Is It Fair For Liberals To Call Him "Taliban Dan?"

I had a call today from a trustworthy ally asking me why we're not supporting the reelection of the most endangered Democratic House incumbent, Tom Perriello, someone we helped get elected in 2008. I don't want to go into this in any great detail-- since I have before-- other than to say he got Blue America to endorse him by specifically and unambiguously lying to us about protecting women's right to choice. That's a bright red line in the sand-- bright blue line?-- that progressives just cannot get around. If women don't have control over their own bodies, there is no chance for Democracy to thrive. And that's exactly what conservative patriarchal ideologues are aiming for. And that brings us to... Taliban Dan down in Orlando. Digby has been writing quite a lot about him, just today, in fact, here and here. (Actually that second "here" refers to Taliban Dan's dangerous and radical mentor, Bill Gothard and we'll get to him very soon.)

Group Think Inside-the-Beltway among "liberal" pundits and would-be Broders-- quotations around liberal because, of course, a blue team shirt doesn't really mean "liberal" anywhere but... Inside-the-Beltway-- tell us that protecting Perriello (who lied and betrayed women by voting for the Stupak Amendment and who boasts an overall ProgressPunch score of a very dismal 47.11, just fractionally above Blue Dog elder Gene Taylor, the Mississippi Dixiecrat who called for the ouster of Nancy Pelosi as Speak this week) is a "must." And this same Group Think is mortified, just mortified, that Alan Grayson called out Taliban Dan for his extremist views on women's rights, views that would be more at home in the most backwards reaches of Afghanistan than in Orlando-- or even Kabul! "Women's issues" don't seem to mean much to these fellas. Never does.

But they sure are worked up that FactCheck.org, a tenuous source of "truth" in the best of times, attacked Grayson's Taliban Dan ad as less than factual. Let's start with a powerful rebuttal from a far more trustworthy and authoritative source, Sarah Posner, author of God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, and an associate editor of Religion Dispatches. She points out that FactCheck's point was that the Taliban Dan quotes in Grayson's ad were taken out of context. But FactCheck botched it.

Grayson's campaign argued that Webster seemed to be supporting submission in his comments to an audience of conservative men, whom he directed to pray that they would better fulfill their biblical duty to love their wives, and leave prayers about women's submission to their wives. However, the emphasis of these remarks, as those familiar with Christian rhetoric could recognize, is not on the optional nature of wives' submission. Wifely submission is part of an often-unbalanced equation to Christians who subscribe to "complementarian" or "patriarchal" marriage roles, where men must "love" and women "obey." Saying that a woman should pray for God's guidance in submission, if she wants to, is not leniency, but rather standard evangelical language that emphasizes individuals must obey biblical mandates regardless of how others around them behave. So, Webster is saying, men must be accountable to God for their responsibility to love their wives regardless of whether she submits-- that they must pray to do right, even if she doesn't.

However, the much more relevant application of this principle on following God's orders despite your circumstances is on women. Submission is a contentious and tricky issue even within conservative evangelical churches. Most churches promoting submission make certain to couple demands for submissive wives with those for loving, servant-leader husbands. But at the end of the day, it's women who bear the brunt of the principle; their obligations are to God, not to a husband who may or may not keep his end of the contract. Accordingly, the message is impressed by countless women's ministries and leaders that women must continue submitting even when their husband doesn't show love, because they owe their obedience, above all, to God. In circles that take submission seriously-- as does any organization associated with Bill Gothard-- that's what wives' options really look like.

What's more, Factcheck.org fails in a much broader context to describe what the IBLP is really about, describing it as a "non-denominational Christian organization that runs programs and training sessions."

Sounds sweet, doesn't it? It isn't, as Time reported way back in 1974 in a feature, Religion: Obey Thy Husband:

It is a metaphor that infuriates both liberated women and spirited youth. God holds in his hands a hammer (symbolizing a husband). The husband/hammer bangs a chisel (representing the obedient wife) that "chips away the rough edges" to turn a diamond in the rough (a teenager) into a gem.

God to husband to wife to child. That is "God's chain of command," the most controversial of the "universal, underlying, nonoptional principles" of family life that are being proclaimed by the Rev. Bill Gothard, 39, to mass audiences in two dozen cities from Seattle to Philadelphia... Children must be totally obedient. A religious teenager, for example, should not attend a church college if atheistic parents order him not to. As for a man's wife, she "has to realize that God accomplishes his ultimate will through the decisions of the husband, even when the husband is wrong." Citing I Thessalonians 5:18 ("In every thing give thanks"), Gothard even advises a wife whose husband chastises her to say, "God, thank you for this beating."

...Besides following the chain of command in the family, Christians should also be obedient to their employers and their government, Gothard asserts. Only if an order from a parent, the state or a boss conflicts with God's explicit commandments may it be disobeyed. But first the Christian is supposed to follow six complex steps, beginning with an examination of his own bad attitudes.

Taliban Dan has every right in the world to his own peculiar, primitive religious beliefs. But he's running for the U.S. Congress. When he was in the Florida legislature he attempted to pass a bizarre and arcane Bible-inspired bill that would prevent women from divorcing abuse husbands. It failed, of course, but Taliban Dan is even more extreme now than he was back then. He has been on record as wanting to put his literal interpretation of the Bible into actual practice-- just the way the Taliban does in the areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where they've managed to gain a foothold. Taliban Dan has admitted to the St. Petersburg Times that Gothard is "a major part of my life... What he has said I believe to be the truth."

But even if you're a Beltway Boy and would-be David Broder manly man aspirant, there's a reason you don't want Taliban Dan and other Republican fanatics like him getting a foothold in our government. You see, it isn't just women they hate. They also hate working people. Here are a couple of Bronze Age passages they take quite literally and think should be part of the American legal system:

Peter 2:18 "Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh."

Ephesians 6:5 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."

It explains why so many religious fanatics in our country, like Taliban Dan, hate labor unions with such intensity and such vehemence. Daniel Webster has a long history of narrow-minded extremism and religious fanaticism, as well as a record of palling around with like minded Christian Reconstructionists, the very definition of the American Taliban.

For the political right to demonize Obama with racist slurs, compare him to Hitler, claim he's illegitimate, call him a Muslim, a socialist, a fascist and a communist-- and have it echoed 24/7 on Fox and by Hate Talk Radio... well, that's fine. But for a fighting Democrat to give them a tiny taste of their own medicine? Oh, Mabel, get my smelling salts. Taliban Dan claims he's getting a flood of American Taliban dollars this week from religious fanatics all over the country. This might be a good time to let Grayson that we admire what he's doing... and that we have his back. Please, if you can, contribute to America's best congressman here.

Houses Passes The Currency Reform For Fair Trade Act-- GOP Splits Apart

Earlier today the House tackled a wide array of bills. The Republicans-- along with some sleazy corporate Blue Dogs-- voted as a bloc to try to derail everything by opposing an early morning resolution to allow consideration of the bills, which included Mary Jo Kilroy's Medical Debt Relief Act, prohibiting a consumer reporting agency from making any report containing information related to a fully paid or settled medical debt that had been characterized as debt in collection for credit reporting purposes (splitting the GOP almost evenly down the middle among supporters and opponents); Carolyn Maloney's 9/11 Health and Compensation Act for World Trade Center first responders-- only 17 Republicans voting in favor; and Tim Ryan's Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, which is the one I want to go into in a little more depth. (Mary Jo will be the Blue America live blogging guest on Saturday and we can talk with her about her legislation then and why it's so important for so many families across the country.)

Ryan's bill seeks to deter China from manipulating its currency by putting in place a mechanism to determine whether the exchange rate of the currency of an exporting country (i.e.- China) is fundamentally and actionably undervalued or overvalued (misaligned) against the U.S. dollar for an 18-month period which would then lead to "certain actions under a countervailing duty or antidumping duty proceeding to offset such misalignment in cases of an affirmative determination." The bill passed 348-79, with the Republican caucus torn apart by "free" fanatics and ideologues led by the architect of GOP trade policy, John Boehner. Most of his own caucus deserted him, although the right-wing kooks most in thrall to Big Business' money machine-- Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, David Dreier, Pete Sessions and Eric Cantor (as well as the lunatic fringe types like Paul Broun, Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert)-- stuck with Boehner.

Ironically, few states have been as disastrously hit by these conservative trade policies as Boehner's home state of Ohio, where thousands of good middle class manufacturing jobs have gone right to China, decimating Ohio businesses and Ohio families. Right after the vote Scott Paul, Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), expressed tremendous optimism. "Today, the House of Representatives sent a clear message to Beijing: Stop your cheating. America's workers and businesses deserve a level playing field, and passing this bipartisan bill is a significant step in that direction... Voters are mad and Congress is finally responding." Boehner, of course, dug his heels in and refused to budge.

Justin Coussoule, who is running on a platform that includes replacing misnamed "free" trade with FAIR TRADE and with bringing middle class jobs back to southwest Ohio, has been an avid supporter of Tim Ryan's legislation. This evening he told us that "Tim's bill is long overdue and I know he's been working hard, in a bipartisan way to pass it. It says a lot about this issue that more Republicans voted with the Democrats than with John Boehner. Congressman Boehner hasn't even seen fit to come to a single candidate's forum in any county in the district and he's consistently refusing to debate any issues. He's taking the district for granted and that's what he did today by voting against his own constituents and just sticking with the Wall Street bankers and Big Business instead of with workers, small businesspeople and ordinary Ohio families who are sick and tired of watching China cheat us year after year after year. Over 2.4 million jobs have been lost, across the country, since 2001 because of the trade deficit with China and Chinese currency manipulation has been a policy they have pursued with vigor. It's time for the 8th district to have a congressman who's going to be looking out for regular folks here, not just the Special Interests who write the big political campaign contribution checks."

Justin's campaign against Boehner is a strictly grassroots effort and Blue America is lending a hand by running some independent media... the billboards and cable TV ads. Can you give us a hand with the effort? Believe me, the last thing you want to see the morning after election day is a Speaker with an eery orange glow. Here's a page dedicated to Justin's campaign and the Blue America ads in Ohio's 8th CD.

Every Ohio Democrat voted for Ryan's bill, of course. And, interestingly Boehner lost the three senior Ohio Republicans-- Steve LaTourette, Pat Tiberi and Michael Turner-- plus Steve Austria. The only Ohio Congressmembers the would-be Speaker managed to hang on to were pathetic backbenchers, newcomers with no influence-- and all dependent on Boehner's goodwill for their campaign financing: Jim Jordan, Bob Latta and Mean Jean Schmidt.

Steny Hoyer Leads House Democrats Down The Toilet-- Blocks Bid To Vote On Middle Class Tax Cuts

With polls showing overwhelming support for extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class, while ending them for the wealthy, progressive Members of the House were eager to go into the election with a vote on the issue. Ironically, so were Republicans, who wanted to once again show their fealty to the rich in the Class War they are waging against ordinary American families. The Senate's vote on Tuesday showing which senators support outsourcing and off-shoring American jobs and which senators oppose it was helpful. That conservatives filibustered that bill to death will prove helpful to Democratic incumbents as well as Democratic challengers. Both Kentucky GOP senators, retiring Jim Bunning and Miss McConnell (who was just pushed aside by Jim DeMint as de facto leader of the Republican caucus), voted to continue the filibuster, which is also strongly supported by the Republican extremist running for Bunning's open seat, Rand Paul. Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democrat running for that seat, has made ending off-shoring U.S. jobs a major part of his election platform, immediately came out swinging on behalf of the thousands of Kentucky workers who have lost good jobs to outsourcing schemes. "Rand Paul," he told us right after the vote, "wants tax breaks for companies that ship jobs from Kentucky overseas. I believe that's wrong, and I'll work to create jobs in Kentucky, not overseas."

North Carolina's Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall, a candidate for the seat currently occupied by reactionary corporate shill Richard Burr, had the same reaction as Conway. "Richard Burr is still confused," she told us an hour after he voted in favor of outsourcing. "The jobs bill he supports creates jobs in China. He consistently opposes efforts to put Americans back to work."

[This might be a good time to remind anyone interested that Blue America has a special page for the best Senate challengers this year and, needless to say, both Jack Conway and Elaine Marshall are on that page. If you'd like to contribute to either of their campaigns, you can do so right here.]

It was smart of Reid to schedule the vote that helps Americans understand the difference between conservatives and progressives, between senators who are working for Big Business and senators who are working for the well-being of ordinary families, workers and consumers. Steny Hoyer, is no one's dummy, but he's very conflicted because his rise to power was underwritten by the same Special Interests who have helped corrupt Republicans like Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and Pence. And that explains why the House did not vote on the legislation to give tax breaks to the middle class, a vote that was sure to help most Democrats, though could hurt a handful of Blue Dog incumbents who take their cues from Boehner and would have voted against middle class tax cuts.

The White House wants Congress to make the tax cuts permanent for individuals earning less than $200,000 annually and married couples with incomes below $250,000. But Republicans and many centrist Democrats want to extend the cuts for all income groups at least for a year or two.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, said Wednesday, “I believe there’s a bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate, who want to extend all of the current tax rates. If the Democrat leaders leave town, without stopping these tax increases, they are turning their backs on the American people.”

Boehner brushed aside questions about why Republicans don’t try to force a floor vote through a discharge petition, saying that rarely used procedure would take too long. “As you know, a discharge petition has to sit around for 30 legislative days. And I don’t think the American people want to wait that long. The reason they are not bringing this up is because we have the votes in the House and Senate to extend all of the current tax rates,” Boehner said.

He added, “It’s irresponsible for them to leave town without giving us a fair up or down vote... This is no way to run the people’s House.”

Hoyer and his faction managed to play right into Republican hands, taking away the Democrats' best issue for the midterms while somehow making the Republicans look vaguely plausible. Sometimes I wonder if Hoyer isn't doing this more than design and not just because of incompetence. It's a shame Rahm can't take his former junior partner with him to Chicago when he oozes his way out of Washington.

So... Who's Serious About Protecting Social Security-- Like For Real?

A few weeks ago we shared the letter Raúl Grijalva, Mary Jo Kilroy and Alan Grayson sent to Speaker Pelosi about protecting Republican attempts to start dismantling Social Security. As of today there were 102 names on it, mostly Congressional Progressive Caucus members, but some moderates and even a few conservatives and Blue Dogs as well. The list is sure to rise but it may go down as well. In fact we hear that Ohio Blue Dog Zach Space is considering having his name removed. Why? Heath Shuler is whipping Blue Dog caucus members against the letter!

Blue Dogs... we'd be so much better off without them!

Here's the list of signers as it stands now:

Michael Arcuri (Blue Dog-NY)
Joe Baca (Blue Dog-CA)
Robert Brady (D-PA)
Corrine Brown (D-FL)
Lois Capps (D-CA)
Mike Capuano (D-MA)
Andre Carson (D-IN)
Betty Castor (D-FL)
Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
Lacy Clay (D-MO)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Joe Courtney (D-CT)
Jerry Costello (D-IL)
Mark Critz (D-PA)
Joseph Crowley (D-NY)
Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
Danny Davis (D-IL)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
William Delahunt (D-MA)
Ted Deutch (D-FL)
John Dingell (D-MI)
Mike Doyle (D-PA)
Donna Edwards (D-MD)
Keith Ellison – 9/14/10
Eliot Engel (D-NY)
Anna Eshoo (D-CA)
Sam Farr (D-CA)
Bob Filner (D-CA)
Barney Frank (D-MA)
Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
John Garamendi (D-CA)
Alan Grayson (D-FL)
Al Green (D-TX)
Raúl Grijalva(D-AZ)
36. Gutierrez – 9/21/10
John Hall (D-NY)
Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
Phil Hare (D-IL)
Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
Martin Heinrich (D-NM)
Brian Higgins (D-NY)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX)
Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
Mike Honda (D-CA)
Jesse Jackson (D-IL)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Steve Kagen (D-WI)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Dale Kildee (D-MI)
Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI)
Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH)
Larry Kissell (D-NC)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Nita Lowey (D-NY)
Betty McCollum (D-MN)
Dan Maffei (D-NY)
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
Ed Markey (D-MA)
Doris Matsui (D-CA)
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Kendrick Meek (D-FL)
Mike Michaud (Blue Dog-ME)
George Miller (D-CA)
Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
Grace Napolitano (D-CA)
Richard Neal (D-MA)
Ealanor Norton (D-DC)
Jim Oberstar (D-MN)
John Olver (D-MA)
Frank Pallone (D-NJ)
Ed Pastor (D-AZ)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Nick Rahall (D-WV)
Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
Laura Richardson (D-CA)
Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX)
Steve Rothman (D-NJ)
Bobby Rush (D-IL)
Tim Ryan (D-OH)
Mark Schauer (D-MI)
John Salazar (Blue Dog-CO)
José Serrano (D-NY)
Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
Albio Sires (D-NJ)
Louise Slaughter(D-NY)
Zach Space (Blue Dog-OH)- watch this space
Pete Stark (D-CA)
Betty Sutton (D-OH)
Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
John Tierney (D-MA)
Paul Tonko (D-NY)
Ed Towns (D-NY)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Anthony Wiener (D-NY)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
David Wu (D-OR)

A bunch of progressives from the House and Senate-- no match for the effective conservative coalition that always rules the Senate and often the House-- got together today to wave their fists at Obama's Cat Food Commission and tell them not to dare hurt Social Security.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform "should keep their paws off" Social Security, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said on a phone call with reporters, calling for "no benefit cuts, no raising the retirement age, no privatization."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said explicitly that the purpose of the call was to warn the commission not to include recommendations to cut Social Security. "If you do we'll vote it down, and do everything we can to see it defeated," he said.

Sanders and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have introduced a resolution to express Senate opposition to Social Security cuts, which has 12 cosponsors. More than 100 lawmakers have also signed a letter to be sent to Mr. Obama opposing such cuts.

Liberals fear that the commission will recommend cuts to Social Security in part because of co-chair Alan Simpson's suggestion that the program is "a milk cow with 310 million tits." The National Organization for Women (NOW) delivered 1,500 baby bottle tops (meant to represent the "tits") to Simpson yesterday as part of their push to have him removed from the commission.

For the commission's recommendations to go forward, they must be agreed on by 14 out of 18 commissioners, at which point Congress can move to consider them. (House leaders have vowed to do so.) The commission is charged with reducing the deficit to three percent of the economy by 2015.

Sanders pointed to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the program can pay full benefits through 2039 if Congress does nothing, and can continue to pay reduced benefits afterward.

Brown said that while raising the retirement age may not seem like a big deal to white collar workers, it would be devastating for people who work on their feet, such as a waitress or a carpenter. The current retirement age is 67, and House Minority Leader John Boehner has raised the possibility of raising it to 70. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn have also invoked the possibility of raising the retirement age.

"Leftists should take credit for bringing down Democrats," says Ian Welsh

Word is that Master Rahm's departure from the White House to attempt to inflict himself on the good people of Chicago will become official tomorrow. He leaves behind a hornet's nest of right-wing "centrists" set to continue the war on the Left. Ian Welsh says we should embrace our putative power.

"Look, if the left is so powerful that is is responsible for Democratic fortunes, well, that’s not something we should shrink from. . . . Don’t run from this, embrace it, wrap yourself in it. You are part of the left, and the left is capable of destroying governments which don’t do what it wants."

-- Ian Welsh, in the blogpost
"Leftists Should Take Credit for Bringing Down Democrats"

by Ken

Contemplating the prospective, or should I say impending, political convulsions of November 2, I'm still where I was the last time I talked about it.

I recognize the argument that if we go on supporting these lame-ass closet-right-wing "centrists," we lose -- win or lose. Assuming the Democratic losses are as bad as the worst forecasts ("worse than 1994"), the Village and its fellow travelers in the land of conventional wisdom will take it as proof that those martyred souls paid the price for the Democratic government's wild lurch to the left.

We on the Left know, of course, that there has been no such lurch, just an uneven but very modest reining in of the Bush regime's crazy rocket-propelled missile launch to the right. But reality doesn't seem to figure prominently in the conventional wisdom. And of course if the rout should be less severe than currently projected, the purveyors of conventional wisdom will chalk it up to a miracle "save" by the hard-charging forces of do-little "centrism."

Meanwhile the battle rages on, at least in the organs of Village chatter and the blogosphere, regarding the culpability of us left-wingers for the precarious position of the administration and the endangered congressional Democrats. This despite official Dems' almost unbroken two-year run of what is now picturesquely known as "hippie punching," showing unbridled disregaard, even contempt, for the progressive cohorts who did so much to put them in office.

Our friend Ian Welsh has an elegant response to "what many see as the attempt by the White House to portray left wingers as responsible for Democratic losses."

What?

Look, if the left is so powerful that is is esponsible for Democratic fortunes, well, that’s not something we should shrink from. We should say, “Yes, we can destroy Democratic prospects. If you don’t do what we want, we WILL do so.”

Powerful groups get what they want, weak groups don’t. If the White House wants to portray us as that powerful, we should embrace that description, because it is a blade which cuts both ways.

And there is an argument for it. While certainly the economy is factor one, the people whom left-wing bloggers reach are the sort of folks who traditionally don’t just vote, they volunteer, they give money and they are themselves influentials, who convince others to be enthusiastic, vote, volunteer and give. When, last year, I felt parts of the blogosphere lose their patience with Obama, I knew it would cost him, and it has.

Don’t run from this, embrace it, wrap yourself in it. You are part of the left, and the left is capable of destroying governments which don’t do what it wants. And this is good, because objectively Obama has not fixed the economy, has presided over further destruction of civil rights, has reduced access to abortion, and so on.

Powerful people and interests give away nothing they don’t want to unless they are forced to by others with power. The left is either powerful and willing to use that power or it is nothing.

I like it! Until now the right-wing Dem "centrists" have acted on the assumption that we can be abused with impunity.

Meanwhile, I wish I had the courage to say, "To hell with them," and hunker down to live with the dreadfulness it's safe to say will come with the sweeping out of the Democratic weasels, while contemplating the work that will be needed to try to build a viable alternative to the Republican death spiral.

The one thing I can continue to urge on all kindred souls is to work like the dickens and contribute to the max to elect good new Dems, and to save the good ones like Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer and Alan Grayson who face the possibility of being swept up in the flooding of the swamp. You know, the people Howie has been writing about here, and that he and our friends Digby and John Amato have made official Blue America endorsees.

In this brave new world, we can at last face them down, in the name of sanity, the way the loonies of the Right have been doing for decades now, in the name of craziness and indecency, to Republican mandarins. Let's say it all together:

“Yes, we can destroy Democratic prospects. If you don’t do what we want, we WILL do so.”

Healing Cancer the natural way

Lets look at ways of healing cancer with natural therapy.The Natural Healing of Cancer is possible when people start understanding what the symptom is, and how it will affect us. Posted and written are alternatives to the AMA [American Medical Association] ways, the wellness approach to health.

There are almost as many different types of cancer as there are people. No two are alike, so not one treatment is going to work for all cases. MD's are trained to treat symptom, yet most could not tell you specifically why you have the cancer.

From a holistic standpoint any Cancer is simply a body starting to degenerate from improper balance.

If you are diagnosed with cancer, most MD's will simply say "You need surgery, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and/or prescription drugs to treat this". It is not in the University system of training that most AMA approved Doctors receive to approach this disease with natural remedies.

To really heal the body of cancer, we have to know what we are dealing with. #1: No one knows your body better than you do. When something is not right, your first question should be: "What did I do to make myself sick?" This can be easily answered if you are familiar with a major precept of natural healing: What you put into your system affects what you will get out of it.

The disease cancer has many causes, yet is many times reversible with the correct natural formulas. Practitioners in the Holistic fields need to approach this one with caution though, as "malpractice" is a serious crime if they are caught prescribing formulas that might lead to death.

We in the natural healing arts profession sometimes suggest how we would treat cancer, yet we are not legally allowed to prescribe. However, many intuitively know that holistic treatments can work better than the drugs, surgery and chemotherapy.

I feel we are born with cancer. It is as natural as being alive. We are not dealing with a "life force" here though, we are dealing with an entity originally without form, that can mutate when we are not taking care of ourselves.

Cancer is in us, yet will not abnormally grow unless we feed it with "junk". Here I would define "junk" as anything entering our body that will take away life force, and the list includes a vast majority of "junk foods" as well as unnatural chemicals, drugs, and foods our body is not designed to handle.

"Junk" can also be in the atmosphere, especially if we live near a major highway or in a highly polluted place. In work environment many are subjected to dangerous fumes and dust particles. This can also become a "slow death" if we do not take precautions, like wearing respirators, proper attire, or other means to keep toxin out of and away from our bodies.

One of the main reasons most Medical Doctors prescribe pharmaceutical drugs is simple: They are in the business of selling them. I once asked a retired Professor of Pharmacology why MD's almost always prescribe drugs, and drug stores mostly do not stock natural herbs? His answer was this simple: Drug companies cannot patent herbs, so there is no profit in it.

Almost all humans that go to MD's on a regular basis have been prescribed numerous drugs, and the older one gets the worse it gets, in most cases. There are drugs to treat one symptom, but its side effects mean another is essential to balance the adverse effects of the first one, and on it goes... until humans start spending more on the prescriptions than they do on good quality all natural food, that could work better for them.

It's no wonder that many get extremely ill on an "AMA approved" regimen, as the body's natural immune system is challenged to assimilate all these unnatural chemicals, as well as huge amounts of contaminated foods that line most grocery store shelves. The next thing is unnatural growths on or in the body, diagnosed by Doctors as - Cancer.

In many cases tumors or "benign cysts" are there to protect us against toxins within them that are encapsulated by the body for our protection. When our lungs are over taxed by smoke or pollution, it can limit the oxygen entering the system, and on it goes... When we eat greasy over-cooked foods, blood stream and liver sometimes cannot get it out of our systems. The next thing we notice - abnormal growths. I could go on here, but you should get the point by now.

Fibroids in or around Women's breasts is common. Lumps form for reasons explained in the previous paragraph. When treatment is avoided this condition can become acute. Fibroids or benign tumors can be reversed, but it takes avoiding the foods, smoke, chemicals, thoughts, etc. that have caused the condition.

Cancer is not just caused by improper diet or environmental effects. Thought can affect this condition. Good mental health is reassuring our body on a daily basis that we are healthy and getting healthier. When we know how to make our bodies healthier, we simply do not need to dwell on its negative aspects. Simple belief can work wonders, when applied in the right way.

Now for a testimonial: "Ron" was invited to meet me after he was diagnosed with one of the worst possible cancers known. He could not swallow whole foods, and had acute tongue cancer. He was starving to death, and became nauseous from green juices, too strong for him in that condition.

MD's had told Ron that he would die of cancer within 3 weeks if he did not have surgery, chemotherapy and prescription drugs immediately. The only other patient with that bad of cancer had died within 3 months of surgery / chemotherapy, and was never able to eat normal again - he was tube fed.

Ron pleaded with me to help him, and I told him I was not able to prescribe anything because MD's had already prescribed their treatment. He said, "I don't care - just help me".

So I replied, "If it were me, I would simply make a "full spectrum", nutritionally balanced vegan / raw soup, and that it would taste good.

Then he said "I'm starving - please just make me something I can hold down". I proceeded to make him a quart of this totally nourishing formula.

After 3 months of making at least 1/2 gallon of this vegan / raw soup per week, in addition to other things he could handle, Ron came back and said he was in remission, ready for a whole meal from me... and boy did he enjoy it!

Cancer can be a blessing in disguise when we start taking positive action to reverse this symptom. We can start by eating healthy foods and thinking healthy thoughts. Wonderful feelings of bliss along with the serenity of knowing we are getting well can literally make us look and feel younger.