When people say the US should be a "Christian nation," they never mean that we should feed the poor, clothe the naked or, God forbid, turn the other cheek.
What people usually mean by the term "Christian nation" is that their own primitive ideas of creation should be imposed upon science classes and that their almost perfect ignorance of human biology should become law. Unlike Peter, many Christians only lay down the sword so they can take up the gun.
If by "Christian" people meant "followers of Jesus" they might be surprised to find that we would not have to shape others into our own image. We could work with them as they are to make this a better world. A follower of Jesus, and of Buddha and of Darwin would each bring something to the one task that Jesus called us to- calling the world to love.
Rules, beliefs and rituals are never the heart of true religion. A religion what does not dissolve into love is like food that has not properly digested. What calls itself "Christianity" is, often as not, a bad case of spiritual indigestion.
My college roommate was from Iran so I was told early on I was being systematically misinformed about that nation. At the time, the US had waged a covert war against a peaceful democracy in Iran to impose a dictator who would be friendly to British and US oil interests. And by “friendly” I mean, of course, willing to kill Iranian people to keep them from a taking a fair share of their own resources.
It took a radical religious figure to inspire the Iranian people to depose the Shaw, which the US took as proof of instability in the region and of the need for further interference.
Of late we have heard that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and may need to be stopped militarily. Indeed, UN inspectors discovered that Iran has returned to building a nuclear capacity. That story was very well covered. Most people take that narrative as a given. What was either buried or ignored was this phrase in the UN report:
“Some of the 20 percent fuel is in a form that is extremely difficult to use in a bomb, and most of the stockpile is composed of a fuel enriched at a lower level that would take considerably longer to process for weapons use.”
I don’t know if Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, but I do know we are not telling the whole truth about that nation. There seems to be an unspoken assumption in this country that Muslims are inherently irrational and violent. We will only know if that assumption is true if we are willing to stop kicking them in the teeth long enough to test the premise.
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/08/31/burying-the-most-important-news-on-irans-nuclear-program/
To call the US a “police state” just sounds wrong. We reserve that title for banana republics and tin pot dictators. But what do we call ourselves now that we imprison more of our population than other nations we have traditionally called “police states?” We have long called communist China a “police state,” for example. But even with four times as many people, they can no longer keep up with our prison population. In fact, according to this article by Glen Ford of the Black Agenda, if you just take the people of color imprisoned in the US you have roughly the same number as the entire prison population of China. I wonder if we could sell them our national anthem? “Home of the free” just doesn’t seem to fit us any more.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/31-5
During the Bush administration the idea was hatched to build a virtual wall between Texas and Mexico. One billion dollars later, the virtual wall was able to “protect” about 53 miles. Unfortunately, on a windy day, it could not always tell the difference between a tree and a human being. In the end only 1% of alarms resulted in arrests.
But we all know “American” ends with “I can” not “I can’t.” So now the US is now considering throwing 750 million more into this Texas sized rabbit hole. In addition to the “wall” Texas skies will also sport spy drones.
Of course, all of this money will be taken from education and health care. But there’s no point in educating our children as long as foreigners are coming into our country to take their jobs. First things first.
Our consolation will be that even such failed attempts are making a handful of people unthinkable amounts of money, along with the politicians who support them.
In a recent Huffington Post interview Michael Moore predicted that Mitt Romney would win in November’s presidential election. His rationale was that Romney would raise more money through the super PACs, and in an US election you can almost count the money to see who is going to win an election. See what you think.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/michael-moore-mitt-romney_n_1843824.html
Of the three branches of government, only the court is in a position to protect minorities from the “tyranny of the majority.” Elected officials need the support of popular opinion and so can seldom afford to defend unpopular causes.
A court has struck down the new Texas law requiring voters to present photo identification before casting a ballot.
The court ruled that the law would place “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor”, and upon racial minorities. The court said that placing and additional cost of having to purchase a photo id would amount to a poll tax.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19429409
In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Father Benedict Groeschel, showed that there are still some in the Catholic hierarchy who do not get it. He maintained in that interview that sometimes it is the teen that seduces the priest.
“People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath,” Groeschel said. “But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/father-benedict-groeschel-teens-seduce-priests_n_1840900.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
These are my least popular columns. When I try to hold liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans on one scale, both sides bolt. And no one wants to put our whole nation on the scales of justice. But here we go…
When Slate Magazine released a poll of Obama’s popularity in Europe I became suspicious that they were cherry picking. I understand how Japan and Europe might see a huge difference in Obama and Bush, but what do those numbers look like outside the world’s former colonizers? Do people in the Middle East discern such a difference in a Democrat and Republican? Do areas that have drones flying overhead, or have drug wars raging think Obama is so different than Bush?
These polls are what you would expect. The world was excited when Obama was elected and spoke of international co-operation. It then fell into disappointment when they realized a Democratic imperilist is much the same as a Republican one. Notice the difference between the opinions of the haves and the have nots of the world. Notice specifically the disappointment with how we are handling our foreign policy.
The world needs us to be more than Republicans and Democrats. They need us to be more than Americans. They need us to be human beings and to work with them to restore international law.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/06/13/global-opinion-of-obama-slips-international-policies-faulted/
Is unfettered capitalism compatible with democracy? That is, when one sector of the population has the single goal of amassing wealth and will not be bound by the regulations of democratically elected government, then will not that economic system and that democratically elected government become locked in a death struggle? Will not that economic system use its wealth to take over the political system or, failing that, move it’s holdings elsewhere?
“Democracy” means people collectively taking responsibility for their lives through voting. If you embed that democratic process within an economic system that renders those decisions meaningless, have you not effectively killed democracy? If a democratically elected government cannot demand of corporations that they not pollute, nor discriminate in hiring, nor attempt to buy elections, then is that system democratic at all, or is it instead a series of corporate empires where the people only get to vote on the crumbs that have fallen off the table? At that point, is not democracy like the steering wheel we give to children in the back of the car to keep them quiet?
At the Republican convention Condolezza Rice asserted that Obama had lowered the reputation of the U.S. around the world. Setting aside the irony of anyone from the second Bush adminstration being allowed to even talk about foreign policy, I was curious what the poll numbers were. In this clip from Slate, we get the poll numbers of what Europeans think about the US and Obama.
“According to a recent survey by the Poll Research Center, 53 percent of British citizens had a favorable view of the United States in 2008, the last year of Bush’s presidency. Today the figure is 60 percent. In France, the figure rose from 42 percent to 69 percent; the Czech Republic, from 45 to 54 percent; Germany, from 31 to 52 percent; Japan, from 50 to 72 percent; Mexico, from 47 to 56 percent. Only in the Arab countries (Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan) has the rating declined (and do the Republicans really care much about that?).
Another Pew Poll, released just this week, about global attitudes toward President Obama as a leader makes Rice’s concerns seem ridiculous. As summarized by CNN, 87 percent of the Germans, 86 percent of the French, 80 percent of the British, and 74 percent of the Japanese have confidence in Obama—in each case, more confidence than they have in their own leaders. More striking still, 92 percent of the French, 89 percent of the Germans, 73 percent of the British, and 66 percent of the Japanese want Obama re-elected.” -Slate Magazine
I’m really curious what those poll numbers look like in South America, Asia or Africa. Does a Democratic or Republican president seem so different to those on the other side of empire? Do the areas that patrolled by US troops and drones care about the personality traits of the ones who have sent them?