Yet another point in Obama’s favor: the Christian Conservatives and evangelicals have decided that McCain is, after all, God’s candidate. That is to say, while many of them feel that McCain was most definitely not God’s first choice, God most definitely prefers him to Barack Obama.
So even though they — meaning the lead mouthpieces of the Christian Right — said they would never, ever do it, Senator McBack ‘n Fill carefully repudiated his every principled stand during the primaries. Besides: he’s incontrovertibly not Obama. They’ve evidently decided on these grounds that they have to support him for not being Obama, whether they like it or not. I get the impression that they don’t much, even now, but are trying to make the best of him. That’s so sweet.
But if I didn’t already know how I am going to vote, I’d take their decision to unite behind McCain as a sign. As a small-C christian small-L liberal of the Quaker, or Friendly, Persuasion — if of any persuasion — I view the stance of the opposite sort of Christian as a fairly reliable indicator of on which side of the line I should not plant my banner.
They may mean well. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I cannot agree with their objectives.
It’s been tried before, in a variety of ways. Starting with the time of our American Revolution…and continuing through the War of 1812, the Mexican army attack on the Alamo, the Spanish American War, and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor – through two world wars – this country, when united, has never been defeated.
In fact, history will show that each time America has been attacked from without, she has grown notably stronger!…
The Communists took a different tack. … they devised a cunning plan to establish Communist cells in this country, made up almost totally of Americans…
By changing the moral compass of our country, especially in the young generation, they would literally take over our culture – and eventually our government – from within.
That’s right folks! Like the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the cunning communists, we’re sneaking into your towns to recruit the young!
And now, according to facts just revealed by Focus on the Family, a frightening new assault is well under way, on our very processes of government. Focus is the leading family advocacy outfit in the country and happens to be based in Colorado, where they’ve had a ringside seat for the activities of a multimillionaire named Tim Gill. This man and other extremely wealthy men who share his priorities have demonstrated that enough money can buy virtually anything … maybe even a country.
Tim Gill founded Quark, a very successful software company, and 14 years ago began pouring much of his massive wealth into the homosexual rights movement. Dozens of gay rights organizations owe their existence to Gill. That list includes the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN – the nation’s leading homosexual activist group in America’s schools). I’ve written here before about the goals GLSEN has for our schools and the minds of our young; they are determined to see that all teachers imbed acceptance, even admiration, for every kind of deviant behavior into the curricula and permanent perceptions of America’s students.
I’m sad to say how many people in my rural Georgia community agree with Pat Boone. We’ve got some real work to be done here.
RELATED: It was nice to see Peter Wehner write in the WaPo today that Christian conservative “critics of Obama have an obligation to provide a fair and honest critique, and the attacks leveled by Dobson fall terribly short of that standard.”Morbo has the entire James Dobson salvo against Barack Obama and detects an air of desperation. I certainly agree.
Scott at World o’Crap has some fun walking us through WorldNetDaily CEO Joseph Farah showing us how to sniff out the subversive elements infesting America’s vital news organs. He begins with a quote from a Dobson radio ad:
“Mom…”
If the Colorado legislature has its way…
“A man in a dress came into the girl’s restroom at school today.”
We could all be dealing with a new type of predator.
“Honey, there was a man in the women’s showers at the gym today, and the management said it was, it was Colorado law.”
And instead of our kids worrying about class work, they’ll be worrying about who might be in the restroom with them.
“No way I’m going in there (school bell), I’d rather wait all day if a guy’s in there.”
Our children must be protected from predators, but if Governor Ritter won’t veto Senate Bill 200, all public restrooms, including those in our public schools, will be open to anyone of any sex.
Have you ever opened up your local newspaper and wondered why there is so much coverage of homosexuals and issues of concern to homosexuals?
“Among the things of most concern to citizens, according to the polls, are the war in Iraq, education and public health. But it’s possible that the real challenge for Obama or McCain will have nothing to do with these. Rather, they’ll have to address an item that is directly responsible for the problems in public health, education, and Iraq: religion.”
“Never in the history of the United States has religion had such a definitive presence in the decision-making of government. North American believers like to think that their country was founded on religious principles (God is mentioned in many parts of the nation’s lore, from bank notes to the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag), but the truth is that not even the most notoriously evangelical presidents, from Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan, have ever permitted the design of national policy on the basis of religious arguments. The Bush White House, however, is the closest things possible to a church.”
The creationists deserve a few props here. Since the Dover loss they’ve switched strategies away from claiming that ID is science and are instead focusing on “academic freedom”. That the concept of academic freedom doesn’t generally apply at the elementary and secondary levels seems to be of no consequence. The Louisiana legislature has passed, by a veto-proof majority, a bill that protects the “academic freedom” of teachers to teach creationism as science. […]
As a soon-to-be-resident of Louisiana, it has me wondering what I’ll be walking into. This will do nothing to help the image of the state, or of the state’s high school graduates. Indeed, I can see it making the more prestigious schools avoid Louisiana graduates and it will probably discourage the best professors from working at Louisiana’s finer schools, such as Tulane and Loyola.
Furthermore, if Governor Jindal signs the bill, as opposed to just letting it become law without his signature, it will reduce his chances of being McCain’s VP pick.
Think Progress quotes from Jindal’s appearance on Face the Nation Sunday:
I don’t think students learn by us withholding information from them. … I want them to see the best data. I personally think human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. … Now the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness.
Newt Gingrich was on that Face the Nation program singing Jindal’s praises; Steve Benen parses Gingrich’s arguments and hopes McCain goes ahead and picks him as VP.
Michael Weiss has a good piece in Slate on the problem with using scientists’ words to support your religious beliefs. Read it!
May 31st, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Just so you can see a fuller picture.
(hat tip to Roland S. Martin www.rolandsmartin.com CNN Contributor)
Obama resignation letter from Trinity
May 30, 2008
Dear. Rev. Moss:
We are writing to make official our decision to end our memebership at Trinity.
We make this decision with sadness. Trinity was where I found Christ, where we were married and where our children were baptized. We have many friends among the 8,000 congregants who attend there and we are proud of the extraordinary good works the church continues to perform throughout the community to help the hungry, the homeless and people in need of medical care.
We also have come to appreciate your ministry and both think you have been, and will be, a wonderful pastor for years to come.
But as you know, our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Rev. Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views.
Our larger concern is that because of my candidacy and membership at Trinity, these controversies have served as an unfortunate distraction for other Trinity members who seek to worship in peace, and have placed you in an untenable position as you establish your own ministry under very difficult circumstances.
Our faith remains strong and we will find another church home for our family. But we also know that faith and prayer are not merely exercises to be discharged for two hours on Sunday. They are and always will be a bulwark for us in our daily lives.
We are grateful for our years as part of the Trinity community, and wish you all the best as you lead the congregation into the future. You, your family and the entire Trinity family will be in thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely
Michelle Obama
Barack Obama
Statement from Trinity on Obama Leaving the Church
“Trinity United Church of Christ was infomed that Sen. Barack Obama and his family will no longer be members of our church.
May 31st, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
caveat: there may be more to show the various sides of reactions to the press conference, and this is representative of what I’ve found today.
Barack Obama at press conference this afternoon re resigning from Trinity United Church of Christ
“This is not a decision I come to lightly … and it is one I make with some sadness,” he said at a news conference after campaign officials released a letter of resignation sent to the church on Friday.
“I’m not denouncing the church and I’m not interested in people who want me to denounce the church,” he said, adding that the new pastor at Trinity and “the church have been suffering from the attention my campaign has focused on them.”
Obama said he and his wife have been discussing the issue since Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club in Washington last month that reignited furor over remarks he had made in various sermons at the church.
“I suspect we’ll find another church home for our family,” Obama said.
“It’s clear that now that I’m a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my longheld views, statements and principles,” he said.
Obama said he had “no idea” how the resignation would “impact my presidential campaign, but I know its the right thing to do for the church and our family.”
“This was a pretty personal decision and I was not trying to make political theater out of it,” he said.
Following are reactions from a spectrum of blogs including African American writers:
May 31st, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
UPDATE: Juan Williams reports to Fox News that many black people surrounding him having angry reactions to Obama resigning from Trinity.
UPDATE: Senator Obama has made his statement tonight saying he has resigned from Trinity. The Clinton campaign has refused comment. Likely, after today’s delegates meeting, not to torpedo any chance she may have to be veep. Pundits are spinning Obama as a radical allied with radical elements in our culture. Others are saying he is distancing himself at this late date, hoping media will not scrutinize his past associations. Some are saying Obama’s securing financial grants for Father Pfleger ought be investigated.
Also, until I can put hands on a transcript in full, I’ll not comment on content. But Fox news is hammering on a single phrase that Obama said in answer to a reporter’s leading question, “I’m not denouncing Trinity chuch… it’s not worth denouncing.” As soon as I can verify, I’ll post the actual here.
[Third Update]: what I found as a direct quote from Obama is this this: (see what appears to be his full formal statement here…by Tom Raum in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
“I’m not denouncing the church and I’m not interested in people who want me to denounce the church,” he said, adding that the new pastor at Trinity and “the church have been suffering from the attention my campaign has focused on them.”
If Obama said more in answer to a reporter’s question, I have not found that yet.
My two cents worth at this point is Obama has to decide whether to focus on endlessly explaining Trinity Church and his reasons for leaving in the coming days, and stop trying to teach anyone about the many variations to be found in African America churches and what the different groups focus on…
or to focus himself on his considerable vision of resilience and belief in and for others. Speaking about his plans for foreign relations and the specifics of withdrawal from the dual-wars, and what he plans to do to support small banks with an overage of bad loans… would be a plus.
Let’s face it: this is a VERY BAD YEAR for candidates’ relationships with men of the cloth who support them. Senator John McCain has rejected the support of a well-known pastor after it came out on an Internet website that the pastor had said Nazism was God’s will:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today rejected the endorsement of megachurch pastor and ardent Zionist John Hagee after learning of a sermon in which Hagee posited that Nazism was God’s will.
Hagee’s sermon was delivered in the late 1990s but a video of it began circulating widely this week on the Web on the site talk2action, which monitors the religious right. The sermon calls Hitler a “hunter,” a reference to the Book of Jeremiah, which quotes God saying he “will restore [the Jews] to the land I gave to their forefathers.”
Hagee is one of the country’s best-known evangelical Christian Zionists; he founded a pro-Israel alliance of Christian groups and has donated tens of millions from his Texas-based ministry to support humanitarian causes in Israel. He has said he is driven by the belief that the creation of the state of Israel, and the return of Jews to Palestine, are God’s will.
“A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter,” Hagee says in the sermon. “And the Bible says — Jeremiah writing — ‘They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,’ meaning there’s no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don’t let your heart be offended. I didn’t write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.”
McCain issued a statement indicating he is today trying to put himself as far away from Hagee as quickly as humanly possible:
“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them,” McCain said. “I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.
But news reports note that McCain had balked at rejecting Hagee’s support earlier, after it came out that Hagee had made inflammatory remarks about Catholicism and said Hurricane Katrina represented Divine retribution. At the same time, McCain has been blasting Democratic Senator Barack Obama for not totally distancing himself early on from Obama’s pastor’s inflammatory comments.
McCain tried to draw this distinction:
“I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright’s extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years,” McCain said in the statement. “I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today.”
McCain renouncing Hagee’s endorsement comes almost three months after the Arizona senator received it. Hagee endorsed McCain on Feb. 27. Two days later, McCain issued a statement disagreeing with some of Hagee’s views, but he didn’t outright denounce the endorsement until today.
Why did McCain move today? First Read again:
Advisers acknowledge this endorsement was not properly vetted and that McCain was not aware of the range of controversial comments Hagee has made. The latest surfaced remarks were that “Hitler was a hunter” — regarding the Holocaust — and today advisers called those statement “heinous.” While they acknowledge a “bit of concern” that some evangelicals needed by McCain might be offended, the campaign felt this step was needed today.
McCain’s distinction about his pastor problem being different than Obama’s will satisfy those who already support him and Shaun and Rush will say it’s clear. But to many others — including independent voters — it’ll smell like Obama’s situation because of his delay in nixing Hagee’s support.
It shows a tin political ear in waiting so long (like Obama) and his distinction is “nuance” — the thing conservative radio and cable talk show hosts always snicker at and accuse the Democrats of employing…an attempt to avoid taking a hard position.
Here’s the Huffington Post article that generated the controversy.
But this is definitely not the year for religious figures linked to politicians.
As ABC News reports that John McCain is poised to flip on abortion, it’s worth remembering that social conservatives have done some flipping of their own.
The Southern Baptist Convention called today for the legalization of abortion in certain cases, including those where there was “carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental and physical health of the mother.”
I was pointed in the direction of that article by Randall Balmer, “an evangelical Christian whose understanding of the teachings of Jesus point him toward the left,” a visiting professor at Yale University Divinity School and Dartmouth College, and editor-at-large for Christianity Today. He’s also an Episcopal priest who has written a book, God in the White House.
In a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross last January he had this to say about the emergence of abortion as an issue for the religious right to organize around:
According to one of the architects of the religious right, who told me this directly, after they had organized on the issue of Bob Jones University and more broadly the issue of government interference in these schools, as they understood it, there was a conference call among these various evangelical leaders and the political consultants who were trying to organize them into a political movement, and several people mentioned several issues. Finally the voice on the end of one of the lines said, `How about abortion?’ And that’s how abortion was cobbled into the agenda of the religious right, late in the 1970s in preparation for the 1980 presidential election. […] Ronald Reagan, of course, was a divorced and remarried man who, by the way, as governor of California in 1967, signed into law the most liberal abortion bill in the country. So he was an odd choice for evangelical activists, especially as we look back on their agenda these days.
And of the emergence of the Religious Right:
[W]hat I try to expose in the book and I think I document copiously is that the religious right did not–did not–coalesce as a political movement in direct response to the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention, which is hardly a bastion of liberalism, had passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, and this was a resolution that was reaffirmed in 1974, again in 1976. It was not the abortion issue. What galvanized evangelicals as a political block, as a political movement, was instead the actions of the Internal Revenue Service to go after the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, because of its racially discriminatory policies, and that Carter was unfairly blamed for this by the architects of the religious right, and they used that against him and mobilized to defeat him four years later in 1980. […]
Bob Jones University did not allow African-Americans to be enrolled at the school until 1991 and did not allow unmarried African-Americans as students until 1995. The lower court ruling that really became the catalyst for the rise of the religious right was a ruling called Green v. Connelly, issued in 1971, by the district court of the District of Columbia; and it upheld the Internal Revenue Service in its ruling that any organization that engages in racial segregation or discrimination is not, by definition, a charitable organization and as such has no claim to tax-exempt status. And as the IRS began applying that ruling and enforcing it in various places, including Bob Jones University, that is what galvanized evangelical leaders into a political movement that we know today as the religious right.
Some unfortunate resonances there don’t you think?
In describing the cancelled panel, Dr. David Scasta sounds like he had been searching all along for the reasonable middle. The Bryant Park Project’s Rachel Martin sometimes tips towards typical media mayhem — “You think it’s important to engage the people at the fringe, at the very extreme side?”
Dr. SCASTA: If you grow up in a tradition, particularly a conservative tradition, conservative religious tradition, in which you’re going to Hell if you’re a homosexual person, it begins to influence how you approach therapy. I mean, if you literally believe in a literal hell where you are going to burn, and fry, and be in excruciating pain not just for a moment, but for eternity because you are a gay person, then how do you go to psychotherapy in which somebody like me would be telling you that to have a happy life in this life you need to learn to accept who you are? Read the rest of this entry »
A federal judge has ruled that the Georgia Institute of Technology had materials in its office to support gay students that amounted to unconstitutional support for some religious groups over others. […]
The ruling came in a case involving a range of issues over speech codes and support for religious groups at Georgia Tech — issues that mirror those being raised at other public colleges and many of which were resolved in earlier rulings or agreements between the parties in the case. The new part of the ruling, however, focused on a set of materials used in the “Safe Space” program at Georgia Tech, a part of the institute’s diversity office designed to support gay and lesbian students.
The case was filed on behalf of two Georgia Tech students, assisted by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that has sued many public colleges accusing them of violating the rights of religious students. The portion of the suit about Safe Space argued that materials at the public university were effectively religious in that they endorsed some faiths over others — and that these materials were as a result unconstitutional. Judge J. Owen Forrester agreed.
The materials in question dealt with issues that may be faced by religious gay students, or by gay students challenged about the sexuality by people from different faiths. One passage cited in the ruling says that “historically, Biblical passages taken out of context have been used to justify such things as slavery, the inferior status of women, and the persecution of religious minorities.” Such attitudes have led some religious groups to declare “that homosexuality is immoral,” the group’s materials state, while others “have begun to look at sexual relationships in terms of the love, mutual support, commitments and the responsibility of the partners rather than the sex of the individuals involved.”
Much has been written in the foreign press about the real purpose of Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented election-year visit to the United States. Some charge that he came to bolster the only pro-life candidate, John McCain. Others have surmised that the Pope came to make common cause with President Bush to oppose the perceived threat of an expanding Islam.
“As for Catholics in the United States, almost a third of the population has been brought up in that faith, but today only 24 percent of Americans call themselves Catholic, less than a half of those who identify themselves as Protestant/Evangelical - almost 52 percent. The study clearly shows that the strongest adherents of the Catholic Church are amongst recent immigrants. Forty-six percent of U.S. nationals born outside the country are Catholic, while 24 percent of them Protestant.”
“The situation changes when we consider the religious affiliation of those born in the United States: fifty-five percent are Protestant and 21 percent are Catholic. In other words, a significant percentage of those who were Catholic in their infancy, have over the years decided to change their affiliation, switching primarily to Evangelical and Pentecostal churches.”
In other words, the longer immigrants remain in the U.S., the greater the likelihood that they’ll switch to another denomination or religion.
“To the Pope’s misfortune, the dynamics of change are influenced by factors beyond his control.”
By Carlos Martínez García
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
April 23, 2008
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)
The results of the trip are more media than real. Benedict the XVI’s visit to the United States ratified a pastoral line that doesn’t confront problems at their root but treats them superficially and postpones their resolution, to the detriment of the millions of Catholics whose disillusionment with the leadership of the Catholic Church continues to deepen.
A good number of commentators and analysts expressed surprise and even praised the papal decision to meet with some victims of clerical pedophilia in the United States. They forget that due to the peculiarity of United States society, both in terms of its religious composition and the vigilance with which it monitors leaders of any kind, Pope Benedict XVI was practically obliged to show some sign that these outrageous abuses will not happen again.
We know of the magnitude of the sexual abuses perpetrated by Catholic priests in that country thanks to the mobilization of those who were assaulted and the solidarity of people who assisted them in disseminating news about the size of the problem and suing the pedophiles in court. It was an organization of citizens and its insistence on documenting and making public the sexual attacks of clergy in that country, which made it possible to make the issue a public one of such national significance.
The various centers of ecclesiastic authority, both in the U.S. and Rome, did everything possible to conceal the scandals. When they failed in the attempt, they imposed damage control measures and tried unsuccessfully to minimize the problem.
It was an entire network of complicity within the U.S. Catholic Church that permitted thousands of cases of sexual abuse, not the isolated behavior of this or that cleric. In this regard there is convincing data:
“A study ordered by the North American Episcopal Conference in 2004 … concluded that the number of children victimized by about 5 000 priests over the past three decades was over 11,000. Since many cases have been resolved according to the culture and civil law of the United States, the relevant statistics include $2 billion that has been paid in out in this regard, which has contributed to bankruptcy of more than a few diocese” (from The Pope and Clerical Pedophilia in Mexico [El Papa y la pederastia clerical en México] by Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Proceso).
The Pope pronounced words and promised actions favorable to Latin American immigrants, the majority of whom entered the United States without a visa. The productive apparatus in the United States has benefited on a great scale from these so-called illegals by paying them low wages and providing them with almost no social benefits. For the most part, these people come to that nation as Catholics and are the main factor in the growth of Catholicism there. This reality has another less well-known side, which is creating concern at the Holy See in Rome.
“Bush sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he considers that only a united front encompassing all 2.2 billion Judeo-Christians will be able to resist Islam. Recent decades have seen increasing religious tension and the spread of theocracies, which now encompass almost all Arab countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
Did the Pope visit the United States in part to influence the U.S. Presidential race in favor of John McCain?
That seems to be the conclusion of a large number of mainland Europeans.
This article from France’s Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, quoting French journalist V. Jauvert, points out, “Since April 16 - his birthday - Pope Benedict XVI has been in the United States for a rather long trip (for an old person): a week. And he didn’t go there just to blow out the candles on the cake offered by Dubya … The Pope is (subliminally) campaigning for J. McCain … the official visit of a Pope during a very tight election campaign is contrary to tradition. … this trip, beyond the spiritual and political, is a pretext to support the pro life candidate.’
Jauvert goes on to say that in 2004 before his elevation to the papacy, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to American Bishops saying, “it’s not possible to defend the right to abortion and receive communion, and that therefore, those who vote for Kerry, who take communion each Sunday, “would be guilty of formal cooperation with the devil!”
April 15th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Again, a disclosure: I am a Catholic.
Catholic social teachings
disagree with abuses of power,
disagree with politics that omit and oppress the poor and needy,
disagree with trampling the preciousness of the life force,
disagree with any idea that preemptive war is good,
disagree with any idea that humans are not worthy of justice and dignity… and much more.
These principles are in place to keep the world from going dead black with avarice and sloth and cruelty and the sounds of many mouths banging in scorn like empty pots. They are not always easy to live, but they are to be rooted in the heart and soul, and to be striven toward even though it is hard in the winds that swirl through this world.
Here, one journalist writes about some who present George Bush as having a seemingly ‘Catholic conscience.’ You can read the entire article by Daniel Burke here “A Catholic Wind in the White House,” and you can read my article I filed this morning at The National Catholic Reporter in my weekly column there where, speaking as a Catholic, I felt I had to refute the idea that George Bush is in any way following sacred Catholic social teachings. You can see that article, entitled, “Silencing a Woman: Retrieving Her Voice,” here.
April 13, 2008, in the Washington Post, Daniel Burke, a national correspondent for Religion News Service, writes about how some imagine President George Bush is actually a secret Catholic ‘believer,’ and has met with and surrounded himself by Catholics during his administration… that his policies have directly grown out of Catholic social justice teachings… and that the Pope is coming to see the President and his Catholic appointees specially, as the Pope is his ally… even though the Pope disagrees with President Bush’s Iraq war and torture.
“Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush’s domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.
“Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year. “I think he is a secret believer,” Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush’s first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a “closet Catholic.” And he was only half-kidding.”
Mr. Burke’s article goes on to say,
“As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush’s inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president… this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics — and thus Catholic social teaching — have for the past eight years been shaping Bush’s speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history….”
But, I must say otherwise:
…At a time when hardworking fathers and mothers are literally piling the children’s toys and bunk beds at the curb, for they are losing their homes in the sub-prime mortgage bunco scheme promoted by the grotesquely avaricious…
…at a time when 25% of older women only have a social security check to live on and nothing more… and they have inherited nothing but a President who wishes to do away with social security… and who admires those who call this hard earned savings account belonging to individuals who worked all their lives long, “an entitlement…”
…during a time when the last small farmers, ranchers, and overland independent truckers are being run out of business from sudden spikes in fuel and government’s one-sided subsidies… and our farmers, ranchers and trucker-heroes are becoming desperate for they not only take care of their own families, but have long taken care of us, their nation’s families at a root level, delivering the food and necessities we need…
…at a time when pharmaceutical companies produce much good, and have some charitable programs, yet still, at the back door, many also hold onto medicine patents that would have expired, thereby allowing the formulas into public domain and bringing down the costs of vital medicines for human beings in need…. but instead, some change the formula in slight and meaningless ways and thereby file to re-patent the medicine again, so they are its only producers, and prices remain high… often out of reach of those in most dire straights… and all this is okay-ed by our government…
To read the rest of both Mr. Burke’s article and mine, please see the links above….
The Phelps Family Ghouls (the ‘God Hates Gays’ Baptists who picket funerals) may lose their property to the courts as a consequence of their hateful actions.
A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday ordered liens on the Westboro Baptist Church building and the Phelps-Chartered Law office.
If the case presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett is upheld by an appeals court, the church, at 3701 S.W. 12th, and the office building, at 1414 S.W. Topeka Blvd., could be obtained by the court and sold, with the proceeds being applied toward $5 million in damages Bennett imposed on church members for picketing a military funeral.
A lien is a legal hold on property, making it collateral against money owed to a person or entity. It can keep the owner from selling the property or transferring title to the property.
The $5 million penalty is the result of a lawsuit filed against three of the church’s principals by Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by church members.
The senior Snyder contended the picketing caused emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
Westboro Baptist members regularly picket funerals of members of the U.S. armed forces, contending the deaths are God’s punishment for the country’s support of homosexuals.
Have Democrats - and Europeans - become too comfortable with the inevitability of a Democratic President in 2008? Financial Times Deutschland columnist Thomas Klau writes in part, ‘The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain’s candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party’s nomination duel. … The reproach so often repeated by Obama - that McCain offers only a sequel of the failed politics of George W. Bush - misses the point: McCain has contradicted Bush’s policies so often, that no one can embody calls for change the way he does.’
By Thomas Klau
Translated by Julian Jacob
March 6, 2008
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
The saga goes on - the epochal battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Once again, the voters have resisted the pressure of the media, which was so quick to choose a favorite candidate.
In the U.S., people love quick results and clear statistics and a fast declaration of winners and losers. But Americans also appreciate the courage of those who don’t give up. Hillary Clinton has fought on after being written off and has gone on the attack when many were urging her to clear the field for Barack Obama. On Tuesday [Mar. 4] , the voters didn’t abandon her.
The senator’s tenacity and her steadfastness in times of great stress could be her best argument, if in Denver in July it comes down to drawing party delegates to her side. Clinton will need arguments because despite her victory yesterday, the numbers continue to speak against her. In terms of the number of delegates, Obama is out in front and will be almost impossible to catch - the arithmetic and dynamics of the approaching primary dates work in his advantage.
Now the battle for the Democratic nomination will become harder and perhaps dirtier. Clinton’s revitalized election team will make every effort to keep the Illinois senator on the defensive. Obama’s squeaky-clean image will suffer if for the first time, the press keeps its klieg lights on the senator’s more problematic contacts. It is here that he is vulnerable to attack. He’s member of a Black church congregation in Chicago, the leader of which has maintained contacts with Black racists. And the corruption trial against a former Obama supporter, building contractor Tony Rezko, is imminent.
DEEP-SEATED PARTY CRISES
With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee, the Republican primary battle has ended with the formal selection of John McCain. The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain’s candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party’s nomination duel.
Politically, Clinton and Obama are conventional Democrats, located in the middle-left of their own party. But McCain is the first Republican presidential candidate in many years who has ascended in spite of the resistance of the culture warriors - that aggressive nationalistic wing of the Party. Unlike the leading figures of the present U.S. government, his TV is not tuned to Fox News - the propaganda channel of the right - but MSNBC - and anyone who knows the United States understand how much that says.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections
Continuing the unhelpful theme of “just stop saying this stuff”, the RNC has chastised its terrified Tennessee representatives:
(CNN) – Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan formally denounced Thursday the Tennessee Republican Party’s use of Barack Obama’s full name in a recent press release questioning the Illinois senator’s commitment to Israel.
“The RNC rejects these kinds of campaign tactics,” RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said in a statement. “We believe this election needs to be about the critical issues confronting our nation.”
The problem, unfortunately, can’t be solved so easily. Like it or not, years of war have made Islam one of those critical issues — particularly for Republicans. When someone’s screaming from a nightmare, telling them to just hush up is unhelpful in the extreme.
For many, the name Hussein evokes Saddam, which brings Iraq, which leads to al-Qaeda, which results in… if we don’t stay vigilant, we’ll be fighting Islamic extremism in our very own cul-de-sacs!!!!
This is not the raving of some small radical fringe (my prior post on that here). It’s the logical, totally predictable result of a political tactic… and if you’re going tell scary stories at bedtime, you need to be prepared to deal with the resulting Things That Go Bump In The Night.
![[NZZ am Sonntag, Switzerland]](http://worldmeets.us/images/bushpope_nzzamsonntag.gif)
![[La Tribune, Honduras]](http://worldmeets.us/images/popepedofile_latribunahn.gif)
