Excuse me - I am a Christian who happens to be a Liberal - I don't
think one can be a Christian and not be liberal.

On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 04:55:34 -0700, rogue <rogue...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

On Sep 22, 11:12 am, Bible Bob <bible...@saintly.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:00:33 -0700, rogue <rogue...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

On Sep 22, 2:35 am, Bible Bob <bible...@saintly.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 03:01:21 -0700, rogue <rogue...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

On Sep 19, 11:57 pm, Bible Bob <bible...@saintly.com> wrote:

As a retired military person who served twenty years on active duty, I
think I have earned the right to ask "What the heck is going on in the
miltary with regard to religious freedoms". It's bad enough that
religious orthadox fundamentalist hatefilled antichrists are messing
up everything in the secular community with their false doctrines and
unloving behavior. But, the military has long been a place where
religious freedom has been protected. Have the fundy wackos invaded
the military? If the following report is right, the military needs to
do some house cleaning.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807R.shtml

JERRY
My god, you are quoting truthout.org? By golly, we are gonna make a
liberal out of you yet, Bob. Good reading.

Worse, this is actually just a carryover from the same sort of
nonsense that has been going on in the Air Farce Academy in Colorado
Springs for years, where Jewish cadets were castigated and told they
were going to hell by the cabal of evangelicals that ran the
chaplain's corps and their disciples.

Personally, I think they need to clean out the whole rat's nest of
mini-Inquisitors and send the useless fuckers packing. But that's
just my two cents worth.

BB
I have worshipped and fellowshipped and taught in military chapels in
the United States, Europe and Asia and we never had a problem with
hate mongering fundamentalists. Of course that was twenty-some years
ago. Back when chaplains conducted all faith services. No one was
ever forced to attend church or pray or threatened for not doing so.
We may have thought atheists were nuts and stupid; but respected their
right to believe what they wanted to believe.

JERRY
Such attitudes come and go in waves. Remember that before the 1950's
we never had "In God We Trust" on our money and also the words "Under
God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance at that time.

Then the assclowns are found to be frauds, people move away from
religion and the churches start claiming we are all going to hell
again, but we no longer care, because we don't believe them.

BB
This stuff just doesn't make any sense because every military person
takes an oath to defend and support the Consitution of the United
States. To prevent an individual, expecially a military person, from
exercising his freedom of religion should be unthinkable.

JERRY
The problem is that evangelicals aren't really worried about
protecting Constitutional Freedoms, Bob. Case in point: the Bush
Administration hires a number of interns from evangelical colleges
such as Patrick Henry University. Such people get internships in the
White House and the Justice Department where they are supposed to help
ensure that the laws are upheld, yet we've had evangelicals actively
engaging in vote caging, which is designed to prevent valid voters
from exercising their right to vote. Mind you, they only perform
these actions in communities that are strongly minority in population,
but then evangelicals are overwhelmingly white and are more worried
that the non-white population tends to vote Democratic in elections.

And yes, I can prove all of those claims. One such evangelical intern
worked as a liaison between Gonzales and the White House, particularly
working with Karl Rove. She testified to Congress of knowledge of one
of her colleagues in vote caging in Florida in 2004.

BB
Even back during the seventies when everyone was afraid of cults, the
military did not get involved. I've attended fellowships with every
cult including baptists, methodists, pentecostals, catholics, moonies,
etc on military bases and not once was a person mistreated because of
his religioius beliefs.

JERRY
Evangelicals aren't about defending the Constitution, they are about
re-interpreting the Constitution as a theocracy. They imagine history
as proving the US was founded as a "Christian" nation, and they see
statements from people like Washington and Jefferson as proof.
Washington and Jefferson were both Deists who didn't believe in the
divinity of Jesus, but saw him as a teacher and sage. Jefferson even
"wrote" his own version of the bible, leaving out all the supernatural
events.

An aside for Rogue:

Jerry, is this crap going on where you are? Please let me know so I
can write some letters.

JERRY
Pffft! Like anyone tries to defend or support any kind of religion
around me. ;-)

I'm actually very tolerant until they try to push it at me. Then I
demonstrate how little they know their bibles.

In answer to your question, we don't see a lot of that as I'm not
military, I'm a contractor supporting the military and we are on the
far side of the base from where the chapels and all the military units
are. No one in the immediate chain of command that I can see here is
an evangelical, nor is anyone pushing church services. Just the usual
fliers on the walls in common areas letting people know when services
will be held in case they are interested.

Jerry,

Thanks.

I've been wondering where you were at. I've missed your usual wit and
insight; not to mention I need your continued liberal input to help me
convert from independent to republican. The other liberals just don't
have what it takes.

I don't care what the politicians do. They are corrupt. The miltary,
on the other hand, are supposed to be ethical people.

BBhttp://www.biblebob.net

Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity
himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

JERRY
The problem is that the military, just like politicians, are people,
and all people have their frailties, their ambitions and their ethics,
or lack thereof.

Case in point: Conservatives are crying all over themselves about a
MoveOn.org ad using the play on Petraeus' name, as in Petraeus
Betrayus. They try to claim that this is a nickname given to Petraeus
by liberals to make the General look bad.

BB
Moveon.org is a bunch of sicko hate mongers in my book.

JERRY
Your book is hardly an informed one, as I've demonstrated for you on
multiple occasions.

JERRY
Sadly, Petraeus has been called this by his own men dating back to
when he was a full bird Colonel, mainly for his attention-seeking ways
to ingratiate himself and get further promotion. You know what they
say: the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

BB
I'm sure the people at MOO have cooked up lots of stories to cover
their arses.

JERRY
They don't need to cook up stories to cover their asses. These
nicknames are documented online going back certainly to 2005 and
earlier. One person online at Democraticunderground.com said that he
served with Petraeus when he was still a full bird colonel, and his
nickname was "Betrayus" even then.

Such behavior is not unusual. I once worked with a West Pointer (and
I can tell you NOBODY does incompetent and self-aggrandizing like a
West Pointer!) who went on to be the US spokesperson for the military
in the first Gulf War. I worked with him when I was just a lieutenant
and he was a Major and BN XO. What an arrogant schmuck. He was fast-
tracked, though, because he knew the right people and kissed the right
asses.

JERRY
Bush fired all the senior generals who opposed him until he found
Petraeus, who agreed with him. When Bush says he listens to his
generals, you should remember that he listens to *certain* generals
because he fires the ones who don't agree with him (or force them into
retirement).

BB
Bush fired ALL the senior generals? Hmm.

JERRY
Go back and re-read what I wrote. He went down the list of his most
senior people forcing them out or out of the way until he found those
who would agree with him, like Pace and Petraeus. Kicked out of the
way included former Joint Chiefs command Shinseki, for having the
temerity to tell Bush and Cheney that their little excursion needed
half a million men and would take over ten years if they invaded
Iraq. Shinseki was right, of course, and Bush-Cheney were completely
wrong. Long after the invasion when Shinseki make an "I wasn't to
blame, I told these guys what they needed," he was forced into
retirement.

These senior guys have too much time in to "fire." What Bush can do
is put them in a position where they either are with him or ag'in him,
and if they are against him he can bring pressure on them to resign,
which is what he's done.

Many, many senior military officers have talked openly about how Bush
and his invasion and actions have "broken" the military and that it's
going to take years to get it back together again. However, such
comments can only come from people who are no longer in the military,
as regulations prevent them from openly saying things that can be
interpreted as a knock on the Commander-in-Chief.

JERRY
Petraeus is looking out for himself and his career, and he may have
political aspirations. One thing he doesn't seem to have is concern
for his troops.

BB
MOO said that?

JERRY
His troops say that. That's where the nickname "Betrayus" came from.
MoveOn didn't create that. The people who serve under Petraeus coined
that nickname and it continues to follow him around.

JERRY
Another way to know you are being given a bill of goods is to ask how
the numbers suddenly support the surge in spite of the fact that
overall violence went UP in Iraq after the Surge and not down. The
reason is that the Bush Administration changed the reporting
requirements. Their new reporting requirements don't include
incidents and deaths from car bombings, which is the highest casualty
producing tactic used by the insurgents in Iraq. They report attacks
on US troops down, but attacks on other Iraqis are way up. In other
words, they have turned away for the moment from attacking the
referees to attack each other again..

BB
Sounds like MOO talk. I don't believe anything MOO says.

JERRY
you do when they say it on Fox. The trick is, Fox does some selective
editing to show a line out of context to make it sound like something
else.

JERRY
Remember when Bush said, "We don't torture?" He had the Republican-
controlled Congress declare that waterboarding does not meet the
definition of torture. Never mind that it does meet the requirements
defining torture by the Geneva Convention and one other anti-torture
treaty the US has signed. Therefore, when Bush says "We don't
torture," and says it with a straight face, it's because he's
redefined the word so he can say it without technically be lying, but
he's lying nonetheless.

BB
That's terrible! Redefining words is the liberals religion. Ole Bush
must be a whoring after other gods if you are right.

JERRY
Liberals don't have a religion, Bob. They would rather base their
opinions on facts than prejudices. ;-) (faith is a prejudice, Bob)

Excuse me - I am a Christian who happens to be a Liberal - I don't
think one can be a Christian and not be liberal.

After the President and Congress used their positions to condemn a
grass roots political organization for using their Freedom of Speech
under the Constitution of these United States, moveon received it's
largest influx of donations ever to fund even more ads and an influx
of emails from Service members and families of Service members
thanking moveon for standing up for the service men and women whose
voices have been silenced by this administration.

Moveon intends to use the influx of money to fund ads targeting
politicians of both parties who voted against extending the time
service members should be kept at home between deployments.

Some of the emails sent to moveon:

I have given a son to this country. My brother, my father, my uncle
have all served honorably and bravely. I am a loyal American. I am
outraged and sick to death of the tactics this administration uses to
try to silence dissent to a war that is unjust, built and maintained
on lies, political power, and greed. I was content to let others fight
more loudly, but no more.
-Sharyn W., NC

I am a prior soldier who served in Iraq for 13 months, and am now an
expecting mom with a husband who is deployed in Baghdad. I don't think
I can ever forgive the Bush administration for the lies that tricked
America into this war and hurt my family so badly. I am ashamed of
those American politicians who would condemn an organization for
practicing the Freedom of Speech that so many soldiers have died for.
-Danielle B., OH

As a US Navy veteran and an Iraq war veteran of over a year I want to
ask, What has happened to us? What has happened to our voice? Where is
this country going with stopping free speech and free press? ... Every
time I think of the long nights I had in Anbar remembering what I was
fighting for, well here it is....
-Ahmad H., LA

I've had three nephews serve since 2002, one of whom was killed in
Anbar Province. I have a fourth nephew at Quantico training. I want
this war over before he is deployed and before any more of our
soldiers are sacrificed.
-Michele R., NE

Three members of my family are military. Two Marines have served in
Iraq and an Army Lt. is deploying in November. If we had all spoken
out when the administration used General Powell perhaps we would not
be in this mess.
-Carol B., PA

As a Marine I served for many reasons but one of them was to allow
people the freedom of speech, whether I agreed with it or not. Wearing
a uniform does not mean someone isn't a shill, is spewing propaganda,
and downright lies. MoveOn has every right to buy an ad and say what
they want about a public figure. This administration has lied to us,
deceived us, misled us and when posed with a challenge this is how
they respond?
-Keith G., VA

The Senate won't pass a policy to end the war or even to make sure our
troops in the field have enough rest time between deployments, but
they hold votes to crack down on millions of Americans who exercise
the Bill of Rights our servicemen and women fight for? Something is
rotten in Washington.

Terrellwww.songbookz.comwww.midihymnal.net