More of the same...

I have had a bad day today. Everything seemed to refer back to Momma and I would just cry and cry. I just wonder when this feeling will pass...
On the political scene, one must wonder how Bush managed to survive to this day. Suddenly, he has become adult about Darfur and then, of course, we need to address his sudden appreciation for the crisis in the climate.
For some odd reason, Bush has decided he ought to adopt a responsible approach toward the rest of the world. It is a bit too late and far too little, but hey! if he wants to pretend he is a caring and compassionate person, if his "friends" and clergy will let him deceive himself in this way, well, I guess there is little I can do to undeceive him and his coterie of idiots. What history will have to say about his moronic "reign" in this republic goes beyond me. Frankly, he is the worst I can remember, and I really thought things could not get worse after Nixon: then we got saddled with Reagan, and that was a swizz, too.
The worst argument against democracy is the recent list of morons, fascists and unnameable others we, as a nation, have elected to public office. The idiocy represented by the recent occupant of the White House (Geoerge W. Bush) is a shame and a scandal to this Republic.
IF we truly elected George Bush, and the jury is still out on that one, we did ourselves (and the world) a terrible disservice.
Al Gore has been on many talk shows representing his newest book, "Assault on Reason." His primary point, so I gather, is that in this nation, the discourse has ceased and we are being talked to or at: we do not join in a conversation! This, of course, is not how one best serves a disparate group in a democracy. It may well suit a dictatorship, but the point of THIS nation's Constitution and our Revolution was and remains the value of EACH person's character and worth. We seem to have slid backward rather than opened more toward the future. Clearly, this Bush moron would prefer a fascist desptism. And, it seems, his many friends and supporters, too, would much prefer a fascist, totalitarian state. Sadly, I regret that the Congress is, for the most part, not inclined to put the brakes on the Bush/Cheney slide into despotism. So, it is for the citizens to raise hell, whether by means of outright, non-violent revolution or the more quiet, though less reliable approach of trusting Congress to uphold the laws and impeach these despicable and evil people.
Feinstein just responded to an email I sent a few weeks ago. You know, it takes forever for them to get on these things, or their aids or whatever...
She was not inclined to endorse my request for the impeachment of Bush/Cheney. It might divide the country, she says. What on Earth does she think leaving that nightmare-idiot in office is doing to this nation? He has not hardly proved himself to be the "uniter" he wanted to be remembered as!
While I know Momma would have voted for Hilary, if she had the chance, I remain a bit skittish. Bill was no friend of the working man and she sat on the Wal-Mart board for six (6) years. What does that say about her commitment to labor and worker's rights? Not much, right! Then, she is prepared to leave health-care to the states. One has to ask, what is she prepared to do about that pesky Social Security? If she thinks the states have the wherewithall to undertake a major health-care program, she is out of the loop. For what do we pay taxes? Just to pay those folks in Congress and the White House? It is a cinch little else is getting any attention, OH...excuse me, the Pentagon, of course, gets the lion's share (at least 40+%) of our tax dollars. For what? We are lied to and bamboozled and we ought not to be happy about this. But, again, until WE, the People, get angry and demand a change, nothing will change.
As Gandhi says, "You must be the change you want to see in the world." If we don't begin to live for higher goals and aspirations, we can expect nothing to alter. We will grow old and die, but nothing will change and the tragic reality is that we will leave a desperate Earth for our children to try to correct, and frankly, I don't see that happening. By that time, too much damage will have been done and there will be no correcting the mess - the tipping point will have been exceeded.
God have mercy on us.
And that is what this moron, George Bush, following in Reagan's footsteps, has bequeathed us. He is not entirely at fault, of course, but that he has done nothing, NOTHING, to stop or even prevent this depredation is inexcusable. On the other hand, Congress and the general electorate bear some responsibility. What did these greedy idiots think will happen? I cannot even imagine how this mess will be corrected, but by then, if I am lucky, I will be dead and gone home. What the corporate greed dictates and demands will have pushed the environment and the people into such a tragic corner that no amount of struggle will reverse the disaster. We are on the Titanic and we have struck the iceberg - and we are busily re-arranging the deck chairs. Our sole hope is that we can get into a lifeboat and row far enough away from the liner. God's Creation has been treated so abominably, we will be lucky to escape with God's mercy. We surely do not want to risk HIS Justice. If we do not repent and make a new beginning, what we get will be what we deserve, and that won't be very nice.
Again, I do not think we can tolerate the Justice of the Most High. We need to beg HIS Mercy and live according to HIS dictates, not the dictates of so petty a person as Bush or Cheney or any of that ilk.
Nannie always said we ought not to pray for God's Justice, since no man can endure God's justice. We must always pray for God's Mercy.
Kyrie, eleison.

Prophet-margin?

I have just been reading some pamphlets of The White Rose Society. Though I am well acquainted with the Society from earlier, it is good to learn how many others are aware of and in tune with, the student group during the Nazi oppression in Germany. We need a White Rose Society in the US today...some group of students and adults who understand their prophetic duties to preserve the people of the Republic. A boisterous group of pamphleteers who will courageously dare the Bushites and their neo-Nazi followers to rise up and answer the charges levelled at them.
It is evident that Congress is just too involved with posturing and hollow rhetoric. They are getting nothing done, and while George Bush sits in the White House, they will get nothing done - well, nothing of any real subtance for the populace. He is determined not to give in and they are just as determined not to haul him out of the Oval Office, impeaching him, trying him for his war crimes and other unConstitutional acts and then slapping the stiffest and harshest penalty on him that the law will allow. Let that obtain for Cheney, too. These men and their hangers-on have brought the United States into such disrepute and so endangered the Constitutional law of this Republic that they deserve neither consideration nor the respect of the offices they stole.
Sadly, again, Congress seems unwilling to address this mess, nor will they listen to we, the tax-payers, who insist we will be heard.
It is difficult to maintain a Christian equanimity and charity in such a circumstance. No more could I have stayed back and allowed the Nazis in Germany to do what they did, without some protest, cost what it may. Neither will I permit these neo-Nazis to perpetrate their none-too-subtle reign of terror without vociferously speaking out. The Lord has called me to use my voice to announce HIS TRUTH and I am feckless if I fail to observe HIS LAW.
I am a veritable Jonah, a reluctant prophet, but a prophet still. If I don't tell these people to repent of their sins and amend their ways, then the judgment falls on me. But, if they are told and then choose venality, well, then they have made an informed decision and the judgment falls on them. Frankly, I wonder what their clergy are telling them, but that is not my concern. The Most High deals with each of us in HIS own way.
So, though my body may be old and arthritic, that does not say my mind is weak, or that the TRUTH I am called to lift high is of lesser value only because my physical self is weakened. That is the lovely thing about the Kingdom: HE will use any willing workers. Indeed, it seems to be the case that the LORD prefers to use the poor, the ill, the disenfranchised, the lepers and whores - penitents all - to preach HIS message and to spread HIS Kingdom.
HE has a most remarkable sense of humor, has our Father. HE finds the justice in having the poor preach to the rich. HE sees the justice in having the sick witness to those who enjoy a high degree of health care, which seems to serve neither party well - the rich are too corrupt to derive benefit from the health care (the bodies may be repaired, but the souls are too decrepit); the sick are too poor to afford such over-priced, such wasteful and discriminatory health-care. HE rejoices when a person embraces the leper and kisses his wounds. It turns the world upside down, but it restores morality and order to Creation.
On a slightly different note, but in the same vein:
I am tired of the all-consuming desire to rack up money (profit, mammon) by the people of both this nation and the larger world. If we look at the way this adminstration has arranged things, we see that the concern has been all for the wealthy and those who desire to acquire yet more wealth. Even our foreign policy over many years has been to support fascist despots, with NO regard to the poor, the workers, those who are without anything to eat or gas to put in their cars, nor even homes to drive to...and we permit this shameful state of affairs to continue.
The United States seems to have lost its soul. We sold it to the highest bidder. We all might as well begin learning Mandarin now, one of these days the Chinese will demand payment on the bill and we will have to find the "readies."
What will it take for the citizens of the world to understand that the greatest good for the greatest number will be accomplished by implementing a socialism.
I do not know that this socialism needs to be either text-book OR severe, but clearly, something MUST be done to advance the cause of humanity and Creation at large, or the mammon accrued will serve no-one any use or good.
We have no right to hoard more than we can reasonably use or eat. We certainly do not make the best use of what we have now. Buying cheap rubbish from slave-labor countries is shameful and has only served to put domestic workers out of work. As Jesus asks, What good profit if you lose your soul? How can you hold your head up, knowing that the men and women who used to work for you are now unemployed, very possibly homeless and almost certainly without medical care thanks to your greed? And while I admit this state of affairs was on the rise well before Bush stole the presidency, he has made the accumulation of money and the conspicuous consumption of wealth a by-word of his administration. He is a scandal to the great nation we are. It is (long since) time he was impeached and tried for his high crimes and misdemeanors.
The vacuousness of George Bush, his mean-spiritedness, his being a school-yard bully, are demeaning of the office he presumes to occupy.
We have neither health-care nor job security. There is no social safety-net once the unemployment runs its course and homelessness is a matter of two weeks without work or, of course, foreclosure. Now that is just the tip of the iceberg and much of that got started with Reagan, that evil man.
We have been very ill-served by many of our presidents. Granted, they are neither more nor less than we, who elect them, but some of them have been despicable fascist war-mongers and liars and ought to have been called on their sins immediately. That makes them considerably worse than most of my fellow country-men and -women, who are, taking them all round, very decent folk.
Yet we let these criminals stand, aware of their feet of clay but willing to drop that pinch of incense to the idol!
We have only ourselves to blame for this terrible state in which we find ourselves.
And that is perhaps the saddest remark one can make - we have only ourselves to blame for the mess in which we are now. Sad, sad, sad.

Monday, and still the world is here...

I wonder if the people to whom we entrust the government of our Republic are aware that we know what goes on with their duplicity and don't care, or are they actually so arrogant as to think we are stupid enough to buy into their wickedness.
It does appear that the citizenry are not willing to stand up and cry down the president and vice-president (vice! how apt a title for these evil men!). Clearly, the revolutionary spirit bequeathed this nation by the likes of Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, et al, has been squandered on us.
We are content to allow the status quo, despite the clear and present danger posed by those entrusted with higher duties. The maelstrom into which this administration has thrust us has so far confused the general citizenry, they cannot discern front from back, night from day. A sad state of affairs. More sad, still, is that the logical outcome of this mess will be laid at the doorstep of our posterity for generations to come.
The US is no longer the force for good and the light of the world it once thought itself to be.
We cannot be trusted to uphold treaties, stand staunch for human rights, maintain even basic ecological standards.
We are sold into a bondage to the corporations, who care for naught but their profits. The ancient Scripture holds too true and sadly prescient:
(Gen 25:31) And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.
(Gen 25:32) And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?
(Gen 25:33) And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.
(Gen 25:34) Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
The wise see the underlying truth and prophecy of this excerpt. We are lost, because we have not strong faith and have not looked to the future of our children and the world in which they must live. The sin is ours, the penalty will fall on our future. It is axiomatic, the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children:
(Exo 34:7) Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
We will not be given a pass on this: we knew the fraud and injustice of the administration's claims and actions, almost as soon as they were spoken. Yet, we stood by and allowed thousands of lives to be destroyed needlessly and illegally. It has taken us 5 or 6 years to get irate enough for many to rise up in protest and non-cooperation. Where were the many 5 or 6 years go? Why has it taken us so long to discover our voices? How will we justify to the Father of Lights, when HE comes to ask us how and why we allowed this horror to occur? Will we take the line taken by so many "innocent citizens" after World War II, "I was just following orders" or "we did not know anything about it?"
How is this an adequate excuse for the commission of torture or endless incarceration just on the say-so of a madman?
When this madman is (purportedly) elected by the people, then even those who did not vote for him are responsible for his actions. That is the nature of a representative democracy. For better or ill, all derive the benefits or pay the price of the decisions of the elected representatives. We forget that aspect of our government. We cannot divest ourselves of the penalty, just because we disagree with it!
NO! We do not have the luxury of denying the terrible sin because we do not live under an absolute monarchy. We cannot blame "them" and let it stand. They speak for us, whether we like it or not. Did we raise our voices in protest, did we write these evil people letters begging them to repent, to cease and turn away from their wickedness? If we did not, it may well be, however distasteful we found the behavior, we will bear the brunt of the sin committed in our names.
I, for one, refute this shame. I have been outspoken since the beginning. Will that save me? I cannot presume to speak for the Lord's Justice, but I can say, I have not been silent, I have not let the sin go unnoticed, unspoken. Whether I have been heard is another matter; yet have I screamed that this sin must be ended, that repentance MUST be our course. Nor is this strength mine: it comes from the Ancient of Days. Why me? I cannot answer...but it is not my place to refuse HIM when HE comes asking for my voice.
I marvel that so many otherwise fine and faithful Christians, who see so clearly the costs of sin (and spare neither time nor our feelings to inform us of the evils we follow) wave their flags and claim that God's will is being done.
Patently, the fact that the Father is not the God of one nation only, but of ALL HIS Creation, has been lost on this generation. The evangelicals seem to think their god will bless only the US: I am not sure of such hubris.
The Muslim extremists think similarly that Allah will bless only their cause. Fundamentalist Hindus are equally deceived that their "divinely" appointed mission is just. Can all these narrow interpretations be valid?
Which of these divinities can be true and worthy of our worship? Or, the question MUST be asked, are these poor fellows just deceiving themselves and wreaking havoc in God's Name (whatever Name might be used)? A myopic vision of the Universe will not usually lend itself to a bright vision of the future. Myopia, by its very nature, tends to cut off Light, reduce the field of vision and wither the soul in its search. This myopia we are suffering at present. It seems to have manifested itself in a brutally heavy-handed nationalism, a chauvinism which serves no purpose nor any good.
This is terribly misguided and has led us into the penultimate state, before death-throes. We cannot risk allowing this myopia and narrowness to continue. Our friends must be undeceived of their conceits and nationalism. See what a terrible disaster following such a narrow path made for Hitler or Stalin, Pol Pot and the other dictators in recent years and the millions who perished to accomplish his goals. Do we want THAT to be our legacy? I know I don't.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Since last I wrote, my Mother, having been gradually diminished due to stroke and over-all struggle with her pain and increasing physical disability, entered the Nearer Presence.
Her passing was a great blow to me, of course. I had cared for her needs for over five years, and since the stroke, she was utterly dependent upon me. I quit my job and determined to nurse Mother back to health. While that was not to be, I kept her as comfortable and loved as was in my power.
Mark visited whenever he was able, though his travel commitments often collided with his greater desire to be here to help with Momma. George was...well, George was George. God will judge. All I will say is that he is too much like his father. To be fair, though, George is an infinitely better father and husband than John was.
Still, this is five months since Momma went home and not one call, not one letter, not even an email saying how he and the family are doing. I feel I called him quite often enough when Momma would want to talk to him and I pleaded with him to call her once a week, toward the end. As I say, God will judge. I cannot answer for George's poor judgment.
Meantime, the political scene has only grown more and more frustrating.
Does Congress think they are in their jobs in perpetuity? Do they imagine we, the thinking electorate, will NOT hold them accountable for having let Bush/Cheney run this nation to rack-and-ruin? Who do they suppose ought to do the job they were sent to DC to do? If I had the opportunity to stand in front of the joint Houses of Congress, they would get such an earful.
Many counsel me to adopt peaceful and loving ways. I think they forget Jesus, too, grew impatient and finally took a cord and knotted it to whip the money-changers, HE over-turned their tables. He spoke VERY harshly, abusively even, to the priests, Sadducees and Pharisees in the Temple. Heaven only knows what HE really thought of the Roman occupiers of HIS land. The Prophets, too, my precursors, spoke in uncompromising manner to the corrupt, malevolent, brutal "masters" of their respective times.
We forget these things. One need not take a cudgel to abusive power-mongers, but I see no reason why one ought to sit still for their abuse. I understand that Jesus was loving, but HE was also firm and wry, even, on many occasions.
Clearly, being polite to Bush and Cheney only earn their contempt and derision. These two men, and their coterie of admirers, have no use for Congress or the People for which it stands. They are compelled to face them periodically, but only to point out that Congress has fallen short of doing the bidding of the fuhrer and his Pitt bull, Cheney. It needs to be said that not only are the President and Vice-President, with Rove and Gonzales, in open rebellion against the Constitution of these United States, but those in Congress who permit such behavior to stand unchallenged, are equally complicit in that treason. They have befouled the body politic and only a thorough emetic, called impeachment and trial for treason, will serve to clear the disease from this once noble nation. Otherwise, we allow to stand what can only be seen as a fascist despotism.
And that is not something I am prepared to do.
Many are made uncomfortable by my referring to fascism...I suppose the smart ones in Germany, at the end of the Weimar Republic, were also made uncomfortable, but they wisely packed their belongings, sold their houses, bought tickets aboard any boat sailing anywhere else, and got the blazes out of what was growing into a nightmare. Once Hitler won his bid for Chancellor, it did not take long for hell to be loosed upon this Earth.
IF we "compare and contrast" the history of those times with what is going on here, now, today, we cannot BUT admit that things are collapsing in upon themselves once again. The "black hole" of fascism is growing and Congress seems unwilling or unwitting to stop the trend.
The press often uses a term, and it is echoed by members of the Congress, the term neo-conservative. Do they REALLY understand what a neo-con is? What a neo-con believes? How close the philosphical framework of the neo-cons approaches that of, say, the Nazis, the Taliban or Jihadists? Any despot! "A rose by any other name..."
Sadly, too few members of the press seem willing to follow this thread and connect up the dots. We, the People, are sunk if our elected officials are as oblivious as they seem to be. So, someone needs to take up the cudgel. More than one person has, but these noble souls are pushed out into left-field, and derided as prophets of doom, ignorant or otherwise deceived. They may even be lambasted as unpatriotic. The same things were adjudged of those who tried to warn their fellow Germans and wider Europe. Nevermind Hitler had put it all into his book, Mein Kampff. How could one believe such madness? Look what ignorance of the wickedness and evil in man's soul has bequeathed us. Six million Jews and an almost equal number of non-Jews (let us NEVER forget them as well) were tortured and slaughtered in the camps. Their earthly goods stolen to enrich the fuhrer and is friends.
Does anyone in the Congress or the press actually read between the lines of the Mission Statements (or manifestos) of the American Enterprise Institute, Focus on the Family, the Project for the New American Century? Does anyone actually put credence in the ramblings of men like Richard Perle, who spews forth such garbage as Goebbles did? Evidently, people DO!
Well, we NEED to heed the warnings of these madmen. If we do not pay attention to what they stand for and what they say and how the two often do not mesh, we will be sold into the same bondage as caught the Jews and non-Jews alike, just 70 years ago.
Millions died in the camps, hundreds of thousands died on the battlefields in this great clash of ideologies. In our time, the deaths have already begun, the camps are up and running, the lies flash forth and the clash of cultures and ideologies is in full-tilt. God help us.