Keepin' it real, keepin' it clean... keepin' it real clean

Reader SJS reminds the GTL that on the Internet one may write the word "s**t" without the asterisks (see comments on the April 21st post). I thank him heartily for his comment (he may be a she, by the way; if we're going to bust stereotypes, perhaps we shouldn't engage in them ourselves).

Let me clarify: the asterisks do not represent self-censorship, since everyone knows exactly what letters lurk underneath. I do this in order to keep ammunition out of the hands of those who might make an ad hominem attack on the GTL's sense of "morality" and seek to detract from our political analyses on this blog with pointless questions about propriety.

To put it another way, just because the President called a New York Times reporter a "major league a**hole" in public and the vice president told Pat Leahy to "go f**k [him]self" on the floor of the Senate, it doesn't mean this type of language is acceptable for mainstreamers. Gutter-trash talk is apparently okay for right-wing presidents and ideologues in government, but I'm thinking about all of your grandmothers out there who may feel unclean if confronted with a written expletive.

Thanks again, SJS, and for the record I am tickled pink that you would find this little blog interesting. Keep commenting! And for those of you who wish center-leftists like the GTL would simply vanish I say: you're a major league [Bushism]! Go [Cheney word] yourself!

Peace to all and watch out for falling house majority leaders!

On Bolton: In Praise of Lincoln (Chafee, not Abe)

It's national news: a Republican backing off due to a "pang of conscience."

The GTL has often wondered, with almost a hint of admiration, how modern Republican leaders are able to keep their troops in lockstep with ideas and schemes that are often obviously divorced from reality; "voodoo" economics, missile defense shields in space, abstinence-only sex education, Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, No Child Left Behind, the war on drugs, selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq. The list goes on and on.

Democrats are annoyingly diverse in their opinions; Republicans move en masse and leave introspection to the Left.

Today we sing the praises of Lincoln Chafee, the possessor of the missing Republican conscience. I'm glad it has finally turned up. With the dust blown from it, it almost looks brand new, never used.

I guess good ol' Lincoln could not fit those words into his mouth ("John Bolton is a good man") without being overwhelmed by the taste of s**t.

When the mob rules, loyalty is the only virtue. But mob rule is not a good thing, even when it's your own mob. Republicans will soon find that there is a price to pay for loyalty to folly. Just ask Colin Powell; had he refused to peddle the White House's weak line of "proof" on WMD, had he instead resigned in protest, he'd be poised for the presidency himself in 2008. Instead he stayed in lockstep with George's lies and finds himself without credibility, without a voice, and with a dubious political future. Shoulda listened to HIS "pang of conscience."

All hail the pang! Thanks and praises to Lincoln Chafee!

Coming soon: Shoot All Day: My First .22 Automatic.

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Very ominous trends, my friends.

Several stories are bubbling up here and there about a supposed "anti-Christian" bias in various institutions, principally the Government of the United States of America. Christianist politicians claim to be victims of widespread attacks by forces of bigotry against evangelicals.

Actually, the truth as the GTL sees it is that many groups ARE under attack - FROM the evangelical Right, not the other way around.

Here at the GTL we feel that one's religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are private and that citizenship alone is enough. No public profession of faith in one or another deity is required, appreciated, or welcome in our unique land where church and state are by design kept as distant as kissing cousins who can never marry.

When members of the dominant group claim to be victims of bias, at a time when they maintain an historically unheard-of level of power and influence, well, what we have here is a seething paranoia, one that will not simply go away and will not go underground.

Christianists in government say the judiciary has run amok and is waging war on them, yet it is their side that threatens violence against judges who refuse to scrap the balance of power between Congress and the Judiciary, it is the Right that wants to detonate the Nuclear option in the Senate so that the president can ram ultra-conservatives into life-tenure judgeships, and it is their side too that all but demand oaths of Christian loyalty from government employees.

Today I read about a spate of harassment at the Air Force Academy, where "patriotic" young Christians are threatening other cadets as "filthy Jews," "Christ Killers," or telling non-Christians they will go to Hell if they don't fall in line. Of course, evangelical groups seem to think that putting a stop to a bigot who is bullying the slim minority of non-Christians is itself an act of bias. The GTL calls it protecting and defending the Constitution, but why split hairs?

Today I am thankful for my right to keep and bear arms since I don't doubt that someday these Christianist radicals, out of desperation to spread the Good News of Jesus' loving wrath, and in frustration that his second coming is so long delayed, will rise up in an orgy of blood and murder.

For my own good, of course.

I don't imagine I can stop them. But as a wise man once said, "if they make us have a funeral uptown, then we're going to make sure they have a funeral downtown, too."

OUR FIRST READER RESPONSE

Eric F. saw our site and had this to say:

Hello GTL!

good to see another good guy with his heart, head, and gun hand in the
right place! And maybe we're getting to the point where those who
value the 2nd will have to use it to defend the First, as was always
intended... Anyway, I just wanted to ask you if you have a comment
section available, as I was unable to find one.

Besides that, I have never bought into the "Religious Right" leaders'
really believing in god, any god, except maybe Mammon, Odin or even
Shiva the Destroyer. It's like thinking a "snake oil" salesman really
believed his recently mixed blend of alcohol and turpentine and camphor
was really going to cure the suckers that he would shamelessly fleece
the next day. And, unfortunately, suckers and fools of all kinds are
still around in large numbers today, constitutionally unable to stop a
microsecond to think for themselves and question the provenance of the
blatant lies they are regularly fed by whores, thieves and traitors in
our government and media.

Anyway, before we ultimately win back our rights as free Americans, as
we most certainly will, and stomp these latter day fascists back to the
slime where they came from, let's keep our hand in with our favourite
"pistola" as you suggest, whatever it may be! ( make mine a well balanced .45 ACP
! )

best regards and good work, good luck, and good shooting!

eric c. forat

Psychosis is indeed the right word

Are you following what's happened since Terri Schiavo died?

Our moral superiors in Congress, having been scolded all the way back to Civics 101 by the Federal Courts, are now not only calling for the destruction of the independent judiciary by this Republican Congress, but for the blood of judges who dare thwart the will of the people by not letting them have their way. The Constitution be damned!

Witness Tom DeLay threatening vengeance on "activist judges" who refuse to enshrine the Christian Right's view of their morality as Law. He refuses to condemn violence against JUDGES. AMERICAN judges. In AMERICA.

Now, Tom, I don't mean to be petty, but are you sure this squares with Jesus' teaching?

America, I ask you: Is Tom DeLay, or George Bush for that matter, the kind of leader Jesus would really have wanted us to have?

The scary thing is that the Right really does believe the judiciary is rife with God- and America-hating hippies or pinkos who are thwarting the will of God.

Not the American people mind you, but God, as if two hundred years of American History hasn't taught them a single lesson about the dangers of claiming to represent that tired, old, morally challenged, Narcissistic deity of ours. That's all we need now, at this moment in history: Yahweh Moms.

So are "activist judges" the new Terrorists? Frankly it's hard to keep up with the endless parade of Boogeymen the Right has paraded past us in the past fifty years.

Communists.

Blacks.

Homosexuals.

Liberals.

Feminists.

Union members.

Teachers of Evolution.

Atheists.

Democrats.

Me.

You.