Category Archives: Religion

A Message To Tea Party “Patriots.”

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There’s simply no nice way of saying it. You are a bunch of self-serving, gun-toting, conspiracy promoting, anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-evidence, anti-American nitwits.

You call yourselves Tea Party Patriots, but you’re neither patriotic nor even a party. You are the lunatic fringe. You wrap yourselves in the flag and spout quotes from a select few of our Founding Fathers all the while undermining the very principles they stood for. You say you’re strict Constitutionalists, but it’s apparent that the only part of the Constitution you’ve read is the Second Amendment (and you can only quote half of that). The other principles you attribute to the Founders are actually from the Articles of Confederation, the document our Constitution replaced.

You didn’t have the guts to stand on your own, so you decided to backdoor the Republican Party. Your angry rhetoric and Koch brothers’ millions managed to drive most moderate Republicans from office. As a result, you and your wealthy supporters have destroyed the party of Lincoln.

Now you’re trying to destroy our nation.

Your economic theories not only defy economics, they defy logic. They’re hurtful to children, the elderly, the poor, even veterans. You claim to be worried about the national debt, yet you sat idly by while the previous administration ran up enormous deficits through two ill-conceived wars and the collapse of our economy. Then you blamed President Obama for our economic ills. You watched as President Bush expanded the size of government by creating the government’s second-largest agency, the Department of Homeland Security, then screamed about the growth of government when the new administration took office.

You ignored the bailout of “too big to fail” banks, which saved the jobs of Wall Street millionaires and the assets of billionaires. But you howled in disgust when President Obama loaned money to US automakers, saving tens of thousands of jobs for middle class workers. You whined that you are “Taxed Enough Already” and blamed President Obama for raising taxes, even though tax rates were at a 60-year low.

You claim that you’re not racists, yet every single one of your rallies includes blatantly racist depictions of our democratically-elected president. You call him a Muslim, a socialist, a communist, a fascist and worse. You compare him to Hitler. You have even called him the leader of al Qaeda.

When you’ve failed to win elections, you’ve tried to change the rules. You have tried to suppress the votes of minorities and your political opponents. You have tried to deny women the right of equal pay for equal work. You have tried to deny women the right to control their own bodies. You have held our economy hostage in order to get your way. You have undermined democracy through use of the filibuster and gerrymandering. As a result, our nation now suffers from tyranny by the minority.

Thanks to your tactics, Congress has been turned into a venomous body devoid of compromise. Thanks to your representatives, the approval rating of our duly-elected Congress is lower than that of cockroaches. Thanks to your policies, the very wealthy have become wealthier while the rest of our citizens have suffered. Thanks to you, our nation is on the verge of becoming a plutocracy.

All of that is bad enough. But your real “triumph” is that you have made millions of Americans fearful of their government and of each other. Thanks to you, according to a new poll, 44 percent of Teapublicans now believe that an armed revolution against our government may be necessary…our own democratically-elected government!

Your entire movement is based on lies and meanness.

That said, it’s difficult to determine who is most at fault…you…or those who tolerate you, especially the media that give you undeserved credibility. One thing is certain…your movement would be more accurately called the Tea Not-Really-A-Party Traitors.

A Warning To Democrats:

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From recent polls showing, among other things, that 13% of Americans believe the president is actually the Antichrist, you may correctly assume that the Republican Party is full of a bunch of crackpots (aka the Tea Party). You may rightly believe that the GOP platform is akin to something coming out of the north end of a southbound bull. You may also believe that Americans will figure this out and hand the next election to Democrats.

On the last point, you are most likely wrong!

You assume that most Americans actually follow the news and politics. (They don’t.) You assume the media will expose Teapublican ideas for what they really are. (They won’t.) You assume that voters will realize the superiority of Democratic ideas. (Unlikely.) And you assume that minorities, most especially Latinos, will recognize that Democrats best represent their interests. (Not necessarily.)

Too many Democrats are content to allow Teapublicans to define the Democratic Party and Democratic principles.

We cannot sit back and expect independents, union members and minorities to turn the country blue. All across the country, the GOP is hard at work trying to rewrite voting laws to ensure control of the House and the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016.

Even though the Great Recession was caused by Republican infatuation with deregulation, and even though our slow economic recovery is the result of Teapublican abuse of the filibuster and a refusal to compromise, it’s all too likely that voters will hold the White House accountable.

Democrats need to be working to register voters, working to fight voter suppression, working to fight gerrymandering, and working to fight attempts to change the Electoral College. We need to refine our message to make it clear that Democrats support fiscal responsibility, real job growth and the interests of all working people. Also, it wouldn’t hurt for Democrats to make it abundantly clear that we better adhere to the actual teachings of Christ; to show compassion for the poor and powerless; to resist the temptation of greed; to resist the calls for war.

That’s not a religious message. That’s a philosophy that has been largely abandoned by those who claim to be followers. And it’s a philosophy that is appealing to the largest portion of our population.

Democrats also need to make it clear what GOP stands for – Guardians Of Privilege. The GOP supports ever larger tax cuts for the rich and obscene profits for multinational corporations, along with diminished salaries for working people. These GOPstoppers have shown that they are against civil rights, women’s rights and religious freedom. While decrying big government, they want to enforce their own brand of “values” in the bedroom and every other aspect of our society.

Democrats, we’re at a critical juncture. Even if you reject this message, you must understand that we are now in a perpetual campaign cycle. We can’t afford to wait.

A Little Perspective On The Boston Bombing Suspects.

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Before Americans get all high and mighty and resume the same Islam bashing that followed 9/11, we should remember this:

Islamic terrorists no more represent Islam than the Westboro Baptist Church represents Protestantism. They no more represent Islam than pedophile priests represent Catholicism. They no more represent Chechnya, Russia, or immigrants than they represent boxers, wrestlers, lifeguards, jazz pianists, and medical students.

Their violent acts were not the result of a national decline in “moral” values, a permissive society, or of violent video games. And, no, Fox News Channel, hate radio hosts and Tea Party Parrots…they certainly weren’t encouraged or permitted by the Obama administration.

They were obviously intelligent and talented young men who were angry, confused, misguided and possibly used. No one knows their motives for sure, but we should not blame others for their violent actions.

The United States Of Crazy!

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A recent survey by Public Policy Polling found that 13 percent of Americans actually think President Obama is the antichrist. An additional 13 percent are unsure.

The same survey found that 37 percent of Americans believe global warming is a hoax, while another 12 percent are unsure. The survey also found that 28 percent of Americans believe in the New World Order conspiracy. (The Black Helicopters are coming! The Black Helicopters are coming!). Yet another 25 percent think it’s possible,

If that news isn’t depressing enough, a 2011 Fox News poll found that 24 percent of voters believe our president is not even an American citizen. A stunning 72 percent of Tea Party Republicans and 63 percent of all Republicans thought there was cause to wonder about his birthplace!

Further, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 32 percent of Americans would favor a constitutional amendment making Christianity the official religion of the United States. An even larger 34 percent would favor establishing Christianity as the official religion of their state. Even though the First Amendment of the Constitution clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” these people seem to believe the Founders intended the US to be a Christian nation.

They apparently assume the Founders simply meant that there should be no establishment of any specific denomination of Christianity despite the fact that some of the Founders were deists and atheists. Many of these same clairvoyants have convinced themselves that the Founders also intended for individual Americans to own all forms of armament ranging from assault weapons to howitzers.

Except for the large numbers of crackpots, none of this is particularly surprising. The US is home to all sorts of crazy.

There are significant numbers of Americans who believe in unfounded conspiracies, such as the Agenda 21 conspiracy, the “truther” conspiracy, the Roswell conspiracy, the FDR-allowed-Pearl-Harbor-to-happen conspiracy, the Obama-is-going-to-take-your-guns conspiracy, the Obama-is-converting-the-US-to-sharia-law conspiracy, etc.

On a more positive note, a new Marist College poll found that 60 percent of Americans think the laws governing firearms sales should be more strict. (After all, who would want to put guns in the hands of the conspiracy nuts.)  59 percent favor a ban on assault weapons with only 37 percent opposing the idea. And 87 percent favor background checks.

Let’s hope those background checks include screenings for nut jobs!

The GOP’s Continuing Attack On Voters, Workers, Women And The Constitution.

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Still stinging from its losses in the 2012 election, the Grand Old Party is becoming a Grand Old Pain In The Ass.  Not just for Democrats…for everyone.

While opposing a bill that would raise the minimum wage, the GOP is attacking labor unions across the nation and successfully ending defined benefit pension plans.  Now the GOP is pushing a bill that would loosen the rules for overtime, allowing corporations to overwork and underpay employees.

Famously, the Ryan budget, which was passed by the House, would drastically cut Medicaid, repeal Obamacare and turn Medicare into vouchers.

Although 94 percent of Americans want comprehensive background checks for anyone purchasing a firearm, Teapublican senators are threatening to filibuster any bill that would limit the sale of guns.

In states across the nation, the GOP is pushing a variety of voter suppression laws through state legislatures under the guise of preventing voter ID fraud, a problem that has been proven to be non-existent.   After gerrymandering districts to all but guarantee a Teapublican-controlled House far into the future, the GOP now senses a way to control presidential elections by changing the Electoral College.  The idea is to end the “winner-take-all” approach to electoral votes for states and, instead, award each electoral vote district-by-Teapublican-controlled-district.

If successful, this would almost certainly ensure an endless reign of GOP presidents.

In North Dakota, Arkansas and elsewhere, GOP legislatures are attempting to make abortion illegal. (Of course, the bills will not actually end abortion.  They’ll just drive it underground, making doctors and patients criminals.)  Under the guise of religious freedom, they also want to eliminate contraceptives from health insurance plans and block sex education in public schools.

In Arizona and numerous states of the Old South, a variety of so-called nullification bills have been introduced in the state legislatures.  If passed, these bills would ostensibly give the states power to ignore any federal law the GOP deems unconstitutional.  (Of course, this power is reserved for the Supreme Court and the bills are in direct defiance of the Constitution’s federal supremacy clause.)

Finally, a bill introduced by North Carolina Teapublicans will allow the GOP-controlled state legislature to name an official state religion in defiance of the Constitution’s establishment clause.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the GOP would be happier if our Constitution didn’t exist?

Apocalyptic Politics.

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Many Americans seem convinced that the Apocalypse is upon us.  Remember Y2K? Remember Nostradamus?  Remember the Mayan calendar?

There have been dead-enders around as long as I can remember.  Usually, they were part of some wacko religious cult that had bet its future on the book of Revelation.  But, in recent years, the dead-enders have become mainstream, especially after the election of our first president of African-American heritage.

Fueled by Teapublicans and the right-wing media, we are constantly told to be afraid…be very afraid.  Unless we do as they say and accept their ideology, we will suffer the consequences of a failed, bankrupt state and, quite likely, the wrath of God.  (You know, the God who personally created America by taking land from the natives and giving it to God-fearing Christians.)

All of this is disturbing enough.  But our media seem to have bought into these fear tactics in the same way they bought into the Bush administration’s lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

As a result, we’re exposed to Teapublican and Christian evangelical fear-mongering at nearly every turn.  Fire-and-brimstone pastors preach fear from the pulpit and tell their flocks that they will go to hell if they support Democrats.  Hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin spew apocalyptic nonsense daily.  And the gun manufacturers’ lobby, otherwise known as the National Rifle Association, tells you that your neighbors are out to get you and your government is coming to take your guns.

To make matters worse, mainstream cable channels offer studies in paranoia such as Doomsday Preppers.  Even the movie studios have gotten into the act with a never-ending series of disaster movies.  And, in the most egregious example, the History Channel recently produced a TV series on the Bible, casting an Obama look-alike as Satan!

The clear message is that we will all perish and go to hell unless we all become right-wing Christian Teapublicans who bow to multinational corporations, turn our backs on the poor, ignore the rights of women, show intolerance to minorities, and worship at the altar of intolerance and greed.

Now that would be a REAL apocalypse!

If I Were King.

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Ever think about what you might do if you were named King (or Queen) of the US for a day? I realize this is a somewhat narcissistic exercise, nevertheless, here’s what I would do:

1 – Cut the defense budget in half and use the leftover money to rebuild our antiquated and decaying infrastructure

2 – End the war on drugs by decriminalizing the use of illicit drugs

3 – Empty the prisons of those incarcerated for drug use and petty drug sales

4 – Prosecute those who have ordered or participated in war crimes

5 – Prosecute the bank executives who crashed our economy by stealing trillions from ordinary citizens

6 – Prosecute those who have created off-shore bank accounts for tax evasion

7 – Limit the number of Congressional lobbyists and ban campaign contributions

8 – Institute public financing for electoral campaigns

9 – Implement a national holiday for elections with mandatory voting

10 – Institute a tax on financial transactions

11 – Index federal income tax rates based on cost of living for each taxpayer’s permanent address

12 – End sales taxes on everything except luxury items

13 – End tax exemptions for more than one home

14 – Restore the FCC Fairness Doctrine requiring electronic media to operate in the public interest and withholding licenses to those who knowingly tell lies

15 – Create a single-payer national healthcare system

16 – Strengthen Social Security by removing the income cap for FICA deductions and means test Social Security recipients to prevent millionaires from receiving it

17 – Reduce the influence of multinational corporations on our State Dept.

18 – Require 2 years of service for all US citizens

19 – Ban semi-automatic weapons, high-capacity clips and military-style ammunition and offer federal buy-backs of banned guns and ammo

20 – Require universal background checks for all gun purchases

21 – Proclaim equality for all and increase penalties for any form of discrimination

22 – End tax exemptions for church property, except that used to perform charitable services, such as education, medicine, services for the poor, etc.

23 – End all corporate welfare, especially for those corporations who export jobs or pollute our environment

24 – Ban elected officials from working for government contractors as employees or lobbyists for a minimum of 10 years

25 – Require that corporate offices of government contractors be located in the US

I’m sure I’ll think of more. Of course, our nation is as likely to implement these ideas as it is to make me King for a day. Thanks for allowing me to indulge in my fantasies.

Guns And Bibles.

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Or is it Bibles and guns? The two now seem so inexplicably linked it’s difficult to know.

For example, many of the nation’s leading Bible-thumping states also have the largest percentage of gun ownership. And although I know of no studies on the subject, these same states would seem to rank high on a paranoia index.

It all seems intertwined.

Many churches quote the Bible to justify their hatred of gays, abortion rights activists, minorities and other faiths. When the government defends the civil rights of minorities and the right of women to control their own bodies, the faithful are given to paranoid delusions of an “attack on Christianity,” of a loss of “family values” and of a tyrannical government. That, in turn, leads to more gun ownership in order to fight the “jack-booted” (whatever that means) thugs who, according to the faithful, are coming to destroy their churches and take away their right to hate whoever they want.

All of this leads to despicable demonstrations such as those by the Westboro Baptist Church. Even worse it leads to violence against gays and minorities, and murders of abortion providers.

Hallelujah and pass the ammunition!

Although the faithful will be furious at my characterization, it has become reality. Moreover, such actions of the faithful are nothing new. Early Christians turned on the Jews who initially supported them (especially surprising given that Christ was a Jew). Christians fought Crusades against the Muslims. Catholics spawned the Inquisition to torture and murder anyone who displayed the slightest independence from Church teachings. Catholics also slaughtered the Cathars, Huguenots and more. Hitler claimed spiritual guidance as he exterminated Jews, Russians, Poles and Hungarians. And the Japanese believed that they were Divinely protected against all outsiders.

In our own nation’s history, the KKK toted Bibles and quoted scripture as they tortured, hung and burned African-Americans. Neo-Nazis have aligned themselves with “Christian” churches. So have many other militias and hate groups.

Even our once secular military has embraced Christianity to such an extent that it has trampled on the rights of soldiers who practice another religion or no religion at all. According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, there have been numerous cases of religious discrimination at our military academies and at military bases around the world. The organization is understandably concerned about “a rapidly expanding and unconstitutional influence of religion over military operations and affairs that must (for both national security and service member civil and human rights) remain strictly and forever secular.”

I am not opposed to religion, but I am opposed to religious discrimination and Bible bullying. And I see absolutely no value in allowing religious zealots to push their beliefs at the end of a gun!

Vatican Exposed!

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John Dalberg-Acton, a British Catholic historian, politician and writer, once wrote of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

No statement could better describe the Vatican’s actions (or should I say inactions?) which were exposed like a priest caught with his pants down in Alex Gibney’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.  As you will see, the description of the Church as the House of God is most certainly in question. Did God teach priests to be sexual predators? Did God tell the bishops, archbishops, cardinals and Pope to cover up pedophilia?

Gibney’s film not only documents an extensive number of child abuse cases involving the clergy. It tracks the cover-up of these crimes all the way to Pope John Paul II and to the current Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which was responsible for tracking all indiscretions such as child molestation.

According to the documentary, the “Holy See” saw all of the files documenting abuse yet did nothing to help the victims or discipline the offenders.

It’s not surprising.

Should we expect anything different from an organization that still refuses to admit that the torture and murder of thousands during the Inquisition was wrong? Or that the slaughter of Cathars and Huguenots was wrong? Should this behavior surprise us coming from an organization that enslaved indigenous populations around the globe in order to “save” them?

Should we expect more from a Church that officially accepted Mussolini’s fascist government in 1929 in exchange for being declared a separate nation? Should we expect better from a Church that helped Nazis escape prosecution by providing them with new identities and guidance from Europe following WWII?

The documentary also gave us a fascinating look at the Catholic clergy’s beliefs and behavior. For example, a former Benedictine monk and therapist conducted a 25-year study on sexuality in the clergy. He found that, at any one time, no more than 50 percent of Catholic priests were practicing celibacy.

You might say it’s hypocrisy of the highest order.

But the faithful are becoming less accepting of the clergy’s hypocrisy.  Following the exposure of massive abuse of Irish children and a Church cover-up, the percentage of Irish citizens who were practicing Catholics dropped from nearly 95 percent to just 4 percent!

Don’t misunderstand me. I believe that the institution, its clergy and its followers have also done a great deal of good. But given the Vatican’s on-going history of institutional crimes, should anyone give credence to the Vatican’s position on gay marriage? On abortion? On contraception? On the role of women in society? On politics? On anything?

I think not.

It’s time for the Vatican to live up to the best behavior of its followers. It’s time for the Vatican to repeal its archaic demand of celibacy for its clergy. It’s time for the Vatican to open its files, admit its crimes and beg for forgiveness.

America’s Gun Culture.

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At halftime of an NFL game, Bob Costas incurred the wrath of gun nuts by raising the issue of this nation’s out of control gun culture. His comments followed a tragic murder/suicide committed by an NFL player. And he recently expanded on those comments during a guest appearance on The Daily Show.

Although Costas was much more eloquent in addressing the issue than I am, I will try my best to summarize it here.

Unlike those who blame gun violence on the availability of specific types of firearms, on the lack of gun registration, on mental illness, on movies and on video games, Costas points to a culture that glorifies guns; a culture of paranoia that causes ordinary citizens to carry guns; a culture that too quickly resorts to gunfire in order to settle disputes.

So how did we get here? How did we get from Mayberry RFD to Newtown?

Our gun culture is even older than our nation. We stole the land from Native Americans with the gun. We won our independence with guns. We conquered the continent with guns. And we’ve used guns to impose our will on the rest of the world.

Of course, our gun culture has evolved. In years past, every farmer and rancher had guns. But they were merely tools for hunting or for shooting predators that preyed on their livestock. Men…especially those who returned from World War II and Korea…viewed guns as tools only for hunting. They never considered using them to shoot another American.

Since movies tend to chronicle our culture, it’s easy to see how the role of guns has changed. In old-time movies the guns were primarily six-shooters, heroes were slow to anger and they only shot in self-defense. More important, the early movie and television plots used violence to teach lessons in ethics and morality. There was no gratuitous violence merely to whet the reptilian appetites of rebellious boys and frustrated, angry men.

But the movies of recent years feature ever larger and more lethal weapons. Violent scenes have become more bloody and more senseless. Our most popular video games focus on warfare and crime. Decades of war in which soldiers have been ordered to shoot first and ask questions later have impacted our psyche. So have poverty and social injustice.

Hip-hop music screams of violence and anger. Angry old white men carry firearms to fulfill their self-image of modern-day cowboy, Rambo or Dirty Harry. “Preppers” egged on by right wing radio hosts and politicians stockpile large caches of weapons and ammo so they’ll be ready to fight our government or their neighbors following what they consider an inevitable government coup or natural disaster.

Even churches foment paranoia by quoting the Book of Revelations and warning members of the “end times.” 

If we’re serious about ending mass shootings and reducing gun violence, we must accept that it won’t happen overnight. Gun registration, limits on ammunition clips and bans of military-style weapons will help. But these measures are only a start. Real change will only come from changing our entire culture.