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-- And the Bush Propaganda Wizards Keep on Comin'...
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And the Bush Propaganda Wizards Keep on Comin'...
First Armstrong Williams, now National Review's Gallagher:
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| In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families. ... But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal. Her work under the contract, which ran from January through October 2002, included drafting a magazine article for the HHS official overseeing the initiative, writing brochures for the program and conducting a briefing for department officials. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...n25.html?sub=AR |
So you're saying that divorce is a better way to promote family values and the nananananukular family?
Funny--reporters were asking Dubya about paying people to promote his agenda this morning. I didn't catch much of it, but as is typical of the madman...he was in denial. And I'm not talking about the river in Egypt!
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| Originally posted by Shakka So you're saying that divorce is a better way to promote family values and the nananananukular family? |
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| Originally posted by NYGblue No but it also isn't the role of government to promote or disuade people of such things. Frankly, I think the social role of the state is so convuluted and out of sink with reality under Bush that it almost makes me want to be a Liberatarian. Though I emphasize ALMOST. |
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| Originally posted by Shakka In all honesty, I'd prefer to have minimal government involvement in my social life, so we're not in disagreement there. In fact, I want minimal government in my life in general. |
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| Originally posted by NYGblue Yeah I am not a huge fan of government involvement in societal issues. I think its sad when an administration can consider it ok to promote marriage, a clear afront to homosexuality again. I am so glad I won't be in this country come this time next year. I can just avoid all this crap. Maybe I will EVEN get real news! |
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| Originally posted by Shakka So you're saying that divorce is a better way to promote family values and the nananananukular family? |
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| Funny--reporters were asking Dubya about paying people to promote his agenda this morning. I didn't catch much of it, but as is typical of the madman...he was in denial. And I'm not talking about the river in Egypt! |
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| Originally posted by NYGblue Yeah I am not a huge fan of government involvement in societal issues. |
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| I think its sad when an administration can consider it ok to promote marriage, a clear afront to homosexuality again. |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo so what form government does your next country affiliate itself with? don't you think that there might be more to it than that? i mean, there are other ways this administration and others has exercised it's opinion about homosexuality and/or marriage. |
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| Originally posted by Q5echo so what form government does your next country affiliate itself with? don't you think that there might be more to it than that? i mean, there are other ways this administration and others has exercised it's opinion about homosexuality and/or marriage. |
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| Originally posted by Trancer-X I hope that it's not just me, but for some reason I don't really believe that our Founding Fathers had envisioned our government rampantly interfering in our daily lives. I guess that belief is part of the reason why I'm a libertarian. |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r That's quite hypocritical considering our Founding Fathers didn't envision not having bibles in schools, the 10 commandments missing from our courts and people living in a government enduced void of grey mediocrity... |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r That's quite hypocritical considering our Founding Fathers didn't envision not having bibles in schools, the 10 commandments missing from our courts and people living in a government enduced void of grey mediocrity... |
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| Originally posted by NYGblue A good portion of the Founding Father's were either Atheist, agnostic or other... |
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| Originally posted by Trancer-X LOL But the majority certainly were Masonic. |
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| Originally posted by NYGblue lol... ooooooogily boooooogily the Free Masons are going to take over the world! |
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| Originally posted by Trancer-X I fail to see how any of that makes my statement hypocritical. Among other things, our country was founded upon the basic principles of freedom and liberty. (the same principles in which Bush so eloquently, but rather hypocritically referred to in his recent State of the Union address) |
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The government's imposition of directives that intrude into our personal and private lives is (in my humble opinion) the antithesis of freedom and liberty. |
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I take it that you have never read Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man |
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Originally posted by NYGblue A good portion of the Founding Father's were either Atheist, agnostic or other... |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r ...freedom, liberty and God... I know the "G" word is hard for you liberals to say though...that's ok... How can Bush be hyprocitical when he's actually practising what he's preaching? |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r 5 of the 8 founding fathers were Chrisitan or a Christian derivative (Franklin was a Quaker). Washington was a Mason. Jefferson was a Deist. Payne was an Atheist. It appears that ONE was atheist... |
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| "There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." |
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| "In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes." |
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| " "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state." |
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| "What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not." |
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| ""Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." |
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| "If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both here (England) and in New England." |
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| "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" |
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| [i]"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes." |
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| Originally posted by Trancer-X LOL But the majority certainly were Masonic. |
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| Originally posted by shaolin_Z i thought only George Washington was a mason. |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r Payne was an Atheist. |
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| Originally posted by Renegade Jefferson may have been a deist, but that wasn't the extent of his religious views. He was actually, especially for someone at that time, decidedly anti-Christian: Does this sound like a man who would want the Bible in every classroom? Then consider Washington: http://www.infidels.org/library/his.../chapter_3.html Although he wasn't as polemically anti-Christian as Jefferson or Paine, he was a deist and - based on these accounts - I'm pretty sure that we can count him as someone who could quite comfortably envision "not having bibles in schools [and] the 10 commandments missing from our courts". Then take Madison, who I suppose you include as one of the 5 "Christians" who would approve of the lines currently being blurred between Chruch and state: Noticing a theme yet? Many of the founding fathers were schooled in Europe - or at least in European ideas - and so were privy to both the ideals of the emerging enlightenment and the dangers posed by a fusion of church and state (Europe, remember, was at this stage only just emerging from centuries of tyranny at the hands of the Catholic church). Given this, they understood why their democracy would need to impose borders between the politicians and the clergy. Ben Franklin sure knew it: So did Adams: So some of these men may have certainly been Christian (some in a far looser sense of the word than others) but they understood that no good will ever come from merging the government with a specific form of religious ideology - hence, the "freedom of religion" part of the constitution. This means that the government cannot propogate or support a specific religion to the exclusion of all others. So can children pray in the classroom? Absolutely, the teacher just has no right to lead them in a specific form of prayer. Can children still read the Bible at school? Absolutely, but the teaching staff just can't promote this work of fiction as religious fact to the students. So do you know what you have here already? Complete freedom of religion, just as the founding fathers envisioned. You can believe what you want and you can pray to whoever you want, you just can't use the public schools to propogate a specific religious dogma or to proselytise - now what, exactly, is wrong with that? You may argue that the founding fathers built the nation within the context of Judeo-Christian values, but this is ostensibly wrong - these men saw the blackest, most vile aspects of the Christian faith and understood that enforcing such a dogmatic religious orthodoxy would not be in the best interests of the nation, hence the wall separating church and state - starting to get it now? You are free to believe whatever fairy tales you want and are free to adorn your walls and shelves with any religious literature or artefacts you wish. When you start declaring that others should adhere to these beliefs, however, or that the government should start promoting these beliefs then your stepping over a line and this is why the courts need to step in from time and time and enforce the vision the founding fathers actually did have for the US. You can try to rationalise it however you like, but that's the way it is and that's the way it has to be. |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Very, very well said, Renegade. |
Yet another Bush Propaganda Warrier Exposed
Too many damn meetings for me today. Thought I should post yet another busted Bush propaganda artist before I go:
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| Third columnist caught with hand in the Bush till Michael McManus, conservative author of the syndicated column "Ethics & Religion," received $10,000 to promote a marriage initiative. And three makes a trend. One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed. Responding to the latest revelation, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, announced Thursday that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. "I needed to draw this bright line," Horn tells Salon. "The policy is being implemented and we're moving forward." Horn's move came on the heels of Wednesday's report in the Washington Post that HHS had paid syndicated columnist and marriage advocate Maggie Gallagher $21,000 to write brochures and essays and to brief government employees on the president's marriage initiative. Gallagher later wrote in her column that she would have revealed the $21,000 payment to readers had she recalled receiving it. The Gallagher revelation came just three weeks after USA Today reported that the Education Department, through a contract with the Ketchum public relations firm, paid $240,000 to Armstrong Williams, a conservative African-American print, radio and television pundit, to help promote Bush's No Child Left Behind program to minority audiences. To date, the Bush administration has paid public relation firms $250 million to help push proposals, according to a report Thursday in USA Today. That's double what the Clinton administration spent on P.R. from 1997 to 2000. Shortly after Williams' contract came to light, the Democrats on the Committee on Government Reform wrote a letter to President Bush demanding that he "immediately provide to us all past and ongoing efforts to engage in covert propaganda, whether through contracts with commentators, the distribution of video news releases, or other means." As of Thursday, a staffer on the committee told Salon, there had been no response. Horn says McManus, who could not be reached for comment, was paid approximately $10,000 for his work as a subcontractor to the Lewin Group, a health care consultancy hired by HHS to implement the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative, which encourages communities to combat divorce through education and counseling. McManus provided training during two-day conferences in Chattanooga, Tenn., and also made presentations at HHS-sponsored conferences. His syndicated column has appeared in such papers as the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News and the Charlotte Observer. Horn, who has known McManus for years, says he first learned about the payment on Thursday. In the wake of the Gallagher story, he asked his staff to review all outside contracts and determine if there were any other columnists being paid by HHS. They informed him about McManus. Horn says the review for similar contracts continues. Horn insists that HHS was not paying Gallagher and McManus to write about Bush administration initiatives but for their expertise as marriage advocates. "We live in a complicated world and people wear many different hats," he says. "People who have expertise might also be writing columns. The line has become increasingly blurred between who's a member of the media and who is not. Thirty years ago if you were a columnist, then you were a full-time employee of a newspaper. Columnists today are different." The problem springs from the failure of both Gallagher and McManus to disclose their government payments when writing about the Bush proposals. But one HHS critic says another dynamic has led to the controversy, and a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines: Horn and HHS are hiring advocates -- not scholars -- from the pro-marriage movement. "They're ideological sympathizers who propagandize," says Tim Casey, attorney for Legal Momentum, a women's rights organization. He describes McManus as being a member of the "extreme religious right." Horn denies the charge: "It's not true that we have just been selectively working with conservatives." According to news accounts, the administration seeks to spend $1.5 billion promoting marriage through marriage-enrichment courses, counseling and public-awareness campaigns. In 1996, McManus co-founded Marriage Savers, a conservative advocacy group, which, among other things, urges clergy not to conduct a marriage ceremony unless the couple has had lengthy counseling first. "The church should not be a 'wedding factory,' but a training ground for strong marriages to go the distance -- for life," McManus wrote. In his April 3, 2004, column, McManus wrote, "The Healthy Marriage Initiative would provide funds to help those couples improve their skills of conflict resolution so they might actually marry -- and be equipped to build a healthy marriage. Those skills can be taught by mentor couples in churches for free. But for the non-religious, counselors would be paid." A year earlier, McManus assured readers that funds provided for the Healthy Marriage Initiative "could be used to teach skills to improve communication and resolve conflict that would make the relationship happier and lead to a healthy marriage." He based that assessment on comments made by HHS's Horn, who, indirectly, served as McManus' boss -- although that relationship was never revealed to readers. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/27/mcmanus/ |
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