Hypocrisy?

I have had this conversation with several people. They feel like hypocrites because they believe in a cause or an issue yet they don't follow that belief to an extreme. To me it is not hypocrisy. I think that anything that you do to further that cause is laudable.

If someone believes in organic food because it is better for the environment but cannot find or afford to buy all organic food, it is fine to start with a few items and build on that. For example, at my local grocery store there is a small organic section but most of the items are two to three times the price of the non-organic items, so I get organic milk and vegetables. As more people switch over to a few organic items the more the store sells and the more the store buys from organic farmers and the more food organic farmers produce.

There will always be the people on the fringe who adopt a cause and make it their lifestyle. I applaud them for living what they believe but not everyone can or wants to take things that far. For example, there are people who refuse to use any form of transportation with an internal combustion engine and that is fine if it works for them. But, if you can't go that far why not take public transportation to work or school.

Hypocrites are people that tell everyone else how to live but then don't hold themselves to the same standards. People who tell us how moral they are and then cheat on their wives and lead "immoral" lives behind closed doors.

I am really disturbed about this "inevitable" invasion of Iraq. Most of the news media makes it sound like we are going to invade, it is just a matter of when.

Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum - allow UN weapons inspectors in or we will use military force aginst you. So, Iraq agrees allow to let them in but Bush says we are coming anyhow.

Al Gore gave a speech on Monday outling his argument against a war with Iraq. "After Sept. 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world," Gore said . "We've squandered that, and in one year we've replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do."

What is the rush to do this? Why can't we allow the weapons inspectors to do their job and take it from there. Could this have anything to do with mid-term elections in a few weeks? Or, is it because Osama Bin Laden may still be out there, in which case W looks a lot like his daddy after the Gulf War.

Americans wonder why the rest of the world hates us. This is exactly why. We pretend that we abide by international law but when something does not suit the US government we use our military to force our will on the world.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Apparently some public school teachers don't know that they are government representatives and therefore subject to the establishment clause.

From the U.S. Department of Education website

Official neutrality regarding religious activity: Teachers and school administrators, when acting in those capacities, are representatives of the state and are prohibited by the establishment clause from soliciting or encouraging religious activity, and from participating in such activity with students. Teachers and administrators also are prohibited from discouraging activity because of its religious content, and from soliciting or encouraging antireligious activity.

From A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools on the FreedomForum.org website:

The Personal Beliefs of Teachers

11.
May I pray or otherwise practice my faith while at school?
As employees of the government, public-school teachers are subject to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and thus required to be neutral concerning religion while carrying out their duties as teachers. That means, for example, that teachers do not have the right to pray with or in the presence of students during the school day.


Outside of their school responsibilities, public-school teachers are free like other citizens to teach or otherwise participate in their local religious community. But teachers must refrain from using their position in the public school to promote their outside religious activities.


Teachers, of course, bring their faith with them through the schoolhouse door each morning. Because of the First Amendment, however, teachers who wish to pray or engage in other religious activities—unless they are silent— should do so outside the presence of students. If a group of teachers wishes to meet for prayer or scriptural study in the faculty lounge during their free time in the school day, we see no constitutional reason why they may not be permitted to do so as long as the activity is outside the presence of students and does not interfere with their duties or the rights of other teachers.


Teachers are permitted to wear non-obtrusive jewelry, such as a cross or Star of David. But teachers should not wear clothing with a proselytizing message (e.g., a “Jesus Saves” T-shirt).

Download A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools

Well, yesterday was kind of quiet. Yes, there were lots of people wearing anything that they own that is red, white and blue, but it wasn't too bad. I didn't see any of the TV coverage yesterday but I listened to NPR all day and they did a good job. All Things Considered actually had stories about things other than 9/11.

Of course there were those white men in pick up trucks with their t-shirts featuring US Flags and the words "Try to Burn This." These are the same guys who go home and complain about the spics and niggers taking over their comfortable little towns.

Anyhow, below is a poem that was on NPR yesterday.

9/11 (with Allen Ginsberg in mind)



by Andrei Codrescu


9/11, I can barely remember you, they’ve buried you in so much hype!

9/11 I wept when you were first on television! I wept for New York, for the dead, for all of us, for myself, for the world!

9/11, I was sure that the world had changed forever because bad guys wanted America dead and hated us because we listen to rock ’n' roll and wear no miniskirts on our naked faces!

9/11, I cheered when our warplanes ripped through the skies of Afghanistan scorching the caves where our enemies burrowed and I marveled at our precision-guided bombs to ignore their occasionally murderous imprecision!

9/11, I sat mesmerized in front of Fox News and CNN as the gargoyled faces of the Cold War began crawling out of the musty cellars of history and, eyes unaccustomed to light blinking, began to spout the doctrines of Total War!

9/11, I started to feel sorry for you when retired generals, admirals, spies, loonies and fakes brushed off their swords and rushed to your defense! So many double-chins! So many watering eyes! So many dentured grins and brush haircuts! So many double-bottom suitcases clutched in so many pimp-ringed hands! They even brought Ollie North from felonious disgrace to stand up for you with his Constitution-overthrowing boyish old looks!

9/11, I felt bad for you when the Lefties crowded you from the other side with their guilt-filled jaws of "I told you so," and their eternal excuses for the wretched exotics of the world whose suffering they experience in their marble-topped kitchens between arguments about what wine to serve with the wild rice! And I wept for you again when soured professors who missed the collapse of commie fascism in 1989 descended on you like rabid wolverines led by Noam Chomsky whose teeth marks are all over the zero ground of American academia!

9/11, you saved the paranoids from self-cannibalism!

9/11, you were a boon to advertisers and publicists and flag manufacturers, and they sold you with cars and pizzas and they drained you of your raw primal power even as they pretended to grieve for you! Zero down payment until Doomsday!

9/11, you were a godsend to poetasters who were out of the gate lamenting and whining before your towers even gave out!

9/11, your dead and your heroes are covered by thick layers of ash and greed and the Republic owes you an apology...

9/11, I close my eyes and recall you in all your gory glory and I still hate those who did this to us and to our greatest city.

9/11, I can barely remember you and I'm sorry.

Listen to the poem read by the author.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. -- O'Brien in 1984 George Orwell

Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. -- I. F. Stone

I am not looking forward to the 11th. Everyone will be trying to show how patriotic they are. Rather than wearing red, white and blue ribbons and adorning their vehicles with little American flags people should be speaking out against the Bush Administration's disregard for the Constitution.

You would think that we would have learned our lesson. In the 1950s we had the McCarthey hearings; during WWII the internment camps for Japanese Americans; Sacco and Vanzetti during the "Red Scare" of 1919-20; all the way back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It seems that everytime there is a "crisis" we put the Constitution aside "for the good of the country."

We have the Bill of Rights to protect us from our government. Bush and Ashcroft cannot decide to "suspend" certain rights because of a national crisis. It is at times of crisis when our rights are most vulnerable and most important.

Still reading? Are you sick of me ranting about this yet? OK, I'll stop for now. =)

Read Changing History by Eric Foner, The Nation 9/23/2002

The Bush Administration has been trying to convince people that to be "patriotic" Americans we should just trust the government (specifically the Executive branch.) Nevermind the Constitution, there are bad people out there that we must stop.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin

More on Ashcroft and his dream to lock up everyone that disagrees with him. --- Hentoff on Ashcroft

Here is a great op-ed piece from NY Times (you have to register but it's free)

I'm With Dick! Let's Make War! By MAUREEN DOWD

Today this undergrad stopped by and said that he wanted to talk to me. I invited him in and after a little uncomfortable small talk he comes out with "do you believe in god?" I reply "no." His eyes widened and he seemed excited. This was his chance to bring one over to his side. I then explained to him that I am atheist and messed with his head a little bit.

Why do these people feel the need to tell everyone about their religion? Campus Crusade fo Christ should be out there doing "good works" or something, not proselytizing. Think of all of the hungry people they could help. Anyhow it just pisses me off. :)

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it, religion has actually convinced people that there's an INVISIBLE MAN...LIVING IN THE SKY...who watches every thing you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever ´til the end of time...but he loves you."
--- George Carlin

• Amendment I
  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government'. --- Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce FBI file

The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is "what should be." Now, if you're taught to live up to a "what should be" that never existed-only an occult superstition, no proof of this "should be"-then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!

--- Lenny Bruce (1925-66)

Human Behaviour

--- by Bjork Gudmundsdottir/Nellie Hooper

If you ever get close to a human
and human behaviour
be ready to get confused

there's definitely no logic
to human behaviour
but yet so irresistible

there is no map
to human behaviour

they're terribly moody
then all of a sudden turn happy
but, oh, to get involved in the exchange
of human emotions is ever so satisfying

there's no map and
a compass
wouldn't help at all

human behaviour