And the latest: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/02/haggard.allegations/index.html Story Highlights. Top evangelical leader denies Colorado man's claim that pastor paid for sex . Rev. Ted Haggard quits national leadership post, steps aside from church pulpit
. Accuser cites Haggard's support for same-sex marriage ban as motivation . Influential religious figure also denies accusation of drug use----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Haynie" <dhaynie@xxxxxxxxxx>
On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 14:55:01 -0600, Asha DeVelder <asha@xxxxxxxxxx> jammed all night, and by sunrise was heard saying:Tony, On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 20:23:22 +0000, Tony Cooke <tonyjcooke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> was caught saying: >Asha DeVelder wrote:>>> That is all just politics. He won the last election by a clear >>> majority, >>> so he is naturally not going to do the will of those who voted >>> against>>> him.That's unfortunate, but it's also cave-man thinking.. and yeah, Bush is certainly a Neanderthal, so that's appropriate. Good Presidents rise above the event of the election, and attempt to be the President of the entire nation. Great ones actually become that.>> Even with his vote tampering, he won the last election by a slim >> margin.That's not even remotely certain. In Ohio alone, there were possibly hundreds of different forms of tampering and attempted tampering. It's impossible to necessarily track the effect of post-vote tampering on the worst of the machines (the DiBolds, for example) even if you can prove there was tampering. Pre-vote tampering is hard to actually even prove in some cases, much less count.>He didn`t win the last election AT ALL on the basis of the total number >of votes cast! Only as a result of your peculiar election `system`.The US's peculiar election system was further "massaged" by what seriously looks like tampering with the votes as well.At least that's something that COULD be address with the proper technology (either the old stuff: punched cards, or an e-voting machine that wasn't designed by an idiot -- or a person with a specific agenda. I could design a tamper-proof machine in my sleep, but it doesn't start with a PC). What you can't really count in numbers, necessarily, is all of the pre-vote interference. Who's not able to vote because of artificial obstacles? Who doesn't vote, because they've been [mis]led to believe they're not registered?But even with all that, he barely won. What was it 52%? 53%? In my mind, that's barely scraping by even if all the votes attributed to him were actually cast by the voters who walked into those booths.However, he isn't even doing the will of the majority of those who actually voted for him.That was precisely the problem the Republicans in the 60's and 70's struggled with. Inherently in the classic Republican philosophy, only the Rich are served, and curiously, you can't have a majority of rich people... they're an inherent minority. So the courting of the Religious Right was one of the strategies that arose from the numerous, well funded Republican think-tanks. The idea being, if you can capture a majority of "single-issue" (eg, non-thinking) voters, they'll pretty much take whatever else you have to offer. Of course, you do have to posture to keep that vote: thus, the Anti-Abortion, Anti-Gay, etc. rhetoric (with very little actual results) that come along right before any recent election. It helps that the Religious Right, as a group, are less educated, and particularly, less media savvy. They don't understand, well enough anyway, that all that rhetoric is simply a marketing campaign. Perhaps it shifted a bit under Mr. Bush, who certainly did have something of an allegiance to the Religious Right, but clearly that came after his loyalties to Big Oil, and in general, The Rich (eg, "my base... the have's and the have more's").The rich are getting richer, while his voting base are struggling to get by. He isn't even delivering on his promises to the Religious Right, some of whom are beginning to get disillusioned with him (it's about time!)Well, thing is, MOST of the Republican fodder for the Religious Right is just so much hot air. It pretty much has to be. I mean, think of all of the promises they've been making since they started that dance. If they actually came through on any of this stuff (at least intentionally), then they'd be looking for something else to promise them. And in the meantime, at least the less nutty in that crowd might start noticing things. Like, just how un-Christian the Republicans, as a whole, are behaving. Or perhaps that other than that lip service, the Republican vote has left them much, much worse off... that this is only good for Rich People (and then, only for the short term). -- Dave Haynie | dhaynie@xxxxxxxxxx | High Definition EVERYTHING! Chief Toady | Frog Pond Media | Audio/Video/Hardware/Software Consulting "The Deathbed Vigil" on DVD, now!! http://www.frogpondmedia.com/dbv