Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Segment 1: How the pacifism of Desmond Doss was an inspiration

Segment 2: How the pacifism of the Christian Peacemaker Teams is really street theater.

Segment 3: Post-modernist thought as applied to the Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Segment 4: Discuss an article on DailyKos.

Segment 5: Discuss an article by Bernard Weiner on democratic underground.

Segment 6: Discuss a campaign on moveon.org to censure Bush.

NOTE: I do not claim that all of the above is original. Where I have been able to do so, I have given links. If I have plagerized someone else's works without attribution, please give me the link and I shall make an update.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 1

We are having our Spring fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or 779-KEOS or donate securely at www.keos.org.

Remember that I am but a voice from the velvet black calling to you across the gulf of our mutual incomprehension.

A hero died last Thursday in Piedmont, Alabama. He was 87. He had lived a rich, full life and is mourned by many. When he came home from World War II, he spent most of the last 60 years in the tiny mountain community of Rising Fawn, Georgia. Burial will take place on Monday, April 3, at 11 a.m. at the Chattanooga National Cemetery.

Desmond T. Doss was a devout member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, he believed that the Bible said, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", and that was the end of it. He would not eat meat after seeing a chicken flopping around with its head cut off. In fact, he was a bit a klutz, because he was always bumping into things and hurting himself. Thus he seemed an unlikely candidate to become a war hero.

In the run up to World War II, the draft was re-instituted. Doss, at the time, was working as a joiner at a shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. This was considered an essential industry to the military so he had no worries of being drafted. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he knew he would be drafted if he did not enlist, so that is exactly what he chose to do. Enlistment meant that he might be able to choose his job in the military.

His minister went with him to establish his status as a non-combatant. The officer in charge told him there was no such thing, but that he could register as a conscientious objector. Doss said he was not a conscientious objector because he would gladly serve his country, wear a uniform, salute the flag, and help with the war effort. He would gladly help tend sick or hurt people any day, but he would not carry a gun because he believed all killing was wrong. Finally the enlistment officer convinced Doss to accept the 1-A-O Conscientious Objector classification, so he could join the army without fear of court martial.

On April 1, 1942 he was inducted into the U.S. Army and headed to Ft. Jackson in South Carolina for basic training. He had begun dating Dorothy Schutte and they had fallen in love, but they decided that they should wait until after the war to get married. Before he left Dorothy, gave him a small pocketsize Bible. Many times in the days ahead, that Bible would prove to be his lone source of comfort and inspiration.

23-year-old Desmond Doss entered service as a medic for the 77th Infantry Division. From the beginning, the other men in his company made fun of Doss for his beliefs. Even though he worked long, hard hours to make up for not working on Saturday, the men cursed, ridiculed, and taunted him. Each night as he knelt beside his bunk to pray, the men swore at him and threw their boots at him. When Doss quietly read his small Bible, as he often did, the men cursed him even more. One man even went so far as to tell him that he would personally kill Doss when they got into combat.

You have to understand their position. Most of them were draftees. Frightened of dying like any man would be. The one thing a soldier must count on is that his comrade will die for him and kill for him. Doss's faith seemed to mean that he would do neither, thus he was a threat to their survival.

Not only did the men not like Doss, even though he did nothing to them, but the Army just did not know what to do with a soldier who would not work on Saturday, who would not carry a gun, and who did not eat meat. At one point, his commanding officer tried to initiate a Section Eight (unfit for military service) discharge, but Doss vehemently fought the move, saying he really did want to serve his country, he just did not want to kill. He remained in the Army to the great displeasure of most of his officers and fellow soldiers.

His unit was deployed in the Pacific as part of the island hopping campaign. Land, take the island, move on to the next unpronounceable island and repeat the process. In July of 1944 on the island of Guam, Doss began to prove his courage and compassion for the very men who had taunted, belittled, and even threatened him by braving enemy fire to pull his wounded comrades from the line of fire and render aid. He received a Bronze Star for his heroism. During the battle to take Leyte in the Philippines during October of 1944, Doss proved his courage over and over. Without regard for his own life he would help the wounded to safety.

In one case, something strange happened. Doss ran out onto the battlefield to retrieve a wounded soldier. Some of his company looked on in horror as they saw a Japanese sniper take aim at Doss as he helped the wounded man. They could do nothing to stop the sniper because other soldiers were in their line of fire. Miraculously, the sniper did not fire. Years later a missionary in Japan told this story. After the service, a Japanese man told the missionary the sniper could have been him. He remembered having a soldier in his sites, but he could not pull the trigger. Bushido maybe. A warrior recognizes courage, when he sees it.

Okinawa came. Okinawa killed more of our troops than any of the other battles of the Pacific. It was a horrendous campaign because by that time both sides had hard bitten veterans who were ready to die for their cause.

By now, Doss's fellow soldiers were used to his reading the Bible and praying, so it did not seem unusual when, on that April 29th morning in 1945, he suggested that they might want to pray. They were facing a sheer 400-foot cliff that split the island of Okinawa known as the Maeda Escarpment. It would be necessary to attack and capture this area. The men of Company B bowed their heads as Doss offered a prayer for safety. Then they began to struggle up the sheer cliff face.

His unit captured the 400-foot Maeda Escarpment in an incredible sweep in which not one man was killed and only one minor injury was sustained. When a photographer arrived to capture the moment and asked how they pulled it off, Doss' company commander answered, "Doss prayed!"

However on May 5th the tide turned against the Americans as the Japanese launched a huge counterattack. Enemy fire raked Company B and almost immediately over 50 men fell wounded. The remaining troops who were able, retreated back down to the base of the escarpment. Left at the top of the cliff were the wounded, the Japanese, and Desmond T. Doss.

For the next five hours, while his wounded comrades fought back their attackers, Doss began to lower man after man to safety down the face of the cliff using little more than a tree stump and a rope. Doss said that he just kept praying that the Lord would let him rescue one more man. No one knows for sure how many men Doss lowered to safety that day. The campaign continued for Company B. The Maeda Escarpment was retaken. Day leached into day.

On May 21st, the Americans again were under fire while Doss remained in the open to help a wounded soldier. He and three other soldiers had crawled into a hole to wait for the cover of darkness to escape when a grenade was thrown into their hole. The other three men jumped out to safety but the grenade blew up just as Doss stepped on it. Did I mention that the man was a klutz? Miraculously he did not lose his leg but he sustained many wounds. He did not want to endanger anyone else so he bandaged his own wounds and waited for the breaking of the dawn for help to arrive.

As he was being carried off the field they passed another critically wounded soldier. Doss rolled off the litter and told the medics to take the other man. He joined another wounded soldier and together they started to hobble off while supporting each other. Doss had his arm across the other man's neck when he felt a bullet slam into his arm. It shattered Doss upper arm, which in turn, saved the other man's life.

On the way out to a hospital ship offshore, Doss discovered that he had lost the Bible his fiancé, Dorothy, had given him. He sent word asking if the men could keep an eye out for it. On the hospital ship, it was determined that Doss had the million dollar wound and he was shipped back to the States. The word passed from man to man, and an entire battalion of battle weary warriors combed the battlefield until Doss' Bible was found. A sergeant carefully dried it out and mailed it to Doss. Months later it arrived at his home in the United States. Doss would spend a total of six years in hospitals as a consequence of his wounds and a bout with tuberculosis.

The military determined that this medic, whom no one had wanted in the Army, had personally saved 100 lives. They wished to honor him with a medal. In debriefing, Doss said it could not have been more than 50. Because of Doss' humble estimate, when the citation for his Medal was written, they split the difference and he was credited with saving the lives of 75 of his fellow soldiers. On October 12, 1945, Desmond Doss, was invited to the White House to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman for his courageous service on May 5, 1945 - the first noncombatant to ever receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Incidentally, May 5, 1945 was a Saturday, Sabbath for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Sometimes a man, if he is honorable, must work on the Sabbath.

Most of that reading was from an article by MATTHEW C SOPER with major contributions by MARK REIMAN and information contained in the book Desmond Doss - In God's Care, by Frances Doss, copyright 1998, The College Press, Collegedale, TN.

A documentary was put out in 2004 based on the life of Desmond Doss called Conscientious Objector. There is to be a major motion picture about him sometime soon. I wonder whether they will be able to capture the courage of the man. We shall see, shall we not.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 2

We are having our Spring fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or 779-KEOS or donate securely at www.keos.org.

On the same day as Desmond T. Doss died, three members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams were freed in Baghdad by a force of American, British and Iraqi warriors. The Christian Peacemaker Teams are a set of pacifists who perceive that the United States should end its occupation of Iraq, because we are causing suffering over there and accomplishing no good. In their initial press release the group made it clear that had the United States not been in Iraq, they would not have been kidnaped. Only after much bad Public Relations did the group think to thank the military for freeing their people. It was kind of a lukewarm thanks at that.

There were four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams when the initial kidnaping occurred on November 26 of last year. One of the four, American Tom Fox, was tortured and murdered. His body was dumped by the side of the road on March 9. It looks like to me that the Christian Peacemaker Teams refuses to condemn the Irreconcilables for killing their comrade.

As near as I can tell from what they have said, the Christian Peacemaker Teams believe that there is no such thing as a just war, thus the U.S. is doing something immoral. Under Christian theology, if you observe one neighbor attacking another and do nothing, then you are immoral. The split comes as to what to do to stop the violence. The basis for the just war doctrine is that there must be no other way to stop great evil being done before you can use violence yourself. The other alternative is to witness to the evil ones and change their hearts while comforting the oppressed and giving them the strength to endure their oppression.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams appear to be another street theater group. I may be mistaken, but they seem to be a very narcissistic group dedicated to making themselves feel good about trying to accomplish something without actually accomplishing anything. Evil exists. The CPT has explicitly said that they think that "the illegal occupation of Iraq by multinational forces" was the "root cause" of the kidnaping.

They have sided with the Palestinians and perceive that the Jews are the oppressors because of the balance of power which favors the Jews. Because the Jews are unwilling to kill noncombatants, the Christian Peacemaker Teams can constantly get in the way of the Jews trying to defend themselves against the suicide bombers without getting hurt. They do not seem to be interested in stopping the Palestinians from blowing up Jews.

In Iraq, the Christian Peacemaker Teams assume that the Irreconcilables are the victims of American imperialism. Again, they are not trying to stop the Irreconcilables from killing Americans. They have been in Iraq off and on since 2002. Before the Iraqi War, they attempted to stop the war by placing themselves between bombs and structures that the U.S. would likely bomb. Now their major focus is freeing the Irreconcilables who have been jailed by the U.S. military, documenting American abuses of the Iraqi population and effecting a total withdrawal from the Middle East by the U.S. At the same time they are REALLY interested in getting a huge amount of face time in front of the cameras. As I said they are into street theater.

Wait. I told this a while back, but I don't think you remember it. There was this guy in college in 1968 and his roommate was going to go down to Washington, D.C., and demonstrate against the Vietnam War. They were going to march on the Pentagon. That was a stupid thing to do, because the Pentagon has no power to change public policy. So this guy told his roommate that he was wasting his time. In fact, he was not doing his cause any good by blocking the roads into Washington or laying down in the street. The roommate said that he did not care. He wanted to prove that he, the roommate, was morally superior to everyone else by doing this project. Are you getting this? The goal of the project was to prove that the participants were morally superior, not to accomplish anything. When you do that, you are doing street theater.

Today, the Christian Peacemaker Teams are a set of people who get out in front of the cameras and prove to all their friends that they are morally superior to just about everyone else. Their goal is to make their friends respect them. Their goal is not to accomplish much of anything. They are, in fact, a set of street actors, not really activists. It just looks like they are activists bent on some goal. If you are an activist, then you have to have an achievable goal. The CPT doesn't really.

I bring up Desmond Doss and the Christian Peacemaker Teams as a way of showing how the times have changed. In World War II, it was obvious to anyone who had sense that the Germans, Italians and the Japanese were bent on imposing totalitarian rule on every person on Earth using violence. The CPT and our Liberal establishment cannot seem to condemn the Irreconcilables for their unseemly habit of hacking people's heads off and dropping their bodies beside the road.

Desmond Doss felt it was his duty to stop that from happening in some small way. He was able to determine who the forces of evil were and try to stop them. His pacifism was a private thing. He would not kill, but he did not demand that others believe as he believed. He could see that violence had to be used to stop the evil from occurring.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams believe that there is no such thing as a bad peace or a good war. They want to impose their pacifism on everyone they meet. Their position gets kind of mushy after that. It appears to me that only the United States and other Western powers come in for their wrath. I don't know for sure. They and many on the Left have come to the conclusion that the Irreconcilables can be placated and appeased. If the United States would just withdraw from the world stage, then everything would be just great. The problem with that assertion is that the Irreconcilables of radical Islam will not go away, nor will they stop until every person on this planet who disagrees with them has been killed, enslaved, converted to Islam or made a second class citizen in a worldwide caliphate. For some reason this does not seem to penetrate to groups like the Christian Peacemaker Teams.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair put it this way in a speech this week, insurgency forces "play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party. Every act of carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow, it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it. For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now." Think about that for a moment. The war in Iraq was started incorrectly by too many on the Left. It thus follows that the outcome of the war must be so evil that the freedom that the Iraqis have right now must be sacrificed to atone for our getting rid of Saddam Hussein incorrectly.

By my standards pacifism should be an individual choice. Desmond Doss made the Choice that he would not allow evil to grow, but he personally would not use violence to stop it. The Christian Peacemaker Teams are so convinced if the rectitude of their position, that they are willing to allow evil to grow as long as the West does not use violence to stop its growth. If the Christian Peacemaker Teams were condemning the Irreconcilables as harshly as they condemn the West, then I would have some respect for their position. They are not. They excuse the barbaric behavior of the Irreconcilables, because they agree that the West has treated them badly. Or so that seems. I may be mistaken, but it surely looks like the Christian Peacemaker Teams agree that the invasion of Iraq was so wrong that nothing can make it right except by our pulling out and letting the Iraqis twist in the wind.

The Iraqi government are not happy with the CPT. The position of the Iraqi government is that the CPT has sided with the Irreconcilables against the majority of Iraqis. You see what has gotten everyone upset is that the CPT was slow to thank the soldiers who saved them and then the freed hostages dumped on the multinational forces and THEN would not allow the military a chance to debrief them on their time being held hostage. If they had allowed the military to debrief them, maybe other hostages could be freed. The CPT takes the position that they will not help free other hostages because violence against the hostage takers might result. Wouldn't want to be the cause of those benign head hackers being hurt, now would we?

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 3

We are having our Spring fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or 779-KEOS or donate securely at www.keos.org.

All right. What's all that have to do with anything you might ask? Everyone knows that things have changed since World War II. I mean, our society has become more nuanced. The certainties of yesterday have been swept away by a gnawing fear that nothing is as it seems.

The basis of our society up until the 1960's was that we would debate an issue and then determine from the debate what the truth of the topic was and then go forward based on the acceptance of that understanding of that what that truth was. The reason we did that was that conventional wisdom allowed us to avoid getting hurt. Starting about the 1960's it was found that you could believe the stupidest, most idiotic things in the world and still not have to suffer for your beliefs. I am not talking about religious beliefs. I am talking about beliefs as to what works in fixing problems in society.

Right now we have implemented policies that do not work, but for one reason or another we cannot stop doing them. Let me go over three of them. Minimum wage, social security and abortion.

The minimum wage is a bad idea. It penalizes people at the bottom of our society. It encourages an underclass. The reason it does that is that the first job a person has is supposed to teach them three things: Arrive on time, have a positive attitude and accept supervision. The higher the minimum wage the older a person at the bottom of the social system is before they get that first job. If we had a zero minimum wage, then teenagers could work for a few dollars per hour and early on learn these lessons. The thinking on the Left is that people stay at minimum wage jobs all their life, so they NEED a higher starting salary. That is a stupid idea. It doesn't work. Unskilled labor is not a uniform class of people. By having a high minimum wage, the most skilled person gets first crack at a minimum wage job. The less skilled person is aced out. As time passes, the less skilled person gets aced out over and over again and cannot increase their skill base. The goal of the minimum wage was said to help the abjectly poor instead it hurts the bottom 80% of the poor and helps the top 20% of the poor.

Social Security funded using taxes is a stupid idea. When Social Security was founded, it allowed an income transfer between those who worked and those who did not. According to the law it is not a pension plan. I know, you have been told over and over that social security is a pension plan. It is not. When Social Security was originated, there were no mutual funds, nor private pension plans. Now there are. Why is the government involved in a program that could be done by the private sector?

Abortion was supposed to free women and make them equal to men. Instead abortion has made women little more than sex objects. Why should a man marry when he can have all the benefits of marriage without any of the responsibilities of marriage? As I said a while back, there is a case before the federal courts that attempts to free a man from his obligation to support a child he has fathered on a woman. The goal is to have a way for a man to repudiate a baby before the baby is born. If the man repudiates the baby, then he is freed of all obligation to provide child support for 18 or so years. The guy in the suit makes the case that he had no control over the woman's decision to have the baby. He had told her that he wanted no babies. She had told him that she was sterile. If the man has no control over the child he fathers, why should he be forced to pay for that child's upkeep. Men and women are different. Saying anything else is silly. They cannot be made to have the exact same goals and aspiration for a good life. Abortion has failed to achieve the goal of freeing women. Yet the Left is so wedded to abortion, there can be no compromises on a right that accomplishes none of the goals it set out to accomplish. Why do we still have it?

Again, the 1960's was turning point in our country's history, because we adopted a set of views that decoupled cause and effect. You listen to my assessments of those three public policies and you are on the Left, you cannot possibly believe what I have said is true, because you know I am either lying OR I am insane OR I am an evil bastard.

I'm reading a book on post-modernist thought. The main idea I have gleaned so far is that Truth cannot be discerned under post-modernist thought. Or rather there is no such thing a shared Truth. Because everyone comes to their readings of a given event with preconceived notions, then there are as many truths as there are people looking at an event. What that means is that we as a people have constructed subsets of Reality. The Left and the Right in this country no longer view the world the same way. The underlying premises of Reality cannot be agreed upon, therefore each side perceives that the other side is morally bereft or insane.

Think about this a minute. If you want to believe that Communism is more moral than Capitalism, you can. If all your friends agree with that premise, then it is true. If you refuse to accept any outside evidence, then it remains true. The problem arises when you personally go to implement a set of policies based on Communist ideology and they don't work in real life. Here's the final step you can take. You can ignore your personal experience and still believe that Communism will get better results than Capitalism. Since we live in a Capitalist society, you would have the luxury of believing that Communism can work better than Capitalism no matter how awful it gets for the average citizen of the polity that implemented socialist/Communist policies.

I draw your attention to New Orleans. The city before Hurricane Katrina was a cess pool. It had been under Democratic Party control for over 60 years and should according to theory have been a very good place to live. Yet, just like France, New Orleans had high unemployment, a shrinking economy and vast underclass. Again, if you are a Progressive, you can easily ignore this observed fact for any reason you choose to have, because it does not affect you directly.

Right now we have in the United States two or more views about how the world should work and there is no way to resolve the dispute, because post-modernist thought says that there is no need to do so. I just find that whole concept to be insane, because there should be some way for both sides in an argument about public policy to come to some agreement as to which side is correct. Here's the kicker, because neither side will accept the data from the other side both sides can believe they are right.

What I was trying to get at by giving those two examples of pacifism was to show that by my standards Desmond Doss' assessment of reality was correct. He perceived the evil in the world and tried to do something about it. By my standards he did.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams have no idea what Reality is. They refuse to accept that the Irreconcilables are evil and must be stopped. Because they have imbibed post-modernist thought, people like the Christian Peacemaker Teams can easily ignore all information that does not agree with their beliefs. They can make the case that their beliefs are equivalent to Desmond Doss' beliefs even though they are not. Why?... Because there are no adverse consequences. Even Tom Fox's death was not enough for the Christian Peacemaker Teams to acknowledge that they might be mistaken. I know, that seems kind of strange for me to say that the death of Tom Fox was not an adverse consequence. Here's what I am trying to get at. When these people in the Christian Peacemaker Teams congregate with their friends and colleagues and loved ones, is anyone going to voice the idea that the Irreconcilables are evil? Nope. Is anyone going to say that the members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams are doing something evil by supporting the Irreconcilables? Nope. Will the funding for the Christian Peacemaker Teams be affected by their views of the "root causes" of the Iraqi War? Nope. Therefore as far as members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams are concerned, there are no real consequences. Only if they got some negative feedback from their friends and associates and acquaintances could they change their way of looking at the world. None of that will happen, so they do not have to change their opinion or the way they look at the world. Among their friends and acquaintances, the three freed hostages will be hailed as heroes. By my standards, the Christian Peacemaker Teams do not deserve to be called heroes. They have accomplished nothing except made themselves feel morally superior to everyone else amid the accolades of their friends and acquaintances.

Ah, well. I know you do not want to face the possibility that people like the Christian Peacemaker Teams are at best what Stalin called "useful idiots", but you might at least give it some thought.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 4

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 4

We are having our Spring fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or 779-KEOS or donate securely at www.keos.org.

Over the last few shows I have been mentioning the three web sites dailykos, democratic underground and moveon.org.

Let me read you something from the front page of each of these and tie it in with what I was talking about as far as postmodernist thought.

Wikepeidia says of DailyKos:

Daily Kos is an American political weblog aimed at Democrats and liberals/progressives. Run by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, a young United States Army veteran, it has an average weekday traffic of 549,000 visits[1], and often reaches over 5 million unique visits in one week. It is arguably the most influential liberal weblog in the United States.

From the front page of the dailykos we have an interesting take on the exchange between Helen Thomas of the White House press corp and the President. First a woman with the nom de cyber of Georgia10 quotes the question and answer between the President and Helen Thomas, then does an analysis of what the President's responses mean to her.

Look here for the article.

Now let's look at this. Helen Thomas asks a question and then won't let George Bush answer without interrupting him. Why is that correct behavior? I want you to think about that. Is it correct behavior to ask someone a question and then try to brow beat them into answering it the way you want it answered? The President tried his best to answer, but could not without getting put off his stride by interruptions. I guess it's just me. I want a civilized debate. Helen Thomas and people like her do not. Admittedly Question Time when the Prime Minister of Great Britain is pummeled with questions in the House of Commons is much worse, but still... I find Ms. Thomas' behavior to be wrong.

There is an art form called Fisking where the blogger goes point by point and refutes a post on the net. It doesn't work in radio, so I'm going to talk about the woman's analysis differently.

First she states as fact that the Iraqis are NOT safer now that Saddam has been deposed. Most of the Iraqis on the ground in Baghdad disagree. Saddam was just as likely to pull someone in, torture and kill them for no known reason. People were frightened all the time. The patina of fear was everywhere. I do not doubt that the killings that are going on in Iraq right now are bad, but... Ah, forget that. The woman is attempting the impossible and has succeeded for people who believe that Iraq is a lost cause. Logic in this case is silly.

Her second point is that America is not safer because we are providing a means of recruiting Al Quaeda agents may be a good one, but I don't believe it. The goal in an armed struggle is to produce people who are veterans. By recruiting and then immediately killing off the recruits, they are not helping their cause. On the other hand, the death of these recruits makes it possible to induce a steady stream of young men and women to die for an evil cause. One of our major rationales for being in Iraq is that the more of them who die there, the less can be sent here to kill people in the United States. The big problem is that a new generation of martyrs is growing up. The leadership of Al Quaeda does not much care how many of their children die as long as they get their way. It's been pointed out over and over again that Al Quaeda resembles a death cult. The question that needs to be asked is: After the fall of Afghanistan, was it a good idea to have Saddam Hussein still in power in Iraq? I won't know the answer to that question until the documents in Arabic from Saddam's rule are translated and made available. Al Quaeda had always assumed that they would move to Iraq should Afghanistan fall. The problem is that even when that vital information is released, too many people on the Left will ignore the information and just assume it is a lie. Since there are no consequences for ignoring the information, they can afford to do that. Can America afford to ignore the information from Saddam's archives?

Her point that we provoked Saddam into a war is probably idiocy. Saddam was NOT going to come clean. Everything we know about the man says that he is the ultimate postmodernist leader. He lived in his own reality and constantly made decisions based on what he wanted to be true, not what was objectively true. Again, under postmodernist thought you do NOT have to change your opinion about something in the light of new facts. Anyone who believes that Saddam was willing to surrender is insane by my standards, yet large numbers of people on the Left believe that Saddam could be made to come clean.

The statement in the analysis that "This President wanted war, and he used a steady stream of lies to start that war to quench his bloodlust." is crazy by my standards. George Bush is a people person. He finds people infinitely interesting. The concept that he lusted after war is totally weird to me. As he said in his answer to Helen Thomas, no President wants to go to war. For some reason, few on the Left want to believe that of him. By my standards, war in Iraq was a strategic necessity to separate Iran and Syria.

The whole thing about George Bush and Tony Blair provoking Saddam as outlined by the Downing Street memos is kind of strange to me. The money quote to me is: "Bush and Blair were hellbent on launching a war which they knew was in violation of international law. They were determined to lie and deceive the world into thinking Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, that he was an imminent threat." If the United Nations passed resolution 1441 and it said in essence that Saddam had to give up his weapons program or suffer invasion, then how can it be against international law? The entire argument about "Bush lied, people died" has been a problem for me from the beginning. As I have said before, in order to be a lie, you have to know what the truth is. Bush didn't know what the truth was. Saddam's generals didn't know what the truth was. The Germans and French didn't know what the truth was. How can it be a lie? And again, once the documents from the Saddam's archive in Arabic are translated we shall know what the objective truth is. Postmodernist thought will make it impossible for anyone on the DailyKos site to believe this.

The entire paragraph about the Senate investigation into the prewar intelligence failure is premised on something I don't know anything about. Georgia10 could be right. The President could be stonewalling. I just do not think Bush has been lying. I just think he has made a series of stupid mistakes. Lying to me means that he has malevolent intent. I do not see that. The Left does. People on the Right have started to call this unreasoned hatred, Bush Derangement Syndrome.

The last paragraph is reflects the ultimate frustration the base in the Democratic Party has with its leadership. The base wants the government to come to a halt until someone, anyone calls Bush to task for... almost everything. There just isn't much in this country that is wrong that isn't caused by George Bush, up to and including the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf Coast.

The thing that gets me is that George Bush doesn't need me or anyone to defend his honor. He has been ignoring the screams of the Democratic Party's base from almost the first instant in the White House for a very simple reason. Bush wants to get something done while he is in Washington. The Left wants to... God knows what the Left wants to do. Bush has over the last five years pushed them to come forward with some type of agenda. Nothing has happened. Being against Bush is not a positive agenda. Think about it. The Democratic Party has determined that they can win multiple seats in the fall election by running against Bush. Period. Why does that make sense? The Democrats are saying explicitly "America deserves better than this". Great. What is the agenda? There is none. As I have said before, the Left in this country has failed to achieve the goals they set out to achieve 40 years ago. They only have the belief that their old agenda will work if only we... God knows what. That's the point. Under postmodernist thought no one has to accept that their beliefs are not objectively true. They can ignore inconvenient truths and continue on with policies that either do achieve their stated goals OR are destructive.

I want to close this segment with a thought experiment. If you were not a committed Leftist, would you vote for Democrats based on her assessment of Bush's answers to Helen Thomas' questions? Would you think it was good idea to shut down the Senate in order to force an outcome over a public policy disagreement? Does Georgia10 make a case for voting for the Democratic Party this fall? If you believe any of that, then you have imbibed of postmodernist thought and cannot be reached by any form of reason known to humans. Doesn't that bother you any? There is such a thing as objective reality where there is cause and effect.

I always say that Reality is like a slimy dog that has gone out in the swamp and comes back covered in yuck, expecting you to pet him. If you refuse to pet the slimy dog, then the dog will jump up on you and get all manner of yuck on your clothes. If you still refuse to pet the slimy dog, there is a real possibility that the dog will bite you in the ass. This country is going to have to come to terms with the Reality that the Irreconcilables of radical Islam REALLY mean to take over the world. If we ignore them, then we're going to get bit in the ass.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 5

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 5

We are having our Spring fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or 779-KEOS or donate securely at www.keos.org.

Let's look at the Democratic Underground. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the web site:

Democratic Underground, also known as DU, describes itself as an "online community for Democrats and other progressives." Its membership is restricted by policy to those who are "generally supportive of progressive ideals," and who "support Democratic candidates for political office." .[1] However, the scope of discussion is wide and members represent a broad spectrum of liberal beliefs and backgrounds. DU was established on January 20, 2001, the day President George W. Bush was inaugurated.

Let me talk to you about an article on the site by Bernard Weiner of the Crisis Papers (another web site under Democratic Underground). This article is from March 21, 2006 on the main page.

In the article Bernard Weiner is shocked... just shocked that many on the Left have become very anti-Semitic. Where has this guy been? The French have been bashing the Jews for years. For good reason of course, the Jews in Israel have dared to stop being victims. Prior to 1968 when the Jews in Israel were just hanging on against attacks, the Europeans and particularly the French were on their side. Once the Jews devastated the Arabs in 1968 and 1973 wars, the European Left started dumping on them by taking up the cause of the Palestinians and advocating the destruction of Israel. The thinking in Europe has always been that if Israel would just die, then the Arabs would go back to sleep and leave the Europeans alone. The cartoon jihad suddenly woke up many on the Left in Europe that getting rid of Israel would not get rid of their problems.

Anyway. Bernard Weiner makes the case that the Left in America has got to dump the groups that advocate anti-Semitism. A week ago I introduced you to International ANSWER which is one of the major players in the anti-Iraqi War protest movement. People on the Left are just now noticing all the anti-Semitic posters at the International ANSWER's protests. Weiner castigates them for that type of behavior. He warns everyone on the Left that they cannot allow people like this to be the face of the Progressive movement.

What I was trying to get across is that the Democratic Underground bans Conservatives and people who do not agree with the Progressive agenda. They do not just bar disruptive hate-filled right wingers. They ban all non-Progressives. I honestly think they have a right to do that. There is such a thing as freedom of association. The problem arises is that doing that causes an echo chamber effect where you listen only to people who agree with you. Such a move can backfire on you because you get the idea that, since no one of your acquaintance disagrees with you, then a majority of the people in America agree with you.

I draw your attention the elections of 2002 and 2004. In both cases people on the Left were caught flat-footed, when the Republicans won many more seats in Congress than they should have. When Bush won re-election in 2004, a few Progressives in Florida had to seek therapy from mental health professionals to help cope with the devastating let down they were experiencing.

Again, those who imbibe postmodernist thought do not have to believe anything they do not want to believe. No amount of evidence can be marshaled to change their minds. Since no one in their circle of acquaintances disagrees with them, they occasionally get bit by that slimy dog, objective Reality. Not often enough for them to change, but often enough to be surprised that the world does not work the way they expected it to.

9/11 changed the minds of quite a few Liberals and woke them up to the fact that the Irreconcilables of radical Islam were on the march and were a danger. Too many on the Left cried, "We must find the root causes of this conflict. Then and only then will it be possible to resolve this issue." That wasn't good enough for these former Liberals. They saw a Progressive movement that sought to excuse the barbaric behavior of the Irreconcilables and blame 9/11 on the American foreign policy. That did not sit well with quite a few people.

Since then, the sky has not fallen. No re-occurences of a 9/11 style event has occurred. The base of the Democratic Party has become more vocal in their demands that we come home and leave those Muslims alone. If we just do that, then the Muslims will leave us alone. That thinking is not a set of policy statements. We are in a war with the Irreconcilables of radical Islam. How are we going to cause them to leave us alone?

Democratic Underground appears to me to be mostly sane in that the rants against Bush appear to be reserved for the comments section instead of the main page, like DailyKos. Maybe you should check them out.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 6

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 27, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 6

We are having our Spring fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or 779-KEOS or donate securely at www.keos.org.

The last Liberal web site I want to look in on tonight is moveon.org. Wikipedia says of them:

MoveOn.org is a liberal political group based in the United States that organizes and informs an online community estimated at more than three million people. The group aims to promote grassroots advocacy by its members through various political activities including running a PAC, voter registration drives, and political advertising (especially in swing states).

What I find fascinating about Moveon.org is that they were set up to defend Bill Clinton against a move to impeach him. With the advent of 9/11, they have changed their focus to general grassroots advocacy for Progressive causes. Moveon.org is part of the main stream of the Democratic Party. George Soros is pouring money into their efforts. They represent the face of the present Democratic Party.

What are some of their big campaigns right now?

A popular campaign on the front page of moveon.org right now has the title: "Join Feingold: Censure Bush". Here's the problem with censuring Bush in the Senate. It requires fifty votes. The Democrats have 45. They are going to have to get 6 Republicans to agree with them that "It is clear now that the president has been repeatedly and willingly breaking the law to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Congress must hold him accountable, and a reasonable first step is censure to show formal Congressional condemnation for his lawbreaking." We are in the middle of a war with the Irreconcilables. A LARGE number of people are frightened. I draw your attention to the Dubai Ports World controversy. Why does it Make sense to censure the President in the middle of a war while he is trying to protect us against an implacable foe? This action will rev up the base, but it will alienate too many moderates, because it shows a lack of sense on the part of the center of the Democratic Party.

There is a scene in Animal House where Otter says, "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." If there was ever a futile and stupid gesture, this is it. Why you might ask. The Congress has the power to stop the warrantless wiretaps. The Democrats could simply introduce a bill that precluded the President from doing warrantless wiretaps. By doing it that way, the Democratic Party could put on record those members of Congress in the Senate and the House of Representatives as to how they viewed the warrantless wiretaps. The Democratic Party doesn't want to do that. They do NOT want to go on record as saying that they do not support wiretapping conversation of alleged terrorists. The base of the Democratic Party desperately wants their leaders to do that. Their leaders KNOW that if they do, many of the people voting FOR repealing warrantless wiretaps will lose their seat in Congress this fall. Any sane person would be able to see that in light of the Dubai Ports World debacle.

Moveon.org doesn't see it that way. They are convinced that the censure of the President will cause people to vote for them in November. That's crazy. Again, because the base of the Democratic Party has imbibed of postmodernism, they perceive that they can pull off a censure AND not have any negative consequences befall them. There's no damned way. Ah, it doesn't matter. Russ Feingold wants to beat Hillary out and get the base to vote for him in the 2008 primaries. He's launching this to please the base of the Democratic Party without much expectation that he will actually get anything done. Again, this is "a really futile and stupid gesture". Look! That's what you get when you won't listen to the other side in any debate format.

Let me show you one more of the moveon.org campaigns on the front page of the web site. It says, "Going Bigger: 2006 Plan for Victory". When you click on the link it says on the second page, "The 2006 elections are only a few months away - and if we keep our eyes on the goal, we're in a position to win big. Democratic control of Congress will mean we can finally move forward with big ideas like health care for all Americans or energy independence, and make sure the troops get home safely and soon from Iraq. This week, we're aiming to expand our election plan with a new TV ad program that will get the truth to voters early in the most important elections across the country"

Think about that for a minute. The big issues for moveon.org are "health care for all Americans or energy independence, and make sure the troops get home safely and soon from Iraq."

How do they plan to get health care for all Americans? It's been tried in Europe, Canada and God knows where else in the world. Universal health insurance with the government being the primary health provider leads quickly to a degrading of the health care system. People in this country know that. Universal health care has no traction. If it was going to get people elected, it would have done so in the past. It's not a new idea.

How are they going to achieve energy independence without drilling for oil and expanding the number of refineries in this country? Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes, Conservation... Wind power... Ethanol... What? That's stupid. All of those have been tried in the U.S. and Europe and Canada. They didn't work. These are new ideas? No way. The Democratic Party is associated with the environmentalist obstruction of drilling for new oil. Conservation, wind power and ethanol don't have traction with the American people. Sorry. No sale.

The cry of "Bring the boys home from Iraq... Now..." is a nonstarter. The Republicans tried to get the Democrats to go on record as favoring immediate pullout and the Democrats almost all voted against the bill. The immediate withdrawal from Iraq looks like it will generate votes. It won't. That's crazy. Regardless of what the polls say, a majority of Americans are frightened that if we pull out of Iraq before they have a stable government, the terrorists will use Iraq as a staging area to attack the U.S. Regardless of whether that is true, that is how most Americans see it. Again. No traction.

Where is the policy statements on these wonderful Progressive sites? They do not exist. As I said to one of the activists on Democratic Underground in an email, "the Democrats are in the same position now that the Conservative movement was in the early 1960's. The Democrats are out of power, out of ideas and spoiling for a fight." Great. What did that buy the Republicans in 1964? It bought them a landslide defeat. It took 15 years for the Republicans to recover from that failure. As it stands now, I do not think the Democrats can recover from their failures for at least 15 years. It may be much longer because they refuse to learn from their failures and look for new ideas.

Ah, well. I have said what I wanted to say tonight. I wanted to introduce you to the present center of the Democratic Party, so that you can make your own assessments as to their sanity. You really do need to go out to these three sites and read through their posts. I consider all three of them to be trips into fantasy land, but maybe you would not.

The whole point of this exercise tonight was to get you to realize that the Left AND the Right in this country are not living in the same reality, because the Left has refused to admit that their policies no longer appeal to a majority of Americans. DailyKos, Democratic Underground and moveon.org are not helping. Their position appears to be that if they just found the magic packaging technique their policies will be acceptable to the majority of Americans. They aren't.

Anyway. MacKenzie Pequa the Third takes over now. She will play you some music for the rest of the night.

Take it away, Mac.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 20, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 20, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Segment 1: Part I of a look at the Third Annual Peace March in San Francisco on Saturday, March 18, 2006, focusing on the signs people displayed for the media.

Segment 2: Part II of a look at the Third Annual Peace March in San Francisco on Saturday, March 18, 2006, focusing on the signs people displayed for the media.

NOTE: I do not claim that all of the above is original. Where I have been able to do so, I have given links. If I have plagerized someone else's works without attribution, please give me the link and I shall make an update.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 20, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 20, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

As I have said multiple times, I doubt whether there is anyone out there, BUT just on the off chance that there is ONE person listening, I shall endeavor to persevere. I just love that phrase. It's from the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales which I consider to be one of the best Western ever made.

We are at the start of our fund drive. Call in and make a pledge. I shall play some music and take your pledge. I have no engineers or someone to take the phone, so that is what needs to be done. Don't be shy. Call right now at 779-5367 or donate securely at www.keos.org.

Remember that I am but a voice from the velvet black calling to you across the gulf of our mutual incomprehension.

Last weekend was the third anniversary of the start of the Iraqi War. There were multiple protests around the world against the Iraqi War. Very few people are attending these shindigs. Or rather it seems to be the same people over and over again. The Left has been loose coalition for quite a while. It seems like a protest against... Oh, fill in the blank is called and the Free Mumia crowd shows up, "No Globalization" makes an attendance and so on and so on.

Let me tell you about the one that just took place this last Saturday, March 18 in San Francisco. International ANSWER or Act Now to Stop War and End Racism is one of the big anti-war groups. International ANSWER is allege to be a front group for the Workers World Party. The Workers World Party is a hard line Stalinist Communist group that was formed in the wake of the Soviet Union cracking down on Hungary in 1955. WWP split from the Communist Party, USA because they were upset that the Soviets did not use MORE force. Yeah, you heard me right. The WWP are REALLY into hard core authoritarian philosophy. The big problem the anti-war movement is having is that they are being tarred as pro-Communists and pro-terrorists and pro-Palestinian. The protest by International ANSWER this last Saturday did not disabuse anyone.

Let me read you some of the signs that were on display. These came from agent zombie who is a spy for the vast Right Wing Conspiracy. The front group he identifies with is a web site called Little Green Footballs. Wait... You have heard of Little Green Footballs... No? Well, Little Green Footballs has its headquarters in a nitrogen filled room under the Denver International Airport. Yes, they do. The leader is Charles Johnson who brought down Dan Rather by showing that the Texas Air National Guard memos were made in Microsoft Word. Charles Johnson is allege to be a giant lizard from outer space bent on world domination. Little Green Football readers are thus called the Lizardoid minions. The vast Right Wing Conspiracy was quick to recruit him when he set up shop under the Denver International Airport. And, oh, yes, Charles is alleged to get checks from the Israelis for promoting the Zionist plan for world domination.

You're sitting there going, "Whoa, dude. Drinking that water you use to wash out your bong is bad for you." I can't help it if my reality and yours does not intersect all the time. The main Leftist web sites, DailyKos, Democratic Underground and moveon.org are somewhat convinced that all of what I have said about Charles Johnson is true, including the nitrogen filled headquarters under the Denver International Airport. Come out to my blog and I have links to these web sites. You have to go to those web sites to actually get the feel for how far left the Democratic Party has moved. What is really frightening is that these three sites are the most sane of the leftist web sites around.

Anyway. Let me read you some of the signs that were on display at the San Francisco rally against the Iraqi War and Israeli Occupation of the West Bank plus some pro-Cuba and pro-Venezuela signs. These photos came from agent zombie who is a spy for the vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Look here for the signs I am describing.

The first sign in the sequence shown by agent zombie is one that is all black and says, "THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH, MOHAMMAD IS THE MESSENGER OF ALLAH."

Many of you out on the Left wonder why people who are Conservatives like me wonder about your patriotism. Signs like this a anti-war rally surely do not help. What am I to make of it? Wait... I do not say that people should not show such signs. It is a free country despite what you may think. And despite what you have heard Conservatives are not in favor of quashing freedom of speech.

Anyway. what I an getting at here is that the presence of a sign proclaiming an Islamic message would not lead a rational person to perceive the marchers to be on the side of the United States, but on the side of the Irreconcilables.

Onward. The next sign shows, "Bible: the way of the dinosaur. Imperial God is dead. Life is God. Imperial God is Fascism. god's power is within."

Interesting concept that. People show up at protests with signs that all together make no sense, but taken in parts kind of make sense. The gist of this one means to me that imperialism is a major component of American foreign policy right now. The protester is against that. I often wonder about imperialism, because it depends how you define that word whether the U.S. is an Imperialist nation state. If you mean that the U.S. wants to dominate the world's culture, sell our goods and services everywhere, and generally interfere in other people's countries by simply exporting our products and investing in their economies, then I guess there is a case for that. The problem is that under that scenario the foreigners have to volunteer to adopt our ways, so how can it be real imperialism. I mean, imperialism has always meant to me the conquering and governing of a country. You can make the case that Iraq and Afghanistan have been conquered and now are being governed by American proxies, but am not convinced that that is the case.

The sign seen in this sequence which shows a sign that says, "Screw War." with a turtle having sex with a Army helmet. I don't see anything interesting here. I mean, the guy holding the sign looks like a teenager looking to hook up with some chick. Oh, wait, you did know that protests are great places to pick up women? Oh, yeah, everyone involved makes that point. Protests have ALWAYS been a great place to meet people of the opposite sex. Talk to any aging hippie and they'll tell you stories about the 1960's anti-war protests.

Wow... the next sign has four panels. One panel says, "No Blood 4 Oil." I've always wondered how anyone can truly believe that we went over there to enrich Bush's friends. I mean, let me throw out a scenario for you. If in 2003, Bush wanted to get control of Saddam's oil for his friends, why couldn't he have done this. First send a minion to Saddam and say, "Hey, Saddam, dude, buddy, if you give my friends the exclusive right to buy your oil at a discounted rate, I'll lift the U.N. sanctions." Remember that in 2003, there were a large number of countries who were pressuring Bush to do that. By doing it that way, Bush could have made his friends a huge amount of money without having to get the U.S. involved in Iraq directly. Why go to war for oil, when Saddam would have jumped at that scheme? There's one other problem with the scenario about "blood for oil". If we were there for the oil only, why are we not guarding the pipelines more diligently? Think about it for a minute. If we went to Iraq to only get the oil, then we should be guarding the oil pipelines and ignoring the Iraqi people. The insurgents are blowing up the pipelines in depressing frequency.

The next panel on that sign says, "Drive out Bush Now" where the letter S in Bush is a Nazi swastika. Yes, the impeachment frenzy has reach fever pitch lately. I mean, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy got Clinton impeached, so the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy should get Bush impeached and run out of office. The problem I have had with this one is the lack of math training on the Left. Think about it... Come on you can do this formula... It's a simple subtraction... Here goes... White House minus Bush equals Cheney. Why is that an improvement?... Earth to Liberals... Earth to Liberals... You hate Cheney too. Why is impeaching and removing Bush such a good idea? The DailyKos web site has been all over this idea for a long while and not once have they done the math on this little project. What also bothers me is that Cheney has always been said to control Bush. Bush after all is a village idiot from Texas. How could anyone want to unmask the puppet master. If Bush is bad, then having a President Cheney would be even worse.

Onward, the next panel of the sign says, "The First Death in War is Peace." I've always had a problem with this formulation of the logical argument that there are no just wars. Saddam was an evil bastard. He had killed as many as 500000 children before the war, so why shouldn't we depose him? Wait... You have been keeping up with the Oil for Food scandal? Saddam diverted money meant to feed children to build palaces and buy weapons. The estimate of the number of children who died as a result of the embargo between 1991 and 2003 has always been around 500000. In addition the best guess is that Saddam was killed about 300000 of his people and dumped them in mass graves.

The last panel is the one that I really have a problem answering because it appears to be right. It says, "Why do we kill people who kill to show killing is wrong?" It's a good question. I haven't got much of an answer for it. The question should be whether the killings in Iraq will forestall killings elsewhere in the future. The jury is still out on that one. If Iraq collapses into a civil war and never develops, then that panel will have some meaning. If Iraq and the Middle East has a burst of freedom, then people in the future will look at it the same way we look at South Korea. Was the Korean War justified? Is the freedom that South Korea now enjoys worth the killing, pain and sorrow that the Koreans suffered in the 1950's? Most people would say yes.

The next sign cuts to the core of the anti-war movement's credibility gap for most Conservatives. It shows Adolf Hitler with a tear in his eye, a balloon over his head saying "My Boys" and puppet handles manipulating Jeb Bush, Arnold Swartzenager, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. There is a note at the bottom saying "Meet the Fockers." Bush and all Conservatives as Nazis has always baffled most Conservatives, because the Conservative movement has always pushed for smaller government and lower taxes. How can a Conservative be a Nazi, if we do not support the idea of a big government? If you look at the rhetoric of the grass roots Conservatives, you find that Bush is in big trouble with Conservatives right now because he has NOT pushed for smaller government. The bloated federal budget is not something that most Conservatives are happy with. The amount of pork and earmarks is a major scandal for most Conservatives. How can you be a Nazi when you are against most of the things Hitler was in favor of? I haven't figured that one out?

The next picture shows signs promoting International Action Center which is another front group for the Workers World Party. Again, Communists have a big presence in this party. What is kind of weird is that one of the signs promotes freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal. Hello!?? What has that to do with an anti-war demonstration? Then again, International Action Center is big on self-promotion.

The sign that shows up next says, "End Colonialism in the 'Americas'". Again, you have to define your terms. If colonialism means that the U.S. has too much presence in North and South America through our various companies and culture, then they have a case. The problem arises when you define colonialism as being in direct control. I wonder at that. Hypersensitivity has become the fashion of the day. ANY presence in the Americas is defined as too much. Kind of wonder about the sign in the context of a anti-Iraqi War rally. Why does it make sense to protest this problem at the same time as the Iraq War? It makes it look to someone who's watching that the protesters are a rent-a-mob instead of protesters for a given cause.

The group "Veterans Against The War" put some coffins draped with American flags out in the street to signify the waste of lives in this war. Whether it makes sense to average Americans is another issue. There is a problem in that quite a few people wandering around the coffins were dressed with keffiyehs, which are the pattern of scarf that Yasser Arafat used to wear..

The next sign is kind of strange to me. It says, "U.S. Out of Iraq! Israel Out of the Occupied Territories! Break with the Democratic Party of War and Racism - For a Workers Party for Socialist Revolution." This comes from the Spartacus League which is yet another front group for the Workers World Party. I find this one kind of fascinating, because there was Spartacus League in post World War I Germany that started a Communist revolt against the Weimar Republic in 1919. It was quashed. The current Spartacus League is another Communist group. Do you realize the irony of the sign? To most Conservatives, the Democratic Party is hard Left, yet there are people in this country who consider the Democratic Party as being to Conservative. That's a really hard concept for me to wrap my mind around. At least the sign makes some sense. Palestine has always supposed to be a root of the whole Middle East mess. I've looked at it and I just do not believe it.

The next two signs in agent zombie's photo essay as presented by Charles Johnson are kind of strange for me. The first says, "We are Indigenous. The ONLY owners of this Continent." put out by Mexica-Movement. The next sign says, "INDIGENOUS PEOPLE AGAINST U.S. TERRORISM". Interesting juxtaposition don't you think? Mexican people of Native American descent against the war in Iraq. It kind of makes some sense until you look at their agenda which is the return of all lands lost by Mexico in the Mexican-American War in the 1846-1848 period. They have a point if ever there was an unjust war, the Mexican-American War was unjust. The problem I am having with the sign is that the moral equivalency between the terrorists who do head hacking and blow up women and children versus how we conduct ourselves in Iraq. If you believe the American press, then there is no difference. I don't believe the coverage of the war in Iraq. And, dude, the Iraqi are REALLY ticked at how our media cover the war.

Here's a formula on a sign that I had not thought COULD exist, much less make sense. It says, "Mossad+CIA+Mercenaries are 911 Al-Quaida". I believe what the sign is implying is that the Jews blew up the World Trade Center so that the Muslims would get the blame. In essence the Jews did it. I've always found that interesting. Whenever a terrorist apologist holds forth. The Jews show up as the cause of the problem rather quickly.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 20, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 20, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Back to the signs at the San Francisco protest this last weekend.

Agent zombie capture one sign that I really does rise to the level of insanity. It says, "Impeach Bush for Genocide at Home and Abroad." Here's the problem with saying something like that. What is the definition of genocide? Does the woman carrying the sign mean that Bush has tried to kill off all the Iraqis and all the citizens of New Orleans? If so, he appears to have been a wretchedly incompetent genocidal maniac in both cases. Too weird.

I told you this one was coming. The sign says, "U.S. Hands off Venezuela Support the Bolivian Revolution." This sign is from that Communist group, International Action Center. Very well done when you get right down to it. It even has the web site address. www.iacenterla.org-- Having so many Communists involved directly in the anti-war movement has really started to alarm the saner members of the coalition against the Iraqi War. Who in his right mind would want to be associated in people's minds as wanting to have a totalitarian state like the Soviet Union? What I find fascinating, when the groups against the war in Iraq disassociated themselves from International ANSWER and its front groups, they couldn't get too many people to show up on time and in place to have a proper rally. The one in Washington D.C. had about 200 people show up for the protest. Oooo, that's a growing movement all right. Oh, wait, one more thing about this sign. Venezuela and Bolivia have elected people who are socialists verging on Communists. They REALLY love old Fidel Castro. The problem they are having is that to keep their economies afloat they have had to adopt many free market reforms while at the same time undertaking a very large government intervention to alleviate poverty.

I kind find one of the t-shirts I see in one of picture to be very ironic. It says, "Killing One person is Murder. Killing 100000 is foreign policy." The quote is very similar to what Stalin said when he was derided about how many millions he had killed.

I saw this great sign. It shows a guy in an Arab keffiyeh next to a sign that says, "Stop the War in Iran before it starts." The war in Iran may not come about, but I wonder what the scenario would be if Iran really did get a nuclear bomb and used it on the U.S. I mean, would the same people who cried for Bush's impeachment for launching us on an illegal war then try to get him impeached for not stopping Iran from getting the Bomb? Interesting question that.

Look here for the verbage from Agent Zombie.

One of the pictures shows this guy in a t-shirt that says, "We are all Palestinians Now." His sign says, "Bush equals Hitler." Whenever Conservatives see that sign or something similar, they wonder where the guy holding the sign has misplaced his sanity. It may be clear to you as to connection Bush has to Nazism, but it surely is not clear to people on the Right. And again, Nazism is on the Left, not on the modern Right. The modern Right wants less government and less central control. The modern Left wants more government and more central control.

There's these two signs on the same poles. One says, "FREE IRAQ&PALISTINE! Stop U.S.& Israeli Killers & Torturers! End their imperialist Occupations Now!" The second says, "9-11 WAS A FRAUD! An Excuse for Imperialist Wars to Control World Oil Supplies and Impose U.S. & Israeli Empire." These two themes are throughout the rest of the signs. Too many people in the anti-war movement believe that 9/11 was a plot by Bush and the neocons to create the excuse to go to war with the entire world and impose some form of an imperial America. For some reason, Osama Bin Laden's boast that he and Al Quaeda blew up the World Trade Center has gone right by them or they choose to ignore that little detail. These two signs cause rational people to doubt the bear's sanity. Or at least it causes Conservatives to doubt the bearer's sanity.

A sign that says, "Support our brave AWOL's, CO's and Deserters" can really fire up the average American. I mean, I have no problem with Conscientious Objectors. They seem kind of strange to me. If someone signs up for the military in a time of war, why would they expect to be exempted from combat? I know, there are reasons why a pacifist might want to be part of the military and do support tasks, but it seems kind of silly to me. Absent Without Leave and Deserters have never had big fans in the United States, particularly since we went to all volunteer. Again, why sign up for the military if you don't want to go to war? Ah, well, the sign may be push for support among other protesters.

The sign that says, "If we must kill, let it be Capitalism" is sure going to cause average people to become anti-war. Again, the Communism that showed up in this parade and protest is not a great way to promote the anti-war message.

Now, get ready for this one. On a backpack, it says, "Jail Bush for the murder of JFK." I sat there laughing when I saw that. On the Right we call this a symptom of Bush Derangement Syndrome. I mean, come on, The Left is saying that Bush is a total moron, yet at the same time he can do all these superhuman things. He can cause a tsunami in Southeast Asia. He can plot to change the course of a hurricane so that it hurts Black people. he can get... God knows what can happen. Every time I turn around Bush is being blamed for something else that is either a physical event or impossible, I mean, the Sign makes the case that George Bush went back in time and killed John F. Kennedy. How the hell did he do that? Come on, tell me, I REALLY want to know. Get this people. This is the center of the Democratic Party right now. And all the Liberals are wondering why they can't get elected as a proud Liberal. With friends like these, dude, you just don't need no enemies.

Then there was a sign that said, "I support the Iraqi Resistance." Iraqi Resistance? As in the head hackers and bombers of women and children? As in the people who blew up a Shi'ite shrine in hopes that they could cause a civil war? People, get a grip. Anyone who says that has a problem with their patriotism, if not their sanity. Why does the Left ignore the torture that the so-called Iraqi Resistance does and come down hard on perceived torture that America does? Wait... Oh, yeah, torture where you tear someone's flesh splash their blood on the wall is equivalent to embarrassing them telling them dirty stories. Again, get a grip, the Irreconcilables are laughing at all the useful idiots in the parade from this last Saturday. If you do not believe that, then you may be hopeless.

Oh, I forgot about the anarchists. Yes, indeed. The anti-war movement's parades and protests have attracted the Black bloc. These are hard core anarchists who really want to dispense with government. They have a reputation of starting fights and throwing Molotov cocktails at buildings. They haven't killed anyone yet, but many watchers are waiting for that to happen at some point.

Oh, and boy were there a LOT of Palestinian flags out there. I want you to do a thought experiment. Suppose that the Palestinians stopped blowing up Jews in Israel and started making their country work on the West Bank and Gaza. Do you honestly believe that the Jews would continue to do raids into the occupied lands? Hamas has said specifically that they want to drive the Jews into the sea and kill as many Jews as they can.

Let's see. Who else was involved in the San Francisco protest? Oh, did I mention Code Pink? No, I didn't these are another anti-war group, though not a Communist group per se. They bill themselves as CODEPINK: Women for Peace and as anti-war feminists. Their protest at Walter Reed Medical center where many disabled American soldiers are treated have caused some major league bad press, because the soldiers there feel that they are being disrespectful and insensitive to their pain and suffering.

Hmm... Who else showed up? One picture shows "The World Can't Wait" group. Another anti-war group. Oh, and we wouldn't want to leave out the International Solidarity Movement. This is Rachel Corrie's group. They support the Palestine' right to blow up Jews. I'm not sure they state it that way, but it sure looks that way.

All things must come to an end. I am in the process of getting this show revamped. I just had to share with you some of the sights at the third annual anti-Iraqi War protest in San Francisco, because it makes the point I have been making for the last few months. The Left and the Right are talking past each other. How in the world are we as Conservatives and Liberals going to get along, if the two sides believe that the other side is crazed or demonic or both? I surely do not know.

This last weekend was too hectic for me. Pancake Day shot up Friday and Saturday. I was on the resolutions committee for the Republican Party of Brazos County. Me and this other guy modified slightly the Education portion of the county platform. Then I had to do this that and the other on a few other projects.

Anyway. I will now turn everything over to McKenzie Pequa the Third. She will play you some music. Maybe her music will soothe you to sleep. Maybe not.

Take it away Mac.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Index

Segment 1: Play Dream On by Aerosmith. Made the point that we as a nation are in a similar mood as we were in between February and March of 1942. The war on Terror is not quite going on at a level where we have to acknowledge that we ARE at war.

Segment 2: Play Man Eater by Hall&Oates. Review the book, Smart Sex, by Jennifer Roback Morse in the context of how abortion has made omen less free as opposed to more free. Also discuss a case before the federal courts that will allow a man to repudiate his unborn son in order to avoid child support.

Segment 3: Play When the Trash Meets the Cash by Ronny Cox to make the point that family values means more than a two parent family.

Segment 4: Play Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi to make the point that life is not fair.

Segment 5: Play Money for Nothing by Dire Straits to dscuss the concept of becoming a master craftsman.

Segment 6: Play Africa by Toto to make the point that Bono of the group U2 is incprrect when he says that debt relief will make Africa better off.

NOTE: I do not claim that all of the above is original. Where I have been able to do so, I have given links. If I have plagerized someone else's works without attribution, please give me the link and I shall make an update.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 1

Well, here we are again. The whole point of this show is to involve people in social activism. I've failed in that goal. Basically I wanted to encourage people to be involved in some projects I have come up with. The problem is that idea failed... for whatever reason. It looked good on paper... Ah, well, too bad.

What needs to happen now is to get word of mouth about the show, so I can get something done. What I anticipate doing will be different than the talk shows in the past. Let's see. I could invite a guest up to the studio and in front of a live audience interview the guest and show them my side of the topic. Most talk shows do is use the audience as foils to make the host look good. I want to use the recording session of the audience participation as context. I want to give the background of the topic by interviewing the guest and elicit comments from the audience on what is accepted as the truth about a given topic. Think about it a moment. What if the two sides of the debate cannot even define a common understanding as to what is true about a topic? Without context how can you reach a consensus as to what the truth is?

At the end of the audience segment, the guest gives their initial side of the debate. I want to think about it and then record my rebuttal. Then I record my rebuttal and get that to the guest on a CD I can burn. They in turn record their rebuttal to my rebuttal. How to do that last, I am not sure. The digital recorder I have will probably do it, but I am not sure. I have the software on my computer to patch all the segments together. I can put the audience participation and all three segments of the debate together for broadcast. Once that is all done, then I will create a transcript of the three segments, put them out on my blog and get comments. If I could figure out how to get the MP3 files stored somewhere, so people could download the debates and my program, I would do that.

Let me give you an example. What if the topic is abortion? What is the truth about abortion? Is it a right that is superior to all other rights because it is so important to individual freedom? What are the arguments against that view?

If you listen to talk radio, then you know that they are there to entertain, not inform. I mean, the talk show host tries to get as much time talking as possible. The host mostly wants to count coup on his guests as do the guests want to count coup on the host.

The whole point of the audience participation is to provide context. No topic exists in a vacuum. The biggest problem as I see it is that no one is providing the background for the topics on talk shows. There is wretched little light shed on the topics of the day. Mostly there is heat and bad feelings generated.

Oh, well, that is my goal. Right now, I have to get through this particular program.

A while back, I played some songs then talked about what they meant to me in the context of a given topic.

What I'm going to do is play some classic rock songs and then discuss something dealing with them. We're going to start tonight with a rather strident song.

That was Dream On by Aerosmith

When I was growing up in the 1950's and 1960's, the accepted wisdom was that the US and the Soviet Union would inevitably have a nuclear war and civilization would have to begin again. I read a science fiction book by Andre Norton called Star Man's Son which was a post-Apocalypse story where the United States was destroyed in a nuclear war and after about two hundred years had not recovered. I read a large number of those books. All of them seemed kind of freeing. I mean, the premise was that we could start over and get it right the second time. In short, all of these stories were about rebuilding. There was hope.

Today, we are in a war with the Irreconcilables of radical Islam that will span 30-50 years. The problem most Americans have is that they do not realize that the Irreconcilables may win their jihad. If they do, the new Caliphate will come about and our country will be submerged into their dreams of global Islamic domination. The world they promise is not an appealing one to me. The dreams of the Irreconcilables center around forcing all the people of the earth to acknowledge that Islam is the One True Path and that Muslims are superior to all other people on earth. Their dreams are strident and twisted. The problem then becomes that a good number of the Muslims outside the United States, believe that the goals of radical Islam are at least something to consider.

The response of the United States public has been kind of lukewarm to the war on Terror. The anti-war people have been incensed that they can't get too many of the American public worked up over the war. Because our day-to-day lives have not been really impacted, we are in the situation of Americans in January and February of 1941. World War II was unreal. The real fighting had not occurred as yet.

Today, we are in the same situation. It has been almost five years since 9/11. No other major terrorist attack has taken place in America. There have been terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, but not here. Our economy has recovered and is moving ahead. Even the expense of rebuilding Iraq is not a great burden on us.

Too many people on the Left have been making all kinds of weird points that boil down to militant passificism. What is really strange is that too many on the Right have become impatient and want this bother to be over. The Cartoon Jihad has caused some people to make the final jump to realizing that Islam is not going to go away. The Irreconcilables will not be placated.

Recall the words from Thomas Paine:

"These are the times that try men's souls:

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, Shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it NOW,

Deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; Yet we have this consolation with us. That the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly:--

'Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to set a proper price upon its goods; And it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article

As FREEDOM should not be highly rated."

We live in interesting times. Pray that we survive them as we survived the Cold War.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Man Eater by Hall & Oates

I'm reading a book called Smart Sex by Jennifer Roback Morse. What it is about is kind of strange, because it is not a self-help book. I mean, too many books nowadays are about how to increase the pleasure of your sex life. Sex has become a product that must be sold as the ultimate good. Let me quote you a paragraph that struck me as particularly interesting. She says:

Implicit in the modern view is that sexual activity without unwanted pregnancy is an entitlement. Put another way, sexual activity is not only a good, but a great and important good that curtailing it in significant ways constitutes an unacceptable infringement on personal freedom. There are two value judgements implicit in this view. First, separating sexual activity from reproduction is an entitlement. Second, voluntary sexual activity without procreation is always and everywhere a great good. Notice that neither of these statements is "value-neutral." Both contain powerful moral judgements, as well as tacit empirical claims.

The whole point of modern feminism has been that women HAVE to be made equal to men for things to be... I want to say fail, but that word has always seemed incompatible with being an adult. Life is not fair, where fair is defined as the outcome of an event is acceptable to 90% of those affected by the event. Such a standard is impossible. By making sex have no consequences, the unforseen outcome is that women are no longer valued as companions and advisors and soulmates. Women have been life support systems for their sexual organs. They are now objects. Women are encouraged to think that having children will make them less independent and less financially secure. What is even weirder is that children become the property of the woman and not the man. A woman can abort a child over the objections of her husband or the unwed father of the child.

About two weeks ago, a suit was launched in federal court that will have far reaching consequences. The suit is about a man who did NOT wed a woman. She became pregnant. He had explicitly told her that he did not want kids. The woman he was living with agreed to that. She became pregnant. He moved out and repudiated the child. He did not dispute that he was the biological father of the child that was born to the woman. He just said that because he had an implied contract with the woman, she cannot come to him for child support. Think about this for a moment. The guy is saying that the woman could have aborted the child or for that matter, she should have been more careful in her birth control regime. He was in it for the sex and had made no bones about it, so he contends that she, the mother of the child, has no call on his income, because he does not want or need to be a part of the child's life. Throughout the last thirty years courts have held that the woman has total control of her body. Now the chickens have come home to roost. If that is true, then it logically follows that it is the woman's responsibility to take care of a child, if the father repudiates the child before his or her birth.

What could happen is that if this guy wins is that all a live in boyfriend has to do is avoid putting their name on the birth certificate and they are home free. The father of illegitimate children then can be freed of child support by simply publishing a public notice that says that they repudiate the child by their lover or spouse. Right now a husband can do that with a wife's debts. By extension he can make the case that since he has no control over whether a baby is born, he should not have to pay for a baby he does not want. Back up once more. A woman can overrule the biological father of a child she is bearing. She can have an abortion and the man just has to suck it up. It follows that if the man cannot have any control of when a child is aborted, then he at this point in time has no control of whether it is born. The man in this suit is saying that he should not have the burden of paying child support for eighteen to 21 years for a child he does not want. The case will be based on equal protection precedents.

Now, I wonder what that means for married couples. Right now there is an implicit expectation inside a marriage that a man who marries a woman can expect total monogamy AND in return the woman will bear his children and only his children. What if the husband decides that he does not want ANY children? If there is a pre-nuptial agreement spelling this out, then maybe the man can make the case that he does not support any children who result from his wife. On the other hand, look at what could happen if the wife decides to have a baby and the husband says forget it. Right now, the guy is stuck. Marriage by definition means that the husband will support any children his wife produces (assuming she can prove paternity by DNA testing). If this suit is approved, then the husband can repudiate the child before the child is born, divorce his wife and NOT have to pay child support.

A case I heard about was where the husband divorced his wife and she had herself impregnated with fertilized ovum they had created in a bid for children. The guy in that case had to suck it up and pay child support. If this new case goes through, the husband could now reopen his case.

The nastiest outcome of this one is where the husband repudiates the child and stays married to the woman. How in the world would that be resolved? I mean, the husband has in fact said that he does NOT have to give ANY financial support to his child because he has repudiated it. I know, you out there in the audience are looking at me like I am crazy, but like I said at the beginning, what if the guy in the marriage is only looking for sex and not paternity? Think about it. I do not know how it could be done, but I can see such a case coming down the pike.

As I said, interesting times.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3

<When the Trash Meets the Cash by Ronny Cox> Pull it off the shelf

As I have told you, I do cleanup detail here at KEOS. Before the radio station can air a CD, we have to make sure it is FCC compliant. I review all the CD's that sit on the shelf for over a year. Or rather I review the ones that make sense to me. Rap, punk and dark metal are just too hard for me to comprehend.

About a year ago, I reviewed this album by Ronny Cox. It had sat on the shelf for God knows how long. I remembered this album even though it has been a year, because so few of the albums I review are any good.

This song has to do with the basic argument against Capitalism. I know, it doesn't look that way, but you have to look at it from the point of these women selling themselves to the highest bidder, because they have convinced themselves that they have no other choices. Note that we are not talking prostitution exactly. The implication is that the women in the song are becoming mistresses or maybe wives of the moneyed interests in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

The thinking on the Left goes that in a compassionate and just society, women should not have to sell themselves in such a meat market. The thinking on the Right is that women should not do this, period. The problem here is that transactions like the ones in the song have been happening forever. A woman decides she wants the good life without working for it and she finds a man with money who is willing to support her. I have heard stories that there are professional mistresses. Again, I'm not talking prostitutes per se, but women who become the mistresses of one individual wealthy man. When the guy tires of her, she moves on to another wealthy man. Remember WKRP in Cincinnati. The character, Jennifer, was like that.

What is even weirder are the people on the extreme Left who applaud this type of behavior and label women like this as sex workers. Or there are Libertarians (the extreme Right) who say that since there is no coercion there can be no real crime.

Yet... the whole idea undermines society. It promotes the idea that women are not good for anything except sex. Something to think about.

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 4

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 13, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 4

<Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi> #2.4

This is another protest against Capitalism. The poor benighted people in the story have such cruel and awful lives and it is all so awful. If we just had a compassionate government like the countries in Europe have, we wouldn't hear about people in bad situations like the one in the song.

The problem I always have with people who bemoan their lot in songs like this are that they never try to look for any solutions. They accept that life has screwed them and make no effort to do anything about it. I hear over and over again about people who are working two or three jobs just to make ends meet and can't understand that.

We have a movement locally called the Living Wage Coalition. Their goal is to in essence raise the minimum wage locally so that people can have enough to get by. They never ask why people are making less than a living wage. The answer almost always that the person involved is unskilled labor. Then they do not ask how come the individual is unskilled labor. I mean, how can someone be so unskilled in this country that they do not demand a living wage? The answer normally is that the person never finished high school OR never tried to get a skill that would demand a living wage. At that point the reasons become too individualistic to guess as to an overall answer.

The correct way in this country to raise people into a living wage is to get them to volunteer to gain the skills they lack. The idea that their poverty will be alleviated by simply giving them more money is just silly, plus here is the kicker. When you raise the minimum wage, you ace out the least skilled. Let me try this again. If a person has a skill level that does not demand even a minimum wage and a county raises all wages to a living wage, then the least skilled cannot get a job at the new pay scale. The most skilled of the unskilled pool of laborers take all the jobs. Thus the people you really want to help can never get a job, because the more skilled people will take all the jobs leaving them nothing.

A while back I told you about the Hiring Hall Association, that is my answer to the Living Wage Coalition. Ask people to volunteer to raise their skill.

There was a movie I saw once. The title was "Lower the Drawbridge, Don't Drain the Mote." I think about that phrase whenever I hear people demanding the raising of the minimum wage.