Many schools across the country ask spectators to hold applause and cheers until the end of graduation. But few of them enforce the policy with what some in Galesburg say are strong-arm tactics. “It was like one of the worst days of my life,” said Gayles, who had a 3.4 grade-point average and officially graduated, but does not have the keepsake diploma to hang on her wall. “You walk across the stage and then you can’t get your diploma because of other people cheering for you. It was devastating, actually.”

I can’t believe that a school principal actually has the power to deny a student her diploma because her parents cheered for a few seconds after her name was called. Are such “contracts” even legal? When did schools get the authority to make student sign such contracts? And how were parents coerced into signing them too? How can a student be held responsible for what other people do anyway? And this happened in Illinois?

The school “adopted a zero-tolerance policy” – ya know what? I haven’t seen anything good come out of these policies. Let’s stop “adopting” them – I think “zero-tolerance” policies should be left orphaned and homeless. What happened to contextual judgment and common sense? The educational system and the government have “adopted” these policies by using public hysteria as an excuse for power grabs, and I think it’s time to put a stop to it.

At my graduation, there were plenty of people who got cheered, and I was always a little disappointed that no-one cheered for me.
And by the way:

In Galesburg, the issue has taken on added controversy with accusations that the students were targeted because of their race: four are black and one is Hispanic. Parents say cheers also erupted for white students, and none of them was denied a diploma. Principal Tom Chiles said administrators who monitored the more than 2,000-seat auditorium reported only disruptions they considered “significant,” and all turned in the same five names.

This is draconian. Shame on you! Your priorities are in serious disarray.

I’m sending a long extended boo-hiss and some extended catcalls to Principal Tom Chiles of Galesburg High School, to Assistant Superintendent Joel Estes, and to the Superintendent of Schools over there in Knox County!

Contact District 205 Board of Education or email webmaster@galesburg205.org.

I would like to see the State Board of Education get involved in this one. If you’d like to write them a letter to demand that they intervene (I have) here’s where you do it.

Contact the Senators of Illinois:

Obama, Barack- (D) Class III
713 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2854
Web Form: http://www.obama.senate.gov/contact/

Durbin, Richard- (D) Class II
309 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2152
Web Form: http://www.durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Contact the House Representative in Illinois:

Hare, Phil (D) – 17th District
http://hare.house.gov/
Galesburg Office
261 N. Broad, #5
Galesburg, IL 61401
Phone: (309) 342-4411
Fax: (309) 342-9749
Washington Office
1118 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5905
Fax: (202) 225-5396

March 20th will be the four-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation. We’ve succeeded in making a bad situation worse for the people of Iraq. We’ve killed and been killed. We’ve drained our financial resources for the foreseeable future, and handed out contracts to such ilk as Halliburton. The oil profits are still being debated, but does anyone believe that the Iraqi people will benefit? A majority of the soldiers themselves thought they should be out by the end of 2006. In a number of ways, our own government has shown how little they care for the lives of our military “volunteers,” or generally for any human lives – except for embryonic tissues, and that only to get votes. They have attempted to destroy the checks and balances of our system. They have illegally withheld information, they have deceived us, they have replaced our land of freedom with executive abuse of power, spying and surveillance systems, massive corruption, crony capitalism, and the cynical manipulation of religion for power. They have worked to legalize torture and undermine human rights, and have even passed legislation to provide themselves retroactive immunity for war crimes prosecution.

To the extent that the American people have allowed all this to happen, and even participated in it, we are also accountable (or in biblical terms, “blood-guilty“). Our extreme self-insulation, limitless self-adoration, self-congratulatory arrogance, over-worked fatigue and apathy, lack of access to or interest in relevant information and intelligence and so on all work against meaningful changes. We appear to lack understanding about even our own self-interest. Yes, we have a pseudo-religious fanaticism here, but even that pales in comparison to our own suicidal down-spiral.

Here is my nightmare: Most of us will not pay with our lives in any sort of splashy symbolic way (as do desperate terrorists), but we will pay instead by meaningless steps, by degrees, into our deaths (and the deaths of those we love) as the euthanasia of unnecessary lives takes hold. We’ll have workers with no rights or access to accountability or fairness; that’s why Bush wants the guest worker program and the union-busting. The profitable private prison systems will also be a source of labor. There will be no regard for real global systems such as the environment, but only for the big game of capital – a game for the few. You and I are hardly necessary except insofar as we can habitate our role as consumers. The profits will continue to go to the top; we will work more and more for less and less (remember the debate about the four-day work week? ha ha). Privatization, such as what occurred at Walter Reed hospital and elsewhere, will reward profitable incompetence. The medical crisis will get worse. As poverty increases and the gap between the rich and everyone else widens, the social safety net – such as it is – will be cut off, a result of “hard choices.” Safety standards of any kind – gone. The economy collapses. People lose their jobs and then their homes. As desperation and anger escalate violent crimes will exponentially increase. More and more people will simply entrench and cocoon – with the aid of killer drugs like meth, or by a withdrawal of engagement from reality. Neighbor will turn against neighbor. We will lose everything that so many have fought for. We will fail to thrive, we will be unable to thrive.

I fear that we are already past the tipping point. Perhaps the American experiment will end in spectacular (or simply dreary) failure. After the Cold War, can we really still say we “won”? It used to seem so, but there is a kind of return of the repressed here. The Orwellian bad points of the USSR seem to have been rebirthed in the USA, under corporate fascism and governmental abuse of power.

We have a policy of “preemptive war” now. Why isn’t that more shocking to the American people? Really. Have you understood nothing of history?

No matter what happens, we always seem to be able to get up the money for war. Other issues are for some reason not as sexy to the national psyche. Will we be able to count on medical insurance, retirement funds, education for our children and grandchildren? We don’t know. How much money are we printing? We don’t know; they don’t report that anymore. Was the stock market drop a warning from the nations who hold much of our national debt? We don’t know. What could be paid for if we could even just reduce the interest we have to pay on our debt? Have you looked? Will we be able to trust the food we eat, the air we breathe, the land upon which we walk?

Ironically, I see one possibility for a hopeful future coming from the very corporations whose greed extends the international slash-and-burn zone. Corporations who want to survive into the future (and not just cut and run from the country once they’re raped it) will be forced to offer ethics and fairness in order to continue to attract consumers and knowledgeable workers. They have to have consumers. And – they really have to have skilled workers. A massive skilled workforce shortage is on the way in this country as boomers retire or die. Long-range planning would dictate that they not kill off their number-one asset: their people.

Limiting education only to those of the upper financial classes will not be enough to keep the machine going. However, I think that education in America will tilt more and more into technical training rather than education, a kind of Spartan techno-culture. No history, no literature, no cultural understanding, no real analysis, no skill in debate or dialogue. All spin. Like Bush, “all hat, no cattle.”

I want to work through various events, such as the firings, and Halliburton going to Dubai, but at this point I feel as though I have at once too much information and not enough information. I’m slowing down a notch. I’m percolating. I need to steep. Or soak. Or wallow. Or consider. Or something like that. I’ll let you know.

Silly observation: Why is General Petraeus’s name pronounced everywhere as “Betray us”?

I’m not saying it means anything, but it’s kind of like the mouthpiece of the White House being named Tony Snow(job). Just one of those things it’s hard not to notice. I’ve been trying to hope that he knows what he’s doing, but every time I hear the news I can only hear “betray us.” It’s disconcerting.

On a more serious note, I’m disappointed in Speaker Pelosi. There were good ideas and plans on the table, like requiring targets rather than timetables. The Iraq Study group report (despite its ties to the oil industry) came up with some ideas that were summarily ignored by the White House. There have been additional plans, some of them with very good recommendations, which have also gone nowhere. The supplemental bill proposed by Speaker Pelosi will give Bush another $100 billion for the war in Iraq, with hardly any questions asked.

To get congressional votes, Nancy Pelosi seems to have become mired in compromises that would allow the war to drag into 2008. While I can understand the hard realities of her position, there is no excuse for removing the only amendment to the supplemental spending bill that would have forced Bush to get authorization from Congress before attacking Iran. It’s frightening to me. I can see that this White House would lose little sleep over another preemptive war, even if it included nuclear weapons. I would like to see a whole separate bill, requiring that they either call Iraq a “police action” or else be required to formally “declare war” so that they couldn’t avoid constitutional laws. Congress has to approve going to war. That’s the Constitution. The very fact that they feel they have to remind the President about that in the case of Iran is very ominous to me. After all, they know things we don’t know.

If things can still be changed, I doubt that the change will occur on the terrain of issues of war funding or authorizations for war. It seems as though that would be the leverage point, but I don’t think so. It seems as though we can only actually get moving on the less important issues. It is no surprise to me that the voters’ priorities are not really at issue. Hey, the illegal war in Iraq already abuses the terms of the authorization it got from Congress. No, it will have to be something else, something that goes deeper into the systems and networks that have built up to rob and control us.

I have to admit that I’m also disappointed in CodePink, a group of women for peace. I support them, along with the ACLU, the Feminist Majority, and a host of other groups who often work together. Still, this was kind of sad.

Here’s the song parody that CodePink members sang at Nancy Pelosi’s office (from the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” – alternate lyrics by Rae Abileah).

Can’t buy me war, war
Can’t buy me war

Bush wants billions more for war to keep up the bloody fight
Bush wants billions more for war but we know that it’s not right!
‘Cause I voted for you Pelosi, Pelosi can’t buy me war

Our schools are broke, our parks are bare, and we need insurance too,
Our hearts are broke, our soldiers killed, and we’re all counting on you
I voted for you Pelosi, Pelosi can’t buy me war

Can’t buy me war, everybody knows it’s so
Can’t buy me war, no no no, no

Say you aren’t going to fund the war and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want diplomacy, which bombing just can’t buy
I voted for you Pelosi, Pelosi can’t buy me war

Can’t buy me war, war
Can’t buy me war…no!

So that’s the endpoint, something specific, a real action: women singing a parody of a Beatles tune at the Speaker’s office, wearing pink statue-of-liberty hats and camping out in her home driveway. I guess we each do what we can, if we still care. Although I applaud the effort, the execution seems so dated and pathetic. I like what some women are doing in other countries a lot more. More on that on another occasion.

So, then, what?

Americans love images. That’s why camera-phones aren’t allowed in some areas. That’s why journalists can only be “embedded.” Let’s find more of the photographs and footage. Show it.

Let’s hear and tell the stories of all sides. Ethics requires that.

Let’s have the international debates. Real debates.

Let’s also have multi-pronged dialogue. Real dialogue.

There are possibilities. But I think that if anyone left of Attila the Hun wants to be elected President of the United States, s/he had better start doing more. Start with the actions now; those will speak far louder than your little platitudinous speeches and little sideways sniping. I’m so utterly sick of it.

If Rudy G is the best that the reichright-wing can come up with, there is a real chance here.

Let’s get some real investigations going. Journalists, academics, detectives, everyday people – whatever is needed. We have to have a better idea of what is really going on. I want to see money trails, forensic accounting, real oversight. I want to see governmental watchdog organizations headed up by people who are not inextricably tied to the industries they are supposed to be watching. That sort of thing. It’s not rocket science. The conflicts of interest are glaring. Just start looking, and you’ll see.

I want a national discussion and debate among the Presidential candidates. Not this fake thing they do, but an actual debate that goes into some depth on each issue. Each night, debate on one topic – the specifics. If people are too bored by that, then they don’t have to watch. Then I want mainstream network television coverage of the results of fact-checking by at least 2-3 reputable groups.

Ideally, we’d get rid of the two-party system that has served only to reinforce one another’s foibles and drive both sides further from the real issues and priorities of the people they claim to represent. I dream of a more representative (even parliamentary) democracy, where coalitions would need to be formed among several parties. Let’s have a dozen candidates and vote for the top three. The top two winners would be the President and VP.

America is just too diverse for the limited vision and power politics of the duo-party structure.

Well, I don’t expect to see that any time soon. But spring is coming, and I always seem to feel more hopeful when I can feel things – despite everything – still growing at the proper time.

Stay attuned.

Hi, I like this girl, I won’t name her, she is a JW. She recently graduated from High School as #2 in her class. I am a grade below her. Anyways, she took an secretary position at the school instead of going to college. And she has a sister who also graduated with honors, and is working as a legal secretary. I don’t understand, how could one person work so hard in HS only to reject college? Now, I like her and everything, is it wrong to keep questioning her decision even though I did it like once. I know that she is very involved in “preaching”, and I want to know if it might have something to do with her decision. Do JW’s women often go for the lesser jobs, or does the devotion to the religion cause them to choose differently? Help. Thank You. – Vincent

Dear Vincent: Female Jehovah’s Witnesses get significant pressure not to pursue higher education and careers. First, educational ambitions are not rewarded, to say the least. Depending on the country and congregation, college is discouraged and sometimes even prohibited.

Why? First, there is the idea that the door-to-door service is the ideal career choice. Although the sales force for the wealthy Watchtower Bible and Tract organization is unpaid, they feel that they are doing the most important work on the globe – giving everyone a chance to become part of “God’s organization” before this “system of things” is destroyed by God. Since they have believed for a century that the time is short, and since they believe that all members are called to this service, no other career is taken very seriously. College, by definition, is a waste of time.

Like some other authoritarian groups, they have also noticed that higher education tends to, well, educate. A JW who goes to college may learn the difference between a strong interpretation and a weak one; or become accustomed to asking questions and hearing multiple points of view; or find role models – women in positions of leadership, accomplishment, teaching; or develop intellectual curiosity; or be able to make contextual ethical judgments; or find that not all “worldly” things are of Satan. In college, it is not possible to limit one’s reading to the Watchtower publications. The texts are more challenging than in high school, and simple memorization of rote responses is not enough to get a good grade in a college class. You have to develop a critical sense. You have to be able to write and defend a coherent point of view, based on evidence. Such skills are threatening to the organization for the same reasons that they threaten any group that has a firm, and nearly totalitarian, grip on the lives of their followers.

The other problem with college is that members of the congregation tend to be so controlled that when they do get a little freedom, they are not always able to moderate their own behavior – they can make self-destructive choices. Expecting the college environment to be a swarm of temptations, and having an either/or, all or nothing kind of mindset, they may throw themselves into every aspect of that of whatever they find – once they have done even one stupid thing.

Generally speaking, JWs have not been encouraged to find their own voice and their own way, and so the learning curve can be steep – and costly.

A JW that goes to college is thought of as being selfish, rather than as thinking always of God. Considerations of one’s own individual calling, contribution to the larger society, future income potential, and things like that don’t enter into the discussion.

So, from the point of view of the JWS, college wastes time that should be spent in service, and it can change the perspective of the JW in ways (for good and ill) that are out of the control of the Society.

So far, the objections to higher education apply to both women and men.

Women, however, have the added burden of the gender role expectations. Although women usually outnumber men in any given congregation, positions of leadership (they use the opposite terminology of slave and servant) are held only by men. Only men can be elders or ministerial servants or district/circuit overseers or one of the guys in Brooklyn who decide on the rules for all. Only boys carry a microphone (that’s the closest equivalent to an alter-boy). Only male members can stand to address a congregation or an assembly.

Women are very much second-class citizens.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are not alone in this view, of course. Still, it is very clear that the normative role (and career) for a JW woman is to spend as much time in service as possible, find a promising JW man to marry, and raise their children to be upstanding JWs. That’s it. Some people have chosen not to have children, either, considering the times.

An intelligent and capable young woman, such as the one that interests you, gets her only chance to shine in the public schools. After graduation, she will find whatever job she can with that level of education.

And now, back to you, Vincent.

If you wish, you may ask her about her choices. It’s not wrong to do so, although she may feel it is intrusive. She may use it as an opportunity to “witness” to you, or she may tell you that it’s none of your business, or she may confide secret wishes (if she has any). I couldn’t say.

If you are thinking of her in a romantic way, you’ve got a difficult road ahead even if she is interested in you.

For the JWS, dating is to find a marriage partner, period. Eventually, you would have to convert, or she would have to choose to leave the JWs. If you convert, your children would have to raised as JWs. If she leaves, she will be cut off from her family and friends.

If you like her, I would advise you to be her friend – really her friend. You sound very sweet and sincere, and such a friendship might be treasured, if it could be accepted.

Would you join with me to ask Atlanta Stations to carry the show?

Contact WPBA-TV Channel 30 Public Broadcasting Atlanta
General Comments & Television Programming Schedule- Karen Bell
Educational Services Manager, Atlanta Public Schools – Bernice McLean, 678-686-0321

Contact GPB – Channel 8 Georgia Public Broadcasting
General Email
Director GPB Education, Mike Nixon
Education Program Schedule Questions
(404) 685-2649 (Atlanta area) 1-888-501-8960, Ext. 2649 (Toll-free)

Check to see if Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is shown on your PBS station.

I well remember how much those lessons in navigating feelings meant to me. Fred Rogers was a true gem. His kindness was clearly genuine, and he knew how to speak – his very slow pace forced you to listen. When Rogers pretty much single-handedly saved the funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting years ago, his testimony gave even Senator Pastori goosebumps. Rogers’ death in spring of 2003 made front-page news all over the country. The Topeka Capital-Journal in Kansas summed it up: “Goodbye, neighbor — Mister Rogers was the real thing, on or off the air.”

Jack Dominic, chief operating officer of PBS station WCET in Cincinnati, sent this message to executives at other PBS stations:

A group of about 30 preschool kids marched about five blocks from their school to our studios with a banner expressing their love for Mr. Rogers. The faces of these kids, their innocence, their potential was such a fitting tribute to Fred Rogers, and more than enough for us to remember why we are in this business.

I think his work provides an enormous public service. The messages of kindness and acceptance and understanding and self-affirmation are sorely needed in this city – and across the nation. Obviously, it would be great for a new show to pick up where he left off, but I’ve seen all the shows and it doesn’t exist yet.

I think that children (and possibly adults!) would still respond to this show, and more so than some others that are on now. I know that the show airs on several other stations, and I would like to see it back on here too.

I would like my son and his friends to grow up with these messages of care so that they, and their generation, might help to heal our nation.

Here is Fred Rogers’ goodbye – Bring back Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

It’s a Wiki, so anyone can edit the site, but there are rules. You must post factual claims (no op-eds), with links to credible supporting material. No spouting off.

Take a look. It’s interesting reading.

Main Page – WikiThePresidency

Oppose Attack on Iran
Join Gold Star Families for Peace, CODE PINK, Progressive Democrats of America, Democrats.com, Traprock Peace Center, Global Exchange, Velvet Revolution, Democracy
Rising, Truthout, OpEdNews, Backbone Campaign, Consumers For Peace, Campus Antiwar
Network, and The Young Turks in signing a petition to Bush and Cheney opposing the
launching of a war of aggression against Iran. The petition, with all the signatures and
comments you add, will be delivered to the White House by Cindy Sheehan and many other
activists.
Sign Petition at Don’t Attack Iran

Reports that the Bush administration may be planning a nuclear attack against Iran are alarming. A strong statement of opposition from the American public before that idea becomes credible is important. Please sign the MoveOn message to Congress today: we don’t want a nuclear attack on Iran.

A “preventive military strike” upon Iran is illegal under international law. It threatens to destroy 30 years of efforts toward non-proliferation and disarmament, and could even trigger a global war. It’s time to declare a hot pink alert! We weren’t able to stop the last war, but we must stop the next one…NOW! The United Nations, which is the mandated to uphold international law, must speak out against the Bush Administration’s plans.
Send a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan imploring him to denounce this threat and call for a diplomatic solution.

Corrections: Washington Post
The Washington Post’s editorial page has been printing blatantly false statements about the White House’s Iran-is-buying-uranium hoax and Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s exposure of the fraud.
Read more and ask the Post to correct its statements

Impeachment Investigation Resolution 635
Thirty-four members of Congress have signed onto House Resolution 635 which would create a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics. This committee would make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
Ask your Congresspeople to sign on

Reverse the Raid on Student Aid
Tuition rates at four year public schools have skyrocketed by 40% since 2001.1 Today’s typical student borrower is $17,500 in debt after graduating from college. Yet, earlier this year, Congress – in a virtual party line vote forced by the Republican majority – cut $12 billion out of student aid programs – even as interest rates on student and parent loans are being hiked UP this year. Instead of helping to deal with rising costs, the Republican-led Congress is making college more expensive. In response, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) have introduced the Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act of 2006, which would cut interest rates in half for students and parents — a move that would save a typical student $5,600 in interest payments. The Reverse the Raid Act will not move forward if the Republican majority continues to put special interests ahead of students, so please petition House Majority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH) to endorse the Miller-Durbin bill and lead the House to make college affordable.
Call on House Majority Leader John Boehner to immediately lead the House of Representatives to slash the interest rates on college loans in half, and increase student grant aid.

Protest Expansion of Offshore Drilling
For more than two decades, most of America’s splendid coastline has been off-limits to oil and gas drilling. Unfortunately, anti-environment Senators and Representatives have recently introduced a flood of proposals to open our nation’s priceless coastline to oil and gas drilling, benefitting wealthy oil giants like ExxonMobil in the process. Drilling off our coasts is not the answer to America’s energy problems. Destructive offshore drilling would only produce a few months’ worth of fuel that won’t even be available for another seven years. Meanwhile, government data shows that clean energy solutions like fuel efficiency and wind and solar power would cut down on energy usage and lower costs right away. Offshore drilling produces huge amounts of mercury and other toxic pollution that could poison and even kill dolphins, manatees, sea turtles and other marine wildlife. And that’s if everything goes well! The consequences of an accident would be far worse — an oil spill could contaminate Florida’s beaches in as little as 24 hours. The Senate will vote on offshore drilling early this spring.
Please urge your Senators to oppose efforts to open Florida’s gulf coast and others to destructive drilling.

Demand Clean Air
The EPA is accepting public comments on the issue of air quality standards until April 17th. Air quality is not a political issue; it is a most basic human issue. It is critical that Administrator Johnson hear from all of us who care about the quality of the air that we breathe each and every day. The Bush administration needs to hear loud and clear that it’s time to stop catering to corporate polluters and start protecting public health and the environment. Unfortunately, the standards the EPA recently proposed would jeopardize the health and safety of Americans across the country. The science is clear. Particle pollution in the air causes serious health problems, including tens of thousands of premature deaths, increased use of medications, missed school days, emergency room visits, strokes, and heart problems. Millions of Americans are at risk from particle pollution, especially those with asthma and other chronic lung diseases, children, seniors, and those with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The EPA is refusing to propose adequate standards. Despite their mandate, they are caving to some of the nation’s biggest polluters. EPA Administrator Steve Johnson has even ignored recommendations from the EPA’s own staff scientists who agree that the proposed soot limits are too weak to protect public health. Why? See if you can put it together. Johnson recently headlined a fundraiser for a Republican congressional candidate in Denver. Representatives of coal, oil and gas industries paid to have some private time with the head of the agency that affects their businesses.
Please take a moment to insist that the EPA stand up for clean air and a healthy environment instead of bowing to pressure from polluting industries.
Send your comments through the American Lung Assocation campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists, or the
League of Conservation Voters
. Deadline April 17th! Sign today.

Junk Mail Opt-Out
Urge your members of Congress to support the petitions and support citizens’ rights to easily opt-out of wasteful ad mail targeted into our private homes. The production and disposal of unsolicited mail wastes trees, pollutes our water, and consumes more energy than 2.8 million cars at a time when energy security is more important than ever. Worst of all, it forces citizens and local governments spend more than $370 million per year to collect and dispose of unsolicited waste and it violates the privacy of our homes. Three years ago, the Do Not Call registry rightfully returned control over one aspect of citizen’s privacy. A Do Not Junk registry is needed to restore another. As the Supreme Court ruled in Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dept., there should be no distinction between unwanted ad mail, marketing call, door-to-door sales, or any other form of commercialism targeted into our private homes.
Take action

One would create state-funded Bible classes in Georgia public schools.
The second would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed by county governments.

Both bills are on Governor Sonny Perdue’s desk, and he is contemplating whether to sign them.

Take action now and demand that Governor Perdue defend the Constitution and Georgia’s citizens from these attacks on the separation of church and state.

If these were really christians, they would want to post something that better represented Jesus’ teaching. The focus on the ten commandments is symptomatic of their seeming inability to understand love, forgiveness and grace. Neither do they take into account hundreds of years of Jewish and Christian scholarship and debate on issues of interpretation, translation, or socio-historical context. Their “take” on christianity is a perversion of their own religion. Their absolutist views of human beings show little evidence of any of the spiritual virtues. Think I’m overstating? Try Googling “Christian Reconstruction” or “theonomy” – they want a theocracy here, complete with the total control of women, even stoning!

From the Forerunner – I’m not linking to this site – Google a phrase:

We are not looking for a “voice a the table” nor are we seeking “equal time” with the godless promoters of pornography, abortion, safe-sodomy subsidies, socialism, etc. We want them silenced and punished according to God’s Law-Word.

They use God as a tool. Jesus would think they were jerks. This is about votes! This is about scapegoating and turning us against one another so that we don’t notice that we’re all getting robbed. I mean literally robbed – of our traditions, our ideals, our treasury, our natural resources, our futures.

From Apologetics Index:

Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical ”warfare” is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, ‘’sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, ”unchastity before marriage.”

I can’t believe this. Really. I’m shaking my head. So now they want to get ‘em while they’re young – and use our own tax dollars to do it! Already they have uniforms. What next, a special salute?

The separation of church and state protects religious rights, the freedom of religious expression. There should be no state sponsorship of a specific religious tradition. Religious training of minors is the right and responsibility of families and their own religious tradition.

There is no proposal here to teach a wide range of religious texts or religious themes across the world’s traditions. The cuts to more fundamental educational areas serve only to highlight the political motivation of these bills.

Bible classes for minors are an unconstitutional use of funds. At the college level, courses related to religion, such as comparative religion and mythology, spiritual autobiography, Bible as literature, and the like are appropriate as elective courses at state universities. I have been trained in theology and ethics at a state university, and taken courses in religion at the undergraduate level at another. But courses and departments of religion have a different set of approaches than the ones we can expect to see from public school teachers. They started with home schooling, now this. Questions of belief will enter the classroom, and we will see a newly indocrinated “Christian Youth” if they get their way. Wake up, sheeple.

No – you can’t use our tax dollars to indoctrinate our children. No – you can’t fool us, we know what this is all about, and we’re not all as ignorant as you seem to think. Add these totalitarian “religious” power freaks to the neo-cons of empire and the puppets of corporate interests, and you see the unholy trinity that is killing this country and all it stands for! Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, take heed!

Stop the pseudo-religious right from pushing their dubious “theology” in our public schools and our public square.