No More Incumbents Blog

A friend of mine sent me a viral email tonight and I normally do not review those types of things here, but I think with the excess prevalence of religion attempting to influence politics, it might actually fit.

If you have any doubts about the religious problem in politics just view the preceding article talking about how people and campaigns are in an uproar about Barack Obama and Hillary dressed in Muslim and foreign clothing.

So anyway the email provides an image of the new dollar coin.  It has a nice story about a person that goes to the post office, gets change back in the form of the new dollar coin.  The person that receives the change is ‘in the know’ and asks to exchange the $1 coin for a $1 bill because the new coins do not have the words “in god we trust” on them.

Now, I am not a christian.  I was raised as a christian but I gave up the religion a long time ago.  That said, I seem to recall that christianity has a bit of a problem with both idolatry(Moses) and with money(Jesus).

If you ask what would Jesus do?

The Bible and other books indicate that he would go into a bank and throw a fit. 

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, - King James Bible

He’d probably get arrested today, and under the Bush Administration he’d probably be shipped to a secret prison under the suspicion of being a terrorist.

You would think given the lessons and teachings of christianity that christians would actually embrace the removal of the phrase of a dollar that has grown into an idol of its own.

But instead they would trash the value of the dollar by refusing to accept it without the magic words, that by the way were not endorsed by god or anything, on money.  Would Moses have considered the golden calf as an OK symbol if someone had simply stamped in Ancient Hebrew the words “in god we trust’ on the stomach of the statue?  I kind of doubt it.

So anyway, I find this to be rather a silly issue, but unfortunately when religion meets the road with politics, things that should be silly and inconsequential get blown up out of proportion.  (both figuratively and literally)

On the Lighter side here is a link to the blog Channel Fever which has a video with Dick Cheney on a Silver Dollar with the words “In Greed we Trust” at the bottom of the coin.  Much more fitting.

Funny Stuff!

The picture below features Barack Obama LOOKING Presidential.  He is dressed in the garb of a Somali leader in 2006.

I say again, he does look Presidential.  He’s going out to meet leaders from other countries and learn their culture, making connections and as the military would put it, winning the hearts and minds.

Apparently Barack Obama or his campaign did not realize that this picture features their candidate looking Presidential.  They attacked the Clinton campaign for leaking the photo to a number of websites over the weekend.

Barack Makes mistakes and Gets Caught in Trap

If the Clinton’s or whomever did it, leaked the photo on purpose, then it was a trap, and Barack Obama didn’t have the leadership or insight to sense the quagmire of the trap, avoid the trap and even use the trap to his own advantage.  Instead like George Bush looking for the Holy Grail of Mass Terrorism Destruction, Barack Obama tripped the trap and was ensnared.

the Obama campaign charged that Clinton aides had leaked the photo - taken during a 2006 trip to Africa - the Clinton campaign manager, Maggie Williams, tried to turn the matter back at the Obama team, even though her camp has not denied any role in distributing the photo.

“If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed,” Williams said in a statement. “Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.” 

Photo of Obama in African garb emerges as Clinton renews attacks - International Herald Tribune

What Barack Would Have Done with More Leadership Experience

If Barack was more of a leader, he would have included that photo on his own website from day one.  He could have held it up as an excellent example of how he as a leader could go out to the world and heal wounds like in Somalia a land that has been severely troubled for a long time and a land that the Clinton Administration could not repair as they entered into a quagmire of their own back in 1993.

I was part of that military campaign.

Instead, Barack Obama seems to have tried to play the ‘I’m Not a Muslim Card’.  That is a trap in and of itself.  Like George Bush before him, Obama seems to think that the religion of a President is important.  He thinks that being a Christian is a prerequisite to be President.  He thinks that the taint of another religion outside of Christianity, would hamper his efforts to become the new POTUS.

What does it say about a person when they do not stand up for the good things that they have done?

Instead of showing some leadership by defending his accidental leadership in Somalia, Barack Obama has tried to rely on the crutch of do not attack me for the way I dress or the company I keep.  He could have taken the high road and probably picked up a couple points in Ohio and more importantly showed the country and the world how a real US leader could act, but apparently Barack Obama did not recognize good leadership qualities even when he was the person exhibiting them.  If he cannot figure out what good leadership is, then maybe he would not make a good Presidential leader.  I’m not saying he is devoid of leadership potential and that he should go become a shop steward some where manufacturing cabinet knobs in Illinois, but he might need a little ‘Testing‘ of his leadership so that he will be able to recognize important leadership qualities and what they can really achieve without having to be told by a campaign manager, David Plouffe.

David Plouffe on the release of the photo of Barack Obama featured above

“On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world.”

Maybe Mr. Plouffe needs to take a refresher course on diversity, diplomacy, and leadership.

Update - This Story is blowing up even more

OK, so it is a slow news day and the presidential candidates are fighting over clothing and pictures of themselves wearing clothing.  They would rather fight about anything besides the issues since they are basically the same poor candidate.

Here’s the latest, now Hillary is being attacked  . . . . for looking Presidential too.

She went out to visit and tour the world, and happened to put on a head scarf.  Scandalous.

Image from the Bill Clinton Presidential Library

Then there is Bill dressed up like Obi Wan Kenobi

Since I originally published the article above there are now almost 500 articles online about this topic.  Here are some of the most recent people to jump on the band wagon.

If you have missed the political blog, Who Hijacked Our Country, no is your chance to read a great article (with some biting and slightly foul language) talking about how Republicans are currently in a civil war with each other.  The Republican base is fractured and the religious right is taking shots from all sides.

I have written about this in the past, especially talking about how Bush has paid lip service to the Religious Right, while single handedly proving that all of their principles when executed by a Moron achieve results that only a true devil could love.

How Christian of Them

This article talks about how the same fine people that trashed Senator John Kerry’s War Hero status with $4 million are now attacking Mike Huckabee for Mitt Romney.  So instead of Republicans attacking Democrats, Republicans are attacking Republicans.  What’s funnier is that Christian Conservative Republicans are attacking Christian Conservative Republicans with a flat garden hose.

OK, its not really a flat garden hose, but the attack is landing with a flat thud.

I am watching Mitt Romney on Meet the Press today.  I have to admit that Mitt Romney’s language these days evokes a sense of fear in me.  Its not the type of fear evoked by George Bush that temporarily brought people together with a common (possibly false) send of who America’s enemies were.

This is the type of fear that reminds me of all the problems that America was founded to avoid from Crusades in the Middle East during the Middle Ages, to Religious persecution during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to the exodus of people from Europe looking to seek freedom both from lords and fiefdoms as well as from dueling religious fundamental camps and factions in Christianity.

Mitt Romney seems to believe that our democracy which has lived with the separation of church and state for over 200 years, needs to be grounded now in religious morality.  He puts words into the mouths of the founders of our country that they did not state.  He would rewrite the Constitution to make it seem as if a Christian God granted the United States freedom.  He would rewrite the Constitution to state the while we may all have the freedom to choose a religion, we have received the same monotheistic God. 

He would make the statement that as long as we share the same god, all will be well with us.  But history teaches us much differently.  Muslims and Christians have ideologies with similar roots, but wars have been fought for thousands of years between these religions over lesser notions than that we share the same god. 

His words evoke fear in me, as he speaks of the Constitution holding a Fundamental grounding in the Christian religion.    God first and the rule of law and Constitution is a concept that empowered the Taliban, it is a concept that brought a revolution in Iran and a fundamentalist sect of Islam to power.  Mitt Romney’s words are the spark of revolution or possibly an insider coup. 

He states that our common belief in the same guide is the moral guide post that keeps America on the right path.  Americans first and the people of the world second are some of the words that his Christian morality brings to us from Meet the Press.

George Bush shared a similar moral compass and his moral compass ultimately led him down a path of sacrificing his own morals and his own christian beliefs in pursuit of that Christian dogma that has existed in a bastardized fashion since shortly after that time period when the Roman empire began to fall.  That Christian dogma holds that anything is allowable in the pursuit of furthering or empowering the Christian religion and its followers. 

This dogma has brought about wars, and torture, and genocide, and persecution and has held back the advance of man for the last 1600 years.  Within the last 7 years, George Bush has relived most of the mistakes learned throughout the ages by Christianity.  He has embraced war, he has embraced torture, he has embraced a crusade to spread his morality.

Mitt Romney’s words expand on George Bush’s efforts and would have these concepts fundamentally tied to the Constitution.  The only reason to do this would be to ultimately spike the Constitution with the thorn of a religious poison that would corrupt our government from the inside and ultimately place that government back in the hands and control of religious leaders such as Romney and Bush and in the future even more fundamentalist successors.

America is under assault from within from religious fundamentalism.  The battle lines were drawn on 9/11 not by Osama Bin Laden, but by George Bush that perceived that attack not in the terms of terrorism but RELIGIOUS terrorism.  Bush chose to fight religion with his own religion as that was his only subjective tool in his leadership tool bag.  Romney has risen to expand that notion.

Americans and Republicans should not vote for Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon.  The Church of Latter Day Saints, is a red herring in this election.  The real issue is that Mitt Romney is speaking the speech of fundamentalism.  Republicans should avoid fundamentalists just as independents and Democrats should avoid fundamentalists. 

I do not mean to isolate Romney in this either Mike Huckabee is the flip side of the same coin, while most of the other Republican candidates are simply paying lip service to their religious right base of voters for the primary.

People that will cast their vote for Mitt Romney will be casting a vote for:

• Fundamentalism
• Religious War, Jihad and Crusades
• The Rewriting of the Constitution
• A fundamental rebuilding of our Government
• A movement back into a dark ages of religion over science

This all comes when our world needs to move away from religious fundamentalism.  The people of the world need to come back together to answer the problems of the day and not fight over the problems of the last two thousand years. 

Pandora’s Box of Fundamentalism in the Constitution

People that vote for Mitt Romney or so called christian conservatives, may think that they are voting in ‘their kind of religious leader.’  The reality is that the precedent set by connecting our government to a religion will enable not just Christian leaders or Mormon leaders but leaders of any religion to hijack the government of the United States.  He is attempting to plant seeds that open the door for other flowers and weeds to grow and eventually break the foundation of our country one root and crack at a time.  His promises of harvesting beautiful wholesale flowers are empty promises and not based in reality.  He is simply pandering to the religious right and tomorrow’s religious right could be much different than it is today.

The United States does not need to break down the barriers of church and state, but instead needs to reinforce the barricades between church and state.  It is the primary thing that has enabled our country to advance and avoid the chaos and downfall that has embroiled the Middle East and even Europe before that.