The race is on

In case you didn’t know it, the 2008 Presidential race is already underway. I know, I know, it’s as bad as the stores and Christmastime. I think I saw Wal-Mart employees stocking the shelves with Halloween costumes the Monday after Easter.

In the interest of civic participation, this feature would like to present you with a number of potential candidates for your consideration- since most of them will begin visiting Iowa this summer, if they haven’t been here already.

Since they’re the current party in power, lets start with the Republicans.

The front-runner for the GOP nomination seems to be a woman named Dr. Condeleza Rice. She’s a PhD doctor, not a medical doctor. You’d think that would be a plus, but she doesn’t really seem to have a brain of her own. Her ideas, thoughts, policies, plans etc. are pretty much those of her bosses, Dick, Rummy, and the one known only as “W.”

Right-wingers will try to sell her as the historic, because she’d be both the first woman and the first Black president. But let’s face it, voting for the current Secretary of State would pretty much be voting to continue the Bush administration. With the numbers, the war, the personnel changes, all the retired generals criticisms and the price of gas- this may not be our best bet.

Next there’s Senate Majority Dr. Bill Frist. He’s a medical doctor, not a PhD and he tried to prove it when he diagnosed the late Terri Schiavo as not being in a persistent vegetative state and having plenty of brain activity by watching a few minutes of news clip video of her. Hmmm... the autopsy showed that she had very little brain left let alone brain activity.

If you believe in religious freedom, you may also not be comfortable with the fact that he participated in the whole “Justice Sunday” thing where he and televangelists railed on independent judges who refuse to set up a fundamentalist theocracy.

There’s also Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker who spearheaded the Republicans’ “Contract on America” back in the 1990’s. He pretty much invented “Talking-point memos” and gave Rush Limbaugh office space in the Capital building. Scary, isn’t it time for the pendulum to swing a little more toward the center?

Now I always used to love Senator John McCain. He’s from my home state of Arizona, he’s a Vietnam Vet, he used to be his own man, a straight shooter who’d break party ranks when it was the right thing to do. Best of all he wanted a balanced budget and to clean up campaign finance.

But alas, he has started to kiss up to the fundamentalist like “guy-smiley” Jerry Fawell and Pat Robertson. How “base” can you get?

My favorite Republican has to be Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel. He’s still a deficit hawk who believes in fiscal responsibility and he’s been very skeptical of the Bush administration’s mishandling of Iraq. Unlike McCain, he seems to still be willing to stand up for what’s right, even if it means standing alone.

Now, in the interest of equal time, let’s turn to the left.

The biggest name among Democrats is still New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Okay, is she capable? Probably. Is she electable? possibly. But there are plenty of problems.

First of all, merely by being who she is, she’s divisive. There’s nothing she does or believes- all Democrats considered, she’s pretty moderate, but people vehemently hate her. Even more viscerally than her husband, and even though he was a liar and a philanderer, he was still a Rhode’s Scholar brainiac student of the law and economics.

I for one think the best way of keeping America sharply divided, keeping the wing-nuts on the extreme right angry and active, and guaranteeing that either Jeb or Prescott Bush will run for President would be to elect Hillary.

Who else is there? Well, there’s Virginia Governor Mark Warner. Centrists and even Republicans may like him. He believes in fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction. Even if it does mean, yes, rolling back the massive Bush tax cuts that benefited the richest 2% of Americans. He’s very articulate, clear, and smart. And yes, he’s a Southerner.

Hmmm. Moderate/Conservative Democrat from the South. He may have appeal.

Don’t forget Former Vice President Al Gore and former Vice Presidential Candidate North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Handsome Southern gentlemen both, but these two are probably more aggressively progressive and have lots of creative ideas for things like health care, education, and tax reform.

Bringing up the rear; New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former Clinton Secretary of Energy. Hmmm, what was that about working toward not being dependent on foreign oil that President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union Address?

Oh yeah, did I mention that he’d be the first Hispanic President?

Finally may I introduce Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. He co-sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (“McCain-Feingold Bill”). He is a recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. He actually voted against the Iraq War Resolution and yet voted in favor of funding to support our troops.

We know that the intelligent readers of 'The Left Coast of Iowa' were bright enough to vote for Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000, but our unfortunately deluded neighbors voted to give America and the world The Worst President in History. The worst EVER. This article by a respected historian explains the case for Bush's title as Worst President in History.

After more than three years and the death of nearly 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, Congress has yet to consider, debate, or vote on alternatives to the president's stay-the-course policy - a policy that 72% of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq and a majority of Americans now believe should end within a year.

As Christians called to be peacemakers, we have a unique opportunity to demand that Congress stop passing the buck. So far, 95 members of the House of Representatives have signed a petition calling for immediate debate and consideration of all alternatives to the policy of open-ended occupation with Iraq, including proposals calling for immediate or phased withdrawal. All we need is 123 more members to sign the petition for debate to begin. And that's where you come in...

Call your representative today!

202-224-3121

Ask your representative to sign the petition, or thank them if they already have (see below for the list).

Message for non-signers of H.R. 543: As a person of faith called to be a peacemaker, I ask you to sign onto H.R. 543, a "discharge petition" that calls for open and honest debate on Iraq. We can't just pass the buck to the president - it's time to show strong leadership and lead us to peace in the region.	Message for signers of H.R. 543: As a person of faith called to be a peacemaker, I want to say thank you for signing H.R. 543, the "discharge petition" that would force debate on solutions to the conflict in Iraq. I hope and pray that this is one important step in building peace in Iraq and throughout the region.

We believe this is an important and historic opportunity for members of Congress to offer alternatives to war without end in Iraq. For more information about the "Open Iraq Debate" campaign, click here.

Peace,

Adam, Duane, Matt, Christa, Yonce, Nadia, and Laurna
The Sojourners Policy and Organizing Team

Has Not Signed H.R. 543

Iowa
Jim Nussle (R-01)
Leonard Boswell (D-03)
Tom Latham (R-04)
Steve King (R-05)

Signed H.R. 543

James A. Leach (R-02)

Who stole my freedom of speech?

I had this magnet on my truck, but someone took it.

Hey, I support the troops, I just happen to remember that Jesus is the "Prince of Peace," so I oppose the current administrations' foreign policy which includes an uneccisary war under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Stealing a magnet of someone's car is a small thing. There have been incidents where veterans and parents who've lost children in the war have put up memorials of white crosses representing each of the Americans killed in Iraq, only to have "war-hawks" drive over them to mow them down with their cars. That's anger. I guess I don't understand how that's pro-American or pro-troops, pro-vetrans, or pro-Christian. Isn't it, in fact irreverent, and sacreligeous?

Anyway, if you want your own "Support Peace" sticker, pin, or magnet, click here: http://www.support-peace.com/about.php

Sex, Politics, and Religion

In my weekly column in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and on my own personal blog (http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com) I have a mission, to talk about “sex, politics, and religion- not necessarily in that order…” and I might add, the kitchen sink too.

Religion is also an intensely personal and hopefully intimate thing too. I think it should be personal and intimate anyway, maybe you don’t believe that way. Because religious beliefs are held so intensely and deeply, it can be dangerous to talk about it without offending people. No one really wants to compromise on what they interpret to be sacred or even what they consider to be primary fundamental doctrine. “I’m always right and you’re always wrong,” is the perspective we assume when we become absolutist about our religious beliefs.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t mean to promote “relativism.” Certainly there are absolutes, there is truth, but the problem is, I’m not God. I hope you’ll agree that you aren’t either. While they may imagine that they’re God’s personally appointed spokesmen on Earth all those televangelists, denominational leaders, and “faith-based” politicians aren’t God either. None of us has a monopoly on the God-breathed, inerrant truth. No one but Him.

Too often we decide not to talk about religion, not because we don’t want to offend someone else, not because we’re afraid they’ll judge, reject, or persecute us, but just because we know it’s likely to make things tense, maybe even lead to argument.

You know it’s true. One of the biggest complaints I hear from atheists is that all the wars have always been caused by religion. I tell them, no people cause wars. Jesus didn’t cause the crusades or the holocaust. Saint Mary and Martin Luther didn’t start the 100 year’s war. You can’t even really blame Muhammad for terrorist attacks or jihads. People go to war, people full of hate, fear, jealousy, greed, and anger. Religion is only their excuse, a convenient pretense.

Then there’s politics. It’s about control. You think my candidate is a liar and a philanderer, so you want to wrest control away from him. I think that your candidate is ill-equipped, ill-advised, has ill-conceived notions and at best made grave mistakes and at worse abuses his power- guess what, I won’t want him in control anymore than you wanted the other guy.

It gets even uglier if our politicians wrap themselves in the banner of faith. How many abused spouses stay in a bad marriage because they love their abuser. Do we sometimes defend politicians like someone enabling an addict? Because we think that they share our beliefs, and by God, we know our beliefs are absolutely right- so somehow no matter much wrong they do, at least they’re right about a few things.

Here is a true story that involves all three- sex politics and religion:

Once there were two people. One was a white, middle-aged man. He taught Religion at a Christian school. The other was an Hispanic teenaged girl who attended that Christian School.

The man and his wife could not have children. They were staunchly pro-life. They boycotted companies that supported candidates or charities that condoned abortion. They marched for the right to life, admirable civic participation. But rather than a day or even a unit of one or two of his Religion classes, anti-abortion indoctrination dominated most of the time in most of his classes.

The girl lived with a single mom. She was interested in history and politics. She especially enjoyed learning about the civil rights movement and women’s rights. The girl grew more and more depressed as she attended the Religion teacher’s class. She became silent and sullen, she doubted her faith and God’s love for her. At one point later in college, she even thought about suicide.

The girl had been the victim of incest as a child. But of course she kept it a secret.

There are some things you just don’t talk about.

Jesus was a dirty, barefoot hippy, radical who was executed by an unjust political establishment because the intrenched institutional religious power brokers didn't want to hear about turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, loving your neighbor (including Mexicans, Blacks, Gays, etc.), and selling all you have and giving it to the poor!

Beautiful, isn't it? I criticize and complain about the goverment because I love my country.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

~Thomas Jefferson

How come Democrats never rag on conservatives for whining and ridiculing as if they're unpatriotic or trators or something when we're in power and they disagree or scrutinize us? hmmm.... because we BELIEVE in the principles of democracy on which America was founded like free speech?!

Richard Nixon got nervous because Congress had a little thing called a supena. What would it be like if the Democrats regained a slim majority and therefore had the power of supena? With as much going on now that stinks to high heaven... what will we find out once we have shovels?!