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The administrator came on ONCE not REPEATEDLY and she came on all boards.

Posted By: Really? on 2005-09-17
In Reply to: You have been requested REPEATEDLY by the administrator to stay off this board. - Can't you follow....

She did not say to stay off the boards.  She said not to slam posters.  Now, if you can manage to take a second of your time and check out the conservative board, you will see the same thing is taking place there.  The only difference is that they are not whining about it.  Get real.


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You have been requested REPEATEDLY by the administrator to stay off this board.
....exceedingly simple rules as put forth by the owner of this board.  Please tell me what the problem is.  Is that part of being a conservative Republican? 
The administrator did not say we could not post on other boards. sm
She said to be respectful.  Tell me where in my post I was disrespectful.   Why not get off of this and start an intelligent debate instead of whole threads crying about being kicked out of the sandbox.  
Why do you need repeatedly compare us?

This is so very curious.  I never said I was anything like her at all, she never said she was anything like me.  She and I don't know each other and neither of us really have a lot in common aside from a few basic beliefs.  Why have you chosen to compare us?  Why not compare me to Democrat, LVMT, Gadfly..... I guess that's about all that post here anymore,,,,,what is your point in doing this?  It seems like it is a platform to repeatedly put me down.  But really, you can succeed in doing that without dragging other posters in on this charade.


I have no desire to compare you to anyone and then perseverate and perserverate on that point.  Yes, please, find a different horse to beat or whatever it is you are doing. 


Another neocon lie. GT has repeatedly tried to debate

in an intelligent non-bashing manner, but you people can't stand that.


Just go to page #11 and see the posts on 7/20 and 7/21 where she took MT's abuse, let it roll off her back and tried to debate with her, watched as MT was close to having a seizure and then told her to chill. 


Reading the archives is interesting.  LOL.  Even see one where MT denies being a conservative and then says she'll never post here again.  


Obama has said repeatedly he will RAISE
xx
Why do you suppose he was asked repeatedly
Why do you suppose he was not able to give any? Did you not notice that his facts were not straight (as in false claims) about a governor being a commmander in chief?

I am curious. Why does JM get a pass when he refuses interviews but when Obama does it he is the devil incarnate? Can you say hypocrisy?
No, but they have repeatedly reported the anchor
@
Obama has repeatedly described himself as a Christian.

I'm going to take him at his word, not that it matters much to me which religion he practices.  What matters to me is his character, and I'd put that way above some that I've witnessed on this board.


America is NOT "only" a Christian nation any longer.  America promises freedom of religion for EVERYONE, not just Christians.


Do YOU stone your children for straying?


How about slavery?  (My guess is you're in favor of that one.)


He was just pointing out that sometimes literal translations of the Bible aren't applicable.  In other words, he made sense.


Kind of tired of being repeatedly baited....sm
by the hit squad. This is old news.


You're doing just fine by yourself.




Insanity is performing the same action repeatedly
and expecting different results. What makes you think the Supreme Court is going to find any differently than every other court... He was born in Hawaii & is a citizen, and nothing is going to change that no matter how many stars you wish upon.
Repeatedly, JTBB has constantly "LOL, ROFL" at
nm
Fox News Caught Repeatedly Cropping, Manipulating Video

Hey, kids! Do you ever get tired of Fox News' crops? I don't mean the food
they might be literally growing, in Glenn Beck's Doom Room, in preparation for
Imminent Socialist Panic. I'm talking about the way they manipulate video to
make it look like people are just straight up saying the opposite thing they
actually said. Well, it's been bothering the media critics at Media Matters For
America for some time, and they have, for a long time, been cataloging "examples
of Fox News hosts and correspondents cropping comments by progressives and
Democratic political figures in a manner that misrepresents them." A new mash-up
video offers some side-by-side examples of what they're talking about.






Some constructive criticism? I think the third example -- Obama's "empathy"
criteria for Supreme Court justice -- isn't the best example of a Fox cropping.
While it's certainly true that Major Garrett's statement, "That aggravates those
who feel that justices should follow the Constitution and legislative intent,"
seems to neatly ignore the fact that Obama's next statement was "I will seek
someone who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our Constitutional
traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process, and the
appropriate limits of the judicial role," the fact is, just about every news
organization honed in on the "empathy" part of the statement. It became the
sound bite from that press exchange.


In a more lengthy report, however, Media Matters has other candidates that
are fitting examples of these games with videotape, well worth reviewing. Key
examples include Sean Hannity's intentional omission of Obama's admonishment of
Europeans' "casual...insidious" anti-Americanism to make it look like Obama was
apologizing for the United States, and Wendell Goler's splice-happy report that
made it look like Obama was in favor of "European-style health care," when he
was actually specifically opposing it. Also close to my heart is Fox's
misleading insertion of an out-of-context Joe Biden clip into a report, for
which the network eventually had to apologize. At the time, I opined:


It's very sad, and weird, because Fox News would have made their point just
fine if they hadn't included the misleading part of this clip. All they've
really done is demonstrate that they do not have enough faith in their own
editorial premises to avoid bolstering them with falsehoods. But more to the
point, whoever is responsible for putting this video together needs to accept a
new prevailing reality, that stupid little lies like this will be debunked and
exposed very quickly, so they may as well just cut out this nonsense
entirely.


Yet they persist!


I don't, but the administrator does and knows who is who and who is not. sm
Get the picture?
Please administrator
Administrator, we have been invaded on a daily basis by conservative posters who attack and fight over anything we post.  Now this, southern gal, what she is posting is conservative items, not liberal.  Could you please remind the conservatives to be respectful of posting on the liberal board.
maybe administrator needs to see it
Maybe it needs to be reported to the administrator/monitor, like they would do to us.
administrator
ff
GO ADMINISTRATOR!
I loved your clarification! It was right on!
Her point is that Obama voted repeatedly against tax breaks for the middle class and suddenly he'

the middle class person's best friend!  Funny how now he wants to help us, when each time he had the opportunity to, he voted against it. 


IPs can only be seen by the Administrator of this site.
t
the administrator, not the posters
I did not say I have information on IP addresses..I suggested to the conservatives if they think I am constantly posting with other handles than my own, they could contact the administrator and ask her to check the IP address of the posts the conservatives keep saying I am posting under and it would prove I ONLY POST UNDER GT, NO OTHER HANDLE..Those other posters are NOT ME..The administrator of this site of course can check IP addresses..NOT US, the administrator..
Administrator has decreed

That on the liberal board we are not allowed to say negative things about the current president.  On the other hand, if it's a former president you can really go to town.  You may call Clinton a serial rapist, you may call Carter any number of ugly names.  However, Bush is strictly off limits.


Probably why no one posts very much.


FYI.


Yes. Someone must have run to the administrator again and complained that she was being treated the

The height of hypocrisy.


No, the administrator is not giving me any information, nor would I ask. sm
I made a rejoiner when you once again accused me of something I didn't do (see above posts).  Have you got all the meat off this bone yet!
Administrator: I am at a lost as to your statement...sm
And realize I am only trying to understand what is going on here. Both boards have had their fair share of attacks, but there is rarely a day that goes by that it does not happen on this board.

That said, when you say no *slurs* against the president that leaves a lot unsaid. Are you instructing us not to speak unfavorable to the president on forumatrix?

If this is a pro-Bush forum then I would be wasting my energy to come here. I missed the posts that got this started so again realize I am trying to understand what is going on here.
The administrator requested there be no bashing on this board and you are most certainly

When we libs bash on your board we get banned.  When you cons bash on our board you get away with it. 


Either way, we were requested by the owner multiple times not to bash on either board.  Yet you continue.  Why?


I don't know why the Administrator allows an INFLAMMATORY and IRRESPONSIBLE posts like this!

There isn't ONE person on this board who has expressed ANY IOTA of a wish that anyone be killed, especially an MP.  For you to say something that inflammatory


Bye, Administrator. You have refused to control them, and your trolls have won.

You've been unable or unwilling to control these pests.  They refuse to stay on their own Conservative board because they're not happy unless they are personally attacking posters.


I can't begin to speculate how many other people you've lost because of this hateful group, but you've lost me.


To any thinking, intelligent people out there who woul like to visit a GOOD site where abusive trolls can be IGNORED, please visit Bill Maher's site.  The topics and information are limitless, freedom of speech is guaranteed for ALL, and although there are a few hateful people there, it's nothing compared to the hate and anger and rage that is found on this board.  You don't have to be subjected to personal attacks in a street gang mentality that happens here because you can simply click the ignore button.  All in all, I believe a truer, better representation of what America really is can be found there.


Bye, all. 


Maybe the administrator will see fit to delete YOUR name-calling post.
NT
I am going to repost the Administrator's post regarding posts here. SM

This is word for word.  If you cannot follow these rules, your posts will be deleted.  If you have a problem, contact the administrator. 


I will not tolerate continued slamming of the President and this country.  Ask yourself what you're really gaining by doing so.  My political affiliation has NO bearing on this whatsoever.  I expect people to behave appropriately on all forums.  ForuMatrix is a website that is open to the entire world, not just the US and I am ashamed of some of what I read knowing that people in other countries are reading it too.  Don't think for a minute that I am only pointing out the Liberal board. Far from it.  I've had to come down on some posters on the Conservatives board, too.  So, what this all comes down to is that respectful posting will be adhered to or I won't allow posting.  We need to go back to old fashioned VALUES, if we think that way then the words we write won't be as cutting.  You may not agree with me and that is your prerogative and I am not trying to censor you, rather I would prefer that you and others post in kind and with respect.


It has already been demonstrated that the two boards cannot mix.
To answer your question, no, I don't like to hang out with people who espouse my point of view, but the sniping was totally out of hand and no logical debate was taking place.  I go to other web sites for that kind of debate.
That is if political boards like this are
allowed to remain in existence when Obama's regime takes over.
I posted it on some other boards that
I visit that have a lot of traffic, so hopefully that will get a lot of signatures. I also forwarded it to my friends & family & asked that they sign & forward it. So many people have no idea this is happening. One comment on the petition site said something to the effect of we shouldn't start doing that... 'START' doing it! They have no idea how long it's been going on!
To be clear, IP addresses can only be seen by the Administrator and I do not give IP information to

To be clear, IP addresses can only be seen by the Administrator and I do not give IP information to anyone. 


As well, when you enter your email address, it is not revealed to anyone who sends to you.  The only way the sender would be able to find out is if YOU reply to them. 


Again, ISP/IP information is not available to the public on this site and only I have access to that information.


If you have specific questions, feel free to email me.


Administrator
ForuMatrix


I don't make the rules, Sir Percy. The Administrator was. The fact is. sm
I agree with you.  But this board has a history and as you can see, on both boards, the minute an opposing point of view comes on board, the moderators are summoned.  It's a fact.  This used to be a combined board but it was separated because of constant insults and failure to behave as mature adults. 
Feel free to direct your concerns to the Administrator. sm
You can reach the adminstrator at Admin@MTStars.com.  As far as deleting, since the incident of several weeks ago, I have made a concerted effort on BOTH boards to keep the bashing to a minimum. 
Okay. Thanks. I understand now. Different rules for different boards.
nm
I never called anyone on these boards a liar. SM
That word is used and abused by many on this board though. Not by me.
What exactly does this have to do with lying on chat boards. nm

Some truth about ISP and message boards
Hey Observer, you are right to be concerned. ISPs are certainly available to administrators so that they can ban certain parties if they want to. This is not normally a problem if the administrator and monitors are fair and impartial, and posters stick to the rules.

We've seen in the past here however that certain folks had the ear of the Politics moderator and this led to vindictive bannings that shouldn't have happened in a fair forum. Some people were allowed to get away with abuse while others were banned for simply asking that they not be abused.

In all fairness to the moderator and administrator, however, they devised this new forum format and since that has happened, there's been very little interference and things seem a lot more equitable. I admit I haven't read down the posting list yet to see what you're referring to, so we'll see about that:)

I think the tighy Righties got very used to being able to bait, insult, and then kick off anyone they wanted and they really enjoyed it. Now they're screaming because people can actually talk back to them and give them a few doses of their own sour medicine. Regardless of what the posts below say, I for one thank the administrator and moderator for making this fairer play possible as much as they have.
That's why there are 2 boards for the conservatives who like the "yes man"
debates. I suggest to the people who don't like liberal ways go there. They will be able to high five and keep hope alive with the Bush yeppers and congregation.
I have visited a lot of chat boards.
But I have to say that of all the venomous and hateful posters, you are the winner.  Most of the boards I frequent would have banned you a long long time ago.  And that is left and right.  It's says something about the administrator and fairness that they allow you to continue to post.  I have no problem with differing viewpoints, it's just that you state yours in immature and horrific ways.  I never say someone so consumed with hatred.  It really must suck to be you.
From looking on both boards, both sides are guilty.
,
Things are dead on both these boards
because posters who have any interest in rational debate have either been driven away or have easily found better places to go for discussion. Congratulations.
Already been discussed on both boards. Catch up. nm
x
I have read Sir Percy on other boards.
His posts are disturbing, and I absolutely do not mean they are disturbing in a thought provoking way. 
boards and splinters my friends
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html
There is a separte board for that. How many boards
The political posts have remained buried in between and under these posts since lunch time.
Then all boards should be combined as one - see message
Because you are bring "gab" issues to the political board, and as far as what I can see others are sick of it too.

Take the juvenile subjects of Bristol Palin and her boyfriend to the gab board - that is where it belongs.

Maybe there should be a whole new subject board for sick issues like how to be joyful when other people are going through hard times as long as it involves a relative of a republican politician.

Again, take the discussion of Bristol Palin and her boyfriend to the gab board, then we don't have to read the juvenile posts!!!!
Administrator: Someone is filling our board with drug ad posts on page 3.
Hmm - none on the conservative board.  Extreme Right wing conspiracy?
Survey: How many hours a day do you spend on these boards? Please?! Thx. nm
.
This isn't new but it explains a lot about some of the ignorance found on these boards.

I think Bush has two kinds of supporters, from one extreme to the other.  The ones who are quiet and don't resort to posting menacing messages on free message boards are usually oil company executives and other high-income people who are too busy counting their money and wouldn't embarrass themselves by publicly supporting this goofball in the White House.


The other kind, as we often see on these boards, is as described below.


The rest of the country seems to be sandwiched between these two extremes and is reasonable, sane, nonjudgmental and tolerant of others.


**********


Bush and the Christian Right: Going Backward to a Future Right out of the Middle Ages





     Bush kicked off his campaign with his State of the Union Address, trying to use it to make the reality of the war in Iraq go away; and pretending, for the umpteenth time, that his tax cuts were about to lead to the creation of new jobs. And, of course, of course, of course, to talk about terrorism, posing as a defender of an America under siege.
     The real force of his campaign -- although Bush didn't talk about it -- will come from the enormous campaign chest that he is accumulating; already it stands at 100 million dollars, which is more than any candidate ever collected in total before. It's clear he has the support of the biggest corporations in the country, and not just the oil and energy industries, but, what is more important, high finance.
     But whatever else Bush will do in this campaign, his main concern will be to mobilize the voting block that put him in the White House in 2000, the so-called Christian Right. It was to that Christian Right that Bush was directly speaking at the conclusion of his State of the Union Address, when he hinted he might agree to their demands for a constitutional amendment preventing homosexuals from marrying, or when he proposed to campaign for teen-age abstinence, or when he promised to open more federal money to religious based charities.


Looking to the Faithful


     Bush's re-election rests essentially on his ability to mobilize that section of the population which was the single most solid voting bloc in the last election, the so-called Christian Right, the home-grown version of the religious fundamentalism that has overtaken large parts of the world during these last few decades.
     Vague though the term may be, Christian Right nonetheless carried enough meaning that almost 20% of the electorate in the last election identified themselves as such in exit polls. And 84% voted for Bush in 2000.
     The difficulty in saying what the Christian Right is and what it stands for comes from its diversity. It is made up of literally thousands of little Protestant sects, each in its own particular corner, as well as a few bigger ones, like the Assemblies of God, the fundamentalist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Latter Day Saints, which is particularly strong in the Mountain West. Then there are all the radio and TV ministries -- the modern day equivalent of the old tent revival meetings with their huckster preachers touring the country, promising to heal the afflicted with a laying on of hands -- while the hands were in fact reaching into the pockets of the afflicted. The big difference today is the scale on which the huckstering is carried out, witness the wealth once collected by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (before their fall from grace when it was discovered that Jim -- of all people! -- had had a tryst with his secretary, then used ministry funds to pay her off). Or witness the appeals for money by Pat Robertson on his TV show, the 700 Club, which were often helped along by his regular ventures into long distance faith-healing via TV signal, praying for an unnamed listener out there who had a back problem or hemorrhoids, for example, claiming his prayer had healed the affliction.
     There are also all those organizations which have mobilized around particular political and social issues, but who use a religious rhetoric to justify their demands. The most active -- although not the only ones -- are the ones that have carried out a fight against abortion rights practically since the 1974 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Close behind in their activity were all those defend the family organizations that pushed to block passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, arguing that equal rights for women would destroy God's design for the family.
     Finally, there are political action groups like the Christian Coalition, headed in its heyday by Pat Robertson. The Christian Coalition, like Falwell's Moral Majority before it, in reality is a kind of electoral machine, using religious language and references to mobilize voters, whether for Robertson and other activists from the Christian Right or for Republican candidates.
     There is no single person or group of persons who speak for this whole. And there are important differences between the fundamentalists, the evangelicals (or born-agains) and the pentecostals -- the three big categories, into which most of the churches fall. Nonetheless, there are certain ideological common denominators that tie this loose grouping together. The vast majority of its ministers claim to follow the Bible literally -- in many cases even in so far as explaining the universe, the solar system and where this planet fits into the scheme of things; as well as how all of this, plus the animals, plants and especially human beings, came into existence, six thousand or so years ago, depending on the sect. This view, known as creationism, has often expressed itself in activity to change the curriculum in the schools, opposing creationism to well-accepted scientific theories about evolution or plate tectonics or the formation of the universe, for example, while pushing the educational book publishers to include the Biblical creationist explanations in science texts. And many of the Christian Right leaders advocate that their followers leave the public schools. In 1979, Jerry Falwell declared, I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, there won't be any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. It's still a goal of most of the Christian Right organizations, which today push for public moneys to go to religious schools. As for the early days Falwell talks about, when there were no public schools, only religious schools, those were the days when the children of working people did not go to any school at all.
     Not only do the leaders of the Christian Right espouse the most non-scientific ideas, they are also the fount of some of the most socially backward views of society and the relations between human beings. Witness a statement Jerry Falwell sent out in 1999 in a fund-raising letter: these perverted homosexuals ... absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, god-fearing citizens stand for.... Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom.... If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!
     Literal though their Biblical references may be, the activists and ministers are also highly selective, digging out precisely those Biblical quotations that justify the most reactionary prejudices found in current day society, including racism, the relegation of women to an inferior role, the despising of homosexuals, the exacting of revenge by the death penalty, etc.
     A belief that has been widely spread and carefully maintained throughout this disparate Christian Right is the assertion that religion generally and Christianity specifically is under attack. The growth of a secular society is said to be paving the way for a new Armageddon, that is, the colossal final battle between the godly and the ungodly. When Armageddon came along -- or at least September 11 -- one of the leaders of the Christian Right, Jerry Falwell, couldn't resist the temptation to develop this idea more specifically: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.... throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million innocent little babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face, and say, `you helped this happen.' To which, Pat Robertson, on whose 700 Club show Falwell was appearing, replied, I totally concur.


Paying off Political Debts


     George W. Bush may have won the vast majority of the Christian Right in his last election, but he won with only 48% of the total vote, and his camp knows that there is a part of the Christian Right that has become disappointed with the Republican party. Karl Rove, Bush's political handler, in discussing the 2000 election pointed out that four million fewer voters owing allegiance to the Christian Right went to the polls in 2000 than voted in 1994. A big part of Bush's activity over the last three years has been aimed at bringing these lost sheep back into the fold. On the one hand, he has worked to integrate the activists of the Christian Right much more thoroughly into the Republican Party apparatus; on the other hand, to convey, in the words of Tom DeLay, the second ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, that he has been put in the White House by God to promote a Biblical world view.
     Among Bush's first appointees was an obstetrician/gynecologist who opposes prescribing contraceptives to single women. He made his name writing a book, Stress and the Woman's Body, which recommended the reading of specific scriptural passages as well as prayers for headache and premenstrual syndrome. This charlatan was appointed to chair the FDA's panel on women's health policy, which was scheduled to take up such issues as hormone replacement therapy and distribution of RU-486, a pill that can induce abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy. Two more of Bush's appointees to agencies dealing with abortion, family planning and reproductive rights of women were conservatives who opposed any federal funding for any kind of contraception, not to mention abortion.
     A woman nominated to the National Advisory Committee on Violence against Women was the head of Independent Women's Forum, an organization that had opposed any investigation of violence against women. A nominee for the President's Advisory Committee on HIV and AIDS was a conservative evangelical who called AIDS, the gay plague.
     A nominee for the NLRB was a board member for American Vision, which favored, among other things, putting the United States under biblical law, that is, turning it into a theocracy. It goes without saying that this organization opposed any rights for women.
     Bush appointed a panel to write new guidelines to allow prayer in the public schools -- with a view toward sneaking in the backdoor, what the courts had already kicked out the front door.
     And who could forget Bush's born again attorney general, John Ashcroft, who anointed himself with cooking oil before taking his oath of office, just as the Saul and David (of Old Testament fame) did when they assumed their administrative duties, -- as Ashcroft took great pains to explain.
     Of course, Bush was doing what all winning politicians do: handing out posts to supporters. But, he was also using his appointments to legitimize the reactionary social attitudes of the Christian Right.


Pandering to a Reactionary Social Agenda


     Whatever has been on Bush's real political agenda in support of the wealthy, he has made it a policy to appeal to and reinforce some of the most socially backward and vicious views, even if he often does so in a kind of coded language. It's enough for him to declare in the State of the Union Address, for example, that he pledges to defend the sanctity of marriage, for all those people who agree with Falwell's description of homosexuals to hear Bush talking to them, reinforcing their prejudices.
     One of Bush's very first actions on taking office in 2001 was to cut off funding for international family planning organizations that even mention abortion. Among other things, he has since imposed severe restrictions on stem cell research -- stem cells come from aborted foetuses -- impeding research into Alzheimer's and other such degenerative diseases. He pushed to eliminate funding for sex education if it doesn't push abstinence, in place of birth control methods -- turning back the clock on the reduction of early teen-age pregnancy, accomplished over the last decades precisely because there was more ready information about, and access to, condoms and other birth control methods. His administration pushed through a bill recognizing an unborn foetus as a crime victim, if a pregnant woman is attacked. There are already laws that recognize such actions as crimes -- but this one was written so as to give implicit legal standing to the idea that a foetus is a person, opening the door to charge a doctor who performs an abortion with murder. The administration also introduced and pushed through bills making a late-term abortion procedure illegal -- without any exception for situations when a woman's life, health or well-being are endangered by continuation of the pregnancy. In fact, this is the only time that such late-term abortions are ordinarily legally available now. By closing down the exception, Bush was giving support to the most backward ideas about the role of women in society, that is, chattel, whose own life and health count for little.
     Another of Bush's initiatives has been to call for the extension of vouchers -- the programs that force the public schools to give students money to attend private schools, almost 90% of which are religious-based schools. The federal government, however, is not in the position to impose this directly on school systems, which are locally controlled. Nonetheless Bush in 2002 proposed, but failed to get through a national system of vouchers. In 2003 he used his budget to do essentially the same thing: proposing a $2500 tax credit to parents of students in failing schools, which parents could collect on if they transferred their children to other schools, including private schools -- that is, religious schools -- or if the parents would home school their children.
     Apart from the obvious support for religious schooling, this tax credit was a way to play to one of the pet projects of the Christian Right, which sees home schooling as a way to remove young children from the nefarious influences that they perceive percolating to their children via the public schools -- including no doubt, a scientific view of the world, not to mention the sex education that lurks in the background of health classes. To protect children from these influences, the Christian Right is ready to sacrifice their education, their socialization with other children, leaving them in the hands only of their own parents, who are not qualified to give them even the most basic grounding in mathematics, composition and the ability to communicate their ideas, as well as a scientific approach to studying the world, not to mention teaching them about the great literature of the world, history, advanced scientific studies, languages, art, music -- most of which the parents have never mastered themselves. It's a way to condemn children to backwardness.
     At the same time, Bush has made a series of attempts to reduce the Head Start program, one of the most successful federal social programs, which provided support for early pre-school training for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. If this program has been so successful in improving the school performance of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, it's precisely because the children are brought together with their peers at an earlier age than ususal and are given training and education their parents aren't able to give them.
     And although Bush has not gone so far -- yet -- as to propose that creationism be taught in the public schools, several of his appointees have required the National Park Service to sell a book in NPS stores that explains the creation of the Grand Canyon by linking it with the Old Testament flood of the Noah story. The author's introduction to the book includes the following sad passage: For years as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale can't possibly be more than a few thousand years old.
     One of the most disgusting of Bush's campaigns has been carried out by cooking-oil-self-anointing Attorney General John Ashcroft: to reimpose the death penalty in all those states that have done away with it. George W. Bush in Texas had already made a name for himself by refusing to intervene when he was governor in any death penalty case, no matter how egregious the circumstances surrounding the case. This is particularly significant, given that Texas alone has accounted for 38% of all executions carried out in this country since the death penalty was reinstated. If there are a handful of other states that have also put quite a few people to death, including Florida where Brother Jeb Bush holds sway, most of the country is very hesitant about capital punishment. Ashcroft set out to change this by finding pretexts to file capital murder charges in cases that by rights should have been handled by the states. Significantly, every single one of the capital murder charges that Ashcroft has filed since taking office were in states (or Puerto Rico) that either practically or legally have foresworn capital punishment. Ashcroft's campaign hasn't been notably successful so far, with juries refusing in all but one of Ashcroft's 20 trials to return the death penalty. But this hasn't stopped Ashcroft, who currently has filed 25 new federal capital charges in cases that should fall under state jurisdictions, plus intervening in 12 cases where the Justice Department's own prosecutors had not asked for the death penalty.
     It's nothing but a blood-soaked pandering to the oft-repeated call of the Christian Right for the Old Testament's vengeful demand: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
     Finally, there was Bush's so-called faith-based initiative, which he referred to in his State of the Union address. Using various pretexts, Bush has ordered federal funds for social programs to be dispersed through religious-based charities and churches. Of course, the problem with social program funds today is not a lack of places to disperse them, it's a lack of funds to be dispersed, thanks to the continuing attacks on social programs, an attack that Bush has carried out in particularly vicious fashion.
     This is not a social program -- it is nothing but a barely veiled proposal to direct some money in the direction of all these little churches whose ministers supported Bush -- and at a significantly higher rate than even their parishioners did in the last election.
     While visiting a church in Louisiana in January to push for his faith-based social programs, Bush declared: This country must not fear the influence of faith in the future of the country. We must welcome faith in order to make America a better place.
     The future Bush is preparing for this country comes straight out of the 19th century, when there were no social programs -- other than the charities run by churches or benevolent associations -- only the poor house, which was nothing but a jail to which impoverished people were sent when their jobs disappeared. Bush's future is 19th century capitalism, its horrendous exploitation reinforced by cultivating backward ideas, prejudices and religious superstition from the Middle Ages.


George W. Bush Is Himself Anointed Leader of the Christian Right


     In December 2001, Pat Robertson resigned as president of the Christian Coalition. Gary Bauer, a leader of the Christian Right who ran against Bush in the 2000 Republican primary, explained it this way to the Washington Post: I think Robertson stepped down because the position has already been filled. [The president] is that leader now. There was already a great deal of identification with the president before 9-11 in the world of the Christian Right, and the nature of this war is such that it has heightened the sense that a man of God is in the White House.
    
But George W. Bush had not always been such a man of God, and the milieu of evangelicals, Baptists, fundamentalists, etc., had not always voted Republican.
     The milieu which produced the Christian Right had long been concentrated among poorer whites in the South and border states, especially in rural areas, and in those industrial states like Michigan and Illinois that had attracted migration from the South. If in a more distant past, this evangelical milieu had been part of the base of Southern populist movements, since the 1930s, it was a traditional support for the Democratic Party. At the same time, the Christian fundamentalists provided a milieu in which the Ku Klux Klan had to some degree sunk roots. For decades, the Democratic Party, while using a populist language to address the poor whites of the South, was the chief enforcer -- and politically the beneficiary -- of Southern segregation. But with the development of the Civil Rights Movement, the break-down of Jim Crow in the South, and the apparent support for civil rights by the Democrats in the North (more apparent than real), the Republicans began to play the race card to attract this milieu and resurrect the Republican party in the South. In fact, the resurrection of the Republican party depended in good measure on the defection of part of the Southern Democratic Party apparatus, which went over to the Republican Party as a way to maintain their positions in the face of a growing black mobilization. The Democrats-turned Republicans pulled after them much of the Democratic Party's voting base. It is probably that by 1960, the majority of Christian fundamentalists -- upset by changes in Northern segregation and appalled at the idea of a Catholic president -- had shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans. By 1972, with the newly constituted Republican Party making the coded racist appeals in which Southern Democrats had long excelled, Nixon got 80% of the Christian fundamentalist vote, even though he personally did almost nothing to reach out to them.
     Racist appeal has been a stock in trade of the Republicans ever since then. We could recall Senior Bush's use of the black criminal's picture in his 1988 campaign or Trent Lott's statement last year in a private Republican affair (When Strom Thurmond ran for president [on a segregationist platform], we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all the years.) But racist appeal alone was not enough for the Republicans to maintain this Southern electorate.
     This electorate, which the Republicans pulled from the Democrats in the 1950s and '60s, had a mixed social composition. If there has always been an important part of the evangelicals, etc., made up of small shopkeepers and farmers, there was a significant part who were laboring people, rural or small town, for the most part quite poor. The Democrats since the time of Roosevelt had used a language that appealed to the social interests of the poorer layers of the population (which didn't prevent the Democrats from serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie). The Republicans by contrast had never done so. If the racial issue was enough to pull poor Southern whites over to Nixon, it wasn't enough to keep them solidly in the Republican camp.
     Jimmy Carter, a Southern governor and himself a Baptist, retook a sizeable chunk, even if not the majority of the fundamentalist/evangelical vote in 1976 for the Democrats. To get it back, the Republicans began to play the anti-abortion card. That certainly didn't explain everything about the 1980 election -- joblessness was high, and the economic situation seemed to be getting worse. But the abortion issue, along with the possibility that the Equal Rights Amendment would be passed, also played an important part in these elections. To be more exact, the Republicans played on these issues to the hilt, by pushing laws restricting abortion rights and helping to block the Equal Rights Amendment in states. Reagan drew 75% of the fundamentalist/evangelical vote in 1984, Bush Senior, 70% in 1988 and Robert Dole, 65% in 1996.
     But as the figures themselves show, the Republican share after the 1983 spurt was declining. Moreover, when Ross Perot ran an independent candidacy in 1992, attacking Bush senior for raising taxes and exporting jobs with free trade agreements, he took 19% of the total vote, including a significant amount from the Christian Right, making it impossible for Bush Senior to be re-elected. The Republicans' stand on abortion and related issues wasn't enough to overcome the population's unease facing increasing joblessness. Even if Bush senior tried to stress his own religious credentials -- inviting both Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, as well as Billy Graham out to the ranch, he was hard-pressed to appeal directly to the Christian Right. Bush Senior, bred to a life of privilege, was part of that Eastern upper class elite whose very way of life, including its high-church religion, was a bone of contention to the Christian Right.
     It was George W. Bush who found the way to line up the Christian Right behind the Republican Party again.
     Shucking the image of privilege along with his Yale and Harvard blazers, which he replaced with jeans and cowboy boots; dumping his eastern-born and educated accent for a cow country twang; leaving behind the Episcopalianism of his Yankee forebears; presenting himself like a born-again, his religious conversion worn on his forehead like a tattoo, he stepped forward to enter politics. One of the first actions he took was to commission the ghostwriting of a small autobiography to demonstrate his upstanding morality, a book in which he explained that he had been saved by the personal ministrations of none other than Billy Graham. Graham, according to Bush, had convinced him in 1985 and 1986 to give up his previous attachment to alcohol, and perhaps some other sins. Graham had planted a mustard seed of salvation in his soul -- which mustard seed let him sweep under the rug a series of criminal misadventures with drugs and alcohol, not to mention the fraudulent way he got into the National Guard to avoid service in Viet Nam -- actions that otherwise would have been an embarrassment for a politician pretending to stand for morality and family values. Bush has never since missed a chance to testify about his salvation. In a debate before the 2000 Republican primaries, when the candidates were each asked to name their favorite political philosopher, Bush quickly answered,Christ because he changed my heart. In a recent visit to a black church in Louisiana, Bush told of his decision to stop drinking, adding I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't ask for Christ's help in my heart.
     To be more exact, he wouldn't be sitting in the White House if he had not managed to make such a play of religiosity.
     It's exactly that religiosity which has helped Bush cobble together a kind of merger between the Republican party and the organizations of the Christian Right. And he did it long before the 2000 election. By all accounts, it was George W. Bush who delivered a big chunk of the Christian Right for his father's 1988 election -- gladhanding activists and ministers from this milieu day after day during the primaries, pulling them away from Pat Robertson who ran as a Republican, continuing on all the way up to November.
     Long before the 2000 election, George W. Bush had convinced the Christian Right that he was a man of God and would use the White House in their interests. They gave him their vote, and, as we already said, at a higher rate than to any previous candidate. At the same time, many of the activists were being brought into the Republican Party apparatus. A study done in 2002, printed in the magazine Campaigns and Elections, found that Christian Right activists held a strong position in 18 state Republican parties, and a weak position in only 7 states, with the rest in the middle. This was a significant increase since 1994, when there were 20 states in which the Christian Right influence was weak. It's obvious by the terms used, that the study is not talking about control of the Republican party -- no more than the unions ever controlled the Democratic party in those states where they were perceived to be in a strong position. But the Christian Right was giving the Republican party large number of activists that to some extent could counter the role that the unions have long played in getting out the vote for the Democratic party.


You Can't Lie to People Forever -- Even if Bush Thinks He Can


     The Republican Party generally, and George W. Bush specifically, has pandered to the reactionary social attitudes and prejudices that circulate in the population and worked to reinforce them, contributing in recent years to the perception that religion is increasingly dominant.
     In fact, the country has been moving for decades in a secular direction. The number of people who are actively religious -- as measured by weekly attendance at religious services -- continues to decline. In 1972, for example, 38% of the population said they went to religious services every week, whereas only 11% said they never went. By 2000, the relative positions were reversed. The non-church-goers had tripled, hitting 33%, while the faithful had decreased to 25%. This is still an enormous weight of backwardness on the population. But it seems much greater only because the politicians continue to push religion to the fore, trying to reinforce the hold it has on the population.
     And not only the politicians. The reactionary prejudices that exist in the Christian Right milieu are consciously fanned not only by the whole Christian broadcasting network, but equally by parts of the mainstream media. Fox News Channel, for example, pushed itself to the top of TV news shows in a few short years through an enormous expenditure of money. The transformation of Fox into a vehicle for radical right wing ideas was the creation of Rupert Murdoch, well known for a vast empire of exceedingly right wing and scandal mongering newspapers around the world. Using part of his many billions to buy up Fox, Murdoch dumped most of the news staff in 1996, then hired Roger Ailes, who had long been in charge of media relations for Republican presidential candidates, to direct Fox News.
     It should come as no surprise that part of Fox's agenda has been to back the Republicans. It has done a masterful job as the mouthpiece for every lie that the virtuous George W. Bush ever told, whether about the weapons of mass destruction or his middle-class tax cut.
     A recent study that set out to examine how people get false ideas about news events asked people to evaluate a series of statements: for example, the assertion that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had found weapons of mass destruction or the assertion that most people in other countries supported the U.S. war to remove Saddam Hussein. Their answers were correlated with the news source they watched. The more that people watched Fox, the more they believed such obviously false assertions.
     But pushing George's lies is not the only game in town for Fox. Another integral part of its agenda has been to reinforce many of the ideas and claims that circulate in the milieu of the Christian Right. Taking advantage of the holiday spirit, for example, Fox devoted a whole week at the end of December that carried the rubric, Christianity Under Attack, asserting among other things that there is a secular conspiracy to prevent children from praying, or to destroy the family.
     Pushing people toward religion is an old trick, and one used all the more frequently as the situation of working people becomes more desperate.
     Bush's main job in this society is to defend the functioning of an economic system which puts profit before everything else, human life included. Bush flaunts his faith in order to hide this reality, using religion as a drug to anesthesize the population to the dreadful consequences of his own policies.
     This is an old and vicious trap, one that bourgeois politicians have long used to keep working people from fighting for their own interests.
     Maybe Bush can go on telling lies about weapons of mass destruction; maybe he can go on drugging people with reactionary attitudes and superstitions.
     But maybe not. An important part of the Christian Right, even as deformed as it is by its immersion in reactionary ideas, is made up of people whose main social characteristic is the exploitation they suffer at the hands of the capitalist class that controls both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Most of the activists of the Christian Right, along with a part of its electorate may well be managers, small entrepreneurs, disappointed professionals, ministers, etc. -- as some studies have shown. But a significant part of the voting base is still situated among laboring people, whether in the working class or in farming situations. And no more than the Democratic Party has ever been able to answer the most basic fundamental needs of the laboring people who looked toward it, neither can the Republican Party answer the demands of these voters.
     The working class can mobilize for its own needs. In so doing, it can at the same time start freeing itself from the prejudices, superstitions and reactionary ideas that people like George W. Bush and his ilk have pushed.


     January 25, 2004