Saturday, September 17, 2011

It takes all sorts

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Perry's video of "The Response" prayer event has disappeared!

Bruce Wilson, writing at Talk To Action, notes that just "Last week the official web site for Texas governor Rick Perry's August 6, 2011 The Response prayer event, credited by a number of observers as having been the de-facto launch of Perry's presidential campaign, was wiped from the Internet.

"The disappearance of the website's video archive of the event, and the lists of endorsers and leaders of the event, is startling and raises the obvious question; what about The Response might candidate Perry, who stands a chance of becoming the next president of the United States, want to hide?"


Well, there are probably a number of things in Perry's political life he would like to disappear from public view.  I'm sure he rues the day he wrote that book in which he denounced Social Security as "unconstitutional."  But, this could be more serious.

As Wilson points out, Perry would doubtless wish to stifle his link to C. Peter Wagner's "apostles."  Wilson says, "As I've now extensively documented, Wagner and top apostles in his movement advocate burning books and scripture (including books of Mormon) and destroying religious relics associated with Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam."

Wilson has identified a minimum of 17 of Wagner's current or previous apostles that were associated with The Response.


Wilson goes on to discuss Wagner's Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders - what they are all about and what they mean to Perry and the country.  For one thing, they are a rowdy bunch of theocrats who are actively working to take over the government of the United States and install their particular and peculiar brand of Old Testament Christianity!

In the minds of these people, "secular" has no rights or role in the United States.  They believe, as per the pseudo-historian, David Barton, that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that God intends it become such again.  They do not believe in religious freedom.  They are as homophobic as possible.  They would institute laws against abortion.  Public schools are anathema so far as they are "secular" and disallow Christian prayers and teachings.

They are very dangerous.

Perry walks hand-in-hand with them.

But, evidently Perry does not want the people of the United States to know that.  So, he took down a video of The Response because many "apostles" were closely tied to the event and to him and clearly visible with public roles.

Wilson, who has spent years studying this religious phenomenon, goes into detail with regard to the various apostles and their beliefs and ministries.  Please read all of Wilson's article here.

Friday, September 16, 2011

God Hates Rick Perry!

There seems to be no other conclusion:  God hates Rick Perry!

Consider that as the State of Texas succumbed to a horrendous drought, Rick Perry belatedly called upon the people of the Lone Star State to fall on their knees before the Christian god and pray, pray, pray - for rain.

There has been no rain!  Perry's prayers failed! 


But how could the Christian god hate Perry?  Perry claims to be on speaking terms with the Christian god and know the will of the Christian god.  In fact, Perry says the Christian god is pissed at the United States. According to Perry, the "ills" which plague our nation are caused by our perversity and shameful behavior as a people.  God, says Perry, is pissed because we have ignored his will.

[Don't you wonder though why god isn't just as pissed at other countries?  Maybe he only cares about the U.S.]

For example, Perry thinks his god hates Socialism and he believes Mr. Obama is a socialist, ergo god hates Obama as he must be one of the problems, or "ills".  [Of course, Perry being a dumb-ass dirt farmer does not understand the meaning of "socialism.]

Perry also believes that his god does not want Democrats in positions of power.  He believes that his god desires school children to pray to him in Jesus' name.  Perry insists his god is angry because liberals have stifled the hanging of Ten Commandment plaques on walls of public buildings.  Perry does not believe in the separation of church and state because he's been convinced by pseudo-historians that the United States was born a Christian country.  Many of his most important backers are working toward replacing our current form of government with a form of Christian fundamentalist theocracy.

Perry's god also dislikes gays.  They are an "abomination," according to one of the biblical passages quoted by Perry and his cohorts.  Thus Perry is convinced his god is pissed because some of our states allow gays to marry.  Even worse is the issue of abortion.  It is legal for women on have an abortion in this country.  God, according to Perry, becomes irate when he thinks about such a thing.

 Furthermore, there are teachers in our schools who insist on teaching the theory of evolution and that, as every good Christian knows, is to deny the truth of god's holy word, the Bible.  Many science classes are forbidden to teach Creationism, which, as Perry has explained, is the story of how god created the universe.   

God has also counseled Perry that taxes are bad, bad, bad.  [That, in spite of the fact that Jesus (who was god himself) told his followers to give the government its due.  It appears Perry missed that section of the New Testament.]  So, according to Governor Good Hair no Christian can be in favor of raising taxes on the rich (folks like Perry).  The rich create jobs, donchaknow?

Perry also knows that God is more concerned with fetuses than with real live people!  God told Perry that the poor are poor 'cause they want to be.  And if they need a place to live, clothing, education and health care, well, that's their problem, and not a concern of the government.  The government exists to serve the really good guys - guys with money like those who fill Perry's campaign coffers to keep him in office so he can let the rich do whatever the hell they want to do even if the people of Texas suffer.

And god doesn't worry about wars and killing - especially if those getting killed are Muslims and other nogoodniks.  Nor does god worry about the fact that it is more than likely some of the 246 (or thereabouts) people that Perry has executed as guv of the State of Texas were innocent. 


Now Perry is so sure of all this that he, along with a bunch of far-out Christian freakniks who want to take over the government and institute their version of Christian law, put together a huge prayer rally in the smog-bound city of Houston.  Only about 30,000 folks showed up but they spent the day waving their hands, lifting their eyes to the heavens (which is where the Christian god lives), weeping and sobbing for their country and imploring their god to change things - to drive out the heathen and let them - good Christians all - take over the country, led, of course, by Rick Perry.  Oh, they also prayed for rain!


Obviously, Perry is deluded, delusional, and perhaps just plain insane.  He's also mean.  And god hates him!  How do we know this?  Look at what has happened to the State of Texas!  The whole damn place is on fire.  It hasn't rained at all.  It's just gotten hotter and drier and windier all of which has fanned the flames until the entire state looks like a vision of hell!

Perry, like most Repugnicans these days, believes government is to enrich the rich.  Government is not to help the regular people.  So Perry has been chopping away at the state budget, unwilling to raise taxes on the wealthy or the corporations whose contributions keep him in office.  Teachers have felt the blows, as have health care workers, and those who tend to the public welfare - like firefighters!

At least 1,000 homes have already been destroyed by fire in Perry's domain.

Firefighting is not a priority with Perry.

In Perry's vision of Texas, firefighting and firefighters just don't count for much.  The majority of firefighters in the State of Texas are volunteers.  Here's how it breaks down:

Volunteer fire departments - 817
Paid fire departments - 114
Combination of paid and volunteer fire departments - 187

Because the guv doesn't think these guys count for much, they have been straining to find the resources to do their job.  Then, this year, the volunteer fire departments found that their funding had been decimated - from $30 million to $7 million.

Perry, the master hypocrite, almost took some time off campaigning for the GOP nomination for president to take do something about the Texas fires.  But then he showed up at that CNN/Teapot debate in California anyway.

Meanwhile, god, really pissed now at Perry's inability to get things straight and at his pretense of knowing the mind of god, spoke to me last night and said he wanted to clarify a few things:

1)  I never, ever told Perry to run for president.  He's been a disaster in Texas and he'd be a disaster in D.C.

2)  The fires in Texas are the result of the natural order of things.  When people screw up the environment so badly as to cause climate change - global warming - this is what one must expect.  But don't blame me.  Blame Perry and all the rest of the truth-deniers.

You can, however, blame Perry for this:  the fires might very well have been fought more successfully if Perry had stopped his damned prayer and not cut the budgets of those responsible for firefighting in Texas. 

Oh, one last thing:  I don't hate Rick Perry.  How can you hate anyone so damn dumb?