I had the pleasure to meet Thom at the Green Festival in Chicago this weekend. He gave a great speech, but he was also very approachable and friendly afterwards. I got a personal autograph in one of his books and a photo of him with me and my husband. Even though he was just a friendly, regular guy, I was entirely star-struck at the time (my hero!) and forgot everything I thought of asking him. I hope you'll all feel motivated to see him at any future events (and write down your questions!).

Thanks!
Tracy

Last night I was stunned, awestruck after listening to a remarkable commentary K. Olbermann made to his nationwide TV audience on 5/14/08. He delivered the words with such force and passion! It was wonderful. I've been waiting 6 years to hear someone in the MSM speak this truth to power. Are any fellow lefties talking about it yet? I plan to send MSNBC an email telling them that KO has a new, loyal viewer. I hope Thom will invite him to come on his show to discuss the backdrop of his commentary and what, if any, fallout has ensued. The full transcript and the complete video of Olbermann's editorial are posted on www.truthout.org. The following are just a few snippets for your consideration:

Of War and Golf
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
Wednesday 14 May 2008

Transcript:

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on two topics a lot of us had foolishly thought, had naively hoped, we would not again have to address… and a third topic nobody thought a president would ever seriously mention in public unless perhaps he'd just been hit in the head with something and was not in full possession of his faculties - how he expressed his "empathy" to the families of the dead in Iraq - by giving up golf.

The President has resorted anew to the sleaziest fear-mongering and mass manipulation of an administration - of a public life - dedicated to realizing the lowest of our expectations.

And he has now applied these poisons to the 2008 presidential election, on behalf of the party at whose center he and Mr. McCain lurk.

Mr. Bush has predicted that the election of a Democratic president could, "eventually lead to another attack on the United States."

This ludicrous, infuriating, holier-than-thou and most importantly bone-headedly wrong statement came yesterday during an interview with Politico-dot-com and on-line users of Yahoo.

The question was phrased as follows: "If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what's the worst that could happen, what's the doomsday scenario?"

The President replied: "Doomsday scenario, of course, is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.

The biggest issue we face is - it's bigger than Iraq - it's this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives."

Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created, includes 'cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives'?'

They are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes.

Through your haze of self-congratulation and self-pity, do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives?

'This ideological struggle,' Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country.

It is a struggle between Americans who cherish freedom - ours and everybody else's - and Americans like you, sir, to whom freedom is just a brand name, just like "Patriot Act" is a brand name or "Protect America" is a brand name.

"Do you feel," asked an ordinary American, "that you were mis-led on Iraq?"

"I feel like - I felt like, there were weapons of mass destruction. You know, "mislead" is a strong word, it almost connotes some kind of intentional - I don't think so, I think there was a - not only our intelligence community, but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was."

Flawed.

You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons.

You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, fast.

You, Mr. Bush, are responsible for how "intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment."

You and the sycophants you dredged up and put behind the most important steering wheel in the world propagated palpable nonsense and shoved it down the throat of every intelligence community across the world and punished anybody who didn't agree it was really chicken salad.

And you, Mr. Bush, threw under the bus all of the subsequent critics who bravely stepped forward later to point out just how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy you had embraced, and adopted as this country's policy - in lieu of, say, common sense.

The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco.

"I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction, as were members of Congress, who voted for the resolution to get rid of Saddam Hussein. And of course, the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes."

Mr. Bush - you destroyed the evidence that contradicted the resolution you jammed down the Congress's throat, the way you jammed it down the nation's throat.

When required by law to verify that your evidence was accurate, you simply re-submitted it, with phrases amounting to "See, I done proved it," virtually written in the margins in crayon.

You defied patriotic Americans to say "The Emperor has no clothes" - only with the stakes (as you and the mental dwarves in your employ put it) being a "mushroom cloud over an American city."

Then came Mr. Bush's final blow to our nation's solar plexus, his last re-opening of our common wounds, his last remark that makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitably to remain in office.

"Mr. President," he was asked, "you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?

"Yes," began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans - on our history.

"It really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died, to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as - to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you gave up golf?

Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you didn't give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war.

The war in Iraq - your war, Mr. Bush - is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations, and how you helped funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to lascivious and perennially thirsty corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater, and how you sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths - for nothing.

It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game!

And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20th will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt Thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice:

When somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at…

When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation…

When somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead…

This advice, Mr. Bush…

Shut the hell up!

In response to Thom's interview today with Jeff Sharlet, I've made an overview of concerns about Hillary et al. and the theocracy of the The Fellowship (aka The Family):

Obama has Wright.
McCain has Hagee, Parsely, et al.
HILLARY HAS DOUG COE.

Obama's Rev. Wright is a total Progressive clergyman, doing the charitable work and supporting social justice through clear thinking and awareness of historical context.

McCain's pastors Hagee and Parsely and the rest of his group of Christianists with reactionary ideology and profiteering tactics, are total opportunists and succeed in their ambitions by manipulating their "flocks" (read that as $HEEP), and obviously act as petty crooks fingering their marks.

Hillary's Doug Coe of The Fellowship (aka The Family) is THE FASCISTS' PASTOR. Doug Coe works to fashion the death of Democratic Freedoms and insert THEOCRACY instead. And he admittedly, by choice, uses the methods of Hitler (see his written instructions to his devotees, below)! Doug Coe's goals are the goals of an anti-Constitution degenerate who desires to mold a new world religious order based on a twisted "morality" of solidarity and obedience to Authority in a fascist context!

HILLARY'S CONNECTION TO DOUG COE AND THE FELLOWSHIP MUST BE MADE CLEAR AND KNOWN! It's an anti-Constitution connection. It is a NEO-CRUSADE position.

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Further reading on The Fellowship (aka The Family):

The Nation, "Hillary's Nasty Pastorate," by Barbara Ehrenreich

Harper's Magazine March 2003, "Jesus plus nothing" by Jeffrey Sharlet

Mother Jones October 2007, "Hillary's Prayer" by Kathryn Joyce and Jeffrey Sharlet

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P.S. Hillary Clinton clearly expresses how she shares the radicalized views of the fascistic reactionary religious right when she repeatedly makes irresponsible, incendiary, NeoCrusade-mongering statements about "obliterating Iran" and makes a domestic anti-progressive Crusade of denouncing a progressive liberation pastor like Rev. Jeremiah Wright! Hillary is giving us very nasty warning glimpses of what her praying with Doug Coe has wrought in her own life, and we'd better heed them! (Remember, the reason Bush has used the term "Islamo-fascists" is because he chooses to divert attention from the actions of Christo-fascists.)

ADDENDUM:

Why is Hillary (as well as many other U.S.government officials) alligned with this The Fellowship and its goal of THEOCRACY in the U.S.A. and the world?

Hillary's participation in The Fellowship is alarming, and more alarming than anything that she has been mudslinging about Obama and Rev. Wright.

Hillary's participation in The Fellowship is not about "personal belief" and questioning her about The Fellowship is not a religious test as the Obama/Wright flap has been; by the way, such a religious test would be forbidden by the Article Six of the Constitution. No, The Fellowship (aka The Family) steps outside the bounds of religion into THEOCRACY. That's because The Fellowship has goals of directly influencing government and removing separation of church and state. We have every right -- indeed DUTY -- to question Hillary about her longtime work with an organization that holds theocratic intent, a clear intent that goes against our Constitution and its guarantees of religious freedom!

It frightens me to think that Hillary will get any further -- either in 2012 or maybe even sooner if she takes the nomination at the last minute (I suspect the recent illness of the head of the traditional Liberal Dems, Ted Kennedy, will stengthen Hillary's position in whipping up the DLC fervor), without ever answering to the American People about the goals she shares with The Fellowship.

As an introduction, the following is an excerpt from a Harper's Magazine article "Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover with America's Secret Theocrats" by Jeffrey Sharlet, March 2003.

"....I ran into Doug Coe [leader of The Fellowship since 1969], who was tutoring Todd Tiahrt, a Republican congressman from Kansas. A friendly, plainspoken man with a bright, lazy smile, Coe has worked for the Family since 1959, soon after he graduated from college, and has led it since 1969.

Tiahrt was a short shot glass of a man, two parts flawless hair and one part teeth. He wanted to know the best way “for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim.” The Muslim, he said, has too many babies, while Americans kill too many of theirs.

Doug agreed this could be a problem. But he was more concerned that the focus on labels like “Christian” might get in the way of the congressman's prayers. Religion distracts people from Jesus, Doug said, and allows them to isolate Christ's will from their work in the world.

“People separate it out,” he warned Tiahrt. “'Oh, okay, I got religion, that's private.' As if Jesus doesn't know anything about building highways, or Social Security. We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping.”

“All right, how do we do that?” Tiahrt asked.

“A covenant,” Doug answered. The congressman half-smiled, as if caught between confessing his ignorance and pretending he knew what Doug was talking about. “Like the Mafia,” Doug clarified. “Look at the strength of their bonds.” He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt's face. Tiahrt nodded, squinting. “See, for them it's honor,” Doug said. “For us, it's Jesus.”

Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their “brothers”: “Look at Hitler,” he said. “Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.” The Family, of course, possessed a weapon those leaders lacked: the “total Jesus” of a brotherhood in Christ.

“That's what you get with a covenant,” said Coe. “Jesus plus nothing.” [END EXCERPT]

"The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God-leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by spirit." (excerpted from Mother Jones article ""Hillary's Prayer" Oct. 2007 issue)

The Fellowship's "leader" Doug Coe has targeted government leaders mostly and when that goal is applied to leaders in government the end product is the death of separation of church and state. It's a tidy formula: Justify a rightwing governmental position on the basis of rightwing religious morality.

David Coe. Doug Coe's son and heir apparent to The Fellowship secret "church", has said that the intent of The Fellowship is world domination.

Indeed, Hillary Clinton, a member ever since 1993, has ALREADY proved she is personally pursuing The Fellowship's goal: she has made clear that she will embrace American rightwing majority 'morality' over government-guaranteed individual rights. "Clinton suggests as much herself in her 1990 book, 'It Takes a Village', where she writes approvingly of religious groups' access to schools, lessons in Scripture, and 'virtue' making a return to the classroom." (excerpted from Mother Jones' article.) If teaching kids religion in public school is not a poster child for the Death of separation of church and state, I don't know what is!

The main assault on separation of church and state so far has been the millions of taxdollars diverted from government programs for health and human services and given to religious groups apparently without oversight. The Clintons were responsible for beginning this assault which Bush now has increased. If legislation promotes "conservative morality", Hillary Clinton appears to be a dependable promoter and supporter. And don't forget, Hillary is for prayer in public schools.

And what of liberal ideals of social justice? It will be replaced by "Conservative [so-called] morality" as was seen when Senator Hillary Clinton refused to support funding an anti-human trafficking measure unless it included a condemnation of prostitution. Social Justice replaced with prudishness, intolerance, and a prim stinginess.

There is a the clear reason it appeared so easy for Hillary to trash Rev. Wright: Rev. Wright has worked for liberal ideals and a social justice for each individual and group that leads to inner strength, something one can feel inside! That is the antithesis of The Fellowship's reason for being; The Fellowship is OF THE ELITE FOR THE ELITE. Hillary wants you to prove you're her kind of Christian by publicly praying in grade school, middle school and high school. Clearly The Fellowship (aka The Family) has affected Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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The future belongs to those who believe
in the beauty of their dreams.--Eleanor Roosevelt