BUSH: America's Greatest Socialist President

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Wednesday September 17, 2008 · 3:54 PM PDT

2008/09/17 · 15:54

In the past month, the administration of George W. Bush has finally shown its hidden hand.

Following upon seven years of skillful manipulation of market conditions and mind-conditioning of the American people into a consumer economy based on illusions, the economic collapse which had begun in the prior year really took off. Such a collapse would not have been possible without non-productive international military engagements (non-productive in terms of the economy as energy prices rose steeply rather than fell as the US tried to control the Middle East) and the staggering debt accumulated to accomplish this.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and now AIG (accompanied by the intentional depreciation of Lehman Brothers and Merrill-Lynch) have folded their capitalist tents.

RevRandy

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Tuesday September 16, 2008 · 12:17 PM PDT

2008/09/16 · 12:17

My great-grandfather, born in the midst of the War Between the States, rose up through hard manual labor and modest investment from small farm subsistence to urban comfort, entering the 20th century with hope and promise. He was able to send my grandfather and also one of the hired men from the farm to university. At the age of 66, when he should have been able to enjoy the fruits of his labors, he was caught up in another age of speculation. From Wall Street to the White House, promises were made that sounded too much like those of our own times. 1929 brought an end to that era of speculation, and my grandfather moved from seeming wealth to poverty, home ownership to renting a portion of a farm house, doing odd jobs, and helping to fill the table from a backyard garden he tended until he was 93. Not the vision for his last 29 years that was promised by the developers and speculators.

But he was wise enough to see how he had been fooled. Wise enough to remind me, when I was a boy, that the only things you can really count on are the gifts of creation, the work of your life, and the wise use of what you produce by your own hands. Every thing else is speculation, no more real than a promised breeze on a sultry summer day.

RevRandy

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Thursday August 28, 2008 · 4:00 PM PDT

2008/08/28 · 16:00

As we hear Barack Obama make his acceptance speech, we also continue to hear self-claimed "Hillary Supporters" (on CSpan, etc.) claim they will vote for McCain instead of Obama.

If someone were a real Hillary supporter, s/he would be working for the future instead of destroying that future for Senator Clinton.

RevRandy

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Saturday July 05, 2008 · 11:18 AM PDT

2008/07/05 · 11:18

I have become convinced in the last several weeks, following the emergence of Barack Obama as the probably Democratic Presidential nominee, that the Daily Kos store should be stocking vast quantities of litmus paper . . . because it seems so many Kossacks are proposing this or that absolute test for the candidate.

We have moved from being a critical lot to being a testy lot.

We seem to want everything to go our way.

We seem to have adopted the mantra "He's either with me, or he is against us."

Why?

And what will that get us?

RevRandy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday July 01, 2008 · 10:30 AM PDT

2008/07/01 · 10:30

I keep getting a vision of the DailyKos crowd as characters in the story found in Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Who gave God the right to decide to move upon the face of the waters? I think it is time we get a firm commitment from the divine that there will be no moving upon the face of anything until the action has been vetted as part of a larger, sustainable strategic plan which has been run by all of us.

Poll

25 votes Show Results

I would have given up on Creation on:

25 votes Vote Now!

I would have given up on Creation on:

Day 1

1 vote

Day 2

0 votes

Day 3

0 votes

Day 4

0 votes

Day 5

1 vote

Day 6

1 vote

Day 7

0 votes

Before it started

1 vote

Never

4 votes

I would always give the creative a chance

7 votes

I would rather critique this poll

10 votes

Terrorism: Collateral Damage of the Fall of Communism

RevRandy

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Monday July 31, 2006 · 12:10 PM PDT

2006/07/31 · 12:10

Was our zealous pursuit of the fall of Russian communisn a prelude to the growth of global terrorism?

In the midst of an ordinary day, when something was not going quite right, I jokingly remarked that it must have been the result of "a communist plot." And then I thought about all that has occurred since such a comment made sense in the world community.

I remembered a time when the world was seen in the usual dualistic mode of simplistic politicians, of the freedom-loving Americans and the totalitarian Russian Communists. Read More

How a Religious Liberal Can Speak Truth to Evil

RevRandy

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Sunday July 30, 2006 · 11:16 AM PDT

2006/07/30 · 11:16

In one way, we religious liberals are sitting ducks for fundamentalists.

Essential to religious liberalism is a firm faith in the inherent goodness of all people, and a rejection of a creative force in the universe which could create anything close to eternal damnation.

With such a foundation for an optimistic approach to life, we are too easily labeled “bleeding hearts,” and we are portrayed as people who think that if we only smile, the whole world will be better.

Beneath such glib attacks on our liberality is a much more serious charge against us - that since we have no theology of sin we cannot speak to the evil in the world. The fundamentalist argument is that people are essentially sinful and that a force exists in the world, seeking to recruit that sinfulness to the cause of evil. It’s the old God versus Satan dualism.

So, let’s set the score straight!

RevRandy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 28, 2006 · 12:56 PM PDT

2006/07/28 · 12:56

I am waiting.

I am waiting for the Democratic Party to stop playing politics and again be a voice of values and vision.

I just watched Nancy Pelosi address reporters prior to the summer recess, and her message was, IMHO, that the party was in search of rather than in possession of a meaningful platform. She was more interested in defeating the Republicans than in crafting a Democratic win.

We, the people, want, deserve, and will respond to a unified, consistent platform of vision based on common values.
Read More

1931 Germany - 2006 America

RevRandy

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Sunday July 23, 2006 · 4:12 PM PDT

2006/07/23 · 16:12

Picture it:

In the name of national security, civil liberties are being curtailed. People are confined without arrest, charge, or trial.

The leader restricts his appearances to orchestrated media events where supporters are visible by the thousands but protests are kept at a distance.

The leader, using a guise of national security, chooses which acts of the legislature he will follow, and which he will not. Those who criticize are labeled “traitors.” Read More

Hezbollah, Israel - A plague on both your houses

RevRandy

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Saturday July 22, 2006 · 10:20 AM PDT

2006/07/22 · 10:20

I am upset.

I am upset how the belligerence of a region, fueled by millennia of injustices, tries to co-opt my energies, the energies of my nation, and the energies of the world.

The entire Semitic world, Arab and Jew alike, have long fashioned identities of victimhood as a means for attracting energy from other sources. In defining themselves as the divinely ordained but humanly deprived people of the earth, they manipulate others into patterns of allegiance and support. All sides in the middle east are also adept at using guilt ("give guilt, the gift that keeps on giving") to recruit others to acts of passion beyond any rationality. In the course of those millennia, such an identity has evolved into an almost manic dependency on the attention of others. Read More

Can't get a future worth having looking backwards

RevRandy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday April 26, 2005 · 9:52 PM PDT

2005/04/26 · 21:52

Once again, in reading the papers, blogs, diaries, notes, e-lists, etc., I am overwhelmed by how many people are fighting old battles, defending long-forgotten turf, carrying baggage stuffed with gripes not vision. I am looking for those glimpses of horizon and sunrise which promise that tomorrow will not be yesterday rehearsed but will take us closer to where we want to go.

Now, there's a great question. Where do we want to go? Not, "away from what do we want to run?" but "toward what do we want to proceed?" And I notice that the real test is simple: follow the energy! Lots of people speak of vision, but their energy goes elsewhere, just like I am starting to do here.

So, hello horizon! Hello world beyond political boundaries. Hello to visions of abundance beyond our wildest dreams. Hello to radical equality which understands connections more than differences. Hello tomorrow!

RSS

BUSH: America's Greatest Socialist President

Getting Back to the Real Wealth of America

Hillary "Supporters" Destroying Her Future

We are a "testy" lot . . . but what will that get us?

If we had been there "in the beginning"

Terrorism: Collateral Damage of the Fall of Communism

How a Religious Liberal Can Speak Truth to Evil

Waiting for a REAL Democratic Message

1931 Germany - 2006 America

Hezbollah, Israel - A plague on both your houses

Can't get a future worth having looking backwards