Save Your Breath, Zimmerman Supporters - The Black Community Know You Better Than You Know Yourselves

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Save Your Breath, Zimmerman Supporters - The Black Community Know You Better Than You Know Yourselves 

The vast majority of people in this country - both Black, White, and others - are good people. While we all have a strain of racism in us, it’s not a conscious racism, and most of us of normal intelligence are engaged in a constant internal struggle to eradicate it when we recognize it in ourselves. What makes it such a struggle is we’re constantly inundated by it in this country, and the reason we try so desperately to weed it out is, being of normal intelligence, we see it for what it is - a form of gross stupidity.
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But as a Black man - one who has three mixed grandsons, including Eric Wattree III, and a daughter-n-law who is so pure in her White heritage that she makes Mitt Romney look like an Angolan immigrant - I’ve found the debate over the George Zimmerman verdict very enlightening. I used to think that racism was a choice, but now I see that there is a group of people, of normally good conscience, in this country whose racist strain is so innate to who they are that they are completely blind to it. They don’t intend to be racist, nevertheless, their racist attitudes and assumptions seep all the way to their bone marrow. We’ve seen a clear example of that in the Zimmerman verdict.
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One's predisposition colors the way that one perceives the world. Therefore, in my opinion, the only way that it would be possible to view George Zimmerman’s actions in a less than culpable manner is to view reality through the clouded lens of, at the very least, a predisposition towards latent and unrecognized racism.
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Many who support the verdict, yet recognize it as the brutal assault on American justice that it is, are trying to hide behind the law by saying that they had no choice but to let Zimmerman off due to the reading of Florida law. But that’s not only a weak argument, but a transparent attempt to justify their innate predisposition not to hold Zimmerman accountable for his actions. 
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This verdict boiled down to whether or not the jury believed Zimmerman's story, in spite of all its flaws. It wasn't the law that determined whether or not the jury accepted Zimmerman’s story that Trayvon attacked him, or that he feared for his life against a child who weighed 40 pounds less than himself, or that once he had the gun out he had to pull the trigger. It was their predisposition to want to believe him.
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The bottom line is, this verdict essentially, and in fact, convicted an innocent victim instead of a murderer who engaged in a series of extraordinary and improper actions that led to the victim's death. Thus, in order to excuse the murderer's improper actions, and to convict the victim instead of the murder, it required a mind-set that betrays a racist predisposition - whether the assessor of fact was trying to act in good faith or not.
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It takes either racism or a complete lack of common sense not to clearly recognize that racism played a huge role in both George Zimmerman’s motives, and his intent. First, the only thing that caught Zimmerman’s attention about Trayvon Martin was the fact that he was a Black male. Secondly, Zimmerman contacted 911 more than 40 times, and virtually every call involved Black males. Third, Zimmerman was instructed to remain in his car, and he ignored those instructions. Fourth, Zimmerman claimed he murdered Trayvon in self-defense, but regardless to what took place after he approached Trayvon, Zimmerman had to approach Trayvon to place himself in a position to require him to have to defend himself. And fifth, Zimmerman claimed that he had to resort to lethal force because Trayvon, who weighed 40 pounds less than him, was banging his head against the concrete so vigorously that it caused him to fear for his life. Yet, all he had to show for this brutal assault were a few scratches, not the huge lumps on his head that you would expect from a person whose head had been banged against concrete.
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Thus, I feel safe in saying that no parent in America - Black or White - would find that anywhere close to a justifiable excuse for the murder of their child - a child who was doing nothing more criminal than going to the store to get a bag of Skittles. So I submit that it takes either gross racism or gross stupidity to accept such a story as a justification for murder.
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In order for people to accept such a story they have to be of the following mindset:
1). Simply because Trayvon was Black that was an acceptable reason for Zimmerman to suspect him of criminal activity.
2). Again, because Trayvon was Black, he posed a serious enough threat to the community to justify Zimmerman ignoring police instructions to remain in his car.
3). Since Trayvon was Black, they should ignore the fact that Zimmerman actually approached him in the first place.
4) Since Trayvon was Black, it was the height of audacity for him to think he had the right to defend himself after being confronted by a man who wasn’t a police officer, and who didn’t have any visible sign of authority.
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If the above seems reasonable to you, you're a racist - period.
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If we accept that as the standard for justice in this country, that could cause murder-for-hire to overtake drug dealing as an easy source of disposable income. What’s to prevent some woman’s boyfriend from dragging her husband in an alley, blowing his brains out, and then calling the police and claiming self-defense? Or what’s to prevent a robber from killing his victim to cover his crime, and then calling the police and claiming he was attacked? Thus, the standard that Zimmerman was freed on was absolutely ridiculous - and clearly racist in nature.
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An assault is an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. So just by following, and then walking up to Trayvon at night constituted was an assault, because you don't have to put your hands on a person for it to constitute an assault. Putting you hands on them is assault and battery. An assault is merely placing them in fear for their well being. So it was Trayvon who had the right to defend himself. If the exact same scenario had taken place, but it had been a Black man who killed a White kid, the Black man would undoubtedly already be on Death Row - for first degree murder.
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But Black people are used to such ridiculous standards being applied to them, because many Americans, when it comes to self-serving comfort of racism, have a pronounced blind spot - and it’s historic in nature. The blind arrogance of many Americans is absolutely astounding - and then they’ll say things like, "There you go playing the race card again!" Of course we are, because you’re a racist, idiot!
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How in the hell can a White person even presume to tell a Black man about racism, and the state of racism in America? They have absolutely no idea what America looks like through the eyes of a Black man. George Zimmerman stalked an unarmed Black child, who was minding his own business, AFTER being told by the police to stay in his car, then shot and killed him. That’s murder, regardless to how you slice it - Period.
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Now, I love this country, but I don’t suffer any illusions about what it represents. But if you relate the truth about this country to some White folks - especially conservatives - they’re so blind to reality that they’ll call you un-American, regardless to how many facts you bring to bear. The reason for that is, as Americans, we’re expected to adhere to an unspoken agreement to perpetuate the American myth.
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But the easily demonstrable fact is, the United States is one of the most racist countries on the face of the Earth - and it always has been. All this "freedom and justice for all" was a lie when it was written, and it's still a lie.
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Again, Americans have a delusional blind spot when it comes to this country. We condemned Hitler for killing 6 million Jews, but we conveniently ignore the fact that Americans killed over 100 million Native Americans - and some historians place the number at closer 300 million. We call Al Qaeda unconscionable terrorists for killing three thousand Americans, then we trot right over to Iraq and kill over one million innocent women and children - and for absolutely nothing! Then we talk about the war against terrorism, but we're the only country on Earth that has dropped not one, but two, atomic bombs on Japan - one each, on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing and maiming thousands of innocent men, women, children, cute little puppies, and cuddly little kittens.
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Yeah, I know - we were at war with Japan. But we were at war with the Japanese government, not innocent noncombatants, and terrorism is defined as "the killing of innocent noncombatants for political purposes." So based on that definition, the United States is the most brutal and prolific terrorist nation in the history of mankind - and I didn't even mention the atrocities committed during slavery, the Jim Crow years, and during WWII when Black war heroes were forced to give up their seats on the train for Nazi prisoners of war.
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So George Zimmerman supporters can talk until their mouths are dry about why he was justified in killing that innocent child, but they’re not fooling the Black community for one second. Because contrary to what they’ve obviously convinced themselves to believe, being a minority and being dumb is far from synonymous, so we know them much better than they obviously know themselves.

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Racist Rant From George Zimmerman's Brother

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6cfOSnRJj8

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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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

ONWARD CHRISTIAN FASCISTS

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me -
it's just that God does.

*

ONWARD CHRISTIAN FASCISTS 

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It is easy to claim you love the Lord

as you show up on Sunday to pray;

Then denigrate as heathens all those
at home sleeping

instead of living their lives your way."

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It is easy to cry out,

"Oh save them, Lord!"
of those
immune to the games you play,

As you worship the scriptures

that serve your purpose,

and ignore
those that don’t go your way.

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While the "heathens" do rest

like God did suggest

on this 7^th and most sacred day,

You spend the day frowning

while literally drowning

in hatred even as you pray.

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THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF CRYSTAL SPRINGS

THE HOUSE OF SATAN

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GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

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It’s indeed ironic that the task of saving this country from fascist hypocrites and corporate thugs has fallen on the shoulders of one lone Black man. It shows that God has a sense of irony. God seems to be saying, "This nation’s greatness has been built upon lies, injustice and hypocrisy, so now you have a choice - you can either confront your hypocrisy, or allow it to become the instrument of your destruction."
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Did God talk to you about that, Pat?
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*
Related Post:

The Religious Right: A Threat to America

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
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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

The Religious Right: A Threat to America (Reprise)

BENEATH THE SPIN · ERIC L. WATTREE

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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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Look familiar?

Related Post:

Onward Christian Fascists

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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

The Religious Right: A Threat to America

BENEATH THE SPIN · ERIC L. WATTREE The Religious Right: A Threat to America . 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.

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America: Are We Really that Exceptional?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE America: Are We Really that Exceptional? Well, there's that arrogant, xenophobic, and divisive phrase again - "American Exceptionalism." President Obama is being roundly criticized by many conservatives for refusing to go around the world promoting the conservative vision of American superiority. Their shortsighted idea of effective American diplomacy is for the President of the United States to trot around the globe telling the people of the world that we're better than they are. Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president, has been all over the media complaining that "We've now seen several different occasions where he's [Obama] been on international trips where he's not willing to say, flat out, 'I believe in American exceptionalism.'" I expect such nonsense from GOP demagogues - they consider the Republican rank and file stupid, so they say whatever comes to mind to appeal to their unthinking emotions. But now I find that thoughtful conservatives have bought into this ridiculous concept, and frankly, I find it not only shocking, but frightening, how easily the minds of highly intelligent people can be manipulated through their emotions. It goes a long way towards explaining how millions of God-fearing German people could just stand in silence while Hitler carried out the holocaust. Ari Noonan stated the following in his article, The President's Difficult Relationship with His People at Home: "Consider that President Obama, the most powerful multiculturalist in the history of the world, truly believes that the United States did not have a manifest destiny, that we are no better, no worse, the utter equal, of Bulgaria, Cuba, Hungary, Venezuela, Belgium — pick any land on the globe." I couldn't believe that I was reading anyone in the 21st Century actually glorifying the manifest destiny. I thought the doctrine of Manifest Destiny was discredited in the 19th Century. If it is indeed possible for us to still have people among us who actually believe that it was God's will for Europeans to come to America and slaughter an entire civilization of people because he wanted the Europeans to have the land, then the horrors of the holocaust is far from behind us, and another one is just waiting in the wings for the next demagogue. While I love this country, I love it in spite of its shortcomings. I love it because of its potential - because of the vision of its founding fathers, and the documents that they left behind outlining the American ideal. But I am under no illusions. America has never lived up to those ideals, and I have a fundamental problem with anyone who says it has. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny is, in fact, the most profound argument against American exceptionalism. What took place as a direct result of that doctrine clearly documents that America has been any and everything but exceptional. The only way that one can believe in American exceptionalism is to view the missteps of every other country in the world through a magnifying glass, while turning a blind eye to all the atrocities against humanity that the United States has committed. The fact is, America has committed more atrocities against mankind in its short 233 year history, than it took many other countries millennia to accomplish. For example, while we demonize Nazi Germany for the extermination of 6 million Jews, we have very little to say about the 8 million Native Americans that the United States exterminated just to establish the nation. The fact is, the Nazis' could have taken a lesson from the United States, because there is still a thriving Jewish culture left, while the Native Americans have been all but wiped out as a people. Then there's the issue of slavery. American slavery was one the most brutal atrocities of one culture against another in the entire history of mankind. The effects of slavery are still being felt by the families of its victims close to 150 years after it came to an end. Then there was the Jim Crow environment that took place once slavery ended. Even in my lifetime, I remember standing up in school reciting the Pledge of Allegiance - 'One nation under God with Liberty and JUSTICE for all' - even as children younger than myself were being blown up in church, and people in the South were bringing picnic baskets to watch Black men being tortured and lynched in the town square after church. Then there was the humiliation of Black war heroes. The Tuskegee Airman were among the most effective fighter pilots during WWII. They never lost one bomber that they were charged with escorting across enemy lines. At first the White Bomber crews refused to fly with them, but by the end of the war, those same White crews said that they didn't want anyone else to escort them to their targets - they wanted to make sure they got home safely. But after the war, as these Black heroes traveled by train through the South, they were forced to give up their seats to Nazi Prisoners of war. Then there's the issue of terrorism. While we maintain that terrorism is when a malevolent group kills innocent noncombatants for political purposes, we turn a blind eye to the fact that we dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on the innocent men, women, and children of Japan. We try to justify it by saying that it saved thousands of American lives. The only problem with that argument is that it suggests that terrorism is justified under certain conditions. Then when we consider the millions of people that we killed, mutilated, and displaced in Vietnam, then during "Shock and Awe" (translated: terrorism), when we invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq for no other reason than monetary gain and a photo op, by our own definition, we're the most prolific terrorist state in the history of mankind. The only difference between the United States terror under George W. Bush and Al Qaeda terrorist is that we have a more efficient delivery system. We've made Hitler look like a wannabe. The only difference between Hitler and what the United States has done over the years is that the people Hitler killed were White, so it was considered more horrendous. So tell me about American exceptionalism, but pay no attention to my gritting teeth, because by telling me that America is exceptional, you're also telling me that the annihilation of Native Americans, the brutal enslavement of African Americans, the killing of Black children in church, the lynching of Black citizens, the humiliation of Black American war heroes, the incineration of Japanese men, women, and children, and the slaughter of millions in Vietnam and Iraq should all be fluffed off as simply, growing pains. Yes, America is exceptional all right - it's been exceptionally brutal in its hypocrisy throughout its short 233 year history. But, believe it or not, I still love this nation. My eyes still grow moist when I hear the Marine Corps hymn. But I certainly don't love what it's been - I love it for what it's striving to become. For that reason, I've dedicated my life to fighting the Cheneys of this world, who yearn for, and even cherish, the illustrious brutality of our past. 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.

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