Bill Brown's Email

Here is a copy of the email I received today, which is being passed around by crazy old people who watch too much Fox News.

I thought it might be nice to comment on my findings on Obama. If you have factual discrepancies, please comment. (My comments on this are noted in red)




Subject: *** SPAM *** Obama by Bill Brown

Bill Brown, is a highly respected retired member of the Billy Graham team. (Why does working for Billy Graham make your opinion above reproach.)

So, I take his assessment of Obama very seriously and for that reason accept his challenge to pass this on. I share his concern about the "rock star" image Obama has and watch with growing concern at the celebrity status the media has foisted upon him. Here is hope this e-mail informs you in a wise way.


The Obama Tidal Wave
We are witnessing a political phenomenon with Barack Obama of rare magnitude.His speeches have inspired millions and yet most of his followers have no idea of what he stands for except platitudes of "Change" or that he says he will be a "Uniter".The power of speech from a charismatic person truly can be a powerful thing. Certainly Billy Graham had charisma and both his manner of speech and particularly the content changed millions.On the extreme other hand, the charisma of Adolph Hitler inspired millions and the results were catastrophic.Barack Obama certainly is no Hitler or a Billy Graham, but for many Americans out there feeling just like a surfer who might be ecstatic and euphoric while riding a tidal wave, the real story is what happens when it hits shore. (This entire paragraph is bull shit. Just to introduce Adolf Hitler into the conversation is inflamatory. And you know who else was a charasmatic speaker? Ronald Reagan!)


Just Some of What Defines Barack Obama:
He voted against banning partial birth abortion. Never voted that way
He voted no on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. Nope, never voted that way
Supports affirmative action in Colleges and Government. What is wrong with this?
In 2001 he questioned harsh penalties for drug dealing. What is wrong with questioning the law?
Says he will deal with street level drug dealing as minimum wage affair . This is an economic issue, so it makes sense.
Admitted marijuana and cocaine use in high school and in college. So did George Bush, wait, he won't admit it.
His religious convictions are very murky.
(This one pissed me off. What does his religious views have to do with anything. There is no litmus test in the Constitution that requires the President to believe in Jesus, Mohammad, Invisible Superheros or the Great Tea Kettle in the Sky!)

He is willing to meet with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jung Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(Great idea! Let's exhaust diplomacy before getting our sons and daughters killed.)
Has said that one of his first goals after being elected would be to have a conference with all Muslim nations. (In 1990, I met Dick Cheney as he ran from one Muslim country to the next putting together the Coalition of the Willing to push Sadam out of Kuwait.)
Opposed the Patriot Act. (Worst piece of legistlation passed in the last 50 years.)

First bill he signed that was passed was campaign finance reform. (No problem there!)
Voted No on prohibiting law suits against gun manufacturers. (I can be sued, why can't gun manufacturers?)
Supports universal health-care. (He supports universal health INSURANCE)
Voted yes on providing habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees. (Okay, habeas corpus is the fundamental principle in the Constitution which requires there to be a crime before government can lock you up. Habeas corpus means "produce the body". In other words, you cannot be charged with murder without there being a dead person. This is pretty important. Without habeas corpus, the feds can lock you up for anything at all and never have to charge you with a crime. By the way, Obama never voted to give habeas corpus to the detainees. It was already in the fucking Constitution!)
Supports granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
Supports extending welfare to illegal immigrants.
Voted yes on comprehensive immigration reform.
Voted yes on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security.
(I honestly cannot find the energy to get into the immigration issue here. Let's just say that for all of you who can trace your lineage back more than 10 generations on this land, please step up. Everyone else is an immigrant.)

Wants to make the minimum wage a "living wage". (How is improving the economic reality of the lowest paid people an issue? Also, didn't Jesus say that helping poor people is pretty important? Remember this is a Billy Graham guy!)
Voted with Democratic Party 96 percent of 251 votes. (Democrats are Americans too)
Is a big believer in the separation of church and state. (Okay, you idiots. This is a pretty important part of the Constitution. Read the damned thing before you think this is a bad idea.)
Opposed to any efforts to Privatize Social Security and instead supports increasing the amount of tax paid. (Show me one idea that Bush had that resulted in an improvement)
He voted No on repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax.
He voted No on repealing the "Death" Tax.
He wants to raise the Capital Gains Tax. (I pay alot of taxes. I will happily pay more so my kids don't have to pay off my debt.)
Has repeatedly said the surge in Iraq has not succeeded.... (A couple of days ago, a car bomb blew 52 Iraqis to pieces. Ask them whether they think the surge is working.)

He is ranked as the most liberal Senator in the Senate today and that takes some doing.
(I thought that was Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy.)

If your political choices are consistent with Barack Obama's and you think that his positions will bring America together or make it a better place, then you will probably enjoy the ride and not forward this E-Mail. If you are like most Americans that after examining what he stands for, are truly not in line with his record, it would be prudent to get off the wave or better yet, never get on, before it comes on shore and undermines the very foundations of this great Country. We have limited time to save America or the Supreme Court as we know it.

(Finally, the insinuation that we have a limited time to "save America and the Supreme Court as we know it" is bombastic as the very best. Obama is not a threat to America and neither is McCain. These are two good men who have different philosophies on how to govern the country. Un-checked crap like the email sent does nothing to improve the quality of our democracy. If you disagree with the candidates philosophy, fine. But please don't fall back on the lowest form of debate which is fear based character assasination.)

Inaction is action.

If you agree this is important, pass it on. The mainstream media will not do it for you!

Bill Brown

MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOURS (I don't think God is going to bless this pile of hate.)

Hope Means Something

My father and I are at odds about Obama's message of hope. I am 40 and he is 69. Dad tells me that hope is just a word and words don't matter. To that I ask:

Wasn't Ronald Reagan using words when he inspired us with the "Shining City on a Hill speach?

Wasn't Jesus only using words on the Sermon on the Mount?

Wasn't Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon just words?

Words mean things. Hope means something. Without hope we are left with depair. We need hope, belief and faith in order to bring about change.

I hope for a better country for my children. I hope for justice for all. I hope for peace. I hope for change.

Yes we can.

What is so wrong with hope?

My dad and I are at odds. When I was younger, we both agreed on politics. I was in the Marines under Reagan and George H. Bush. I almost cried when Clinton got elected. I believed that the only way to be patriotic was to be Republican.

After 7 1/2 years of George W. Bush, my mind has changed. Bush pushed us into a war that was not necessary. He blew the budget out of the water and increase deficit spending. He increased the size and scope of government. He merged religion and politics. He split our county in two.

Today, I support Barrack Obama, not because he will cut my taxes or will make my life easier. No, in fact, I fully expect my taxes to rise under his administration. I support Obama because he wants to fix the problems we have in this country. He is not resigned to keep our country in war for the sake of war.

You know, there was a time when America did not run rough-shod over any country that disagreed with us. There was a time when we exhausted diplomacy before the use of force. There was a time when we could do anything.

This is the country that put a man on the moon, and that ended the worst war in history. This is a country that sought to bring out the best in people. We looked to the future and saw a "Shining City on the hill" (Reagan said that.)

I want us to be the great country again. I want us to solve the energy crisis, turn back global warming, cure hunger and disease. I want us to remake our economy where opportunity is everywhere. I was us to follow the rule of law and be the land of the free again.

We do these things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard". (JFK said that.)

Looking to the future and trying to make things better is hope. What is so wrong with hope?

Obama's Message

Last night, my wife and I watched as Barack Obama spoke as the presumptive Democratic candidate for the first time.

I have been a life long Republican. I served 6 years in the Marine Corps. I make a bunch of money and therefore pay a bunch of taxes. I am white, male, educated, and from Virginia. Based on all that, you would think that I would be a supporter of McCain. You would be wrong.

Everyone is ga-ga over Obama being the first black candidate for President (that has a chance, sorry Jesse). They talk about how historic this is that the country has a black candidate. To be honest, his skin color is completely irrevelant. It is about as important to me as is his height, weight or shoe size.

What draws me to support Obama is his message. He is going to raise my taxes, but he is also going to reach out to those left behind in our economy. He is going to bring diplomacy back to our foreign policy. He is going to find a way to end the war in Iraq and to win the war in Afganistan. Will he succeed at everything he talks about? Probably not. But at least his goals are in the right place.

Noah's Ark

I know that the biblical story of Noah and the Ark is exageration at best and folklore at worst. However, among the fundamentalist Christians, the Ark represents a distinct opportunity to "square the circle".

If you ever have time to read some of the Bible tracts put out by Chick Publications (http://www.chick.com) then you will likely agree that the authors are not committed to the idea of logical reasoning. Here are a few of the interesting beliefs put out in the Chick bible tracts about the flood (You can find the tract in question at http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5002/5002_01.asp):

1. Noah took baby dinosaurs (they used to call them dragons) onto the ark.
2. The earth used to have a giant "canopy of water around it".
3. "The canopy sheilded the planet from the sun's harmful rays and created a 'hot house' effect."
4. "Before the floor, weather conditions were perfect and people lived to be 900 years old."
5. "Tidal waves rocked the Earth, tearing out enormous canyons" (This is their explanation for the Grand Canyon)
6. The fossil record was created in those 40 days and nights of rain as sediment buried all living things not on the ark. This explains how we end up with bones buried so deeply in the ground.
7. The Earth is only 6,000 years old.

That ought to be enough evidence for you to see that these tracts are pretty much BS. While I don't have a problem with people writing their own bullshit and passing it along as fact, I do take issue with so many people accepting this stuff on faith.

Before, I go further, I do understand that these tracts represent the extreme. Not all Christians take a literal interpretation of the Bible. The risk is that so many people seem to let this stuff slide by without challenging the ideas as total crap.

If you see a bible tract in your church that says there was a "giant canopy of water" around the earth, then you need to challenge that belief.

The blanket acceptance of anything faithful is exactly how we end up with extremests blowing themselves up. By the way, since you may have forgotten, anti-abortion Christian groups routinely used explosives in their fight against legal abortion. Also, the IRA used explosives for decades. We aren't immune from this stuff.

The First Lie

I have been blogging for some time now. For the most part, my other blogs are business related. As a result, I try not to offend too much. I have avoided some of the deeper thoughts and muses of my consciousness. That all changes here.

I will attempt to have some compelling content for those who are learning to question things around them. I will start with my first epiphany which occurred back in the late 80's...

As a young man, I was told that an atomic bomb saved 100,000 American lives by avoiding a nasty invasion of the Japanese homeland. You were told the same thing. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to get the Imperial Japanese to surrender. Without those bombs, the war could last years longer and the death toll would be worse than anything the war had brought thus far.

Yes, we were told, the bombs were terrible and the destruction of human life in those cities was regretable. We were told it was the only choice. There were not other options.

Here is the option to dropping the bombs:

In the Summer of 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was in ruins. Most of their aircraft carriers were destroyed. Their destroyers and battleships were without fuel. Many of the ships were spread all over the Pacific Ocean. Their army was spread from Korea through to Burma. They were tossed out of the Philipines and mostly destroyed in Okinowa.

Historians should be able to agree that the Japanese military was beat. That is why we were told that the civilian population would be fighting to the death on the beaches if we tried to make a landing.

The option to using the atomic bomb was very simple. We would surround the island nation with our ships and enforce a naval blockade. Our planes would continue to strike military targets with conventional weapons. All energy supplies within the country would be hit and destroyed. Without fuel, the nation would be unable to mount any type of resistance. After several months, the Japanese would likely capitulate without a single American landing on the mainland.

Why did we not try to wait them out first? We had time on our side. Yes, we were running low on money, but that would not be a good enough argument for letting the nuclear jeanie out of the bottle. We rushed into using the bomb simply because we wanted to impress upon the Soviets that we had it.

In the summer of 1945, the Soviets were moving closer to taking parts of Korea and maybe even the mainland of Japan. Using the bomb stopped the Soviet advance and sent the message that we could use the bombs if threated by the Soviets. (Welcome to the cold war!)

The fact is that we were lied to by our government, our teachers, and our parents. Those that did not participate in the lie directly, allowed it to continue by not questioning the premise. Whether they were war weary, anti-Jap, patriotic or just dumb, they turned a blind eye to one of the worst scientific discoveries and uses the world has ever known.

It was a lie then. It is a lie now. And it continues to go unquestioned.

The lie: The atomic bomb was our only option.

The truth: We wanted to drop it for a number of reasons. The Japanese were expendable for our politicial messages.