As I hear about sending more troops to Iraq, I can’t get off my mind a quick comparison chart in this month’s Mother Jones showing lower recruiting standards for the army. How much lower will they need to go to meet targets? We know they are already sending in high-paid mercenaries. At what point will conscription begin? I’m sure they know the answer to this, but I don’t know.

A friend sent me a news of the weird notice yesterday that brought all of this forward for me. A 22-year old Iraq war veteran — bored, apparently — decided to try something he’d seen on Jackass. He shoved a fireworks rocket up his rectum and lit it. The Daily Mail even has a lovely video. Granted, he’s British not American. Maybe the war made him unstable. Still, this leads me to wonder if the standards aren’t already too low. How many Iraq war veterans from any country could win Darwin Awards?

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I know Bush says he’ll do what he wants, and he will trot out as many generals as he can find to support his plan. But, I hope Congress remembers what so many Americans said was the main issue on their minds when they voted for change, and I hope they fight this man and his plan. Apart from all of the reasons WE SHOULDN’T BE THERE, we clearly don’t have the depth for this. Shouldn’t the generals be telling Bush that? Yes, they are. Then they find themselves retired.

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I may have been half asleep, but I was sure this is what I read in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning: GOP vows to be more evil in ‘07. I didn’t question it, but I thought, good for the Tribune for daring to print it. Then I stood up and looked more closely at the headline.

Oh. GOP vows to be more civil in ‘07. That, I will have to see to believe. I heard the name “Chris Buttars” this morning on the radio. I shivered.

It’s the opening day of the Utah Legislative Session.

Unlike other state legislatures that work all year (or at least meet all year), in Utah we have just 45 days in January and February of every year to spend our abundance of money and legislate righteousness. (Chris Buttars says don’t prohibit the right to religious expression but he and others want to prohibit expression of solidarity through Gay-Straight Alliances at high schools. It’s important to be selective in order to create [self-]righteousness.)

Thanks to Green Jenni for pointing out that the League of Women Voters of Utah provides an email update during the session (as well as radio and online updates).

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What is the real reason the federal government denies support for science?

It would be simplistic to say the budget crisis currently experienced by so many federal research agencies is a matter of funds being diverted to war. Congress failed to approve the budgets while there was a Republican majority in both houses in a matched set with the executive branch (and, I would argue, the judicial branch–but that’s a non-budgetary matter). It isn’t that they didn’t have the power to approve budgets if they had shown the will.

Just don’t find science important?

Just don’t think the world will be around long enough to justify the investment?

Can’t see how the research will benefit shareholders? (”What? No shareholders in Congress? My mistake. I must have confused it with something else.”)

I suspect many of the people who have the power to set the overall agenda aren’t seeking truths. I suspect they already have in hand as many truths as they can believe. What, then, could scientific research do to enrich their lives? On the contrary, scientific research has the potential to upset their lives by contradicting their truths about the age of the Earth, the origins of life, the sources of human sexuality, and–I think the most important point lately–how they expect the Earth to end. Gay evolutionary scientists who are concerned about climate change just don’t fit their worldview. They are not seeking to find out about the world, which is what one would expect from a scientist. They are seeking to tell the world about itself, which is what one would expect from preacher.

So? Preach, of course. And deny. That’s the answer. That’s what the Decider does. Also he ignores, as well as sending Tony Snow out to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about everything not on the Decider’s daily agenda. Fear Uncertainty Doubt. That’s FUD for short–a marketing strategy at work on many levels in the government. At the same time as denying, it appears to be important to place science denial experts in charge of government science, particularly environmental science. Preach, deny, ignore, and switch.

In the meantime, do they expect the world to end before we hold them accountable? I know I say this over and over. HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE. The new Congress seems to be heading in that direction. Congratulations on the first 100 hours. Now, could you approve those spending bills rather than extending the stopgap resolution until September 30?

“Except for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, the government is being financed under a stopgap resolution. It expires Feb. 15, and Democrats said they planned to extend a similar resolution through Sept. 30.” William J. Broad, “Congressional Budget Delay Stymies Scientific Research,” New York Times, January 7, 2007.

UPDATE: I caught the replay of Science Friday with Ira Flatow (NPR) from Jan 12.  Science funding.  Great interview.

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Last night I heard George Bush say that mistakes in Iraq were his fault. I agree. That’s simple.

So, what’s the fuss about?

Absolutely everything else he said. The absolutely-everything-else is the part I don’t particularly agree with.

Surge, surge, surge. I read several articles today comparing our current situation to Vietnam–Bush channelling Nixon, a point-by-point comparison of Bush’s speech with Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech exactly 40 years earlier, Vietnam All Over Again (from the President of Veterans for America), and how a left-over liberal (Joe Klein) still manages to support the Iraq war. That sounds dangerously close to neocon territory.

If you aren’t into the idea of escalation, how about joining an emergency rally later today?

Salt Lake City, Federal Building, 5:30pm, Thursday, January 11th

Everywhere else

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I wanted to think that a sweeping Democratic victory last November meant we faced less danger from the creeping fascism of creepy fascists. I was wrong, of course. The drive for authoritarian control is still apparent in a huge number of stories outside the average top ten–and sometimes lurking in the headlines.

Find a religious authoritarian under a variety of rocks.

• Evangelical Christians are using various levels of government to preach to captive Americans, resulting in unconstitutional use of taxpayer funds to indoctrinate prisoners and crossing the constitutional line separating church and state.

• The Pentagon Prayer Team, shown in the Christian Embassy video that is getting some notice, makes no pretense of separating church and state. It is quite obvious that they prefer no separation at all–as long as the church running the state is evangelical Christian, naturally.

• Efforts to exert influence over police and military result in evangelical Chistians holding at least 50% of chaplaincy appontments. So far. That is just the tip of the influence, of course. Do you think being part of the military or police should imply that one is: a) Republican, and b) evangelical Christian? It might be easy to say that it shouldn’t, but being honest about your own experience, does it?

• George W. Bush gets his orders from a higher power rather than from the U.S. citizens who (sort of) elected him. (See Mike Luckovich’s take on this higher power.) Even Spider-Man knows a super-villain when he sees one.

Rather than calling these people on their attempts to skirt the laws of the U.S. that separate church and state, those traditionally outside the evangelical right are courting them. I’m thinking of Mitt Romney, willing to do anything radically conservative, it would seem, in order to gain the influence needed to be run credibly for President.

Do you need more information than a few articles can give you? Read a few books. There are many books on the radical religious right and their Christian Reconstructionism. These are just two that have been released recently. Follow the links from them to find a web of alarm.

The Theocons: Secular American Under Siege by Damon Linker. Read an excerpt. Read reviews.

American Fascists by Chris Hedges.

DING DING DING.

We need more than alarm. We need clarity and action. We must be determined to fight those who attempt to undermine our rights.

How far are we down the road to fascism? And, what can we do about it?

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