[audiobomber]

Think Berlin Wall but chain link. And electrified rather than guard houses.

The total length of the Berlin Wall was 155 kilometres (96 miles)
The US-Mexico border's total length is 3,169 km (1,969 mi)

[Wheatfield]

The total length of the Berlin Wall was 155 kilometres (96 miles)
The US-Mexico border's total length is 3,169 km (1,969 mi)

Yes well, the USA is much more advanced than the Soviets Union was when the wall was built.
I'm sure they'll be able to come up with some way of pulling it off.

[audiobomber]

There is no reason why it should matter, but it will always be brought up by the opponent, if not the candidate.

I've never heard religion, or lack of religion, mentioned in a Canadian political discussion, which is exactly how it should be.

[jeffkrol]

Yes well, the USA is much more advanced than the Soviets Union was when the wall was built.
I'm sure they'll be able to come up with some way of pulling it off.

To keep costs down we could hire some "aliens"......

[Nesster]

Yes well, the USA is much more advanced than the Soviets Union was when the wall was built.
I'm sure they'll be able to come up with some way of pulling it off.

the Space Program of our era: if we could put a man on the moon, we surely can wall off ~115 million Mexicans.

And hey, it's not like we'd be building a Maginot line either.

However while they're at it, I suggest the Republican Party also build a wall on the Canadian border... you know, to keep us from illegally fleeing to Canada.

[audiobomber]

Yes well, the USA is much more advanced than the Soviets Union was when the wall was built.
I'm sure they'll be able to come up with some way of pulling it off.

Even if they did build a fence, construction would barely be started before people found ways to go over, under and through it. The fact that it's a dumbass idea is not what irks me. What irks me about the fence is that it became a serious debate topic for potential Presidential candidates. I guess it's a much safer talking point than children with no health care, or the real reason that Republicans won't tax the rich.

[Nesster]

Dan, oh ye of little imagination: once the wall's up, it is easy to shoot the uninsured kids over the fence into Mexico, where they have insurance. And as for the rich, there won't be so many after the Republicans get through with their plans. We all get tax cuts through the supply side method of cutting our incomes.

[Ratmagiclady]

Of course I'm aware of this, but those ties are historical. Christmas, Hannukah, etc are active religious holidays - they are about their respective religions. Halloween was, up until around 10-15 years ago, celebrated the same way by everyone regardless of religion. It was effectively secular, it's ties to the pagan origins only an interesting piece of trivia, really.

In other words, kids weren't celebrating paganism, they were just trick + treating. It shouldn't have been co-opted. It wasn't a threat.

Well, while it's true that American kids weren't trick-or-treating cause they were honoring a Celtic Pagan holiday, actually you make too much of a claim no one was celebrating Samhain 'till ten or fifteen years ago,' Since I've been attending Samhain celebrations for over twenty years, I can tell you that's just not true. Frankly, the Religious Right's been trying to demonize the holiday since before they were apparently actually aware of us still being around. They just made some stuff up, pretty much. Then tried to apply it to us later.



(Actual Pagans don't actually think all that much of the trick-or-treating custom: while it's likely a survival of a seasonal Irish folk tradition going way back, what's all about candy and often cast in terms of Christian type fears of the spirit world and death and all, just isn't quite our take on it, (Though we often have fun with the general revelry, too, usually after the solemnities are observed. )
Trick or treaters usually come around when we're feasting (There's an observance of an empty place and theoretically silence to honor the ancestors, but the silence in many mixed groups is more often honored in the breach than the observance There's actually sort of a cultural tie-in, there, ...you never know who it might be coming to the door, after all. The fey costumery and all that actually kind of took on some of the modern form cause the tenants and serfs could kind of get one up on the big house and churchmen and generally sort of redistribute a little wealth/give them a chance to 'show largesse...' Having all the youngsters and who-knows-else running about masked in too big of numbers to punish, while everyone of course knows the Fair Folk play tricks of a Samhain. Especially if anyone's inhospitable or greedy.



Anyway, certainly I've been attending Samhain celebrations of varying sizes for well over two decades, now, and I know people my age who were *raised* Pagan. We've been around. Admittedly not having much to do with the public/secular holiday, apart from some of the long-running 'Witches' Ball' fundraisers. (Many of which are really charity balls/block parties for the general public, not really exactly representative. Fun, though. ) And there's the self-fulfilling stereotype about how in some Christian beliefs of old, 'black cats are bad luck cause they're 'witch's familiars' And then Pagans end up adopting lots of black cats when we adopt, cause few others will take them, (We do have lots of cat and general animal-lovers) and, you know, it'd be kind of silly to be afraid of ourselves that way. So there's a litle more of the 'Halloweeny' image.

( Somehow the latest propaganda has gotten turned around to some claims we *sacrifice* black cats, and that that's why animal shelters won't place black cats just before Halloween (Actually the idea's to try and discourage people adopting animals just for decorations or other impulse. Actually, especially if anyone is thought to be 'a Witch,' we make sure we *protect* our animals, from mean/idiotic kids or haters. (It would seem someone out there has been 'warning' and 'educating' kids about how people get 'evil Satanic powers' from brutalizing our animal friends. Hrm. Who's running around teaching kids *that?* Not us, but a lot of the preachers behind the Presidential candidates in this 'debate' are. But, actually, it does end up that a lot of our kitties are black. And we love them. Family-like and all.
Wanton brutality toward animals is both a *huge* no-no for us, and also a sign of weakness, btw. Especially if it's animals you're hunting or eating. I suppose apart from being kind of fixated on the idea of sacrifices to appease angry Gods, I can see some people getting the wrong idea from Samhain being on an *agrarian* sort of calendar, and that's around when you'd have to start culling back herds in some climes if you want to have enough fodder over the winter. Cause the actual seasons are turning and all. Also makes it a pretty good time for a feast. )

Anyway, it's kind of cute when trick or treaters turn up, even if some of the Fundies are always saying we're sitting around putting 'demons' in Halloween candy the rest of the year, for some reason. One really wonders where they get their ideas. I think they're just trying to explain the sugar rush. Or project their own ill-will onto some scapegoat. All very surreal, especially when you consider how many of us are natural food fanatics, yet feeling kind of obligated to hand out Reese's cups or something in the first place.





(And even twenty years ago, the Fundamentalists were kind of spreading disinformation and fear about the holiday and any actual Pagan folk in general: some of that disinformation's kind of re-dressed *old* colonialist disinformation and appropriation. (And a lot of it they just make up. I think I read that it was some churchman was either ignorant or uneducated enough to think 'Samhain' is a *God,* centuries ago, when any Irish-speaker knows it's a seasonal term. ...The comic-tract-making Fundies founr like that one reference repeated somewhere, and decided to claim it as fact. Christianity has of course demonized our Gods, but our *holidays* in most of Europe are in fact about the *season* and not so often particularly dedicated to any given one: that's basically Christian missionaries trying to cast the local pagan folk as following some backwards/'evil' version of their *own* religion. Look at how the same types perceived/portrayed Native American religion and people in general: if they'd ever even seen any for themselves, it's clear they didn't know *what* they were seeing. )


And, we're really talking about a vast array of cultural diversity across vast spaces and times. Often what people think they know is based on sources that were actually third-hand, oversimplified, and usually through the eyes of 'hostile witnesses' so to speak, either with something like a Christian agenda to convert and conquer, (or Hebrew ones about 'Stay away from/don't be like those people.' )

And, so, on points of history and other people's beliefs, I know darn well these kinds of people aren't telling the truth about *me, now,* and weren't about the Native Americans or the Irish and on back.... Why should I assume the same kinds of people were telling the truth about everyone else in the world *then?*

(Not to over-romanticize the past, either, it's not like there was no such thing as a need for social progress before Constantine or Patrick: )

Anyway, there's a *lot* to cover, but bear that in mind when I will quibble on certain points taken for 'history' for just these reasons: there are a lot of kind of hostile narratives out there, basically.

Fact is, though, there's long been people celebrating Samhain in a non-Christian religious context, (...this isn't the first Pagan revival there's ever been, for one thing: ) ...This time around, what's changed in America in the past fourty five years or so, particularly the last twenty or so, is *numbers and visibility.*


And actually having to defend our civil rights and religious freedoms, particularly in the face of the Christian Right's 'culture war' , identity-politics, and moral-panic tactics. Which is, ironically, where much of the visibility comes from. Having to speak up, since we can't *take* our freedoms for granted. Especially when there are people with a whole lot of power who've been attacking that freedom for a long time.

And, as to this notion 'You can and should have freedom *of* religion but not freedom *from* (my sort of) religion,' ...just ask someone who's actually *using* that freedom. When a lot of the same forces actively try to *ban* Pagan religion, impose Christian religious law, and call it a 'Christian nation' by disenfranchising everyone else... You know there's no freedom *of* religion if you can't be free *from* the coercion and imposition of someone else's. It's obvious.

The Right casts it as though they're being 'oppressed Christians' if saying 'Merry Christmas' ...isn't *mandatory.* (Then *claim* it's about someone trying to ban *saying* 'Christmas' when that's the exact opposite of whatever case is at hand, generally. ) I checked one of the big Pagan newsfeeds over coffee this morning, and most of the stories from the past week are of various Dominionist Republicans and all those familiar stories. What they're angry about is the notion that people might *not* have to make some kind of obeisance to Christianity, ...they're after trying to culturally 'cleanse' anything not their own ways, and claim 'reverse bigotry' if they aren't allowed to lord it over others.


Politics of division and people using the majority religion's money and power and numbers to try and play that politics of division to have their way over *all* of us. To actually break arms and pick pockets, really, or get someone else to do it for them. Whether we swear by Abrahamic divinities or Pagan ones or anyone else or none. If you're not *free* you're not *free,* even if you like the cage.



As for the holidays themselves, the Pagan survivals in them are generally *seasonal,* not votive. So they generally don't constitute devout Christians' somehow breaking their allegiances/worshipping other Gods... for the most part it's actually stuff that was considered (or 'rendered' ) theologically -'safe' by people who were in the business of trying to convert everyone. (Much of Pagan practice really just isn't about bowing and offering obeisance, and a lot of the symbols, well, they're part of many Christian folk's heritage, too. They've just mostly lost the meaning of them. And I know what *that* feels like, really. But there's nothing really there that is worth all the fussing about, (It's actually kind of amusing how they are trying to take a Christianized term: Halloween, and Christianize it *more* with the etymylogically-(And I'd think, theologically in Christian terms,) *nonsensical* 'Jesus-ween.' Seems like just a monomaniacal re-branding effort. But somehow these people have clout, over the whole GOP field. And it sure looks like a serious issue over ...well, gripes the Christian Right made up in the first place to stigmatize others.

It's kind of like, how do you put it, Christians celebrate their God by like commemorating their God/savior/etc at various points of the year, ....Pagans will generally be celebrating the year and inviting the Gods. (We don't really make a hard and fast distinction there, generally: wouldn't really be meaningful except for purposes of comparison. Cause we don't see the Gods as so apart from the world in the first place, y'know? However it's still possible to celebrate the season with seasonal symbols without dragging big theistic concerns from exclusivism in. You'll hear a lot about how Christianity (and commercialism) appropriated a lot of Pagan holidays and symbols (and sacred places) and such, but you notice how you don't hear a lot of Pagans screaming about 'You're offending the Gods with those Christmas decorations!' (That really just wouldn't make too much sense, for the same reasons it's not something to be threatened by. )

(Admittedly, lynching 'witch' effigies for Halloween is one of those things you'll be like, 'Well, you've acheived scary, but I'm personally not sure quite how to take that.' I think the 'broomstick-riding cartoon witch flattened against the house' things are kind of a hoot, though. )


And, there's another rambling one, I was sort of pecking at that all day while taking breaks from other jobs.

[redrockcoulee]

I've never heard religion, or lack of religion, mentioned in a Canadian political discussion, which is exactly how it should be.

With the exception of Stockwell Day. It was an issue even during his stay as Provincial Finance Minister which he excelled at. His secret: be minister when natural gas prices skyrocket and natural gas is one of the main if not the main source of revenue for the province. Remember when he was the leader of Alliance or Reform (not sure which name at the time) and some Liberal adviser made the comment that Day was the only person who thought Barney (is that not the name of the purple dinosaur) was not a documentary

[Ratmagiclady]

With the exception of Stockwell Day. It was an issue even during his stay as Provincial Finance Minister which he excelled at. His secret: be minister when natural gas prices skyrocket and natural gas is one of the main if not the main source of revenue for the province. Remember when he was the leader of Alliance or Reform (not sure which name at the time) and some Liberal adviser made the comment that Day was the only person who thought Barney (is that not the name of the purple dinosaur) was not a documentary

Eh, I dunno about those Barneyists, though. Kinda spooky.

I don't think I've ever heard of the guy, myself, but I wonder if perhaps Canada hasn't done pretty well to keep the religion out of the politics. I just heard Herman Cain on CNN explaining his tax plan thing, and ....What he had to say for himself didn't show anything to be at all confident about the economics of, or explain why it's so regressive... Even the details all favor corporations over people, as far as I can hear, but he just kept using religion as a bludgeon to apparently just be sure his supporters agreed... And it was bookended by.... Basically.... Prayers, (gospelley-church-flavored) and he was talking about how 'God' mandates his extreme version of the same sorts of corporate/right wing policies that have been the problem all along.

Meanwhile, of course, the whole GOP is arguing about 'Are Mormons Christian, cause this question means whether or not someone should be eligible for office... After they'd spent all this time filibustering, wasting time and money on wedge issues and regressive policies that divide people from each other, and selling the idea that 'Obama's a Muslim/Black Christian/has a Hindu item in his pocket, thus can't be a legitimate President. '

Meanwhile, a lot of nothing's been getting done in a long time. Not much good, anyway. And the worse them getting their way makes things, the more they have to step up the Christian Right rhetoric and enforce more and more "Values" 'correctness' on even their own party.... Certainly a lot of *my* general concerns and stresses have to do with hearing a lot of these big-time conservative preachers actually using 'pagan' as a pejorative, if not like it was a *slur,* (The old trick about, Suppose someone said 'Jew' like that, (As in, 'The problems of this country are cause it's become too Jewish,' ... would you call it bigotry? Then it probably is, ) and actually starting to blame us, among other minorities, for being somehow magically-responsible for the effects of the things they darn well insisted on doing themselves. And the funny thing is, in so doing, these politicians *immobilize themselves.* They aren't even *having* a debate cause they're pretty much all forced to be the same, differing only by degree, pretty much.

Not only that, of course, it erodes the very fabric of both society and even the possibility of competent governance. Policies need to be based on *reasoning* together, so to speak, not just saying, 'God says this and this... Or else. When it doesn't work, punish someone who disagreed.' Best not to take it there. Hopefully in America, we'll be able to pull back from that.

Even Romney can't stand up for the rights of religious minorities, whether he doesn't dare to or doesn't care to (He just wants Mormons to count as part of the Christian majority, and the Right at that: they've spent hundreds of millions and tons of effort to *remove* rights and equality from other minorities.) Meanwhile, all kinds of denialism, scientific, economic, and social, are *totally mandatory* for about any representative in that whole party, and the Dems tend to be lukewarm at best about standing up for the rest of us. How they expect a country to prosper after some decades of *that* and especially the whole Bush decade... I just don't even know. The GOP in Congress can't even vote for things the majority of their *own* party want as much as any 'liberal,' so beholden are they to the religion-in-politics and the big money from *that.*

[redrockcoulee]

Eh, I dunno about those Barneyists, though. Kinda spooky.

Every one had fun with Stockwell Day. There was even a TV show that had a petition to have him change his name to Doris. I think he is still a cabinet minister but did not change his name. He announced his running for party leader on a ski doo as well.

[Ratmagiclady]

Every one had fun with Stockwell Day. There was even a TV show that had a petition to have him change his name to Doris. I think he is still a cabinet minister but did not change his name. He announced his running for party leader on a ski doo as well.

*laugh.* As you may well notice, it's gotten more than a little circus-like down here as well. Though it's not the snowmobiles and such that bother me, so much as what's behind them.

[redrockcoulee]

*laugh.* As you may well notice, it's gotten more than a little circus-like down here as well. Though it's not the snowmobiles and such that bother me, so much as what's behind them.

My mistake, it was a sea doo and him in a wet suit

[boriscleto]

My mistake, it was a sea doo and him in a wet suit

Almost as embarrassing as John Kerry windsurfing.

[Ratmagiclady]

Almost as embarrassing as John Kerry windsurfing.

Yeah, but that wasn't announcing his candidacy, was it? (I don't think that was even a photo-op, didn't someone just film him having a moment of unimpressive windsurfing? (Of course, last time I was near the coast much, it always seemed most people's moments of windsurfing are pretty unimpressive. Compared to commercials, anyway. )

That's a little different I suppose from announcing candidacy on a jet ski or something. (In Alberta?)