Double Standards

The "Battle Cry for Generation" at AT&T Park.
25,000 Evangelical Christians, mostly youths were in attendance.





Kenny "Hittman" Hitt over at tennepel.com posted a rant about the protesters on Friday at the beginning of the 2-day rally. Apparently about 50 protesters showed up to make their protests known to the gathering 25,000.

SFGate.com reported that the protesters were largely ignored, and when interviewed, students and pastors seemed to have no interest in controversy. Here is quote from the article:

Christian Gallion, a 15-year-old in town with his Assembly of God youth group from Humboldt County, shrugged off being called "fascists" by counterdemonstrators.

"It doesn't bother me," Gallion said. "It's a beautiful city, and we don't have anything against the protesters."

His youth pastor had no interest in engaging in political debates.

"I'm not here to hate anybody," Scott Thompson said. "This isn't about Bush or gays or anything other than being here to worship together.

Any large rally of any religious or political nature is going to garner some protesters. That the number was only 50, and that the rally itself was a paid event does not make it newsworthy.

What was newsworthy was, well, in this case I largely agree with the Hittman's statement:

Assemblyman Mark Leno said of the teens "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco." His is a name long known to conservative newshounds for his legislative insanity:

- Sponsorship of a bill provision allowing an exemption of up to 100 pieces of child pornography for "personal use"
- Blocking "Jessica's Law", which would require strict enforcement of child molestation laws and harsher punishments
- Proposing a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in contradiction to a previous citizen-ratified marriage-definition proposition
- Calling Arnold Schwarzenegger a "homophobe" when the Governator jokingly called political opponents "girlie men"
- Supporting a bill that would ban tasers
- Supporting an unconstitutional bill that would ban ownership of guns in the San Francisco city limits

So, we have a Constitution-violating advocate of pedophilia slinging invectives at a group of kids who want to build churches and help the community.

The only major problem with Hitt's article is the headline which assumes that all 25,000 people at this rally, all Christians, were also all Conservatives. I'm certian a large number in the crowd and a great many pastors are Liberal. They are just as concerned with issues like pronography, the bombarding of our youth with messages that are self-destructive and on and on.

But Hitt failed to note, perhaps, the worst aspect being the intolerance shown by city officials. Liberal politicians (which are more the norm in the Bay Area) is supposed to be more tolerant and open-minded. But according to the S.F. Chronicle,

The teens were greeted Friday at a kick-off rally at City Hall by an official city condemnation and protesters who called them anti-gay, anti-choice and intolerant. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, suggested they "get out of San Francisco."

Apparently they official condemnation was a first for a rally at a public stadium in the City.

That's a problem.

But as usual our biased "Liberal Media" here in the Bay Area filed this report on the rally:

Fair, unbaised, and largely upbeat. Not all Liberals are the miror image of intolerant Conservatives...just a few.

Mr. Jesus Sleeves

Mr. TenNepal writes:

Now for all the flack Bush gets for being a Christian, I've never once seen him call down the good name of Jesus to back up any of his public policy. You see, Bush doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve. But the fact is that atheists won't reject Hill as president because they know she doesn't actually believe her own crap.

Dougy T may be correct that Hillary Clinton is using the Jesus card. But he is incorrect that George Bush has not consistently done the same.

While stumping for the presidency, George Bush Jr. openly embroidered Jesus on his sleeve saying that Jesus was his hero. When that did not suffice, he , in back room negotiations with powerful Fundagelicals, showed them his Jesus/AA tattoo.

It's all show on both sides.

But what happens when the real Jesus shows up (not the one depicted above that they want you to see). From the book of Matthew:

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ForI was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'

Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?

'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'

The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'

Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'

Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'

Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'

"These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

So how does that shake out for you?

I admit that the idea of eternal punishment is unsavory to me...but I will not mute Jesus' words.

Nope.

These Hyper-Nationalists place personal politics, war, fear, and their own social agendas above any Gospel considerations.

They don't want Jesus on their sleeve because it's a little too close to their hearts and they might get infected.

Savage Soft Drinks

Michael Savage
Administer of Hate









Doug TenNepal, cartoon artist behind Catscratch and best know for Earthworm Jim, has a rabid Right-Wing blog. In that blog, today, he accuses "Dr. Laniac" of being a "CryBaby". This is interesting both because Doug then proceeds to whine on and on for a good long while, and also because a new University of California study is out (started in the mid-60s) that has charted the social growth of particularly "whiny crybabies" and how they have turned out now decades later. I will expand upon this later, but it will surprise few that a great majority of them turned out to be rabid Conservatives. The logic is simply. They feel more fearful by nature regardless of nurture.

Well a great example of this is Michael Savage, the radio host of "Savage Nation" and his clone of a son Mini-Savage, who is the head of Rockstar, the energy drink.

Dr. Laniac was simply pondering a boycott of Rockstar products, which is his free right. Just as it is the right of 6 million people to allow Savage to throw-up in their ears a nasty bile-filled combination of violence, homophobia and hate.

We can choose to not economically support such people.

Once again we are talking about accountability. Conservative pretend to be about accountability, and I am sure many moderate Conservatives are. In fact, in the last election I voted for a staunch Conservative because he was a true public servant and an honest man.

He did not win.

But this administration is not about accountability at all. And they play on fear and sublimal hate.

We just don't have to buy it. That's part of Democracy.

But what was TenNepal's reaction to a possible boycott?

"I'm gonna buy a six pack" of it.

This is not unusual. Typical knee-jerk emotional reaction.

Like Savage, TenNepal has also urged simply nuking Arabs, embraces the same Social Darwinism that leads to violence and takes glee in owning the largest SUV he can so he can foul the planet.

On the other hand he is not racist, and probably not homophobic...just angry.

It's all a form of spiritual Nihilism. It's Gluttony, Wrath with a splash of Avarice thrown into the cocktail.

To his credit, Dougy T points to an article at Salon.com. But he points (as usual) to the wrong one. HERE is the one you really wanna read. It's disgusting but true.

Why are Dougy's panties all in a bunch?

Boycott.

Based in fear (and one which is groundless) TenNapel feels such boycott's could "someday" extend to him.

Right-Wing paranoia.

I suppose if he gets even more crazy and starts promoting active violence, or sexual harassment or is caught in some scandal, a boycott of Catscratch could ensue.

But that isn't gonna happen. Doug's basically a Pharisee. He's a very moral guy who takes his self-righteousness seriously.

I am a Liberal and Doug hates my guts. But I wouldn't ask children to miss an episode of Catscratch that they wanted to watch. It's a very well done cartoon with some nice humor. It has a Scottish cat in it! Even I can hardly resist.

Men and women are entitled to their political opinions to a very wide degree here in America. Then they do their jobs.

Even Michael Savage is entitled to be an endless radio asshole...so long as he doesn't threaten real people or commit overt crimes.

But we can turn off our radios when he comes on and we do not have to buy Mini-Savage drinks if it fuels an empire we feel is harmful to others. We also can choose to pay a bit more for a ClifBar over a competitior because they spend millions protecting the Environment.

We have the FREEDOM to do that. It's all a part of free Capitalism.

Stranegly, Dougy T does not understand this at all.

Dougy T will go buy that six-pack (such a party animal) and I won't ever again.

That's freedom baby.

Groundhog Day

"Don't govern angry!...Don't govern angry!"












I wish I had thought of it, but i didn't. The experience of waking up to the same nightmarish scenario, day after day and hearing exactly the same words no matter what was noted by Philadelphia Inquirer political journalist Dick Polman. It's a damning indictment that should be read all the way through and can be found HERE.

Bush continues to lie and change his story. Two days ago he made this statement: "I don't think we ever said -- at least I didn't say -- that there was a direct connection between Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein."

Now you were all there right?

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show made essentially the same point. Bush keeps to the same dead rhetoric. It worked at first because people were afraid after the attack. Now thatwe are in an epic debacle that was unnecessary and may cost $1 trillion dollars of your money and your children's money, the old rhetoric seems more and more to be what it is...empty rhetoric.

For Stewart's version (called "Rambling man" you can watch the video HERE.

Polman is a man worth noting. Today he deftly handled the paranoid whining "you're aiding the enemy by asking questions" drivel that neo-Cons trot out so there is no accountability for their actions.