Some very bad things have happened in countries that
claim to be socialist, but let us not forget that slavery, the slaughter of
over 200 million Native Americans, and the wholesale lynching and abuse of African
Americans took place right here under capitalism. So the people on both sides
of this debate only give you the facts that are most favorable to their point
of view. It’s called brainwashing. . But here’s the bottom line (at least in theory) – “socialism”
gives priority to the people, or society, and “capitalism” gives priority to big
business - based on the premise that a prosperous business environment will
benefit society as a whole. But that’s not always the case. Business can be
thriving for the people at the top, while the average worker can be living in
near destitution. So in practice, the
best economic model is a combination of both socialism and capitalism to form a
more balanced and common-sense economy. . We shouldn’t get carried away with either system. We need to keep them both in
check. While we shouldn’t allow socialism to become so radical that it becomes
oppressive to independent initiative, neither should allow capitalists to
become so ruthlessly greedy and out of control that they’re allowed to victimize
the people. So, like most things in life, the best economic system for society
is simply a matter of common sense – to protect the people from greed and
exploitation, while at the same time, allowing business the freedom to prosper. That’s the kind of thinking that pulled the nation out of
the Great Depression, and it’s called Democratic Socialism. . Thus, without endorsing
or advocating any particular candidate for President, it’s important that the
voting public be informed and not allowed to be misled. When the opposition (both Democrats and
Republicans) shout that Bernie Sanders is “A Socialist!”, they’re trying to
imply that he’s un-American. That’s not true. He’s a DEMOCRATICSocialist,
which means he shares the very same views as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president who defeated Hitler during WWII, led the world out of the Great Depression, and held office longer than any other president in American history. . So, while you may or you may not agree with Bernie Sanders' policies, make sure you have a clear understanding of exactly what those policies are, and that you're basing your opinion (and your vote) on knowledge, and not just a bumper sticker. Because there's one thing we must ALWAYS remember, and that's that ALL politicians are absolutely brilliant in one area if in no other, and that's in misleading the public. So don't base your vote on what you're being told. Do your homework.
DONALD TRUMP - A RUSSIAN ASSET MASQUERADING AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
The facts are coming out before our eyes, and by Trump's own staff no less. It has become increasingly clear that Trump is at best a Russian stooge, and at worst a full blown Russian agent, and due to the conservative penchant for bigotry, self-service and greed, the Republican Party is turning a blind eye to his blatant assault on American democracy. . Clear evidence of Trump’s willingness to subordinate what's in the best
interest of the American people in order to promote his own personal interests is clearly demonstrated in his decision to abandon our Kurdish allies to the whim of Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
. Trumpturned his back on the Kurds after they lost over 11,000 men helping the United States fight terrorism. Following a mere phone conversation with Turkish president, Erdogan - in the middle of the night, and without consulting either our NATO allies or the American military - Trump agreed to withdraw American troops from northern Syria that were in place for the specific purpose of protecting our Kurdish allies.
. As a direct result of Trump's self-serving treachery towards the Kurds, over 300,000 people have been displaced - and beyond that, now there's a Russian flag flying over a base in Syria that was built with American taxpayer dollars. But Trump couldn't allow himself to be bothered with such minor issues as loyalty to our Kurdish allies or America's image around the world, he had the personal interest of two Trump Towers in Turkey he had to protect.
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Trump also held up money and arms delivery to Ukraine that was desperately needed in order to fight off a Russian invasion. Trump claimed he held up $391 million in an attempt to insure that the Ukrainians launched an investigation into corruption, but later evidence provided by his own staff demonstrated that he held up the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars approved and certified to go to the Ukrainians in order to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into making concessions that contributed to Trump's personal gain in the 2020 election. . Trump used the American taxpayer dollars in an attempt to pressure President Zelensky into publicly announcing that the Ukrainians were investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, his most formidable opponent in the coming 2020 election, and his son, Hunter. The facts also revealed that Trump didn't really care whether the investigation itself was actually carried out, he simply wanted the Ukrainians to announce that they were investigating the Bidens in order to smear their name and lend credence to the debunked conspiracy theory hatched by the Russian intelligence service that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 American elections.
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While the primary purpose of the episode was to help Trump domestically in the 2020 elections, like most things Trump, it also just happened to bring aid and comfort to the Russians. While one might contend that the Russian connection was just a coincident, is it also just a coincident that Trump diluted the American sanctions that the Obama administration placed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea in the Ukraine, or that Trump has repeatedly taken sides with Russia over our own intelligence community? In addition, was it also just a coincident that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, sought to secure a secret "back channel" method of communicating with the Russians that would allude being monitored by our own intelligence services? And finally, Trump’s now discussing pulling out of NATO, a western alliance organization created to prevent Russia from invading Europe after WWII, yet another "coincident" that just happens to bring comfort to Vladimir Putin and the Russians.
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SO WHY WOULD TRUMP DO THESE THINGS
The answer as to why Trump would collude with Russia is quite simple –
after going into bankruptcy 6 times, the Russians came to Trump's rescue when American banks wouldn't touch him, and chances are, even now he's only keeping his head above water because Russian oligarchs are using his name and businesses to launder stolen money. That explains why he's so desperate to keep his taxes hidden.
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Foreign Policy Magazine (fp.com) reported, “Rep. Adam Schiff indicated that ‘We’re going to be looking at the issue of possible money laundering by the Trump Organization, and Deutsche Bank is one obvious place to start,’ he said. A 2017 report by Reuters, citing public documents, interviews and corporate records, also found that at least 63 Russians or people with Russian addresses bought nearly $100 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded Florida luxury buildings.”
In addition, Trump repeatedly lied to the American people all through the 2016 election campaign. He repeatedly claimed that, "I have no business dealings in Russia." But we now know that all while he was making that claim to the American people, he was in deep negotiations with the Russians to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He even offered Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse apartment in the tower. But there was a problem - the Russian bank, VTB, that was lined up to finance the deal was under U.S. sanctions, which blocked them from taking part in the deal. Could that be why Trump has gone out of his way to remove Russian sanctions?
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It is now clear that everything Trump does or says is designed to promote his own private interests and provide comfort to Vladimir Putin and the Russians, and Rudy Giuliani, his own attorney, knows it. That’s why when Trump’s own staff and American foreign service professionals started spilling the beans in the Congressional Impeachment Hearings, Giuliani said, “If I disappear I have an insurance policy. All of the documents on the Bidens are going to be released”. That seems to indicate that Giuliani is not only in fear of legal exposure, but for his very life, and he has good reason to be concerned. . But as deadly serious as the above is, that’s not the worse of it. When you combine Trump’s mental instability with his blind narcissism, and then add to that the fact that he’s being enabled by a Republican Party that’s in a panic over the loss of power due to a rapidly changing demographic, it becomes clear that the very viability of American democracy is in severe jeopardy. . In an article reviewing the book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” Psychology Today pointed out the following: . “John Gartner, Ph.D. is the founder of ‘Duty to Warn’ an organization intent on warning our country that we are in dire trouble due to our president’s mental instability. More than 60,000 mental health professionals have signed John’s petition, which states: .
‘We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.’”
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If all of this sounds far-fetched, according to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview,
Ivana Trump once told her lawyer, Michael Kennedy, that Donald Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed - and as we all know, Trump doesn’t like to read. Thus, as has been repeatedly stated, when fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, and considering over 81% of White Evangelical "Christians" support Trump's criminality, that seems to be exactly what is happening. So yes, it can happen here, and let there be no doubt about it, anyone who supports Donald Trump is the domestic enemy of the United States.
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So in spite of the fact that Donald Trump is undoubtedly unstable, incompetent, and a Russian asset, with alltheir flag-waving and glowing words of patriotism notwithstanding, and in spite of the fact that they're going to be smothered in evidence of his criminality, the Republican senate is just as undoubtedly going to ignore the facts and refuse to remove Trump from office. That's when our patriotism must swing into action. If the Republican senate can't bring themselves to defend our Constitution, that says it all. It says that all the patriotic talk, posturing, and claims of loving Jesus is a sham. It says that when it comes right down to the bottom line, conservatives love three things, and three things only - power, bigotry, and greed, and therefore, it's past time for them to join the Whigs and be relegated to the ash heap of history. .
Many of my conservative friends are advising me that by implying that the GOP is a domestic enemy of America that I’m being unnecessarily divisive, and I’m doing myself a disservice. One particularly good friend said, “Contrary to what you and Gordon love to espouse, the GOP is not the 'devil incarnate.' It may be politically convenient and divisive for you to call it that, but it is just not true.” Sorry Tom, but I beg to disagree.
The fact is, I’m neither implying, espousing, nor equivocating. I’m stating a demonstrable fact. The GOP leadership is un-American, period. And they specialize in holding the American people hostage. Their total disregard for America is made quite evident by the fact that every time the GOP wants to push one of their unpopular initiatives they begin to strangle a segment of the American people for leverage. Two of the most recent examples of that are the way they held unemployed Americans and first responders hostage in order to push through the extension of the Bush tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population. Thereafter, they threatened to shut down the entire government in an attempt to push through initiatives that would have brought severe hardships upon the poor and middle class.
Both the methods and propaganda of the GOP are not only un-American, but right out of the Nazi playbook. The GOP leadership has calculated that the more miserable they can keep the American people, the better chance they have of regaining power. That, in turn, would allow them to get on with the business of totally enslaving the American people. So they routinely employ tactics from right out of Joseph Gobbels’ handbook on the effective use of propaganda to keep us so angry and divided that we’re blind to their concerted effort to keep America ignorant, distracted, and miserable.
The issue doesn’t even require debate, because the facts are indisputable. But unfortunately, in politics, just like religion, people tend to close their eyes to any and all facts, no matter how revealing, that tends to contradict what they want to believe. The same is true in both parties and across the political spectrum. Many of President Obama’s supporters also suffer from this ailment. They close their eyes to Obama’s tendency to engage in collusive “compromises” just like Republicans are closing their eyes to the horrific Republican conspiracy against America - and in the case of both, that’s in spite of the fact it’s a direct assault on the quality of life of their own family and children.
But the GOP is enabled by being allowed to hide in plain sight behind Godwin’s Law, which asserts that whenever you bring up Hitler or the Nazis as a metaphor to define others you automatically render your argument meaningless. But Godwin’s Law doesn’t take into account that there are times when the comparison is not only appropriate, but unavoidable - and this is one such time. So I seriously reassert, without hyperbole and in all candor, that the modus operandi and goals of the current GOP leadership come right out of the Nazi tradition - in fact, so much so that it inspires a sense of deja-vu.
Adolph Hitler pointed out the following in Mein Kampf :
“The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward . . . Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side.”
This is exactly the tactic employed by the GOP. They assume that the people are stupid so they all constantly repeat the exact same script, and conspicuously avoid any vestige of truth that is unfavorable to them. That’s why on any given news cycle they all trot out the same mantras: “Tax and spend Democrats,” “Government controlled healthcare,” “Death panels,” “Obamacare,” “Job-killing policies,” etc.
Joseph Gobbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, also felt that it was essential to gain control over the media, which the GOP embarked upon during the Reagan administration when they abolished the Fairness Doctrine. The doctrine allowed for equal time for opposing points of view, and the GOP couldn’t have that. Then afer the doctrine was abolished, conservative interests began to buy and take control of television and radio networks across the country. The rest is history. If the Fairness Doctrine hadn’t been abolished, every time Limbaugh, Beck, or Fox News made a ridiculous statement on public policy, the network would have had to give equal time to any qualified person or group espousing the opposing point of view.
Gobbels also advocated limiting the people’s access to information. It is this prescription that accounts for the GOP’s thirty-year assault on our educational system and their current attempts to revise history. It also accounts for their assault on the National Public Broadcasting Network. So now it isn’t enough to simply lie to the people, now they’re also trying to prevent them from hearing the truth. Now, as a direct result of this thirty-year assault truth, many young Americans don’t realize that it’s un-American for the government to torture prisoners, or for Gov. Rick Snyder to fire duly elected local officials.
Gobbels also discussed the tactic of accusing your opponent of the assault on freedom that you’re actually committing. This tactic has also been clearly demonstrated by the GOP. Every since Obama has been in office, the GOP has been accusing him of promoting big government and trying to take government control of our lives. But now it turns out that all over the country Republican governors are not only trying to install big government, but initiate totalitarian policies that completely strip the American people of all of their rights of self-determination.
That brings us to the Nazi device of creating a crisis as a pretext for initiating unpopular policies. The GOP contends that their assault on the poor and middle class is absolutely necessary to address the nation’s deficit. But what they don’t tell us is that they created the deficit through Bush’s reckless spending in the first place. John Dyer of MSN Money points out that Bush alone cost the nation $11.5 trillion, and I suggest that it wasn’t purely due to incompetence.
The GOP has been on a single-minded missionfor more than 70 years to reverse New Deal initiatives that President Roosevelt put into place to rescue the American people during the Great Depression. Thus, over the years the GOP’s determination to abolish social security, the minium wage, and the Fair Labor Standards Act has been even more virulent than their current determination to abolish President Obama’s healthcare reform. But these programs have been so popular among the American people that they haven’t been able to go after them legislatively, so the GOP has purposely spent us into a ditch in order to manufacture a crisis as a pretext to initiate policies that they wanted to pursue in the first place.
That explains a lot. It perfectly explains why the nation is now in such dire straits even though President Clinton left Bush a $150 billion surplus. It also explains why Bush couldn’t put forth a rational explanation for why he was so anxious to invade Iraq that he sacrificed the lives of American troops by sending them to war without the necessary gear to protect their lives. In addition, that’s also why he made the supremely irrational decision to pursue two wars and a huge tax cut simultaneously and put it all on a credit card, costing the nation $5 trillion. Bush had to take out a loan to cover just the loss of revenue created by his tax cut for the rich, and the interest alone on that loan cost the nation $265 billion.
But that’s not all it explains. When we take into account the fact that the GOP has been purposely spending America into a ditch as a pretext to attack the poor and middle class safety net, it also explains why in spite of the fact that the GOP bills itself as the party of fiscal responsibility, they not only applauded, but lionized Ronald Reagan after he came close to tripling the national debt. It also explains why even though the poor and middle class had nothing to do with creating this economic disaster - including the estimated $6 trillion cost of the Wall Street bailout - the burden of resolving the crisis is being placed squarely in the lap of those least able to pay.
But the most unconscionable example of the GOP’s attack on the middle class is with social security. They claim that social security is in a crisis situation so the poor and middle class have got to prepare themselves to take a hit. But the only reason social security is in crisis is because the government has borrowed $2.5 trillion from the program and they don’t want to pay it back. So the GOP solution to the problem is to make us bite the bullet to absorb the cost of money that they borrowed from us.
Now, in spite of the Republican claim to be against big government, Republican governor, Rick Snyder of Michigan, has signed a bill into law that allows him to declare a state of budgetary marshal law which allows him to take over the cities and municipalities in the state of Michigan and appoint “Emergency Managers” with the authority to fire duly elected officials, rescind municipal contracts and labor agreements, and ignore any and all rules of public accountability. So in essence - no, in fact - he’s installed a dictatorship in the state of Michigan, and other Republican governors across the country are following suit.
In addition, the GOP judiciary, who was supposed to be so big on a “strict constructionist” interpretation of the constitution, not only ruled that international corporations were equal to American citizens in addressing our political system, but in the 2000 election disenfranchised American voters to appoint the president of their choice. Then to add insult to injury, they ruled that the judicial jujitsu that they engaged in to circumvent the will of the people could not be used as a precedent in future cases.
So the GOP has but one step left. If they can gain control of our national government and establish the same rules that now exist in Michigan, America’s beautiful experiment in democracy is over.
So yes, Tom, the GOP is indeed the Devil incarnate - and worse.
The Religious Right: A Threat to America (Reprise)
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When I became of age one of the first things I did was to reassess all of my previous beliefs and attitudes. Thereafter, I discarded as invalid anything that didn't stand up to logical and objective scrutiny, because even at that young age, I'd lived long enough to recognize that most of the problems in this world are a direct result of our failure to re-examine our illogical views of reality.
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Most religious zealots not only fail to go through that process, but refuse to as a matter of religious doctrine. It is due to that kind of zealotry, along with their doctrinal obligation against even considering the fact that they just might be zealots, that makes the religious right a clear and present danger to both the United States, and the world.
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Now, I don't have anything against religious people, per se - I was raised by Christians, and they were wonderful and loving people. In fact, I'm very spiritual myself. But if you show me a man who believes that Moses parted the Red Sea, I'll show you a man whose logical assessment of reality cannot be relied upon.
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Such people fail to realize that efficient thought require that we must first see reality as it is, and only then, as we would have it. But these people have a tendency to try to force reality to conform to what they want it to be, then demonize, and in many cases condone the slaughter, of others who they even suspect might view the world differently. Thus, it is primarily their kind of thinking that introduced into the world the related horrors of xenophobia, homophobia, racism, etc.
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And the GOP leadership is expert at dipping into this well. While most GOP leaders could personally care less about religion, the intolerance of religious zealotry is one of their most potent weapons. As we speak, they're mounting a combined campaign of racial intolerance against President Obama, religious intolerance against Muslims, and sexual intolerance toward gays. And to demonstrate just how virulent and un-Godly that campaign is, just tune in to FOX. The zealots are literally wallowing in their hatred like hogs in slop, even though it means possibly destroying this nation.
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And the irony is, these zealots don't really care about religion, at least, as it relates to God. If they did, they wouldn't be so mean-spirited, selfish, and wedded to the instruments of death. They insist on following the Constitution to the letter when it comes to their right to bear arms, but they're more than anxious to trash that very same document if it means they can take away the right of innocent people to love as they see fit.
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Another indicator of their mean-spirited hypocrisy is how they only embrace those tenents of their religion and/or patriotism when it promotes their point of view. Take school prayer, for example. Again, while these zealots are ready to lay down their lives for their Constitutional right to come armed to the teeth to a presidential assembly, they're prepared to ignore both the Bible and the Constitution when it comes to the separation of church and state.
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Matthew 6:6 says the following:
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"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
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Thus, according to Matthew, public prayer is not the proper thing to do (and by extention, I would imagine that God also wouldn't be impressed by the ostentation of flags and crosses being worn as lapel pins). But these zealots aren't interested in that scripture, because it neither contributes to their point of view, nor is it conducive to their campaign to demonize others.
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They also tend to conveniently overlook the fact that their entire concept of God is merely an accident of birth. If they'd been born in in the Middle East, chances are they would have been Muslims. If they'd been born in China they'd probably be Buddhist, or if in India, a Hindu or Sikh.
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That immediately suggests that religious doctrine is more a cultural manifestation of man than it is a dictate from God. So anyone who has surrendered his or her soul to any organization, be it religious or otherwise, and have a mind that is so closed to reality that they don't recognize that fact, makes me very nervous, because they're obviously more interested in hating others than they're into loving God. After all, the only reason that we're wasting young lives in Afghanistan is because we're trying to keep Pakistan's nuclear missiles out of the hands of religious zealots - and by definition, a zealot's a zealot, regardless to what country he's from. They're all out of touch with reality, whether they be Christian, Muslim, or Jew.
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One would think that any clear-thinking person would recognize that God - or Nature, if you will - provided us with a sense of ethics, common sense, and empathy to guide us through life. So man doesn't require a user's guide any more than birds require a calendar or map to fly South for the winter. And since ninety-nine percent of all the conflicts throughout the world involve a religious component, common sense should tell us that religious doctrine not only does NOT come from God, but indeed, represents the very darkest side of man.
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Think about it, with all of the organized religions throughout the world, and all of the billions of people who claim to love God, why is there so much cruelty, murderous atrocities and suffering in the world? Why is it that with all the collection plates being passed around, collecting billions of tax-free dollars in the United States, that there's any homelessness or suffering anywhere in this country? And most instructive of all is, why is it that the Bible belt was the birthplace of slavery, and the most bigoted part of this entire country? Certainly bigotry isn't a part of God's will.
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I'll tell you why that's the case - because our religious doctrines are not focused on teaching us to love our fellow man. They're more focused on teaching us that other people who are unlike ourselves and have different beliefs are heathens. It is in our churches where we learn that God is on our side, and "those others" who don't look and think like we do are un-Godly and are going to be condemned by God to eternal damnation. No? I'd be willing to bet a years pay that some of these so-called "men of God"are condemning me right now for having the audacity to speak the truth.
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That's what makes it so easy for us to commit the most horrendous atrocities against others. Our religious leaders spend all of their time teaching us to "have faith" in what we're being told, and hardly any time at all teaching us to love our fellow man.
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Man's need to control the minds of the masses dictate that they focus on teaching us to be selfish, hateful, and fearful rather than loving and Godly. It's all about saving MY soul from the devil, and what God is going to do for ME, instead of what I'm going to do to make this a better world. After all, if I start spending my money on helping my neighbor I'll have less money to give the church, and the church can't have that.
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Consider what man has told us to have faith in. Over the centuries we've been told such things as God wants us to burn young women at the stake because they're a little different. They told us that God wanted us to excommunicate Galileo and threaten other brilliant scholars with death before the inquisition for having the audacity to try to educate us and give us the benefit of their God-given brilliance. And why? Because their brilliance betrayed the erroneous thinking of church leaders who claimed to be getting their information from a direct pipeline to God. We see that very same Mindset today. Many church leaders dismiss the validity of evolution, even in face of the fact that every time we get our children vaccinated it validates the fact that man is evolving.
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When we're vaccinated we give our bodies a manageable dose of a disease. This allows our bodies to evolve to the point that it can tolerate a disease that would otherwise kill or disable us. But the church has a vested interest in discounting evolution, because new knowledge is often in direct conflict with their version of creation. Thus, for their own selfish reasons many religious leaders dispute evolution, global warming, and other valuable knowledge, even though every bit of new knowledge we've ever collected has served to glorify God's wondrous creation much more thoroughly than Biblical authors could have ever imagined. But these so-called religious leaders don't care about glorifying God - they're only interested in saving face, and revenue.
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Consequently, some of the most serious problems that we have in the world today is a direct result of our organized religious leaders having our minds on lockdown. Their activity in that regard is a direct assault on the will of God, since God clearly made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. We know this, because all of the evidence available to man shows that God made man's ability to think the key to his survival.
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Man arrived on this hostile planet as a necked ape, but with neither a legitimate ape's agility or strength. Man wasn't as ferocious as the lion, as strong as the elephant, nor could he soar above danger like the eagle. He should have been dead on arrival, but God provided him with one tool to help him to survive - the human mind. And it is through the development of that tool that man, this most unlikely and fragile of creatures, has established dominion over the entire Earth, and in an incredibly short period of time. Now, through our God-given intellect, we've become more fearsome than the most ferocious lion, we've created machines that are thousands of times more powerful than the strongest elephant, and we can now soar far beyond the eagle's domain. We've even left the planet to explore other worlds.
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Thus, it was clearly God's will that we be logical, thinking beings. So for us to now allow man to come along and tell us that we should suspend our nature as thinking beings, and "have faith" in what, he, man tells us, is a slap in the face of God. By doing so we're showing more faith in what man says, than what God has done.
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That is the source of all of our problems; we're not remaining true to our nature. To tell a man not to think is like telling a fish not to swim, or a bird not to fly. If either of those creatures were stupid enough to comply, they would not survive. And if man continues to listen to other self-serving men instead of utilizing his mind as God intended, he's not going to survive.
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It was through putting our faith in man that we believed that God condoned the Manifest Destiny, that led to the genocide of Native Americans. It was through our faith in man that we believed that God condoned the brutal enslavement of millions of African Americans. It was also man's faith in man that allowed Hitler to convinced the German people that God condoned the murder of six million Jews. And more recently, it was through having more faith in George Bush and Dick Cheney than in the common sense that God gave us, that the American people were convinced that God condoned the sacrifice of our youth and the blatant murder of hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqis - people who did absolutely nothing to us, other than being in the unfortunate position of sitting on the oil that we coveted.
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Now, don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with being spiritual. But we must always remember, just because a man has the gift of gab and says he's a man of God, that doesn't mean that God sees it that way. God doesn't speak to him any louder than he speaks to you, and no man speaks for God. So whenever you want to hear God's word, just listen to your heart, and God will speak to you directly.
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And there's one other thing. While admittedly, I don't speak for God either, I think I'm pretty safe in saying that God will never tell you to buy another man a big house and a new Cadillac - he didn't do it for Jesus, so why should he do it for these latter-day "saints?"
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And for you zealots out there. Don't forget, God works in mysterious ways. He might have led you to read this piece. So maybe you should think about what I'm saying - it just might spare your child an early death . . . all alone, in the desert.
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"Fascism: A radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
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Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Sphere: Related Content
When I became of age one of the first things I did was to reassess all of my previous beliefs and attitudes. Thereafter, I discarded as invalid anything that didn't stand up to logical and objective scrutiny, because even at that young age, I'd lived long enough to recognize that most of the problems in this world are a direct result of our failure to re-examine our illogical views of reality. Most religious zealots not only fail to go through that process, but refuse to as a matter of religious doctrine. It is due to that kind of zealotry, along with their doctrinal obligation against even considering the fact that they might be zealots, that makes the religious right a clear and present danger to both the United States, and the world.
. Now, I don't have anything against religious people, per se - I was raised by Christians, and they were wonderful and loving people. In fact, I'm very spiritual myself. But if you show me a man who believes in talking snakes and that Moses parted the Red Sea, I'll show you a man whose logical assessment of reality cannot be relied upon. . Such people fail to realize that efficient thought require that we must first see reality as it is, and only then, as we would have it. But these people have a tendency to try to force reality to conform to what they want it to be, then demonize, and in many cases condone the slaughter, of others who they even suspect might view the world differently. Thus, it is primarily their kind of thinking that introduce into the world the related horrors of xenophobia, homophobia, racism, etc.
. And the GOP leadership is expert at dipping into this well. While most GOP leaders could personally care less about religion, the intolerance of religious zealotry is one of their most potent weapons, and as we speak, they're mounting a campaign of intolerance against President Obama. And to demonstrate just how potent that weapon is, just tune in to FOX. The zealots are currently wallowing in their intolerance like hogs in slop, even though it means cutting their own throats. . Because the fact is, the zealots don't really care about religion themselves, at least, with respect to how it relates to God. If they did, those very same people wouldn't be so mean-spirited, selfish, and wedded to the instruments of death. . Another indicator of that is how they only embrace those tenents of their religion and/or patriotism when it promotes their point of view. Take school prayer, for example. While these zealots are ready to lay down their lives for the constitution when it comes to their right to come armed to the teeth to a presidential assembly, they're prepared to ignore both the Bible and the constitution when it comes to the separation of church and state . Matthew 6:6 says the following: . "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." . So, according to Matthew, public prayer is not the proper thing to do (and by extention, I would imagine that God also wouldn't be impressed by the ostentation of flags and crosses being worn as lapel pins). But the zealots aren't interested in that scripture, because it neither contributes to their point of view, nor is it condusive to their campaign to demonize others. . Another thing that zealots tend to conveniently overlook is the fact that their entire concept of God is merely an accident of birth. If they'd been born in in the Middle East, chances are they would have been Muslems, or if they'd been born in China they'd probably have been a Buddhist, or in India, a Hindu or Sikh. . That immediately suggested that religious doctrine is more a cultural manifestation of man than it is a dictate from God. So anyone who has surrendered their soul to any organization, be it religious or otherwise, and have a mind that is so closed to reality that they don't recognize that fact, makes me very nervous, because they're obviously more into hating others than they're into loving God. After all, the only reason that we're wasting young lives in Afghanistan, is because we're trying to keep Pakistan's nuclear missiles out of the hands of religious zealots - and by definition, a zealot's a zealot, regardless to what country he's from. They're all out of touch with reality, whether they're Christian, Muslim, or Jew. . One would think that any clear-thinking person would recognize that God - or Nature, if you will - provided us with a sense of ethics, common sense, and empathy to guide us through life. So man doesn't require a users guide any more than birds require a calendar or map to fly South for the winter. And since ninety-nine percent of all the conflicts throughout the world involve a religious component, common sense should tell us that religious doctrine not only does NOT come from God, but indeed, represents the very darkest side of man. . Think about it, with all of the organized religions throughout the world, and all of the billions of people who claim to love God, why is there so much cruelty, murderous atrocities and suffering in the world? Why is it that with all the collection plates being passed around, collecting billions of tax-free dollars in the United States, for example, that there's any homelessness or suffering anywhere in this country? And most instructive of all is, why is it that the Bible belt was the birthplace of slavery, and the most bigoted part of the entire country? . I'll tell you why - because our religious doctrines are not focused on teaching us to love our fellow man. They're more focused on teaching us that other people who are unlike ourselves and have different beliefs are heathens. It is in our churches where we learn that God is on our side, and "those others" who don't look and think like we do are un-Godly, and are going to be condemned by God to eternal damnation. No? I'd be willing to bet a years pay that some of these so-called "men of God"are condemning me right now for having the audacity to speak the truth. . That's what makes it so easy for us to commit the most horrendous atrocities against others. Our religions spend all of their time teaching us to "have faith" in what we're being told, and hardly any time at all teaching us to love our fellow man. Man's need to control the minds of the masses dictate that they focus on teaching us to be selfish and hateful, rather than loving and Godly. It's all about saving MY soul from the devil, and what God did or is going to do for ME, instead of what I'm going to do to make this a better world. . Consider what man has told us to have faith in. Over the centuries we've been told such things as God wants us to burn young women at the stake because they're a little different. They told us that God wanted us to excommunicate Galileo and threaten other brilliant scholars with death before the inquisition for having the audacity to try to educate us and give us the benefit of their God-given brilliance. And why? Because their brilliance betrayed the erroneous thinking of church leaders who claimed to be getting their information from a direct pipeline to God. We see that very same Mindset today. Many church leaders dismiss the validity of evolution, even in face of the fact that every time we get our children vaccinated it validates the fact that man is evolving. . When we're vaccinated we give our bodies a manageable dose of a disease. This allows our bodies to evolve to the point that it can tolerate a disease that would otherwise killed or disabled us. But the church has a vested interest in discounting evolution, because new knowledge is often in direct conflict with their version of creation. Thus, for their own selfish reasons religious leaders dispute evolution, global warming and other valuable knowledge, even though every bit of new knowledge we've ever collected has served to glorify God's wondrous creation much more thoroughly than Biblical authors could even dream of. But religious leaders don't care about glorifying God - they're only interested in saving face, and revenue. . Thus, some of the most serious problems that we have in the world today is a direct result of our organized religious leaders having our minds on lockdown. Their activity in that regard is a direct assault on the will of God, since God clearly made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. We know this, because all of the evidence available to man shows that God made man's ability to think the key to his survival. . Man arrived on this hostile planet as a necked ape, but with neither a legitimate ape's agility or strength. Man wasn't as ferocious as the lion, as strong as the elephant, nor could he soar like the eagle. He should have been dead on arrival, but God provided him with one tool to help him to survive - the human mind. And it is through the development that tool that man, this most unlikely and fragile of creatures, has established dominion over the entire Earth, and in an incredibly short period of time. Now, through our God-given intellect, we've become more fearsome than the most ferocious lion, we've created machines that are thousands of times more powerful than the strongest elephant, and we can now soar far beyond the eagle's domain. We've even left the planet to explore other worlds. . Thus, it was clearly God's will that we be logical, thinking beings. So for us to now allow man to come along and tell us that we should suspend our nature as thinking beings, and "have faith" in what he tells us, is a slap in the face of God. By doing so, we're showing more faith in what man says, than what God has done. . That is the source of all of our problems, we're not remaining true to our nature. To tell a man not to think is like telling a fish not to swim, or a bird not to fly. If either of those creatures were stupid enough to comply, they would not survive. And if man continues to listen to other self-serving men instead of utilizing his mind as God intended, he's not going to survive. . It was through putting our faith in man that we believed that God condoned the Manifest Destiny, that led to the near genocide of Native Americans. It was through our faith in man that we believed that God condoned the brutal enslavement of millions of African Americans. It was also man's faith in man that allowed Hitler to convinced the German people that God condoned the murder of six million Jews. And more recently, it was through having more faith in George Bush and Dick Cheney than the common sense that God gave us , that the American people were convinced that God condoned the sacrifice of our youth and the blatant murder of 102 thousand innocent Iraqis, who did absolutely nothing to us, other than being in the unfortunate position of possessing the oil that we coveted. . But don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with being spiritual. But always remember, just because a man has the gift of gab and says he's a man of God, that doesn't mean that God sees it that way. God doesn't speak to him any louder than he speaks to you, and no man speaks for God. So whenever you want to hear God's word, just listen to your heart, and God will speak to you directly. . And there's one other thing. While admittedly, I don't speak for God myself, I think I'm pretty safe in saying that God will never tell you to buy another man a big house and a new Cadillac - he didn't do it for Jesus, so why should he do it for these latter-day saints? . And for you zealots out there. Don't forget, God works in mysterious ways. Although, personally, I don't think God works in this way, based on your religion, he might have led you to read this piece. You don't have to have "faith" in one word I've said. Every word is based on fact . . . and according to the Bible, "the truth shall set you free." So maybe you should think about what I'm saying . . . if you're allowed to. . Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Strive To Become Your Own Hero... Then Let No One Remove Your Cape.
BIO
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."
Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.
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