960, President Ayub was forced to reconsider his rulings limiting polygamy, because of violent Muslim protests. - In 1965, war broke out with India over Kashmir. (hasn't ended yet) - In 1971, civil war broke out in Eastern Pakistan. Bangladesh declared its independence afterwards. - In 1973, Bhutto declared that there would be free elections. 9 opposition parties rapidly formed, insisting on a Muslim way of life for all. By 1977, Bhutto's wide election victory resulted in widespread civil war,  Martial Law was declared again. - In 1979, General Zia used the Martial Law to take over the country. He gave way on some Muslim demands for criminal punishment, but not all. - After USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, the US gave 4.2 BILLION in military aid to Pakistan, beginning 1987.