From the Halls of Philadelphia to the Shores of Tripoli

Any wishful thinking that the Tea Party might push the religious right off the Republican stage for the moment was ill-founded and we should have known better. As soon as Republicans picked up seats in Congress but naturally couldn't fix the economy or unemployment, they immediately returned to pushing irrelevant wedge issues designed to rile up their base. Frankly, this was as predictable as the night following the day. As more nonsense is sure to come, let me address the periodically recurring and patently false claim that we have always been a specifically Christian nation, but secular socialists are trying to undo this long tradition.

Our government, unlike all that preceded it, was built on the enlightened principles of reason and popular sovereignty. Our founders believed that the just power to govern was derived from the consent of the governed, while other societies held the more primitive and superstitious belief that governing authority reflected divine providence. The U.S. Constitution's Preamble, which sets the tone for the rest of that document, begins, "We the people", and by that authority alone we "ordain and establish" the world's first such constitution. That entire document lacks a single reference to God, let alone Jesus Christ, and the only references to religion are to disentangle it from the legitimate authority of our government. Article VI prohibits any religious test for holding public office, and the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a religion or interfering with the free exercise thereof. This was wisely done to protect the institutions of both church and state from one another.

As I turn on the news and see unrest in Libya followed by reporting on an anti-Islamic witch hunt in Congress, I'm reminded of The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and Tripoli, which was drafted in late 1796 during the Washington administration and ratified in 1797 in the early days of the Adams administration. On May 26, 1797, the treaty was read aloud to the Senate and was unanimously approved. This was only the third instance of such unanimity among the hundreds of times that a recorded vote was required in the Senate. Article 11 of that treaty reads as follows:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Can you imagine Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) voting to approve a treaty proclaiming that we're "not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"? Can you picture Glenn Beck's hysterical reaction if such language were drafted today? Both men would be outraged that we would betray our founders in that way, which should provoke laughter from anyone who knows that these words are in fact our founders'. We can listen to what Glenn Beck says the Founding Fathers say or we can listen to what the Founding Fathers say the Founding Fathers say. The choice is ours; we can either open our minds or we can wallow in a pit of fear and ignorance.

None if this is to deny that many of our founders espoused some form of Christianity, however, that's really neither here nor there. The ideas and principles that set the United States apart from the rest of the world came from Christians, Deists and Unitarians who were students of The Enlightenment. These men valued reason over church dogma and were often fiercely critical of organized religion. Christianity was popular in the Colonies but we need to be careful with our assumptions. We shouldn't claim a Christian foundation for a society that was built on universal truths and natural rights rather than anything mystical any more than we should conclude that the faith of "turn the other cheek" provides the theological underpinning for the musical genre of "I'ma bust a cap in yo' ass" just because some rapper wears a gold cross and thanks Jesus when he wins an award. While our society was and is imperfect, it became the envy of the world and the model for others to copy. It would be an unconscionable rejection of our national birthright to take a giant leap backward towards a medieval theocracy.

War Is Peace Freedom Is Slavery Ignorance Is Strength

The title of this post is taken from George Orwell's novel, 1984. Specifically, these were the slogans that were displayed on the Ministry of Truth building. I'm not suggesting that Orwell was prescient or that our society resembles the dystopian nightmare laid out in that book, but I can't resist commenting on how these words are important to the book 1984, the year 1984 is so important to conservative Republicans, and how these words from the book express the right wing philosophy.

The movement conservatives who currently dominate Republican politics look upon the "Reagan Revolution" with unparalleled reverence. 1984 is perhaps the most celebrated year in terms of Reagan's presidency. In that year he was reelected President with a 49 state landslide. Although purely coincidental, it's still amusing that these slogans from the book 1984 would capture the essence of political thought for right wing Republicans who cherish Reagan and 1984.

War is peace is the most obvious. At one time, conservative Republicans were opposed to foreign entanglements and simply wanted to be left alone to make money, but now Neo-conservatives love war, despise diplomacy, and can scarcely fathom the concept of peace without a body count. Whether it's war abroad or more guns at home, actual or threatened bloodshed is their only path to tranquility.

Ignorance is strength has also become a doctrine for the far right. They routinely spurn science, nuanced thought, and anything that challenges their preferred orthodoxy, in favor of a mindless adherence to a party line teeming with misinformation, unchallenged erroneous assumptions, and wishful thinking. This willful ignorance is the reason such a disturbing number of Republicans believe that President Obama is a Muslim or was born overseas or that Glenn Beck is worth listening to as he weaves his tapestry of nutty conspiracy theories. The right has built a great deal of its strength because the ignorant masses in their ranks mindlessly repeat what they hear rather than doing 45 seconds of research, and I'm not even counting the religious right.

The third contradiction, freedom is slavery is perhaps the most troubling. The right wing's confusion between freedom and slavery is central to their agenda, and it will harm society for generations if we don't push back now. When the almighty overlords completely subjugate the masses, most people would call this slavery. The political right calls it their freedom agenda. Whenever there's a conflict between powerful forces and average citizens, the answer for conservatives is to strip whatever power the little guy has in order to make an already uphill fight unwinnable. If a battalion of machine gunners fought some poor schmuck armed with a rock, conservatives would correct this imbalance by taking away the guy's rock.

If workers have some leverage against powerful corporations or governments, eliminate their bargaining power, as they're trying to do in Wisconsin. If we pass laws that protect consumers against abusive and corrupt practices in the financial world, gut the enforcement mechanism, as they're now trying to do in Congress. For years, the only suggestion Republicans made to combat skyrocketing health care costs was to limit an injured person's right to seek redress through the courts. A little guy going up against a giant hospital corporation and an insurance company wasn't unfair enough for them; they had to give the mighty an artificial advantage to supplement the natural dominance they already had. After all, a court case involves lawyers against lawyers and an impartial judge and jury. Such a fair system is intolerable because justice is anathema to the right.

By freedom, conservatives mean the freedom of the few to enslave the many, and we need to stop them. Being rich and powerful has always had its advantages and we don't need to sweeten the deal for those at the top. Moreover, most Republicans will be hurt by their own agenda. Yes, A few will score big and be thankful that we discarded our former national greatness in order to further tip the scales in their favor, but most conservatives are, metaphorically speaking, Titanic passengers who have been too blinded by greed and ignorance to see their self-destructive stupidity in supporting the iceberg. The rest of us mustn't be so foolish.

Either Stand by Your Words or Shut the (BLEEP!) Up!

The right wing hate machine just can't seem to help itself.  The usual suspects, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, etc., are simply being themselves, which is to say acting shamefully.  Yesterday Sarah Palin released a video in which she lashed out at those who decried the incendiary tone of the hate machine's rhetoric, especially those who suggested it might have influenced Jared Loughner. Since Palin and others were at least partly blamed for this tragedy despite the fact that their vitriol appears to have no causal link, she had the perfect opportunity to take the high road and come out smelling like a rose, but unsurprisingly she chose not to. In her video she said that acts of criminality "begin and end with the criminals."  No one else bears any share of the blame.  In the very next paragraph, without a trace of irony, she says that because words are not responsible for inciting hatred and violence, people who claim otherwise are reprehensible because their words are responsible for inciting hatred and violence.

Huh?!

Of course in that same sentence she made the great faux pas of referring to the assertions of journalists and pundits as "blood libel", which was very offensive to many in the Jewish community.  The stupidity is compounded when you consider that Palin was trying to express either real or feigned concern for Gabby Giffords as she lies in a hospital bed clinging to life, and that Giffords is the first Jewish woman Arizona ever elected to Congress.  Palin obviously didn't write the speech herself and since her ignorance is well known, we can excuse her offensiveness since she was in all likelihood completely oblivious.  Palin was merely reading aloud.  Although she lacks the intellect and eloquence to have written that speech, I have to give her full marks for finding a writer who could capture the Palin essence of petty vindictiveness.

Turning to Glenn Beck, in more theater of the absurd, Beck was outraged that anyone in the media would offer this sort of innuendo, painting someone as contributing to something bad without specific proof.  (Hello, Kettle?  Yeah, hi, it's the pot.  I'm just calling to say you're black.)  Every single day Glenn Beck goes on the air and pushes his wild-eyed conspiracy theories, gesticulating wildly as he tries to terrify his audience into believing that anyone to the left of the far, far right is seeking to enslave us all in a country that will be indistinguishable from Nazi Germany.  His ranting sounds as though it should be coming from a chronic drooler who has to wear a hockey helmet at all times.

Beck and Limbaugh make their living by spreading fear and hatred every day for the entirety of their broadcasts.  They want us to believe that the consequences are apocalyptic if we stray from their brand of arch conservatism, yet they become enraged at the suggestion that they might drive someone over the edge just because they constantly bombard their disciples with their message that left of center America is the Great Satan that must be confronted with the fury of a holy war or we face imminent destruction.  Now Beck is out there saying he hates violence and doesn't want anyone harmed.  Well, which is it?  Were you lying then or are you lying now?  If all men are mortal and John is a man then John must be mortal; it's called a syllogism.  If anything comparable to Hitler's reign of terror must be stopped by any means at our disposal and the current administration fits that description, then it must be stopped by any means at our disposal.  Beck supported preemptive war in Iraq and has foamed at the mouth about appeasement of monstrous regimes, so a claim that he means wait for the voters to replace President Obama is a dog that just won't hunt.  So again I ask, Glenn, were you lying then or are you lying now?  Either this evil must be stopped by any means if we are to avoid national Armageddon, or the hate speech you use to poison the minds and souls of people with a pervading unease and a great amount of undirected anger is a patent fraud perpetrated by a loathsome fraction of a man who is too cowardly to own up to being the charlatan that he is.  If you aren't prepared to defend what you say on your broadcasts then SHUT THE (BLEEP!) UP!

Decency and Humanity Lie in Ashes

When chastised for his biased editing of the British Gazette, Winston Churchill quipped, "I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire." This was a great laugh line because the entire English speaking world understood that everyone would be on the side of the heroic firefighters who save people's homes and against the fires that destroy them. Sadly however, this week it's no longer as funny since some right wingers in this country have allied themselves with the flames, applauding a decision in rural Olbion County, Tennessee ordering firefighters to stand idly by and allow a home to burn to the ground because the homeowner didn't pay a $75 dollar fee.

The residents not only lost all of their earthly possessions, but their three dogs and a cat were also burned alive in the blaze. For those of you who aren't animal lovers, I ask you this, what if these pets were children instead? Should we let them die for fear that otherwise people may feel less compelled to pay the $75 fee, or should our basic humanity dictate that a bare minimum level of decency must be maintained, even in the face of a possible revenue decline, which can then be addressed? The homeowner offered to pay the fee, and both he and his neighbor offered to pay the firefighters whatever it cost to put out the fire, but they were told it was too late at that point.

I want to discuss two related though very different groups of people. First, there are those who support the fiscal decision to offer or refuse basic public safety resources like a fire department based on an opt-in fee. They philosophically prefer small, a la carte government and this "pay-to-spray" policy represents such an ideology put into practice. The other group is comprised of those who take delight in this family's tragedy. I want to discuss the second group first.

Glenn Beck and his sidekick spent some time on the radio show not only supporting the decision that forbade the firefighters to extinguish the fire, but also mocking the victim over and over. Beck's point, when he could interrupt his lackey's salting the wounds of the now homeless family, was that if we show any human decency and come to the aid of those who failed to pay the $75, they would be sponging off their neighbors. The one and only thing that both Beck and his co-host blurted out in perfect unison was that if the firefighters had put out the fire, "NO ONE" would play the $75. This speaks volumes about Glenn Beck. In his mind, unless people are allowed to suffer the most gut-wrenching, heartbreaking consequences, 100% of the people will be dishonorable 100% of the time. Luckily, as usual, he's wrong. Most people who expect to receive services pay the required fees whether or not it's possible that they could get away with gaming the system. While we all know this, we need to understand that someone whose entire life revolves around spreading fear and hatred is incapable of seeing humankind's better nature. Of course Beck would never have empathy for the victim because, as he said on national television, empathy leads to genocide. Don't ask me to explain; I can't untangle the twisted and tortured mind of Glenn Beck.

As far as the more tepid supporters of this sad event are concerned, I have to ask you, is this is really the world in which you want to live? First of all, this is a sufficiently obvious pubic good that it should never be considered a luxury item people choose to buy. Even if you somehow reject the notion of fire prevention as part of the public weal, there are any number of better schemes to keep revenues in line with costs than refusing to save the life of someone who failed to pay a small fee. Also, let's consider human error. If you dislike the public sector so much that you would make fire protection a free market option, you very likely believe the government is inept and that clerical errors will abound. If you're right, should the people who live at #145 and paid their fee be left to lose their home or worse because a clerk erroneously posted their payment to #154? Come on, people, we're better than this.

From "I Have a Dream" to "I Have a Delusion"

What a difference 47 years can make. On this date in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That address helped inspire a nation to finally take on the difficult task of abolishing a deeply ingrained system of oppression and injustice. As such, it was a transformative event in the annals of American history. Today, 47 years later, right wing broadcaster Glenn Beck is holding a rally on the same site. I want to discuss some of the similarities and some of the differences between Martin Luther King and Glenn Beck.

First, with respect to the similarities, both men always seemed to make a lot of angry white people angrier, King because he threatened the unjust white stranglehold on power and Beck because deliberately provoking white fear and anger is how he makes his living. While his broadcasts may also happen to contain other elements, his principal objective is to fan the flames of wild-eyed paranoia. Removing this from Glenn Beck's show is like taking the guitar away from Jimi Hendrix.

Another similarity is that Dr. King, as a visionary, could see things that didn't yet exist such as a far more just society. One of Glenn Beck's most prominent characteristics is his unusual tendency to see things that don't exist such as secret FEMA concentration camps or how empathy leads to genocide. The former example was so wacky that Beck ultimately had to go on the air and admit these camps didn't exist. You know something is nuts if it's too far out there for Glenn Beck! That's like being too fast to be a sprinter or too beautiful to be a model -- it's hard to even fathom the concept.

With respect to differences, Dr. King always took the high road and spoke from and to the better side of human nature no matter what horrific examples of man's inhumanity to man he encountered. Martin Luther King encouraged his followers to reject bitter emotions and embrace the nobler Christian ideals of charity and compassion as they struggled to make the world a better place. Glenn Beck does the exact opposite, doing everything in his power to bring out the worst in people. Although this clip is just a piece of comedy, Lewis Black's "Glenn Back Has Nazi Tourette's" illustrates how Glenn Beck can liken anything, no matter how innocuous, to Nazism. He uses Nazi Germany because this is the most hideous nightmare the masses can easily picture. By constantly comparing whatever he dislikes to the most terrifying evil he can conjure up, he achieves his goal of injecting the maximum amount of fear and hatred into the hearts and minds of his audience.

All of this said, I watched most of today's event online and I found it pretty inoffensive. Those who said this would be apolitical proved to be right and those of us who said in effect, "yeah, right!" were wrong. I didn't see him, Sarah Palin, or anyone else say anything too obnoxious. Even if they did once or twice and I missed it, that's perfectly acceptable playing to the crowd. Seeing the rally play out as it did was like expecting a Rolling Stones concert to be full of their hits from the last 45 years, only to see them perform nothing but two hours of polkas. For those of you who missed the event altogether, here's the Reader's Digest version: Our soldiers are heroes and God is great. Except that people have differing views on religious matters, this was about as controversial as asserting that Siberia gets nippy in the winter. I expected to see something resembling the Glenn Beck Show and instead I saw an Amway rally or Come to Jesus Revival Meeting.

I hope this saner, more decent Glenn Beck is a sign of things to come.

The Sky Is Falling...Again

After what feels like an interminable period of discussion, debate, compromise, and a tremendous amount of ranting and raving, Congress is now poised to cast a vote on a health care reform package later today. Of course, coincidental to that scheduled vote is the deadline for any last ditch fear-mongering. Once again, we have no shortage of Chicken Littles driving a legion of frightened Henny Pennies to hysteria with false claims that the sky is falling. As usual, yes, it's the end of the world (yawn). We are, at long last, taking action to fix some of the problems in our health care system, and this is provoking widespread panic that we will now be in the evil clutches of communism, fascism, of some other ism that some hopelessly deluded white guy can blame as the reason he won't earn $47.2 million next year, even though he has never earned more than $40,000 a year in his life and offers the free market nothing that would cause that to drastically change under any circumstance.

Sure, I can get a kick out of watching Rep. Steve King (R-IA), talk to Glenn Beck about the sacrilegious horror of this vote happening on the Sabbath in Lent, or Rep. Ron Broun (R-GA), lashing out against the bill as he makes sure to squeeze in a reference to "The Great War of Yankee Aggression." For those of you living in the 21st Century, he's talking about the Civil War, which ended for reasonable people 145 years ago. I'll admit that this has been mildly amusing theater of the absurd, but enough is enough. The dogs have barked and it's time for the caravan to move on. We've already paid far too much attention to silliness ranging from death panels to claims that this is literally the end of United States. When the most frightening bogeymen said to be lurking in this bill naturally don't materialize, I fully expect many of the ranters to say they never made such ridiculous claims. Depending on whether or not they actually believed their own nonsense, they will either go from ignorance to dishonesty or from one lie to another.

For those of you who are still terrified that this represents a Constitutional crisis the likes of which we've never seen before, as you cite Thomas Jefferson on the evils of a powerful central government, let's go to the history books, shall we? Over 200 years ago, President Jefferson spent the taxpayers' hard-earned money to buy land and double the size of the country. That too was thought to be an outrageous breach of the Constitution. Like the current health care debate, this was extremely divisive, and a vote to block the Louisiana Purchase barely failed in the House by a vote of 59-57. Let me go way out on a limb here and suggest that even health care would get pushed off the front page if President Obama went out and bought Canada.

We made the Louisiana Purchase. THE SKY DIDN'T FALL; the country subsequently grew and prospered, and now Jefferson is revered as the very model of someone believes in a tightly restrained central government. FDR passed a series of measures people claimed were Socialist and would destroy our country. THE SKY DIDN'T FALL; the country subsequently grew and prospered, and now FDR's image is on our dime. LBJ passed Medicare and Medicaid. THE SKY DIDN'T FALL; the country subsequently grew and prospered, and now those opposed to the current health care reforms are screaming about how it will take money away from Medicare. Do you see a pattern emerging? However the vote goes, we'll be just fine.

The Ugly American

Rewind to September 2001, and you'll see that in the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attacks, our airports are shut down and the world has opened its heart to a battered and shaken nation. Fast forward to January 2010 and the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti is shut down because the world has opened its heart to a battered and shaken nation. They simply can't accommodate the enormous outpouring of aid. That hasn't stopped the overwhelming flow of charity as people wait for things to get sorted out so they can help. At times such as these we see humanity at its best. I'm proud that the United States, as it so often does, is taking a lead role in helping the devastated people. Oh how I wish that was all I could see, but the United States is also home to Rush Limbaugh and others like him.

Rush wasted no time in playing to his base of angry, often bigoted, white men and the women who love them. There is a chicken and egg relationship between the rise and subsequent dominance of far right-wing talk radio and the rising perception among angry white men that they were the group most adversely affected by discrimination. I know such a claim sounds as incredible as Shaquille O'Neal fearing that he's too short to go on the good rides at Disneyland, but I swear they really think that! Of course, they have it backwards and the three greatest gifts at birth for outperforming meritocracy are, in descending order, a huge trust fund, a powerfully connected family, and a white penis.

For starters, Rush primed his merry band of snivellers with the old standby - an attack on President Obama and how he's doing this to please black people. He then went on to discourage donations to Haiti by saying we already give to Haiti through our taxes. Rush is a despicable excuse for a human being, but he's not stupid. He knew exactly how those words would be taken by his audience. Allow me to translate from English to Dittohead, "The government already steals your hard earned money just so they can give it to undeserving minorities." Then to top it off, he couldn't resist one more kick to the poor people of Haiti as they lie prostrate on the ground. Here is the link. Check it out for yourselves; I've typed enough of his filth for one day.

Alas, there are others cast in the Limbaugh mold. Listen to Glenn Beck claim that Obama is dividing America by quickly coming to the aid of Haiti. Obama isn't dividing America, Beck and those like him are dividing America by deliberately fanning the flames of fear, anger, frustration, hatred, bigotry, and ignorance. Worst of all, the pretenders and wannabes who stand in the shadows of these elite hate merchants have to be even more outrageous if they want to make their bones and gain wider notoriety. Enter Jim Quinn. This guy doesn't even try to pretend he's not deliberately exploiting white anger and resentment. In his rant on President Obama and Haiti he said, in so many words, that President Obama ignored "Fly-over country white guy America" when it needed help because it wasn't a third world country. Of course, if Obama had offered more aid, Quinn would have likened that federal bailout to Hitler anyway, leaving both host and audience in the enviable position of heads we win; tails you lose. For good measure, he went on to claim that Haiti was poor because it was communist, revealing an ignorance that will likely be lost on his followers.

Finally, there's Pat Robertson's twaddle about a deal with the devil. I almost gave this a pass because I think at this point he's more a doddering fool than an evil man, but I can't manage to let it stand without comment. To say, in essence, "serves you right" to innocent disaster victims who are suffering so deeply is an unconscionable disgrace. Robertson's nonsense may get a rousing amen from his followers who are too gullible and superstitious to understand that this catastrophe has more to do with plate tectonics than an invisible bogeyman in the sky smiting these poor people, but it should disgust anyone who believes in human decency or any prescription for living that Jesus would abide. I find it interesting that being fundamentally unchristian is perhaps the single most salient feature of Christian Fundamentalism. If that doesn't set a new ground speed record for irony, it ought to.

Calling All Angels

This post is named after a Jane Siberry song that was used in the movie Pay it Forward to provide foreground music for the film's powerful ending scene. However, I'm really using the word angels to refer to our "better angels" as Lincoln did in his first inaugural address, about five weeks before Fort Sumter was fired upon. These were the closing words of that speech, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory...will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

The battle between our demons and our better angels is one that is constantly being waged within each of us on a personal level, and by our society on a broader level. Over the long haul our better angels tend to prevail, at least on a societal level, but how much misery we inflict upon ourselves and one another in the interim depends on how much we indulge our demons. I'm saddened by the way we have given in to our worst selves lately. There was a lesson in The Karate Kid that, while given in reference to martial arts, can just as easily be applied to politics or how we shape our society. Mr. Miyagi's said, "Karate here" (pointing to his head); "karate here" (pointing to his heart); "karate never here" (pointing to the pit of his stomach). Sadly, we are going in the opposite direction with intellectual rigor, compassion and empathy too often being unseated by anger and bile as the locus of our public discourse.

What ever happened to the benefit of the doubt? Right now, if a statement can be taken two ways, one of them benign and one not, we not only assume the worst, but we take it and run with it, attaching a series of things that will follow as a logical consequence, then scream at the top of our lungs, we're all doomed, doomed I say, doomed!! Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are literally making their living at the moment by swearing that an Obama administration means nothing less than literally the complete and utter annihilation of everything America has ever been. While most of us, even thoughtful conservatives who disagree with the president, can laugh off the absurd hyperbole, the number of people who have come unglued by the endless ranting of doomsayers is probably in the millions. Fox News Channel should change its motto from "Fair and Balanced" to "Keeping Angry White People Angry Since 1996." Of course, Fox News has branched out and they now keep angry white people angry and scared.

I'll leave you with an illustration of my point. We grew up venerating Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Now imagine Obama saying the same thing. Talk radio hosts and listeners would be in a blind rage, and in some cases literally crying, over this indisputable proof that Obama's true agenda is to dismantle the America our forefathers fought and died for. Here's one possible example of the blathering, "See, this is what I've been warning you about ladies and gentleman! This radical communist is showing his true colors. This guy wants to throw out 230 years of the rugged individualism that made this country the greatest the world has ever known. Comrade Obama doesn't want you to keep the fruits of your labor that you so richly deserve from your blood, sweat and tears! He wants you to ask yourselves what you can do to contribute to his statist agenda. I swear to you ladies and gentleman if we don't stand up and stop this radical now, the American dream will be dead and the country we love will no longer exist." Kennedy's words would be the same whether spoken by him in 1961 or by Obama 2009, but the meaning we would give them depends on whether we accept the translation of our demons or our better angels. The choice is ours.