REPUBLICAN LIES. . . . WHAT’S NEW?

This time the Republican liar is Bill Frist. There are so many of them, I’m having a hard time keeping them straight or remembering all of their lies. it’s getting simpler to say that if a Republican is speaking, he (or she) is lying.

Anyhow, during the heated time of the Schiavo debacle, Doctor Bill Frist, from the floor of the Senate after viewing a doctored videotape of Terri Schiavo, diagnosed her condition thusly, “. . . that footage, to me, depicted something very different than a persistent vegetative state.” Now that science, of course, in the form of an autopsy has shown that Frist was more interested in politics at the time of the Schiavo debate than in the facts, he claims, “I never made a diagnosis. I wouldn’t even attempt to make a diagnosis based on a videotape.” I can’t help remarking for the umpteenth time that the Republican base of religious rightists has been lied to all their lives about Jesus and god and all that nonsense that they can no longer distinguish when they’re being lied to, so the Republican leadership has no fear about lying to them. They’re naive and gullible and unable to distinguish the truth. Sad for America that there are so many of the innocent naive among us who will swallow any lie. Again, too, I want to mention what an important evolutionary adaptive quality is the ability to discern when one is being lied to. It brought the human animal very far on its journey to consciousness.


BROKEN FLOWERS BLOSSOMS

I’d put Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers” right up there with the classic French film “400 Blows” for its complicated, ambiguous and thought provoking view of human nature. A truly grownup film for badly jaded American intellectuals.


THE PUBELICANS LIKE DISORDER

Why do Republicans like to deregulate industries? Why do they claim they want smaller government? Why are they not bothered by the chaotic conditions they’ve created for America’s work force and the hatred they’ve built up for America in the world? Why are they unconcerned about the huge deficits they’ve created for American which will hamstring any effort to make things better and fairer for the have nots in America? Why is America adrift right now with no clear purpose or any vision under which we can all unite? Why have we lost our way?

It’s because the rich don’t care, and the Republicans are undoubtedly the party of the rich. When things go crash, the rich are in a better position to survive while those of us, who live from paycheck to paycheck, can be ruined with a few bad months to deal with. So they can be careless with America’s future while the rest of us try to reign in their careless and cavalier way of treating American values and economy. I’m 67 years old, and I’ve never seen such a lying and careless bunch of Americans in public office since the South was a Democratic stronghold.

If you want to know the real trouble with America, let me let you in on a secret. It’s the South stupid! In the 60s and 70s, it was Southern Democrats who were giving America a bad name. Now, in the 90s and this decade, it’s still those Southerners, now as Republicans, who are holding us back from being a real, rational, progressive country again.


TAKING IT TO THE SOURCE OF ALL LIES

Speaking of the falsehood which Christians cannot see beneath and which makes them so gullible in all other areas of life:

Brian Flemming was once a Christian fundamentalist. Now he’s seen the light and has become an atheist. He’s created a documentary, “The God Who Wasn’t There” which gets to the root of the lack of evidence for the idea of Jesus Christ. Flemming, like so many of the realists among us, sees through the attempt of the fundamentalists to make America into a theocracy. Here’s what he has to say:

“The problem is that we let religious people say stunningly false things, and we consider it rude to question those beliefs. But we should be shunning those people.” If that sounds intolerant, that’s the point. Flemming says, “I’m not tolerant of suspending reason.”

The Flemming report comes from the pages of this week’s NEWSWEEK (June 27, 2005, p. 11)
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"I get my exercise being pallbearer for my friends who exercise." —Chauncey Depew [gallows humor?]