{"id":783,"date":"2004-03-30T23:41:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-30T23:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=783"},"modified":"2018-08-10T08:04:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T13:04:50","slug":"783","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2004\/03\/30\/783\/","title":{"rendered":"Emancipations from Proclamations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to a pinko reader for sending us an enlightening e-mail:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nYou sure you wanna have a religous nut in the white house?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/religion\/jesusday.htm\" target=\"new\">http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/religion\/jesusday.htm<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Follow the link to the Snopes page, and you&#8217;ll find that George W. Bush, as governor of the state of Texas, issued a proclamation that made June 10, 2000, Jesus Day in Texas.  This, I guess, is supposed to illustrate that George W. Bush is a religious zealot, and that by electing a person who sincerely espouses a religion to elective office, we can expect to get someone who acts according to higher ideals.  You know, convictions.  So be it.<\/p>\n<p>But tying Bush to this single proclamation is a red herring and not really an argument in that favor.  George W. Bush issued numerous proclamations when he was governor; that&#8217;s what governors do, at least it&#8217;s the least harmful thing governors do.  Personally, I&#8217;d rather they issue useless proclamations every day instead of politicking and spending tax money.  But what do I know?  I am just a voter in the minority.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a running tally of other groups to whom George Bush is beholden, as illuminated by the proclamations he issued:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The Scottish Clans<\/b>:  Bush declared November 30 the Day of the Scots in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.txscot.com\/DOS_proclamations\/DOS1997.htm\" target=\"new\">1997<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.txscot.com\/DOS_proclamations\/DOS1998.htm\" target=\"new\">1998<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.txscot.com\/DOS_proclamations\/DOS1999.htm\" target=\"new\">1999<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.txscot.com\/DOS_proclamations\/DOS2000.htm\" target=\"new\">2000<\/a>.    That&#8217;s <i>four<\/i> proclamations.  It&#8217;s not a cabal of Jews running the world.  It&#8217;s a clan of Scotsmen!  (Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.txscot.com\/\" target=\"new\">Texas Scottish Heritage Society<\/a>.)\n<li><b>The Geologists<\/b>:  Bush declared October 8-14, 2000, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beg.utexas.edu\/esw\/proclamation00.htm\" target=\"new\">Earth Science Week<\/a>.  Richard Clarke couldn&#8217;t know, but even before Bush became president, he drew up papers and contingency plans about <b><i>a rock<\/i><\/b>.  (Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beg.utexas.edu\/esw\/index.htm\" target=\"new\">Texas<br \/>\nEarth Science Week Website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<li><b>Detroit Automakers<\/b>:  Bush declared December 7, 1941, to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.webgalactic.com\/pearl\/proclamations.html\" target=\"new\">Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day<\/a> in an attempt to remind Americans that those people who build reliable cars once attacked our country.  Buy American!  (Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.webgalactic.com\/pearl\/index.html\" target=\"new\">Pearl Harbor Survivors Association Rio Grande Valley of Texas Chapter 11<\/a>.)\n<li><b>His Loyal Armed Forces<\/b>: Bush proclaimed November 5-11. 2000, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.welcomehomeday.org\/stateproc\/texas.htm\" target=\"new\">Veterans Week<\/a> to ensure that the only leg of the techno-military-industrial complex that would survive his <strike>internal purges<\/strike> outsourcing would remain loyal to him.  (Source:  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.welcomehomeday.org\/home.htm\" target=\"new\">The Welcome Home Day Foundation<\/a>.)\n<li>Most insidiously, <b>The French (Teachers)<\/b>:  Apparently, George W. Bush signed a proclamation or two as governor of Texas and has delivered at least two messages in support of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frenchteachers.org\/nfw\/archives\/honor.htm\" target=\"new\">National French Week<\/a>.  (Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frenchteachers.org\/\" target=\"new\">American Association of Teachers of French<\/a>.)<\/ul>\n<p>So you can see that the Governor&#8217;s mansion, and probably the White House, have a whole wing of highly-paid professionals who do nothing for 30 hours a week but to turn out these proclamations for someone to stamp the executive&#8217;s signature on.  To call Bush a religious nut or to think that the proclamation for Jesus Day is out of the ordinary, establishing a state church which will begin pogroms against other faiths or to even indicate that there&#8217;s a morality above the Government is Good creed is asininine.  (Sorry, that particular word is a little like banana to me.)  <\/p>\n<p>If you want to elevate one of these trivialities as a wedge issue, why not start printing the bumper stickers that say:<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<h1>President Bush:<br \/>\nWeak on French Week, Weak on Terror<\/h1>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p>To be honest, there&#8217;s only one trivial ceremonial issue that could make me vote for someone other than Bush this election.  As a meat eater and a proponent of capital punishment, I am greatly bothered that this president, like his predecessors, <b>pardons the damn turkey<\/b> every Thanksgiving.  It sends a bad message to America, that it&#8217;s bad to kill something to eat, and that you can pardon animals like you pardon criminals.  You want to know who I will vote for instead of Bush?<\/p>\n<p><b>I will vote for the candidate who promises to whack the turkey, particularly if he (or she) will do it himself (herself) with a hatchet and a tree stump.<\/b>  I will even send money to a candidate who plucks the turkey and eats it himself.  That&#8217;s an <i>American<\/i> president.  Also, I like turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to a pinko reader for sending us an enlightening e-mail: You sure you wanna have a religous nut in the white house? http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/religion\/jesusday.htm Follow the link to the Snopes page, and you&#8217;ll find that George W. Bush, as governor of the state of Texas, issued a proclamation that made June 10, 2000, Jesus Day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politicians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22610,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions\/22610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}