: The Moon, Mars and Marriage Promotion ???

The Moon, Mars and Marriage Promotion ???

"Bush Plans $1.5 Billion Drive For Promotion of Marriage" New York Times Reports

By James Boyne (Brittany Spears To Get Lead Role In Promotional Ad Campaign)

In one fell swoop President Bush has proposed spending billions of taxpayers money to establish a base on the moon, send a manned mission to Mars, and to save all of our marriages---all by 2030 when most of us will be divorced, disabled, demented, dead or in a nursing home. This is truly one of our most visionary Presidents in our history.

I mentioned to my 89 year old mother that we were going to the Moon and then on to Mars. She said, "Great, when do we leave. Should we turn the heat down while we are away".

The January 14th New York Time front page blared "Bush Plans $1.5 Billon Drive for Promotion of Marriage". Not a single word revealed exactly where the $1.5 Billion would be spent--- who the specific individual people, groups, organizations, or institutions would be who would get the $1.5 billion.

No---Brittany Spears was not Presidents Bush's idea. I just thought of his before he did.

Marriage has been in existence for thousands upon thousands of years. Caesar did not have a program promoting marriage. Jesus Christ did not need $1.5 billion to promote marriage. George Washington did not have a Federal program for marriage. FDR, the master of all big Federal program builders didn't have one. And President Clinton took a hastily arranged marriage course from Jessie Jackson who was having an affair while he was teaching Bill to be faithful.

Maybe we should just have a Federal marriage program for Presidents and politicians and make them pay for it out of their own pocket----not $1.5 billion from the taxpayers pocket.

And besides, what's wrong with being single. Why isn't there are big Federal program for Singles Promotion. They could call it "Federal Club Med" or something like that.

I thought the conservative Republican philosophy was that big Federal programs were bad, and taxpayer's money was sacred, and that intrusion into the personal lives of people's independence was the hallmark of the conservative thinking.

$1.5 billion is a lot of money. $1.5 billion may not mean much to the Pentagon budget but it means a lot to the average individual.

Here are the quotes from the New York Times articles. Pick your favorite.

Robert T. Haskins, a White House official said that "a lot of conservatives are very pleased with the healthy marriage initiative". (My note: I wonder how many of them are divorced).

"This is the way for the President to address the concerns of conservatives and solidify his conservative base", a presidential advisor said. (My note: What a great reason for spending $1.5 billion dollars, to solidify your conservative base).

"Mr. Bush will probably visit programs to try to raise marriage rates in poor neighborhoods". (My note: Give me a break. Can you picture Bush going to Harlem every weekend to check on the quality of marriages throughout the ghettos. I doubt Bush has seen a poor neighborhood, except from an airplane, in his life).

"The President loves to do that with this sort of thing in the inner city with Black churches and he's very good at it", a White House aide said. (My note: What a racist, patronizing, condescending statement ! Bush is such a snob, he even detests the middle class but he needs us for our money, since he can't get it from the corporations anymore, except in the form of direct donations to get their taxes reduced.)

"The Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family""have taken a special interest with Carl Rove"and evangelical groups." (My note: All I know about Carl Rove is that he runs Bush like a puppeteer operates a puppet. Carl pulls the strings and Bush flaps his arms, legs, hands and lips. I really don't know what an evangelical is, but I went to 12 years of Catholic School so they must be bad).

Here's my favorite quote. "under the Presidents proposal, federal money ($1.5 billion) could be used for specific activities like advertising campaigns to publicize the value of marriage, instruction in marriage skills, and mentoring programs that use married couples as role models" (Who will be the role models----Kobe Bryant, Ozzie Nelson, Brittany Spears, Scott Peterson, Martha Stewart, Bugs Bunny, the Marlboro Man. Maybe, even Michael Jackson. He was married.) Anything is possible in this "New America" of George W. Bush and wishie washy Democrats.

What advertising company will get part of the $1.5 billion advertising campaign----the one that just completed a public relations ad campaign to convince the Arab world to love Americans----that has succeeded in endless news clips of mobs shouting "Death to America".

What is the value of marriage that is to be promoted? Is the value to be a "Christian married couple"; a "working father, stay at home mother marriage"; the value of having two Jewish children or eight Catholic children; the value of forbidding contraception? Whose values will the values be. The Amish, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Mormons. What will the Federal values be? Whose will they be? Who will get the $1.5 billion beautiful greenbacks? Since there are 50 different States will there be 50 different "marriage value programs".

Utah could have a "marriage value" program promoting polygamy. Provincetown, Mass could have a program promoting gay marriages. And the Catholic Archdiocese of New York could have a program where you are shot if you get caught using a condom (preventing another Catholic from being born).

Who will give the instruction in marriage skills? Will they include sex education? Instruction on condom us?. Instruction in sexual foreplay? How much will the marriage mentors get paid? Will a "Black church" be given $3 million to mentor classes to thirteen year old black teenagers on how to "not give in to flirting" or how not to get "turned on to rap music"? Will the mentoring in Mississippi condone interracial marriages? This all sounds like it is going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

Federal officials said they favored "premarital education programs that focus on high school students; young adults interested in marriage""thought to have the greatest commitment to each other. Could it be possible we will see Brittany Spears doing a hot, spicy, "hip gyrating" campaign ad on the importance of commitment to marriage. Will she brag about how she was married for 55 hours and it was a great experience and to "go for it".

The New York Times reported Alan M. Hershey, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, NJ, said "his company had a $19.8 million federal contract to measure the effectiveness of such programs for unwed parents. A major purpose, he said , is to help people communicate about money, sex, child-raising and other difficult issues, that come up in their relationships.

I must be going nuts but can you imagine getting a $19.8 million contract on how to spend $1.5 billion of taxpayers money to spend on groups that not a single person knows who they are, where they are, what they will do, or what their values or agenda is. Here I am sitting at home and I somehow missed a contract for $19.8 million to study sex, money, and communication with my wife. When I read these things I really feel that all Americans must be going nuts, and that politicians are taking us all for the biggest suckers in the world. The foxes are in the chicken house and they are having a feast with the taxpayers money. The head fox, President Bush is the Commander-in-Chief and the Guardian of our Treasury and all I see from him are giggles, laughs, shrugs, smirks, and phony angry lectures about the "evil doers".

My wife and I never had $19.8 million (much less $1.5 billion), nor did my parents or grandparents---but we somehow all figured out money, sex, raising children, and running a family on our own. Yes, some of us got divorced. Some kids turned out rotten apples. Some marriages thrived and some kids turned out to be exemplary citizens and individual. That's the way the world works.

Will the marriage budget be $1.5 million this year? And when it converts into more Republican votes will the marriage budget be increased to $5 billion and then $10 billion and then $40 billion----and will we all have millions and millions more conservative Republicans with the "correct Christian values" all voting for the Party paying them their $19.8 million budget, or $5 million budget, or $2 million budget--- for marriage flyers, marriage mentors, marriage meetings, marriage seminars, etc, etc. Will we then find out the program has been infiltrated by pedophiles, con artists, sham organizations, and the Church of the Marriage Mentor?

The New York Times said a "Dr. Horn said that the money would only be available for heterosexual couples. My wife and I are a heterosexual couple. Where do we sign up? We could use about a half million dollars to get our money, sex, and communication act together. We want to be first in line.

Idiocy such as this Marriage Budget proposal with no oversight, no foresight, no specifics, geared to waste money and garner votes is exactly why I will never for another Republican in my life. They have become the Party of the big wasteful spenders.

I have come to the conclusion that Bush is neither a conservative Republican, a moderate, a liberal, a Democrat, an Independent, nor a member of any political group except for an elite inner circle of mega billion dollar corporations that are hell bent on reaping in revenue by raping the American taxpayer. Time will tell but right now we have well over 10 million unemployed Americans; millions of jobs disappearing forever overseas; a flood of illegal immigrants being openly welcomed by Bush and his mega billion dollar corporate cronies; 44 million Americans with no health insurance; and a health system that controlled by the insurance companies and drug companies that will destroy the fabric of business and individualism as it destroys our health. 1.6 million Americans declared personal bankruptcy this year, the highest ever.

If you have a nice house, an SUV, a summer home, a good job and a nice 401k, keep the photos and the statements as mementos. They may not be there in 4 more years.

We have a war against a dust bowl of a third world nation where the people are worse than dirt poor and who hate our guts, and we shell out $200 billion to them in one year. We were a bit late. Saddam had already killed over a half million people who may have liked freedom. You can thank the first President Bush for that disaster.

In our 225 year history we have never had a President that is as economically irresponsible as President Bush.

So now its on to Mars, the Moon, and the $1.5 billion Marriage Promotion scheme.

P.S. My good friend is just getting divorced after 34 years of marriage and five children. She assured me that if someone gave her $80 billion dollars she would not stay married to the man. She is more interested in a Federal Divorce Promotion Program to help women out of abusive marriages and help on starting a new life. My good friend spent months in a "marriage promotion" program sponsored by her church where she received instruction on sexual foreplay, obedience to her husband, complete abstinence from pregnancy prevention (under threat of "being condemned to hell"), and eternal forbiddance from divorce. The guilt associated with such teaching has sent her to perpetual psychiatric counseling. Yes, $1.5 billion for Federal Marriage Promotion. It gives one a cozy feeling.

As for the Moon and Mars, I truly believe that President Bush should consider sending a mission to Venus or Uranus. Uranus would be cheaper, quicker, and President Bush would have one hell of a campaign topic to talk about when he stands in front of giant American flag and rallies the nation about the important of spending a trillion dollars over the next 30 years and the importance getting to Uranus. Possibly we could leapfrog from the Moon, to Mars and on to Uranus.

A vote for President Bush is a vote for Uranus. What a slogan !

James Boyne

301 Harbor Pointe Dr.

Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464

1-860-922-4436

dboyne@aol.com

James Boyne is a satirical, political freelance writer and has ten other articles published on www.opednews.com. He has previously been a diehard, staunch, conservative Republican who has voted for Goldwater, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, and now has made a 180 degree turnabout and supports the candidacy of Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who appears to have the most integrity, honesty, common sense, straightforwardness, enthusiasm, optimism, and "fire in the belly" to be possibly the best President in recent memory. He is a progressive, populist, liberal, Democrat and is a man of principal, intelligence and experience. Mr. Kucinich comes from a humble background and clearly spells out his positions on issues on his web site www.kucinich.us so there is no question where he stands on issues. He is an eloquent, articulate, inspiring, motivating, positive, optimistic and enthusiastic speaker. He writes his own speeches, which is truly refreshing. (If you would care to read a review of his recent "book of speeches" entitled "A Prayer For America" you may with to read some of the 35 personal comments and reviews from common people throughout the political spectrum. My review, from the viewpoint of a former conservative, Goldwater/Nixon/Reagan/Bush Republican is also listed. The reviews in themselves are inspiring. ("A Prayer for America" by Dennis Kucinich) Book Reviews

If you wish to read the renowned, prophetic farewell address by President Eisenhower visit President Eisenhower's Farewell. The only twist of fate that President Eisenhower didn't realize, that would materialize, was the fact that the military industrial complex would actually become a military/industrial/pharmaceutical/health care insurance/financial services/energy/consumer credit/ultra extreme Christian coalition complex, engulfing and swallowing up the entire Republican Party. He didn't realize the "corporate dollar" would become the mainstay of public policy and that self-serving, anti-American, special interests, would seek to prevail with no consideration given to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"; the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution; and the Bill of Rights. President Eisenhower would be turning over in his grave right now, at how the country is being dismantled, dismembered, and its very fabric discarded. his article is copyright by James Boyne and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit paragraph is attached.

**It is the responsibility of all Americans to vote. You should know where all the candidates stand on different issues; why they believe what they do; how they plan on carrying out their plans (rather than just empty promises); and get a sense for their character, honesty, commitment, integrity and their vision for America and for the world. You should know what their background is. How did they get to where they are now? Know their life, and you will know them. VOTE !