Soapbox

It’s getting so nothing surprises me any more. Nauseates and horrifies me, sure- but surprises? Naaw.

Pat Robertson has said on his national program that the United States should assassinate Hugo Chavez, a democratically elected leader of a sovereign nation, because it would be cheaper than going to war with him. Today he responded to the criticism he has been getting by claiming he was “misinterpreted” and never called for Chavez to be assassinated. Here is part of what he said:

“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it.”

Doesn’t seem like much room for mis-interpretation there. So he not only is a thug advocating terrorist acts against another country, but he is also a liar who won’t even accept responsibility for what he has said.

Wow! Are these the family values and “culture of life” mentality that the right is always accusing the left of lacking? If so, we’re better off without them. America should be outraged but not surprised at this comment from a man who has said that feminism encourages women to kill their children and recently prayed for God to “act against” 3 supreme court justices so that more conservatives could be appointed.

Robertson calls himself a man of God, but exactly which God is he a man of? Thor, the God of Thunder? Shiva the Destroyer? Because he doesn’t speak like a man of the God who told us to Love our neighbor as ourselves and turn the other cheek. Ironically, Robertson has repeatedly condemned Islam as a “violent” religion.

Pat Robertson owes an apology not only to President Chavez and the people of Venezuela but to the American people, for suggesting to the world that we are a nation that would casually turn to war and murder while hiding behind Jesus Christ. I can’t help but think that this statement might be a great terrorist recruiting tool because it surely painst Americans and Christians in a bad light. How many more American servicemen may die because of what Pat Robertson just said? Might it increase the danger to the elected president of this sovereign nation, to suggest that such men should be fair game for those who disagree?

Talk about obscenity on television! Americans of good conscience and common sense can only wonder; why is this man still on TV? And what kind of network would continue to give him a national platform from which to advocate for murder?

If you feel the same, please let CBN and abcfamily network know about it. It is past time to pull the plug on this sick, sick guy.

This month America has watched the unfolding spectacle of one small woman facing off against one big lie. Cindy Sheehan lost her son Casey in Iraq in 2003. So for the month of August, while President Bush spends an unprescedented 5 weeks on vacation, she and a growing band of supporters are camped out a short distance from Bush’s “ranch”, waiting for the President to answer a simple question she would like to ask.

“You said that my son and others died for a noble cause, Mr. President. Please explain to me what that cause is.”

Seems pretty straight-forward to me, but the president won’t speak with her, and the right has set their attack dogs on Mrs. Sheehan. She has been called a “moonbat” and “unhinged”, a “tool of the hard left” and even a traitor… because she has a question and she thinks the president owes her an answer.

The problem is, the more they think about it, the more a lot of America realizes that they have the same question. George Bush is launching a 5 day “War-a-palooza” tour, not to answer those nagging questions, but to try to “sell” the war. I suspect he will have all the sucess he had selling social security privatization, because he’s offering excuses and evasion, not answers. He kicked the whole thing off by once again equating 9/11 with the war in Iraq and saying that America must allow the troops to complete their mission. But no one seems to be able to tell us exactly what that mission is!

So, in honor of the fact that the conservatives are telling us that it is un-American to disagree with the president, here’s a little quiz for America I like to call “Name that Hypocrite”. Ready?

Who said,
“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. .. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions…. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep… There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today.”

Wow-pretty un American to question a president about his war objectives, huh? I mean, we’re all supposed to support him in a time of war and shut our mouths, right? So who’s the nitpicker? Was it:

A) Cindy Sheehan, the American traitor
B) Howard Dean, the unhinged lunatic
C) Tom DeLay, (R.- Texas) who now acts like it is treason to question the president, talking about then-President Bill Clinton’s Kosovo strategy.

Think you know the answer? Here’s another. Who said,
“(The President) is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He is yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And, he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home.”

Was it:
A) Michael Moore, treasonous America-hater,
B) Dennis Kucinich, lefty peacenick
C) Senator Rick Santorum, (R-Penn.) on why he voted against military action in Kosovo.

If you answered “C” to both, Congratulations! You have not been taken in by the hypocritical right’s pretense that democrats invented things like the filibuster and questioning the president.

One more question: Why were such questions reasonable then but treasonous now? Let me know if you come up with a good answer for that one. In the meantime, I’m with Cindy:

Just answer the question, Mr. President!

About a year ago, a middle school student was sent home from chool for refusing to change his shirt, which had a bible verse on the front and on the back said,
“Homosexuality is a sin. Islam is a lie. Abortion is murder. Some things are just black and white.”
The school felt that school was not an appropriate place for such an inflammatory message, but his parents (who no doubt bought him the shirt from Operation Rscue) disagreed and, backed by the deep pockets of a right-wing group, took them to court.

I read with true sadness that a U. S. district court judge ruled yesterday that bigotry and hatred are neither distracting or “clearly offensive” to young Ohioans. (“Student Wins T-shirt verdict” Aug 19th)

Well I would like to go on record as saying that a child wearing a shirt that says “Homosexuality is a sin. Islam is a lie” is deeply offensive to me, at least. In addition to being appalled at the sort of parents who would make their child a human billboard to advertise their hate, I find Judge Smith’s decision breath-takingly activist.

I am hemming up Katie’s pants this week because they may not touch the floor when she walks, and she is not allowed to wear a bandannas in the building, just in case it might be a gang symbol- but the judge thinks this is A-OK in Ohio schools?

There are all sorts of dress code restrictions at schools, for good reasons. Middle school and elementary schools in particular are really not an appropriate place for strong religious or political statements by kids. What if a kid showed up at the judge’s son’s class with a shirt that said
“Right wing fundamentalists pervert the word of God“?
While I agree with that sentiment, I also feel that it was wholly inappropriate for them to wear a shirt that insults a large group- any group- of people IN SCHOOL. I would have no problem with John Kerry shirts being banned at a school, as long as George Bush shirts were banned too. Keep politics and religion out of public school.

Conservatives say “there you liberals go, being a slave to the politically correct” but when did tolerance become a dirty word in Ohio? My issue is not with a person’s right to espouse a belief that I personally think is wrong. When you start saying it’s not disruptive or offensive for a kid to wear a shirt that reduces the world’s largest religion to “a lie” to his school– why not approve one that says “Eliminate black unemployment: Repeal the 15th amendment!” ? Well, a person has a right to wear a shirt that espouses the philosophy of the kkk, but NOT TO SCHOOL when they’re 12 years old!

This is why so many schools resort to school uniforms, and who can blame them? It just makes sense to eliminate all these bumpy issues: Is it a gang symbol or just a bandanna? Is it OK to demean every Muslim on the face of the earth in 6th grade or not? Lets’ just say NO shirts with any words or pictures on them other than the school name, NO hats of any kind, etc. and then we can spend more time worrying about passing those moronic tests we saddle our children with every year and less over this redneck kids’ urge to insult people he doesn’t even know.

My issue is not with the hateful, nasty shirt or his right to wear it while hanging out at the corner dipping snuff with his pointy-headed friends. My issue is that there are things that our public schools were never intended to teach. Religion is one, hate is another. This shirt is about both.

I wrote a letter to my paper yesterday. Ok, I write a letter to my paper a lot of days, but in this one- wonder of wonders- I thanked them for a little section they ran that day. (Hey, it happens from time to time. I believe if you’re going to complain about the bad stuff, you should compliment the good stuff too.) 14 marines from Ohio have just been killed in Iraq and in addition to photos of the young, ernest, sometimes scared looking guys in their marine corps best, they ran profiles.

~ Cpl Boskovitch had just set a wedding date and his fiancee was going to have invitations and flowers and tuxedo ideas to show him when he got home in October.

~Corporal Montgomery’s body will be escorted home by his brother who is in the same batallion, who will be attending two funerals when he gets home because their father died just 2 days earlier.

~Lance cpl. Cifuentes was studying to be a teacher when his Reserve unit got activated and sent to Iraq.

~Cpl. Kreuter was looking forward to saying hello to his infant son, who will now never hear the sound of his father’s voice.

I read these stories with tears in my eyes for these men, not much older than my son. They are NOt just body counts: not facts and statistics. They are loves and dreams and lives of service to others that were erased completely between one heartbeat and the next.

Maybe this subject has particular urgency for me because I remember becoming so calloused by the nightly body counts of the Vietnam War that when the Kent State shootings were announced, I wondered what all the fuss was about. After all, it was only 4, and 4 is a small number, right?

We’re so used to huge numbers in this country that they have lost much of their meaning. We’re so accustomed to discussions of millions here, billions there that even 2,000 seems insignificant, let alone 14. Of course, one is a huge and hideous number when it is your one who is gone. We all need to remember that.

In an era when we aren’t allowed to see the caskets, when Nightline wasn’t even able to say the NAMES of these people without being accused of being liberal anti-american agitators, I thanked the editor for reminding us that however righteous or ignoble the cause, each life lost in war lessens us all. Whether you support or are appalled by this war, we as a nation must try to feel at least an echo of the very personal loss these families feel, so we can honor what we’ve been given.

Only when you appreciate the nature of the gift can you be trusted to use that gift wisely. Sadly, I think that is part of the President’s problem. He has no empathy for the loss the nation suffers every time another name goes on the list. I’m afraid they’re all just numbers to him, and he has some set amount in his head that he figures is statisticaly an acceptable “loss” in a business sense of the term. He doesn’t get it: these aren’t numbers, they are people.

How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? Which one will be the one that finally matters?

They all should, to all of us.