Progressive Christian Movement

Health care again

2009-07-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

The idea that every American would save money if the government offered a public option for health insurance seems remarkably easy to understand. I question why so many people are having difficulty grasping the idea. Do people deliberately not want to understand because they are so partisan they don’t want to even consider an idea brought up by another party? Are the republicans so successfully muddying the waters with out and out lies that people are truly just confused? Perhaps the problem is that no one has laid out the idea in kindergarten terms so everyone can understand. I am going to attempt to do so now.
There are two ideas in health care reform. First, there is the single payer system that would be similar to every civilized nation in the world, the most often cited being Canada. This single payer system would save the citizens of the United States the most money by far but is not being proposed or even discussed by Obama, the Senate, or the House of Representatives. This option is completely off the table (except republicans keep bringing it up to confuse people and scare them). A single payer system will not happen in the U.S. anytime soon nor is it being proposed.
The only other idea that would truly reform health care and save United States citizens and businesses money is what is being called the “public option.” This is what Obama has been proposing for 2 years and what Congress has been debating. The public option would involve congress setting up a Medicare or V.A. style insurance that every American could purchase if they so choose to do so. It’s aim would be to provide insurance for those people who do not already have insurance. Everyone who already has insurance could keep what they have.
The question Americans have but are afraid to ask is: “If I already have insurance why would I want the government to have a public option.” My first response comes from my Christian belief system. If you care about the lives of other human beings then how could you possibly ask why they deserve to get medical treatment? If you describe yourself as “pro-life” how could you possibly be against allowing human beings to get medical care that they can pay for before their problem is critical? How could anyone who believes they are a moral person with a conscience want to deny other human beings access to life saving medical attention just because they are afraid something might change for themselves?
If the morality of the issue does not sway you then let’s look at what is in it for you…the American with health insurance. Currently we have a for profit system of health care. We buy insurance from a company that is attempting to make a profit. Currently health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies make huge profits. They make so much money that they can afford to buy ad time during primetime shows and even the superbowl. Their executives are millionaires and these companies spend money on yachts, private jets and billion dollar headquarters. They make this money off of the illness of Americans. They have unchecked ability to set costs for medical procedures and medication because they have no competition. We saw this become a real problem in 2001 when health care costs rose 75%. This outpaced all other inflation and therefore was simply the health care companies taking advantage of the perfect opportunity to raise costs; a republican president and congress combined with a terrorist attack. This unchecked power is costing you, the person with health insurance thousands of dollars per year. It has made health insurance out of reach for many small businesses and has caused other small businesses to become stagnate or even consider closing down. It has even affected big businesses and local governments by forcing them to lay off part of their work force so they can continue to afford the cost of health insurance for their employees. Health care costs played a huge role in the demise of the American automakers who simply couldn’t compete with foreign companies who did not have the enormous cost of supplying their employees with health care. To compete in the global market many companies have chosen to ship jobs to other countries where they don’t have to pay for benefits. Our current health care system has cost America jobs for many years now and it is starting to catch up with us. It has cost small business owners their ability to make a larger profit and it has caused millions of Americans to declare bankruptcy (medical costs are the number one reason for private bankruptcies in America).
Another way our current system is costing us, the insured American, is at the hospital. Most hospitals are non-profit. They are charging you, the consumer, what it costs them to keep paying their bills. They, however, can not turn sick people away. People who do not have insurance can not see a regular doctor at an office or choose not to see a doctor because of the cost until they are so sick they must see a doctor. For example, someone who sees an abnormal mole on their arm may chose to ignore that mole because they know how much it would cost to see someone and have it removed. They may wait until they are having serious stage 4 cancer symptoms before they go to the ER to be treated. By then a simple mole removal has turned into stage 4 cancer treatment at the expense of the hospital. The only way for the hospital to recoup that money is to charge you, the insured person, more for you broken arm. This system has also flooded emergency rooms with people with common illnesses that need to be seen but can not afford to pay a doctor or who can not get into a doctor because they lack insurance. This makes you, the insured person with a broken arm, wait much much longer in the waiting room of the ER. Finally this system is costing you more at the hospital because the insurance company has set prices for what they are willing to pay for each procedure. Hospitals must recoup the money it costs them to see you, and the uninsured people that visited when you were there, so they are forced to increase the number of procedures they perform in order to get more money from insurance companies so they can pay the doctors and hospital staff that saw you that day. The hospital must also pay a large number of staff people to file insurance claims, and argue with insurance companies. This cost must also be covered by what you pay when you break your arm. To summarize, when you break your arm you are waiting longer, paying the insurance company enough to give them an enormous profit, paying the hospital enough to pay the doctor, the nurse, the radiologist, the technical people, the insurance claim department, and enough to cover the lady sitting next to you who doesn’t have insurance and has a severe sinus infection that she has had for 5 months and has now spread to her brain.
Another reason you should care is that you may soon be one of the uninsured. An insurance company can cancel you coverage the minute they think you are going to start costing them more money than they can make from you. If you get heart disease or cancer you may find yourself uninsured just when you need that insurance most. Or perhaps you will experience what millions of Americans experienced this year. You may just lose your job and your health insurance right along with it. When that happened to me COBRA was going to be $1400 per month. Unemployment will not even cover my mortgage payment so health care is out of the question. Obama has reduced this cost with a program to force companies to pay a portion of COBRA for 18 months but with a mortgage and electric and gas bills and no job who can afford to pay for insurance. Once you find another job the new insurance company may not be willing to cover you and good luck finding private insurance if you have even the slightest problem that requires medication or a doctor visit. You may very well be one of THOSE people who doesn’t have health insurance and therefore can’t see a doctor in an office because they don’t see uninsured people. You may be one of those people who puts off seeing the doctor for all but the most devastating of symptoms because you can’t afford a $140 office visit and whatever tests or medications that might accompany that visit. You could be one of THEM. I bet then you would care a lot.
So what will a “public option” do to reduce all of these problems? What can a public option do for you? First, it will mean that every American can go see a doctor if they are sick. A sinus infection or a mole or a child’s severe headache will be dealt with by a doctor in an office in a reasonable time frame which will prevent future, more expensive procedures, tests, medications, and possibly even prevent death. Diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure will be caught earlier and may be managed with diet, exercise or an inexpensive pill rather than surgeries, hospital stays, and expensive medications that must be taken for a lifetime. Overall our population would be healthier and therefore less expensive. The hospital ER could focus on emergency problems and could get out of the business of being a free clinic. Hospital costs will go down because the hospital no longer would need to cover the cost of all the uninsured people. Hospital costs would also go down because the public plan would be nonprofit and therefore would pay reasonable costs for procedures without the need to deny treatment in order to make money. Your chance of getting appropriate treatment would go up because the plan would pay for procedures you need to make you better rather than paying only for procedures that are cheap while denying treatment for anything that might cut into their profits. In order to compete with this public option insurance companies would have to start increasing services while reducing costs. This will cut into their excessive profits while costing you less out of your pocket.
The funniest scare tactic being put forward by republicans right now is that the public option is out to kill the old people. They claim this public option will deny procedures to old folks and therefore kill them. This is hilarious because anyone over 65 won’t be eligible for the public option. Everyone over 65 is already enrolled in a public option….it is called Medicare! If Medicare hasn’t been out to kill old folks all these years I’m not sure why it would be now. Medicare was created to solve the problem of retired people who lost their company health insurance and therefore could no longer pay for medical treatment at a time when they needed it the most. A public option for people who do not yet qualify for Medicare will only make Medicare better by increasing the government’s ability to reduce the overall cost of procedures and medication through competition and….dare I say, the open market. By streamlining the system and cutting out the waste of paying for the uninsured and the extra procedures that do not increase health the public option will improve Medicare.
The public option will help small business, big business and local governments who are struggling with health care costs. Several months ago I suffered through an hour long monologue by a very upset right wing small business owner who bemoaned the fate of America if we get a “socialist” health care system. I asked him, as a small business owner, how much he pays for health care for himself and his employees. He explained that he pays $6000 per month for himself and his top level employees who receive health care at work. His lower level employees have no health insurance. This man is losing $72,000 a year profit to the health care companies (not to mention the thousands of dollars he and his employees are paying in premiums, co-pays, out of pocket expenses and medication costs. The $72,000 is just what his company is paying. What if this small business owner could buy public health care for himself and each of his employees could do the same? He may be able to hire another employee and take on more business. He may be able to expand his business to another location and see even more profit. He may be able to give each of his employees a raise. His employees that currently don’t have health insurance may be healthier and more reliable. They may also be loyal to him and not look for a job that provides health insurance. Perhaps this small business owner doesn’t want to give up private insurance. He may see a sharp reduction in premiums due to the competition with the public option. His employees without insurance would still likely get the public option and be healthier. Also, under the current reform measures his private plan would not be able to drop him if he gets ill and would not be able to deny his new wife coverage because she has a pre-existing condition such as asthma. Frankly, I don’t see a down side for angry right wing small business owner.
What about big business and local governments who are struggling to pay employees and their benefits with much less money coming in. Companies who are doing fine will likely do nothing. Offering private health insurance to employees will continue to be a selling point when selecting the best candidates and therefore companies will continue to do so. Companies that are struggling to stay afloat may need to cut benefits to employees in order to keep employees. Ultimately, though, wouldn’t you rather keep your job and buy insurance from the public option than to lose your job and your health insurance? If Timken could have kept 700 jobs in May by simply cutting health insurance benefits (if there were a public option to buy) wouldn’t all of those 700 people still have jobs, still be purchasing stuff which would support the jobs of the car industry and the restaurants and the retail jobs, and still be paying income taxes which would keep the local government afloat? If GM could have cut benefits knowing that their employees could still have access to insurance perhaps they would not have had to go bankrupt. Perhaps more Americans would have been buying cars because more Americans would have had jobs. Paying for benefits is putting our businesses at a disadvantage internationally because this is an expense their competitors do not incur.
Local governments are cutting services to taxpayers due to decreased tax revenue and the increased cost of benefits. School districts find 33% or more of their costs paying for employee benefits rather than teacher salaries, materials and building maintenance. No one thinks these employees should not receive benefits but when school districts and cities must lay off half their staff and cut out services to the taxpayers in order to afford health care costs for the remaining employees then we have a serious problem. These health care reform critics don’t want their taxes paying for someone else’s health care. I have news for them. Much of what we pay in taxes helps to pay for health insurance for teachers, bus drivers, custodians, police, firefighters, military men and women, utility works, city workers, state officials, judges, IRS employees and other federal workers and your Senator and Congressman (who have a public option health insurance). Taxes have always paid for this health insurance but now that insurance rates and health care costs and prescription costs have gone up, a larger percentage of our tax dollars go to pay this cost while a lesser proportion of our tax dollars go to fixing roads, teaching kids and hiring police officers. A single payer system would bring the most benefit for our tax dollars but unfortunately that option is off the table. The second best system would be a public option that would automatically provide for all government workers. This could potentially save school districts, cities, and states millions of dollars and could increase the services they could provide. They could hire more teachers or pay them more (or even lower the amount we pay in taxes). I just read in the paper that they have decided to send kids to school later in the day in Massillon, OH, in order to save money because they can decrease the time the bus drivers are employed to part time and therefore not pay benefits. Is this really the best use of our tax dollars?
What about all those family values type people out there? How does this benefit them and their ideals? First, many families send both spouses to work simply to get health insurance. One spouse may have a job that does not provide insurance (such as my friend who is an IT consultant or my friend who owns his own clinic). These men can provide for their families and their wives would really like to be home with their young children rather than pay for childcare. Instead the wives must work in order to get health insurance. They don’t make enough to be the primary bread winner but they must put their kids in day care and go to work to get that precious insurance. How is it strengthening families to force families into a two working parent scenario when they do not wish to be in that situation? Finally, there is the pro-life issue. Babies in 39 other countries, including Morocco and Cuba, have a better chance of living through their first year than babies born in the US. This is directly tied to, not only pre-natal care (care after the woman is pregnant) but also to the health of the mother before she becomes pregnant. Time magazine did a cover story on this very topic last week that I suggest you read. Also, many women have abortions simply because they can not afford the costs associated with birth and care of a child. Affordable health care would help reduce the number of abortions in this country.
You’ve heard this a million times in the past 2 years. The United States pays more for health care than any industrialized nation yet we have poorer health outcomes, we have higher infant mortality and we are more likely to die earlier than people in 39 other countries. This is solely because we rely on for profit health care and for profit insurance companies to keep us healthy. Their interests are not in keeping us alive but are in making a profit. Actually, we are much cheaper to them if we die from cancer quickly than if we stay alive for 20 more years with the possibility of a cancer recurrence. Once we get sick we are worth more to them dead than alive. Insurance companies deny procedures and medications to Americans all the time because they cut into their profits. How many times have you been told that the medication your doctor prescribed will not be covered by your insurance company because of the cost. Republicans have been attempting to scare you for months about government coming between you and your doctor. There has been someone in between you and your doctor for years, an insurance company, and he is only out for making a profit, not for making you healthy. A non profit option would change the dynamics of that system. No longer would your care be based on the profit of your insurance company but instead on the best possible health outcome for you. A public option would be focused on keeping Americans as healthy as possible in order to reduce costs and avoid high priced procedures that result from emergency care. How do we, as Americans, lose in that situation?

Health Care in this country

2009-04-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

OK, some might say I'm obsessed with the health care system in this country. They wouldn't necessarily be wrong. I get so frustrated with people. People like my mother. She complains and complains about all the same things I complain about and then she tells me that we shouldn't change health care in America. Her reasoning? We would have to wait for care. I have 3 things to say about that. First, why would we have to wait for care? She claims people in Canada have to wait for care. That may or may not be true. We, however, won't have the same system as Canada so it is irrelevant. Second, if the sicker people went first and the healthy people had to wait longer that would make sense to me. Right now we have a system where if you are healthy or sick it doesn't matter. What matters is that you have money and insurance. If you have money and insurance you are seen by someone eventually. If you are poor and have no health insurance you never get seen and you die of curable illnesses. To me, as a christian, but also as a caring individual, I think that is wrong. Third, I have health insurance and I still have to wait. I have to see certain doctors that are approved by my insurance company. Right now I have a rash on my face and I can't get in to see anyone. The insurance company only approves certain doctors and they aren't taking new patients until August or September. I'm one of the rich folks that has health insurance and I still can't be seen for a rash on my face! If I were in Canada I would go down to the local doctor's office and I may have to wait for awhile but they would look at my face and give me some cream that I would buy for $5. Now, if I do ever get in to see someone, I will pay $15 for the privilege and then they will charge me $100 for the same cream that I need to put on it to clear it up. Imagine if I were not insured but had a job. If I ever got in to see someone I would be charged $150 for the privilege and would be charged $200 for the cream. And if I were poor. Working minimum wage 60 hours a week but still making below the poverty line and with no insurance. I wouldn't ever get to see anyone for the rash on my face. I would have to live with it. IN AMERICA this is unbelievable!

My mom's friend just lost her health insurance at work. This is going to happen more and more to people who work full time but aren't in a union. They can yank your benefits whenever they want to people! She can't get new insurance because she is on medication that she has to take every day. She doesn't have a deadly disease, she doesn't have a disease that requires regular doctor visits or costly treatments. She has something that requires daily medication. She can't get health care! Here in America she can not see doctors because they don't see people who aren't insured. If she does get in with a doctor she will have to pay hundreds of dollars each time she is ill. The right wing would suggest that she must be lazy if she doesn't have health care. I actually had a guy at my daughter's gymnastics class a few weeks ago tell me that we should round up all the people who don't have health care and make them go to a separate hospital. He said the government should have hospitals to deal with those people who don't have health insurance. One would find this shocking except it is a normal belief of right wingers. Only lazy people who don't work don't have health insurance. They are less than human and therefore don't deserve proper medical attention. The people who work hard should be served first and THOSE people without insurance should get the minimum of care if any. Even my mother, by saying that our health care system shouldn't change to cover everyone because that would make us have to wait longer, is really saying that the rich should get the care and the poor should not.

I have a friend whose husband has changed jobs several times over the years. He is in a field that has high turnover. When a project is done he must look for a new job. Frequently he is self employed. They aren't poor. I don't know how much he makes but for a long time he made more than my husband did. They have been paying cobra as health insurance for many many years. $1200 a month. That is a mortgage payment. They have to pay this just to remain insured. They have 2 children. They are afraid to just let their insurance go because someone could get a catastrophic illness and they would be bankrupt. 80% of bankruptcies in this country are due to medical expenses. Every 30 seconds someone goes bankrupt in America due to medical bills. Thanks to the republican congress 6 years ago you can now lose your home if you owe medical bills. So instead my friends pays $1200 a month and then pay the copays and medical bills that I pay (because cobra is just your regular insurance so you still have to pay for health care as much as you did before). Should good, hardworking people get stuck paying $1200 a month just to insure themselves so they can get care when they are sick?

What about the family that works hard but doesn't make more than minimum wage per hour. What about the family of four where both parents work, one may work 2 jobs, but still barely make the rent and food payments. Millions of Americans work hard (longer hours than most middle class folks work) but can't afford more than the basic needs. Health care is out of reach for these people. These are the people you see in the emergency room at 11 pm with their children. Right wingers like to paint them as the lazy losers in the population. The people "living off of the rich". Really, many of these people work harder, work more hours, and are more committed than those who have insurance. Then there are the people who have major medical problems and can no longer work and are forced to "live off of our tax dollars." Many of those illnesses are caused by their poverty and their lack of medical care either as a child or as an adult. This could have been prevented by providing health insurance or health care to all Americans. They would then be able to work and would not be forced to live off of the system. They are victims of our system yet are seen as lazy loafers who just want to live off of all the hardworking Americans in our country. Not all of the people who live off the system are hard workers. There are certainly people out there who take advantage. However, the majority of people in our country and in our world want better lives and are willing to work to get a better life. They don't want to be poor,they don't want to be sick and they don't want a hand out. Their circumstances have put them where they are. Our health care system is helping to keep them where they are. It is time to change that.

The oddest twist to this issue is the people who vote against democrats and don't want health care for everyone but who are actually voting against their own most important issues. For example, pro-lifers vote against democrats and therefore health care for everyone. Health care for everyone, however, would significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country. Ironic. If everyone had access to birth control there would be less unwanted pregnancies and less abortions. If women had access to free prenatal care, free hospital visits for the birth and free medical care for their children there would be fewer abortions. Many women have abortions because they know they won't be able to pay for the birth and the medical care of the child after the birth. A massive portion of family debt in this country is health care costs. Women who have other children may choose not to abort if they weren't so far in debt with their current health care bills.

The most misguided group of people in this country are the small business men. They consistently are talked into voting against themselves and are frequently irrationally angry about the democratic viewpoint. Maybe they are so angry because they realize subconsciously they are voting against their own best interests. It may just be the personality of small business owners (although I do know some very nice rational small business owners). It just seems I've had the worst experience with the republican small business owners who consistently vote against their own best interests. I mentioned the crazy loud guy at my daughter's gymnastics. (He is one of those guys who believes if you are loud then you must be right). He said that he owns a company that makes electrical systems for cars. He is the guy who wants to round up all the poor lazy folks without health insurance and make them go to one hospital. So I asked him how much he pays for health care. He pays $5000 a month for health insurance for himself and his top employees (I assume the other peons in the company don't get health insurance...they are replaceable right?) He doesn't want Obama to make health insurance available to everyone because that would be socialist. He doesn't want Obama to force insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions because that would be socialist. I will address the socialist craziness in a moment. First, lets look at loud guy's bottom line. If health care were affordable to people who are self employed and available to people individually rather than through work this guy would save his business $5000 a month. His employees could find insurance on their own and his employees that currently don't have insurance would be healthier. Those same employees would have more money to possibly go buy something like a CAR that would ultimately help his business. As it is now this guy may not even have a business much longer because of what his party, that he so rabidly (and loudly) defends, did to the economy, and therefore the car sales in this country. This guy is totally voting against his own best interest but he is so worked up because Rush calls Obama's plan socialism that he hasn't stopped to read the plan or think about what socialism is. The funniest part of this story is that this guy suggested I read the socialist health care plan because I must not know what it says. It is obvious he hasn't read anything because the plan isn't anything like the plans of other countries that are more socialized. Obama's plan still goes through the insurance industry.

Socialism is an economic theory of government. It involves government owning all business and passing out the money from those businesses to the people so that everyone is equal. The equality part is what is throwing off the right wingers with the health care system. They are thinking that since all people will have equal access to being healthy then in must be a socialist plot. (actually, the leaders of the party such as Rush know this isn't true but if they say "socialism" to their sheeple followers then their followers will believe and repeat). Equal access to being healthy appears to puzzle people who thrive on the idea that they are the haves and they need to keep the have nots sick and poor. Ironically these are also the people who claim to be the most christian. Apparently they believe that Jesus would have liked the idea that the rich folk get medical care and the poor folk live under a bridge so they can afford their heart medication. I digress. The system of health care in most countries might be considered socialized in that everyone has access to it and the government pays for it (although they pay for it through taxes not by selling goods). However, it involves the health and lives of the citizens not their economic status so these countries are not socialist countries. They are capitalists with health care for everyone. Obama isn't even proposing this type of plan. If loud conservative dude had actually read the plan he would know that Obama's plan continues to work through the insurance companies. He is proposing regulating the system so that everyone can afford to buy health care from an insurance company if they want it. It would not even be required. If you have health care nothing would change for you! If you lost your insurance at work or lost your job or work for a business that doesn't provide insurance you would now be able to purchase health insurance from a company. You would not be able to be excluded just because you are sick. This is not a socialist system at all. The only socialist type event that has occurred recently is when George W. Bush decided to start buying banks. Again I digress.

The most important part of this entire issue is the way the christian right has lobbied against health care for everyone. As mentioned above, I have difficulty believing that Jesus would have been against access to medical care for everyone. I really have a problem with Christians who claim that republicans are the more christian party and overlook this issue completely. I believe that Jesus wants Christians to fight for the poor. I believe he wants us to fight for the sick. I believe Jesus wants us to fight for equality for everyone when it comes to health care. More babies die in this country per capita than in 39 other countries. That is because people may care a lot about fetuses but those same people vote against providing the mothers who choose not to abort with prenatal care! How can people vote for someone because they believe women should CHOOSE life but then vote against providing prenatal care, vaccinations, and health care for those same babies after they are born? How can people claim to be "for the troops" and then vote against increasing money to care for their health when they return? How can people brag about their superior christian beliefs but then vote against providing health care for every person in our country regardless of their economic status? People die from curable illnesses because they can't afford to see a doctor (or can't find one to see them) and that is OK with some Christians as long as they don't have to wait longer for care themselves. How can Christians say that poor people deserve to be sick because they are too lazy to get good paying jobs? It is time to make health care a christian issue in America. It is time for Christians to stand up and say that every person deserves the same chance to live healthy. Jesus walked among the lepers and made them healthy. Jesus knew that lepers are people. Lepers are not sick through any fault of their own and God loves them. God still loves the poor and we, as Christians, should follow his lead.

Frank Schaeffer's letter to the Republicans

2009-03-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

If you've read my blog at all you know that I believe the religious right is responsible for ruining the Christian religion (and will ultimately be the cause of it's downfall in America), ruining the Republican party and ruining our country. I just love it when I find articles by former religious right republicans who have seen the light and the error of their ways. This is a particularly good one.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html
Enjoy!

Wake up America!!

2009-03-04T07:14:00.000-08:00

I'm so tired of listening to conservatives spout off republican talking points without thinking about them first. I can't take it anymore. OK, so that sounds melodramatic. Really, though, these are intelligent people who obviously have not actually thought about what is best for the country or themselves but they listen to conservatives tell them what to think and then they repeat it to whomever will listen. I just want to smack them and say, "THINK FOR YOURSELF!" Rush, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and all the other talking heads don't care about you. You are middle class. When they are talking about what is best for America they are not talking about YOU! Let me be more specific.

My current pet peeve is this "socialist" or "communist" talking point and the no taxes talking point. I must point out that taxes are a necessary part of our society. Our forefathers fought against taxation without representation which is why we have to vote on tax levies and bonds and why we send representatives and senators to congress to vote on our behalf. Taxes pay for most of what your family has done today. They pay for your child's school, books, teachers, buses and probably their sports programs. They pay for the bridges you drive on and the roads you drive on and all the signs and stop lights and the planning that went into creating those. Taxes pay for the police officers and all of their equipment and programs and cars and the firemen and all of their trucks and equipment. Taxes pay for 911. Taxes pay for our judges and elected officials and all of their staff. Taxes pay for the EPA, the FDA, homeland security and FEMA and every other federal agency that makes sure you have clean drinking water, safe toys and cribs and cars. Taxes pay our for our military. They pay for our tanks and planes, they pay for every bullet. They pay the salaries of the men and women who fight for us and they pay for their care when they return wounded. Taxes pay for veteran's benefits when they retire. Taxes pay for your mother's stay in the nursing home and her medication and visits to the doctor. Taxes pay for services for children who are born disabled so they can get a wheelchair or visit the doctor or learn how to take care of themselves when they are grown up. We need taxes to function as a country. So if you think you shouldn't be paying any taxes at all you already have a serious problem in my opinion.

Now, I do agree that we don't want to pay more taxes than we have to pay. This could be the point that we argue about. Too many conservatives, however, don't want to pay any taxes at all and I'm tired of hearing from you people. Now, for the past 8 years republicans have cut taxes for people making more than $250,000 per year. No, that is not you!!! When Rush and Sean and Newt say that "we" are going to pay more taxes under Obama they mean themselves. The people who make over $250,000 per year. Not you!! Everyone who calls the radio or who talks to me on the street thinks they were getting a tax cut from the republicans and that they are going to lose this cut under the democrats. I think it is safe to say that if you are talking to me about taxes or you are calling a radio show you are not the person who was getting the tax cuts! Stop believing these talking heads that are telling you that repealing this tax cut is going to effect you. It is not going to effect you because you aren't making enough money! Nor will you be. Only the top 1% of our population is effected. They are running the company you work for or running the company your company is servicing. It isn't you. And, if by chance it is you, then shame on you for bitching about paying your fair share of taxes for the fist time in 8 years. We have a deficit higher than all the deficits that we have ever had added all together. WE have this deficit because the republicans spent more money than the Clinton administration but collected less taxes. (Clinton left office with a SURPLUS after inheriting a huge deficit from Reagan/Bush). If you have less income as a government you can't spend more or you get a deficit. Simple math!!! If you have less income personally but you spend 100x more than you are spending now then you will have a deficit as well. They call democrats tax and spend liberals but the republicans have become don't tax but keep spending "conservatives." How are you going to run the government with no tax income? 95% of Americans will get a tax cut under Obama's plan (those making under $250,000) and 97% of businesses are getting a tax cut. That must be made up by repealing the tax cut for the rich people. They have money and are doing fine in the recession. They have the money to pay taxes and they are simply going back to paying the taxes they were paying in the 90's. Chances are that under this plan you will be paying less tax or the same tax you are paying now. Wake up and think for yourself!!

Next, I must address this trickle down theory that was put forth in the 80's and has never ever worked. The theory is that you cut taxes for the rich folks and then they save so much money that they hire people to work for them which creates jobs. If you have paid attention at all we have discovered in the past 30 years that it does not work. Cutting taxes for rich people just makes rich people richer. They don't hire more people, they move their business overseas and hire people to work for 25 cents an hour and they keep all that extra cash for themselves. Crazy conservatives call Stephanie Miller every day and complain about the CEO's who are making 60 million dollars a year and flying private jets and collecting bonuses while they fire Americans because their company is going under. Those people are making so much because of laws and tax cuts created by conservatives!! I know Rush blames liberals but he is lying. It is conservatives that have made the wealthy become more wealthy by giving them tax cuts and loopholes to hide their money and by actually giving them money to move their companies overseas. If you think it is the liberals then you are the victim of the biggest snow job of our lifetime. The current conservative party built on the idea that you make the wealthiest people more wealthy in order to help our economy and you are voting for it if you are voting for a republican. Wake up! Look at the "stimulus" that George Bush tried. He gave each of us $500 2X in his presidency. We all paid it toward our huge credit card debt and continued on with our lives. That didn't stimulate anything but it did fool people who aren't paying attention into believing they are getting a tax break. In the meantime your medical bills went up 70% in 2001, you started paying 3X more for gas and the republicans made it possible for you to lose your house if you can't pay your medical bills. So rather than gaining $500 twice you really lost thousands of dollars to the big rich oil, insurance, pharmaceutical companies. These companies all paid huge bonuses to their CEO's (who already make tens of millions per year) and they cut back middle class jobs. They did so well under Bush that they paid for his inauguration the second time (as well as is re-election). What other stimulus did Bush offer? He gave money to help the oil companies in every single budget. They made record profits and got government money because they needed "help." He also handed out cash to big businesses including AIG and the car companies. Somehow the conservatives have turned this around as if it were Obama handing out money to business. It was BUSH. Once Bush started that plan Obama has had to carry it out. He inherited this mess and he has to continue with the plan to bail out banks until he can implement his plan.

What is Obama's plan? The conservative talking heads have done a great job of getting out misinformation and of talking the sheep that listen to them into believing it is a bad idea. In reality, Obama does not want to just pass out money to companies and trust that they will do the right thing. He doesn't want to just pass out money to people and hope they will go buy a new TV (which is what Bush did). These conservatives keep saying that he is just passing out money to poor people and that is socialist. They keep saying he is passing out money to companies and that is communist. In reality it was Bush that passed out money to people, not Obama. Obama's plan doesn't pass out money to anyone (except the addition that the REPUBLICANS added). Obama's plan says that if you are going to get money from the government then you have to work. He is putting money into jobs. The government will hire companies (thus helping all of those businesses that are hurting and forcing them to hire employees) to work on America's infrastructure. These jobs can't be shipped to other countries, they will have to hire Americans. These people will work to repair bridges, start green technology, and build the medical records technology in America (among other things). All of those people who get hired to work will then have money. They will spend that money to buy things that other companies make. They will buy a car from Ford and a sofa from Macy's and food from a local restaurant. This will help Ford and Macy's and the restaurant afford to hire people and those people will have money to buy stuff like cars and clothes and furniture. In the meantime our roads and bridges and levies will be safer and updated, our country will move into the 21st century with green technology and people will be able to afford to buy stuff. All of these conservatives pretend like they don't know how this job creation bill will stimulate the economy and people believe them. I promise that my 11 year old daughter could understand this simple job creation plan and you could too if you would just pay attention!!

I must talk about health care here too. I absolutely do not understand people who do not want health care for everyone. OK, so some people don't care that we are 39th in the world for health care here in America. Some people don't care that newborn babies are more likely to die here than they are in 40 other countries around the world. Some people don't care that people in America die every single day of curable illnesses because they don't have access to health care because we are THE ONLY industrialized nation that has a for profit health care system. Perhaps people don't care about all of THOSE people. As a christian I frankly can't grasp how people don't care but they don't so I won't use compassion and empathy and just plain doing what is right as a reason for health care for everyone. What about money as an argument? Now there is an argument conservatives can sink their teeth into. Why are car companies having trouble competing with Japanese and European car companies? Is it really labor unions as the conservatives claim? No. Japanese and Europeans pay their people just as well. The average union worker makes $12 an hour to start and $25 an hour by the end of their life. Those inflated numbers you hear on Rush are including the benefits and health care of the workers!! It is the millions of dollars of health care costs that make it impossible for car companies to compete. They have to pay health care for all of their people whereas the other companies don't have these costs. Why do companies open factories in Canada rather than the US? Health care costs. Why do companies move factories overseas? Health care costs. Why do small businesses have trouble making ends meet? Health care costs. If you own your own business how much are you paying for health insurance for your family? How much are you paying per year for health care for your employees and their families? If you don't offer health care for your employees then how much are they paying out of their salary to get health insurance or to pay the enormous medical bills for their families? We work for a big company and have great health insurance. I have asthma but other than that we have no major illnesses in our family. We paid $9,000 for health care last year. That is $9,000 out of our pocket after insurance paid their share! We just moved and I called a pediatrician's office to make an appointment. The first question they ask is, "Do you have insurance?" If not my kids wouldn't be seen. We would have to wait until they got really really sick and then we would have to take them to the ER and pay huge sums of money to try to heal them. This is unacceptable in America and it is bringing down America's businesses and America's families. Each time you vote for a conservative you are voting for this. Wake up America!!

I know, Rush starts screaming socialist whenever we talk about health care for everyone and the conservatives get all nervous that socialism is coming to America. What exactly what does that mean? If every person in America can see a doctor when they are sick is that socialism? Does that mean our entire financial system will be socialist? Every other industrialized nation in the world offers health care to whomever needs it. Are they all socialist nations? Is England scary? I can just hear the music sting in the background when Rush says socialism. It wasn't until Nixon that we started thinking that companies should make millions of dollars off the illnesses of the American people. England started national health care while fighting the Nazis yet Rush and other conservatives are now saying that national health care would make us Nazis. This name calling doesn't have any validity yet it scares conservatives into spouting the party line of no health care in America. Stop being scared by this BS. If we are a so called "Christian Nation" and we all are Christians then how can we say that only rich people and upper middle class people should have access to health care? Obama's health care proposal doesn't even make health care free to everyone. His plan only makes it possible for everyone to buy health insurance. How could that possibly be seen as socialist? Everyone would still be paying for health insurance and paying for health care. The insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and doctors will still be making millions a year off our sick population. I wish his plan were more like that of England, France and yes even Canada. Unfortunately Obama's plan is still a for profit health care system that at least provides an opportunity for people to see a doctor but still, ultimately, provides money for big business. Another good thing about the system, however, is that I believe eventually people will buy cheaper health insurance on their own and companies won't go bankrupt trying to provide health insurance for employees. Ultimately small business will benefit the most (yet small business owners everywhere don't realize they would benefit because they listen to the talking points instead of using common sense).

I've already talked at length in other posts about my aversion to the "Bush kept us safe" argument but I must briefly reiterate my opposition to this crazy talk. On April 9th, 2004, Condoleezza Rice, acting as the national security advisor, testified before the 9/11 Commission. She admitted that President Bush had received a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the United States" as early as August 6, 2001. She said that the president did not act on this information although the memo mentioned the possibility of terrorist sleeper cells in the United States. This report also suggested that the terrorists may be interested in flying airplanes into US buildings including the Twin Towers. President Clinton and his staff also stated that they attempted to brief Bush and his staff about the dangers of Osama Bin Laden but Bush would spend those briefing attempting to get information about Saddam Hussein and would ignore information about Bin Laden. Clinton's staff became very frustrated with Bush and his staff and their disregard for what they saw as the largest threat to national security. Clinton had spent years tracking Bin Laden and attempting to kill or capture him and tried to express his concerns to Bush as the transition took place. Bush ignored him as he continued to focus on Saddam Hussien.

Bush oversaw the worst terrorist attack in US history. On September 11th over 3000 American citizens were killed because he refused to pay attention to security memos and briefings. Bush did not keep us safe from terrorists while he was President. Bush oversaw the largest national security failure of our generation. Rather than be embarrassed by this failure the Republicans have chosen to tout this failure as a wonderful thing that Bush did to save our country. Bush then diverted the forces away from capturing those involved in Sept. 11th and send them to Iraq to go after an old, benign dictator who hated Al Queda and who had not had any power since the Iraq war. By doing so, Bush created a terrorist haven in a country that had no terrorists, and he emboldened Iran and Syria. Bush also successfully helped to destabilize Pakistan (who has nuclear weapons), left Afghanistan so early that it destabilized, and pushed for elections in Palestine which resulted in the democratic election of Hamas. Bush did not attempt any peace negotiations until his final year therefore helping to cause the Israeli/Palestinian conflict several years ago. During Bush's term in office terrorism around the world increased. No, there were not any other attacks within our country during those 7 years but that doesn't mean we were safer nor does it mean that we should overlook the tremendous failure that resulted in 9/11. The world is much less safe thanks to Bush's foreign policy decisions. Wake up America!

Finally, I must question the thought process of those people who say that democrats are going to take away our rights. To what rights are you referring? Democrats are all about giving rights to everyone and making sure everyone gets a fair shake in this world. Just think about the ACLU that conservatives love to complain about. They were the ones that got Christians the rights they have in our country and they are trying to help other religious groups get the same rights. Democrats are saying that homosexual people should have the same rights as heterosexual people. Republicans are the ones trying to make government in charge of moral decisions and your personal rights. Republicans are supposed to be against big government yet they want the government to decide who can get married. They want the government to force women to have babies. They want the government to be involved in decisions to turn off life support when our loved ones are kept alive by machines. They want government to make moral decisions and tell us what our kids can learn about birth control and how to protect themselves from diseases. Republicans are for government control of our moral and personal decisions which means more government not less in our lives. I really want to know one right that democrats are trying to take from the American people. Just because the republican talking heads say that democrats are taking away your rights doesn't make it true. People say these things without really thinking through what they mean or whether it is a fact. I need Americans to wake up from their daze and their zombie like following of Fox news talking points and use their brains to make decisions. See these "facts" as what they are. They are lies. No child left behind teaches kids to memorize facts for a test and not think for themselves. This fits in exactly with the Republican ideology. Pay no attention to the truth of what is happening in America. Simply listen to what we say is going on and then go repeat it to the world. If we say it enough it won't have to be true, it will become "fact".

The fact is that we need taxes to function as a country. The fact is that if you make less than $250,000 a year you will pay the same tax or less tax than you did before. The fact is that investing government money to build infrastructure is not a communist or socialist program. It is actually a lot like FDR's new deal. The fact is that you are more likely to die in this country of a curable illness than you are in 39 other countries. The fact is that Obama's health care plan is far from socialist and just makes health insurance premiums affordable and available to all Americans. The fact is that Republicans would like the government to become bigger and more involved in your personal decisions and personal lives while the democrats would like you to be in charge of your own life and let government focus on governing. The fact is that we are not as safe as we were 8 years ago and that is a direct result of the decisions made by George W. Bush and his cronies. The fact is that many Americans don't know these facts because they listen to people who lie to them all day so they will follow an ideology that keeps them poor, dependent on government and hate filled.

Please wake up! Read the stimulus plan for yourself and see what it really does. Read Obama's health care plan for yourself and see that it will benefit big business, small business, and regular Americans equally. Read the national security reports and see that all 21 intelligence agencies have agreed for years that we are less safe because of our decisions. Don't just listen to me. Go and read and think for yourself. The information is out there if people would care to stop listening to the talking heads and getting frightened by words like "socialism" and "Nazis." I have a bumper sticker that says "Nov. 4th, 2008, Hope won over fear." Don't let words and lies scare you into not thinking. Let the truth help you wake up.

Religious right should put politics aside

2008-11-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

Once again I found a writer who wrote exactly what I was thinking but better than I could say it.

Cal Thomas commentary: Religious right should put politics aside
Saturday, November 8, 2008 3:21 AM
By Cal Thomas

When Barack Obama takes office in 2009, he will do so in the 30th anniversary year of the founding of the so-called religious right. Born in 1979 and midwifed by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, it was a reincarnation of previous religious-social movements that sought moral improvement through legislation and court rulings. Those movements, from abolition (successful) to Prohibition (unsuccessful), had mixed results.
Social movements that relied mainly on political power to enforce a conservative moral code weren't anywhere near as successful as those that focus on changing hearts.
Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative evangelical image has failed. So, should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else?
I opt for something else.
Too many conservative evangelicals have put too much faith in the power of government to transform culture. The futility inherent in such misplaced faith can be demonstrated by asking these activists a simple question: Does the secular left, when it holds power, persuade conservatives to live by their standards? Of course they do not. Why, then, would conservative evangelicals expect people who do not share their worldview and view of God to accept their beliefs when they control government?
Too many conservative evangelicals mistake political power for influence. Politicians who struggle with imposing a moral code on themselves are unlikely to succeed in their attempts to impose it on others. What is the answer, then, for conservative evangelicals who are rightly concerned about the corrosion of culture, the indifference to the value of human life and the living arrangements of same- and opposite-sex couples?
The answer depends on the response to another question: Do conservative evangelicals want to feel good, or do they want to adopt a strategy that actually produces results? Clearly partisan politics have not achieved their objectives. Do they think they can succeed by committing themselves to more of the same?
If results are what conservative evangelicals want, they already have a model. It is contained in the life and commands of Jesus. Suppose millions of conservative evangelicals engaged in an old and proven type of radical behavior. Suppose they followed the admonition of Jesus to "love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and care for widows and orphans," not as ends, as so many liberals do by using government, but as a means of demonstrating God's love for the whole person in order that people might seek him?
Such a strategy could be more transformational than electing a new president, even the first president of color. But to succeed, such a strategy would not be led by charismatic figures, who would raise lots of money, be interviewed on Sunday talk shows, write books and make gobs of money.
Scripture teaches that God's power (if that is what conservative evangelicals want and not their puny attempts at grabbing earthly power) is made perfect in weakness. He speaks of the tiny mustard seed, the seemingly worthless widow's mite, of taking the last place at the table and the humbling of oneself, the washing of feet and similar acts and attitudes; the still, small voice. How did conservative evangelicals miss this and instead settle for a lesser power, which in reality is no power at all? When did they settle for an inferior kingdom?
Evangelicals can take the path that will lead them to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture through government, or they can embrace the far more powerful methods outlined by the one they claim to follow. By following his example, they will decrease, but he will increase. They will get no credit, but they will see results. If conservative evangelicals choose obscurity and seek to glorify God, they will get much of what they hope for but can never achieve in and through politics.
Cal Thomas writes for Tribune Media Services.
tmseditors@tribune.com

Comment on today's Christianity

2008-04-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

My husband sent me a link to an article in PC USA magazine by Charles March entitled "What it means to be a Christian after George W. Bush." You can link to the article below. You may have noticed I haven't been writing my own stuff on my blog lately. That is because people like this can write what I'm thinking so much better than I can. Finally Christians in America are coming to their senses and realizing that they are Christian first and Americans second. Finally Christians in America are realizing that following the teaching of Jesus should trump party loyalty and national pride. Finally Christians in America are speaking up and taking back their faith from those who have twisted it into something violent and vengeful and sick.

The following is one paragraph in this remarkable article. It highlights that Christians frequently have become misguided in history. Christians have used the Bible to support ideas and beliefs that are actually not supported by the true meaning of the Bible.

March wrote:
"I came of age in the American South in the 1960s, and the moral values shared by most families in the churches of my childhood were deeply interwoven with our culture’s hold on white supremacy. The vigilant and quite often neurotic defense we made of the Southern Way of Life blinded us not only to the sufferings of African-Americans — the victims of our collective self-righteousness — but also to our spiritual arrogance and group pride. We believed that our conception of Christianity and our cherished family values were the most wholesome and pure the world had ever known. Inside this serene delusion, we presumed ourselves to be paragons of virtue, although we rarely lifted a finger to help anyone but our own."

How insightful! This is the perfect example of how our own beliefs and values can be supported by verses in the Bible and by the church when infact they are contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. When we overlook the true meaning of the Bible and simply try to support our own agenda and belief system we will certainly find evidence to back it up but we will lose the true meaning of the word in the long run. Christians have advocated this war for 6 years now stating that we are spiritually better than them. Christians have believed that we are better because we have democracy or we have Jesus or we have values or we have "freedom" and therefore we have virtue. In reality we have no virtue when we worship our country and our flag and our President and ignore our God and His words to us. It truely is the great delusion of our time. Read more by following the link below!

http://www.pres-outlook.com/tabid/2282/Article/7231/Default.aspx

The Truth about the War in Iraq

2008-03-21T07:24:00.000-07:00

Finally the press has put all of the information about how the United States ended up in a war with Iraq into one news story. The lies and misinformation have always been out there individually but no one has ever been able to put them together so that people can really grasp the breadth of the deception that was perpetrated upon the American people. Apparently it took the foreign press, Canada, to put it all together for us. The American press, although they have apologized for helping to spread the lies that led up to the war, continue to be too afraid of the administration to compile all of the information and let their viewers watch it. It is no wonder that the world is baffled by our complacency.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/lies/video.html

The scariest quote ever

2007-12-23T08:47:00.002-08:00

This is officially the scariest quote I've ever read. This man wants to be the next President of the United States.

"I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards, rather than try to change God's standards."

Mike Huckabee, January 14, in Warren Michigan

Fight'm Over There!?!

2007-12-23T08:47:00.001-08:00

Is the American psyche really so fragile? Do we take on view and beliefs based on a bumper sticker type sound bite that have been repeated millions of times by our government and its’ propaganda machine? “Fight’m over there so we don’t fight’m over here” is one such sound bite that has penetrated the American psyche and become truth to millions of Americans. This sound bite, however, has no basis in reality and does not even make sense on multiple levels. It doesn’t stop millions of Americans from repeating it ad nauseam as a reason to continue a war seemingly forever. “Fight’m over there” has become the mantra of conservatives all over the United States.

First I must point out that 9/11 happened not because of terrorists “over there” but because of terrorists already here. There were people being trained by United States citizens to fly planes. Yes, they may have been acting on orders from people “over there” but taking over any number of countries would not have stopped this act. There was no single country that was responsible for this attack. 9/11 was planned by a few individuals and carried out by a handful more. Most of these individuals were from Saudi Arabia.

Sometimes the government and the media like to pretend that they have no idea why the terrorists attacked us. In fact, these individuals carried out this attack because of our policies and interference with Iraq, Afghanistan, and other middle eastern nations. We know this because they told us. We helped them drive Russia from Afghanistan and then we ignored them while the Taliban took over. We attacked Iraq and drove them out of Kuwait and then we left them with permanent basis in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. We have left troops in their countries and they don’t like it. Fighting “over there” actually caused the attack over here.

Our recent efforts to fight over there have destabilized the entire region much more than had we left it alone. Everyone in this country supported the invasion of Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden. Everyone in this country supported the U.S. troops’ use of force to oust the Taliban government in Afghanistan. President Bush, however, pulled our forces out of this country in the middle of the operation in order to begin another war. The direct result of this decision was the destabilization of Afghanistan and the escape of Osama bin Laden. Our brave and heroic military had Osama bin Laden on the run and hiding. All they had to do was go find him. Rather than finish the job Bush ordered that they let local groups capture him so that Bush could pull the troops out and send them to Iraq. This resulted in Osama bin Laden paying off the locals so that he could escape. Now, if Bush was really out to get the 9/11 terrorists “smoke’m out, dead or alive, head on a silver platter” then why would he allow bin Laden to escape? By leaving Afghanistan prematurely it allowed the Taliban to come back in and retake much of the region. Right after 9/11 the conservatives were suddenly so concerned with women’s rights in Afghanistan and the horrendous living conditions imposed by the Taliban for women in the region. Then they left those women to suffer the same fate at the hands of the same group so that they could go fight in Iraq. The irony is that the U.S. did the exact same thing after we helped free Afghanistan from Russia and this is why Osama bin Laden first started to hate us. The United States trained bin Laden to fight the Russians and we promised him support. When the Russians left we did not support the new government and this allowed the Taliban to take control and made Osama bin Laden our enemy. This is not ancient history. Why did we not learn from it?

We have also destabilized Pakistan because of our meddling. The Pakistani President supported the U.S. and let the U.S. use his country to attack Afghanistan. This left him vulnerable to extremists who are anti-American and paint him as a collaborator with the United States and the west. As our reputation as an inhumane conqueror of middle eastern countries grows the Pakistani President’s enemies gain ground politically. Destabilization in this country is extremely dangerous because they have nuclear capability. If terrorists or even an unfriendly elected government takes over Pakistan the region could be in BIG trouble. It would be our fault.

Then there is the entire Arabian Peninsula. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Some people, who aren’t paying attention, still believe that they were somehow involved even though Bush and Cheney both have said clearly that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It is another example of saying something enough that it becomes true in the minds of citizens. The media and the conservatives have linked Iraq and 9/11 in sentences so many times that people are confused. It is obvious that this was intentional. Saddam Hussein was an evil man. He did terrible things to the people of Iraq. Everyone agrees that this is a fact. The problem is that there are many evil leaders in the world. At what point does another country need to step in and stop this evil from taking place? International law says that we cannot invade another country unless they are a threat to us. The Downing Street minutes made it quite clear that we did not have any evidence that Iraq could in any way be a threat to the United States. The Iraq inspectors said that Iraq was not a danger to the United States. To solve the problem the United States deliberately fabricated evidence to make it seem like we had evidence that Iraq was a threat to us so that we could invade. There is a mountain of evidence that the United States deliberately deceived the people of the world into believing that Iraq was a threat when in fact it was not a threat to anyone.

Attacking Iraq had nothing to do with saving the Kurds. Saddam did attack the Kurds with a terrible nerve gas but this was before the first Gulf War. My husband and others fought in this war so that Saddam would no longer have the power to do such a thing. It worked. He was no longer a threat to his neighbors and did not posses any weapons of mass destruction that he could use against his own people, his neighbors or especially not us. Saddam also was an enemy to the Taliban, Al Queda and Osama bin Laden. Any one in Al Queda would have been in grave danger in Iraq. Had we played our cards differently Saddam would have probably helped us round up any Al Queda members in Iraq … if there were any. Evidence shows that there were not any because Saddam was careful not to let anyone like that in his country live. Again, not necessarily a positive trait however it ruins any argument that we were going after the terrorists who caused 9/11 when we attacked Iraq.

Attacking Iraq had nothing to do with protecting the Iraqis from torture. I think we proved this when we started torturing them even using some of the same techniques that Saddam used. If you are going to claim moral superiority as a reason to take over a country then you have to maintain moral superiority during the fight. We have not.

Another argument about Iraq that I have heard a lot from conservatives is that Saddam was thinking about making weapons of mass destruction. International law does not really allow you to bomb or take over a country because of what they might be thinking about doing sometime in the future. They created this law so that countries could not invade other countries claiming that there might be a threat at some time. If all countries ignored the law as we have then everyone could invade whomever they wanted whenever they wanted without consequence. When Pakistan developed their nuclear weapons program we stopped China and India from wiping them off the planet by using the argument that you can’t bomb a country just because they may be a threat sometime in the future. Actually, Hitler used the argument that he could invade Poland because he thought they might be a threat sometime in the future. Hitler also had his own army fake attacks against Germany and blame Poland in an attempt to show a reason to attack Poland. Look how that worked out. Maybe these international laws were created for a reason!

The destabilization in Iraq was the biggest miscalculation and mistake (if it was a mistake) in military history. The country of Iraq was glued together with gum and twine, which was only held together by Saddam. As evil as he was, he was the only thing that held together the Sunnis the Shiites and the Kurds in relative peace and tranquility. These three groups shared neighborhoods, shopped at the same markets and worked together peacefully under Saddam. Christians and Jews, although in the minority, were also a part of these communities. Iraq was not an ideal situation, however the sectarian violence that we see today was not present. Even after the start of the Iraq War the sectarian violence did not exist until the U.S. started it. I saw an entire PBS special about this very topic. Top military and diplomatic leaders from the United States made serious mistakes after the invasion that resulted in the current sectarian violence. Those responsible admit this freely. Why does the mainstream American public not recognize this? Also, by starting this war in Iraq we have let Al Queda come into a country where they could not exist before. They continue to be a very small part of the problem in Iraq, however before we opened the door for them they were not a part of the equation at all.

Iran was the next country who was changed by our involvement in the region. Iran has an extremely young population (mostly because of the war with Iraq years ago). This population of young people is one of the most progressive populations in all of the middle east. They overwhelmingly like and approve of the United States and western culture and have many more individual rights and freedoms than their middle eastern counterparts. Although they elected their current prime minister, Ahmadinejad, public opinion was against him. He had been trying to take away some of the freedoms that the younger generation had come to enjoy and they were ready to get rid of him. Not only that but one must remember that he actually has very little control over foreign policy in Iraq. He is the figure head of the government. He is not the one in control. According to the constitution, the supreme leader of Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last say in internal and foreign policies including the commandment of the armed forces and the declaration of war.

Public opinion was so negative toward Ahmadinejad that many people expected that he would not continue to be Prime Minister much longer. Unfortunately, the United States has succeeded in changing much of this public opinion and has instead helped Ahmadinejad remain Prime Minister. First Bush identified Iran as the “Axis of Evil.” This served to scare the Iranians into believing that Bush may just start attacking them for no reason just as he had done to Iraq. Then, when Ahmadinejad started to stand up for Iran and faced off with Bush this helped him gain popularity with Iranians who had been ready to get rid of him. Nothing helps secure your popularity like standing up to a bully in support of your country. It makes no difference that the man is crazy and a loose cannon. To the Iranians, he is willing to protect them and stand up against the United States which is necessary now that the United States is ignoring international law and randomly attacking other countries.

Now, if you were a country that had been identified as belonging to the “Axis of Evil” along with Iraq and North Korea what would you do? Iraq could do nothing because they had been sanctioned for 15 years so they were invaded and taken over. First Jimmy Carter and then Madeline Albright had negotiated with North Korea to keep them from developing a nuclear program. North Korea had been cooperating for years (although they occasionally flexed their muscles and had to be “dealt with”). North Korea decided to stop cooperating with those agreements the day after the axis of evil speech. They turned off the agreed upon cameras and started their nuclear program back up again. Bush ignored North Korea because he was distracted by Iraq and because he refuses to speak to North Korea and now North Korea has a nuclear program. Now Bush would not dream of invading North Korea.

The Iranians were left with little choice but to start talking about nuclear technology. Bush refused to speak to Iran diplomatically and instead continued to call them names and attempt to provoke them. Bush has placed huge war ships in the Persian Gulf in an obvious attempt to provoke Iran and even forced a false flag episode between Iran and Britain. Fortunately, Ahmadinejad has not been easily provoked. He returned the British seamen after the false flag event and put all nuclear interests on hold after diplomatic talks with several countries (NOT the United States) in 2003. Bush was informed by all 16 intelligence agencies in August (or even before) that Iran had suspended its nuclear program in 2003 because of diplomatic pressure by other countries. Bush, however, continued his bomb Iran, axis of evil rhetoric until November when the NIE became public. Joe Biden said it best when he stated that Bush was either lying or incompetent and asked Bush to pick which. Bush has known for many months, if not years that Iran was no threat to us and had no nuclear program yet he continued to try to mislead Americans into believing that we were about to go to war with Iran. Had the NIE not been made public by the intelligence agencies Bush may have even started World War III with the blessing of many Americans who did not know the truth. When Ahmadinejad begins to look like a reasonable man seeking peace and stability compared to your own leader you must begin to wonder what we, as Americans, are doing.
The entire situation becomes even more muddled when you consider the role of CIA agent Valerie Plame in the mix of events. Most people have assumed that Valerie Plame was revealed as a CIA agent and her career ruined as retribution for her husband, Joe Wilson’s, revelation that a sentence in the President’s state of the union address was false. Wilson had been sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate claims that Iraq had sought yellow cake uranium from this country. Joe Wilson found no such evidence and reported this to the President. The President, however, included the claim that Iraq had yellow cake uranium from Niger in his state of the union address. Joe Wilson publicly announced that this was not true. His wife’s cover was then blown by the administration including Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Although the right wing propaganda machine insists Valerie Plame was not a covert agent, the CIA, congressional hearings and other public records show that she was, indeed, a covert agent working on nuclear proliferation cases. She was traveling around the world as a covert agent attempting to keep the United States safe by reporting on nuclear activity in other countries including Iran. This brings a new question to mind. Was Valerie Plame’s identity revealed in order to ruin the CIA’s ability to monitor nuclear activity in the middle east and especially in Iran. By outing Valerie Plame the Bush administration not only ruined her long career but also endangered her contacts and put in jeopardy the entire web of contacts and informants of the CIA. This most certainly hindered their ability to accurately inform the President of nuclear proliferation for several years while they re-built their informant list and undercover web. That entire ordeal may have been an attempt to begin another war based on false intelligence and fear.

Iran is intimately connected to our invasion of Iraq in another even more important way. Iraq was formerly controlled by the Sunni sect. Although the sects were able to live together under Saddam it was the Sunni people that were the leading class while the Shiites had little power. Iran is a Shiite nation. When the United States invaded Iraq and created a new government the United States backed the Shiite people to run the country. They tried to set up a democracy where all people could have a say in the government but it was the Shiites that would have controlled the government if everything had gone the way the United States had planned. It does not take a genius to figure out how this fact may influence the future of that region. Iran would love to have Iraq led by Shiites. That would be their dream come true. The conservative talking heads keep complaining about Iran giving weapons to Iraqis. They would only be giving them to the Shiite’s who were originally on our side. We should have seen that one coming and should expect nothing less. The Saudi’s, on the other hand, are supplying more weapons and people than any foreign non-allied nation in the entire war. Saudi Arabia backs the Sunnis who were the original group fighting AGAINST the United States. The Sunnis are the ones who did not participate in the original elections and fought our troops. Why didn’t we hear the administration and the conservative talking heads complaining about Saudi Arabia’s involvement? Bush never mentions Saudi Arabia’s involvement and the fact that they are fighting against us in Iraq because he is friends with the royal family and needs to remain their friend for their oil.

Bush has also destabilized Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The last thing Clinton did before leaving office was to have peace talks and work out an agreement with Israel and Palestine. I’ve seen him speak extensively about his decision to make this a priority in the last months of his Presidency and his struggle to bring peace to that region. Everyone, of course, understands that peace is tenuous at best in that region and that these peace talks were but a first step. Bush, however, has not continued this effort. He has deliberately avoided any peace talks with any country in the past 7 years. He pushed for elections in Lebanon even though several other countries cautioned him that it was too soon. Other leaders understood that elections in Lebanon would mean Hezbollah would win. Bush ignored them and Hezbollah and another anti-Syrian group won most of the seats in Parliament. This election then led to the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006. After the war began the United States refused to force peace talks between the nations and allowed the fighting to continue until the U.N. finally put a stop to the violence.

Another factor in that war was Iran. Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran all felt much more comfortable that they could “get away with” violence in the region with the United States bogged down in a quagmire of violence in Iraq. Lebanon’s newly formed government was overwhelmingly Shiite and supported by Iran. The government was also anti Syria. With the United States preoccupied and without their usual moral authority (it is hard to tell people not to fight each other when you have invaded a sovereign nation without cause or provocation) it was the perfect time for Lebanon to provoke Israel. After the short war, southern Lebanon was left destroyed. The United States offered money to the government to rebuild but Iran gave cash to each person whose home was destroyed by the war. Iran sent contractors and equipment and started the rebuilding efforts the next day. Ahmadinejad may be an extremist with some crazy ideas but he knows how to turn popular opinion.

Attacking Iran at this point would be the final nail in the complete annihilation of a stabile middle east. The United States does not have the military force to sustain an attack against Iran. Right now we could still undo some of the damage and preserve the support of the Iranian people. They like the west and western ideas. If we bomb them we have lost it forever. We would also gain nothing by bombing Iran. Ahmadinejad would become more powerful. Syria, Lebanon and even their arch enemy Iraq would support them instead of us. China would even be angry with us and they hold all of our war debt and have the capability of crashing our entire economic system. It is time for diplomacy with Iran and it is time to stop the threats of more war that we can not possibly sustain. Iran has a much stronger army than we do at this point. We would have to reinstitute the draft to sustain a war with Iran. All of this to stop a country from gaining nuclear capabilities in possibly 10 years that they could never ever hope to use. Israel has an estimated 200 nuclear weapons. Iran will never be stupid enough to launch a nuclear weapon toward Israel. They would be just like Pakistan is now. They would have a nuclear weapon that they could never use. It would simply be insurance that no one would mess with them. More nuclear weapons is certainly not the best idea. The more there are the more chance there is that some terrorist will have access to one. Now, however, is the time for diplomacy to stop the further development of these weapons. Threats of war will only encourage countries to develop them to protect themselves.

Finally, and most important to our safety AT HOME, all of our policies in the middle east have increased terrorism around the world. If our goal was really to fight terrorism we have done a terrible job of achieving our goal. The United States has helped Al Queda in ways that they could have never previously dreamed possible. On 9/11 we had the sympathy of every nation in the world. Even our enemies offered to help us and were willing to give us the perpetrators. The United States has turned many of those countries against us. By invading a sovereign nation with no means to defend itself we did not look heroic and strong but like a bully picking on a child. By lying and ignoring international laws we have become hated and maligned. By stooping to the level of the terrorists and torturing people, we have helped fuel an insurgence and a groundswell of support for Al Queda. Al Queda makes 100 times the amount of money they used to make and that money is coming from Iraq. Most of the money supporting Al Queda is coming from United States tax dollars in Iraq says a recent national security document. Contractors pay off Iraqis who then fund Al Queda. There could have been no better recruiting tool for Al Queda than to start another war in the middle east. Bush has given Osama bin Laden another gift. The gift of another generation of extremists who hate the United States more than the first and who are willing to die for that hate. Osama bin Laden is still alive to gloat because we let him go. Americans are much less safe because of our policies abroad and everyone in the world knows it but us.

There are things that would make us safer at home. Increasing border security would make us safer. Inspecting all cargo entering the United States would make us safer. Developing a better system for identifying foreign citizens who have stayed longer than their visa permitted our who have come to America on a student visa but have never attended a class would make us safer. There are hundred of ways to make our country safer here at home. The 9/11 commission had many suggestions that the administration has completely ignored. Bush is convinced the only way to fight terrorism is to ignore the problems at home and invade countries abroad. This has only made us more vulnerable. Fighting them over there does not mean they will not come over here. It only gives them more reason to come over here. We need to stop listening to this nonsensical rhetoric and adopt the suggestions of the 9/11 commission. Now that democrats control congress they have started this very process but they need a veto proof majority to do it. Bush would rather veto bills that adopt 9/11 commission recommendations than admit that he should have done them 5 years ago.

Another thing that would make us safer at home would be to have our troops home. They would be here to help us during natural disasters such as Katrina. They would be here to help patrol our borders and inspect cargo. They would be here to defend us during an attack. They would be stronger if they were well rested and trained properly. They would be ready to defend us abroad if needed. They would be stronger if they could buy the proper vehicles and armor and build up their forces. We would be safer at home if we had a strong military that was ready to defend against a real enemy.

Finally, the best way to defend America is to stick to the ideals that made us a great nation. Our nation condemned the use of torture during World War II. We should not use it now. When asked whether water boarding is torture Rudi Giuliani replied that it depends on who is doing it. This is exactly the attitude that any torturer takes. Every country could justify what they do because they have a “good reason.” Water boarding was wrong during the Spanish inquisition, it was wrong when Japan did it to our soldiers and it continues to be wrong even if we have a really good reason. We hung the Japanese torturers who used this technique on our soldiers. If we do not want other people to torture our soldiers then we must refrain from torturing. It is the best way to help protect our soldiers and our citizens and it is the best way to protect the law.

We also have laws against domestic spying. If law enforcement officials suspect terrorist activity they can get a warrant to listen to phone calls before they listen or even within 3 days after they do. The FISA court was specifically designed for this purpose and has worked for years. Bush argues that getting a warrant is not “fast enough” but this makes no sense considering warrants can be obtained retroactively. The only reason to skip getting a warrant would be if you were spying on someone that the court would not approve such as a political opponent, a peace activist or other citizen who opposes you politically. This is in violation of our civil liberties as Americans and should not be tolerated. Republicans who deny that this is a big deal would certainly feel differently if Bill Clinton had done the same. This is exactly why we have laws. So that some things are wrong regardless of who does it or why they do it. If laws did not apply to everyone then people would take the law into their own hands all the time. If someone abused your daughter would you be allowed to go kill him or torture him? That would be a good reason to kill or torture someone yet it is still against the law. If you think your neighbor took your favorite hammer should you be allowed to break into his house to look for it? That would be illegal because you need more than just a good reason.

Americans need to pay attention and pay attention now. Fight’m over there is a bumper sticker and a lie. Fight’m over there is nothing more than the U.S. poking a hornets nest with a big stick. It is not working and it will not work. It makes the U.S. weaker by taking away our allies, our moral authority, our military strength, our peace keeping capabilities and our civil rights. Fight’m over there is a myth that needs to be busted just as the myth of Iran’s nuclear weapons was busted. The U.S. intelligence agencies knew that if they did not come out with the truth their leader would start a war. It is time for us, as Americans, to stand up and say “No more lies.” Americans need to stop believing the myth and instead seek the truth before the most beloved and strongest nation in the world becomes the most hated and weakest nation.

Fight'm Over There!?!

2007-12-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

Is the American psyche really so fragile? Do we take on views and beliefs based on a bumper sticker type sound bite that have been repeated millions of times by our government and its’ propaganda machine? “Fight’m over there so we don’t fight’m over here” is one such sound bite that has penetrated the American psyche and become truth to millions of Americans. This sound bite, however, has no basis in reality and does not even make sense on multiple levels. It doesn’t stop millions of Americans from repeating it ad nauseam as a reason to continue a war seemingly forever. “Fight’m over there” has become the mantra of conservatives all over the United States.

First I must point out that 9/11 happened not because of terrorists “over there” but because of terrorists already here. There were people being trained by United States citizens to fly planes. Yes, they may have been acting on orders from people “over there” but taking over any number of countries would not have stopped this act. There was no single country that was responsible for this attack. 9/11 was planned by a few individuals and carried out by a handful more. Most of these individuals were from Saudi Arabia.

Sometimes the government and the media like to pretend that they have no idea why the terrorists attacked us. In fact, these individuals carried out this attack because of our policies and interference with Iraq, Afghanistan, and other middle eastern nations. We know this because they told us. We helped them drive Russia from Afghanistan and then we ignored them while the Taliban took over. We attacked Iraq and drove them out of Kuwait and then we left them with permanent basis in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. We have left troops in their countries and they don’t like it. Fighting “over there” actually caused the attack over here.

Our recent efforts to fight over there have destabilized the entire region much more than had we left it alone. Everyone in this country supported the invasion of Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden. Everyone in this country supported the U.S. troops’ use of force to oust the Taliban government in Afghanistan. President Bush, however, pulled our forces out of this country in the middle of the operation in order to begin another war. The direct cause of this decision was the destabilization of Afghanistan and the escape of Osama bin Laden. Our brave and heroic military had Osama bin Laden on the run and hiding. All they had to do was go find him. Rather than finish the job Bush ordered that they let local groups capture him so that Bush could pull the troops out and send them to Iraq. This resulted in Osama bin Laden paying off the locals so that he could escape. Now, if Bush was really out to get the 9/11 terrorists “smoke’m out, dead or alive, head on a silver platter” then why would he allow bin Laden to escape? By leaving Afghanistan prematurely it allowed the Taliban to come back in and retake much of the region. Right after 9/11 the conservatives were suddenly so concerned with women’s rights in Afghanistan and the horrendous living conditions imposed by the Taliban for women in the region. Then they left those women to suffer the same fate at the hands of the same group so that they could go fight in Iraq. The irony is that the U.S. did the exact same thing after we helped free Afghanistan from Russia and this is why Osama bin Laden first started to hate us. The United States trained bin Laden to fight the Russians and we promised him support. When the Russians left we did not support the new government and this allowed the Taliban to take control and made Osama bin Laden our enemy. This is not ancient history. Why did we not learn from it?

We have also destabilized Pakistan because of our meddling. The Pakistani President supported the U.S. and let the U.S. use his country to attack Afghanistan. This left him vulnerable to extremists who are anti-American and paint him as a collaborator with the United States and the west. As our reputation as an inhumane conqueror of middle eastern countries grows the Pakistani President’s enemies gain ground politically. Destabilization in this country is extremely dangerous because they have nuclear capability. If terrorists or even an unfriendly elected government takes over Pakistan the region could be in BIG trouble. It would be our fault.

Then there is the entire Arabian Peninsula. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Some people, who aren’t paying attention, still believe that they were somehow involved even though Bush and Cheney both have said clearly that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It is another example of saying something enough that it becomes true in the minds of citizens. The media and the conservatives have linked Iraq and 9/11 in sentences so many times that people are confused. It is obvious that this was intentional. Saddam Hussein was an evil man. He did terrible things to the people of Iraq. Everyone agrees that this is a fact. The problem is that there are many evil leaders in the world. At what point does another country need to step in and stop this evil from taking place? International law says that we cannot invade another country unless they are a threat to us. The Downing Street minutes made it quite clear that we did not have any evidence that Iraq could in any way be a threat to the United States. The Iraq inspectors said that Iraq was not a danger to the United States. To solve the problem the United States deliberately fabricated evidence to make it seem like we had evidence that Iraq was a threat to us so that we could invade. There is a mountain of evidence that the United States deliberately deceived the people of the world into believing that Iraq was a threat when in fact it was not a threat to anyone.

Attacking Iraq had nothing to do with saving the Kurds. Saddam did attack the Kurds with a terrible nerve gas but this was before the first Gulf War. My husband and others fought in this war so that Saddam would no longer have the power to do such a thing. It worked. He was no longer a threat to his neighbors and did not posses any weapons of mass destruction that he could use against his own people, his neighbors or especially not us. Saddam also was an enemy to the Taliban, Al Queda and Osama bin Laden. Any one in Al Queda would have been in grave danger in Iraq. Had we played our cards differently Saddam would have probably helped us round up any Al Queda members in Iraq … if there were any. Evidence shows that there were not any because Saddam was careful not to let anyone like that in his country live. Again, not necessarily a positive trait however it ruins any argument that we were going after the terrorists who caused 9/11 when we attacked Iraq.

Attacking Iraq had nothing to do with protecting the Iraqis from torture. I think we proved this when we started torturing them even using some of the same techniques that Saddam used. If you are going to claim moral superiority as a reason to take over a country then you have to maintain moral superiority during the fight. We have not.

Another argument about Iraq that I have heard a lot from conservatives is that Saddam was thinking about making weapons of mass destruction. International law does not really allow you to bomb or take over a country because of what they might be thinking about doing sometime in the future. They created this law so that countries could not invade other countries claiming that there might be a threat at some time. If all countries ignored the law as we have then everyone could invade whomever they wanted whenever they wanted without consequence. When Pakistan developed their nuclear weapons program we stopped China and India from wiping them off the planet by using the argument that you can’t bomb a country just because they may be a threat sometime in the future. Actually, Hitler used the argument that he could invade Poland because he thought they might be a threat sometime in the future. Hitler also had his own army fake attacks against Germany and blame Poland in an attempt to show a reason to attack Poland. Look how that worked out. Maybe these international laws were created for a reason!

The destabilization in Iraq was the biggest miscalculation and mistake (if it was a mistake) in military history. The country of Iraq was glued together with gum and twine, which was only held together by Saddam. As evil as he was, he was the only thing that held together the Sunnis the Shiites and the Kurds in relative peace and tranquility. These three groups shared neighborhoods, shopped at the same markets and worked together peacefully under Saddam. Christians and Jews, although in the minority, were also a part of these communities. Iraq was not an ideal situation, however the sectarian violence that we see today was not present. Even after the start of the Iraq War the sectarian violence did not exist until the U.S. started it. I saw an entire PBS special about this very topic. Top military and diplomatic leaders from the United States made serious mistakes after the invasion that resulted in the current sectarian violence. Those responsible admit this freely. Why does the mainstream American public not recognize this? Also, by starting this war in Iraq we have let Al Queda come into a country where they could not exist before. They continue to be a very small part of the problem in Iraq, however before we opened the door for them they were not a part of the equation at all.

Iran was the next country who was changed by our involvement in the region. Iran has an extremely young population (mostly because of the war with Iraq years ago). This population of young people is one of the most progressive populations in all of the middle east. They overwhelmingly like and approve of the United States and western culture and have many more individual rights and freedoms than their middle eastern counterparts. Although they elected their current prime minister, Ahmadinejad, public opinion was against him. He had been trying to take away some of the freedoms that the younger generation had come to enjoy and they were ready to get rid of him. Not only that but one must remember that he actually has very little control over foreign policy in Iraq. He is the figure head of the government. He is not the one in control. According to the constitution, the supreme leader of Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last say in internal and foreign policies including the commandment of the armed forces and the declaration of war.

Public opinion was so negative toward Ahmadinejad that many people expected that he would not continue to be Prime Minister much longer. Unfortunately, the United States has succeeded in changing much of this public opinion and has instead helped Ahmadinejad remain Prime Minister. First Bush identified Iran as the “Axis of Evil.” This served to scare the Iranians into believing that Bush may just start attacking them for no reason just as he had done to Iraq. Then, when Ahmadinejad started to stand up for Iran and faced off with Bush this helped him gain popularity with Iranians who had been ready to get rid of him. Nothing helps secure your popularity like standing up to a bully in support of your country. It makes no difference that the man is crazy and a loose cannon. To the Iranians, he is willing to protect them and stand up against the United States which is necessary now that the United States is ignoring international law and randomly attacking other countries.

Now, if you were a country that had been identified as belonging to the “Axis of Evil” along with Iraq and North Korea what would you do? Iraq could do nothing because they had been sanctioned for 15 years so they were invaded and taken over. First Jimmy Carter and then Madeline Albright had negotiated with North Korea to keep them from developing a nuclear program. North Korea had been cooperating for years (although they occasionally flexed their muscles and had to be “dealt with”). North Korea decided to stop cooperating with those agreements the day after the axis of evil speech. They turned off the agreed upon cameras and started their nuclear program back up again. Bush ignored North Korea because he was distracted by Iraq and because he refuses to speak to North Korea and now North Korea has a nuclear program. Now Bush would not dream of invading North Korea.

The Iranians were left with little choice but to start talking about nuclear technology. Bush refused to speak to Iran diplomatically and instead continued to call them names and attempt to provoke them. Bush has placed huge war ships in the Persian Gulf in an obvious attempt to provoke Iran and even forced a false flag episode between Iran and Britain. Fortunately, Ahmadinejad has not been easily provoked. He returned the British seamen after the false flag event and put all nuclear interests on hold after diplomatic talks with several countries (NOT the United States) in 2003. Bush was informed by all 16 intelligence agencies in August (or even before) that Iran had suspended its nuclear program in 2003 because of diplomatic pressure by other countries. Bush, however, continued his bomb Iran, axis of evil rhetoric until November when the NIE became public. Joe Biden said it best when he stated that Bush was either lying or incompetent and asked Bush to pick which. Bush has known for many months, if not years that Iran was no threat to us and had no nuclear program yet he continued to try to mislead Americans into believing that we were about to go to war with Iran. Had the NIE not been made public by the intelligence agencies Bush may have even started World War III with the blessing of many Americans who did not know the truth. When Ahmadinejad begins to look like a reasonable man seeking peace and stability compared to your own leader you must begin to wonder what we, as Americans, are doing.
The entire situation becomes even more muddled when you consider the role of CIA agent Valerie Plame in the mix of events. Most people have assumed that Valerie Plame was revealed as a CIA agent and her career ruined as retribution for her husband, Joe Wilson’s, revelation that a sentence in the President’s state of the union address was false. Wilson had been sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate claims that Iraq had sought yellow cake uranium from this country. Joe Wilson found no such evidence and reported this to the President. The President, however, included the claim that Iraq had yellow cake uranium from Niger in his state of the union address. Joe Wilson publicly announced that this was not true. His wife’s cover was then blown by the administration including Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Although the right wing propaganda machine insists Valerie Plame was not a covert agent, the CIA, congressional hearings and other public records show that she was, indeed, a covert agent working on nuclear proliferation cases. She was traveling around the world as a covert agent attempting to keep the United States safe by reporting on nuclear activity in other countries including Iran. This brings a new question to mind. Was Valerie Plame’s identity revealed in order to ruin the CIA’s ability to monitor nuclear activity in the middle east and especially in Iran. By outing Valerie Plame the Bush administration not only ruined her long career but also endangered her contacts and put in jeopardy the entire web of contacts and informants of the CIA. This most certainly hindered their ability to accurately inform the President of nuclear proliferation for several years while they re-built their informant list and undercover web. That entire ordeal may have been an attempt to begin another war based on false intelligence and fear.

Iran is intimately connected to our invasion of Iraq in another even more important way. Iraq was formerly controlled by the Sunni sect. Although the sects were able to live together under Saddam it was the Sunni people that were the leading class while the Shiites had little power. Iran is a Shiite nation. When the United States invaded Iraq and created a new government the United States backed the Shiite people to run the country. They tried to set up a democracy where all people could have a say in the government but it was the Shiites that would have controlled the government if everything had gone the way the United States had planned. It does not take a genius to figure out how this fact may influence the future of that region. Iran would love to have Iraq led by Shiites. That would be their dream come true. The conservative talking heads keep complaining about Iran giving weapons to Iraqis. They would only be giving them to the Shiite’s who were originally on our side. We should have seen that one coming and should expect nothing less. The Saudi’s, on the other hand, are supplying more weapons and people than any foreign non-allied nation in the entire war. Saudi Arabia backs the Sunnis who were the original group fighting AGAINST the United States. The Sunnis are the ones who did not participate in the original elections and fought our troops. Why didn’t we hear the administration and the conservative talking heads complaining about Saudi Arabia’s involvement? Bush never mentions Saudi Arabia’s involvement and the fact that they are fighting against us in Iraq because he is friends with the royal family and needs to remain their friend for their oil.

Bush has also destabilized Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The last thing Clinton did before leaving office was to have peace talks and work out an agreement with Israel and Palestine. I’ve seen him speak extensively about his decision to make this a priority in the last months of his Presidency and his struggle to bring peace to that region. Everyone, of course, understands that peace is tenuous at best in that region and that these peace talks were but a first step. Bush, however, has not continued this effort. He has deliberately avoided any peace talks with any country in the past 7 years. He pushed for elections in Lebanon even though several other countries cautioned him that it was too soon. Other leaders understood that elections in Lebanon would mean Hezbollah would win. Bush ignored them and Hezbollah and another anti-Syrian group won most of the seats in Parliament. This election then led to the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006. After the war began the United States refused to force peace talks between the nations and allowed the fighting to continue until the U.N. finally put a stop to the violence.

Another factor in that war was Iran. Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran all felt much more comfortable that they could “get away with” violence in the region with the United States bogged down in a quagmire of violence in Iraq. Lebanon’s newly formed government was overwhelmingly Shiite and supported by Iran. The government was also anti Syria. With the United States preoccupied and without their usual moral authority (it is hard to tell people not to fight each other when you have invaded a sovereign nation without cause or provocation) it was the perfect time for Lebanon to provoke Israel. After the short war, southern Lebanon was left destroyed. The United States offered money to the government to rebuild but Iran gave cash to each person whose home was destroyed by the war. Iran sent contractors and equipment and started the rebuilding efforts the next day. Ahmadinejad may be an extremist with some crazy ideas but he knows how to turn popular opinion.

Attacking Iran at this point would be the final nail in the complete annihilation of a stabile middle east. The United States does not have the military force to sustain an attack against Iran. Right now we could still undo some of the damage and preserve the support of the Iranian people. They like the west and western ideas. If we bomb them we have lost it forever. We would also gain nothing by bombing Iran. Ahmadinejad would become more powerful. Syria, Lebanon and even their arch enemy Iraq would support them instead of us. China would even be angry with us and they hold all of our war debt and have the capability of crashing our entire economic system. It is time for diplomacy with Iran and it is time to stop the threats of more war that we can not possibly sustain. Iran has a much stronger army than we do at this point. We would have to reinstitute the draft to sustain a war with Iran. All of this to stop a country from gaining nuclear capabilities in possibly 10 years that they could never ever hope to use. Israel has an estimated 200 nuclear weapons. Iran will never be stupid enough to launch a nuclear weapon toward Israel. They would be just like Pakistan is now. They would have a nuclear weapon that they could never use. It would simply be insurance that no one would mess with them. More nuclear weapons is certainly not the best idea. The more there are the more chance there is that some terrorist will have access to one. Now, however, is the time for diplomacy to stop the further development of these weapons. Threats of war will only encourage countries to develop them to protect themselves.

Finally, and most important to our safety AT HOME, all of our policies in the middle east have increased terrorism around the world. If our goal was really to fight terrorism we have done a terrible job of achieving our goal. The United States has helped Al Queda in ways that they could have never previously dreamed possible. On 9/11 we had the sympathy of every nation in the world. Even our enemies offered to help us and were willing to give us the perpetrators. The United States has turned many of those countries against us. By invading a sovereign nation with no means to defend itself we did not look heroic and strong but like a bully picking on a child. By lying and ignoring international laws we have become hated and maligned. By stooping to the level of the terrorists and torturing people, we have helped fuel an insurgence and a groundswell of support for Al Queda. Al Queda makes 100 times the amount of money they used to make and that money is coming from Iraq. Most of the money supporting Al Queda is coming from United States tax dollars in Iraq says a recent national security document. Contractors pay off Iraqis who then fund Al Queda. There could have been no better recruiting tool for Al Queda than to start another war in the middle east. Bush has given Osama bin Laden another gift. The gift of another generation of extremists who hate the United States more than the first and who are willing to die for that hate. Osama bin Laden is still alive to gloat because we let him go. Americans are much less safe because of our policies abroad and everyone in the world knows it but us.

There are things that would make us safer at home. Increasing border security would make us safer. Inspecting all cargo entering the United States would make us safer. Developing a better system for identifying foreign citizens who have stayed longer than their visa permitted our who have come to America on a student visa but have never attended a class would make us safer. There are hundred of ways to make our country safer here at home. The 9/11 commission had many suggestions that the administration has completely ignored. Bush is convinced the only way to fight terrorism is to ignore the problems at home and invade countries abroad. This has only made us more vulnerable. Fighting them over there does not mean they will not come over here. It only gives them more reason to come over here. We need to stop listening to this nonsensical rhetoric and adopt the suggestions of the 9/11 commission. Now that democrats control congress they have started this very process but they need a veto proof majority to do it. Bush would rather veto bills that adopt 9/11 commission recommendations than admit that he should have done them 5 years ago.

Another thing that would make us safer at home would be to have our troops home. They would be here to help us during natural disasters such as Katrina. They would be here to help patrol our borders and inspect cargo. They would be here to defend us during an attack. They would be stronger if they were well rested and trained properly. They would be ready to defend us abroad if needed. They would be stronger if they could buy the proper vehicles and armor and build up their forces. We would be safer at home if we had a strong military that was ready to defend against a real enemy.

Finally, the best way to defend America is to stick to the ideals that made us a great nation. Our nation condemned the use of torture during World War II. We should not use it now. When asked whether water boarding is torture Rudi Giuliani replied that it depends on who is doing it. This is exactly the attitude that any torturer takes. Every country could justify what they do because they have a “good reason.” Water boarding was wrong during the Spanish inquisition, it was wrong when Japan did it to our soldiers and it continues to be wrong even if we have a really good reason. We hung the Japanese torturers who used this technique on our soldiers. If we do not want other people to torture our soldiers then we must refrain from torturing. It is the best way to help protect our soldiers and our citizens and it is the best way to protect the law.

We also have laws against domestic spying. If law enforcement officials suspect terrorist activity they can get a warrant to listen to phone calls before they listen or even within 3 days after they do. The FISA court was specifically designed for this purpose and has worked for years. Bush argues that getting a warrant is not “fast enough” but this makes no sense considering warrants can be obtained retroactively. The only reason to skip getting a warrant would be if you were spying on someone that the court would not approve such as a political opponent, a peace activist or other citizen who opposes you politically. This is in violation of our civil liberties as Americans and should not be tolerated. Republicans who deny that this is a big deal would certainly feel differently if Bill Clinton had done the same. This is exactly why we have laws. So that some things are wrong regardless of who does it or why they do it. If laws did not apply to everyone then people would take the law into their own hands all the time. If someone abused your daughter would you be allowed to go kill him or torture him? That would be a good reason to kill or torture someone yet it is still against the law. If you think your neighbor took your favorite hammer should you be allowed to break into his house to look for it? That would be illegal because you need more than just a good reason.

Americans need to pay attention and pay attention now. Fight’m over there is a bumper sticker and a lie. Fight’m over there is nothing more than the U.S. poking a hornets nest with a big stick. It is not working and it will not work. It makes the U.S. weaker by taking away our allies, our moral authority, our military strength, our peace keeping capabilities and our civil rights. Fight’m over there is a myth that needs to be busted just as the myth of Iran’s nuclear weapons was busted. The U.S. intelligence agencies knew that if they did not come out with the truth their leader would start a war. It is time for us, as Americans, to stand up and say “No more lies.” Americans need to stop believing the myth and instead seek the truth before the most beloved and strongest nation in the world becomes the most hated and weakest nation.

The Real Cost of War

2007-10-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

I received this by e-mail from a good friend. I am so glad that someone took the time to write this all down in understandable form so that people can see what the true cost of war is.

As of Sept 16 2007
3,777 US Soldiers Killed, 27,848 Seriously Wounded
For your quick reading, I've listed key statistics about the Iraq War, taken primarily from data analyzed by various think tanks, including The Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, and from mainstream media sources. Data is presented as of September 12, 2007, except as indicated.
US SPENDING IN IRAQ
Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $600 billion of US taxpayers' funds. President Bush is expected to request another $200 billion for 2008, which would bring the cumulative total to close to $800 billion.
U.S. Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion, in 2007
U.S. Daily Spending in Iraq - over $200 million, in 2007
Cost of deploying one U.S. soldier for one year in Iraq - $390,000 (Congressional Research Service)
Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.
Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings
Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion
Amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 billion
Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem "questionable or supportable" - $3.2 billion
Number of major U.S. bases in Iraq - 75 (The Nation/New York Times)
TROOPS IN IRAQ
Iraqi Troops Trained and Able to Function Independent of U.S. Forces - 6,000 as of May 2007 (per NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 20, 2007)
Troops in Iraq - Total 179,685, including 168,000 from the US, 5,500 from the UK, 1,200 from South Korea and 4,985 from all other nations
US Troop Casualities - 3,777 US troops; 98% male. 90% non-officers; 80% active duty, 12% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 18% killed by non-hostile causes. 51% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 70% were from the US Army
Non-US Troop Casualties - Total 298, with 169 from the UK
US Troops Wounded - 27,848, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)
US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home
US Military Helicopters Downed in Iraq - 68 total, at least 36 by enemy fire
IRAQI TROOPS, CIVILIANS & OTHERS IN IRAQ
Private Contractors in Iraq, Working in Support of US Army Troops - More than 180,000 in August 2007, per The Nation/LA Times.
Journalists killed - 112, 74 by murder and 38 by acts of war
Journalists killed by US Forces - 14
Iraqi Police and Soldiers Killed - 7,442
Iraqi Civilians Killed, Estimated - A UN issued report dated Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian casualities have been significantly under-reported. Casualties are reported at 50,000 to over 100,000, but may be much higher. Some informed estimates place Iraqi civilian casualities at over 600,000.
Iraqi Insurgents Killed, Roughly Estimated - 55,000
Non-Iraqi Contractors and Civilian Workers Killed - 539
Non-Iraqi Kidnapped - 305, including 54 killed, 147 released, 4 escaped, 6 rescued and 94 status unknown.
Daily Insurgent Attacks, Feb 2004 - 14
Daily Insurgent Attacks, July 2005 - 70
Daily Insurgent Attacks, May 2007 - 163
Estimated Insurgency Strength, Nov 2003 - 15,000
Estimated Insurgency Strength, Oct 2006 - 20,000 - 30,000
Estimated Insurgency Strength, June 2007 - 70,000
QUALITY OF LIFE INDICATORS
Iraqis Displaced Inside Iraq, by Iraq War, as of May 2007 - 2,135,000
Iraqi Refugees in Syria & Jordan - 1.3 million to 1.75 million
Iraqi Unemployment Rate - 27 to 60%, where curfew not in effect
Consumer Price Inflation in 2006 - 50%
Iraqi Children Suffering from Chronic Malnutrition - 28% in June 2007 (Per CNN.com, July 30, 2007)
Percent of professionals who have left Iraq since 2003 - 40%
Iraqi Physicians Before 2003 Invasion - 34,000
Iraqi Physicians Who Have Left Iraq Since 2005 Invasion - 12,000
Iraqi Physicians Murdered Since 2003 Invasion - 2,000
Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 1 to 2 hours, per Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (Per Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2007)
Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 10.9 in May 2007
Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 5.6 in May 2007
Pre-War Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 16 to 24
Number of Iraqi Homes Connected to Sewer Systems - 37%
Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies - 70% (Per CNN.com, July 30, 2007)
Water Treatment Plants Rehabilitated - 22%
RESULTS OF POLL Taken in Iraq in August 2005 by the British Ministry of Defense (Source: Brookings Institute)
Iraqis "strongly opposed to presence of coalition troops - 82%
Iraqis who believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security - less than 1%
Iraqis who feel less secure because of the occupation - 67%
Iraqis who do not have confidence in multi-national forces - 72%

Perverted Christianity

2006-10-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been reading my blog you know that I used to be a republican. I was raised as a republican. In high school I rode a chartered jet to Washington, D.C. with my father, Rep. John Kasaich and a several other of his supporters for a weekend of meeting high profile political figures, fancy dinners and tourist activities as a gift for our support. I met Elizabeth Dole, then secretary of transportation, and many other cabinet members of the Reagan administration. I dined at the Turkish embassy and had chocolate covered strawberries at a reception with John Kasaich where I spoke to him about how well he conducted my high school band at the football game that year. I tell you this not to brag but to put my blog in perspective.

I joke that it was not me who left the republican party, it was them who left me behind. This is only half true. Having graduated from Hiram College with a degree in elementary education and psychology and then with a Master's degree in psychology it was difficult for me to support a party with such poor ideas about education and health care and mental health. As a practicing clinical therapist I really had a hard time with the republican treatment of the poor, the mentally ill and women (especially singe mothers). I continued to support the party, however, maybe out of respect for my father or perhaps out of indifference. Partly because throughout my life I had heard such negative things about democrats from my father that I simply trusted his opinion. I remember being particularly upset during the Reagan years about the deficit. Maybe I was so upset because my dad is a CPA. Ironically he didn't seem to have a problem with the deficit, that I remember anyway. I also have always been very concerned about the environment and endangered species which is also at odds with the republican party. So you see it was not all their fault that I left. Partly it was because they never really represented my interests and concerns in the first place.

Bill Clinton played a part as well. I voted against him in the first election and was one of those college students "moving to Canada" if he won. Several years later I had changed my mind. Bill Clinton did amazing things for this country and I believed in Clinton even as I voted the entire republican ticket like a good republican (except Clinton's second election when I voted for him). I opened my mind, saw what the man did for the economy, for mental health, for the poor and I liked what I saw. He balanced budgets and reduced the deficit which was a huge load off my mind (I really did worry about it a lot). It was something the republican's had said could not be done. I loved what he attempted to do with health care and was heart broken along with him when he failed. When he spoke I listened and did not get distracted or bored. I remember listening to his state of the union address in 1998 as my 4 month old daughter swung in her baby swing and we both stared at the TV during the entire speech. I could go on and on but I must say that Bill Clinton made me an independent. I no longer blindly followed wherever the republican party wanted me to go. I started to pay attention, to think and to vote my beliefs.

Then the republican party used my religion to get votes. They used Christianity to justify war and they perverted it's basic tenets to support their radical ideology. When I recognized that they were using Christians to advance their non-Christian agenda I stopped being a republican and I became angry. I became angry at the hypocrisy of using Christianity to win elections and then subverting it at every turn. I could see that they formed the faith based initiative to get votes and then completely ignored it after the election. I could see that tax breaks for companies moving jobs oversees hurt the least among us in our nation. I could see the administration supporting coal companies who made money by ignoring safety regulations and EPA mandates. I could see the administration nominating party hacks to top level positions in the EPA, FDA and other regulatory agencies in order to make these agencies disfunctional and therefore help big business subvert safety regulations and policies. These were not policies of a Christian administration. I became disenchanted.

My husband is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War. His best friend died in the conflict. He kept telling me that George Bush was going to use 9/11 to invade Iraq. I told him he was crazy. I told him that he could not get away with using a national tragedy to invade a sovereign nation who was not involved in any way to 9/11. I was wrong. I under estimated the fear and anger of the people of our country and the willingness of this party to lie and use tragedy to their advantage. I was perhaps naive. Then the republicans committed the ultimate in heresy in my opinion. They used Christianity to support war, torture, and lies. They associated Christianity with patriotism in a way that it made anyone who did not support the administration both un-American and anti-Christian. I'm still not sure how so many Christians followed like sheep as this new form of perverted Christianity took hold in the United States. The Pope tried to snap Americans out of this "God loves us and hates them" frenzy but he was feeble and died right in the middle of the conflict. Protestant leaders attempted to remind people of the basic Christian tenets but to no avail. Far right Christian political operatives had already created quite a following through e-mail, radio and TV. Christ's truth had little chance of getting through.

Now I'm mad. I am a mad that the Christianity of the media and of so many Americans is perverted into something I don't recognize. I'm mad that love of Christ has been so closely associated with love of country and love of president that many Christians can no longer tell the difference. I am mad that the republican party that I once supported no longer exists. At first I thought maybe it never existed in the first place and perhaps I was just stupid or naive. Stephanie Miller was the first to make me feel better. Her dad ran for Vice President with Barry Goldwater years ago and lost. She frequently says that her father would not recognize the republican party of today and would disagree with many of their actions and beliefs. The party used to be for less government and fiscal responsibility. Both ideas are not only forgotten by this party but the opposite holds true for most members. The neo cons are for more government invasion into everyone's lives and fiscal irresponsibility that has no rival in history. After many years of this sort of big government spending, and invasion into personal lives of Americans the old school republicans are starting to speak out. At first, I'm sure, they kept quiet because they figured republicans subverting the ideas of the party are better than democrats in the end. They changed their mind. It started with the Generals and joint chief of staff speaking out about the military policies of the president. All were handily given their walking papers and forgotten. Now former republican operatives, cabinet members and staffers have echoed my belief that the republican party is no longer the party of Reagan and Nixon and others before them. From wire tapping to gay marriage to suspension of habeas corpus they are speaking out about government invasion into the lives of citizens. From government contracts to uncontrollable government spending they are speaking out against the neo cons and attempting to take back their party. I have spent this election trying to get the neo cons out of office but I also, in the process, want to take back my religion.

Just as the old republicans don't recognize their party I don't recognize my Christianity anymore. My Christianity was about do unto others as you would have them do. My Christianity was about what you do to the least of those among you is the measure by which you will be judged. My Christianity is about helping those who can not help themselves and trusting God to take care of you and to stop your enemies. I believe that Christians stopped trusting God on 9/11. They stopped trusting God to protect them and they decided to take matters into their own hands. They decided to forget all of those passages about loving your neighbor and your enemies and they decided that God is no good at protecting the United States. They talk the good talk, about God Bless America and all, but they do not believe it anymore. If they believed God was watching over them and protecting them from their enemies they would not be a pro war, pro preemptive strike, pro torture, pro hate religion. They would not be condoning attacks against gay people and middle eastern people and Muslims. If Christians trusted God they would not be so afraid. They would not be afraid of Muslims or terrorists or secular schools or secular courts or gay marriage or evolution. Christians would trust that God knows what he is doing. That the people who do not believe in Him or follow his commandments will be punished and that we, as mere humans, do not have to do the judging and controlling here on earth. Right- wing Christians no longer believe because 9/11 took away their faith in God to protect us. Christians do not even realize that it happened. Fear silently took hold of their belief and morphed it into hate, revenge and loathing and Christians sat back and said, "look what great Christians we have become. We have taken control of our faith and our country and now we are better Christians." We are not better Christians, we have forgotten Christ. Of course, this is a great overgeneralization. There are Christians out there wondering what happened just as I am. I like to think they are the quiet majority. The media portrays all Christians as the other kind. The America before God type of Christians that are secure in their belief that they are going to heaven and the rest of America and the world is going to hell for daring to believe that all people have rights, that war might be wrong and America may not be on the right track.

The latest republican operative daring to speak out about the new republicans is David Kuo. Below is the publisher's description of his new book Tempting Faith in which he describes his transformation from Christian conservative star to Christian speaking out against the wrongs of the republican party. The following was taken from the Barnes and Noble website:

From the PublisherA memoir of politics and faith, by a rising Christian conservative star, up to and including his years working at the Bush White House.
David Kuo came to Washington wanting to use his Christian faith to end abortion, strengthen marriage, and help the poor. He reached the heights of political power, ultimately serving in the White House under George W. Bush, after being policy adviser to John Ashcroft and speech-writer for Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, and Bob Dole. It was a dream come true: the chance to fuse his politics and his faith, and an opportunity for Christians not just to gain a seat at the proverbial table but to plan the entire meal.
Kuo spent nearly three years as second in command at the president's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Yet his experience was deeply troubling. It took both the Bush White House and a severe health crisis to show him how his Christian values, and those of millions of Amer- icans, were being corrupted by politics.
Instead of following the teachings of Jesus to serve the needy, Kuo found himself helping to manipulate religious faith for political gain. Public funds were used in battleground states, for Republican campaign events. The legislative process was used as a football, not to pass laws but to deepen purely symbolic fault lines. Grants were incestuously recycled to political cronies. Both before and after 9/11, despite lofty rhetoric from the president claiming that his faith-based program was one of his most important initiatives, there was no serious attempt to fund valuable charities.
Worst of all was the prevailing attitude in the White House and throughout Washington toward Christian leaders. Key Bush aides and Republican operatives spoke of them with contempt and treated them as useful idiots. It became clear, during regular conference calls arranged from the White House with a key group of Christian leaders, that many of these religious leaders had themselves been utterly seduced by politics.
It is time, Kuo argues, for Christians to take a temporary step back from politics, to turn away from its seductions. Tempting Faith is equal parts headline-making expose, political and spiritual memoir, and heartfelt plea for a Christian reexamination of political involvement.

I can only hope that his book reaches the hearts and mind of those who have left Christ behind but do not realize he is missing. I hope that by telling his story David Kuo can help people realize that they have been used by a well tuned political machine to advance an agenda that had little or nothing to do with Christianity and had everything to do with power. The other day I was speaking to someone at my son's Christian school. A very nice lady who, I'm sure, by any measure would be considered a "good Christian woman." We were talking about public schools and children with learning problems when she said, "You know it was after the last election that I became politically active." I immediately perked up because I too had the same experience. She then said, "You know they are trying to take God out of the classroom and out of the court houses..." I then knew exactly what she was talking about. Do not get me wrong. I do not think that the followers of this train of thought are bad people or bad Christians or evil. I simply think they are being used and their views about faith are being perverted slowly into something that Christianity is not. Something that America is not.

Taking God out of the classroom and the court houses is something that is called a wedge issue. There are lots of these issues out there. Flag burning, abortion, etc. They are actually non-issues. They are issues that will not be resolved or changed in my life time or the life time of my children. Wedge issues are a way to con people into voting for you when you intend to do nothing about the issue for which they are voting. For example, there is no great conspiracy among the democrats to remove the ten commandments from court buildings where it already exists. I believe there was one court case in Kentucky regarding this and the court basically said you can not build new government buildings with the ten commandments included. This is a perfectly legitimate decision given that the country has that pesky freedom of religion clause that our forefathers felt was so important that they put it in the constitution first. If democrats are elected the court case will stand and if republicans are elected the court case will stand. If it goes to the supreme court the court case will stand. Unless you change the actual constitution of the United States and amend it in such a way to remove the freedom of religion then the law will stand as it is. Voting for Bush or Kerry or Brown or DeWine will not change the law.

There is no great democratic conspiracy to try to get a majority so they can start removing the word God from our money. These right wing republican organizations send out irritating e-mails telling their faithful followers that people are trying to take the word God off the money and out of the pledge. My well meaning mother used to forward them to me all the time. Is this based on truth? Perhaps one guy somewhere in Idaho or Maine or wherever sued the government to make a point about freedom of religion. However, that one guy from Idaho is not running for Senate or Congress and even if he did he would never get a proposal of this sort through the house or senate for a vote. It just will not happen. It is a non-issue. It is a scare tactic, a way to get voters fired up enough to go to vote for republicans. Even if the word were removed I doubt churches would have to close for lack of people just because they no longer see the word God on their money. Have you ever seen legislation about this? Republicans have controlled the house and senate for over a decade now. They have controlled the executive branch for 5 years. Have they made any progress on these wedge issues? Of course not. First of all they are non-issues. Secondly, if they pass legislation on abortion or putting the word "God" on money what in the world would they do to get you to vote for them again? They would have to run on things like tax cuts for the rich and creating jobs oversees. They would never be elected again.

This year as Iraq became a quagmire of death and destruction, the Katrina victims continued to have no where to live and energy prices soared our government's agenda included a week of discussion about flag burning. Really! An entire week discussing flag burning. Has there been a recent outbreak of flag burning here in the United States that has not been covered on the news? When is the last time someone burned a flag in America? Is this issue really worth a week out of the 97 days that congress was in session this year? Of course not. Why did the republicans insist on putting it on the agenda? They were performing for their base. Those people out there in the U.S. that think that flag burning is such a burning issue (a little pun there) that they will vote for their Congressman because he introduced an amendment about flag burning. By the way, it did not pass although the republicans are in the majority in both houses of Congress. Wonder why?

Wake up. Christianity has absolutely nothing to do with America's government. Look at my past posts for more historical information if you like but regardless of what your e-mail or televangelists have told you our fore-fathers were against religion being involved in the government. Many were Christians but they deliberately made religion separate so that no one religion, including Christianity, could make the rules for all people. The pilgrims and colonists fled to this country to escape religious persecution by other Christians. Our fore-fathers did not want a king telling everyone which denomination to follow and which customs and beliefs to follow. They set the system up so that a Catholic president could not make divorce and birth control illegal or a Pentecostal president could not make talking in tongues a requirement for Congress. Rather than thanking our fore-fathers for protecting their right to believe crazy, wacko things like pre-emptive war is approved by God, our right wing Christian groups are simply telling everyone a different version of history. Then they tell everyone that if you do not support the president's actions you are not a good American nor a good Christian and therefore you are against the United States and against Christianity. This type of broad generalizations and circular thinking has worked remarkably well by using these wedge issues as political ammunition. For example, if you do not want to make abortion illegal in every circumstance then you are for killing babies. If you are not for taking over a sovereign nation and bombing innocent women and children then you want to help the terrorists kill your children and you are not a Christian. Why does it seem so absurd as I type it but does not seem absurd to people when the administration and FOX news say it over and over again?

I'm tired of Christianity being perverted into something it is not. Christianity should be based on the Bible. It should be based on what Christ said and what Christ did and what Christ taught. Christ did not die so that Americans could spread democracy. He actually did not talk about spreading freedom and democracy to all parts of the globe as some Christians would have you believe. Jesus did not hang an American flag in his hut nor did he feel the government should step in and decide what is morally right or wrong. Jesus did not encourage his disciples to go and lobby Rome for stricter laws regarding homosexuals, divorce and prostitution. He said, "go and sin no more." He did not encourage his disciples to forget their own sin and do something about all the homosexuals running around Israel. Jesus felt the greatest sin was the hypocrisy of the pharasees and the greed of the tax collectors. My husband told me that he saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, "The last time the conservatives persecuated a liberal Christ died." At the end of Jesus' life it was the pharasees who the people believed. Who will you believe?

A sad, sad day

2006-09-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Today is a sad day in our country. Normally I write my blog and sit on it for a month or so before I post it so that I have time to think over what I've written. Not so today. Our country has turned a corner that should have never been turned and undoing that misstep, I'm afraid, will take many years and many lives. Today, September 29, 2006 we have become a nation that approves of torturing human beings. Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive enough to believe that Americans have never tortured other people. I'm sure in times of war and in times of peace the military and other security agency personnel have tortured individuals. As a country, however, the United States was above that. Bad things happen and bad people do bad things but overall torture was not an approved technique of gaining information or of treating people. Veteran military and security agency personnel will tell you that you can gain very little, if any, useful information with the use of physical torture. Psychological interrogation methods work much better. Ask John McCain or others who have been POW's. Prisoners will say anything to make the pain stop but they won't necessarily tell the truth. McCain gave the names of the Packers when tortured instead of the names his torturers were looking for.

America used to be above the use of torture. We were the land of the free and the land of rights for all human beings everywhere. Prosecutors during the Nuremburg trials went out of their way to be sure that the Nazi's had fair trials. Why? Because we were not them...We were above that. Not today. We have become what we have hated most. We have become what we were meant to be fighting. Today Osama bin Laden won. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "there is nothing to fear but fear itself." Today our country gave into fear (again) and let it change our values and our beliefs. We let fear change our laws and threaten our constitution. We let fear win today and by doing so we let the terrorists change us to a nation without freedom, without justice and without civil rights.

Of course it is not the first time in America this has happened. Civil rights and justice were stomped upon during the McCarthy era and in the World War II internment camps. Our country ignored the rights of blacks for decades before recognizing them as human beings. It is not the first time the United States has overlooked civil rights and justice for all. I liked to believe, however, that we wouldn't go backwards. That we had learned from communism and from past mistakes that holding people without due process was wrong. We constantly ridicule China for taking prisoners without charging them, without giving them rights such as rights to a lawyer or the right to know why they are being held. Now we are the same. Today our congress decided that we can take people off the street and imprison them for an undefined period of time without charging them, without providing them a lawyer and without telling them why they have been imprisoned. Our country has agreed that anyone who is "arrested" by our country can be tortured and treated in any manner that our president feels is proper without any oversight by the congress or judiciary. The president does not have to provide evidence as to why this person is believed to be dangerous or have dangerous information. Anyone could be subjected to this torture without cause.

Recently a Canadian citizen was subjected to this torture at the hands of the United States. He was held and tortured and later discovered to be completely innocent of all charges and let go. This could be you or this could be me. I've written lots of negative things about Bush and this government. They could come to my house tomorrow, call me a terrorist and torture me relentlessly for as long as they deem appropriate. There would be no oversight, no lawyer, no one to protect me. My family would not have to be told. This is not a bill that should exist under our constitution or in a democracy. This does not uphold justice or rights or freedom.

For those who think that we can trust the president to choose only those really really bad terrorists to torture...Think again. This president has been approving torture for the past 5 years. Knowing that torture was illegal and against the Geneva convention, this president has approved torture and has created secret prisons in other countries to get around the laws. This president has also lied about those secret prisons until they were discovered and he had to tell the truth. This president has ignored the FISA court and has authorized illegal wiretapping and surveillance of phone and financial records without remorse or apology. This president believes in torture and nominated a Attorney General who is willing to re-write our laws and constitution to support the president's desire to torture people. Isn't this the exact trait that we so abhorred in Saddam Hussein that we felt it necessary to remove him from power? Sean Hannity loves to talk about the rape rooms and torture chambers of Saddam as our reason for taking over Iraq. How can we then do the exact same thing and not be equally abhorrent? The logic escapes me.

There are those in our culture who honestly believe that the end justifies the means. That is no surprise although very sad and frightening. Even if we did get useful intelligence from torture, which has not yet happened and may not ever happen, the end can not justify the means. Torture should never be an approved form of interrogation in our country. The most obvious reason is that we are better than that. We do not approve of it in China or Russia or pre-war Iraq therefore we should not approve of it here. Second, by condoning torture we put ourselves and our own troops in more danger than ever before. Once we ignore the Geneva convention our own citizens could be taken off the streets by foreign governments and tortured without cause and there is nothing our government could do about it. The foreign government could simply say that we are suspected terrorists and that would have to be the end of the conversation. Finally, by torturing alleged terror suspects we are creating more enemies and more terrorists around the world. Al Queda has already admitted that the US has done more to boost their enrollment than anything they could have done themselves. What we did to the prisoners of Abu Garab prison helped to encourage the people of Iraq to join the insurgency and fight against Americans. Other countries such as Iran, Venezuela and North Korea have been emboldened by our behavior because they finally have popular support in their own country to fight us. This stems from our treatment of people and our loss of the moral high ground. No longer can people say that the US is really just trying to help and we should then support them. People see us as an evil force because our policies are suddenly supporting evil deeds and evil techniques. The administration thinks that since Americans have not noticed then other people around the world will not notice. This is not the case.

The Iranian President was on 360 with Anderson Cooper last week. Cooper cut clips of the interview with the Iranian President and clips of Bush's speech in the UN. It was chilling. Bush came across as a bully. He came across as a man who felt he could do whatever he wanted without justification and without cause. Bush came across as someone without boundaries and who could tell others what to do without limit. The Iranian President talked about wanting peace. He sounded like a man being unfairly picked on by the school yard bully and repeatedly talked about wanting to sit down with Bush and talk about the problem in a peaceful and congenial manner. Now, as an American and as someone who is not completely naive I tend to not believe the Iranian president when he says he does not want nuclear weapons. Whether the Iranian President was sincere or lying it does not really matter. He came across as the underdog. He came across as the victim. The Iranian president came across as the bigger man, the man who wants peace but is being denied peace. To anyone watching, the effect was chilling. The United States is digging itself into a hole where we will lose support of our allies and we will be the "bad guys" of the world. That is not a place we have ever been in our 200 year history and it will not be a good place to be once it happens.

Of all the people in this country I would guess that the lawyers would be the most appalled by today's vote. The lawyers are the ones who know the law, the constitution and the way that our justice system works. The lawyers know that the justice system is meaningless without the basic freedoms afforded our citizens and any human being who is tried under the parameters of our legal system. The entire judicial system is based on the basic idea of justice. Justice includes fairness. Each person has the opportunity to see the evidence against him in order to create a proper defense. Each person has the right to an attorney or someone who knows how the law works and what the evidence means. Every person has the right to a quick trial meaning that people can not be held indefinitely without charges. People must be charged with some type of crime and told what that crime is so that they know how to defend themselves. Everyone has the right to proper treatment. It is a proven fact, in research and in real events, people will incriminate themselves when tortured even if they are completely innocent. People will say anything to make torture stop even if it means saying that they did something they did not really do. That is why it is illegal in our country to torture a confession out of someone. It is not admissible because people lie in order to stop the pain. I have not been to law school but I'm guessing they cover this the first year. These laws were created in our country because they work. They make justice possible. That is why they are used throughout the world to this day. They were used in the Nuremburg trials, and they are being used in Saddam's trial. They are used because they are the moral way, they are the democratic way and they allow for justice. Congress forgot that today but Americans should never forget. Americans should not go on with their lives and allow this miscarriage of justice to go unrecognized. Americans need to speak up and say that torture is not the right way and torture is not the American way.

2-2-07
New information about the Canadian who was deported to Syria to be tortured can be found at:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/01/america/NA-GEN-US-Canada-Arar.php

Peace above all else

2006-09-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

It is about being right and not about doing right. This is the only way I can explain the views of the 33% or so Americans who continue to think the President is doing what is best for America. I have talked to a number of these individuals, many of whom are my friends and family. They continue to support the President regardless of what new illegal, dishonest or downright sneaky actions he commits. The press, who has finally woken up from their post 9/11 fear of printing anything negative about the administration, has been revealing disturbing facts about the way this administration has been operating for the past 5 years. Millions of Americans have been shocked, appalled and sickened by the abuses of power and the attack on our constitution. Others, however, are secure in their convictions that they voted correctly regardless of the facts. Really, who needs facts when you have great self-esteem?

These Americans sometimes site patriotism as their reason for supporting the President regardless of his actions. Following a leader regardless of his actions, however, has nothing to do with patriotism. Loyalist would be a better description. Loyalists remain loyal to their ruler regardless of his actions even if those actions violate the premise of their own country. The term was popular in the US during the revolutionary war and was used to describe people loyal to the king. Patriots, on the other hand, are looking out for what is best for the country. Patriots defend the constitution of the United States regardless of who is the current President and regardless of political affiliation. That is why every soldier presently serving our country is a patriot. Although many do not believe in what this President stands for, they do believe in America and our constitution and they defend it each day by putting their lives at risk.

Our constitution specifically names three separate but equal branches of government that are to act as a type of fail safe. Anyone who has seen Saturday morning cartoons know that no one branch is to hold all of the power. That is why the executive branch can veto a bill but the legislative branch can vote to override the veto. President Bush has illegally signed hundreds of bills by simply crossing out parts he does not like or adding statements saying that he does not have to follow the laws if he chooses not to. By doing this, he avoids the veto process in which congress would/could vote down the changes he has made to the bill. Most frightening is that he did this with last year’s so called “torture bill” on which he wrote that the president could order torture of enemies if he deems fit even though the bill expressly forbids it. This is undermining our constitution and is a way for the executive branch to hold power without oversight by the legislative or judicial branches of government. This is the largest danger that faces the United States today.

Another way this president has snubbed the constitution is by ignoring the FISA court. President Bush admits that he has ordered wire-tapping and searches of phone and financial records of millions of citizens without gaining a warrant. The FISA court was created in order to make it easy for federal agents to gain necessary warrants in a secretive manner. The court has rarely denied requests for warrants and actually grants warrants up to 72 hours AFTER the search or wire-tapping. If our administration or any security agency really needed to conduct wire-tapping or other searches on suspected terrorists they could have easily gained a warrant either before or after the search was conducted. This is the legal way to conduct such searches in the United States. By deliberately not getting these warrants, the government has conducted illegal searches. Of course, the court then could throw out any evidence discovered during these searches. So why would the government not get a warrant if it is easy and if they cannot use the evidence without one. Why has President Bush continued to stand behind his decision to conduct searches without a warrant and why has he refused to turn over lists of people whom were involved in these searches and wiretaps? There is only one logical answer to these questions. The government does not intend to prosecute these people and the FISA court would not grant a warrant if asked because the people were not enemies of the state. The only logical reason why Bush would not attempt to get a warrant would be that these people are not terrorists at all but just people who disagree with him and have somehow crossed his radar by either protesting against him or running in an election against a republican candidate. Bush refuses to give out these names and refuses to adjourn an oversight committee because he will be caught. Bush continues to refuse to comply with federal law and gain warrants for searches and wiretapping.

Other presidents have been careful to maintain the equality of power among the branches because they know how important this balance is in a democracy. President Nixon nominated a liberal judge for Supreme Court while Jimmy Carter nominated a conservative. These presidents and others before them both understood the importance of our constitution and our democracy and put the wellbeing of both before the wishes of their party. It is not against the law to do otherwise but it certainly undermines the constitution each time Bush attempts to throw off the balance of power and attempts to gain more power for the executive branch. I would hope that even die-hard republicans could see the danger in the precedent given that someday a democrat will again hold the office of president. I wonder if they will be so willing to defend Bush’s actions if a democratic president uses this precedent to get around the laws and the constitution the way Bush has done for the past 5 years.

Finally, there is very clear and overwhelming evidence that Bush lied to congress and the American people in order to gain support for invading Iraq. The republican congress has been able to put off a formal investigation for more than 3 years now because they hold a majority but they did promise, 3 years ago, to investigate the information that led to the invasion of Iraq. They agreed to do this investigation in two parts. The first part was completed relatively quickly because it was the investigation of the intelligence agencies that provided the faulty pre-war intelligence. Even after the investigation was completed, the subcommittees in congress were able to hold off the release of much of the information until now. The investigation found that much of the intelligence gathered was actually correct however; the president only sited the incorrect and misleading intelligence in speeches to the American public and in documents to congress. The CIA and FBI both gave correct intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities and Saddam’s ties to Al Qaeda but both were ignored. Bush chose to believe information that supported his decision for war although it was less reliable, more obscure, was disputed openly by our own intelligence agencies, and was in the end, false.

The second part of the promised investigation is to be whether the president and administration knowingly used false information about Iraq in order to gain support for an illegal war. This investigation has not yet formally begun because congress has been able to stall. Why wouldn’t any congressperson in the United States want to know if he or she was lied to by the president of the United States and tricked into giving the president the power to go to war with out just cause? I simply do not understand how a congressperson can put loyalty to their president or their party over a loyalty to their country and their constitution. When Nixon participated in illegal activities and lied about it, his own party insisted that something be done. Americans love to talk about democracy and how we are so wonderful but other countries in the world see our hypocrisy and wonder why we feel we have any right to preach to the rest of them. Other countries see very clearly that the president of the United States does not follow the rules he is trying to force them to implement and therefore we, as a country, have become a joke in the Middle East, in Europe and in the rest of the world. The president of Russia sees this irony but 33% of Americans in this country have not caught on yet.

Injecting religion into this equation has only made the situation more bizarre. Recently someone told me that I am not a good Christian because I believe the president is lying. Last Memorial Day I sat through a sermon about why it is okay to put the flag behind the cross. The premise was good. He started by saying that the cross comes first but we are all Americans after we are Christians. The problem came with the delivery in which he explained why we all must support America’s war and America’s government because we are good Christians. That part was a bit confusing to me if not downright heresy. When were Christians called by God to support American political figures or political agendas? I can see being deemed unchristian if I questioned God’s truthfulness or motives. I can even see how some would think me unchristian by questioning the king, if we had one, since many believed kings have divine rights to the throne. When did God start supporting our president or our country above all others? I think it is odd that Americans have begun to believe such absurdity although the religious right has spent billions of dollars to force this connection. The truly frightening thing, however, is that the religious right, and those who follow them, does not recognize the heretical act in claiming God is on their side.

The Christian right has made a political agenda of supporting one party regardless of their actions in order to advance their political agenda to ban gay marriage and outlaw abortion. Although they may have true religious beliefs about these two issues, they have misrepresented Christianity in order to advance this agenda. They have overlooked or even supported many actions by the administration that are questionable if not outright antichristian. The religious right has increased racism, bigotry and hatred in this country at a rate that is beyond compare in any other era. They have increased separatism and have been feeding on and encouraging the divided political atmosphere of our nation. This has not only made it impossible for Congress to work together to help anyone in our country, it has fed an anger toward homosexuals, liberals, democrats, feminists, muslims, immigrants etc that has resulted in violence against these groups. This effort to divide the people of our country and to ignore the political left may have helped their two main causes but it has left a majority of our nation without representation. It also has turned ordinary people, even Christians, away from the church and our religion. The plight of the poor has been virtually unheard for the past 5 years, as the rich have gotten billions of dollars worth of tax breaks. They have overlooked or even supported unjust war, torture, the death penalty, decreased gun control, and program cuts for our poorest citizens in order to advance their narrow agenda.

I have another good friend that will claim that the above paragraph is judgmental and therefore antichristian. He would tell me that by claiming they are not following God I am being judgmental and therefore doing the same as them. I do not think that is the case. We are called, as Christians, to spread the good news and to point out those who are misrepresenting our faith. In the book of Revelations John writes to the first church, “I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.” This is his complement to them before he then criticizes them for forgetting their first love. God. By putting America and our president on a pedestal, have we too forgotten our first love? Again, in the letter to Smyrna John states there is “slander by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” John recognizes the people of Smyrna for choosing to suffer rather than to follow those who claim to follow God but who are not. John spoke of the same ideas in his letter to Philadelphia. Are we forgetting to look for false apostles and are we overlooking their false statements because we are afraid to judge other Christians?

Jesus was especially concerned about the religious people of His time who were misrepresenting the Father and who were hypocritical. I believe the people of the religious right are the Pharisees of our time. They have twisted the message of the Bible so completely that it is unrecognizable to me as a Christian woman. Jesus spoke of love, forgiveness, giving all that you have for the poor and the least of these. Jesus spoke about humility and faith that God will judge and that we do not need to judge. The only warning he gave was to avoid the religious leaders who pointed out the sins of others without the proper humility. Jesus had great contempt for these religious leaders and stated that their sin is greater than any sins they were preaching about. I believe that supporting the hedonistic, violent and dishonest tendencies of this administration in order to gain political power to persecute people is the greatest sin. Even if they believe the people they are persecuting are acting in a sexually immoral, it does not excuse their own actions. The end does not justify the means, so to speak.

As Americans, we have freedom of religion so we tend to think that everyone has the right to think and say whatever they want to think and say. As Americans we do have this right. The religious right has a right to distort Jesus’ message in our country without consequence from the government. They can believe that Jesus is pro war, pro torture, anti gay, pro gun, etc. and legally they have a right to believe that and preach that. The ACLU would be inflamed if we tried to deny them that right. As Christians, however, we are not supposed to just sit back and ignore false statements by other Christians. We are not supposed to overlook their hypocrisy and ignore their distortion of our faith. We are caught up in the right of Americans to think whatever they want to think and we forget that we are Christians first and then Americans. The cross should be in front of the flag, not the opposite. Christians have an obligation to God to point out when other Christians are distorting His teachings. Historically Christians have upheld the premise of peace, equality, and love and we should continue to do that even in the face of the more “popular” Christians preaching the opposite. We should worship only the Father and the Son and recognize that the country and the president are not to be worshipped but admired. Only then can Christianity be omnipresent and the country a true democracy.

Our Moral Choice

2006-03-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

The following is from Sojourner's Magazine weekly e-mail. I had been thinking of writing something on this topic but could not possibly say it better than Jim Wallis, my hero.

Our Moral Choice
by Jim Wallis
On Tuesday, March 7, Jim Wallis spoke on Capitol Hill at a "Rally to Protect America's Priorities" on the proposed 2007 budget, sponsored by the Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities, ACORN, and the U.S. Student Association. Following are his remarks.
I want to begin with what the Religious Community said all last year: A budget is a moral document! That was our clarion cry in the 2006 budget debate. If some political leaders haven't got the message yet - just wait until this year.
You see, we believe that fiscal choices, economic choices are also moral choices and, for us, even religious choices. Who is important? And who is not? What is important? And what is not? Who do we most value? And who don't we value at all? They are fiscal choices, but also moral and religious matters.
Jesus actually got uncharacteristically judgmental about these kinds of choices. He said, "As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." Are you paying attention yet, members of Congress?
Because of moral pressure - much of it from the religious community who every day care for the poor that our national politics neglect - last year's budget almost didn't pass. It took a fast trip home from Dick Cheney to pass the budget in the Senate and, in the House, the final budget measure only passed by a few votes. Some elected officials were making new moral choices. But the White House and the Republican leadership seem not to have gotten this message from the religious community, by the look of the new budget they now propose. I thought we were supposed to be their base?
You see a budget process is just a series of moral choices: tax cuts for the wealthiest, or services for the poorest? Congressional pork and earmarks, or investments in the common good? Searching for security through endless expenditures for war, or seeking to end the insecurity of poverty to make our nation stronger? Ignoring the costs of deficits for our children's children, and making the most vulnerable pay the price of fiscal responsibility; or sharing the burdens of financial responsibility more fairly by not asking the poor to carry the heaviest load?
These are all moral choices. Those with the power to make budget proposals have made their moral choices; and so will we. They are choosing to bestow more windfalls of benefit on their wealthy donors - that's their moral choice. We will stand up for the low-income families that we know and serve and whom they will again ignore - no, assault - that's our moral choice.
They are choosing the corruption of rewarding the special interests who pay for them - that's their moral choice. We will defend those who have the most need - that's our moral choice. They will place no limits on money for wars that have no end, and weapons systems that have no need - that's their moral choice. We will not let them cut vital programs of nutrition, health care, child care, and education to pay for their bad choices - that's our moral choice.
Here is what the biblical prophet Isaiah says about their moral choices: "Woe to the legislators of infamous laws, to those who issue tyrannical decrees, who refuse justice to the unfortunate and cheat the poor among my people of their rights, and make widows their prey and rob the orphan."
Last Dec. 14, 115 Christians who work with the poor every day, interrupted their works of compassion to come to the Capitol-to pray, preach, and prophesy. And we were taken to jail. Mary Nelson, from Chicago, looked up at the congressional staff and members looking out their windows and invited them, "Come walk with us."
John Perkins, 75-year-old evangelical and Black church leader who has spent his life in faithful ministry with poor people, told the story of his mother's death from a nutritional deficiency when he was seven months old. John said he was breastfeeding at the time and thought for years that he had killed her. Only later, he said, did I realize that a white society doesn't care about the nutrition of poor black women and their families. And now they're trying to cut food stamps from this budget. Then he emotionally said, "This is my last stand," before he was arrested.
Due in part to the pressure from religious community - we saved food stamps from cuts. Now, the proposed cuts stamps are back. People should know that many of those arrested last December voted for George Bush, some twice. Now they get arrested to protest his moral choices. They were his base, they are no longer.
The media noted that the words religious, Christian, even evangelical, are no longer just alongside the words abortion and gay marriage, but now alongside words like food stamps, health care, and education. Get used to it. When the politicians pat faith-based organizations on the back for doing such a wonderful job, they are now turning around and saying, "Stop hurting the people we work with and care about!" Come walk with us.
After the vote, Republicans e-mailed me, "I just want you to know that I voted against this budget and am listening to the religious community." Bless you. Overcoming poverty must be a bipartisan commitment and a nonpartisan cause. The religious community will ask Democrats to stand firm against this budget violence against poor people, to make the moral choice of favoring the poor over the rich - which is also a biblical choice. Democrats must get religion on the budget.
And we will ask Republicans: Follow your conscience, not your party. Help your party make better moral choices than favoring the rich over the poor - stop turning the biblical wisdom upside down - and then having the nerve to claim that you are the religion-friendly party! It's time for Republicans to get religion on this budget.
We've had a year of organizing around the budget in the religious community. We are watching this debate very carefully. We will hold our elected officials accountable in 2006 and 2008 for their votes on this budget - whether they vote for or against poor families.
If you think we were aroused last year, we were just getting started. Budgets are moral documents and we will fight this budget. And that's our moral choice.

Poverty of ideas

2006-03-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

I turned on the radio yesterday in the middle of a call to Ed Shultz from some guy claiming to be an ex-Republican. They were discussing Bush’s new health care ideas. I drove along listening to them for a while when the caller said something so outrageous I composed an entire blog entry right there in the car. His comments were not outrageous because they were unusual. On the contrary, I have heard the same from the likes of Rush and from lots of other right-wingers a million times. The comment was simply outrageous because of his complete lack of understanding of reality and the caller’s inability to grasp that other people are different from him. That alone deserves a paper.

This caller said that we should not give health care to Americans who have none because then there would be no reason for people to continue to work. He felt that people would have no motivation to work because they could live off the government. They could quit their jobs and get free health care and welfare and our country would be in turmoil. If it were just him spouting this reasoning I think you would have to laugh. This, however, has been a conservative talking point for years. An employee of my church actually made a similar type of comment a few years ago about me giving old items to the poor. The idea being that millions of Americans are hoping for the government to start passing out food and money and health care so they can stay home and watched re-runs of MASH and The Cosby Show. I must say it is an interesting theory. Who really believes, however, that people are going to give up their $60,000 a year jobs to get welfare and free health care? Or even $30,000 a year jobs. Ed Shultz suggested this point in his answer when he said that people are not going to give up their big screen TV sets and SUV’s so they can get free health care. He talked about the American drive and American spirit, which is true. He did not have the airtime, however, to truly explore the absurdity of this guy’s premise.

Now I think everyone is intelligent enough to realize that the majority of Americans making over the poverty level of income (I think it is around $17,000 right now but do not quote me on that) are not going to quit their job if the government starts providing health care for poor people. Actually, state governments already offer health care to very poor families, which is called Medicaid, Tenncare, or other various things depending on the state in which you live. I have not seen any people quit their jobs to get that. Frankly, no one in their right mind is going to quit making $3000 a month so they can get a $900 a month welfare check, food stamps and free health care. Forget what Ed said about the American entrepreneurial spirit. Americans are not going to live like that unless they have to. Who really is going to give up their 2000 square foot house, their 2 cars, cable TV, Karate for their kids and $200 dollars of groceries a week so they can get free healthcare. Give me a break. Maybe if mom has cancer and the family is going to lose their house anyway from the enormous health care bills to keep her alive. Maybe then they would consider giving up their job to get federally funded health care. Who could really blame them at that point though?

Okay, so let us give ex-republican caller the benefit of the doubt and pretend he did not really mean to say that all Americans would have no motivation to go to work. We know Americans are at least materialistic enough to continue working if not for other motivations. Let’s pretend he was talking about the working poor. Those people who are working a couple of jobs to make money even though they are still making less than the poverty line. These are the people who are working the jobs no one wants. They have no benefits, they have to work 80 hours a week to make enough to feed their families, and they are poor. These people usually are renting homes or apartments in the bad part of town but they work hard to keep their families off welfare. Why? For health insurance? Most of them do not get health insurance. Why are they working? They are working because no one wants to live on welfare. No one dreams of someday growing up and collecting a welfare check and some free trips to the local ER. No one wants that for their sons and daughters, no one wants that for themselves. Everyone wants the American dream. We want to do well. I guess I should not say no one. I am positive we could find someone out there who has no aspirations for a better life. So let’s say 99.9 percent of people living want more for themselves than a welfare check. People work because they want more. People work because they are ashamed of needing money from others. People work because they do not want to depend on anyone. People have pride in their accomplishments and people generally try their best. People are not going to all quit their jobs if the government starts offering healthcare to sick people with no insurance. The proof is that people could do that now and they do not.

This caller called Ed, or the democrats, a socialist. I think socialist is to democrat as fascist is to republican. If socialists are people who want to provide care to those who cannot care for themselves then I guess that makes democrats, Christians, and Jesus socialists. Of course, we all know that socialism is a little more complicated than that. People like to use these extreme words to scare people away from someone’s ideas. It is the same as my favorite, “If you don’t support he war then you are Anti American.” Republicans are certainly leaning toward many fascist ideas lately. Are they all fascists? I would have to say no, at least I hope not. Fascism, too, is a complicated political idea and although the neo-cons lean toward these ideas lately, I do not think they are ready to throw capitalism and democracy out the window completely. Nor do I believe democrats who are trying to build government programs to help the poor are trying to build a socialist society. Name calling aside, it just is not true.

Now I probably would not have devoted a paper to this topic had the caller not gone on to say more. Ed, in defending the American spirit, reminded the caller that not all people are as lucky as the two of them. The caller’s response was so absurd I would have laughed had I not felt like crying. He said that he was not lucky at all. Then he told his “pulled himself up by the bootstraps” story that ended with him putting himself through college working at a movie theatre. Unfortunately, Ed ran out of time (and I think he had better things to do). I hear this response from conservatives all the time and it absolutely has no basis in reality. Have you ever seen that e-mail that circulates that says if you have food on the table every night, you have more than so-many percent of humans? It goes through a whole bunch of stuff like a house, clothes, education, etc. It is true. If you had an adult taking care of you, a place to sleep every night, food three times a day, school for 12 years or more, and you did not have to work until you were out of elementary school or older then you have it better than 39 million children (or more)have it right now in our country. Having a dad who worked in a factory and working your way through college is not poverty. If you had that you had more than millions. Middle class Americans have become completely unaware of how people really live in this country and in the world. They think that trouble paying the cable bill and having a car that is 12 years old is hardship. I, too, fall into this category.

How many times have I prayed that we had money to pay our bills? Our credit card bills, our cable bill, our cell phone bill, our internet bill, our car payments, etc. This is distressing but not the type of financial hardship those living in poverty endure. Working your way through college is not hardship. It seems like hardship because we have so much. We have more than 99% of the world if we even have those bills to worry us. Ed was alluding to those other people in the world. The people who pray that they have enough money to pay for beans and rice. The people who want to be able to turn on the gas this winter and go without electricity so they can pay for their diabetes medication. The people who are evicted because they cannot pay $400 a month rent even though they work 60 hours a week. The best show I have ever seen on TV was 30 days. In the first episode, the producer and his girlfriend lived on minimum wage for 30 days. Sound easy. Watch the show. It is how the other half lives in America and not because they want to. People live in poverty for a variety of reasons. The number one reason for adults to be homeless is mental illness and the second is physical illness. The majority of people living in poverty are children. Many other people make terrible decisions, which keep them from getting ahead. Drug abuse, single parenthood and just plain lack of intelligence are all contributing factors to continued poverty. A large number of people who have grown up in extreme poverty lack any hope of ever getting ahead. Poverty has become a generational problem in our country. Our current system makes it rare for these people to break the cycle of poverty in their family.

Americans do not like to admit that our system keeps people exactly where they are in life. We of course like to quote the story of the ones who escape. Look at Oprah, we say. She worked hard and got ahead. People do work hard and overcome poverty. It happens all the time but to an extremely small percentage of impoverished people. We can point to the people who have done it because there are so few of them. Most people who live in this crushing poverty do not know anyone who has escaped (at least not legally). Poverty is a disease in America and to underestimate the power of that disease is naïve. Poverty breeds lack of education, poor choices and violence. Poverty breeds poor physical health, mental health problems and drug abuse. Poverty breeds child abuse and neglect, domestic violence and single parenthood. Then we middle class Americans blame the poor for having these problems and living in poverty. It is a nasty cycle that is hard for even the brightest and the best to break. When middle class Americans make bad choices we can recover from them. If we take drugs as a teen, we can frequently get into a wonderful treatment program and therapy. If we buy something we cannot afford we put it on credit. Our parents help us out and we have a support system in place to get us through the difficult times. My husband lost his job this year. I knew that my children would not starve or lack medical attention no matter how long it took him to find another. My parents would never let that happen. Our friends would never let that happen. We would find a way to survive even if that meant finding a lower paying job. Poor people do not have the luxury of that knowledge. Poor people have next to nothing and losing that leaves you with nothing.

Hurricane Katrina was a wake up call to Americans…for about a month. Then our defense mechanisms kicked in and we all felt better. “Those people should have left.” “They did not die because they were poor; they made the choice to stay.” “They are poor because they steal/take drugs/break the law.” “They are not poor because they are black. I know a black guy who lives in my neighborhood and he has lots of money.” “They are poor because they want to live off the government and do not want to work.” Fill in whichever defense mechanism generally works for you. We all do this to feel better and to sleep at night. What does Jesus say we should do? Should we ignore the poor and pretend they do not exist? Should we blame the poor for being stupid enough to end up poor? “There but for the Grace of God go I.” This should be what we say to ourselves when we see images of poverty. The vast majority of poor people were born poor. They grew up poor; they made choices based on what they learned from their poor caregivers and what they knew from their lives. Poor people are generally poor because they know of nothing else. They grew up with poor health, poor education and little or no resources. It is only through God’s intervention that you were born into the situation of your birth. “There but for the Grace of God.”

Never would I suggest that poor people are completely blameless in their current situations. Poor people make bad choices for themselves, just as all people make bad choices. Bad choices made by poor people, however, tends to have more impact on their lives than bad choices made by people who have more. It is common sense really. If you have more, then losing a little due to a bad choice has little impact. If you have very little, then making a bad choice tends to wipe out whatever you do have and devastate your life even further. Look at hurricane Katrina. People were told to go to the dome for safety if they had no alternative. The people who had money for gas or hotels drove away. The people who did not, followed directions and went to the dome. After the storm they went back to their homes. They had no resources to stay away. It was not until the next days that the levies broke and a wall of water came in. It was certainly a bad choice to go back to their homes. Upper class, middle class and even lower middle class people have no concept of the idea that people have no alternatives. People are forced into bad decisions by their circumstances, by their lack of knowledge and their lack of resources.

Many of my clients were women in relationships with abusive men. These women made terrible choices on a regular basis. It was frustrating. Women of all socioeconomic groups are in relationships with men who physically and/or sexually abuse them. These women are making a choice every day to stay with their abusers. In my opinion this is a bad choice. Women who are rich and women who are poor both have adverse consequences because of their bad choices. Women who are poor, however, have more negative consequences and therefore are usually less able to leave a violent situation. They are more likely to have many children who are undernourished, lack needed medical care and have more special education needs. Women who are poor and who are being abused usually lack a safe place to go or a support system within their family or circle of friends to help them. Women who are poor frequently lack the job skills or life skills to manage on their own if they do leave. My clients frequently felt they could not leave because they could not get their welfare checks transferred, because they would have no transportation, they would have no health care or childcare if they did work. Women who have been raised in poverty rarely see that a better life is possible. Some of this is also true of middle class women, however to a lesser extent. Their children are generally fed and clothed and attend school. The psychological impact of the abuse is the same but the fact that their basic needs are met makes the decision less destructive.

It was very frustrating to work with poor people at a mental health center. It was frustrating because many of them worked very hard to try to make a better life for themselves and their children. Their mental and physical health issues constantly got in the way of their ability to make positive steps in their lives. Their lack of education and knowledge of ways to get ahead put up barriers at every turn. I used to send many of my clients to Victory Center, which was a job rehabilitation program for individuals with mental health issues. Few of them ever completed the program. They had issues with transportation, child care, domestic violence, health problems, and anxiety. Many poor people are evicted regularly or live with different people each week. Just keeping track of their location so that they can get services is complicated. None of the people I worked with had any drug or alcohol issues. Most of them were women in abusive relationships or women who had been abused most of their lives. Most of my clients were born in poverty and were raised by mothers, fathers, grandmothers or caregivers who lived in poverty. Although their situations were frustrating, it was impossible for me to blame them for the circumstances that brought them to me. As Christians, we are not called to judge how these people arrived in their current situation; but to help them correct the problem.

Jesus had a lot to say about poverty. He said more about poverty than he said about sex, being nice to others or murder. Why then do we focus our energy on so many other topics and then ignore his advice about the poor? Mathew 25 verse 31-40 says:

When the Son of Man comes as King and all the angels with him, he will sit on his royal throne, and the people of all the nations will be gathered before him. Then he will divide them into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the righteous people at his right and the others at his left. Then the King will say to the people on this right, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.’ The righteous will then answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did it for me!’

Jesus is telling us directly what is important if we are to make it into the kingdom of God. He did not divide up the people by sexual practices or number of times they went to church. He did not put the sinners on the left and the non-sinners on the right. He said that the King will divide the people who have helped the poor from those who have not.
The ways in which we are to help the poor include feeding, giving drink, giving shelter and clothing, and giving medical help. Yes, healthcare for those who are sick. One might argue that he was not talking about the government in this passage but only individuals. That would be true had the current administration not run on the ticket of superior Christian values and insight. In an administration that claims to be following Jesus Christ and the Bible, all of these items should be included as important parts of the budget and the plan to help the people of America. I would assume that helping the least important of the people in this country would be the most important item on the agenda for a bunch of politicians claiming to be led by their Christian beliefs. Why then is helping the richest of Americans instead the priority over and over and over again? Why then are the least of these ignored not only by Mr. ex-republican caller (who never claimed to be Christian and may not be held by these imperatives) but also by his ex-party and the administration and majority of congress who claim to be led by the Bible and their Christian beliefs? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot get votes for being the “best Christian” and then ignore your Christianity when it is less convenient financially.

My eight year old and I just read an American Girl story in which the girl is cross-stitching the saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” I was explaining this to her and she immediately saw the connection to our current administration. The actions of our President, his administration and his cabinet should speak to us louder than his claims of a superior knowledge of Christianity. Saying is not doing. I would like to see a lot more doing and I hope that people will not blindly trust the words and will require the actions behind them in the future.

Evolution in the schools

2005-11-18T11:20:00.000-08:00

I am amazed that evolution verses creationism has made it into the media yet again in my lifetime. I have yet to understand why this is even an issue that we waste our valuable time debating and how the Christian extremists continue to force this issue into the media. I am a Christian who has had my children in a Christian elementary school and I still do not get it. Yes, as a Christian I feel it is important for my children to learn what our faith teaches about God, about Jesus and about creation. Never, however, would I ever expect our public schools to do that teaching for me or for my church. Nor would I want them to.

Which version of Christianity would the public schools teach if they were allowed to do so? Would they teach the Christian conservative wacko version of Christianity, the Catholic version, or the Presbyterian version? My father’s business partner believes that God created the Grand Canyon exactly as it is today. He does not believe God created it through years of erosion by a river. Nor does he believe that dinosaurs that died left dinosaur fossils. He believes that God left those fossils there for us to find just for fun and that dinosaurs never really existed. Is this the version that will be taught in our schools when the Christian conservatives get their way? Will last months lesson on dinosaurs at my daughter’s school be illegal under their standards of education? Will they be able to teach about psychology and depression in public schools or would the Scientologists object? Will children be told that excommunication is the consequence of divorce and their divorced parents are going to hell? Where does it end? What these Christian conservatives do not understand is they are attempting to open up a can that they will not be able to close. I want my children to learn my religion and the only way for me to make that possible is to take them to my church where they are preaching what I believe. If religion were taught in schools, then whose religion would it be? That of the teacher? The school board? Would we poll the students’ religious preferences and whichever religion is in the majority that religion is taught?

People love to talk about our founding fathers. This is exactly the type of thing our founding fathers tried to prevent. They all came to America seeking religious freedom. They were all Christians seeking freedom from the religion of other Christians. In their countries the King chose the religion of the people. If the religion of that country was Catholic then everyone had to practice Catholicism and could not be Protestant. If the King chose Lutheran then Baptists were not allowed to meet. The founding fathers realized that by adopting one religion as the official religion no one could truly be free because everyone has different opinions about how to practice that religion. These forward thinking men not only made freedom of religion possible but also they made freedom from religion possible. They made sure that no one in America would ever be forced to practice one form of religion, would never be taught one type of religion and would never be persecuted by the government for their beliefs. The Christian conservatives are trying to re-write this history by simply saying that those who signed the constitution were Christians, but they are forgetting the history behind that document. The constitution deliberately did not name Christianity as the state religion although they were nearly all Christian and they did this, not as an oversight, but on purpose. They came from a history of persecution and they wanted to protect their descendents from this very possibility.

Christian conservatives of today have made it their life’s work to claim persecution. Any Christian American claiming persecution in America does not understand the meaning of the word persecution. Christians can openly practice their religion in their home, on the street or in their place of worship. They can teach their children anything they want them to believe and can get special consideration at work for their religious beliefs. Christians are not regularly targeted in violent attacks or killed for practicing their beliefs. They do not have to hide their Bibles in their homes or fear loss of job or life if people find out they are Christian. They are not targeted by the government and put in jail if they participate in worship. If any of these things were to happen they would have the law and the government on their side to punish the attackers, to return them to their jobs or to free them from jail. The only thing Christians cannot do is force everyone else to partake in their religious celebrations and force others to believe what they believe. This is not persecution. Our laws only limit what Christians can do to other people, not what they themselves can do as private citizens. Christian conservatives claiming persecutions need to talk to Christians in China, in Palestine, in the former Soviet controlled regions. They will learn a lot about what constitutes persecution and what is simply protection of others from them.

Christians of today actually are much the opposite of the persecuted group they would like people to believe they are. Some Christians have come to believe that it is okay to force others into their religion. They have decided that the fore fathers chose Christianity as the state religion and all other religions must just live with it. They have begun to re-write history to exclude those of other religions or no religion. Some Christians have even decided that our country’s laws should be re-written based on their own form of Christianity. That if their particular form of Christianity condemns one sin as greater than all other sins then our country should make it illegal. They believe that our President and congress should be guided by the Christian conservative religious beliefs even if the majority of the country let alone the majority of other Christians do not hold those beliefs. This is a dangerous turn toward theocracy, which we have been fighting in other parts of the world, but some have been embracing in our own country. In Afghanistan, Muslim religious leaders decided the laws of the land. These Muslim beliefs were not held by all Muslims, only by the Muslims who happened to be in power at the time. All people in the country were forced to live by these beliefs and these laws regardless of whether their own Muslim or other religious beliefs were different from those in power. This is no different from what the Christian conservatives in America are attempting to do today. These people would like to take their own extremist version of what the Bible says and create laws based on that belief system which all Americans would have to live by.

What if the Christians doing this were Catholic? Would the Christian conservatives approve of this turn of events? Catholics are Christian. They use the Bible as their main source of religious information. Would Christian conservatives allow Catholics to create laws based on their religious beliefs and practices? No birth control? No divorce? No remarriage? No death penalty? Catholicism would be taught in the schools as an alternative to evolution and sex education and anything else the Pope opposed. I would be willing to bet that they would not approve of that state religion.

What is it about the teaching of evolution in schools that upsets the Christian conservatives so much? Why are they so afraid? Do they really think that their sixteen year old is going to hear about evolution and decide that he is not going back to church? The theory of evolution is exactly that, a theory. It is a scientific explanation for how the world began that is incomplete. If their children have attended church at all, they will already know what the church’s position is on creation. If their parents have spoken to them about religion at all then they know what their parents’ views on creation are. If they do not know then learning about evolution in school would be a great time for them to talk with their parents about the Christian beliefs about creation. I just do not understand how this is threatening to people who claim to believe in God and who claim to be teaching their beliefs to their children. It just seems so odd to me to be so afraid of this science but not other ideas that are a much greater threat to Christianity. I think materialism, greed, self-absorption, poverty vs. extreme wealth, war, torture, etc. are all much greater threats to Christianity than teaching a scientific theory to kids in school. Why have these people chosen to ignore all of the above issues and focus on this one? Especially when they can take their children to church or teach them at home about creation every single day of their lives and evolution is one chapter out of hundreds that their child will learn in school.

Finally, how to do these people expect their children to function in society, in college, etc. without knowing basic scientific principles that are known by the rest of society. How will their children take the SAT or take a college course without knowing whom Darwin was and what the theory of evolution is? They certainly will not be able to major in biology or science without needing to learn about scientific information that is possibly in contrast to their religious beliefs. Apparently, they do not have the faith in God that they claim to have or the trust that he will reveal the truth to these young people. These Christian conservatives seem to lack the strength of their conviction when they are so fearful that one chapter of science will destroy 16 years of teaching their children about God. I was taught evolution in high school and college and I have managed to discern between my religious beliefs and science. Actually, my 10th grade science teacher was a Christian fundamentalist named Mr. Donaldson. I still remember what he said when he taught evolution. “The following chapter is about evolution. This is the scientific theory of how the earth and its inhabitants were created. This theory may be in contrast to your family’s religious beliefs. If so, I suggest you talk to your parents or someone in your religious community about that. For the test, you must know what I am about to teach you in this class.” That was that. I learned about evolution from school and I passed the test. I learned what the Bible said about creation at home and at church. I made an informed decision about what I would believe at that time. Life went on. I continued to attend church and believe in God and practice my faith and I passed my ACT test and went to college. No harm, no foul, no big deal.

Empathy in politics today (or lack thereof)

2005-10-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

It came to me in a flash. Empathy. It is what America lacks in our new age of military power and so-called patriotism. It is the piece of the puzzle that we all cannot put our finger on. It is what world domination and unfounded, extreme fear have done to the people of our country. We lack basic empathy for other human beings around the world and we do not realize it. We see this lack of empathy as patriotism. To Americans this lack of regard for others is self-preservation. Our President likes to say it is “us against them.” However, when “them” is anyone who does not agree with us it puts into question whether it is really them at all.

I never realized the dichotomy Americans live in until President Bush clarified it for us as a national movement. Our society does see every situation in terms of good or evil. Everyone in the world to us is either right or wrong, black or white, bad or good. We have become a society of one-hour news programs where there must be an answer at the end of the program as to who was correct. The mystery must be solved and the winner heralded as such. Each conflict or problem in the world is under-reported in our country until the press can clearly see a moral winner or an evil doer. Once such a person or group can be identified, we take the side of the good guy and cheer for the team. It is amazing the atrocities that we can ignore while waiting for the clear moral majority to show itself. Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, South Africa, the Philippines, Tibet and multiple countries in Central America (to name a few) have been victims of our dichotomy. Our need to wait until one clear team is apparent before we offer aid to human beings suffering in the middle. The problem is that in a world where you only see good and evil you miss the fact that most people in the country are not on the team. They are not playing the game at all. They are just trying to live through the day and raise their children.

I have been trying to educate myself about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A conflict, which has raged on, as each side, insists that it is right and the other side completely wrong. We in America do not hear both sides in the newspaper or on TV. We do not hear the people in the middle. The people that admit that both sides are right and wrong at the same time. This would require the media in America to commit thought and different perspectives to the conflict, which instead is made to seem black and white. It would require American journalists to do a new story where no one is right or wrong and there is no answer at the end of the one-hour show. There would be no bad guy and no sheriff. Just people suffering through a difficult situation with no clear correct outcome. Not exactly a show made for the people of America. So instead, Americans try to fit the situation into the dialogue we know. There is a good guy who is somehow hurt by the bad guy. The new sheriff goes into town and clears out the bad guy and the town is saved. Now that is a good movie! Americans want life to be that movie. We have created that movie and we even got a sheriff from Texas to take the lead role. It is every director’s dream and those directing this show have had a good run with the concept.

Empathy is the prescription for the problem. Empathy is the genuine feeling of another’s pain or problems. It is the proverbial putting yourself in another’s shoes. It hurts. Empathy is uncomfortable. In a world where, even in close personal relationships, we try to distance ourselves so we do not get hurt, empathy is foreign to us. Most parents want to teach empathy to their toddlers around the time they are teaching them to share. We ask them to think about how others feel when they take a toy from someone or hit someone. In Christianity Jesus was extremely empathetic. He tried to teach empathy to his followers as he asked them to forgive the once unforgivable or to accept the unaccepted. Just as a father would teach his son to think of others, Jesus came to tell us that we need to think about the needs of others. That we should care about the people who have nothing and the people who go without and we should do something about it. People tend to believe the Old Testament was just God doling out punishments and being angry all the time. God wanted people to have empathy for one another. He championed the slaves and brought them out of bondage. He sent prophets to ask the people to repent for their sins. He spoke to Abraham about saving the cities for those righteous people. God said that if there were righteous people in a city then He would not destroy it. The message being, you do not indiscriminately destroy populations for the misdeeds of the few. If there is but one righteous person then the whole population must be spared. This is at odds with our current dichotomy of “if you are not with us you are against us.”

In a time when people are claiming moral superiority and family values I find it disheartening that the basic lesson of empathy has been lost in our culture. On a global level, it is rather obvious that we as Americans care about countries only as far as it affects us. Countries that have oil or resources that we need automatically warrant more time and money. On a political level that is good business, on a religious level that is sinful. This, however, has been carried to the extreme in the past several years. When the cold war ended, we could no longer claim that the spread of communism was the great evil that we were fighting. We suddenly had to begin interpreting situations on a case-by-case basis where it is much harder to find the bad guy and the sheriff. The 1980’s and 1990’s attempted to do this in a diplomatic and empathetic way. By carefully looking at the situation and stepping in when atrocities were taking place the leaders of that day attempted to control situations that were out of control. The leaders attempted to protect human life while continuing to promote the safety and well-being of our citizens in the United States. No leader is perfect, nor could they be in a world that is not black and white. Clearly, President Clinton missed an opportunity in Rwanda, which he has repeatedly said was his worst decision ever as President. It takes an honorable man to admit a mistake such as this. The point, however, is that decisions were based on the result to the people of the country in which we were fighting. The outcomes of these missions were not measured by how it helped the United States. The results were measured by how it helped the people in the countries to live better and safer lives. Look at any conflict we were engaged in during the past 20 years (military or in a peacekeeping fashion). Success was not measured as a US victory or as a way to help ourselves. Success was measured by how safe the people in the country were after the conflict. Success was measured by human lives changed not American lives made better. Our country has lost that desire and we are not the better for it.

Today America is looking out for America. We are not interested in participating in the UN or following the very international laws we helped create. John Bolton has been sent to the UN to attempt to change the rules that govern torture and war so that America can do what it wants without international consequences. Read the changes Bolton proposed for the UN and his agenda (and the agenda for the administration) is clear. The rights and lives of human beings are not among the priorities of this administration. By framing the worldwide community as with us or against us, either good or evil, Bush has created an environment where anything goes. We no longer need to think about what is right or wrong. We do not need to have empathy for others because they are by definition automatically evil for not being Americans. Even Americans who disagree are targeted as evil for not agreeing with every decision made by the administration. Suddenly lives do not matter unless they are American lives. Safety and security is only important for Americans and we must achieve this at all costs regardless of human life abroad. This dangerous turn to patriotism above empathy is what has sparked the fear among Americans who care about human rights and human life. We have history to show us what happens when countries believe themselves more important than the people and we must learn from the mistakes of these older, possibly wiser countries. It was Freud who taught us that having an out of control ego can only cause trouble down the line and Bush has created the ultimate in overdeveloped egos by creating this us against them dichotomy. By naming this lack of empathy and complete self-worship patriotism and Christian this administration has been able to quell any opposition by labeling dissenters as traitors or evil. Our country is in dangerous territory both politically and spiritually but it is masked by the loyalty to the flag and the misperception that dissent means not supporting our troops.

The number of examples of this lack of empathy for human life is overwhelming. The most pervasive among Americans, however, is their acceptance of the Iraq War. Our President lied to us about intelligence in order to create a false reason to attack a sovereign country that has never attacked us. When this lie was uncovered, the President made no apology for the fact that he had sent our troops into a war on false pretenses. He just changed the reason for war now stating that, “We are fighting the terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here.” What a horrendous reason to kill 150,000 innocent Iraqi citizens. We want to use their country to attract terrorists and kill them so that we do not have to put our citizens at risk. How nice for us living in America. How terrible for those people whose country is now the battleground for a war that had nothing to do with them. They were just dispensable people in dispensable houses and businesses where our government could get away with sending our military. Americans accepted this as a good reason to have a war. No one seems to have any empathy for those Iraqi mothers and children who have no food, water, shelter or security thanks to our President. We can only think of our own children who are safe in school and at the corner grocery store. Their lives have turned into a hell of suicide bombers and American bombs taking out neighborhoods and businesses but our lives have gone on as if nothing has happened. To Americans the later is the only important thing.

Think also of the troops involved in this war. I see “support our troops” magnets everywhere. Are we really supporting our troops when we support a war started under false pretenses? I believe we would be supportive of them by insisting that the President tell us the truth before sending our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers to war. Empathy would require us to look into the eyes of these soldiers and say that we did everything to keep them from going to war. True empathy would mean putting ourselves in the shoes of those soldiers as they leave their pregnant wives maybe never to return to see their son or daughter. Don’t we owe them the truth about why they are going to war? We should respect those men and women enough to avoid a war until we absolutely cannot avoid it any longer. I hear all of these World War II veterans chanting support your troops, send them to die for their country. Their President did not send them to war until the US was forced to respond by the attack on Pearl Harbor, years after the war began. We are not supporting our troops when we send them to war and then go on with our own lives as if there were no war. We do not have empathy for our troops when we tell the grieving widow that her husband died for his country and then we enjoy tax cuts that would fund an increase in death benefits. Americans are not a country at war as they were in WWII. Everyone made sacrifices to fund that war and to keep America running. Now Americans support the war as long as someone else’s son has to go fight. I love seeing all of these young republicans on college campuses wearing their “support our troops” buttons. They can chant the “fight them over there” mantra as well as any FOX news analyst, but they are not about to sign up to go fight the terrorists over there. That is a lack of empathy. A lack of compassion for those men and women who are in the military because they saw it as a way out of poverty or a way into college and who trusted that the President would not use them as a pawn but would instead respect them as a person.

Now we are at a point where leaving Iraq in the condition that we created may cause even more turmoil than staying. This is how we made an enemy of Osama bin Laden in the first place; when we promised to help Afghanistan and then we left when it was at its most vulnerable. We took a relatively stable country and we have created chaos and a breeding ground for terrorists. The people who once liked America or were neutral about our country now hate us and are ready to fight and die to defeat us. Many of those people now would stand in line at the opportunity to come here to the US and inflict pain and suffering on our people as we have on them. This war was the greatest recruitment initiative ever for Al Queda and Osama bin Laden solely because they recognize America’s lack of empathy for anyone else in the world. In a world of only good and evil Americans are now seen as evil for simply being American, just as so many of our citizens see every other country as evil. Just as in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict where no one is totally right or wrong, there are normal everyday people affected by each decision our President makes. These people have done nothing evil or wrong. They are just people trying to live their lives. These people are American soldiers and these people are Iraqi children. They deserve empathy from our leader and empathy from our citizens for the lives that have been forced upon them for the past 4 years.

Before supporting any war, put yourself in the shoes of each person who is truly affected by the war. The men and women who have lost limbs and sight. The babies who will never meet their father. The men and women who cannot sleep at night or who cannot return to work or relationships due to PTSD. The men, women and children in Iraq who have no home, no electricity, and no assurance of food for tomorrow. The women of Iraq who have had much more freedom than most Muslim countries but are about to lose those freedoms to another theocracy. The children who have lost their parents and their future thanks to our need to “fight them over there.” Empathy requires us to think of these things rather than only of ourselves.

I commend the men and women of our country that do have empathy for others in the face of these atrocities. The men and women who serve our country and try to help the Iraqis although they know their President has misled them. I praise the people who have gone to Iraq to help the citizens of that country and who try to show Iraqis that some Americans do care about their maimed children. The people who have risked being called a traitor by speaking out against this unjust dichotomy but have done it anyway. Americans are not all as callous and negative as this administration. There are millions of compassionate and empathetic people out there attempting to right the wrongs of the world. The “we” discussed above is not every American. It is the Americans represented by this administration and the people making the decisions in America today. It is any American still buying into the idea of fighting the terrorists there so that our lives may be sparred. There were not any terrorists there until we opened the door and asked them to join us for a jihad. Americans must wake up and find the compassion within. Americans must stop seeking revenge for 911 in the most convenient arena and insist that we seek justice from the people involved. Although finding the actual perpetrators of the crime is much more difficult and not as exciting to watch each night on the news, it is the right thing to do. It is the compassionate thing to do. It is the Christian thing to do. It is the American thing to do.

Another letter, same idiot

2005-08-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

I was astonished to open my Sunday paper and find Rod Parsley on the front page. I do not understand why the Columbus Dispatch continues to give credence to a man who spreads hate and bigotry all in the name of God. This man should not be quoted and revered in the local paper each week. Regardless of how many people he supposedly has attending his sermons on Sunday he is not speaking for any form of Christianity I know. Christianity was founded solely on the words and deeds of one man. Jesus Christ. Jesus is the primary way in which Christianity differs from the Jewish and Muslim faiths. All the religions worship the God of David, of Abraham, and Moses. Jesus spent his days talking about love, peace and helping others. He spent his meals with lepers and sinners and his free time with prostitutes and tax collectors. He did not preach hate and condemnation. He did not ask his followers to shun homosexuals or think of themselves as self righteous and better than everyone else. He did not even speak against people of other cultures. Christ encouraged his followers to welcome people of other cultures and religions in brotherly love. The story of the Good Samaritan is about how people from other cultures, who were shunned and hated at that time, are really our neighbors and should be valued as human beings. I was especially disheartened by the quote saying that Muslims have brought more destruction on humanity than other religions. Rod Parsley apparently has not read his Christian history. The holocaust, the crusades and the reformation were all bloody losses of life and a dark period of our Christian heritage just to name a few. Not all Christians are responsible for those events just as only a few Muslim extremists are responsible for today’s events, out of millions of nonviolent faithful Muslims. By repeatedly placing Rod Parsley in the paper, and now on the front page, you are helping him to spread his message of hate to others under the guise of a religion that he does not actually follow. Visit his church and you will see that he is more into self-worship (as evidenced by the magnitude of gigantic self portraits throughout the building) and not Christ worship (as evidenced by the poverty of crosses or Christian symbols). Muslims, homosexuals and every other person in Columbus needs to be told that this man is not the voice of Christianity. By showing him as such you are hurting the Christian faith and the other churches in Columbus. Please get the message out to our citizens that Christianity is about love and acceptance and not about what Rod Parsley is selling.

homosexuality and christianity

2005-07-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

The rampant prejudice in America today is disturbing. Hate and intolerance perpetuated by politicians and some Christian leaders is frightening. In an era so close to the civil rights movement in our own country and apartheid in South Africa it is shocking that groups of people can be so blatantly targeted and ridiculed without much opposition. It is distressing that more Christians have not resisted the temptation to join this prejudice and have instead decided to endorse it and claim that God would approve. God would surely not approve of diminishing the rights of individuals, for all people were created in His image. God would surely not approve of our religious leaders or politicians condemning people, for it was Jesus who said, “Let thee without sin cast the first stone.” God would surely not approve of Christians singling out individual sins as worse than their own for Jesus said, “Look first at the plank in your own eye.” God certainly would not approve of Christians claiming righteousness for them while attempting to pass laws to limit the rights of others, for this is the fault Jesus found with the Pharisees of his time.

The prejudice in America I am addressing is the prejudice against homosexuals. First, let me say that I am a heterosexual married woman with three children. For some reason I feel the need to clarify that, perhaps because anyone who defends homosexuals is written off as “probably gay.” I am a Christian woman, since birth, and am very active in my church. I read the Bible and know what it says. I know that it says that judging others is wrong and that we should love other people, not hate them. I also know what it does not say. Some Christian leaders would have you believe that Jesus Christ Himself said that all who follow Him should persecute homosexuals until they change their ways. Jesus, in fact, said absolutely nothing about homosexuality.

I am actually not going to spend time arguing about whether God approves or disapproves of homosexuality. Many churches and church leaders feel strongly that there is evidence that God disapproves of homosexuality. There are also many churches, church leaders, and whole denominations that feel strongly that there is no evidence in the Bible that God disapproves of committed homosexual relationships. Luckily, as a heterosexual woman I have no need to discover the so-called “truth.” You see, if I were thinking of being in a sexual relationship with another woman, I would have to think about whether it would be a sin and I would have to make my decision accordingly. Just as I do with all actions in my life, I would have to consider whether it would displease God. As a heterosexual woman, however, I feel confident that God will judge these people according to His laws. He truly is the only one who knows how He feels about the subject (although everyone claims to know). Jesus warned us that God alone would judge the prostitute, and people should, in essence, stay out of it. God alone will judge whether homosexuals are sinning or not. I do know that there are many homosexuals who have committed their lives to Christ and have given this topic a lot of thought. Their decision is between themselves and God and I have faith and trust in God to lead them in their path to Him.

Anyone who is familiar with the story of Jonah should understand the concept of trusting God. Jonah was sent to a city of sinners to tell them to repent. He did not want to go and was swallowed by a whale in order to convince him to do what God asked. God gave him a second chance. Jonah was to go to the city and tell the people to repent. Finally, he did what God asked. The people of the city listened to Jonah and did what God commanded. God spared them. Rather than being happy about this Jonah lamented that God should destroy the city. God should not give them a second chance because they were sinners. Although Jonah got his second chance, he felt more righteous than the others and did not trust that God could make a good decision regarding the lives of the people. Jonah did not understand grace and forgiveness as it applied to other people. He did not understand that God loves everyone, not just him. This is the same problem we have today. One must have faith that God will judge people according to his will and will provide grace to those who sin according to His plan. It is not our job to do that here on earth.

Today we not only have a problem with trusting God but also with the spreading of hate and intolerance using God and Jesus as justification. Jesus was very clear that using God to perpetuate hate and prejudice is not acceptable. Jesus actually spent most of his time talking about what people should do to help and accept other people. He spoke about loving everyone and accepting others. He summed up the 10 commandments with that now famous quote, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He never encouraged his disciples to go lobby for more laws to keep people from sinning. He actually spoke frequently about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who tried to force people into following laws created to honor God but who never understood the true meaning of God’s love for others. These Pharisees felt as if they were more righteous than others were and could therefore condemn everyone for their sins. Jesus spoke harshly against this practice calling them hypocrites and stating that their lack of humility and their superiority was in fact a greater sin.

I propose that judging homosexuals is a greater sin than being homosexual (if it is even a sin). Jesus said, “Judge not lest ye be judged by the same measure.” I also believe that if we truly trust in God and have faith in Him as our almighty Creator then we should stop trying to do His job for him. I feel no great desire to legislate God’s judgment here on earth. Commandments that interfere with the lives of others are legislated for the public good, not to uphold God’s word. Thou shalt not murder and steal are legislated to keep order in our society. Thou shalt not commit adultery is not part of our law as a society because it does not affect our society as a whole. It is a law from God for private use. Those countries that have made it part of their law we condemn as theocracies. We say that they do not provide human rights because they kill women who have sex outside of marriage. We are right to condemn this use of scripture for legal purposes. Why then are so many people eager to follow this practice of legislating sin in America?

Homosexual people live and work among us virtually undetected. They are our doctors, our lawyers and our teachers. They cut our hair and mow our grass. Their children sit next to ours in homeroom and they sit next to us in the pew on Sunday or in the next cubicle at work. They are our aunts and uncles, our brother or second cousin. Homosexual people contribute as much to our society as heterosexual people. I believe the vast majority of murderers, rapists, child abusers, child molesters/pornographers, and other violent criminals are heterosexual. Why do we fear gay people and spend more time campaigning against them than we do criminals? Why do Christians burn rainbow flags and support amendments limiting rights to homosexuals? First, people oppose homosexuality because some “conservatives” spread false information about them in order to perpetuate the prejudice and fear. Mrs. LeHay said, on Larry King Live, that she opposes gay marriage because homosexuals spread AIDS. No one pointed out that married homosexuals would not spread AIDS and that the largest population of people getting AIDS right now is heterosexual women (from their heterosexual partners). Misinformation and outright lies such as these allow a climate for hate and intolerance to grow.

The attack against homosexual people was most evident during the last election because so many states had “gay marriage amendments” on the ballot. The scope of the amendment in Ohio also changed the rights of heterosexual couples who live together as well. I was astonished that Christians were the ones with signs in their yards supporting this amendment. The most shocking part was that they saw this amendment as supporting family. Allowing a child’s parents to get married would support family values. Giving incentive for people to stay in monogamous committed relationship promotes family values. Giving benefits such as health care and next of kin rights to the parents of all children is promoting families. Allowing two committed adults to raise and love a child who would otherwise be lost in the foster care system promotes family. Making it illegal for daddy to hit mommy, even if they are not married, promotes family values.

Really, the opposition has absolutely nothing to do with family values or with the Bible. The Christian Right and those who follow it oppose homosexuals so vehemently because it makes them feel better about themselves. I finally realized this when I stumbled across Mathew 19 verse 3-9. Christians use this verse all the time to try to oppose homosexuality. When you read the text, however, the passage has nothing to do with homosexuality. Jesus is actually answering a question about divorce posed by the Pharisees. Jesus states that divorce is wrong and that anyone who divorces his wife and remarries is committing adultery. If these people are really interested in spreading Jesus’ word, they should be going after divorced people. If their primary concern is saving souls and forcing people to follow Jesus then why not propose an amendment to ban divorce or re-marriage? How absurd. No one would ever do that. Not only are a large percentage of parishioners divorced, many ministers are as well. It is not acceptable to attack divorced people nor is it politically helpful. People ignore the very clear message of this passage in favor of making it about homosexuality.

Attacking homosexuals, however, is very productive. Heterosexual people can feel righteous by making homosexuality the “big sin.” I see it all the time. “Yes, I value material wealth and sleep with my secretary and gossip about he neighbors but at least I’m not gay.” This unfortunately, has become common thought among Christians, which I find alarming and hypocritical. Even scarier, however, is the fact that some churches have perpetuated this thought by placing homosexuality in this scapegoat role. Christians can feel secure that this is a sin they will not commit so they are comfortable naming it the “big one.” Divorce, adultery, coveting, gossip, etc. are all possibilities in our future. The Bible clearly states that all of these are sins. We pray that we will not sin but we are human, we fail. By the time we are adults we can be certain, however, that we will not be gay. So we feel better. Maybe we are not such wicked sinners. At least we are not sleeping with someone of the same sex.

Both divorce and adultery threaten family values more than homosexuality. Letting Alice and Janet get married so they can support their two kids does not affect my family at all. It does not make me consider becoming a lesbian and running off with my friend Lucy and our five kids. It actually strengthens Alice and Janet’s family. They would be in a committed relationship, have health care for their family and have rights that we take for granted such as hospital visitation and next of kin. Without the right to marry, they are still going to be gay and live together to raise their children. If they cannot marry each other, they are not going to decide suddenly to get husbands. What difference does it make to heterosexual people if they are married? It only makes a difference to their lives and the wellbeing and the lives of their children.

Now, divorce and adultery could both affect my family or any heterosexual Christian family. It disrupts the lives of the children and is expressly forbidden by Jesus himself and later by Peter and Paul. If this is a greater threat to family values then why isn’t the Christian Coalition writing amendments and printing signs? It is much more common than homosexuality. You are likely to know dozens of divorced people at this moment and maybe only one gay married couple. Why aren’t these churches legislating God’s law in this case?

Everyone knows the answer if they are truly honest with themselves. This attack on homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with God or the Bible. For politicians it is simply a political tool to get elected. It is an easy way to get votes based on fear and bigotry. It could be any group of people at any time. As long as it is a minority group that people are afraid of or do not understand. Any group of which the majority of people know they will not ever be a part. In the past, it was women and blacks (in America). That minority became too large to be oppressed any longer. It has also been Irish people, Chinese and Japanese. In some parts of the country plagued by illegal immigrants from Mexico, it is very vogue to pick on Hispanics. Muslims and Arabs in America have serious possibilities for the future and many already target them. In a country with pesky civil rights laws, however, it is hard to legally pick on any of these groups. Plus most Christian groups have a hard time Biblically supporting outright bigotry based on just skin color or country of origin (although the KKK found ways around it). Christians instead feel more comfortable picking a sin and focusing on that. Of course, they must ignore much of the rest of the Bible but they can at least find some verses to back up their argument when they pick on certain sins or other religions.

The Christian right also likes to pick on other denominations of their religion. It is a way for some Christians to feel better about themselves. To feel superior to others as if they have knowledge that will keep them out of hell. The bad news is that Jesus had a lot to say about self-righteous people and none of it was good. The very thing that helps them feel secure in their salvation may really be their elevator to the basement. The point is that our culture has picked homosexuality because it is an easy target. Politicians can be elected by smearing a group of people and can look like they are achieving something by adding amendments to constitutions banning gay marriage. In the end, it does not make anyone’s lives better and it does not improve our country. It does not help us live a better life and it limits the freedoms and liberty on which our country was founded. This type of bigotry does not hurt only gay people and their children. It hurts any person who wants to share living expenses for any reason (think TV show Kate and Ally or the Golden Girls). It hurts foster kids and orphans who could have permanent loving parents. It hurts our society by causing hatred and bigotry. It hurts children who may be struggling with their sexuality. It hurts all families. Most of all, however, it hurts the Christian religion.

Christianity’s core belief is salvation and grace for everyone through Jesus Christ. When some churches turn from that core belief they cause millions of people to turn away from Christ (homo and heterosexual). They limit access to the Father, which is exactly what Jesus told us not to do. People who recognize this hypocrisy will only fill their lives with something else. We cannot legislate everything that everyone does in a country built on democracy and freedom. We cannot force people to follow Christ or God’s commandments. All we can do as Christians is spread the message of Christ and be open to people when they come to us. They will not bother to come to church if church attacks them politically. True salvation comes by grace and Jesus expects us to extend that grace to all we encounter. Carrying signs, name calling and lobbying for the limitation of civil rights is not the way to love others and accept them as Christ commanded. Regardless of whether you think homosexuality is a sin or not a sin you should be called to love each person for who they are and you should trust that God knows what he is doing.

Interesting Quote

2005-07-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Letter to the Editor of the Columbus Dispatch

2005-06-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

This letter is in response to a letter to the editor written last week by Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest Church, in which he explained why he feels nonprofit agencies should be allowed to campaign for and endorse political candidates.

I find it interesting that Rod Parsley feels the need to campaign for the rights of non profit agencies to endorse and support political candidates. Anyone who has seen his show on cable or been to a service has been preached to about the dangers of homosexuality and abortion. They have been told that good Christians support the conservatives no matter what the issue. They have been told that political issues are indeed Christian issues and that Senate procedures have an impact on Christianity. He has even had Republican political speakers speak at his church and has held events to support Ken Blackwell. If he hasn’t gotten his non-profit status taken away yet I doubt he is in danger in the future. Unless Mr. Parsley plans to kick out members of his own congregation who don’t agree with his agenda. Why else the new campaign to remove this law?

In fact, I think it would hurt conservatives more than help them. There are thousands of non-profit organizations that would endorse democratic candidates. It is well known that most people who volunteer or work for service organizations (usually non-profit) are liberals. That is where we get that saying “bleeding heart liberals.” All those people who want to help others (or as conservatives would say, “give handouts”) usually vote democratic. The people who work in soup kitchens and mental health centers vote democratic. People who work in domestic violence shelters and jobs programs vote democratic. I can’t guarantee democratic votes from Habitat for Humanity employees, UNICEF, Lutheran Social Services, Volunteers of America, etc. would be for democrats but I would venture to say a solid majority would. I can say that these people regularly uphold the values of erasing poverty and the plight of the low and middle class in America and around the world. These organization would like to see the huge difference between the “haves and the have nots” erased. These are the types of organizations that would endorse candidates who want to increase the minimum wage, make it possible for people to own homes, end hunger and poverty in the world, and offer health care to every person. Then, of course, there are the hundreds of non-profit organizations that are trying to save our environment. Who do you think they would endorse? There are also thousands of other churches in America who would be preaching the exact opposite message of Mr. Parsley. A message of compassion, humility and grace. He may speak loudly to his congregation however he is not the only voice of Christianity in America.

Mr. Parsley and others who want to rewrite the law have not considered the real issue.
Money is the real issue. If we give our money to our church or to any non-profit organization do we really want it used for political ads and campaign parties? Do we want to give our money to charity or church and wonder if they are going to use it to bring a political operative to Columbus to speak? Do we want to give money to help end poverty and then find out they used it to get someone elected? I think the law was put in place to protect against this exact problem. It would be a dilemma where there is no clear line. Money given to end poverty could be used to get a candidate elected who promises to try to reduce the poverty rate. Technically it would be going to what it is supposed to go to. Would Rod Parsley approve of this action if it was going to the opposing candidate? Doubtful. Changing laws based on how they benefit you at the moment is a mistake the Senate almost made by ending the filibuster option. Now they are going to shoot themselves in the foot yet again by trying to stop a law that was put in place to protect us all, including the non-profit organizations. We have enough corruption in corporate America. Let’s not let it take over our churches and non-profit organizations as well!

Vote your Values

2005-05-31T19:44:00.000-07:00

In light of recent debates over Christianity and politics, it is important for all Christians to evaluate issues based on their Christian beliefs. I however, urge Christians to go back and read what the Bible actually says rather than relying on the media to tell you what Christians are supposed to believe. I urge all Christians to base their beliefs about politics and about how we treat others on what the Bible actually says. Please study what Jesus taught, look at how he responded in different situations and analyze his teachings and parables to find answers. Do not look for answers in single verses but instead look at Jesus’ overall message. Try to read the gospels with an open mind and with the intention of seeking the truth, not seeking verification for what you believe. If we only seek a way to backup our own beliefs then we will miss the truth.

For example, Jesus spoke frequently about poverty. He spoke at length about the rich giving their money to help the poor. He talked about how wrong it is for the rich to continue to amass money while others are suffering. I think most people have trouble applying this concept to politics today. I find it easier to use examples closer to home. Let’s say you are on the consistory (the governing body) of a large church. Your church has set aside a large amount of money to end poverty or to help the poor within your congregation. How would you spend the money? What would Jesus do? Would you give the money to anyone living below the poverty line? Probably not. You want to be fiscally responsible. Hopefully you would set up programs to help the poor. Perhaps a food bank, or pay heating bills in the winter. Maybe help single mothers with childcare while they work or get an education. Perhaps even provide special services for kids with disabilities or kids without healthcare. Would you make sure everyone is immunized and has medical care if needed? What about poor elderly people? Maybe help transport them to medical appointments or provide prescriptions. What is on you list?

Who would pay for this in your church? Well, the money comes from the offering. Everyone contributes based on how much they have. Wealthy people give more because they have more. Poor people may give very little but give all they can. Jesus spoke of the old woman who gave her last coin verses the wealthy land owner who gave a lot of money yet gave very little compared to what he had. Who gave more?

So let’s assume that the majority of the money comes from wealthy people. We can estimate using tithing. If people give 10% of their income the wealthiest people will give more than the poorest 40% of the people. This also follows the logic of the parable above.

Now let’s say there is a new consistory elected. They too claim to be following the teachings of the Bible. They present their budget to the congregation as such:
Everyone who is wealthy (lets say top 5% of the congregation) no longer needs to tithe so that they have more money to hire people at their businesses.
We will cut funding for all programs that benefit the poor by 80% due to decreased offering income. We will also give 50% of our offering, which was once allocated to the poor, to local businesses so they can afford to hire some more people.
Poor congregants must continue to tithe at the 10% rate while also now paying for their own heat bills, food, trips to the doctor and childcare. Perhaps you should apply for a job at one of the local businesses we support.
Another portion, actually most of the money from the offering, will go to taking over the church across town. We don’t really like what they’ve been preaching lately so we’ve decided to take over. They don’t take care of all their congregants like we do. By taking over we can turn them into our kind of church. Plus we can use their building as a gym and get all of them to tithe. If you are a real church member and Christian then you’ll go along with this plan. Only traitors wouldn’t agree with our new budget and plan to take over offending churches.
The church newsletter, women’s magazine and small group study guides will all only reflect this viewpoint. If anyone publishes anything or says anything that contradicts our new budget you will be called a liar and a traitor publicly and then we will repeat our new budget points over and over again until you agree.

This is purely an example on a small church level of what is going on in politics today. Claiming to use the laws of the Bible when it is convenient but ignoring God’s laws about how to treat other people. Jesus spoke harshly about the people of His day that did this very thing. The Pharisees were so focused on the personal sins of the people that they missed the purpose for which God made the laws.

In Mathew 23 versus 1- 12 Jesus warns against the teachers and the Pharisees saying:

The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees are the authorized interpreters of Moses’ Law. So you must obey and follow everything they tell you to do; do not, however, imitate their actions, because they don’t practice what they preach. They tie onto people’s backs loads that are heavy and hard to carry, yet they aren’t willing even to lift a finger to help them carry those loads. They do everything so that people will see them. Look at the straps with scripture verses on them which they wear on their foreheads and arms, and notice how large they are! Notice also how long are the tassels on their cloaks! They love the best places at feasts and the reserved seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the market places and to have people call them ‘Teacher.’ You must not be called ‘Teacher,’ because you are all brothers of one another and have only one Teacher. And you must not call anyone here on earth ‘Father,’ because you have only the one Father in heaven. Nor should you be called ‘Leader,’ because your one and only leader is the Messiah. The greatest one among you must be your servant. Whoever makes himself great will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be made great.

These verses speak directly to what I think the religious right and neo-conservative politicians have done by using their Christianity to campaign. They wear their scripture verses on their forehead and love to be seen as great Christians, yet they are not humble. Conservative politicians and now Christians tie huge loads of responsibility onto the backs of the poor and middle class but offer no help to those people. The greatest among them should be their constituents, the American people. Jesus told us to look after the least among us. This is how we will be judged as Christians. Normally we wouldn’t hold politicians to Biblical standards. We wouldn’t necessarily ask that they do what Jesus would do. Now, however, we have a President who used his Christian faith to get elected and a Congress who uses their faith to get votes when things don’t go their way. Shouldn’t the President and these conservatives now be held to his campaign promises? His promise to use Jesus Christ to guide policy? All policy?

Take, for example, the war in Iraq. I’m actually shocked and saddened that I have to explain why war is not a Christian concept. Christians have historically opposed wars. Christians around the world continue to oppose war, except Christians in America. Christians in America have been led to believe that being an American Christian means supporting the government first and our Christian beliefs second. For some reason we seem to have turned to America worship. America is great. We should be proud of our country in many ways. As Christians, however, we are told to worship God alone. America worship has led Americans to believe that we alone are God’s chosen people. That God loves us so much that we can do what we want without thought to other people or cultures. It has even led us to abandon Jesus’ teachings that condemn war and violence. We suddenly think that those teachings don’t apply to us because our “Americanism” comes first. We were attacked. We have vengeance in our hearts. I actually heard a Christian person yesterday explaining why torturing captured Iraqis should be allowed. How have we strayed so far from the Bible?

The answer is guilt. Good old fashioned peer pressure. “If you don’t support war you’re not patriotic. You’re a traitor. You hate the troops.” I’ve heard these over and over on talk radio and in person. All of this is not true. Just like “All the cool kids smoke pot.” And “If you love me you’ll have sex.” It is peer pressure. It isn’t true. Some of the nations most brave and loyal patriots don’t support the war. Actually, I would venture to say that most high level military people don’t support the war (although only the retired ones can say so). They don’t like our brave men and women used as dispensable pawns. They would prefer the President only send soldiers (human beings) into war as a last resort. They have seen war before and know that the loss of life on both sides is not something you want to ever see again unless you have no other choice. They have buried soldiers, told families their child is dead and seen women and children killed during past wars. They have seen the destruction and they know it is something to avoid if there is even a hint of possibility to resolve the conflict peacefully. They were ignored or fired when they vocalized these sentiments.

There are, however, plenty of religious reasons to oppose war as well. Actually, as far as I can find, Jesus never sends his disciples out to kill the enemy. He doesn’t start a war against Pontious Pilate or the Romans. He doesn’t take over the temple and torture the Pharisees. Never does he suggest violence of any kind as a good solution. Even when people do wrong he tells us to do right. If someone steals your tunic give him your cloak. Open the book of Mathew and you will have plenty of examples of this moral imperative. Or, for those who prefer the Old Testament, look at the 10 commandments in the book of Exodus. The Christian right loves to quote the Ten Commandments when the commandments suit their own agenda; however they fail to turn to them on other issues, such as war, when they aren’t so convenient. They love to quote the very few versus of scripture about sodomy but skip over the volumes of material about peace, love and forgiveness.

Just now I decided to open the Bible to the New Testament on a random page. I looked down on the page and found myself on Mathew 5 versus 43 to 48 which reads:

There is a saying, ‘Love your friends and hate your enemies.’ But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even scoundrels do that much. If you are friendly only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even the heathen do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

I realize most Christians citing moral issues during the November election weren’t thinking of these issues. I’m not sure why so many Christians have stopped thinking of war, human rights, poverty, health care, etc. as Christian imperatives or moral issues. I can’t explain why Christians may feel giving soup to the poor is important but helping the poor get jobs and services is not important. I can’t explain why we send missionaries to build houses and then support a government who sends troops to bomb houses and kill 150,000 men, women and children.

Many Christians citing “morals” during the election were talking about abortion. I find this interesting. Republican candidates all say they oppose abortion. They want to make it illegal. Of course it has been legal for 30 years. During those 30 years it is Democrats who have tried repeatedly, with some success, to create programs that actually reduce the number of abortions. Sex education, daycare, health care, single mother programs, adoption; the list continues. These programs have met with great success. Abortion rates dropped dramatically during the Clinton years. People thought it was just a trend until the numbers went up considerably after Bush took office.

Democrats aren’t evil people who want to kill babies. Every democrat I’ve heard speak on the subject, including John Kerry, says they want to reduce the abortion rate. In fact they don’t want abortions to occur at all. They have proven they mean what they say by constantly proposing programs such as the ones above. Churches, too, have developed programs to help stop abortion. Many have right to life ministries that provide baby items to mothers. Some provide food or healthcare for pregnant women. Some provide daycare for single moms so they can keep their babies and work. Some help with adoption. Do these programs sound familiar? Of course they do! They are the same as the democratic programs. The democrats, the very people who are accused of killing babies and of being non-Christians constantly propose programs that are the same as many church programs.

You see, everyone opposes abortion. Not everyone seeks a governmental, constitutional amendment to make it illegal but no one is out there telling women to have more abortions. The two parties simply have opposing views as to how to solve the problem. So which is correct? Whenever I ask that question I look to the Bible.

We already know that we think abortion is wrong. We don’t need to look up passages about that. What we need to find is what God calls us to do. I looked in Mathew first because Jesus really talked the most about how we should live our lives. If we follow Jesus we should be making correct decisions. Well of course Jesus doesn’t talk about abortion. We must, then, see how Jesus deals with other sins. He does not provide a hierarchy of sin. Adultery, murder, worshiping idols, are all on the same level.
When asked by the Pharisees in Mathew 9 verse 11, “Why does your teacher associate with men like that” (meaning sinful men), Jesus replied, “Because people who are well don’t need a doctor! It’s the sick people who do!” Jesus continues in the 13th verse, “Now go away and learn the meaning of this verse of Scripture, ‘It isn’t your sacrifices and your gifts I want- I want you to be merciful.’ For I have come to urge sinners, not the self-righteous, back to God.” Notice the word “urge” instead of the word “force” or “demand”?

There are also numerous examples of Jesus talking to sinners and forgiving them. While other men were going to condemn sinners in various stories Jesus forgave them and said to the men, “Let those without sin cast the first stone.” Jesus is telling these men that the sin of others is for God to condemn or forgive. Not for man to judge.

Jesus spoke particularly harshly to and about the Pharisees. These men created and upheld many laws to honor God. They saw themselves as much more righteous than other men and would continuously chastise and punish people who broke their laws. Rather than uphold these men as more righteous Jesus chastised them for being so concerned with their own rules that they had lost sight of God’s will. An example is found in Luke 36 – 50. The Pharisee says to himself, “If this man really were a prophet, he would know who this woman is who is touching him; he would know what kind of sinful life she lives!” Jesus then tells a story and forgives the woman of all of her sins. He explains that it is her love and faithfulness that shows her sins are forgiven. It is his lack of humility and his focus on the sin of others that keeps him from God. In other words, it is his focus on keeping God’s law rather than God’s will that keep him from the truth of God’s grace.

In Mathew 22 verses 34-40 the Pharisees attempt to trap Jesus yet again by asking him which is the greatest of God’s commandments. Every Christian knows the answer that Jesus gave. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” The second most important law being, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Do we love our neighbor when we condemn them for their sin and see ourselves as superior and with lesser sin? Do we love our neighbor when we focus solely on making laws to condemn others while ignoring the plight of thousands who need our help? Do we love our neighbor when we see the speck in their eye but not the plank in our own?

These neo-conservative politicians who like to use religion to gain public support are certainly the Pharisees of our day. They want a theocracy, where government and law follow the Bible and everyone must submit to their laws whether they believe in Christ or not. They believe they are somehow more righteous and just than others and therefore should be able to dictate that everyone follow the law of God as they perceive it. They lack the faith that God can and will judge these people Himself. Like Jonah, they demand that the sin of others is so great that God should strike them immediately. In absence of this intervention from God they have decided to judge people and force them to follow God. All the while they miss the hypocrisy of their own sin. They fail to see their lack of faith in God to judge His people and their lack of mercy, honesty and humility. Jesus says, in Mathew 23 verse 23:

How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of the seasoning herbs… but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practice, without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain a fly out of your drink, but swallow a camel! How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and the Pharisees! You hypocrites! You clean the outside of your cup and plate, while the inside is full of what you have gotten by violence and selfishness. Blind Pharisee! Clean what is inside the cup first and then the outside will be clean too! How terrible for you teachers of the Law and the Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but are full of bones and decaying corpses on the inside. In the same way, on the outside you appear good to everybody, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and sins.

Now if after reading what the Bible says you continue to vote for people who say they want abortion to be illegal I respect that. I hope, however, you see the religious and MORAL basis by which others may not agree that it is the only right and moral choice. That other good, caring, Christian, moral people may see this problem as an opportunity to minister to people in a loving and supportive way just as Jesus did. Some people want to stop abortion now rather than claim to want to stop it but really do nothing.

Abortion has been legal for 30 years and will continue to be legal as long as politicians get elected solely on that issue. They would, in essence, be shooting themselves in the foot by making it illegal. While you wait, is your candidate supporting policies that reduce abortion? Do they support jobs programs for single mothers? Do they support government subsidized daycare for single moms and teen moms who want to finish high school? Do they support programs that offer housing, food and health care for pregnant women and single moms with children? Do they support programs for children with learning disabilities (many mothers who have abortions are addicted to drugs or have no prenatal care.)

Also, as a Christian voter, ask your candidate what his plan is for after abortion is illegal. How do they plan to help these 100,000 women who don’t want to be pregnant or have a baby? Will they provide money for counseling? Open more battered women shelter? (Many women who have abortion do so out of fear of being beaten or fear that their child will be born into domestic violence). Also, many women cite drug dependence as a reason for abortion. Will your candidate provide free drug treatment? Many of these women probably won’t stop taking drugs since, given a choice they would have terminated the pregnancy (remember, this is if abortion is illegal, not if there were intervention by a church or agency trying to help the woman). Will your candidate provide free healthcare for the baby even if it is born with severe health problems or disabilities due to prenatal drug abuse or lack of prenatal care? What if this care will need to continue for the rest of this person’s life? What about funding for learning disabilities which are also sometimes cause by prenatal drug abuse?

How does your candidate feel about funding foster care? Studies show most women would not put their babies up for adoption if forced to have them. There would, however, be an increase in the number of children in foster care. Is your candidate willing to start funding the department of Human Services to handle the increased number of children? Does your candidate support this program now with his or her budget decisions?

The number one reason women say they have an abortion is economic. Either they can not afford to care for a child or they will be unable to complete school and therefore will be forced into minimum wage jobs as a single mother. How does your candidate plan to keep these women out of the welfare system? Free daycare programs? Daycare in high school? Increase minimum wage? Free healthcare? Jobs programs? How does your candidate feel about sex education and birth control education in the schools? These types of programs reduce the rate of pregnancy thereby reducing the rate of abortions. Do they support abstinence only education (which studies show does not work and especially would not work in lower income situations) or are they willing to support actual counseling about safe sex and birth control?

If we do make abortion illegal then don’t we as a society have an obligation to help these mothers raise their children? Their lives will forever be changed. Don’t we as Christians have an obligation to support them? Our current administration’s policies don’t support any of these programs mentioned yet they want to make abortion illegal. Will they change all of their social policies at the federal, state and local level if they succeed?

These questions need to be asked by every Christian who seeks this solution to the problem of abortion. It is easy to condemn what is wrong but will you follow through by forcing the government to support these women and their children? 39 million people in the United States live in poverty. The majority are children and single mothers. This number will only increase. What will you do to stop it? The current administration does not concern itself with these people now. It gave tax cuts to people making over $200,000 per year and cut programs to those living in poverty and people in the lower middle class. I’m not saying women should have abortions to avoid these problems. I am, however, concerned about people who want to make it illegal but have a history of voting against every program that helps single women and children. We can’t have it both ways without major disaster!

It is very easy to say that you are voting for moral values each election without thinking about what that means. The press and the politicians have again labeled one group of people and group of policies as moral while the other is then automatically assumed to be amoral. It is too easy to just believe that and go in to vote without thinking about whether it is really true. What are your morals? What do you teach your children? Do you just say, “Don’t have an abortion or marry someone of the same sex and you’ll be fine”? Or do your morals include being kind to others, helping those in need, peaceful solutions to world problems, grace, humility, mercy, honesty, caring? If they include something other than abortion then moral values isn’t as black and white as some politicians would claim. There are many ways to follow the Bible and God’s teachings. You must decide what is right for you. But first, base your decision on the facts and the actual scripture. Base your decision on the actions of the politician not empty promises and claims of a higher calling. Vote what Jesus Christ said, not on what a politician, who needs your vote to get elected, says are moral values.

2005-05-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

Speech by Texas State Rep. Senofria Thompson (D-Houston)>>>

"I have been a member of this august body for three decades, and today>> is one of the all-time low points. We are going in the wrong> direction,> in the direction of hate and fear and discrimination. Members, we all> know what this is about; this is the politics of divisiveness at its> worst, a wedge issue that is meant to divide.>> Members, this issue is a distraction from the real things we need to> be> working on. At the end of this session, this Legislature, this> Leadership will not be able to deliver the people of Texas,> fundamental> and fair answers to the pressing issues of our day.>> Let's look at what this amendment does not do: It does not give one> Texas citizen meaningful tax relief. It does not reform or fully fund> our education system. It does not restore one child to CHIP, who was> cut from health insurance last session. It does not put one dime into> raising Texas' Third World access to health care. It does not do one> thing to care for or protect one elderly person or one child in this> state. In fact, it does not even do anything to protect one marriage.>> Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination. I know> something about hate and fear and discrimination. When I was a small> girl, white folks used to talk about "protecting the institution of> marriage" as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to> marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd often find the people of my> color hanging from a tree. That's what the white folks did back then> to> "protect marriage." Fifty years ago, white folks thought inter-racial> marriages were a "threat to the institution of marriage.">> Members, I'm> a Christian and a proud Christian. I read the good book, and do my> best> to live by it. I have never read the verse where it says, "gay people> can't marry." I have never read the verse where it says, "thou shalt> discriminate against those not like me." I have never read the verse> where it says, "let's base our public policy on hate and fear and> discrimination." Christianity to me is love and hope and faith and> forgiveness-- not hate and discrimination.>> I have served in this body a lot of years-- and I have seen a lot of> promises broken. I should be up here demanding my 40 acres and a mule> because that's another promise you broke. You used a wealthy white> minister cloaked in the cloth to ease the stench of that form of> discrimination.>> So, now that blacks and women can vote, and now that blacks and women> have equal rights-- you turn your hatred to homosexuals-- and you> still> use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You> want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag--> brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what?>> Persons of the same sex cannot get married in this State now. Texas> does not now recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions, religious> unions, domestic partnerships, contractual arrangements or Christian> blessings entered into in this State-- or anywhere else on this planet>> Earth.>> If you want to make your hateful political statements then that is one>> thing-- the Chisum amendment does real harm. It repeals the contracts> that many single people have paid thousands of dollars to purchase to> obtain medical powers of attorney, powers of attorney, hospital> visitation, joint ownership and support agreements. You have lost your>> way-- this is obscene.>> Today, you are playing to the lowest common denominator-- you are> putting aside the real issues of substance that we need to address so> that you can instead play on the public's fears and prejudices to> deceive and manipulate voters into thinking that we have done> something> important.>> I realize that gay rights are not the same as civil rights-- but I can>> guarantee you we are going in the wrong direction. I can not hide my> skin color. In fact, in most of the South, people as pink as Rep.> Wayne> Smith were still Black by law if they had a great grandparent who was> African. I was unable to attend an integrated and equally funded> school> until I got my Master of Laws degree. There were separate and unequal> facilities for nearly everything.>> I got second-hand textbooks even worse than the kind you're trying to> pass off on every public school student next year. I had to ride to> school on the back of the bus. I had to quench my thirst from filthy> coloreds-only drinking fountains. I had to enter restaurants from the> kitchen door. I was banned from entering most public accommodations,> even from serving on a jury. I had to live with the fear that getting> too uppity could get you killed --- or worse. I know what third-class> citizenship feels like. In my first term, one of my colleagues walked> up and down this aisle muttering about how Nigras should be back in> the> field picking cotton instead of picking out committees.>> So, I have to wonder about Rep. Chisum's 3/5 of a person amendment.> Some of you folks hid behind your Bible then, too, to justify your> cultural prejudices, your denial of liberty, and your gunpoint robbery>> of human dignity.>> We have worked hard at putting our prejudices against homosexuals in> law. We have denied them basic job protections. We have denied them> and> their children freedom from bullying and harassment at school. We have>> tried to criminalize their very existence. But, we have also absolved> them of all family duties and responsibilities: to care for and> support> their spouses and children, to count their family's assets in> determining public assistance, to obtain health insurance for> dependents, to make end-of-life or necessary medical decisions for> their life partners--- sometimes even to visit in the hospital, even> to> defend our own country. And then, we can stand on our two hind legs> and> proclaim, "See, I told you homosexual families are unstable." And> nearly every one of you on this Floor has a homosexual in their> extended families.>> Some of you have shunned and isolated these family members. Some of> you, even some of the joint coauthors, have embraced them within your> own family for the essence of Christianity is love. Yet,you are now> poised to constitutionalize discrimination against a particular class> of people. I thought we would be debating real issues: education,> health care for kids, teacher's health insurance, health care for the> elderly, protecting survivors of sexual assault, protecting the> pensions of seniors in nursing homes.>> I thought we would be debating> economic development, property tax relief, protecting seniors pensions>> and stem cell research, to save lives of Texans who are waiting for a> more abundant life. Instead we are wasting this body's time with this> political stunt that is nothing more than constitutionalizing> discrimination. The prejudices exhibited by members of this body> disgust me.>> Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids--> sweet> little vulnerable kids-- out of the homes of loving parents and put> them> back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That's> disgusting. Today, we are telling homosexuals that just like people of>> my ilk, when I was a small child; they too are second class citizens.>> I have listened to all the arguments. I have listened to all of the> crap.> Mr. Chisum, is a person who I consider my good friend and revere. But,>> I want you to know that this amendment is blowing smoke to fuel the> hell-fire flames of bigotry.>> You are trying to protect your constituents from danger. This> amendment> is a CYB amendment for you to go home and talk about.">>>

Dr. Robin Meyers Speech

2005-04-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Dr. Robin Meyers
Oklahoma University Peace Rally
November 14, 2004
As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Churchin Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church innorthwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma CityUniversity.But you would most likely have encountered me on thepages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years,and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because Ihave watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists whoclaim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values"as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believerin moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country,about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean what are we talkingabout?Because we don't get to make them up as we go along,especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition ofwhat is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just afew of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moralvalues are on their side:When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act asif your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and thatyour critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some ofus who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believethat this is not only not moral, but immoral.When you live in a country that has establishedinternational rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on yourown soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you setdown for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, andyet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, orturn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that wemust never return violence for violence and that those who live by the swordwill die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are notas important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even countthem, you are doing something immoral.When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and thenquestion the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came homea hero, you are doing something immoral.When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel,which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethicaltest, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will getstronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and depriveso-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, whichyour own country helped to establish and insists that other countriesfollow you are doing something immoral.When you claim that the world can be divided up into thegood guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who arewith you, or with the terrorist -- and then launch a war which enriches yourown friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, insteadof helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask usto pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating anenormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of ourchildren, you are doing something immoral.When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate acountry that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like itdoesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, youhave done something immoral.When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turnout record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as atool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be afollower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the wayof the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.When you dismantle countless environmental laws designedto protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporationsthat bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while ourchildren breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have donesomething immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, andthat our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun toresemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We havemet the enemy, and the enemy is us.When you tell people that you intend to run and govern asa "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of allreligious faith-compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone whodisagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, youare doing something immoral.When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer ofthe sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to seea doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doingsomething immoral.When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and willset women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself withpreachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a ChristianI must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civilrights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith.I'm tired of people saying that I can't support thetroops but oppose the war -- I heard that when I was your age, when theVietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know thatthis war is wrong--the only question is how many people are going to diebefore these make-believe Christians are removed from power?This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt.The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the onlypeople who can turn things around are people like you--young people who arejust beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country totake back. Its your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when yourfriends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flagshould be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouthsshut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and realMuslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists--so do all the faith traditionsof the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every humanbeing is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the oppositeof charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark ofa deluded man, not a man of faith.And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race-- and thus the greatest failure of faith.There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all:War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.And what is the dream of the prophets?That we should study war no more,that we should beat our swords intoplowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.Who would Jesus bomb, indeed?How many wars does it take to knowthat too many people have died?What if they gave a war and nobody came?Maybe one day we will find out.Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts ofcivil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate inthe madness. My generation finally stopped a tragic war. You can too!
Published with permission from Dr. Robin Meyers.

Dear Pastors

2005-03-28T18:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Pastor,

I am writing in hopes that you will read this letter with an open mind and pray about the contents of this letter. I read in the Columbus Dispatch recently about a group of pastors in Ohio who are attempting to endorse ultra conservative candidates for political offices. I believe that these ultra conservative candidates have been misleading pastors and other Christians into believing they have a Christian agenda when they, in fact, have an agenda far from any teachings of Jesus Christ I have ever read in the Bible. Although these conservatives like to claim that Jesus has endorsed them and that they have Christian values in mind, none of their actual policies uphold any of the teachings of Jesus Christ. I feel that many Christians would like to believe that these people represent us (as Christians) so they do not look at their actual policies and their record on social issues. This is a dangerous practice and one I would like to see change.
As a concerned Christian I would like you to simply look at each issue and ask yourself the basic question, “What would Jesus do?” Yes, this phrase may be overused on bracelets and bookmarks but I ask you to prayerfully consider whether these ultra conservatives really have Jesus Christ’s own teachings in mind with their policies. Look, for example, at the budget proposed and endorsed by conservatives at the state and federal level. Would Jesus support big business to the detriment of the health and welfare of common citizens? Would Jesus support drug companies and health insurance companies to the detriment of working class and poor people in our country? Would Jesus side with credit card companies and take away the homes of people who can’t pay their mortgage due to bills from a catastrophic illness? Would Jesus support a huge tax cut for the rich when it means cutting programs that provide food, housing, health care and education to 39 million Americans who live in poverty? Would Jesus really support big businesses such as the coal industry who want to relax standards for environmental stewardship? Would Jesus support pillaging our environment just because we feel entitled as a country to whatever we want.
What about nationally? Would Jesus support a war of vengeance or a war to increase the prosperity of one country while another country suffers? Would Jesus support killing 150,000 women and children in Iraq because we as Christian Americans feel entitled to spread our beliefs throughout the world? Would Jesus support lying to the people of our nation in order to gain support for sending thousands of our own men and women to die for their country? Would Jesus support ignoring the millions of people worldwide who are dying from AIDS, malaria and malnutrition while we spend billions of dollars to force countries into democracy? I feel that Christian conservatives have forgotten that Jesus was not pro-American. He did not come to spread a message that Americans shall prosper at all costs and spread freedom and democracy to all lands by force if necessary. Jesus Christ was the prince of Peace. As such he spread a message of forgiveness and hope. Jesus told us to help our neighbor and forgive sins of others. He told us to look at the plank in our own eye before pointing out the speck in our neighbor’s eye. How have we, as Christians, gotten so far away from this message?
Abortion always seems to be the answer to that question. Let me ask you to prayerfully consider what Jesus would do about abortion. Let’s pretend that they had the technology to have abortions in Jesus’ time. I, by no means, suggest that he would approve. In fact, I believe he would not approve of abortion. The question is, based on what he did and said to other sinners of the time, what would Jesus actually do? Would he send his disciples out to lobby for more laws against abortion? Would he lobby the Pharisees to make more laws to uphold God’s teachings? The Pharisees were trying hard at the time to make everyone follow God’s laws by creating their own laws to keep people in line. How did Jesus feel about this practice? Are we not doing the same today? Christians have become the Pharisees of today’s time. We want to create as many laws as possible to keep people from doing things of which God would not approve. We, however, have left out the most important part of what Jesus said. Jesus went to sinners in love. He urged people to provide services to the poor, to the needy, to the “unclean.” He believed that everyone should be equal. He repeatedly chastised the Pharisees for not seeing the “big picture.” That it is not the laws that will change people’s hearts, it is the love.
I have never found a single person (left or right, liberal or conservative, Christian or atheist) who believes we should perform more abortions. I was pregnant 3 times and never did someone come up and tell me I should go abort my baby. Of course not! Because no one believes that abortion is a great wonderful invention that should occur as many times as possible. The argument is truly what to do about it. I believe, as Reverend Jim Wallis writes frequently in Sojourners magazine, that the answer is somewhere in the middle. Ultra conservatives claim to oppose abortion but do absolutely nothing to actually stop the number of abortions each year. In fact they vote against any measure that may stop abortion such as education, daycare for teen moms, healthcare, job training, housing subsidies, increasing minimum wage. The list goes on and on. All of the above measures have been proven to decrease abortion rates. Abortion rates went down drastically during the Clinton years because of the support for these programs. The abortion rate has increased dramatically in the past 4 years with decreased education, unemployment, and decreased programs for the poor and for single women. I am not suggesting that all liberals have it right. I am, however, suggesting that the abortion rate decreases the most when moderates are elected. When both parties increase funding for programs to stop abortions and when abortion laws limit the occurrence of abortions such as late term abortions. I also believe that providing services for the poorest in our country will decrease abortions. I believe that providing healthcare for all Americans will decrease abortions and increase prenatal care (therefore decreasing the mortality rate of infants and increasing the health of these children). I believe that providing housing and food to women will decrease the abortion rate. I believe that providing jobs that pay enough for women to support themselves and daycare while they work will decrease the abortion rate. Moderates believe the same.
I urge you to prayerfully consider my arguments before endorsing any ultra conservative candidate in Jesus’ name. I don’t think Jesus would like everyone he is endorsing nowadays. Please consider whether it is truly Christianity that is calling you to endorse someone or whether it is your own preconceived political opinions. It is difficult to lay aside our own beliefs and let God work in our lives. It is hard to be open to His message when it doesn’t coincide with our need for vengeance or righteousness. All the more reason to look to the Bible and to prayer for guidance.

The Christian Perspective

2005-02-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

I am deeply troubled by the recent trend to have a few vocal Christians speak for all American Christians. This especially troubles me because I believe their position on certain topics is actually contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It concerns me that some Christians have decided that pushing for legislation to stop abortion and limiting the rights of homosexuals is in the best interest of the church. Jesus Christ was very clear about how he felt about people who claimed to be more righteous, Godly individuals and people who use this so called moral superiority to enforce laws of hate and oppression. In the days when Jesus walked the earth the law of the land was to stone prostitutes, yet Jesus said no. He asked anyone without sin to cast the first stone. Jesus did not say that what the prostitute did was right. He told her to go and sin no more. He did, however, suggest that her sins were between her and God. This is not only a statement against capital punishment and judging. It is a statement about the lack of hierarchy of sin. Prostitutes are not more sinful than those who worship idols or covet thy neighbors new Hummer. This also applies to homosexuality.

Mathew 7:1-4 states, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Later Jesus states, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” Jesus didn’t run around shouting “sinner” and trying to make stricter laws to keep people in line. He went to the sinners, the outcasts, and the “unclean” in love. Only by loving and forgiving them did they cease from sinning and follow him.

Jesus did disapprove of one group of people, the Pharisees. The Pharisees created and enforced the laws that were based on their belief in the Bible. Jesus criticized them for only looking at the laws but not seeing the big picture. In Mathew 12:10-13 people accused Jesus of doing wrong when he healed someone on the Sabbath day. Jesus chastised them for only looking at the law but not the meaning behind it. In Mathew 15:7 Jesus again chastises the Pharisees saying, “You hypocrites! … These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach manmade rules as though they were my laws!”

I agree that Jesus would not approve of abortion and maybe not homosexuality. I also believe this is an issue for God alone to judge. If you believe strongly in stopping abortion or homosexuality, follow the example of Jesus Christ. Go to people in love, not in judgment. Forcing women to have children against their will is not going to help them find Christ. Providing them love, understanding and resources will bring them to Jesus and give them the option of having the baby. It is proven that as unemployment increases the rate of abortion increases. If you help people have good jobs that pay enough money to buy food, if you provide healthcare and support, women choose life. I’ve recently learned of a choose life ministry that provides maternity clothes, and all types of baby items to women thinking abortion is their only option. Now that is what Jesus would do.

I suggest the same is true of homosexuality. If you believe this life style is wrong then you should be called to invite these people to your church, not oppose them. Remember there was a time when blacks were denied rights of ordinary citizens. This also was done using the Bible as justification. But the Bible does not afford rights to only some people. Jesus said that all humans were created in the image of God. He did not shun the lepers, the unclean. He talked about the Good Samaritan as the example of the good neighbor. In the story the priest and Levite passed by on the other side and did not help the man in need. It was the man who ignored the laws, meant to honor God, and helped the man in need who Jesus upheld as correct.

My husband keeps saying that we are confusing social issues and moral issues. He is correct. Morals are what you live by everyday. They are what you instill in your children. Things like love, forgiveness, do unto others, love your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. It is only by applying these moral standards to social issues that we can truly come together as Christians. By claiming this past election was about morals and then focusing on these two social issues the Christian right has asked Christians to turn their back on Jesus’ teachings. Not only the ones discussed above but also his teachings against war, and against the rich getting rich while oppressing the poor. His imperative is to value all human life, whether it be a child in America who is ill and has no healthcare or a child in Iraq. We should value the life of an African citizen with AIDS and a coal miner who is forced to work in unsafe conditions because the company would loose money to make it safe. God asked us to care for our environment, not just when it is cheap for big business or convenient. This election was about many moral issues, unfortunately only two social issues got the endorsement of the louder Christians. I hope that by reading this it inspires all Christians to be loud and to support all of the teaching of Jesus Christ.

War and Christianity

2004-12-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

After 9/11 there was an abundance of Muslims on the news explaining their religion and condemning the actions of Osama Bin Ladin. As everyone knows Bin Ladin attacked America using his faith in God and Islamic moral superiority as his reasons. Muslims from all over the world reminded us that Bin Ladin is an extremist. Muslims told us that their religious text, the Koran, specifically condemns violence and killing. They assured Americans that using the Koran to support violence is against their religion. Anyone who follows the teachings of the Islamic faith is required to be peaceful.

In the wake of an election that was reportedly decided by moral issues, I am forced to ask “Where are the Christians?”. Christians, too, are called to be peacemakers, not aggressors. Jesus Christ specifically tells us to turn the other cheek, to forgive, to be the peacemakers. Repeatedly, through parables and directly, Jesus Christ tells Christians to love others no matter what they have done and regardless of what we think of them personally. It is only through scriptural distortion that extremist Christians justify war and vengeance. Each time the press wants a Christian perspective they interview these extremists on television. Their views have become the voice of Christians whether it represents true Christian beliefs or not. So where are the mainstream Christians who follow the teachings of the Bible and of Jesus Christ? Is the media not covering this point of view because the thirst for vengeance in America is so great?

I would like to explain the following to people of all faiths in America and around the world. Do not judge Christianity by the actions of the extremists. Our Christian beliefs do not allow for war and the actions of the few do not reflect the true teachings of our faith. Using a belief in God to justify violent acts is a direct violation of God’s second commandment. Exodus 20:7 states, “Do not use my name for evil purposes, because I, the Lord our God, will punish anyone who misuses my name.” Anyone who follows the teaching of Jesus Christ is called to look not at the sins of others but at their own sin. We are told to love one another and be a neighbor to everyone.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

2004-11-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

The Christian Right did more to alienate Christians and non-Christians during this election than ever before. As Christians we are called to bring people to Christ, not to drive them away in His name. By making one or two issues the so called ONLY moral issues in the election they have turned their back on many of Jesus Christ’s own teachings. Jesus was the Prince of peace, not war. He spoke of giving a man his cloak if he steals your tunic. He helped the poor, the forgotten, the people who were not represented. He healed all the sick, not just the rich. He prayed for his enemies, he did not kill them. He asks us to follow him and to do the same as He did. By ignoring those moral imperatives to focus on just one, churches have turned their back on 49% of the people; many are “good Christians” just like them. Churches who pass out literature supporting only these one or two moral points encourage voters to turn away from other teachings of Jesus. Often to the deficit of their congregations’ best interests. Congregations full of people who speak English as a second language, the poor, the unemployed, the people who can’t see a doctor when their child is sick. People who work in dangerous environments because their companies don’t want to pay to keep them safe and don’t have to keep them safe under the current administration. Handing out food at Thanksgiving hardly compares to allowing people to make a few dollars more an hour so they can buy their own food.

I’ve been told many times, “You voted for Kerry? I thought you were a Christian.” They get this idea from these ultraconservative Christian teachings often endorsed by churches. Jesus spoke about people of his time who did this same thing. They were known as the Pharisees. Jesus argued with the Pharisees because they saw only the rules and the laws but not the big picture. They were so focused on the law of washing that they lost the purpose behind it. Jesus then explains to his disciples that (1) they are not plantings in God’s vineyard but are a wild thicket (2) they are blind leaders of the blind (3) they face the judgment of God (pg 194 Augsburger).

So many lifelong, devout, active Christians have felt persecuted by these “If you were a Christian” comments. Several feel alienated from the church saying, “If I must turn my back on my moral beliefs and only endorse this one I don’t want to be a Christian.” I say those people should not abandon their Christianity, they should do as the disciples did. Follow Jesus in spite of the Pharisees. In His light alone you will be saved.

I am not by any means saying that if you are a “good Christian” you would have voted for Kerry. I would then be advocating the same. I do, however, object to this notion that abortion (or any other issue) is the only moral issue. Christians should come together to care about everyone. Not just Christians, or Americans but everyone. My summary is from the Communicator’s Commentary on Mathew pg 66 by Augsburger:

God says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” but we say blessed are the achievers. God says, “Blessed are those who mourn,” but we say blessed are the self-fulfilled. Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek,” but we say blessed are the powerful. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” but we say blessed are the unrestrained. Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful,” but we say blessed are the manipulators. Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” but we say blessed are the uninhibited. Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but we say blessed are the strong. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” but we say blessed are the expedient. Jesus said we are blessed when persecuted for His sake, but we say blessed are the aggressors. Jesus challenges the very selfishness that determines so much of our social behavior.

Christian Values

2004-11-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

In the past several weeks I have read article after article about how Democrats just don’t get it. Most of these articles are referring to Christianity and its place in politics. On one level I agree. Democrats have become increasingly bad at selling their Christian values as such. Democrats don’t get their moral message out in a clear way so that Christians realize they are Christian values. The people of America have become used to people telling them what to believe. Americans are much more likely to believe someone is a Christian if that person says it several times, preferably in short sound-bites. Americans don’t like to be bothered with looking at the actions of individuals and deducing their own opinion. It is much easier to just be told who is right and what is best for us. Democrats definitely have not caught on to this yet. Republicans, however, have made an art of exploiting it.

Before I continue I must first explain my background. I was raised a Republican. My entire family of origin continues to vote Republican regardless of the candidate or issue. I was also raised a Christian. I continue to go to church every Sunday as well as participate in Bible studies and committees in the church. My husband is a seminary student therefore I will someday likely be a minister’s wife. That being said, I vote for issues and candidates, not a single party or issue. I vote using my values and morals as a guide, many of which I developed in church. I consider myself an independent, not a Republican. Actually I increasingly align myself with the Democrats and yes, that word…liberals. You see I believe that as much as the Democrats don’t “get it” when it comes to proclaiming their Christianity; Republicans don’t get Christianity itself. At least not the Republicans I see on the news all the time.

Sit down and list the things Jesus taught us as documented in the Bible. Read the book of Mathew. Look at Jesus’ views on poverty, peace, conflict, capital punishment, the rich, healing the sick, excluding individuals or groups from society. Do any of Jesus’ teachings match the current policies of the GOP? Are any of these values set forth by Jesus Christ evident in the policies set forth by the current President? President Bush says love the Lord your God but leaves off the love your neighbor as yourself. Can we have one without the other? I don’t believe we can or should.

Christians are told that all humans were created in God’s image. God is not a Republican or a Democrat or even an American. God loves George Bush and Osama Bin Ladin. He loves Americans and Iraqis. He loves the people of Great Britain and Poland and Russia and Iran. Americans are not God’s chosen people just as members of Al Queda are not God’s chosen people. Jesus never once said blessed are the peacemakers, unless you don’t agree with the politics of another nation. God never said, don’t kill unless popular opinion says you need to get revenge on someone and you can’t find the right guy. My husband was in the first Gulf War so as you can imagine I’m all for patriotism and supporting our troops. As Christians, however, can’t we support our troops without supporting a war that is wrong? Can we stand in protest against killing 100,000 innocent people and thousands of our own soldiers and still be patriotic Americans? I suggest that as Christians we are called to serve God first, then our country.

I know you are asking, “What about abortion?” I do believe that abortion and homosexuality are actions of which God does not approve. I believe also, that Jesus Christ would not approve of how Christians have made legislating against these issues our only goal to the detriment of all other teachings. Jesus actually spoke against the Pharisees because they, too, focused only on the law but not on the “big picture.” Repeatedly Jesus implores His people to stop following the laws of men although they were created to honor God. He told the disciples to go in love to the sinners and the outcasts. He did not teach them to make and enforce laws to prevent sin. Jesus asks us to show His light to everyone in Christian love, not hate. It is only through Christian love and resources made available through Christian policies (such as more jobs, higher pay and health care) that abortion will truly cease. The rate of abortion actually increases as unemployment in America increases. Abortion rates were at their lowest during the Clinton years, and at their highest ever during the past 4 years.

One could argue that the President does not have to follow these Christians imperatives because he is, in fact, acting as a politician. The problem, however, is that Mr. Bush has declared his Christianity as a major part of all of his decisions. By embracing the backing of extremist Christians and using this to get votes Bush has made his Presidency an example of Christian decision making. Bush is now our worldwide poster boy for Christian behavior and morals. As such he must follow the teachings of Jesus Christ not just when they are convenient but in all decisions that he makes. If he is going to declare his moral superiority on issues such as abortion then I think he must also lead us in peacemaking, forgiveness and humility. To take the moral high ground on homosexuality he must also then consider the plight of the impoverished, the sick and the forgotten in our country. To claim morality on certain issues and then to act immorally is hypocritical and should not be tolerated by the people of America, especially the Christians. All Christians should unite to force this President into moral actions, not just sound-bites. In the elections to follow I hope that all Christians vote using all of the morals and values espoused in the Bible, not just the few that get a lot of press. It is only through Christian love and caring that Christians will truly make a difference in the politics of the world.