Our new President...

[mol]

Ladies and Gentleman, Light Your Matches. I felt like opening up real big can of worms! So, what do you all think of our new President?

Luv him?
Hate him?

News at 11.

[Mairwen]

Well, you got that can of worms comment right. I don't think the man should ever have been voted in, myself. My mom was aghast that I was upstairs on the pc (we im daily) instead of watching the inauguration ~ I just told her to let me know if the *bleep* got assasinated anytime during the ceremony.

[belladonna23]

Well, I certainly dislike him and I completely distrust him.

His environmental policies are downright scary. And when he was governor of Texas, they had an awfully high execution rate, and a lot of those executed were later found not to be guilty of the crimes for which they had been convicted.

His proposed tax cuts will only help those people whose income is in the top 1%. I don't know about all of you, but I am not quite there. ;)

And I just don't trust the Religious Right. 'Nuff said about that!

[Mairwen]

Never trust anyone who says your religion is a bunch of hooey. What do they know?

[Lady Tana]

this is a 'family oriented' board so i cannot post what i personally think of our new prez. lets just say that mayhaps slick willy wasnt so bad... haha

:)

[wiccamags]

As I'm from England, I don't have much say in your Presidents, but can anyone remember when you last had a decent one. It can probably be rated on who can get to the end of their term, without either ending up in court, for personal actions or being shot at.
Name one!

[Rosabelle]

i read 2 funny quotes in the newspaper about Bush. here they are:

'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure!' :) hehe

2nd one:

'I think we can all agree that the past is over'
hehe
he is so stupid (my appologise to anyone who likes him but i don't!
the truth is that Gore got more voted than Bush, it is just the way it is don't in the US (and the same in england) made him president.
Rosabelle

[mol]

Originally posted by wiccamags
As I'm from England, I don't have much say in your Presidents, but can anyone remember when you last had a decent one. It can probably be rated on who can get to the end of their term, without either ending up in court, for personal actions or being shot at.
Name one!

I liked Reagan. I know...I know...dont give me too much crap, but I did.

[Kaylara]

I have to say that I really dislike this president, his agenda, and his administration. He has been president for less than a month, and already, he is trying to make this a theocracy. I disagree with his stance on abortion, cabinet nominations, nature, and just about everything else. This man has said that my religion is not even a real religion, as though he can negate my beliefs with his own. His agenda of pushing Christian Morality on all Americans absolutely disgusts me, and I will do everything in my power to let the public know exactly how outraged I am. (harming none of course.) This is going to be a hard four years. I almost feel like we are returning to the middle ages.

I wrote an article about this for the newsletter, so you can see my views when it comes out. I'll leave it at that.

Anyone up for a flaming witch-kabob?

(just joking)

Blessed Be!
Kaylara

[Rosabelle]

you could at least laugh at my funny quotes (my previous message) hehe ;)
Rosabelle

[Kaylara]

I like those quotes! (And yes I was LMAO) They show the high intellence levels that we hold our highest governmental office to.

Blessed Be!
Kaylara

[mol]

Originally posted by Kaylara
I like those quotes! (And yes I was LMAO) They show the high intellence levels that we hold our highest governmental office to.

Blessed Be!
Kaylara

At least he does some serious drugs. :eek:

Im just kidding! Calm DOWN! :)

[Semele]

Well, I think it is interesting that Texas executed so many people during his Governorship and yet he makes comments negating the morality of abortion. Murder is murder no matter what the person has done or not done. I am personally against abortion.. for myself. I however do not judge anyone who makes the choice to have one, nor do I judge or condemn executioners. I just know that I couldn't pull the switch. My point, I guess, is that religion plays no part in political decisions, at least it shouldn't and he needs to be careful about assuming his religion is the preferred moral majority.

Well, in my quest to state my views on old dubyah I have successfully brought up more taboo subjects than should ever be in one post. My apologies.
Semele

[Kaylara]

I feel the same way about abortion. It's my personal choice not to have one, not the decision of the Government! I personally think that Dubya makes about as much sense as those pro-lifers who used to bomb abortion clinics. (I am the only one who doesn't see the logic there?)

Blessed Be!
Kaylara

[Semele]

I have pondered that same thing several times. Its like the parent who slaps their child for hitting a sibling or playmete or screams at them, "don't you raise your voice to me". Common sense seems to leave us when we get too overworked and emotional about things. I am sure the folks who bombed the clinics, in the begining, started out with very noble plans to change the views of people who felt they had nowhere else to turn. They just got twisted somewhere along the path.
Semele

[Yvonne Belisle]

And my friends wonder why I hate politics! I just wish we could come up with a good canidate. It's frightning to think that this administration could affect my childrens views via what they can see in school as acceptable. Besides we went through a very tough fight to get the military to acknowledge Pagan as a choice. I hope he doesn't louse that up!

[BrightStar]

Hi all!
I have to say I really dislike The Shrub.But I pretty much dislike all the Republicans,so I may be a bit biased.The guy scares me.What his appointments to the courts,especially the Supremes,could do really scares me.They won't be very good for civil rights of any sort.They think of these as technicalities.Reproductive rights may be a thing of the past.
His policies regarding the environment are downright dangerous.Opening up wilderness to exploration(and exploitation)by big bidness.I'd really like to see where his money comes from.He had more bucks in Jan 2000 than Gore spent for the whole election.Where'd he get it?Who owns him?
Oh well,enough ranting!
Peace and Love
Rain BrightStar

[Yvonne Belisle]

You know I think you may have inadvertantly insulted the shrubs of the world. They have far more intellegence than Bush. But I can't think of a better term to describe him myself so I guess shrub is the closest we can come and still be polite. I think if the founding fathers of our nation saw what we have done with it they would be very upset.

[BrightStar]

Hi all!
I certainly meant no insult to the shrubbery of the world.
I had a sign in my yard for the election.It said "P### On The Shrub".It was in front of my quince bushes.You'd be surprised how many red necks thought I was asking them to urinate on my bushes!People even asked me if I hated those bushes.One was even my own brother!Oklahoma,ya gotta love it!Such a well educated electorate we have here.(sarcasm)
Peace and Love
Rain BrightStar

[Twig]

Get ready for one folks. And don't expect pagans,wiccans or druids to be seen as a valid path to enlightenment. This is what he proposed as a possible cabinet level office. If this is allowed,expect our progress to be knocked back to the stone age.
Peace,
Twig

[mol]

Originally posted by Semele
I have pondered that same thing several times. Its like the parent who slaps their child for hitting a sibling or playmete or screams at them, "don't you raise your voice to me". Common sense seems to leave us when we get too overworked and emotional about things. I am sure the folks who bombed the clinics, in the begining, started out with very noble plans to change the views of people who felt they had nowhere else to turn. They just got twisted somewhere along the path.
Semele

*smack* WE DONT HIT! :)

The kid is saying: "We dont, eh? Whaddya call that?"

[mol]

Originally posted by Twig
Get ready for one folks. And don't expect pagans,wiccans or druids to be seen as a valid path to enlightenment. This is what he proposed as a possible cabinet level office. If this is allowed,expect our progress to be knocked back to the stone age.
Peace,
Twig

Hmm...*searching*...where did I leave those damn matches?

[Lynnaea]

Well, at least the late night comedians will have material for the next 4 years. How about George W's "deer in the headlights" expression when asked serious questions? And all the Ws being stolen from the keyboards in the White House?

I don't trust a person that thinks he can pick and choose what religions are legitimate and wants to force the fundies viewpoints on the rest of us. It's going to be a long 4 years.

[Lynnaea]

Originally posted by BrightStar
Hi all!

His policies regarding the environment are downright dangerous.Opening up wilderness to exploration(and exploitation)by big bidness.I'd really like to see where his money comes from.He had more bucks in Jan 2000 than Gore spent for the whole election.Where'd he get it?Who owns him?
Oh well,enough ranting!
Peace and Love
Rain BrightStar

Why, the big Texas oilmen of course.

[Jazzmine]

I didn't vote for him either. But I also no longer believe in republican/democrat either. I think those terms should go back to my grandfathers era and rest in peace with him. I believe in the person and their views and to me Bush just isn't the man for the job. We all better be planting some more trees because this man is going to be destroying them.

[Yvonne Belisle]

My sinserest hope is that we are all just being alarmests but I have this horrible feeling that we aren't. I'm moving from California to Pennsylvania in April and one of the things I'm planning to do is a garden. I think we will need one and hopefully we can rent out in the woods where no one will bother us. Even then we intend to keep the strings near the bows! We won't have guns with the kids untill we can get a really good safe but if anyone tries to burn a cross on my lawn will wind up with an arrow in the leg. I am worried about persecution for being different under Bush's presidency. If I misspelled stuff in this I'm sorry but I packed my dictionary.

[Thaelo]

I just joined your delightful community and mol said jump in any time so this subject is a great one to jump in on!!
I, too, dislike, mistrust and otherwise have no use for 'King' George (since he wasn't 'really' elected). I can barely stand to see his smarmy smiling face on the news and cringe every time I hear of something else he's done. The tax cut he so magnanimously promised all of us will of course put about 40,000 bucks in the pockets of his rich friends while netting us folks about $250.00. He's already proposing to give the military 6 billion or so which will end up coming out of the federal surplus, just like the tax cuts. Who will this impact? our children's futures and the health of this country's economy.
A friend of mine suggested that some pagan organization apply for some of his proposed 'faith-based' grant money and see what happens. You know who's faith he means...not ours. Oh my...i could rant on...I feel like we are plunging back into the past, and I feel like I did when i was marching in the streets protesting the vietnam war! The gov didnt listen much to us then either. :(

Thaelo

[Kaylara]

Church and state: a test of faith

Missionary blunders show folly of using religion to accomplish social goals
For more than two centuries, the resources of church and state were combined in an attempt to assimilate tribal people into a Christian framework.


By Mark Trahant
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

Feb. 13 — President Bush is borrowing an old idea: using religious groups to advance the nation’s social goals. “Government will never be replaced by charities and community groups,” the president said when he created the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives last month.

“YET, WHEN we see social needs in America, my administration will look first at faith-based programs and community groups, which have proven their power to save and change lives.”
Thomas Jefferson had a similar vision. He wanted to “civilize” American Indians, and he saw missionaries as willing agents. So the government hired missionaries, built church-run schools and used its resources to convert tribal people to Christianity.
Not everyone liked the idea. Writer and social critic Thomas Paine warned the government to “keep a strict eye over those missionary societies, who, under the pretense of instructing the Indians, send spies into their country to find out the best lands.”
‘For the white man’s papers I had given up my faith in the Great Spirit. For these same papers I had forgotten the healing in trees and brooks. ’
— ZITKALA-SA
Yankton Sioux author

By the turn of the 20th century, some of that skepticism was warranted. “Leaving my mother, I returned to the school in the East. As months passed over me, I slowly comprehended that the large army of white teachers in Indian schools had a larger missionary creed than I had suspected,” wrote Yankton Sioux author Zitkala-Sa, or Gertrude Bonin, in 1901. This process, she wrote, left her with no spiritual center. “For the white man’s papers I had given up my faith in the Great Spirit. For these same papers I had forgotten the healing in trees and brooks. On account of my mother’s simple view of life, and my lack of any, I gave up on her, also.”

PASSING THE TEST
The government had a clear vision about which religious traditions — usually limited to Protestant movements — were acceptable and which ones were not.
One religion, in particular, stood out as unacceptable. In the 1910s the Indian schools began an all-out campaign to destroy the Peyote religion, which combines a respect for native traditions — with the drug as a sacrament — mixed with a belief in Jesus Christ.
One of the federal government’s boarding schools, Haskell in Lawrence, Kan., taught that freedom of religion excluded native beliefs. Peyote was considered evil, said a government teacher who wrote a 1917 editorial in the school newspaper. “If it were true that any practice employed in religious worship can never be interfered with, there would be nothing to prevent setting up in any of our cities a pagan temple with prostitutes offering themselves in the name of religion as ministers to lust.” The peyote way, the paper said, “is a widespread evil among the Indian tribes which can be prevented only by prompt, vigorous and legislative action.”
That was just the beginning. For more than two centuries the resources of church and state were combined in an attempt to assimilate tribal people into a Christian framework. Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans were forced, often by government officials, to renounce their native beliefs, throw away their sacred objects and come to Jesus.

WE’RE TOLERANT NOW, RIGHT?
But this country has grown, right? We’ve learned to accept the multitude of religious movements across the land, to appreciate the differences in religious traditions. Or so we say.
The Supreme Court, only a decade ago, challenged the religious value of peyote and the Native American Church in an Oregon case. Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired as drug counselors in Portland, Ore., because the two Native American Church members used peyote. The state denied their unemployment benefits, citing misconduct. They sued, and the case eventually found its way to the Supreme Court. The court said Oregon’s actions were justified in order to protect its drug laws.

FINDING THE BOUNDARIES
A Catholic priest once told me that it’s true many families converted to Christianity, but, he added, some also said, “there are things Father doesn’t need to know about.”
What religions today will be dismissed as ‘the other,’ outside of the normal? And, how will the White House make that decision?

That’s it. The debate goes on because so many native religions survived: Sun Dancers, Long House members, Dreamers, those who follow the Seven Drums, traditional Navajo ways, the peyote path or dozens of other belief systems that were not destroyed. These are legitimate living, breathing religions calling for the same respect as Christianity — both in law and culture.
Should the White House give them that kind of respect? That is a test for President Bush and the national commitment to religious diversity. Most people know about the Native American Church and its religious beliefs concerning peyote, but not as many know that the church preaches against drug and alcohol use. This movement has had a remarkable impact on sobriety in Indian Country with many of its leaders working as drug and alcohol counselors. What if the church starts building its own substance abuse rehabilitation center? Would the church quality for government funding?
These are questions that go beyond Indian Country. This nation has a long history of accepting some religions and discounting others. Catholics, Mormons and other movements were once discriminated against as official policy. What religions today will be dismissed as “the other,” outside of the normal? And, how will the White House make that decision?
If the principle is supporting community and faith-based movements that make a difference in people’s lives, then a case can be made that the Nation of Islam ought to receive taxpayer dollars. But I wonder how the president would feel about funding Minister Louis Farrakhan.
What about Scientology? The list could go on. How about a new religion, one that starts with a grand vision of social reform as revealed by a self-described prophet?

Found at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/528391.asp?cp1=1

What are your thoughts?

BB,
Kaylara

[mol]

Originally posted by Thaelo


A friend of mine suggested that some pagan organization apply for some of his proposed 'faith-based' grant money and see what happens. You know who's faith he means...not ours. Oh my...i could rant on...I feel like we are plunging back into the past, and I feel like I did when i was marching in the streets protesting the vietnam war! The gov didnt listen much to us then either. :(

Thaelo

Sounds like a winner. I am going to set up Mystic Wicks Community as a non-profit religious organization. I will apply and the details will be here.

[zede]

next election i think the country and world would be well served by getting the opionion of this community before hand, i mean when your right your right!

[LostSheep]

When I saw this in the index I didn't see the date, and I thought, "Have i missed something in the news today then?" :eyebrow:

[HeavensHope]

didnt vote for him, dont like him and he's not even a true Texan. blah!

he'll be out of office soon anyways. Lets finally have a woman president.

[edit] man, this is an old thread...hehe

[Starlight*Rains]

didnt vote for him, dont like him and he's not even a true Texan. blah!

he'll be out of office soon anyways. Lets finally have a woman president.

[edit] man, this is an old thread...hehe
HERE HERE HH!!@!!! I hate the a$%%^&e!!!!! We need a woman to organize things around here!:hahugh:

[Pesha]

Normally I do not post on old posts but just had to say that yes a women for president is so needed right now. And Mr. Bush is so not needed nor wanted by this individual.