fed up with these Stooges

Sooner or later you get fed up enough with the Stooges that it’s time to fire them. You don’t decide to keep them because they’re the ones that began the job so they should be the ones best able to complete it. After enough pies thrown, eyes gouged and things broken when they respond to your misgivings with, “Well what would you do?” sounds a bit lame. The most logical answer would be to say, “We’ll figure it out without your incompetent help” and “Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out”.
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Some guys, like our president and his administration, just beg to be fired. To do otherwise would be ignorance surrendering to stupidity in the name of gullibility.

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The president has given those who engage in loyal dissent a name, ‘disruptors’. An honorable tag for those who love the United States to possess because Fascist objectives must always be disrupted everywhere it raises from the hell it belongs.

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It would be a great honor for our nation to have the distinction of facing fascism and peacefully defeating it within the political realm using our freedoms so wisely conceived and fought for by our ancestors.

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Bushies refuse to learn from the past

Excerpts of letters to the editor I wrote in the Biloxi, MS paper ‘The Sun Herald’

I applaud the Anglican Bishops from Central America on their statements concerning U.S. involvement in their region.

We commit, allow and turn our backs away from many atrocities because we want to better our position in the third world. Our government puts the best spin on these episodes whenever they see the light of day and claim it’s all in an effort to fight communism. But are we truly any better when we endorse the same human rights abuses as our foes? Does it matter what side of the fence the bullet came from when you lie dying?

Personally, I suspect the fight against communism is more often a fight for economic influence disguised as a fight for freedom. When we support a country whose government mutilates human rights we hand an ideological victory and propaganda tools for the insurrectionists to use against us. Where they suppress speech we should encourage it. Where they use violence we should react with kindness, food and medical care.

We should never provide military assistance or have close diplomatic ties with any country that violates the civil liberties of its citizens.

We have economic ties with China and listening posts into Russia. These benefits evidently carry more weight than the blood spilled by democratic students. Policies such as this soil the Stars and Stripes far more than any match.
11 Feb 90

We have absolutely no business putting troops on Saudi soil in support of oil interests and countries with no respect for human rights. We are not there in support of human rights. We are not there in support of freedom because freedom doesn’t exist there and never has.

Our men and women will be spilling their blood in the sand because we have no energy policy. The Reagan administration abandoned all of President Carter’s energy programs and our dependence on foreign oil has increased ever since. The oil companies have fought every incentive for decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and now they want our troops to protect their interests and our gluttonous appetite for black gold. This soon-to-be war is about money, greed, power of the elite and foreign oil consumption.
26 Aug 90

Too often it seems many people of this country view world relations as a football game, us against them, with absolutely no consideration of how we arrived in our present situation and to whether our conduct was and is ethical or in the best interests of all parties involved. If you raise any questions or concerns about how your team plays the game, you are branded as ‘unloyal’. The other team is dehumanized to ease our feelings as we ‘tromp’ them.

International policy is not a game. Real lives are at stake. We must truthfully analyze our involvement, past, present and future. It is our duty as Americans to express our concerns to our elected officials regarding how we feel about U.S. support for tyrants.
20 Dec 90

It is immoral to keep a people held hostage under a dictator by providing him the weapons and money he needs to stay in power, then turn around and wage war against these same people because the tyrant becomes unacceptable. This same situation in Panama left hundreds if not thousands of civilians dead. We face the same situation in Iraq. This makes the war immoral and any targeting of noncombatants is sinful.

For these reasons I will not and cannot support this war. If backing our troops means I believe this war is right then I don’t back them. If supporting our troops means I pray for peace, for their safe return, for few casualties in the event of war and for the families at home, then I do support them.
18 Jan 91

This wasn’t a moral or just war. Our past involvement in the region has us holding much of the blame for the conditions which led to this fiasco. The people of Iraq, who have been held hostage by Saddam Hussein for many years, were victimized by him……and now they have been victimized by the United States.

Possessing the ability to carry out a decisive military victory does not justify our actions; rather the results of this war vividly illustrate the moral bankruptcy of war. Our victory was incomplete with the only positive outcome the liberation of Kuwait from a tyrant and the restoration of its’ original corrupt government.

Sanctions would have accomplished this goal, but instead our lack of national patience spread devastation across the region. The people of Iraq have suffered extensive physical damage and loss of life into the tens of thousands. Devastated, bankrupt nations are unable to make war reparations. Peace could have been reached before the fighting started if the president hadn’t insisted on reparations to Kuwait which are unlikely now and would be immoral and unjust if forced. A civil war encouraged by President Bush has led to the slaughter of thousands with no help or aid from the United States when it was desperately needed.

The president’s recent decision to aid and protect the Kurds is too little, too late, but welcomed just the same. We are responsible for this disaster. We are losing the peace and if we hope to turn it around we cannot walk away from the situation we put in place.
10 May 91

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The Sun Herald
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/

Fallacy of Individual Responsibility

'then let them die and decrease the surplus population'

People do have, however they vision it, a responsibility for themselves, family, community, country and God, as they see God, but for a variety of reasons both legitimate and illegitimate within ones control and outside of it, these responsibilities may become compromised. The conservative Republican mantra of ‘individual responsibility’ is designed to absolve oneself of any responsibility except for those so conveniently cherry-picked while easily lowering the dignity and humanity of those in need.

Individual responsibility means everyone else’s responsibility but mine. It’s an ideological principal embraced by modern conservatives that is designed to protect the conscience of the individual or group from social or religious liability. It’s used to absolve one from long held Judeo-Christian principles such as ‘by the grace of God go I’ and ‘to those who have been given much, much is expected’. It implies that the gifts from God which we all possess in one form or another have been distributed in equal measure with similar qualities. It’s been used as an excuse from responsibility from everything from the homeless addict to the poor and those with mental and physical illnesses, to such extremes as victims of natural disaster.

I remember hearing of a painting where Jesus was depicted as a junky. I never saw the painting and I don’t care to or need to because I’ve embellished on it in my mind. I picture a Christ-like figure in a urine soaked alley with empty liquor bottles and needles nearby. I consider it a holy image. Why? Because I think we should insult Christ or say He’s something He’s not? No! It reminds me that we are supposed to see the suffering Christ in the most lowly of individuals. That Jesus is served best when we show love, mercy, and caring for all those in society especially those who, for whatever reason, are most looked down on or deemed unacceptable.


In a world with a superabundance of information, but which paradoxically finds it so difficult to communicate and where living conditions are scandalously unequal, it is important to spare no effort to ensure that everyone feels responsible for the growth and happiness of all. Our future is at stake. An unemployed young person, a handicapped person who is marginalized, elderly people who are uncared for, countries which are captives of hunger and poverty: these situations all too often make people despair and fall prey to the temptation either of closing in on themselves or of resorting to violence.....

"NO TO SELFISHNESS"! In other words, to all that impels man to protect himself inside the cocoon of a privileged social class or a cultural comfort which excludes others. The life-style of the prosperous, their patterns of consumption, must be reviewed in the light of their repercussions on other countries. Let us mention for example the problem of water resources, which the United Nations Organization has asked us all to consider during this year 2003. Selfishness is also the indifference of prosperous nations towards nations left out in the cold. All peoples are entitled to receive a fair share of the goods of this world and of the know-how of the more advanced countries. How can we fail to think here, for example, of the access of everyone to generic medicines, needed to continue the fight against current pandemics, an access — alas — often thwarted by short-term economic considerations?
Pope John Paul II

1 Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and who write oppressive decrees,
2 Depriving the needy of judgment and robbing my people's poor of their rights, Making widows their plunder, and orphans their prey!
3 What will you do on the day of punishment, when ruin comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth
Isaiah Chapter 10

31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,
32 and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,
36 naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'
37 Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?
39 When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'
40 And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41 Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
43 a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'
44 Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'
45 He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'
46 And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Matthew: Chapter 25

Loathsome voice of fascist Christianity

I wrote about Ms.Coulter once before after she made some attention getting statement. This time she used the derogatory word of ‘faggot’ to describe John Edwards. What are fascinating about her and the others who spill this swill are the accolades they receive from those who call themselves good Christians among the religious conservative community.

Ann Coulter is one of the more Loathsome voices of fascist Christianity. It’s an incredible distortion of the Gospel that’s being openly preached by right wing religious conservatives. It’s a heresy that’s always bad. They’re quite happy to be seen as defenders of the ‘faith’, a corrupt distortion of that faith, which can be used to their benefit. I’d like to say that no members of my particular faith community (Catholics) were involved in this nonsense but some like so many others are also capable of being willing victims of this profanation.

Sadly, I read someplace and I’m afraid it may be true that only 25% of Catholics believe the Church is right about all torture being wrong. I never wanted to believe; in fact I was very resistant to the fact that many Christians embraced or were at least sympathetic to tolerant of fascism during 1930’s Europe. I’m seeing it happen now before my eyes and shamefully before all the eyes of the world.

From a slightly more paranoid perspective, only because I believe ( I hope) the American people won’t allow events to get this far; the more power they gain the more they will expect others to conform to their ideology. For example, they see their concept of what ‘idolatry’ is to be as great an evil as abortion and homosexuality that will also bring great displeasure upon our nation from God. Theocratic leaders would expect all to conform. They won’t be just satisfied with ridding the nation of religious statues and paintings either because they see, what is cherished by all Catholics, the Eucharist, as the ultimate form of idolatry. Don’t be so ignorant to believe its okay to ignore because by the time they come for us there will be lots of others to help stop them so why worry. Or will there be anyone left?

I really believe their extreme autocratic nature is hazardous to all of us. Why is such hate filled ignorant simplicity so tempting to so many different people of different cultures in so many different lands throughout our shared histories?

The only good “****“ is a dead “****“.

Political scientists and historians will probably come up with a better more accurate and descriptive term for what is happening in our nation right now but, for us, for now, fascism is a good term.

Some things from Coulters’ heart and soul:

Yes, I am a Christian and that is simply a fact. And just by the way, Christianity, um, this isn't what my book is about, ended the practice of churches--I mean it basically ended religion. With Christianity, it is, Christ came and died for our sins. We no longer get to heaven by good works, no matter how many times we go to church, by how much we do this or that, or eating certain meals or not eating certain meals, or praying at certain times. The very essence of being a Christian is that it is not something man gives up. God has given it to us.
June , 2006"

My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism."
8 Feb, 97

The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet--it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars -- that's the Biblical view."
12 Oct, 2000

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"
20 Jun, 01

"We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."
13 Sept, 01

"When we were fighting communism, OK, they had mass murderers and gulags, but they were white men and they were sane. Now we're up against absolutely insane savages."
16 Aug, 04"

Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on "Americans." I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending liberals to Guantanamo."
21 Dec, 05
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Americans United
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer
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Beware 'Christian nationalism'
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-159181734.html