SNOOKERED AGAIN
President Obama continues to amaze me. As everyone around him is moaning and groaning about the latest deal with the Republicans, the devils in the details are beginning to emerge. Once again, he has given up nothing and gotten something in return. As in the deal to extend unemployment benefits caught the Republicans off guard and the President got what he wanted. This time around, his scam of the Tea Party is dazzling in its simplicity and points to the fact that Tea Baggers know nothing about the workings of government and business.
This time around, with all the hoopla and cavorting about by the Tea Baggers & Republicans (they were so busy preening for the press that they didn't even notice President Obama picking them clean), The President really let them have it. And for all the braying on the left, it is telling that Rush Limbaugh is saying the Republicans got fleeced. Obama took those idiot Tea Baggers to school & he ain't done yet.
What did the President give up? Not a thing. Sure, he said everything was on the table but only in contrast to the Republicans', "Everything's off the table, but tax cuts." Are there any cuts to Medicare? Any cuts to Social Security? Medicaid? No. In fact, they are off the table in any future discussion on the deficit. They have been sequestered and won't be touched. So, he gave up nothing. What did he get? A guarantee that this won't happen again before the election.
He also, got it so that if the Republicans continue the Bush tax cuts that that will be considered spending & they'll have to off-set that spending with cuts that can not include the Big Three. Let's watch the Republicans cut Big Pharma, the Pentagon, Homeland Security, etc. Yeah, right. Wall Street is already crawling up their asses because of the debit ceiling debacle.
So, the Republicans choice will be to fuck themselves or fuck their natural allies in the defense industry, Big Pharma, security corporations, not to mention just about every other corporation in the country.
Amazing. Obama turned Republicans against their natural allies because that's the only place cuts are allowed. So, Republicans will have to either agree to revenue enhancement or fuck themselves by demanding cuts. Boehner has already been told that Wall Street will bury the Republican party if they don't cut this stupid shit out. But how does he get 87 Tea Baggers who know absolutely nothing about government, history or service in line to act like rational politicians, which some Republicans are capable of. (AH, remember the days of Evert Dirkson, Charles Percy, liberal Republicans in the party of Lincoln?)
So, Boehner is impotent. The Republicans have been out foxed by the Tea Baggers and the party is in disarray. It's obvious that Mitch McConnell is going to be hard pressed to do his job, "making sure President Obama is a one term president." Actually, his job is serving the people of Kentucky and the people of the United States. His own stated job description is awfully close to sedition, if you ask me. At any rate, by the time the election rolls around Mitch, Boehner, et al will be licking so many self-inflicted wounds, they won't have time to inflict any elsewhere.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
KNOWING GOD
Recently, US Army General William Boykin asserted that he believed "God had a hand in things: "God led me into the Delta Force. .... I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God .... Ladies and gentlemen, put your armor on and get into battle. God bless you. ..." Gen. Boykin, of course, is an extreme example. Even so, it's not a recent phenomenon, but he is an example of those who believe they know what God wants, what God thinks, what God wants us to do, to think, who God wants us to hate, and so on (never mind that his God is the same God as the enemy he's talking about).
It is not so much the claim itself that bothers me but rather the diminishing of God . God is beyond definition and most especially beyond the puny conjectures of human beings. I understand the political and social uses of "knowing what God wants" and "God spoke to me" but I do not understand "true believers" making the claim as they have nothing to gain but the repudiation of their faith.
If God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and anything else God wants to be, it seems to me no mere human could ever figure out what's on God's mind, let alone God's wishes and desires, without direct communication from God. Which brings us to the second claim and most unprovable assertion. Taking folks who have claimed to have heard directly from or have spoken directly with God at his or her word, begs the question as to why God has left so many folks with so many different interpretations, instructions, experiences. It also begs the question as to whether or not it is really God speaking to these folks. Could be the Devil for all anyone knows.
A lot has been blamed on and accredited to God, more so to other gods, in varying degrees. But again, "how to do we know?" The answer is always, of course, "faith." But our faith is puny small, not up to the task of imagining an unknowable but omnipresent God. Make no mistake, I am not arguing that God does not exist (after all, it takes as much "faith" to deny God's existence as it does to argue that God does exist). I am arguing that NO ONE can claim to KNOW God or KNOW what God wants or wants us to do. It's ludicrous. Read the Old Testament and you'll see how many times humans fucked up in their relations with God.
Even the Bible, the "Word of God" is interpreted and written by human beings. Human beings have been known to spin the Bible to their own needs. They have lied, deceived, bribed, tortured and murdered in the name of their God. It absolves human behavior, much like Flip Wilson's "the Devil made me do it." Only it's spun into "God commanded me to save my fellow Americans from the ravages of the liberal left, the gays & lesbians, the fornicators and ex cederetas (sic)." Hell, even if the nefarious shit isn't true and their writings have no political agenda, they still fall short by way of defining God in human terms.
In fact, we do the same to the "lesser" beings in our lives. We assume that our pets have human-like emotions and we interpret their actions accordingly. But not even dogs have the self-awareness to react to stimuli they way we do. We admonish them as we would children and praise them the same way but they are not human children. Dog is Dog and God is God.
I pray to an unfathomable, unknowable, all-powerful God. (Notice I do not refer to God as Him or Her, because, Duh! Who knows.) I may ask God for something but I never "expect" it to happen. God did not kill any of my math teachers on the day before an exam. Not one girl in high school did the things that I prayed she would do when out on a date. I have yet to win the Pulitzer Prize. The reply, of course, is that God would never stoop to answering such prayers, let alone answer them in the positive. But that's precisely my point. Why do we pray to God expecting answers and why do we think we've gotten those answers in the language of our own previously held beliefs. Because we are small and we can not accept the fact that God may not be the father figure that folks have made God to be. We are nothing and know nothing in the presence of God.
Recently, US Army General William Boykin asserted that he believed "God had a hand in things: "God led me into the Delta Force. .... I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God .... Ladies and gentlemen, put your armor on and get into battle. God bless you. ..." Gen. Boykin, of course, is an extreme example. Even so, it's not a recent phenomenon, but he is an example of those who believe they know what God wants, what God thinks, what God wants us to do, to think, who God wants us to hate, and so on (never mind that his God is the same God as the enemy he's talking about).
It is not so much the claim itself that bothers me but rather the diminishing of God . God is beyond definition and most especially beyond the puny conjectures of human beings. I understand the political and social uses of "knowing what God wants" and "God spoke to me" but I do not understand "true believers" making the claim as they have nothing to gain but the repudiation of their faith.
If God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and anything else God wants to be, it seems to me no mere human could ever figure out what's on God's mind, let alone God's wishes and desires, without direct communication from God. Which brings us to the second claim and most unprovable assertion. Taking folks who have claimed to have heard directly from or have spoken directly with God at his or her word, begs the question as to why God has left so many folks with so many different interpretations, instructions, experiences. It also begs the question as to whether or not it is really God speaking to these folks. Could be the Devil for all anyone knows.
A lot has been blamed on and accredited to God, more so to other gods, in varying degrees. But again, "how to do we know?" The answer is always, of course, "faith." But our faith is puny small, not up to the task of imagining an unknowable but omnipresent God. Make no mistake, I am not arguing that God does not exist (after all, it takes as much "faith" to deny God's existence as it does to argue that God does exist). I am arguing that NO ONE can claim to KNOW God or KNOW what God wants or wants us to do. It's ludicrous. Read the Old Testament and you'll see how many times humans fucked up in their relations with God.
Even the Bible, the "Word of God" is interpreted and written by human beings. Human beings have been known to spin the Bible to their own needs. They have lied, deceived, bribed, tortured and murdered in the name of their God. It absolves human behavior, much like Flip Wilson's "the Devil made me do it." Only it's spun into "God commanded me to save my fellow Americans from the ravages of the liberal left, the gays & lesbians, the fornicators and ex cederetas (sic)." Hell, even if the nefarious shit isn't true and their writings have no political agenda, they still fall short by way of defining God in human terms.
In fact, we do the same to the "lesser" beings in our lives. We assume that our pets have human-like emotions and we interpret their actions accordingly. But not even dogs have the self-awareness to react to stimuli they way we do. We admonish them as we would children and praise them the same way but they are not human children. Dog is Dog and God is God.
I pray to an unfathomable, unknowable, all-powerful God. (Notice I do not refer to God as Him or Her, because, Duh! Who knows.) I may ask God for something but I never "expect" it to happen. God did not kill any of my math teachers on the day before an exam. Not one girl in high school did the things that I prayed she would do when out on a date. I have yet to win the Pulitzer Prize. The reply, of course, is that God would never stoop to answering such prayers, let alone answer them in the positive. But that's precisely my point. Why do we pray to God expecting answers and why do we think we've gotten those answers in the language of our own previously held beliefs. Because we are small and we can not accept the fact that God may not be the father figure that folks have made God to be. We are nothing and know nothing in the presence of God.
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