PORTRAIT OF A RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

PORTRAIT OF A RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN
.
IF GOD LET PEOPLE LIKE THIS INTO HEAVEN, IT WOULDN'T BE HEAVEN, IT WOULD BE HELL.
. 

This is exactly why I restrict my spirituality to a love of God, and keep all of man’s religious Voodoo all the way out of my life.  Religion is the root cause of 99% of all of the hatred, bigotry, murder, and mayhem in the world - “My god is better than your God, and he only loves people who look, think, and act like me.”

.

One sister who commented on the above video completely missed the gross bigotry and religious hypocrisy in it and focused exclusively on the bigot’s property rights, and as many of us tend to do, blamed the victim, and said that the video wouldn’t change a thing - as if sitting on her ass would.  This is my response:

.

“Kim, the sister's video was not for the benefit of the bigot, it was to educate people like yourself who take the position that we should just ignore this kind of behavior for another 400 years. Your attitude serves to both accommodate, and validate, the disrespect and abuse of Black people. This bigot thinks his behavior is just between himself and this sister, but she made sure that it wasn't.  He may have friends, neighbors, and business associates who will see the video on social media and not appreciate it at all. He may be ostracized by many people whose faces he's grinnin' into every day, and that works for me. How do you know that he doesn't own a business that's dependent upon Black customers? This video wouldn't bode well for either him, or his business. And he's supposed to be a Christian, what is his fellow church members going to think?  Even though they may be just like him, at least they have sense enough to maintain the Christian façade.
.
“So Black people have got to learn to stop just sittin' on our asses and sayin', ‘Oh well, that's just the way it is.’ Yeah, that’s the way it is, because that’s the way we allow it to be.  We've got to learn to fight back - but with intelligence, and that's EXACTLY what I intend to do. As we speak, I'm writing an article using this video as a weapon against Trump and his fellow right-wing bigots. While it may not change the way THEY think, it may very well change the way other people think about THEM.
.
“There are many White people who don't want to be portrayed in this way, just like we don't want to be portrayed as lazy pimps, thugs, and dope fiends, so this very video may cross their minds when they're in the voting booth and have an impact on the way they vote. So I wish ALL Black people would flood the social media with this kind of content, drag people out of their delusions, and help them to see America through our eyes, without all of the whitewash and self-serving spin. American bigots have a vested interest in keeping things like this under wraps in order to maintain the farce that America is ‘A shining light on the hill.’  But videos like this one clearly demonstrates that the only thing great about America is its public relations office, but we do have enough well-meaning people in this country, who really do want America to be great, to change that.
.

“And another thing, Kim, if you look at the video you'll notice that she was no longer at his door. She was on her way off this man's property and he followed her running his mouth. And you asked what did she get by placing her life on the line. She got this video that we can display to the world as an example of American bigotry and hypocrisy. Don't forget, there are many White folks who claim that racism is a thing of the past - and they believe that, just because it's now considered bad form to lynch Black people in the public square. This video will help to show them that they're living in a fantasy.
.
“But what's amazing to me, Kim, is how casually you're taking this example of blatant racism.  I was so curious about that, that I went to check your profile. Thereafter, everything began to come into focus.  You're from Little Rock, Arkansas, so maybe bigotry is so common there that it's just a way of life for you. But Black people from the North don't look at blatant racism in the the way that you do. It's not a way of life for us. What we see in this video is a racist bigot, and a sister standing up and confronting him. We don't see a scared-ass "nigga" who don't have sense enough to run for her life. Most of us were raised to stand firm when confronting a bigot, just like this courageous sister did - and if YOU and your family are ever ALLOWED to "overcome," it's gonna be due to the actions of Black people just like this sister, not from scared-ass "niggas" trying to blame the victim just because she didn't haul ass the minute some old ass bigot raised his voice at her. This sister didn't do a thing wrong, she simply knocked on this bigot's door - which had a huge "JESUS" sign on it - and she probably had a Bible in her hand.
.
“And finally, did you know that many Southern ministers told Martin Luther King the very same thing that you're saying, and criticized Rosa Parks for not giving up her seat on the bus? They accused them of stirring up "unnecessary trouble." Thus, bigots depend on the attitudes of people just like you to keep Black people on their asses, and 'in their place.'
.
“This courageous sister obtained one of the best case-closed examples of White hypocrisy that I've EVER seen - a blatant bigot, being a blatant bigot, with a huge ‘JESUS’ sign on his door.  So she performed a public service. I'm just glad it was her on the scene instead of you, because you would have just hauled ass. Then all we would have had to rely on regarding the incident would have been your word, instead of the solid evidence that this sister provided - and nobody would have taken your word for this, because it’s next to impossible to believe that anybody, even an ignorant bigot, would be stupid enough to indulge in that kind of hypocrisy with an oversized "Jesus” sign on his front door.

.

THE ‘RELIGIOUS’ RIGHT LIVING THEIR TRUE FAITH -

THEIR FAITH IN ROY MOORE, A BIGOT AND CHILD MOLESTER

.

.

Alabama Locals Say Roy Moore Was Banned from Mall for Harassing Teen Girls 
.

.

Founder of Florida’s Biggest Megachurch Accused of Molesting a 4 Year-Old Girl

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article184564528.html#storylink=cpy

THIS IS THE KIND OF "GOD-FEARING" HYPOCRISY THAT WE CAN EXPECT FROM THE "RELIGIOUS" RIGHT

.
Eric L. Wattree
Wattree.blogspot.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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

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 

.

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."

.

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.

.

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.

*

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF CRYSTAL SPRINGS

THE HOUSE OF SATAN

*

*

GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

.

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."
.
Did God talk to you about that, Pat?
.

*
Related Post:

The Religious Right: A Threat to America

Eric L. Wattree
Http://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 (Reprise)

BENEATH THE SPIN · ERIC L. WATTREE

*

*

The Religious Right: A Threat to America (Reprise)

.

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 just 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 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 introduced 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. 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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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."
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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 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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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 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.
.
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.
.
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?"
.
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.
.
"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

.

Look familiar?

Related Post:

Onward Christian Fascists

.
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.

Sphere: Related Content

Healthcare: Why Can’t We Get the Congressional Option?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE Healthcare: Why Can't We Get the Congressional Option? There's at least one thing that Republicans do much better than Democrats, and that's marketing their initiatives. It doesn't matter how regressive the idea, Republicans manage to frame it in a way that if you oppose it you look like you're either degenerate, or at the very least, un-American. For example, instead of accurately calling themselves "The Order of Religious Bigots Dedicated to Shoving Our Version of God Down America's Throat," they market their insanity as "The Moral Majority," and instead of being honest and calling themselves "The Public Vagina Brigade," they call themselves "The Right to Life" proponents (even though they're willing to let that very same life starve to death after it's born). Conservatives get a lot of milage out of their creativity in this area, and progressives would do well to follow suit. The initiative to legalize same-sex marriage would have been much more marketable, for example, if it had been dubbed "The Right to Love." And the same is true of healthcare reform. Proponents of a public option for healthcare could make life a lot more difficult for opponents in congress if instead of calling it "The Public Option" they simply dubbed it "The Congressional Option" - that way the issue would be self-explanatory. It would force every member of congress who placed the interest of the insurance industry over the welfare of his or her constituents to explain why they want to deny the American people the opportunity to opt into the exact same plan that congress and their families enjoy. But I only bring this issue up as an introduction to a much more serious problem - demagoguery. All of the public manipulation above is symptomatic of a system that's out of control. It's a clear example of how politicians who are suppose to represent the people, are using marketing and public manipulation to feather their own nests. The vast majority of politicians could care less about abortion, same-sex marriage, religion, or national healthcare reform. The only thing these people truly care about is being reelected - and that goes for Democrats as well as Republicans. The mere fact that these people, who we sent to congress to represent our interests, are willing to undermine our most fundamental right to long and healthy lives in order to ingratiate themselves with the insurance industry and feather their own nests, clearly demonstrates that our system is broken, and it requires our immediate attention. With our economy in the worst shape that it's ever been since the Great Depression, let there be no doubt about the fact that we're involved in a class war. But the only way that America is going to come out whole is if we come to grips with an objective truth - we're either going to win together, or we're all going to lose together. That makes it all the more important that we have statesmen and women in office, rather than self-serving demagogues who can't see beyond the next election, but the latter is exactly what we've created. We now have an entirely new class of people among us - the political class. With the exception of a handful of legislators, these people don't care about the rich, the poor, or the middle class - all they care about is who's in the best position to get them reelected in the next election cycle. They are totally self-serving, and America is suffering for it. The abject selfishness of these people have either created or contributed to every single problem that we have in America today. But Americans are beginning to recognize that fact, that's why congress is either at, or close to, its lowest point ever in the polls. It's becoming increasingly clear that these politicians have become so arrogant and self-serving that they've lost touch with the people that they're suppose to represent. They've completely forgotten that they're public servants, our employees, not America's aristocracy. The political class has, literally, come to think of themselves as royalty. Hyperbole? Let's look at the facts: During the Great Depression the House of Representatives voted to cut their own salary from $9,000 to $8,500 per year. In contrast, today a regular member of the house makes $174,000 a year. They've given themselves $16,000 in raises over the past five years. In addition to that, while their constituents are losing their jobs, their homes, and struggling to make ends meet, earlier this year congress gave itself an additional $93,000 (in addition to their salary) in "petty cash." Then, at the very same time that they were lavishing themselves in this unconscionable orgy of largess, they were coming up with countless excuses why our children shouldn't receive the same medical coverage as their own. First they tried to cloud the issue by claiming that providing the American people with a congressional option for healthcare was a form of socialism, but then, so is social security. They then claimed that a congressional option would lead to government bureaucrats stepping between patients and their doctors, yet, they don't seem to have any problem in that regard, nor do their families. The truth is, most of the members of congress could care less about any of that. All they really care about is their bottom line - being reelected. Thus, in this case, the best interests of their constituents have to take a backseat while they follow the money - money which is in the hands of large insurance companies that are determined to avoid having to either amend their business practices or lower their rates in order to compete with a government option. These politicians try to cover themselves by touting the virtues of the free market, but they know full well that while there are certain things that the business community can do much better than government, like marketing, manufacturing, and selling, there are other things that business is lousy at, like providing public service. Most of us have an innate understanding of that fact, that's why very few citizens would opt for a private military, police, or fire department. And there's a very logical reason for that. Business, by it's very nature, is designed to generate profit, not to provide services - there was ample evidence of that during the Bush administration. Prior to the military turning over many of its support services to Halliburton, for example, we never heard about our troops being given contaminated water or being electrocuted in the shower. The reason for that is our military's top priority was maintaining the troops, while Halliburton's top priority is maximizing its profits. The very same dynamic is at work when it comes to insuring our citizens - and the politicians know it, but they don't care, because again, for them, it's about me first, and only then, the public good. I mean, am I the only one sick of these people dictating what is on and off the table? I don't think so. So what should we do about these demagogues? The only way the people can regain control of the system is by completely cleaning house. We need to use our primary system to vote most our sitting politicians out of office - both Democratic and Republican. That will send an unequivocal message to everyone holding public office who's running things. Thereafter, we need do away with all congressional perks, and instruct the newly elected politicians to vote themselves a salary and compensation package that reflects the median income of a middle class American, and salaries should be capped at an agreed upon percentage above the minimum wage. Only then will we be able to establish and maintain a representative body that is truly reflective of the people. In short, we need representatives who actually feel our pain - those who can only imagine it, just won't do.  Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com If you really want to be hip, hop into a book.

Sphere: Related Content