Election Results: Not as Close as they Seem

I have thought about this at length. The election results may seem that they were super close, on the surface, but there are many more variables to consider.

-How successful the voter suppression laws were in repressing the democratic vote? Intimidation, huge lines and shorter hours being just a few examples.

-How many conservatives were ignorant of the real truth of the issues, purposefully or like my sister, a single mother of two, who “doesn’t have time” to pay attention to political matters and just accepted Romney’s lies as truth.

-Racism, and the belief that voting for racist politicians are not the same thing.

I live in Naples, FL., a smaller and essentially segregated city. The only minorities we “know” have menial jobs who don’t live in the community.

There is great potential to reach many of these conservatives, not to become progressives, but to understand that being blanketly anti-democrat is anti-democratic, and by extension, anti-American.

Only about 25% of conservatives are theocratic, dominionist, 0% compromising tea-party types imbued with deeply ingrained sociopathic tendencies who would pass laws to have LGBT Americans, amongst other “sinners,” imprisoned and/or put to death.
 
The conservative party is split, reasonable Republicans who believe in facts would work with Democrats to get something rather than nothing -- an often times good thing as it gives we liberals valid perspectives that we would never conceive of on our own.

The others would rather die or kill than change.

But don’t get me wrong. Though the Obama victory has alleviated my terror of a Romney administration, the closeness of this election makes me ashamed to be an American today. Or better put, disheartened to the core that so many Americans feed on ignorance, illogic and dishonesty, and that so many more do not consider the freedom to vote to be a powerful privilege to make your convictions known and possibly matter.

Lovers of Hating Marriage Equality

To all the groups, organizations and individuals who consciously, willingly and knowingly, spread false, slanderous, scurrilous, demonizing and dehumanizing anti-gay propaganda and rhetoric in regard to the marriage amendments in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Washington, and toward the pro-gay judge in Iowa, this one goes out to you:

 

Cannibalism Analogous to Same-Gender attraction

Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch finds Conversion therapist, Floyd Godfrey on the Linda Harvey show with an interesting take on the nature of homosexuality.

Tashman: "Mission America president Linda Harvey this weekend hosted ex-gay therapist Floyd Godfrey, who describes his own path to “healing” his homosexuality by befriending more men..."

Godfrey: I … went on to take beginning softball, basketball, weight lifting and gymnastics … I even got a job at a Chevron gas station so I could be around guys and learn mechanics. Little by little, I felt myself growing as a man … I was becoming what I was attracted to in others ["True" heteroseuxal masculinity].

Tashman: ..."Harvey and Godfrey claimed gays and lesbians were most likely abused as children or have such envy for same-sex peers that they develop sexual feelings for them… just like cannibals who eat their own leaders."

(Just FYI, Harvey’s Mission America site should only be viewed on an empty stomach.)

To distill Godfrey's use of cannibalism as a means to describe the nature of (male) homosexuality: Gay men are devoid of true masculinity and therefore feel compelled to "consume" it from other men.

So, full picture, in order to sate one’s same-sex “appetite” for men, they should bond with them non-physically, but to bond with another man physically -- and on every other level of being -- only prolongs one’s “appetite” for them???
---
Incalculable irony notwithstanding, both believe homosexuals can fully transform into heterosexuals.

Harvey, via the Family Research Council (pdf): "Thousands of men and women have testified to experiencing a change in their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual."

And Godfrey, from his own healing homosexuality site: "There are scores of individuals who have experienced a shift in their orientation from homosexual to heterosexual."

(Those statements sound remarkably similar, not that I'm implying anything...)

Not even Exodus International “the largest informational referral ministry in the world addressing homosexual issues” makes such an absolutist claim. The president of the organization, Alan Chambers, admits he’s never even heard of such a complete, or even any sort or kind of consistent level of transformation, by a factor of 99.9%.

But Godfrey, he'll set you straight right over the phone, for a cost (not including the price):

If you are interested in contacting us about professional counseling, our offices are located in Mesa, Arizona. If you are not within distance of attending sessions, you may schedule telephone sessions. The cost is $100-$120 per session and sessions run 45-50 minutes.

Oh, and,

Yes, make sure your therapist knows about the lifetime of trauma caused by coming out of your mother's womb.

~~~

Godfrey: ...Dr. Elizabeth Moberly had talked about homosexuality like cannibalism because we’re so hungry. And that is what it feels like to those who struggle with homosexual feelings...

Sexual feelings are a form of hunger, Godfrey, which makes everyone with sexual feelings cannibalistic. In fact, the metaphor can be quite apropos, and when lyricized and set to music, delightfully entertaining.

toto coelo - i eat cannibals

An inspirational take on Charlie Chaplin’s “The Greatest Speech Ever Made”

"One of the most important speeches in recorded history was given by a comedian by the name of Charlie Chaplin. If you like what you see please share the video any way you can and pass the message on." 

That copy links to 14 different subtitled translations.

This copy has the full trancript:

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor, that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate;
has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in:
machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical,
our cleverness hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little:
More than machinery we need humanity;
More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish. . .

Soldiers: don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers: don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written:
- "The kingdom of God is within man"
Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers! In the name of democracy: let us all unite!