Dr. Forbush Thinks

It’s Monday morning and the sun came up an hour earlier because we all went back to Standard Time. This was nice, because I came out from my workout this morning and the bright sun hit me in the face with that light California breeze. This is another great California morning promising another great California day.

I thought about the faltering of the Bush administration and their failures last week, which made me smile. I know that the Republican propaganda machine has been working hard over the weekend creating new talking points. I heard some of the Conservative pundits putting forth their version of reality. Its quite funny when you think about the conservative opposition to drugs because they alter the user’s perception of reality. These conservative pundits are either taking some extremely strong medicine or they have a warped view of the world. But, I believe it’s their right to have whatever delusions they have and the government should not take this fundamental freedom away from any of us.

This made me think of an interview I heard over the weekend. A fundamentalist preacher and a Catholic Priest were being asked their views on the literal interpretation of the Bible. The short debate was in response to a teaching document published by Roman Catholic Bishops in the UK that warn Catholics not to read the Bible literally.

Of course, the usual question in this debate begins with the contradictions that already exist in the Bible. The Fundamentalist Preacher was asked about the first contradiction in the Bible, the two different creation stories in Genesis. A literal interpretation of the Bible would suggest that man was created both before and after the animals. So, how could the Bible not be wrong on the question of which came first, animals or man? If you pick one reading, then the other reading must be wrong.

The Catholic Bishops address this problem by saying that the book of Genesis should not be regarded as a science book, but as a story describing God’s love for man. The Bishops tell us that the different books of the Bible are written in different styles and the points of these different books vary throughout the Bible.

Well, in the tradition of Fundamentalist Preachers this guy avoided answering the question directly. He told us that the Bible could not be wrong, because it is the truth. He told us that we can not know how we should understand the Bible, but we must know that it can not be wrong. This response reminded me of the Bush administration. The Bush administration knows what the answer is and the claim is that George W Bush can’t be wrong. We may not understand what George W Bush means when he says things, but that’s only because we are not smart enough to understand George W Bush. It is our failure, not George W Bush’s failure.

This reminded me of another interview. This time a right wing reporter was interviewing Condi Rice. Condi felt comfortable disclosing some of the more intimate details of her relationship with George W Bush. She described meeting with him at Camp David where she was describing some diplomatic details. She told the reporter that the President just amazed her by coming up with comments that didn’t seem to be related to the discussion at all.

Some people might think that this was because the President’s attention was wandering or he just didn’t understand the detail of what the Secretary of State was telling her boss. But Condi interpreted this disconnection as marvelous insight into the process. Well, if Condi assumes that George W Bush can not be wrong, then she needs to do some quick rationalization as to why the seemingly obscure comment has merit. The casual observer might step back and wonder a bit more about the workings of the White House.

This brings me to Matthew’s telling of Jesus healing the blind man. This lesson can be read as a simple story about Jesus healing a man that was born blind because of Jesus being the Son of God. However, the Catholic Bishops might suggest that there is more to this story than Jesus’ healing powers. First of all Jesus tells us that the myth of the day is wrong, the man was not born blind because of some sin of his parents. Sin does not cause malady. Instead, the man was born blind because Jesus needed a teaching example. The metaphor is that we are all born blind and Jesus opens all our eyes. For example, the Fundamentalist Preacher is blinded from the truth that God gave us more than just the Bible. God gave us the entire Universe with all of the clues to its history as well as the Bible. The UK Bishops are saying the same thing that the Preacher said in his answer to the contradiction in the Bible. The Bishops are saying that the clues in the Universe can’t be wrong and the Bible can’t be wrong. The truth is that we don’t know how to reconcile all of this truth, just like the Preacher couldn’t reconcile the contradiction in the book of Genesis. He just knows that the Bible is true.

And, this brings me to my final thought for Monday morning. I heard on the news yesterday that a Preacher in Waco, Texas was electrocuted when he took a live microphone into chest deep water while Baptizing the faithful. My simple thought was those who choose to be ignorant of science are doomed to succumb to its power.



politics, religion, Impeach Bush

Well, after the information on Scooter Libby has come out one thing is clear. The Bush administration lied to us. Scooter Libby lied to the FBI and the Grand Jury. So, if he lied we should be asking WHY? And the resounding answer should be coming back, “He lied to cover up other lies.”

Scooter Libby didn’t want the American people to know who leaked Valerie Plame’s name. He didn’t want the American people to know why her name was leaked. He didn’t want the American people to how her name was leaked. Simply put, he didn’t want the American people to know how the Bush administration duped the American people with misinformation. This is because this leak was leaked like all the other attacks and deceptions were leaked to bolster the Bush administration agenda.

The American people should realize that the Bush administration lied to them and deceived them purely for their own agenda.  Some day we may know what this administration actually desired, but with all the lying and deception no one can be sure at this point.

It is certainly ironic that the Bush administration ran on the morality and ethics ticket, but they have proven that morality and ethics secondary when their own agenda is at stake.

But, the main point here is that the Bush administration lied in the lead up to the Iraq War. They lied about the significance of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. And, now we know that they lied to cover up this lying.  

Where are all the people from the right who thought it was important to have a moral and ethical White House? Will they come out on the side of morals and ethics? Or, will they come out on the side of loyalty to an immoral and unethical Republican cabal?

In our modern age the common worker no longer does as much manual labor as he once did. But at the turn of the century workers were hired for their physical skills and power rather than their reasoning or brain power. The basic structure of any company was to hire manual labor for the cheapest wage to do the most amount of work. By exploiting this structure corporations could demand that workers worked for low wages and long hours. The only choice a worker had was to quit if he felt exploited. However, a man with a family held his responsibility to his family in such high esteem that quitting wasn’t a real option. In addition, changing jobs was considered a sign of a poor employee and word got around to all potential employers leave the man jobless.

During the beginning of the twentieth century the power of unity gradually showed it’s face. Some workers realized that if one man quit his job it would have little effect on the employer and working conditions would not be influenced by his resignation. However, if one could persuade large numbers of workers to stay off the job the employer would be left without the labor he needed to accomplish the goal of the company.

Organized strikes began to help the workers win some battles, but corporations realized that workers could not hold out forever, even if they all quit together. The wealthy company owners could outlast the workers on savings alone. In order to increase their effectiveness the organized strikes became organized unions that existed continually even in times when there weren’t any strikes. These unions collected dues to be used to organize, and to keep a strike fund to pay workers so they could hold out longer and defeat the corporations.

The unions began to realize that organization had another benefit. The workers were able to have an organized voice in government. Politicians would now listen to unions that could get information to workers and help contribute to politicians’ campaigns. In return politicians would pass laws that would protect workers from unfair practices and pass laws to make corporation responsible for worker safety. Unions were able to change the workplace in dramatic ways over the first half of the twentieth century.

Many groups realized that organization is power. Teachers, Truckers, and Manufacturing Workers were some of the largest groups that were able to organize beyond the boundary of a single company.

It is quite obvious that corporations pay higher wages because of unions. Corporations also need to spend additional money on keeping the workplace safe. Therefore, it is understandable why corporations would like to weaken the power of the unions.

California Proposition 75 is proposed to weaken the power of unions. Prop 75 proposes to curtail unions from making donations to political candidates or political parties. Since the Democratic Party is the party of the worker this law limiting political contributions would effect the Democrats in a disproportional way. Democrats would loose large amounts of campaign contributions.

We should look at this in another way. Imagine two political parties. One party supports the wealthy and the other party supports the poor. Now, as every person with any marketing experience knows, advertising boosts sales. So, the more you advertise the more people will be influenced to vote for you. The message is important, but if people never hear your message people won’t even bother to show up to vote. And, if the message is slick and flashy people will be attracted like crows to a shiny object. So, the candidate that advertises the most is bound to get the most votes. Of course there is some error, but this is still a good rule of thumb. So, if Prop 75 passes then candidates that support the worker will get less money and therefore win fewer elections on average.

Prop 75 is important for all workers even if they are not union workers. The same laws that were passed because unions wanted safety and security also effect non-union workers. Out of respect for all the workers that sacrificed through the efforts of unions please defeat proposition 75. Vote NO on California Proposition 75.




politics, California Proposition 75, California Propositions

Here is another smoking gun that demonstrates that the Bush Administration lied and misleads both the public and the Congress. The Radical Right continually said that John Kerry had the same information that the Bush Administration had and voted to go into Iraq. But, now we know for certain that that was a lie. John Kerry did not have the same information that the White House had. In today’s National Journal Murray Waas writes,

“Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.”

This is exactly what we have been saying all along. Now, we have the Downing Street Memo, the forgery of the Niger documents and now this. And, the far right radicals still believe that the Iraq War was the Right War at the Right time. Apparently they see everything RIGHT even when it is WRONG.



Hopefully this will end soon with the expunging of the treasonous swine.





politics, Iraq War, Downing Street Memo, Iraq

Imagine another dimension where the United States had a president who actually thought through problems instead of reacting to them. In this world the President would hire smart people to study problems and offer solutions. In this world the problems could be ranked and linked and the complex interactions between these problems could be studied. Imagine this world back in 2001 and when the United States was attacked by terrorists.

The fictional president would begin to ask the hard questions and his advisors would offer hard solutions.

Instead of going through all of the possible solutions lets look at the solution that the real president decided on and lets compare it to a solution that the fictional president may have come up with instead, with the intelligence offered to him by people who actually understand the world and the way it works.

The real president decided that Iraq was the heart of the problem in the Middle East. A secular leader who used force to control his people controlled this country. Since this was clearly the problem if the country were invaded it would certainly solve the terror problem. Terrorists would obviously see that the new government would have complete backing from the United States and the terrorists would obviously be frightened of this awesome power. The terrorists would certainly rethink their position and surrender to the authority in Iraq and give up. Of course this job would be tough, expensive and a long hard slog, but it would be worth it.

The fictional president in this imaginary land might begin by asking questions. What do the terrorists want? Why do they think that the US is the source of their woes? And he would find out that Osma bin Ladden was upset with the US Air Bases in Saudi Arabia. He has Islamic Fundamentalist view of the world where he believes that since he is faithful to God his people deserve all of the treasure that the US has. God has obviously made him an instrument to bring justice to his people. He sees injustice in the way that the west has exploited the natural resources of the Middle East, namely oil. Simply he wants the West to pay for this injustice.

So, this fictional president sees that main point here is that the demand for oil has created pressure in the Middle East. The poor in the Middle East see the oil being taken out of their land and they get nothing in return. One solution that the fictional president realizes might offer national security is to reduce dependence on Middle East oil. This fictional president declares an emergency and proposes a new large scale program to create an alternate energy economy. Research goes into developing hydrogen as an efficient way to store energy, no matter how it is created through wind, solar, geothermal, and even nuclear. Even if the problem isn’t solved immediately the demand for oil will begin to diminish over the next few years. Ten years into the program there would be many hydrogen based vehicles refueling at hydrogen stations and the United States would be leading the world to cleaner and cheaper energy.

But where would this fictional president get the money for such an enormous program? Well, where did the real president get 300 billion dollars for the Iraq War? He borrowed it. But would the loan be worth the investment? Well, the result of the real president’s project in Iraq would be to get a few extra years of burning fossil fuel. The result of the fictional president’s project would be to initiate an infrastructure that would be in place for the next 500 years.

If the real president had known these things surely he would have seen that using force in the Middle East by occupying an Arab country is a dangerous thing. In addition to the danger, picking sides among the people of the country will always create enemies for the non-supporters. And, in the Middle East you can not rule out the religious factor. By invading Iraq the real president has brought the wrath of God on his country in the name of security. Surely he could see the problem with this.

Unfortunately our real president does not have the smart people around him who are willing to risk their jobs to tell him the truth. The real president already knows what he wants to do regardless of what the best policy would be for the country. And, unfortunately the American people will never elect a president like the proposed fictional president unless he has a good marketing department, or he knows the right people.


Politics, Iraq War, Terrorism, Impeach Bush

Most of us recall this famous line from the Monte Python classic Monte Python and the Holy Grail. Not many of us realize that the answer to this question has relevance to us today. It turns out that the key to the passage of the Iraqi constitution centers around this historic city, the city of Niniva.

In the goofy farce of Democracy organized by the US lead occupation of Iraq the Iraqi constitution vote passed and it was officially announced today. What most Americans don’t understand, or care to think about is that passage of the constitution only required a vote of 33% of voters in order to pass. In fact if a group opposed to the constitution wanted to defeat it, they would need 67% of their group to vote against it in at least three provinces. It turns out that Sunnis opposed the constitution and they actually tried to use Democracy, and they failed. In two provinces that defeated the constitution by much more than 67%. However, in the city of Niniva, Sunnis also defeated the constitution, but not by the 67% required. Instead they defeated it by 55%.

So, Sunnis overwhelmingly oppose this constitution and Democracy did not work for them.

Does anyone think that Sunnis learned a lesson in this vote? Can anyone venture a guess as to what that lesson might be? Can anyone really believe that peace is around the corner?



politics, Iraq, Iraq War

When will the Bush supporters realize that George W Bush used you? For the Bush administration it is all about the power and the issues they have used to gather support don’t mean anything. For example, during the Clinton administration the Republicans fought tooth and nail for Bill Clinton to be brought up on impeachment charges based on perjury. Were the Republicans really concerned with the well being of the nation? Well, we certainly know now that they don’t give a damn about telling the truth.

In a preemptive strike in order to justify possible indictments to be brought this week Republicans have begun to circulate the idea that perjury is only a technicality. Somehow the Republican mob that stormed Bill Clinton’s White House didn’t see it that way. For them it didn’t matter what the subject of the lie was. They didn’t care that Bill Clinton was trying to protect his wife from embarrassment.

However, in this case of perjury in this White House the lies surround the US preemptive strike on Iraq. The perjury is to protect those involved in the lies behind our justification to go to war. Almost 2000 soldiers were killed based on these lies. Over 25,000 innocent Iraqis civilians were killed because of these lies. And, the Republican leadership is taking the stand that perjury is only a technicality. We have been told for months that treason was a difficult case to prove without an actual tape of the treasonous action. Not finding the people in the White House guilty of treason does not mean that they didn’t commit treason. It just means that they didn’t get enough evidence to prove that they committed treason.

But, of course this is typical for this administration. From the beginning the White House has been able to lead the people by the nose ring and explain to them what they are supposed to see. Each piece of the puzzle is carefully manipulated to show the administration in the best light. But, when the Bush supporters begin to step back and look at the big picture they will surely see the scam for what it is.

After all, these are the same people who look at all of the evidence that scientists have shown to prove evolution and they tell us that the scientists have manipulated the data. There is certainly a relationship here between these two seemingly remote subjects.

The Bush supporters believe that all of the evidence that the Bush administration has put forth to support their agenda makes sense. But they believe that all of the evidence that scientists have put together does not support the Theory of Evolution. Why? The answer is that these Bush supporters buy into the Bush agenda, but they do not buy into the Theory of Evolution. Either way, the end result is more important than the truth.

But, it goes deeper than that. I believe that the Bush supporters actually know that George W Bush and his cohorts actually manipulated the evidence that has been presented to the public. However, they believe in the agenda so strongly that they are willing to let the facts slide. They want the agenda after all, and it doesn’t really matter how they get it. Since they understand this they are willing to believe that scientists are capable of the same deception. They believe that scientists don’t care about the facts just like they don’t care about the facts. They assume that all people are deceptive like they are. But, the actual fact is that scientists can not afford to be deceptive. If they were the next scientist down the road would not be able to reproduce the study or experiment. Non-reproducible results are the bane of the scientific community. Maybe at some time some of these Bush supporters will begin to learn that the truth actually matters, and they will leave the religious right behind.

 My fear is that when the religious right realizes this they will strike out on their own and use the base built by the Republicans to push their own ideas of Theocracy. As they gain more power they will no longer need the Republicans. More likely they’ll create their own Christian Republican Party and push theocracy further down our throats. And, by the time the country realizes what happened laws like the Patriot Act will be used against us to protect the power of this group.

The Washington Post says:

“In a preview of how Republicans would counter charges against top administration officials by Fitzgerald, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas brushed aside an indictment for perjury -- rather than for the underlying crime of outing a covert operative -- as a "technicality."”

That sure is interesting, wasn’t Bill Clinton’s Impeachment all about perjury?



politics, Impeach Bush

I posted on Religious Fascism last week and I received the following quote as a comment. It made me angry. As I wrote I continued to think of more problems with the statement and examples of how it is wrong. My post was in response to a Religious organization promoting a new campaign called: “Truth, Not Tolerance.” The idea is that these guys believe that they have the “one true faith”, and they don’t need to tolerate anyone else’s faith because they are right and everyone else is wrong.

“I have no doubt that there are those that if given power would abuse it by using the government to force religious observance, but they are a small almost non-existant minority and their extremeism makes their rise to power unlikely.”

Well, I glad that you aren’t worried about your freedom. But that isn’t how I see it. I am certainly worried about my freedom. Through out human history groups have managed to take control of governments, even democracies. I don’t see the United States government to be any different than these others.

After the First World War Germany was a short lived democracy, but they weren’t able to stop the Nazi Party from taking control. They were just in a World War and they all knew that it couldn’t happen again. My landlord while I was in Germany fought in World War Two for the Germans and his father fought in both WWI and WWII. He explained to me how he and his father never thought it could happen again.

Another friend of mine escaped from Iran in 1979. His father worked for the government in the Department of Education. He told me how they never saw it coming. They thought that these students were just a bunch of loonies pushing their religion. But, they were wrong and the Fundamentalist Muslims took over Iran.

Examples abound! The Taliban took over Afghanistan even while we were there giving weapons to them. Even though I don’t know anyone involved in this I am sure that the common response would be: “We never saw it coming.” If the people knew it was coming, then why would they let it happen?

But, of course if you are wrong and these zealots do start imposing religious laws on the rest of us there isn’t any skin off your nose, because you are a member of the cult that is poised to take control and begin to make religious laws for the good of society. I don’t see your group as a bunch of loonies trying to push their religious laws like you do. No, I see two branches of the government being taken over by the radical right. These people are the seed of hatred and intolerance. Just because you were programmed to understand intolerance as a good thing, the people who are not being tolerated don’t see it that way.

The Bush administration is filled with Fundamentalist Christians that don’t see a problem with attacking a Muslim country in the name of God. Even though they don’t say it publicly I can imagine a group in the White House saying that the US presence in the Middle East will only hurry Jesus back so we can all go to Heaven. There is nothing that this president has said to ease my anxiety here.

The House of Representatives is even worse. There are quite a few far right loonies in there that really scares the Hell out of me. If Tom Delay is forced out a real religious nut is bound to take over the reigns. Fortunately Tom Delay only uses religion, he isn’t a true believer.

The Senate is actually the sanest place in Legislative Branch with people like John McCain who puts his foot down from time to time when the Zealots step over the line. But, I worry that his fortitude might not hold out. The torture he takes from the religious right may become worse than the torture he endured in Vietnam.

No, if we want America to remain a free country we need people to be vigilant when any group gets too much power, especially if they use the name of God to promote intolerance.

"He's a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things"

One might think that these words slipped out of the mouth of a loony liberal talking about George W Bush. These are the types of remarks that the Bush administration and their right wing supporters claim to be unpatriotic. But, these very words have emerged from the lips of the White House staff. Unfortunately the White House staff is still indoctrinated in the Bush blunder, so they were not saying this about George W Bush. Instead they were saying this about special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

Time will tell and the truth about the Bush administration will come out. But, in the mean time we should all be wondering why everyone around George W Bush is suspected in outrageous law breaking. Everyone already knows that list so I won’t repeat it yet again. But isn’t it strange that George W Bush isn’t involved in any of this. What does this mean?

Here are two possibilities:

1) George W Bush actually doesn’t know anything that is happening in the White House, the Republican Party or the Government in general. The staff has insulated him for that dangerous knowledge in order to save the honor of the Presidency. And after all, George isn’t really that interested any way.
2) George W Bush actually orchestrated everything, and he has such great loyalty in his gang that no one would ever point a finger toward him. His gang will take their loyalty to George W Bush to the grave with him.

In another Daily News article it seems that George is upset that he hasn’t been put in the cross hairs of Patrick Fitzgerald. He wants to hang with his homies.









politics, Impeach Bush, CIA Leak, Plamegate