Archive for December, 2010

Throbbing Headaches After Tea Party Excesses

Posted in culture, Government, history, lifestyle, politics, random, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , on December 30, 2010 by chouck017894

One of the great absurdities thrust into the recent 2010 elections across the US was the corporate-owned medias which persistently misinformed the public by referring to the Tea Party as a “populist” movement.  Real populists would never have climbed into bed with billion-dollar corporate powers as did the bumpkin crowd who indulged themselves in an orgy of self-destruct ideas rather than delve into real corruption tactics that had been allowed to bring the nation to the brink of economic collapse. 

Properly the word populist happens to be in U.S. political jargon today because agrarian and labor interests in the 1880-1890s timeframe had expanded to the point that it warranted the proclamation of a national political program.  Under the incentive of high living costs and low wages, the working people and farmers allied to become the Greenback-Labor Party, which by 1891 reorganized as the People’s Party whose members were known as populists, from the Latin populus, meaning “people.”

One of the Populists’ objectives was to lower transportation costs, which then directly and severely minimized any profits for agrarian and labor products.  Thus the People’s Party advocated the nationalization of the railroads rather than sanction the private ownership of them, which allowed owners to demand exorbitant charges.  (This provides an indication of the very real danger in right-wing attempts to privatize such things as Social Security today: it would not be to the benefit of the people.)  To  achieve a more equitable distribution of government costs in doing true fair-play control for all citizens the populists of that day sought the establishment of a graduated income tax.  (Certainly this is not an idea that appeals to the GOP today.)  And  it was the real populists who advocated the broadening of the electoral system to establish direct popular elections of U.S. Senators, which would thereby avoid the chance of the rich buying into government.  (This is not an idea that corporate shysters appreciate, nor, apparently the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts either.*)  Another populist goal was establishment of the eight-hour workday.  No true nineteenth century populist would ever have endorsed the call to actually shrink the government or sanction the privatization of needed services and public welfare as ravenously pursued today by the Gluttonous Obstructionist Parasites (GOP).

In contrast, the elected Tea Party bumpkins now find themselves indebted to corporate bucks that seek to take over Medicare and Medicaid, kill Social Security, do away with regulatory reforms on Wall Street banks, eliminate a minimum wage, destroy labor unions, abolish pensions of public employees, eliminate education systems, and give Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, etc.  In short, the sordid one-night-stand that the Tea Party members indulged in with corporate interests occurred only because the corporate moguls wanted to enslave the tea party crowd for their own ends.  The corporate pimps are more turned on by the idea of installing the equivalent of the Dark Age feudal system in the US, a traitor’s paradise where only a few corporate bigwigs would possess any material advantages—but where social or technological wonders will cease to advance.

Sadly, the squalid affair of the Tea Party members with the corporation pimps has thrust some of the not-too-bright Tea Party crowd into the stew-pot called Congress where they will be obliged to perform whatever disreputable services are required by those who provided all the Tea Party favors.  All the alleged ideals and pretensions and clamoring of the Tea Party crowd will quickly wither into festering resentment in the syphilitic atmosphere of corporate insatiableness.  Sort of reminds one of a Mark Twain observation:  To paraphrase slightly, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot.  And suppose you were a (Tea Party) member of Congress.  But I repeat myself.”

*For Supreme Court attack upon citizens’ rights see: U. S. Supreme Court Set Trap for Democracy, Dec. 1.

52 Comments »

Increasing Light Signals a New Year

Posted in Atheist, belief, Christianity, culture, faith, freethought, humanity, nature, Pantheism, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , on December 27, 2010 by chouck017894

Each year the Sun re-establishes its apparent northward movement on the 25th of December, marking the point for the increase of light for the Northern Hemisphere.  This phenomenon is much grander in scope and more awesome in infinite power than any imagined event of a virgin birth or some oil lamp  burning for eight days in a temple.  The interaction of the Earth with the Sun is in every way a much truer covenant extended to all life through universal power than are the stories of special favor for some set-apart assemblage of people.

Our ancient ancestors, those much maligned Pagans, felt a more intimate connection with Nature and the observable heavens than most people today.  There was no emotional need to disguise the natural occurrences such as the alternate solstice periods as some mythic miracle performed for only a select few. 

For seven days following the end of the winter solstice, honored in Pagan times as “Mother night,” the beginning of increasing light was reason for celebration, and gifts were exchanged among family and friends in acknowledgement of the coming abundance of life-giving sunlight.  And in this period—in recognition of the true miracle of the Sun’s support of life—a customary salutation when parting with loved ones and friends was the blessing, “May your light increase.”

After seven days of celebration for emergence from the long nights, the routine chores of life were then taken up anew, and a new cycle was calculated from the end of that celebration.  Thus the time of the New Year observance that is today recognized across much of the world has its foundation in Pagan recognition of cosmic interaction.

The universe was understood by Pagan cultures to be a living thing—a vast unified consciousness.  When they looked out into the universe they perceived something at work that was much grander than the constraining religions which imagine a humanlike personality in place of that all-embracing power.  The Pagans felt an intimacy with that power which the practice of ecclesiasticism can never experience, for they intuitively recognized that each manifested being is a functioning part of that universal consciousness.  To them the notion that the creative power kept itself apart and aloof from everything that had been created would have been rightfully regarded as absurd.

Humankind’s invented hierarchical religions always have a tendency to  leave their follower with vague feelings of being unfulfilled, which erodes their spirit with unrecognized resentment.  By ignoring Nature and the visible universe these “faiths” have become systems in which one must will themselves to believe rather than experience one’s unity with it all.  Intricately structured religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not faiths that can be assessed as arising from natural expressions of consciousness.  They are, unfortunately, faith systems that encourage a denial of compassion for all things that are outside their self-set boundaries.  The reason behind this negative approach to Creation’s diversity is that to allow oneself to be open to feel regard for others is put down as a feminine characteristic and therefore not worthy to be cultivated.  As a result, such faith systems can gratify themselves only through carefully tended hypocrisy.

As a result these militant-spirited faith systems have always been at war with something.  For spiritual understanding the priests of these religions indoctrinate seekers with images and glorification of angel-warriors, wars in heaven, “holy wars,” the glorification of blood sacrifice, and never-ending combats with “sin.”  In their houses of worship they sit in strict military rows, or prostrate themselves in neat military rows, obey orders to rise, to sit, to kneel, to sing, and in some manner donate materially to the faith.  Indeed, these faith systems labor to crush each person’s individual connection with the universe until it disappears into the sterile personality of the religion itself.  The theologies of these organized religions have done little else than suggest that all Creation is divided into feuding camps.  That, however, is not how Creation holds itself together.  To be taught such a thing only imposes a kind of resentful hostility that has been misinterpreted as “spirit.”

It is unlikely that each individual’s higher purpose was to simply act as some separate organ of some religious social structure.  Perpetuating a man-conceived religion reduces followers to little more than hive workers and breeders who, through mental conditioning, would find emotional survival virtually impossible if separated from the body of their religion.  Followers are then deliberately made blind to the beautiful transcendent unity within all people, which is the yearning of human spirit for illumination.

Despite mankind’s struggles with such bouts of self-delusion, the heavens still bear witness to the flow of Creation.  We need only to remove the blinders placed over our eyes by those who make a habit of taking advantage of our blindness.  Lured away from adoring the unity of all things as expressed in the universe, we have been “guided” to seek spiritual upliftment by huddling together in echoing “sanctified” enclosures.  There, the devout are given role models of heroes and saints, saviors and kings who would never have accepted being herded into such behavior.

But the universe still holds it all together by extending divine allowance for such diversity.  If mankind wishes to pretend that it is the sum total of universal wisdom, the universe can afford to be patient.  Meanwhile, the interaction of Earth and the Sun continues to reaffirm it covenant with life, and that power is not limited by time or mankind’s beliefs.

May your light increase.

250 Comments »

Belligerent Faith, A Danger to Democracy

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, faith, freethought, Government, humanity, Military, politics, random, religion, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , , on December 18, 2010 by chouck017894

When one’s “faith” is expressed belligerently or aggressively, that “faith” has willfully closed itself off from receiving the in-flow of any higher spiritual potential.  Once “faith” is expressed in aggressive proselytizing it has degenerated into an attempt to take from other people’s spiritual essence rather than remain open to receive from universal essence.  The reason for this philosophical observation is prompted from having read once again of the shameful proselytizing that continues to infest the U. S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. 

A ministry founded by Don and Anna Warrick calling itself Cadets for Christ has long been given pretty much free rein to indulge themselves in unwanted proselytizing all over the campus.  How could this unconstitutional imposition of one religion over the widely diverse backgrounds of cadets be allowed?  The answer is not pretty, and it discloses how tenacious and deceiving the fundamentalist Christian organizations can be, for behind the allowance are some close ties to senior Pentagon officials!  There is no question that this allowance of Christian proselytizing amounts to subversion of the democratic principles set down by the founding fathers—the very principles upon which this democratic form of government rose to world power. 

A recent  United States Air Force Academy Climate Survey has brought to light some taboo data.  (It should be noted that the Survey was undertaken only after insistent pressure from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.)  The statistics on the inappropriate proselytization conduct that has been allowed to continue at the Academy revealed that at least 20,000 servicemen and women, as well as Department of Defense civilians have experienced religious harassment.  And of the non-Christian Air Force Academy Cadets, forty-one percent of them related that they had been subjected to fundamentalist proselytization spiels, and even outright threats.  How the fundamentalists equate this  mental/physical harassment as spiritual guidance is, apparently, a divine mystery.

But this type of religious abuse goes much further than the Air Force Academy: the abuse and infractions by fundamentalist Christians has been uncovered at nearly every military installation across the world.  The fact is that such reprehensible religious posturing extends even into the Pentagon, which places democratic principles and national security in unreliable hands, thus posing a danger to everyone’s freedom.

Think that this is an extreme deduction?  As an example, The Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches has for years been making it possible for a stream of military chaplains to thumb their noses at the military code of behavior and have refused to cease and desist from proselytizing when in uniform.  In doing this, they do not even follow the advice given in Romans 13:2, “…he who opposes the authority has taken a stand against the arrangement of God…”  And in verse 10 it adds, “Love does not work evil to one’s neighbor…”  But then fundamentalists are experts at ignoring things that interfere with their material ambitions. 

How did the beautiful democratic acceptance of each person’s religion get levered around the longstanding regulation that apportioned chaplains in accordance with religious demographics that determined the faith of the majority of service personnel?  Properly, the percentage of one particular belief background would be matched closely with the same percentage of that faith’s chaplains.  Even so, all chaplains were then  obliged to receive training to minister to the troops of any faith.  All that changed after the Reagan administration breezed in.  The Pentagon, like the nation, was becoming infected with dubious divine sales pitches, resulting in accrediting a disproportional amount of evangelical and Pentecostal so-called “endorsing agencies” that then swamped the chaplain posts.  Those  who were “endorsed” were graduated from fundamentalist Bible colleges that taught that any other faiths were enemies of Christ.  Thus today this “conservative” and/or Pentecostal atmosphere has come to predominate as the spiritual guidance offered throughout all military branches!

As an example of how this imposition of evangelical/Pentecostal Christian “faith” upon what amounts to a captive group can be more of a disservice than a blessing, consider how service persons suffering post traumatic stress disorder from combat have been too often “treated.”  Far too many who have been casualties in body and  spirit have received “treatment” by religious quacks rather than by psychological diagnosis and professional treatment.  Chaplains generously offered comfort through evangelism, in effect implying that only in accepting Jesus as savior would they experience healing.  Prescribing heavy doses of scripture can twist even a healthy mind, so in effect the evangelical prescription was more like pouring gasoline on a fire.

Those men and women who place themselves in harm’s way for the nation that is supposedly dedicated to freedom and liberty deserve to be granted freedom from such shameful proselytizing in military closed ranks and freedom from chaplain “treatments” that alleviate nothing. 

10 Comments »

Homosexuality and the Bible

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, freethought, gay culture, history, humanism, humanity, life, random, religion, sex, sex taboos, thoughts with tags , , , , , on December 12, 2010 by chouck017894

(After reading of an alarming rise in suicides among gay youths badgered by religious ignorance.  Add to this the stupidity of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in military service, as well as the insane attempt to insert legal sanction to murder homosexuals in Uganda.)

One of the things that those who are gorged with holy hatred continually indulge in is to take verses out of context from Bible stories to express disapproval of some circumstance of life that does not measure up to some cultivated judgment they use to gratify their egos.  The alleged “sin” of same-sex attraction is one of their orgiastic fantasies.  To inflame themselves in this pious pornographic flight of the imagined immorality they will, of course, drag out their dog-eared Bible and expound heatedly over three or four favorite inferences.  Totally ignored by the gay-bashers is that there are well over 300 disapproving verses to be found on heterosexual indulgences in comparison.  This raises the issue, which of these “sinners” should we be concentrating on? 

The first example is generally taken from chapter 18 of Genesis, which tells of when the omniscient god was depicted as impatient to obliterate Sodom and Gomorrah.  In that tale we read that two angels who had shape-shifted into human male form are asked by the men of the village of Sodom  to  come out of Lot’s house so the men of the village might know them.  The phrase to “know them” has been deliberately twisted into a sexual connotation, such as the scriptural phrase so-and-so knew his wife.  This twisted concept is seemingly supported in chapter 19:8 for Lot, the story goes, then offered his two virgin daughters to them so the girls might clarify why privacy was necessary for the two visitors, for they bore vital information that concerned only the immediate family.  Remember, the early books of the Bible were not collected into written form until around the seventh century BCE, and sexual interpretation of “to know” can be traced back to a Jewish Midrash designed to inject reprehensible imagery into an otherwise  humdrum address.  That inference was not in the older Hebrew telling.  But invoking a forbidden suggestive image was more attention-grabbing for those who wanted to wrap themselves in an illusion of righteousness.  Careful there: another implication can be drawn from the story—one that alarms the self-righteous fundamentalists—and that implication is that if men are to be rescued from same-sex familiarity, God endorses the giving of virgin daughters for men’s sexual use as a gang-bang distraction technique.

Quickly skipping away from such an unnoticed Genesis inference, those determined upon holy hatred then dive into the book of Leviticus, one of the most hateful and discriminatory compositions ever passed off as “holy writ.”  In the sickness of spirit indulged in that book, which was mandated by priests to priests, it is asserted that it is a sin to eat pork, for example, or to eat water creatures without fins or scales; and leprosy was to be regarded as “unclean,” and that such a skin condition is caused by sin; parents could slay unruly children; and there are presented 28 ways approved to kill victims for any conduct that the priest-author alleged that God found reprehensible.  One has to wonder how the priest-author was privy to all the many “abominations” to which the Lord allegedly expressed aversion.  Surely it couldn’t be priest invented “abomination” because no offspring would be produced for the priests to brainwash?

As for God’s supposed disapproval of same-sex involvement, it is expressed in only one short verse in chapter 18 of the hate filled Leviticus.  The nine words of verse 22 says only, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind…”  If this is such an “abomination” to the Lord, isn’t it peculiar that this commandment expressed in Leviticus was not set forth in the Ten Commandments that were allegedly handed down to Moses?  Or did the omniscient one not foresee such probabilities that could arise from splitting a hermaphrodite into two sexes?  (Genesis 1:27, or especially Genesis 2:21-23)

Finding only such skimpy ammunition for practicing hateful judgment in the Old Testament the fundamentalists will swoop upon the New Testament in their cherry-picking endeavor, landing upon 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which is alleged to have been written by the self-proclaimed apostle Paul.  Among the sins that allegedly keep one from attaining membership in Heaven’s country club, there is listed in two verses: 9) “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?  Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10) Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

Vague condemnation, indeed, if “effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind” are to be made to define what constitutes the “sin” of same-sex attraction!  Those characteristics and every other one in Paul’s list can be used to define nearly all fundamentalists.  Most are fornicators; worshiping the man-composed Bible amounts to idolatry; divorced person remarrying are adulterers (according to Luke 16:18); thievery includes using other people’s tax money for private religious indulgence; covetousness includes wanting to impose their demands upon other people’s lives; drinking heavily is far from rare among fundamentalists; reviling others (such as gays) is a religious addict’s standard practice; and extortion or seeking to obtain their way under duress is always the stock-in-trade practice of the religious right.

In desperation the fundamentalists will fall back and cherry-pick the book of Romans, plucking out chapter 1, verses 26 and especially 27 for attack purposes.   Ignored is the fact that the lines carry no authority when compared with the early teachings attributed to Jesus’ ministry.  As with 1 Corinthians, the book of Romans is attributed to the self-appointed apostle Paul.  Again the list covers an abundance of “sins” that seem to apply more to the fundamentalists themselves than does the single vague verse they use to vilify homosexuals.  Indeed, from verse 21 to the last verse, 32, the fundamentalists stand guilty of all the far darker sins.  To them the  first verse of chapter two which follows seems especially applicable: “Therefor thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest:  for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.”

To that truth let us add,  Amen.

Related posts:

  •   Sex Attraction, A Bogus Spiritual Dilemma, Oct. 2009
  •   Victimizing Gays is to Mock Jesus, Oct. 2009
  • * God Didn’t Mention Chromosomes, May 2010 *

6 Comments »

Bible’s Bronze-Age Background

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, culture, faith, freethought, Hebrew scripture, history, life, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , on December 8, 2010 by chouck017894

The third millennium BCE, the Early Bronze Age timeframe, was a period in which urban life had been well established in the Near East region now known as Palestine.  Archaeological research has shown that there were cities of several thousand persons in that timeframe which contained palaces, temples, and defined areas of commerce, all surrounded by impressive ramparts and buttresses.  These commonly served as the capital of city-states which ruled over the surrounding rural population.  For the most part, these were well-developed but rather languid cultures.

This Early Bronze Age urban atmosphere is glaringly out-of-place as background for the stories of Genesis or for the alleged wilderness wanderings as depicted in the biblical books of Exodus and Numbers.  According to those priest-written accounts, written in seventh century BCE Jerusalem, urban life was virtually nonexistent: world population was thus characterized in the biblical tales from a pastoral nomadic point of view.  This clearly indicates that something brought about the breakdown of the urban way of life later in the third millennium BCE, so the early Bible tales are actually set in the Intermediate Bronze Age, the timeframe between two urban eras.  The collapse of the urban cultures apparently occurred suddenly c. 2200 BCE, lasting into about 1800 BCE (the Intermediate Bronze Age), which is more closely the time associated with priest interpreted chronology of the alleged patriarchs.

It was noted earlier in these web posts that there were worldwide climate changes in this Intermediate Bronze Age timeframe.  Rainfall dropped by twenty percent, crops failed everywhere, famines swept across the urban societies which resulted in riots and massacres.  Temples and whole cities were abandoned: the Old Kingdom of Egypt collapsed, for example.  The Kingdom of Akkad also collapsed, and there is a preserved lamentation called The Curse of Akkad, that tells of the Akkad empire’s fall.  Typically the lamentation attributes the collapse as due to an outrage of the gods toward one of the grandsons of Sargon who is accused of having plundered the temple of Enlil.  Part of the lamentation reads: For the first time since cities were built and founded/  The great agricultural tracts produced no grain/  The inundated tract produced no fish/  The irrigated orchard produced neither syrup nor  wine/  The gathered clouds did not rain, the masgurum did not grow…  Coinciding with this, the weather throughout Europe brought a long period of freezing conditions.

Biblical chronology implies that Abram (who was later transfigured into Abraham) was supposedly born c. 2150 BCE in Chaldea and departed the city of Ur c. 2100 BCE (the third millennium BCE).  This would be in the  Intermediate Bronze Age, and although there were no large cities in this timeframe, it was not an entirely nomadic period: much of the population led sedentary lives in hamlets and villages. 

For many generations the historical existence of the alleged patriarchs of the Bible tales was never doubted, and the “age of the patriarchs” was long accepted to be the earliest phase of a sequential history of Israel.  Thus the patriarchs were believed to have come upon the world stage sometime from the mid-third millennium BCE to maybe the late third millennium.  The science of archaeology, however, began to unearth evidence that moved the background of the patriarch saga more into the early second millennium BCE.  The unearthed evidence pretty much exposed the biblical “historical” accounts, compiled by priests of Yahweh in the seventh century BCE, to be more of a national mythology than reliable history.  Part of the appeal of the Old Testament tales is the illusion of culture and customs that outwardly parallels Mesopotamian customs and laws to those portrayed in the patriarchal stories.  The secret to those enduring biblical accounts is that those cultural features are presented in such a general manner that they could easily apply to most any locale in the Intermediate Bronze Age history of the Near East.

3 Comments »

Dangers of Bible-Modeled Government

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, freethought, Government, history, humanity, life, lifestyle, politics, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , on December 4, 2010 by chouck017894

In the recent timeframe of 2005 at least a dozen evangelical leadership programs had wormed their way into Washington DC power ranks, and they were asserting, “Christian men and women…will lead our nation with timeless biblical values…”   As these blog posts and the book Time Frames and Taboo Data have investigated, those “biblical values” are distinguished by their page after page celebration of deceptions, assassinations, wars, unproven claims of entitlement, unfulfilled “covenants,” etc.

Nonetheless, the ideal, the evangelical leadership programmers were asserting, was to develop leaders “who read the Bible as a blueprint.”  Considering the constant violence that attends so much of priest-written “history,” these evangelical programmers seemed to be advocating a return to indulging in heavy prejudice, reestablishment of slavery, upgrading the practice of passing personal responsibility onto others, terrorizing anyone who lives their lives differently than evangelicals, even warring and terrorizing to acquire some desirable lands, etc.  Said one student aide who was taking one of the evangelical leadership programs, “(they, the programmers) give you an intellectual consistency.  Yeah, sure.

And as usual those championing use of the Bible as a blueprint for government were insisting that the founding fathers of the United States had been guided by Christian principles in designing the concept of a nation governed by democratic principles.  That is verifiably untrue.  We should remember that not one highly organized religion of the world has ever suggested that Heaven or Paradise operated on democratic principles; Heaven or Paradise is a kingdom, where God sits on a throne, everyone behaves as robots, and the blessed ones who are allowed  into Heaven must eternally stroke God’s ego with constant hallelujahs.  As for the men who envisioned a more compassionate and self-respecting means of human and humane governing, they studied the history of world governments.  The alarming true history from every nation was of tyranny and disasters in governments, and the repeated source of those imbalanced and more brutal ruling systems were shown to commonly trace back to enforced religious concepts.  European history, from the Dark Ages into 1700s contemporary times, sent up warning flags that church and state must be kept separate for man to experience equality.  Thus in the treaty between Britain and the Americans, which officially ended the War of  Independence but was not finalized until 1797, there is a declaration of spiritual independence as well.  It is stated in Article 11 of that document, the Treaty of Tripoli, and it boldly proclaims:  “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” 

That is true history: but the religionists continue to hammer away at the premise that “federal laws should be based on biblical precepts.”  In doing so they deliberately refuse to acknowledge the monumental errors and contradictions, as well as the perverted “history,” that make up the books of the Bible.  While ignoring such facts, the Bible-thumpers insist that it is they who have the obligation to “try to arrest our society’s moral decay.”  And to accomplish that, they make every effort to place into government posts those “steadfast politicians” that  “will be unwilling to compromise” when dealing with the complex issues of social intercourse.  In other words, force a theocracy upon the nation.  (For related events c. 2004-05 see recent post, Religious Right Strategy for Taking Political Control, Nov. 2010.) 

At the top of the evangelical leadership programmers’ must-do-list in the 2005 timeframe—it was even called “a Christian imperative—was to abolish the Department of Education!  Indeed, the Republican Representative from North Carolina thought such plans were divinely guided, and judged the evangelical leadership classes as “doing the Lord’s work.”  In his view, using democratic rights to gnaw away at the roots of democracy made for “steadfast politicians.”  The North Carolina Representative’s assessment of the religious fervor was that if politicians did not take their cue from God then “our morality will crumble.”  In that case, he warned, we would no longer recognize America. 

It is a certainty that the United States of America would no longer be recognizable under a theocratic or dictatorship form of government.

3 Comments »

U.S. Supreme Court Set Trap for Democracy

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, culture, freethought, Government, history, humanity, life, lifestyle, politics, random, religion, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , on December 1, 2010 by chouck017894

In the closing chapter of Time Frames and Taboo Data a speculative scenario of the future for democracy was ventured.  Forgive this intrusion of a book quote:  In the corporate empire that is being hard-pressed upon the world, the dispensing of “justice” would be a mockery, for the courts would do only what corporate bigwigs instructed.   Further on it continues: In a corporate (run) empire all major media would be owned or manipulated by corporate outfits, much as  it is in the US today, with the only “news” given prominence being the happenings that affected corporate investments (page 474).

Flashback:  The founding fathers of the United States, after enduring the war for national independence, labored long and hard to set up a form of government that would be controllable by citizen majority consent.  As safeguards against abuse of citizen power, the organizing of the governing process was  wisely structured with three divisions to provide as much insurance of stability as possible for the citizens against future tyrannical assaults upon the concept of a democratic government.  Those three branches of democratic govern ment—the executive, the legislative, and the judicial—were also intentionally shielded from religious authoritarianism through cautionary provisions to keep church and state separate.  This avoidance of doubtful claims of supernatural “guidance” provided the foundation that made the United States the  most diverse, accommodating and powerful nation in history.  National strength was proven through succeeding centuries with those unique democratic principles working miracles, not from other-worldliness but achieved from the unity of diverse and liberal-minded individuals. 

Flash forward, early 21st century, USA:  Corporate greed has recently virtually emasculated true democracy in the United States, and religious fanatics continue to lust to downgrade democracy into a theocracy.  Using the Bible as a governing tool would open to them the means for a few to inflict biblical-approved inhumane treatment on any “unbelievers,” “infidels,” or non-believers which the in-crowd chose to believe was sanctioned by God.  We saw how far and how fast the consequences of that type of mentality could go during the god-inspired  GWB administration.  For an example of governing by some “revealed word” text, simply observe the divine condition of Iran today. 

On January 21, 2010, five of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices (John G. Roberts, Samuel A. Alito, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas) decided to overrule TWO long-standing central precedents about the First Amendment Rights and bestowed upon corporations the equivalent of citizen rights which the nation’s forefathers intended only for individuals.  Thus was opened the means for corporations to pour multibillion of dollars into voting advertisements!  Is it merely coincidence that each of the five favoring Justices, who are supposed to be guardians of the people’s rights, happened to be appointed through Republican recommendation?  Is it coincidence that all five also happen to be Catholic? This colossal imbalance certainly does not reflect the overall spiritual/financial composition of the nation’s citizens whom they are supposed to shield from abuse of power.  Whatever their personal beliefs may be, they each took an oath, hands upon a Bible, and swore the following:

I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the  poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties  incumbent upon me as (a Supreme Court Justice) under the Constitution and laws of the United States.  So help me God.  

Giving corporations citizen rights is not democracy.  Corporations are not meant to have free speech rights.  Big Oil, big pharmacy, CIGNA, Merrill Lynch, insurance companies, AT&T, and all the rest of the for-pay conglomerates are not individual citizens and should never have been given the unconstitutional right to manipulate the democratic voting process.  In the elections of 2007-2008 the amount for all 468 congressional races and the presidential race combined totaled $5.2 BILLION.  As an example, even without the Supreme Court attack on citizens’ Constitutional rights,  AT&T alone contributed the legal maximum to both Bush-Cheney national election campaigns, and AT&T also contributed the legally permissible amount for John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid.  The grand prize that the US got for that multibillion dollar expenditure was the profound political intellect of Sarah Palin.

As another example of the inequity in this Supreme Court subversion of constitutional order, the corporation that is Exxon Oil could alone chalk off all that 5.2 billion dollars as a mere dribble in their  $85 billion profits for one year.  Clearly, the  five Republican-placed justices on the US Supreme Court who gave corporations free pass into national election processes were not concerned that the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights could not possibly apply to the multi-rich-for-profit corporations.  The decision was a sharp, vicious doctrinal shift of law interpretation.  As Justice John Paul Stevens wisely observed in his dissent, “The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”  Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor were in accord.  Even so, deliberate undermining of citizen rights seems to have been the intent of the five other justices. 

The only thing in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights that may be legitimately extended to corporations has to do with the freedom of the press.  No persons that genuinely loves this democratic nation could have so deliberately spurned  the “We the People” principles upon which the United States was founded and upon which it grew to world power.

It is alarmingly clear that steps must be taken to correct the abuse of  power and the mockery of justice that was handed down by the third branch of government, the U.S. Supreme Court, that spurned distinction of what makes for individual rights.  The high Court’s overturning of longstanding individual rights amounts to an attack on everyone’s personal freedom and a denial of genuine justice.  Isn’t that ruling only a heartbeat away from treason?

4 Comments »